It never ends.
Clarissa felt an uncharacteristic stiffness lock every muscle in her body as she watched her right leg disappear into the green mist, her eyes trying their hardest to burn through the cloud with intensity alone. She knew it was folly to even attempt it, but it was the least she could do to curb the fear and anxiety rampaging through her, from freezing her solid.
You're wasting time, Clarissa. She shouted at herself mentally. It did little to encourage another step forward. She remembered the poison's hold on her all too clearly; remembered the sights and sounds the world around her being turned against her, mercilessly twisted and warped until every colour seemed shaded in crimson, every sound pounded in her skull and every thought embodying yet another tidal wave of fear and despair. She remembered feeling powerless; She remembered feeling alone.
Instinctively, she reached for the mental link that nestled deep within her mind, yet was never far from her thoughts. She yearned for its presence, craved the comfort it offered, even if its source was nowhere near at hand.
I can't do this alone, she cried out desperately with her thoughts, calling for help, for solace against an enemy that was destroying her from within.
It did not go unanswered.
And you don't have to. A voice rang from beyond the barriers of conscious thought, beseeching Clarissa to look deep inside herself, to feel the warm, golden glow at the core of her being, shining like the sun.
It felt like the first ray of sunshine, peeking out from under the horizon. Clarissa had never seen it before, but she was sure it was beautiful and powerful, heralding a new dawn.
She felt her heart beating, its rhythm no longer rushed and alien to her. She felt raw, unchecked power run through her veins, and she no longer felt the need to restrain them.
She took a deep breath, faintly aware of Bethany's spell upon her lips, safeguarding her. Tinges of the green haze tickled her nose, but she did not flinch from it. She was back in control.
Taking the hand-and-a-half hilt of her blade-and-a-half sword with a sure grip, she stepped fully into the inscrutable depths of Hightown. She left nothing to chance, making use of every sense at her disposal. She heard the sound of her boiled leather hunting boots rising and falling against the granite tiles, combining it with her measured strides to gauge distance.
"We need to head for the upper estates. I've seen humans and dwarves piling into an abandoned mansion just across from mine." Fenris said, his calm, even voice betraying nothing. Had he not spoken, Clarissa would have forgotten he was right behind her. A stray thought wished him away and Bethany to be at her side instead, but she brushed it away swiftly.
Bethy needs to look after Mother. She would benefit from a familiar face. She reminded herself, wondering at her mother's safety. The Saar Qumek had done little more than cause incredible fear in her and, perhaps luckily, her mother had not the ability to cause harm to herself and anyone else.
Focus.
Clarissa turned her thoughts towards a beacon of light somewhere in the distance, presumably the brass street lamp at the center of the courtyard. From there, it should be a sharp left up a flight of stairs to reach the upper estates.
"I wonder if the Viscount's Keep is drowning in Saar Qumek as well," Clarissa said, glancing at the telltale steps of the Viscount's Way, barely noticeable in the fog. Her gaze pierced the inch-thick stone walls and searched vainly for Aveline, her close friend and Captain of the Kirkwall City Guard. Kirkwall could surely use her help.
"The Keep is upwind. Even the Saar Qumek will have trouble getting there," Fenris muttered. She felt his eyes drilling into her back, feeling like something other than cold indifference. Something warmer. "I'm sure she's fine, Hawke."
"One shudders to imagine what cruel demise she has planned for those who would bring harm to the Guard Captain's city." Clarissa tossed a glance at Fenris and said theatrically, grinning, hoping he would not see the effort behind it.
Her smile was cut short when she heard another set of footsteps break the silence of the deserted streets, intruding upon the rhythm her boots had established. It did not bear the sharp, rasping clinks Clarissa associated with footwear of metal make, and nor did it sound like the hardened, solid leather boots mercenaries without a coffer of their own seemed to prefer, its impression not unlike the boiled leather hunting boots Clarissa had pulled on in her haste, whose footfalls were grounded and easily recognisable, with only the slightest whisper of leather stretching.
The footsteps in question were far softer, as if they were slapping the stone instead of walking on it. Had Clarissa not grown accustomed to keeping track of Fenris's barefooted movements behind her, she would have missed the telltale sign entirely, for it was still quite a ways from them.
The footsteps became heavier. She thought she heard it falter, losing stride.
The stairs.
Someone was descending the flight of stairs that led to the residential districts of Hightown and, judging from the information Fenris provided, odds were that he or she would be anything but friendly. Clarissa felt the familiar stirrings in her bones, dormant parts of her coming alive to the danger she perceived. She embraced it with what could be chanced as giddiness.
She brought her sword to chest height, the tip of her sword stabbing out at the green clouds obscuring her vision. Her steps slowed, not out of uncertainty but of caution. She heard Fenris draw his greatsword, a crude, plain ironwood warblade, from the clasp between his shoulders. Save for that, all was silent in Hightown.
But not for long.
A loud battle cry, rapid and indecipherable, echoed out from the green mist in front of Clarissa shortly before a feminine figure burst from them, one arm holding aloft the gleam of silver steel.
Clarissa sprang into action, but not before sizing up her assailant, and feeling it open a chasm, dividing her conscious thoughts.
She scanned her from top to bottom, noting first the wild, unkempt mane of milky blonde hair that flowed like a river behind her, driven to flight by her ferocity and given spirit by its twin counterparts of vibrant cobalt, alight with animalistic bloodlust.
She noted, with mounting, crippling indecision, her alabaster skin, high cheekbones and originally pursed lips wide open in a snarl.
Marion DeLauncet.
She felt the ghost of a smile touch her lips.
Her most hated rival, reduced to a mindless, feral beast whom she could sidestep, step backwards once and lay open from shoulder blade to pelvis? It was simply too good to be true.
And it would be in self-defense, no less.
But then her analytical gaze shifted to the loose-fitting, flowing chemise wrapped round the Orlesian noblewoman's chest and the sound of her bare feet pounding across hard granite, in stark contrast with what she held in her hands and in her glare, and she was suddenly at a loss.
She's poisoned!
She's defenseless!
Clarissa's mind scrambled for her to see reason, to look past her rivalry with her and hold fast to what she had been taught, not what she had learnt on her own.
Murder is murder, even if the sorry, washed-up coot you put out of his misery had done in more than his share of men and raped their wives, set fire to someone's farm and spat in the Maker's face.
Clarissa felt reason, and compassion, stay her hand. She remembered the old guardsman's lectures word for word. After all, he would only give them after he'd bounced Clarissa around with his bent, twisted makeshift wooden sword.
Maker be damned. Clarissa remarked drily, not trusting herself to show more emotion, lest her frustration override her goodwill and she put Marion DeLauncet down like the bitch she was.
The arm came arcing down, and Clarissa sidestepped nimbly, holding her broad blade flat at her side to grant the charging woman passage.
Fenris, catching on immediately, leapt at the crazed noblewoman from behind as she ended her charge and restrained her with strong, lyrium-addled arms.
"Cast the spell on her!" He grunted, clearly not in tune with this "capture intact" business, but Clarissa also detected something else in his tone - a hidden urgency she could place, but could not quite believe. She let it drop for the moment and strode calmly over to the entangled pair, Fenris turning round so that the struggling woman, cursing and screaming in rapid-fire Orlesian obscenities, faced her. It took her a few moments to remember the structure of Bethany's spell.
As she prepared to conjure the ward, Marion DeLauncet spat in her face.
Clarissa almost growled, her sword arm flexing, itching to lop off the ungrateful woman's head.
You're better than that. Her mind cautioned.
Marion DeLauncet glared at her with wild eyes and, for a split second, actually stopped in her bucking to observe Clarissa's contemplation.
"No..." Clarissa sighed, "just... no."
Her left arm, her bracer arm, rose from her side and drove into the noblewoman's left cheek, making her mailed fingers clink and coaxing a short-lived yelp.
Marion DeLauncet slumped, suddenly boneless, in Fenris's awkward embrace.
"I couldn't resist," Clarissa said nonchalantly when she saw Fenris staring at her. "I wonder if this whole poisoning Hightown is her taking Orlesian intrigue one giant step further."
Fenris shrugged, moving to set her down by the brass lamppost a few feet in front of them. Clarissa noticed his eyes never left the woman ostensibly in his arms.
"I doubt she would be as careless as to succumb to her own poison." He said, his words edgier, sharper than usual.
Such chivalry, too. Clarissa thought, mentally putting Fenris and Marion DeLauncet together and finding it quite the stomach-churner. But then again, she was biased.
"Agreed," Clarissa replied, reluctantly perishing the prospect.
"We're never that lucky."