A/N: Bah, uploading today is rather tricksy, isn't it? Thanks to all you stalwart people still reading this. I can't even look at blood personally, it makes me sick, so this story is an exercise in torture. Reviews are always welcome.
Another humid day was hanging heavy over Lowtown when Hawke cut across this part of Kirkwall, on her way to the alienage. Her mind was troubled. She had gone into this whole experience so full of confidence, and now the previous day had shaken her.
The door to Merrill's house was open and she stepped inside, immediately unbuttoning her coat. She felt her hair matted to her forehead with perspiration. I know what that looks like now. She brushed the hair aside, having it no longer sweeping across her eyes. She sternly parted the sweat-damp hair. She had chosen to wear a less formfitting shift today underneath her coat, hanging on her like a bag. She didn't even understand why but after last night's waking dream she wasn't taking any risks.
Merrill heard her arrival and walked into the front room, smiling at her brightly. "Ah, there you are! Isn't it really muggy today? I wonder why this kind of weather is called muggy, do you know? Are there more muggings than usual on muggy days? I really wonder. I should ask the next thief who tries to mug me." She sat down at one of her hexagonal tables, indicating for Hawke to join her.
Hawke did not though. She remained standing, her hands white-knuckled around the back of a chair. She didn't deem to respond to Merrill's ridiculous words. Did she really believe such a thing? Who talks to a thief? Irritation flared. Hawke had other worries.
"What's the first sign of demonic activity? How would you recognize that a desire demon tries to possess you?" Hawke pressed out the words, bile rising in her throat. She had been full of terror this morning and was struggling to suppress it. As mental exercise she imagined a flawless shell of ice around herself. She calmed down.
Merrill squinted, then shook her head. "You can't get possessed from just watching another blood mage at work. You are not that weak." She rose, moving towards Hawke, who immediately took a step backward. She cannot touch me. She must not. "Why are you asking, Hawke? What happened?" She took Hawke by her arm and did not let go when the taller woman tried to shake her off. "Tell me now, or I will not even think about continuing."
Hawke exhaled painfully, straining against Merrill's touch. "Let me go, now. Do. Not. Touch. Me." She had put fear into people's hearts with her words, but the elf did not let go. Their eyes were dueling to the death, sharp, piercing gazes on both sides. Merill finally let go of her arm. Hawke moved to rub it, convinced there would be a bruise there. How did one petite elf have so much power? How did she dare defy her so?
"When I tried to fall asleep, I couldn't, because I was assaulted with endless images of..." Hawke was screaming inside, but her icy shell was muffling her screams, they never got outside. Merrill hung upon her lips. "Maker, I saw you and I, performing all sorts of depravity, and I welcomed it. It must have been a desire demon, there is no other explanation. I do not ever experience such thoughts, such thinking."
Merrill looked shell-shocked, covering her mouth with her palm. She turned her back on Hawke, a flood of elvhen words on her lips. She finally turned back, staring at Hawke uncomfortably. Her cheeks were burning. "Elgarnan, I did not know. Your affinity seems beyond comparison. I know what you saw."
And she did. She went into detailed explanation of what Hawke had seen, and then finally added hastily "It's not depravity, by the way. I could show you depravity!" She quickly covered her mouth with her hand now. "Shut up, Merrill, just be quiet," she mumbled past her fingers, eyes wide and apologetic.
Hawke brushed that aside, shaking her head in confusion. "How do you know this? You can't tell me that every student of blood magic sees exactly that?" She sat down numbly, still full of questions. If they did, Isabela would want to be a blood mage, somehow.
Merrill paced in circles. "There was a reason I made you stop when you were trying to use my blood. Like a child, reaching for the closest toy, seeking possession." Tin soldiers, grabbed. She walked around Hawke's chair, back and forth, back and forth. "Blood is potent, lethallan. Not only is it a source of power for our spells, but it comes with more possibilities. I have not bothered with it because it is of no scientific interest for me, but blood allows you to infiltrate and control the thoughts of others. There is an affinity to those whose blood you used if you wish to exercise it. You can also achieve a connection to their dreams, finding their sleeping minds." She paused, staring at Hawke, waiting for a reaction.
Keep your calm, Hawke. Her icy veneer was not wavering now as she stared at Merrill. "Does it require the blood of whoever you are looking to control or visit in their dreams?" The elf nodded. The silence between them was awkward as they stared at each other. Thin lines appeared on her forehead, until she finally snapped, standing "You bloody dreamed of me like that? That was your bloody dream? Maker, help me!" This could not really be happening.
A smile actually played around Merrill's lips and she looked down at her feet. She finally cleared her throat. "I thought it was quite pleasant, but I can see how you might not agree." She tapped a finger against the bridge of her nose. "I have good news: the connection will fade in time." She then gave Hawke a challenging look, and another of her quirky smiles. "The bad news: it will be some time, and I can guarantee you that there will be more such dreams. You are quite breathtaking, and this teaching requires a lot of physical proximity." She tilted her head, studying Hawke quizzically. "The choice is yours. Continue, despite obviously being discomfited by it, or give up now. But know this!" Merrill's green eyes were incredibly challenging. Why had she ever thought she was soft and weak? "It was your own incredibly bad judgment to take my blood without my permission. It was your own failure. You were a fool. Don't put this on my own shoulders."
Hawke wanted to grab and shake her, for being so insulting and arrogant instead of being kind, apologetic and soft. At the same time she wanted to grab her and place a searing kiss on her lips, and then drag her down with her, doing all the things her mind had seen. She can show me depravity, she said. Maker, what was she thinking now?
Her face never betrayed her inner turmoil, because it wouldn't do. She merely nodded her acquiescence and cooly stated, "I shall stay and learn, teacher." She couldn't even speak her name.
"How do you steel yourself against the pain?" Sharp pinpricks were felt on all five fingertips of her right hand as Merrill broke her skin with a needle. She took each finger and squeezed out one drop of blood. Hawke's throat was parched. It looked so sensuous, Merrill's long fingers lightly squeezing. It stung. What if Merrill kissed the pain away? Her luscious lips, enclosing her fingertips, her mouth moist and warm, gently sucking and nipping, drawing the finger in deeper into her delicious mouth.
Hawke stepped onto her own foot with the heel of the other boot, grinding down. The pain made the debauched imagery stop, made Hawke focus on what was before her. Five drops of blood, one on each fingertip, ready at her disposal. Merrill sharply said "Focus, Hawke. Your mind has to be here, and you need full control. As for the pain, you get used to it. You will work with the blood so quickly and steadily, you won't feel it anymore."
Merrill wiped her own hands with a cloth, making sure none of Hawke's blood was on her. "Light the fireplace. You do quite well with fire spells, don't you? But remember, this will be powerful."
Hawke held her staff in her other hand, and then turned towards the fireplace. She raised her staff, then knocked it down on the floor, the droplets of blood a red swirl of power. It was hardly any blood at all, but the fireplace roared, the wood popping from the excess heat. It was far too warm in here for such a summer day. She extinguished the fire just as easily, with a focused cone of cold before her.
She had never tapped into the Fade for power, she had merely used that blood, those five little drops of blood. Merrill looked pleased. "Very well, Hawke. Maybe it's time to move beyond needles." Hawke nodded, heaving an inward sigh of relief. It was good for more than stupid lustful thoughts after all.
Merrill had whispered to her, had asked affirmation before she cut Hawke's forearm. Now she was singing with power, shaping the blood, funneling it into her system to create powerful spells. She would light another fire. She focused, and hurled, and then got knocked on her back by the backlash. She dully heard Merrill's scream, then crawled forward, covering the inferno of the fireplace with icicles.
When they took in the damage afterwards, Merrill was bleeding from her temple. She dabbed angrily at it. The heat had cracked the chimney, and the fire had burned one of her tables and the books that had been on top of it. "Stupid, careless, greedy Hawke. You have no control. This never happened to me. I never bit off more than I could chew. Just because it's there doesn't mean you need to consume it all in one try!" She ran a hand through her hair, tugging angrily. She looked scared and hurt and angry, and Hawke felt like hugging her. No, Merrill wants me to hug her, I don't hug people.
Hawke was so disappointed in herself. The past couple days Merrill had taught her much. How to cut properly, either palm or forearm. How to funnel the blood's power into her and use it. Yet, it never seemed like enough. There was so much power. She wanted to learn specific blood magic spells, but Merrill merely shook her head firmly. "You do not have sufficient control and skill yet. Later. Learn the proper use first."
So here she was, having demolished Merrill's house with reckless use of blood magic, and it wasn't even any magic that she hadn't used before. Merrill was right to scold her.
It was yet another lesson in humility. The taste of those lessons were far too bitter for Hawke to enjoy.
Nights were difficult. Most days that were spent at Merrill's house required such intense focus, and so much internal restraint that Hawke felt like a husk when she came home. She found herself ravenous most nights. Was that why Merrill seemed to burn so brightly like a flame and always looked too sharp and bony? Hawke often brought her extra food now.
When Hawke lay in bed, she tried to sleep very early. If she was lucky, she fell asleep before Merrill and never woke up again that night, and thus she didn't touch her dreams. On bad days she was shaken very badly by the impact of Merrill's fantasies about her. For all that she had so successfully suppressed any fleshly desires all her life, she could no longer do that. It was nearly impossible to separate her own lust from Merrill's in those long nights. Where did Merrill's dreams begin and what was her own? She had never been with anyone, much less a woman, and yet she felt so intimately familiar with the process.
On some days it was nearly impossible to focus on Merrill's words and actions because she was so badly haunted by their nights. She was grateful for the nights that Merrill had different dreams, random images, normal dreams like Hawke was used to, instead of those sweaty fantasies where both of them screamed in ecstasy.
In all nights, Hawke felt like she was standing at this deep chasm that was beckoning her forward. She tried to fight its pull at all times, fighting as she had all her life, but she couldn't resist. Merrill whispered in her ear, delightful, licentious words, and Hawke approached that chasm, and then took the plunge. Quite literally, really.
The night after the destruction of Merrill's fireplace was different. Hawke tried to drift to sleep, knowing that she would soon feel the touch of Merrill's dreams. She squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the impact, but instead of seeing herself in various state of undress, she saw the Dalish camp on Sundermount. She walked amongst the Dalish, and approaching every single one, they turned from her. She didn't know all the faces, but some seemed vaguely familiar, if only from Merrill's tales.
The hunters Feneral and Ineria watched her approach. She felt her face pull into a bright smile, and then knew it was Merrill who approached them. She would never smile at anyone like this. Not if they stared at her with so much hostility. Merrill was almost with them, but just as she got there, they turned away.
Master Ilen, Pol, the Keeper, even Feynriel, they all turned away at her approach. Merrill was there, all on her own. All by herself. Despair rolled off her in waves. She had no one.
Hawke cried into her pillow, deep sobs that came from deep within, that made her shoulders heave. She hadn't consciously cried since childhood, as she locked all her pain inside of her and then burnt it with anger, but this night she cried. For poor Merrill, and for herself, for all the lonely people out there in the soulless, cold city of Kirkwall.
"I didn't really want to walk all this way to watch a sunset." Hawke snapped this irritably at Merrill who stared out to the west, watching the sun lower itself into the sea, a giant fiery ball of illumination. The elf had not told her why they had decided to go to the coast today instead of studying at the house.
Unsurprisingly they were attacked by wild mabari, which didn't really prove to be any match for the two of them. Merrill looked incessantly pleased with herself. "How lovely the sunset is. You really must relax a lot more, Hawke." She sounded so cheerful, so bright. She was so pretty. How can you be this cheerful and lovely, when at night you are so lonely and sad?
The Sundermount dream was recurring. They never talked about Merrill's dreams, and she had been right, their connection was fading now. Every night she saw less, felt less, and the only thing that was left on some nights were her own feelings of desire for the elf. Those would go away soon too, without the nightly sensory input it would clearly fade away. Some nights she felt pangs of regret, which then turned to anger. Blood magic had changed her, instead of making her stronger, it made her feel weaker in many respects. She felt contaminated by emotions, cold reason deserting her.
Why did Merrill have to look so pretty in the fading light of the sun? Hawke mused on that whereas the elf impatiently snapped her fingers. "Focus, Hawke, come back to me. Their lifeblood is rapidly fading. Come on, tap into your blood, make it freeze or something, and then I'll show you something new."
Hawke drew her fiery knife, which she had named Flame (another unreasonable thing to do, who names a knife?), and cut into her left palm. She then proceeded to use a new spell Merrill had taught her and flung massive rocks at the mabari corpses, like a fist of stone. She had learned to assess the amount of power needed now for her actions, but the projectile still hit the mabari corpses with massive force, spraying both Merrill and Hawke with congealing blood.
"Enough. Make sure your hand doesn't stop bleeding." Merrill carelessly wiped at some of the blood on her face, and then took a deep breath, relaxing. "Reach out now, with your senses. Do you see all this blood? It's still warm, though life's gone now. You can still use the residual power of the blood. Tap into it. Do you feel it?"
Hawke closed her eyes, focusing. Yes. There was blood. Traces of warmth. Traces of life, quickly fading. She was ready to reach out and take it, when Merrill's voice made her halt. Merrill was close, touching her arm. She no longer shied from the physical contact. On some days she welcomed it. Her eyes remained shut, but she listened intently.
"You have two options here. You could either raise those poor, dead Mabari. That would be bad. That would be something blood mages who are losing control are doing. The other option is to hold on to the last vestiges of life in that blood, and use it to heal yourself. Can you tell the difference? Can you feel the difference?" Merrill clung to her side, her voice right by her ear. Hawke put her right arm around Merrill's shoulders and then reached out with her mind. When she opened her eyes, she saw the blood, channeling into her. She looked at her hand, at the gash in her palm, and saw it knit, saw it close. She had robbed those corpses of their last energy. When she stopped, she held her palm to Merrill, who looked incredibly pleased. "Well done, Hawke."
Hawke realized how close they were and quickly distanced herself from Merrill, balling her right hand into a fist. "I have gotten better at control." She was pleased at herself, but she didn't let it show, aside from her balled fist that she was shaking.
"You have. Which I think deserves some real celebration." Merrill laughed, kicking a crushed Mabari leg to the side, and then took Hawke's arm again, mindless of Hawke having sought distance from her. She was very disrespectful of her boundaries. She tore them down, she lowered them. Hawke hated and cherished it at the same time. They walked down a path until they were by a small beach. Several trees and bushes crowned a ridge before the dunes descended to the beach. "Alright, here's your reward. I know you are always chomping at the bite. No...white. Light? I don't understand your manners of speaking, not all of them. Chomping at the light, yes?"
Hawke shook her head, but where once irritation would have flared she was now vaguely amused. "Chomping at the bit. Like what horses have in their mouths, the bridle?" Understanding dawned in Merrill's eyes, and she nodded excitedly.
"I understand now. We use those for our halla! Chomping at the bit." Merrill was in such a lovely mood, even though it was hard to see her face now, as the last light of the sun was fading away, dusk washing over them. She drew her own knife now. "You always seek to use your power and hate holding back. Here you don't have to. You can't destroy anything but those rather dead trees. No one will miss them. I hope. It could be someone's favorite tree, but now it's yours. Burn it for me. For yourself."
Merrill's voice was pure seduction, a stronger song of allure than she had ever heard. If she whispered in her ear now, Hawke would faint from sheer desire. Was it desire for Merrill, or for the use of power? Or both? Or something else? Hawke took a shaky breath, and then cut again. Deeper than before, and it hurt. She didn't understand why Merrill said she wouldn't feel the pain, because it hurt so much. She held on to the blood with tears stinging at her eyes, yet never spilling from them, and then hurled fire at the tree. First a fireball, then a firestorm, and the fire flared brighter than any she had ever seen before. And there was so much power left. She couldn't stop, she just let it rush through her body, used it.
Next to her she heard the crackling of electricity, smelled the sharp ozone smell of lightning. Chains of lightning jumped from the husks of trees and shrub, then a storm descended on them, controlled by Merrill. Together they wreaked destruction over this landscape. Never holding back. How liberating.
"You can never do anything like this again. Never. You must always control yourself." Hawke stared at her father with eyes open wide. Words were on her tongue, apologies, explanations. Daddy, I was so scared of him hurting me. He always does. I am so tired of being tripped up, elbowed, kicked, just because I can use magic, and he can't. I am so tired of always running. Can I have friends? Why can we never stay long enough for me to have friends? I didn't ask for this, dad. Please, still love me, dad. Such complex thoughts, too much for an 8-year old to express, just thoughts. "He is your brother, and you are an apostate mage. You cannot hurt people like that. You can't. It's wrong. You are the oldest, you have to be the strongest! You have to learn this." But I am only a child, I am not strong. Her father turned her around and then started spanking her. Tears bit at her eyes, quietly overflowing, but she didn't cry. She had to be strong. Malcolm Hawke had said so. She would always hold back, for her family.
She didn't hold back. If anyone else had seen the coastline, the beacon of fire and lightning would have been clearly visible for miles. It illuminated the night as the two mages celebrated their powers. Hawke threw her head back as she raised her arms to the sky, letting another firestorm roll over the ridge. She laughed, an insouciant, free sound, and Merrill laughed with her.
It was the happiest Hawke had ever felt. Nothing came even close. They looked at each other and laughed, carefree and joyously.