A/N: This chapter involves an in-game quest (A New Path) and canon events. There are numerous major/minor spoilers as well as dialogue from the game itself. You have been warned. I will also say that I have taken some artistic license with some of the details of this quest.
My apologies in advance for the drawn out combat scenes. Feel free to skim.
"Just give me a life to bleed
Another world outside that's full of
All the awful things that I made.
'Cause we are the last disease
Another broken life that's full of
All the awful things that I made."
-Professional Griefers (feat. Gerard Way), deadmau5
"Hawke?" It was Aveline's voice trembling through the cool, morning air of Sundermount. The name bore repeating twice more before Hawke's attention was successfully caught. Looking up, she glanced forward towards the others. Aveline stood at the head of the party now, her sword still slightly bloodied from the entrails of bandits, and an expression of concern on her face as she glanced towards where Hawke was standing. She was positioned well behind the rest of them, having found a scroll alongside the trail and become immersed in the perusal of it. Admittedly, Hawke had not truly been studying the text emblazoned on the scroll whilst the others drew ahead of her. There was a notch, she saw, in the parchment that looked as though it had been chewed away by rats. With the scroll unfolded in her hand, she had absently stared at the small bite marks. She'd begun to imagine some anonymous rat, scurrying up to the rolled scroll and, with yellowing teeth, peeling away some of the paper before running off to add that gathered scrap to the nest it was building for its small, pink babies. This had been happening to her mind of late. Increasingly, she was finding it difficult to focus on any one thing in particular without her thoughts drifting off to some far away, imaginary place. Her companions, she knew, were beginning to be concerned for her. They were, she had to own, not without cause to worry.
Drawing up towards the others, tucking the scroll away, Hawke made a concerted effort to smile. "Sorry. I got distracted." Placing her hand on Merrill's shoulder, she added, "But rest assured that I am still fully committed to helping you achieve your goals."
"That makes one of us," murmured Aveline from ahead, turning and beginning to walk once more towards the camp that lay ahead. It was well concealed amongst these hillsides, having shifted throughout the years as the wild elves continued to evade any humans that might object to the proximity of a Dalish camp. The paths that wove through the foothills, leading through narrow crevasses and over steep inclines, were barely detectable to the untrained eye. Only a person intent on finding the Dalish would ever be likely to do so when their trails were so discreet. It was necessary for the elves to be careful when the threat of the nearby humans was continual. Even as she and her companions made their way up the mountainside, Hawke was well aware that there were likely to be many arrows trained on them. She had only even been able to traverse this landscape in relative safety because Keeper Marethari had explicitly requested it.
As they moved onwards, Hawke's eyes flickered upwards to where she caught sight of a lone bird flying in circles overhead. A hawk, if she could venture a guess based on its wingspan. It cried out, its plaintive shriek breaking across the landscape. Turning her eyes down once more, Hawke shook her head. The day was bleak. As they drew upwards to higher altitudes, the air was growing colder and the clouds overhead seemed to be becoming evermore dark and heavy. Not far off, she could hear the rumbling sound of thunder that gave her little hope that the storm would pass by them. Around them, the evergreen trees shook in the wind, their needles whispering as they chafed against one another. Hawke listened intently, trying to make words of the rustling. His name was like the sound of wind rushing over stone; she heard it everywhere and often.
It was apparent that they were drawing near to the camp when, after dipping through an area of denser trees, the flags of the Sabrae Clan could be seen erected beside the path. It was a sign, Hawke expected, that the pride of the clan was greater than their desire to be completely hidden within the wilderness. In all likelihood, most humans who made it far enough to lay eyes on these banners would not live long afterwards. Hawke strode forward, pulling up alongside Aveline before stopping abruptly in front of one of the banners. Its fabric was pulled taut, filled by the invisible pressure of the chilling wind. The emblem, ivory-hued on a field of faded vermillion, had never struck Hawke's notice much before that day. She had always careened forward, walking undaunted into the camp in pursuit of whatever it was that she sought. Today, she stared into the empty, hollowed eyes of the halla's skull and felt as though those empty sockets looked back at her. She knew the value of the halla; the importance it had to the Dalish. When it faded, their way of life faded with it. The elves and the halla were connected, dependent, and intertwined. She wondered how it felt for this clan now that they were robbed of that which had been so much a part of their lives for so long. They must feel as lost and hollow as the empty, staring eyes of their sigil.
"Hawke?" It was Varric this time, walking beside her and lightly nudging her with his elbow.
She'd done it again; she'd allowed her mind to wander and her demeanor to alter enough that her companions noticed. It was difficult to avoid when their attention was as focused on her as it had been of late. They were always watching, searching for signs that she was crumbling and they never had to search for long. Hawke felt a small pang whenever she knew that she was causing them to worry, but those small twinges of guilt were so insignificant within the already howling choir of her remorse that she found it altogether too easy to relapse into melancholia.
Shaking her head, she smiled again. "Sorry, Varric. I guess I lost myself again. Funny how that keeps happening, isn't it?"
He indulged her with the merest of smiles. "Well, I'm not clutching my sides with laughter yet, but if it makes you chuckle then who am I to question it? It's good to see you out of the house, anyway. And bathed, judging from the sudden absence of that musky odor you were developing for a while there."
Hawke nodded, fidgeting with the dry, splitting ends of her hair. "It was getting about time to wash. Even my mabari was beginning to judge me."
Varric let out a slight bark of laughter. "Well, your canine friend does have a discerning nose." Then, eyes drifting over her, Varric added, with a hint of concern creeping cautiously into his tone, "Though you might have let Blondie heal some of those bruises. They look… uncomfortable."
In the short time that had passed since Fenris had left, the bruises on Hawke's throat had only grown darker. Though the light specks of blood from the burst capillaries had faded from her cheeks within the first day, the marks on her throat had deepened to a shade that was almost black. Blossoming outwards from those dark epicenters were deep bruises of scarlet and purple that were very much shaped like two hands encircling Hawke's throat. Anders had offered to heal them, of course, but she had not allowed it or any other erasure of the markings Fenris had left. "I wanted to keep them," murmured Hawke, looking away from Varric and off towards the camp. She could feel his eyes on her, feel the growing concern in them as he looked at her. She had spoken to none of them about what she had done to Fenris or about what he had done to her in return, but she had little doubt in her mind that Anders had shared some of the more intriguing details with the others. Varric and the others pried no further into the matter and she divulged nothing new. Still, she often caught them staring at her neck. She supposed that she couldn't blame them. Anxiously, she toyed with her robes, pulling the sleeves down over her wrists. "Let's go," said Hawke, lifting her head and addressing all of her companions. She heard Varric let out a little sigh, as if he were frustrated with Hawke's resistance to share her inner turmoil with the others, but Aveline and Merrill only nodded and began to head round the bend into the camp.
As they walked together past the aravels and into the clearing that the Dalish used as their central gathering place, Hawke felt the sharp eyes of the elven hunters following their every motion. It was not an atypical welcome, given that the Dalish were uneasy around humans and not particularly easy around Merrill either. Merrill, who walked at Hawke's side, tilted her head down slightly as if avoiding the gaze of her clansmen would somehow make her less aware of their cold eyes. Her training with the Keeper had always made Merrill distant from the rest of her people and her use of blood magic had ensured that she would never find comfort among her clan. Hawke frowned slightly, glancing towards Master Ilen as he shook his head and went back to organizing the tidy heaps of his wares.
As the ground of the clearing turned upwards, lifting up into the steeper inclines of the mountain, two branching paths led off into the wilderness. In the light undergrowth of the forest, the slightest trails had been worn from the frequent use of the hunters. Hawke herself had often come to Sundermount throughout the years, but was unaware which of these two paths would lead to the demon of which Merrill had spoken. In truth, it seemed odd to Hawke that the Dalish would have made their temporary settlement in a place where the Veil was so thin and where there was a demon trapped not far from where the elves lay their heads to rest each night. "Which way?" asked Hawke, glancing over towards Merrill.
Merrill's expression had hardened slightly as she gazed up ahead and, when Hawke followed Merrill's eyeline, she saw why. Just beside the trailhead that rose most steeply into the mountains, stood the Keeper. Her large eyes were turned to them, watching their movements with a resolute expression that told Hawke that they would be unlikely to pass by her without at least some passing conversation. Clearly, that idea was bringing Merrill no pleasure at a time like this. "So… past the Keeper then?" asked Hawke, to which Merrill nodded grimly, her hands twitching against the verdant cloth of her tunic. Hawke sighed, looking back towards the Keeper and beginning to make her way towards the path. "No point putting off the inevitable," she muttered as the others trailed after her.
"Welcome home, da'len," the Keeper said, her greeting summoning them over to her.
"This isn't a homecoming, Keeper," replied Merrill, her voice growing brusque. "Why is the clan even here? You should have moved on ages ago!"
Though the Keeper did not say it, Hawke knew the answer to Merrill's inquiries. Marethari kept the clan there because Merrill remained in Kirkwall. They remained because she did and the Keeper was unwilling to leave behind the First she had so loved while there was still so much left undetermined about Merrill's future. The eluvian bound them both to the city, though each wished a different fate for the mirror. But Marethari did not speak these words. She spoke instead of unfinished business and uncertain times. Looking off further down the path ahead, Hawke allowed her attention to wander as Merrill further urged the Keeper to leave Sundermount. Merrill didn't understand, it seemed. She didn't see the impossibility of leaving a loved one behind.
"We will stay until my business is done," the Keeper said impassively, dismissing Merrill's remonstrance with her usual imperial nonchalance. Turning, she added, "If you are not returning to us, what has brought you back?"
Merrill fell silent, her boldness falling away as the conversation called for her to explicitly mention the task at hand. It was this matter that had divided her from her clan and, when she spoke to Marethari, it was always this matter that caused her the most anxiety and discomfort. Never to Hawke's memory had Merrill been able to breach the topic of the eluvian without someone at her side to speak on her behalf when the words became difficult to utter. The person doing the speaking at that juncture was, more often than not, Hawke herself. Never before had this struck Hawke as particularly odd; she was well accustomed to taking control of conversations and speaking over others. Now, however, she found herself wondering why it was that Merrill looked at her with wide, expectant eyes. She found herself wondering if the reason that Merrill could not speak was because she was ashamed.
Looking down at her hands, studying the blood that had pooled beneath her fingernails and the faint bruises on her fingertips, Hawke asked, "Can you tell us anything that might help Merrill fix the eluvian? It would be appreciated." She flicked one of her bruised fingernails against her thumb before looking back up at Marethari, whose face was stern and filled with sorrow.
"I wouldn't restore that cursed thing even if I could," she replied looking flatly towards Merrill, who was doing her best not to be cowed by the Keeper's stern air. "It has stolen life and promise from my clan already. And this was the least treacherous thing it was capable of doing. You must come to your senses, Merrill. This evil cannot be allowed in our world."
Merrill's hands tightened into fists at her side. "It is a part of our world!" she shot back at the Keeper, her voice rising. Hawke found herself drawing back, her eyes turning uneasily back towards the trail. She wanted to move onwards; she wanted the day to be done and. Though the day had scarcely begun, her body already felt heavy and, all around her, the trees were whispering incessantly. She scratched at her arm, digging her fingernails harshly across her skin. Merrill was still arguing with Marethari and Hawke's attention was only drawn back to them when she heard her own name and realized that Merrill wanted to keep going. "Oh," Hawke murmured, somewhat embarrassed to have been addressed while her mind was so far from the present.
As they brushed past the Keeper, Hawke knew that it was not the only one who had been made uneasy by the argument. Marethari was a good woman and one whom it was difficult not to respect; none among their number much liked to witness the hostility which sometimes arose between her and Merrill when the matter of the eluvian came into question. Merrill walked on faster than the others, seeming to flee from the tension she felt while in the presence of her mentor. Hawke believed she understood; she'd been on the receiving end of her father's rebukes often enough to know the irritation and hurt that comes with disappointing a loved and admired figure. Hawke smiled softly at the memory of her father. He had wanted her to be compassionate, she had wanted to be powerful. It was a wonder how seldom those two things were found together. Shaking away the reminiscence, she jogged lightly up until she reached Merrill's side. "Just because you have started down a path doesn't mean you have to continue down it," said Hawke, keeping her voice low so that the others would not hear. Merrill glanced over towards her, brow furrowing slightly, and Hawke rattled on quickly, "You heard what the Keeper said and, if something happens to you, I don't relish the idea of destroying yet another one of my friends." She tried smiling to dull the discouraging edge of her words.
"Please, Hawke," whispered Merrill, looking back towards Varric and Aveline to make sure they weren't listening. "I cannot do this without your support. Please don't abandon me now."
Hawke shook her head. "I won't," she replied quickly. With a heavy sigh, she added, "I won't tell you what to do, Merrill; Maker knows that my judgment is less than stellar. But I feel like I wouldn't be doing my duty as your friend if I didn't remind you that the decisions you make now are yours to live with for the rest of your life. And that's… well, that's a lot to live with sometimes."
She could sense Merrill's irritation with her and knew that Merrill was fighting to keep her voice low as she said, "I need this, Hawke. My people need this. They may not see it now, but after all that's been lost to us, I cannot simply cast aside the last hope there is of regaining a portion of our history. I needto do this. If something goes wrong, I will be the one to suffer. This is my task and my burden… but I need you with me. The Keeper won't believe in me… please tell me you will." Her eyes were large and pleading. Those large, olive irises and the flecks of gold around the pupil that changed with the light. Hawke stared into those eyes, lost in them for the briefest glimmer of a moment before she smiled and nodded her head decisively.
"Well, alright then," she said, bringing her voice up to its ordinary volume. "I'm with you." As brightly as she could manage, Hawke smiled in an effort to assuage some of the annoyance that her warnings had clearly kindled in Merrill. Though the smile seemed to mollify the elf somewhat, Hawke still found herself drifting backwards towards the rear of the party and away from the chill that now stretched between her and the other mage. Unfortunately, a chill of a different sort passed over the group as a light, trickling fog began to roll down the mountainside and sweep across the ground at their feet. Hawke wrapped her arms around herself, hugging her shoulders, as they continued to trudge up the rapidly steepening slope.
Progress up the mountainside was not made easy for them. Just as they had climbed a particularly steep set of stairs that had been hewn into the slope, they entered a small clearing that, to everyone's chagrin, was teeming with spiders. Hawke, who was not especially fond of even the small, normal variety of arachnids, found the large ones even more distasteful. The encounter was made more unpleasant by a wretched trick of her mind that occurred the very instant she heard the first skittering sounds of the attacking spiders; she imagined Fenris. She imagined him as he had been as they were making their way through the Bone Pit. She imagined him charging at the spiders, slicing through their hard shells and leaving them in pieces. For a moment, she paused, rendered unresponsive by the abruptness of the memory. More than a heartbeat had passed before she thought to attack the beasts that came racing towards her with impossible speed. Aveline had already made her first assault on one of the creatures and Varric and Merrill had already charged further up the path, positioning themselves so that they could strike against their attackers from an elevated position. This left Hawke relatively isolated and the spiders, always able to exploit the vulnerability of their prey, came bearing down on her. The haziness of her mind, she realized, was becoming a definite liability.
Dodging away from the glistening pincers of one of the creatures, Hawke sent a flurry of snow to slow down the others that were making their way for her. While they were halted, she shattered one of them into oblivion with a powerful strike of stone that slammed with a brutal crunch against the spider's exoskeleton. Aveline, hearing the sound, turned from the opponent that she had just felled and came tearing to Hawke's side, her eyes glinting as she struck down one of the spiders that was just lurching free from the icy confines of Hawke's magic. Then, with a reassuring nod to Hawke, Aveline was off again, sailing off to provide support to the others.
It was not long before carcasses littered the clearing. It was not such a challenge, in open spaces such as this, to dart out of the way of their long, spindly legs and flashing fangs. In spite of the relative ease of slaying the spiders, Hawke and the others were still panting slightly as they mounted another short staircase that led further up the slope. When they reached its summit, a small hunter's camp lay ahead. The Dalish often built small fires and shelters in clearings along the trail so that it was not necessary to return all the way to the base of the mountain whenever they needed a bit of rest or the warmth of a fire. The hunter who had used this camp must have only recently been there, for the fire still blazed enthusiastically at the center of the clearing. Pausing at the top of the stairs, Hawke allowed her eyes to be caught by the golden dance of the flames. They were lovely as they consumed the logs that had been set beneath them; lovely as they turned everything to ashes. "Whoever was here must have just left," she stated stupidly as the others stood beside her.
"It's a popular camp for our hunters," said Merrill with a nod. "The stones of the ruins provide shelter when the winds grow too cold."
Hawke began to walk forward towards the fire when, out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of movement. By the time that Hawke heard Varric shout out a warning, she had already turned her attention to the rearing figure that rose into sight just beyond the ruins of a stone wall. It seemed to roll upwards, unfurling, as it brought itself to standing. Its shoulders, broad and covered by the ornate cloth of its enchanter's robes, rolled back as it finally lifted its head. With outstretched hands, the Arcane Horror hovered above the ground, its body prepared for combat.
Hawke reacted quickly this time, running back in the direction she had come even as Aveline rushed forward to make her first attack on their foe. No sooner had they begun this changing of positions, however, than did the monstrous creature wink out of existence and then, in a breath, rematerialize directly in Hawke's path. The flagstone beneath her feet was wet from the mist and the growth of moss and, unable to halt her charge, Hawke collided directly with the creature she'd been attempting to flee. Swirling around her, embracing her body and the skeletal, decaying form of her opponent, was a mist that prickled across her skin and made her gasp as she suddenly felt the drain of its power. Before she could be wrapped in the long, thin arms that sought to snatch her, Hawke fell back out of the mist, racing back towards the fire. She still felt the burn of the dancing, purple mist as it bore down deeper into her skin, trickling into her blood and weakening her. As she turned, sending a fiery torrent of magic towards the Horror, she felt the lingering pain in her lungs from the entropic energy that she had inhaled.
Crying out, Aveline hurled herself into the thick of the struggle. It never failed to dazzle Hawke that she knew a woman so fearless in the face of danger and so unrelentingly determined. Smiling at the sound of Aveline's impassioned battle cries, Hawke whirled about to face the shades that had risen up around her and Varric. Merrill, having fallen to the edges of the fray and situated herself atop the low ruins of the wall, sent her own attacks to aid Aveline. The warrior shouted out her gratitude when her opponent became locked in stone that rose up from the ground, spiraling around its feet and fixing it in place while it tried vainly to fend of a sudden flurry of strikes from the Aveline's keen sword and unrelenting shield.
Its size was great, towering over even Aveline, and the bonds of Merrill's magic could not hold the creature long. Irate and bellowing, it released itself from the stone as another army of its shades swarmed around the encampment. They came swiftly for Merrill, drawn in by the alluring call of her powerful magic, while Hawke and Varric tried frantically to contend with the numbers that circled around them already. Finally dispatching the first onslaught of shades, Hawke tried to rush to Merrill's aid, but arrived just in time to watch her companion overwhelmed by their numbers. Merrill was weakened, gasping and falling back with exhaustion, as one of the shades lurched forward with its hard, shining body and crashed against her. She cried out under the impact, her head jerking to the side as she crumpled to the ground. Somewhere behind her, Hawke heard Varric call out superfluously that they had lost Merrill. Undeterred, Hawke threw herself into the midst of the writhing, surging shades so that they would not exploit the unconsciousness of her comrade. They clustered around her hungrily, craving the strength that infused her body. Hawke grinned savagely, her eyes lighting, as she felt their hard shells butting against her. The prickle of their energy was nothing compared to the pain she would bring upon them. Grasping her staff, she sent a coursing chain of lightning through them that left them howling with otherworldly agony while they reared back, their monocular heads rolling from side to side.
The triumph of this moment was short-lived, however. In her peripheral vision, Hawke caught sight of a glowing blue light that was emanating throughout the center of the camp. "Aveline, run!" she shouted, turning towards the light. It was useless. Though Aveline tried desperately to flee from the epicenter of the fresh assault, it drew her in irresistibly so that she might as well have been attempting to escape a riptide. Amongst the dazzling glow of the light, the Arcane Horror seemed to dance, its arms flailing eerily while it cast its spells. Aveline, realizing that it was useless to escape the pull of the magic, swung out weakly with her sword, opening a wound in the creature's degraded flesh just before her body grew limp and fell at last to the ground.
Varric was beside Hawke now, his cheeks ruddy with the blood that now pumped furiously through his veins. His gaze met Hawke's and she prayed that he didn't see the wildness in her eyes. It was just the two of them now. Without Aveline to draw attention away from her, Hawke knew that the Arcane Horror would come lapping at the intoxicating pool of her own power. Ordinarily, such a thing might thrill her, the danger enlivening her pulsing blood. But she knew she was in no state for such a thing now; she was already worn thin from eliminating the shades and it was not only the depletion of her magic that left her concerned. Every fearful gulp she took caused the remaining damage within her throat to ache; every movement of her body reminded her that she hadn't slept; every passing moment threatened to remind her that she was almost out of reasons to fight.
But she raised her staff nonetheless, letting her magic well as much as it could while Varric relentlessly shot forth his arrows and yelled out his mocking cries of victory in a breathless voice. As the Arcane Horror sped towards him, their frantic defense finally left it unable to continue and, with its ghastly limbs lifted in its weightless dance, the creature finally lost the last of its strength and burst, in a cloud of purple wisps, into nothingness.
When they awoke, shaken into consciousness by Varric and Hawke, Aveline and Merrill were both groggy and sore but otherwise unharmed. "We should still take a moment to rest," suggested Hawke. "Even without the constant barrage of things that want to kill us, this steep slope is still murder on my delicate constitution." She received no complaints from the others and, their bodies flagging, they collapsed into seated positions around the still crackling fire. Though they were in relaxed postures and the fire's warmth soothed their muscles, there was little peace in those moments. The mists of Sundermount were still rolling and the thunder continued to echo through the thinning trees and, all throughout their small number, there was a sense that what lay ahead of them was very dire indeed. While Hawke stared into the fire, trying to ready her mind for the combat that she was sure lay but a bit further down the path, she overheard Varric mumbling something to Merrill about the fact that this whole business was unlikely to end well. In spite of her assurances that it would, at the very least, make an exciting story, he seemed hardly enthused about the idea of leading her to a demon as though she were a lamb to the slaughter. Hawke glanced up at Merrill and frowned slightly. It made her almost envious to see the sheer number of people who were attempting to steer Merrill away from this dangerous path she was determined to tread. She wished that she had had someone who had shouted some sense into her when she was careening down the road to her own destruction and Fenris'. Then again, perhaps they had. Yes, there had been those who told her not to send Fenris off to slavery; there had been voices rising up to tell her to tell him the truth before it was too late; there had been those few that warned her not to fall in love with him. She hadn't listened. She was beginning to wonder if anyone ever listened or whether every one of them was simply too proud to heed the advice others gave.
Sighing, Hawke rose from her seat beside the fire and dusted off her robes. "We should move on," she murmured.
The others rose while Hawke did a cursory sweep of the campsite to ensure that none of them had dropped anything of importance during the struggle. There had been an incident, several years back, when she had lost one of her mother's earrings during a skirmish and the lecture she'd received had been so irritating that, for all the years that followed, Hawke had always checked the battlefield for anything she might have lost. In this instance, she was pleased to see that she had not lost hold of anything of value. There was, however, something on the ground that caught her attention. It was a scroll very much like the one she had discovered not far from the Dalish camp. Stooping down to pick it up, she unrolled the parchment. "It's another scroll like the other," she announced, lifting the papers into the air. "And there's a map as well."
Varric walked forward, shaking his head. "Why do I feel like we're asking for trouble just reading those things?"
Hawke stared at the scroll for a moment more before rolling it up and saying, with a small shrug to Varric, "You're probably right. I can't remember the last time something good came of my snooping through other people's papers."
"Well, there was that rather nice poem of Isabela's," interjected Merrill thoughtfully. "I thought it was just lovely. Though she didn't seem very pleased to have you read it, did she?"
Hawke smiled ruefully. "Yet another valuable lesson about what happens when you ignore other people's personal boundaries," she said dryly, stashing away the scroll. "I think I had bruises on for a week after that one." As if on cue, three sets of eyes flicked to the marks on Hawke's neck. Well, she had walked right into it, she supposed. "Alright," Hawke grumbled, "let's get going before something else pops up to kill us."
Between that clearing, however, and the cave that led down into Sundermount Passage, there were no more enemies rising up against them. It was a small relief at least. The whipping wind was cool up there and had the crisp scent of air that was entirely untouched by the smog and stink of city life. On every breath of the fresh breeze that Hawke inhaled, there was also the faint metallic tinge that alerted her to the coming storm that hung in the blackening clouds overhead. Still, the dirt would not turn to mud with the incipient rain for some time yet; she had time enough to take a moment before travelling through the dark, moist passage that led to the other face of the mountain.
Around the edges of the outcropping where they stood, there were more remains of walls that had long since toppled to the ground. Hawke leapt suddenly up onto one of the lower stones of the ruins and caused a thrill of panic in all the others as they reached out their hands, ready to snatch her back from the ledge if she jumped. She had no intention of jumping, however, though she remembered a time when the thought of plummeting down from a cliff had seemed like her only option. The air had been cool like this, fresh like this, as she looked down over the cliffs of the Wounded Coast and curled her toes over the edge. As it did now, the wind had lifted her hair and set it streaming behind her like a banner. That night, when she'd stolen away from her lover's arms and gone quietly to the shore, she'd wanted to die. The guilt had been so acute then that she'd been unable to live with the prospect of going a lifetime bearing that same burden. That was unchanged as well. If anything, the weight had grown heavier. She felt her body and her soul groaning beneath it with each moment that passed. It seemed to weigh her down so heavily that it was almost a wonder that the ruins she stood upon did not crumble beneath her.
She envisioned herself jumping. She envisioned her body striking against the stones as she fell down towards the base of Sundermount—first her arm cracking against a stone, then her femur breaking out of her skin as her leg hit heavily against another protruding rock, then, finally, her skull dashed to bits and her life bursting free of her in a shower of blood and brain matter. The crows would feast upon her then, their beaks growing red as they dipped down to tear free the flesh of her neck that was still bruised from Fenris' hands. Her thoughts had often turned in this dark direction since his departure. In those moments, it was the memory of his hands that kept her from putting an end to all of it. His hands that could have squeezed the life from her. His hands that had released her in those last moments and left her to live on without him. It was he who had let her live and, with all her heart, she knew that she would never be able to throw away what he had allowed her to keep.
Still, she stood atop the ruins, the wind drying her eyes even as they grew wet with the promise of tears. Without him, she felt a yawning hollowness where she suspected her heart was supposed to be. Without him, she felt as if she had lost direction and somehow evaded her fate. She had been sure that he would kill her; she had even hoped for it. But she was alive and, somewhere in the world, so was he. The man she loved lived on and he had allowed her to do the same; she couldn't do him the dishonor of dismissing his mercy. Hawke turned away from the fall that beckoned to her, and hopped back down to stand beside the others. Together, they moved onwards into the darkness of the mountain.
The smell of the wet earth enveloped them as they moved through the caverns, travelling cautiously over the narrow walkways that extended between deep pits and wound around stalagmites that rose sharply and suddenly from the ground all around them. Though there was, as they first entered the underground passage, a small shower of falling rock, Hawke was pleased to find that they were not immediately mobbed by spiders. This good fortune, however, was somewhat dimmed for Hawke when they happened to meander past a small cavern lit by the same luminescent insects that she had pointed out to Fenris not so very long ago. Though it felt like ages since he'd gone, she could still feel the slight, almost pleasant bruising within her body where he had thrust against her deepest point. Blushing, Hawke bowed her head and, pausing for a moment, stomped with as much force as she could muster on the arch of her other foot while no one was watching. Wincing, she limped onwards after the others and down the small staircase that led deeper into the earth.
As they drew near the foot of the stairs, Hawke looked appraisingly at the fire that had been kindled there. It was, she could tell, another one of the fires kept burning by Dalish hunters. Around it, on a small bench, she could see the supplies necessary for a short hunting expedition. It was a wonder to her that any hunters continued to come this deep into the mountains when so much death and disaster had occurred here. Still, she was grateful for the light of the fire as they made there way deeper into the caverns, which were lit only by the pale strains of sunlight that could burst through the gaps in the stone face of the mountain.
They were nearly through the passage when Hawke heard the rustle of spiders as they descended from the shadows above. "Not again," groaned Hawke, wheeling around to hurl fire at the grotesque creatures. No sooner had the spiders been dispatched, however, than did a warrior, swathed in darkness and shadows, appear in their path. Rushing towards the warrior along with Aveline, Hawke used the heel of her staff to stab into her opponent's abdomen. While he fought on, struggling on in spite of injury, Hawke judged from the sounds behind her that Varric and Merrill were fighting shades or something of that sort. She was well pleased when the sound of that struggle came to an end and one of Varric's arrows drove deeply into the shadow warrior's skull, finishing it swiftly in a bath of dark blood.
When they emerged into the gray light that managed to struggle through the thickening clouds. Somewhere quite nearby, thunder rattled. "We should move quickly," she said as they began to head down the slope towards the graveyard that housed the bodies of the elves that had lived among these hills long before the Sabrae clan had arrived. "We don't want to get caught out in this storm."
"We may need to pause for a moment," said Merrill, glancing around cautiously at the graves before continuing onwards towards a large stone alter that lay ahead of them. Merrill drew near it slowly, approaching the edge of the cliff that was lined with the mossy rocks that, like all of the ruins that were scattered in these mountains, seemed to be the remnants of the elves who had come before. Hawke trailed slowly after Merrill, her eyes roving over the landscape as they made their progress. She had been ambushed too many times in this graveyard to go careening towards shrines without at least scanning the terrain for further shadow warriors. This time, however, it seemed that these slopes were safe. Her muscles relaxing somewhat, Hawke glanced towards Merrill as the elf ceremoniously approached the large block of stone.
Atop the alter, there were small black sacks that were no doubt filled with offerings and, among them, sat a candle with a flame of brilliant blue. Merrill stared into that flame thoughtfully as she spoke and Hawke stared curiously at Merrill. "Mythal, all-mother, protector of the People, watch over us for the path we tread is perilous. Save us from the darkness, as you did before, and we will sing your name to the heavens." Her voice was low and full of weight, but, when she turned back to the others, a smile flickered across her lips as she added, her voice in its usual lilting tones, "Sorry. I didn't mean to hold us. You just—it's never wise to ignore Mythal. The People never neglect Mythal's shrines. She—it's dangerous. They say if Mythal smiles on you, then you need fear nothing at all. But those who anger her… they're struck from the earth. As if they never lived at all." As her words wore on, her voice acquired an ominous tone of foreboding.
Glancing thoughtfully towards the shrine, Hawke said, "Would you like to leave an offering? It looks as though others have and I think we do have some coin to spare. If you'd like."
Merrill glanced back towards the small, black bags. "Oh, those aren't filled with coin. Mythal has no use for gold, I shouldn't think. But it's tradition among the People to make small carvings. Little wooden things, animals and such, and dedicate them to the Creators."
Hawke shrugged. "And I suppose that we really don't have time to dawdle on the mountainside crafting figurines. Perhaps on the way back, then." Merrill nodded and they began to descend down the slope, drawing ever closer towards the areas where the Veil was stretched most thin.
Rough brambles lined the path and the trail tilted perilously towards the edge of the cliff such that a single misstep might have led to a bloody end for an inattentive traveller. Hawke was still reticent to lead their party up the slope, as her mind was still admittedly not at the peak of its attentiveness. As they edged along the rocky mountainside with slow, careful steps, Aveline led them forward. Their progress was slow but efficient and, though Hawke was never one to be frightened of heights, she was pleased when they approached a wide, flat plane of ground. As the others stretched, readying for the final ascent, Hawke repeatedly flicked the bruised nail of middle finger against her thumb until it stung. She lifted her hand, studying the nail, looking for the small puncture wounds. They were hidden beneath the pooled blood that she hadn't thought to wash away. Clearing her throat, Hawke let her hand fall to her side, looking back to the path ahead.
In the distance, against the gray of the stone path that lifted up towards the peak of the mountain, there was the merest hint of movement. Something almost as vague and undetectable as the trembling of trees but somehow with a feeling that was more sinister. "Did you see that?" muttered Hawke, glancing towards Varric who moved along at her side.
They stopped, eyes gazing forward along the road as the indistinct motion became more apparent. A corpse, alone and unguarded by other animated bodies, was lurching down the path towards them. The speed with which it moved was unlike that which Hawke was accustomed to seeing and, grasping her staff with white-knuckled fingers, she readied herself for battle. It was without much trepidation that she sent the first waves of magic towards the lumbering creature that came for them; after all, it was but one solitary being and a single sword, clutched within its bony, decaying hand. It was only when the creature seemed unaffected by the first throttling crunch of stone against its wasted body that Hawke's eyes widened and it dawned on her that they may be in for a more strenuous fight than she had expected on initial inspection.
The resilience of the skeleton was astounding. Though he was hurled back by the sudden weight of Aveline's shield breaking fiercely down on his ribcage, he rose once more, swinging out with his weapon and its point breaking through the sturdy metal of Aveline's armour. The guard-captain called out with the sudden burst of pain and, simultaneously moving in defense of their comrade, Hawke and Merrill both hit the skeleton with their attacks. The lurching, disjointed movements of his ghastly body were halted for a moment as the lower half of his body became locked down by heaping stone and the arm that swung out with his sword was frozen within a glittering block of ice that had swept up beside him, surrounding half of his body. Varric's arrow made contact with the mass of ice, breaking through the frozen encasement and slicing neatly through one of the bones of the corpse's forearm.
The skeleton cried out with a barbaric roar that seemed to reach straight down to Hawke's core, but she smiled nonetheless, seeing victory over the creature just on the horizon. This surge of triumph, however, proved to have come too soon. The roar of pain and desperate agony seemed to have awoken something else within the heights of Sundermount. There was crashing amongst the trees alongside the path and motion once more amongst the stone. Hawke's attention had been drawn to the combat at hand, but now, hearing the motion up the trail and feeling the great surging of foreign magic bursting into life not far from where she stood, her eyes were drawn irresistibly to the point where fresh foes came abruptly into her line of sight.
Their forms, glinting with the metallic sheen of their armour even in the dim light of the overcast afternoon, loomed enormous and powerful against the gray horizon. "Revenants," hissed Hawke, her eyes narrowing as she looked at the beasts that lifted their swords into the air. Her blood was hot from combat, her attention focusing and centering on the task at hand. Her experience with these creatures was limited and yet even that limited experience had given her the wisdom to dread their attacks. Their assault would begin soon, descending suddenly and brutally, and Hawke had no wish to be troubled with the formidable skeleton while contending with the two towering foes that would next draw them into a new and more hazardous battle. Turning back to her allies, she shouted savagely, "End him!" They closed in around the skeleton now and, with desperate attacks, finally brought him to the ground just as the powerful, sucking force of the Revenants' magic yanked them from where they stood and dragged them over the ground until they were limp and helpless at the feet of their new opponents.
The pull of the magic moved their bodies swiftly but painfully. Rocks collided with Hawke, bashing against her body as she was jerked across the ground. Dust rose from amongst the stones, filling her nose, mouth, and eyes as she struggled to fight the irresistible pull of the Revenants. When she fell still at their feet, Hawke gasped, rising to her feet and rushing away just in time to avoid the razor edge of a sword that came sweeping for her throat.
She and Merrill fell back, both rushing breathlessly away from the focus of the Revenants' ire. Varric ran up further up the hillside, firing off arrows with the same desperation that the mages hurled their spells. Aveline, as she so often seemed to be, was caught in the center of the most concentrated assaults. Her movements were swift and she dodged with agility and speed, but sweat poured down her forehead, running into her eyes and stinging as she tried to inflict some measurable amount of damage on the creatures that relentlessly continued their attacks. Though the Revenants were outnumbered, it was clear to Hawke that she and her allies were more than outmatched.
In spite of their best coordinated efforts, there was little that they could do to slow the attack. Aveline was tiring, the ceaseless barrage of assaults taking its toll on her in spite of the intermittent streams of Hawke's healing magic that came shimmering through the air and washing away the aches and searing pains of injury. Aveline was strong and practiced in battle, but she was unaccustomed to the beating that two such formidable, inhuman foes could deliver. The others were helping, creating a constant dance of ever-changing spells and hexes that danced over the massive bodies that bore down on Aveline. The air crackled with the sound of lightning as Hawke sent in white beams of electric energy, the air burned acerbically as Merrill drenched the area in a cloud of entropic mist, but the Revenants battled on with their swords held high, crashing down against Aveline's armour until she was compelled to break free from them and rush desperately down the hillside Hawke. "Hawke!" she cried out, her voice hard but still colored with fear. "I need healing!"
Hawke was depleted. She felt herself weakening as one of the Revenants trailed after Aveline and the other stood above, its cold, inhuman gaze fixed upon its prey. Gasping, her limbs shaking furiously as if she had just run for miles, Hawke closed her eyes and threw the last of her energy into healing Aveline. Hawke felt herself light-headed now, salt water welling at the corners of her eyes and joining the sweat that was beading on her face. Aveline turned back towards the Revenant, her body numbed now to the worst of the pain and the lighter lacerations on her skin closing up. Lunging forward with tremendous force, Aveline slammed her body into her opponent, driving her sword deep through his torso so that the tip burst out through his spine. He sucked in air hollowly, lurching and emanating the horrid, grating cry that tore from him as he fell forward on Aveline's sword and crumbled to the ground. Even as he fell, however, none among his killers felt victory; the other Revenant was up the slope and bearing down on Varric.
Varric was making his best attempt to run from the Revenant, but there was no amount of running that could protect him from the powerful dragging force of the creature's magic. Once more, Varric was pulled from where he stood, Bianca falling aside as he was yanked through the air by the Revenant's power. The force pulled Varric as if he were a doll and slammed his helpless body directly into the waiting point of the creature's sword.
There was a fountain of blood then, as Varric gasped with speechless pain. Hawke heard herself cry out and felt herself running up the slope with Aveline charging alongside her. Aveline, accustomed to running and accustomed to using her own body as a battering ram, reached the Revenant before Hawke was able to reach where Varric had fallen, bloodied and motionless, to the ground. While Aveline occupied the foe, drawing his sword away from Varric, Hawke seized the dwarf and, clasping his body awkwardly in her arms, began to struggle to pull him away to safety. From below, Merrill, who had not hurtled herself into proximity with the Revenant's vicious assaults, sent forth a vivid flash of magic that seemed to wind around the head of the wretched creature, seeping into its consciousness and making it bow its head, clutching wildly at its eyes and ears as it tried to block out the horrible images and sounds that Merrill's spell thrust upon it. It was incapacitated, unable to attack while its senses were overwhelmed with a horror of Merrill's creating. Hawke had knelt to the ground, cradling Varric, but Aveline was in a prime position to spring forward at the Revenant, robbing it at last of its facsimile of life.
The sounds of combat faded from the clearing, but silence did not fall over the group. Aveline was gasping, clutching at a stich in her side and bowing over at the waist as she tried to breathe through the pain and exhaustion of battle. She came staggering over to Hawke, who was fishing through the satchel that hung at her hip in search of one of the lyrium potions that she had brought with her. Hawke was never particularly fond of drinking the iridescent, blue potions. Lyrium left her feeling euphoric, almost manic, after she consumed it, and the threat of addiction had always worried her. She'd witnessed the dark, purpling circles that developed beneath the eyes of Templars and mages who had spent too many years recklessly using the stuff; she'd seen them scratching at their skin as they craved a fresh dose. She'd felt that edginess—that sleepless, wild, craving—herself after a year being provided with all the lyrium she could want by the smuggler that she and Carver had worked for during their first year in Kirkwall; Athenril had provided her mages with what they needed to carry out her business. Since that time, Hawke had done her best to avoid the substance unless it was utterly and absolutely necessary. Now, however, with Varric bleeding heavily in her lap, Hawke knew that she needed to restore herself.
The effect was instantaneous. She felt the muscles of her irises drawing back as her pupils widened; she felt the rush over her skin as the light hair on her arms and the nape of her neck rose. Sighing, she felt the relief as her body seemed to flood with the magic of which she had been drained. She poured the restored power into Varric, her hands glowing as the shimmering light passed from her body into his wounds. With her eyes closed and her focus turning entirely to the injury in Varric's side, she could feel the wound almost as if she were exploring it with delicate instruments. She could feel that his kidneys were still intact, which was a mercy. The blood loss was great even though his kidneys had not been punctured; Hawke could feel the severed arteries constricting, drawing back in the wound. With telekinesis, she drew the pieces of sundered flesh together, joining everything that had been torn apart, and sent wave after wave of gentle, healing energy through Varric's body. Hawke was aware of his health restoring, his breath returning to normal, as he began to shift in the circle of her arms. Letting her magic ease off gently, Hawke opened her eyes, blinking as the light invaded her sharply dilated pupils. Turning her eyes down towards Varric, she saw that he was smiling faintly at her.
"You're getting better at this, Hawke," commented Varric, his voice still a bit weak though the color was beginning to return to his ashen cheeks. "There was a time when you couldn't heal a paper cut."
Hawke smiled down at him. "Well, I've been practicing," she shrugged. She continued attending to Varric, checking him for signs of any lingering fragility. It would have made her father proud, she thought, to see her like this. When he was alive, her father had always said that she was like a force of nature tearing through the countryside. He'd tried, so many times and in so many ways, to coach her into being a healer and a protector. She'd never seen the appeal of it before; healing was not half so exciting or exhilarating as leaving a tree burnt to a crisp or making a visible impression on the terrain around her. But she'd begun, of late, to see the appeal in it. To see the appeal of repairing all the wounds and all the tears. The appeal of restoring broken things. Of putting things back the way they ought to be.
When she was convinced that Varric was well, Hawke rose from the ground and helped him up with her. "We can rest here for a while, if you'd like," she told him.
Varric glanced around at the fallen bodies of the Revenants. "I think I'd like to clear out of this place," he said slowly. "As lovely as the corpse-strewn terrain is."
Hawke nodded, dusting off her robes with quick flicks of her hands. "Alright then. But let us know if anything hurts. I may have gotten better at this whole healing thing, but I still have a ways to go before I'm anywhere near the same level as Anders."
"You got it, Hawke," Varric replied with a curt nod. It was he who first began to lead them further up the slope. The others followed after slowly, all of them feeling haggard after the fight.
They hadn't walked long before it was clear that Varric was having trouble with the effort that the hike was taking. Hawke asked if he was sure he didn't want to stop, but Varric only shook his head and insisted that he was fine. Speaking a bit breathlessly, he grumbled, "Who thought putting a demon in a cave on Sundermount was a good idea in the first place?"
"Well, where would you have put them?" countered Merrill, hopping lithely over a rock that looked awfully slimy with moss and other growth.
Varric had his hand on his side, seeming to offer support and pressure to the recently mended wound. "Tevinter, maybe. Or in the Anderfels. Further away from Kirkwall, that's for sure." Rubbing lightly at his side, he added through gritted teeth, "Somewhere where we wouldn't have to hike up a vertical slope to get to it."
"We can stop," interjected Hawke. "You lost a decent amount of blood and if you pass out in the middle of a fight, then it won't do any of us any good."
Once more, he objected to the coddling. Rolling her eyes, Hawke made sure that she stayed close to Varric's side and they approached the cave where Merrill told them that they would find the demon she'd heard calling to her all those years ago. The war that had been waged in these mountains had created an echoing devastation that had torn through the Veil and left it thin and penetrable even though many generations had passed since then. Merrill warned them of this as they drew closer to the slight dip in the terrain that eased towards the dark mouth of the cave. Within moments, the evidence of the worn Veil burst from the earth.
It was nothing, really—not when compared to the vicious attacks of the Revenants and the skeleton that had hobbled down the slope in front of them—but it was enough to drastically enhance the air of foreboding as they arrived. From the soil, sprang a small contingent of corpses with the dark form of a shadow assassin darting among their numbers. Fighting back the corpses while Aveline and Merrill dealt with the assassin, Hawke stood unwaveringly at Varric's side, keeping a careful watch on his movements as they sent their attackers reeling. He seemed, she noticed, to be well enough, if a little bit slower than usual. If any trouble were to arise with the demon within the cave, then there was a very decent chance that his health would not be of a detriment to him. This was reassuring and, even as a number of shades rose up to offer further aid to the shadow assassin, Hawke was confident that Varric would be able to handle whatever lay ahead of them.
When their attackers had fallen, Aveline turned back to face Hawke and the others, wiping the blood and gore off her sword with the deeply stained cloth that she carried with her for this purpose. "Shall we?" she asked gravely, indicating the cave entrance with a tilt of her head. Hawke nodded when Aveline's eyes went to hers.
"This shouldn't take long," Merrill said, shifting nervously in spite of the confidence of her words. "Nothing will go wrong."
Hawke eyed her companions carefully, searching them for any signs of injury or weariness that could slow them down. "Alright," she said at last. "Let's end this."
It was different from the underground passage that led through Sundermount and even different from the caves that could be found along the Wounded Coast. There was, in the dry air, the sense that this area had been heavily penetrated by a great and foul magic. The long presence of the demon had seeped into the very air that they breathed and, as they walked down a short flight of stairs into the open, arching darkness, Hawke felt a chill running up her spine.
Across the broken flagstones that were scattered across the floor of the cave and amongst the ruins of what had once been a temple, there was a tremendous statue placed beneath an arch of stone.
"Andraste's ass," breathed Varric, letting out a low whistle of awe. Hawke drew closer to the pedestal on which the statue was placed; her eyes were fixed on it as the residual magic that clung to it seemed to respond to the magic within her own body. It had the rustic appearance of one of the idols dedicated to the old gods. Six limbs, she saw, sprouted from the heft of its body, and its face had the appearance almost of a primate. Hawke wondered passingly if the statue was a representation of the demon's own form, or if it was meant to represent a protector who locked the demon away from the world.
"Something is wrong," said Merrill, coming up beside Hawke and furrowing her brow with confusion and stifled alarm. "This was where the spirit was bound. But now, it feels… empty."
Hawke turned, her own brow knitting with a concern that she didn't trouble herself to conceal. "So… the demon's found some way to free itself? It's just… roaming about in the world?"
Merrill shook her head, lifting one of her hands and running it anxiously back through her hair. "It would have taken powerful magic to break him free of this prison. You couldn't just set him loose! Nobody could." She was pacing around the idol now, inspecting it for some sign of what had passed. "Not without doing something terrible." Merrill walked back from the statue, drawing towards Hawke and shaking her head gravely. "This is very wrong," she said, her voice trembling with concern. "He shouldn't have been able to leave! What happened to him?" She was panicked and, with each passing word, her voice and expression revealed more what she felt.
"I happened."
Merrill's eyes turned from Hawke to the lone figure that had suddenly appeared at the rear of the cave, descending the stairs that they had passed down only moments before. Marethari's face was grim as she drew near them, her eyes dark.
"Keeper," began Merrill, her voice filled with trepidation as the words came slowly to her lips, "what have you done?"
Even before the Keeper began to speak, they all felt the sense of mounting dread. "The demon's plan was always for you to complete the mirror. It would have been a doorway out of this prison and into our world. You would have been his first victim." She bowed her head as she added, her voice quiet and calm, "I couldn't let that happen, da'len."
Merrill was drawn forward towards the Keeper, her legs shaking and her eyes wide as the color drained from her cheeks. "Keeper? What have you done?" she repeated, her tremulous tone little more than a whisper as she stood before Marethari.
The Keeper turned, concealing entirely from them anything that her veiled eyes might have revealed in those hushed moments. "I couldn't fight it in the Fade while it was trapped," she revealed, her impassive veneer almost shedding as a trace of sorrow crept into her voice. "And I couldn't banish it without making it stronger. So I made myself its prison." As Marethari spoke, Hawke watched Merrill. She watched as the dawning comprehension spread across Merrill's face, watched as the knowledge of what her mentor had done entered those innocent eyes. Hawke watched as the innocence shattered and fell away. "Kill me," said Marethari, "and it dies too." She turned back to them, her face set with strength and determination. Hawke stared at the Keeper's expression, filled with awe, trying to understand what well of strength made such self-sacrifice possible; Merrill hid her face behind her hands.
Merrill protested, her shoulders shaking as she struggled to manage her distress. "You can't ask…." Merrill shook more violently, fighting back a sob of sadness or anger or both. "I won't do this!"
The Keeper looked at Merrill with a sorrow that Hawke knew was a farewell. "You always knew your blood magic had a price, da'len. I have chosen to pay it for you." A white, bluish light was already beginning to consume the Keeper's body as she whispered, "Dareth shiral."
The blue light expanded, growing and expanding to fill the entire cave as the Keeper's diminutive elven frame broke and warped before their eyes, the limbs contorting and the skin shifting as the demon trapped within her body began to make itself known. It rose up before them, its body draped in the same glow that had suffused Marethari's skin.
Pride. Hawke knew it at once, having had encounters with incarnations with this breed of demon a handful of times in her life. It was not only their cleverness and the allure of their coaxing words that made these demons so formidable, but also their tremendous frames. It loomed above Merrill, its form monstrous and deformed with a wretched, horned head that was punctuated with small, darting eyes which flashed even in the darkness and seemed always to see down to most guarded secrets.
"Merrill, move!" screamed Hawke when her own senses had recovered from the shock of the transformation. Merrill was standing, aghast and horrified, as she looked up at the demon. "Merrill!" cried Hawke again, darting forward and, grabbing harshly onto the stunned elf's wrist, dragging her back towards the idol that the demon had left vacant. The chamber of the caves shook with the laughter of the demon as it watched them flee.
The heavy tread of the demon continued to shake the ground as it thudded towards them, its fanged mouth still wide with laughter as they wheeled around and tried to drive it back. Hawke attempted to bring it to ground, summoning tremendous force that slammed onto the hard protrusions of the demon's shoulders and over its head. The demon did not falter or stumble below the weight of her magic, but it was shaken somewhat by the joint attacks of Varric and Aveline which made its physical form, new to the world, weaken under fresh pain. The snarling threat that the creature posed roused Merrill after her initial shock and she sent a hard cluster of rock soaring for the demon's head, pounding into its flashing constellation of eyes.
"Traitor!" The call sounded suddenly, echoing through the cavern with a voice that was deafening and yet somehow focused as though someone had whispered it into Hawke's ears. She felt her heart thundering with a speed that was almost impossible as she looked for the voice that called to her. No. Not to her. To Merrill. "May the Dread Wolf hunt you for the rest of your days!" The voice came, Hawke saw, from a ghostly manifestation of a Dalish hunter, though she hardly knew who he had been. Its calls echoed in her ears as she raced to the corner of the cave where it stood She banished it quickly, ending its terrible cries, but more appeared around the perimeter of the cavern, howling their condemnations of Merrill's sin. Hawke turned to the others, but she saw that Merrill had already turned her attention from the demon to the ghosts that insistently reminded her of all she had done. Hawke left them to Merrill; they were her ghosts to defeat.
Hawke gritted her teeth, running close enough to the demon so that it would feel the full force of her attacks. And it did feel her. Its body searing and dancing with her lightning, the beast laughed and turned towards her with its gaping mouth somehow contorted to look like a grin. Its many eyes fixed on her. "Ah, the one they call Champion! Risen from nothing and seated on a throne of hubris and conceit," it snarled at her merrily, lifting its clawlike hands and letting them well with a magic that gushed and flowed like a swirling mass of coagulated blood and flesh. "You've fed me well, mage." It hurled the red mass between it claws towards Hawke and, breathless, she flung herself to the side.
She landed roughly on the ground, one of her ribs slamming violently against a rock and her breath knocked from her as another stone rammed into her sternum. Gasping for air, she forced herself to her feet, fleeing the demon that now turned the brunt of its fury towards her. Fire rose around its feet, flaring out and lapping towards Hawke's feet and she ran forward, panting and clutching at the rib that had fractured when she'd landed. The flames that the demon generated caught at the hem of Hawke's robes and the heat begin to sear her legs. Ignoring the pain, she sent a burst of cold that extinguished the flame. Her staff was still clutched in her hand and, when she wheeled around to face the demon, Hawke brought down another powerful force from above. This time, weakened as it was, her magic slowed it, causing it to slow as it fought to remain upright.
Aveline swept forward, severing the tendons at the back of the creature's ankle and leaving one of its feet dangling oddly from its leg. It roared at this, mouth wide and open and all too vulnerable to one of Varric's arrows. Varric took aim and the point of the arrow pierced the top of the demon's mouth even as Merrill struck the beast with a hex that left it bleeding steadily and profusely. Hawke watched as the creature flailed; she watched as its eyes flashed and, in them, she saw its battle for life.
As suddenly as the demon had risen, it fell away once more. The massive, spiny form before them burst into a nebulous blue light and, when that brilliant mist parted, Hawke saw the familiar, delicate figure of Keeper Marethari kneeling on the ground with an expression of dazed wonderment on her face. Merrill rushed forward, one of her small hands slightly outstretched towards the Keeper and she came to her. "Keeper?" she breathed, dazed as she made her approach.
Shaking slightly, the figure rose from the ground. "You've beaten it, da'len," said the Keeper, smiling at Merrill with beneficent relief. "You are so much stronger than I imagined. The demon is dead."
Merrill drew close to the Keeper, but Hawke called after her. "Merrill, wait. I… I don't think that it's over. Marethari said… she said the demon was bound to her." Hawke's voice cracked as she spoke, holding her hand out to Merrill to draw her back towards the group. But Merrill bowed her head, walking forward until she stood before Marethari. A smile flickered across the Keeper's face, but Merrill did not return her smile. "Ir abelas, Keeper," she whispered, her voice low and heavy. Before another word could pass between them, she thrust the knife she'd drawn into the Keeper's torso. The wash of blood spilled over Merrill's hands as she drove the point deep into the possessed body and finally broke the demon's hold on reality. The Keeper's eyes were wide as she gasped those last breaths, collapsing backwards at last onto the ground and falling limply back onto the ground. Merrill stood, her knees locked and her shoulders shaking, as the blade tumbled from her hand and clattered to the ground beside the body of her mentor.
Lights danced as the demon left their world, but Merrill hardly seemed to notice. She fell on her knees beside the body and looked down at it helplessly. Her tears broke then, falling over her cheeks and dripping off her chin to land on Marethari's clothes. It was quiet in the cave save for the sounds of Merrill's tears and the murmured sounds of her pleading and her denials. Hawke heard the helpless words but, searching within herself, could think of nothing to say. Maybe there was nothing to say.
Merrill looked so small then, kneeling beside the woman who had died protecting her. Her shoulders shook violently with each gasping sob and, when she leaned forward, burying her face in Marethari's clothing, the hands that clutched at the corpse trembled violently. "Why couldn't she have believed in me?" Hawke heard Merrill gasp, her voice thick with tears.
Hawke opened her mouth to speak, but closed her lips without having said a word. When Merrill looked up at them hopelessly, her face streaked with tears, Hawke met her eye. In that moment, the pity that Hawke felt for Merrill's loss morphed into a pity of another kind. Hawke pitied the fracturing of innocence that comes with the true comprehension that time moves relentlessly onwards and that mistakes can never be unmade. The realization that there is no going back. Not only knowing this, but feeling it. Hawke watched Merrill's eyes and she watched the innocence that was breaking within them, splintering into fissures that would never be mended. Hawke wished for a moment that she could put the pieces back together, but she was not naïve enough to believe that all wounds could be healed.
"I'm sorry, Merrill," murmured Hawke at last. Maybe that was the only thing to say.
Merrill gulped back her tears and, shaking her head, rose from the ground. "I don't know what to do now," she managed to say. "I… I should go to the clan. Someone needs to know, needs to come… take care of her." Her voice cracked as she spoke, breaking on the tears that still threatened to bring her down once more, but she still walked towards the exit. Uneasily, glancing between one another, Varric, Aveline, and Hawke followed after her.
It had been too much to hope for, Hawke supposed, that they would be allowed some peace after what had just occurred. It would have been too easy and too merciful if they have just been allowed to go down the slope towards the base and been able to arrange for the Keeper's care and funeral. It happened instead that, the moment that Merrill lead them into the light of the mountainside, that they were greeted by a waiting group of Dalish hunters, none of whom looked particularly friendly. Rather, they were decidedly hostile, choosing the most inopportune time to inquire accusatorily after their beloved Keeper. Merrill bowed her head, breathless and stricken with the fresh grief, and tried to explain what had gone on in the cave. But before she could get the words out, one of the elves, a female that Hawke knew was called Ineria, shouted over Merrill's hushed and stammered words. "Look at her, Fenarel! She's covered in blood!"
Fenarel looked over Merrill's bloodied clothes with searching, apprehensive eyes. "What have you done, Merrill?" he asked slowly, as if he dreaded the answer. He tore his eyes from her, turning towards the cave and walking hurriedly towards the yawning mouth. He shouted for the Keeper, but there was no one left within to answer him.
"She's dead," gasped Merrill, new tears breaking free of her eyes and blazing down her cheeks which were still damp from her recent fit of weeping. Hawke watched, feeling acutely how desperately Merrill wished that she could have taken Marethari's place.
Ineria lunged forward, coming up beside Fenarel and snarling towards Merrill's trembling figure. "I should have guessed you'd turn on her, you monster."
Merrill shook, covering her face with her hand. Hawke watched the tears for a moment. Merrill was shaking, unable to speak, and the elves wanted retribution. "This was a tragedy, not a betrayal," said Hawke suddenly, surprised at the sound of her own voice. Still, her expression was calm and resolute as she looked towards Ineria and Fenarel. "This blood magic will not harm anyone else, I'll make sure of it. That… that's all I can do."
Her words did little to assuage Ineria's anger, but Fenarel pulled her clanswoman back. "She was our First, once," he said, almost with a resigned gentleness. "The Keeper loved her." Then, glancing from Ineria to Merrill, he added, with some bitterness, "More than she loved the clan, it seems."
Merrill's apologies were wasted then. All contrition and all remorse could do nothing in the face of such anger and such loss. There was a moment—a long, aching stretch of time—when Hawke's fingers were tight on her staff and she wondered if she and her companions would meet their end on a mountainside at the hands of enraged elves. It didn't come to that, however, through some small mercy of the Maker. They were allowed to pass down to the foothills of the mountain without being skewered by any Dalish arrows. It was a long walk, silent and never free from the bitter pall that hung over them.
As they left Sundermount behind, the clouds above opened up and the thunderstorm that had threatened them all day finally began. The rain continued to fall continuously and heavily as they made their way back towards the city and, by the time they reached Lowtown, all of them were soaked to the bone.
Outside of The Hanged Man, where they were saying their goodbyes to Varric, Merrill walked on towards the Alienage without saying farewell or any other word. Hawke looked after her and then back to Varric, who was also staring after the diminishing figure. "I—I should go after her," said Hawke waveringly.
"You sure, Hawke?" said Varric, smiling ruefully. "You're a woman of many talents, but you're not exactly the person I'd go to if I wanted to have a big, emotional chat."
"I know," said Hawke, shifting uncomfortably. "But I just… I just hate the idea of her sitting all alone right now. I just… I have to."
Varric shook his head. "Alright, Hawke, but if you could stop by The Hanged Man after and let me know how Daisy's doing, I'd like to know."
Hawke nodded, looking from Varric to Aveline and then back again. "I'll come back later," she told him, waving her farewells to both, before running on after Merrill.
There are times when conversation and the right words can make all the difference in the world. Times when someone like Hawke would have been rendered entirely useless. But that evening, all that Merrill needed was company. Hawke may not have been skilled with words, but she had learnt a thing or two about grief. She had learnt more than she ever cared to know about loss and guilt and heartache. She was useful then, in the dilapidation of Merrill's home, as the shattered pieces of the eluvian spread across the floor and Merrill blamed herself and everyone for the way things had gone. Hawke spoke few words, offered little in the way of condolences or commiseration, but she was there.
The sky was dark when Hawke left Merrill's home but the rain had not decreased in the least. Blinking back the drops that fell into her eyes, Hawke bowed her head and, with her hair falling across her face, began to make her way towards The Hanged Man.
"So Daisy's alright, then?" asked Varric, as she sat beside him in the corner of the tavern away from the chatter of the other patrons.
She nodded. "I don't know if 'alright' is the word for it, but she'll get there. She's thinking about the future, so there's that at least. I think that if you just keep getting to the next day, then it gets easier eventually." Hawke lifted the glass stein she held to her lips and the clear liquid washed down her throat.
Varric smiled faintly. "Sounds like you're speaking from experience there, Hawke."
She shook her head, leaning back into her chair and resting her head on the wall as she turned her eyes up towards the ceiling. "Not really. Merrill—she'll be okay someday. One of these days, she'll wake up and it will hurt less. She'll forgive herself and she'll move on." Hawke flicked her eyes over towards Varric. "Now, be honest, Varric—do really think I should forgive myself?" She was smiling mirthlessly. His eyes trailed over her throat, exposed as it was as she tilted her head back against the wall.
He took another sip from his pint of ale, looking away from her. "Give it time, Hawke," he murmured.
He heard her laugh under her breath, turning her gaze back towards the ceiling. "That's optimistic," she said placidly, her eyes tracking over the outline of a brown stain that had been expanding over the ceiling since her arrival in Kirkwall.
He sat with her, spoke to her on occasion and even lured her into playing a hand or two at the card table, but the blood loss of the day, as well as they excessive amount of hiking, had left him drained. When the hours began to grow especially large, he found that he had no choice but to go to his room and rest. She remained behind, however, slinking back towards the corner and, leaning once more back into the shadows, she watched the merriment that continued on around her.
She should have gone home. She knew that. She should have gone home and let Orana prepare her a warm meal and draw her a warm bath. Warm and clean and full of delicious food, she should have slid into her bed and gotten the rest that her body was calling out for. Even as she sat in The Hanged Man, the exhaustion was catching up with her; on occasion, she would find herself gasping, sitting suddenly upright and jerking out of a slumber that she hadn't known she had lapsed into. A day of acting like she was alright and behaving as if she wasn't breaking had robbed her of all her strength. But she couldn't go back to her home. She couldn't crawl back into her bed. Since Fenris had left, she hadn't spent a single night in her own room. Orana had tried to talk her into it, offering kindly to wash the sheets, but Hawke had flown into a rage then and, smashing several rather valuable vases and giving the poor elf a terrible fright, she'd insisted that nothing in her room be touched or cleaned. So the sheets remained soiled and the clothes she'd worn remained strewn across the floor and she slept in the study for brief, flickering moments before surrendering to her insomnia and drifting from room to room of her mansion until dawn came.
With lack of proper rest and with no combat or mortal peril to focus her attention, Hawke only stared, watching as people drifted in and out of her line of sight. They laughed, she heard, and they spoke loudly about politics and faith and other things that failed to interest her, and they smiled. She watched in silence, almost invisible to them and to herself, when something suddenly blocked her view. Eyes focusing on the form that stood so close to her, Hawke's gaze traveled up the black fabric of Anders' robes until her eyes finally met with his. "Anders," she said, sounding only a bit surprised. "You don't drink."
"Right you are in that," he replied, seating himself in the chair that Varric had left vacant earlier in the evening. "But Aveline said you might be here and so here I find myself." He cast an eye around the assembled drunkards and sighed heavily.
"Come to give me a talking to, then?" said Hawke resignedly, almost smiling.
He did not return her smile, but there was the merest twinkling of levity in his voice as he answered, "You know how I worry." His eyes flickered over her. "So, I hear that you were fighting for Merrill's cause today, defending her even in the face of angry Dalish archers." One corner of his lips twitched into what could have almost been interpreted as a smile. "And here I was thinking that you were done playing the hero."
Looking away from him, back at the contents of her glass, she sighed. "I am. A hero is a person who does good things because that's what's right. A hero is a person who can be saved." She shook her head. "I'm not that person."
"So, you've settled on playing the martyr then?" he said dryly.
"Call it whatever you want," she replied, lifting the stein to her lips and sipping from it.
Anders watched the clear liquid sloshing with his brow furrowed. He glanced to her cheeks, which were not flushed with drink though it was clear that she had been there for hours. "Is that…water?" Anders asked, a bit taken aback and, in spite of the situation, almost amused. He'd never known Hawke to pass up a stiff drink when the opportunity presented itself.
Hawke looked back at him flatly. "I really can't afford to dull my inhibitions. My judgment is questionable enough when I'm sober." He stared at her; she almost sounded as if she were joking, but her eyes were hollow and her expression utterly free of emotion.
"Care to let me have a taste?" he asked, really just to have something to say more than out of any genuine thirst.
"Go for it," she shrugged, holding out the stein to him. As he reached out, Anders happened to look passingly at her hands as he took the stein from her. His brow furrowed once more and his mouth quirked into a frown. "What happened to your hands?" he said, placing the water aside without drinking any of it.
Hawke brought her hand back towards herself, looking back to the bloody puncture marks beneath her fingernails. Earlier, she might have tucked her hands into the folds of her robes and lied or changed the topic, but now she laughed a little, flicking her fingers together to feel the bruises pulse again with pain. She was tired. Too tired and worn thin and sick of being alright to change the topic or to concoct some foolish story. "I was seeing how far I could stick needles underneath my fingernails before I had to scream." Again, she let out a manic burst of laughter, before folding her arms so that her hands were hidden. She looked back at Anders, shrugging. "It hurt. Almost more than anywhere else."
He stared at her, dumbfounded. "Why?" he breathed, aghast.
Hawke looked away from him, turning instead to stare at her knees. "No reason," she lied, rapidly growing increasingly tired of this line of the conversation. She regretted that sleep deprivation had made her honest. Perhaps she had really better get some sleep before she did something immeasurably stupid and destructive.
Though her eyes wandered from him, Anders still watched her. She'd always had this part of her, he had to admit. This little thread of perversity that took pleasure in pain. That part of her that drove her to choke him, bind him, hurt him in all the best possible places. But she'd never directed that violence in towards herself. "Is this about Fenris?" he asked quietly, forcing his voice to speak the name without half so much hatred as he felt. As it was, Hawke still cringed when she heard how bitterly Anders said the name.
"You don't want to hear this," she murmured, slouching forward in her chair. She felt like collapsing in entirely on herself and wasn't sure whether it was Anders or exhaustion or the mention of Fenris' name that suddenly made her feel as if she might actually crumble to the filthy floor of The Hanged Man if she didn't get to a bed soon.
When she heard Anders speak again, he sounded almost angry. "This isn't right, Hawke," he told her sternly, shaking his head. "There are people who still depend on you. People who still need you to keep things together. This city keeps falling deeper under Meredith's control and the mages here will need you when this comes to a head. Kirkwall will need you."
"Kirkwall has me," she retorted, sounding terribly weary. "I will be here. I will always be here, as I was today when my friend needed me. But that means that I have to keep trying to hold myself together in any way I can." She turned her face to him slowly and he noticed just how dark the circles beneath her eyes had become. "I wish I were stronger and… and I will try to be." Her voice broke and she cleared her throat before adding, "But it's hard to live with myself, Anders. Every second is hard."
It was quiet, even with the sounds of the increasingly raucous drunks, it felt quiet. "You never loved me like this, did you?" The words weren't bitter. They weren't even self-pitying or cold or critical. He'd looked into her eyes and he'd heard her voice and he was merely surprised by what he found. It was the surprise, the hint of confusion and awe, that was in his tone.
She opened her mouth but closed it without responding to the question to which they both already knew the answer. Standing, Hawke shook her head and, when her back was turned, she muttered, "I'm going home. I'll see you soon, I expect."
That night, not for the first time, she found herself standing outside her mother's room with her hand on the doorknob. She had stood this way numerous times, almost opening the door and never quite being able to do it. The ghosts that haunted that room seemed only to be growing in number now and the actual thought of entering it seemed to be an insurmountable task. The metal of the knob was warming beneath her hand as she tried to will herself to finally turn the handle. She wanted to be somewhere where he had been—not her own room, not there—but somewhere where he had been contented. Somewhere where he had not hated her. She wanted to feel even the trace amount of his presence that might still linger in the air. Now, as the mansion surrounded her with the oppressive silence of its emptiness, she needed to be near some faint sign of him. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and finally flung the door open.
The room was still and every bit as quiet as every other room at this hour, but it seemed to have a peace to it that the rest of the home lacked. As she drew into the dark room with tentative steps, she found that the loneliness and guilt were not quite so heavy here. The portraits of her mother's family looked down at her with soft eyes and the air was still and calm. Inching forward, she crawled slowly onto the bed, which was still unmade after Fenris had slept there. It smelled of him, she realized, as she buried her face in the pillows. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine that he was there with her. Wrapping her arms around the pillow, her elbow came into contact with something hard. Lifting her head, she reached out and grasped the object. She recognized it at once as Fenris' journal, which he must had tucked beneath his pillow.
She held it in her lap, staring at the cover, and sitting motionless for a long while. Without opening it, she knew what it held—his words, his thoughts, his cramped little writing. Shaking, she rested her hand on the cover, feeling the smooth leather beneath her fingertips. Skimming her fingertips across the edges of the pages, she felt how easily it would be to turn those pages, reading those words that he had left behind. But then, he hadn't showed her those pages when she'd asked to see them. He'd smiled, his voice soft, and told her that he'd filled that journal with thoughts of her. The memory was enough. Just barely… but enough. Lying back, the journal clutched in her arms, Hawke fell soundly asleep for the first time since he'd left.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
A) Blargh, I am so sorry to have done something this long and this deviated from the Fen/Hawke storyline. But I have mentioned in previous chapters that Merrill is still involved with the eluvian and so I needed to tie up that loose end. I figured that, while I was doing her personal quest, it would be an opportunity to show Hawke existing after everything that happened with Fenris. I thought it was important that she did not completely disappear off the face of the earth when Fenris left. She's obviously not in top form, but she's still there when her friends need her. That just seemed necessary to me. I didn't want her to flash right back to the entirely suicidal, defeated place she was at the beginning. Yes, she's given up on being forgiven or ever redeeming herself, but that's not really the end of it.
B) I feel a little bad about having used so much of the dialogue from the game and so on. However, I couldn't really see a way around it. I can justify changing dialogue and character behavior for people directly involved with Hawke when she went on her deviation-from-canon quest, but Marethari does not fall under that category nor do any of the other Dalish elves. I did my best to pad it with enough other stuff that it didn't feel entirely like reliving the game. Which made it long. Also, I made the rather colossal mistake of trying to do almost all the little battles and stuff. Yeah… I won't be doing that again. I'm sorry, I really am. I hope you just skimmed over them.
C) Self-harm. I didn't show it, but Hawke has been dealing with some of her more guilt-ridden moments in the manner that she describes to Anders. Most of what she does involves needles, because that's what she remembers most vividly from her time in Tevinter. I'll leave most of that to your imagination.
