Ghost Story

[Marian Hawke]

"Don't...?" asks Marian, frowning.

"Don't mention her. Don't say her name. We don't..."

Marian's face softens into something like tears. "Oh Carver... how is that any way to honor her life and memory? By forgetting?"

"Not forgetting. Never forgetting. Just... not tarnishing it, not trying to put words in her mouth or speculate."

[Aveline Vallen]

"Doing that is your choice, amata," Aveline points out gently, putting an arm around him. "Your sister gets to make her own choice."

[Marian Hawke]

"You're right, a little -- we can't know for sure what she'd say. But we know she wouldn't want you to live like this, afraid to speak her name. Beth was always--"


"Stop," says Carver, his voice holding a tinge of anguish. 

"Beth was always so full of life, so full of joy," continues Marian.

Carver sits forward, hand tightening into a fist. "Stop."

Marian notes the fist and stills, though her mouth runs rampant without her: "Or you'll kill me again?"

[Aveline Vallen]

"Enough!" Aveline snaps, the arm around Carver, snaking around to pull him close against her chest. "Carver, take a few deep breaths for me. Slow count, alright?" She cuts a mild glare at Marian. "He's seventy-three and his heart in poor condition. Please."

[Marian Hawke]

Marian takes a step back, her eyes brimming with tears. "Fine," she says, after a moment to catch her breath. "I'll be upstairs working with Varric. Don't wait up."

[Varric]

Invisible and hovering next to the doorway, Varric readies to dart upstairs where he's got a carefully selected potion in mid-step. Please, like I'd actually let you come down alone (if he can have his wife here, you can have your-- dwarf). 

[Aveline Vallen]

"You don't-- you don't have to go. Just-- Just give him a moment. Please. I know this isn't easy on either of you, it's going to be hard, going to take work." Aveline reaches out her free hand in a plaintive gesture. "Please let him try?"

[Marian Hawke]

"He doesn't look like he has time for work," says Marian, her voice a touch cold. 

[Carver Amell]

"I'll live to be a hundred, just to spite you," snaps Carver. "I have a minute."

[Aveline Vallen]

"Mother in the Shielded Halls," Aveline groans in celestial, a tongue Carver never learned and thus the one she has a habit of muttering to herself in. "He's a teen again and she's as bad as our daughter."

[Carver Amell]

Carver takes a deep breath, squeezing his wife's hand. "You're right," he tells Aveline, despite having no idea what she's said. "I'm sorry. It's too easy to fall back into old patterns. Looking at her takes me right back."

[Marian Hawke]

"I'm not," mutters Marian, sulky. "You stabbed me."

[Aveline Vallen]

Murdered to be more accurate. "He did. And that's something the two of you need to discuss. Probably not first, but soon."

[Marian Hawke]

"Nuh-uh," says Marian. "He can't even talk about Beth, I'm not having this discussion with him."

[Carver Amell]

Carver flinches again. "I never did understand how you could forget so easily. How you could sleep at night, after what you did."