Blood from Stone [AU]

[Varric]

"Hey, don't worry about it. Looks like you did it on scrap anyway so it's completely no harm done. Grab a seat," he repeats, gesturing at one of the chairs by his desk. "What did you get distracted by?"

[Marian Hawke]

Hesitantly, she sets down the papers, pulling a chair over. "Uh, I just... something about that relationship..."

She blushes, lifting the first two pages up to reveal the bottom page, which is covered in neat, tiny writing: equations, transformations and proofs and just playing with numbers, digging deep and intuiting concepts far beyond where he'd left off in her education. It doesn't reach a conclusion; the proof she wants is beyond what she understands, uses techniques she doesn't know. But it almost reaches anyway, through roundabout, less intuitive methods.

[Varric]

"That is... pretty damn close." Varric studies the half-proof with a slowly spreading smile. "Really, this is... given what you were working with, this is real good. I bet if..." He grabs his self-inking quill and jots two two short equations and then a maxim. "Here, see where you can get with those."

[Marian Hawke]

She takes the page, glancing down, chewing her lower lip in thought. "This is..." she says, frowning as she taps her dry quill against the equation in thought. 

"I haven't done this in a long time," she says absently, staring at it. "It's harder than I remembered. Cindy doesn't... well there's not much call for maths in my life anymore." She dips the quill, jotting a few things down, sketching some triangles, jotting more down. "To be honest, I was surprised when they asked me what things make me happy." More sketching, another dip. "I don't think like that. I've never really thought like that. But I like to be distracted by something I can get engrossed in."

She pauses, going back to read something earlier up the page, then drawing an arrow and jotting down more equations. "Usually it's been sex," she admits. "Or fighting." 

[Varric]

"Maths are cleaner." Varric chuckles a little, trying to not hover over them as they work. "What did you do if you got spare time before?" 'Before'. Words got a whole new meaning these days...

[Marian Hawke]

"In Golden Shores? I never did. There was always homework and the twins and chores and everything. Once you came, my spare time was time I could sneak off to see Drake, that's about it." Her pen lifts for a moment as she re-reads, then scratches a line through what she just wrote, backing up to her previous equation to try again. "I never really had hobbies or anything."

[Varric]

"Alright, treat it like a math or logic problem. Start at base and branch down. Of the things you do for professional, familial, and other obligations, what do you like doing? Not for the benefits to others, but for the process itself."

[Marian Hawke]

"Like or not mind?" she asks, frowning as she sketches out a triangle to remind herself where she's at with these angles. "I don't mind cleaning or fighting or spending time with the twins so long as I have energy left."

[Varric]

Ouch. "Enjoy. Feel satisfaction from. Or contentment, pleasure, and so on."

[Marian Hawke]

"Satisfaction...? Sex, I guess." She scribbles a bit more. "When I'm busy like this, distracted, I don't get anxious. So that's contentment, right? Oh, sleeping. I like sleeping."

[Varric]

"Sleeping is... good. What about reading? Or stuff like this?" He gestures at the papers in front of her. "Do any crafts?"

[Marian Hawke]

"I like reading," she says, scribbling. "I haven't done math since... since before, I think. I've been learning alchemy, does that count?"

[Varric]

"Well... I suppose that depends on whether you enjoy or whether you're just trying to save money or not bother anyone."

[Marian Hawke]

"Mostly," she admits. She frowns, tapping her quill again, then hesitantly writes out something else, her strokes getting more confident as she does. "I think... I might have this," she admits, frowning as she re-reads it.

[Varric]

The dwarf grins broadly, pleased and proud. "Want to look it over first or of you ready for me to check it?"