Chapter Text
The baby was barely able to hold her head up when the Blight started. Marian fled Lothering along with her mother, brother, sister, and her infant daughter Cecily, who was strapped to her back next to her staff. When they ran into darkspawn, Marian tried to keep them in front of her at all times and stay as far away from the combat as possible. She felt guilty about making her brother and sister do most of the fighting, but she reminded herself that they had a chance of protecting themselves. Cecily was depending on her. Marian healed her siblings as needed and tried to attack occasionally, when she thought she could get away with it without drawing the attention of the darkspawn.
Of course they met a Templar on the road. It didn't go as badly as it could have. Marian noticed that she was instinctively keeping her shoulders square and facing him at all times, instead of turning to the side to present a smaller target like she normally would when she felt threatened. She had a comment ready about how she was too exhausted from staying up all night and caring for a baby to summon demons or whatever he thought they were going to do, but that seemed like it might make things worse.
Marian was so intent on making sure Cecily was okay that she almost didn't see Bethany being crushed by the ogre. It wasn't until she tried to heal her that she realized she was dead. Marian forced herself to breathe evenly and not cry, but her chest still felt heavy. She focused on comforting her mother. Cecily slept through the whole ordeal.
They took a ship to Kirkwall. The baby spent most of the trip screaming and nothing Marian did seemed to calm her down. Carver didn't help the situation by grumbling about how they weren't supposed to be drawing attention to themselves.
The Hawkes and Aveline finally reached Kirkwall, only to find out that they couldn't get into the city. Cecily spontaneously started crying again, which echoed how Marian felt. They had to spend three days in the Gallows, surrounded by Templars. They weren't the only refugee family with children, but Cecily was by far the youngest. After spending all of her life trying to be as invisible as possible, Marian felt very conspicuous with a baby strapped to her back. It turned out to actually be beneficial. She attracted a lot of attention, but most of it was from sympathetic people who cooed over her daughter. Apparently an exhausted and dirty young mother didn't fit the stereotype of a dangerous apostate.
Finally, her uncle Gamlen said that he had found people willing to pay for the family to enter the city, but Carver and Marian would have to work for them for a year. Marian looked at her clothes, which were stained with breast milk and spit-up and baby poop. She didn't want to think about how she smelled. “You really expect me to get a job like this?” she asked.
“I already told you, everything's been taken care of,” Gamlen said in an exasperated voice. “All you have to do is meet with them.”
Somehow, Athenril agreed to talk with Marian even after seeing her. Smuggling sounded like it would be slightly less dangerous than mercenary work, so she and Carver signed on with her.
She hadn't been sure what to expect about the job. The work itself wasn't so bad if she didn't think too much about what she was doing, and Athenril apparently had enough power to keep the Templars from noticing her. The biggest problem was that the hours were very inconsistent and she didn't always know how long jobs would take. When she was gone for more than a few hours, her breasts would get painfully swollen and start leaking. She only did the minimum that was required of her, rushing back to Gamlen's house in between jobs to feed Cecily. Carver occasionally volunteered to do extra tasks, but Marian always refused. She knew that she should be focused on making a good impression and networking so that she could find work after the year was up, but it wasn't fair to expect her own mother to spend more time taking care of the baby than she already was. Athenril was obviously unhappy, but she couldn't complain too much because apostates were valuable and Marian was still one of her most skilled workers.
Marian lost count of the number of nights she spent pacing back and forth outside the house with Cecily (frequently with Cecily screaming and Marian quietly sobbing) because Gamlen complained too much if he was woken up at night. When the baby started teething, Marian made her hand icy and let her gnaw on it to soothe the pain in her gums. She spent her days trying to stay awake for jobs that required fast thinking and even faster reflexes, despite never getting a full night of sleep. Her magic made her important to Athenril, but she had to be careful about using mana wisely because she was pretty sure that any lyrium potions she drank would end up in her breast milk and made Cecily addicted, if the lyrium didn't outright poison her.
When Gamlen thought Marian wasn't listening, he complained to Leandra that it wasn't fair for her to have to babysit so often because Marian should be the one raising her own daughter. Leandra usually defended her by pointing out that Gamlen had been the reason why she had a year of indentured servitude, but the conversation always came back to the fact that Marian had been stupid enough to sleep with someone who didn't stick around to take care of his child. The word “slut” was used more than once.
It was better once Cecily was sleeping through the night, except when Marian had jobs to do overnight. It was also easier when Cecily was old enough to start eating table food. Marian still had to nurse her when she was home, but she could spend more time away without worrying that Cecily was starving. Carver went out drinking sometimes and hung out with other people from the smuggling group, but any time that Marian wasn't working was spent with her daughter. Despite this, she was gone the first time Cecily sat up on her own, and when she took her first steps.