Varric Tethras can't stand holding back the truth about Marian Hawke after the Inquisitor leaves her in the Fade to die. What he can't stand more is no one is trying to get her back. With the assistance of friends in surprising places, he fights in...
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Soul, ghost, spirit—does it matter where we go when we die? We feel pain in the end, but who gets true peace, when all the burdens they carried fall away, and leave them to fly? Some bodies he's looked down on had grimaces, some in shock, but only one at peace. And it wasn't his mother.
It was Hawke's.
The next token they found had launched him back to the second he killed Gascard DuPuis, the man who betrayed Hawke just a little bit worse than Anders. Okay, okay. A lot worse.
"What?" Varric had said as he retrieved the arrow from Gascard's back. "You were going to do that right?"
He could never forget the stench then and the flashback now burned it into his nostrils again. The old meat and magic particles still lingered when Solas patted him back into the present. Yet, with all that was wrong and traumatic, the image of Leandra's resting facade in Hawke's arms cozied inside him. The real time it happened, there was a sinkhole in his gut. In this flashback? It was that grain of sand in the hourglass, that half-second that freezes in the adrenaline rush, when you realize the worst has happened, and there's nothing you can do, but in it is a beauty that entices its preservation before the aftermath crushes your heart.
That was that moment. Leandra Hawke: at peace; happy.
Happy to be rescued, happy to reunite with her husband and daughter, but knowing the strongest of the Amells would live on—she may have been stitched up by a monster, but it was seeing Hawke that made her whole again.
He never told her that Leandra's death hurt him more than he showed. The one woman he loved most was his mother and she showed him the torture of love unreciprocated. Why should he tell anyone how he feels after that? Leandra saw through his walls. She picked them up and threw them over her shoulder, leaving him bare, and his coin purse light. She played cards on their downtime, which wasn't a lot, but quality before quantity. Learning more about Leandra led him to know Marian. During one of the rounds, Leandra expressed her concerns of old age, and Hawke's increase in perilous adventures.
"She survived the Deep Roads, Leandra," Varric had said, shifting his hand.
"Your help, no doubt. But also your doing." Leandra glared.
"If Hawke rejected me, I would have walked away respectfully."
"A gentleman, are you?"
"And all that entails, my lady."
That night she made him promise to protect her, every step. Hawke helped by always choosing him for the fights, especially the big ones. He cannot account for the Arishok, though. Well, he managed a major discount on health potions that day, so he helped in a small way.
Truth is, he had made that promise the moment Hawke accepted his partnership. Stirring up trouble was his way of saying "I have your back as long as I live."
