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Make me a list, he’d said.
As if it’d be that easy. If Hawke could make a list of every single templar who’d ever had a nasty thought about a mage, Skyhold would be empty of them. The current commander of its army very much included, ironically, since he was the one who had looked her in her too-sober eyes and said, Make me a list. Ha. Like having a thing for the Inquisitor who just so happens to be a mage who hadn’t interacted with a single templar in his life before joining the Inquisition suddenly makes him a paragon of virtue.
Hawke remembers him and his years of inactivity and willful ignorance. He hadn’t been as bad, sure, as the bad ones. Meredith had him under her heel, fine. She could very well have been abusing him. He could very well have been haunted by demons of the past. He could have been engaging in some fucked up roleplay where a mage purged his templar abilities and raped him against a wall while he begged and cried for them to stop. He was still responsible.
Look me in the fucking eye, she wants to tell him, and tell me that you want me to do all your dirty work for you. Again. Again. Once more. Fine—if she’s doing this, she’s going to make him fucking uncomfortable.
She realizes later that she’s been harboring so much rage inside. But if she doesn’t have that, what does she have?
The Inquisitor—Saven, his name is, a Dalish First like Merrill and a fucking sweetheart like her to boot, which is just fucking painful—seems eager about Hawke and his golden boy commander getting along. She doesn’t want to break his bubble before it inevitably pops, so she leaves it be. She walks into what she has been told is former-Knight-Captain-now-Commander Cullen’s office the next morning, not putting on the Champion gear she has stashed away and glamoured under a bush. Hey, if some poor fuckwad finds it, maybe they can make a decent profit off of it before she steals it back (and of course she’s stealing it back—she got that shit from a fucking high dragon, which didn’t come easy). She knocks on Not Knight-Captain Cullen’s door and is informed gruffly that, “It’s open.”
Hawke walks in, not pretending to be more curious than she is. Maybe it’s a goad to look uninterested, and maybe walking in as an unarmed mage like all the others is an attempt to provoke him, to see if he’ll rise to the bait and go for her throat. The funny thing is that he feels like the magic equivalent of stale piss—he has that telltale turn to him that ex-templars cut off from lyrium do. She noticed the night before that he was avoiding alcohol, that he had the tremors. Withdrawal’s a bitch, huh? she wanted to say, meanly, but bit her tongue like usual. But she’s curious, this morning, that she can feel it from him now with no one else around, and on top of that that it’s so faint.
Cullen looks up. “Hawke,” he says, sounding surprised but not really. “I was expecting you to show up, though not so soon.”
She doesn’t bother making a joke, not with no one else around. “Were you serious last night or not?”
“I presume this is about the templars.” He straightens up in his chair, like he wants to pretend this is important, or that he cares. “I was serious, and I didn’t say what I did just for Sa—for the Inquisitor’s sake. Do you have names already?”
Straight to business? she should throw out with a grin, maybe a wink. She says flatly, “No. I have a few descriptions to start with.”
He motions for her to continue. Of course he isn’t bothering to write this down or anything. Hawke steps closer, still far enough away that she can react if he harms her, and recites from memory. “First one was brunet, youngish, bad beard and some sort of Marcher accent. Close to Starkhaven, but not quite. He’s been stalking and sexually harassing one of the ex-Circle mages, a teenage girl named Niela. He hasn’t put his hands on her yet, but it’s only a matter of time.”
Cullen’s left eyebrow furrows, and she prepares to defend her accusation, or Void, even make something up if it saves Niela from further harm. But he says, “Riordan?”
Hawke is not often surprised. She grunts, “Huh?”
“Officer Riordan,” Cullen repeats. “He fits your description, and he has been rumoured to make comments about some of the younger women. He was on my watchlist—I’ll make it a priority if you say he has a direct target now.”
Hawke doesn’t like being caught off guard. “He’s probably already had targets.”
Cullen’s lip tugs upward briefly in disgust. “Likely,” he acknowledges lowly. “I wasn’t aware he’d done more than make a few of his fellow soldiers uncomfortable, so thank you for informing me. Who’s next?”
She doesn’t want to look a gift nuggalope in the mouth, but… “That’s it? You’ll just take my word for it?”
“Your word means a great deal, Hawke.”
She is almost uncomfortable now, itchy around her ribs and neck, with the way he says that, as if her opinion actually does hold weight. She says, “Well… right. Didn’t think I’d get this far, to be honest.”
He shows the barest hint of a smile. “I’m listening.”
She doesn’t like that—it’s too friendly. She turns abruptly, pacing. “There’s a woman. I can never get too good a look at her because she’s always wearing her helmet and armour, but she snarls at any mage who wanders in her general direction. She feels vi—”
She stops, her own warning bells stilling her tongue. She has to be careful talking about templars to a templar, she knows. Too much honest criticism and they’ll snap. Too harsh a word and the entire complaint will go unheard, dismissed on a mere frivolity. She hates it, deep down, hates that she has to temper herself and that she can never yell, never scream. Bethy would have been such a peaceful lamb for them, and they would have probably still hurt her.
“She feels what?” Cullen asks, deceptively docile.
“I have reason to believe she will escalate to violence,” Hawke says. It’s somewhat of a lie, like the ones she used to tell him, back when she did tasks for him and wanted to manipulate the result. He knew then, and probably knows now, except the difference is that these are his templars and not Meredith’s, and this is the Inquisition and not the Chantry. Still, she needs to come up with a reason, fast.
“What were you going to say?” Cullen asks as Hawke is halfway through exercising her best talent, coming up with bullshit on the fly.
Her eyes narrow at him, barely. “I didn’t come here to be mocked, Commander. Let’s just skip the fool’s jig.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“You know what I’m going to say, and I know what you’re going to say back, and we’re going to go at it mage versus templar like the good old times. I’m not interested. Can we continue with this one or can I move on to the last one?”
He smiles wryly. “I’m not interested in dancing that jig either.”
She rolls her eyes. “Great, I’m glad your Inquisitor’s convinced you of that. So the next one—”
“Why do you say she feels violent?”
Hawke lets the question linger in the air. It’s not one the him of Kirkwall would have asked, she will give him that—he would have jumped to the defensive and she would have been caught in another long debate she didn’t care to have that missed the point entirely. Maybe Saven actually is doing something to him, fucking ironically. Finally, she says, “Why are you asking me that?”
“You felt strongly enough about it to let it slip in the first place, and considering you don’t have much of a description besides ‘she wears armour,’ she must have done something to end up on your list. I know you’re probably itching to cut half the templars here down from their posts. To narrow it down to three isn’t something you’d do lightly.”
She looks at him, and her hair falls in her eyes in a really annoying moment of obfuscation. Maker’s itchy ballsack, she needs to get it cut before she accidentally decapitates herself because she can’t see. She snaps, “Are you the Inquisition’s military commander or their fucking priest?”
She sees, of all things, a little bit of tooth in what can only be a smile. Who is this man and what has he done with Cullen the Coward? “I don’t think I would qualify to be a priest.”
She briefly flashes her eyes upwards, now more oddly irate than annoyed. “Look, Cullen, do you want the third one or not?”
He splays his hand. “By all means.”
“He’s an older man, looks like your Grey Warden but scragglier. He keeps trying to provoke a fight, especially from the elven mages. Shuts well the fuck up when you’re around but not so much in the barracks.”
Cullen frowns, though she soon finds out not from her description. “Where have you been sleeping, Hawke? We should have had a room cleared out for you.”
“You did, and I lent it to some of the mages that needed it. Better I face what’s going on than them.”
The frown deepens. “The mages and templars have sleeping quarters on opposite sides of the keep. There shouldn’t be any mingling.”
“There shouldn’t be,” she agrees. “And yet.”
And yet, say his eyes. “This older man, does he go to the mage barracks by himself? Regularly?”
“He has a few buddies with him, and it’s usually after something pisses him off.” Hawke eyes him. “Like when you say in Chantry-sanctioned terms, ‘Don’t be racist.’”
A jaw clench—at either her jibe or the contents of it. “Then he will be relatively easy to catch. Thank you. Is there—that can’t be all. I trust this is an ongoing investigation of yours?”
She raises her eyebrows. “Do you really want to cull your ranks?”
“I am not culling my ranks, I am choosing who is allowed to be part of the Inquisition’s templars. Considering we have so many mages who put their trust in us, in addition to a mage Inquisitor who cares for them, it is wise to ensure their guardians are suitable.”
“Ah, so it’s like one giant Circle for you.”
“No!” That comes out more vehemently than she thinks either of them expect. They look at each other in blank surprise, and Cullen lowers himself back to his chair. “Apologies. No, that is not my goal. The templars should protect the mages from demons, each other, themselves, and other templars. If any of them do not have noble intent… there is no place for them here.”
Hawke can’t help herself. She snorts. “What does a templar with noble intent look like?”
Cullen looks at her with weary eyes. “I was hoping you could try and figure that out with me.”
~*~
The problem is that it isn’t just the fucking templars.
That would make everything a whole lot easier, wouldn’t it? But no, of course it’s not just templars. Not everyone who hates mages wants to be chained to a lyrium leash. Hawke wears apprentice robes on purpose, keeping her shoulders meek and subdued like she would never be, but like Bethy might have been, if she’d had the chance. She gets sneers, taunts and japes from soldiers in regular armour. More predictable but no less annoying are the call outs, though they still don’t seem to understand that her Maker-given name isn’t “Tits” or “Fire-cunt.” Those do give her an idea, however. It isn’t necessarily a good idea, but since when have her ideas been good?
She doesn’t tell Varric. She doesn’t know what he’ll say besides try to discourage her, probably, and she doesn’t need a healthy dose of practicality right now. Even worse, Varric might try to investigate her mental state, and ugh. That’s not what either of them are supposed to be to each other today. They’re drinking buddies Varric and Hawke, not “do you want to talk about it” Varric and Hawke, and certainly not “why won’t you let yourself depend on anyone emotionally not even me” Varric and Hawke. Her name should come first—Hawke and Varric. Whatever.
(She should probably fuck off when she can, just so Saven won’t turn into what he could be, because she’s fucking terrified he will. He can’t become that, not to her. He’s too fucking nice and she’s too damaged, Maker. She is not who the Inquisitor thinks she is—she is hard words and harsher edges and eyes that see far too much. But agree to train a cute elf with a cute smile and they’ll trap you forever. Fuck you too, Merrill. Fucking Fenris wanting to learn how to read. Fucking—)
She pays a visit to Commander-Not-Knight-Captain Cullen’s office the day of her experiment not because she’s emotionally volatile, which she isn’t, but just to… inform him of what’s going on. For whatever fucking reason. Saven is busy up to his pointy ears when he’s not training with her, and she doesn’t have shit to do. She knocks on the door before she remembers that it doesn’t matter and barges in right as Cullen tells her to do just that.
He blinks at her, a cowlick out of place in his flammable hair and up to his elbows in paperwork. Hawke fights the urge to simply turn around and walk away, curling her hand tightly around the doorframe.
“Hawke,” Cullen greets. “How can I help you?”
“Uh.” It’s not her most eloquent moment. “I plan on rooting out some of your soldiers tonight.”
“Alright,” he says mildly.
That’s it? Hawke looks at him suspiciously, forefinger twitching.
Cullen asks, “What did you need my help with?”
His help? Hawke frowns. “I didn’t.” She pushes off, elegant like she knows she can be and like she better fucking be if this is going to work.
“Are you sure? I would gladly work with you to—”
“Commander, I’ve got this completely under control,” she declares, except he’s never implied otherwise, and that’s fucked, and she needs to leave. She steps onto the battlements and closes the door behind her harshly. Blessed quiet follows her out.
~*~
She’s done this before, and she has it down to a science. Okay, maybe not down that well, because there’s only so far she can go before Varric starts catching on, or, Maker forbid, Aveline. But here no one will ask, Hawke, what are you doing? Or Hawke, why are my guards finding random immolated men in Darktown? She trades robes with a smaller apprentice to be sure—not too small that they don’t fit, but small enough that her tits pull taut and the skirt doesn’t cover her quite right. It’s uncomfortable, it always is, but it gets the job done.
She bites her lips red and heads down to the tavern. She is maybe too old for this, too hard by now. She barely remembers what it’s like to be soft anymore. Carver tries to bring it back sometimes, despite his curse of being the shithead little brother who shouldn’t be as grown as he is. Slobber helps, just by being his big doggy self (Maker, she doesn’t want him to die, and she knows it’s coming).
She’s picked today for a reason—it’s a good chunk of the soldiers’ day off. It also means Varric isn’t here, though that hulking qunari in the corner still is, eyeing her as watchfully as ever. She doesn’t know why they have a giant one-eyed qunari guarding the tavern, but whatever. Saven’s business.
It gets late into the night and Hawke gets deep into her cups. It’s easy to let herself sway, to smile even if she doesn’t feel like it. She gets attention, because of course she does—tits—and she refuses it politely, because the polite ones aren’t who she’s trying to get. Finally when she feels their eyes on her, because there’s always a them, she does it, just for insurance—a little burp of flame, a little magic let loose in drunken wonder. It was common enough for it to slip out growing up, half the reason why they had to move around so often. She slipped up more than Bethany, of course, who never quite leaned into her magic naturally. I dare you, Sister, she thinks at herself, maybe in Carver’s voice, and when she thinks they’ve had enough time to make a decision, she stumbles outside.
This part is easy, always, because there’s nothing she needs to do, just let beasts be beasts. It is horribly, frightfully effective too, and she’s barely swayed out of speaking range before the tavern door swings back open behind her.
She walks out into the dark, pretending to be taken in by the trees. She reaches for one, with hands that have killed countless bodies and unleashed immense suffering, when one of them grabs her by the waist.
“Hello, beautiful,” he slurs. His breath reeks as it spreads across her face. “Want to have a little fun tonight?”
There are four men behind him—shit—and they snicker. Hawke makes a face, stretching it out drunkenly, which isn’t too much of an effort, since she had been drinking. “No thanks,” she mutters, trying to push him away.
“Aw, c’mon, don’t be like that.” He paws at her breasts, groping now, and she keeps pushing his hands down. “I could show you a real good time, darlin’.”
He’s going to actually touch her at any moment, or even worse overwhelm her, so it’s now or never. “I said no,” Hawke says, and lets her eyes and hands flare with magic.
Magic that is immediately banished as one of the people in the group—a templar—raises a hand and smites her with impunity. The man holding her snarls, backhanding her across the face as her world whites out.
“Fucking mage. You think didn’t we’d come with backup? You think we wouldn’t protect ourselves against you, little mage whore?”
One hand pushes her head back while the other claws down her collar, trying to tear her robe. The others close in on her now, and she hears, in a distinctly female voice, “Blessed are those who stand before the corrupt and the wicked and do not falter.”
Of course she has to hear that fucking verse from another fucking templar right before she is about to be raped and probably tossed over Skyhold’s walls. She gurgles under the hand over her face and kicks out, struggling as best as she fucking can even though there are more than one pair of arms holding her back now, and she tries to reach for her magic but it’s dead and there’s nothing she can do—
Warm, wet blood sprays across her chin as a wicked-looking dagger juts through the jugular of the man in front of her. It is his turn to gurgle now as he tries to draw breath, and then another dagger pierces his chest and slices upwards, pulling his weight off her.
“I will not falter,” says the newcomer from underneath a very large hat.
“Unhand her,” demands another voice, one she recognizes but almost doesn’t, because she hasn’t ever heard it like that, completely steady with no fear of a boot grinding down on its throat, and so very dangerous.
She has to look because that can’t be fucking Cullen, of all people, not here to defend a mage and definitely not this one, but then steel flashes to her left and the painful grip on her arm loosens as another body falls.
Cullen doesn’t even say anything, just calmly moves to strike the next one, and Hawke is let go even quicker than she had been grabbed. Cullen nods in acknowledgment, and then kills him.
There are two left, the templar and the remaining soldier. The soldier looks about ready to shit himself, raising his hands in terrified surrender.
“C-C-Commander!” he gasps out. Maybe he has shit himself, if that smell isn’t just from the fresh corpses.
“Lieutenant Reilley,” Cullen greets. “What were your intentions for tonight?”
“No-no-nothing, Ser. Maker, did you just k-kill—I trained with these men under—under you, Com-com-com—”
The poor man seems to be hyperventilating. Cullen’s eyes flit to the murderous hat assassin, who says, “He wanted to touch too. Wait until she doesn’t fight back, blue eyes like sweet Alira. I can use her and pretend.”
“No, what the—fuck, fuck—”
“Hawke?” Cullen asks in what would be a conversational tone if he didn’t sound like a serial killer (and she would know).
“What?” she gasps. She is too stunned now, still, to recover properly and respond like a normal person. She is—
“—stuck, can’t be a hawk yet, trapped like a flightless animal. Wanted it to hurt but not like this, caged, nowhere to run, Maker, this is going to be a pathetic death. I hate this why did I do it stop touching me please stop touching me I can’t—”
Hawke hears the slick sound of steel piercing through flesh and bone as it plunges neatly into the man’s heart, a perfect cut. She watches the blade exit silently, with military precision.
Cullen looks at the body with a sort of dispassionate awareness, one that says, I have killed a thousand people like you and I will kill a thousand more. He turns to the templar and tells her, “You have five seconds to identify and explain yourself.”
“Ser Eleanor, Commander.” The templar salutes, of all fucking things. “I had no intention of participating, but I did silence the mage when she attempted to use magic offensively.”
Hawke snorts—she can’t help herself. “You did participate, fuckwad,” she croaks.
The templar doesn’t acknowledge her. This is her, Hawke realizes. The one in full armour, the one who’s always a little too quiet, who stares a little too much. Really, to join in something like this as another woman? What kind of person does that? Or did she just come because Hawke is a mage, and therefore doesn’t count?
“It’s up to you, Hawke,” Cullen says, still too calmly. Does he really think she is in any mind to think clearly?
“Did you believe you were punishing me?” Hawke wants to know. “That by using magic I was committing a sin in the eyes of the Maker and this was my just reward?”
Cullen’s eyes flit to her. In the next moment she sees him, the templar, Meredith’s second, the one who had been thrust into the furnace to be forged with violence and hatred. In that moment, she is afraid. Then he lifts his sword to the templar’s throat.
“You will answer Serah Hawke directly when she speaks to you,” he says with the cold impunity Hawke had always been scared she would one day see in his eyes. And then she realizes that sometime between when she had last seen him in Kirkwall and now, he has been quenched. And finally, finally, she realizes, He’s on my side.
The templar looks at Hawke with pure loathing in her eyes. “There is no punishment you could submit to that would make up for the sins you have committed, Hawke.”
Maker, some people really, truly hate her, and will for the rest of their lives. She swallows, keeping eye contact like a brave girl, Father—and the smite may still be messing with her wits a little. Her family keeps swimming in her head, but only one of them is alive.
She thinks of Bethany, sweet Bethy, suffering for her sins. She already did, Maker help them all. She averts her gaze and tells Cullen, “Do what you want with her.”
“As you say.” Cullen lifts his chin, looking every inch the commander he now is. “Ser Eleanor, you are accused of assault, conspiracy to murder, and accessory to rape. You have been judged and found guilty in the eyes of the Maker and his bride Andraste. I have been granted authority by the Inquisitor to mete justice as I see fit. Your sentence is banishment. You are to leave Skyhold by dawn, and are not to return to Inquisition territory on pain of death.”
The templar maintains her crisp salute. Her eyes flit to Hawke, and instincts honed by years on Kirkwall’s streets flare as her sword arm twitches—
Cullen’s blade flashes before either of them can act. Hawke watches with widened eyes as he cleaves the templar’s head clean from her body. The body stands for a sickening moment, and she swears it fucking twitches, and then it falls with a heavy clang as the armour brings it to the ground.
“Andraste’s shithole,” Hawke breathes. “Did you really just kill five people?”
Wasn’t there… no, it was just him. Cullen kneels down and wipes his sword on the grass, in one of the few areas it isn’t already stained with blood. “Yes,” he answers.
“Can you… do that?” she asks dumbly.
“I wasn’t lying, the Inquisitor really did grant me authority over this.” He gets up, grimacing at the smear left on his weapon. “I will have to give him my report, of course, but I don’t have to be explicit about the details.”
He is asking her, indirectly, how much she wants him to include. She asks, “Can you just leave out my name?”
He frowns at her.
“Please,” she begs.
After a moment, his brow clears. “I will,” he says, a mite gentler now than he was a moment ago, almost as if he is becoming a person again. What he says next confirms it. “Will you… talk to him about it?”
She jerks her head in the negative, once. Of course not.
His eyes dart away, and then back to her, and then he says, in a nearly personal tone like they are not surrounded by five dead bodies that he killed, “Varric?”
She snorts. He frowns again. The sheer audacity he has, to assume that he has gets to have an opinion over what she does or doesn’t do. Fucking templars.
“Either way, if you want to keep your name out of it, we should get you somewhere else.” His hand hovers briefly at her back as he looks around, like he is shepherding her, before he seems to realize what he’s doing and drops it.
For some reason, it makes her think of Carver. She nods anyway, and they step over the bodies in the blood-soaked grass and walk swiftly through the keep. Hawke keeps her head down, though she doesn’t know how recognizable she is here without her armour, and luckily, aside from a few sentries who don’t question them, no one is in their path. The end up going to Cullen’s office, and he makes to light the candle on his desk before Hawke does it for him with a glance.
“Thank you,” he says, instead of anything else. She doesn’t know what she was expecting. “I have extra clothes if you want to change into something cleaner, and… um, it’s a bit late to go to the baths, and I wouldn’t want you going alone—not that you can’t handle yourself, I mean, because I know you can. But, um. In case you didn’t… want to.”
Maker’s taint, some parts of this man have barely changed from the times Isabella used to flash him in the middle of the Gallows. Hawke moves past him and his nervous neck-scratching as she finally looks around the office. He stores clothes in here in case he has to rescue damsels in distress? “You have clothes?”
“Yes.” He relaxes somewhat as he no doubt remembers that she is not, in fact, Isabella, and has zero interest in flirting with him. “Up the ladder in the loft, I can show you. You can… also, if you want, take the bed for the night. I can sleep down here and make sure the shift changes don’t disturb you. And clear a path for the morning.”
It is achingly tempting for a moment. To stay here, under the protection of a man she barely knows anymore, and sleep in an actual bed while he develops back problems on the floor below. But it hits too close to where she had been clawed at just minutes ago, and she doesn’t want that.
“Thank you, but people will talk regardless,” she says. He gives her a small smile of acknowledgment, and she remembers to add, “Um, and besides, it’s your bed. I have my shitty little bunk to get back to.”
Cullen gestures towards the ladder. “I didn’t think the mages’ quarters were that bad,” he mutters as they climb. “But they can put in a requisition with the quartermaster like everyone else so they can wait a bloody eternity for it to be fulfilled. Unless you’re Saven—honestly, you should see his quarters. I don’t think he even knew what silk was before the Inquisition.”
He is blathering, for whatever reason, but she understands the comfort of it. She snorts as he helps her onto the loft floor. “Spend a lot of time in the Inquisitor’s quarters, do you?”
“You shut your mouth about that, Hawke.” Still, he’s smiling faintly as he roots around in a dresser. “Now you’re… smaller…”
“Tits,” Hawke reminds him.
“Every time I speak with you, I remember why I don’t,” he murmurs. They both know why he did, however, and she appreciates it.
“Hey, it isn’t my fault. Sometimes I wish I could just… magic them off.”
He half turns his head, a look of morbid curiosity on his face. “Could you?”
“Maybe with blood magic. Then I’d give them to Carver as payment for all the times he dismissed my back pain.”
Cullen makes a face like he is both picturing that and realizing this conversation is ridiculous before he goes back to rifling through his clothes. After shaking out a few shirts and giving her a couple of ego-shattering onceovers, he hands her a plain pinkish tunic and tied trousers.
“This one got washed wrong and shrunk, and these should work. Take the jacket also,” He dumps a well-made leather jacket into her arms, “And let me know if you need anything else. I’ll be downstairs. Downladder. Er… be seeing you.”
He disappears downladder. Hawke wastes no time in stripping the bloodied robes off, grimacing as they cling to her skin. She’ll have to pay their cost to the other apprentice, Sophia, because there’s no Void-taken way these are getting worn again. Not after what happened tonight. Cullen’s clothes—and she really should have realized sooner he meant his clothes and not some secret stash of women’s clothes he for some reason kept in his office—work well enough, and aren’t too dissimilar to when she used to appropriate Carver’s. She descends the ladder after slipping her boots back on, and he is waiting at his desk, looking shockingly disarmed sans armour.
“Hawke,” he says, squaring his shoulders as if he had spent the time she’d been dressing mentally preparing himself, “If you need to talk to anyone—and I know I’m not exactly the best option for multiple reasons, but—I am here.”
She opens her mouth, but her words catch in her throat, and her lashes flutter. His gaze floats away as he continues.
“What Cole said… I mean, it isn’t my business. But sometimes there would be cases of men clearly killed through magical means in Darktown and… well, the templars were called for that sort of thing, as you are well aware. When we conducted our investigations, those men were always found to have a few traits in common.”
Her bones feel fragile as glass, so she doesn’t move. He meets her eyes then, his own honest as sin. “I’m not accusing you of anything. I am just letting you know that you have allies here, and asking you to not risk yourself if you can help it.”
She doesn’t know when it appeared, but she can feel a telling tear creep down her cheek. She just wipes at it, not saying anything, and he doesn’t make any move towards her. Thank the Maker for that—Andraste forbid what a templar showing her empathy would do to her. She could do with a hug, fuck, but she doesn’t know if she dares, and Varric is too fucking short, and on top of that he’d insist she tell him why. She ends up walking closer to Cullen and hovering in front of him awkwardly, but he doesn’t question her and doesn’t move away, perhaps sensing her inner meltdown. Fuck, she’s really going to have to do this, isn’t she?
“Um,” she says, and tentatively shuffles towards him. He seems to get the message, thank the Maker’s hairy ballsack, because he does, though very gently, hug her. Like she’s a spiderweb about to break on a breeze, sure, but he does it.
“Thank you,” she tells him, because she owes him that much, and he nods dutifully. “Goodnight, Hawke,” he bids as she steps over the threshold of the door, and she looks back.
“Goodnight.” And she is out onto the battlements. She slips on the jacket she has folded over her arm, pulling it close against the cool night air.