The Anders Problem
Varel walked into Commander Cousland's study, at Virgil's Keep. "Do you have a moment?", he asked.
Wisteria looked up from the papers in front of her. Varel looked to her as if he was fighting a strong urge to be elsewhere. "Of course." She cocked her head in curiosity and asked, "What's wrong?"
Varel took a deep breath and closed her study door. He sat across from her desk but Wisteria felt his discomfort so strongly she got up to sit in the chair next to him.
He drew a deep breath. "I don't really know how to say this so I'll just be plain about it", he looked her squarely in the eyes.
Wisteria put a hand on his forearm. "Of course, speak your mind." Her forehead furrowed with concern. Dear Maker, what was wrong? She needed and trusted Varel and seeing him looking so concerned worried her terribly. She would never be able to run the Arl without him, he was essential to her.
"Are you involved with your recruit Anders?" He asked her, watching for a reaction.
Oh fermenting hurlock crap, she thought. How the hell... She could feel her face flushing and she broke eye contact and forced a lame smile.
"Well, to be perfectly honest, yes."
She rose from her chair and walked to a window, as though physical distance from the source of her embarrassment could help her now. "But Varel, as much as I depend on you for your advice and assistance in running the Arling, is this really your concern?" She folded her arms in front of her and leaned against the window casement, grateful for the cool breeze that helped to cool the flush of redness from her very pale skin.
Varel wouldn't let her walk away. He got up and joined her at the window. His face was creased with concern. He put a friendly hand on her shoulder. How to advise this young woman? She'd done some amazing things in the last few years, including saving his country from destruction from blight and civil war. He felt very privileged to be advising her but he could see her making some decisions he knew she might come to regret. Even despite her accomplishments she was very young and in some ways inexperienced.
"Commander, I wouldn't think of bringing this up, ordinarily. Your private life is your own business, I just sensed this could go awry." He sighed with frustration at his words. He didn't want to sound patronizing. He really didn't want to be doing this at all. Blunt. Just be blunt, his gut told him.
"Look, I've seen where this sort of thing can go. Your other recruits, if they get wind of this, will feel you show him favoritism. There will be petty jealousies over this. If the relationship ends things can get very messy."
Wisteria groaned and shut her eyes, bumping her head against the casement. "I'm an idiot, Varel. Tell me, how did you know? I thought we were being very discrete. Do you think anyone else knows?"
Varel shook his head. "No, I just pieced it together. From watching Anders actually. He watches you very closely when you're not looking. A few of your glances and smiles and I put it together." He shook his head, "I'm so sorry, Commander. I know I have no business discussing this with you but I was hoping you really meant it when you told me not to let you make any mistakes."
Wisteria smiled grimly. She had actually said, foolish mistakes, he was being kind.
"I did mean it. I don't know what I'd do without you. You're the one really running this Arling. I don't have time what with training the recruits and trying to figure out what the darkspawn are up to. Even if I knew how to do what you do." She pushed a strand of her disorganized black hair behind an ear. "So I've really buggered this up, so to speak, and I don't quite see a way to unbugger it."
Varel's eyebrows arched in surprise at her use of vulgarity. He should be used to it, the fort was full of soldiers. It's just most of them weren't young, beautiful raven-haired nobles with supposedly impeccable breeding and education. He forgot sometimes, looking at her, that the last several years of her life were spent around fighting men and drunken dwarves. Before that, she'd had a lot of martial training, against her Mother's wishes she had told him.
"Varel, really. I have no idea how to fix this. If I break up with him it is sure to cause bad feeling." Wisteria looked at him directly with her large, dark blue eyes. They looked almost black, like her hair, sometimes.
Varel thought for a moment. In truth, he had this worked out already. He wouldn't have bothered confronting her if he couldn't offer a decent solution.
"There's a Grey Warden compound in Denerim isn't there?"
Wisteria nodded.
"It'd be a rather plum assignment for a young man like Anders to be assigned to Denerim, wouldn't it? You could put him in charge of recruiting and organizing there and I'm sure he'd be an asset for Queen Anora too, wouldn't he?"
Wisteria's eyebrows rose and a smile quirked across half her mouth. "Bravo, Varel. I think he would rather be in Denerim than here, and now that those Templar ninnies have been dealt with, he should be able to breathe easily there." Wisteria's internal dialogue was much less calm. Her heart felt... heavy, sore. Don't think about it.
"Queen Anora though," Wisteria repressed the urge to call her by own nickname, Queen Annoying, "I think she'll leave Anders alone. Me, I'm sure she'd do her best to make sure I died a very tragic death and give me a state burial with full honors."
Varel looked at Wisteria quizzically. "You think she would try to assassinate you?" He didn't know the full story.
Wisteria trusted Varel. He had been nothing but kind to her. "You might not have heard everything. Probably no one but Alistair, myself and Anora knew. In fact, I think I never even told Alistair. But I made some promises to Anora I had no intention of keeping, simply because we needed her to back us in the Landsmeet and she had proven to me that she could turn against us in a heartbeat if she thought we weren't going to support her as Queen."
Varel's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Really?", he asked. Somehow he never thought of Wisteria being the sort to get involved in political machinations. But it made sense, she was the daughter of a noble, she could not have been ignorant of these things.
Wisteria felt her insides squirm a little. Standing inside Howe's former Keep she wondered how much she might actually be like Howe. It all felt so distant now, she thought she wasn't the same person at all. The circumstances had been much different. The civil war. The blight. I did what need to be done because Ferelden needed me to do it. Maker, I sound just like Loghain and Anora. She felt a little sick inside.
Retrospection was bad. Very bad. She was learning that. So many decisions she made had horrible consequences for someone. Not that she wanted that. But that entire era in her life events had been like a pack of charging brontos, flattening everything that got in their way. Since then she had learned that that was how the Grey Wardens operated. You did what you had to to stop the blight. The Joining chalice should come with a lengthy warning, "May cause insomnia, death, increased appetite, infertility, dabbling in blood magic, being exploded by archdemons, shortened life with tragic ending, and incredible, crushing guilt".
"Let's get back to Anders," Wisteria prompted.
"I could tell him, if you wish."
Wisteria shook her head. "No, I need to straighten this out if I can. I can't ask you to do that."
Varel straightened and clasped Wisteria's shoulder with a friendly grip. "Commander, thanks for hearing me out."
Wisteria smiled warmly, "You did the right thing. I can't tell you how much I value having your advice and I hope your friendship too. Thank you, I know how difficult this was".
Varel nodded and left the room.
She sighed. Oh, this was going to be awful. How did she let this happen? Anders was funny and reminded her of Alistair in some ways. When she'd overheard him making a comment to Oghren about the utility of mage robes it had tweaked her curiosity too, she had to admit. She now knew first hand there had been more truth to his retort than anyone actually guessed. Mage robes were conducive to quick, secretive trysts, although her own apparel wasn't. There was the magic too. A sort of magic she suspected wasn't taught in any classroom in the Circle of Magi. She wondered if Wynne... oh that was just so wrong!
Well, best get this done, she thought. She walked down the hallway to find a guard to send Anders to her. Then she sat back down at her desk and tried to read the paper in front of her. It wasn't possible though. So she crossed back to the window and watched the new Grey Wardens and soldiers training.
"Commander. You wanted to..." he paused, allowing overloaded meanings to creep into the sentence, "see me?" A playful look was in his eyes.
Wisteria turned from the window. "Shut the door please, Anders."
Anders nodded obediently and shut the door, bolting it. This wasn't the first time he'd been summoned to her study in the middle of the day. In fact, it was becoming a habit. His hands started to glow a little with magical forces. He stepped towards Wisteria with a low feral growl, anticipating what was next. He pulled her away from the window, lest they be seen, and bent in for a kiss but she held him away this time. He finally saw the somber expression in her eyes and it cooled him off immediately, the magical glow disappeared from his hands.
"Uh, oh. Something tells me this isn't a play-date today".
Wisteria heaved a huge sigh. "No I'm afraid not, Anders." She forced a smile on her face. "How would you like to go to Denerim and get the Grey Warden compound going and start to work on recruiting?"
Anders blinked at her. "Denerim? You want to send me to Denerim? While you're up to your neck in darkspawn attacks? I mean, yeah, I would like to go to Denerim but why now? Is this because of... us?"
Wisteria couldn't lie to him. She was a bad liar especially to people she cared for. Although I did pretty well lying to Anora. "Yes, although I truly do need someone to run things from Denerim. And I know you'd like to go there."
Anders looked conflicted. "Why? Are you get bored with me already? I thought we were good together. You seemed pretty happy with things until just now. What happened?"
"Bored? No, nothing like that. I was just reminded of my responsibility here and how I'm failing in it because of... this. We can't hide this forever and it's going to cause problems if the other recruits find out. Varel figured it out, and if he did it's just a matter of time before someone else does."
"Would that be so bad? Then we wouldn't have to sneak around. I could stumbled out of your room in the morning looking like I've just been ridden hard all night and no one could complain, because it wouldn't be a secret."
Wisteria sighed. "It's not just that. Look, I'm the Commander here and if I'm sleeping with one of my recruits the others could think I'm favoring you, which is probably quite likely to happen no matter how careful I am. Maker forbid, what if we broke up? You might hate me. Then what? I've been a complete idiot, Anders, I am sorry. I... I care about you. If I weren't commander here and we were both recruits...".
Anders shook his head, "Yeah, yeah... I get it. I know. Yes, you are an idiot. Abusing your authority over me like that." His eyes started to gleam again. "I'll go to Denerim. But on one condition... no two conditions." He held one hand up, in front of her face and the magical blue glow came back. "First condition is, I want conjugal visits in Denerim whenever you're there." He took his glowing hand and slipped it behind her neck and pulled her closer to his face. The cool tingling from his hand seemed to connect with her spine. It sent signals down her back and shut off any intelligent signal coming from her brain. "Agreed?"
"Conjugal!" she spluttered. "Impertinence!" She tried to sound outraged but it wasn't convincing.
"Agreed?" he insisted. His blue glowing hand slid down between her shoulder blades and she gasped at the sensations.
"Fine," she agreed. Her voice was getting husky. "And your other condition?"
He held up his other hand and it ignited in a soft orange glow. He turned her head and put his lips on her ear and whispered, "I am your commander today". An orange glowing finger trailed down her long neck to her chest and circled over her breast. Encased in leather armor as it was, somehow she might well have been naked for so keenly did she feel his touch.
"Yes," she sighed quietly.
"Hmmm... yes what?" He taunted her.
"Yes, commander." Her lips quirked with a insubordinate smile.
He drew her into a kiss and they melted onto the expansive, soft rug that covered the granite floor of her study. Seneschals, darkspawn and everything else were forgotten, for awhile.
