7. What was the economic status of their family?

Chasind economy is based on different standards than the economies of more settled regions; there is no real class discrepancy in Chasind society, for example, and everyone has what they need provided they all do their part (and provided nothing like a Blight or a spike in infant mortality or anything like that happens). When they get to Kirkwall, refugee status makes them poor by default, and that doesn’t change until Eli gets the estate back. Moving to Hightown with the spoils from the Deep Roads expedition and the social capital that Eli’s exploits accrue puts them solidly in nobility territory. It’s a tenuous position -- social mobility is great but not necessarily stable -- but they manage to maintain it by continuing to prove their worth to Kirkwall.

10. Is your character street-smart, book-smart, intelligent, intellectual, slow-witted?

Elijah is intuition-smart, Fade-smart, emotionally intelligent, socially quick-learning. He doesn’t know a lot of intellectual things, but really, no one cares -- intellectuals pontificate and debate, but people like Eli get things done. It does put him at odds with the Kirkwall nobility sometimes, though, because they do like to sit in their parlours and have extensive discussions about lofty matters, and Eli just refuses to participate. He gets impatient with idealism and philosophy and would rather enact the changes he wishes to see in the world, or find a cunning way around existing systems if he can’t change them directly.

16. What does your character do for a living? How do they see their profession? What do they like about it? Dislike?

He is a construction worker (later contractor), an adventurer-for-hire, a bodyguard, an investor/patron, and on a couple of notable occasions, a hired assassin. Later on he’ll be a Lord Protector -- a politician, essentially. He finds his own way of being all of these things; he refuses to do things the way others have done them unless those ways suit him, and often accidentally changes the way other people do things too. (Sometimes really the only reason a standard exists is because no one has the balls to say “this is dumb/inefficient” and change it.) As frustrating and exhausting as all these professions can be, they all enable Elijah to work with people, to be of worth to society, and to sometimes see some cool shit -- which, really, is all he can ask for.

22. Who are their friends? Lovers? ‘Type’ or ‘ideal’ partner?

Elijah’s friends and lovers are a shifting sort of bunch -- many of his friends also function as lovers, whether occasionally or more frequently. But his “top tier”, I guess, of lovers is comprised of Fenris, Sebastian Vael, and Alain of Starkhaven. Oh, and Anders. His companions and friends (almost all of which have been in Eli’s bed at least once) include Isabela, Merrill, Varric Tethras, Serendipity, First Enchanter Orsino, and my OC Daniel. There was also that thing with Arishok.....

I don’t think Eli really has a type. As you can see, no two of his companion-lovers are alike. He seems to be very adaptable, or maybe he’s just everyone’s type.

27. How do they relate to their appearance? How do they wear their clothing? Style? Quality?

He dresses like a Fereldan -- or, so says everyone. He likes fur and leather and hide; he doesn’t like the finer fabrics that most Hightown residents favour. He accessorises his clothing with bone and feather and animal motifs. When he does dress up, it’s just in more intricately-fashioned versions of his armours and cloaks -- and he’ll add plenty of gold, in rough-cut jewellery and accents. He thinks of himself as a rugged sort of individual, a big noble bear of a man, and he dresses accordingly. 

He also likes to remind people that he is not a Marcher, I think -- that he is Chasind through and through, and his tribal nature is not going to disappear just because Kirkwall would wish it so. If Kirkwall is going to accept him, they’re going to have to accept him for who he is, not who they imagine him to be -- and, surprisingly (maybe because Kirkwall, too, is quite tired of bullshit), Kirkwall does in the end.

33. Do they drink? Take drugs? What about their health?

He drinks like a fish, because, like... everyone in Kirkwall does. LMAO

Also, drinking is very social in the cities -- people hang out in taverns, or go to each other’s houses for drinks, or whatever. It’s the way food is in other societies (Antivan, for example)... Kirkwall’s food, however, is usually pretty abysmal unless it’s expat food, so.

Anyway, in regards to drugs, Eli’s done his fair share of shrooms because that’s what’s done in the swamps, and the Chasind have plenty of cultural support and reference for journeys like that. He’s been offered drugs in Kirkwall but refuses to do them because... who’s going to make sure his journey goes the way it should? Who will care for his body while he’s “gone”? Who will keep him from doing anything dangerous to his person or his status or his companions? People just do drugs and get fucked up and people think that’s just how it is, and that isn’t just how it is. So, you know, he has a lot of opinions.

36. Do they like to suffer? Like to see other people suffering?

He hates to see people suffer -- it’s a real weakness for him, since everyone in Kirkwall is suffering in some way. Sometimes he gets overwhelmed, because he knows he can’t fix everything; he can only focus on what he can focus on, and hope it has a trickle-down or trickle-sideways or whatever effect.

But his companions help. They see Elijah’s vision through in other places, where they can reach better than he can. They don’t always tell him about it or make a big deal of it, but it happens. The trickle-sideways effect works better than he thinks.

42. What does your character want most? What do they need really badly, compulsively? What are they willing to do, to sacrifice, to obtain?

Elijah is a love sponge -- he needs to feel wanted, needed, loved, supported. He gives his own love and support so freely because he assumes everyone’s like that, and that’s why people respond to him the way they do. He needs to feel like he’s made a difference to people -- not in some ambiguous “ooo Champion of Kirkwall~*” way, but in a real way, a tangible way.

He also needs to know that he’s... I guess “done enough”? Like, he needs to know that everything he’s done has been the truest, most honest expression of his desire to change the world. He needs to know that when he is dying, there will be nothing he has left undone. He needs to know that his father would be proud of him, that his mother and siblings are proud to call him theirs, that his lovers and companions have had their lives changed for the better by knowing him, that Kirkwall is better for having had him as Lord Protector, that every single person he’s fought for feels a little less alone and abandoned in the world.

Elijah doesn’t see Alain in the Courtyard again. According to the First Enchanter, very few mages were allowed in the Courtyard at all anymore, and certainly not when Elijah was around, since they seemed to like talking to him a little too much, and he seemed to like them a little too much, period.

But Anders had become very active in the Mage Underground, and one night after a raiding party had returned to his Darktown clinic, he brought one mage in particular through the secret passage into Hawk Estate.

Eli, dressed in little more than his winter smalls and a dressing robe, hurries out of the bedroom when he hears Bodahn greet Anders. “Anders? I knew you’d come around eventua--”

His coy comment is cut short when he sees who is with him.

“He insisted on seeing you,” Anders shrugs helplessly, but Alain falters, holding his elbows tightly as if he is cold, afraid to meet Eli’s eyes.

Elijah feels his jaw tighten and his chest heat up, markers of an impotent rage that he cannot unleash on the Templar Order, that’s been roiling in him for years. All Alain had wanted was to be back in the Circle, a Circle he remembered as home, but he’d gotten Kirkwall instead, and the Gallows, a fate worse than death.

“Eli?” Anders’ cautious voice reminds Elijah to exhale, to let the rage simmer down. Alain is shivering, although the fireplaces were lit and recently stoked, and noticing this drains the rest of the rage from Eli and replaces it with heavy, black sorrow.

“Fuck,” he sighs, his shoulders sagging.

“I’m sorry,” Alain whispers, shivering harder. “I should have stayed. I should have stayed. I thought-- I’m sor--”

“Are you cold?” Elijah asks, because he feels like either punching something or crying and neither of those things are useful, and he couldn’t bear to hear Alain apologise again. He comes closer, and Alain’s arms tighten around himself. Eli stops. Anders, battling his own rage and the brutal familiarity of Alain’s plight, quietly absconds to the kitchen to do something useful with his hands.

“No... yes... I don’t...”

“If you are, I’m warm. And I won’t hurt you. I’m glad you came to me, and I won’t hurt you.”

It takes a minute for Alain to look up at Elijah. Another minute for him to drop his arms. But Eli waits, and eventually when Eli raises his hands towards Alain, palms up and open, Alain steps into the embrace.

What Anders finds when he returns with a tray of hot spiced wine and mutton stew left over from dinner is them entwined, one of Eli’s arms around Alain’s shoulders and his other hand resting protectively on Alain’s head, Alain’s hands gripping the robe tight enough to wrinkle it, and the warmth of the hearth, of the lover and protector, radiating from Eli in gentle waves. Hedge magic to soothe the traumatised spirit.

Alain sleeps deeply that night, buried under an obscene amount of linens and furs in Elijah’s own bed.

Weeks later, on a stormy night at the Docks, a templar is following up on a tip he’d received about apostates gathering in a warehouse. The door he’d just walked through slams shut behind him. He spins around, but no one’s there, and the shadows around him seem to be lengthening.

The templar draws his sword, but he cannot see a thing.

“Ser Karras,” a voice both like a man’s and not at all like a man’s growls, “Alain of Starkhaven sends his regards,” and then the Beast is upon him.

When Elijah Hawk-child returns to his estate, he is less of the Beast and more of the man, but he has a ways to go. Fortinbras barks at him from the hearth, jumping to his feet, then thinks better of it when the Beast’s oxblood glare lights upon him. So, too, does Bodahn, who bites off his greeting before it escapes his mouth and suddenly remembers an inconsequential task to do elsewhere.

Alain descends the staircase and approaches, and he is not fearful. He knows where Elijah has been. He knows what Elijah has done. And it frightens him, for he has always been nonviolent, but in a deep part of him that has become hard and sharp and venomous he is glad. He is more than glad. He wishes to unleash upon all Kirkwall this Beast that Eli is willing to become for him. He wishes to watch all Kirkwall burn.

But though his own beast wishes to rise and meet Eli’s, he exhales, and reaches even deeper within for the warmth of the hearth, the warmth of the loved and the protected. He summons this magic to wreathe him and fill his hands, the hands he brings to Elijah’s hardened face.

“Thank you,” he whispers, and the Beast rumbles and closes his eyes as Alain wraps his arms around Elijah’s neck. “Rest now.”

Twilight bloomed slowly in the Mire, not so much a sunset as a dull waning of light and clarity. Shadows spread and rose, like a blanket billowing over a freshly-made bed. The drums still kept time. The Dimseers opened their mouths when attendants pressed sopping-wet cloths to their cracked lips, and they let the precious droplets drip onto their tongues and slip down their throats, but they gave no other sign that they were conscious. Their rheumy eyes stared straight through all things, and their calloused hands kept time.

The tribe gathered, shuffling, moaning. Elijah carried his father to the pyre, tall and defiant. Elder Rurig came forward with his torch. The fire caught the ring of gold around Elijah’s pupils, and Rurig gazed into those blazing eyes for a long moment before grunting, as if satisfied.

Elijah laid Malcolm, Hawk, in his bed of drywood and brush, and Rurig set it ablaze.

The drums picked up, just a little. Leandra burst from the tent with a cry, her arms outstretched as she ran stumbling for the pyre. Elijah clenched his fists and dug his heels to prevent himself from intercepting her, from carrying her away from the fire. This was how it must be. As she fell to her knees, the flames licked her hair, her face, and she turned her face up to them, sobbing.

The tribe sang, shedding the weight they’d carried all afternoon, throwing it off their shoulders as their lungs filled with air and their hearts filled with song. They sang the dirge fervently, beating their chests in time with the drums, rocking, swaying. Elijah stood stock still until Bethany and Carver flanked him, and pulled the song out of him with their hands.

The fire rose higher and higher, filling the marsh with the smoke and the scent, masking Malcolm’s burning body in its white-hot heart. Leandra wailed, and the Hawk-children sang, and the tribe moaned, a primal call and response that demanded even the participation of the wild. Marsh wolves lent their eerie howls, and even the toads sounded mournful.

Suddenly, Leandra stopped, and gasped, and stared rapturously at the swirling smoke rising from the center of the pyre. “Mal,” she whispered hoarsely, her hands fluttering up as if to catch him. Elijah, his arms around his siblings, watched the smoke briefly form the shape of wings.

The marsh seemed ominously quiet after the Dimseers ceased, dropping quietly into unconsciousness as the ritual wound down. They would awaken ravenously hungry and thirsty, and would be plied with thick cuts of blackened meat and salted duck eggs and sharp, nose-opening cheeses. The whole tribe would eat well, replenishing their bodies and spirits after the catharsis of the ritual, and rejoicing in the goodness of being alive.

Tonight, Bethany tended sweetly to their mother, and Carver to Elijah. He had barely wept all week, but now he could not stop, his big body quaking with the effort, and Carver held him, rocked him, poured magic into him in cooling waves, as Eli was feverishly hot. A torch had been passed to him in his father’s death, and he did not want it -- tonight, he did not want it. In time, the torch would fit into his hand and heart as naturally as if it had always been there. Tonight, it simply burned him, softened him, melted him into putty in Carver’s hands.

In the darkness Carver sat in Elijah’s lap, wrapping his legs and arms around him, resting his head on Eli’s shoulder. His hands moved in big, slow circles, soothing, and Eli’s hands gripped him, fiercely. When Carver kissed his cheek, Eli turned his face into it hungrily, into Carver’s rare and beautiful sweetness, the uncommon gentleness with which Carver handled him. Open-mouthed, Carver accepted his pain, swallowed it, and it streamed out of him in his own silent tears.

They mourned Malcolm, but they also mourned the change in them that Malcolm’s absence brought. They mourned their youth, and they feared their future. And they loved each other, so much it hurt, so much that this dread knowledge that they could lose any of each other at any time made them hungry for each other’s embrace, for the security and familiarity of each other’s touch. Elijah and Carver wrapped themselves around each other in greedy, youthful, defiant love, and did not let go of each other, even when, hot and spent, they fell into exhausted sleep.