II: Anya goes on an Adventure and makes a fool of herself in front of Andraste and the Maker
"This is a bad idea," Anya mumbles, her poofy head peeking around an archway into a darkened hall.
"Noted," a feminine voice replies from the other side of the archway.
A third voice hyperventilates into Anya's shoulder. "First Enchanter Irving is going to kill me."
"Nobody asked you to come, Jowan."
"Actually, I distinctly remember you manipulating him into coming, Amell. Don't try to weasel your way out of this," Anya retorts.
Miriam tsks and flicks her golden locks over her shoulder. "Details, details." She hooks her slender, manicured fingers around the stone arch. "Now, shut up and keep an eye out for that second patrol."
"What if they think we're trying to escape?" Jowan hisses, pressing his back so hard into the wall that he looked like he was trying to phase through it.
Miriam rolls her eyes. "Yes, because if I were trying to escape the Circle, I would run directly into the Templar Quarters."
Anya shrugs with a snort. "I dunno. Templars are pretty dumb."
With a thoughtful little glance at the ground, Miriam grins slyly. She briskly shakes her head and looks back into the Great Hall. The main chamber is completely empty save for a pair of templars standing at attention by the door to the staircase.
"Now what?" Anya says.
"Now, follow my lead."
"And if we get caught?"
"You're a pretty girl; you'll think of something." Miriam winks. Anya doesn't quite like the implication hidden beneath that statement.
"What about me?" Jowan asks.
Miriam shrugs. "I mean, you might make a pretty girl, too…"
He sighs. "Just forget it."
"Stay close, and we won't have to worry about getting caught," she tells him.
She then straightens up, adjusts her robe and pats down her hair. She grins briefly at the nervous pair of apprentices before stepping into the center chamber with long, confident strides. Multiple tall, slender shadows dance along the floor almost as though they were scurrying after her.
After exchanging a look, Jowan and Anya lean into the doorway, anticipating Miriam's next actions.
"Halt," one of the templars calls out, holding out a hand. Anya takes the time to note how pretentious it is that they all wear their helmets when they're on duty. It makes everything so impersonal and she would feel much more comfortable if she could be certain there were people underneath those over-sized steel buckets.
"Cedric, it's just me," Miriam says with familiarity. Her voice isn't very loud, but the tower manages to amplify it enough that the apprentices can still hear her. "You know, it's been a while since I caught up with you." Her entire body leans into the knight, her hands climbing up his chestplate and tracing the sword of mercy emblazoned on the front.
Cedric relaxes his stance and raises a gauntlet to gently stroke the side of Miriam's head. "What are you up to, Dollface?" he croons, clearly not buying the act that Miriam is putting on.
The second templar shifts in place, watching the exchange completely silently. The candlelight reflecting off of his armor makes Hessarian's sword appear as though it were actually on fire.
"What makes you think I'm up to something, Ceddy?" she says in a low, seductive voice. Her finger is now playing with the underside of his helmet.
Cedric doesn't even have a chance to say anything when his partner finally breaks his silence, his voice shattering the mood like a bucket of ice water. "Cedric, is the room spinning?" he says uncertainly, stepping away from his post to look around the room. He approaches the four outward facing statues at the center of the hall, eyeing them with callous suspicion.
"What in the Maker's name are you on about, Airik?" Cedric grumbles, gently prying Miriam's hands off of him and following his partner's gaze.
"It's singing to me, Ced; swear to the Maker, the stone is singing!" Airik remarks, placing a hand on the worn stone shield cautiously. He then takes off his helmet and places his ear against the stone.
"What are you? A dwarf?" Cedric pulls Airik away from the statue. "Get up! We have a job to do!" A particularly aggressive tug has Airik losing his balance and toppling back onto the hard ground.
"It's beautiful. Like fair maidens singing in the garden. Maybe it's Andraste. Maybe she's telling me something." Airik looks past Cedric, who is now leaning over him with a puzzled expression on his face, and gazes dreamily into the darkness of the ceiling. Cedric has absolutely no doubt that Andraste is not hiding in the ceiling, but the way Airik is smiling, it almost seems like she might be. Knowing Airik, the Maker's bride is likely also in a state of undress, beckoning him to her shapely bosom.
"Or maybe you're an idiot. Ever considered that?" Cedric snaps, grabbing Airik's bicep to pull him up. "Now get up, you stupid oaf." What Airik lacks in intelligence, he more than makes up for in sheer brawn, and Cedric has to expend a great deal of strength to drag the man off of the ground and back to his feet.
With a heavy sigh, Cedric turns around, ready to shoo Miriam away, only to find the hall completely empty. His eyes dart around the room, searching every shadow before landing on the staircase he had completely abandoned. "Andraste's tits…"
Now safe in the Templar Armory, Miriam laughs in relief as she slides down against the door. Casting an illusion hex on Airik while Cedric was distracted had been child's play for her. She only wishes she could have seen the look on Cedric's face when he found out.
"What if someone comes in?" Jowan asks. He's beginning to reach levels of unprecedentedly high anxiety -so high, in fact, that even the level-headed Anya is beginning to feel her hair stand on end just by standing adjacent to him.
"Oh, relax !" Miriam says dismissively, bracing herself against the wall as she got back to her feet. "The hard part's over." After mulling her words over, she breaks out in a fit of giggles. "Or, you know, the least easy part."
"'Least easy'?" Anya frowns. "You hexed a Templar! And besides, I don't see why you couldn't have brought Finn with you instead and left us out of this."
With a groan, Miriam replies, "Finn would have panicked and blown our cover. I needed someone more discrete."
Rolling her eyes, Anya remarks, "You wanted discretion, so you asked Jowan ?"
"Yeah!" Jowan agrees, and then, after a moment of deliberation, adds, "Wait. What's that supposed to mean?" Both of the women ignore him as they continue to bicker in the way only two people who have lived together for 12 years could.
Jowan's seen this scene nearly a thousand times. It's just like the time Anya found out Miriam was the best swimmer in the circle (before Anders tried to escape and had outdoors time cancelled). It's also like the time Miriam out-scored Anya in their placement exams last year. Not to mention the time Wynne selected Miriam as her apprentice in creation magic, while Anya had to focus on primal spells with Senior Enchanter Sweeney. She still thinks about the freezy chair every time she sees Miriam's smug face.
"Why don't you have to wear templar armor?" Anya complains, holding up a helmet which must weigh as much as half of Anya's own weight judging by the way she slouches while carrying it.
"You and Jowan are still apprentices. You can't be seen in the Templar Quarters. But as a harrowed mage, I could get away with it if I had a pair of templars escorting me."
Swallowing their complaints, Jowan and Anya help each other into the bulky armor and stand before Miriam's judgmental eye. She inspects them carefully, straightening them out or adjusting the straps before nodding and smiling.
"It's too big," Anya's voice comes muffled through the helmet. It is, in fact, too big. Anya is small, even by elven standards, and the fabric draped over her greaves is pooled around her feet, making her look a lot like a child trying out their father's armor.
Jowan snorts. "That's what she said," he says quietly. Thankfully, the the helmet makes it so that Anya can't hear him, which saves him from an extra painful smack on the head from her gauntlet.
"What? It's perfect!" Miriam remarks rather ignorantly. "I think you both look rather strapping. Now are we ready to head out?"
"As ready as I'll ever be," Jowan replies. Anya is conspicuously silent.
The trio's destination is the Templar Common Room adjacent to the dorms, and upon entering, not many bat an eye at Miriam in her mage robes leading two clunky templars along behind her.
The common room is devoid of life at this time of night, with its only occupants being a pair of older gentlemen playing a game of chess, a younger man studying at a table, surrounded by old tomes, and a couple of fresh recruits huddled in a corner on a set of cushions. Thankfully, whatever Miriam is planning doesn't require disturbing any of them.
The trio make a beeline for a well-maintained bookshelf in the corner of the room, and Miriam all but flings herself at it, running her fingers down the spines and skimming through the titles.
"What are you looking for?" Anya hisses, trying to keep her voice down.
Not tearing her eyes off the books, Miriam answers, "It's a Varric Tethras original. Highly recommended in the latest issue of the Randy Dowager Quarterly. Carroll told me they'd be shipping a copy here to the circle. I had to have it before anyone else!"
"Of course you did," Anya mumbles.
"Isn't Tethras that guy who writes trashy smut? Why are you making us risk coming here for that garbage?" Jowan says, his eyes darting around to make sure none of the idle templars heard him.
Miriam groans and rolls her eyes. "See -that's what Anders said. But once he makes it big, you'll eat your words!"
"Isn't Anders in solitary right now? How did you get him to weigh in on this?" Anya inquires.
For a moment, Miriam ignores her as she deshelved a new-looking, leather-bound book with an illustration of a blonde woman in an elegant gown at a masked ball. "I have my ways," she replies mysteriously.
Jowan and Anya decide that it's best to simply leave it at that. Miriam has a way with getting what she wants at the circle, and today is no different. The two apprentices are simply her tool of choice for this evening -one of many, because it's dangerous to reuse her tools too often.
Out of the corner of her eye, Anya reads a familiar name on one of the old books on the shelves. "Wait a minute…" she says, grabbing Miriam by the nook of her elbow as Miriam turns to leave.
"What?"
"This is In Pursuit of Knowledge: The Travels of a Chantry Scholar by Ferdinand Genitivi!" Anya gushes, pulling the book hastily out of its place in the shelf. "They told me we couldn't get this for our library! And the templars get to have it? Completely unfair!"
"Um… Anya?"
She opens the book to the first chapter and scans the page anxiously. "Maker's breath! It's more wonderful than I could have hoped! And so well maintained! It's almost as if nobody has even touched it."
Jowan places a hand on Anya's pauldron to get her attention as their antics have managed to catch the steady gaze of one of the older templars in the room. He begins to rise from his seat, and Jowan's heart rate rises with him -and Jowan isn't the only one who's noticed; Miriam is also eyeing the man carefully, clutching her book to her chest.
"You three," the templar utters gruffly, standing alert and glaring at them. "What are you up to?" This is what finally pries Anya's attention away from her prize.
Miriam can sense the man's suspicion increasing, and rather than risk explaining her way out of this, she gives her companions two meaningful glances and cries, "SCATTER!"
Jowan and Anya don't need to be told twice. In their clunky armor, the two dash out of the room, with Miriam quickly gaining a lead. Each of them runs in a different direction in the circular spire, hoping to meet up again at the staircase.
Anya is dead last, carrying her templar skirts and stumbling through the halls. She can feel her heart beating in her throat as she tries to carry not only herself and her Genitivi novel, but also the grievously heavy armor she's wearing.
The doors begin to blur into each other as she passes them, and eventually, she fears that the templars are right at her heels. Each door becomes more tempting than the next, but also more dangerous. She begins to consider hiding to get them off her trail, but she has no guarantee that whatever room she enters will be empty. She tries to curse Miriam under her breath, but finds that it's only a waste of her precious oxygen.
Without thinking, she curses, pushes open the nearest door, and slips inside with as much grace as she can muster in spite of all the extra bulk she's carrying. The door shuts behind her gently and she leans against the door, catching her breath.
In her panic, she doesn't hear the startled gasp and hiss of pain as a young man rises from his bed and slams his head into the top bunk. Wincing in pain, he watches her straighten up and become aware of her surroundings.
"Who -Who are you?" he asks, still rubbing his forehead gingerly.
Anya can feel her heart sink into the pit of her stomach. She's been caught. At least it's only one, though. Her mind wanders to Miriam's advice from earlier and her stomach flips uncomfortably. The templar is still watching her expectantly. If worst comes to worst, he isn't exactly a bad looking templar. He's around Anya's age with a mop of golden curls on his head, a boyish face, and eyes that are an uncannily pretty shade of hazel. Not that Anya is paying attention to that… of course not.
"I… do beg your pardon, Ser Templar…" she whimpers, pulling the helmet off of her head. "My name is Anya."
The templar is taken aback with the softness of her voice, and even more taken aback by the large mess of curls that has just emerged from the helmet, taking on a life of its own as soon as it's freed from captivity. He feels a blush begin to rise to his cheeks.
"I -I -That is…" He struggles to make himself sound commanding and knight-like. "I'm Cullen," he sputters eventually.
"Pleasure…" she replies, not making eye contact with him. Her mind is still running with the advice Miriam gave her earlier. Could she really? With this man? He looks like he's never even touched a girl in his entire life, but Miriam once told her that all men, no matter what, only want one thing. Is it really that simple?
Oh, dear Maker…
As Cullen ponders what a real templar's reaction to this scenario should be, Anya has already begun to strip off her armor until all of it has been tossed to the side and she's only in her simple apprentice robes.
She takes a deep breath and steps closer to the bed, meeting his eyes and gazing firmly into his eyes. "I would appreciate it," she begins slowly, "if you didn't tell anyone I was here." Her hands move to the laces on the collar of her robes. With a practiced motion, the laces come undone and the robe begins to slide down her shoulders.
Cullen's breath hitches as his eyes unintentionally wander over her lithe elven body, which is all but staring him in the face right now, and now his cheeks have gone from being lightly stained pink to burning bright red in less than a second.
"S-Sweet Maker! Please put your clothes back on!"
It only takes a moment for embarrassment to turn into complete and utter mortification as Anya grabs handfuls of her hair and covers her face, stumbling away from him. "Oh! I'm so sorry!"
"It's uhh…" Cullen turns his face to the wall. His training had prepared him for many things, but being seduced by a beautiful apprentice is absolutely not one of them. He can hear so many of the Chantry's warnings on repeat in his head as he tries to get the supple curve of her hips and the flawless bronze skin of her soft belly- "Oh, Maker…" -out of his head.
"I'm dressed again," she informs him in a tiny voice.
He faces her again, this time struggling to meet her eyes. "Right, erm. What in the Maker's name possessed you to do that? And what are you doing in here?"
She chews anxiously on her bottom lip as she walks over to where she had discarded the armor and gently cradles a large book, a precious and rare collection of Genitivi's adventures. "I thought if I tried to -well, you know -maybe you wouldn't report me for sneaking in and stealing this." She holds the book out reluctantly; she's not sure if she'll even be able to relinquish it at this point. "I'm sorry! I'm ready for whatever punishment the Knight Commander wants to give me!"
Cullen's expression softens as he gets to his feet and takes the novel from her hands. He opens it carefully and leafs through it curiously. "I've read this one," he finally says. "It's a good read. The way Genitivi writes, it's as if you're going on an adventure all your own."
A lump forms in Anya's throat as she hears this. Of course, she knows it's a good read. She's only wanted to read this book for the past two years. She's had to make do with the boring apprentice library for her entire life.
"You should read it for yourself, though."
She doubts what she's hearing at first, but those dreamy hazel eyes contain no traces of mockery or trickery. He sounds absolutely serious as he holds the book out for her in his outstretched hand.
"Wait. Are you serious?"
Cullen clears his throat, startled by how quickly Anya's catlike eyes brighten. Her entire demeanor completely changes when she retrieves the book and hugs it to her chest.
"Yes, you can have it."
She sways idly in place for a few seconds before her entire body freezes. "And what about my punishment? Aren't you going to report me to Knight Commander Greagoir?"
He smiles shyly. "I won't tell if you won't. Now allow me to escort you back to your room, Anya"