The Amell Legacy: Transgressions

[Marian Hawke]

"Like I said. A cunt."

[Helene Dakesh]

"How is upholding this one's end of a bargain refusing to accept their judgement?! The Ancient One had ample opportunity to refuse the bargain, but he did not. He has visited this one repeatedly and issued no such adjustment or retraction."

[Varric]

"That would require them to actually use direct communication," Varric says with an eyeroll. "They might well have tried to but the message got lost. And... let me ask you this: if, back at that first offer, they had turned you down, even just to haggle... would you have taken that as the loss of you last hope and... given up?"

[Helene Dakesh]

Helene swallows. "Yes," she says softly. "This one expected the oath not to be accepted. This one was preparing to move on to the next incarnation."

[Marian Hawke]

"And it never occurred to you that Alydra would do anything within her power to prevent that? That the death of Seeker Helene was unacceptable and could not be tolerated?"

[Helene Dakesh]

Helene blinks, startled, clearly having never considered this before.

[Varric]

"You mentioned that you were directed to take an apprentice, your first, from on high. Was it Marian specifically?"

[Helene Dakesh]

"No," admits Helene. "But she was the one not already assigned, and after speaking with her, I felt sure she fit the description given to me in my vision."

[Varric]

Varric nods. "About as expected. Gods prefer serendipity over orders for the most part." He glances at Marian, then back to Helene. "One of my favorite catechisms is ''a student who fails to learn a lesson fails their teacher and themself. A teacher who fails to learn from their student has failed Alydra.' Thinking that this might be what Tabby was picked to teach you."

[Helene Dakesh]

Helene takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly. "It is... difficult to admit that... this one has been mistaken in such a nontrivial way. This one's entire life has been serving Alydra, trying to... hammer out the defects this one was born with, and attempting to do what good this one can along the way. In truth, this one has wondered, at times, if this one's delusions are not... are, perhaps, no such thing. But this one.. it is a dangerous quality, being assured that one is correct. It can lead to terrible things. This one has tried to be humble, to listen to experts like Seeker Levi. This one has been told time and time again that this one's delusions are not real, that this one cannot be a trustworthy witness to this one's own internal reality. But... this one often fails to understand what is happening. Perhaps the true delusion was that Seeker Levi was more knowledgeable about this one's truths than this one could be."

[Varric]

"Only ones with all the answers are the Heptad combined. And honestly? Sometimes I doubt even They know everything everything. If only because that would be boring."

[Marian Hawke]

"Why did you go? You seemed fine, we were working on our projects, and then... you just left me."

[Helene Dakesh]

Helene looks down. "This one... this one's primary delu-- contentious observation came up, over and over, in our project. This one loves learning about mortals, loves trying to understand how mortals function on a psychological and sociological level. But this one... there are certain subjects that this one finds... difficult to grasp. Your research on a potential connection between dwarven family units and the drow was.. difficult for this one."

[Marian Hawke]

"Because of the slavery? I know I wasn't going to end up publishing that part -- the similarities between slavery and the caste structure was a bit of a stretch--"

[Helene Dakesh]

Helene shakes her head. "No. Because of the gender component. This one... This one often feels that... This one is under the delusion that this one is not female. Nor male. This one dislikes being referred to in gendered terms at all."