A/N - thank for all reviews, kind messages, etc. :)
Took a lot more time with this as I wanted to avoid writing a massive ball of fluff!
I may return to this couple if I get a good enough idea in the future :)
After the initial rush of euphoria at Merrill's return began to settle, and Hawke's hormones had peaked and begun to decline, the Champion's common sense clattered through her cloud of relief and began to clear the air. Her body clung to Merrill like a rope hanging from a steep cliff, but she had to recognise that there was still a sheer drop below her. No matter how easy it would be to close her eyes and suspend herself in this perfect segment of time, she had to find a way to climb back up to safe ground.
"But…" Hawke drew back from Merrill reluctantly, placing her hands around the elf's dipped chin to bring her eyes directly into her gaze, "How…?"
Merrill bit her lip sheepishly, as if she didn't want to admit the answer and broke the intense gaze with her lover momentarily, looking caught between loyalties. Hawke's mind was reanimating and working faster than it had been able to in days and it didn't take a moment for her to quickly make the connection.
"Varric" Hawke stated factually, and Merrill glanced back at Hawke in surprise, as if the Champion had been able to read her mind. It was touching that some of the elf's naivety had managed to survive the brutal mauling it had sustained between Sundermount and their flight from Kirkwall; it reminded Hawke that there was a kernel of their old souls still lingering underneath the war wounds that had savaged their identities. If Hawke hadn't already been certain of the dwarf's rejection of her wishes, Merrill's reaction confirmed it for definite.
'Maker damn you Varric' Hawke internally swore, 'Must you insist on knowing my own needs better than I do myself?'
"Please don't be angry at him Ma Vhenan" Merrill pleaded, "He was…"
"Worried about me" Hawke stated flatly again, and this time Merrill nodded her assent softly into Hawke's palms.
'From Champion to charity case…' Hawke thought, with a dreadful cynicism that must have translated to her face, because Merrill frowned and pulled away from her grasp.
"And so he should have been!" the elf stressed, bottled anger escaping its confined faster than a wine bottle smashed against the walls of The Hanged Man, "Confronting demons in the fade? Storming Grey Warden castles?" Merrill paced, gesticulating wildly, "Offering yourself as a sacrifice?!"
Hawke visibly shrunk, chastened by the (admittedly) deserved reprimand.
"By the Dread Wolf, have you not done enough for this cursed land already?!" Merrill stopped still in her frantic circuit she was beating into the floor, "Do you really think you owe them all this?!"
'Why tell her all that?' Hawke banefully cursed, 'What else does she know?'
"Yes!" Hawke exclaimed, gripping her fists tightly to try and relieve some tension before she lost her temper, "But I didn't know all that was going to happen Merrill, how could I?" she finished, more calmly, trying to placate the visibly furious mage.
"Because it always gets…complicated when people try to involve you" Merrill whispered, her rage dissipating and mutating to grief faster than Hawke could follow, "I should have been there with you Hawke"
"No" Hawke interjected, swiping her hand decisively across her body, "It was too much of a risk, the whole expedition was a death trap"
The one thing she could be certain about the entire encounter in the Fade was that it was the last place she would want her dearest companion to be dragged to. Hawke could barely justify why she had been there herself, which was making explaining it to Merrill difficult.
"Exactly!" Merrill countered, jumping on the obvious contradiction in Hawke's statement her mood flipping again, "I…" Merrill was forced to stop as she became overwhelmed, clearly tussling with a confusing mix of emotions, "I wonder sometimes if there is a small part of you that wants to get herself killed!"
Hawke had no answer to Merrill's outburst; the terrible fact was she had often wondered that about herself too. Hawke dropped her head and walked to sit on the edge of the bed, hands clasped guiltily before her like a woman waiting for judgement. She stared at her calloused hands, feeling oddly detached from the appendages, as if they were floating by some form of enchantment. At her lack of rebuttal, Merrill continued.
"Emma lath…" Merrill breathed, "Do you think so little of your own life? Do you not think you matter? To me?"
Hawke wasn't anywhere close to suicidal, not in the sense that most people would think of it. She had never aimed to end her own life, but a sneaking part of her had started to believe recently that it would be right if she gave her life in battle; as if it would make up for Bethany's darkspawn corrupted face, or Carver's broken bones. The Hawke bloodline had a sense of doom about it, and after all, it wasn't as if she was going to propagate it any further. Back in the Fade there had been a sense of finality when she had offered to be the martyr for the rest of the party, and for a moment, it felt blissful to imagine being able to rest. When it was put to her so bluntly though, by someone she respected, it all seemed like yet another colossal waste of energy. Like an animal slinking away to die in a quiet corner, believing itself to be injured, but instead starving to death through apathy.
"No Merrill" Hawke croaked out uncertainly, "I genuinely meant for you to stay behind to keep you safe. What happened in the Fade was not intended…I'm not trying to die."
"That isn't what I meant" Merrill strained, "Hawke…it's almost as if you are daring the Gods to strike you down! Putting yourself in harm's way is…" Merrill shook her head disbelievingly, "It's like an addiction!"
Hawke stayed quiet as Merrill's words rippled through the air, and settled to rest on her fidgeting hands. The warrior could sense Merrill's retraction before her lover had ever drawn breath to speak it. Another one of her predictabilities; the elf would lash out when she was afraid, but Hawke knew Merrill hated confrontation and ultimately cared far too much for her own good. Hawke didn't claim to fully understand the incident with the Eluvian, or whether Maratheri had truly needed to take the demon into her own body for Merrill, but the Champion had never understood why Merrill had worked so tirelessly on their behalf when they clearly rejected her. A blood mage with a heart of gold…Hawke smiled down at the floor involuntarily at the thought. Merrill was the only person who could make the accursed strain of enchantment seem to be so well-intentioned.
"Abelas…ma vhenan" Merrill whimpered, "I…I…just know what it…" her words struggled through her encroaching fit of crying.
"Feels like? I know" Hawke consoled, and looked up at Merrill reassuringly, almost breaking within when she caught the torn look blemishing the elf's face, "I probably should listen to you more often…" she chimed mischievously, trying to lighten the mood.
Merrill tittered girlishly through the remnants of her sobbing, in an endearing way that made Hawke yearn for her the Dalish woman's proximity. It was all-too reminiscent of the bemused laugh that had accompanied Merrill's response to Hawke's impromptu proposal to move in together. Hawke shuddered suddenly and winced at the memory of the nightmare, of Merrill's broken body in her arms, of that precious moment poisoned. The movement didn't go unnoticed by the elf.
"Hawke?" Merrill started forward, concerned.
"It's…" Hawke considered saying 'nothing', but quickly re-assessed the situation and decided honesty would work in her favour, given that she didn't want to provoke Merrill further, "I've been having terrible dreams…nightmares really, ever since the incident in the Fade" Hawke gazed up searchingly at Merrill, "Perhaps you could enlighten me?"
"Nightmares?" Merrill walked over to the bed, and Hawke felt a rush of warm satisfaction as the slender body of her lover came to sit next to her own, taking up one of her hands in the process, "Like when…" she hesitated, taking time to slink her fingers neatly between Hawke's thicker, human digits, "Leandra died?" she finished, forlornly.
Hawke remembered the wild, thrashing nights that had followed her mother's murder, and Merrill's calm arms holding her patiently as Hawke slowly shivered he way through recurring dreams of her mother's sewn-together corpse shambling towards her. Not once had the elf complained about being woken up, even though her bloodshot eyes over the weeks had given away how tired she was. Yet every night she had continued to stay in Hightown with Hawke, regardless of the guarantee of a sleepless night. Loyal to a fault; exactly the reason Hawke had feared bringing her along to face Corypheus.
"No" Hawke admitted, "The dreams of mother were always the same, and I knew they weren't real" Hawke baulked at the memory, "The frightening part was not being able to escape, knowing what was about to happen…not being able to stop it" Hawke finished, quietly.
"Then…" Merrill started uncertainly, "Hawke what could be worse than that?!" she exclaimed, tightening her grip on the human's hand. Hawke squeezed back appreciatively, glad for the support as she began to explain.
"They are so…real" Hakwe gulped back a forming lump in the base of her throat, and placed her free hand to rub above her sternum. The action reminded her of the last nightmare yet again, of Merrill's crooked bones…and she found she couldn't look up at her.
"It was about me wasn't it" Merrill asked redundantly, plainly knowing the answer to the question before Hawke had nodded silent acknowledgement of the statement.
"I…" Hawke felt a terrible tightening spread round her jaw, her eyes wide and forehead strained with the horror, "Maker…" she breathed loudly, her heart pacing faster than if a high dragon had sauntered in through the window, "I can't tell you…" Hawke was gripping Merrill's hand so tightly her knuckles were beginning to turn white, the elf did not retract her hand however, "So horrible…" Hawke lost her ability to form words as her face scrunched into a desolate image of despair, dipping it towards her knees with the pain of recollection.
"Be still Ma Vhenan" Merrill soothed, stroking the back of Hawke's head and visibly relaxing when Hawke loosened the grip on the elf's hand, "Varric told me what the Nightmare Demon said to you; how he tried to use me against you"
"He did?" Hawke shot a fearful glance up towards to Merrill, shaking the slender woman's resolve as she saw the bare vulnerability of a child in the Champion's eyes.
"You care more about my life than you care about your own…" Merrill hummed evenly, as if the statement still amazed her after so much time had passed.
"I thought that was obvious" Hawke snorted misanthropically, looking back to the floor.
"That you're crazy?" Merrill teased, coaxing Hawke's bowed head towards her breast and kissing her on top of her forehead, "Yes, even I worked that out"
Hawke managed to force a smile, and visibly softened.
"Hawke, one woman cannot solve all of Thedas' problems" Merrill replied reassuringly.
"You sound like the Demon…" Hawke chuckled, "Not like that" she clarified, noticing the shocked look on Merrill's face and remembering that the elf had a low grasp on the concept of irony, "I'm sorry Merrill, did Varric tell you what else the Demon said to me?"
"No, nothing else" Merrill shook her head uncertainly, "Why?"
Hawke disengaged her grip from Merrill's hand completely and ran her hands over her agitated face, as if trying to force the tears back to the depths they were trying to emerge from.
"It said that nothing I did ever mattered…" her breath hitched once again and Merrill placed a hand on Hawke's thigh comfortingly as the Champion visibly blanched at her own weakness, "I tried to ignore it, but look at the evidence…" Hawke threw out an arm demonstratively, as if the proof was visible in the room.
"That's the problem with demons Hawke…" Merill whispered, shamefully, "They play on fears that you already suspect to be true; realities you could imagine to come to pass" Merrill tittered involuntarily, "Wouldn't be much of a threat if they told you that an army of kittens were about to invade Kirkwall would it?"
Hawke looked back at Merrill, and burst into a bemused laugh, despite the tears that were beginning to wind down her flushed cheeks.
"What you said earlier…about danger being an addiction for me" Hawke bit her lip as she considered whether or not this path of conversation was wise, but the elf made no indication for her to stop, "What was it like with the Eluvian? How did you know you'd…gone too far?"
Merrill paused, working her way around the question, and frowning at the memories. Suddenly, the elf rose from the bed and walked over the window, making Hawke's heart lurch with the fear that she had perhaps overstepped some sort of unspoken boundary with her lover. They had not spoken of the incident for a long time; perhaps with good reason as the only positive consequence of the entire episode was that Merrill gave up blood magic (for now). Hawke buried her face into her palms once more, but was startled by Merrill's voice piping up abruptly behind her.
"I didn't"
Hawke turned to look over her shoulder, and saw the beautiful elven outline silhouetted against the bright sunlight beaming into the room, bent over and elbows leaning on the windowsill.
"Didn't…"
"I didn't realise I had gone too far" Merrill elaborated, "Not until…" Merrill swallowed audibly, "I forced you to talk about me like that to my clan…just to stop it all turning into a bloodbath…" Merrill let out a long huff of deep disappointment at herself before turning back to Hawke, who watched on in mesmerised interest, having never heard Merrill speak quite this candidly about the event before, "Now do you see why I'm so worried about you Hawke? Does it have to get to the brink of disaster before you admit you need to stop?"
Hawke vividly remembered the incident at Sundermount; it was a memory that still ached at the pain of its recollection. The perceptive warrior had sensed the crouching violence hiding behind the livid eyes of the Dalish Clan after the death of Marethari, and her own silver tongue had seen a route out of a lost cause – at the expense of Merrill's pride. The alternative had been murdering an entire clan, and Hawke was not prepared to commit genocide. The pair had spoken of it only once since then; and although Hawke had reassured her that the patronising words spoken against the elf had been only for practical purposes, she had never escaped the lingering doubt that Merrill had taken the slight deeply to heart. Half the reason the elf had fallen in love with her in the first place was that Hawke had willingly trusted her with the Arulin'Holm.
Yet the more she compared the two situations, the more the parallels began to illuminate themselves. Hawke had been rash to let her personal feelings about Merrill cloud her strong views on blood magic, and, as the elf quite rightly pointed out, it had taken the possibility of mass murder to shake Merrill's conviction in her beliefs. Similarly, Merrill had trusted Hawke not to abandon her after she lost her entire clan, and yet the warrior had careered into a death trap without telling Merrill where she had gone.
"History is filled with the tales of fallen heroes Hawke. The Hero of Ferelden may have stopped the Blight, united Ferelden, but then mysteriously disappeared after surviving what should have been a fatal act. Dark magic, if you ask me." Merrill mused, and Hawke was inclined to trust her, "You gave everything trying to protect the mages and Orsino turns to Blood Magic regardless. You kill Corypheus and someone brings him back. You drive the Quanari out of Kirkwall only for a Tal-Vashoth to emerge as our saviour, and already she is busy re-fighting battles that have been fought over and over again" Merrill growled darkly, "Templars and Mages, Darkspawn, forbidden magic, people always trying their hardest to make everything so damned…horrible" Merrill turned sharply and threw her hands out decisively, describing it in a simplistic way that still retained a hint of her renowned innocence.
"You're right" Hawke sighed, "Perhaps I can't change any of that, perhaps the World can't be saved, but where does that leave someone like me?" Hawke trembled, laden with heavy emotion, "Who wants a bitter has-been with a martyr complex?" Hawke spat, "Superseded by the next great hero?"
"I do" Merrill declared, swiftly cutting across the room and kneeling before Hawke, "Maybe Thedas is star-crossed Ma Vhenan but you already changed my World" Merrill grabbed Hawke's hands with urgency and looked up at the warrior's bowed face, "We have the rest of our lives to finish, do you want it to be this way forever?"
Hawke was unable to reply, her vision misted by uncontrollable weeping as she tried desperately to control it.
"Because you know I will stay" Merrill emphasised, "It was you who told me that whatever happens next, we do it together. I intend to keep that promise"
Hawke allowed the emotion to burst the barriers of her internal dams, and with it came the flood of a memory from her arrival in Skyhold.
"Marion"
Hawke turned suddenly, alarmed at the sound of her first name; a name that very few people used, let alone knew. What she was greeted was a gaunt, delicate-looking young man, skin almost translucent, and hair so blonde it was closer to white. A broad, floppy hat fell over his blank face, almost comically too large for him; yet somehow it just added to his ethereal presence. He stared emotionlessly at Hawke, stealing her objections from her mouth with his guileless innocence.
"You can see me" he stated.
"Yes" Hawke frowned, flabbergasted, and certain he had not been there a moment before, "Who-"
"Tattoos cascading across a beautiful face like droplets from a waterfall. Eyes you could drown in like the deepest lagoon. A smile that distracts you from the chaos, the death. She is elven, Dalish, you believe she will never love a human." He declared in broken sentences, suddenly, becoming animated and lost in the description of what appeared to be one of Hawke's memories.
"How do you-" Hawke began.
"But she does." Cole continued, "She comes to you. It is wonderful. It is right." He opined emphatically, with a certainty that most humans would not achieve. "You are her temperance. She is your anchor."
Hawke gave up trying to interrupt the young man, and watched on in amazement at his powerfully accurate statements. In the blink of the eye he had shifted positions and was now behind her suddenly; forcing Hawke to swivel reactively.
"Without you she will have no restraint, without her you drift wildly in open waters like a lost ship. It is the same, yet different; you are two shades of the same colour."
'How does he know all this?' Hawke thought, and at the same time struck speechless by how profoundly he had understood her relationship with Merrill; apparently better than she had herself! Was he dangerous? Currently he was giving her some very valuable advice, but demons had their ways of lulling you to their charms. She remained guarded as he continued.
"What is that colour Marian?"
Any sense of defence fell at his unexpected question. She had no answer, and the act of trying to form one was mentally exhausting. Hawke was left to gawp in a mixture of exasperation and wonder, whilst Cole's unchanging demeanour remained frustratingly neutral. He wasn't trying to get a rise out of Hawke; he genuinely wanted to know the answer to such a perplexing question. What colour suited two people who had lost almost everything trying to do (what they believed to be) the right thing? Red for blood? Black for inscrutability? Orange for the rage of flames? White for the purity of love? Perhaps she was taking the question too literally, or too morbidly.
Before she could answer, he dropped the subject suddenly, apparently having said all he felt necessary.
"You have left her behind. You think it is right, and I cannot tell, it is too loud to hear the right words. But it cannot last, or the colours will be lost"
Hawke watched in amazement as the man disappeared instantly before her eyes, leaving behind only a lingering voice
"I will not make you forget."
When Hawke broke free from the vivid memory, she found herself crumpled in Merrill's arms, and she allowed herself to remain there, knowing that something had snapped within her that had been creaking from the pressure of the heavy burdens piled upon it. The elf was patient, and held her in silence, making no mention of the conversation that had come before. Hawke allowed herself to melt into the surprisingly strong arms and succumb to one moment of bare weakness, in the presence of the only person she would trust with such a confidence. For once the roles had been flipped, and Hawke relished it, for the brief amount of time she could bare it.
"Give me another way" Hawke spoke, after a time that seemed infinite.
"We disappear" Merrill replied, simply as if it were obvious, "Once this is all over, we leave"
"But…" Hawke began, counter-arguments already tripping out of her mouth, objections and worries stumbling over each other to get traction.
"You don't think you deserve some peace Hawke?" Merrill stroked the back of Hawke's neck and the warrior closed her eyes, enjoying the pleasure of the gentle Dalish fingers, "Thedas has the Inquisition now" she smiled, "You're off the hook"
The idea had an appeal that had never seemed tempting to Hawke before this moment. To drift away on an unknown breeze, lose the "Champion" title, surrender to tranquillity…her imagination alone was enough to loosen the vice grip that had tightened around her heart for so many years, trapping her in the confines of her own destiny. Merrill was right, Thedas did have this aura of fate about it, a history of disasters peppered with heroes who fell in the pursuit of righting its endless list of wrongs.
Hawke had given so much, only to lose what little she had cobbled together as a Ferelden refugee. Perhaps it was time to retake some dignity before it destroyed the both of them.
Hawke pushed up from Merrill's lap, a persistent stinging ravishing her eyes and regarded the Dalish woman face-on. But before she could fully consider the merits of such an existence and provide her with an answer, an overwhelming blast of exhaustion assaulted her, and her muscles seemed to spasm beneath her and fail, forcing Merrill to grab hold of her under her armpits.
"Hawke-" Merrill cried out, alarmed.
"I'm sorry…" Hawke murmured weakly, "I…"
"Hush…" Merrill guided Hawke back down onto the bed, and the human offered no resistance, "You are safe…Arla" Merill purred.
Hawke felt the soft cushioning of the familiar bed beneath her, which somehow seemed softer than it had over the many nights she had been here. A blissful absence of noise blanketed the usual insistent ringing in her sensitive ears, and her limbs gave way to indulgent relaxation. Hawke closed her eyes, and sleep took her as instantly as the violent snap of a high dragon's jaws. It mattered little that it was not night time; the need was too great.
Hawke closed her eyes, and everything became clear.
For the first night since the Fade, the nightmares didn't come.
Epilogue
They came one day, the human and the elf. The villagers could not tell you where they came from, only that the old house that lay slightly into the mountain rise was finally occupied again. Nobody knew quite how ownership had fallen to the newcomer, and when they asked, she would only say that a lot of people owed her favours.
The human was clearly of noble birth, the women of the village would gossip; clearly fallen from favour, or driven out in the mage rebellion, or the blight! Her clothes were too fine to be a commoner, her tone too proper, and turning up with an elven servant! She was used to power, they would whisper, and had fled now her name has been tarnished. The rumours began to evolve...perhaps some scandal? A tryst with a commoner? An affair with a king?
But it was instantly clear that the elf was no servant. One of the most influential women witnessed the human return to the elf one day with some simple flowers, and the look of pure adoration that beamed back from the tattooed knife-ear was unmistakable. Not only that, but the small patch of garden that had been barren began to flourish, and people swore on the Maker they saw the elf casting over the flower beds that sprang up. The whispering became more vicious, and children were shied away from the house of the disgraced noble and the Dalish mage.
Yet, the human was always polite, always paid her way. Whilst she clearly had a surplus of money left over from her old life, she presented herself as humble. She took manual labouring jobs, gave lessons to young men and women who wanted to train in combat. The more open-minded of the village grew to welcome her. She had a sense of distance about her, as if she was always looking out across an empty horizon that nobody else was able to see. She could sometimes be caught sat on a rock on the mountain rise, eyes soft and the wind buffeting her short hair in Thedas' strong winds.
Even the hardest of heart began to chip away at the relationship between the human and the elf; the gentle care that they bestowed on each other, the stolen moments; a hand held, a cheek stroked, a shoulder kissed. Their love had the delicacy that only strength allowed, beautiful architecture carved into the strongest foundations.
The stories began to shift as strange anomalies rocked the village: raider camps found decimated, strange visitors such as a roguish red-haired dwarf, or a Rivani Sea Captain, glimpses of weapons within the wooden walls of the house. Reports came in that the Champion of Kirkwall had once again vanished, taking her Blood Mage lover in tow. Could it be that the kind stranger on the hill was the vanquisher who had spearheaded Kirkwall's revolution? That the shy elf was a corrupted apostate?
But then they would catch the strong human gently attending to an animal, or quietly smiling to a curious child, or see the elf grin with the wonder at a passing butterfly, or calmly attend to her human when she was in a state of grief, and the suspicions dissipated like a melting glacier. It was impossible was it not? The Champion of the legends could not me so…human. A blood mage could not be anything but an abomination.
Yet no one could deny that those times were the safest the village had ever known.
Then one day, as if spirited by magic, they were gone. No traces left except the flourishing flowers in the elf's spreading garden, which never seemed to wither, even against the lashings of the relentless hand of Mother Nature.
They left behind only the whispers which circled like pollen, catching on the tongues of the generations and leaving a curious taste of mystery, all the more sweeter for never being solved.
