It hurts.

The clan's hostility was enough to chip away at her, to slowly break her apart from the inside out with snide comments behind thin tent flaps. They come from the clan-mates she used to love wholeheartedly despite the distance she held in childhood. They're awful, vicious comments, with 'flat eared bitch' being one of the tamer ones.

But in the cave, that's when it hurts the most. After the incident with the Eluvian, the disappearance of Tamlen and the parting with Mahariel, Merrill had found herself lonelier than ever. Fenarel had withdrawn into himself, and it had left her only form of real contact with the keeper. She'd loved the keeper dearly, and had viewed her as a mother since the moment she was handed over to the Sabrae clan.

To find that Marethari's broken body on the floor is her fault is more than distressing. Her sobs, heartbroken and bordering on delirious, are so familiar to those of Ashalle's when Mahariel left. It forces her into a realisation, acknowledgement that blood really doesn't mean anything. Marethari was not her birth mother, but for all this pain, she may as well have been.

It only gets worse.

Hawke comforts her on the way out; it wasn't her fault, Marethari shouldn't have taken the demon inside herself, and even though she did, she only ever did it out of love for Merrill. It works for the duration of their trek out the cave, until they run into Fenarel.

Poor Fenarel, who'd only ever kept to himself after Mahariel left them to find her cure and Tamlen had disappeared. He is the first to confront her. He rants at her, but Merrill watches in a daze and remembers a time when there were four of them. Together and young and free, before four were pulled apart and turned into one. Mahariel is alone, Fenarel is isolated, Tamlen is missing and she has abandoned the clan for a mirror.

His insult of 'flat eared bitch' pulls her from these memories. It stings, and grips at her heart in the cruelest of ways. These people who had once loved her as their own now view her as a traitor, an outcast. It seems that the only one who doesn't blame her for Marethari's death is Hawke, and even then there is a lingering doubt in Merrill about the human's sincerity.

It goes downhill when the fighting erupts.

It just gets worse.

And worse.

And worse.

Before Merrill really knows it, it's become more of a massacre than a defence against her clanmates. Bodies lie everywhere; Hahren Paivel near the fire, Master Ilen near his crafting table and Fenarel at the mouth of the cave. Hawke reminds her that they attacked her, that she'd only left the cave to tell them of what had happened and they'd not let her explain.

She doesn't care.

Because at that moment, she realises that the Sabrae clan has only two members.

Her, and Mahariel.

Merrill starts to panic. What will Mahariel do if she tracks the clan down and finds this? Will she go to another clan? Will she hunt Merrill down to avenge everyone? Merrill even killed Ashalle. If Merrill feels pain over Marethari's death, what will Mahariel feel knowing that Ashalle was murdered by her former friend?

It sends her delirious to know that only two people of the clan she grew up in still live, and she feels worse at knowing that the newest elder is a Grey Warden who hasn't been heard from for years. Merrill can only cry: the one woman who might have supported her with the mirror –had she returned – will now never forgive her for destroying the clan.

But then there comes another thought.

If Mahariel has disappeared completely, what will happen to her? When the next Arlathven occurs in Halamshiral, what will the leaders do when they notice the absence of an entire clan?

It's a daunting thought.

Merrill pushes it to the back of her mind, and goes around the dead bodies of the clan and closes all their eyes. She repeats the words Paivel always used to say at the death of a clan member, and moves on.

But for the next two years, nightmares haunt her dreams.

Some nights, she relives the murder of her clan. Others, she's observing it, watching herself kill everyone. And the worst nights, Mahariel is there in the distant corner of her dreams. The first time it had happened, Mahariel had seemed as if she were really there, watching Merrill's memory from another part of Thedas and looking horrified.

Merrill finds out a few days later that it was Mahariel. She'd been in Tevinter, had hired a dreamwalker to let her into the mind of the only tribe member whose presence could be found. She had seen it all.

Merrill throws up for hours at the scouts news. She makes herself so ill that Anders is sent to check up on her, though she finds no sympathy in those hard eyes. And from then on in, some of the dreams always have Mahariel in the background; Merrill knows that this one isn't the real one because she's not solid enough, but the thought that Mahariel knows makes her worse.

It gets even worse.

With the Kirkwall Chantry destroyed, the following battle nearly kills Merrill, but they flee to the mountains and heal. Next thing Merrill knows, they've split up. Hawke has run in one direction with Anders, Fenris in another, Aveline to Rivain, and she with Varric. Merrill is hidden when Varric is caught by the Seeker, and she follows, taking out the ball of yarn once she enters the old mansion where they're holding him. Merrill is about to go inside when she hears someone say something interesting.

It's about Mahariel.

It's a redheaded seeker who is talking, and she talks fondly. Merrill deducts that she must have travelled with Mahariel during the blight due to the stories she tells. And then there comes an interesting part.

The redhead talks about the war to come with the Chantry and the Circle; the Chantry are not only seeking Hawke, who started it all, but Mahariel too. Both of them have disappeared without a trace; Hawke with Anders, Mahariel on her own. It's too suspicious to be a coincidence, Merrill thinks, and it touches at something in her mind. How can two heroes, the Champion of Kirkwall and the Hero of Ferelden, completely disappear?

The redhead mentions forests, mountain passes, villages, even the uncharted territories, as places they've searched for Hawke and Mahariel both. Merrill feels like vomiting again; not only has her childhood friend disappeared, so has Hawke, her human friend who she'd have trusted with her life. She loved both these women as friends, and now she feels a heavy worry wash over her. Merrill keeps listening as the redhead mentions how, if Cassandra can't get the whereabouts of Hawke from Varric, they're in serious trouble. Without Mahariel, it's bad enough; without Hawke, it gets worse.

It's too suspicious. The likelihood of them both disappearing is too slim. Hawke and Mahariel are connected, the blight being the most obvious, their actions being the least.

Merrill looks up when the seeker –obviously the 'Cassandra' the redhead was talking about – walks out.

"Gone. Disappeared, just like The Warden."

Merrill gulps.

They're doomed.

A/N: Contains Spoiler's for DA2 if you play it a certain way! (My sister didn't have the killing of Marethari and the destruction of the clan, but I did, so it's a warning.)

It's pretty much the collective thoughts and fears of Merrill after it starts to get worse in ActIII of the game. As you can tell, I had Hawke side with the mages and run off with Anders at the end; I don't know what happens to Merrill, but I assume she goes with Varric due to their closeness, since they all leave Hawke's side apart from Anders.

The redhead was Leliana; I'm so glad she doesn't look too different in the game! As for Alistair, Zevran and Teagan... Poor guys.