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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.
Sebastian supposed he had better get used to waiting, but that did not mean he must enjoy it. He stood in the house Varric had rented in Lowtown for the meeting with the templars, and watched his friends.
Varric could not sit still. He kept pacing, compulsively checking every window and door for anyone approaching. Hawke methodically disassembled a fragment of worn fabric, one thread at a time, as a way of managing her own anxiety. Fenris lurked behind her in a shadowed corner, still as a statue with the patience of a hunter. Sebastian himself was trying to project an aura of calm--good practice, he supposed, for when he retook his throne--but it was hard. Hawke was right that this needed to be done, but it was dangerous in the extreme for her to do it. She hadn't acknowledged that, precisely, but she had refused to tell Aveline what they were doing and had likewise excluded Anders and Merrill. Sebastian thought of how his grandfather had stood, quietly backing Sebastian's own parents when they forced him into the Chantry. His grandfather had lingered after his parents swept out, and spoken to him quietly. "In time, my lad, you'll understand that what's right isn't easy," he had said. Sebastian, bright with the righteous fury of youth, had said that was easily said when you were the one determining what was right.
He counted himself fortunate that he'd written a letter of apology to his grandfather before the coup. His grandfather had written back with the stern force he'd always had, and Sebastian kept that letter still, in a tiny bundle by his bed.
"They're here," Varric said, and took up a position by Hawke's left hand. Sebastian wondered if Varric knew what that implied, but of course he was a writer, steeped in symbolism; how could he not?
Sebastian himself hung back. This was Hawke's meeting.
There was a firm knock on the door, the sort that came from a gauntleted hand, and then it opened. Carver led the way. Knight-Captain Cullen was behind him.The door opened into the sitting room where Hawke had established herself, seated behind the table in a simple wooden chair, but with her head held high as a queen's. Carver saw her, and his mouth twisted a bit. Cullen offered a polite nod.
"Serah Hawke--or do you prefer Lady Amell these days?" he asked politely.
"I prefer whatever gets the job done," Hawke said. She tilted her head toward two chairs she'd arranged. "Would you like to sit?"
"Are we going to be here long enough to bother?" Carver grumbled.
"That depends entirely on you." Hawke didn't change expression.
Cullen took one of the chairs she offered, and gestured for Carver to do the same. He did, with a scowl on his face. "Carver tells me that you have information I must see," Cullen said. "I wonder why you asked for me, rather than the Knight-Commander."
He held himself like a man willing to listen, which gave Sebastian hope. He knew Hawke didn't trust the man she dealt with, but one could only go so far at once.
"I don't think you wonder," Hawke said. "I think you know. This is about Meredith, at least in part." She fixed her gaze on Cullen. "We both have a great deal to do. I will not waste your time with dancing around the point. I propose that Meredith and Orsino both be removed and tried for their crimes, and that you take command of the Templar Order in Kirkwall. I have evidence against both of them. I will provide you with copies."
Cullen narrowed his eyes. "And you would receive?"
"The knowledge that neither of them is committing any more atrocities." Hawke shook her head. "I don't have designs on Viscount's Keep, Cullen. In fact I have no designs on remaining in Kirkwall any longer than it takes to accomplish this--but I will keep an eye on events here, once I am gone."
"And of what do you accuse them?" Cullen's posture was rigid, braced for the blow to land.
"Meredith I accuse of mistreating the mages under her supposed care and trying to have me killed. Orsino I accuse of blood magic and conspiracy."
Cullen thought it over for a moment. "These do not seem equivalent crimes," he said.
Hawke's face grew icy and remote. "This is an all-or-nothing deal, Knight-Captain. You will deal with them both or I will. If you deal with it, you will have some control over the fallout. If I do, I will remember who helped me--and who did not."
Cullen gave a half nod. Sebastian could practically hear the motion grinding like two rocks sliding against each other. "I must remind you that mages are very dangerous people," he said.
Hawke did not move, did not flinch. "None know the dangers of magic or its cost more intimately than I," she said, each word precisely enunciated. "I may not agree with the Circle as a solution, but I comprehend why you might. You have served in Circles other than Kirkwall's. Would Aron have been tortured to death in your prior Circle? Do other Circles find it necessary to make so many Tranquil? What was Karl Thekla's crime, again?" Her sentences landed like hammer blows from a master smith. "Your templar brethren rape mages who dare not say no, and your Knight-Commander encourages this terrorism. Is this what you joined the templars for? Is this what you want your order to be?"
His mouth pulled into a flat line.
Hawke let the silence sink into the room, its weight growing with each breath. Sebastian saw the way certainty gathered around her like a cloak. Admiration rose up to claw at his throat. She was magnificent.
"No," Cullen said at last. "This is not what the order should be."
Carver looked like he was holding back his own opinion solely by grinding his teeth.
"I have a statement from the mage that Meredith bribed to sign a contract with the Antivan Crows on her behalf," Hawke said. "As to the rest of her actions, I suspect you have a better view than I, for all that you have chosen to turn away."
"This is all very easy for you to say--" Carver began.
"Carver." Cullen's voice cut through it.
Hawke regarded them calmly. "I am sure you will think the First Enchanter's crimes worse than Knight-Commander's. I will provide the evidence regarding Orsino to you after Meredith is dealt with. I do not have it here with me, so if you were thinking of resorting to violence to get it without having to meet my terms, reconsider."
Gone entirely was the laughing woman whose biting wit could lighten any situation. This, Sebastian thought, was Hawke at her most stripped down.
Cullen sighed. "You are very harsh."
"The only reason you are here," Hawke said, "is because our conversations thus far have suggested you are more reasonable than Meredith. Do you really want me to reconsider that opinion?" She waited, then nodded when his silence was his answer. "Do we have a deal?"
Cullen's face was stone-still for a long moment before he nodded. "We have a deal, Lady Amell."
Sebastian noticed the choice of title, and noticed also that Cullen glanced at him thoughtfully after he said it.
Hawke set a bundle of parchment on the table between them, tied with a leather thong. "Take as long as you need to review them," she said. "These are fair copies; I have the original."
She was absolutely motionless while Cullen read, Carver leaning over to get a look of his own. Sebastian wondered where her mind was. She might have been one of the statues in the Gallows courtyard, watching over the templars in silent judgment.
At the bottom of the third page--Grace's confession--Cullen looked up. "Strictly speaking," he said, "the Knight-Commander could, and likely will, argue that as an apostate mage, you represent a danger to the city, and as you will not come to the Circle--"
"Then she should arrest me," Hawke said coolly, "not murder me. Except that she cannot, without stirring more unrest than she has templars to control, especially since the Guard Captain would take it somewhat amiss."
"I do not say she is right to do so," Cullen replied.
"Noted," Hawke said crisply. "Further, if that were to be her argument, why does the Knight-Commander hire Antivan assassins to do her dirty work, unless she fears to make her actions known?" She flicked one hand dismissively, a graceful arc through the air. "This is not about her actions against me. But it is adjacent to my point. Meredith abused her power over the mages supposedly in her care, to target a political enemy of her own. Circle mages are not her playthings, and I will not stand idly by and witness such an abuse."
"You have made your point, Lady Amell." Cullen read through the rest of the stack, then tied the papers with exacting concentration. "I will contact you when it is done."
Hawke nodded, and rose as he did. The two templars clumped out of the room, their plate clinking, and Varric followed them to close the door firmly at their backs.
Hawke remained standing until Varric, peering out the front window, nodded curtly. "They're gone."
She lowered herself back into the chair, every movement controlled almost to the point of ritual. Fenris left his post in the shadows to draw near, and she reached out her hand without looking. He enfolded it in his. Sebastian made himself remain apart--for now--knowing that soon, he would not have to do so.
"What now, Hawke?" Varric asked.
Hawke allowed herself the briefest indulgence of closing her eyes for half a breath. "Now I wait to see if he betrays me to Meredith or does what I asked. I do hope it's the latter. I would like more time to resolve affairs in Kirkwall before I leave."
Varric grunted. He had been in an ill humor ever since Hawke asked him to accompany her for this, and it took no great wisdom to know it was because he did not want her to leave Kirkwall. Sebastian had put serious consideration to whether he would find a reason to make Varric leave if the dwarf followed Hawke all the way to Starkhaven, and still had no answer.
"Besides," Hawke said, "it would be very expensive to hire Zevran to deal with Meredith, and I can't afford that right now."
Sebastian wasn't quite sure how serious she was. As a Brother of the Chantry, for however much longer that was true, he ought to disapprove if she meant it. Yet he knew that when he was Prince, he would not be able to hold to the fine morals of the Chant at every moment--not unless he was willing to let the burden of those sins fall upon another. He would not leave the Chant so far behind him as that.
"There would be poetic justice in it, though," Varric pointed out.
"Poetic justice doesn't come in sovereign form," Fenris replied.
Hawke let go of Fenris's hand and rose. "Speaking of sovereigns." She handed Varric a small coin purse. "That should cover this place. Thank you all for being here."
Sebastian and Fenris fell in with her, Fenris in front and Sebastian beside as they usually traveled, and they returned to the Amell manor, Hawke's head held high as though she expected someone to be observing her. Perhaps someone was. Sebastian hadn't had to think about that in years, and he didn't much care for resuming the habit.
Even in his wildest days, he hadn't desired his grandfather's throne--only his family's attention. He'd vaguely expected to be given some unimportant functionary's job, something to keep him out of the way. He'd found purpose in the Chantry--and eventually, new purpose when Hawke challenged him about the future of Starkhaven. He'd paid little enough attention to the intricacies of rulership because as the spare to the spare, he'd known he wouldn't need them.
Some days he did not much care for the Maker's sense of humor.
He only hoped, as he closed the door of Hawke's manor behind the three of them, that he didn't kill anyone by learning it belatedly.
Chapter Thirty-One
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.
Sebastian supposed he had better get used to waiting, but that did not mean he must enjoy it. He stood in the house Varric had rented in Lowtown for the meeting with the templars, and watched his friends.
Varric could not sit still. He kept pacing, compulsively checking every window and door for anyone approaching. Hawke methodically disassembled a fragment of worn fabric, one thread at a time, as a way of managing her own anxiety. Fenris lurked behind her in a shadowed corner, still as a statue with the patience of a hunter. Sebastian himself was trying to project an aura of calm--good practice, he supposed, for when he retook his throne--but it was hard. Hawke was right that this needed to be done, but it was dangerous in the extreme for her to do it. She hadn't acknowledged that, precisely, but she had refused to tell Aveline what they were doing and had likewise excluded Anders and Merrill. Sebastian thought of how his grandfather had stood, quietly backing Sebastian's own parents when they forced him into the Chantry. His grandfather had lingered after his parents swept out, and spoken to him quietly. "In time, my lad, you'll understand that what's right isn't easy," he had said. Sebastian, bright with the righteous fury of youth, had said that was easily said when you were the one determining what was right.
He counted himself fortunate that he'd written a letter of apology to his grandfather before the coup. His grandfather had written back with the stern force he'd always had, and Sebastian kept that letter still, in a tiny bundle by his bed.
"They're here," Varric said, and took up a position by Hawke's left hand. Sebastian wondered if Varric knew what that implied, but of course he was a writer, steeped in symbolism; how could he not?
Sebastian himself hung back. This was Hawke's meeting.
There was a firm knock on the door, the sort that came from a gauntleted hand, and then it opened. Carver led the way. Knight-Captain Cullen was behind him.The door opened into the sitting room where Hawke had established herself, seated behind the table in a simple wooden chair, but with her head held high as a queen's. Carver saw her, and his mouth twisted a bit. Cullen offered a polite nod.
"Serah Hawke--or do you prefer Lady Amell these days?" he asked politely.
"I prefer whatever gets the job done," Hawke said. She tilted her head toward two chairs she'd arranged. "Would you like to sit?"
"Are we going to be here long enough to bother?" Carver grumbled.
"That depends entirely on you." Hawke didn't change expression.
Cullen took one of the chairs she offered, and gestured for Carver to do the same. He did, with a scowl on his face. "Carver tells me that you have information I must see," Cullen said. "I wonder why you asked for me, rather than the Knight-Commander."
He held himself like a man willing to listen, which gave Sebastian hope. He knew Hawke didn't trust the man she dealt with, but one could only go so far at once.
"I don't think you wonder," Hawke said. "I think you know. This is about Meredith, at least in part." She fixed her gaze on Cullen. "We both have a great deal to do. I will not waste your time with dancing around the point. I propose that Meredith and Orsino both be removed and tried for their crimes, and that you take command of the Templar Order in Kirkwall. I have evidence against both of them. I will provide you with copies."
Cullen narrowed his eyes. "And you would receive?"
"The knowledge that neither of them is committing any more atrocities." Hawke shook her head. "I don't have designs on Viscount's Keep, Cullen. In fact I have no designs on remaining in Kirkwall any longer than it takes to accomplish this--but I will keep an eye on events here, once I am gone."
"And of what do you accuse them?" Cullen's posture was rigid, braced for the blow to land.
"Meredith I accuse of mistreating the mages under her supposed care and trying to have me killed. Orsino I accuse of blood magic and conspiracy."
Cullen thought it over for a moment. "These do not seem equivalent crimes," he said.
Hawke's face grew icy and remote. "This is an all-or-nothing deal, Knight-Captain. You will deal with them both or I will. If you deal with it, you will have some control over the fallout. If I do, I will remember who helped me--and who did not."
Cullen gave a half nod. Sebastian could practically hear the motion grinding like two rocks sliding against each other. "I must remind you that mages are very dangerous people," he said.
Hawke did not move, did not flinch. "None know the dangers of magic or its cost more intimately than I," she said, each word precisely enunciated. "I may not agree with the Circle as a solution, but I comprehend why you might. You have served in Circles other than Kirkwall's. Would Aron have been tortured to death in your prior Circle? Do other Circles find it necessary to make so many Tranquil? What was Karl Thekla's crime, again?" Her sentences landed like hammer blows from a master smith. "Your templar brethren rape mages who dare not say no, and your Knight-Commander encourages this terrorism. Is this what you joined the templars for? Is this what you want your order to be?"
His mouth pulled into a flat line.
Hawke let the silence sink into the room, its weight growing with each breath. Sebastian saw the way certainty gathered around her like a cloak. Admiration rose up to claw at his throat. She was magnificent.
"No," Cullen said at last. "This is not what the order should be."
Carver looked like he was holding back his own opinion solely by grinding his teeth.
"I have a statement from the mage that Meredith bribed to sign a contract with the Antivan Crows on her behalf," Hawke said. "As to the rest of her actions, I suspect you have a better view than I, for all that you have chosen to turn away."
"This is all very easy for you to say--" Carver began.
"Carver." Cullen's voice cut through it.
Hawke regarded them calmly. "I am sure you will think the First Enchanter's crimes worse than Knight-Commander's. I will provide the evidence regarding Orsino to you after Meredith is dealt with. I do not have it here with me, so if you were thinking of resorting to violence to get it without having to meet my terms, reconsider."
Gone entirely was the laughing woman whose biting wit could lighten any situation. This, Sebastian thought, was Hawke at her most stripped down.
Cullen sighed. "You are very harsh."
"The only reason you are here," Hawke said, "is because our conversations thus far have suggested you are more reasonable than Meredith. Do you really want me to reconsider that opinion?" She waited, then nodded when his silence was his answer. "Do we have a deal?"
Cullen's face was stone-still for a long moment before he nodded. "We have a deal, Lady Amell."
Sebastian noticed the choice of title, and noticed also that Cullen glanced at him thoughtfully after he said it.
Hawke set a bundle of parchment on the table between them, tied with a leather thong. "Take as long as you need to review them," she said. "These are fair copies; I have the original."
She was absolutely motionless while Cullen read, Carver leaning over to get a look of his own. Sebastian wondered where her mind was. She might have been one of the statues in the Gallows courtyard, watching over the templars in silent judgment.
At the bottom of the third page--Grace's confession--Cullen looked up. "Strictly speaking," he said, "the Knight-Commander could, and likely will, argue that as an apostate mage, you represent a danger to the city, and as you will not come to the Circle--"
"Then she should arrest me," Hawke said coolly, "not murder me. Except that she cannot, without stirring more unrest than she has templars to control, especially since the Guard Captain would take it somewhat amiss."
"I do not say she is right to do so," Cullen replied.
"Noted," Hawke said crisply. "Further, if that were to be her argument, why does the Knight-Commander hire Antivan assassins to do her dirty work, unless she fears to make her actions known?" She flicked one hand dismissively, a graceful arc through the air. "This is not about her actions against me. But it is adjacent to my point. Meredith abused her power over the mages supposedly in her care, to target a political enemy of her own. Circle mages are not her playthings, and I will not stand idly by and witness such an abuse."
"You have made your point, Lady Amell." Cullen read through the rest of the stack, then tied the papers with exacting concentration. "I will contact you when it is done."
Hawke nodded, and rose as he did. The two templars clumped out of the room, their plate clinking, and Varric followed them to close the door firmly at their backs.
Hawke remained standing until Varric, peering out the front window, nodded curtly. "They're gone."
She lowered herself back into the chair, every movement controlled almost to the point of ritual. Fenris left his post in the shadows to draw near, and she reached out her hand without looking. He enfolded it in his. Sebastian made himself remain apart--for now--knowing that soon, he would not have to do so.
"What now, Hawke?" Varric asked.
Hawke allowed herself the briefest indulgence of closing her eyes for half a breath. "Now I wait to see if he betrays me to Meredith or does what I asked. I do hope it's the latter. I would like more time to resolve affairs in Kirkwall before I leave."
Varric grunted. He had been in an ill humor ever since Hawke asked him to accompany her for this, and it took no great wisdom to know it was because he did not want her to leave Kirkwall. Sebastian had put serious consideration to whether he would find a reason to make Varric leave if the dwarf followed Hawke all the way to Starkhaven, and still had no answer.
"Besides," Hawke said, "it would be very expensive to hire Zevran to deal with Meredith, and I can't afford that right now."
Sebastian wasn't quite sure how serious she was. As a Brother of the Chantry, for however much longer that was true, he ought to disapprove if she meant it. Yet he knew that when he was Prince, he would not be able to hold to the fine morals of the Chant at every moment--not unless he was willing to let the burden of those sins fall upon another. He would not leave the Chant so far behind him as that.
"There would be poetic justice in it, though," Varric pointed out.
"Poetic justice doesn't come in sovereign form," Fenris replied.
Hawke let go of Fenris's hand and rose. "Speaking of sovereigns." She handed Varric a small coin purse. "That should cover this place. Thank you all for being here."
Sebastian and Fenris fell in with her, Fenris in front and Sebastian beside as they usually traveled, and they returned to the Amell manor, Hawke's head held high as though she expected someone to be observing her. Perhaps someone was. Sebastian hadn't had to think about that in years, and he didn't much care for resuming the habit.
Even in his wildest days, he hadn't desired his grandfather's throne--only his family's attention. He'd vaguely expected to be given some unimportant functionary's job, something to keep him out of the way. He'd found purpose in the Chantry--and eventually, new purpose when Hawke challenged him about the future of Starkhaven. He'd paid little enough attention to the intricacies of rulership because as the spare to the spare, he'd known he wouldn't need them.
Some days he did not much care for the Maker's sense of humor.
He only hoped, as he closed the door of Hawke's manor behind the three of them, that he didn't kill anyone by learning it belatedly.
Chapter Thirty-One