Summary:

Canon takes a brick in the face by the name of Carver Hawke.

Or: The "modern character in Thedas" trope done a liiiittle differently. Maker have mercy on us all.

Or: I can't find a fic where the transmigrated modern figure in Thedas actually massively changes canon from DAO to DAI, so I write it myself.

Tags:

Not-really-reborn-SI!Carver, Misunderstandings, I love all DA characters & I mean EVERYONE, Even nameless side characters, No romance but possible slow-burn found family, Modern Character in Thedas

A/N:

Carver is an unreliable narrator, as he only shares what he notices and deems important for us to know. We won't get all that is happening around him, or all of what he's thinking. Prepare to read between the lines, hehe.

The changes will be slow at first, so bear with me. At the end of the day, my intention is to see how thoroughly someone can shatter canon while still making the timeline easy to follow. Enjoy the ride!


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One day, Garrett accidentally broke a plate.

He shrugged with a helpless smile. "Bethany suddenly grabbed my ankle. She surprised me."

Leandra scolded her son. "Bethany is my baby girl, don't you blame her." The young mother picked up her only daughter and held her against her chest. The distracted toddler, already forgetting the brief exchange, giggled and hugged her mother back, playing with Leandra's hair. Bethany's twin sat on the ground with his small wooden toy and silently watched the girls of the Hawke family disappear to the next room to check on the laundry.

Garrett scuffed his foot with a mutter. "Mother coddles her too much."

Garrett was six years old and learning. He had gone from being the only mage child to not even the only mage, and was coming to the realisation that sharing his parents' attention was a reality he'd have to commit to for longer than he realised. For the rest of his life, in fact. "Forever" was a shapeless impression difficult to grasp for a six-year-old.

Carver's existence didn't help any. When Malcolm returned home from trading in the market, he scooped up the youngest male addition to the family and bounced him on his knee.

"You know why I named you Carver, my boy?" That was a term previously exclusive to Garrett. "I named you after the brave and open-minded man who saved my life. I know you'll grow up to be just like him."

The Hawke children would quickly forget these events when they'd grow older. Bethany would view her family as good as the goodness shown to her when she was little, even as Bethany couldn't place why she expected to be treated well. Garrett would find meaning in his magic, an attribute in which Malcolm saw parallels between his own talent as a young mage with Garrett's even greater potential, drawing the Hawke patriarch's attention while Garrett couldn't explain why he was pleased by it, only that it was expected. Carver would be shaped by his present more than his past - a grey space in his memory where nothing stood out except everyone else in his family. He would forget the significance of his name, except that he was meant to be brave and open-minded even though he inwardly didn't feel deserving of being called either.

Such was the natural progression of youth.

If only Carver wasn't fated to be the black sheep of the family.

Because in the first month of his life, Carver had rolled over in his sleep as a babe and breathed his last, before someone else breathed in. Someone else had their own name, their own family, their own forgettable childhood. Someone else was always the first to step forward and apologise in the family, and hated it, but hated tension in the family more. Someone else desired to be their own person without the shackles of expectation - to be the "kind one," and then to be nothing - and believed that if given the chance at a second life, a fraction more of their potential would at least shine through.

Someone else was miserable to be reduced to the youngest son of another person's family.

Carver was a quiet boy, always watching and observing. He was, in fact, the only one to do so, and thus no one in the Hawke family shared the note of their neighbours that Carver was Quiet For His Age. Or the note of the neighbourhood children that Carver was Weird. Or the note of the local Chantry sisters that Carver was unusually Dedicated to Learning of the Maker.

When Carver displayed interest in the Templars' lifestyle, however, the Hawke family noticed and intervened.

"I'll support whatever path you take," Malcolm Hawke said, "except this one."

Carver was more than just Carver. "Who did you name me after, father?"

"Ser Maurevar Carver," Malcolm returned without missing a beat. "Someone you aren't ready to be yet. You're still young, my boy."

So Carver took up the way of the wooden sword and practised it in Lothering's backyard, where Malcolm didn't bring his mage children to practice and where everyone else's children noted that Carver was Not Good Enough to be a Templar, and laughed. The Chantry sisters told Carver that the Maker had a path for everyone, and his could equally be serving his family in a capacity yet unseen, or setting an example for them by still pursuing the Templar order when he grew older. The local Knight-Captain knew that Carver was More Hard-Working than Half the Bloody Recruits and promised him a place in the order if the time came, but explicitly stated that it wasn't a man's place to get between a father's decision and a son, and that Carver would ultimately have to work out his own way to the order before he'd be able to claim it.

Carver didn't mind. He'd look back on his earliest years as a Hawke and tell himself he didn't mind, compared to what followed.

The prettiest girl of Lothering decided to claim him as her friend.

Pretty, in the sense of her face. For everything else reminded Carver too strongly of a family who always thought they were right, and even then they still loved their own unconditionally. Peaches only shared the former similarity. Peaches was an inescapable existence that Carver could grow to tolerate like one could come to accept a rock in their shoe.

"I'm Carver's friend."

Malcolm and Leandra Hawke smiled and nodded at the girl at the front door, and shot Carver a raised brow paired with the smile tilting and gaining meaning. Already, due to Peaches' face, people whose opinions Carver cared about were misunderstanding.

"You're a very pretty girl, my dear," Leandra greeted and bent down to Peaches' height. "Why are you here for Carver?"

"We're supposed to play in the woods together," Peaches replied, unaware of herself, of the misunderstandings that rippled in her wake. "Carver was late. The boys are wondering where he is."

Carver intervened. "I don't play with you." He swung his wooden sword in the town's outskirts, and the rest of the kids would watch or jab at him with a stick to evoke a reaction, like he was a stray cat. Peaches included. When she did, the boys were more motivated to imitate her, and pushed Carver around.

If Carver were to claim a friend out of anyone who would have been in primary school where he was from, it would be the children who were already promised to the Templars. They regularly studied in the abbey - not just the Chant of Light, but the history of the Chantry at its best and worst, and what it meant to be the same Chantry's firm hand in the realm of magic and demons. Those children teased and played like the children they were, but they were also aware of their life's solemn purpose and, due to their forcibly maturing hearts, never stepped too far in their jests. Indeed, the worst infraction they could commit against the Chantry Mother was to fall asleep during lessons. Carver and them often crossed paths between the Chantry and the Templar salles, and had developed an amiability over time. Before Malcolm and Leandra had banned Carver from the Templar grounds, Carver had sparred with them when he could.

Leandra scolded him, observing only his words. "Carver!" She turned to Peaches. "My son is stubborn, as all boys are. You two have fun."

Carver didn't want to train in the woods - not now that Peaches had deemed herself his escort, and that Malcolm and Leandra would think poorly of him if he further expressed disinterest in Peaches. As if he had an obligation to any pretty girl they saw. Yet he left with Peaches anyway, then ditched her with her usual clique of girls. He spent the rest of the day in the Chantry.

Garrett laughed. "I heard from Father that you ran away from a girl."

Bethany wasn't laughing. "I heard you made her cry."

"Peaches is used to getting her way," Carver pointed out. "She didn't even notice I had left her side until an hour into chatting with the girls."

"Father had to pause our magic lessons to apologise to Peaches' father," Bethany shared. She was conveying the perceived gravity of Carver's mistake.

"From what I heard of her short memory, Peaches will get over it," Garrett reasoned. "Just don't make any more girls cry, brother." Garrett was telling Carver not to disrupt the mage children's time with their father.

Carver thought of the Templars, of their lessons, and of the quiet words Malcolm and Leandra would impart with him when the amiable Garrett would lose his temper on Carver without warning, or when the usually brave Bethany would hold tightly to the family and confess she was scared of the dark. The Hawke mages felt strongly. They feared, hated, and loved strongly. Which was why Leandra and Carver had to step forward first and be the balance, to strongly love in return.

A firm love.

"I'm going to avoid Peaches anyway," Carver said. "Your magic lessons should be safe." They were important.

Unfortunately, Peaches grew determined.

She employed the voluntary assistance of the boys who sought her opinion, and cast a net over Lothering for Carver. Media entertainment didn't exist in Thedas, and Peaches liked observing drama. She liked involving herself in the circles of secrets that children created to feel special - even if it was as inconsequential as a secret hiding place - and she was used to others feeding her whatever she asked for. Carver's behaviour was a defiance against the accepted rule that Peaches always got her way, and the girl didn't want her peers to catch on to the rule's fragility. So the boys sought to locate and deliver Carver to Peaches, and Carver made a secret hiding place out of the Chantry. Even should he be found, the Chantry's solemn interior would discourage the wildness out of his pursuers.

Carver became unusually pious.

It should have been expected with how much time he spent in the Chantry, but he still surprised himself, how faithful he was. Carver could credit the effectiveness of repeated exposure, but he also knew about dialogue trees, talent points, and save files. The world should have been small. Containable, like it could fit in a box. Yet his faith grew, pointing out that his apathy to the possible existence of a higher power hadn't stopped it from delivering him into a second life. Carver allowed himself to call it the Maker. It was an inadequate label for something that was beyond Carver's reach yet continuously affecting him in the most intimate level, and it wasn't exactly the creator the Chantry described. But a verse from the Chant of Light would sometimes leap out to Carver and offer comfort, and he'd allow his heart to soften and hear the voice of the one who had given him a second chance even when he hadn't deserved it. As possibly the only like of his kind, Carver felt less lonely.

Spending all his time in the Chantry became easier.

Peaches eventually snapped.

"I'm here for Carver," she said, after showing up at the Hawke's front door first thing in the morning, not giving Carver the chance to sneak past. "He's supposed to—" The rest of Peaches' declaration died when the rest of the door swung open to reveal Garrett.

Likewise, the older Hawke brother was startled by Peaches. She had fair hair like cornsilk as opposed to the Hawke family's black and blacker heads, and every strand of her hair picked up with the wind when it blew.

"I'm Garrett," he said on auto-pilot. "I don't know about Carver, but I can do it."

"I haven't said anything." Peaches was pleasantly surprised.

It didn't matter. Garrett could do everything better than Carver. It wasn't a matter of pride, just fact. "I don't feel like studying today, father. May I play?" He declared this to Malcolm, who was catching up to the door, and farther back, to Carver and Bethany who were peeking around the corner.

Carver was pleased. He could finally spend time with Bethany, his born twin and most thoughtful sibling. In a way, she could have been the other half of someone else before they had become Carver, the youngest Hawke son who didn't have to be the "kind one." Bethany also wanted to play with the less troublesome girls of the town, and Carver would happily join them.

And so it was.

Because Carver was no longer the most pleasant-looking boy that Peaches knew, which was unexpected. Garrett had indeed been the most handsome baby to be born in Lothering, but Carver hadn't translated Peaches' obsessiveness to a crush that Peaches herself hadn't understood until she was ten, and Garrett was ten, and Peaches was chasing Garrett around with less boy followers. Bethany's girl friends informed Carver as much, particularly of his symmetrical looks. They had apparently been too shy to pursue him, and by now were already interested in someone else or themselves. Carver didn't mind and let Bethany make her own friends while he spent his time subdued in the local abbey, telling himself that it would have been strange for an old soul to befriend youngsters anyway.

Peaches had trained them well.

Sometimes, Carver wished he could hate this girl, who dragged her fingers through everyone's life - even unintentionally - and left permanent evidence of her existence behind.


The dynamics of their generation didn't change for the next eight years.

Garrett swept up those around him with his charisma, easily drawing out the best of others, even Peaches. He also wielded a stick better than anyone else, which eventually became a staff - to few other's knowledge - and soon Peaches' hold on the rules of the world dissolved under Garrett's:

Namely, that Garrett could do anything the kids knew that Carver could do, and better.

That Garrett was as kind as Bethany, but more mischievous.

Which meant that Garrett was more fun than both of them combined.

Besides, Garrett was also the Hawke child who spent the most time out with people. Bethany couldn't keep up with Garrett's fast-paced studying of magic - because of course Garrett was a genius - and thus stayed home with Malcolm for more of the day than Garrett did. Carver was always in the Chantry, drawn to the Templar sparring ground but never stepping foot in it. People still liked Bethany - adored her, with her dimpled smile and genuine laughter - but oddly enough, people couldn't come to like Carver. He was persistently Weird. Swinging a sword alone and talking to himself kind of weird. Whenever someone proposed that he was suffering from an inferiority complex, he'd be so shocked he'd snap at them with the bluster of the North Wind.

"I'm sure your brother is bad at something," a Chantry sister pointed out. "Let me think…."

"Don't." Carver twitched. "Leave my brother alone."

He'd respond similarly if the subject were Bethany, but no one tried to think ill of her, so they never heard Carver defend her. To them, he could only ever seem to talk about his older brother to whom he couldn't compare. Then Carver would return to swinging his sword, or kneeling before a carved figure of Andraste, and people would draw their own conclusions.


Of course, eight years meant eight birthdays. Then the dynamics changed, starting with the Hawke family.

"You can't," Garrett declared.

Carver wanted to join the king's army. Training started as early as age fifteen, and Carver was on the cusp of it.

"You can't go where I can't follow," Garrett persisted. "I'm your older brother. I have to watch over you."

"I don't need you to," Carver returned. "When have you ever—"

"You're always hiding somewhere, reading a book or swinging a sword! When would I have the opportunity—!"

"You'd have to go very far," Bethany stepped in, eyes wide. "The king's army trains near Denerim, and that touches the northern coast."

I'm scared of the dark, Bethany used to whisper, when she and Carver used to share a room. If I'm too scared, will I become a demon? Will you stop me?

You don't have to be scared, Carver had promised. Not while I'm around.

Carver nodded to Bethany. "You'll have Garrett."

This displeased their parents for some reason. "Carver, this isn't the time for your unfounded sense of inferiority!" Their voices overlapped with Malcolm's staccato and Leandra's sordino:

"Your siblings are mages, and they haven't completed their Harrowing yet. Family needs to stick together."

"My baby boy in Denerim? Ohhh…!"

Carver held his mother's hands and looked to his father. "I can't swing a sword outside the Templar grounds or meditate in the Chantry anymore. I have to do something or I'll go crazy."

His family wouldn't understand exactly what he was confessing.

No one in Thedas would.

Malcolm slumped, thinking about his stern words to his son years ago, and another Carver. He turned to his wife. "I'm sorry, Leandra, but I can't accept the Templar order here just yet…."

She whipped her head. "So the alternative is to send our son to the north!? Look at him, Malcolm, he has Amell-blue eyes! Why do you think we've run all this way to the back-end of Ferelden!?"

"I want to properly learn swordsmanship," Carver interrupted.

Leandra played with her hands within the cradle of Carver's palms. He couldn't feel guilty. "If this were Kirkwall, I could find someone easily…."

Malcolm's hand fell on his wife's. "That close to the royal palace, I'd be surprised if Carver wasn't safe."

Garrett and Bethany slowly caught up.

"Father!" Garrett gaped. "What happened to family!?"

Malcolm winced, his tone softening. "My boy, this is more— when you're older—" He scrubbed his face and sighed. "Carver wishes to be free."

Garrett exploded. "And I can't!?"

Leandra's eyes widened. "Are you discontent with something, Garrett?"

"No, but that's not the point!" Garrett spluttered. "Carver doesn't have to live far away, so why would he!?"

The Hawke mages felt strongly.

Carver stepped in before Garrett could catch his breath. "Thank you, father, mother."

Garrett turned on him, ambushed. "Brother, why would you— Do you not—love us?"

"I'm leaving tomorrow morning," Carver continued, "with the main trade caravan." Else he didn't think he'd be able to leave.


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A/N: Good is not soft, and old baby boy is socially awkward :V

Please kudos and comment!

!Spoiler Alert!

Edit: I just learned that Leandra says Carver is 18, not 20 by the time of DA2. Events in chapters 13-27 are occurring about a year ahead of canon, but some lines don't land when the subject is 17 years old. I've thus updated chapters 13-27 and replaced Carver's current age with 18. Let's pretend Carver has been 18 for more than a year now... Woops.

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