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All good stories end. They don't linger on past their climax, dangling frustrating loose ends like proverbial carrots in front of an audience that just desperately wants to hang on to the characters they've grown to love. Even an ambiguous ending, one that leaves you wondering, still feels satisfying somehow. Like it doesn't matter how you fill in the blanks, because the moments you had in the story were better than any you'd experienced in the real world.
The writer in me knew our story was drawing to a close. The man in me didn't want it to.
Blondie disappeared that night, and Hawke's tense frown contrasted with the laugh lines and permanently amused eyes that normally brought out her slaphappy personality. Rakish heroes aren't supposed to scowl.
“Hawke! What a rare honor! I haven't seen you at the Hanged Man in at least six hours.” She offered a forced smirk, no counter quip. “My treat, then,” I mumbled, quickly ordering two of the “specialty” brew. Hawke lowered herself into a chair opposite me, winced and shifted, unstrapping a dagger and sheath and placing them on the table in front of her. She sighed.
“Aw, don't do that to me, Hawke. Seeing you cry is almost as bad as seeing Daisy cry. Like kicking a kitten.”
And Daisy had a lot to cry about in the weeks leading up to Kirkwall's...well, you know. It took a bit of Hawke's light away, watching her self-destruct. Only recently had the color returned to Daisy's cheeks, and I even spotted her wandering the docks one evening, a hint of a smile on her face.
If it had been anyone else, I might have given in to the pressure to add a few more...salacious chapters to my accounts of our adventures. Especially in those early days, right after Daisy moved in and Hawke's new lover was the talk of High- and Lowtown alike. But they had enough to work through without my bullshit bringing them more unnecessary attention.
“Varric,” Hawke said, bringing me back to the moment. I don't often get lost in my own thoughts. I'm more of the alert and observant type. But something in the air had me feeling nostalgic. Hawke wiped froth from her lips and lowered the now-empty tankard down with a hollow clank. “Something big is coming.”
“And we get front-row seats,” I said, laughing only on the outside.
“What will you do?” she asked, leaning back.
“Besides take notes?”
“Nothing will be the same, Varric, and you know it. When push comes to shove, I won't abandon Merrill and Bethany. These may be the last days I get to go by 'Champion' and not 'demon-loving heretic',” she said, a smile trying to push its way through.
“From Paragon to Renegade. I can work with that.”
“I just hope I'll still be alive to read the complete series. Make sure my tits are bigger. Bethany gets all the credit in that department.” She laughed genuinely, like the last warm summer breeze before the autumn storms. Her smile faded quickly, and an almost inaudible choke cut off her laughter. She set her face, the way she always did when she needed to look tough for someone else's sake.
“I'll miss you, Varric,” she whispered.
“What's this? Goodbyes? You're not dead yet, Hawke.”
She smiled even as the tears managed to leak out. Launching out of her seat in a way that usually made grown men soil themselves, she was in my lap before I could set down my ale. The tankard clattered to the floor.
“Hawke—”
“Shut up, Varric.”
If there's anything I know well, it's when to shut up.
She sat there for a long moment, arms around my shoulders and head on my chest, like a child wanting to be rocked. Then, without a word, she kissed me, light as an Orlesian finger, testing a silk.
Her hands reached for Bianca, and with an expression serious and deadly as an angry Merchant's Guild member, she growled, “You take care of him.”
And then she was gone. Down the stairs, out the door, and into the Kirkwall night, ready, I think, to face the end of her story.