As she left the Alienage, Merrill couldn't help but wonder if she would return.
She had made up her mind to do this, but she knew that determination would not necessarily protect her from winding up dead.
Allowing herself a wry smile, she clipped along the city streets that led toward the mountains. If she hurried, she might be able to make it to Sundermount before the dawn.
Preoccupied with her plans and actions, the elf turned a corner and ran headlong into a obstacle that yelped out in two voices as she went reeling.
"Ow," Merrill groaned, scrambling back to her feet. She didn't have time to be such a klutz!
"Merrill?" came a person's incredulous response.
The elf started at her name, looking more closely at the scene she'd just interrupted.
Aveline's eyes were wide, her cheeks flushed, and her hair ever so gently disheveled. When Merrill had run into them, the guard captain had jerked away, but her husband had been a bit slower to react. His arms were still wrapped around her hips, and he had a dazed look on his face.
Merrill felt her own cheeks begin to warm, and she put her hands over her eyes, wishing to unsee the whole scene. "I'm sorry."
"What are you doing out so late!" Aveline demanded, her voice flitting between octaves.
"Minding my own business," Merrill assured her, backing up blindly. "I'm sorry. I didn't see anything; I'll just be on my way—"
"'On your way' where?" the guard captain asked, starting to recover from her initial surprise.
Merrill cringed. The last thing she needed right now was for Aveline to try and talk her out of her decision... Or worse: attempt to follow along. "Um…" she fumbled, "just… away. It's fine. Have a good night."
"Merrill!" the woman called after her, slowing her escape. "Why do you have your staff with you? And what are you doing on this road? Are you heading out of the city?"
The elf's heart began to hammer as she tried to come up with a response.
"And for the love of Andraste," the red-haired soldier hissed, "stop covering your eyes. Donnic and I weren't... we aren't doing anything. Anymore."
Merrill lowered her hands, still hesitant to raise her gaze. "Right," she said. "I—I know. Um… sorry."
"What's going on?" Aveline prompted again.
By now, she'd stepped fully away from the tall man beside her.
Donnic had never really said two words to Merrill before, but he seemed like a nice person, and an... affectionate husband. He was clearly a decent soldier too, because he'd recovered his wits as well, and was watching Merrill speak with the discerning eye of someone accustomed to looking out for trouble.
"I… well… Yes," the elf stammered. "I am leaving. But only for a little while; I'll be back soon."
"You're going alone?" Aveline wondered. "Has Hawke asked you to meet him somewhere?"
"No. Actually," Merrill clipped, feeling her chest constrict. "He's sent me away. Said he doesn't want to see me anymore."
The guard captain frowned, and Merrill cursed herself internally. Aveline didn't need to know that; it was only going to make her more nosy.
"I don't understand—," the woman began to say.
"It's nothing," the elf cringed, edging farther up the road. "Forget I said anything; I don't want to talk about it. Please… goodnight."
"But where are you going?"
"Just to Sundermount," Merrill groaned, hoping the woman would be satisfied with that answer and leave her alone.
No such luck. "Back to the Dalish?
"The clan will be long gone by now," Merrill said, averting her eyes. "I'm just going to look around. I want to see if they left something behind."
"Are you sure that's wise?" Aveline followed her a few paces. "At night, and by yourself? Wouldn't you rather have company?"
"I want to be alone," Merrill insisted. She turned her shoulders, and increased her speed. "Just leave me alone, Aveline!"
The guard captain watched the elf run away, surprised and concerned to see her friend acting so strange.
She would not have been necessarily astounded to hear that Hawke had lashed out against one of the rest of them, but it bothered Aveline that he may have done so to Merrill.
That sort of behavior didn't match up with the man who'd carried the unconscious elf halfway across the city to get her away from danger, nor the man who'd pressed the same elf into her arms—a frantic look in his eye as he distracted a raging warlord from Merrill's cries of dissent.
"My love?" Donnic murmured beside her, wishing to know her thoughts.
"I don't like this," she told him, trying to put together the pieces. "I don't like this at all."
"What do you want to do?"
She peered into his eyes, feeling a surge of gratitude, and a deeper urging she would have to satisfy later on. Her husband made it easy to slide between her public and private roles. In their intimate lives, they were equal and balanced, and in the field, he trusted and respected her lead. She didn't know what she'd done to be so lucky. Both in Wesley and Donnic, she'd only ever known good men.
"Finish up the patrol without me…" she directed, brushing her fingertips against the back of his hand. "There's something I want to investigate."
He nodded. "Shall I look for you at home?"
"Yes," she said, turning her feet toward Hightown. "But it might be awhile. I could very well get roped into one of Hawke's 'quests'."
…
The door to the Champion's manor did not open until Aveline had pounded on it several separate times. She could see the unmistakable glow of the hearth through the windows, and did not understand where the mage got off—trying to pretend like no one was home.
When the entrance finally did give way, Hawke's dwarven manservant held the crack only wide enough for his nose to poke through.
"Guard Captain?" he wondered. "It's the middle of the night."
He seemed to have no intention of letting her in, but Aveline would be damned if she let him turn her away. This whole ordeal was smelling fishier by the second, and her instincts were screaming that something dangerous was afoot.
She leaned her full strength into the door, plowing the dwarf backwards, even as he attempted to dig in his heels. "I know, Bodahn" she said. She let the wood close behind her as she helped the man to his feet. "And I'm sorry. But where is Hawke? I must speak with him immediately."
The dwarf danced around her as she started into the main living area. He kept trying to catch her arms, or get in front of her strides, but she struggled past him, determined to see whatever he was trying to keep hidden.
"He's asleep, serah," the dwarf pleaded. "And he is not well. I really must protest any intrusion!"
With a final effort, Aveline shoved her way into the grand hall.
Hawke was seated right there, beside the fire—very much awake. She'd expected as much, but she was surprised to find that Anders was there also, seemingly examining Hawke's old Deep Roads' wound.
When she'd entered, the blond mage had turned towards her. His step had put him in the way of her gaze, blocking her view as Hawke replaced the dark bandage he kept coiled over his injured eye.
The man did not stand to greet her, but he did nudge Anders to the side after he'd retied his covering, and leaned into the light so she could better see his face.
"It's all right, Bodahn," Hawke told his flustered housekeeper. "Whatever she has to say is clearly important. I'll listen to her speak."
"What is going on here?" Aveline frowned, glancing between the three of them, and not understanding how their behavior made any kind of sense.
Hawke sounded exhausted. He sounded bone-weary—like he'd just tried to carry Sundermount on his shoulders, and then sprinted the length of the Wounded Coast a few times for good measure. He looked gaunt and pale. Beside him, even Anders looked more than a sheet of a man, and she had not seen the healer look healthy since long before the qunari revolt.
Marro was lying on top of Hawke's feet, and the dog's saffron glare matched Anders' scowl almost perfectly. Both of them shot daggers at her; looking for all the world like Hawke's condition was somehow her fault.
"W-What did you say to Merrill?" Aveline continued, not allowing herself to be shaken.
"This can wait until later," Anders snapped. "Hawke needs rest, and some time alone to—"
"…Why?" the man in question asked, interrupting whatever the healer had been about to rant.
Confused about which foreboding conversation to pursue, Aveline answered the Champion, "I just saw her. She was leaving the city."
A shadow flickered across Hawke's face, but then he looked away from her, and down to his hands. "That is for the best."
"You don't mean that," Aveline responded, annoyed. The way the man had interpreted her words seemed to imply that he thought Merrill wouldn't be returning. And he seemed to be convincing himself that that was fine.
"I do," Hawke said, looking back up. "If that was all you wanted to say, then I bid you goodnight."
"Hawke!"
Anders intercepted her when she tried to get closer to the man. She shook him off, glaring between the mages and wondering if they'd both gone insane.
"Well, if you won't go after her," she snapped, "I will."
"Leave her be," Hawke rejected, his voice hard.
"No," Aveline spat. "No, I won't. This whole scene reeks of something wicked, and I won't let someone I care about wander off to their death while I can save them."
She spun on her heel, but Hawke called out to stop her before she could leave. "What do you mean, 'to their death'?"
"Merrill said she was going back to Sundermount," the guard captain growled at him.
"If the Dalish are still there," Hawke said, "they won't hurt her." The shadow has settled back over his features, adding a haunted edge to his exhaustion.
"She wasn't looking for the Dalish," Aveline explained. "She told me point-blank she didn't expect them to be there; she told me she was going back to look for something else. Alone, and armed, in the middle of the night."
Hawke watched her closely for a moment, thinking, and then a slow realization seemed to come over him. She would not have thought he had any color left to lose, but his uncovered eye went wide, and she may have well been talking to a corpse.
"…She wouldn't do that," he breathed.
"Do what?" Aveline prodded, shaken by his uncharacteristic reaction. "Whatever it is you're thinking about, this is Merrill. And you know as well as I do that she very well would."
Hawke rose to his feet.
She'd been able to tell he was tired from the way he'd looked, and had been speaking, but she still was unprepared for the wavering way in which he attempted to stand.
Anders scurried to help him, and then tried to force the man to sit back down.
"You can't do this right now," the blond mage protested, as Hawke struggled against his grip. "You absolutely can't."
"I have to," Hawke snarled, somehow succeeding in pushing the man away.
"I don't understand what's going on," Aveline frowned. "Hawke, are you ill?'
"Summon Fenris and Isabella," Hawke commanded Bodahn behind her, ignoring her question. "Tell them to meet me at the city gate."
The dwarf all but disappeared, scrambling to complete the request as fast as he could.
"I'll come too," Aveline volunteered.
"And me," Anders supplied.
Hawke shook his head, aggressive. "It has to be them."
Now that he was standing, he seemed a bit more steady on his feet. He crossed to the table by the door to collect his staff.
She expected him to strap it to his back, but instead he flipped it so that the long bladed end stuck up straight above his head. The modest decoration at what-was-usually the top clicked along the wood floor as he used the staff like a walking stick.
"You cannot go without me," Anders scoffed, watching the man hobble towards the door. "You'll collapse before you make it out of Hightown."
"Fine," Hawke growled.
"But not you," he insisted when Aveline tried to trail him as well.
She flared up, insulted. "Why not?"
Hawke turned to face her fully, and she took an unconscious step backwards to escape the strange glow in his eye.
"Because Merrill has gone to deal with a demon." His voice was a rasping whisper that made goosebumps rise on her skin. "And I am at the limits of my self-control. If this goes poorly, I will need executioners to take care of the mess.
Can I count on you to do that again?"
His question hung between them, and she couldn't answer it. She felt the ghost of Wesley's hands on her own, and her gut churned with the memory of the start to a life she'd extinguished with a torturous thrust of her sword.
Around her, Anders and Hawke gathered their things.
She heard the door to the manor open and shut as they departed, but she did not leave herself for a very long time.