Chapter Text
“Varric!” The storyteller could faintly hear Rook shout his name, but if he didn’t know better, he’d swear they were underwater by how distorted she sounded. He tried to focus, to hear anything else going on around him, but all he could think about was the excruciating pain in his chest. It would all be over soon.
In one last moment of terror, Rook appeared above him. She didn’t look like she was doing so well either; she was bleeding and shaky, and for just one second he was sure the Maker was going to mess with him one last time by making him watch her go first. But then the pain stopped, and the world went black.
He didn’t know where he’d expected to end up after that. Varric had hoped to wake up in The Hanged Man, greeted by the smell of cheap ale, the sound of a familiar lute tune, and the face of a beautiful, red-haired, human sitting by the warm fire, waiting for him with a playful smile. He was not so fortunate.
What greeted him instead was nowhere close to The Hanged Man. It didn’t even look like the seat of the Maker. This looked like a place where all hope and happiness were sent to die. It was grey and empty, and as far as he could tell, there was no one else here. He was all alone. “Well… shit.” In the back of his mind, he made note of how fitting a first phrase in the afterlife that was for him. Seeing no other option, he began to walk around. Maybe there’d be someone, somewhere in… wherever he was, that could tell him what was going on.
He exited the first room and entered a long, equally depressing hallway. As he walked, this place began to feel familiar. The walls were very tall, and as he moved from room to room, he swore he knew this layout from somewhere. It might be easier to tell if it had any sort of… oh, I don’t know, color or furniture, he thought as he continued down the passage, passing room after room. The ones with their doors open were as empty and soul crushing as the one he started out in. He didn’t bother looking in the ones that had their doors closed. Wherever he was, it was massive. Like one of the mansions back in Hightown.
And then, all at once, it hit him.
This was his childhood home. The estate he and Bartrend grew up in, the house both his parents died in, the only place he had to go after Bianca got married. That first room had been his bedroom, and he hadn’t even noticed. He’d avoided that house like the plague since they found Bartrend there, and had sold it off without a second thought after his brother finally passed from lyrium poisoning five years ago. He had to give some credit to wherever he was; being all drab and dead? It was a fitting look for this place.
He continued down the hall, until he reached the top of the staircases that lead into the main room. And to his great surprise, there was a figure standing below him. Seeing no better option, he attempted to call to them as he descended the stairs.
“You know, normally I’d be less welcoming to an intruder, but given the current circumstances, I’m perfectly happy to let you stay if you have any idea where we are.” He said, in as charming a tone as he could muster.
The figure began to turn towards him, but not like a person would. Rather, it was like a statue, being moved on the slowest turntable in Thedas. The figure itself never moved a muscle, but inch by inch the statue began to face him, creaking and causing the house to shift as it moved. When it was finally facing him, he gasped and stopped dead in his tracks.
Staring right at him was a grey, stone version of Ilsa Tethras.
“Why weren’t you a better son?” The lips and face of the statue didn’t move, rather, he heard her voice, layering on top of itself, echoing all around him.
“Mother?” Varric stared incredulously at the statue.
“What kind of monster feels relief at the death of his own mother?”
“What? Mom, you know I didn’t-” But it was true, wasn’t it? He loved his mother; of course he did. But after years of her drinking herself into a rage every night? And then months and months of him being her caretaker? Especially at the end, when she was barely lucid, very much in pain, and unable to do anything for herself? A part of him had been relieved, for both their sakes.
Maker, that made him a terrible son, didn’t it?
“You acted like you were so much better than me.” The disembodied voice of his mother returned to interrupt his thoughts. “Like I was the worst fate you could imagine. But your father was my soulmate. My person. My other half. Tell me, Varric, when yours was ripped away, how much better than me were you?”
Nope. Absolutely not. What he had or hadn’t become in the last decade, and how closely that did or did not resemble his mother, was not something he wanted to think about. Not now; not ever.
“Well, mother, it’s been lovely seeing you again!” He painted on his trademark roguish smile and spoke with the bravado of a storyteller launching into an epic tale. “I’ll try and stop by on Wintersend, but if you don’t see me, I promise a carrier will come by to deliver your gifts.” And with that, he dashed out of the house with as much speed as a dwarf in his fifties with a crap left leg could manage. Not the most graceful exit of his existence, but it was actually the fastest he’d moved in quite some time, and it got him away from… whatever that was, so it was worth it.
He expected to find himself in Hightown, or at least, a haunted, barren version of it. But as he all but crashed through the front door, he found himself falling through a void of nothingness instead. After only a few terrifying seconds of that, he landed hard on his back. Oh great, now he was going to have to stagger around this creepy, not quite Kirkwall with a messed up back.
Only, as he tried to move, he realized it didn’t feel painful. He’d heard the loud crack as he landed, but nothing hurt. He was able to sit up again immediately, but before the dwarf had a second to wonder how that was possible, he looked up at his surroundings. And this time, he knew where he was instantly.
It was the Gallows. From right before the mage uprising. It was as grey and misty as the Tethras estate had been, with twice the foreboding dread. If he squinted and tilted his head just right, he could almost see the giant chains in the harbor in one direction, and the entrance to Templar Hall in another. But the main reason he recognized it as the Gallows was because of the statues.
One of his first acts as the Viscount was having all the statues in the Gallows, both the slaves and Meredith, removed. And yet here they all were, like they’d never left. Only in this place, they were made of the grey stone mother had been made of (to match the rest of the soul killing decor, he assumed), and were everywhere. Once he started seeing them, it was like they began to spread. Where there had been stairs before, there were now statues of people in agony. The stone pattern on the wall became faces he couldn’t quite make out through the mist. After his earlier interactions with Ilsa, he wasn’t particularly interested in looking too close at any of them.
He tried to make his way to the front gate and down to where the boats to the main dock should be. He weaved around the statues as best he could while staring down at his feet, refusing to look at any of them. But even though he kept his eyes locked to the ground, he started to hear their voices in his head.
“Your city wouldn’t have turned to rubble if you’d picked a side.”
“You wasted all the years you knew her waiting for me, knowing I would never come back.”
“I was a better son than you could have ever been.”
“The hawk would’ve been safe if it stayed.”
“Why didn’t you save me? Why didn’t you try-”
“Maker’s breath, would you all just shut up!” He snapped his head up, and the statues were gone. He was alone in the desolate Gallows. Before they could even consider returning, Varric made a beeline for the main gate, trying not to think too much. All the voices of the people he’d failed, yet there was one suspiciously absent. He should probably be relieved he didn’t have to hear her mock him for being a disappointment as well, and yet he couldn’t help but feel sad he might not get to hear her voice again. Maybe it was the Maker’s way of punishing him.
He made his way down to the Gallows dock, only to find that the water didn’t even look like water, but rather like storm clouds. But as he peered across, he swore he could see the Docks in the distance. He knew, logically, that even if he could get through the Docks to Lowtown it would probably be as lifeless as the rest of this nightmare. And yet, the only thing he could think to try and do was get to The Hanged Man.
And so, he went to board a boat. He located the oars, and went to untie one of the boats. Maker’s ass, I’ll have to row this thing myself, won’t I? he thought miserably as he struggled with the knot. He hated rowing. He hated most forms of physical activity, but one that potentially left you stranded in the middle of the water? When he couldn’t even swim! Who came up with that shit? But, alas, here he was, and with no other way out of the Gallows, and no big, strong humans he could make row for him, he begrudgingly made his peace with the fact that he’d have to do this for himself. And that was when the statue made itself known.
He appeared about halfway down the dock. From far away and in the haze, Varric couldn’t tell who it was, only that by its height, he was fairly certain this one was human. Knowing that almost made him curious, but not enough to stay and find out. Just as he finally got the boat untied, that statue began to walk towards him. Its limbs creaked, and its steps were slow, like a golem that had just woken up. But even as a creepy grey rock, he would recognize those damned feather pauldrons anywhere.
“Why didn’t you save me?” Anders’ voice echoed all around them.
“Oh, come on, Blondie! You know that’s not fair. We tried to-”
“No, you didn’t.” The statue was closer now. He could see his face clearly now, all the anguish and the pain that Anders went through etched into it. Varric had always told him he should be worried about getting stuck with that expression. “You saw my anger, my vengeance. And you just watched it get worse.”
“What could we have done? We tried - She tried - to get through to you, to separate you and that thing! And the only thing that changed was she wound up hurt!”
“Exactly. She tried. You watched. If you’d done something, you could’ve saved us both.”
He knew exactly what incident this ‘Anders’ was talking about. Even before the explosion at the Chantry, it was clear Anders was gone. The woman in question was the most ridiculously cuddly human he’d ever met. She and Merrill would hug as their casual greeting, she’d hold hands with Isabela as they walked through the Hightown markets, she’d fall asleep on the shoulder of whoever happened to be next to her at the Wicked Grace table (typically him). There wasn’t a single one of their friends she hadn’t spent hours curled up on at least once.
And then, one week before she and Anders broke up, he found her on the roof of the Hanged Man, sobbing, terrified, and refusing to let anyone touch her. It was the worst thing Varric had ever seen.
It was one of the very few stories he never asked his friend to tell him, but a week later he’d woken up to find her in bed beside him. Fully clothed, but with her head on his chest, and having pulled one of his arms around her, not letting him move it. He felt the strangest urge to pull her closer and bury his face into her hair, or tell her how much he’d missed her, and then he’d never let her go again. But, instead, he lay there barely breathing until she spoke.
“Dwarves.” She said, voice muffled due to her still being buried in his chest. She hadn’t let anyone near her in a week, but now it seemed like she wouldn’t let go unless someone dragged her away. Which was completely alright with him, but he was so in shock he didn’t even try to understand her statement.
“What?” He’d replied. She pulled her head away just a little, and he instantly regretted asking.
“You were right about dwarves. Only decent romantic partners out there; do you know why?” He shook his head. “Dwarves don’t dream.”
That was all the detail he’d ever needed.
Could he really have stopped that? If he'd said something that could’ve gotten through to Anders before there wasn’t any Anders left at all, then maybe they would’ve never reached that point. Maybe he’d have wanted to separate himself from Justice. Maybe Anders could’ve lived a normal life fighting for mages, and his best friend would’ve never been afraid of people touching her, and all those people who died in that explosion would still be alive.
“And what about after?” The statue continued. “You found me, didn’t you? And you chose to ignore it, to forget me, to let me get even worse, yet again.” Varric felt dread wash all over him. No one should’ve known that. He had his spies find Anders about two years after he became the Viscount. But when they’d given him the mage’s location, he hadn’t known what to do. So he did nothing. Typical. Now, he couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to his friend after that.
As if hearing his thoughts, the statue answered his question.
“I died alone in the dark. Because of you. Just like Haw-”
Varric didn’t need to hear anymore. He jumped on the boat, hoping to use it to get away from Anders, but when he stepped on, the boat and water beneath him vanished. There was no fall this time, just as soon as he placed his foot in the boat, it was gone, and he was standing in Hightown Square. Shit.
There was a statue in Hightown Square, too. In real life, not just in… whatever this was (The void, maybe? He shuddered to think about that). He knew the statue quite well, because he’d commissioned it himself. Right in the middle of the square, on the platform on the stairs to the Viscounts Keep that Orsino had once used to try and rally the nobility. About ten paces from the estate of the person it was dedicated to.
He didn’t want to look up. He took it back; he didn’t want to hear her voice, not if she was going to hate him as much as the others had. And yet, he couldn’t help it. He turned to the stairs to face the Memorial. Only, to his horror, this one barely looked like a statue at all. Her hair and skin were tinted grey, but looked soft to the touch. When she turned her head to look at him, she moved almost like a normal person. He recognized her immediately.
Marian. The Disguise. The Champion. The Protagonist. The short black hair and bright blue eyes that the real her would use to hide from templars, who he’d turned into the illustrations on the pages of ‘The Tale of The Champion.’ This was the version of her the public remembered, that they loved, so this was who the statue got made to look like. He always wondered how the real person would’ve felt about this memorial. Someone as effervescent as she was should’ve reveled in having stories told about her. And maybe that had been true once, but something clearly bothered her about it by the end. He never got to ask.
“Why did you do this to me, Varric?” Her voice sounded strange. Like the statues, there were several other layers echoing on top of her words. And her tone was missing its playful inflections, feeling more like the Hero of Ferelden, or the Inquisitor mid speech, then herself. But it was her voice. He felt tears well up in his eyes, and it took all his strength to keep them from falling.
“H-hawke-” His voice broke, but he could be embarrassed about that later. There'd been a time when 'Hawke' had been the name he'd said more then any other, but after so long, it felt almost foreign on his lips. But, shit, he'd missed saying it.
“Did the real person that I was not matter to you? You never cared about me, you only wanted fodder for your tales.” Marian scolded. Varric’s heart dropped to his stomach. That was the worst thing he’d heard yet, but he didn’t want this thing wearing Hawke to know that.
“That’s not true, she knew I didn’t-”
“Did she?” Varric’s breath hitched. That same voice again, only this time from behind him. He turned, only to be greeted by a woman with long dark hair and a silk Orlesian gown. Lady Marielle. The scheming widow of Hard in Hightown. Also Hawke. All of his friends were someone in Hard in Hightown. Most of them got cameos. Hawke was a main character.
“She knew that people loved the stories about her, the version of her you invented. She knew you loved that version, too. The perfect mews. But nobody cares about just Hawke. Nobody stays.”
“Bullshit! Don’t talk about her like that!” He didn’t notice that he defended Hawke from these nightmares in a way he never would’ve defended himself.
“But it’s true, isn’t it? Sebastian, Isabela, Fenris, Anders… even you. None of you stayed. And all those forced to stay, mother, father, her little sister, they all died horribly. Wise to get out. Wise to get away from Hawke before she kills you, too.” Lady Marielle continued.
“None of that was her fault.” Said Varric.
“Of course it was,” Champion Marian interjected. “A good hero should be able to save the people they care about. That’s what she felt, anyway. And you knew that. But you never proved her otherwise.”
And that's when an all too familiar shape of a bird flew down from above them. Hawke wasn’t a shape changer. Not officially, anyway. But she did have one single animal form. Merrill had once asked her about it; apparently, young Hawke had liked the idea of being able to think of herself as a witch when her family settled so close to the Kocari Wilds, but each form was quite tricky to learn. As such, Hawke had learned only one: a hawk. “Come on, you know I had too!” She remarked with a stunning smile after the first time he’d seen it. He had to appreciate her commitment to her image, at least.
He had seen her hawk form on several occasions, as it was useful for things like scouting around places like the Wounded Coast, or hiding from Templars when Marian wasn’t enough. It was a fairly generic-looking bird, as far as Varric was concerned; amber colored feathers and a pointed beak. Yet even he, despite his staunchly anti nature views, could tell just by looking at this creature as it swooped down who it would be when it landed. It flew down to the ground, landing right in front of him, and then, with a swirl of magic, it began to change.
And then there she was. Hawke, with ginger hair, sad, green eyes, and wearing her fathers old robe. It was the only thing she had taken from Ferelden, he saw her wear little else until they gave her her ceremonial Arms of the Champion. This was Hawke, exactly as he knew her, as she’d really been.
“Maybe if you’d told me how you felt, I’d still be alive.”
And then, like the coward that he was, he bolted.
*****
Maker, he needed a drink. Or twelve.
Varric wasn’t sure how much time he’d spent in The Void, but it was long enough to be able to determine that it was The Void. The Chantry wasn’t right about everything, but clearly there was something to the whole ‘those who deny the maker will forever lose his love’ tale. And apparently, despite his being an… admittedly mediocre Andrastian, belief in the Maker was not enough to get one into the golden city. He must’ve done something to piss someone off, and now he was here. Not at The Hanged Man, or even just walking alongside the Maker in the golden city. He was wandering in a wasteland, forced to be reminded of all his failures, over and over and over again. Must be The Void.
The dwarf had been chased by the echoes of the people he’d failed everywhere he went. He’d seen almost everyone he’d cared about; the first three returned, but also Bartrend, The Inquisitor, Bianca, Rook. He'd lost track of everyone he’d encountered, and how many times he’d seen them all. At first, he’d tried to count, but quickly realized there was no point; they just kept coming. Sometimes they still looked like statues at first, but more often they would look like whoever was tormenting him, only greyer.
That's what every moment looked like now. He would see a vision of someone, reminding him of all the ways he’d failed, and caused the world, and everyone he loved to suffer immeasurably, and then he would run away. He must’ve repeated the process hundreds and hundreds of times.
On good days (if you could even call them days. He had no idea how time really passed here), he would run as soon as he saw something beginning to form. Because whether they’d planned to repeat the failings he’d heard from them before, or they’d come up with something new he hadn’t remembered to hate himself for yet, he couldn’t stand to hear what they would say.
But on his bad days, he would stay, to try and talk to someone. Because awful as they were, the apparitions were his only company. Sometimes he tried to see if any part of them was real, or if they could remember good memories. Other times he argued with them, or responded to the cruelty with a sarcastic quip just to not be alone. He tried to tell Hawke the story about Cullen losing to Josephine during Wicked Grace and having to walk back through the ramparts naked. He’d always wanted to tell her that one. She told him she’d been alive to see it in person if he hadn’t been such a coward. Never wanting to prove Hawke wrong, he ran.
Because that was how it always ended. Running away. That was the only way to stave off this endless, horrible nightmare.
There were only two slight benefits (if you could call them that) that Varric had found. The first, was that the void liked to take the shape of Kirkwall. A haunted Kirkwall. A Kirkwall that liked to change itself while you were mid-step. But something with the shape of Kirkwall, nonetheless. It made sense, almost everyone and everything he’d regretted could be traced back to this city. Every once in a while it would turn into Skyhold, or one of the wilderness areas of Orlais or Ferelden he’d get dragged to by the Inquisitor. Sometimes it’d even be Minrathous, or Arlathan Forest… or Adamant. His least favorite was Adamant. But he would always end up back in Kirkwall. And he knew Kirkwall better than anyone. There were plenty of places to run and hide when something caught up to him in his city.
And the second, perhaps more concerning upside, was that his body did not seem to be able to feel anything. Once, he’d been trying to escape an apparition of Isabela through the disused passage at The Docks, and he’d slipped on the ladder and fallen most of the way down. He should’ve broken a hip, maybe both hips, yet he hadn’t felt a thing. Beyond that, his left leg had had a dull ache for years, yet for some reason, in this place, it didn’t bother him at all. That was the kind of thing a place filled with nothing but misery like this should’ve loved to take advantage of, except it didn’t. If anything, he felt faster and more agile than he ever had before.
He didn’t need to sleep, or eat, or do anything else he should need. All the unpleasant smells that should have accompanied The Docks or Lowtown were absent. Once, he tried to take a Hawke statues hand; he'd slipped right through her. He knew what the most logical reason for this was. He knew what had happened, what Solas had done to him. But knowing it, and being able to accept it turned out to be very different ideas. At least for now, it was helpful.
Because of all this, he’d become quite practiced at navigating The Void. Talk, run, possibly scream or cry or beg the maker to take him somewhere else, repeat. Through all this time, he’d never seen another real person. Someone living or someone dead, he’d have accepted either one. But the only company here was the apparitions.
Until it wasn’t.
He’d been at the Viscount’s Keep, listening to Aveline and Bran tell him about what a horrible Viscount he was, and how he was destroying the city. He had chided them about how no one could save this city, or maybe he hadn’t. Who cared at this point? All that mattered was that eventually, he ran. Down, through the Hightown square, past the rose and down to The Docks to hide in the former Qunari compound. And nothing even turned into a completely different place while he was running! A good day for him, then. But that was when Varric saw him.
Not a vision. Not a statue. Not a failure, not anyone he knew. There, standing on top of one of the buildings filled with warehouses and junk along The Docks, was a strange, wild looking half animal, half-man creature.
From far away, the creature could be confused for a man wearing a tattered, feathered, cloak. Only the ends of the cloak seemed to be one with his arms, as though they’d been tied or fused to his wrists. And sure enough, as the creature swooped down from his perch towards Varric, he extended his arms and his cloak was like the wings of a great bird. He landed right in front of where the Arishok’s throne had been, with a thud that should have shaken the entire prison, yet the compound remained unfazed.
Upon closer inspection, he did have the body of a man. His torso was completely bare, but his legs were covered by a tattered, shredded, slightly feathered skirt. But Varric wasn’t paying attention to any of that, as the only thing he could focus on was the disturbing hood that came down over the creature's eyes and nose.
It was the head of a fearsome bird. A pointed beak sat below yellow eyes, which each had a circular pattern of feathers surrounding them. The eyes stared at him so intently that he couldn't tell if it was just the hood of a cloak, or if, despite its human mouth and jaw, this was the being’s real face. Daisy would probably know what sort of bird it was, or maybe Anders could’ve identified it by its feathers, but as a man who detested all nature equally, Varric had no idea. Only that, for better or worse, it didn’t seem to be a hawk.
The Creature, still looking at Varric, cocked its head to the left, and the eyes on the hood blinked. When he spoke his human mouth moved, despite his voice echoing off the walls of the dwarf’s mind. But its tone was strangely… gentle? Caring? Whether it was a trap or genuine, Varric couldn’t say.
“Why, hello, little one. You’re a long way off from where you’re supposed to be. Do you need help finding the way?” Varric didn’t understand what he meant. Unless… no. He couldn’t possibly mean Varric was in the wrong afterlife. He would never get that lucky, but he played along anyway.
“Oh, so this wasn’t the Maker’s bosom? And here I was thinking he just redecorated the place to feel more like home.”
The Creature chuckled at that and began to descend the stairs to stand in front of the dwarf. “Now, now. T’was my understanding that the city of Kirkwall had been quite improved by the time you ventured away.”
“Had been?” Shit, he should’ve known Kirkwall couldn’t last five minutes without spontaneously combusting. Maybe he could-
“Don’t.” The Creature interrupted his thoughts. “Do not ask. ‘Tis not yours to worry about anymore. Where you’re going you will not need to worry about pain, or suffering, or loss ever again.”
“Wait, you mean…” After what felt like months of being haunted by everyone he failed, he could barely risk hoping that eternity might not be awful. But The Bird Creature didn’t seem to understand his unspoken question, so he continued. “This isn’t… It’s not just this forever?”
“Oh, you poor thing.” Varric could tell now the sympathy in The Creature's voice was genuine, but he hated knowing how pitiful he must look to elicit such a response. “Of course, this isn’t it.” He reached out and cupped Varric’s cheek. He had large, clawed talons covering the back of his hands, but his palms felt human and were oddly soft. The rogue was shocked he could even feel the creature's hands. Shouldn't it have gone right through him, regardless of what The Creature was?
“Walk with me, I can show you the way. You’ve struggled long enough.” The Creature turned towards the water and reached up his arm. And then, from nothing, a golden bridge began constructing itself, so bright it could’ve been made out of raw sunlight. Compared to the drab nothingness he’d grown accustomed to, Varric almost had to shield his eyes. The Creature hopped onto the bridge with enough confidence to convince the dwarf it was stable, so tentatively, he got on as well. He expected to fall through into another nightmare, but the bridge felt stable under his feet.
Varric followed The Bird Creature across the bridge, which seemed to continue for eternity, sloping up and up, as far as the eye could see. Normally, he would’ve complained mercilessly about an endless uphill climb, but right now it was the best thing that had happened to him since he’d died. Maker’s ass, since way before he died. When he looked down he could see that they had passed the docks, and now were walking over the storm cloud water. Far below him, he could see The Gallows in the distance, which seemed wrong. If he was gone, why did this place still look like Kirkwall? But before he could think of an answer, his traveling companion interrupted his thoughts.
“So tell me, how did you end up here?” The Creature being one for small talk surprised Varric, but it wasn’t unwelcome. Maker knew a creepy bird man was nowhere near the strangest company he’d ever kept. In fact, he might classify ‘crazy, semi-bird themed, human’ as his favorite type of company.
“Well, I was looking for the tavern, and I got lost along the way. Damn shame, too. It’s Wicked Grace night, and someone there owes me a drink.”
The birdman turned to him with a human smirk, which was disconcerting, especially since his bird eyes did not seem amused. “You’re hilarious.” So, the creepy, all powerful, bird creature was capable of sarcasm, Varric noted. Which probably shouldn’t have surprised him. After all, so was Solas.
“This place is a prison.” The Creature continued as they approached the Gallows. “Sealed by regret, and meant to hold the most powerful mages in existence. Souls of the departed have been known to lose their way in the raw fade before, but even then, it should not be possible for any one ordinary soul to find its way in by accident.”
“You got here, didn’t you, Smiley?”
“I… Well, let's just say ‘tis not I who finds myself here by mistake. So I ask again; how did you end up in this place?”
“I was hunting down a dangerous enemy. My old buddy, Solas, he… has some other names you might've heard. He was doing a ritual to destroy the veil. I tried to stop him, which may have resulted in getting myself slightly stabbed. In the heart. So now, in addition to having damaged chest hair, I’m stuck here. Shit, that wasn’t a very good dramatic retelling. Come back to me once I’ve gotten to talk with my editor about it, I’m sure I can give you a version with full theatrics.”
Well, shit, the first story he’d told a real audience in the afterlife, and he didn’t even do it well! He had meant to give The Creature a better recitation, but as he began speaking he got the strangest feeling that someone was watching him. He hadn’t lived as long as he did by not knowing when someone was looking at him a little too intently. But there was no one else on the bridge. Of course not, that would be ridiculous, as there wasn’t anyone else in this place.
“Oh, I don't think your chest hair's any worse for wear. And actually, that explains your arrival here perfectly.” Said Smiley.
“Really? Because it wasn’t quite lining up for me.”
“You entered with Fen’Harel.” Of course the fucked up bird thing knew who Solas was. “The Dread Wolf had intended to seal the Evanuris whose blights are not yet past within this place, of which there are two. T’was then that those gods escaped but the ritual had already begun. T’would not end until two souls entered the prison. The closest two were Fen'Harel’s, and yours.” Well, none of that sounded good.
“Chuckles is here?” Asked Varric. That would explain how Smiley knew him.
The Creature, ironically, chuckled. “Indeed, he is. In case you were unaware, Master Tethras, your plan was a success. The veil remains intact.”
“But now he’s here and there’s two more crazy, evil, elven gods running around?”
“And two more Archdemons. But it is as I said; you need not worry about this anymore. Your protege, Rook-”
“Is she ok?” Varric jumped in. He hadn’t seen what’d become of Rook, but she hadn’t looked too good at the ritual site either. For all he knew, she was dead, and it was his fault.
“She’s more than alright, Master Tethras. T’was an excellent choice you made with her. She is quite skilled. She will do fine.”
But Varric stopped listening after confirming that Rook had survived. The rogue felt someone watching him again. He turned around, looked behind them on the bridge, half expecting to find Solas, but saw nothing. But the dwarf couldn’t shake the feeling. He and his new bird friend had walked quite a ways at this point, and with how the bridge sloped upward, he knew it was a terrible idea to look down. But really, what did he have to be afraid of? If he fell, he’d land, not feeling a thing. So, against his better judgement, he looked down.
As soon as he looked down, he felt sick to his stomach. If he was alive, he would’ve been nauseous. But he did look, and saw that far, far, below him, was The Gallows. And in the Gallows was someone else, surrounded by statues. Varric couldn’t look away. If someone else was seeing the statues, then that must mean they were real.
Whoever this person was, they weren’t just surrounded by the statues; they were fighting them. The attacker looked incredibly frail, so weak there was no way this fight would be pretty, yet Varric couldn’t look away. They had… a club? Or maybe a spear? The dwarf wasn’t quite sure, but they were going from feebly hitting the statues with it, to using it as a walking stick to hobble around.
“There’s someone else here.” It was more of a question, as Varric hadn’t seen anyone else since he arrived.
“This prison is vast, but not intended to hold many. To my knowledge, there are only three souls physically here at the moment, your’s and Fen’Harel’s among them.”
Varric couldn’t take his eyes off the sight below him. Would fighting the visions work? Would it get rid of them? Varric had never had it in him to try. Whoever this person was, they seemed very comfortable with the idea of beating everyone they love to a pulp. Or rather, trying to. They just seemed to be getting slower and more exhausted as the scrape went on. As it continued and they grew weaker, the rogue couldn’t shake the feeling that he should be down there, fighting back to back with this person, making sure they’d get out safely. Which was absurd. The statues weren’t even fighting back. He doubted they could, even if they wanted to. This person wasn't in any danger, so why was he so damn worried about them? They were probably just sick of being tortured by the visions and decided to do something about it.
He watched as the attacker hobbled away from the crowd of statues, clutching their right side in pain. After they managed to move a few paces, they turned back to the hoard… and threw a fireball. A mage, then. A mage with so little mana they had to resort to other methods, but more importantly, a mage who had used their staff as a close range weapon. Varric had met plenty of mages in his time, but only one of them ever fought quite like that.
“Who is that?” He asked with more urgency than he meant to let on.
“My mission.” Said The Creature. “She is the other denizen of this prison. She has been in the Beyond for longer than any living mortal being should’ve been capable of. Fen’Harel has deemed her dangerous enough to incarcerate here, so my patron has deemed her important enough to seek out. Though there have been… complications with delivering her.” There were a million things in that statement Varric should have asked about, but instead he went for the only thing he could think to care about, as he watched this woman limp.
“How is she in pain?”
The eyes on Smiley’s hood gave Varric a skeptical look. “She is not the oddity in that regard, Master Tethras. ‘Tis simply a result of her soul still being one with her mortal body. You, on the other hand, are no longer connected to your physical form. Its benefits and limitations no longer bind you.”
But Varric was no longer listening, as the woman in the Gallows had looked up at him.
When Hawke had first arrived at Skyhold, he hadn’t been there. He hadn’t been there to say goodbye to her when she’d fled Kirkwall, either. He hadn’t wanted to. But as he sat in his room at the Hanged Man, he found himself surrounded. By the book she’d left half finished on his nightstand, and the scorch marks on the wall from when she tried to light the torch while drunk, and the blunted bolt head he’d used on the thief from the day they met that he just couldn’t get rid of, and the pressing of the flower she’d worn on her wrist at Aveline’s wedding, and a million other reminders of Hawke. And he had a horrifying realization about his feelings for his best friend. He spent the next three years praying he was wrong. I have to see her again, and when I see her again, there'll be nothing there, and this will go away, and everything can go back to normal, he’d hoped to himself.
But because his luck was always that bad, when it finally came time to answer his question, the Inquisitor had decided to drag him, the Seeker, and Solas out on a mission to the Fallow Mire. Not that The Herald knew Hawke was coming, but it did sting to hear he now failed at ‘goodbye’ and ‘hello again’. By the time they returned Hawke had already arrived, and Cole told him she was in the Herald’s Rest. He all but ran there while trying (and failing) to be as subtle as possible. He stood in the doorway of that tavern, and through all the noise and the crowds and the ale, he found her instantly. She was at a table with Sera, Bull, and the Chargers, with her back to him, but even seeing only the braid down her back, he knew it was her.
Bull called out to him then, and he could’ve sworn she turned to face him in slow motion. But when they finally locked eyes again, she had a glittering smile that reached those eyes in a way he hadn’t seen since before the Qunari invasion, and he knew even without a mirror that he did too. After a moment of stillness, she called out to him. “Hey, stranger” she said with a giggle and a wave. He waved back, completely awestruck. Maker, they must’ve looked like such idiots to anyone watching. Later Bull, Sera, and anyone else who heard would mock him to no end, and he would gladly take it. But for that moment, the crowds and the drinks and the entire world fell away, and they were the only two people in Skyhold. Maybe even in Thedas. Well, shit.
Not even the most brilliant spies in the Ben Hassrath would be able to link that dazzling woman to the mangled wretch that looked up at him now. Her entire body from head to toe seemed to be coated in black demon ichor. From what little he could see of her skin, it was no longer fair pink, but rather a sickly green. Her hair was a knotted, matted, mess of a braid that reached all the way to her knees, and it was so ichor covered, her hair looked black. Her face was black and blue all over, and one of her eyes was so swollen he couldn’t even see it. The other looked haunted and terrified. Anyone else would’ve chalked her up to a walking corpse and killed her without question. Varric himself should’ve assumed she was another one of the apparitions, or something far worse.
Yet he knew that if there’d been drinks, and songs, and people around now, they would’ve all disappeared the same way they had that day in Skyhold.
“Hawke.” He said so quietly, it was barely a whisper.
Time remained frozen as they stared at each other a moment longer. He was half a second away from hurling himself off the sunlight bridge to reach her when she turned abruptly and began to hobble out of the Gallows. She was using her staff to aid her and moving very slowly, yet Varric knew she was trying to escape as fast as she could.
“That’s Hawke.” He turned to The Creature. It wasn’t a question. “How-how is- could she-” This part was a question, but he wasn’t quite sure what that question was.
“The Inquisitor left her to distract a nightmare demon. A fight she then proceeded to win. She has searched for a way out ever since. As you can see, it has not gone well. As time goes on, I grow more and more concerned there is nothing that can be done.”
“Could she come with us?” He asked, hopeful for the first time in so long.
“Not as she is. The place I am taking you is only for souls who are not confined to a host of flesh and bone. Unless you are offering to kill her-”
“No!”
“Then there is no way.”
“No, that can’t be it! You’re-” Varric gestured up and down at the Bird Creature, as if that would somehow give him insight as to what his companion was. It didn’t. “Something! You’re telling me you have nothing in your bag of tricks you could use to help her?”
“‘Tis not that simple. This prison was made to hold the Evanuris. Breaking someone out of it is all but impossible.” The Creature spoke with a hint of a suggestion, that Varric missed completely.
“You can’t just leave her here; there has to be a way!”
“I have searched for one, but found only futile ideas. There’s nothing I can do. She will remain here. Perhaps for now, perhaps forever.” Varric stared back down at the Gallows, where Hawke had been mere moments before.
How long had Hawke been here? Longer than him certainly, but months? Years? A decade? He couldn’t have been here nearly that long, and already felt like he was going mad. He didn’t want to go back down. He didn’t want to hear all his regrets again, didn’t want to have to spend every moment reminded of the fact that he always failed everyone he loved. But there was only one person he knew who might have more to regret than him, and he would’ve stayed in a heartbeat if it meant she could leave.
He didn’t have that option, but he could do something to make this place even just a little less terrible.
“Then at least she won’t be alone.” He said with more conviction than he’d ever said anything in his entire life.
“I warn you, Master Tethras, it twill not be easy if you stay.”
“I don’t care.” Varric turned to the Creature. “Look, I appreciate the help, Smiley. And I owe you a drink. I’d love to go with you, but unfortunately I have pressing business here.” He said as he turned back to the Gallows. In truth, he had no clue what that business was. If the Bird Creature couldn’t help Hawke then he didn’t stand a chance. And even if he could somehow get her back to the real world, it wasn’t like he could return with her, not without a body. More likely, they’d spend the rest of Hawke’s life rotting in the void, and then maybe all of eternity if they couldn’t get to the right place themselves.
But at least they’d be together.
“Hmm.” The Creature smiled, though Varric didn’t notice. “Very well, I wish you luck. And one thing more; I would appreciate you not mentioning to your canine friend that you saw anyone else here.”
“Sure. No problem.” He would have agreed to anything at that moment, and didn’t even notice when Smiley faded from existence.
And then, without hesitation, he leapt.