Clarissa slumped back into the warm, featherlike embrace of the fur coverlet blanketing. She knew the strength to get up to be within her, within reach of her fingertips, but whenever she attempted to rise from the soft, cozy fortress she found herself trapped in, her extremities immediately went numb, in direct defiance to her commands. Every single time she would lift herself a few inches above the bed, and every single time she went no further than that. Her body had rebelled against her mind, and all she could do was stare up at the ceiling in utter helplessness, showering herself with spite and frustration all the while.
It did not escape her, however, that the finely-made wolf-fur blanket keeping her warm was not torn, worn or damaged in any way, shape or form. In fact, it felt brand new, and she wondered at it in curiosity.
It did not escape her that the mattress beneath her and the silk sheets lightly touching on her back were as sprightly as Merrill's lively footsteps and as soft as fine sand, gentle and caressing unlike the wooden boards and hard floors she had grown accustomed to over the years. If this was an inn of sorts, whoever had brought her here had certainly spared no expense.
It did not escape her that the candles at her nightstand, odourless and smokeless, were held in candlesticks of gleaming silver. Imprinted upon them by the flickering flames were intricate, detailed lines crafted with great workmanship. She had attempted reached out to touch it, but had found the distance between her and the nightstand to be farther than she imagined. She had twisted herself round, trying to reach the other side of the bed with the full length of her outstretched arm and only barely registering the absence of round, clothed springs under her grasping fingertips.
Now, as she cast her eyes about the ornate bedroom again, taking in the sparsely furnished surroundings while forcing her numb mind to think. She craned her head and saw a doorway directly in front of the bed she occupied, the only way out in an otherwise rectangular room that seemed reserved for nobility more than anything.
You're dreaming, Clarissa. Even if Mother had reclaimed the estate in such short notice, you're not exactly on speaking terms with her.
She felt warmth recede from her cheeks as she recalled Leandra Hawke's despair. Not two years ago, she had lost her son to the Darkspawn horde, tearing apart a family she had tried so hard to keep together. She had fled her home, her friends and everything she had known and loved to hide herself from that, lest the pain that accompanied it would visit itself upon her again. She had returned to her home, hoping to seek refuge in the nobility she still had here, only to find it a disgrace on her name and a laughingstock of her heritage.
Eighteen years of loving and feeding, and raising. And in one moment, it was all gone.
And there she was, the eldest among her children, bearing ill fortune once again with tears in her eyes and resignation on her lips. She had told her that her beloved daughter, the precocious, pure young girl she had loved more than anything, was lost to the Grey Wardens. All because of her older sister and her foolhardy endeavour to "find the secrets behind our family name."
She never got to finish what she had meant to say before Leandra cast her out the door of the Lowtown shanty that was their home and shoved the door shut. In that moment, Clarissa saw, her mother had had enough. In that moment, Clarissa thought, her mother's sadness may yet have rivalled her own.
In that moment, she saw hatred, simple and unmistakable, etched upon her mother's aging features as she slammed the door.
And so, she lay motionless on the bed, powerless to resist the waves of sorrow, regret and the reluctant acceptance she harboured for what she had done, passing between waking torture and dreamless slumber. She watched sun and moon drift by at the open window, casting light and darkness in its singular cycle. She wondered why a day could drag on for so long. Her strength was returning gradually but for every waking moment she spent trapped in the bed's gentle, forceful embrace, her impatience simmered, growling and snarling at her and at her inability.
The door creaked. Clarissa's eyes sprang wide, hands reaching under her blanket for that dagger she kept strapped to her belt. Both belt and dagger were absent. She silently cursed herself and squinted as a woman bathed in candlelight, obscuring her face with the shining star she held in her right hand. The woman paused in her stride, looking directly into Clarissa's eyes, then approached her bedside and placed the candle on her nightstand. Like the candlestick already present, it gleamed in polished silver, only marred by delicate patterns both enrapturing and elegant.
Much like the woman at her side now.
Clarissa's blood went cold as the fading light revealed her features, the remnants of the candlelight dancing upon her silvery-white, short-cropped hair, cut in the fashion of a housewife who doted her attentions to her family and their fields instead of extravagant, impractical good looks noblewomen and highborn ladies seemed to fancy. If there was beauty to be found in her watery cornflower blue eyes, her round cheekbones, tapered nose and strong jaws, it had long since been washed away, lost amongst the ebb and flow of time breaking upon her for nigh on half a century.
Clarissa watched silently as Leandra Hawke's eyes shimmered, a film of moisture creeping over them. Her heart throbbed. Despite her heart belonging to someone else, she was the one who gave it to her.
"Mother…" She started, a million questions bouncing within her. She groaned as she tried to prop herself against the headboard, feeling her strength drain from her once again as she crossed some invisible boundary with her miniscule exertion.
She scrambled closer to her at the sounds she made, gently but insistently pushing her back down into the soft cushion of the pillows piled under her head. She ran her hand through her hair as she did so, moving her individual fingers through the tangled, tousled locks of auburn hair with care, never losing patience when they became caught or snagged between rebellious strands.
"Hush, baby girl… You're fine. You've been sleeping for two days, but the healer said you'd need a few more to stand up and start walking." She murmured, her soft voice bringing no small amount of comfort to her daughter, who rested her head in the nestle of warm cushions while fixing quivering eyes on her mother. She saw, through candlelight, the faint lines on her forehead that had not been there before, becoming more pronounced when similar lines rimmed her eyes.
Their eyes met, and Clarissa saw the undercurrents of sadness in her mother's eyes, not desisted but merely diminished by the relief that filled her eyes with grateful tears. She could not escape it this time; She could not shirk her responsibility this time.
Her mother had lived a life of hardship, choosing her love and her own family over a life of nobility. Whatever joy she reaped from her children and their father was swept away by the constant guard she kept in her heart and mind for the gift, or curse, that the Maker bestowed upon her youngest daughter. Still, she had taken comfort in that for as long as she could, but no longer.
"Mother, I'm sorry…" Clarissa said, blinking back tears. She would not hold them for long. "I took from you your daughter…"
Hands cradled her face, forcing her gaze to cease its wandering and fixate on watery, grey-blue eyes that gleamed with enigmatic emotion under the wavering firelight. She melted into her mother's touch. It had been so long.
"Never think that, Clare Bear. You did everything you could, I'm sure." Leandra murmured, caressing her eldest daughter's cheeks with a gentleness and a slow, sweet adoration only mothers were capable of. "She's not gone from us yet. I'll send letters, messengers, even go for visits once this business with the estate is settled."
"The estate?" Clarissa asked, her eyes looking past her mother and surveying the ornate bedroom once more.
"Yes, Clare Bear, the estate. You're in it right now."
"You got it back, so soon?" Clarissa asked incredulously. She was surprised the Viscount's office could have managed the red tape in such a hurry, or was it her that had been dreaming for far too long, losing count of the days that had passed?
"Apparently, the name Amell is on quite a number of people's lips these days, what with its sole heir rising from a petty mercenary to the leader of an expedition that retrieved the fortunes of one of the richest Dwarven castes in Orzammar." Leandra said, pride evident in her tone and her expression.
"That wasn't even what we set out for," Clarissa said, an image of Varric and his family fortune, stuffed and packed onto several mules and hauled all the way from Wildervale to Kirkwall, playing out vividly in her mind.
"I also heard from a few of the nobles lounging in the keep that a pair of sisters by the name 'Hawke' had stormed a Grey Warden stronghold up north, purging it of strange creatures that howled through the night for the surrounding villages to hear for months on end. It would seem that part of the reason why we were rushed to the Viscount's attentions was because of this."
Leandra looked at Clarissa with an odd look of confusion in her eyes.
"They seemed afraid of you."
"Falconsreach Hold… We were there," Clarissa admitted, "I had decided to go after Bethany after the Wardens took her away. I slipped into the castle and rescued her."
"But you came home without her." Leandra pointed out. Clarissa sighed inwardly. If there was one thing she didn't at all appreciate about her mother, it was that her keen mind led to question after question.
"No."
"Something else must have happened." Leandra said, bringing the candles closer to the both of them. Coupled with the wax and wane of moonlight, it gave off enough light that mother and daughter could converse unhindered by the encroaching darkness.
"Tell me."
And so she did. She told her everything, from the infiltration of the Grey Warden's stronghold, meeting Katja, encountering Bethany under Seryna's spell, the Warden-Commander's final effort and finally, Bethany's outrage at her sister's deception and her refusal to leave with her. She left out the change she had in feelings for Bethany, for she did not know how her mother would react.
"That isn't my Bethany. She wouldn't leave her family behind out of spite," Leandra observed, the edge behind her eyes growing sharper, "there's something you're not telling me."
"I've told you everything, Mother." Clarissa said with fake exasperation, something her mother had grown wise to over the years she spent coddling a child who concocted all manners of extravagant tales to mask her late homecomings, dragging her younger sister along.
"No, you haven't. She knew you were only looking out for her, as you have always done as an older sister." Leandra said, noting the aversive gazes her daughter shot at the walls around her. "Something's changed, hasn't it?"
Something has changed.
She rolled the words over in her mind as if examining every last syllable.
Something has changed, all right.
But was it a monumental shift, putting her life on tilt? Or was it the smallest of changes, merely a transition from one affection to another? Which one was the answer she was looking for? Which one was the dilemma only she could solve?
As her mind buzzed with the questions she entangled herself in, her mother searched her confused gaze. Clarissa saw the worry in her reflected within her reflect within Leandra's as well. She loathed herself for instilling such disquiet in her, after she had sacrificed so much to keep them together. Her thoughts ran back to the moment when her mother, furious and heartbroken, slammed the door in her face. Perhaps, at that moment, she hated herself as well.
"Help me understand this, Clare Bear. You two were inseparable, closer to each other than even lovers had a right to be." Leandra coaxed, a hint of desperation in her voice.
"That's just it, ma," Clarissa croaked, "we were too close."
It was the subtle change in their relationship that caught her off guard. There was an undeniable passion between them. Of that, she could be certain. In a few short nights, they had reinvented themselves from a pair of close sisters, the perfect match for one another, to a pair of consummated, passionate lovers finding their roles vastly different than what they had been for the past nineteen years. In a way, the scales between them were balanced. They had become equals, and she had been playing catch-up with the notion the moment it came to be. A new fire had sparked to life inside her, awakening parts of her she thought she had left behind for good, but it hadn't been enough, because for all its intensity when Bethany melted against her, pressed vigourously her lips onto her own, moaned brazenly into her shoulder, shuddered contentedly against her sweat-drenched body, this new flame never did snuff out the sense of duty and protectiveness that had dominated her for almost twenty years of her life. She was her sister. She needed her protection, and she would do anything and everything within her power to shield her from harm.
That is where you're wrong, Clarissa. So very, very wrong.
She told her everything, not caring if she objected towards the forbidden nature of their affection. Perhaps it was because Leandra was, after all, her mother, who she thought would understand her better than most. Perhaps she just needed someone to tell it to. She spoke until her lips ran dry, then resumed when she brought a porcelain mug of water to her lips. If she harboured any disapproval of their decision, she did not vocalise them.
"I wasn't thinking straight and I was stupid and now I've lost her," Clarissa said, "and in my pushing her away, so have you."
Leandra Hawke sighed, shadowing her forehead with her hand. She looked and sounded like a strict parent about to give a good finger-wagging. Clarissa braced herself for what she thought was coming.
"I knew it." Leandra said simply, resignation colouring her tone. Oddly, she didn't seem to be angry.
"Your father and I talked about this, you know, about you two spending nearly every minute you could spare together. At first, we thought nothing of it, for you were just children." Leandra said, remembering every word she had between Malcolm and herself.
"Then both of you grew up, both more beautiful than we could have ever imagined." Leandra murmured affectionately, trailing a finger along Clarissa's cheek. "We'd thought you'd separate, go your own ways, find yourselves a gentle, loving husband, just like any other woman. But no…"
"My eldest daughter had turned eighteen and had turned out to be a dashing swordmaiden, capable of swooning just about every man in Ferelden."
Clarissa fought to keep herself from smiling.
"And yet, every minute of every hour of every day, I saw you sitting with your back against that old tree in the clearing, waiting for Bethany to finish her lessons with Father."
"I didn't realize you were spying on me." Clarissa said.
"I have my ways, little girl. You just don't know them." Leandra smirked, something Clarissa rarely saw.
"But, as I said, nothing's changed. The hugs were still as tight, the whispers ever so intimate and secretive," Leandra continued. "You never did let go, and I didn't think you could have."
"No. I couldn't have."
"Malcolm saw it first. He'd caught her, more than once, staring at you with that faraway look in her eyes when she should've been focusing her spells on nurturing a garden rose."
"What happened?" Clarissa asked.
"She ended up lighting it on fire." Leandra remarked. They both chuckled. "He'd told me later on that the magic she was channeling depended on what she was thinking."
Clarissa caught the twinkle in her mother's eyes. She blushed.
"What?" she asked incredulously. It was a rhetorical question. They both knew what she meant by it.
"And then there was that night before you enlisted in the army," Leandra said, "she'd been heartbroken, more so than she should've been. A mother senses such things, you know."
Clarissa swallowed. There was no denying it now.
"For nineteen long years, I thought I was alone with these thoughts, these desires that I shouldn't possess. To have them revealed and requited so quickly, completely… It caught me off guard. I didn't know what to do. I've spent my whole life looking after her, protecting her as she grew into the woman I've come to love. When the time came…" Clarissa trailed off. She was wrong. She could see it now. This was her repentance, her salvation from her punishment.
"I guess I chose what I've always chosen to be: the big sister. I chose poorly."
Leandra nodded, a reassuring smile on her face.
"Sometimes, Clare Bear, you're not supposed to take the fall for everything. When you chose to," she paused briefly, rephrasing her words, "gave into falling in love with Bethany, you chose to be her equal. It's like floating on water, baby girl. You follow where it takes you and you revel in the freedom it gives you, because your duty to your little sister is gone now. Now, it becomes a duty to your lover. 'Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.'"
There it was again with her mother quoting scripture to press her case. Clarissa smiled. It was certainly effective. She supposed she just needed to be told off by someone else.
"Here we go with the scriptures again, ma." Clarissa chided.
"Bite me, Clare Bear." Leandra shot back, making a face. They both laughed.
"Does that mean I have your blessing, mother?" Clarissa asked. That was one more thing she needed to be sure of. It was, after all, frowned upon by religion.
"My blessing?" Leandra asked, mock incredulousness twinkling in her eyes and high in her voice, "My youngest daughter has found herself someone who would understand her like no other, lay down her life for her and love and cherish her above all else."
She pressed a kiss on her daughter's forehead both symbolically and affectionately, favouring her with a dazzling smile and teary eyes.
"What more can I ask for?"
Clarissa gasped when her mother, unusually emotional, scooped her from the bed and held her tightly in a crushing embrace. She sighed in contentment, reveling in the feeling she hadn't felt for quite a number of years.
It was some while before she noticed the waves of fatigue washing over her.
"Ma, stop!" Clarissa patted her mother lightly on her back, who promptly released her.
"I… feel a bit woozy." Clarissa remarked. She didn't know her mother had such strength within her.
"Oh, I almost forgot." Leandra chuckled, "that healer, Anders, placed a spell over you to keep you from dragging yourself out of bed too early. He said you needed the rest."
"It would seem I needed you more than I needed rest, ma." Clarissa said, grinning.
"So it would seem." Leandra agreed, then yawned as she noticed the waning moonlight streaming in through the window.
"Oh, Maker's breath, look at the candlemark!" Leandra exclaimed. Clarissa followed her gaze to the pile of cooling wax that dripped from the flickering candlelight, which was significantly shorter in its height.
"You'd think they'd have put more thought in practicality than just making it look pretty." Clarissa observed, the apparent disinterest in her eyes belying the radiant joy she felt running laps within her. She felt stronger already.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow, I ride for Falconsreach Hold.
Tomorrow, I will hold you in my arms again or die trying.
Leandra Hawke laughed as she scooped up the candlestick from the nightstand, blowing out its stationary counterpart and enveloping the ornate master bedroom of the Amell estate in a wash of soft, cozy moonlight.
"Don't stay up too long, Clare Bear," Leandra said as she eased herself through the door heading for her own bedroom, "you need to rest."
Clarissa closed her eyes and let the Fade drag her into its realm.
Yes… I have much to do.
/It's refreshing to write something more sunny for a change.
Spike: There now, why the long face?
Artman: :D
This story is rapidly approaching a close and a sequel is definitely among my plans. Until then, read on and be merry! (R&R!)/