AN: I started this journal of Hawke's on Oct. 13, 2014. It was intended to be a lightweight warm-up exercise to get the fingers moving before I dug into the bigger WIPs I had at the time, and early entries I think reflect that. However, as time went on, it became a serious project of its own, and finishing it now has been immensely satisfying in a way I never expected. As always, this fic is completely finished (and available for viewing on my tumblr for those too impatient to wait), and I plan to upload every few days as I get the sections collated & polished.
I will say that the original often uses strikethrough as part of the entries. Strikethrough, of course, does not exist on this site; I've tried to mark off those words and passages with hyphens as indicators, but it frankly looks ridiculous, and I'd recommend reading this on AO3 instead.
For those who've stuck with me since the start of this project, thank you; and for those who are just now experiencing this glorious mess, I hope you enjoy. :)
A Detailed Accounting of the Rigorous and Remarkable Struggles Faced by One Fereldan Refugee in the Singularly Capricious City of Kirkwall, as Experienced by the Illustrious Author
—
"Oh, don't worry. Helping people and killing people are what I'm best at!"
—
9th Justinian. Chilly, but not like I stepped into one of Bethany's spells. Chilly like Lothering in the spring, just before the pond thawed. These Kirkwallers and their tepid seasons.
I met an elf today. Also a group of bandits called the Sharps, and a particularly unhappy nobleman kicking a wall in the Viscount's foyer. I'm not terribly surprised; I've seen him in that corner for a week and he still hasn't had his audience. I wonder if the Viscount even exists. Maybe Varric made him up and we're all just under an elaborate political ruse to keep the guard off Varric's back. Or maybe not. The good news is only one of those three tried to kill me, anyway, which is an improvement over last week.
Anyway, the elf. He's taller than I thought elves generally were, and also not at all the contact I expected given Meeran's note. You'd think I'd be used to that by now. I hadn't planned on fighting a Tevinter magister when I got up this morning either, but I suppose fate makes fools of us all. Or at least of Carver, who decided today he'd try rushing right in front of me as I was casting. I don't really know what he expected to happen, but I told him he ought to be grateful it was just the eyebrows singed off. He didn't appreciate it. Sad.
Still stuck up for me with the elf, though. Fenris, he's called, and despite that Carver's got a head and a half on him they've got the same preference for those great big unwieldy sorts of blades. Carver won't hear it from me, but Fenris is a great deal more skilled with it, too. Not that Carver's not got potential—I can hear Mother's voice in my head now—but this elf's clearly well-trained and has years of practice behind him. A farmboy gone off to war hasn't got the same… I don't know. Finesse.
I just waggled my eyebrows at the page. A shame you can't see it, but that's what happens when you're a book.
And now Carver's asked about the eyebrows. Truly, my life is rife with danger around every corner. Or elves with great whacking swords, I suppose. Anyway, Mother's managed some kind of actual meat for supper—turned properly into Fereldan grey mush—so I suppose I'd better get to it before the rats do. I invited Fenris, considering it was his coin we used for the food, but he seemed rather more interested in picking through his old master's mansion for information about his whereabouts. Whatever suits him; it's not like we'll never eat again.
Maybe I shouldn't say things like that. With as much bad luck as the Maker's sent our way over the last few years, I don't think I should give him any more ideas.
His eyes were really rather green, now that I think about it.
—
18th Kingsway. Sunny as the day is long. Did I mention the days seem to have been getting shorter?
Massive fight with Carver yesterday. Really, I think he would have hit me back if I'd let one loose, and he hasn't done that since I froze his wooden sword in a block of ice. We patched it up a bit this morning, though—he's speaking around me again, if not to me, and that's victory enough for now.
Up to 38 sovs, 9 silver, and a handful of coppers. The expedition actually seems doable for the first time since Varric accosted me in that Hightown square. Don't look so affronted, you busybody dwarf, you did and you know it. And yes, I know you read this journal. I found a chest hair in August, all glorious and shining and undeniably, unmistakably, incontrovertibly yours.
I still can't decide if I'm going to take Carver along or not. Flames, I can hardly believe that decision's mine even after all this time; we've done so much together over the years and now it's… I don't know. It's different. Something stretched between us when Bethany died. It hasn't been the same since.
Mother will die of a broken heart if something happens to him in the Deep Roads. I'll burn the city to ground if something happens to him here. Alas, poor Kirkwall. Caught in the middle again.
-If I let Carver-
Managed to get on Fenris's good side today. We were down in Darktown after a slaver who'd taken an apostate—something sure to have Fenris glowering at everyone involved—but when the slaver wouldn't talk I offered Fenris a go. It's such an odd sight to see someone's hand slide right inside someone's chest, no matter how often Fenris kindly displays it for me. It's a bit like a thick jelly, or maybe a custard: all the skin around the edges sort of…ripples, as if he was cheating at the Summerday festival game where you have to find the pea in the pie.
I wonder who makes those pies here. I bet Mother would love one next year, if I can find one that's not made with foundry ash as the dusting. And if I haven't sunk every last copper we have into a fool's errand in the meantime and sent the whole family to the streets. That's a cheerful thought.
Anyway, there's no blood at first. When Fenris is groping around in a man's chest, I mean. I don't quite know how he manages to feel anything without carving it all up with those gauntlets, but he does seem to do well enough for himself and the last thing I want is an specifically personal demonstration. He still managed to get Danzig to talk is the point, and at the end after we'd tossed the bodies out the open wall into the sea he was actually smiling.
Smiling! I didn't even know his face could manage it without…well, I was going to say without someone dying, but I suppose that's…precisely what happened. Still, it was a rather nice smile, and I even managed to coax out a chuckle when I made some small joke about the Wounded Coast and the Massive Head-Trauma Bay.
Hm. In retrospect, it might have been a cough. If he would appreciate my humor more often I'd be able to better tell them apart. It's really such a waste, too, considering that smile.
I'd like to make him laugh again.
—
4th Harvestmere. Rained this morning. Everything on the Coast was ankle-deep mud. First time it's felt like home, really.
Seventy-two sovereigns. And sixty silver pieces and three coppers, one of which is bent and has an M scratched into the face of it. I've never seen so much money in my life; every time I even look at the satchel my palms start to sweat. I've taken to sleeping with my arms around it just to be sure no ghosts come in the night to pilfer the idiotic thing.
It saddens me to report that coin makes for a very poor bedfellow. It's hard and lumpy and has very little interest in cuddling despite all offers, and no matter what I say it refuses to kiss me goodnight.
Oh, I've made myself laugh. Carver's annoyed again.
Fenris asked me today if Carver was to go to the Deep Roads with me, and I… well, I really hadn't the faintest idea what to tell him. Even from the beginning I thought it'd be safer if he stayed here with Mother, but now that it's come to the moment where I must choose I don't know if that's true any longer.
We're too known, here, and it's begun to worry me. A sister of the Chantry has my name—tried to have me killed, too, which is much more like the Kirkwall I've come to know in the last two years—but she's a sister and much closer to Elthina's ear than an apostate immigrant who's only spoken to her twice. I've even had dealings with the Arishok. The Arishok, leader of their armies, and may I say how shockingly enormous he is even without his fancy chair?
I was a bit surprised to learn Fenris knows their language. I only brought him along because Isabela buggered off at the last minute and I needed a fourth -oh yes that's the only reason I'm sure-
-when did I start heckling myself in my own journal-
Anyway. Not even only their language. Their culture, too, as I'm fairly certain his speechifying was the only thing keeping one of their enormous spears from going right through my chest. Javaris Tintop, the dwarf was called. I must remember that name in the future; anytime someone gets that interested in a profit, they won't be stopped by a tiny little moral objection from the product's manufacturer. Javaris Tintop. More like tin-head!
Oh, well. Even I recognize they can't all be gold.
It's so much gold. I hadn't realized how heavy seventy sovs could be. I haven't the faintest clue how I'm to get it to Varric's brother; if I step two feet outside Gamlen's door with a satchel this bulky I'd be blinking away the blood in less than ten seconds, if they were generous enough to keep me alive.
Flames and pyre, I'm going to have to ask for an escort. Like one of those messengers from the king I used to see passing through on the Imperial Highway, their bags stretched to breaking and their guards bristling with both blades and glares. It'll draw more attention than I'd like, considering, but I'd rather a bit of notice than losing everything before we even start.
I know Mother disapproves. She'd rather we use the coin to take a lease on a small apartment on the better side of Lowtown, just until we can manage something a bit better. She's even pointed out the place a few times as I walked her to market; it's a nice-enough place on the second floor, with windows and walls and a perfectly manageable number of rats, but… it isn't enough. Not for her, not for me, not for Carver, no matter how he whinges about Gamlen's neighbors. She deserves better than that. They both do.
I'll ask Fenris to come with when I walk the satchel to Bartrand. He's got the experience and a demeanor dangerous to frighten off even the most determined highwaymen, and he's squatting near the expedition's headquarters. We'll all win! Unless someone manages to rob us anyway, in which case I'll probably immolate the house out of pique.
Have I mentioned he had fourteen bodies in that decrepit manor? Fourteen. That's a dozen dead people, and then two more on top of that, and he doesn't even seem to mind. He took me on a little tour two or three visits ago at my insistence and every room I went into stunk worse of death. It was almost unbearable by the end, mostly because so many of those Hightown palaces are built for security and not air circulation. I can't imagine why they'd worry, what with all this city's history of bloodshed and revolution and blood magery.
The funny thing is, the last time I visited, three of the corpses were gone. I won't pretend I wasn't glad; if nothing else, it made me feel like there were fewer ghosts watching us chat upstairs, and it smelled a great deal better. I won't pretend either that it was for me, despite the difficulty of maintaining one's remarkably witty banter with the smell of rot in every breath. Despite the fact that he mentioned flattery, with one of those smiles that always makes me question whether I've grown up from the little swooning girl in braids at all.
He told me a little bit about Seheron. I talked about Ferelden and was surprised to find how much I missed it. Surprised that so much of it still hurt, that I could remember the way it looked that morning we fled. -All the beautiful colored glass windows in the Chantry were broken and the bells were lost-
-Beth was lost-
I'll ask Fenris to help me deliver the coin. And when the day comes, I'll ask him to keep Mother safe while Carver and I go into the Deep Roads.
I can't lose anyone else because I wasn't there to protect them.
I can't.
—
12th Harvestmere. Two days underground. I'll guess…sunny.
I really had no idea how much I'd miss the sun until it wasn't there anymore. Oh, well. I paid a lot of coin for this chance—better make the best of it.
I can't remember most of the hirelings' names, but I did meet Bartrand and his son, Sandal. Sandal… well, I was going to say he nearly got himself killed by an ogre, but for someone with such an apparently limited vocabulary he's got the cleverness of a dozen adventurers. Managed to freeze the beast clean through with nary a speck of blood on him, which is more than I can say for myself, usually, and even gave me a parting favor of a rune of my own.
Bodahn was certainly relieved. I'd be too. -That was the first ogre I've seen since-
Carver will not stop complaining. Too cold, too hot, too dark, too bright. Brat.
—
15th Harvestmere. I think. It might be later. It might be earlier! I certainly don't know.
It's impossible to keep track of the days down here. We've been trying to mark it with pinned candles, but they all got put out during a fight with some darkspawn some time ago and nobody bothered to relight them. It's just march until we're hungry or tired, eat, sleep, wake, and march again.
At least it's warmer underground. But my eyes have become too used to the dark; about a day ago we came into a cavern positively gleaming with that phosphorescent lichen all across the ceiling and it just about blinded me. It was glorious once my eyes had adjusted, this incredible spill of brilliant green and blue moss tumbling down every wall and glittering along all the stalactites (C for ceiling, Varric) and reflecting in the pools of silent black water underneath them, but for a while there all I could do was blink desperately and hope Carver didn't stumble into the back of me. At least it'd have been a beautiful death.
I wish Fenris could have been here to see it. It was… incredible. This trip was worth it for that, if nothing else.
I'd still better come home with an absolute wagonload of gold, though.
—
18th Harvestmere. As good a guess as any.
We're close. Varric says the maps put us less than a day from the thaig they're looking for.
I didn't know people could go so pale so quickly. Not that our family's been terribly known for swarthiness, but Carver's practically gone ghost, and it's only been a week. If we had a mirror, I bet I'd be the color of Mother's pressed parchment.
Bartrand shut the door
We've been betrayed. Varric's brother locked us in. We've nowhere to go and something keeps rattling in the depths of the thaig. It's been two days, I think, but every time I sit down to write here something attac
The tunnels are alive. Not literally
I don't know what day it is. Maybe the 25th, but I really haven't a clue. About a week since Bartrand closed the door behind us, anyway, and took off like a shot with that red lyrium idol. Made a lot of fluff and nonsense about "the location of the thaig" and "no competition," but I'd give up a significant percentage of my share to remind him of the campful of hirelings (and Bartrand! and Sandal! who took down an ogre on his lonesome; surely no lone dwarf could hurt him) escorting him right back up to his adoring and wealthy public. Bastard!
First time I've seen Varric that angry, too.
I don't know where we're going. Anders does his best to lead us away from the darkspawn, but he can't sense a damned thing about these Profaned, and they're the greater threat in these tunnels. I've never seen anything like them, rocks gripped together by magic, flinging lightning like little underground storms themselves. Hurts like a bitch, too; one of them got me right in the neck a few days ago and my entire left side went numb. Anders had to drag me out of the way because Carver was keeping them off our backs. Most of the feeling's come back, but I can't quite grip my staff properly yet.
There are no maps for a thaig this old. We can't even tell if we're going up or down most of the time. Mostly we think we're in new tunnels, but it's so difficult to tell. The air's still and silent no matter where we go; if we put out the torches and stepped ten paces we'd lose each other in the dark. I keep waking up during the night or—whatever it is when we sleep now—just to make sure Carver's still here.
I don't know where we're going. I don't know. Andraste, please let me lead them the right way.
—
1st Firstfall.
The last candle's burning as I write this. We had a week's worth of candles with us when Bartrand betrayed us, but we made it stretch. I think. Thank the Maker for his curse, because if I couldn't call flame we'd be totally blind. We're running low on rations as it is. A few days more and I'll be testing the edibility of that glowing lichen. Who knows? I might come out of this looking like Fenris after all.
I wonder sometimes what's happening on the surface. We were due back days ago. I wonder if anyone's worried. I wonder what Bartrand said to his business associates.
I wonder if he's bothered to tell Mother, or if he's going to let her just wait for days and weeks and months until she realizes we won't be coming back.
-I'm so sorry-
It's getting colder.
—
5th Firstfall, 9:31 Dragon. King Alistair and his Warden Queen rule in Denerim. The Fifth Blight ended almost a year ago. The day, perhaps, is a guess; I hope you will excuse the rest.
This is the last will and testament of Euphemia Marian Hawke, daughter to Malcolm (deceased) and Leandra (née Amell) of the same, sister to younger brother Carver Hawke and younger sister Bethany Hawke (deceased).
I don't know how you've found this. I suppose like any of us do, by stumbling across some lucky cache or a block just slightly out of place to reveal the note or journal or miraculously preserved clue hidden within. I hope I died in a dignified manner. While I suppose the choice of it lies with you, reader, I do pray you find in your heart the pity to prevaricate on behalf of one who cannot do so for herself any longer.
My party, if you find our bones scattered about, is made of four: a dwarf, Varric Tethras; Anders, an apostate Grey Warden; my -I can't do this- my younger brother, Carver—probably the one next to the rusty greatsword, because even in death he'll be one of the most bloody stubborn people you'll ever meet in your life; and myself, human woman, aged 25 and some months.
We were betrayed by Varric's older brother Bartrand, heir of the exiled dwarven house of Tethras. We were here to seek our fortune after the Blight chased my family from Ferelden; when we found it he sealed us in. We've been trying to find a path to the surface for weeks and still we have made no progress. The Profane block us at every turn; shades come with them, seeping out of the dark. You must know, if you've found this. I hope you've had better luck against them than we.
We are all but out of food. Carver is sick, for all he denies it. He never got his color back, and he's begun coughing something wet and thick that water can't ease. Neither Anders nor I can heal him. We don't know why.
I have never begged for anything before, stranger, but I beg you: please take this journal to my mother. Leandra Hawke may live in Kirkwall still; look for her or my uncle Gamlen Amell, her brother, who at the time of this writing lives in Lowtown two hexes east of the alienage. He'll be the one with all the debt collectors at his door.
I've never written a will before. I don't know what to say. All that I have goes to my mother. And Mother, if you're reading this, -I'm sorry-
-I'm so sorry-
-Carver, I wanted to protect-
-I wish I could see-
-Tell Toby I would have come back-
I love you. I'm sorry for everything. Please look after my friends if you can. Merrill's in the alienage—she'll be all right, but make her eat something more than what she makes herself if you get the chance. That water's not healthy. Isabela needs a mother once in a while, even if she won't say it. Aveline needs a friend, and let her mother you if you can bear the reversal. Tell Fenris -I would have-
Tell Fenris to watch his back. Don't let him live alone forever.
We're out of food. This is the last tunnel, whether we want it or not.
—
10th Firstfall
WE FOUND A DOOR AND FOOD
I CAN SMELL FRESH AIR
There was a wraith like the wildest demon of the Fade guarding it and we just barely won I've got the blackest eye you've ever seen but gold so much gold it'll take us weeks to carry it all out and jewels and some ancient dwarven artifacts like nothing we've ever heard of before my hands are still shaking
there were nugs, just a small warren, but FOOD we killed them Varric's such a shot and I can't breathe for joy
We're no more than a day from the surface, Varric thinks, as if we can trust a dwarf without a speck of stone sense, but he thinks that's why it was getting colder! And Carver wants me so I'll get back to this in a moment
Carver's sick
—
18th Firstfall.
The Wardens took Carver on 12th Firstfall, 9:31 Dragon. I'm home, now, in Lowtown, with Mother's proper calendar laid out in front of me so I can count back the days.
The expedition was supposed to last three weeks. We were underground thirty-three days.
Varric thinks my share of our find will come out to nearly nine thousand sovereigns. Maybe more.
The Wardens took Carver on 12th Firstfall. I had to tell Mother.
Varric said he'd tell everyone we were alive, and that Carver wouldn't be coming back.
The Wardens took Carver [here, the ink has bled together, as if the page has been accidentally smudged by something wet].