At Your Side (A Dragon Age fanfiction)

Here Be Dragons

Fenris swung his feet to the floor and walked across the room to the washstand. The cloth on the left was slightly damp and hung askew—Evelyn had already dressed and gone downstairs, it seemed. He took the cloth on the right, his cloth, wet it, and began giving himself a sponge bath. Six months ago, his most optimistic fantasies would have fallen short of this level of easy domesticity. It still felt strange, the idea that a woman as beautiful and intelligent and capable as Evelyn could be happy being with him.

After he brushed his teeth, he hung his toothbrush up on pegs provided for it. He, Fenris, kept a toothbrush in the Champion of Kirkwall's bedroom. Fenris was bemused by his own happiness. He had never considered such a thing a true possibility until suddenly, there it was in his lap. Literally. He smiled, remembering last night. She had been greedy and demanding and utterly magnificent; he was the luckiest of lucky men.

The evidence of their passion was strewn all over the room. Neither of them had been particularly interested in folding their clothes once they'd taken them off. After years of living in squalor, Fenris had discovered he had a bit of a neat streak, especially in Hawke's home. He bent, picking up their clothes, putting his own on, sorting most of hers into the laundry. Her pajamas lay on the floor at the foot of the bed; no point leaving those out, he thought, feeling himself stir with anticipation. He certainly had no intention of her wearing them to bed tonight. Picking them up, he folded them and opened the drawer she kept them in.

As he placed the clothing in the drawer, something crackled. He shifted things aside, wondering if something had been in the pocket of her pajama top that he should remove. His fingers brushed against a piece of paper, and he drew it out, glancing at it to see if it was something necessary.

Fenris took a step back, staring at the letter he held. He knew that writing, the over-careful, slightly wobbly printing. Why did Hawke have a letter from his sister in her pajama drawer?

Shoving the drawer closed with his foot, he sat down on the bed, unfolding the letter.

Serah Hawke,

I do not know your relationship to Leto, but I think it is my duty to warn you about him. Leto has a long history of dallying with women and left a trail of broken hearts behind him when he chose to abandon his family and enter Magister Danarius's competition. One in particular, a young woman named Meria, entrusted him with her maidenhead. He immediately forgot all about her in his position as high and mighty bodyguard to the Magister, as he forgot everyone who had helped to place him there. But Meria has not forgotten him. When I informed her that Leto is now a runaway who murdered his master and won his 'freedom', she begged that I would write and remind him of what they once meant to each other. She says that she still loves him.

As Leto made it plain that he never wants to hear from me again, I write to you instead, and I add my caution to you, as I have cautioned her, that Leto is first and foremost interested in himself, and has no interest in others beyond what they can do for him. Take care, Serah.

Your humble servant,

Varania Satria

He reread the letter, his hands trembling. Was this what his family had thought of him? The family he had dreamed of and longed for all those years thought of him as an arrogant and self-centered heart-breaker? And had he left women behind who pined for him? Meria ... He closed his eyes and reached into the darkness at the back of his mind. Occasionally, now, he could grasp and hold onto a glimpse of his past, but here there was just a flash of curly blonde hair. Nothing more. He was disappointed—surely, if the woman cared enough about him to still be interested after all this time, shouldn't he be able to remember her?