#some pre-skyhold mayhaps?

[lottiesnotebook]

happy friday! "every story needs a child who believes the hero's gonna be just fine" for varric and cara mayhap?

Oh this was a good one and it turned out so saaaaad! Have some pre-Veilguard Varric and Cara, I hope you enjoy! <3

Varric & Cara 'Rook' Hawke-Laidir, pre-Veilguard, Lord of Fortune Rook, background Hawke/Anders

@adainesjacket | @dadrunkwriting

awake, awake, you children bold

It’s hard to see Cara Hawke-Laidir in the severely-hungover young woman sprawled on the chairs outside Isabela’s ‘office’. To his mind, to his memory, Cara is still six years old and peering at him through the bannisters, or racing down the stairs screeching Uncle Varric louder than all the gulls in Kirkwall. She’s not twice his height, makeup from yesterday (or perhaps the day before) smeared around her eye, long legs dangling off one end of the row of chairs, long hair sweeping the floor at the other. She should, if the world were kinder, still be a little girl in ruffled skirts, hair in pigtails. She is, in this moment, in sulky profile, her mother’s image, Hawke thwarted in whatever her quest of the day had been. Then she rolls upright in a single fluid motion, a pout like her father’s pursing her lips, and she is herself again — Rhiannon Hawke had never gotten her way through pouting alone.

“I don’t need a babysitter, Varric,” she says, baldly, arms folded across her chest. “Just because I pissed off one spoilt noble family-”

Isabela had been almost grey beneath her golden tan as she’d told him who exactly Hawke’s little monster had pissed off, had, for the first time since he’d known her, come close to looking her age.

He knows Cara’s parents well enough to know that that explanation won’t hold water with their girl, though. Between her father’s magic and her mother’s legend and Isabela’s capricious favour, Cara’s never met a problem she doesn’t think she can brazen her way through. Her mother used to be the same. Varric can’t quite bear to see that same light fade out of Cara’s eyes.

So instead, he says: “Who says you’re the one that needs babysitting? You might not believe it on account of my rogueish good looks-” She wrinkles her nose at that, which only makes her look more like herself, “but I’m an old man now, Princess, and mayhaps your boss is worried about me chasing after ghosts by my lonesome.”

“You’re not alone,” she points out, “You have Harding.”

“Mm, and you’re telling me you have no interest in seeing Lace again?”

Her cheeks flush at that, as she did when she was thirteen at Skyhold and trailed Harding everywhere she went like a particularly lovesick duckling. “Varric,” she groans. “Even if I were going with you, you cannot call me Princess in front of Lace. And I’m not. Going with you, I mean.”

“It’s a job, prince- kid. I’m not expecting a freebie just because we’re old friends. And Isabela can’t exactly put you to work while you’re a wanted woman in Rivain.”

She sighs, her shoulders slump, she rubs her temples — her father again, Anders used to get such headaches — and then says, with a sorrow far older than she is: “I fucked it up again, didn’t I?”

Varric knows that feeling too well — another home lost, another time to run, another group of friends scattered to the wind — and he can’t resist any longer. She’s still the kid he used to tell bedtime stories too, and he squeezes her shoulder, and offers her a new one:

“I need you to help me find the Dread Wolf. Do that, and nobody’s ever going to kick you out of town again.”

She leans into his grip, into his side, like she’s a little girl again, and it’s hard to remember she’s not, even when she rises to her full height and follows him from the Hall of Valor. It’s not even a lie. He does need her, for her quick thinking, her magic, her irrepressible sense of mirth. He needs her because- because he’s been hunting Solas for almost half her life, and even Harding’s starting to lose faith in him, but Cara? He’s always been a hero to Cara, and he needs her wide-eyed, childish faith to keep him going a little longer. He needs someone who believes he’s going to make it to the end of this story, because sometimes, he wakes to aches in his aging bones, and mocking laughter on the wind, and he doubts he will see the end of this quest, but when Cara looks at him… Reflected in her eyes, he thinks he could live forever, the way she sees him, and maybe that sort of immortality wouldn’t be too bad.

[repentnt]

@andrastespromise​​​ wrote :    “ Feel better getting that off your chest? ” from my lavellan 😎 𝐇𝐀𝐖𝐊𝐄 𝐃𝐈𝐀𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐔𝐄 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐓𝐒 .    accepting !

        head bowed ,  leena’s ears burn with embarrassment .  ❛  my apologies ,  𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐋𝐃 ,  i certainly do not mean to speak out of turn .  ❜  upon hearing that the inquisition would consider a potential alliance with the 𝙍𝙀𝘽𝙀𝙇 mages at redcliffe ,  she immediately sought out melava with the request that the inquisition should form this alliance 𝙄𝙈𝙈𝙀𝘿𝙄𝘼𝙏𝙀𝙇𝙔 .  leena had cornered the elf in haven’s chantry ,  where she then proceeded to prattle on about the hardships the mages at redcliffe had faced .  it was rare for her to be so outspoken .  she silently chastized herself ;  she must not present herself as too passionate .  too zelous .  𝐌𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 would not approve .

        thin lips 𝙋𝙐𝙍𝙎𝙀 as she takes a moment to compose herself .  ❛  i understand that lady cassandra or commander cullen may advise otherwise ,  but i must 𝙐𝙍𝙂𝙀 you to consider traveling to redcliffe .  the 𝐌𝐀𝐆𝐄𝐒  -  they are good people .  if i were not lending my services here ,  i might even be at redcliffe with them .  ❜  leena took a steady breath ,  ❛  THAT is all that i wish to say .  ❜