Nero was carrying a bag of elfroot through Darktown for Anders when he was stopped by a young girl stepping in front of him. She worried her little hands together and couldn't meet his gaze but tried several times to speak. He smiled and, setting the bag on the ground, knelt in front of her.
"Is there something I can help you with, little one?" he asked gently.
"I-I-I-I-It's about the doctor." She stuttered, "he doesn't answer the door much anymore, and everyone is getting very worried about him." for the first time she met his eyes, "you visit him a lot... is he okay?"
Nero sighed and sat back. He couldn't very well tell her the truth, that Anders was anything but okay. He was thin and bony, he was gaunt and had dark circles under his eyes, he never went to the Hanged Man anymore, it was a rare event for him to go on a job with Hawke or the people he once called friends, he never seemed to answer the door, and he could not spend more than ten minutes with someone without either asking their views on mages or lecturing them about it. He was irate and stubborn and entirely not Anders. But he couldn't tell this little girl that the doctor was possessed by a spirit that had probably completely taken over his mind, so he ended up telling the most obvious lie he could come up with.
"He's not been feeling so great himself, he is distracted by adult problems. What's your name, I'll tell him you hope he feels better when I see him." He said with a smile that he sincerely hoped didn't come out as a grimace.
"I'm Winifred, but everyone calls me Winni." She said shyly.
He stood, "alright Winni, I'll let him know you're worried. Now head on home, its dangerous to be out here alone, even in the daytime."
She nodded and ran off, and he continued down the path that lead to the mage's clinic. This was not the first time he had been stopped on the way to the clinic, people wondering what was wrong with the healer. He never knew what to tell them, he simply promised to let him know that they were worried. When he did he was almost certain he never got through to the man.
In the past year or two he had even stopped bringing most of his elfroot to Darktown, after one time when he saw one of the harvests he had taken getting old in the corner. He sold them to Solivitus in the gallows, for much more than they were worth. The man got the money from the Chantry and Templar organizations, as he worked for them, so he liked to waste it. Nero didn't argue, Solivitus was a kind man, and Nero had watched him give away poultices to poor people that came to him for his cheap prices, so he knew his elfroot wasn't going to waste. He usually only brought Anders a quarter of his harvests.
He approached the door to the clinic and paused, steeling himself for the inevitable argument. There was always an argument, always. With a deep breath he placed the key in the door, the one Anders had given him when he lived there, and opened it. He rolled his eyes when he saw Anders writing at his desk, as he always was, and set the bag down in the middle of the floor. Anders turned at his entrance, placed his quill on the desk and stood to greet him, as he always did. And Nero asked him what he was writing, as he always did. But this time, Anders answered, which quite surprised Nero.
"I've been trying to write down my arguments." Anders said, "to convince someone like you that the circle is abusive and unjust. You are practically one of us, how can you not see it? Mages gifts are granted by the Maker, how is it any man can call himself a Templar and set himself above us?"
Nero gaped at him for several seconds before saying, "hold on, back up. 'To convince someone like me?' I've never said I was against your thing."
A disgusted look crossed the mages face, "you've never said you were for it either."
"Maker's breath, again?" Nero sighed, "I don't have an opinion on it. I can't really make one. I have only your word to go by on what the circle is like, and I have seen what its like when mages have their freedom. Both are coming across as terrible options to me."
Anders scowled at him, "maybe we should throw you in the circle so that you'll understand."
"You can't be serious."
The scowl stayed on the mages face for several minutes before he realized what he just said, "I'm sorry, I wouldn't wish that on anyone. But the fact remains the same. You either stand with us, or against us."
"Well then, what arguments have you come up with?" Nero asked, folding his arms across his chest.
Anders reached behind him and grabbed one of the papers to read from, "'Andraste suffered at the hands of Magisters, thus she feared the influence of magic. But if the Maker blamed magic for the Magisters' actions in the Black City, why would he still gift us with it? The oppression of mages stems from the fears of men, not the will of the Maker.' What do you think?"
Nero thought about it for a few moments, "its a compelling argument..."
Anders scowled at him again, "...but?"
Nero offered an apologetic smile, "But...my 'Maker' is not the same as yours, my 'magic' is not the same as yours. I am not Andrastian, I have no reason to be. It's a compelling argument, like I said, and may affect many people, but it hasn't pushed me to pick a side."
Anders threw his hands up in disgust and began pacing, "you remember Ser Alrik's plan, how many more templars want to see mages as their mindless slaves? Surely you can understand my desire to prevent that."
"I can...yes, but not all templars are like that. We've met good templars, Ser...shit, what was his name, the guy with the red hair?"
"Ser Thrask?"
"Yes, him. He wouldn't want to see mages be made slaves. And I'm sure he's not the only one. And not all mages are like you, there are evil, twisted ones out there, I know you know this, you've met them."
"Corrupt mages were made that way by Templar abuses ninety percent of the time. And-"
"And corrupt templars were made to hate mages so strongly because of corrupt mages. How many templars do you think have had a family member killed or have witnessed their friends torn to pieces because of blood magic?"
Anders shook his head, "it's not like that, you don't understand. Templars are trained to hate mages, as are everyday men. Everybody is told, time and time again, that mages are dangerous and evil and that we're all weak and are going to turn into demons at any moment, whether we've passed our harrowing or not. Children are cast away from their families all the time because they show a hint of magic and their parents are terrified of it. Its not just the Chantry that needs to see how wrong they are, everybody needs to."
Nero sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, "Anders, mages are dangerous, and if this damned city is anything to go by then they do tend to turn into demons quite frequently. And what do you propose, that every mage be left with it's family? Even if no one else in that family has magic and, therefore, they cant be trained?"
"So ripping them from their families and never being allowed to contact them is the only solution? I'm sure there are plenty of mages out there that would be willing to tutor a child that has no one else to tutor them."
"And how long till they start charging for their tutoring services? What about the poor people that can't afford it? And what if they are terrible tutors, what if the child doesn't learn anything? You can't deny that there is a logic behind sending mages to a place where there are several other, experienced mages to train them."
"Maybe it would be different if these children could be sent home at the end of the day, but they aren't. They are kept in a tower with no privacy and are watched constantly by people that despise them-"
"Mages are born everywhere, Anders. Its not plausible for a child to walk to and from the tower everyday when they live three cities away; what are they supposed to do? Are their parents supposed to move? What if their parents own a farm, or a business? You can't just up and leave all that behind to go live somewhere where you might not know the customs or the language or the people."
Anders slammed his fist down on the table, "no one, especially not young children, deserves to be sent to live in a place where they are despised and ridiculed, where the threat of tranquility ever looms over their heads, where they are taught to be afraid of themselves and the only other people like them, where they are shut off from the rest of the world, where they are raped and beaten and are denied the gift of having a family of their own. It's an injustice, and it needs to be rectified."
Surprised, and sort of worried, that this outburst didn't bring out Justice, Nero stepped backwards. He found himself wondering how their friendship could have been destroyed to the point that they couldn't even have a conversation without one of them getting angry and yelling. He sighed quietly, and said "maybe your right. I don't know, and that's my point, I don't know. But arguing about it isn't going to enlighten me on it, maybe when your done your manifesto I'll read it and understand. But for now...maybe I should just leave. Oh, and a little girl wanted me to tell you she is worried about you, her name is Winni."
Anders ran a hand through his hair and nodded, Nero wasn't even at the door before the mage was sitting at the desk again, the sound of the quill scratching on the paper the only good-bye he heard.
...
As he often did after visiting the mage, Nero headed to the Hanged Man for a drink. He refused to admit it, but when he had problems that he couldn't solve he dealt with it by getting drunk. He only got tipsy for the smaller problems, which is why he didn't plan on staying over-long at the bar.
When he opened the door and stepped in Corff greeted him with a nod, and he found his eyes drifting to where Isabela used to sit. He sighed, they hadn't heard from her in three years, not since the Qunari incident and he missed her. Sure she was overly obsessed with sex and boats, but she was still someone he considered a friend, even if not a close one. And she was a hell of a drinking buddy, he had been doing a lot more drinking these past three years than ever before. She would have made good company.
He sat in her old spot and ordered a shot of something hard and a glass of something light. He threw back the whiskey and paid Corff before he leaned back against the wall and nursed his ale.
When he had returned from the deep roads...the second time, after the whole Corypheus thing, was when he first started drinking. He and Fenris had finally, officially, ended whatever they had had and he had refused to live in the same house as him. And directly after they returned Bethany had stayed for a week or so at the clinic with Anders, so he had rented a room at the Hanged Man.
He spent quite a bit of time quite deliriously drunk, which was quite wonderful as Isabela had still been there then. They laughed and teased each other and she even let him win at cards a couple of times. But then the Qunari thing happened and she was gone and he moved back in with Anders, which became terribly awkward and lonely in its own right, after a while. He still drank then too, but he hid it better, or Anders was always just too distracted to notice, either way, as far as he knew, nobody realized he was basically an alcoholic...except maybe the guy that he bought his liqueur from.
When he had first moved back into the mansion, about a year after the Qunari incident, he still drank. But not everyday, and not to get drunk. Something about living in the same house as the elf made him want to do something better with his time and his freedom. And he was often worried that Fenris would find him passed out in a puddle of his own puke or that, while drunk, he would try to sleep with him.
Nero chuckled at that thought, he didn't need to get drunk to sleep with Fenris, it turned out. He just needed a near-death experience and a long un-used libido. When he woke up in Fenris' arms that night...he was too tired or delirious or something to stop himself from kissing the elf. And when he had woken up again the next morning without Fenris there, he just took it for what it was. And when it happened again a couple of months later he left Fenris' room before morning. And it kept happening after that, every few months they ended up sleeping together, but leaving for their own rooms before morning. They never spoke about it, and they pretended that it never happened around the others. As far as Nero knew it was their dirty little secret.
As for his drinking, he only had a drink once in a while; and he couldn't remember the last time he got plastered. It had been a while since he had heard from any hunters or slavers, so why not?