Author's Note: I'm extremely gratified that everyone is liking the story so far - your comments, critiques, and encouragement are always welcomed and appreciated! Since this story is a side-story to The Strongest Force, events in this chapter coincide with that story, including a conversation that for stylistic purposes I deemed unsuitable to reiterate and paraphrase here. If you're curious, the conversation between Justice and Hawke is complete in TSF, and I also urge you to check out art gifts I've received from Mwar and lillian-hime on my profile page.
It will be over soon, for them anyway, though for everyone else it has only just begun. Their part in her story ends here as a footnote - the fanatic, not the friend - a dark stain on the bright future that she will carve out of a world on fire.
She sides with the mages, as she always has sided with the mages; Justice should feel vindicated, exultant even, to have finally fulfilled his purpose, but it is a pyrrhic victory, and tangs bitterly with loss. It is not justice, the spirit knows, will never be remembered as such, and comes at the sacrifice of beautiful things.
Once the Knight-Commander's guards are felled Anders can no longer bear Hawke's speechless dismay. He has been running away his whole life - from the Circle, from the Wardens - but he will not run now, not from her, and sits, back-turned, awaiting her justice as they watch the magic-imbued rubble drift gently like blood-tinged snow. It is a calm resignation that only the Tranquil must feel, though Justice knows the facade would shatter instantly if Anders looked at her anguished face.
"Did... Justice make you do this?" She whispers, searching to find reason, and Justice urges his friend to take this last opportunity, to pin the blame clearly on him, ensuring protection for the memory of Anders' love. But it seems that in these many years Justice has had too much of a noble influence on the mage.
"No," comes the response, over the din of the spirit's confusion, Anders refusing to run from this as well - friendship does not go in only one direction. "Justice and I are one - I can no more ignore the injustice of the Circle than he."
"Then why couldn't you have just told me?" Hawke's voice cracks with grief. Justice can hear her soft pacing behind them. "I might have understood."
"I wanted to tell you," Anders confesses, guilt for being unable to trust in her overwhelming him. "But what if you stopped me?" Hardly an if: she would have succeeded, Justice admits, knowing how weak they are where she is concerned. "Or worse - what if you wanted to help? I couldn't let that happen."
Hawke ceases pacing, her breathing pained, and it is coming, it is coming. Pulse and breath grow erratic, instinctual actions of self-preservation; a body unwilling to give up the precious gift of life though heart and mind have long bid it good-bye. "The world needs to see this," Anders insists, trying to push her into action, to free them from this agony. "And if I pay for that with my life... then I pay."
A sob hitches slightly in her lungs, and Anders bows his head, bracing himself for the final blow, heart swimming in his throat I'm so sorry my love please forgive me please forgive yourself and she has to do it now, she has to grant them one last mercy, otherwise Justice fears they will break in this terrible silence -
And she does something unexpected.
"Help me defend the mages," and she may as well spin the world on its axis. For Vael is angrily demanding something, Hawke shouting fiercely in return, but all Justice registers is the whirlwind of emotion, an ecstatic soaring that could fly from Anders' chest as he turns to look at her in amazement.
She is being practical, Justice assumes, in quiet reprimand; the spirit notes how she avoids Anders' gaze. She goes to fight the Knight-Commander, and she needs them for their healing. Need is not the same as love; not the same as forgiveness.
But she continues to be perplexing, a woman so full of grace. Whatever emotion that was festering inside her evaporates by the time they reach the Gallows, and she smiles - how could she still smile at them, after everything they've done? - accepting Anders' hopeful requests with solemn promises of her own.
Justice does not understand.
She should have martyred them - justice would demand as such, for some actions are unforgivable.
How can love be stronger than justice?
She finds their hand, briefly, with that beautiful steel in her resolve as she glares down the Knight-Captain, and gives it a desperate squeeze.
Justice watches her, bewildered and hesitant, and, reluctantly, yields.
Some actions are unforgivable - but not, it seems, today.
They leave Kirkwall almost in the same manner as they both arrived, Hawke and Anders fleeing from what was their home by ship, and aboard the Rivaini's acquired vessel, Justice is unusually at ease. The restlessness has vanished, the rage quiet, and Justice wonders if the thinness of the Veil around Kirkwall had any hand in his corruption. The more distance they put from that accursed place, the better.
As Kirkwall becomes a vanishing blemish on the horizon, and Hawke already saying farewell to two of her companions, the Guard-Captain and her Warden brother, Justice still cannot approve Hawke's decision to spare their life. It should have been forfeit; revolutions only eat their heroes, and with this course she only damns herself as well. But she has made this choice out of love, with full knowledge of the consequences, and in hindsight, Justice realizes he should have expected no less of her. He has misjudged her - She truly would stand beside them in anything.
At least some good will come of it, Justice thinks with only the slightest touch of envy for them; it allows Hawke and Anders fleeting time together, to find what happiness they can, before the inevitable day when they are captured or killed.
Hawke releases a long breath, as if she's been holding it underwater, and wilts, sitting on the bed in the Captain's Quarters - the Rivaini had all but shoved them here, in one of her passing, altruistic gestures, for them to Talk.
Anders hovers at the door, his anxiety rousing Justice's interest. "Marian - "
She holds up one hand, stopping that line of conversation. "Don't. Please, I just - I don't need to hear it."
"I don't expect you to understand, love..."
She laughs, bitterly and shaky. "That's the thing - I think I do understand. Most of it, anyway... it was never going to change peacefully, was it? All those years, wasted in pointless attempts to make things better - Maker, you must have thought me completely naive."
Untrue, Justice thinks, unable to stay silent through this, hearing her reproach herself. How they had wanted to believe that they could bring justice with mercy, with her beside them to distract them vengeance. Anders crosses to the bed, sitting gingerly beside her, but still giving her space. "It was never pointless. It meant the world to me - I would have long gone mad without you."
"Stop that," She scowls, scolding without malice. "Just because I forgive you, doesn't mean I'm not still bloody livid at you."
"I deserve it."
"You're an unbelievable bastard."
"A total, total one."
"And that coat is ridiculous."
"Very," Anders agrees seriously, though a smile threatens to creep across in face.
"Oh! And that shit before!" She rounds on him. "Jerking me about with that blighted Tevinter potion!"
Anders winces, but knows they deserve that too. "Justice offered to shoulder your anger... if you needed someone to hate."
Hawke frowns in confusion, quiet for a long moment.
She thinks he dislikes her, Justice recalls. Such considerate behavior from him would be atypical. Her eyes search their face, as if she could disassemble them, and confront the spirit within - to understand the truth of it all, at last.
Finally, she says, "Well, then, Justice is a total bastard, too," and given his perceived, appalling treatment of her, the spirit is inclined to agree.
Tentatively, Anders claps her hand in his. She doesn't withdraw it. "And now?" The mage prompts her, wanting to be certain she's gotten it all off her chest.
She shakes her head, mumbling with affection. "Just hold me, you bastard."
Anders smiles, more than willing to oblige.
And for a while, Justice thinks that she might recover from what they have done to her. Perhaps, if they were granted more time it might have be enough for Anders to heal her heart properly.
Yet raiders attack them on the Waking Sea, damaging the ship, and they are forced to separate from her companions. As they enter the Tevinter tunnels it quickly becomes apparent to the spirit that all her loss has affected her significantly. She grows increasingly unstable, clinging to Anders, her only link down here in this darkness, and fights to protect him against slaver camps with a keen edge of desperation heretofore never seen.
Both spirit and man worry, relentlessly, Anders doing whatever he can to stem her pain, for what little good it does. Desperation is a terrible feature for any mage; it calls to demons from across the Fade like a beacon, lured by the scent of fear - the promise of weakness. But she is strong, Justice thinks. She has always been strong.
Soon her nightmares begin in earnest, nights she wakes screaming or sobbing, and the demons are hounding her, the demons will find her and claim her. It only takes the slightest crack in the armor; they saw this in the Fade with Feynriel, how easily tore were her companions' loyalties, and Justice knows that they have damaged Hawke, irrevocably.
The demons are hunting her. It cannot happen. It must not.
Anders' thoughts are tongues of flame against their mind, all but begging Justice. Find her. Find her. Save her. I don't care how.
Justice does not hesitate.
For a spirit of the Fade the bond between Anders and Hawke is effortless to follow; Justice's eyes perceive a ribbon of red light looped around their wrist, the finest of filaments extending out into the yawning stretches of the Fade. Like the elvhen blood mage and her ball of twine, all Justice need do is follow the cord to find where Anders' heart resides.
Scenery shifts, for the Fade is ever mutable - the red cord winds through a battlefield strewn with corpses, and a figure stands in the thick of it that causes Justice to pause. Their doppelganger stands before them - Anders and yet not Anders - lying in wait like a spider to catch a fly.
Justice glares, light flaring through their skin. "Begone, fiend!"
Their double looks at them with a pout, and the glamour shimmers, illusion melting to reveal the true form of a Desire Demon underneath. "So righteous," she purrs, with honeyed tongue. "The little mortal, little spirit, coming to the rescue."
"I said begone, temptress," Justice summoning his powers here to attempt to banish her, but she dodges skillfully, moving around him.
"Call me Passion," she coos, hands roaming her curves. "Why do you interfere? I only want what you've already taken. Oh! - I can practically taste her sweet heart."
"She is not yours to have."
"I know your desires, too, little spirit." Her form shifts briefly to Hawke, then back again, with a knowing smile. "Beauty and love... how you want these things." Passion draws closer, wetting her lips. "Let me take her, and I will even share her."
Justice snarls, and lashes out in a burst of blue fire. Passion hisses, trying to retract, but Justice presses onward, catching a hand against Passion's throat. "I know my purpose, fiend - she reminds me of it everyday," Justice utters, choking the demon and searing with another shock of flame. Passion shrieks, and twists, but cannot get anyway, as the fire begins to consume her. "I take only what is given to me, and for me, it is enough."
Justice does not yield until Passion is burned to ash, cinders sifting between his fingers.
Soft footsteps come behind him. "Justice?" He hears her call.
He turns. She walks barefooted, in a white dress where her heart bleeds into the fabric. She carries small purple flowers, and does not look angry to see him here.
And the conversation they have is long overdue.
Justice offers understanding to combat Hawke's fears; Hawke offers him a smile, and follows it with a kiss.
It is a most pleasant bargain.