Under Darkness [AU]

[Marian Hawke]

Still, she shakes her head, resisting. "It was my choice, it-- it was a game." Don't lie. You know it was more than that. More than just a dominance game, more than bedroom fun. "It started as a game," she corrects, in a whisper, before taking a steadying breath. "It was... he taught me a better way to be. I chose to learn."

[Tethras Clan]

"No," Varric says sharply. "It tricked you. Took advantage of your vulnerability, our abandonment of you, and used honeyed words and magic to slowly break you down into something lesser. If a noble chooses to drink a glass of wine, but an assassin has slipped nightshade into it, did the noble choose to die? Of course not. She was just thirsty. You can't consent to something if you don't know what it is."

[Marian Hawke]

"I knew," she whispers. "I knew enough. Varric, I... I wanted some way to not fail you. To not leave you behind. To become someone who would live."

It hadn't gone down exactly like that, of course. She'd known something was up, known there was something not quite right about what they'd been doing, what he'd come to expect. But she loved Jadan. She'd do anything for him. And when she confided in him that she'd been feeling isolated, feeling rejected by her Clan, he'd known what to do.

'They're probably frightened of losing you,' he'd said, stroking her cheek with one hand.

'I know,' she sighed. 'You've said. But...'

'If you were more obedient, maybe they wouldn't be.'

'If... what?'

'Well, I'm sure they tried to warn you. You're a stubborn little pet, sometimes. If you obeyed, you might have lived.'

She wasn't sure it was true, but then... wasn't that true of Anders, of the Gem? If she hadn't been so willful, so stubborn, none of that would have happened. 'Teach me?' she'd begged.

'Of course, my pet.'

[Tethras Clan]

To become someone who would live. "Gods, Hawke, I-" Varric sags a little. "Becoming... this," he gestures vaguely, "isn't living. This isn't who we came to love. Who we took into our hearts, who we learned to respect and trust. Sure, it... hurt. Not just with Memento Mori, but watching you put yourself into danger. But it's not like Aveline lives a safe life as a guard. Or, hells, me. I mean, rich business men, particularly grey ones, don't have a much higher life expectancy than adventurers."

He slowly leans in, needing to hug her. "We love Hawke the person, not Hawke the- the pet. That's who we want."

[Marian Hawke]

"But the person was..." Bad. A firebrand. Reckless. Selfish. Headstrong. Cruel. 

[Tethras Clan]

"Loving, kind, forgiving, strong, brilliant, determined, generous, beautiful, witty, charming, willful and a hero?" Varric suggests.

[Marian Hawke]

She's shaking her head by the third word, tears streaming freely down her face. "Jadan helped me," she insists, in a whisper. "Helped me be a better person."

[Tethras Clan]

"Jadan lied to you," Varric explains gently, stroking her back with one hand as the other clenches tightly enough to leave crescent marks on his palm. "That wasn't better. I promise you it's not better."

[Marian Hawke]

"But he... but he loved me," she whimpers. And you didn't. (Jadan killed you. Remember that.)

[Tethras Clan]

"Jadan lied," Varric says simply, then presents what even this Hawke can't refute. "It sold Merrill to slavers. Watched as she was raped and whipped- and smiled."

[Marian Hawke]

Jadan sold--

She lets out a pained whimper, closing her eyes as her mind tries to shove away this latest reminder. She'd been doing well with the whole Jadan stabbed her thing, but she views it as her own fault Merrill got sold, not Jadan's. She doesn't want to see, to know, that he was lying the whole time, that he never loved her. That the stabbing was the rule, not the exception. 

[Tethras Clan]

"Fight it Hawke," Varric whispers fiercely. "You have to accept the truth of it, accept that Jadan was a monster in a pretty mask. Jadan was evil and it did terrible, horrible things to you and Merrill. And that sin is on its head, not yours. You made mistakes, were tricked. It committed evil acts."

[Marian Hawke]

She shakes her head, letting out a strangled whimper. "Jadan loved me." Her whisper is fierce.

[Tethras Clan]

"Jadan only loved Jadan. Maybe pain and power but certainly no-one else but itself," Varric says firmly. "No-one who loves someone could do the things it did to you."

[Marian Hawke]

"Do what?" she whispers, looking... well, the look in her eyes is familiar, and at once point, Varric even said it was good to see, a positive thing. But he didn't expect her to have that look about Jadan, that's for sure. "Help me? Protect me? Love me? Take me in, care for me, hold me while I cried? Teach me new ways of being that didn't-- didn't hurt so much?"