Notes: I'm sure someone out there has already made a story involving this concept but the damned plot bunnies...
I feel like there should be an extra line at the end to make my point clearer. Which is...I dunno. Sigh.
I own nothing. All Hail Bioware.
I had to fall
To lose it all
But in the end
It doesn't even matter
-Linkin Park: In The End
"Who was that guy anyway?" Alistair asks, curious.
"A friend I knew." Amell says bluntly, not wanting to look behind her.
…
"You'll learn your place boy!" A Templar roared and backhanded two scrawny boys.
Amell flinched and watched helplessly. She knew there was nothing she could do.
"Maybe you should learn yours." One mumbled under his breath.
"What was that?" The Templar asked maliciously, a hidden threat behind his words. 'Backtalk me and I'll backhand you.'
"Maybe you should learn yours." The boy said louder with a small smirk.
"Watch your mouth." The Templar leaned in on him which caused the other boy to cower in fear.
"Anders…" The cowering boy whispered harshly.
"Come on Jowan. He isn't so tough. We gotta fight. Right?" Anders asked him, determination clear in his voice.
"Right." Amell scrounged up what little courage she had and made herself seen from her corner.
"Just because Irving likes you doesn't mean I'll be taking it easy on you." The Templar has his excuse to strike down at them. Their talk of fighting back. It was as a good excuse as any if anybody asked why he beat them.
Amell strode up to the two boys she barely knew and set herself between them. She clutched Jowan's hand, as a sign of protection and so much more.
"Everything will be okay."
…
"So you knew him as a child? In the tower?" Alistair was still attempting to scrape answers out of her.
Amell nods, remembering all that he was. A disheveled boy who yearned to be somebody other than what he was. A teenager that loathed all girls aside from her and hung around Anders for the prank pulling. A young adult that became increasingly distant as time passed and soon revealed his true colors.
"He was nice…"
…
"Do you think…?" Jowan trailed off at the sight of a crawling Anders, immediately going to his aid. "Damn it Anders." He cursed but he knew Anders couldn't help that he was abused like this.
"The people and the food…" Anders smiled despite the pain, obviously cherishing what little moments he had in the outside world before the Templars dragged him back and beat him.
"Don't tell me." Jowan insisted. He used his sleeves to dab away the blood while Amell tended to his wounds.
"Don't you want to know?" Anders asked and winced each time Amell pressed on his bruises on accident.
"Not right now. Just…get some sleep." He rested Anders' head against a pillow and brought a blanket down from his bed and laid it over him. "Amell." Jowan gestured and Amell joined him, hands raised. The two whispered weak healing spells even though they knew almost nothing about healing. They had to try. For Anders' sake.
"Sometimes I wonder about him…" Jowan pondered. "And what really goes on outside."
"Then why don't you go out there with him?" Amell asked.
"Because if I go with him we'll both end up captured and what good will I do him if I can't even lift a finger to help myself let alone him when we're let out?" He watched the erratic pattern in Ander's breathing, his chest rising up and down fast. "Someone's got to heal us. And I don't want you to do it all on your own."
…
"Nice huh? How'd he go from being nice to a blood mage?" Alistair's curiosity was unending.
"I'm not sure." Amell says slowly, struggling to remember when he started changing.
…
Anders was gone. Jowan was gone. It was just her now. She read in the library, tome after tome. She wondered what kind of adventures Anders must be having outside and where Jowan could be off at.
A giggle broke her train of thought. Amell twisted her head to see Jowan with another girl. A girl in Chantry clothing no less. The thought bugged her to no end. How? Why? When? It would explain certain absences from class but not all of them. What else was he doing?
Amell wanted to go over and ask him. She knew she wouldn't get another chance as she doesn't see him that often anymore but…he looked happy. Kind of like how Anders looked happy when he wistfully spoke about the change in the leave's colors during his autumn escapes.
She kept it at that and left him alone for the time being.
Things only got worse after that moment however.
…
"Why'd he become a blood mage?" Alistair's relentless questioning was enduring.
"He…Lily…I…" Amell stutters on that one. It was a number of things really. Could she reveal what he said to her earlier to Alistair? Would it matter?
…
"I don't expect you to trust me or even forgive me. But please, let me make it up to you. To everybody I failed…" Jowan's gaunt face haunted her, the knowledge that he was tortured before she got here tore her apart. "I know you're wondering why I did it. I did it not only because I love Lily but…it was you too. I could barely light a candle yet you can bring down a firestorm. I guess I just wanted to be somebody like you. After I met Lily and when you went through your Harrowing and that Grey Warden came by, somehow I knew I was going to lose you both if I didn't do something soon."
Amell clutched tightly onto the bars separating them. She tried hard not to meet his gaze and combated the threshold of emotions that threatened to swallow her whole.
"I'm…sorry for leaving you behind that day. Both you and Lily." Jowan sullenly said and bowed his head, backing away from her.
Instead she slipped her hands through the spaces of the bars and pulled him toward her. She held his hand tightly and didn't dare let go, not even when Arl Eamon's men came to take him away.
"Everything will be okay."
…
"You forgave him?" Alistair asks, a little surprise behind his voice.
Amell didn't answer.
They watch as the blood that wasn't theirs' drip from Amell's hands onto the floor before them.
To Alistair it was just another bloodstain.
To Amell it was a reminder of what Jowan was in the end.