Authors Note: I wanted to explore an alternate means that Anders and Sinead* Hawke (Sarcastic Rogue) may have met. Not sure if I want to continue in this format, but it was clamoring to be written. I reserve the right to mix up the timing of events to enable a story flow, rather than a game-style one. Breaking this up into a few short chapters. DA 2 spoilers likely.
*Sinead - Pronounced Shi-Nade
Another kind of tranquility, Part 1
They say when you stare Death in the face, your life flashes before your eyes.
My flirtation with Death began early in life, before I was more than a troublesome adolescent with a penchant for mischief. Oh the scrapes we got into! The pranks! The adventures! I fear the twins spent many an undeserved night facing parental wrath due to my influence. Father's knack for healing kept me hale and whole despite myself, considering my tomboy antics.
The time I convinced Bethany to freeze the watermill left me unable to sit for a week after the paddling. Who was I to know it would shatter the mechanism? Besides, Carver and I redistributed the miller's laundry from the clothesline to its venerable planks, and that certainly wouldn't have worked if it were moving.
Even with my smarting bum, the three of us couldn't help but hide and wait for the discovery. We laughed until we cried. The Miller's son wasn't the only one to try more than ogling the vagrant's daughter. Had it been me, I'd just plant a fist in their face and be done with it. Rearranging noses had gotten to be a habit my parents despaired of breaking me. Bethany, however, had to be careful and so often bore such overtures quietly.
Thus, there was the trick with the water wheel. It was something to give Bethany a chance to get back for a change. Once it unfroze there was nothing to suggest arcane influence. Of course, anything untoward and folk start to mutter about local demonic influence. Demonic Influence. Really? What demon dabbles in smallclothes?
Maybe there is something to the reflections that flood your mind when death begins a slow, inexorable courtship dance. Maker, it's hard to think right now. Bethany… she's leaning over me, speaking, but it's hard to make out the words through the rushing in my ears. My mind is sluggish and beneath this fog my body aches and trembles. This weakness is angering! Bethany is fearful, her lips are trembling, though she's trying to hide it. I suppose all control went towards harnessing the magic she bore, she never could manage to hide her thoughts...
There is little pain, though this seems… wrong. I'm… forgetting something. My mind floats, watching like a distant observer as arms and hands and faces surround me, lifting me, hauling me to Maker knows where. Everything is cold, so cold.
Carver. Mother leans over his still form, and I feel Death's cold presence surrounding me, raising the individual hairs on my skin. There is no time to feel anything just now as the beast of his destruction turns towards me, its beady eyes narrowing and the steam of its breath visible in the cold air. The picture is emblazoned on my mind, stark, dangerous as a blade's edge and cutting as deep. The wound has been struck, and the scar will not fade.
The Ogre lowers its head and charges, the horns of its helmet passing through the space I had stood so briefly just moments before. Knives flash. I tumble, flipping in and out among the creatures that swarm. The heat of darkspawn blood stings my skin, and everything blurs into a flash of sharpened metal meeting darkened flesh. The warrior woman, Aveline, huddles behind her shield, the long, flickering sweep of her sword gathering the attention of our enemies until I explode behind them, striking them down one by one. The great beast throws its arms back, howling, and I see my opening. Darting, leaping, clambering up its side I bury my knife at the base of its throat then fling myself free of its deadly flailings.
Just as quickly, there is nothing left to fight. The ground is littered with bodies, but the only one my eyes desperately seek is Carver's. Now, finally, the grief rises, the fear chokes my throat. My 'little' brother lies crumpled on the ground, too small for the tall, lanky frame of memory.
Aveline, voice gentle, speaks as mother weeps. "I'm sorry mistress. Your son is gone." The warrior woman bows her golden head briefly, her husband lifting his one good hand to give the Maker's blessing. Strange, how a Templar would willingly give comfort to such as us, the family of an apostate.
Even such a brief pause, and the Darkspawn are upon us again. A cry of warning expells from my lips. "We have company!" Anger drives my limbs, and I purge myself of grief and powerlessness with every stroke. There are others here, alive, I cannot fail them too. A shadow falls over us, and as the flames streak down from above to sear the darkspawn, hope and terror intertwine.
A dragon lands, its form shrinking and tightening in on itself, revealing the striking figure of a woman. A venerable weight of years hangs about her, but in my dazed state all I can think of is, Maker, I'd kill to age like that. Mother would have been appalled at my irreverence, at such a time, after all that has happened. I keep the thought to myself.
We'll blame it on shock.
"Well, well, what have we here?" The rumbling, deep tones of the figure set us all back a pace. "It used to be we never got visitors to the Wilds. But now it seems they arrive in hordes!"
"I don't know what you are, but I won't let you harm us." My words are light, almost amused, as if I can reassure my companions by facing down this new unknown. My daggers are still in my hands, lowered, yet ready to lift in an instant. Perspiration dampens my palms, and I shift my grip, but the moment of danger passes as the strange figure chuckles. We are nothing more than a powerful creature's amusement.
Yet Death passes me by again. Is it a deal with the devil, when I exchange passage from these darkspawn infested Wilds? The favor is small, a simple delivery, but this is no being to be trifled with. What could possibly balance the scale tipped by our lives? She is Flemeth, Witch of the Wilds, and there is a gleam of satisfaction in her eye as she grants us our boon.
I failed you father. As the ground disappears beneath us, not even the sensation of flying, or the rough leather of dragon scales can distract me from the dear life forever lost to me. I could not save him.
"Carver…" Awareness is jarring, the walls flashing by me are unfamiliar, and I hear Bethany and the familiar hitch between her breaths as she gnaws on a lip.
"Hurry, please, you're sure it's this way…?" her words are lost as something thuds. It is a door, slamming open. Careless, foolish girl! We're never to draw attention to ourselves. Has she forgotten? The air changes, charged, like the time when Bethany lost her temper and singed off my eyebrow. I struggle to speak, but my lips are stubborn. Control yourself, Bethany! But… it is not Bethany.
"I have made this place a sanctum of healing and salvation," strident male tones call out, measured, contained, but full of power that snaps and burns at the air, leaving a scent like lightning. "Who are you to threaten it?"
The hands on me shift, uncertainly, and I only realize they carry weapons as their abrupt stillness stifles the clatter of blades and sheathes rattling against armor. No one speaks, but it is Bethany, quiet, shy Bethany, whose tremulous voice emerges, shaking but insistent.
"My sister, sir," the despair in her voice drives me, the sensation in the air dimming the fog in my mind, and I struggle for words as she continues. "We were… we weren't expecting… the Templars, one was… and she…." The air stills. I gasp as the hands shuffle me, sliding a hard surface beneath me. Or is it the other way around? Sensation and pain flood my chest, but the rest of me is cold, numb. Perhaps the fog was better after all.
"Bethy," The word is harder to form than I remember. She shouldn't worry. I just need rest. Everything is always better in the morning, barring a late night in the tavern and a few rounds too many with the crew. "It's… just a flesh wound… let me sleep…." Irritation wells within me, such a commotion, such a fuss being made. When she doesn't protest the name, I wonder if I'm reasoning something wrong, but the fog is overwhelming my senses. Lucidity is beginning to fade again, and for once, the darkness seems welcoming...
It is finally here! After a year of indentured servitude, our debt will finally be repaid. Father was always our conscience, and I can't help but feel his disapproval every time we sacrifice our ideals and honor for some backstreet deal. These smugglers have a sense of honor all their own, but it often leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I hope, if Father is watching, he knows how hard I tried to honor what he taught us. Morals ill fit this undercity world, and while I see respect in the eyes of those around me, I see as much wariness. My ways are not their ways. It is well that we will part.
I've never worked so blatantly outside the law before. Well, unless you count traipsing across Fereldan with my family, smuggling our two apostates from place to place.
Alright, and there was that incident with the Teyrn's Mabari. But really, what was I supposed to do? Leave him chained up? It's not exactly stealing if he followed me home of his own free volition.
Fine, so the pastries Carver and I filched from the kitchens may have had something to do with his sudden change of loyalty. But, is it really our fault if they didn't feed the poor beast properly? Father didn't seem to find our explanations particularly convincing, but when the Teyrn tracked his hound to our doorstep the beast refused to leave. Jinks, that blessed Mabari, guards mother now while Bethany and I honor our debt.
All that aside, there is to be no more slithering about dark alleys or exchanging coins in the shadows. That, at least, I know Father would approve of.
This next year will be different, I'll find honest work, take better care of Mother and Bethany. Get us away from Gamlen, his sour being and bad habits. My daydreams fragment into reality as Bethany stirs beside me, and I look up to see our contacts approaching with speed. My eyes narrow, trying to reason why my skin prickles with suspicion.
Athenril funded our entrance to the city, but she is still threatened by my uncanny knack for sensing mayhem. My fingers flicker with the signal that conveys my unease, but the bloody elf ignores me! My particular friends shift uneasily, and we exchange looks, loosening weapons in sheathes, alert for trouble.
The six of those struggling towards us stumble into the passageway, the ceiling and walls of Darktown, Kirkwall's sprawling undercity, flickering in the torchlight. Crates burden the arms of four of them, the two rear-most men eyeing the path behind them nervously, their swords bared.
"Hurry," Their leader, another elf, all sharp angles and joints, sets his crate down and shoves it in Athenril's direction as she stands to greet him, graceful and fluid as only an elf can be. Payment must wait, however, until she assures the goods. Before she can pry off the lid, however, the clink of heavy armor begins to echo down the passage, and one of those holding a crate starts, dropping it with a resounding thud and the tinkle of crackling glass. A pale liquid oozes from the corners, catching the light and reflecting it back in such a way that it appears to shimmer.
Lyrium.
Andraste's Ashes be damned. This is not what I signed up for.
"We've been made, skip along like good children, now!" I care little for Athenril's good will as we scatter, my reputation enough that my warning needs no second urging. Yet, my words come too late as a cluster of Templars emerge from the far side of the room, lining into formation before charging forwards. I turn, reaching for Bethany, only to find our alternate flight path blocked by a similar row of symmetrical helmets.
There is no time to think before swords clash, and the clamor echoes strangely in the close confines. My knives whirl in my hands, deadly blurs seeking to exploit the Templars weaknesses and directed by instinct as much as conscious thought. Desperation and familiarity with the terrain give us the advantage, the cramped space limiting the Templars' movements as they are swarmed. Each death is a regret for tomorrow, but for now, all I think of is making it to tomorrow.
Bethany cries out behind me, and my knife goes awry, the blade skittering down the back of my target's armor. The Templar whirls, lashing out, and my armor, already scratched, scuffed and beaten, parts slightly as the tip catches me near the gut. Spinning underneath his arm as the blade passes by, I shove my knife up into his armpit and twist, disabling him. My blade catches on a bone, slipping from my grip as he staggers backwards.
There is no time to lament the loss as I turn, seeking my sister, but there is a Templar betwixt us. His arm is raised for the killing blow! The fractured wood in her hands spits futilely, irreparably shattered. My blood boils within me and I charge, stooping to grasp a long blade discarded on the ground. The next moment, that very blade buries itself into his neck. Spinning, the Templar takes a retaliatory swipe, then collapses. Pressing a hand to my chest, the force of the blow sends me staggering backwards.
"Shinae?" At least Bethany is safe, so to speak, though her face is pale as she stares at me. Adrenaline is fading, and with it, my ability to ignore the pain flooding my body. Maker.
The rush of noise fades from my ears, and I realize the sounds of battle have ceased. The Templar had the right idea… I just… need to lay down….
"Hawke!" Hands seize me, but the darkness is already closing in.
They say when you stare Death in the face, your life flashes before your eyes…
Part two will be appearing shortly!
