A Second Chance was written for the following prompt:

Hawke killed Anders after the Chantry explosion. It's been somewhere between sixteen to eighteen years after, and Hawke's tried to move on despite the heartbreak stemming from Anders' actions. And then Hawke meets reincarnated Anders. Anders came back to give life a second try, his new incarnation just isn't aware of it.

(Anonymous) 2011-09-13 06:08 pm


PART I: THE APPRENTICE


When the cockerel crows atop a dunghill, the weather may change, or stay the same still. - German proverb


"I didn't do it!" Anders cried. At the sight of a raised staff, he put up his hands so fast that his favorite badass Liberator-style feather pauldrons tickled his ears. At his feet, the other apprentices, poor sods, groaned and barely stirred.

"I didn't! Honest."

Anders did his best to look guileless, even though he could see how anyone just marching into the apprentices' common room could get the wrong idea about Anders being a less than stellar example to his peers. After all, Anders was the only one still standing, holding a not-quite-empty wineskin of brandy - which, OK, he had liberated from the Spoiled Princess - while all around him, drunker and nakeder apprentices sprawled like... well, like the aftermath of a really good party.

Senior Enchanter Petra scowled at them over the staffpoint, and Anders could practically hear her thinking Tsk. How irresponsible!

When she lowered her staff, he lowered his arms, and looked suitably hangdog. She probably wanted everyone here to scurry off bright and early to all their lessons tomorrow. Too bad, really, since nobody - except maybe Anders himself, because he was just that good - could possibly scurry anywhere in their current state, much less hold their own against Enchanter Eadric, or worse, Enchanter Levyn. He shook his head at the scattered bodies. Thought I taught them to hold their liquor better than this.

"Why does everyone always think I did it?" He peered at Dagna the Librarian, hoping for a sign of sympathy, and then back to Petra. He shrugged inwardly and tried a pout on them. Pouts work, occasionally, even on an old bore like Petra. Cats work too, even better than a pout. Where's Ser Pounce-a-Lot when I need him?

"Anders, it's Daylen and Solona's Final Test tomorrow! Do you ever think before you act?"

Oh yeah. Oops. Anders peered down. Daylen Amell had passed out ages ago, before he even got around to stripping off the rest of his robe, and his twin sister wasn't much better. Not even a glimpse of naughty bits, and everyone was just getting started... "W-well, that's why we had to have a party for them! In fact, they insisted!" He warmed to the story as he spun it, knowing that nobody was in any state to contradict him. "We were talking; you know how in the Harrowing days the templars could kill you even if you just took a bit longer than they liked... so you had to live it up in case you didn't make it! And we figured we had to do the same, out of respect for the Sacrifices of our Forebears." Anders even managed to lift his chin and Look Noble. Not bad for off-the-cuff nugshit, even if I do say so myself!

Dagna snorted at him and shook her head. "Oh nevermind," she sighed to Petra, "Why are you even listening to him? Just let the rest of them sleep it off, and we'll get the Amells to a Healer."

"Um, I'm a Healer," Anders chimed in, ever so helpful. "I'm really good at it too! Promise!" He wiggled his fingers and grinned brightly. "I've got a magic touch, everyone says so."

He found himself on the receiving end of Petra's glare. "You're not a Healer yet, my lad, and you'll never pass your Final Test unless you apply yourself! Now come along."

Anders sighed. He should've stayed on the other side of the lake this time around.

So Anders took his staff and his skin of brandy (no sense in letting good booze go to waste around this lot) and off they went, round and round the tower, up the staircases, through the library and all the way up to the top floor. Where the First Enchanter's office was.

The Sexy Sonofabitch Himself's office, that is. The Silver Fox's den. The usual spring returned to Anders' step, despite all those bloody flights of stairs. Well, isn't this interesting? I never thought a bit of a pre-Final Test piss-up would be worth bothering him about! But with a development like that, Anders wasn't sorry at all. Not even a little bit.

The night was still young, and it was already looking up.

Undeterred by the Senior Enchanter's stern glare, he gave Petra a charming grin. "So, are you going to be the Guardian for the Amells' Test tomorrow? You can tell me..."

"Anders!"

"What? I was just wondering..."

"None of your business! Now hurry up!" She walked briskly up to the office door and knocked.


This late at night, Kinloch Hold was quiet enough that the knock was clearly audible, even in the private rooms beyond the First Enchanter's office. Hawke rolled out of bed at once, absently setting the book aside as he tightened the sash on his evening robe and hurried into the office, heart racing.

This late, it wouldn't be a social call.

He wasted no time in waving the door open; he relaxed minutely when he glimpsed an all-too-familiar face, peering bright-eyed over Petra's shoulder.

"What's he done now, Senior Enchanter?" Hawke groaned, dropping his face into his hand and rubbing his sore eyes.

"Hope we didn't interrupt anything interesting, ser," Anders cut in at once, with a grin as flashy as the gold earring glinting in his ear. "I'd just like to say, I was on my best behavior all day long. Dunno why Petra..."

"Since it hasn't been 'day' for hours, that hardly reassures me," Hawke parried sharply. "Unless you've suddenly been promoted to Senior Enchanter, I wasn't talking to you. Now are you going to shut up, or will I have to give you a refresher course in Glyph of Paralysis?"

Anders' eyes lit up and his eyebrows wagged suggestively but he answered with his widest silent grin.

Hawke eyerolled at the brat before turning his attention to Petra, nodding in the appropriate places as she filled him in on the latest shenanigans. He sighed. "Maybe if they have to deal with the consequences they'll learn not to binge. No hangover treatment this time, to anyone but the Amell twins." He thought it over and added in a grumble, "Except contraceptive potions of course." He nodded to Petra. She was a bit officious - there was nothing here that couldn't have waited until the morning - but she did do her job. "Thank you for bringing this to my attention," he told her, before giving the boy with her the side-eye. "I'll take it from here. Good evening, Senior Enchanter."

Another good thing about Petra was that she wasn't chatty. She returned his nod and let herself out.

Leaving him to deal with the excessively chatty boy.

"Soo..." Anders beamed at him, like a particularly chirpy canary in a crow's disguise. He made a show of pulling the collar of his charcoal robes wide open. "Here we are..." He licked his finger and smoothed a black feather back into place on his left pauldron. "Late at night... All alone together. Why, First Enchanter," the impossible brat actually purred, "this is just the way rumours start." He eyed Hawke's desk as eagerly as if he wanted to be bent over it and shagged senseless there and then.

Which is a thought that I really should not be having! Hawke reminded himself with an inward wince. "You look satisfied with yourself," Hawke snapped: as always, the best defense was a good offense.

"Not yet, but I'm hoping you could change that-"

"Had a really lovely time, I suppose," Hawke overrode him. "Getting all the senior apprentices completely plastered." Hawke kept right on talking, jaw growing tight as he abruptly strode up to the boy, glaring straight into his eyes. "The only thing I want to know is, was it deliberate? Did you mean to jeopardise the Amells' chances? Did you want them to have to take their Final Test all over again? Or was it all just your usual bloody brainlessness?"

For just a bit, that smug expression faded from the boy's face. Anders huddled in his feathers like a wet crow and bit his lip, watching Hawke with a resolute stare and it seemed like the question sunk in. But it wasn't for long. "Now waitaminute!" Anders exclaimed. "This is the Amells! Daylen can even take me in a duel, well sometimes, and Solona sleeps in the library! They've got what it takes, and a bit of a drink isn't going to change that." His lips twitched in an ever-sunny grin as he waved his arms. "Look, think of it as an extra challenge. If they don't pass your silly test tomorrow, I'll eat my own pauldron. But everyone needs some time to relax, now and then. Taste the freedom. Smell the brandy." He raised the wineskin up and had the nerve to offer it up to Hawke. "Got some right here. Want?"

With an emphatic sweep of one arm, Hawke snatched it out of Anders' hand, noting that the thirsty little buggers had left it almost drained. "Maker knows, you could drive the Grand Cleric to drink," he growled. Having made this shocking reference to their former oppressor, he pulled the cork with his teeth and spat it into his palm then drank the wineskin dry in one long gulp. He shoved the emptied wineskin and cork back at the boy, giving him a 'that's how it's done' glower.

After all, Hawke consoled himself, it is well after hours.

"Well that's proper appreciation!" Anders looked suitably impressed. "Now I know who to go to, next time I come back from a little visit to town."

"Speaking of which," Hawke smiled grimly, "You're confined to the tower, until both the Amells and you have passed your Final Test."

"Wait... what?" Anders gaped at him. "Confined? You mean, no pub? No town? Not even after dark? That, that... That's prison!"

Hawke spread his hands in a mock-helpless gesture. "How else am I going to cut supply off at the source? I don't know anyone else reckless enough to bring that much hard liquor back to the dorms!"

"You wouldn't do that!" Anders declared, though his tone was far from sure. "You care about us! You'd never trap us and torture us like... like the templars did! This is unfair!"

Hawke folded his arms and called the brat's bluff. "Tell you what," he declared. "If you don't want to be confined, you could always take your Final Test tomorrow. If it really is no problem to do so with a well-earned hangover."

"Yeah, but... Actually! Er..." Anders' eyes narrowed in determination and he held up his staff for good measure. "Fine!" he spat. "Haven't got a choice now, have I? I'll take your stupid test!"


The Revolution had filled every waking hour of Hawke's life, for more than a decade since he lost Anders. Since I killed him, he corrected himself bitterly. The guilt and grief was as agonising all these years later, as it had been the moment he slid the knife into his beloved's heart.

As he'd done every day since then, he tried to console himself. I knew him better than anyone in the world... Anders' withdrawn posture, hunched and defeated, the way he'd stretched out his long white throat, like a sacrificial lamb, silently offering it to his blade. Every line of his familiar, beloved body, every tremor in his beautiful voice, had screamed to Hawke of desperate measures and grief and a final plea for salvation.

He wanted to die, Hawke told himself, just as he'd told himself for years, desperately clinging to that argument to shore up his own sanity. He wanted the cause to have a martyr. He hated what circumstances forced him to do. He wanted to be free of it all. And he wanted me to set him free. He even told me as much.

Again and again, Hawke heard the words he'd never forget as long as he lived. 'For what it's worth, I'm glad it's you.'

Hawke could never be glad.

So instead, Hawke commemorated that immeasurable loss in the only way that held any meaning. He took up the cause Anders bequeathed to him, and carried it to the farthest corners of Thedas.

The news spread like wildfire: of Meredith's causeless Rite of Annulment, of Anders' successful strike. In every nation, the Circles rose up in revolt with the speed and force of a millennium of resentment of brutal repression. Together, they threw off the chains of the Templars.

Timing was key. Because all the Circles rose up at the same time, the Grand Cleric could not contain the Revolution by targeting one with an Exalted March. The spark Anders kindled in Kirkwall lit a firestorm that swept throughout Thedas, burning away the Templars, shattering the Chantry's grasp.

The merchant princes of Orzammar, canny as always to the winds of change, foresaw the dwindling market for lyrium among templars, the growing market among mages, and forged new trading alliances, cutting off supply. They were even eager to do so; they'd never trusted the Chantry's plan to replace Paragons with their surfacer god. The few templars that survived the uprisings were swiftly crippled by lyrium withdrawal. Only in Orlais did the Chantry retain a tiny fraction of its former influence. Without their military arm, they were reduced to a reactionary, powerless group, an impotent relic of their former theocratic might.

Mages were free throughout Thedas, for the first time since the rise of the Chantry. Slowly but surely, as they returned to their families and began serving the villages where they'd been born, began saving lives, healing, building, helping, attitudes continued to change. The lies of the Chantry were more clearly exposed day by day: every day their familiar neighbourhood mage failed to turn into a devouring abomination, refused to stoop to blood magic, declined to summon demons. At long last, mages were equal to everyone else, free to do as they wished: to fall in love, to marry, to build homes, to have children and futures and lives worth living.

It was the only fitting memorial for the man who became known throughout Thedas simply as the Liberator. Their world revered the hero, but only Hawke remembered the man.

Only Hawke truly knew him. Only Hawke loved him. And now, at the end of all Hawke's fighting, his penance was to go on living.

Without the only one he'd ever loved.


On the way back to his room, Anders thwapped the empty wineskin against the wall. It made a hollow, pathetic noise, empty and flabby; far too much like his current mood.

Bollocks! he grumbled to himself. Why do I even bother showing anyone a good time? Adults might have seemed tolerable, sometimes, but underneath they were all like Petra, or worse: poor old Owain. Bloody load of wrinkled up prunes!

So Hawke took one drink, big deal! He might look sexy, but he's a heartless sod! Probably never had a chance to have any real fun with anyone!

General of the Revolution, my arse! What would he know about loving life?


First Enchanter Irving had been old and withered when the Blight hit Ferelden; Uldred's descent into insanity had broken something crucial in him. He hung on only long enough to witness King Alistair's orders to the Landsmeet, making Ferelden's Circle the first one given full self-governance and autonomy from the Chantry. When the last aftershocks of the Revolution had finally shown signs of burning out, Irving had sent word to Garrett Hawke. He'd offered Hawke a new battle, one quieter and longer-lasting. As a lifelong apostate, Hawke had never even been to the Circle, but he accepted Irving's offer all the same, thinking that it would be a refreshing dose of calm.

How little he'd known. It had taken barely a month in the position of First Enchanter before he'd learned new respect for Irving.

Hawke learned that battling Templars and the Chantry had a simplicity to it that running a Circle lacked. Back then, the enemy had been clear, and his reaction even clearer. But he certainly couldn't unleash the full, fearsome brunt of his magic on the first misbehaving student that crossed his path, or the hundredth. When he'd taken charge of Ferelden's Circle - in the name of freedom, in the service of the King, in the memory of the Liberator - he'd found that herding hormonal youngsters required one of the few weapons he was unskilled at wielding: it required tact.

And so, with the Revolution as won as it would be in his lifetime, it was time for old dog Hawke to learn some new tricks. Not, Hawke reminded himself wryly as he moved into the First Enchanter's towertop quarters, that thirty-seven is all that old. So Hawke spent the next years wrestling willingly with these new challenges: he threw himself into rebuilding the Circle as a sanctuary, of knowledge, of freedom. As a site of remembrance.

For all Hawke's enthusiasm for the position, it didn't come naturally to him. He would always be a warrior at heart; as far as he was concerned, it took men like Viscount Dumar and Seneschal Bran to actually enjoy politics. His force magic could crumple Templar armor like fistfuls of dry leaves, but it could not win over Senior Enchanters who'd grown used to the Chantry's restrictive ways.

In the end, it would take a more subtle spell: Hawke's words, his patience (hard-learned from Anders' example), his status as the General who had carried on the Liberator's war for mages' freedom. With the force of that reputation - more arcane than all his Force Magic - he could push the more stubborn sods in the right direction, but it had been a long, slow job. Sometimes, it felt like it had been almost as much of a struggle to win over the stubborn elements among Ferelden's nobility and Ferelden's Circle, as it had been to break the templars' stranglehold on all the other Circles.

Anders - my Anders - was always the patient one, not I. He waited years, exhausted himself trying every other option, holding back and holding Justice back, until he was absolutely certain that nothing else he could do would make enough of a difference. Hawke recalled vivid memories of slender hands, a Healer's gifted hands, saving the injured and the sick, kneading reviving energies into Hawke's sore shoulders, stroking Hawke's mane tenderly as if scratching a cat's ear. The same elegant hands were swift and precise in directing firestorms and lightning strikes against foes.

Those same gentle fingers had mixed sela petrae and drakestone. Had brought down a Chantry.

Had brought down the Templars' ages-old reign of terror.

Over a decade of grief and loss had weighted down Hawke's bounding stride, calmed his impatience, steadied and grounded him, given him a focus and gravitas far beyond his years. And the position as Ferelden's First Enchanter had given him a new purpose, just when the fading of the war had left him achingly adrift. It had given him a new place in the world, a reason to stay alive.

Remade, rebuilt, liberated, Kinloch Hold held Hawke's heart and devotion, as it became his new life's work.

It became his home.


Ser Pounce-A-Lot had waited for Anders to come back, as he perched patiently by the open window, in his basket. He hopped down from his personal embroidered cat pillow as soon as Anders walked through the door, yawned and mewed his welcome, stretched and tested his claws on the sheets, climbed and spread out on his rightful spot on Anders' chest as soon as Anders' head hit the pillow.

Anders lifted his head, nuzzling against a wet kitty-nose, sinking his fingertips into sleek orange fur, and told him everything. "You understand me, don't you, Pounce," he mumbled at the end. "You know what it means to be free. They'll never cage either of us!"

A smirk appeared on his face, as daring as the cat's smug purr.

"I'd like to see them try!"


Dog was a grand old hound by the time Hawke took charge of Ferelden's Circle. Content to warm the corner of his master's tower office, he rested his greying muzzle over his heavy paws and stared up gruffly at the visitors with bloodshot, watery eyes. Such a constant presence he'd become in his rightful retirement, that when the day came, it caught Hawke by surprise.

On that day, Dog's time was up, and the last of Hawke's companions, his faithful mabari raised from a pup back in Lothering, had left his side.

An hour later, the tears had ebbed, but Hawke remained kneeling by the still body, fingers stroking the cooling fur, when he heard a rapid knock. He swallowed past a lump in his throat, but before he could summon enough of a voice to reply, the door opened, just enough of a crack to let a messy blond head poke in.

"Hallo, ser," chirped the lad. I don't remember him, must be new... Hawke realised blearily as the boy rattled on in a thickly accented voice, "Wissen Sie... er, Do you know where..." he looked at a scrap of paper in his hand, "'Apprentice Quarters 181'? I am lost..." The breathless torrent of words abruptly dried up, and eyes - startlingly blue, the exact shade of lyrium - went round as saucers when their gaze fell on Dog. The boy gulped, and then their gazes met, and for a long moment neither of them could speak.

"I am very sad..." he said in a tiny voice. Then he winced, an odd, shamefaced look, "ach, sorry," he corrected himself, "I am very sorry."

Hawke shook his head, blinking back another sudden surge of tears. "They're both right." he husked. "What's your name?"

"Anders."

Anders. A single word, a simple name, brought it all back: all the years of pain and loss and loneliness. But even his Anders' magic couldn't heal death.

It must've been the current loss, sharp and raw, echoing the losses of his past, that made Hawke lift his hand from his dead companion's head and set it on the boy's shoulder, seeking comfort in contact, far more than lame condolences would have offered.

When he felt he could trust his voice again, Hawke used the touch to lever himself from his knees to his feet. After the long time kneeling, for once he moved and felt like a man much older than his years, hollowed out by new grief on top of old. But he was surprised at the note of kindness in his voice, when he husked, "Come on then, lad, let's get you to your new home."

No matter how kind Hawke managed to sound, no matter the gratitude in the too-blue eyes turned up to his own, he couldn't quite bring himself to call this little stranger by his beloved's name.

Not yet.


"Anders." A voice at the open door of 'Apprentice Quarters 181' sounded familiar. Anders turned to see the First Enchanter with a small basket in his hands.

"He needs a home," First Enchanter said, lifting a cloth over a basketful of tabby fur. "Would you take care of him?"

"Ooh!" Anders broke in a grin. He stood on his tiptoes and reached out, peeking in. Inside, the ball of fur stirred and mewed. Kätzchen! "Orange!" Sie ist am besten! "My favorite! What is his name?"

"He doesn't have one yet."

"He needs a home and a name," Anders informed the man gravely. That was just the way the world worked. Everything had to have a name. Even if it wasn't the real name, like 'Anders'.

Enchanter Hawke thought about it. "How about Ser Pounce-A-Lot?" he asked with an odd little grin.

Pounce? "Yes! Good!" Anders nodded, looking up from the purring kitten to Enchanter Hawke. "I think he likes it."

Ser Pounce-A-Lot nuzzled up for attention, and Anders leaned in to touch his nose tip to the pink cold nose of the cat.

It was love at first sight.


Hawke may not have known a thing about loving life, may have been a boring old man like the rest, but he did do one amazing thing, something Anders had never forgotten. Anders smoothed down tiger-striped fur and scratched velvety ears. He may be a sour old sod, but he still introduced me to Pounce.

Ser Pounce-A-Lot closed his eyes and released a chest-deep purr as he kneaded Anders' shoulder. Soothed by the familiar lullaby - and by more than the usual amount of drink - Anders sank into a deep sleep.


The lad was so friendly and likeable when he first came to the Tower. What happened? Hawke mused.

Ah, yes, puberty. Hawke snorted, thinking back to a curious boy too small for his robes; so different from today's smug imp, ridiculously proud of the downy fuzz on his cheeks, spouting dares and foolishness with every swoop of those feather pauldrons. These days, that look was called 'Liberator-style', and was considered dashing, if in an old-world way: a fact that Hawke found bittersweet. As far as he was concerned, only one person who'd ever lived could really do feather pauldrons justice.

And that someone wasn't the apprentice who was the current bane of Hawke's existence.

Oh, there were similarities: of course there were, even more than a shared homeland and the resulting shared nickname. Hawke would have to have been blind not to see them. This Anders was by far the Circle's most talented apprentice in the Creation school; outside of that, he had a very unusual aptitude for only the fire spells from the Elemental school, and only the lightning spells from the Primal school. These were the three branches his Anders had favoured, if one left aside the man's even more extraordinary gifts as a Spirit Healer: gifts that presumably had come from his bond with Justice.

They were similar physically as well as magically, close enough to be related: they both had the strong, angular features and the tall, lanky build of their people. By day, the boy was merely a paler, younger reflection of his Anders: blond rather than almost-redheaded; eyebrows and stubble as gold as that gaudy earring. But by firelight, with its red glow and shifting shadows, the resemblance to his lost love was positively uncanny.

Freckles dusted the bridge of the lad's nose and his high cheekbones, dappled his arms and chest, left bare by the flashy Tevinter-style robes he favored. Hawke's Anders, who'd spent his life locked away in the old prison-Circle and later in hiding, buried in Darktown, covered up in his high-collared robes, hadn't been out in the sun enough to get many freckles.

But the most striking physical difference was their eye color. Hawke would never forget the warm amber of his lover's eyes. This boy's eyes were a vivid blue; the exact hue of Justice's power. They were striking, no doubt: an asset he used far too effectively on his fellow apprentices and teachers. But for Hawke, the sight raised uncomfortable memories of his beloved, possessed.

Of course, their personalities were nothing alike. His Anders had been noble, selfless, dedicated to the welfare of others, to the point of driving himself to exhaustion.

To the point of sacrificing his own life, to give others the freedom he could never have.

Anders the Apprentice was a shameless, rampant hedonist: a glib, glittering gadfly of a boy with magical talent and intellect to spare, but who coasted through his theoretical classes on the bare minimum of work, applying himself only when he was allowed to shoot fireballs or lightning bolts. Granted, he really was a prodigy at healing, but so far Hawke had seen little evidence that he had the gentle, nurturing nature that really complimented the healing arts.

No. As far as Hawke could tell, the boy was nothing but a brat.

A brilliant, brash, beautiful brat.

And of course, as was only to be expected of someone that attractive, bright and charming, he'd made quite the impression on his fellow apprentices. It sometimes made Hawke wonder. What was my Anders like, in his youth? His Anders had joked about everyone kissing everyone else in the Circle, about apprentice robes being lifted for quick corner trysts; and from Hawke's own experience with the place, he could see now that, if anything, Anders had understated matters.

Presumably, Anders the Apprentice had kissed his share of willing lips, lifted his fair share of robes. As far as Hawke was concerned, the brat was very lucky Hawke hadn't caught him at it.

For what it was worth, Ser Pounce-A-Lot had grown to be a tiger among the Tower's mousers. He still trotted along in Anders' footsteps, plumy tail waving proudly as a golden pennant. Hopefully a familiar that wise would keep the imp out of too much trouble.

Thus, Hawke had many reminders of the past in his life, and in the aching, endless absence of his lost love, he'd learned to settle for acceptable substitutes. He'd grown accustomed to settling into his solitary bed, a copy of Anders' Manifesto in his beloved's familiar, faded handwriting always at his bedside, always preserved by a protective rune.

'You were right all along, my love,' he told it, stroking the yellowed pages as tenderly as he once stroked his beloved's face. 'We won because of you. And we will continue winning because of you."

The Manifesto folded carefully on his nightstand, Hawke settled into his pillow, knowing full well that he'd rise again in just a few hours. He was still First Enchanter of the greatest Circle in Thedas. And tomorrow, he had a Final Test to personally oversee.

For all his reliance on spirits of a liquid sort as a way of escape, Hawke's dreams were as empty that night as they had been ever since everything that mattered in his life had gone to the Void. In all the years since, he'd never relaxed the protections that kept his dreaming self safe from any fickle spirit of the Fade.


Sunshine hurts!

Ugh! Anders winced and rolled over hiding his face in his Mum's embroidered pillow. Too bright!

He could just hear his Mutti now. "Huldiberaht!" she would've yelled. "Wächst du auf!"

Anders' eyes snapped wide then; he was galvanised into wakefulness by the terrifying idea of everyone and their best friend in the Circle Tower knowing his real name. He'd barely made it out of the Anderfels, when the very first Ausländer he met had hopelessly mangled his name. Right then and there he'd realised why so many of his countrymen took Anders as a use-name in the outside world, and decided to follow their lead. With every new face since then, he'd known he'd made the right decision. All it would have taken would be one person learning the truth, and the next moment, everyone would be calling him Hilde, and his days as an envied playboy would be over forever.

Anyway, the name Anders suited him: while there were Rivaini and Antivan and even a couple of Tevinter kids at Kinloch Hold - Ferelden's Circle was famous throughout Thedas as the largest and most liberal - he was the only apprentice from the distant and insular Anderfels. And, best of all, the Liberator himself had come from the same land, had gone by the same name.

He fluffed his pillow and re-settled. To the Void with classes, he thought blearily, Need sleeeep! But then, as his luck would have it, his booze-blurred memory began to clear, and bits and pieces of what happened yesterday began to emerge from the general haze.

Brandy... Lots and lots of brandy. A glimpse of the twins passed out; a memory of sprawled bodies, some of them snoring, some doing more interesting things. More brandy. And - oh Maker - the First Enchanter, that scolding growl and the premature streaks of silver at his temples and in that sexybastard beard of his.

And now Anders had an appointment to keep. Oh. Shit!

He ran his fingers through his hair to tame the worst of it, staggered to his feet and shrugged on his coat. He grabbed the plain stick of wood that was his apprentice's staff, even though he had to lean on it more than usual before the room stopped spinning. He supposed that he'd better at least show up to whatever test they were going to throw at him, so he could at least try and bargain his way back to freedom at the end of the day.

He groaned as he checked the empty wineskin which was his last supply of brandy. He groaned louder as he recalled that his access to more was effectively cut off. How did the old mages put up with this unfairness their entire lives? Anders was technically only a prisoner of the Circle Tower for one night, and he already hated every second.