Marni wasn't a picky eater. Whenever she found herself in the lucky position of having food in front of her, she would eat it, even if she had to hold her nose to get it down. But when Lycus slid the bowl of bland but perfectly edible grains in front of her and barked at her to eat, Marni suddenly developed a discerning palate. She lifted her tied hands and poked an index finger into the bowl, scrunching up her nose. "Bleh," she said sticking out her tongue. "Why's it all mush? And what's the little black bits there?"
"Just eat the blighted porridge," Lycus groaned in a voice Marni was pleased to note sounded entirely exasperated. She'd been picking at him all through their march to the cave, stepping on his heels as they walked, whining about the heat, and the brightness, and the sand in her toes. She'd notice that he'd started to close his eyes and pinch the bridge of his nose every time she spoke. Marni wondered if anyone had ever died from a headache.
She took a dramatic sniff of the food and retched. "Is it supposed to smell like nug farts?"
"Eat it," he said slowly, putting heavy emphasis on both words as he continued to pass around the bowls and give each captive a ladle full of water which they slurped up gratefully.
"Is it just mine that smells like that?" she said, stifling a grin as she looked into the bowl of the person sitting next to her and took a whiff. She pulled away quickly and gagged. "Ugh. Nope. Nope. It's definitely all of 'em," she said, holding her breath.
"Shut it, and eat," the man next to her hissed. "You're asking for a world of trouble, little one."
She'd been hearing such warnings all day. Marni was pretty sure they were all already in a world of trouble. The pointies hadn't pulled them out of Darktown just to enjoy a walk in the sunshine and dinner by the beach. If Marni was going to be carted off to be somebody's servant or plaything, she wanted to make sure Lycus suffered for it every minute. Her outrage may not have been powerful enough to bloom into a great fire of Justice, but as she picked at Lycus endlessly, like a thousand little angry beestings, maybe he would think twice about whether it was really worth the hassle to abduct little elven girls. And maybe after he had sold her off and was finally free of her, he would think of her sometimes as he lay awake at night, her voice still whining in his head, raising an itch behind his eyes and sending the scar on his thigh twinging.
Once Lycus finished handing around the bowls, he limped out of the little cavern which served as some kind of holding cell for the people abducted with Marni and the five other who were already there when she'd arrived. She heard Lycus scrape a chair outside the cavern's opening and sit heavily with an exhausted and pained grunt. Marni smiled wickedly, knowing that the grunt was all her doing.
"I've ate rats that smelled better than this rot," Marni called out. She took another smell, sniffing loudly. "Like someone was cooking it in their arse, then shat out the goopy mess right in the bowls."
One of the other captives groaned and pushed his bowl away.
"He knows it too!" she said laughing. "Right rubbish this is. Do you have to eat this shite too, Licey? Or did you get to have the first go of it? Was it much better the first time around?" She shook her head. "Can't imagine it going down easy even at its best. What was it before it was this? Some kind of drowned dog you scooped off the beach, all wiggly with maggots?"
"Would you stop?" another captive said as she too grimaced and pushed the food away.
"Nobody wants to eat this sick, Licey!" Marni shouted, pleased that others were joining in her refusal to eat. "You got anything better out there? Maybe an old boot?"
Lycus' chair scraped against the sandy stone, and he stomped into the chamber, his left leg stiff, his face red as a stubbed toe. He grabbed Marni by the hair, hurting her more than she would let show. "Eat!" he growled through gritted teeth and shoved her face in the food, grinding her nose into the bottom of the bowl.
Marni took a mouthful of the porridge, which really wasn't bad at all, and held it in her cheeks. Lycus dropped the bowl and pulled her head back, putting his face very close to hers. "You best learn to mind your manners and be damned grateful you're not eating drowned dog," he said, voice laced with venom and fantasies of how he wanted to punish her.
Marni sucked in her cheeks to gather the porridge on her tongue and spat it into Lycus' face and mouth. For good measure she also cleared her nose of the stuff in a snort that spattered his cheeks with two more gobs. The blow against her jaw was not unexpected. But Marni suspected that she was more accustomed to being hit than Lycus was to being disrespected by people beneath him, and she fancied that his injury would burn hotter and longer than hers. Still, the strike made her anger spark like a knife to flint. She lunged at him, and he pulled back in surprise, leaving her easy access to his thigh. She sunk her teeth into the same place she'd planted her knife hours before. Lycus screamed, kicking her off of him, but not before her mouth was awash with the coppery taste of his blood. As he threw her roughly into the wall, she spat his blood back at him.
Marni had learned from a young age how to not feel. She'd gather herself into a luminous ball and leave her body, hovering just above as she'd numbly watch the scene play out. It made it easier to not be afraid when she didn't have to feel in moments like these. She used this skill now, and calmly watched as Lycus retaliated with blow after screaming blow. The pain would come later of course. It always did. But in disconnecting from the moment, the agony of broken bones, bruises, and welts became an abstract thing that she didn't have to fear and could instead use as rich fodder for her growing anger. All that occupied Marni's thoughts as she observed Lycus beating her from above was how stupid she had been to waste her moment of opportunity on his thigh when his cock had dangled vulnerably just a few inches to the left. Stupid. Stupid.
She wasn't sure how long Lycus' beating went on before the other slavers dragged him off of her shouting about damaging the merchandise. While three men held back Lycus, who was still shouting and trying to pull away, his eyes wide and wild as he stared at her, the pointiest woman, whom the others had called Idesta, grabbed Marni by the arm and hoisted her to her feet. She dragged Marni into the much larger adjacent cavern and threw her to the dusty ground. Marni hissed as the rough sand scraped against an angry red lash on her arm. There was that pain. Her body was a chorus of bruises and welts, but she'd had worse.
"You are quickly becoming more trouble than you're worth, whelp!" Idesta huffed.
Marni smiled up at her through the pain. She hoped her teeth were still red with Lycus' blood.
"You stupid, stupid girl," Idesta said, shaking her head. "You're lucky you're a pretty thing. But don't count on that beauty to keep you alive. We can always go back for the other one: your sister, I would guess. From the look of things, she'd be easier to break than you."
"Pfft," Marni spat with a roll of her eyes to hide the flicker of fear that threatened to bend her. "You go back there and my angry glowy friend will rip you apart. Noticed that the pointies you left didn't catch up. All smears in the dirt by now, they are."
Idesta snorted. "Just the same. There are other places, other pretty little elves. You are expendable."
Marni returned her snort. "If I'm so spendable, why we having this little chat? Could've let Licey take me apart."
Idesta's mouth twitched in a hint of a smile. "Call it professional pride and an appreciation for how challenge inspires personal growth. And you are a challenge." She crouched to Marni's level, keeping a safe distance. "However, I am first and foremost a business woman. And sometimes that means cutting your losses. If you think I would balk at killing a child, you are sorely mistaken."
Marni scowled at Idesta. Perhaps backing down was the wisest course of action. Perhaps Roe was right that accepting one's circumstances was the best way to keep breathing. She could apologize, eat her dinner, and keep her eyes fixed on the ground like the other captives did. But Marni's stubbornness had already snaked rootlike into her stance of resistance, holding her firmly in place against all sense.
Idesta seemed to sense Marni's resolve. She shook her head and sighed. "Stubborn, foolish girl. You think taking a piece out of my man made you powerful? It meant nothing. Accomplished nothing. Perhaps a little demonstration would help you realize how very powerless you really are?" She turned to a sullen looking slaver who stood cross-armed nearby. "Balius, fetch me the other child. I believe it's time to set up camp for the night."
Balius nodded and left, returning shortly with a human girl, a few years older than Marni. Her eyes were fixed on the ground as she cried silently. Marni looked up at Idesta, face scrunched in confusion. What was going on? "Bring them," Idesta said grimly to Balius as she began to walk toward the mouth of the cave.
Balius grabbed Marni and lifted her off the ground. She struggled but he had her firmly controlled. The other girl he pushed forward with his foot on her behind, sending her stumbling with a loud sob. "March," he barked at her, and she obeyed. They followed Idesta out of the cave and into night.
Once out of the cave, Idesta grabbed the girl tightly around the head and chest. A muffled whimper escaped the girl's clamped lips. Idesta looked to Marni. "I want you to remember always what your lesson in power and obedience cost this girl, and think carefully before you show yourself to be in need of another." The girl's knees buckled when the cold steel of the knife touched her throat, but Idesta held her up. "Keep the whelp's eyes open," she added to Balius. "I want her to see every moment of this."
Balius obeyed, roughly pulling upward on Marni's eye lids with two grimy fingers as she struggled. The anger that surged in Marni as she watched Idesta cut the human girl's throat should have been enough to make her bloom into Justice as Anders had. She imagined the rage bursting from her chest, forking in fiery branches that would pierce Idesta and Balius while they stood wide-eyed and terrified of the monster they had loosed. But all she could do was scream and thrash helplessly as she watched the blood drain from the nameless girl. Idesta dropped the twitching form to the ground and turned her back to Marni and Balius, positioning the body between herself and the opening of the cave. She raised her hands and threads of blood slithered from the body to her fingertips. For several minutes the blood continued to run to Idesta until the girl was whiter than the moon above. Idesta pushed her hands outward and a wave of red flowed from her palms in a rush that stopped just short of the mouth of the cave as though an invisible wall had cropped up and was now drenched in red. The wall of red shimmered in the moonlight for a moment and then gradually faded into nothing.
Marni still screamed, her face hot and wet, her throat raw. She felt lightheaded, and her empty stomach lurched dryly as Balius still forced her to look at the dead girl who had been her lesson.
Idesta calmly wiped her knife on a patch of elfroot nearby. "You see now?" she asked calmly. "Your little shows of resistance are nothing. You don't have power. I can kill or keep you by my whim." She turned to the lifeless form, startlingly bloodless now. "She could have had a good life as a slave in some great estate. You took that away from her."
Marni choked on her tears. She'd seen people die before, both quietly and violently. But the thing Idesta had done with the blood… that was new. The sight of it made her own blood burn hotly in sympathy with the poor girl. Marni considered the blame that Idesta had placed on her. It didn't sit right. Idesta had used the blade to cut her open, Idesta had pulled the threads of blood from her as easily as unraveling an old sweater. It was a story she was telling, a leash of words she thought to use to collar Marni and choke her will. Regardless, Marni had learned a great deal from Idesta's actions.
Idesta returned her blade to her belt, and Marni eyed it with a need deeper than hunger. "You may release her and return to camp," Idesta said blandly. "Get some sleep. She and I will clean up here."
Balius dropped Marni to the ground. Still holding her arms from behind, he leaned in to whisper in her ear: "If you run, she will kill you with no more than a snap of her fingers. Better for you if you do as you're told." He let her go and returned to the cave, waving his hand at the entrance before passing through the invisible wall Idesta had made.
Marni thought about running, though her head swam dizzily from screaming. She wondered if Idesta could really kill her with a snap of her fingers. What she had done with her victim's blood had been a more terrifying display of magic than anything Marni had ever seen. Mages Marni had known usually wanted to keep their magic secret, so most didn't cast spells that frightened others to the point that they might report them to the Templars. Anders was the only mage she'd ever seen use magic to hurt people, and he only hurt people who ought to be hurt. What Idesta had done was wicked, and Marni considered the possibility that maybe wicked magic was stronger than justice magic. Maybe that was why everyone obeyed her without question. In any case, Marni was tired, hungry, and had no death wish, so she stayed put, staring at the corpse, repeating silently to herself that it was Idesta's fault, not hers.
"Pick up the body," Idesta said.
Marni swallowed back the sob that was threatening to hiccup out of her chest. She'd touched dead bodies before, but for some reason she balked at touching the girl. "She's bigger than me," she said hoarsely. "I won't be able to lift her."
"I will help you," Idesta said, her tone almost warm. She lifted the corpse and draped the front half over Marni's shoulder, while she supported the legs and pelvis.
Marni's skin prickled at the closeness of her face to the vacant features of the victim, their cheeks brushing against one another as they marched to the shore. When they reached the cliff overhanging the Waking Sea, Idesta lifted the body off Marni's back and placed it on the ground beside her.
"Push her over," Idesta ordered.
Marni got down on her hands and knees. She reached out with her still-bound hands and stroked the dark matted hair from the girl's eyes, closed her lids, and folded her arms across her chest, as she had seen Anders do to the dead in the clinic. It felt wrong to send this nameless girl into the sea without a word, but Marni had never set foot in a Chantry and she didn't know a thing about this girl who had died to teach her a lesson, except that she had been really scared. Marni took a deep breath, trying not to cry as she bent to kiss the girl's forehead, because that maybe seemed like a nice thing to do. "I'm sorry I don't know your name," Marni said. "I think maybe you were like my sister; she was afraid too. But she also tried to be good, and maybe you tried to be good too. I'm sorry you died. But… you were afraid, and now you're not afraid anymore… I think. So that's good, even though it's rotten." Marni frowned, feeling the inadequacy of her words. "I'll remember you. It's not enough, but it's something." Marni scooted the body, inch by inch, with great care to not disrupt the pose of serenity she'd placed her in, until gravity snatch her from Marni's hands and pulled her to the sea.
Marni wiped her running nose and eyes as she watched the body get lost in the froth of the choppy tide against the base of the cliff.
"Come sit with me," Idesta's voice said warmly from behind. Marni turned to see her sitting on a fallen log, patting the place beside her with her hand.
Marni didn't particularly want to sit next to Idesta, but she felt drained and couldn't summon the will to argue, not with the memory of the girl's death so fresh in her memory. So she got up and took her place next to the slaver.
"I know this was a difficult lesson to learn. I wish it hadn't needed to come to this."
Marni snorted. "Maferath's balls, you didn't."
Idesta sighed. "I can see why you would think that. I'd prefer that all the slaves we transport were content and healthy. People outside the Imperium assume slavery is, by definition, a brutal thing. But it doesn't have to be that way if slaves just accept the role the Maker has given them. Take you for instance. A pretty elf like you—if you can learn to obey and keep your mouth shut—will most likely be purchased by a noble family or a high end brothel. You'll be well fed, cared for when you're sick; you'll have shelter, a warm bed, clean clothes, and you'll be safe. The people we take, none of them had those things in their old lives. Did you?"
She didn't. "I had my sister and Anders," she said in a small voice in between sniffles.
"Your sister?" Idesta said shaking her head. "The one who abandoned you to save her own skin?"
Marni didn't want to think about that. "Anders didn't run. He tore your men apart trying to save me."
"Anders? You mean the abomination?" Idesta asked with a laugh. "He was a demon and no more able to care for you than a rabid dog could. You'll make new friends in the Imperium. Friends who…" Idesta trailed off as movement in the distance caught her eye. Three figures walking along the coast. Before Marni could think to scream, Idesta had a knife at her throat, shoved a leather glove into her mouth, and clasped her free hand over Marni's lips. "Make a sound or try to escape and you're dead," she hissed as she dragged Marni into some nearby shrubs.
As the figures drew closer, Marni's eyes widened; it was Anders with his friends Fenris and Hawke. He had come for her. Marni's heart raced imagining Justice tear Lycus and the others apart. But her throat tightened as it became clear that Idesta was going to stay right there, hiding with Marni in the bushes while Anders and the others dealt with her people. She would miss everything, and what was worse, Anders might not be able to find out where she'd gone.
After a very long wait, Ander, his friends, and the other captives emerged from the cave, following the path to the very cliff where Marni had just pushed the nameless girl into the water. Anders and Hawke splintered off from the rest of the group, lingering on the edge of the cliff as Anders looked down into the water below. He clasped a hand to his mouth and doubled over, his back shaking with wracking sobs.
Hawke rubbed his back. "Anders… I wish there was something I could say to make this easier," she said. "I know what it's like to lose people… and to blame myself for their deaths. Bethany, Carver, Mother: their loss… it's all on me. And nothing anyone can say will ever convince me otherwise. So I'm not going to stand her and tell you that it's not your fault, because hearing that won't change a thing, and you wouldn't believe me anyway. You just… you have to move forward and find a way to make it matter. Her life, her death, your failure… make it mean something."
Marni was blinded by the stinging tears that she couldn't wipe from her eyes. He thought she was dead. He was staring into the sea, maybe catching glimpses of the nameless girl getting tossed about by the tide far below, thinking it was her. She tried to scream, but the glove, Idesta's hand, and the sounds of the coast absorbed her voice, and Anders didn't even glance her way. Idesta reminded her not to make a sound by pressing her blade just hard enough to break the skin of Marni's throat.
Anders turned to face Hawke. "Maker," he said breathlessly. "What am I supposed to tell her sister?"
Hawke sighed and shrugged. "The truth. Without the detail."
Anders nodded and looked back over the sea. "She had such a strong spirit, Hawke."
"I wish I had known her better," Hawke said with a sad smile.
"The people in Darktown, so many of them have lost their will to live. But Marni fought every moment. No matter what life threw at her, she was always so… alive."
Idesta's fingers twitched as Marni's tears and mucus ran down the back of her hand.
"I knew her since before she was born, delivered her myself. And even then," he laughed wetly, "she screamed like no babe I've ever heard. If there were more people like her in Darktown…" Anders broke down crying again. Hawke put her arm around him and rested her head on his shoulder.
They stood like that for a while, looking out over the sea in silence. When Anders appeared to have regained some calm, Hawke gave his waist a squeeze. "Are you ready to go home?"
He nodded. "Do you mind if I spend the night at your place? After I tell Roe about her sister… I don't think I can be in the clinic tonight, and… I'd rather not be alone."
"My couch is your couch," Hawke said warmly and the two walked off, arm in arm, leaving Marni behind.