"He'll be okay, luv."

"How do you know?" Rhyanon demands angrily. Her arms are buried to the elbow in lukewarm water. The abrasive lye soap stings the still-raw scrapes on her hands, but she barely notices anymore. She scrubs the pots dumped in front of her with an impressive amount of violence. She's had kitchen duty a lot in the four years since she came to the Tower. It's the first time she's done it without Anders, though. And he's not here because what he's done is way worse than anything that can be cancelled out by washing a few dishes. He always talked about running away, but Rhyanon never figured he'd actually do it. Not for real. Not gone-for-more-than-a-week real. Not dragged-back-by-templars real.

Rhyanon's eyes sting. She tells herself it's just because she's got soap in them, because she doesn't want to admit that she's crying. Again. Fuck this place!

"I know," Ada, the middle-aged woman in charge of the kitchen declares. "because I've been here since 'afore you were born. D'you think yer the first to ever go pinin' after some idiot boy?"

"I'm not pining. And he's not an idiot."

Ada takes Rhyanon's wrist and pulls her away from the dish buckets, ignoring her limp protests. She sits her down on a kitchen stool and hands her a mug. Rhyanon stares down into the dark brown liquid and shakes her head. "I don't want it," she insists.

"Oh, now," Ada clucks. She begins braiding her fingers through Rhyanon's blonde hair. "D'you really think he'd want you punishing yourself?"

"I should've helped him."

"And what would you've done?"

"I dunno. Something. Anything."

"Something like piss off everyone around you and get sent to me, eh?"

Rhyanon snorts, and despite herself, a small smile creeps onto her face. "Some punishment."

The woman finishes her braid and gives Rhyanon a gentle push. "Get going, girl. But you finish that hot chocolate first."

Rhyanon shakes her head and leaves the mug, untouched, on an unused counter. She finishes the dishes in silence and retreats to the dorms. Or at least, that's her plan. But the halls are never this empty. It's late, late enough that even the older apprentices are under curfew now. Rhyanon walks slowly. She feels impossibly small in the long stretches of shadow between the far apart torches attached to the walls. Even her soft footsteps seem to echo impossibly loudly, with no one else around to swallow or mask the sound. She smiles, feeling, for the first time she can remember, like she has something special in this place. She keeps walking, wandering without a destination, just reveling in the fact that the stone walls look different, in this place where nothing ever changes. She looks without really seeing. She's not paying attention. And she makes the mistake of almost walking right into a patrolling templar. "It's after curfew," a warped voice snaps from behind its metal helmet.

Rhyanon balks. She swallows hard. "I know," she stammers. "I was... helping. In the kitchen."

"Serving punishment, you mean," the templar sneers. He grabs her forearm and drags her the rest of the way to the apprentice dorms. His hold on her is tight enough to bruise, but Rhyanon doesn't try to fight him. She forces herself to breathe steady and not look back as she walks to her bunk. She can still feel his eyes on her as she tucks herself under her worn blanket, still fully clothed.

She closes her eyes and holds her breath until she hears the templar's footsteps fade away. Around her, the little kids, already asleep, snore gently. Rhyanon lays awake for a long time.

She rolls over. Across from her, Anders' bunk is empty. Still. It feels even more empty now than when he was actually gone, because she knows exactly where he is. In the infirmary, not allowed to use magic to heal himself from the punishment she isn't supposed to know about, but does anyway.

She'd obviously known there was a huge wooden post in the middle of the courtyard, because all of them know the details of the tower grounds in a way that only people who never leave can. But she'd never really thought about it, or wondered why it was there, until she watched the templars tie Anders to it. She figured it out, in a sudden memory, right before she saw the templar pick up the whip. In that flash, she remembered home, for the first time in years. But it wasn't anything good. She could still feel Damion's breath on her neck as he chased her, up on the rooftops above the Gallows. She could feel the heat of his hand, pressing hard on her shoulder. He pushed her down, so that nobody would see them if they happened to look up, but why would they? He called her chicken because she wouldn't watch.

She still didn't watch, just listened, clearly hearing everything because of whatever weird quirk let sound reach up from the courtyard to the alcove three stories above it like there was no space at all in between. So she could hear the templars talking, enough to know that Anders was supposed to get ten lashes. But she counted, so she knows it was actually eleven. Eleven is how old she is. Eleven probably hurts a lot. Enough to cry. Enough to scream. Enough to keep her up at night, not doing either.

She balls her blankets up in her fists and closes her eyes, and stays awake. About fifteen times a minute, she thinks about going to the infirmary to see Anders, but she doesn't. Because if it was her, not that it ever would be, because she's not him – she's not stupid or brave like him – she wouldn't want him there.

The next morning, she steals a rejuvenation potion from the hiding place in the bathroom that the older kids think she doesn't know about. It doesn't help, though. It just makes her feel even more jittery. Her thoughts are all slow and muddled, and she fucks up again and again on what should be easy spells.

Across from her, an elven apprentice named Dar snickers as Rhyanon tries, and fails, for the third time, to light the simple fire she'll need to weave into a more complex form. When their teacher isn't looking, he reaches over and forms a ball of ice, then melts it instantly, drenching her sputtering flame.

"I thought you were supposed to be so great," he sneers. "Too good for us." He snorts. "You don't look like much to me."

"What do you know?" she yells. "You don't know anything!" He just got here, a month ago. He still remembers home. He doesn't know what it's like for her, for anyof them. And already, the thirteen-year-old from Denerim's alienage has attracted a pack of followers who are just as cruel and violent as he is.

"You don't know anything about me!" the elf spits back. "You don't have a clue, Teacher's Pet!"

"Shut up!" Rhyanon yells, launching herself at the older boy. She pummels him without thinking, lashing out with fists and feet. He's bigger than she is, but he doesn't to much to defend himself. He clearly didn't expect her to attack him. His mistake.

After a moment, the elf does begins to fight back. Rhyanon barely manages to duck as his elbow drives toward her eye. The forceful blow connects with her cheek instead, making her wince. She kicks outward, trying to force the boy backward, trying to gain some leverage. It almost works, until someone grabs her arm from behind, pulling her off of her opponent. Dar stares at her, wide-eyed. He too is locked in the grip of another mage – Enchanter Wynne – who'd been looking for a book in the library, apparently, exactly at the right moment to break up their altercation.

Rhyanon pulls her arm away from the grip of the older apprentice holding her. She doesn't make any move toward Dar. She's not mad at him anymore. But a grim sense of satisfaction fills her when she sees the bruises already forming. It feels good to leave a mark on something. To make someone else hurt.

"Sorry," she murmurs, not entirely sure whether or not she means it. The elven boy just shrugs. He looks about as miserable as Rhyanon feels.

Wynne steers them both to the First Enchanter's office without delay. Rhyanon follows in the older woman's brisk footsteps without protest, knowing better than to believe the woman is offering them a choice. Irving waits for her to leave before studying the two children standing before him. The silence is deafening. Rhyanon shuffles her feet along the carpeted floor.

"What were you thinking?" Irving asks grimly. Rhyanon doesn't look at him. Her cheek throbs, and her split lip stings. She sneaks a sidelong glance at Dar, but the elven apprentice doesn't say anything either. She shuffles her feet nervously. The alienage transplant clearly isn't going to rat her out, even though he should.

Irving sighs, but he doesn't seem surprised by the sudden show of solidarity. "Fighting will not be tolerated," he reminds them both, and Rhyanon just shrugs. Duh. Irving seems almost apologetic about having to punish her, which makes her feel even worse than the actual caning does. Like now she has to feel bad about making her teachers feel bad? What the hell is wrong with her?

The point is, she's still just as irritable and pissed and jittery as she was an hour ago, but now she's just forced to deal with the aftermath of two fights: one she won, and one she lost. Not that the second one is actually winnable. The Circle sucks no matter what she does.

She crawls onto her bed and sprawls out on her stomach, burying her face in her pillow so that she doesn't have to see anything or anybody. Hatred and rage tangle in a bottomless pit deep inside her, and she can't sit still. Tears pour down her cheeks, which is hugely embarrasing, but she doesn't have any other way to vent her feelings. "Fuck!" she yells, kicking the mattress beneath her, which just hurts. She stops, and sits up instead, although that hurts too. She hugs her too-thin pillow tightly to her chest, and seethes. Her lip hurts. It still tastes like blood.

She closes her eyes. She has no idea how much time passes, before she forgets to stay still and shifts position, reigniting the pain of a punishment that's meant to linger. Fuck.

The next morning, Irving pulls her away from breakfast early. She's still holding a half-eaten bit of toast in her hand as she follows him to his office. It's one of the more comfortable rooms in the tower for her now, after years of the private lessons the First Enchanter promised her when she was seven. Even though she was just there for a less-than-comfortable reason the day before.

"Sit," Irving orders, nodding toward one of the chairs in front of her desk. Rhyanon does. She finishes her toast as she waits for him to talk.

Irving sits down across from her, behind the desk, and Rhyanon, to her credit, manages not to squirm or reach out for any of the little trinkets that fill the space between them. She just sits still, not quite meeting his eyes. What do you want? her brain screams, but she doesn't ask the question. She just waits. "Look at me, Rhyanon," Irving insists. His voice is soft, but forceful.

Fine. She looks up, staring sullenly at her teacher. She'll listen to him, but she doesn't have to like him.

"It's okay to be angry," the elder mage tells her. Rhyanon's heart starts to beat a little faster. She tightens her grip on the chair beneath her, squeezing it until her knuckles almost turn white. And, before she can stop them, tears sting her eyes. They don't fall, thank the Maker, because there's no way she could explain whyshe's about to cry, just that it's stupid. She bites her lip, and shakes her head.

"No, it isn't," she murmurs.

Irving walks around from behind the desk, and kneels in front of her, so that they are at the same level. His hand rests on hers. "Oh, my dear." With his other hand, he brushes her messy blonde hair behind her ear, so he can see her face. It's gotten long. It's probably never been cut since she got here, he knows. Now that he really looks at her, Irving is forced to remember how young this girl really is. It's easy to forget, sometimes, when she converses with him like a peer, and rarely falters even when confronted with esoteric philosophical texts. She devours every bit of written word he puts in front of her. But she is still just a child. And she's in pain, and it's his fault.

He isn't supposed to have favorites. He knows that. But it's hard not to feel a special bond with this one. "Are you angry at me?" he asks softly.

"No," Rhyanon chokes out.

"It's okay if you are."

"I'm not," she snaps. "I know I was fighting. I don't care that you whipped me for it."

"Rhyanon -" Irving breathes. When he says her name, he somehow imbues it with infinite patience. But she doesn't have any patience. She doesn't have anything.

"What?!" she yells, pushing him away from her. "I broke the rules! I have to be punished. I'm not special, Irving! You can't pretend you care about me and not do anything to help Anders!"

Irving lets out a long breath, as Rhyanon sits in stunned silence. Her stomach hurts. She can't believe she said that out loud – yelled it, actually. She has no idea how she's supposed to confront it, now that it's out in the open.

Irving stares back at her for a long moment. "Some things we don't get a choice in," he tells her finally. What is it about this girl, that makes him tell the truth?

Rhyanon glares at him. "But you're in charge," she whines, sounding, for a moment, just like she did when she was seven.

Irving sighs, and shakes his head sadly. "I'm not," he tells her. He has no idea if she'll believe him, if she'll accept it as the apology he won't actually give her, if he even wants her to. He rummages around in his desk, until he finds a pouch of elfroot, and he tosses it to her. She frowns down at it, confused. "Anders is out of the infirmary," Irving says. "Go help him."

She clutches the pouch tightly, then stuffs it into her pocket, to hide it from the templars patrolling the halls. She wants to run, but she doesn't do that either. She does walk quickly, taking advantage of the familiarity you only get in a place after years, when a walk that used to take long minutes now passes by so fast you don't even notice.

The first thing she sees when she gets back to the dorms, which are empty because everybody else is in class, is that the one bed that hasbeen empty isn't anymore. "Anders!" she exclaims. Somehow, just saying his name seems to steal all the air from her lungs. He looks... different. Older. And more scared. He's sitting on his bed, just staring out at nothing. He looks up, when she comes in, but he doesn't acknowledge her.

Rhyanon stops suddenly, a few steps away from his bunk. She swallows hard. She feels stranded in the little bit of space between her bed and his. Even though they could reach out and grab each other's hands in the middle of the night – they have– right now, the space feels like an uncrossable chasm. She stares at him, afraid to move. Somehow, him being here – being backfills her with even more uncertainty than when he was gone. What if he doesn't want to be her friend anymore? Why would he be? She's just a kid, and he's... what? A criminal? An apostate? She has no idea what she's supposed to say to him.

She decides not to say anything. Instead, she sits down at the foot of his bed, still far enough away from him that they're not touching. But she doesn't want to let him out of her sight. Just in case. There's still a part of her that's afraid this isn't real, that the next time she looks over at this bed, it'll be empty again. She'll be alone. She reaches out, slowly, to grab Anders' hand. To comfort him the way he always used to try to help her.

"Leave me alone," he growls. He twists away from her, wrapping his arms tightly around his knees, disappearing into the shadowed corner where his bunk slams against the wall. He's not wearing a shirt, which isn't unusual for him, but it's different now that she can see the marks cutting across his back. She traces her fingers gently over the violent, eerily precise lines that radiate heat, and pain. Still, and it's been two days. Anders flinches, but he lets her do it. She holds her breath, and pulls away, and won't quite meet his eye. "It's not that bad," he insists, not at all convincingly.

Rhyanon looks down at the bed instead of looking at him. She skips her fingers over the holes in his blanket, pressing her palm down onto the threadbare sheets until their texture imprints itself into her skin.

"You got away," she whispers.

"No, I didn't!" he cries. The sudden loudness echoes off the stone walls.

Anders' fingers wrap tightly around whatever it is he's holding; Rhyanon looks, and notices the pillow she knows his mother had given him. She doesn't have anything from her parents. She barely remembers them. "Yes, you did," she repeats, stubbornly. "You..." she trails off, not even sure what she's trying to say. She inhales a long, deep breath, then tries again. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Are you serious, Melly? You wanted me to... what? Take you with me?"

"I dunno. Maybe."

"No way."

"I am not a little kid!" she demands.

"You are," he insists. And somehow, she knows he doesn't mean it in a bad way. "Come here," he begs her, and he sounds so scared and broken that she does it, immediately. He wraps his arms around her. Something wet splashes against her cheek. He's crying.

"I'm sorry, Anders," she whispers.

He laughs, then, and it mixes with his tears. "What the hell are you apologizing for?"

"I... don't know. Being mad at you, I guess. And I'm sorry you... got hurt." For some reason, she knows not to acknowledge, out loud, what actually happened. She hasn't asked him about the marks on his back, and he hasn't mentioned them. This will be one of their unspoken secrets, something they obviously both know, but won't talk about directly. Ever.

"I'm sorry I didn't help you," Rhyanon adds, very softly.

Anders shakes his head. "Not your fault, Melly." He turns her around so that he can actually look at her. He trails his thumb down the curve of her cheek. "Okay? I don't ever want you to get hurt because of me."

She nods. She still feels bad, for him and about him, and about everything. But he's here, so for the first time in a week, she feels... better. Like she's got some kind of solid ground beneath her. "Okay," she repeats. She unfolds her hand and offers him the crushed-up pouch of elfroot that Irving had given to her. Anders shakes his head. Rhyanon leaves the medicinal herb just sitting there on his bed, knowing he'll either take it or he won't, but either way, he'll probably hide it, just in case. She knows he has a whole bunch of stuff – like that pillow – hidden in a stash under his mattress.

Anders gives her upper arm a gentle squeeze. "Thanks, Melly."

"For what?"

"For... I dunno. Being here? You're the first one who hasn't told me I'm crazy."

"You're not."

"You sound pretty sure about that." He sounds tired. Like he isn't sure.

Rhyanon shrugs. "I get it," she says simply.

Anders lip curls into a frown, and his eyes narrow as he studies her. He shakes his head. "Melly..."

"I get it!" she exclaims. She doesn't need him to tell her that she's too young, that she doesn't understand. She does. "I'm not stupid, okay?" she insists. "You don't think I wanna get out of here too?"

Anders has had years to get used to Rhyanon's occasional, explosive bursts of anger. But even still, the force of her fury shocks him. She shouldn't hurt this much. "Was it worth it?" she asks darkly.

Of course it was. But he doesn't think he can tell her that, he can't explain it in a way that would make sense. So he just sighs. "I don't know," he tells the younger girl. It's the most honest answer he can summon.

Rhyanon nods, and retreats to her bed. She watches Anders play with the string tied around the pouch of elfroot, flipping it around between his fingers. "Are you going to class?" he asks softly.

"Are you?"

Anders shrugs. "I think I kind of have to," he admits.

They're both late, but it's not the big deal it would've been a few years ago. These days, "class" more often than not consists of small study groups and demonstrations, scattered throughout the tower's mostly empty rooms, where they can practice and hone their skills. They tread carefully in the halls outside the quarters belonging to Harrowed mages, and Wynne is in the middle of a lecture when Anders hesitantly slips into the room occupied by the few other apprentices that roughly make up their peer group. While talking, she somehow manages to shoot him a look that is simultaneously disapproving and sympathetic.

Rhyanon slips into an unoccupied desk at the back of the room as is grateful for the relative lack of attention on her. Wynne is talking about the properties and theories of defensive magic. Rhyanon understands without listening; as the woman talks, she focuses on the tracing careful circles and lines into her notebook, tracing glyphs that mean nothing, until and unless she fuels them with mana. She flicks her pencil quickly against the desk, suddenly uncomfortable with how easily her teacher details the use of wards and shields and mana drains, summarizing them all with a simple word: counter-offense. Rhyanon freezes, and pulls herself up out of her slouch. She sits up straight, and still, her entire body charged with the importance of this new information. It's the first time she's ever considered the idea at she might be able to do the same things that the templars do.

The unformed questions weigh heavy on her mind all afternoon. Six or seven times, she starts to ask Irving about the implications of taking away another mage's power, but then stops herself. He notices her distraction and ends their lesson early. He seems distracted too, though. It's just another thing Rhyanon doesn't ask about.

It's a relief to meet up with Anders in the library that evening. The comfortable routine is welcome, after the stomach-churning uncertainty of the past few weeks. Anders seems eager to pretend like nothing has happened that's worth talking about, and Rhyanon still doesn't know what she's supposed to say. Probably nothing. It's easier to stay quiet than to risk him getting mad at her, and she doesn't want to think about getting in trouble anymore, or getting hurt. So, they study.

Well, she studies anyway. As Anders flips through the pages of multiple books on anatomy and medicine, far too quickly to actually be reading any of them, Rhyanon struggles to make sense of the partially translated Orlesian texts Irving had given her. They are important, even interesting, when she can understand them: accounts of the formation of the first Circles, in the aftermath of war. The First Enchanter wants to know what she thinks, what she's learned, what she would have done differently. They are questions she can't answer, but she can't stop thinking about them anyway. She slides her fingernail between her teeth and worries at it as she copies down notes, and tries to figure out what her teacher is really asking her for.

She sighs, and leans over across the table, enough to see what Anders is drawing. It doesn't look like anything, just harsh, angry scratches that carve deep into the parchment. Tally marks, but angry ones, deep cuts that actually do rip up the paper, causing dark pools of ink to bleed around the ragged edges. She frowns. Apparently, pretending to forget is only going to take them so far. Which is fine, because she wants to talk about it. She has to make sure that he's okay. That they're okay.

Anders catches her looking, and slams his book shut. "I'm going to bed," he announces.

He's already halfway to the dorms by the time Rhyanon manages to hurry out of the library to catch up to him, and he doesn't slow down even though he must know she's following him, which means he's deliberately avoiding her.

Fine. She doesn't turn back, but she doesn't talk to him either. Instead, she crawls onto her bunk and pretends she doesn't care what he's doing. She repeatedly rearranges her stack of books, piling it up and unpiling it atop her bed, playing with it, like a small child with a stack of wooden blocks.

She sneaks a glance at Anders out of the corner of her eye. He's rummaging around under his mattress. He pulls out all of his other stuff, spreading it out in a wide arc around him. There are all kinds of useless treasures, smooth stones and dried up plants, and a bunch of other things as well, things that must have come from people: a couple of coins, a marble, a few carved wooden animals. Rhyanon stops bothering to pretend she isn't interested. She leans over, half falling out of her bunk, so that she can get closer. Anders looks up, and smiles at her. But it's a tired smile, and he still feels... off. Dim. She can't feel him like she usually can, and she knows it must be because of the magebane the templars gave him, still there inside him, not all the way gone.

"Where'd you get all that stuff?" she asks, reaching out to pick up the almost perfectly round stone that rests closest to her. It feels warm and smooth in her hand, and it's small enough that when she closes her fingers around it, she can't see it at all.

Anders shrugs. "Around."

"Outside?"

"Some of it, yeah." Not everything. She knows that. There's the stuff that she has too, years-old textbooks and scraps of parchment, pencil stubs. But he keeps it all; he won't get rid of any of it.

Rhyanon chews on her lower lip and holds her breath, and watches him as he takes out some of that old parchment and flattens it against his knee. She exhales, slow and shallow, in time with him.

Anders pulls a bit of old charcoal out from somewhere; Rhyanon doesn't even know how he can find anything, in the jumble of disorganized chaos all around him, but he manages. She settles back on her knees, slowly relaxing as he runs the black residue over the paper, smooth shading that eventually begins to take shape, organic patches of light and dark that form into shadows, and water, and trees. He slips the finished drawing into her hand. Rhyanon folds it up, over and over again, making the square of paper as tiny as she can. She falls asleep with it hidden in her hand.

The next morning, she wakes up even earlier than usual – it's still totally dark, without even a hint of pre-dawn grey creeping in through the faraway windows. She unfolds the drawing Anders had given her and flips it over. Her eye catches Anders' messy handwriting, one word scrawled onto the back of the paper. She hadn't noticed it last night. He'd written it small. Yes.

She thinks about the question she'd asked him, when she needed to understand why he'd let himself get hurt, why he'd leave her. She smiles. 'Was it worth it?' 'Yes.' Even though she doesn't know if he has the answer right, it still feels better than not having an answer. It feels better to know.

She hastily stuffs the paper into the pocket of her robes as Anders begins to stir.

He takes her hand in his and they walk to Chapel together, which they have never ever done, not even when she was little.

"You worry too much," he says softly, as he kneels down in their familiar row, halfway in the back. Rhyanon nods, because she knows it's true. People have told her that all her life, even before the the tower. She sits down on the hardwood bench and kicks the back of the pew in front of her, until Anders gets up and sits down next to her. Maybe he was actually praying. Sometimes he does. It's one more thing they never really talk about. Anders wraps his arm around her and squeezes her shoulder. "Stop worrying," he demands. "We're okay."

Rhyanon nods. Even though she knows that she shouldn't believe him, she believes him anyway. She believes him enough.