«Damn you, Anders. You no-good, abominable bastard... Demon fodder, that's what you really are»
The destruction was magnificent, and he hated the healer mage for it. Rocks that had seen the centuries of Kirkwall roll by, salted to the core by the sea wind, spattered with blood by the dozens of generation that claimed to seize the Tevinter heritage – now, for a moment, they levitated in the air, sharp black shards against the reddish mist of dawn, embroiled in magical fire... disconnected, disarrayed, moaning with strain and helplessness. He couldn't hear the screams of people, the Chanters that were now too rotating in the mesh of marble, iron, their own furniture and broken bronze statues, burning alive – and grinded in the explosion. He imagined he could hear them, though. Pleading to the Maker to stop this madness, to ease their pain as they were torn limb by limb.
The ground shook as the violent magenta glow of the lyrium explosive traveled across the city, mercilessly highlighting the utter desecration of the Chantry. Like a rod of light piercing the ground from heavens, the pulse of magic kept the remains of swirling around it, when it suddenly collapsed.
The shockwave nearly knocked them off their feet and Hawke suddenly realized he was covered in dust and ashes, sent by the explosion. Without any of the previous, ethereal grace, the building collapsed into itself, the whine of the breaking stone echoing against the flaming streets. The crater left only the jagged teeth of the first two floors standing up, barely visible above the roofs of the surrounding slums.
He wished he could've watched it longer, but when Ged lowered his gaze, he met Meredith's icy blue stare. She was looking at him. At him, not at Anders who know stood beside him with a stoic contorted face of someone sentenced to execution. He suddenly realized that he didn't know what kind of expression was on his face, and hurriedly let his jaw hang slack with bewilderment.
Meredith seemed happy and on the edge, bristling like a Mabari in the fighting pit with the nervous anticipation of the bloodshed to be. Her apparent joy of being proved right, which she immediately expressed was reflected in Orsino's fear. Oh, Hawke thought, observing as the elf's ears lowered, the inhumanely wide-cut eyes filling with the black, paralyzing ink of fear, he well knows what this would lead to. No doubt, he had the visions of bloodshed crossing his mind at that point. He too, had them – but, and he couldn't confess it to the others, it hadn't brought him the same dread that he read on the First Enchanters pale face.
"The Grand Cleric, killed by a Mage... If this doesn't call for the Right of Annulment, then I don't know what more atrocities committed by the magi kind would be sufficient for you all to open your eyes to the threat!"
Hawke listened to her ravings absentmindedly, his consciousness focused on the unsheathed swords of the templars behind the Knight-Commanders back, their teeny-tiny steps as they positioned themselves in a semicircle, ready to cut in when prompted. He was focused on Anders, noting how the healers skin became demarcated by the blackened glow of veins, the first signal that Justice was on the rise... And his own brothers eyes, cold and condemning in the slit of a worn-out templar helmet.
But most of all, he was concentrated on trying to find a way out of this all. Anders, the bastard idealistic Anders. He spoiled the Champions game... and yet, when the latter pompously announced that this all had been done to erase the notion of compromise, he couldn't help but admit his right.
It was satisfying. Not how he planned it...but still, enthralling. Now, what needed to be done, is turn this act of despicable rebellion in his favor. Would the others back him up? The decision had been made, but he could at least try to dance around it diplomatically. Damage control, that's what the Order calls it?
Ged smirked to himself. He've lost the throne, the possibility of it ran dry months ago when he was told it was impossible to attain the Viscounts seat without templar support – and even the web of lies and trickery that he weaved around the Divine proved to be inefficient. Every time he had to do their bidding, he had to suppress bile lurching inside of him, yet in vain stubbornness proceeded with the plan... Time to get rid of such dreams, with the Chantry lying in ruins and a crazed templar bitch announcing him a criminal in front of her cronies.
If it came to a stand-down, he can as well get enjoyment out of it. Shed all the skin of pretense and awkward diplomacy, bare his true nature. Wasn't it what he dreamed about for all these years, since they've hidden from the Order back in Lothering? To stop groveling at the feet of the unworthy?
"The Right of Annulment?" The Champion smirked. "And you have the audacity to ask me to help you, even after you condemn me to the same fate?"
Hawke's gauntet, set aflame by a cold fire, accusingly thrust in Meredith's direction.
"I'm a mage too. It takes a foolish, ale-rotten templar's brain to form an idea that I'd go against my kin and help you slaughter them for something just one did..." He cast a venomous stare at Anders, the latter cowering and almost shrinking a bit under it, before turning back to the fuming Knight-Commander. "What do you think, that afterwards I'll just bow to your rotten Order and offer my forehead to be branded like cattle?"
"No... But if you chose to be defeated like the rest of this pathetic Circle lot-"
"Defeated? I think not. I do think that your days of running Kirkwall into a smoldering dead end are over." He glanced back at Anders. "And I also think that your days of "controlling" magic are over as well."
Hawke's staff was drawn. He slipped into a defensive stance, crouched and low to the ground. It seemed that Meredith, after all, had infected him with the itch of a brawl – he no longer gawked at the ruined Chantry, but felt the rising bloodlust. Maker's crapped pants, it was all Anders' fault. Instead of his, Hawke's insidious approach, all the tension came into the open, a dangerous bet that was placed without his consent. Behind his back, he could hear Fenris moaning in his low, gruff and boringly discontent voice about mages – complaining to Aveline about his predicament. Varric chimed in, talking to him, calling to reason with a dab of badly placed jokes he barely registered. And only Merill offered nothing, but the most needed – a slight touch to his shoulder, encouraging enough, yet discreet. As she – they – have always been.
The templars were on the edge too, swords rising and twirling, as they calculated the better tactic for the attack. The stench of lyrium grew stronger, as Hawke noticed some knights empty vials into their throats. With a rustle of metal against metal, Carver took his barrel-shaped helmet off, and pushing his comrades aside, got to the front of the forming circle, the scowl on his face just further accentuating the dark irony of the confrontation.
"Oh, if it isn't my ever vigilant brother, Carver!" The acid mockery in Hawke's tone for a moment splashed over the young templar, making him step back, but he regained his composure. "Came to talk his idiotic apostate sibling out of a suicidal venture, and offer some... tranquility... out of his own blessed hands instead, did we?"
The sarcastic, hurtful retort messed up Carver's line of speech. He gasped like a fish for the air of the first syllable, and then fell silent. For a moment, he took the time to look at his brother more closely.
They haven't seen each others in ages, not after mother's death. Their differences became stronger then. The accursed magic took her life, and yet Ged still clung to the art, to his status as a "free man", despite the pain. He left to the Gallows again, to serve his duty, and yet, it wasn't enough to cut that part of his life off, to severe it completely, as the memory and presence of his older brother lingered even there. They didn't write to each other or speak in many months. Still, Carver was constantly stumbling on the marks his brother left on the city.
He didn't tell Cullen, or other Captains about his suspicions. It was the most he could do – be silent and pretend to be blind. However, when they found dead recruits, dead templars in the sewers of Darktown, he could swear on Andraste's ashes he recognized the magic. Faces frozen in screams forever, icicles imbedded into the damp flesh like daggers. Crinkled and shattered flesh from being exposed to extreme cold. Darkened veins and contorted fingers as signs of agony and tormenting hexes. Stiff, unresponsive corpses strategically placed to remind the Order that they weren't welcome. Carver persuaded himself that there could be dozens of apostate scum in the city with a knack for entropic magic and fondness of cold. Those thoughts never lessened the knot in his stomach, though.
Carver knew that behind the sarcastic, humorous facade his brother longed not for freedom and mere acceptance. Oh no, Ged wouldn't have that little, settle in for the small pleasures of a life. The mage wanted more – real influence, real power. Before, when he looked up to him, he thought his brother was becoming this ruthless seeker for their sake – his, mother's, Bethany's... As time went on, though, he began to doubt his childish ideas. Ged was a mage, but unlike Bethany, who was afraid of her powers – and unlike what he'd been taught – he strived not only to hone his magic. He took immense pride in it. He was a witness, a direct witness to Ged's hunger, that took him everywhere, from the Deep Roads, to the quest of reclaiming back their old estate, to the rumors surrounding the supposed claim to the Viscounts office proposed by the Champion himself.
Hunger for control. His fear of the Tranquil Solution.
Partially, it was what prompted him to join the Order in the first place... Tell-tale tongues spread rumors that he envied his brother, his talent and power, so with this move he chose to oppose everything that the older stood for. Heck, even their Mother would sometimes jerk on Carver's sleeve and tell him to cool down, not compete with Ged for her love or respect– especially when there was a clear winner.
That wasn't the reason, though. At least not the whole and sole reason. Truth, one that Carver kept buried deep inside him for his brother's sake, lay in the fact that he feared Ged. Feared that thirst and cruelty. Most of the time the older Hawke kept them hidden, but Carver knew it was all there, like the treacherous riffs hid beneath the rumbling waves, but which gutted many a ship near Kirkwall's Gallows. Sometimes, he felt, with sudden clarity, that one day he will have to see those razor-sharp rocks without the placid watery cover, and it will be him to guide people away from that dangerous route.
It seemed that it was this moment.
Ged had changed, thought Carver. The last couple of years weren't easy on him – the mage was gaunt, even more so than usual, his skin an unhealthy ashen color in stark contrast to his facial tattoo. The sprawling pattern, stylized to represent a hawk's wings, once a pale red now became saturated and rich crimson, as if all the blood spilled by the Champion was somehow absorbed into the ink. His eyes, earlier silvery pale, now were washed out and almost white, set deep in the dark bruises of his eye sockets, yet glowing with some sort of fierce, cruel joy.
He'd seen that expression before. These were the same unforgiving eyes he'd seen in the Circle, those of mages sentenced to death. They were the windows to only one thought: "You think you've broken me, good for you. But you've not won yet. One day, you'll be in this place, in this hell, only it will be your head in the noose."
"What about me, brother? Are you going to fight me as well? For these..." Carver looked around and waved his hand at Anders. "Treacherous maleficar? You were never in agreement with the Order, I know, but it's not worth throwing your whole life away for those who'd gladly betray you!"
A lopsided grin split Hawke's face in two. Carver felt the familiar oppression of his brother's rising magical power, heavy and leaden, unfolding around him like a cobra's hood.
"Don't you "brother" me, templar!" He barked and watched Carver's face darken as Meredith reassuringly put a clawed gauntlet on his shoulder. "Am I going to fight you? Well why the Fade not? Since we're having this session of truth and sincerity..." He turned and in a jest of mockery, bowed to Anders. "I can tell you that I've killed the servants of the Order before. But, can't say I shed tears over their dead bodies."
Carver's guts tied themselves into one quivering knot. So he was right... All these sleepless nights when he would lay on his bunk and pray to the Maker for his brother to be some other man than the one he saw, were spent in vain. His face drooped, freezing into a stone-like mask of disgust against his will, but he hesitated. He felt obliged to just try, to mend a relationship broken long ago, even though there was no real need to do so, not anymore. Could he forgive the mage?
"It's not like this, Ged... I can..."
"You can close your eyes on that? You betrayed me, Carver, the night when you packed your things and joined the people who'd hunt me like a rabid dog. You made your choice back then. Allow me to make my choice as well."
"Hawke, you shouldn't be so rash..." Varric jutted in.
"Be silent just for once, would you?" As if a beartrap snapped shut.
Varric complied, stepping back from the champion. The rude words hurt, but the situation hurt more, as Hawke's humor drained from him the longer he stared at the templars before them. What a twist of fate... Bartrand betrayed him, and now Ged and Carver had arrived at the same crossroad.
The dwarf shook his head bitterly. At least Bartrand had done it out of a clear and relatable goal – he wanted money, fame and fortune, plus his mind was already affected by the cursed idol. In his last minutes, when he was dying in Varric's hands, he regretted it, denied that much of participation in the decision to abandon them and leave the whole party to the Darkspawns mercy. Here, the motivations weren't clear and to be honest, Varric hadn't understood it in the whole intricacy of the deal. These were surfacer conflicts, mages and templars hating each other since the dawn of time, ancient dark secrets and distrust – he felt caught into a turmoil of an alien war, much alike to the time when the Qun tried to take over the city. And to think only a few years had passed since… They made a full circle and now returned
Plus, he thought, I've other family, and Hawke... he'd be all alone. Even if the two brothers would miraculously get alive through the chaos, Varric doubted they'd ever truly be brothers anymore. He didn't want this for his friend, to experience the pain he knew all too well. But maybe, to Hawke it wasn't that painful, which is why he did shut up, his thumb still fumbling nervously over Bianca's brazen trigger.
Heroes had to have positive qualities, any storyteller could vow on that one rule.
Varric was no different. He remembered how he'd once told Hawke all about the ridiculous rumors and fables he'd been spreading around and was pleased to see the mage laugh with him in approval. He liked it, to be painted as the noble, powerful and benevolent hero – which the apostate never was. To Varric, it wasn't entirely lying either, and they both enjoyed conjuring a portrait that reflected only a glimpse of truth.
It wasn't that Ged was a bad person, not in the sense Varric understood it. After all, he'd spent his best years around mercenaries and backstabbers, people who would've sold their own mothers to slavers for a bronze coin. His consciousness was dull to that, to Hawke's greed and violence. The mage did drag them out of the Andraste-forsaken pits of hell back in the Deep Roads, he did try to help the dwarf resolve his matters with Bartrand, even though he was as driven by vengeance as well and it was him who forced Varric into actually "disposing" of the man.
Hawke was a friend, no doubt – but a dangerous one. Varric, for all his cunning and experience, was never been able to tell what exactly was going on in Hawke's head. He smiled a lot, sure, but was it genuine humor or a predatory display of power? Tethras liked to think there was more of the former,
Yet, it was too often when Varric's hand froze over the parchment as he lost the trail of thought, his vision clouded not by the fantasy he was busily jotting down under the dim candlelight of the "Hanged Man", but the harsh, unforgiving reality. What was he doing? What good there was in concealing an image far from perfection – and maybe it did more harm than good, eventually?
What would Kirkwall think of their Champion if they'd seen him turning the Dalish camp at the foot of Sundermount into a lifeless graveyard? All of it, including the children, for just one wrong glance at Merril after that disaster with the knife-eared Elder? After the massacre, Ged didn't display any particular grief – the dwarf caught him diving headfirst into one of the Elvhen forger's crate of enchanted goodies and scavenging the relics.
What would people think if someone discovered a pile of templar corpses under the Gallows, hastily abandoned, not dignified even with a pit and a pile of dirt to cover them?
How would the Champion be perceived by those he supposedly swore to protect if they'd known of all the times he deceived various groups, promising help or taking up a job only to later massacre them according to his own indecipherable goals?
And still… They had erected a statue in his memory, a chiseled figure standing atop of a severed Qunari head, the flaming staff held victoriously like a beacon to the poor folk of Lowtown. The abomination of a statue carved yet another ugly scar into the city's slums, and Varric mused on how short people's memory had been. The statue, like all else, was just a fragment of truth. The nobles remembered well how the Arishok cut off the Viscounts head, but another grisly picture from the past was forgotten. One that showed Ged Hawke gulping the dripping blood from the – oh, what irony – neck stump of the severed oxmen leader's head, holding it by the horn above his angular frame.
Varric enjoyed the Champions humor and wit, something that they both shared, his ability to take even the harshest of blows in a stride and laugh about it, or extinguish it with a good old bottle of Tevinter wine, but even he couldn't deny that Hawke hadn't much going in the "mercy" department. To be fair, the only time when the mage exhibited any sorts of care towards someone other than himself, Merrill, Varric or Anders (aside from his casual, lazy condescendence towards the redhead Guard-Captain) was when other mages were involved. He probably saw himself in them, the dwarf thought. Running, hiding, denying their own nature– and growing hateful and tired of it.
So he had to create stories. Stories where Hawke didn't betray, squirm out of trouble like a slimy serpent, where he didn't go back on his word or get himself elvhen slaves. He thought how he'll turn this one around, if of course, they live.
***
"I suggest you remember your duties to the Maker, Carver." Meredith's grip on the Templar's shoulder tightened. He nodded.
"Your brother is right," came a deep, rumbling rasp from behind Ged. "You're trying to defend the mages… throw yourself for a helpless cause, when all they want is death and destruction."
"You don't know! It's not even the Circle who did this!" Orsino's voice cracked with desperation.
Hawke rolled his eyes. Fenris, the foul-mouthed Mabari shitstain, again with his remarks. His teeth clenched and he called in his famous cool not to lash out at the impudent ex-slave. He fixed the straps on his gauntlet, ran a hand over his shaved head, then lifted his face up to Meredith again, an expression of inappropriate, sinister lust playing across his dry thin lips.
"I've been truly waiting for this, Knight Commander." He spoke softly. "As for you, Carver - guess you have the chance to answer the call of pride and try to finally best me. No strings attached."
His words were muted out by a sudden clang of steel, as the fragile balance had been shifted and the templars broke into a charge the very same moment Meredith turned her back to the First Enchanter and Hawke, the self-righteous smirk barely hidden in the shadow of her hood.
His words were muted out by a sudden clang of steel, as the fragile balance had been shifted and the templars broke into a charge the very same moment Meredith turned her back to the First Enchanter and Hawke, the self-righteous smirk barely hidden in the shadow of her hood.
Meredith should've known better, Hawke thought as the bladed tip of his staff slipped between the armor plating of the first Templar. In the corner of his eye he could see Orsino levitate for a second, then release a wave of a stunning spell, the Order servants scattering around, but unharmed. Other mages were beaten into an innate fear of templars, ridden with prejudice about their magic-binding and mana-draining powers provided by artifacts and the Maker's will himself. Unlike them, he was never a part of a circle, and knew how to fight dirty, carefully collecting books and notes even from the mages he had fell.
The hate pulsed in him madly, as he kicked the bleeding body away just in time to redirect a corrupting spell at another enemy, the thorny twine of the hex coiling around the thrashing templar and making him drop his sword, opening up for Varric's bolt right through the throat. He was vaguely aware of the other mages, led by Orsino, shower the knights with fireballs and brimstone, of Merill's presence as her magic reached him like a supportive vine, lending him power to direct his weapon into the ground, drag it in one long swiping motion to produce a glacier of sharp, long ice spikes that soon grew bloodied as a few templars got impaled onto them.
With another twirl of his staff, he smashed into the knee of a big, burly lieutenant that tried to flank him with dagger, and as the man collapsed in pain, placed his hand unto his face. The scream that followed ripped even through the din of the battle and the low hum of the panicking city. Hawke felt the rush of the lifeforce channeling into him as the templar coughed blood and remnants of his lungs into the mages hand, the blood seeping and twirling, feeding directly into his veins.
Distracted with torturing the man beneath him, Hawke found himself stumbling backwards, his jaw exploding in white-hot searing pain. The punch, landed onto him with a heavy armored guantlent, threw him off his victim, the spell tendrils cut short as he brought his hands and staff up to deflect a hard push from a shield. The templar who attacked him lost his weapon, but still was determined to slay the Champion, whatever it took, his breathing heavy and loud beneath the helmet.
"Fenris!" The mage cried out for help, cursing at himself for going in so close and personal. Sometimes he forgot, in the haze of battle bloodlust, that he wasn't exactly a warrior. He was fast and agile, but way too skinny and pallid to go bare-fist with an enraged and professionally trained soldier. The cry came out as a dry command, and Fenris obeyed. The templar rose his shield for a vicious downwards strike, intending to use it like a crude blade and slash the mage across his chest, but then, his gaze averted towards his own gut, where a full arm-length of a blade stuck out, drapped by his innards. The Order servant let out a shocked gasp, delightful to the mages ears.
The elf wore a sullen expression as he pulled the sword out out, letting the body fall to Hawke's feet. "Such a good servant, a shame, really." The apostate thought with a twinge of regret.
"You should finally learn to pick a fight, mage" Growled Fenris, wiping the blade over the edge of his thigh armor.
He'd been a reliable bodyguard, for someone of his views and temper. Ged found it incredibly amusing that despite the elf's hate for mages, the servitude to them hadn't evaporated from him, even strengthened after he killed Danarius. The wretched creature was broken inside, confused about what to believe and do, and that confusion always led him back to Hawke.
The mage manipulated and used him possibly the same way the magister did, but rarely did Fenris stop to see it – nor did Hawke let him do it. Even Varric knew the reason why Ged kept the hateful warrior by his side, known his friends character and how the latter loved to taunt Fenris with his status and things the elf owed him, taunting fate itself. One day, he feared, though, that Fenris's eyes would open to the situation and he'd see Hawke crumple on the floor with a bloody hole in a chest like Hadrianna and Danarius did, but… maybe he deserved that. There already had been predispositions for it, and Varric shut the memory out.
Looking back, Hawke saw that the quick scuffle came to an end, the pavement slick with blood. He sought out for Merill, and sighed with relief at the sight of her being tended to by Anders, as the rock armor started falling of her, revealing the fragile figure beneath it. Aveline still glared daggers at the healer, her hair grimy and sweaty from the fight, but she said nothing.
Orsino knelt down to one of the templars, his head shaking in grief as he watched the man take a few short breaths and expie.
"No, no… it shouldn't have happened like this," He stood up, hand clasped firmly around his serpentine staff and looked back on the circle mages huddled beneath a merchants tent. "But it did. Seems like it's either survival, or…I'm sorry, but I fear we've not much choice now. Hawke, we'll go prepare in the Gallows, try to reach us before… before that dreaded woman does."
He cast one last baleful glance at Anders, who've just finished bandaging Merill's thin, twig-like hand, and with a swish of his robes, slipped into the dark alley, followed by a small group of shivering, exasperated magi survivors.
Hawke motioned for Anders to come closer with his staff.
"We've got to talk. Now."
No smile, no human emotion reflecting. As if a Qunari had spoken.
"Not here. We'd want this to be private."
"H-Hawke, lethallin… " Merill's stutter seemed to intensify lately, Ged noted. "You're not going to, to-"
Her voice wavered and the rest of her she wanted to say got lost in a fit of typical Merill shyness.
But Aveline seemed to understand. She scoffed, looking up at the faint afterglow of the explosion in the night's sky.
"I can just hope you do it Hawke… Or at least won't leave it like this."
"You mean, leave the abomination alive. Mages always stick to each other, like flies to rotten meat," The elf snarled, his fist balling and raising in front of Anders, the motion all too familiar for the group. No one commented on that remark, not even Merill.