#hawkekin

how did i outlive varric and carver?

and fenris... i believe i was pulled out of the fade, some time after those elven gods were defeated. him being the force which still drove me to be found, which still reached for me despite how horribly i hurt him, who finally convinced me of reality after a decade in fade, hostile as it was against human minds and mortal bodies. it leached my memories, my emotions, from which bore plethoras of demons come to feed. i certainly had heaps of negative emotions to spare to attract them.

i don't know how much we told each other after everything. i know that i was a shell. i was not the same man he fell in love with, and i could never truly be him again. i loathed it- myself-, all the harm i did, the life i still had and yet i struggled to be much more than a ghost clinging to him in a fog. i couldnt bare to be parted with him again, even for a moment. viewed a certain way, i suppose i was lucky enough that he felt similarly. i have an inkling to how it, we, both ended, but it seems too dark to put into words here.

to varric, it was never your fault, everything that happened to me. the deep roads, the letters you sent about corypheus- i made my own choices. maybe i didnt fully realize what the consequences would be, but neither did you. we were just men. and id never regret meeting you. not in a million years. i know we didnt put to words how much we meant to each other often, but know this; i love you. i miss you. i hope you're thriving in this life. and if youre still writing, by some stroke of coincidence, see if you can develop telepathy and beam it over to me. i always liked to read what you wrote, even all those grandiose lies about me.

to carver, im sorry it took as long as it did for us to be on the same page. there's a lot else im sorry about, but i get the idea you might not want to only get sorries. i hope with the wardens you found the limelight you'd always been looking for. i hope you made friends and got silly crushes and had fun despite the constant gloom of the job. i wish i hadn't been such a burden on you. i had never wanted to be. you were my little brother. i had always wanted to protect you and bethany. from the day the both of you were born, that was all i wanted. theres so much more i could say, but listen. i love you, with my whole heart. i loved you since i first laid eyes on you. i kept loving you even as you pulled away and bristled around me. i still love you. im an older brother in this life too, though i never got to grow up with my younger sibling. i miss you. i hope you're still going strong out there somewhere, showing the world you're more than worthy of recognition

to fenris. my heart, my love. im sorry i was so selfish. im sorry i let all of those horrible emotions rot away at me from the inside; the guilt, the self-loathing, the turmoil and the dread. the ultimate betrayal i could have ever committed against you- i took away your choice. i left because i could not bear the thought of being your downfall as well. i left because i had already been convincing myself i was horrible, so much lesser than what was needed of me. it built up, and up, and up, and boiled over. i should have talked to you. i had so many chances to open up instead of fester. at the very, very least i should have given you the choice, not have chosen the cowards option. all those years in the fade, and i missed you every moment, and it stung as i knew i didn't deserve to do so when i was the one who left. there were many demons who used your likeness to torment me, and it dug my heart out anew each and every time. i refused to use my magic on them, even when i knew (thought) they could not possibly be you- because they still wore your face, and a part of my mind wavered with the idea that it could have been you, the real you. eventually it was. that you still searched for me, after all that... maker, fenris. there is no apology good enough for what i put you through, and no phrase that encompasses the depths of gratitude for your love for me. i love you. my heart still aches for you, and i imagine even in lives i do not remember you i will ache for you. i miss you more than words can describe. i hope you're living free, with love coming easier without being fraught as our lives once were. i hope you laugh and smile often. i hope the bad days get easily washed away by the good ones, and if not, then i hope that one day you've had so many good days the bad ones dont cling quite so stubbornly anymore.

-hawke