Blood from Stone [AU]

[Coquette Blacquin]

"You don't understand," she says, swallowing hard. "I'm Drow. It's not.. .it's not like being half-elven. It's not just some fun fact to trot out at a gathering. Evil itself lurks in my blood, twice over: my mother's drow heritage, my father's sins. I'm a monster born and bred. That's what's in my heart, when I'm not lying."

[Smith Family]

Kyle shifts, a bit uneasy at this talk. Still, he's been in Nyra for more than two years now, and his wife's best friends were the sort to love and wed a tiefling. Truth be told, and still a surprise, but Lovan is his best friend. Fey sort of man but strangely practical as well. "Part drow, for one blow. For another, it's clear as my Jaina's laugh that you've taken any evil in your blood and made it a lesson. Your mother's done the same, to a lesser tune. There's good reason why you've met my own mother a time or two before she passed and yet you've never ever heard the name of hers. Not evil maybe, not in the way of bard tales, but she was petty and cruel and my wife took that pain and hate and casted herself a set of rules. Of how not to love and how not to raise your children."

[Coquette Blacquin]

"All I know is darkness," she whispers. "How to vanish. How to lie so well my own parents can't tell, nor my lover. How to scare someone so badly their body hurts itself in the effort to get away. How to kill. How to make it hurt."

[Smith Family]

"That's a heap of shit and you know it." Kyle pauses then, flushing slightly. "Beg your pardon. But it's true. You're more than that, as I have seen my with own two eyes. The person you describe wouldn't have cried when we went, as a family, to pray mercy for our Mel. Wouldn't have clung to me after that fire. Or teased your brother so kindly."

[Coquette Blacquin]

"That's Cindy Black," she says quietly. "She's no more real than any other alias. I lie very, very well."

[Smith Family]

"And how do you know it's not the other that's the lie? It's clear you lie to yourself as well so..."

[Coquette Blacquin]

"Because I... in my Delve, in my dreamland, I was two: Coquette, and the Scale. I was never Cindy."

[Smith Family]

"...dreamland?" Kyle asks carefully, puzzled. "Is that the... healing ritual thing Varric spoke about then? Where he and his, uh, spouse went in and..." He trails off, having not been able to follow Varric's overly technical explanation. 

[Coquette Blacquin]

"They went into my mind," she says softly. "They put me back together. I was... rent in two, where at times it felt like The Scale was controlling my body and all I could do was watch. They stitched us back together into one being again, and it's held -- I haven't been that separate, that delusional, since. But now I see the truth: that I was always him, underneath, rather than who I wanted to be."

[Smith Family]

Kyle scowls, trying to puzzle out all this magic and fancy magic nonsense. Finally, he just shakes his head. "If the problem this Delbe thing solved was about... finding some sort of balance with Coquette and The Scale, then I don't see why Cindy would be there. Sounds like they're roles you play. Cindy is just... You."

[Coquette Blacquin]

"No. Coquette and The Scale are me. Cindy, Ann, Sue, Cedric, and Candice are roles I play."

[Smith Family]

"And... how do you... determine that sort of thing? Do any of them aside from Cindy have a family? Hobbies? Dreams? Loved ones or pets? What makes those two more real than any of the others?"

[Coquette Blacquin]

"They are who I was born to be. You cannot change fate."

[Smith Family]

Kyle scoffs at that. "Even I know that's- ah, rot. You could walk into any ten taverns tonight and nine of them will have a minstrel ready with a dozen tales of just that."

[Coquette Blacquin]

"I'm not the hero of this tale, Kyle. Go home. Be with your family."