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dragon age twitter au? dragon age twitter au. HAWKE EDITION
#my post#dragon age#dragon age twt#twitter#meme#da2#hawke#garrett hawke#marian hawke#fenhawke#fenris#varric tethras#varric x hawke#varhawke#aveline vallen#funny#isabela#carver hawke#bethany hawke
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modern au: stunt actor hawke, theater actress bethany, disgraced former silver screen star leandra amell, and carver who doesn't know what he wants to be but MAKER does he not want to be in the acting industry, wash up in kirkwall, grime-glitter city of sleaze and stardom
and are picked up by rising screenwriter varric tethras for his newest and most ambitious project yet
#dragon age 2#hawke#lazarina hawke#Bethany hawke#carver hawke#leandra amell#varric tethras#obviously it ends up#hawke x varric#because when have i not#i think hawke is an excellent stunt actor maybe even for bethy#carver ends up in the secret service protecting the king of ferelden or something.
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“Bianca’s getting married.”
“Oh, I’m very happy for her. Is it to a charming Honda Civic? Or is that too young for her?”
Her joke didn’t land well. He sighed heavily. “The real Bianca."
Eden Hawke and Varric Tethras have been friends for 7 years. Their bond is unbreakable, which is why when Varric asks Eden to be his fake date to his on-again/off-again ex girlfriend Bianca's wedding, she agrees immediately. The two of them embark on the road trip of a lifetime, one they will never forget. ♫
Beginning | Last Chapter | Final Chapter
#dragon age#dragon age 2#da#da2#hawke x varric#varric x hawke#vhawke#varric tethras#hawke#fic#fanfic#fanfiction#quill's writing#anders#fenris#merrill#sebastian vael#carver hawke#bethany hawke#cullen rutherford#krem aclassi
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Just now starting my Rook planning. I know the timing doesn't work out, okay, but they're Varrichawke's twin kids (twins run in the family!) and they have so many bethany/carver/marian and varric/bartrand sibling dynamic parallels that it is already killing me
#dragon age#dragon age veilguard#dragon age the veilguard#da4#datv#dav#varric tethras#marian hawke#hawke#carver hawke#bethany hawke#character creation#purple hawke#purple rook#varric x hawke#varrichawke#hawke x varric
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Hidden beneath Bethany’s leggings was a flash of cream colored cotton that made Varric’s chest go strangely tight. His eyebrows went up as her leggings went down, baring a pair of thigh high stockings. He stared. They were soft to the touch, the cotton clearly of a higher quality than he usually saw her wear, which meant that they had been specifically saved up for. He didn’t have to look up at Bethany to know what expression she would be wearing on her face, and in a way he was more than a little uncertain about doing so.
He stared.
Threaded through the cuff of the stocking was a silk ribbon. It was thin, and worn to the point that it was hard to tell if it had originally been black or green, but the rasp of it against his calloused palms sent shivers up his spine.
The garter belt it was attached to, however, was much newer.
If he hadn’t already been kneeling, that may well have brought him to his knees. Varric didn’t say a word. Couldn’t. His tongue felt too thick and clumsy for something that felt so delicate, as liable to come apart in his rough hands as an old bit of silk. He felt Bethany go still where she sat, and Varric had to pause again, eyes falling shut against the words clamoring to be said.
His silence was full to bursting as Bethany bent to press her lips to his forehead, her curls tumbling down to curtain his face. They hid her expression just as effectively as they did his own, which was perhaps the point. “Do you like them?” If the room hadn’t been so still, he would have had to strain to hear her. As it was, the only thing he heard more clearly was the thundering beat of his own heart.
“Sunshine,” he said in a tone just as hushed, just as careful, “Bethany. If I liked these any more, I would have dropped dead on the spot.”
She made a soft noise that might have been a laugh, and wrapped her arms around him. She didn’t care about her state of undress anymore, or if she did, she had set aside that particular bit of self-consciousness in her relief. For his part, Varric was certainly well aware of it. Actually found it easier to touch her in some ways when all he could see was her face, especially when his hands swept across the raised, puckered burn scars that spattered the front of her thighs.
They were small things, no larger than a droplet, but almost a dozen of them were scattered across her skin like someone had been shaking rainwater off of their hands. According to Bethany, that was almost exactly what had happened, except that it hadn’t been water she had been practicing summoning with her father that day.
“Bethany.” He kept his eyes trained on hers as he bent his head and pressed his lips to each one. “Every one of these is more than reason enough to find you…” He paused, and he knew she thought he was going to say ‘beautiful,’ the way everyone did. Instead, he dropped his eyes away and kissed the nearest scar again as if he could kiss away the fear and guilt she had described seeing on her father’s face, that he saw again in hers every time he looked at these scars. But less, every time. He only wished, lips curving in a silent prayer, that she would want him beside her long enough to see the day there would be nothing in her eyes but happiness at seeing him.
#I DON'T REMEMBER WRITING THIS????#except the part about the scars#the rest of it might as well have been written by anybody#bethany x varric#varric tethras#Bethany Hawke#Dragon Age
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art folder from 2014 part 3: sebhawke brainrot
^ don’t remember the context but I spent like a day on this and even posted it but nobody noticed :’’’D
^ HP AU. I will not elaborate
bonus: the twins’ days
#dragon age#dragon age 2#sebhawke#hawke x sebastian#sebastian vael#hero of ferelden#female hawke#male warden#zevran arainai#varric tethras#bethany hawke#carver hawke#I think that's it DA-wise so I'll stop for now#I had a good laugh w these thank you past me
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youtube
Dragon Age 2 - The Movie
This is the "Tale of the Champion" who came to Kirkwall as a poor refugee and rose to the rank of the Champion of Kirkwall - losing everything she had on that path.
#dragon age#dragonage2#dragon age 2#marian hawke#femhwake#female hawke#varric tethras#bethany hawke#aveline vallen#isabela#hawke x anders#Youtube
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On International Family Day, we are celebrating the unique bond of 'found family' that is central to the world of Dragon Age.
Family isn't just about blood; it's the people who stand by your side and who you choose to surround yourself with. Our companions stand with us in the face of darkspawn and demons, share in our victories and struggles, and make Thedas feel like home.
Image credits (From Twitter/X unless otherwise specified): Alistair by Eriartdotnet Leliana by Kalaelizabeth Zevran by LarkOneironaut Morrigan by Itsmerhi Oghren by Aristotem Wynne by Geirahod Mabari by MelonaDraws Loghain by _ChevalierLogan Sten by BonkS0undEffect Shale by Elefluff Nathaniel by Hanatsuki89 Justice by Drathe90 Anders by Llysaan Carver by _Eleonorp Bethany by GreenfinchG Aveline by Matchamori Sebastian by Matthewyeez Isabela by Fae Merrill by IAmClarex2 Fenris by Loustica_Lucia Tallis by Kiwi_Pon Cassandra by KharisKreations Varric by Haverdoodles Solas by ElbenherzArt Iron Bull by Tsukioreo Dorian by TrashWarden Josephine by Bbquinn_ Sera by Inquisibrenda Cullen by magicaltia (Insta) Vivienne by LazareGvimradze Cole by Vyrkolach Blackwall by Mogwaei
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so i did this a while back, finally remembered it, and now i'm posting it
Mass Effect x Dragon Age AU
I did one of these already, sort of, for ME: Andromeda, but this one is set in the Milky Way.
Elaborations below:
Merrill is a quarian who was exiled from the Migrant Fleet. She's looking for a way not to destroy the geth, but to bring them back under quarian control, thinking they're too valuable a resource to just get rid of. Unfortunately, this made many quarians view her as dangerous, and she was exiled for the crime of experimental geth research. Making Merrill a quarian was the first choice I did for this AU, I think it fits really well.
Aveline is an asari. I'd considered krogan or turian, or simply keeping her human, but in the end I went with asari mostly because Aveline always struck me as condescending in the same way many asari are, lol. She's a commando who later moved to the Citadel to join C-SEC.
Isabela is a turian. She's a barefaced turian, meaning she has no association to a colony. Instead of following the typical turian tradition of proudly serving in the Hierarchy's military, Isabela instead ran off to become a space pirate, specializing in smuggling. She frequents the bars around Omega and has earned herself a fearsome reputation among the mercenaries.
Bethany remains a human; she grew up on a colony world with her siblings, and had a relatively peaceful childhood, despite the Alliance constantly badgering her parents to send her and her older sister to their biotic training program.
Marian, also a human, eventually ran away from home to become a mercenary. She resented her father for forbidding her and her siblings from joining the Alliance - not because she was particularly patriotic, but she felt like her father's grudge against the Alliance prevented her and her siblings from receiving the best training possible. Her powerful biotics made her both an asset and a target, and she soon caught the eye of a certain Council Spectre...
Fenris is a drell. He was raised under the Compact, an agreement between the drell and the hanar, and his purpose was to become a bodyguard... And then his training group was attacked by batarian slavers and he was taken captive. For many years, Fenris suffered under the batarians' rule, until he finally managed to escape. Unwilling to return home, he instead roams the galaxy, taking out as many batarian slaving operations as he can.
Anders is a human who escaped from a biotic testing facility run by Cerberus. Though this left him with a grudge against Cerberus, he also hates the Alliance, whom he sees as no better and will also use biotic children as weapons. He dreams of establishing a safe haven for biotics, and is willing to go to increasingly drastic measures to see that dream become a reality.
Varric is a volus. Unlike his business-minded brother, Varric does not spend his days negotiating trade agreements or doing finance consultations. Spending his days at the Afterlife bar on Omega, he's an information broker, and a pretty damn good one at that. With his specially crafted weapon Bianca, he's not too bad in a fight, either.
Carver, much like his older sister, left home to seek out his own path, and ended up joining the Alliance against his parents' wishes. He thrived in the military, quickly climbing the ranks due to his strength and competency. He's being primed for N7 training under the wathcful eye of Spectre Sebastian Vael.
Sebastian is a human, and a Council Spectre (I'm imagining this AU as a sort of nebulous period where humanity isn't as looked down upon as they were at the start of ME1, and there are a fair number of human Spectres running around). A wild child in his youth, his parents sent him to the Alliance to straighten him out, and to their relief, it worked like a charm. He specializes in covert missions and favors sniper rifles and tech powers.
#my art#mass effect au#mass effect x dragon age au#sebhawke#yeah it's technically sebhawke bc of course sebastian and marian are going to kiss have you even met me#marian regina hawke#sebastian vael#i'm not tagging everyone lol#lowkey i was worried about posting this in case Weirdos(tm) saw it and grilled me about my choices but y'know#life is for living etc etc#and yeah a lot of them are obviously based on existing ME characters and backstories but I still like this
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So I'm writing a Varric x Fem!Hawke fanfic...
I'm REALLY struggling to figure out a title for it though. It's going to be long, spanning from Hawke's childhood all the way to post-Trespasser. I have a rough outline of how I want it to go, but a title is tricky. SO I'm posting the beginning of the story here to see if I can get some inspo from ya'll. It's like the first 1/3rd of chapter one, though I'm open to cutting it here if anyone thinks this would be a good stopping point. I haven't published anything I've written in the better part of a decade, and I'm rusty.
Things to note pre-reading:
I've rewritten the canon slightly. Marian Hawke is a twin to Garrett Hawke, and they shoulder the burden of Champion together. The children all grew up in Kirkwall before Bethany's magic manifested and they had to run for Ferelden. Bethany and Carver both survive the trip back to Kirkwall.
Marian and Varric will, obviously, end up together, but it's a slow-ish burn. Still deciding how I want the story to flesh out in terms of timing on some of the scenes I've written, but they'll probably get together in secret pre-Deep Roads.
Varric's nickname for Marian is Rosie because she's thorny on the outside (with sarcasm) but soft on the inside. Rosie is when she's being a jackass, Rosebud for when she's showing her sweet and vulnerable side, which is rare.
Okay, thank you and happy reading! I will be posting this to AO3 eventually, but not without a title.
The Hawke children were always told magic ran in their family. With a mage for a father and a mother who’s ancestry held many mages as well, it wasn’t a surprise when one of their children was born with magic, though their father always joked that it ‘had to be the youngest’.
Maybe magic ran in their family, but Marian thought twins must too. How else could someone explain two sets to the same parents? First came herself and Garrett, older than her by two minutes. They split the burden of being the eldest child, with Garrett shouldering the brunt of the family burden, and Marian housing all the guilt. As they got older, she joked he had sucked all the energy from their mother, and that was why he sprang up over six feet tall, and she barely made it past five. They both had a penchant for recklessness, though Marian was the first to point out flaws in a plan - ever cautious - while Garrett liked to run head-first and ask questions later.
Then came their younger siblings; Carver and Bethany. Carver seemed to house all the middle child issues - brash, quick to anger, always trying to one-up Garrett with his competitiveness. He was also the best at calming their mother when any fights happened, and his devotion to his own twin was unparalleled. Bethany was born sunshine incarnate, and Carver did his best to protect his little sister from the horrors of the world. They all did. Bethany was the perfect youngest child, all smiles and joy and fun. She could charm a Qunari if she tried hard enough, and she gave her kindness like a gift to everyone around her. Marian wished she was more like her.
That’s how they survived fleeing Kirkwall as children; Bethany’s kindness. Marian had grown up in the Amell estate with her siblings, and parents. The story she was told by Leandra was thus:
Her grandparents were angry - Code for utterly pissed according to Garrett - that their mother had thrown away her engagement to Guillaume de Launcet, a Comte’s son no less, to be with a Circle Mage. They were furious when they found out Gamlen had helped the couple be together out of love for his sister and her happiness. Eventually, when Leandra wrote to them letting them know she was with child, they welcomed her home, their father Malcolm in tow.
Marian’s earliest childhood memories were of the estate. Her grandparents doted on herself and Garrett with unabashed affection, and she remembered them even acting warm to her father. Her grandmother Bethann would make cookies with her in the kitchen, smearing flour on the both of them as they laughed, and the cook would shake her head at them and pretend the cookies were delicious before secretly swapping them for an edible batch. Her grandfather Ariside spent hours with her and Garrett in the library, teaching the twins to read and telling them stories of dragons and heroes and true love’s kiss. Her mother was happy to live in society, and her father did well for himself, working for her grandfather and hiding from the Templars.
When Bethany and Carver came along, it seemed that joy would continue. “Two sets of twins!” her grandmother would exclaim to anyone they met. “How did we get so lucky?!” Despite the five-year age gap between them, Marian and Garrett adored their younger siblings, teaching them to walk and talk, and sneak treats whenever they were left to their own devices. When the younger twins were toddlers, and she and Garrett were nearly ten, their grandfather started teaching them about martial weapons, just to pass the time and give their unending energy a healthy outlet. He was pleased when they both threw themselves into it, spending hours sparring with wooden daggers, and even more thrilled when Marian showed promise in archery, his favorite pastime.
But with all joy comes strife, and the Hawke family was no different. Bethany was six when her magic manifested, to the horror and shock of her grandparents. Malcolm was heartbroken for his daughter. There were only two choices for the family of a mage too young to control their power: Turn her in to The Circle, or go into hiding. The Hawkes chose the latter, unable to part from their daughter.
Marian remembered leaving her grandparents home in the night, with tears down her face and her twin’s hand in hers, a promise from their grandparents that this was not forever, and they could come home soon. That was the first time Garrett came up with a secret code, just for the two of them. In the hold of the ship they boarded to Ferelden, he silently squeezed her hand three times, a stoic look on his young face, a silent I love you to his sister. It was a promise between the siblings that they would survive this and come out okay on the other side.
They ran for months before finally settling on the outskirts of Lothering, a small but solid home waiting for them. Marian never thought to ask how they were able to secure such a place so close to a village, but as she got older she assumed her grandparents may have had something to do with it. It just made her miss them more.
Their father started tutoring Bethany, and Carver became jealous at how much time Malcolm devoted to the young mage. Marian and Garrett did their best to distract him, dragging him to the local Chantry and asking the Templars and soldiers to teach them how to fight. Carver was nine when he first held a shield, and the elder twins couldn’t have been prouder. He was a fighter like them, and the three of them sparred regularly, practicing the knowledge the villagers gave them. As the years wore on, the militia became more and more impressed with them, and started to give the three ideas of joining the army.
When the children grew into teenagers, the Templars started to take notice of their little family, particularly their youngest daughter. Marian did her best to distract the young men with her wit, charm, and no small amount of flirting. While Bethany never knew exactly why the Templars never took her in, Garrett quickly figured out what his sister was doing and was horrified. He threatened several of the men within an inch of their lives, and they left the family alone. Bethany started spending more time in the Chantry, much to their mother’s chagrin and anxiety, and she befriended the Sisters and Brothers of the church. Her sweet voice singing the chant and her sparkling eyes when they read religious stories made her endearing, and if anyone noticed there was something special about her, they said nothing.
For a time, the family knew peace in their little village. But peace did not last for Hawkes for long.
When the family’s fourteenth summer in Lothering ended, so too did Malcolm Hawke’s life.
No one was quite sure what the illness was that took him, but it was quick, and it was devastating. Leandra was broken at the loss of her beloved husband, and could hardly get out of bed. Bethany cried for days after his pyre was burned, scared of being the lone mage of the family. Carver retreated into himself, anger and guilt plaguing his features. He barked at anyone who tried to talk to him besides his twin for weeks before settling into a resigned state. Marian and Garrett both mourned quietly, taking care of their family in lieu of talking about (or even acknowledging) their feelings on the matter. They kept the family fed, kept their mother from caving in on herself, kept Carver from starting too many fights in town. Slowly, they pieced together their small lives, and Leandra began talking about returning to Kirkwall when they were able. Surely if Malcolm could hide from Templars in plain sight, Bethany could too? None of her children agreed though, for their grandparents had long passed away, and the idea of returning to their ancestral home without the people that made it so was too painful so close to their father’s passing.
Life went on. A new sister joined the local Chantry, her lilting Orleasian accent so different and beautiful, and it was a big deal in such a small village. Marian gravitated towards the girl, both for her sweet personality and her red hair, so similar to her own they could be siblings. Leliana was a breath of fresh air in the family’s life, and they often went to town to spend time with her, though she and Marian quickly became fast friends. They would talk about the world around them, the Maker (Marian was skeptical and they had many kind-hearted debates), and even mage rights, though the latter was tip-toed around. Marian knew her friend was observant, and it didn’t surprise her when Leliana made the occasional comment about Bethany. But the secret was kept, and a strong friendship forged.
The girls would practice archery together, a surprising delight for Marian. She hadn’t had anyone to shoot with since her grandfather in Kirkwall, and getting to learn how someone else pulled a bowstring and aimed the barrel was a welcome distraction from the stress of her day-to-day life. Garrett would occasionally join in, Bethany even less so, and both were far inferior in skill to the red-headed girls. They would laugh good naturedly, and Marian tried to help her brother improve where she could, but he was hopeless with anything that wasn’t a blade. Carver continued to practice swords and shields with the local militia, and she caught him staring longingly at her friend more than once. If Leli noticed, she did not let on, but Marian kept an eye on his crush. She would kill her brother if he ruined the one friendship she had outside her family.
Three years passed, and the two sets of twins fell into their proverbial roles in the family. Marian was the caretaker, making sure they had enough to eat and their home was relatively clean. Bethany was the peace keeper, smoothing over any fights and tiffs they had and charming the village into forgetting her potentially magical aura. And the boys continued to hone their martial skills, until one day news of a potential Blight reached their ears. Garrett and Carver were conscripted in the army, with Marian staying behind to protect their mother and sister. She would never admit it, but the idea of war made her stomach churn. Killing animals for food or bandits to protect her family was one thing, but monsters? She wasn’t so sure she could keep her sanity in the face of darkspawn.
The day before her brothers left, Marian pulled her twin aside. She and Garrett rarely tried to push their family into doing what they wanted, but in the face of a Blight desperate times called for desperate measures. The evening found the siblings on the roof, laying back to look at the stars as they spoke.
“How hard do you think it’ll be to keep Carver alive on a battlefield?” Garrett asked, trying to spot the constellations their father had taught them.
“The most hard-headed man alive? I give you ten minutes before he tries to run at an ogre,” Marian drawled, lifting his hand to point to Tenebrium, their favourite set of stars. It laid out above them in the shape of a great owl, though Marian always argued it more closely resembled a hawk. “Do try to keep him from running head-first into danger, won’t you?”
Garrett shook his head at his sister, a smirk perched on his lips. “That’s like asking me to keep him from nailing Bethany’s braid to the bed posts.” They both snickered at countless memories of Carver doing just that, and Bethany shooting ice at his feet in retaliation. When the laughter died down, a serious silence stretched between them, and Marian felt her brother lace his fingers through hers.
“What do we do if the Blight comes here?” she asked quietly. She’d tried to bring it up before, but Garrett couldn’t be swayed.
“It’s not going to come here,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I’m not even sure this is a real Blight, no one’s even seen a dragon yet!” He had a pout on his face, like not seeing a dragon was somehow a personal offense to him, and Marian’s hand twitched to smack him, resisting only because he was leaving early the next morning.
“Garrett, I’m serious! We need a plan! Where do we meet up if something happens? I know you’re stupidly confident, but we’re Hawkes.” Her voice was quieter now, a little sadness peeking through. “Shit seems to find us wherever we go. I don’t want to be separated from you just because we didn’t discuss something.” She felt Garrett shift beside her, and turned her head to face his, taking in his somber expression.
“I don’t know Mare, honestly. Where could we go if a Blight was truly upon us? Denerim, I suppose, though I hear it smells like shit.” He still had a teasing lilt in his voice, and she tried not to huff that he wasn’t taking her seriously.
“Fine, don’t help me plan. All it’ll mean is you’ll be scrambling to find us when the world falls apart,” she sniped, annoyed. Garrett reached over and ruffled her hair with his free hand, getting a squawk in return as she slapped his hands away.
“You worry too much, little sister. Nothing bad is going to happen to us or our precious little village. Just breathe, spend time with your Chantry friend, and try not to get into any trouble while we’re gone. We’ll be back before you know it.” He was grinning at her, his tongue slightly sticking out between his teeth. Marian pinched his side in retaliation, earning a yelp from him. She tried to stay annoyed, but it was hard to be mad at her other half. Mostly she was nervous. They’d never been apart for more than a few days, and the idea of him being gone for weeks with only Carver for company terrified her, both for his safety and sanity.
She deflected from her worries, ever the Hawke. “Stop calling me little sister Garrett, you’re two minutes older. It barely counts.” She poked at him again, but he caught her hand in his and held it tightly. Three squeezes.
“I love you too, you prat,” she teased, and the two fell into companionable silence, watching the stars above them.
#dragon age#varric tethras#dragon age inquisition#dragon age the veilguard#love#fanfic#fanfiction#varric x hawke#varric x fem hawke#dragon age 2#kirkwall#champion of kirkwall#slow burn#Ink and Arrows
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As the Moth Sees Light
Anders x Hawke Also includes Varric, Carver, and Aveline SFW, pre-relationship, meet cute
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“Maker’s Balls, and I thought Uncle’s house smelled bad.”
A sound halfway between a snort and scoff answered Hawke as she bent to pull her dagger free of the corpse with a sickening squelch. Straightening, she twirled the blade in a tight circle, only just managing to resist the temptation to wipe its bloody edge on the sleeve of her father’s old coat. A quick glance down at herself confirmed that the worst of the arterial spray from the poor, dumb sod had missed her. Good. One less argument to have with Carver later that night while she did the washing in the tiny room they shared. Maker forbid she get blood on her clothing, as though she hadn’t spent the last fourteen years having to do that exact task on a near monthly basis.
“Must be behind on my payments,” Varric muttered beneath his breath, nudging the Coterie thug with his boot. Another half dozen bodies littered the ground behind them, half of which were skewered with crossbow bolts. Hawke had to hand it to the dwarf - he and Bianca were handy in a fight. Without their addition, she likely would have had to find a dank corner of the already dank sewers in order to use her magic to heal their wounds.
“Are we certain that that Lirene woman isn’t giving us the run-around?” she asked idly, glancing back at her brother and Aveline. Carver hovered close to her, his familiar, grouchy presence at her back providing a comfort she could never voice aloud. He had a smear of blood on his cheek that she had to bite down the urge to lick her thumb and smudge away. He’d always hated her fussing, even when they were children. At least it didn’t look like the blood belonged to him. “I know that Grey Wardens like to while away their hours in the Deep Roads, but surely even those don’t reek this much.”
“Even with the taint?” Aveline scoffed, expression pinched. She lingered at the rear of their party, protective as always, with her hand resting on the pommel of her sword in a white-knuckled grip. The end of their scuffle with the Coterie didn’t put her at ease, gaze shifting quickly around the cistern’s passageways for other threats. The shadow that flitted across her face as she spoke sent a dagger of guilt twinging through Hawke as she remembered the good Ser Wesley.
The one who threatened to drag the Hawke sisters before the templars for the crime of apostasy. Lips quirking into a wry smile, she shoved the feeling deep down into the mental box where she kept every other troublesome emotion. He was dead, and Bethany was dead, and now her priority was ensuring Carver and their mother had a roof over their heads. Preferably one nicer than their uncle’s.
As they turned a corner, Hawke hop-skipped over the legs of yet another corpse - or perhaps this one was simply sleeping, judging by the snoring - whose legs jutted out into the walkway from an alcove. Varric walked in step with her, drumming his fingers in an off-beat rhythm against Bianca’s wooden stock. He was the only one of them that looked more or less at home in the sewers. His ambling gait brought to mind a casual stroll through Hightown’s Garden rather than the crime-riddled shithole they waded through. “Stink or not, this would be as good a place as any for a mage to hide,” he mused, eyeing the way Hawke sashayed down a flight of stairs in time with his tapping.
“You hear that, Cat? Maybe you should move down here,” Carver teased, lightly kicking the back of her knee as she reached the bottom step. He laughed when it buckled beneath her, though his hand shot out to catch her elbow before she could pitch face first into the dirt.
“Ha, you’re hilarious,” Hawke deadpanned, shoving her dagger back into its sheath before she could decide in favor of ‘accidentally’ letting it ‘drop’ straight into her baby brother’s thigh. The little voice in her head that precluded every bad decision she’d ever made tried to reason with her that it wouldn’t be anything she couldn’t heal herself. Probably. They were meeting with a magical healer, anyway. Hopefully.
They came to a second set of stairs that she took three at a time, bounding up them with renewed energy. A door was set into the wall with a conspicuously lit lantern, just as Lirene had promised. A crowd of refugees gathered around the door in a loose circle, most of them with varying degrees of injuries or illness. Coming to a half, Hawke chewed her lip and considered how best to proceed.
“Where there’s injured members of the Carta and sick children standing in a queue without it devolving into a brawl, there must be a healer,” she whispered to her companions. Drawing the still wet dagger back from its sheath, she approached her brother. “Quick, Carver - look pathetic.”
He scowled down at her, eyeing the blade warily. “What? Why can’t you play the damsel for once?” Hawke ignored him, plucking the leather away from his skin to stab a hole through it without risk of harming him. Then she smeared the blood down his front, frowning thoughtfully at the end result. It didn’t look bad. Perhaps the dim light filtering through Darktown would hide just how fake it was. Carver hissed angrily at her, but no matter. She’d stitch it together again later in lieu of an apology.
“Because,” she explained, patting his chest in a pantomime of comfort. His already impressive glower deepened and she huffed. “Listen. When a big, strong man like you goes down, you know it’s bad. They’ll let us through.”
Carver rolled his eyes, placing his hand on her shoulder to shove her away. “Carver,” she whined, drawing his attention back down to her. She pouted, unafraid to pull out all the stops. Add a little quiver to her lip, some mistiness to her eyes, and… “Please?”
He wavered. The stubborn set to his jaw loosened before he clenched his teeth again. Hawke let a single tear roll down her cheek, internally exulting when he sighed in certain defeat. All but collapsing against her, Carver moaned as if in pain for good measure. She wasn’t the only good actor in the family. Varric joined them, drawing Carver’s arm across his broad shoulders for support, leaving Aveline to watch them in reproachful judgment at the lie.
“Out of the way! The kid needs a healer!” Varric bellowed. Dozens of eyes landed on them at the commotion and Carver let his head loll forward, playing the part to perfection. The crowd parted, faces drawn with worry as they rushed by. Aveline darted ahead of them, propping the door open with her hip as she glanced back to ensure no one moved to stop them.
The door shut behind them, blocking out the cacophony of Darktown with a thud. Hawke surveyed the interior with interest, breathing deep of the scent of magic and herbs that lingered heavily in the air. It was strangely homey, in a dirty kind of way, strangely reminding her of their father. Fighting back the wave of homesickness, her eyes were drawn to the hunched back of the man who could only be the healer as he bent over the prone form of a child lying on a table.
His hands wove creation magic like he was born to it, drawing the healing energies into the boy as naturally as breathing. There was a bone-deep weariness in the slope of his shoulders and that made something inside of her ache. Hawke bit her lip hard enough to feel the skin split, the copper tang against her tongue providing enough of a distraction to strengthen her resolve to do something. She’d march straight back to Lirene’s shop once their business was finished to donate some of her meager earnings with strict instructions that it go toward a meal for the man. Maybe a nice sandwich with all the trimmings.
The magic snuffed out as the boy stirred, his parents rushing to his side as the healer staggered away. Hawke followed him with her eyes, frowning as he caught himself against the wall and swayed on his feet. His blonde hair had half escaped a tie he’d used to hold it back from his face, letting the strands fall into his face and obscuring it from view as he bent to suck in deep breaths. He’d overdrawn on mana, Hawke realized.
Her hand flew to her pack, fingers searching for a lyrium potion before she stopped - another refugee, perhaps an assistant, rushed to his side with one at the ready. He pushed the glass into the healer’s hands and he nodded his thanks before tossing the blue liquid back like a shot.
Carver’s impatience got the better of him and he cleared his throat, drawing the Warden’s attention. His amber eyes snapped to them, meeting her gaze for the briefest of moments and Hawke froze. He was handsome.
His was a narrow face with shadowed eyes, tired but kind with lines that crinkled at the edges even as he frowned at them. Hawke admired his long nose, her imagination running away from her with thoughts of what it might be like to sit on that lovely face and missed the way he dropped his gaze to the daggers at her waist. She did notice his eyes narrowing, darkening with righteous fury as he looked to Carver, then Varric, and finally Aveline.
The Warden lunged for his staff, his long, slender fingers wrapping around it like - Hawke snapped out of her daze, inhaling sharply as she realized she’d been holding her breath. She took an instinctive step in front of her brother, laying her hand on his arm as he reached for his own weapon. Heart pounding for a wholly different reason than being faced with a pretty man, she knew she had to diffuse the situation before it got ugly. The other refugees were sure to take poorly to their sole doctor being threatened.
It was an easy enough task once she got the man talking about his cat. The Grey Warden - Anders - didn’t let his guard down entirely as he ranted about the order he’d left behind, allowing her a moment to examine him more closely. He was thin, painfully so. There were dark circles beneath his golden eyes that spoke to sleepless nights yet there was a fierceness to him that drew her closer like a moth to flame. “Maybe I’ll double it and get him a nap and a sandwich,” she mused quietly, thinking about her impending donation.
The sharp jab of an elbow to her ribs brought her back to the present, and she stepped on Carver’s foot in retaliation. When she dragged her gaze back to the healer’s face, she flustered as they locked eyes again. “So if you’re not here for healing or to cause trouble for me…what do you want?” he directed at her. He’d clearly decided that she was the leader of their merry band, like so many before.
‘You,’ is what she absolutely couldn’t say no matter how desperately she wanted to. Anders blinked in surprise before his mouth curled into a warm smile, exhaling a chuckle. And Lirene said he wasn't a smiler. Maker. Her earlier words about marrying him rang in her ears, taunting her. Carver groaned in disgust and she felt her stomach drop into her feet as she realized that she’d said it after all. “Ah,” she said stupidly. Staring at the dirt floor beneath her feet, she willed it to open and swallow her whole to save her from her mortification.
“Somehow I doubt that’s why you came all this way,” Anders said, his smile turning wry. Hawke felt her face heat at his light-hearted tease and tried to hide the way she faltered by clearing her throat. Carver’s impatient shifting beside her reminded her of the real reason they came. It was no time to flirt with handsome healers.
Clearing her throat a second time, she decided to try again. “We need to know how to get into the Deep Roads.”
That wiped the smile off Anders’ face, his lips curving into a deep frown the moment she said their intended destination. “No,” came his firm reply, planting his hands against his hips to add to the sternness of it.
Hawke grimaced at the finality in that single word. "We have good reason for wanting to go," she tried to reason, taking a step toward him with her hands raised palms up. She wasn't above going down on her knees for him to beg, though she'd rather not have an audience for that. Her eyes dipped to his hip region unbidden at the thought, wondering what he'd look like out of his robes. "My mother's an Amell and-"
"Amell?" Anders perked up at the name, as did a small number of the patients still in the clinic. Ah, good. If the family was still known within the city, then perhaps the name still held some leverage after all. Having them in his debt would be a powerful gambit. "I knew an Amell once, back in Kinloch Hold."
Hawke wracked her brain for the stories Mother used to tell of her family. Magic had shown itself in the bloodline before she ran off with an apostate and had two of them herself. "That must have been our dear cousin…two times removed?" she stated, glancing at Carver for confirmation. He shrugged, shifting from hip to hip in anxiousness at the eyes on them. "Why Anders, that practically makes us family already!"
The healer pursed his lips at that, fighting back another smile. He gestured for them to follow him further into the clinic, leading them to a far wall that held a few scant boxes filled with bandages and herbs. Reaching into one of the boxes for a bunch of dried embrium, Anders plucked the petals before dropping them into a mortar atop a table a short distance away. "The answer is still no," he said at last, eyes sliding to her face.
Hawke threw her hands up in exasperation with a huff. That drew a true smile out of him, one that darted across his face before he was able to temper it back into a look of stern neutrality. "I don't know what sort of 'get rich quick' scheme this is, but the Deep Roads are dangerous. They aren't a place to go traipsing around for treasure."
"That's a rather bold assumption to make, isn't it? What if we're simple sightseers? I happen to have quite the interest in history and Varric here-"
"Is a member of the Merchant's Guild," Anders finished for her. He gave the dwarf an appraising look before turning back to her. "If you're going to lie to me, at least make it believable."
"It's not a lie," she pouted, not missing the way he glanced at her lips. "I do like history. When it's not boring, at least."
"We're funding an expedition," Varric butted in, interrupting their banter. He idly tugged on the straps of one of his bracers before looking up at the healer with the same winning smile he gave Hawke when they met. "You know, Blondie, if you provided any assistance at all - even something as simple as a map or two - we'd be more than happy to offer you compensation. Coin. Protection. Supplies for this clinic of yours."
Anders hesitated. "I'm sorry, but I just can't take that risk," he replied, shaking his head slowly. Pulling out a pestle, he began to grind the red petals into a fine powder. "I may not be with the Grey Wardens any longer, but memories of the Deep Roads and the darkspawn are fresh enough that I can't in good conscience send anyone foolish enough to risk the taint to their doom."
"We're getting nowhere," Hawke heard Carver complain from behind her. "Listen here, mage-"
She panicked. Flailing for another tactic, whether to calm her brother or convince the Warden, she exclaimed, "Wait!"
Carver ignored her, brushing her aside before she could decide which man to handle. She watched anxiously as her younger brother squared his shoulders and the way Anders tensed his own, not turning away from the poor flower he was in the middle of pulverizing. She saw the electricity crackle over his fingers, though, and her mind went blank.
"You can tell us how to get there, willing or not," she heard herself say before Carver had the chance to. As her brother spun to look at her in surprise, she went pale. So much for peaceful solutions. Well done, Hawke, you've threatened the healer after all.
"Hawke," Aveline hissed in both disapproval and warning. Varric simply shut his eyes and gave a long, suffering sigh.
The troubled expression that had marred Anders' handsome features morphed into one of anger. He spun to face her, stepping into her space to bring himself chest to chest with her and Maker he was tall. Hawke squirmed in the face of his fury, pressing her thighs together and hating that she found that attractive. There was probably something very wrong with her, but she couldn't bring herself to care with him close enough that she could see the golden lashes that framed his eyes.
"Don't threaten me, little girl," he growled down at her. How was that fair? Hawke pressed her thighs even tighter together as a stab of heat speared her. She was transfixed.
Oblivious to her internalized shame spiral, Carver scrambled for his sword in a much more normal reaction to the threat. Just as quickly as he'd approached, however, Anders stepped away, breaking the spell. Hawke threw out her hand to keep her brother at bay.
"You can't imagine what I've gone through to get here," the Warden spat bitterly as he returned to his work table. Bracing his palms against its surface, he slid his gaze between the two siblings. "I'm not about to-"
"I'm sorry," Hawke blurted, desperate to salvage things somehow. She quickly moved to his side, hopping up on the table and ignored the way it creaked precariously beneath her weight. Anders didn't move away, though he watched her warily. Crossing one long leg over the other, she knit her fingers atop her knee and affected a look of contrition. "I think we've gotten off on the wrong foot. We haven't even introduced ourselves!"
Anders followed the line of her leg with his gaze before exhaling slowly. He turned and leaned against the table, facing away from her. "You already know my name," he pointed out, refusing to look at any of them.
"So does the whole of Darktown and half of Lowtown, it seems," Hawke replied in a light tone. She dared to reach out and gave his feathered pauldron a ginger pat. "I'm Hawke," she continued brightly, watching some of the surliness melt off of him.
Emboldened, she gestured to the rest of her companions. "You know Varric by now, of course. That's Aveline - she's a guard here in the city. And the tall glowering fellow is my brother, Carver."
Her brother's brows impressively furrowed deeper at the change in tactics. "Her name is Cat. We're both Hawke."
Anders' animosity disappeared entirely at that. "Siblings? That explains the way he's stood over you like a guard dog this whole time, I suppose." He paused. "Your name is Cat?" he asked, granting her a curious look.
"It's short for Catelyn. Mother's sense for irony - I'm a dog person, believe it or not," she breezed past the query, narrowing her eyes at her brother for his big mouth. Two could play at that game. She grinned at the way Anders' nose wrinkled, his interest quickly giving way to disgust. "Regardless, it's not my fault that everyone simply calls me Hawke."
"Of course not. It's not at all the fact that you never bother correcting them," Carver replied with a roll of his eyes. Hawke stuck her tongue out at him, resulting in a series of rude hand gestures that rapidly flew between them until Aveline broke their line of sight of each other.
"Enough! You're both worse than children," she barked, pulling them both up short. "The man said no. It's time to find another way."
Chastened, Hawke ducked her head while Carver crossed his arms and glared at the wall. She shot Anders an apologetic look and hopped off the table. "No hard feelings, I hope," she sighed. "My own grasp of creation magic is…shaky at best, and you never know when you might need a healer in a place like Kirkwall."
"Cat," her brother gasped, voice strained beneath the special kind of angry he became when he was scared. He grabbed her arm to haul her away from the Warden, fingers pressing painfully through the fabric of her sleeve. "Shout it from the rooftops next time, why don't you? I'll watch Mother cry while the templars drag you away."
Anders had gone deathly still, eyes rounding in a surprise that brought a giggle bubbling up out of Hawke's chest. "You're a mage?" he asked in a voice that was little more than a whisper. His hands fluttered like he wanted to draw her back to him then wrapped around his middle.
"As my father before me," she confirmed airily. Carver shook her for her foolishness, scowling as she wriggled out of his grasp. Once free, she stepped closer to the healer. Close enough that he could reach out for her if he really wanted to. She wanted him to.
No. Bad Hawke, her brother was already furious with her. She batted away her sudden desire to be held by a near stranger and wrestled it into her mental box alongside the other Bad Thoughts. When Carver pulled her away the second time, she let him, quirking her lips at the way he placed himself between them as though Anders himself wasn’t an apostate. But he was stubborn, like their pet mabari. The Warden gave an oddly wistful look at the two of them that made her heart ache anew.
“Carver, it’s alright. He’s hiding from the templars too, so he’s not likely to turn me in.”
“Never,” Anders affirmed with a vengeance, a steel edge curling along his voice. His eyes took on a strange light, almost looking blue for a moment. Hawke frowned but he was turning away from them to pace agitatedly, muttering to himself beneath his breath. Glancing at the others, Varric caught her eye and shrugged. ‘Mages, right?’ his expression read. She gave a half shrug back. She liked to talk to herself sometimes too, so she had no room to judge.
Taking the Warden’s distraction as their cue to leave, Hawke gave an awkward wave of her hand. “Alright, well…very sorry for disturbing you, Anders.” He paused in his pacing to look at them, eyes widening again. “If you ever need some muscle, or a sandwich, or a night off…well, we spend most evenings at the Hanged Man.” She turned to go, gesturing for the others to follow when his voice stopped her.
“Wait.”
Hawke half-turned, twisting at the waist with her lopsided grin already in place. “Missing us already?” she teased, faltering when he retained his serious expression. Not so much as a smirk or an amused snort in response. Her smile slipped in turn.
“You can have my maps, though not for free,” Anders said in a rush. He took a step towards them, and then another. “A favor for a favor. Does that sound like a fair deal? You help me, I’ll help you?”
The sudden shift put Hawke on edge. He’d refused when offered payment, protection, and supplies, so what would make the man change his mind? “I don’t do anything involving children or animals,” she replied reflexively.
His lovely lips turned down at the edges in confusion. “What?”
She shrugged in response. “We also had to go through a lot to reach this shithole of a city, including selling ourselves to a mercenary company for a year. I found that it’s good to have standards for jobs you might take.”
“Ah. It’s nothing quite so dire, I assure you. Compared to traveling into the Deep Roads, it shouldn’t pose an issue,” Anders continued, edging ever closer. Hawke inclined her head in acknowledgement, indicating for him to continue. He locked eyes with her and she knew she’d agree to anything he asked.
“I came to Kirkwall to aid a friend.”
#dragon age#dragon age 2#olivia writes#Anders#Hawke#Handers#I used to post my ao3 fics here during the DAI days and might start doing it again#Catelyn Hawke#I can't believe I forgot to tag my pookie so its shows up in her tag lmao
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Chapter 1: How to Disappoint a Girl
From my fic "All Hale the Dagger-Wielding Rage Mage" an angsty Hawke x Fenris rambling canon fic. Written for me, posting bc my therapist says doing scary things is good or smth
ao3 link
TW: violence, reference to abuse, comprehensive warnings on ao3. 18+ fic.
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It was almost funny when Varric tried to be stern.
She couldn’t keep a straight face. He’d notice, too, and he’d glare and say, Stop that, as if her near-smile was too contagious, which of course made it worse. Three years of side glances and laughing at their own private jokes — well, those were hard habits to break.
“…Going out on your own with power-mad templars raiding houses all over Kirkwall and gangs painting the streets red; I’m just saying, why take the chance?”
Today, though, she couldn’t muster the energy. The usual irreverence they shared was out of reach, and she found herself wishing he hadn’t come at all. She should have told Bodahn to stop Varric at the doorstep, rather than disappoint him with all her moodiness.
“Hawke, what are you — are you pretending to read the finance log?”
She gave a noncommittal hmmm.
A snort. “Halen.”
For the others, it was Blondie, and Daisy, and occasionally waffles for herself, but when it was just the two of them, Varric called her by her name.
She pretended like she didn’t notice it, which was better than admitting how much she missed hearing it.
No one called her Halen. Not since Carver died.
It had been three years since their return from the Deep Roads — that blighted hole Carver had given his life to, and Mother had never really recovered. Leandra Hawke rarely spoke to her last surviving child.
Father had loved Halen, she knew: more than reason. And Mother did too, in her own way. But at the heart of it, Halen knew the sordid truth.
Mother loved Carver. And Bethany. And their deaths had undone her past the point of loving the last.
She had done everything she could to make her mother comfortable. They lived in Hightown, now, and they were safe as one could be in Kirkwall. Hawke had built a reputation as a woman you didn’t cross; dual shortswords glinting on her back, a public notice that if you dared to draw first blood, it would end in yours.
It was a very effective image: especially for such an elaborate, ridiculous lie.
Only her inner circle knew that the famous Halen Hawke was in fact, a secret mage. Magic thrummed underneath her skin. An apostate, that hid in plain sight, fluttering her lashes at templars as she snuck mages out from under their noses. On some days, Hawke almost felt proud. Four years, and she’d never been caught, even as she looked down death itself.
But if Mother was proud, she never said it. She only stared at portraits, looking blankly at Halen like she was only writing on the wall.
Papa. Bethany. Carver.
“Okay. It’s getting scary now. Either you’ve been spending too much time with Broody, or you’ve been holding out on me.”
Halen nearly flinched at the mention of their companion, but instead she closed the book deftly and said, “I’m not pretending to read, Varric,” she lied. “I happen to have a vested interest in finance.”
“What, like how much the estate spends on scones?”
She sighed longingly. “It’s not my fault that scones are the only edible thing on this rock you call home.”
“You call it home too, waffles. Even if you’ve gotten cheekier since you landed. Waffles doesn’t suit you as much when you’re scowling.”
She ignored the pointed comment on her mood and said, “See? Waffles. If Kirkwall had better waffles, I’d be more inclined to eat less scones.”
Varric snorted. “It will never cease to amaze me that both you and Isabela can knife a man from ten yards living on breakfast foods alone — or in her case, rum.”
“Isabela’s much better at the knifing than I am.”
Varric snorted. Hawke caught his expression and backpedaled.
“I’m going to take this moment,” she said, “to be glad she wasn’t here to hear that particular wording.”
“I think you’ve outranked Daisy in accidental innuendos this month. And Isa has a lot more fun teasing you than our resident kitten.”
Hawke sighed. “I’m pretty sure it’s hopeless, at this point. I can never catch it before it’s out of my mouth.” She groaned. “See? There it goes again.”
Varric chuckled. “Ah. It’s good to see the naive girl from Fereldan I once saw lurking around the guild. Where you been, kid?”
The words unexpectedly sunk in, digging like a knife. Memories bubbled upward, unwelcome and stubborn in Hawke’s mind.
Carver’s skin, tinted with veins of blue. His exasperated smirk, making some joke about dying in her shadow. The laugh she choked on in response before her breath spiraled away from her in panic. He’d given her his knife, but she couldn’t — she could not kill him.
If she had just done as her mother asked. Left Carver home….
A strong hand closed over hers, over the hilt of the shaking blade.
Aveline.
Her gaze was strong. Protective, even lined in grief.
Let me do this for you, she said. Like you once did it for me.
“It seems you’re not the only one who knows how to put your foot in your mouth.”
Hawke blinked, turning back toward him.
A haggard look crossed Varric’s face as he rubbed a hand over his hair, blowing out a heavy breath. “I’m, uh… I’m sorry, Hawke. Believe it or not, sending you down bleak memory lane was not the reason I came here.”
Guilt was not a good look on Varric. Hawke hated what it did to his face. He got crow’s feet. It was why she tried to avoid sinking into those memories: he always saw that ghost of old grief pass over her, and no amount of stern words seemed to convince him that she didn’t blame him. Despite his insistence otherwise, Varric was probably the most selfless of her friends — and there was no world in which he would have led them into the Deep Roads if he’d known what the ending would be.
After all, he’d lost his brother too, if in a different way. If she was honest, his way sounded worse.
All these thoughts passed her in a blink, in which she turned to glare at him. “Hey.” She snapped her fingers in front of his face, which actually… worked. He startled a little bit. “Stop it,” she commanded with a flourish. “We’ve both had enough of the Deep Roads for a lifetime; no reason to let it stamp its grubby thaig-cursed feet across your face.” She tilted her chin toward the strap across his back. “Bianca needs you beautiful, not wrinkled and grey.”
A half-smile at that. “Bianca loves me regardless.”
“Will she love you as roast dwarf? Because I’m pretty sure the last time you got all morose, I swore I’d use you as target practice.”
“Go ahead,” he said with a smirk. “Throw fireballs at me. Bring the wrath of the mage. I can take it.”
She turned with a grin as she sheathed both knives. “What mage? I don’t see a mage.” She gestured toward the rest of her, dressed in brown and gold fighting leathers, a subtle baton at her side — the staff her father had made for her, one that collapsed to become less conspicuous. An ingenious design, one she never would have survived this far without.
Hawke wrapped a head scarf around her raucous bob of curls, letting it scrunch up as it settled somewhere in the center, then turned to face him. “No mage here. Only a rogue in all her glint-hearty glory.”
Varric shook his head, laughing — but it was half-hearted. “Yeah, well. About that.”
Her heart sunk a little, and the light wave she’d been riding threatened to out itself as the illusion it was. Nevertheless, she kept up the pretense, looking down at him with her hands on her hips. “Varric. You’ve got those… lecturing eyebrows.”
He spluttered. “I don’t lecture.”
“You nudge. You gently push. And then, if necessary, you bludgeon your prey with those sad, sad eyes that say they only want the best for you, and suddenly, your friend is halfway down their third pint of ale, wrapped around your pretty little finger instead of doing what they set out to do.”
He guffawed. “No friend of mine would give up after two ales.”
She grinned, putting on her cape with a flourish before moving toward the foyer. “Whatever you say, sad eyes.”
Varric grumbled something, then said, “Hey. Hey! Where are you going?”
Damn.
“Just thought I’d do a little staff dancing,” she said coyly, nearly to the door. “For Cullen. Or maybe Meredith. She looks like she needs a little loosening up.”
“Hawke.”
“Maybe add a little twinkling mage light for ambience, see if I can’t sway them a little.” She sighed. “The real question is, how will I choose betweenthem? They’re both so delectable in their own ways….”
“Hawke.”
Oh. Those were his lecturing eyebrows. And what’s worse, his arms had folded, too.
She let her hand drop from where it tapped theatrically at her chin, and she sighed. “Okay, okay. Sorry. What is it?”
For a second, he said nothing. Just exhaled slowly, pinching the skin around his eyes with one hand. When he dropped it, she wondered what carousel of emotions he’d been hiding behind it — because now, he just looked half-concerned, mostly wry. “Just… be careful, Hale. Okay? Kirkwall is shitty enough without you getting caught in the cogs of it.”
And that… that was certainly affection in those words.
She blinked, a little stunned, and ignored that sensation in her chest: like a thousand terrible things threatening to break free from where she’d caged them. Her smile felt strained. “I’ll be careful, Varric. You just worry about keeping that face of yours wrinkle-free.”
Not her best deflection, but not her worst. Varric huffed a laugh, shaking his head.
She slipped out her mansion door.
~
The stories coming from the Gallows were harrowing. She didn’t even have the mirth left in her to make it a pun.
Varric’s concern wasn’t unwarranted. Especially not after that whole disaster with Ser Alrik’s tranquil solution. Anders was still haunted by that day because of his near-miss with Justice and that runaway mage, but the girl was alive, and Hawke was much more concerned by the things that Alrik had said before she burned him to a crisp.
Do you know what we do to mages who lie?
Once you’re Tranquil, you’ll do anything I ask.
Usually Hawke opted for negotiation before violence, but in that moment, she’d seen red, throwing furious ice shards before she even stopped to think that perhaps using magic as a first offense against templars was not the best choice of plan. But Justice — Anders — ended the fight against the templars more quickly than she thought possible, and thankfully, Varric and Isabela weren’t nearly as susceptible to their nullifying powers. Still, she’d wished briefly in that moment that she’d been able to bring someone with a bit more front-line muscle.
Unfortunately, that hadn’t been an option, and it still wasn’t.
Carver was dead. And Aveline was… well. After that disaster in the Fade several weeks back, and what Aveline had said in the aftermath, Hawke wasn’t feeling too comfortable in her friend’s company. Aveline had been shaken by the demon’s temptations, she knew, by old ghosts, but the insinuations she’d made about Hawke, about magic….
Let’s just say she wasn’t too keen on bringing Aveline to an underground network of Circle escape tunnels.
And Fenris….
Hawke cleared her throat, trying to simultaneously clear her mind of him. It didn’t work, of course, but she still tugged the hood a bit closer around her face as she approached the corner of the Hanging Man. She thought about going inside, if only to shake off the words bouncing off around her aching skull, but she didn’t want to see Isabela, or anyone, really, who might have dropped by.
So instead, she turned down a side alley, content to wander. Or she would have been, if her brain wasn’t so bloody loud.
I know I apologized for what happened in the Fade — but the more I think about it, the more I think you are to blame, too.
Hawke scoffed aloud.
Making the mage the scapegoat: how novel! Even when her companions had been the ones to betray her. She wouldn’t have even held it against them, if they’d just….
Hawke sighed, turning another corner. Unsure where she was going, as long as it didn’t involve familiar faces.
Fenris had blamed her like she should expect to blamed, and he hadn’t even bothered to apologize before he came pounding on her door again, ranting about Danarius and the Wounded Coast. That wiped all petty thoughts out of her mind, and within hours Isabela, Merrill, Fenris and herself were walking straight into an ambush they’d already known was there. More than capable of handling it, between the four of them, but unfortunately Danarius had, once again, sent people in his stead. Not just anyone — his own apprentice, Hadriana, who was most likely sent to haunt Fenris with news of a sister he hadn’t known existed.
After Hadriana was dead, there wasn’t much Hawke could do to calm him. If there had ever been some sort of… spark between them, it did nothing to incline him to listen.
In fact, her very presence seemed to make things worse.
He’d paced in that slaver cavern, practically coming apart at the seams with rage. But it wasn’t until he said, “May she rot, and all the other mages with her,” that Hawke took a slow inhale.
It wasn’t personal. It wasn’t. So she kept her voice level as she said quietly, “Maybe we should leave.”
The slaver’s cavern reeked of despair. Even Hawke could feel it. She’d felt the savagery in the Tevinter mages’ spellcasting too, even though she hadn’t wanted to: an old gift of sensitivity to others’ magic that was hard to block out, sometimes. But she couldn’t imagine what memories this place held for someone like Fenris, which was why she took another step toward him, lifting a hand.
He whirled when she did, eyes sparking blue and the briefest flash of lyrium racing toward his sternum. “Don’t comfort me,” he spat.
She withdrew like she’d been slapped, and didn’t move again. He continued to pace, a dozen bitter words bouncing around the room, but she didn’t let them hit her: at least, not until he stopped, ran his hands through his hair, and snarled,
“What has magic touched that it doesn’t spoil?”
Hawke stopped breathing in the branding silence followed.
The staff in Hawke’s hand suddenly burned. She didn’t let herself turn to look at Merrill, but she heard a footstep, as if Isabela had taken a step closer to her side.
Fenris noticed the movement. His gaze drifted over Hawke’s shoulder.
He scarcely tolerated Merrill on a good day, and Hawke doubted he’d lose sleep over whatever he saw on the blood mage’s face. But it did have another consequence: Fenris’s eyes slid to Hawke, as if registering the fact that those words belonged to her, too.
She didn’t let her expression shift, forcing herself to meet his appraisal without flinching. Cold, impassive, but if anything gave her away, it was the way her hand shifted around her staff. It took all her willpower not to collapse it, to hide it from prying eyes, to disguise what she was before the world reached out its claws.
In that moment, Fenris wasn’t the only one who’d started to drown in old memories.
Wrists hurting, hair catching on vines, throat tearing as she screamed, a voice that ranted madly about the evil inside her.
Too small hands, too small to fight, too far from the house as she was dragged away --
Hawke refused to let those bubbling memories surface. Instead she became stone, staring at him, waiting to see what he would do.
In the end, Fenris turned away. His words were hard. “I… should go.”
Hawke opened her mouth to argue: it wasn’t a difficult leap to imagine slaver reinforcements right outside the cave, or anywhere along the return path to Kirkwall, but he was gone before she said another word. She exhaled slowly, staring at the cavern wall for what felt like an eternity. When she finally collapsed her staff, tucking the baton back on her belt, she didn’t look at either of her remaining companions.
She turned instead to the figure in the corner, careful to keep her voice light. “Orana, wasn’t it?”
The girl looked a bit wide-eyed, but quickly bowed her head. “Yes — if you please. Orana — unless of course, you wish to change it, mistress.”
Hawke’s body stiffened.
Orana remained with her head bowed, as if such a request was not unusual or unexpected. Hawke didn’t trust herself to respond with the gentleness needed, so instead she stepped over the nearest body toward her.
Orana had retreated to a corner during the fight, and was now so surrounded by corpses that there wasn’t an inch of her that didn’t have some hint of blood. Hawke moved slowly toward her, but Orana’s head was still bowed by the time Hawke reached her side.
She offered a hand, and Orana blinked — nearly flinched.
Hawke cursed her own idiocy.
See, Hawke? she thought to herself wryly. This is why he hates you — you never could stop and think before you did something stupid.
The thought was meant to be a joke with herself, nothing more — but the way it left her feeling stunned was perhaps more telling than she’d bargained for.
Instead, she focused on the task at hand.
“Orana is a beautiful name,” Hawke said lightly, smiling. “And more importantly, it’s yours. Can I help you get over these corpses? It seems they’ve rather… piled up around you.”
Orana looked blankly at her hand, at the bodies, but thankfully that’s when Isabela appeared, offering another hand. Her eyes flicked to Hawke, but only once, and barely long enough for it to be a wondering assessment, then she looked down at the bodies on the floor, toeing one with her foot. “My handiwork, sorry. Wasn’t really looking where I was putting them.”
Orana looked between the two hands offered, completely blank gaze filling with something like fear, like her lack of understanding was about to offend.
Isabela spoke with her usual warm amusement, not a hint of mocking in it. “If you reach out with both hands, love, we’ll lift you up and over. You’re covered in enough blood as it is. Then we’ll all leave this wretched place.”
Orana swallowed. “My apologies. Of course.” She took both their hands, and together they lifted her out of most of the gore. “Sincerest apologies,” she said again, sounding shaken.
Hawke gave her a smile. “No need. It was Isabela’s fault for building a wall of the dead around you, anyway.”
“True enough,” Isabela called from Merrill’s side, and they began to pick their way back through the cavern.
Hawke’s two companions trailed behind as she and Orana worked their way toward the exit, keeping pace but not keeping close. Hawke helped Orana through some tight cavern spaces more than once, and each time she seemed a little less confused by Hawke’s hand. From the moment Hawke had said she would pay Orana, the girl’s eyes hadn’t sharpened past glazed, but she would take victories where she could get them.
Suddenly, Fenris’s sneer flashed in her mind’s eye.
I didn’t know you were in the market for a slave.
Hawke closed her eyes momentarily, inhaling slowly as she ducked under a lone beam.
I’m going to pay her, Fenris. She can have a job and stay with me, if she’d like to.
He’d looked contrite after that. But it didn’t erase the fact that he’d immediately assumed that Hawke wanted to be a master. A master of a person.
Maker’s breath, was that really his impression of her? After three years, did he still see her as a Tevinter magister in apostate’s clothing, rotting away inside, magic spoiling all the good in her?
She wished she had an answer.
Orana did not speak much, and even though they were quite a few paces behind, the silence allowed Hawke to hear Isabela’s quiet voice. “You all right, Kitten?”
An unconvincing laugh from Merrill. “Oh, fine, I suppose. I’m quite used to Fenris’s… derision.” Elven soles scraped against rock. “I’m more worried… about Hawke.”
Merrill had tried to speak quietly, but it hadn’t stopped the words from reaching Hawke’s ears.
Damn echoing caverns.
Hawke said nothing. Instead, she forged ahead, navigating the winding curves, showing Orana where to watch her step, and didn’t say another word until they reached home.
~
That was three days ago.
She hadn’t seen Fenris since the coast, although Isabela had made sure he made it home safely. The disturbing encounter in the Circle tunnels had happened only yesterday, and even Varric had looked shaken after it. All in all, it had been a week she did not want to repeat, even if they had all come out of it unscathed.
She suspected it was their run-in with the grisly tranquil solution that had drawn Varric to her mansion that afternoon with ill-disguised concern. He was lucky he’d even caught her at home. Living a few steps away from Fenris meant she was actively avoiding her own neighborhood. Maybe that made her a coward, but she didn’t care enough to stop. Varric could write it into his damn novels if he wanted: might make her namesake heroine a little more well-rounded.
She was terrified for the day that he actually published those damn things. It might help to keep templars off her scent — her dual wielding skills were greatly exaggerated in the scraps of writing she’d read — but at least it helped sell her own status as a charming rogue instead of an apostate.
When it came to other tokens of embarrassment, however…. She was fairly certain Varric had love triangles set up around, beneath, and above her. It was a wonder novel-Hawke could move without being kissed on the mouth.
If I find whoever gave that bastard a pen, she thought, rolling her eyes in the general direction of the Hanged Man.
Hawke took another aimless turn. It was dark now, but she didn’t want her feet to carry her home just yet. Perhaps the white walls and embroidered curtains might help keep some bad memories at bay, but it would only spark others.
A patch of wildflowers. Papa in their farmhouse on the ridge. Too close to the road, she knew, but the flowers were brightest here, and she reached out to make a petal shine with tiny ice formations, watching it sparkle.
Then — blinded by pain at her forehead. Then, blinded by blood. A traveling templar’s lone red face, half-driven mad by what, she didn’t know, didn’t understand….
Years ago. Many years ago, by this point, and useless to dwell on — even if she did still bear the scar. A rather long one, from hairline to temple.
Hawke spotted an unfamiliar poster on the alley wall and slowed for a moment. She had to squint to read it in the dark.
BY ORDER OF KNIGHT-COMMANDER MEREDITH
ANYONE RUMORED TO BE HARBORING APOSTATES
WILL BE BROUGHT TO THE GALLOWS FOR QUESTIONING.
ANYONE WITH INFORMATION ON THE WHEREABOUTS
OF APOSTATES KNOWN OR UNKNOWN
WILL LIKEWISE BE COMPENSATED ACCORDINGLY.
A chill went down Hawke's spine.
It was that last part. The promise of coin….
Maker knew she’d done a thousand questionable things for coin. And slept soundly for it.
She’d have to be more careful. Take less trips to the Gallows — or more, maybe, if that was what it took to convince them she had nothing to hide.
“Hey! Care for a swim?”
Hawke blinked, looking around before she suddenly realized that she was at the docks. When had she even gotten here? Maker, she’d promised Varric she’d be careful, and she wasn’t even looking where she was walking.
“You’ll have to strip down that armor first though, darlin’.”
Hawke scoffed, disgusted. Not even glancing twice at the three lewd men leaning over a dark railing as she muttered, “Parasites.”
“What did you say?”
Hawke stopped. Turned. Smiled.
“I called you parasites,” she said agreeably, arms wide, head scarf dangling over one shoulder as she gave them a crooked grin. “But I could think of other words, if you prefer. Perhaps,” fingers tapping at her chin, “Half-witted ogres that tragically overestimate their bodily appeal, and deeply underestimate their ability to be less appealing than my mabari’s regurgitated breakfast.”
The closest one spluttered, the second one just looked mystified and the third — the third stepped toward her.
Hawke looked up at him with an innocent smile.
I dare you, she thought. I dare you.
“You’ve got a big mouth,” the brute said. “But not big enough for what I have in mind for it.”
Hawke’s smile sharpened.
The man leered in return. His two friends finally snapped to attention, looking hungry. They flanked their drinking friend with beady eyes.
She sighed, looking at them with sympathy. “I can see that I’ve filled the air with more words than you or your band of merry idiots could split between the three of your admittedly tiny brains. Worry not,” she said, lifting a hand, “I am not immune to your plight. Let me put it into words that are easier to understand.”
Her stomach rolled as the man’s stench hit her, as she stepped forward.
“I’m. Not. Interested,” she sang. “Simple enough?”
The face above her contorted with rage. “Oh, it’s simple. I’ll just break you in half instead.”
A meaty hand snapped out, grasping her upper arm. Hawke frowned with a theatrical sigh, looking at the dirt under his fingernails.
“Oh, you do know how to disappoint a girl.”
And then — he was screaming.
The other two men watched in terror as the man collapsed, green smoke spilling from his ears, as he screamed and screamed at something neither of them could see. He crawled on his hands and knees, dragging himself on the filthy ground as he tried to escape it —
The second brute looked up at Hawke, his face transforming into an impotent fury.
“You’ll pay for that,” he snarled.
She threw him an innocent, simpering look. “Oh, will I, now?”
One moment her staff wasn’t there, the next, wood notches extended out behind her with a flick of her wrist, sliding smoothly before locking in place. Ice crackled softly, tinkling bells along creaking wood as she dragged it lazily behind her, raising a hand blithely in challenge.
The man drew his sword, bellowed and charged.
One more step, and his eyes widened as a glyph flashed beneath him, as his feet stuck solid in paralysis. Another wave of Hawke’s hand, and little ice trellises climbed him, spiraling up his limbs and chest.
She could almost hear Isabela say, The last thing to ever climb him.
The third man came at her from behind, but his steps were loud, and she’d set her trap before he reached arm’s length. The blast knocked him off his feet, sending him flying into a wall with a crack and a groan.
Hawke sighed. “Tiny brains, indeed.”
The first man was recovering from her Fade-bound horror, but he hadn’t risen. Hawke drew a knife from her belt, inspecting it for no other reason than that she had the time, then screwed its matching end into her staff with a flourish.
“You’re making this practically leisurely, gentlemen. Further evidence of my theory that handsy men have no endurance whatsoever.”
The first man spit in her direction. “Apostate bitch. You won’t be so smug when we turn you in to the templars.”
“Oh, how original!” She clicked her tongue. “I applaud you, sir, for your creativity in threats — in spite of the many factors working against you.”
His eyes darkened as he rose to his feet. The other two rounded her, coming closer, closer….
And she was surrounded.
Just as she preferred it.
Her staff flipped, rose upward, and the world wrapped in storm — swaths of ice and lightning intertwining in a cackling hurricane of vengeance. One screamed, another still managed to swing at her head, and she ducked, responding with the knife end in his spine before she embedded ice in his skull.
He dropped.
Another brute clipped her shoulder with his shield, smarting pride more than bone — and it made it all the sweeter when she willed an orange smoke of whispers to climb down his throat.
He burned from the inside out.
That only left… ah, yes.
The smelliest of them all.
He ran at her in raging desperation, blade risen high.
“Inspiring,” she said. “Accolades!”
He bellowed, sword swinging directly for her neck —
Hawke bowed backward with a half-smile. She spun, out of reach before he could even turn, and by the time he had, she’d unleashed a shower of relentless frost.
The man choked, eyes wide beneath it as his movements slowed to a halt.
Do you know what we do to mages who lie?
Frost changed to ice, then to deadly hail. He wasn’t moving, and her hand was numb, but she didn’t stop.
Once you’re Tranquil, you’ll do anything I ask.
Jaw clenching, mana exhausting, ice boiling without her realizing it, flames tearing like blighted sunlight from her fingers —
What does magic touch that it doesn’t spoil?
The torrent rushed to a halt so quickly, she nearly stumbled.
Hawke’s chest heaved as she looked down.
The man at her feet was frost-bitten and burned. The other two corpses lay twisted in a mess of elemental rage.
Her staff lowered.
Predatory monsters: more deserving of death than any mercenary she had killed.
She pulled up her hood before walking calmly to the center of what was left of her storm. Stared at the magic-borne carnage.
“They deserved it,” she said shakily. “They deserved it.”
They deserved it. They deserved it.
A friend’s sneer. What does magic touch that it doesn’t spoil?
“…And then I told her I couldn’t, of course, because — Maker’s breath.”
Hawke whirled.
Two wide-eyed men in armor, staring at her, at the staff still in her hand — surrounded by corpses.
“Apostate,” one breathed.
Templars.
Hawke stared. So did they.
She ran.
~
Maker, but there was nowhere to run.
The docks weren’t as winding as Lowtown — it was too open, too well-lit, and they’d likely already seen her face —
Blighted void damn her. Stupid. So stupid —
Her mana was exhausted. She’d wasted it on her petty hate. Her staff nearly dragged, not meant for sprinting at this speed.
“Stop! Apostate!”
Thorns in her hair. Tiny fists of rage. Powerless. Too far —
Hawke ducked around the next corner, an empty side street. Footsteps harsh on stone behind her —
Face them. Face them. There’s nowhere to run.
“Shit,” she choked out. “Shit.”
She jolted to a stop where the street rose on an incline, chest heaving. Hawke touched her neck, snapping her cloak off with one fluid movement.
“Apostate! Surrender your staff!”
Her cloak drifted to the ground in a soft wave of silk. The footsteps behind her slid to a halt.
“Don’t move another inch.”
Hawke turned slowly. Staff angled. Feet planted.
The two men approached her, swords drawn. Thank Andraste for small miracles; she didn’t know them. She hadn’t laughed with them, hadn’t seen the shadows in their eyes as they patrolled the Gallows.
The one with pale skin stepped forward. The silver and red in his armor flashed in the lamplight. “Your staff,” he said. His voice shook. “Now.”
Head slightly bowed, she looked up from underneath hooded eyelids.
“I don’t want to fight you,” she said quietly.
It was the truth. She did not want to fight them. She didn’t want to win.
But they were duty-bound, and she could not leave a templar alive that knew her face as an apostate’s.
The dark-haired one shuffled forward. Too young. “Give us the staff.”
Hawke exhaled. Gathered what little mana she had left.
I’m sorry, Varric.
And she rained fire down on silver and red.
~
Twenty years of hiding negated in a moment of stupidity.
It was all she could think about, as the templar with dark hair stood above her, fingers clenched in a crushing motion, face twisted with the effort as he trapped her in Silence.
Air left her lungs. She dropped to one knee.
She’d only killed one of them. Only one, before her endurance was gone, and her mana with it. She held her remaining dagger in one hand, her useless staff in the other, and considered throwing the sharp one at her mark — but her vision was blurred, her face was bleeding, and he was covered in armor.
Red, and silver, and red….
I am a blighted, void taken, Maker-damned fool.
“Surrender,” the templar ground out.
Hawke rose to her feet. She nearly stumbled, leaning on her staff to stay upright.
“No,” she said hoarsely.
Weak ice formed around the templar’s feet — and with one step of his heavy boots, the crystals shattered.
White spirit-fire lashed toward her in response, righteous condemnation raining penance on her head.
Her right elbow cracked into the cement as flames pushed her down, as she cried out. Not real flames, but flames of heaven meant for her, holy wrath meant for apostates of sin —
May she rot, and all the other mages with her.
And all the other mages —
All the other —
May she —
May she rot, rot, rot —
Staff and dagger slipped from her hands. Hawke struggled to breathe, flat on her back, every muscle aching and begging for surrender.
What has magic touched that it hasn’t spoiled?
Hawke choked out a bitter laugh.
“Surrender,” the templar said. Sweat drenched his hair. Terror creased his eyes.
She shuddered in another breath. Her body shook so badly, it took a full ten seconds to get to her knees. Another five to get the dagger in her palm.
She looked up. “No.”
Silver and red, silver and red.
Her enemy’s brow creased with frustration, with fear. His growl was more of a groan. “Don’t make me do this. Come peacefully.”
She swallowed, looking away.
“No,” she said hoarsely.
Maker, Varric, I’m sorry.
“Are you mad?” the templar said. Desperation colored his too-young face. “Just surrender, damn you. Drop the knife. I don’t want… I don’t want to do this.”
Hawke squeezed her eyes shut. The dagger hung loose at her side, in her hand for no other reason than that its presence declared her hostile.
“You’ll have to kill your first mage someday, serah,” she said quietly. “It may as well be one who gives you no choice.”
Something flashed in his eyes, as if the humanity in her words had unraveled something in him, something he would never recover. She regretted that. Just like she regretted so many other things, starting with this night and her own Maker-damned recklessness.
The young man’s eyes hardened in resolve. The pressure increased on Hawke’s shoulders, around her body. A smite as powerful as Silence, an annulment that would end with her blood on the ground, the templar’s sword between her ribs. In seconds, it would finally be over.
“I’m sorry,” she breathed, to all her friends’ faces.
Hawke closed her eyes.
Whoosh.
The templar gasped.
Hawke’s eyes flew open.
The templar’s mouth was open, eyes focused downward on the gauntlet that went through his armor, incorporeal as it was dangerous, wrapped around his heart.
Hawke leaned forward, choking on a breath.
Both templar and heart tumbled to the ground.
She stared. And stared. She continued to stare, even as Fenris moved away from the corpse, a lyrium torch of fury walking toward her.
Come peacefully.
Young eyes, so wide in death.
“Hawke.”
A hand touched the blood on her cheek, in her hairline.
Surrender, damn you. I don’t… I don’t want to do this.
Fingers around her wrist. Searching for other wounds.
What has magic touched that it hasn’t spoiled?
“Hawke,” Fenris said — demanded.
She didn’t look up. Instead, she twisted away from him —
— and emptied her stomach on the stone walkway.
Fenris swore in Tevene, grip snapping to her shoulder, her waist. The world spun even in his steadying grip, and she struggled to breathe as her vision warped and twisted.
The retching stopped. Dark spots flooded her vision.
“Put his heart back in his chest,” she said.
And the world went black.
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Back in 2021, a fic was released titled the road, the hidden truth, & you. Gaining quick popularity, it garnered almost 3,000 hits and 144 kudos on ao3, even appearing on a ScreenRant article. Now, watch as your favorite Hawke/Varric modern AU fic gets a whole new twist, with updated worldbuilding, deeper character analysis, and a few extra chapters to fill in the blanks of the story that came before. the road, the hidden truth, & you (revisited) - coming to an ao3 near you January 22nd, 2024
#is this anything. i tried to be cheesy#anyway surprise! trthtay rewrite!#i hope you all enjoy#after i finished it i felt this gigantic weight lift off of my shoulders#dragon age#hawke x varric#da#da2#hawke#varric#varric tethras#bethany hawke#carver hawke#fanfiction#fanfic#fic
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happy friday!! how about Hawke x Fenris with comfort after a nightmare?
Happy Friday!! For @dadrunkwriting, Marian Hawke x Fenris for nightmare comfort.
Content Warning: wholesome Length: ~500 words
The flames of the fire used to provide more comfort back before her entire life went to shit. The Blight had been the tipping point to the downfall of her family. Bethany and Carver were both gone, and her mother left too soon. Marian didn’t know if she could keep shouldering these burdens, not in addition to the rest of Kirkwall. Marian clasped her hands tightly in front of her, ignoring the spark that popped into the cool night air of the bedroom she received in Skyhold. Her mind replayed that scene in the Fade so clearly. The Fear demon was vicious in the visions it played out, as if it could see right through her soul.
“I wish Fenris was here,” Marian murmured to the empty room. She looked down at the palm, callused and scarred from her fights and magic. She closed her fist and dropped it between her legs again as she let her head droop. The nightmare still chased at the edges of her sanity, but Marian was not one to frighten easily.
She looked over her shoulder as she heard the door creak open. No one should have been in her room, unless it was Varric paying a visit. Her eyes narrowed and she slid off the bed to blend in with the shadows near the window. The breath was knocked out of her chest when the figure came into view. She stepped out of the shadows and felt the tears welling up. “Fenris?”
“Hawke.” He turned towards her voice and merely grunted when she practically slammed into him. Her face pressed tight against his chest, and he felt the trembling in her shoulders. “Are nightmares still plaguing you?”
“Different ones this time.” He shifted until they both sat on the bed. He hadn’t been able to predict what he was walking into, but after a messenger found him… Nothing short of an apocalypse would keep him from Hawke. He’d almost lost her from what Varric told him. Lost her to the Fade. His hands tightened in her shirt at the thought of never seeing her, never feeling her, or hearing her voice calling his name. He couldn’t bear the thought. “Why are you here?” Marian laughed as he told her the story.
“I thought it time we stopped going our separate ways.” Marian nodded and leaned against him. Her eyelids grew heavy now that he was next to her. The reassuring beat of his heart was soothing, it told her that he was alive. Fenris was there. Her mind couldn’t play tricks on her with him next to her. “Tell me about your nightmares Hawke.” Marian agreed and they moved until they lay together on the bed.
Fenris stroked her hair until her eyes closed and her breathing evened out. He didn’t know what it was about his presence that calmed her, but he was glad about it. Hawke was his home. If he could help her then he would be glad for it. He kissed her forehead before pulling her closer for the night. They could deal with the inevitable fallout of his visit in the morning.
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happy friday!! for the pairing of your choice, ' GOTCHA ]: the sender, noticing the receiver has unknowingly walked into the path of a source of danger, grabs them by the shoulder and hoists them back to safety. '
Absolutely! Here's some Carver x Merrill for @dadrunkwriting!
He would not call her unobservant. It couldn't be further from the truth. Merrill was one of the most observant people Carver ever met, and that included his mother (who seemed to have eyes on the back of her head), Bethany (who had always known what he was thinking, often before he thought of it), and (to his eternal frustration) Varric, who was nosy and got into everyone's business for his own amusement. The point was this: Merrill was observant. She saw things no one else seemed to, caught the smallest details of everything she got her hands on, and noted the slightest changes in the atmosphere on a regular basis. She was no fool, and she wasn't lost in her own daydreams (no matter what the others thought).
The problem seemed to be that she didn't give a fuck.
"Damn it!" Carver exclaimed, and he reached out and yanked Merrill by the shoulder out of the street before a horse and cart raced by with a speed that ought to have set the Guard on the driver. Ought to, Carver thought sourly, but it wouldn't. Too many problems and not enough people who gave a shit about fixing them, that was the trouble. And he wasn't much good at fixing anything, either.
"Oh my. They seemed in a hurry," Merrill observed, craning her neck as she watched the cart turn a corner. "That poor horse, though. Did you see how patchy her coat was?" Typical Merrill. She hadn't noticed the danger to herself, not one bit, but she instead extended all her care and concern to the damn horse that nearly ran her over!
"Went too fast for me to see it," Carver said. "Sorry about that. Didn't hurt you, did I?" How he wished he had Marian's wit, or Isabela's natural warmth, or even Fenris' dignified aloofness. Instead he felt like some hulking brute, rough and gruff without a trace of charm to him. But Merrill reached up, patted his shoulder, and smiled so brightly it put the sun to shame.
"I'm perfectly well, thank you! And thank you for escorting me to the markets today. I would have been lost ten times over without you!" With that Merrill set off again, and she only laughed when Carver pointed out that she was heading in the opposite direction. But when she slipped her hand in his and squeezed it, Carver wondered what, exactly, he had gotten right.
#my writing#da drunk writing circle#the terrible secret is that Merril knew where the markets were and she just wanted an excuse to spend more time with Carver
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Canon nicknames ! Varric called me 'Sunshine,' which always makes me feel warm and loved to think of. He had nicknames for everyone, but it still felt special. (Of course there is dramatic irony in the game, how the five of us (including Justice) ventured on his quest to where the Sun doesn't shine, and it would be quite some time before I would see any of them again - but I do not blame him and there are no hard feelings, I am glad to have survived !) (From Bethany Hawke, Dragon Age 2)
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