I Want To Be A Dragon

Mother's surprised when Uncle Gamlen tells her that the estate, and all of the Amell family money, is gone. Hawke isn't: It occurs to him, as he numbly goes through the motions of finding work for himself and Carver, that he hadn't really expected anything. Everything beyond arriving at Kirkwall had always just been a flat, blank space for him, and you can't be surprised or disappointed if you had no expectations to begin with.

The work they find is smuggling - dirty work, but nothing he hadn't done before, even if he could feel Carver rankling at it next to it. Subtlety wasn't the lad's strongest suite, after all, but Hawke knew he'd find out soon enough that smugglers always needed people with big swords.

The only other option was being a hired sword for one of the shadier mercenary companies Hawke had ever seen, and it didn't take a genius to figure out that out of the two, that'd be even dirtier work. No, smuggling was the better choice: The leader of the smugglers, an elf named Athenril, seems like a good sort - or, at least, as good as you can get while smuggling contraband.

(She also clocks him immediately for a mage. Hawke can see the moment where she realises, the brief few seconds of consideration, and then her quietly deciding that that could be useful.)

The deal is for a year of service. That'll get them into Kirkwall, at least.

Carver had only left a few days earlier, but he was on a horse, and Hawke is on foot. At least there's no chance of getting lost: The Imperial Highway will take him straight from Lothering to Ostagar, and if he meets Carver on the road, even better.

He doesn't meet Carver on the road.

This is a terrible idea. There are Templars and Circle Mages at Ostagar, who will recognise Hawke as an apostate if they see him wandering around with what is obviously a staff and what are obviously not Circle robes. But he remembers what Ysalwen said about Ostagar going badly, and while it's one thing to let his brother go off into danger, it's another thing to let him stay there when Hawke knows it's a doomed endeavour.

The guards at the perimeter of the camp are lax enough that Hawke manages to charm his way past without too much difficulty. They're on the lookout for darkspawn, after all, not apostates, who usually wouldn't be stupid enough to go meandering into the camp of the king's army before a battle.

Finding Carver takes longer. The camp is well organised, but there aren't exactly signs about. At one point, Hawke thinks, for several horrible minutes, that he hears Carver's voice grunting and mumbling along with a woman's from a tent: But the man inside the tent is not Carver. Carver's not blond, after all, and Hawke's not even sure if Carver can grow a beard.

After hastily excusing himself ("Terribly sorry, you two just keep up the good work. You're doing great,") he keeps searching, until eventually a stablemaster directs him to where Carver is training with a sword against another man.

"Carver," he calls, and Carver's eyebrows rise so high that Hawke thinks they might exit his face.

"Brother!" Carver says, and hurries over. "Has something happened to Bethany?"

That's - sweet, Hawke thinks, and it really is terrible that now he's going to have to ruin that particularly brotherly moment. "Bethany's fine. I'm going to need you to come back to Lothering."

Carver stares at him like he's grown a second head. "You want me to desert? Why?"

"'Deserting' isn't the word I would use. 'Treasonously fleeing like a coward,' perhaps," Hawke says, and as is often the case, immediately wonders why that, the set of words most likely to rile Carver up, is what came out of his mouth. "I, er. Did you know that Sister Leliana hears the voice of the Maker?"

Carver does not respond, but he does squint.

"Well, the Maker says that you're all doomed. So, I mean, that really just about wraps up all of this soldier ... hobby ... thing ..."

Carver turns his head slowly. "Hobby?"

"... Is that really what you're going to focus on here?"

"Is that what this is about, you can't stand that I'm actually doing something worthwhile with my life instead of being yours and Bethany's non-magical caretaker?" Carver's going red in the face, and people are starting to stare. Carver does, at least, seem to notice, and when he talks again it's in a whisper. "Did you even bother to think of a better story than 'the Maker said so' until now?"

"You're right, Carver, it was wrong of me to lie," Hawke says dryly. "Actually, the elven Warden-Commander of Ferelden, who comes from the future and who I met in a magical tavern, told me that this is all going to go very badly. She had a dog, I trust her."

"Can you stop joking for once?" Carver says, and makes a disgusted noise. "I don't even know what you thought you'd achieve by coming here."

"Would you rather I just knocked you over the head and dragged you back?" Hawke asks.

"Try it," Carver snaps, squaring up to him, and Hawke is suddenly very aware that they are surrounded by people who might, possibly, maybe not be too happy if he started a fight in the middle of their camp. "Go home, Hawke, before the Templars catch you."

"Fine," Hawke says, trying to sound easygoing about it, and shrugs. "Try not to get eaten by an ogre."

When he gets home, his mother and Bethany are very eager to know where he's been, and he pointedly doesn't tell them.