Varric's Version: The Assassination Attempt
You may not know it, but our Champion tried to kill the Knight-Commander not once, but three times before the world came crashing down. If nothing else, it could not be said that Hawke gave up easily. She was tenacious and stubborn as a bronto.
The first time, she diverted the effort because a group of children were playing nearby – how could she shed blood and risk their innocence? Meredith never knew how close she had come to death. The second time, Hawke had nearly infiltrated the Gallows when a cave in collapsed the secret tunnel beneath its walls. She barely escaped with her life. But the third is the most memorable of all, taking Hawke within the private quarters of Meredith herself.
It was a frigid autumn day, and as the sun set on the city of chains, the Champion slunk to the docks and smuggled onto a ferry. Clinging to the side of the boat in the near freezing water, she made it to the Gallows without detection, gliding through the shallows as twilight enveloped the channel.
In her efforts to infiltrate the Gallows ironclad defences, she left no fewer than five templars in her wake. Along the outer wall, an unlucky sod found his neck snapped in her nimble grasp, his body shuffled into the bay. Another scarce squeaked as a rope rounded his neck, the line bruising the skin as she choked his life away. She scaled the wall unseen, creeping onto the ramparts and drawing her blade across the throats of the guards. Over the wall they went to join their brethren in the depths, bleeding out into the icy seawater.
Hawke had modified her bow let her mount a hollow arrow and shoot nothing but air, you see. Into the courtyard she crept, the device allowing her to snuff candles from afar, cloaking her path and concealing her egress into the fortress. Down the same contraption flew a dart, the Crow poison stilting the templar's breath and felling another in her way.
Outside the Knight-Commander's offices, her dagger found home once more, spilling templar blood to grant her what she sought. The lamp within flared to life - and revealed nothing. For all her work, Hawke was empty-handed. Scrawling a word of warning, she stabbed the bloodied dagger into Meredith's desk as a whistle from the hall raised the alarm of her trespass.
In a flash, Hawke was back in the hall, the butt of her palm breaking the nose of the templar in her way. Nimble feet carried her back to the courtyard, a clutch of guards on her heels. She scaled the garden trellis, and was almost away when a bolt pierced her sword arm. Cursing, she staggered onto the ramparts and knocked another templar from her path - he fell with a sickening crunch to the garden cobbles below.
The Gallow's night watch pressed closer, and with nowhere else to turn, the Champion hurled herself off the ramparts, plummeting into the waves below. Mangled and bleeding, she kicked through the waves and survived the night, only carried to Kirkwall's shore by the morning tide.
After that night, rumours say Knight-Commander Meredith grew more paranoid by the day. More mages were escaping, and she was losing sleep. But it wasn't the only thing she was losing - though what role the idol played in her descent to madness is a story for another night.