Chapter Text
It starts as all memorable, miserable days do: with a splitting headache and a roiling ocean of nausea fit for sinking a qunari dreadnought. For a moment, he thinks he must have gotten completely and utterly sloshed at The Hanged Man. Isabela's probably drawn a suspiciously phallic-shaped mast on his forehead again, and Carver is probably going to spitefully bang pots around when he goes back to the estate. But that isn't right. He hasn't seen her in months. Years? And Carver has never set foot in the old family home. He's off on the ever-mysterious Grey Warden business, or whatever it is they do when a Blight isn't tearing some corner of Thedas a new asshole. Whatever little brothers do when they aren't spiting your shadow.
The Blight. Darkspawn. Fucking Corypheus. Maker, the Fade. Hawke is supposed to be very, very dead- not that he knows what happens when someone dies after dueling a gigantic spider demon in the realm of dreams and/or spirits.
He sits up straight and opens his eyes because no one can call a Hawke a coward, though he almost wishes he hadn't. Because there's a spider, albeit not the one he'd distracted to cover for the Inquisitor and Alistair's shapely rears. It isn't like the other cave spiders he's encountered either, but he doesn't exactly have the time to sit this one down and play a round of "spot the differences" before it chitters loudly and attempts to -presumably- siphon his brain out through the front of his face. Muscle memory and luck save him, as they always have. His staff shields him from those writhing mandibles, except when he attempts to set it on fire as mages -and Hawke in particular- are wont to do, not a Maker-damned thing happens.
Well, shit.
Somehow, by the skin of his teeth (which is a phrase Hawke has never understood and has lost a not-insignificant amount of sleep over) he lives. So do the spiders plural, because there's never just one spider in his extensive experience as a former owner of a mine. He managed to fit himself, his armor, and his biceps into a crevice in the cave wall, which he wouldn't have spotted if it weren't for the barest trickle of light from a crack in the stone ceiling. It feels like he's only prolonging his death, stuck between a rock and another, harder rock guarded by at least thirty-two legs. His magic is still alarmingly nonexistent. He can't even summon the smallest, weakest spark of fire or the barest chill of frost, let alone anything significant enough to kill the conga line of overgrown arachnids.
"Maker's unshaven balls. Andraste's voluptuous tits. Isabela's bodice," he swears profusely, smacking a fist against the wall until he feels slightly better. So, the rundown: he's confused, lost, stuck in a cave, surrounded by spiders, and unable to amuse himself with a grease spell. In short, he's fucked (sans the aforementioned grease spell), but he supposes it could be worse. Unfortunately, Varric is not here to express how monumentally shitty of an idea it is to even think that phrase, which Hawke realizes a half-second after he's already done it. By then, it's too late- there's the sound of shattering glass followed by mouths of fire swallowing up the spiders' dark bodies as they screech and thrash in a frenzy. The smell couldn't be worse if he took sela petrae from Kirkwall's sewers and smoked the ground crystals.
It's difficult to see from his hiding place, but he catches a flicker of the flames on metal, just a flash, and in quick succession, each spider's shrieks go silent. The hungry, reddish-orange spires gradually shrink and die with them until the cave returns to its near-complete blackness. There's a slick, squelching sound he recognizes as a blade either thrust in or tugged free (thank you Fenris) and nothing more for several heavy, quickened heartbeats of holding his breath. Then, several feet away, a growling, throaty voice says, "Feel free to stop hiding now." Oh, what a prick.
"I had it very under control."
A snort. "Damn impressive work." So this person has the unmitigated gall to rescue Hawke and then sass him? He loves this already.
"I could have killed them whenever I wanted." For some reason, getting out of this crevice is proving far more difficult than getting in had been, but adrenaline is one hell of a motivator.
"Can tell. Must've been why you're wedged in there tighter than a stick up a noble's ass." Which is the exact moment Hawke finally wrenches himself free with every intention of thanking this stranger -sort of- but he draws up short at the gold, gleaming eyes reflecting the scarce light like a cat's. The only time he's seen that is in the Deep Roads with all those teeny, chirping lizards, and something tells him this is not a deepstalker come to nip at his toes. Hawke avoids this discovery in a rare case of etiquette rearing its head. Or is it self-preservation?
"Have a lot of experience with sticks and asses?"
"Sticks and nobles."
"All right, funny man. Expecting compensation for saving the Champion of Kirkwall? I didn't get paid for that, by the way, but I digress: I don't have my coinpurse."
There's a long pause, and Hawke's vision is getting better adjusted to the poor lighting, enough that he can make out the man's silhouette and vague facial features. "That a new village? I haven't heard of a Kirkwall before." He goes to answer, more than a little bewildered and indignant, but the stranger interrupts him. "Never mind. Doesn't matter. You'd better leave before the bodies attract anything else. First rescue's free but the second'll cost you."
Hawke is still hung up on the fact that he hasn't heard of Kirkwall. Is he in the Frostback Mountains? Any avvar about to materialize out of thin air to call him a lowlander? This has done nothing for his headache. Well, it's done something, but nothing good. Eventually, he settles on asking, as casually as he can manage, "And where is the entrance, exactly? l couldn't see the Maker Himself if he started juggling torches in this cave." More silence. An exhale that might be a sigh.
"Wait there."
"And here I was thinking I would head off for a stroll in the market." A blade meets flesh somewhere in the dark, and it sounds as though he's cutting something. A souvenir? Is he a trophy hunter for an Orlesian noble too self-important to earn their own accomplishments? Can't be. He doesn't sound Orlesian -or Fereldan- and as far as he knows, Orlesians prefer their fancy chevaliers. "What are you doing?"
Those eyes resurface again and he can hear dripping, followed up by rustling fabric and a return to the quiet. Hawke can't stand the quiet. Reminds him too much of the Hawke estate after Carver went and he lost Mother, and when the entirety of Kirkwall went to shit because Hawke loved a revolutionary. "Follow me. Stay close and you'll fall on your ass less."
"I resent the implication that I'll fall on my ass at all."
He falls on his ass. Just the once. The stranger laughs at him and Hawke recalls a story of the fellow who took his revenge by brick-laying another man into the family catacombs. Hawke can't do that, but he could probably collapse a cave with sheer spite.
Reaching the surface marks a number of epiphanies. The first: he still doesn't know where he is. The second: the sky is entirely lacking the ominous, writhing funnel heralding the end of times. The third: his attacker looks as though a bear mistook him for a scratching post and, after realizing its mistake, thought, "fuck it," and carried on regardless.
He needs a moment to process. Several moments. Crouching down, he hides his face in his hands, vigorously rubbing at his temples. He has pieces to a puzzle if said puzzle actually consisted of four puzzles bastardized together sloppily. No tear in the sky, no magic. No Fade?
"Hit your head when you fell?"
"No I did not. Where are we, by chance?"
"Two days east of nowhere. Another several days after that to Yantra." Hawke stares. The man stares back, unblinking. "Redania." Absolutely no bells are ringing.
"This might sound like I'm a few marbles short of a botched game of jacks, but what day is it?"
"Might be early September. Probably a Tuesday."
"...And the year?" The look he gets is simultaneously the most and least expressive way anyone has ever told Hawke he's insane.
"1276. Sure something wasn't knocked loose? Looser?" That is decidedly missing a dragon, namely 9:41 Dragon. The year Hawke took a dive into the Fade and didn't come back out.
"I uh. Hm." He rubs at his forehead with the back of his hand and finds himself staggering.
"Whoa there, take it easy."
Not a horse, he means to say, but all that comes out is, "Nha hrse," before the world dips and he's suddenly facing the sky, and then even that fades out entirely.