Bianca

Hawke couldn't move. She re-read the note she'd found for the seventh time. She read the words, processing them but not believing them—she refused to believe them. This wasn't happening. None of this was real. The pain her chest had been from taking three consecutive blows from the rage demon back in the foundry, not from her heart being ripped out by an enigmatic pirate queen.

As she finished the small paragraph for the eighth time now, she felt a scoff escape her throat. Her jaw tightened along with her fist around the small piece of parchment. Only Isabela could fill her with this much rage and sorrow without being anywhere near her. No one else—not the Templars or her family—only her.

"Hawke!" Her dwarf companion's voice finally reached her. She looked to see Varric standing directly in front of her, "Glad I finally got your attention."

"Sorry." The mage mumbled, shaking her hand, "Just doing a little light reading." She tossed the slip of parchment—now even smaller and more of a ball of trash than anything—to the ground. Letting out a poorly restrained yell, she threw an equally-poorly-restrained blast of magic into the wall. The force sent a flourish of cracks through the stone.

"Now what did the wall ever do to you?" Varric's voice once again reached her ears. Hawke glanced at him over her shoulder. It didn't pass her notice that he had the less-crumpled piece of parchment in his hand.

"Nothing, I suppose." Hawke laughed, unable to hide the sound, nor ignore the taste, of bitterness in it, "It certainly didn't run off with the one thing that could possibly prevent a small war."

"She did what she thought had to, Hawke." The dwarf continued in a voice the mage rarely heard him use. The tone usually impressed her, or surprised her. At the present moment it only proved to anger her.

"And here I was under the impression she always refused to think things through." Hawke shot back sarcastically, "You know as much of a sneaky... cheap... cheat-y stunt like this is, you'd think she'd at least have told me she was screwing me over, to my face."

"Maybe she couldn't." Varric waved the small note in his hand.

"OH!" Hawke feigned a gasp in mock-disbelief, "Of course! A chance to put her perfect penmanship to good use?"

"Okay at this point, you're abusing sarcasm."

Hawke released a frustrated groan as she sat atop a short stack of crates, her head dropping into her hands.

She was fully aware of how ridiculous she sounded. Snark and satire were her defense mechanisms—they always had been. She was a mage; she didn't have the brute strength of a warrior nor the agility and speed of a rogue. In fact were she raised among elves in the wild instead of Lothering she may as well have been another Merrill—bless her soul. The magic in her blood was really all she had going for her—that and her carefully crafted mental tenacity and sharpened wit.

The more threatened and disturbed she felt, the more she put her tools of defense to use. Her unnecessarily ludicrous rantings coupled with the crumbling wall to her side only proved how much distress she felt.

"I let this happen." Hawke finally said into her hands, her eyes still squeezed shut as if she were resigning to the darkness, "I should have known better."

"Yeah, you screwed up." The response felt like cheap blow to the back of the head. It did however, manage to lift her head from her hands.

"Thank you, Varric." She muttered, "Your pep-talks are always so uplifting and full of hope."

"Oh come on Hawke, I thought you were stronger than..." she noticed him motioned at her, "This." She raised an eyebrow, "You screw up, take your licks, learn and move on." Hawke remained silent. It wasn't that she didn't understand what her friend was saying; she didn't want to move on.

She saw Varric move to lean against another stack of crates, out of the corner of her eye, "You know I used to hate fighting—I don't exactly love it now, but there was a time where I would do everything in my power to avoid a fight and the thought of wielding any sort of weapon sickened me." The mage turned to him with another quirked eyebrow, "What? How else do you think I got to be such a fine story-teller?"

"So what changed?" Hawke chose to amuse the dwarf.

"I met someone." Came the short response. It was simple but not nearly enough of an answer for Hawke, "The details lack too much excitement for me to tell you all of them but long story short, she was the first thing I came to care about more than my life." She scanned her companion's eyes but saw nothing but truth behind them, "Cutting another long story short, I got myself into a lot of trouble with some very bad people." Varric continued, "People I refused to fight, trouble I couldn't talk myself out of."

Hawke swallowed, anticipating where the set of 'short-stories' were going, "What happened to her?"

"She was killed." The answer was followed by long silence, "I screwed up, then yeah, I wallowed in self-hatred for a while but then I learned that having a weapon wasn't always about hurting people." Varric let out a small sigh, shrugging, "I learned from a mistake and moved on—and now look at me!" He smiled knowingly, meeting Hawke's eyes, "I'm still alive, I'm living a comfortable life—not on the run-" His smile turned into a grin, "And I still have my unfathomable charm and undeniably remarkable story-telling skills." Hawke didn't hold back a laugh—and after a few seconds, for a few seconds—Varric laughed too.

"Did you love her?" Hawke asked seriously after the brief moment of shared amusement. The dwarf didn't answer right away. To Hawke's surprise, for the first time, Varric seemed at a loss for words.

"She was everything to me. She taught me to be... better." The dwarf managed to say eventually, "While she was alive, I came to forget what life was like without her. She may have died but she'll always be with me." Hawke studied him closely as another knowing smile crossed his lips.

"Aha!" She said suddenly, coming to a realization, "I understand now!" Varric's expression quickly became confused as she grinned at him—grinned past him. He hesitantly looked over his shoulder but after a short pause he quickly turned back to the mage.

"Wait, no... that's not-" He waved his hands up in front of him, shaking his head, "You think that's the reason..." He trailed over, motioning over his shoulder at his prized, most trusted possession.

Smiling at the second rare occurrence of Varric being at a loss for words, Hawke lifted herself up off the crate. She silently thanked him, aware he probably wouldn't have processed the words just then if she'd said it aloud.

"No, Hawke, c'mon, why would I..." Varric continued to ramble. He was rambling now? "That'd be too obvious—too cliché! See what I'm saying?"

"Of course Varric." Hawke answered with a nod, trying her best to hold back the growing laughter in her chest, filling the void left by her recent heartbreak, "Now, I do believe the time for us to move on has come." She moved past the dwarf, "Wouldn't want to keep the Qunari waiting... or Aveline for that matter..." the mage added, heading out of the foundry area.

"I don't think you..." Varric trailed off as she did so, ceasing his frantic hand gestures, his shoulders slumping. Hawke stopped walking briefly to stretch her arms.

"Ooh, perhaps I should name my staff Isabela?" The dark-haired mage teased over her shoulder as she continued down the small street.

"Damn you Hawke." He cursed in defeat as he quickly moved to follow her.

A/N:

Varric is the most kickass dwarf ...evar!
Bad Isabela! Bad! Bad!
When I got to this scene my first playthrough I got really scared =\
Was all like, "Holy crap! What the hell, woman!" and stuff...

ANYhow... yeah, go go break from FFXIII?