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Unshakable Duty | Ch. 1 The Chase Begins | Dragon Age II

Summary: Sebastian is assigned to investigate rumors of mages living in and operating in the lower levels beneath the city. In Darktown, he discovers a mage who is proves more slippery than those he’s sought before—Siobhán Hawke, who is nearing the end of her assignment with Athenril’s smuggling guild.

a/n: This was written as a holiday gift for a dear friend I’ve made this year. @inuy21 thank you so much being a sounding board for me—with writing, ranting, and just random things that sparked my brain to run rampantly wild. Thank you to @joufancyhuh for sharing the premise for this series with me.

Series Notes: A canon-divergent series where instead of being invested as a Chantry brother by his family, Sebastian was instead sent to the Templars and sent away from Starkhaven. Serving in the Gallows for some time, he’s become quite a skilled and disciplined soldier, who is certain that his vocation is to ensure the safety of the people by ensuring all mages are carefully watched over in the Circle. But he meets one that will test all his skills, his patience, and his outlook.

Links: AO3 | FFnet

Unshakable Duty: 01 The Chase Begins

-1-

A subtle cracking sound echoed through the dark tunnels, making the hair on the templar’s arms stand up. It could only be one thing and it had nothing to do with the pungent odor of Darktown that threatened to choke him. Sebastian’s head snapped toward a long, shady corridor lit by a single torch that flickered against the earthen walls. He found the source of the magic quickly. A dwarven man lay on the ground frozen, covered in fine and shimmering shards of ice, while a shadowy figure loomed over him like a specter of death.

“Hold,” Sebastian called out.

The mage’s head snapped upward; otherworldly pale eyes, like something straight from the fade, stared up at him. He moved toward the two of them—mage and victim—bow in hand prepared for a confrontation. To his surprise, it did not come. The culprit bolted; he gave chase.

The mage’s head start did not deter Sebastian Vael. This was not his first time chasing a maleficar; seeking out rogue and escaped magic users was part and parcel of the duties of a knight of the Order of the Templars. And it was a task he did not shy away from; in fact, he rather excelled at it. While it may have taken years, Sebastian now held his purpose close to his heart and took his role as a steadfast protector of the people of Thedas with the devotion his family always hoped, and his commanders could count on.

Delivered to the Chantry as a boy, his parents wished in part to punish his disobedient and disparaging behavior, as well as to remove him from any and all competition to the successful ascension of either of his brothers to the ruling seat of Starkhaven. They might have also hoped that the Order might sober his uninhibitedness. When he was younger, he preferred to think of it as punishment, as having been cast out from his family, but eventually the vocation chosen for him did exactly what had been hoped; the Order gave Sebastian purpose and direction, calming some of his wildest habits in the process.

Sprinting down the corridor in the lower section of Darktown, Sebastian vaulted over the mage’s rotund victim with ease. He kept his bow at the ready for the chance to stop and fire a shot that would end this race, intending to wound the mage in order to return them the Gallows. To his surprise, his quarry proved nimbler than expected, and quicker as well, like they trained in evasion.

Despite his own lithe build and dexterity, the mage paced him, maintained a respectable amount of distance between them; whether it be natural or some form of magic, Sebastian could not judge with any degree of certainty. Though he suspected it to be a Maker-given ability as he felt no signs of magic or the Fade about him. And his mark did not look back at him, but concentrated on their escape—like any good assassin. The templar took in every detail he could, that he might be able to put to use in a future search, on the off chance that the mage did somehow manage to elude him.

A burnished leather cloak whipped behind long legs, the hood of it falling finally to reveal long dark hair hanging loose. A woman, he assumed from the style and her body type. Though the dress was nothing like the mages he saw daily in the Gallows. The dark trousers fitted to her legs and were cut to accentuate the curve of her hips. Her blouse was also dark, and billowed around her like a pirate's sails.

He knew the junction they approached; she would take the stairs, he assumed, while he intended use the terrain to his advantage. As they approached the lip, his quarry did not dart left as Sebastian predicted. Instead, she took the same route he planned. Without slowing, even a step, she planted her foot onto the low ledge and leapt into the air.

In his surprise, it was he who pulled up short at the ledge, staring. She hit the ground and rolled back up to her feet, maize-colored Darktown dust covering her cloak in sparse patches. Her head whipped around, dark locks swirling over her shoulder as those piercing eyes turned his way once more. Her full lips curved into a smug smirk. Then she winked at him just before darting off once more.

Shaking his head clear, he took two steps back and jumped off the ledge. Without as much momentum, he almost didn’t clear the stairs. And his observation, as he preferred to describe his moment of distraction, allowed this fiend to put more distance between them. But he picked up speed quickly once he tumbled to his feet. Her billowing cloak egged him forward as he pushed himself to the brink of what his body could manage in his attempt to make up some of his lost ground. Sebastian refused to allow her to escape, or so he told himself with every thudding beat of his racing heart.

When he turned that same corner, the path broke off. Pulling up to a halt, he glanced at the ground, then crouched as he searched the thick dust on the ground for tracks, of which he found none. None. That was not possible, he knew. This was Darktown, there were always people coming and going through these tunnels. If anything, a junction such as this should be littered in tracks. Determined not to let that fluke deter him, Sebastian sought any sign of her or the direction she fled, but he could not find a single hint of a trail. He walked several yards down one path, then another, and finally the third. The only tracks he found in his search were his own.

“Maker’s beard,” he grumbled straightening once more. Surely, she must have used some kind of tempest spell, he told himself. Only a mighty wind could be so thorough. Still, he wondered, shouldn’t he have felt it? Or some residual sensation of magic? His eyes skimmed the area once more, to no avail, before he headed back the way they came to find, help, and, ultimately, interrogate her victim.

-2-

Siobhán Hawke clung to the shadows atop the ledge above the corridor, staring down at the templar. His persistence earned him some consideration from her and he searched the junction far longer than she expected of a templar. She’d met more than a few in her time, but most were easily bribed, distracted with a show of flesh, or just quickly bored with trying to discover where a wisp of a mage like her might have gotten off too.

This one though. This templar seemed like he could prove a problem. Once he gave up his search for her, she followed him from above, sure to maintain enough distance and stepping with practiced care as to not give away her position. She’d noticed the bow, and refused to take the chance of putting his marksmanship to the test. Gathering her cloak in her hand to not dislodge any dust or debris, she crept along one of the wider ledges that lined the rafters of Darktown.

Once he climbed the steps, Hawke’s caution increased several fold as he was closer now, at least in proximity. Keen senses might discern even the slightest sound, she knew, despite the rattling coughs of the sick and low din of rowdy conversations which carried through the dusty, twisting corridors of Darktown.

He returned to the spot where he happened upon her. Bad luck, that, she thought. She failed to suppress the sigh that passed her lips. Of course, she thought. He would return to the dwarf. The templar clearly didn’t know he was a liar, a cheat, and pathologically unable to keep his word.

For a moment, the mage hunter’s hands and eyes glowed, making the shimmering blue of his gaze shine like a beacon in the low light. A wave of cold pulsed through the air, enveloping her. She could feel the magic thrumming through her own blood subside a bit; it was an unnerving sensation, but not entirely foreign. When the thin veneer of ice cracked and fell away, she knew he’d dispelled the temporary tomb encapsulating the defunct dwarf.

“Oh, thankee, messere,” he gasped, teeth chattering loud enough that she could hear them from even her vantage point.

“The chill will pass shortly. Who are you? Tell me what happened,” the templar said. It wasn’t an inquiry, but a demand. His lilting tone came off stern, bordering on harsh—it certainly was anything but comforting despite the rescue he affected.

“Thieving mage.”

Siobhán rolled her eyes and tried not to exhale too loudly even though she just wanted to wring his neck before he had the chance to spew the lies she knew were about to fall from the questionable merchant’s lips.

“You can call me Sanak Vora. I’m a humble merchant.” The dwarf’s tone turned genteel, as if he were on the verge of tears.

Andraste’s flaming knickers, Siobhán thought. She crouched above them, leaning just past the edge. A dangerous choice to be sure, but her curiosity and sense of self-preservation won out over her fear of falling.

“I was traveling home.”

“You live in Darktown?” the templar asked, his tone taking on a note of skepticism.

“By the stone, no. I was just passing through. It’s quicker you see,” Sanak said without really explaining how that might be possible. Darktown wasn’t a shortcut to anywhere in the city, but it was a way to move from one side of Kirkwall to the other without the scrutiny or suspicion of the city guards. “I always keep my most valuable goods on me, you see. And—” The dwarf froze for a moment, then started patting his rotund body.

Siobhán pinched the bridge of her nose. An actor Sanak Vora was not, but her contact seemed to be putting on the show of a lifetime. She knew him to be a cheat who preferred not to pay his debts; perhaps, she should have guessed he possessed far more skill as a liar than he ever let on in her presence.

“That vixen!”

You bastard!

When the dwarf looked up at the templar, the mage slinked back into the shadows a little more, but she could have sworn she saw his eyes glistening with the threat of tears. “She took it.”

“Took what?” To Siobhán’s disbelief, the templar seemed to be buying Sanak’s bullshit wholeheartedly.

“All of it.” He pulled the cut purse strings from his belt and showed them to the templar. “My purse, my goods. All of it. Oh, my dear wife,” he said, a sob threatening to roughen his tone.

“Who was she?”

“I…” He looked around for a moment then back up at the templar. “I—I don’t know.”

First smart damn thing you’ve said, you shady bastard. Siobhán knew she’d have to speak with Athenril about this. Why the guild even still worked with Sanak was a mystery to Hawke? He never paid on time, always requested the most outlandish goods. And someone, usually her, always had to collect from him by threat or by force. To Hawke’s mind, the risk was not worth the scant reward, even if it was one more customer they had been able to leech from the Coterie.

“You’ve never seen her before?” the templar asked, his tone rang of suspicion, at least to Siobhán’s ear. Of course, that could just be her imagination.

She decided to remain, even though she should perhaps make her escape while her pursuer was distracted; with Sanak impugning her so freely, she needed to make sure he did not give the templar too much information. Of course, by her standards, he already had.

“Of course not. I’m an honest merchant, just trying to provide for my small family—a wife, wee little bairns.”

Siobhán chomped down on the inside of her lips and covered her mouth with a gloved hand, otherwise she would have choked on laughter.

“Indeed.”

She wanted badly to laugh. Clearly, this templar wasn’t the fool that Sanak thought he was. Of course, that only served to tighten the tension building between her shoulders. Lingering at the scene was a bad idea, but she could not bring herself to leave.

-3-

In Sebastian’s experience, Darktown lived up to its reputation as the seedy underbelly of the city of Kirkwall. In truth, it was a cesspool of poverty and damnation, avoided by most respectable citizens, even the city guard and the templars stationed at the Chantry and the Gallows steered clear, at least most of the time. He himself preferred to avoid the place at all cost, when it could be managed, except when rumors and whispers of a certain sort reached the Gallows.

His captain had assigned him to patrol the dank, dusty corridors and tunnels beneath the city to get to the root of some stories that had trickled through the city of late—tales of mages among the denizens of the shadows down here. Beneath the city, every defensible alcove was packed with bodies, many of them Ferelden refugees from the Blight.

Sebastian had been beginning to feel that this endeavor would bear no fruit, before he saw the mage crouched over her … victim seemed the wrong word. Sebastian knew there was something shady about this Sanak character. But he would not accuse him outright. Dwarves were very caste conscious and could be tetchy about such slights and slander, even with representatives of the Chantry.

“And you’re certain you haven’t seen her before?” he asked again, brows pulling down over his bright eyes.

“No. Perhaps she saw me in the market, and followed me.”

“Perhaps,” he agreed, only to keep the dwarf talking in hopes that he might divulge something. “Describe her.”

“You saw her.” There was a tightness in Sanak’s voice as he pushed his back straighter against the wall. It only served to convince Sebastian further that he knew more than he was letting on.

The templar exhaled loudly through his nose. “This mage is a plague on this city. If you assist in her capture, surely the Viscount could compensate you for your assistance.” The Order only rarely offered rewards; the Chantry feared that appealing to the greed inside men’s hearts presented too much temptation—that it could lead to more false accusations of magic or worse. But that didn’t mean that the city might not pay out a meager reward to get this vermin off the streets.

Sanak’s beady eyes rose to Sebastian’s face once more, and the templar knew he had hooked him. “Well, she had light eyes and dark hair. Very ominous,” he said. “She was tall, even for your folk. Had quite an ample bosom though. All in all, rather fine-looking woman.”

Sebastian blinked, holding his eyes closed for a moment so as not to show his irritation and impatience. “What of her voice? Was she a Marcher?”

“Nay. Ferelden, I’d guess by that, and the smell of hound and leather.”

The templar nodded. “Anything else.”

“Aye, she said I’d regret this.” Sanak shivered, his thick hands rubbing at his upper arms as if to warm himself more quickly.

Sebastian knew the spell she’d cast on him, experienced that chill to the bone it left a person with. He’d felt like he couldn’t get warm for an entire week after a mage cast that spell on him. “Regret what?”

“Meeting her, I’d say. If I had to fathom a guess.”

“And that’s all?” Sebastian stared at the merchant. “Nothing else?” he prompted after a long silence.

Sanak shook his head, cracked lips pursing under his bushy facial hair. “Not that I can recall.”

The templar pushed himself to his feet and loomed over the dwarf. “If you learn anything more, come find me at the Gallows.”

“And who should I ask for?”

“Just give them your name and the information will get to me,” Sebastian stated. The last thing he wanted was for this dwarf to come looking for him with every rumor of magic in the shadows. Nor did he want him to sell it to the mage who’d assaulted and robbed him.

Sebastian gave the area another once over, hoping something might stand out, but nothing did, so he returned to his patrol. All the while his mind raced, replaying every moment of that encounter. The way he just stared at her when he felt the magic shimmer through the air. How he’d frozen when she made the jump he’d intended to take to head her off—and the look on her face afterward, that wink. Sanak Vora had been truthful about one thing … she certainly was a bonny lass.

Sebastian pulled his shoulders back, running one hand over his armor. His fingertips traced the flaming cross emblazoned on the breastplate. It was more than just a symbol of his vocation. His father had the shining white suit of armor crafted especially for him, and presented it on the day Sebastian sat his vigil, when he finally became a Knight of the Order. It reminded him of his place, his duty—chosen or not.

Feeling those flames beneath his fingertips, reminded him that no matter how lovely she might be she was a mage and she was a menace. He would catch her, and he would see her confined to the Circle where her danger could be evaluated and contained.

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