Hazelnuts and plaid

[NPCs]

That particular motive disproved, Vosang changes his line of questioning. "What was your plan to avoid forced enrollment in a long-term sense? Or plans, if more than one was given more than trivial or passing preparation or planning."

[Marian Hawke]

"This is still irrelevant to the case, but generally I had hoped going to university would help me heal. Keeping busy. Eventually, being drunk as often as I could manage became my plan."

[NPCs]

"Then why did you keep the poisoned juice in your primary domicile?" 

[Marian Hawke]

"Because part of me wasn't convinced it was working. That I'd be able to last the time until Papa decided to come home. That there'd be anything left of the Clan if he did come home. The mind is a complex place."

[NPCs]

"On average, did you think it more likely that you would manage or that you would fail sufficiently to require the poisoned juice for suicide?"

[Marian Hawke]

She starts to answer. She glances at 'Ergile'. She takes a deep breath. She closes her eyes, reaching for the still place inside her. She opens her mouth again.

Nothing comes out. 

She bows her head, hands trembling in her lap. 

[NPCs]

"A verbal ans--"

"Give her a minute, you insensitive piece of shite," the merikos elf snarls, taking a single step forward. Just the one, however, as Panis is suddenly next to him. No weapon out, no gesture made, just there.

[Marian Hawke]

"Please," she whispers, glancing up. "Don't start trouble on my behalf. I-- I can answer."

She swallows, then, taking a deep breath. "It was.. It is... a near thing. But I think... I think the poison side is winning out."

[NPCs]

Vosang hesitates, glancing from Panis to the merikos elf, then back again. Panis, however, is studying Varric's disguised form with predatory intensity. "Next question," the ratfolk says, a trace of awkwardness in his voice. "What do you know about the source, properties, identification and effects of the poison in question?"

[Marian Hawke]

"I don't know for sure where the bandits got the poison. It was meant to be fatal, through internal bleeding over the course of a few hours or so, and almost impossible to reverse once it gets going. I suspect there was a magical component, but I am not an expert. They called it Slow Bleed."

[NPCs]

"Have you heard of this poison before? By name or by the effects in relation to a magically enhanced poison?"

Varric slowly steps back onto the wooden floor, off the stone tiles that denote the 'official use' portion of the room. Panis waits a beat, then casually turns and walks back to his post with an unruffled air. Taking a slow breath to try and force his heart to stop pounding, Varric swallows. Wait, did she say-- Eyes wide, he takes another step back and cranes his neck to peek at the notes that Helene is, of course, taking on the proceedings. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

[Marian Hawke]

She did -- she said Slow Bleed, which is something he's only heard of once before, in the past. Varric being Varric, of course he remembers every reference to every poison he's ever heard of, in detail, with times and dates. He heard of it in the aftermath of the Jevan scandal, when the Humans First folks were being picked up. It was in their stores, something they wanted to use on... well it's not clear who the target was, but this was something they went out of their way to obtain over similarly lethal poisons that are much cheaper and easier to find. So there must be some reason they particularly wanted it. 

"I had not."

[NPCs]

Magicked, magicked, magicked. Most poisons (toxins really) are magicked to either increase potency of effect or decrease the chance of a cure (or detection). If it's the same stuff as what was used on Zevran (and it matches too damn much to muster as coincidence) then I'd wager on treatment (unless...) over potency. 

"Why would you use a poison of which you had no knowledge of outside that given indirectly by bandits?"

[Marian Hawke]

"Because it was on hand. If I went shopping for poisons my Clan would find out and take them away from me."

[NPCs]

"Why not craft one yourself?"