There was a weight to the arulin'holm that hadn't been there when she had first started carving. Merrill took a deep, calming breath, but when she closed her eyes against the sting of tears, flashes of the Varterral striking Pol—his body becoming limp and lifeless as it hit the ground—met her in the darkness.
She choked back a sob and opened her eyes. Her vision blurred by unshed tears, Merrill went for the Eluvian with renewed purpose. She wouldn't let her regret stop her from completing what she started in that cave, wouldn't let Pol's unwilling sacrifice be in vain. Even as his doubt and that of the entire clan pressed against her chest and left her breathing shallow and unsatisfying, her strokes were steady and precise.
She could feel the weight of Marethari's disapproving words adding strength to each careful stroke along the ancient wood. Her hands ached and her eyes burned, but still she would not stop, could not stop if she wanted to prove her wrong. Prove them all wrong. If it took every last thing she had in her, by the Creators, she would make this mirror work as it had for their ancestors. Or at the very least understand what had taken Tamlen from them, and made Mahariel so ill.
Her hands began to shake, and soon her whole body quivered and quaked. The arulin'holm fell from her hands as the tears could no longer be held back and she sobbed, drawing her legs up to her chest and resting her forehead between the crook of her knees. She wanted to retrieve just the smallest bit of her peoples' history, and no one would support her. How could they not? This was so important. They had lost too many of their clan to whatever it held, but what if it could restore those they had lost, or explain where Tamlen had gone. Marethari should want to know what happened.
None of it made any sense.
With a heavy heart she lifted her head and stared at the mirror, no longer perturbed by the reflection she would never see. She swiped her hands across her eyes, clearing them of moisture, and lifted the arulin'holm from the ground and set back to work.
The night air was cool against her skin as she walked through the alienage, and Merrill felt more at ease as she paced around the Vhenadahl. She perched upon a small box devoid of the candles the other elves left, makeshift altars to the gods she never knew they still worshiped. She was convinced they had all adopted the human religion, but it seemed as if they were just as likely to be practicing the religion of their ancestors. More and more often, she would meet an elf in the city who had once had a clan, and had left for hope of a better life among the humans.
With the decrepit buildings they were forced to call home, she wondered if any of them could truly call themselves happy. She struggled with that every day, even more so now that she had inadvertently caused the death of a dear friend.
Tears stung at her eyes again, and Merrill wiped away the few that slipped down her cheeks. She wept quietly, clenching her hands into small fists and releasing them in a rhythm that calmed her, even as her fingers ached from hours of carving. Carving that she began to worry, deep down, was not bearing any fruit.
A small noise from one of the dark corners of the alienage drew her attention away from the cathartic ache of her hands, and when she looked up, she saw a small figure moving in the shadows. Too small to be of any real danger, she stood and drew closer, and tilted her head to the side when she heard a soft mewling. As she approached the darkened corner, she saw a litter of kittens leaping and crawling among each other, making the cutest noises that brought a small smile to Merrill's dry, cracked lips.
When the kittens noticed her approach, they startled and clumsily stumbled back towards the wall, caught off guard by their unexpected visitor. Merrill halted her approach and, with as little sudden movement as she could manage, sat cross-legged in place. She made no further movements towards the kittens, whether with hands or torso, and remained perfectly still, the pain in her chest firmly in place once more. Her smile faltered, and she felt more tears slip down her cheeks. Creators, did even these innocent creatures see her as only a monster that will do harm?
A gray tabby with a white streak on its nose mewled, and was the first to leave the safety of its siblings. It tentatively moved up to Merrill, its nose sniffing upward as it stumbled closer. The rest of the kittens soon followed, an orange tabby standing out among the small sea of gray and black. Merrill held her hand out, and the white streaked tabby was the first to investigate, its cold, pink nose bumping clumsily between her index and middle fingers.
Merrill giggled softly, and reached out to the kitten's downy fur with slow, careful fingers. She could feel the soothing vibrations as it purred in response to each stroke, content with her touch for now, and she settled into a slow rhythm of drawing her fingers along the tabby's back, and twirled her finger around its tail. Moments passed while the other kittens took turns nipping and swatting at the fingers on her other hand as she wiggled them about, their sharp little teeth leaving small marks on her calloused skin.
Distracted by their soft mewls and energetic pouncing, she barely noticed the tabby purring lazily beneath her palm had begun pawing at her shin, its tiny claws digging into her leggings to pull itself upward. As it climbed over her calf, it rolled inelegantly into the void of space between her legs. Sprawled upside down with its paws waving in the air, Merrill couldn't help the laugh that shook her whole body, and instantly she felt the weight of all that she carried from her trip to Sundermount lift ever-so-slightly from her shoulders.
The gray tabby bumped her stomach with the top of its head once it had righted itself, and she lifted it from between her legs and cradled its fragile body against her chest, placing a featherlight kiss on the tip of its nose when it lifted its head to investigate her face. It nudged its head closer to her face, nuzzling its fuzzy crown against her lips. She could feel the other kittens following their sibling's actions as their needle-like claws dug into her legs while they crawled upon her. Soon, there were four kittens squirming for purchase in the hollow between her thighs.
A heavier weight nudged at her elbow, and she looked over to see a fully grown tabby, with the same white streak as her bravest kitten running along her nose. Merrill carefully cradled the kitten in one arm so she could reach down and hold out her hand for the mother cat to investigate. The mother sniffed her fingers, and no doubt she picked up the scent of her litter as she methodically inspected each digit, one by one, from pinky to thumb.
To Merrill's surprise, the mother cat rubbed her head against Merrill's hand and began to purr, the power of the vibrations shaking Merrill's thigh. She curled her tail around Merrill's arm as she turned in the other direction, and when she came back around, she held the limp body of a rather sizable rat in her mouth.
Merrill let out a quiet, "Oh!" when the mother cat placed the dead rodent on her leg and nudged it slightly. She turned and looked back, past the Vhenadahl and to the door that led to her rundown home. When she returned her attention to the mother cat, the soft purrs of her kitten vibrating against Merrill's chest, she smiled. "Would you like to come live with me? My house isn't very big, but you and your babies would be more than welcome. And there are plenty of rats for you to hunt and eat, if you like."
The mother cat meowed and nudged Merrill's knee, and she wondered briefly if that was a form of acquiescence before she carefully placed the kitten back on the ground. One by one, she moved the kittens from her legs back to the stone before her, and stood—rat held daintily in her hand—when each was safely off her lap. She brushed the dust and dirt from her backside with her free hand before she turned towards her home, and made a soft clicking noise with her tongue against the roof of her mouth.
The mother cat lifted the kitten so like her in appearance in her mouth by the scruff of its neck, and began to follow Merrill. The other kittens stared after their mother for just a moment before they, too, followed. Slower they might have been, but there was purpose in their stubby strides. The orange tabby even managed to catch up with its mother, mewling as it stumbled over its front paws and rolled across the stone before it regained its footing. Merrill giggled as she opened the door to her home, and let the mother cat lead her kittens inside.
As Merrill prepared for bed that evening, she had to carefully avoid the scampering kittens—which ran about like squirrels on the hunt for nuts—in their exploration of their new surroundings. A solid black kitten had managed to find Varric's ball of twine, and rolled it across the floor until it disappeared beneath a low table. The kitten flipped upside down and began to paw beneath the table in a futile attempt to retrieve its new toy, which revealed a large white spot on its belly.
The white streaked kitten hardly left Merrill's side, and spent much of its time rubbing its nose against her bare feet, or occasionally nipping at her toes. This especially made moving around difficult, and Merrill resigned herself to sitting on one of the rickety chairs by the table, and watched the kittens sniff and roll about her home.
The kittens halted all their excitable movements when the mother cat started meowing loudly, and in unison they marched over to her chosen spot by the fire. One by one they plopped down in front of her belly and began to suckle, and Merrill could hear the mother cat purring from across the room. Her head lolled back, and it looked to Merrill as if the mother were falling into a deep slumber as she fed her kittens.
Smiling to herself, Merrill took the opportunity to continue her nightly routine, with small adjustments. She filled a small bowl of water from the basin and placed it by the cats, and then washed her face. She stoked the fire briefly, rather than put it out, before she changed into her nightgown and slipped beneath the covers, settling in for the evening.
She turned over and curled onto her side, and with the fire crackling in the hearth beyond her open door, she could see the outline of the Eluvian beside her bed. Her brows furrowed, and she could feel the dreaded thoughts of what that mirror had cost her thus far begin to seep into her conscious, long distracted though she may have been by the kittens and their mother. Merrill forced herself to look away and look out the door at the fire, where the mother had just been laying, but found she was no longer there.
Before she had a chance to panic, she heard a soft mewl from below her bed. When she glanced over the side, she saw the mother and her kittens sitting in a group. She smiled down at them. The kitten with the streak on its nose leapt at the bedding, and slowly, methodically climbed its way up the sheets until it was safely atop the bed. The mother took the orange tabby in her mouth and leapt up beside her other kitten, and soon, the rest of the kittens were climbing the sheets to be on the bed with Merrill.
The mother curled up by her feet, and all but one of the kittens curled up with their mother. The white streaked gray tabby came up to Merrill's face when she laid back again and nudged her nose with its own, then curled up beside her neck, the vibrating of its purrs strong against her throat. A smile curled at the corners of her lips, and all the thoughts of the Eluvian, of Pol and her clan and how the Keeper no longer believed in her as she once did, were cast aside. She found comfort in the presence of her new friends, and hopefully they would stay with her, as the others had not.
With her fingers lazily stroking the kitten which now slept peacefully, she allowed herself to relax into a blessedly dreamless sleep.
This is a gift for a friend. I hope you like it, hon.