Ghost Story

[Varric]

Accident? Carelessness or the like, sister caught in the fire? "How did the fire start?" he asks gently,

[Marian Hawke]

"It was my fault," she whispers, tears streaming down her cheeks. "I was supposed to save her."

[Varric]

Ah. That. "Why?" He clears his throat, then tries again so the word has a remote chance of being understood. "Why? Why were you, specifically, supposed to save her?"

[Marian Hawke]

"They begged me to, and I didn't do it. I didn't. I was weak and cowardly and she died."

[Varric]

"Who begged you?" Gods. "Why you?"

[Marian Hawke]

"The family, they begged me to save her. I was the oldest, it was my job to rescue her. To trade my life for hers, if it came to that."

[Varric]

"The absolute fuck." Varric sucks in a sharp breath, then tries to regain his momentum. "What about your parents?"

[Marian Hawke]

"I-- I don't remember," she whispers, shivering. 

[Varric]

"Was your mom one of the people demanding you commit suicide?"

[Marian Hawke]

"Yes," she whispers, "but it wasn't like that. I was just supposed to keep my sister safe."

[Varric]

So her mom was alive, might still be (that's a talk I want to have). "Why you?" he repeats.

[Marian Hawke]

"I'm the oldest, and the bad child."

[Varric]

"That's so far from the tenets of every one of the Brightest gods it sounds like Tessline scrapped it directly from Its withered, pus streaked arsehole," Varric says flatly.

[Marian Hawke]

Emma looks up at him, shocked. "Wh-what?"

[Varric]

"You said you're almost eighteen? Well, it's clear as fucking day you've been here at least a year, probably two or three. You're brilliant, yes, but teaching yourself a language, from a book no less, takes time. Based on the speed you're learning other things, including the Gnomish I've been teaching you, I would wager three years at least to have learned all the others you did here. So that makes you no more than fifteen, probably fourteen when this happened." He leans in. "There isn't a single good aligned Deity that would want a fourteen year old to purposely torture or kill themselves to save someone else when you had a parent around to take up the duty. Not. One. That's what parents are for. They stand in front of their children, they pick them up, they carry them on, they teach and guide them, they support and love them. They do not ask them to die!"