Thank you to everyone who had paid my little story a visit and a special thank you to NecromancerLuna for taking the time to comment on my work. I've been very inspired lately. I actually have a lot written down already, though not all of it is in order. It seems all I can do in my spare time at the moment is write this fic and play Dragon Age, but I'm really enjoying myself. I hope you enjoy this next little piece. Thanks again for viewing!

Blood, so much blood. Maker, it was on her hands, on her clothes, on her face. It was black and sticky and smelled like raw, rotted meat seeped in moldy sewage. She wanted to wretch up her breakfast but she swallowed the vomit down. She could not lose herself. Not now.

Darkspawn, with their chewed off lips, cracked teeth and dead, white eyes screeched at her, swords raised high. 'Burn them,' she thought desperately. 'Burn them all.' Her hands were raw from the spells, and she was sure the tips of her fingers were thoroughly cooked but she dare not stop. She could not stop. Carver, Bethany, and Mother were all depending on her.

The ground shook and she swore rocks were at the pit of her stomach. Pebbles scattered from her feet. It was coming. The creature had dead, grey skin and glittered with fresh blood. It dripped from his hands, from his fangs and from the tips of his large, curved horns. An ogre…

'Maker save us.'

He crouched and bellowed, baring large, sharpened tusks. It was so loud she could feel it vibrating in her bones. Darkspawn poured from either side of the choke point, their only way out. Carver and Aveline tried to distract as many of them as they could, but there were so many that slipped past their defenses. 'We're trapped,' she panicked.

A hurlock grabbed for her, firmly gripping her arm. It's hands felt like cracked leather and it's breath smelled like the privy. It opened it's mouth, tongue missing. Without thinking, flames erupted from Hawke's hands and engulfed the hurlock and it cried out tearing at it's own skin before it crumpled to the ground. She was too close. Her arm was singed from where the hurlock gripped her.

"Bethany!" It was Mother's cry.

The ogre had her sister in one hand. When did this happen? She ran towards her, but was blocked by two more hurlocks. She barely dodged the swipe of one's sword, and it took all her strength to parry the second. She knew she should focus on her fight, but she gawked at the ogre. Bethany looked like a doll in a child's hands. He began to squeeze. "Bethany!" Hawke screamed. She spun her staff, the first hurlock lost it's sword. Bethany and her Mother shrieked, though their screams were deafened by darkspawn war cries. The second hurlock lunged and she brought her staff upward, slashing it's jaw and it landed on the ground, twitching slightly. In the same motion, she hammered the mace side of her staff on it's head. It's skull split open with a sickening crack.

'I'm coming,' Hawke thought desperately. The first one lunged back at her. Now bladeless, it was hardly a threat. She easily sidestepped it and as it stumbled, she thrusted the blade side of her staff through it's neck. Bethany screamed again in agony, though her voice was now thick and sounded wet.

She tried to remove her staff, but she found it was caught in the hurlock's throat. Hawke's head was reeling from all of the noise. She abandoned her staff for a moment focusing on the ogre. In desperation, she shot an ice dagger into it's eye. Blood spurted from the wound, and the monster tore it out with his free hand. Black blood sprayed Bethany and her mother. Maker, it was everywhere. In the pain, the ogre squeezed harder and her sister popped like a grape. He threw her aside and her sister fell with a sickly thud.

The giant moaned, nursing it's eye socket. That allowed Aveline and Carver a chance to route more darkspawn away from her mother. Bethany was bleeding out, coughing and gurgling. 'She can't-' Hawke cast a fire spell at the incoming hurlocks before they could approach her sister, but as they fell, more bulldozed over them, charging for her. She turned back to her staff and steadying one foot on the fallen hurlock's back, she yanked it out. She turned, and a horde had cornered them, trampling her fallen sister.

"Bethany!" She couldn't die. They were supposed to survive together. She threw a healing spell her way, but it missed. She couldn't reach her.

"Bethany!" This wasn't happening.

"Charlotte," Carved cried, shaking her shoulder.

Hawke looked down at the mug of piss-ale that she was drinking and took a moment to remember where she was. She remembered that she couldn't afford it, but she wasn't going to tell the dwarf that invited her that she was sleeping on a straw-stuffed potato sack in the corner of her Uncle's hovel. Her brother was next to her, with his own mug, and an almost concerned expression on their face. There was no denying that they were siblings. They shared the same straight, black hair, dark single-lidded eyes, and warm tawny beige skin. While their mother and Gamlen had the wide, flat noses of the Amells, Carver and Charlotte had the beaky nose of their father, though her brother's was much more defined.

She blinked, letting the sounds come back into focus. Two drunk men were having a conversation about the Hero of Ferelden defeating the Archdemon. A barmaid slammed a mug on the table, causing some of it to splash over. The stench of sour ale soaked into wood over decades made her nose wrinkle. That's right. She was discussing a way to get into the Deep Roads with this blond, beardless dwarf. "Where are my manners," she chuckled, taking a sip of her piss-ale. It didn't taste as bad as it smelled.

The dwarf chuckled, unaware that she had even faded out. "I was just asking what you were thinking when you were cornered by that ogre. I've never met anyone who's crossed one and lived."

"Is this a personal visit or a business discussion?" Carver asked with an agitated edge to his voice. He ran his fingers through his slicked back, spiked hair. He had started wearing it like that shortly after he turned 18, and ran off to play soldier for King Cailan. Charlotte liked to call him a pissy porcupine when he was being a jackass.

"Come now, Carver. Be polite to our partner," she swatted him playfully which caused him to grunt. Hawke had hit him a little harder than she meant to. She was still trying to shake the image of Bethany's death out of her mind. "Hmm, well for the first few moments, I was thinking what do they feed those things. It was at least 15-feet tall, and Maker did it have breath like nothing like you've ever smelled. Or maybe you have. Being in this stench brings back memories."

Varric laughed heartily, and brought up his mug for an impromptu toast. "Maker, would I have loved to see that."

"Stick with me, Varric, and I promise we'll get into more trouble than that," she raised her glass to meet his, and at the clink, they both drained half of their mugs. The effects of the ale seemed to soothe her frantic mind. She needed this dwarf and he seemed to think that he needed her, too. She would do whatever it took to keep it that way.

The dwarf chuckled again, rapping his knuckled on the table. "Since we're nice and loose, I wanted to discuss a little problem that Bartrand and I've run into."

"Great," Carver muttered into his mug.

"Now don't fret Little Hawke," the dwarf grinned and Carver bristled at his nickname. "I have a plan. You see, we had an entrance lined up for the Deep Roads but it ended up being a bust. If we don't find another one, we'll have a fancy expedition with nowhere to go."

"So," Hawke said, tracing the rim of her mug with her middle finger. "Tell me the good news."

Varric leaned in, and brought his voice to a whisper, as if he was telling them a secret. "Word is a Grey Warden came off the last boat of refugees."

"A Grey Warden?" Hawke raised a fine eyebrow. Now this was getting interesting.

"What's a Grey Warden doing in the Kirkwall? There's not an outpost, here," Carver shook his head. He always did seem to think that denying something somehow made it true.

"When did you become such an expert?" Hawke teased.

Her brother stiffened, turning his face away in embarrassment. "I had a passing interest in them in Ostagar." He sipped a bit more of his ale and gave a good nod at the dwarf. "It's a good start. They forge into the Deep Roads all the time. He might have a map."

"Or could lead us in the right direction at least. Worth checking out," Hawke agreed.

"But… I don't suppose you would front the coin for the maps," Carver frowned at Varric. He knew as well as Hawke that they had just spent some of their last coppers on this swill.

"I'm not that charitable," Varric chuckled and dramatically shrugged. "But surely you two are perfectly capable of scrounging up your own work."

"Ruttin' useless you are, you know that," her brother muttered, which only caused Varric to chuckle again.

Hawke frowned thinking about the letter she received last night when they got home from Aveline's 'bounty.' Fat lot it did for her coinpurse, but Aveline was now well on her way to a cushy position as guard-captain and whether her friend liked it or not, she would breathe easier knowing that the law was on her side…to a point. She pulled out the letter from her pocket. She was really hoping that it wouldn't come to this, but it wasn't like she could afford to be choosy. "I have something in mind, but you're not going to like it, Carver." She slid it across the table to her brother.

It read:

Charlotte,

You might be interested in something that's come up. A contact of mine, a fellow by the name of Anso, is asking around for someone competent regarding a job, and I suggested you. He's always paid well, so if I were you, I'd check into it before someone else snaps it up. He said he'll be in the Lowtown Bazaar tonight.

Athenril

Carver handed it back to her muttering something under his breath. "Are we really going to forget the last heist she pulled?"

"Ah, the brilliant Orlesian wig caper," Hawke grinned at the memory which caused Carver's perpetual frown to deepen.

"I'm sensing a story here," Varric tilted his head in interest before draining his mug.

Hawke waved her hand in front of her face in dismissal. "Oh just the the usual game of intrigue that comes with being in league with smugglers."

Carver snorted in agreement. "Athenril decided instead of holding up her end of the bargain, she'd try to squeeze more work out of us. She claimed she wanted us to move a shipment of Orlesian wigs from her warehouse to her contact at the docks. Turned out to be a stinking ambush set up by the bitch herself. She planned to have the shipment stolen so we'd be liable for it. Would've had us under her thumb for another year at least."

"Oh, but we're too clever for that," Hawke teased which caused Carver to roll his eyes at her. The only reason they weren't still indebted to the elf was sheer luck and of course Hawke was all too glad to take credit for it. They were ambushed shortly after getting to the docks and Aveline, Hawke and Carver had barely managed to overpower the ambush. Hawke just happened to recognize the voice of the ambush leader as Marco, one of Athenril's men. The elf refused to talk but it was easy enough for Carver and Aveline to 'persuade' one of the other surviving ambushers to spill their whole plan. They had walked out of that job debt-free and needless to say, there were many hard feelings.

Varric frowned deeply at Carver. "Junior, you have no sense of storytelling."

"Stop calling me that-"

"No exaggerated battles, no witty comments, no sense of dramatic timing, and you give away the plot right at the beginning!"

Carver glared over at his sister who was smirking at him. "I'll just let my sister do the talking from now on, then. She seems to be good at it."

"I'm just more pleasant to listen to, little brother," she shrugged.

Carver stiffened, drinking the rest of his mug. It seemed they had all gotten to the bottom of their glasses now. "Well, we better go convince Aveline to come along while we have time to kill. She's just gonna love this."

"Maker," she agreed. She was lucky that Aveline loved her...to a point.