THE ROGUE
It was easy to be a rogue in Darktown.
Slipping through the winding alleyways and twisting labyrinthine corridors was so much easier if you knew how to blend into the background and go largely unnoticed by the local thugs and carta members who might otherwise think you looked like an easy mark.
Not that Marian Hawke was anything of the sort.
The daughter of an apostate and a noblewoman, sister to a slain mage and with a brother who was now a maker-cursed templar, Marian had always felt like the black sheep of the family.
For one thing, in a family whose veins ran thick with magical blood, she had never ever shown even the slightest ability in any of the known schools of magic. Growing up, she had watched with jealous envy as her father had dandled her younger sister Bethany on his knee, delighting in her obvious abilities to manipulate the elemental energies need for casting spells, and how it hurt to see them laughing together as if sharing some secret joke that Marian knew she could never be part of. Though her brother Carver was no mage, her father had instead taught him the ways of the blade and took as much pride in seeing his son's ability with the great-sword develop as much as his daughter's talent with the spell book. Just what he would say now if he saw that his only son's magical ability was being channelled for the benefit of the templar order, that was something else entirely, but back then he had been as proud of the twins as he possibly could have been.
With Marian though, it often felt as if he had shown her nothing but his disappointment.
She had been too lacking in natural ability to study magic and too lacking in physical strength to learn how to fight with the sword and shield. Her mother had told her that her father loved her as much as he did her younger siblings, but there had been times she swore she could see nothing but his regret in his eyes that he could not understand his troublesome, elder daughter.
In truth, she spent her days hanging out with the local boys, getting into fights, running with the gangs and learning all the skills her father disapproved of. How to sneak around without being seen, how to steal without being caught and where to hit a man to disorient him enough to make a quick getaway. Later, as her body began to assume a more womanly shape, she learned how to attract the boys she wanted and take them to her bed for the love and attention she so craved. These fleeting embraces and snatched moments of sexual awakenings had brought her small comfort since the boys always moved on and it was really the love and approval of her father she wanted.
Instead, she earned only his forlorn frustration as he tried to set her on what he believed was a straight and narrow path.
For Marian Hawke, it only served to isolate her even more from the family she loved and resented both at the same time.
One day, a troupe of performers had come to the village, all dressed in motely and playing instruments, signing songs, dancing and performing acrobatics that dazzled and delighted the assembled crowds. It was then she had met him…
Armando Marachi was an Antivan acrobat. Slender, dark haired and dark skinned with slanted blue eyes that were as cold as his smile was warm. He was also an elf 'born and bred in glorious Antiva city itself' he would later tell her as they lay in Farmer Thorn's field after making love for what seemed like hours. He had taught her things she had never believed possible, ways of pleasuring a man and ways to be pleasured that made her tremble with anticipation every time he touched even so much a finger to her sensitive skin. These lessons in desire also taught her the meaning of love and for the first time, Marian lost her heart to this wonderfully handsome and multi-talented acrobat.
It was one of the reasons she ran away with him when the troupe left the village.
One of the reasons…but not the only one.
See, it turned out Armando was much more than a mere acrobat. He had also been an assassin.
Though he was no Antivan Crow, he knew enough of the art of stealth and murder to be able to train Marian in the use of seduction, poisons and of course, the twin blades. They would spend as many hours training with dual-weapons as they did running about the rooftops of the villages and outposts learning about balance and acrobatics as they travelled around Ferelden. Then at night, when the other members of the troop were asleep, then he would make love to her with a passion she had only dreamt about and more often than not, she would wake more exhausted than when they had first gone to bed.
It was an exciting time, full of adventure and desire, but alas it had ended all too quickly.
Armando had been approached by a wealthy merchant from Denerim to take care of a wealthy rival. Of course he had agreed as Maker knows, they were low on money and trying to save enough to travel across the waking sea and set up a home together on Antivan shores. Unfortunately, performing only brought in so much and it had been a hard few months and so Armando had accepted the job. The problem was, the merchant's rival was a guardsman in the pay of one of the local crime cartels and they had caught Armando as soon as he tried to make a move on their man. Armando had managed to escape them initially and made his way back to Marian, only to tell her to run back to her family and to safety. She had argued against it, offering to fight by his side and wept in desperation when he bade her leave, but Armando was adamant. He would rather see the girl he loved back in the arms of her father, than know she died at his side for nothing more than a few silvers and a dream of what could have been. That's when she had heard them arriving outside the inn.
She would always remember the last kiss he gave her before he took up his weapons and ran out the front door with a cold smile on his lips and a challenge in his voice. Marian never saw the fight, but the memoires of his cries as they cut him to pieces still haunted her dreams from time to time.
She guessed it always would.
But he had bought her time with his life and months later, she finally arrived back in Lothering and cautiously knocked on the door to the family home. She'd expected her father to be furious and demand that she leave the house at once, but instead he had fallen to his knees and gathered her up in his arms and held her to his chest as if he would never let her go again. Her mother too had been overcome with emotion at seeing her and even little Bethany and Carver had cried with happiness that their elder sister had returned. They all asked questions, the who's, what's and where's coming at her from all directions, but her father had simply shushed them with a word and looked her straight in the eye. He knew she would tell him when she was ready and right then it didn't matter anyway.
She loved him for it all the more.
Their relationship had changed after that. Her father saw her more as an adult, though she was still in her teens. He spoke to her of his fears for them all and of his regret that his children had not been spared the problems that magic could bring. In Marian, it turned out he had never seen a black sheep, but a beautiful, fierce young woman who knew her own mind and her own heart with a certainty that most people could only envy.
She was so like him, the same raven-black hair, the same cool grey eyes brimming with intelligence and the same pale skin that separated her from her sun-kissed siblings with their rich brown eyes like her mother's. They were two of a kind, and even though she never did tell him the whole story about Armando, he seemed to understand her grief from the small details that she'd given him, and he would always comfort her when her heart threatened to break from missing the elf so much.
He'd told her that love was one of the Maker's most powerful creations, and that even though it was lost for now, there would be a time when she would love again and be loved in turn. That day, he would welcome the lucky man into his house and know the husband his precious daughter had chosen.
Of course, the arrogance of youth had ensured that she hadn't believed him, but he was right…and he was also wrong.
Malcolm Hawke would never meet the man she now loved with all her heart. Her father died in 9:27 Dragon.
Determined not to let her father down anymore and in order to look after her family, Marian took service with the Ferelden army as a scout. Carver had followed a year later, lending his own sword to the ranks of armed men that swore service to King Cailan and the Theirin line. Between them, they had earned enough to keep a roof over the heads of their mother and sister and though they were often away from home, the Hawke siblings never forgot the reason they were there. For three long years, they fought for King and Country until that fateful day at Ostagar when the Blight took from them not only their sovereign Lord, but their friends, their comrades and their dear sister Bethany.
That's when the remaining Hawkes had flown to Kirkwall.
That's when they had struggled to make a new home and a new place for themselves in a city that did not welcome them with open arms, but treated them like refugee scum who did not deserve to set foot upon the great stone steps that led up from the docks.
That's when Marian thought she had lost everything…but ended up meeting the best friends she'd ever known in her entire life.
Aveline Vallen, fellow Ferelden and the bravest warrior Marian had ever known, and now Captain of the Guard.
Varric Tethras, the incorrigible dwarven teller of tales and probably the best friend Marian had in this world.
Isabella, lusty former Captain of The Siren's Call and as big a rogue as Marian herself!
Merrill of the Dalish, naïve and sweet and possibly a blood-mage who would as likely kill them with kindness as with a ravening demon and finally, Fenris of Tevinter, the enigmatic tattooed warrior who was as terrifyingly powerful as he was beautifully handsome.
Then there was the one.
That man her father had told her about.
The man he told her would love her just as much as she loved him…or at least she thought he did.
It was difficult to tell sometimes with Anders…
Marian felt her stomach bunching into knots as she climbed the wooden staircase that led to his clinic. It was late, but more often than not Anders was still awake, drawing on the last of his strength to treat the weak and the sick, who often spent the entire day queuing up outside his door just to spend a few moments with the healer.
Lately it had been hard for the former Grey Warden. The Kirkwall Chantry seemed to have just about declared war on every mage that dared to breath the same air as the rest of the population and the templars were constantly on the look-out for apostates who thought they could avoid joining a Circle of Magi that, if reports were to be believed, was as much at the mercy of Knight-Commander Meredith as those who remained outside its influence.
As for Anders himself…well, Anders was much more than just an apostate.
Technically, Anders was an abomination.
Marian remembered her fear when he'd told them all, that he was merged with a spirit of justice and struggled every day just to keep control of himself. For years and years, he had battled not only for the cause of mages everywhere, but to hold onto his sanity as the spirit changed within him from a benign protector to a vengeful creature, torn and twisted by outrage and anger at the treatment doled out to mages by an unforgiving Chantry. Maker knows, Marian had seen it herself when they had first met and tried to help the tormented mage to free his former lover Karl, only to discover he had been made tranquil. It had been a trap, set by the templars to try and catch the former Grey Warden, but they hadn't counted on Justice as being part of the package. Marian could still hear their screams as the spirit had wreaked its terrible revenge, but she had also seen just how painful it was to Anders to know that he was losing control. The fear and torment she had seen in his melancholy caramel eyes had stayed with her every day since then, and as those days, months, years had passed, Anders' burden had only seemed to grow heavier.
Yet, there was something else that burned in his eyes too. An emotion that sometimes found its way into his speech when he was feeling less guarded around her. It was a powerful feeling that was growing steadily between them, pulling them toward one another as moths pull toward the flame and for Marian, it was becoming harder and harder to ignore the demands of her pounding heart when she thought of the sandy-haired mage and of what fires burned within his passionate soul.
Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves, she began to gently push open the door of the clinic.
Tonight she needed to tell him how she felt.
Tonight, she would know whether she had a chance…
"Here puss puss puss!"
Marian hid her smile as she watched the mage crouching down to lay a saucer of milk upon the ground. "Anders…what on earth are you doing?"
"Putting out milk." He answered without turning to look back at her and apparently unsurprised at her presence. "I miss having a cat around, but I think the refugees have scared them all off…or maybe eaten them!"
When he finally faced her, Marian's heart leapt into her throat. He was obviously getting ready for bed and his robes were open to the waist, revealing enough of his body beneath the heavy fabric for her to see that he was more muscular than she had expected.
"You know, I've been meaning to thank you." If he was aware of the deep blush that was creeping up her neck and into her cheeks, he was enough of a gentleman not to mention it. "You don't need to stick your neck out for the mages here, but you have. You let those apostates from Starkhaven start over. Maybe they can be an example for the world?"
He was stood so close that Marian wasn't even aware that she was touching his face until she felt his rough stubble beneath her fingertips. For a moment, she couldn't speak and simply looked deeply into his troubled eyes, seeing something that she hoped reflected the feelings that were stirring deep inside her own consciousness.
"Anders…" She breathed, her eyes wandering to his full, pouting lips. "I would be lying if I said I did it just for them. When I see them, I see you and it would destroy me inside if anything like that were to happen to you…"
She held her breath as he allowed himself to be pulled closer to her. His hands found her hips and he gently reciprocated, pulling her against his body as he lowered his face to hers, his lips barely touching her own…
Suddenly a pained look creased his face and he pushed her back as he reached up to run his slender fingers through the loose strands of his sandy-blonde hair.
"I've tried to hold back, you saw what I almost did to that girl!" His voice was quavering with emotion as he spoke and he was shaking. "You've seen what I am, but I'm still a man. You can't tease me like this and expect me to resist for ever!"
"I don't want you to resist." Marian said simply, confusion tugging at the corners of her mouth. "I want…I want you!"
She gasped as the mage surged forward, catching her in his arms as he pushed her against one of the roughly hewn pillars supporting the clinic roof. His lips found hers and his hands tangled in her hair as he held her in place, pushing his tongue deeply into her mouth and twining it around her own as he devoured her love and her passion and returned it tenfold. Marian sighed softly as she pushed her hips against his groin, feeling his growing hardness even through the leather of his breeches and she trailed her hands over his exposed chest, delighting in the sensation of his skin beneath her fingers and closing her eyes as she imagined just what it would feel like to have that same body pressing down upon her own nakedness. She couldn't help but moan with pleasure as he began nipping at the sensitive skin beneath her ear and she responded by sliding her hands over his body, enjoying the hardened contours of his muscular frame.
"This will be a disaster…" He panted, snatching the words between his kisses. "But I can't live without it. We could die tomorrow, but I don't want it to be before I tell you how I feel."
"I never expected to feel like this …" Marian felt so overcome that she almost slid to the ground when the mage stepped back and looked at her with such a mixture of infinite tenderness and infinite sorrow, that she wanted to weep with the raw emotion that was pouring out of the tortured man before her.
"I thought with Justice…this part of me was over." He looked down at himself and sighed as he shook his head. "I…I can't give you a normal life. If you're with me we'll be hunted, hated, the whole world will be against us."
"Anders…"
"Please..." He held up a hand and offered her a sad smile. "Listen to me. If your door is open tonight, I will come to you. If not, I'll know you took my warning at last."
Marian stared in disbelief as Anders pulled the front of his tunic together and then staggered over to the small table by his bed. He reached for pitcher of wine and then poured himself a large cup of the golden liquid before drinking deeply, almost emptying the whole cup in one swallow. With shaking hands, he set the cup back down upon the table-top and leaned heavily on its wooden surface. He was still trembling, his sandy hair loose about his face and his eyes closed as if deep in thought. If the way she was feeling was anything to go on, Marian could only imagine that he too was struggling to bring himself under control, though if he had wanted to make love to her in this place, she would not have stopped him but gladly welcomed the feel of his body inside hers, easing an ache that had been too long in the making.
Still, she didn't want to rush him into anything that could jeopardise any chance of a relationship and so she gathered her thoughts and gave him the time he needed to think things through.
"I'll be waiting for you, Anders…" She whispered, by way of small reassurance and then hurried out of the clinic door back into the winding streets of Darktown.
If anyone was waiting to ambush her on the journey home, then Maker help them.
Nothing was going to come between her and Anders now.
