its_likealchemy | feels like we're given so little time ❧ rp for dramatic

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feels like we're given so little time ❧ rp for dramatic_timing

As far as beginnings go, its starts innocuously enough.

Two-thirds of the way up the mountain on their trek to the Temple of Sacred Ashes to join the Conclave, Hawke stops, turns and squints into the treeline that frames the road behind them. He stops, too, plants one foot on a rock at the edge of the cobble, pushing up onto his toes, and follows her gaze. When he sees nothing of interest, he looks up at her, frowning as she does. "Why do I feel like I'm missing the punchline of a really bad joke?"

"Well, they do usually go over your head," she responds absently, still staring, fingers twitching at her side as if she means to reach for her dagger. She stops, they both do, when Cassandra calls for them somewhere further down the road.

Letting out a breath he wasn't aware he was holding, Varric glances back at her before nudging Hawke's elbow with his. She looks back at him, if only for an instant, before turning her attentions back to the woods. He tries again, this time without the prodding -- it helps that, just before he starts, Cassandra bellows for them again. "I don't know if you heard our illustrious slave driver, but we might want to think about catching up before she starts getting stab happy again."

She looks back at him, plants one hand on the top of his head and twists lightly, as if to turn him around, back to Cassandra. Despite how short he is, it doesn't really work, but he gets the meaning all the same. "You'd best be off, then."

"I'm pretty sure she called for both of us."

"I'll catch up," she counters. "Tell her -- tell her I had to make a detour to the little rogue's privy."

Varric just continues to frown at her. "Should I even ask what your elven eyes see out there?"

"Probably nothing." She shrugs, reaches again for her dagger, this time pulling it free of its sheath on her back and takes a handful of steps back the way they came.

Stepping down off his perch, he turns but makes no motion to follow her. He trusts Hawke to take care of herself, knows that, if she does see something shady, she'll be able to get to it and stop it more effectively, more quietly without him and Bianca, but, "You get that those are kind of famous last words, right?"

"Oh, relax, Varric. What's the worst that could happen?"

Running into a horde of angry Templars springs to mind. As does the thought of blood mages, demons and / or the errant hungry bear, considering how far out of the city, any city they are, right now. He doesn't get to spout any of that off, however, if only because she's gone in all but the blink of an eye, disappearing off into the tress in only the briefest flashes of red and black. He exhales heavily, shakes his head and turns himself, already trying to decide what he's going to tell Cassandra when he catches up with her. He hopes Hawke realizes how much he loves her, considering how absolutely shitless the Seeker scares him.

---

What scares him more is what happens next.

They're almost to the camp just outside the Temple when the whole thing goes up in flames, green flames that knock him and Cassandra both square on their asses and suck all the air right out of the mountains, if only for an instant. When he gets his breath back and as he's staggering to his feet, he swears he hears a scream echo over their heads and a weird sort of dread settles over him. The fact that there's a giant hole in the sky, now, or the fact that he's pretty sure no one could have survived that probably doesn't help, but -- but in that instant, he thinks of Hawke.

She still hasn't caught up with them. What if whoever or whatever she was following got to the Temple before they did? What if she was at ground zero for whatever the hell that was? What if.

He glances to Cassandra, back on her feet now and one hand on her sword like its a medallion of Andraste, like it will somehow save her, and she looks back, her face pale, eyes haunted. He knows, somewhere in the pit of his stomach, that on top of everything else, she's had the same thought. He can see it on her face. He wishes he hadn't.

Dropping his eyes, turning his head, he stares off to one side for a long moment, his breathing heavy, hard, the Siege of Kirkwall reenacting itself in his chest. It takes him a moment to catch his breath and not lose his very bland, very beerless breakfast all over his boots, but when he does, he mutters a prayer to the Maker under his breath, steels his jaw and starts towards the Temple otherwise wordless. His distantly aware of Cassandra falling into step behind him. They don't talk but the memory of screaming rings in his ears.

---

"He says he can help."

"Songbird, unless he's the Maker Himself, I don't think a little bit of healing's going to fix this."

The words taste like poison on his lips, with Hawke's unconscious head bowed on his knees, he can't help but think this is it. The fact that she doesn't seem bruised or broken or bleeding helps; the fact that he can't get her to wake up even with the salts he's pulled out of his belt pouch, the fact that her breathing is shallow and broken, and her hand's glowing like a fucking torchlight, like the hole in the sky doesn't. He reaches for her fingers carefully and he, a dwarf, normally immune to such things, can feel it burning under her gloves before he even laces their fingers together. He gives up on the gesture, clencing his eyes shut tightly, a ward against the stinging there.

"If you would just let him -- " Leliana starts again. She stops when he shoots her a sudden, murderous look. Or when the elf steps forward. He's not really sure which it is and, quite honestly, he doesn't really care.

"Master Tethras, is it?" Baldy starts. He's a little hard pressed to come up with a better nickname, right now, not with his heart dying in his lap. He grunts in response, regardless, his attentions still set on Hawke. "Master Tethras, please. I have studied the old magics of the Fade in painful detail, so if anyone here is any position to help her, it would likely be me. At very least, it cannot hurt to try and I will not hurt her in doing so. You have my word."

"If she dies ... " If she dies, he'll bribe or threaten or -- whatever whoever he needs to to make sure the elf ends up on the wrong end of a headsman's axe. If him trying to help only kills her faster, he'll put a dozen explosive arrows through his head himself and watch him blow up like a bird grown fat on rice. The look he gives him when he finally raises his eyes reflects that and the elf doesn't falter. Instead, he just holds his gaze for a moment, nodding almost imperceptibly, and then lowers himself to Hawke's side.

He lets him take her, pushing shakily to his feet. He wants to be here, be at her side, for better or worse, as the elf works on her, but his feet carry him away of their own volition.

"I need some air," he grumbles to no one in particular. Never mind the fact that they're already outside. Cassandra and her men, ringing the space around them, part to let him pass.

---

"If I were to tell you she was completely out of the woods, I would be lying," Solas starts from behind him. He actually thought to ask the mage's name at some point, last night, after they'd moved Hawke back to the Chantry at Haven. "But she is stable and, I would think, gaining strength. She dreams, now, no longer merely unconscious, and her breathing has righted itself."

"Does Cassandra have any idea who did this, yet?" he asks lowly, as if raising his voice might wake Hawke up. Even if Solas' assessment bringing him some measure of hope, he doubts it. She may not be completely out of it, anymore, but she still hasn't woken up for anything. Just thrashed around a lot, worryingly, for what he's seen so far.

"No, but we may have more immediate concerns. What Seeker Pentagast and her associates have named the Breach -- "

"Can wait until I find out who did this and put an arrow in his eye."

Solas falls silent at that, apparently contenting himself to watching the both of them.

---

On the morning of the third day, an angry mob, pitchforks and all, show up at the doors of the Chantry, where Varric has been sitting, dismissed from Hawke's side by Solas while he furthers his attempts at bringing her around. Sons and daughters of the men and women lost at the Conclave, they hold Hawke responsible, the "Champion" of Kirkwall behind another act of terrorism, and demand retribution. He pulls Bianca from his lap, where she's been resting as he cleaned her gears idly, picks up a bolt and with a casual flourish, loads it in.

He fires a single shot at the feet of the horde, a challenge, a dare. They disperse in an instant, flailing in all directions, not having expected any actual resistance. They don't come back.

---

That night, as the day sinks into felfire-green twilight and fires begin to spring up around the camp, Cassandra finds him. He's half-expecting tables to be flipped, books to be skewered, something, anything, in response to him having all but openly attacked the locals. Much to his surprise, however, she simply sits down across the doorway from him and pulls her knees up to her chest so she can rest her elbows on them.

She's silent for a long time, albeit not uncomfortably so, before, "Solas tells me Hawke will be awake by tomorrow."

Less than a dozen words, and he feels all the anger he's been carrying around, all the terror, unravel, the knot that's been winding around and around in his heart and head both gone in an instant. He closes his eyes, fingers steepling in front of his mouth in a gesture of prayer as he silently thanks the Maker. He lets out a shuddering, half-frozen breath between them before he drops his hands. "Guess I should stop sitting out here on my ass, then, huh?"

"I do not think she would be terribly happy with me if I allowed her dwarf to freeze to death," she says by way of agreement.

He exhales a hysterical sigh of a laugh, relief, albeit cautious relief, making him giddy. "So you do have a sense of humor."

"On occasion." She flashes him a brief, thin smile, watching him get to his feet before she begins again. "There will be many questions she will have to answer, when she wakes up, and much for us to do beyond, but Varric, I wanted to say ... " He looks to her, expectantly, and she falters for an instant as she tries to untangle her words. "For your sake, I am glad she will be alright."

"So am I, Seeker," he breathes, turning to head inside. "So am I."

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Varric winces at the burst of light, one hand coming up to shield his eyes. When it fades and he drops his hand, he moves all at once, strafing around Cassandra, who's already practically on top of the thing, to find a clear shot. Cassandra roars, to get the things attention, and he waits a beat for any number of reasons before he starts firing.

Not that bolts or daggers or swords seem to be doing much good, and when Cassandra seems to realize it, too, she yells, "We must strip its defenses!"

Not that she elaborates on how, but then again, she's a little busy ducking under a whip made of pure lightning the thing has pulled from seemingly no where. Which is probably accurate. Andraste's Flaming Tits, he hates this Fade-magic-demon crap.

Hawke casts a glance back toward the rift, watching as streams of light flow from the breach to the demon. "Watch my back! I'm going to try something!" she calls to Varric - which, as he knows, is never the best thing when it comes out of her mouth.

Still, she breaks away from her personal assault on the demon to move back toward the rift, shaking her hand out again before she repeats the earlier motion, thrusting the mark toward the breach. Again, light bursts from the mark to connect to the rift - and a few moments later, there's another pulse, and the demon stumbles to one knee.

"Those are famous last words, too, Hawke!" Varric calls back. Not that that stops him from taking a few steps back from the fray so that he can keep an eye on her without having to turn his head away from the battle or, worse yet, watch her from the corners of his eyes. Not that anything actually comes for her, either, thankfully.

"I don't know what you just did," he starts when the demon goes down, "but it looks like it worked!"

"Now!" Cassandra roars to the archers on the ledges, apparently of the same mind.

"You sound surprised!" she calls back as she skirts around the incoming arrows and Solas's magical attacks to work her way back to Cassandra's side, to resume her own assault.

"I don't know how any of this shit works!" he counters. Not that he figures Hawke does, but well, at least she has some routine experience with the Fade. Beyond that one time he got dragged along to help out with Feynriel, he really knows jack shit. Again with the part where dwarves don't dream, don't have a connection to the Fade.

She means more his apparent lack of faith in her ever knowing what she's doing - or the ideas she comes up with actually working. She's teasing, really, considering how frequently her ideas do end in disaster of some kind.

"More coming through!" Solas shouts suddenly, and Hawke is distracted from actually replying to Varric by turning to take down one of the lesser demons that's managed to come up behind her.

Chances are he knew exactly what she meant and just chose to bitch about the more convenient of two things, instead. Either way, however, he has no time to explain that, himself, turning to fire on the newly appeared demons as fast as his crossbow will allow. When they're gone, he starts back in on the Pride demon only to find it recovers from -- whatever Hawke did to it before too much longer.

Frustrating, sure, but playing with the rift some more seems to do the trick again, and before long, it (and the minor horde of other demons that came through) are dead. Varric doesn't dare lower Bianca, just in case, even as he yells over to Hawke, "Now might be a good time to close that thing, Hawke!"

Not that she doesn't already know that, he's sure, but he's trying to seem helpful. It's what he's here for -- that and witty one liners.

Hawke sheaths one of her knives to jog back over to stand beneath the rift, once again using the power of the mark on the rift. This one is more powerful than the smaller ones she closed outside the temple, and she grits her teeth and braces herself, reaching.

It seems to go on for a very long time, though it's only a few moments before the rift seems to implode, air rushing into the now empty space - and Hawke drops to her knees, her second dagger falling from her other hand as she collapses.

Varric sees her go down, even if on one else does, his attentions on her, rather than the shit going on above her, and hisses out a creative swear. He shoulders Bianca quickly and, just as hurriedly, lets his legs carry him over to his fallen friend, dropping onto his knees once he's within a reasonable distance. He puts a hand to her shoulder immediately.

"Hawke?"

Well. This is unhappily familiar.

"Shit, Chuckles, get over here!"

Solas approaches at a jog, already reaching back to return his staff to its place as he kneels beside Hawke and Varric, blue light gathering at his hands as he reaches for her head with one hand and her marked hand with his other. There is a moment of pause that likely feels longer than it is before he straightens slightly, the light fading again.

"The mark is stable. This rift was larger than those outside the Temple; I believe she overextended herself. She will be fine, Master Tethras, after some rest. We should return to Haven."

Varric gets to his feet as Solas approaches, giving him room to work -- and himself something to do in the form of shifting anxiously from one foot to the other until a verdict is reached. He relaxes all at once and visibly when Hawke is declared not dead (or in danger of dying), going so far as to close his eyes for an instant, to breathe out a heavy breath.

He shakes his head faintly when he reopens them. "Alright. Just -- alright."

Cassandra steps up behind them, sword already back at her hip. She glances between the two of them, judges Hawke to be well enough, herself, and if only by virtue of the fact that Varric isn't panicking and Solas isn't working any healing magic, and is relieved, herself. She knows how much Hawke means to Varric and despite how much the two of them have gotten on her nerves, these last few -- however longs, she can't say she still doesn't have something of a case of hero-worship, when it comes to Hawke. That she's alive is good.

Rather than point out the obvious, however, she simply moves silently to start gathering Hawke onto her shoulders. She can guess what happens now.

Hawke doesn't react to being moved, and Solas stoops to pick up her dropped weapon, following the Seeker off the field.

Cullen meets them as they exit the ruins of the Temple. He looks vaguely startled by it all and more exhausted, his armor spattered with gore. He takes all of them in, eyes lingering on Hawke for a moment. "We've cleared the way back through the valley. Is she...?"

"She will survive," Cassandra answers, shaking her head. No, Cullen, she's not dead. "She is simply unconscious. The rift in the Temple ... "

Hawke closed it, after being asked to close several others, one right after the other. She figures that would wear anyone out, and add in the fact that she was already not entirely back on her feet, and well, she's not surprised Hawke is out. She's not entirely sure how to put that into words right this second, however. She'll figure it out, before they get back to Haven. She has to, if she's going to explain this to Roderick.

"We all felt that one close," he agrees, his relief obvious - both that Hawke is still alive and that this particular rift is closed - and then looks to Solas when the mage speaks.

"We will need more power behind the mark to close the breach itself. Another attempt would be fatal without more support."

Cullen nods. "We should return to Haven. We have soldiers to patrol the Temple in case anything else comes through, but we should regroup in town." Hawke needs to recover, and they need to discuss what happened on the mountain.

"Agreed," Cassandra says with a nod. Really, she's on board with everything that's been said, thus far, from finding something more, something that won't kill Hawke, to close the Breach for good and getting back to the Temple, for now. "I think I can carry her back to Haven."

"Don't you people have carts or horses or some shit?" Varric asks. No offense, Cassandra, but he really doesn't want to see you drop Hawke and watch her roll down the mountain.

He seconds not meaning any offense, but he's on Varric's side with this one. He knows what you just did, Cassandra, and there's no point in exhausting yourself further. "We do have carts and horses, and we should be able to find one to carry her back to Haven," he agrees. "This way."

Don't argue, just follow him as he turns to lead.

Cassandra grunts her acceptance, unbothered (actually, she's quietly pleased that she doesn't have to carry Hawke down the mountain), and moves to follow Cullen. Varric moves to follow closely, mostly so he can mutter a "Thanks, Curly" to Cullen. He hopes Cassandra doesn't overhear him.

Cullen can't help the amusement that pulls at one corner of his mouth as he hums an acknowledgement of the thanks, the better to keep Cassandra from overhearing. Even with everything else going on, with the Chantry barking at them, Varric and Cassandra's rivalry is a nice dash of something like normalcy.

That's what he's here for: to deliver witty one-liners and to get under Cassandra's skin. Unfortunately, however, that's about as far as his attempts at needling (or not) the Seeker are going to go, right now, and he lapses back into silence as they approach the carts and horses Cullen promised them.

Cassandra moves to lay Hawke down in the bed of one and, as she rounds it to climb up on the bench behind the horse, Varric fills in the void left by her, moving to get into the cart next to Hawke. Cassandra glances first to him, over her shoulder, then to Cullen and Solas. "There should be room for one more, in the cart itself."

The other one will have to come up with her. Unless Cullen planned on riding back on his own?

Cullen gestures for Varric to go ahead and join Hawke. "I'll meet you in town." He has a horse somewhere, and, "I want to check in with the captains before I head back."

"Come on, Chuckles," Varric murmurs to Solas, once he's settled.

Cassandra, meanwhile, glances between their apostate and then back to Cullen, shrugging. "We will see you there, then." A beat. "Be safe, Commander."

Solas moves to climb into the front of the wagon, and Cullen nods to Cassandra, accepting that. "And all of you," he returns - and then turns away to find his men, as he said.

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feels like we're given so little time ❧ rp for dramatic_timing

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