"You're looming, Hawke," Merrill doesn't glance up from the board in front of her, her chin propped on one curled hand. "You know I can't concentrate when you loom."
"And your time's almost up, Daisy," Varric taps the nib of his quill against the hourglass, the ensuing *tinktinktink* a hammer against the front of Wil's skull.
He chuckles at the way she closes her eyes like it's an effort. He'd warned her that her week long tactic of avoiding hangovers by carefully maintaining a low but constant level of inebriation was going to backfire, and he's taking no small amount of glee in her suffering, never mind the silver she owes him.
"Give Merrill as much time as she needs," Wil leans against the doorframe and stares down towards the main floor of the Hanged Man. Her vision is gritty and it feels as if the normally dim tavern lighting has been replaced with the sun. "We're not wagering anything."
The elf makes a frustrated noise.
"No, we need to play by the rules." It's followed by the sound of fingers pummeling wood as Merrill struggles to come up with a word before she loses her turn to Varric, who is patiently re-tabulating their scores.
He's too polite to point out that it would take an intervention by Andraste herself for Merrill or Wil to have even a slight chance at winning.
"Hawke?"
"Hmmm?" Wil manages to stumble her attention back to the elf even while keeping the steps in her periphery.
"Does kennel have one n, or two?" Her nose scrunches. "Or is it one l? I can never remember and I always want to spell it with two everything. Like Merrill. Only...for dogs."
"Two ns, one l...is that your turn?" Finally realizing that she can't force someone to appear simply by thinking hard enough, as if she hadn't been trying that trick since Father died, Wil returns physically and mentally to their round of Wordsmith. She's barely in her seat when Merrill carefully lays out three wooden tiles next to a g and spells... "Frog."
"Yes," her hands clasp as she studies the board for a few seconds before closing her turn with an emphatic nod. "Frog."
Wil lifts her eyes, hoping to exchange a knowing glance with Varric, but he's occupied himself with scratching her score in and humming throatily, which means that he's already got a play in mind and it's going to make his lead over them completely insurmountable.
"I thought the entire point of this game was so Merrill and I could find out what it feels like to win something for once," Wil grouses, her arms crossing over her stomach, and then wonders if one of the reasons why she's so anxious for Anders to just show up already isn't because he's a walking, talking hangover cure and she could certainly use one, if only to get through the evening with her friendships intact.
Merrill's already a bit sad and frowny, anyway. Varric's tried his usual tactics, but instead of answers delivered in her usual daft and brilliantly scattered way, she'd only murmured something about a damaged book and turned her attention to a particularly detailed carving along the table's edge.
"I don't need to win anything," Merrill fidgets with the tattered fall of her scarf and offers Varric a quick little grin that does nothing to reduce the distance in her eyes. "I just like playing a game I understand. Plus, it's harder to cheat at Wordsmith."
"I bet Isabela could make it happen," Wil cracks and settles back into her chair. "Tiles hidden in her cleavage..."
"Her cleavage if you're lucky," Anders comes in with such suddenness, like a storm blown inland from the sea, and drops into the seat next to Wil with such weight that she's almost afraid to ask him who he's seen that's put him in such a dramatically foul mood.
But she does ask, because it's him and Maker forbid she ever not be curious. Also, it's normal. The words Are you all right? are normal.
Your entire manic thought process? Totally not normal.
"Anders!" Merrill perks, her face opening at his presence. Despite knowing that Anders was supposed to join them that evening, she's very much surprised at his arrival. And pleasantly so. "Hawke has been worried."
There's no misinterpreting the momentary flicker of incredibly flattered that dances in his dark eyes and is quickly too quickly reclaimed by a fierce light of indignation that turns his voice rough and renders him incapable of politesse.
"They arrested Nicola," his hand smashes against the tabletop for emphasis and Wil's deterred from pressing on who Nicola might be by the way their Wordsmith tiles shake on the game board. "Her daughter escaped the Gallows almost two years ago and the Knight-Commander got a tip the other day that she's been keeping a hovel near the Alienage and...arrested. She'll be hanged for certain and they'll make it public..."
"...because of all of the recent escapes," Wil leans forward, her weight heavy on her elbows.
"Lest anyone else get the idea they can even think nicely about mages and get away with it," his fingers splay across the table top, beautiful instruments of selfless healing that are shaking with the intensity of his bitter rage. "Death for being compassionate...death for loving your own child. I just can't...," he turns to Wil and it's as if the past year never happened and the two of them have grown only closer since their return from the Deep Roads. His concern is near violent and the heat it stirs between them volatile. "This is what they would have done to you, what they might yet if they discover the company you keep."
Wil blinks, the coarse and unpleasant spinning of her head a distant worry in the face of all of him. She's spent the past week in a state of inebriated floatation, drifting above the wonderings of what to do next. Now that Hightown has failed her and Anders is no longer just a memory both cherished and difficult, she can perhaps move on to, or stumble into, a new sort of existence. Leandra is sharing only silence, the house has ceased to offer her projects that she possesses the skills, or patience, to attempt, and her finances have stabilized themselves. Bodahn drew up a budget and seeing a figure has instilled in her a restlessness she can't quite define.
But that restlessness is a distant second to the Anders restlessness. Perhaps it's his brief touch and consuming gaze, full of desperate yearning and so much pained restraint, that has pushed her across the line.
Or maybe it was spending an entire week drunk and doing little more than reading porn and sleeping.
Whatever the reason, she's got a mind to do something, and sometimes that something involves her hand and a well-worn copy of Forever Knight, and sometimes that something involves another person and, on nights like this one, that something manages to be less base and more...humane.
Like reassuring Anders that the templars are well-aware of the company she keeps, and of his existence in the undercity. That, despite the Knight-Captain's shuddering resignation when he discovered that Anders had returned to Kirkwall, they actually keep their polite distance from his clinic.
Which would require her to admit to the patrols she's maintained this past year, and to the fact that she's known since well before the Deep Roads that Cullen, at least, is well aware of the apostate in the sewers and that could go over very, very, very badly and she had neither the heart nor the head for badly this evening, so she offers him a slightly dizzy grin and pushes at his shoulder.
"Good thing the Knight-Captain and I are like this," her fingers cross with a flourish. "We exchange presents on Satinalia and everything. Granted, I haven't much use for a chastity belt, but the thought was quite...," she trails off as Anders frowns, his glare uncertain. "Kidding."
"I know," he states flatly and this is the problem I have with you, Wil Hawke. The kidding. "It's serious."
"And I'm wealthy," she reminds him and wishes that it came out the way she meant it. Not in a jealous? way or a luxuriate in the richness of my presence, undercity scum way. It's, "I mean...nothing gets a priest to drop her knickers or a templar to turn his head faster than a little well-placed coin. Or was that a little well-placed flattery?"
"Or a well-placed kiss," Varric adds, jovial despite the wary way he referees the tension in the air. Wil's doing what she used to, before, but it's new again and showing signs of strain, of her still unsettled heart and lack of practice. Anders is caught in a place of genuine pain, of fear for his fellow mages and his friends and she's treading heavily on the irreverent side of the affection/irreverence continuum.
"Perhaps," she smirks. "Whatever, the point is that morality is almost always for sale...it's why I wanted to go on that expedition in the first place and, Beth aside," it comes out and sounds like something she's able to say on a regular basis. "Beth aside, I might as well use my status to protect all of us whenever I can. Granted, of course, it's deserved. Sometimes I have my doubts about Merrill."
The elf blushes, sarcasm something she's actually learned to get every now and again and her presence at the Hanged Man, with dinner and games and Varric hiding their scores to save them shame, is all the reassurance she needs that Wil doesn't actually doubt her worthiness.
Anders' expression turns from frustrated to glower and for a moment Wil's scared she's lost him to her flailing attempts at lightening his mood but then his hand is on her thigh, high and protective and desire crashes through her as fingertips press possessively into her flesh and his mouth pushes against her hair so that he can whisper these words in five puffs of warm air:
"Stay out of this, Wil."
Then he joins a man she'd not noticed but who is standing just beyond the doorway of Varric's rooms, a man who fills the hall with broad shoulders, an arrogantly lifted chin and curious eyes that hold her own, curious eyes that search and clearly wonder what she might have to offer anyone, but especially someone like Anders.
And then they're both gone and it's almost as if Anders hadn't shown up at all that evening. Only the warmth of his hand and his breath remain, fading on her skin but maintaining their intensity at the core of her.
"It was nice to see Anders, again," Merrill cradles her chin and looks to Varric. "It's cute how she worries over him, isn't it?"
Varric can't give any opinion at the moment; he's too busy devising, his eyes alight with a plan to keep Wil from stumbling out and after Blondie because, despite what his departing words actually were, Varric is well aware that all she heard was: "Protect me, Mina. Please."
"So, Hawke. A bird's told me you're in the mood for a game that you can win," he pulls his spectacles off and leans back in his chair. "And clearly a distraction wouldn't hurt."
She raises one eyebrow. I'm listening.
"Then do I have an opportunity for you."
The early evening throng in the bazaar is of no concern to Araby, his size and confidence alone enough to part the crowd before him, while Anders follows in outwardly meek silence, keeping to the larger man's wake.
He cannot be trusted...
Hands curl tight, rough and bit down fingernails digging into his palms, and the muscles in his forearms twitching under faint electrical current.
It's not all magic, but he's holding that memory away from this.
What's most frustrating is the lack of autonomy Anders has at the moment. All he can do is follow Araby's dark head as it hovers over most of the crowds around them and hope that he's not being followed, and hope that there are no fissures or debris in the road to trip him up or separate them because from the set of Araby's shoulders and the speed with which he drives them forward, stopping to pick up fallen mages is not a priority of his.
He wants you specifically.
Perhaps, Anders relaxes his hands, willing warmth but not light to flood his tension stiffened fingers. If Araby does turn on him, he wants to be as prepared as he possibly can be, although fighting anywhere outside of his clinic is high on the list of inadvisable endeavors, especially without Wil's coin to distract any witnesses or Varric's quick storytelling to weave a protective veil around him.
So he remains on guard until they have swept through the undercity to find themselves alone in Anders' clinic, the doors drawn closed and Araby regarding him with cold eyes.
"What did you tell your friend as we left?" His voice is measured, each syllable snapped off at the close.
Breath catching, Anders cannot quell the sudden fire of panic in his stomach.
"I told her to stay out of this," keeping his tone even is a struggle. "She'll listen."
This earns a mocking laugh and Araby even goes as far as to clap his hands in delight.
"Somebody is blinded by...whatever it is you think she offers," his cheeks suck in for a moment. "Andraste knows I can't see the appeal, but perhaps I'm too concerned with her connections in Hightown. An association with the Captain of the Guard hasn't exactly aided you, now has it, Anders?"
Bastard. Anders had hoped for his evening to be a pleasant one spent eating bowls of hot stew and listening to Varric spin his stories while Wil added sarcastic interjections and funny little asides and damned if he's going to let this man further ruin his night.
"Just tell me what you want, Ever," Anders unhooks his pauldrons, his skin itchy with a faint sheen of sweat earned from their scurry through Lowtown and the sewers. "Or haven't I been a good little boy?"
For a second, Araby responds with a flash of white teeth sharp against his ebony shaded jaw. There's menace in that smile, and a faint whiff of lasciviousness that prickles unpleasantly along Anders' cheeks.
"Better than I expected," he demurs, leaning back against the latched door. "Which is why I'm here this evening. Actually, that's not true. I'm here because you're a healer."
Fuck.
"Is...someone hurt?" Anders is uncertain if he can force himself to care if it's Araby himself who needs attention.
The man pushes away from the wall and closes the space between himself and Anders with three large steps, a fierceness in his gaze that turns the air around him indistinct.
"I have a daughter in the Gallows," he pauses for a moment to let that bit of information sink in. "And here you thought I did this all for the glory."
Anders somehow manages to keep himself from asking what his daughter thought about his part in getting innocent mages made tranquil.
"And?"
"And she will be arriving here close to midnight. Not alone, but I am uncertain who will be in her support," that this is out of his control is obvious, and it tells Anders much about young Lady Ever. "What matters is this- you do what she asks of you. Anything she asks of you."
"Anything?" Anders loathes the sound of that, even more than he loathes being told what to do. In his Circle days, he'd heard stories about the lengths that some escaped mages would go to avoid recognition. Beyond merely growing a beard or coloring their hair, they would brand themselves as property or opt for other means of permanent disfigurement. Such desperation is on the far edge of sanity, but it is a madness he understands all too well. That doesn't mean he'll participate, however. Not without some reassurance. "I heal...I don't maim."
This earns a bark of hard laughter and a sneer. "Your mind is a horrible place, mage, to find itself at such conclusions...if you weren't so skilled..."
"Nobody is forcing you to seek my aid," Anders snarls it out, his patience obliterated in the face of such contempt. "My skill is reserved for those in need, and I will not have it exploited by you or any other."
Air seems to leave the room as Araby contemplates this assertion, his eyes narrowing in increments until they are mere slits that allow the barest glint of grey beyond dark lashes and what Anders is noticing are purpled lids. In this moment, Anders sees a multitude of lines, a worry of crow's-feet and furrows that will remain no matter the mood
"You will do as Miriam asks and, in return, I will not interfere with your participation in the underground," his teeth grind together, the sounds raking unpleasantly up Anders' spine. "Nor will I request your further aid in personal affairs."
What is it he expects that he's so willing to relinquish control?
Anders blinks dumbly, his head humming with countless possibilities and this could be selling his soul, but it could also be his chance to do exactly what he'd thought he'd be doing after Araby had first approached him. Freeing mages, fighting back against the templars on their own grounds, being hope for those without.
But at what cost?
"I will do what I can to ensure your daughter's safety," Anders keeps his voice level. "And if I fail to do anything she asks of me..." he shrugs and waits for an incisive comment about his sudden confidence, and maybe even a physical threat. Araby merely nods, perhaps understanding that this is the best he can hope for from a willful Anders.
"I will kill you," Araby murmurs mildly, although it seems to settle the deal. His eyes rove over the clinic, reassessing the cleanliness of the facilities and visible supplies. Now that he has his agreement, his mind is elsewhere and Anders doesn't need the clarity of anger to notice all the ways that concern and fear have surfaced. "I suppose this will have to suffice."
And then he turns to leave.
"So not even a hint? If I'm going to do this, I might as well be prepared," he tilts his head. "That can only be good for Miriam."
Araby hesitates at the door, his chin lowered as he glances back over his shoulder.
"She's...expecting," the word is carefully presented. "And you're going to do your part to ensure that the child remains as free from the Chantry as she should have been."
The moon hangs low and yellow over Kirkwall, illuminating the white docks in bright but uncertain light and leaving pools of impenetrable darkness perfect for obscuring sneaky rogues and their far less stealthy warrior friends.
Wil's crouched, her sword propped on a crate in front of her, Varric somewhere on her left with Bianca at the ready. Their focus is on two boys, the eldest no more than sixteen and the other at least two years his junior, and the pile of unmarked goods that they guard with daggers nervously drawn.
"So Athenril's gotten no better at hiring since the last time I saw her," Wil keeps it at a whisper. "Unless those kids are just a distraction and she's got some actual muscle tucked around here, waiting for trouble."
His response is a derisive snort, not that she expected more. Varric's never been particularly adept at pretending to find Wil's former associates anything but beneath her.
"People thought the same thing about you, Hawke," he leans forward and cranes his neck towards the alley behind them. Company is expected and he's getting tired of waiting. "I knew better, but to most people you were just another skinny refugee. Sadly disposable."
Although it shouldn't, nostalgia washes over her and she can clearly remember nights spent near this very dock, alone or with Sorrell while Bethany hid under cover. It hadn't been fun, and there were many nights spent fretting over possible trips to the brig, but it had been a simple job and a far simpler life.
But it was also a life woefully devoid of storytelling dwarves and abominations, of pirates and weirdly reclusive elves. And she'd lived with Gamlen, the recollection of which is enough to make her shake out a little, like a dog come in from the rain.
"Shhhh," Varric cautions her with a smirk. "We don't want to scare them off, do we?"
"Maybe we do," she looks the kids over again, an idea forming. "I get them to scram or let me take watch and then we wait for your friends to show up. They start bossing me around, you shoot at their feet a few times, and then we...go back to the Hanged Man and wake Merrill up?"
It's too dark to read Varric's expression, but he allows the tiniest sigh and shakes his head at friends. The men he's hoping to see are former associates of Bartrand's who had conveniently quit Kirkwall before the abandoned members of the expedition had returned from the Deep Roads. Their homecoming a few weeks ago had gone largely ignored by the younger Tethras. Well, allegedly. Wil somehow doubts that interfering with petty criminal activities has ever been Varric's usual go-to when in need of a distraction, and yet here they are.
"Fine," he relents. "Saves me having to be careful about where I shoot."
"Hey!" Wil knocks him solidly against the shoulder as she stands. "If I end up with a bolt in my ass..."
"No worries, kiddo," his chuckle follows her from out of cover. "I'm here to improve your night, not Blondie's."
She ignores him, instead focusing on sheathing her sword between confident strides down the dock. Besides the claymore, she can't imagine that she's cutting a terribly imposing figure, dressed as she is for a night of Wordsmith and dinner and not getting into Lowtown skirmishes. Still, these are young men and they are practically obligated to posture, as if she is a threat.
As if they could possibly present a challenge.
They pull up ratty hoods, pointing at each other and at her with their sad little iron daggers, their language bravado but their accent we probably shouldn't be out alone at this hour.
She stops herself well out of slashing range and places one hand on her hip, assuming the most casual posture and attempting to avoid any lungey business. Or maybe they have an apostate hiding in the shadows like I used to. Watch out for falling fireballs.
"So I take it Athenril told you I was going to be shorter," she pauses as they exchange confused glances. "And possibly a man?"
"Beardy," one boy mumbles, uncertainty showing in the wavering of his main hand.
"She would. Fuck. You turn a woman down once and next thing you know it's slander slander slander," Wil kicks at the dock in frustration and then grabs her breasts, pushing them up the best she can. "I mean, do I look like a man"
She can almost hear Isabela giggling to herself at that. Fortunately, it works well enough on the boys whose defenses drop completely and the older one even pulls back his hood to ask:
"Athenril wanted to...with you?"
"Well...again," Wil shrugs and takes a few steps forward and they let her. "I guess that's probably why she took it so very hard. I suppose it did reflect...poorly on my opinion of her abilities," it comes with a smirk. Athenril might actually hunt me down and stab me for this. "But you'll have to talk to her if you want details...I've got to get this stuff to my distributors."
The boys exchange uneasy glances, as if they suddenly remember why they're here and what they're supposed to be doing, which is not fantasizing about their boss.
Nothing a handful of sovereigns can't handle. She whips around to fix the unhooded boy with a smile.
"Last time I checked, Athenril was paying slave wages...if anything at all," she tosses him a few coins, offering his partner a couple more. Then, remembering with cold clarity what it was like to be where they are, "I'd buy yourselves some nicer equipment, if this is going to be a thing that you do regularly. I think Lirene in Lowtown is expecting a shipment soon...you might check it out in a few days and see if you can't find yourself a bargain."
"Oh."
They stare at their palms and the coins that gleam there, disbelief clear on their sunburned faces. Wil thinks to ask from where in Ferelden they hail, but a quick whistle interrupts her thoughts before any more can be said.
Oh.
Danger sharpens the air as armed men, a dozen at the least, begin to pour forth from an alleyway across from where she'd left Varric.
Fuck.
"Serah Hawke!" The leader is faceless, helmed and dressed in fine armor. While she does not recognize his voice as it echoes off the stone around them, it's easy enough to assume that he's one of Bartrand's old cronies and even easier to guess that much of what he's heard about her isn't flattering in the least.
Too bad Isabela isn't around tonight...her distraction probably would have involved nothing more dangerous that making fools of ourselves at the Rose.
The sound of swords being drawn, the soft schkift of metal scraping against leather scabbards runs like a cold hand up her back.
Fuck.
But at least this is a game she can usually win.
Miriam Ever delivers a girl named, in a breathless sob as Anders carefully rests the cleaned and swaddled child against her sweat-soaked breast, Luisa.
"It was my mother's name," she inhales the scent of the infant's head, her nose practically buried in a thatch of damp black curls that Anders had done his best to clear of blood and...stuff.
Delivering babies has never been his favorite task and even if this one had gone smoothly, her labor shortened by a potion she'd taken before leaving the Gallows, this occasion is being further marred by one additional thing- the child's father.
He's been looming in the corner since he'd made her comfortable on one of the cots. He'd been content to stand aside and let Anders and two women whom he's never met before handle the actual birth and Anders knows that the man is waiting for Anders to slip, waiting for Anders to abuse his magic or to hurt Miriam.
Why would a mage be with a templar? With Luisa well and out of his hands, he can withdraw from the situation. The women, both clearly experienced in midwifery, take over so he can shrug out of his blood-splattered jacket and begin gathering soiled linens for the wash. But even busying himself is not enough, especially when the man steps forward to place his hand on Miriam's shoulder, his gauntleted fingers offering a tender squeeze of I'm here for you and it's wrong all wrong. There's no way she could love him, and yet the smile that spreads across her face at his touch is breathtaking and the three of them, mother mage and captor father and the poor babe that should never be, are the very portrait happiness.
Why does he get this? Why?
Anders is not sure who in his head is demanding this. Certainly he has no desire to...certainly he realizes that no matter what happens next...
Certainly this cannot end well.
And soon it becomes clear that both Miriam and her templar realize this, as he pulls away, head bowed. Anders expects for the man to leave, to return to the Gallows.
Please return to the Gallows, his plea is silent, his head aching from the restraint of not tearing into the man, of not forcing him to confront the ugly truth behind the pretty young woman and the small babe that the mid-wives have gotten to suckle at her breast.
This is not love...she could not consent to him the way a non-mage could...not with the threat of unchecked abuse or tranquility if she denied his advances. And even if she'd pursued him, it could not be real affection she felt, for how could anyone care for a man who participates in the subjugation of their own kind? At the very least she is broken and, as dangerous as her life outside of the circle is going to be, she's better off free from the templars' control.
"Ser mage?" One of the mid-wives point towards a small wooden basin, covered now but containing Miriam's afterbirth. He has some idea that things are done with such remnants, things he doesn't wish to consider. "She will be in need of this...and a few of the bloodied rags, too."
The request pulls his attention away from the templar.
"Pardon? Is there..." don't say some kind of ritual. "Why would anyone need those?"
"Because we have to have something to show the Knight-Commander," she states it so plainly, and her expression is so...surprised and Anders' stomach turns as a he sees not only her face, but Miriam's behind her...
Bereft is a word to describe it. Unfathomably so, soul torn and turned inside out. Despite her anguish, there's a calm about her and after she hands the baby to one of the midwives, Anders can see her gathering strength as if strength is something that can be absorbed from the air around them.
Perhaps if you're the right person, it can be.
"Healer," her voice is steady, if not a bit bruised from labor and exhaustion. "I would like for you to clear me for my return."
He'd known it was coming, from the moment she'd passed off her child, who had been named Luisa for her mother.
"But you're free," he whispers, his heart tightening even as Justice stretches within him, yearning to say more words than Anders, who could not imagine rejecting this gift, not only of freedom but of family. When he speaks again, his voice is louder and almost strangled with passion. "Do you know how many mages have died for what you have? How many of us risked our lives and our sanity to get out? And you would return, stroll right back in and gladly resume the shackles of life as a Circle mage. How brainwashed can you be? How..."
"Quiet you," the midwife who has been gathering soiled linens turns on him, bloodsoaked finger pointing at his chest, hovering close.
"This is my decision to make," Miriam carefully gathers the skirts of her sleeping gown and shifts her legs over the edge of the cot, wincing as she does so but warding off her caregivers with an upheld hand. "Father also told me that you would honor my wishes...or have I been mislead?"
"No. You were not mislead," Anders' response is bitter, his conscience battling itself. From the way she watches, grey eyes wary, he could convince not to go back, but the fact that she would need convincing...
If they discover what she's done, they will make her tranquil.
"If they find out...you will be made Tranquil, if not imprisoned," Anders steps around the midwives and crouches to level Miriam's gaze. "They held me in solitary for an entire year, and all I did when I escaped was waste my money on whores. I was starved, denied water and kept in darkness and the Knight-Commander who sentenced me is considered a compassionate man...I have no doubt that Meredith will-"
"I know," she asserts, inching forward so she can speak confidentially. This close he can see the beginnings of the same lines that mark her father's face, although she is far too young for such. "But what if I tried to make it work out here and they found me? What will they do with Luisa? To my father and Tobias? What if they find out about their...associates?" Eyes dart towards the templar in the doorway and of course. No doubt he is leveraging this deception against her. "And I'm not alone, ser mage."
"You'd be better off alone," he snaps and there is only indignation when she withdraws, suppressed anger drawing her brows low although she manages to hold her tongue. "But if pretending to love a man who would not hesitate to run you, or anyone like you, through with his sword is what you want, then..."
She stands, unsteadily, and he does not offer aid. Aid is not needed, apparently. If she feels well enough to make her way to the Gallows...
You are being petty, Anders. He goes to his storage shelves, hands busying themselves with gathering a small cache of poultices and herbs that will ease her post-partum pain. Behind him he hears hushed good-byes and promises from the midwives to keep a close watch on Luisa even after she's in Araby's care. He hears a low murmur and the creak of leather as the templar bids his daughter farewell and Anders wonders how the hypocrite can sleep at night knowing what he's done, and what he's put her through...
"You should go," Anders dumps the poultices into a canvas bag, carelessly dropping it onto Miriam's recently vacated cot. "If..." you change your mind "anything happens on the return, I will be here."
And he allows them leave and continues to think while he does his best to erase the evidence of what had transpired in his clinic that night.
"How can I set all mages free if I fail to convince one to remain free?" He braces himself against Justice's response, the spirit usually downright loquacious when confronted with such doubt.
But instead of reassurance, or strident purpose, there is only the buzz and hum of chaotic thoughts, of cacophony and disappointment and perhaps perhaps the faintest whisper of now we can do so much more.
Wil might be dead.
Wil might wish that she were dead.
Ok. I wish that I were dead because-
"Hawke."
From Wil's vantage point from flat on her back on the dock, Aveline might be twenty feet tall. And her eyes might be on fire, or maybe Wil's on fire were there mages? I could have swore I saw something flamey and I think I smell...
"Are you on fire, Aveline?" She smiles and feels sticky warmth spill from the corner of her mouth, tracing a trail along her cheek towards her hair.
"Am. I. On. Fire?" Incredulity sharpens every word and yes. She is. She must be because faces do not get that scarlet under normal circumstances and maybe looking makes it worse. Wil dutifully tilts her head to the side, until her eyes fall on
Oh. A weeping gut wound. Awesome.
She gags.
"To the Void with you, Hawke." It's a condemnation partnered with strong hands that find Wil's wrists to tug her into a seated position, and even though it hurts she's not going to complain lest Aveline give up and decide to add another body to the carnage that surrounds them.
And it is truly a mess. From where she sits, Wil can see at least ten bodies in various stages of totally fucked up and she even recalls putting a few of them in that condition herself. Further away are the two boys, both standing on their own and speaking with Sorrell while Varric is busy with Bianca.
I can't believe he's still here. I would have ran.
"So...nice night for bloodbath?" She lifts her hands from where they've been keeping her balanced and flashes a pair of crimson palms. "Literally."
"Hawke," Aveline snarls again and this time when she pulls Wil onto her feet she's not pretending to be gentle or concerned, even when her friend staggers back a few steps, slipping in a pool of blood and struggling to stand on a leg that feels as if it might be partially shattered. "Stop it."
Wil freezes. "Like this?"
It hurts.
"Bloody...this!" Aveline kicks at the nearest body, the toe of her boot making a distinctly squishy sound and it's only then that Wil realizes how official her friend is this evening. Instead of her normal plate armor, Aveline's in full ceremonial garb and her ginger locks are falling free of a bun that had probably started the night as a tidy knot.
"Did I interrupt something here?" Wil's confused. From what Varric had told her, this was just a typical Lowtown diversion. A bit of a shipment gets "misplaced" during unloading, Athenril's thugs keep it safe and then a distributor picks it up and Gamlen's your uncle, but don't expect much on namedates or Satinalia. Historically speaking, Aveline has been nothing but perfectly fine with Wil clearing the dark streets of Kirkwall of its more stabhappy wanderers.
"In a many ways, yes," Aveline's hand raises to press against her forehead, a frustrated gesture that Wil has seen a time or two before but there's something different now, as if Aveline is feeling more than just Hawke, you such are a headache. "Do you have any idea who you just wantonly massacred?"
"Wantonly massacred?" Her head itches, and Wil scratches at it before realizing how that's so much smartassery. "Was I frolicking or something? I seem to recall that they attacked me. I was just here to-"
"To what?" Green eyes gleam hard with curiosity. "To cause trouble? To wile away another night because you've got nothing better to do? To prove to yourself how very different you are from the other nobles, who, Maker forbid, don't spend their nights getting drunk in a pit in the middle of Lowtown?"
"We can hear you, you know!" Varric ventures an interruption that earns a chorus of:
"Not helping, Tethras!" backed by "I'll get to you later, dwarf."
"Come on, Aveline," it's a gamble of a plea uttered with as much charm as Wilhelmina Hawke can summon, and sometimes she can summon quite a bit. "It wasn't so long ago that you would have been right here beside me! Remember that? When we would fight together and not just march in lockstep with our noses in the air?"
Aveline shakes her head, brow crumpling in frustration, "I've left you alone for what...three weeks? And ever since it's been reports that you've been seen causing trouble in Free Kirkwall and leaving bodies behind in Hightown and getting into fistfights-"
"Not a fistfight!" One hand goes up, one finger stopping Aveline from saying more. "I was trying to avoid a fight!"
"You were at a soiree. There shouldn't have been a fight to avoid, Hawke," arms open wide as if to say and therein is everything that's wrong with you. "But there was and I don't think I need to ask why."
"He was an ass," Wil sneers. "And you are, too."
"I'm an ass. Fine. I'm also an ass who could slap a pair of irons on your wrists and throw you in the brig for a few weeks, but for some reason I can't," Aveline's hands fall against her thighs in what would be a sign of surrender if they weren't balled into intimidating fists. "You had no idea what was happening here tonight, or who these men were outside of their association with Bartrand Tethras. The fact remains that you shouldn't get yourself involved just because it's a thing to do. If I thought for a second that you were here to help, I might welcome the assistance," her gaze softens for a moment. "You're good in a fight, and I trust you. But you're not a guardsman, and you don't need the money or the infamy."
"So you're saying that I should stick to Hightown unless you need me for back-up?" Wil points to the boys with Sorrell, who she can now see are actually in irons. "And what about them? Wouldn't they have been killed had Varric and I not been here to step in?"
"And you were here to save them?"
"Like you were."
"I was here to catch a criminal who might have lead us to other criminals, including Bartrand, but Varric's spies only told him half of the story, so...," she gestures to the corpses, none of whom are in any condition to lead anyone anywhere.
"You would have gotten here too late!"
"Or maybe they wouldn't have drawn swords on children as quickly as they would a professional thorn," Aveline jabs at the side of her cuirass for emphasis. "People know who you are now, Hawke. Everything you do is going to matter, for better and for worse, and you can't just play at life until something sticks because this," her hands frame Wil herself. "This is not the person you wanted to become."
"Fuck off," Wil mutters, hot and lightheaded and still not entirely certain how this is so different from anything she'd done, or been, before the expedition.
"Just...get out of my sight before I lock you up for your own good. And take Varric with you," Aveline's tone is hard, almost disgusted, but there's a desperate amount of concern in the way her thin brows are pulled together. "I'd recommend seeing your healer on the way. And if the Maker has a sense of irony, he'll be able to talk you back to sanity."
He'd forgotten that his clinic doors were left open after Miriam's departure, so it's a surprise, and a confoundingly pleasant one, when he turns away from his washbasin to see Wil sitting on a cot near the door, knees pressed primly together and the entirety of her covered in dried blood.
"Andraste's ass, Wil," he practically vaults over the beds between them to get at her, bringing a few freshly washed towels and handful of poultices with him. While they are needful things for healing, it also prevents his hands from immediately seizing her and...seizing her. "I shouldn't ask, but what happened to you?"
Her gaze fixes on him as he begins to wipe at her face, searching along her hairline for signs of fresh blood, her eyes glittering in pained mirth.
"What can I say? Merrill really hates losing at Wordsmith."
He laughs, despite himself. Despite how much it hurts and he's missed her-
when he thinks this his fingers slip and curl into her hair and his face dips closer before he remembers
-but this is hard for him to see. Every day he tends to the sick and the injured, the near death and the how aren't you dead yet? Every day there is blood on his hands and someone who might not make it, and it's never fair but it's also never somebody that he...
You don't need her.
And yet even with the blood and the cautiously diverted eyes (despite cheeks that pinken and hips that shift) somewhere else inside him is yes. It's a single candle lit and flickering in a large and drafty room, a single flame that would struggle to illuminate a manuscript without risking destruction to book and reader, but in utter darkness? A single flame is almost unendurably beautiful. Alluring.
Distracting. I have seen the moths that catch fire from their obsession.
It's not the moths that I worry over...he runs his hands along the back of her arms, his focus on the spell that will mend small injuries and the search for larger contusions, sprains or breaks. There's a gash just above her left wrist and he carefully cleans it, applying astringent and a fresh poultice with his fingertips to stave off infection.
"What would you be if you weren't a healer?" She speaks in a rush, as if he'd asked her not to.
He considers for a moment. "A healer, or a mage?" His eyes lift from his task to meet her own. "There's a difference, you know."
She does. "A mage. You had time to have dreams before the Circle squashed them like ants...surely you remember some of them."
Were it anyone else, he might attempt something bitter, something patently untrue and offputting. But this is Hawke and... "I wanted to be a sailor."
"A sailor?" Surprise colors her voice, followed by a sharp intake of air as he moves from her arm to her legs and her left one is a mess.
"Sure! Travel the world, work under the sky. Freedom everywhere and no commitment on dry land. Just nameless wenches in every port," he begins to undo her boot. "Not that I had any idea what a wench was, much less why a nameless wench was preferable to any other. I did have some concept of romance, though."
"With nameless wenches?"
"There was a set of twins in our village, about six years older than me. Greta and Heinrich...both just perfect," he closes his eyes for a moment, picturing them at the market and he's momentarily joined with that covetous young man by the lull of desire. "In my head, all sailors looked like Heinrich and all wenches were Gretas. I mean...that would be living."
"Did you ever think to make your way as a pirate when you escaped?" She dutifully tugs up her trousers so he can have better access to her lower leg, which is bruised and bears no fewer than three egg-sized knots along the shin bone. "I think those would explain why walking seemed like such a terrible idea."
"I would say that I can't believe you made it down here, but...," he takes a damp rag from the pile near her hip and freezes it with a quick ice spell before pressing it against the largest of the knots. "And I considered piracy once or twice. But by the time I made it to a port I'd already learned that most sailors were gnarled sorts and missing limbs were compulsory to the lifestyle. Could you picture me with a peg leg...or a wooden finger?"
She giggles, a sound that is surprisingly similar to Bethany's own girlish glee and it's surprising how easy it is to forget his horrible night and how he'd let a mage return to the Gallows without much of a fight at all...and the ensuing hopelessness.
"I think you make a better healer...low chance of losing a body part and ample opportunity to get handsy with whomever you want," it's a calculated tease, no doubt inspired by the way he's handling her calf.
"Since I can't very well respond to that," he tries to sound chastising, but it's difficult with the beginnings of a smile. "Let me ask you a question..."
"O...kay," she leans forward, anticipating.
"Would you have let Bethany turn herself into the Circle...if that's what she really wanted?"
"What." Not a question. "Seriously?"
"If you don't want to think about it...," he floods her leg with his most potent healing spell, light flaring up from her skin and illuminating the space between them. With it goes his strength and he sags forward, meaning to use the cot for support but getting steadied by her good knee.
"I would have fought her, I would have shouted, pouted and given her the moons if she asked. But," she leans back. "Yes."
"Why?" He stops what he's doing. He'd assumed that she'd insist there was no force in Thedas that could force her to allow such a thing.
"Because refusing her that choice would be wrong," she frowns and Anders sees another echo of regret chase itself across her face. "Besides, I think she would have been fine."
He'd not expected that admission.
"The Circle is a misery, Wil."
"Look at us, Anders," she gives him the wryest of smiles and his heart splits. "Life is a misery sometimes, and always unpredictable...especially for an apostate. Some people find comfort in certainty, even if the cost is personal freedom."
"But they shouldn't have to choose between being the hunted free or the safely imprisoned," he straightens his posture, indignation giving him strength he thought long since depleted. "Too many mages believe that they do, and they just...give up," his eyes search her face, wildly seeking a glimmer of understanding, an I know. "Their safety is an illusion and that illusion is a trap."
"An old trap," she touches his cheek, and not in passing. Her palm is almost defiant against his skin. "Which is why the world needs someone like you."
He turns his face into her hand, the warmth of her touch spreading down his throat and into his chest when normally this question would be asked with the bite of frigid self-contempt. "An abomination?"
She falls away as he reminds her without even meaning to of what it is that stands between them.
"Someone who's willing to poke at the rusty spots in search of a weakness, even if that means losing a finger," Wil forces a smile. "Or a leg."
Or a heart.
"Is there any way I could convince you to poke for me?" He rises to her attempts at humor even as he tries not to think about the compliment paid, how much it hurts and how much he needs to hear it every day. "Although sometimes poking will seem a lot like moving heavy crates and foraging for reagents."
She surprises him by shrugging, her grin turning genuine. "Why not? Maker knows I have enough free time and a serious lack of self-preservation. Besides, it might keep me out of trouble. For a while."
"But just a while," he laughs. "Otherwise, people might stop talking."
A second passes when her expression turns almost anguished, but it's only a moment and then she's chuckling again.
"And Varric would never forgive us for that."
Note from SF: Ah, this chapter. Overly ambitious and delayed by my continued inability to merge the state of being inspired with the state of has access to time and a computer.
Also, RL has been kicking my ass a bit recently. I apologize for anyone who reviewed and didn't get a response. I really do appreciate your feedback so much!
