A Lesson in Change

Title: A Lesson in Change

Series: Dragon Age

Characters: F!Hawke, Carver Hawke, Cullen, OC: Angus, OC: Ser Marin, OC: Mathis Hawke

Words: 3,657

Summary: A coda to Coming Home. When Carver goes to meet Angus and Marin so they can learn what has changed in Kirkwall, he learns that Marin has left the Gallows – and is stalking the mage Francine.

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“Rawr! I’m an Archdemon!”

Carver couldn’t help but laugh as three girls scattered before his nephew as the five year-old chased them around the Gallows courtyard with a black cloak bundled around him. From the amused smiles on the faces of those in the courtyard, this was a regular game of the children. Even the two templars in padded armor sparring off to the side paused briefly to smile at their antics.

It was so different from when he’d joined.

But better. He would definitely say that filling the courtyard with the laughter of children was much better than the cloud of dread that had once hung over it.

Since he was waiting for Marin and Angus to arrive for their return conversation with the Commander, Carver leaned against a pillar and watched the children. To his surprise, one of the girls picked up something from the cobblestones and he saw that it was a child-sized waster. She brandished it and shouted in a childish treble, “I’m the Hero of Ferelden! Archdemons don’t scare me!”

Mathis raised both arms at that, tiny hands twisted into claws, and made growling noises as his cloak billowed around him from the motion. The girl grinned and batted the sword at him and a smile twitched at the corner of Carver’s mouth as he watched the pair ‘battle’. A few moments later she stabbed the boy in the chest and he squawked before crying, “No! I am dead!” and collapsing in a heap.

Many in the courtyard began applauding at the girl waved her sword and skipped around the dead ‘Archdemon’. Then the other two girls and another boy ran up, the boy snapping, “How come the Archdemon can’t win?”

“The Archdemon never wins!” exclaimed Mathis as he bounded upright, trying to untangle himself from the cloak. Carver chuckled and shook his head as the boy reached out and lightly shoved the ‘Hero of Ferelden’. “I get to be the Hero next time though.”

One of the other girls giggled and asked, “Why not the Champion?”

Carver’s eyes darted to his nephew and he watched as the boy’s face twisted into an expression that seemed beyond his years. And one that he’d seen on Anders’ face when the healer had not wanted to do something. Then the look was gone and he said solemnly, “Mama wasn’t there,” before he gave up on untangling the cloak and flicked one end at the ‘Hero’.

The girl stuck out her tongue at that and batted at him with the tip of the sword, which started the little group into a game of tag. After a moment they sprinted past him as Mathis was the one tagged and the boy grinned up at him, shouting, “Hello, Uncle!” before he raced past after his friends.

Carver turned to look after them, shaking his head as he watched a mage deep in a book step out of the way of the racing children in an obviously practiced move. His sister really had done something amazing. Though from Marin and Angus’ expressions last night, they weren’t as appreciative of the changes as he was.

They hadn’t grown up in a home with three apostates, sick with the knowledge that they were different and trying to push past the feeling that they were expendable.

As though summoned by the mere thought of him, Angus was suddenly running towards him from an open doorway and the initiate’s face was drawn up in the expression Carver had learned meant something had gone wrong and the young man hadn’t stopped it. He’d tried his hardest to break the boy of it while they were in Starkhaven and had succeeded when they were in a fight. Angus fought like a demon when you put a sword in his hand.

Off the battlefield, he still didn’t know what to do with himself.

With a sigh, Carver pushed away from the pillar and noticed that the younger man was dressed in his armor again. Given that they had spent most of their time in Starkhaven in armor, he’d taken the opportunity to dress down for the first day of their homecoming and was only wearing a shirt and breeches with the old worn boots he’d left in his room five years previous.

“What is it, Angus?”

“I…its Marin, ser. He’s…” Angus’ eyes darted around them nervously, like he was expecting someone to pop up and attack him for what he was about to say. “He’s not happy with the changes.”

Carver groaned at that news and lifted a hand to rub at the bridge of his nose. “What did he do, Angus?” he asked even though he didn’t really want to know.

The initiate made a face then burst out, “He’s following Francine! He kept repeating last night that she’s not supposed to be out and that someone needed to watch her just in case.”

Just in case she ran , Carver filled in for himself. Or did blood magic. Or got possessed. Or any number of other terrible things that the Chantry thinks mages do if templars aren’t watching them.

“Maker, I told him to not get involved,” he growled, already feeling a headache coming on. “Come on, we still have to see the Commander. Now we have to just inform him that Marin’s positioned himself to possibly screw the Order.”

Angus trailed along at his heels like a lost puppy on the way to the Commander’s office and as Carver moved to knock on the door, he heard the one across the hall open. “Finally come to see Cullen, little brother?” chirped Treva as she exited the First Enchanter’s office, a sheaf of papers in hand. As he turned to look at her, she frowned and asked, “Didn’t you have someone else with you last night?”

“He’s stalking Francine apparently,” growled Carver as he noticed she wasn’t wearing Anders’ old coat today. Then he glanced into the office through the open door and saw it was folded over the back of the chair. So much for that.

“Stalking Francine…oh Andraste’s flaming tits.” Angus’ eyes went wide at the curse and Carver recalled that the boy had been a Chantry orphan before he’d come to the Order. And despite knowing some particularly vulgar curses himself, Carver always made sure to say them in Rivaini (mostly since Isabela had taught them to him that way first). Rolling his eyes skyward at the boy, he focused again on his sister as she tossed the papers back into her office and continued, “He’s going to get himself killed. Cullen!”

The door behind him opened and Carver glanced over his shoulder to see his Commander standing there, hazel eyes narrowed as he finished buckling the straps on his breastplate. “I heard, Treva,” he said shortly, gaze flickering over Carver and Angus. “Ser Carver, Angus, it’s good to have you both back. Given you’ve just returned, I’m going to have to ask you both to remain here while we deal with this.”

“Of course,” answered Carver quickly, the sharp tone in his voice sure to let Angus know that he was not to argue with two superior officers.

“Excellent,” said Cullen with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He then stepped back into the office to grab his sword, cinching it around his waist as he and the Champion of Kirkwall fell into step as they strode away. Carver watched them go with narrowed eyes, his brain going in all sorts of directions at the seemingly close relationship they had. Then he brushed the surge of brotherly protectiveness aside and turned towards Angus, who was shifting nervously again.

The initiate then turned wide eyes up to him and asked, “Ser…what do we do now?”

“We wait, Angus. Right. Here. And we hope my sister doesn’t drag Marin back here with his head detached because I am feeling the need to beat him bloody myself. Beating up corpses is boring.”

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It was not even an hour when Treva kicked Marin through the door, sending the unarmored templar stumbling into a heap at Carver and Angus’ feet. Carver looked down at him, not feeling particularly sympathetic given what damage his brother might have done, and glared at Angus to make sure the initiate knew he wasn’t supposed to feel it either.

The glare the boy summoned up was weak but at least he tried.

“Are you stupid?” snarled Treva as she stalked forward, one leg twitching as if she wanted to kick the prone templar again. “You come in here after five years and you don’t even think of waiting to see what’s changed in the city?”

“Treva.” Carver jerked his head towards the Commander at the cool, clipped tone of voice. Cullen’s anger wasn’t brash and open like his sister’s; no, it was much colder and far worse as it hid itself behind calm. “That’s enough.”

Blue eyes flashed and Cullen asked, “Why don’t you go have lunch with Mathis?” For a moment Carver couldn’t believe he would even ask her to leave but then he watched in awe as his sister’s jaw clenched. As she nodded and turned back, he couldn’t help but smile as he heard her growled words.

“Fine, he’s your templar, you handle him. But so help me, Cullen, if he jeopardizes the life of one of my mages again, I won’t be so easy on him.”

“Easy?” gasped Marin as he managed to rise to his hands and knees. “Maker, woman, I’m lucky I still have a nose after that punch.”

Treva’s lips curled and she started to snarl something but Cullen’s hand rose to grip her arm. She glared then let out a hiss before tugging away from his grip and storming out into the templars small courtyard. Carver watched her go until the Commander closed the door and moved forward to jerk Marin up off the floor by his arm.

“You idiot,” he snarled and there was all the anger that was threatening to escape from the man. Carver briefly saw Marin’s bloody nose before Cullen dragged him into the office and he motioned Angus to follow as he stepped inside after them and closed the door.

Cullen shoved Marin into a chair positioned in front of his desk then slammed his hands down onto the arms, looming over the other man. The bloodied templar squirmed backwards despite having nowhere to go and leaned away from their angry superior as far as he possibly could in the chair.

“Ser –“

“I don’t want to hear it!” bellowed Cullen. “I expected better of you, Ser Marin, when you returned. It did not seem to me when you left that you were one of Meredith’s.”

Carver blinked a little at the venom the former Knight-Commander’s name was hissed in but then realized he shouldn’t have been surprised. It was likely that they had found other things she had done that they hadn’t known about.

“No!” exclaimed Marin. “I’m not, ser! I just…”

“You just what? You could not do as Ser Carver asked and waited to speak to me before you went off to do something that could jeopardize our position in this city?”

The younger man bowed his head and Cullen let out a dissatisfied grunt before he pushed away from the chair, straightening to his full height. “I am waiting to hear an explanation, Ser Marin,” continued the blond man angrily.

Marin shook his head and stammered, “I don’t know what I was thinking, ser! It’s just…there weren’t any mages in Starkhaven! And I –“

“No mages in Starkhaven?” interrupted Cullen. His gaze flicked to Carver in question.

Carver nodded slowly and explained, “They never rebuilt the Circle after the mages escaped here. Given that the templars there were summoned back to Orlais by the Divine, no one felt the need to do so either.” He paused, mulling over his next words and the decision he’d made while discussing a mage-child with Sebastian. “Those with untrained magic were used against us, forced into becoming abominations and let loose like dogs. After we took the city, the Prince and I came to an agreement that until the Chantry was able to rebuild, any mage-children found would be sent here.”

To templars , were the words he’d used with his men as Corbin and Walter, his Meredith sympathizers, had still been alive when he’d first broached the idea. The phrasing he’d used with Sebastian had been similar given the Prince’s views but his own were different. He’d wanted to send the children somewhere where they would be people and not monsters.

The Commander’s eyes narrowed at how mages had been used then he nodded and turned his attention back to Marin. Startling like a young bird just out of the nest, the man stammered into an explanation of just doing what he thought was right and Carver sighed.

“Men,” he said aloud before anyone else could speak as Marin finished, “tend to do more foolish things when they think they are right.” Carver shrugged and looked apologetically at Cullen for the interruption as he explained, “My father told me that once after we watched a templar cut down a mage-child who’d attacked him out of fear and burned him badly.”

He shifted his attention to Marin as his fellow templar seemed to be relaxing and fixed him with a furious stare. “My father,” growled Carver, “was an apostate. So is my sister, the very Champion of this city, and so was my twin sister.” Marin met his gaze nervously and he hoped the other man read that he was not helping him.

Cullen held up a hand to forestall anything else being said and turned his attention back to the seated templar.

“Ser Marin,” he stated sternly, “you are hereby stripped of your rank and demoted to the position of initiate until I deem it suitable to return your rank. You will be allowed to remain in your room but you will train with them and you will learn with them. If, knowing this if your new place, you do not wish to remain with us, then you will be forced to leave the city.”

“Leave?” breathed Marin as Angus hitched a surprised breath at the punishment. “Commander, I…this is my home.”

“Then you will submit to my terms?”

Marin bowed his head then nodded. “Yes, ser. I apologize, ser.”

Cullen scowled and Carver snapped, “The Commander is not who you need to apologize to, Marin.” He could tell from the look on Cullen’s face that the man was losing his patience. And Marin had been his responsibility technically. “Your apology should be to Francine and her family.”

“But not at this moment,” said Cullen as Marin started to rise, seemingly to go do just that. “You and Angus will report to Ser Walthrop tomorrow. For now…” He paused to draw in a deep breath and for a moment Carver thought he was going to say get out of my sight. “For now go acclimate yourselves to what has changed in the Gallows. Do nothing to the mages. Watch your brothers and sisters. And find Siegfried and get him to heal your nose before it gets stuck at that angle.”

As the Commander fell silent, Marin took it as his leave and fled the office. Angus’ eyes flicked nervously after him then to Cullen before falling on Carver, who nodded at the boy. As he followed, Cullen moved to sink into the chair behind his desk and groaned, “Maker help me, I nearly let Treva have the man. That stunt of his could have cost us a great deal.”

His sister’s name brought Carver’s brotherly protectiveness raging back and he clenched his teeth so he didn’t just come out with what he wanted to say. Controlling it, he sat in the chair Marin had vacated and asked, “What exactly has changed since we’ve been gone, Commander?” If the other man noticed the tightness in his voice, he didn’t show it.

Cullen sighed then stood up again to unbuckle his sword belt and lay it aside. As he started working on the armor buckles, he began talking, explaining the changes that he and Treva had put forth slowly.

The first had been in the Gallows itself: teaching templars to not immediately suspect the worst and the mages to not fear themselves. They had weeded out the last of Meredith’s sympathizers during that first year…but not before one of them had sent a letter to the Divine about the interim Knight-Commander’s dalliance with the apostate lover of the abomination who had destroyed the Kirkwall Chantry.

“Dalliance?” interrupted Carver and now he couldn’t stop himself. “Are you sleeping with my sister?”

“Your sister,” answered Cullen with a scowl as he hung his breastplate on an armor stand positioned in one corner, “is a woman of her own mind; though I commend you stepping up to protect her honor. And, no, I was not then nor am I now sleeping with your sister. We are friends.”

There was something in his tone of voice and the set of his shoulders that screamed to Carver that they were something more than just friends but he let it be. He would corner Treva later and ask her about it, sibling-to-sibling.

“May I continue?”

“Yes, ser.”

Cullen glossed over the response from the Divine, saying that they were safe thanks to the Circles around Thedas beginning their own revolts at the time. The Divine could not set aside trying to restabilize the other Circles to turn her attentions upon Kirkwall so they had gone on with their changes.

The second year had begun with mages being allowed to visit their families with a single templar escort to settle any fearful minds and to keep the mages from being attacked. After months of nothing but normalcy, the city had settled and the templar escorts were removed to be allowed their own freedoms.

Carver learned that Treva had completely reorganized the mages teaching methods, turning them into something that was more like their father’s teachings. He well remembered sitting with his sisters during those even though he couldn’t do magic and just watching them as they went through those lessons. Harrowings were still ongoing, he learned, but in the past five years only a dozen had failed them as opposed to the hundred that had during Meredith’s last three years. And in the past three, no mage had become an abomination or turned to blood magic.

“We did,” began Cullen as he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk, “have a visit from a Chantry Seeker two years ago.”

“A Seeker?” questioned Carver, leaning forward as well. “What did they want?”

“Treva.”

Carver’s stomach flipped at that but given that his sister was still in Kirkwall, he relaxed and asked, “What for?”

Cullen chuckled. “To help find Warden Kendrin Tabris and to stop the collapse of the Chantry. They were apparently unaware that she was still in Kirkwall and made a kidnapping of Varric to find out the truth.”

“Varric? For the truth?” Carver couldn’t help but burst out laughing at that. “What did he tell them?”

“Enough of it to satisfy them as well as that she had killed Anders in outrage for the death of the Grand Cleric. He also said he had no idea where she was, made sure everyone else in the city said the same, and sent a messenger here to make sure she and Mathis were hidden just in case they dropped by.” Cullen smiled as he continued, “If I hadn’t already been impressed with him managing to keep us in lyrium, I would have been from that.”

Leaning back in his chair, eyebrows arched slightly at what the dwarf had done, Carver made a mental note that he needed to go see if Varric still kept the same room at the Hanged Man. He still owed the merchant prince a round of drinks and now he needed to thank him for keeping his sister and nephew out of trouble. Then he frowned and said, “He told them Treva killed Anders in outrage to keep her off their radar.”

The blond nodded solemnly before speaking. “Not long after you left, she and I met with Varric so I could discuss his aiding us in getting lyrium. She left us early, feeling ill, and he brought up the subject of which story going around that he should push as being the truth.” Cullen shifted uncomfortably with that revelation then finished, “It seemed the one that would best protect her and Mathis in the end.”

For a moment Carver didn’t know what to say to that. On the one hand, having the boy hear the story that his mother had essentially murdered his father could be scarring. Of course, on the other hand, having the truth known could bring people that would hunt his sister and nephew with the intention of hurting or killing them both.

Thinking on it, he’d rather have the lie that would save them.

“I see,” he managed to say finally. Then Carver rose from the chair, suddenly feeling a need to go find his sister, and said, “If that’s all, Commander –“

“Go,” said Cullen with a smile, waving him on. “You know the major points of what’s changed and I know you won’t cause any trouble. And do let Treva know she won’t need to hunt Marin down and turn him into toad.”

Nodding, he left the office and paused at the gate that led into the templar quarters. Childish voices rang out ahead of him from the courtyard, mixing with the clash of sparring and the flicker of magic across his senses.

Carver smiled to himself with the thought this is what all Circles and templars should be then continued down the steps into the side courtyard to go find his family.