The Reign of Lawrence Hawke

[apurrstate]

World State:
☫ Hawke has an Aggressive, bordering on cruel personality
☫ Warrior with a templar specialization
☫ Sided with the Templars and became Viscount
☫ Both siblings dead, killed Bethany during Mage Purge
☫ Anders (Rival) Romanced, spared
☫ Fenris (Friendship) given to Danarius
☫ Isabela (Friendship) came back with the Tome, given to Arishok
☫ Merril (Rival) Clan Sabrae killed, Mirror destroyed
☫ Aveline (Rival) did not remarry
☫ Varric (Rival), Bartrand 'healed' and then killed

☫ Took nearly every cruel or self-serving option
☫ Feynriel made tranquil
☫ Made a deal with the Rock Wraith demon in the deep roads
☫ Killed or turned over every apostate
☫ Blackmailed Thrask
☫ Killed Javris Tintop
☫ Sided with Patrice, held anti-Qunari Sentiments
☫ Turned Zevran over to the Crows
☫ Told Varric to keep the Red Lyrium Piece

Comments

[wolfehawke]

Anders breezes past him in ire and leads towards the caves, the hidden crack in the wall Adalwolfe is fairly certain only he and his cohorts ever cared to explore due to his own penchant for being thorough when drakes are involved.

"You're not going to believe me," he mutters, half under his breath but still echoing as they enter the cave just for poor timing. He sighs and speaks more normally, knowing there's only forward from that statement. No backpeddaling. "But as a man who's seen some impossible things with the Wardens - breaks in the veil and spirits in the waking world - I hope you'll at least consider that it might be true whether you believe it or not."

They stop walking, Wolfe awkward for the echo in the small cavern. He rubs the back of his neck, looking anywhere but at Anders as he searches for a place to begin. Ultimately, he lowers himself to sit on a rock, and resolves to just start talking. "My name is Adalwolfe Hawke. My family and I fled Ferelden during the Fifth Blight and made our fortune in Kirkwall. The details are likely different, but the story is largely the same. An expedition to the Deep Roads for riches. The Qunari uprising. The Chantry..."

Wolfe exhales a long breath, looking up to meet Anders eyes, trying not to allow his worry at just how sallow the other mage looks show in his expression. "It seems a unique story but its been told a thousand different ways by a thousand different Hawkes, Varrics, and Anders in a thousand different versions of Thedas all existing alongside one another. I'm not a learned mage like you, no formal magical education to speak of, but I know there's theories written about this and I know them to be true because I've met other Hawke's. I've met different versions of the others too. Fenrises, Isabellas. Cullen, even, all from different points. I'm not sure if there's a rhyme or reason to it, but there it is.

"The last I remember from my Thedas, its 9:41 Dragon. I fell out of the Fade here after what feels like years in other places. Odd places with different technology, magics, oppressive systems and fantastical people. I'll spare you those details for sounding too far-fetched even for Varric's stories, but for Thedas, I remember. I've lived this time. We'd settled in a small cottage in eastern Orlais by now, the Circles rebelling across all the south." He leans back, not sure what proof Anders will need to make any of it ring true, but he sits open, vulnerable. He sits ready to explain whatever is demanded of him.

He sits very tired as he looks up at Anders and waits patiently for what he expects to be utter rejection. What he'll do in the face of that he's not sure, but he's also not certain he can leave Anders to whatever fate this Thedas has in store for him either. He's gaunt, hollowed out. Something fundamental missing, or at least buried under an ugly weight that the more Adalwolfe looks at him, the more he realizes he's faced before. Fought off repeatedly over years of fruitless attempts at meeting with the Grand Cleric, at finding his pamphlets in gutters, at not being heard. Hopelessness. Helplessness. A listless shell of himself.

There are less lines on his face, Wolfe realizes. No crows feet, no starts of wrinkles around his mouth so used to turning up in wry amusement. Yet he looks older and broken and Wolfe has to look away before he does something rash like embrace him.

[apurrstate]

His ire fans uselessly with the events listed so casually like they're given and obvious and not cruel turns of fate to him and he man he loves, thrown their way by a life too uncaring to either of them. Yet they were facts to this man, points in history meant to establish and guide Anders' understanding. As foreign as it seemed coming from him, it worked...until things turned on their head and left Anders feeling more and more hollowed for each word.

It wasn't meeting other Hawkes or their other...friends...that went along the same route of vague disbelief as this man also being a Hawke. Somehow, that part seemed impossible and yet easier to swallow than the last part. The part about Orlais and Circles rebelling and this Hawke is a mage? Did that...did that mean he'd helped the mages even when his Anders had fallen to his weakness and hurt so many?

Even considering it for just a moment caused a flicker of blue-white across his brow he hadn't felt stir in some time, self-satisfied as the demon in him had been in it's assumption that spark would do anything at all. There'd been some stir in the White Spire recently, but to what end it was too early and vague to tell, but full-on uprising in the Circles?

He thought 'good' and felt pride and vindication and knew it wasn't his at all. Damn this man for stirring Vengeance with his lies.

And what if they aren't lies?

Anders rubbed his forehead, the lines fading and leaving a viscous pulse of migraine behind as he turned away from...Ha- Adalwolfe.

"There is no rebellion. If the Circles try to rise up, they will be slaughtered. It's foolish and wrong to wish for it. The Chantry won't allow it to happen." He didn't know who he was trying to convince of the three presences in this cavern, but he said it with heavily resigned conviction. "The circle here is nearly non-existent, the Templars did as they were meant to and ensured it was purged. The White Spire is gripped in a tight metal fist and Kinloch sits isolated on a lake where many will either fall to a blade or drown attempting to swim the lake to a freedom that doesn't exist. I hope you know a way back, Serah, because if all you've said is true, then you won't know the home you've come back to."

His mind was pulsing, buzzing, cloudy with thought and wonder that he was desperately trying not to let get too far, and above it all, he felt the righteous anger and affront fall away in him, leaving him cold and confused and vaguely wishing he'd wake up from whatever nightmare this was.