AN: A bit of an experiment that I've been putting together in those moments of free time. I wanted to explore how much the events of DA2 would have changed (or perhaps not changed) based on the simple premise that Lady Hawke had been raised as the proper heir of the Amell family - and was such entitled to all the trappings of wealth.
These will probably be more snapshots than actual chapters - but we'll see :) As always, feedback or suggestions are much loved.
~Voi
P.S. I don't own anything you recognize!
Kirkwall: One Year Before the Blight Arrives in Ferelden
In her dream there are two fearsome creatures doing war in a city of chains, tearing through stone and flesh, scorching the land around them in their quest to destroy the other.
Mage and Templar, she knows their titles though neither looks familiar, looks right.
Around her people run for their lives and she watches as men, women and children are swallowed by the tremendous flames of the chaos. All dead, none of them at fault – innocents caught between two very different forces.
She should be running, distantly she knows that somehow, someway she will be able to escape unscathed. But just as she turns to leave she catches sight of those that stand behind her. Six of them, friends, her mind supplies, the word working only to confuse her more, warriors, rogues and mages.
She shudders at the last, she hates mages.
Mysterious and too powerful for their own good, she grits her teeth as she tries to look beyond the shadowy veil that obscures the features of her 'friends' to find out just who they are.
Behind her the fires of the city roar ever louder and she abandons her search not long after, she does not have more time to waste. The world is changing and she must do something.
Hands coming up to retrieve the blades at her back, she reaches for her weapons intent on their use. Smooth and familiar in weight, her hands are on them for only a second before they disintegrate into fine powder. But where there had once been blades shines a new weapon, a staff of fine craftsmanship.
A tool of a mage.
And though she should not have a choice, though she should accept what has been given to her, she refuses. There is nothing she can do to stop it then, and she is forced to watch in horror as the world around her burns with only her screams to fill the terrible void of nothing left behind.
Because it is her choice…and the world will have to live with her decision.
Marian Amell-Hawke opened her eyes with a snap, finding her hands white-knuckled as they clenched her bed sheets. Fighting back a scream of terror, she struggled to breathe through her nose, forcibly slowing the rapid rise and fall of her chest, taking control of her body once more. It had been many years since she had last dreamt anything and for the dreams to start now of all times was…she exhaled through her mouth feeling the warm air escape into the chill of the room, inconvenient.
She had company.
Turning to her side, the woman admired the man lying beside her; he really was beautiful. Then again, it had not been his looks that had intrigued her so.
Idling running a hand through the messy length of her hair, she observed her sleeping lover out of the corner of her eye. Tussled blond hair, burnt gold in the dim light, the richness of its color contrasted with the sharp pale of his skin, the subtle musculature of his back. The memory of their coupling was not long dimmed and she could still recall the flex of his body as he drove into her, the way he had forced soft gasps to rush past her parted lips in startled pleasure. Eyeing the bruises on her wrists she flexed her hands to test for stiffness.
She was amused that he had remained here until morning; he had never done so before. Still, the experience was as troubling as it was unusual, and her smile was quick to fade away.
How strange that she could not stand mages and yet she had invited this one into her bed many times before. He knew her more intimately than anyone else, and her body was an instrument so finely tuned that only he was capable of playing it with success.
"Oh Anders…"
She sighed softly at she pressed a soft kiss onto his bare shoulder, smoothing over the angry red marks she had left there last night, "I hope you wake up soon."
Slowly extricating herself from his warm embrace and the silky touch of her sheets, Marian flicked one lingering look at the daggers on her desk before ringing the servants for hot water. Baths were her one indulgence, and she never left her room without one.
She had only just finished washing when he woke, sitting upright so that the silk sheets pooled at his waist, revealing the warm flesh she had enjoyed several hours earlier. Wrapped as she was in only a bolt of linen, Marian entertained the idea of using him once more before promptly dismissing the thought. They both had more important worries now.
"How long until the Templars arrive?"
His voice was calm, almost conversational as he questioned her. In contrast his eyes burned though with lust or anger it was impossible for her to say. Coming to sit beside him, she traced the sharp cut of his cheekbones, the beard growth that shadowed his jaw. Her sister would like him, she decided, and not just because Anders was good-looking.
And yet, no sooner had the thought crossed her mind when Marian felt the familiar pang of sadness in her chest. As the eldest child, she had been returned to Kirkwall to be raised by her grandparents until their death several years ago. Having shown no sign of magic as a child, she had been named heir to the Amell estate and had done what she could to advance their family. Bethany had not been as lucky, and her innate magical ability manifested itself early, forcing the remainder of their family to live secretly in the small Ferelden hamlet of Lothering.
She had only small paintings to remind her of the family she had there. It was unlikely she would ever see any of them in her lifetime.
"Marian, how long ago do I have until the Templars show up?"
Anders asked her again, rousing her from her thoughts, though this time when she focused on him she found him fully clothed. Moving towards her own drawers, she gave him one last appraising glance before smiling slightly, "Not more than ten minutes."
And then she turned to where her clothes were waiting, effectively dismissing him. Cold, impersonal, it was the heir of the Amell fortune that turned this apostate away. Behind her the door groaned softly on its hinges and she breathed a small sigh of relief as she slowly refocused herself.
But no sooner has she eased her guard when his arms settled around her waist, drawing her back towards a warm chest
"Don't cry too much when I'm gone, Marian." The mage teased lightly as he pressed a last lingering kiss to her neck, "I'll always come back for you."
"What makes you think I'll worry about you at all?"
Her voice was cold, unfeeling. And yet it was with an easy laugh that Anders deflected her ire, noting with a fond smile that she could never look him in the eye as she lied.
"I know you far better than you would like, Love." And though he pressed one last kiss to her hair, smoothed a knowing hand over her breast in a tease, it was without another word that he turned and left the room, pausing only to close the door with a muted 'click.'
It would be nearly a year before their lives crossed again, and by then they would be different people in very different circumstances.
But that was in a future Marian had yet to experience, and she things yet to do. Dressing in a suitable suit and coat of pale green she paused only to retrieve her dual blades before she too disappeared into Kirkwall's bustle.
There were mages that needed collecting.
She should have known it would come down to this, how many times has it happened? How familiar was the smell of blood as yet another mage turned to the forbidden in order to escape their fate?
The only thing that made the situation worse was that the girl's mother still believed her child could be saved, that despite everything, every horror that had been inflicted on her, the old woman begged for her daughter's life.
"Please, Serah Hawke, have mercy – my daughter is a mage just like you!"
"Mercy?" Marian scoffed as her hands found the blade at her side, her mouth twisting into a cold smile. "There will be no mercy for a mage who does not follow the rules of the Circle, who willfully engages in blood magic. Kirkwall already has filth enough to crowd the lower districts; I will not tolerate blood mages as well."
Pressing her foot down more strongly on the neck of the beaten and bloodied mage, Marian snarled, "And I am no mage, messere. Someone has clearly fed you lies."
"Please don't kill my child," the woman begged, her eyes overflowing with tears, begging for compassion, "She is my oldest; she became this way to protect her siblings against those that would see us turned out."
"Choosing blood magic is not a choice at all," Marian's voice was hard, uncompromising as she looked down at her feet, "The Viscount, the Chantry and the Circle of Kirkwall all stand against it. She knew better."
"Messere, please."
But it was too later, her decision long since made up; Marian delivered the killing blow amidst the half-angry shriek of the mage-girl, the pain filled howl of the mother.
Blood mages always left such a mess when they died.
Wiping the worst of the gore from her face, Marian did not have to look at the woman's face to know the devastation she had caused by carrying out the death sentence, did not have to hear to pitiful sobs behind her to know how cruel she had been.
"I killed your daughter as a service to Kirkwall; it was not that I wished her dead simply because she was a mage."
"And yet she is dead either way." There was brokenness in the woman's voice, a hopelessness borne of harsh experience. "What is to become of her siblings now…will Kirkwall step forward to defend them from abuse too?"
"If you can stomach it," Marian cast a long look behind her, "You and your remaining children may come to live with me. It would make no sense to let your daughter's sacrifice be in vain."
And though the woman could scarcely think beyond the horror of her daughter's death, could scarcely make sense of all the blood that slicked the other woman, she would find herself outside the Amell estate a week later. Marian never mentioned what had happened, but the woman was accepted into her service, and the two children found themselves educated by private tutors.
Warm she was not, but Marian Hawke-Amell looked after her own.
"Here are the reports you requested Viscount."
Long feminine hands passed the delicate parchment into the hands of the steward, the large Amell sigil ring glinting in the afternoon light.
Standing just inside the Viscount's office, Marian Hawke waited patiently for the man to receive the documents, face carefully neutral as he read through her work. Dressed in his customary black, Marian could not remember if the lord Viscount had ever thought to wear another color, another shade other than that impenetrable cloth of his ranking.
"And what became of the lost mages in Lowtown?"
His question was spoken with all the familiar rumblings and intonations of one educated at the Chantry. The viscount had been raised a nobleman and it was for this reason that the nobles of Kirkwall respected him, enough to overlook his marriage to a woman of much lower social rank and inferior breeding.
"I located the one female mage," Marian stood respectfully still; "She had started learning blood magic at the behest of the other runaways and there was little to be done. I had to remove her, she was too much a threat to leave unchecked."
An expression of sorrow settled across the Viscount's face and he looked up at her suddenly aged, "She was hardly more than a child, wasn't she?"
Marian nodded but said nothing. She would not apologize for killing a blood mage, but neither could she feel pride over slaying a girl too young to have known what she was getting into.
Sighing, the Viscount pressed his brow to hid folded hands, "Please, find the others and deal with them. I know you'll try to bring them in peacefully, so I won't waste time reminding you about our duty as nobility."
"I will do my best, Viscount."
The Amell heir bowed low in promise, touching in brow in reverence before turning to leave. But she had not yet crossed the threshold when she was called back.
"Serah Hawke."
Marian paused, her face set in the calm mask though her eyes betrayed her curiosity.
"Yes Lord Dumar?"
She did not bother to correct him, to remind him that in Kirkwall it was the name Amell that mattered. There was a lengthy pause before the Viscount spoke again; seemingly gathering his thoughts before asking what was weighing so heavily on his mind.
"Have you given consideration to my son's proposal? Seamus is…most anxious for a reply."
A father worried about his son, Marian smiled gently at the thought, pleased at last to see some sign that Kirkwall's leader had as much heart as mind. His son was perhaps the Viscount's most cherished family member, and though Marian had wondered if perhaps Seamus was not too young for marriage, the boy had come to her himself to propose.
He was, in all things, a very earnest young man.
"I will have an answer for him within the week;" For nearly a month she had debated the benefits of such an alliance, perhaps now would be the best time to write her mother, to ask her opinion. She didn't doubt the alliance would benefit Amell bloodline but that didn't mean she couldn't get another view on the subject.
"Tell him to meet me at the Chantry when next I send a messenger."
It was the last thing she said before she bowed once more, leaving the Viscount's keep to return to her own estate.
However, no sooner had she entered the main hall when she came spied a familiar face. Heavily creased with age and framed with the greying hair of one who had lived through many years, Marian smiled as she welcomed him further inside.
"Hello Denarius." Marian gestured to a well-stuffed leather chair as she summoned a servant for the appropriate trappings of hospitality.
A stern man of little warmth, they had met several years earlier and come to a respectful understanding. Even then, despite the favors and business deals, Marian knew him only as a wealthy merchant of the Tevinter. Offering him his customary cup of tea, it was only when he began to drink that she sank against her own chair to enjoy the company.
"What brings you to Kirkwall this time of year?"
It was indeed unusual for her business associate to near the city so near to the rainy season. Something serious must have happened, and so Marian found herself unsurprised when Danarius frowned deeply before answering.
"One of my…servants…has run away with something valuable. I believe he might be here in Kirkwall, hiding."
Marian had never had anything but loyalty from those she employed so the thought of such betrayal was near unthinkable. Folding her hands in her lap, the young scion leaned forward, eyes glittering.
"Is there anything I can do to help?"
Cold eyes seemed to asses her, and decide favorably. Danarius had always had an unknown quantity, a mystery that Marian had never been able to unravel. So when it was that when the aged merchant withdrew the small painted portrait of an elf that the young Amell Heiress was caught entirely unawares.
It seemed more a lover's token than image of a wayward servant-turned-thief. Then again, knowing the tendencies of the nobility and rich merchants of Kirkwall, perhaps it was not that unusual to think the elf had been both.
Taking the small panel, Marian brought it closer to her face, examining the portrait that seemed exquisitely rendered. Staring up at her were a pair of the most startling green eyes, milky cool and yet there was no mistaking the sharpness of that gaze, the arrogance and temper beneath that elven face.
If the elf had been Danrius' lover then Marian could not deny the older man had fine taste. He looked as if he would be a wonderful bedmate…a perfect thief too.
"What is his name?"
Her voice was calculating, demanding as she drew the image closer to her face.
From behind his hands, Denarius watched her and smiled, dark eyes glittering.
"I call him Fenris, my little wolf."