Was it instinct or guilt that lead her to turn down the fork in the road? Marian wasn't sure. Lost in her own thoughts, Marian let the mare the Inquisitor had given her, a mare uncreatively named Brandy for the color of her coat, take her own pace as they traversed the Hinterlands. Going north past the Orzammar gates would be shorter time-wise, however, Wardens were allowed to travel freely in and out of the dwarven city. If they were hunting Stroud as diligently as she suspected, they would be keeping an eye out for her as well. Plenty of his fellows knew that they had come into contact during her years in Kirkwall thanks to Varric's damned book. She thanked the Maker once again that he'd left out that the Grey Wardens had actually stayed to help her get to the Gallows during the Qunari uprising. If it was known they were more than just passing acquaintances, the Wardens would have hunted her with the same single-minded determination that the Seeker and Sister Leliana had.
Still, going the long way around Lake Calenhad meant she had too much time for introspection. When the fork came, Marian didn't even notice when the mare turned up the branch that lead north instead of the one that continued northeasterly. The breeze whistled through trees bare of leaves, unusual for the time of year. The sheer discordance of the noise broke through her musing. Finally focusing on her surroundings, Marian took in the blackened, twisted trees. They weren't dead, or they would have fallen over and rotted by now. The Blight kept them in a state of nightmarish stasis. She was crossing the path the horde had taken ten years prior.
A prickle crossed her neck. Marian knew the shape of those hills. Clicking to Brandy, she spurred the horse from her leisurely walk to a brisk trot. The black ash and tan dust of the road kicked up under Brandy's hooves. The wall of the ancient Imperial Highway came into view, Blightcreep darkening the base.
Lothering.
Home.
Or was it?
Maybe at one time, but anymore… It didn't have Fenris, or Maureva. If the Blight hadn't happened, if her life had gone according to her plan, she would have been Marian Hawke, wife of Hallwell the Smith. She wouldn't have any children, because Hallwell had never known she was a mage, and she couldn't risk losing a child of hers to the Circle, not after everything Father and Leandra had gone through to keep her and Bethany out.
Riding through the ghosts of her past, she crossed the bridge that had brought the famed Hero of Ferelden to Lothering. She had played with Bethany and Carver in the mud of the stream it crossed over, catching frogs and splashing each other. It had been dammed up not long before the Blight. The empty ditch the refugees had made camp next to had muddy puddles of brackish ooze in them. It must have rained recently.
The Chantry was a sad, burnt-out husk amidst the shambles of the village. Brandy's hooves made muffled clopping noises as she allowed herself to be guided over the rickety crossing for the rivulet that branched off the mighty Drakon and bisected the village. Marian supposed if the place weren't riddled with Blightcreep and haunted to the high heavens, it would be a site almost as sacred as the Temple of Sacred Ashes.
Her humble little hometown was where King Alistair and Gwyneth Surana had begun their remarkable year-long battle against the Fifth Blight. The Chantry at her back was where they had bargained for the freedom of the Qunari Sten who was now the Arishok in Seheron. She spotted the charred remains of the Dane's Refuge, where she had learned how to drink and win a proper bar fight with fists and words while hiding her magic. It was also where the King and Hero had found the Left Hand of the Divine when she was still a humble laysister.
Elder Miriam's home had been razed, and it looked like the initial attempts at rebuilding had started, but been abandoned when the Blightcreep began to make its way up the framework of the new building. Leandra said Elder Miriam lived in Redcliffe way back when, could the old biddy still be alive? Marian wondered if she should have asked after her while passing through Redcliffe for provisions.
She crossed the north field lines and squinted. The rivulet was low enough for her to ford across and check the old homestead. Butterflies filled her stomach. Would she find it a burnt-out, Blightcreep stained wreck? Did she really want to know? Tapping her heels to Brandy's sides, Marian decided she did. As they splashed across, she could see through the dead trees to the clearing where the house stood. With a disbelieving laugh, she stood up in the stirrups for a better look.
The outside had Blightcreep, yes, but it looked like whatever fires the darkspawn had set had smoldered and then gone out. All of Father's precautions against accidental fires from two young mages learning their magic had paid off. The yard was empty, and it looked like the survivors who had come back to try rebuilding hadn't even checked to see if the Hawke homestead had made it. Marian dropped out of the saddle and quickly hobbled the horse, attaching a feed bag to her nose to keep her occupied.
A swift kick to the old, rotting door flung it open- Thank you, Aveline, for lessons on proper door kicking technique- and Marian sucked in a breath. It was like walking into the past, if the past had a thick layer of dust on it. The basket of apples that had been knocked over in their haste to get out of the house was still overturned, the fruit withered to wrinkled lumps where they had fallen. Leandra's basket of embroidery floss was next to the rocking chair where she spent many an hour embroidering odds and ends to sell at market, Bethany's mending but an end table away, modest teacup and saucer still waiting for her sister to come back and finish tea evaporated to nothing years ago.
Marian took an unsteady step forward, and her toe hit one of the packs Carver had dropped upon bursting in, declaring he was maybe an hour ahead of the horde and they needed to run now. How she remembered the moment of shocked silence, then Carver shouting at them to move and shoving a mostly-empty satchel into her hands with a snarl to pack food and water. Movement had exploded, she, Bethany, and Carver racing about to shove the most precious and necessary things into satchels and packs, tucking important small items and remembrances into pockets while Leandra tried to tell them they couldn't just leave everything. They had been lucky, very lucky, to be able to shove her out the front door and start running no less than twenty minutes before the horde swarmed Lothering.
Wandering into the back bedroom, tears filled her eyes. Father's preservation spells had been used on important things like bacon and grain since money was tight and they had to be sure they could use every last speck, but sometimes he'd used them on less important things as well. Bethany's doll, Lady Elaine, sat on the dusty bed, not a yarn hair out of place and not a single hint of dirt on her dress. Carver's stuffed mabari, Ser Barkington, was on the low shelf next to his bed. Marian wouldn't leave them here. She gathered up the doll and mabari toy, carrying them out to Brandy and carefully, so carefully, placing them in the bags on her withers.
She squinted at the sky after mounting. Maybe… There was a small chance…
Brandy took off into a gallop through the dead forest, Marian leaning over her neck. It was out of the way, and would add time to her journey, but she was on a horse instead of running with two siblings, a dog, and her mother. Surely she could make better time and not get too far off the timetable. Much faster than she remembered, Brandy's hooves found the red-clay path southeast through the deadwood, going up the rise past the old ruins of a fort from an Age long gone. This clearing… I think this is it. Where is the cairn?
Hidden in the shadows cast by taller rockpiles, Marian spotted the cairn. It was scorched black by the heat from a grieving sister's Inferno and dragonfire. The stones had melted together in the heat, keeping what scavengers would brave the Blighted place from disturbing the two bodies protected by it.
"Hey Bethy. Bet you thought you'd finally gotten rid of me, eh? And Ser Wesley, you must be shaking your head and groaning at the thought of the godless apostate still running around causing trouble." Marian drew in a shaky breath and sat next to the cairn, "I was just passing through and thought I'd stop by for a social visit. Get both of you caught up on what's been going on for the past ten years, you know? I have ever so much to tell you, Bethy, and Ser Wesley, I know you'll be wanting to check up on Aveline. I've got an amazing story about copper marigolds..."