The tea, Marian had informed Anders, was the real abomination in that aravel, not either of them. She had protested every drop of the hot liquid he had forced her to drink and finally, somehow, managed to convince him that he needed it every bit as much as she did.
Thus he was sitting around one of the Dalish campfires with the other half of the tea in a mug clutched in his hands while he waited for Marian to clean herself up and join them. It was possible she had a point, considering he had been carrying two spirits around and whinging to himself about the various food-items-on-the-brink-of-disaster he resembled. Looking back he was fairly certain he had compared himself to both a sausage and a soufflé. What next? Layer cake? Perhaps an Orlesian pastry?
Marian emerged from the aravel looking composed. She had arranged her hair to cover the brand on her forehead, but it peeked through the strands like a dark secret.
Varric beamed and held out his arms to her. "Hawke, I never thought I'd see you like this again. This will make the greatest story ever told."
She went to one knee to receive his embrace, holding the dwarf tightly, almost clinging. Anders had never in his life envied a dwarf as much in that moment as he did Varric.
"We'll talk about that," she promised him when she let him go, but she smiled warmly at her friend. "We'll talk about a lot of things tonight."
She gave him a peck on the cheek before standing up to let Aveline clasp her arm. She used the grip to pull the gruff guardswoman into a hug, although Anders could not see how hugging armor would do much for either of them. He had done it for the entire ride to Sundermount and if ever in his life he had found a woman less appealing, he couldn't think of it.
"Welcome back, Hawke," Aveline said, patting her awkwardly before they drew apart.
Marian smiled fondly and squeezed her armor one last time before letting her go. "It's good to be back. Thanks to you and the rest of the misfits."
Isabela pushed past Merrill to be the next to greet Marian – risen as she was from a fate far worse than death – holding out her arms to the woman and lifting her feet right off the ground when she moved into the offered hug.
"Maker, I missed you," Isabela confessed. "You have no idea how dreary these people are without you to beat some sense into them."
Marian laughed and clung to Isabela for a long moment that made Anders' thoughts drift to images of soft limbs intertwined, arms outstretched to welcome him into a dual embrace….
Justice stirred within him and he banished that image before it could take root too deeply.
"You crazy wench," Marian said on a laugh. "I can't believe you actually went into the Fade for me. What next? Random acts of kindness? Feeding beggars on the docks?"
Isabela made a rude noise and let Marian's feet touch the ground again. "Belay that. You'll give Varric ideas and the next thing you know, poof, my reputation is simply ruined!"
"Perish the thought!" Marian exclaimed, putting a hand over her heart before her expression sobered, leaving Anders to wonder how much she remembered of what Compassion had seen when she had touched Isabela.
Dear Maker, how much did she remember of what Compassion had seen when she had touched him? Er… Justice… Void take it, how much did she know of either of them?
She pressed a kiss to Isabela's cheek before she moved on to hold out her arms to Merrill.
"Merrill, what did you think of the Fade?" she asked as she drew the elf into a warm hug.
"It was brilliant, Hawke!" Merrill enthused, laying her cheek against Marian's chest. "First there were the demons and we fought them off and you should have seen Anders. And Isabela was so funny. And Fenris was so, well, you know, Fenris. And Feynriel helped us even though it was all so strange. And then we met all the spirits and they were just like you'd expect and now you're back!"
She turned a guileless look up to Marian. "Let's not ever do that again, shall we?"
Marian threw her head back and laughed. "You did brilliantly, I'm sure." She pressed a kiss to Merrill's forehead and took a step away. "Maybe it will teach you to keep better company."
"I still stay with you," Merrill retorted, making Marian laugh again before she turned her attention to Fenris.
Fenris made a show of checking his feet, brushing a bit of dirt off of one as Marian left Merrill to approach him.
"Fenris," she said almost tentatively, waiting for him to grudgingly meet her eyes. "Forgive me for the ice thing?"
He scowled and looked away before taking a sudden lurching step forward to grab her and pull her into his arms. "I thought I had lost you," he growled. "You will be the death of me, Hawke."
Anders' hands tightened on the mug. He would not be jealous, he would not be jealous, he would not… to the Void with it! He wanted to see Fenris explode in a shower of broody elf bits in that moment rather than watch him holding Marian like that, saying those words, wearing that expression.
This was the man who wanted to kill her not an hour ago, and now he was saying things that all but translated to I love you!
Anders hated him.
Marian pressed a gentle kiss to Fenris' cheek, making the man stiffen and pull away from her. She patted his arm and leaned in to murmur something in his ear. Anders strained to hear, but his best guess was "We need to talk."
He spilled some of the tea when Fenris reached out to rearrange her bangs, concealing the Tranquil brand on her forehead for her.
She smiled for Fenris before she came to stand in front of Anders, taking the mug from his hands and setting it on the bench before holding out her arms to him.
It would serve her right if he didn't move. He could just sit right there and ignore the invitation to feel her arms around him, to smell her hair, to touch her cheek, perhaps feel her lips against his…
He was on his feet and drawing her into his arms before he could stop himself. To the Void with stubborn pride and with Justice's disapproval, he needed this. He needed to have her warm in his embrace and responsive enough to press against him and hold him so tightly his breath caught.
She tilted her head up, still holding him tightly when she said in a murmur meant only for him – or perhaps for them, "Justice, we know your secret."
He gaped and felt Justice actually squirm.
Her smile was mischievous, Anders could not tell if he was deceiving himself when he thought he saw a passing flicker of blue fire in her eyes before she kissed his lips, offering something far less chaste than she had given any of the others.
His jealousy melted away. Her lips were warm, her body was yielding against his, and if he moaned loudly enough for everyone to hear it, he could not bring himself to care. This was wrong and Justice still disapproved, but they had gone through so much for her, risked everything, and seen the worst of all fates; he could not turn away from what she offered.
Isabela broke the moment. "I feel cheated now. Hawke, I want one of those."
Anders' head was swimming, but he thought he heard Merrill murmur, "Me too."
Marian pressed a last light kiss to his lips before clearing her throat and taking a step back. "Right, well… maybe next time we play diamondback."
Anders had to force himself not to reach for her and pull her back. His arms felt empty without her in them now and forever might just be long enough for that kiss to go on.
But he sat heavily back on the bench and swallowed the rest of the tea without tasting it. The overstretched feeling in his head had passed anyway, and if it had been replaced by an overstretched feeling anywhere else, he could be thankful that his coat and under-robe would keep that secret for him.
It was his bench she sat on, though, and it was his side she pressed against when everyone settled down around the fire.
She took a moment to fuss with her bangs to cover the Tranquil brand before looking around the circle of friends. "Thank you. All of you." She chewed on her lip and shuffled her foot in the dirt before she could look up again. "I…" She shook her head. "I don't have words to tell you all what a gift you've given me. Being Tranquil is like dying without the resolution of death."
She took Anders' hand without looking at him and squeezed it. Hard. "I wish we could help every mage who has been made Tranquil, but we can't just pull spirits out of the Fade to help every one of them. It would rupture the natural order of things. The only thing we can do is work toward making the Rite of Tranquility the last resort it is supposed to be again. There are templars who are violating the order's rules and they must be stopped."
"Take it to the Knight-Commander," Aveline offered. "She should know of her renegades."
"I think she already knows," Marian said. "No one said a word about performing the Rite on me. No one protested, even though I offered to undergo the Harrowing."
"Because you're an apostate," Anders said bitterly. "Do you all see how mad the Chantry system has become?"
He was gearing up for a rant, feeling one of those glorious moments when he and Justice were perfectly aligned, but Marian squeezed his hand and for an instant he felt the warm brush of the spirit within her that quelled his need for vengeance for what had been done to someone he l—yes, he loved her.
No. Dear Maker, they loved her.
She gave him a sidelong look and a crooked smile before going on. "There is one templar in particular who needs to be dealt with. He wants to make every mage Tranquil. I think I was just a step in his so-called Tranquil Solution."
"Ser Alrik," Anders snarled. "I should have known!"
"Ser Alrik," Marian confirmed. "He's the one who did this—" she touched the Tranquil brand, "—to me. He won't listen to reason, and I saw the madness in his eyes. He won't stop with me, and I've never heard of another mage with friends as mad as mine to repair the harm he does. The only way to stop him is to see him on a funeral pyre."
Yes! thought Anders.
"Looks like the spirit isn't making her soft after all," Isabela said to fill the silence after Marian's proclamation.
"You're talking assassination of a templar," Aveline protested. "Are you certain we can't take this to the Knight-Commander?"
Marian sighed. "I wish we could. I wish I trusted Meredith to be reasonable, but even if I did, how am I supposed to go to her and show her what I've become? As far as all of Kirkwall is concerned outside of you, my closest friends, I am Tranquil. That is how it must be. Otherwise the Chantry will want to see me dead not just because I'm an abomination, but because I might make other people who have lost loved ones try something as crazy as you all did."
She turned her attention to Varric. "That means you don't get to tell this story yet. I'm not saying you have to sit on it forever, but you can not hint that I'm anything but what the brand says I am. It's our secret weapon. No one even looks twice at a Tranquil."
"Hawke," Varric said uncomfortably. "I don't like where you're going with this. I know stories and I see visions of mad infiltrations and subversive plots in our future."
Marian grinned. "It's like you're a Rivaini fortuneteller, because that's exactly what the future holds. I'm going back to Kirkwall, and I'm going back to the Gallows."
"What?"
"No!"
"You cannot!"
"Are you mad?"
"Over my dead body!"
"Hawke!"
She waited for the protests to subside. "I have to. I need to see Carver and there is no better way to see what is happening behind those walls than this. I tell you this is perfect. The Tranquil are invisible. Everyone considers them completely harmless – cut off from their magic, from their emotions, perfectly obedient."
"How are you going to manage to fool them?" Aveline asked. "You wouldn't know obedience if it bashed you over the head."
Marian moved her bangs to display the Tranquil brand. "Like this. Do you expect a dog to meow? A fish to walk past you in the Hanged Man? No. And no one will expect a Tranquil to have a thought in her head that wasn't given to her."
"I don't like it," Anders said. "We went through all this to get you out of the Gallows and you want to just walk back in there."
"I don't like it either," she confessed. "But you all went through all this to give me a gift, and I just can't let it go to waste. I couldn't live with myself if I knew that I could do something and I didn't."
She turned her head to meet Anders' eyes. "Could you?"
Void. How he hated it when she was right.