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[athenril-of-kirkwall]

Quiddity: the essence or inherent nature of a person or thing / an eccentricity; an odd feature / a trifle; a nicety or quibble. For f!Hawke/Merrill!

f!Hawke/Merrill, “That Thing About You” (AO3)

“The Dread Wolf take you!”, Merrill screamed, slicing her hand and powering a deadly spell.

An unsuspecting slaver at first felt a brief discomfort, then an excruciating, bone-rending pain as his own insides came under her thrall, twisting and turning beyond human tolerance before he collapsed dead on the floor, blood streaming from his eyes and ears, and a few other orifices besides.

Moments later, the detached head, shoulder and arm of his henchman hit the floor next to him, followed by the rest of his body, the two halves having been cleaved apart from each other by Fenris’ greatsword.

“That should it for now,” he wryly commented, continuing, “and the world’s no poorer with them out of it. Tevinters, you noticed?”

Abigail Hawke looked over the corpses, noting their clothes and weapons. “Without a doubt. Either hunting escaped ones or looking for new ones down in these parts. You think they’ve got any connection to…”

Fenris shook his head. “I doubt it. These seem like men of lower ranks—just peons of bosses far away. Still, they’re reasonably well-equipped, and even managed to hire a couple of blood mages. I suppose we’ve done the world a favour here, even without these mages’ employers here to join them.”

Hawke raised her eyebrow pointedly as Merrill looked off to the side.

Rolling his eyes, Fenris clarified, “Slavers, Tevinters, whichever of the two. Do I have to say, ‘present company excluded’ every time?”

“I guess not,” Hawke said, “but the least you could do is not go out of your way to disparage your present company.”

Heaving a deep sigh, Fenris said, “I don’t we’re going to get anywhere with this. I’ll go scout ahead and see if they’ve any stragglers.”

With that, he was gone, Merrill coming over to Hawke’s side as she began her ritual of rifling through the pockets of everyone they’d just killed to see if there was anything worth pawning off once they got back to Kirkwall.

“You know, you don’t have to rise to meet it every time he tries to goad me,” Merrill said, crouching by Hawke as Abigail fished out a few silver coins from the bifurcated slaver’s purse.

Abigail asked, shoving the coins into her own pocket, “And what would you have me do? Stand there and let him vaguely, or not-so-vaguely murmur about mages and blood magic and all that while you’re in his presence? The least I can do for you is to tell him to shut up, at least for a while.”

“And what do you think?”, Merrill asked, standing up to look over at the slaver she’d eviscerated with her blood magic.

“Of what?”, Hawke asked innocently.

“You know what I’m talking about,” Merrill said, pressing on, “Are you worried about my blood magic, Hawke?”

Standing up to face her, Abigail said, “You know that I trust you—”

“That wasn’t the question I was asking, Hawke,” Merrill insisted, saying, “I…need to know. You can be honest with me.”

“If we’re being perfectly honest?”, Hawke asked. “I’m as worried about it as anything I don’t really understand and which can blow up in my face. But the same goes for Fenris’ glowing fist thing or Bianca whenever Varric’s testing the hair-trigger mechanism. So no, it doesn’t worry me any more than anything we encounter on a daily basis, Merrill.”

Taking a few moments to settle her thoughts, Merrill said, “Thank you, Hawke. I know it doesn’t make me the easiest person to—”

Hawke swept her hands in front of her dismissively. “That’s the part where you’re wrong.”

“What do you mean?”, Merrill asked.

“If I’d run into a random stranger wielding blood magic I’d be worried, or on my guard if they were a Tevinter like our late friends here. But I know you wouldn’t do anything to harm me, or any of our companions, or even Fenris at his worst.”

“I…thank you,” Merrill said, adding, “That means so much to me.”

“As I said,” Hawke explained as she took Merrill’s hands in hers, “It’s really the least I can do, Merrill.”

Fenris walked in, covered in fresh blood.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he said, “but there was one left. He’s been, ah, dealt with.”

“Ah, right,” Hawke said, letting go of her lover’s hands. “Thanks, Fenris.”

“And…” Fenris said, catching his breath first. “Thank you, Merrill. I do appreciate you taking out the enemies I can’t reach with my ‘glowing fist thing’.”

“Oh!”, she said, surprised. “You’re very welcome, Fenris. And I value your, uh, glowing fist thing when you deploy it. That…doesn’t sound all that right.”

“Let’s be honest, Isabela’s driven all our minds into the gutter,” Abigail said. “Come on, let’s turn in these miscreants for our reward.”

Merrill led the way out of the mine, with Hawke and Fenris following behind.

“So,” Hawke asked, “how much of that did you hear?”

“Enough,” Fenris said. “You’re very good to her.”

Hawke turned to him, asking, “But…?”

“No buts about it. You’re not about to change my opinion of blood magic in a single afternoon, Hawke, but if you trust her, I won’t argue.”

“That’s awfully kind of you, Fenris,” Hawke said, “Still, you’re wrong about one thing.”

“What is that?”, Fenris asked.

“There was a ‘but’ in there after all,” Abigail explained, chuckling slightly at the end. “A ‘but’ in there…Maker, we’ve all been spending too much time around Isabela.”

“The opposite of ‘no butts about it’ wholly applies there,” he commented wryly, following Hawke and Merrill where they led.

-

@dadrunkwriting