#a lot of them have proven useless. hell even rose has no bearings on the current story and is just weighing it down but cutting one of the

[c0rpsedemon]

meanwhile the jaubreyverse is abt to start maybe its 4th(?) gen . maybe one day i'll come up w an incarnation of this lot i'm happy w and won't want to change around

[ladydracarysao3]

Nemesis of Neglect: A Dragon Age & Jack the Ripper Tale

Chapter One

Disclaimer This is a canon divergent Dragon Age and True Crime mash-up of Kirkwall, and London’s notorious Jack the Ripper. It is a tale not for the faint of heart, but rather for the reader who wishes to ride a thrilling mystery of sex, deception, and murder.

[Read Chapter One on AO3]  or  [Start with the Prologue]

Chapter 1

As the sun peeks through the curtains of Jethann’s room, Ian blearily cracks open her eyes. She lets out a tiny groan and covers her face from the accosting streams of bright light. The warm breath of Jethann then tickles the back of her neck, and he tightens the hold he has around her middle. A hum dipped deliciously in seduction rumbles from his throat as his hand then slides up Ian’s stomach to clutch and knead softly at her breast.

“Has my lady risen from her heavenly slumber?” his voice whispers into her skin, followed closely by tempting kisses peppered on the back of her neck and shoulders.

“Mmm yes,” she says. The coarseness of her sleep-laden throat causes her voice to rasp and crack. “I thought it a sour thing, but you now remind me of all the possibilities the day could bring.”

Jethann pinches her nipple sharply, and she hisses breath through her teeth. Amused, he hums and glides his tongue along to slope of her neck to her ear. “You paid for the entire night, love. No reason why the early morning cannot be consumed by it.”

Ian moans and turns her naked body through the sheets to face him. “You make an excellent point, Jethann.” She smirks into the hooded, pearlescent eyes of the elven man beside her. His promiscuous hand trails back down from her breast to find purchase between her thighs and effectively stops Ian’s breath. He takes her mouth with his, lightly drawing in her lower lip, sucking it as they giggle low, wicked sounds.

Unfortunately for them, a loud banging rattles the door to the room with the muffled sounds of her name being summoned from the other side.

“Fuck off!” Ian yells at the door. “I’ve paid and will continue to pay as I like!”

But the door’s lock betrays the couple when keys jingle within it, giving way to Madame Lusine as she storms inside the room. “Miss Hawke, you know I do not allow disruption in my halls and your brother is loudly disrupting everything!”

Ian sits upright in the plush bed, holding its covers modestly to her chest. “Carver? Here? What in hell for?”

“I am the Madame here, Hawke, not your servant. If you have questions, I suggest you see to him immediately. He is in the mezzanine screaming your name.” Lusine turns to leave. “Get him out of here,” added before she slams the door behind her.

Silence befalls the room. Ian sits befuddled for a brief moment before evacuating the serenity she once cherished in the sheets. Quickly storming across the lush carpets, anger steadily rising in her chest with each step, she reaches for her undergarments, trousers, and boots.

“Oh, but Ian, what about us, love?” Jethann sweetly whines. He sounds almost miles away. His soft voice tries to tempt her back to him, but at first, she ignores him.

“I’m sorry, Jethann,” she finally says while buttoning her shirt and tucking it into her trousers. “If that pain in my arse is here, he must have something idiotic to slam in my lap. It’s sure to destroy my entire day, if not my entire week.” She ties her tie quickly, and slips on her vest. Running her fingers through her short, shaggy black locks, she reaches and drapes her coat over her arm and snatches her bowler. Marching for the door, she sends the briefest of smiles to the elf in the bed and swipes a gold coin from her pocket. Flicking it onto a tabletop she says, “For your trouble and well intentions. Until next time,” then flies out the door.

Ian races through the ornate and dreamy halls of the brothel, where decadent red silk and golden thread cascade from damask papered walls. She soon finds her brother angrily tapping his foot near the front door. Two large doormen and a furious Madame Lusine stand between him and the brothel proper.

When Carver spots Ian approaching, he crosses his arms. “About time you showed up!”

Ian nods a sharp gesture at Lusine as she roughly grabs Carver’s arm and yanks him outside. “How dare you. How did you know I was here?” she asks once in the courtyard.

“It’s you, Ian. I knew you’d either be at The Blooming Rose or The Hanged Man. Seemed a bit early to be getting pissed, even for you.”

“Bugger off. Who do you even think you are, wearing that thing while you speak to me?” Ian points to a pin on Carver’s lapel, a metal piece of heraldry depicting a flaming sword. “I should punch you square in the jaw just for that.”

“The Knights Templar is a just organization, Sister. They are the few that actually care to bring true order to this fleabag city.”

Ian steps into Carver’s face and glares into his blue eyes. As far as she is concerned, their eye color is the only thing they have in common. He was no brother to her as soon as he joined the Templars. “You are all self-righteous thugs. Father would be ashamed of you.”

An infinitesimal flinch runs through Carver’s face as saliva from Ian’s distaste speckles across his skin. But mostly, Carver stands firm and reciprocates the hate emanating off her and her stare. “Shut up for one second, Marian. I’m not here for you, or for me. This is for Bethany.”

A chill spikes in Ian’s spine and she immediately stands back on her heels. “Bethany? Why?”

“I don’t know. We received word from Aveline this morning, but she was looking for you. She needs us to come at once.”

“Come where?”

“She sent you an address in Lowtown. I brought the carriage.”

Carver gestures to the black carriage nearby with Ian’s slow but trusted driver, Sandal, sitting atop it. Without a word she marches forward and tips her bowler at the young man before climbing inside. “Enchanted,” Sandal replies. It is the only word Ian has ever heard the young man say.

As they ride through Hightown and enter the lower depths of Kirkwall’s slums, Ian stares out the small window of her carriage. She feels weighted, guilty, for flaunting her wealth in the streets she so recently called home. If not for the urgency and mystery pertaining to her sister, she would have walked. Instead, her eyes comb the muddy passages of Lowtown from her perch on high. Her horse is surely adding to the shit and filth of the avenues and alleyways in which the least fortunate huddle and fight to survive.

There is a foul pit in her chest. She wonders what would bring Bethany back to these streets. What could Bethany have been involved with down here? Honestly, Ian never paid her sister much mind. She just assumed the girl had taken to high-society living as their mother had taught her to aspire to, as a child.

While they were not the richest of families in Ferelden, they were certainly not paupers. But Leandra had been raised in the highest homes of Kirkwall. Her family had long been regarded as one of the richest and grandest in the then illustrious city. It was not until Leandra ran off to Ferelden for love that she lost any status, and it was not until they attempted to return to her home that she hit the bottom.

However, in the rolling hills of Ferelden, Leandra always taught her children to strive for greatness - and for her daughters to grow to be proper ladies. But all of her teachings about the accomplishments of delicate females fell on deaf ears with Ian.

Even as a young girl, Ian preferred the clothing, manners, and even names of men to women. To this end, she spent everyday in constant battle with her mother over her misguided choices. But Bethany was different. Bethany took to the role of ladies sans complaint. She enjoyed the lovely dresses and hobbies that society dictated were fit for female sensibilities.

Bethany is the pride of her mother’s eye.

So when Ian managed to fight and drag her family back out of the gutter, she easily assumed that with the finery her sister began to wear, and the tea times she held in the solarium, that she was the epitome of everything Leandra always had wished. There was nothing to worry about, nothing to question in regards to Bethany’s interests. And in that case, why on Andraste’s flaming wet crotch would she ever have reason to come back to Lowtown?

Bethany was never involved in Ian’s affairs. Ian saw to that. If anyone were to bear the weight of the Hawke family, it would be Ian. Her father had long passed, and her brother was a useless baffoun. That left only Ian to bring her mother’s dreams to reality. There were far too many things she did, far too many things she had to do, to ever dream of involving her sister. The only tarnish Ian ever gave Bethany or her mother was their association to her. But even the society in Kirkwall can only snub their noses for so long against rags-to-riches foreigners. Ian withholds too many secrets on the lot of them to keep to their snobbery. Fragile information that they know Ian would not hesitate to exploit for the sake of her family.

Since moving into Hightown, Ian and her mother have learned to casually ignore each other. Leandra is grateful to be back in a place of comfort, and if that means her eldest defies the very meaning of decency to keep her there, she has proven that she is willing to look the other way. Especially if that means she can play dress-up with her doll of a younger daughter in the way she has always dreamed.

But riding now, through these streets of Lowtown, Ian wonders if her neglectful attention on her sister’s affairs has ultimately brought her harm. No matter what she has assumed or expected of Bethany, from this point on, Ian will pay closer mind to her sister’s dealings, and with whom she is associating.

The carriage pulls to a jockeyed stop outside a dingy narrow alleyway. Too narrow for the carriage to enter. Ian and Carver step out into the dirt, the rank smell of decay and garbage quickly filling Ian’s lungs.

“Thank you, Sandal. Go on home now,” Ian says. The dwarf boy smiles, says his famous one word, and steers the horse back toward Hightown.

Turning to the alley, Ian notices many members of the Kirkwall Guard meandering the tight space. Her heart races. A cold sweat drips down her back. What could Bethany possibly have been involved in that requires so many guardsmen?

Her shoulders slam into guards as she walks forward. She bumps and digs into wet, dirty brick as she pushes past. Her pace hastening, she trips and stumbles over garbage and broken bottles. The sounds of angry men miss her ears, for her attention is glued on a doorway ahead. Before she reaches that doorway, however, the one to the hovel in which most of the men file in and out, the red headed Guard Captain Aveline Vallen appears.

Aveline is about the only other established woman in Kirkwall who managed to put the opinions of men - like where the proper place for a woman resides - firmly up their arses. Aveline is a long time friend and associate of Ian’s. Together, they had fought their way through the destruction of Ferelden, traveled against the currents to Kirkwall, and then by the skin of their teeth, made names for themselves within the city’s wicked and impossible walls. Much like Ian, Aveline is the type of woman who stands taller than her male counterparts due to more than the heel of her shoe.

But now, as she pushes her men from her way, Aveline is not standing tall. She is not confident. Her green eyes are fraught with worry and dread. If Ian were any lesser a woman of physical and mental strength, she may have buckled under that gaze of Aveline’s.

“Hawke,” she says, a bit too sullenly, as she raises her hand to stop Ian from walking any farther. “I don’t want you to see this, but I fear what you would do to me if I hadn’t called on you.”

“Where is our sister, Aveline?” Carver asks.

Aveline’s eyes dash over to Carver before falling to the grime at their feet. She shakes her head. “I’m so sorry.”

That’s all Ian needs to hear. Without thinking, she shoves the woman out of her way and runs to the doorway. The sounds of herself screaming her sister's name echo softly as if from a far away land. Ian faintly hears Aveline order men to leave the scene, when she stops dead in her tracks.

Shimmering blue velvet is crumpled and wet on a dirty wooden floor.

Ian swallows hard and steps fully into the room. She feels nothing. The scene is so grotesque, so unimaginable, that she cannot believe it. And she stands there, motionless, staring at the bloody body sprawled across the floor. Brown hair in loose ringlets splayed and matted and soaked in red like a horrific halo of what was stolen from the world.

Carver shoves past. He is screaming. She knows he is screaming. But she cannot hear it. All Ian can hear is a high-pitched ringing. Everything sounds and feels like she has been submerged underwater. She cannot breathe. She cannot hear. She can barely even think, except out of desperation for reality to be something other than what she is seeing.

Her brother’s body falls on its knees. His hands desperately try to find something to touch, something to grab onto that is Bethany, but instead, they hang helplessly in the air. Tears stream down his cheeks as if his tear ducts are tossing buckets of the salty, wounded liquid. He turns his head to Ian and shouts angry words. Accusatory fingers wag in her direction. But all Ian can do is stand there. Staring.

The body looks like Bethany. It is wearing her clothing. However, the disfigurement and carnage prohibits Ian’s brain from believing that this pile of mutilated blood and flesh belongs to her little sister.

Her throat, cut. Her gut, open. Her eyes, wide. The unique golden color of her iris stares vacantly at the ceiling.

“Why are you just standing there?!” she hears Carver yell, and at that moment, Ian discovers the knot in her stomach is shooting upwards. She rushes to the edge of the room and vomits on the floor. All of her shock, all of her horror, erupts from her body and splashes and mixes into her sister’s blood. The realization of everything slams into her mind like a steam engine. Her sister is dead. Murdered. And her sick is splashing into the blood.

Bethany’s blood.

Her body convulses harder.

Ian is no stranger to blood or the dead. She is no stranger to the horrors of men. In fact, she has taken part when the need required. But none of those bodies, none of those foul creatures she has cut down...were her little sister. Her little sister whom Ian loved dearly, but to whom she never expressed the depths of her affection.

Ian braces herself with one hand against the brick wall beside her as she expels the final contents of her stomach. Final dry heaves that feel like her insides are being wrung through a laundry press. Coughing, she attempts to right herself and wipe the sick from her mouth. As she straightens, she notices red words painted on the wall above her sister’s body.

DEATH TO CONJURERS.

She stares at the words. Painted in blood, no doubt. Bethany’s blood. The blood of a sweet, kind young woman. A woman who never brought harm to a single living creature. That woman’s blood now painted in hate on the walls of a disgusting, rat infested hovel.

Soon she feels Aveline’s arm wrap around her shoulders, and her friend ushers her out of the room. At the same time, a guardsman helps Carver from his knees.

She’s ushered, and she stares blankly, and so many questions swirl in her mind. Questions that she cannot find the breath needed to produce the sounds. Instead, her lips move slowly, forming syllables in shape alone.

Eventually emerging from the dark confines of the alleyway, she blinks and strains her eyes in the sudden light flowing from open sky.

“Go home, Hawke,” Aveline says, her freckled face appearing in Ian’s view. The Guard Captain snaps her fingers at one of her men. “Guardsman Donnic will make sure your journey back to Hightown happens safely. Go home and be with your family. Mourn. And I promise you, I will find the monster who did this.” She squeezes Ian’s shoulders. “When you are ready, find me in my office, and I will tell you anything I can.”

A single tear escapes Ian’s eye as she is handed into the care of Donnic. Her feet move, but only out of habit, and her mind swims in the questions she has yet the strength to ask.

A quick note: 

Thank you for coming aboard my steam train of horror, lies, and death. If you are reading this as I post, I will do my best to post the remaining chapters every Tuesday and Wednesday - until a finale week in early November where I will post on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.