Apostate in Plain Sight

For Friends

That was how Hawke found herself the next day, yet again trudging up Sundermount with Varric and Anders lagging behind and hating the plan as much as she did. "It's not a good feeling you know," Anders said somberly.

"What?" Merrill asked with venom, apparently still sore with Anders.

"Being an abomination. I got a taste of your future," he explained.

Merrill pursed her lips. "I'm not that foolish. Our relationship is, um, strictly platonic."

Anders ignored her attempt at humor. "It's like you're trapped in your own body, seeing out your eyes while someone else moves you like a puppet. And you're trying to scream, to move a single muscle, but there's no escape. Until you look down at the blood on your hands..."

"Stop it," Merrill said, her voice wavering. "You're scaring me."

"That's the point," he grumbled. Hawke slowed and fell back to take his hand and squeeze it gently. Soon, with any luck, he might be free from ever being a puppet again.

Merrill frowned as they came upon the Dalish encampment, still very much in the same place. She avidly avoided the camp, skirting the Keeper's aravel and heading directly up the path toward the burial ground where they had released Flemeth. When she didn't so much as pause to see the Keeper, Anders became agitated. "I don't know why I'm bothering with this, but you do realize this is crazy, right?"

"Believe me, I noticed," Merrill said flippantly. "If I had any other choices, I'd take them."

"You have choices! You always had choices! Stop using blood magic! Get rid of that damned mirror!" he listed.

Merrill paused on the path and hit him with a sarcastic tone that Hawke didn't know she had in her arsenal. "In that case I'll head back to Kirkwall and throw it away. Right after you abandon the plight of the Circle mages."

Anders pressed his lips together and Merrill nodded triumphantly before continuing upwards. Hawke and Varric followed behind them, feeling rather awkward. They made their way up the Mountainside in silence, again taking the detour around the rock slide and through the mountain. Hawke was grateful they were not set upon by spiders this time as they exited on the other side. She remembered the beautiful sunset she had watched the last time they had climbed this high and inhaled a deep breath of the thinning air. The mountain was quiet, unlike the last time when they had to fight through undead. Merrill paused at the altar where they had freed Flemeth and began to pray. "Mythal, all-mother. Protector of the people. Watch over us, for the path we tread is perilous. Save us from the darkness, as you did before, and we will sing your name to the heavens." She was quiet for a moment and then turned back to Hawke. "Sorry, I didn't mean to hold us. You just... It's never wise to ignore Mythal."

"If she's temperamental, maybe I should join you," Hawke said, forcing joviality into her tone.

"It wouldn't hurt," Merrill shrugged with a stiff smile. "They say if Mythal smiles on you, then you need fear nothing at all. But those who anger her, they're struck from the earth... as if they never lived at all!"

As they continued further up the mountain, Varric cleared his throat. "Does anybody else get the feeling that this is going to end badly? Just me, huh?"

"It's not all bad, Varric," Merrill said cheerily. "Think of the stories you'll be able to tell later!"

Varric chuckled dryly. "No offense, Daisy, but I could live without telling anyone we murdered you on some mountainside. It's a little hard to make that one sound good." The heavy silence fell over them again until they neared the peak and Varric made Hawke jump as his voice startled her. "Who thought putting a demon in a cave on Sundermount was a good idea in the first place?"