[ AN: Act 3's final quest has begun. Anders has just blown up the Chantry, and now Meredith and Orsino are looking to Hawke to pick a side. The dialogue used here is the canon dialogue for this conversation, only slightly edited. ]

"I don't want to get involved in this!" Hawke snapped.

"You are already involved!" Meredith said, eyes alight. "You are the Champion of Kirkwall. Do your duty or fall with these mages! It is your choice."

Hawke gritted her teeth at Meredith's words. Somehow she'd always known it was going to come down to this choice. She'd done everything she could to stay out this stupid issue for as long as possible, but she'd known deep down that her avoidance was only a temporary patch. The decision was bound to find her eventually. Becoming the Champion had only turned the likely into the inevitable.

Mages or templars. Who would she help? The whole city seemed to be pulling her one direction or another. Why her? Why did everyone think she was the person qualified to make this decision once and for all? She'd beaten the Arishok and therefore she was now the expert on complicated issues of morality, safety, and personal freedom? So what, she was good at lighting angry Qunari leaders on fire. That made her some kind of good source of advice? It was ridiculous. She was the last person in Kirkwall anyone should be listening to.

She didn't want to get involved in this issue and she certainly didn't want the responsibility of solving it. If she had things her way, she'd jump on the nearest ship with her companions in tow and leave this awful city to burn itself down if it so chose. But she was their Champion now, and Kirkwall's Knight-Commander and First Enchanter were looking to her to step in and do something. There was no more running away now, no more playing this hands-off. The moment had come, and she had to choose.

She looked between Orsino and Meredith, thoughts racing, possibilities vying for prominence in her mind. All along she'd believed that if it came down to it, she'd throw her lot in with the mages. It made sense, didn't it? She was a mage, like them. She should be their ally. She lived as an apostate because she believed the Circle was terrible, and despite the fact that she often thought Anders was an idiot for devoting himself to his cause, the points he made were good ones.

Meredith's overbearing restrictions had only made Kirkwall's more unruly and desperate, and Hawke had seen firsthand the abuses the woman's templars committed against their charges. She hated templars, she'd always hated templars. Even if they weren't all completely awful, the good ones were spineless and didn't do anything to stop things. She got the sense that Knight-Captain Cullen wasn't fully on board with the choices Meredith made, but he was too busy serving as her lapdog to change things.

First Enchanter Orsino on the other hand, had been trying to calm issues down as much as possible. He was seeing the fate of his Circle come down to rest on the actions of an apostate he barely even knew. Anders wasn't one of the Circle mages, but here Meredith was calling for Orsino's Circle to bear the punishment for it. That wasn't fair to them, and Hawke knew it.

The choice should be obvious. She was a mage, shouldn't she should stand with her own kind? She ought to pull her staff free and take her place beside Orsino, finally unleash every bit of power she could at the templars she'd always despised.

So, why did she feel exactly the opposite?

Meredith, for all her flaws, was a woman of strength and conviction. She had the backing of a powerful order and the justification of the law on her side. She knew her beliefs and she was willing to do whatever she deemed necessary to accomplish her goals. One could fault her for lack of empathy in regards to her charges, but blood magic and abominations were serious issues, and it was understandable that she might be overreacting.

Orsino was the weaker party in these negotiations. He and the mages were desperate, backed up against the wall and trapped by the restrictions the templars had increasingly placed upon them. They were seeing everything fall apart around them and were on the verge breaking. He'd done everything he could to avoid reaching this point, but he'd failed to stop the conflict, and his last hope was that Hawke would stand beside them and help save what lives she could in the Circle.

Meredith stood her ground and demanded that Hawke do her duty to the city. Orsino was nearly on his knees, begging Hawke for her aid. Hawke couldn't deny she felt herself drawn to the stronger force of the two. She'd never had any doubt she was selfish, and how many mages got the chance to exempt themselves from the templars' laws? All she had to do was walk to Meredith's side. The Knight-Commander had the upper hand, and as Hawke was seeing the way this would play out, she wanted to be on the winning side. It wasn't Orsino's fault it had come to this, and Hawke knew that, but she'd never had much of an ear for a sob story. Sympathy was not her strong trait, and she wasn't going to shackle herself to a sinking ship just because she felt bad for them.

Perhaps, when it came down to it, she could blame her own personal experiences. The Circle was bad, but she wasn't a Circle mage. She hadn't had to deal with the abuses that the templars were inflicting. What she had been forced to deal with these past six years was seemingly unending hordes of blood mages, abominations, demons, and necromancers. It seemed like any apostate she ran into or runaway Circle mage she was sent to track down took the knife to their skin or ended up as a twisted monster the moment a confrontation turned to a fight. Maybe there were logical reasons why the mages in Kirkwall kept succumbing to those bad influences, but she really didn't care anymore. She was just sick of it.

Hawke looked between the Knight-Commander and First Enchanter one more time, but her decision was made. Locking eyes with Meredith, she nodded. "I guess you've got yourself a Champion."