I arrived home a short time later, after a lovely evening stroll. Upon entering the estate, I was greeted by Bodahn.

"Good evening messere. I trust your day went well?"

I nodded, thanking him for his inquiry and asked after his own day. He responded in kind and, as I made to check my desk for letters or notes, his next question stopped me.

"Have you seen Lady Leandra?"

I froze, turning to look at him. "No, why do you ask?"

"She..." he frowned, shaking his head. "She didn't come home last night."

"Maybe she stayed at Gamlen's," I suggested, turning back around to search the papers.

"...I...I thought she was leaving to meet a suitor."

I stopped, dropping the letter in my hand and spun again. "What?"

"She received flowers yesterday afternoon and said there was a note, that she should be back by dinner."

"Dinner today or dinner yesterday?"

"I thought yesterday, messere."

My heart seemed to stop beating. Flowers.

He sends them white lilies before he takes them.

"What kind of flowers, Bodahn?"

"Why...white lilies, I believe."

"For the love of Andraste!" I made for the door and stopped short, moving back to Bodahn. "Stay here, in case she comes back, do you hear me? Get a messenger and send a letter to Gamlen, just to make sure she isn't there. Whatever you do, do not leave."

His face had grown pale but he nodded vehemently. I ran from the house and into the street. Directly into Aveline.

"Hawke, I have-"

"My mother, she's not home."

If I had been speaking in any other tone, Aveline would have questioned why my statement was so important.

"I've found Gascard – he was sighted in Darktown."

White lilies and Gascard DuPuis. I was going to wring his neck.

"I'll go through the cellar, Aveline. I'll get Anders and find that rat. You go to the Hanged Man and find Varric, Isabella if he's drunk. Meet me...oh Maker, Aveline," I stopped and took a second to breathe, shaking my head. "Meet me at the Darktown entrance to Lowtown, all right? Be there as fast as you can."

My blood had turned to ice but knowing that I would have Aveline with me helped some. She wasted no time, taking off at a run in the direction of the Hanged Man.


It was barely two minutes before I was in the clinic. I burst in without notice and found Anders dozing on one of his chairs.

"Anders. Come on, I need you." He stirred a little and I drew closer. "Anders! My mother is missing, get up!"

Startled, he jumped from his relaxed position. Blue glowed briefly but dissipated just as fast. Grabbing his staff, he moved towards me. "What? Where are we going?"

"To find the blood mage that lied to me," I spat and turned, making my way out of the clinic. It was not, perhaps, the most effective thing to go around screaming the name of the DuPuis man, but it is what I did.

Eventually I found him, mostly because I roused everyone from their slumber and they wanted the man found so that I would shut up. With nearly the whole of Darktown searching him out, I discovered him in no time.

"You," I seethed, jerking him to his feet by the collar of his shirt. "White lilies. Sent to my mother. That...that thing, the one that took those women...he has her, I know it. You said you could use blood magic to find Alessa. Try."

Anders voiced his concern and I shot him a look that threatened more than words could. Gascard agreed, however, and I thrust both mages out towards Lowtown.

Aveline and Varric were waiting for us when we arrived. The dwarf looked up to our tagalong and gave me a questioning stare.

"Don't look at me like that. He is going to help me find my mother. I'll atone for my sins when she's safe."

"Get on with it then," Varric prodded Gascard with Bianca and he proceeded to do as he was told. In no time at all, he was leading us about Lowtown.

"I don't like this," Varric mumbled from beside me as we trudged the streets of Lowtown. Soon, the Foundry in which we had located the remains of the other women months before came into view. I felt as though I would vomit.

I pushed passed Gascard and kicked the handle from the door, shoving my way through it as if it didn't weigh at least twice as much as I did. There was blood.

So much blood.

We searched and searched, memories of the day we went searching for Ninette playing through my mind. We happened upon a trap door that had been hidden the last time.

"Someone got sloppy," Varric pointed out the entrance and down we went.

Blood magic, most definitely. Shades, skeletons, demons. They came at us with every step. It was not long before we found the body of Alessa, her hair bleached an unnatural white. She was most definitely dead.

"I told you," Gascard pointed at the body, aghast. That he had. The poor woman.

We found many more things on our search, no matter how hurried I was, that made me move all the faster. There was a sinking feeling in my stomach and it seemed to be sucking in my soul. On we pushed, until we came upon a room that seemed to be a makeshift bedroom. Above a false fireplace sat a portrait of my mother.

"Mother?" I questioned the air, approaching it. I shook my head. It was not a younger Leandra, though the resemblance was uncanny. My hands were numb from my grip on the hilts of my daggers. I turned away sharply and moved in the direction that we had not gone. "We have to find her."

Not one hundred paces after, near a corner, something glittered in the light that Anders' staff gave off. I dropped to my knees and dug through the dirt, picking up a thin gold chain that ended in a familiar heart-shaped locket.

"This is my mother's," I gasped, pocketing it and standing immediately. "Move."

We spoke very little as we moved with haste until the tunnel ended. It opened up into a dirty, dark room in which there was a man and a chair. I could see feminine shoulders and a head cloth.

"Mother?" I breathed, stepping forward.

"You must be Marion," the man spoke. "I was beginning to wonder when you would show up. Leandra was so sure you would come for her. And Gascard, what a pleasant surprise!"

My eyes slid to the Orlesian mage beside me. He looked uncomfortable.

"A pleasant surprise to meet the man whose sister you murdered?"

"Sister?" he queried, laughing. "I know nothing of a sister. Gascard was my apprentice. Oh, Gascard, when my wife died, I could not... I was not right to teach you. Now, though! Join me, Gascard. You will learn all that you've ever wanted, and so much-"

Without warning, Gascard fell to his knees in front of me. From the back of his neck protruded the end of one of Varric's bolts.

The dwarf approached and jerked his accessory free, looking up at me with a question on his lips. "You were going to do the same thing, right?"

"You hit the wrong one," I snorted, trying to remember to breathe. With the lying sack of nug feces out of my way, I returned my attention to the man that had stolen my mother.

"Give her back," I demanded, taking a step.

"I am sorry to tell you that is not possible. Your mother was chosen because she was special. She is part of something greater, now."

"You're insane. If you let me have my mother back, I'll make sure that you die quickly."

"I have done the impossible," he began, looking back towards the chair. He seemed, mostly, to be ignoring me. The shoulders behind the chair back jerked a little. "I have touched the face of the Maker and lived! Do you know what the strongest force in the universe is, child? Love. I pieced her together from memory-"

I was going to vomit. I felt the bile rise in my throat. I stumbled forward, the monster's back turned.

"-I found her eyes, her hands, her skin, her delicate fingers...And at last! Her face. Oh, this beautiful face." He was standing on the other side of the chair then, his hand gone behind the wall that the back of the chair created. The hair cloth tilted back, as I imagine the head did. "I've searched far and wide to find you again, beloved. And no force in all of Thedas will separate us now!"

As he spoke, he bade the figure to rise. Rise it did. From the back, I could see a pieced-together white dress. As the figure rose, I noted the delicate crown that held back a wedding veil.

At the end of his speech, the figure turned.

I dropped to my knees and wretched, the sight of my mother's face, eyes clouded with death, burning into my mind. Before I could stand, the murderous retch was casting his magic, raising skeletons from the ground beneath us. One grabbed my ankle and I whirled, ripping my dagger from its sheath and severing the bone near the elbow. I was on my feet in an instant. I made no move for the demon that had appeared at the blood mage's call, nor towards the skeletons. My companions, behind me now, unleashed upon the once-dead.

I was in a frenzy. I rushed the man that had taken my mother from me and beat relentlessly against the shield that he had cast. I heard Aveline, Anders, and Varric calling my name as they fought off the onslaught of demons and undead.

My hearing seemed to cease, my vision narrowed. All I saw was the beast before me, dressed as a man. He could not hold his protection forever.

I waited. From within the bubble that he guarded himself with he could cast no spells. He imagined that the minions he had raised would destroy us. I stifled a laugh at the thought. Already I knew the first wave was decimated.

It fell. The barrier, it was gone. Before I could think or before he could speak, I pushed. I led into him with my shoulder. I had never been inexplicably strong, but in that moment I knocked a fully grown man back to the wall. With both daggers in hand, I raised my arms. I was too quick for him, this agility beyond anything I had known myself capable of before that night. The points of my weapons pierced his palms, pinning him to the crumbling wood behind him. The demons, as they fell, echoed his scream.

Finding the dagger that Cullen had given me, the one my mother was so proud of (it was lovely, she had said, though she would have preferred him to give me a ring), I drew it to his throat.

"I am going to kill you," I spoke, my voice so guttural that I did not even recognize it. The look of terror on his face did not phase me. "I am going to make you bleed for these women, you rotten, worthless piece of flesh."

As I sliced the dagger down his torso, deep enough to harm but not so much to kill him outright, I heard the din of the battle die behind me. I imagine that my friends were looking on in terror. The thought did not cross my mind at the time.

A slash across, and then another. He was criss-crossed with them, deep gashes that would eventually cause him to bleed out.

The maleficar had the audacity to plead with me.

"You ask for my mercy," I laughed, a terrible sound, as I tightened the hand I used to grip his throat. I could not risk him casting a spell with so much spilled blood. I made sure he could breathe enough to stay conscious. "Did my mother beg? The others? You soulless, despicable monster. You will die alone."

I heard the approach before I felt the hand on my shoulder. I whipped about with the dagger and nearly caught Aveline's throat.

"Do. Not. Touch. Me." I growled out and I knew I looked crazed from the fear in her eyes. It did not calm me.

When I spun back to the murderer, his face was drained of blood, his eyelids drooping. They rose in shock and dismay at the sight of my face again.

"I would cut out your heart," I leaned closer, the edge of my blade pressing to the wound I had already created in his stomach, "but I do not believe you have one." In I pushed, twisting the hilt back and forth. Despite what little air I allowed him, his screams resounded throughout the dark room.

"Varric, pin him to the wall," I demanded. Without hesitation, bolts appeared in the dying bastard's shoulders. I removed and made to sheath my daggers, only to find that I had ruined their holds. I threw my weapons to the ground, turning back towards my companions. As I did so, the sight of the figure that had taken my mother's face fell into my vision. It approached me and, within arms' reach, collapsed. Without thinking, I gathered it into my arms. Her.

Pulling her into my lap, I brushed her hair aside. I was covered in blood, none of it my own. It got onto her dress.

"Mother?" My voice was choked. I was suddenly very, very tired. I cradled her head in the hand that did not stroke her face. Something wet dripped onto the grayed skin. It was not blood.

Anders came to stand behind me and, his voice quiet, he spoke. "There is nothing I can do, Marion...His magic was keeping her alive." My gaze shifted to the slumped form of Quentin. Yes, he had a name. He did not deserve it. He was dead, now. Too quickly.

The lips moved. My mother's lips moved and her voice, frail, echoed in my ears.

"I knew you would come."

"Mother," more wetness. "Mother, I'll save you.. I promise-"

"Shh," she cooed, "Don't fret, darling. You have saved me from...a..an existence with that man. Now, my sweet child, I can be with your father. And Carver. And your grandparents. Oh...but you will be alone.

"Don't," I started, but my voice betrayed me. A sob escaped where there should have been words. "...Don't worry about me, Mother. I'll be fine."

"My little girl," her voice was weaker, growing moreso with each word. "has become so strong. I love you, Marion. You have always made me pro...ud..."

Her head fell back and I wailed, "Mother!" She did not respond. My back curved as I leaned over her, still holding her tight in my lap. The tears, though, would not come.

We were like that for some time, no sound but four of us breathing. Eventually, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I did not turn on Aveline, then.

"Hawke." Her voice was soft, tender. I nodded, slowly. Gently and with the utmost care, as if she were a newborn, I set the mangled body of my dead mother on the dirty ground. Anders on one side and Aveline on the other, I stood. I leaned into the redhead and turned my gaze to the mage. "Burn her."

His eyes widened and he looked beside me, to Aveline, and then to Varric. Both tilted their heads down once in agreement.

"I want no trace of this magic. If I could, I would have you burn this whole accursed building," I hissed, barely able to stand. My knees felt as though they would give out at any moment. My stomach was in my throat.

Doing as I had asked – more, told – Anders drew up a fireball into the palm of his hand. He bent his knees and knelt beside my mother, setting fire to her with a gently caress of her shoulder. The flames reflected in my eyes until there was nothing left.


Author's Note: There are some game lines here, so here's an extra disclaimer: NOT MINE.