The Amell Legacy: Transgressions

[Marian Hawke]

"No, sir," she mutters.

[Varric]

"Are Lightsong and I terrible judges of character?"

[Marian Hawke]

Apparently. Since you keep hanging around me.  "No, sir."

[Varric]

"Can I get your actual feelings, as opposed to what you think Evil Uncle Varric wants to hear?"

[Marian Hawke]

"So you can berate me more accurately?" she mutters, unable to hold back. She reddens then, flinching. "Sorry."

[Varric]

"No, that's good! Snark back! Be honest! I don't want to fucking lecture and scold you." He pauses, then shakes his head a little. "Alright, I do, but I realize that doing so will just put your back up and not make much if any impact on you. I would much prefer to have a discussion with you."

[Marian Hawke]

"You don't want the honest truth," she snaps. "You'll just be angrier."

[Varric]

"How would we know, you've never tried."

[Marian Hawke]

"I have tried," she snaps, her voice raising in volume. "Little bits, here and there. It only makes the arguments worse! When I tell the truth about how I feel everyone hates me. When I lie, you're proud of me. So fuck you for demanding the truth from me!"

[Varric]

"None of us hate you, Marian. Pissed off, upset, hurt- sure. That's part of growing up and getting close to people. Learn to handle it. Not just swallow it down or distance yourself from it. Learn to navigate a fight, learn to express your feelings, learn to listen, learn... learn to be upset with someone and have them be upset with you without it taking over everything."

[Marian Hawke]

"Maybe I'm just meant to be alone." She shakes her head in frustration. "Expressing my feelings sounds like the worst decision I could make."

[Varric]

"Why? If you're planning to run away, if you think this can't work, at least give us the peace of knowing that you tried first."

[Marian Hawke]

"You don't want the truth, not really," she says again. "You don't want to know I went up there to jump and I only came down because I found out it wouldn't work, the tree god would stop me. You don't want to know I don't want to be Beth's sister anymore, that I don't know what I'm doing, that I'm lonely and terrified and pissed off, that I'm scared Isabela is my one chance to be with a woman and I don't want to lose that but fuck if I can do anything I want without hurting Beth and she comes first. That I'll never be the person Haliel sees when she looks at me, that I'll never be the person you think I am. That I'm bad. That I don't know how to be anything but the bastard, that I don't have any goals or plans or anything for my life except surviving to the next day and half the time I don't even want to do that. That Roland asked if I wanted to live or die and I didn't have an answer because I don't want to keep living like this, but I can't figure out how to get anything better than what I've got. That I lie all the time because I don't even know what the truth is anymore! That I have nightmares most nights, I barely sleep anymore, but I don't dare ask for a tonic because you'll know and you'll demand I talk about it, like that fixes anything, like I want to think about any of it more than I have to. Is that what you want to hear?! Are you happy now? Going to give me a big lecture about how I can solve all my problems with talking and friendship and trust and honesty as if that wasn't the exact attitude that caused all this shit?!"

[Varric]

The dwarf flinches, more than once, as she rants. Huh. Never expected to find someone I hate more than Bartrand (weirdly glad though). Damn shame he's too dead to kill (...we could- no, bad brain). "No," Varric says softly when she finally runs out of breath. "Talking won't fix all that. Helps, but it can't just... fix it. You have to do that, for yourself. We can help, but you have to decide to get better. But Gods below Marian, please let us help. You aren't what that- that twisted, slag-shitting ruststain convinced you to think you are. They, Leandra and Gamlan or whatever- they were the ones that were trash. They gave up something precious then they cast you out."

[Marian Hawke]

"Precious," says Marian, bitterly. "I've never been precious. Why can't you see that? Why can't you just..."

Surprising even herself, she breaks down into sobs then, wiping at her eyes furiously.