She didn't much like being a bandit. It was some consolation to know that she was stealing supplies from shemlen who were themselves outlaws, but she still found herself apologizing profusely to the cultists entangled in her vines. "It's just that there's no shops out here," she told them, quite sincerely, rifling through their packs. "Although I haven't any way to pay. Unless you'd like to hear some of our stories? I suppose they wouldn't be worth much to you. I won't take everything, just enough to get by. Thank you so much." She tried, clumsily, to put the packs back in order, and settled for just tying them shut. "I'm sorry to interrupt, I'll let you get right back to your dragon-worshipping." Clutching her sack of food to her chest, she scurried back toward the ruins.
Really, the dragon-worshipping bothered her a little. The Tevinters worshipped dragons, and look where that got the elves. But the lonely strange shemlen who came out to the bone-strewn wilds of Drake's Fall didn't seem to be much of a threat to the elvhen right at the moment, and they usually had bread and fresh water with them. If she killed them all, there'd be no bread and water, and then where would she be?
Hungry, she supposed. And thirsty.
She slipped down now-familiar pathways, past strange sigils of crystal and twisted stone columns that looked all the world like tentacles. Her camp was at the end of an isthmus, deep beneath the ruins; the sea had broken in and the waves breaking on the rocks below sang her to sleep at night, when she finally laid herself down at the foot of the gloriously intact eluvian here. It was drafty, and rather damp, but this was a place of power and worth the discomfort.
Merrill neatly stowed her stolen supplies in the spot she'd designated as the kitchen. Standing and turning, her foot caught the bag, tumbling it and spilling out a round of bread. With a little sigh, she bent down to put it back in order -
- and heard the distinct thwip! of an arrow pass through the air where her head had been.
Merrill struck the ground with her staff, summoning stone to guard and defend her. The bones of the earth assembled themselves around her in a stronger armor than any warrior could wear.
Thwip!An arrow ruffled her hair.
All right, so the rock armor had its disadvantages. Another gesture, and stone ground on stone again, this time far down the isthmus, at the place where it joined to the shore. Sand and rock leapt up at her command to encase her attacker.
Shaking her head, Merrill strode about halfway down the narrow strip of land so that she wouldn't have to shout quite so much. "I am sorry about taking your bread but really, you should go. I don't want to hurt you."
"Too late for that," a choked voice replied.
"No, that spell won't harm you, it's just holding you." Merrill squinted in the underground gloom. It was hard to tell from one shout, but was the voice familiar? "Are you an elf?"
"Aneth ara, Merrill," the invader replied. "One daughter of the Sabrae survived your slaughter."
Nowshe recognized the voice. "Mahariel?"
The energy binding the sand and stone to Mahariel faded, and the rocks clattered back to the ground. Mahariel's bow followed; drawing two daggers, she sprinted down the isthmus toward Merrill. Merrill retreated, almost all the way back to the eluvian. "I can explain!" the outcast First cried, conjuring a wall of ice between them. "It wasn't my fault, they attacked me!"
She could hear Mahariel furiously chipping away at the ice with her blades. "Then you should have died!"
"I did it for you and Tamlen, for all our people! They didn't understand. We can't just give up pieces of our heritage because we're afraid!" Large cobwebs of cracks were appearing in the ice now. She had to make her understand, before the wall came down. "I cleansed the eluvian of taint, Mahariel. Perhaps I can cure you as well!"
The assault on the ice relented. "You... what?"
Creators, please, help her to let go of her anger. "The tainted eluvian, I took a piece of it and made it untainted again."
"Lies." Mahariel's voice was flat, but there must have been some thread of hope in it, to keep her talking. "Keeper Marethari could not do such a thing. How could you?"
"I... I did have some help," Merrill admitted. "A Fade spirit taught me -"
There was a loud cracking sound as the ice shattered; panting, Mahariel stepped over the rubble. "Blood magic," she spat.
"Yes." Merrill leveled her staff at her clan-sister. "Which I can still use. Mahariel... Nothing will bring them back. If anything could, I would have done it by now. Please, just go away. I don't want... just please leave."
Mahariel lowered her eyes for just a moment. "Tamlen became a monster; I had to kill him."
"Ir abelas..." Merrill reached out a hand in sympathy.
Mahariel looked back up, fury bright like ice in her eyes. "And I will do the same for you. Na melana sahlin!" The hunter raised both daggers and lunged.
Vines sprang forth from the rocky ground, catching Mahariel's ankles and pulling her off her feet. Merrill rubbed tears from her eyes with one hand as she steadied her staff with the other. "Abelas, abelas," she cried, before calling down the power of the storms.
Mahariel, desperately hacking away at the vines with her one free arm, gave no sign that she heard. She only screamed when the lightning struck.
And screamed.
And screamed.
And then she stopped.
Merrill's staff clattered to the ground, and she sat down, hard, on the stone steps leading up to the eluvian.
Why did people keep calling her a monster?
Why did they make her hurt them?
Burying her face in her hands, Merrill wept.