Anders opens his eyes. An elven woman is carefully wiping the cold sweat from his brow with a cool rag. She's a small, lively thing with pretty emerald eyes. He gives her his most charming, inviting smile - and then notices the man beside her, who raises a single eyebrow. He turns out friendly enough though, easy-going with a playful streak. Alistair is his name, and the woman is the Grey Warden hero of Ferelden.
This is the night after his Joining. He remembers thudding to the carpet after drinking the darkspawn blood, and the visions... sweet Andraste, the visions. He shudders. The pair of them arrived soon after, and Alistair thankfully, if rather unceremoniously, carried him to this bunk. They tell Anders what it means to be a Warden. They kindly watch the injustice of it sink in, impart their sympathies as the rage within him grows to a ravaging storm.
If he'd been allowed to remain with them, perhaps he would not have left the Wardens. Or would he?
This so-called hero and her Templar lover, compassionate, sympathetic, and leaving. They have more important things to do. Suddenly, he wants nothing more than to lash out, to tear them both apart and revel in the spray of their tainted blood. He can see his eyes, glowing with blue fire, reflected in Alistair's breastplate as he feels himself falling to the raging firestorm within.
"Is this... a mage thing?" he hears the man Alistair ask slowly. The former Templar doesn't await the answer and slides his useless sword free of its scabbard. Anders sweeps towards him, stretches out a talonlike hand and plunges it into the man's chest. It burns through red gold and dragonbone, through muscle and flesh until he rips out the bastard's black heart and turns it to ash in his palm.
His wild screams join hers as a wave of flame washes over her, her silverite armour, her delicately pointed ears and agonized face...
NO.
That's not what happened.
Anders blinks as the images dissolve. He had not even met Justice the night after his Joining, and it was certainly long before he'd allowed the spirit to share his body. Neither of them had been corrupted by Vengeance. After the ritual he'd been weak as a kitten; she'd squeezed his hand, and Alistair had with a conspiratory wink left him a jug of ale before they went on their way. The next day he'd become royally drunk.
This is not the past. This is the Fade, realm of dreams. There is a flickering presence on the edge of his vision. Shadowy, shapeless, threatening, it has been there throughout the whole gruesome scene, just out of sight, but Anders knows it was there, even if he can't look at it directly. Is that what has distorted the dream?
More darkness.
Tremors. A ruby ray of devastating, implacable magic tears through the heart of the Chantry into the heavens accompanied by cries of pain and fear. His magic, his doing. The building bathes in its red glow for a few moments as it slowly comes apart. Pieces of debris swirl around it in silent foreboding while terrible power thrums through it.
Then the blinding explosion, the shockwave. And the faces. This is a familiar dream. An endless sequence of faces lit by a red radiance, their features stricken by terror and anguish. A few Templars. Priests. The elderly Grand Cleric. A middle-aged woman lovingly caring for some altar or other. An orphaned child. A troubled young lay sister seeking refuge. He sees them, and feels them die.
His heart is racing and his chest aches, but this time there is no one to keep the nightmares at bay. This time he won't wake up to Gaelen's touch soothing him with that steadfast love of his that is so alien to any spirit. There is a fair chance he will not wake up at all.
At the edge of vision, a dark, malevolent shadow lingers.
The dream changes again to look more like the raw Fade where every outline is vague and the dispersing light comes from everywhere at once. The ground is a liquified grey. On it is Hawke's silent body, locked in time, surrounded by a pool of blood.
The dark, evasive presence materializes a few paces away. It has no true shape of its own and is very, very difficult to look at. Small swirls of darkness emanate from its skewed appearance like smoke that dissolves into nothing. It stares directly into Anders' soul with pupilless, pearly eyes that glow a faint blue.
Well, he's still a mage, damn it. He will pull himself together and act like one. "Are you Vengeance?" he asks. With nothing to rebound from, the sound of his voice is strangely dampened.
The apparition doesn't speak; the words simply come into being. Yes and no. I am part of this dream. All of it, all of me is of your own making. All of it is your dream.
"What are you doing here? What am I doing here?"
You are dying.
"Can't I do that in peace?"
The presence shifts. You are no longer fully mortal. A choice shall be given.
Anders glances towards the still, intimately familiar body. He winces as it's suddenly moved to be held in place on its knees, eyes closed, impaled by the qunari sword as before. It's a small mercy that only mages retain their consciousness in the Fade, but hardly a consolation.
He is dying and so are you. It is within the power of this place to save one of you.
Anders breathes out in relief. "If I pay for it with my life, then I pay." He'd said that after the destruction of the Chantry, when he sat there waiting, even welcoming the Champion's blade in his back, although he couldn't bear to face him and see that heartrending look of grief.
"He stayed with me, kept me from losing myself. Heal him."
That is your final answer?
"Just do it."
Suddenly the apparition expands without a warning, engulfing everything for a moment before collapsing back into itself.
You have chosen. You are healed and whole. Gaelen Hawke will die.
Fear lances through Anders when he realizes his mistake. He's been had. "All of this, all of me is of your own making." That's just it, isn't it? He has used that trick himself in the Fade time and again.
"No!" The useless cry wrings itself from his lips and he barely recognizes it as his own. "He has done nothing wrong! He doesn't deserve this!"
The ethereal eyes watch him impassively. It is what you deserve, isn't it? You of all should understand that the punishment does not always fit the crime.
Fiery blue cracks seem to open up all over his body, but Anders forces the glow to die down with no more than a snarl. Instead he kneels before what remains of the man he loves a lot more than his broken life.
He smoothes back the sweaty black hair, wishing he could look into those golden-brown Hawke eyes and ask for their forgiveness. The face is just a blur of tears. He puts his arms around his lover as if it were just another night of easy companionship and time to go to sleep. He reaches for the qunari sword. Yes, there it is. He grabs hold of the hilt so tightly his fingers whiten.
Hold! What do you think you are doing?
"He will not go alone. If I live, I'll save him. If I die, then I die."
This is your dream. You might end up making yourself Tranquil!
Anders watches his hands tremble only slightly at that. "That was my greatest fear," he says softly. "It seems I was wrong once again."
With all of his strength he violently pulls the blade into his own body.
The song of birds. The smell of thyme, mixed with the coppery scent of blood. Anders groans and rolls to his side. Focus, damn you. He struggles to his feet and breaks into a run. He falls rather than sits down to remove the sword, which results in a new flow of dark blood and a cry of pain. Anders fills himself with every last bit of his magic and pours it all into Gaelen Hawke in a desperate cascade of healing energy. The world grows dim. He lands on one elbow, utterly spent.
Something stirs beside him.
Hawke sits up slowly, blinking into the setting sun. "Now that," he says weakly, "was a dream I won't mind never having again."
Eventually neither of them wants to stay in the qunari camp. Some of the fatally injured qunari have to be put out of their misery, though not all of them allow it. The hornless emissary survives. They bandage him up and Hawke tells him briskly he can keep his life to take his answers back to his people. Every inch the Champion of Kirkwall, he then narrows his eyes and asks: "Will your people come to find me?"
"No."
"You're sure of this?"
"Yes. That ship, as you say, has long sailed. You will not surrender, it seems, even to death."
Hawke looks away to where Anders has slumped against a crate. The qunari follows his glance and frowns, or frowns more. "Though I do not understand why you surrender to men."
"He's not men," Hawke says absently. "And for the record, it's not one Ander, two Anders either, it's just Anders."
The wounded man gives him a final long, hard stare. "You remind me of someone," he growls. "Only you are that much worse. Panahedan, basalit-an. We will not meet again."
They leave the qunari at the campsite and set off to make their own further away in a narrow forest clearing. A small fire made with mudane means blooms into existence, since the only mage present doesn't have a drop of magic left. Anders watches the little flames dance ever higher, outlining the shadows of the trees standing protectively around them.
A warm hand lands on his shoulder. "How are you holding up?" Gaelen asks. He has brought a thick blanket for the night, which he wraps around the both of them.
"I'm fine now," Anders replies. "You?"
"Dead tired," Hawke admits. "And proud."
"What?"
"Because whatever you believe yourself to be, you still hate for things to be broken, be they people or pets or objects. Though I'm not sure where I fit in."
"The first two?" Anders suggests lightly.
He sighs, suddenly more serious. "But you're right. Even with all... all I have done. And I want to see you hurt least of all, even though I've made quite the mess of that. "
Hawke slips his deft fingers under the mage's shirt and gently touches his chest. "That's you in there. You're not altogether stripped of who you are, and I'm not letting go. And if that hurts... well, it's this thing I do."
They sit quietly for a while. Through his exhaustion Anders feels strangely peaceful. If he'd hear any 'voices' now, the only one would probably be a dwarven one, rough yet pleasant. It would say something eloquent along the lines of 'Well done, Blondie. Though I swear, if you, or Justice, or Vengeance did screw up, I'd have happily kicked all of you in the ass till you were coughing bootlaces.'
Maker, fancy having an imaginary Varric inside your head. Anders shakes his head and smiles. The movement startles Hawke behind him; the Champion of Kirkwall swears as he hits his head against the tree at his back. "Ow. What?"
"Nothing. Sorry, I'll take care of that in the morning."
Gaelen Hawke rests his weary, bruised head against the tree. "You know what you need?"
"I don't dare ask."
"A cat. We need to get you a cat."
"Well, you know what the Wardens thought of that. Makes me soft."
"You could do with some softening."
Anders leans back and closes his eyes, still smiling.