Imprints in Stone [AU]

[Marian Hawke]

She looks up at him and smiles. "Hmm? No, of course not. Can I help you?"

[Varric]

"You just... looked a bit wistful, I suppose. Name's Varric," he adds, offering his hand.

[Marian Hawke]

"Liz Tethras," she replies, shaking his hand. "Nice to meet you. You came at a great time -- it's the festival today, Bonfire Night."

[Varric]

Interesting name there. "Can't say I know what that's about? What's the celebration for?"

[Marian Hawke]

He could, of course, if he chose -- there was a Bonfire Night in Golden Shores too, one so far removed from the legend behind it that he attended his first one and still didn't catch on how anti-magic the town really was. But he'd have been wrong if he tried to guess, for Liz does not describe the benign, fire-themed festival, complete with throwing little stuffed dolls of demons onto the fire to ritually "banish them back to the hells" or anything like that.

"Oh, that's when they burn the witches," she says cheerfully. "I'm excited -- tonight I was chosen as the ###### Queen."

Whatever word she says before Queen, it doesn't come through as semantic meaning in any language, just a garble of noises that almost sound like phonemes except for them not quite matching any language he knows.

[Varric]

Which means no language Marian- or any Hawke- should know. "...right. What's that entail, exactly?" he asks carefully. Ritualized murder of one of my kids (like hells) in three... two...

[Marian Hawke]

"I'm going to be burned to keep the town safe from #######," she says, still cheerful. "That means my brother and sister are both safe from being chosen, since they only pick one at most per family."

[Varric]

"...or you could not be burned to death. And... maybe move somewhere else? Or..." Leandra's familble, I'm sure, the dried up, sour bitch that she is. "Just about any other kind of plan?"

[Marian Hawke]

"Oh, don't worry, I volunteered," she says, resuming her sweeping. "I just need to get these chores done and I'll head over."

[Varric]

"...that doesn't actually help much if at all," Varric says tightly. "You missed a spot," he add, not stalling at all.

[Marian Hawke]

She turns, and, sure enough, it's true -- where the porch was clean before, there's now some leaves, stained with a few drops of blood. "Oh, thank you," she says, moving to sweep that spot without seeming at all bothered by the stains. "They were going to pick my sister, you see; with her bad leg, she's not very helpful to the town. So I volunteered instead."

[Varric]

Yep. There it is. Sodding hells. "Look... my friends and I, we live in Nyra. Why don't you and your siblings come there, with us, instead? Bet your sister would prefer to have her sister still around."

[Marian Hawke]

"Oh, I can't leave now. They've already started the ritual. If they don't produce a Queen, ####### will overrun the town and kill everyone."

[Varric]

"...how about we use a pig or something?" Varric suggests. "Or, idea, we fight back and kill all of the..., ah, invaders instead? To prevent them from coming back."

[Marian Hawke]

"There's hundreds of them," she laughs. "You can't kill them all. Thank you, kind stranger, but this is our way. It has to be so."