Hawke was numb. He was silent for a long time, reading and re-reading the words, before he finally looked at the other man. The templar's eyes were red-rimmed and hollow. He looked like he hadn't slept.
"The letter arrived two weeks ago. I didn't know how to...I thought it best that she hear it from someone close to her." Cullen said, in a tired, hollow voice. "Somewhere safe. Familiar. Not here." He hissed the last word, bitterly.
"Thanks." Ethan said, gruffly. He cleared his throat, frowning down at the letter, unseeingly. "I'm not sure how I'm going to…"
"No." Cullen said, eventually breaking the silence left by his trailing words. "I'm sorry. I would offer to deliver the news myself but…I'm not sure that I could face her right now. It wouldn't be fair. For her to feel like she has to share her grief." He lowered his eyes. "I didn't even know her. Not really. Emily should hear it from someone who loves her, not someone who looks at her and sees…"
Hawke nodded, swallowing, roughly. He understood what the man meant. He used to think the same thing, when he looked at Emily and saw Lauren, but that was before he understood why he had found it so impossible to reconcile the kind, bubbly girl he was so fond of with the fierce, smirking enigma he had encountered at Ostagar. The revelation that what he had thought had been a wildly inaccurate first impression of Emily had actually been her sister had been a significant one, and had opened him up to a tangle of intense, messy feelings he had no idea what to do with. Despite their uncanny physical resemblance, he no longer saw one girl in the other. He cared deeply for the girl he knew. But he longed, impossibly, for the other.
The girl on the bridge. The girl who had made such a striking impression on him that, though their encounter couldn't have lasted more than a few seconds, he had replayed it so often in his mind that the first time he laid eyes on Emily, he had felt dazed, as though she had stepped out of his waking dreams and into his path.
It had taken him a while to separate his first impression of the girl from Ostagar, who had all but left him undone with a few words, from his feelings for Emily. He hadn't really started to untangle the confusing knot of incongruent associations he had formed until after they had learned from Cullen that it was Lauren he had met that day. It was all Cullen's fault, really, he thought. Before he and Emily had first visited the Gallows, he had almost forgotten the intense desire that the Warden had ignited in him that day on the bridge. He had been content with allowing his feelings to transfer seamlessly to the mage, to let the unbearable heat subside into quiet fascination and not-quite-fraternal fondness.
If Cullen and Emily hadn't gushed about her quite so fervently, he might have been spared the sweet torture he suffered now, but their shared reverence for the girl had re-ingited a spark of interest in him that had been fanned into a flame before he could catch it, and now he was burning.
His affection for Emily was real, developed over months of spending time with her and getting to know her on a deeper level. She was kind, and clever, and good. She was much too good for him, he knew.
His infatuation with the girl on the bridge wasn't real. He knew that, of course. It was pure fantasy, based on nothing but a few words and gestures. The infatuation, however, had steadily grown more intense with each passing day until he had found himself able to think of little else.
His infatuation had rapidly grown into an obsession, and his insides twisted with a dark yearning when he thought of her, then with guilt when he thought of Emily. What would she think if she knew the depraved thoughts he had been having about her twin? How would she feel if she knew that his enthusiastic insistence that she share stories of her sister came from a place of selfish desire, when she thought he was just being a supportive friend? He shuddered to think.
And now she was dead, and his grief was almost overwhelming.
He managed to hold it together, somehow. When he thanked the templar and left the Gallows, he managed to hold it together. He had to be strong. He thought about what Cullen had said. "I didn't even know her. Not really."
He knew that was true, but it didn't feel true.
The first time he saw her, it was like time slowed down. He stopped in his tracks so suddenly he thought he must have looked like he'd stumbled upon a glyph of paralysis. She looked so out of place that he might have laughed, if the sight of her hadn't stolen his breath away.
She wore a tight black dress that hugged her waist and skimmed her thighs, and she stumbled awkwardly in high-heeled shoes that kept sinking into the soft ground whenever her weight shifted from her tiptoes.
She looked ridiculous. He would have been embarrassed for her, for the way her arms flailed at her sides like white, willowy windmill sails as she struggled to keep up with the man in front of her, but there was a bizarre air of confidence about her that reassured him. Her unsteady gait might have looked unsure to the casual observer, but there was nothing casual about the way she commanded his attention. How could someone look so out-of-their-depth and so in charge all at once? Hawke was transfixed.
The man whose wake she staggered in stopped suddenly when something she said caught his attention, and he turned to her. Hawke watched her as she caught her balance and drew herself upright, rolling her shoulders back and placing her hands on her hips. She muttered something he couldn't quite hear, and the man laughed.
He had since discovered that the man she was with was Alistair Theirin, a fellow Grey Warden and, according to Emily, King Maric's bastard son. She had let this tidbit slip quite by accident after one too many glasses of the armour polish that passed for wine in the Hanged Man, and she had sworn him to secrecy. He mentioned that he had spotted him at Ostagar, but had neglected to specify that he had only noticed him because of her.
Alistair looked down the length of her body and cocked his head to the side, gesturing at her shoes.
"What were they designed for?" His deep voice carried over the din of the field. She rolled her eyes and snapped a retort, but the surrounding buzz of pre-battle preparations swallowed her soft voice before it could reach Hawke's straining ears.
"And…the dress?" The man's tone was amused and flirtatious, and Hawke watched for her to respond in kind, and felt something like relief when she appeared immune to his charms, crossing her arms and punctuating her reply with the quirk of an eyebrow.
"It is a very nice dress." He nodded. "But you're not exactly dressed for the occasion."
She waved a hand, dismissively and started walking again. Her gait was slower, more sure than before, and Alistair followed her, watching her with a singular focus. Hawke huffed a wry laugh when he noted that he was the one who stumbled now. He could hardly blame the man - he might have had the blue blood of kings in his veins, but his knees were as weak as any man's would be in her presence.
"What did you have planned?" He asked. Her response was brief and dismissive. "I've got time."
She shook her head, and Alistair barked a laugh of amusement at her reply.
She smiled up at him in response - not the brilliant, open, friendly smile Hawke was so used to seeing on Emily's face - it was a coy, confident smirk that turned his insides to molten rock.
She tossed her head, and her long, dark curls bounced around her shoulders, revealing more of her pale, slender neck, and he imagined what it would feel like to run his hands through those curls, to tilt her head back and kiss the place where her neck and shoulders met. He couldn't remember if he'd imagined these things at the time, but he certainly had in the months since, often enough that they had permanently coloured his memory of the moment.
When she turned to look in his direction, he felt suddenly feverish, but her eyes drifted over him, unnoticing. He watched her as she made her way over to the Quartermaster, and Alistair called to the smith, but they were too far away now for him to hear the younger man. Only one word made its way across the field and Hawke caught it, gratefully. Lauren.
Alistair laughed again at something she had said, but her mouth was a straight line. Hawke wished he knew what she was saying. Someone called his name and he tore his eyes away from her, only to find her gone when he looked back a moment later.
That evening, he had started to wonder if she had even been real or if he'd imagined her entirely when he saw her again. She had swapped the dress for ill-fitting armour and was running across the bridge, towards him, seemingly oblivious to the heads that swivelled in her direction as she flew past. When she slowed to a stop in front of him and doubled over at the waist, breathless from exertion, he thought he had never seen anything more beautiful in his life.
"God, I'm so unfit!" She admonished herself, apparently unaware of her audience. He wondered if beautiful women like her were just so used to being stared at that they assumed it was normal. He learned later from Emily that they did not. According to her sister, Lauren Duval was well aware of the way men's eyes hungered after her - she just didn't care. She had never seen her sister show an interest in men, she'd said. Ever since he had learned this detail, he had included it in his memory whenever he replayed the moment in his mind - which was more often than he would admit under pain of torture.
It made the next part all the more intriguing, now that he knew it was uncharacteristic of her - because she had certainly shown an interest in him. In his mind, when he replayed it, he said something much more witty and charming than he had found himself capable of in the moment - possibly because all of the blood had rushed from his brain quite suddenly at the sight of her bent over and panting in front of him.
"I don't know." He had heard himself say. "You look pretty fit to me."
He had cringed, inwardly, the moment the words left his mouth, anticipating a shocked, offended gasp and maybe, if he was lucky, a slap. The men around him laughed, eyeing the woman appreciatively, and he wished he had said anything else - he remembered the way she had smiled at the other man, and wondered what he might have said instead that would make her smile at him that way.
She drew herself up, imitating the men's laughter, mockingly. She didn't snap upright, self-conscious and flustered as he might have expected her to. The movement was slow, controlled, and unfazed. He grinned when she threw a cold, sardonic look over her shoulder at him, and as soon as her eyes met his, he was suddenly the flustered one of the two. She started to turn away from him when she suddenly did a double take, her eyes snapping back to his and pinning him to the spot with startling intensity.
"Hawke?" When she said his name, the first thought that occurred to him wasn't confusion or surprise that she somehow knew who he was. For a split second, it made perfect sense - of course they knew each other. Lauren.
No, his first thought was how pleasant his name had sounded in her accent, and he was determined to find out how he could make her say it again. He wanted to discover all of the ways he could make her say his name, then keep saying it, over and over again. A small voice in his head interrupted his indecent thoughts, asking exactly how she knew his name, and he searched her face, knowing with absolute certainty that if he had ever seen her before that day, he would have remembered.
"Do I know you?" He heard the purr in his voice, and the men around him laughed, nudging him. He might not have even registered their existence if her eyes hadn't left his, briefly, to throw them a bored look, before snapping back to him, sending a jolt through his core.
"No, you don't." She said, cryptically. She turned to face him and leaned back, slightly, as her eyes left his to slowly, unabashedly trail down his body. She took her time, openly appraising him with a boldness that left him in no doubt which one of them was in control of this interaction. Her gaze burned a trail of fire across the flesh beneath his armour. He took the opportunity to appraise her, equally, as much as her bulky splintmail would allow, and when he eventually raised his eyes to her face again, she was smirking at him. She started to back away, slowly, keeping her eyes on him as she went. He fought a sudden, desperate urge to follow her. "Be seeing you, then."
"With any luck." He flashed her his most roguish smile, and her smirk widened, before she whipped around and started to jog away from him again. His smile vanished, and he craned his neck to keep sight of her, but a group of soldiers walked between them and she was gone just as suddenly as she had appeared.
He had looked for her after that, before the battle started. He thought, with hindsight, he had probably been looking for her during it, too - even if subconsciously.
It wasn't until they reached Lothering that he finally saw her face again. She seemed to recognise him instantly, but she had introduced herself as Emily, and denied ever being at Ostagar. He had let it go, but it had never stopped bothering him. Carver claimed he couldn't be sure it was the same girl, that they'd only seen her for a moment, but Hawke knew there was no way he would confuse her for someone else.
He had become slightly less certain the more time he spent with her, and he struggled to reconcile the girl he was getting to know with the girl he had met on the bridge.
She certainly looked like her, but she was different. The girl at Ostagar had exuded such natural confidence, utterly unbothered by the attentions of a horde of intimidating, leering soldiers. Emily was much more shy and self-conscious. There was an undeniable charm to a girl who didn't realise how beautiful she was. It was a charm he might have appreciated before the arrogant, smirking Warden had single-handedly ruined him.
He had never considered arrogance to be a turn-on before, but when Emily had said that Lauren possessed a self-assurance that bordered on arrogance, his interest in her only deepened. He wondered if this was what madness felt like - that would make sense, he thought, because he was Hawke, and he didn't daydream about anyone. He especially didn't daydream about anyone because of their personality.
He had the body right in front of him, he should just crack on with Emily and get it out of his system.
Emily was certainly as beautiful as he remembered her sister being, and he found himself fascinated by her in different ways, but she seemed softer, somehow. He wanted to protect her, he wanted to hold her close, and keep her safe. He hadn't felt protective of the girl on the bridge - he'd felt hungry.
He often thought about how easy it would be to fall in love with Emily.
He knew she cared for him, despite her better judgement. It wasn't love, not really, but it could be. He could seduce her, use all of his charms to manipulate her feelings, and he could let himself believe that she was the girl he had fantasised about all these months. It wouldn't be too hard, after all, when she had the same face and hands, the same slender neck and dark curls. It could all be so simple.
By all standards, Emily would be the obvious choice for any sane, reasonable man. Wasn't he a sane, reasonable man? She was sweet, kind, and loyal. She was smart, even-tempered and humble. Despite Emily's obvious attempts at softening her depiction of her sister in the stories she told, he had heard enough by now to read in-between the lines. Everything he knew of her painted her as difficult, stubborn and hot-headed. Arrogant. Challenging. Impossible. So unlike the winsome, effortlessly charming Emily, who was so easy to love.
Loving Emily would cure him of his madness, he was sure of it. Just as he was sure that he had no interest in being cured.
He had made a desperate, futile attempt to train his stubborn mabari heart to sit and stay, to bury his feelings for Lauren in Emily.
They had shared a drunken kiss one night after leaving the Hanged Man, and when she told him the following day that she thought it had been a mistake he had agreed with her.
They had danced around each other for months but, in the end, the kiss had been underwhelming for them both. She was lovely. That face. But there was no spark between them. He was unmoved. He wondered, bitterly, if he would have felt differently if he'd only made his move earlier, before he found out about the other girl.
After their conversation, when they agreed they were better off as friends, and he suggested that he was available for a spot of casual, friendly sex if she ever wanted to have some fun, she had informed him that he was a "narcissist". Whatever that meant. He had guessed from her tone of voice that she had meant for him to be offended by it, so he had thanked her, instead.
He knew he would have to take all of the feelings he wasn't supposed to have and wall them off, somehow. Emily had lost her sister. She needed him to be strong. He wouldn't be able to explain to her why he was so devastated. He didn't think she would believe him if he told her it was on her behalf. She knew him well enough by now not to buy that.
She knew that he had difficulty empathising with others, and had frequently commented on it. She had lots of colourful names for what she claimed he was, none of which he'd ever heard before, and a few of which he was certain she had made up. What kind of a word was "sociopath" anyway? She made that sound like an insult too, so he had been sure to thank her then, as well.
He didn't think she was quite as accurate in her assessment of his emotional range as she seemed to think. He felt lots of things, deeply. He cared deeply. He cared for her, even if she didn't believe it. But he had seen and done a lot of things that would have left a more sensitive man broken beyond repair. He had been a soldier for seven years, and now he was a refugee with a very particular skill set. Specifically, he was good at killing: people, animals, demons - it didn't matter. He was good at it when he served his king and he was good at it now. His patron may have been less regal these days, but the work didn't feel any filthier than it had before.
Killing darkspawn had been the highlight of his career. Killing men had been his bread-and-butter. So if she thought he was a "psychopath", or whatever word she used to describe him on any given day, he would accept it as a badge of honour, because it kept her and his family safe, housed and fed.
He could shut his feelings off, because he often had to. Now, he would have to again. It would be the only way he could say the words out loud without breaking. He might let himself break, later, when he was alone. But first, he had to be there for Emily.
He looked up at Gamlen's door, wondering absently how he had arrived there. His feet had found their way home while his mind wandered to darker places. He closed his eyes and practised whispering the words aloud to himself a few times, just to make sure he could speak without the emotion wall cracking, and then he steeled himself and opened the door.
The small house that could barely be called a house - more like a hovel, he thought - was unexpectedly full. The hour was late, and his mother and uncle had already retired to bed, but Aveline was visiting, and Carver had made an increasingly rare appearance. Perhaps he had heard that his brother was out for the evening and that was why he had deigned to grace the rest of the Hawkes with his surly presence, or maybe the bar-staff at the Hanged Man had finally kicked him out for bringing the atmosphere down with his constant scowling.
The four of them were gathered around the table in the main room of the house, and his appearance interrupted a round of amused laughter.
"Hawke!" Aveline called in greeting, flashing him a terse smile.
She never looked particularly happy to see him these days - most of the time, she had another lecture prepared for him about how his reputation was making her look bad by association, as if he chose to swear a year of his life away to a band of smugglers. As if his sacrifice hadn't been the very thing that had bought her entry into Kirkwall in the first place. Perhaps he could have been making a decent living for himself as a Guardsman if he'd been given that option - or any option. Although, perhaps not, he thought - they always looked so bloody miserable.
"Hello, brother." Carver said, accidentally forgetting to sneer because he was laughing at something one of the girls had said when Ethan walked in. He quickly remembered himself and fixed his face into its usual scowl.
"Carver. Ladies." He said. "Aveline." He added as an afterthought, thinking the woman probably wouldn't appreciate being thought of as a lady.
He glanced at Emily, who acknowledged him with an easy smile.
He couldn't tell her now. Not with the house so full of people. Not when the atmosphere in the room felt so light and trivial.
"We were just reminiscing." Bethany said, with a fond smile. "Do you remember when we were children and Carver found that shiny black rock that he said was part of a dragon's egg? He kept it under his pillow for weeks until mother found it."
"How could I forget?" Hawke smirked. "We couldn't figure out where the smell was coming from."
"Apparently Carver couldn't tell the difference between dragon egg-shell and petrified sheep dung." Bethany giggled in explanation. Aveline tossed her head back and laughed, clasping the younger man's shoulder.
"I was five!" Carver protested.
"I was five too, but I wasn't stuffing animal droppings in my bed." Bethany teased, giggling. Emily blinked.
"Gosh, that's right." She said, more to herself than anyone else. "I always forget you're twins too. You're so different from one another."
"I'd like to think so." The twins said, in unison, and Bethany stuck her tongue out at Carver. He tried to roll his eyes, but he couldn't fight the adoring smile that crossed his face. As much as he seemed to despise his older brother, his love for his sister was undeniable.
"Are you and your sister quite alike, then?" Aveline asked. The Hawkes - other than the usually absent Carver - had heard so much about her sister that it was easy to forget that she had only really started talking about her a little over a month ago. Had it really only been a few weeks? Hawke felt like he could barely remember a time before his obsession with the Warden consumed his every waking moment.
"Oh, no." Emily said, with the affectionate smile she always had when she thought of her twin. "No, we're complete opposites. We only look alike."
"I reckon that's got to be quite creepy. Being identical to someone." Carver said, with all the tact of a lump of sheep dung. Emily laughed, good-naturedly. She was always a good sport. Too good for anyone in Kirkwall, Hawke thought.
"I think it probably was when we were kids." She mused. "We used to speak for each other a lot. People thought that was weird. I suppose we were quite alike back then…but that was when we were really little."
"What changed?" Bethany asked, curiously.
Emily hesitated, looking down at her hands before answering.
"Lauren did." She said, with a weak smile. "She…well, I'm afraid it's not a very pleasant story."
"Well, then, it's fortunate we're not very pleasant people." Hawke said, against his better judgement. He had to stay focused, had to remember the wall, had to remember that he knew what he knew. But he wanted to hear about her. He wanted to hear everything about her. He especially wanted to hear the unpleasant stories. Those were the ones in which she felt the most real.
"When we were six, this little boy we knew was killed in an accident." She said, chewing her lip, looking around at them apologetically. "We were with him at the time. Part of a building collapsed on him. Lauren was the one who dug his body from the rubble."
"That's awful." Bethany gasped.
"It was so tragic." Emily agreed. "Lauren was traumatised…obviously. She sent me away to get help so that I wouldn't see. There was another girl with her, at first, but she ran home when she saw him. She was just a kid too, you can hardly blame her. But Lauren stayed with him until the adults got there. She didn't want him to be alone. She changed after that."
"No wonder." Aveline said, sympathetically.
"Changed how?" Hawke asked, hanging on her every word.
"She didn't speak for over a year." Emily said, with a half-shrug. "I would speak for her, when we were around other people. When it was just the two of us, we got good at understanding each other without talking. My parents took her to a bunch of different doctors - healers - but nothing seemed to help."
"What did?" He asked, eagerly. "I mean…she obviously started talking again, eventually."
Emily gave him a curious look, and he arranged his features into what he hoped was an expression of polite interest.
"I'm not sure, really. It was a long time ago." She frowned, thoughtfully. "There was an older boy in the village who always used to tease me. He made me cry, I think. Lauren attacked him…I didn't see how she managed it because he was twice our size, but I remember she got him onto the ground, somehow, and she was kneeling on his chest. His nose was bleeding, and he was crying. She told him to leave me alone, and made him apologise to me. After that, she just started talking normally again, I think. It's…difficult to remember."
"Serves him right." Bethany said, smiling.
"She sounds terrifying, your sister." Carver said, and Hawke caught himself mid-smile, as he remembered what he knew.
The brave little girl who stayed with the dead boy because she didn't want him to be alone, who made sure her sister was spared her trauma and who stood up to bullies was gone. The emotions behind the wall roared to get out, but he couldn't let them. Not yet.
"She can be." Emily grinned, fondly. "She's always been protective of me. Like she thought it was her job or something. We were twins until we were six, and then she became so much older than me. She never talks about it, though. I brought it up a couple of years ago and she looked like she had no idea what I was talking about. I tried to remind her about the year that she didn't speak, but she just gave me this weird look, made some stupid joke about not being able to get a word in because I never shut up, then changed the subject."
"Well, we wouldn't know anything about fierce, protective siblings who close themselves off and deflect from talking about their feelings with stupid jokes, would we, Carver?" Bethany asked, with a sideways glance at her older brother.
"How dare you?" He asked, with mock outrage. "I'm hardly protective of Carver."
"Thank you, dear brother. You have demonstrated my point beautifully." Bethany grinned. "It'll be interesting to see how you two get along, once the blight's over and Emily sends for her."
"Hard to say." Emily said, looking at him, thoughtfully. "They'll either love each other or they'll kill each other."
He couldn't bring himself to meet her eyes. The wall groaned.
"Casting my bet now that it will be the latter." Aveline said, leaning in and adding, in a stage-whisper. "We all know Hawke doesn't do love." She sat back, regarding him with a curious look when she noticed that he was uncharacteristically silent. He gathered himself, quickly, and resumed his casual stance. "Where were you tonight, anyway?" It almost sounded like natural, friendly small-talk and not the beginning of another of her interrogations, until she followed up with, "I hope you've been staying out of trouble."
"Oh. You know me." He said, leaning back against the door, and flashing her his most winning smile.
"Hmm, so you see my concern, then?"
"He's been very well-behaved, recently." Emily said, helpfully.
"I find that hard to believe." Aveline said, doubtfully.
"Come on, Av." He smirked, affectionately. "At least you can't say I don't keep you on your toes."
"Only because I'm trying to keep you from the hangman's noose." She replied, shaking her head in exasperation.
"And I appreciate you endlessly, I tell you that all the time." He said, simply, as if that settled the matter.
"Just…try to be careful."
"Always am." He shrugged.
"So why did I see you heading to the Gallows on my way here, then? You looking to join up with the templars?" Carver drawled, with just a little too much venom in his voice to match the friendly mocking tone of the conversation. Hawke's eyes flashed dangerously at him when Emily looked up, raising her eyebrows.
"You were at the Gallows?" She asked, hopefully. "Did Cullen…?"
"Why do you always have to be such a prat, Carver?" He asked, avoiding her question.
"Well, I didn't know it was a secret, did I?" Carver replied, indignantly, but his ears burned red and he seemed to sense from the absence of Hawke's usual playful tone that he had really put his foot in something.
"Ethan?" Emily prompted, warily. "What is it?"
"Nothing." He said, trying to rearrange his face into an easy smile and only halfway managing it. "We'll talk later."
"Something's wrong, isn't it?" She said, rising out of her chair. He opened his mouth to lie to her but the look on her face told him she already knew. Of course she did. Why else would he go anywhere near there, if not at Cullen's invitation? And what else could Cullen possibly have to say to him without her there? He swore, internally, and closed his eyes.
"Emily…"
"Is she hurt?" She asked, sounding somewhere between worried and hopeful.
Bethany and Aveline looked at each other and then at him with grim, knowing expressions. Carver dropped his head into his hands with a barely audible groan.
"Emily, there was-"
"I mean…but she'll be okay?" She said, with a tearful smile, and her lip quivered. Bethany rose to throw her arms around her. Her voice was a strangled whisper. "She'll be okay…they have a healer. Wynne is a really good healer."
"There was an accident." He said, carefully. "She's gone, Emily. I'm so -"
"How do you know?" She snapped, defiantly. "How does Cullen know? She's an ocean away and…and it's a blight, it's a confusing time, who's even in charge of checking that kind of thing? Was it Greagoir? Because I wouldn't trust a word he said, or any other templar. She'll write again, you'll see."
"I'm sorry, Em." Hawke said, knowing his face was too expressionless to be comforting, but it was all he could do to keep from breaking. "The letter had the Arl of Redcliffe's seal on it."
"Arl Eamon?" She scoffed, but it was weak, and the tears were flowing freely down her cheeks. "I trust him even less than the templars."
"It wasn't from the Arl. It was from Grayson Cousland."
"Cousland? But…no. Why would he say that?" She whispered. "She's not gone. She can't be."
"I'm so sorry, Emily." Aveline joined Bethany, and the two women wrapped themselves around her small, trembling frame.
"Then…we'll bring her back." She said, and Hawke gestured wordlessly to Bethany to help her back into her seat, but she wouldn't be moved. She looked frantic. She was in shock, and he thought she might collapse at any moment. "Bethany, you can help me, can't you? Or…or Cullen can get us access to the Circle library, there's got to be a resurrection spell we can use. We can find a way to bring her back."
"It doesn't work like that." Bethany said, sadly.
"Flemeth! She can do it. I've seen her do it. I know she can do it. I have to…have to get to her, I have to bring her to Flemeth. I need to go, I need to see her, I can't leave her alone. She didn't leave Jordan alone. She wouldn't leave me alone. I have to-"
"Breathe, Em." Hawke said, gently. "You need to breathe. You're going to pass out."
"I don't care, I have to-"
"You have to breathe. Do it for Lauren."
She glared at him in angry shock at his invocation of her name, but he held her gaze.
"If the girl who spent her whole life protecting you were here now, she would tell you to breathe. I'm telling you to breathe, Emily."
"Flemeth." She sobbed. "We still have her amulet, we have to take it to Sundermount, we have to bring her back so that…then…she'll know what to do. She can bring her back. She's going to be fine."
Bethany paled, looking from Emily to the others with a panicked expression. Hawke nodded, sympathetically. The magic she was speaking of was the darkest of blood magic. There had been a brief moment, at the height of her grief following their father's death, that he had feared he would lose Bethany to that darkness. He had been so focused on controlling his own emotions that he hadn't considered the inherent danger of a mage's heartbreak.
"I know this feels impossible right now, but you can't think that way." Bethany said, softly. "Sometimes the bravest thing we can do for the people we love is to let them go."
"I can't!" She gasped. "I can't, I can't breathe, I can't…" She collapsed, finally, the denial and fight leaving her body. The weight of reality brought her to her seat and she dissolved into wailing sobs. "I don't want to be brave, I just want her back."
The rest of the night was a blur of tears and whispers. Hawke had tried to comfort her, but Bethany was better at it than he was. He felt useless. She eventually succumbed to exhaustion, and he carried her still-sobbing form to bed. Bethany stayed with her through that night, and the next.
The next few days felt as though they were trapped in amber. Emily was a shadow. She stayed in bed for a week, barely talking, eating only when forced. He would have liked to crawl into bed beside her, to finally release the bubble of agony in his chest, but he had no reprieve from the work he was required to do for Athenril. The Smuggler Lieutenant had been loath to allow the mage's absence, but Hawke's anger at her suggestion she be dragged back to work had been enough to silence her. Bethany had joined him on his outings in her stead, and Athenril reluctantly agreed that a heartbroken mage would be more of a liability to their operation than they could afford.
It felt so strange to him that the city looked exactly the same as it had before. Everyone was going about their usual business, as if they were unaware that the world had ended.
He almost found an odd sense of comfort in the crushing weight of Emily's grief. He felt like he spent his days holding his breath until the moment he walked through the door at night and found her silently sobbing in her room. He wanted to tell her that he loved her sister too. He wanted to share his sorrow with her, to let her know that she didn't grieve alone, but he knew she would never understand. He barely understood himself. It had been uncomfortable for him to examine his feelings for the Grey Warden before. Now it was too painful to even try.
A ten-day after the night he had gone to the Gallows, he returned home to find the mage's bed empty. He almost started to feel relieved that she had found the strength to stand, finally, when he noticed the folded-up parchment on her pillow.
He didn't reach for it. He didn't have to read it to know what it said. His heart pounded as he wrenched open the top drawer of her dresser to find that the amulet was gone.
"Bethany!"
"Yes?" His sister walked through from the other room, noting the empty bed and the open drawer, and he saw his fear reflected back at him in her eyes. "She wouldn't…"
"Come on. We can grab Carver from the Hanged Man on the way." He said, gritting his teeth in determination and making for the door.
"Ethan? Bethany?" Leandra looked between them, fearfully. "What's wrong?"
"When did Emily leave?" He asked, desperately.
"Oh! She…she said she was feeling better. She wanted to get some fresh air."
"When?"
"Well, I'm not sure…perhaps a little over an hour ago?"
He swore under his breath.
"Ethan…" Bethany said, hesitantly. "If we're too late…if she…we might not be able to bring her back from this."
"I know." He said, darkly.
"What's going on?" Leandra demanded. "Bring her back from what?"
The Hawke children shared a significant look and their mother sank into a chair, burying her head in her hands.
"Don't worry, mother. We'll find her." Hawke insisted, throwing the door open and tossing Bethany's coat to her.
"Brother…" She said, sadly, shrugging into her coat and grabbing her staff from the table. "If we find her, and she's…she might be too far gone."
He understood. If Emily had found a way to invoke some manner of dark, blood-magic ritual in her half-mad state of grief, it would be like lighting a beacon for every demon on the continent. They had to find her - but there was a better-than-good chance that it wouldn't be to save her.
"That's why we need Carver." He said, hopelessly. "I don't know if I have it in me to destroy an abomination…not if it's wearing her face."
The sound of their mother's sobs followed them out into the cold night.
AN: Oh no, Hawke's a bit unhinged, kinda, and Emily's all sad and turning to the dark side and stuff! I hate this writer, you guys. What kind of sick person comes up with this stuff? 0/5 stars, do not recommend.
Also, the fact that nobody has made fun of the fact that I called him Ethan Hawke yet is really just a testament to your moral fibre and restraint.
Playerovic: It's yourself! Hanging on in there after *checks notes* four years. Yikes. And what a stellar four years it's been. I do recommend finishing Inquisition at some point (cause issa fun time), but if I decide to throw in any major end-game Inquisition spoilers, I'll warn you beforehand. Also, I'm absolutely shocked and appalled that I missed a "This is fine" meme opportunity. Maybe I should have spent more of my time staying up until 2am browsing 9gag and I wouldn't have made such an amateur omission. Honestly, I've considered just giving up on the whole writing thing altogether after that. The shame is crippling. (Thank you for my first review after the long absence - I sincerely appreciate it)
