"I happen to be a very loyal person, up until someone expects me to die for failing." The assassin says more, but the words never reach my ears as I roll the thought over and over in my mind.
Something about him reminds me of the first friend I made in the Tower, a skinny boy with pale skin and dirty-blonde hair pulled back from a long, narrow face into a short tail. Almost a decade gapped between us, an age difference insurmountable between most teenage boys and little girls, but there was something more to it; even within our community of pariahs, of those already imprisoned beyond the edge of life, we were outcasts. Me, the ragged elven child from across the Waking Sea, who even now still speaks with a trace of Antiva to my speech, he, the teenage son of farmers from high in the Anderfels, whose name was complex I'm still not even sure what it really is. Around the other mages, we were the unknown, the different, the butt of jokes and targets for pranks, the ones even the Templars looked at with suspicion far more than anyone else. But together, together we could just be, learn the way of our new home together, grieve for our lost lives together, and, eventually, create new lives as mages of the Circle of Ferelden together. It was he who made me Kitten, and me who made him Anders, leaving behind our old names and old pain to grow new roots in the rocky soil of Kinloch Hold. Eventually a third was added to our group, another outcast, Jowan, relegated to the sidelines not for foreign blood, like us, but because of weakness. No one wants to be friends with the lowest of the low.
Perhaps with time, perhaps if I were older, or Anders younger, there could have been love between us, the love of a man and a woman. But we carried only the affection of friends, perhaps brother to sister - though I will never know, never knowing any family long enough to remember. So he discovered he was a man before I knew I was a woman, and took to spending many of his free moments chasing that which interested him, which gave him a moment to think there might be something in this world beyond the hatred we mages inspire, that we might actually have a chance at the mystery known as happiness. So, like the good best friend I was, I listen to him boast of his exploits, sigh about his latest flames, ever seeing his itch to be free, but never saying a word - not to him, certainly not to the Knight Commander or First Enchanter who oversaw my apprenticeship now.
Deep in the night, surrounded by darkness, the Templar guarding our room having disappeared, just for a moment, to addend his personal needs, Anders crept to my bed, kneeling beside me where I lay on the lowest bunk nearest the wall. "I've found a way out," he whispered against my ear, quiet as a fly in the room of sleeping apprentices. "We can leave now and be halfway to Denerim before they even realize we're gone."
"What about our phylacteries?" I whispered back. "They can catch us so long as they still have those."
"Not if we keep running. Hurry up, let's go before Ser Garis gets back!"
Twisting my head, I looked in another direction, where a head of greasy black hair barely stuck above the blanket in the midnight chill. "Jowan?"
"Too dangerous for three of us. Besides, he's Ferelden; someone might recognize him." Hesitating, I looked at our friend again, only to have Anders tug impatiently on my arm. "Come on! We have to go now."
"I can't leave him here alone. The Templars will tear him apart after we go, just for being out friend."
Mouth set in a line, he stared down at me, eyes the same color as chocolate unhappy in his pale, thin face. "Kitten… I can't stay here; this place is driving me mad. No matter what we do, no matter what we give up, it will never be enough for the Templars, the Chantry. Loyalty will just get us killed."
For a long minute we just looked at each other, then I wrapped my arms around him, pressing my cheek to his chest, listening to the thud of his heart beneath my ear. "Maker be with you, wherever the road leads."
"And with you." Gently, he brushed his lips across my forehead, then reached down to snag a bundle from the ground before sneaking, silent as a ghost, away from me. At the door way, he turned back for one last look, mouth moving in silent words I could read even in the darkness. Remember me.
"Very well, we accept your offer." I say aloud, reaching out a hand to help my fellow elf to his feet as Alistair makes a noise of protest behind me. None of it matters, I know what I see in his eyes, this Zevran, what I hear in his voice. Anders once said loyalty to the Circle would condemn us to death, and he was right; I made my choice to revoke that loyalty the night I allowed him to escape, and then again when I did my best to rescue Jowan from being made Tranquil.In this moment, as Zevran's gold eyes meet my own jade, a connection is formed, one I know that will be even more unbreakable than the one Anders and I once shared.
For I, too, happen to be a very loyal person.