9:30 Molloris 9
Kirkwall, Confederation of Free Cities
The odd sleep schedule that came with Marian's more illicit work for the syndicate meant she sometimes ended up taking meals at odd hours. There were down and up sides to this. It was true, as they'd been told their first morning in the city, that the refectories were open more or less all day and all night, but that didn't mean the food the cooks had available was consistent — most people came around particular times of the day, so most of the cooking was done to prepare for those busy times. If someone wanted a hot meal, they pretty much had to come at one of those times, or else content themselves with bread and cheese or something. (They could ask to have something fresh made for them, but the thought kind of made Marian feel like an ass, so she never had.) On the other hand, the busy hours often meant waiting for some minutes — the counter outside the kitchen was narrow, and there were quite a few people the syndicate had to feed, it took time — while on off-hours she could almost always walk right up to the counter and grab something without any delay at all.
This time, despite there not being a pack of people ahead she had to wait for, Marian stalled long before reaching the counter. Sitting at one of the long tables stretching down the wide open space — unusually empty at the moment, being the middle of the afternoon — was Gerael, sitting alone. Marian froze, nervous tingles sweeping over her skin, eyes flicking between him and the food counter.
Gerael had been avoiding her since... Well, he'd been avoiding her. They hadn't been on any of the same jobs since...in the last few days, but they did live together, so she was certain she wasn't imagining it. She kind of wanted to... Yes, she understood they shouldn't have, but... But this was, just, incredibly awkward, and if nothing else people would notice if they kept acting weird so they...needed to talk about it.
(She kind of didn't want to, but Father had told her repeatedly of the danger of not facing things that made her uncomfortable. He'd been talking about her own feelings, which could be exploited by a clever demon, but she thought the same principle should apply to this sort of thing. No matter how terribly inconvenient that seemed at the moment.)
Stomach squirming with nerves, Marian turned away from the counter, picking her way through the tables toward Gerael. He looked tired — she guessed he'd had a job that'd gone late the night before, and the baby probably didn't help — and didn't seem to notice her approach at all, focused on his bread and beans. Gerael was relatively ordinary-looking, so far as elves went, his hair a plain sandy blond instead of one of those vibrant inhuman colors elves could get, his eyes a deep blue-green. But, of course, he was an elf — features sharp and dramatic, hands long and delicate and graceful — and even a friend, and apparently Marian was just stupid about elves. She found herself staring almost immediately, tried to force herself to stop.
It was annoyingly difficult, because of course.
Marian sank into a seat across from him (almost cautiously, as though approaching an unruly ram), and Gerael finally noticed she was there. His eyes flicked up, but just for a second before dropping straight down to his plate again, shoulders tensing and face twisting with a faint grimace. "Marian." He glanced around the room, quick and subtle, relaxing only a little when he saw nobody was paying them any special attention.
"Gerael. You've be—" She cut herself off, paused a second to run her tongue over the roof of her mouth. Apparently it'd managed to dry up while she hadn't been paying attention, trying to talk the movements feeling almost numb, like an arm after sleeping on it funny. The squirming in her gut hadn't stopped, unpleasant prickles still crawling along her neck, she tried to ignore it. "I don't mean to...you know, but, I think you've been avoiding me."
He forced out a short, aborted sigh. Still not looking at her, poking at the beans with his spoon, he admitted, "Yeah, I was."
"We can't just... I mean..."
"I know, I know. I didn't—" He sighed again, dropping his spoon to rub his forehead with both hands. Head tipping back, eyes slipping right over her to look up at the ceiling, his hands dragging down his cheeks to his jaw, fingers crossing over his lips. Marian was struck with a sudden flash of memory, Gerael's hand over her mouth, his face against her neck, and— She squeezed her eyes closed, took a long, deep breath through her nose, in then out, scrambling for focus. She might not have had nearly as much luck if she hadn't so much practice casting magic — it wasn't the same kind of focus, but it was similar enough — but she felt her face warming anyway, grit her teeth against a curse.
She belatedly realized Gerael had said something, she hadn't caught it. Blinking her eyes open again, "What? I'm sorry, I...didn't hear."
Looking rather exasperated — but also shifting and uncomfortable, as though he knew what exactly she'd been distracted by — he said, "I was being childish, I don't... I know, it doesn't make it go away, I just...didn't want to have this talk, I guess."
...Fair enough, she didn't either. She made to speak, but at the last second came up with absolutely nothing to say, settling into awkward silence.
"We can't—" Gerael grimaced, again staring down at his plate rather than look at her. "I don't mean to... It can't happen again. I shouldn't have done it to start, I'm sorry."
She felt a twinge of...something at that. Not sure what it was, but certainly nothing pleasant. "You don't have to... I mean, I started it." She tried to swallow down the something clawing at her throat, not fading away but only steadily growing, and mostly failed, forced her breathing slow and even through it.
His voice falling to little more than a whisper, he said, "You might have kissed me first, but I was the one who..." He trailed off, uncomfortable, clearly uncertain how to put it.
His hands dropped between them, sharp pulses of heat fluttering low in her body as his knuckles bumped against her stomach, her breath catching in her throat as she put together what— She cleared her throat. "Uh, escalated?"
Gerael coughed out a laugh, reluctantly amused. "Sure, let's, uh, call it that. I wasn't thinking, and..." One hand coming up, self-consciously running through his hair, pushing it out of his face, he let out a thick sigh. "I shouldn't have. Me and Alya don't..."
The mention of his wife just made Marian feel worse. "I don't...want to make trouble for you. I like Alya, and Alex, shit, that kid's adorable." Gerael's lips twitched. Marian had a wild thought, bursting out of nowhere, that she thought Alya was pretty too, and, if he wanted to maybe— She cut that suggestion off before it could get too far, Andraste have mercy, what the fuck was wrong with her... "Uh. I wasn't thinking either, I... No, I agree, we can't. That's what I...wanted to say."
"Right. Good." Another awkward silence fell, Gerael's fingers tapping against the crust of his loaf, Marian struggling against the hot tension in her chest. It almost felt like she were trying not to cry, but she had no idea what that could be about. "We agree, then. That's...good."
"Yes. Good."
Gerael fidgeted quietly for another moment before letting out a sigh, pushing himself up to his feet. "I'm not going to..." He rubbed at the back of his neck with a grimace. "I won't avoid you, but I...think we shouldn't be put on the same jobs anymore."
The heat in her chest clenched tighter, she had to focus on breathing for a couple seconds before she could find her voice. "...You might be right."
"Okay. I'm gonna go...talk to someone about that. I won't tell them why, just, make something up." His eyes met hers, and he held her gaze for what felt like the first time in this whole conversation. "I am sorry, Marian. For...all of it."
That just made her feel worse again, she tried to force a smile she really didn't feel. "It's alright. You didn't... It's alright."
Gerael looked less than entirely convinced, but he nodded, uncertainly, and started walking away (leaving his half-eaten dinner abandoned on the table). Alone, the tight heat in her chest still wasn't getting any better, even worsening, enough it kind of hurt a little, she felt oddly flushed, her stomach still squirming and fingers shaky from nerves — which was ridiculous, Gerael wasn't even here anymore, what the hell was wrong with her? Marian struggled against the inexplicable...whatever this was, trying to pull herself together — at the very least, she really should eat something — but it wasn't working. She ended up leaning over the table, her forehead resting on her crossed arms, forcing slow, steady breaths through her constricted throat.
She didn't know how long she sat there alone, a few minutes at least, but eventually she heard the soft footsteps of someone coming near. Feeling unaccountably embarrassed over her...whatever this was, she didn't look up. Hopefully they'd move on past her. But they didn't — whoever it was set a few things down on the table with little thunks of hardened clay against wood, then sat on the bench right next to her.
Sitting this close, Marian finally recognized the faintest tingling echo of another mage, a second before Bethany spoke. "Are you okay? Did something happen with Gerael?"
Marian tipped her head up a little. A plate and a mug had been set on the table nearby — beans and mushrooms in gravy, a little single-person loaf of a dark rye bread. (Coarse and nutty, she suspected the flour had been less than thoroughly ground, probably cheap shit the millers didn't bother paying too much attention to.) There was a second mug sitting in front of Bethany, but she didn't have a plate, presumably she'd eaten already. Bethany's hair, pulled back in a long, simple braid, showed signs of having been wet recently, little wispy bits escaping here and there, hints of dried sweat along her hairline and her neck. It probably got hot back in the kitchen, Marian had never asked.
Almost shivering with the intensity of it, Marian abruptly really wanted to talk to Beth about...things. This had all been overwhelming, and confusing, and she did not know what she was doing, and she didn't even know what was going on in her head right now. She'd never... This was all new stuff to her, and she didn't... It'd only been a few days, and she was already sick of keeping it to herself, she didn't want to...
She didn't know. She wished Father were still around. There was Mother, but she... It made her feel slightly guilty whenever the thought occurred to her, but she'd never been that close to her mother. Before Father's death, she'd spent most days with him, and they'd talked about everything — she'd been practically ordered to, for reasons related to her magic lessons, but she'd also just enjoyed their time together — and after Mother had been completely inconsolable, and it'd fallen to Marian to take care of the family, to run the farm and keep all of them alive, and...
She kind of still resented Mother for just how completely useless she'd been those first couple years, if she was being honest. She didn't blame Mother for it, exactly. She'd had every reason to be devastated over the loss of her husband, and from a few comments here and there Marian had gotten the impression her side of the family had a history of getting debilitating, persistent bursts of melancholy like Mother did sometimes — it hadn't been a conscious choice to push all responsibility for the family over to Marian, she hadn't been able to help it. But, at the same time, Marian couldn't help how she felt about it either.
They probably got on better now than they ever had, which really wasn't saying much, but she'd still never said anything about...all that. It just hadn't seemed worth it. It was in the past (mostly), and it would probably just be painful for Mother to hear anyway — as much old anger as Marian might still be carrying over those years, she didn't want to hurt her own mother if she could help it. (Not to mention, it might risk pushing her into another of those episodes while she was at it, and Marian definitely didn't want to do that.) They'd only spoken of anything deeply personal once — when Marian had been worried whether there was something seriously wrong with her for being completely disinterested in love and sex, and Mother had reassured her there wasn't — but that only happened because Marian had been brooding over it enough that Mother had noticed and asked.
Of course, now she knew she did find certain people appealing, like everyone else did...except it seemed to be only elves, for some baffling reason. Mother had been all kind and warm about Marian just not being interested, but she had no idea how she'd react to this.
Marian was aware of how a lot of people felt about elves, and Mother had grown up a noblewoman. She'd been perfectly polite and friendly with the elves Marian had seen her interact with so far, but still...
No, she didn't want to talk to Mother about this. And she definitely couldn't talk to Carver. They'd never gotten on particularly well — like Mother, they were probably closer now than they'd ever been before, which was a very low bar. Carver had never liked her, at first out of what she assumed was jealousy for monopolizing their father's attention. (Which was something Beth was also 'guilty' for — if to a somewhat lesser extent, she'd gotten magic lessons but had been too young to go out into the fields or hunting and trading with them — but apparently his twin sister could get away with things Marian couldn't.) After that, well, Beth claimed Carver had convinced himself that Marian didn't like him, in part because she'd spent so much more time alone with Bethany than him. Whether it was because he was a boy, or because he wasn't a mage, or for some other reason, he didn't know, he just knew she didn't like him.
Which was such complete nugshit, it was infuriating. It was true that Marian hadn't spent much time with him when he'd been little, but she'd been providing for and taking care of the family single-handedly — she'd been kind of busy, okay! Yes, she'd made time for Bethany, but she'd needed to so Beth would know how to control her magic, and wouldn't be caught and dragged off to the Circle or become an abomination, so that was kind of fucking important, Carver! Quite seriously, it was a miracle Marian had managed to keep everything together as well as she had when the twins had still been too young to help out much — and as hard as she'd worked, she'd still resorted to theft to get them through one winter — she was so sorry if she hadn't had the time to play around with Carver as much as he'd like because she'd been preoccupied with making sure he didn't starve to death. Honestly, that little shit...
So, no, she couldn't talk to Carver about any of this. If she was going to talk to anybody, it had to be Bethany.
But she didn't know how to talk about this stuff — obviously, she'd never been in a position where she had the opportunity to. She stared at Bethany for a long moment, mouth hanging uselessly open. Her baby sister stared right back, her brow furrowing in concern as she put together there really was something serious going on. Marian thought she caught the slightest twitch of guilt — Beth had probably only asked out of curiosity, regretting that she'd bumbled into whatever this was like an ass. And the moment stretched on, Marian wavering on whether it really was a good idea to tell her, and if she were, how in the hell she was supposed to go about it...
"You can't—" She cleared her throat, tried to force her annoyingly constricted chest to cooperate. "You can't tell anyone. Anyone, not even Carver."
Her eyes widened just a little. Of course, Beth knew that Marian and Carver didn't get along so great, but Marian had never told her to keep something from him before. She was surprised, but she didn't hesitate before saying, "I won't, I promise."
Right. Might as well, just...spit it out, then. Marian looked away, eyes dropping down to the plate of food. She was rather hungry, but she kind of doubted she could get anything past her throat right now anyway, maybe she'd have better luck in a few minutes. She took in a long breath, let it out in a heavy sigh. "A few days ago, we were on a job, and..." She bit her lip, internally cursing at herself — no, come on, Marian, just spit it out... "We had sex."
Beth audibly gasped, leaning a little away from Marian on the bench. "No! Really?"
"Yes, really," she grumbled, looking away to stare down at the table. She didn't know why, but that reaction was also just making her feel worse.
"Mari, you... He's married."
Yeah, that wasn't helping either. The tightness in her chest half-strangling her, turning her voice thick and strained, she snarled, "I know that, Beth!" Cringing a little, she glanced around the refectory. Yeah, there was still hardly anybody here — they might have drawn a couple curious glances, but nobody was paying them special attention. "It's not like I planned it or anything, it just happened."
"I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound...you know." Marian wasn't looking at the moment, but Beth did sound legitimately regretful, voice low and soft. "How does that even happen on a job? From how Carver talks about it, there are always other people around..."
"There weren't on this one." She rubbed her face with both hands for a moment, before reaching for the mug Beth had brought her. Maybe whatever was in there would help loosen up her throat a little. "I found out what Gerael does. Did I tell you, I was wondering about that — he comes on smuggling runs, but he isn't in the League, and I had no idea what his job actually was. Turns out, he's a thief. As in, sneaking around alleys in the middle of the night and breaking into houses and stealing shit, that kind of thief. Apparently, he started off picking pockets in the upper levels as a kid, but has really moved up in the world," she drawled, picking up her own note of bitter sarcasm.
She'd resigned herself to working with the syndicate, but that didn't mean she was any more comfortable with their less defensible activities. Just guarding people who'd asked for it was fine, no problem with that. The smuggling was illegal, yes, but what else where poor people supposed to do when tariffs and the merchant guilds marked everything up so much they couldn't afford practically anything, even food? If Kirkwall's authorities didn't want them to break the law, they shouldn't make it impossible for so many to live within it. What Gerael did, though, he and several others alongside...
That was just crime, plain and simple. Gerael in particular (she'd asked) only targeted nobles and wealthy merchants, people who could definitely afford to lose a few valuables here and there, but still. Even the thought of it made her uncomfortable — honestly, it could be under better circumstances, but she didn't mind at all that she wouldn't be assigned to work with him again.
Bethany didn't look happy about it either, lips twisting and eyes awkwardly turning away. "I had no idea. Alya made it sound like...I don't know, some kind of fine work, like etching or something, you know?" Well, picking locks probably required similar dexterity, so that wasn't far off, she guessed. "He seems so, well, normal."
"If there's anything I've learned over the last month or so, it's that most people doing these kinds of things seem normal." Maybe if they were all vicious bastards she'd have more firmly negative feelings about the syndicate and the people in it — as it was, it was just too nebulous and complicated for her to be confident in her opinion one way or the other. "That's what the job was, he was breaking into...some guildhall or something, I don't actually know. I don't know what we were there for, I didn't see him carrying anything out. Just some papers, maybe? Don't know what that was about. I was there to keep an eye out, and get him away if we got caught."
"What happened?"
"We got caught." Marian took a gulp out of the mug — ale of some kind, apparently, she was starting to miss mead and cider. It kind of hurt going down, her throat not cooperating. "We were on our way out, and a guard patrol just happened to be coming by at the time. We had to run. I couldn't try to knock them out—" While not hurting them too badly, hopefully, they'd only been doing their jobs (and Aveline would be pissed). "—we were too close to the Cathedral, the Templars there might have felt it. It was very close, for a minute there I thought we were going to have to fight them off — and by that point a few other patrols had run over to help, we would have been badly outnumbered. We managed to break line of sight in the alleys, not far from the baths up there, took a couple more turns before Gerael yanked us to a stop, huddled against a wall and tried to be as quiet as we could.
"We'd ended up like..." It'd been terrifying, honestly, Marian had been worried they'd get cornered and she'd have to use magic, and then the Templars might be after them, and Marian might have been completely fucked. She'd even thought to herself that at least she was on her own, if she were captured the twins and Mother would still be fine... "He'd pulled me to a stop and pushed me against the wall, and we just stood there waiting for the guards to either find us or give up, and...
"I don't know what the hell was going through my head at the time. I was, you know, keyed up from the chase, and worried we'd get caught, and Gerael...basically pinning me to the wall and..." Rubbing at her forehead, if mostly just to have an excuse to not look at Beth, she let out a helpless groan. "And I kissed him. I don't know what I was thinking, I don't know why I did it, it just happened! I've never even kissed a man before, ever, and..."
"Never? Really?" Marian didn't have to look to imagine the wide-eyed surprise on Beth's face, it was clear enough on her voice.
Back when she'd been younger than Bethany, boys her age had kissed her a few times, which had always been terribly awkward, but besides that, "No. Well," she drawled, trying to force humor onto her voice (and not doing a good job, thin and shaky), "not unless you count Father, I guess."
Beth let out a surprised guffaw, almost reluctantly, as though she'd tried to hold it in and failed. "I just didn't know you... You're five years older than me, and I... I don't know, I guess I always assumed that you were just keeping it from us, for some reason. I mean, we were really young when...when you were my age." When Father died, she meant. "I thought there might have been something between you and Dennel, but then you were too busy with the farm, and..."
"Ah, no, we were only ever friends." In retrospect, when she'd been...oh, maybe a year or two younger than Bethany now, Dennel had been making hints, but they'd gone right over her head. He'd been nice about it, at least, before the realization had gotten around that she wasn't available some of the men in Lothering had been a pain. (She suspected now that everyone had just assumed she was only interested in women — which was ridiculous, because she'd never done anything with any women either.) "There was never anyone, back in Lothering. I never even thought about anyone, honestly."
"I had... Oh. Now that I think about it, that time we talked about me and Corin..."
"Yeah, that was..." Marian sighed, took another sip of her ale — much easier to get down now, the distraction from things to do directly with Gerael was helpful. "I thought it was, just, normal to not... I was too young when Father died for this sort of thing, and—"
"Um, no, you weren't. I'm sorry, I know you're trying to say something and I'm interrupting," Bethany said, her voice thin and uncomfortable, "but you were old enough. You were my age. A little younger, I guess, but not by that much."
...She had been old enough, hadn't she? When Father died, she must have been a year or two older than Bethany had been when she'd first started bringing up this stuff. It was kind of weird that Father hadn't asked, now that Beth had drawn her attention to it — maybe he'd just been uncomfortable with it, given that she was his daughter...but that wasn't a good reason, Father himself would claim being uncomfortable with it was only more cause to confront it. Didn't know what to think about that. "Yeah, I guess. But, it wasn't until you started talking about these things in our lessons that I realized people just...that it was something people wanted for itself, not just as a necessary part of having children, you know. I wasn't interested at all, and I thought that was just normal, until you... I thought there was something wrong with me, for a little while."
"Oh, Mari." Beth's hand settled on her arm, unexpectedly, Marian twitched in surprise before relaxing again. "You could have said something about it. I mean, I wouldn't have..."
"I didn't know what to say, really. Mother noticed something was bothering me, and— It's fine, I got over it."
"I still wish you would have said something. Isn't that the whole point of our talks, to help each other out with things that are bothering us?"
...Honestly, she'd always thought the point was to help Bethany, she'd hardly brought her own problems into it at all. But then, there were reasons for that. She hadn't wanted to burden Beth with her anger at Mother for falling apart, or her constant mild panic that she'd fuck something up and they'd all starve, her fear and shame that she'd fail in the last promise she'd made to Father, while he'd been burning on the pyre, that she'd take care of the family and... No, she hadn't wanted to unload all that on Bethany. Perhaps she should have talked about it — she was pretty sure Mother and the twins didn't know how hard those first couple years had been for her — but she just hadn't wanted to. "Well, I guess I'm saying something now."
Beth let out a huff — sort of sarcastically exasperated, if that made sense.
"And anyway, it's not... This is something else I don't want you to tell anyone." She wasn't looking, but she thought Beth nodded, the hand on her arm tightening for just a second. "There was a... I wouldn't have been able to tell what I was feeling even was if you hadn't told me about yourself, it was just...really confusing, honestly. It was at Ostagar, there was this woman with the Wardens there — I think I've mentioned her before, Lyna?"
"I'm not sure I— Oh!" Beth straightened, taking her a little further away from Marian, the hand on her arm lifting away. "Was that what that Dalish elf was called?"
Her stomach started squirming with nerves again, Marian held in a wince — she had the nasty feeling Beth was thinking...that she wasn't taking this well, anyway. Marian started tearing her loaf into more convenient bite-sized pieces, if only to have something to distract herself with. "The Commander assigned her to teach me to fight, with the daggers, you know, so she was stuck with me a lot, and... I don't know, she was just...distracting. Kind of intense sometimes, and a little scary, but. And I think... You know, there aren't any elves in Lothering, I'd never even seen one before the army was coming through town. This seems...really weird, even to me, but...I think I just like elves. Is that even something that can happen?"
Beth was silent for a moment. "I've never heard...something like this before, but obviously it can."
Yeah, that didn't sound great. Her stomach was squirming even worse, enough she almost thought she might be sick, but she also didn't think she could... Well, she couldn't just leave this lay there, if there was a problem they needed to talk about it, but she...had to work up her nerve first. So hey, maybe actually eating something would settle her stomach. Maybe. Hopefully.
So instead a long, awkward silence dragged on as Marian chewed her bite of bread — it was sort of tough, yes, but with her stomach churning, her chest still tight enough to make swallowing a little more difficult than it had to be, it took Marian far longer than it should just to force herself to get it down, shit...
Once her mouth was empty again, she took a long, slow breath, trying to force her voice level. "I'm not creeping you out, am I?"
"What? Oh! No, I didn't— I'm sorry." Beth shuffled a little closer on the bench, until their thighs were touching, her arm looping around Marian's. Which was tugging her arm kind of uncomfortably, so Marian dropped her spoon to let Beth have it. A moment later Beth had found her hand, her fingers threading through Marian's — her skin felt a little gritty, as though she'd gotten flour or something all over her hands. "I don't mean to... Is it all of them, or..."
Marian sighed. "I don't know, Beth, do you want every human man you come across?"
She heard Beth wince, her hand squeezing Marian's a little. "Right, that was a stupid question, I'm sorry. I'm just... It is a little weird, and just learning about you and Gerael a minute ago, and... I was just, you know, taking it all in. I didn't mean to make you think I– I don't know. I'm not thinking anything bad over here, I promise, it's just a surprise." Oh, okay, good, that was what Marian had been worried about. The nervous tension lifting away almost had her shivering — Beth squeezed her hand again, probably noticed. "And I...just don't get it? Elves look...kind of funny to me, to be honest. Not off-putting, exactly, but not attractive either, you know what I mean? So."
Despite how serious this all was, Marian felt herself smiling a little. "Now you know how I felt when you were talking about Corin."
"Yeah, I guess I do," Beth said, laughing under her breath. She was quiet a moment, as Marian took another bite — which was a little awkward, needing to use her spoon with her left hand to scoop some beans onto the bread then dropping the spoon again to pick it up, but she didn't care enough to try to reclaim her hand. "And, I think I understand what happened now. You were...in an intense situation, and you were close, physically, and... Well. Instinct."
So they were talking about this again. Marian realized she'd volunteered, but still, she kind of just...didn't want to think about it. That she didn't want to didn't mean she shouldn't — if nothing else, Father had made that idea very clear — but it was, just, ugh. "Yeah, I guess. And, there isn't— You said a moment ago, me and Gerael, but it's not... It's not going to happen again. That's what we were talking about before you came over, that we shouldn't have and...yeah."
"Oh." Beth paused, Marian occupying herself with readying another bite of bread. "I don't know if I should say I'm sorry or not. I mean, did you..."
It took Marian a second to figure out what she was trying to ask. "No, I agreed, it— With Alya and Alex and the baby, I don't want to, you know."
"You still want him, though."
Marian twitched at the question, turned to look at Beth. It hadn't been said like...an accusation, and her sister was smiling at her, in a sad sort of way. So, just talking, not trying to... Marian didn't know, this was all weird. Of course, she didn't know how to answer that question, she didn't know if— No, that was a lie, she knew. "Yeah, I guess. I mean..." She looked away to stare down at her beans, tongue running along her teeth, words completely failing her for a moment. It wasn't like she was trying to say something and just wasn't sure how, no, instead like a big hard blank filling her head, pushing out any coherent thought at all. It cleared after a second though, she didn't know what the hell that had been. "Is it always like this?"
"Like what?"
"I don't know. Fucking miserable," she admitted, "I just don't know what to call it."
Beth was quiet a moment, still holding her hand, the other gently trailing up and down Marian's arm. Which was a better thing to focus on than the squirming in her stomach and the clenching heat crawling up her chest again, so. "I mean, it can. I don't know what to say, I'm not that much more experienced in these things than you are. But, I'm guessing it wasn't miserable at the time."
That surprised a laugh out of Marian. "Ah, no. Kind of...overwhelming, but..." She sighed. "I do wish it never happened now, though. I mean, it's not like I really meant it to in the first place, but... Shit, I can hardly look at him now without remembering him—" She hesitated on the word for a second, but it felt appropriate, so to hell with it. "—fucking me against a wall, and I just—"
"Marian." Her name came out half in a gasp, a little scandalized but also...sympathetic, maybe, words were hard.
She lifted a shoulder in a shrug — that had been crude, she knew, but what else was the word for if not that? "Sorry. I'm just saying, how long is it going to take for me to... It's going to be really awkward at home until I get over it."
"I... I don't know, Marian." Beth sighed, leaning against Marian's arm, head resting on her shoulder. "I'm sorry, I don't know how to help."
"It's okay, Beth, just listening helps." At least, she thought it did? She didn't feel like she was on the edge of...something anymore, and her chest had loosened up enough that she was eating without too much trouble now, so.
"Still. I guess, there is..." There was a shifting, reluctant sort of tone to Beth's voice, as though she didn't really like the idea of what she was saying. "Maybe you can go find someone else, if you need to take your mind off him. I mean, elves, you don't have to worry about getting up. And we are mages, so."
Sure, if you want to screw around with elves, they can't get you pregnant, and you can just heal yourself if you catch anything, don't worry about it! Marian had food in her mouth at the time, she nearly choked — she ended up breathlessly hacking, trying to cough the gravy back out of her throat, Beth apologetically clutching onto her arm. "Ah, yeah." Her voice came out thick, she took a gulp of the ale. "You might be right, but I have no plans of doing that. I went twenty years without getting laid, I think I'll be okay."
"I know, I was just saying."
"Uh-huh." Well, this had been a terribly awkward conversation, hadn't it. It seemed to have petered out, finally, so Marian was just going to take that as a cue to change the subject. "Well, that's quite enough about my personal problems. What about you, anything going on I should know about?"
Beth let out a long, thin sigh. "Not really. I don't like Gamlen much, but you already knew that. You know Mom has been going down to visit him? She's always so irritable when she gets back, and... I don't know the word for it. Restless, walks around trying to find something to do, tidying or whatever."
If Gamlen did something to push Mother into one of those down-swings of hers, she was going to...well, she didn't know, smack him or something. "Yeah, I knew about that, but I didn't notice how Mother gets after — I'm mostly out then, I guess."
"That's okay, Mari, you and Carver are both working a lot, we understand you can't be home much."
She hadn't really meant that in a guilty way, but okay. Hearing Beth refer to their room at that dortoir as "home" shot a flash of pain through her chest — she'd set their real home on fire, it was gone now, burned to the ground and overrun with darkspawn. Clearing her throat, trying to brush that thought off, "You know, I never did at ask. At the Gallows, I noticed the look you were giving Gamlen. He gives you a bad feeling?" Beth had always been good at reading people, just an instinctive feeling she got. Marian hadn't ever said as much out loud, but she suspected it was some kind of magic, though she couldn't guess how that worked. "Do you know why?"
"...No. Not really. He is just kind of sleazy, you know?" Marian bit out a laugh at that — yeah, she'd noticed. "I'm pretty sure there's something he isn't telling us, something important, but I don't know what it is."
"Other than what he really did with the family fortune, you mean?" When they'd first met at the Gallows, he'd said he'd tried his best to recover from the mess he'd inherited, but in the weeks since Marian had heard rumors. Apparently, the downfall of a noble family as old and wealthy as the Amells was notable enough that it was the sort of thing people liked to gossip about — especially when the last of the line had been such an obvious drunken lecher. The family had already been in debt up to their eyeballs, but Gamlen had only made it worse. Because of course.
"No, that's not it. I mean, yes, that's true, but there's something else, something embarrassing."
"More embarrassing than blowing the remains of the family's coin on whores and Wicked Grace?"
Beth let out a sharp huff of disapproval. "I don't know if it's more embarrassing, but it's a different kind of embarrassing. It's just this weird look he gets sometimes, I don't know. Maybe I'm imagining it."
Marian doubted it — she couldn't recall an occasion Beth's feelings had been wrong yet.
"But you meant a man, like. And there is this one, but I don't..." After a moment of silence, Beth shifting in her seat a little, her voice came back lower, softer, pained. "I've never told you this. I've mentioned it to Carver before, but he... Well, he doesn't understand. He took more after you and Dad, in...these things. And, I know it can never happen, it will never happen, but..."
Okay, that low, despondent note on Beth's voice was starting to worry her. "What is it?"
"I think... I think I want to go into the Chantry."
Marian twitched, turned to look down at Beth, still hugging Marian's arm. She wasn't looking up, turned enough that most of her face was hidden by the little escaped wisps of hair around her temple — Marian hadn't a moment ago either, but she had the feeling Beth was trying to avoid her eyes. With the hand not folded with Marian's she was playing with her mug, fingers idly poking at the clay, turning it a few degrees this way or that before tapping some more.
The Chantry had always been a...somewhat complicated topic in their household. Mother had been raised in the faith, and knew the Chant itself and the history and internal politics of the Chantry better than most laypeople (and even some clergy), thanks to the thorough education the children of noble families tended to get. She was a believer, always had been, if anything only intensifying with Father's death. Father, on the other hand, would have called himself skeptical. His parents had been (were?) Andrastian, obviously, and he'd even been raised by the Chantry for most of his youth — after all, the Circles were run by the Chantry. But that was the problem right there: he'd grown up in a Circle. He'd seen a very different side of the Chantry than Mother, to put it mildly.
Father had told her, when she'd asked about it, that there must be a Maker out there — after all, the world had to have come from somewhere — and that Andraste the person must have existed, that was historical certainty. But beyond that, what Andraste had truly preached, what the Maker wanted from the peoples of Thedas, all that was far less certain. Some stuff was definitely not what Andraste had intended. For example, mages hadn't been imprisoned in the Circles until the Black Age, almost four hundred years after the opening of the first Circles by the Inquisition, and he was convinced the Canticle of Exaltations was completely fabricated, for obviously self-interested reasons.
The man who'd later become the first Emperor of Orlais had claimed to have a vision of the Maker returning to Thedas, that it'd come to pass once all the world sang the Chant...which he'd then used as justification to begin a war of conquest across the west of Thedas. Yeah, the claim that Kordillus Drakon had made the whole thing up was considered heresy — though it was the default position in the Black Chantry, funny how that worked out — but Marian couldn't help feeling it was obviously true. She meant, if he really had gotten a vision from Andraste that just so happened to validate his ambition to conquer his neighbors, that was just awfully convenient, wasn't it?
Yeah, Father's opinion had maybe influenced Marian some. She hadn't seen any particular reason to believe the Maker existed at all — or at least not the Maker as the Chantry described Him, anyway.
She knew Carver was similarly skeptical, but Bethany, for whatever reason, had taken more after Mother. Marian knew she'd gone out to the village Chantry at least once a week, and usually more often than that, sometimes with Mother and Carver and sometimes alone, but they hadn't really talked about... She meant, she knew Beth was much more devout than Carver and Marian herself, and it had come up during the talks in their lessons now and then. But she hadn't realized it was...so serious, she guessed?
Marian was taken aback by the idea enough that it took a moment for her to find her voice again. "I... You mean, going in to be a Sister somewhere."
Her voice low, almost a whisper, "I meant...seminary. Actually."
...Oh.
Well, Beth was right, that couldn't happen. Maybe if she were to be a Sister, at some little village Chantry, she could avoid being too close to a Templar for too long and remain undiscovered, but that simply wouldn't be possible for a Mother. Someone would find out she was a mage, inevitably — mages couldn't be ordained as priests, not since the reforms after the Schism with the north. They couldn't even take a Sister's solemn vows, technically, but no, she'd never be able to make it all the way through seminary without being found out.
She...didn't know what to say.
Carefully, Marian extricated her hand from Bethany's and wrapped her arm around her shoulders instead. Beth curled against her side, her cheek turned into Marian's chest. "I'm sorry, I... Are you sure you...that's what you want to do?"
"I... No. I'm not sure. I'm still pretty young, I could feel differently in a few years, and... But I think so. I feel like I... It's hard to explain. But, it doesn't matter, really, I know I can't, so I... Well, I know I should just forget about it, but I can't help thinking about it sometimes. It's stupid..."
"It's not stupid, Bethany."
"You don't really think that," Beth said, still sounding kind of miserable but with an added curl of amusement. "I know you don't..."
That Marian didn't believe in at all the way she did, she meant. "No, I don't, but I don't have to to get that it's important to you. I don't think it's stupid, that you're being, I don't know..." Marian let out a sigh, turning her face into Beth's hair. There was an obvious hint of sweat to her, but her hair had also absorbed some of the steam from the kitchens, the scent of baking bread and the seasonings from the gravy. "I'm sorry, Beth, I... I wish things were different."
"Me too," she mumbled.
They were quiet a long moment, Beth huddled tucked under her arm, Marian gently rubbing her arm. After some seconds, she had a weird random thought. "Hey, this is...well, maybe a crazy idea. But, we only came to Kirkwall because we thought our family was still nobility here. Once our debt is paid off, there's really no reason we need to stay here. You can't go into the Chantry here, but...maybe we could go somewhere you can."
"You mean Tevinter," Beth said, a little sharply.
"Actually, I was thinking Rivain, or maybe the Anderfels. Hasmal is closest, I guess, but I've heard Hasmal has issues." All three followed the Black Chantry, so mages were free and permitted to join the priesthood, but they all had their own problems.
Rivain was partially occupied by the Qunari, and their pre-Andrastian pagan beliefs were still alive — supposedly, the three faiths (four including the White and Black Chantries) in the Kingdom had gotten all mixed up, all of them diverging from their forms outside Rivain. Also, to get there they had to go through the Alamarri Straits and past the Felicisima Armada, hardly safe. Hasmal was the closest — they would take the road through the woodlands west into Nevarra, follow the Imperial Highway north up to the Minanter, then ferry downriver — but then they'd be living in Hasmal. The city-state was kind of sort of part of Tevinter — they had a separate legal code (the most important bit being that slavery was illegal within Hasmal), and...some of their own institutions, but the city mostly spoke Tevene, and the Imperium considered them a semi-independent province, would respond to an attack on Hasmal as though it were an attack on Tevinter itself.
The rest of the Marchers, Marian had learned, had mixed feelings about this. They didn't particularly trust Tevinter, or approve of the Black Chantry...but at the same time, they didn't trust Nevarra either. So long as Tevinter guaranteed the independence of Hasmal, Nevarra couldn't expand east along the Minanter, as they'd attempted more than once in the past, without provoking Tevinter — as much as Nevarra hated Tevinter, getting into a war with them without the rest of the south alongside was suicide.
The Anderfels was probably the best of the options, but there were issues there too. Due in large part to the devastation of the First and Second Blights, the Anders were a hard, serious people, their culture far more martial than it'd once been — focused around the Kingdom's army, yes, but also independent groups like the Grey Wardens and various religious orders (including but not limited to the Black Templars). Also, the Anderfels was involved in the ongoing war with the Qunari, if not so deeply as Tevinter, so that was something to worry about. But, on the other hand, the Black Chantry was even more powerful there than the White Chantry was in Orlais, they were a very religious people. Honestly, Marian and the twins should be able to do well enough there, given their skills and temperaments, but she would worry about Mother.
The largest problem with the Anderfels would be getting there. West into Nevarra and up the Imperial Highway, and continue north across the river and...into the Silent Plains. The region had been turned into a cursed wasteland during the First Blight, the soil reduced to dead sands in unnatural purples and blacks, a few hardscrabble plants clinging here and there, prowled by twisted and monstrous creatures. The land no longer carried the taint, the magic dissipated over the millennium that had passed, and it wasn't quite so inhospitable as it'd been shortly after the First Blight, slowly pacified by Tevinter, Nevarra, and Hasmal, but it was still dangerous to cross. Marian didn't know exactly how wide the Silent Plains were, but she guessed it was roughly the distance between Lothering and Redcliffe, which was no small trek to make in such hostile territory.
And then, once they were past the Silent Plains, they'd be in Tevinter. They'd have to follow the Highway northwest all the way to the Dormine Valley, crossing the border on the road toward Hossberg. Marian didn't have a map in front of her, but she thought the distance they would have to travel inside Tevinter was comparable to the entire breadth of the Kingdom of Ferelden. Needless to say, Marian would be reluctant to attempt it.
"Oh, right," Beth muttered, sounding a little guilty — for assuming Marian had been suggesting they move to Tevinter of all places, presumably. She let out a heavy sigh. "I don't know about that, Mari. What we do about mages isn't the only difference between the White and Black Chantries. The Schism was five hundred years ago, you know, we've both changed since then. I don't know if I would...feel the same way about it, I guess. And, I know Mom won't want to leave, and Carver's just started making friends again..."
"I know, it was just a thought I had." And it was the only thought she had. Unless something drastically changed in the near future, which Marian simply couldn't imagine happening, there was no way Bethany would ever be able to go into the Chantry. She kind of hoped Beth would change her mind, grew out of it as she got older. Because this just wasn't something Marian could fix for her baby sister.
She was suddenly struck with a flash of anger, sharp and intense enough to steal her breath away. Gritting her teeth, she turned her face into Beth's hair, focused on taking long, calming breaths.
Once she thought she could speak without risk of crying in frustration, Marian asked, "Have you been up to the Cathedral yet? I've been meaning to take you...well, since we got here, but it keeps slipping my mind." She didn't realize how tactless that might be until a breath later. "Oh, or, we don't have to, if it would be, I don't know, I was just thinking..."
"It's okay, Mari." Beth was quiet a moment, tense, almost seeming to hold her breath, before finally letting it out in a sigh. "Yeah, let's go. Or, did you mean later...?"
"No, I don't have anywhere I have to be for a while. Let me finish eating first, though."
Already moving to stand, Beth froze. "Oh! Right, sorry." She sat right back down again, turned to curl into Marian's side, clutching her mug to her chest.
Marian let out a huff, turned back to her food. Having one arm around Beth meant she was forced to eat with one hand, which was slow and awkward, but that was fine. Beth needed that arm more than she did at the moment. As much as she was furious at the Grand Clerics on Bethany's behalf, it was distracting her from thinking about Gerael pretty well, so she guessed that was something.
(Of course, she'd always been more comfortable dealing with her family's problems than her own, so that really shouldn't come as a surprise.)
This chapter ended up getting much longer than I expected (again), so I've decided to split it at the scene break. Unless I hit an unexpected snag, I should have the next scene posted tomorrow — I've just got to wrap up the ending, and there's a section in the middle I want to redo (incidentally cutting as many as 2k words). Because I have a rambling problem, I'm aware of this.
The original plan was for the mission with Gerael to be narrated through, but I decided that wasn't really necessary — Gerael will have very little long-term relevance, and I prefer sex scenes to be limited to relationships/events that actually matter. Just seems gratuitous otherwise. Instead we have adult sisters awkwardly bumbling through uncomfortable conversations, weee...
Right, bye.