The first thing Anders did when he awoke the next morning was speak to a man from the Mage's Collective, requesting a book on Ancient Tevene or Arlathan sigils. Immediately after that he took a chunk of stale bread to eat and lit the lantern outside his clinic, filling his spare seconds with editing his manifesto. As patients cycled in and out through the day, a courier eventually came letting him know that a book on Ancient Tevene may be available for him in a few days but one on the Arlathan language may take months to procure. He thanked the man and gave him a few health poultices and herbs as payment, then continued his day as normal.
Well into the afternoon, Anders was wrapping a man's hand when Merrill came bursting into his clinic wide-eyed and breathless, nearly popping the door off its hinges in the process, and practically tripping over herself to get to him.
"Anders, I've got it!" she announced.
"Can it wait a few moments? I'm dealing with a patient right now," he said flatly.
"Oh! I'm terribly sorry, I'll just go stand in the back then - but please hurry! I think I've figured it out and I can't just keep it to myself and I-"
"Merrill," Anders cut in.
"Right!" she said, "Sorry!" The elf scrambled off to the back and the healer finished bandaging the man. After a few kind words and a light pat on the back, he made his way towards a screen door near the corner and gestured for her to follow. Once they had the illusion of privacy, he sat down on a crate, and looked at her.
"Alright, what's your big idea?" the man asked monotonously.
"I think I figured out what happened to Hawke! Now, this is going to sound a little crazy, but hear me out!" She took a breath and continued, "That's not our Hawke."
Anders mildly confused eyes blinked once, then twice, and said, "Explain this to me."
"Okay," she breathed, "There is another Kirkwall that we can't see - sort of another version of Thedas, really - and that engraving that we found up on Sundermount is a gateway to the other world. When we tried to close the Veil, our magic activated the gateway and sent Hawke to the other Thedas because she was standing on Falon'Din. But to keep some sort of equilibrium, our Thedas still needs a 'Hawke' so this other Hawke was put in her place."
The other mage's eyes widened as he stared at her in silence. He blinked a few times, slowly.
"That," he finally said, "is the most insane collection of turd I have ever heard. Another Thedas? I knew you were crazy, but I didn't realize you were stark-driven mad!"
"Just think about it for a second!" she interjected, "The missing clothes, the collar, the memories, the writing on the floor - it all fits! The spell didn't somehow trade her clothes, she was wearing them in the first place! And she doesn't remember us because she never met us!"
"Merrill, there is no such thing as - what is this, mirroring worlds? I've never even heard of such a thing," he said.
"But Anders, possession of any kind only partially explains what happened. And there wasn't a single sort of magic that had anything to do with clothing. I'm not even sure that exists," she responded.
"Even so, what you're suggesting is absolutely ludicrous," he said, standing.
He walked back into the main room of his clinic and called back, "Come find me when you have a less childish theory."
"But..!" Merrill began, but Anders continued on crossing his clinic and began to engage a patient with a rather bad cough. After a few more moments of standing in the back, she exited the clinic without another word.
When she returned to her hovel, she stood in the doorway, glaring at the few books she owned. She had read each of them a dozen times over; not one of them would be helpful. After briefly considering if Hawke's library would hold more helpful books, she shook her head. She slowly wandered into the bedroom and glanced down at the broken mirror piled into a crate in the corner, a hunk of its frame jutting out awkwardly, then turned back around into the main room. After getting a fire started, she chopped a few vegetables, stuck them on a long wooden skewer she had crafted, and roasted them. Once her dinner was cooked, she poured some water into the fireplace and carried her food with her on her way up to Hawke's estate, dining on the way.
When she arrived at her friend's home with a full stomach and empty hands, Bodhan greeted her with a warm smile and welcomed her inside, notifying her that the lady of the house was in the study with a few other guests. She thanked him and went ahead to the room on the left. Inside, Hawke in her red house clothes and Fenris, unarmed but armored, were sitting together on the couch across from the fireplace while Aveline, wearing a faded green linen shirt tucked into a pair of trousers, sat in a chair crooked at an angle from the opposite wall as the guardswoman recounted a tale from her days in the army, the collared mage listening intently while the man eyed her as opposed to the storyteller.
Aveline eventually looked up and announced with raised brows, "Merrill! Well this is a surprise."
"Hello, Aveline," she said awkwardly, "And Fenris. Hawke."
Fenris kept a steady glower in Merrill's direction, barely shifting his head to acknowledge he heard her, jaw firm. Hawke noticed the tension in his muscles and regarded the new visitor with guarded eyes.
Aveline smiled and said, "Hawke, this is Merrill. She's a friend." When Hawke didn't appear to change her demeanor, the redhead added, "Fenris just... doesn't agree with some of the choices she's made."
Hawke regarded Fenris a little more openly in his silence as he turned his gaze from the other elf to an unremarkable spot on the wall, and then she looked Merrill over.
"You are... blood mage?" Hawke hesitated. Merrill looked down at the floor and wrung her hands together.
"I... yes..." the Dalish responded softly. Hawke regarded her a moment longer and then the human nodded.
A few more awkward seconds were drawn out until Aveline looked around the room and said, "Merrill, why don't you have a seat?"
"Umm..." the elven mage glanced around until she found another chair tucked next to the empty fireplace, then looked at Hawke and asked, "Do you mind?" The other woman's expression faltered at that. She sat wide-eyed and unresponsive before clearly collecting herself.
"I, uh... Sure," she eventually mumbled. Merrill smiled then sat in the empty chair, placing her hands in her lap.
"...I admit, I'm not sure where to go from here," the elf girl commented.
"When I introduced myself I asked if there was anything she wanted to know," Aveline said.
"Well alright," Merrill said, then returned her attention to Hawke and asked the suggested question. The noble looked at her for a short while.
"Does this mean anything?" Hawke asked, pointing to her own forehead.
So Merrill spoke about the Dalish - about vallaslin and the sacred ritual surrounding it, about their gods - and Hawke listened in rapt fascination. At some point Aveline said her goodbyes and Merrill kept telling stories and history as best she could; the other woman didn't ask much, but her eyes craved for more, and the elf girl couldn't deny the unspoken plea.
Eventually she pulled away from her narrative and said, "I, ah, would like to ask you a few things if that's alright."
"What sort of things?" Hawke responded.
"I just... want to know how you're adjusting," Merrill replied.
Hawke paused, then nodded.
"Alright, umm..." the elven girl began. She turned her gaze to her hands as she thought of her first question, then looked up and asked, "Do you feel like you belong here?"
The noble didn't respond, but her mask slammed up.
"Does... everything feel right to you?" Merrill tried to press, "Are there things missing? Someone that should be here or maybe someone shouldn't? Or maybe the city itself is wrong?"
Again, there was no response beyond being scrutinized under careful eyes; the icicle gaze made Merrill shudder. Eventually, the Dalish stood up and said her goodbyes to her friend and her friend's lover and departed through the front door, quickly making her way down to her home in the moonlit Kirkwall.
Hawke continued to sit in the couch long after Merrill had left, Fenris beside her in silence.
Eventually, he stood and said, "You should consider getting some rest as well."
"I should," she admitted distantly. After a few more seconds, she stood as well, and he walked with her to her chambers. Once inside, she hesitated by the side of the bed while he stood in the doorway respectfully. She looked at him, then at the bed, frowning.
"I don't know if I will be able to sleep," she said.
"This has been rather overwhelming," he noted. Her gaze avoided him, lingering between the bed and the floor. The elf glanced around awkwardly and spotted a book on her table. He walked over and picked it up, reading the title to himself: The Friar and the Huntsman. Then he walked slowly up to Hawke and held the book between them. Her gaze caught onto the leather binding, and moved on to his face. His eyes moved back down to the cover for a moment, then returned to meet her eyes, his own open and vulnerable. She looked back down at the cover and placed her hand on the engraved title, then accepted his offering. She sat down on the bed, lying against the headboard, while he took off the metal parts of his armor. Then he crawled up next to her and curled his head against her shoulder so he could catch a few written words while he listened to her voice.
"Good friar Hedric opened the window that morning at the bells' chime..." she began, the tale already familiar to her companion. After several pages, he curled in closer, and she wrapped an arm around his shoulder. By the end of the fifth chapter, her throat was sore and her mind numb, and Fenris drifted closer to sleep, his head resting upon her breast and an arm cast around her waist with his legs slightly tucked. She slowly put the book down next to her and allowed her eyes to close just for a moment.
When she next opened her eyes, there was a pitcher of water and a filled glass next to her bed, in which she found herself alone. Her back was flat against the mattress and the covers were tucked up under her chin. The curtains were pulled, blocking the weak morning light from invading unpleasantly. She sat up and gulped down the water, belatedly remembering to slow down before she filled the glass a second time and taking measured sips. When she was done she changed into a clean set of robes and went downstairs and accepted the breakfast of poached eggs and berries from Bodhan.
Eventually she went back upstairs and stood in front of the room tucked by the steps. There was a painting of a woman on one side and a wooden door, the handle of which had collected dust from years of neglect. Standing, staring, as if it held a great forbidden secret, hurt.
She pulled a hand up and reached for the knob, brushing her fingers against it briefly, then she turned away.
In Another World
Hawke sat with her back against the stained stone wall, elbows resting on her semi-drawn knees, engaged in an unsanctioned staring contest with her Templar guard, leaning against the bars of an empty cell with his arms crossed. Before she was shoved in the cell, she had been stripped, all her magical and personal items confiscated, and given a linen gown for modesty's sake.
When she, Merrill, and Anders attempted to close the rip in the Fade, there was a freakish sense of disorientation before she found herself dropped on an enormous bed in a mansion she had never been in before, and after that everything went topsy-turvy and up on its head. Danarius was alive, Fenris was a slave, and she was locked away after she set fire to a guard who attempted to force her back into the bedroom.
Whatever sort of freakish thing was going on, this wasn't the Fade - she knew that much.
Somehow she needed to break out, grab Fenris, and run, but she couldn't just fireball a Templar. Perhaps she could use her Force magic to knock the keys to her - no, that would immediately gather some attention. Using Force magic on a keyhole would just make it explode. She could create a distraction with Force magic - if she did it right, her guard may mistake it for a trespasser. - but that still left the issue of how to get out.
She needed help - she needed Fenris.
He barely remembered her; when she tried to get him to leave his big eyes looked so lost as if trapped in a labyrinthe, one that only got worse the more she talked. Simply asking for help could be disastrous. If she could somehow show him that he was not helpless, that there was something that he had that his so-called master neither knew about nor could take away, they might stand a chance.
…
She knew what to do.