It had been four years since Varel, the seneschal of Vigil's Keep, had last carried his arlessa bleeding through the castle. The night she went into labor, Varel discovered her collapsed in the throne room, weeping uncontrollably. Arl Teagan had taken most of her men to provide emergency services to flooded settlements in the surrounding area, leaving the keep understaffed. She knew that the baby was dying inside of her and she couldn't find anyone to help her save him.
Tonight was not as bad, at least for Brand. She was out as soon as they entered the main hall, her resolve to maintain a strong face in front of the men evaporating the moment they could no longer see her. Varel, on the other hand, was almost beyond his capability to keep calm while dragging her limp form to the infirmary. With her cloak open, he could clearly see the slice in her leg and the blood oozing from her stomach. Whoever had attacked the Commander of the Grey had not been looking to take prisoners.
The Senior Warden at Vigil's Keep was an elven mage named Fiona, a pale woman with short black and silver hair and endlessly expressive brown eyes. When Varel crashed through the infirmary door, Brand in tow, those eyes went wide with horrified surprise. Obviously, Anders had left out a few details in what was probably a brutally brief briefing.
Within seconds, Fiona and her two apprentices had Brand propped on the edge of a large tub already filled in anticipation of her arrival. Varel watched the three women go to work pulling her armor off, cutting when necessary, and trying not to further the damage with their razor sharp scissors. He could stand it only so long; he was no healer and had never developed a stomach for gore, especially when it came to those he cared about. And Brand looked so... ruined. Wordlessly, he backed out of the infirmary and into the hallway to await word of her well-being, his job done for the moment.
None of the women saw Varel leave, so focused were they on their patient. All were quite unprepared for what they saw when they stripped away the last of her leathers; Brand's injuries went far beyond what Anders had handled. A series of gashes formed a ladder down her left arm, her right rib-cage was a massive bruise centered on a star-shaped puncture, and a network of contusions spanned her backside. The entirety of it stung horrifically as three pairs of hands submerged her. With a gasp, she regained consciousness and immediately clenched against the urge to cry out as the apprentices sloughed off dirt, dried blood and poultice residue to see the extent of the damage beneath.
Fiona was pacing madly during all this; pausing to cast a spell to staunch the worst of the bleeding before she resumed fretting. It wasn't until Brand had been cleaned, toweled off and walked to the nearest bed that Fiona began to work in earnest, her inky brows knotting in concentration as she assessed her patient.
"You are a fool, but a lucky one." This was the official diagnosis. Brand felt a small surge of relief; if Fiona could insult her, that meant the news wasn't all bad. The mage saved her bedside manners for those who weren't long for the world. "Whatever stabbed you managed to avoid doing any real damage, and most everything else just looks terrible. The blood loss is definitely the worst of it."
Brand spent the next hour sitting as still as she possibly could while Fiona washed, healed, stitched and dressed her wounds. The effort of such an extensive project was exhausting and Brand felt intensely guilty for putting so much on the older woman, and at such an unseemly hour.
The work was mostly done in silence, Fiona only muttering under her breath or snapping instructions to her aids. That was, until she made her way up to the bite mark on Brand's shoulder. Although the least of her injuries, it was tender to the touch and still looked absolutely vicious.
"Who did this to you?" Fiona's dark eyes narrowed in disgust, as if her irritation alone could hurt the perpetrator. Brand very nearly told the truth, but the image of Alistair's face when they were in the yard came back to her. He'd looked…haunted. She wondered what he must be thinking, if he realized that she was the woman on the ship, if he cared to even know or would care you are heading down a dangerous path if he did know.
Instead of honesty, Brand chose an unverifiable half-truth, "I received it in Amaranthine. Some men attacked us and one of them bit me."
"Did you kill him?"
In a way.
"He looked dead."
Fiona snorted, dabbing at the teeth marks with a treated cloth. The solution she used was far less stringent than Anders' favored kind and it smelled about a hundred times better. As if a seer, "And how did our fair Anders escape all of this without a scratch?"
The fact that the two mages had already spoken slipped Brand's mind completely. I hope he didn't spill the truth about Alistair. Any of it. All I need is for her to march down to his cell and give him what for. Despite her prickly demeanor, ostensibly gained by decades miserably served at Weisshaupt Fortress, Fiona had become a bit protective of her young commander. Brand shifted on the bed, suddenly reminded of the first time she'd been subjected to the mage's unique scrutiny, so markedly different from Wynne's grandmother act or Anders' endearingly casual approach.
"Do you remember the first time you saw me here?"
Fiona arched one delicate black eyebrow, "Why are you changing the subject?"
"Because I'm exhausted and my mind is grabbing thoughts at random and shoving them out of my mouth?" This earned a tired grin.
"Of course I remember the first time I had to heal you. It's not every day a woman that pregnant gets knocked out in a duel."
"It could have been worse. At least I wasn't in the duel."
"I'm sure Bryce is thankful that you restrained yourself from that particular hobby."
There was no way Brand could fight the wistful smile that spread across her face at the mention of her son. She was almost done in the infirmary, the apprentices were putting the finishing touches on her bandages, and then she could run limp slowly upstairs..."How was he while I was gone?"
"He was...Bryce. I think Anders must have told him how birds feed their young; I caught him offering Pounce a handful of cheesy spit at breakfast and some pre-chewed strawberries later that day." This image, along with the mildly repulsed expression on Fiona's face, forced a chuckle out of Brand. The slight movement, in turn, made every inch of her hurt. No matter, it's still hilarious.
"I should go up and see him," Brand cast her eyes around the infirmary. "Do I...have any clothes down here?"
"I was in such a hurry to get things prepared, I didn't think to grab anything," her arms overflowing with leftover supplies, Fiona jerked her head towards the back of the infirmary, where the Vigil dead would await their pyres. "I can't say who it belonged to, or if they're still alive, but there is a cloak over there. Would that suffice?"
The idea of sneaking through the Vigil in nothing but a cloak and bandages wasn't the most appealing, but it was better than sneaking through the Vigil in nothing. With the gentle touch of someone who regularly dealt with the broken, Fiona aided Brand off the bed and into the cloak. Brand's leg threatened to buckle under her weight; the muscle beneath the stitched wound felt incredibly tight. Standing was difficult enough, walking might be nearly impossible. But just nearly, so I can handle it.
"Do you want me to help you upstairs?"
"No. It's doubtful that Varel has gone far, but I appreciate the offer. And thank you for taking care of Bryce, and for patching me up."
"Sure," Fiona wasn't the best with the social graces. "It better be the last time I see you in such horrendous shape. Now go see your boys and get some rest."
"My boys? I hope you're not including Anders in that...he's hardly mine."
"And yet you knew exactly who I meant. And how was he on your trip? Did he behave himself?"
"Behave himself? Of course he did! Why, did he tell you that he had some nefarious plan to seduce me?"
"Like he'd talk to me about it if he did," the mage studied her commander closely, the faint lines next to her eyes deepening in amusement at Brand's sudden discomfort. "Did you behave yourself?"
"Andraste's knickers, what are you getting at? Is this a discussion we should even be having?"
Fiona's face bloomed into a wide smile, "You are blushing!"
"That's impossible. You and I both know I've lost way too much blood to sustain that sort of activity," Brand paused in the doorway to scowl at Fiona, who was trying desperately to not make some lewd joke, probably about Anders having enough blood for the both of them. "I don't have to subject myself to this interrogation. I am going to bed."
She limped into the hall, the sound of Fiona's laughter echoing behind her. As she suspected, Varel was waiting, hands behind his back, face a mask of fatherly concern. She nodded and he was at her elbow immediately, allowing her to use him as a human crutch as they slowly ascended the staircase leading to the Warden's living quarters and Brand's own apartment.
As they approached her door, Varel cleared his throat. It was his way of indicating that the next words out of his mouth might not be exactly what Brand would want to hear.
"Command...Brand. The men are concerned about this prisoner you brought back. There are some unpleasant rumblings amongst the usual suspects that he might be a danger. From what I've heard in the past hour alone, you'd think he brought an army against you and not just held up a dagger."
Brand leaned away from her seneschal with a deep sigh. Varel was her most trusted advisor, she should have told him everything she knew right then. Instead, she shook her head, determined to hide Alistair's identity for as long as she could.
"Varel, I know it only makes your job more difficult but, please, trust me when I say that I am certain this man is no threat to anyone but himself. Anders and I were able to keep him in check all the way here, I'm more than confident that a keep full of Grey Wardens should be able to handle him if the need arises," Brand took hold of the doorknob, shifting her weight from her injured leg. "And, I forgot to mention it outside, but we need to investigate the area where I was attacked. It was just east of the road, as it enters the forest. Send Sigrun at daybreak and allow her as many men as she requires, I want any scrap of information that can be pulled off of those bastards' bodies and want everyone to come back safely. Now, if you don't mind, I am in desperate need of a bed. Thank you for all of your help this morning, I will seek you out this afternoon to go over business."
"It was the least I could do, my lady. I am only glad that you are in relatively good health. I was...not certain that would be the case before you saw Ser Fiona," Varel bowed slightly and left her alone, obedient as ever to even her most casual commands.
Brand slid into the foyer and, as usual, a sense of overwhelming loss seized her. Once a representation of the fragile normalcy she'd managed to establish for herself after the Blight, the suite, which included an unused guest room and Teagan's long-empty study I can still smell him when I walk by, now seemed outsized for a widow and her toddler son. She shook her head to clear the ghosts don't want to end up like Eamon and stepped towards the bedrooms.
Bryce's room was open; the scent of rain wafting out to greet her even though Anders had orders to close the windows against the storm. Pulling the borrowed cloak tight, Brand leaned against the doorjamb and took in the scene laid out before her as lit by Fiona's oil lamp- Anders splayed in his favorite wingback chair next to Bryce's bed, his cat, Ser Pounce-a-lot, curled in his lap. Brand could just make out the tangle of auburn hair that was her son's sole resemblance to his father did I even have any part in creating this child? and the pale curve of one plump cheek.
For a moment, she felt a strange surge of contentedness, followed by a chill. She'd been attacked by almost twenty men in one night and had the exiled Bastard King of Ferelden in a cell in her basement prison. The toll of the past few days must have made her daffier than she knew if she could find any peace at a time like this. Still, she lingered for a bit longer before lightly knocking. It's the small things.
Anders was on his feet immediately, allowing Ser Pounce-a-lot to spill carelessly onto the bed to snuggle against Bryce. He stepped into the foyer, the door closing behind him.
"Is your pussy always so fickle?"
His lips curved into an intimate grin. He looked as exhausted as she felt, and was probably running on self-rejuvenation spells, but he could always spare the energy to appreciate a bawdy joke. "He and I both prefer the term 'easy'."
"I'll keep that in mind," Brand caught herself leaning towards him. He noticed as well, a hand reaching out to tug at the edge of her cloak, which she held shut from the inside.
"So, just how busted are you?"
"Very. But I'll live."
"Hmmm. Good to know," Anders pulled her close, taking care to arrange his arms so that they wouldn't press against anything too painful, his lips then brushing from her forehead down her nose until they found hers.
It was just a kiss, but it made her momentarily forget her pains and the turmoil of the past few days. Brand's hands abandoned their job keeping her cloak closed and went up to hold Anders' face. As she had the other day, she enjoyed the tactile difference between his perpetually burgeoning beard and the soft skin under her thumbs as she stroked them along his cheekbones I never imagined how good it would feel just to have your skin bared against mine. She shut out Alistair's voice, a long buried memory of the first night they'd spent together, his awkwardness smoothing to passion as he abandoned his nerves to desire. It was the same as the morning after they'd rescued him- sunken emotions resurfacing and confusing her with how close they seemed to what she found herself feeling for Anders.
Anders had always confused her, though. He was all surface and shallow charm, there but not there at once. The years he spent trying to escape the Tower had turned him into a man whose eyes were ever on the exits and it was a philosophy he seemed to apply to his numerous romantic entanglements.
But then, just below that, was a truth implied in the way he was always captured due to his own inability to see anyone or anything in distress and just walk on by. Every escape attempt he made included an element of "if I'd kept going, I'd have gotten away." Brand had dismissed the mage herself when she first discovered him standing in a pile of dead darkspawn and templars, promising that she'd tell anyone who asked that he'd died as well. He was back less than an hour later, knowingly giving up a chance to get away to help defend the keep. Her appreciation for the aid was deflected with bravado; he didn't want to be pinned down, even by reputation.
After his conscription, he'd managed to become an almost exemplary Warden and turned out to be a decent and thoughtful person beneath the guise of selfish lothario. Beyond the countless occasions when his presence was the only thing that stood between her and certain death, not least of which was the night that Bryce was born, he was always the one willing to help when things got complicated, filling both Zevran's role as her partner in crime and Alistair's long abandoned post as the man at her elbow, speaking out on behalf of those who needed their help the most.
"What are you thinking about?" his voice was warm in her ear.
"You. And how you confuse me," Brand leaned back a little so she could say this while looking in his eyes.
He responded by letting those eyes flicker the length of her face, that crooked little smile brightening his own again. "How's this for confusion: I am so tired I could cry, and I know that you are as fragile as glass right now, but Maker help me, I would like to do all sorts of terrible things to you."
Laughing, and trying to ignore the way his voice and the words he said made her vision go a bit blurry, she tilted her head, "Where did that come from?"
"You ask like you don't know me! Just because I've managed to show some restraint doesn't mean I'm not categorically imagining a thousand ways to express the considerable...affection that I have for you."
Brand shivered, "Is the way you just said "affection" included in those thousand?"
"A thousand and one, then," his tone held promise but he'd obviously chosen to exert some self-control. "As tempting as you are, I think I can hold off until I know we'll both enjoy ourselves."
"But what if I said it was all right?" Brand heard herself, but it was as if it came from someone else entirely and, for the third time in the past few days, she was certain something was happening with her mental faculties. Everything is falling apart, you are falling apart, and this is how you want to expend your precious energy?
"I would still suggest we wait," Anders' responded with surprising firmness. "I'm not going to risk hurting you, Brand. You might be unwilling to acknowledge your limits, but I'm not."
The implications of his words struck a nerve, and Brand extracted herself from his arms, eyebrow raised. "Are you sure that's the real reason?"
"It's part of the real reason."
"And the rest?"
"The rest is that I'm..." the corners of his mouth drew down, and there was a nearly imperceptible flash of frustration in his hazel eyes."I'm nervous about...this. You don't all of a sudden get something you've wanted for years without there being a catch. And I can think of about ten just off the top of my head."
"You've wanted this...for years?" Brand couldn't hide her surprise. People had talked, of course, and Teagan had never been thrilled by how close they were I'd just feel better if he didn't remind me...but I trust you. Until the other night, however, none of his flirtations had ever seemed serious. It was just Anders being Anders. Then again, here he was now, very much Anders but looking away, color flooding his cheeks and his hands twisting his robes.
"Are you really so shocked to hear this?" Despite his still flushed face, he had full use of his sarcasm. "Wow, Anders is attracted to a brave and funny woman with amazing hands and the most gorgeous smile the Maker has ever bestowed upon a person. Who would have guessed that could happen?"
It was the right answer. Brand went back to him, pulling his mouth down to hers and kissing him as hard as she dared. He responded with an equal amount of passion, his fingers sinking into her damp hair. He broke their embrace to nuzzle her throat, bared and white in the dim light of the foyer. She was certain he would be able to feel her rapidly increasing heartbeat as he lingered there before moving behind her, pulling the cloak open as he went and running his hand down her left arm to her bared hip, his fingertips electric against her skin.
"Is this another demonstration of your powers?"
"Mmmm, I suppose it is. But not the ones to which you're referring," he held her against him, and her back arched expectantly. Still, he made no moves beyond the careful petting, the pleasure of which was only heightened by her overall achiness, and the maddeningly gentle attention to her neck. Teagan had always been fond of such teasing, amazed by how his warrior would melt so easily with the right application of lips, tongue and breath and then Teagan's voice was in her head as if he were the one nibbling at her ear if the darkspawn would have known of this weakness, Ferelden might be in ruins right now.
Brand jerked at the sudden memory of her late husband and Anders immediately placed distance between the two of them, as if sensing what caused the break in their romantic reverie. She became painfully aware of just how correct his earlier concerns had been; between her injuries and the ghosts that haunted her in this place, such behavior was ill-advised.
Just take care of business and go to bed, Brand. Gathering her cloak firmly in place, Brand forced herself into some semblance of the woman in charge and turned to face Anders. He, too, had established a mask of careful neutrality.
"Are you ready for your orders?"
"I'm even more ready for...well, yes," he braced his shoulders in a way that was eerily reminiscent of Alistair and nodded.
"Go to the kitchen, get some assorted foodstuffs for our prisoner and take supplies to clean him up again. Leave his bandages off, though."
Anders pulled a repulsed face, "Why would you want me to do that? Trust me when I say it's disgusting under there."
"That's the point," Brand rubbed the back of her neck, her eyes closing against the stress of the past few days and the rapid emotional shifts of the past ten minutes. "I want to see exactly what I did to him."
"OK...if that's what you want," he shrugged. "Anything else?"
"Yes, dismiss Bluth and Barkley once you have him secure. I hate making you stay up even longer, but you're the only person I trust with him right now. I'll relieve you in a few hours at the most, I promise. Oh! I almost forgot, your dagger should be in the infirmary. He...gave it back after I sent you inside."
"Do you think I'll need it?"
"I hope not, but..." Brand was far too tired to think herself in that dark direction. "It doesn't hurt to keep it on you, at any rate. Now, I'm getting some sleep, and I'll see you in a few hours so you can get some sleep."
Anders left, and Brand secured the door behind him. Without anyone to immediately distract her, her mind began to simultaneously unspool and click into action; it was like her brain was trying to inhale and exhale at the same time. Don't start this, you're so close to getting a respite. Although, you might want to change out of this dead man's cloak first.
It only took Brand a few agonizing minutes to put on clean undergarments, plain velvet-lined trousers and a white linen blouse. She knew her day would begin at a sprint, so it seemed efficient to just sleep in her clothes. As an afterthought, she found her jewelry box in its place at the back of her armoire, less hidden than it was forgotten. Inside was an amulet she'd left behind during her trip to Amaranthine, afraid it might get lost or damaged while they adventured. Far from a sentimental piece, she liked to keep it with her in situations where her resolve might fail or her propensity for rashness might get the better of her. Sliding the silver chain over her head, she welcomed the feel of cool metal against her chest as it gave her something to focus on that wasn't pain.
Feeling somewhat together, Brand walked back to her son's room and approached his bed on silent feet.
Bryce was a remarkably sound sleeper, and did not stir as she ran her fingers over his silken auburn hair, and then across his round little cheek. His own fingers were buried in Ser Pounce's thick fur; the cat was well used to being treated like a breathing toy. Taking pains to not jostle the cat or the babe, Brand laid down behind him, resting one hand protectively on his head. His scent was the outdoors- dirt, grass and sunshine- and she was overwhelmed by a surge of affection for her child.
The depths of her exhaustion consumed her quickly, and she was very nearly asleep when his small voice arrived to her from the darkness.
"Brand?" he spoke in a whisper, no doubt to keep from rousing Ser Pounce.
"I'm right here, Bryce," she absentmindedly kissed the top of head.
"Sig..Sigrun says that Anders is a frog," this accusation obviously concerned him. "Anders isn't a frog, is he?"
"No, dear. Anders isn't a frog."
"Can he turn into a frog?" It was a notion that held more promise.
"Why don't you ask him next time you see him?"
"OK....can you turn into a frog?"
"Not at all."
"Oh. That's fine, I guess."
"Let's go to sleep, sweetie."
Sigh. "OK. Love you, momma."
"I love you too, Bryce."