Blood from Stone [AU]

[Varric]

"Determined to throw it away or not, you're family." Varric shrugs, eyes still hard. "Right pass in the ass but that's par for the course as near as I can tell."

[Vigile]

"...I shall do as you bid me and attempt to keep your lady safe," Vigile whispers back, reluctance clear in his tone. "She'll not survive long on her own. She'll stop wishing to, I fear."

[Marian Hawke]

Liz tightens her grip on Vig, shivering. And Varric can argue with her all day, it's just going to keep her back up. Cindy... doesn't he see? She's scared, hurt -- must be, to have left her mother like that. To be so imperious. She needs help and he can't, he doesn't know her well enough to give it to her. And Vig clearly wasn't enough. What... what do I do? I can't help her -- I can't help anyone -- but... but... someone has to, right? Someone...

"What do I do?" she whispers to the feline.

[Coquette Blacquin]

"Not anymore," he snaps. "I have a right to leave if I want."

[Varric]

"You do." Varric doesn't say the words as if they're a weakness to his case, but instead just simple fact. "You're hurting and in pain and clinging desperately to stubborn pride. If you want to run, then you can. But I want to make sure you realize both what you're abandoning and what it's going to cost the ones that love you."

[Vigile]

I am hardly an expert on mortal emotions! Still... "Go to her. Help her. You need not heal her whole, but offer what succor you can." Enough, perhaps, so that others may help her as well. HE-THAT-IS-VANGAL make it so.

[Coquette Blacquin]

"I know well what I'm doing," he growls. 

[Varric]

"Then by all means, explain it to this foolish dwarf." 

[Coquette Blacquin]

"Why? It's no business of yours. If I had wanted to explain myself I would have left a note."

[Marian Hawke]

Liz, hands trembling, grips Vig painfully tightly as she steps forward. "Cedric," she says ,quietly. "Please. I-- please. I'll go, if you can't stand to be around me. Don't leave. You... you were always the better of us. Please don't go because of me."

[Varric]

Better my arse. No, stop it. That's not helpful (feels good. Okay, good and shameful). Varric glances at Liz, then back at Cedric in expectation. Vigile seems to share the idea, suppressing a hiss of pain and, thankfully, also stopping the twin instinctive reactions of misting or clawing his captor.

[Coquette Blacquin]

"It's not because of you," he snaps, but his face pales a bit. "Is it so impossible to believe that I have erred? That I wish to correct my error? No, I see the problem -- because I am not begging you all for solutions, you insist I must not want any. It's impossible for you to believe I have weighed the options, that I have considered alternatives, that I am making the best possible choice from a bad situation!"

[Marian Hawke]

"Master," whispers Liz, shuddering. "Please. I'm sorry. I'll... I'll go. I just wanted... I just wanted to make sure you were alright."

[Varric]

Varric ignores that word. He has to. If he doesn't... "Flip that around- you're saying you, out of a hundred and fifty year old father of at least four, a gods-touched Seeker, a Joyous, two priestess- one a mother, another a sister- a paladin, a mother of four, a spirit talker and a half-dozen other souls... your idea, which is in direct contrast to everyone else's and created without input or assistance, is the only possible solution?" The dwarf shakes his head. "Maybe you're right. But damned if that's not arrogant to assume."

[Vigile]

A low murr comes from Vigile, just as tiny pinpricks of heat on Liz's arms form. Just for a second, before he masters his reaction.