This is going to be my longest AN. But I recommend not to skip it.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present you my new multi chapter story, set during Awakening. It's based on kmeme prompt: Elves are cute. Anders loves cute things. So when he meets certain adorable Warden Commander with big, shiny, (purple) eyes, he goes into 'aaaaawwwwww, cuuuuuuute' mode and stays in it even when he sees that the Commanders is in fact BAMF.

Those who know my other stories have probably guessed already - yes, the Commander is Airam Surana from Failed to Fail and most of other stories. And of course in all those stories Airam is paired with Zevran. Before you start throwing rotten tomatoes at me, remember Zevran is not there and Airam doesn't even know if his silly assassin is alive. Who can blame Anders for trying to console his cute Commander? The 'romance' in settings refers to Anders' attempts, not Airam's response.

If Airam seems bit too childish here – blame Anders, not me! This is his POV, this is how he sees Airam. It doesn't mean he's always objective. ;o)

Warning: This story will be less-more AU. Less at the beginning, more at the end. :o) Especially at the end. If you read BrokenToys you know that Airam has very good reason to hate Templar. Most of the time he is reasonable and aware that not all Templar are bad, blah blah blah. Still, he would never make any deal with Templar to supervise one of his friends. Goodbye, cannibalistic DA2 Anders! I'm going to forget you ever existed.

Thanks for Brelaina for still having patience with me and beta reading this. :o)

Meet Cute

This really wasn't one of his best days. Captured in the morning, imprisoned at noon, almost eaten alive in the early afternoon.

They had found his tent and managed to disarm his glyphs while he was still sleeping. 'Hit by Smite' immediately became the top on his list of worst ways to wake up.

After hours of half-carrying half-dragging him – not because of 'Templar cruelty', but because he refused to walk normally, no need to make it easy for them – Vigil's Keep seemed lovelier than the bedroom of an Orleasian whore. Let's stop there for a short break, said Biff. Too bad, Biffy, seems the break is going to be prolonged for you. Like, forever. Who would've guess that so soon after the glorious victory in Denerim, the Warden'skeepwould be overflown by darkspawn?

At least they weren't too picky about who they tore apart. Biff went down first, the big oaf. He probably should have felt sorry, them still being humans and all that, but they were Templar. Which made their humanity quite questionable.

And if he didn't help, it was entirely their own fault. Continuous smiting and energy draining left him weaker than a kitten. There wasn't much he could do other than watch the darskpawn massacre his captors – and despite everything, he didn't enjoy it – hoping they would not notice him in that cell until he gathered enough energy for at least one solid fireball and unlocked the door. It was good he learnt a few tricks during his escapes; he hated to admit it, but sometimes the magic was not enough.

Thank the Maker, darkspawn never counted amongst the brightest creatures. When they finally noticed there was another human in the room, he was ready. He knew he had only one shot and focused everything he had into it. Bit too much, it turned out - he burned his fingers. Something like that hadn't happened since he was five, damnit.

It was exactly at that moment, when the fireball hit the monsters, that he heard someone shouting something about survivors and running his way. The door banged open and he reluctantly turned to see -

That was not what he expected. Not that he really expected something, but if he had, it wouldn't be this. It would be a mighty warrior with massive armour and huge sword. Not – this.

An elf boy, with huge staff on his back, pair of daggers at his hips and the most curious set of black leather armour, with trousers. Eighteen, nineteen, twenty at most. With the cutest pair of little ears he had ever seen. That was the first thing he noticed about the boy – the ears. He had barely restrained himself from closing the distance between them and fondling those ears. Only then he slowly took in the other details – big, purple eyes, unruly hair of a funny violet shade falling in his eyes, lean figure, pale skin. No wonder he was pale, he thought, everyone had the right to be scared when they first saw darkspawn.

The boy blew away a lock from his eyes and he felt like his heart was melting and dripping right to his shoes. This elf was more adorable than a kitten. Maybe even more than two kittens.

"What are you staring at? Who are you?" The boy looked at the bodies of dead Templar suspiciously.

"I'm Anders, and before you ask, no I didn't do this. Not that I'm sorry, I'm really not too eager to go back to the Tower."

"You're an apostate, then? And these men were Tempar?"

He nodded, and the boy smiled a little. "Well, what is done, is done. We can talk about it later. Are you injured? Can you fight?"

Awww, the kid was pretending to be a brave warrior, was he? "I'm fine. Who are you? How did you get here? And where did you get that armour from?"

The human girl that he hadn't even noticed until then, so mesmerised he was with the young elf, scowled at the questions, but the young elf was smiling.

"That's the Archdemon's hide, made for me by my favourite smith, Wade. And I'm Airam Surana, Commander of the Grey. Pleasure to meet you."

Wait. What? No way. "Commander...? You?" Do they have a junior section, he almost asked but he thought better of it.

"Were you hit in the head?"

"Not that I remember, but -"

The elf actually stomped. "Can you fight or not? I have no time, I have to finish this quickly, I have urgent business in An – elsewhere."

He nodded, and when the Warden turned on his heel, he licked his lips. This cute-pie had to be his.