I wish your Mum didn't blame you for my death, Tank, even if she's right. Your brother and sister are starting to believe it now. They hate being under the same roof as you, hate breathing the same air, hate that you leave fingerprints of the person who killed their Dad on the windowpanes whenever you touch them.
I wish you'd sat down and paid attention to my lessons like your sister did, Tank. I wish you didn't spend your life mucking around on those stupid machines and wandering Lothering staring at the sky all day. I wish you'd done as your mother asked you to, when she asked you to do it, so you might've found me in time.
I wish you'd make yourself useful to someone for once in your bloody life. Most of all, darlin', I wish you weren't so much like me.
—--
In the toothless heat of the Fereldan summer afternoon, Tancred Hawke shoves their sleeves halfway up their arms and feels more satisfied than they will for exactly one year.
They've been washing Carver's things since mid-morning. Their fingers are icy and waterlogged, and the creek bed they're doing it in is nearly dry, but they've decided it's a good day and that's the end of it.
Screw's close by, more than earning her namesake as she damn near bores a hole in the ground chasing her tail. She twists and winds her way over to where Tank's working. Whenever she draws too close, Tank startles her out of her whirlwind with a bark, laughs like a fool, and then plasters a kiss on her head, and the dog feels forgiven enough to start up again. Spin-bark-kiss. Spin-bark-kiss.
Once the last shirt's scrubbed to Mother's impossible standards, Tank rises with the basket of wet clothes on their hip. There's barely a hip to rest it on, but it'll do 'til they're home.
"Screw? Screwy. Can y'-?" They freeze as the spinning dog nearly knocks into their knees and sends the laundry every-bloody-where. "Orright, keep orbiting, then. Hang a right when you pass our house."
Screwy straightens up, watching expectantly. Tank scratches their head with a free hand and nods at the path up ahead. "You comin'?"
Screw barks. Tank chuckles. "That'd be about right."
The fifteen-minute journey from the creek to home passes through the forest and the outskirts of Lothering. This time of the year, the birdsong is deafening, and the sunlit leaves glow like praise. No mud, no snow, and, most importantly, no hidden tree roots to stumble over. If there was a spell to draw out summer, Tank might have taken an interest in Dad's blood magic lessons after all.
On the edge of the Lothering town square, with the Chantry needling into the corner of their eye, Tank catches the gaze of a frowning, dark-haired mage, and stops dead. The frowner looks over at them; Tank's washing basket falls to the ground.
'R?' They thump the sign over their heart. 'R? R? R?'
She's gaping, lurching into a run toward them with three other people and a dog in tow. Tank's already bawling by the time they're snatched into an embrace.
"I don't believe it," Rhodri's voice is a whisper. "Oh, Tank. Hello."
Tank sobs a little harder, and gets a kiss to the head for their trouble.
"My older cousin," Rhodri says to the others after a moment. She peels Tank off her and beams down at them, swiping three fingers over her heart, again and again and again. 'I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.'
Tank already knows the redheaded Chantry sister, Leliana, who gives a kind nod and keeps quiet.
The tall, burly man beside Leliana hums. "You know, I see the resemblance!" He grins like he'd deduced the relationship unassisted.
"How long has it been?" Rhodri asks Tank, signing brokenly as she goes. 'Thirteen ye… Y-E-A-R-S?'
Tank cries too often to be much ashamed of the outburst, but they force themselves to stop all the same. They sniffle, give a wobbly smile, and nod. 'Too long. Long-long.'
Rhodri understands the last sign and nods sadly. 'Family where? Auntie? C? B?'
'Home. Come on.' They hold out their hand to Rhodri, and she hurries to take it in the same way she did as a child and it was just the two of them. 'Your friends can come too.'
"Are you leaving the clothes as a donation to the Chantry?" one of the women asks, rolling her eyes.
Tank stiffens. The woman looks like a Witch of the Wilds, carrying that staff as though she's confident it won't be used to impale her if the Templars get half a chance.
Rhodri chuckles. "Ah, the laundry! Thank you, Morrigan." She puts the pairs of escaped underwear back in the basket and carries it under one arm, still grasping Tank's hand as she goes. "Cousin Tank has invited us all home. Who's coming?"
Tank's relief almost betrays them as everyone but the witch accepts. She disappears with a huff.
Rhodri introduces the man as Alistair, Leliana says hello again properly, and only after that does Tank realise that Screwy has been socialising with another dog. Jeppe, Rhodri says his name is.
—--
Tank flees Lothering with Mother, the twins, the dog, and, according to Rhodri, about 10 000 sovs' worth of jewellery she'd taken off her person and shoved into their hands. Sold to the right person, it'll get them all out of Denerim and to safety (and the plushiness Mother misses) in Kirkwall.
They evade Mother when she tries to make them take the valuables as they trudge along the main road out. They'd only lose it, and they know it. Tank snatches an extra heavy bag off her shoulders and hauls that around instead; Mother walks behind them, bitching and moaning and crying for a solid hour 'til Bethany finally rolls her eyes and snatches the money bag off her.
"You shouldn't make your sister have to carry that, Tancred," Mother says. "It's risky traipsing around with that sort of money."
Her accusing voice cuts like glass, but it's the unsaid things that really sting. Tank knows the main message by heart because they hear it every day. If it's not about Bethany, it's about Carver, or the dog, or herself, or anyone else: If someone has to die, I'd rather it was you.
When Tank's had enough time to wipe their eyes and cough the lump out of their throat, they silently take the money bag out of Bethany's hands. Bethany doesn't stop them; she hasn't stopped them in years.
—--
They decide to hang the money bag off their arm by the drawstrings. Waking, sleeping, it's always there, only moved to be slung onto the other arm when their leg hurts too much from it smacking into their thighs all day as they walk. By the end of the first night, there's a bruise the size of their palm on one leg, and by the second night, there's one on the other leg. Tank wants to tear both legs off by the third day, but the bag stays put, smacking and smacking and smacking. At least they know where it is.
—--
A strange deal with a witch gets the five of them– plus a redheaded woman with granny smith apple eyes. Aveline, her name is– carted off through the sky to a long, abandoned stretch on the Brecilian Passage to Gwaren. Tank wouldn't have dreamed of walking on a main road without a soul in sight for fear of bandits, but with the sudden lack of Darkspawn trying to eviscerate them all, bandit country on the way to the arse-end of nowhere looks pretty peachy.
—--
Tank's bruises have bruises when Gwaren's twenty mile away. The skin on their legs looks like dropped fruit, thin and swollen and agonising enough that they can't move without limping. Mother tells Tank to straighten up and walk properly, shoots apologetic look after apologetic look at their company as she does. Tank cries again; Tancred's always crying, Mother half-explains, half-assures Aveline. No bother, says Aveline quickly. She offers to take the heaviest bag off Tank with a kind smile, and Tank starts to sob.
The only solution is to take some of the jewellery out and wear it. They put on two gold bracelets encrusted with Orlesian lion's blood rubies (according to Rhod). Maker knows how much the bloody things are worth. More than them, no doubt.
—--
After weeks of tramping along silent roads, Gwaren feels like a metropolis. Pissweak wooden bungalows and port warehouses with weeks of forest behind them go down to the water's edge, and encroach on the sea, too. The ocean's probably more hospitable, Tank decides.
Everyone's out, nobody's home. No home cooks gazing out their windows, no washers pounding the laundry. Front doors are ajar, some of them half off their hinges. Everyone and their dog is trying to skip town by cramming onto the nearest boat with everything they can carry. The dog goes on first, then the kids, and finally the adults.
"Let it never be said that Fereldans have their priorities wrong," Tank mumbles. Screwy barks like a politician at that.
They wait in the hot sun for hours, shuffling along in the glut as they wait for their turn to get loaded up on some sinker of a vessel. Tank keeps a hand wrapped firmly around the wrist with the bracelets, barely believing their luck that the bag hasn't disappeared yet. A little more of this, and they'll be on the boat, and there's only so far a thief can get away out on the ocean. The bag's lighter now, and less painful when it hits their leg now that the fanged rubies are sitting pretty on their wrist. Things are looking up.
It's almost dinner time when they're face to face with the harbourmaster. You could hold water in the rings under her eyes, and she doesn't bother to ask where they're going. She doesn't ask how many, either, she simply says it. How many.
"Five people and a mabari, please," Tank says with a smile, and reaches for the bag, finally ready to pay and get into the clear. They go to pull the drawstring open to fish out something worth the passage fee of fifty sovs, and their stomach drops as the bag swings up like it weighs nothing.
Their voice goes. Tank squashes the bag in their hands and it crumples like a sheep's lung, nothing but soft suede between their fingertips. Their eyes fill with tears before they can even squeak.
"Where's--?"
"Tancred, is there–-"
"The money's gone!" Carver glares at everyone in seeing distance, his teeth gritted tight enough to crumble. "Has to be stolen! Who pickpockets refugees? Maker damned filth!"
"Tancred!" Mother grabs Tank and shakes them a little. "When did--? How did you not--? Speak!" Her voice grows shrill. "There was then thousand sovereigns' worth of jewellery your cousin gave us! SPEAK!"
The harbourmaster watches the space behind their heads. Her gaze clouds over. "If you don't got the money, can't travel."
Tank's mouth is empty. Their hands shake as they break free from Mother's grasp and hold their wrist out to to the woman. The bracelet's dancing, and Tank's cheeks are dripping. The harbourmaster's eyes come back into focus and lock onto the bracelets.
"I'll take both of 'em."
Mother's face reddens. "Both? These are worth more than a hundred sovereigns apiece! Those are real rubies!"
"Yeh. And the feller before you was tryin' to tell me his fistfuls of silver were coppery because they'd tarnished. I'll take 'em both and that's my last offer."
The woman gets both, and Tank gets the silent treatment until they dock in Kirkwall.