The Amell Legacy: Transgressions

[Varric]

"But it did happen. It did hurt you. Reality doesn't care if you try and ignore a broken leg. Still broken." Barring some really weird magic anyway.

[Marian Hawke]

"But it's done. There's nothing to do about it."

[Varric]

"Sure there is. Good clean the wound out. Dress it and... Whatever. It clearly still bothers you."

[Marian Hawke]

"How? It's not a wound. I can't just... I can't just.."

She shudders, swallowing hard.

[Varric]

"You need to admit it happened. You need to face it and break the hold it has on you. Otherwise it'll keep coming up when you have your back turned. Never leave a viable enemy behind you, even a memory."

[Marian Hawke]

"It... it was nothing. I just.... I just had to pay for lodgings. That's all," she whispers. 

[Varric]

"Doesn't make it right for him to ask that of you. To demand it." He frowns, then asks softly, "if Shiny demanded sex from Beth or Carol to stay in her room, would that just be paying for lodgings?"

[Marian Hawke]

"He's scum," she agrees. "But I agreed to his price. I... I knew what he was after, but I haggled him down to something I could pay."

[Varric]

Have to admit, I have no idea why you thought getting shelter from him was even necessary but... "Agreeing to a bad thing in order to avoid a worse thing still doesn't mean it's okay."

[Marian Hawke]

"I agreed. It's not at all like what happened to Beth."

[Varric]

"Can't really say, as I don't know the details of either. But nothing is every the same as another thing. Doesn't mean they can't be similar. Doesn't mean they both are bad. What Bethany went through might have been worse. So what? Doesn't mean your pain doesn't matter."

[Marian Hawke]

"He hit her," she says in a low tone. "At least twice, hard. Choked her. Tried to force his way in, but she stopped him. Entirely a different story."

[Varric]

"He threatened you, got you bare. You thought you were alone and helpless, she went into that expecting him to come after her and expecting to stop him." Not a bright plan but there we are. "He might have used threatens and setting instead of outright blows, but that little thug forced you just the same."

[Marian Hawke]

She swallows, hard. "I thought I was clever, too. Finding some place nobody'd think to look for me. But he said I either had to join up for real or trade favors. I talked him down, I paid him, I thought I was square, could look for another place in the morning. But he came back. Said the rent went up," she adds, in a shamed whisper. 

[Varric]

"That's rape, Marian," he says softly. "You could maybe call the first a trade, body labour for use of property, though the predatory nature makes it fall shy of silver ethics, much less gold or platinum. But that second? Rape, plain and simple." Varric hesitates, then slips out of his chair to approach her. Doesn't touch her, can't find the nerve for that yet. "That's to his dishonor, not yours."