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Look, seeker, if you love a character, you give them pain, ruin their lives, make them suffer. Maybe even throw in a heroic death.
Steel and flaming swords.
“I won’t let them hurt you, Hawke. Bianca’s ready and willing.”
Steel and flaming swords. Misery drew soundlessly closer.
There were templars, Hawke knew. Somehow she knew it - heard the rattle of their armor - heard the screams as they died. These were not Cullens. These were a lynch mob. They had come for her, and Varric...
“Please, Hawke, you can fight this.” The dwarf called to her full of questions. Begged her. And still the magic flowed out of her veins...
The terror at the back of her mind, gnawing through her consciousness, had finally reached control.
“Leave the dwarf be, lay down your arms, and I will spare you.” A voice - not hers - moved through her lips; her tongue formed the words. “I care only for the safety of the storyteller.”
There was more blood. Templars do not surrender to abominations. They only kill. She would be killed, but not by the Nightmare. By the rescue. By the demon of despair that had always hidden in plain sight: Misery.
Varric: “Why me?” A question founded in combat. Confusion. Fear.
“You taste of despair, child of the stone. I would not see the templars rob me of your anguish.”
“ My despair? I’m the happiest person I know.” His voice was lifeless. He knew.
And Hawke knew. She could only faintly remember his face through the darkness, but he was tired now. He had lost Kirkwall. He had lost Bianca. He had lost Hawke.
Don’t let the story end this way.
And the bolt hit her in the center of the chest. The story couldn’t end, wouldn’t end. It had never even been written. The demon withdrew to the Fade, and Hawke was left in blood and steel and tears.
“Tell me a story,” Hawke whispered with the only breath she could find.
“No more stories,” Varric said -- because there were no more stories; Hawke had never made it out of the Fade. Heroes die in sacrifice, not surrounded by death.
A drop of water touched Hawke’s forehead as his hands circled her. Someone needed to fix the leaky ceiling.
“Fine. I’ll tell it, then. Did I ever tell you that I lo…?” The sarcasm faded from her lips and the smile faded from her eyes. There were no more tales to tell.
Most of my stories end in tragedy. I’m sure that says something unfortunate about me personally.