Archive of Our Own ^beta

Varric dies, and Hawke goes to the Wardens.

More specifically, Hawke gets a letter from a woman she’s never met informing her that her husband was fatally stabbed in the chest by the so-called friend he was trying to save, and it takes less than an hour for her bag to be packed and her feet out the door.

It’s a lucky thing that Carver wrote to her recently. Their correspondence was typically limited, what with his near-constant travel and her inability to sit still long enough to pen a letter. However, the darkspawn in Ferelden had been so dreadful lately that the frequency of his mail had increased, presumably sensing the end being nigh.

It takes a blurry few days on the water before she’s docking in the Storm Coast, and from there it’s another five days of damp travelling - it should have only taken two, but the rain washes away the best evidence, and she’s never been very good at tracking, anyway, that’s what her dog was for - until she finally finds her way to Caer Bronach. It was pretty easy once she realized the key was to follow where the Darkspawn weren’t.

She raps on the door that allegedly holds her brother in a jaunty rhythm, not stopping until he opens it with a scowl that quickly dissolves into pure shock. “Felicity?”

“Little brother,” she greets in return, pushing past him and into the closet with a cot he’s selected for himself.

“What - What are you - How-?” he sputters.

Hawke pulls her cloak off and drops it on the floor. It hasn’t rained in a day, but she swears it’s still wet. She puts her hands on her hips decisively and faces him. “I’m going to become a Grey Warden.”

Carver is silent for a moment, then says, “You really couldn’t let me have one thing to myself?”

It startles a laugh out of Hawke. They’re both nearly fifty, yet his irritating baby brother tendencies are as present now as they were back on their family farm in Lothering. “You should be flattered, really. For once, I’m copying you.”

His scowl returns. “Why would you want to be a Warden, anyway? You hate being told what to do. And fighting Darkspawn, and the Deep Roads. And being away from Varric.”

“Varric’s dead,” she says simply.

Carver’s face falls halfway, like he’s unsure if this is the world’s worst prank. She’s still smiling, for some reason, but he must be able to tell that she isn’t joking. “Shit, really? That’s… Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.” He swallows thickly. “I’m sorry, Lottie.”

When was the last time he called her that? When Kirkwall fell, maybe? 

Hawke nods. There’s nothing else for either of them to say, really. Nothing he could do would make her feel better in a way that mattered. Nothing she could do would convince him she was coping well.

It’s dark out, but the torches outside the castle are lit, illuminating the room with a dim, warm light. This used to be a post for Inquisition soldiers, but they either must have fled the Darkspawn or died defending the castle. The Wardens that settled here now were a scarce group - she had spoken to a young mage woman at the gates who directed her to Carver, and she counted only one other person on the walk there.

“So. Wardens. You clearly need the help.”

“Oh, you’re here to save the day, are you?” Carver sneers. She’s quietly glad that he’s being mean to her again. For a second it looked like he was going to start crying on her, and that would have been no good at all. “Well, you’ll have to do it someplace else. I’m not helping you kill yourself.”

“Excuse me? I’m not planning on leaping at an Archdemon anytime soon.”

“Sure you’re not,” he snorts. “You want to join for… what? You like our shade of blue?”

“I want to join because it’s a good thing to do. I’m doing a whole lot of nothing now, aren’t I? I’m obviously not built for sitting around and watching the world fall to shit.”

“Then finish Varric’s job, or see if the Inquisitor needs a hand over at Skyhold. You’re not clever, joining the group guaranteed to kill you by your fifty-fifth birthday.”

“Maybe I wanted to see you, dickhead. My dog’s dead, my husband’s dead, my sister, my mother, my father - You’re about all I’ve got left in this world,” she huffs, too tired to yell. For good measure, she adds, “Asshole.”

Carver studies her for a long moment, squinting through the dark to properly scrutinize.

It’s silent for long enough that Hawke, alone with her thoughts, feels a surge of grief and longing for her husband so great that she almost stumbles where she stands.

“All right,” Carver says then, “I’ll make you a deal. Like all Warden recruits, you’ll have to pass a test before Joining. This is yours; You stay with me and my group for three weeks. If you’re not utterly disgusted with the idea of becoming a Warden by then - and you collect a vial of Darkspawn blood - you’re in.”

“Yugch, what do you do with that?”

“You drink it,” Carver deadpans.

Hawke snorts. “Fine. Keep your little club secrets.”

Carver laughs very hard at that, for some reason. She hates not being in on a joke. It makes her skin crawl.

Later, though she is bone-tired and can hardly keep her eyes open, Hawke spends the vast majority of her night in bed beside her snoring brother, staring at the stone ceiling and wondering if it would hurt worse to see Varric in her dreams or to not see him at all.

Looking back, maybe Hawke only thought she didn’t mind fighting darkspawn because she was always right beside the number-one Deep Roads-hater in all of Thedas. Varric’s attitude was hilarious, but it meant that she had to compensate for his complaining by being overly cheery about the whole thing. Now, Hawke knows that her husband had been right all along, and that hacking through undead nightmare people is not all it’s cracked up to be.

They haven’t strayed very far from the keep for what Carver keeps calling “Baby’s First Hunt,” and Hawke is very much looking forward to returning. The last hurlock finally stops moving, so she hurries to douse the flame she’d cooked him in, drops to her knees, and takes out the vial Carver’s superior had given her before they left that morning. 

She flips the thing’s arm over and slices down its forearm with the blade at the end of her staff, capturing the steady drizzle of black blood for… whatever they do with it. Once the vial is full, she kicks the body away from her and hardly even gags at the way its stench wafts from the movement of the rotted flesh.

Hawke goes to cork the vial, but something within stops her. A glance over her shoulder confirms that Carver is busy chatting with his boss, a stern elven man with dark skin and a considerable scar running from his temple to his chin. Again, she considers the vial. The Taint is not a fun way to go, that much she knows. It can be long and arduous, and seeing it on the face of her brother once was enough to make her never want to see it again.

However…

It’s not especially violent or brutal. Perhaps she could crawl off somewhere to take it and die slowly alone like a housecat. That way, Carver wouldn’t have to bear witness to the sight, or worse, slit her throat himself out of mercy. It’s not a bad idea.

The vial is a breath from her lips when her irritating brother calls out, “Sister? Are you killing yourself?”

She twists around. His hand is over his brow to block the sun from his view. Warden-Constable Face-Scar - Hawke should really learn his name if she’s not about to die - is staring, too, with an inscrutable expression. Hawke lowers the vial. “...No?”

Carver flops his arms in the air dramatically. “You said you weren’t going to kill yourself!”

“I’m not!” she whines. The Warden-Constable claps Carver on the shoulder and heads east, back towards the fort. Apparently dismissed, Carver shakes his head and approaches her, still crouched on the ground.

“Sorry, but that probably wouldn’t actually kill you.” 

“What? It’s darkspawn blood. That means Taint. Taint means death.”

“Normally, yes, but it’s actually…” Carver trails off and frowns.

“Go on.”

Carver shakes his head. “I’ve said too much. Cork the vial and give it to me. Then clear the corpses so animals don’t get into them.”

“You’re not my boss,” Hawke grumbles, corking the vial anyway.

Her brother crosses his arms and barks, “Warden-Recruit Hawke, I am your Senior-Warden. You are to follow my orders on the field. Is that clear?”

Hawke stares up at him in horror. “Oh, you’re going to be a menace , aren’t you?”

“Just doing my job, Recruit.”

Because she wants to and for no other reason, Hawke shoves the vial into his hands and scrambles to her feet. “I’d rather take orders from your scary Constable fellow. Say, what’s his name?”

Carver snorts and shoves her away. “He’s just ‘Warden-Constable’ to you, Recruit.”

“Aw, come on!”

“I know how you work. I will not let whatever horrible nickname you give him be traced back to me. He is my superior, and he’s good at his job.”

Hawke raises her arms for mercy. “I said nothing.”

“Oh, shut it.” He gives her a once over, then turns and stalks back to his own pile of dead darkspawn. “Don’t throw yourself onto the rocks!”

Not ten minutes later, Hawke is doing a rather fine job of tossing a corpse off a cliff when Carver says, entirely unprompted, “Oh, go home, Felicity.”

With a final heave and a grunt, she sends the hurlock tumbling the rocky hill. Its squishy, rotting head splats hard against a rock, like teeth chomping down on a grape. She looks over to her brother. “You said I had three weeks.”

“It’s ridiculous that you’re here. You need a break.”

Hawke laughs. “As if I could ever. You remember how I was after Bethany.”

“Tragically, I do. But you did take a break after Mother died. Varric told me you didn’t leave the house for a month.”

“That was different.” Hawke drops down to the forest floor and begins wiping her staff on the wet grass to clean off the blood. “I had nothing to defend anymore. Aveline and Fenris had to drag me out kicking and screaming. Literally, on all counts. If I shut down now, who’s pulling me out, hm? Best to just keep going.”

Miraculously, Carver goes quiet. Perhaps it was her admission regarding Bethany’s death. She had never told him before that she didn’t completely crumble into bits only because she had to be there for him. And Mother, to a lesser extent, but that mostly involved poking her uncle back with a long stick if he got too close to her and her wallet. Though the blood is nearly gone from her staff, she’s just replaced it with mud. She stands, and only then sees that Carver is staring at her in disbelief, not in defeat.

“What’s that face? Stop it.”

“Aveline.”

“...Yes?”

“ Aveline will pull you out. Fenris. Merrill. Isabela. Sweet Maker, Hawke, have you not spoken to them about this? Have you not told them?!”

Oh, shit. That is absolutely something she’s meant to do, isn’t it? She is terrible at being a widow.

“He’s famous. Surely, they… read about it?”

“Maker’s breath.”

He’s still making that face. Hawke wants to slap it off him. In a masterclass of strength, Hawke merely says, “Let’s get going.”

“Fel, can I ask you a question I always wanted to know the answer to but never had the courage to ask my brother-in-law?”

Hawke pauses her trek uphill, and through pants, she heaves, “Shoot.”

Carver stops, too, and is frustratingly not winded whatsoever. “Why is there a shirtless picture of him on the back cover of Tales of the Champion?”

Still struggling to breathe, Hawke winces at the fond memory. When she manages to speak, she tells him honestly, “I lost a bet.”

“Here’s what I have; ‘Dear everyone, Varric is dead. No one talk to me or look at me for a year or two. XOXO, the Widow Hawke.’”

Carver blinks at her, mouth agape. “What did you actually write?”

Hawke looks down at the sheet of parchment in her hands, then up again. She flashes a smile, and he snatches the paper from her.

Turning it over, he reads, “‘Dear everyone, Varric is dead, no one talk to me…’ Maker’s breath, Fel, this is the worst letter anyone has ever written in all of history.”

“I’ve never been good at this!”

“Your letters to me are much more coherent.” Hawke glares at him pointedly. “...Which I’m now guessing were mostly written by Varric.”

“Correct.”

“Well, that definitely explains your handwriting’s sudden and unexplained improvement when I joined the Wardens.”

“Yeaaah. Sorry.”

Carver just shakes his head and reaches into his nightstand for more paper. The one benefit of being around your sibling all the time is that they’ve already seen you at your most evil, so they will never be shocked by your insanity.

“I wish Bethany were here,” she says out of nowhere.

Without missing a beat, Carver yoinks the pen from her hand and says, “Me too. What I wouldn’t give to pawn you off onto her right now…”

“Rude boy.”

“Do you want my help writing this or not?”

Hawke sighs. She really, really does.

They spend the next hour or so sitting cross-legged on the floor of his room across from each other, passing the pen back and forth and drafting a somewhat-competent note well after the sun has gone down. They have Isabela’s address in Rivain, and of course Aveline and Donnic’s, but Fenris and Merrill are a great deal harder to reach, so they add a bit on asking for them to pass the message along. Hawke assumes that the Inquisitor knows, but Carver is insistent upon sending a letter anyway just in case. It’s only when he begins campaigning for her to reach out to the Inquisitor’s Inner Circle that she truly pushes back.

“That’s dumb. I hardly know most of them.”

“That’s not true. Varric wrote about them all the time. Hey - I got letters from you and Varric. Does that mean Varric was writing me two letters this whole time?”

“Sorta. I told him what I wanted to say and he made it sound better. And yeah, but that’s my point. They're Varric's friends, not mine. Why should I write to Divine Victoria that my husband’s dead?”

“Because they were friends, Fel, and you’re his wife.”

“Being widowed isn’t as fun as people make it sound, you know.”

Carver wrestles the pen from her grip and adds to the list of recipients Inquisitor Trevelyan and Ambassador Josephine Montilyet, Divine Victoria, and Cullen Rutherford.

Hawke flops her head back and groans up at the ceiling in anguish.

“You told me you made up!”

“That didn’t make him not annoying, it just means I’ve matured enough to look past it for the sake of chivalry and world peace.”

“Right. Extremely mature.”

“Shove it.” Hawke considers the list. “All right, well, add Magister Dorian Pavus and the Iron Bull. They’re good ones. Oh, no, put them on the same line - They’ll both get it if we send it to Dorian. And then… Seeker Pentaghast, I suppose. She hates me, I think, but she likes Varric. I think.”

Carver finishes misspelling Cassandra’s last name and glances up. “Anyone else?”

“I don’t know how to reach the others. He wrote to Cole and Sera, but it was always to different locations, and I don’t remember where Madame de Fer and Rainier are now.”

He nods. “I’m sure the Inquisitor and the Ambassador will pass the message on to them.”

“Yeah,” she agrees half-heartedly. Ruminating on all the people that loved her husband has not been gentle on the heart. 

A knock on the door startles her to her feet. Carver, on the other hand, takes his sweet time getting up and motions for her to stand down, which she does after a moment’s hesitation.

He opens the door hardly more than a crack. Hawke rises on her tiptoes in effort to snoop, but she can’t make out much. All she hears is a soft greeting from the mystery person at the door.

“Warden-Constable,” Carver greets in return. 

Ugh. Boring. Hawke tunes out their conversation and plops herself onto the bed. Someone could wake her if the fort was on fire, but that didn’t seem to be the case now. Maybe the exercise she’d gotten the past few days would grant her an easier sleep, but she wasn’t optimistic. Even if she could fall asleep, Carver’s snoring and cover-stealing would surely wake her.

And yes, they were a small crew in a large fort, and she could have asked for a separate room at any time, but… Well, she really doesn’t want to be alone. She had never managed to get used to sleeping alone when Varric was away, and she doubts she ever will.

They’re still talking. Hawke rolls onto her side to face Carver’s back, just as he says, “Tomorrow, then. Goodnight, Nera,” and closes the door quietly.

“Anything I should know?” Hawke yawns.

“Senior Warden business. You wouldn’t understand.”

“I hate you.”

“Oh, go kill yourself already. Scooch,” he grunts, and tucks himself in beside her. 

“Who’s Rook?” Carver asks her as he goes through the mail at the front gate.

“Rook?” Hawke swings her drenched robe over the clothesline and wipes the sweat from her equally-as-drenched forehead. “Varric’s stray he picked up in Tevinter. She was working with him and Scout Harding to stop Solas.”

Carver holds an envelope out to her between two fingers. “She wrote to you.”

Of course, Hawke knows the phrase ‘don’t shoot the messenger’ well. That is not stopping her from wanting to shoot this particular messenger right in the heart for telling her that her husband was dead months after it happened.

“Great,” she says, and tears it open at the side with her teeth. On the other side of the clothesline, Warden Corinne, the young mage who greeted her at the gates when she arrived, stifles a giggle in her arm.

Carver is unimpressed. “I would have just opened it for you if you asked.”

“Tell me what it says,” she demands, ignoring him.

Though he rolls his eyes, he opens it and scans the text. “She has some of Varric’s stuff that she wants to give you. Gave an address in Antiva and directions to the nearest eluvian.”

“Travel by eluvian? Aren’t we fancy,” Hawke mutters. It’s such nothing to complain about that she feels silly for even saying it.

“Relax, Fel, damn.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“About relaxing, or about Rook?”

Hawke flips him off. “Finish my laundry for me, would you, Corinne?”

“Oh! Uh, sure?”

“You do not have to do that,” Carver tells her.

Corinne smiles sweetly. “I don’t mind.” 

Hawke walks off to find somewhere Carver isn’t.

Word comes back from Isabela first, surprisingly, and Merrill’s response is in the same envelope, which is even more surprising.

“‘My Lovely Lots,’” Hawke begins reading aloud to Carver in her best (and likely highly offensive) Rivaini accent, “‘Dreadful news about Varric. Words aren’t enough, so imagine that I’m there with you, giving you a big squeeze. I didn’t even get to see him like he promised me, seeing as he was coming up here anyways. You ought to know, I already heard he passed. One of my Lords teamed up with Rook, and they mentioned it. Seemed like Rook had some freaky Varric visions or something after he was gone. I don’t know the specifics - Taash is not a details person. You’d love them. Come up when you get a break from stabbing darkspawn, would you? You’ve always got a home and an escape route with me. Kisses, Isabela.’”

Carver pokes at the fire with a stick. She could light it with a wave of her hand, but he probably doesn’t need her showing off right now. “Nothing about me? Not even a ‘hello’?”

Hawke scans the letter again. She flips it over. Ah, there we go. “‘Tell Carver ‘hello.’”

“Just a ‘hello’?”

Hawke shakes her head. “Nothing’s ever enough, is it?”

His ensuing glare is enough to make her feel a teensy bit bad, so she throws him a bone. “Wanna read Merrill’s? I bet she said something to you.”

Though he makes a big show of thinking she’s irritating and silly and below him, he reaches out his hand to take the letter, which she graciously gifts him without comment.

“‘Lethallin, I cried for days when I heard-’”

“Ah-ah,” Hawke interrupts to reprimand, “do the voice.”

“I’m not doing her voice.”

“If you don’t do the voices, how will anyone know who’s talking?”

“There’s only one person talking, and it’s Merrill!”

She pouts. “You are no fun.”

Hawke swears she hears the Warden-Constable, sitting a few yards away and sharpening his greatsword, snicker, but when she looks over he’s as stone-faced as ever. The paper rustles, and her brother clears his throat. Then, in a voice meeker and bouncier than his own, he continues, “‘I wept not just for my loss, but yours as well. I cannot imagine the anguish you feel. I am glad to hear that you are with your brother. I hate to think of you sitting in your estate, grieving alone. We aren’t meant to do that. We mourn in packs. One’s pain is everyone’s pain.’ And then… I think this is a poem?”

“Oh, goodie! Read it! Perform, bard!”

“I can't, it’s in Elvish.”

“You know some Elvish,” the Warden-Constable calls, his voice softer than expected for such a severe-seeming man. Carver’s face reddens dramatically enough that it’s clear even in the firelight.

“See, little brother? You have a waiting audience.” Hawke waves the Constable over. He looks around, and whatever he sees - probably the lack of others around to watch him fraternize with the crazy recruit - inspires him to jog over and sit on the bench next to Hawke.

Carver’s eyes have gone very wide, and Hawke feels a teensy bit bad about embarrassing him in front of his superior, but only until she remembers the time when they were children that he kicked her in the teeth, and then she thinks he probably deserves it.

“It’s… Well, there’s ‘lath’ quite a lot. And ‘vhenas,’ which means home, right? ‘Da’din’?” Carver frowns. “That can’t be right.”

“‘Da’ is little, but what’s ‘din’? I forget.”

“Death,” says the Constable.

“So… a little death. That isn’t…” Hawke flicks her eyes to Carver, who at the same time shoots his eyes over the paper to hers, and that’s all it takes to send them into hysterics.

“It must sound better in the original language,” Carver laughs.

“Sweet Maker, I’d sure hope it sounds better! Else, Merrill’s sending me a deeply inappropriate poem for a grieving woman.”

“Maybe she thinks you need to get back out there?”

Hawke cackles, the force of her own breath flopping her onto her back. The thought of ‘moving on’ is utter insanity. She was a one-dwarf sort of girl even before she knew Varric loved her back. Now, she knows nothing could ever compare.

“Do you know the poem?” she hears Carver ask their guest.

“No, poetry like that is Dalish.”

“Right, of course,” Carver replies.

Hawke pushes herself up on her elbows. “Did she say anything about why she’s in Rivain?”

It takes a moment for Carver to register her words. He turns the page and scans it briefly. “‘If you’d like to visit us-’”

“Do the voice,” the Warden-Constable commands. Ooh, Hawke likes him.

“Sweet Maker,” Carver mutters under his breath, before continuing in his piss-poor imitation of Merrill’s sweet lilt, “‘You and Carver are welcome anytime. I’d be overjoyed to discuss my recent work with you in person. I don’t trust letters for sensitive information anymore. Bela has told me too many stories about times she’s intercepted them! Please visit soon, Merrill.’”

“Huh. Well, that’s… very sweet.”

Carver’s eyebrows scrunch together as he rereads the page. “Do you think they’re…?”

“She was speaking quite familiarly about a home that is not hers,” the Constable adds thoughtfully.

“Oh, don’t tell me you’re jealous, Carver”

“Jealous?”

“Merrill invited you by name! Perhaps she’s been pining for you all this time!”

Carver sputters, “That’s - We’re - I had a brief infatuation with her twenty years ago! Will I never live that down?”

“Not until you find an even more pathetic crush.”

“Felicity Marian Hawke, you are a deeply evil woman.”

All right, she is starting to feel a little bad. His rosy cheeks were funny at first, but now he seems well and truly mortified.

“Well, that’s as good a time as any to call it a night, hm?” Hawke pushes herself off the ground and shakes the Warden-Constable’s hand firmly. “‘Twas a pleasure, Nera.”

The Warden-Constable cocks his head and nods slowly. “...Right. You, too.” His eyes flicker to the right, looking behind her curiously at Carver, before releasing her hand and heading off.

“That’s his name, isn’t it? Have I offended him?”

“The only person you should be worried about offending is me ,” Carver snaps, grabbing her arm harshly and dragging her toward their room. “You’re sleeping on the floor tonight.”

--

Turns out, Varric’s little mentee he’d described as “scrawny” and “down-on-her-luck” now resides in a massive Antivan house - manor, really, there’s a courtyard and everything - with a dining table set with more chairs than she has friends.

A housekeeper guides them in, even giving a brief tour of the garden that she remembers very little of because she and Carver kept glancing at each other incredulously with each insane rich-person comment. And yeah, Hawke technically lives in an estate. And she technically is the wealthiest person in her entire city. But, that city is a shithole, and she grew up a farmer, lest anyone forget. Her home certainly doesn’t have wings.

The image of Rook that Hawke had in her head was rat-like; lithe, grungy, hungry. Therefore, when a beautiful young Elven woman with the softest-looking hair she’s ever seen in a cozy sweater and pleated high-waisted trousers enters the room, she thinks she’s stumbled into the wrong dining hall.

Alas, she’s in the right place. “Hawke,” Rook greets with a gentle smile and sad eyes. Hawke and her brother both stand from their seats at the table and shake Rook’s hand. Manicured, yet calloused. An interesting puzzle. “I’m glad you came.”

Her accent reveals her as a Marcher, which is strange - Hawke could have sworn Varric said he picked her up in Tevinter, yet she also has Vallaslin. Huh.

Hawke nods. “I always appreciate an invitation, especially to a place like this. You could fit ten of my house in here.”

“Creators, I know,” Rook chuckles. “It’s not mine, I assure you. I’ve been here for months now and I still get lost.”

Humble, too. “This is Carver, my brother.”

“Oh!” Rook blinks back and forth between them a few times. “Just Carver?”

Her brother shifts, clearly hiding irritation. “Senior-Warden Hawke, if you’d like to get technical about it,” he grumbles.

“I didn’t mean… Sorry. I only meant that… You’re both ‘Hawke,’ but it’s odd to call one of you by your shared last name and not the other, no? Is there-”

“All right,” a voice calls from the room Rook came from. The door pushes open and out steps a handsome Crow - at least, judging by the accent, color-palette, and dual daggers slung on his hips. “What was that, three minutes?”

Rook gives a short chuckle, visibly relaxing at this man’s presence. “You were right.”

The man is about Rook’s height, meaning Hawke and Carver are all but towering over them. She feels very silly, like she’s in a dollhouse or something. He’s smirking, but there’s something tender about it. Hawke averts her gaze to the wall. “We bet how long she’d last in this conversation alone. Lucanis Dellamorte.”

Carver nods, crossing his arms over his chest. “First Talon. Call her Hawke, and me Carver.”

Lucanis gives a half-hearted shrug and says nothing. Rook nudges him with her hip and he shoots her a bashful smile, which she returns in kind.

Something about this adorable little domestic bliss she’s being subjected to fills her with rage and impatience. “Do you have his things?”

Rook snaps her attention back to Hawke, and her eyes go sad again. Good. “Yeah. I’ll go get them.”

“Allow me, mi vida,” Lucanis offers sweetly.

“Thank you, amatus.” So she is a ‘Vint. One of those classic Dalish Marcher ‘Vints.

With that, Lucanis exits the way he came. Rook clears her throat. “You can sit, if you’d like. Are either of you hungry?”

“No,” she and her brother both answer in unison. Hawke knows why she’s irritated, but the source of Carver’s frustration eludes her. Nevertheless, they sit, and Rook does the same on the other end of the table.

She doesn’t want to be here. She doesn’t want to be talking to this woman she doesn’t know. But she must. Her throat is thick when she asks, “What happened?”

Rook’s face tightens in pain. She brings her hands to the tabletop and fidgets with her fingers. “It’s… as I said in the letter. Solas was casting the ritual, and Varric-”

“No, I - I know what happened. But what… You were there. Harding was there. How did no one save him? How-” Hawke clears her throat, trying to unstick the walls. “Why did it take so long for you to tell me?”

“Right, well…” Hawke spares a shooting glance up from the tablecloth to Rook’s face. Like her, Rook’s eyes are wet and trained downward. “The short answer is ‘blood magic.’”

“‘Blood magic’ is the reason you couldn’t tell her that her husband was murdered?” Carver scoffs.

Rook looks up, then, and there’s such despair and fear on her face that Hawke suddenly sees why Varric liked her so much. He always adored the tragic ones, after all.

“No. Of course not. But… Solas was in my head, after the ritual failed. Trapped there. He - he was deceiving me, right? The trickster god, etcetera. So, he needed me on his side. And I wouldn’t be on his side if… If I knew he killed Varric.” Rook swallows and drums her knuckles across the table.

Hawke physically feels the anger seep away from her body, leaving nothing but exhaustion in its place. Her voice is no more than a murmur as she slowly says, “He used blood magic to make you think Varric was still alive?”

After a long moment, Rook nods. “We - I thought he was right there with me. We had full, detailed conversations. He… None of it was real. And, uh, the rest of my team didn’t know that I didn’t know. Otherwise, I’m sure Harding or Neve would have written you. I truly am sorry, Hawke.”

Part of her wishes Solas was still around, just so she could beat him into the earth with her bare fists. Varric had such unbridled hope in him, that he was a good person deep down and just needed to be shown the lighter path. She wonders, would he have gone to try to save Solas if he knew it would mean leaving her for good? She doesn’t know.

Lucanis returns with a large wooden lockbox. He sets it on the table with a huff - watching these itty-bitty rogues does amuse her, she can’t lie - and quickly goes to Rook, wiping her face and brushing his fingers through her hair.

Again, Hawke stands, turning the key and opening it quickly, before she can psyche herself out.

It’s not as full as she hoped. She sticks her hand in and immediately comes away with his necklace - his ring - and it takes everything within her to not give in to the buckling of her knees and the sharp sting behind her eyes. Instead, she runs her pointer finger around the gold band delicately just once before she throws the necklace over her head and continues on. She feels the three pairs of eyes on her heavier than the ring around her neck.

There’s a lot of paperwork. Taxes and mortgage payments and budgeting that he always did for her. Damn, she’ll have to learn how to do all of this now. Ah, well, maybe she can force Aveline into it. How long can she get stuff by playing the dead husband card? Something to consider.

A rock engraved with an elven rune that Merrill gave him over a decade ago. A napkin drawing Fenris once did of Barkspawn while heavily intoxicated. A dagger gifted to him by the Inquisitor. A letter from his brother dated twenty-four years ago. 

Hawke’s hair ribbon that went missing months ago. A small portrait of Bethany that Hawke had commissioned so he could see the face of her best friend, kept safe and loved by him despite never meeting her because Hawke loved her. A blank page of Hawke’s letterhead that smells like her perfume. Hawke, Hawke, Hawke.

Hawke.

That’s what the envelope at the bottom of the box says, written unmistakably in Varric’s gorgeous calligraphy. A letter he wrote that she never received. A hand reaches out to grasp it that she vaguely recognizes as her own, but she can’t. Not here, not now, not with these strangers watching her. She pulls back.

“Bianca?” she asks.

“Destroyed at the ritual. I’m sorry.”

Strangely, it’s a gut-punch. Forget his ring, screw this letter that contains the last words her husband will ever say to her - This is like learning he’s dead all over again. An odd, frenzied giggle bubbles out of her. It’s either that or crying.

“It was very quick. She didn’t suffer,” Rook says stoically. All that Hawke can manage is a puff of air expelled from her nose. It’s a shame she can’t give it the reaction it deserves; it was pretty funny. “Our friend Bellara has the scraps. She’s a Veil Jumper. She had a theory that she could use the pieces to-”

“You gave away my husband’s crossbow?”

Rook’s face drops as though she’s been struck. Her mouth opens and closes a few times, floundering, trying to manifest some excuse Hawke doesn’t want to hear. Beside her, Carver gets to his feet like her own personal attack dog.

“There was hardly anything to ‘give away,’ as you say,” Lucanis cuts in. “She only intended to make use of what remained.”

“I thought it was what Varric would have wanted,” Rook meekly mumbles.

“That was not your call to make!” Hawke snaps. “You knew him, what, a year? How would you know what he wants?!”

Lovely. She’s made the girl cry.

The onlookers have gone silent. Carver, who she half-expected to start scolding her, does nothing but continue leveling a heavy glare at the happy couple. Lucanis’s eyes briefly flash violet, but she can’t even bring herself to care. And, Carver’s hand flies to the hilt of his sword, so he’s probably got it covered if the man starts shitting demons.

Hawke looks down to the box once more. “Where are his clothes?”

A hand is covering Rook’s mouth, so it’s Lucanis who tells her, “He didn’t have much in storage, but your friend Isabela asked for them. Just a set of sleeping wear and a spare shirt.”

Hawke nods. That’s not really what she’s after, and Bela’s a fine owner. “What about what he was wearing?”

Rook moves her arm from her face down to cradle her neck. “We have those. I’ll get them,” she says quickly, as though she can’t leave the room fast enough.

Unsurprisingly, Lucanis does not appear happy with her. His hands flex at his sides, and Hawke has seen that on Isabela enough to know he’s itching to stab something. Hopefully, it’ll be Carver and not her.

Instead of attempting assassination, Lucanis takes a deep breath and places his hands on his hips with deliberation. “I know this is painful, but she is not trying to hurt you.”

“Who died and put her in charge of Varric’s things?”

“Varric.” Lucanis shrugs. Hawke fantasizes about the sound his jaw would make cracking under her knuckles.

The worst thing is that he’s right.

No, the worst thing is that Varric is gone. The second worst thing is that were Varric not gone, he’d be the one talking her off this ledge. He made her so much sweeter, much lovelier, just by being with her. The third worst thing is that he - that they - are right.

He continues, “It can be a blessing, you know, to have others to mourn with.”

“I don’t even know her,” Hawke mutters like a petulant little girl.

“No, but Varric knew her. I have it on good authority that she’d like to know you, as well.”

She grunts, letting him decipher for himself if it’s in agreement or disdain. Carver, for his part, takes it as the former, and he relaxes his hand from his weapon.

A brief moment of silence later, Carver then asks, “What’s with the purple?”

“Ah.” He glances over his shoulder at the door, presumably willing Rook to interrupt the conversation with his mind. His savior doesn’t come, so he sighs and faces them again. “I would first like to remind you both that we did just help to save the world. Also - and I say this with no ego - I am the greatest assassin in all of Thedas.”

“Is that a threat?” Carver grips his sword’s hilt once more.

“Not at all. It is… a gentle reminder.”

“...Right.”

“I will not bore you with the specifics, but I am technically an abomination.” Lucanis hesitates, then adds, “Not by choice, just to be clear.”

Oh, fun. Her favorite topic.

“What’s the demon?”

“Depends on who you ask.”

“Is now the time for riddles, do you think?” Hawke asks with a raised brow.

“I meant it literally. There are spirit whisperers in Antiva who believe it to be a spirit of determination. We just call him ‘Spite.’”

“Spite, huh? People can be driven mad by spite. Leads them down dark roads.” Subtly, Hawke calls upon her magic, just in case this takes a familiar turn.

“I agree. Fortunately, we have come to an agreement.”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“Me and Spite. Oh, and Rook litigated.”

“Deals with demons. Pick that up while you were in Tevinter, did you?” He’s an assassin. The greatest in the world, if he’s to be believed, and Hawke believes him. Rook is somewhere nearby, and she very recently killed three gods. Even if they surprise Lucanis, she doubts they can take down him and his lover. Admittedly, she is out of practice, and they have youth on their side. Her right knee is aching from the walk in alone.

“It isn’t like that.”

“That’s what they all say,” she mutters coolly.

“Truly. Spite didn’t want this, either. So long as we fight to protect Rook and our family, he causes no harm. You can speak to him, if you’d like.”

That gives her pause. “You can call upon it at will?”

Lucanis nods. “He is… trapped. Curious, but frightened. His anger is rarely misplaced, and with our agreement, I make all judgement calls alone. All it took was finding common ground.”

Disturbingly, she believes him. At least enough not to die trying to kill him.

Carver frowns at her. “Where was that solution twenty years ago?”

“If anything, Anders and Justice were doing a little too much ‘common-grounding.’”

Understanding washes over Lucanis’ features. “I assure you, his interests do not concern you or anyone else. He mostly cares about throwing daggers into training dummies and sniffing my girlfriend’s hair.”

“Well. All right.” It was nice hair.

“‘All right’?” Carver side-eyes her.

“What are we gonna do? Kill him? We’re not abomination hunters.”

“My grandmother is upstairs.”

“See, Carver? His gram-gram is here. That would just be mean.”

“Ah, no - I meant that my grandmother, the former First Talon, is just upstairs and will most assuredly kill you should I and Rook fail.”

“Oh. Well, that too, then.”

“Any friend of Varric is a friend of Rook, and any friend of Rook is a friend of mine. I assume you feel the same about Varric, no?”

“Sweet Maker, no. That man would befriend anything if it made puppy eyes at him. Like an angry elven god, for instance.”

Any further hilarious quips she may have delighted the room with are cut short by Rook returning, stack of Varric’s blood clothes bundled in her arms, prompting all the moisture in Hawke’s mouth to dry up. A pathetic whine escapes her that she tries to play off as a cough. It isn’t his blood that’s affecting her so - Maker knows she’s seen plenty of that in her life - but his coat, folded nicely between his shirt and his boots.

Everyone is watching her, but she can’t force her limbs to move towards her. Evidently, she takes too long to react, and Rook cautiously sets the pile down next to the lockbox, moving slowly and intentionally like Hawke’s a wild beast she doesn’t want to startle. Hawke would be scared of herself, too.

A gloved hand brushes the small of her back. “Lottie?” Carver whispers close, though it’s hard to hear him over the ringing in her ears that typically only follows a nearby explosion.

Mechanically, her arms are drawn to the clothes. It’s impossible to tell if her fingers are trembling or if it’s just her watery vision playing tricks. The leather boots aren’t as worn as she remembers - perhaps he got them fixed up with some advanced magic the North hasn’t shared with the rest of the world. She slides them to the side. Varric’s coat, on the other hand, is exactly how she remembers, save for a new rip on the right breast. Reverently, Hawke smooths her hands over it. If she had an ounce less pride left, she’d lift it to her nose and breathe deeply. She settles instead for cradling it to her chest, pressed right against her heart and the ring hanging from her neck. “Thank you,” she says.

“No need,” Rook replies. “It belongs to you.”

Hawke can do nothing but nod.

She’s hoping they can call it there and go their separate ways - of course, Hawke’s way being the closest place to cry freely - but Rook continues, “You were right, earlier. I didn’t know him very long, all things considered, and I’m certain that he meant more to me than I meant to him. I say this, Hawke, because my grief over losing him being as horrid and consuming as it is must mean that you’re… Creators, I don’t think I’d even be able to stand, were I you.

“Varric was my first friend in… a very long time. I know how ardently he adored you. This is all an awfully long-winded way of telling you that you are always welcome here if you need anything. To rest, to talk, to laugh… Anything.”

Hawke raises her eyes to face the woman she’d yelled at not a half-hour ago, so generously putting that aside and offering her home and companionship, and understands what Varric saw in her.

“You’re quite good at that, you know. Putting people at ease with just your words. Welcoming strangers like they’re family.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

“Yeah. Just… reminds me of someone, that’s all.” Hawke buries the thought deep, deep down. “You should keep his boots.”

Rook’s eyebrows shoot up. “Are you sure?”

“He’s about half my size. Nothing good I can do with them.”

“Hawke, you don’t have to-”

“Just take them, Rook.”

Rook settles and quirks a smile.

Pleasantries, thank yous and apologies are exchanged, but Hawke’s head is buzzing too loud to hear. Blindly, she follows Carver’s guiding hand as it leads her through the winding halls, the courtyard, and out the front door. 

Antiva’s air is stickier than she expected. Tevinter has a dry heat, so she just assumed its neighbor would be the same, but the heat here is viscous and weighted by the canals, more like Rivain. 

She and Varric talked about retiring here, just before he left for the Inquisition. House-hunting didn’t seem fun without him, and it was only two months before he cracked and asked for her to join him, so she never got around to it. Maybe, if she did, he’d be alive now.

“Lottie?” 

That’s the second time her little brother has called her that tonight. It makes her feel silly, like she’s a child again.

“Come on. The eluvian’s close.”

She is stuck on the steps of the Dellamorte estate. The lockbox with Varric’s things is tucked under her brother’s arm. In her hands is her husband’s favorite coat.

All at once, it’s too much. She collapses to the ground, undoubtedly bruising her knees in the process, as tears fall down her cheeks and puddle onto the granite below. Carver chases her down, setting the box to the side so he can shake her shoulder as though to snap her out of her state. He only succeeds in releasing choked, throaty cries from her that she’d been refusing to voice. 

Hawke shrugs him off and shifts onto her bottom, pulling her knees up in front of her. She buries her face in the jacket and wails ; More screams than sobs, tearing up her larynx and convulsing her ribs.

Carver’s arm slides around her shoulder, roughly pulling her into his side. She has nothing to lose, now including her pride, so she leans her weight into him and prays to gods she doesn’t believe in that this suffering will finally be enough to grant her peace.

Aveline’s letter comes five days later.

Hawke reads it over her breakfast toast and shakes the crumbs off it periodically. She’s numb to the well wishes and apologies and ink smudged with saltwater.

It’s the sign-off that twists her doughy insides: ‘Come home soon.’

She has hardly thought about Kirkwall since leaving, and the idea of returning never even crossed her mind. Truthfully, she doesn’t recognize the city much these days. It isn’t as though the city never recovered from the rebellion - rather, it was the opposite. Varric was acting Viscount for a minute there, and though he stepped down to pursue Solas not long after, he was extremely popular with the citizens and was able to implement some real improvements to the quality of life. Since Aveline took over, she managed to maintain Varric’s decisions while instituting the order that it so desperately needed.

Gone was her grubby little town. Hello, gem of the Free Marches. With all her friends and family having moved on, Hawke felt more like a ghost haunting Hightown rather than the resident she was - and she was nowhere close to living up to her leadership status.

This hold feels more like her home than her home does. At least here there’s her brother, and lots of baddies to blast into bits, and a rag-tag group working together to achieve their goal. The Wardens are nice to her, and their generosity seems more or less authentic. Warden Corinne is very sweet to both her and Carver - overtly so, to the point Hawke suspects a potential romance on the horizon - and the Warden-Constable has loosened up around her, at least a teensy bit. The other five, Wardens Nice-Hair, Green-Eyes, Beardy, Baby, and Daggers - Look, Varric was the creative one, leave her alone - hadn’t gone out of their way to be friends with her or anything, but they were at least kind enough to take Carver’s patrol rotations for the first week she was there.

The Warden-Constable decides to deign them with his presence that morning instead of retreating to his quarters like usual. He comes away from Warden Green-Eyes’ small breakfast stand with two pints of orange juice, bringing one to Carver and sitting across the cooled firepit from them.

“What’s a girl gotta do to get bottle service around here?”

Carver rolls his eyes. “It’s mine. I pay for the oranges out of my personal wages.”

“Well, what about him?” she asks, gesturing to the Warden-Constable.

The man smiles and raises his mug to her. “Perks of being the boss.”

There was a time Hawke was overwhelmed with free gifts and favors merely for looking in someone’s direction. Has her clout run out, or is it because she is Carver’s troubled sister here rather than the Champion? She is uninterested in finding out. Hawke wonders aloud, “If we walked into the Hanged Man today, would they still cheer our name?”

“They were never cheering for me,” Carver laughs dryly.

“You’re such a spoilsport.”

“They actually cheered your name when you walked into the tavern?” the Warden-Constable asks, eyeing her brother suspiciously.

Hawke puffs her chest out with pride. “My troupe went every night. We were celebrities there before anyone else cared about us. Varric ought to have gotten paid for the people he’d bring in who just wanted to play a hand of Grace and listen to his stories.”

At that, his skepticism wanes. “Ah.” After a moment, he adds, “I’ve read all of his books.”

Hawke’s eyebrow quirks. He didn’t seem like the reader type, what with his biceps the width of her head and big, important job. She fiddles with the ring around her neck. “You don’t say. Are they any good?”

He gives her a long, level stare, which Hawke has seen on the faces of infinite people that couldn’t tell when she was making a joke. Slowly, he nods. “My favorite was his last, as a matter of fact.”

Ooh, the qunari-tevinter romance. She’d basically read it, in that she was friends with the subject matter. The bits she’d read over Varric’s shoulder as he drafted it weren’t bad, either. Less swooning and whimpering than Swords & Shields - which she had read, actually, if only because it made Aveline mad - and more political turmoil and bloody combat. Not that there was no whimpering, of course - Hawke had made Varric read those bits aloud to her on the occasional evening in - but certainly little enough to consider it respectable fiction over smut.

“This explains why Carver’s your second-in-command. You’re a fan.”

Carver kicks her shin. “Because I couldn’t have earned it myself, could I?”

The Warden-Commander chuckles good-naturedly. “Your brother has more than earned his place here. If you are dedicated to joining our cause, I’m sure he could teach you a lot.”

Carver beams. Hawke rolls her eyes. She gets kicked again.

Hawke sneaks into the Warden-Constable’s quarters while he’s running drills with the mages outside the keep. It takes little time to secure her prize, so she scurries off to find someplace deep in the hold where she can be alone. After a few minutes exploring, she finds a nook in the cobblestone with a gap in the wall that illuminates it, sits down on the floor, and cracks the book open for the very first time in her life.

The Blight had been unleashed on Ferelden. Darkspawn poured out of the Wilds, clashing with the army at the roads of Ostagar. The battle was a disaster. King Cailan died on the field with his men, betrayed by his most trusted general. Unopposed, the hoard marched on the village of Lothering. The village burned, and many innocents were slaughtered. Hawke’s family barely escaped in time.

“I think that’s all of them,” Hawke’s younger brother, Junior, panted with the last stab of his sword into the belly of a hurlock.

“For the moment,” added Sunshine, Junior’s twin. The pair were freshly eighteen, still baby-faced and semi-innocent. Sunshine had always been the sweetheart of the family, always keeping the others from tearing at each other’s throats - particularly since their father had died some years ago. The flames that danced on her fingertips should have been a warning for danger within, but just one look at her face told you that her nature had never been to harm, not even the nastiest spiders that crawled in their farmhouse.

Hawke shuts the book and weeps freely, knowing with certainty that she will never stop mourning Varric just as she has never stopped mourning her dear little sister.

When Bethany had nightmares, she’d worm her way under Hawke’s covers and press her head against her shoulder. She’d be crying, precious little sniffles that left marks on Hawke’s sleep shirt, and whisper what the dream had been about while Hawke pet her hair. It was usually the same dreams Hawke would get - fear and despair of being caught and thrown in prison or a Circle, or turned Tranquil by the Templars, or slaughtered where she stood. Hawke would pretend like she was unafraid and promised that she would never let anything like that happen to her.

When Carver had nightmares, he did the same - for the first few years of his life, at least. When he was older, maybe eight or nine, he stopped coming to her or their parents. At the table the next morning, his eyes would be red and he’d stare at the front door like something terrible was bound to come smashing through at any moment. When pressed, though, he would grumble something about needing to mind her own business and go sulk somewhere. Sometimes, though, Hawke would wake in the night and hear him and Bethany murmuring back and forth in their bedroom. So, fine. He wasn’t accepting her help, but he had Bethany. That’s good enough.

When Hawke had nightmares, she went to her father. As long as she can remember, she never confessed her dreams, always too guilty and ashamed to admit to fearing the gifts he’d given her. She’d make something up, something childish and inane like monsters under the bed, and he’d sing in her ear until she fell back asleep. Her father died, and she took her nightmares alone, save for the times she’d creep to the twins’ room and watch them sleeping in the doorway until she felt assured enough in their safety to leave.

After two weeks straight of sleeping beside her brother, when she woke with a scream on her lips and sweat down her back, she threw her arm to her right to grab at Carver wildly. Her hand met nothing but cool, scratchy sheets. Panic seized her and she forced herself to catch her breath and think instead of reacting.

She quickly remembers that Carver had been assigned patrol that night and, without a second thought, clambers out of the bed, pulls Varric’s coat from the desk and puts it on over her sleep shirt, and heads for the door. She has to step over the large box of his things, and thinks of her name written so daintily on parchment at the bottom of it, and leaves before she throws up on her bare feet.

The night is cool and empty. The moon is high, so everyone must be asleep save for her brother keeping watch. What they’re keeping watch from, she isn’t too sure, as the darkspawn in the area are seemingly most of the way cleared. Perhaps it’s just a waiting game at this point for correspondence telling them to travel elsewhere.

The stone beneath her feet is slimy with dew and irritates her with caking dirt and pebbles. She tiptoes up the nearest stairwell, assuming Carver’s on the ramparts. 

Hawke passes her horrid little book nook, then falters. It had been too much at once to be confronted with so much Varric and Bethany and Mother and a version of herself that looks nothing like the one she sees in the mirror now - but she shouldn’t have left it there. It wasn’t her property, for one thing.

A pang in her heart pulls her toward it. It’s a piece of Varric that she’s left in harm’s way. She swipes it and wipes away the thin layer of moisture that’s accumulated on the cover with the hem of her shirt.

Carver’s voice echoes off the walls, yanking her out of her head. It was just some muttering, but she knows his voice anywhere. Hawke continues down the hall where she thinks she heard him, which she’s vaguely aware the next set of stairs up to the barricades proper is. She turns the last corner, and-

Well. She found him, so that’s a win.

Carver - her brother, her baby brother - is pressed against the stone wall, his shirt pulled up over his navel and pants undone, with his hand down the trousers of the shadowed figure that’s currently got their teeth in his neck and their thigh rocking against his crotch.

The image is but a flash with how quickly Hawke squawks and slaps her hands over her eyes, but it’s burned into her retinas and she continues to see it where there should only be darkness.

Carver makes an eerily similar noise, and a second voice - she knows that voice, there is no way - curses softly, just loud enough to be heard over their boots squeaking against the floor and the buckling of belts.

“I saw… nothing. Let’s go with that, yes?” Hawke begins yapping and cannot stop. “I saw nothing, you saw nothing, I definitely didn’t see any discernible features of either of you, so it’s truly impossible for anyone to say who was doing what and with whom! You may remain in anonymity forever!”

“All right, good,” sighs the Warden-Constable in relief.

“Don’t talk - Sweet Maker,” Carver groans. Then, to Hawke, he calls, “You can look.”

She doesn’t budge. “I don’t think I want to.”

“It’s fine,” he snaps, “let’s talk about this like adults so we can never think about it again.”

That is a solid plan. That last part especially sounds nice. Hawke drops her hands. True to his word, they fixed their clothes and hid away any indecencies, but she keeps her eyes trained strictly above the clavicle just to be safe.

“Carver. Warden-Constable,” she greets stoically.

“Sister,” Carver sneers.

She purses her lips. This is a conversation she never thought she’d have to have. “So… Look, who hasn’t had a bit of fun with a coworker?” Carver groans again and scrubs a hand over his face, but Hawke barrels on. “It’s - it’s natural! Can’t exactly say I haven’t done the same, of course, doing business with my business partner. Now, granted, my money wasn’t on another man, but that’s - unimportant. What is important is that this ? Is no big deal. Nothing to write home about, as they say. And - furthermore - there’s only about three Wardens out here, stationed in the middle of who-gives-a-fuck. Of course you’d… make do. So. No worries, is what I’m going for here.”

Carver’s friend frowns. “It’s not-”

“-A big deal,” Carver finishes. “You’re exactly right, Felicity. Couldn’t agree more.”

The Warden-Constable’s left ear twitches and his frown deepens. “Carver.”

“Hanere.”

Nice to finally put a name to the face, she supposes, but she’s not too sure it was worth the cost. Scratch that, it definitely wasn’t worth it. Hanere. Must mean something in elven she’s unaware of. She hums in thought, pulling the men out of their glare-off. “‘Nera’? That’s what Carver called you when you came by the other night. What does that mean?”

Carver bristles. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

A lie, obviously. He doesn’t even bother trying to act. Hanere scoffs and scowls, but he doesn’t add anything. 

“Carver. Tell me what’s going on, or I’ll start telling all your Warden buddies every embarrassing story I’ve got stored up here,” she demands, tapping against her temple.

“It does mean nothing. Literally. It’s - Hanere. Nere. Nera. I don’t know.”

“It’s a nickname?” Oh. She has severely misjudged this. “Er… It’s a pet-name.”

Carver nods stiffly, not meeting her eyes.

“Not so much ‘making do,’ hm?”

He nods again.

“Aw, see? I knew you didn’t just get this job! Sleeping your way to the top - Never would’ve expected it from you, but I’m proud, little brother.”

“Shut your damn mouth,” Carver says, right as Hanere rushes to explain, “He earned his station, I would never-”

“Teasing. Call it payback for not telling me for - however long this has been going on.”

“Not telling Varric, you mean. Four years, by the way. Known each other nine."

“Say, Hanere, have you heard the one about Carver and the bag of druffalo manure?”

“What are you even doing awake, sister? Looking for a wall high enough to throw yourself off?”

“Woof,” Hanere mumbles to himself.

“I was looking for you, cocksucker - Ooh, I should retire that one now, shouldn’t I?"

“Felicity.”

“I had - I couldn’t-” Hawke groans, frustrated at her inability to say what she means. “I needed you. I had… a bad dream. Whatever. Fuck you.”

She watches in real time as her brother’s face slowly morphs from fiery irritation to (blegh) patient tenderness. Carver looks to his lover, who nods, and he then drops his hand onto Hawke’s shoulder. “Let’s go to bed."

“That depends. Do you still have a stiffy?”

Hawke rubs the ice conjured to her fingertips over where Carver had kicked her in the kneecap after she said 'stiffy.' Maybe she deserved it, but it was a genuine question, and more importantly, it hurt like a bitch. She can’t be too mad, though. Carver had bid Hanere a premature goodnight and sulked to his own quarters, which Hawke can’t say she would have done in his shoes.

“You can’t tell anyone about me and the Warden-Constable.”

“Tell who? The headline has been Everyone I Love Is Dead this whole time, Brother.”

“Anyone here.”

“…They don’t know?”

“Are you going to tell me about this nightmare, or am I playing the role of your mabari?” Carver asks a few minutes later, his voice muffled somewhat by the pillow his head rests on. He’s laying down curled away from where she sits perched on the edge of the cot.

Hawke hums softly. “Barkspawn rarely stole the covers. And his feet were never freezing cold when they brushed my leg.”

“Fel.”

“Sorry.” She doesn’t want to talk about it. But he’s right, she has to talk. Instead of the dream, the words that tumble out of her mouth are, “We should have had children.”

After a pause in his breathing, Carver quickly and brashly rolls over to stare at her in disbelief. “You never wanted children.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“He never wanted children.”

“Mm, he was indifferent.”

“Are dwarf-human children even possible?”

“Yes.”

Carver frowns, clear enough that Hawke can tell even in the near-pitch dark. “You seem certain.”

Hawke shoots him a look.

“You don’t mean…?”

Hawke shrugs indifferently, like her heart isn’t seizing in her chest just talking about it.

When he speaks again, his voice is low and miserable. “You never said.”

“Well, it never ended up happening, did it?” Hawke shakes the ice flakes from her hands to grip the bed sheets. “It was… there was a scare. And then there was more than a scare. And then it… We were young. We had only just started seeing each other, so it was a bad time, even if we did want it. Funny thing is, it happened the day before I was seeing Anders to ‘fix it.’ It fixed itself, I suppose.”

Carver is very still. It unsettles her. At least her dog would snore. “This was way back in Kirkwall?”

Hawke snorts. “Could you imagine? Taking the tyke up to slice baddies in Sundermount? Yeah, right.”

“Right,” he says, but it doesn’t sound much like agreement. “But you regret it?”

Hawke picks at a loose thread with her thumbnail. “There’s nothing left of him in the world, now. That would have been a piece of him. His influence. His face.”

It would have been unfair to pin all of that onto a child, obviously. Which is why Hawke knows she was never meant to be a mother: far too much baggage for one child to carry on its own. It is a shame, though, because Varric would have been a perfect father. And now, if there had been a child, she wouldn’t be so alone.

Well, she’s not entirely alone. Carver starts laughing, the prick.

“What’s your issue?” she demands.

“Sorry, sorry - I just can’t think of someone alive who had more of an influence on the world than renowned author, multi-time savior-of-the-world, Viscount Varric Tethras. Not to mention the effect he had on people - Everyone who met him, even once, has a story and a well of compliments to say about him. Lottie, look around you. He’s everywhere.”

Cullen Rutherford sends his remorse in an eight-page letter that is so deeply touching it makes Hawke clutch the papers to her chest and sob.

She promptly burns it and vows to herself to never mention it to a soul.

“They’ll want to see you, you know. It won’t be much of a reunion with you absent,” Hawke says, trying to use the murky magic reflection of the eluvian as a proper mirror to tie her hair up. It doesn’t work very well.

“Tell them I’m busy with the Wardens.”

“‘Carver’s getting busy with a Warden.’ No, that won’t do. Even though it is the truth, they’ll never believe it.”

“Bitch.”

“Cock… face?”

“‘Needs work. Don’t say anything about Hanere.”

“I know. Sod off if you’re not coming.”

“Tell them I say hello.”

“‘Carver says hello, but don’t get too excited, Merrill - he’s not interested!’”

Carver shoves her through the portal.

First thing Hawke notices upon stepping into Rivain is that she made a massive wardrobe mistake. She had tried dressing light, honest, but it was still not enough against the abrasive heat. Maker, why did she choose a black turtleneck? It’s sleeveless, yes, but instantly clung to her body with sweat. At least her trousers were loose and stopped at the knee - she’d borrowed pants from Warden Suzi - a thick dwarf, previously known as Warden Nice-Hair -  and tied them high at the waist. It was a trick she’d learned while married to Varric, naturally.

Second thing she notices is the massive mabari barrelling towards her, accompanied by the gravelly voice shouting commands at it. Perhaps it isn’t her smartest decision - but she was never known for that, so why start now? - yet she drops to her knees and opens her arms wide for the slobbering beast anyway.

She is immediately rewarded by 60 pounds of meat and muscle slamming into her chest, but her instincts were right, as the dog doesn’t attack. It licks her face, no doubt ruining the first bit of effort she had made into her appearance in weeks, and she giggles with her mouth closed as best as she can.

“Down,” Fenris commands somewhere above her.

Hawke perks up, pausing her attentions on the dog to look up at him. Ah, good old Fenris, with a swanky new haircut. She leaps to her feet, going for a hug when a dusty old bell in the very back of her brain goes off, reminding her don’t touch the elf without permission. However, she hardly gets the chance to redirect before Fenris is pulling her in himself. She gives him a good long squeeze, enjoying every bit of affection she gets from everyone feeling sorry for her.

“Fenris!” she cheers, pulling away to get a good look at his smiling face.

“Hawke,” he nods, pleased. “Your friend is named Autumn. You can’t steal her, she’s not mine.”

Hawke cooed and leaned down to pat her head. “A perfect name for a perfect baby.”

“Do not speak to her like that. She’ll get a big head, and she’s already big enough. Come,” Fenris says, extending his elbow out for her to take, “I was just heading inside.”

‘Inside’ refers to a cozy bar filled with the sound of Isabela’s cackling. That makes her and Merrill easy to spot, as does all the glittering gold in her hair, around her neck, and on her fingers. Autumn pushes between Hawke and Fenris’ legs to trot to Merrill and jump into her lap, forcing an oof out of the poor girl. Still, she smiles, and when her round eyes meet Hawke’s, she brightens and wiggles in her seat, trying and failing to get out from under Autumn’s massive weight.

Because Hawke is a fantastic friend and a pleasure to be around, she takes pity on her and meets her at the table, leaning down to give her the biggest hug she can manage with a beast sandwiched between them. In the meantime, Isabela materializes at Hawke's back and wraps her arms tightly around her middle.

Then comes the standard greetings, joyous and exciting until everyone quickly remembers why they’re gathered, and then Hawke hears the apologies she’s heard a thousand times over. This time, at least, they’re from people who loved Varric right alongside her. She knows their regret; can feel it, even, in Fenris’ distant stare and Isabela’s tensed shoulders. Merrill tears up the moment Varric’s name is said, so that one isn’t really a challenge.

Once they’re settled, dry-eyed, and have drinks in hand, Hawke asks, “No Aveline?”

Isabela tsks. “Too busy Viscountess-ing to see her dear old friends, I hear. Chew her out for me when you’re back, yeah?”

Hawke laughs, but she feels a bit miserable. Since Aveline and Donnic were the only ones from their group to stay in Kirkwall, she and Varric had grown especially close to them in more recent years. She wishes she said goodbye before charting a boat.

“I thought you were with your brother,” Fenris comments.

“Yeah! He too good for us now?” Bela jests.

“Something like that. He’s busy, is all. With the Wardens.” Merrill nods easily in acceptance, but Isabela raises her eyebrow and Fenris levels his stare at her as he susses her out. Hawke adds, like the horrible sister and terrible liar she is, “He’s sort of been seeing someone. I think he wanted them to have some time alone without his dick sister stinking up the place.”

“Seeing someone?” Fenris chuckles, sipping his drink.

“Tell me everything,” Isabela demands, leaning on her elbows on the table and further exposing her already quite exposed breasts.

“I can’t!” Hawke pleads, turning her gaze to the ceiling. She’s bad enough at denying her friends gossip as it is, but she can especially never resist breasts. “Sworn to secrecy. Sibling code. I have to honor it!”

Merrill pats her shoulder with a gentle hand. “We won’t make you say anything you don’t want to, Lethallin.”

“Speak for yourself, kitten.” Despite her words, Isabela straightens up and raises her glass. “To Carver and Aveline.”

“To Varric,” Hawke adds, mirroring Bela.

Merrill follows with, “to Anders.”

Fenris, whose glass was halfway up, stills his hand and frowns. “Well, now I don’t want to join in.”

“He’s been dead over a decade, elf. Take the damn drink.”

Begrudgingly, Fenris clinks his glass with the rest, muttering, “to Varric,” before taking a long swig.

And just like that, it was like old times. Bela tells a story ridiculous in both its plot and sheer horniness; Hawke cackles wickedly and prompts her for more with questions like, ‘well, surely his cock can’t get more diseased’; Fenris shakes his head with disapproval but disguises a smile by taking an aptly-timed drink; The only difference is Merrill, whose innocence from their youth has dimmed, and she now appears to make innuendos intentionally to delight Isabela.

More than once, Hawke and Fenris have shot each other identical, perfectly synced looks of confusion and delight to each other when Merrill matches one of Bela’s flirts with one of her own. It’s honestly a bit alarming. It’s like watching a dog walk on its hind legs. Merrill alleges that she has been staying in Rivain with Isabela while she works on eluvians in something called ‘the Crossroads,’ but Hawke isn’t so sure that’s the total truth.

Two rounds of drinks later, Hawke builds up the courage to ask the group if they’d ever actually read The Tales of the Champion.

“Ooh, yes! Varric was nice enough to loan me an early manuscript!” Merrill chirps. Hawke assumed that, of course - Merrill has proudly read all of Varric’s books, some of them a few times over, and wrote her praises about them to Hawke. (Apparently, Varric refused to hear it).

Isabela shrugs. “Bits and pieces. There’s not even a little smut in there, you know. Closest thing is all the hilarious cheeky quips from Rivaini. She was the best character by far.”

Hawke snorts and turns her attention to Fenris. He frowns, tilting his head and watching his thumb pick against some brown residue on the outside of his glass. “I read it a few times, actually.”

“Really?” Hawke leans forward, intrigued. “Why?”

Fenris’ sharp eyes flicker to meet hers. “You may have taught me to read, but that does not mean you get to choose my literature for me.”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m not saying you shouldn’t have. I’m just surprised, is all.”

“I was curious, what can I say?”

“So curious you had to pick it up for a second round?”

Fenris gives a slight smile. “And a third. I liked it, despite the fact he named me ‘Broody.’”

“Sorta on you, though. Shoulda brooded less.”

“My character’s called ‘Daisy.’” Merrill redirects. “You haven’t read it, have you, Hawke?”

Hawke tugs at the chain around her neck absently. She pulls it taut on either side of the ring to watch it spin, then slides it up and down like a see-saw. Grimacing, she manages, “I’m… working on it. I finished the first chapter.”

“Is it not to your liking?” Fenris jokes. (She thinks it’s a joke. Hawke thought Varric had dry wit; Fenris is a sand dune).

“How do you stomach it?” she asks. “Seriously. All the terrible things that ever happened to us, now in print! I’ve never seen the appeal.”

“Well, it’s all of the terrible things that happened to you. Only one or two terrible things happen to me in it.”

That’s pretty fair, actually. Hawke looks back and forth between Merrill and Fenris expectantly for their persepctives.

“I find it nice, actually,” Merrill says, because of course she does. “The tragedy happened, yes, but so did my friends uplifting me afterwards. It’s a good reminder.”

“Damn your optimism. Fenris, my dear fellow cynic? Care to chime in?”

He hums in thought and squints his eyes, looking off in the distance. “I cannot say it ever felt like I was reading about myself. The names are all changed. There are plenty of stories out there about a slave trying to escape his master’s clutches. This one even has a happy ending.”

“Maybe that’s it,” Hawke mumbles under the weight of liquor on her tongue. “I don’t have the happy ending.” The table falls silent. Hawke clears her throat and smiles, desperate to move on before she or anyone else starts blubbering. Through her garish grin, she babbles, “I, um, I can hardly look at his things. They’re just sitting in a box in Carver’s room, collecting dust. I don’t even know what to do with all his things back in Kirkwall. Have an estate sale? Not likely.”

Silence still.

Is she going to be sick?

“I think you should keep reading,” Merrill says at last, her voice even softer than usual. “There’s so much joy to find among the pain.”

“Thanks, Merrill.”

“We’ll come with you,” Isabela announces. “All of us. We’ll come with you to Kirkwall to go through his things. Alright?”

Merrill and Fenris blink at her moment, then at each other, and then at Hawke. “Of course.”

“I haven’t been in ages! I wonder if some of my neighbors are still in the alienage.”

Hawke would tell her that the alienage isn’t there anymore, it’s been revamped as community housing for refugees, but she’s too stunned. “You’d all do that?”

“Of course,” Fenris repeats. “Aveline and Donnic can join us, then.”

“A proper reunion!”

Blubbering is imminent. This time, at least, it’s because she’s truly touched. Hawke pats her lap until Autumn hops off the floor and into her lap so she can bury her face in her fur and pretend she’s completely fine. “Okay.”

The next morning, Hawke awakens on the floor next to the couch she vaguely remembers collapsing onto the night before. The massive ball of heat pushing against her legs grumbles as she tries to sit up.

“She’s expecting a litter, you know.”

Hawke jumps at Fenris’ voice and Autumn snaps up, too. When she sees it’s just her friend, she wastes no time plopping down on the floor again - though Hawke makes sure to kick her legs away from her landing zone before she does. Fenris is standing above her in his armor, looking as cool and unaffected as ever. Hawke, on the other hand, would place a large bet on her puking before lunchtime.

“Don’t watch me sleep. Pervert.”

“I’m watching the dog that you stole from me.” He rolls his neck. It gives a good crack. Then, he frowns, and asks, “How long has it been since Barkspawn passed? Five years?”

“Yeah. Six, maybe. Something like that. Why, is Autumn coming home with me?”

Fenris snorts and squats down to stroke Autumn’s back. “Sorry, Hawke, she’s not mine to give away. But as I said, she’s expecting.”

“I hoped that this wasn’t her normal size,” Hawke laughs sleepily.

Fenris shakes his head, but he’s smiling. He never used to smile this much. It’s nice. “I am offering you a puppy, Hawke.”

Hawke immediately brightens. “Really? I’m allowed?”

He shrugs. Autumn heaves an anguished sigh. Must be some dream. “Why not? You could use the company.”

“A dog isn’t going to replace my dead husband, Fen.”

“Damn,” he says, standing again. “There goes that plan. Speaking of plans - What are you doing after you go back to Kirkwall?”

“Technically I might be a Grey Warden in five days’ time. So, Warden shit, I guess?”

“And, hypothetically, if you don’t do that?”

“Throwing myself off the docks is always on the table.”

“Come with me.”

“Where are we going?” Hawke holds her hands out to him. “Uppies?”

Fenris extends a hand down to her. She latches on and he pulls her up. Once the room stops spinning, Hawke pats his cheek in thanks. “Nowhere, now. I’m talking about Tevinter. There’s always slavers to be killed.”

Hawke never even considered that. Fenris has always projected such independence, such solitude, that it truly seemed an impossibility to join him. “It certainly beats suicide.”

“Thanks.”

“I'll think about it. Hey, will you take the dog back if I name it something horrible?”

His eyes narrow. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. You’re putting me on the spot here.” Hawke thinks. “Barkspawn II?”

Fenris laughs - not snicks, not snorts, but well and truly laughs - and knocks her hand from his face. “You are not naming it Barkspawn II.”

“Varric II, then.”

“Venhedis. I take it all back.”

For the first time in a long while, Hawke exchanges goodbyes that feel more like see-you-laters.

Rook -

I might owe you a massive apology. I’m beginning to see your whole ‘grieve together’ schtick might not be the worst idea in the world. I can’t promise I won’t become a massive asshole if things get prickly, though, so don’t get your hopes up too high.

I think I’ll be returning home soon. Me and my crew need to go through his belongings and figure out what to do with them. If there’s anything you think you might want, let me know, and I’ll see what I can do.

Thank you for keeping his stuff safe for me. I’m glad I have them.

Carver also owes you an apology, but don’t expect to get it. Besides, he was just defending me. So don’t blame him for anything, aside from any awful stench that was left in your dining room after we were there.

Maker, I’m bad at writing letters. I’ve barely taken up half the page and I’m done. Now there’s just a shitload of blank space being all awkward and irritating. Here, I’ll draw a picture for you. Meet the face of my dead dog, Barkspawn. He was probably born before you were.

[A terrible, terrible drawing of a dog.]

Okay, he didn’t really look like that. Well, maybe towards the end of his life. But in general, he wasn’t that droopy or long. Whatever.

H

The two days before Hawke’s alleged Joining, an Orlesian and a dwarf sail into the Storm Coast.

This, apparently, is what the Wardens were waiting for. Warden Corrine calls down from her scouting spot on the barricade that they’re coming, and suddenly everyone is scrambling to hide dirty dishes and groom themselves into something presentable. Hawke worries they’re there to witness or lead her Joining, which means she’ll actually have to do it. She would feel too guilty to waste someone’s time like that for nothing.

Hawke hears her husband’s voice next to her crowing, ‘Oh, so that’s why you didn’t run from the altar.’

These seem like important people, so while a small crowd of Wardens dart around her, she pulls her hair up in the ribbon Varric had stolen from her before he left and slides her shoes on.

She watches from the courtyard as the Warden-Constable greets them emphatically at the gates while the others gather just in the entrance with their right arms curled in a fist and crossed over their chests. All except Carver, who hisses in her ear, “Do not embarrass me,” while pushing past her to take his place in front of his soldiers.

They’re a gorgeous couple. Something about them reminds her of herself and Varric - an easygoing dwarf with a lovely smile and a tall talkative foreigner. It makes her a little nauseous, sure, but it also makes her smile.

They finish meeting and greeting the Wardens and Hanere starts leading them and Carver somewhere private to talk, when the man notices Hawke standing awkwardly alone and double-takes. Without word to the others, he jogs over to her with a bubbly smile and holds his hand out. The woman follows without missing a beat, and Hanere slaps Carver on the back to push him forward, too.

“I am sorry, I did not see you before! I am Warden Antoine. This is the First Warden.”

Hawke releases his hand. “Oh. Wow.”

“Call me Evka,” the woman greets calmly. “You’re not a Warden, are you?”

“What gave it away?” Hawke jokes nervously. This dwarf seems deeply cool, and Hawke wants to impress her for reasons she cannot fully comprehend. “I’m Hawke.”

“Oh!” Antoine chirps, turning to Carver and back again. “He is also Hawke!”

“You missed your calling as a detective, my love,” the First Warden says, putting her hands on her hips. “You must be the Champion of Kirkwall.”

“So they tell me.”

Hanere dabs sweat off his forehead and steps forward. “Her Joining is in two days, actually.”

Carver gives her a pointed glare over Hanere’s shoulder. They haven’t talked about the Joining in weeks. Hawke doesn’t really want to leave, but she doesn’t really want to stay, either. She mostly wants her husband back. It’s still hard to think of a future that doesn’t depend on what he was doing.

Evka and Antoine give their oohs of appreciation and their congratulations and their welcomes and blah-blah-blah. They’re nice folks, so Hawke is nice back, but that doesn’t mean she loves small talk all of a sudden.

“You don’t meet a lot of Warden couples,” Hawke says flippantly. “Isn’t there a conflict of interest, what with her being First Warden and all?”

Carver’s glare turns to abject horror. Antoine takes it in stride, however. “People do not say that about Warden-Commander Amell and Warden-Constable Alistair, do they?”

“We all die pretty young and live like paupers no matter what. There’s not a lot of privileges to be gained, if that makes sense,” Evka continues.

Hawke nods, more to Carver and Hanere than to Antoine and Evka.

“First Warden? I apologize, but we are eager to discuss orders with you,” Carver grits out.

“I’m sure. Sorry, Warden Hawke. Please, let’s go.”

“It was a pleasure to meet you, Hawke,” Antoine says to her. She hears it now, how confusing it is for them both to be Hawke. Maybe they should call him Warden Junior and save everyone the trouble of thinking too hard about it.

They leave, leading the couple to their rarely-used war room. Carver stops just outside the doorway, rubbing his hands against his pants anxiously. Hanere, to his credit, pauses as well, and gives him a teeny smile and a squeeze on the shoulder before heading inside.

Hawke glances behind her to the line of equally-anxious Wardens. None of them appear particularly perplexed by the minor show of affection from their superiors. On a hunch, she calls out to sweet Warden Corrine, “Hey. You and my brother have something going on?”

She cocks her head. “Isn’t he with the Warden-Constable?”

The rest of the Wardens break their hushed conversations to turn to Hawke, also seemingly nonplussed and confused at the question. 

Yeah, that’s what she thought.

Carver is in his meeting.

Hawke sits on the floor of his room and stares at the letter with her name on it.

After far too long, Hawke gives up and pulls out The Tales of the Champion instead. She doesn’t linger on where she left off. She skips the ogre, the dragon, the death of Ser Wesley, and even arriving to Kirkwall, only stopping once she sees his name.

An arrow whipped in front of Hawke and Junior before Hawke had even finished turning around. No - not an arrow - a crossbow bolt, which was now stuck in the thief’s shoulder and pinning him to the alley wall.

“I knew a guy once who could take every coin out of your pockets just by smiling at you,” said a stocky beardless dwarf as he sauntered up to the man, slinging his crossbow over his back. “But you? You don’t have the style to work in Hightown, let alone the Merchants’ Guild.” The thief’s face was as red as his hair. The dwarf didn’t have to say a word, and he was already handing over the coin purse he’d snatched from Hawke. “Might want to find yourself a new line of work.”

Then, the dwarf socked his gloved hand clean into the thief’s jaw, cracking his skull against the classic Hightown granite, and ripped the bolt from his shoulder to force the man to drop to the ground. Without a second look, the dwarf turned and swaggered over to Hawke and Junior, coolly tossing the coin purse up and down in his hand a few times before tossing it to Hawke.

She caught it easily, though she was taken aback by the man’s easy violence, charming wit, and bold confidence.

Hawke rolls her eyes. No wonder readers doubted the validity of the book; the author really inflated his own ego with it.

“How do you do? Varric Tethras, at your service.”

Part of Hawke feels like crawling under the covers and sobbing loud enough for the First Warden to hear across the courtyard. 

But she doesn’t feel like crying anymore. Instead, she leans into the other part of her - the part that wants to grin and turn the page.

Hours later, when the door opens to a sour-faced Hanere and an exhausted Carver, Hawke quickly sits up in bed, closing the book and setting it to the side. “Oh! Uh, do you need the room…?”

She goes completely ignored, as the very moment Carver shuts the door behind him, Hanere sits at the foot of the bed and says, “All those Wardens…”

“I know. I know,” Carver sighs. He scrubs a hand over his face and leans back against the door, squeezing his eyes shut. “Do you have an idea where they might send you?”

“It sounds like they need leadership up north. Weisshaupt is always a possibility. Maker, I don’t understand how all of them are just… gone.”

“The former First Warden shat the bed, sounds like.”

“Heh. Oh, don’t make me laugh, Carver, I’m being sad right now.”

“All right.” Carver swallows, scrunching his face in pain. 

They sit in silence for a few terribly uncomfortable moments. Hawke can’t stand it. “Anyone wanna fill in the recruit?”

Her brother blinks his eyes open at her as though he’s just realised she’s there. He glances at Hanere in silent question.

In response, Hanere twists to face her. “We’ve been stationed here to accept refugees and displaced Wardens from the northern countries. Obviously, none have come. We’ve been trying not to expect the worst, but the First Warden confirmed what we already knew, deep down. The Wardens were all but wiped out at Weisshaupt.”

“Oh, Maker. That’s terrible,” she breathes.

“Yes. It is,” Hanere agrees softly. “I was stationed in Weisshaupt for ten years. Some of the strongest fighters I ever met. I had…” His throat catches on the word. “I had many friends there.”

At that, Carver pushes off the door and walks to Hanere, who protests, “I’m fine, I’m fine,” over and over, up until the very moment Carver’s hands are in his hair and his face is hidden from view, smooshed into Carver’s chest.

The despair on Carver’s face is unfamiliar, yet gives her deja vu. Though similar, it’s distinctly different from what Hawke knows loss looks like on her brother. Or, quite possibly, the dread that drives his deep frown is a new aspect to his grief that she hasn’t been around to learn.

“Did you have friends there, Carver?” she asks quietly, wanting to suss out his emotions while hesitant to break the intimate moment.

He shakes his head. “No one close.”

Then what gives? Not that he can’t be sad for the lives lost without knowing them personally, but that wasn’t typically Carver’s speed. Maybe it’s the added aspect of his lover’s pain infecting him? They’ve been stationed at the hip for so long, and Hawke knows better than anyone how you take on your partner’s emotions as you own. Maker knows the pang in her heart thinking of Bartrand is not her own - She didn’t even like him while he was alive.

That’s when it clicks.

“You got new orders.”

Carver looks up with pink-rimmed eyes. “We aren’t needed here anymore. Not sure yet where everyone will be sent.”

Unconsciously, Hawke pulls herself out of her near-horizontal state to sit with her legs dangling off the leg parallel to Hanere’s. She places a hand on Carver’s wrist. “You won’t be separated.”

Carver snorts pathetically and pets Hanere’s braided hair.  “We might be.”

“No. I’ll pull the Champion card. Or the widow card. Or the my-husband-is-famous card. Was. Is. Whatever. You won’t be separated.”

Her baby brother’s eyes well up with tears, and Hawke kindly averts her gaze. She still sees him nod in her peripheral vision, and very kindly doesn’t make any sort of gagging noises when he wipes his nose on his sleeve like a nasty little boy.

They sit like that for some time; Hanere with his shoulders shaking, crying silently against Carver’s stomach; Carver standing still as stone and pretending he isn’t crying; Hawke there as witness, connecting her hand awkwardly into their tenderness well after her hand begins to cramp.

At long last, Hanere pulls away, planting a grateful kiss on Carver’s knuckles. When he speaks, he sounds much more like the stern Warden-Constable she knows: “You’ve been my second for a long time. It wouldn’t be out of the ordinary to request you stay with me.”

Hawke starts, “If I may-”

“You may not.”

“If I may,” she continues anyway, “I believe you’re putting yourselves through a lot of stress for no reason. Everyone knows, I fear.”

“You fear?” Hanere repeats.

“I knew you’d tell! Maker, Hawke, this is not okay!”

“I didn’t - Did you just call me ‘Hawke’?” she cuts off her shout by breaking down into giggles. She officially wins.! She is the supreme alpha sibling, and their last name is hers. Even Hanere starts laughing.

“Oh, fuck off! This is serious!”

“I didn’t tell anyone, Carver! They told me!”

Carver works his jaw. “I don’t believe you,” he sniffs.

“You do,” she groans.

“I… do,” he decides, though he seems decidedly un-pleased about that, like he plopped a sour candy in his mouth. Hanere kisses his knuckles again, then turns his palm over to kiss that, and then his wrist.

“Shall I go?” Hawke asks for the second time that evening.

Carver makes a big show of trying to swat Hanere away, but starts chuckling before his lips even reach his elbow. When Hanere starts to rise off the bed to reach higher on his arm, he actually pulls away. “My sister’s right here.”

Hanere releases him, smiling despite the sorrow still whispering at the corners of his eyes. “You humans are so sheltered.”

“Prudish and proud,” Carver states defiantly.

“Not all of us. Some humans have fabulously dirty mouths. The stories I could tell, Hanere…”

“Don’t say a word. Anything you say will become a filthy joke. Just keep your trap shut. This is for your own good,” Carver asserts, covering Hanere’s mouth with his palm firmly. “Don’t lick my hand!”

Hanere decides to excuse himself an hour or so later, citing preparations to make regarding leaving and breaking the news to everyone about the situation. He and Carver spend an adorable and irritating amount of time gazing into each other’s eyes in the doorway, even though Hawke wants to sleep and they’re letting all the light from the courtyard in. At their fifth goodnight, Hanere finally steps backward out of the doorframe.

“When you ask about taking me with you,” Carver mumbles, catching Hanere’s wrist before he can turn away, “can you see if we can be stationed in the Free Marches?”

Hawke can hear the smile in Hanere’s fond voice as he asks, “Kirkwall?”

“Please.”

“I was already going to.”

Hawke rolls onto her back so she doesn’t have to see her brother plant one on him. 

The door shuts and Carver sighs dramatically before settling next to her on top of the covers.

“Take your day clothes off if you’re getting in bed,” Hawke demands.

In a terrible, mystifying moment Hawke will not be sure happened the next morning, Carver rolls over and pulls her into a squeezing embrace. Hawke is so startled for a moment that she freezes, but when the hug only continues, she decides the only way out is through, and wraps her non-squished arm around him in return.

It keeps lasting. He doesn’t seem to be releasing her any time soon.

No one has held her like this, not since the last time she saw Varric almost a year ago.

She swears he’s cast some sort of spell on her, because tears begin to silently leak from her eyes in a very drab fashion. Hawke isn’t even sure Carver notices. If he does, he’s being a gentleman about it and not saying anything.

“I don’t want to leave,” she whispers into the night air.

“You don’t want to become a Warden.”

“I don’t, no,” she agrees immediately. “But I don’t want to leave.”

The you at the end of the sentence goes unsaid.

Carver hears it anyway. He pushes his face into her hair, a twitch of his lips away from a kiss. She’s glad he doesn’t - that’d be far too out of character for them. “I want my bed back.”

Hawke doesn’t have the energy to laugh, so instead she exhales. She thinks he gets what she was going for. She knows him like that. He knows her like that.

“Everyone’s always going. My best friends, all gone. Bethany. Barkspawn. Varric. I’m best friend-less.”

Carver goes quiet for so long Hawke isn’t sure that he heard her.

Then, he says, “We could be best friends.”

Hawke nods against him.

They fall asleep like that, day clothes and all.

Dear Hawke,

You owe me nothing - Not an apology, nor any of Varric’s items he left behind. Though, I wouldn’t mind getting any correspondence to or from me, if you have it. My friend Taash was seeing Harding before she died, and it would be nice for them to have their correspondence as well, if you can - but again, only whatever you’re absolutely willing to part with.

I was wrong for the way I treated you, as well. I knew you from stories, mostly from Varric himself, and I felt like I already knew you. I didn’t for once think that you considered me a stranger, even though that’s what we were. Are?

I mentioned my friend Bellara, who had Bianca’s remains. Sorry again about that. I asked for them back to send to you, but she sent me the enclosed package instead. I guess she finished faster than she thought. I hope you like it.

I’m sorry I never got to meet Barkspawn. In return, here is a drawing of my dear friend Davrin’s companion, Assan.

[A terribly, terribly phenomenal drawing of a baby griffin.]

Damnit. I meant to make it look worse so you wouldn’t feel poorly about your drawing. You shouldn’t feel poorly about it, by the way. It’s framed in our bedroom. I liked his kind eyes. People always draw mabari as the tough warriors they can be - few artists capture their companionable hearts that love for a lifetime. 

You always have a friend in Antiva.

My love,

Rook

Hawke sets the letter aside before she stains it with saltwater and tears open the accompanying package. She has no expectations - She doesn’t know Bellara, nor how much of Bianca was left. Her best guess is the handle has been fixed up for her to place on her mantle back home, or something of the sort.

It’s not that. The ribbons fall away, and she’s staring down at a stunning ring.

Simple and sleek. Black and metallic, rather than the woody hominess Hawke associates Bianca with, but there was magic involved in the destruction, so crystallization is to be expected. Shaky hands she hardly recognizes as her own lift it from the cloth it rests in, revealing a note in unfamiliar handwriting - Bellara’s, she presumes - that says nothing but ‘For Hawke.’

Hawke slides it on her ring finger, pressed seamlessly above her wedding ring, and marvels at the perfect fit. The second it’s settled comfortably, she feels little twinkling sparks in her forearm. She flexes her fingers and gives her hand a magical flourish. Delightfully, in her hand conjures a quill, freshly dipped in ink and ready to create art upon page. She sets the feather down and repeats the motion. Another quill prestigitates in its place. In the privacy of Carver’s room, she laughs and flicks her hand again and again and again and again.

In the courtyard, wearing the very robe she arrived in, Hawke turns the vial of darkspawn blood she collected weeks ago over in her hand.

Carver’s voice behind her makes her jump: “You’re not gonna kill yourself with that, are you?”

Chuckling, Hawke shakes her head. “Not today.”

“You’re not Joining with it, either, are you?”

“Not today,” she says again.

“Yeah, I knew that. I told Hanere not to bother acquiring the materials the same day I offered you the ritual.”

“Well, maybe now I will do it.”

“Lottie, do not join a secret society to spite your brother.”

“I might!”

“As your superior, I declare you unfit for the Wardens.” Hawke turns to face him just in time to witness him mock-knighing her with his stiffened arm.

“Oh, fuck you.”

“Fuck yourself. You wasted three weeks of my life.”

“You loved it,” Hawke jokingly asserts.

Carver gives her a crooked smile that feels far too earnest. “You wish.” 

It sounds like ‘I did.’

“Pfft. As if my wishes are spent on you.”

She means it like ‘I love you.’

Hawke leaves without a word that same night, too embarrassed and awkward to make a show of it. Once Carver is snoring, she watches him for a while, just like she did when they were children, then gathers her and Varric’s things in her bag and leaves without a trace.

She’ll see him again soon enough.

She catches the first boat leaving the Storm Coast for the Marches. It arrives before the sun, and Hawke overpays because she’s too tired to count her coins. It’s a six hour ride and she’s the only passenger on the ship, so the excessive tip was probably deserved. She chooses to sit on the bow of the ship once the sun begins to rise on her, enjoying the harsh salt air against her bare face and neck. It feels like home.

When the morning winds die down and the water birds chirp and caw, Hawke takes out the letter with her name on it and gathers the calm courage the open water instills in her to open it.

Hey Beautiful,

Hope you don’t miss me too bad. Tevinter is worse by the hour, so you’d bet I do miss you. I never shoulda gave you shit about going to the mountains back in the day. At least you could see Kirkwall from there. Here, it’s nothing but magisters and poverty and red fucking lyrium.

Remind me to tell you about the time Dorian tried justifying the class disparity here. The Inquisitor, bless her soul, tore him a new one. That was a good night.

Harding says hello. We’re meeting up with a detective tomorrow. If she’s not a carbon copy of Donnen, I’m walking out. Oh, he was the protagonist of Hard in Hightown, for those who didn’t read it! Not that the author is offended, or anything. After all this time, that’d just be embarrassing! Tales of the Champion is one thing, but come on! This one’s an international hit! Ah, whatever.

Say, Waffles, is the

And that’s it. He must’ve gotten called away in the middle of writing it, which of course would explain why it went unsent.

So that’s it. The last words he’ll ever say to her.

Say, Waffles, is the

Is the what?

Hawke knows with absolute certainty that she will wonder what the end of the sentence was going to be for the rest of her days.

Of course he called her ‘Waffles.’ She always loved when he called her ‘Beautiful’ - how could she not? Waffles, on the other hand, is the fake nickname he put in place of the Beautifuls in the book, he said. Then, he took to it, and she became both Beautiful and Waffles, the bastard.

She’s never going to know what he was going to ask her. She’s never going to know why he called her Waffles.

But what can she do?

Hawke chooses to laugh.