I have thirty so pages of Anders!dialogue and scenarios (I write them down as they come to me haha so they're sloppy outlines) in one Word file and so far each of these scenarios have been a chapter. But I think I'm going to flesh them out a bit more and add more content per chapter so that they're not so short. Wooooo~

Lourdes tried not to play favorites when she was leading. As time passed, though, she noticed she kept bringing along the same people with her whenever she had a task to do. In Ferelden it had been Alistair, Zevran, and Wynne. Here in the arling of Amaranthine, it looked like it was going to be Sigrun, Nathaniel, and Anders.

Sigrun was a fighter who put everything she had into every battle. Her dual blades were wielded with precision and heart, even if she literally had a death wish. The woman was clever and blunt and possessed a wicked sense of humor, which had brightened Lourdes' day on more than one occasion.

Though she was sure she should be holding some sort of grudge against Nathaniel – his father had slain the entire Cousland family, her family – she couldn't help but respect his desire to make people realize he was not his father. Plus, there was also the fact that he could pick his way into any chest that held goodies she could pawn off. That was always nice.

Anders was amazing at knitting skin back together and casting fire-related spells, but his sense of humor managed to simultaneously annoy and amuse Lourdes. As did his questions. Maker, his questions! He was full of them. If you weren't a Grey Warden, what would you do? Do I get paid for being a Grey Warden? Ooh, do you think that cloud up there looks like a bunny?

Making camp with the three of them was always interesting, too. Sigrun and Nathaniel often talked, even though their relationship had begun with a rough patch. Lourdes couldn't remember the entire dialogue; it had something to do with Nathaniel trying to compliment her fighting and Sigrun pointing out that she had been fighting for her life in Dust Town long before she joined the Legion. Ouch.

Now, though, they were almost like two peas in a pod. Or, well, two thieves in a pod. They were talking very rapidly about hook picks and ball picks and who could pick the lock the fastest.

This meant Anders sat down next to her, holding a bowl of warm soup in his hand. "You know," he said slowly, gesturing to the two rogues as they spoke animatedly. "I bet they'll be married before the end of the year. Maybe I'll get to be best man. Probably not, though. The Howe hates me and I suspect Sigrun does, too. I hope they name their son Frederick; I think Nathaniel likes it."

Lourdes didn't reply to this, though she was tempted to say something smart like, Will you be doing Anders' Spicy Shimmy at their wedding? Instead, she just shrugged, choosing to lift her own bowl of soup to her mouth. She almost spit it back out, though she forced herself to swallow it. "Maker's breath, Anders, what did you put in this?"

"What?" he questioned, lifting his own bowl to eye level to inspect it. "Does it taste bad? It shouldn't."

"It tastes like you let Ser Pounce-a-lot use it as a bathroom!" Lourdes accused, looking down at the bowl suspiciously. It wasn't likely, of course, but the yellowish-brown liquid didn't look all that appealing anymore.

"I only used what herbs I could identify… so it shouldn't taste like poison or anything," he said defensively, before pursing his lips thoughtfully. His earring glinted in the fire light. "Hmm. Unless…"

"What do you mean, 'hmm?' Unless what?" she questioned, setting her bowl down on the ground next to her feet.

"You killed the Archdemon, right?"

What? What in Thedas does that have to do with anything? "Yes, I killed the Archdemon. Why? What are you talking about?"

"How sad, then," he said with a remorseful sigh, turning his bowl of soup over and dumping it onto the earth next to him. "That you had to die this way."

The hairs on the back of her neck prickled. She was oddly reminded of the way she had been careful to watch Zevran all those months as he prepared their dinner. Should she have done the same for Anders? Was this friendly apostate act just that – an act? Was he so intent on freedom that he would kill her… the Warden-Commander? "What do you mean?" she demanded, a tight ball of dread causing her stomach to clench.

She should have seen this coming. She had been so intent on watching Nathaniel to make sure he wasn't going to kill her she hadn't ever stopped to think about how Anders might have felt. He had freedom at his fingertips, only to have it mercilessly ripped away from him as she conscripted him into the Grey Wardens. It was practically a death sentence… and now he was evidently intent on returning the favor, as the bowl of soup he had given her was laced with poison.

"Death by soup," he clarified, walking to pour the pot of soup into the bushes. "How embarrassing! Let's see the history books put a heroic spin on that!"

Later, Lourdes found out that it tasted horrible because Anders had added two palmfuls of an herb to the soup instead of two pinches. Her cheeks burned as he explained and apologized for the foul tasting meal. She should have had faith in him and she didn't and now she felt guilty and horrible about it.

She made it up to him by buying a brightly colored woven collar for Ser Pounce-a-Lot.

"Hey, thank you," Anders said, taking the gift from her. "That's nice of you. It's sort of weird to be getting gifts from my commander, though. Especially since I'm not giving you anything in return."

"Technically, you are. I've been stabbed more times than I can count and you've always patched me up without complaining. Plus, you drank darkspawn blood, so. That's the gift that keeps on giving," Lourdes pointed out, smiling as he laughed shortly. "And it's weird for people to call me Commander. I've finally convinced Nate to call me Lourdes again. You should, too."

Anders paused as they walked, setting his pack upon the ground and clasping the collar around his kitten's small neck. "Oh, don't you look handsome, Ser Pounce-a-Lot," the mage cooed, using a high-pitched voice that reminded Lourdes of how her mother had talked to her nephew for the first few years of his life. "Persuaded him to call you Lourdes again? When did he call you that in the first place?"

"Well," Lourdes said breezily lightly, pausing to get a drink from her waterskin. "Him and I go way back."

"Oh?" Anders questioned, raising an eyebrow suggestively. "Way back, huh? Old lovers?"

The commander choked on the water, coughing and spurting it onto the ground in front of her. Anders laughed once, before giving her what he hoped was a helpful thump on the back. Though he had meant for it to clear her windpipe of water, it really just made her stumble forward a few paces. "No!" Nathaniel glanced over his shoulder as he walked a hundred feet or so in front of them, scouting. Lourdes lowered her voice. "I mean. No. I knew him when we were kids."

"Really? The Hero of Ferelden was friends with a Howe before she saved her country? Now I have to ask."

But they were approaching their destination and Lourdes could already see someone who looked to be in some kind of distress flagging them down. "Later," she promised Anders, going to talk to a traveler who had been robbed by someone she described as looking 'like that dark-haired fellow you've got with you, but with green eyes and a fatter middle and commoner clothing.'

"Congratulations," Anders said under his breath as they set off again, trying to hunt this man down. He couldn't have gotten far, after all, if he had stolen as much as the woman had claimed. A single man carrying a crate of goods wasn't likely to move very fast, especially when the woman hadn't mentioned a horse. "She just described half the men in Ferelden."

"It's not likely we'll catch him," she hesitantly admitted. "If he has any wits about him, he's not going to use the road. He also didn't bring a horse with him, which means he probably has some sort of stash close by. We'll ask around for him, anyway, just in case."

As Lourdes was acquiring rooms for herself and her companions at a small inn, she asked if anyone had seen him anyway. And nobody had. Or, rather, too many people had – the man's description seemed to match pretty much every man who came to the inn.

"'e sounds like ol' Ted!"

"Nah, that's Bert if I've ever 'eard him described!"

Lourdes sighed, heading to the dining room she had coaxed the innkeeper to let them use. It had been surprisingly easy; all she had to do was mention that she was the Warden-Commander (and thus also the Hero of Ferelden) and he had offered it at a discount for their private use.

"Has anyone seen him?" Sigrun questioned, shoveling food into her mouth like there was no tomorrow. Which, for a member of the Legion of the Dead, there might not be.

"Yes," Lourdes said with a scowl, sitting down next to the dwarven woman in the surprisingly plush seats of the chairs. It wasn't often that she got to sit in a cushioned chair – at the Keep, the dining hall chairs weren't actual chairs – they were uncomfortable

Nathaniel raised an eyebrow at her tone and expression. "Yet you don't sound pleased about it."

"No, because about fifty people swear to the Maker that it sounds just like Ted or Garth or Bert or whoever," Lourdes explained, taking a roll from the basket the innkeeper's wife had set out for them. "I really don't think we're ever going to find this guy."

"Probably not," Anders agreed from his spot around the table. He was pulling Ser Pounce-a-Lot from his pack and setting him in a spare chair. "Do you think the innkeeper has any scraps she'd be willing to give me? Or, well, Ser Pounce-a-Lot, I mean."

Sigrun shrugged, standing up and stretching. "You might ask her when she comes to refill your bowl. I'm going to bed, though. If you need me, I'll be in my room. Well. Our room." To save on money, the two boys were sharing one room (two beds, though, Nate had insisted on that) and the two girls were sharing another. "Night!"

A chorus of 'night!' met the dwarf as she left the room. And then near silence met the room as Nathaniel quietly ate his food and Lourdes bit into her roll. The noisiest occupants of the room were Anders and his tabby, who seemed to be playing a game with a spare bit of yarn.

Eventually, Nate stood and cleared his throat. "I, too, am going to bed," he said, gathering his small pack of belongings. "Goodnight, Lourdes. Night, Anders." And the dark-haired man was gone, leaving the three occupants of the room alone.

"You know," Anders said slowly when Nathaniel had gone. "I think he still doesn't like me very much. He said goodnight to you, but he only said night to me."

"I think you're reading too much into it," Lourdes said with a short laugh. "You're growing on him."

Anders considered this, still absently dangling the string in the air in front of Ser Pounce-a-Lot. The cat swiped with purpose, splitting open the mage's palm with a ripping slice of a claw. "Ouch," the mage said, releasing the string and examining his palm instead. A soft light washed over his hand and the small scratch was sealed. "So, I've been thinking."

She snorted, using the piece of roll she hadn't yet eaten to soak up some of the hot stew. "Change of pace for you?"

"Funny," Anders said, his fingertips dancing across the grainy wooden pattern of the table. "I was actually wondering how you became a Grey Warden. I mean, I've heard a lot of stories and rumors. I'll admit that learning you were friends when Nate when he was younger sort of wipes out some of those theories, but still. I'd like to know which one's right."

Stories? There were a lot of stories and rumors about her? Lourdes almost groaned. Some of those couldn't be flattering. "What have you heard?"

"Well, do you want the most outlandish story I've ever heard or the most plausible one?"

She considered this, folding her hands around the bowl as she thought. "Both," she said finally. "This could be entertaining."

"Alright," he stroked his face thoughtfully. "Most outlandish… you were once a member of a traveling Orlesian circus – you were the sword swallower. But you had been practicing fighting with swords as long as you had been swallowing them. One night, there was a rowdy group of armed men who refused to pay the admission fee. Your skill was a blade was expertly used to disarm the men. It was your reluctance to kill them as well as your ability to hold back and be merciful that impressed a Grey Warden recruiter in the audience."

Lourdes laughed, trying to imagine the stoic Duncan at a circus. "Why would a Grey Warden be watching a circus perform?"

"I've no idea," he admitted with a laugh. "I don't expect many Wardens visit Orlesian circuses. That's why it's the most outlandish."

"And the most plausible?"

"The most plausible one is rather simple. You were a commoner who worked next to a weapon smith shop and you picked up skills from the weapon smith. The Grey Warden recruiter was in the weapon smith shop and saw you and asked you to help him test out some steel. You nearly bested him and he recruited you."

"Wow," she said. That was simple and almost sounded as if it could be true. It had enough of a twist so that it sounded like a good story, but not such a huge twist that it made her a sword swallower. "That does sound plausible, you're right."

The mage brushed a stray piece of his hair out of his face. "Are either of those true? Personally, I'm hoping the circus one is the right one. It's very amusing and would be an unexpected twist, as I've never seen you shoving a sword down your throat. The throats of darkspawn, maybe, but not yours."

"No, neither of them is true," she told him, grinning at the look of crushed hope that was on his face. "Sorry. The real story is that I'm the daughter of a teyrn. I've trained with weapons all of my life with my brother. Duncan – that was the Grey Warden who recruited me – came to my home hoping to recruit either me or our best knight."

She was very aware of his eyes on her face as she looked down into her stew, suddenly very busy with getting the last bit of liquid with a piece of bread. "You're not saying something," he observed, his words slow.

"I'm not saying what? I just told you my entire life story."

"No, you didn't. You're lying," he said hesitantly, afraid of accusing his commander of lying to him. "Or… hiding, I guess, would be a more accurate term. You're not telling me everything."

"Well, you haven't told me everything about you," she pointed out. She wasn't going to surrender the woes of her life without knowing something about him first. People tended to get sympathetic and awkward when she told them that her entire family had been murdered. She didn't want that to happen now. "An eye for an eye."

"Alright, then. My name is Anders. I'm twenty and four. I'm an apostate. I discovered I was a mage when I was five and I could make it snow in my room. I managed to hide this fact until I was fourteen and I was sent to the tower when my family found out. I like cats. I don't like the Circle. I'm an apostate slash Grey Warden. I also make a mean rabbit stew."

She smiled. "When you don't add too many paice leaves," she reminded him. "Otherwise it tastes horrible."

"I said I was sorry about that."

"I know," Lourdes said with a laugh, standing and stretching much like Sigrun had done. "I forgive you, but my tastebuds don't. Anyway. I'm going to bed now. Try not to irritate Nathaniel too much before morning."

He sighed, lazily petting Ser Pounce-a-Lot. "I can't promise anything."