I originally intended this to be part of the Random Bites series, but it seems Oghren and Anders had other ideas, as it came out longer than I expected. Enjoy!
Oghren
Oghren had heard a lot about the surface world, mostly from those dwarves who'd left Orzammar and then returned. Yeah, he'd heard a lot, and figured that about ninety-nine percent of it was nug droppings. Stories and tall tales spun by those who'd abandoned their homes and their kind, even if only for a while. Poised in the massive doorway that separated the dwarven realm from the surface world, he squinted against the glare of sunlight on scattered patches of snow, leftovers from winter according to the Warden. He shaded his eyes with his hand. Damn, was it always this sodding bright?
He swallowed the urge to turn and flee back to the safety of good, solid stone on all sides. There was nothing left behind for him. No one to go home to. Branka, damn the woman, had made her choice. And it hadn't been him.
He swallowed again and grabbed a hold of his courage, throttled it and ordered his feet to move before they took root like one of those trees crowding the path that led to the city inside the mountain. One deep breath and one step at a time he moved beyond the door. After a dozen steps, his eyes had adjusted to the light. It was then he noticed others things. Odd chirping and rustling sounds coming from the trees around him.
A dozen smells assaulted his nose. He recognized the scent of decent dwarven ale among them, and spotted an off-duty guard taking a long swig from a small flask. Before he could ask for a swallow to help steady his nerves, the man turned and scurried back inside. Oghren frowned, then sneezed at the smell of something spicy and smelling vaguely like stone. Damn, he could even taste the air on the back of his tongue, sharp and pungent, but strangely pleasant.
He rubbed a calloused palm across his nose. "Sod it, how do you surfacers stand the stink?" he asked the elven Warden.
"You get used to it," Darrian said, smiling.
Oghren grunted and glanced around, trying to get his bearings. Keeping his gaze low, he found himself looking for walls, for something that showed him where the boundaries of this world might be. All he saw were trees, and beyond them more trees, stretching down the sodding mountainside. There was good stone between them, great boulders scattered, here and there, like marbles thrown in a children's game. But so much space between, empty, filled only with that pale golden light that streamed down from overhead. At least, the ground beneath his boots felt solid, even if his steps sounded strangely muffled, as if he were walking on thick wads of cloth.
He took a deep breath. Well, best to get this over with. Might as well look up and see just how bad it was. Blue, deep and endless, like a pool that had no bottom. Nothing above him but open, empty space. He shivered and felt like he was falling. His eyes clamped shut.
"Oghren?" The Warden's voice, soft but close, then a warm, solid hand on his shoulder. Oghren latched onto it, used it like a weight to pull himself back to the ground. Opening his eyes, he focused on the Warden, just a bit taller than him, so that when Oghren looked at Darrian, he saw only a few patches of that endless blue between the trees behind him.
"Damn, how do you sodding stand it, Warden? All that…nothing above you. All around you."
"I was born on the surface, remember?" Darrian smiled. "Sometimes, in those caves and passageways, I felt like I would suffocate if I couldn't see the sky again. All that stone, especially overhead…I felt so closed in."
The dwarf turned that thought over. "Hunh, guess I see your point…sort of."
"You'll get used to it, Oghren."
"Some decent ale might help with that."
Darrian chuckled. "There's some in the cart, with the rest of the supplies we picked up before we left."
The elf staggered just a bit when Oghren slapped him on the back.
"Warden, I think you, me, and the surface are gonna get along just fine."
Anders
Anders hunched his shoulders as he slunk past the templars on duty in the library on his way to breakfast. He could feel their eyes following him, even if he couldn't see them behind the shadows cast by their helmets. Probably why they wore the damned things all the time they were on duty. Even if they weren't watching, it made you think they were.
He stuffed his hands in his pockets, throttling the urge to fling lightning around just to see if he could make it spark from one steel clad jailor to the next. The steel taps protecting the heels of his boots clattered against the stone floor as he headed for the library door. A female mage, with dark brown hair and doe eyes, studying a tome thicker than the width of her hand, looked up and frowned
"Can't you walk more quietly?" she whispered, motioning to the handful of mages sitting at other tables. Most of them seemed oblivious to what was going on around them.
Anders pointed to his heavy, leather boots. She pointed to her thin, delicate slippers, then to his feet. Anders just shrugged and sauntered off, his footsteps falling louder. Behind him, he heard a heavy thump as she slammed the book shut. He glanced down at his boots and smirked. He liked this footwear, acquired on his last escape attempt. Three glorious weeks of freedom, of striding down cobblestone streets and dirt roads, grassy meadows and wooden floors. They all sounded different under his boots. Stone clicked and clattered, meadows and dirt roads squelched after a rain, wooden floors thumped no matter the weather. Who would have thought a set of footwear could make so many different sounds.
Once past the curve of the library walls, he lightened his steps. Stone everywhere, he thought glumly, as his boots clicked against the stair that led down to the first tower level where the dining room was located. Grey stone beneath his feet. Grey stone making up the curving walls. Grey stone closing him off from the sky. And the light was always the same, too. Mage-fire set in sconces high on the wall, casting a steady brightness over everything. Shadows never changed shape inside the tower.
Except for the odor of bacon and pancakes drifting down the curving corridor, everything smelled the same, too. Even a dining hall full of people reeked of moldy dust and old parchment. He rather liked the smell of old parchment, but Maker, he missed how the air smelled after it rained. And the sweet scent of long grass after it had been cut with a scythe.
His chin propped on one hand, he pushed a limp piece of bacon across his plate with his fork.
"You going to eat that?" the slender man sitting beside him asked. Anders shoved his plate towards the man, then rose and sauntered out of the dining hall.
Irving had said something yesterday about meeting after breakfast so they could discuss what his assigned duties would be. He grimaced as he headed up the stairs. Maker knew what those would entail, probably teaching. Which he really wouldn't mind, if there weren't so many damn restrictions about what and how he could teach. But there weren't many options, unless he wanted to muck around with spell components. There was also a small herbarium out behind the tower, but he doubted that Gregoir would give him permission to work there. He felt his shoulders wanting to hunch again, as though the weight of all that stone above and around him was pressing down. Sod it, how could anyone breathe in a place like this? He needed air.
A soft, mewling sound off from the left caught his attention. A small, tortoise shell cat peeked around the edge of a door open on his right just past the library, then disappeared behind it. Anders blinked. That wasn't Mr. Wiggums. As he hurried to the door, he wondered how the tower had acquired another cat.
He pulled the door open wider and discovered an old, storage room. Not much in it, crates filled with bits of tattered paper, ink wells where the ink had dried to a solid lump, mouse-chewed quills, and other odds and ends one might find in a library. The cat pawed at the ground in front of a low bookcase missing two shelves.
"What are you looking for, kitty?" Anders asked, taking a few steps inside, then crouching down beside her. She looked up, her eyes glowing green in the light spilling into the small storage closet, and meowed, her claws caught on a scrap of rug. He freed them, then she leaned into his hand, purring loudly before jumping onto the top of the bookcase. She stretched up, her paws resting on a dusty piece of paneling, her whiskers twitching.
He sighed. "Nothing there, kitty. Just more stone walls, in case you're looking for a way out." He scratched her behind an ear, thinking he needed a better name than kitty. She slid out from under his hand, and resumed pawing at the wood.
Anders frowned. Cats weren't stupid. He leaned closer, and felt air brushing past his cheek. His heart thumped, and he pivoted, tip-toeing across the stone floor, then gently closing the door over so that only a sliver of light leaked in from the hall. After his eyes adjusted to the dimness, he tip-toed back to the panel. Was there the faintest glow around the edges?
Holding his breath, he carefully slid it aside till he spotted the edge of a grimy window, a small piece chipped out of the lower left corner. He grinned. A window. On the first level. A window that the templars didn't know about. Andraste's knickerweasels, maybe there was some justice in the world, after all.
Eagerly, he shoved the panel to one side. Hope plummeted when he saw it wasn't much bigger than one of the dusty crates in the storeroom, too small for him to wiggle through. Kitty meowed, then jumped onto the narrow ledge.
"Well, at least one of us can get out," he muttered, then tugged at the rusted latch. It resisted a moment, then yielded. He winced at the loud squeal of hinges as he shoved the window open. But the templars didn't station a guard at this end of the corridor.
He squinted a moment against the sunlight bouncing off the tiny waves in the lake. A brisk wind carried the scent of open water, and something else. Anders leaned forward, one hand clutching the sill, as he stuck his head as far out as he could. Grass, it smelled like cut grass. He breathed deeply, savoring it.
The window faced in the direction of the inn, the Spoiled Princess, where the boat that carried mages back and forth between the tower and the outside world was docked. It really was a pretty view, the high bluff rising behind the inn, twisted pine trees clinging to the edge of the cliff, the early spring sky, clear and blue above it. Memory told him that later in the spring the bluff would be covered in bright wildflowers.
Reluctantly, he pulled his head back inside. Kitty peered down and seemed to decide it was just a bit too far to jump down. She settled on her haunches and started washing her face.
Anders sighed, and leaned on his shoulder against the wall, watching cloud cast shadows skimming across the surface of the lake. He couldn't get out, but at least he could look outside and smell the wind. He smiled. Even through the thick stone walls, you could hear the spring thunderstorms when they blew in out of the northwest. Some peculiarity of the architecture sent the sound of the wind whistling and moaning around the eaves down through every level of the tower. He could sneak down hear and watch the lightning branch across the sky, smell the air after it rained. Not perfect, but it would do till he figured out another way to escape. And next time, he'd find some way to make damn sure he was never enclosed inside stone walls again.