spicyshimmy:

ghouley:

i was going to take a nap but i did this instead

Now, I’m not saying Hawke ever did get a chance to become that dragon he always wanted, Seeker. Seems like, of all the unbelievable things that can happen to one guy, we have to draw the line of disbelief somewhere, am I right?

But maybe, now and then, when he turned a sudden corner, tricky in those hexes he loved so much—part dwarf, I always said, somewhere along the line; just look at the beard, not to mention his fondness for pain-in-the-ass geometry—or when paused in the deep and turned to look at the rest of us, backlit by lyrium veins, this great big shadow we were following sparking with a fireball in a scuffed palm, the wicked crooks and tangles of his staff-head, the crow’s feet fading to laughter at the corners of his golden eyes—beyond the half-jokes and the flat punchlines and the grief, beyond the limits of muscle and bone, outside the walls of family, past the shores of friendship, usually when he’d just slayed an ancient beast or torn the ribcage of a shambling skeleton apart with a single blast, lightning underneath his fingernails, charring his fingerprints, a wind—who knows where it came from?—ruffling his fur collar, burnished gorget stained with blood, chipped, dented, scratched, glorious, a champion’s honest patina—he didn’t need the scales or the talons. 

On the Maker’s breath—on the forge of my ancestors—I swear, you could see him breathing fire, one breath at a time.

Smoke followed after.

So am I saying Hawke sprouted wings and spine-crests and flew off into the great big sky, and that’s why you haven’t found him yet? No, Seeker. I’d never claim a thing half so preposterous as that. There’s the fine line I was telling you about earlier—the one between ‘liar’ and ‘storyteller’—and somebody’s gotta hold it steadfast against the dragons.