Sorry about the radio silence last week. I'll try not to let it happen again.
The time passes quickly from one story to the next until Marian can no longer keep her conscience at bay about deserting Alistair. She hugs her mother and sister and makes them promise that Carver is close and they will leave as soon as he arrives. They make plans to meet in Kirkwall, plans Marian is not entirely sure she will be able to keep, but she cannot bear to let them go so soon after finding them again.
As she leaves, she knows she is leaving part of herself behind, the best part.
It is long after dark when she leaves, and the market is empty. She has just decided to find Morrigan's camp when a burst of noise catches her attention to a small pub across the way, the only place in Lothering that doesn't look like it's in a ghost town.
She'll just put her head in, she decides, and see if Alistair has succumbed to the siren lure of the bottle. She doesn't think he's the sort to drink away their supplies, but it doesn't hurt to be sure.
She opens the door into one large room with a long balcony on the back wall. Two men and a woman are scrubbing bloodstains from the floor. When he sees her, one of the men stands and comes over to her.
"We don't want any trouble," he says urgently.
"Nor I," Marian says, completely mystified. "Is something wrong?"
"Just go," he says, nearly begging. "The other one was bad enough – " His eyes flicker to the top of her staff protruding over her shoulder. She can see the horrified realization in his face. Mage.
She whirls and slams the door behind her; in her fury she doesn't even look where she's going, taking long strides into the darkness while she fumes. Don't they realize that she'd never had a choice in what she is? She's not a blood mage or a maleficar, how can she make them understand?
I can show them I'm different, she thinks, and her steps slow. I can go back – I can make them see –
She stops, horrified at herself and what she's thinking. It doesn't even feel like her thoughts, now that she's paying attention, and she traces them back and finds a demon at the other end.
Almost had you, it says, smug, then the presence in her mind fades and she is alone.
Marian presses the heels of her hands into her eyes, feeling the stinging that announces another crying jag. She's balanced on the edge of a precipice, with a long drop and an unpleasant landing if she can't get control of her emotions.
She misses her father. It has only been bearable these last ten years because she knew they would end. This is an ache that will never go away.
She slowly bends her steps toward Morrigan's camp, paying more attention to the roiling mix inside her head than what's going on outside. When Cú tears up to her and nearly bowls her over with affection disguised as drool, she jumps. Alistair is close behind him. "Where have you been?" he says under his breath. "I've been looking for you everywhere – anyhow, I thought we could use some help." He takes her elbow and drags her forward – she's not resisting, she's bewildered and feeling slow and stupid. Today has been too much and she just wants to sleep.
Alistair takes her to a redhead in Chantry garb, standing at the base of the windmill. She and Alistair look at her expectantly.
"Um," Marian says, at a loss. "Hi?"
"Thank you so much for letting me come," the redhead gushes with a marked Orlesian accent, leaping forward to take Marian's hands in hers. "I won't let you down! I know I can help you. The Maker told me so."
Marian blinks and slowly draws her hands away from Leliana's. "What?"
"This is Sister Leliana," Alistair breaks in, speaking fast as if that will make her forget what the crazy woman just said. "I was in the bar – don't look at me like that, someone told me the bartender had health potions for sale – and some soldiers of Loghain's jumped me. She saved my life, her and Cú."
"That's fantastic," Marian says through her teeth, pulling him away from Sister Leliana to speak privately. "Congratulations on your continued existence. How does that turn into bringing a completely mental stranger along?"
Alistair shrugs. "I know she's a little strange, but she seems more... 'Ooh, pretty colors!' than 'Muahaha! I am Princess Stabbity! Stab, kill, kill!'" His vocal contortions are fascinating, and Marian catches herself in a laugh before she can stop herself.
"We don't know her," she points out. "How do you know we can trust her?"
"I don't," Alistair says with another shrug. "But we need all the help we can get."
"But why her?" Marian asks, eyeing Leliana dubiously.
"You and Morrigan are mages," Alistair says. "I'm on the front lines alone. She's sneaky, she'll do well on our flank."
Marian sighs. "Fine, but if she murders us all in our beds, I reserve the right to say 'I told you so'."
"Fair enough," Alistair says with a grin. "Oh, and before I forget..." He sobers, and without the good humor he looks as tired and unhappy as she feels. "Loghain passed through two days ago. He's saying that the Grey Wardens betrayed Cailan at Ostagar. There's a price on our heads big enough to attract every sellsword this side of the Waking Sea."
Marian absorbs that, one more blow in the fistfight that this day has been, and sighs. "Perfect," she says, looking down at her uniform, which she's quickly become attached to. "We'd better get rid of these, then." That more or less explains what the bartender was on about, but... "How do you know she's not after the reward, then?" she asks, eyeing Leliana again.
Alistair rubs the back of his neck, sheepish. "I was pretty wrecked after the fight. She could have taken me if she wanted to, easily."
Marian is prepared to admit that perhaps her paranoia is getting out of hand. That doesn't make her any the less concerned.
"All right," she says, giving up. She turns away from Alistair, rubbing her eyes harshly. They're sore and gritty after her earlier emotional purge, and she needs to wash her face and drink a lake's worth of water and go to sleep.
She looks up to see a giant in a cage. His eyes are upon her, and she takes one shocked breath, but then the fright fades and is replaced by familiar curiosity. She draws nearer, unable to resist.
"You aren't one of my captors," the giant says in a deep, rumbling voice. He's just so big, she wonders; even Alistair barely comes up to his chin, and Alistair is six foot if he's an inch. His skin is curiously grey under a purpley sort of brown, and his skull sweeps back past his ears before terminating abruptly. He is no human, nor dwarf nor elf, and that only leaves –
"You're a qunari, aren't you?" Marian demands. "What are you doing this far south?"
He eyes her with burgeoning interest. "And you are no villager, to recognize me at a glance," he says, then seems to lose his interest. "Begone, human. I will not amuse you any more than I have the other humans. Leave me in peace."
Leliana drifts closer, following Alistair as they notice her standing in front of the cage. "The revered mother said he slaughtered an entire family," she says quietly. "Even the children."
The giant spares her one assessing glance before he turns his eyes back to the night sky over their heads. "It is as she says."
"But why?" Marian asks, distressed.
He makes an impatient noise and glances down at her again. "Did I not ask you to leave me in peace?"
"You did," she returns, crisp and offended. "Goodbye." She whirls on one booted foot and stalks away, leaving Alistair, Leliana, and Cú to trail her like small ducks following their mother. She skirts the windmill, making for the ubiquitous ramps that lead back onto the Imperial highway.
"To be left here to starve, or to be taken by the darkspawn..." Leliana says, so quietly, but it hits Marian like a fist. "No one deserves that, not even a murderer."
"Urgh, eaten alive by darkspawn," Alistair says, further back. "Fun. I wonder why the revered mother is so afraid of him."
"She is afraid of the Blight," Leliana says. "She cannot do anything about the darkspawn, but she can do something about the qunari."
Her instinctive revulsion prompts an idea, which horrifies even her. But he's a murderer, she protests to herself. It doesn't seem to make a difference. She sighs and stops. "Leliana, do you think the revered mother would release him to your custody?"
"You're going to let him go?" Alistair asks. "Is that really a good idea?"
"I'm not letting him go," she says. "He's coming with us."
She talks right over their objections and bullies them into agreeing. "She might still be awake," Leliana says finally. "I'll go now." She disappears into the darkness.
"Is this my revenge for recruiting Leliana?" Alistair asks, only half-joking.
"Yes," Marian agrees with a faint smile. "So think carefully before you try it again." She digs into her pack. "Go with Leliana to the Chantry and deliver this," she says, holding out poor doomed Ser Henric's cameo and the note. "It mentions someone named Ser Donall. Oh, and they should probably know about the bandits."
"All right," Alistair says, accepting the locket. He looks slightly dazed at the stream of instructions.
Another thought strikes her. "Oh, and is there any money left over?"
He smirks and digs out a coin purse, tossing it to her. It feels suspiciously heavy, and she raises her eyebrows at him.
"I'm not all muscles, you know," he says, grinning, and strolls off.
"Come along, Cú," Marian says, slipping through the alleys toward her mother's house.
She returns, the coin purse much lighter, to find Leliana and Alistair waiting close to the giant's cage. "We have more news," Alistair says the instant he spots her. When she draws closer she can see that he's upset, tense lines drawn through his face and creasing his forehead. "Arl Eamon is ill. He's – " He breaks off, and Leliana lays a slim, comforting hand on Alistair's shoulder. He sighs. "Ser Donall said he's dying."
"They search for the Urn of Sacred Ashes, for a cure," Leliana says. "But none have found any trace."
Marian sighs. "We may need to rethink our first destination, then. But first things first: the key, Leliana?" Leliana takes a large wrought-iron key from her pocket and presents it to Marian with a smile. "Good," Marian says. "Stay here while I talk to him."
She approaches the cage, Cú at her side; the giant is still awake, staring at the sky as if he hasn't moved since they left him. "What more do you wish of me?" he asks her, startling her. "I will not indulge you in idle chatter."
"I don't really have the patience for idle chatter right now," Marian says. She holds up the key. "This is the key to your cage. The revered mother has agreed to release you into my custody."
"And who are you to persuade the priestess of such a foolish plan?" he says, watching her intently now. They must make quite the spectacle, Marian thinks, girl and mabari and qunari, all standing still as statues in the night.
"I'm a Grey Warden," she says. "I am sworn to defend against the Blight."
The giant looks her up and down. "You are a Grey Warden? Even in the far north, we have heard the legends of their strength and skill." He scrutinizes her again. "But I suppose not every legend is true."
"And I've heard qunari called 'the warmongers of the north.'" She looks him up and down, deliberately aping his dismissive glance. "I suppose not every legend is true."
He snorts. "We are called a lot of things." He examines her once more, looking for what she can't say, and then he nods. "Very well. Set me free, and I will follow you against the Blight."
The key sticks for one heart-stopping moment, and then the rusted pins catch hold and the lock turns. The giant pushes the door open and she steps back, out of the way, as he comes out of the cage. He seems even larger, if that's possible, when out of the confining metal. He draws in a deep breath of air through his nose. "So it is done," he says, almost to himself. He looks at the stars once more before turning to Marian. "I will follow you into battle. In doing so, I shall find my atonement."
"What if I don't lead you to your atonement?" Marian asks carefully.
"Then I will find it myself."
She believes him, she decides after a moment's thought, and nods.
He inclines his head just a little. "I am Sten, of the Beresaad-the vanguard-of the qunari."
"I'm Marian," she says. She thinks of the tangle that is her name, and sighs. "Just Marian."
"Warden," Sten says, and the note of finality in his voice announces his intent to call her that forever. She rolls her eyes and hopes he can't see her face in the dark. "Lead the way."
They're ambushed by a party of darkspawn on the highway, but with five in their party now they tear through the opposition – Marian personally witnesses Sten rip a darkspawn's head off with his bare hands, which is going to give her nightmares – and save a dwarf merchant and his son, who offer to give them supplies to make up what they're lacking.
Morrigan has a giant fire burning well down the road, and she gives them an arch look when they tramp into the campsite, sore, tired, and laden down with things that Bodahn insisted on giving them. She and Leliana strike sparks immediately and settle down on opposite sides of the campsite to glare at each other, giving Alistair and Marian time to figure out where they're going next.
"If the arl is sick..." Marian says, trailing off. "Alistair, maybe it's better if we go somewhere else."
"But what if he needs help?" Alistair asks, appealing.
"We are neither of us healers," she points out. "I'm not sure there's anything we can do."
"But from here, Redcliffe is on the way to Orzammar," Alistair says, staring into space behind her. Marian suspects that if she turned around, there'd be an imaginary map painted in the air. "It's about a day's journey, so we'd be stopping there anyway. Can't we just, I don't know, stick our heads in?"
"Well reasoned," Marian says with a faint smile. "How can I argue with logic?" She shifts on her log, moving until she can see the whole camp. "Go on to bed," she says without looking at Alistair. "I'll wake you for third watch." It's so late that they're just now starting second watch and she's so tired, but this is the watch rotation they've been using this last week. It's not fair to change it up just because her entire world has turned upside down.
Alistair regards her critically, and she doesn't know what he sees in her but he leans back against another log and says, quite casually, "I'll take this watch. You look done in."
"I'm all right," she protests.
"Don't think I don't know what you've been doing," he says, fixing her with his eyes; then his expression warms. "Thank you. But now – I don't know what happened to you today, but it's your turn now." Alistair gets up and comes over to her, holding out his hand to lift her from her seat. "Go to bed, Marian," he says quietly. "It'll look better in the morning."
"Liar," Marian says, taking his hand. She sighs. "But thank you."
She cries herself to sleep in her tent, Cú warm and restless against her back.