"Merrill, darling, we should really go inside."
Merrill turned and smiled at her love, who was attempting to give her a serious look even though she was grinning wildly. "But it's raining, Ma Vhenan." Merrill replied happily. "This isn't a night to spend locked in away from the world."
Indeed it was raining, sheets of it coming down across Skyhold so dense that the two of them couldn't see to the ground from the battlements where they stood.
Hawke grinned, putting her hands on the Dalish girl, one on her hip and other other on her rain soaked shirt the elf was wearing. "You wouldn't be saying that if we were in our room, together."
Merrill blushed and burrowed her head into her Hawke's jacket. "Just another minute Hawke. I want to enjoy this beautiful night the Creators sent for us before I enjoy you."
Hawke laughed, wrapping herself into Merrill's embrace. "Another minute then."
In their embrace, lost in their own world, neither of them had seen or heard a figure, cloaked in darkness and moving with a deliberate, mechanical pack towards them. In his hand, forged from black steel and emblems engraved in it's surface, was a dagger.
He raised the blade, aiming for the Champion's spine. As he did so, Merrill heard the rustling of his armour when his arm lifted, and looked up. Seeing the man, she shrieked and yanked Hawke aside, just in time to avoid it's stab. The man was caught off guard, but quick to recover, making a recovery with another swing towards Hawke.
Merrill let go of her wife and lunged towards the assassin, bowling into him and knocking the blade off of it's course. The man, not missing an instant, brought his free hand into Merrill's face, making a very audible Crack as he did so, and brought the blade into the elf's chest.
Merrill screamed in pain and Hawke, her head still sprinting to register the sheer suddenness of the whole event, felt her heart shatter at the sound. The assassin gave a heave at the blade, but it was stuck fast into Merrill's ribs.
He didn't have a chance to try to recover his blade again before Hawke's fist smashed into his face, shattering the surface of his skull with the sheer rage behind the blow. He staggered back, thrown completely off of his footing by the strike, and Hawke followed it up with another blow before he could even register the pain from the first blow.
The second hit sent him sprawling into the rails on the battlement, vision blurred and head swimming from pain. With him safely away from Merrill, Hawke let her magic erupt in an awe inspiring display, completely enveloping his body behind a wall of fire, killing him before he had hit the ground.
Head spinning and her body filled to the brim with adrenaline, Hawke turned on her heel and knelt by Merrill's side. The knife had landed in Merrill's ribcage, which had taken the brunt of the damage. The elf girl was bleeding, but it didn't look too awful of damage.
"Ma Vhenan?" Merrill croaked, her emerald eyes consumed with the blackness that her pain brought.
"Shh." Hawke said in the calmest voice she could manage. "I'm here, love. Hold still." She knew what she would have to do. She knew more than enough healing magic to save Merrill, but she couldn't do it with the blade still inside her.
Thinking as fast as she could, Hawke stripped off her jacket and twisted it into a makeshift gag. "Love." Hawke said in a soothing tone. She couldn't let Merrill hear the fear or desperation in her voice, not now. Right now she needed love and healing. "Open your mouth for me, and bite down on this for me." Merrill complied as Hawke wrapped it gently in the Dalish's teeth. It was as much for Hawke as it was for Merrill. If she heard her heart scream in pain again, it might break her.
Hawke gingerly placed her finger on the blade, knowing that taking it out with a single, smooth motion would cause Merrill the least pain. She took a deep breath, and took it out.
Merrill's world became pain, black spots plaguing her vision. She bit down hard on Hawke's jacket and let the tears flow freely from her eyes. Hawke would heal her her, she knew that with all the certainty in her heart, but that didn't lessen the agony from the fresh wound.
Hawke moved fast, dropping the blade in her lap and putting both of her hands onto her wife's chest, pushing gentle blue threads of healing energy into her, letting the strands of life string Merrill's skin back together, mending her rib and re-sowing her flesh back until nothing more than a marred and angry red line remained. Hawke didn't relent her magic until that too faded.
When she looked up from her work, her heart stopped when she saw Merrill's eyes were closed. Desperately reaching up to Merrill's heart, her world began moving again when she felt the strong beat of Merrill's soul deep within her. The excitement must have tired her out, or maybe the pain had rendered her unconscious, but she was alive.
Hawke let the tears fall freely now that Merrill couldn't be scared by them, having to wipe her eyes on her arm now that her jacket was on Merrill's face. She cried long and hard, letting the emotions, while only pent up for a minute or two, were strong and powerful. There had been several unspeakably terrible moments where she had thought the love of her life dead, and her heart now had to mend itself back together.
After a long time crying by herself, Merrill's head gathered in her lap, Hawke stood, carefully placing her jacket under Merrill's head to provide her a pillow. She strode over to the assassin, and picked through his belongings. Much of his clothing had been ruined, either by the torrent of rain or by the fire Hawke had engulfed him in. But there, in his coat pocket, Hawke found what she was looking for.
It was a letter. The man was clearly an assassin, sent to kill the Champion. She had killed enough to know that, from the way he moved, to the ease with which he aimed for vital points. This would, hopefully, contain his contract and lead her back to whoever had put her through this pain. If nothing else, then the spymaster, Leliana could likely trace it.
She took Merrill back into their shared room, the assassin's knife and letter in her pocket. She gently laid Merrill on their bed, checking the elf's pulse again to convince herself that Merrill was still alive. Then she pulled out the knife and letter, and began to try to read.
The paper was fancy, with gold embroidery. It was badly burnt from Hawke's magic, but it had been protected from the rain, so part of it was legible. And then her heart sank.
At the bottom, she recognized the signature.
Sebastian Vael.
The chantry boy-turned prince. He was the one who had sent this man, this monster, to kill her. She looked at the knife and there it was, staring her in the face. At it's hilt was the Vael family heraldry, in shining silver steel.
A royal assassin. From one of her oldest friends. He had sent this man to kill her.
Sebastian.
She dropped the letter, letting it float gently to the ground. She understood what this was about obviously. On that damnable day from what seemed an eternity ago, when the sky had burned and Thedas had changed forever, she had stayed her blade from Anders. The man may have blown up a Chantry and killed hundreds who hadn't deserved a death but it hadn't been his fault. Anders was sick and she knew that somewhere deep within him, there was a man who loved cats and gave his life to heal the homeless.
And more than that, he was family. The two of them had waded through Qunari and Darkspawn, side-by-side, watching over one another. They had spent many nights camped together, sharing wine and stories of their lives before Kirkwall. Even when he antagonized Fenris or he made her want to knock him on his arse when he mocked Merrill's life choices, he was still family at the end of the day. That was what families did, wasn't it? Feud with one another?
If there was anything a decade of warring in Kirkwall and the death of her blood family, it was that you stand by your family, no matter what. Why else had she risked life and limb for Isabela?
She turned the knife over in her hands, looking at the Vael heraldry one more time, hoping, praying that she had made a mistake, that it was some other noble family that had attempted to kill her and her love. Feeling the rage boil up when it was the Vael symbol, she drew back the knife and drove it home, deep into a desk. She had forgiven him for abandoning her when the Templar armies had come for them. She had forgiven him for invading her home. But not this time.
He had nearly broken her heart. And for that, Hawke would break his skull.