VI. [Video]

[leaporfall]

[The scene the camera turns on to is dingy, wooden-walled with packed earth floors gone muddy with oozing fluids of indeterminate origin. Marian, face set and grim, rises from where she'd been crouched by a mouldering skeleton in old, patched armour. A shadow shifts across the frame, cast by someone not quite visible at that angle. Marian wheels

Comments

| Video |

[doesnotbrood]

Marian... [Her mother, bloody, pale as death....]

This is a memory? I'm so sorry...

| Video |

[leaporfall]

[It is the last bit that registers, and she sucks in a sharp breath as though slapped, head snapping up.]

Don't. She's not - there has to be something we can do.

[Her expression as her attention returns to Leandra is closer to desperate than determined; those milky eyes leave little room for misinterpretation, but Hawke wouldn't be Hawke if she gave up.]

Don't move, Mother. We'll find a way to...

Shh. Don't fret, darling.

| Video |

[doesnotbrood]

What magic is this? [He clenches a jaw.]

Marian. True or no, this isn't happening. You must hear me.

| Video |

[leaporfall]

I - I didn't have time to read his notes. I thought we'd... [Her voice hitches.] We'd get here in time.

Mother, I'm sorry.

| Video |

[doesnotbrood]

[He doesn't know how to comfort her.]

Marian, I cannot know how painful this is for you, but you must not let it rule you. Remember our situation.

| Video |

[leaporfall]

[Their situation? Surrounded by the remnants of a mad blood mage's experiments - surely the others could watch for threats for a little while?

But his words and Aveline's both chip at that certainty.]

What do you mean?

| Video |

[doesnotbrood]

The Underworld. We are trapped. You must remember. For your sake.

| Video |

[leaporfall]

That sounds - familiar. [Like a dream she'd had. She just can't quite grasp hold of it.]

| Video |

[doesnotbrood]

It is fact, Marian.