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The Viscount's Keep of Kirkwall had been spared the worst of the damage, between the explosion, the fires, the demons, and Sebastian's invasion. It rises haughty and proud still, the tallest building left in Kirkwall, and Varric stands in its entryway scowling. At least he has the cold comfort of Aveline's matching indignation next to him.
"The staff will move your things into the private quarters," Bran is saying. "Congratulations on your ascendancy, Sire. Let me be the first to assure you how glad I am that we finally have a Viscount upon the throne once more?"
"And the last," Aveline mutters. "Of all the people to get the job - I should have known."
Varric grins. The gesture feels more familiar to him than it has for many years now, after his city had burned; in the back of his mind he thinks not of trouble and consequence but for the first time in a long time, pure mischief. "Hey, I was born for this sort of thing," he says. "And if not, well. What did I bribe all those voters for?"
Aveline eyes him sharply. "This isn't the sort of job you can just walk away from, you old troublemaker. You'll be the first Viscount since Perrin not to have the Chantry breathing over your shoulder. Think you could put down your roots here? After everything that's happened?"
"It's not the Hanged Man," Varric allows. That had been burnt down shortly after the messy bit of business at the Gallows, then looted. He'd just about gotten it up and running again by the time he'd been dragged off to Haven by the Seeker, and then Sebastian's men had burned it down again, and by that point Varric could accept whatever hint fate was trying to give him. Still, of all the places he'd been thinking about moving into upon his return from Skyhold, this draughty castle had been very low on the list.
"It's not home, either," Aveline says, her face softening with sympathy. "Give it time, Varric."
"We'll see," Varric says, falling in line behind Bran. The walls are cold stone, and bare; he wonders what Hawke would have said to see them. The rugs are ruined - they'll need to be torn up and replaced. There’s a light burning from the hearthfire in Bran's office, but the Viscount's is empty: a desk, a stone bookshelf, a view from the window. The sleeping quarters on the floor above aren't much better, his personal belongings - four suitcases and a single painting - heaped up in the middle of the floor.
He misses the Hanged Man. He misses a roaring fire, and friends traipsing in and out, his hearth always warm and the chairs at his table always occupied: informants, spies, Wicked Grace.
"I will leave you to explore your new quarters in peace, my lord Viscount," Bran says behind him. "There are some letters already awaiting your attention in your in tray - Starkhaven requests a meeting, I believe."
"Huh," Varric says. Someone has thoughtfully dragged up a weapons rack, from the guard barracks by the look of it, and worked a few hasty adjustments to accommodate a unique crossbow. He undoes the straps holding Bianca to his back. She's traveled most of the south with him; everything from the muck and gloom of the Deep Roads to ancient elven ruins to the Winter Palace. "Fine. Can you send someone in here to get the fire going?"
"As you wish," Bran says. He bows once, very deeply, and turns as if to leave; hesitating, he adds, "In my experience, a home is what you make of it, my lord."
"Yeah?" Varric turns from surveying the north wall – it’ll catch the most light, he'll have to be careful hanging anything there with strong colours. "Well. Recently for me it's just been 'a place not currently on fire'."
"Give it time," Bran says.
Well. Time is the only thing Varric has left to give things, nowadays. He slides Bianca onto the weapons rack, running his fingers down her glossy wooden stock, and goes to examine his mail.
The very next morning, a harried messenger announces the alienage hahren wants a word. Varric scratches his nose, thinks of Sera, and of Fenris; of the alienage burnt and blackened, and how he had to rebuild it himself because nobody else would. He wonders what Solas would say. Something finicky and pedantic, probably.
Mostly, however, he thinks of his bed. Viscounts don't get to sleep in, apparently. "Send him in," he says, shrugging into his coat, and leaves the top two buttons undone of habit. Kirkwall functioned without a Viscount for six years; it can cope with one with an informal dress code.
"Er," says the messenger, "it's a her, my lord."
Varric rolls his eyes. "Right," he says. It's going to be a long day. "Important difference. Send her in."
Not five minutes later, the sun comes through the doorway, and she's holding a potted plant. "Morning," she says, putting the plant on the corner of his desk.
Varric eyes it distrustfully. No matter the source, nature has no place in a dwarf's office. "You're the hahren, Daisy?"
"I didn't mean to be," Merrill says apologetically. "But then, from what I gather, you sort of didn't mean to be Viscount either. How was the Inquisition? We heard all sorts of marvelous stories back here. You didn't really kill a hundred dragons, did you?"
"Fourteen," Varric says. "With help." He pokes the plant with the end of his pen. "Do I have to water this?"
"A thimbleful, twice a day," Merrill says. "It's remarkably self-sufficient. Grows on Sundermount, you see. I took a cutting, when I... when I visited last." She clears her throat and glances away, and Varric remembers Sundermount; blood on their clothes and her clan, snarling for her throat. Hawke, saving her and them by severing her ties with them, and the way Merrill's shoulders sagged.
"And now you're the alienage hahren," he says. "Moving up in the world, Daisy."
"I'm not a plant," Merrill tells him, very seriously. "I'm glad you're back, Varric. I'm glad you're the Viscount. I didn't just come to give you a plant."
"Good," Varric mutters, eyeing the pot with distrust. He's thinking about Wicked Grace, and the elf who fumbled her way through the game, losing almost every hand in her excitement. He remembers the stories he told about her, at Skyhold; the way she became in his mind a shadow of herself. They all did, he supposes. Sweet Merrill, funny Isabela, broody Fenris, stern Aveline, Anders -
Well. He doesn't like thinking about Anders.
Merrill lifts her chin, and he'd forgotten this face she's wearing until now. It's the face she wore to argue with her Keeper, the face she wore when she climbed Sundermount to face her demon. He'd forgotten how hard she could be. "I came to you to ask you to recruit some of us into the city guard. There's precedent, and I have a handful of elves interested in taking a spot. Employ us. Make us part of the city's fabric now, while we're still rebuilding. We can't spend another thousand years squatting in the alienage out of sight."
He wants to say yes. It's a simple request, but they don't need more guardsmen. He's not sure if there's room for it in the budget. If he overrules Aveline, there'll be trouble; the guard might not accept elves put there purely to pad out the numbers, and Aveline won't thank him for undermining her. He glances around the room, at the small green plant on the edge of his desk; Bianca on the weapon-stand, the fresh foreign rugs, tastefully bland, the subtle furniture and unremarkable art.
"I don't know, Daisy," he says, and he's tired, and he's angry, because he wishes things could go back to how they used to be, card games in the Hanged Man and Kirkwall intact. Peaceful. "There've never been that many elves in the guard -"
"Then now is your opportunity to change it," Merrill says. He used to think her eyes made her look like a doll; he remembers writing that description in Tales of the Champion. Sweet Merrill, harmless, innocent; Daisy wouldn't hurt a fly. Remembers Solas sneering at him for it. We are people, not toys. Her eyes don't look very doll-like any more.
"I'll talk to Aveline," he says.
"You can't hold onto tradition forever," Merrill tells him. Her voice is gentle, but firm. "Everything's changing, Varric. Take it from me: you can't unwind time. You can't take back everything that's happened. And you can't keep sitting on fences."
He eyes the potted plant, and thinks of Bianca. The real thing, not the crossbow. "How did you cope?" With your clan, he means.
"I cried," Merrill says, bluntly. "A lot. But I kept going. I made friends. I met people. When I moved here, it was so different... I was so upset. But someone gave me a ball of twine and a smile, and I moved on." She breathes in slowly, then out. "I'm still sorry about the Keeper. I don't know, if I had to do it all again, if I would do it the same way. But I can't. Nobody can."
"Remind me to tell you about time magic," Varric says, and makes himself smile.
"Another time, da'len," Merrill says. "Tomorrow evening, perhaps? We can have dinner. I have to go home, I have work back in the alienage."
He watches her wind her scarf around her throat; scarlet, it bears the Champion's sigil on the corner. Hawke gave it to her, when they all separated; gave them all mementos. Is this change, he wonders? Is this what it was for mother, for Bartrand, leaving Orzammar? Everything just enough of the familiar to make the differences worse?
"I forgot to say," Merrill says, pausing at the door. She smiles at him, like a slow-rising sun. He remembers that smile; watched it over the table after Isabela told one of her many filthy jokes, or dealt her a winning hand; Merrill has no face for Wicked Grace. "It's good to have you back, Varric."
"Home sweet home," he agrees, spreading his hands wide. "I'll see you tomorrow for dinner, Daisy."
She dips her head at him, hand on the door. "Remember. A thimbleful of water, twice a day. Keep it somewhere sunny."
He puts it on the north-facing windowsill. Three weeks later, it flowers, and his bare Viscount's apartment smells like somewhere far away for weeks.
Late night, wine. Friends, new and old. Letters go flying across the face of southern Thedas; Kirkwall has a new Viscount. It's been four months, and he still marvels at the official seal of the entire city lying casually across his desk. Bianca's oiled and glistening from her stand; she sang today, bolts ripping through demons as the people watched from a safe distance and cheered.
Last of the rifts closed. Sebastian's still licking his wounds. Kirkwall's as safe as it can be, but Varric, he's still waiting for the other boot to drop.
He pours the wine, although technically he's Aveline's boss and Trevelyan's... well. Equal, perhaps? He's not sure how an Inquisition measures up against a city-state. Trevelyan's drinking a little too heavily; flushed cheeks, leaning to the left. The hand's playing up, seems to hurt more than Varric remembers. "How're you finding the city?"
"Everyone tells me it looks better than ever," Trevelyan says, white-toothed grin. "In which case I have to wonder how much of a shit-heap it was before the demons."
Varric likes the Inquisitor, likes the Inquisition's work: a lot of people owe their lives to that weird glowing-hand rift-closing trick. And Kirkwall is a shit-heap. He finds it bothers him still, though, to hear a stranger say it; from the tiny pull at the corner of Aveline's mouth, she does too. She might be Fereldan, but Kirkwall took her in and made her a part of it, and she's fallen for it in return; she loves her job, her husband, her home. "You're not seeing her at her best," Varric says, eyeing his wine cup. "Three wars and a bunch of demons would leave any lady worn out."
"Mmm," Trevelyan says, taking a sip. "... Maybe not Vivienne."
It startles a laugh out of him for the first time in a long time, and the Inquisitor beams at him; Aveline, left out of the joke by her lack of understanding, merely sighs deeply and pillows her chin on her armoured fist. Talk turns to the whereabouts of the fearsome Madame De Fer, and then general inquiries about the rest of the inner circle, including Trevelyan's lover; Varric cannot help but notice the Inquisitor came here alone.
"Have you heard from Hawke?" Trevelyan asks, after they've polished off the bottle and the entire platter of frilly Orlesian cakes to go with it.
"Still at Weisshaupt," Varric lies. He hasn't heard a word, and he worries. Aveline's mouth pinches.
"I can only hope the fortress is still standing," the Inquisitor offers, perhaps recognizing the tension. "Hawke's rather a... force of nature, from what I saw."
Aveline snorts. "One word for it," she says, and the Inquisitor asks her for stories, and she's reluctantly supplying them; can't quite keep the fond smile back as she does so.
"Hawke will write as soon as everything's cleared up," Varric says. He cracks open another bottle, finest red; an official ambassadorial gift from Josephine Montilyet from the Inquisition to Kirkwall. Diplomacy still makes his head spin. Or maybe that's just the wine. "In the meantime, a toast! To us brave bastards, and to Kirkwall: it might be a shit-heap, but now it's a shit-heap without demons."
"Always a positive," agrees the Inquisitor, their glasses clinking together.
They have to escort the Herald of Andraste back to the temporary quarters set aside for the Inquisition's use; Varric supposes servants might do it, but Maker knows Varric could use the distraction. Aveline could probably pick Trevelyan up one-handed, but there's a possibility it might lead to vomiting. After dumping the Inquisitor in bed, they go to leave; a feeble, "Varric?" calls him back.
"Go ahead," Aveline says, her mouth crooked. "I'm going home. Tell Trevelyan it was good that we met, once the hangover's cleared tomorrow."
"Wish Donnic a nice night for an evening for me," Varric says, and grins at the expression on her face. He lights one of the fancy glass lanterns on the nightstand, draws a chair up next to the bed. Trevelyan is watching him from behind a curtain of hair; the glowing hand itself is hidden under the blankets, curled up under the Herald's chest like an animal caught in a bear trap.
"There's a gift for you," Trevelyan tells him. "On the night table. In oilcloth." Belching, the Herald flops down amidst the covers, and Varric straightens up and takes the gift; a small object, square-shaped. He opens it, winces: Hard in Hightown 3: The Re-Punchening.
"You shouldn't have," he says. "I mean it, you really shouldn't have."
"Yeah I should," Trevelyan mumbles into the pillow. "'s the only copy left in Thedas. We've been tracking 'em down. Destroying 'em. Thought you might like it as a trophy."
Varric opens the tacky cover; the inside page is signed - by Trevelyan, by the Inquisition's advisors, by most of the rest of the Inner Circle - The Iron Bull's signature is surprisingly neat, right beneath Sera's sloppy careless scrawl; Blackwall wrote a short awkward paragraph about jousting, Dorian something probably quite obscene in Tevene. Even the Seeker signed it, her name in awkward blocky print at the very top left corner, right inside the cover. Cole just wrote his name, with no finesse behind it at all. Varric wonders who taught him about signatures, if they struggled with the concept as hard as he had teaching Cole the knock-knock jokes.
"You know," he says, "My bookcase was looking a little empty."
He hasn't had time to read, or the interest. Hasn't written anything for months, either. He stares, unseeing, at the cover of the book; thinks about the agents whose job it was to destroy all the other copies, how odd their duties must be. The people he's seen, he's met.
Trevelyan rolls back over, watching him with the kind of odd intensity only drunks can manage. "Do you like it? Josie thought we should get you more wine, but - well. Cole suggested it, actually. And Cassandra agreed. She's waiting on our Tales of the Champion, I think."
He told Hawke's story, or a version of it anyway; he wanted to organise the plot in his head, smooth out all the rough edges. Wanted it to end happier than it did. Hawke hadn't thought much of the book, but in truth, it had never been written for Hawke; he'd written it for himself, a piece of friend-fiction wherein Kirkwall came out better, in which Hawke hadn't lost as much. In which Bartrand wasn't the man he was now.
"Thanks, your inquisitorialness," he says. "I'll have to see what I can do."
He writes four pages before bed, the candle at his polished oak desk burning low, and they're all about Lace Harding; they have very little in common with the real Lace Harding, but that's fiction for you. It holds a mirror to things. It doesn't have to be real, or even accurate; it just has to resonate.
Also, it's four pages without a single pun on her surname, so really, she ought to be grateful.
Kirkwall's recovery speeds up by a considerable degree with the rifts closed. The day the channel is cleared, and the first trading ship comes in to the newly-rebuilt docks, the entire city cuts loose; Aveline's guardsmen have to knock more than a few heads together, and the drunk tanks are filled to bursting. Varric pardons them all, to her considerable annoyance.
With sea access restored, it ought not to surprise him that commerce isn't the only thing that begins to flow again; Fenris materialises in his antechamber one day, seeking citizenship for a group of no fewer than ninety-six dispossessed elves, thirty-six of whom are children, and Varric grants it. Despite Bran's objections, he drinks with the elf until late in the night; Fenris is more relaxed than he remembers, and funnier too, with a dry sharp wit and a lean cast to his face. Aveline drops in, and even Merrill, and when Varric brings out a deck of cards they all cry off.
"It's not enough just to talk?" Aveline asks, raising an eyebrow.
"I think we were mostly listening," Fenris comments. He's drinking plain water - lost his taste for wine out in the wilderness, he says. "Nobody can talk quite as much as you, my friend."
Varric grins, shoving the cards back in his desk drawer. "That reminds me of the time Dorian said -" he begins, and laughs at the chorus of groans.
He shows Fenris the book he's in the process of writing, and Fenris wrinkles his nose and criticises many of his word choices. He's a far cry from the bitter, angry slave hiding amidst the bones of his master's old home. Varric thinks back to the slaves in the Hissing Wastes; Trevelyan's tight-lipped fury, Dorian's averted eyes. Cullen gave them work, but reported that even months after, the slaves were still nervous sorts, too frightened to question instructions, too conditioned to obedience.
'Broody,' he called Fenris. Now he pours his friend a drink, and asks a servant to pack him travel rations; he's heading back up north. The slave trade, whirled into a flurry by the war between the templars and mages, and the lack of open scrutiny on the land-routes to Tevinter, is beginning to return to its traditional coastal route; Fenris is heading to Rivain, a popular stopping ground for slave-ships. "If you see Rivaini, tell her hello," he says, watching Fenris pack his knapsack.
"That I will," Fenris says. He hefts the knapsack over one shoulder, and hesitates; his bare feet on the flagstones of the courtyard look like they ought to be cold. He pulls something from one of his many belt pouches - it glimmers like silver in the light. "It's customary to exchange gifts when visiting your friends, yes? I took this from a slaver. It looks dwarven."
"Right," Varric says, turning it in his hand. It's a carved piece of stone, small enough to fit in his palm; there's a geometric design elegantly worked out in shimmering lines. Reminds him a little of his rug back at the Hanged Man. He looks up at Fenris, grins at the awkward expression on his face. "Better than one of Hawke's gifts, for sure."
"Not much could be worse," Fenris says, amused. "It was good to see you again, my friend. The city looks... better."
"You know you're always welcome here, don't you?" Varric says. "I can have deeds drawn up, give you the old mansion back."
Fenris shakes his head. "I am no longer interested in haunting ruins," he says, and Varric thinks, I'm starting to understand that feeling. "I am needed elsewhere, for now. Maybe someday. Kirkwall was your home before anything else."
"Still is," Varric says lightly.
"Is it?" Fenris raises an eyebrow. "I saw your rooms, Varric. Oddly soulless, for you."
Varric breathes out, thinks of the writing on his desk, the unopened mail from Starkhaven; Daisy's plant, flourishing on the windowsill, and the novel he's roughing out. All this shit is weird, is his working title for it. "I'm working on it," he says.
Fenris smiles. He's been doing that a lot, this week. "Then I look forward to seeing the finished product," he says, and inclines his head once, quiet dignity. "Farewell for now, friend."
"And to you," Varric says, "Cheery."
"I think I preferred Broody," Fenris tells him.
"Everyone's a critic."
Gradually, his room begins to fill.
Construction work commences on Lowtown, to the annoyance of several Hightown residents who were hoping the city would pay for their home repairs for them; Varric attends meetings about it late into the night, endures pushy nobles shouting at him, but doesn't budge. The alienage is rebuilt with the city owning most of the apartments, and he works out an agreement with Merrill whereby tenants can slowly purchase their homes by paying a slightly higher rent; it'll take years, but it should effect real change in the alienage. Since the elves are the primary members of the construction crews and Aveline’s taking them on into the guard as fast as they can sign up, for once they’re not struggling to find work outside of the alienage.
Merrill gives him another plant to take home that summer, and he puts it on a shelf, opposite the first one. He still thinks they're hideous, and he complains about them even as he diligently waters them twice a day.
Rivaini visits that autumn, and brings with her a feather from the tail of a bird Varric has never seen, and, judging from the size of it, never wants to. "I saw Hawke and Anders last fall," she says, and laughs when he feigns disinterest.
"Mmm," Varric says, staring at his hands. He thinks about undercity gangs, about the pieces of Chantry scattered throughout Kirkwall, about the mages taking what they want from the innocents across Fereldan; but he thinks of the mages at Skyhold, dizzied by their unexpected freedom, and the look on Hawke's face on the battlements. I'm never really comfortable leaving Anders alone.
A lot of his friends seem to make terrible decisions.
Isabela's eyes gleam. "They seemed happy enough. Still going, obviously."
"Good," Varric says, and he means it. Isabela smiles, puts her feet on his desk and trades tales about her time as a privateer; she heckles him about his tax on ship captains until he agrees to reduce it, and when she leaves, Varric hangs the feather on his wall, where its iridescence adds a touch of colour to the bare stone. The reduced tax sees an increase in the number of ships docking at Kirkwall, and the reduced income per ship is more than compensated by the flow of goods into the city; soon the market stalls are bustling just like in Kirkwall's heyday, before the Qunari.
Madame de Fer loves the first draft he sends her - all the way to Nevarra, stuck in endless negotiations with her fellow Loyalists - of his latest short story, The Iron Lady, and gifts him with a wonderfully tasteful tapestry he hangs up next to the bird's feather; Cullen visits Kirkwall on official business, to meet with the templars conducting Gallows clean-up, and leaves him with a beautifully carved Antivan ivory chess set; Ruffles, in her capacity as a Montilyet, negotiates with him viciously over a shipment of building materials brought to Kirkwall using her family's ships and provides a unique high-society sculpture made of mahogany when they reach a compromise.
He teaches chess to Merrill, who proves to have a natural gift for it, and the pack of cards in his desk drawer only leave for rare and special occasions.
For Aveline's wedding anniversary that spring, he commissions a painting of her carrying Donnic over the threshold of her office; the guard fall about laughing, but Aveline pays him back upon his first anniversary as Viscount by presenting him with the tackiest pair of slippers he's ever seen, and even Bran smirks at the sight of them. Unfortunately, the bloody things are incredibly warm, and Varric knows she did it on purpose.
It's not the Hanged Man. It'll never be the Hanged Man, but Varric is starting to realise that that's fine. His parents clung to what they knew in the face of a whole new world, and Varric is starting to realise that he doesn't need to follow in their footsteps.
Piece by piece, trinket by trinket, the room fills up, and all of it has meaning. Soon, the only wall left bare is the north-facing one, and Varric doesn't know what he plans to put there but knows he'll know it when he sees it. Flying by the seat of his pants still, he thinks, and chuckles at the thought.
The last gift is the most unexpected, and that really ought to have been no less than what he expected. The woman who brings it in wears the livery of one of the docks couriers, and she looks frazzled, according to Bran; he signs for the package and has a pair of guardsmen bring it up to Varric's private quarters, knowing full well that Varric cleared his schedule for the morning for "peace talks with Starkhaven". Perhaps sensing trouble, Aveline follows them up.
"Delivery for you," Bran announces, opening the door right as Varric pulls Bianca's trigger. The bolt rips into the target dummy's heart, sending pieces of straw over the floor like confetti; Bran merely raises a bored eyebrow. "I see peace talks are going as expected, my lord."
Varric snorts, sliding another bolt home. The target dummy is dressed in blindingly white armour. "What can I say," he says. "I'm the bitter type. What is it?"
"You ordered it from Orlais, apparently," Bran says, gesturing; the guardsmen follow him in with the object between them - a wooden crate, more than an arm's span on either side. Bran taps its surface. "It's got Val Royeux port marks on it, here. I'd assumed you'd recognise it."
Varric fires this last bolt and then disassembles Bianca, carefully storing her on the weapons rack she lives in nowadays. He's set aside some time this evening for oiling her and checking her gears. "You bring a crowbar, Carrot?"
The gangling red-headed guard the victim of this perhaps unflattering name nods sheepishly, offering the metal bar to Varric. "Are you sure about this?" Aveline asks, frowning. "Could be a trap."
"Could be," Varric agrees, and cracks open the crate. Inside there's straw, and a large flat square, wrapped carefully in canvas; a rolled-up scroll lies nestled amidst the straw. While Aveline lifts the canvas square free, with a small grunt of effort, Varric passes the crowbar off to Carrot and reaches for the scroll. "No assassins so far," he points out, raising his eyebrows.
Bran sighs, pinching his nose. "Of course not," he says, in a voice that rather implies that he wouldn't necessarily care if there were.
The ribbon holding the scroll together is a cheap and worn red one; it unties easily under his fingers. He unrolls it and clears his throat, then pauses as the words become apparent; his voices catches in his throat. "What is it?" Aveline asks, sharply.
"It's Hawke," Varric says, and it's surprising how much that name still affects him. His chest hurts. He swallows, scanning the single line printed on the scroll, and is surprised to find himself smiling. "It's from Hawke."
"Let me see," Aveline says, brusquely, and snatches the scroll when he holds it out to her; her eyebrows furrow as she reads, "'Thought you might be missing me. Lots of love, Hawke.'"
"Hawke sent me a gift all the way from Weisshaupt," Varric says, grinning.
"It's going to be dreadful," Aveline sighs, but not even she can keep from smiling. They both look at the canvas-covered square, then each other, expressions daring the other to make the first move; Varric settles the matter when he reaches for the letter-opener on his desk. It's but the work of a moment to slit the canvas open and pull it free, and when it's done, the entire gathering lets out a collective hiss.
"Oh, Hawke," Aveline murmurs, shaking her head. "No."
Varric might be the only man amongst them to have seen the Antivan artist Philio Botticelli's Andraste Rising From The Waves in person, in Val Royeux's Grand Cathedral during the coronation of Divine Victoria; but everyone else has probably seen a copy. This is not Andraste Rising. Or it is, but not. The basic elements are still there: the blue ocean surf, the cherubs, the ribbons, the clam shell; but the nude figure modestly covering itself with its hands in the painting's centrepiece is almost certainly not the traditionally lean, nubile form of golden-haired Andraste.
"Should we... burn it?" Bran asks, after an awkward moment. Varric is open-mouthed. Whoever Hawke commissioned the painting from, they were a master of their craft; they even got the nose-stripe right.
"I don't think fire is potent enough to cleanse this," Carrot mutters.
"Forget possessed mages, this should be anathema to the Chantry," adds his compatriot.
Aveline isn't even looking at it. She has her head in her hands, and she might be crying. Varric thinks he might shed a tear, too. It's so... it's so utterly Hawke, he has no words for it. Well. Actually, he has some words.
"I want it on my wall," he says.
Behind her hands, Aveline mutters something that sounds like, "Of course you do," but Varric hardly has time for that now. Bran objects, but Varric overrules him; and by the end of the day the painting has been installed neatly on his wall, tacky as paintings can come and absolutely perfect. A small plaque set underneath the painting, speedily carved at Varric's instruction, reads:
'THE CHAMPION RISING'
9:43 DRAGON
ARTIST UNKNOWN
That evening, Varric relaxes at his desk, a glass of wine in his hand and a half-finished draft of All this shit is weird before him, and toasts the painting. "I hope Blondie's treating you well, Hawke. To distant friends," he says, and takes a sip, and he's thinking of all of them: Bianca, where ever she is, and Cole and Vivienne and Isabela and Trevelyan, Divine Victoria and Fenris and Blackwall and Merrill and Hawke, most of all. He hopes they're well. He hopes they're all safe. Maker, even Anders, where ever he is now; he hopes he’s with Hawke, and that they’re making each other happy. The city's healing, and he knows he'll do what it takes to get it whole again. "To distant friends," he says, again, and even as he says it he knows what he really wants to say. He tops the glass up again, smiles up at the painting, and holds it high.
"To Kirkwall," he says, grinning. "She's a shit-heap, but she's home."