Chapter Eleven: The Will
Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Age.
After finally shaking Sebastian for the day and making plans to meet up with everybody else the next day once he had left, the three Hawke siblings returned to their home for the evening and walked into an argument already well in progress.
"You don't even care, do you?" Leandra accused. "My children have been in servitude for a year to cover your debts and they should be nobility!"
Gamlen snorted. "Please. Your daughters are mages and they make no secret of this fact. They'll never be nobility."
"No one seems to have noticed anything odd about them!" Leandra insisted. "And that's not the point. The point is that you've made a mess of things and have destroyed our family!"
"Excuse me?" Gamlen asked coldly. "I destroyed our family? I wasn't the one who turned my back no the Comte de Launcet and ran off with a Ferelden apostate. Tell the truth, sister: if it hadn't been for that damn Blight, would you have ever come back here? You can't walk away for twenty-five years and start judging me for what I've done with the inheritance you abandoned."
"I can when you lost everything and couldn't even get five refugees into the city without slave labor being involved," Leandra argued. "I want to see the will. I need to see that our parents really left everything to you and you had a legal right to destroy all of it."
"Of course they left everything to me!" Gamlen insisted, his voice suddenly much higher. "After all, what good would leaving it to you do? You weren't coming back anytime soon."
"You're lying, aren't you?" Bethany demanded suddenly.
Carver and Emma stared at her in surprise.
"How dare you-" Gamlen started to say.
"Where's the will? I want to see it, too," Bethany announced.
"Well you can't," Gamlen said shortly. "I left it in the old estate and we don't live there anymore. We can't even go there without trespassing and that's really the last thing any of us need."
"Wait," Carver said incredulously. "You just left it there?"
"Yeah, why not?" Gamlen asked defensively. "I mean, I know what it says and it's all ancient history anyway. Everything was left to me and I lost it all. Seeing a will won't help anyone. Now everybody just shut up and leave me alone!"
The siblings exchanged glances and then went over into the other room for a bit of privacy.
"Gamlen is clearly lying," Bethany declared. "I bet you anything that mother was left something in the will and Gamlen figured she wasn't coming back so he 'invested' it."
"You're strangely aggressive about this, Bethany," Emma remarked. "Normally you're much more inclined to believe the good in people."
"I know and I don't like thinking ill of Uncle Gamlen considering that he took us in but…he owes a lot of money to a lot of people and he never expected to see mother again," Bethany said earnestly. "If it weren't for the Blight, mother never would have even known about it. And Uncle Gamlen's hardly the most upstanding guy around."
"Hey!" Carver protested. "Just yesterday you said that I kind of resemble him."
"You do," Emma said, nodding. "Why, what's the problem?"
"I didn't mean it like that," Bethany hastened to inform him. "Of course I didn't."
"Well I do," Emma informed them. "I bet you don't even blame Uncle Gamlen for this."
"Well…why should I?" Carver asked abruptly. "I understand Gamlen, I do. He had an older sister who could do no wrong in the eyes of their parents and even when she ran away with an apostate she was still the favorite. Nothing he ever did was good enough and she didn't even care about what she left behind. Why should he keep it for her?"
"You realize this is our mother you're talking about, right?" Emma asked him rhetorically.
"What about the other side of the story?" Bethany asked pleadingly. "What about mother who just wanted to be free to live with the man that she loved, who was forced to abandon her home and her life in order to do that? Don't you think she deserves more than to hear that her parents died hating her? Carver, she told me that she wishes she died back in Ferelden! It's like being back here has tainted every good memory she has! We have to do something for her."
"I do think that that is being a little dramatic," Emma admitted. "I mean, it's only been a year and we've got that big expedition coming up. The least she could do is wait until we strike out with that before sinking into depression. Then again, she spends all day with Uncle Gamlen and that's driven many a man to worse."
"We should do something? Like what?" Carver challenged. "Do you honestly think we can just swoop in there, find the will, and everything will be able to go back to the way it once was? Even if this expedition pays off and we all become fabulously wealthy, we can never go back. You two can't legally become nobles and there's no future for me as an Amell."
"Carver, what in the world are you talking about?" Emma demanded. "How is there no future for you as an Amell? If we do manage to pull everything off – which I have no doubt we will since we always do – then how can you not fit in as a noble? Like you said, you're not even a mage. Just sit around and be incredibly wealthy. Have adventures and know you're above the law and can do whatever you want because you're 'eccentric.' Have all sorts of fine luxuries that we could never afford growing up. It sounds like the perfect life to me."
"That's because you're shallow and self-centered," Carver pointed out.
Emma rolled her eyes. "And you're determined to play the martyr."
"Guys!" Bethany cried out. "This is about mother, remember?"
"Oh, right," Emma said sheepishly. "So…any thoughts?"
"Uncle Gamlen told me that he lost the estate in a game of dice to a slaver," Bethany confided.
Emma let out a startled laugh. "Just try to defend that."
Carver crossed his arms across his chest. "You really don't want to default on a debt to a slaver."
"Who bets their house, especially such a nice estate, in a game of dice?" Emma demanded.
"A gambling addict, I suppose," Carver replied. "This man has a disease, Emma, and he should be pitied and helped and not condemned for it."
"We should break in and steal the will back," Bethany declared. "Those scum don't have a right to our ancestral home no matter what Uncle Gamlen did."
"But how are we supposed to get in?" Carver asked resignedly, knowing that there was no way he was just going to let his sisters walk into a slaving den alone.
"Hey Mother, can we borrow your key to the Amell estate?" Emma inquired brightly.
Carver groaned. So much for subtlety.
The slavers had, for whatever reason, turned the Amell estate into a walking death trap and it was difficult to go more than five feet without having to avoid something. It could be said that those were just very thorough burglar defenses except that it was highly unlikely that the sorts of thugs employed here would be proficient enough to deal with the traps on a regular basis.
Carver had disabled all the traps because, as a mage, Bethany didn't feel that kind of thing was worthy of her time. Emma had once felt the same way until she saw Carver practicing disarming them (which he himself hadn't taken up until he'd spent an entire afternoon caught in one when he was nine) and had determined to prove superior to him in every way.
At last, they reached the vault room and – after some searching – managed to locate the will.
"This is it, Grandfather's will!" Bethany exclaimed, thrilled. "I can't believe we actually managed to pull this off! I feel like a bard or something."
Emma made a face. "Don't say that! They're Orlesian."
"But we live in Kirkwall now so we're really not Ferelden anymore," Bethany pointed out.
Emma drew back. "Don't say that! Loghain will bite you!"
"And perhaps the dog will, too," Carver muttered. "What does the will say?"
"I thought you didn't care," Emma asked, infuriatingly coy.
"I didn't," Carver replied. "Until I was forced to break into the estate."
"We didn't force you to do anything," Emma sniffed. "And for your information, our grandparents left mother and her heirs – meaning us – everything and Gamlen with nothing."
"It's like our family is doomed to play favorites forever," Carver grumbled.
"Play favorites?" Emma asked innocently. "What ever do you mean?"
"So I'm just saying, blood's blood and all but you ARE taking advantage of my hospitality," Gamlen was saying nervously when they returned. "It's only fair if you make something of a...monthly contribution."
"You sold my children into servitude to cover your debts which probably saved your life!" Leandra cried, outraged. "Now you're asking me to pay rent?"
Gamlen flushed. "Maybe just put something towards food?"
"We found the will," Emma said brightly.
"You know, on second thought it's really not all that much of an inconvenience," Gamlen said hastily.
"Here, read it," Bethany suggested, handing their mother the will.
Leandra skimmed it. "I think you rather misunderstand the meaning of 'stipend', dear brother."
"What was I supposed to do?" Gamlen demanded. "How could you control a stipend if you weren't here? You didn't even come back for the funeral!"
"The twins were a week old!" Leandra protested.
"So what? If that apostate husband of yours was good for anything then he could have watched them for a few weeks," Gamlen snapped.
"You're not being fair," Leandra objected.
"Well neither is the fact that I was the one who spent months taking care of father as he wasted away and you're the one who got everything!" Gamlen shouted.
"This is your future," Emma said seriously to Carver.
"At least she wouldn't have singlehandedly ruined the family like you did," Bethany said accusingly. "Even if she didn't touch anything and let it all fall into neglect, it would still be better than what you've managed to do with it."
"It's ancient history," Gamlen said dismissively.
"It's alright, Bethany," Leandra said softly. "It's enough to know that my parents didn't die angry with me. Thank you for that. Maybe…maybe now that you've killed off all the slavers living there – I know you did, don't deny it – I can petition the viscount for the right to reclaim the estates."
Gamlen snorted. "Please. You won't even be able to get an audience. You have to be somebody to live there again."
"If he had any sense he'd let us take it back," Emma insisted. "After all, then we'd owe him forever. And either way, stop trying to bring us down. I get violent when upset."
"She really does," Carver vouched for her.
Gamlen rolled his eyes and stormed out of the building while Leandra went to the desk to read over the will in its entirety.
"I can't believe that Gamlen would do that," Bethany said, shaking her head in disgust. "Actually, the worst part is that I can believe it. I could never turn against my own sister like that!"
"Me either!" Emma said passionately.
"Why are you two looking at me?" Carver demanded.
"Well you didn't echo our declaration," Emma told him.
"And? You didn't say 'sibling'," Carver pointed out.
"Well Gamlen turned against his sister," Bethany reminded him.
"So? That's still an unfortunate implication right there," Carver told them.
"I don't know what you mean," Emma said innocently. "Hey, what do you think it would be like if we had grown up here?"
"Awful," Carver declared. "All these poncy nobles…we'd have been one of them."
"I probably would have just been given to the Circle," Bethany said quietly.
Carver started. "Don't say that! Mother would never-"
"Wouldn't she?" Bethany cut him off. "If she hadn't gotten up the nerve to elope with father then how could she hide me from them for so long? Especially staying in the same place in a city full of templars? And I have to wonder, would it have been so bad?"
"Uh…yes, yes it would be," Emma said, nodding fervently. "The Circle is a horrible, horrible place, remember?"
"Is it?" Bethany asked distantly. "Without me you guys wouldn't have had to live in fear for so many years and I would have at least been able to live unafraid and with others like me."
"I'm a mage, too," Emma reminded her.
"And she was the one who usually made us have to leave," Carver added. "Sister…you're not planning on doing anything reckless, are you?"
Bethany jumped. "Oh, nothing like that!" she assured them.
Carver frowned at her, uncertain. "Because you know, once you announce yourself to them then you'll have to be on the run forever."
"I know, I know," Bethany said quickly. "Forget I said anything."
"Hey, that reminds me," Emma said brightly, taking two items out of her pocket. "Here," she said, handing one to Bethany and the other to Carver.
Carver, naturally, glanced over at Bethany's first. "Where did you get a portrait of Bethany?"
"I think it's of mother," Bethany told them. "Her engagement. She even has a ring on! It's so nice to see her young and carefree for once."
"And bored to tears if this is any indication," Emma remarked.
"Why did you give me a pack of letters?" Carver inquired.
"Remember that mage I was talking to on the way back?" Emma answered his question with one of her own.
Carver nodded. "When you insisted on dragging us through the Gallows despite the fact it was completely out of the way, yes."
"Well, the mage was a friend of father's and the letters – which I read, naturally – are from him to someone named Carver. I asked that mage and he said Ser Carver was a templar who helped father escape from the Circle," Emma announced.
Carver choked. "He sounds like the worst templar I've ever heard of."
"And thus perhaps not a complete monster after all," Emma concluded. "And father even named you after him."
"So you see," Bethany said slowly. "This isn't just a way of trying to cling desperately to the past but a way to look forward."
Emma looked confused. "What are you talking about? Father last saw this man twenty-five years ago and you can't get more ancient than before we were born."
Bethany hastily stepped on her foot. "Father wanted to look towards the future, you see, and he named you after the man who gave him a future of his own."
"I think you might be right…" Carver mused. "So father didn't want to just obsess over what we've lost."
"Obsessing about what we've lost is just plain silly," Emma agreed. "But trying to reclaim it isn't, by any means. Trying to reclaim it will mean we no longer have to live in this dump and instead will get a chance to actually be treated like the nobility that our mother used to be. I'm still not seeing the downside of this."
"Being nobility will mean that you will have eyes on you, including templar eyes," Carver pointed out.
"Being nobility will mean that we have our own gold to bribe templars with and it's not like Varric and those smugglers haven't already been doing that since the moment we walked into this city anyway," Emma countered.
"It's just…not really the life I want for myself, being a pampered noble," Carver said, making a face for himself. "I want to forge my own destiny."
"You don't seem to be getting how much easier that will be with the power, prestige, and outright coin that being a noble will afford you," Emma said, exasperated. "If you want to join the army, you'll be an officer. If you want to have an expedition you can afford to fund your own. You'll be the boss and you'll make the rules. You want to make a name for yourself and strike out on your own, our hopefully reclaimed noble status will only help you do that."
"It's just the principle of the thing, Emma," Carver said, knowing that no matter how hard he tried to explain it to her, Emma would just never get it.
Emma sighed. "Whatever. Just as long as you don't decide to be inspired by Ser Carver and join the templars because I honestly will probably never forgive you."
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