I'll Keep a Candle Lit – We're back in business, baby!

Chapter Seven: Weather Never Ever

So, I'm not sure how long it's been, but I've had a string of computer problems eventually culminating in buying a new laptop with my student loan money and setting up a new wireless router. And that's the good news! The bad news:

Lent is early this year!

Now, I usually don't broadcast what I give up for Lent because I think that takes away from the sacrifice of it. (Mmhm, Catholic. We've got a thing for sacrifice) But this year, I'm giving up fanfiction because it's the one thing that would completely and totally suck to not have. So, just as I get my computer back online, I'm giving fanfic up until Easter. I might still write it, because being without the creative outlet this long has been driving me slowly insane, but definitely won't be reading or publishing it. So, in apology, I whipped this mini chapter up for y'all.

I hadn't planned on this at all until a few nights ago, lying awake with my sick baby brother (seriously, no sleep in days) I listened to the rain hitting the windows and pelting against the glass with the wind and I just knew I'd have to write about the first rainstorm in the tower. It just had potential, you know? And then the idea of family traditions came in, and Andraste's shin bone... Lots of stuff bouncing around in a short chapter. I'm very out of practice.

I also apologize to any German speakers out there for my "Anders." I triple checked my Google Translate, but there's room for error there. It's only two sentences, I promise.

And, for anyone interested, I put up a tiny little mini-rant on my profile about non-con. It pertains to this story as well as kind of a warning for future readers about how I will or won't handle the idea.

And finally (I think) the ridiculously long title of this fic is my unreferenced version of the song the Dodo Bird sang in the Disney animated Alice in Wonderland. I have no reason why. I just sing it to myself all the time.

I Never Ever Ever Do A Thing About the Weather (For the Weather Never Ever Does a Thing For Me)

Contrary to popular belief, the Magi Tower of Kinloch Hold did have windows.

Granted, they were magically sealed and barred, but they did let in light and the unchanging scenery of Lake Calenhad. Sometimes the enchantments wore away, as the incident of the Anders in the night had proven, but from the bottom to the top, the walls of the tower were evenly spaced with tall, thin windows of thick, warped glass.

Wynne woke up with the certain, undefinable feeling that something was different. In a tower full of people who could manipulate destructive forces of nature at will, she'd thought that she would have been past that at this point, but the fact of the matter was that she remained distinctly perturbed throughout her entire morning routine. It wasn't until she encountered the first group of apprentices that she got an inkling of what was wrong.

The apprentices let out a collective gasp as the window they gathered around rattled, the sound quickly followed by a series of small taps.

It was raining.

Wynne let her grin show plainly on her face as she glanced past the knot of heads to see the grey sky and hear a low, distant rumble of thunder that drew shrieks from the youngest of the group.

"Did you see that?" One older girl turned to her friend. "Real lightning!"

"It's so much prettier than the stuff we make," another cooed.

Wynne sighed contentedly. The changing of the weather was always a favorite time of year, but she couldn't very well let them miss breakfast. She ushered them off with a good-humored warning of, "The rain won't go anywhere, but if you don't hurry, the Templars will eat all the porridge!"

She didn't see Anders on the way to breakfast, but that in itself wasn't unusual. If she knew the boy at all, he'd be sneaking off to break out to feel the rain on his face or some other tomfoolery that would only end in tears. She forced the worry down and instead basked in the general aura of revelry as the tower residents – mage and Templar alike – tittered and gossiped and perked up at the sheer novelty of the first winter rain blowing up on Lake Calenhad. The newness would wear off, she knew, and in a few short months, there would be endless complaints of the cold and the damp, but for now, they were excited, and Wynne couldn't help but feel happy for them.

After breakfast, the apprentices trailed off to their classes, and Wynne stopped by the library to pick up a reference for her current thesis on nonmagical treatments for lockjaw. The Revered Mother in the tower had commissioned the research, and Wynne wanted to get the majority of her contribution completed before the winter's usual crop of breathing illnesses and melancholy swamped the infirmary. In her preoccupation, she nearly stumbled over the boy on the floor outside of her office.

"Anders?" Wynne toed him dubiously as her mind flailed desperately around the abrupt shift in focus. "What are you doing down there? Aren't you supposed to be studying runes right now?"

"Primal magic, actually." Anders hauled himself to his feet and stepped out of her way, his arms wrapped around himself self-consciously. "Probably going to be ice again, so I'm not missing anything."

"You're so sure?" Wynne unlocked the door and waved her hand, making the candles flare to life. "Oh, come in. If you're going to get caught skipping classes, I don't want it to be outside my office. I refuse to be implicated in your schemes, young man."

For once, Anders didn't rise to the bait, picking listlessly at a loose bit of thread from the paisley portion of his robes instead. He fiddled with the books at her desk, frowning thoughtfully at "The Unseen Menace: the Demons of Disease."

"What in the Void?"

Wynne waved her hand dismissively. "Research. That one is from a radical healer in Nevarra. Interesting enough, but I don't think you're here to debate disease demons versus germ theory. What's the matter? Have you come down with a cold?"

Anders shook his head mutely, moving on to prod at a small case containing an old gag gift from Irving, a "genuine certified" fragment of Andraste's shin bone.

"If you don't start talking, I'm dosing you with elfroot syrup and beginning forced bedrest." Wynne sat down at her desk and began arranging blank vellum and sharpening a quill. "I'd have thought you'd be out there watching the rain like the other mages."

Anders twitched and moved to sit with his backside resting on the back of one of Wynne's chairs, facing away from her. His hands twitched some more before they settled for gripping the chair on either side of himself.

"My mother loved the rain."

Wynne's hands stilled for a second and she shot his back an inquisitive glance. When he didn't continue, she resumed her sharpening.

Anders was silent for a while before her carried on as if there had been no pause. "It was one of the few times she would smile like that. I mean, she smiled, sure, but it was always kind of nervous. My father would drink a lot, and sometimes, when he came home, he would be mad."

Wynne broke her silence then. "Was he ever violent?"

Anders lifted a shoulder in a shrug. "Sometimes. It wasn't a big deal. Lots of the tenant farmers spent extra on Brother Ralph's whiskey. My mother never complained, at least."

Wynne's mouth twisted bitterly, though she knew the boy couldn't see it. "Just because something is common doesn't make it right."

"I know that," Anders said placidly, though he didn't turn to face her. Instead, he seemed enraptured with the loose string he was fiddling with.

"You said something about the rain," Wynne prompted.

"Oh, that." Anders laughed, but the sound seemed more like grinding glass shards into stone than anything containing joy. "Can we just drop it?"

"You were the one who mentioned it," Wynne said reasonably, trying to feel out how much to push. "I just think that you would feel better if you got it off your chest. I know that the first year is the hardest, and with the weather changing…"

Anders turned and dragged the chair sideways before throwing himself down into it. "Just say it. We're all thinking it: the rain is exciting and new and not-boring, but why can't we just step outside to feel it? How would that hurt? I've never seen anyone turn abomination or cut their wrists open because of a few raindrops."

Wynne slowly, deliberately set down the sharpened quills and the small knife, focusing on that simple task so that Anders couldn't read the agreement in her eyes. Letting him know that she felt just as trapped as he did would be like throwing lantern oil on embers – she didn't want to open that can of worms just yet. The tower just wasn't ready for an Anders-scale rebellion so soon.

"Is that why you're not watching the raindrops like your classmates?"

Anders' mouth twisted and he turned his face away from her. "It's not… I can't. I just can't."

"Because of your mother?"

Anders didn't quite nod. His head just bowed further, so that he seemed to be staring at the floor. Wynne watched him with unconcealed concern.

"Rain was like… like a holiday to my mother," he said eventually, to the floor. "I don't think it rained much in the Anderfels. She called it the life of the land, and she would smile that smile. If we had a little extra, she would make this sweet bread. She only made it on rainy days. She wouldn't even make it on feast days. Only when it rained. My pa wouldn't even drink on those days, and everything felt… perfect, until the rain stopped." Anders shrunk further in on himself. Wynne almost didn't hear what he said next, "I'm never going to see her again, am I?"

Wynne tried to comfort him. Really. But the words stuck in her throat like uncooked dumplings. Every apprentice reached this point sooner or later. The finality of their life sentence would close around them like a noose, and they' end up either breaking down completely or finding someone to hold them together. That said, Wynne stood up, walked around her desk, knelt before him, and drew Anders into a tight embrace.

That was obviously the right response, for Anders didn't push her away, only slid down until they were once again kneeling on the floor, rocking together.

"Ich möchte diesen Ort zu verlassen," Anders whispered into her shoulder. "Ich vermisse meine Mutter."

Wynne didn't speak Anders, but she found herself whispering back, "I know, I know. It will get better."

"Will it?"

Wynne swallowed the lump in her throat. He was so young, still. How could she tell him that yes, the pain eventually fades, but there were still moments when, randomly, she would stop and think 'where is my son? what is he doing?' and it cut like a knife every time. Could she tell him of the tears she'd shed every month until her cycles stopped for the children and family she would never have? How much it had hurt to recommend the father of her child for a transfer out of Ferelden, just to protect him? Could she tell him that by now, she could barely remember anything before the tower, that her parents were likely dead and she'd never gotten to say goodbye?

"Yes," she said. "It will."

Weeks later, winter was swiftly consuming the tower. She looked up one day to see a familiar shaggy blonde head, facing out the window. Rain fell outside, and he watched it with a jaw clenched tight and stormclouds reflected on hard brown eyes.

It wasn't better, she thought.

But it would get there eventually.