A/N: So I'm not sure how many of you out there are aware of the "Traps are a Girl's Best Friend" quest being a repeatable, but as long as you have the time and patience it's possible to make a ton of gold as well as max out your level all before leaving Lothering. Now I never actually level that far, generally I stop at about level 15 or 16 but I was just playing through Origins (again) and this short scene popped into my head and I just had to share it with all of you.
Hawke carried a few of the items her family planned to sell to one of the few merchants in town. One basket she carried was full of jarred preserves, while the other extra eggs surrounded in wool to ease their transport. She felt slightly nervous about this trip, never before having gone to town without some kind of festival and the ability to get lost in the crowd should she be spotted by the templars, but her mother was sick with grief over Carver serving in the king's army. Their warrior brother was currently stationed at Ostagar helping to fight against the rumors of a blight.
Not many people believed the rumors last week when she had entered town but the town seemed to be waiting: waiting for news, waiting for the rumors to be proven true or false. The bann and his men were the last defense of the town and the king had left them stationed here in case the worse should fall.
As Hawke neared town, she saw a young brunette woman, she remembered went by the name Allison, struggling with an overflowing cart of simple spring traps. Stepping up to the cart, she watched a few of the traps tumble out of the cart to land on the ground, earning the offending traps a frustrated sigh.
"May I offer some assistance?" Hawke asked, fighting the smile tugging her lips.
"W-what?" Allison looked confused for a moment as she eyed her fellow townsmen before recognition lit her features. "Marian, isn't it?"
"That's correct," Hawke confirmed, picking up a couple of the traps and adding them to the teetering pile.
"Help would be appreciated," the brunette looked relieved as she proceeding in pulling the cart towards town, while Hawke picked up the traps the fell off the moving cart.
"It I may, why all these traps?" the apostate questioned, walking beside the cart and looking behind them occasionally for fallen snares.
"I didn't think she would make me so many..." she trailed off, meeting Hawke's inquiring gaze with a grimace.
"She?" the raven-haired mage paused, sweeping hair out of her eyes to better see her fellow townswoman.
"Hmm," Allison agreed as the cart hit a stone and bounced awkwardly, sending more traps than normal careening off the pile. "Some elf, a dalish I think, came into town. I noticed she carried a bow and asked if she knew anything about trap making. She said a friend did and proceeded in making me a whole bunch of traps. These are just those left over after I surrounded our family's farm."
"These are the extra?" Marian's eyes bugged as she took in the obscenely large pile of simple traps. The cart was beyond over flowing, as was evident by the steady stream of fallen traps whenever the poor hand cart moved.
"Why didn't you tell her you didn't need so many?" Hawke finally queried with a forced bubbly giggle.
"She made me nervous, being a stranger and all," the brunette answered, looking a little shy at her admission. "And there was a rumor she was a Grey Warden."
"Really?" Marian breathed, feeling a wave of awe wash over her. "What was she like?"
"She was nice enough, I suppose," Allison answered. "But she's been branded a traitor, her and any other wardens."
"What?" Hawke gasped, uncertain she had heard correctly.
"You haven't been in town for awhile, have you?" the brunette asked, as they finally reached the outskirts of Lothering.
"I was last in town more than a week ago," Marian informed the young woman. "But mother's been sick with worry over Carver."
"He's with the king's army," Allison recalled. "You wouldn't have heard..."
"Heard? Heard what?" Hawke questioned, dread welling up and coiling like a stone in her belly.
"The king was killed, betrayed by the Grey Wardens," the young woman informed the apostate. "The army was defeated."
"No," gasped the mage in hiding before she stumbled, feeling as if the ground was reaching up to swallow her as the foreboding news reached her ears.
"I'm sorry," the brunette murmured, coming to stop in front of the town's only merchant. His sneering face a cold welcome. "The bann and his men were pulled out of town by Teyrn Loghain, Lothering will soon be evacuated with the help of the chantry in the next day or so."
Hawke paled as the news took a turn for the worse, quickly bartering what little she had in the basket, and the baskets themselves. She ran from town, needing to get home to inform the family and get ready to run once again. Only this time it wouldn't be templars and angry towns folk nipping at their heels but darkspawn, the stuff of nightmares and fantastical history.