A/N: This is my newest on-going, multi-chaptered Dragon Age fic. It's a bit different from my normal path; it will be Anders/Hawke rivalmance, and mostly in first person perspective from Anders' point of view. I have been writing a lot of Fenris/Hawke and when I saw this on the Dragon Age kink meme, I thought to myself 'I have to do this'. I hope to see many of you enjoy this! I look forward to writing it. And please, if you have a moment, please do leave a review. Motivational boosters like you wouldn't believe.

This fic will likely be dark in places, and angsty, you know, given that it's well...Anders. Rated M for that and eventual smut, because, well, yeah.

Prompt: I want to see Anders' journal entries about meeting Hawke, his attraction to Hawke, fighting his attraction, falling in love with Hawke, seeing Hawke naked by accident. Declaring his feelings...His first time with Hawke. Etc.

Disclaimer: I make no profit from this, all belongs to Bioware.

The assault on Vigil's Keep by the darkspawn had given me an opportunity to escape – in some small way – a fate I did not truly want. I had used the Wardens as an escape from the circle, from the templars, but it was no more free than the walls of the tower had been. In the midst of all the chaos, Justice and I made our escape; it had turned out to be an easy enough task, if you don't count escaping the waves of darkspawn as they spilled over the keep and slaughtered every able body in their way. I'd hated leaving that way. Despite my dislike of the Wardens, I had a friend in the Warden-Commander and I discovered a bitter taste on my tongue at the thought of what she may suffer when she came to believe I had perished among all the others.

Merging with Justice. Now, that hadn't gone as easily as we had planned. He needed a host to remain outside of the Fade and I offered myself to him, finally willing to step up and do something about the injustice mages like me faced every day at the hands of the templars. But with that discovery had come the anger, the bitterness, the burning need for revenge; feelings that warped the once pure spirit into something I could no longer recognize as my friend.

I can still remember the blood. So much blood. The Wardens had found us, seen what we'd done, what we'd become. Even the Wardens drew a line at abominations.

I could do nothing but what I had been doing all along – I ran. I escaped in the end to Kirkwall, the last place I had heard from Karl. Held in the wretched Gallows by the templars in their mockery of a circle of magi. Leave it to the templars to use a prison to house Kirkwall's mages.

But no. I wasn't going to let them keep Karl. Not him, not if I could help it.

And that's when I met her. Katherine Hawke.

I admit when she came into my clinic this morning I may have been a bit...dramatic. Justice has a way of putting me on edge. She wasn't phased by my display for a moment, her impossibly amber eyes simply staring me down, as if daring me to make a move toward her.

I was in awe, really. Until she opened her mouth.

Rude. That was my first impression. Blunt, my next. Cold, my third. Hard, my last. I'd be lying if I said beautiful hadn't made a brief appearance, as well. How could it not? She was tall for a woman, slender, like a reed, but in no way did she lack curves. Her skin was pale, hair a striking contrast of black, tied up all tightly on her head in a coiled bun; though some of her hair rebelled and fell to frame her youthful, tattooed face. And those eyes. Entrancing, really.

Too bad she didn't have any tact. Or have anything else, for that matter.

There was little to no reaction from her when I lost myself to Justice that night when we were confronted by templars when trying to rescue Karl; when I'd seen the sun brand burned into his brow, I couldn't keep myself under control. The Rite of Tranquility – what a blighted joke that was. 'We can't control you, so we're just going to strip you of everything that makes you human.' Bloody templars.

We'd come back to my clinic after. She forced me to tell her what it was that she had seen in the chantry. I told her everything; again, little to no reaction. In the end she said little. Asked me for the maps to the deep roads for her expedition.

I have never been more frustrated by a woman in all my years. Even when I was notorious for...you know, getting around, as I often did before Justice. She was eerily beautiful, but cold. Hard. Almost uncaring.

Now when I sit here, writing about this, I wonder if it is just the way she's learned to carry herself. Being a mage often gives you a life full of hardships undeserved. I find myself curious about her. About what she feels beneath her stoic facade. If it was a facade. Maybe she was as empty and unfeeling as she appeared.

I don't know why I didn't just give her the maps and been done with her. I offered her my companionship and services should she have need of either, though the former was likely unwanted.

Already she was a distraction. I can hear it my mind, the way Justice whispers about her. He believes she will do nothing but become a hindrance to us, to our plans.

A part of me is insistent that she's not as she appears.

Or perhaps it is just wishful thinking on my part.

Only time will tell.