Leif Hawke

Leif Hawke, born in 9:07 Dragon, was a cousin of the Champion of Kirkwall, Marian Hawke.

## Overview

### **Physical Appearance**

Leif is 5'7'', with a slim build, green eyes, and very thick, messy black hair. He is very self-conscious about his height, particularly since both his younger siblings are taller than him.

### **Personality**

Leif is generally outgoing and friendly, but with a tendency to make very frequent and very inappropriate jokes. He uses humour as a coping mechanism, and to hide the fact that he has been left deeply traumatised by his mother's death, the Battle of Ostagar and his family's flight from Lothering. He only shows his vulnerable side to his family and closest friends, and even then he only lets his mask down very occasionally.

### **Talents and Skills**

Being short, slim and light footed, Leif is very good at blending into the shadows. As a child, he would sometimes use this talent to sneak into neighbours' houses undetected and steal little trinkets - much to his father's chagrin. He also taught himself how to pick locks and disarm traps, and at the age of thirteen he persuaded a retired soldier to teach him how to fight with daggers (since he didn't have the strength to use a sword).

Leif is also a mean Wicked Grace player.

## **Biography**

### **Early Life**

Leif Hawke was born in Lothering in 9:07 Dragon, the oldest child of Magnus and Elodie Hawke. His siblings were Ingrid (born in 9:10 Dragon) and Erik (born in 9:14 Dragon). The first seven years of his life were very happy. Magnus and Elodie were loving parents who doted on their three young children. But then, something terrible happened.

One day in 9:14 Dragon, a few weeks after Elodie gave birth to Erik, Magnus decided to take Leif and Ingrid for a walk through the woods so Elodie could rest. They returned home to a scene of devastation. Four bandits had broken into the house while they were gone, and Elodie had fought them off wearing only a nightdress for protection. She killed all the bandits, but was fatally wounded herself in the process. Magnus, Leif and Ingrid said a tearful goodbye to their wife and mother, and then could do nothing but watch as she bled out over the floor. Leif was devasted and deeply traumatised by his mother's death, but mostly bottled up his feelings since he didn't want to upset his father even more. As he grew older, Leif began to act almost as a second parent to Erik, and also to Ingrid to some extent.

In 9:20 Dragon, Magnus Hawke's twin brother Malcolm arrived in Lothering, along with his wife Leandra and their three children, Marian, Carver and Bethany. Leif immediately took to his new family, and grew to love his three cousins just as much as his brother and sister. Malcolm, Marian and Bethany were all mages, and Leif vowed that he would always keep their secret and would do whatever he could to defend them from the Templars. Erik's magic manifested a year later, which caused Leif to become even more overprotective of his brother, something that Erik appreciated and resented in about equal measure. When Malcolm Hawke died in 9:27 Dragon, Leif did his best to help Leandra and her family, particularly Marian, who now had to shoulder all of her father's responsibilities.

### **The Fifth Blight**

When news of the Blight reached Lothering, Ingrid and Carver immediately enlisted in the Ferelden army. Leif had no wish to fight darkspawn, but promised his father and aunt that he would go with them to try to keep them out of trouble. The three Hawkes travelled to Ostagar, where they faced darkspawn for the first time. The battle was a terrible defeat for the Ferelden forces. Loghain and his troops quit the field, leaving the King, the army and the Grey Wardens to their deaths. Leif frantically searched the battlefield for Ingrid and Carver, and had to practically drag them away when they wanted to continue fighting. They fled home to Lothering and arrived just ahead of the darkspawn horde.

The two branches of the Hawke family left Lothering immediately. They had originally intended to travel to Kirkwall together, but became separated in the chaos. Leif and Erik both wanted to go back to look for their aunt and cousins, but Magnus wouldn't let them. If they survived, then they would make it to Kirkwall on their own, and if they didn't, then there was nothing they could do to help them - and there was no way he was going to lose one, or Maker forbid, both of his sons to the darkspawn. The family travelled to Gwaren, where they were eventually able to secure passage to Kirkwall.

### **Kirkwall**

On the family's arrival in Kirkwall, Magnus sent word to Aram, one of his former army comrades who had moved to Kirkwall several years earlier and who he thought would be willing to help them enter the city. Aram paid the fee to allow them to enter Kirkwall and helped them find a small house to rent in Lowtown. Magnus found a position with the city guard training new recruits, while Leif and Ingrid joined the Red Iron Mercenaries. Leif and Magnus had originally wanted to keep Erik away from the unsavory work the mercenaries were involved in, but were eventually persuaded otherwise. Erik insisted that he wanted to make a contribution to the family, Ingrid insisted that he should be allowed to contribute, and Meeran had implied that he would be willing to part with a good deal of coin in order to obtain the services of a mage. The combination of the three factors led to Leif and his father changing their minds and allowing Erik to join the company after all.

A few weeks after arriving in Kirkwall, Leif ran into his cousins Marian and Carver in Lowtown, and that evening the two branches of the Hawke family met for dinner in Magnus's rented house. Leif and his siblings were thrilled to see Marian, Carver and Leandra again, but were devasted to learn of Bethany's death. From then on, the five Hawke cousins saw each other regularly and sometimes helped each other out with various jobs in and around the city.

A year after their arrival in Kirkwall, Marian told Leif and his siblings about a potential opportunity. A dwarf named Bartrand was leading an expedition into the Deep Roads, and his brother Varric had invited Marian to join as a business partner if she could raise 50 sovereigns. Marian was sure she could find places for her cousins on the expedition as well and assured them that they would be well paid for their efforts. It was too good an opportunity to pass up, and so Leif, Ingrid and Erik set about helping their cousins raise the necessary coin. Marian was as good as her word, and several months later Leif and his siblings set off into the Deep Roads alongside Marian and Carver.

The expedition was a success. Marian used the bulk of her earnings to buy back the Amell estate for her mother. She invited her uncle and cousins to move in with them, but they declined, feeling that they would be too out of place among the nobility. Marian still insisted on giving them a large amount of coin in addition to their expedition pay, and that combined with Magnus's guard wages and Leif, Ingrid and Erik's Red Iron earnings allowed them to buy a much larger house at the lower end of Hightown (or the higher end of Lowtown as Ingrid preferred to call it).

For the next six years, Leif and his siblings continued to work for the Red Iron and to carry out odd jobs in and around Kirkwall. They frequently crossed paths with Marian and her friends and would often team up with them to try to help solve Kirkwall's problems. They were a great source of support to Marian following her mother's death in 9:34 Dragon, and they also helped her fight back against the Qunari during the invasion. Three years later, they helped her defend the mages during the aftermath of the Chantry explosion.

Leif remained in Kirkwall following the explosion and did what he could to help those who had been left homeless. Once some stability had returned to the city, he and Fenris started taking trips further afield - once as far as Tevinter - to hunt down and kill slavers. But he always returned to Kirkwall. It was where his father lived, after all, and much as he loved to insult the place, he had come to think of it as his home.

## **Relationships**

Leif was introduced to Marian's new friends one evening at the Hanged Man and immediately found a place among the ragtag band of misfits she had adopted. With his snarky sense of humour and love of off-colour jokes, he got on particularly well with Varric and Isabela. He had a fairly good relationship with Aveline too, although she was sometimes irritated by his mischievousness. He was a little wary of Anders and Merrill, given that they were respectively an abomination and a blood mage, but he did his best to be civil to them. He and Merrill were never close, but their relationship was always cordial. His relationship with Anders went downhill during their time in Kirkwall due to Anders's treatment of Fenris, and the Chantry explosion destroyed it entirely. Leif was horrified that Anders had committed such a violent act and betrayed Marian in the process. He and Marian remained close and he visited her regularly after she left Kirkwall, but Anders quickly learnt that it was best to make himself scarce during these visits.

### **Fenris**

Leif was attracted to Fenris as soon as they met. He had a bit of a thing for tall, strong, handsome elven men, and Fenris was all of those things and then some. He tried not to be too obvious about how he felt, though, since he was convinced that there was no way Fenris would ever be interested in him. Later, as he became more aware of Fenris's history, he became more determined not to pursue a relationship, given how Fenris had been treated by Danarius. Despite that, they gradually grew closer during their first few years in Kirkwall, to the point where Leif considered Fenris a good friend and hoped that he might feel the same way about him.

One evening in 9:34 Dragon, Leif and Fenris were talking at the mansion when Leif noticed a copy of The Book of Shartan on the table. Fenris explained that it was a gift from Marian, and then with some embarrassment admitted that he couldn't read. Leif immediately offered to teach him, and their weekly reading sessions soon became one of the highlights of his week. Fenris would often invite him to stay for a drink following their lessons, and with the help of alcohol, they began to talk a little more candidly with each other. One day, Leif drank a little too much wine and was rather more open about his feelings for Fenris than he normally would have been. Much to his surprise, Fenris reacted positively to his confession, calling him handsome and suggesting that perhaps another evening they might try taking things further.

Leif didn't see or hear from Fenris for almost a week after that, and he began to worry that he had misheard what Fenris had said that evening. Perhaps it had just been the wine talking, or perhaps Fenris had thought better of it the next morning. Still, he had to find out. He engineered a meeting with Marian one morning in Hightown and got himself invited along on a trip to the Wounded Coast with her, Varric, Anders and - most importantly - Fenris. They never made it to the coast. On the way, they were ambused by slavers sent to hunt Fenris. Marian, Leif and their companions abandoned their previous mission to help Fenris track down Hadriana, Danarius's apprentice, who had sent the hunters. They found her in a set of caves, where they fought their way through more slavers and demons. With Hadriana dead, Leif tried to comfort Fenris, only for Fenris to angrily brush him off and head back to Kirkwall alone. Leif and the rest of the party followed but were unable to catch up with him. On arriving back in Kirkwall, Leif immediately knocked on the door of Fenris's mansion but there was no answer. Feeling rather downhearted, he returned home where he found Fenris waiting for him. Fenris apologised for taking out his anger on Leif and explained some of what Hadriana had put him through. He was about to leave when Leif asked him to stay - and suddenly found himself pushed up against the wall. They stared at each other intensely for a few seconds before sharing a kiss and then quickly moving to the bedroom. The next morning, Leif woke up with a smile on his face but then saw that Fenris was fully dressed and about to leave. Fenris explained that his memories had started to return during the night and that it had all been too much. Leif was heartbroken but also understood why Fenris had to go. So he let him leave, but told him he would always be there if he needed him.

For the next few years, Leif and Fenris did their best to return to normal. The reading sessions continued and were fairly awkward for the first few weeks, but Leif and Fenris were slowly able to regain their previous level of friendship. It was very hard for Leif, since he still harboured feelings for Fenris, but he never once pushed for anything more. In 9:37 Dragon, he learned that Fenris had been able to trace his sister Varania and that she had come to Kirkwall to meet him. He and Marian both agreed to accompany him to the meeting in case it was a trap. And a trap it turned out to be, for Varania had betrayed him to Danarius. Leif and Marian were both enraged by the betrayal and helped Fenris kill Danarius, although Marian was able to convince him not to kill Varania. A few weeks after Danarius's death, Fenris invited Leif to the mansion and they finally talked about what had happened between them three years ago. Fenris apologised for leaving and revealed rhe true depth of his feelings for Leif. Leif happily reciprocated, and they spent the rest of the afternoon and evening making up for all the time they had lost.

Following the Chantry explosion, Leif and Fenris remained in Kirkwall and did what they could to help those who had been left homeless. Once some stability had returned, they started travelling outside of the city to hunt down and kill slaver gangs, although they still made frequent trips back to Kirkwall to see Leif's father.

## **Miscellaneous**

Varric's nickname for Leif is Charmer, because of his wit.

Leif is left handed.

Leif has a fox tattooed on his right butt cheek.

Leif is small and slim enough that Fenris can pick him up and carry him around - and often does, usually to bed.

One of Leif's favourite pastimes is sitting on the roof and watching the sunrise or sunset.

## **Links**

### **Reddit Headcanon or Writing Prompt Threads:**

To Feel Alive Again - Leif tries to forget his inner demons - just for a little while (Prompt: “I just want to feel alive again. Just for a little while.”)

Stay Here Tonight - Fenris tries to explain himself to Leif - and receives an unexpected invitation (Prompt: 100 Word Drabble "Stay here tonight")

A Joining of Hands - Leif and Fenris share a tender moment during their first night together (Prompt: Six Sentence Story: The first time your OC held hands with their LI or best friend)

A Disturbed Night's Sleep - Fenris's memories start to return (Prompt: 100 Word Drabble: A disturbed night's sleep…)

Memories Lost - Fenris's memories start to return when he spends the night with Leif. A longer version of A Disturbed Night's Sleep. (Love Interest POV theme - Freeform)

The Morning After - A heartbroken Leif has a visit from his father (Prompt: “What happened last night?” & “I can tell you’re lying.”)

Moments of Joy - Leif wakes up with Fenris for the first time (Prompt: 100 Word Drabble: A time your OC couldn't stop smiling)

Sunrise - Fenris wakes up to an empty bed and searches the mansion for Leif (Love Interest POV theme - Prompt: An empty bed, wandering the halls, a window, a kiss on the neck, a soft murmur)

A Setting Sun - Leif enjoys a quiet moment with the man he loves (Prompt: 100 Word Drabble: A setting sun)

The Blind Date (Prompt: Modern AU: Your OC acts as a wingman)

## **Gallery**

Leif and Fenris by trashwarden (https://trashwarden.tumblr.com/)Sketch by Mithmeoi (http://www.mithmeoi.net/)