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The City of Kirkwall was a cloud of fire and dust in the distance, glowing almost as brilliantly as the gleaming golden sun that hung low and heavy behind it like a perfectly-crafted backdrop setting the stage for a magnificent tragedy.
The city itself would endure; Its wounds would heal over time as they always had. Anders had not sought to destroy Kirkwall, only to wound its oppressive atmosphere, only to send a message that, for once, might be heard loud and clear and without reservation throughout the rest of the world, a message to give voice to the voiceless, to give credence to a thousand years of unheeded protests, broken families, and ruined lives, to give credence to all those who came before him and all those who might come after, those who believed that change was necessary.
Garrett Hawke stood on a shallow, grassy ledge somewhere deep in the hills beyond Kirkwall, surveying the breadth of the horizon for as far as he could see. The city had been in a complete state of uproar when he had fled, though most of that was due to riots and infighting. The actual, physical destruction Anders had caused was minimal, except to the Chantry and its immediate surroundings, but it had dealt a much more powerful blow to the unrest itself—it had been a catalyst to turn all of the potential chaos building within the city into acting on the convictions that were already burning within the majority of Kirkwall’s unhappy populace.
Beside him, seated on a large, dirty boulder, was Anders. His hands were folded neatly atop his feathered pauldrons, attached to the mantle that was currently spread out across his knees. His tan coat and undertunic were dusty from the road and soaked through with sweat, his trousers torn and threadbare in several places, and his boots had clearly seen better days, but he was there, and he was whole, and he had Hawke, and that was all that mattered.
Hawke’s gaze remained on the horizon, but his hand found the top of Anders’ head with an almost effortless familiarity, and his rough, calloused, battle-worn fingers brushed through the tangled mess of dirty blond hair with a sense of comforting intimacy. Anders leaned into the touch, tilting his head and pressing the side of his cheek and jaw against the curve of Garrett’s hip, sighing with the weight of everything he’d experienced over the last six years pressing down on his worn, weary spirit.
“Are you sure about this?” Anders asked quietly, resolutely. “It might not be too late to change your mind. You don’t have to give up everything for my sake.”
“I’m not doing it for you,” Hawke answered immediately, without hesitation.
Anders pulled away, a slightly bemused expression clouding his gaze as he tipped his head back and looked up at Hawke, whose eyes still remained focused out in the distance.
“Hawke, I—” Anders faltered, the color rising in his cheeks as he pushed himself up from his cold stone seat, his feathered mantle tumbling from his lap.
Garrett finally turned his head, and looked at Anders, whose lips were trembling from the force of the ache in his heart that he couldn’t quite express in words.
Anders tried to avert his eyes, to look up at the sky or down at the ground or anywhere else but directly at Hawke, but Garrett reached out and took Anders’ face between his firm, gentle hands, with one large, warm palm pressing against each of his scruffy, raw, stubble-covered cheeks.
And when he was satisfied that he had Anders’ full attention and that he couldn’t look away, Garrett kissed him.
When it was over, and Anders’ pained expression had softened, Hawke tipped his forehead down, making their noses bump together, a tiny, fond little gesture that never failed to bring at least a hint of a smile to Anders’ lips.
As always, it worked like a charm.
“I’m doing it for us,” Garrett grinned in response, as if it were the most natural, most obvious thing in the world.
And suddenly, for Anders, it was.