It didn’t look like Anders might be something. It might even be true of the moment he glanced up from the crate or the moment he turned and the bright lights faded, one by each. But it’s misleading, and not the way Varric generally likes to be misleading.
He casts back to all the Anders he’s written and all the Anders he’s known, to the shy and eager, to the hesitant and hard, to the sulk of his bottom lip or the sulk of his chin. He thinks back to the brow when it furrowed and the brow when it smoothed out, to the blush on his cheeks or the pale cast to his eyes—to the way, sometimes, the sun set in the background and everybody knew he was somewhere else, somewhere beyond his shadows. They might not care or understand what to do with it, but they knew it—just like they knew him.
But knowing and writing so rarely meet up.
The better Varric knows a guy, the harder it is to see him. He keeps Hawke vague for a reason, a last name and never a first.
They just have to start somewhere—somewhere beyond a compromise. Varric pinches the bridge of his nose and wonders if he’ll ever get the picture down, if it’s ever going to be something more than a self-portrait. What I saw and what I wanted to see and never what was.
Readers are too smart for that nug-shit these days.
Varric twirls the quill, rubbing his chest with his blunt fingers. His instincts are off. He’s gotta find another way.
And maybe his angle’s been wrong all along. Maybe the truth won’t show up until the lie, same as always. Varric licks the tip of his quill, then makes a face at the bitter taste of the ink.
Anders looked like Anders again, he begins. Which led us all to ask ourselves—when had he stopped?
Then, Varric continues, Anders looked at Hawke.
And that’s how he starts to end it.
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