Power Chord: Fear and Lothering in Lost Thedas

by el bastardo

Hawke and his band, the Deep Roads Expedition, are going straight to the top to compete in Kirkwall's annual Battle of the Bands. All he needs are righteous bandmates and wicked tunes. Fear and Lothering tells of the Hawke family's escape from Lothering with the help of reclusive diva Flemeth, the Witch of the Wilds.

Power Chord is a musical, quasi-modern AU of Dragon Age II.

The Deep Roads Expedition, headed by Garrett Hawke, is seeking the money to enter Kirkwall's annual Battle of the Bands, set to get the big pot that will give the Hawke family the chance to buy back their estate and make a name for themselves. They must assemble allies, settle debts, and acquire their ultimate instruments and non-heinous riffs to wow the Battle Judges.

"Fear and Lothering in Lost Thedas" is the first Dragon Age II scene rewritten to set the stage for an epic Battle of the Bands AU. The Hawke family escapes Lothering with the help of reclusive diva, Flemeth, the Witch of the Wilds.

Characters backgrounds and instruments:

Garrett – versatile Fereldan pianist, singer, and songwriter
Carver – techno dance keytarist, formerly of the Ostagar label
Bethany – lovely songstress, lyricist, singer, and tambourine player
Aveline – drummer, formerly of the Ostagar (rock) label, a City Guard in her day job
Anders – violinist trained by the Circle (orchestral) and Grey Wardens (Trans Siberian Orchestra)
Justice – fiddler trained by the Grey Wardens (Trans Siberian Orchestra)
Fenris – Tevinter bassist and singer, formerly under the Magister record label (death metal)
Isabela – Rivaini dancer and accordion player, formerly under the Pirate record label
Merrill – Dalish (folk music) flautist
Varric – Dwarven celloist, formerly under the Merchant's Guild label

Power Chord
Fear and Lothering in Lost Thedas

A ripped plastic bag caught Leandra's foot and, with a despairing cry, she hit the wet pavement hard.

"Mother!"

Bethany's sweet voice rose and cracked in her terror. The younger woman whirled and tore back down the alley, her short dress riding too high on her pale legs. Garrett's black jacket barely covered her body.

Swearing under his breath, Garrett snapped, "Keep watch," to his tall brother and followed his sister. Behind him, Carver leaned against a heavily graffitied brick wall and peered around the corner.

"It's her ankle," Bethany said, her words trembling from the cold, fear, sorrow or all three. She knelt by their mother's hunched figure and looked up at Garrett through the mist of dirty Lothering rain.

Her desperate stare reminded Garrett of the many times she had looked up at him before, her eyes always wide, almost shocked. 'The world has done me harm,' they seemed to say. 'Why, why? What are you going to do about it, Garrett? Make Carver stop pinching me, make the other kids leave me alone, make Dad come home, reach down the cookies from the tall shelf. Make everything better!'

"Is it broken?" Garrett asked. He tried to attend to the two women, but his eyes flicked up at the dark passageway from which they'd come. Up, down, up, down. He knew the darkspawn were out there, following, hunting. He expected to see the long shadows, hear the guttural voices, spot the pinstripe shoulder or fedora or gunmetal gleam. The Hawkes could not sit for long.

"I don't know," Bethany wailed, her white hands fluttering over Leandra's leg.

Their mother finally shook her head and pushed back her sodden grey hair. "No," she gasped. "I don't think so, but I don't—I don't think I can go on." She breathed heavily, almost wheezing from the exertion of fleeing the ritzy Lothering concert hall where the few Lothering citizens who could made a stand against the darkspawn—and failed.

"Mother, no!"

"We have to keep running," Garrett insisted, his tone low and harsh. "Get up. We will not leave you."

"I can't," Leandra cried.

Garrett would not hear her. He crouched, an eye always behind them, and forced his shoulder under her arm. He disliked the feel of her clothing, her velvet gown like heavy, oily fur in the rain, even through his white dress shirt. She protested wordlessly, but he forced her up on her feet. Bethany slid her own slender, shivering body under Leandra's other arm. Together they got her moving again, though she hissed at every step.

"Maker save us," Leandra gasped with each lurch. "We've lost it all. Everything your father and I built."

"I know how much Lothering meant to you, but we have to move." Garrett stared straight ahead.

"We should have run sooner," Bethany complained from Leandra's other side. "Why did we wait so long?"

"The Ostagar show was supposed to stop them. The Grey Wardens' Blight Song should have worked." Garrett mentally shook his head, remembering the vast orchestra that faced the oncoming horde of darkspawn. It should have worked.

But the darkspawn came on, the Grey Wardens fell, and the Players of Ferelden ran. And were running still.

Carver waited for them at the alley's end. He shook black hair from his brow, droplets of rain water fanning. In his black and white tuxedo, with his pale and youthful face, he looked like an abandoned prom date. "Come on," he urged.

Bethany lagged back. "Wait, where are we going?"

"Away from the darkspawn," Carver said. "Where else?"

"And then where? We can't just wander aimlessly." Bethany's wide amber gaze found Garrett, demanding more answers.

How should I know? The weight of her expectations and his mother across his shoulders made him want to lash out. He forced a flippant response, if only to keep from shouting at her. "So long as we wander aimlessly away from the horde, I'm happy."

Leandra lifted her heavy head. "We can go to Kirkwall."

"What?" Garrett lifted a brow, taken aback. "Why would we go there?"

"We still have family there—and an estate."

That was news to Garrett, but Bethany took it in stride. "Then we need to get to Gwaren and take ship."

"How do you know that? Are you memorizing ship schedules again?"

Carver snapped a glare at Garrett and answered his sister. "If we survive that long. I'll just be happy to get out of here."

Grunting and chittering echoed from the next alley in front of them, reverberating around the corner. The Hawkes froze.

The familiar screech of darkspawn chilled their blood. Carver tensed, shrugging the strap of his keytar case higher on his shoulder. "I'll go see how many," he muttered.

"Be careful," Leandra whispered.

"And quiet," Garrett added. "Mother can't run anymore."

Carver nodded brusquely and skulked away.

Garrett shifted Leandra's weight on his shoulders and held her close to his hip. She sagged between him and Bethany. Her head hung, water streaming in rivulets from the grey hair at the back of her head and down her neck, under a coiled golden chain.

"Garrett," Carver cried, his voice echoing sharply from the narrow alley walls. "Get your ass over here!" A clang punctuated his call.

Leandra grunted as Garrett hauled her forward, nearly lifting her off her feet. He would have carried her if he hadn't been worried about keeping his hands free.

Around the corner stretched an alley full of rusting bins, silent hulks in the night and the rain. Garrett briefly glimpsed his brother at the end, poised in a posture of defence and attack. Then the younger Hawke charged and disappeared from sight. There was another sharp noise, a heavy impact.

"Flames," Garrett swore again. "Idiot."

"Go," Bethany urged. "Please, Garrett, I've got mother."

Garrett dithered for a moment, unwilling to leave his mother and sister defenceless, but the expression Bethany levelled at him was suddenly hard, unflinching. Gritting his teeth, Garrett slid away and sprinted on.

The light in those back lanes emanated from yellow bulbs above steel warehouse doors, from far-off streetlamps, from the infrequent floodlight in a junkyard. Rain obscured everything. When Garrett rounded the corner into a spacious intersection, at first he couldn't make sense of the scene. Carver was roaring and swinging his big fists at three shadowy figures. Darkspawn. Garrett picked out the defining lines of the fedoras and the broad shoulders. Two tall genlocks and one squat hurlock. At least one of them wielded a gun; Garrett smelled the gunpowder hanging in the air.

Someone else, a woman with a head like flame even in the dim light, stood on the other side of the darkspawn, holding a man in one arm and brandishing a weapon with the other. "You will not have him," she shouted. Her bare arms flexed and she struck powerfully at the closest genlock with two drumsticks.

The genlock laughed until she got him in the eye. It howled and fell back, covering its face.

The woman turned to the man under her arm. "I will not let them have you."

The other genlock stomped toward her. Carver leapt at it and caught it in a grapple. Garrett blinked, secretly impressed with his brother's pure, brute force.

The lone hurlock stepped back, lifted a wicked black tommy gun, and aimed it at Carver.

Garrett dashed into the fray and tackled the hurlock to the ground. Normally he wouldn't have stood a chance in a wrestling match with the burly darkspawn, but he had the advantage of surprise. He managed to take control of the warm, slippery metal and bring the tommy gun down, again and again, on the hurlock's ugly mug. Something cracked and dark fluid spurted into the wet night and the hurlock's struggles ceased.

The genlock fighting Carver broke away with a snarl, reached into its coat and brought out a pistol.

Garrett's lungs and throat went tight. He wanted to cry out a warning, he wanted to leap up and save his brother, he would do anything—but there was no time.

Carver swung the keytar case and hit the genlock's hand just as the pistol went off with a deafening crack. The shot went wild, hitting a wall and exploding in a puff of brick dust. Carver's instrument continued around and into the darkspawn's head, sending the genlock to the ground with a nasty gouge gushing where its hat used to be.

"I never thought that thing would be useful," Garrett commented when he could breathe again. "Maker, Carver, I thought you were—"

A sharp cry interrupted him. The last darkspawn fell under the onslaught of a garbage can. The copper-headed woman stood above the crumpled genlock, panting, face lifted into the rain. Her profile was strong but tired, her eyes closed. Red hairs strayed from the band around her brow to trail in spirals on her flushed cheeks.

Bethany and Leandra hobbled into the intersection. Carver immediately went to them and Leandra muttered furious reprimands to her son, broken by sobs and wondering comments on his strength and bravery.

The red-haired woman turned to her companion, who struggled to stand. "Stop squirming, Wesley," she chided him. "You'll make it worse." She helped him rise and he resolved into a haggard man—drawn of face, hair in dark spikes. He wore a wealth of chains and symbols of the Maker over his long black coat, marking him as a Templaric Circle musician. Blood trickled down the side of his face from a scalp wound, and he held one arm with the other.

Garrett climbed off the hurlock, taking its tommy with him, and approached them. "Miss," he started.

"Vallen," she said shortly, head jerking at the sound of his voice. "Aveline Vallen." Her green gaze took him in, then flicked to the three other Hawkes. "Thank you. This is my husband, Ser Wesley."

Garrett nodded. "For a while it looked like we were the only ones to escape the darkspawn."

"We aren't free of them yet," Carver interjected. "Like the Ostagar concert, this is just the start."

Aveline straightened. "You were there?" She peered closer at their formal attire. "Yes. I see it now. Third company, under Conductor Varel."

Grimly, Carver said, "Then you saw how the whole of the orchestra was defeated."

"We fell to betrayal," Aveline countered. "Not to the darkspawn. This arm of the horde will not have the same advantage. But the north is cut off. We barely escaped the main body of the horde."

"Then we're trapped! The Wilds are to the south." Carver flung out an arm to the southern curve of the city, a dangerous ghetto populated by roving gangs of barbarians, fierce animals, and mythic witches. "That's no way out!"

"I'm not running straight into the horde," Garrett snapped. Darkspawn far outweighed the dangers of the Wilds. "We go south." Before Carver or any other could argue, he reclaimed his place at Leandra's side and led them on.

They traversed many more of the twisting lanes, winding southward. By the Maker's blessing, they encountered few darkspawn, singles or in pairs, all of them dispatched with little trouble by Garrett, Carver, and Aveline.

Until they paused at the end of one lane to catch their breaths, and the rubbish bins stacked next to the wall toppled over. Garrett leapt back, startled, and then felt the ground shake.

"Oh, sh—" he started, just as an ogre rounded the corner from which they'd come. Like its smaller darkspawn brethren, it bore pinstripes and a fedora upon its massive, horned head. But it topped four metres at its shoulder and carried a gun the size of a small cannon, gripped in thick-fingered hands glittering with brass knuckles the size of car grilles.

It charged at them, unstoppable as a locomotive. The Hawkes dodged one way and Aveline and Wesley dove through a half-open junk yard gate. Garrett and Bethany quickly tucked Leandra between two bins, and then joined Carver in circling around behind the ogre.

"You soulless bastards," Carver growled and leapt forward, the pistol he'd looted off the genlock up and ready.

"No!" Garrett grabbed the collar of his tuxedo and yanked him back. "No," he said again, staring hard into Carver's rawboned, furious face. "We do this as a family."

Bethany cocked her own pistol. "Right."

"Maker help us," Leandra whispered behind them.

Garrett led the charge, Carver a pace behind him and Bethany taking up the rear. The ogre rounded on them, roared, and lifted its huge tommy. Carver and Bethany ducked behind bins. Garrett rolled under the weapon and the ogre's outstretched arms as it began to fire, and shot out one of its knees. It roared and dropped to its other knee, dropping its cannon and swinging at Garrett. He scrambled back, narrowly missing a smack from the enormous brass knuckles that would have liquified his head. The ogre swung again, then covered its face when Carver and Bethany hopped up and shot it in its bloodshot eyes.

It reeled back and lifted both fists.

Aveline appeared at its shoulder, driving her drumsticks into the ogre's ear. Black blood spurted from the side of its head. It howled and shook her off. She slammed into the alley wall and slumped to the ground, shaking her head. The ogre's fist swung.

Garrett jumped and brought the butt of his tommy down on the sticks jutting from the ogre's ear. The ogre thrashed once, its attack on Aveline turning into a grasp at Garrett, and then stiffened. The ground shook as it keeled over.

The Hawkes collected themselves. Garrett helped Aveline back to her feet. She wrenched her stained drumsticks out of the ogre's skull, then trotted unsteadily to the junk yard, one hand to her head.

"That was close," Bethany panted.

"Carver," Leandra cried as she hobbled out of hiding. "You could have been—oh, Maker, I can't even imagine."

"We're all right, Mother," Garrett said gently. "We're all right. But we must move."

A screech echoed down the alley. Shadows of genlocks, hurlocks, and fedoras appeared at either end.

"Flames," Bethany swore. "We're too late."

They retreated into the junk yard, Carver and Garrett keeping their injured mother behind them. The darkspawn advanced in their strange, hulking run.

"There're too many," Carver said. He swung down his keytar case and fumbled at the clasps. "Only a Blight Song will take down all of them."

"You see any wardens here?" Garrett snapped, elbowing him back. "Don't be a fool."

"We practiced with them. We fought with them. Do you have a better idea?"

"You only know one part." Garrett slapped the keytar case. "One harmony among hundreds."

"At least I have a bloody instrument! What good are you, a pianist with no piano?"

"I—"

"Carver and I can hold them off and let you and Mother get away." Bethany slid up beside them. Her creamy chest rose and fell as she took a deep breath, preparing her voice for battle. "I know the songs."

"I am not going to run away." Garrett could not imagine leaving his little brother and sister behind, no matter how big they grew.

"Here they come!" Bethany shoved past him and lifted her voice.

Just as her first long, clear tone emerged, another type of roar shattered the din of the junkyard—the smooth snarl of an engine. Light flooded the yard from two headlights as a vehicle squealed through the yard from another entrance. Garrett grabbed Leandra and Carver, and Bethany dodged to the other side.

A long car, its wet flanks gleaming crimson, rushed past them, skidded sideways, and slammed into the oncoming darkspawn, sending them flying back into the alley. The passenger door swung open and a husky voice shouted, "Get in!"

Garrett passed Leandra into Bethany's waiting hands, watched them slide through the front passenger door, then called for the others. "Aveline! Wesley!"

They emerged from the shadows, Wesley dragging heavily from Aveline's shoulders. Garrett helped them pile through the rear door into a spacious interior, following Carver's tall frame, then jumped in after. The car lurched and spun before Garrett had even closed the door. He fell onto Aveline and Wesley, his head knocking into Carver's keytar case.

I hate that Blighted thing, he had a moment to think before the vehicle turned again and his skull cracked against the car door. He saw stars, then realized he saw flashing lights against the car's ceiling. Other than the heavy breathing of his companions and a few thumps, he heard very little, barely a purr from the engine.

"Who are you?" Bethany asked from the front seat.

"Curious," answered the husky voice, low and female. "And driving."

"Y-yes." Judging by the quaver in that one word, the person in the driver's seat was formidable enough to unnerve even fiery Bethany.

Garrett found purchase on Carver's thighs, ignoring his complaints, and pushed himself up to peer at the driver. He caught a glimpse of a long white horn, then the car slammed sideways again. His elbow his something wet and soft and Wesley groaned. Garrett focused on bracing himself against the doors to keep from knocking around anymore, for Wesley's sake if nothing else.

Garrett's arms and legs shook with exertion by the time the vehicle slowed to a stop and the engine's rumble died to a gentle murmur. He stared up at the rain-streaked windows and white leather ceiling, waiting for something terrible to happen, to continue their day of horrors.

"You're safe, for the moment," said their saviour. "Step out of the car."

"Where are we?" Leandra asked.

"Shh, Mother." Bethany opened her door and filled the interior of the car with light. "Do as she says."

Aveline assisted Wesley out from her side. Carver opened his door and shoved Garrett out. He fell to all fours on hard pavement in the middle of a large, empty parking lot. He scrambled to his feet to face the person climbing out from the driver's door.

A tall, striking woman sheathed in red leather stood and surveyed the group, rain bouncing off her red coat. Her white hair stood in two proud, backswept horns wrapped in red leather thongs, and a steel tiara sat upon her brow. Two golden eyes lit on each member of their group. The woman's thin lips curved.

"Well," she murmured, returning to Garrett. "What have we here? It used to be we never got visitors in the Wilds, but now it seems—" She spread her arms, taking in the dents and oily black smears on the sides of her car, "—they arrive in hordes."

Garrett forced himself not to frown. Snarling at their saviour wouldn't help him, no matter how flippant she behaved. With effort, he spat out something polite. "I don't know what we would have done if you hadn't arrived."

"I do!" the woman said with relish. "You would have perished. You still may," she added thoughtfully. "If you wish to flee the darkspawn, you should know you are heading in the wrong direction." With that, she turned and moved to slide back into her vehicle.

"Wait," Garrett blurted, urged by fear for his family. "You can't just leave us here."

"Can I not?" She propped an elbow on the car's roof and tapped her chin with a crimson-tipped finger. "I spotted a most curious sight: a mighty ogre vanquished. Who could perform such a feat? But now my curiosity is sated and you are safe ... for the moment. Is that not enough?"

Garrett's patience snapped. "You could lend us your car," he muttered waspishly. "That would be nice."

She chuckled. "I'm sure it would. Now tell me, clever child, how do you intend to outrun the Blight?"

Bethany, standing on the far side and holding Leandra, said, "We need to get to Kirkwall, in the Freemarches."

"Kirkwall?" The woman's dark, immaculately groomed eyebrows twitched upward. "My but that is quite the voyage you plan." She smirked at Garrett, glancing over him. "Your king will not miss you, hmm?"

Garrett winced at the reminder, images of King Cailan playing the contrabass saxophone in his final moments assaulting his mind. He hadn't actually seen the king fall, not where he and Carver played on the eastern flank, but enough rumours and reports found his ears that he could easily imagine. King Cailan and his entourage fell in the middle of the third movement of the Grey Warden's Blight Song Symphony, when Teyrn Loghain didn't come in with the back up orchestra.

Hollowly, he replied, "I'm sure he'll miss his life more."

To his surprise, she only laughed more loudly. "Oh, you I like." She paced away from the car and circled around Garrett and Carver, her tall heels clicking. Absently, mostly to herself, she said, "Hurtled into the chaos, you perform, and the world will shake before you. Is it fate or chance? I can never decide." Her focus snapped back to Garrett's face. "It appears fortune smiles on us both today. I may be able to help you yet."

"Anything you could do for us would be appreciated," Garrett said cautiously

Carver shifted his weight under his keytar, tensing for danger, and muttered, "We shouldn't trust her. I don't even know what she is."

"I know what she is," Aveline said grimly, her head and shoulders rising above the roof of the car. "She's the Witch of the Wilds."

Carver irked behind him and Bethany's hand lifted to her mouth. Garrett stared, his mouth drying. The Witch of the Wilds stalked through legend, a diva of immense renown and skill who retreated from the public spotlight a decade ago. He had heard that she lurked in the Wilds, holding rare, unpublicized industry parties, supporting unknown artists, avoiding anything to do with tabloids. To think that she stood before him, that he had ridden in her car and scuffed the upholstery, floored him.

The woman in red smiled, her dark lips making her teeth that much more white. "Some call me that," she admitted. "Also Flemeth, Asha'bellanar. An 'old hag who talks too much.' Does it matter?" She paced back and forth, eyeing Garrett like a piece of meat. "I offer you this: I will get your group past the horde in exchange for a simple delivery to a place not far out of your way. Would you do this for the Witch of the Wilds?"

Garrett turned to survey the others. "What do the rest of you think?"

"Wesley is injured," Aveline said, casting her gaze down. "We'll never escape the darkspawn."

Wesley's voice emerged weakly. "If you need to, leave me behind."

"No," Aveline cried raggedy, disappearing from view. "I said I would drag you out if I had to, and I meant it!"

Garrett nodded at Flemeth. "We don't have much choice."

"We never do." Flemeth tapped her chin again. "There is a clan of Dalish elves near the city of Kirkwall. I need you to deliver something to them."

"What?" Garrett narrowed his eyes suspiciously, searching her skin-tight outfit and then flashing a glare at the car, as though a bag of psychadelics might leap out at him.

"Me."

"What?!"

"Getting through the paparazzi will be as bad as the darkspawn." She smirked. "But worse. I can't hit them with my car. I'm considering working with the Freemarch Dalish, starting with Keeper Marethari. So ... drive. Be my agent for buying tickets on the ship. And any debt between us is paid in full."

Garrett's knees went weak with relief. "That's it?" All we have to do is take this broad over the sea and she'll get us out of here?

She held up a finger. "Before I take you anywhere, however, there is another matter." She turned on her heel and strode around the hood of her car. Garrett hurried after her and stopped in surprise when he saw Wesley slumped against the rear wheel, Aveline crouched over him.

"No!" Aveline shouted, lifting her stained drumsticks. "Leave him alone."

Flemeth folded her arms. Her expression, though starkly lit by the headlights beside her, looked soft. Not unkindly, she said, "What has been done to your man is within his blood already."

"You lie," Aveline choked.

Wesley lifted his head. Around his brow rose the faint ridge where a fedora would grow. His eyes filmed with white. His bare arms paled to slate grey ... and striped. Before long he would be a genlock darkspawn. "She's right, Aveline," he coughed. "I feel the corruption inside me."

"I'm so sorry," Bethany said, sweet and low. "Oh, I am so sorry ..."

"There must be something we can do," Garrett said, watching Aveline's strong face crumple.

Flemeth shook her head. "The only cure I know of is to become a Grey Warden."

"And they all died at the Ostagar Concert," Garrett uttered regretfully.

"Not all," Flemeth murmured. "But the last are now beyond your reach."

Wesley cleared his throat with a gurgle. "Aveline, listen to me ..." He groped at his side and shakily lifted a genlock pistol.

"You can't ask me this," Aveline whispered. "I won't!"

"Please. I can't ... I can't be one of those creatures." He pressed the muzzle against his chest, nudging aside a heavy silver symbol of the Maker. "Please."

Aveline's tear-filled eyes lifted to Garrett. He shook his head. "He's your husband, Aveline. I can't decide his fate."

"Be strong, my love." Ink dribbled from the corner of Wesley's mouth. "Please."

She drew in a trembling breath, then her jaw firmed. She stared into Wesley's filmy eyes and pulled the trigger.

Wesley jerked, his eyes and mouth wide, then collapsed and released his last, rattling breath.

Garrett turned away, giving Aveline a moment of privacy while she tugged Wesley away from the car and lay him out on the pavement. He wanted to suggest they bury him, but knew they had neither the time nor the means.

Aveline stood and approached Flemeth and Garrett. Pale-faced, she nodded and tucked her sticks into her waistband.

Flemeth lowered her head. "Without an end, there can be no peace." She twitched a finger at Garrett. "It gets no easier, Malcolm's son. Your struggles have only just begun."

He startled and heard a gasp from Leandra. "You knew my father?" he demanded.

Flemeth only smiled. "I knew him well. He was a great man. And I expect great things from his children. Now drive."