It was no ordinary mine, of that she was sure.

Hawke had left home at a young age. It happened shortly after she'd accidentally broken her arm. A physical examination at the local clinic confirmed that she had Catalyst physiology. Within a day, the Enforcers showed up on their doorstep, and she was taken to the Circle. Yet despite leaving it behind so early, she still remembered sneaking down into Ferelden's mines with her younger siblings as if it were yesterday.

They were loud, busy, and dirty. The Hawke children amused themselves by getting lost within the shuffle of dust and sweat. Their game was to get as deep inside as possible until some foreman would find them out and chase them back to the surface. Though the industry was in decline with the increased use of lyrium to power machinery, it would take a lot for the Fereldan people to give up on their mines.

What had happened for the Colony to leave theirs, in a more pristine state than any mine should be? Perhaps it was normal. She didn't know much about how lyrium manifested — Fade matter leaking through the Veil and crystallizing when entering their dimension — and how it was harvested. No one did, which was precisely how the Colony wanted to keep it. It was probably a cleaner process than digging rocks and coal from the dirt. Perhaps the sterility of the asteroid was perfectly normal for this kind of operation. While Hawke felt briefly fascinated by it all, the absence of anything to disturb the immaculate environment made it more unnerving the deeper they went.

Not that she wanted to show it. If she was uncomfortable, Varric was a nervous wreck by comparison. It was an odd look on him. His usually relaxed frame was tense, he constantly fidgeted with his ring, and the lines around his eyes had nothing to do with laughter. Knowing that he had a personal connection to this strange location, however distant, didn't make the situation any better.

At least he'd been upfront about it. Hawke hadn't planned to share her situation, but after the close call with the Chantry, tired from the shift, she hadn't seen a quick way out of it. Naturally, she wouldn't take him along, if and when she was in a position to examine her own family matters. Still, it had probably helped make him more forthcoming in return.

She fell back when they reached the residential district and watched him with care as he stepped into the plaza. The glowing lights wrapped around the clearing's bottom edge, only to continue along into the next corridor on the other end. Like the rest of the mine, the apartments were hewn straight from the stone. Each level jumped back a little further into the rock, allowing residents to reach their rounded entrances and steel doors. Every house was lit with a lantern of dark metal with a blueish bulb. Some still had a light on inside as well, while others had gone dark. Most of the doors stood open as if the people had rushed out all at once and never returned.

Varric walked to the middle of the common and checked the signs. It took him several moments to decipher them, but eventually, he pointed to one of the upstairs flats. "Overseer's living should be up there," he explained with a grim expression. "I think we can get up through here."

They followed a walkway that curved along the wall and zigzagged across the different levels until they reached the top. The overseer's quarters had a good view of the cavern, but, to Hawke's surprise, didn't appear any larger than the other houses.

Varric halted outside the apartment. Like the others, the door was slightly ajar. He sized it up, then peered inside.

"Guess they left in a hurry."

"Didn't they leave before the evacuation, though?"

He nodded. "Not sure how much time they were given to pack. Not a lot, I suppose."

Hawke leaned over him to peek inside. "Or they installed a new overseer in the meantime?"

Varric made to answer, then paused. "Fair point. Perhaps it was silly to come here…" He scratched the back of his head. It pulled his hair tie a little looser, giving him a more disheveled look than usual. "If anything of their things remained, it's probably been destroyed or taken to storage."

"Well, we're here now." He'd nearly made to turn away, but Hawke gently put her hands on his shoulders and ushered him in. "You wanted to see it, right? Might as well."

He sighed, his hand absentmindedly meeting hers on his shoulder. His fingers squeezed lightly, then let go. "You're right. Let's look around."

Hawke retracted her hands with a slightly awkward pat on his back as Varric pushed against the door. It swung open with a slight squeak, revealing a rounded living space. The rocky walls had been smoothened and curved into an arched ceiling. Hawke made a loop around the perimeter while Varric wandered towards a desk on the far end. Besides that, there was a dining table with chairs in a small kitchen and a sitting area with a couch and television display.

"You think they get Super Duper Space Explorers out here?"

Varric looked up from the picture frame he'd picked up. His expression was serious at first, a little annoyed even at the distraction, then lit up with barely contained laughter. "I'm sorry… what?"

"Super Duper Space Explorers," Hawke grinned. "Best show on the air when I was growing up. You don't know it?"

"I suppose I must have missed it," he laughed, "If you grew up with it, I might've been just too old to be within the target audience."

"Excuse me," Hawke huffed. "There is no target audience. Shows about space exploration in a rocket, powered by friendship, are timeless and have universal appeal — everyone knows that."

"Indeed," Varric chuckled, "I suppose I should give it a try, but I doubt Bartrand got that channel out here. Who knows, he might have turned out differently if he had."

Hawke was pleased to see the smile linger on his face as he returned his attention to the picture frame. Honestly, there hadn't been much reason for her being here so far. The Boeric Belt could be unstable, with the barrier between Fade and regular space fluctuating and causing spatial anomalies. Despite expectations, it hadn't given them much trouble. And, while she'd gotten rid of the Cruiser, a ship without a Chantry signature probably wouldn't have drawn their attention — a slight miscalculation on their part. Perhaps she'd need her skills on the way back, but far more so, it became clear he needed someone with him for reasons nothing to do with navigation. While she still had no plans to grow attached, she didn't mind being that person for the moment.

"What did you find?" she inquired.

He held the picture out to her. It depicted a couple. The man was in uniform and looked severe from under bushy eyebrows. She wouldn't have guessed who he was if not for the woman standing beside him. Though she was softer in appearance and didn't share Varric's generally joyous expression, it was clear where Hawke's employer had gotten most of his features from. The eyes, in particular, were identical.

"Guess they didn't install a new overseer then," Hawke surmised, "Unless the new one never got round to redecorating."

"I doubt that's it," Varric replied, "Seems like it simply stood empty until the rest left."

"Is that how you remember them?" Hawke asked.

"My dad? Lacking a bottle in his hand, but otherwise… yeah. Same look. My mom…" Varric looked at the picture again. "This might be the happiest I've ever seen her."

'Happy' was not a word Hawke would have used to describe the woman in the picture. She stood dutifully beside her husband, a little shorter than him, and held one hand closed against her bosom. Hawke couldn't place the look on her face — it was content, in a way, but vacant, as if her thoughts were in another place entirely. A long silence hung between her and Varric as both stared at the woman in the picture. Eventually, he flipped over the frame, removed the photo, and placed it in his bag.

"Anything particular we're looking for?" Hawke asked as he continued to rummage in the desk.

"Yes…" he said slowly, "A pendant."

"Jewelry? Bedroom, most likely," she offered, scanning for a door that might lead them there. "Any idea what it looks like?"

"None whatsoever," he sighed. "Anything necklace related you find, we'll take it with us."

Hawke took her limited instructions and went to explore further. The one exit from the living room opened up into a hall with a low ceiling and three more doors. The first was a bathroom, the second a child's bedroom. Simple wooden toys had not been cleared away but instead lay spread across the room and bed, which was unmade. The final door led to a master bedroom with a low, iron cast bed. There was no window, and the light did not come on as she tried the switch. The only illumination came from the room she'd left behind, barely lifting her surroundings from their gloomy slumber. Hawke flicked on her flashlight instead to scan the room, and her eye fell on a small dresser.

While the piece of furniture itself was unassuming, on top of it stood a wooden box. It was old, ornate, and of such quality that it stood out from its surroundings. Hawke moved closer, carefully placing one foot in front of the other as she crossed the darkness. She briefly checked the cabinet drawers, finding them full of assorted clothing. With her thoughts still lingering on this finding, her focus then shifted to the box. The brass clasp flicked open easily, and she lifted the lid.

A leaping shadow bolted into her mind, butchering the sound of her blood and extinguishing the blue flame within to stain her vision crimson. She retracted her hand in a flash and stared at the innocuous container as it fell shut with a snap.

"What the…"

"Hawke?"

Varric stood in the entrance with his own flashlight. His expression went from inquiry to concern as he aimed the beam at her, then glanced behind her at the possible cause.

"What's going on?"

Her breath was high in her chest. She'd reached for it without realizing as if warding her heart against an invasion. Her hand lay flat on her sternum, quivering against the fabric of her jacket. The haunting melody softened by the second, though it refused to leave her altogether. It continued to sing, daring unsuspecting travelers to come closer, like a siren luring a ship to rocky shores.

"There's something weird inside of that."

Varric came to stand beside her as she, carefully, lifted the lid once more. In the glare of the flashlights, buried among plain rings and other bits and bobs, a golden chain shimmered against the dark lacquer. Attached to it, with nothing more than a wire wrapped around the base, was a gemstone. It was an angular piece of crystal that would point down like a dagger if worn around the neck. Hawke warily observed the shard's shimmering translucence, convinced she could see storms brewing behind the scarlet faces.

"What's that?" Varric mumbled. "A garnet?"

He reached for it, but Hawke grabbed his wrist. "I wouldn't."

"What?" He stared at her in confusion. "Why not?"

"You don't hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"That —"

She paused and refocused on the stone. It had been so loud before, a scream tearing through the recesses of her mind. Though it was still there, it seemed to quiet the longer it remained under their observation, like a child feigning good behavior to get what it wants.

"That's no ordinary gem. I… am not sure what it is. It sounds like the Fade, but different."

"The Fade? You can hear…?" Varric looked back towards it, then to her. "Is it like lyrium?"

She nodded. That was precisely what it was like, except that it wasn't. By lack of a better suggestion, however, it would do as an explanation. Varric considered her a moment longer but then gently dislodged himself from her grip. "I am going to pick it up," he said clearly, "I'm resistant to the stuff, remember?"

Hawke eyed the chain mistrustfully as he lifted it from the box and held it in front of his face. It glowed faintly, as lyrium did from an engine core. Yet, much as she disliked the blue liquid at times, the red color was more unsettling. It flickered in his eyes, washing out his features, as he twisted the chain to examine the stone from every angle.

"Is that what you were looking for?" Hawke asked. "The pendant?"

"I… don't know what I was looking for," he admitted, "but there's a chance this was it. It… feels strange, doesn't it?" He swallowed visibly. "… Hungry."

"A quality too few people look for in their jewelry," Hawke scoffed, her attention now entirely on the Dweomer staring into the gem's depths. "What did you want with it?"

"… My mom. She's been asking for a pendant she'd lost. I… wanted to see if I could find it for her." He frowned and lowered the chain. "I didn't expect this."

"Your mother is alive?" Hawke inquired, "Sorry... I didn't realize."

"That's okay. She isn't well."

"No offense… but I really don't believe getting her that is going to make her any better. Wearing regular lyrium around your neck seems crazy to begin with, even if you're resistant, but this stuff… I can't tell you what, but there's something wrong with it."

The crystal softly hummed between them, though she still seemed to be the only one to hear it. Varric twisted the chain a few more times, observing the shard charming viewers with its sparkle dangling on the end. Hawke sighed in relief when he eventually placed the thing back inside the box. His hand lingered on the lid as he continued to stare at it until she intervened and closed it for him. He blinked a few times, then seemed to shake it off.

"I need to show you something too."

He pulled an old notebook out of his bag, and Hawke aimed her flashlight at the pages. The handwriting was small and neat, though once again in the script she could not decipher.

"My mom's diary," he explained, thumbing through the pages. "It'll take me longer to understand everything — my vocabulary is not that great — but I noticed the dates… there." He'd reached the last entry. "The last time she wrote was shortly before I was told they were cast out, but… she mentions the evacuation."

"You mean, she mentions it before the Cataclysm took place?"

He nodded. "Well before."

"Meaning… they left when everyone else did," Hawke concluded, "And tears in the Veil had nothing to do with it?"

They looked at each other, to their ghostly features lit by the flashlights from below. If asked later, Hawke would swear she could still hear the drumming of the crystal locked away in its container, probing the edges of her mind. Even if Varric could not, he did not look any less concerned than she imagined she did.

"We should head to the archive," Hawke said resolutely, "Figure out what happened."

"That pair of legs you saw —"

"Not so eager anymore to check up on them, if I'm honest," she admitted, biting her lip, "but… if it is a survivor, they could still use help. Perhaps they know what in the Void went down here."

Varric stuffed the diary back into his bag, nodding in agreement. "To the archive then. Records should show the circumstances, even if outside documents pretend otherwise."

Hawke followed him as he walked from the bedroom and straight out of the apartment. His bag swung from his shoulder with the lengthening of his gait. It was fuller than before, suggesting he'd swiped a few more items than just the diary and family portrait. Varric halted outside and turned around, casting the place one last look.

"Let's go."

He led the way down and into the next corridor. Neither of them spoke on the way to the archive. It lay hidden beyond several more compounds in similar states as the first — left behind, clearly at times when no one had planned to do so. Hawke recognized abandoned toys and dishes on the tables, covered in dust. Personal effects like pictures, bags, and clothing, the same as in the Tethras household. Everything had been left just as it was, dropped at a moment's notice, as she imagined the inhabitants of the mine rushing to the exits.

The song continued to haunt her. At some point, she wondered if Varric had slipped the crystal into his pocket after all. It came and went as if played from secret instruments hidden beyond the rockface. She couldn't tell if it was real or if it was the Fade playing tricks on her. When she was young, it had been difficult to tell the difference, but it had been a long time since then. Even if she was tired and had pushed herself to her limits, she'd been able to tell the dimensions apart with reasonable certainty. She couldn't now, and it was a state she didn't care for at all.

They reached the archive, which was a solitary room behind heavy set vault-like doors. Tall computers with blinking lights lined the walls all around. In the back, another door led to a filing room. It hadn't been warm in the rest of the mine, but here it was several degrees colder. Varric's breath made puffs in the air as he walked over to the access console and fired it up. Hawke glanced at the display but stayed by the door. The corridor outside was as quiet as ever, save for the incessant humming continuing to ooze from the walls. She unholstered her gun and held it by her side, ready for something, even if she didn't know what it was.

The longer he looked through the data, the darker Varric's expression grew. At times he would mutter to himself, mouthing along with something he was translating, before navigating to open another file. "I don't get it," he mumbled eventually, "It doesn't make sense."

"What doesn't?" Hawke inquired, retaining her attention on the hall.

"Everything ends years before the Cataclysm. No data entries, log files, reports — nothing. Either it was wiped, or… it was never created." He shook his head and stepped back from the console. "Let's load up." He pointed at one of the tall server cabinets. "Start over there. I'll check the file cabinets."

They worked as swiftly as they could. Varric pulled out files and flipped through them to assess their worth, while Hawke cracked open the server cabinets to disassemble them. It took hours, though she wouldn't have been able to tell in the even, never changing lights. Not without the growing pile of discarded paper that Varric left in his wake or the steady filling of her bags and pockets until they were bursting with memory sticks.

"Enough?" she inquired as Varric fastened the strap of his backpack with visible difficulty.

"Enough," he confirmed. "Let's get out of here." He checked the display on his arm, then pointed in the opposite direction they'd come from. "Infirmary that way. It's closer to the hub than going back the same way."

"Look at you, finding the silver lining," she quipped.

"I am ever the optimist, Hawke," Varric smirked, an expression that faded quickly, "Although I can't say I'm sad to leave this place behind."

Their footsteps were hasty as they pressed on, even if Hawke felt the gravity dragging on her feet like quicksand. It reminded her of a dream she used to have, in which she tried to get away — from Enforcers, teachers, friends, or whatever haunted her that night — but her legs wouldn't move. She'd drag them forward, unable to walk normally despite nothing weighing her down, as whatever was chasing her would slowly, but steadily, close in.

They passed other facilities and empty corridors, where, counter to everywhere else they'd been, the lights did not reach. Varric glanced down each of them, perhaps not hearing the sounds that she was, but sensing them nonetheless. "The mines, I imagine," he mumbled before trying to increase his gait and rounding the final bend.

The infirmary was a large facility, two stories tall, with a lit sign above the door of a blue cross that even Hawke could recognize. Yet while the rest of the lighting was the same cold white as the rest of the mine's, the insides were anything but.

Beyond the frosted glass, a crimson glow flickered with electricity. The double doors leading inside had been shut — not merely closed, but locked with a heavy chain and padlock wrapped around the handles. Hawke halted in her tracks, grabbing on to Varric's collar to pull him back. His body was tense beside her, the hairs in his neck standing on end.

"What in the worlds…" he whispered, quieter than the song swelling to a crescendo in her mind.

It was haunting yet familiar. It promised something profound, something meaningful, something beyond anything she'd been allowed to believe herself capable of. She'd been taught to fear many things. The voices tempting them to greatness. The lure of the fantasies begging to be made real. The power at their fingertips, manipulating the fabric of the world. The attitude that, somehow, their genetics made them special.

And yet, special it made them, and power they had. Much as the Chantry wanted them to think otherwise — teaching them the Madness lay in wait if they ever crossed too far — there was no disputing it. The song sang to her of the possibilities it could offer, of the potential that lay dormant within, waiting to be unlocked. It had been ignored and denied, tamed and tempered. Now, the ghostly notes held the key. All she had to do was reach out and take it.

"Hawke!"

She turned around to see Varric standing behind her. He hadn't moved from the corner, yet somehow she had. Hawke found herself in front of the double doors, hand no longer gripping his collar, but one of the handles instead. She stared at her fingers, clutching the metal, curious as to how they'd gotten there.

"What are you doing?" Varric asked, panic in his voice. "We should not be going in there! Legs be damned!"

Before she could reply, something rushed the door with a bang. The wood knocked into her knuckles, sending an electric pain through her arm that brought her firmly back to reality. She leaped back with a jolt and drew her gun in a single motion. The shadow of a figure — no taller than Varric — pressed itself against the milky glass. They heard it scratching at the doors like a rabid creature, pushing with all its might to force a way out.

Hawke's gun went off — once, twice, three times over. She aimed for the gap between the doors, where a single bloodshot eye stared straight into hers. Yet even if her bullets struck their target, they seemed to glance right off. If anything, they only enraged the crazed Dweomer further. It snarled at them, snapping its jaws, and pushed one arm through the chains. Red crystals had sprouted from its fingertips where once nails had been, pulsing with the beat of its heart. They lit up, crackling with lightning, as the creature opened its mouth and let out a harrowing scream.

On instinct, Hawke stepped outside herself and into the other side. The creature was a distortion, a stain, a parasite leeching off the equilibrium. She reached for the infection's source and drew it out like a poison dagger. In her hand, it continued to pulse with defiance for several long beats, until eventually, it went quiet.

The Dweomer sank to the floor and fell out of sight behind the closing doors. Hawke looked down her arm and found it covered in blood until the elbow. The infected heart, overgrown with crystal, dropped from her hand with a dull thud.

Varric looked horrified as she turned back towards him. "They… teach you that in the Chantry?" he asked faintly.

"Not exactly." She picked up her gun from beside the heart — unsure when she'd dropped it — and placed it back in its holster. "Chantry approved methods didn't seem to work."

Varric swallowed hard. "Quite so."

They looked at each other for a long moment, steeped back into the silence that had permeated their trip. Varric looked like he was about to say more, but the chance was taken away before he could. Deep within the mines, down the forlorn corridors where the light did not reach, a low drum began to play. The tremors pulled through the ground, like ripples upon the water, and traveled up her legs to rumble deeply within her core. The song, briefly softened, began to swell once more, until Hawke could hear little else.

"Run."

Down the corridor, doors and hallways zipping past, bend after bend, caverns opening and shrinking down. Hawke no longer felt the gravity dragging her down, the sting in her side, the scorch in her lungs. Her attention was ahead and behind — one eye on their escape, the other on her companion. He was slower, with shorter legs and a lesser constitution. She cut her stride to stay with him, all the while feeling the tidal wave creeping closer.

They barreled into the Core, higher than where they'd entered originally, and skid to a halt at the edge of nothing. Bridges crossed beneath them, but with far too much distance between them to survive the jump. Varric searched the perimeter, assessing the fastest way down, yet Hawke looked behind them. The drum grew louder by the second, and the hallway began to glow faintly red.

She didn't wait to see what would emerge from the asteroid's orifices. Instead, she grabbed onto Varric, barely registering his surprise before his face was wiped away. She let go of reality and immersed herself in the crowd, faceless and shifting like the tide. The shapes pressed upon them, tearing at the fabric of their existence, threatening to rip them apart if she'd falter.

She moved between worlds, traversing space and time free of physics or reason. A pinprick of light, a beacon in the distance, drew her forward and away from the curling red mass rising up around them. A final push, a leap into the abyss... The last thing she felt was herself desperately holding on to his essence, as the threads of her own rapidly unraveled.

They materialized in the air and landed hard on the floor of Ship's living quarters. Dog barked like mad, bounding around her in crazed leaps, then pushed his nose against her forehead. Hawke reached for the animal, feeling his solidness anchor her like a buoy in a storm. Varric lay face down beside her but rolled himself over. His eyes were wide as he stared at the ceiling, but he seemed to be in one piece, at least.

Hawke mustered the last of her energy and lurched towards the pilot's seat, leaning on Dog as the beast walked alongside her, and dropped in place. She yanked the interface closer and plunged the connector into her neck. Too soon, too sudden, the wildfire spread through her veins and set her senses alight. Her vision blurred as the engine came on with a roar. She pushed the throttle, eyes set beyond the horizon, and the ship blinked out of existence.