This is a fragment from chapter 31 of my original Hawke story. It's not so much filled with philosophical chapters, rather than a lot of sarcasm, but I think for anyone who is interested in historical/philosophical matters of the world of Dragon Age, it's just a tribute for it.
It starts with a memory from when they went on a trip to Antiva City. Then a memory from the Fade with Malcolm Hawke. Enjoy!
Hawke strolled through the Piazza di Azzuro, right next to the famous San Giustinia Cathedral, which bore testament to Andraste's dearest friend in childhood who stood by her side each step of the way in her Exalted Marches.
There was one, vast painting over a grand façade, called The Procession of The Magi. It was probably the only painting in the world of Andrastianism that depicted mages from the Imperium repenting and joining Andraste's cause against their own kind. Now it was a marvelous painting, full of rampant detail. Not only was the Procession itself enormous, if not actually never ending, but the landscape behind it was wondrous, filled with towns and mountains, with men hunting and animals running, with beautifully realized castles and delicately shaped trees. The faces shimmering with honesty and drive for liberty, such strive to strive, she had never seen drawn with a brush before.
"Such a painting surely brings testament to how great some mages were," she said in amazement, looking up and feeling like she would fall down.
"Sadly, we may never know such mages in our times anymore," Fenris replied flatly.
"Is that what I am to you? A poor old weakling? An excuse of a mage? Really, truly?" Hawke asked him with honest, but masked desperation.
"You are not weak," Fenris said firmly. "I don't know if you are great, though. That remains to be seen."
"Well… I… Fine, you take what you can get, and it's more than enough coming from you, I think," Hawke said with a short smile.
"I thought we were past your terrible misconception of me thinking lowly of you," Fenris said with a short frown.
"We are… it's just," Hawke said and looked up at the grand painting on the monument again. "Andraste might not have thought so. At least, her Chant of Light which was probably tempered with."
Fenris came next to her and gazed up at the painting, then said, "It doesn't matter. What Andraste did long ago has been undone."
"That's not my point," Hawke pressed insistently. "My point is –"
"I know what you strive to press on, but I'm not the one to give you a proper answer," Fenris confessed knightly.
"Nor does anyone else," Hawke said bitterly. "Only the so called Maker could account for this."
"You think the Maker doesn't resent you as much as he resents us all?" Fenris said nonchalantly. "It is much a worldly injustice towards mages as with any other race and man alike."
"Worldly injustice," Hawke repeated in amusement and shook her head. "I wonder – is not that people strive for this injustice, rather than unhinge it, with the presumption of complete non-responsibility, of comfort and ignorance? An attempt has been made foolishly well in the same direction on the basis of the opposite doctrine of full responsibility and guilt of every man. But it still pressed on the guilt of mages more than any other. Just for the sake of it."
"What do you mean?" Fenris asked in confusion.
"It was the founder of Andrastianism who wished to abolish worldly injustice and banish judgement and punishment from the world, no? For she understood all guilt as 'sin' – that is, an outrage against the Maker, and not against the world. In fact, he looks at it so, not Andraste."
Fenris looked at her in awe of her remarks and listened carefully, for she continued, "On the other hand, he considered pretty much every man in a broad sense, and almost in every sense, a sinner. The guilty, however, are not to be the judges of their peers – so his rules of equity decided, no?"
"That would be the logic of it, but it is not what is happening in the world, as you can see," Fenris said flatly.
"Exactly my point," Hawke said confidently. "Thus al dispensers of worldly injustice were in His eyes as culpable as those they condemned, and their air of guiltlessness appeared to Him hypocritical and pharisaical. He would have no mercy even of the most honourable, kind-hearted soul. Moreover, He looked to the motives and not the results of the actions, and thought that only one was keen-sighted enough to give a verdict on motives – Himself or, as he expressed it, the one and only God. Who did so in abandoning us. What a fucking douchebag."
Fenris couldn't help but burst into laughter at her finishing statement.
"Oh, yeah, that's how I usually close my speeches," Hawke said with a smile. "Want me to do my tribute to the Maker?"
Fenris looked around with a raised eyebrow, to see if anyone was near enough to be appalled by Hawke starting to sing right in the middle of the piazza, but decided he was curious enough to let her go, "Proceed."
She raised a mocking hand to the sky, "Ho, ho, ho, you big dork. Thanks for nothing, big fucking good-for-nothing pussy!" She heard Fenris laugh again softly at her blunt and cocky statement.
She was in the Fade, dreaming about a time when she and her father went into the Fade together, exploring a memory of his. She felt like she was making a much too complex inception for her to grasp, which made her lose consciousness and awareness. He showed her a memory of his from when he was in Antiva City, within the Serene Gardens of the San Giustinia Cathedral, erected in the name of Justinia, the Tevinter slave and Andraste's closest friend who remained by her side as a disciple in the war against the Imperium.
He wanted to show her something, but didn't right away. He remained in a meditative state as they sat on the moist grass of the square cloister.
"Father, do we serve Him?" Hawke pressed, running out of patience. "I know you condemn the Chantry and the ravings of some Andrastians, but do you mean to lead me to the same god they do?"
"That's just it, my love, I do," Malcolm said softly, "even though you might not believe me for the pagan I seem to appear, but I do. I find the Maker in the flesh, in the blood and especially in our magic. I find it no accident that the mysterious Andraste resides forever in a pouch of magical ashes that are meant to cure any illness."
"But we don't know if that's true," she contradicted. "It might all just be a big sodding bunch of hogwash."
"I think it's true," he said firmly. "But we're digressing."
"Oh, now you don't want to digress? How perfectly contradictory and uncharacteristic of you, lest that's just another diversion in itself."
"You don't think He exists? Or that Andraste was a saviour?" Malcom asked her calmly.
She didn't answer. She had renounced the idea of a Maker for as long as she could remember. A relentless, unforgiving god who abandoned them in their darkest times and sent even more anguish and havoc onto the earth just because of people believing in other gods and some stupid mages who supposedly woke him up and disturbed his peace in his Golden City. No, if that was what created them, she wouldn't want to hear of it.
"I stumble with my conceptions," she confessed.
"We all stumble, pup, and so do all those who enter history. The concept of a great Being stumbles down the centuries; His words and those principles attributed to Him do tumble after Him; and so Andraste is snatched up in His wandering by the preaching puritan on one side, the muddy starving hermit on the other. But that's not important. Nothing about it is."
"Then why discuss it? To fill these moments with empty talk?" she demanded in annoyance.
Malcolm laughed softly, "Come then. I've had about enough of contemplating."
Hawke rolled her eyes, "You don't say."
"Come now, we'll slip into the dormitories. There is enough light to see the paintings."
"Paintings?" she asked in surprise. "You mean that Gustavo mage guy you kept muttering about?"
"That's the one," Malcolm smiled.
"You mean he painted the dormitories where sisters go to sleep? A mage?"
"Yes," he said and led her through a wide stone corridor and made a door spring open.
They swayed through the sleeping bodies and Hawke was more scrutinizing of them than the walls she was supposed to look at.
"Don't look at her face," Malcolm said firmly. "If you do you will see the torment in her soul. I want you too look at the paintings."
Hawke looked at the paintings on the wall and narrowed her eyes. She gazed upon the elegant rendering of Andraste in deep meditation in a garden. The flattened figure resembled very much the familiar, harsher style of Ferelden painting, yet the face was softened with genuine and touching emotion. It seemed a kindness infused in her, condemned to be betrayed by one of her own, no other than her husband, Maferath. Her Disciples looked on her with the same powerful emotion. Even the Tevinter soldier, in his heavy platemail, was painted with full might and feeling, who was reaching out for her to take her into their custody.
She was tunnelled, transfixed, to say the least, by this seeming innocence that infused every figure, this undeniable kindness and purity. The painter did his part thoroughly in highlighting this, apart from the terrible tragedy that was actually happening in the picture.
Malcolm walked away with her into another room which depicted Andraste before she had been taken by the Tevinters. She was praying to the Maker for strength. Again, she was reminded of the Ferelden paintings of her, yet there shone again the Antivan warmth, the unmistakable Antivan love of the humanity of all included. Even for the elves, which were there in the painting, sleeping peacefully by Andraste's side with Shartan as their leader.
Andraste apparently meant "in the name of victory". Present Hawke in the Fade, reliving the memory of the younger Hawke reliving Malcolm's memory… remembered what Shartan wrote in his book as she read it to Fenris. "Let us, therefore, go against the Tevinters, trusting boldly to good fortune. Let us show them that they are hares and foxes trying to rule over dogs and wolves." Apparently, the ancient elves had an act of divination of sorts, in which they let a hare go loose and whichever direction it went, it predicted the way of the future, good or bad. Shartan let the hare go loose and it ran on what they considered the auspicious side, the whole multitude of his people and Andraste's shouted with joy and Shartan, raising his hand towards Andraste, said : "I thank you, Andraste, and call upon you as equal being to being from the same blood and soul, … I beg you for victory and preservation of liberty."
They went from room to room, traveling backwards and forwards through the life of Andraste. The 13 nights of one-tear shedding of Andraste in her despair for the fate of her fellow slaves and her husband, Maferath, gathering the tears in a vial. The first time she had her dream in which the Maker showed Himself to her. The time she sang and the Maker, enchanted by her voice, invited her at His side, but she instead encouraged Him to return to humanity and forgive them, compelling her fellow Alamarri and the elven slaves to fight against the magisters of the Imperium. One painting depicted her in the centre, gripped from each side in a very dark and creepy way by two positively hideous-looking magisters, and she, in turn, looking austere and peaceful, accepting of her fate.
They came by the painting that depicted Archon Hessarian putting the sword through Andraste's heart as he saw the errors of his ways and felt mercy at the sight of her anguish in her immolation, being burned at the stake. The sword was now a symbol of mercy in Andrastian lore and the Archon was the first to be converted to following the Chant of Light. Of course, a lot of people thought that Archon's repentance was just a cunning move to ensure his stay on the throne in the image of a wise, enlightening being driven by divine mercy. But then again there were a lot of wild tales, especially the one about Andraste being a very powerful mage whose intentions were more political than idealistic. And even if she was one… it didn't make a difference. She wasn't accusing magic, but magisters and people misinterpreted her entirely.
Although what transfixed Hawke was her anguish while being burned at the stake. How thoughtful in their distress were Hesarrian and Andraste's Disciples, Shartan tormented by despair. One tale suspected he was actually her lover and that's partly the reason why Maferath found it easier to betray her to the Imperium.
Hawke felt a stronger connection now with the tale and even with the quiet incandescent splendour of this Antivan painter who graced those walls. When they reached their last painting, they travelled through the whirls of the Fade and they were shoved back into reality. Her Father went by the desk and started to write something quickly.
Hawke shivered as she felt the physical world again, in that dark room in the abandoned house, and pressed, "What did he try to do through these paintings? Subtly bequeath to his brethren? Magnificient, grand pictures to put them in mind with Andraste's suffering?
Malcom wrote several lines before he resumed.
"The painter never scorned to delight our eyes, to fill your vision with all the colours the Maker had bestowed upon our eyes, for you are given two eyes, pup, and not to be…. Not to be shut up in the dark. You understand?"
She reflected for a long time. To know these things theoretically was one thing, but to have passed through the hushed and sleeping rooms of the Chantry, to have seen her Father's principles there, emblazoned by that painter, a mage himself – this was something else. Even if it was just the Fade.
"It is a glorious time, this," Malcolm said softly while still writing. "Even in all this tragedy that's coming upon us. That which was good among the ancients is now going to be rediscovered and given a new form. Things will change, for worse at first, but for the better in time. What Andraste did long ago seems to have been undone, but it is not late yet for another to come and make peace."
Hawke scowled at his words, and he looked up at her and gave her a warm smile, "You ask me if Andraste is a saint, our Saviour? I say, pup, that she can be, for she never taught anything herself but love, and so did her Disciples afterwards, Hesarrian taught us mercy, whether they know it or not, have led us to believe…"
She waited on him to finish his sentence, but he kept writing and contemplating himself. The heavy candelabra behind him, with its ten thick melting candles, lit her Father's face with that passion of his to know the truth but be cautious in finding it. He spent years writing, questioning, laughing and making jokes all the while and for a good part of it… being much too prudent for Hawke's taste.
"If Andraste is our Saviour," he continued, returning to his point, returning them both to his lesson, "then what a beautiful miracle it is, this Andrastian mystery – ." His eyes fell into deep realization. "That a poor, forsaken slave convinced nations to rise up and fight against a whole and vast, dangerous empire and she actually took the whole south of it. She convinced a Deity to join her fight. Or simply watch, I don't quite know, myself."
He looked up and scowled, "Only mark forever the lies they tell in Her name and His and the deeds they do."
Hawke sat in silence and almost burst into tears. Malcolm watch her quietly, respecting her perhaps, or only collecting his thoughts. Then he dipped his pen again and wrote for a long time.
"I set out to show you things and it's never as I plan," her Father finally said. "I wanted you tonight to see the dangers of going to deep into the Fade, how we can travel to other places and that this slipping in and out so easily is a deception of which we must beware, for the Fade is not the perfect spitting image of our reality. But look, how differently it has all gone."
Hawke didn't answer him.
"I wanted you," he said softly and smiled, "to be a little afraid."
"Father," Hawke said, wiping her nose with the back of her hand, "you can count on me to be properly frightened when the time comes. I'll have this power, I know it. I can feel it now. And for now, I think it's splendid, and because of it, this power, one dark thought falls over my heart."
"What is that thought?" he asked in the kindest way. "You know your angelic face is no more fit for sad tings than those faces painted by Gustavo. What's this shadow I see, your dark thought?"
"Take me back," she said firmly, "with your power, take me back to the Fade. We can travel through the whole of Thedas on which you set foot. Take me to the Imperium where you've been, that cruel land that has become a purgatory in my imagination. I want to understand - " she said but stopped, for she didn't know exactly what she wanted to understand. These lessons, this whole quest for understanding magic… it was too much for her young, brave, but bold and impatient little brain.
He was slow in giving her an answer. Morning was coming and they had to prepare themselves , wake the others up and leave the place where they were stationed, for their stay was too long and dangerous. They could see through the window the distant, already paling waters of the Amaranthine Ocean, twinkling under the moon and stars, beyond the familiar red forests of Ferelden scenery. Tiny lights flickered on the distant islands. The wind was mild and full of salt and freshness, and a particular deliciousness that comes only when one has lost all fear for the sea.
"Your request is brave, but reckless, pup," Malcolm said with a concerned, half-disapproving voice.
"Have you travelled so far before?"
"In miles, in actual physical space, and partly in the Fade yes, many times," he said. "But in another's quest for understanding? No, never so far."
And she never got to hold him for this request. It was too late, for he perished before she could remind him.
Back in her room, she sighed heavily and chose the Lamentation of Andraste as inspiration for a painting. She had quickly bought new tools and was eager to try them. It had been… how long? Years and years, since she painted. She made her Andraste as tender and vulnerable as she could conceivably do, but much with a strong emotional resistance in her figure, unyielding and staying true to her predicament. Pagan that she was, she didn't know who was supposed to be there! And so she created an immense and varied crowd of weeping humans and elves to lament the dead Andraste, and angels in the sky torn with anguish much like the spirits of compassion painted by that mage, Gustavo, whose work she had seen in the Fade.
She realized something. She was free. She could paint what she wanted. She could be what she wanted. The knight in shining armor she strove so much to be as a child. Nobody was going to be the wiser! But then again, she thought, perhaps that was not entirely true.