The hallways of Kinloch Hold did no longer simply feelstrangely empty, but were. The Circle Tower always seemed emptier with Anders missing, but this time he was not the only one gone. And hopefully, unlike Niall and so many others, he was at least not entirely gone from this world.
As much as mages taught themselves not to form too close attachments, Karl could not help but feel a pang of loss; he had known many of the victims of the carnage, had formed bonds with some. Like Niall; they had been friends, of sorts. He had valued their philosophical discussions and although he himself did not want to see all mages separated from the population at large, Niall was a good speaker and had made him understand his point of view as well as well as been open to listening to Karl's. Karl had appreciated their discussions, how they had been able to challenge each other's viewpoints through intelligent debate. He found himself missing it, their mature conversations conducted on even ground.
Not as much as he, beyond all reason, missed the heated discussions with Anders that would sometimes result in Anders storming off in a fit of rage when opposed too intently. There was much good to be said about calm arguments, but they lacked the fire that Anders had always brought.
But even though he has missed him, he was glad that Anders had not been present during Uldred's rebellion. Karl had been lucky to survive himself, guarding young apprentices from demons and templars alike. There was no doubt in his mind that some of the templars would have used the chaos as an opportunity to kill a troublemaker like Anders, to be rid of what they viewed as nothing more than a problem, never sparing a thought for the person under the defiance, or the reason for it.
He hoped with too much of his heart that he had been able to survive the Blight outside the tower.
Throughout the fight for survival during the battle in the tower, Karl had not once thought of what would come after, mind firmly focused on now. Even after the Hero of Ferelden had appeared to defeat Uldred and managed to save them all from annulment, he still had not thought beyond the moment. It was not until the survivors had been put to the task of cleaning up the tower that it hit him that someone would have to take care of the mess; corpses of abominations, mages and templars, walls coated in blood and innards. He had not thought about the blood in the cracks of the cold stone until he was faced with the task of scrubbing it away.
But before that, a funeral pyre of sorts; all mages with knowledge of fire spells were assigned to burning the bodies and the waste, under the watchful eyes of the templars. The sight and smell had made him retch, but it was not his sense of pride that kept it down, but the sorrow that filled his heart and made his throat thicken at the realisation that this refuse might have been peoplehe once knew. No matter how much time passed, he knew he would never be able to forget any of it.
Time had yet to prove him wrong; he still recalled what he had seen in this doorway or who he had seen lying broken in that corner, making even the shortest of strolls through the stone hallways tinged with unpleasant memories. As the library was one of the few places largely untouched by the carnage, Karl took to spending as much of his time as possible there. In a way it reminded him of Anders as he, too, had found the library one of the least disturbing places in the tower, although for entirely different reasons. Karl found himself understanding Anders better, now; where he had found the tower empty due to the lack of outside, this new lack of life affected Karl in a similar way. The tower made himfeel empty in a way it never had before.
Not long after the Blight had ended, he and the tower both became less empty when a few templars returned with an escaped mage. Karl recognised the voice hurling insults long before he saw him, one templar at each side firmly holding his arms, much like the time when they had first seen each other; amber apostate eyes meeting grey apprentice ones, surrounded by steel and stone.
"I saw darkspawn this time!" Anders said with a grin now when their eyes finally met, not obviously directed more at Karl than anyone else, an old safety measure. "Ugly things, really ought to wear helmets like the tin cans here. As bad at climbing trees too, I found out, to my great luck."
Karl shook his head and tried not to smile.
Anders mood was less cheerful the next time they saw each other, when Karl had been ordered down to the dungeons to provide what non magical healing he could in the warded cell. Anders sat curled up on the narrow cot with his back to the door, exposed back still raw and bloody from being flogged.
"One last undeserved boon, or a shortage of healers?" He asked, tiredly looking over his shoulder when Karl announced his presence and entered.
"You must have heard of Uldred's uprising?" A nod. "…One lastboon?" Karl's stomach turned with fear. Had they managed to find an excuse to execute him?
"They are sending me to Kirkwall, this time," he whispered. They had both heard things of that Circle from transfers, none of it good. "Says I am out of chances now."
Karl supposed that it was to be expected that sooner or later he would be, but somehow he had hoped, almost assumed, that Anders would find a way to not get caught.
There was too much to say as well as too little, and Karl tended to Anders' back in silence, before carefully stroking his hair. There would be no more heated discussions, now, not ever again.
