CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION
Part II: ANTEBELLUM
Chapter 6: Choice
Hawke. For a split second before she woke, a flash of white had the shape of a bird of prey, and it felt… familiar.A hawk. Hawke. Yes.
"Hawke!"
Aedale opened her eyes.
"Fucking finally!" cried Isabela, her voice breaking. Aedale blinked uncertainly, but the world didn't seem like the Fade anymore. There were several faces against the grey stone ceiling, leaning over her in different degrees of concern and desperation: Isabela, Varric, Nathaniel Howe, and… a white-haired woman with kind, patient eyes.
"A pleasure to meet you, Champion. Although it wasn't you for whom I was called," said Wynne with just the slightest shade of rebuke.
Nathaniel pinked. "Claire must have forgotten about the letter before she went away. I've already told you that."
"Thank you, Nathaniel." Wynne didn't even look at him, like a patient schoolteacher who had elected not to question a transparent lie. "Can you speak, Champion?"
"Y-you," croaked Aedale. "You were there. You told me to-"
"That wasn't me, child." But her eyes softened, and Hawke saw in that second that Wynne understood the exact measure of her grief. "I'm a spirit healer. And you've been healed by a spirit that I guided to you."
"What happened?"
There was a pause. Varric sighed deeply and looked her straight in the eye. Suddenly he seemed very old and tired.
"The Chantry folk from Forthing, you remember them, Hawke? They… set our ship on fire. You were there. One arrow with a skins of oil, another one with the flame, and… You tried to save it, and Andraste only knows what you did, but you pulled the entire bay on us. And then you went off like a candle. You were out for days. The mages here couldn't do anything, they said some nugshit on how you've drained your own life along with all that magic…"
"Fenris," Aedale whispered through thickened throat, interrupting Varric's rambling. "Where is he?"
"He was below deck. We… couldn't find him, Hawke." Varric held her gaze for a long second and looked away. "It's not your fault. We shouldn't have let him-"
"I told him to." Aedale closed her eyes. "I told him to get my staff…"
"And he listened," said Wynne softly. "You've lost a great deal, Champion. It's okay to hurt. But you did everything you could to save him, and it almost killed you too."
We talked about it. This is the same conversation that we were having after Kirkwall. After the world had been blown up. This is all the same.
Except it isn't.
"Leave me alone." Her voice was creaking and thickened, but it sounded like the crack of the flames. She could feel the lightning in her veins, hissing angrily, impatiently – there was fury, fury to be unleashed and burn the village of Forthing to the ground, and the world with it, because the world kept on taking everything from her and it was time to retaliate. She let go-
And suddenly there was a white flash, and the power was gone.
"No." Wynne's voice was calm and allowed no protest. "You'll kill yourself if you do that."
Nathaniel looked at the both of them cautiously, blinking away the flash. "Do what?"
"See, my dear boy, when normal mages lose control, they change into abominations." Nathaniel grimaced at the boy, and Wynne flashed a quick smile. "She, however… she is the daughter of Malcolm Hawke. So she just burns a hole through the fabric of the world. But right now all the magic she has is just about enough to keep her alive and breathing, so I strongly suggest it stays inside." She cast a steely look at her patient.
"Leave," said Aedale in a calmer voice. "I want to be alone."
Isabela brushed her fingers across her arm. "Just say the word, Hawke. We'll be there for you."
"Leave. Please."
Fenris.
When the faces disappeared from her field of vision in various shares of concern, shame, and worry, Aedale closed her eyes and let herself cry.
-/-
The next days were filled with mourning silence. As soon as Hawke could sit up, she'd demanded parchment and a quill, and she stained the bedsheets with ink writing the letters to Aveline, Donnic, and Merrill. The ravens from Nathaniel's gift were sent with the letters, and she watched them fly away with impassive, empty eyes. He'd bring me the letters to proofread. He never told me how it hurt his pride, but what'd hurt more would be sending badly spelt letters… She cried, but it didn't help, so she stopped.
She was empty – magicless, powerless, emotionless.
Nathaniel came once, offering stiff condolences one more time. She greeted him with a pale smile and asked about Jainen; he shook his head and said that there was no information. She thanked him for his hospitality. He waved his hand in an awkward dismissive gesture. Then he went away.
Wynne was more helpful, coming several times a day and pouring healing magic under her skin. Her own power seemed erratic, and the healer said it was because she'd stretched its limits to the brink and then emptied it all; it was returning slowly, but her control was frayed, and she lost her temper easily.
Wynne was patient.
"Why are you doing this?" asked Aedale on one particularly frustrating day, where for one moment she'd been almost able to walk comfortably – and then she'd collapsed on the corridor, so weak that she'd had to rely on the passing Grey Wardens to bring her back to the infirmary. "Don't you have a revolt going on in Kinloch Hold? Aren't you kind of busy?"
"Yes, and yes." Wynne moved her hands across her chest and shoulders, bathing her skin with soft blue glow. "I should be on my way right now. But I trust Nathaniel and his judgement."
Aedale snorted. "Yeah? And what's that?"
The healer shot her a long measuring look. "That you are worth keeping alive. For many reasons, some of them political."
"Political? I have no authority anymore, Enchanter-"
"Wynne," said the woman gently.
"Kirkwall is a flaming ruin. I've seen it. The mages are warring and divided, and we'll all get exterminated for Anders if this keeps up. I can't help you. I'll do whatever I can, but now… I've got nothing." Nothing and no-one. She swallowed with difficulty.
The older woman shook her head. "We are kept updated on the situation in Kirkwall. The situation there is far from resolved. Knight-Commander Cullen sent for aid, but the Divine is… concerned with the situation of the mages if the present trend continues. The Circles won't be help up by sheer force alone."
Aedale kept silent, churning through the new piece of information. So Kirkwall is still a battlefield. A crippling fear for Aveline and Merrill sent child down her spine. The amount of people she could not afford to lose was shrinking.
"And Jainen?"
"Probably all abominations." Wynne didn't raise her head, focused on her healing.
"What?!"
"Not many mages prefer self-destruction over possession, my child. And Claire knows that too, limited as her understanding of magic is. She's a Warden. She knows what kind of whispers wake when people are desperate."
"How are you so… so calm about it?" Aedale blinked furiously, looking at the white-haired woman incredulously. "This is a disaster. If this spreads through Ferelden, then…"
"I've seen a broken Circle before. You must have heard the stories." Wynne finally looked up and Hawke could see the lines of age around her tired eyes. "Sometimes we keep calm because none of the choices we have are good, and you won't choose the less evil one with a hot head… and you know that too, Champion, don't you?"
The choice of the Champion. "But this is… this will be war! There will be a March-"
"You might wonder why I got here so soon after you fell ill," said Wynne. "I wasn't in Kinloch, as Claire has quickly learnt. I'd imagine that's why she didn't send the letter… poor Nathaniel needs to work on his excuses. I was already travelling to Cumberland. There will be a vote."
"The vote on what?"
"Disaffiliation," said the mage grimly. "The end of Templar control over the circles. The war is brewing, and we're debating the split of the structures that have kept us safe… But the College of Enchanters will decide. From then on, we'll see the dawn of the new world as it unfolds."
Aedale stared at her.
"A Circle is dying in our own land and you're only worried about politics?"
"Politics is hardly ever only about politics, my child." Wynne shot her a steely glance. "It is an easier way to coerce the other side to give us what we want, possibly without starting an all-consuming war. The Circle in Jainen is dead. There is nothing we can do to change it. What we can change is the future of the mages in Thedas."
"You don't know if it's dead!" The fury in Aedale's voice surprised even herself. Wynne stopped the spell and looked at her with impassive eyes.
Heavy silence hung in the air.
"Aedale," started Wynne softly.
Hawke shook her head. "Don't call me that. This is the name I left behind long ago. And don't try to patronise me, Enchanter, I might be bedridden, but I'm not stupid. You're a political player, an Aequitarian, aren't you? And it's been quite a while since you've travelled with the Queen, right? 'Cause I'm have a sneaking feeling that she wouldn't approve of what you're doing now. She would go and save the people."
Wynne's eyes hardened. "Do not presume," she said slowly, "what you have no notion about."
"You know, I'm so sick of it." Hawke sat up straighter. "Since I walked off that ship, there's just so many things happening, and it seems I can't keep up. Things in the White Spire, things in Orlais, in the Free Marches, here in Ferelden. All because of one madman's explosion. But I think I can put the pieces together now. You, with Nathaniel the Smiley there, want to make sure I don't kill myself here with another magical explosion… not because you care so much about me, but because you need the Champion of Kirkwall here. In case the vote doesn't go your way. You want me to stand in front of the College and the Divine and say, this is how it started, this is why it was a mistake, this is why the mages of Kirkwall should band with us and return to the fold..." She balled her fists. "But you're a political player, Enchanter. I'm not. I'm first and foremost a mage, and I would never abandon by own, and definitely not for the sake of supporting the status quo."
Wynne looked at her for a long moment, and then resumed the healing spell. The blue aura again enveloped her hands.
"You're sharp, my child," she said gently, with just the slightest edge in her voice. "And you're lashing out because of your grief. But you should not presume that my plans for you stretch any further than keeping you alive. All the other decisions will be yours to make."
"Like what? Helping the Divine clamp down on mage rebellion?" sneered Aedale.
"If need be," said Wynne with a calm face. She reached for Hawke's wrists and opened her tightly clenched fists; without a word, she held her hands over the insides of the scarred palms, healing the red, bloody half-moons where Hawke's nails bore into her skin.
"How can you do that?" asked Aedale after a long pause. "How can you… just take the Chantry's side and forget about the way we're tracked and trapped and stripped of own of freedom and emotions, how they demonise us and put the Templars at every door, and then, for the crimes of one man, they hunt us down and murder with cold blood? How?"
"Because we are not better," said Wynne, and it suddenly sounded very, very tired; there was an echo of over fifty years of fruitless struggle in her voice.
"That cleric," said Aedale quietly. "She killed the mage first. In cold blood. But I let her live, because she was grieving too, she'd lost her sister in Kirkwall… I was thinking, I'd be the bigger man, I'd show that violence leads to more violence… And she killed Fenris. She killed Fenris." Fire blossomed on her bloodied fists, fighting Wynne's blue glow.
"I'm so very sorry, my child," said Wynne with a soft voice. Aedale shook her head.
"No. You don't get this. This is the end. This is where all negotiations stop, and where I make my choice." Choice of the Champion. "I fought for the balance between the Chantry and the mages for almost ten years, Enchanter. And I owe you nothing. You can tell the Divine when she asks for me that I was willing to help them once. But then the Chantry took Fenris away from me."
The red flame rose and engulfed Wynne's hands; she withdrew them quickly as if she'd had been burned. There was silence.
"It was one misguided woman looking for revenge," said Wynne after a long while.
"It was one desperate man looking for justice," said Aedale, her face white but firm. "And he blew up the world. And so we all pay the price."
But he didn't take Fenris away from me. In the distance, she could her the cawing of the returning crows.
"Is this final, Champion?" asked Wynne. "You will not stand before the College or the Divine?"
"I will not."
The healer nodded slowly, and she looked very, very old. "They will hunt you," she said, measuring every word like a dark, heavy lump of steel falling in between them. "They will blame you for everything. If they only can, they will send an Exalted March after you. You will be remembered as the mage who started the rebellion."
Aedale scoffed. "I couldn't tell you how little I care about all of this, Enchanter."
"Good." When Hawke looked at her, surprised, Wynne smiled bitterly. "You'll need that sort of attitude later on."
Aedale stared at her mutely. Wynne just shook her head and stood up.
"Nathaniel hoped you were going to be the one to end this. He wasn't wrong, I think. He just never thought that end could mean the end of the world as we know it… but maybe that's not a bad thing. Maker knows that the world has been rubbish for a long time." She took her staff from the bedside and turned away. "Andraste bless you, child. You'll get your strength back soon. Now, however… I should move on to my traitorous politics, I believe."
She walked towards the door.
"Did you know my father in the Circle?" asked Aedale from the bed. Wynne turned back to her, offering a small smile.
"Yes. Malcolm was a handful. Very powerful, but a handful. I see it hasn't been lost in the family."
"No," said Aedale. "It hasn't."
-/-
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm imagining that Wynne and Malcolm knew each other quite well at the Fereldan Circle, and maybe even shared the escape plan – but as she did not quite have the guts, or the will, to follow it through, she ended up only helping him out. And maybe smuggling out some mage goodies for him later.
Honestly, someone needs to write up Malcolm Hawke's Great Escape, cloak-and-dagger style.