In this chapter: more headcanons about Hawke, and some random apparitions of the DA:I cast (love them all so much). Mostly Cole. And Sera. I personally think she's actually Amethyne, because it makes some sense, and she physically looks like Iona.
Also, mentions of Orsino and Meredith.

Chapter 4

"I thought he'd understand. He loves me, does he not? He loves me. He loves me. He loves me? Why doesn't he understand? Why? Whywhywhywhy?"
Alistair stared at the boy blankly. The boy that he was fairly sure had not been there a few seconds ago.
"Cold", the boy said, his almost colorless eyes squinting. "I'm cold. I'm cold and he's not there. I need him. I need him. Please. I've lost him. And he's there and I'm warm again. Safe and wanted and loved. Except he's not there and it's not him, never him, none of them are. They comfort me and make me feel alive and awake but it's not him, it's not the same. I can't. I can't. Bring him back. Bring him back, please. I can't. He's not here. He's not mine."

He felt incredibly ill at-ease, now.
Perhaps his decision to spend the evening at the Herald's Rest to drink his confusion away was not that much of a good idea, after all. He had escaped the watchful eyes of his necessary but downright annoying personal guard, put on a hooded cloak and went and sat at a table and asked for a beer, and drank it. And then another. And another.
No one was really paying any attention to him.
Not that he minded, of course. As a King, he was, for his greatest displeasure, always surrounded by a flock of attention-seeking courtesans that were more of a nuisance than a rabid Darkspawn squad. It was good, to be a nobody again. Someone who still had the ability to go unnoticed.
People knew who he was, of course, but were smart enough to leave him be. Or busy enough to leave him alone. Both were fine.
Alone and unbothered.
Priceless, that people here seemed at least to respect that.

They were a strange bunch, that Inquisition.
A story-telling Dwarf that had gathered a crowd around him and who was rambling something about a High-Dragon and a cave and glowing mushrooms.
An aristocratic-looking Tevinter Mage that seemed smugly happy to sit accross the gigantic Qunari's lap.
And a lithe Elven girl whose blonde hair looked like it had been cut with a rusted knife, and who kept throwing poisonous glares at him from behind her cup. She seemed familiar. He could not remember why, though.
She knew something he did not, and apparently held a grudge against him for some obscure reason. He hoped that it was not that bad. He had had enough people trying to kill him already.
"She's back", the boy said, sitting in front of him accross the table, staring at the Elf with pale eyes that were too large for his face, through ashen strands of hair covered by a rather strange hat. "She's back. She's home. We can play again. Please let us play again. She's got swords now. Real swords, not sticks. Why doesn't she want to play? She's back and it's her and not her and there's a shem with her and why is he looking at her like that? It's because of him she does not want to play. He can't. She can't. He has no right. It's filthy. It's just a shem. Just another filthy shem and he will use her like they use us all and..."
"Sod it, Creepy", the girl snapped and took another swig of ale.

The boy shook his head sadly.
"Cole! Are you bothering the King?"
Seeker Pentaghast was striding confidently toward him, walking through the tavern in a manner that reminded him much of Anora in Court.
"He's hurting", the lad blurted out, looking strangely distressed. "They're both hurting. It isn't right."
"Maker's breath!" the Seeker swore.
"But I only want to help! I can help! I can...", he cried.
"That will be enough, Cole", the Nevarran said, and suddenly the boy was not there anymore, nowhere in sight.
As if he had never been there in the first place.
Gone.
Just like that.
Not even a puff of smoke.
"I apologize for his behavior, your Majesty", Pentaghast sighed. "He meant no harm."
"He is...rather strange."
Strange. Yes. That was the word. Strange. Everything was strange, the world was going mad, and it was overwhelming.

So he thanked Seeker Pentaghast, wrapped his coat around his body and went away in the night, away from the lights and the warmth and chatter and laughter. The cold nocturn air seemed to fill his lungs with ice spikes. It hurt, to breath, with the false Calling nagging at his mind, tearing his brain and soul apart, whispering and singing and so, so wrong.
He would not sleep, that night. He knew it. He did not wanted the bligthed dreams to come. He had thought to be done with them a decade ago, and they were not exactly welcomed back.
Blast that Darkspawn Maleficar. As if ordinary Darkspawn were not enough already.

"Did he suffer?" a hushed voice said, somewhere in the darkness of the courtyard.
And it was her, again.
He looked over the railing of the stair leading to Skyhold's main hall. There was a vault, beneath it, and there was Kallian, leaning against the wall in the dark.
"No", Hawke answered.
He could not see her. She was probably somewhere beneath his feet, protected from the wind and perhaps the cold.
They had lit a fire. Something small, not enough to warm them, but sufficient to see. A fireball, perhaps. Hawke was a Mage. She could certainly summon one.

He could see the flickering light, and the two women's shadows dancing slightly on the stone pavement. Eavesdropping was not usually his type. But then again...
The woman's voice hitched.
"I loved him. I loved him, dammit", she choked. "But I couldn't let him live. Not after...not after that. I couldn't let them take him. So I took a dagger and..."
Hawke was crying.
"I'm...glad", Kallian said. "He had suffered enough."
The Mage laughed darkly.
"Put him out of his misery, did I? Both of them?" she sobbed. "But he was happy, with me. I thought. I was wrong."

Alistair sat on the floor, the railing's cold stones digging in his back, holding his breath.
"Meredith and Orsino...they were fucking", Hawke said. "You knew that?"
Kallian remained silent. He thought for a moment that he had heard her armor creak, and he imagined her, sitting just below him, next to Hawke. Just listening.
"In the end, they couldn't understand each other, it drove them mad, and it killed them both. It wasn't enough."
The woman sobbed.
"I have not understood. I wasn't enough", she said, her voice a trembling whisper.
"As was I", Kallian whispered.
No sadness in this simple statement. No regret. Nothing. A Void of feelings.
"I miss him. He killed hundreds of innocent people, and I miss him", Hawke said.
Anders.
The Apostate's name. The Abomination. The mass murderer. He could remember it, now. How could he not?
And then, there was this woman, this single woman, who was still able to mourn him.
Despite everything.
There was always someone. Even for monsters.

"I couldn't save him, and I couldn't save my city, I couldn't save my sister and my mother, and I couldn't even save his child."
"You had a child?"
Kallian sounded horrified, and Alistair winced. He had never liked hearing that hitch in her voice. It reminded him of Ostagar. Of Connor. Of the destruction of Lothering. Of Wynne's illness. Of her father in a cage. Of the Landsmeet and what had happened afterwards.
"No."
Hawke's tone was blank.
"It is gone. I lost it. I failed. I killed him and I killed his child."

Anora had lost a child as well. Their first. He had held her hand as she cried afterwards.
"The Taint killed it, Kallian said. Not you."
Anora had lost their first child, and it had been his fault.
Kallian would never have a child, and somehow, it was his fault, too.
And he, he had this little wonder that was Duncan, and he was not sure that he deserved it. At all.
Again, Hawke laughed.
A high-pitched, histerical laugh, that sounded like a wounded animal's whine. He saw her shadow curl on herself in the fire's fading light.
"And what difference does it make?"
Kallian did not answer. There was no answer. None.
"Does it ever go away?" Hawke asked, broken. "The pain, I mean."
"In time, yes", Tabris said slowly, and Alistair sighed in relief.
"But sometimes, it comes back", she added.

There was a silence, after that. The King tightened his fists, keeping himself from hitting the wall until his hands were torn and bloodied.
"After that, I need a drink", Hawke suddenly sighed. "Gonna stuff myself until I pass out. Coming with me?"
He distinctly heard his...the Warden chuckle without any enthusiasm.
"Later, perhaps."
"As you wish", Hawke said, probably shrugging.

She left the vault, and he shrank into his hiding place, out of her sight. Her shoulders were slumped, her walk uncertain. She looked defeated. Irreparably broken.
Her lover was dead. Her mother was dead. Her sister was dead, and so was her child.
She had nothing left.
And nothing that she had lost could ever come back.
The King listened to the sound of her receding footsteps in the Courtyard, and watched her disappear in the Tavern. There was a cheering ovation when she entered, then nothing more than laughter and music.

"I know you're there, Alistair", Kallian's voice suddenly said, somewhere beneath him.
Andraste's flaming knickers.
What in the Fade had he been thinking?
Alistair stood up and slowly went down the stairs. No more hiding. He would face this like a man.
Tabris was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, illuminated in red and black by the dying fire. Her eyes were shining under the darkness of her hood. She was smirking.
"Swooping on me?" she tsked. "How unkingly of you."

He lifted his stiff hands toward the embers. It was not enough to keep him warm, but agreeable nonetheless.
Ten years ago, during cold nights like this one, he would have snuggled against her under the covers, and curl around her with nothing between them, naked skin against naked skin. And she would have giggled, because his feet would have been icy, and he would have kissed the nape of her neck and her jawline and her chin and her mouth to shut her up.
Of course, that would have been ten years ago.
"There's no escaping you, isn't it?" she said, sitting down, winding her arms around her knees.
"Isn't that what you've been doing for ten years?" he pointed out.
"You are a stubborn fool", she muttered.

He sat in front of her, at a respectful distance, leaving the embers between them.
"That mage, Anders", he said. "You knew him well?"
She shrugged.
"I conscripted him. You were there."
Ah.
Yes.
Nine years and a half ago.
"He was a friend."
"Friend?" he said. "Or lover?"

She studied him, the fire reflecting in her eyes. He couldn't help but sound bitter, and she had perfectly sensed it.
"What does it matter to you?"
"There have been...rumors", he admitted.
He could not let her see that it could still hurt him. Yet it did. And it was like poison. Digging through his mind like voracious worms.
He had to know.
"Whoever I take to bed is no longer your concern, Alistair", she snorted.
No longer. But it had been, once.
"I only ever had one lover. The others are...dalliances, I suppose."
"Dalliances?" he asked in disbelief.
"You abandoned me", she hissed. "You left me alone, and they gave me comfort. They made me feel wanted and loved. They treated me as a woman, and not just as your leftovers. What exactly did you expect?"
"Kallian..."
He had not seen it that way.
He had thought to be the betrayed one.

"Do you love her?" she asked suddenly. "Your wife?"
"I..."
He did not answer.
There was no answer.
He did not know. Anora was beautiful. Anora was cunning. Anora was sweet and strong as a rock and had shared his life and warmed his bed and his heart for far much longer than Kallian ever had. Anora was the mother of his child.
Did he love her?
In a certain, peculiar way, perhaps.

His silence was apparently enough for Kallian.
"Go back to her", she said. "Go back to her, go back to your son. They need you."
So she knew. She knew about Duncan, about the most precious of his treasures. The child her barren womb, forever corrupted by the Taint, could never have given him, had life went on as he had so foolishly hoped.
He could not have had them both.
And yet.
"He should have been yours", he said softly, sadly. "I wish he was yours."
She shook her head and got up, stretching her limbs, flickers of light dancing on the silverite of her armor.
"No", she whispered, and disappeared in the night.

To be continued...