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"He's late," Hawke fretted.
Fenris sighed. Isabela soothed, "I'm sure he's fine, Hawke. Sparklefingers probably just got distracted, that's all -- cats or shiny things or oppression or something."
"No lack of that here," Fenris muttered a bit sourly.
Hawke frowned. "I don't see why you're both taking this so lightly," he scolded. "Tevinter is dangerous, you know that!"
"Teach your grandmother, Hawke," Fenris said dryly. "Yes, of course it's dangerous -- but less to him than to any of us. He's a mage. And, as loath as I am to admit it, a more than capable fighter. No one will challenge him, and nothing will happen to him. He can gallivant about in the markets all day without running into trouble."
That last was not said without a bitter edge, because while Anders was free to move around at will -- without even the threat of Templars to keep him wary -- the same was not true for Fenris. He had to keep his face hidden and his entire body cloaked in order to move about without being seen and recognized -- legends of the Lyrium Ghost had spread far and wide, of course, and no matter how the magisters liked to hush up any story that might embarrass them, everyone knew he was still at large following Danarius' death.
Hawke's frown deepened, and Isabela shook her head with a tsk. "So sour," she chided. "And after we came all this way for you, no less!"
Fenris ducked his head, feeling faintly ashamed. In truth, he knew that the only reason they had come to Tevinter at all was for him -- to follow up on the possibility, however faint, of tracking down some of Danarius' notes at auction and find some trace of information what had been done to him.
They had all come with him, without question (if not without teasing,) -- even the mage. Even Anders who, as bitterly as they sometimes fought, took his side without hesitation the moment the hint of slavery wafted in the air.
"I'm telling you, you and Anders just need to get all that tension out of your system," Isabela said nonchalantly, cleaning under her fingernails with one of her knives. "Have a good fuck! Loosen up a little. I guarantee he's worth it. You know, you're the only one in this room who hasn't slept with him. And vice versa."
Fenris choked on the idea, as well as on the reminder. Hawke groaned. "Bela, stop helping," he said wearily. She laughed, unshameable as always.
“Unbelievable!” a familiar voice shouted from just outside the door.
Fenris and Hawke looked up as Anders stormed into the warehouse that was their latest hideout, yanking his cloak down from his face as he went. His color was high, and he was nearly spluttering with outrage. “What is this?” Anders demanded, brandishing the flyer at his companions.
Said companions watched it flutter. “Well, it appears to be a piece of paper,” Fenris said in a dust-dry voice. “I am forced to conclude you are referring to what is on the piece of paper.” It didn’t look like another wanted poster, at least; which meant they would be spared listening to Anders complain again that they never got the nose right.
“I thought Hawke was teaching you to read?” Anders exclaimed.
Fenris shrugged. “Certainly. To read Trade. Written Arcanum uses a different alphabet.”
“And I can read the letters, but I don’t speak the language,” Hawke added helpfully.
“Enough with the theatrics, Anders, what’s got you so hot under the collar?” Isabela sighed.
“Theatrics!” Anders spluttered. “Theatrics are exactly the problem. Did you know that Varric’s…” He groped for some appropriate noun, for several seconds, while the others watched with increasing interest. “Literary pablum has spread to this corner of the world?”
“Oh, sure,” Hawke said. “Didn’t you know? Tevinter is one of the biggest markets for literary exports, after Orlais. Something about how only magisters above a certain rank are allowed to publish on certain genres, but they can import anything they like.”
Fenris made a complex and deeply nuanced sound of disgust in his throat, which really said all he felt needed to be said on the matter.
“Well, that alone would be enough,” Anders said. “But it didn’t stop there. They’ve actually turned the blasted thing into a play!”
“A play?” Isabela sat up, looking intrigued. “What kind of play?”
“Just read us the flyer, Anders,” Hawke said wearily. “Since you’re the only person in the room that can.”
Anders scowled, but turned his attention to the notice in his hands as he recited. “The Perivantium Players Present, In Partnership with Vyrantium Light & Magic Incorporated, An All-New, Fully Immersive Kinetoscopic Experience! Come and see the Perivantium Players illuminate the TRUE story of the fantastic events in Kirkwall!* A dashing story of love and magic against the looming backdrop of the QUNARI PERIL! Learn the TRUTH that the White Chantry doesn’t want you to see! Performances daily at sundown, running Pluitanis 11 through Eluviesta 33, Perivantium Public Coliseum. *As adapted from the text of The Tale of the Champion, cp. Varric Tethras, Dragon 9:38-9:99 in perpetuum. All rights reserved.”
Despite himself, Fenris couldn’t help but be impressed at how effortlessly he reeled that off, even the (surely) unfamiliar technical jargon. He’d even managed to correctly enunciate the footnoting. “It’s not a play,” he said when the disclaimers wound to an end.
Anders scowled at him. “Then what is it, a blighted chamber orchestra?”
“Of a sorts,” Fenris said, a small smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. “That is to say, there is acting involved, but it is not a play with living actors like you would see on stage in some backwater Ferelden town square. It is a kinescopic…” He trailed off, shaking his head in frustration. “I do not know how to explain this in Trade. Your mages don’t have any equivalent in the southern kingdoms.”
“Magic?” Hawke asked, sounding baffled.
Fenris rolled his eyes. “Yes, a flagrantly boastful display of magical prowess. A team of mages working in tandem use illusory magics to project light against an empty background. By manipulating the color and motion of the light, they can create a much grander illusion. I do not pretend to understand the mechanisms, but I saw one such display by this group while accompanying Danarius,” he added, frowning distastefully at the memory. “They absolutely butchered ‘Love Amongst the Vashoth.’ ”
Isabela sat up, grinning, and clasped her hands together. “Ooo, this we’ve got to see!” she crowed.
“No, we do not. We’re supposed to be in hiding!” Fenris reminded them.
“Pssht, everyone there will be watching the show, not us!” Isabela gave him a playful little shove with her foot, which he dodged. “C'mon, it’ll be fun.”
“I admit, I’m curious,” Hawke said. “I’d like to see what people are saying about me.”
Fenris gave up. Once Hawke had decided, it was decided – the others might argue and protest, but ultimately no one and nothing could keep Hawke from his determined course of action. “Oh, very well,” he said. “But I warn you, we are going to regret this.”
The amphitheater was a vast, ornately decorated semicircle of carved stone. Terraced rows of seats surrounded the curved half, with story on story of balconies stacked on top to add room for extra sets of buttocks. The other half was dedicated to a vast, blank wall of polished marble -- the stage itself too small and narrow to support any players. Instead, flanking either side of the blank white wall were what looked like small stalls or booths, covered in runes and glyphs, where the mages would stand to project their magics. Vast as it was, the building was filled to near-capacity; teeming crowds of avid viewers jostled for elbow space on the thinly padded stone seats. The only place the travelers had been able to find seats had been in the far corner of one of the balconies, with only a narrow sideways view of the screen. This suited Fenris just fine, for more than one reason.
Isabela had been right in one respect -- it as easy to lose themselves in a crowd this noisy. But Fenris had also been right -- he already regretted this.
"Nice building," Hawke commented, surveying the ostentatious gilding on the ceiling, the gaudy carvings on every column.
Fenris scowled. "It could be improved upon," he said. "It's good that we have Anders along; maybe he can blow it up."
Anders groaned, and pulled his hood further down over his head. "That was just one time!" he protested from the depths of the muffling cloth. "It's not like I make it a habit --"
"Will you three stop gabbing?" Isabela demanded, leaning out over the balcony to crane her neck at the screen. "It's starting!"
And it was. All at once the lamps that had illuminated the audience setting dimmed to mere pinpricks, and bright lights instead fell on the screen at the front. All eyes were drawn to the blank white wall, the rows of mages to either side hidden in shadow as they began to summon magic.
Color swirled and filled the screen, seething lights and shadows agitating for a minute before they began to resolve into something like a picture. The orchestra in the pit struck up a fanfare, and clouds of swirling smoke and flame resolved themselves into a dragon. The audience went wild.
A figure near the bottom of the screen resolved itself into a man, dressed in the familiar red armor of Kirkwall's Champion and with a distinctive bright red smear on his nose.
"That's me?" Hawke frowned, his voice an undertone barely audible over the cheering of the crowd. "He doesn't look much like me."
"Call him the Champion if it makes you feel any better," Anders suggested. "It might help to keep all the you's straight."
"I don't think there's anything that could keep Hawke straight," Isabela snickered behind her hand. "Believe me, I’ve made the effort.”
"Hush," Fenris growled.
The player-Hawke watched as the dragon flew in circles over his head, then landed on a nearby ridge. Another eruption of vividly colored smoke appeared on the screen, and through it came the sound of maniacal laughter as a tall, horned silhouette slowly became visible through the smoke.
"Well, so far this seems about right," Anders commented, and Hawke shook his head.
"They're missing a few important things," he muttered. "Like my mother. And siblings. And Aveline and her husband. And several dozen darkspawn."
"Champion!" Flemeth boomed, holding up taloned hands in a dramatic, sky-clawing pose. "We stand upon the precipice of change! The world fears the inevitable plummet into the abyss. Watch for that moment... and when it comes, do not hesitate to leeeeeeeap!"
A flash of light leapt from her hands to the Champion, and the old woman burst into wild cackling again as smoke swirled around her. The giant dragon silhouette launched itself into the air, doing three loop-the-loops and a barrel roll before flying off-screen.
The Champion was left on the screen, staring at his hands. A flicker of dancing magelight appeared between them. "Whoa," he said.
"What?" the real Hawke exclaimed, nearly falling forward off the balcony. "What the -- I'm not a mage!"
"Thankfully," Fenris said.
"What an incredible gift this is, the miracle of magic," the Champion announced to the nobody that surrounded him. "With the aid of the gift of the Witch of the Wilds, I will go now to Kirkwall to claim my destiny."
The audience cheered loudly. The screen was overlaid with the swaying, heaving silhouette of a ship. The Champion turned towards it and vanished, and the whole screen was rolled over by a blue-grey darkness.
"But I'm not a mage!" Hawke sputtered, again, into the stunned silence that fell on the ballot box.
"Well," Anders said awkwardly, "Apparently they decided to take a few liberties with the source material. Maybe they thought it'd appeal better to the audience here?"
Hawke sank down in his seat, muttering "not a mage!" over and over again as the orchestra crescendoed, and the play rolled on.
"You will not fight alone, Champion!" a tall, flame-haired man announced, hefting a sword and shield unconvincingly at the shadowy beasts that menaced them. "For I shall protect you!"
"Who exactly is that guy supposed to be?" Hawke frowned at the screen. "Maker, that's not Carver, is it? For one thing, his hair wasn't that color, and for another, he was dead by this point.”
"For I stand for the law!" the unidentified man shouted enthusiastically, charging forward with his shield held out like a block of cheese. "And none can stand in the way of the law and live!"
"Oh Maker, I think that's Aveline," Anders said in a burst of inspiration. "She's... a guy in this adaptation? For some reason?"
Isabela hooted so loudly that several other audience members turned to shush them, glaring. "Oh, that's rich!" she snickered. "Looks like Man-Hands has become Man-everything else, too! I only wish she could be here to see it, so that I could see her face!"
"I thank you for your aid, Velin," the Champion said loudly. "Although of course, it isn't necessary. I could easily dispatch all of these beasts with my amazing magic alone." And he proceeded to do so.
"This is going to get very tiresome very quickly," Fenris groused, sliding down in his seat.
The Champion continued on his journey into Kirkwall, picking up other companions as he went. Isabela's snickering over the man-Aveline lasted right up until her own counterpart was introduced, lying on the floor in a dingy tavern.
"That is completely not me at all!" Isabela protested indignantly, while the Pirate Queen onscreen waved a bottle and slurred unintelligibly. "I do other things besides drink!"
"Like have sex?" Fenris suggested.
Isabela nodded emphatically. "And kill people!" she exclaimed. "Not even usually at the same time!"
Fenris had dreaded the moment his own counterpart would appear on the screen, although ultimately it was not as bad as it could have been -- the Lyrium Ghost already had his own share of legends circulating through the Empire, and it was clear the playwrights had chosen to draw from them. All things considered, Fenris thought, it could have been much worse.
His companions took the new developments much less in stride. "Is that supposed to be you, Fenris?" Hawke exclaimed. "Those markings... but why are they blue?"
"So that the audience would recognize what they're supposed to be, I guess," Anders shrugged. "After all, everyone knows that lyrium is blue."
"Hey, that's not even an elf!" Isabela objected, eyes widening. "That guy's a human, with -- what, fake ears?"
"You don't think such a prestigious troupe would actually hire elves for actors, do you?" Fenris rolled his eyes. "This is a common practice for when an elvhen character appears in these plays."
Onscreen, the Lyrium Ghost went down on one knee before the Champion -- Fenris huffed in annoyance. Hawke's follower he might have been, but he'd never knelt to the man. "You have saved me," the Lyrium Ghost pronounced. "And for that, I am your man. I swear my service to you, Champion of Kirkwall. But point me at your foes before you, and I shall crush every one of their hearts!"
Anders laughed over the Champion's next line. "Well, human actor or no, they've certainly got you dead to rights, Fenris!"
"Silence, fool mage!" Fenris hissed.
"SILENCE, FOOL MAGE!" the Lyrium Ghost shouted. Fenris' ears went red to their tips from embarrassment, and he sank down in his seat nearly out of sight.
"Ah, Hightown," the actor playing Varric Tethras -- this one an actual dwarf -- said cheerfully from the screen. "Where the rich go to piss their money away. This really is the best place in Kirkwall! Keep a hand on your coin, Champion. There are more cutpurses in Hightown than in the rest of the city combined."
The four companions watched with deep suspicion as the actor continued his completely flawless interpretation of their old friend. "Does this seem just a little too on point to any of you?" Hawke asked.
"It does," Anders agreed. "Think somebody's been consulting on the script?"
"I'm going to kill that meddling son-of-a-dwarf," Fenris growled.
The narrative took a break from the exploits of the Champion for a while, cutting instead in a dramatic roil of smoke to the interior of a darkened Chantry building. But this was a Chantry out of a nightmare -- every surface covered with black candles dripping wax all over tables and opened books of foul purpose, twisted gargoyles adorning the walls, and ominous chanting floating in from the vestibules.
"I can't decide," Hawke confessed in an aside. "Is this what Tevinters think the southern Chantries actually look like? Or is this what Tevinter Chantries actually look like? I'm not sure I want to know the answer."
Fenris hummed consideringly, and declined to answer. Hawke whimpered.
A wizened old woman in the robes of a Grand Cleric, and a tall woman in bulky plate armor appeared at the same time, to a drumroll from the orchestra and a flourish of smoke. Somewhat more confusingly, a hulking giant with long horns in the Arishok's armor joined them. It appeared to be a conspiracy, which the principals helpfully explained to the audience.
"Soon, there will not be a single mage left in the city to resist me!" Meredith exclaimed, clenching a fist and shaking it at the sky.
The Arishok joined her. "And then, once all of the mages are safely out of the way... there will be nothing to stop me from taking Kirkwall! The Qunari will be triumphant, thanks to the White Chantry and the Templar Order!"
Elthina joined in as all three chorused: "First... Kirkwall! And then... THE WORLD!"
The audience threw jeers and boos at the screen as the three figures capered around the altar, laughing madly.
"This is not quite how I remember it happening," Anders commented.
"Are they going to sing?" Isabela leaned forward eagerly. "I really hope they sing."
"But wait!" The capering suddenly ground to a halt as Meredith screeched in outrage. "You cannot begin your invasion yet, Arishok! There is one mage who yet resists me!"
"It's me, isn't it?" Hawke said. "Of course it's me."
Elthina let out a loud breathy gasp of horror. "Surely, Knight-Commander, you don't speak of..."
"Yes! The Darktown Healer!" Meredith screeched. "None of the Templars sent to that wretched clinic have ever returned! The Darktown Healer must be defeated, or else the Arishok will never have Kirkwall!"
The Arishok nodded. "And that would be terrible," he rumbled.
"Well, we can't have that," Elthina tsk'ed. "Don't worry, my dears, I will take care of this little obstacle. Sebastian!"
Another figure shuffled onscreen, bobbing its head and wringing his hands in a servile fashion. "You called, mithtreth?" he sniveled.
"Oh Maker," Anders said in alarm. "You know, I was never fond of Chantry Boy, but this is just embarrassing."
Fenris sighed. "Just wait. It'll get worse," he predicted glumly.
It did. Elthina dispatched the Chantry brother to Darktown, appearing on the screen as a series of vast, eldritch caverns infested with bats and cobwebs. Only from one corner of the caverns did a warm yellow lantern shine, which the Chantry brother knocked over as he stumbled into the door.
At the noise and clatter, a tall blond figure turned around swiftly and took a step forward, holding up a staff in a gesture of warding. "I have made this place a sanctum for magic and healing!" it said in a strong voice. "Why do you threaten it!"
The audience broke out into cheers -- and wolf whistles, as the figure stepped forward into the light and revealed to be a tall, very curvaceous blonde woman. It was definitely meant to be Anders, there was no question about that -- everything from the detailing on the staff to the feathers at the shoulders matched. But it was also very, very definitely a woman.
Fenris barked a laugh. "Oh, is that how it is?" he asked dryly. "Well, mage, it looks like they certainly have you, ah, what was the phrase you used? Dead to rights?"
Somewhat to his disappointment, Anders didn't even look upset. He was actually laughing. "Well, if I had to be a woman, at least I got to be a beautiful one!" he exclaimed.
"You certainly did!" Isabela said appreciatively, eyeing the Darktown Healer onscreen with a definite leer on her face.
"Shush!" Hawke frowned at all of them. "It's just getting serious!"
The confrontation had continued while they had been talking; the Sebastian on screen approached the Darktown Healer with a menacing leer. "It's too bad you hide yourself away down here, so far away from anyone who could come running to help you," he declared, with a creepy grin on his face. "Now, my pretty, you are mine!"
"Never!" the Darktown Healer said defiantly. She swung her staff, and a cloud of colored smoke erupted from it. "You cannot defeat me, for I have bound a spirit of Justice!"
Anders stopped laughing in mid-breath.
A fountain of blue-white light erupted from the floor of the screen, and a billow of blue smoke erupted from it. Gradually it took on the shape of a tall, horned warrior in plate mail, with chains draping over and around it from shoulders to feet, dragging along the floor behind it. The Darktown Healer fell back behind the apparition, pointing at her would-be attacker. "Go, my protector!" she cried. "Serve me, by defeating those that would harm me! I command you!"
Fenris was distracted from the swirling storm of lights on the screen ahead of them by a very similar show starting to happen in the seat beside him. Worried, he glanced over to see Anders sitting rigidly in his seat, blue cracks beginning to appear on his skin and creep upwards over his face. "Never," he snarled, and his voice was deeper, more resonant than any human's should have been. "Never would I enslave..."
"Hawke," Fenris called out warningly, and the bearded man shot him a desperate look before he leapt into the only action he could; climbing into Anders' lap to pin him down with a passionate kiss.
It worked, as a distraction if nothing else; the blue cracks lighting Anders' skin went out. Only for a moment, though, before they reappeared elsewhere; Hawke continued to try to subdue him through kisses, as Anders growled and ranted and mumbled around his lips. "Injust --" Another kiss. "This is falsehood! It cannot be allowed -- " Another. "Hawke, stop distra --" That wasn't Justice talking, but Hawke kissed him again, just to be sure.
"Need any help with that distracting?" Isabela said brightly. "I could manage a handie."
Hawke broke off the kiss and turned to glance at Isabela with a sigh. "Thanks for the offer, but I think we're good here," he said.
Fenris breathed a sigh of relief and turned away, careful to keep his body positioned between the mage and anyone else in the audience who might have seen. At least the immediate crisis seemed to be past, although Anders continued to seethe and stew in his seat like a teakettle left on the fire, occasionally leaking little puffs of blue light and mutters of "injustice!"
On the screen, the Champion burst into the clinic just as the Darktown Healer swooned, for no reason apparent to the audience. The dark-haired mage knelt over the reclining blonde, and as her eyelashes fluttered open the orchestra struck up a dramatic swell of treacly music.
“My lady,” the Champion said, “do you need a hero?”
Fenris groaned. "Well, this explains much," he muttered.
"What?" Hawke said, baffled. "What's going on? They're just staring at each other!"
Fenris rolled his eyes. "They have apparently taken some artistic liberties with your love life," he said. "Of course you could not be seen consorting with an elf; the only appropriate partner for a mage is another mage, in Tevinter. But at the same time, relationships between men are highly frowned upon in this country --"
"Injustice," Anders grunted, and Hawke hastily covered his mouth with his hands.
" -- and so, the Darktown Healer becomes a woman," Fenris concluded. "It is unsurprising -- most healers in the Empire are, as they are considered to be more nurturing. A male spirit healer is quite uncommon, and probably scandalous."
"Well, that's some pseudo-masculinist bullshit," Isabela grumbled.
"Indeed." Fenris glanced at the screen, where the Champion and the Darktown Healer were still gazing into each other's eyes, her hand pressed dramatically to her bosom. "We can expect this to continue for quite some time. Excuse me. I am going to go find a place to vomit."
Fenris had just finished his business and was washing up when another moviegoer entered the stone chamber. The man was dressed in a crude replica of Hawke's armor, with a bright pinkish smear of paint across his nose. He threw a cursory glance at Fenris, who scowled and turned quickly away, tugging at the edge of his cloak.
The man did a double take, turning to stare at Fenris more fully. "Hey!" he said, pointing a finger. "You're the Lyrium Ghost, aren't you!"
Fenris tensed, fingers twitching for the hilt of the sword he had left back at the seats. He didn't truly need it, he still had his brands, but ripping the living heart out of an opponent was not exactly a discreet way to kill. In the moment that he hesitated, the man stepped closer -- and then, to Fenris' surprise, laughed heartily as he gave Fenris a thump on the shoulder.
"Nice!" he exclaimed. "Really nice! The costume is perfect, and the ears look really realistic! There's just one thing you might wanna change, though --" The man leaned closer, and whispered confidingly, "Your brands are the wrong color."
Fenris stood, gaping, as the man gave him another clap on the arm and then moved off towards the latrines. "My brands are not the wrong color!" he shouted, before beating a hasty retreat back towards the seats.
By the time Fenris had gotten back, the romantic scene was thankfully over, and the play rolled on. The screen was displaying the same looping pan of rocky coastline that they had already used at least four times earlier, and the audience seemed to be getting somewhat restless, chattering among themselves and moving around in the seats. Ushers came by hawking treats; a couple of them strode slowly on tall stilts, reaching up to offer their wares to those seated in the balconies.
Isabela had a handful of something fried and crunchy when Fenris found his way back to their seats. "You know, I take it back," she said with her mouth full. Hawke reached out to steal one of the unidentifiable fried bits and popped it into his mouth. "Tevinter does have some really good ideas. What are these things, Fenris?"
She tossed one at his face; he caught it, and examined it for a moment before a smirk stole over his face. "Deep-fried mealworms," he replied.
Hawke immediately spat out his mouthful. Isabela stopped with her hand halfway to her mouth. "You're joking," she said.
Still smirking, Fenris shook his head. Isabela contemplated her paper sleeve of insect goodness for a moment, then sighed and popped the handful in her mouth. "Eh," she said as she crunched. "I've had worse at sea."
"Is that really supposed to be Merrill?" Hawke asked, shocked, as they regarded the green-clad figure on the screen. Like the actor for the Lyrium Ghost, it was clearly a human actor in makeup; unlike the Lyrium Ghost, the prosthetic ears were grotesquely oversized and the vallaslin lines smeary and randomly placed. So far, the character had spent most of her time on screen blubbering and pratfalling her way around the set, running into walls and complaining about being hopelessly lost.
"She hasn't mentioned the Eluvian even once," Isabela complained. "Is she even a mage? I haven't seen her cast at all!"
"It is to be expected," Fenris said, sounding resigned. "An elf in a Tevinter production? She could never be anything except comic relief."
"This is not funny," Anders hissed, his eyes still flickering blue. "It is degrading. And infantilizing. This is a cruel parody."
"That's exactly the point," Fenris sighed. "She is an elf -- a Dalish elf, no less. Most of the Tevinters have never met a Dalish in their lives, so these entertainments form the only idea they will ever have of what they're like. By portraying them as blundering fools too childish to survive on their own without the guiding hands of their Masters, the Tevinters reinforce the place of the elves in the world as slaves."
"Unjust," Anders muttered, and for once Fenris had to agree with the abomination.
Onscreen, the Merrill character took a moment out of gawping at the marvel of a modern toilet to try to eat a pigeon. Isabela grimaced. "I say we never tell Kitten about this," she said.
"Seconded," Hawke said with a shudder.
"Tell me of your home," the Darktown Healer said breathily, clinging to the Champion's arm and watching him with wide, adoring eyes.
The Champion stared off stoically into the distance. "My home was lost to the Blight," he said. "I don't like Blight. It's dark and dirty and diseased, and it gets everywhere." He turned to face the Darktown Healer, one hand raised to hover centimeters from her cheek. "Not like here. Here everything's bright... and pure..."
Fenris tried to swallow a retch, as Anders grumbled. "Whoever wrote this is missing some important facts about Wardens..."
"Maker, this is terrible," Hawke whined. "This is making me not want to root for myself and you as a couple. No offense, Anders."
"None taken," Anders said grumpily. "This is a travesty."
"Shut up!" Isabela hissed. "They're gonna kiss!"
"Again?" Fenris groaned. By his count, he had already lost nearly half an hour of his life to poor imitations of Hawke and Anders necking on the big screen.
"I see tongue!" Isabela announced, delighted.
On the screen, the Orsino character laughed insanely and gestured as plumes of vivid colored smoke swirled up to obscure the view. Once everything was obscured by spinning pinwheels of smoke, only the silhouette could be seen of the First Enchanter -- a silhouette that thrashed back and forth before erupting upwards into a twisted, monstrous form. The mad laughter continued as the huge silhouette lumbered slowly out of view, only to be cut off with a horrendous screech and a stylized splatter of blood across the front of the 'screen.' Then silence.
"Did... Orsino just die?" Fenris said, somewhat baffled.
"You know, it was really unclear," Hawke replied.
The play rolled on to its inevitable, if nonsensical, conclusion. The Darktown Healer, who was now for some unexplained reason wearing a chain-mail bikini and shackles, sent her enslaved spirit of Justice off to destroy the Chantry, then collapsed in a fainting heap. ( “Y’know, Anders, if you were actually a woman, I’d be offended on your behalf.” “Thanks, Isabela. I think.”)
As the Chantry exploded continuously in the background, an unending fountain of roaring red light, the Champion faced off against the Arishok in single combat. Their 'duel' mostly seemed to consist of waving his hands to summon one after another of his companions to send them at the enemy, which the Arishok took the time to slay one by one instead of actually going for the mage casting them. Hawke had to admit, it sure looked easier than the panicked flurry of running, dodging, running, stabbing, and running some more that the actual duel had consisted of.
At last, a wounded Champion managed to stab the Arishok through the heart with the blade on the end of his staff. He staggered dramatically, pressing his hands to a small red mark on his chest. "Oh no, I am wounded," he announced, and the Darktown Healer revived with a gasp.
"I will not let you die!" she screamed, throwing herself into the Champion's arms. Blue light flashed as she healed the 'wound,' right before she fainted (again) into the Champion's arms.
"Thank you, my love," the Champion announced to the audience. "With our magic combined, we have defeated the wicked Qunari, the evil Templars, and the corrupt White Chantry. Now, I shall take my proper place as Viscount of this city."
"Oh, my beloved," the Darktown Healer gasped, clinging to his thigh as she stared up at him adoringly. "Yes, yes, I will be always at your side, and together we will cleanse the evil Templars and the corrupt White Chantry from this world!"
"Yes, my love, we shall," the Champion announced, as he turned to gesture grandly against the still-exploding Chantry. "Today... Kirkwall. Tomorrow... the world!"
The audience exploded into deafening cheers and applause. The four companions sat stunned, shocked into silence. Anders, particularly, looked about two seconds away from an apoplectic fit.
"That is not what happened!" Hawke finally found his voice to say. A little too loudly, perhaps; several members of the audience turned to scowl at them, shushing them loudly.
"Book purists," one of them scoffed, before turning back to the screen and joining in the applause.
"That was... not a good show," Isabela said, as they made their way out of the amphitheater, camouflaged by the departing crowds.
"You don't say?" Fenris snarked.
"Injustice," Anders added.
"Eh..." Hawke shrugged, bringing up the rear. "But the effects were decent!"
~end.
