"Now this looks familiar," My elder brother remarked when finally, after weeks of sleeping in their armor and fighting off the blighted creatures of the underground caverns Thedas called the Deep Roads, we found ground we had already walked on before Bartrand Tethras had left the four of us for dead. In our company, there was Bartrand's younger brother, Varric, who would probably bear more resemblance to his older brother if he did not insist on shaving his beard, and yet another bloody apostate aside from Elijah, named Anders. Well, him being a Grey Warden makes him good for something, I suppose.

The Dwarf and Elijah have been merciless with terrible puns on our 'adventures' in the Deep Roads only in attempts to ease the tension from the possibility that we might be exploring our tomb. I know this because it's in Elijah's nature to turn everything into a joke, but even more so to just let others hear his voice. The Warden and I, Anders, appreciate it little, making it the one thing we truly agree on. Otherwise I wouldn't associate myself with that tit.

My brother's energy to laugh, however, had probably gone away upon waking at whatever hour it was that we had gotten moving, and he held his tongue, especially when he heard me speak… the darkspawn we met before sleeping, it wasn't good. I remember meeting Aveline and her Templar only a little over a year ago, Wesley, I think his name was. He said he knew the moment it had happened, when he got the taint.

So did I. The blood burned. I burn, inside. It hurts, I can feel every movement, when my stomach rumbles, when my lungs work to breathe and when my heart beats. It's like when the grease from meats in the frying pan pops and little drops of it land on your skin, only the feeling gets inside and it never cools off. It makes my stomach churn, though what I had to eat probably doesn't help a damn bit.

"Can we take a break?" I asked as another wave of nausea made me sweat and shiver, "I feel… wrong."

Elijah did not turn to look at me, and instead, scratched his messy beard as he further observed the roads ahead of them. This had been the road on which we had originally made camp, and was about a day or two's trip to the surface. Fresh air would be a blessing, and I knew he didn't necessarily want to stop, but he nodded anyway and said, "Let's make camp, if you're sick." That didn't give me as much relief as I had hoped it would.

Varric snorted, running a hand through the blond hair that had become greasy for lack of opportunity to wash, "I'll wager it was those deep mushrooms that we found. You'll probably feel better if you toss them back to the Deep Roads, heh."

"No it's-," I breathed hard, feeling as though the air was being pushed from my lungs, and what precious little I could gain was to be valued. My head became light and my limbs heavy, but by this time the burning inside had made me so numb I could scarce feel my knees hit the floor, or feel the stone against my hip when I fell. I could barely feel my brother's hands on my shoulders when he tried picking me up.

"Carver!"

"It's the blight," The Warden said as he and the Dwarf stood over me, my brother kneeling at my side, "I can sense it."

"Just like that Templar," I wheezed, "I'll be just as dead—just as gone."

"No, I'm not going to let that happen!" My brother's voice was strong, and I looked up at him to see the face we shared, thick brows furrowed, and… blue eyes watering a little. He blinked it away, of course, and probably swallowed it. Since we started growing from boys to men, we never shed any tears, and so to see him straining against them nearly shocked me to my feet. I kept quiet and gripped my stomach, which was churning viciously.

"I'm not going to make it. Not to the surface, not anywhere," I could feel the effort it took to try and push Elijah away, but he stayed put, and I added with more panic than I would like, "It's getting worse."

"There might be something we can do," Anders said quickly, "I stole the maps from a Grey Warden that had come to Kirkwall… I wanted to know if he was looking for me. He wasn't, the maps were for their own expedition into the Deep Roads."

"Does that mean the Wardens are here?"

"If the Wardens are here, I know where. We could bring Carver to them."

"And what?" I asked, "Become a Grey Warden?" What good would any of that do, I wonder? I hadn't any energy to ask, and after exchanging glances with my brother, he must have picked up on this, and asked for me.

"Is becoming a Grey Warden some kind of cure?"

The other mage shrugged rather hesitantly and affirmed this, but the blasted wanker added something rather discouraging, probably thinking he was doing me some sort of favor. In this moment, anything to stop the pain racing through my body would have been enough. Make me a Grey Warden, slit my throat, or chop off my head. Anything to make it stop.

"There's a price?" things were getting more tense by the minute, "What price? Maker's breath, spit it out!"

"The process of becoming a Warden is… unpleasant," he explained, "And irreversible. It also means you might never see your brother again."

I didn't know how the latter was a setback for myself, but as for unpleasant, I also couldn't see how anything was worse than having fire replace your blood. I prayed to the Maker that they would make a bloody fucking decision before it became too much to bear.

"And being a Grey Warden, it isn't an easy life. Trust me."

"How do you even become a Grey Warden?"

"I can't tell you. And it's not something you can reverse once it's done, even if you wanted to. I left the Wardens, but I never got away. Eventually they or the Circle will drag me back. It's not something you can ever run away from."

"Well," I added, "This just keeps sounding better the more you two go on. Make a bloody decision before I die, Maker have mercy."

Elijah had a hand on my shoulder, and it tightened a little, or I thought it did and he told me, "If there's a chance, we have to try."

I inhaled deeply and prepared myself for the walk we would have to take, as Elijah and the Warden helped me to my feet.

"I think they're here," Anders said after about an hour's worth of searching, or so I was told. Time seemed to go by rather slowly by then, and I had vomited more times than I cared to count on the way there.

The snarling told us otherwise, and the three of them that weren't sick jumped to action, and I sluggishly drew my sword. Anders and Elijah threw spells at the darkspawn suddenly flooding the corridor with a fury I hadn't ever noticed before. Father and I had taught us both to use blades, but Elijah never was so enthusiastic to bloody some steel as I was, and I was proud of myself for being good at it, but no matter how I did with a blade, Father was always quicker to praise Elijah and Bethany for work well done with a staff.

This was likely going to be the end of me. Elijah would bring my body home to Mother when this was done. How perfectly fitting that the one thing I shadowed him in would fail me, that I would go out with a whimper as my brother fought to keep me alive. How fitting that he would fail in saving me, but to everyone but Mother, a light would be shined on him, the mourning brother who failed to protect his sick brother. How. Bloody. Fitting.

One of the Genlock buggers took my weakness as an advantage, sniffing me out and retreating from the rest of the crowd that was rolling about in flames, shrieking and slashing, to attack me. It took all my strength to block its powerful swing, and to skewer it on my heavy blade, twisting the damned thing to make it the killing blow.

The fight was done when Anders sent flame through the last darkspawn skull. When the smoke had cleared and the dust from disturbed stone had settled, a man with hair as black as mine and my brothers, with a mustache thicker than any I'd ever seen before stepped into view, clad in heavy armor—the leather a dark blue with perhaps silver plating. The thing that stood out to me the most about this shiny new person was the griffon carved into his chest plate. There were two others dressed like him, but he seemed to be the senior by the way he took charge of the situation.

"Anders." He said in a heavy Orlesian accent, laying eyes on the Warden.

"Fancy meeting you here, Stroud," The mage said as my brother came to help me over as I grew weak in the knees once more.

"I could say the same of you. I thought you were through fighting darkspawn."

"That isn't what I'm here for. Actually, I came looking for you," My brother and I stumbled, and briefly, I made contact with the new Warden, Stroud, only to look away. My skin was paler than it had ever been, pasty, with the dark veins showing through it. I disgusted myself, but above all, I felt as weak as I probably looked. I could think of nothing worse to appear as in front of Grey Wardens, rumored to be tactical experts and warriors of great skill. My sweat chilled my skin, but my face burned and struggled to show more color than pasty white.

"You mean the boy? As a recruit?" He sounded a little surprised, and paused for a brief moment, shaking his head, "No, of course you do." Here, Stroud turned and addressed my brother and I, adding only to the kind endorsements of the Wardens that I had heard before. "I am sorry. I know this comes as no comfort to you, but we do not recruit Wardens out of pity. It is not a kindness."

Elijah snorted, and immediately I knew the Maker had blessed me because his mood was far from playful, "You think it's kinder to just let my brother die from the blight?"

"Sometimes, yes. Very much so."

Anders and Elijah argued in my defense, with bitter praise I knew I would only hear if I were dead or dying. I was worth their time to consider me for recruitment.

"It's a waste not to consider him," Anders finally added in, "He'll die anyway if you don't take him, and if you do there's a chance he may yet live. Please, Stroud, take him and try. I'm asking you."

The man exhaled and rustled his thick mustache ever so slightly.

"If the boy comes, he comes now, and you may never see your brother again. Becoming a Grey Warden is not a cure," He pressed, making eye contact with me, only wearing the gravest of expressions, "It is a calling."

I lifted my head, trying to stand as best I could and exchanged glances with my brother.

"Are you sure about this, Elijah?" As much as I hated living in his shadow, he did know what he was doing.

"I wish there was another way, but it seems this is your only chance," I felt the arm that wasn't around my brother's shoulder as he was helping me stand lift up. Stroud was on my other side, ready to take me from the life I knew.

"We are to move quickly if we are to make it to the surface in time."

"Then," I started, feeling a lump in my own throat that I quickly swallowed, "I guess this is it. Take care of Mother."

My last look at his face seemed to last me a lifetime, and I knew it was nothing I would forget any time soon. For the first time since we had arrived in Kirkwall, I noticed things in his face that had changed, and should I have ever used a looking glass on myself to compare, I would think we weren't related at all, though he would seem very familiar.

There was a crease between his eyebrows that was deep now, but even when he was in a good mood it never went away anymore. It was always there, just not always so profound. Though there was precious little light in these caverns, I could still make out the dark under his eyes, and if he shaved the scraggly mess off his face, I might have found the corners only turning down until he was prompted to cut in somewhere with a witty remark.

Elijah looked older than twenty-three, but right for his age at the same time, and I wondered if I had gone on about "his bloody templars" too many times, or if he was just working harder than usual. What might help me sleep at night, is if it turned out that we Hawke's just aged badly. In that case, Bethany might be considering herself lucky up there with the Maker, because she resembled Father the most whom I remember had graying hair long before Mother's started to change. I had always thought it was because he had much to worry about.

We turned away from my brother, whose eyes I could feel on me until we were far off, and the Grey Wardens took great care to help me walk as fast as possible. The Caverns which they had come through were free of Darkspawn, and it took less than the time my brother had guessed would take us to reach the surface. Either that, or I must have blank spots of our trip there. I do remember, however, one instance where Stroud had insisted I help him and the two Wardens he was traveling with to kill a lone darkspawn. I did as much as I could, and was helped along to deliver the killing blow like I was still a boy. I wished that they would just kill me rather than push me along like an urchin, but I kept quiet and did as I was told, right down to filling up a vial with the beast's blood when it was done. I hadn't the energy to be curious enough to ask, and we made it to the surface in relative silence. By this time, I had nothing left to throw up and settled for dry heaving when I became nauseous. The Wardens looked on with pity, making my ears burn hotter than the fire my heart pumped through my body, but never voiced their condolences or really did much else than help me walk and kill the darkspawn. I know Elijah wouldn't have such discretion.

It was good to breathe in fresh air when we got to the surface, and I found it easier to breathe with the sky above me and enormous pines surrounding the small dirt path we took, about a half mile to the camp. The sky was grey, about to face the sunrise. Dawn. It was good to see dawn.

We arrived at a small gathering of six tents in a clearing that was only a small ways off the path, with a fire in the middle. There were two other Wardens present, both looking puzzled at me until I came into the light of their fire. Then their expressions changed to understanding and matched the sorry looks I got from the three that escorted me there.

"Sit here," Stroud said as he eased me into a seated position on a log, "I won't be long."

There was only one woman among the Wardens I had seen so far, a city elf (or so I assume) with white-blonde hair cut short and shaggy, and dark green eyes. The plates of her heavy armor sat beside her on the log, next to a leather satchel which she dug into for a burlap pouch. She loosed the strings that kept it tied shut and handed it to me.

"Eat this, Shem. The sick won't be no better if you let yourself starve."

"I can't keep anything down, don't waste it," I told her, probably coming off as a little bitter when I said it, but I was feeling too sorry for myself at this time to care.

"Do as she says, boy," an older man with graying hair and an Orlesian accent, not Stroud told me. I recognized him as one of the Wardens that had helped me to the surface, "Some rice bread would help to settle that stomach. Better for before The Joining anyway. A settled stomach helps it go down."

Reluctantly, I grabbed the bag and dug inside to find some rice bread, tasting a little stale, but I chewed on it anyway, feeling a little better. A small skin sloshing full of something was tossed to me next, and I opened it, eager to wet my throat, which was drier than I ever remembered it being. The water felt like the Maker's blessing going down.

I handed the elf her emptied pouch and closed the water skin, leaving it on the log beside me as I buried my face in my hands.

I had endured the burning for so long that the rest of me had felt numb. My arms and legs were gelatin, my stomach an aching vessel that turned over with every breath my lungs could manage. I thought for certain that I might be joining Father and Bethany soon when a large hand clapped down on my shoulder and jostled my upper body. It was Stroud.

"It's time. We must hurry."

The Wardens all gathered, standing around the fire. They were all there, all seven—two faces I hadn't seen until now, and a Mabari hound like my brother's woke, and perked up its ears to watch.

"Join us, brothers and sisters," one of the new faces, a blond-haired man with a Ferelden accent like my own who seemed only a handful of years older than myself started in a monotonous tone, walking forward with a formal looking silver cup, like a goblet with no intricate design—I supposed this was something that was important to carry on them for this ritual. He stopped a short distance away from me, looking me straight in the eye as he continued his chant, "Join us in the shadows where we stand vigilant. Join us as we carry the duty that cannot be forsworn. And should you perish, know that your sacrifice will not be forgotten, and that one day we will join you."

Silence fell except for the crackling of the fire, and I was aware of all eyes on me. Weak knees, cold sweat, and nausea mixed with all this—it was like nothing I ever experienced. It was all like something that could happen in that Dwarf's silly books.

"Carver Hawke, step forward."

I did, and the cup was held out to me. Only when it was taken into my hands did I smell what was in it, and I wrinkled my nose. Darkspawn blood? Of all the pissing things I could put in my mouth, it had to be more taint. If it stopped this pain, it was worth the risk. I drank it, and it was like drinking from the lava rivers of the Dwarven cities. The numbness went away and the burning became hotter, more intense, and in an instant, I was blinded.

Only I didn't stop seeing. There were more of the blighted things, darkspawn. Hordes of them, stampeding through the caverns, and a feeling rose for me to identify it. What was that? Desperation—that was the only way I could describe it. Desperation to find something. The leader. Where was the God to lead the armies? Without one we are nothing. Mindless. Nothing to tie our minds together for good, no purpose.

I woke, as if from a long sleep, with the tarp ceiling of a tent hanging over me. I was laying in a bedroll that was lain out on top of yet another tarp, all on top of soft soil and lust grass. It was a step above Uncle Gamlen's house, that's for sure.

It took me a moment to realize that there was a slightly familiar woman sitting cross-legged beside me. Yes, she was there, with the fire and the chanting man, but—no, there was something else. Her hair was the color of dark cocoa (understand I haven't had anything to eat but deep mushrooms and bread for the last three days), long and woven into two braids, and by the way a few strands refused to smooth into place, I could tell it was quite curly, and even curled into near-perfect rings where she tied them off at the ends. Her skin was fair and her eyes a silvery color. No, that was as generic as anything, I could see that anywhere. Her face was round, her cheeks full—there was some youth in her, but she was older than I. Maybe Elijah's age. Twenty-Four. That was as good a guess as any.

I stared at her face for a long time, and she stared back, looking a little amused. Her nose was small with a classic, straight slope, like mother's. She had a small mouth, with thick, pink lips— she was beautiful, yes, but as soon as I had associated her nose with Mother's, I couldn't stop seeing it. My chest ached a little, partly from how I was recovering, and partly from how I missed her.

"Good morning," the woman finally said, breaking the silence I'd made between us. She was as Ferelden as the man I'd taken the blood-cup from before I woke, "You had us worried for a while, but I was certain you would make it. Welcome aboard."

I tried to sit up, but my head pounded as soon as I tried to exert myself, and I groaned, "Pissing head of mine!" I held a hand to my forehead, "My bloody fucking skull's about to rip open."

"Watch yer mouth, lad, there's old ears in this camp," she told me with a smile. She picked my hand up by the wrist and replaced it on my forehead with her own. Through my eyelashes of my half-closed lids I could see her hand glow. She was another mage. Never thought I'd miss Elijah. Glad to see I don't so far.

In the presence of another Fereldener, I started to speak like back home in old Lothering while amongst my friends and not quite as eloquently as Mother and Father preferred, "If they're old ears, then them ears is shit, innit? Surely they'll understand anyhow, I'm in bleeding pain here."

The woman chuckled, and took her hand off of my head. It felt as though she'd let some of the pressure on my brain loose, and relief made me relax.

"Not to worry," she said, "None would hold a grudge for a sick boy. You seen through more suffering in your own Joining than most us did. Lucky to be alive, you are."

I snorted, "Yes. So lucky. I had the worst dream of my life and feel like I drank a Qunari's worth of ale."

"Well, the headaches I can tell you, will go away. The dreams will take a while. Although, you shoulda seen 'em during the Blight. Didna get much sleep those days."

"I'm sure they were all perfectly shite then, too." I tried sitting up again, and found it was less painless than before. Finally I was able to prop myself up on my elbows and observe her almost level to myself. She wore Grey Warden-issue robes for a mage, which were protective as well. They had the metal scales, but none of the plating, and were crafted with thick leather that wouldn't cut quite easily, as were her boots. Black and blue seemed to be the colors the Wardens chose for themselves, and their armor looked better than anything Elijah and I salvaged from the Lowtown markets. Her staff was a long branch lain down behind her in the small tent, with a leather grip and a sharp looking blade of a dagger on one end, and some kind of totem crafted from a lump of some kind of geode on the other, with various baubles and leather straps and such to keep it tied on. Her casual air about being a mage made me think that maybe it should have been Elijah to get the taint. He'd be better off as a Warden than an apostate.

"Right," I said when she didn't answer, "I'm Carver Hawke."

"It's good to meet you, Carver. I'm Warden-Commander Amell. But you can call me Janet until we're in more formal company."

"Amell?"

"Janet Amell. Anyhow, my fellow Fereldener. How would you like to go back to back home?"

"To Lothering?"

"Back to Ferelden. Lothering's gone, last I saw it, but in time the land might be salvageable. How soon that will be, I cannot say it'll be in either of our lifetimes."

"Ferelden? Yes. Take me away from the pissing Free-Marches," I said, but searched my head for something I heard before, from mother. I asked before she could leave, "Have you happened to know anyone named Revka?"

"Revka? It sounds familiar," She furrowed her brow and thought, "I spent my life since I was six in the Circle, up until I was recruited. Revka. Yes, that was my mother's name. I cannot say I remember much of her. She was the one that gave me to the Templars so I don't know if that's a good or bad thing. Why do you ask, do you know her?"

I smiled for the first time since Bartrand locked us in the Deep Roads, and nodded, "Not personally. She's my mother's cousin."

Janet looked shocked for a moment, but a smile quickly made it back to her face. "Cousin?" She asked, "I like the sound of that. Cousin. I've never met any blood relation since being taken, it's odd, don't you think?"

"A little, that we should meet, my sister would have said it were destiny, Maker rest her soul."

"Poor cousin," I looked up as she readied herself to leave the tent, and saw a somewhat sad expression, "I'll have to make a point to keep you around Amaranthine for a while. It's hard not having family, but… I think you'll make your place with the Wardens. Maybe the Deep Roads will feel like home."

"Right. No offense, but I'd like to get to this Grey Wardening piss as soon as possible. No use in putting it off if I need to do it later, yeah?"

"'Grey Wardening.'" She sounded a little amused, "Oh, I think I'll like you, Carver."