Thank you for reading! Special thanks to suilven for her lightning-fast betaing!
"Varric. Varric, I have to talk to you."
He looked up into Daisy's wide green eyes. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes glittered … the last time he'd seen her look like that she'd been begging them to take her up a mountain to awaken a demon. "Daisy. Whatever this is, are you sure about it?"
"I've never been more sure. Did you know—" She caught herself and looked around anxiously, then leaned closer to him and lowered her voice. "The apostate Morrigan has an eluvian. And it works!"
It was only because she was looking at him so closely, and with such expectation, that Varric was able to keep from groaning and rolling his eyes. Here they went again. "Have you talked to her about it?"
"Oh, no," Daisy assured him solemnly. "King Alistair seems to think she's very dangerous."
"She is very dangerous. You don't want to go messing with her." He narrowed his eyes, struck by a sudden idea. "Have you talked to Chuckles about this?"
"Solas?" Daisy blinked, looking suddenly doubtful. She sank into the chair on her side of the table. "I … don't think he would approve."
"Of you messing around with an eluvian, or of you messing around with that eluvian?"
"I'm not certain."
"Do you remember what happened the last time?" He hated to do it to her, to bring her back to that cold cave on the mountain top, to the smell of blood and the twisted body that had been her Keeper's, to the angry shouts of those who had been her clan, to the awful stillness after they had been forced to kill all the suddenly crazed elves. But after that, the very word 'eluvian' chilled Varric straight to the bone, and he couldn't bear to see Daisy walk that path again, not without having given serious thought to what she was doing.
But apparently it had been the wrong move. She sat forward, her delicate face set and determined. "I remember, Varric. How could I forget? I sacrificed … everything, let my people go to their deaths, all to recapture just one piece of our people's history. And now another piece of that history is here in Skyhold, being used by a sh—a human, of all things, and you want me to just forget about it?"
"Well, not forget, exactly …" Except that he did, very much, want her to do just that.
"I can't. King Alistair promised to help me—" She stopped when Varric raised his eyebrows as far as they would go, a silent reminder of someone else who had trusted His Majesty, counted on him, and been burnt. "He means it," Daisy said firmly, trying to convince herself as much as him.
"You think he's going to face the witch for you? He's almost as afraid of her as he is of himself."
"Oh, what's the use of talking to you?" Daisy snapped. "If I have to sneak in myself, I will. Anything I have to do!"
"Don't! Please. Go talk to Chuckles. Ask him about this thing. Or talk to the witch yourself. You don't have to go through it to learn about it." He couldn't help remembering the way she had been before, when she was in the throes of her obsession. Thin and gaunt and hollow-eyed, like she was halfway through the mirror and into some shadowy realm that didn't exist already. He couldn't see her go down that path again.
"You just don't want me to find out about the elves' past."
"Daisy!" He was truly stung. "I would never keep you from that. I just think—I just think this is the wrong way for you to do it."
Her eyes had filled with tears, and he swallowed hard against the automatic softening of his heart at the sight. "It calls to me, Varric."
"Only now that you know it's there."
"But I do know, and I can't stop knowing, and … I have to know, don't you see? How she opened it and what's on the other side, and—" She shook her head. "I'll never make you understand."
"No," he agreed softly, "I don't think you will."
She got up and left him alone at the table.
Morrigan looked up from the book she was writing in as Alistair approached. "So. You have come to attempt to beguile me into looking the other way while Hawke's little elven friend sneaks in and pilfers my eluvian?"
He frowned. "Must you always be ten steps ahead?"
"Yes."
"Yeah. All right. I suppose I walked into that one."
"So you did. Do scintillate me with your witty banter, your enchanting conversational skills, your charming personality." She closed the book and leaned back in her chair, arranging her features into an expectant look.
"Stop being ridiculous."
"I? I am not the one assuming skills he does not possess."
"Fine, then, what do you suggest I do? She was going to break in."
Morrigan chuckled, not pleasantly. "She would not have enjoyed the results."
"That's what I told her. Look—I don't know the details of what happened, but apparently she used to have an eluvian, or a broken one, or a piece of one …" He trailed off, wishing he had thought to ask Lilias for the full story before he walked into this mess. "Anyway, she tried to make it work and very bad things happened."
"And so you naturally thought that I would just let her waltz into mine with open arms? Perhaps I had overestimated how far you have come since the Blight."
"Well, not by herself, certainly. Since you seem to know so much about it, maybe you could help her, show her—"
"And I would do this from the goodness of my heart?" Morrigan asked coolly, that faint, superior smile he hated so much playing across her face.
"It wouldn't kill you to pretend you have one," he snapped.
"How do you know? Perhaps it would."
Alistair frowned. "Knowing you, it might, at that. So what do I do, tell her that you're too cold and greedy to share?"
"It is as close to the truth as anything else you might say of me," Morrigan pointed out.
"Except that—well, I don't know Merrill that well, but I don't think she's the type to take no for an answer, not where this is concerned. Hawke only seems to know stubborn people. Maybe it's an Amell thing." He thought about the denizens of the Inquisition. "Or a saving the world thing. Either way, I go to Merrill and tell her you said no, she'll just keep trying to sneak behind your back, and then she'll get hurt, and Hawke will be mad and the Inquisitor will be mad, and … things have the potential to go very badly, in that case."
Morrigan sighed. "You do have a point."
"I do? I mean, of course I do."
"You shouldn't look so surprised. Were you not going to consider developing some self-confidence?"
"Turns out, that's not easy. It takes work."
"Mental work, which is not exactly your forte."
"No." He hated agreeing to that—it made him sound … lazy, and worthless, and all the things Arlessa Isolde had ever accused him of being—but it was the truth.
"Well, there is no time like the present to develop the capacity. Actually, that is not true. There is no time like ten years ago for you to have developed the capacity, but since that time is long past …" She shrugged.
"Yes, yes, I get your point. Will you help Merrill?"
Morrigan considered it. "I will speak with her. Send her, and the Inquisitor, to me, and … I will give the matter some thought."
"Thank you," Alistair said, somewhat unwillingly. He hated to be beholden to Morrigan, even on someone else's behalf.
"Oh, my pleasure indeed," she said, her eyes sparkling wickedly. She opened the book again and bent over it, an obvious gesture of dismissal. Alistair was too grateful that the conversation had gone so unexpectedly well to object to the rudeness—after all, what else could he have expected of her?
Thule and Merrill found Morrigan in the garden, waiting for them, as though she had known exactly when to expect them. He had to admit, the witch worried him. He didn't understand her, or what she wanted with the Inquisition. She didn't seem to be spying for Orlais—no doubt Celene had her spies in his organization, as he had his in hers, but Morrigan did not seem to be among them. So why was she here? And who was she? Alistair knew her best, and even he wasn't certain … or he was too thoroughly under her spell, cowed by the undoubted force of her personality, to see her clearly.
"So. You have come to ask me for my eluvian," Morrigan said.
"Your eluvian?" Merrill began hotly. "That mirror belongs to my—" She stopped when Thule put a hand on her arm.
"Would there be any harm in letting her see it?" he asked Morrigan.
"Harm?" Morrigan mused. "Who can tell? The mirror is unpredictable. I assume you have already told her about your experience with it, about the Crossroads."
"Yes, and I can't see why, if you let a durgen'len through, you cannot let through a member of the elvhen."
"And what is to stop you from taking the mirror for your own use?" Morrigan asked. "I barely know you, I certainly cannot say that I trust you, it is evident that you do not trust me … We seem to be at an impasse."
Merrill began to protest again, her eyes snapping with anger, but this time she caught herself, going silent and studying Morrigan's face. A faint smile played on the witch's lips, one that said she knew perfectly well that she had the upper hand. At last Merrill said, "What do you want?"
"Ah. Now we get to the heart of the situation. I have something that you wish to possess—but you have nothing that I wish to possess."
"I have an arulin'holm," Merrill said, the words coming out quickly, as though she was getting them out before she regretted them.
"Do you?" Morrigan said with unfeigned interest, and for a moment Merrill held her breath, clearly thinking she had won. Then Morrigan added, "Intriguing, but I have no need of an arulin'holm."
"Then what?"
"Perhaps … perhaps one day you can do me a favor, and then on that day, I will give you the eluvian in exchange."
"One day?" Merrill asked. "What if 'one day' never comes?"
Morrigan shrugged. "What is that to me?"
Merrill stepped forward. She was shorter than the human, her slender body seeming slight and frail next to Morrigan's … but even Thule could feel the power building in her. "Do not play with me, witch."
"Nor you with me," Morrigan said sharply. They were equal to equal now, mage to mage, power to power. "'Tis a bitter pill to swallow, to know that I have something you want so badly and that you cannot get it from me—but you cannot, and you will have to live with that. At some point, there will be something I want that you can procure for me, and on that day, you will have the eluvian and all that I know of it, to do with as you wish. Until then … if you go near it, you will regret it. And Hawke will regret it."
She had struck where Merrill was most vulnerable. What she would have dared despite the danger to herself, she would not dare when the danger threatened her friend. Thule hurt for the elf, and he wished again that he understood Morrigan better. As it was, he had no weapon against her that could help Merrill. Not today.
Morrigan looked at him over Merrill's shoulder. "You are a witness, Inquisitor, that I have promised this woman what she wants, in my own time, and that she is not to go near my mirror without my permission."
"Yes," he said reluctantly, "I am. But be careful who you threaten within my Inquisition, Morrigan."
"Understood, Inquisitor."
"Come on, Merrill."
Unwillingly, Merrill turned away from Morrigan, her shoulders slumped and her eyes filled with tears. She disappeared in the direction of Solas's atrium, and Thule let her go, knowing that Solas could comfort her better in this circumstance than he could.