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Of course Hawke knows who Cassandra Pentaghast is, everyone knows who Cassandra Pentaghast is, but she's always just a figurehead when Hawke thinks about her. Or, she is that until whispers of an Inquisition wisp around each and every corner, and until Cassandra Pentaghast is searching Kirkwall high and low for Hawke. Something about literally having one of the most important people in Thedas constantly on your ass really changes your perspective of them—at least, it did for Hawke.
The Hero of Orlais is a fable figure, mostly only a neat story everyone in Thedas has heard once, and one that was brought up every once in awhile when apropos, though it does contain a shred of truth, a shred of very harsh and powerful truth. The Right Hand of the Divine is mostly just a title, fluff and pomp and ceremony that ultimately amounted to nothing; the real power of the position is that the Hero of Orlais holds it, that the story of her victory was embellished nearly past the point of recognition. She, who once slayed three dragons in one afternoon, is the one who made it a threat, not the title itself.
Hawke slayed a dragon, too. Once. And the Hero of Orlais never had to fight a demon made of rocks. As far as Hawke knew. She would have heard about that, she's certain.
And once, it didn't matter to Hawke that the Hero of Orlais had slayed three dragons and made it look easy. Once, when Cassandra Pentaghast was just a figurehead, just someone everyone knew and could recognize and rattle off three basic, and also likely embellished, facts about.
Hawke wonders if anyone else knows the way Cassandra Pentaghast's handwriting looks shaky when coming to a valediction on a hastily written six page letter explaining her intent, the intent of the Inquisition, like her hand was cramping but she fought through the pain because she just wanted to be understood. Hawke wonders if Cassandra Pentaghast even knows that she received the letter, even though it was sent months ago to an estate she hadn't stepped foot in since....Maker, how long had it been?
Hawke shakes her head, folding the letter and placing it back in its envelope again. Cassandra's never going to find her, thanks mostly to Varric, though her other friends, some of them anyway, also had a hand in keeping Hawke hidden. The letter says something about a conclave, something Hawke wants no part of, whatever it was. Cassandra needs Hawke for the Inquisition, to lead the Inquisition. That isn't something Hawke is equipped to do.
She sits in the dark of her small for-now home, by the light of a dying fire, and stares at the walls, knowing the conclave would meet the next morning, and then she would be free.
*
Conclave. Explosion. Breach. Herald.
Corypheus.
Hawke.
Varric's letters don't read like anyone else's, and maybe it's because that's just how he writes, and maybe it's because that's how he writes to Hawke. But then again, when Varric says, "We need your help," it's always going to have a different texture than when Cassandra Pentaghast says it.
So Hawke goes to Skyhold.
When she packs up her things to make the trip, she can't imagine the scolding Varric is getting from Cassandra for keeping her a secret, for just doing what she'd asked and helping her lay low after the mage rebellion began. And when she first arrives at Skyhold, she's taken straight to Varric; she never sees nor meets Cassandra Pentaghast. She does meet the Herald—the Inquisitor, who, for all their eccentricities, doesn't actually seem heraldic to Hawke. Maybe it's just her cynicism talking, or the fact that she'd literally watched a religious institution devour itself from the inside out, and then get blown up. The mark is interesting nonetheless.
Varric and Hawke sit together in the bar later. Hawke sees a qunari with big horns sitting across the room just on the other side of the stairs and asks, slightly worried, "Is he calm?"
Varric looks, then laughs, "No. He probably won't fight you though." He takes a sip and thinks about what he said, then corrects himself, "Well, actually, he might. You did kill the arishok, after all."
Hawke raises her eyebrows and nods nonchalantly, like having killed the arishok is the least of her problems. Truthfully, it probably is.
She asks how everyone is, and Varric tells her everything he knows. He thinks about mentioning how both simultaneously unhappy and satisfied Cassandra is that Hawke is finally there, but he foregoes the topic entirely, figuring Cassandra and Hawke will run into each other eventually.
And maybe, if they're all lucky, not at all.
*
Skyhold is big but it is certainly not Val Royeaux, and this is unrealistic. They pass each other outside the smithy, and Cassandra is rooted where she stands, eyes wide as she watches Hawke walk past. Hawke takes notice, slowing her gait before being struck with the dawning realization of just who is staring at her. She changes her course, instead walking right up to Cassandra. “You must be the Seeker that Varric has told me so much about.” Hawke’s tone is mostly pleasant, but there is a noticeable faux sugary sweetness to it that she is certain the Seeker sees through.
Cassandra’s mind fumbles, but she manages to keep her mouth from falling wide open at the sight of Hawke physically present in front of her. She has too many things to say, and she isn’t sure where to begin, but she knows she would much prefer to sit. “Come with me,” Cassandra says, walking toward the smithy and expecting Hawke to follow.
Hawke, hands on her hips and a curious look on her face, watches Cassandra walk for a moment before she bounces on her heels and follows the Seeker’s lead. If anything, the talk had potential to be interesting.
They sit together at Cassandra’s desk above the smithy. Hawke thinks calling it a desk is a stretch; it’s really just a table with one chair on either side; the set isn’t shabby, but it’s not master-crafted either. It’s a table, nothing more, and certainly not a desk. Hawke swallows this commentary and sits opposite Cassandra, waiting for her to talk. She figures that’s best, if not more amusing. For herself, at least.
Cassandra is sitting bolt upright in her chair, far less relaxed than Hawke, who has her feet up on the desk as if she’s never been more at home in her life. She is balancing her weight on the back two legs of the chair, swaying up and down rhythmically as she straightens and bends her legs. Cassandra is simply watching Hawke, waiting for the right moment to speak, as if the moment did not already beg to be filled with something more than silence. After months of searching for Hawke, and interrogations of her friends only to come up empty, there she is, a desk away from Cassandra. And yet Cassandra hesitates.
The Champion of Kirkwall is a fable figure.
Where Cassandra Pentaghast's investigation made her more real to Hawke, less like a figurehead and more like a person, it had the exact opposite effect on Cassandra. Like the more evasive Hawke became, the less real she seemed.
But there she is.
And Cassandra Pentaghast, the Hero of Orlais, hesitates.
When she finally speaks, she breathes a quiet, "Hawke?" and hopes that Hawke hears.
Hawke does hear it, but she doesn't want to. It’s a far less amusing start than she thought she’d get, by far, and she lowers her chair down completely as she puts her legs down. The Seeker intends to make this difficult, Hawke concludes, and that isn’t necessarily the truth. Cassandra would like it to be painless, but the thinly-veiled hero-worship she had so expertly ignored until that point was rearing its ugly head.
Hawke closes her eyes for several seconds, then turns her gaze on Cassandra, waiting for her to say something else.
Cassandra asks, "Do you know why I was looking for you?"
Hawke considers being dramatic, admitting that after all that time she still carries the Seeker’s letter in her pack, that she had brought it with her to Skyhold even, but she opts instead for a simple, "Yes."
"Why didn't you come forward, then?"
Hawke clenches her jaw, and she takes a deep breath. Cassandra does sound genuinely curious, maybe even confused, but Hawke swears she heard the inkling of an accusation in Cassandra's tone, and she doesn’t like it.
She tries to keep her voice level, for reasons of personal pain and not of anger, and she answers, "I'm sure you know how many people blame me for starting this rebellion." Hawke pauses, knowing she has more to say but uncertain how she wants to say it.
In the silence, Cassandra assumes, "Were you afraid someone would assassinate you?"
Hawke shakes her head, for one because she wasn't worried about that at all, but also because "assassinate" is a word reserved for important people. Hawke doesn't consider herself important; she just has a title. This thought never occurs to Cassandra, but that's because she innately believes Hawke to be important. She also believes Hawke is at least partially at fault for inciting the mage rebellion, but she is interested in Hawke's defense anyway. She has to be, if she was once willing to put the Inquisition into Hawke's hands.
Hawke repeats Cassandra's question. "Why didn't I come forward?" she sighs, resting her elbows on her knees and rubbing her hands together. "Haven't you read The Tale of the Champion?" she replies. She's looking at her hands, but she's certain Cassandra looks agitated at her non-answers.
"Yes," Cassandra answers, crossing her arms. "Varric tells me it has its basis in truth, but many pieces are sensationalized."
Hawke laughs, a quick exhale of light breath from her nose, silent save for the sound of rushing air. Cassandra sees the laugh on Hawke's face more than she actually hears it. The laugh is genuine, but Cassandra wonders what's funny. She supposes she's perhaps just not privy to whatever humor is shared between Hawke and Varric.
When Hawke's moment of laughter is finished, she looks sad, almost instantly. She says, "All the deaths in the book?" and she lets the lead-in hang in the air, and she looks Cassandra Pentaghast in the eyes. "Those were all real. And all the people who didn't die but that I still lost? All real. The Blight took my brother from me, the Grey Wardens took my sister. A mage reanimated my mother's corpse and she died for the second time in my arms. I had to kill the arishok to save Kirkwall, and that was after I watched him decapitate the viscount. One of my best friends, a man I thought I could trust, blew up Kirkwall's Chantry in the name of freedom. I spared him because I had seen too much death too close to me, but there are times I genuinely regret letting him live. I don't even know where he is now. I don't know where most of my friends are, my...family...." Hawke stops, looking away from Cassandra just before she realizes there are tears welling in her eyes. She isn't even sure she meant to say that much, but once she started, she couldn't stop herself. The feelings came, the words came, the tears came. She concludes, "They were all my family, Seeker. They still are."
Cassandra feels a tug in her chest, forceful in its presence. She is quite aware that Hawke has still not answered her question, but she remembers something Varric said probably only a day ago, something about everyone having done enough to Hawke, and her chest feels heavier, more sympathetic.
Hawke is looking at her hands again, blinking away whatever tears form in her eyes. She realizes then, also, that she hasn't given a complete answer.
Hawke begins, "To answer your question—"
"No," Cassandra interrupts. "I understand what you mean."
And Cassandra has a million more questions to ask and no idea where to begin, but she thinks Hawke would probably prefer to be done. Cassandra stands, pushing away from the table, and then neatly tucks the chair back into its place. Before turning to leave, she says quietly, "Thank you, Hawke."
*
"I spoke to Cassandra," Hawke says nonchalantly, leaning back in her chair. She gives Varric a surveying look out of the corner of her eyes, her lips curled so slightly at the corners it's almost negligible. They're sitting at a table in the pub together, and had been playing a card game at some point, but it had since been forgotten.
Varric's face doesn't give anything away; it rarely does. "Well," he says, speaking slowly, "you're both alive, so I imagine nothing awful happened."
"She's a little...strange," Hawke remarks, unsure if that was the right word. "I guess I just imagined her to be more...scary? Not that she isn't, but she's also...curious, I guess is the word."
Varric jokes, "Inquisitive, one might even say."
Hawke rolls her eyes and laughs. Inquisitive is a better word but she isn't sure she's willing to forgive the bad joke.
Varric continues, "I understand what you mean, though. The Seeker is intimidating, make no mistake. But she's also been searching for you for...who knows how long. Now you're here, and she finally has the chance to ask you all those burning questions she's been holding onto. If you play nice she probably won't even stab your book!"
Hawke groans, "Are you really still upset about that? It wasn't even your book."
"I wrote it!"
"It was her copy!"
Varric leans back and makes a dismissive gesture with his hands. Hawke laughs quietly from her stomach. She sighs after a moment, remarking, "I don't know, I guess I just expected to dislike her. And she's not unlikeable at all, really, just severe. It's unexpected."
Varric shrugs and laughs, "Don't meet your heroes, I guess."
Hawke smiles in return. "I guess."
*
The Inquisitor brings Cassandra Pentaghast to Crestwood to meet Hawke and her Warden friend. Hawke has already gone ahead, and is only told to expect a party at the rendezvous point, not who will be in it. Hawke tries not to seem visibly upset when she sees Cassandra but not Varric.
When they meet with Alistair, Cassandra does very little talking, and perhaps had they not spoken in the smithy, that would have been surprising. By the sound of her letter, the one that Hawke is still carrying around in her pack, she thought Cassandra to be long-winded at nearly all times. But Hawke could practically see the Seeker’s sentences forming in her head when they spoke last. Maybe it was just that particular letter.
The Inquisitor, the party, and Hawke go back to camp after speaking with Alistair. Hawke sits by the fire, throwing bits of twigs into it. She doesn't reflect on any one thing in particular; she doesn't really like to, at all. The way the twigs spark up and are devoured whole holds her attention well enough, until Cassandra calls her name from across the fire.
“I had another question, if you don’t mind,” Cassandra says, and she sounds braver than she had the first time they talked. Hawke yields, holding a small hope that perhaps this conversation could avoid painful topics entirely.
Cassandra, truthfully, finds Hawke's behavior unexpected just as Hawke found hers. She expects Hawke to clash with her on ideals at every turn, but she's surprised to find that Hawke, when it comes down to it, just wants as many people to be happy as possible. "I know I'm the Champion, but really, I was just in the wrong place at the right time for...well, a lot of times," Hawke says, and she laughs, realizing how ridiculous it sounds. She and Cassandra are smiling at each other across the fire, and genuinely enjoying each other’s company. Hawke continues, "I only ever did what I thought was right, and it wasn't always...it usually wasn't enough," and the smile on her face fades
She blinks slowly, looking at her hands folded in her lap, a few twigs still in her hands. Cassandra knows loss, and loss close to herself, but she isn't sure she can completely comprehend what Hawke has been through. For example, when she saved Val Royeaux, she knew there were deaths, but the Divine was saved as were a majority of the people in attendance. Cassandra Pentaghast was and is truly a hero. But Hawke's heroics? Hawke's heroics couldn't save the viscount; Hawke's heroics killed the leader of the qunari. Hawke's status as a Champion was earned mostly as a series of narrowly avoided catastrophes by way of allowing smaller catastrophes to occur—until it wasn't that anymore. Until Anders blew up the Chantry and Hawke was left to clean up the mess, left to kill both Orsino and Meredith.
Hawke isn't sure she's truly ever saved anyone from anything, just delayed the inevitable. Hawke wonders if perhaps the Inquisition is only doing the same thing. Or maybe it was actually successful until she became involved. Bringer of a strangely delayed bad luck, maybe that should be her real title.
Hawke breathes, "I'm sorry, I made things a bit too serious." Her eyes flicker up and focus on the Seeker’s face, the shadows changing constantly and dynamically by the light of the fire. Cassandra’s face is hard and severe, but her eyes are soft and interested, perhaps even sympathetic. Hawke doesn't want to admit it out loud, to anyone, but she’s found quickly that she likes talking with Cassandra. Most of Hawke's friends are spread about Thedas, and Varric, understandably, wants to avoid the topic of Hawke's rise to fame as much as he can—Hawke thinks writing his book was his way of working through his pain. But Hawke hasn't had that. Talking with Cassandra, with someone who is interested in the topic but who understands the immeasurable weight of a title as big as theirs are—Hawke believes it can be cathartic, and it could help to put things in perspective.
Cassandra hesitates for a moment—she wonders if the question on her lips is too big a question to ask—but proceeds, carefully, "Is it alright if...I ask if you believe in the Maker?"
Hawke's brows knit together and she looks away from Cassandra’s face. She sighs out every bit of air in her lungs and bunches her fists around her bundle of twigs, both snapping them and letting them leave small indents in her palms. It's a fair question for Cassandra to ask, Hawke knows, but it's an incredibly difficult question to answer. "I think," Hawke begins, looking nowhere in particular now, but definitely not at Cassandra, "I think I did once. But after everything, seeing...everything. The corruption in the Chantry and then its literal destruction, it changes your perspective...or, well, it changed mine. I'm not sure what I believe anymore, and I don't think I believe it really matters."
Cassandra knows the corruption exists, she isn't sure what could push the faithful to such an apathetic extreme at which Hawke seemed to be. In any case, she nods. She wants to say something, and mostly she wants to apologize, but she isn't sure for what. She simply opts for, "You have an interesting perspective on the world."
A smile plays at Hawke’s lips, entirely because that was not at all the response she was expecting. She asks, playfully, "What do you mean by that?"
"I mean that...." Cassandra trails off, thinking of what exactly she wants to say. "I mean that I have never met anyone like you, Hawke."
Hawke jokes, "That's probably for the best, wouldn't you say?"
And Cassandra laughs, because she thinks that more Hawkes would mean more Kirkwalls, and of course only one Kirkwall is for the best. Hawke gives a melancholy grin because one of her is enough, period. Probably more than that.
*
Hawke has plans to head out for the Western Approach a few days before the Inquisitor, to rendezvous with Alistair and hopefully find out more about what’s happening with the other Wardens, but a last minute invite to a masquerade at the Winter Palace was delivered suddenly, and the Inquisitor had no choice but to go, leaving Hawke at Skyhold with nothing to do in the meantime.
She’s walking the courtyard and she tries to ignore the flutter in her heart—though by virtue of willfully ignoring it she was also very much validating its presence—when she sees light coming from the upper floor of the smithy. As far as she knew, Cassandra had gone with the Inquisitor to Halamshiral.
She climbs the stairs to the smithy, knocking on the handrail once she sees Cassandra in order to draw her attention. Cassandra is writing intently, and the sound of Hakwe’s knuckles on the wood startles her, and she nearly jumps. “Oh, Hawke,” Cassandra says breathlessly, surprised.
Hawke stops walking, and starts to back up a step. “Bad time?” she asks, genuinely dreading that it is.
Cassandra shuffles her papers aside and exhales heavily, rolling her eyes. “These are just...reports I am writing of everything that has happened in the Inquisition so far. Writing is...not my strong suit.”
Hawke laughs, walking toward the empty chair, and remarks, “Don’t I know that.”
Cassandra squints. “What do you mean?”
Hawke realizes then that she has never plainly told Cassandra that she got her letter, or that she has kept it. She says simply, “Your letter. I got it.”
Cassandra’s brows lower, and she gives Hawke a look of, at first, genuine bewilderment, then frustration. She asks, “How?”
Hawke folds her hands together and places her forearms on the edge of the table. She wore a grin Cassandra would call mischievous. “Cass,” Hawke begins, her tone playful and coy, “my dear Seeker, I didn’t want you to find me, but that doesn’t mean I was cut off from the world entirely. I have many friends, after all.”
Cassandra leans over the table, and it would be a threatening motion were it not for the red that dusted her cheeks when Hawke called her Cass. The rest of her face, all the angles and hard lines of it, look angry, and she pokes Hawke’s half of the table as she says, “You mean to tell me I could have written you multiple times and you would have received all of my letters?”
Hawke relaxes into the back of her chair, and because now she is genuinely amused by the conversation, she feels it’s only right to put her feet up on the table again, and to lean her chair back on two legs. She grins and crosses her arms, shrugging. “I’m saying there’s a very good chance I would have received most of them with minor to negligible delay.”
Cassandra looks positively infuriated. She shakes her head and demands, “How many letters were you getting a day?”
Hawke doesn’t know off the top of her head, and for a moment she wonders why, until the reason fully dawns on her. The smile on her face falls slowly before dropping away completely, and Hawke sinks from her victorious pose yet again. “None,” she admits. “Well, very few. Just yours and a couple others from Varric. No one else.”
Cassandra’s mood shifts too, and her tone is gentle, surprisingly so, when she asks, “Why did no one else write you?”
Hawke shrugs at first. She attempts at a smile and it’s almost convincing, but her voice cracks when she laughs, “Maybe their lives are all better without me in it.” She clears her throat and recovers quickly, shaking her head and shrugging again before she looks at Cassandra with a nonchalant expression.
“Hawke, I—” Cassandra begins, not sure what she wants to say. There is a tug in her heart again, a heaviness in her chest again, and she wants to console Hawke, to have Hawke see her the way she sees her: as incredible, as unstoppable, as a force in the world, as the Champion of Kirkwall. She settles on, “You are an incredibly important person in the lives of many, Hawke.”
“And what does it matter if I can’t save them?” Hawke snaps, tone much harsher and angrier than she had intended. She stands, then, pacing in front of the table, admitting things to Cassandra that she had never admitted to anyone before. “I ran from Kirkwall and the mess I left there, I ran from you and the Inquisition because I didn’t want to ruin anything else, because everything I tried to ‘fix’ in Kirkwall was just fucked up even more after I was done with it. You don’t want that from me, Cass! I would have been a terrible Inquisitor and I’m genuinely happy you couldn’t find me, not just for my sake, but because maybe this thing has a chance of succeeding if I’m not in charge.”
Cassandra listens in silence. She has so many things to say. She knows Hawke doesn’t want to hear any of them.
Hawke sits down again, her frustration dissipated into sadness. She continues, quietly, “I’m not a real hero, Cassandra. Not like you. I’ve never truly saved anyone.”
Cassandra doesn’t consider herself the Hero of Orlais, and she never really did. She was a Seeker, and then she was the Right Hand, and the Hero of Orlais quickly became a persona that was twisted and blown out of proportion, completely separate from herself.
She gets it then.
Hawke is carrying around the weight of a separate entity with an embellished life of its own, and she has been made by nearly everyone in Thedas to wear its skin. Hawke is the Champion of Kirkwall in name only, and where Cassandra’s actions smoothly transitioned her from one revered title to another, Hawke was only ever vilified, and for what? Doing what she thought was right, what she thought was best?
Cassandra does not know how to say this, and she offers Hawke a simple and sincere yet, in the scheme of the conversation, flimsy apology.
*
Hawke does eventually leave for the Western Approach, and Cassandra is not there when the Inquisitor arrives. Hawke is partially relieved; she won’t have to face any of Cass’ gruelling questions, but that also means that there is no one to listen to Hawke if she needs it.
Cassandra is back at Skyhold, and she is hard at work at her desk above the smithy, but she is not drafting reports. They’ve frustrated her far too many times and she hates the way she describes each and every event, so perhaps leaving the writing to Varric is just going to have to be best.
She is writing a letter, words she is certain must be said, but words she is unsure she can say to Hawke’s face. It is troubling her, perhaps worse than the reports, but the stake in this letter is much more personal, and require much more delicacy, when words and delicacy are not what comes easiest to Cassandra in the first place.
Cassandra swallows the lump in her throat, puts quill to parchment, and writes, “When I was young, my brother Anthony was murdered by blood mages, right in front of me.”
She explains her hatred of all mages, harbored for a long time after she lost him, probably far too long. And how it has been many years but it is still difficult for her to talk about. And that she cannot imagine what losing so many people she loves in a relatively short amount of time must be like, and especially for those losses to be as recent as they are, but she does understand loss, and she does understand the weight of a title that has nothing to do with her. She may not understand Hawke’s exact situation, but she can very easily empathize.
She leaves the letter among Hawke’s things where she knows, or hopes, that Hawke will find it and read it.
It is not beautifully written by any stretch of the imagination, and yet Hawke feels close to tears. Cassandra concludes, “There is nothing wrong with needing to feel like a normal person,” and that’s what sends Hawke over the edge. She holds the letter to her chest, and openly sobs.
*
The journey to Adamant is quiet, and it feels far too final for Cassandra to find actual comfort in. After all, Hawke—and by extension, Alistair—was brought in to help with the Wardens, and this is going to be the battle where they will put down the possessed Wardens and their demon army once and for all. Hawke’s current role in the Inquisition is coming to an end, and that bothers Cassandra more than she can say—more than she is willing to admit.
They end up marching next to each other at some point, and Hawke’s shoulder brushes Cass’ arm, and she lets it. She wants Cass to talk, to say anything at all, even to ask one of her impossible questions, but maybe she’s quiet because she finally understands. Hawke isn’t planning on telling Cassandra, but she has her letter, the shorter, more recent one, tucked inside her armor over her chest. She wants it with her, just in case. Her heart beats faster when she thinks about the letter, when she thinks about the notion of someone finally getting it, with the notion of that person being Cassandra. Cassandra Pentaghast, who devoted a small but significant portion of her life to finding Hawke, who put all the world had said of Hawke aside in order to entrust a fledgling Inquisition to her, who listened to her, and who always strived to understand.
“Cassandra,” Hawke says suddenly, surprising herself even.
“Yes, Hawke?”
“I trust you.”
Cassandra gives Hawke her thanks, but her face is reddening, and she’s afraid to admit she actually doesn’t know what Hawke meant by saying that. Obviously Hawke trusts her, why else would she be so open with her insecurities? Maybe Hawke just felt she needed to say it out loud, and that was a comfort to her. Or was she perhaps…?
Cassandra adds, “I trust you, too, Hawke.”
Hawke smiles warmly, her gaze on Cassandra’s face steady as Cassandra continues to look straight forward, eyes on the horizon, on their destination. It is hardly the time or the place, but Hawke thinks Cassandra looks beautiful, striking, and she thinks she could spend an eternity just looking at Cassandra. Hawke tells herself that no matter what happens that day or after, she wants Cassandra in her life.
The warmth of the thought sticks in her stomach and radiates to her chest and limbs, and though she looks away from Cassandra and toward the horizon, the smile stays.
*
The thing about plans, at least with Hawke, is that the moment she resolves to do something, to make something right or do something good, something else inevitably goes wrong. For example, ending the Qunari Invasion? It’s a relatively simple task stripped down to bare bones, but then there’s also the death of the viscount that tosses Kirkwall into a special kind of hell even after the qunari leave. Once Hawke resolves to save the city from the horned threat, the horned threat creates a new beast of a problem to tackle. And once Hawke accepts the warmth she feels for Cassandra, the need to talk to her about anything and everything, the genuine happiness she feels when spending time with Cassandra, and resolves to act on that, she and the others in the party fall headfirst into a fade rift. And she and the others are staring the Nightmare in the face as it blocks their path to freedom.
“Go,” Hawke says, swallowing hard. “I’ll cover you.”
The Inquisitor’s head turns first, then Alistair’s. The rest of the party is behind the three of them, and for that, Hawke is grateful. She could not stand to look Cassandra and Varric in the eyes knowing that she was basically asking to be left for dead.
Alistair replies, “No, you were right. The Grey Wardens caused this. A Warden must—”
Hawke interrupts, “A Warden must help them rebuild. That’s your job!”
Cassandra feels her heart sink in her chest, and she whispers Hawke’s name on a broken exhale, hoping she isn’t serious about asking to be left behind. She doesn’t think Hawke hears, until Hawke tightens the grip on her daggers and looks over her shoulder at Cassandra.
There is a softness to Hawke’s eyes, a softness that looks like sorrow. “I can save you all,” Hawke says. She knows Cassandra will understand.
Varric cuts in, saying, “You’ve saved a lot of people already, Hawke. You don’t need to do this.” Cassandra notices the pain in Varric’s expression, then, how the crease between his brows and the way his jaw is tightened mirrors the pain on her own face.
Hawke’s lungs feel ragged, like she hasn’t been able to breathe, and there is a part of her that wants nothing more in that moment than for Cassandra and Varric to move on without her, to do as her other friends did when she left Kirkwall so many months ago: build and rebuild their lives, become too busy to write. It hurts but Hawke understands it, and she convinces herself that may be best for everyone.
But there is a part of her that is screaming to stay alive, a part of her that sounds like all the voices of anyone she has ever loved, and she wonders if it makes her weak that she isn’t completely ready to die in the Fade, killing the Nightmare so that everyone else may live.
The Inquisitor looks at the Nightmare, eyes hard with fear and firmly says, “Alistair….”
Alistair nods quickly, straightening his back. “Right. Good luck. I’ll keep it off you.”
He follows through. Hawke isn’t sure if it’s the Fade distorting her memories or if it actually happened, but she swears she and Cassandra gripped each other’s hands tightly as they escaped the Nightmare’s realm.
*
Hawke promises to go right to Weisshaupt with the Wardens, just after she gathers her things from Skyhold and ties up one loose end.
Cassandra is sitting at her table above the smithy, and this time she is reading. Hawke hopes that it isn’t—but of course it is. “Reading that bullshit again, are we?” Hawke jokes, pulling the second chair out for herself, gesturing towards the copy of The Tale of the Champion in Cassandra’s hands.
“It is still a well-written story,” Cassandra says in her own defense. “Even if it is nothing like the truth.”
Hawke breathes a light laugh, and Cassandra closes the book and places it aside. For a moment, neither one says anything, but they each hold the other’s gaze. Hawke, finally, breaks this silence, saying softly, “I wanted to thank you...for spending time with me and talking to me during my time with the Inquisition. I did not expect that warmth and kindness on your part.”
Cassandra knows that Hawke is leaving soon, but the finality truly strikes her now that Hawke is speaking so fondly of their time together, though Cassandra does wonder a bit why Hawke enjoyed speaking with her when Hawke ended up either angry or sad by the end. Catharsis, Cassandra concludes, perhaps a way for Hawke to sort through her feelings when she cannot with others. She finds herself admitting, “I wish you could stay, Hawke.”
It surprises Hawke to hear this. It makes sense to her that she would feel warmly about Cassandra, who seems a blessing on legs to a broken Champion that just wants to be human, but Hawke does not consider or even recognize that there could be a vice versa, a benefit the other way. “Have you...really enjoyed our time together as well?” Hawke asks, her voice soft, hopeful, and perhaps most notably, serious.
Cassandra’s eyes fall on the book, and she curses Varric for exaggerating Hawke as he had. She answers, “I have told you before that I have never met anyone like you, and that is true. Even the Champion that Varric wrote is so different from who you actually are, and I have enjoyed getting to know the real Hawke.” She pauses a moment, fixing her gloves and considering what else she would like to say. “For what it’s worth, I do believe you would have made a good Inquisitor. I believe that you and I would have worked together very well. And I know that may not be a comfort for you to hear, but I mean it when I say that I think very highly of you, Hawke. Truly, I admire you.”
There is a feeling deep in Hawke’s chest, under and slightly behind her heart, that feels like melting, but not like the melting of ice. It is warm, but it spreads with a pleasant heat around her heart and through her chest as a fluttering rises from the pit of her stomach. She smiles, at first with just the corners of her lips, and as she blushes, her teeth show, and she looks away from Cassandra. Hawke laughs, “Cass, I….” and lets herself trail off.
Cassandra blushes as well, and admits, “No one has...ever called me that before. I think...I think I like it.”
They share another soft gaze over the desk, and a sense of purpose overwhelms Hawke. In the next moment, she stands, walking over to Cass’ side of the table. Cassandra stands as well, thinking Hawke means to lead her somewhere, but Hawke instead takes each of Cass’ hands in hers, stretches up slightly on her toes, and leaves a light kiss on Cassandra’s cheek. Hawke looks out the window behind Cassandra immediately after, so she feels rather than sees the way one of Cass’ hands leave hers to touch her fingers to the place where Hawke’s lips had just been. Hawke’s eyes scan the ocean of stars that lie just outside the window, and she steels herself for one final admission before she leaves Skyhold for the last time.
“I admire you, too, and more than I can say,” Hawke says. “And I would not ever have admitted this before now, but I have never felt more at peace than when I’m telling you things I can’t tell anyone else. You—talking to you feels like solace, and if that is not enough, I’m constantly in awe of your strength and beauty. Cass, I...I want you to know that I was ready to die for you in the Fade. For all of you. But before that, during the march to Adamant, I was ready to do whatever it took to have you in my life in some way for the foreseeable future. I‘ve never been understood so clearly before as you understand me, and I’ve never met anyone who wants to understand another person as much as you do, and maybe that’s because you devoted your life to finding me before you ever actually knew me, but regardless, I....there are many aspects about you that are admirable, Cass, and I’m afraid I’m just barely scratching the surface of what those things are.”
Cassandra hears all of this, and she knows a whole range of emotions play on her face while Hawke speaks, but what strikes Cassandra most is how earnest Hawke sounds. Hawke’s voice is low, quiet, like she is conscious—for once—of the people downstairs, like this conversation is meant truly for Cassandra’s ears only, not like a general frustration that was meant for anyone who prodded deep enough. Hawke speaks with reverence, with honesty, and the wistful look on her face says almost just as much as her words.
“I am going to miss you, Hawke,” Cassandra says, and her voice is just as soft, just as quiet, and there is just a hint of something Hawke has never heard in Cass’ voice before, something youthful and light. She squeezes Hawke’s hand, and Hawke squeezes back. Cassandra leans down this time, but her kiss finds Hawke’s lips, and she is certain this does more for both of them than any of her words could. Hawke’s free hand touches the curve of Cassandra’s neck first, then Cassandra’s face.
When they part, noses still touching, Hawke asks, “Will you visit me when I return to Kirkwall?”
Cassandra nods, smiling, “Of course, Hawke. Do you want me to write you while you are at Weisshaupt?”
Hawke replies, “Please,” so quietly she mouths it more than she says it. With one final kiss, they part ways, and they each keep their word and correspond as regularly as possible given that Hawke is in the Maker-forsaken Anderfels of all places.
Until, of course, all word from Weisshaupt ceases entirely.