The lit lantern was what those who were in need of my aid looked for. In the clinic close to the old mining tunnels they would find The Healer, the one who would treat them regardless of their race or standing and who would take no payment for the services rendered.
Rumours travelled fast through the city underground.
It must have been how they found me.
It was dangerous, to announce to the whole of Darktown that there was an apostate hiding in the sewers. A few might gain by ratting me out to the templars. It was not me I was afraid for though, and the others would silence the foolish quickly enough. We refugees had to stick together.
I had just cleaned the wound on the abdomen of a sandy-haired boy whom his weeping parents had carried to me, begging for me to help him. I did what I could to stop the bleeding, to wash the ragged gash of dirt and dull the pain with a brew made from local herbs. Somebody had gutted the lad with a shiv, a small knife made of anything that could be used to slash or stab, from chipped stones to rusty pieces of old tools. The boy looked to be no older than twelve, but he had already fallen victim to the violence of this miserable place.
The magic surged up from deep within me, painting the insides of my eyelids with its soothing, blue radiance.
Healing gave me peace of mind like no other thing ever did. Nothing existed in that brief moment, nothing except for the heartbeat of my patient, the tendrils of magic that escaped my fingers and that I shaped to knead flesh together, to restore the wrong done to this body. When I was spent, too tired to even hold up my arms, the blue tinge of my magic flickered and died. In the subsequent quiet I heard the boy try to sit up and realized that my eyes were still closed, my shoulders slumped and arms dangling numbly at my sides like dead things.
I righted myself, and the world around me spun, a wild blend of pieces of my clinic, the darkness around me and the lights that danced at the edge of my vision. A hand under my arm steadied me and after a moment the spell passed.
I nodded my thanks to the father, but he was not even looking in my direction, eyes glistening with unshed tears glued to his son. The boy clung to his mother's neck, but if he had survived the healing, he would be alright.
One life I could safe, for all the dozens that I couldn't.
I did not allow myself the sigh of relief. And that was when I felt him, a flare of anger followed by immediate alertness. I felt myself shift, saw the blue in my veins in my hands stand out and my consciousness pulled at, the outrage that somebody would dare to come- I clamped down hard on the feeling and as quickly as it had come, it was gone again, and hopefully any overseen glow would be attributed to the powerful spell I had just worked on the boy.
My hand landed on my staff and I whirled around to face down the intruders. "I have made this place a sanctum of healing and salvation," my voice echoed in the cavernous space of underground. "Why do you threaten it?"
Four people were blocking the entrance to my clinic and they all halted. None of them looked enthusiastic about the prospect of stepping forward and facing the renegade apostate. I had learned to assess threats during my time with the Wardens and my eyes first fell on the tall redheaded woman in their midst, maybe because she wore full guard regalia and a hard frown.
This couldn't be good.
Next to her stood a dwarf, blonde, beardless and clothed in a deeply cut crimson shirt embroidered with a gilded thread. Both it and the heavy leather coat he wore looked more expensive than all the possessions of me and my patrons combined. An impression of wealth that was enforced by the golden hoops in his ears and his necklace which he wore openly. My eyes narrowed. An odd sort they were to stumble into my clinic and I doubted they needed healing. One did not wander through the Undercity and display one's wealth. Either they were very foolish, or very dangerous. Possibly both.
The last two of the group were brothers, unless the black hair and matching uniforms and facial features were just a coincidence. The one on the right, clean shaven and with a sword slung over his back oozed soldier, however it was the smaller of the duo who stepped forward.
When he did the light illuminated the badge sewn to the sleeve on his upper arm. Red Iron. A band of mercenaries with a reputation of getting a job done by whatever means. Lirene had warned me they had been sniffing around her shop a few days back; I should have taken her words of caution more seriously. Kill one of them and their friends were bound to come take revenge. Better if this day passed without bloodshed.
My eyes caught on the mercenary's unruly mess of windswept hair that was just shy of falling into his hazel eyes. Handsome, if a bit rough around the edges with a nasty looking welt across the bridge of his nose that made him look the part of a dashing rascal. He raised a hand to scratch at his beard and cleared his throat, as if my full attention was not already on them.
"We don't. We just want to talk." He sounded like he wasn't so sure himself.
"Rumour has it you were a Warden," the dwarven prince spoke up smoothly. He couldn't be anything but one of the surface merchants, the only other dwarves down here were Carta thugs.
"Did the Wardens send you to bring me back?" I asked, not lowering my guard. If they hoped to strike while I was distracted by chitchat, they were in for a surprise. Out of the corners of my eyes I saw my watchers take off at a sprint. A moment ago I was ready to collapse from exhaustion, now with the possibility of a fight I was wide awake, brimming with nervous energy. Better the Wardens than the templars, but still. "I'm not going. Those bastards made me get rid of my cat. Poor Ser Pounce-a-Lot. He hated the Deep Roads."
The mercenary was not the only one to blink in surprise. His head tilted somewhat to the side, as if my words were something to puzzle over. "You had a cat named Ser Pounce-a-Lot? In the Deep Roads?"
He did not believe me, and that worked to my advantage. Words could throw an adversary off balance as much as actions.
"He was a gift," I replied. "A noble beast. Almost got ripped in half by a Genlock once. He swatted the bugger on the nose. Drew blood, too." Made me too soft, they said. Nobody would dare to say the like about me now. Justice was anything but 'soft'.
The mercenary looked back at his brother, as if searching for an answer with his companions. I wondered if maybe he had taken one too many blows to the head, but the other warrior only shrugged.
Good. If he was sent to bring me back but thought I was crazy that's what he could go tell the Wardens. They had deteriorated after Cousland left. He had seen an asset in everything, probably would have found a way to turn the situation with Justice to his advantage too, but I was done with being somebody's tool. Even the Taint Brigade drew the line at abominations.
At least I had found a good home for Pounce, as much as I missed him, he wouldn't have made it one week here without landing in some duster's cooking pot.
"I've always thought joining the Wardens is for life." A dark humour sparkled in the smaller sibling's eyes, a joke only he was private to.
"That's only partly true," I corrected. "The 'hopelessly tainted by the Darkspawn' and 'plagued by nightmares about the Archdemon' parts don't go away. But it turns out if you hide well you don't have to wear the uniform or go to the parties."
The Fereldan soldier crossed his arms. "What parties would Grey Wardens throw?" the warrior muttered low enough, but in the empty space his words echoed, perfectly audible to us all.
"I'm sure the Blight and Taint have fun sides too," his brother shot back without actually looking back. "They could play blind man's buff with the Calling. Whack-a-Darkspawn maybe?"
I wanted to whack something alright and it wasn't a Darkspawn. How did he even know about the Calling?
For a reason I could not figure out on the spot the man's manners struck me as odd. Maybe it was that as a healer I was sensitive to when something was wrong with a person. Was he ill? Then again perhaps it was how he stared at a point an inch or two above my left shoulder and would not meet my eyes.
Just then the doors to my clinic burst open again and I recognized Lilley. I was sure there were more of her friends waiting outside.
"They givin' you trouble?"
Ah, the Coterie. Healing against protection. They always had the clinic watched in case I would need help with... unwanted guests. My visitors shifted uncomfortably, all except for the smart-mouthed mercenary who had talked to me earlier, though his hands did wander closer to his knives.
"Not yet," I told her and she withdrew with a nod. I turned back to the four. Only now did I lower my staff, and leaned on it. They would have to be suicidal to attempt anything, knowing I wasn't alone. "You seem to know an awful lot about me. You have me at a disadvantage here. Why not tell me who you are and what you want." And get out.
"This is Aveline Vallen, of the guard," the leader of the mismatched band introduced the redhead. "Varric Dammit-I'm-Not-With-The-Merchant's-Guild Tethras and my brother, Carver." He paused here, finished by all means until his brother nudged him in the ribs.
"Oh, and I am Noah. Or Hawke, if you prefer being formal. I'm part of an expedition into the Deep Roads."
"I will die a happy man if I never think about the blighted Deep Roads again." I felt a pain behind my temples at the mere mention of them. Endless corridors where even shadows crawled and the very earth was saturated with the taint of the Blight. And always the Darkspawn. Their call was sometimes further away, but never entirely gone.
I was shaking my head before he got any further. "You cannot imagine what I went through to get here"
Hawke raised one eyebrow in response, though his mimic did not change. Neither did his wry, sarcastic tone. "Let me guess. Hunted by templars? Which were driven by hordes of Darkspawn? Which in turn were chased by Wardens?"
That actually was an astonishingly accurate guess.
"We need to get into the Deep Roads," the dwarf took over, either out of patience or sensing that this talk was going nowhere.
"I'm not interested."
"We have enough coin to make it worthwhile," Varric spoke up with a look around the place and its sparse furnishing.
I sank down on the table I had treated the boy on earlier. "If money was what I wanted I would not be running a free clinic in the sewers."
"Point taken," he mumbled. "Come on, Hawke, we are wasting our time here."
"Medical supplies are expensive."
Damn him. He was persistent, this mercenary, and he had just played the one angle that could sway me. Although... there was one other thing. It would be a risk, a damned big one. But desperate men might just agree to it and I had not come to Kirkwall for the sea air.
"There is something you could do for me," I began, still not sure this was wise. No; it was stupid, reckless, to put my trust in these strangers, exactly the kind of idiocy that had gotten me thrown back into the circle time and time again. But they needed me and I could not accomplish my task alone. That decided it. "You help me; I'll help you, simple as that. Does that sound like a fair deal?"
"A favour for a favour?" the dwarf merchant snorted. "That sounds like the bargaining words of every bad deal of the Guild."
"I don't like the sound of this," Aveline agreed, the first time she had said anything.
Carver appeared to be of the same opinion. "We don't need him."
"We need an entrance to the Deep Roads," Noah Hawke pointed out patiently. I had to wonder. Was 'Hawke' the family name? Varric had not used his first name and they appeared to be friends.
"We'll find something," Carver insisted, pulling on his brother's arm.
"Sure," Hawke agreed and dryly added, "If we dig long enough." He pulled his arm free and planted his feet, the perfect picture of a man who was not going anywhere. "I want to hear what he has to say."
"I have a Warden map of the depths in this area," I threw in. That got their attention.
"We want to see that map," Carver immediately stated.
"Alright." I was about to retrieve it when I noticed the rusty red that had set in the creases of my hands. They were covered in blood, up to the middle of my forearms. I had quite forgotten, and my nose had quit its job a week into living in Darktown. I detoured into the far corner. I had originally chosen this place for my clinic because it had a water pump. I filled a basin and washed my hands, before I ruined that damned map.
All four of them cluttered around it when I lay out a piece of it on my table, heads bent together. I wasn't stupid enough to present them with the whole of it.
"I recognize this Thaig's name," Varric said excitedly, one finger tracing a line of runes. "From Bartrand's records. If I'm not mistaken we should come out right-"
They had had a look. I snatched the parchment away again and rolled it up.
"What do you want in return for the map?" Hawke asked softly, recovering faster than his friends.
"I came to Kirkwall to aid a friend," I admitted and after a moment of hesitation, "A mage."
"Where's the catch?" the mercenary addressed the ceiling, rocking from his toes to his heels.
"His name is Karl Thekla. He is a prisoner in the wretched Gallows." And he wasn't just some mage, not to me. He was my oldest friend, my first lover, the one who had made living inside the Fereldan Circle bearable.
"Ah," Hawke sighed. "There it is."
"You mean the Circle." Spoken like somebody who had never been inside one. But then the guard probably never had been, could not imagine what it was like to be locked up, away from the rest of the world. Even criminals got sentences according to the severity of the crimes they had committed. Not mages. That was for life, with no chance at redemption for something most of us had no influence over and would never have chosen willingly.
I was too tired to feel much in the way of fury, but my next words ignited the spark of it inside my chest. "It is not a Circle, it is a prison! Mages are locked in their cells, refused appearances at court, made Tranquil for the slightest crimes."
Something twisted in Hawke's brother's features. "That's enough. We're leaving. Now!"
Not a friend of mages, then, this Carver. Thankfully none of his companions listened to him.
"You want us to break into the Gallows?" Carver's brother seemed completely unperturbed at the thought.
"No." That would be a madness not even I would attempt.
Before I could explain further Carver butted in once more. "Are you insane? Have you forgotten what they did? To you; to all of us!? Fighting templars will only serve to prove their point! As if they needed another reason to hunt us."
"So at least one of you is an apostate," I observed amused. Was it why the warrior was so angry? Because his life was in danger? Or was it the rogue? I sensed no magical ability in either of them, but you did not remain an apostate for so long without learning how to conceal what you were.
Something passed between the brothers, Carver staring at the smaller man like he could change the other's mind with his gaze alone. "Hawke." It sounded like he was calling a dog to heel.
Hawke's reply was, "Mouldy cheese." Like his answer made perfect sense.
"Noah!"
"Gamlen," Hawke countered.
His brother threw up his arms in surrender at that. "Fine! Have it your way!"
Whatever a 'Gamlen' was, it had just won the argument in my favour.
The rogue mercenary did not appear pleased with his victory. He just faced me like we had never been interrupted. "Do the templars know of your plans?"
"I don't know," I answered truthfully. "I have been exchanging letters with Karl through a servant in the Gallows. Then the letters stopped coming."
Hawke pinched the bridge of his nose and studied the dusty toes of his boots for a while, like they were the most fascinating thing this side of the Waking Sea. "How do you plan to break him out of the Gallows?"
"I hope it won't come to that. I sent Karl a message to meet me in the Chantry tonight. Maker willing, he'll be there. Help me get him out." If one of them was a mage, an apostate, surely they would understand. "We will all walk free and I will share what I know of the Deep Roads with you. There's more to it than just studying maps, you know? Surviving the Taint."
I received no answer, but neither did they argue with me. I stood again. "These are my terms. If you want my aid with your expedition, meet me in the Chantry tonight."
Hawke nodded at nobody in particular, Aveline harrumphed, Varric was shaking his head and Carver's face looked like he had bitten into a Deep Mushroom. But they filed out, one after another and I was not sure I would see them again.
Lilley was still outside, leaning against the clinic wall with one leg braced, cleaning her nails with a small but wicked looking knife.
"Wake me up in case any templars come running, yes?"
"Sure thing." She grinned up at me. Lots of people had a grudges. It was good to keep track of them.
I was already halfway back inside the clinic when I stopped. A tiny wisp of cold magic from my fingertips and the flame in the lantern guttered out. No more visitors tonight.
Despite my anxiety I drifted off immediately. No dreams of the Fade for me. The upside of being an abomination? Demons no longer find you desirable. The downside? Neither does anyone else.
oooo
I had gone to sleep at some time between sunrise and midday and when I woke again dusk was already falling. No cases of emergency had turned up at my clinic's door and I felt surprisingly well rested, though I felt my stomach churn with anticipation. It was really happening tonight! All I had worked for these past months.
I combed my fingers through my hair and bound it with a leather string and splashed some cold water in my face, more because I felt like I should rather than because I needed it. I grabbed my staff- not the one I used for healing, but the one made of Sylvanwood and dragonbone. Cousland had been as generous with his friends' rewards as he had been merciless with the punishment of his enemies.
Every sound was sharp in the quiet of the night, every shadow a bottomless pit of black as I walked the twisted corridors that led me through the Undercity and Lowtown before I emerged in a deserted marketplace. The trek had involved wading through the accumulated filth of the entire city, but at the end of it I was greeted by a fresh breeze and breathed in deeply. I was alone, met no one else on my way to the Chantry.
Respectable citizens withdrew into their homes at night when not even the streets of Hightown were safe. Gang wars were no uncommon thing in Kirkwall and one did better to stay clear of them. The only difference between here and the poorer district was that here the corpses got cleared off the pavement regularly each morning.
But no one accosted me and when I finally arrived at my destination, I braced my forearms on the balustrade and lowered my staff so it would not be seen at a first glance. Under different circumstances I would be watching the sky, and not the building. It was a beautiful night, cloudless, and stars uncountable glimmered above me, pinpricks of light sharp as the tips of swords.
Thus I was waiting at the top of the Chantry stairs when Hawke and his company appeared, the other three looking decidedly uncomfortable. Hawke himself could have been out on a leisurely evening stroll for all the care he showed. And here I had almost given up on them.
"I saw Karl go inside a few minutes ago," I said in a way of greeting. He had been alone. At least the Knight-Commander still allowed the mages to seek solace in prayers. "No templars so far. Are you ready?"
"Let's do this fast. I didn't see anybody suspicious out here, either, but... " Hawke shrugged without finishing. Up close I saw that what I had first assumed was a nasty cut across his nose was only paint.
"Maker, this is a bad idea," the redhead, Aveline, groused. She had doffed her guard armour. Couldn't be seen helping the mages, that one. "Why did I agree to this?"
Varric was quick to provide the answer. "Somebody needs to keep Hawke from defiling the statue of Andraste," the dwarf drawled and hefted a massive crossbow that was half as tall as he.
"Do you think they leave the donation boxes out overnight?" Noah asked, sounding perfectly serious. A small awkward pause followed.
"And you can't sink a boat you're sitting in," Carver muttered, a statement that only provoked a heavy sigh from Aveline.
I had had quite enough of their antics already. This was no time for levity. I wanted to keep them focused at the task at hand.
"Alright. Let's go inside. When we find Karl, let me talk to him." Maker knew, I needed to stay calm. So close. I was so close. I could not believe I was actually doing this. Stealing away the mage who had always been one of the Circle's staunchest advocators. But then the Fereldan Circle had been nothing like the Gallows.
I pushed against the heavy bronze double doors and they swung inside on well-oiled hinges. All other parts were behind lock and key, but the faithful were admitted into the main hall at all times.
If possible, the Chantry was even more magnificent at night when it was deserted than it was during the day. Moonlight filtered through the high arched window at the back, casting mottled lights over the thick carpets and illuminating the statues to either side of the corridor. Andraste herself had a halo around her head, her pointed crown glowing as if with a light of its own.
If only the Chantry was not a pretty facade to a crumbling house, a colourful bandage to dazzle and hide the rotting flesh beneath it.
There was a watchful stillness that lingered over the holy place and the air smelled of stale incense and candles. I sensed disquiet creep up on me, though I did not know why and dared not call out for Karl.
In the periphery to my left, Hawke stopped and wandered off. The rogue looked like he had found that donation box, but if he wanted to redistribute some of the Chantry's wealth, I wasn't going to stop him.
And then I saw him, in one of the sparsely lit niches on the first floor and forgot all about Hawke and his companions that were trailing after me. Even with his back to me, I recognized him, the proud set of his shoulders that never bowed under the burdens they carried. There was more grey in his hair than I remembered, but as soon as my eyes fell on him I felt the coil of dread in my stomach ease and dissipate.
I was almost close enough to touch him when he spoke up and I drew up short at the impassive drone of a voice that had used to be rich, a voice I had once known better than my own.
"Anders. I know you too well. I knew you would never give up."
As a healer I knew my heart could not stop beating, but in that moment it felt like it. Please. Hoping against hope I was wrong. "What's wrong?"
When he turned I almost sank to my knees. There was no way to miss the brand on his forehead or the flat, dead eyes of a man broken beyond help.
"I was too rebellious," Karl droned on, the words washing over me, meaningless. Too late. I had come too late.
"Like you. The templars knew I had to be made an example of."
"No." I was shaking my head in denial, stuck dumb. Rebellious!? Karl had been a role model of a mage. And I had failed him, hadn't gotten to him in time. If only-
Not-Karl raised a hand to listlessly point a finger at me. "This is the apostate."
It all happened so quickly. The templars had approached behind our backs, swords already drawn and their footsteps muffled by the lush carpets. The only warning we had were Karl's words and the faintest ringing rustle of their armour. They fanned out wordlessly. A trap. Karl had drawn me into a trap. But Karl was dead. Nay, worse than dead. Death would have been a kinder fate than this.
A templar stayed back, cocked his crossbow and pointed it at my chest. In the next instance his neck erupted in a spray of red and he dropped to the ground, gurgling. One of his friends quickly followed. When the others turned to face their assailant, Carver charged them with a fierce war-cry.
The action that suddenly erupted around me ripped me out of my shock. The vice that had been tightening around my chest snapped without any forewarning and then I did fall. When I rose again, burning from the inside with the power of vengeance, I was only a spectator in my own body.
"You will never take another mage as you took him!" he roared. Not my voice. Not my strength, but my hands, always my hands, stained crimson again as I tore into the enemy with unbridled ferocity and bloodlust.
Behind me I heard a pained cry as one of our own fell. At the same moment somebody yelled Noah's name.
I fought on, until there was nobody left to fight, only myself. It was over as suddenly as it had begun, and the Chantry was quiet once more. Or perhaps I was deaf from the shrieks of the foe dying around me. With no more templars to wreak havoc upon, Justice abated.
I heard the others' whispers of 'What is he?', and 'Abomination', but I only had eyes for Karl. He was blinking, like he had woken from a dream. And when he spoke, it was him again. The Karl I knew, not the shell of a human being from before. He looked around the Chantry with wide eyes full of wonder despite the ghastly scene before him.
"I- Anders! What did you do? It's like you brought a piece of the Fade into this world. I had already forgotten what that feels like," Karl whispered hoarsely. "You cannot imagine what it is like. All the colour, all the music in the world... gone."
He did not shy away when I approached but his voice steadied, his gaze hardened. "Kill me!" It was not fair, that my once-lover would make that request of me. "Please, before I forget it again!" I heard the determination, the plea. "I would rather die a mage than a templar-puppet."
What must the others think? I did not care. It would be a wonder if they did not try to hand me over to the templars themselves afterwards. At the moment the scene before them must have held them spellbound.
"Anders."
I couldn't. Maker help me, I couldn't.
"Can you cure him?" I heard Carver shout from somewhere further away.
"Can you cure a beheading?" I snarled back, angry that he would dare to interfere in this moment. The dreams of Tranquil mages were severed; there was nothing left of them to fix.
"Karl-" My voice broke and not another word would pass my throat. I drew him closer, pressed my lips to his temple in a kiss, like the ones he had bestowed upon me in our precious, stolen moments together.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." I could taste the salt of my own tears as my knife slipped between his ribs and punctured his heart in the neatest, quickest death I could give him. As the world dissolved in a hazy blur of colours, I laid Karl down and gently closed his eyes though I could feel his breath against my palm, harsh and laboured. But not for long.
When he was free, this time forever, I struggled back to my feet. I should not turn my back on a band of strangers who had just witnessed me rip apart a squad of templars and murder my friend, but I couldn't care less what happened to me in this instant.
I felt like screaming, but there was no breath left in my chest, like throwing up, but my stomach was empty and I'd only give myself cramps. I wanted nothing more than to rave against the world and to stagger back to my clinic, to crawl into my bunk and mourn the man who had lost more than his life. To go through that, to become... It was wrong, on so many levels I could not begin to list them all. And there was nothing I could do. Bones could be set, wounds sewn. A mage severed from the Fade would always be Tranquil.
Karl's death must have taken a part of myself for all the emotion my voice held. Nobody had stuck a knife in my back so far, but I expected to feel steel's cold bite at any given moment. "We should go before more templars arrive."
All the colour, all the music in the world, gone. He was right, I did not know what it was like. I had my grief, my pain, to assure me that I was alive.
"Healer!" The shout broke through my daze, the only thing I could hear over the ringing in my ears. It was the brother, the warrior - Carver.
And next to him, Hawke was lying on the Chantry floor in a crumpled heap.
I didn't care. I did not think I would ever feel again. The anger, the bitter hatred, the sharp agony of loss, it blocked out everything else. What was one mercenary to me? Yet I stepped closer, past his friends who were eying me warily, stumbling back as I passed. I did not blame them, with what they had witnessed. At times I was afraid of what I had become, too.
Justice was many things, but a pretty sight it was not. I did not mind the blood. I spent most of my day covered in it. It was what I did, what I was. A healer.
This time my help proved unneeded, as Hawke groaned and stirred when I came closer and rolled to his hands and knees on his own. He looked around, appearing confused despite his brother talking intently to him, grasping at the other man's hand in an attempt to get him to respond.
Haemorrhage? A plain shock? Or a blow to the head? I was already running through a list of all the possible injuries he could have sustained, my training taking over. I was glad for the cold detachment it brought. I went down on one knee next to the two of them, cautiously reaching out to the smaller of the brothers to place a steadying hand on his back.
"Where-"
It was only when Hawke lifted his head to meet my gaze that I saw it.
Maker, no.
Beneath the messy fringe of his ebony-black hair, now plastered to his brow with sweat, and faded over time but still recognizable, I saw the unmistakable red sunburst of the Chantry.
AN:
This story was inspired first and foremost by the news from DA:I
[mini-SPOILER]
That Tranquility can, in fact, be cured if a mage is touched by a fade-spirit (or demon). Of course the hard part is making the spirit interested in interacting with a Tranquil person, as any demon would rather possess a pair of old socks – there might be more 'life' in them plus they don't resist.
And then I thought about Hawke. And Anders, who can make Tranquil feel again, if only temporarily. And the fact that Hawke's eyes glow red in the DA2 trailer. Red Lyrium makes eyes glow red. And it attracts demons. And then I thought about another story I have begun, 'Of Gods, Old and New', and thought it would be fun to combine the two ideas.
So, in short, this story is a result of not enough sleep, too much tea and is mostly my way of dealing with pre-exam stress. With Anders. And kittens. And tons of heartbreak. Hawke obviously is highly functional, mostly because there is...an imperfection in his being Tranquil. That's all I'll say for now. Also, I do not plan to retell DA2 plot. Well, I hope you enjoced this...teaser ;)