Pink Lilies, Dark Hair, Empty Space
Fenhawke Week Day 2: Reading Lessons | Grief @fenhawke-week
"Anything," he had said. "The whole house is yours; anything in any of the rooms—barring my mother's, of course—is fair game if you can read it. Come by anytime you want, and stay for as long as you'd like."
Rowan's invitation intrigued Fenris more than he would've anticipated. He might not be the most confident reader just yet, but he found himself increasingly inclined to tear into anything he could get his hands on; even fliers and business signs weren't safe from his watchful eyes and hungry mind when he was out and about. Rowan had picked up on this, clearly, and invited him to make use of the sundry books and papers in his estate.
"I'm proud of you, Fenris. You've learned so much so quickly, and I'd like to make sure you have all the reading material I can give you."
Rowan's words still brought a soft glow of warmth to Fenris' chest whenever he thought of them. He was… unaccustomed to the feeling, but it was nice. He certainly wouldn't mind feeling it some more, which was at least a small part of the reason he was standing at Rowan's doorstep now. Fenris felt a little awkward letting himself in like this, but he reminded himself that Rowan had explicitly invited him, and there was nothing to be awkward about. Squaring his shoulders, he cast his uncertainties away with a brief shake of his head and strode through the foyer.
Uncertain if Rowan was home, he made for his room first. It would be good to see him if he did happen to be there, but even if he wasn't, Fenris had decided that he wanted to read whatever Rowan had been reading. Or writing. He knew Rowan kept an ongoing journal of their group's misadventures, and he would be lying if he said he wasn't just a little curious about what was included. He trusted Rowan to be charitable with his descriptions given that he was never anything else, but he itched to finally dig into all the things he was once unable to, and the journal was first on his list. He'd seen Varric making his edits and additions, and he'd watched Isabela snooping through all the pages, occasionally lightly vandalizing one as she went. Now he would get to see what they saw. There was a whole new part of living finally open to him, and Maker be damned if he didn't take advantage.
Fenris' knock prompted no answer, so he pushed the door open and slipped into Rowan's dim bedroom. The journal lay open on the desk as it always did, and as he drew closer, the lingering smell of ink greeted him. The words on the page were dark, freshly penned; though the ink was dry when he touched it. Recounting that latest fiasco with Hubert, I expect. He must've been awake and writing until very late if the ink is still fresh enough to smell. Fenris chuckled softly, then sighed. Lately, picturing Rowan doing even the most mundane things had his heart twisting into knots in his chest. How often did he sit here, at this very desk, scribbling away into the small hours of the morning? If he thought hard enough, he could almost see it; Rowan's broad shoulders shifting beneath the thin silk of his robe as he turned a page, warm candlelight setting his dark red hair aglow like dying flames, a hand that so effectively wielded one of his deadly daggers now deftly guiding a pen across paper.
Hm. That was enough mental ogling, he decided with a short huff, annoyed with himself for getting distracted. He'd have plenty of time for that when he wasn't standing in the man's bedroom, for Andraste's sake. Right now, he had a journal to flip through.
The recent pages were familiar to Fenris, of course, whether through personal experience or through Varric's highly dramatized retellings over pints at the Hanged Man. He skimmed through them, immensely pleased with how well he could keep up with it all. That entry there was about that sleazy dwarf "entrepreneur," Javaris. The previous one was about Hubert again. This one was about their disastrous jaunt in Feynriel's dreams. Fenris grimaced at the memory. He was not proud of how easily he had fallen prey to the allure of pride, but seeing what Rowan had to say regarding his failure touched him greatly, to his surprise. It's not like he'd expected insults or anything quite so unkind, not from Rowan of all people, but he couldn't say he'd expected to find only complete, unconditional sympathy.
"I can't deny, I was caught off-guard by Fenris' decision when faced with the demon's offer. I thought him to be near unshakeable, though maybe that was overly idealistic of me. Everybody struggles, and he's not an exception, of course. No one is a perfect paragon of virtue; not even him (as much as I often catch myself thinking that he is). What mortal could withstand a demon's temptations when confronted directly like my friends were? I'm almost certain I couldn't; even the best of men would find something like this difficult to weather. I should know about that, considering I watched one of them falter and give in today. It just serves to reinforce the truth of it all: we're all only people, and people make mistakes.
"I'm glad he's alright; I was worried for a while…"
Fenris knew how closely Rowan held his beliefs about mages, and a journal would've been a reasonable place to air his grievances regarding their difference in opinion on the matter, especially considering his unfortunate hypocrisy in succumbing to a demon's influence. To read that Rowan still held nothing but admiration for him? It brought that warm, fidgety feeling to his chest again. Some of it was guilt, but he had to admit that it felt nice to be shown understanding.
Thoroughly hooked now, he dug through several more entries. Dragons, abominations, sadistic templars, good memories of Diamondback and nights spent at the Hanged Man; all things he was familiar with, but filtered through the perspective of the man who Fenris felt making a place for himself in his heart in a way he'd never anticipated anyone could. I wonder if there's anything in here that was written before the expedition…
Fenris shut the journal gingerly, then turned the front few pages over at random. When the book fell open, it was to an entry that had been thickly bookmarked by two things he very much wasn't expecting to see, least of all in the same place like they should've shared some kind of similarity that they didn't immediately appear to have. Mystified, yet overcome by a sudden, strangely somber emotion, Fenris gently set aside a pressed pink lily, withered and dull with age, and then a carefully tied lock of wavy, dark hair. There was a weight to these simple objects that clung to him like cobwebs, though the reason escaped him. Despite feeling slightly more solemn than he had a few seconds ago, he was still keen to discover if this entry held any explanation for the strange place-markers, so he turned his attention back to the journal.
Taken completely aback, all Fenris could think to do was keep reading.
"My Bethy is gone. She caught the Blight in the Deep Roads and died thousands of miles away from home, and it's all my fault. Maker, it's all my fault. It doesn't even feel real; every bit of me is convinced that she could walk through the front door any second now. But she won't. I'll never see her again. All I have left of her is a lock of hair and her blood on my dagger. And Carver- poor Carver! I'll always have part of Bethany with me, but for Carver there wasn't time! I have nothing but his memory left to carry with me. That's not the fate he deserved! He should be alive! Bethy should be alive! Oh, Maker, I can't I don't know what to do; when I think about them too much, it hurts to breathe. My baby brother, my sweet little sister- I'm so sorry. With everything in me, I am so sorry."
The handwriting had begun to break down, scratchy and wild as if he had been scribbling down thoughts as fast as they could come to him. Pain bled through every pen stroke, almost as if the words themselves were open wounds, evidence of the writer's grief. Rowan's grief.
"I should've done more! I let them die! They would be alive, they'd be with me right now if only I had protected them like I should have! I'm their big brother! I was supposed to take care of them, but I wasn't enough! They're dead! They're dead because I wasn't good enough!"
There was a tear at the end of the final sentence. In the depths of his agony, Rowan's pen had pressed so fiercely into the paper that he had torn it. Dark droplet stains warped the ink. Fenris felt as if he'd been kicked in the stomach, like the breath had been stolen from his lungs. He'd never seen raw grief like this from Rowan before; it was like he was intruding on a funeral he hadn't been invited to. He didn't want to read any more. He didn't want to, but he couldn't seem to tear his eyes away.
There was just one more block of text, a small one separated from the rest by a gap and a later date.
"I found Bethy's favorite flower today. It was growing through a gap in the cobbles near Gamlen's place. It was like I got to see her again, in a way. I would usually leave it to grow in peace, but a flower like that wouldn't survive on the streets of Lowtown. So I cut it from its stem and took it home with me. I'm going to press it, give that lock of her hair a companion of sorts. That sounds a little silly when I put it down on paper, but it feels right."
Fenris let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Unsure of what he should even do now, he simply sat there in silence for a moment, alone in Rowan's bedroom with this physical manifestation of mourning sitting open on the desk in front of him. He couldn't just leave as if nothing had happened, as if he didn't just get the closest thing there was to a glimpse into Rowan's soul. His gaze caught on a neat pile of scrap paper at the edge of the desk. Carefully uncorking the ink and dipping the pen, he slid a small piece over, and haltingly, messily, he began to write.
"I know you believe you didn't do enough to save your siblings, and I am unlikely to convince you otherwise with just this note, but try to believe me when I say that you are not to blame for their deaths. You are the strongest person I know. They loved you. They believed in you, and you are worthy of that trust. You MUST forgive yourself."
"They will always be with you, Rowan, in some way or another."
It wasn't a pretty note, marred by misspellings and smudges and whole crossed out sentences; but Fenris hoped that one day, when Rowan needed it most, he'd find it tucked between the pages with the lily and the lock of hair, and it would help lessen that awful burden of grief for just one night.
