Please note that among other things, this story includes graphic sexual and violent content, rape, dubious consent, dom/sub undertones, and mind control. Proceed at your own caution. If the darkness of this story is too much, I recommend the other stories in my Corruption Bound series. Things do get better, however slowly, for our main characters. This is the story where things get worse. New chapters will be posted every day or every other day as time permits.
Delirious overstimulation. Anders ran the words through his mind, ending up speaking them aloud. It was the best description for what he was feeling. He said it again, like a mantra, to keep him grounded. If he was saying it, he was thinking it. He hadn't fallen to the temptation to stop thinking and just feel.
What he felt now reminded him of his various escapes from the Circle. He was noticing many of the same things. The sun on his skin. The smell of green plants wafting by on a passing breeze. The rustle of leaves, and the sound of small animals skittering by. The crunching of twigs and weeds under his boots. The strain of his calves as he hiked uphill. The taste of his cheeks and lower lip as he bit back a smile that threatened to overcome him. The colors, sights, and sounds. The smells. The physical sensations.
Every moment was stolen time. Kirkwall stood ablaze behind him. That he lived at all was a miracle. That he could smell the smoke and hear the battle cries and enjoy it was a miracle he didn't deserve at all.
Was this why he felt something else, something more than in previous escapes? The rounded trees sporting green and yellow leaves and scattered with white and pink flowers were like a child's illustration, colors jarringly bright in sun that momentarily blinded when left unfiltered by the leaves overhead. He didn't just smell fresh air; he tasted it and could tell you the composition of plants and rocks a mile upwind. A gentle breeze was such a distracting tease across his skin that he pulled his coat close to cover his neck, wishing for a pair of gloves to stop his hands from shaking on a warm day. The chirping of birds exchanging flirtations was so sweet that he brushed a tear from the corner of his eye.
It was so much. Too much. He had been unsure before he left Kirkwall whether Justice was gone or present but dormant. It would not be the first time the spirit was spurred into a satisfied silence, taken aback in shock, or simply smited temporarily out of Anders' conscious reach. But no. This could only be his body reacting to the absence of his longtime companion. As the years passed in Kirkwall, he had felt his senses compacting as the two beings merged into one. The once selfish desires of his former self were muted in steps too gradual to mourn, subsumed into more mature goals that he and Justice shared. He sacrificed much to pen his manifesto, uphold the mage underground, and plan the ultimate volley to begin a mage rebellion. He had not known exactly how much until it all came rushing back.
Had he once felt this strongly every minute of every hour of every day? No wonder he had been such a hedonist as a younger man. Delirious overstimulation. It could lull the strongest man into complacency. Ironically, it left Anders aching to share his experiences with someone. After years embarked on internal conversations with a being who became part of his shared consciousness, he was suddenly, shatteringly, heart-breakingly alone. No Justice. Also no Hawke, who spared him but also set him free, alone. Nor would any of Hawke's companions, sympathetic or otherwise, wish to be seen with him, he was sure.
He was alone. Alone in a state of delirious overstimulation. Worse than alone. Without the spirit to anchor his decisions, this thing still called Anders was a raw personality with its ego stripped away. He did not want or need. He could barely think. But oh, he felt. Maybe if he kept repeating the reason for his drug-like state of exhilaration, he could survive long enough to rebuild his mental acuity. He must resist the temptation to lie in a lush carpet of grass and watch the clouds go by. Foolish temptation.
Ecstatic intoxication. There. Another line for the mantra. Good. He would not smell the roses just visible on the horizon. The roses were deadly, and not because of poisoned thorns. Smelling meant stopping.
Anders stumbled forward, resisting the pull of his overwhelmed senses. No doubt there would be Templars coming for him. Even if Meredith ordered them to do otherwise, there would be those who sought revenge for the murder of so many innocents. Not long ago, Anders in his merged state with Justice had approved and offered himself as a political sacrifice and martyr to the cause. Now, the wind whistling through the rocks as he trekked north wailed with him, anguishing that he wanted to live.
Anders would do anything to survive, to experience all this for even one more moment, to have even the weakest whisper of a chance that someday he could struggle for the words to share this feeling with someone who cared enough to listen. Delirious overstimulation. Ecstatic intoxication. Bringing trials and tribulations. Before Justice, he would not have had the willpower to resist the desire to stop and feel.
How ironic. What he wouldn't give to share how ironic that was with someone who cared about him.
Maker help him. He had never been so alive. Or so alone. Or so dangerous.