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As the ship sailed toward the crevasse in the rock that marked the exit to The City of Chains, Hawke stared helplessly across the water at the ever-shrinking dot that was Varric's frame.
Isabela had cast off. Varric had waved sadly and turned to go back to Lowtown. Hawke had waved back with her heart in her stomach, and had turned away - she couldn't bear to watch the shape of his back retreat from her, not on top of everything else she had lost as of late - but then suddenly she was rushing back toward the boat's railing and somehow there he was, turned back toward her with his eyes locked on the departing vessel. Neither said anything further - an uncharacteristic silence for both of them - they just watched as one another shrank slowly into the horizon as they drifted further and further apart.
A thousand times in a thousand ways, Hawke had feared losing Varric - an aching fear she had become more and more conscious of over the years. There were times she had been furious with him and had avoided him for days or weeks, but they always came back together sooner or later, picking back up like nothing had happened. There were times she had gone out to the Coast without him, or he disappeared on 'business', but neither were for long absences from the other. After so many years of living a few mere city staircases apart, Hawke never dreamed they would be separated like this - so agonizingly slowly; after a devastating change she didn't know if they or Kirkwall would ever be able to fully recover from.
Hawke knew there was going to be a last time that she saw Varric. That there would be some final day together for the two of them, after which they would never see each other again. Yet, for all his wit as a storyteller and for all of her raw chaotic magic, Hawke also knew that it wouldn't be something either of them could script or predict in advance; nor find a way to make the ache of being without sting any less for the other when it did happen.
Hawke hoped that this particular separation was just a temporary change; a next chapter with many more to come. And yet, she couldn't imagine a goodbye more painful than the one currently burning in her throat.