"We were inseparable, me and Varric. You could say he's my friendship soulmate. He told me all about the lot of you in letters, all addressed secretly and in code of course in case someone was looking for me." That's how she got to the Inquisition at all, before the Fade. They wasn't a single thing Varric knew that she didn't, when she asked for it. They might as well share a brain in many ways.

"It was a mess. Anders wasn't wrong in the sense that the mage and templar situation was deteriorating past any kind of fix, but he didn't need to intentionally give it that push. Because all it did was lead to more innocent deaths." It's not that Hawke never understood his reasons, but it didn't justify his choices. "Meredith planned on killing every single mage in the city. After what he did, she had support to do just that." She tried to find reasons to do it, she had to be handled either way, but it gave her all the fuel she needed.

Hawke sighs. "I didn't see it coming. I'm a terrible rogue."