B is for Boots
His boots are the only thing he has left from his time with the Wardens. Well, that's not exactly true, he still has a few shirts that he had also worn back then, but they're just items of clothing, useful, of course, but of no sentimental value to him. Shirts don't have a history, all memories wiped off of them the moment you wash them and watch as every last trace of the places you've been to dissolve in the warm, soapy water. That can be a relief when there had been blood of a loved one on it, or of the people you killed, or even your own, a dark red reminder that nothing is untouchable, especially yourself.
It's different with his boots. He has cleaned them hundreds of times, but still there are tiny stones stuck in the soles, and dried mud smudging the edges, and dust collected over time that may be invisible to the unaided eye, but that you just know is there, thousands of little landmarks on the map that is your life, telling you stories about the muddy fields you've trudged through, about mountains you've climbed, caves you've explored, and about the people who have accompanied you on your adventures.
And the first person he thinks about when he looks at them is his former commander, Joanna Tabris, the elf from Denerim's alienage who had saved a whole nation, maybe even Thedas. But most importantly, she had saved him, in every way a person can be saved. Not only from the Templars, but from aimless wandering, from desperately trying to fit into this world that had no place for him, and from dark, destructive thoughts about how he would never be able to do anything but run, would never be more than the annoying apostate, a thorn in the Knight-Commander's side.
He can still see her when he closes his eyes, her straight back, her head held high and that compassionate sparkle in her determined eyes that you could only see if she wanted you to see it. It had been reserved for him and the other Wardens during their time at the Keep, for the evenings spent in her quarters with beer, wine and unburdened laughter. He had been impressed by her ability to switch from a kind-hearted, caring woman to a righteous, hard Warden within seconds, and he still remembers wondering how a person so small could actually seem so tall.
The boots had been her gift, given to him a few months before she had decided that the time had come for her to move on and go to Antiva to find her beloved assassin, the „knife-eared pipe cleaner" as Oghren had liked to refer to him. She had always just shaken her head and snorted at the dwarf's remarks, but sooner or later everyone had come to realise just how much she missed the mysterious Zevran who no one had ever talked about in earnest.
He hadn't blamed her for leaving, not really, and he still didn't, but he can't help wondering what would have happened had she stayed with him and the Wardens. She would never have tolerated Templars in their midst, she would never have forced him to give up Ser-Pounce-a-lot - after all it had been her who had given him to Anders - and she would have made sure that he would never get to the point where he had felt so alone that a fade spirit became one of the only friends he had left.
But it doesn't matter now. The past is past, and all he has left are the black boots, a little worse for wear now, with a few holes in it and covered in the dust that's been collected over the course of a whole lifetime, at least it feels that way to him. He had worn those boots at a time when he had just been Anders, when that name had passed his lips so easily, when he had not been the abomination or the deeply troubled man and all those other things people have called him since he came to Kirkwall.
Maybe there is still a tiny stone stuck in his sole that had also been there when he had defeated the Mother with the others, a silent witness as he told vulgar jokes over a beer at the Crown and Lion, or at the moment just after Rylock's death that had been accompanied by the feeling that maybe, just maybe, he could have a chance to be free now, that he'd never have to run again because the people around him all wanted him there and accepted him for what and who he was.
All those hopes had been crushed the moment a Templar set foot into Vigil's Keep for the first time. That tiny – probably imaginary - stone had witnessed that too. It had always been there, followed him every step of the way from the past to the present, and if he is careful with the scrubbing, maybe it will follow him into the future, provided there even is one.
He has been wearing a different coat for some time now, the old one too filthy and torn to provide any kind of protection against the cold, but he knows that, no matter how dirty and holey they get, he will always keep those boots.