Losing Choice

Notes: This is my second fanfic of any kind in a very long time. For now, I just wanted to play with words. Constructive criticism welcome. I think it goes without saying that Dragon Age and its characters do not belong to me but to Bioware.

Summary: Marian Hawke considers her role and her choices in life, focusing on her mother's death. Yum, angst!

For all the decisions I have made, there has never been a choice. Just as it was decided before her birth (by whom?) that Bethany would be a mage, it was decided that I would be not just glue, or a glue but the glue. The Laughing Glue. A childhood spent running from Templars easily translated into a young adulthood running from darkspawn. And I was there to bind the family, despite Mother's sadness or Carver's anger or Bethany's concern or Father's. . . .Father's. . . kindness, we'll say, though now I cannot really remember.

The first loss is the easiest. If you are still there, still alive, still coherent enough to feel that loss, that means there is more to lose. And so your choices become clear: you must survive. You must push on, so that the enemy cannot take more. And if you are lucky, you begin to forget what you lost, and then it doesn't hurt so much.

So it was so easy, then, to lose my father. Grief was not about missing him but about keeping my sister safe. About gluing together Mother, Bethany, Carver.

Losing Lothering was fairly easy, too. If I had time to miss Lothering, I had time to formulate strategy. And once I was safe…well, I've never been truly safe. I had to figure out how to get my family into the city. And then getting through that first year…and then….

Losing Carver was not difficult, either. He did sacrifice his life for us, even though I think he did so unintentionally (not to save but to show off). He was strong but angry. I decided not to tell that I did not miss him very much at all.

Losing Bethany, that was difficult. For a brief moment, I thought life would settle into stability. Finally, there would be money, a house, plenty of food. For a time it seemed that my life could be a normal one. I became complacent and begin to think about the past and the future stole from me. The pain lingers because Bethany is not dead. She is lost but not gone.

Mother is the toughest of all. The most recent loss, there has not been enough time. And what is left? How can I be the glue, how can I laugh if there is not left to keep together? If only I had decided all of these years earlier to put an end to. . .something. If only I had decided to stay home, to assign a guard. Every decision was the wrong one (it feels like), every choice a false one.

And a small voice calls to me, from the back of my brain. It is slow and sluggish, and sounds how glue might. Bethany whispering to me at Gamlen's house: "She wishes she had died with Carver." What if Mother. . . chose this? Surely I had told her about the flowers? She could have fought or yelled or charmed her way out of the situation. I'm sure of it. What if she gave in, so that she could be with Father and Carver, and not have to live without Bethany?

They have all said kind words. Or words they thought were kind. Anders. Isabela. Aveline. Everyone. They wanted to replace my loss, and the best they could afford were words. But the condolences were not about me. "At least you knew your mother," Aveline said. Ah yes, at least. I knew my father, too, but I can't be sure of that anymore. "Do you want to hear something?" Aveline asked, and she became angry when I cut her off. I don't want to hear any of it. I have some thinking to do. Some choices to make. And I cannot do so with everyone's voice in my head.

I told Aveline, I told them all: "My heart is broken." I must decide what to do about it. I have my house, my money, deadly daggers and shiny swords. What will I do with them? What will I do with the glue if there is nothing to hold together?

I did not want to hear what Aveline had to say, I still do not, but I wanted her to fix me. I wanted them all to fix me, to give me a part of themselves. I have given so much to help them all. I have kept our ragtag group together with every sarcastic remark.

And.

And they have kept me together this whole time, too. My life would be worse, I think, without Merrill's lethal sweetness, or Fenris's single-mindedness (or do I mean Anders's?), or Varric's truthful lies. Even Isabela's betrayal became a piece of me.

So.

It was a role thrust upon me, but now I decide to accept it. I will be the glue, because now I need it. I will be the glue that repairs my own heart.