Once More Unto The Breach
Anders realised that despite his varied and chequered past, he always reverted to a type.
In the Circle, he couldn't afford to be picky. You took what you can get from whoever was willing when the Templars weren't watching. It was the only bright spark of joy then, walking away from a quick tumble with his hair ruffled and a smile tugging on his lips. Despite the subjugation of their captors, at least they couldn't take that away from him. Fun was all it was, since there was no way anything real could blossom between him and someone else with the shackles that bound all the mages in the Circle.
That was, until he got close to Karl Thekla.
Karl was…special. Anders used to observe the other man as he moved past him in the hallways. His raven hair, cool blue eyes and broad frame. A thoughtful countenance that others mistook as slowness, but in truth hid unusual depths, an ability to wield powerful elemental magic like it was child's play.
And yet despite the walls he put up, the healing instinct in Anders detected the hurt that the other man had gone through in his life. Karl was older, had seen more things, experienced more pain as he saw friends wither away in the Circle or get conscripted into wars and never returned. Anders had always had eyes for him, but it took him years to charm his way past the other man's defences. Once he got through, though, it was worth all the effort.
"Anders, you need to stop doing this. They will make you Tranquil one day," Karl said to him as he healed the last of the lashings, retribution for his latest escape attempt.
Anders turned, glaring at him. "And let them win? Never."
For a while, he was content. Karl tamed the worst of his impulses and with him there, the itch to run and see the rest of the world lessened. The world didn't seem as vast as exciting to him without Karl by his side. But there were days when he fell into misery thinking that they will rot there, caged birds, to the end of their days.
And for what? For being born different?
"Come with me this time," he urged Karl one day, in the darkest corner of the library where they often had their trysts.
"I…" Karl looked away. "I don't wish to."
"Why not?"
Karl sighed. "Everything I need is here, Anders. Are you not content with what we have?"
So, he reined in his need to escape that one time. To make Karl happy. To try to be content with the small fistful of happiness allowed to them in those stone walls. Yet all he received in return was news that Karl would be moved to Kirkwall before the month was out. And that was that. Knight Commander Gregor doubled the watch on him after Karl had moved away, but he still eluded them when he finally made his move.
He made for Kirkwall. The closest port to there was Amaranthine, and he knew that was where he needed to go to. Surely by now, Karl would have seen the error of his ways. Surely Karl would want to escape and be with him now.
Oh, he dodged and weaved and used every trick in the book to reach Amaranthine. He had been so close to securing passage on a ship yet was caught at the last minute by a particularly overzealous templar. As the umpteenth cold stare was thrown his way from his captors, he suspected that this could be the end of the road for him. Perhaps they would make him Tranquil this time, just as Karl had warned him of.
Until darkspawn rescued him at Vigil's Keep.
Well, they tried to kill him first, of course. But his escort were much more tempting targets for the creatures, so he wasn't inclined to look a gift horse in the mouth. In the end, the fight proved fatal for the templars and he was fortunate enough to be left with stragglers easily dispatched with elemental magic. He couldn't believe his luck.
Then he turned the corner and almost walked into Mila Cousland.
The Warden Commander of Vigil's Keep, also likely the woman with the worst possible luck in Thedas. His first impression of her was that of an untouchable otherworldly being carved from stone. Raven hair, green eyes that glittered like gemstones. But there was an inexplicable melancholy in her countenance, in the way her gaze would linger in the distance in the quiet moments as though yearning for a presence that would never come.
Despite his better judgment, he'd fancied her. Oh, he'd fancied her a lot. Initially, he thought it was driven by gratefulness, for her stepping in and saving her from the clutches of the templars in pursuit. But the longer he served with her, the more he found that his interest was driven by admiration, at her willingness to fight no matter what the odds stacked against her. At one point, he'd almost wanted to try his luck with her until Oghren shook his head at him one day at breakfast.
"I wouldn't try it if I were you," the dwarf said, surprisingly lucid for once.
"Try what?" Anders flashed his most innocent smile.
Oghren grunted. "Like that's gonna work with me. Let sleeping dogs lie, sparklefingers. She ain't in a state to appreciate certain things. Not for a long time coming, I reckon."
Anders frowned, curious despite himself. "Why not?"
"Ye know King Maric's bastard? She was supposed to marry him."
"King Maric's…"
And then it clicked. The Grey Warden who died killing the Archdemon in Denerim. The man who was supposed to be King of Fereldan but died before his own coronation. That was who she looked for in the distance, he finally realised.
The lover she will never see again.
It was this discovery that allowed him to understand his commander better. The way she threw herself into tasks, her single-minded dedication to routing the darkspawn threat. Her adamant refusal to work with the Architect. Of course she would dedicate her life to ending them. Her vendetta went far beyond her obligation as a Grey Warden. Because of them, she no longer had a future to look forward to. He wished that there could be something or someone who could make her feel otherwise, but the darkspawn wars had burned away whatever left of the woman who once loved a King.
Anders had to fight to keep her in one piece as she ploughed through the ranks of the darkspawn in search of the Broodmother. They walked away from that battle in one piece, but he knew the things he'd seen down in the depths would haunt him for the rest of his short days as a Grey Warden.
Once it was all done, she stood there in the ruins of Vigil's Keep, her face bloodied and grim.
"Anders," she called to him.
"I'm here. Are you hurt?" he hurried to her.
He would never forget the sad smile she gave him. Something unspoken flickered in her eyes, but she clasped his shoulder in a commander's grip. "You did good today."
His injuries had been patched up on their way back to the Keep, and yet a painful ache spread through his chest as he gazed at her. So many things he wanted to say to her, but the all the words snagged at his throat as she squeezed his shoulder and walked away.
It didn't surprise him when she disappeared soon after the Keep was rebuilt. He'd caught a glimpse of the demons haunting her and he knew she wouldn't have stayed. As he spent his days staring at the empty spot in the courtyard where she used to practice sword drills, he wondered what it must be like to carry such demons on one's back.
Perhaps it was that subconscious thought that drove him to accept Justice into himself. The line between demon and spirit blurred when he began living with another voice inside his own head.
Life became a jumble after that. Instinct drove him to seek out the one person left on Thedas who could give him comfort. After the way he'd left the Grey Wardens, there were not many places left for him to go to. But once he saw the Gallows as his ship approached Kirkwall, he wondered if he'd made a terrible mistake.
"There is a lot of good you can do here, Anders. We must bring justice to the mages," Justice growled in his head.
Anders nodded along, but he wondered what Mila Cousland would do.
The days blurred into one another after as he took to caring for Fereldan refugees at first, then to any downtrodden soul in Kirkwall. His clinic took up nearly all his energy, to a point where he felt that he only lived to patch up one wound or injury at a time. Life only sparked in his eyes when he finally received a letter from Karl one day.
Yet as he read the letter, he felt a pang of disappointment. Indeed, it was still the Karl he knew from the Fereldan Circle. The problem was, the Karl he knew was always accepting of his fate. Only when the situation became dire did Karl indicate that he would take Anders up on his offer, after all.
Finally, he was going to get Karl out of his bonds.
And it was on that fateful day that the door to his clinic opened with a painful creak. It was early morning but there was already a queue of refugees waiting to see him. Tired as he was from his most recent patient, he immediately sensed that unmistakable whiff of the Fade. How could he not, when he lived surrounded by nothing else in the Fereldan Circle? Without missing a beat, he grabbed his staff before whirling around to face the newcomers.
"I have made this place a sanctum of healing and salvation. Why do you threaten it?" Despite his fatigue, he could sense the Justice infusing his body with power, in the event he would need to draw on it.
Two women and a beardless dwarf stood awkwardly at the threshold with varying degrees of surprise and curiosity on their faces. While they were all clearly armed, they didn't look like typical Carta or Coterie members. The women exchanged quick glances, then the one in dark leathers stepped forward, one hand up with palm outraised. He did not miss the fact that she had four daggers strapped to her person, and those were only the ones he could see.
"Peace, friend," she said, her voice surprisingly gentle given her deadly appearance. "We mean you no harm, we're Fereldan too. We're just here to talk to a Grey Warden."
He tightened his grip on his staff, frowning. "Did the Fereldan Wardens send you?"
Despite the threat radiating off him, the woman's lips quirked in amusement as she flicked her gaze to the dwarf by her side. Her eyes were laughing, as if there was an inside joke that only she knew. "Oh, nothing nearly as dire, I assure you. We're merely an enterprising bunch."
Despite her flippant manner, there was an edge to her. He didn't miss the way she angled herself between him and the other woman, whose features bore some similarities to hers. A sister, if he had to guess.
As he lowered his staff, he studied the woman in the lead again. Raven hair, bright blue eyes, alabaster skin. Here was a woman who would definitely turn heads anywhere she went. And yet, he could not help but see vestiges of the past in the coolness in her eyes, the calm way her hand rested on weapons she clearly knew how to use.
He felt the familiar pull of bad judgment, and a gust of anger from Justice at his traitorous thoughts.
"I'm Hawke," she flashed a brief smile at him. "And you are?"
In trouble, he thought. I am in trouble.
While he'd seen and done a great many things in the time between his bumbling years in the Circle and where he was then, it seemed he still couldn't resist a certain type.
Author's Notes: A little character piece penned while musing about why we fall for the people that we do. Hope you will enjoy the piece!