I got Merrill seated at the table once again, letting her recover while I bustled around the living space. I took my time getting the fire started again, keeping it low, and poured us some more watered-down wine. A quiet complaint from my stomach had me pull out the last of my jerky as well, tearing it into two strips for us to split.

She took both with a quiet word of thanks, then fell silent without eating or drinking either.

Settling down on the other side of the little table, I sighed.

I could guess that the nightmares had been about the Dalish story from Origins. She'd been involved in that, if I remembered right. One of her clan vanishing, another blighted. And she'd had an up close look at the second one.

Or maybe it had been about when she'd been exiled from her clan.

Or maybe some bad encounter with Humans in Ferelden.

She probably had quite a few nightmares to choose from, now that I thought about it.

What, specifically, it had been about didn't really matter in the end. Getting her settled down and comfortable mattered. I wasn't very good at the emotional stuff, but I could at least be a pretty good distraction. I had practice at that.

Turning away from her, I stared at the little fire... and started telling her the same story I'd given Varric and the Elder. It was as close to the truth as I could risk, and maybe the distraction of a story would help calm her down a little.

"I don't know how I got here." I murmured. "This region of Thedas, I mean. Just... went to bed one day, and woke up in Nevarra. Not in the city, way up north. Right on the border with Tevinter. I spent the first few days scared out of my fucking mind, running south as fast as I could. I only got more afraid when I realized I was a mage. That... was new."

Merrill listened as I told her more than I'd told anyone else. The words just... tumbling out as I admitted to things that only Longing knew.

Exhausted nights trying to sleep in trees and little caves.

Stealing food from farms, and running whenever I heard people.

The first time I'd killed a man. The first time a Templar had come for me.

My desperation as I just kept moving south.

That tiny spark of hope brought on by the Dalish, so quickly snuffed out.

"...Clan Sevellah." She finally spoke, apparently recognizing my descriptions of them. "Their Keeper... isn't very nice. Neither is their First."

I tipped my head her way, bringing my cup to my lips. A sip later and I set aside, "Yeah. They made it seem like I should be grateful they even let me cross through their little stretch of the forest without getting shot full of arrows. Their hunters really weren't happy with them about that. I think they were still arguing when I left."

"...what happened after that?"

I blew out a breath. "I finally crossed into the Free Marches. Found a caravan full of Dwarves that needed some extra manual labor, and who didn't ask questions. Carta, probably, but I didn't really care at the time. They let me work for food and a couple of coppers, and we eventually got to Kirkwall. I staggered in here, not in much better shape than you were this morning."

"Oh." She said quietly. "How did you meet Varric?"

"Heard about him in a tavern. I spent a few days stealing to live, and decided to track him down. I snuck up on him without him noticing, and asked him for a job." I huffed, smiling faintly at the memory. He'd jumped half out of his coat, flabbergasted that anyone could actually get behind him like that.

"He offered me half of what I'd hoped for to sneak around for him, and laughed in my face when I told him my price."

"What did you do?"

I shrugged. "Broke into his room at the Hanged Man that night, and ambushed him when he came through the door. Told him I was worth the gold. He decided to give me one chance to prove myself, and I did good enough that he's kept me around since."

Her chair creaked a little, then she asked another question. "And... you really weren't a mage before?"

"Nope. No clue how that happened either." My body slouched down, kicking one leg over the other. "Probably something to do with how I traveled from home to Nevarra. Right now my best guess is that some Tevinter Magister was playing with magic he didn't understand. Teleportation maybe? Time travel? Some attempt to bind a demon? Right now my main theory is that someone was trying to imbue magic into someone who didn't have any, and gloriously botched the ritual."

Longing implied that she knew what had happened, or at least, that some kind of ritual had occurred, but I wasn't about to pay her prices for the knowledge. Staying around to find out had lasted until I'd seen the first Tevinter soldiers patrolling, after that...

After I'd seen those stupid outfits, realized what it meant, I'd started running. I hadn't stopped until I'd made Kirkwall. I'd get answers from Mythal or Solas. Besides, the how and why of me being here wasn't really that important in the end.

The only question I really wanted to know was; how do I get back home?

"I don't really know." I finished. "I didn't stick around to look for answers."

Silence fell for most of a minute. I glanced at Merrill to find her staring into her cup... then taking a long drink as if bracing herself.

Yeah. She'd figured out that I hadn't mentioned who'd taught me magic during my story. That I'd asked the Keeper for training, he'd said no... and that I hadn't mentioned anyone after that.

She'd already worked out what that probably meant.

Merrill. Odd, a bit naive, definitely socially awkward... but she wasn't stupid. Especially when it came to magic and demons. In those fields I wouldn't have been surprised to find her both smarter and wiser than most of the mages in Kirkwall. Well... smarter, at least. She had made a deal with a demon, which definitely implied a lack of wisdom.

Not that I could judge.

At least she didn't take instruction on Demonology from the Chant of Light like I remembered Anders doing. I really wasn't looking forward to those conversations, assuming we ever met him. With how things were going I had no idea if he would ever even come to Kirkwall.

"...you said you had a teacher." Merrill swallowed loudly enough for me to hear it. "It... was a spirit, wasn't it?"

I closed my eyes for a long moment... and couldn't bring myself to lie about it for once. "Longing. She's... It is an Elder Demon of Desire. It pounced on me after the Keeper told me to get the hell away from his clan. I could hear Despair and Rage talking over each other constantly, and Fear showed up when I got too afraid to sleep. She chased them off, made things quiet. Offered a deal."

"...Desire is clever like that." She said.

"Tell me about it. I knew better, but I was so desperate that... I just didn't care anymore. I needed them to be quiet, I needed sleep. I needed to not let my magic just fly out every time I got emotional. So... I gave her three years of my memories for basic magical education, plus four months of protection in the Fade."

"Oh. Is that why you can't remember how you got here?" She asked.

"No. She gave them back." I huffed out a breath, finally turning to face her properly across the table. "I thought I had the upper hand, even as desperate as I was. Made her agree to teach me like a mortal, not just shove the information into my brain. Figured her taking some memories wouldn't give her much of a long-term hold on me."

Merrill bobbed her head, getting it. "But she put them back to give her a stronger anchor in your soul. Even if it that withers, you both share the same memories now. It will make it much easier for her to find you in the Fade."

I grimaced. "Yeah. Any lucid dream I have, she shows up within a few minutes. Offering more training for more memories. Or sex for training. Or whatever she thinks I might want that night. I've been telling her no, trying to shore up my Dream-catcher enough that it can keep even her out."

"Does it work?"

"She can't physically walk up to me anymore." And thank God for that. Longing was extremely handsy. "But it hasn't shut her up any. Just harder to hear sometimes."

She nodded, biting her lip for a long moment, the she said a single word. "...Audacity."

"Eh?"

"The spirit I dealt with. His name is Audacity." It was her turn to take a deep breath, then let it out. "I needed help too. Teaching. Blood magic was the only thing that could cleanse the shard that I have. An Eluvian's shard, contaminated with Darkspawn magic. I didn't have the time to learn the spells on my own. The Keeper was going to take the shard away if I couldn't purify it."

I could guess what happened. It sounded like exactly what had happened in canon, except that either Merrill had acted earlier, or else the Keeper had booted her instead of letting her wait until Hawke arrived.

"So you made a deal, cleansed it, and she threw a fit and kicked you out entirely?"

"...yes." She said miserably. "We... fought about it. She said I put the whole Clan at risk of blight. That I wasn't strong enough to keep the spirit at bay, that I'd give in. That restoring the Eluvian wasn't worth it."

I shook my head. The Keeper's behavior hadn't made much sense to me in the games, and it didn't make much sense to me in real life either. Then again the Dalish as a whole weren't something I had a firm grasp on.

"Why though?" I asked. "Isn't the whole point to your culture trying to restore what was lost? Even at great risk?"

Merrill actually scowled at that, the expression unnatural on her gentle features. Her accent sharpened, fingers tightening around her mug. "That is what I thought. Apparently I was wrong. Apparently..."

I started to open my mouth, only for her cup to slam down on the table. "Fenhedis! Every time we move, we lost people. To Humans, to Darkspawn, to beasts, to accidents! Our ancestors used the Eluvians to safely travel across all of Thedas! To communicate with each other! How many Elven lives could we save if we could get even a few of them working again?"

I tried to speak again, but apparently Merrill had snapped. Tears were welling up in her huge eyes, running down her cheeks. "I knew the risks! I was ready to die for my clan, if that's what it took to help them. To restore even a little bit of what we once had. And when I showed her that it had worked, that I wasn't an abomination, that we had a chance to restore the mirror..."

"She screamed at you." I guessed.

"...yes." She sniffed, wiping at her face. "We fought. Argued. Then... then she called the entire clan together. Called me foolish. Stupid. Said I'd threatened all of their lives. Told me I was unworthy of being a First. Told the clan that Fen'harel had led me astray. Told me that... that I was banished. That she would send word to all the other clans that I was banished."

That made me wince. Kicking Merrill out of her clan was one thing. That was bad enough, but it sounded like the Keeper wanted her booted out of the Dalish as well. As in all of them. Cutting her off from her entire society.

Holy fuck. No wonder the girl was unstable, easily distracted, bouncing wildly between moods. The poor thing was in shock, definitely traumatized, and doing literally everything she could to think about anything else.

Dammit. I wasn't any good at the reassuring thing, and she really needed some reassuring right now.

"...so, um..." I cleared my throat, trying a weak joke to lighten the mood a little. "I think you win the tragic backstory competition."

Merrill didn't laugh so much as she hiccuped, still wiping at her cheeks. "Do I win a Griffon?"

"If I ever find one, I'll be sure to give it you." I promised. "It's a big world. There has to be some left somewhere."

I got a tentative smile at that, then she finished cleaning her tears off her face. After that she finally seemed to notice that I'd given her a bit to eat, picking up the jerky to nibble on it a bit. I followed her lead, letting her sit quietly while we ate our midnight snacks together. Drank watered down wine, listening to the soft crackling of the fireplace.

We sat in silence until we finished our drinks. She didn't look particularly eager to sleep again, so I stood up and retrieved my water skin and more wine. A quick refill of our cups later and I was sitting down again, thinking about what to do now.

Merrill was an absolute mess emotionally. Even more so than I'd expected her to be. As much as I needed to know if the amulet had already been brought to the clan or not... I couldn't ask her about it. Not when she was like this. Especially not when I couldn't even think of a decent excuse to bring it up.

During magical training, maybe. I could ask her about Dalish lore then. About stories I'd heard. That'd work as an excuse...

Ugh. I could think about that later. For now I needed to focus on making sure she was all right. She was my only chance of getting real magical tutoring, at least my only chance that didn't come with the risk of demonic possession. Plus my only shot of knowing about the amulet. If I didn't help her she'd fall apart, and I wouldn't get the help I needed.

And if I was being less of a selfish, self-centered bitch, I could also admit that I didn't like seeing her like this. Not that I hadn't seen other people have breakdowns around me before. In Kirkwall that was a weekly occurrence, especially in the Alienage. But all of them... well, I didn't really know any of them personally. They were distant neighbors, and people I'd never see again once I found my way home.

I'd even been pretty good at keeping Varric at a distance, though that was definitely helped by Varric keeping me at a distance.

Merrill... well. I was still hoping to vanish from her life one day, but I knew her in a way I didn't know any of them. Not the real Merrill, just the cut-down, two-dimensional version, but still... I'd been fond of her character.

I didn't like seeing her like this.

It was definitely stupid. Some psychologist would probably have a lot to say about how I immediately prioritized her well-being on day one, where I'd done my level best to not get involved with anyone else over months living here.

But that didn't change how I felt about it.

"Do you still want to do magical theory with me tomorrow?" I asked.

"...you still want me to teach you?"

"Of course." My shoulder rose and fell in a shrug. "So you made a deal with a demon. So did I. Nothing we can do about that now besides live with our choices, as much as they suck."

"...you're right, I think." She sipped more of her drink. "You sound like my old Keeper, from when I was a child. You swear more, though. How old are you?"

"Twenty-four. You?"

"Twenty-three. You sound older."

Probably because I didn't sound very much like an Elf at all. I didn't even sound like most of the Humans or Dwarves running around. Middle-Class-American didn't translate very well to Low-Class-Citizen-of-Thedas. More than one person had remarked that I spoke extremely oddly, and it was a daily struggle not to pepper my language with references or slang that no one would understand. A struggle I failed at more often than not.

Ugh. No. I wasn't going to distract myself with that. Not tonight.

"What's your favorite color?"

Merrill cocked her head, "Green, why?"

"It's a-" Ice-breaker. "-question game that my people play. Get to know each other quickly. We trade questions back and forth. Nothing too personal, let's leave our tragic pasts behind us. Just little things."

She nodded once. "What is favorite color?"

"Black." I replied. "It goes well with any outfit."

A tiny huff of laughter escaped her nose. "Do I ask another?"

I waved her for her to go ahead, and she did. "Um... what do you really do for Varric?"

"Depends on the day." I shrugged. "On a slow week I just run messages for him. Letters to the Merchant Guild, to his brother, his editor, anyone he needs. He doesn't pay much for that. Spying though? He pays a lot for that."

She seemed to perk up a little. "Who do you spy on?"

"Everyone and anyone." My lips quirked in a grin. "I map out the guard patrols every time they change, keep track of Templars' movements, figure out Carta smuggling paths, poke around in the offices of rival merchant houses... anything he might want for his own House, or to sell to others."

"Is it fun? It sounds fun."

I laughed, "Honestly? It's either boring or really tense. It's only exciting when I screw up and someone notices me. Then I have to run for it. It's... interesting though. Definitely interesting."

More interesting than being the new IT person at an elementary school, where they'd hired me simply because they could pay me less than the old man they'd fired when he'd dared to demand a raise. And then dealing with everyone who thought I didn't know anything simply because they'd liked him, because I was young, because I was a woman, or all of the above.

At least here I got to threaten to stab people who tried that crap. Or, you know, actually stab them. It was a tiny bright side, but I was clinging to what few I could find.

"How about you? What do you like to do for fun?"

"Fun?" Those crooked teeth appeared, nibbling on her bottom lip. "Well... I like listening to stories. And practicing magic. And exploring. Those are all fun."

"Singing?" I suggested, "Dancing?"

She giggled, "My singing voice is terrible. I get all squeaky. Like a nug, except not as cute. I know a few dances, but they're all just for our ceremonies. Do you sing?"

"About as well as you from the sound of it. I don't know many songs either."

"Did they not have many where you're from? Oh!" A hand flew to her lips, "I'm sorry. I wasn't supposed to ask that, was I?"

"It's all right. We had music." A lot of music. Constant music even. In stores, cars, elevators, outdoors... we put everything to music. I missed that, but... well, it came with its own disadvantage.

Earth had so many songs that you could go weeks without listening to the same one twice. Made it rather hard to memorize them, unless you were really into music. I could sing single verses, or bits and pieces of a few dozen songs, but I'd have no chance in hell of singing one start to finish.

"I just enjoyed listening more than singing. Never really bothered to memorize any of them though."

Merrill nodded, relaxing. "What about dancing?"

"It's been years. I used to be decent at it, but I haven't tried in a long time."

We spent another hour just chatting, properly getting to know one another. Her favorite food turned out to be venison, which surprised me even if it probably shouldn't have. When I told her how much I missed cranberries her face had scrunched up, then she'd demanded to know how I could possibly like something so tart.

Apparently Ferelden had several marshy areas good for growing them, and she'd hated it whenever the Clan had traded for some.

We kept going, swapping little stories. She could ride a horse but wasn't fond of them. I could drive a carriage, but I wasn't fonder of the beasts than she was. She could read and write in both Trade and Elvish, and had been working on her Orlesian before her exile. I could read Trade just fine after a lot of practice, but my handwriting in anything but English was atrocious.

Humans intimidated her, something I'd come to agree with, and she'd never seen a Qunari in person yet. We both preferred wine to ale, but she'd never touched hard liquor that wasn't watered down.

A distant bell chimed three times at about the same time as her yawning became contagious.

"Let's try to sleep again." I suggested. "We'll sleep in tomorrow, then I'll show you a place on the coast where we can practice magic."

Merrill nodded, covering another yawn. "...ir abelas. I won't set my own wards tonight. Hopefully that will help your... Dream-catcher."

"Hopefully. You can poke it tomorrow."

"Poke it?"

I sighed. "Inspect it."

"Oh. Thank you." She gave me a final smile before tottering off toward her room, leaving me free to do the same to mine. "Good night."

"Good night."

The dreamless sleep that followed was perfect, letting me finally close out my first day knowing Merrill.

It would be another month before I finally got answers to my questions.

None of which I wanted to hear.