Author's Note: I am changing the description/name/genre of the story to better fit the direction I'm moving with it, as a head's up. From now on, the story will be called 'Broken Promises' and be under the drama/romance category. Everything else about it will remain the same, including where I am going with it. I'm just admittedly terrible at choosing names and thought of a better one over the last week.
The Dragon Age series belongs to Electronic Arts and Bioware.
His time in Kirkwall was proving to be far more difficult than previously anticipated.
Back in Ferelden, Anders had grown accustomed to a certain lifestyle, one that mixed incredible duty with the comforts of posh living. Yes, he had to slay Darkspawn, save small villages from said creatures, trudge through taint-covered holes in the earth, and generally act as a one-man medical wing for the Wardens he served with. His freedom from the Circle came at this cost, but he wasn't complaining. At least, no more than the rest of the Wardens. On his off time, he was often regarded as a hero at the local taverns, which he reveled in to its fullest extent. After the business with the Mother, King Alistair gave all of the Wardens who served in Amaranthine fancy new titles—most likely at the request of his then-fiancée. Anders was no exclusion. Word traveled fast to the watering holes he frequented, probably because he'd ever so casually mention the rise in status whenever he was looking to get drunk and didn't want to pay. Some of the people actually did remember seeing him storm the city with the Hero of Ferelden, and would pay for his drinks for the night. And women, Maker bless them, would line up to hear of his dashing exploits and inquire if his staff was in good, working order. Sometimes, they would even ask for a demonstration.
But, it was a lonely sort of success he felt. This sort of freedom, it was all he had ever hoped for, but he couldn't stop thinking about his brothers and sisters still trapped in bondage at the demands of the Chantry. Justice had, when he still possessed a body to call his own, reminded him of this, that he should use his position and rise into notoriety to help those who couldn't help themselves. Anders claimed to be selfish, that he didn't care about others as long as he could walk free himself. Excuses always made him feel a little more secure when really he was as terrified as a trembling child. What could one man truly do? This was a question Anders asked himself quite a bit when he'd pace his cell into the morning, mulling over his companion's thoughtful words. He thought of petitioning to the Circle on several occasions, bringing to light what upstanding citizens Neria, Solona, and he had become since joining the Wardens. Surely they couldn't ignore the suffering when they could see how much good mages could do out in the real world. Give them a purpose he thought to write as his hand would quiver over a blank piece of parchment that he had hastily set out in order to write his request in his sleep-deprived state. Teach them the dangers of the misuse of magic, and then send them out into the world in order to spread good throughout Thedas. Whenever he'd bring quill to parchment, he would hesitate, beads of sweat rolling down his forehead and dripping onto his writing surface. He couldn't do it. No matter how much his heart ached to bring change to the Circle, he couldn't. It was Anders' hidden shame, one he concealed with drunken debauchery and ill-humored jokes.
When Justice and he merged, Anders was given little option but to act. The Fade spirit tapped into that stout desire of his and dragged it to the forefront. Whatever self-preserving qualities he had harbored before were abandoned, but at a steep cost. He was still paying for it, still suffering for something that he had previously believed to be the right choice. As such, he had to give up the comforts he knew, the friendships he had formed, and all the fame and clout that his name once carried.
Now, he lived in Kirkwall's equivalent of the sewers. It stank like shit and misery, and Anders would go days without seeing a single glimmer of sunlight. His first week there, the mage would jokingly remind himself at least it doesn't smell like dog. The stench of dog was something that he hadn't ever gotten used to, ever since he came to Ferelden as a boy. In a way, he missed it. It was familiar, if awful.
He tried to fade into anonymity. Considering he was an Ander who sounded like a Ferelden and dressed like a Tevinter, it was not such a smooth transition. People would mistake him for a Magister prior to noticing his height, fair skin and pale hair. When he'd speak, they'd be flabbergasted over his mastery of the King's Tongue and the sheer lack of accent. He was an anomaly, and Anders was not so keen on explaining why he was the way he was. His appearance wasn't the only thing that garnered attention.
It wasn't long before Anders had found himself longing to do something for the needy people of the city. With limited funds, he couldn't blanket them in wealth. But, he was born with natural talents that could help. He started small, healing minor scrapes and cuts with salves he had made from the local plants he managed to salvage. People came to him, and yet they were sick, sicker than he could cure with poultices and mixtures that he concocted in his spare time. Against better judgement, Anders healed them with his magic. To his surprise, the people, as well as being grateful, revered him as a sort of saint. They kept his secret in exchange for his healing. Asking for payment from people who couldn't even buy bread was wrong.
In a way, this filled him with a sense of pride. Seeing the happiness spelled out on the faces of the refugees when he would deny their meager offers of payment made Anders feel like he was doing good. He was respected, but better than that, he was Darktown's best kept secret.
On one afternoon, Anders was up to his elbows in refugees. Many of them suffered minor injuries. Occupational hazards, mostly. He expected to be engaged in routine work until a man—probably mid-thirties—came charging in with a young boy cradled in his arms. Blood was gushing down the child's head from a large gash near his hairline. He was unconscious. Quickly, Anders cleared off the nearest table by sweeping his arm across it. His belongings scattered across the ground. Little heed was paid to them as the boy was lowered down onto the table by his frantic father.
"What happened to him?" Asked Anders as he pulled a cloth from his coat and used it to mop up the lingering blood from the boy's forehead. Thoughts of his rendezvous with Karl later filtered to the front of his mind, causing him to stop momentarily to stem himself.
His father looked to be on the brink of tears, but somehow managed to remain composed despite the injury his son had suffered. "He…uh…he was playing on some steps and slipped. He cracked his head on the bottom and we cannot wake him."
"I'll see what I can do."
Anders got to work instantly. He concentrated deeply, feeling the magic that circulated through his veins as the mage demanded it into his hands from sheer force of will alone. A tingling sensation accompanied this, causing his hands to glow in a familiar greenish-blue hue. From the corner of his eye, he could see as the boy's father joined his side, watching with interest as he coursed his hands mere inches above the injury.
Moments in, the wound started to close. Anders said nothing, but such healing required intense amounts of his energy. The boy did not stir, but progress was being made. So, he continued, ignoring the fatigue setting in. Another was not about to die in front of him.
Just as the boy's eyelids began to flutter, a woman came rushing in. Anders didn't take his eyes from his patient, but from what he could see through his peripheral, this woman frequently came. She was older, or maybe just prematurely gray. She had been nice enough to him, but for the life of him, he could not recall her name.
She sucked in several desperate breaths, at the same time trying to form words that just didn't make sense. No doubt, she had run here from quite a distance. This worried Anders. If she had ran all the way to his clinic, there was something dire that she wished to warn him about. What little money he had was on either Templars wishing to render him Tranquil, or Wardens. Considering the contact he'd been maintaining with Karl, he would guess Templars.
"There…there were some…people asking about you…at Lirene's." The woman was still out of breath.
Anders' palms grew suddenly clammy as his focus faltered. His fears were being realized. "What did they look like?"
"Uh…two pretty women. One had red hair and the other had dark hair. A blonde human man and a dwarf."
A breath hitched in Anders' throat when he heard that description. Vaguely, it matched the descriptions of the Wardens he served with. Maybe he was paranoid, but even the most basic of likenesses was enough for him to consider ditching the injured child to seek shelter elsewhere. That was when a thought surged through his mind, one that demanded that he stay and face the consequences of him abandoning his post. It wasn't to own up to his prior mistakes, but for the sake of the boy.
Minutes later, Anders was sure he had met his fate. Since the woman's entrance, the healer had resumed healing the boy, but with optimistic results. It started small, with twitching fingers and eyes desperately trying to open against the pull of sleep. Anders himself was on the brink of collapse. Healing this child was proving more difficult than he previously anticipated. Justice was breaking his resolve, threatening to break through at any second.
Miraculously, the boy came through as Justice managed to claim a few precious seconds of control over his host. Seconds felt like hours of limbo. Anders used what willpower he had to push against his passenger, but in those seconds, he saw the intruders the woman had mentioned.
Once control was regained, Anders went for his staff without even asking them why they had come, nor confirming who they truly were. Once the weapon was in his clutches, he swung around, left palm outstretched with the promise of a devastating offensive spell. His posture was rigid, threatening. The mage didn't care if this was Lyna who had come; he would fight her for the sake of his freedom from the Wardens.
"I have made this place a sanctum of healing!" He boomed threateningly.
But, it wasn't his Commander waiting just beyond the table.
Two women, a human man, and a dwarf did stand before him, but he didn't know any of them. The setup he was presented with reminded him of a joke he once heard. Anders noticed the dwarf first, purely because he lacked a beard. The mage hadn't known many dwarves in his time, but he was sure they were generally known for their big, bushy beards. The mage resisted the urge to snort in humor when he noticed the sheer amount of chest hair that the dwarf had and considered that maybe his beard fell off of his face and landed there.
He was drawn to the dark haired woman and the man next, mainly because of their staves. Anders mentally slapped himself in the forehead, reaching the completely just conclusion that they were mages. And, being mages had to be the most foolish sort for walking around a city that was teeming with Templars with nearly a sign strapped to their backs. Other than that, he thought that there was a resemblance there, one that they shared with the red haired woman. They were family.
It was the woman with the red hair that worried him the most. She looked at him like a predator on the hunt, but not in the overtly sexual manner that he used to use on women he was interested in bedding. This one wanted something, what, he was unsure. Otherwise, he found her rather pretty, an unfortunate thought given the circumstances. Justice was quick to remind him of this.
"It isn't polite to whip your staff out before at least offering to pay for a girl's drink." Chided the red haired woman with a note of humor in her tone.
Anders wasn't laughing.
His grip on the staff tightened, a silent threat he posed to her. She remained, unwaveringly, merely a handful of steps before him. Luckily, her hands remained off of the hilts of those daggers she had affixed to her person. "Have you come to drag me back to the Wardens?" Spat the man with an accusatory look. "Tell them that I'm not going back. They made me give up my cat."
"Wait one second." Interjected the human man. "You had a cat, in the Wardens? Are Wardens even allowed pets?"
Anders' brows knit together, probably because he took the man's words as an attack on Ser Pounce A Lot. His fondness for the cat outweighed his desire to stay in one piece. "He was a gift. A noble beast." The mage recalled the day when Lyna told him that he could keep Pounce. It had been raining and her faithful Mabari had found the kit, nearly on the brink of starvation. "He scratched a Genlock on the nose once. Drew blood, too."
"Listen." The woman with the red hair took a step forward, causing Anders to defensively take a step back. She raised her empty palms, a sign that she was neither armed, not planning to become so. He relaxed a little. "I think we got off on the wrong foot. My name is Claudia. These are my siblings, Quentin and Bethany, and our friend Varric."
"Anders." As wary as he was, Anders did have to admit that things had risen to an unnecessary point, and rather quickly. For all he knew, they were just some people looking for someone to heal their sick mother.
"Anders." The woman—Claudia—rolled his moniker over her tongue carefully. He could tell she was considering its meaning deeply. "Is that a title referencing your country of origin, or your actual name?"
Ignoring her question, Anders returned his staff to the pillar he had drawn it from in the first place. If things got messy, he could still cast without it. "Is that why you came here?" Asked the man, harboring some amount of ire in his voice. "To question people's names?"
"Well, no." Frustration was spelled out on her face. Not wanting to push his luck further, the mage decided against potentially upsetting her any longer. "I was told that you have maps. Of the Deep Roads, precisely. If it at all possible, I would like to get them from you."
There it was.
In his life, Anders had come to expect that when a woman came to him, she ultimately wanted something. Granted, he had no idea why a woman—no less a woman who didn't trigger his Warden senses—was inquiring about his maps. Even so, he wasn't about to forfeit them to a complete stranger, not after he went through all of the trouble of stealing them in the first place.
"What business does a woman who is clearly not a Warden have with Warden maps?"
"Varric's brother, Bartrand, is planning an expedition into the Deep Roads and I am hoping to be part of it. Warden maps that contain the location of various entrances into the Deep Roads would be greatly beneficial to my cause."
Anders raised an eyebrow. "Who in their right mind would desire to go into the Deep Roads? Do you not know how foul of a place it is?"
"I have an idea." Claudia's response came without missing a single beat. "Of course, we would pay you for your maps."
"If I had been wanting for coin, then I would re-evaluate what I do here." Said Anders sarcastically, ready to shoo them from the clinic entirely.
Then, a thought struck him. He had asked Karl to rendezvous with him that night at the Chantry. Anders would have been lying if he didn't believe that the Templars had intercepted his letter and were planning a trap for him. After all, he was a known apostate, one who only walked free because Lyna hadn't gotten around to confirming that he had run from the Wardens just yet. The people before him, they seemed a competent bunch, ones who could take down a few people. And, he would be willing to give up his maps, maps that he had only taken out of spite, if they helped him to free his friend.
"On second thought, a favor for a favor. That's fair, right?"
Claudia shrugged. "Sure. Whatever you want." Her sister—Bethany—shot her a look of confusion. Probably due to the fact that she agreed before even hearing his terms.
Anders was in the same boat as Bethany. "You would agree before even hearing what I ask? What if I asked for…for Knight-Commander Meredith's head on a pike?"
"I'd say 'give me a couple days' and return before the week's end with your trophy."
Anders, taken aback by the response he received, looked the woman dead in the eye. She wasn't kidding. He could see the seriousness she carried. The mage was unsure if this made him trust her, or fear for his own safety.
"I have a friend in the Gallows. We've been exchanging letters for several months, but he abruptly stopped recently. I sent him another, not too long ago, requesting his presence at the Chantry; I was planning on aiding in his escape."
"And you believe that Templars will be waiting for you, opposed to your friend?"
"Yes. And I am but one man. I am asking that the four of you join me tonight, just in case Karl is not waiting."
There was a brief moment when Claudia looked to her companions, asking them what they thought of this. Her siblings quickly responded with resolute nods of their heads. Varric gave his own stamp of approval as well, though his was far less animated.
"You have convinced me. What is the plan?"
Anders released a breath that he hadn't been aware he had been holding. "Thank you. Meet me at the Chantry after dark. We will talk more then. If all goes well, we will all walk away free men and women."
