Into the Woods (a Dragon Age fanfiction)

Been a Long Day

"Who's this?" Wulfric asked, dropping his arms from Fergus's shoulders after several long moments and stepping back to look down at the woman in his brother's arms.

Fergus glanced down at Jennie's pale face with concern as Morrigan, human again, moved toward him purposefully.

"Bring her in here," she said, gesturing to the mouth of the cave.

Fergus followed, laying Jennie down on a pallet of furs set near a fire pit. The cave was fairly well lit with what appeared to be homemade candles, but it was a much farther way from Highever Castle than Fergus had ever imagined. He didn't like to think of himself as a snob, but seeing the way his brother was living horrified him. A glance at Wulfric's face told him that his little brother had read his thoughts, and was amused by them. At least he wasn't offended, Fergus thought.

Morrigan was deep in the cave, and Fergus could hear rustling sounds as she looked for the ingredients she needed. He stood next to Wulfric, feeling helpless.

"Who is she?" Wulfric asked again, his eyes on Jennie.

"The Champion of Kirkwall." At his brother's blank look, it occurred to Fergus how completely outside of the world Wulfric lived.

"Kirkwall," Wulfric said, thinking back. "The Free Marches, right?" He shook his head, chuckling a little. "I haven't thought of the places of Thedas for a long time." The little boy butted his head up against Wulfric's thigh. Dropping his hand to ruffle the boy's dark hair, Wulfric said, "I'd forgotten you two haven't met. Arthur, this is your uncle Fergus. Fergus, this is Arthur."

In the long trek here, Fergus had not thought that the boy would be ... a boy. He had thought baby, baby, until the idea of an infant had embedded itself firmly in his mind. To see his brother now, with his wife, his small child—Fergus swallowed against the lump in his throat. He would not envy his brother what he had wrested from the midst of a Blight, not even when it was such a vivid reminder of what that Blight had cost Fergus. "Arthur," he said, clearing his throat. "It's nice to meet you."

"And you, ser." The child dipped his head in a genteel acknowledgment that was pure Eleanor Cousland. It might have brought back further painful memories if it hadn't been so amusing that here in this wilderness, manners were the teaching of their mother's that Wulfric chose to pass on.

Fergus returned the gesture gravely. He saw no sign of an old god hidden in the little boy's eyes. He appeared no different from any small boy of four or five. A bit of baby pudge still clung to him about the waist, but the limbs were long and slim and he held himself like an older child.

Here was a grandson Bryce and Eleanor Cousland would have been proud of. But hidden out here, far from the rest of the world, he was hardly the heir the Teyrnir needed. If that was what Fergus had been looking for, some indication that the succession was secured in the person of Wulfric's child, he had not found it. He couldn't hide from his destiny any longer—he needed to marry, to find someone with whom he could build the kind of family that would make the rebuilt walls of Highever Castle ring with the laughter of his childhood.

A faint moan from the pallet of furs brought his eyes and his thoughts back to Jennie. He couldn't deny that he felt an attraction to her—he was drawn to the strength in her thin body and the vulnerability in her wide eyes. She was the first woman since the Blight to arouse him without at the same time bringing back thoughts of Oriana. Compared to Jennie's real, living face, the cherished memory of his wife's features was faded now, drifted away into the background. But was it love that he felt, or the longing for companionship? Was he considering some kind of a future with Jennie? He simply wasn't sure.