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Marian Hawke had been to many places in her short and spectacular life - she’d ended an exceptionally traditional Orlesian wyvern hunt; she’d saved a Free Marches city from Qunari (and then burned it down again a few years later for mages); she’d walked the streets of Rivain with a staff right out there on her back and an enormous, feather-tipped hat on her head, perched at an angle bordering on the insolent; and, most recently, she’d been physically inside the Fade, which admittedly was an experience she wasn’t keen to repeat but she was happy to milk for free drinks in dockside taverns across Thedas.
Right now she was in the Anderfels, which was exactly the barren, desolate shitshow she’d always heard it was, on her hands and knees behind a hay bale, dangling a toy for one of the most valuable creatures in Thedas. Whose name was Lady Rebeakah Hawke. Honestly, she wasn’t sure if it were the pun-laden first name she wanted to groan at the most or the appropriated surname.
Just this morning she’d arrived in Weisshaupt at the head of a column of battered and weary Grey Wardens; it had been a long march north from Adamant, even though the Inquisitor had arranged for fresh mounts and supply wagons - either as a gesture of good faith, or merely to expedite getting the Wardens the hell out of Orlais, Hawke couldn’t be sure. She also didn’t especially care. She’d wrote Isabela on the road, using a borrowed raven, asking her Admiral to meet her in Tallo at the beginning of Harvestmere; Isabela’s reply would hopefully be waiting for her within.
As fortresses went, Hawke supposed Weisshaupt was pretty impressive. Big, anyway. Carver certainly had seemed impressed by it, the few times he’d brought up what he proudly called ‘Warden business’, and Isabela had laughed her throaty life and made a particularly lewd joke about men and fortresses, and Carver had made one back, and Hawke had had to hastily leave the cabin because she did not need those kind of mental images coming from Carver, for the love of the Maker. She was still struggling to accept that her apple-cheeked little brother recognized highbrow Orlesian liquor.
Not that there was any of that in Weisshaupt as it stood now. They’d been met at the gates by a small group of stewards, and the Orlesian wardens who had been her somewhat awkward accompaniment on the road were ushered away to the garrison; the stewards had tried to bevy Hawke with them before she’d put her foot down. “I want to speak to something with authority,” she’d said, curt. She wasn’t that good at full-blown diplomacy in the first place, but the road had been long and weary, and her general experience with Wardens as an organisation hadn’t been necessarily great; she was still bitter about Malcolm and their threats; about Janeka and her threats; about Corypheus as a whole; about the whole flooding-the-Deep-Roads-with-demons deal; and just generally a lowkey disgruntlement about the organisation that had taken Carver away from her mother.
The stewards had clearly not known how to handle her; they had fluttered around her attempting to convince her otherwise, but she was Marian Hawke; 'Killer’ to her friend Varric, 'sweet thing’ to Admiral Isabela of the Raiders, whose bandana she wore tied around her forearm, and 'traitor’ to a lot of people. None of this she regretted. She wasn’t easily moved. “The First Warden isn’t here,” they’d said.
“I’m not asking for the First bloody Warden,” Hawke had explained, with what she thought was exceptionally polite tolerance, “Just a Grey Warden with some authority. A Commander, or a Constable if you can’t find a Commander.”
So they’d left her, standing in the entrance hall of the oldest Grey Warden fortress in Thedas with her knapsack hanging off one shoulder and her staff planted firmly on the flagstones, and she’d kept her chin up and glared at the unlit torch brackets on the wall until they brought her back a Warden she actually recognized, which was a pleasant surprise.
“My Lady,” Nathaniel Howe said, inclining his head the exact degree she would have been due if she were still Kirkwall nobility rather than a scruffy travel-stained pirate mage. “It is a pleasure to meet you again.”
Nate was wearing a serviceable if somewhat worn uniform outfit, and the badge on his shoulder was new; she eyed it thoughtfully, dredging Anders’s explanation of Warden uniform insignia out from the back of her mind where it had been left dormant for several years now. Two silver griffons, back-to-back, with six small radiating lines around them and two chevrons underneath.
“Senior Warden,” she said, and saw the brief curl of amusement in his dark eyes. “I brought your Orlesians back. Sorry about that.”
“We appreciate their safe return,” Nate said. His voice was as she remembered, still dry and surprisingly soft-spoken; it had been - what, three years? But she had a pretty good memory for that sort of thing. “We had word you were coming. A raven reached us four days ago from Admiral Isabela of the Raiders of the Waking Sea.” He reached into his belt and retrieved a rolled-up slip of paper. “Our archivist objected quite strongly to some of the innuendo in the message, but I suspected you might wish to see it. Please let the good Admiral know I admire her creative use of single-entendre.”
Marian didn’t grin - she wasn’t that sort of person - but she did accept the messenger slip. Isabela had included a single line at the top in very small handwriting: Hawke on her way with Orlesian wardens, some fuck-up with Clarel, Not Happy!!!!!!! On the back were two words: ‘Tallo’ and ‘Harvestmere’. She’d filled the rest of the space with a limerick revolving around rhymes for the word 'tits’.
If Hawke had been a more sentimental soul, she might have teared up. As it was she refolded the scrap of paper and tucked it into one of her belt pouches for safe keeping. Neither of them were good at saying what they wanted to say, but both of them were excellent at reading around the edges. “Thanks,” Hawke said.
“You’re welcome,” Nate said. “I’m sure you - ”
“Let’s not do the small talk thing,” Hawke said. “Really.” She glanced around the entrance hallway, grand and vast as it was, and lined with shadowy alcoves; she leaned in a little closer and said, “I haven’t heard from him since we let the two of you off in Rivain. Where is he? How is he?”
Nate’s face didn’t so much as twitch, but she didn’t think it would. She had known him only briefly, and had barely formed an impression of him as a lethal and competent if quietly sarcastic scout; but he had still come to her aid when Kirkwall burned; had joined her in the Gallows, when Meredith swung a sword dangerous in more ways than the usual and statues moved. Had come with them afterward, without complaint, along with her friends and that elf assassin Isabela kept propositioning whenever they played Wicked Grace to keep his eyes off the deck.
(Zevran only caught her cheating half of the time, which was still more often than Hawke caught Isabela cheating, which was never.)
“I’m going to pretend that was not a pun on my surname,” Nathaniel said. “Is it not enough our mutual acquaintance makes them?”
Makes, he’d said. Anders was alive, and Nate knew where. “I don’t do puns,” Marian said, which was a stone-cold lie. “I’m sorry he makes bad jokes out of your surname. If it’s any consolation, once I asked him if he was alone and then he glowed blue and said it was just us two here, and then he laughed at his own cleverness and I had to throw a boot at him.”
She smiled despite herself as she told the tale. She missed Anders as she missed all of her friends - even Aveline, and she’d spent seven years butting heads with the Captain of the Guard - but whilst she was sure they were doing fine, she couldn’t keep from worrying about Anders in particular. He wasn’t quite as self-confident as the rest. If he hadn’t insisted on leaving the ship, and if Nathaniel hadn’t disembarked with him, she’d’ve kept him with her for longer.
“A necessary measure,” Senior Warden Howe agreed, but the corners of his mouth curled up. “Would you walk with me, Lady Hawke? I’d be honoured to show you some of the architectural details here at Weisshaupt.”
He extended one gloved hand to her, perfect Fereldan gentry; and, operating on a very diminished pool of trust, Hawke took it.
He showed her the mausoleum, full of the bodies of Warden heroes who had fallen in combat with Archdemons; showed her the four stone biers, although Garahel’s was the only one she knew. A fifth one waited, empty but for a single badge. “For our Commander,” Nate said, amused, “If she ever decides to let death catch her.”
Next he showed her the libraries, which he told her were filled with secrets. “That is why it’s so big, you see,” he said, as Hawke looked upon the racks and racks and racks of scrolls and the small teeming group of librarians, scuttling to and fro along the shelving like worker bees. The bookcases were stacked on top of each other, taller than her head; and she thought most of Hightown could fit within its walls.
He showed her the stables, filled with finely-bred Ander horses and big bulky Orlesian dray horses and even several rugged little Fereldan ponies, bred for the Frostbacks; he showed her the kennels, and the bloodhounds kept there for scent-work. All Wardens could sense Darkspawn, she knew from Anders and from Carver, but the sense was notoriously imprecise. Nothing like a bloodhound’s nose. There were a couple of mabari, but they were more officer’s companion animals than pets or wardogs, and Hawke thought of her own, probably driving Isabela to the edge. He’d taken well to ship-board life, except for his habit of belly-flopping off the forecastle trying to catch seagulls, which Isabela wouldn’t stop heckling her about.
Finally, as the sun was setting over the mountains into which Weisshaupt was built, he took her to the Western Tower. It was a tall solid drum-tower, all round cylindrical rooms, thrusting phallically up into the heavens. “This was where the eyries were built,” Nathaniel said, unlocking a door at the base of the tower with a brass key hanging from a leather thong around his neck.
“For the griffons,” Hawke said, a little wistfully. Every Thedosian child dreamed of griffons; they were a symbol of heroism and of freedom, and featured unendingly in fairy tales told in nurseries across the land. “One of my friends always wanted a griffon. She said she’d name him Feathers, of all things.”
Nathaniel muttered something under his breath that sounded like Can’t be any worse.
“Does he live here alone?” Hawke asked, once Nate closed the door behind them and locked it again. She wasn’t sure she liked the thought; Anders had spent most of his life escaping from one lonely tower, it seemed somewhat unfair for him to end up resident of another.
“By choice,” Nate said, with a shrug. “He has quarters next to the infirmary in the main building, but he moved a bedroll in here and nobody argued.”
Hawke scowled, but resolved to take it up with Anders. If he were being kept under duress she’d damn well find out, and break him out if she had to. He’d come too far to die a prisoner.
The base level of the tower was nothing remarkable; here had been where the griffon-keepers had gathered, and so it was filled with ancient bunks along the walls, stone outcroppings serving in lieu of tables and chairs. It all looked abandoned, with a fine layer of dust on the furniture, and Nathaniel gestured toward the staircase built spirally along the outer edges of the wall.
Up they climbed; the first three floors were very similar, bunks and empty chests and tables not weighed down with food or drink for hundreds of years, but the fourth floor - the fourth floor contained the first eyrie. Wide windows ringed the walls, and the round room had been divided into pens; despite herself Marian wandered over to one of them, carved from stone, to investigate: two troughs built into the very walls themselves, one for water, one for food.
Both troughs were rather large. As were the pens. For the first time it dawned on Hawke just how large the griffons would have had to have been, to have been able to carry a grown man in armour, and she thought of Imshael, Isabela’s truculent ship’s cat, who hated being touched and lashed out at anyone who tried; his claws were like razors and he drew blood for the first offence. “Hmm,” she said.
“Just a few more floors, my lady,” Nathaniel said, cool courtesy and well-bred charm. With a last thoughtful look at the width of the griffon pen, Hawke followed him, her staff butting against the stairs as they resumed their climb.
There was a wooden door set atop the stairs between floors seven and eight, and it was sealed shut. Nate knocked on it with one gloved fist and shrugged at Hawke as something in the room fell over; a voice familiar despite the years yelled, “A moment!”
Nate raised his eyebrows at her in mute apology, but Hawke hadly noticed. Three years. She had so much to tell him; about the Inquisitor, brave and fiery and blessed with magic; about the mages of Skyhold, walking free. About herself, riding through the Anderfels with a staff and without the protection of a warden’s uniform and receiving nothing but lingering glances. Also a withering glare for disappearing without even so much as a forwarding address. “Anders,” she said, unable to keep herself quiet, “It’s me. It’s Hawke. Open up.”
The door was jerked inward and then Hawke had her arms full of lanky Warden all elbows and bony shoulders, and it had been three years and he hugged just as desperately as he ever had. She embraced him back, and she didn’t smile because she wasn’t a smiling person, not at all; but he was, and she heard his whoop as he hugged her hard enough her ribs grumbled. “Easy,” she said.
“Beg your pardon,” he said, letting go; he let his hands rest on her shoulders and he was… Anders. His hair was longer than she remembered; it was a real ponytail now, braided over one shoulder, and there was hay caught in it which she reached up and absently fished out. His face was fuller than it had been in all their time at Kirkwall, and he wore the Warden uniform, the insignia on his shoulders the same as Nate’s but short a chevron; the badge of a Warden-Ensign, same rank as Carver. “You’ve grown out your hair,” he said, sounding surprised.
“So have you,” she said.
“I’m going to find some wine for you,” Nate said, beginning to turn away. “Anders, the ginger one is escaping.”
“What?” Anders snapped his gaze down to his ankles, which Hawke thought was odd until she saw the oh holy Maker what was that?
'That’ was an unusual puff of feathers and fur, approximately half the size of her mabari and also on four legs, and it was making its way toward the stairs from the room behind Anders, its walk an unnerving wobble. Anders bent down and scooped it up, bundling it against his shoulder while it opened its… beak? Muzzle? and made an incredibly disgruntled squaw. The claws on its front paws were longer than her fingers, and they hooked into Anders’s padded brigandine shoulders. “Better step inside,” Anders said. “Lady Rebeakah is the boldest, but once she’s worked out the door’s open the others shan’t be far behind.”
“Anders,” Hawke said, feeling rather as though the whole world was spinning beneath her feet, “Anders. Is that a griffon?”
Lady Rebeakah, Hawke had learned, was the eldest and the boldest of the five hatchlings. She liked to pounce on people from behind the various hay bales filling the hatchling eyrie on the eighth floor, and when she wasn’t pouncing on people from behind them she was climbing them. She had the makings of the fiercest hunter which was, Anders said proudly, why he’d given her the surname Hawke.
“She’s a griffon,” Hawke said, vaguely aware she should be flattered but mostly stunned. “I don’t think surnames mean anything to them. Also: Rebeakah?”
Anders was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor, a tawny griffon more puff than fluff curled on his lap as he scratched its nares. He’d introduced this one as Serah Swiftwings, and it hardly ever seemed to leave his side. He grinned at her face, although he had manners enough to hide it in his shoulder. “You should have heard the suggestions from the other Wardens,” he said primly. “It was either that or Spike, and who names one of the first griffons born in over an age Spike?”
“I would,” said Hawke, also known as 'Killer,’ who had named her mabari 'Butch’ and propositioned the love of her life with the immortal words Hey, wanna bang exclusively for a while? “So this is where you’ve been all this time? With the griffons?”
Anders pulled a face. “Not originally,” he said, and his voice was a little strained. “I… I wanted to help the mages, but they wouldn’t have me. They didn’t want someone like me helping them, for reasons that I’m sure are fairly obvious.”
Hawke winced. She’d never hated him for tearing down the Chantry in Kirkwall - she’d quietly hated Elthina for years and everything the sunburst stood for for a lot longer than that - but plenty of Circle mages wouldn’t think that way. Anders had torn the Chantry apart to show the world the truth of things, and the world hated him for it. Although she knew he’d just wanted to protect her, she couldn’t help but blame Varric for this; she had read his Tales of the Champion just once and loathed the caricatures it made of all of them but especially of Anders, reduced in print to a mustache-twirling villain who sought only to use the poor titular Champion for his evil ends. “I’m sorry,” she said, quietly.
“It’s alright,” Anders said, and smiled a little wistfully. “I won’t deny it hurt, but we’re at peace with what we did. We never wanted to be seen as heroes for it. That we’re alive is more than we expected, so… thank you, Hawke.”
“We?” Marian leaned back, and then yelped when one of the three black griffons - Duchess Razortalons, Empress Ebonwings and Marquis Onyxion, Anders had introduced them; she’d promptly forgotten how to tell the difference between them - pounced on the ends of her hair, and Anders had to shift Swiftwings off his lap and shuffle over to help untangle the little griffon.
“Sorry,” Anders said cheerfully. “They’re somewhat mischievous.”
“So I’m seeing,” Hawke said, frowning at the black griffon. “Are you their only keeper?”
“For now,” Anders said. “This isn’t the full clutch - there are thirteen total. Two are being kept at Hossberg, two were moved to Amaranthine, there’s another two somewhere in Orlais and the final one is in Arnsberg. There’s a whole story behind their finding I’m still not fully sure about. Before this, I was in the infirmary; I didn’t even know they existed until they came down ill, and then I was sent for. I’m the only spirit healer in Weisshaupt, and the people who found them - mostly recruits - have split up to take care of the others.”
Swiftwings - no, Serah Swiftwings - squeaked and nuzzled one densely feathered head under Anders’s arm, which he lifted automatically and fitted around the hatchling to scratch behind its ear tuft. Hawke couldn’t help notice the way he smiled as he did so.
“Are you happy, Anders?” Marian asked, never one to hide behind words (walls were a different matter). “I know you didn’t want to come back here. Are you… okay? Or as close to it as you can be?”
Anders looked down at Swiftwings, who dug his taloned foot into the floor and stretched - a full-body stretch like a cat, spine arched and one hind leg delicately extended.
“They help,” he said, honestly. “Other things, too. Nate knows about Justice, of course, and he doesn’t… he doesn’t blame me. There are a lot of Wardens here - mages and templars, trying to ignore the fighting, but there are darkspawn all over the Anderfels and next to that nobody seems to… mind? I’m a healer, so they tolerate me; and I’m a healer, and there are people to heal, so we’re - Justice and I - we’re better. Or less sad, maybe. Escaping Kirkwall helped.” He shivered. “You should see some of the stuff in the libraries about it. Kirkwall is… not a good place. For the veil.”
“For anyone,” Hawke said flatly, thinking of her mother.
“Says its official Champion,” Anders teased.
Hawke shrugged. She’d never denied Kirkwall was a shitshow even when it was dressing her up and crowning her Champion. Time has done nothing to make her fonder of the place, with the single exception of the Hanged Man. “If you need rescuing, you know I’m game,” she said, and watched him smile. He was still going grey, very gently, at his temples; but his whole face looked happier, healthier, and it wasn’t just that he was getting regular meals nowadays. Some part of her was assuaged.
“Nate looks out for me,” Anders said, and pulled a face. “He’s yet to appreciate a good pun, though, more’s the pity. He tells long and winding jokes that are always just a little bit sad. I’m working on him, Hawke, don’t you worry.”
“I’m not,” Hawke said, “Anymore.”
He wasn’t a prisoner. He was here of his own will, for the strange bird… cat… things at play in this warm eyrie with its shuttered grand windows. He might not be in charge, but he was being treated well by at least one person. She’d still rather he was on her ship, where she could watch him, but he wasn’t a damn child, and if he wanted to stay then so be it.
They settled into idle chitter-chatter about the three years between them then, and she told him about Skyhold’s free mages; she told him about Merrill and about the apostate Isabela had just taken onto her crew, a elven quartermaster who had once been from the Antivan Circle and who kept looking at Hawke with starry eyes. She told him of the Inquisitor and of the mages working with the Inquisition as free agents and partners, and she told him about the paint job Isabela was planning for their ship before they went south for the next summer.
He told her about Nate and the recruits and the library, about the stables and the infirmary and his work treating the human Wardens of Weisshaupt. He gave her a feather as long as her arm and taught her how to play with the little ones; Swiftwings didn’t seem to care much for the game, preferring to lounge near Anders and accept a gentle grooming, and the three ebon griffons kept getting distracted play-fighting with each other; but Rebeakah and the fifth griffon, a small grey male whose name she didn’t know, were easily enticed into chasing the feather around and over hay bales and under tables and over Anders’s bedroll, tucked into a candle-heavy alcove and surrounded by books.
It was in the midst of this game that Nate returned with the promised wine and three glasses. Hawke was dangling the feather for Rebeakah, who sat on her haunches watching it with unblinking golden eyes and swiping every now and then; Anders was sitting back on his hands watching her with Swiftwings’s head resting on his knee. They were talking about Isabela’s hat collection when he pushed the door open.
“I see you’ve made firm friends,” he said, tucking two of the glasses under one arm and undoing the wine bottle cork with his teeth. “Here, it’s a red.” He poured it out in the air and set the glass within reach of her knee, casting a wary glance at the three rough-and-tumble ebon griffons, who were currently one ball of hissing and chirping and flapping wings in the corner. The little grey griffon was draped elegantly atop one of the hay bales, pretending not to be watching them out of the corner of its eye.
“That’s fine,” Hawke said. “What’s the grey one’s name? You never said.”
Anders coughed as Nate poured him a glass, accepting it with a bright smile. “And I never will,” he said, and shuddered.
“It’s Reginald,” Nate said.
Hawke paused, and Rebeakah triumphantly swiped the feather while she was distracted and scuttled off into a corner with it. “That seems out of place.”
“There’s nothing wrong with Reginald,” Nate said.
“Everything is wrong with Reginald,” Anders said. “It’s an insult to a proud species, on the very cusp of extinction!”
“Reginald likes his name,” Nate pointed out mildly. He made a clicking noise behind his front teeth, and the little grey griffon lifted its head, ear tufts perked up. “See?”
“Ugh.” Anders shivered and took a sip of his wine, as if to wash away the indignity of caring for a griffon named Reginald, and set the glass aside in order to resume petting Swiftwings’s head with the tips of his fingers. “You had a choice of any name in the world and you named the griffon Reginald. Honestly, Nate, where do we even go from here?”
“Skyward, I should hope,” Nate said mildly. “Not to worry, I’m sure Reginald will eventually earn his title, unlike his siblings, who were born with theirs.” He passed by Anders on his way to pet Reginald, and put the bottle and the third glass down next to him as he did so; straightening up, his hand fell as if quite naturally to Anders’s shoulder, and Hawke thought: A-ha.
Isabela would be thrilled. She’d had ten sovereigns riding on this since they’d left Kirkwall, and nothing made Isabela happier than winning money whilst learning things she could embarrass people with.
That brief contact was all she got; Nate let go and clicked again at Reginald, who stood up and spread his wings with an imperious demanding little chirp. Hawke ran a hand over her mouth, and thought of Isabela, and a filthy limerick about breasts that was frankly tame in comparison to the ones she could and did recite on board whenever she felt a little bored. “I’m glad you’re okay,” she said to Anders.
I’m glad you can joke, she meant. I’m glad you’re alive and you’re caring for yourself, and I am glad you are not alone, that you have someone who knows you - both of you, your spirit too.
“Thank you,” Anders said. Nate grunted, and Anders smiled at her. His eyes were the same as they always had been; warm, brown, intelligent; and there was in them still the same pain and grief she’d seen on the ship out of Kirkwall but there were other things there too, now. Hope. Peace. Things neither she nor Anders had ever thought he’d feel. Outside the fighting was winding down. She’d heard on the road that there were to be new elections, for a new Divine. Thedas was gradually drifting on a different course, and all because of this one man, who had bloodied his hands where others would not, and who deserved peace.
If peace came with possibly the only man in Thedas with a more distinctive nose than Anders himself and small mutant cat-bird things that were going to grow into very large cat-bird things, so be it. There were worse outcomes.
“Isabela’s picking me up from Tallo at the beginning of Harvestmere,” she said. “I have about a week before I have to ride out, if you’re fine with me staying here.”
Nate shrugged. “You’ll have to go over the situation with Clarel with the Chamberlain,” he said. “It can wait until the morning. Some of the Wardens you brought back are claiming you physically entered the Fade with the Inquisitor?”
Anders spat half of his drink down himself. “You what?”
And for the first time in her life, Marian had it: a joke. And not a shitty knock-knock one, either, like the ones she tried to tell Isabela where she kept forgetting the structure and telling the punch-line first and then reverse-engineering the joke while Isabela groaned. She hesitated, letting the moment build up, and then, for a rarity, allowed herself to smile. “Well,” she said, and shrugged. “You had griffons. What else was I supposed to do?”
Anders pinched the bridge of his nose. “Only you, Hawke.”
And that about summed it up.
-end