What Counts
by R2s Muse
A/N: This was written for the Dragon Age Big Bang 2012. Special thanks to my beta, meanieweenie, and to vieralynn for the lovely art! Also thanks to the DABB organizers!
To see the art for this story by the talented vieralynn, see the Archive of Our Own version (works/675670).
Disclaimer: Dragon Age, Dragon Age II dialogue, and its characters belong to Bioware.
Prologue
The mournful toll of a distant bell lamented the passing of the day. The evening shift in the breeze brought the tang of the sea to mix in with the bitter taste of futility and regret.
Already her senses acknowledged what her mind would not.
This is the end.
A legion of iron-shod boots shuffled nervously, the scuff and clatter ringing with finality across the Gallows' flagstones. Small eddies formed in the smoke plume above the smoldering remains of Knight-Commander Meredith, dispersing the haze to reveal even more templars moving in to surround Hawke and her friends where they stood at the eye of the gathering storm.
Knight-Captain Cullen, who just minutes before had fought at her side, stepped back in line with the waves of stolid templars flanking him. Sword still bared, armor visibly scored by Meredith's demonic magic, he stood poised for action. Still and intent, he watched Hawke in silence, like he waited for her to break the impasse, waited for cause to order her destruction. But his eyes gave her another message.
Haunted and hopeless, his eyes pleaded with her. Please. Don't fight, they said. Please, don't make me kill you.
Her heart contracted as the tension drew out, heightening her awareness of certain small details. The strange silence in the courtyard that smothered all ambient noise but the ominous creak of armor and the ring of swords being drawn. Cullen's painfully tense expression. The pronounced hollows under his worried eyes.
Her field of vision swam and narrowed until all she could see was Cullen's face. Those entreating eyes, warm amber with darker flecks of brown. The only sound now her breath, deafeningly loud in her ears, drawing in and out. Counting out the final moments.
One… two… three…
Slowly, time seemed to grind to a halt, piling up with all the discrete moments that had led up to this point.
…four… five…
As if trying to forestall the inevitable.
…six…