#NO mention of anything else about kirkwall. no mention of the templars involvement. no meredith.
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cullen from the get-go in inquisition is very clear in his stance on mages. i started with inquisition and it was obvious to me. i sincerely do not understand where ppl come from with the "he's changed đ„ș" nonsense
#new dragon age tag for blocking:#virinquisition#completely ignoring everything he says in his intro speech in the war room#you talk to him post valroyeaux he says 'i was recruited in kirkwall after the mage uprising and saw firsthand the devastation it caused'#NO mention of anything else about kirkwall. no mention of the templars involvement. no meredith.#not even the decency to call it the 'mage-templar uprising'. just the mage uprising. no templars there no sir#just bc hes willing to fuck your mage inquisitor does not mean hes changed a damn bit#he was willing to fuck amell/surana too but he would have killed her on sight if even slightly pressed#hate that man. putting him in the torture labyrinth. in my mind. he is being attacked by ghouls and goblins <3#god this game. it really is 'stuck in dead end job with coworkers you hate' simulator
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Samson/Roman Hawke: Peace
A Friday offering for my beloved @schouteâ!Â
In which the brewing mage-Templar conflict starts to get to Samson and Roman. đ Featuring Act 3 angst, arguments, make-up sex. CW: BDSM sex that might feel like dubcon if you arenât familiar with these two and their dynamic. Please pass go without reading if thatâs not your thing. â€
~9000 words; read on AO3 instead.
******************************
- ROMAN -
Roman stepped into the mansion and kicked the door shut, then exhaled and leaned back against the door. It was late and she was fucking tired, and she just wanted a second of peace.
âBird? Is that you?â
Samsonâs voice was calling from the kitchen. She opened her eyes, then propped her staff against the wall before trudging through the mansion.Â
Sure enough, Samson was in the kitchen. He was leaning against the kitchen island and eating some chicken and roasted potatoes while Monty sat at his feet looking up at him with a pitiful expression.Â
Roman grunted and went straight to the enchanted icebox. âYou better not be feeding him people food. Heâll get fat.â She picked out a bottle of cider, and when she turned around, it was to find Samson looking vaguely guilty.
She wilted. âI told you not to feed him fucking people food.â
Samson scowled and popped another piece of potato in his mouth. âThis mabariâs a real pain, you know,â he said as he chewed. âItâs like he doesnât understand me.â
âYouâre just a soft touch,â Roman said. âOf course he understands you. Heâs a smart boy.â She crouched beside Monty and scratched his jowls. âYouâre a smart boy, arenât you?â she crooned. âSamson shouldnât give you people food, no he shouldnât.â
Monty wagged his tail, and Samson huffed. âYouâre back late. Picking fights at the Hanged Man, were you?â
âYeah, I was,â she said belligerently.
Samson shot her a long-suffering look, and she rose to her feet and frowned at him. âDonât look at me like that. It wasnât my fault.â She pulled the cork out of the bottle and took a sip.Â
âItâs never your fault though, is it?â he asked, and he reached for the bottle of cider.Â
She shot him a dirty look but handed over the bottle. âIt really wasnât my fucking fault this time, okay? It was Fenrisâs. Well, not Fenrisâs,â she amended, âbut it was related to Fenris.â
Samson lowered the bottle in surprise. âI thought he didnât like getting involved in your fights.â
She rolled her eyes and snatched the bottle back from him. âI told you, it wasnât my fight, it was his. His former master showed up.â
Samsonâs eyes widened. âFormer master? You mean a Vint magister was here in Kirkwall?â
âYeah,â Roman said, and she took another sip of cider. That wasnât the worst of it, though. Roman still couldnât believe Fenrisâs own sister had tried to sell him out to his former master. She didnât mention Fenrisâs sister to Samson, though. She and Fenris didnât agree on much, but they both valued privacy. If Roman was in Fenrisâs place, she wouldnât want strangers knowing her business either.
Samson scratched his whiskered chin. âAnd here I thought the Templars were helping the city guard to crack down on who comes in and out oâ Kirkwall.â
âTemplars,â Roman said scornfully. âTheyâre corrupt as fuck, even if precious Meredith doesnât want to see it. Grease the right palms and practically anyone could get in here.â She took another sip of cider, then set the bottle down and picked a piece of chicken from Samsonâs plate.Â
âHey, get your own,â he said, but with no real heat.
She huffed and chewed the chicken and ignored Montyâs pleading eyes, and for a moment they were quiet as Samson selected another chicken thigh from the platter on the island and started cutting it up.Â
He broke the silence. âIf there was a Vint magister hereâŠâ He shook his head. âMaker. If there was anyone Iâd think the Templars would try to keep out, itâd be magisters.â
Roman scoffed and stole another sliver of chicken from his plate. âYeah, because more mages are the worst thing that could happen to this shithole,â she said sarcastically.
Samson didnât reply. He was frowning slightly, and Roman narrowed her eyes. âDonât tell me you agree.â
He sighed and scrubbed a hand over his chin again. âIâve been hearinâ things,â he said slowly. âDown in Lowtown, and in Darktown too. A lot of abomination attacks, sounds like.â
Roman aggressively bit the piece of chicken in her fingers. âYeah?â she said in a hard voice. âHave you also heard how the Templars have started punishing the Circle mages even more harshly? Anders said that a full quarter of the Circle mages are Tranquil now.â
Samson flinched at this, and Roman felt a pang of guilt. She knew that the Tranquility process was a sore issue for him, given what had happened to Maddox after Meredith had thrown Samson out of the Templars.Â
She swallowed her bite of chicken, then pushed the bottle of cider across the counter toward him. He picked it up and took a sip, then set it down and jerked his chin in the direction of the main room. âYou got some letters, by the way,â he said. âBoth from the Gallows.â
Roman sighed loudly. Two letters from the Gallows always meant the same thing: both Orsino and Meredith were trying to get her help with some bullshit task. âYFuck that. They can wait until tomorrow.â She plucked a piece of potato from Samsonâs plate and ate it while she brooded about Meredith, then picked up the bottle of cider. âThe fucking gall of that bitch, trying to get me to help her,â she complained. âSheâs just trying to find an excuse for her fucking puppets to drag me in.â
âBetter not give her one, then,â Samson said.
She gave him a dirty look. âI know, Samson. Iâm not a fucking idiot.â For the past month or so, sheâd cut down on her use of blood magic, doing it only when she was working a spell at home or when she was outside of the city limits. It infuriated her to play into the Chantryâs bullshit sanctions against blood magic, and if she had it her way, sheâd keep using blood magic in her perfectly safe way even within Kirkwallâs bounds.Â
But Roman didnât just have herself to think about. She was famous here now â or infamous, depending on who you talked to â and her actions were under scrutiny, no matter how much she tried to keep to herself when she was out and about. Anything she did would reflect poorly on the people close to her⊠particularly on Carver.Â
Fucking Carver, she thought angrily. She couldnât give the Chantry an excuse to make her brother a scapegoat for her choices.Â
She and Samson continued to eat silently from his plate. As the minutes stretched on with no further commentary from Samson, she started to watch him suspiciously. He was usually more talkative than this. Not that he was a huge talker or anything, but he usually had more to say than, well, nothing.
She narrowed her eyes. âWhatâs wrong with you?â
He glanced at her. âNothing. This chickenâs good.â
Roman grunted, and they fell silent again. When his plate was cleared, she frowned at him. âSeriously, what is your problem?â
He raised an eyebrow and reached for the cider. âWhat are you on about?â
She gave him an arch look. âIf youâre trying to do some kind of âstrong and silentâ bullshit, itâs not working.â
Samson lowered the cider bottle from his lips and shot her a chiding look. âYou sure about that? It seems to be getting your knickers all twisted.â
She scoffed and grabbed the bottle of cider from him. âMy knickers arenât fucking twisted.â
âToo bad,â he said. âI was going to offer to untwist âem for you, butâŠâ
She ignored his innuendo. âAre you pissed about what I said about the Tranquil?â
His sarcastic little smirk slipped away. âNo.â
âI wasnât being an asshole,â she said defensively. âI was â itâs just the fucking truth.â
âI know, Bird,â he said tiredly. He sidled past her and headed for the front door.
Roman put her cider down and followed him. âWhere are you going?â
âIâve got to get more of the dust,â he said, and he slid his feet into his worn-out shoes.
She raised her eyebrows. âNow?â
âWhen else is a man supposed to go meet his illegal lyrium dealer?â he said sardonically.Â
Roman pursed her lips but didnât reply. Samson bent down to tie his shoes, and she leaned against the doorjamb and folded her arms as she watched him. She knew he needed the lyrium; sheâd seen what happened to him when he ran out of it, and she didnât want to see him suffer like that again. But still, sometimes she wishedâŠ
She discarded the fleeting thought. There was no point wishing Samson didnât need the lyrium. Heâd told her long ago that he would die without it, and she had no reason to not believe him. It wasnât like she knew any Templars who had ever quit taking lyrium.Â
She pushed away from the doorjamb and wandered over to him. âIâll come with you.â
He looked up in surprise. âEh? What for?â
To hit back if someone hits you, she thought, but she wasnât going to fucking say so. She shrugged, and Samson smirked as he stood up.Â
âYou going to be my knight in shining armour again?â he taunted.
She scowled. âNo. Fuck you.â
He raised an eyebrow, and she scoffed and looked away. âYou know what, whatever. Forget it.â
âAll right, good,â he said affably. âGettinâ into a brawl kind of defeats the purpose of going out in the middle of the night.â He chucked her chin playfully.
She smacked his hand away. âDonât touch me.â
He suddenly gripped her chin. Before Roman could snap at him to let her go, he was kissing her: a quick firm kiss on the lips â so quick that she didnât have time to bite him or push him away before he released her.Â
He opened the door. âGo eat some more. Iâll be back soon,â he said, and then he was gone.Â
She wrinkled her nose at the closed door. How dare he kiss her? He was such an asshole.Â
Beside her, Monty sat back on his haunches and tilted his head curiously. Roman looked down at him for a second, then sighed and crouched beside him. âGo with him, okay?â she murmured. âIf he gets hit, you jump in and bite back for him. Heâs a fucking idiot, he wonât defend himself.â
Monty stood and wagged his tail, and Roman opened the door for him. He bounded away into the darkness, and Roman went back to the kitchen with a sigh.Â
She picked up the half-empty bottle of cider and took another sip, then wandered over to her writing desk to check out her letters. She pushed away the ones from Orsino and Meredith without opening them, then paused when she saw a thicker envelope with Varricâs handwriting on it.
She frowned as she opened it. The envelope contained a bunch of worn journal pages that were variously dirty and bloodstained, topped with a short note from Varric.Â
Hawke,
Remember that old journal page we found wedged into a brick wall that one time â something by the âBand of Threeâ? I had a couple sharp eyes looking out for more pages, and this is what they found. I put them together in the order I think theyâre supposed to go. Kind of hard to tell without dates, but this is the best I could do.Â
Come on down to the Hanged Man after you read them and let me know what you think. Youâll probably want a drink, anyway. I always knew shit in Kirkwall was weird, but this takes the cake.
 - V.Â
Thatâs cryptic as fuck, Roman thought. She took the pages and her bottle of cider to the study and plopped down on the couch in front of the fireplace, then began to read.
- SAMSON -
Samson sidled into the shadows as he made his way through Hightown. There was a faint feeling of unease in his gut, like a hint of nausea, and it revolved around the mages in Kirkwall.Â
Heâd been hearing stories down at the docks: stories about people cutting their wrists and getting possessed by demons and exploding into monsters who gobbled up their whole families. Samson was too jaded and skeptical to believe any old story he heard on the streets, but heâd been hearing tales for weeks now, versions of the same stories, and heâd been able to put together enough pieces to know that not all of the stories were made up.Â
Kirkwall had always had its share of horror stories involving mages, most of which Samson had heard in the course of his business of smuggling mages out of the city. This familiarity meant he was all the more aware that there were more stories than ever before, and they were getting more and more bizarre.Â
Mysterious deaths involving ice and lightning, flash fires with no evidence of kindling or fuel, people behaving strangely and talking in tongues, people going missing⊠He knew Roman didnât want to hear it, and he didnât even want to believe it himself, but the truth was this: there was a mage problem in Kirkwall.
Roman was right too, though. Samson had heard things from the Gallows, whispers from the merchants and the few visitors who came and went from that ghastly fucking place, and he knew that Roman was right: Meredith was handing out the Tranquility sentence these days like a Chantry sister handed out blessings on Satinalia, and Samsonâs former brethren were feeding right into her tyrannical attempts to control the mages.Â
Samson sighed. Heâd heard enough and lived through the nugshit for long enough that he could see all the moving parts in this Maker-forsaken place, almost like looking at the inside of a clock: the Templars were getting more controlling and punitive, and the mages were getting more desperate to protect themselves. The hysteria of it all was bleeding down from the Gallows to Kirkwall proper, making the city guard more fearful about magic and making the hidden apostates more fearful than ever of persecution. If something didnât change, if things continued down this route, the city was going to explode like one of those qunari gaatlok barrels.Â
His troubled thoughts were interrupted by the sound of heavy breathing behind him. He barely had time to be alarmed before a heavy muscular body rammed into his hip.
He stumbled, then caught his balance on a nearby wall and stared in surprise at Monty, who was standing beside him and wagging his tail so enthusiastically that his whole body was shaking.Â
Samson gathered himself and frowned at the mabari. âWhat are you doing here, eh?âÂ
Monty sat and gazed at Samson attentively, and Samson wrinkled his nose. âDid she send you after me?â
Monty let out a little bark, and Samson jumped before scowling at him. âQuiet, dog,â he scolded in a whisper. âYouâre going get people looking. If youâre going to follow me, you have to shut your trap.â
Monty panted but didnât bark again, and Samson gazed at him a little resentfully. It looked like Monty really did understand him. Just not when Samson was saying ânoâ to feeding chicken to the big furry fucker.
He sighed. âAll right, come on then. But be quiet,â he said severely, and together they continued on their way to Lowtown in silence.
Samson watched the mabari from the corner of his eye as they walked. It was so strange having any kind of company when he went⊠well, anywhere really. Monty, on the other hand, seemed perfectly at ease as he trotted along at Samsonâs side.
Within the space of a couple of minutes, Samson had adjusted to Montyâs presence. It helped that Monty was almost entirely silent. He was a big bloody dog, and Samson would have expected him to make some noise as he walked, but he was pleasantly surprised at how quiet Monty was.Â
He shot the mabari a sideways glance. âShe really sent you along, eh?â
Monty looked up at him with his mouth agape in a wide doggy smile, and Samson huffed. âLet me guess. She told you to attack anyone who attacked me, right?â
Monty wagged his tail, and Samson pursed his lips. Bloody bird, always acting like he was some kind of coward for not picking fights like she did. Heâd told her time and time again that it was smarter to run or hide than to fight back, especially for someone like him: someone powerless, someone that the city guard wouldnât move to protect if something really went wrong. Besides, he did fight back sometimes when he was attacked â if fighting back was the smarter move. Roman was hotheaded and angry, always looking for the next person she could justifiably throw a fireball at, but Samson wasnât like her. He wasnât strong like her.
Leave it to the damned bloody bird to be the strong one, he thought tiredly. Iâll do things my own way. Samson might not be strong anymore, but at least he had his street smarts. Heâd just keep sticking to the smarter course, whether it meant hiding or fighting back. Heâd keep doing what he needed in order to survive.
He and Monty were about to step into the market when he spotted something strange: two men and a woman talking in low and urgent voices in a corner. He slowed down and placed his hand on Montyâs head, and Monty slowed down to a stop as well.Â
Together, they sidled a little closer to the furtive trio. Samson couldnât move close enough to hear what they were saying, not without making himself and the mabari visible, but as they edged a little nearer, Samson had a jolt of recognition: he knew one of the men â or at least, he thought he did. The manâs blond hair was shorter than Samson remembered, and he had a beard where his face used to be bare, but Samson was fairly sure this blond bloke was a Templar.
On shore leave from the Gallows, looks like, Samson thought. Then, with another jolt, he realized that he recognized the woman too: she was a known mage sympathizer.Â
Strange, he thought. He watched the trio for a minute longer, trying to determine if he could conclusively identify the blond fellow as being a Templar, but he really wasnât able to get any closer without being seen. When the three people made signs of looking like their meeting was coming to an end, Samson quickly ducked into a nearby alleyway with Monty to hide.
When the trio had dispersed, Samson patted Montyâs head. âLetâs go, dog.â
They quickly slunk through the market and into the lower-class suburb that led toward Lowtown, and Samson pondered what theyâd witnessed. A Templar and a mage sympathizer having an amiable little late-night meeting? Meredith wouldnât be too chuffed about that. Or maybe the mage sympathizer wasnât as sympathetic as she seemed and was feeding information about apostates back to the Gallows, in which case old Orsino would be the unhappy one.Â
Samson and Monty made their way through Lowtown proper. As usual, Lowtown was more active â and more dangerous â at night than Hightown was, and Samson listened furtively as he made his way to the usual meeting spot for his lyrium-smuggling contact down by the market. The gossip was the same as heâd heard earlier today: mentions of a fish merchant closing down for the week after selling some clams that made people sick, talk of a few lingering qunari out on the Wounded Coast, reports of a young elf getting dragged off to jail by a guardsman after stealing a few apples for his family, the usual grim fare. But one piece of gossip in particular deepened his worries.Â
It was a corrupt city guardsman talking to some other human. â... those knife-ears still cleaning blood and guts off of that big tree in the alienage. You know, the one they tie all those poncy ribbons to.â He chuckled. âThatâs what happens when apostates hide out in the alienage: all that knife-ear nugshit makes âem blow up. Too bad and serves âem right if you ask me.â
Samson frowned as he slunk past the guardsman and his friend. He knew about the incident in question because Roman had been directly involved. Meredith had forced her to track down three runaways from the Circle by making indirect threats toward Carver, and one of the runaways was a possessed mage â a mage who had, as indicated by the guardsman, become an abomination and ultimately exploded into a shower of blood when Roman was forced to kill him.Â
âIs that a mabari?âÂ
âWhatâs a mabari doing with that homeless fellow?â
âThatâs not⊠itâs not Hawkeâs mabari, is it?â
Makerâs balls, Samson thought in exasperation. He knew he shouldnât have let Monty come with him. The damned dog was drawing far too much attention, including curious looks from the corrupt guardsman.
He shot Monty a resentful look. Monty ducked his head and tucked his tail between his legs, and Samson immediately felt bad. It wasnât Montyâs fault, after all; it was Romanâs. Heâd have to have a word with her when he got back to the mansion.
He quickly met up with his contact and traded a few silver for lyrium powder, then selected a more convoluted but quieter route back to Hightown so they wouldnât be stared at. As they silently made their way back to Romanâs house, Samson brooded over that abomination incident in the alienage.Â
Heâd always known there were apostates hiding throughout the city, but heâd somehow not thought much about how much harder it had to be for the apostates who were elves. Heâd helped to smuggle out dozens of apostates in his time, and he count on one hand the number of times theyâd been elves, and the reason was obvious: they didnât have the coin. Mages who didnât have the coin to smuggle their way out of the city must be even more afraid, which made them more prone to possession â more prone than they already were if they hadnât had any training at the Circle.
He rubbed his forehead. Makerâs balls, Iâm tired, he thought, and he continued on his way to Romanâs house.
When they got back to the house, Samson let Monty in before following him inside and closing the door. âOi, Iâm back,â he called. He took off his shoes and padded through to the main room, and when he didnât find Roman there, he peeked into the study.Â
Monty was already lying on his belly in front of the fireplace, and Roman was sitting on the couch and scowling at the fire. There was a sheaf of papers beside her and two empty cider bottles on the floor, and another half-finished bottle in her hand.
Samson wilted slightly. Roman had been drinking less since heâd started sleeping at her house. This was the first time in a while that sheâd had more than one drink in the evening.Â
At least sheâs not drinking rum or whiskey, he thought. âYou canât send the dog with me again,â he said as he entered the room. âEveryone was staring. A guardsman was giving me the eye over âim.â
She looked up at him. âKirkwall is a fucking mage trap.â
He raised his eyebrows. âEh?â
âLook at this.â She picked up the sheaf of papers and thrust it at him, and he took them gingerly.Â
The papers were journal entries by some group called the Band of Three whoâd been investigating the history of Kirkwall during Tevinter occupation. The more Samson read, the more discomfort he felt twisting in his gut. Secret Vint plans, hundreds of slaves going missing, the city designed in the shape of magical glyphs, gutters in the sewer system meant to channel vast amounts of bloodâŠ
By the time he finished reading the pages, the hairs were standing up on the back of his neck. He held the papers out to her. âWhereâd you get these from?â he rasped.
âI found one of them. Varric scrounged up the rest.â She stood up and plucked the papers from his hand. âYou know what this means, right?â
He pulled a face. âErââ
She cut him off. âThe Veil is thin here,â she said. âThatâs why so many mages in the Circle fail that fucking Harrowing ritual bullshit. Thatâs why some people turn into abominations for doing a single little spell with blood magic. Itâs this fucking city. ItâsâŠâ She waved her arms in an angry expansive gesture. âThe whole environment is against us, and the Templars just make it worse!â
Samson blinked at this. âHang on.â He rubbed his face with both hands, then gazed wearily at her. âYouâre telling me that Kirkwall is a⊠a bad place for mages, but the Templars are the problem?â
âTheyâre definitely not a fucking solution, thatâs for sure,â she retorted. âEveryone knows that demons are attracted to fear.â
âAnd to anger,â Samson said pointedly.
âExactly,â Roman said angrily, missing his point entirely. âAnd think about whatâs pissing me off. Itâs the Templars!â She waved the journal pages. âItâs already hard enough for us to live here, and theyâre just making it harder.â She tossed the pages on the floor and drank from her half-finished bottle of cider, and Samson frowned.Â
âWhat is it you want, then?â he said slowly. âYou want to just⊠get rid of the Templars or something?â
She lowered the bottle and gave him a frank look. âSounds like a good fucking plan to me.â
He stared at her with growing disbelief, then laughed. âYouâre not bloody serious.â
âDo I look like Iâm fucking laughing?â she said. âItâs the Templars that are making the mages so desperate that theyâre turning to⊠to summoning demons and other shit that they donât understand.â
âAnd when they summon demons and do that shit, someone needs to be able to stop them,â Samson retorted.
Her face went slack with disbelief, then twisted back into anger. âYou canât be fucking serious about this. Youâre defending them? They threw you out!â
âThat bitch Meredith threw me out,â he corrected.
She threw her hands up in frustration. âSo what, now you think the Templars are justified? Now you think itâs okay to keep the mages locked up in a fucking tower with no freedom?â
âNo,â Samson said loudly. âThatâs not what Iâm bloody saying. Iâm justâŠ.â He sighed and rubbed his face again, then looked at her once more. âThink about it, Bird. Say the Templars get dismantled. What happens to âem?â
âWhat the fuck are you talking about?â she said impatiently.
âWhat happens to Templars who have no use anymore?â he said, and he gestured sarcastically at himself.
The fury in her face loosened slightly, and Samson gave her a humourless smile. âYou didnât even think about it, did you? Well, you should. Think about Carver there. The Order falls apart, and heâll end up like me, just a ruinedââ
âYouâre not fucking ruined!â she bellowed suddenly. âStop saying that!â
Samson closed his mouth and stared hard at her. An ugly pause ensued, electric and tense like the brewing of a heavy summer storm. The longer he and Roman went without speaking, the more he felt the old memories rising to the front of his mind, like bloated corpses cut loose from the bottom of the sea: his disbelief at being kicked out of the Order and out of the only home he had, all for something so trivial. The betrayal and the loneliness. The shakes and the nausea when the withdrawal first set in. The delirium, the beatings, the confusion, the raging thirst and hunger during the moments when he was lucid, the horrific hallucinations when he wasnât. The humiliation of having to find a black-market lyrium dealer, and the slow erosion of his soul as his muscles and his purpose and his confidence wasted away bit by bit.Â
For a first time in a long, long time, the old injustices were burning in his belly and burning through the shroud of his usual world-weary passivity, prompting him to take an aggressive step toward her. âI am ruined, Roman,â he said in a hard voice. âYou didnât know me when I was in the Order. If you did, youâd know Iâm a bloody shadow of the man I used to be.âÂ
She sighed and rolled her eyes. âSamson, for fuckâsââ
He interrupted her. âIs this what you want for Carver?â he said harshly. âYou want that big brute to end up like this, all wasted away and jonesing for the dust?â
She opened her mouth again, but Samson didnât let her speak. âYou going to write to Her Divine Holiness and tell âer to dismantle the Templars?â he said aggressively. âTell her to let every one of âem end up on the streets like beggars?â
She narrowed her eyes. âIf you really think thatâs what would happen to them, what does that say about the Chantry and your precious fucking Order?â
He exhaled hard and glared at her, furious at not being able to find a reply. Roman leaned away and planted her fists on her skinny hips. âBesides, itâs not like complaining to the precious fucking Divine would do anything,â she said. âYou think sheâd break up her personal army for the good of the mages? Not a fucking chance.â
âTheyâre not supposed to be her personal army,â Samson snapped.
âAnd the Circles arenât supposed to be jails for mages, but look where we are,â Roman drawled.
All of a sudden, Samson had had enough. âFine then, everything in the world is shit,â he shouted. âAre you happy now?â
She recoiled slightly, then sneered at him. âNo, actually. Iâm fucking pissed.â
âNo different than all the fucking time, then,â he said acidly, and he strode away to the kitchen. He threw open the enchanted icebox and stared unseeingly at its contents. Truthfully, he hadnât been planning to get anything out of here. All he knew was that he didnât want to be around Roman right now.
Unfortunately, she didnât get the hint; a second later, she was storming up to him. âWhat the fuck is your problem?â she yelled. âWhy are you being such an asshole?â
He slammed the icebox shut. âMe?â he said incredulously. âIâm just tryinâ to survive, Bird. Iâm just trying to make the best of this bullshit that weâre living through.â
âWhat do you think Iâm trying to do?â Roman demanded.
âYouâre trying to pick a fucking fight,â he snapped. âI can see it in your face. Youâve never tried to keep your head down. You want a war with the Templars, donât you?â
âI donât want a fucking war, but thatâs whatâs coming,â she yelled. She shot him a scathing look. âAnd donât act like you donât know itâs coming. Youâre one of the smartest people in this fucking city. You know exactly whatâs coming.â
He raised his eyebrows, thrown off by her compliment in the midst of her vitriol. âSo⊠so what, you think thereâs a war coming and nothing can stop it?â
âYeah,â she said. âThatâs what I think.â She took a slow step closer to him and belligerently lifted her chin. âThereâs a war coming between the mages and the Templars. And if you wonât pick a side, youâre a fucking coward.â
Coward. The word shot straight through his chest like an icy spear. It wasnât that she was wrong necessarily, because she wasnât. Samson wasnât brave or principled or any of that shit, so if he didnât have any of those precious virtues, that must mean he was a coward. But to hear Roman saying it to his faceâŠ
His chest squeezed painfully, almost as though she was digging her nails through his rib cage to rend his heart. He swallowed hard and glared at her. âFuck you,â he spat, and he pushed past her and headed back to the study.
He sat down heavily on the couch. Monty sat up and whined softly, but Samson ignored him; he lay down on the couch and closed his eyes.
 A moment later, he heard Romanâs strident voice. âWhat in the Makerâs fucking ballsack are you doing?â
âCooking a four-course Antivan meal,â he said flatly. âWhatâs it bloody look like?â
She barked out a nasty little laugh. âYouâre fucking sleeping down here, then? Is that it?â
He opened his eyes and glared venomously at her. âYeah, I am. Iâm sleeping here tonight, and Iâll get out of your hair first thing in the morning so you donât have to share your fucking fancy house with a coward.âÂ
Her jaw clenched visibly, but she didnât speak, and Samsonâs heart twisted. She really did think he was a coward, then.
He rolled onto his side and closed his eyes once more. âGo away, Roman. Leave me alone.â
She scoffed. When she spoke again, her voice was moving away toward the stairs. âFuck you too, then. See if I fucking care.â
He didnât bother to reply. A few seconds later, he heard the slamming of her bedroom door.Â
He drew a deep breath and ignored the swelling feeling in his throat. Then something nudged his back.
He jolted in surprise, then sighed loudly; it was Monty snuffling around him.Â
He shifted his shoulders in annoyance. âLeave off, dog,â he said quietly. âGo upstairs.âÂ
Monty whined and nudged him again, and Samson shrugged irritably. âI said leave off,â he snapped. âI donât want your company.â
Monty whined again, but the nudging stopped. A moment later, he heard the distant sound of Montyâs scratching nails, followed by the opening and closing of Romanâs bedroom door.
Feeling even shittier now, Samson sighed and slowly stood up, then shuffled around the lower level of the house putting out the oil lamps and chandeliers. When the house was dark except for the lingering flames in the fireplaces, he lay back on the couch in the study and folded his arms behind his head.Â
He stared blankly up at the ceiling for a long time, exhausted but unable to sleep. His gut was a buzzing mess of agitation, and his chest felt like there was rock sitting in the center of his ribs. His mind kept running fruitlessly over all the negative thoughts in his head â and there were a lot of negative things to go over: abomination attacks, a quarter of the Circleâs mages being Tranquil, Meredith blackmailing Roman to do what she wanted, Roman wishing she could dissolve the Templars, Roman yelling about a war that no one could stop, Roman telling him he was a cowardâŠ
His heart twisted painfully, and he breathed slowly to quell it. She was such a bloody bitch: telling him he was smart one second then calling him a coward the next, and sending her mabari to follow him as though he was a fucking child who couldnât look after himself. She was so fucking stubborn and hard-headed, always carrying on about how fucked up the Templars were and how fucked up this entire city was.
But sheâs not wrong, he thought as he remembered those papers sheâd shown him. That history of the Vints doing some kind of mysterious horrible magic right here in this city â this city that was built in the shape of a magical glyph, this city where the Veil was thin and demons were just a whisper away from the minds of its magesâŠ
And Roman was even more vulnerable than most. Rage-filled Roman Hawke, with her fearlessness and her ferocity and her fucking blood magic⊠A pulse of fear pierced through his heartsick anger. Sure, she had good control over her own magic, but if those journal pages had the right of it, she was in danger no matter what. She was in danger just by virtue of living in this fucking place that she refused to leave. Â
What if she becomes an abomination? His gut clenched at the thought. Heâd asked her once if she was afraid of becoming an abomination, and sheâd told him that she was. What if she did become an abomination, though? What if she became the very thing she feared? What would happen then?
What would Samson do then?
An icy sort of fear was spreading through his chest. Donât think about it, he thought. He couldnât think about what heâd do if that happened â not that he could do anything, really, since he wasnât a Templar anymore. The lyrium he bought off the black market was enough to keep the edge off of his cravings and his withdrawal, but it wasnât nearly pure enough to channel into any kind of power. If Roman⊠If something happened to her, there was nothing Samson would be able to do to help her.Â
He rubbed his face wearily. He couldnât believe he was even having to think about this. Truthfully, given the political situation and the ugly history of this city, Samson knew what he and Roman should both really be doing: fleeing this city before it had a chance to explode.Â
And thatâs why she thinks youâre a coward, he told himself scathingly. But was it cowardly to survive, or was it just the smart thing to do? Who gave a fuck about being called a coward if it meant you got to live?
Then again, what was the point of living the way Samson had before Roman had wandered into his life?
He was suddenly reminded of something else sheâd once said: that it wasnât enough to just survive, to just eke out a living from one day to the next. That people needed something to live for. But Roman herself had admitted that she didnât know what she was living for. Did Samson know what he was living for, either?Â
He sighed. Maybe he really was a coward. Maybe this bloody mage-Templar problem would force him to find something to live for. Maybe Roman was right, and what he really needed was to pick a side. Support the mages, or support the Templars? Support the monsters, or support the people who made those monsters what they were?Â
Support the freedom of mages, or support the freedom of the Templars whoâd been leashed and brainwashed just as he had been?
Makerâs fucking balls, he thought morosely.
He lay in the dark on the couch for a long time sliding in and out of a restless sort of doze, unable to settle his mind enough to properly sleep. He was vaguely aware of the fire slowly dwindling down to mere embers until the whole study was wreathed in shadows. When a shadow broke away from the gloom to move toward him from the stairs, he thought it was a dream.
The shadow paused at the end of the couch. âMonty wonât shut the fuck up,â she said. âHe keeps whimpering.â
Samson frowned at her through the gloom. âSo?â
She folded her arms and said nothing for a moment, and Samson stared at her, half-convinced she was just a figment of his imagination.Â
âCome upstairs,â Roman muttered.
He raised his eyebrows. âEh?â
âI said come upstairs,â she said a little more loudly. âI donât think heâll shut up until you come upstairs.â
He blinked blearily at her. In the feeble glow of the dying fire, he could just make out the glimmer of her silk robe and her customary pouty scowl.Â
He frowned at her, then closed his eyes. âIâm staying here, Bird.â
She clicked her tongue. âYouâre telling me you like sleeping on the couch?â
âThatâs right,â he lied. Truthfully, his lower back was hurting, but it was still better than sleeping on the ground in Lowtown. Most importantly, it was better than doing what Roman wanted.
For a second, there was silence. Then she poked his shoulder hard. âCome on, donât be so fucking stubborn. I know your back must be hurting.â
He scowled. Bloody know-it-all, he thought. âIt is not,â he muttered.
âThen why do you complain about it all the time?â she said archly.
He opened his eyes and glared at her. âGo back to bed, Roman. Iâve had enough of your nugshit.â
She stared stonily at him. Then, to his surprise, she started to climb onto the couch.
He hastily tried to shuffle away from her, but she doggedly settled herself over his hips. He grabbed her hips and started trying to lift her off. âBird, quit itââÂ
She untied her robe and opened it, and Samson stopped breathing: she was naked under the robe. Naked, no panties, no bra, her dusky little nipples hardâŠÂ
His cock pulsed, and his mouth was flooded with a rush of saliva. Infuriated by his own traitorous body and at Roman for making him this way, he gripped her bare hip and tried to push her away.Â
She pulled his hand away and placed it on her breast. âCome upstairs,â she said.Â
Her nipple was a perfect taut little bud. He roughly kneaded her breast, then twisted her nipple suddenly, wanting to hurt her and make her purr at the same time.
She gasped and arched into his hand, then fisted her hand in his hair and pulled his head back, and Samson burst out a groan: her mouth was suddenly on his neck, her teeth nipping at his skin and sending jolts of pain and pleasure from his throat down to his groin. She nipped the base of his throat then started to suck, and for a moment, Samson let himself enjoy it. He wasnât giving in, mind â he was just⊠letting himself enjoy this for a second before pushing her away.Â
She sucked hard at his skin and started rubbing his cock through his breeches, and he groaned and lifted his hips. âYou bitchâŠâ he moaned.
âCome upstairs,â she whispered, and she bit the side of his neck.Â
He jolted at the pain, then gasped with pleasure as she squeezed his cock through his breeches. Then she was grabbing his hand again and pulling it between her legs, making him touch her wet curlsâÂ
She pressed his fingers into her folds, and a red-hot roar of lust tore through his body. She was sopping wet and spreading herself over his fingers, and he wanted her so badly that it pissed him off.Â
She groaned and undulated shamelessly over his hand, and Samson tried â rather feebly â to pull his hand away. âNot here,â he hissed.
She tightened her grip on his wrist and continued to rub herself against his fingers, and Samson stared at the meeting point of her pussy and his hand for a second before forcing his eyes back to her face. âI said not here,â he complained, and he tried to pull his hand away again. âGet off.â
She dug her nails into his wrist. âMake me,â she breathed.
Make me. Her provocative words, these words she said on purpose when she was trying to rile him into roughing her up... Something hot and angry and wild suddenly snapped inside of him.
He wrested his hand away from her and grabbed her by the throat, and her lips fell open in a gasp. She clawed at his wrist and tilted her hips down toward his groin, but Samson didnât let her make contact; with his hand at her throat, he clumsily forced her off of his lap until they were both standing up.
He released her throat to grip her chin instead. âGet upstairs,â he bit off.
She curled her lip. âWhat happened to âIâm not going upstairsâ?â
He lifted her chin higher. âIf youâre going to rub yourself on me like a bloody cat in heat, Iâm not letting you do it down here.â
She laughed mockingly. âLet me? Like you can tell me what to do.â
He tightened his grip on her chin â enough that it had to be hurting her â then squeezed her buttcheek in his other hand. âGet upstairs, Bird,â he snarled. âIâm sick of hearing it.â
âNo,â she said belligerently. âI want to fuck down here.â
He spanked her suddenly, satisfied when she jolted and gasped. âGet upstairs,â he commanded.
âI said no,â she spat.
He dug his fingers harshly into her buttock until she gasped in pain. âThen Iâll just have to take you upstairs,â he hissed. Without warning, he bent down and hefted her over his shoulder in an undignified carry.
She squawked, then thumped his back as he made his way to the stairs. âHey! Put me downââ
He spanked her upraised ass. âShut it, Bird,â he ordered. He began carrying her up the stairs, and he was secretly pleased when he realized that carrying her was easier than it had been a couple months ago before he started sleeping in her house.Â
Must be those three square meals Orana makes, he thought idly. Then, just for the hell of it, he spanked Romanâs ass again.
She yelped, then thumped his back. âYouâre such a fucking asshole,â she hissed.
He huffed, and without replying, he flipped up the hem of her robe and pressed the tips of his fingers into her pussy.Â
She jolted and gasped, and Samson smirked, satisfied at having found a way to shut her up. He continued to caress her slick folds as they ascended the stairs, and by the time he was stepping into Romanâs open bedroom, she was breathing hard over his shoulder.Â
Monty was resting his chin on his paws in front of the fireplace. When Samson and Roman came in, he sat up attentively.Â
âGo to the washroom,â Samson ordered, and he unceremoniously dumped Roman onto the bed. He still wasnât used to having the mabari stand witness when he and Roman were doing the deed.Â
Monty dutifully trotted away, and Roman struggled to sit up and push her hair out of her face. âDonât tell him what to do,â she snapped. âHeâsââ
âShut the fuck up,â Samson said coldly. He kicked the bedroom door shut, then started unlacing his breeches.Â
Roman leaned back on her elbows and sneered at him. âLook at you, the big strong boy throwing me around. You want to shut me up, hm? Howâre you going to do that?â
His blood roared at her taunting tone. He pulled his throbbing cock out of his breeches and stalked toward the bed, then crawled between her legs and wrapped his fingers around her throat.
He pushed her down so her back was flush to the bed, then started rubbing his cock between her legs. Her lips parted on a moan, and the sound of it made his blood thrill even more.Â
She thrust her hips toward him, and Samson squeezed her throat. âIâm going to fuck your mouth, and youâre going to like it,â he snarled. âYouâre going to like it so much that youâre going to rub your pussy until you come with my knob in your throat.â
She mewled and jerked her hips, pressing her sleek heat against his cock. Overcome with the pleasure and the heat of her, he leaned in and kissed her hard.Â
She parted her lips and licked his tongue, then bit his lower lip, and he grunted as the sharpness of her teeth sent yet another tantalizing pulse of pleasure pounding to his cock. He shoved his tongue ruthlessly into her mouth for a moment before pulling away, then crawled over her body until he was straddling her.Â
He lifted her chin with one hand. âOpen your fucking mouth,â he snapped.Â
âFuck you,â she breathed, and she obediently opened her mouth.
Without any hesitation, he leaned forward and slid his cock between her lips. She suckled the head of his cock, and a jolt of ecstasy tore its way from his groin up to his throat in a helpless gasp.Â
He curled his hips toward her and grabbed her hand. âTouch yourself,â he rasped.
She pulled her hand out of his grip and reached between her legs, and he watched raptly as her eyelids fluttered with pleasure. Soon she was writhing beneath him, her lips a tight suction on his shaft, and Samson thrust into her mouth with greater zeal as his pleasure rose in time with her own.Â
A breathless minute later, she released his cock to cry out in climax, and Samson greedily watched the pleasure twisting her pretty face before taking hold of his cock. âI said to come with my knob in your throat,â he snarled, and he pushed his cock toward her lips.
She eagerly lifted her head to take him deep, and he grunted and thrust into her mouth as she moaned her pleasure around his cock. When the shuddering of her climax had stilled, he finally pulled his length from between her lips.
He crawled off of her and kneeled between her legs again, then ruthlessly looped her knees over his arms and planted his palms on either side of her hips. âIâm going to fuck your brains out,â he gasped, and he plunged himself inside of her.
She cried out, a hoarse and guttural cry of pleasure, and Samson slammed into her in a rough and mindless rhythm, riled almost beyond reason by her taunting and his anger and the beautiful lanky length of her naked body beneath him. Her fingers were digging into his forearms, her nails biting into her skin with little pricks of pain that only served to enhance his ecstasy, and as his pleasure continued to rise, he dipped his head down and took her nipple in his mouth.
He suckled hard, hard enough to bruise her flesh, and Roman arched beneath him as best she could despite the constraints of her legs over his arms. âF-fuck!â she cried. âFuck, fuck, come on, fuck me hardâŠâ
He slammed into her even harder, so hard that he would have sworn it would hurt her if not for the rapture that was twisting her face. She moaned and scraped his arms, and he gasped against her chest, and when his climax suddenly crashed over him, he bit her nipple.Â
She keened with pleasure and writhed beneath him. âFuck yes,â she sobbed.Â
He didnât reply, too busy gasping and thrusting jerkily into her as he came. Then, in a final fit of spite, he pulled out of her and thrust against her belly instead.
A few thick white spurts landed on her belly, and Roman twisted her hips. âYou asshole,â she whined.
He didnât reply, focused instead on catching his breath. When his heart had slowed to a less-than-frantic pulse, he sat back on his heels and smirked at her. âServes you right,â he said.
She shot him a dirty look, and Samson smiled more widely at her, feeling oddly at peace. Roman looked so thoroughly spent, and her body bore the obvious marks of his work: his toothmarks on her breast, his semen on her belly, her own wetness smeared on the insides of her thighs and on the bed. For some reason, seeing her look this way made him feel more relaxed than heâd felt all day.
He pulled off his shirt and flopped down on the bed beside her. âI guess Iâll stay here and get some sleep,â he said.
She huffed and sat up. âWhatever. Do what you want, I donât care.â She slid off of the bed and went to the washroom to clean up, and Monty trotted out of the washroom.Â
Samson hastily tucked his cock back into his breeches, then gave Monty a sheepish look. âSorry about before,â he muttered. âShe just⊠she drives me up the wall sometimes.â
Monty wagged his tail and gave him a big canine grin, and Samson smiled faintly at the mabari before shuffling under the blankets. When Roman emerged from the washroom a couple of minutes later, Samson was glad to note that she was wearing her usual slight frown instead of an angry one.
She took her robe off and hung it on her painted changing screen, then put out the bedside lamp and crawled under the blankets. She settled on her back beside him, and as they lay there side-by-side, not talking nor touching, Samson began to wonder if he should say something.
Roman spoke first. âYouâre not a coward,â she said quietly.
His heart flipped. He didnât reply, unsure what to say. After all, he wasnât totally sure that he wasnât one.
She spoke again, and her tone was a little harder this time. âI donât think youâre a fucking coward, Samson.â
âThen whyâd you call me one?â he said.
âI donât know,â she said. âI was... mad.â
âYouâre always mad,â he pointed out.
âWould youââ She broke off, then exhaled sharply and sat up on her elbow to look down at him. âI didnât mean it, okay? Sometimes shit just comes out of my mouth and I â I didnât fucking mean it. Youâre not a coward.â
âYou still think I need to pick a side, though,â he said.
She was quiet for a moment. Then she laid down and rolled onto her side facing away from him. âI didnât think it would be so fucking hard to know which one youâd pick,â she said.Â
He gazed morosely at her naked shoulder blade. She wasnât wrong; he had no real reason to side with the Templars, after all. It wasnât like heâd joined them because he believed in their cause. Really, he had every reason to hate them â or not the Templars per se, but the Chantryâs control over them. Whether Roman saw it or not, the Chantry controlled the Templars just as much as they controlled the mages. The leashes they used were just of a different kind.Â
Really, if it came down to a war between the Templars and the mages, there was no reason for Samson to side with the Templars. He just wishedâŠÂ
He sighed. Honestly, he sort of wished he could be a Templar without joining the Order again. If he could just get his hands on some real lyrium, the real good blue stuff so he could have his Templar powers back, then heâd be healthy and strong again. He could walk through this city with his head held high, and he could fight back when anyone tried to beat him down. And he could use his powers for a good purpose, too â to be the kind of Templar that Roman would tolerate: the kind of Templar who stepped in to stop the abominations and to talk the scared mages down from doing stupid things.Â
If he had his Templar powers back, heâd be able to do something if Roman became an abomination. Maybe heâd be able to stop her or calm her down so she didnât need to die.
His gut writhed. Stop it, he thought sternly. There was no point thinking about this any further; it was all a pipe dream. There was no way he would get his hands on real lyrium again.Â
He gazed at Romanâs naked spine with an aching heart. Then he rolled toward her and pulled her back against his chest.Â
He hugged her around her waist, and she tsked. âYouâre squeezing me.âÂ
âYeah,â he said huskily.
They laid together in silence for a moment, her spine flush to his chest and his knees tucked behind hers. Then Samson spoke quietly into the dark. âI know you donât want a war, Bird.â
She scoffed. âObviously.â
He didnât reply. A minute later, she spoke again. âI donât get in fights because I want to, you know.â
He frowned slightly. âThen whyâre you always fighting all the time?â
âIâm not the one picking the fucking fights,â she snapped. âThe whole world keeps picking fights with me.â Her voice cracked, and Samson felt her body tensing in his arms.Â
His throat started to ache. He swallowed and hugged her harder, and she wiggled her shoulders slightly. âYouâre crushing me,â she complained.
Her voice was thick with tears. Samson closed his stinging eyes. âShut up, Bird,â he whispered, and he kept hugging her.
She sniffled quietly, and Samson held her in silence until her body started to relax. When she spoke again, her voice was hard, as though to make up for her tears. âI just want a fucking moment of peace. Just a fucking second of calm. Thatâs what I really want.â
He breathed quietly in the ensuing silence. Her hair smelled like vanilla and almond and sweat, and her skin was soft against his chest. The room was dark and her sheets were warm, and the only sounds were his breathing and the soft rumble of Monty snoring on the carpet by the fireplace.Â
âItâs pretty calm right now,â Samson murmured.
For a long moment, she said nothing. Then she pulled his hand away from her midriff.Â
She twined her fingers with his, and a nearly-painful spear of tenderness pierced his chest. She was such a pain in the ass, fighting with him one second and making him angry-fuck her the next, then being just a little bit sweet like this and making him feel bad for fighting with her in the first placeâŠÂ
Bloody damn bird, he thought. She was fierce and angry and so fucking vulnerable, and Samson wished he could do something to save her from herself. If only he could be a Templar without actually joining the Order again. If only he could get access to some proper lyrium againâŠ
His guts were knotted with longing. He closed his eyes and inhaled the scent of her hair, and eventually he fell into an uneasy sleep.Â
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I often hear from DA fans that they love Anders, but âthey feel too conflictedâ over the Chantry exploding
And they canât condone the act, even when they recognize that Anders âhad a good reasonâ. Arguments are generally âI agree with the purpose but not with the actionâ, âblowing up a palace is too extremeâ, âby doing that, Anders turned into Meredithâ, âheâs as bad as the Templarsâ.Â
It could be argued that there is no in-game validation for hundreds of people dying. That only a bunch of Chantry-folk exploded with the building - weâre talking about 20 to 30 casualties here - and that the bomb was limited to the building and collateral damage wasnât excessive.Â
It could also be argued that Anders had no choice. He tried for six years to peacefully petition for mage rights, he wrote his manifesto, he smuggled fugitives out of the Gallows and sheltered them in the clinic. He healed the poor and the sick in Darktown. After six years, the whole province was under Templar dictatorship, and Meredith had already requested Annulment directly to Orlais. Itâs not like Anders could have done anything else.Â
But letâs get real, and admit that it's understandable that the "grand" gesture of blowing up a building leaves people âconflictedâ, prompting them to shook their heads in disbelief, and blame Anders of being âthe real bad guyâ. Why? But because thatâs exactly how the game is trying to sell it.Â
There's some narrative there. Just look at how that building explodes. Two big columns of light converging, ominous music. The camera zooming on the terrified people inside, helpless as the world around them becomes a burning blast of white/red destructive magic.Â
Itâs horrifying to watch, especially because it takes after a very dark chapter of real world history, and the first-run players witness it wide eyed, shocked as they couldnât fathom such a sheer amount of destruction falling onto the city they learned to love through three Acts of Dragon Age 2. But letâs also consider the fact that for those three Acts, what the player does is pretty much kill people. There are a few missions where the foes are only monsters - such as those on Sundermount and the Bone Pit - but for the most part, Hawke and their merry band of misfits spend their time together slaughtering men and women, old and young, named or unnamed.
Some could say that these people âattacked firstâ, but thatâs surely not always the case: in a lot of instances itâs people minding their own business, and Hawke barging in to put an end to it, for a reason or another. In some others, the player decides that a person/group of people canât simply walk away, therefore they kill them or prompt a companion to do it.
During the first time skip, the player can also decide to have Hawke work as a mercenary, and they do so for an entire year. A mercenary by definition - as also seen with the first mission - kills people for money.
 Moreover, there are a lot of routes the player can take that allow pretty bad stuff to happen.
Some examples: If Hawke sides with the Templars, they get to butcher a group of mages and their families, as they were about to flee Kirkwall. If the player allows Ser Karrasâ group to get to the Starkhaven apostates in Act 1, some mages get murdered and Karras rapes Alain. The player can also have Feynriel turn into an Abomination if so they wish, which prompts Arianni to kill herself, and leads to a ton of awful things happening in Kirkwall. Not to mention that if you say the wrong thing to the Dalish hunters after Marethariâs death, you end up wiping out the Sabrae clan in its entirety. And that you can literally sell a person into slavery - not a random person, one of your companions.Â
 Hawke definitely kills a lot of people during the game. Innocents or not, involved or not, for one reason or another, petty or serious, for money and glory or for a good cause. Varric makes a rough count at some point in Act 2, and by then it's already around 250 deaths, speaking only of those Varric witnessed firsthand.
All of this gets a free morality pass from the game.
Sure, sometimes other NPCs judge you for your actions, but thereâs no single occasion where the game presents Hawkeâs choices as unforgivable, ominous or inhuman. Thereâs no single occasion where the game shows a cutscene of âhelpless innocentsâ dying at Hawkeâs hand, which stays forever burned into the playerâs mind.
Then Anders blows up the Chantry.
He blows up the symbol of centuriesâ worth of abuse and oppression, which has the whole Kirkwall province under Templar dictatorship, which never once in game has done anything remotely useful for the poor and the sick of Darktown. Which spawned and empowered people like Petrice, which allowed Templars like Ser Alrik to rise in the ranks, which orchestrated the murder of the Viscountâs heir and provoked the Qunari enough to have them almost destroy Kirkwall.
Anders blows up the Chantry, Elthina dies alongside a bunch of chantry-folk, and the game gives you THAT scene. That terrible, horrifying scene which screams âWRONGâ, yelling that it doesnât matter what mages have suffered and are still suffering, it doesnât matter that theyâre all about to die because Meredith already called Annulment, nothing matters anymore: this is just unacceptable.
Forget about everything else Anders did in those six years. Forget about the clinic, the manifesto, the friendship or love he shares with Hawke. Anders is unforgivable now, the game itself is telling you heâs a monster. That he went too far. âHe put a bomb into a building full of innocent peopleâ. In a world such as Thedas, âinnocent peopleâ dying for a reason or another is a daily occurrence. Mages dying on a whim of their Templar captors is a daily occurrence. Mages ripped away from their families as children, locked up, abused, raped, beaten, lobotomized.
And theyâre innocent too. All the victims of Chantry brutality are innocent to some degree, but all of this too is completely wiped out by that short cutscene.
The Chantry explodes, Elthina and her subordinates die, and people blame Anders for rebelling instead of blaming the Chantry for everything else. Even if Anders tried peacefully for six years. Even if he was one single man against that colossal institution of oppression and abuse of every race and culture, which brainwashed almost an entire continent into mindlessly following their âdivine lawâ. The game yells that âkilling innocent peopleâ is wrong.
I yell that no Chantry-folk in Kirkwall was innocent.
Even if I put the bloody, murderous history of the Chantry aside, if one allows law enforcements to rape and kill, one is not innocent. Elthina and her cronies were the most complicit of them all.
 Itâs 2019. Stop blaming the victims of abuse, and stop buying into BioWareâs narrative of âinnocent people dyingâ, purposely intended to villainize and shame the one person who dared to stand up against systemic oppression, giving a voice to all the mages whose cries were snuffed out.
It is lore-established that countless innocent people died because of the Chantry - in the seventeen Rights of Annulment pulled in Thedosian history, in the Exalted Marches, in the systemic erasure of Dalish and Chasind culture. That innocent people die every day of starvation in the alienages and in the city slums, and in the Circles when Templars decide to kill or lobotomize them.
 Innocent people donât live in a luxurious palace in the most opulent part of the city, so coated in gold that it could buy the whole Free Marches.
Innocent people donât have an army of brainwashed zealots to enforce their laws, kept on a leash by drug addiction.
Innocent people donât preach and empower centuries of abuse perpetrated upon others, whose only fault is being born different.
 Anders&Justice did the only right thing possible, and their actions should be a fandom-wide appreciated symbol of pride and freedom.
#mage rights#Anders#Justice#mage freedom#the chantry sucks#Stop blaming the victims of abuse#Innocent people rhetoric doesn't work in a medieval-based world#The Chantry IS NOT INNOCENT#Anders did nothing wrong#Mage Pride
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Meredithâs Lesbianism, Love Life, and Hypersexuality
   As Meredith was adopted into the Templar Order from a young age, she was not given ample opportunities that other Kirkwall youth had to explore their first relationships and sexual encounters. She was taught about the choice of chastity and most of her peers involved in the Chantry remained chaste until marriage later in life, or to their grave.Â
However, it was in Meredithâs adolescence that she became aware of her lack of feelings towards the young male templar recruits, and the intense emotions she felt towards the few women among the Orderâs ranks, as well as the women within the Chantry itself. For a while, she was uncertain about what it was exactly that she was feeling, whether it was confusion or her heart dictating her attraction to their fairer sex. At first, she initially repressed her feelings to focus on her training instead. But, as she aged from a teenager to a young adult, Meredith found it difficult to resist and she felt immense peer pressure to take her vow of chastity with her peers. While the vow was sacred to most, there were a select few that simply could not oblige that promise -- and Meredith was one of them.
Meredithâs first encounter with another woman was a Chantry Sister of similar age and curiosity, and while it was a short lived experimental sort of relationship, both learned of their attraction for other women, and had learned somewhat of what sex was meant to be like between two women together. Sex became something of a release -- a gratuitous guilty pleasure often snuck away in the basement of the Chantry itself. A scandal, should they ever get caught but Meredith lived for these secret rendezvous. While her templar brothers were sneaking away to the Blooming Rose for womanly attention and spending their coin, Meredith was learning what it meant to be a lesbian.
For years, as a Templar Knight, some of Meredithâs evenings were spent charming the Chantry Sisters - a glance here, a subtle touch there - all while sneaking back to the barracks. Her templar brothers had certainly made their attempts to woo Meredith at times too - she was a striking young woman, after all - tall, soft blonde hair, and bright blue eyes that one could easily get themselves lost in. However, their attempts were obviously unsuccessful and soon, most who knew her assumed she had kept her vow of chastity after all and left her be.Â
Meredith can be incredibly difficult to deal with in intimate relationships. In part, because of her career. In another, because of her hypersexuality.
   As Meredith has aged, her priorities shifted to accompany her rise in rank and file in the Templar Order. As a young woman, she never truly maintained a long term relationship as it was too difficult to keep it a secret from the rest of the world. As such, she began to prioritize putting her personal ambitions and her duty ahead of any potential partner, and has done so throughout the majority of her adult life and career as a templar.Â
That said, Meredithâs desire for sexual encounters has never subsided; in fact, with the rise in her rank, and pressure for her professional performance, Meredith uses sex as a release of stress, but also as a replacement for social interaction. In the hours when the sun sets, she does not typically socialize with the templars beneath her charge. She has some friends certainly (mainly those she has known since initiation and who adamantly take her side, along with Cullen as Knight-Captain), but because of the conflict of interest, it simply does not happen.
Her sexual desires, in a way, replace her social desires. She has always sought relief from stress and boredom through sexual endeavors. In her younger years as a Knight-Captain (now with some power under her belt), she would connect with many of the Chantry Sisters (as mentioned previously) and spend evenings with them when possible (which would mean under the cover of darkness and shadows to avoid rumour and suspicion / wanting to keep her private life private). Sexual release serves not only as pleasure but relief from the stresses of her position, but also her irritability/aggressive urges stemming from her PTSD.
Meredithâs hypersexuality within the context of her life in the Templar Order, has not prevented her from doing her work, nor does it act as a distraction. The Templar mindset has been drilled into her since childhood and thus, it would have to be something substantial to distract her from her responsibilities in the Gallows and fail to perform her duties. Hypersexuality for Meredith also acts as a way to suppress some of the symptoms of her trauma and mental illness.
As for those around her, she typically doesnât pursue romantic entanglements with the women she has sex with. Her career as Knight-Commander doesnât allow for it, and her notion of commitment / love is weighted heavily as part of a deep seated fear of loss (due to her high profile and dangerous life as a templar). She can have feelings but she often views them as stemming from the enjoyment of having sex with that particular person rather than the person themselves.
It is exceedingly rare, but it does happen where multiple occasions of sex with someone can become a slowly built relationship, but it takes a very long time for Meredith to accept what it is, and to come to terms with the other aspects of the relationship beyond the sexual component.
In most cases, however, if the sex is no longer enjoyable with a particular person, Meredith will cold cut them out and wonât answer letters or entertain the possibility of speaking with them in her office. Itâs a cruel treatment, but Meredith finds it the most efficient way to deal with it (even if itâs quite the opposite for those involved).
While scorned sexual partners may think to spread rumours, they know the kind of power Meredith has, and while she doesnât have to say it to them directly, the threat to their livelihood is evident because Meredith would know who exactly started it and how to end it where it began.
When it does come to intimate long-term relationships,
   Meredith is also an incredibly stubborn person who will often refuse to speak on her feelings about certain matters that she feels do not need to be spoken about. When it comes to relationships, she can be difficult to communicate with if it is not in her best interest, especially if she sees the issue as something as insignificant. For her, ignorance is often bliss, which is similar to that of her mindset in running the Gallows and its issues she actively chooses to ignore.
Ignoring issues and problems stems from the way she deals with things, but it also happens because she has grown up repressing her emotions after losing her sister and family. She does not want to experience loss with a loved one again, let alone an intimate partner. She believes it easier to live in the moment, leaving problems to deal with another time when itâs more convenient for her.
The lack of experience plays its part as well. While she has had decades to perfect being a templar, she has not had hardly any in long-term relationships and while she does not like being told sheâs done something wrong, she is bound to make mistakes â but wonât accept that sheâs entirely in the wrong when she very well might be. It takes patience to deal with Meredith, and it can certainly go badly if her partner is also prone to anger. There is no doubt Meredith will argue her position, refusing to cooperate until she feels she has absolutely no other choice in the matter, and then, it is a strained response that may not hold weight of its sincerity very well.
While it is claimed her âheart is iceâ, she can have feelings towards another that are truly genuine. She does not toss the term âloveâ around as it is rather meaningful to her â and she wonât often say it until she is truly sure that love is what she feels toward another person. Which, once more, her hypersexuality can often interfere with her emotional entanglement with another person, and may struggle with acknowledging what love truly âisâ; she also wonât say the âL wordâ easily, and would probably say it into her sleeping partnerâs ear until she feels comfortable with the idea to say it to their face.
Meredith is also liable to become extremely jealous. In terms of a relationship - be it casually sexual or something involving romance - Meredith is someone who can get rather jealous if her partnerâs attention is elsewhere. It varies, of course, with the status of their relationship. Casual sex may not bother her as much, and she may come off as arrogant in terms of believing sheâs still the better lover. In a romantic sense if she actually harbors feelings to another woman, and sees someone else as a potential threat to their relationship, she will inevitably feel jealous about the shared attention. She may be likely to comment if she feels itâs warranted (or if itâs in the middle of Act 3 wherein the red lyrium idol is making her extra paranoid). In terms of a polyamorous relationship, the idea is all but foreign to Meredith, and she finds it difficult to comprehend a shared partnership between more than two individuals.
Lastly, Meredith is an incredibly private person, preferring to keep anything about her personal life kept away from prying eyes and ears, and dispelling any and all rumours that may circulate about her. She abhors sarcastic!Hawkeâs commentary about herself and Orsino for a myriad of reasons, mainly being that itâs Orsino, but also the fact she would rather Hawkeâs words not be turned into rumours to entertain Kirkwallâs gossiping masses. Any intimate relationship will be kept hidden under the darkness of night, and secretive at best. Her reputation far precedes that of her personal life and she will keep it that way â even if it means ending the relationship.
#HEADCANON.#[ i spent my last forty minutes before bed editing this from old hcs because Valentine's Day so please give it a read ]
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Hello, I was wondering if you knew what really started the mate rebellion? Some say it was Anders...Cassandra says it was because of the Rite of Tranquility was able to be reversed... and Vivienne, I believed, said it was Fiona's fault. So, I'd like to know your opinion on what caused it !
Anders is the one who takes the most blame for it, but he really, really did not cause the Circle Rebellion. Not the way everyone thinks anyways.
So the major belief is that by destroying Kirkwallâs Chantry, Anders basically brought an Exalted March down on the Mages and gave the Mages the idea to rebel was a good one. Which is not at all what happened. Donât get me wrong, what Anders did, DID piss off the Templars and it DID inspire some mages, but none of that was incredibly relevant (it was relevant to some extent still) to the rebellion actually breaking out four years later.
Rather, Meredith is more to blame for the War than Anders is. In 9:38 (a year after Kirkwallâs Rebellion) what happened in Kirkwall was finally shared among the ranks of Templars and Mages, mages in other Circles were appalled by Meredithâs actions. The idea that she justified Annulling a Circle, without getting approval from the Divine, because of the actions of an Apostate was a terrifying possibility of the Circle System. Because of her abuse of power, some Circle did try to rebel or riot but ultimately failed and were quelled back into place.
During this the First Enchanters of all of Thedasâ Circles came together to vote to have the Circles dismantled, before this abuse could become commonplace. Especially seeing as how Meredith might have (or did, depending on Hawke) got away such an abuse of power. They ultimately decided not go through with it (due to pleas by Wynne). The Chantry then had the College of Enchanters (the meetings of the Enchanters) banned, along with banning all meeting of larger groups of mages in Circles in hopes to discourage more uprisings.
Then we come to 9:39. During which Celene begins to worry about the Mage uprisings and ideas of rebellion, she pressures Divine Justinia to act against the Mages or force her to do it in the Divineâs absence. Though Justinia can do almost nothing to help bring the issue to a head, as Templars and loyalist mages see her as too sympathetic towards the mages. Her Holiness is met with resistance as she tries to reform the Circle system, instead of silencing the mages as everyone else wishes.
We come to the end of 9:39 and the beginning of 9:40 as Divine Justinia still tries to calm the issues between the Chantryâs army (Templars) and their wards (Mages). This is when Wynne becomes involved, along with Rhys and Cole at White Spire. At this point Wynne and company uncover the realization that Tranquility can be reversed, which Cassandra claims is the start of the Mage/Templar War. She isnât exactly wrong, since it kickstarts the actual war, but ultimately it is never about the fact that Tranquility can be reversed and more about the Templarsâ (and Seekersâ) reaction to this knowledge being known.
Cassandra basically simplifies the idea that if they had freely given the mages an option or at least the knowledge to reverse Tranquility, that the war would have never broken out. Which is a dismissal and disservice to the other abuses that mages had to face under the Chantry and Templars to that point, that brought them to the decision to disband the Circle.
Regardless, the Circles decide to vote once more for secession from the Circle and Lord Seeker Lambert chooses to impede on that moment. At which point Rhys is framed for murder and his fellow Mages choose to stand up for him, which leads into a momentary battle between Templars and Mages. Up to that point, the battle is fought on defensive by the mages. They are simply trying to protect one of their own and themselves; until a Mage among the group tries to surrender himself, a Templar strikes him without mercy and the Mages realize they are fighting against a force that wishes them dead instead of cowed.
The Mages finally take a final vote, choosing to leave the Circles as a whole. They cite the fact that every time theyâve thus taken inaction, theyâve only receive harsher punishment in reward as reason. The vote passes on a slim margin, causing a fracture within the mages themselves. One group being the Rebels led by Grand Enchanter Fiona and the other Loyalists headed by First Enchanter Vivienne de Fer.
From there the Templars and Seekers take their own leave of the Chantry, citing the fact they received no support from the Divine and were even undermined by her.
The last event before the fighting truly breaks out, being when the Seekers annulled Dairsmund in Rivain. Claiming to do so on the ground that the mages were given too many freedoms, as seen with their interactions with spirits (part of Rivainâs Culture) and their family units being allowed to exist within the Circle.
SO tldr;Â Anders wasnât to blame for the Templar/Mage War, if anyone in DA2 was it is Meredith. But even then, it was more than that and ultimately came down to the actions and responses of the Templars and Seekers; rather than anything the mages did. The Templars and Seekers chose to abuse their power and tried everything possible to make life more miserable for the mages, causing them to rebel at every given chance.
What more Cassandra is only touching on one of the issues that caused the war when she mentions a cure to Tranquility, and the fact is the cure was a very, very small factor to the mages when it came to the decision to rebel.
#Mages#Mage#Mage/Templar War#Templar/Mage War#Templar Critical#Timeline#DA Meta#DA Lore#long post#Anon#ageofdragon responds
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