Zaria Hawke

Zaria Hawke

STAND YOUR GROUND, THE DAWN WILL COME

Everyone's heard the story of the Champion of Kirkwall, who basically started the mage-templar war. But how well do you really know Zaria Hawke?

Zaria was born in 9:07 Dragon, to Malcom Hawke and Leandra Amell. At the age of three, in the year 9:11 Dragon, her brother and sister, Carver and Bethany, were born. Because Malcom was a mage, the family kept moving every few years whenever something happened that got them noticed. It was hard on the children, but they learned to accept it.

One of the few events that required them to move is ingrained into Zaria's memory. Why? Because it was the day her magic manifested. She was six years old, playing with some other children in a village so small it wasn't even on a map, when a group of men tried to kidnap them. Zaria got scared and angry, and the combination of emotions froze each of the men where they stood. The other kids were quite happy at this, despite the fact that magic was supposed to be bad. Zaria had saved them from the bad men, after all. But the Hawke family still ended up having to move. One of the adults in the village wrote to the templars, but Zaria and her family were long gone by the time the templars arrived. The twins were barely four.

Some time after, Bethany's own magic manifested. She had been playing with a friend when a wild dog started chasing them. Bethany made the dog fall asleep, much to her own surprise. Her friend didn't betray her, though, saying Bethany was "too nice to be a mage." The family still ended up moving, just to be safe.

Eventually, they settled just outside the village of Lothering. The year was 9:20 Dragon. Zaria was thirteen by this point, and quite the adept young mageling. Her twin siblings were nine, and Carver had already decided that he enjoyed learning swordplay. Malcom did his best to make sure his children didn't fear magic, and that his daughters were well insulated against those who did. Unfortunately, training two mage daughters left little time for Malcom to spend with Carver, his one non-mage child.

The next few years passed relatively quietly. Bethany and Zaria learned who all the templars in Lothering were, so they could learn when to hide. Seven years after their move to Lothering, just before Zaria's twentieth nameday, Malcom died. Zaria started doing more to help look after her siblings after that, and she noticed when Carver began practicing his swordsmanship with others from the village.

When the call went out for soldiers to join the king's army, in 9:30, Carver signed right up. After a quick hug to his sisters and mother, he was off for Ostagar. When word reached them about the outcome of the battle, none of them could sleep easily until Carver appeared on the doorstep a full month after the battle. He didn't have long to recover, however. They were soon running again, this time from the Blight. Leandra suggested they go to Kirkwall, a suggestion which was met with surprise and disbelief from all three of her children. There were a lot of templars in Kirkwall, after all. Bethany suggested going to Gwaren to take ship, and the others agreed. On their way, they found a templar, Ser Wesley, and his wife Aveline Vallen. Wesley's arm was too injured to be of use, so Aveline carried her sword and his shield, and the two of them joined the Hawkes in their bid for freedom. Aveline informed them that the horde had cut off escape from the north, and Carver objected to going any other direction. "The Wilds are to the south, that's no way out," he had said.

"If the options are south or die, I'll take my chances with south," Zaria joked before leading them onward.

Eventually, they were surrounded. There was no way out, there were just too many darkspawn. An ogre showed itself, and before Zaria could react, one of her siblings was gone. She quickly killed the ogre, but there was nothing to be done for her sibling. There wasn't even real time to mourn, they were surrounded again. They kept fighting, Zaria, Aveline, and the remaining twin, but things started looking hopeless.

Until the dragon showed up and torched the darkspawn. All they could do was watch as the dragon landed before them... and turned into a woman? A deal was struck. The woman, Flemeth, would get all of them to Gwaren if Zaria agreed to take a pendant to the clan of Dalish elves that were near Kirkwall. Well, all of them except Wesley, who was starting to succumb to the darkspawn taint. It was at this point that Flemeth told them that not all of the Grey Wardens had died at Ostagar, though the last weren't anywhere nearby. Aveline killed her own husband, sparing him from the pain of death by taint, or the risk of him surviving and becoming a ghoul. After that, Flemeth took them to Gwaren, where they took a ship to Kirkwall.

When they got to Kirkwall, they were turned away at the gates. Leandra mentioned her brother, Gamlen, and the guard agreed to bring him to them, should Gamlen be found. It took three days, but Gamlen came to them outside the gate. It was then that they found out that he'd squandered the family fortune after Zaria's grandparents died, so the only way for them to get in was for Zaria to work under either a group of smugglers or mercenaries. After discussing it over with her sibling, Zaria decided to work for the smugglers. They were to work off the debt for a year before they'd be free again.

The year passed surprisingly quickly for Zaria. Word came that the Hero of Ferelden had defeated the Blight, which was good news, but there was nothing they could do about it now. After losing her temper with Athenril, the elf who ran the smuggling group, Zaria took her sibling and walked out. Word reached them of a Deep Roads expedition that a dwarf named Bartrand was planning, and they did what they could to convince him to bring them along. It didn't work, at first, but they were met by another dwarf named Varric, Bartrand's younger brother, who said he could help them get in on the expedition. 50 sovereigns, he said, and Bartrand wouldn't be able to turn them away. Zaria ended up agreeing, and they started by going by the city guard office, since Aveline was now part of the guard, maybe there was some work they could do there. Through their work with Aveline, the guard-captain was revealed to be anything but the person everyone thought him to be, and he was removed from office. Aveline was granted the position in his place, but the training was supposed to take a while.

Once they learned that Gamlen had sold the Amell estate to slavers to pay off a debt, Zaria's sibling was given the cellar key, and the two of them went to clear out the slavers. They found their grandfather's Will in the process, which proved that the estate and the family fortune had been left to Leandra, while Gamlen only had a stipend, to be controlled by Zaria's mother. Leandra declared that she was going to petition the Viscount to try to get the estate back, but Gamlen kept saying that he didn't think it would happen.

While working to get the 50 sovereigns, Zaria met a bunch of other people. Anders, a Grey Warden with maps of the Deep Roads, wanted her help to speak to a Circle Mage friend he was meeting in the chantry. When it was discovered that the man had been made Tranquil, something in Anders snapped, and he started doing some weird glowing thing. This glowing thing brought the mage back from being tranquil, and he begged for death instead. Anders freed his friend from tranquility, and then gave Zaria the maps once they were back in his Darktown clinic.

Zaria received word that a dwarf had a job for her, and it was quite a simple thing too. His goods had been stolen, and he needed someone to get them back. But the chest inside the alienage house was empty. In the end, it was a ruse. An elf named Fenris had needed help, and asked the dwarf to get it for him. Zaria agreed to help him, and they cleared out a mansion in Hightown later that night. Fenris was openly distrustful of Zaria, being a mage, but he agreed to help her if she needed it.

Zaria met Varric in the Hanged Man and ended up helping out a woman named Isabela. Apparently Isabela had freed a whole ship of slaves, which had royally pissed someone else off, and that was why he had sent others after her. In thanks for the help, Isabela offered her assistance to Zaria.

It was then that Zaria remembered the pendant, and her promise to the witch who had saved them from the darkspawn. So she went to the Dalish clan that was camped on Sundermount. The Keeper, Marethari, told Zaria what to do with the pendant, and that she was sending someone else with them. Merrill guided them up the mountain, and then performed the ritual. Flemeth appeared from the amulet, then disappeared again. But one thing stuck with Zaria about that encounter. It is only when you fall that you learn whether you can fly, the witch said.

They helped out in an investigation for a man's missing wife, despite Zaria's disgust with the man's attitude. The woman was nowhere to be found. They tracked her to a foundry in Lowtown, but all that was found was a severed hand and a ring. The ring was returned to the woman's husband, while the rest was reported to the templar who had been in charge of the investigation.

When Zaria finally had all the money, combined with the maps, she went again to see Bartrand. He eventually agreed, and after Leandra's interruption to voice her desire for Zaria's sibling to stay home, they were on their way. They found a statue made out of a strange red lyrium, which Bartrand took before closing the door into the ancient thaig behind the others, trapping them within. They did eventually find a way out, but after it was all done, Zaria found that her other sibling was no longer at her side.

Three years passed after the Deep Roads expedition, and tensions between the mages and templars were rising. Using her profits from the expedition, Zaria bought back the estate. Zaria received a letter from Emeric, the templar who had been investigating the various disappearances over the last three years, because there was no more that he could do. Zaria was advised to stay alert, but there was little she could do at the time. Zaria was called in by the Viscount, and he asked her to help with the differences between the Kirkwallers and the Qunari that had taken up residence in an area in Lowtown during her first year in Kirkwall. Though she wasn't exactly sure what good she could be.

Varric received word that Bartrand was back in Kirkwall. They tracked him down and realized the red lyrium statue, no, the idol had driven him mad. They weren't able to get anything out of him beyond the pointless mutterings, and Varric killed his own brother.

Her relationship with a specific one of her companions changed around this point, too. She grew closer to Fenris, despite their differing ideas. When slavers came after him, she helped him get rid of them. When he came to her home to apologize, she kissed him for the first time, and then he stayed with her that night. In the morning, though, he apologized as he left, saying that his memories had started coming back only to slip away again. Zaria let him leave, though she really wanted to stop him.

A few days later, she came home to find Gamlen trying to talk to Sandal, the odd dwarf that was Bodahn's son. Gamlen was asking about Leandra, said something about white lilies. Zaria remembered something from Emeric's investigations, about the serial killer who sent white lilies to his victims first. A boy in Lowtown said he had seen Leandra help an injured man, but he didn't know where they'd gone. Zaria followed the blood trail, with Fenris, Aveline, and Varric with her, and tracked them to the foundry district. The very same foundry where they'd found the severed hand three years before. They found books on necromancy, and a shrine for a woman who looked strangely like Leandra. They tracked the mage to one of the back rooms, and found out that Emeric had been right all along. The murders were connected, and all done by this blood mage. He had used different parts from each of the women to try to build his late wife from parts. Zaria killed Quentin with her own magic, and without the blood mage's magic, Leandra died in her arms. Back at the estate, Fenris attempted to console her, though he couldn't find the words. Zaria took comfort in him being there, despite everything.

She changed a bit after her mother's death. She seemed to become harsher, more brutal. But she couldn't stay inside and away from everyone the way she wanted to, there was still stuff to be done. Aveline came to the estate one day requesting Zaria's help in arresting some elven criminals who had fled to the Qunari. At the same time, Isabela said that she knew where the relic was that she'd been looking for, and finding it would save her from Castillon. Zaria helped Isabela track down the relic first, and said she could take it when it was discovered that the relic was in fact the Tome of Koslun, the Qunari's most important text. Zaria was confident that she could take on the Arishok if she had to. Isabela chased after the man who took the tome, and a note was left on his body outside the warehouse saying that Isabela had taken it and left.

Which was what it eventually came to. The Arishok attacked Kirkwall from inside, and he managed to take over the Viscount's Keep. When Zaria finally got inside, thanks to First Enchanter Orsino's distraction, the Arishok announced that he had killed the viscount. Eventually, Zaria ended up fighting the Arishok in single combat, and she won. The rest of the Qunari left, just in time for Knight-Commander Meredith to come inside. Meredith declared Zaria Champion of Kirkwall, but things were far from normal.

In the next three years, tensions rose even higher between the mages and templars. Gradually, Zaria returned to her sarcastic self, though she wasn't ever completely the same after Leandra's death. Knight-Commander Meredith was cracking down harder on the mages, including multiple raids on families who she suspected of harboring mage fugitives, as well as intervening in any attempt to elect a new viscount. First Enchanter Orsino tried to lead a revolt against her, and the Kirkwallers kept looking to Zaria to try to keep peace between the two. Aveline had married Donnic and spent three weeks in Orlais for their honeymoon. But even with all the stuff between templars and mages, at least the Qunari were gone...

Then Zaria got a letter to meet with someone in the sewers under Darktown. A group of templars who was trying to overthrow Meredith had kidnapped one of her friends, and they actually threatened Zaria that she wouldn't see that person again unless she cooperated. When the templar in Darktown described the friend, and Zaria realized that it was in fact Fenris, and she went off to rescue him instead of waiting for them to release him. She didn't hesitate to turn everyone involved over to the templars. They were criminals and had to be punished for what they'd done.

Fenris finally tracked down his sister, the one Hadriana had mentioned before he killed her. He asked Zaria to go with him to meet Verania in the Hanged Man, but it ended up being an ambush. At last, Danarius had come for Fenris. Zaria stood her ground against the slaver and fought with Fenris once again. After the fight, Verania tried to explain herself, but Fenris was having none of it. Zaria managed to persuade him not to kill her, and he let her run off. He left too, to go back to his Hightown mansion.

Zaria went to check on him later, and he admitted that killing Danarius hadn't been as satisfying as he'd expected. She reminded him that he wasn't alone, and he brought up the night they shared three years before. He finally admitted to her how he really felt, how he regretted leaving, and asking for her forgiveness. It was no question, of course she forgave him. They shared another kiss, and things were much less awkward between them.

Zaria ended up in an old Warden prison somewhere in the Vimmark Mountains, searching for the Carta members who had been after her blood. They went in too far, though, and ended up unable to go back. The only way to get out was to release the seals, so that was what she ended up doing, with the aid of a Warden named Larius. Larius said there was a darkspawn sealed within who needed to be destroyed, and Zaria agreed. She fought the creature, Corypheus, and killed it. Or so she thought.

Zaria was invited to an Orlesian's estate, Chateau Haine, and was accompanied by an elf assassin named Talis, who was looking for a jewel that was in Duke Prosper's possession, but wasn't rightfully his. They tried to get the jewel, but were captured instead. While they were waiting for the others to get there, Talis explained the truth about the Heart of the Many, and after she picked the lock on the gate they met up with the others and escaped the estate. Zaria decided to help Talis, though to this day she swears she doesn't know why. She ended up having to fight Duke Prosper de Montfort, which ended with his death at her hands.

Of course, everything fell apart when Anders decided he'd had enough and blew up the Kirkwall chantry, killing hundreds and removing all chance of a peaceful compromise. Zaria fought in defense of the mages, being a mage herself she understood the desire to be free, to not be watched for the slightest hint of bad behavior. In the end, though, she had to fight First Enchanter Orsino when he resorted to blood magic to turn himself into a golem of corpses, and she fought Knight-Commander Meredith when she revealed that the red lyrium idol was fused into her sword, and had been driving her mad since she bought it.

After the fight, history says that Zaria and her friends disappeared. That wasn't entirely true. Zaria left Kirkwall, with Fenris at her side of course, to help protect the Kirkwallers in the off-chance that Divine Justinia was planning an Exalted March after everything that happened. Another reason, that she won't admit to anyone except Fenris, was to try to hunt Anders down. They hadn't found his body, or one that could reasonably be his, in the aftermath of the battle, and if he'd survived there was no way he'd stay in Kirkwall. But there was no sign of him anywhere. Zaria began to convince herself that he had died in the battle, either killed by a templar for what he did or by the explosion itself.

After a year or so, things seemed to be calmer than they had been, and there was no sign of an Exalted March, so Zaria and Fenris returned to Kirkwall. The two of them were known to get into arguments every so often, and Fenris had a habit of disappearing from Kirkwall after particularly big fights. About a day after one such argument, Zaria got a letter from Varric, who was with the Inquisition, that Corypheus was alive. Zaria knew what she had to do, so she left a quickly written note for Fenris before leaving.

Fenris,
I got a letter from Varric the day after you left. Corypheus is alive, and he's wreaking havoc on the world again. It's my fault he got out in the first place, I have to fix this. I'm sorry I won't be here when you get back. I'll be home as soon as I can.
I love you.

She got to Skyhold a few days after the rest of the Inquisition did, and met Varric at the gates. He introduced her to the Inquisitor, a Dalish elf mage, and she helped connect him with her Warden contact, Stroud. With everything they were uncovering, Zaria found that the Wardens were reminding her more and more of what happened in Kirkwall, which was why she kept snapping at Stroud.

And then they were in the Fade. Physically in the Fade. She managed to hide her fear behind her jokes, but when they were shown Cyrlan's memories, that combined with her fear made her harsher toward Stroud for what the Wardens had done. When the three of them were caught by the nightmare demon's true form, she automatically offered to stay behind, but felt a sense of relief when Stroud attacked the beast, distracting it enough for her to get out. She decided to accompany the Wardens to Weisshaupt after that, and asked Varric to write to their friends back in Kirkwall to let them know.

She was there for a day or two before Fenris caught up with her, and before he could start scolding her for leaving so suddenly she had her arms around him. The nightmare demon had scared her into thinking she wouldn't see him again, and now that he was here she felt so much better. They took care of the problems at Weisshaupt pretty quickly and returned to Kirkwall again.

Despite the rather regular arguments between Zaria and Fenris, she always made sure he knew she would be waiting for him, especially after what happened at Adamant Fortress. When he was gone, she made herself busy by helping her other friends when they needed it. If any of her friends need her help, all they have to do is ask.


DA2 game choices summary:
- entered Kirkwall with help of Smugglers
- rivalry romance with Fenris
- sided with the mages
- didn't kill Merrill's clan
- didn't turn Isabela over to the Arishok
- defeated Arishok in single combat
- sided with Larius
- didn't kiss Talis
- didn't let Varric keep the red lyrium shard
- gave Orana a job at Hawke/Amell estate

Extra note: When she gets really angry, her hair and skin crackle with lightning. This can be dangerous if someone tries to touch her when she's like this, as it might end up electrocuting whoever tries to touch her. Odds are, though, it'll just leave the person with minor electrical burns wherever their skin made contact.

[b]FACECLAIM'S NAME[/b] as [i]character name[/i]