Our Ghosts Are The Same

Dragon Age 2

Chapter 13: Dragons, Dragons, and More Fucking Dragons

A/N: Shout out to you awesome people that somehow find the time to review every fucking chapter! Mike3207, JordanMathias, ApolloWings; you all rock.

Also if anyone wants me to respond to their reviews or questions, leave an asterisk or something. I'll get to it as soon as I can. Or direct your questions to my tumblr, vault-escape-artist.

Varric wasn't sure what came over Aedan, but the Warden quickly chased after Hawke, shouting, "You can't just call dibs on a dragon! It's a team effort!"

"Not how Hawke does it," the dwarf remarked wryly, before he too took a deep breath and ran after his disappearing main character. Anders, Fenris, and the other wardens all passed him by, except for the dwarf Ohgren, who grunted, "They have an advantage with those long, girly legs of theirs, don't they?"

Varric didn't bother to respond; that would have wasted breath. He simply took up the rear with the other dwarf and watched as Hawke led them down the narrowing tunnels. She was practically skipping in delight while Aedan did his best to catch up with her, despite the extra weight of his armour. Hawke turned a sudden corner and Varric lost sight of her and the Warden. He pumped his legs double-time as to find her again, but when he finally turned that same corner he found that the majority of their party had stopped moving. They were huddled together, all staring at four dark and distinct passageways. Varric sighed, noticing Hawke's and Cousland's absence. Reluctantly he looked to the elf. "Let me guess, Broody. You don't know which way they went."

"Hawkling!" Aedan called after her, the arm that wasn't weighed down with a sword reaching desperately for her. "Stop!" She was obviously not one of his wardens; they would have halted before he had even finished the word. No, Hawke, she kept on running until Aedan caught the back of her coat and yanked her swiftly to the ground.

"Ah!" Hawke went down hard. "What are you doing?!"

"My apologies," Aedan said quickly without remorse. "But I needed you to stop and I'm going to assume you have a hearing problem because you wouldn't listen to me."

Hawke bent over in half, resting her hands on her knees. She smirked up at him innocently. "Sorry, you'll have to repeat that. I missed it. Damn hearing isn't what it used to be, not since the war..."

Aedan had the feeling he was going to be rolling his eyes a lot while in the Champion's presence. "Once again, you're hilarity rears its ugly head. Now, I have some bad news and some good news."

"Tell me the good news first because when you give me the bad news I'm going to cover my ears and recite the dirty version of the Chant."

"Isn't that just the regular version?" he asked before going on. "Good news, we lost the rest of the party. Bad news, we lost the rest of the party."

"And how does that qualify as good news? We lost our backup."

"Because," Aedan drawled, "your friends slow you down. I've seen you fight with them and if you weren't worrying about keeping them from tripping over their own damn sword or toning down your spells so they don't stumble into the crossfire, you'd do a helluva lot more damage."

"You've been watching me fight? Stalker."

He scowled fiercely at that accusation. "No, I was simply walking down the street, minding my own damn business. You just happened to be across the way, spearing some fool pirate to a wall. I can't help it if you're always murdering people all the bloody time. I was bound to run into it eventually."

Hawke stood and crossed her arms. "And I can't exactly help that idiots are always coming at me. Must be my magnetic personality."

"Okay, so, do your friends hit you when you make puns like that or what?"

"They certainly do not."

"Would you consider us friends?"

"After what you said about my dog, uh, no."

"Then brace yourself."

Hawke rubbed her now sore shoulder, glaring at her only companion. He had actually punched her. And she would have been very offended if she wasn't being busy getting distracted by the shiny lyrium filled walls. She'd have to remember to stay away from that. Raw lyrium. Very bad for mages.

The two of them didn't even have time to discuss turning back to find the others because Cousland had suddenly tensed up. Evidently there were darkspawn upwind. How did he sense them anyway? When she asked he only answered very sarcastically with "magic" and then removed the shield from his back and prepared for the onslaught.

As the darkspawn swarmed out of nearby tunnels and cracks, Aedan shouted to her, "You take the left and I'll get the right!"

Startled by his outburst, Hawke immediately ran the wrong way and bumped into him right as a Bronto headed their way. Aedan shoved her aside and hissed, "Your military left!" and went to face down the charging beast.

And, well, damn. She and Carver had boasted to Batrand about their experience with darkspawn in order to convince him to take them on the Deep Roads expedition. But, good god, they had nothing on the Warden.

The majority of the time he used the shield bearing his family's coat of arms to knock the darkspawn back before he moved forward to decapitate them. Once when his sword hadn't gotten all the way through an emissary's neck, Aedan simply tugged at it's scalp until the bloody thing came apart. Hawke was suddenly glad that the worst she had received from him was a punch on the arm. Considering he had now taken to sweeping the darkspawns' feet from under them and then crashing his boot down on their skull, she was very glad.

Though she definitely didn't spend the whole time watching Cousland, (she killed darkspawn, too) his body count was still considerably higher. As he efficiently thrust his blade down into the gaping mouth of the last hurlock, he smiled at her smugly and said, "Told you I was more impressive in the Deep Roads."

"Yeah, yeah," she muttered with a glower. "The darkspawn infestation really brings out the bloodlust in your eyes."

"Thank you," he returned flatly.

"You're welcome." Hawke replaced her staff on her back and stretched. A thought occurred to her. "Hey, now that we're as alone as we'll ever be, do you want to explain what business you have in Kirkwall?" To her surprise Aedan's smug grin vanished and was replaced with a slight guilty expression.

"It's King's business, I'm afraid." He still looked reluctant to begin. "King Alistair wishes you to join what will become Ferelden's first official, but unofficial if the politician's ask, spy network. From what I gather, you'll be in charge of Kirkwall's end. If you should accept," he added quickly.

Hawke quirked her head to the side. Cousland still looked as if he was expecting her to smite him on spot. Which was ridiculous. She wasn't a templar. "Uh, that's a terrible idea. I can hardly recall what day it is most times and I'm supposed to be some sort of agent? For the good of Ferelden I'm going to have to decline that offer."

He openly stared at her. "You're...politely declining?"

"Sure. Yeah. Whatever."

"But you're not insulted that I literally asked you to spy on Kirkwall? Kirkwall, the city that named you Champion?"

"Maker, no. Kirkwall is a blighted shithole. I should have left years ago. Way too many crazy people for my liking. I mean, actual crazy people. Not my sort of crazy. I'm more quirky. And eccentric. And damn sexy. But never crazy."

She was slightly miffed that he didn't seem convinced of her obvious sanity. Instead he muttered, shaking his head, "I've been staying in this hot, humid, awful town for weeks because I was worried that asking you to spy on your city would insult you. Maybe even cause you to try to shoot fireballs at me. But, no, evidently you couldn't give a shit. And, what's worse, you don't even want the job. I'll have to tell Eamon I failed. What fun."

Hawke could hear the resignation in his tone. She considered his problem and was pleased that an obvious solution quickly came to mind. "If you want a spy, Cousland, Varric is the one you want to talk to. Not me. His family's originally from Ferelden. Oh, but don't count on him to do the job because of his patriotic sense of duty. You're going to have to flash some gold. A lot of gold."

"That... Oh, that could work. The Merchant Prince of Lowtown might be an acceptable substitution for the Champion of Kirkwall."

Hawke stopped short of looting her third darkspawn corpse. "You've heard of Varric in Ferelden? Really?"

"Well, he's suave dwarf with a named crossbow and a heart of gold. That shit writes itself."

"I don't believe this." Hawke picked something up, made a face, and then quickly dropped it. "Yeah, well, when I'm done taking this poor genlock's last copper, we need to decide if we find that dragon ourselves or do we wait for our friends. Because I don't know about you but I haven't faced down a giant lizard hell-bent on eating me and my closest friends in days. "

"Should we really kill the dragon, though? It's down in the Deep Roads. The only thing it's probably devouring down here is darkspawn and I'm okay with that."

"Right now I am having trouble believing you were the one to slay the Arch-demon."

Somehow Hawke eventually convinced Aedan to agree to move on without backup. Her 'convincing' had mostly consisted of her repeating 'please' a couple dozen times and then threatening to set his noble blooded ass on fire. She was a skilled negotiator. Aedan couldn't help but think of everything that could go wrong, but they were the Hero of Ferelden and the Champion of Kirkwall. If they weren't safe, no one was.

And he was a reaver for Andraste's sake. Dragon-slaying was his thing. Well, one of his things. He had many things. He was multi-talented.

Hawke dropped a few gold pieces in the dirt and arranged them in a pattern. Aedan watched as she drew a sign with her dagger for the others to find. His left eye twitched. "Are you drawing a dick?"

She looked up at him with a grin. "This way they'll know it was me and not one of your wardens. Unless you lot draw exaggerated body parts for road signs, too."

"Well, we used to but we found that to be a bit crass." Cousland picked a spot on a wall and withdrew a piece of chalk from his pack. He made a few, quick markings on the stone and drew an arrow to which direction they went.

"Can't imagine why." Hawke stood up and looked around. "What are they doing? We've been here for half an hour. They should have at least accidentally ran into us by now."

Aedan was untroubled. "I can sense other wardens. As long as your friends stay with my people we'll be able to find them again."

"Or we can just listen for the sound of Ander's and Fenris's bickering."

Oh, that was interesting. "They don't get along? Strange. Anders was quite personable when I knew him. If you weren't a templar, I mean."

He could tell she was trying to put this delicately. "They, ah, disagree about the Circle."

"The Circle's filled with too many men in skirts if you ask me."

"Like Starkhaven." She bit her lip, the two of them waiting for the dragon to give them some sort of sign to indicate its presence. "And anyway, why are you getting married? I mean, you don't seem all that thrilled with the idea."

"I'd sooner, rather kiss a nug."

Snorting, Hawke put up her hands and gestured to him. "See? That right there is not a happy groom. Why go through with it then?"

Hawke had no idea Cousland could sound so melodramatic. "It's because I have no other choice." When she motioned for him to go on he started to explain until the dragon's shrieked pierced the air once again. "Oh, thank all the gods that be."

"Oh, perfect! We were right in the middle of sharing time!" Hawke whirled in circles, searching for the sound's location. Eventually, after her fourth spin, Cousland grabbed her by the arm and tugged her in one direction.

"Deadly, giant lizard is this way. Come along, Hawkling."

"Hey, Blondie, can't you sense other wardens? That's how we saved Carver, right?" Varric looked expectantly at Anders. He tried to ignore Fenris's furious pacing. It had become irritating after ten minutes and the elf gave no sign of stopping until they found Hawke. Why Hawke and the Warden hadn't returned was beyond Varric. The two of them had disappeared into one of four passageways, but it should have been easy to retrace their steps and regroup with the rest of them. And yet they hadn't done so.

"Yes, I can," Anders replied glumly. "But that only tells me which general direction they went. Not which specific turn they made." When Fenris snorted at that Anders hissed, "If you have anything helpful to say, then say it. Otherwise-"

"Otherwise what, mage?"

Varric shook his head as the the two wardens stood close and whispered to each other. The mage was the louder of the two. "Reckon it's tea time?"

The Orleasian nodded. "Past tea time. And instead of eating tea and biscuits we're squatting down here because the commander's a damn maniac. Our mission's has nothing to do with being in the Deep Roads. Can't we spend our time waiting for the ship for Ferelden drinking and whoring? Not having darkspawn bleed all over us."

"I think Cousland is seriously looking for a darkspawn skull to gift to his betrothed."

"At this point I wouldn't be surprised."

Varric sidled over to them, smiling broadly. "This mission of yours, then, what are the details?"

Cartier replied with a quick, "We're not supposed to talk to you," as Sienna added, "It's so confidential we don't even know why we're here."

The dwarf was undeterred. He looked over to Ohgren, who was napping inconspicously against one of the rock walls. If anything Varric would be able to ferret out the Warden's intentions towards Hawke from the half-drunken dwarf. "Oh, fine," he sighed, though he warned them, "I'll figure it out eventually, I'm good like that, but fine."

"We're getting close to the dragon's nest," Aedan announced. "I can smell it." His nose crinkled in what Hawke pointed out was a rather endearing way. "Shut up. And are you sure you don't want to wait for your chemically imbalanced friends?"

"When you word it that way...yes. And one of those imbalanced friends used to work for you."

"But he wasn't imbalanced when I knew him. You broke him."

"Uh, excuse me, the package he came in was damaged before I even met him. So, that's on you."

"I think that's on Justice."

"We should go after them," Anders announced, facing the third passageway. "I'm almost certain that they went this way."

"Oh, no," Cartier argued. "Cousland has strict protocol for this. Actually, you should know that. You've fought for him."

Fenris turned to him, his expression dangerous. "Then do you suggest we simply wait here?"

Sienna walked over and rolled her eyes. "No, that's not what he's suggesting. But we have four passageways and four wardens. We're going to have to split up. Every hundred yards Cousland leaves a trail marker. We split up into twos, each go down our assigned path and if we don't find a trail marker we'll meet back here."

"And if we do find a marker?" Varric asked. He liked his plans foolproof. And free of words like 'eminent demise' or 'you all have a will already, right?'.

She shrugged noncommittally. "Then stay where you are. The rest of us will meet back up here, notice who's gone, and then we all head down their trail."

Fenris finished for her, "And then we find Hawke."

"And the Commander. Now, we have four wardens and four non-wardens. Pair up and head out."

Cartier was doubting her math skills. "Four non-wardens? Are you counting the dogs?"

She hissed, too low for the others to hear, "We're low on people, of course I'm counting the dogs. We're pairing off in twos so some of us will get a mabari instead of a person."

"Then I call the talkative dwarf."

"You can't just call dibs on a person!"

Hawke was all ready to just strut into the dragon's den but Aedan grabbed her and pressed a single finger to his lips. He whispered in stressed tones, "I'd prefer we have a battle plan before we waltz on in there. Two on one dragon aren't the best odds, even for us."

Shrugging noncommittally, Hawke whispered back, "You take the right, I take the left?"

Aedan made an exasperated face. "You sure you know which one's your left?"

Unthinkingly, she flicked him in the forehead. His surprised reaction was priceless. "Hey, I'm supposed to be the witty and sarcastic one. You are here to laugh at my jokes and tell me I'm pretty. So far you fail."

"You're pretty," he repeated in a monotone, rubbing the red spot on his forehead. "And don't do that."

She didn't answer him. Instead she headed out of the small, cramped tunnel and into the open space they presumed was the dragon's lair. And they presumed right. The dragon wasn't in sight, but it would come back as soon as it sensed something disturbing its nest.

Aedan walked towards a large pile of metal objects and commented, "It's a hoarder. I don't see anything useful, though."

"I'm sure whoever that leg belonged to would disagree with that." Hawke pointed to the far edge of the pile.

"What?" Aedan found where she was pointing and cursed. "Damn. That boot's too fancy for a darkspawn." He frowned and made a loud, disgruntled noise. "Yeah, that's human. Shit. I was hoping this dragon maybe stayed down here and stuck to an all darkspawn diet. We'll have to kill it, then."

"Can't say I blame him," Hawke laughed dryly. She adopted her best Flemeth impression and mimicked, "Darkspawn do nothing for the appetite."

It would be her bloody luck to get stuck with the elf who hated mages for a partner. Sienna had tried to trade for Moira, Cousland's dog, but Ohgren wouldn't budge. And the Champion's dog would only work with Anders as it didn't know any of the other wardens.

At least Fenris stayed silent while she counted out a hundred yards in her head. Sure, he eyed her suspiciously and flinched when she used magic to light their way, but he hadn't cut her down yet. That was something. The way he and Anders talked to each other had made her nervous.

Suddenly he stopped walking. "This is one hundred yards. Where would Cousland's trail marker be?"

"Look to the walls. It should be in chalk." Sienna bent down to dust off her boots and found a crude drawing in the dirt. Is that a...? After a moment's hesitation, she decided to not mention it to Fenris and instead erased with her heel. "Uh, I think your Champion went this way. We should wait for the others."

Hawke elbowed Aedan and nodded towards the large lizard now descending upon them. "Uh, so he's big."

"I think the Arch-demon was bigger."

"You think? Didn't you need an entire army to take that out?"

Aedan shrugged, cracking his neck as he stretched. "I got the right, remember?"

"And I have the left."