Ghost Story

[Varric]

Bloody fucking hellfire. "Who?" he asks carefully, half stalling.

[Marian Hawke]

"I don't know. Someone I loved very much. Someone I needed to keep safe. But I've forgotten who they are." She shudders, wiping at her eyes again and again. 

[Varric]

Repression? Could be memory spells but that's a lot to wipe out (without removing all of it). Botched ritual could do it but that's a generous outcome for a botch (especially for a mentally focused ritual). Probably just trauma. (Just?). "Can you describe them?" he asks, trying to come at it sideways.

[Marian Hawke]

Emma shakes her head. "Smaller. Sweet. Innocent. They were killed for using magic, that much I know."

[Varric]

Child? Probably not hers (hopefully). Sibling? Could be a sweetheart (smaller is a strange thing to come first). "Well I'm sure as fuck no innocent. Or sweet. Smaller I'll give you, damned Giants that you lot are. What color was their hair?" he asks without pause or change in tone.

[Marian Hawke]

"Brown." The answer comes without Emma's giving it thought, automatically. "Long and brown and soft."

[Varric]

"Sounds pretty," Varric observes in a carefully bland tone.

[Marian Hawke]

"She was. She didn't deserve to die. Not in a million years. She was so young..." Emma breaks into fresh sobs, unaware she's changed pronouns. "You don't understand anything."

[Varric]

Varric swallows, crushing down the image of pale white eyes. "Older doesn't make it easier. Grief is grief."

[Marian Hawke]

"You don't understand." She gestures toward the well, and there's a crack in the air, a scent of the first frost of Winter. Glancing up, he knows what he'll find when he peeks inside: a thin unseasonal layer of ice across the surface of the water that wasn't there before.

[Varric]

Understand more than you, I wager. Not all you do maybe but more. "What don't I understand?" he asks instead of disagreeing out loud. And was it her magic or yours that lead to her death?

[Marian Hawke]

"They'll kill me too. She was better than me in every way and she still died. They'll kill me if they find out. I can't be around you, I can't let anyone know, I can't--" 

She struggles to even out her breathing, tears streaming from her eyes. 

[Varric]

"Find out how? No-one comes around here, near as I can tell. I'm not about to go telling people about your magic." Varric clucks his tongue. "Enough. How many conjugations do verbs have in Sylvian?"

[Marian Hawke]

"S-six," stammers Emma. 

[Varric]

"Always?" Varric prompts her.