Note from SurelyForth: One-hour prompt fill for the BSN site (this week's prompt: Anders' Irving hatred). Thanks to Sarah1281 for the prompt and Sandtigress for the feedback.

This, obviously, takes place in Undertow-iverse, about a month before the events of Chapter 1.

Mild spoilers for Witch Hunt. Credit for everything goes to BioWare.

The frog, a living replacement for his wooden frog that had gotten lost somewhere between Denerim and Vigil's Keep, was gone from its home in the solarium.

Bryce, deciding that he'd had enough of losing frogs, was coping in unusually dramatic fashion- belly down on the floor in front of the sitting room fireplace, his cheek pressed against the rug. Every now and again he would issue a long sigh, or scratch his nose. But then it was back to mourning.

This had been going on for about an hour, Brand and Anders flanking him on the floor, trying to read but mostly exchanging periodic and concerned glances.

"So maybe Hoppity is under one of the bookcases," Brand nudged him. "Do you want to look again?"

Sigh.

"Hoppity is afraid of the dark, Brand," Anders flicked the bottom of Bryce's shoe. "You know, I bet he made it outside and just went back to his pond."

Bryce shifted a bit.

"Why would he leave?"

"Well, maybe he missed his mother. Maybe there's a pretty frog out there that he wanted to kiss," Anders fought to keep his eyes from going to Brand when he said this. "Maybe someone made him sad, so he needed his mother or his pretty frog."

Bryce sat up, his eyes troubled.

"We should find him and tell him to not be sad!"

Of course we should.

"Well, we need to start following in his...hops, then," Anders leaned forward. "That will require thinking like a frog. Or an escapist."

"How convenient!" Brand smiled at Bryce, who was brightening by the second. "Anders just so happens to be very good at thinking like a frog. And escaping!"

"I'm Anders," Bryce was finding his feet. "And I'm escaping to find Hoppity."

It was the perfect adventure for a three year-old. A four year-old. An almost four year-old. Anders stood and helped Brand up.

"Don't even think you're getting out of this one," he held her hand slightly longer than he should have. "We have a frog to placate."

They spent the next hour or so creeping through the hallways of the Keep, eyes searching shadows and Bryce and Anders falling behind columns and opened doors whenever they would come across someone else.

"What are you guys doing?" Garavel eyed them with suspicion. He had reason to, Anders supposed. What was more suspicious than a cat, a child and a grown man skulking down the corridor with a bemused military escort?

"I'm Anders," Bryce was the only one of them on friendly terms with the captain. "I'm escaping."

"You're Anders? Where's your earring?" Garavel snorted and carried on his way, leaving Bryce open-mouthed with excitement because the earring.

"Maker no," Brand was no longer bemused, because of the excitement on her son's face that turned to disappointment. Anders reached into his pocket and pulled out a scrap of vellum on which he'd jotted a note that morning, the ink still damp in some places. He pressed it first to his thumb and then pressed his thumb against Bryce's earlobe, leaving a black smudge.

"There, earring," Anders lowered his voice. "Don't tell Brand."

Bryce was ecstatic and he stopped skulking, walking with his head angled proudly so everyone else they encountered could see.

Then they were outside.

"We've escaped!" He threw his arms out and turned to Anders. "Where should we go, Hoppity?"

"Hoppity!" Brand giggled. "I didn't know that you were Hoppity."

"I didn't either. Well, ribbit," Anders looked down at Bryce. "Let's go to the pond, that's where we found him, right?"

"That's where we found you," he began to lead them towards the pond, his gait more conscious than usual, his hands on his hips.

"I don't really walk like that, do I?" Anders fell into step besides Brand. She laughed again and nodded. "How embarrassing for me."

"It works when you're taller, it if makes you feel any better," her arm bumped his and he smiled at the ground. Obviously it did make him feel better. "So why are we doing this? Herren's making him a new frog, and neither of us particularly like handling the things."

"So slimy," Anders shuddered, then remembered how happy Bryce had been just watching the damn thing breathe. "Closure, maybe?"

"So you think he's just going to tell a random frog to not be sad anymore?" She asked, but he could see in her eyes she knew he absolutely would. This was Bryce; he was weirdly sweet like that. Well, when he wasn't inadvertently mocking Anders' walk.

"I think it will make him feel better," he narrowed his eyes against the sun's glare. Bryce was still ambling ahead, chattering to Pounce.

"Did I ever tell you about my first escape from the tower?" They were close to the water, the pond a sad little affair almost obscured by a skin of brilliant green algae. Following along the edge, Bryce led the procession around to the far side where they'd found Hoppity a few weeks prior.

"That was the 'Apprentice Anders ruins it for everyone by jumping into Lake Calenhad during exercises' one, yes?" She punctuated this with a cheeky grin.

"It's not my fault that they overreacted. Besides, we spent half the time just getting our sad cave eyes adjusted to the sunlight then most of us would be useless all afternoon because of migraines, but I digress," he stopped, as Bryce had came to a halt in front of them.

"I found Hoppity!" He dropped to his knees. "You can stop pretending now, Anders!"

"Well, the truth was that I escaped because I was feeling homesick," Bryce was now talking to the frog at the pond's edge, his voice too low to make out. "I was young, and missed my family."

"No pretty girls you wanted to kiss?" Brand nudged his arm sympathetically.

"A whole world of pretty girls I wanted to kiss, pretty girls who didn't think I was a troublemaker just because the Knight-Commander and the First Enchanter told them I was," he smirked. "Although, admittedly, the reputation came to serve me well once I grew into it."

"Did you make it home?"

He shook his head slowly, trying not to think about how exhausted and overwhelmed he'd been when he finally made it to a settlement. He had no money, no contacts and only the sopping wet apprentice robes that were on his back. If it wasn't for a kind merchant, he'd have spent his few weeks of freedom in a cave of hidden in a barn somewhere.

"Didn't make it home and by the time I got dragged back to the tower, Irving had taken all of my belongings and sealed the air vent near my bed."

"To prevent you from escaping again?"

Anders felt his lips pull down at the corners.

"The vent led directly outside, I could see the sunlight from my bed. The first night I was there, angry and scared, I heard something mumbling at me. It was a crow, a massive fellow with a white chest. I guess the apprentice before me had fed it scraps and gave it baubles, because it definitely expected something," he nudged at the ground with his toe, wondering why he was telling this story, as sad as it made him. "I offered a single copper that he snatched away and then he…just watched me, like he expected something else. So I started talking to him, and he, uh…"

"Listened?"

"It felt like he did," Anders shrugged. "I would talk and he would watch and he was the only thing in the whole damned place that didn't hate me or think I was some weirdo for being so miserable. I named him Scout and gave him quite the collection of baubles, stuff I found around the tower, and I would talk to him at least once a day."

"Until Irving sealed your vent," she looked incredibly sad for young apprentice Anders. "Maybe he didn't realize?"

"He did," his eyes darted away from her, away from Bryce, and he allowed himself a rare moment of genuine self-pity. "He told me that he did it on purpose, to teach me a lesson. 'Your actions have consequences, Anders. You need to learn that. ' And I thought having to go back was punishment enough, but of course he didn't see it that way. He kept tightening the noose and expecting me to thrive with less and less to enjoy, and no hope for more. He just expected me to shrivel up and quit caring…to accept my fate without question."

She remained silent as they watched Bryce carefully scoop up a frog that was definitely not Hoppity and plant a kiss on its head, their faces twitching in mutual disgust. He then set the frog down and it leapt away from him, diving into a clutch of tall grass further down the bank.

"Bye, Hoppity! Don't be sad!"

He wiped his mouth on the edge of his tunic, no longer Anders but a little boy who'd done his part to indulge someone else's happiness.

"So I take it no closure for you and Scout?"

Anders' lips twitched in a wry smile.

"No, I never saw him again," he sighed and touched her elbow, Bryce already having run back past them, Pounce at his side. "But things worked out for me in the end. I've got almost everything I could want at the Vigil, and sometimes I get to pretend to be a frog."

"See, you did learn something from Irving- how not to treat a child if you want him to give a damn about what you want him to give a damn about."

"That's very confusing," he laughed, though, as Bryce came leaping back to catch each of them by their hands so he could walk in the middle, rambling about lunch and Pounce and Brand, would you nap with me today? "How convenient, those are all things that I give a damn about!"

Bryce giggled at damn, Brand rolled her eyes at both of them, and Anders thought about thanking Irving for tightening that noose. Without it, he may have become comfortable and missed right out on this.