The next morning began with a knock on the door. Maven was the first to wake up. Black hair flopped everywhere as she lifted her head; alert. Then she saw the boxes of supplies that looked like some more "Haven friendly" clothes and food.

"Be right there." She slid out of bed and gave Sophia a glance before heading to the door. Opening it without any caution, she blanched when she met the eyes of her Inquisitor, Odessa Lavellan.

'Well, there go my hopes of flirting with Cullen at Skyhold.' She mentally tsked, though she felt grounded by all the answers just seeing Odessa gave her. Maven smiled and ran a hand through her hair at this news.

"Odessa Lavellan. Good morning. I'm Maven Blackbriar." Her name was Arabic for 'filled with rage'. Maven felt it perfect for an elven warrior.

'Fucking Sophie, making things up because she can…' Maven didn't consider herself nearly as intimidating or powerful as the fictitious woman she now shared a name with.

At the sound of her name, the Dalish warrior's dark amethyst hued eyes widened. She appeared otherwise unphased.

"Cole was right. They said no one mentioned my name."

"They are right in that. No one did." She paused in her explanation. "Please tell me everything about our meet with your advisors, Qunari Spy, and Cole was explained?"

"Pretty much." Odessa nodded, her shaggy short hair lifting with the movement. Maven's shoulders relaxed at her words and she popped her head over to Sophia, who was still sleeping.

"Would you give me a bit? I'd like to get my sister up before we talk any more."

"How about you both get ready and meet me over at the tavern? I got back from the Hinterlands a bit ago and could really use a drink."

"So-Drusilla and I would love that. I'm sure we can both use one too." Maven was relieved she had made her Lavellan so laid back as she closed the door. When she turned back towards the boxes of clothes and food, she found her sister was sitting up in bed.

"Why are we still in the world with the huge ass hole in the sky?"

"I wish I could tell you." Maven replied with a grimace.

"Who was at the door?"

"Odessa." The older of them broke out into a smile at the name and Sophia mimicked it.

"So, your version?" A flash of deja vu hit Maven as she saw the relief flood her sister.

"I know, right? Come on, we need to get dressed, maybe grab an apple, and head over to the tavern. She said she'd be waiting there." She barely finished what she was saying as Sophia bounded out of bed and stripped to change out of her pajamas.

"We're probably going to be meeting others there, right? Cole was in the dungeons with us, which should mean that everyone you have the opportunity to meet, save Dorian, is here somewhere." Sophia mused as they finished dressing.

Maven remembered that Sophia's relief could be due to her last playthrough of the game being what she called her "speed dating" playthrough.

"From start to finish it went, Solas, Josie, Bull, Sera, and Cullen."

She shuddered at the thought of that being the version they were in. The idea of being around that many heartbroken people wasn't an easy thought. As if she knew what she was thinking, Sophia grinned the same way she had in the dungeons before imitating Zevran.

"You just be glad we both had Leli in our party when we came across Zev." Maven hissed. It was nice to see her doing better.

As they stepped outside, they couldn't help but look at the rift in the sky. It had been a lantern of sorts the night before, helping them see where the soldier was going.

"I hate how pretty it is." Sounded Sophia before trudging to the tavern.

Turns out that aside from the Inquisitor, it was just the advisors and Cassandra in the tavern. They probably weren't trusted in the war room yet, which meant there was still some skepticism about them being spies. That seemed fair to her.

"Right. At this point, I think even you need a drink right now, sis. Even something light. I'll try cooking something up for us." Sophia hurried behind the bar and skimmed through the selection, sampling some things in tankards and making some impressive faces before she mixed something that seemed to work for her.

"You don't do light." She monotoned back, overlooking the tankard warily.

"Only because you need it." Sophia laughed when her sister coughed after a gulp. Then she turned to their audience.

"Ambassador, Commander," She started with a greeting and a slight bow and raise of her tankard."Nice to formally make your acquaintances." As usual, Josephine was holding her makeshift clipboard, Leliana was tense and forcing a relaxed position, and Cullen was giving off reflexive soldier vibes and staring. Everyone but the Inquisitor was standing and the elven woman peered curiously at their tankards. Maven shook her head and nudged her's towards her.

"Try at your own risk." She pulled the apple she had grabbed from the box out of her pocket and started in on that instead.

"We can answer most of your questions. Fire when ready. Commander, how about you start? You look like you're about to pop."

"Why is it you both look like the Hawke sisters? Maker, the similarities are almost uncanny." What an opener. It was a good thing that she had at least kept the default eyes on her Hawke. She was beginning to wish she had suppressed her desire to make her Hawke a sort of self-insert character.

"It's just the hair." Maven replied, running her fingers through the ends as she looked over at Sophia, who nodded as she tried to disguise how happy she was to be mistaken for The Champion of Kirkwall.

"Do you suppose we could get away with trying to connect them as long lost relatives of the line?" This came from the Ambassador, who didn't skip a beat, seeming to have noted this already. Her dainty hand poised and ready to scribble down anything.

"Why not? We have no idea where The Champion is and I'm sure Bethany wouldn't mind vouching for us." The Nightingale started as she eyed the dark haired sisters.

"Maybe we should get Varric in here. At the very least, he could be our contact with the Champion's sister." Cullen suggested and no one seemed to disagree.

"I will go and bring him here." Cassandra declared softly as she stood to leave.

They all turned to the Inquisitor, who had been silent for a long time, and saw her watching them with a happy grin on her face, tankard in hand.

"Don't mind me, I'm following. This stuff isn't that bad. Cassandra said you were a healer of sorts, so where did you learn to make drinks?" Attention was switched to Sophia again.

"I was a bartender for a time in order to pay my college tuition." She stopped herself and looked at the blank stares.

'Right…'

"My medical education costed coin and I made some pretty fancy and potent drinks in a tavern to cover the costs." Sophia rubbed two fingers together in a universal gesture for "currency".

"College is like a Circle, but without templars, mages, or magic of any kind. At these colleges, you take various lessons daily from experts in order to eventually gain certification saying you have the ability to either learn more or start said profession." Maven continued almost impulsively as she saw Josephine was about to ask about the unique word. That appeared to mollify them.

"How old are the two of you? We need as many details as possible in order to forge a believable past for you."

"Thirty." The twins unisoned before meeting each other's eye as though to attempt to form answers for those years.

"Lothering?" Maven suggested. She knew she had a point, as it had been wiped out during the Blight, along with the chantry's records.

"Blackbriar is a notable family name." Sophia lamented while avoiding Maven's look.

"It won't be Blackbriar in the 'records' if we become relatives of the Hawke's. We're better off saying we were adopted by them-no-"

"The Amells?"

"God, no. Wayyyy too looked into, I'm sure."

"So, what if we say they ostracized us due to some sort of disagreement and then when it seemed like we had been taken out by some Lothering invading darkspawn horde, they just decided to keep us out of family records entirely?" Sophia cut their twin talk short.

"Ambassador, I assume you know about the Amell's? If memory serves, they are second cousins to the Hawke family. Do you think the story I suggested will work?" The Antivan advisor brought a knuckle to her lips as she considered this.

"I do and I can see where you are going with this. Even if we did use this, there are still holes that need filling. What would this disagreement be? Lothering was overrun approximately eleven years ago, which puts you both at nineteen years of age. What happened in those last eleven years?"

"Holy shit... Chuckles?" That was unmistakably Varric's voice. Both turned to him and he just seemed to stare for a bit.

"I thought you were just shitting me, Seeker."

The twins couldn't conceal their smiles at the dwarf they came to adore since they first met him in the game.

"I need to sit down. Getting too old for all this crazy shit." He muttered, taking a seat at a table.

"Need a drink, Varric? Drusilla here makes something a bit better than the usual swill here." Odessa offered as she finished the rest of Maven's drink.

"No thanks. I've been told I might be needed to help with your backstory or something. Maybe after. You two could definitely pass for relatives of the Hawke sisters. What do you need help with?"

"We're missing eleven years in between the destruction of Lothering up until now. As well as a possible dispute that would remove us from the Amell family registry."

"Well, if Gamlen and his parents are any examples, the Amell's do enjoy hiding inheritance papers and disowning relatives. If that's too vague we could say he unknowingly conceived twins at The Blooming Rose, I'm sure he wouldn't mind confirming that." The storyteller agreed.

"In that case, we may have to add false years to our age. Gamlen's main BR activity was in Dragon five and he was with Mara Hartling until his father died in Dragon eleven. It should be Dragon forty-one now. Even if we were to pull back and say we were born in Dragon six, that still puts us at thirty-five, which means we would have been about twenty-four when Lothering got overrun."

There was a silence for a time and Varric destroyed it.

"How do you know that?"

"We know lots of things, Varric. Drusilla knows a decent portion of Thedas history. All the way back to the Ancient Age."

"The farther back you ask about, the vaguer it gets." She shrugged.

"Something a long lost noble's kid might have taken an interest in, perhaps?" The younger twin followed up.

'As much as I hate the idea of Gamlen being our dad, the idea of being born in a Zevran fashion kinda makes me happy.'

"As for the eleven years between Lothering and now? One of you is a healer or something and the other knows fighting...with or without weapons?"

"I can disarm most with daggers and short-range weaponry. Drusilla here is a medical prodigy. Once she learns about the herbs here, I'm sure she could find something to whip up."

"But I'm pretty shit at fighting compared to Maven." Sophia backed.

"What I lack, she makes up for." Again, the twin unison. They giggled in stereo after it too.

"You could say they wandered through offering their services to anyone as a trade for temporary shelter and food. One would make sure they were safe while the other kept them healthy. They never came to Kirkwall for refuge even after they heard about family there because they had become so used to their lifestyle."

"Then what were they doing at the Conclave?" Odessa inquired with a curious tilt of her head.

"Perhaps they met someone of reasonable importance with an invitation to the Conclave, like a mage, and offered protection. To reward their services, this person of reasonable importance offered coin upon their safe return home." Josephine continued from there, jotting everything down.

"Sounds good to me." The look on Sophia's face reminded Maven that they had to be careful as they had no idea how long Gamlen had "done dealings" with the girl's of The Blooming Rose.

So, there it was. The Blackbriar sisters became Amell's born in Dragon six with Gamlen as the father and an unknown Blooming Rose girl being the mother. It was to be assumed the woman left and wound up in Lothering, but without her around she was thought to be dead after childbirth. The twins then made their living by traveling through the smaller cities and forests (miraculously avoiding Dalish settlements) of Thedas offering their medical services and a bodyguard in exchange for coin, food, and temporary lodgings. with their being twins only serving to assist them as Bethany and Carver were, which solidified the believability of the public. It seemed it was only fate that they were accompanying one of the mages to the Conclave when things went to shit.