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Alessandra Hawke hated her name.
Not the Hawke part, that part was great. Simple, strong, memorable. All things she could appreciate.
But Alessandra.
Alessandra.
It was unnecessarily long, a mouthful to say and entirely too fancy for someone like her. It sounded like the name of some faraway Antivan noble, dripping in jewels with embroidered silken dresses and elaborate antique furniture with four course meals every night and an army of servants to answer every beck and call.
Certainly not the name of a girl who grew up on farms outside of tiny Fereldan towns, who went to explore the fields and the woods around the house only after the chores for the day were finished, and usually came home in the evening covered in dirt and bruises, tears in her clothes and twigs in her hair.
(She still often came home covered in dirt and bruises, and worse, but that was beside the point.)
Her mother had always said she was named after Leandra's favourite aunt, a very important woman in Kirkwall who had done invaluable work for the city and made excellent Orlesian pastries. She had always been more interested in the latter part, but it didn’t much matter because the woman had died even before Leandra had fled to Ferelden with her father.
When she and her twin had been born, each of their parents had named one of them, and it seemed that Morrigan had drawn the longer straw in that regard. She had a great name. The others were fine as well. Garrett, Bethany, Carver...they were all perfectly respectable names.
So she was, in her humblest opinion, saddled with the worst name of all the Hawke children, the name of a woman she’d never even meet besides.
(“Don’t worry, it could be worse,” Garrett had said once, years and years ago, when she had voiced her dislike. “You could be Carver.” They had both successfully dodged the sizeable rock thrown in their general direction.)
But it was for that reason, for nearly as far back as she could remember, she’d just been ‘Lessa’. From the time her younger siblings had only just started talking, and ‘Alessandra’ was far too much of a mouthful for any toddler.
It still wasn’t great, but it was easier, plain and nothing special. It suited her much better, and for most occasions the rest of her family had all adopted it quickly enough. Aside from Leandra, anyway, but she never held that against her. Much.
‘Alessandra,’ though, had still been reserved for those moments not so few and far between growing up when she had been in some sort of trouble. Those four despised syllables called across the yard when her mother noticed her holding Carver’s wooden sword high above her head, well out of his reach and laughing all the while. That name coming from her father’s lips at the dinner table, tinged with amusement but stern nonetheless when he caught her sneaking her unwanted cauliflower onto Morrigan’s plate. That awful word begin yelled after her as she sprinted down the street, the local shopkeeper not entirely surprised but no less angry the first time she lifted a bottle from his shop.
Well, maybe sometimes she did deserve it.
If not then, certainly the time when her father passed and she took to the tavern in the next town over for the following three days, only to finally return home and promptly vomit on her mother’s kitchen floor. That time, the first two syllables out of Leandra’s mouth were full of a fresh sadness, but worry and relief as well, seeing that her daughter had finally reappeared. When she noticed what, exactly, said daughter was doing, that relief turned to disappointment in the second two syllables. And disappointment, well, that was a reaction she was used to dealing with.
Or maybe the time Garrett left, shortly after Malcolm’s death, aiming to depart late in the night while his family slept and not prepared to be caught by one of them stumbling in through the door just as he went, reeking of alcohol and bad decisions. She’d kept his secret, understood very well the feeling of wanting to disappear for awhile, although she herself was not strong enough to leave her siblings. And when the rest of them learned of his departure the following morning, and subsequently that she already knew, ‘Alessandra’ was thrown around with harder emotions than simple disappointment. She understood that too.
Or when she’d failed Carver, their little brother who was by then taller than any of them, and their mother’s crushed words and rash accusations did little to ease the pain and despair felt by them all, including Alessandra who “could have done something.” Or when they returned from the Deep Roads with pockets of gold and a marked location on a map worth many times more, but without the sister their mother valued more than any of that. It was little consolation, she knew that, as was the fact that Bethany was at least still alive, but when Leandra simply asked her two remaining daughters what had happened, it was without anger or disappointment. Just a hollow, broken resignation that echoed in her questions that cut deeper than anything else. “Why didn’t you take care of her, Alessandra?”
Alessandra had tried, but she’d failed, and she was becoming used to that too.
Nevertheless, for most of the time and most of the people she knew, 'Lessa' had stuck and she did her damnedest to keep it that way. During her relatively short time in the army, she had referred to herself as Hawke to near everyone she met, and those in the lifestyle were well-versed in referring to people by their surnames anyway. It was perfect. She kept that momentum going. And by the time they arrived in Kirkwall, she was simply ‘Hawke’ to the majority and only ‘Lessa’ to those she began to consider friends.
Hawke was fine, though, really. It was impersonal at first, and made for much better story nights at the Hanged Man when Varric began retelling their misadventures anyway, omissions and embellishments in place when necessary. She hardly thought that “Alessandra fought some darkspawn and then became a dragon” would have quite the same ring to it.
In fact, she didn’t think anyone in Kirkwall besides her mother and sisters even knew her real name, and she was perfectly alright with that. Better they didn’t know, so far as she was concerned.
No need for anyone to know.
And they didn’t. For years.
For nearly three blissful years, she went through life almost entirely as Lessa Hawke. But that all came crashing down the night she “borrowed” one of Morrigan’s arrows.
When Isabela challenged her to a game of five finger fillet, she scoffed and upped the ante from the start. Anyone could play with a knife, that was easy. She grabbed an arrow from the quiver on the back of Morrigan’s chair, whom in turn was away from their table in order to retrieve more drinks from the bar. The arrow was much longer than a simple pocket knife, harder to keep steady, with a tip that was wider but still equally sharp. Less room for error with equal repercussions for fucking up.
She would have put it back when they were finished, honest. She would have replaced it entirely if they ended up breaking it or blunting the end on the old wood of the table.
She would have done those things, if Morrigan hadn’t returned to their table, mugs in hand but entirely forgotten as she realised what her sister was doing, and voiced all of her dismay in a single, detested word. “Alessandra!”
The sudden interruption threw her off as much as the word itself, and that half second of broken concentration led to Lessa driving the arrow straight through the soft skin of her hand between her thumb and forefinger.
Another beat of time, one that seemed to stretch out much, much longer than it actually was, and all of them - Lessa, Morrigan, Isabela, Varric, Anders, and Fenris - were left staring at Lessa’s hand pinned to the table even as blood began to well around the arrow’s shaft.
And then Lessa began yelling even as Isabela clapped her hands gleefully.
“That doesn’t count! I was - I was distracted!” Her voice was laced with pain, there was no hiding that, but she sounded more annoyed than anything.
“Doesn’t matter, drinks are on you the rest of the night, sweetie!” Isabela laughed before calling for yet another round, with an afterthought of some rags added in. “We’ve got a little...spill over here.”
Lessa made to grab the arrow still impaled in her hand, grumbling all the while, but both Anders and Morrigan moved to stop her. The latter got there first, hands now free of the mugs she’d carried over (they had promptly hit the ground as she watched her twin stab herself), and she grabbed her sister’s wrist firmly. “Don’t pull it out that way. You’ll do more damage.”
“So - so what? I just live here now? I’ve just got to stay attached to this table the rest of my life?”
“That might not be so bad. You already do spend quite a bit of time here, Hawke,” Varric gave a shrug, more at ease again now that it was obvious things were not so dire. Although, the smug smile creeping across his face suggested a train of thought similar to one who had suddenly come into a large sum of gold. Or perhaps just a well-hidden secret. “Or should I say, Aless-”
“Not one more word, dwarf. Not another fucking word,” Lessa looked about ready to leap across the table towards him, if not for the fact she was already pinned to it. Anders’ hands were firm on her shoulders, keeping her steady in her seat when she flinched as Morrigan snapped the feathered half of the arrow off.
Varric only chuckled and waved her off, but dutifully kept his mouth shut. Instead, he pushed the near empty bottle of alcohol none of them had been able to name across the cluttered table towards her. Lessa thought for a moment it might be some sort of half-assed peace offering, but then Morrigan grabbed it and dumped its remaining contents over her hand and the few inches of arrow still remaining in the table. She breathed in sharply, would have jerked her hand away out of reflex if not for her sister’s hand still locked around her wrist.
“That was...unpleasant, to say the least.”
“That was the easy part. You may not want to watch the rest, Lessa.”
She knew what was going to happen, she wasn’t stupid, and she knew that Morrigan knew she was right when she said Lessa wouldn’t want to see it. But she glanced around the table, at Varric who seemed much more sympathetic now that he’d had his little fun, and at Fenris and Isabela, who were both looking on with a sort of morbid interest, though one of them hid said interest much better than the other.
Still, they were all watching her, and they would know if she looked away or closed her eyes. So she only shrugged with one shoulder, as nonchalant as she could muster, and looked down at her hand pointedly. “Go ahead, I’m ready.”
Rather than keeping her attention on the throbbing pain steadily increasing in her hand, she focused instead on Anders’ hands still resting heavily on her shoulders. They were probably still there to keep her still as much as anything, but they were almost comforting to the point that she was fairly certain there was more than simple physical contact at play. She didn’t have much time to dwell on it though, because in the next moment Morrigan had loosened her grip on Lessa’s wrist, grabbed her fingers with her free hand, and then pulled her sister’s hand straight upwards and off the arrow in one smooth motion.
Even Isabela seemed impressed with the expletives that flew from Lessa’s mouth as her sister quickly grabbed one of the cloths Corff had supplied earlier per their request and wrapped it around the now freely-bleeding wound. The moment it was covered Lessa yanked her arm back and cradled it to her chest. “Son of a bitch, Morri. Did you even know those things are so fucking painful? Awful brave of you, carrying a bunch of them around with you all day.”
“Funny how that is.”
“You can use my suite if you’d like, Blondie,” Varric gestured over his shoulder and up the stairs. While they were all quite certain that the regulars in the Hanged Man knew who - and what - Anders was, they could never be sure who else may be in attendance at the tavern on any given night.
Anders nodded his thanks, hand now gently placed on Lessa’s elbow as he helped her to her feet. Isabela put on a pout as they headed for the stairs.
“You never say that to me, Varric.”
Lessa didn’t hear his reply as Anders closed the door of the suite behind them, and the muffled quiet, after the music and yelling and general noise of the tavern, almost set her ears to ringing. The fire in the hearth was nearly out, nothing left but glowing embers, but the candles were all lit to set a comfortable atmosphere.
“Here, sit down.”
Snapping back to the matter at hand, Lessa realised that Anders had pulled out two chairs from the large table to face each other, and was already sitting in one. She took a seat before holding her hand out to him with as much drama as she could muster. It wasn’t as much as she might normally like, truthfully, but with an audience of only one, especially when that audience was only Anders, it was the best she could drum up.
“Well? Am I going to live?” She watched his face as he carefully pulled back the cloth already soaked through with crimson, and he shook his head sombrely.
“Terminal, I’m afraid.”
“That’s a shame. Will you miss me?”
“Of course,” he let her hand rest on one of his own, with far more care than she felt a foolish mistake and relatively minor wound deserved, and held the other over the injury. “Who else would waste so much time trying to teach me card games?”
“Varric might, if you ask nicely. You might even learn something. He’s not nearly as cute as I am, less distracting.”
Anders didn’t reply to that, but he did smile even as she saw the familiar blue glow begin to surround both of their hands, so she considered it a win all the same.
They were both silent as he worked, and Lessa focused on the feeling in her hand, as the pain was slowly replaced with the numb sort of tingling sensation she had become somewhat accustomed to over the last few years. It was always strange, but never exactly unpleasant. Then again, any injuries she’d had treated by magic had always been relatively superficial. She’s seen far worse during her time in Cailan’s army, and it had always been clear from the expressions of both the wounded and those doing the healing that it was far more than some simple discomfort.
Much better than the alternative, obviously, but she still hoped she’d never need to experience that first hand.
It was only a few minutes at most before the glow faded, and Lessa tilted her head to the side to get a look at her hand still underneath his own. It was healed near completely, the only indication of her idiocy a slight red tinge to her skin that she knew would fade within a few hours. She didn't know why he bothered to heal it so completely, any scar would have been near unnoticeable against those already covering the back of her hand, faded red and following her veins in a frost-like pattern, but she didn't comment.
Anders seemed to hesitate for a moment, hand still outstretched and wavering slightly, before he let it rest on top of her own, gave it a slight squeeze. “It’s nice, you know.”
Lessa replied with a raised eyebrow, adamantly ignoring the skip in her heartbeat. “My hand? Thanks, I’ve got two of them,” she leaned in slightly to stage a hushed whisper. “I can give you a demonstration of how well they work, if you like.”
“Your name.”
“Varric will never even know, we’ll -” It was her turn to falter as his words registered. “Excuse me?”
“It’s a nice name, why don’t you like it?”
Lessa could, perhaps, name all of the occasions she had ever been completely lost for words on one hand. She would have to add the here and now to the list, however, because it took another moment to realise no one had ever actually asked her that.
Because Alessandra lets people down. Makes them angry. She disappoints them. Hurts them and gets them killed.
She just shrugged. “Alessandra is what I get when someone’s not happy. And it’s not me anyway. It's fancy and elegant, like someone beautiful and important. I’m none of that, and Lessa is just fine.”
She regretted the words even as they left her mouth - where did that come from? That was damn near transparent honesty, and that was decidedly not her thing. She had to backpedal, fast. “And besides, Alessandra is an awful mouthful when someone needs to moan my name when we’re fucking and...and stop looking at me like that!”
Anders, for his part, made no such effort to do so, and the small, understanding grin on his face conveyed a sort of sympathy and fondness that she had, frankly, no idea what to do with. For every emotion she was determined to squash down, he seemed equally resolved to have his own displayed on a well worn sleeve. He squeezed her hand again before finally letting go and leaning back into his chair.
“If that’s what you think. But I’d say an important and beautiful name fits you quite well, actually.”
She stared at him, ignored the heat she felt in her cheeks, tried to come up with a quick retort, and when she failed for the second time in as many minutes only slumped back in her own seat. “I don’t know what to do with all this...open...honest...nonsense. You’ve effectively killed the mood and I don’t want to screw you against the wall anymore.”
Lies usually did come more easily.
But he only gave a short laugh and stood up, holding out a hand again to help her up. “Then we’d better get back to the others. Shall we, Alessandra?”
She glared at him then, but took his hand regardless and let him pull her to her feet. She thought about telling him off, to insist he not use that name again, to maybe trip him on his way out - that would teach him, surely - but she didn’t do anything of the sort. She simply followed him towards the door - he didn’t drop her hand until he opened it, and she immediately missed the simple contact - and down the stairs, back to the noise and light and nosy friends and never said a word.
Because there was some part of her, small and near entirely ignored, but still there all the same, that might have liked the way it sounded coming from Anders. Spoken warmly and with affection, it almost sounded like a name she’d like to have, especially if he was the one speaking it.
It was nice.
So, just that once, she let it go.