Work Text:
Everything hurt. She tossed and turned on her bed, pulling the limp sweat-soaked pillows further under her head in a futile effort to find a more comfortable position. Her eyes tracked over the crooked wooden beams overhead, old scaffolding from the time the alienage had been a mine tunnel, now falling further and further into disrepair. She tried to imagine that the wooden beams were tree boughs creaking and swaying in the wind, or the arched roof of an aravel rumbling and shaking over uneven ground; it must have been working, because the beams did seem to dip and waver overhead...
Creators. There was no wind here, no air found its way through the maze of caverns and canyons that was Lowtown. She wasn't well -- she wasn't well at all.
The thought stuck out with sudden clarity, and she tried to hold onto it among the fugue, holding it and worrying it like a wolf with a rabbit. But no matter how she turned that truth over and around in her mind, she couldn't seem to do anything with it, find purpose or direction in the thought.
She had to... she needed to...
The scaffolding loomed overhead, beams interspersed with jagged shards of metal poking out of the stone. Stone walls, stone overhead, stone underfoot, twisted jagged metal underfoot, a sharp pain that turned into an ugly, dark throbbing up from her heel. Pain growing up her leg, dark red vines of pain that wound their way like ivy up her calf, hitched around the bend of her leg and sent long feelers in her thigh.
She wondered what would happen when it bloomed; what color would they be, the flowers of pain? Would they mature into fruits of blood, with poisoned seeds? What kind of insects would come to feed on them, she wondered...
She didn't feel well. The room seemed to expand around her, then shrink, as she stared up at the ceiling and wondered what she was going to do. It hovered above her head, ominous and threatening, like it would leap down and bash her back if she tried to get up. But she had to. Didn't she? She had to get up, to go out, to find help, to find...
But she was so tired, and everything hurt.
"Hello? I'm coming in," a familiar voice said, floating through the haze. She barely recognized the voice as Anila, one of her downstairs neighbors in the tenement; she did laundry for households in Lowtown. They'd talked a few times in passing -- Merrill sometimes summoned clean water or lit fires for her neighbors, and they sometimes brought her food or scraps in exchange.
"Through here, Serah," the voice said again, closer this time. For a moment fear shot through her, forking through the pain like a bolt of lightning through roiling clouds: wasn't Serah what they said to their templars? Or... or was that 'ser,' she was never really sure of the difference. Or maybe 'ser' was for knights, and 'serah' was for Templars? Or the other way around? What was 'ser' short for if not for 'serah'? Sometimes she thought she'd never understand...
But the face that loomed over her, wavering in her vision, was one she knew: Anders. For a moment relief surged through her body so strongly that tears began to leak from her eyes, but it was followed almost as quickly by a rush of anxious mortification. Anders was her friend, but... but he didn't think so, or maybe he thought that she was his friend but he wasn't hers . Or was it the other way around? He constantly hounded her, scolding her about her blood magic and a dozen other things, and she just didn't think she could deal with that right now.
As much as she cringed at the thought of one of his blistering lectures right now, relief was still the prominent emotion she felt in her fugue. She wasn't well, she knew she wasn't, but she didn't think she could get up, let along go halfway across Kirkwall to get some help. Now that Anders was here, she didn't have to. Anders was a healer, Anders was her friend. He'd help her. Wouldn't he?
"Aa-anders..." she said, and the voice came out a croak. Creators, was that really her? She sounded like some marshland toad, the kind that yelled all night to declare their territory to others.
He didn't answer her right away; his face was set, mouth in a grim line and eyes sharply focused. She smelled elfroot, ink and rot, and a sharp smell like wine gone sour. His hands were cool as they rested on her forehead, then moved down to press around her neck, two fingers resting on the side of her throat to feel her heartbeat. At least his hands smelled clean.
"...didn't answer the door this morning, either," Anila was saying from somewhere distant, "and we knew something must be wrong. I peeked in, just a crack, but enough to see that she was in bed and in a bad way, and we thought something had to be done. We thought of finding the Champion maybe, but he wasn't to be found, and..."
"Thank you, Anila," Anders interrupted her; how did he know her? He never came to the alienage unless it was with Hawke, out on some new adventure. "You did the right thing. I'll take over here now. Can you get some water boiling?"
He waited until the footsteps retreated before a burst of blue light came from his hands, settling in at her forehead and neck. The cool glow of it seemed to sweep her from head to toe and it lingered, just on the border of being uncomfortable, seeming to move and twist within her. Her own magic stirred uneasily, not sure whether it wanted to join the unfamiliar magic or fight against it, but -- perhaps fortunately -- she was too weak to do either.
When at last he withdrew his hands, sighing a deep breath as he did, the haze had retreated a little, enough that she could open her eyes fully. "Lethallin?" she said, and her voice still sounded feeble to her own ears, but not such a deathly croak. She struggled to sit up on the pillows, at least enough to get a better look at him. "What... are you doing here? How -- how did you know Anila?"
He sat back in the chair -- one of her chairs, he must have dragged it to her bedside -- and gave her a small smile. "The alienage elves come to me for healing sometimes," he told her. "Not as often as the Darktown folk -- they don't trust humans, mostly. But in a really dire emergency, some of them figure that any chance is better than none, so I get them in once or twice a month."
"Oh," she said, still feeling a little lost. At sea, Isabela would say, but it wouldn't be a bad thing when Isabela said it, because she loved the sea. "I'm sorry they bothered you."
"I'm glad they did. You're very sick. I've taken the edge off, but we've got a long way to go," Anders said, and the all-too-familiar scolding tone was back. "This infection has been festering for days! If you couldn't heal it yourself, you should have come to me earlier. Why didn't you?!"
Merrill felt a rush of hurt and shame flood through her, and this time she couldn't stop the tears pricking in her eyes from leaking out. "Well, I'm sorry!" she choked out. "But all you ever do is yell at me. I'm sorry that I felt awful enough that I didn't want to have to listen to you yell at me on top of it!"
Anders looked taken aback, and then he dropped his eyes as a hint of shame crept across them. "I see," he said quietly.
He got up, and came back a moment later with a square of linen, which he pressed into her hands. Sniffling, Merrill used it to wipe her eyes, then wipe futilely at her nose. Anders waited until she'd gotten her tears somewhat under control before he spoke again. "I didn't realize," he said. "If I'd known things between us have gotten bad enough that you wouldn't even come to me for healing --"
Anders stood up, then paced restlessly back and forth across her floor for a few moments. Abruptly, he turned back to her, arms folded. "Listen. I don't approve of your lifestyle and I don't like your choices," he said. "And I don't intend to lie or conceal how I feel around you --"
Merrill moaned. "Was it really necessary to come into my house for this?"
Anders ignored her. "But , you are still my ally, Hawke's ally, and my friend. I'll help you however I can. And right now you're also my patient, so I'll do everything I can to make you feel better. That means that as long as you're sick, I won't say a word about blood magic or anything else."
"All right," Merrill said, too surprised to do anything else. "Anders? What's wrong with me? Will I... am I going to be okay?"
"You'll be fine now, with proper healing," Anders said, more briskly now that he was back on a subject he understood. "As for what's wrong with you, it seems to be some form of poisoning in the blood. I'll need to do a full exam to find out where it's coming from and eliminate the source, but first I want to get some food and potions into you, and get you cleaned up and comfortable. You'll need all your strength for the healing."
The clarity that she'd had briefly was slipping away again; Anders' words seemed to slide by like fogbanks in the morning, but she caught the word 'food.' She began to struggle weakly out from under the covers. "Food -- yes, I think I have some food," she stammered. "I'll just -- get some water boiling and start --"
" Merrill. " The word was spoken with fond exasperation, and a moment later Anders was standing over her, pressing her back into her bed. "The point of the food is to help you get stronger. It defeats the purpose if you exhaust yourself trying to play host."
Merrill sank back down on the bed, blinking up at Anders with wide eyes. He gave her a smile, another brief pulse of healing magic, and then stood back. "Just rest. I'll be back soon," he said.
As directed, Merrill rested, drifting in a troubled feverish haze as Anders moved quietly about her apartment. She heard shuffling and clanking, pouring water and then the familiar whistle of her kettle; she smelled steam and herbs and something savory and delicious. It helped drive away some of the musty-sick smell she hadn't even realize had gathered about her apartment, shutting out the air.
Anila returned sometime in the interim, carrying a pile of fabrics that smelled of soap and sunlight. She helped Merrill change out of her sweat-soaked nightclothes into a clean, worn-out tunic that came down to her knees, even changed the sheets on the bed before tucking her back into it. Anders appeared back in the doorway once she'd finished, two mugs in one hand and a steaming bowl in the other; he exchanged a few words in low tones with Anila before raising his voice in thanks.
Anila left, and Anders sat back down, placing all three dishes on the stand by her bed. "Right," he said. "I've got a potion I'd like you to drink and then some broth. I want you to drink the potion first, so that it will take effect quicker, but it won't taste very nice, I'm afraid."
"That's fine," Merrill said. She craned her neck a little as Anders rearranged her pillows, piling them behind her back so she could sit up. "What's in it?"
"Not important," he soothed her as he raised the cup to her lips. "Healing herbs."
"You know, I'm Dalish. I probably know more herbology than you do," Merrill complained, but the rim of the cup bumped her lips and she obediently drank. She immediately recognized elfroot, spindleweed and meadowsweet, as well as something that was either vanilla gone badly wrong or something else she didn't know. The overall cocktail was both bitter and cloying, and she had to suppress a shudder as she forced herself to drink it down.
Anders held the mug until the dose was all gone, then replaced it with another filled with plain water. Conjured water, if she had to guess, catching a faint but familiar tang. Once she'd drained about half of that, he switched to the broth, handing her a spoon and holding the bowl steady while she shakily spooned it up. It was just plain broth, savory and creamy with added milk, but it filled her stomach and settled her shivering nerves. "I had no idea you could cook," she said.
"I can't, really," Anders admitted. "Not what you'd call regular food -- casseroles and roasts and all that. I learned how to prepare broth and gruel and other infirmary foods as part of my nursing training, but it's not really something that translates to cookfire duty."
"Oh," Merrill said. She finished the last of the broth, Anders setting the bowl aside with the others, and rested back against the pillows. Creators, even just eating a small meal had exhausted her; how could she eat to regain her strength when it took all her strength just to eat...?
"Now," Anders said briskly. "I need to examine you more thoroughly to find the source of the problem so I can heal it. Is that all right?" He stopped and cocked an eyebrow at Merrill, waiting for her permission; faintly, she managed to nod.
He moved the sheets back and stooped over her, his face intent, his golden eyes searching. She could feel the crackle of his magic, this close, and wasn't sure if she was sensing the magic he used to examine her or just his spirit, hidden inside.
Anders proceeded to examine her, gently but clinically, from head to foot. He turned her head so that the light shone into her eyes, held two fingers to her throat, and rested a hand on the top of her chest to feel her breathing. He pressed gently against her stomach and gut, ran a hand along the outside of her leg to her foot... and frowned as she involuntarily flinched in his grasp, trying to pull her foot away as pain bloomed and burgeoned.
He slid the stool down to the end of the bed and pulled her legs straight, picking up one foot at the ankle to examine it closely. His gaze sharpened with worry at whatever he saw, and Merrill wasn't able to suppress a whimper at the agony that throbbed up her leg from even the lightest of touches. "Merrill, did you hurt your foot recently?" he asked.
"Um... maybe?" It was so hard to think past the pain, to push her mind out of the haze and try to cast it back over the past few days. "Oh. Yes. When I was coming back from the Hanged Man on the night of the last new, and I got a little lost. I think I might have stepped on something?"
"I'd say you definitely stepped on something," Anders said, his mouth set and his face grim. "Why didn't you heal it?"
"I tried!" Merrill said defensively. "But you can't use blood magic on your own blood... you can't affect the source with itself. It's the one thing you can't do. I would have had to use someone else's blood."
"...I meant heal it with normal creationism, not with blood magic ," Anders said after a beat. "But all right. So, why didn't you?"
"I don't use other people's blood," Merrill said, offended by the question.
Anders pursed his lips. "Even if it meant you could --"
"I won't!" Merrill snapped, her temper flaring.
The words hung in the air between them, seething, before Anders cleared his throat. "I can't really say I object to that," he said, "and I promised I wouldn't say anything else about it. So. This is something I've seen before, usually from the Darktown children, when they run around barefoot or trip and fall while playing. Although one would think grown adults would have the sense to wear shoes when they ran around in festering trashpiles --"
Merrill frowned stormily at him, and Anders sighed. "Never mind," he said. "Anyway, the kids step on a nail or some other piece of scrap metal, and it goes in deep, deeper than most people can reach when just washing with soap and water. The poison festers and spreads to the blood, and it can get very ugly... But I've treated it successfully before. You'll be fine."
The last was delivered just a little bit too quickly, too obviously meant to reassure. Tears pricked in her eyes despite his attempt at soothing her; even if he wasn't saying it aloud, she knew he thought this was her own fault. But it wasn't her fault that Kirkwall was so dirty, so full of disease. Everything in this city was filthy, and sick, and poisoned, and no matter how hard she tried to keep out of it she was stuck here, down here in the muck and the filth and --
"I'm going to heal it now," Anders advised her. "This might be a little painful, but you'll feel better after."
"Okay," Merrill choked, trying to keep her voice even. Anders spared a hand to pat her knee comfortingly, then took a firm grip and began to heal.
He was right; it did hurt, his magic burning through her blood as it found the infection and cauterized it; she felt like she was holding a hot coal under her skin, and she bit her lip on a whimper as she tried not to shove him away. Her own blood coiled uneasily, misliking the touch of another's magic, surging and seething as it fought to come to her own defense --
"Don't fight me, Merrill," she heard Anders' voice say, and although it was a command he still sounded so gentle. "Let me in. Let me help. I swear that's all I want to do, is to help."
A soothing blue mist followed in the wake of the dull burning pain, washing away the pain; it felt like stepping into a mountain stream, sluicing away a wyvern's venom. It was bright and cool and invigorating and it seemed to sap all the last of her energy, drawing on her reserves to push her body to heal itself.
"All done," Anders said, and lifted his hands from her ankle. The last of his magic dispersed with a flash and spark of blue, and Merrill fell back on the bed, limp and drained and utterly exhausted. Her head felt clear again, lucid for the first time in days, but her muscles were weak as dishrags, and she'd sweated through her bedclothes again.
"I'll make another rejuvenating potion for you before I go." Anders stood up from the bedside; his motions were slow and dragging, his eyes exhausted, but his voice was firm and reassuring and there was no hesitation in his expression. "And some more of the broth, for you to eat when you're ready. Rest as much as you can, and when you do get up, take it slow; you don't have any reserves right now. Listen to what your body tells you, and don't overdo it, but get some sunlight and fresh air if you can..."
His litany of instructions tailed off as Merrill unexpectedly began to cry. It surprised her as much as it did him; her next breath turned into a sob and tears began to well in her eyes. She wasn't even sure why she was crying, except that she was so, so tired, and Anders was being so kind.
Without another word he sat back at the edge of her bed, and after a moment's hesitation, reached out to wrap his arm around her shoulders. She turned into his chest, fingers curling into the coarse grey shirt under his jacket, and she couldn't stop sobbing.
Everything was just too much, too overwhelming, and she didn't have the strength to face it. Sometimes it seemed like everything in the human world was trying to take her down, to hurt her or poison her or belittle her and it felt like years since she'd seen the sky, since she'd heard the evening song of the woods or tasted fresh water from a real spring.
Andruil's grace, but she missed it so much, the forests of Ferelden that her old clan had traveled, where the trees grew tall and strong instead of the stunted, twisted things on the Wounded Coast, where the soil was rich and alive and the wind blew from the cool sip water to the quiet breath of leaves to bring you air that was so, so alive.
"I don't know why I'm crying," she blurted out, her voice shaking, and then a breath later, "I hate it here. I want to go home, I just want to go home..."
Anders didn't say anything. He didn't tell her that she was free to go back to Sundermount at any time to rejoin Marethari and the others; he didn't tell her that it was her own fault she was stuck here, her own choice to give up the only life she'd ever known in pursuit of a relic that she'd probably never fix for a people who'd never thank her. He didn't tell her it was going to be all right, or that she had people here who cared for her, or he'd be there for her no matter what. He said nothing at all, and just held her.
At length the crying jag passed, a squall that passed as quickly as it had blown in, and Anders provided her with another linen handkerchief. "As I was saying, your body has no reserves right now," he said, neither his voice nor his expression giving any hint of what he was thinking or feeling about her outburst. "I'll ask Anila to stop by later tonight and tomorrow to check on you, and bring you food if she has it to spare; I'll come again tomorrow to check on your progress."
He got up and started moving around her apartment, gathering all the supplies he'd brought with him and packing them away into his satchel.
"Anders?" Merrill said, voice a little scratchy and uncertain. He looked over at her questioningly. "Thank you... for helping me."
"I'm a healer," he reminded her. "This is what I do. I'm just glad I got to you in time."
"Me too," she said, and he nodded and continued packing his things.
The floor creaked under his boots as he went to the door, and Merrill realized with a start that it was nearly night outside; he'd spent most of the day in here with her, healing her.
"Lethallin," Merrill called out, then stopped. Unsure what to say, unsure if he would take offense.
Anders had stopped, too, standing by the door with his hand on the latch, looking at her with an eyebrow raised in expectation. He'd promised not to yell at her today, so what better time to ask? She bit her lip and pushed on. "You know, you can be so nice sometimes. When you just try. Why can't you be this nice all the time?"
He turned back towards the door, but didn't lift the latch. Several long heartbeats went by before he heaved a silent sigh; and, still facing away from her, he said:
"Because I got tired of asking nicely for the right to exist."
He lifted the latch; the hinges rattled as the door swung open. He stepped over the threshold, leaving behind the kind healer he'd been in her house. Whatever flowers he'd once had were withered and scattered, and the fruits that remained were bitter, bitter. "You'll get there too," he called over his shoulder, as he closed the door behind him, "in the end."
El'garnan . Merrill huddled back down into her bedclothes, and hoped he was wrong.
~end.