And Fenris's predicament continues ... the poor chap ...

Enjoy!

A Night to remember epilogue part four

Hawke came home in a very foul mood. 'You know,' she told her child, absent-mindedly rubbing her belly, 'you have a complete and utter idiot as a mother. You should be grateful at least your father is a sensible man. That could be your salvation.' She got kicked as some kind of answer, a reaction open to all sorts of interpretations, but she couldn't even manage to break the slightest smile. She was extremely angry with herself. She didn't doubt that within no time her public outburst would be known amongst all noble households and she would be back where she started, i.e. on bad terms with the nobility. She wouldn't have cared less if it just considered her, or even Fenris. But she carried a so called half-blood which in this case was some kind of curse. The mere term, and especially the thought behind it, left her seething but it was as it was and she should do anything in her might to let their child be accepted. She had done a wonderful job today.

'Anybody home?' she called, just over the threshold. No answer. Perhaps just for the better. She was in the mood to kill someone and it was the wisest thing for anybody not to cross her path right now. After she had flung her purchases on the desk she sank down on the couch in the parlour and rested her hands on her swollen stomach. She tried to calm down. There was another kick. 'Yes,' she sighed, 'you are right. Punish me. I didn't exactly advocate your cause today. Bad, bad Mummy.' She wished she could restrain herself for once. Yes, she had been extremely vexed during and after the baby shower (she had accepted Lady Selbrech's apologies with a tense smile but was certain the woman had not understood half of her anxiety, she was a noble herself after all), but that had given her no excuse to behave as she had done today. As a total wound up jackass.

After a while she decided it would be better to work off her anger than to sit here sulking. And what better way to let evaporate the steam that still almost emerged from her ears than wielding her daggers? She hadn't done that for too long. Perhaps this was the right moment to start. She descended to the cellars to pick up the target she knew was resting idly against a wall, collecting dust. She had noticed the item while she had stumbled upon it the few times she had entered the space. Probably it was once used as an aim for marksmen's arrows (she wondered for a moment whether one of her forbearers had been an archer though right now it didn't matter) but it could as well be used for throwing knifes. She went to the garden, dragging the board with her. She removed a flower box hanging against the garden wall and replaced it with the round board. She went to the bedroom to fetch her throwing daggers and not moments later the weapons flew through the air. After all her throwing skills needed improvement and this was as best a moment as any to start with that specific training. Stupid she hadn't thought of that before. It could have saved Fenris from a lot of frustrated shouting. She imagined the faces of the know-all biddies and hit them all with grim satisfaction. Apparently she just had to picture her enemies, concentrate on her dark fury and the daggers hit home. Of course. Concentration was the key-word. Fury was a good runner-up.

And then it nearly went terribly wrong.

There sounded a soft rumour behind her back. 'Albran, are you – '

Without thinking, completely acting out of instinct – and, but that doesn't need mentioning, still enveloped in her fiery ferocity aimed against those insufferable snooty noble women – she swirled around and hurled the dagger resting between her fingers with great speed and force. It left her hand with lethal accuracy. As it turned out with almost lethal accuracy.

Her eyes grew wide with horror.

Fenris stood nailed to the spot. Almost literally. A dagger was imbedded not an inch from his head, its steel blade quivering in the wood of the door leading to the kitchen. As a matter of fact the razor sharp blade had taken a few strands of his moonlike locks. He stood still as a statue, just looking at her, outwardly unperturbed. In truth his heart was racing. In the heavy moments that passed Albran's knees started to give way. Fenris took in a slow breath and said, 'You could have just told me you didn't want me around without trying to kill me.' He tried not to grimace and instead gave her a crooked smile. 'No need to throw knives at me to make your point clear.' She crumbled and he raced to her rescue.

'I'm sorry,' she wheezed desperately in his arms.

'I'm sorry,' she repeated several times over after he had placed her in one of the chairs surrounding the garden table and had provided her with a cup of tea. But tea didn't work to give her her calm back and thus he forced her to drink a dram of whisky.

'I can't, the baby,' she protested weakly.

'Shut up and drink. I'm quite certain our baby will survive this,' he said sternly. 'You need this right now.'

'I'm sorry,' she repeated once over after a small sip, 'I just about killed you.' She was about to collapse.

Fenris smiled thinly. 'I was under the impression that was one of your new hobbies of late.'

'Don't make light of it!' Albran sobbed.

'Please love, don't dwell on it. Nothing happened.' Besides a mild heart-attack.

'I swear I won't touch a dagger again while I'm still pregnant. I'm completely irresponsible,' she said determinedly. Fenris silently agreed but stuck with just kissing her. That seemed a lot safer. In the end she let out a trembling chuckle. 'Perhaps we should let that knife stay in the door-post, to remind me of all of my silly and now even perilous actions.'

Fenris tenderly brushed her cheek. 'Yes, perhaps we should do that. I think it's a fitting memorial of this pregnancy,' he said teasingly. And he kissed her anew before she could reply.

Fenris was sitting on a bench in the training area of the Barracks after a specific difficult and messy training session. He mused the warm spring sun must be due to the lack of concentration of the men and women who normally followed his instructions without a flaw. He wiped the sweat off his brow and leant with his back against the wall. Moments later Donnic sank down next to him. He offered him a flagon of ale which he gratefully accepted.

'Spring's in the air,' the Guard Captain chuckled, 'don't take it personally. Their minds are more set on, er, shagging that fighting right now.'

The elf laughed. 'Speaking of experience?' he couldn't help ask mischievously.

Donnic blushed and grinned nervously. 'There is something I like your advice about,' he said hesitating. Fenris eyed his friend and immediately knew what this was about but thought it would be best to let Donnic come out with it. 'You know Aveline and I are talking about having children – one day.' He cleared his throat, turned crimson, tapped his fingers on his thigh and decided to not beat about the bush. 'I suppose I've always been the more enthusiastic one about the idea. But lately my enthusiasm has somewhat lessened. Please don't get angry when I say this but Hawke, well, she can become, er ...' He looked pleadingly at Fenris.

'Outright dangerous?' the elf suggested straight-faced.

'I wouldn't go that far.'

'I would,' Fenris grinned. He still could feel the dagger graze the skin of his face.

'I never knew pregnant women could become like that. To be honest, it scares me to death. How do you handle it?'

Fenris stretched his long legs and crossed his ankles. 'Frankly, I don't know.' He tipped the flagon and took another sip. 'Sometimes I think it's mostly Orana who keeps Albran in check,' he confessed. He smiled apologetically.

'I highly doubt that,' Donnic muttered, 'you give yourself too little credit.'

'You shouldn't forget Albran has a much more, how shall I put it, inflammable character than Aveline. I don't think you have to worry about your wife getting as explosive as mine.'

The Guard Captain raised his eyebrow. 'Don't be too sure about that. You weren't present when she stood shouting at Sebastian and gave Elthina a good piece of her mind. I fear she might even get worse.'

Fenris sat up. 'You know, I keep saying to myself it's just a couple of months. And since the reward is a child, an offspring of me and Albran, it's worth all the bad moods and outbursts. You just have to live through it, stand strong. It will end and in that end you will hold your child in your arms.'

Donnic nodded pensively in agreement. 'I think that's fair enough.' He smiled faintly. 'So the only thing left to do is to convince Aveline there'll never be a perfect time in a city like Kirkwall to start a family and this is as perfect as it gets.'

'Good luck with that.'

Still smiling Fenris stepped into the bedroom. The smile was swept off his face the very instant. His breath hitched forcefully and he almost got a seizure. 'What do you think you're doing!' he yelled, immediately regretting his outburst in case he startled Albran and she would fall all the way down.

Albran stood balancing on the top of a stepladder. A very rickety stepladder in his eyes. 'What does it look like?' she replied calmly, 'I'm painting the bedroom.' She waved a paintbrush in his direction, spluttering drops around. A good thing she had covered the carpet and furniture with old rugs and rags.

'Are you mad?! Come down this instant!'

'No! Why should I? I'm doing brilliantly. Don't you like the new colour?'

The colour was the least of his concerns right now. With dread he saw her stretch and balance on one foot to reach a spot in the corner and in his running wild imagination he already pictured her lying crumpled on the floor. 'Please, Albran,' he begged desperately, 'that thing doesn't look that solid. What if it crashes?' He rushed over and caught her carefully but tightly around her expanded waist when she, to his immense relief, started to descent. 'I don't see why the bedroom has to be painted anyway. It has only recently been restored!'

'In a far too hasty and shabby way. And that was months ago by the way. Look around! I'm not going to get our child in this slum!'

He stared flabbergasted at her. Slum? This was by far the most luxurious room he had ever spent a night in. He didn't disagree with the new warm dark red paint as such, he just didn't see the point. And he definitively had big problems with her wobbling on an unstable stepladder. On the other hand, if it made her happy to change the bedroom, he would comply without much protest. No need to start a row over it; before you knew it, he'd have a dagger stuck in his skull. 'Alright, how about this: I use the ladder and you paint the parts of the walls you can reach without the risk of breaking your neck or getting our child into danger.'

'Aren't you just the sweetest,' she beamed and touched the tip of his nose with the brush. He was too thankful she took it so relaxed to protest against her playful gesture.

A few hours later a simple dot on his nose didn't matter anyhow; by that time it wasn't just his nose that was smeared and splattered with paint; as a matter of fact he could use himself as a brush by then. He seriously and with growing admiration wondered how the workmen they had hired to repair the estate had managed to get only the incidental drop on their clothes. And worked much faster besides that. They were taking a break in the kitchen when Anders visited. The mage stared incredulously at the elf, trying not laugh out loud. 'And here I was, convinced your hair was white and you were fine with that. It seems I've been wrong all the time. Why have you decided to dye it? To scare the demons away? And what is that on your face? War paint? Is it so hard to keep the Guardsmen under your thumb?'

Chortling under her breath Hawke waved at the First Enchanter to pick a seat and sit down and she poured him a cup of tea.

'Someone has got it into her head our bedroom needs a make-over,' Fenris growled with a dirty look at Albran, 'and my qualities may be many, apparently painting is not one of them,' he added sarcastically. 'It doesn't help I have never held a paintbrush in my hands before this day in my entire life.'

'I think you look adorable,' Hawke put in a word with a sweet smile. She pushed a plate with chocolate-cookies in Anders' direction.

'That's not exactly what a warrior wants to hear,' Fenris reacted darkly.

'Ah,' Anders snickered, 'I sense a case of nesting instinct.'

The elf squinted at him. 'Is this something similar to mood swings? Because if so I feel a sudden urge to hide in the cellar for the time being.' He gave his wife a lopsided pained grimace. 'No offence meant.'

She shot him a bright smile back. 'None taken, my love. But since you're so, er, bravely fighting the walls with brush and vigour, perhaps you can also deal with the nursery. And while we're at it, the ancestral crib is in desperate need of a new layer of paint. I guess you'll get the hang of it along the way. I have all the confidence in your ability to learn fast.'

Before he could answer, and it would have been a rather snarky answer, Orana entered the kitchen. 'I see we have a visitor,' she said jovially, 'good afternoon Anders, I hope you're well? I just returned from the market, Albran, and I brought the new cloth for the canopy of your bed. They finally ordered the right fabric and ...' She stopped in mid-sentence and stared at Fenris. She tried to stifle a laugh but failed gloriously and within no time she had to hold on to the door-post.

'Yes, yes,' Fenris grumbled tetchily, 'I know, I look like some sort of clown with bad make-up. Now, if you'll excuse me, those walls won't paint themselves.' He stood abruptly and swept out of the kitchen with long irritated strides. 'Women,' they heard him grouse, 'women and mages. Ugh.'

'I'm sorry,' Orana guffawed, wiping the tears out of her eyes, 'I didn't mean to offend him but he looked absolutely adorable.'

Hawke nodded in agreement. 'That's what I told him but I believe he didn't take it as a compliment. But don't worry, he'll get by.'

'I'll bake an apple-pie to make it up to him,' Orana promised, still laughing.

But of course new paint wasn't the end to it. Within no time he got enveloped in a kind of whirlwind of chambers pulled upside down because they had to be scrubbed clean and redecorated. He endured what he considered a punishment without much protest although within a week he got nauseas by the smell of paint and soft soap and new curtains. Every time he came home from work and tried to find some peace and quiet he encountered chaos. Even Sandal was infected by all the activities and danced happily around with rags, brooms and buckets. The only ally he had was Rascal whom he found regularly in the garden, trying to hide behind a bush with a bewildered expression on his snout. 'I know how you feel,' he told the sad dog on a particularly nice day that got wasted away with indoor activities that in his, and the dog's, view were totally unnecessary, 'but try to keep in mind this nonsense will end.' Rascal huffed miserably and crawled from behind his bush and laid his head on his knee. He looked up with unfathomable gloomy eyes. Fenris scratched the hound behind his ears. 'Just let it come over you and try to take as less notion as you can,' he advised him.

He put his foot down though when he found Albran one afternoon in the wine-cellar, dusting bottles.

'Have you gone completely out of your mind?'

'Look at all the filth down here!' she countered, 'something must be done about it!'

'Yes,' he scoffed, 'I imagine you giving birth in here or hordes of maternity visitors and baby admirers going down to inspect the state of the cellars. Stop this madness instantly. I understand you want the house spic and span but this goes too far.' It turned out to be no small feat to convince her of the idiocy of this particular action and to persuade her to share a peaceful time in the pleasant spring sun.

One month, just one more month. And he feared what that small amount of weeks had in store.

It was a lovely day in early summer and Fenris had been working in the garden the whole of his free morning because undoubtedly that would be Albran's next project. That is, she had hinted at it in that not at all subtle way that left no room for mistakes. She herself had gone off with Orana to buy the last of the layette. After a whole morning of labouring he went into the kitchen to clean his hands and wash away the dust in his throat with a glass of water. He was emptying the glass standing at the sink, contemplating if she would be satisfied with what he had done, when something started to clamber up his leg. Something with little but needle-sharp claws. He almost dropped the vessel in surprise and looked alarmed down. 'What the –' He reached down and plucked the intruder from his trousers which earned him a few nasty scratches on his leg and a loud high-pitched protest. 'Ouch! You little devil!' At the same time he heard cheerful chattering voices coming from the parlour. Apparently Albran and Orana had already returned home without him noticing. Good. He strode into the room. 'Care to explain?' he informed gruffly while holding the little black-and-white striped kitten up at the scruff.

'Oow,' Hawke crooned, 'you found them. Aren't they cute?'

'They?! What do you mean they? How many are there?!'

'Four,' Hawke beamed happily.

'We found the litter of kittens when we returned from the market,' Orana clarified hastily, noticing the murderous look in his eyes and hoping to prevent a serious matrimonial argument, 'it was obvious the mother abandoned them or more probably was killed. They were mewing most pitiable.' She more or less pleaded with him but for once he didn't fall for it.

'And so you just brought them with you.' There sounded a brewing storm in Fenris's voice.

'Was I supposed, especially as an expectant mother, to leave the little fluffy balls on their own to die?' Albran challenging stuck out her chin. 'They are four or at the very most just five weeks old. They can't survive on their own.'

'So you intend to haul every stray you stumble upon into our house? What's next? A maltreated donkey in the garden? A flock of hungry seagulls in the attic? A nest of poor lost dragonlings in the cellar?' He was getting more and more agitated. 'Why don't we just open an animal home? Or, better even, an orphanage?!'

'We won't keep them all,' Hawke pouted.

'Oh good, such a relief.' He very hard tried not to snap completely which was quite challenging after all the nerve-racking turbulence he had gone through during the past weeks.

'I'm certain Anders will like to have one,' Albran ticked off the likely candidates in the meantime, 'Aveline won't have objections against a Keep's mouser, I'm sure, and otherwise I'll convince Donnic and I think Merrill can use a companion.' She cocked her head. 'I'd like to keep the one you're so lovingly holding ourselves. She appears to be the most bold and enterprising of the bunch. I like that. Apparently she found the kitchen out of herself, driven by curiosity I suppose. And I think she's already fond of you. Maker know why, bearing in mind the way you're treating the poor thing.'

Fenris stared at the kitten that helplessly dangled in his hand and his expression softened. He let out a deep sigh. 'Have you considered you just brought home four delicious bites for Rascal?'

'I don't think so,' Hawke grinned and pointed at the marbari Fenris hitherto had overlooked. The dog lay on his back in a corner of the room with all four deadly paws in the air and the other three kittens of the litter sleeping on his belly. The elf could swear he wore a heavenly smirk of contentment.

'You traitor,' he mumbled and he walked over to him to drop the black-and-white nuisance among the others. He immediately stirred up havoc. The three little cats woke up and immediately started a row among each other which involved a lot of biting in floppy ears and hardly existing tails, rolling over and clawing in Rascal's skin. The dog opened one eye and gave Fenris a look that said, 'Really?' and after that let out a soft growl that within no time brought the small rebels back to order. Not seconds later the whole bunch was fast asleep once more.

'Aah,' Hawke and Orana sighed simultaneously in captured devotion.

'Traitor,' Fenris repeated and at the same time shook his head. He couldn't suppress a little smile. It was impossible not to adore the scene. He pinched the bridge of his nose. 'Alright, we will keep that little black and white – 'he came no further because Albran almost crushed him in a suffocating embrace.

'I knew you would love her!'

And so Miss Ivy entered their lives.

I once had a tomcat that took care of a litter of small kittens abandoned by their mother. I had to bottle-feed them, but he licked them clean afterwards and kept them warm and all that with much dedication and tenderness. And I had a dog that liked my two cats very much and vice-versa. They always slept in the same basket. I've put those two lovely memories together, hope you liked it.