A/N: Hi hello! I've been obsessed with DA2 since I played it back in the fall (I went Origins, Inquisition, then II, because of course), and I've been writing mostly short one-shot type things for it, and for Dragon Age generally.
So recently I felt overcome by the desire to write a long piece for my DA2 children, and since I'm almost finished with a few other major projects, it seemed like a good time to start something new.
Hawke is one of those rare characters that I can kinda ship with a lot of different people (I usually get Attached to my ships hahaha). This story will likely heavily feature Fenris/Hawke and Bethany/Isabela, but will explore other pairings along the way.
Chapter 1: Hopeless
There were times in Marian Hawke's life when she could see endless possibilities stretching out before her, in every possible direction. Unfettered by the necessity of an immediate decision, she might potentially take a step in literally any direction, and shape with her footsteps a story for herself unlike the one that lay down any other path.
These were the times when she was happiest.
All too soon, for it was always too soon, a decision must be made. Or, if one twiddled one's thumbs long enough, a decision came barreling through the door without so much as a how do you do, and one migt find herself standing among ashes and rubble, watching helplessly as option after option receded before her eyes, leaving only a handful of ways to move forward at the absolute best.
This was the way she had left Lothering: holding a handful of belongings under one arm while they ran and fought, both Marian and Bethany throwing magic over their shoulders without a thought because they were sure they would die anyway, scarcely daring a glance behind them as they neared the top of the last hill that would obscure what remained of their home forever.
This was the way she had lost Carver: no, no, no, stay with me, damn, shit, why didn't I learn any healing magic, Beth, can't you do anything better than this, no, no, of course not, not for this. Who could do anything for this but some kind of miracle worker? He was practically rent into pieces, he was half bled out already, he was gone.
Just like that. Possibilities cut short on a chopping block. Very efficient, was a warrior's death.
This was the way she had arrived in Kirkwall: the way back receding with the blighted boat that brought them here, all of them sick and flea-bitten and half-starved, hunched over as they staggered about, reacquainted themselves with sun and fresh air and solid ground and enough room to stand. No way forward, for Marian had attempted to employ both charm and force in equal measure to little avail.
No way forward, not really, but rather a way down. We'll just have to work our way back up, her mother said, and she agreed blithely, but Marian was not much of a forward thinker. She was acutely aware of the here and the now, so much so that anything outside of it seemed vague and distant and fleeting at best. Sometimes she could see endless possibilities stretching out before her in every possible direction, but for the first year she spent in Kirkwall, all she saw was blood on her hands.
She did a damn good job. As it turned out, she was rather well-suited to killing people. Why, after a month or so, she'd mostly stopped crying herself to sleep after every assignment, and by the time she could afford food, she could almost keep it down! Practically living the high life, she'd said to her sister.
Marian did enough work for the both of them. Bethany had somehow, in all the world's wickedness, managed to retain a kind of lightness Marian could only play at. Marian would not let that be taken from her, not as long as she lived and breathed. Bethany traveled around with her, stood behind her, and handled the matters which did not usually require cold-blooded murder.
Hawke traveled with warriors and quickly learned to blend in. She watched and copied their moves, admired the way two-handed warriors moved, the way they could wield swords the size of her entire body, and took the art for herself. She imagined how useful it would be to combine the warrior's fighting style with magic, and dreamed of crafting the perfect staff for just such a purpose.
This was the first thought in that entire year that gave her any small shred of hope for a better future.
The second was Varric.
Varric was a slippery sort of person. He answered questions with more questions sometimes, or avoided direct answers with amusing anecdotes and aphorisms. Hawke knew well enough never to trust a smooth talker, for she was one, herself.
Nevertheless, Varric had something Hawke desperately needed. Well, sure, a way into an expedition that could set her and her family up for life—that was a pleasant enough thing to encounter. But far more than that, Varric had some sort of bizarre belief in Hawke that rivaled even that of her little sister. Varric believed Hawke was worth something.
Being out of indentured servitude was a lot like being in it. Hawke still spent the better part of her time killing people for coin, she was just a bit freer to go about her merry way during her off time. She reconnected with Aveline, which felt a little bit like reconnecting with a brick wall that gently disapproved of her, and mined Varric's neverending supply of gossip and hearsay for other people who might give her work or information or some other ineffable quality that would aid her in this Deep Roads expedition nonsense she was evidently pursuing wholeheartedly now. Decisions sometimes made themselves that way.
She quickly picked up a colourful array of acquaintances only slightly less seedy than those she maintained from her mercenary days. Varric had taken under his wing a sad-eyed Dalish elf who got herself turned around in dangerous parts of town at least once a week, and she had immediately taken a bit of a shine to Hawke. Might you come visit me sometime, she asked, in the alienage? And in the face of her giant puppy-dog eyes, Hawke could not help but to agree.
Merrill was not an obviously seedy person; rather, she was a very adorable blood mage, and blood magic had a nasty tendency to end in, well, blood.
Varric also pointed her to a former Grey Warden, if such a thing existed, who might be able to help them find a way into the Deep Roads. He was rumoured to be a bleeding heart sort of healer, of so-called 'unconventional' methods. Anders was stone-faced, humourless, and possesed by a literal demon as it turned out, but through all of that, Hawke could clearly see that he meant well, and with all the scum she'd spent the last year dealing with, meaning well went an awfully long way in her book.
Anders joined Hawke and Varric at the tavern some nights, but Hawke gathered that it was more for a drink than for the company. He got along much better with Bethany, actually, who was much kinder and less prone to mockery than either Hawke or Varric, and so one night they even coerced her into joining them that Anders might have someone he didn't completely loathe talking to if he wished it.
That was the night they met Isabela.
It was like something out of a bard's wildest tale. They'd just come in when there was some sort of commotion rising around the bar. Leering men and angry murmurs slowly rising in volume, then suddenly a woman appearing from within the fold, taking all of them on at once. Almost as soon as it had begun, she was holding a knife to the throat of a man twice her size wielding a sword, and Hawke and her friends stood slack-jawed in the doorframe.
"By the Maker, I think I'm in love," said Hawke.
Varric chuckled breathlessly and gave Hawke a shove forward. "I'd recognize that description anywhere. Lotta stories about her."
The woman turned to watch her assailant flee, and her eyes landed squarely on Hawke. She quirked one eyebrow and inclined her head, and Hawke took this as her cue to approach.
"That was quite a show," she said by way of greeting.
The woman shrugged. "Yes, well," she said dismissively. "Got to keep your wits about you in a place like this."
"I'll take your word for it," said Hawke.
Isabela smirked, looked her up and down. "You look like you can handle yourself."
"On the contrary," Hawke retorted lightly, "hardly anyone can handle me."
The woman's dark eyes positively glittered with interest. "I do love a challenge. Join me for a drinK?"
"I'm here with friends, actually," Hawke gestured to her gaggle of strange companions settling themselves into a table. "Care to join us, instead?"
The woman considered them with a furrowed brow and the faintest hint of amusement. Hawke broke away from admiring her only to set eyes upon her sister, Bethany, looking utterly awestruck.
Now, Hawke had never been particularly astute at picking up on attractions—sometimes even her own. She lacked a great deal in subtlety, but she liked to think she made up for it in charm, or failing that, skill. It had been some time, she realized in the span of that instant, since she'd found herself particularly interested in anyone outside of what they could offer her.
Fighting for survival tended to knock everything else out of you that way. Hawke had longed for nothing but the dawn of the next day for nearly two years now, and seeing this mystery woman who so masterfully wielded both charm and daggers had been a welcome change. She'd seen countless possibilities unfolding before her in the glimmer of this woman's eyes. Possibilities of passion, of fun, of adventure the likes of which she'd barely even remembered to dream of when she was busy keeping her family from utter starvation.
But she knew her sister like she knew herself. She knew every step Bethany would take before she took it, and she knew the ways of Bethany's heart far better than she knew the ways of her own.
Bethany had had her first and last crush at the age of fourteen. She'd looked at a boy in Lothering with those same sparkling doe eyes. She'd befriended him easily, and made him lovely little gifts, works of art from scraps of nothing she'd found lying around. He'd found out she was a mage and meant to run directly to the Templars.
Fortunately, Marian had intervened, and had threatened him so graphically that he'd sworn secrecy. Bethany had cried consistently for a month and sporadically for the next six, and she hadn't looked upon anyone with so much as a flicker of attraction since then.
She hadn't, that was to say, until just now.
In the present, where little more than an instant had passed, the mystery woman spoke, "All right, I'll play." She flung a disarming smile in Hawke's direction and reached out to cup her cheek. "But only because you've struck upon my soft spot for scruffy misfits."
Hawke felt a smile tugging at the corners of her own lips, and she offered the woman her arm. They made it all the way to the table before Hawke realized, "Everyone, this is...I do beg your pardon, it seems I haven't caught your name."
"I do believe I haven't thrown it," she replied lightly. "Isabela."
"This is Isabela," Hawke echoed, more than a little lost in the curious glittering of her eyes. But she tore her gaze away and gestured around the table. "This is Varric, Merrill, Anders, and of course, my dazzling sister, Bethany."
Hawke slid in beside Varric, and Isabela beside Bethany, and the conversation that night was something new and electric and wonderful. Bethany was friendly and warm-hearted enough to coerce Anders into a conversation as expected, but Merrill and Anders also fascinated one another into strange conversations of their own. Varric asked Isabela about some of the more absurd (and lewd) stories he'd heard about her travels, and Bethany made small, hesitant assertions of her abject admiration which Isabela took gladly.
"And what brought you here, lovely?" Isabela asked Bethany. "Fereldan, right? You've got that look about you."
Bethany tucked her hair needlessly behind her ear before she managed, "A Blight. The Blight. We escaped from Lothering."
"Well," said Isabela with that disarming smirk. 'If it took a Blight for me to make your acquaintance, kitten, it will have been entirely worth it."
Bethany went bright red in the face, Hawke leaned heavily on Varric's shoulder while utterly failing to stifle a snort of laughter, and Isabela's offhand smirk broke into a brilliant, toothy grin.
Varric showed them how to play a card game, and they stayed up way too late drinking and talking and sometimes even laughing. And oh, this night was beginning to feel like one of those times in Hawke's life when she could see endless possibilities stretching out before her, in every possible direction! There were matters that would require her attention soon enough, but in this moment countless paths lay open at her feet, reflected in the faces of these curious people she had collected, or who had perhaps collected her.
This night felt like a beginning.