Sincerely, A Sloth Demon

wild-fangirl:

She wants me to tell her a story.

Not just any story, of course. This story. This convoluted, complicated, multi-faceted, more-layers-than-an-onion tale about mages and monsters and templars and tyrants, about the lonely and the displaced and the angry and the helpess, about rises to power and falls from grace…

I know the Seeker’s time is not to be wasted, and I know what she’s looking for. But my fingers drift across each of their pictures in turn, and I see them as clear as day — Isabela pelting after Fenris with a wet rag on the Wounded Coast, Anders trying to stifle an involuntary grin as Merrill performs her best kitten impersonation to smooth the lines from his forehead, Aveline huffing in exasperation because I’ve made another sly dig about her and that upstanding guardsman of hers…

I don’t see Hawke anymore.
Because I’m no longer sure who Hawke is, or was, or if Hawke ever was. Neither was Merrill, last time I saw her — poor Daisy thinks she made the Champion up all by herself. Fenris mutters about mages and subsides, and it’s bottoms-up with the bottle. Anders… well. I don’t know what to say about poor Anders anymore. Even the strongest men can only lose but so much before they start crumbling.
Hawke kept us together, I know that much. Hawke pushed us to our limits, opened our eyes, dried our tears, kept our senses of black humour well-oiled. Hawke was all of us… or none of us, but something vital that all of us required…

But I cannot tell the Seeker any of that.
It’s a Champion she’s looking for. It’s a Champion I must give her.
And no matter who or what Hawke was… or wasn’t… Hawke’s story needs to be told, for all of our sakes, and since I am the only man who can do it…

I fold my hands over the page with their portraits, I look up at her with the easy smile of a sane man, and I begin. 

(via foxybcosplay)