Sebastian's running out of arrows, and they haven't even cleared Lowtown.

He's been recovering them as they go, but a few are lodged too deep, or snapped off mid-shaft, and Hawke isn't giving him much time to even retrieve what he can. At first he wasn't sure if it was her or Aveline setting the pace, but the guard captain is beside him now, catching her breath while Hawke's still moving, gone around the corner before he can even try to call her back.

It's the way it always is - she goes out ahead, quiet and fast enough to scout things out, so that the rest of them might avoid unnecessary risks. The shadows love her, and here in the deep of night Hawke's all but invisible, diving in and out of the darkness to pick off their foes. Protecting them like she always does, but there's an emptiness in her eyes now, a vast, cold distance like he's never seen before. Sebastian had sworn Hawke hadn't even seen him when he'd arrived, looking right through where he stood, her gaze fixed on the battle to come. He wasn't a threat and wasn't in danger and so not even worth a moment of her time.

He's afraid for her, not certain if she's off her game or too far on it, too sharp and eager for this fight. She'd lost so much in so short a time and one night of his fumbling attempts at ministration wasn't ever going to be enough in the way of reparations. Sebastian had meant to go back, wishing to give her some time and space. Yes, he'd half-hoped she might ask him back - but here they are again, right in the middle of it with no chance to breathe and fate coming down on Hawke like a hammer to the anvil.

He wants to tell himself it's the Maker's hand, that He forges all into the shape they're fit for - but even the strongest blade will snap if it's worked too hard for long.

Sebastian spits the first swig of water, to get the taste of ashes out of his mouth, before swallowing the second down, and tries very, very hard not to wonder if this is how it was for his family, there at the end. If it had been fire and screaming in the middle of the night. He tries not to think about where they might have died, if they'd all been asleep or if his father had been up and pacing, one of his frequent restless nights. Did they take him in his study, while Mother lay unknowing in the other room, or had she died first? Did any of his brothers fall with a weapon in their hands, his nieces and nephews trying to run or desperate to hide?

He grimaces, trying to push the thoughts aside, but there is nothing to replace the grim speculation now. Not when he can hear cries of panic and pain all around him from the dark, and Hawke nowhere to be seen.

Maker, she wouldn't go on alone, would she?

The Chantry Hall had been full to bursting when Meredith arrived, and she had been swift to act in barring the gates. A necessary measure to defend the Grand Cleric, but it had left those still outside wholly unprotected, panicked and begging for help, crushing each other in their mad frenzy to find shelter and safety.

Sebastian had not known if he should stay or go. Well aware his bow would be put to no better use than defending Elthina, defending his brethren - he had sworn on his life to do so - but there were so many Templars ready to fight. Meredith had sent them all to the Chantry first, and Hawke was out there in Kirkwall, and for all he knew she might be alone.

Whatever danger there was, Sebastian knew very well she would rush straight to it or it would find her. It likely had already, and how could he stay, knowing that? How could he ignore the truth of it, that she was out there in the very worst while he stood here so well defended. If anything were to happen to Hawke, that he might have been there to stop -

What sort of sin was it, that what looked like chivalry or sacrifice was nothing more than the basest form of self-preservation? The thought of her name on the memorial wall - he would never be the same.

Sebastian stood at the door to the hall, surveying the turmoil and madness, every Chantry brother and sister attempting to calm down the frightened masses, the sounds of weeping children and disembodied voices echoing back and forth between the walls. Husbands and wives calling out for those lost in the panicked flight, and beneath and around it all the sound of prayer. Countless men and women kneeling prostrate before the statue of Andraste, pleading for her mercy, for her salvation.

In the very center of the chaos, Elthina had appeared, stepping fearlessly out into the crowd. Strong and serene, moving among the faithful with unwavering steadiness, reassuring them with soft words and gestures and her simple presence alone. Reaching back to those that reached out, to touch her hands or the edges of her robes.

The Templars were barring the last of the doors, with the cries of the desperate rising up beyond, the wild horror of those abandoned to their fate. Sebastian turned to look, and when he looked back Elthina was staring right at him, over the crowd, and he realized she'd caught him once more at the threshold. Unsure of what he ought to do, drawn at cross-purposes by promises he'd intended to make and those his heart had made without him.

The Grand Cleric had no such hesitation, as always knowing his path better than he did himself, her single, silent word perfectly clear across the chaos - go.

He'd slipped through the last door just before the Templars could slam it closed, and now here he is, certain it was the right decision and wondering if even it will be enough. Staring into the darkness, listening to the roar and echo of some far-distant battle, every breath full of ash and suffering.

"You heard about Isabela?" Aveline says in lieu of thanks, as he passes her what's left of the water.

"It's true, then? She's gone?"

The guard captain nods, her expression made of the same unyielding steel as her armor, and Sebastian wonders what she's trying not to think about. Disappointment at Isabela, for cutting and running? Disappointment at herself, for trusting the pirate in the first place? He looks up the road, no sign of Hawke but there won't be, not until she's right at his side or even whispering in his ear, laughing when he turns to look - but that won't happen anymore. Maybe not for a very long time to come.

Sebastian didn't trust Isabela, and the pirate had returned fire on his skepticism, but Hawke had cared for her, he knew that much. The way she cared for everyone - with all she had to give, and if it hadn't been true love between them it had surely been affection and good faith, at least from Hawke's side. Maybe she had thought it would make the difference, that Isabela would return her devotion when it mattered most - and to learn otherwise…

He knew what Hawke would have said, that the fear of betrayal was never worth loving a little less - but even with that, she's here now and fighting and there's just no way she's doing it with an unbroken heart.

"So what happened down there?" Varric says, his crossbow half-raised as they start to move forward, carefully, in the direction Hawke has gone. "Apart from the ambush, I mean."

"Ambush?" Sebastian says, and Aveline nods, even her usual all-consuming calm not able to hide her anger, so much madness on the streets she's fought for years now to protect. They've only seen a few in armor felled here, but all of them have been her guard. A tactical decision by the Templars to fight for the high ground, but it must sting to know it was done without regret or even a second thought. Meredith seeing Lowtown and everyone in it as nothing but a stopgap between the Qunari and what was actually worth protecting.

"Just before they attacked… Hawke told the Arishok he was in his rights to keep the elves, to let them stay. She left me on my own in there."

"I'm sure she-" Sebastian starts, but she cuts him off with a shake of her head.

"No, she knew exactly what she was doing. Once the fighting started she had my back, but…" Aveline grimaces, shifting her grip on her shield.

"Hawke's not all right," Sebastian says, even though he knows Varric's not going to like it. The dwarf does not disappoint, glaring as if he might accidentally let his finger slip on the trigger accidentally in the direction of Sebastian's head. Even Aveline looks suspicious, despite what she's just said. It's still all but heresy to suggest Hawke might finally been given one more problem than she can manage.

"I'm not trying to-" he says, "I'm worried about her. After all that's happened, you know that she's not-"

He's cut off by the sound of brawling in the street ahead of them, because whatever Hawke might or might not be isn't really Kirkwall's concern, and that's what frightens him the most. Hawke's not reckless, it just looks that way most of the time. If she's not focused, though, if she's not thinking clearly then there's not even that slim margin he knows she relies on. The narrow space of victory, between their blades and her body, life and death with nothing in between.

The sort of thing he ought to pay a bit more attention to, instead of rushing carelessly into the fray. Sebastian's in the middle of the fight before he realizes what even he's stepped into, and nearly gets a knife in his side for his reward.

One of the Maker's little jokes, running into a band of looters at nearly the same time as the Qunari do, the streets already a dimly-lit slaughterhouse. Aveline is quick to bludgeon the looter who'd taken a swing at him and Varric launches a round at the Qunari who's coming at her. It doesn't stop the warrior, but slows him down enough for two looters to take advantage, hacking and stabbing with all their might. A third brigand turns to help them, and then his head goes one way and his body the other, the Qunari who felled him roaring as he charges, trying to reach his fallen comrade, and Aveline just beyond.

Sebastian has him before he's taken three steps, an arrow through the eye, and his next shot is for the looter who's rounded on Varric. The man goes down without a sound but reinforcements are melting out of the shadows before he hits the ground, and when Sebastian reaches back for the next arrow his hand snatches up empty air.

Give him a blade and Sebastian can at least keep himself alive in a fight, but that's when the odds are even and there are three - no, four brigands coming out of the shadows toward him like a pack of well-armed wolves. Varric and Aveline are still fighting the last of the Qunari, but even in defeat they give no quarter and so he's all alone. Sebastian's fast enough to slash the arm of the first, hearing the man's knife clatter on the stones as he curses in pain. The headbutt he follows with not exactly Chantry approved, but it's served him well enough in the past.

He hears a blade skitter across his armor, very nearly finding a home in his back. Sebastian brings his elbow around hard, hears the crunch of what is probably a jaw, if the garbled screaming is anything to go by, but he's left himself open and there's a flash of steel coming much too close, too fast. He throws himself backward, stumbles over something or someone and goes down hard, feeling the hot, wet splash tricking down his throat. A scratch, he knows it's only a scratch because he's still breathing. The Maker's blessing on him yet again, though there's still the matter of the two men closing on him, and they'll have him well before he can stand.

He's grown used to the voices of the others during a brawl, calling out in anger or determination or dibs on a particular set of boots. He's also grown familiar with a certain kind of silence, the one that means Hawke is there, guarding his back. Sebastian shouldn't be surprised, then, when she slips out of the dark, but even in that first moment of recognition what he feels is not relief.

One blade draws in a shining arc, the two men don't see it at first and that half-second of inattention is more than enough to damn them. He's seen her fight, watched her practice time and again and he still can't follow it when she's at full speed. Sebastian watches the first go down and she's got her blades in the second before he ever sees the strike, his eyes tracking for the next move that doesn't come because it's already over. By the time Sebastian's thought to draw a breath she's dropped the man he first wounded, and her knife flies through the air, killing the last man well before he can turn to flee.

It's wrong. It looks wrong this time - a brutal, calm efficiency, an absolute lack of interest that he's seen only once before - in the Chantry hall, with Petrice. So little of the Hawke he knows there, only anger. A blank and pitiless fury, with the fires of Kirkwall glinting off her hair and in her eyes - he's losing her to this, to all of it, and Maker help him he doesn't know how to make it stop.

"Sebastian." Her voice strangles his name into a furious curse, as she reaches out a hand. He's barely on his feet again before Hawke grabs him by the edge of his armor, her arm across his chest and shoving him hard, pinning him to the wall.

"Hawke, what-"

He remembers he's injured only when her other hand touches his throat, the thin slice where the brigand had tried to take a piece out of him. It doesn't hurt much, he thinks the bleeding's stopped - and Hawke is shaking. What he'd thought was anger had been much more - desperation, fear for him, seeing him go down and she hadn't known…

He can feel her tremble where she has him pinned, but now Sebastian's not so sure that she's the one holding him up, that it isn't the other way around.

"I'm fine. He didn't - I'm fine."

She lets go of him then, stepping back quickly, but Sebastian follows just as fast. He'll be damned if he lets this continue, Hawke's going to get herself killed if she keeps on like this - and Maker help him, that he's not sure she even cares.

"Wait, Hawke-"

He reaches for her, but instead his hand closes around the bundle she's shoved in between them - a quiver full of arrows. Taken off the body of one of their elven converts? Oh, and what must it cost her to fight them? Taking her blades to elves who only wished for a better life, throwing their lot in with those who might provide one.

Varric and Aveline have defeated the last of the Qunari, but Sebastian can already hear the next battle coming from around the corner. Nothing he can do but send a desperate prayer skyward - for the city, for Hawke, Maker please - nock his arrow and draw back the string.

"Just how big was that damned boat of theirs anyway?" Varric grumbles, leaning Bianca against one leg as he ties his hair back into place. One more division of Qunari down, but the gates ahead are burning bright, blocking the shortest path to what's already taken them far too long to reach. Even Hawke is starting to slow, hands on her knees for a moment, panting for breath.

"You go left, we go right?" She finally says, gesturing toward the road that bends back away from the gate, splitting off into two paths that could prove equally useless, or dangerous, or both. Aveline nods, with a look in her eye that says she's moments away from clearing a path through the nearest wall, and Maker forgive him but Sebastian almost wishes Anders were here, surely a spell now that might serve some good. He wonders how the mage is faring, wherever he might be, or if he is still even alive. The thought of Anders silent and trussed in Qunari bindings flits through his thoughts. They are hardly friends and barely allies, but there are some horrors that no one should have to endure.

Aveline is off in the next moment, with Varric behind her - one to draw fire while the other stands at range, which leaves him and Hawke to do much the same, moving down the other path. Sebastian can see nothing but open doors in this part of the city, the great houses silent and empty. The lack of bodies ought to be a relief but there's a growing dread inside of him - where have they gone, and why? He reminds himself that Elthina's safe, that Meredith has Templars five deep around the Chantry by now. No one is going to let anything happen to the Grand Cleric.

If the Arishok wished to trade for her, though? If it was Elthina's life, for the lives of countless innocents?

Oh Maker, let it not come to that.

As if to reassure him that things here aren't entirely bloodless, they turn the corner onto another plaza, another set of homes, and into the aftermath of what might have been the first group of Templars to square off against the Qunari. A valiant effort, what looks like only four men in armor against nearly a dozen of the Qunari forces, ultimately victorious though it wasn't enough to save them. The dead from both sides are scattered everywhere, some lying on top of each other, blood channeling in between the stones, weapons all around. Hawke moves slowly, the both of them with their guard up, keeping an eye out for any possible survivors.

"Hello, Sebastian."

A calm, quiet voice, though he's still got his bow half-drawn at the sound, and it provokes a small laugh from the shadows. A house near the far end of the square has its door open like the rest, but sitting near the entrance is a figure on the ground. Sebastian recognizes the noble, but can't quite put a name to the face. The man sees his confusion, and smiles.

"Don't remember me? It's all right. The Chantry and I don't tend to see more of each other than we have to. Familiarity breeding contempt, and all that."

"What are you doing-" Sebastian stops, when Hawke goes still beside him. It takes him a half-second more to figure out why, that the man isn't alone in the darkness. An elven girl is slumped against him, her head on his chest and his hand in her hair. It looks like she's sleeping, except for the blood. All down his fancy shirt, his pants and boots and on the hand still softly stroking her dark curls, as if to soothe away the nightmare stretched out around them.

"She always had the worst luck, my Maire did. Even for an elf. Oh, my pretty girl."

Sebastian can hear it now, the darkness, the hollow grief behind the too-lazy words. He might not remember the man's name but he's seen him at the Chantry, with his family - this isn't his wife, or anywhere near his home. His thoughts must show on his face, and the man laughs again.

"My bit on the side - that's how they say it, right? I couldn't keep her in my house, of course. It would be too obvious. Better if she was employed elsewhere, if I came to her. And she agreed. She loved me. Silly girl, she loved me."

The Qunari must have come through and met the Templars here, and the servant girl had been fleeing or hiding, only to be caught in between. One of those things that happened in a battle, in a war. The only part of this that's at all strange is that her noble lover snuck away to find her, that he's stricken enough to stay here and grieve.

Sebastian looks back, at the sound of shouting in the far distance. It's too far away to threaten them yet, but this quiet space might not stay that way for long.

"Hawke, we should-"

"Hawke?" The man stares up at her, studying her closely. "Oh, you're the Ferelden. The one with the mother. I know you. I heard them say your name, the ox-men. You shouldn't go up there."

"No?" Hawke says, and that word comes in a voice Sebastian's never heard from her before, dry and dead and gone. Shoulders slumped with weariness or worse, and she tips her head back to the sky for a moment before looking down again at the lifeless woman cradled in the man's arms. It doesn't matter that none of it is Hawke's fault, it doesn't matter at all. "What would you have me do instead?"

"Let them hang," The noble says simply, damning everyone he knows with a grin. "Walk away and let them hang. It's not your fight." He traces the curve of dead girl's cheek with his thumb, so gentle. "Let us face the consequences for once. Trust me - we have it coming."

Hawke doesn't say a word. Sebastian wonders if Aveline and Varric are thinking about what he's said, if they've thought of what he's just realized - it's true, none of this is her problem to solve. Her mother's dead, her sister's imprisoned, it was a Chantry Mother who murdered Saemus and even Isabela's never to be seen again. What does she owe Kirkwall, really, for all that it's done to her?

"No one will be grateful, I can promise you," he says, his voice barbed and empty, "it's not in our nature."

"… do the thing you don't want to do." Hawke says, very softly.

"Hm?"

"A long time ago, someone told me: If you don't know the right thing, do the hard thing. Do what you don't want to do, and that's probably for the best."

The wisdom of Malcolm Hawke, Sebastian's sure of it. He wonders how her father knew where his daughter would end up, to teach her as well as he did. If he knew how much Hawke would lean on his words in times like these, but apostate or no Sebastian feels nothing but gratitude for him now. Gratitude and fear - Maker help him, the closer they get to the Keep the less he wants Hawke anywhere near it.

"Sounds like a bit of a berk," the man says, and it's her turn to laugh in that odd, weary way.

"I don't think he'd argue with you."

Sebastian turns at the sound of voices echoing from up the street, but it's only Aveline and Varric, whatever path they thought to try no more useful than the others. It's not exactly a surprise that all of Kirkwall's defenses seem fully set against its defenders. It was a city built by the Imperium, after all, the Tevinters skilled in the art of being their own worst enemies.

The man lifts his free hand toward the open door. "Did they block you off or something? You can go through the house here, to the back. In the garden there's a door, and a little path up through an alley. It'll get you where you need to be."

An alley. Narrow enough that there will be no way to defend themselves if they're caught. Still, what choice do they have?

"It's not safe here." Sebastian says.

"Oh Maker, I hope not." The man says, with a battered carcass of a laugh. "No, I'll be fine. I always am. Out without a scratch and all forgotten by the spring." He speaks as if surviving is like looking into the Void. He turns his head, brushes a kiss against the dead girl's brow, still holding her tight. "She deserved someone special, you know? Deserved someone better, and she ended up with me. My Maire, always the worst luck, always."

Sebastian ought to say something more, to convince the man to take shelter, but the sight of him cradling the woman in his arms seems like only a portent, the promise of more grief to come, and the words fail him. Hawke is already through the door, as Aveline and Varric finally arrive. It's only as he steps through that that Sebastian notices the considerable amount of blood on the threshold, a long trail of it down the hall. He is still not expecting a shaky croak from the far side of the room, the word thickly accented but perfectly clear.

"… Hawke."

Sebastian has the arrow drawn, though there's no clear shot with Hawke in front of him, and there doesn't seem much left of the Qunari to pose a threat. The warrior is sprawled against a sideboard, shards of glass and broken dishes strewn around him, a bizarrely colorful display for a dying man. He can barely lift his great, horned head, an arm pressed tight, low across his torso. Holding himself together with the last of his strength. He's staring at Hawke. The rest of them might as well not exist.

"… bas… basalit-an."

Sebastian hisses a warning, but Hawke pays him no mind, crouching down mere inches away from the fallen Qunari. A thousand horrors run through his mind - the Qunari's palmed a bit of glass, or he has some other weapon, holding out for one last, glorious strike - but he does not move, staring at Hawke as she looks back, each a quiet, solemn mirror of the other.

He says something in that foreign tongue, halting and strained, every word an effort. Sebastian is startled when Hawke answers, a slow sentence that sounds awkward, stilted even to his untrained ear. The Qunari's eyes widen slightly, and he lets out the softest huff of what almost sounds like laughter. A moment later, his head sinks down and he is dead.

Hawke looks at the body for a moment more, before rising up and moving toward the back door.

"We need to go."

"What did you say to him?"

Hawke smiles. A familiar sight through so many bad times. She's grinned at him in far worse moments than this, to let him know they'll get out of it somehow. A promise, that it might all seem impossible now, but soon they'll all be recounting this night for free pints at the Hanged Man, surrounded by friends, bad food and good cheer.

This is not at all that smile.

"I told him I don't speak Qunlat. It's the only thing Fenris could get me to learn. I don't know what he said."

"Hawke-"

"Do you remember what I told you, Sebastian? The night that Saemus died?"

Of course he remembers. It feels like they could have stepped right out of that night and into this one. The same weariness in her eyes, the same dread. Forever. That's what she told him, that this is what they'll be doing forever.

Sebastian knows the numbers, of course, the dates and names and battles fought between the Chantry and the Qunari. The great invasion, the attack on Starkhaven, the tenuous peace of the Llomerryn Accord. All those Exalted Marches, all those years of fighting and how many had died? How many hundreds of thousands had watched those they cherished most bleed out in the dark? Countless nights just like tonight, started by chance and ending in senseless slaughter with nothing at all truly gained along the way.

"It won't be like that, Hawke. We can stop this."

"Stop it? But this is how you stop it. This is what happens," Hawke says, one hand stretched out toward the shattered room, the dead girl outside, a dying soldier's last words to no one, "this is the only thing that ever happens."

Aveline believes him now, Sebastian can see it in the way she looks at Hawke when she's turned to leave. Worried, the same as he is and has been and there's still nothing he can do about it. They're closer to the Keep than ever, with no gates left to bar the path and Hawke is just gone. Only a few feet in front of him but she's a thousand miles away and further with every step she takes.

The alley is even narrower than he feared it would be, but they all get through it, fast and silent and no one fires on them as they make it through to the other side. Finally, the Keep is in sight, only a few more streets between them and it, with nothing left to slow them down.

He never sees the Qunari mage, none of them do. Just the flash of light, and by the time Sebastian even thinks to move his bow is ripped from his hands as he's thrown hard across the stones