Legends tell of the shape-shifter, the animagus - a witch or enchanter who can take the form of an animal. Who, after all, has not dreamed at some time or other of taking the form of some bird of the air or some beast of the forest? Yet if such an ability existed once, then perhaps it is one that has been lost to time. There are rumours that such a talent may yet linger amongst the shamans of the Chasind or the fabled Witch of the Wilds; but many dispute her very existence, and the shamans keep their tongues. Perhaps the Dalish may know of such arts - but the Dalish do not share their lore with mere shemlen and are even closer-lipped than the taciturn and wild Chasind tribes.
If such an ability exists, the Circles agree: it must be very rare indeed. And amongst those mages imprisoned in their Circle Towers, who has not stared from a high window at a bird flying passed and not wished - even briefly, in their most secret heart of hearts - that he or she might not take winged form too and fly away from their lofty prison? It is certain that if they could, then they would.
But perhaps the skill is not wholly lost - and perhaps not so rare as one might think.
There is a small cottage close by the eaves of the forest where a lives a woman who once had a child who went to gather firewood and never came back. She is visited faithfully every day by a robin that eats crumbs from her hand and comforts her. Her daughter loved to watch the robins of the forest gather to eat the crumbs scattered on the windowsill...
It is not the changing that is so hard - not to a child who has not yet learned that the world is a hard place, not so malleable as their dreams and wishes would make it. Magic comes easiest to the young, after all, before it must be wrapped in rules and ritual, locked in manacles of word and gesture, imprisoned in books much as the wielder is locked in manacles of steel to be dragged away and locked in tall Towers by the Templars instead of flying free like the birds. No, it is not the changing - though that is hard; the letting go of one's form. Harder still is holding on to that new form in a body that still thinks it should have arms and legs instead of wings or paws.
But hardest of all is holding on to one's mind. The longer one remains in the form of an animal, the more one's thoughts become those of that animal until there is nothing human left at all.
How many birds once were human children that forgot how to be children again? And after all, children go missing all the time; and not all ever return or are found again.
Maybe a truly talented Spirit Healer might be able to sense what yet remains of the human or elven spirit within the animal form; but Spirit Healers are few and far between. Perhaps a Dalish Keeper might have the skill to know; but Dalish Keepers lose themselves rarely. They are taught to remember themselves first; for after all, that is the duty of a Keeper - to remember. And one must first know oneself before one can know others; one must be able to hold onto one's own memories before being entrusted with the memories of a whole People.
Like the children, sometimes mages in the Towers go missing - one falls pregnant, another to Templar abuses, others fail their Harrowings. But sometimes, one simply... disappears. The Templars assume an escape and they hunt; and sometimes they find their errant apostate, but sometimes they do not. And phylacteries do not always work.
How many mages leap from the Tower as birds and forget their wings whilst aloft? All wished to escape, but not all wished to do so through death - though that is a form of escape in itself.
Some fly away and remember enough of themselves to take on their true form once more. Many more live out the remainder of their days never remembering that once they walked on two feet, and laughed, and perhaps loved.
A young man stares out of the window at a bird flying past, and he thinks, I would be that free. I would that I could fly. He closes his eyes and imagines himself as a bird; imagines his arms to be wings, the feel of feathers, muscles shifting as he beats his wings. He opens his eyes and finds that what he imagined has come to pass.
Exultant, he swoops around his small cell and revels in the feel of being a bird; and he begins to forget himself until he hears a voice from outside his room calling his name and suddenly he is falling, tumbling, to land in a heap of arms instead of wings and terrified - more terrified than he can ever remember being, even during his Harrowing or when the Templars first came for him - more terrified than he was of his father when he burned the barn down as a child, because for a brief time he had forgotten he was a man and thought himself a bird.
He is not too terrified to make the attempt again however. A second time, he makes it as far as the lake before fear of forgetting himself causes him to fall into the icy waters. He strikes out for the opposite shore.
It takes three days for the Templars to bring him back again. Unlike some, his phylactery works.
He makes other escapes - once, as far as Denerim; but always they bring him back. Each time, the punishment is worse.
It is hard to shift when your back is bloody from the whip, your arms aching from long hours hoisted up from manacles and left to hang. The pain makes his arms remember they are arms and not wings.
One day, one of the other mages - a young man, not long past his own Harrowing, comes to his room and shows him a new trick; before his very eyes, the red-haired mage becomes a ginger tabby. But before he can transform back, two Templars discover the older man, and his young friend must perforce hide in plain sight in guise as one of the Tower's mousers.
By the time the Templars leave, he has become one in truth; it is too late, and he has forgotten he were ever a young man.
It terrifies Anders. He never changes again.
But the cat remembers the man, and when Anders is thrown into solitary for a whole year, Mr Wiggums comes to visit him. He is Anders' sole companion in the darkness, and Anders is able to hold onto a shred of his sanity - enough to survive.
He is a broken thing when finally he emerges into the light of day, his year-long punishment finally over. It is some time before he realises he hasn't seen the cat. He asks, and is horrified to learn that Mr Wiggums is dead. The cat walked unwittingly into a summoning circle and was possessed, becoming an abomination; the Templars cut him down and killed him.
A mage's mind that has forgotten it was once a man is a very tempting thing for a demon, after all.
It is not long afterwards that Anders makes his seventh and final escape from the Tower - upon foot.
He wears feathers upon his coat. He thinks he has worn feathers before, but he cannot remember when. He doesn't remember being a bird. He is too much in denial; because whenever Anders sees a cat, he is thinking very hard about anything other than mages turning themselves into animals or birds and getting stuck like that - and he's been doing it so long he has no idea he's doing it anymore.
And after all, the idea that any bird he sees might once have been a small child that turned into a bird and never turned back and doesn't remember ever having once been a small child is a rather horrific thing to contemplate. So he doesn't. He no longer looks up at the birds; his gaze is instead upon the ground. He remains a man and forgets he was ever a bird.
He is kind to cats, because once a cat was kind to him. He forgets there were ever a young man who was human before he became a cat.
Time passes; it is not kind to Anders. Eventually he comes to Kirkwall; finds a place, friends, a lover. He works hard to free other mages from the Gallows.
Bethany is taken to the Gallows. He plans to free her too, though she does not yet know it. She stands at her window in the tower and watches the birds fly past.
One day the Templars pass by her door, and her room is empty; a single white feather lies upon the floor.
Over the next three days, Leandra is visited by a white dove as she walks in the garden of her fine Hightown mansion.
The fourth day, Quentin brings her white lilies.
The white dove is never seen again.