Author''s note: That's all, folks! It's been a really interesting experience, and if anyone's enjoyed reading this story half as much as I've enjoyed writing it, I'll call that a win. Thanks so much as always to my indefatigable beta-reader, clafount, and to everyone who has read (or will read) along, especially those kind enough to review! Until the next story!

End of the road, Varric, the dwarf thinks to himself as he slides into the study's chair one last time. Cassandra and her two pets are standing by the door, but they look eager, rather than murderous. "So," Varric begins, after using a toothpick to work out the last of the lunch he's just wheedled from his captors. "We were just getting to the part where everything me and my friends ever loved went belly-up. And then exploded. And poisoned the well of an orphanage." He could go on, but he doesn't want to test the Seeker's good mood. "Any questions before I get into the last big fight in the Gallows?"

Cassandra doesn't look nearly as sure of herself as she did when she'd first had him dragged here. "You're saying that Anders acted alone? That the Champion was used against her knowledge?"

The dwarf nods and tries to emphasise the point he'd been making before lunch. "Hawke had no idea what Blondie was doing all throughout that Cloudreach and Bloomingtide," he reiterates. "Hell, none of us did; he barely swung by the Hanged Man anymore, after we picked up Junior from that rogue faction of templars and mages a few months before everything went to shit." He shakes his head and shifts the toothpick to the other side of his mouth. "I saw Hawke's eyes after the Chantry blew up; she was as surprised and shocked as any of us. Maybe more, since Blondie had tricked her into helping him. If it'd been me, I would've been more than a little bit tempted to kill the bastard for what he did, and how Meredith took it."

"And yet the Champion spared him, and killed Sebastian Vael instead," Cassandra supplies, and Varric nearly chokes on his toothpick.

"Now I don't remember saying anything about that, Seeker," the dwarf insists. "They had an argument, and Choirboy stormed off, ranting about raising an army and tearing down Kirkwall brick by brick. The Champion never laid a finger on him that I ever saw." He keeps his face perfectly straight; this isn't his first poker game, even against the Seeker. She's testing him, but she doesn't know as much as she thinks she does.

Cassandra doesn't seem mollified, but she doesn't start waving her dagger around in his face, either. "Then how do you explain that the Prince of Starkhaven simply disappeared, dwarf? No one has seen him since that night, more than a year ago; noblemen do not simply vanish without a trace."

Varric hunches his shoulders. "A lot of people went missing that night," he points out, sourly. "Templars and mages were tearing their way through the city, trying to get back to the Gallows and rally their allies. Choirboy could've run afoul of any one of them...or he might've met a gang of bandits on the road." Or said the wrong thing around the Warden, he adds, mentally, but he hasn't touched a drop of ale all day and so he's under no risk of slipping up. "He and the Elf both skipped out, and I've never seen either one again...haven't seen Bartrand either, for that matter," he adds, under his breath. "Not that I've been looking, exactly."

The Seeker looks like she wants to interrogate him further on the issue, but then she shakes her head. "You're right," she concedes. "Sebastian's fate has little bearing on the overall course of events. But I am curious about why Cethlenn spared Anders, when he betrayed her trust." Her eyes narrow. "Do you have an explanation for that?"

Varric rubs his chin, grazing his thumb over just the right amount of stubble, and he lets out an annoyed grunt that he can't use shaving as an excuse to get out from under the woman's stare for another few minutes. "He saved her life after the fight with the Arishok," the dwarf reminds her. "And that was after he'd spent most of a day helping Daisy out of her own tight spot." He hopes she doesn't pick too closely on that point; Cassandra's let her interest in Merrill's child be deflected before, but there's surely a limit to how many times he can dodge her curiosity. "And anyway," the dwarf moves on, "I could say that he'd healed all of us up more times than anyone would've liked to admit, and that when you got past the whole demon-in-his-head thing, he seemed like a decent guy-and yes, I know how horrible his actions at the end were, I was there," he insists, overriding the objection he sees mounting in the Seeker's eyes. "But ultimately I think it was because Meredith was going to kill a whole lot of innocent people, and he was still willing and able to help save them. Hawke might've thought killing him was letting him off too easy."

"That is...not completely unthinkable," Cassandra admits. Varric doesn't flinch when she steps closer, which he supposes is progress, of a kind. Still, he's glad when Mouth-breather and Knuckle-dragger stay to each side of the door. "I believe the Champion and the rest of your friends were just about to embark upon the Gallows," she reminds the dwarf. "Did they meet the Wardens at the docks?"

Varric gives her a single nod. "We picked up the Warden-Commander and Sunshine along the way there. The other Wardens and the assassin made their way across in time for the final showdown." When the Seeker merely gestures, he takes it as licence to dive back into the story. "We'd had to fight our share of abominations and crazy blood mages, and a small army of templars, before we actually made it to the water...but that all just seemed like practice when we finally made it to the Gallows.

"At first, it wasn't too bad; Orsino was in the atrium, fending off a few templars, and Meredith showed up just as we arrived. Orsino demanded that they talk things out, rather than destroy the city along with the Circle. He wanted the knight-commander to revoke the Right of Annulment...he even offered to help her search the tower room by room for any sign of suspicious magic.

"The knight-commander seemed almost sad; she told him that his offer was commendable, but it was too late. The grand cleric was dead, killed by magic, and she claimed her hands were tied. Even when Hawke tried to step between them and be reasonable, Meredith just dismissed her, claiming that she'd already thrown her lot in with the mages and so she'd share their fate. The rest of the templars were coming across the water; the knight-commander must have thought she didn't have the forces just then to confront the Champion, Orsino, the Warden-Commander, and the rest of us, so she let us retreat further into the Gallows while she gathered her strength.

"Orsino hadn't become the first enchanter for nothing, though. He gathered up every mage he could find in one of the back chambers of the tower, and picked a solid core of experienced volunteers. Then he gave them all a rousing speech, about how necessary it was that they survive and spread word to the other Circles about how Meredith and her templars had gone too far for too long. Dozens of mages fled through secret tunnels, and those that remained looked like they were prepared to die.

"Hawke gathered up all of her people and she made sure we were alright; she even offered Sunshine and the Rivaini a way out, if they wanted, but Sunshine wasn't going anywhere...and, somehow, the Rivaini stuck by her. Even though I had my doubts about making it out of that damned tower alive, I even managed to make some kind of quip about there being worse endings than some grand sacrifice for the good of Kirkwall. And then I told her that it'd been an honour doing business with her, and she let me get back to counting Bianca's bolts while she went and tended the rest of her friends.

"The Warden kept to herself while the others rallied their courage; she didn't seem to want or need any encouragement, and she didn't have any to offer to any of the mages who'd stayed behind. Her only conceit was to huddle up with Sunshine, once, just before the first probing attack of templars came; I couldn't hear it too clearly, but I'm pretty sure they just recited the Grey Warden motto: In War, Victory; In Peace, Vigilance; In Death, Sacrifice.

"We arrayed ourselves as best we could in the tight space; I hung back with Daisy and a bunch of Circle mages, while the Wardens and the warriors and the mages brave enough to fight hand-to-hand set up a bottleneck at the front of the square. When the first wave of templars rushed us, they were already bloody from running through a few mages we hadn't been able to round up in time, but we fought them to a standstill and pushed them back into the office courtyard. About two thirds of Orsino's mages died, though, and even some of Hawke's friends were pretty banged up before the templars pulled back to regroup.

"Orsino started acting funny, crying over the bodies of the mages that he'd been trying to protect. He mumbled something about how the templars should've just drowned them out of the womb, and when Hawke told him that he wasn't helping, he told her that he wasn't interested in helping anyone anymore. And then…then he mentioned Quentin. As in the evil apostate that had chopped up a bunch of women to rebuild his long-lost love, Quentin. The one who took cut off Leandra's head and stuck it to another woman's body; that Quentin. The first enchanter said that he'd put Quentin's research aside because he'd thought it was too dangerous, but now he saw that it was the only way to withstand Meredith's attack.

"Then, I guess, he must have just gone crazy. Hawke and Sunshine were both in shock to learn that the first enchanter had been on a first-name basis with the man that murdered their mother, and so they could only watch as Orsino slit his wrists open and spread his arms wide. All those dead bodies started twitching, and then they started floating around him, until the man stood in the middle of a ball of dead flesh. It all crushed together, pulsing and deforming into a single mass, with two big legs and about a dozen other limbs dangling out of its middle.

"'Oh, shit,' the Warden said. 'It looks like a fuckin' Harvester.' And let me tell you, when the Hero of Ferelden starts to sound nervous, you find a little more brown in your trousers than you're entirely comfortable with. Believe me.

"Just then another squad of templars came through the funnel, and so we had to fight them and the big, corps-y demon thing that Orsino had turned into, all at the same time. The Harvester, if that's what the hell it was, didn't seem to recognise anyone or anything that it didn't want to tear apart. A few more mages died that way, and they only made the thing stronger. We had to take down corpses and demons that it called to its defence; it took the Champion of Kirkwall and the Warden working together to finally take Orsino down, with not a little bit of help from Bianca, if I do say so, myself. When all was said and done, Hawke's party was the only thing left standing in that back courtyard, but some of us were pretty banged up. Blondie had to work overtime, and Sunshine helped, but I've still got some scars where that monster tried to get a little too personal for my tastes. I know Aveline hasn't walked the same way since then...and the night was only half over.

"After that, the Warden got a little more assertive; she goaded the rest of us into pushing forward, out of our comfortable little death-trap, but we only moved when Hawke gave us the word. It was easier than we expected, at first, since the templars had to deal with a bunch of Shades and minor demons that Sunshine and the Warden said had likely come across the Veil after Orsino had gotten possessed. We fought our way through the monsters and templars both, down corridors and across the office courtyard. By then we'd taken care of the demons, which left us fighting a fresh wave of templars, who wanted to keep us from reaching the atrium. After surviving a Harvester, though, we weren't about to let a bunch of humans stand between us and our way out of that place.

"Meredith wasn't exactly human, at that point, but we didn't know that at the time. She stood with about twenty templars, but she didn't even have her sword out, as though she'd been expecting a report that we'd all been eliminated. She sneered when the Champion hit the bottom of the stairs; the Champion was still catching her breath, but she spat out, 'You'll pay for what you've done here.'

"'I will be rewarded for what I've done here,' the knight-commander boasted. 'In this world and the next.'

"But the Warden stepped between her and Hawke, all scars and blood and rage. 'I'll give you your reward, Meredith,' she growled. 'And I'll kill any who make their stand with you.'

"Meredith didn't back away from the bloodied sword in her face. 'You were never part of this Circle,' she told to the Warden, 'and I tolerated that. But in defending them, you've chosen to share their fate,' she pronounced. 'Kill the Wardens and the Champion! Kill them all!'

"The Warden readied to strike out, but just then, the knight-captain spoke up. 'I thought we agreed to arrest the Champion,' he said, though I caught him shooting the Warden a look that seemed to beg for patience from her, as well.

"The knight-commander didn't take too kindly to her subordinate second-guessing her commands. She tried to bring him in line, but he refused. She screamed about his insubordination, and finally she brought her own sword to bear...but rather than addressing her rogue templar, or the Champion, or even the Warden, Meredith looked straight at me. 'You recognise it, do you not?' She asked, as the whole thing started pulsing, just like a heartbeat. 'Pure lyrium, taken from the Deep Roads,' she explained. 'The dwarf charged me a great deal for his prize.'

"I couldn't help it; I yelled. 'It stole Bartrand's mind away!' I said. 'It nearly killed him!'

"'He was weak,' Meredith spat, 'whereas I am not!' Then she turned to her forces and screamed at them to slaughter us, and the knight-captain drew his blade on her. He tried to relieve her of her command, then and there, since she'd clearly gone crazier than a nug in a snakepit...and then she proceeded to denounce everyone in sight as a thrall of blood mages. The sword glowed, angrily, and Meredith began reciting verses from the Chant of Light as the air started shaking around her.

"The templars formed a loose circle around their knight-commander, all facing toward her with shields and swords at the ready; I think they must have thought she was possessed, and I don't know that they were wrong. But for at least a few of them, that was a mistake...because they'd turned their back on the Warden. Her own sword was glowing a brighter blue than I'd ever seen; I can still smell the blood sizzling on the metal. Anyway, she cut down the templars that stood between her and Meredith, and the rest of them were knocked back off their feet when the two women came together.

"They moved faster than I could keep up with, their blades flashing, ripping thunderclaps through the air whenever the weapons came together...and they came together a lot. Any time one of the templars tried to step in to help one or the other, both Meredith and the Warden would turn and attack the newcomer before starting in on each other again; Hawke and the rest of the gang could only stand and watch as they kept hacking at each other, matching blow for blow.

"Then, not content with scaring us half to death, the Warden and Meredith went for broke; their feet left the ground, almost like they didn't even notice, and the took their duel to the air above the open courtyard. Meredith's red aura mixed with the Warden's blue, and they became two great balls of light, dancing and clashing in the sky. It might have been beautiful, if it hadn't been so frightening.

"About that time, the rest of the Wardens in Kirkwall arrived on the scene, along with the Antivan elf that the Rivaini knew from way back when. I thought they were just going to have to enjoy the light show, but a minute later, the Warden fell to the ground like a shooting star, hard enough to crack the flagstones in every direction where she landed. Her sword impaled itself in stone about ten feet away, and the blue veins in the metal bled out all over floor of the atrium.

"Anders and Bethany both rushed over to the Warden, but Meredith wasn't done. She landed on a raised platform, bright red glowing out of cracks in her armour, out of her hands, out of her eyes. And then she planted her own sword into the platform, shooting off that same energy to each side of her. It took hold in some of the huge, bronze statues that had featured so prominently in the Gallows...and they came to life. So while the two healers were busy trying to save the Hero of Ferelden, the rest of us had to do our best to dodge metal hands and feet. The templars forgot, right then, that our gang had killed upwards of a hundred of their friends, and we all fought for our lives.

"We barely made it. The knight-captain was also severely hurt, and about half of the templars died, along with one of the Grey Wardens. The elf that they'd recruited from the Alienage...she rolled out from under one of the statues as it fell, only to come face-to-face with Meredith. Hawke tried to intervene, but she didn't make it in time, and the knight-commander cut Fae clean in two. That...proved to be a mistake. Somehow, someway, the Hero of Ferelden got to her feet, but the Antivan and Nathaniel held her back, while the Champion and the big horn-head Grey Warden both charged Meredith. She still moved too fast for either of them to get a solid blow in, but she was slowing down every second, glowing brighter and burning hotter.

"In the end, Meredith defeated herself. She buffeted her attackers back with another burst of energy, and begged for the Maker's aid. If He was listening, he answered by shattering her lyrium-sword into a million pieces. But she didn't stop glowing, and her cry of frustration turned into a shriek of pain. It faded away as she dropped down to her knees. The knight-commander burned alive, from the inside out; when we all hobbled out of there, there was nothing left but a cinder in the shape of a kneeling woman." Varric shakes his head, grimacing at all of the things he's tried not to remember for the past year. But the whole interrogation was leading up to this, and he can't say that he didn't have a chance to prepare himself.

A handful of seconds passed before anyone else spoke up; this time, it was Knuckle-dragger. "So what happened next?" As though he hasn't just heard, from beginning to end, the most amazing story his puny little mind will ever be able to grasp.

Cassandra looks over her shoulder sharply, almost like she's taking offence on Varric's behalf, but the dwarf chuckles. "Normally my policy is to always leave them wanting more," he gruffs. "But in this case...I'll make an exception." He waits until all eyes are upon him once more, and then heaves a sigh. "We were all half-dead, at least. The knight-captain and the Warden were barely walking, and the rest of us weren't too much better off. There was a tense moment when the rest of the templars realised how weak we were, and there was almost one last stand-off...but the knight-captain slurred out an order for them to stand down, and they obeyed. The Warden asked him to come with us, for some reason, but the man refused to leave Kirkwall behind. So, broken but not defeated, the Champion and her allies hobbled our way down the Gallows' dock, where the Rivaini's ship was waiting for us. We fled, before we could get into any more trouble.

"Word of the slaughter spread quickly; Anders' name became a rallying cry, a reminder that the mighty templars could be defied. He and the Champion had defended the mages against a brutal injustice, and many lived to tell the tale, despite all that was lost. More Circles rose up and set the world on fire...and more templars arrived in Kirkwall to restore order, but by then, we were already long gone.

"We vanished over the sea, but circumstance eventually forced us all apart...all except for Sunshine and Isabela, of course. I hear they're still harrying the coastlines along Antiva and Rivain to this very day.

"As for the Champion herself...I think she simply retired. She'd spent so many years trying to hold one city together that the task of keeping Thedas from tearing itself apart was just too much for her. I haven't seen hide nor hair of her in over six months, when we split up in the Anderfels. At the time, she claimed she was going into the Donarks, where there are said to be tribes as untamed as any in the south...but I wouldn't put it past her to have found a nice little town to set up a craft shop in, where they might never have heard of her legend." He leans back into his chair, steepling his fingers, and feeling proud of himself just for still being alive. "So...that's it," the dwarf announces. "That's the whole story."

"Then Meredith provoked the Circle," Cassandra surmises, her brows knitting. "She was to blame."

Varric shrugs. "Or it was that goddamned idol," he offers. "Or Anders," he gruffs. "Take your pick."

The Seeker nods. "Even so," she adds, "had the Champion not been there…"

"It might never have even gone that far," he says, before he can help himself; if they'd never gotten that sodding idol out of the ground in the first place…

"I see," Cassandra claims, but Varric isn't quite sure she does.

Regardless, the dwarf has questions of his own, now that he's had to recount the last six or so years of his life. It might not hurt to throw Cassandra off balance before she starts asking about Junior, too. "So how does hearing all this help?" He demands, steepling his fingers. "You've already lost all the Circles. In fact, haven't the templars rebelled as well?" He wonders, cocking a brow. "I thought you decided to abandon the Chantry to hunt for the mages."

The Seeker looks at a spot on the floor, halfway between them. "Not all of us desire war, Varric," she informs him, before raising her eyes. He sees an earnestness there that's almost unsettling. "And there have been...other rumblings. Grey Wardens pressing for resources, claiming that the darkspawn are growing more powerful." She strides close enough for him to reach out and touch her, but he keeps his hands firmly to himself. "Please," she asks, "if you know where the Champion is, you must tell me. She is a hero, someone whom the mages would listen to...someone that was there at the beginning." Cassandra's head shakes from left to right, slowly. "The Champion could stop this madness before it's too late; she may be the only one who can."

"Is that what this is all about?" The dwarf mumbles under his breath, shaking his own head. "In that case," he allows, surprised by his honesty, "I wish I could help you."

Cassandra hides defeat rather impressively. "Just tell me one thing, then," she demands of him, her face setting. "Is the Champion dead?"

Part of him is glad that she didn't believe his quip about the Anderfels, and Varric finds himself chuckling. "Oh, I doubt that," he admits.

The Seeker nods, frowning thoughtfully. "Then you are free to go, Varric," she allows, turning away from him, still carrying that book she'd checked his story against. "May the Maker watch over you during the dark times ahead of us."

"Same to you, Seeker," Varric calls after her. "Same to you." She nearly makes it to the door before Varric cries out. "Wait!" He begs. "Where the hell is Bianca?"

Cassandra pauses, favouring him with the merest ghost of a smirk, before she nods to Mouth-breather. "Fetch the dwarf his crossbow," she commands, "and see that he comes to no harm."