a/n: In this import, the Warden killed Loghain, crowned her lover, and then refused Morrigan's offer of help. Alistair did that thing he always does on the roof, and Mahariel lived. In this scenario, there is no way she'd be called the Hero of Fereldan. Alistair – the human, the man, the uncrowned King, the bastard prince, and the person who actually killed the Archdemon – would be much more the hero to them all. So I've given him the title. Mahariel still gets to be Champion of Redcliffe, and she's remembered for helping Alistair, though people talk more often about the dog and the giant walking statue.

Also, this chapter is largely plot. Sad, but necessary. I promise more of our two main characters on Friday.

Interlude

37 Dragon

Thedas

Isabella lay slumped in the far corner. Fenris had fallen after her, and his body draped over her exposed thigh. Hawke didn't have the time or the energy for jealousy. All her will was going into keeping her blood under her own control. She still had her mind, but her body was paralyzed between two opposing commands. In the end, the blood would out her will.

Danarius strode into her line of vision. He did not have a speck of blood on him, while Hawke was misted and splattered with her own, with her adversaries', with Fenris's and with Isabella's. The magister wiped imaginary dust from his sleeve before turning to face her. He took her chin in one hand and examined her face.

"I can see what the boy saw in you," he drawled. "If you like refugee trash."

Hawke said nothing, her discipline straining against the slowly rising tide of oblivion.

Danarius let her go and leaned backwards, watching her lose. "But no matter. He is mine again. He was happy with me for a long time, you know. I will make sure he is again."

"Haven't you ever heard the old saying?" Hawke ground out through her tightening jaw. Nothing below her heart was hers. "If you love something, let it free. If it comes back, it's yours."

Danarius laughed. "Oh, there is something about you, isn't there? Not quite worth your reputation, but there is something lovely there. My wolf always had good taste. It's too bad you weren't mine before. I am a very persuasive man. Now you're too dangerous to live, of course. Sorry."

"Wait," Anders called from the corner. His voice cracked with exhaustion, but it had that unreasonable edge to it that Hawke had seen more and more often. Her panic rose, bringing the blackness.

Hawke woke in the clinic, hurting in and out. She shot up in her cot.

"Anders?" she called. Sun was coming in the small high windows and the stink of Darktown was at its midday high. "Anders!"

Varric walked quickly to her side. "Easy, Hawke," he said, in the tone he used for everything from "Bartrand's back" to "Want another?"

"Varric! Where's Fenris?"

The dwarf did not look her in the face when he answered. "The slaver got him. They sailed yesterday."

"Isabella?"

Varric looked away. "Blondie said that there was no blood left in her."

Hawke felt a faint ringing: the kind of quiet that followed a smite. So that she did not have to think about Isabella's exposed thigh, bloodless, under the body of her stolen lover, she asked where Anders was. Coldly. Varric argued with her for a while. There was nothing he could have done. The fight was lost. He'd saved Hawke's life. Saved Varric's life. Background sounds slowly returned to Hawke. All was not lost. She had fought before and she would fight again. All was not lost. Hawke had only lost, irredeemably, twice in her life. Her throat closed. What would Fenris have to offer her in the way of comfort now?

"Where is Anders?"

"Hawke," Varric started, but he was interrupted by the door swinging open. It hit the clinic wall with a bang. Anders strode through, walking recklessly. He was still wearing the ridiculous black feathered coat that he'd taken to wearing months ago. It did not suit him. He looked pale. Hawke had thought so when he'd first showed up in it, and she thought so now. His eyes flittered restlessly around the room.

Hawke stood, taking her father's staff from where it leaned against her cot. As always, it whispered to her blood as she picked it up. As always, she shuddered a little at its touch. She hated the staff, hated it even more now that she had felt the way that her blood could turn so entirely against her. Fenris – her throat closed a little – Fenris had thought it was a mistake to continue using it. She decided that she would destroy it as soon as she could.

Anders made as if to cross the room to her, to press a hand to her shoulder and guide her gently back onto the cot, but as soon as Hawke took a ready grip on her father's staff, he stopped.

"Do you know why I asked you to help, Anders?"

The mage said nothing.

"I had hoped," Hawke continued, the emphasis on the last word, "that you might benefit from seeing a magister and an unrestrained blood mage. I though it might help fill some of those holes in your damn manifesto."

The pale mage licked his thin lips.

"I had hoped that you might see how mages, too, could go too far. Did it work?"

Anders continued his cycle of small motions: shifting from foot to foot; eyes never resting on a single object; tongue to lips; hands to hips; hands let loose. Hawke wondered if he had always been like this, or if it was the thing inside him that kept him in motion. A boy appeared, anxious-faced, at the door, but Hawke did not turn. Varric left her side.

"Did it work?" she asked, again.

"What about making him see?"

Hawke smashed him across the face with the four claws of her father's staff.

He held a hand to his face, blushing pink already, but he did not heal himself.

"I never want to see you again, Anders."

Anders's mouth twitched, but it was too fast an expression for Hawke to read. Varric reappeared, saying her name in that unreadable tone.

"What?"

"Orsino and Meredith are going at it again in Lowtown. Orsino is asking for your help."

Hawke did not care at all for either of them. She was reminded, suddenly, of Dumont, grieving for his dead son while she battled the Qunari before the ashes of her mother were cool. Hawke had a ship to prepare and a magister to kill. She would lose no more. "Fuck them," she said.

"Meredith is accusing Orsino of harbouring blood mages."

"He is harbouring blood mages."

"They are not all blood mages!" Anders squealed. Hawke refused to look in his direction.

Varric stepped closer to Hawke and dropped his voice to a whisper, so that Anders could not hear them. "My templar contact says that she's asked Elthina for the Right."

Hawke was caught by the immediacy: Orsino was a snake, but all those people... The mages and the apprentices. Then she let out a long, high noise of rage. Once, just once, she wanted to be free to tend to herself. Varric rocked back a little, and there a new expression in his face when he looked at her. She buried her face in her hands and drew three long, shaky breaths.

A moment passed, and then he touched her shoulder. "We'll get him, Hawke."

Hawke ignored the comfort in his tone. "Varric," she said, steely Hawke again. "Get Isabella's crew and tell them to make ready to sail. I'm going to my estate. I'll stop at Lowtown on the way to the Docks. I'll be there in an hour. Be ready."

Varric nodded that half-nod that looked for all the world like a salute, and he left for the Docks.

Hawke took a breath. She would stop for Merrill on the way. The elven woman was lost after her Clan's demise, and Hawke would not leave her behind. Isabella... her heart missed another beat on Isabella. She righted herself. Regrets were for when you had time. She turned out of Anders's clinic for the last time and stormed towards the locked passage to her cellar, already making an inventory of the things she would take. Hawke was not a sentimental woman, and she planned to take only things that were very small and very valuable. She would hate to leave would be the books, but she'd come back for them.

In her haste and her anger, in her rising worry and her suppressed grief, she took no notice of Anders's last openly triumphant look. If she had, she probably would have killed him there, rather than twenty minutes later.

The prow of Isabela's ship broke through the Waking Sea, and Merrill was leaning over the front railing, watching the waves crest. She knew nothing of the sea, but she liked the smooth glide of the ship and the tight discipline under Isabela's first mate. She heard Carver's heavy tread on the deck behind her, but the feel of the breeze on her face was too sweet to turn from. Apparently, he agreed with her, as he took a spot very near her, crossing his arms on the rail and leaning into the wind along with her.

"Isabela was right," he said. "Being the deck is much, much better than the hold."

Merrill felt two pricks of tears at the outer corners of her eyes. One fell, and she did not wipe it away. Grief, she thought, was sweeter when there was no guilt with it. Poor Isabela.

Carver saw her tear and gathered her into his arms very gently. Merrill leaned into him, grateful for his soothing manner. Grateful that he'd never stopped being soothing towards her, no matter her crimes. His arms were not entirely comfortable, because of the metal, so she pulled back. Carver's expression was very tender, and she smiled at him. There was so little left of even this strange Clan. Hawke's Clan.

"How's Hawke?" she asked.

"Resting."

"That's good, right?" she asked, but didn't wait for a response. "She wanted to go to Minrathous. How long will it take to get there, do you think?"

"Merrill," Carver said, glancing around them. None of the crew was near. "I don't think we can get to Minrathous. The crew saw the explosion, and they saw the fight, and they saw a mage and a templar carry another mage onto their boat before Meredith's body was cool. I'm surprised Varric talked them into launching."

"Varric's not here now."

"Exactly." Merrill bit her lip, and Carver pressed on. "I give us three days at sea, and no longer than half a day at port – any port – before they turn on us."

"We can't get to Minrathous in three days," Merrill said. Then: "Oh. Hawke will be angry."

"Better angry than dead," Carver said, with a strange tone that Merrill could not understand the implications of. Humans were often very bewildering to her. "We have to get off soon."

"We could look for Mahariel," Merrill suggested. "She's in Fereldan."

"The Mahariel? The Champion of Redcliffe? The elf who helped the Hero of Fereldan kill the archdemon?" Carver said incredulously. "No one has seen her in years. She could be anywhere in Thedas by now."

"Anders knew where she was planning on going and how she was planning on staying hid," Carver's jaw clenched at the man's name, and he leaned back on the railing, away from her. His short black hair blew boyishly in the wind. "He told me yesterday. I am sure that I could find her," Merrill continued. "I would really like to do that. She will help us, I am sure."

"Anders, the unstable abomination, knew this whole time where she was and that you wanted to find her, and you didn't think it was odd when he finally mentioned it yesterday?"

Merrill blinked and said no, entirely without guile.

Carver nearly slapped himself in the forehead in frustration. "Okay," he said. It didn't matter anymore. "Where is she?"

In the end, they did not make it to the port at Harper's Cove. Carver overheard grumbling as he passed the barracks on his way to the captain's cabin, which he was sharing with Merrill and his sister.

That night, he woke them both. Gos was aware, but weak. She didn't have the will to cast, and as Merrill knew nothing of healing, Gos's recovery would take time.

Carver worried over her. She had not spoken much in the last thirty-six hours, and Merrill could not give him a satisfyingly clear account of what had happened to Fenris or at the Gallows before he'd gotten there with Cullen. He knew, from a chance comment by Varric, that the sword that had nearly made two of Gos had been made of lyrium. He worried over the effect of the lyrium on his sister. Take care of Bethany. Keep Bethany safe. It had not been until yesterday that Carver had ever wondered why it had only been Bethany in the family mantra.

Gos had an imperviousness about her, certainly. When he'd been a boy, he had always thought that it was because she was older, and that the same thing would happen to him in two years, but he'd never seemed to catch up to her. He'd never grown that impressive immunity to the slights or threats of others, to the challenges that their father's death or the Blight brought, when they came. Or the Quanari. He was not his sister.

After Bethany died, he never thought to look after Gos. Her magic was different than Bethany's. Sweet Bethany had brought home all the broken things she could find – birds with bent wings, dogs so covered in mange that they cringed when you touched them, and once, an orphaned fawn. Bethany healed them all in the quiet dark of the kitchen while Gos stood in the wild rain, hoping for lightning to cover her practice.

Carver wished that Bethany were here now. He had often missed and wished for his twin. Her life had begun almost exactly with his, and it still felt odd that he continued breathing after she was not. Today, he wished it for Gos. There was nothing impervious about Gos as he lowered her by rope to the small wooden rowboat that would be their getaway. Merrill was already there, and she helped Gos to a seat.

Carver had stolen civilian clothes for himself and for his sister. Their armour was bundled together near Merrill's feet on the floor of the boat. Once they were away, he would drop it into the ocean. It was too distinctive for them to wear or sell and too distinctive to leave behind. He hoped that without proof, the crew's claim might get lost in the hundred other claims that he knew would surface.

Still. Half of Kirkwall had watched him cross the Gallows courtyard from Cullen's side to pick up the broken, still-breathing body of his sister and board the boat.

Still. She was the second chance to keep the promise he'd made to his father.

Gos reached the bottom of the boat, and Merrill helped her to her seat. Carver glanced once more around the deck, then he shimmied down the rope himself. He left it hanging – the missing boat would be proof enough – and cut the rowboat down. It was not far to the water, and it landed with a quiet splash. The night was calm and bright, and he fit the heavy oars into their rests. He could get them to shore. He hoped Merrill could get them to the Brecilian.

Lina Mahariel did not, at first, recognize the elf wandering so near the village she'd established deep in the Brecilian. She had no reason to recognize the two humans with her – one a broken, limping white-haired mage, the other a broad strong man. The man half-carried the woman, and the elf carried two staffs and a sword.

It had not been until the man called for a break and the elf offered to start lunch that Mahariel recognized the lilting voice of the woman who had been First in the Clan she'd resented for the entirely of her adolescence. Mahariel was as tall, broad, and muscled as most human women, which made her taller and broader than most elven men. While she'd known that the children of elves and humans were always human, she had often wondered if there hadn't been enough elf in the man who raped her mother to make her just elf enough. Her mother's suicide after her birth and Mahariel's sense being out of place in the Clan that her father had once led had not helped. Any other hunter would have hated Duncan, despite the rescue he offered, but Mahariel had only had to keep her relief and hope to herself. She had walked gladly with Duncan to a chance at a larger life.

So when she recognized Merrill in her remote forest, she was not entirely pleased. But Bastard's End turned aside no one who needed help, and this group of ragged three obviously did. Mahariel stepped out of the trees, bow in hand, sword on back, and led them to the village.

Merrill had stayed, of course. She had nowhere else to go, and even if Mahariel had not been in desperate need of help, she would not have turned her Clans-kin away.

The man – the brother of the Champion – was made immediate welcome. He was not as skilled with his sword as Mahariel was with hers, but he was at least as good as the Sten had been, and she was grateful for the support. She was also grateful for the presence of a human man with enough self-assurance to look merchants and intruders in the eye. Her group was mostly women, elves, children, and barely trained hedge-mages. Mahariel could command the respect of those she met, but she was one of the few.

The Champion herself was a wreck. She had been wounded badly with a lyrium sword, and Carver worried that the combination of another man's smite, the lyrium, and the dwindle of the Champion's own mana had been a near enough approximation of the Rite that she would be lost. Mahariel had never refused a charity case and she would not start now. She had one apostate – a young blonde boy that had run away from Denerim when he'd heard his mother planning to send for the templars – that seemed to have a knack for healing, and he had done what he could. Slowly, the Champion had recovered.

Once she had, Mahariel was glad for her help. Of all the mages she had ever known, only Morrigan – lost Morrigan, fled in anger from Redcliff Castle – could have rivaled her. Like Mahariel, Hawke had facial tattoos, and like Mahariel, most of Thedas had an opinion about her. Unlike Mahariel, she could not be mistaken for any Dalish woman, and other humans would see her for who she was, even this far south. Hawke stayed in the forest, training the hedge mages and the apostates and the magical children that flocked in. She kept the ruins clear of the spirits that forced their way through the forest's tattered veil and fought the bandits who braved the forest in chase of the rumors. This left Mahariel free for the mercenary work that keep the village fed and clothed.

Carver became Mahariel's right-hand man. At first, his whole-hearted obedience and admiration reminded Mahariel of another young templar. At least, it had until she discovered his anger – boiling, covered, immature. Merrill was welcome to him. The three fought together and traded the goods Bastard's End could produce for the things it couldn't. The village grew, populated by the yellow-eyed Wolf family, the little-skilled Denerim elves, the Lothering refugees too poor to afford passage away, apostates, broken soldiers, and the mercenaries who helped keep it running. Mahariel could have been proud, but she felt that she had much to make up for. In time, she found that Hawke best understood her urge to amend.

The world was not made in a day, and it would take the better part of three years to come apart. Fereldan was least touched by the brewing war, but Fereldan hadn't had its own circle since the Blight. The Circles of other countries fell and were annulled, and shiploads of people arrived in Gwaren, filling the gaps the Blight had left in the population. Almost as soon as she'd arrived, Hawke was the name on everyone's lips and the face on all the pamphlets, and so the Champion stayed at Bastard's End.