Updated 08/04/12

Welcome to Kirkwall

Chapter 4: The Elf in the Mirror and the Mirrored Elf

The two elves fell in a heap against the bar, Hawke moving quickly out of the way before his stool was also upset.

"Do you know who this is?" she said to Hawke, her eyes never leaving Lyra. "This is Lyra Mahariel!" She paused, as if really seeing Lyra for the first time. "Oh my gods, what happened to your face?"

Lyra grinned ruefully, rubbing at the reddened mark on her cheek. "Oh, the mercenaries in this town just LOVE me."

Merrill was grinning again. "You never could stay out of trouble for more than five minutes at a time," she giggled. "I just can't believe you're here!" Merrill exclaimed after a moment, her eyes bright with tears. She wrapped her arms around Lyra's still stunned frame and squeezed fiercely, as though Lyra was in danger of vanishing if she did not hold on.

"Merril," Lyra croaked, "Merrill, I can't breathe..."

Slowly, Merrill's grip lessened and she backed away from Lyra allowing Lyra to get a better look at her long lost clan-mate. She was still shorter than Lyra, and she seemed skinnier than Lyra remembered. She still wore her dark hair in a short pixie cut, that accentuated her heart shaped face and large almond eyes, but there were dark circles around them now, and a slightly haunted look that had never been there before.

"A can't believe its really you," Merrill said grinning from ear to ear. "This is real right? I'm not dreaming am I?"

"I could pinch you, if you like," Lyra suggested cheerfully.

The smile faltered. "Umm... no... You pinch really hard, as I recall..."

"For the Creators sake, Merrill," Lyra said, throwing her hands in the air. "It was a long time ago. We were kids, get over it."

Merrill's grin returned larger than ever. "It IS you!" She hugged Lyra again. "I've got so much to tell you. So much has happened since you left-"

"Merrill..."

"Fenarel is First Hunter now. I think he still has a thing for you, you know. All he talks about is, Lyra this and Lyra that, and Lyra killed the Archdemon. Did you kill the Archdemon? I mean really kill it?"

"Merrill?"

"Fenarel said you ripped off the dragons head with your bare hands, and killed every darkspawn from Denerim to.."

"Merrill!"

"Huh? What?" The mile-a-minute voice finally halted, and Merrill stood there looking slightly confused.

"Slow down... Breathe once in a while," Lyra laughed.

Merrill grinned sheepishly up at her friend. "Sorry... got a bit carried away. I'm just so excited to see you. Are you going back to the Clan now? They are camped at the base of Sundermount."

Lyra was studiously trying to ignore the question of going back. But Hawke's words came back to her, You can hardly consider yourself a Dalish now, can you? If the humans didn't even consider her a Dalish elf anymore, how could she expect her Clan to say different, when the Keeper herself had cast her out. Her expression showed none of this, and rather than dwell on the bothersome topic she instead focused on something else Merrill had said. "They?" she asked curiously.

"I..." Merrill faltered and hung her head. "I live in the Alienage in Kirkwall now..." She was silent for a time, as if unsure of how this revelation would be received. But when no scathing remarks were forthcoming, she brightened. "I have my own house, you know. My very own! I don't have to share with anyone!"

"And quite the house it is," Hawke interjected having regained his seat once the danger of elven avalanche had passed.

Merrill turn on him in full pout. "Not everyone can live in a mansion, Garrett."

"You could," he said, and winked.

Her eyes widened in shock and her face turned a deep red, bordering on purple. "I... you... Don't SAY things like that," she hissed.

"Is there something I should know?" Lyra said, a playful smile on her lips.

"No!" Merrill answered a bit too quickly, then, before Hawke could make another comment, said, "He likes teasing me."

Hawke laughed, "I just enjoy watching your ears turn red."

She made a face at him which made him laugh again. Apparently Lyra wasn't the only one who enjoyed his easy laughter. Merrill made an effort to suppress the blush and turned her attention back to Lyra. "What were we talking about? Oh, right! My house. You'll come see it won't you?"

"Tonight?" she asked, the events of the day were weighing on her, and she knew utter exhaustion was just around the corner if she didn't find her way to that soft bed she had been promising herself for hours.

"You will, won't you?" Merrill glanced at Hawke who shrugged as if to say it had nothing to do with him. She turned back to Lyra, almost pleading with her. "Please, lethallan?"

Lyra looked up at her in surprise. It had been so long since anyone had called her that, the word sounded strange in her ears. A word she had heard every day of her life before becoming a Grey Warden had become unfamiliar to her. You can hardly consider yourself a Dalish now... Lyra sighed and smiled at her one-time clan-mate and nodded.

Merrill squealed in delight and hugged her again then took her hand and started for the door.

Trouble looked up from his still half full bowl and whined. "Yes, you can stay and finish you're drink," Lyra replied. The dog yipped and went back to his bowl. "I think my dog is an alcoholic," she muttered to herself as Merrill led her out the door and into the night air which was finally beginning to cool, the streets emptying as the night progressed.

She followed closely as Merrill headed confidently through the twists and turns of Lowtown, her eyes watching the shadows and ears tuned to the night sounds, only half listening as Merrill continued talking about anything and everything. You could practically hear the exclamation marks. She got the feeling that someone was following them, and she kept glancing backward now and then, but whoever it might be was clever enough to stay in the shadows and out of sight.

Merrill took no notice of Lyra's odd behaviour, too excited to pay much heed to anything. Lyra wondered idly how long it would take for Merrill to notice if she suddenly disappeared into the night, and back to her bed. But she suppressed the idea. Whatever she had to show her was obviously very important to her, and here was someone from her past who still considered her a friend. Lyra thought of all that had changed since she left the clan, how bitter and angry she had become, and the things she had done out of that bitterness. It was an odd feeling to have a friend of her own kind again, like when she had called her lethallan. She knew this kinship may very well have an expiry date, and something within her wouldn't let her abandon it just yet.

Lyra knew it immediately as soon as they entered the alienage. It wasn't just the Vhenadahl, The Tree of the People, that she recognized from visiting the alienage in Denerim. It was the sense of despair, almost hopelessness. Even with the streets emptied she could still feel it, see it in the poorly constructed and even more poorly maintained houses. At least here the sick and the dying weren't left lying in the streets. The thought that they might do something even worse with their ill flashed through her mind before she could stop herself and she dismissed it as quickly as it had come, focusing instead on Merrill who was still chattering away, blissfully unaware of how one-sided the conversation had become.

Merrill finally stopped at the door of one of the closely spaced houses and opened the door. "Here we are! My home."

It wasn't a large house, only two rooms, living area/kitchen and a bedroom, but there was room enough for Merrill's books and artifacts which Lyra could see in stacks around the room and piled on the table, presumably there were more in the bedroom but Merrill had hung up an old blanket in the doorway, obscuring the smaller room. And, as Merrill had said, she didn't have to share with anyone, which was practically unheard of in a Dalish camp.

"It's a bit of a mess," Merrill said as she cleared some books off the second of two chairs and rearranged them between the fireplace and the table. "I wasn't expecting company." She smiled apologetically as they sat down, then said, "I would offer you some Wine of the Elvehn but I gave my last bottle to Garrett... I mean Hawke..."

Lyra noted the slip with interest and grinned at the smaller elf. "I was wondering how he came to have that." She laughed at Merrill's shocked expression. "He offered it to me earlier, but I declined." Then grinning mischievously said, "You really should tell him what it's for."

The blush was creeping back into Merrill's cheeks and she said, a bit defensively, "It doesn't have to mean anything. To a shemlen its just a drink..."

Lyra eyed her. "Uh-huh... So you're saying it's not the Wine of the Bonding Ceremony as long as he doesn't know that it is."

"It was just a gift!" she protested "He gave me a carving of a halla and I wanted to give him something in return. It doesn't mean anything..."

"You're even exchanging gifts..."

"No! It's not like that... We're just..." Merrill caught the look on Lyra's face and stopped. "You're teasing me, aren't you?" Lyra couldn't suppress the laughter any longer. "You are, aren't you? You're just as bad as he is!"

"Worse, some days," Lyra chuckled as Merrill tried to maintain a glare, which failed and she shook her head and sighed. "Seriously though, what is going on between you and 'Garrett'? And don't say "Nothing"."

Merrill's mouth closed quickly and she took another stab at a glare when Lyra used the familiar name, but it fell almost instantly. "We're just... friends." She caught Lyra's look, "Honestly, nothing is going on." She was reddening again. since she had come to Kirkwall, Hawke had been her only friend. Always there for her when she needed to talk, helping her when no one else would. Sure he was handsome, but he was still a human after all. "We're just..."

"Merrill, he asked you to move in with him." She held up a hand, cutting off Merrill's protest. "And I get the feeling its not the first time he's asked either."

Merrill sighed, she knew her friend well enough to know that she wasn't going to let go of this until she got an answer she could believe. "He's handsome, all right? And he makes me laugh. I do like him... a lot. Perhaps too much." Lyra nodded for her to continue. "But can you imagine what people would say? An elf and a human? I hear that sort of thing is still outlawed in a lot of places. We could never have children. All our children would be human, and you know how the People feel about that. The Clan already hates me, could you imagine what they would say about me living with a human? And the Keeper..." she shook her head, she could just see the Keeper launching a tirade at her. But no, that was not Keeper Marethari's way. Her eyes would go all sad, and she would look at her like she was the greatest disappointment she had ever known.

Lyra watched the smaller elf as she hung her head. She knew she was thinking of Keeper Marethari. The way she could look at you and see straight through you, making you feel so small and unworthy. "But you're not with the clan now, lethallan."

"I know," Merrill sniffed. She looked as if she was about to cry, her voice small and weak. "There were... differences of opinion." Lyra gave her a quizzical glance. "You know how I've always been sort of an outsider." Lyra nodded. She knew all about being an outsider. "Being First to the Keeper always set me apart. I was always more interested in herbs, and potions than hunting and fishing, like the rest of the Clan. When I started doing real magic, it got worse. Like they weren't just looking down on me, but now they actually feared me." Lyra wondered what she meant by 'real magic' but said nothing. This was her story to tell after all, questions could come later. "I never did anything that would harm the Clan. All I ever did was try to help, but everything always went... wrong. They couldn't see what I was really doing. So, I left. I needed to go someplace where I could do my research in peace. Without anyone looking over my shoulder, or looking down on me just because they didn't understand."

Lyra nodded again. She did understand. Living in the world so long she had seen all to well the fear, hatred and even violence that a lack of understanding could bring. Wars had been started for less. Her mind flashed to the Templars and the mages here in Kirkwall. Wars WOULD be started... And there was something at the heart of it all. A power greater than she had ever known or felt. There was something else here, driving the chaos before it like the thunderhead before the true storm. Something even the darkspawn feared...

"What about you?"

"Hmm?" Lyra said absently, lost in thought and not really listening anymore.

"Why didn't you ever go back?" Merrill asked.

Lyra could hear the hurt in her voice. Like her leaving had been some kind of personal insult, and never coming back, a betrayal. She could not meet Merrill's gaze and instead stared into the fire, thinking desperately on what to tell Merrill. She could tell her of how she had changed, how resentful she had become over being sent away. But maybe it was everyone else who had changed. The world was too different now. She missed the days when the world consisted of the Clan, the forest, and the occasional wandering human. It had gotten so much bigger since she had left. Now it contained cities full of people, dwarven kingdoms with underground palaces, oceans and deserts and vast mountain ranges concealing the lairs of monstrous dragons and... none of it mattered. All these emotions and thoughts that she couldn't quite put into words, while all true, had nothing to do with why she had never gone back.

"I made an oath," Lyra said finally. "And I have not yet be able to fulfil it." Another half-truth. The flickering light danced in her icy grey eyes, unwilling and unable to see anything but the flames.

"But you killed the Archdemon, didn't you? You ended the blight."

"Not that oath, Merrill." She continued to stare intently into the blaze, determined not to see Merrill's expression as realization dawned on her.

"Oh..." she said slowly. Then in a quiet voice, full of reverence, but edged in hope, "Did you ever find Tamlen?" she received no response. "I've been studying ways that maybe I could-"

"He's gone Merrill," Lyra said quickly. But Merrill was getting excited now.

"That's what the Grey Warden said too, remember? And you said that gone didn't necessarily mean dead, so I thought-"

"This time it does," Lyra said, trying desperately to keep her voice calm and quiet.

Merrill's tone became cautious "What do you mean? What happened?"

Lyra frowned, her brow wrinkling in a mixture of tortured resentment. She didn't even know what she resented more, her role in what had happened, or having to retell it. The memory could be put aside and almost forgotten about, but at the slightest mention, it reasserted itself into the forefront of her mind, the emotions so strong it could have happened yesterday. "He's dead, Merrill," she said finally, her voice sounding tormented and hoarse. "Leave it at that. I... I watched him die."

Merrill's hands flew to her mouth in horror. "Oh my gosh! What happened?"

She thought about telling her about the taint, how Tamlen had become a sick and twisted creature, his mind warped and body disfigured. She thought about telling her how she had to do it, he had attacked her and she had to defend herself. But it all sounded like excuses, the words tasted hollow and meaningless; wrong. "He was sick," she finally managed, "Beyond all hope. It was the taint... It killed him." She hated herself for saying it. It was a lie. A damnable lie. But she couldn't bring herself to tell Merrill the truth.

"I'm so sorry," Merrill said and reached out an arm in comfort.

Lyra stood abruptly moving out of reach and began to pace in front of the fire. She didn't want comfort. She had lied so she wouldn't have to listen to the platitudes of 'You did the right thing' or 'It's for the best'. She knew these things, she'd heard them said many times. They didn't help, nothing did. She didn't know what she wanted, but it wasn't more words. It had been easy to forget when she was fighting the darkspawn, when death loomed all around her. But all the headlong rushing into danger was over and now... There was just too much time to think on things best left buried. "It was a long time ago," she said. "and I- Whats that?" The firelight had glinted off of something in the other room. Just for a second it looked like... She turned on Merrill, who refused to meet her gaze. "Merrill?" she said coldly, struggling to keep her voice calm.

"You have to understand-"

Lyra spun away from her and marched towards the doorway, tearing back the makeshift curtain and stood in horror in front of a large mirror. It could have been any mirror, expensive perhaps, with intricate carvings and lettering around the frame, but it wasn't just any mirror. She recognized it instantly. She could even make out the faint edges of the pieces that had been carefully put back in place after Duncan had smashed it. She stared in wide eyed horror at the thing that had taken everything from her. Even more than the Grey Wardens who had taken her away from her home, the Keeper, who had banished her. More than any of them, she blamed this mirror.

Merrill had followed her into the room, eyes still downcast. "Let me explain-" Her voice was pleading.

Lyra whirled on her in cold fury. "Explain?!" she roared. "What could you possibly say that could make me understand why you took this... this thing and... and what? Are you trying to fix it? It's evil, Merrill, can't you see that? Can't you feel the pure evil?"

"No! It's not! I purified it! It won't hurt anyone anymore. I promise! Think of all we could learn from it." Merrill was pleading with her now, but Lyra was having none of it.

"Purified it?" Lyra raged, incredulously. How could she be so naive? "What could you possibly learn from it? It stole my life from me, almost killed me. It took Tamlen. What more do you need to know?" The rage was subsiding, settling into a mass of hatred and contempt, like a block of ice in the pit of her stomach. "Destroy it, Merrill. For your own sake and the sake of everyone around you, destroy it. If you don't, I will."

Tears were streaming down Merrill's cheeks as Lyra pushed her way past her and headed for the door. "I was going to use it to find Tamlen," she wailed. "You were supposed to help me. You were supposed to understand!"

Lyra stopped, her hand on the door latch. "Understand? That mirror is responsible for everything that has happened to me. And you want me to understand..." Her voice was calm, cold, but calm, and she didn't look back as she spoke. Didn't want to see her one-time friend looking so broken, so betrayed. She knew now why Merrill was no longer with the clan. A disagreement? The Keeper would never have stood for such a thing as this. At first, the Keeper had wanted to restore the mirror as well, but she, at least had seen the truth of it when Duncan had told her of the evil it contained and why he had destroyed it. Why couldn't Merrill see it?

She left without saying another word. There was nothing more to say. She closed the door behind her, resisting the urge to slam the door on Merrill, the mirror, and everything she had left behind so long ago. Everything that refused to stay in the past. She had never been to Kirkwall before, but it seemed like coming here had been like stepping into her own past. In Ferelden it was all about the present and the future; the battles that were upon her and the wars still left to fight. She could soak herself in the blood of her enemies and in so doing erase all that had happened before. Here she could feel the fingers of memory probing at her, tugging at her soul, dragging her back, back into a time she would rather forget. Coming here was a mistake, a damned great mistake.

"She's a blood mage, you know." The voice emanated from the darkest shadows of the massive tree that dominated the central square as she walked past and up the steps that lead out of the alienage. She had been so caught up in her own thoughts that its presence, and the presence of the speaker startled her, but she hesitated only an instant when Fenris emerged from the shadows and fell into step beside her.

She nodded curtly and kept walking, her pace that of someone on a mission. She walked as if she was out to kill someone, and in this instance, she didn't particularly care who. "She said she'd purified that damnable mirror," she said finally, when it became clear that Fenris intended to keep pace with her. She noted the curious expression on his face. He knew about the mirror, obviously, but only that it was some sort of magical device. He knew nothing of its nature, its history, or its power. "Something like that could not have come from any normal magic. Only a demon could provide that kind of power."

He was silent a while, only the soft sounds of their footfalls breaking the silence between them. "You have a history with this mirror."

"You could say that," she snarled. "In fact, you could say that mirror made me what I am today."

"The Hero of Ferelden?" he scoffed. "I don't see how that's such a bad thing."

Lyra made a growling noise in her throat. "No, I don't suppose you would. Let me put it this way then. That mirror destroyed the life I should have had."

They had reached The Hanged Man and she was already starting through the door when he said, "What? Living in the forest like a savage?"

She whirled on him in sudden fury. "Yes! Living in the forests with my Clan, my family. Hunting for our food, running the mountain paths, living my life with..." She stopped herself before mindless anger overcame good sense and caused her to say things that were never meant to be said... to anyone. She could see the surprised look on Fenris's face. Was it the sudden outburst? Or the things she had almost said. Revealing too much, she scolded herself. Keep yourself to yourself. It's what you've always done and it's served you well. Don't start breaking your own rules. "You may not think much of me," she snarled. "But don't you dare judge me."

Before Fenris could say another word, she turned away from him and into the tavern. She moved blindly though the crowd towards the stairs to her room, her mind filled with images and memories of a life lived so far away and long ago that it wasn't even real anymore. Forests, caves, monsters, and a mirror. Hawke may have called to her as she passed, but she didn't hear over the terror ridden screaming in her own head.