It was a crisp autumn morning and Hawke set off for the Midgar Museum of History.

She had promised the curator she would show her how the working of the Ancient Cetran alchemical equipment worked, aka, the standard herbalism kit every mage used. A bag of every reagent she could find hung from her shoulder: she wasn't sure what kind of demonstration Ettie wanted. She was tentatively excited.

She had asked Aerith if she would like to come along but she had turned her down, apparently Zack was bringing her here on a date later in the afternoon.

The museum was an hilarious imitation of the kind of stone buildings Kirkwallers thought embarrassingly dated and were forever trying to replace. It struck her as oddly appropriate: inside the young building pretending to be old were ancient relics pretending to be new.

A cold wind smacked Hawke in the face as she climbed the steep steps. Then the doors enveloped her in a wave of warm air and reverent silence. The crowds were missing today, probably because it was 10 a.m. on a Tuesday.

She approached the front desk. The greeter looked at her like she was a giant spider that had just dropped from the ceiling.

Genesis wasn't here to dictate the dress code so she had worn her regular armour. The swirling globe of her staff's head bobbing over her shoulder seemed to be of particular unsettled fascination to the lady.

"Hi," she started, as friendly and non-threatening as she could. "I'm here to see Messere Ettie Lackner?"

"...Really?"

Hawke choked a laugh down. She hadn't gotten that reaction in a while. She kind of missed it. Of course, she didn't have Varric here to step forward and play the friendly peacemaker to her threatened chaos, so she couldn't afford to indulge. She really was built for double acts.

A door behind the desk opened and Ettie made her appearance, saving them all from further embarrassment.

She looked just as immaculately tailored as last time, in a pencil skirt, matching blazer, and heels that may as well have been tap shoes given the sharp staccato of each footstep, announcing her entrance across the echoing entrance hall.

"Ms Hawke," she greeted, extending a hand. She didn't so much as blink at Hawke's fashion choices. "Thank you for coming. Shall we?"

"Of course," Hawke replied. She followed her through to the back areas.

The historians and archivists were all hard at work today, a studious quiet reigned over the space. A couple she recognised from the other day smiled briefly at Hawke as she passed by.

"Are you a treasure hunter, Ms Hawke?" Ettie asked, not looking back as she typed codes into a door.

"Just Hawke, thanks. I'm a mercenary."

Ettie looked at her critically as the door slid open. "Did you work at the Bone Village?"

Hawke shook her head, unsure of the question. She'd seen the name on a map and that was about it. "That's on the Northern Continent, right? By the Sleeping Forest?"

"Yes. It draws a lot of hobbyists," Ettie said, in what struck Hawke a very carefully neutral tone. "It's privately owned land. They sell whatever they dig up."

"You would prefer it be sold to the museum?"

"I would prefer it not be sold at all. I would prefer the site be protected and preserved in its original context."

Hawke nodded and decided not to mention that she'd pilfered the staff on her back from a nine hundred year old Magister's tomb. In her defence, she was pretty sure he had been a dick. Conservation wasn't really a thing on Thedas, not for anyone but the Dalish.

They passed the store room that held the Eluvian. Hawke resolutely didn't look at it. It was dead, and therefore useless. There was no point getting worked up over it. She felt like it was mocking her, with its broken glass and dragon carvings.

Ettie brought them to a work room where a band of large open windows let in the natural light. A plastic and glass herbalists' kit was set up on a desk. It was slightly different from what Hawke was used to, but not so much she couldn't recognise the function of all the pieces.

Hawke slung her satchel off her shoulder and rubbed her hands together.

"Shall we?"

Ettie sat with a notebook by a camera on a tripod, and gave her a nod. "Please begin."

Hawke dove in.

She explained every step as she went about brewing a basic health potion, then a stamina potion, and a couple of poisons and antidotes just for fun. The process required magic in order to heat and chill the concoction swiftly enough, so she named the materia she was pretending to have equipped. It was a complex process but one Hawke had done so many times she found it meditative.

Ettie watched with unspoken scepticism at first, but it was swiftly displaced by unfettered curiosity. She stood to watch and stare at each process, peppering Hawke with questions whenever there was a lull in activity.

Hawke was not a chemist by any stretch of the imagination and didn't know half the words Ettie used, but she knew how this worked and did her best to explain.

After three hours of work a neat row of bottles sat in a wire rack.

"These two need to sit out overnight before you can use them," Hawke explained. "That one will be good to go in an hour, and the antidotes are ready now and will only become more disgusting the longer you leave them."

Ettie flipped her notebook closed with a snap and studied the end results.

They all turned out rather well, Hawke thought. One of the poisons she wasn't sure about, she'd had to substitute a couple of the ingredients. The biggest issue with the rest had been to not accidentally use Thedosian names. Elf root was named silver leaf here and she was pretty sure Ettie had caught the misnomer.

She didn't call her out, and instead she asked if Hawke wanted to get a cup of tea. She most certainly did and they relocated to the Museum's attached cafe.

"Did you want to look at the mirror again?" Ettie asked as they walked past the store room in question.

A 'yes' stuck in Hawke's throat. "No. No. That's alright."

Ettie didn't say anything.

"I've already seen it," Hawke said, just to reassure herself. "But thank you."

"It is an unsettling item," Ettie said. "I keep it in the side room because some of my staff don't like catching their reflections in it in the main store rooms."

"Are you going to put it on display?"

She shook her head. "It takes a lot of space and there isn't much interest in Western Continent human history, not from that era. I may lend it to a more specialised museum."

"Right. Human history."

They claimed seats in a corner of the cafe and made friendly conversation. Ettie was a straightforward person with no interest in drama. It was nice to speak with another woman around her age.

"How do you know Genesis?" Hawke asked, while Ettie poured two cups of mint tea from a ceramic pot.

"He's a long-time supporter of the museum. We house the world's oldest Loveless manuscript."

"Now that does explain it. I can't believe he didn't show it to me."

"It's on tour, currently on display in Costa del Sol." Ettie took a dainty sip. "He doesn't usually visit us when it isn't here."

"How mercenary of him," Hawke said with a small laugh. It matched what she knew of him. He did seem to genuinely enjoy her company, but she had no doubt he would not be making time for her if she suddenly lost her magical healing ability.

Ettie gave a careless flick of her wrist. "I let him turn a page or two and he mentions our latest donation drive in his next televised interview. How do you know him?"

"Oh, about the same. Minus the interviews."

"Hn," Ettie raised her cup and carefully rerouted the conversation.

They spoke about the cetra, the museum, and eventually Shinra's role in both. There were numerous roadblocks in the conversation, whole branches of discussion cut off by professional necessity. They adjusted their heading as necessary, but it was public knowledge that Shinra had the final say on what could and could not be published. Occasionally they confiscated items or sent Turks to observe on a dig site.

"For the public good, of course," Ettie said, her voice the definition of neutrality.

"Oh, of course," Hawke agreed. She took a careful sip. "You can't just go telling the public things, they'll get confused."

The very corner of Ettie's mouth rose, then straightened out again. "There was a famous case some thirty years ago. Shinra took over an entire Northern Crater exploratory expedition."

"What's in the Northern Crater?"

She blinked in surprise and put her cup down. "Nothing is in the northern crater. Nobody has ever settled further north than Icicle Inn and even that is very recent."

"Oh," Hawke said. She took a gulp of tea before she could say anything else stupid.

Ettie looked at her from under a furrowed brow. She leaned back in her seat.

"Hawke, could you please name three Cetra eras for me? No, I'm sorry. Just name one."

Hawke scrambled. Had they mentioned that in the museum displays? No, everything had been dated according to the modern calendar. Maybe it wasn't common knowledge. The baffled suspicion staring back at her said otherwise.

"The era... of... The Spear."

Ettie looked at her long and hard. Maybe she'd gotten lucky.

"The four eras of Cetra history are the First era, the Second era, the Third, and Fourth eras."

Hawke sank in her seat a little.

"I'm appalled you apparently didn't finish high school."

"Home schooled," Hawke grumbled. "Where I learnt how to make potions from scratch."

"From who?" Ettie asked.

"Other mercenaries."

"With Ancient herbalist kits?"

A polite interrogation followed.

Genesis had warned her to come up with a cover story, good advice she had completely neglected to follow. Ettie was determined to get to the bottom of it, but Hawke had no convincing explanation to offer and was very good at being uncooperative. She put up her own roadblocks in the conversation.

Ettie grudgingly withdrew. Her passion for her job was clear though, she wasn't simply doing a job, she was chasing after something she believed in wholeheartedly. Having the truth arbitrarily withheld aggravated her. It unsettled Hawke and put her on the defensive.

The silence stretched out after her stubborn refusal to cooperate.

"Why?" Hawke asked. "Why does it matter how people thousands of years ago brewed their potions? Or how they dressed or where they lived or what they thought? Maker knows they didn't give a rat's ass about us."

Ettie leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms.

"A bizarre question from someone who spent hours going through every single exhibit on display. Why do you continue otherwise lost herbalism traditions if you don't care about the way things were?"

"It's not because I'm a traditionalist."

"Neither am I. But why should it be strange to want to remember the past?"

Hawke crossed her arms and leaned them on the little table, suddenly aware of why the conversation unsettled her.

Ettie raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow, still waiting for an answer.

"I asked you first."

She pursed her lips and gave Hawke the 'you've got issues' look. It was funny how universal it was.

"The past grounds us. How can we be anything but lost in the wind if we don't understand what brought us here?"

"And what if the past is terrible?"

"That too is worth knowing."


Aerith was hanging off of Zack's arm and grinning widely.

They climbed the steps to the museum, and she caught sight of Hawke having an intense looking conversation with a woman who had to be the curator in the cafe off to the side. She matched Hawke's description perfectly and looked thoroughly distracted. Perfect.

"They're supposed to have some artwork from Gongaga," Zack was saying as they made their way in. He wasn't really interested in all this but he had been game to try it out anyway, since it was her idea. She appreciated him making the effort.

They got their tickets and walked through the entrance just like a normal couple, doing nothing suspicious. Her heart was already thundering with excitement in her ribcage.

They strolled through the halls, looking at displays and offering 'oohs' and 'aahs' where appropriate. The Cetra exhibit was underwhelming and entirely too Shinra approved.

She lingered at a display case near a locked door to a staff only area and waited. There weren't many staff around. She made light conversation about the traditional Kalm funerary clothes.

After a few minutes a young man carrying a cardboard tray of takeaway coffee cups walked through the area and stopped at the locked door. He punched a code into the door and Aerith watched his fingers from the corner of her eyes.

"Should we keep going?" Zack asked.

"Yup! Let's go this way," she said, grabbing his arm and guiding him out of that area.

Zack laughed at her sudden energy. "Where are we going?"

It had taken a lot of carefully questioning Hawke to get the information she needed without giving the game away. Fortunately the museum printed the floor plans on the back of their brochures.

Her heart rate sped up and she bit her lip. The exhibit hall she led them into was empty. She headed straight for the staff only door and typed in the code.

"Aerith! What are you-" Zack spluttered.

The light turned green. The door slid open. He blinked owlishly.

"How do you know the code?"

She took his hand and pulled him through. "Come on! If anyone asks, we're on Shinra business."

He let her tug him along, his mouth hanging open for a beat. He snapped it shut and tutted.

"Why, Miss Gainsborough." He gave a nervous laugh, but didn't stop her.

"Let's go, let's go, let's go!"

"What are we doing?" he asked in a terrible stage whisper. He adopted a stealthy tip toe. She knew he liked to think he was a wild rule breaker. He also thought not paying for the train was scandalous. It was very cute.

She found the door she was after and hurried them both in, closing it after them.

The magic mirror dominated the room. It was so much taller than Hawke made it sound. The spear was more imposing than she had imagined as well.

Zack looked between it and her, another question in his open mouth.

She winked at him. "We're robbing the museum."

"Um. Why?"

"For fun," she said. She could hear her own heart pounding in her ears. "And because I'm the last Cetra so all this is mine anyway."

He shook his head, confused. "What are you talking about?"

She opened a hand and a little burst of creation magic spilled out, blooming in a flower of energy. She closed her hand a second later and the light died.

Zack's eyes were wide. "Holy Planet," he mumbled, awed.

She held her hands behind her back and dropped her eyes, a little shy now that she'd done it.

"Aerith. Is that... is that why there are always Turks hanging around your house?" He took a tentative step closer.

"Tseng didn't tell you?" She looked up. She had always wondered if maybe he had orders not to know. "You didn't ask him?"

He shook his head.

"I didn't think it was my business," he said gently. He reached out a hand to touch her arm, then got shy and scratched the back of his neck instead.

It was impossibly cute.

"Hey." She poked him in the chest. "Kiss me."

He flashed her a smile and did as he was told.

After they pulled apart, when she was feeling giggly and Zack somehow looked even cuter with his dopey smile, she turned back to the mirror.

The glass around the spear's shaft was the loosest. She couldn't risk touching it and cutting herself though. She sent the slightest kinetic spell at it. A long thin shard separated from the frame and fell.

"Are you actually stealing?" Zack asked.

She brushed it up from the ground into a handkerchief and tucked it into her pocket.

"Of course not." She stretched up onto her toes and gave him one last peck. "Silly."

They finished their date, heist free, and had a lovely time.

She didn't tell Hawke about it afterwards. She didn't tell anyone, until she entered the Fade and found the little shard of glass glowing in her pocket.

She set out for the Fade city and looked for the spirit wearing Sephiroth's face.

She still hadn't figured out what kind of spirit he was, but he was surprisingly friendly for the face he wore. He didn't seem to know very much, but he shaped the Fade like it was the simplest thing in the world.

He could also be incredibly unsettling, but that was normal for the Fade. So far the spirits didn't seem any more dangerous than the unshaped Fade on its own. She suspected Hawke was exaggerating how threatening they were to stop her from taking any silly risks.

The Fade itself was getting stranger. Every day there was some new oddity, and terrain she thought she had mastered pulled a new trick on her. But every day her understanding grew and she had a new trick to throw right back. She followed a trail of highly unlikely suspension bridges down to a field full of dead bodies.

The Sephiroth spirit was polishing his sword in the middle of it.

She paused some distance away. There was still a chance that Hawke wasn't exaggerating.

"Hello, little spirit," he called.

"Hi, big spirit," she called back.

He put his sword away and threw his arm out. The bodies disappeared under stone like a tomb. He looked up at her expectantly. She followed the bridge down to his level.

"What do you think of this?" she said, holding out the mirror shard, wrapped in a handkerchief that wasn't fully corporeal.

"What is it?" He gently took it from her, as though she too might be made of glass.

The shard glowed purple, but a second later she would swear it was green. Fade shenanigans. It was undeniably magic and not as dead as Hawke thought, regardless. He didn't touch it directly, careful to only grasp it through the white cotton. He held it up to the light of the nearby city and watched light refract through it in changeable colours and shapes.

"It's from a magical mirror. Can you help me fix it?"

He looked down at her. "What?"

"You can make more… stuff, right?" she gestured vaguely at the surroundings he had conjured. "You made those bridges grow out of nothing. Can you make more of this?"

He raised an eyebrow and looked intrigued at the challenge. He turned the shard around in his grasp.

"I suppose I could. What is it for?"

"It's for a friend. I want it to be a surprise."

"What does the magical mirror do?"

She put a finger to her lips. "It's a secret."

He nodded and promptly pushed it back into her hands. "I don't like secrets."

She harrumphed. "Oh, come on."

He crossed his arms. She pouted.

"It's a doorway," she said. "You step through it and come out somewhere else. Happy now?"

"That doesn't make any sense."

"It does if you say it does." She pushed it back into his hands. "I believe in you."

He shook his head but smiled slightly. He examined the shard again.

"A doorway to what?"


Elsewhere, Hawke stood on the edge of the Fade City, staff in hand.

She'd trekked to the far end of it, where the memory that held it together was weakest. Even the soaring metal bridges that the spirits had started erecting for some reason hadn't made it this far yet. She walked between ghostly towers of spiraling sea cones, magnificent palaces, fountains, and a great wall running around the perimeter.

The whole had existed in the physical world too, even the floating islands. So long ago even Ettie's brightest minds couldn't find its ruins, but once, before the humans came.

Nothing but shreds of memory pressed into the very fabric of the Fade held it together now. If she stuck a hand out it would go through the wall.

Unless she too remembered it.

It was so dangerous. The Fade would take whatever she brought and run with it. You could make the Fade remember something, but you couldn't make it forget. The young spirits would see and learn. That was why she was so far from the others, she couldn't risk it bleeding out.

Ettie's conviction had shamed her. She knew she held knowledge of the past, but she was afraid of it and locked it away from herself. It was easier to go looking everywhere but inwards for answers and judging the rest of the world for not having them.

She had tried to remember that afternoon in the real world. It was more than she could handle. Likely drawn from a mind so overwhelmingly more powerful than hers that trying to do it alone had left her retching blood.

She steeled herself. There was a chance, of course, that she just didn't have any memories based in the Cetra's Midgar.

The weight pressing against her mind's door said otherwise.

She latched her staff onto her back and let her shoulders relax.

She remembered the wall, it's glowing pearl steps, and walked up it. It was solid beneath her feet, all the way up to the top.

She stood facing the city. She took in a deep breath, and let herself remember.

The City was so beautiful. Three mighty islands bristling with towers stood taller than the rest, but supported the others in a complex system of buttresses and supports. Anchored on both sides of the Veil, it shone with colour and life. The river of light glowed like the sun. The walls and towers glittered with shields and the metal tips of spears. Banners snapped in the wind and magical defences topped every tower and the ends of the sea-cone spikes.

She saw lines of Certa warriors, tall, strong, and proud, stretching away from her in both directions along the outer wall. They were also faint, none were in focus or had faces, they were more the impression of people. They stood, waiting. Watching.

She didn't dare turn to look. She kept her eyes on the city.

A thin trail of light sailed into her field of vision. It blasted into the side of the highest floating island with a burst of red magic and a crash so loud her ears popped. The city's magical defences fluctuated like ripples on the surface of a pond. Another blast hit, another and another. The warriors stood unmoved on the wall, but within screams of terror rang out.

The siege weaponry atop the towers returned fire. The warriors on the walls lifted their staffs and began to cast. Personal shields sprung up all along the perimeter.

The bombardment continued. The highest island wobbled.

A dragon roared. Hawke's head snapped up.

Two high dragons, impossibly large, one gold and one red, spiralled down from the sky.

Warriors on the wall turned and slung magic. The siege weapons focused on the two magnificent beasts, but the dragons spun and dodged and soaked up fire without slowing.

The golden dragon shot straight for the tallest tower and crashed bodily into it. It crumbled under the weight. The dragon spun and breathed a blast of fire down onto all the buildings below.

There was a third roar, and a giant serpent rose up from the city. It was blue and lithe, no wings, but it flew like a dragon nevertheless. The red dragon fell upon it. The serpent blasted white watery magic and the dragon's fire turned it to steam. They fought in the air, claws tearing and teeth snapping. The serpent coiled around the dragon, trying to restrict it. One of its wings snapped. The dragon roared and writhed. Its jaws found the serpent's spine and there was a terrible crunch.

They fell from the sky, the serpent unraveling. The dragon smashed it's broken spent body upon the wall.

Magic warped and the red dragon soared overhead, its wing healed. Fearsome volleys of magic Hawke couldn't even identify lit up against its underside and were snuffed out like the candles. It opened its mouth and breathed a line of fire along the wall that vaporised all the warriors in its path. The Cetra fought bravely, with cunning and skill, and it made no difference. The dragon changed its trajectory and swung around to smash into the outer wall's side. The wall toppled.

Another blast hit the highest island's base and in slow motion the island fell. There were two other islands all covered in buildings floating beneath it. The golden dragon took to its wings again and flew in a circle around the collapsing city, batting aside any attempts at magically propping it up.

It crashed through everything below. The city fell. Thousands of elves rushed in through the gap in the wall. The river of light fractured and died. Smoke rose from the wreckage.

The red dragon upon a remaining stretch of wall, near to Hawke. There was a flash of light, a twist of magic, and something Hawke had seen twice before took place.

The dragon changed, and there stood Mythal, queen and goddess of the Elvhen Empire, looking upon her handiwork.

She was a commanding figure, tall and broad shouldered. Long silver hair caught in the bloody wind, half of it bound up in great red horns that reached back from her head. Her ears were pointed and her armour magnificent beyond belief. Even here, at her height, hard lines dug across her brow and at the corners of her mouth. She looked on in silence, her expression unreadable.

Hawke looked towards the city still, observing the queen in her peripheral only. It was just a memory and could not see her, and yet she wouldn't risk looking straight on. It wasn't Flemeth exactly, but from the corner of her eye she could see the broken woman she would become. She had none of the bitterness yet. This was a woman who did not know what it was to be mortal.

Hawke focused, ignoring the goosebumps running down her arms and the hairs on the back of her neck all standing on edge. Her stomach turned. She focused on the memory. It felt uncomfortably like they were standing together.

After a time the gold dragon joined her upon the wall. It too changed in a twist of light, and there stood a woman Hawke had never seen before. Nevertheless she knew, deep in her gut, that this was Andruil, goddess of the hunt.

She was taller than her mother, and bulkier too, her muscular biceps were bare and bleeding. Her skin shone like gold. Her silver hair was braided into a thick and complex plait that swung down her back. Some of the strands had caught on her onyx armour and made it clump up.

She approached Mythal and they embraced upon the wall.

"Here, your braid," Mythal said, gesturing at the strands of hair caught on Andruil's pauldrons.

Andruil tried to wave her away. "Oh, don't fuss, Mother."

"Permit an old woman, won't you?" Mythal said, before unknotting the clumps of hair with incongruous gentleness and yet the same cunning and focus she had observed the toppled city.

"You were hit?" Andruil asked quietly.

Hawke risked a look. The Hunter's eyes were so dark they might have been black. Sweat streaked down her face and through her hair. She looked at her mother with her brow furrowed.

"No." Mythal straightened and crossed her arms. "But I saw you drop a building on yourself."

Andruil smiled and lifted her chin. "Did our troops see it?"

"And cheered at your strength. Well done, child."

The voice was so familiar. A chill ran down Hawke's spine.

Andruil turned away. "They knew we were coming."

"Yes." Mythal looked down the wall, her eyes passing over Hawke. "And still they fell."

The memory lost focus. Whatever they said next was just a murmur and the colours and shapes bled into each other. The wails in the city lost coherence and twisted into the sighs of the wind, before rejoining the green of the Lifestream.

Hawke shook her head, and squeezed her eyes shut. The Fade lost grasp of her mind and all sensation fell away. She forced herself to breathe.

She opened her eyes to the ghost of the Cetra's City as she had first seen it, silent and dead.


A/N: Thanks for reading! Reviews and constructive criticism are all welcome.

Next Time: The Bone Village