Ghost Story

[Marian Hawke]

"Sick," she mumbles, already slouching. "Sleepy."

[Varric]

"What? Even after-- you don't feel any better?" Fuck. Is this a curse? Or poison of some kind?

[Marian Hawke]

"A-- a little?" she hazards. 

[Varric]

"A little is better than no," Varric replies encouragingly. "How do you feel? Try and be specific."

[Marian Hawke]

"I'm so tired -- I just want to rest. Let me rest," she whimpers, sliding down until her head rests against the pillow. "Please."

[Varric]

Sounds almost like envernaration. "Alright. Resting is good. You want me to read out loud for a bit?"

[Marian Hawke]

"Yes," she whispers, eyes drifting closed. "Yes. Read."

He reads to her for a time, until she falls completely asleep; then he goes back to his workshop, worried enough to begin combing through books to look for a Detect Enchantment ritual he can prepare. 

As the sun goes down on Mileen's Eve, he begins to hear laughter out in the halls, the patter of feet racing up and down. Is Emma up?

[Varric]

Running? That's an abrupt energy level change (but alarm wards didn't go off). Frowning, he sets his books down to investigate, Bianca at the ready.

[GamesMaster]

There's nothing in the hallway, but he hears sounds in the back parlor, giggling and running.  Once there, he finds nothing else out of the ordinary: the sofas, the card table, the twins playing in the backyard. Everything perfectly ordinary -- except now he can hear shouting from upstairs, a slamming door. Muffled, impossible to make out.

[Varric]

He's two steps out of the parlor, heading upstairs, when he goes stock still. Twins? The quiet part of his brain, the coldest, most unfeeling and brutally rational, analytical part of his brain, gently presents a census of the household, such as it is. It should be just us, just Emma and I. There's no twins living here. He frowns, trying to puzzle out what's wrong with what he's experiencing. After a long moment, he continues on upstairs, still picking at it in the background.

[GamesMaster]

As he reaches the back stairs, he sees a little finger of blood dripping down them, a thin stream. It's joined by a second, then a third, merging the two into a small rivulet, cascading freely down the steps. More and more blood the longer he watches. 

[Varric]

Which is only about fifteen seconds, just long enough to become invisible, flight-capable and increase the impact power of his bolts. That done, he skims up the stairs, flying above the blood. Emma.

[GamesMaster]

The blood isn't coming from the library; it's seeping under one of the other doors, which he throws open quickly. 

There's so much blood. 

There's screaming and the screaming is far away and there's so much blood and Emma is on the floor and the walls are covered in blood, pulsating like a beating heart, the floor is drenched in blood, how could there be this much blood and anyone still be alive, the walls and the floor pulse like a beating heart, blood pours in a river across the door, out the door, down the steps...

[Varric]

There's a beat, a handful of horrible, terrible seconds, where there's just grief. Just pain and loss and sorrow and guilt and shame and the empty demand of why. And then that quiet place in his brain is there, is expanding to fill the rest of his mind. Impossibilities. Errors. Discrepancies. Illusion. Falsehood. Focus. Disbelieve. Refute what lies before you. 

"No. I won't play along."

[GamesMaster]

"Help me," whimpers a voice -- a young girl's voice, from just behind him. "He's coming."