A/N: Got the urge to write this after going through the beginning of Dragon Age II- it won't be updated as soon as I like- my other stories have to be finished first. Characters from the Perspective series make cameos every now and then, just because they adore Hawke's manly beard xD

Summary: Hawke. The man who's at the centre of all the conflict in Kirkwall- follow his journey as he tries hard to make ends meet for his two siblings and their mother. Haven't decided on a romance option for him yet but... we'll see, shall we? Ideas please?

A Leap into Destiny

Chapter 1: Hawke

Lothering. Carver was off, fighting a war that was doomed from the start. He had enlisted the first chance he had, much to his mother's chagrin.

Darkspawn. Foul creatures that roamed the earth, bringing death and destruction each place they set foot. They tainted everything in their path.

Hawke. That name still rang. As the eldest, his role was to keep his family safe. He has had to, since his father passed.

Desperation. Refugees poured into Lothering from the southern villages. But it was no sanctuary—there was no pity, no life, in a place as depressed as this.

Survival. And so, they waited. The three of them, for their brother to come home. Mother had refused to leave without word of him.

Lothering was drained. No army was left to guard the peace, although there were still the templars. A qunari had attacked a family to the west of where they were, slaughtering all, even the children. This was the way of life. There was no mercy, no kindness in helping strangers. Even if Hawke believed that some of them, were innately good.

Darkspawn were sighted, upon the far hills. The corruption was coming, and still Mother refused to run. She wanted to know the outcome from her baby boy herself.

Hawke knew. The war against darkspawn would take far more than the King's army. Grey Wardens would stop it, but there were precious few of those in Ferelden.

Desperation swept through the place. And soon, even the Chantry left, the Grand Cleric escorted away by her loyal templars, leaving the village to burn. Still, they waited. Carver had to be coming.

Survival was important. He had to protect his family. They were all he had, as an apostate.

His brother returned, in a fluster. The war was lost, and fleeing was the only option.

"Pack only food. We have to go. Now." The streams of perspiration ran down his face, his arms, and the panic in his eyes was evident. It was hopeless to remain where they were, so close to the Kocari Wilds.

The first wave of darkspawn was seen as they exited their house, a modestly-furnished place in which they had grown up. Now was not the time for goodbyes. They fled, as fast as they could, heading north. Perhaps to Denerim. As long as it was away from the foul beasts.

As they ran from the village, Hawke saw a figure in black platemail, combing through the rubble. He shouted at it, waving his arms, unheeding his sister's urgent whimpers to keep running. He meant for his movements to be a warning. The figure waved in reply, as if in greeting, hand clutching a small gold figurine. Then, suddenly, it too noticed the advance of the tainted creatures. To his surprise it made no move to escape. A casual wave of the figure's hand sent a wave of flame through the abandoned buildings. The flame was of a most unusual colour. The hottest ripple of blue that consumed all things in its path. The shrieks from the darkspawn were terrible.

It then turned, and picked its way towards them, with only some haste. Hawke's first thought—was to run, but even now, his brother had stopped. Now was not the time for curiosity. The figure was obviously a powerful mage.

"You weren't at Ostagar." Carver accused, half in awe.

The figure shrugged noncommittally as all of them moved north, away from the village. Mother was unsurprisingly silent, mute, at the loss of everything they owned.

The tinny voice questioned, not without some worry. Hawke thought he had heard the hints of an accent. Whoever this was. Definitely not Ferelden. "What happened at Ostagar?"

"King Cailan is dead. As are the Grey Wardens. The battle—is lost." The figure was silent, before taking its leave, hoisting the pack with no small amount of resignation.

Hawke noticed that the gold figurine was stashed away rather quickly. "Then I must go."

"You could come with us—" began Bethany. Hawke turned to glare at her. She was obviously quite taken with the figure.

A gentle shake of the head as it turned and left. "I'll draw as many of them away from you as possible. Go."

"We really could have used his help," muttered Carver.

"Her."

"What?" Both twins were similarly confused.

Garrett sighed. Was he truly the only one who noticed? The figure was female.

xOxOx

Hawke

I jerked awake, almost hitting my head on the wooden slats that held up Carver's empty bunk— he was already opening the door to the main room of the small hovel— where our mother and sister were already awake. So it was midday already? The nights went by fast while working for Athenril, but everything passed in a blur when there was absolutely nothing to do, besides wasting the days away. No one else hired Fereldans of a questionable nature.

We had survived. All of us, the three Hawkes, and mother. Lothering was gone, taken by the darkspawn. But now there was… Kirkwall. The city wasn't the most terrible place (we could have been locked away in a Circle, or be eaten by darkspawn); sure it had the usual slums, groups of starving refugees, the occasional run-in with the coterie—but the entire family was here. And we were safe, for the moment.

Our year with the smugglers hadn't been the most glorious, but it certainly paid off. I now knew the hidden paths that made up the underbelly of Kirkwall, so if Bethany and I ever needed to evade the templars, a quick delve into those depths would keep them disoriented. We also had people who kept mum about us, knowing just how deadly the ends of our staffs were. Now, all we needed was money. Without the steady income from Athenril, it was hard to meet ends. The year was up, and I didn't want to inconvenience Gamlen for longer than was necessary. We all didn't. Lowtown was… Not exactly hospitable. We were grateful for Uncle Gamlen's assistance, as… meagre as it was.

"Ugh. Uncle Gamlen, will it hurt for you to clean up every once in awhile?" The man mumbled something incoherent, before slipping out of the house as fast as he could. Both Carver and I agreed that it was the smartest thing to do.

Bethany was at it again. Every so often, she would decide to clean our dismal little hovel. Mother would wring a rag in the corner, but Bethany would do most of the actual 'cleaning'. She usually got underfoot, and sometimes, Carver and I had to "pitch in".

Neither of us enjoyed her moods, but it beat having her mope around the place about the number of templars in the city. I knew just how many there were, but you don't see me doing the same. She wasn't the only mage in the family.

Having one sibling do all the complaining was quite enough, at times. And Master Carver was very capable of doing plenty of that all by himself. At least he got us out of there before we were handed the makeshift aprons and brooms.

"We're meeting someone," Was all he called back, before scuttling out after me.

He began without embellishment, brash and direct, as always. "I heard tell that there's a Deep Roads expedition. Funded by a dwarf, no less. Bartrand Tethras."

So this was his plan for turning our fortunes around. I had to agree—it seemed plausible. And very likely profitable.

"And you think he'll just welcome us with short, open arms. How… wonderful and… somewhat creepy." I replied with no small amount of irony. Where there was money to be made, there were always dwarves in charge. And they weren't exactly the sort of people to share. Most in Kirkwall weren't the sort to share. The coterie's viciousness was testament of their territorial purse-strings.

"We could get Athenril to give us glowing recommendations. And we're the only people who have fought darkspawn in this damned city, I gather. He'll need our experience."

"And we need the money." This was important, and should be established. Carver sometimes had the oddest ideas about wanting to prove one's worth to people. Persons. Whoever cared to watch.

My brother glanced at me, and not without sighing. "Yes, brother— that too."

xOxOx

The dwarf refused. And that's putting it mildly. Carver's last resort to dig our family out of the depths of Kirkwall had failed with the short man's horrifying swear. I never understood how people could even think of that one without sniggering—Andraste's flaming tits—sacrilegious, but a very intriguing mental image. But I digress, Master Carver was still speaking. To me, apparently.

"…they're your templars we're running from." He finished, before glaring at me. Carver had talked himself quite red in the face, but I barely heard the last ten words he said. I was still thinking about that dream, and the image of the Holy Lady.

As soon as the dwarf walked out of earshot, I smirked. "Why are you so worked up about this anyway? They're my templars." Of course, the Chantry's defenders were after Bethany too, but to mention that would just be nitpicking.

To his credit, my brother looked sheepish. He winced, "Did I really sound like that? Oh Maker, I'm turning into Gamlen."

Leaning in close, I took a quick whiff. "I think the attitude's contagious, but the receding hairline and body odor hasn't set in yet. You're good, so far." At that, we laughed—our uncle had a most awful reputation for that in Darktown, and this made the debt collectors quite unwilling to bring their dogs around every week or so. Speaking of which, he was the reason we were this desperate for gold. We were deeper in arrears with each passing day—and those damned Orlesian vases probably didn't even exist in the first place.

This was when a man squeezed past us—a flash of the vermillion who also incidentally, lifted my purse. We both spun around, and as I gathered the strength to call down the lightning on the thief's carroty head, a bolt fired from a crossbow pinned him to a wall, and a dwarf divested the bag of coppers with no small amount of pizzazz.

He introduced himself as Varric, Bartrand's younger brother—and in a brief few seconds, talked the both of us into agreeing to financing the project alongside the short-tempered dwarf, claiming to be able to direct jobs our way. To be honest, most of it went over my head, though I did get a few crucial questions in—somehow, I was more interested that this Varric Tethras was a dwarf without a beard. You don't see one of those often.

xOxOx

Carver

My brother began leading the way back to Lowtown, and just as he stopped to speak to a couple of not-so-distant friends, the newest addition to our party began asking questions about our escape from Lothering just over two years ago.

"If it wasn't for my big brother… we might not have made it." I answered as evenly as I could. I did not begrudge Garrett his skills, but it was a fact that it remained a sore point for me. I was the warrior. I went to war. I saw darkspawn. And— I ran.

The wide, muscled back Garrett had, even as a mage, said volumes of how much raw strength lay beneath his tanned skin. His bare arms in the outfit which Athenril had supplied showed off his considerable biceps—well-toned and proportionate— also hiding the fact that he wielded staves, not blades in a battle. Of course, without the hunk of wood constantly strapped to his back, no one could accuse him of being an apostate. Yet.

I hated how easily he got eyes to follow his every move, how every word that fell from his lips came weighted and was immediately like the law. Few could resist his charms. Yes, I was jealous—but you'd never hear me say it. Especially not to him.

That ogre we met while running away from Lothering—I thought Bethany was a goner—until big brother stepped in and—did something, a magic that tore the beast apart straight down the middle. Aveline and I caught only a glimpse of the thing, but we saw the destruction that had been done when we finally killed our hurlocks.

Mother, Bethany and he were not showered by the slivers of flesh and covered spray of the brackish blood however, that had been ensured by the shield he and Bethany had maintained; a shimmering force field that held off the tainted gore. And yet, he was bleeding—his palm bore the jagged scar to this day. It was a close call, but we were thankful. We had to be thankful that he had made it between them and certain death.

He was our guardian against all odds.

He was the reason we were still intact, as a family.

He who signified our name, Hawke.

P.S.: Yes, the figure in platemail is Kiera. *hope you liked it! Thanks for reading :D