He ran.

Rain pelted him in frigid drops, pressing his hair slick against his neck and his clothes damp against his frame. His boots slid and sank in the sodden earth, and the broken stalks of grass marked his path as he crushed them underfoot in his haste. Behind him were the thunderous steps of men in heavy armor and the glow of crackling magelight obscuring his pursuers behind the glow of green and red. The tall stalks of grass gave way to stone and he leapt a creek as he continued to barrel onward. He slipped as he turned uphill, hands scraping against mud and stone before he came to his feet and continued up the slope.

Justice burned in his mind, lighting the backs of his eyes even as he closed them. The pursuers were Templars, it said, and their allies. They did not deserve to live. He would kill them. It would be just. The magic was at his fingertips, he could feel it in the air, ready to be pulled into use in only the ways a spirit could. He clenched his fists, shutting out the touch of the fade. He couldn't. No one else could die, so many mages and innocents had already died. He would run. He could kill them. It would be easy. He clenched his teeth and sucked in a breath. No. More. Killing. Magic crackled on his skin regardless.

He made a sharp left and struck out along the cliffs, his boots sliding over short clipped grass and his mind slowly filling with blue. He should kill them. He shouldn't, death was a terrible thing. He could see his hut silhouetted against the sky, standing at the edge of the fall ahead. He should not have lead them here. They pursued still, he could see his own shadow running ahead of him. He shouldn't kill them. But he could incapacitate. He could hurt them so badly they'd never touch a mage again. They would live. He compromised. Justice demanded the templars and their supporters break, never touch another mage. Justice didn't demand they die. Anders skidded to a stop and dragged a fallen branch out of the mud, allowing the blue to fill his mind, fill the branch, fill the air. It was in his eyes and on his lips.

"He's over here," one of them called, a man, and Anders opened his eyes just in time for the mage's light to come round the corner in all its blinding glory. The speaker was followed by three templars and a one-eyed Qunari bull at least two feet above its human companions.

The Qunari gave a low rumbling "heh" and hefted an enormous axe. "We've got him, boss."

Anders would hurt them. Anders would-He was wrenched down as the other consciousness arose, blotting out his own and its inefficient reservations. Justice leveled the branch toward the "boss." It was a redheaded elven man wearing the symbol of the chantry boldly on his shoulder and carrying a long wickedly gnarled staff. There was a smile on the man's lips, threatening to become a hunter's grin. "Surrender or death buddy, which'll it be?" Justice reached into the fade for power and his presence grew so strong as to nearly block out his own thoughts. Lightning crackled along the branch and fire sparked at its end, and then the air was magic and heat.

He shoved the branch through one Templar's armor as the whole thing dissolved into blue flame and lightning, and the steel melted like putty. The templar screamed and swung his shield at Justice but the spirit pushed the full of its weight into the man. Haggard and mal-maintained as the body was, a man with melting flesh in his side was not one paying close attention to his balance, and the two of them hit the ground, Justice plunging a lightning hand into the man's eyes. Justice brushed away a fireball, redirecting it at the earth as he twisted to avoid the second Templar's sword. He was knocked to the ground instead by her shield and rolled about a food before stopping and pulling himself to his feet. He brushed away another fireball as the remaining templars and Qunari closed on him, weapons raised-

-and suddenly the Qunari had an arrow in his good eye and crumpled like so much wet paper. Justice lunged for the woman Templar's head as his attackers turned to see their second assailant. The woman's amber eyes returned to Justice just a moment too late to step aside. The redhead mage gave a desperate shout and lifted his hand. Justice moved his own to dispel another spell, then buckled and then dropped abruptly as the redhead elf made a gesture and space itself tore open. Somewhere he was vaguely aware of shouting and footsteps and flame, but the screaming of the fade wind and the screaming of Justice and the pain pain pain pain of the fade tearing at his own mind, trying to tear off pieces and draw them in, was the only place his thoughts could even begin to be.

And then it was quiet. Justice was silent. Anders could feel his heartbeat in his skull. Anders could feel fear. Anders could feel pain, and everything everything hurt. His heart hammered in his chest and his fingertips and his head. He was starving. He was numb with cold. Physical sensation was so loud... He slowly lifted his eyes to see his savior striding toward him against a backdrop of flames.

She lowered her bow and stared down at him. The rain hammered down on both of them, and her hair was matted and dark, falling across her face in thick ropes and web-like wisps. The shadow of the stormy night hid her face. It did not hide her identity. He had once been far too familiar with that small lithe form. Her eyes glinted gold amidst the scattered light of flame. He knew who she was, but no words came. His mind felt empty, like it had been torn out, but at the same time full of completely indecipherable thoughts which blurred together and did not fit themselves to words.

"You." She said flatly. She looked nearly angry, but her eyes were more surprised, in spite of her furrowed brows. When he could not answer, she scanned the area and then knelt, forcing his chin up to look at his eyes. He would have flinched away from her touch if doing so had not required looking away. The sensation of skin on his own was strong enough it nearly hurt. "Anders."

"E-eh," he said, mouth open, and then swallowed and tried again. He searched the wall of dense fog inside his mind. "Ye-es," he breathed, his voice coming out a raspy shuddering thing. "Yes."

She searched his eyes a moment more and then dropped her hand from his face. She stood, and now her expression was one of annoyance as she glanced around again. Her eyes flicked further up the slope and her brows furrowed further, crinkling the vallaslin line that ran between them. "We need to go," she said, and he attempted to parse even that simple sentence through the meaningless chaos buzzing around his skull. By the time he had worked out the meaning, her hand was extended and she was pulling him to his feet. The movement was nauseating, and his grip on her hand tightened as he found his balance.

"Lee-len-" He tried to sort out her name, but she shushed him.

She flicked her eyes uphill, then back to him, and repeated the subtle motion twice before his eyes followed hers. A red creature made of flame and rage made physical bubbled down the hill toward them. Somewhere past it was a bright green, but Anders looked away from that. The color hurt his eyes. Lyna shook her hand free of his grip. "Follow me," she said in a low voice, "Be quiet and be quick about it." Then with steps light as a cat's she darted off along the cliff-face. Anders watched and then followed, at a slower pace. There was a hut he could see a ways off, and he knew he had known it, but it felt foreign and strange. He set himself to focus on walking.

.o.

-o-o-o-

'o'

He followed her numbly down to the shore where a small boat had been pulled ashore. She shoved it down the sandbank into the water and hurried him into it before casting away from the sandy bottom with an oar and heading out into the waters of the Waking Sea. Only once they had cast off did he speak.

"Comm-Lyna," he said.

"That is my name," she answered, not bothering to look up at him as she rowed.

"How... why..."

She lifted her eyes from the water, and she looked over him with a scowl. "I was told I would find a maleficar. An abomination."

"I-" He faltered. His memories were jumbled, off, distant. He tried to piece together a coherent stream of them. He had been... living... on a cliff. People wouldn't find him there. He needed them not to find... Suddenly the boat seemed much smaller. The Commander's eyes on him were too much, and he couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe. He needed to get out, he needed-there was no air. He was-He probed the jumbled mess, but it refused to tell him any different. "Get-a-away." He tried to climb backward but backward was out of the boat, backward was the ocean, he couldn't breathe, he-

"Anders. This is a boat."

-needed to get out, needed to escape, needed to be anywhere anywhere anywhere else they would kill her they would-

There was no they. Where- What- Where was they, what was he supposed to exist as, where was he, what was he-

"Anders." Her voice was demanding.

He did not look at her, pushing himself further back into the furthest corner of their tiny boat. "I am- not-"

She wasn't rowing anymore. The boat was just rocking on the water.

"Put me back where I belong," he forced out.

Her tone was near threatening, and unquestionably bitter. "I don't think you want that or you'd have done it yourself years ago."

He lifted his eyes just enough to look at her crossed arms but not enough to see her eyes. "I'll... we'll... hurt you," he said, confused that the words felt empty of threat.

She snorted. "Too damned late." She looked away and the two of them sat in silence as rain filled the bottom of the boat. Finally, the commander took her oar back up with a sigh. When she spoke, her voice sounded hollow and distant. "You can come with me or I can put you right back down for the Inquisition and their Templar buddies to find. It's up to you."

"I..." Unbidden, tears rose to his eyes, and the tension in his lungs settled into a knot in his throat. He had been waiting to become something uncontrollable and irredeemable. He had been waiting for someone to kill him because it was the only option. But his mind had been... Foreign. Dangerous. Unpredictable. He buried his face in hands as the pain and guilt and relief rolled up through him, escaping in a small strangled cry. "I don't want to die."

There was a moment of quiet before the Commander spoke, and this time her voice was soft. "Then I won't let anyone touch you." She started rowing again and he thought he heard a quiet "Fen-harel take me," but the wind swallowed too much of her voice for him to be certain.

Thanks for reading, reviews are always appreciated. :)