It's not enough. No matter where your journey begins, one of your siblings is going to die. You'll make two quick allies as you escape your burning home, but only one of them survives. Two dead, and you're still in the tutorial.
After this, things start [looking up][the real world] or they start [getting worse][Kirkwall].
The playing field: you, your two siblings, your cowering mother, and an endless wave of darkspawn.
What are darkspawn? Whatever comes to mind, it's probably not far off.
Your mother is no use here. Your brother has a sword. You and your sister have staffs and a rudimentary grasp of magic. You can make fire, you can make ice, and you can smack anything that gets too close with your big stick.
Do you really think that's going to be [enough][the carnage]?
Elia Hawke. Early twenties, maybe? Oldest of three. You're tallish - tall as most men. Lean and hungry looking, not quite pretty so much as handsome, not quite handsome so much as fearsome. Large eyes in a shifty color, skin tawnier than your siblings', a shock of orange hair tied into a ponytail. Faint tattoos under each eye, because you were already your mother's least favorite child.
Elia Hawke. That's you.
Do you want to know more? That's the wrong choice. That's the wrong question. But you can still [ask it, if you want][who are you, Elia].
Or you can just start [fighting][fight!].
1.
Tonight you burn through the neighborhoods out to the open highway and you grip the blue roof of your car from out the window. The music runs in the spaces between your ribcage. You will get home in six hours. Your throat will be sore, from the bass, and from your silence.
In my dreams I beg forgiveness as if I am in the wrong
And in dreams I drink down pilfered honey and I steal my lover’s song
The days ring hollow in my dreams and all the nights are long
A list of things that make a home:
A freezer bag of chicken bones
Or lunch on Sundays unalone
You slide your head against the boy’s shoulder
On the MRT and he slides his hand over
The back of your neck. The train cleaves the air.
The noise of it muffles the voice of the woman
[Come on over][MRT] I say we can listen to records I can put on some tea we can read books we can listen to the sound of you breathing we can twine our legs together on the sofa I keep meaning to reupholster I mean get reupholstered
There’s a version of the story where you did it all right.
You went home alone
You went home unalone
You feared the right things, said the right words,
