Got a chance to write about one of my favorite drawings from SuzumeKurei at DeviantArt. She's a great artist and I am proud I got her permission to portrai her character. The blood mage, Circe Hawke that caught my attention and sent the weels of my never sleeping brain into overdrive.

Enjoy!

Chapter 1

~.o.O.o.~

"Anders!" Hawke demanded accusingly, almost kicking down the door to his hidey-hole in the back of the clinic in Darktown.

He was sitting at his makeshift desk writing at his manifesto as the door swung open in force, making a huge racket in the process. Some of his blond hair escaped the bindings of his ponytail as Anders stood and spun to face the intruder, catching himself on the back wall as he almost fell backwards in his hurry. Circe Hawke's black pixiecut was in a complete disarray, her peculiar reddish brown eyes glared daggers at the disheveled blonde mage at the desk and she had a smear of blood – like she almost always had - across her nose and cheeks.

"What in the void wrong with you! You abandoned me back there!" Circe argued heatedly earning her a scowl from Anders, matching her own.

"Why don't you shack up with Merrill? Since you seem to like demons so much." Anders spat, moving closer to her while glowing his familiar blue as he got upset and Justice began taking over.

"Seriously Anders? She might be cute and all but I'd probably break her, and I don't wanna have to buy…" Circe snarked with a wicked grin playing at the edge of her lips.

"Don't try to humor yourself out of this! You made a deal, with a demon!" Anders accused as he pointed her in the chest with his indexfinger.

"No I didn't…" Circe snorted, cocking an eyebrow at him. The grin she wore grew even wider, eyes sparkling with their usual mischief. Anders sneered, pointing to her face as he growled.

"I saw you! I was there reme… " Circe grew tired of his incessant pointing and bit his finger on a whim.

"OUCH! Andraste's flaming knickerweasels! What did you do that for?!" Anders howled, glaring at her while rubbing his injured finger.

"Well, for one you're being an idiot…" she drawled, running her hand through her pitchblack hair. "I didn't make a deal, I was being lazy. Why fight a demon if you don't have to, right?"

"What?" Anders looked at her in stunned suspicion.

"Do I have to spell it out for you? The demon's dead. Seems I couldn't cheat my way out of that fight." she snickered while rubbing her stiff neck.

"It was a ruse?" Anders said incredulous as his eyes widened at the realization. He rubbed his face with his hands and sighed.

"Of course it was… I should have figured."

"Yes you should have." she agreed. "Now would you stop whining? We have a templar to frame!"

It turned out that framing a templar in Kirkwall was just as easy as changing your small-clothes. One would think that in a city where everything more or less was dictated by the Templar order, it would be a bit of a challenge. But nope. Find a drunken templar and tell him whatever ridiculous story you prefer about the Templar you need gone. Then skulk about the lyrium deliverers for a chance to snatch up an unsupervised shipment-order. Take said order and enter whatever name you choose – preferably the name of the one you're trying to frame – and hand over the order to the supervisor.

Voila!

Said Templar is suddenly not only accused of sacrificing goats – that one had Hawke giggling like a madman for hours while she and her friends unwound in the Hanged Man afterwards – but he is also incriminated further by the fact that he has a shipment of raw lyrium delivered to his door. In his own name no less.
Shelby at the docks was more than pleased and apostates and mage-sympathizers all over the city was discretely giggling and snickering at the templars for a long while after that.

~.o.O.o.~

"So… Care to explain you particular brand of crazy?" Hawke snarked at the elf swordsman making her appearance on the top of some stairs, flanked by two archers.

Circe, Anders, Fenris and Varric had spent days hunting the thief and the ingredients for Solvinius, the herbalist in the gallows. It had taken them all over Wounded Coast and Sundermount and they had run across everything from Evets Marauders, dead qunari patrols and blood magic tomes - which Hawke of course snatched with her and read from cover to cover several times over – to mages in captivity of bounty hunters, crazed mages and lost keepsakes.

Of course they had run into slavers who were pompous enough to think she'd just hand over Fenris without a seconds thought. She might be selfish, contradictory and almost always looking to make a profit, but one thing she didn't do was utterly betray her friends. Shove them off an emotional cliff when they were stupid – like Aveline had been with Donnic – that, she did. But sell them out completely? Not a chance.

Dispatching the ignorant sods had been like taking candy from a kid and she almost felt sorry for the half dead mage Fenris got his hands on. The mage was terrified – for good reason – and let slip that a former tormentor of the elf was in reach and Fenris ended up growling his will until Circe relented in going after Hadriana.
Not that that took much convincing really. Another blood mage, a particularly evil one at that, was encroaching on Circe's territory – not to mention the pissbucket was trying to whisk away her elf – and that was not something Circe could or would tolerate any day of the week. Gaining a little favor with the elf was just a happy side-effect.

Or so she had thought.

The scheme backfired horribly, to Circe's annoyance. The blasted elf had chewed her out first for giving a left standing elven slave, a job-offer. He did however apologize slightly when she had sighed, rolled her eyes and said she'd pay the former slave.
Then after killing the blasted competition he chewed her out completely about magic. She even bit her tongue for once and played nice but he had the audacity to snap at her for trying to be nice, before running out on them all. Leaving them without a frontline man.

Hawke had been so pissed that she'd taken the brunt of every attack on her own. Not even needing a tank as she threw on her rock armor and went haywire with her magic. She took out every ounce of frustration and anger on the poor blighters, stupid enough to attack them on their way back to Kirkwall.

Unfortunately it didn't really end there since no more had they sat foot in the city again, before they had to rush to get Aveline and then go to Lowtown stop a disaster with poison gas.

Circe sighed and wrinkled her nose at the foul odor still lingering in the air, a remnant of the vile gas they'd just finished stopping from oozing out of their barrels. Of course the idiot stealing secrets from the Qunari would be a raving lunatic with a huge inferiority complex, on top of being a lousy thief stealing the wrong thing.
Growing bored with the lengthy – extremely uninteresting – speech of the warped elf, Circe looked over her robes and failed miserably when trying to brush some of the grime off. She dried her sullied hand half haphazardly on her spaulders before scratching her nose with a swipe across her face, unknowingly placing her signature bloodstain back on her face.

None of her companions was really prepared when Circe's patience ran out, they rarely ever where since her temper was harder to deduce than the harsh winds of the Frozen Sea, even on a good day. And today was not a good day. Not by a long shot.

Suddenly Circe's hands shot out, slinging a massive amount of chain lightning at their enemies, leaving Anders, Varric and Aveline scrambling to pick up the slack.

"Enough ramblings… Just… die already…" they heard her grumble in annoyance as she used her force magic to brutally slam the small, still stunned group to the ground before unleashing a frenzied tempest their way.

Hawke was testy, hungry and tired and had cero patience for idiocy at the moment. Her hair in an even bigger disarray than usual and her temper had been boiling over frequently since the elf had barged off.
Even Aveline could guess what the reason for Circe's particularly vicious disposition was. Or rather who.
It was that infernal elf with a broody, vicious nature, white hair, green eyes and a ridiculously huge sword which he swung around like it was nothing but a toothpick.

Unknowingly he had become somewhat of a huge tease, flirting and making suggestive comments, but always ending the conversation with an excuse.
Sure he was hot as a summers-day in Rivain and had a voice making men and women alike, fawn all over him. But this incessant running away was making her shoulderblades itch.
Now to top it all off he had run off to only Maker knew where, with slavers crawling around everywhere and that after giving her a tongue-lashing rivaling those her mother gave her for refusing to meet the suitors she'd picked out.

Circe was not use to not getting her way, and normally she'd just use blood slave to get what she wanted or charm the pants off whom ever got in her way. But Fenris seemed annoyingly immune to her charms and for some reason beyond her own understanding, she found the idea of Fenris hating her for all eternity – which he certainly would if she blood slaved him - rather more off-putting than she was comfortable with.

With the elven fanatic dead and the disaster mostly averted, the party trudged back to the Arishok to deliver the news. The Arishok, lost it when the tired, hungry and cranky Circe couldn't keep her snark and sarcasm to herself.
The others took a few careful steps back and looked on as the huge Ox-man started raging at the top of the stairs by his throne. Circe, however was in no mood to be either intimidated or yelled at, and simply stood her ground, contemplating murder. Arms locked over her torso, leaning on her left hip while watching the Arishok's outburst with tempered anger.

"He's on the edge. The Viscount should know." Aveline said, leaning closer to Hawke as they marched out of the qunari compound. Circe scoffed but said nothing until Aveline grabbed her arm as the Hanged Man came into view.

"Hawke! The Viscount needs to know." Aveline pressed and both Anders and Varric backed up in case of bloodshed.

"So go tell him." Circe drawled without turning, tugging her arm free of the Guard Captains grasp. "I'm hungry…"

"Hawke…" Aveline began.

"Fiddlesticks Aveline! I'm not that cur's blighted lapdog! You're the Captain of the Guard, not I." Circe interrupted and turned slightly to scowl at her friend.

"So you're just going to ignore this potential threat? You're that irresponsible?" Aveline shot back angrily.

"Yes and no. In that order." Circe answered quirkily, turning back to walk towards the Hanged Man. Both Varric and Anders could be heard choking on their snickers but Aveline was not amused.

"What?" Aveline demanded, cocking an eyebrow at the mage's back.

"Yes to the first question, Iam going to ignore this threat. You, I suspect however, will not. And to the second question, no. I had no responsibility to begin." Circe explained, every word dripping with sarcasm as she sauntered to the door of the Hanged Man.

"Fine!" The Guard Captain exclaimed, throwing her hands up in defeat before spinning to stomp down the streets towards the High Town.