#softerthan

I Know You'll Stay is the first part of a sort of 3 act story I have planned and centers around the events immediately after Here Lies the Abyss, with Marian discovering she is pregnant while making her way back to Skyhold (and Anders). Its clear there is something odd about the pregnancy, but its not certain what at this stage.

The essential concept of the story is that their child will be born with an unstable and dramatically intensified connection to the Fade, resulting in her magic manifesting early and with frightening intensity because of Hawke's exposure to the raw Fade while pregnant, requiring Hawke, Anders and Justice to find a way to save her and stabilize thst connection.

This WIP will center on the events between I Know You'll Stay up to the birth if their daughter, Bethany, with one major plot line and two subplots: (1) Anders going to the Avaar in pursuit of help in fixing her relationship/connection with Justice (outcome is not so straight forward but hard to explain without a plot play by play ha); (2) learning about how Hawke's pregnancy was impacted by the exposure to the Fade; and (3) our girls navigating their complex feelings about parenting - both as people with significant trauma and a plethora of adverse childhood experiences to contend with, and as mages living in a period of significant uncertainty.

I struggled to find a snippet I liked because I truly am 2 seconds from hucking it out and starting again, but here's my very rough offerings:

First, a prelude to a conversation between Hawke and Justice:

Anders laid next to Hawke, running her hand gently along her back, down her side, around her deceptively flat belly. The excitement passed, she felt fear and worry creeping back in around edges. Loud. Impossible to ignore. "Hawke", she said cautiously, reluctant to interrupt the peace of the moment. "Mmmm," Hawke was close to sleep, teetering on the edge of consciousness. Anders was tempted to let her drift. She smoothed her hand over her hair. It needed cutting. Hawke didnt like it long and Anders just knew it had to be driving her crazy by now. "Can we talk?" "Can't wait?" Hawke murmured, voice thick with sleep and a little annoyed. "Okay..." Anders aquiesced. But, not a few minutes of crawling out of her skin later - "No. I don't think it can." After a moment, Hawke rolled over, turning to face Anders. "Okay, talk." "During your exam, I noticed something - or maybe Justice did. Your connection to the Fade seems, well, I don't know how to explain it. It feels.... well I think Justice said it felt like home, which seems a but needlessly poetic but you know what a dramatic bastard they are." A ripple of indignation at this. A joke, Justice. "Well, I did physically enter the Fade." Hawke said, as casual as one might state they had popped to the market. "... 'Physically entered the Fade'? What does that mean, Hawke?" Anders groaned. "Ah, guessing that bit didn't make it back to Skyhold ahead of us then?" Anders pinched the bridge of her nose. "Andraste's flaming knickers. I am going to need you to explain that one, Hawke." And so Hawke did. She told her about Carver - ready to lay down his life and maddened by the false calling. She told her about the battle, about Carver returning to fight at their side and the bone deep relief to have him back at her side where she could protect him. And she told her about tumbling to certain death before the Inquisitor opened a rift, into which they somehow, miraculously fell. About encountering Nightmare (a wave of palpable disgust from Justice). And finally, about Shroud's sacrifice. Anders felt ill. "Andraste's tits, Hawke, you could have died. Maker, I should have been there." She said, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Pff" Hawke snorted, "fat chance. Remember how buggy you got when we encountered Corypheus last time? You know I wasn't risking that. And hey! I'm here, Anders - Right as rain!" "Well, that's the thing, Hawke - I don't know thag you are. Your connection to the Fade is... it feels like," Anders knitted her brows and sighed with frustration, "it feels like a river overrunning its banks. Its too much for you to contain, but, I'm not convinced it is your banks it is flooding." Hawke took a beat to respond. "What do you mean?" "Can I...?" Anders held out her hands and Hawke gave an exaggerated nod and waved her hand, as if to say of course, you idiot. Anders pulled on the Fade, placing her hands once more on Hawke's bare stomach. She didnt need to give Justice the usual nudge to action - their interest was piqued by whatever this was. Their consciousness surged forward, casting their collective awareness through Hawke's body. Some combination of joy, confusion and concern - maybe awe? - flooded Anders when they reached the life developing inside of Hawke. Justice's emotions and thoughts were so close to the surface - so big and confusing and overwhelming - and with this contact that Anders felt her control slipping, her consciousness fading. It was not unlike the sensation having been knocked backwards - or, of being plunged beneath the broken surface of a winter's lake - seeing the light as a dim shaft through cloudy sheet, unreachable reach. Not unlike watching the novement of shadows upon the ice, sound muffled and sensation muddled.

[......]

Second, Anders finally visiting the Mage's Tower at Skyhold after avoiding it for months, plus Dorian:

The next day, Anders went to the Tower. As she ascended the steps to the mage's base and residence, she felt the ambient hum of magic wash over her. It had been a long time since she had felt such concentrated magic energy and she felt she could almost bath in it. The place was aglow with it, but it felt warmer, softer here than it had been in the Circle.

Anders was no academic, but she had always theorized that the Veil was thinner in most Circles - perhaps not as thin as in the Gallows, where the abuse of the mages followed centuries of torture and slavery and murder in that same space, but still forever marked by the death and suffering that existed in every Circle.

At Kinloch, the Fade and the magic carried in the air held a queasy, apprehensive quaslity. It's like the magic in that place was marked by the fear and anxiety of the place - like it was imbued with the emotional undercurrent of the collective consciousness of the Circle itself.

Here, the magic felt easy, light. Like curiosity and some degree of excitement. Mages learning together, and from each other, without fear.

She was so lost in these thoughts that she almost, almost, didn't notice Dorian, leaning against the railing with a book it one hand and a glass of wine in the other, looking somehow entirely natural and wholly performative, all at once. His body language saying something like, "Look at me - I'm both wildly attractive and incredibly intelligent and I don't even care if you know it!"

In another life, she would fallen over herself to get the attention of a man like this. As it stood, well - she was both committed to Hawke and decidedly no longer his type.

Still, she wasn't blind.

"Anders!" Dorian exclaimed enthusiastically, stepping forward to clap her shoulder ans pull her into a hug, completely oblivious to the dozens of heads whipped in their direction at the mention of her name. Anders wasnt quite sure Dorian understood quite how infamous she was in the South. Then again, maybe he underfectly well. He was a ma quite used to turning heads, generating scandle.

"I heard a little bird say congratulations may be in order." Dorian said, casting his eyes not so subtley up to the spymaster next.

"How - How would she know this?" Anders scoffed, "We only just found out ourselves!"

"Well, she did spent the trip from Adament violently expelling the contents of her stomach," Dorian responded, nose scrunched with some disgust, "Not such a leap, I fear."

Theres a decent possibility I may go back and rewrite I Know You'll Stay to include Adament and also to better align the tone, but I guess we will see.