I was just recently told that Wintersend is not the dragon age equivalent of Christmas, ah well what can you do?

.

Love bites, love bleeds
It's bringin' me to my knees
Love lives, love dies
It's no surprise
Love begs, love pleads
It's what I need

-Def Leppard, Love Bites

Plenty of others had favoured memories of Wintersend too, like the Inquisitor.

She remembered, as she watched Solas and Audra with a smile on her face, when she was in the circle at Ostwick. She had a band of friends, not like the ones she had now more of a clique, it was the years ago when she was barely sixteen. She had managed to steal some of the First enchanter's alcohol, wine whiskey even a bottle of rum. They all sat on the bunk she shared with her best friend and on the bunk parallel to it. The other apprentices would be in the mess hall, getting as close to celebration as they could.

They sat, giggling, with a small candle as their only light. They passed around the bottles, the girl next to her, her best friend, passed her the bottle of rum. She took a swig from it, she made a face at the taste, the girl giggled.

"Sorry, should have warned you." her voice whispered from across the years, the sixteen year old Inquisitor would then just pull her into a hug. Yes, she remembered that Wintersend, it was a joyous time they drank themselves silly and soon passed out on the beds. The next day was her best friend's harrowing, her name was Fleur she used to be so beautiful had the darkest hair you'd ever seen, and she didn't survive her Harrowing.

"Dark raven black hair, big hazel eyes, she was always enticing others to help her with her pranks or adventures around the Circle. Could've done something, if I hadn't of stolen those bottles from the First Enchanter if I hadn't of let her have so much. It wasn't your fault," she didn't have to turn around to know it was Cole, she smiled sadly and shook her head.

"I could have of done something, Cole, if I had just made her see that we should've gone with the other apprentices. She would be alive, perhaps she would even be here."

"She was never going to listen, she was determined to have a night of fun before her Harrowing, she knew she wasn't going to survive it and she knew it would be soon. That's why she wanted one last night to have fun." She remembered the fun they had that night, like it was yesterday.

"Fleur, we can barely walk straight," she giggled.

After everyone else had wandered off or passed out Fleur took her hand and ran her to the mages quarters. She began riffling through one of the chests, who was it? Jean, now she remembered, Fleur pulled her towards the chest, and she finally found the treasure she had been looking for.

"Aha! I knew it, he couldn't have of had such a shiny bald head for no reason!" she somehow had a mixture of whispering and shouting to the heavens, that was Fleur, she was her own kind of person. She pressed the bottle of polish into her hands and pulled out another bottle, while the first one was a light pinkish colour this one was white. She popped the corks on both bottles; she filled the pink bottle with the white liquid and placed it in the same spot back in the chest. The next week Jean's scalp was a bright pink.

"You couldn't look at him afterwards, it reminded you too much of Fleur, but you need to let it go, it wasn't your fault."

The next thing they did was go back to the First Enchanter's study, Fleur went through the books on the shelves.

"Check her desk and chest; you'll know what we're looking for when you see it"

"That doesn't make sense, how am I supposed to know?" she did it anyway, if only to humour her, she found a few things files on the apprentices she saw her own, then… Fleur's. "Fleur, is this it?" she waved the file over her head, Fleur snatched it up hungrily, she leafed through it searching for something. Her grin widened, she folded the file as small as she possibly could then put it in the pocket on her robes.

"C'mon, there' are a few others waiting for us." Fleur took her hand, back to the mages quarters, tripping over their robes more than a few times, not the apprentice quarters. At the time it surprised her.

"You helped her find her family, they didn't visit her, and she wrote those letters that her mentor sent them. They were ashamed of her."

"Yes," she remembered getting leave from the First Enchanter to go with Fleur's mentor to deliver the letters. They had invited them in at first, they hadn't realised who they were, when Fleur's mentor gave them the letters the man shouted at them, told them to leave that they had no daughter. The woman simply cried, and tossed the letters into the fire, she had hated that woman for that.

They didn't even read them, but she had.

When they arrived back at the mages quarters they were occupied, two women, their names were on the tip of her tongue she just couldn't remember, and they greeted Fleur readily enough. They were twins by the looks of it, they handed Fleur a few things before trying to usher us out of the room. But soon enough her hand was grabbed by an elven mage, he was cute enough she supposed, she could almost- wait this man was that former Dalish, he was ousted from his clan.

He pulled her towards the centre on the group of mages that had formed; he was barely a few years older than she was, he pulled her into a dance, the steps to said dance she learned on the spot, he twirled her around pulled her in, spun her out. Then at the end, he dipped her, she laughed. This was the Ostwick Circle, the most peaceful place on the continent, and she was drunk while dancing with a handsome elven man. Fleur grinned at her from the edges of the group.

"Just a little push was all they needed." She thought no one would hear her, but she did, and despite it she had never felt more joyful that she was her friend.

"I could make you forget," the offer came from out of nowhere, she smiled at Cole.

"No, I need these."

..

She found him later, after Fleur had died he was there, they danced for one night then suddenly he was just there. Almost like he had always been there. But she found him, after her Harrowing, he comforted her, told her, she remembered the exact words, that the demon was a jackass who may as well go rot in the black city because if he stepped one stupid demon foot out of it he would be crushed to a pulp repeatedly.

Maker she loved that man, after her Harrowing after he said those words he held her and played with her hair. She played with one of the few things that Fleur used to own, it was a simple necklace, no doubt enchanted, it was just a circle with her name engraved in the middle. But it reminded her of the friend she had lost, and of the lover she had gained because of her.

His name was Eth'Era

..

"What do you think of Audra, Cole?"

"She's older than she acts, older than she looks and yet not at the same time. She's happy, she thinks that it's best to enjoy the time she has with him than focus on how it will end. There's too much despair inside her, guilt and shame rolled up into one, but she ignores it. She doesn't want help, she hopes that eventually it'll get too much and she'll just end or it'll go away. But at the same time she just wants to enjoy the time she has."

"What about Solas?"

"He's old too, like her, he loves her but he's hesitant, but less so because there's nothing to distract her from. Nothing that he knows of anyway."

"Audra is right, we should enjoy the time we have now. Thank you, Cole, I need to- I need to go talk to someone." She smiled at him before she left; she walked as fast as she could to the garden, the morning sun-that it was still morning surprised her- almost blinded her.

She walked towards the centre of the garden; she'd started a small garden of her own there. She usually tended to it at night; she was meant to be a leader, a fearless figure for them to follow not a woman who harvested herbs and flowers in the moonlight. She recited the herbs and flowers in her head.

Rue for Fleur

Roses for haven

Lilies for Eth'Era

Tigerlily of the Inquisition

Thyme for Redcliffe

Croton for the Wardens

Hyacinth for herself

She watered them, whispered to them as she often did, once all was said and done she made a hole near the Rue, she placed Fleur's locket within and walked away with a heavy heart.

..

Hawke remembered a year or so after she won back the Amell estate how she had invited her own inner circle over to the estate for Wintersend. Hawke remembered seeing her friends walking into the estate and seeing all this colour she had also put this massive tree in the middle of the main room and had decorated it with these floating glowing orbs. Anders had helped her with that, her magic was more inclined to burn or freeze everything, and if she had done it on her own the estate would have burned. Anders' magic had a more gentle touch.

"In awe, Varric?" Hawke appeared from the top of the stairs, at the time she had been wearing a simple red silk dress the one her mother had forced her into, at the moment Leandra had cornered Anders and was attempting to 'make him look less like a starved deep stalker especially if he plans on dating her eldest daughter' she wasn't even aware her mother knew what deepstalkers were.

"I'll admit Blondie has some talent, I'd imagine you would have rather burned the place down." She grinned at him.

"You know our luck, Varric, if I had burned the place down I could have claimed the tree came to life and tried to kill Barkspawn and everyone would have believed me." she shrugged, she made her way down the steps cursing the dress under her breath the whole way down. She grinned as walked through the door. "Do I need to change the locks again?"

"It was unlocked this time!" Isabela defended herself with a grin.

"I'm pretty sure Bodahn made sure it was locked behind me, Rivaini." It was at this moment that Anders decided to snake his arms around Hawke's waist. He certainly smelled better, better than 'I'm an apostate mage who lives in darktown and when I visit my lover I leave my dirty socks everywhere'.

Later that night it wasn't a surprise that they ended up in bed, seriously, those two are like rabbits.

..

After a while Audra had managed to 'escape' Solas with minimal clothing removed, surprisingly, she'd pay for her tricks later. But for now she was getting drunk. She downed glass after glass of ale and rum, Loke was just staring at her like she was crazy.

"Either this was the fastest relationship you've ever had or you believe the answer to all the world's problems lies on the bottom of any one of these glasses." He held his head up with his hand, "Or is your elf too much of a gentleman to ravage your body while your drunk?"

"N- Well yes- but no!" she stopped drinking to place her hands on either side of his face. "Alcohol is fun, Loke, its fun!"

I have discovered a pattern in Dragon Age games, in every game my best friend/lover at some point has left and or done something stupid.

Morrigan left, bestfriend

Isabela leaves (forever or for a short amount of time) bestfriend

Anders (Blew up a chantry) lover

Seneschal Varel (stupidly takes a hit for me) bestfriend

Solas leaves, lover.

CONSPIRACY