![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lassarina posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
rose_in_winterCharacters: Fenris, Mage Female Hawke, Sebastian Vael (Fenris/f!Hawke/Sebastian)
Rating: NC-17
Contains: Canon-typical violence, explicit sex
Fic Wordcount: 117,000
Chapter Wordcount:
Notes: Canon-divergent, ignoring most of Act 3. A thousand thanks tosenmut's Discord server for cheering and brainstorming and reactions and encouragement.
Beta: breadedsinner and MikWrites_InSpace
Summary: After the duel with the Arishok, Ariane Hawke looks around at the wreckage of her life in Kirkwall and asks herself: what is left for me here? As tensions increase between the Circle and the Templars, she turns to helping Sebastian retake Starkhaven. Meanwhile, she is trying to figure out how to love Fenris when he hates mages, and also definitely not looking at Sebastian's gorgeous eyes. Definitely not. Neither is Fenris. Sebastian is not looking back.
Definitely.
Canon divergence in which almost all of act 3 goes in the bin, and three damaged people try to find a way to live with each other and themselves, and maybe heal a bit.
Chapter index here.
"Sister, you are so unnecessarily dramatic," Carver said.
Hawke looked up from the book she was reading. "I object," she said. "I am always the precisely necessary amount of dramatic."
Carver, realizing too late he'd given her the opening, visibly grit his teeth. "I need to talk to you alone. Please visit on your next half-day," he intoned in a grating falsetto, quoting the letter she'd sent.
Hawke smirked. "You're here, though."
Carver's scowl deepened.
"Have a seat," Hawke said. "This is going to be unpleasant and you might as well be comfortable. Food? Tea? Ale?"
He sprawled on the other sofa, limbs everywhere like a mabari puppy, as he had for his entire life. "Now you're worrying me."
Hawke used a scrap of ribbon to mark her page and set the book aside. "As I said, this will be unpleasant."
Carver grimaced. "Let's get it over with, then. Am I going to have to fail to arrest you? Or has Uncle somehow managed to lose this house again?"
Hawke swallowed the bitterness that rose in her throat--it wasn't Carver's fault he'd been shielded from the need to think bigger. That task had been given to her, and she was good at it. She had always promised herself that she would not betray a fellow mage to the templars, and she had meant it, but this--this was more important.
She refused to pretend it didn't have a healthy dose of vengeance to it.
"I have a proposal for you," she said carefully. "It will be primarily to your benefit. I'll even do you the favor of leaving this benighted city and never coming back; you'll be out from under my shadow as you've always wanted." She paused and took a deep breath. "But Carver, I promise you, if you fail to uphold your end of the bargain, you will regret it."
He sat up, pulling in his arms and legs tight to his body. "Ariane, you're scaring me."
"Good." She caught his gaze. "I know where Quentin got the knowledge he used to kill Mother. I know who gave it to him and I'm going to find everyone who helped him and I will hand you every last one of them, tied up in a bow with evidence--not that templars in Kirkwall have ever needed it--and you can present it all as your own work." She wanted to close her eyes, wanted to look away from the shock on his face, and she made herself look. "What I want from you in return is Meredith's life--and for the templars to leave Anders alone."
Carver wheezed out a breath. "You don't ask for much."
"You're not an idiot," she snapped. "I know you see how Meredith's paranoia is twisting the mages she is supposed to be protecting into the very thing she accuses them of doing. I know you see her lust for power and how unreasonable she is. It won't be long before she does take Alrik's fucking Tranquil Solution and annuls the whole Circle because someone sneezed at the dinner table. You know it, Carver, even if you pretend you don't." She paused, then went for the kill. "Or else why didn't you tell her about the demons in the Gallows?"
He looked away.
She let the silence sit there, the weight of her demand and disapproval a cruelty she chose with full knowledge. She was so damned tired of being the one to carry everything.
"I don't want to be Knight-Commander," Carver mumbled.
"You don't want to be Knight-Commander yet," she corrected. "Cullen would do all right. Thrask and Keran are good men." She tried to think if literally any other templars in Kirkwall were anything other than abusive murderers and came up blank. "You have a choice, Carver," she said after a moment. "Help me, or find yourself under the wreckage if I have to do this alone."
"It's always your way or nothing, isn't it?" His mouth twisted.
She choked back the first four retorts that rose to her lips. "Imagine Bethany there," she said instead, and his head snapped around to face her again. "Picture what Karrash would do to her. How long would it take for Meredith to order her made Tranquil? She'd never laugh again, never share secrets with you."
"Enough, Ariane." He buried his face in his hands.
She breathed a silent apology to their parents' ghosts, and Beth's. "It's not enough. It will never be enough for Meredith until we are all dead. You keep telling me you're there to protect the mages from themselves. Prove it."
His fingers flexed in his dark hair.
She waited.
"Some of them do turn to blood magic, you know," he said to the floor.
"Carver, I want you to understand something, and I want you to listen very carefully." She waited until he looked up at her. "Power can corrupt anyone. It has corrupted Meredith. She sees blood magic in every shadow because she has made that the cornerstone of her own power. Maybe she really believed it once--but tell me what rule of the templar order said that Aron should have been tortured to death under the Gallows. Tell me you truly believe she didn't know. Tell me she didn't order me kidnapped as a threat. Tell me she hasn't been getting worse just in the four years we've been here. If you can tell me that, and mean it, then we can talk about alternatives."
He turned aside and pulled his knees up to his chin. She'd have to apologize to Orana later for the dirt his boots were going to leave on the couch.
"I have to think," Carver said.
She picked up her book. "Then think." Sarcasm danced on the tip of her tongue. She was going to go plague Varric later as her reward for being so restrained now. She opened the book to her bookmark and started to read.
Carver was not a quiet thinker. He fidgeted, sighed, drummed his fingers on the wall or his leg, and generally made a nuisance of himself. Once, she'd been very good at blocking out those sounds, as one had to be when one lived in a small cottage with four other people and there was only the one room for all of them to use. She'd grown out of the habit since he joined the templars. She found herself having to re-read the paragraphs three times each.
"Fine," Carver said abruptly.
Hawke looked up. He was sitting on the edge of the sofa, elbows propped on his knees. His hair was even more disordered than usual. "Fine?" she echoed.
"Tell your friend to keep his head down, and I'll do what I can to keep the templars off his back." Carver sighed. "I hope I live to regret this."
Hawke put the book aside. "Thank you, Carver," she said, with full sincerity. "I'll let you know when I have everything."
"I won't take credit for this," he said abruptly. "I'll help you, but I won't claim what you did."
She was a little surprised, and mostly pleased, by that. "All right. Though you could still change your mind."
He got to his feet and left the library, and Hawke ran her hands through her own hair, sighing. As much as she enjoyed badgering her little brother, she had not actually wanted to involve him in this--saying it was dangerous was putting it mildly--but she needed someone with freedom of movement in the Gallows, and her choices were limited.
She glanced at the clock over the mantel and cursed. She had invited both Fenris and Sebastian for dinner tonight and she needed to get ready.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Rating: NC-17
Contains: Canon-typical violence, explicit sex
Fic Wordcount: 117,000
Chapter Wordcount:
Notes: Canon-divergent, ignoring most of Act 3. A thousand thanks to
senmut's Discord server for cheering and brainstorming and reactions and encouragement.Beta: breadedsinner and MikWrites_InSpace
Summary: After the duel with the Arishok, Ariane Hawke looks around at the wreckage of her life in Kirkwall and asks herself: what is left for me here? As tensions increase between the Circle and the Templars, she turns to helping Sebastian retake Starkhaven. Meanwhile, she is trying to figure out how to love Fenris when he hates mages, and also definitely not looking at Sebastian's gorgeous eyes. Definitely not. Neither is Fenris. Sebastian is not looking back.
Definitely.
Canon divergence in which almost all of act 3 goes in the bin, and three damaged people try to find a way to live with each other and themselves, and maybe heal a bit.
Chapter index here.
"Sister, you are so unnecessarily dramatic," Carver said.
Hawke looked up from the book she was reading. "I object," she said. "I am always the precisely necessary amount of dramatic."
Carver, realizing too late he'd given her the opening, visibly grit his teeth. "I need to talk to you alone. Please visit on your next half-day," he intoned in a grating falsetto, quoting the letter she'd sent.
Hawke smirked. "You're here, though."
Carver's scowl deepened.
"Have a seat," Hawke said. "This is going to be unpleasant and you might as well be comfortable. Food? Tea? Ale?"
He sprawled on the other sofa, limbs everywhere like a mabari puppy, as he had for his entire life. "Now you're worrying me."
Hawke used a scrap of ribbon to mark her page and set the book aside. "As I said, this will be unpleasant."
Carver grimaced. "Let's get it over with, then. Am I going to have to fail to arrest you? Or has Uncle somehow managed to lose this house again?"
Hawke swallowed the bitterness that rose in her throat--it wasn't Carver's fault he'd been shielded from the need to think bigger. That task had been given to her, and she was good at it. She had always promised herself that she would not betray a fellow mage to the templars, and she had meant it, but this--this was more important.
She refused to pretend it didn't have a healthy dose of vengeance to it.
"I have a proposal for you," she said carefully. "It will be primarily to your benefit. I'll even do you the favor of leaving this benighted city and never coming back; you'll be out from under my shadow as you've always wanted." She paused and took a deep breath. "But Carver, I promise you, if you fail to uphold your end of the bargain, you will regret it."
He sat up, pulling in his arms and legs tight to his body. "Ariane, you're scaring me."
"Good." She caught his gaze. "I know where Quentin got the knowledge he used to kill Mother. I know who gave it to him and I'm going to find everyone who helped him and I will hand you every last one of them, tied up in a bow with evidence--not that templars in Kirkwall have ever needed it--and you can present it all as your own work." She wanted to close her eyes, wanted to look away from the shock on his face, and she made herself look. "What I want from you in return is Meredith's life--and for the templars to leave Anders alone."
Carver wheezed out a breath. "You don't ask for much."
"You're not an idiot," she snapped. "I know you see how Meredith's paranoia is twisting the mages she is supposed to be protecting into the very thing she accuses them of doing. I know you see her lust for power and how unreasonable she is. It won't be long before she does take Alrik's fucking Tranquil Solution and annuls the whole Circle because someone sneezed at the dinner table. You know it, Carver, even if you pretend you don't." She paused, then went for the kill. "Or else why didn't you tell her about the demons in the Gallows?"
He looked away.
She let the silence sit there, the weight of her demand and disapproval a cruelty she chose with full knowledge. She was so damned tired of being the one to carry everything.
"I don't want to be Knight-Commander," Carver mumbled.
"You don't want to be Knight-Commander yet," she corrected. "Cullen would do all right. Thrask and Keran are good men." She tried to think if literally any other templars in Kirkwall were anything other than abusive murderers and came up blank. "You have a choice, Carver," she said after a moment. "Help me, or find yourself under the wreckage if I have to do this alone."
"It's always your way or nothing, isn't it?" His mouth twisted.
She choked back the first four retorts that rose to her lips. "Imagine Bethany there," she said instead, and his head snapped around to face her again. "Picture what Karrash would do to her. How long would it take for Meredith to order her made Tranquil? She'd never laugh again, never share secrets with you."
"Enough, Ariane." He buried his face in his hands.
She breathed a silent apology to their parents' ghosts, and Beth's. "It's not enough. It will never be enough for Meredith until we are all dead. You keep telling me you're there to protect the mages from themselves. Prove it."
His fingers flexed in his dark hair.
She waited.
"Some of them do turn to blood magic, you know," he said to the floor.
"Carver, I want you to understand something, and I want you to listen very carefully." She waited until he looked up at her. "Power can corrupt anyone. It has corrupted Meredith. She sees blood magic in every shadow because she has made that the cornerstone of her own power. Maybe she really believed it once--but tell me what rule of the templar order said that Aron should have been tortured to death under the Gallows. Tell me you truly believe she didn't know. Tell me she didn't order me kidnapped as a threat. Tell me she hasn't been getting worse just in the four years we've been here. If you can tell me that, and mean it, then we can talk about alternatives."
He turned aside and pulled his knees up to his chin. She'd have to apologize to Orana later for the dirt his boots were going to leave on the couch.
"I have to think," Carver said.
She picked up her book. "Then think." Sarcasm danced on the tip of her tongue. She was going to go plague Varric later as her reward for being so restrained now. She opened the book to her bookmark and started to read.
Carver was not a quiet thinker. He fidgeted, sighed, drummed his fingers on the wall or his leg, and generally made a nuisance of himself. Once, she'd been very good at blocking out those sounds, as one had to be when one lived in a small cottage with four other people and there was only the one room for all of them to use. She'd grown out of the habit since he joined the templars. She found herself having to re-read the paragraphs three times each.
"Fine," Carver said abruptly.
Hawke looked up. He was sitting on the edge of the sofa, elbows propped on his knees. His hair was even more disordered than usual. "Fine?" she echoed.
"Tell your friend to keep his head down, and I'll do what I can to keep the templars off his back." Carver sighed. "I hope I live to regret this."
Hawke put the book aside. "Thank you, Carver," she said, with full sincerity. "I'll let you know when I have everything."
"I won't take credit for this," he said abruptly. "I'll help you, but I won't claim what you did."
She was a little surprised, and mostly pleased, by that. "All right. Though you could still change your mind."
He got to his feet and left the library, and Hawke ran her hands through her own hair, sighing. As much as she enjoyed badgering her little brother, she had not actually wanted to involve him in this--saying it was dangerous was putting it mildly--but she needed someone with freedom of movement in the Gallows, and her choices were limited.
She glanced at the clock over the mantel and cursed. She had invited both Fenris and Sebastian for dinner tonight and she needed to get ready.
Chapter Twenty-Six