Anders flees.
Meredith is destroyed, Kirkwall has fallen, Justice was Vengeance, and Anders was a tool, played into the hands of no Maker.
They all retreat, victorious, into an abandoned building. Merrill is leaning over Hawke, a cloth on the cut of his jaw. One look, and Anders knows they won't accept his help.
(He wouldn't, either.)
He waits until just before dawn breaks, and he runs.
He knows that he watches him go.
Where can he flee to? He doesn't know. He wonders vaguely whether this is – not him – but he pushes the thought away as hard as he can. He can't think about that. Not now.
He struggles along the wounded coast, before turning and heading back inland as far as he possibly can. They will be looking for him soon, so he must keep moving. Running.
He isn't sure who he's trying to escape, this time.
Anders doesn't pause when he's faint from hunger.
He doesn't pause when his flask becomes empty.
He pauses when, in the middle of a clearing, he comes across two bodies.
A templar, and a mage. Anders grips tightly on his own staff. He's not angry at this sight, he realises with an anxious lurch. He's afraid.
Please, no.
He squeezes his eyes shut. He opens them. No change. No surge of energy that he cannot own. No deeply imbued anger claiming him, devouring any other sense. He stares at his hands. He isn't sure.
What can he actually remember?
His staff hitting the ground.
Absolute anger. Rage. Volition. Justice would be made complete. Vengeance would be achieved, on all mages who had been wronged. On Anders, who has been disserved –
- Hands in a darkened chantry cellar, mantra of there can be no compromise –
- Tattoos of lyrium, a hand on an arm, a firm question -
Then, a question of conscience. Silenced.
A staff drumming the ground, but they're not his hands. Are they?
Fire and death. Fire and death.
His hands.
Anders looks at the two corpses most definitely in front of him, and he looks down at their hands, which are holding each other.
Maker, what has he done?
The next time he wakes there is someone leaning over him.
Elf. Male.
"Fenris?" Anders croaks.
"Ah, you're alive," the elf speaks, in a voice that is far too optimistic to be his aforementioned elf. "You had my lad worried for a while. He found you passed out in a field. He thought you were dead along with those other bodies, except you were murmuring in your sleep. Sounded like a nightmare. Here, drink." Anders is passed a bowl of water and has no choice but to comply.
As soon as he can, Anders asks "Where am I?"
"Middle of nowhere, I'm afraid. Though Wintervale is about a days walk east of here."
Anders needs to walk as far as he can in the opposite direction, then.
He places the water bowl down, and moves to leave the bed.
"I appreciate the – saving my life," he attempts, with such a lack of sincerity Anders wants to kick himself. As he stands, he can already tell how weak he still is. "I couldn't steal your hospitality any longer."
"Don't be ridiculous," another, female voice walks in. A boy hides behind her. Mrs Elf, he presumes; who is very heavily pregnant. He gives one look at her complexion. He's seen enough pregnant women to know.
I could help her.
(No.)
Anders freezes up, lashes out by grabbing his staff. He lurches to his feet, throwing another comment of gratitude (he hopes), and brushes past her on his way out.
He leaves the village as quickly as he found himself there.
You could have helped her.
(No, no I couldn't. A man just happens to turn up not long after Kirkwall falls from a mage destroying a chantry – and then a mage just happens to turn up in a field who has clearly not let themselves stop for some time with no concept of his geography? Not inconspicuous at all.)
That's not the real reason.
(I'm choosing it to be, so there.)
You can't ignore this forever.
This figure, whom Anders cannot shape, folds its arms.
Anders wakes in a cold sweat.
It's raining. Anders bows beneath a tree. The sticks he's using are damp. The foliage he's trying to use is damp. Everything is damp. Anders is shivering.
With a grunt he weakly throws the sticks, and hovers his hand over the small campfire.
It hovers, fingers splayed. He wills fire to leave his fingers – then stops himself before the spell can even begin.
(I can't.)
With a huff he withdraws his hand and stuffs it under his cloak. He watches the empty campfire, and soaks to the bone.
You've always been angry.
So angry, that you corrupted a spirit. A spirit that strived only to bring justice to those oppressed. To work for the good of your people.
If you corrupted a spirit, how much more could you corrupt? Have you corrupted already?
The figure leers, pointed ears and solid white hair, and grasps his arm, but it doesn't soothe, but burns, sears -
Anders wakes up screaming.
He pulls his hood tighter over his head as he enters the tavern. There's only so much traipsing through country-side one can do without magic until there is substantial need for a warm meal and dry bed. He rubs at his wrists.
"How much for a room?" He asks, voice sore from such a lack of talking. How long had it been? A month? More?
"Silver piece. Two if you want breakfast."
Anders stares miserably at the pieces in his hands. He sighs, pocketing it. Just a he turns away a voice halts him.
"Hold up, I'll pay."
He turns to look at a woman with an Antivan accent. She's already got the two pieces on the bar table. Anders looks at them.
"I can't be in your debt."
She snorts. "You won't be. Equal work for equal pay."
Anders frowns at her until he's led out of the tavern. Normally his instincts are rather on point, and this for all intents and purposes screams 'trap'. Anders cannot bring himself to care.
They stop just by the stables. "I need you to help my… lover. They're in trouble."
"How am I supposed to help?"
"You are a mage, aren't you?"
Anders freezes. "How do you know?"
"Because you're very clearly a man trying to run away from something; the only people you find like that around these parts are escaped slaves or apostates, and you're carrying a giant bloody staff. Come on."
Anders is led to a small house a few minutes' walk away. They enter a house and he is led up some stairs into a dimly lit bedroom. A woman is laid in the middle of the bed. Despite the lighting, Anders can tell she's feverish. This woman wasn't lying, then.
"I'm… she's been like this for some time. Can you please help her?"
Anders gently places a hand on her forehead. "Maybe," he murmurs, but the more he checks her, the clearer it becomes on just how close to death she is. This might call for more magic than Anders alone has the strength for.
He can try.
He moves the sheet to get better access, and he closes his eyes as he tries to concentrate.
He feels magic leave his hands, as shaky as they feel, and experience tells him it isn't quite enough. He frowns, trying to focus.
Vengeance hums, magic bolsters, Anders loses feeling in his hands.
No.
He throws himself back, hard enough that he hits the floor. He only remembers to gasp when the woman peers down at him. He stares.
He scrambles to his feet.
"I'm sorry, I – I can't, I'm sorry."
"No, please, there isn't anyone—"
"Trust me, you don't want me near her – not like – not me—"
He staggers back down the stairs, and he is suddenly caught, yanked back from a hand on the back of his cloak.
"Maker, you are one crappy mage." She snipes, dragging Anders back into the room. "You couldn't do your mage thing for five bloody minutes until the templars arrived?"
It was nice to know Anders' instinct at least gave some sort of flying fuck, at least. He finds his back is against the wall. His staff is on the floor. He glances to it, then her.
"Why?"
"Haven't you been paying attention? Mages have decided to take things into their own hands after what happened in Kirkwall, and now there's no one to even take care of my love, or any of us. I thought I could at least save her, before I handed you over – at least, at least maybe – the templars will pay enough to keep her alive –"
Anders punches her, in the face, with such a crack that he's sure Aveline or Isabela would have been proud of. He hadn't been a Warden for nothing.
As soon as she falls, Anders faces no time in hurling himself back down the stairs, bursting out of the back door into an alleyway so quickly that he nearly topples over his own weight. He can hear the familiar clank of metal armour, templar issue, from the other side of the houses. Bitter nostalgia hits him.
Instinct and memory carries him more than anything, slipping quickly, fast, through a darkened alleyway. He makes any turn he can. He remembers his first attempts at escaping. All he tried to do was run, but he knew – if he was caught, all it would be was a slap on the wrist and an ever more keen and begrudging eye from the templars.
He was running for his life.
Why was he running for his life?
This realisation strikes him and he staggers to an eventual stop, but by now he realises he's on the edge of the village, staring into the forest. He freezes where he is, staring into endless greenery, blackened from the absence of sun.
He hears the yells behind him.
Anders takes off, sprinting, into the forest. Can't teach an old dog new tricks.
He leaves his staff.
Anders looks down at the head of the small tree and wonders bitterly whether he could make a perfect shot.
His boots, cracked, scuff some rocks over the edge of the precipice. What was it that that batty old witch had said at Sundermount?
We stand upon the precipice of change. The world fears the inevitable plummet into the abyss. Watch for that moment - and when it comes, do not hesitate to leap. It is only when you fall that you learn whether you can fly.
Anders had leapt. He thought at the time that that was the right choice. Maybe, maybe it was. That is the mantra he should give himself, now, to not let himself go insane.
It is not the one he will give.
He – They, are feared, still, for all the wrong reasons. He has hurt innocents in order to save generations. He has forced so many others to leap with him, unwittingly, into a barrage of chaos and pain.
Hawke had let him go with his life. Hawke hadn't understood. Anders had sought to bring about Justice. He has brought Vengeance.
There was one more person that justice still had to be served to.
Anders shakily undoes his coat. He drops it to the ground, behind him. He forces himself to stretch his arms out, wide, bravely (he wishes), ignores the grief welling in his eyes, and closes them.
He takes his final leap.
There is still work for you to do.
Anders hears screaming.
He wakes with a start, a crick in his neck, shoulders sore, and looks around. He is not broken. His coat is bundled on the ground beside him, untouched.
He is on top of the cliff face.
(He didn't?...)
He hears more screaming, and Anders stands, groggily, to his feet. His clothes are damp from the morning dew. How long had he been out?
The screaming is coming from somewhere from the east. He rubs at his eyes, and gathers up his robes. It's the scream of a child.
He staggers along until the screaming becomes almost unbearable. The source is amongst a gathering of trees, and Anders does his best to find where it is coming from.
He comes face to face with a boy, an elf. They both stop and stare, an abrupt silence falling.
It was the boy that had found him in that field. The man who had roused him, the – mother.
The boy starts wailing again, and Anders looks down to see the source of distress. His leg is caught in a bear trap. There is a lot of blood.
Anders doesn't realise what he's doing, until he's knelt beside the elf, has ripped the arm of his coat off, and feeds it above and around the elf's knee. He yanks it, tying it as a makeshift tourniquet.
One look at the rest of the leg, and he knows it isn't good. The jaws of the blades have hacked almost clean through, clearly caught in the bone. It's almost a miracle that he hadn't passed or bled out yet.
"You're brave," he murmurs, moving back, closer to the boy. "But you need to keep talking to me. What's your name?"
A whimper. "Therel."
"I'm going to pull the bear trap away from your leg. I promise to try to make this as quick as possible, but it will be very painful. Hold onto me if you need to."
He feels a weak grasp at his waist, and he counts to two before yanking the bear trap apart. There's a scream, and he's almost certain he's drawn blood on his own skin, and Anders is right – the leg below the knee comes away with the trap. Anders has seen some rather horrific injuries in his time, but this is possibly one of the most gruesome he's seen, especially for a civilian, and especially for someone so young.
"Okay, Therel? You've made it through the most painful part. You're doing bloody brilliant, you've made it, it's going to be okay—"
His hands move over the wound. He needs to clot the wound otherwise he'll bleed out – but he'll need to use magic to do that. He pauses, glancing at Therel.
"I can help you, but I have to use healing magic to do this. Can you trust me?"
A weak nod, eyes rolling back. Anders rolls up his sleeves, holds out of his hands, and heals.
He stumbles into the small doorway, a son in his arms, and the older elf looks up, in shock at the unexpected reunion, in grief at his son –
- A baby rests in the cot, with no mother.
Anders sits at Therel's bedside for three days until he is begged to stay.
There is a tent.
The canvas is their blanket; the stars their canvas. Fingers and breaths mingle and laugh. Touches run into lullabies, two histories soothed by the birth of a new fate.
He thinks he loves him, but he wouldn't know that then. He learned to heal, with him. Not by magic, but with himself. Sometimes cracks of a soul are pieces large enough to offer to others. They choose to wear them as armour, or as art.
There is a chantry.
Fire is the sky and fire is leaving his eyes and Anders realises he cannot bear to look at him, never him. His fire has gone too strong. He's burnt too much. Everything.
He is an anarchist, a murderer, a healer. A mage.
That's all he ever should have been.
(To him.)
Anders wakes, tears in his eyes.
Anders has learnt that home is not a term that can belong to him, but this village, full of people with nowhere else to go, becomes the closest thing. He heals, and people give him food. News passes through from merchants about mages, and templars. He keeps to himself. There is a cat. Anders, one day, may be able to be content. His hair grows longer, and he stubbornly ties it up.
He wonders how long he has left. He will always be running.
It is why he is sat at the window when he sees a group of children running into the village. He knows immediately they are not playing a game.
Other adults on the street stop what they are doing as the children gabble helplessly, out of breath, panicking. Anders throws the door open and joins the group of children. He doesn't need to hear much.
"- Giant monster, red, wants to hurt –"
Anders steps in between them, and points to his building. "Hide. I'll deal with this."
The other adults look at him, warily (as always), but he instructs the same to them as well. There wouldn't be anyone left to heal (to redeem himself) if he didn't do something.
He marches to the source of the creature. It is huge, he'll give the children credit. He is knocked stone cold in his thoughts by the realisation of what the creature is made from.
Red lyrium?
It spots him, uproots two trees, and roars.
Anders has not used offensive magic in months. He still doesn't have a staff.
Anders keeps running.
He awakes with a gasp. His back is on cold, hard ground. Anders is inside.
He is in a cell.
He survived?
(Flames, bleeding. He, the creature, surrounded. He blacks out.)
His hands and feet are in shackles. A woman in uniform, one that he can't recognise, stares down at him.
Anders has stopped running.
(Of course; this was his fate.)
She turns to another figure, out of eyeline.
"Tell the Inquisitor. He'll want to see this."