Following in the footsteps of the Warden, Hawke's story comes to seven different ends.
I have no idea why this took so much time to edit. I'm still not happy with it, but it's been long enough.
Warning: Hawke is very young in this chapter and her manner of death is particularly brutal. It's a completely background event, but it is recollected with some degree of detail and may be disturbing to some.
In the aftermath, there is only the desperate cry of a father who arrived too late. The throng of people gathered around him, no more than twenty in number, are deathly silent. Some stare at the wailing father, others at the ground or up into the sky. Unusually for a Ferelden village this far south, the surrounding summer air is stifling hot, as if to create even more tension as the mob slowly realizes what it has done.
Mignon, for the part he and his sons played, is proud. Nasty work, really, but it had to be done. That... girl (if she—it could even be called such) had been an abomination waiting to happen. It didn't matter that she couldn't have been more than six years old. Four or forty, mages were dangerous and mage sympathizers? Well, they were even worse. His wife was dead because someone didn't have the balls to stand up three years ago. If someone had acted then, his beloved Anelle would still be alive and his boys wouldn't be plagued by nightmares of men with glowing red eyes and maniacal grins. So, yes. He was proud. He was damn proud. He'd stepped up and done his duty as a man, a father, and a proper Andrastian and hell, he'd even raised two boys to do the same. And if doing that duty meant killing two young girls, well—it had to be done. He knew saved some distant family the hell he'd gone through and despite the faint curdling in his gut, he felt good.
Sharan is six-and-twenty, a mother of a sweet little girl and a darling boy, and cannot for the life of her justify what she has just taken part in. The last few minutes play over and over again in her mind but she doesn't see two black-haired girls, she sees her children, her Neva and Blake. She sees sweet, gentle Neva huddled over the form of a wounded, whimpering dog with fat tears streaming down her chubby rosy cheeks as she begs for the "pup-pup to be o-kay". She sees Blake's horrified face as light erupts from Neva's tiny fingers and in the middle of a public, well populated street, the dog's broken hind leg mends. She hears Blake cry, "No, Neva! Daddy said no magic!" as he grabs Neva's hand and tries to pull her away. She sees worry cloud Blake's small, proud face and hears Neva's hum of happiness turn to a terrified whimper as menacing villagers surround them and block their escape. She sees kicks from men who toil the fields all day and rocks thrown by able pitchers and even though she tries not to, she sees her well-worn leather boot stomp on Blake's unprotected back. At that moment she can't see Neva but she knows the child is there, huddled and hurt and scared, but temporarily protected by the body of her older sibling. She sees that protection fail moments later. Bile rises in Sharan's throat and no longer caught in the mesmeric lilt of memory, she stumbles backwards out of the mob and vomits. But even after the contents of her lunch lie in a mutilated puddle on the ground and she dry heaves the foulest bits of her stomach, shame still weaves itself in her gut and soul. No amount of expulsion will get rid of it. Not now.
Lourdes doesn't want to see anymore but can't bring herself to look away. She is one of the villagers at the front of crowd—those who had pushed forward to snoop when those mauling the girls had stepped back to admire their work. She is bewildered, horrified, and truly, deeply frightened at her momentary lapse of judgement. She had been a simple, down-to-earth woman of sixty years of age, and had always liked to think she had a good head on her shoulders. And yet, without even the slightest bit of provocation, she had lost herself to the mob of anger and hate. Perhaps that is why she cannot look away now. Penance. She'd been frustrated at being kept from the objects of the group's collective ire and now the only way she could ever hope to atone was to truly see what blind fear had done and could do again. To see beyond the red haze of anger in her memory and the imbedded sight of ten-year-old child's jaw shattered into a bloody mess that only vaguely resembles a human mouth, yes beyond that to a woman who is tragically unaware that she is now two-thirds less of a mother. To see even further beyond that, a cycle of suspicion, neglect, and fear renewed and even further, the monster lurking in the hearts of every single damn one of them, mage or no, waiting for the first moment of panic to burst forth and completely take over. What she sees is a world that is not black and white but an endless stretch of shades of grey.
Faye just wants to see what all the fuss is about. She is blissfully ignorant of the mood, having been fully engrossed by the flight of a yellow butterfly until moments before when someone started shouting. She is not even deterred by the ghastly look her father has, a look she thinks, is even worse than the one when he found out she had fed the family's grain supply to the birds. She can feel his hands shaking but his grip on her shoulders remains firm and she vocally questions why she can't even look. She remembers the last time everyone had gathered 'round like this: a strange man had been drawing funny pictures of people and she especially remembered cranky old Gaba spitting at the man when he'd drawn her with four bulging chins. She tried to tell her da' that she wouldn't touch this time—she only wanted a tiny peek, but he just shook his head and grimaced when the man at the centre started wailing. The hands on her shoulders shake furiously and when she starts to wriggle and squirm, he throws his entire weight at her, twisting and turning so that she is held in a tight hug and she still can't see anything. She feels the bristles of his beard scraping on her cheek. "Don't look, baby doll. Don't look" he murmurs over and over again. Now her cheeks tingle in the cold and a million thoughts fly through her mind: "Daddy is... crying" she ponders silently. "Daddy never cries. Not when Pappy died or when momma got really sick or even when he got bit by that snake." She is confused and suddenly the cries she hears in the distance aren't funny anymore.
Owain is terrified. Perhaps more so than he'd ever been in his entire life. More than when he first encased the neighbour's dog in ice; more than when the Templars had come for him and his mother had cried the whole time; more than when his best friend Simon had gone in for his Harrowing and hadn't come out again. He wants more than anything to not be here, in this tiny village full of people who'd rather see a child mage and her protective older sister dead than free. For the first time he wants to be in the Circle where it's safe and comfortable and although the Templars are beyond frightening in their vigilance, a frenzied mob of ordinary humans was much much worse. Weeks ago, he'd been afraid to take his Harrowing—terrified of what failure meant so he'd bolted. He couldn't even remember how he'd escaped only that one moment he was staring at Simon's vacant bed and the next he was sopping wet in the middle of the woods, leagues away from the Circle. He'd always figured then that life outside the Circle would be easier. He'd find a quiet town, get a job as a baker or waiter or something, hide his abilities and live a nice, normal, demon-free life. Only the real world wasn't like that. The real world was frightened and grossly uninformed and struck without even thinking about it. Maybe he'd needed to see this. Now he knew that he was better off at the Circle. Even if he didn't pass the test, even if it meant becoming one of the silent Tranquil, a half-life at the Circle was a better fate than to be battered to death in the middle of an unforgiving village in an unforgiving land.