Warnings: Infanticide, mentions of rape and torture
The life of an omega isn't an easy one. They live a life of constant fear; fear of the magic that flows through their veins, fear of their heat cycles that removes all of their control, fear of the demons of the fade that hunt and tempt them. But their greatest fear is the fear of their "guardians" the templars. The templars are supposed to protect the mages but many us the circle as their personal playground. Templars who are often alphas who use the threat of bonding themselves to a mage to get what they want without a fight. All mages knows that to be bonded to a templar is a death sentence. The Chantry fears that the mages will have too much influence over the templars through the bond.
For Knight-Commander Greagoir Anders had always been a thorn in his side from the second the mage had been dragged into his Circle. The boy didn't speak a word trade and fought the templars at every turn and it only got worse after he was punished. The punishment started out as cleaning the dorms or the kitchens but as he got older he began having the boy lashed and beaten for his out bursts and when that didn't work he would give, by this time, the young man to his templars for a night to do with as they pleased. After these punishments Anders would spend days in infirmary and would behave as he should for a few weeks. When Anders had redoubled his efforts to escape the tower after he passed his harrowing Greagoir made an extremely difficult decision on how totally and completely break the mage since torture and rape didn't seem to work. He orders the mage's heat suppressant to be tampered with and then ordered one of his betas, a transfer from Starkhaven name Sebastian Veal, to make sure he impregnated the mage because betas can't bond with omegas the way alphas do. After the mages pregnancy was confirmed he allowed the templar and mage to escape the tower.
For Anders he had truly fallen in love with Sebastian and thought Sebastian loved him and their child as well but he was wrong. For nine months they lived and traveled together like a real family. They laughed together, ate together, got into arguments over big and little things they made up and made love. They discussed names for their child and made plans for their future. The one thing Anders had always found it odd was that Sebastian didn't wanted to leave Ferelden and Sebastian never explained why. He got his answer to why they never left Ferelden a few days after he gave birth to his daughter, Gertrud Veal when a unit of templars led by Greagoir broke down the door of their little house. He realized that everything that happened between them had been a trap to break him when Sebastian didn't protect him and Gertrud but instead handed her over to the Knight-Commander. Anders screamed and cursed Sebastian for a bastard and coward and promised him that he would hate him for the rest of his life.
When the Knight-Commander ordered his templars for a small tub to be filled with water and then ordered Sebastian to drown her in front of Anders. The mage screamed, cried and begged for his daughter's life but Sebastian ignored him and did as he was ordered and drowned the infant. Greagoir believed he has succeed in breaking Anders when the mage didn't make a sound on the way back to the tower he didn't even protest when Greagoir ordered in to his bed every night. He had broken Anders but he didn't break the way the Knight-Commander had been hoping.
Sebastian couldn't understand how he could follow such an order so blindly to kill his own daughter. He only stayed in the tower a few more months but had request a transfer because every time he saw Anders he would see Gertrud. When his request was denied he left the order and went back to Starkhaven.
It wasn't until a year after Gertrud's death that Anders escaped the tower again. But this time instead of staying on his own like he had always done in the past joined the Mage's Collective. So when the templars tracked Anders down with his phylactery he wasn't alone. In fact they were ambushed and killed by a band of mercenaries who hired by the Collective. The Collective often hired mercenaries to kill templars so that if their bodies were found it would obvious that they had been killed with swords and arrows so that it wouldn't come back on the mages. This continued for several years until all of the blood that made up Anders main phylactery was gone and they had no way to find him. Even though Anders was safe and could leave go anywhere he wished but he continued to work with the Collective helping other mages escape unjust executions or from being made tranquil. Or he went to villages with battle-mages to either clear out bandits or provide medical help if plague broke out. Many of these villagers made his distrust of mundane grow because as soon as their problems were taken care of the villager would call the templars on the mages who just risked their lives to save them. By the time the blight had rolled around he had lost what little faith he had in mundane and the Collective had to threaten to kick him out to get him to agree to help the villages that had been affected by the blight or were being attacked by opportunistic bandits.
By the end of the Blight the Collective had heard disturbing news about the Circle in Kirkwall from one of their operatives who was in the Kirkwall Circle. When Anders found out that their operative was Karl Thekla he offered to go to Kirkwall to find out what was happening and to help organize the Mage Underground to make it more effect in their quest to free mages and to show the mundane that mages are not evil. On the ship over to Kirkwall Anders was reunited with a friend he didn't ever think he would see again, Alim Surana who got out of the tower by becoming a Gray Warden.
Alim Surana family had originally been from Seheron but had to flee Tevinter before he was born. He spent his early childhood in the Highever Alienage until his mage manifested when he was six. His parents hid the fact he was mage for a year before his neighbors discovered his secret when he set a bullies hair on fire. Within hours the templars descended on them and clapped seven year old Alim and dragged him out of the alienage like a criminal while he screamed and cried for his parents who along with his older brother who tried stopping them from taking him. His three younger siblings were taken and put into the Chantry Orphanage he never seen them again. Because the templars killed his parents and older brother Alim hated the templars and Circle before he even reached it. Alim rebelled against the Circle and templars but he wasn't as rebellious as Anders but he still got his fair share of punishments.
Alim became the favorite of a sadistic templar beta named Conrad. After his harrowing Conrad stole his heat suppressant twice and both times resulted in Conrad getting Alim pregnant. Both of his children taken from him before he even found out what their sexes were. The only thing I that kept him sane after losing his children was that he knew they were alive and the only prayer he had for them was that neither of them were omegas like him.
During the blood mage rebellion Alim and a small group of mages were able to escape in the chaos. After the Circle was saved it took months for the templars to catalog the dead. By the time they had realized that Alim and the others were missing the blight had ended. By the time the templars finally sent out the hunters the other mages had either left Ferelden or died. Alim had refused to leave Ferelden instead he had spent the whole time he was free searching for his children. They were not kind when they caught up with him. They had been told that they could kill the other mages if they wanted but he was to be taken alive no matter what so that he could be brought back to the Circle and executed in front of the other mages so they didn't get any ideas about escaping.
While transporting Alim back to the Circle they had to stop at Vigil's Keep in Amaranthine to rest and resupply. This decision would be the last mistake they ever made because the first night they were there the Keep was attacked by darkspawn. Alim watched with a sadistic glee he didn't even know he possessed as the templars were butchered in front of him. One of the templars who had taken the most joy in beating and raping Alim on his their way back to the Circle had the gall to ask the elf for help. One of Alim's greatest memories is the look on the man's face when he laughed at him and hunkered down at the back of his cell as he watched the man get ripped to pieces.
When Alim's magic returned he took as much joy in killing the darkspawn as he did watching them kill the templars. That is how Warden-Commander Natia Brosca found him flash frying several dozen darkspawn. She needed all the help she could get and asked him to help her clear the Keep of darkspawn. After they had cleared the keep a unit of templars led by one of Greagoir's lackeys showed up at the Keep demanding that Brosca hand Alim over to face punishment for escaping the Circle and killing his templar escort. Brosca has hated the Chantry and templars ever since she had saved the Circle. It reminded her of the way the castless are treated in Orzammar no they are treated worse. Castless at least have freedom. So she conscripted Alim into the Gray Wardens for several reasons, his skills as a battle mage to save him from the gallows and to spite the Chantry and templars.
For a time Alim was truly happy. With the Wardens he found something he hadn't had since he was seven years old, a family. Threw the wardens he learned that not all mundane alphas and betas are evil. He had many adventures and great battles with the wardens he even made friends with a spirit of Justice stuck outside the fade. Just as with anything in life there were rough patches but for the most part he was happy. That happiness ended when Commander Brosca was called away and she was replaced with an Orlesian warden who happened to be an ex-templar. The commander then began recurring templars into the Gray Wardens. Alim had able to handle the way the new commander and templars treated. It was just like being back in the Circle but the final straw came when one of the alpha templars stole Alim's heat suppressant and raped Alim to forcefully create a bond between them so that Alim would have to be executed for breaking the strictest Chantry Law.
Alim had to run from the wardens to save his life because not even the wardens could protect him from the Chantry for bonding. Alim once again lost his family because of the templars and the Chantry. He didn't get far before the templars caught up to him but luckily for him it wasn't only the templars who followed him. Justice had followed them and when he found them he was overcome by rage when he found the templars torturing Alim. He had been able to get Alim away from the templars but the mage was dying from torture he suffer. The only way to save Alim's life was for the elf to merge with Justice. The spirit who had been already angry at the great injustice he had witnessed but when he was assaulted by all of Alim's memories the spirit could not contain his rage. When the templars caught up to them Justice tore the templars apart with Alim's bare hands and magic.
When Alim came back to himself and had seen what they had done he knew he had to get out of Ferelden. He knew no one was going to care what the templars had done to him all that will matter is that he merged with a spirit and killed a bunch of templars. So he got on the first ship he could book passage on which happen to the same ship Anders was on. The two mages were happy to be reunited and to finally have someone who understood their suffering. It did not take long for a friendship to form between the two mages and for them to relate their lives since they got away from the circle. When Alim learned about Anders involvement with the Mage's Collective he wanted to be part of it. Anders had at first refused Alim but the elf never gave up. Alim begged Anders to let him help the human mage with his mission the entire trip to Kirkwall until Anders agreed just to get Alim to shut up.
When the two mages go to Kirkwall they were overwhelmed but the sear number of refugees and their suffering as well as the suffering of the poor who are native to the city. Anders believed that his compassion for others had died with his daughter and all of the betrayals he suffered at the hands of mundane but seeing all the suffering around him he found that his compassion was alive and well. Anders convinced Alim to help him open a free clinic to alleviate some of the suffering of the refugees and poor of Kirkwall while they worked to organize the Mage Underground. With the help of the Underground he was able to research the best way to get Karl out of the Circle without anyone noticing long enough for them to smuggle Karl and possibly Anders and Alim out of Kirkwall.
Over the next year Anders ran the clinic while Alim protected it. Both of them worked with the Underground to help the mages get more organized such as creating multiple escaped routs, making connections with trustworthy ship captains and merchants who use caravans to transport goods out of Kirkwall over land who could help smuggle mages out of the city. Anders began teaching them how to make heat suppressants in bulk and creating stashes inside the city and outside the city. Helped them create safe-houses in the cities and several villages and towns around the Free Marches.
The only one he hasn't been able to accomplish was getting Karl out of the Gallows. Karl had unfortunately become the Knight-Commander's personal mage and so was more closely watched then the other mages. When the opportunity finally arise he realizes it could be a trap so it would be too much for just the two of them to handle he thinks all is lost until his prayers are answered in the form of a small Ferelden rouge.