It is a truth universally acknowledged that nothing is more successful at inspiring a person to mischief as being told not to do something.
- From Of Fires, Circles, and Templars: A History of Magic in the Chantry, by Sister Petrine, Chantry scholar.
--
Your Harrowing came and went. You woke up exhausted on the stone floor, shivering, and wondered if the demon that charged at you with red eyes and gaping mouth entered your body. You felt the same, just cold and tired and hopefully not meant for death. Knight-Commander Greagoir was the one who took your hand and made you stand. First Enchanter Irving said something or other that you couldn't quite understand at the moment. You assumed that everything went well because the First Enchanter, who was always kind to the apprentices, nodded at you after his speech with what you hoped was approval. He was the one who had a talk with you after what happened with Bertran, and you were comforted by his words, strengthened by his assurance that he would do everything in his power to ensure it would not happen again in the Circle, not to you or to any other young mage. You were reminded of that night less and less now, and sometimes you could even sleep without dreaming of his face. Gerald, the templar that led you to the healers that night was the one who stood over your Harrowing. His grip on your shoulders was strong and sure, and you felt steadier when he helped you to the door.
Except he didn't lead you to the apprentice quarters, where you were supposed to gather up your old robes and take them to the Tranquil. He led you to an alcove that was at the end of one of many twisted stairways that seemed to lead nowhere. There was Warin and somehow you were crying from your exhaustion even if you were trying very hard to be brave, then Gerald was gone, and you were left alone with the templar who was looking at you with worry again. The worry made the tears trickle, then stop, and you sniffled, suddenly shy.
"You're alive," he breathed, like he couldn't believe it, and that was a bit too much emotion for you to bear. Tall and stoic Warin, who the young mages teased and said he was like the mirror image of Greagoir. Warin was looking at you like you were a precious thing, and he had a bit of pink at his cheeks, you realized. You thought he wasn't so stern looking after all, not with his hair that was flattened in one place by the helm that he wasn't wearing right now and the concern evident on his face. That Warin, who said he cared for you, and whose smile for you made you warm inside like you had just stepped too close to a fire.
Your memory conjured another time when his cheeks were pink, when he hovered over you as the Healer Ilaria set your arm and bandaged your wounds, and she snapped at him could you stop, really! Your little mage isn't dying anytime soon. And oh, you heard a sudden roar in your ears: your little mage…then Warin's cheeks were pink and you were giggling all of a sudden, the pain not so sharp anymore.
You noticed him a lot more after that day, and your gaze brushed by his too often for you to count. Brushed by, then returned, and he was usually watching something else, a loose stone in the wall perhaps or a tapestry that had the stitched image of Andraste's betrayal. You would look down at a thread that had come unwound at the sleeve of your robe, and sometimes you heard him clearing his throat behind you when you passed him.
In the alcove and back inside your own body, you suddenly didn't know what to do with your hands when his caught your shoulders. You stared at your hands, thinking, should I put them here or where…when you realized that he was not wearing his gloves and his grasp was almost unbearably warm, burning through the fabric of your robes.
"I wanted to be there," he said, awkwardly, words slow and careful. "For your Harrowing, I mean, but the Knight-Commander chose Gerald."
You were so startled by his touch that you weren't sure what exactly he meant until you realized what he meant. Your thoughts were clumsy and slow and where he was touching you sent shivers and sparks through your skin and down your arms. You wanted to say something witty, but you couldn't, and you just turned your face up towards him so that you wouldn't have to look at your hands anymore. He was looking down at you, and it was easy to close your eyes as he pressed his lips to yours.
You tasted salt. Salt and Warin, whose lips were a lot softer than you would expect from a knight.
The thought of Bertran flashed in your mind, and you squashed it, because this was not like Bertran at all and the kiss was light, just a touch of his lips to yours, and you understood all of a sudden, that it was like magic, a bit, and it wasn't just the melodramatic older girls making things up. There was something yearning inside of you, similar to the feeling of reaching into the Fade, like brushing by bits of the Veil…
He let go of you then and when you opened your eyes what greeted you was the growing look of horror on his face, which was not what you expected to see. You felt unsteady again. It was another sort of Harrowing, because you were reminded again that he was templar and you were mage.
He retreated to the stone seat where his helm was, and there was such a look of anguish on his face. Apology emanated from him, even though nothing was being said. And you knew that you were supposed to be upset about this, because this was wrong, said the Chantry and wrong, said the Enchanters, wrong, said the Knight-Commander.
"My first kiss," you said, a little stupidly, heat overwhelming your cheeks at that thought.
And his eyes snapped quickly to your face, his neck turned to quickly that you wondered if he was going to hurt himself. There was so much anguish there that you couldn't bear it, so you reached out and took his hand in yours, to send him calming thoughts, it's going to be all right thoughts. His fingers and palms were calloused from years of sword training, while yours were scarred from slipped spells with fire and lightning. He watched you take hold of his hand, and the tension eased from his body a bit.
"Thank you," you said, realizing you had thanked him before, that time he stopped you outside your quarters. "For being here…after my Harrowing, after what happened, before-" Was he always there, watching out for you, and you just failed to notice?
"It is my duty," he uttered those words that you thought he already spoke wordlessly that day when he protected you from the blood mage, that extra emphasis on a certain word. He raised his other hand then, not the one you were holding, to brush the tears that were drying on your face away.
You didn't know knights with their hands made for war could be so gentle.
--
There were no more lessons. Apprentices and junior mages were told to keep to the library or to their quarters. You walked by Warin with your nervous fingers clutching at your books, and you could feel his gaze follow you as you walked down the hallway. Quietly and hopelessly and earnestly, you began to dream of what life together you might lead, even though there was no possibility of a life together for you, really. There was a bit of teasing since there were few secrets in the Tower, but nothing so blatant as pushing a young mage with a crush forward anymore, and one wrong word could mean a meeting with First Enchanter Uldred.
He wrote you notes. At first it was only a bare scrap of vellum containing two lines written by a disciplined hand. Words of concern, of affection, and emotions that neither of you dared to breach. It was easy to accidentally drop a slip of vellum in front of him when you passed with your regular stack of books. Or a boot nudged something in your direction. You only bent to adjust the hem of your robes and then your hand curled around it. You read the words and wished you could keep them close to you, tuck them into your robes against your skin, but a breath of a spell and his words were dust in your hands, etched in your mind.
There were touches of your hand to his here and there, kisses painfully sweet and painfully brief, exchanged in empty stairwells. Even with too many eyes and too many people asking questions, there were still lost corridors that were empty for a time. Isemay would sometimes keep watch for you, even though afterwards she would hit you and tease, how was it? You daring girl! There was not much to laugh at these days, so you would take what you were given.
--
After your Harrowing, many things changed. You were not with your young companions anymore, and the mage quarters still took some getting used to. You were reminded again with the other mages that you were children no longer, and shedding the robe of the apprentice-child also meant shedding your immaturity and donning the cloak of responsibility, as heavy as it may be to bear.
The rules rained down from the offices of the First Enchanters. No fraternizing of templars and mages. No apprentices or junior mages in the stacks of the library unsupervised. No unauthorized use of magic anywhere. No junior mages in apprentices' quarters. No lingering in the hallways.
I think of you – the note began, and you selfishly thought that you were allowed some sort of pleasure, with the Blight and the darkness hanging over Fereldan. Who would begrudge the affection exchanged between just a mage and just a templar, unnoticed, unimportant…Wasn't love the greatest emotion the Maker had for his children? Even for mages, who were supposed to serve man?