Dawn of the Magic Age (fanfic)
I'm working on a fan fic that takes place directly after the events of DA2. I'm trying to work in as much lore as possible, but my friends either aren't DA fans or hate fan fic of any kind. That leaves me with no one to give me feedback, so I thought I'd start posting it here and see if people like it. Thanks for any feedback you can give me, complimentary or critical.
Title: Dawn of the Magic Age
Rating: M (violence and sex)
Characters: MaleRogueHawke/Anders, Carver/Merrill, Sebastian/???, the rest of Hawke's party later
Genre: Drama, Adventure, Romance
Status: Ongoing
Summary: The war in Kirkwall has set forth a drastic ripple effect across all of Thedas. The faith, politics and energies of the entire continent are changing, and Hawke's crew finds themselves yet again in the middle of a war they had no intention of causing, this time with a leader none of them ever expected.
A few notes before beginning.
I will try my best to be as canonically accurate as possible. I will be citing obscure texts from the games, but also summarizing them as well, so don't worry about having to do your own research. I will be ignoring the novels, anime and comics, however. There is just too much going on in them.
I am aware that Carver dies if Hawke is a rogue, but I am using authorial power to make this not true. It's very important to the story that Hawke NOT be a mage and that Carver be involved. Sorry Bethany.
There will be sex scenes in this story, but they will only go into detail if it's necessary. You have been warned.
***The Grand Cathedral***
"The prisoners have escaped!"
The panic that ensued was immediate and swarming. It was what everyone had feared since the attack in Kirkwall. The Grand Cathedral swelled with waves of people trying to flee, but something or someone was barring all the doors.
Divine Justinia V stood atop the red central staircase as her eyes darted around the building. She was waiting for the first strike; for the mages to begin torching the banners, crumbling the statues and murdering the inhabitants. She knew it was a bad idea to allow the Champion of Kirkwall and his apostate lover to stay locked up with the general population, and now she was paying the price for her mistake.
She had tried so hard to prevent this. When the Templars responded to the Mage Rebellions with equal parts blood and slurs she tried to stop them; all of them. Everyone used their version of Andraste's teachings as their sword or staff, however. The mages and their sympathizers cried out that magic could help man if their kind were just treated with respect and decency. Those who feared magic and even some mages who feared themselves cried that the term was "serve," and servitude did not involve the inherent, unfair advantage that all mages had, nor should it have excused their tendency to turn to blood magic.
It hurt to know the truth, but it was a pain Justinia had promised to bear until the day she died. She had kept the one secret that all Divines kept and she had guarded it with every part of her; as if she'd buried it so deep within herself that one would have to crack open her chest to read it etched in the bone there. It was such a highly-evolved lie, nurtured throughout time by an opposing mix of fear and good intentions. By the time she had risen to the position of Divine it was the entire basis of the Andrastian faith. They were no longer about devotion the Maker and goodwill towards all living things. They were no longer about charity and sacrifice. They had become the anti-mage force of Thedas; little more than an army with a pretty chant. Who were they if they were not the disciples of a martyr oppressed by the abuses of magic?
Justinia saw the crowd begin to part and waited for what she expected to be Anders at the forefront of an angry mob of mages, his skin crackling with possession as had been described to her in Sebastian's letters. No sooner had she thought of the prince then he was by her side, bow in hand and bright eyes searching the crowd for a target to shoot at.
Anders did indeed arrive, but he was not leading, nor was it a full-on rebellion. Instead he stood beside two women, one a petite Dalish bloodmage with a mousey demeanor that betrayed all her insecurities. The Champion of Kirkwall soon joined them and reunited them with their staffs before claiming to "borrow" a set of daggers from a fleeing Andrastian.
The woman who was actually leading them almost evaded Justinia's notice entirely. It was Sebastian's eyes which gave away her location and her importance. The Divine watched as Sebastian reached back to pinch an arrow, but she wasn't sure if his face and his posture denoted attacking her or protecting her.
The leader was tall, with unkempt blonde hair and muscular build that made it hard to believe she was a mage. This disbelief was quickly put to rest, however, when she used force magic to shove back those in her way. Justinia looked to Sebastian for answers, or at least protection, but found he was still extremely distracted and at war with his emotions.
Merrill sliced open her palm and froze the Templars who tried to rush in to defend the Divine. Hawke and Anders guarded the flank, Anders alternating between magic and the shear hitting force of his staff. Just as Merrill found herself growing weary from too much casting, Carver seemed to appear out of nowhere to shield her after blending in far too well with the other Templars. She was confused, but she didn't have time to ask any questions then. That would have to wait.
The leader continued her way through the crowd and Justinia waited patiently. Whatever happened would happen, and it would be the Maker's will. She gulped down the bitter taste of fear but kept her spine straight and refused to break eye contact, even if her mage adversary stood nearly a head above her when they were finally only a few feet apart.
"I will give you one last chance," the woman began to say, slowly and quietly, yet with a commanding voice that fought against the chaos behind her. The accent, however, what seemingly regionless. "You will tell these people the truth."
Justinia drew a terse and sharp breath in, but otherwise did not react. What was she supposed to do? This woman had found out one secret, probably in an ancient text somewhere, and now she had the audacity to believe that the truth was more important than the lives of everyone in Thedas. The Chantry did not take their lies of omission lightly, but it had been decided long ago that such information would be too easily misconstrued. It wasn't worth the inevitable and never-ending war just to have one detail of Andraste's story revealed to the public.
"Tell them!" the woman shouted, stilling the chaotic mob as well as her companions. She pointed the blade-end of her staff at Justinia."Tell them about your lies, about how you and those before you have perverted this faith into a tool for your own fear and bigotry. Tell them!" The woman leaned in closely and added, in a whisper that only Justinia and Sebastian could hear, "Or I will, how did you phrase it? Ah, yes, open you up and let the people read it etched on your bones."
"What manner of heresy is this?" the Divine demanded. The boundaries of blood magic were always being tested, and she would not at all have been surprised to learn that mind reading was a new talent of the maleficarum.
"Heresy?" the mage practically spit out. "This is all you do now? This is what your Chantry is for? You do not like the gifts the Maker bestows upon us; maybe it's fear, or envy, or both, I do not know, but you take your own insecurities and turn them on the blessed and called their practice of this divine ability heresy?"
Her Grace looked into the crowd and found one Templar still moving quietly toward her while the woman's hysterical ranting distracted her companions. He was close enough to make eye contact in a way that asked for permission to act. Justinia tried to answer without giving herself away, but her failure to do so was all too apparent when the angry woman turned and thrust the blade-end of her staff into the Templar's abdomen.
That moment was one of Her Grace's only opportunities to act, adrenaline humming in her veins as she pulled a small dagger out of her robe and lunged forward. It happened in rapid fragments: the woman trying to pull her staff out of bone and flesh and armor to defend against the knife that had been raised against her; Anders, Hawke and Merrill trying to help despite the men being too far away and Carver reaching out to hold the Dalish bloodmage back; and somewhere, in the mix of all this, a bowstring being pulled back and an arrow being launched.
In the crowd many hands flew up, some trying to contain shocked gasps, others shielding unbelieving eyes. No one moved for a moment, not even Divine Justinia V: the head of the Chantry for all Thedas, the White Divine, the mortal human whom Sebastian once believed spoke for the Maker and the prophet Andraste.
The woman he'd just killed.
Justinia touched the arrow in her chest before looking at Sebastian one last time. Had she the strength she would have asked him why, but she could already tell by the wild shock and confusion present in his eyes that he did not even know yet why he had betrayed the only thing he had left.
Her Grace fell to the floor, the red carpet darkening as the blood pooled around her body.
***One Month Before***
As Anders said they would, they ran. Not metaphorically, no, they pumped their legs and huffed out tired breaths for what seemed like weeks, afraid to stop while they could still see the smoke from Kirkwall's Chantry. When they finally did stop they slept on and off for almost two straight days, waking up with panicked fervor at every sound, shadow and bad dream.
When they had finally rested enough Hawke took out one of his daggers and began demonstrating to Anders the tricky art of shaving with one. He knew he couldn't get right up against his skin, but he figured anything to make them less recognizable would be best. Anders passed on the shave, but cut about two inches off his hair, giving himself a very ragged, uneven cut.
They hadn't really spoken the entire time they'd been running, and now that they had finally slept and the smoke was ignorably in the distance, Hawke made and awkward attempt at breaking the silence.
"I don't know which of us is more famous yet, or how far word has spread, but we need to figure out how to get new clothes."
Anders looked up, his face almost startled, as if he'd just realized Hawke was even with him. He opened his mouth to answer but nothing came out. Guilty eyes fell to the ground by Hawke's feet.
"No no, don't," Hawke pleaded as she slid his fingers under Anders' chin, "I understand, I do. Why you had to do this. No Viscount, a sadistic Knight Commander, Tranquil mages that passed their harrowings. Anders I understand. I'm with you."
Anders laced his fingers with Hawke's and he squeezed tight; tighter than Hawke was expecting and tighter than Hawke knew Anders was capable of. The mage kept taking in shaky breaths and trying to speak on his exhales, but it came out sounding like bitter laughter every time.
Finally, "I had to."
"I know," Hawke said.
"No, I had to. Not for the other mages, I had to because... something inside me had to." Anders pushed away from his lover and stumbled backward. "I don't even know what I, Anders, think or believe anymore. I don't know," he paused to stare down at his hands, "who this is."
Uselessness weighed down on Hawke so heavily that it pulled down his posture and numbed his mouth every time he tried to figure out how to comfort the only person he had left in his life. He thought he still had Carver, but despite his brother's willingness to help them fight the other Templars he was not willing to run off with them, electing instead to stay in Kirkwall. And Carver wasn't there in the Deep Roads. Carver didn't face down the man who carved up their mother. Caver didn't even seem to have his back during the Qunari invasion. No, that was all Anders.
Hawke had been trying for years to be Anders' comfort through distraction. Tension-breaking jokes were the rogue's specialty, and he'd churn them out for hours if it made Anders smile even once. His stockpiles of sarcasm and slapstick left him severely lacking when it came to thoughtfulness in dire situations, however. There was no question that he loved Anders, but he always felt incredibly awkward expressing it. He was, at best, good for one line of serious dialogue per conversation. Once Anders responded with a question or an argument, Hawke reverted to jokes. A lot of the time he resorted to using sex to communicate anything, letting his body describe how much Anders meant to him.
Lacking any other options, Hawke did just that. He wordlessly acquainted himself with Anders' new hair and leaned in to brush his lips against the mage's cheekbone, just under his eye. Anders sighed and calmed down a bit, tilting his chin up to kiss his slightly taller lover.
Their blankets were still rolled out from the night before, and they fell diagonally across them in a way that made Hawke laugh. Anders was less amused, but when he heard that mirthful sound he slid his eyes closed and held on to it like it was the only tether he had to reality.
They didn't have the energy for much, so they just pushed aside the clothing that was in their way and reached between themselves; coaxing and moaning and letting go of the world for a moment. Afterward they cleaned up at a nearby river, refilled their water canisters and gazed unknowingly at the sky.
Anders seemed to ponder something for a moment before finally grabbing his staff and heading very deliberately in what Hawke thought was just some random direction.
"Where are we going?" he finally asked.
"Orlais," Anders said.
"Why Orlais? Anders when I said we needed new clothes I didn't mean we needed new, expensive, ugly clothes."
"We're going to the Grand Cathedral."
"What? Why?"
Anders stopped and rested his body against his staff. He didn't look back at Hawke. "I don't know. I guess we'll find out when we get there."
Title: Dawn of the Magic Age
Rating: M (violence and sex)
Characters: MaleRogueHawke/Anders, Carver/Merrill, Sebastian/???, the rest of Hawke's party later
Genre: Drama, Adventure, Romance
Status: Ongoing
Summary: The war in Kirkwall has set forth a drastic ripple effect across all of Thedas. The faith, politics and energies of the entire continent are changing, and Hawke's crew finds themselves yet again in the middle of a war they had no intention of causing, this time with a leader none of them ever expected.
A few notes before beginning.
I will try my best to be as canonically accurate as possible. I will be citing obscure texts from the games, but also summarizing them as well, so don't worry about having to do your own research. I will be ignoring the novels, anime and comics, however. There is just too much going on in them.
I am aware that Carver dies if Hawke is a rogue, but I am using authorial power to make this not true. It's very important to the story that Hawke NOT be a mage and that Carver be involved. Sorry Bethany.
There will be sex scenes in this story, but they will only go into detail if it's necessary. You have been warned.
***The Grand Cathedral***
"The prisoners have escaped!"
The panic that ensued was immediate and swarming. It was what everyone had feared since the attack in Kirkwall. The Grand Cathedral swelled with waves of people trying to flee, but something or someone was barring all the doors.
Divine Justinia V stood atop the red central staircase as her eyes darted around the building. She was waiting for the first strike; for the mages to begin torching the banners, crumbling the statues and murdering the inhabitants. She knew it was a bad idea to allow the Champion of Kirkwall and his apostate lover to stay locked up with the general population, and now she was paying the price for her mistake.
She had tried so hard to prevent this. When the Templars responded to the Mage Rebellions with equal parts blood and slurs she tried to stop them; all of them. Everyone used their version of Andraste's teachings as their sword or staff, however. The mages and their sympathizers cried out that magic could help man if their kind were just treated with respect and decency. Those who feared magic and even some mages who feared themselves cried that the term was "serve," and servitude did not involve the inherent, unfair advantage that all mages had, nor should it have excused their tendency to turn to blood magic.
It hurt to know the truth, but it was a pain Justinia had promised to bear until the day she died. She had kept the one secret that all Divines kept and she had guarded it with every part of her; as if she'd buried it so deep within herself that one would have to crack open her chest to read it etched in the bone there. It was such a highly-evolved lie, nurtured throughout time by an opposing mix of fear and good intentions. By the time she had risen to the position of Divine it was the entire basis of the Andrastian faith. They were no longer about devotion the Maker and goodwill towards all living things. They were no longer about charity and sacrifice. They had become the anti-mage force of Thedas; little more than an army with a pretty chant. Who were they if they were not the disciples of a martyr oppressed by the abuses of magic?
Justinia saw the crowd begin to part and waited for what she expected to be Anders at the forefront of an angry mob of mages, his skin crackling with possession as had been described to her in Sebastian's letters. No sooner had she thought of the prince then he was by her side, bow in hand and bright eyes searching the crowd for a target to shoot at.
Anders did indeed arrive, but he was not leading, nor was it a full-on rebellion. Instead he stood beside two women, one a petite Dalish bloodmage with a mousey demeanor that betrayed all her insecurities. The Champion of Kirkwall soon joined them and reunited them with their staffs before claiming to "borrow" a set of daggers from a fleeing Andrastian.
The woman who was actually leading them almost evaded Justinia's notice entirely. It was Sebastian's eyes which gave away her location and her importance. The Divine watched as Sebastian reached back to pinch an arrow, but she wasn't sure if his face and his posture denoted attacking her or protecting her.
The leader was tall, with unkempt blonde hair and muscular build that made it hard to believe she was a mage. This disbelief was quickly put to rest, however, when she used force magic to shove back those in her way. Justinia looked to Sebastian for answers, or at least protection, but found he was still extremely distracted and at war with his emotions.
Merrill sliced open her palm and froze the Templars who tried to rush in to defend the Divine. Hawke and Anders guarded the flank, Anders alternating between magic and the shear hitting force of his staff. Just as Merrill found herself growing weary from too much casting, Carver seemed to appear out of nowhere to shield her after blending in far too well with the other Templars. She was confused, but she didn't have time to ask any questions then. That would have to wait.
The leader continued her way through the crowd and Justinia waited patiently. Whatever happened would happen, and it would be the Maker's will. She gulped down the bitter taste of fear but kept her spine straight and refused to break eye contact, even if her mage adversary stood nearly a head above her when they were finally only a few feet apart.
"I will give you one last chance," the woman began to say, slowly and quietly, yet with a commanding voice that fought against the chaos behind her. The accent, however, what seemingly regionless. "You will tell these people the truth."
Justinia drew a terse and sharp breath in, but otherwise did not react. What was she supposed to do? This woman had found out one secret, probably in an ancient text somewhere, and now she had the audacity to believe that the truth was more important than the lives of everyone in Thedas. The Chantry did not take their lies of omission lightly, but it had been decided long ago that such information would be too easily misconstrued. It wasn't worth the inevitable and never-ending war just to have one detail of Andraste's story revealed to the public.
"Tell them!" the woman shouted, stilling the chaotic mob as well as her companions. She pointed the blade-end of her staff at Justinia."Tell them about your lies, about how you and those before you have perverted this faith into a tool for your own fear and bigotry. Tell them!" The woman leaned in closely and added, in a whisper that only Justinia and Sebastian could hear, "Or I will, how did you phrase it? Ah, yes, open you up and let the people read it etched on your bones."
"What manner of heresy is this?" the Divine demanded. The boundaries of blood magic were always being tested, and she would not at all have been surprised to learn that mind reading was a new talent of the maleficarum.
"Heresy?" the mage practically spit out. "This is all you do now? This is what your Chantry is for? You do not like the gifts the Maker bestows upon us; maybe it's fear, or envy, or both, I do not know, but you take your own insecurities and turn them on the blessed and called their practice of this divine ability heresy?"
Her Grace looked into the crowd and found one Templar still moving quietly toward her while the woman's hysterical ranting distracted her companions. He was close enough to make eye contact in a way that asked for permission to act. Justinia tried to answer without giving herself away, but her failure to do so was all too apparent when the angry woman turned and thrust the blade-end of her staff into the Templar's abdomen.
That moment was one of Her Grace's only opportunities to act, adrenaline humming in her veins as she pulled a small dagger out of her robe and lunged forward. It happened in rapid fragments: the woman trying to pull her staff out of bone and flesh and armor to defend against the knife that had been raised against her; Anders, Hawke and Merrill trying to help despite the men being too far away and Carver reaching out to hold the Dalish bloodmage back; and somewhere, in the mix of all this, a bowstring being pulled back and an arrow being launched.
In the crowd many hands flew up, some trying to contain shocked gasps, others shielding unbelieving eyes. No one moved for a moment, not even Divine Justinia V: the head of the Chantry for all Thedas, the White Divine, the mortal human whom Sebastian once believed spoke for the Maker and the prophet Andraste.
The woman he'd just killed.
Justinia touched the arrow in her chest before looking at Sebastian one last time. Had she the strength she would have asked him why, but she could already tell by the wild shock and confusion present in his eyes that he did not even know yet why he had betrayed the only thing he had left.
Her Grace fell to the floor, the red carpet darkening as the blood pooled around her body.
***One Month Before***
As Anders said they would, they ran. Not metaphorically, no, they pumped their legs and huffed out tired breaths for what seemed like weeks, afraid to stop while they could still see the smoke from Kirkwall's Chantry. When they finally did stop they slept on and off for almost two straight days, waking up with panicked fervor at every sound, shadow and bad dream.
When they had finally rested enough Hawke took out one of his daggers and began demonstrating to Anders the tricky art of shaving with one. He knew he couldn't get right up against his skin, but he figured anything to make them less recognizable would be best. Anders passed on the shave, but cut about two inches off his hair, giving himself a very ragged, uneven cut.
They hadn't really spoken the entire time they'd been running, and now that they had finally slept and the smoke was ignorably in the distance, Hawke made and awkward attempt at breaking the silence.
"I don't know which of us is more famous yet, or how far word has spread, but we need to figure out how to get new clothes."
Anders looked up, his face almost startled, as if he'd just realized Hawke was even with him. He opened his mouth to answer but nothing came out. Guilty eyes fell to the ground by Hawke's feet.
"No no, don't," Hawke pleaded as she slid his fingers under Anders' chin, "I understand, I do. Why you had to do this. No Viscount, a sadistic Knight Commander, Tranquil mages that passed their harrowings. Anders I understand. I'm with you."
Anders laced his fingers with Hawke's and he squeezed tight; tighter than Hawke was expecting and tighter than Hawke knew Anders was capable of. The mage kept taking in shaky breaths and trying to speak on his exhales, but it came out sounding like bitter laughter every time.
Finally, "I had to."
"I know," Hawke said.
"No, I had to. Not for the other mages, I had to because... something inside me had to." Anders pushed away from his lover and stumbled backward. "I don't even know what I, Anders, think or believe anymore. I don't know," he paused to stare down at his hands, "who this is."
Uselessness weighed down on Hawke so heavily that it pulled down his posture and numbed his mouth every time he tried to figure out how to comfort the only person he had left in his life. He thought he still had Carver, but despite his brother's willingness to help them fight the other Templars he was not willing to run off with them, electing instead to stay in Kirkwall. And Carver wasn't there in the Deep Roads. Carver didn't face down the man who carved up their mother. Caver didn't even seem to have his back during the Qunari invasion. No, that was all Anders.
Hawke had been trying for years to be Anders' comfort through distraction. Tension-breaking jokes were the rogue's specialty, and he'd churn them out for hours if it made Anders smile even once. His stockpiles of sarcasm and slapstick left him severely lacking when it came to thoughtfulness in dire situations, however. There was no question that he loved Anders, but he always felt incredibly awkward expressing it. He was, at best, good for one line of serious dialogue per conversation. Once Anders responded with a question or an argument, Hawke reverted to jokes. A lot of the time he resorted to using sex to communicate anything, letting his body describe how much Anders meant to him.
Lacking any other options, Hawke did just that. He wordlessly acquainted himself with Anders' new hair and leaned in to brush his lips against the mage's cheekbone, just under his eye. Anders sighed and calmed down a bit, tilting his chin up to kiss his slightly taller lover.
Their blankets were still rolled out from the night before, and they fell diagonally across them in a way that made Hawke laugh. Anders was less amused, but when he heard that mirthful sound he slid his eyes closed and held on to it like it was the only tether he had to reality.
They didn't have the energy for much, so they just pushed aside the clothing that was in their way and reached between themselves; coaxing and moaning and letting go of the world for a moment. Afterward they cleaned up at a nearby river, refilled their water canisters and gazed unknowingly at the sky.
Anders seemed to ponder something for a moment before finally grabbing his staff and heading very deliberately in what Hawke thought was just some random direction.
"Where are we going?" he finally asked.
"Orlais," Anders said.
"Why Orlais? Anders when I said we needed new clothes I didn't mean we needed new, expensive, ugly clothes."
"We're going to the Grand Cathedral."
"What? Why?"
Anders stopped and rested his body against his staff. He didn't look back at Hawke. "I don't know. I guess we'll find out when we get there."