Our Ghosts Are The Same

Dragon Age 2

Chapter 18: Story Time

A/N: I have a little time off so here's this.

"I don't like how this feels." Aedan Cousland stood in the middle of Kirkwall's docks and frowned more impressively than he usually did. His subordinates moved back and forth around him, helping out the sailors of the vessel that was taking them back to Ferelden.

Cartier groaned as he and Sienna carried their gear onto the ship while Ohgren and the Warden-Commander watched. "Because you know I hate it when people say something ominous like that and then don't explain themselves, explain yourself."

Aedan tried to cross his arms before realizing he couldn't due to the fact that there was a baby strapped to his chest. He had thought about leaving young Carlin in the care of the Kirkwall chantry but then he remembered Kirkwall was crazy. Sure, Ferelden had been crawling with darkspawn just a few years ago but at least it didn't have a Knight-Commander and First Enchanter at war with each other. All in all, taking the orphan back to Ferelden and back to their chantry would be safer. Cousland expanded on his previous statement in response to Cartier's request, "I failed at the task I was given and I have to return to Ferelden empty handed." A particularly odorous sailor passed by too close and Aedan momentarily regretted being born with a sense of smell. "I've never had to deal with this before. Failing. Doesn't sit right with me."

Sienna dropped the crate she'd been carrying. "Okay, Ser Perfect. We'll hold a moment of silence in honor of your first failure in a minute but first I'm going to ask you a question. I understand why you're not helping us carry your things with that whole baby situation you've got going on there," she said, indicating the slobbering elf child Aedan was holding. "But why isn't the dwarf helping? That's what I would like to know."

"It's honestly more work to get Ohgren to do what you want than it's worth. So I'm letting him supervise." Cousland stared dramatically into the horizon. "My first failure has been at the hands of that." He pointed accusingly at the giant statue of the Champion.

"Hey," Cartier shoved his crate off on one of the sailors and placed a hand on his commander's shoulder. "Don't worry about it. Being married is terrible. Trust me I've been there. Worst decision I've ever made four times."

"Marriage? I wasn't talking about marriage." Aedan made a face like he had just seen something slightly more horrifying than a broodmother. "Why are you talking about marriage?"

"You were trying to marry the Champion. Obviously." Sienna tied to get some of the sailors to do her work for her but they politely declined by laughing extremely loudly and walking away.

"Why does everyone think that? I wasn't trying-"

"Hey, if you're going to get rejected by someone let it be someone with a statue of themselves." Cartier patted him awkwardly. "You'll bounce back from this, kid."

"One, while I recognize that you are older than me you will never call me 'kid' again. And, two, you better get away from me before I come up with a number two."

"Message received."

"Hey. Hey!" Sienna threw the crate she had just picked back up and managed to knock someone off the pier. "It's little miss heartbreaker."

Aedan didn't appreciate the joke but he already started walking in the direction Sienna was pointing at. He should have been more surprised at the Champion's current appearance, specifically the fact she looked like she had spent the night in a gutter. "Hawkling, you look like..." He paused. "Like you've been busy."

"Right, right, right," the Champion responded rather cheerfully despite her ragged and tired appearance. Aedan tried to ask another question but Hawk stopped him. "Hold on, I'm still on fire just a bit, give me a second..."

Aedan took a step back. "What in the name of Andraste happened to you?"

"I'm sort of in a strange place right now," she said, brushing at her robes. "Running from the law, I kind of just stabbed a guy, and Meredith wants my head on a silver platter." Hawke considered that sentence and added, "Actually, now that I've heard that out loud it sounds like a normal day for me but I assure you it was much worse than that."

He wasn't sure how to take that. After gesturing violently at Cartier and Sienna to stop eavesdropping, Aedan asked, "Did you want to talk about it?"

"Yes," Hawke nodded vigorously in agreement. "I do. However, while I've been in hiding for the past few days I heard that you're going back to Amaranthine and I was wondering...could I hitch a ride?"

He sighed deeply. Then sighed again. Thought about it before he gave his consent. "Get in the damn ship before someone sees you talking to me. And then tell me what's going on."

"Well, I hope you brought a snack because this is going to take a while."

Hawke didn't want to think about the irony of the situation. Here she was chasing down a necromancer through Hightown in the middle of day and Meredith wasn't even paying her to do it.

She was scared at how much anger was running through her as she took up the chase with the Red Iron at her back. She had all but forgotten about Gascard, which had been lucky for him. He might have yet lived if he hadn't reminded her of his presence by sending that damned painting. Gascard had gotten away after helping Quentin had not gone in his favor. Mainly because Quentin had died. Horribly.

Gascard was about to join him.

She could see him, running in those ridiculous Orleasian clothes with a staff bouncing on his back. They were gaining on him, foot by foot.

Hawke couldn't resist. She yelled out after him, "There's nowhere to run, DuPuis!"

Shortly after that she realized why Varric told her not to say things like that. DuPuis ran straight into the Chantry and Hawke was fairly certain she couldn't murder him inside there.

Not to say she hadn't used the Chantry as her own private murder house before but that was when it was dark and without any witnesses. Right now the Chantry would be filled with people doing prayers or chants or...honestly she wasn't too sure what went on there during the day. She mostly just stared at Sebastian's butt.

Her Red Iron mercenaries came screeching to a halt when they arrived at the Chantry door. Hawke didn't. She threw open that heavy door and slipped inside.

"Gascard! You can't hide from me! Well, you can but I'm going to eventually find you and set you on fire. Oh, hello, Grand Cleric. What are you doing here? I mean, you do work and live here-"

"Sanctuary!" Gascard DuPuis was standing in front of an altar and was repeatedly shouting "sanctuary" in case Hawke hadn't heard him the first seven times.

"Oh, shit." Hawke exchanged a glance with Elthina. "Can he do that?"

Cousland clasped his hands together and stared at Kirkwall's Champion for a long time. Finally he said, "Your statue looks nothing like you."

"I know. My ass looks so much better than that." The two of them were sitting in the Captain's cabin of the ship the Warden-Commander was paying to sail to Ferelden. "But that's neither here nor there. Let me finish telling the story of how I became an apostate fugitive, then a Champion, and then back to an apostate fugitive again."

He raised a single finger, took a minute, and then told her, "I'm starting to understand why you need to leave Kirkwall, but I can't just let you on this ship. I'd be taking a large risk on my part."

"Maker," Hawke groaned. "Dammit, Cousland. Fine." She slammed her palms on the Captain's green table. "Give it to me. What do I have to do?"

"I think you know."

She didn't. Until, "I have to be a damn spy? I'm going to be shit at that, you know that. Only thing I'm worse at is keeping family members alive...sorry, that was dark. Shouldn't have said that."

"You shouldn't have." Cousland left the table and examined the captain's many superfluous knickknacks. Hawke did this too and moved everything slightly to the left. "This is your only option, Hawkling."

"Not my only, but it's my best."

"Sanctuary!"

"Get away from Andraste and die like a man," Hawke snarled, already removing her father's staff from her back. "Avert your eyes, Grand Cleric. I'm about to make him scream like a little girl and no one wants to see that." Hawke started advancing upon the altar.

"Halt, Champion."

"Maker All-mighty!" Her knuckles tightened around her weapon. Why did she have such terrible luck. "Whoever's trying to order me around needs to know that this man is a necromancer and a dick and deserves my blade in his throat."

"Champion."

"Fine, since you keep insisting I'll take him outside first before I do it."

"Champ-"

"I said I'd take it outside!"

But evidently even that promise wasn't good enough because a second later a metal gauntlet clamped down on her shoulder. Maker, she could recognize that heavy handed grip anywhere. "Knight-Commander, I see you're here for your daily prayers. Was kind of hoping you'd be out witch hunting or still at the Circle or something but now I see that was too much to hope for." Why was Meredith here? She had just talked to the Knight-Commander this morning.

Meredith's steely gaze assessed the situation in seconds. "This is the blood mage you've been tracking?"

"That's the one," Hawke agreed. "He's the one I told you about this morning. Now, ah, let me deal with him the only way I know how." She jerked herself free and started back towards the altar. "With a lot of stabbing."

By this time her Red Iron mercenaries had made their way inside and were lining the walls, arms brandished and ready. It was all surprisingly organized.

Gascard had ceased begging for mercy and was now shooting lightning at Hawke as she dodged and ducked behind pews. The lightning only ceased after Meredith barked an order and whatever templars she had stashed in there came out of the damn woodwork.

In an effort to counterattack Gascard's randomly thrown spells, Hawke raised her staff and miraculously...nothing happened.

Panicked she tried again, waiting for the lightning to leave her fingertips and travel from her arm and through her staff and hopefully into her intended target. That did not happen. And it became clear why. Meredith's templars had smited Gascard, removing his magical abilities temporarily, and Hawke had caught some of the backlash. Thankfully she was familiar with fighting without her magic from her Ferelden apostate days. She sprinted up to Gascard who was collapsed against the statue of Andraste. Grabbing him by his stuffy, fancy collar she tossed her father's staff off to the side and brandished the small dagger she had ripped off some skeleton in some cave off the coast. Almost immediately she held him at length. "Maker, you smell terrible."

And once again she was kept from doing what she wanted by Meredith. "Thank you for apprehending the mage. We'll-" There was a vague gesture towards Meredith's surrounding templars. "-take him to the Circle. If you'll just hand him over." Hawke, if she didn't already know better, could have sworn she saw Meredith smile. "I appreciate this chance to show Kirkwall that we are on the same team."

Maker, that made her want to gag. Meredith stepped down from the altar and, without looking behind her, "We'll take him together. Follow me."

Cousland had started slowly sipping at a draught he kept around for headaches. "Let me guess...you weren't a good little Champion and didn't take the mage to Meredith's precious circle?"

"Nope."

"Are you regretting that decision?"

"Nah."

"Well, at least there's that. Now continue."

For a moment, as much as it pained her, Hawke considered doing as Meredith had proposed. Anders certainly wouldn't approve. He preferred that mages that made such a horrific, bad name for the rest of them were disposed of quietly. Not paraded through Hightown like a Orleasian circus. Really, how hard would it be to just hand the bastard over to Meredith? She'd probably make him Tranquil. Eventually.

If only Gascard didn't smell so horribly. Hawke was not sure she could handle being so close to him for so long. Wait...the smell, though awful, was weirdly familiar.

She knew what it was.

Hawke reached for the ornate satchel at Gascard's waist and tore it open. A hand fell out. A single, unattached hand. Before she could say anything to the bastard he spat at her, "You left his books in that sewer! All that research, it could have gone to waste-"

"And you made sure that didn't happen," Hawke sneered in contempt.

Meredith was saying something very authoritative that the two mages ignored. Gascard tried pulling away from her. "Of course. Quentin's work was almost complete. That experiment with your mother was a disaster, however-"

"What did you say?"

Meredith ordered her men and women to take Gascard away from Hawke, a smart move if they had tried it while their holy smite was still in effect. It wasn't. A quick mindblast bought Hawke a little more one on one time with Gascard. She was really curious as to what he had to say.

"Quentin's experiment failed because," Gascard's face was entirely too close to her own, "your mother was weak."

Hawke slit his throat.

There was absolute silence in the Chantry, even the monotone chants had ceased.

"I immediately regret that decision."

"So." Hawke had laid out everything on the table. "If I take this job I'm going to be the worst at, you'll let me hide out in Ferelden?"

"I know that I should say no. I know that, but I'm going to say yes."