Disclaimer: I own nothing of the Dragon Age universe

RISE TO POWER

PROLOGUE

"In war, Truth is the first casualty"

- Aeschylus

"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad."

- Aldous Huxley

The once great state of Kirkwall had been torn asunder and its Champion was nowhere to be found. A multitude of restless, undying sounds filled the air; cries of anguish from the grieving and screams of agony from the dying were chief among them, great in number. Every so often these voices were stifled, breaking into coughing and spluttering, smothered by the oppressive yoke of an omnipresent ash cloud which hung unmoved over the city like divine wrath. It was thick, black as the night and inescapable. It infected all areas of Kirkwall, darkening every door; a symbol of the war that would bring Thedas to its knees; a bruise from the first stone cast. No man, woman or child was safe now, (death is so wonderfully indiscriminate, isn't it?) the horrors came to everyone, caste or clan notwithstanding. Dark and Lowtown – the lesser 'rungs' of this society were teeming with plague and vermin at the best of times. Now they were completely overrun, rendered uninhabitable by mass hysteria and overnight rioting that the atrocity had sparked. Hightown and its aristocratic residents fared no better. What good were silver and gold against a sudden tidal wave of battle and barbarism? Streets once white and decadent bore the stains of ash, burns and blood. Scores of the dead lay everywhere. Kirkwall's highest point was a smoking ruin, still vomiting ash into an otherwise clear morning sky.

As the hours passed, the peoples' cries and screams became similar and horribly coherent, fusing into two recurring mantras.
'Where is the justice?'
'Where is our Maker?'
Before long, a third chant came, louder and more frequent than all the others.
'Where is our Champion?'

Bradon Hawke was gone, far away from the Free Marches already. He no longer heard them beg. He could no longer counsel them with wise words or defend them with his sword. He could no longer call on his friends and loved ones to provide these services in absentia. He had gone the way of Kirkwall's law, order and piety. Nothing recognisable of civilisation remained. Needless to say, such environment breed opportunism, and when unchecked, opportunism leads only to savagery. Those who weren't half-blinded by tears, clutching lifeless loved ones or braving the shattered streets looking for them while fearing the worst were looting and pillaging what was left. And just who was going to stop them? The Templars? No: their reign of terror was truly undone. Who else then? The City Guard? No: their numbers were thin and their men scattered, trying to find their own families in the carnage. Worst of all, there was no guarantee that Kirkwall would prove able to contain its internal calamity. Whispers of violent uprising spread like an epidemic. Neighbouring states in the Free Marches already felt the sting, and beyond them it seemed the whole world was right on the edge of total destruction, a single . No nation in Thedas, no matter how powerful, was safe. A weak link in the chains binding magic had been spotted, and its captives were thrashing furiously. In the nations beyond, no olive branch would be fully extended. The mages broke from the Circles, the templars from the Chantry and the Chantry from the high esteem and praises of man.

After some time the Seekers came to Kirkwall, slithering through the streets in sinister black armour, faces obscured by slit-eyed helms. Printed on each breastplate was their sigil: a black eye staring from a raging white sun; the bastard brother of Andraste's traditional flaming standard. Upon arriving in Hightown they found the sacrosanct Hawke estate undamaged by the now calmed storms of bloodshed and anarchy. There must have been something left inside worth investigating; as a man who inspired such respect would surely be a keeper of more than a few curious and telling treasures. Only Bradon Hawke knew for sure how this nightmare had started, and only he knew how to end it.

Hawke: an utterance that either brought love or hatred to the hearts of Kirkwall's surviving people. It would live on as a rallying cry or curse; an exalted name to empower rebels or a nightmare to frighten children. But to the Seekers of Truth, the name Hawke was nothing more than an irritant. They needed him now.

Hawke's grand Hightown estate had turned cold and dark as the many secrets it held. It bore all the signs of a hurried departure: doors and drawers were left wide open, revealing nothing but empty space. Books were splayed haphazardly on the floors of many rooms, none of them helpful or relevant to the Seekers' cause. Even the secret passageways were devoid of anything worth the time it took to explore them. In all the mansion's rooms, nooks, crannies and safes, not one coin could be found. Most surprising of all was the deserted armoury. Where had all the weapons gone? And what of the helms, chainmail shirts and enchanted plates as well? Hawke was a reputed collector, user and seller of such things, unconcerned with whether they came from blacksmiths or bodies. Hawke was a known harbourer of apostates and escaped slaves as well (he referred to them as one in the same, not always in jest) and it did not take many interrogative beatings of Lowtown's folk to discover the illegal chain of potions and rune crafting materials flowing in and out of his house like a river of profane lawlessness. More thorough questioning only resulted in further grievances – Hawke's flight had occurred within two days of the atrocity and he had not returned since. Only three of his former associates were seen in Kirkwall afterwards; and only one of them recently.

In addition to what was already done, the Seekers overturned every surface, smashed open every vase, splintered every floorboard, leafed through every book and found nothing of use. Hawke must have been travelling with plenty of coin, for he had left many items of high monetary value behind. All but one of the prized portraits were left on the walls, striking and beautiful as ever.

Other Amell family relics worth hundreds, if not thousands of sovereigns, remained in their places. The Seekers didn't need any more financial backing, they needed answers. They needed to know exactly where he was, who (if anybody) he was working for, where he was going, what he planned to do now. Hawke's twelve hundred page diary found in the master bedroom was a thrilling, if rather unreliable read. And to their fury, its entries ended on the night before the atrocity and subsequent battle.

How humiliating. The Seekers of the mighty Andrastian Chantry – preeminent spiritual authority of the civilised world, centrepiece of a celebrated empire, instrument of the Maker's Divine Will – had been beaten. Outsmarted, outmanoeuvred by this Ferelden-born thrill-seeker and his band of outlaws. He was becoming as troublesome and elusive as his famous fellow countryman, the Warden Commander; though that was an unrelated matter. They sincerely hoped it was an unrelated matter, but the evidence was piling up. This had something to do with her. It must have.

Hawke's arrival, rise to power and disappearance left only destruction and heretical sentiment in its wake. Destruction, heretical sentiment and worst of all: an ice cold trail. With their fruitless ransacking of his belongings over by day three, the Seekers were ready to admit total defeat and withdraw from Kirkwall to pursue the Champion and his friends elsewhere.

Then they captured Varric.

~o~0~o~

For the first time in almost a decade, the soft yet always menacing clink of armour could be heard beneath the Hawke Estate. Light flickered feebly from the tunnels' hurriedly lit rows of torches. They illuminated only jagged, wet stone of labyrinthine walls. A shadow was then cast as the makers of that soft, menacing noise neared the end of their journey. Two Seekers marched down the passageway, each clinging to the arm of a semi-conscious dwarf. His head was covered by a black sack. Their movements were methodical and regimental but hurried, for their mission was urgent and time scarce. So scarce they weren't too bothered about the dwarf's well-being, as long as he arrived in once piece. A few minutes ago the dwarf had come to, struggling, kicking and choking against his covering before returning to his state of placid submission. He was alive and somewhat aware of what was going on. That was good: he'd need that sharp mind if he was going to prove himself useful. He'd need it to live.

Few in Kirkwall would have guessed it, but this small, sack cloth-faced figure was Varric Tethras himself. It was quite a spectacular fall from grace for such a flamboyant man. Varric had come to Kirkwall as a silverite-tongued swindler, drinker, fighter and story teller; a distinctive figure to be sure but never able to move out of his brother's shadow. That changed when he met Hawke. Years of gathering riches and siding with Kirkwall's most powerful man had made Varric the most outspoken and ostentatiously dressed dwarf outside of Orzammar. But now his head was hung low in exhausted trepidation, his thick leather finery was torn and ruffled and his expensive boots scraped against the tunnel floor.

Then the Seekers reached the corridor's end, kicking two thick doors open uncaringly. They entered total darkness with only teasing torchlight from the corridor to guide them. The doors slammed shut again, leaving them all in blackness. A third Seeker emerged from a corner, lighting up a low-hanging lamp that cast its light on a tall throne, fashioned of stone and wood and painted with entwined Amell and Hawke crest alike. Feathers of red and gold glimmered.

The Seeker removed her helmet. Cassandra Pentaghast was her name, and her mission hinged on what this lone dwarf could tell them. She was very beautiful, bearing many marks of the Nevarran royalty in her blood. She was tall and olive-skinned, slender as the knives she could wield so well. Her heavy-lidded eyes were bright and honey-coloured, her black hair cut short and kept neat, just like all other children of the affluent Pentaghast Clan. But blood and beauty weren't going to help her today. There were more effective ways of being persuasive. Cassandra hoped her mind would suffice, but wouldn't shed any tears if her well-trained fists or trusty blade needed to enter their discussion. She motioned toward the throne and the other two Seekers threw Varric into it with far more vigour than was necessary. Varric let out his first cry of pain as his ponytailed head smacked the wood. His small body and nervous posture seemed to magnify the seat further.

"I've…had gentler invitations," he grumbled, voice slightly muffled by the cloth.

Cassandra could barely contain her distaste. Dwarves – how she hated them. There was always an air of smug superiority about a dwarf. Surface dwellers were always deceitful, always ripping you off with shoddy, ill-gotten goods and getting back on the move before law enforcement could catch up. And then there were the 'pure' dwarves, wasting away underground in mounds of nug filth and darkspawn corpses, obsessing over their backwards caste system, deteriorating riches and blasphemous doctrines of ancestral worship. They could at least have the decency to stay in their holes where they belonged.

Varric Tethras was the worst kind of surface dwarf, never short of a lewd quip or handy bribe. She smelled him; detecting overstated cologne, Orzammar-brewed whiskey and more Antivan leather than many dwarves, surface or not, would be caught dead wearing. A black-armoured guard pulled off his head covering, revealing the unshaven, toad-like face beneath. Sure enough, it soon adjusted to the glare and widened into that trademark smirk.

Varric ran a gloved hand over his fleshy features. "Not one bruise," he said airily. "I think I like you already."

Cassandra said nothing. Varric looked around, smirking, and squeezed the throne's armrest beneath him. "Underground treasure den, huh?" He sounded infuriatingly conversational, as if describing the weather instead of bartering for his life, for the world's future. "You know Hawke only had the decency to show me this room once? Once! I knew the guy for nine years and he only let met into the den once."

"I am Cassandra Pentaghast, Seeker of the Chantry," she stated, moving into the light so he could get a good look at her. With one nod she dismissed the other two.

Varric made an awed, if rather patronising noise and feigned a sudden fascination with the lining of his gloves. "Seeker eh? I guess this means you are a real group. Looks like I owe that conspiracy nut in the Hanged Man a drink. And um…" he said, looking around at the nothingness "…just what were you seeking?"

"The Champion," she said straight away.

He shrugged and chuckled, trying and failing to sound confident. He'd seen and survived everything from the Deep Roads to Sundermount's undead, why was this woman making him feel so uneasy?

"Champion? Pretty generic term there, especially in Kirkwall. Which one are you interested in? I know a guy who won the annual Lowtown drink-a-thon four years in a ro-"

"YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHY I'M HERE!" she roared. A new rage seized Cassandra. In a single effortless motion she produced two items of use; her dagger and the hand-written tome produced by Hawke himself, slamming the latter into Varric's overexposed chest and sticking the former against his throat. "Time to start talking dwarf." She lowered her voice and leaned in with narrow, threatening eyes. "They tell me you're good at it."

Varric opened the diary at its prologue and lightly touched the yellowing pages as if caressing a lover. "Okay," he said with deliberate calm. "What do you want to know?"

"Everything. Start at the beginning."

Varric yelped as she twirled the blade and thrust it through all four hundred pages of 'Act One.' Its point just missed his heart. The now ruined diary fell to his knees and then the floor. He looked down at it.

Cassandra's dagger had gone right through Bethany's hand-drawing of the now ubiquitous Hawke family crest. It shone gold, black and proud on the page, uniting her drawings of all nine of them.

"If I talk, will you let me go?"

"Yes," she muttered with a grave nod. "If you prove your worth and lead us to Bradon Hawke, we may even pardon your companions. With the obvious exception of-"

"I know," said Varric sadly. "I know."

"I suggest you take this offer Varric. We'll be forgiving a lot. She began counting off the offences and offenders on armoured fingers. "The permissive attitude towards apostasy by a corrupt and biased Guard Captain, a Tevinter fugitive taking the law into his own hands, that wicked elven mage-"

"Who has done absolutely nothing wrong!" Varric snapped, pointing an accusatory finger, anger making him suddenly brave.

"Explain that to Ser Yoren," she hissed. They had come for the mage in question shortly before apprehending Varric. The results were not as pleasing. "See if that will cure the burns covering his body."

Varric held back another amused noise. "Yeah, Daisy'll do that if you make her mad enough." He frowned. "It's always the really cute ones for some reason."

Cassandra cleared her throat.

"Alright," he said as if there was any choice in the matter. He leaned back into the throne. "It began with the destruction of Lothering during the Fifth Blight, ten years ago…"

~o~0~o~

Lothering's already harsh, treacherous hills bore a new evil. A pack of darkspawn hurlocks were journeying up the rocky slopes, gripping serrated scimitars. They prowled like ravenous beasts, squinting in the morning sunlight and loudly sucking in air through gashes in their gaunt faces. Their prey wasn't far. It wouldn't be long before their blades knew the sweet, satisfying taste of human blood. They reached flat, even ground at last but found nobody waiting for them. Inhuman roars escaped the hurlocks and they beat their jagged grey iron armour in frustration. Where had the warrior and his pathetic family fled to?

"Looking for us?"

This voice was sultry and female. The hurlocks' hideous heads darted around, trying to find who would utter such a foolish challenge. The speaker then made her presence irrefutably known. A huge bolt of lightning streaked through the air and struck one of the creatures with an authority borrowed from the heavens themselves. The hurlock was flung into an outcropping like a boneless dwarven child and scorched beyond recognition. His kin roared again, demanding the caster show herself. Instead they met a far more dangerous foe.

Bradon Hawke leapt into view, and did not even need to draw his weapon to elicit squeaks of dread from the darkspawn. He was still young, with destiny stretched out before him like the horizon during high summer, but Bradon Hawke seemed to have already led a charmed life. He had grown up to be the desire of Lothering's every woman and envy of every man. Rock-hard muscles bulged from every inch of his body, pushing against the constraints of his rare silverite armour – which he had stumbled upon aged twelve while defending a merchant caravan from a giant spider attack using nothing but wits and a sharpened stick. He drew the greatsword from his back. The people of Lothering called it The Empress's Point – it was given to Hawke by an Orlesian Templar as thanks for single-handedly apprehending a blood mage on his fifteenth birthday. The sword had at least two dozen enchantments woven into it. They said it could even rival Aedan Cousland's Vigilance in direct combat. That very night, Hawke's now legendary black beard had sprouted; a gift from the Maker.

Bradon scornfully observed the cowering cretins with brilliant blue eyes. "I'm waiting," he said.

The darkspawn took the bait. Bradon overwhelmed the first in an instant, shattering its face with only two pommel blows. The second charged in, losing its foul head moments later. Hawke cut down two more as they tried to surrender. He then strutted to the last, which was still slumped on the ground from Bethany's lightning strike. Its grey, corrupted flesh was seared, letting off a deathly odour. Locking eyes with Hawke, it howled and screeched, begging for mercy, knowing it would find none. Hawke brought his weapon up then straight down and cleaved its head in two.

"Bethany!" he called. "Come, dear sister."

Bethany moved to her brother's side…

Maker's morning breath you should've seen his sister. She was stacked like a Knight Commander's armoury, and not afraid to show it. You know those tits that just defy gravity? They mostly belong to mages, so there must be some magic involved. Not surprising when you looked at their mother, Leandra Hawke. She must have been what…fortysomething? Pushing fifty at the most. Her hair was grey and her face rather lined, but those tits! Still perky and proud after all those years. It's kind of funny when you think about it; in order to develop that well in the chest area, Bethany must have had lots of milk from her mother. Despite this, Leandra was showing no signs of deflation or drooping.

Bethany was a virgin, but one of those virgins that you just know would be a natural between the sheets. As soon as you put it in she'd probably take control and leave you begging for more. Oh, those girls are one in a million. She really knew how to dress as well. A steel mail corset was wrapped firmly around her tiny waist, providing protection and plenty of support for those fulsome funbags. It added a kinky charm to her otherwise unspectacular civilian clothes. But then again, Bethany could look good in just about anything. There was no taming that long, luscious black hair and no battle could rob her full lips of their lustrous red shade. If Bradon was a woman, he'd look just like Bethany. They may have been the most beautiful siblings to ever grace humble Lothering…maybe even Ferelden, come to think of it. And they knew it, of course; siblings have got instincts like that. Not in a creepy, incestuous way though, don't get me wrong.

Bethany leaned over their vanquished darkspawn foes, showing more generous cleavage. "Scouts," she whispered in the voice that had turned countless men's legs to water. "We will have to fight them sooner or later."

Bradon was unconcerned. "Then we make our stand here." The battle cries of approaching darkspawn swelled by the second. Bradon turned to face the din. "Prepare yourself", he commanded.

Another crowd of darkspawn poured onto the scene. This troupe contained hurlock and genlock alike. Genlocks had always disgusted Bradon with their bat ears, endless rows of teeth and little, hunched bodies. He would take extra delight in killing them.

With fire in his eyes, a spring in his step and fury in his heart, Bradon Hawke charged into them, greatsword flashing in the morning sun. His blade came down, curving with his toned body in an immaculate arc. Magic had placed all the elements on his side and even the forces nature seemed aligned with Hawke; eager to vanquish this blighted horde.

Hawke may as well have been slicing through hot butter. Darkspawn armour, bone and flesh flew apart under his might; frozen and simultaneously seared. Torrents of their black blood turned dry ground to mud. Their dying groans were music to his ears.

"Save some for me!" Bethany cried.

"We can't keep this up forever," Bethany said as a new wave of foes hove into view.

"Tired already, dear sister?" he challenged.

She smiled and faced him. "Don't get me wrong, I'd certainly like to keep this up forever. I probably could if I didn't need to eat. But-"

A third darkspawn wave arrived. This they were pulling out all the stops. Hurlock and genlock alphas and emissaries had now joined their struggling brothers in this hopeless attempt to defeat the Hawkes.

"Here they come," Bethany chirped. "Shall I deal with them?"

Bradon bowed and sheathed his weapon. "All yours, dear sister."

Bethany snapped her fingers, and a great wall of flame burst into life, engulfing half the darkspawn at once. With a giggle and second snap of the fingers, she encased the other half in a spiked ice prison. Ice, fire, storms and spirits were at the tips of her fingers. That's how perfectly awesome Bethany was: magic came to her in all forms, in great waves of power just like that. Who wouldn't want to be Bethany Hawke? I bet even a werewolf could fall in love with her or something. Some people even mistook her for Andraste reborn in the world of Thedas one more time. But nobody should fall into the delusion that she was equal to or better than Bradon. She was powerful and hotter than a rage demon's nether-regions, but she was no Bradon. Not by a long shot. And how do we know? Because there was no 'fourth wave' of darkspawn; only an almighty ogre. Bethany was good, but not ogre killer good.

"Bethany, deal with the remaining foot soldiers!" he yelled.

"Yes, darling brother!" She vanquished them one-by-one with almost lazy ease.

It shook the ground with each lumbering step. Bradon gripped The Empress's Point to his massive chest in concentration as the purple-skinned horror came up the slope. It towered over even him, baring massive yellow fangs. Two great horns curled up from a grotesquely misshapen skull, sprouting several smaller but equally unsightly horns themselves. Wicked little eyes flashed at him, white and soulless. He just saw it as an overgrown genlock ripe for slaughter and would treat it as such. Guided by his sword's performance-enhancement enchantment, Bradon shot faster than an arrow toward the monster and in seconds was over its shoulder, leaving a massive laceration across one side of its neck. The ogre howled, more from pain and fear than anger. Half a second later Bradon was in front of it again, this time having taken off a huge chunk of its left leg. It fell to its knees, leaking gallons of tainted blood which poured over the slopes, tripping up all the darkspawn reinforcements.

"Bethany, be a sweetheart and keep it still," Bradon said as his sister finished her painless annihilation of hurlock and genlock. She trapped it in another prison, this one made from pure arcane energy. Bradon beheaded the ogre with three gargantuan strokes of The Empress's Point.

It seemed the rolling head of a vanquished ogre was something of an attention-grabber. All remaining darkspawn in the area smelled the ogre's blood and came for its killers. Hundreds, maybe even a thousand of them surrounded the hill and shambled up.

"There's no end to them!" Bethany exclaimed. Even Bradon silently shared her growing concern.

Then came a sound that shook the very mountains; a howl from the blackest depths of the Black City. The darkspawn fled immediately. Bradon and Bethany spun on their heels to see this phenomenon for themselves. They saw a creature which to them, had only ever existed in life's most unbelievable tales.

A high dragon was perched on the mountain's peak, wrapped in a blood-red wing but still more otherworldly and terrifying than any darkspawn. It then unfurled, and even the Hawkes recoiled. Countless spikes gleamed from its impossibly long neck. There was a disturbing knowledge in its eyes. Bradon braced himself for the upcoming fight. Bethany found herself unable to move, lost in those nightmarish eyes…that crown of many, many horns…hellfire breath spewing from its-

"BULLSHIT!"

~o~0~o~

"That's not what really happened!" Cassandra snarled. She snatched the punctured diary back. They were almost face-to-face now.

"Does that not match the story you've heard, Seeker?" Varric inquired.

Cassandra thumbed another dagger, this one (currently) hidden from view. "I'm not interested in legends. I've heard far better." Their eyes met. "And from more convincing speakers," she added.

Varric sucked in a breath. "Ma'am, you wound me!" he breathed. "But telling tall tales is my business, and business is good."

"I want the truth!" she said, fingers closing around her second knife.

"I was…sort of telling the truth." He shrugged. "I just added a little pizzazz to it." His face turned angry again. "And for the record, I never thought of little Bethany in that way! Girl was as sweet as a daisy, but…not quite as sweet as Daisy."

Cassandra cocked an eyebrow. What was this dwarf talking about?

"I'll get on to the nicknames later," Varric said. "Thought you'd recognise them from what's in the journal."

"The journal is…interesting" she drawled. "But nowhere near informative enough."

"I'm surprised you were able to read all of it so fast."

"It is a bloated, vacuous collection of poorly-written pornographic bravado," she said, throwing it back into his hands. "We only needed to skim its content to see its worthlessness."

Varric grinned. "I bet you didn't skim over any of the steamy bits," he said. "That Isabela…"

Even in the low light, Cassandra's reluctant blush was discernable. Her fury was far easier to spot.

"The truth, Varric. Remember why you are here. Remember why I've permitted you to keep living."

"Come on, Seeker, what makes you think I know the truth?" Varric asked amid a fit of giggles.

He'd pushed her too far. Cassandra's armour clanged violently as she stormed forward, getting the full glare of light behind her to an almost blinding effect.

"Don't lie to me!" she thundered. "You knew him even before he became the Champion! Nine years, wasn't it Varric? You need to be more careful of what you drop into idle, time-wasting banter."

"It seems my luck really is running out, huh?" he said, squinting and squirming under the glow.

"You've been a lucky dwarf so far. I advise against insulting my intelligence further."

"Seeker, Seeker," he sighed, shaking his head. At the sound of another unsheathing dagger he held both hands up. "Yes, I've known him for a long time…but why do you think that means I know where he is now?"

Cassandra gritted her teeth and turned away, hanging her head ever so slightly. "Do you have any idea what's at stake here?" she said, almost inaudible.

"Let me guess," Varric said. 'Guessing' was a mere formality for one as knowledgeable and gossip-wary as Varric Tethras. He recited the exact nature of the situation, relishing the truth of it. "Your precious Chantry's fallen to pieces and put the entire world on the brink of war. And now you need the one person who could help you put it all back together."

"The Champion was at the heart of it when it all began," she said. Desperation began to usurp anger in Cassandra. Her voice and face softened. "If you can't point me to him, tell me everything you know."

Varric smirked again. "Everything?" he inquired, thinking once more of Isabela's stories; the kind that would make Orzammar's most hedonistic polygamist blush.

Cassandra sighed. "Everything," she repeated.

Varric leaned further forward than he had dared so far. The gesture was mocking. "You aren't just worried I'll make it up as I go along?"

She held his overconfident gaze. "Will you?"

Varric relaxed, leaning back in the chair again. "Then let me tell you what really happened."

He then pulled out an Orlesian-made hipflask that had somehow gone unnoticed. "Don't be alarmed," he said when noticing the surprised look on her face. "You're not the first secret organisation I've fooled with this pocket." He unscrewed the top. "Oh, I almost forgot to ask: is it okay if I have a little drink in here? We'll be chatting for a long time Seeker."

She snatched the flask from his hand and threw it away. Varric chuckled in surprise and disbelief.

"You seriously think I'd poison myself in front of you?" he asked.

"I wouldn't put it past you, no," she said coldly.

"And void my bowels in the presence of a beautiful woman?"

"Get talking Varric! That charm is not going to work here!"

"Okay, okay. I always appreciate an excuse to sit back, screw my face up like an old sage and do the 'finger pyramid of recollection.' " Varric's hands and face formed the very gestures, and his tale began…

Well, there's the prologue. Some obvious references in here, fantasy and otherwise. This will eventually be a Hawke/Isabela fic, but the romance will develop in a different way than what we saw in the game. I'll keep my Warden's background to a minimum (though it doesn't feature very heavily in the game anyway) and I'll also be adding a few more Varric exaggerations, why the hell not?

Just a minor detail: the darkspawn will look the same as they did in Origins.

As for Hawke's personality, I think it's more realistic to present a wider range of emotions and choices along with a gradual maturity (some of the best ME fics feature paragades undergoing an arc). Hawke's a human being; sometimes he takes things seriously, sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes he solves things diplomatically, sometimes he loses his temper. Here we have a twentysomething man trying to juggle protecting family and friends, accumulating wealth and influence, finding love and dealing with having the fate of a city state thrown onto his shoulders. There's no one size fits all option for these.

Rewritten: 15/01/12 following new details on the story from Dragon Age: Asunder