Haring, 9:31 Dragon
The Deep Roads
Anders and I latched on to each other through some mutual agreement that we would rather not have to deal with this insanity alone, so there was rarely a moment where he wasn't hovering nervously nearby or I wasn't clinging to his arm like a lifeline.
We didn't have to talk about it, because we could both see it in the other's eyes. The fear. The worry. The trepidation. The confinement.
Anders could sense the darkspawn before we saw them, so they never took us by surprise, and it felt good to unleash my newfound magic against something that deserved to die. In the heat of battle, I could forget that I was underground, surrounded by immeasurable tons of stone and rock.
Anders, too, held nothing back, and together the two of us slew the majority of everything we came across in a flurry of ice and lightning that carved a swath through the darkspawn like an exotic dance. It was a sight to behold, my Tempest and his Blizzard joined together in a storm that tore the monsters to pieces.
And then the corpses stopped twitching and the others stopped staring at us as if we were gods, and the darkness returned and we went back to hovering over each other and trying to distract each other with talk of cats and sunlight.
And then Bartrand betrayed us.
My memory of what occurred after the door slammed shut is… hazy. Vague. I remember hyperventilating; hugging myself off to the side, out of the way. I remember having a full-out panic attack as silently as possible, shaking and trembling like a brittle leaf.
I remember… arms. Around my waist. Hugging someone that made the magic in my blood spark in that special way unique to Anders. We clung to each other for sanity and whispered nonsense words to each other in reassurance until we both came down off the ledge and regained enough control to follow Garrett and Varric further into the thaig.
Neither of us spoke a word, leaving Varric and Garrett to fill the silence with talk of revenge and freedom and hope. I don't think I let go of Anders' hand the entire time, both of us casting with one hand and mingling our magic together in a strange joining of mana that made our spells both more potent and more wild.
When the rocks got up and attacked us I wasn't entirely sure I wasn't just hallucinating, but Varric and Garrett saw them too, so we killed them. Can rocks die? Well, they crumbled, at least.
When we encountered the Hunger demon, Anders and I both attacked it before it could finish speaking, to the amusement of Garrett and the irritation of Varric.
I don't remember how the fight with the huge rock wraith went.
This is because something that felt like a boulder knocked me into the wall and the world snuffed out like a candle. I awoke to Anders kneeling over me, hands glowing blue with healing magic, and I felt it again.
Completion.
It just… clicked. When he lowered his hands and his magic faded away, it was like he took a piece of me with him. I tried to meet his eyes, still kind of groggy from my impact with the wall, but he was studiously avoiding my gaze.
This was curious, but not as important as getting to my feet. He helped me up and I smiled at him in thanks, and he smiled tenuously back.
I cried when Varric found the key to the door in the wall, to freedom. I cried like a little girl, but I was laughing all the same.
Garrett and Varric had found enough treasure to purchase the entirety of Hightown, and we stuffed our bags with as much as we could carry. I stuck to things that looked shiny or pretty, rather than what was valuable, since this was Garrett's expedition, not mine.
I packed my bag full to bursting with interesting little knickknacks and a handful of gold coins, along with a robe I found and a couple of the smaller gemstones. There was a book there in a language I couldn't read, so I passed it to Anders and he thumbed through it while we walked to keep his mind off the ceiling overhead.
Varric assured us he'd get a team down to collect the rest and it would be distributed evenly between the four of us. I fiddled with the small little things I'd picked up and put in my bag to pass the time, aware of Anders peering over my shoulder to see what I was doing.
There was a silver goblet with a pretty gold filigree design around the rim, some little round things that Anders called 'skyballs' which were painted to resemble the night sky at various times of day, a 'Spiral Eye' robe I decided I'd keep for emergencies, the book I'd handed to Anders which turned out to be an Arcane Warrior tome written in Arcanum (he offered to teach me how to read it), about twenty sovereigns in gold coins, and an engraved dagger with a chip missing out of the blade.
Anders had just grabbed random things and put them in his bag for Hawke, but I did catch him putting some jewelry in his pockets before I had a chance to see what they looked like.
By the time we could see the exit and the night sky, I had broken into an awkward jog and I could hear Anders close behind me. I collapsed into the sand outside the tunnel and just lay there staring up at the sky, smiling in relief. Varric and Garrett laughed at me when they came out and saw me splayed out in the sand, but Anders just smiled and took several deep breaths of the first fresh air we'd had in weeks.
We decided to camp out one more night and make the trek to Kirkwall in the morning, which was fine because I wanted to get a good night's sleep for once anyway. I still took first watch, though, since I was so excited about getting out of the Deep Roads that I wouldn't be able to fall asleep.
Anders stayed up with me, sitting right next to me on our log out of habit from our time in the Deep Roads, and we just sort of sat there with these giddy, goofy smiles on our faces.
We were alive.
We were free.