Samael was pacing around the main hall at his estate, pressing both of his palms against his pulsing temples. This was one of those brief moments when he took off the gloves and his left pale hand looked rather ominous in contrast with Hawke's tanned skin and black hair.
"To tell the truth, I still don't understand, Messere." Bodahn started gnawing on his hand knuckles when his Master hurled an annoyed glare at him only to go back to his wordless pacing and staring at the tall massive grandfather clock. There was a half an hour left until midnight.
"I can't repeat it all over again, old man," Samael barked at the loyal butler. Maurella's medicine had been circling through Samael's veins for more than two hours now and he'd been feeling weirder and weirder, until he felt nothing but tormenting disquiet and mercurial feelings. The Templars hadn't showed yet, so Hawke let himself believe that Cullen was really about to grant him the precious time until midnight, though he had no idea if that was comforting or not.
"Kithshok," Maaras trotted down the stairs in a haste which was unusual for the always disciplined Kossith giant. "The little one is awake," he tried to explain his intrusion, but he shouldn't have bothered since there were obvious signs of Merrill being awake: racket, bright lights and rushed sounds of somebody's bare soles smacking on the stone tiles.
"Obviously," Hawke murmured, expecting troubles coming his way. He hadn't even finished his spin when a fierce slap caught him across the face, raising a single scarlet welt on his dark weathered skin. Incensed, Samael grasped her by her shoulders, lifting her mercilessly up so their eyes were at the same level.
"Try it again and I'll hit you back," he growled into her agitated face before he shoved her down on a sofa. "Leave us," he tossed an order over his shoulder. Feeling the fresh long scratch on his left cheek, Samael roughly snatched Merrill's hand, turning her palm up to see what was it that had hurt him. When the amber ring stone—the color of his own eyes—stared up at him, he let go of her hand as though it were poisonous. He would have laughed at her reaction as she turned the ring around on her finger, unable to look at it anymore, yet unable to simply take it off either.
"It was not your decision, Hawke," Merrill deeply inhaled, trying to reason with the man who ruined her nicely planned suicide mission. "It was mine to make and you stole it from me!" she shouted out.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Hawke wasn't far behind at the yelling part, "was I supposed to watch you deliberately throwing your life away?"
"Yes! Creators, yes! Just for once you were supposed to let me do whatever I want. Whatever I need!" Merrill sprang out of her involuntary seat, pounding her fists into her tormentor's chest. "You, you, you!" she kept hammering onto his leather jerkin with her open palms. "That's all you ever think about! Yourself! Have you ever considered I might have different desires than you? Have you ever considered I just don't want to feel anymore? Be anymore?"
"Stop that," Hawke watched her in horror when those quiet words slipped away his lips. Just the thought of living in a world she wouldn't be in… It was an elusive feeling far beyond woe.
"Stop what?!" Merrill lost her last pieces of discernment. "The truth?!"
"Stop… This!" Samael threw his arms sideways in despair. "You tried to die tonight, damn it, Merrill! And I forbid it, do you hear me? I forbid you die on me just like everybody else!" Hawke's shouts were turning into barely human wailing, thundering throughout the whole estate.
"Let me go! Please, let me go, Samael! I can't do this anymore. When Fawn plotted to make me a Keeper, he couldn't have known to what life he had condemned me to live! Tearing me apart with you… Ripping me away from everything I've known… Everything I've built over the years! Hurling me among the strangers who chose not to recognize me anymore! They don't understand me and can't and won't possibly ever listen to me as to their rightful leader… Sentencing me to live a life full of loneliness and endless duties…" The tears were freely streaming down Merrill's cheeks when her voice took pity on her and betrayed her. She was defeated. Overpowered. Captured in a life she couldn't possibly escape; not with Hawke watching her at every step she took. When she tried, he was there to save her from herself.
Speechless, all Hawke could do at that moment was to watch her cry, knowing there was nothing he could do for her.
"Did you mean it?" he asked a quiet question when Merrill's sobs started fading. "Did you really mean what you've said there to me?" he approached her, gently bringing her chin up.
"You mean before or after you stabbed me?" was her venomous reply.
"Look, who's talking about stabbing," Samael retorted and let go of her; peeved. "At least I didn't stab you in the back, right?" he couldn't omit a chance to remind her of her sin in the Fade. "I'm waiting, Merrill," Hawke grumbled when no reply came from her; other than her rapid pacing and hushed swearing in elvish.
"Hawke," she finally halted in front of him, scrapping all the courage she had left to look him in the eyes. "It's been some time since I realized my salvation lies in your death." Time seemed to stop for Samael who was desperately trying to find something positive in her words. Did she really hate him such? Did he curse her the day he had walked into her life? But why would she wear the ring then? "But I also realized," she interrupted his chaotic thoughts, "that I'd do anything to keep you alive," she briefly touched his baffled face before she turned away as though she was disgusted by her own self.
If Merrill had an impression she was allowed to leave as she pleased, she was sorely mistaken.
"Wha —" she gave a squeal of surprise when Maraas and his three tall men sauntered into her way and calmly grasped her by her arms. "What's going on? Where are you taking me?" she kept demanding an explanation, trying to shake those huge grey hands off her. "Samael? Samaeeel?!" she cried out, helplessly swiveling her head to find Hawke again, but he was nowhere to be seen. "Samael, you're the worst thing that's ever happened to me!"
"Likewise," Hawke whispered to himself, pressed against the closed library door. He listened to Merrill's raving voice mewling various combinations of 'stay away from me, blighter' while the room was spinning around him. Hawke would have been willing to stand there for eternity if the tall massive clock wouldn't tick onto midnight.
"Silence, little one," Maraas granted the resisting Keeper a cold hard look. "The Kithshok seems to have a weird soft spot for you, Saarebas, but I definitely do not."
Hawke slid down along the door, chuckling at Merrill's almost inaudible and particularly racy suggestion where Maraas should put his hands, but then Samael's sneer faded. A quick inventory was in order due to lack of time he had left. As far as he knew, the outraged Meredith was on her way here and, of course, Alrik was surely right behind her, wagging his tail and barking in delight.
Merrill was safe and gone, under protection of crude, but reliable Kossith warriors.
Varric and Hein were safe as well, hopefully drinking at the Hanged Man on Samael's tab.
Aveline was at the barracks and her ninny groom was with her thanks to Hawke.
Anders and Maurella were probably looking at this very moment for another place suitable for their screamingly funny resistance movement, but Samael was oddly glad Anders kept his life and freedom; at least for now.
And Fenris… Hawke had no idea how to deal with the elf with lyrium burned into his flesh, but it was more than obvious he would have to actually do something about him. Well, more like he would have done something about him, only if his neck wasn't about to get to know Meredith's sword.
At the end of this somber countdown, Samael strolled to the nearest armchair, falling into it backwards. He hung his left leg over the elaborately carved armrest, swinging it freely as it pleased. All he could do now was to wait. They were coming for him.
oOo
"God damn it, this was a bad idea…" Samael kept telling to himself while he was whizzing on his belly down the wide marble banister with an insane laughter. The fact he was in the heart of the Gallows didn't seem to bother him at all.
He had been obediently waiting at his estate for an hour and a half after the midnight, but no one showed up. Meanwhile, Maurella's narcotic seemed to reach its very peek and that was probably the reason why the doped up man fled his estate. He was unable to sit and wait with a hangman's noose swinging above him. He needed to know what'd been happening; why there were no Templars swarming at his luxury mansion, and he needed to know it right away.
Swaying through dark Gallows corridors, sneaking past the Templar watches and pissing into the fountain blessed by the Divine Herself just seemed too much of a fun to miss it for Hawke in his current state. The statues were talking to him as he tottered past them, murmuring and chuckling. His legs carried him to the dark big chamber he had never been in before. It was empty as Samael found out when he sauntered around, touching this or that while his eyes were listlessly roaming around the dusky room.
"Granny's garters…!" Hawke jumped up when a dark silhouette of a tall man materialized in front of him; motionless. "Who are you," he whispered, trying to focus his distracted eyes at the stranger.
No reply.
"Who are you?" Samael strengthened his voice, nervously raking the fingers through his hair.
Wordlessly, the stranger moved, and his arm was moving along with Hawke's.
"A mirror," Hawke breathed out. Tensed, he chortled at his own jitters, shaking his head in hysteric laughter. "Just a freaking mirror." Thus he missed at first the figure in the mirror wasn't laughing along with him, but he slowly realized it since his smile started fading and his nervous laughter died away. "Who are you?" he asked once more; his voice full of anxiety again. Not just because he had the impression he knew the person staring at him from the mirror in ominous silence. "Have we met?" Samael peeped yet another question just to get rid of the uncomfortable silence.
"Indeed we've met," the stranger replied, though his lips barely moved. "I am you and you are me in so many ways," he shortly laughed, spreading his arms sideways in an embracing gesture. The next thing Hawke knew was that a series of swift and blurred pictures flooded his mind which was already overloaded by the drugs.
A tall young laughing man whirling around with his black dark long hair streaming behind him in the air, mingling with big pure white snowflakes, and a dimpling baby boy within his arms stretched upwards into the grey low winter skies.
"No, no, no," Hawke clenched his head in despair as though he craved to open it and remove the gruesome memories. Somehow he knew it was him. He was the happy baby, friskily laughing when his father pressed kisses on his chubby cheeks, chafing the soft child skin with his stubble.
The same strange man, if a bit older now, which certainly didn't impoverish his somewhat dangerous dark beauty. The man was making a fire, grinning at a beautiful woman sitting among the floating colorful leaves which were being hurled into the air by a puny boy with tousled black hair who impishly laughed when a small yellow leaf fell on his father's head, tangling into his hair.
"Go away!" a desperate groan slipped past Hawke's lips when he was trying to push down the suppressed memories he didn't even know he had. Approaching the mirror with disbelief on his face, the silhouette mischievously smiled at him and Samael realized the stranger was right—they were the same person and yet they weren't. The same height, the same dark disheveled hair, the eyes with exactly the same shape and color, the same body constitution. The only thing different were their noses since Samael had Leandra's straight and aristocratic nose while the stranger possessed a strong aquiline nose.
"Missed me, son?" the young Malcolm uttered a stinging remark when Samael remained more or less speechless.
"You…" Samael whispered. "Ichabod… Malcolm…"
"Hmpf," Malcolm snorted in an odd lenient superiority, "call me dad," he rounded it up, smirking.
"Where are you?" Hawke asked the only thing that mattered. "Where did she take you? How do they treat you? Where can I f—"
"Hush, my dear boy," Malcolm touched the mirror surface with both palms; his voice suddenly soothing and warm. No sign of his eternal mockery and sarcastic sneer. "I'm afraid you can't help me," he shook his head and fell silent.
"What do you mean 'I can't help you'?" Hawke shrieked and pushed his own mirror reflection in anger. "Of course I can! Of course I will! Just…" he hammered on the mirror surface with both fists.
"Right now, you should be more worried about yourself, my son," Malcolm folded his arms on chest, giving his reckless son a hard knowing look.
"I'm fine," the prodigal son droned a cheeky reply.
"Well, let's look at that 'fine' of yours then," Malcolm took a deep breath, "high as a fucking kite, half-dressed, completely unarmed, stumbling through Meredith's fiefdom of freaks and bigots two hours after midnight. I predict a bright future for you," Malcolm scoffed and sketched a lazy bow, "and also a very short one."
"Tittle-tattle," Samael yawned and leaned on the mirror as though he was bored. He literally jumped up an inch above the ground when Malcolm's shadow just murmured a curse and walked out of the mirror, grasping him mercilessly by his shoulders.
"I'm afraid you underestimate the gravity of coming events, son," he leaned to Samael's ear, ignoring his fear. "That deeply worries me," Malcolm continued, shaking his stiff son as though to wake him up. "Do you have any idea to what dark story you've signed yourself in? It's a high game and there would be just one man standing at the end, my son. And with this approach I let myself politely doubt that person would be you," Malcolm hissed those last words with scorn in his voice, letting go of his awestricken son afterwards.
"But —" Samael kept staring at his young father striding around him with long haste steps.
"Nothing 'but', Samael!" Malcolm shouted him silent. "There were enough of 'buts' in your life as it is! You really need to come up with a plan how to get rid of Meredith without having every Chantry leech hunting you down for the rest of your life! You need to sell your lyrium contracts and, good gracious, use your fucking head once in a while! You need to make your mind regarding that Dalish woman of yours! And most certainly you need to figure out how you'll get out of Kirkwall once Meredith's down!"
"Easy to say, harder to do," the seething Samael interrupted Malcolm's ardent enumeration, but their ludicrous row was interrupted by a distant hushed voice; singing. Nothing could have been more absurd at this dismal place, than a slow song filled with unspoken pain, moreover sang in elvish.
I mar adel, i amar nu
Raid evyr a phadad ammen
Trî dhúath, nan rîw môr nalú
Hawke didn't even know he strolled towards the door, hypnotized by the plaintive tune he once knew. His elvhenan teacher from Lothering had sung it one night to him, right before she abandoned the young promising warrior without a word.
Ir sílar in elenath bain
Hîth a dúath, fân a dû
Bain pelithar, pelithar bain
Samael heard himself humming the rest of the tune along with the hidden singer.
"What in the name of Andraste's children's going on here?" a hostile voice rattled right behind Hawke's back. It was just a reflex when Samael whirled around, attacking the surprised Templar before even knowing it. They wrestled for a while, but Hawke ended it when he got the man into a headlock until the Templar gave a final gasp and stopped trashing around.
"Huh, I don't remember teaching this to you," Malcolm squatted down, observing the Templar's body with perverted interest.
"Get lost," Samael snarled his way, leaning on the locked door nearby.
"Shemlen?" a calm voice asked through the low iron door. It almost sounded as though the prisoner had been expecting the Champion of Kirkwall.
"You might want to rephrase that in case you want me to open the door for you," Samael growled loud enough for the prisoner to hear it, yet he started fiddling with the lock, ignoring his father handing him over the key stolen from the Templar. "An elven mage locked in the Gallows," Samael narrowed the eyes in suspicion when he spotted Merrill's First sprawled over a shabby cot; naked and obviously beaten up. "Kind of a cliché, right?"
"Timeo Fereldans et dona ferentes," Veryan bitterly chuckled without even a slightest glance at the Champion.
"Too bad since I don't see anybody else eager to get you out of here before the dawn," Hawke retorted. "Before your execution, that is," he added a remark he knew it would wake the lethargic elf up.
"Exe… Execution?" Veryan stammered, springing out of his cot. "What? But —"
"You can't expect the Templars to keep their end of a deal when you clearly broke the rules, now can you, Veryan?" Samael sneered, but it was more of a vicious grimace than anything else.
"You knew," the elf whispered in horror. "You knew all along," he impeached Hawke as though he had done something very bad. "You knew and you've done nothing!"
"Obviously we need to talk," Samael stumbled inside of a confined cell. "Watch out for the Templars," he barked an order at Malcolm who had been poking the Templar with his own sword.
"Whom are you talking to?" It was Veryan's turn to get suspicious as he glanced around for Hawke's companion and found none.
"Yes, whom are you talking to, hm?" Malcolm deviously mimicked the elf. "He can't see me, you moron, so watch yourself!" he reprimanded him.
"And he's naked… Splendid," Samael deliberately overlooked the fact he had been talking to someone who wasn't clearly there. The poor Veryan, stripped just to his pale skin, shrugged, sauntering towards the still Templar.
"Creators?! Did you have to kill that poor sod?" he glared at Hawke.
"Whaaat?" Hawke belched a surprised question before he fell backwards on Veryan's plain wooden cot. "I just throttled back his oxygen supply a bit, relax, you saintly prig. He's certainly not de —"
"He's dead, Hawke," Veryan droned a dry statement.
"Well, don't just stand there?!" Samael chuckled and stretched on his stolen cot. "Haul him in and close the door, damn it. The more, the merrier, right?" he guffawed at his own silly joke, falling off the cot afterwards.
"Are you… high with something?" Veryan asked a cautious question after he obediently dragged the Templar in; panting.
"As a fuckin' kite," Samael remembered his father's flowery expression. "Long story," he looked at Veryan's pale body full of bruises, though one bruise on his forehead was simply outstanding; a huge dark purple weal caused by Fenris' merciless blow. "I'd rather hear yours if you don't mind," a sneer vanished off Hawke's face as quickly as it appeared there.
"W-what do you mean?" Veryan stammered, fidgeting.
"Oh, nothing but a humble observation really," Samael threw a nonchalant comment. "I think I found our dear little squealer, don't I?" he asked a direct question. "Our silly Templar snitch. Our sly informer who failed to be sly after all."
Veryan granted Hawke an awfully long estimating look, before he grumbled "Damn it!"
"Damn it indeed," Samael muttered.
"How you figured it out?" Veryan asked a quiet question; defeated.
"I'm a bad person, elf," Hawke's lips tweaked a bitter sneer. "And I can tell when there's somebody pretending to be a bad person as well."
Veryan seemed to have no answer to that as he threw his arms up, curling into himself in the corner. "I like her," he finally vocalized the issue here. "I wanted to be a Keeper… So desperately… For so long… I promised I would lure her into Kirkwall and they promised in return I would walk free and the clan would have no other choice but to make me a Keeper. But when it came to that… I couldn't."
"Does she like you as well?" was Samael's only question here.
"I think she does," Veryan shrugged, watching Hawke who sat up on the cold stone floor, scowling at no one particular. "Hawke," the elf addressed him. "Hawke, look at me," he demanded his attention when Samael didn't move nor talked. "Protect what's yours at any cost, shemlen. Not everybody was blessed with a soul mate like the two of you have been."
"You're free, elf," Samael grumbled a non-related sentence, heavily standing up.
"As you can see, I have no clothes, shem," Veryan frowned at the gloomy Champion.
"That one has," Samael glanced at the cooling Templar corpse, "he ain't gonna need it anymore, I guess," he briefly laughed, but the despondency was more than obvious in his voice.
"I would never, never ever wear something like that," Veryan rose to his full height, his eyes gleaming with awakened pride of the elvhenan people. Rolling his eyes, Samael tossed at the elf his own leather jerkin, slapping his bare chest with slightly uncoordinated moves afterwards. A war skirt with light leather boots followed, hitting Veryan's belly and Samael had to laugh as he was standing there in nothing but thin leather breeches, bare-footed, disturbingly unarmed.
"You must be insane," Veryan hissed at him, but he kept dressing himself up, however Hawke's attire was apparently too large for him.
"We must go, pigeons," Malcolm peeked inside, "the noose is tightening, the fire's burning behind our asses, the wheels are in motion," he smacked his palms together, but Hawke just twitched, pushing the puzzled Veryan, who had been watching his odd behavior, out of the door.
"Wait…" the elf breathed out. "Seriously, you're going to let me walk free? Just like that? That's kind of non-consistent with what I've been hearing about you, no offense."
"People talk too much," Samael popped out a bored reply. "Either way, you're not going to hurt her, and I'd be a fool to get rid of the only person capable of protecting her at that bloody mountain of yours."
"Protecting her?" Veryan seemed genuinely perplexed by that innuendo. "From what? From whom?" he asked, but Samael left those two questions rather unanswered.
"Just follow this corridor, walk through the cellars and use the trap door in the last cell on your left," Hawke whispered the instructions, raising his palm to silence the elf.
"You're not coming with me, shem?! What are you going to do here? Just —"
"Begone," Hawke laughed at his terrified face and at that moment there was no doubt about it; someone was coming their way. "Shoo, scram, go away!" he cried out, guffawing. The stuff Maurella had infected him with… It was a very good stuff indeed.
"What in blazes is going here?"
Samael fell silent at the same moment Alrik's pale face materialized from darkness right in front of him and Veryan disappeared like a hairless mice's tail in a hole.
"I'm a sleepwalker," Hawke attempted to sound as casually as he could have, but he failed big time.
"A sleepwalker, huh," Alrik almost rubbed his hands in joy. "Sneaking through the Gallows, at night, uninvited, unseen, Maker knows what you've stolen here, you mucky Fereldan. You're not going to get away with this newest gambit of yours, I assure you," he kept gibbering in excitement.
"Here you are, Champion!" the Knight Lieutenant interrupted Ser Alrik who was about to shake Hawke's soul out of him. "I've been looking for you to go through my report again and —" he fell silent as though he had spotted Ser Alrik only now. "Alrik," he gave him a cold bow which was not reciprocated.
Alrik's eyes were literally popping out of his head as his gaze was watching both conspirators in quick turns, trying to figure out what was going on there and how could he get rid of the both flies with one hit. It was only now when Hawke spotted someone standing in shadows, watching the whole conversation in silence.
"Meredith," he blurted out, convinced, that this whole game was over.
"Champion," she addressed him and no one could have missed her eyes avidly sliding along Hawke's bare chest, breeches clinging to his taut body and rabid eyes as he was holding himself back to not to strangle her to death since his father had been standing right next to her with a pure hatred in his eyes. Meredith must have understood Hawke's tension differently since she turned to her both trusted and valuable men.
"Cullen, don't you have a report to finish?" she practically sent him away. A mute bow was Cullen's reply, though he remained at Hawke's side. "You're off duty, Ser Alrik, as far as I know," she then turned to the ominously silent Alrik who had been watching Hawke with a vulture expression on his face.
"Knight-Commander, I'm afraid I have to strongly protest against that buffoon to promenade around here as he pleases as though…" he started explaining himself in his usual arrogance, though Meredith wasn't prone to his eternal discontent which was confirmed when she silenced the Templar with one fierce gesture. Samael wanted to dance around in glee, and point and laugh at that stupid expression Alrik had on his face at that moment.
"We… Need… To… Talk…" Cullen sizzled into Hawke's ear, cautiously making sure Meredith was still preoccupied with that idiot of a Templar Alrik.
"Agreed," Hawke droned an almost inaudible reply.
"Chantry… Tomorrow noon…" Cullen muttered right before he coughed to announce his departure.
"My office, Champion. Now." If Hawke hoped Meredith would have let him walk away along with Cullen, he was sorely disappointed when her whiplash-like command stopped him. The creaking of the door closing behind his back sounded like a death-knell to Samael's ears. There he was; standing almost naked, vulnerable, in the light of a single candle with Meredith in front of him, watching him with displeased expression on her face. This was it. This was the moment she would accuse him of plotting against her, creeping around, watching, waiting for a perfect moment to take her down. Just seconds were parting him from a death sentence.
"I know why you are here," she spoke finally and Samael realized it was even worse than her silence.
"Caught and sentenced then," Hawke dryly shrugged, bracing himself for the worst.
"I know why you're here for it has been in my mind as well," she approached him, watching his reaction like a cat having a perverse fun out of mouse it was about to be devoured. Before Hawke could have done anything, like running away, Meredith closed the gap between them. She didn't ask nor did she give him any sign before she claimed his lips; her hands possessively groping his body and leaving unforgettable scratches on his already shattered soul. Next fifteen minutes of pretended passion were smudged into a waking nightmare during which Samael's soul had been screaming for a merciful death. Laying there was all he could do without vomiting or snapping her neck as though his body was nothing but a tool which had saved him this time. Meredith's greed simply knew no boundaries and this was the reason she was becoming blind to the Champion's stunts.
Reeling through deserted streets right before dawn, in a borrowed Templar cloak, feeling like a whore marked with Meredith's signature all over his forehead; that was Hawke's way home, though he hadn't been tottering because of the narcotic this time. He was sick. He felt ill, stained forever by Meredith's touch. That helpless tremor within his body was back and he knew he was beyond restraint, beyond control. Hurling the cloak which was not to blame here on the ground in fury, Hawke threw up as though he wanted to get Meredith out of him, force that darkness which had been consuming him alive to leave his sore body and soul which was apparently far beyond salvation.
"I don't know what to say," Malcolm's chilling words cut right through his devastated son who needed much more than an expression of disgust regarding what he had done a few minutes back to save himself.
"Leave me alone," he wildly turned on the figment of his warped imagination.
"You'd like that, wouldn't you…" Malcolm all but mocked his son's despair.
"You forget one important thing here, dear father," Samael was heavily breathing when tried to put himself back together, panting and fuming. "Whatever I am, you made me!" he bawled at Malcolm whose expression turned into a horror-stricken mask as he started realizing his son was right. Abased and dishonoured, Malcolm's shadow faded away, leaving Samael alone finally.
oOo
Entering his estate, Hawke kicked the door shut behind him, leaving it off the latch, striding to the darkest corner of his bedroom. There he sunk down to the floor, his back to the wall, his bowed head on his knees and wept. It was the only thing which could actually give him any comfort, apart from piercing his heart through with a blade.
A blade…
It had been for so long Hawke had pulled out his old friend, yet he knew the knife was on its usual concealed place in an upper drawer, patiently waiting for their reunion. Samael only now realized his little private blood ritual has been replaced with Merrill as she had become his stronghold, his both lover and a person he could rely on. But no more. It seemed inevitable to go back to his old self. To take that little blade and draw lines of oblivion on his skin once more. Left alone in darkness, left alone in damnation. Every evening he died with her at his side no longer, and he was reborn every morning to a world she was no longer part of.
Driven by this single insane thought, restless, his body humming with unfulfilled arousal, craving the touch of the one who was far away from him, Samael leapt forward and tore the drawer out of the dresser, turning it upside down and hurling it away afterwards.
Raking through the pile of things, Hawke found what he was desperately searching for. A blade with a vellum strapped around its hilt and tied together with a crimson ribbon. Well, that was new.
Stumbling backwards until he felt a soft bed beneath him, Hawke unfolded the vellum in a revered silence, his eyes avid for what the piece of mysterious paper had to say to him. It took him what felt like eons to read through the note again and again. The lines on his face smoothing, his breathing calming down, his bulging muscles relaxing, Hawke slowly lay down on his side, keeping the note close to his heart. He was asleep before he knew it and his hands, clenching the note at first with desperation of a man who had one last hope to cling to, relaxed and the crumpled vellum slowly unfolded, revealing several rows of an archaic elegant handwriting text written with bright red ink, curling all over the vellum in its spectacular magnificence.
What muse doth call that can not be denied?
A demand on strength an offer of wit,
An appeal to vanity and fool pride.
Will to be one, whole, made from pieces it
Becomes all that is, yet somewhat less than
A joining of souls, yet more can'st be found.
That which has hidden too long in its den,
Now springs free, startled as a seeking hound,
To find that rare coupling of words and time
A discovery, a wandering thought
That allow two to become one divine,
More than either, and in those two lives caught.
My love doth call and I am like a babe
Willing to come, to be the perfect slave.
An inconspicuous, yet fancy little "F" at the bottom could mean only one thing and one thing only.
Fawn was coming.