Work Text:
Hawke regretted giving Varric the letters as soon as they’d returned to Skyhold. It had been...rash, indeed, because for every barely accomplished feat of survival, she still expected to bite it every time. At the very least, she should have told him to send them only in the event of her death. So, when they returned, and Varric told her every single letter had been met with a reply...
Hawke was an idiot.
Isabela had seemed largely amused, quietly panicked, and offered her fleet to Varric within a heartbeat. It was touching, and the reply was easy.
Isabela,
Don’t worry; while the Inquisition could use a better naval presence, I’m still kicking. If you’d like I can arrange to meet up at some point in the future. I know you want to show off your fancy new boat, and there’s a qunari with the Inquisition I think you might want to meet. That sounds more ominous than it’s meant to, really, but next time you write to Varric, ask him about the Iron Bull.
Do tell Merrill the good news. And tell her to take care of herself.
Your (former) partner in crime,
Marian
Fenris’s reply had been much more surprising. Unlike Sebastian, there’d been no open vows of revenge, but the only word she’d gotten about him came through Varric or Isabela, so she’d never expected a reply. Still, the short letter, riddled with misspellings and smelling distinctly of smoke almost made her smile.
“He really does care,” she’d muttered, half-joking. That reply had been harder to write.
Fenris,
Apologies, but even a trip into the Fade can’t kill me. Varric’s kept me updated on your journey, and I wish you the best. Write to me sometime, please.
Hawke
It wasn’t everything she wanted to say to him, couldn’t possibly bridge the yawning gap between the friendship they’d once had and the distance they had now, but it had to be enough because even such a short missive took too much out of her. It was why she hadn’t written a letter directly to Merrill, because her feelings were too big and too vulnerable to trust to parchment. She missed her elven friends the most, sometimes, because she knew that neither of them took proper care of themselves, and if she’d learned anything from her childhood, it was how to be a smothering older sister, whether anyone wanted it or not.
The letters to her family were easier. She wrote Carver a report of what had happened, asked him if he was well, considering Corypheus’s blow to the Wardens. She told him about the Herald’s decision to let the Wardens join her and hoped he would be happy. Gamlen got a short assurance that she was alive, and a promise that she wouldn’t come to visit. She knew he’d appreciate that.
All the messages were simple, in the end, if heartbreaking to write. It was too clear how easily her friends could believe she’d run off and get herself killed. Fenris hadn’t even seemed surprised, only resigned. Carver had even asked if they’d be holding the services somewhere discreet, which had hurt so badly she’d had to take a break in her reading.
It was the lack of word from Anders that worried her. She sent a frantic letter through one of Varric’s contacts, hoping against hope that he hadn’t done something drastic. It would be just like him to...
It was too hard to ponder. Unfortunately, it meant she could do nothing until she either got a reply or got word that the worst had happened. If she took off for their safe house now, she might be followed, and the last thing she wanted to do was invite an organization with Cullen as its general to the one place Anders felt safe. Regardless of how she felt about Evelyn Trevelyan, she couldn’t risk it.
She was out of her mind with worry for Anders. It was too much.
Maybe that explained her actions.
Evelyn had joined her on the battlements, polite and inquisitive as ever when they’d caught sight of Cullen in the training yard. Hawke had stiffened instinctually—years of having Templars mean danger pounded into one’s head could have that effect.
“He frightened me at first too,” Evelyn said, and it sounded too much like Evelyn was trying at wisdom for Hawke not to laugh.
“He should frighten you still, Inquisitor,” she warned. But that look in Evelyn’s eyes was familiar. Hawke reminded herself to ask Varric if making terrible romantic decisions was part of being a hero.
“Cullen is...” Evelyn was at a loss for words, gesturing meaninglessly for a moment. “He is a Templar—not literally, but in his heart. And yet—I know it’s foolish—but I still think he’s changed.”
Hawke scoffed. “You know what he told me once? ‘Mages cannot be treated like people; they are not like you and me.’ This was before he knew I was a filthy apostate, of course, but still. One doesn’t just stop thinking that. I’d argue one never stops thinking that.”
“Everyone changes, Hawke. I have to believe that.”
Evelyn left soon after that. Hawke hoped it was to ponder what she’d said. And if not that, she hoped she’d dissuaded the Inquisitor from becoming a friend with her harsh words at the Commander's expense. Too many of her friends ended up worse off from knowing her.
***
She was pacing the battlements, eyes peeled for any sign of riders on the trail towards the stronghold, or a raven in the sky when she reached her breaking point.
She heard an armored person coming her way from a distance, but she didn’t look up, expecting a scout or a guard to stroll past, perhaps tossing her an awed or a fearful look. It was to be expected. Half the people were drunk on her story, and she had to avoid their curiosity. The other half was angry, and she had to avoid their scorn.
So when the sound stopped, and she felt the presence behind her, Hawke let out a weary sigh. She turned, expected an awkward exchange she’d have to escape with some jokes and a bit of charm, and Hawke was greeted by the face of Commander Cullen.
Weeks she’d spent in Skyhold, and only part of it hiding out from the Seeker, and she’d seen only glimpses of the former Templar. Hawke had gotten the distinct and welcome impression that the man was avoiding her. But now, here he was, staring her full in the face.
He looked...healthy. Part of her thought she might be resentful of that, thoughts of the bags that weighed under Anders's eyes, the nightmares he was beset with each night running through her mind. Why should Cullen get to look well-rested and well-fed while her lover suffered?
But Hawke only felt a distant surprise. She’d never seen him like this. In Kirkwall, Cullen had looked half-dead, shoulders always slumped under the weight of his heavy plate. If she was a better woman, Hawke might have made connections, excuses for his past. Cullen had been haunted in Kirkwall, and the better Hawke might seek to understand.
Hawke was not a better woman, though.
“What?” she snapped because he was just standing there, staring at her like he’d seen a ghost. As if he hadn’t been aware for weeks that she was here.
“Hawke,” he greeted her, voice strained. And she saw the lingering shadows behind his eyes, saw the fear—she wondered if it was mages in general or her specifically that brought it out. Would it make a difference?
“Knight-Commander,” she said. It felt good, the way he flinched from the words. Made her feel less lost. If Hawke was anything, it was good at making other people hurt. For once, she had a deserving target.
“I’m no Templar,” he corrected stiffly, “Not anymore.”
“Yes, I know. You’ve moved up in the world indeed.”
She mocked him without a thought. Part of her wished Anders was here, that he might join in her new game, but most of she was horrified at the idea, at the danger. Her brain went off on wild imaginings of the righteous ex-Templar—was there even a thing? —clapping him in irons and hauling him off to be judged by the Chantry.
Another part, a more traitorous part, wished it still.
“I...” Cullen was quiet for a moment, staring at her with those shadowed eyes, and she looked for anger with the fear, looked for judgment. It enraged her that she could find none. “I would apologize to you.”
Hawke laughed then, as she'd laughed at the Inquisitor’s naïve guilt and she’d laughed at Varric’s concerns about her safety. It was better to laugh at proposed kindness than face it head-on, in her experience.
Cullen shifted on his feet, waited for her to calm, fear rising. She wondered suddenly, if she made the wrong move, how he would react. Hawke couldn’t help but imagine the suffocating feeling of a Templar’s purge. She tried to remember the first time she’d ever felt it but couldn’t.
If Anders were here, she would have asked him about his first time, to feel small and mean.
Hawke let out a shuddering breath, trying to reign in her laughter, nausea suddenly putting her off her humorous mood. “Out with it then,” she said, gesturing lazily towards him. Perhaps it would make her laugh again.
Cullen seemed surprised. She imagined he had expected her to rebuff him, to reject his pathetic attempts at apology. Perhaps he would have scurried back to his little tower, content to know that he’d tried. It must be easier to attempt one's amends when one didn’t even have to go through with it.
Hawke stood straighter, letting her arms hang loosely at her sides, trying to keep her fists from clenching.
“I am sorry,” he said, and Hawke wondered if that was it, for a sickening second, before he began again, “Under Meredith’s rule... I was blind. I did not see—I did not wish to see what the idol had done to her. I let the things that happened to me at Kinloch cloud my judgment. I allowed for the Rites of Tranquility against innocents. I... apologize, this is not-”
“Enough? I’m glad I’m not the only one who noticed. You weren’t just blind, Knight-Commander, ” Hawke was almost gleeful now. “You were willfully ignorant. How is anyone to believe you didn’t know what was happening? How many times did I come to you in the Gallows? How many times did I present evidence, not only of Meredith’s actions but your comrade’s?
“Alrik and his propensity for pretty, docile Tranquil girls. Mettin and his interrogations. What about Henrit and his forgetfulness? How many mages did he let starve in solitary confinement? Did you laugh with him while he watched them beg for just a little bread and water? It wasn’t the idol that was the problem. It's the Order itself. It’s the Chantry. Abuses against mages were present before Meredith went mad with power, Knight-Commander! ”
As she spoke, Hawke drew closer, a single finger jabbing into the unyielding metal of his armor. She ignored how her finger ached with the impact, face drawing close to his as she began shouting. He stood, unmoving, and it only made her angrier.
“What about the little mage girl I found in the Gallows, so beaten and bloody she couldn’t walk? What was her crime? How could she have done something to deserve that? What about Ella? What had she done to deserve Tranquility, besides catch Alrik’s fancy? I’ve been among the rebel mages. They all have such stories. Across Thedas, they suffer. Innocents, all of them. Even Anders was innocent once.”
Cullen drew in a breath, perhaps to argue, or perhaps for some other reason, but Hawke was beyond caring now.
She wasn’t seeing him anymore, not really. She wasn’t here.
She was in one of the dozens of rebel mage camps, listening to old men cry about their broken bodies, mourning a life they never got to live, old women mourning children they never got to mother because they were taken away by Templars. She was listening to the children’s confusion at their first experience with the outside world. She was listening to Evelyn as she explained the loss of a friend to Templar lusts. She was watching Tranquil, hovering around the caves they all hid in like rats, so blank and empty it made her chest hurt.
And she was listening to Anders, screaming from nightmares—not Grey Warden dreams, but dreams of his year alone in the dark. A year in the dark, the thought pounded in her head.
And selfishly, she was even listening to the stories she might have told, of hiding, of hating who she was and what her father and sister were. The way her mother and Carver had looked at her sometimes when her magic edged past control and into something dangerous.
Hawke had stopped shouting ages ago, but she was still pounding her fists into Cullen’s chest. He stood silently, and it made her hate him more.
“Champion,” he began, stern and sorrowful all at once, and she hated him for that most of all. Because there was sorrow there. Deep, bone-deep, regret. “You are right.”
“No!” she shouted, shoving herself away. Her hands shook as she fought to control herself, fought to hide the rising tide of something inside of herself. “You don’t get to be a better man, Knight-Commander. You don’t get to redeem yourself.”
“Hawke?”
Varric stood at the top of the stairs leading up onto the battlements, face filled with confusion and concern, and it broke her heart.
“If I can’t be better, why should he?” she asked her friend, unmoved by the fact that he didn’t seem to understand what was going on.
“Better?” Varric asked, with a hint of a chuckle. Leave it to him to try to lighten the mood now. “You forget about the evil darkspawn who wants to end the world? None of us are doing peachy right now Killer.”
The old nickname could have done a number of things to Hawke—could have sent her into a sobbing mess, or made her rage worsen. Instead, Hawke leaned heavily against the rough stone wall, feeling all the air leave her lungs for a tense moment.
Cullen seemed rooted to his spot, sending wary glances between her and Varric. But she was glad he hadn’t fled.
“Your new hero will win the day,” Hawke finally said. She wished the jealousy would go away, wished Varric wouldn’t see that she wasn’t a good woman anymore. “She’ll rise, triumphant when I couldn’t.”
Varric’s eyes dropped to the ground, and he reached out a booted foot to toe at the stone beneath him. “I don’t know if I’m going to write this one down, Hawke.”
“It certainly didn’t help the last time you did,” she said. It was a sorry attempt at a joke, but Varric laughed anyway. He was good at that. “Every time I pick up the book, I’m reminded of all my mistakes.”
“I don’t think you’re the only one,” Varric told her, sending a meaningful look Cullen’s way. “But those aren’t really your mistakes, Hawke. I’m a novelist, not a biographer.”
He was gone with those words, and Hawke sent Cullen a sullen look. She was reminded suddenly of her mother’s scolding whenever she got in a fight with Carver, ridiculous as that was.
“I am not a good man, Champion,” Cullen told her. “I was weak, I am weak. But our Inquisitor has shown me much of the error of my ways. I will work to right the wrongs I’ve committed for the rest of my life.”
Hawke nodded stiffly. It still wasn’t enough, and she suspected nothing he could say would ever fix the rage inside her—but then, it wasn’t his job to do so. Still, couldn’t it be enough to know that he was regretful?
She took a step forward, resting her finger more politely against his plate mail. “I hope you do. And I think a man who knows his faults would understand that entering into a relationship with a mage is a gross injustice.”
He didn’t react the way she’d expected him to. She’d expected outrage, perhaps, or cold disregard. But the understanding on his face was unexpected. He nodded once, turned on his heel, and marched off towards his broken tower.
No more ravens flew above Skyhold that day. And there was no reply from Anders.