Ghost Story

[Varric]

"You're coming with," he says, tone still terse but with a faint conciliatory undertone. "It'll easily protect three."

[GamesMaster]

Bethie nods, following him and the cot to-- "My bedroom?" she asks, and when he opens the door, that's what he sees: a room with two beds, one with red covers and one with light blue. There is a night sky painted on the ceiling, and above the red bed is a mural of a dragon, while behind the blue one is a unicorn painted on the wall. There's a toybox, two desks, a rug... none of his ritual supplies. 

[Varric]

"Reveal the truth of this room," he orders in dwarven, the truest, most solid and plain mortal language he knows. At least to him, as many would probably dispute that if asked. 

[GamesMaster]

The room flickers between his ritual room, their bedroom, and another bedroom, this one with only one bed, with dragons and wolves painted on the walls and a practice sword leaned up against the desk. 

[Varric]

Annoying, but I can work with it, he decides, setting the cot down in the center of the room. "Stand next to the bed, don't move more than two feet from it. Do you have a deity?"

[GamesMaster]

"Astea," says Bethie quietly. "I remember..."

She moves away from the cot, toward the wall with the desks in it. 

[Varric]

"No, bad spirit," Varric reprimands her. "Cot!" Even dead kids can't listen (maybe ours would have--) to save their existence. 

[GamesMaster]

"I remember--" 

Bethie reaches out, under the desk (through a bookshelf) and into the wall. "I can't reach. Help me."

[Varric]

"Go stand by the cot and start praying. Something asking for help," he bargains, moving towards the wall. 

[GamesMaster]

As he moves the bookshelf/desk/desk, he finds a small utility access panel behind it -- something he'd noted but not given much attention to. Opening the panel, he finds a worn book tucked inside, along with a hair ribbon. 

Then he's back to the praying girl, and Emma's cot, casting a circle of protection around them and settling in for a long night.

[Varric]

And there's my first bread crumb down the path to setting 'Bethie' to rest. Dammit, I'm supposed to be retired! Sighing as he finishes setting the circle, he glances over at his two charges and absolutely does not smile at having a real purpose again.

[GamesMaster]

Bethie is gone by morning; Emma doesn't rouse the next day, leaving Varric alone with the journal. For it is a journal, a diary: one by Bethany Hawke, the youngest Hawke sibling. He doesn't have time to read it, however, as he's busy brewing a potion of Restoration for poor Emma.

Emma wakes shortly after sundown, blinking her sleepy eyes open inside the circle of protection. "-ric?" she mutters, swallowing. 

[Varric]

"I'll let it pass as it was sleep slurring, but my name is Varric, not Rick," he says gruffly as he turns back to her. Giving her a rapid look over, he peels off the hot compress from her forehead and replaces it. The scent of warm mineral water, rosemary, mint and something astringent and faintly metallic reach her. It's an interesting scent, distinct but unobtrusive. "Glad to hear you awake."

[Marian Hawke]

"Tired," she whispers, swallowing again. "Sore."

[Varric]

"Tired is expected if a bit worrying. You slept all the way through yesterday."