The Buried Life

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, settings and lore in this work of fiction. They all belong to BioWare and may be found in the Dragon Age Universe.

Summary: Neria, Anders and Aedan Cousland understand what it is to have a purpose, and have someone they least expected hand it to them. Commander Cousland/non-Warden Neria/Anders, with a little Cousland/Morrigan

Chapter I

She calls the Tower her home, though she has betrayed it and none look upon her.

She calls the Tower her home, though ravaged and befouled by demons and dark magic.

She calls the Tower her home, when all she cares for within it is a blood mage waiting judgment.

She calls the Tower her home, only because she has nowhere else to go.

It takes a long time for them to clear away the vestiges of possession and death. Most of the mages are still not trusted, especially those who were not within Senior Enchantress Wynne's barrier when the first wave of demons flooded the halls. How were they to know they weren't abominations already? How can they be sure?

Even her fellow mages looked on her with fear.

Before, when word of Jowan's escape and her part In it spread through the Tower, they sneered and whispered behind her back. No one dared to talk to her or be within a certain distance. It was one thing to have templar guards all the time and another to have everyone else avoid her.

Now, they dared not sneer. They dared not even look.

But with so many templars dead, none could be spared to guard her. Not even Cullen, who yelled at the top of his lungs that she was lust and sin incarnate, would be allowed near her.

Besides Irving, she had been the only one left to survive the ordeal in the Harrowing Chamber, where the demon possessing Uldred sought to turn all of them into abominations. She had been late for the meeting, dawdling on the templar floor with Cullen who was trying to reassure her of his belief that she did not know Jowan was a blood mage.

She had felt it then, every nerve in her body crackling with magic as the Veil was ripped to shreds just above her.

Her blood had turned to ice and she ran as fast as she could up the steps to the Harrowing Chamber, where the doors flew open to reveal a nightmare inconceivable.

For days they were restrained, starved and exhausted. For days Uldred tried to turn them one by one. She looked into his eyes, searching for the mage she had known, but saw dead pools on a sneering face.

The demon urged her to let go, to embrace his gift, to be free of the disdain, hurt and betrayal of Jowan and her friends. He fed on her anger, plied her with dreams pleasant and horrible, bade despair to sing in her heart until she thought it would break her completely.

But she managed to resist him every time. Every time she just thought it was the Harrowing over and over again, and at the end the one she trusted the most would reveal itself the demon.

At one time, when the dream was of Jowan holding her in his arms, she almost gave in. But when he spoke to her like a lover, she froze in his arms and immolated him. The demon always made that mistake. Jowan and she were never lovers. He was Jowan and she was Neria, if he was anything to her, he was her only family. When the dream was of Jowan twisting her with blood magic, she prayed for death.

But no reprieve, through death or possession, would be hers. She would not relent to Uldred, nor would he let her die.

He told her he would enjoy seeing her bloom into an evil like no other.

It was hard to say how long she was in that chamber. Uldred had tried so many times with each of them. Tried as she might to distract him from turning Irving, sometimes at the expense of her own steadily slipping sanity, the First Enchanter was still subjected to his torture.

One thing she learned from the ordeal, however, that no matter his age, he was not First Enchanter for nothing. Moreso than dreams and visions, Uldred ended up using pain to force the old mage to relent.

But one by one, the other mages began to fall, either to their wounds or to Uldred's gift. Just as another one of them was replaced by a hulking, disfigured giant in mage robes, the doors had burst open, and Wynne was with them and she almost swooned from relief and regret and I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough…

The next moments were still a blur, but she remembered Irving trying to stand, and a demon bursting out of Uldred's skin and the sounds of battle. At one point, the pull of her soul through the Veil was so strong, she swore she would rather swallow her tongue and die rather than be an abomination and aware at the same time.

But just as the pull had begun to truly take her, it vanished and her vision wavered. She was so tired, so hungry and spent, but she managed to crack an eye open. She saw a lithe, loping, graceful figure leap into the air and plunge two fierce-looking daggers into the demons head, and heard a howl of victory.

It was a beautiful thing to watch, a death blow with no magic, simply the grace and strength inherent to the human body.

When she had come to, she had looked up and seen a rather handsome young man's face. He smiled down at her, and she realized she was being carried in his arms. He told her to rest while they descended the tower. If she had the strength and the sense to be embarrassed, she would have jumped out of his arms, but seeing as she had neither, she hid behind her palms.

But she heard Cullen's voice from behind and was relieved. She had called out to him, perhaps he could help her to her feet instead. She had been so glad that he was alive. At one point during Uldred's torture she had come to realize that all that lay beneath them were dead mages and templars. Not long after that she almost prayed for the Right of annulment to fell them in its unerring path.

He had called her a demon. A corrupted, vile creature hidden beneath her face, poised to strike when they let their guard down. The last person who believed in her, and though their conversations were few and far between due to their roles in the Tower, knowing that someone still thought of her the same girl who just passed her Harrowing in record time, kept her together.

His words cut her worse than she ever thought. She was too tired to placate him, to reassure him that it was still really her, so the handsome man who still carried her just shook his head and brought her out of earshot and laid her on a soft place.

When she had closed her eyes to welcome a dream of her own making, it was Cullen's words that rang in her ears, and she felt despair sing in her heart again, yet Uldred lay dead atop the Tower.

Considering all things, Neria decided that darkspawn were almost as bad as demons and abominations, if only due to their immense numbers.

Just almost. The abominations were still worse because they could make her one of them.

But couldn't darkspawn do that as well? Neria then proposed the question to herself, "Which do you prefer to be, demon or darkspawn?" Many months later, when she had finally found herself again, she had decided that she would be an abomination any day.

Killing darkspawn was tedious, thirsty work. It did not take much to fell one, monstruous as they may be. Less than a single spell for each or a few well-placed strikes with her staff. But they just kept coming, in droves, that soon enough her veins thrummed with lyrium and she could hear her heart beat in her head.

But that all changed when she saw the dragon atop Fort Drakon. Irving had pulled her and directed her with him up the battlements, and she immediately recognized the figure darting beneath and between the dragon's legs, slicing maniacally with twin daggers.

She had never seen a dragon before, much less a corrupted one. She had seen illustrations in many books at the Tower, but nothing prepared her for the sheer monstrosity that the Archdemon was, and this was when she was always farthest away from it.

When it had almost landed on top of her, she felt a strong arm pull her back, and she looked up to see the same handsome and kind face of her rescuer at the Tower, albeit bloodier than she remembered.

She used the last of her lyrium to bathe him in a feeble healing spell and he turned back to nod his thanks.

The image of his perfect form impaling Uldred was banished from her mind as the moment of martial perfection when he climbed atop the Archdemon's head and sliced it open from snout to crown. Corruption filled the air, purple fire blasted this way and that, and yet she could not take her eyes off him.

It was beautiful and dreadful at the same time, and when he finally drove his blades straight through the dragon's skull, she thought he might have been a god.

Later, when the Templars arrived to "guide" the surviving mages back to the Tower, she searched for his impressive winged helmet among the wounded and those strong enough to stand. She wished to thank him, eve n if thanks from a single mage meant nothing compared to that of the nation, but she was truly grateful.

He had saved her a total of four times already, once in the Harrowing Chamber, once from Cullen's mad ravings, and twice from the Archdemon. She had come to consider him not only the Hero of Ferelden but a hero to her own heart as well.

Perhaps it was something she could tell her apprentice, if she ever had one, that she had met the Hero of Ferelden, he had carried her down the Tower and had pulled her from the Archdemon's grasp.

She thought being back in the Tower, returned to the tasks of cleansing and cleaning it from any signs of Uldred's revolt would calm her heart.

But it wasn't long before Cullen had gleefully told her that her blood mage lay in the bowels on the Tower, awaiting execution. His face, which used to be filled with compassion and kindness for her, now wore a sneer worthy of a demon. She felt her heart plummet.

Once again, the Tower became a prison that was her home. She pleaded with Irving to see Jowan, then when she was refused, she mustered the courage to ask Greagoir, who slammed his fist on the desk and did not bother to tell her to get out.

That night, as she lay in her quarters, still the only one left to occupy that section of the Tower, tears came. Unbidden and painful, she found she could do nothing but cry helplessly. As she drifted off to sleep, she could hear soft voices from the shadows, and visions of Jowan in the dungeons below plagued her. The voices, sometimes foreign, sometimes familiar came from everywhere, and she felt a cloying in her head. It felt like someone was trying to touch her brain.

She knew then, when the Veil seemed a lot thinner around her, wherever Uldred failed, her sorrow and despair would succeed.

She needed to leave. For her, the Tower had ceased to be her home. Now, the Veil was thin and the ingrained mage's resolve and mental resistance to demonic imploring eroded. She was so tired, and now, she had no one.

She could not be the teacher's pet, the perfect student, the model mage anymore. She was clouded in too much suspicion, her integrity compromised by blood magic and demonic possession that were not her own. Though the First Enchanter bore her no ill will, after all, he of all people knew how much she had resisted Uldred, his tone was apologetic when he refused her to see Jowan. Even Irving could not deny her involvement, even if he himself knew she was blameless.

First thing tomorrow, if she survived the night and woke up still herself, she would ask to leave. Anywhere, with anyone, even a whole contingent of templars (which she knew the Tower could not spare), she needed to go and find herself again.

Find a reason to keep being who she was.

Without this reason, she thought she would regret surviving Uldred's revolt.

Anders never thought that he would be able to see this day.

For the blond wise-cracking mage, he never thought he would see the day he could walk up to the Chantry and not be cuffed and rendered helpless by a templar.

Yet here he was, in one of the most smashing robes he ever owned (thank you, Commander) that screamed nothing but hey look I'm a big bad mage…

And nothing happened.

Usually, the templars didn't even have to see his robes to know he was a mage. He learned that his first attempt.

At times like these, he could not keep the ecstatic grin off his face.

There was a spring in his step as he followed the Warden Commander up the Chantry steps in Amaranthine, and was even more surprised to see some familiar faces standing idly by the statue of Andraste.

Senior Enchantress Wynne was discussing something with another mage, one who looked barely over a score and eight, which meant she had just passed her Harrowing. Rather tiny even for an elf, she had wide, impossibly blue eyes and the most shocking head of red hair, if not for the color, the general tangle of her tresses.

He knew her from some of his lectures, mostly as a tiny elven girl at the back of the class with her hand raised constantly in the air, always with the right answer, always with the perfect rendition of a spell.

Ah yes, Neria, the insufferable know-it-all.

But in the next moment in his mind, he was glad to see them. Remembering his last escape attempt, he all thought he would be the last mage in Ferelden. He had not met any demons or abominations on his escape from the deteriorating Tower, but he practically felt the Fade at his fingertips, so thin was the Veil. He shuddered at the memory, thinking of all the mages and Templars caught in what he was sure was chaos above him.

But to tell the truth, Anders felt little sympathy for the other denizens of the Tower. True, he had become some sort of a legend within its walls, who wouldn't after several attempts, each one offering him more freedom than the last? He was sure it would have only been a matter of time until her found a way to evade them completely, phylactery in their hands or not.

And if things were as bad as he had thought, there might not be anyone left to find his phylactery anymore.

"Aedan!"

Anders turned surprised at the Commander, who had a smile on his face as well and stepped forward to give the older mage a hug. Neria stepped back and clasped her hands behind her back, a small smile playing on her face.

"It is so good to see you, my friend." The old mage held the Commander at arm's length and looked him up and down as a mother would do a long-lost son. The Commander's smile widened even more and he threw his head back to let out a very indulgent laugh.

"As is you, Wynne! Here I thought you would be with Shale in Tevinter by this time! How is she? The pigeons still find her unerringly?" Anders had never seen the Warden Commander so happy, but he found himself smiling as well, seeing a familiar face or two from the tower.

His eyes strayed to their other companions. Oghren had also joined in on the conversation with the old enchantress, smiling up at her in that vapid, lecherous way he always did. Wynne looked almost offended, well perhaps she did, but she was also happy to see the dwarf as well.

"So…er…this your…daughter or summat?" Oghren had turned to Neria who inclined her head and laughed a little, shaking her head.

"Oh! No, I'm not the Senior Enchantress' daughter, ser dwarf!" she shook her head. "and besides…I'm also an elf."

The tiny thing then proceeded to lift her hair and pointed to her delicate, pointed ears.

"Hmmm…Neria was it?" Commander Aedan stroked his chin, trying to remember something. She looked up at him, pink flushing her cheeks delightfully, and Anders found himself smiling again. "I remember you from Fort Drakon. You healed me."

"Oh…yes…it was..the least I could do," now she was fidgeting. Anders searched for the word for what she was doing, all stammers and blushes and avoiding eyes. "The Archdemon would have stepped on me if the good ser Warden hadn't pulled me away."

Smitten. Great. Another one. And it had to be a cute mage too.

One thing he had yet to get used to when travelling with the commander was that female attention was not directed (or at least solely) at him anymore. More often than not, it was the lean, graceful form of the Commander in his impressively-cut leather armor that got the ladies glancing. In this case, however, the girl wasn't glancing so much as completely starstruck.

"Anders…isn't it?"

He piqued to see the older mage eyeing him warily, at which he grinned sheepishly and rubbed the back of his head. He supposed it would come sooner or later, and he would have to answer to someone for his escape, someone who wasn't a Templar.

But now, rather than the rush to escape, the logical plotting of a method of freeing himself, he was overcome with guilt and shame. He nods solemnly, and stops himself from cracking a witty remark. The look she gives him tells him so much about what had transpired at the Tower and the way she looks to Neria and tries to find something in the younger mage's eyes…

Then the elven mage's expression softened, and a smile crinkled the crow's feet at Wynne's eyes.

"It is good to see you."

Anders stepped forward to speak to his former mentor, and he thought his heart could not feel lighter.

end of Chapter 1

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