Personal gain was not Meredith's main motivation for joining the Templar Order, but she couldn't help but feel powerful as she marched through the Apprentice Quarters. Meredith was still in the early stages of her templar training, but one might have mistaken her for the Knight-Commander from the way the young mages reacted to her presence. The mage apprentices kept a brisk pace as they walked past her, bowing their heads out of respect-or out of fear. This comforted Meredith. The mages were under control which meant a safer Kirkwall, and an easy shift for her.
That brief sense of comfort was soon replaced with brain-gnawing suspicion as she stepped closer to the library. Amidst the small scatterings of mages moving in an orderly fashion, one stuck out. Meredith frowned at the sight of an apprentice shuffling back and forth, clutching a tome to his chest as if his life depended on it. Occasionally he would peer over the corner down the hallway leading to the library, but he would always go back to pacing. Meredith's body tensed up. Best case scenario: this apprentice was just being difficult. Worst case scenario: she was witnessing the start of a demonic possession. Either way, she would have to react fast.
"You, mage!" Meredith barked as she stomped towards the apprentice. The other mages in the hall tensed up at her voice, only to keep walking when they realized she wasn't addressing them.
The heavy tome slipped out of the apprentice's hands and slammed on the cold stone floor with a loud thud! He dropped to his knees and scooped it back up in his arms.
"I'm sorry, I didn't…" the apprentice stammered. "...I'm sorry."
Meredith was standing over him. The apprentice was an elf around her age, perhaps a little bit older. Behind a mop of straggly dark hair, his large green eyes were staring up at her with a fear she was more than used to seeing from the young mages.
"Why are you loitering in the halls?"
The mage ducked his head, his body trembling like that of a freshly-shaven animal.
"I was just going to the library," his voice shook as his pale fingers picked at the worn leather cover of the book he was cradling. "I didn't mean to cause any trouble, Ser."
Meredith didn't buy his story. What reason would she have to? Her hand traced over the hilt of her sword and she narrowed her eyes at the mage.
"Stand up. You're making a fool of yourself."
At once, the apprentice scrambled to his feet. When standing, he was at least a few inches taller than her. Meredith wished she kept him on the floor.
"The library is just down the hall," she tried to keep her eyes on his, but he kept avoiding her gaze. "You have no reason to waste your time by pacing out here."
"I know, it's just…" the apprentice's voice trailed off and he looked over his shoulder. "There are some, um, people by the entrance."
"People." Meredith repeated, cocking an eyebrow. This mage was definitely starting to wear on her patience. "That's the issue?"
The apprentice tried to force out a response, but Meredith pushed past him and peered around the corner. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Most of the mages were gone and the only people remaining was a small cluster of templars standing outside the library entrance. The suspicion Meredith felt before grew even more intense.
"The templars," she glanced back at the mage, who tensed up under her gaze.
"It's nothing. I shouldn't have bothered you."
"You have no reason to feel nervous around the templars, mage." Meredith stepped closer to him, craning her neck in an attempt to get a closer look at the tome he was clutching. "Unless you have something to hide."
The mage shook his head. "I'm not hiding anything, I promise."
"Then what's the problem?"
The mage didn't respond. Instead, he squeezed the tome tighter and averted his eyes.
Meredith looked back at the templars and sighed. She was heading in that direction anyway and she didn't want a mage to be wandering the halls like this.
"Follow me."
The mage took a step back.
"What?"
"I said, follow me." Meredith strode towards the library, soon followed by the mage.
Meredith passed the group of templars with a few acknowledging nods. None of them seemed to notice the apprentice who was cowering behind her. When they finally reached the library entrance, the mage let out a sigh of relief as if he just escaped a war zone.
"Thank you, Ser. I-"
"Open your book." Meredith interrupted, her stern tone slicing through his timid demeanor.
The mage's eyes widened, but he opened the tome without another second of hesitation. When Meredith gestured for him to turn the book towards her, he complied as well.
Meredith narrowed her eyes at the small text. Templars were required to have at least a basic understanding of magic theory, but the content in the book was definitely beyond her grasp. The tiny print and cluttered diagrams didn't help. Still, nothing seemed sinistar.
"Turn the pages."
The mage obeyed and Meredith watched the pages that flipped through his fingers. From what she could gather, nothing seemed out of place. Nothing was smuggled in within the pages. Nothing was written over the text. Nothing was there to indicate that this wasn't just a normal tome taken from the Circle's library.
Meredith watched cautiously as he turned through the last few pages. The mage certainly seemed skittish, but he was clean. There was no reason for her to hold him from his studies.
"You may go."
The apprentice's eyes seemed to light up with both alleviation and disbelief. He bowed his head as he walked backwards into the library.
"Thank you for your patience, Ser."
Meredith just waved her hand dismissively and continued her shift.
Orsino felt like he couldn't relax until he was all the way inside the library. The soothing scent of old books and parchment numbed his brain from any fear he felt earlier. When he was in the library, he was just a mage doing his work. The templars wouldn't have a reason to bother him. Not that they needed a reason.
He let out a weary sigh before making his way through the winding maze of bookshelves to the tables arranged against the other side of the room. Maud managed to claim a table near the window, which couldn't have been easy since those seats were always coveted by the other mages. The windows were barely more than small gaps in the stone walls covered with glass, but they provided the mages with a rare glimpse of life outside the Gallows. Even if that life was just the endless gray ocean that surrounded them.
Maud was staring longingly out of the window with a dazed look in her eyes. when Orsino sat down across from her. She didn't move her gaze until she heard the light thump of his tome opening against the desk.
"Oh, Orsino," she tried to push a few loose strands of her thick black hair out of her face, only for them to flop back down. "I saved you a seat."
"I saw. Thank you."
"Did those templars give you trouble again?" Maud lowered her voice, her brown eyes softening.
Orsino's hand subconsciously reached for his pointed left ear. A few days prior, one of the templars outside the library yanked on it. Hard. It still hurt. Being a mage was hard enough, but being an elf just caused him to stand out more.
He shook his head.
"Actually, another templar helped me walk past them, so they left me alone."
Maud looked like someone splashed cold water on her face.
"One of the templars helped you? Which one?"
"I didn't get her name. She was around our age, blonde hair, kind of serious-looking."
For a moment, Maud was stuck in a stunned silence-which didn't happen often.
"Are you talking about Ser Meredith?"
This was definitely not the first time Orsino heard that name. All of the apprentices heard of Meredith Stannard. They heard she outperformed all of the other recruits. They heard she was intensely devoted to the Templar Order. They heard that she was the one they would have to fear the most some day.
"Might have been her," Orsino shrugged. "I think she just wanted me to get back to work."
"Speaking of which, we should start studying," Maud flipped back a few pages in her book. "I believe we were supposed to go over the early history of the Chantry."
Orsino groaned and let his head collapse against the open tome.
Maud's eyes flicked up at him.
"What's the problem?"
"I thought we were done with the Chantry," Orsino's complaints were muffled against the pages. "This is so tedious."
"Look around you, Orsino," Maud gestured to the Chantry symbols decorating the library wall. "We're never 'done' with the Chantry."
"All I'm saying is that the enchanters put so much emphasis on our Harrowing, but they're not teaching us anything that would help us prepare."
"How do you know this isn't going to help us?"
Orsino peeled his face off of his book. "What? The Harrowing is just being tested on the history of the Chantry?"
"Not exactly," Maud leaned in close to him and lowered her voice to a whisper. "I heard the Chantry makes the apprentices sing hymns and the templars judge you on your performance."
"Maker. If that's the case, just make me tranquil."
Maud stifled a laugh. "Orsino, that's horrible."
"Have you heard me sing? It would be an act of mercy."
With a sigh and another playful rolling of her eyes, Maud returned to the open book before her.
"You're smart and you're a good scholar, I know you are. You can do this."
"But I don't want to be a good scholar," Orsino let his eyes wander across the print, not absorbing any of the information. "Good or bad, the Circle is going to notice you. If you aim for mediocrity, your life will be so much easier."
"The Circle is watching us anyway, Orsino."
"True, but you can affect how closely they watch you."
Maud huffed her breath the way she always did when she knew she wasn't going to sway him. They had this conversation a thousand times before and it always ended the same way: Maud changing the subject instead of accepting defeat.
"The letters came today," despite her frustration before, Maud's entire face lit up as she spoke.
The Circle mages were banned from any contact with the outside, other than their mail privileges. After the letters were inspected by the tranquil, they were given out to their recipients. The ordeal became something of an unofficial monthly holiday within the Gallows, but Orsino never got much use out of it.
But Maud looked forward to this day more than Wintersend or Satinalia combined. She would curl up in her quarters and read the letters from her family over and over again until her eyes grew watery. There were times when she would read the letters with Orsino. This happened so often that he was reasonably sure that he could write an entire biography about her family and their neighbors. At least the gossip was interesting and it provided Orsino with a glimpse of what having a traditional family was like.
After the letter was read thoroughly, the parchment was stashed away in a chest that contained eight years worth of letters. Then she would write a response that was easily ten times as dense as any of the reports she had to write for her classes.
Orsino would spend the evening with a book as he listened to everyone else open their letters.
"Maybe this will be the year," Maud tried to reassure him.
Orsino's eyes strained as he struggled to focus on the book before him. He was taken to the Circle three years before Maud was and he still hadn't received a single letter. So much time had passed that he couldn't remember what it was like to have a real home. With a real family.
It didn't tear him up too much. It was enough to hear Maud talk about how warm her dog, Rosie, would feel when she fell asleep by her feet. It was enough to hear about how she would always wake up to the sound of her older sister singing as she tended the farm. It was enough to hear about how her family kept her chair at the dinner table, even though she was no longer there to sit in it.
Still, Orsino waited for the day he would enter the mail room and not leave empty-handed.
He would have to keep waiting.