Evening found Merrill back in her own hovel.
She'd lit a small fire in the hearth when she'd returned from the caves, but now only embers remained. A thick wax candle on the table in the main room served as the only other source of light in the tiny shack.
She sat alone in the near dark, digging the tip of arulin'holm into the tabletop. The carving tool's blade was etched in ruins similar to the ones that lined the edge of the Eluvian, and Merrill still had no idea what they meant.
She did know that the chisel was able to carve through the thin wood of the old table with hardly any effort, and if she'd been thinking clearly she might have been upset about the damage she was doing. But her mind was fevered. Her hands felt like they were not her own. Her actions were outside of her ability to control.
There was a rattling sound at the front of the room, and then her door swung inwards. She started, jumping to her feet, and wiping tears from her cheeks.
"Oh. Hawke," she said. She cleared her throat. "I'm sorry. Come in. I should have assumed you'd come by."
"If you weren't expecting me, why was your door open?"
She didn't hear him. Half-heartedly, she began to try and tidy up the stacks of books and papers on her table. She noticed the deep gashes on the wood surface for the first time and quickly put a tome on top of them, hoping that Hawke had not seen.
"Why is my house always such a mess when I have visitors?" she mumbled sheepishly.
She grimaced a smile in Hawke's direction. "Just let me—"
"You are still dwelling on the death of that elf," he muttered. The man had closed the door by then, and moved to stand by the entrance to her bedroom. He leaned there in the shadows against the wall, his arms crossed.
Merrill's head snapped up at his words, irritated and ashamed to be so blatantly called out. "'Dwelling' is a rather harsh word for it," she retorted. "But yes; I am still upset. I've known Pol since I was a child."
She could see the glint of Hawke's eye as it continued to watch her face, but she couldn't make out a shred of sympathy in his expression through the darkness. "You pursue power, Merrill," he told her. "His death will not be the last on your path."
"I don't pursue power," she corrected, "I pursue knowledge. It's completely different."
"In this matter, it isn't," he insisted. "The Eluvian is corrupted by powerful magic. It can kill. Restoring it will come at some cost."
"And what makes you think that cost hasn't already been paid?" she demanded. Her hands clenched tightly into fists.
Hawke's tone was infuriating. She was a mage too. He was not the only one who understood the Fade and its consequences.
"I know better than you how dangerous the mirror is, Hawke," she continued, coming out from around the table. "It killed two members of my clan before the last Blight, right in front of my eyes. All they did was touch it! That was it, and then they were dead. There was nothing that I could do for them."
"But you were able to touch the mirror safely last night," she reminded him. "And that is because of my work. Since that time I have personally made the sacrifices that enabled you to examine the Eluvian without coming to harm. The mirror is bound to me now, and if it's going to exact a 'cost' of anyone, the burden is going to be mine, and mine alone."
Hawke was quiet for several seconds before responding. When he did speak, his voice was hard. "You are naïve, Merrill."
Her temper flared. "I am not!"
"There is always collateral damage where demons are involved," Hawke warned her. "If you cannot understand that, then you should abandon this endeavor right now."
"I will not," she shouted. "I will fix the mirror, and I will do it while keeping everyone safe."
"What about today made you think that you can keep anyone safe?" he challenged.
Merrill raked her fingers through her hair, furious and trying frantically to keep from bursting back into tears. "Oh leave me alone, Hawke!" she bellowed, "Just because you couldn't save Carver—"
The words had hardly passed through her lips before she slapped her hand over them. That was too far. Angry as she was, she knew that bringing up his brother's death in this context was crossing a line Hawke would not forgive.
She only needed to look at the man to know that she'd censored her words too late.
Hawke's whole body had gone ridged. His expression was frozen on his face, but there was a feral gleam in his uncovered eye that Merrill had never seen before. Her whole body went cold.
"T-that was uncalled for," she stammered. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean—I just—I got angry, and I—"
"I was not strong enough to save my brother," Hawke hissed, straightening. His voice was so soft she had to strain to hear him, but she perceived clearly the vitriol that coated his tone. "And whatever abilities I have gained since then," he continued, "I am still not strong enough to save you from your own stupidity."
He moved away from the wall then, and started towards the exit with sure, steady strides. Panic burbled up from Merrill's belly. In her heart was the inexplicable, yet certain, fear that if he walked through her door the way things were, she would never see him again.
"N-no, Hawke, wait!" she sputtered, scrambling forward to catch hold of his arm. "Please don't leave!"
He slapped her hands away.
Desperate, she hurled herself against the door when he tried to open it. "Please!" she pleaded. The door slammed closed with a crack. "I'm sorry! I'm so, so sorry. Please…."
Warm tears slid down over her cheeks, and she tried to scrub them away as she turned 'round against the wood to face him. She held the doorknob behind her back with both hands, almost willing that the door itself would disappear.
She'd rather be trapped there forever than watch him go.
Without Hawke and the others she would have nothing. No home, no friends, no clan, no purpose.
The thought—on top of Pol's death, and everything else—was more than she could bear.
He stood, unyielding, before her. His ferocious gaze continued to spit fire at her face, but he didn't speak. She wondered fleetingly if maybe she'd made him so upset that he'd actually hurt her to get her out of the way.
"…You bait demons you do not understand," he told her finally. His voice was strained.
She thought about the demon he'd shown her in the Eluvian, and she shook her head, miserable. "I'm not trying to," she moaned. "I'm trying to be careful. But that's why I need your help, Hawke. I can't take back what I said, but I'll do whatever I can to make it up to you."
When he said nothing, she continued, "I just was upset and out of sorts. There's no excuse; I know that. But I truly didn't mean to hurt you. Please forgive me. Please stay."
His eye widened. "Hurt me?" he said, incredulous.
"Haven't I?" she responded. Her shoulders shivered against the door.
"Pol was not my brother by blood," she whispered, "but he was family, and what I started to say to you about Carver's death is an unfair comparison to the guilt that I feel for Pol's."
"I have spent the last few hours wishing I had been stronger," she murmured, not even sure if her thoughts were still making coherent sense. "If so, Pol might have lived. That's how I have been thinking. But what you were telling me is that 'wishing' won't change anything, and it was cruel of me to have lashed out against that realism in the way that I did."
Hawke shifted his weight, and Merrill chanced a look at his face. The man's glare had sunk towards the floor. She could still see tension in his jaw, but some of the rigidity in his shoulders had ebbed.
"I promise I'll do better," she ventured. "I promise I'll honor my limitations, and I'll listen to your warnings and advice. Truly. I swear."
Hawke's eye peered back upward to search her expression. She swallowed hard, praying to every god she knew that he would locate whatever it was he was trying to find.
"Will you forgive me?" she asked. Her voice emerged hardly louder than a squeak.
He closed his eye and sighed.
The relief that swelled through her was so forceful she thought it might lift her from her feet. Without thinking she tumbled forward. Her hands caught onto Hawke's tunic, and she rested her forehead against his chest.
"Thank you," she breathed.