Anders spent most of the ride to Sundermount riding pillion with Aveline. There was nothing even remotely romantic about being continually jounced against the woman's armor for mile after mile while his head did a credible impression of a soufflé slowly rising in the oven.
That would almost be an amusing image if he didn't know the common fate of mistreated soufflés.
What had happened to the Anders who had just wanted a bit of freedom, a good meal, and a pretty girl to kiss? Oh, right, he had decided to set up a rooming house for Fade spirits in his skull, because obviously there weren't enough brains rattling around in there to warrant single occupancy.
It was in this self-pitying – or was it self-flagellating? – mood that he made the trip to find Merrill's clan and the broken treasure they hid in their midst. If the others managed any conversation during their hard ride, he was in no condition to notice.
He couldn't bring himself to remember the name of the elves who helped him up into the aravel either. Lianne? Pel? Probably those names were wrong. It didn't matter. What mattered was Marian.
The emotions that tore through him seeing her again drove the breath out of him, seeing the brand on her forehead, seeing the blank calm in her eyes. He knew that the others were waiting for him to pull some amazing magic out of his arse, but it was all he could do to keep from weeping with the force of his sorrow, Justice's anger, and Compassion's sudden swell of, well, compassion for this woman who should be so vibrant.
He felt the aravel sway as someone climbed up behind him. It was Merrill who took his hand and clasped his arm to helped him forward.
Leave it to the mages, hm? That was probably for the best.
"So, you can just go all sloshy now," she said anxiously. "And then let Compassion out?"
"I think that's the general idea," Anders said. And it was, but the hard part was that he had spent all this time struggling to keep Justice in, not just let him out on a lark.
Right, so this was hardly a lark, was it?
He settled himself on his knees in front of Marian and took her hands. It was easier than he thought to let Justice have his way; all he had to do was look up into her empty eyes and then raise his gaze to the livid scar on her forehead.
Had she screamed when they used the lyrium brand on her forehead? Or was it already too late for her then? Had the Rite of Tranquility left her conscious to see the branding iron coming? Had she felt its heat as it approached her skin?
Who had held her still while she struggled? Had she cried out for her mother? Her brother? For her friends? For Anders?
His throat tightened with tears and with rage, the emotion growing, swelling, bursting over him in a wash of cold fire, Justice's words spilling from his mouth, "I will see this wrong undone and end this crime against other innocent mages! I will kill them all. I will see the streets of Kirkwall run with the blood of all templars!"
Shh… Compassion's voice was soft, a soothing caress after the rasp of Justice's ire. Anders felt the knot in his chest loosen, but he also felt Justice's rage draw back under the other spirit's touch. Yes, they would see the wrongs righted, but not all the templars were responsible, not all were complicit, and fear was a terrible motivator, it brought only more fear, and that would not bring justice.
"Oh." Merrill moved beside him. "Hawke?"
"Merrill, what's happening?" Marian pulled her hands from Anders' grip and cupped his cheeks, searching past the blue glow in his eyes for some sign of Anders. "Anders, are you in there? Don't go all Justice on me. We only have moments."
Too right. Not even enough time to explain, just enough time to rise on his knees and catch her cheeks between his hands just as she was holding his. Just enough time to kiss her and feel the spirit of Compassion leave him and pass to her.
Barely enough time to appreciate how soft her lips were before he had to catch her as her body convulsed, her skin crackling with the blue power of the Fade, her eyes going wide, wider, the whites showing behind the flare of energy that lit them like beacons.
"Help me," he snapped to Merrill, but Merrill was the last person anyone should turn to for help in this kind of situation. She had absolutely no aptitude for healing.
Merrill fluttered her hands helplessly, asking Anders questions he didn't hear while he tried to keep Marian from hurting herself. Thank the Maker the worst passed just as quickly as it came, leaving her limp in his arms, the glow extinguished. Anders and Merrill were nearly blinded in the sudden dim after the glare.
His heart stuttered with fear before he could determine that yes, she was still breathing, and yes, her heart was still beating. He remembered joining with Justice, it had knocked him on his arse.
"Just…." He shifted Marian to a one-armed hold and dug in the pockets lining the inside of his coat until he came out with a small pouch. "Brew this into a strong tea and bring it back to me. If this worked, she's going to have a thumper of a headache when she wakes up."
The others pounded the side of the aravel, demanding to know if Hawke was alright. Had it worked, was she okay, answer the damned questions, mage!
Ah, Fenris. Never change, just shut up and die.
"She's alive," he called. "Now shut up and let Merrill get that tea. I'll tell you when anything changes."
Merrill climbed out of the aravel, leaving Anders alone with Marian. He saw Aveline hoist herself up to peer inside and waved a hand at her. "Close the flap. The light hurt my eyes… after."
He settled Marian back on the aravel's floor, remembering the chaotic moments when he had wakened from his joining with Justice. The light had been wrong at first, Fade light was diffuse, sourceless. The disparity for Justice had added to the other discomforts and confusion when he/they had wakened. The least he could do was minimize the trauma, especially since he had done this to Marian against her will. At least she wouldn't have to kill anyone the way Anders had been forced to.
Aveline closed the flap, but not before Fenris climbed into the back of the aravel. He tried to peer past Anders to see Marian's face.
"I said she's alive," Anders snapped in a terse whisper. "She's going to be confused when she wakes." We don't need you here.
Fenris stubbornly sat on the edge of one of the aravel's tiny bunks. "I am staying."
"So you can call her an abomination as soon as she wakes," he hissed at Fenris. "Do you think that's going to help her?"
"What's going to help us—me is not listening to you two argue," Marian murmured, raising a hand to cover her eyes. "Maker, my head feels like the day after one of Isabela's drinking games."
Anders shot Fenris a fierce glare before bending over Marian to release a thread of healing magic into her, seeing the tight lines around her mouth relax as it eased the pain. He had caught her slip between "us" and "me," and felt a twinge of regret for what he had done to her.
She put a hand out to touch Anders' hand and reached her other hand out to Fenris, wiggling her fingers in a come here that the elf heeded. He slid down the bunk to lean closer, but she wiggled her fingers again until he was as close as the small aravel would permit.
Both men gasped when her hands shifted like striking snakes, dropping to Anders' and Fenris' groins and gripping just hard enough to threaten imminent pain.
"Now," she said quietly, holding the two men's personal prides with surprisingly implacable strength for someone who had just been through everything she had. "You two are going to tell me everything that happened, and please don't make me prove that I have my magic again, because I would be heartbroken if I had to freeze your balls off. I swear I would."
She squinted up at them and gave a crooked little smile. "I'd probably heal you after."
Fenris hissed and turned a hot glare on Anders. "You call this compassion."
Anders had gone utterly still. For one, she was touching somewhere he had only dreamed to ever feel her hand. Sadly, for two, she was threatening to emasculate him, which might just be a fair sentence for what he had done to her.
Marian squeezed a little harder. "You can start with that."
Anders took a turn at hissing. "Hello, not wearing armor like the elf and I like those bits."
"Start talking," Marian said, still sounding utterly reasonable and calm. She usually tried to be reasonable and calm, other than her moments of incongruous and inappropriate humor with her friends, but she didn't generally grab men by their jolly rogers. At least not that Anders knew of outside of a few painfully detailed fantasies he had entertained.
"Did I hear…" Varric poked his head through the closed flap and froze, staring at the tableau. "Looks like I'm interrupting."
Marian didn't take her eyes off Anders. "If I had three hands I'd invite you in, but you'll just have to wait your turn."
"That's okay," he said, pulling back out of the aravel like a gopher popping back into its hole. They could just hear him say, "She's awake and I can't tell if she's really happy to be back or about to turn the boys to sopranos."
"Hawke," Fenris said cautiously. "Do you remember being Tranquil?"
She nodded but didn't move her hands.
"Do you feel different?" he asked.
"Do you mean the spirit that has taken up residence inside me?" she asked, still calm.
Anders coughed.
"That's my fault," he admitted, bracing himself for the blast of cold that would take away one of his favorite late night diversions.
When it didn't come, he took a chance and kept going. "It was the only way to give you a connection to the Fade. It isn't a demon, and I think it won't be as hard to live with as Justice."
Fenris made a rude noise and winced when Marian squeezed him a little harder.
"You let him, didn't you?" she asked the elf. "We—I remember… you and Anders, Merrill and Isabela in the Fade."
He nodded. "We agreed together."
"And you're here to kill me if I'm an abomination," she said.
He looked down at her hand on his crotch and swallowed.
"I'll take that as a yes."
She looked momentarily stern before releasing them both with a little laugh. "I just can't. I wanted to make you both sweat for a while longer, but the looks on your faces… You both looked so scared for your male pride."
Anders gaped.
Fenris growled. "That was not funny."
"Oh yes it was," Marian disagreed, trying to lever herself up and falling back with a grunt of pain. "Right. Not trying that just yet."
"It wasn't funny," Anders said, and shook his head at Fenris. "Don't get used to me agreeing with you."
Marian raised a hand to trace the brand on her forehead, looking momentarily haunted before she replaced the expression with her faint smile. "Messeres, do I need to remind you that I shouldn't be making any jokes at all? That makes it the best joke in all history."
She looked up at Fenris. "Unless Fenris kills me now, because that would make all of this a truly awful joke. Are you going to kill me?"
Fenris cut his eyes away from her and shook his head. "I cannot."
Anders let his breath out and muttered, "Where's Merrill with that tea?"
If this had been one of Varric's stories, she would have showed up on cue, but outside of Varric's stories water still took time to boil and only minutes had passed since she had left the aravel.
Marian patted his knee with one hand and Fenris' calf with the other. "Let me tell you what the spirit has told me and you two can tell me if any of it is untrue. If I can get you two to agree on it, it has to be true."
"She has a point," Anders conceded.
Fenris looked down at the hand on his leg, expression shuttered. "Tell us."
"Good enough. It's a spirit of compassion. Justice took you all to find it in the Fade with…" She frowned. "Feynriel?"
Anders and Fenris nodded.
"Right. I'll want the rest of that story later. You all met with a bunch of spirits and Justice made his case for me." She smiled up at Anders and squeezed his knee. "And most of them denied you, but Compassion was moved by how much all of you cared for me."
She looked up at Fenris. "You let her touch you. For me."
Anders and Fenris both heard a ghostly overlay to her voice as she murmured, "Thank you."
An echo of Compassion.