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“...And those whose stories will never be forgotten. The Veilguard remains vigilant.”
As Rook read the final page she was struck with the feeling of surrealness. It may not have been exactly what she was imagining it would be, but then again, she hadn’t even expected to escape the final confrontation with her life, let alone to sit in the Lighthouse with the story, her story, lying in her hands in the form of ink and parchment. It was extraordinary.
However, it would be wrong to pretend there weren’t some things about it that she found… odd. It wasn’t that Rook was expecting the book to be completely accurate to what had happened, for the sake of a coherent, enjoyable story, if nothing else. Add a pause for dramatic effect here, move a mission around for better pacing there, rewrite every fight to make it sound like Rook hadn’t been running around in circles trying desperately not to die. That sort of thing was always going to need to be embellished.
Hm, embellished. Knitted out of whole cloth, more like.
Contrary to the book in her lap, Rook wasn’t completely obtuse. She knew some things couldn’t be in the book. That became clear from the moment the final battle ended and everybody had an opinion on what should or should not be mentioned, Rook herself included. And logically, the dwarven woman knew that meant that some things would need to be invented to take their places. Perhaps it was her mistake to assume that which was invented would be at least somewhat grounded in reality. Knowing her author like she did, perhaps she should’ve seen this coming.
Said author must’ve known she'd been close to the end, as he’d begun busying himself around the main room of the Lighthouse not twenty minutes earlier. She wasn’t the only one to receive a copy of the draft; Bellara had been very excited about the whole thing, and she knew Emmrich and Neve both had copies as well. But their names weren’t in the title, and though he’d still listen to their critiques, Rook knew that ultimately hers was the approval he was really after.
And that was the problem. She wasn’t sure if she could give it to him. And she had no idea how to tell him that.
Fortunately for the Grey Warden, she didn’t have to, as Bellara came bounding into the room, face puffy and eyes red. She’d finished it too, then.
“There you are! I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” She dashed over to the dwarven man with great purpose and pinched him on the shoulder. Seemingly, this was enough of an answer to the inevitable question anyone reading the draft was going to ask themselves, so she threw her arms around him with full force.
“I loved it! I-”
“Ow! Punctured lung, Sunflower, mind the punctured lung!”
“Oh, no, no, no! I’m so sorry! Let me look at you, make sure that nothing’s- no, better, I’ll get someone better at healing magic, Neve, or Ha-”
“It’s fine, Sunflower. Just… hug from the side.”
She ceased her fussing and gave him a soft smile. “Ok.” The elven woman did as he recommended, wrapping her arms around him lightly, before gently tugging him to the couch beside Rook, and checking to make sure his injuries were still alright.
“So, you liked the book?”
“I loved the book!” Any hesitation Bellara may have had after potentially setting their friends' recovery back several months was entirely forgotten at the chance to ramble endlessly about something that made her excited. “Seriously, the way you write is so brilliant! Oh! And Weisshaupt! Weisshaupt was my absolute favorite! Er, well, that or the ending. I cried so much during those last few chapters, it was amazing!”
But throughout all of Bellara’s praise, Rook could feel the storyteller's eyes on her, watching her closely, probably trying to gauge if she felt similarly.
“You hated it.” Well, shit. More than ‘trying’ then. Maybe she really was as oblivious as the book made her seem?
“I wouldn’t go that far. I cried through that ending, too. And I thought you made us all seem like sweet, upstanding, well-adjusted people, who have most certainly never been thrown into a Tevinter prison.” She said with a hint of a knowing smile on her face.
“You’re welcome.”
“And I thought it felt epic and adventurous, like the kind of tale that’ll be told to children for ages to come about the legendary heroes who saved the world from the evil blighted Evanuris. Which is perfect, of course.”
“But…”
“Well, I just thought… And, I mean, I wasn’t thinking this was gonna be completely truthful about everything, but there was one plotline in particular that seemed very…” She trailed off, willing him to just understand what she was saying.
“Now Rook, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” But his trademark smirk and the mischievous look in his eyes said otherwise.
“Varric, you killed yourself off!”
The glint in his eyes and his shit-eating grin both grew tenfold. “Come on, you have to admit, you didn’t see that one coming.”
“Oh, I absolutely did not!” Bellara chimed in. “I mean, I thought it was strange that you were awake, but always by yourself, and I was planning to ask you with all the picnics and the hiking and the cooking why you never joined in- but then the twist came and you were dead and it was great!” She paused, and then realized. “No! Not like that! Not great that you were dead, but great that it made me cry! But crying in a good way, I mean.”
“Aw, Sunflower.” Varric was not the kind of man who ever wanted to see his friends distraught, unless, of course, said distress was caused by his own pen. Rook could tell behind the sympathy in his eyes that he was reveling in the victory of a successful twist. “I’d apologize, but that’s actually exactly what I was going for. And I appreciate that someone was saddened by the idea of my death.” He said as he turned his attention back to the warrior.
“I just think it's a little…” Rook paused. Above all else, Varric was a good friend and a brilliant storyteller. She didn’t want to shoot down or completely dismiss his writing out of hand; it would crush him, and more importantly, it wouldn’t help. “...uncanny to think that I wouldn’t have figured out what was really going on.”
“But that’s the point; you couldn’t face what was really going on. And the only way to escape the prison was to face your regrets head on.”
“Yes, that part I understand because I lived it.” Varric clearly had been quite enchanted with the idea of a regret prison. Conceptually, it was a writer's dream. He’d asked lots of questions, how it worked, what it looked like, how to best convey its atmosphere. And apparently, he’d become so infatuated with the idea of his fictional marvel, he forgot it was a real nightmare Rook had to live through. “Where I’m confused is how could we have worked for eight months together and somehow it never came up? Did none of my friends ever check in on me?!”
“Oh! I had an idea about that!” Bellara piped in. “Fen’Harel- er, Solas, is manipulating Rook through blood magic, right? So, what if he’s also making it so that she can’t hear any mentions of your death?!”
“Hmm, that could work. And it’s simple, too. Just change the line in the prison from ‘they thought you knew’ to ‘they tried; you couldn’t hear.’” He pulled a quill and parchment from the pocket of his coat, and within seconds the Lighthouse supplied him with ink and a table to write on. One of the perks of living in the fade. “Good call, Sunflower.” Bellara beamed, and Varric started scribbling down the notes for draft two.
Rook, however, still wasn’t convinced. “But anyone who picked up the book will see that you wrote it!”
“Which is why no one will ever be able to see it coming! Come on, it’s genius!”
“Oh, by my ancestors, Varric, do you think I’m an idiot?!”
“What? No, of course not, kid!” He stopped writing quite abruptly at that, and looked up at his protege. Rook could see by the look in the viscount’s eyes that he was genuinely shocked she could’ve thought that. Varric made his friends out to be many things in his stories; complete fools was not one of them.
“Then how would I not have noticed?”
“Because I had to do something! What was I supposed to say!? Something had to be revealed in the prison. You didn’t want that reveal to be the truth, did you?”
“No, but you don’t even act like you! How would I not have realized that some thing that doesn’t tell stories, and doesn’t complain, and was never sarcastic or witty, wasn’t you!? You made it seem like I never even knew you!”
“Um, not to interrupt, but do either of you have any idea how this is happening?” Bellara’s interjection came with thinly veiled concern as her eyes darted around wildly.
The Lighthouse was hardly predictable. With it being situated in the fade, there were strange things happening there all the time. Rooms would show up where there hadn’t been doors before, branches would move themselves aside to show a completely new wing. But this was unlike anything Rook had seen since they’d arrived.
First, the colors seemed to be fading from all around them. The Warden decor and the jewel-toned couches had all turned into shades of grey. And it wasn’t just the walls and the furniture, the elf and the two dwarves were beginning to fade into grey tones, too. But there was hardly any time to worry about that when the building was beginning to shake. It was like an earthquake spell, but instead of knocking down a few enemies, entire statues at the Lighthouse were beginning to collapse. The fortress seemed to be destroying itself from the inside out.
Only something truly powerful could affect the hideout of the dread wolf in this way. Rook didn’t know what it could be. But by the way the dwarfs' brows furrowed with concern, it seemed Varric did.
“Sunflower, you didn’t give your copy to anyone else, did you?”
“Oh, yes! Hawke wanted to read it, of course! So I gave it to her right after I finished…” Bellara’s eyes grew wide with panic. Varric let out a deep sigh.
“Well… shit.”
*****
The truth was that Varric had yet to figure out how he was going to handle Hawke reading ‘The Book of the Red Rook.’ She would have to read it, of course. She had been the editor of all his books since ‘Hard in Hightown’ (except for her own, and ‘All This Shit Is Weird.’ He’d always felt that the latter wasn’t quite right, like it was missing something. But who knows, maybe he just didn’t like it because it was the one where Hawke died. Shit, he was as bad as the seeker!) and she was a damn good one. Once killed a man over a semicolon, but gave the best critiques he’d ever received on his writing, both in terms of being a stickler for grammar and a lover of a well-told story.
He should’ve just given her an advance warning on his storyline in the novel. Test it on the others to make sure the twist was actually as great as he thought it was, then he could’ve given it to Hawke and told her exactly what his arc was under the guise of wanting her to make sure it worked well narratively. Then she would never have to worry about him potentially not being real. Varric loved a tragic, heroic character death as much as the next author, but he knew what it was like to think the person you love was gone. He never wanted her to have to experience that, not for one minute.
But it was too late now, as he hadn’t figured out what to do, so now someone else had figured it out for him. Which is how he found himself in the current predicament of running through the disintegrating Lighthouse in a desperate attempt to reach his wife before the whole building collapsed, or worse, before she did something to hurt herself. Something she couldn’t take back. The thought merely crossing his mind made him run faster through the shaking halls.
It had been seven years since the Hero of Ferelden and the Inquisitor had dragged her out of the Fade, and though she’d steadily improved and started to believe she’d gotten out over the years, she still refused to sleep without a potion that prevented dreams. He had always assumed she would never enter the fade again, sleeping or otherwise. And she probably wouldn’t have if he hadn’t almost gotten himself killed.
Even before her stint in the fade Hawke had always been a skilled mage, but after she got back? Her magic was stronger than the dwarf had ever seen, but it was wild and unpredictable; barriers would erupt when she sneezed, all the windows in Hightown would shatter when a noble made a snide remark, rain would drench the entire city, indoors and out, if they had a kiss go too far. Daisy was convinced no mortal mage should’ve had so much power, that they needed to reverse whatever had happened, but, fortunately, with time, Hawke had learned to control it. Now only a truly massive emotional response would elicit this. Like thinking your husband was actually a figment of your imagination. Or worse.
When he finally reached the infirmary he was horrified, but not surprised, to find that saying it looked like a rage demon had clawed through the place would be to greatly overestimate the ability of a rage demon. Beyond being as grey and shaky as the rest of the fortress, there were entire walls missing, half of the beds had been completely disintegrated, and he’d need to tell whoever next went shopping to completely restock their healing potions, as their current supply had been shattered, and the glass and pale liquid was covering all that remained of the floors.
But he’d worry about that later; the only thing in the room that mattered right now was the mage folded in on herself beside one of the remaining beds, whose sobs were shaking seemingly all of the fade. He approached her carefully, like one might a feral animal.
“Hawke-”
“GET OUT!” The massive blast of fire he barely dodged wasn’t half as alarming as the fear in her voice. “You’re not him! You were never him! I never got out! I never got out, and the demons always give you what you want, but it’s not real, and I-”
“Viola-”
“Not real! You’d think I would’ve known after all this time! Everything in this place is wrong! Wrong, evil, cruel! Let go of me, you fucking demon!” She seemed to barely even know what she was saying, just desperately screeching as she rocked back and forth on the ground.
“Hawke, listen to-”
“What are my children?!” For the first time since he’d entered the infirmary, she looked up at him, her eyes clouded with absolute terror. “Are they mirages of some kind, or did I actually push out a fucking half-human, half-demon monster!”
“Dammit, Hawke, neither! And if you don’t believe me…” At the risk of another fireball coming his way, he reached out and took her hand by the wrist. The Fereldan inhaled sharply at the contact, but she didn’t pull away, so he took it as a good sign and kneeled next to her as he put her hand on his chest. Normally, one or both of them would’ve made a comment about his chest hair, but now hardly seemed to be the right moment.
Hawke had done this many times since she got back, mostly to him, though she’d checked all of their friends at least once. He didn’t fully understand it, he never did with weird fade shit, but somehow, after so long beyond the veil, the mage could physically feel the difference between a real mortal body and a fake imitation done by a spirit. The dwarf was also familiar enough with the feeling of warm magic vibrating through his veins to know she wasn’t performing the test yet.
“Go ahead. It’ll work, I promise.” She scoffed at his words, and more tears sprang in her eyes.
“A promise from the actual god of lies! How comforting.”
“Aw, see. I knew you couldn’t think I was a demon for long.”
“We’ll see about that.” And then he felt her all through his body. After months of being her patient, he’d grown more accustomed to her healing magic, but that was different, like a cool salve being put under your skin. This power felt like a hot stream running through his veins. The first few times she’d done it Varric found it uncomfortable, but always worth it for the human's peace of mind. As the years had gone on he’d grown accustomed to the feeling, but even if he hadn’t, he knew he’d endure it as many times as was needed to see the look of sheer relief that spread across her face when it was done.
He felt the magic subside as the red-haired woman let out a shaky breath and then immediately collapsed onto his shoulder. Wasting no time, he wrapped his arms around her to pull her closer as he leaned them both against the bed and began to gently run his fingers through her hair. He could still feel her crying as she buried her head into his chest, but not the violent sobs from before. As they sat on the infirmary floor, he watched as the colors began to return to The Lighthouse, and the walls picked themselves and started to rebuild.
The dwarf wasn’t sure how long they sat there, in their own world, both simply relishing in the idea that the other was real and well and alive. But after minutes or hours or years, Hawke pulled back just enough to be able to look him in the eyes.
“I don’t understand, you can’t be him, not if he died there…”
“Hawke, listen to me. I made that up. It was all a lie. I needed a different reveal for Rook in the prison. I was the obvious choice!” He moved the hand in her hair down to cup her cheek. He didn’t know if it made him seem more real to her, but by the way she leaned into his touch, he had hope that it was at least grounding.
He’d incorporated quite a few things they’d learned from the murals in the Lighthouse into the book. It was time the masses of Thedas knew the truth. Not his truth, of course. Or the unsavory truths about people he cared about. But historical knowledge, and information that could help set some records straight; that was worth mentioning. And if the Evanuris weren’t the only spirits that took mortal bodies kicking around Thedas, well… that was none of the public's business.
“No, you weren’t. It shouldn’t be you. If anyone deserved a happy ending, it was us.”
“And we’ve got one. It’s right here.” He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. It was chaste and gentle, but that was all it needed to be.
“Hmm.” Hawke sighed contently and then leaned her head back on his shoulder. After a few more seconds, the storyteller felt her breath slow down. It seemed both her mind and her heart rate were once again where they should be. “I suppose that’s true, and much more important.” The champion continued. “But I’m still upset on behalf of book me. She’s been through horrors, Varric. Horrors! After surviving Orlesian parties and the caves of Kirkwall, how could you do this to her?”
He tilted his head so that it leaned against hers and intertwined their hands. “Book you is dead, remember? She died during‘All This Shit is Weird.’”
“Only because you were too impatient to wait till I got back!” She said as if he was supposed to expect her return from the dead. As if he hadn’t spent months uninspired to write anything because she wasn’t there to read it when it was done. But given the circumstances, now probably wasn’t the best time to mention that.
“Doesn’t matter!" He replied, "That’s still the last the public heard from 'Marian' Hawke, to bring her back now would lead to outrage. I’d be called a shill, too cowardly to kill off his favorite muse. You’d be called generic and wearing plot armor. The whole thing would just be a disaster.”
“Wait, you mean I’m not in this one at all?” Well, that was odd. She’d gotten to the twist, clearly, and surely she knew he wasn’t just going to bring her back for the final battle.
“Nope. You're barely even mentioned. And you not being around to heal me leads the way perfectly for my tragic, but fittingly heroic, sacrifice. And now book Varric and book Hawke are getting a drink at the Hanged Man together.”
“Oh please, Varric, even if I was willing to pretend you casually marching up to the dread wolf with no planned speech was a sacrifice as opposed to a suicide attempt, it still would not be fitting to you or your character in any way.”
“Ugh, everyone’s a critic! Dare I even ask what you think of the book?” Just like that, he had summoned The Editor.
Hawke snapped her head up so suddenly that she bumped it into the dwarf’s chin in a manner that must’ve been painful, yet the viscountess didn’t seem to notice at all. She reached under the bed, and when her hand reemerged, it carried a rather abused looking copy of ‘The Book of the Red Rook.’ In addition to clearly having been violently thrown across the room during the worst of Hawke’s breakdown, it had quite a few scraps of parchment with messily scrawled notes coming out of it from all sides. The healer opened the book and began to consult her annotations.
“So far, I have a list of seven unnecessary commas, and in the first two chapters alone you’ve used both ‘ritual’ and ‘ok’ far too many times for the entire book. Also, your descriptions of Ghilly and Elgy are bothering me. Stop calling them gods, just use the word Evanuris. The uncultured humans will figure it out. Also- Varric, are you even listening to me?” No, he hadn’t been listening, as he’d become completely sidetracked by one of the first things she’d said.
“...You’re on chapter two?”
“Of course, Bellara only gave it to me not an hour ago.”
“Chapter two?!”
“Well, I’d have gotten further if it hadn’t caused me to question my entire existence!”
“You figured out I was dead in chapter two?!” It was one thing for her to throw a fireball at him. It was one thing for her to accuse him of being a demon and say that both their children and their marriage were a lie. But to guess the best twist he’d ever written (or, at least, what he’d thought was the best twist he’d ever written) within the first two chapters?! It was both the most offensive thing she’d ever done to him, and he’d never loved her more than he did right now.
“Varric, if you don’t want people to figure it out so early, might I suggest not making it so painfully obvious.” Scratch that, it was much more annoying than endearing.
“How was my being dead obvious to you!”
“Other than my being suspiciously absent and you being suspiciously not comatose? Because Neve only acknowledged Rook, and then Harding was clearly mourning someone’s death, and then Harding literally said you’d been killed!” She paused, and flipped through the first couple chapters curiously. “Were Neve and Harding the only ones here in the early days…”
“Sort of? You’re dead, Rook was injured and The Witch said she’d kill me if I so much as hinted at Kieran’s existence, so, it’s a lot of Harding and Neve early on.” That was putting it mildly. Lady Morrigan had given several graphic descriptions of exactly what would become of him if the general public discovered her son was the same type of being as those that just nearly destroyed all Thedas. But Hawke didn’t need to know that.
“She won’t get through me.” The power and unyieldingness in the mage’s eyes would’ve petrified anyone else, but the certainty he saw in them, completely sure she could save him if it came to that, melted his heart entirely. There was a time when she was so sure she’d never be able to protect anyone or anything she thought of as home. Maybe it made him a sap, but he was so proud of how far she'd come.
“Don’t I know it, Beautiful.” He smiled and gave her another peck on her cheek. “But, as much as it would be fun to tell everyone about how you bested Mythal with the power of a charming smile, good hair, and moral support from your loving husband, I’m afraid that won’t be necessary. Kieran’s not in the book at all.”
“Maker’s breath, Varric! How did you possibly manage that?”
“What can I say? I’m a masterful storyteller! I’d say you should read it and see, only if there's no point if I have to restart.”
“And why would you have to do that?”
He hesitated at that. “Well, not to disregard my adoring fans, but if you don’t like it there’s really no one else I’m interested in writing for.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say I don’t like it…”
“Really?! You’ve only spent this entire conversation ripping it to shreds.”
“Oh, it needs a second draft, certainly. And with me and Kieran gone, I’m sure it’s severely lacking in dragons, but it’s got… potential. Tell you what, give me three hours to finish it, then meet me in the great room with a coffee, a bottle of Orlesian red, and a sandwich. This one can be a masterpiece yet, my darling.”
And sure enough, that’s how Rook found them the next morning. Asleep on the couch with an empty bottle of wine, about 200 scraps of notes surrounding them, and Varric’s head in Hawke’s lap. The dwarven woman smiled softly to herself as she draped a blanket over each of them. Somehow, she just knew that her book was going to be the best one yet.