Updated courtesy of Olndina's awesome beta-power.

It was nearly dark by the time Nathaniel came in from the practice yard, satisfied with the day's training. Since Gideon had gone back to Kal'Hirol with Sigrun to collect the stone tablet bearing the names of the once-casteless warriors, Nathaniel had found himself spending more and more time in the training yard. Before becoming a Warden, most of his fighting had been done outdoors, where there was plenty of room to stay well back from the enemy and use his bow for the entire battle. Spending several days in the confined rooms of the dwarven fortress, however, demonstrated that he wasn't nearly as proficient with blades as he ought to be. As darkspawn came from the Deep Roads, he aimed to rectify that immediately.

He looked forward to Sigrun's return, actually; having another rogue (and fellow Warden, given that she'd thankfully survived the Joining) to spar with would definitely be helpful. As it was, he usually practiced alone using the training dummies, or else he'd grab an off-duty guard to act as defense. It was only after the sun had begun to slip below the treeline that he would pick up his bow, riddling the archery targets with more and more holes. He'd always found archery to be a great stress reliever; lining up his shot, focusing on the target, ignoring everything else around him—it was calming in a way that nothing else was.

His evenings were usually spent in his room, caring for his weapons and armor, or else in the library—which was where he was currently headed. Seeing as how the large room was usually empty in the evenings, he wasn't sure whether he felt irritated, disappointed, or pleased to find Anders already there, settled into one of the overstuffed chairs near the hearth.

"Evening," Nathaniel said quietly, as he crossed the room to one of the bookshelves against the far wall. He'd spotted a book on Antivan military tactics just before they'd left for the Knotwood Hills. He found the thick tome easily enough and pulled it from the shelf.

He looked over at Anders as he sat down in a nearby chair. The mage had an amused smile on his face as he slowly turned the page. "What are you reading?"

Anders half-closed the book to look at the cover. "The Sword of Rivain, by A. Gentleman."

That was surprising. "I didn't take you for someone who reads books about weaponry."

Anders smirked as he turned his attention back to the book. "It's not that kind of sword."

It took a moment for Nathaniel to understand Anders' meaning, but when he did, he flushed hotly. "Oh," was all he managed to get out. Not the wittiest of replies, but it was all he could think of under the circumstances. He opened his own book and stared down at the page, hoping Anders wouldn't notice the faint flush that had bloomed on his cheeks, and ignoring the quiet chuckle that sounded from the vicinity of the mage.

"Your family has quite the collection of dirty books," Anders mused aloud some time later. "They also have a lot of books on the history of magic and the Tevinter Imperium."

Nathaniel cast him an irritated look. "What are you saying? That my family is made up of a bunch of maleficar-loving perverts?"

Anders laughed. "Don't get so worked up over it, it was just an observation."

"It was a stupid observation," Nathaniel grumbled, stung by the mage's passive slander against his family. "As are most of your observations."

Anders raised an eyebrow. "I happen to make very good observations. You just don't have enough imagination to appreciate them." He laughed at the sight of Nathaniel's scowl. "I'm joking, I'm joking!"

Nathaniel found that it was becoming more and more difficult lately to stay mad at the mage. His lips curved into a tiny smile, though he did his best to hide it by turning his head away slightly. The gleam that he saw in Anders' eyes and the satisfied smile on the mage's face revealed that he hadn't been successful.

Nathaniel watched as Anders returned to his book, and, with a realization that he was still staring at the man, looked down at his own, trying to concentrate on the words but failing. He hadn't been avoiding Anders, not at all, but this was the first time since they'd arrived back at the Keep that the two men had been truly alone together. Nathaniel couldn't help but be hyper-aware of the fact that Anders was sitting just a few feet away from him, close enough for Nathaniel to stretch out his arm and touch him, if he wanted to.

He imagined that he could feel the warmth radiating off of the other man, though he knew the heat was actually from the fire burning in the hearth. He remembered, though, a night when the heat had been from Anders, and if he closed his eyes, he could almost feel the mage pressed against him, feel his arms wrapping around that warm body, feel the head resting on his shoulder. He dreamt about it each night when he fell asleep, and there had been more than one morning when he'd awoken to find his pillow held firmly in his arms and his cock rock-hard.

He frowned down at his book, irritated by how taken he apparently was with the other man. Or perhaps "irritated" wasn't quite the right word. Confused, conflicted, scared: all of those were just as apt. It had been years since he'd acknowledged his attraction to another man. The odd soldier or nobleman's son who had caught his interest had been successfully banished from his thoughts. He was so practiced at burying his feelings that it was unsettling how easy it was for Anders to break through the walls he'd carefully built around himself.

His father was dead; he should be free of the feelings of shame and guilt that such attractions brought, but they were still there. Stronger, perhaps, due to the fact that his father had gone to his death still convinced that his oldest son was a disgrace to the Howe name. The very worst part was that Nathaniel feared he was right. His thoughts should have been on finding a wife and creating an heir, but no amount of berating himself had ever caused Nathaniel to see women as creatures of lust or desire. Never had he found a woman attractive, and the few that he'd taken to bed – out of a need to prove to himself that his father was wrong—had done little to sate his need.

A snort of laughter caused him to look up. "What's so funny?" he asked.

Anders was looking down at his book, a crooked smile on his lips. "Well, according to this, there's a place on a man's body that, when pressed, can cause him to orgasm almost immediately." He looked up at Nathaniel, his eyes sparkling with amusement. "And it's not your cock."

Nathaniel flushed a deep red. "And you felt the need to share this with me, why?"

Anders shrugged. "You're the one who asked. 'Course it could come in useful, the next time you have sex." He looked at the rogue appraisingly, that crooked smile still in place. "You have had sex before, right?" His tone was light, teasing, but Nathaniel couldn't help scowling, embarrassed by the question.

"Yes, I have had sex, though probably not nearly as much as you. I didn't exactly spend my time in the Free Marches chasing women."

"Then what did you do there?" Anders looked genuinely curious.

Nathaniel relaxed a little, grateful to be back on a subject he could actually talk about. "I learned how to be a rogue. Hunting, scouting, fighting. How to make poisons. How to survive."

"You were there for eight years, right? Must have been hard being away from the people you cared about for that long." Anders' expression turned wistful.

Nathaniel thought about that for a moment. "It was hard being away from Delilah, certainly. And Adria." Though not his mother and father, not really. By the time he'd left for the Marches, his relationship with both had been cold, at best. "I even missed Thomas a little, though we rarely got along." He felt his mouth twitch upwards a little as he remembered the brother who was everything his father had wanted Nathaniel to be. Nathaniel never begrudged Thomas that, however, though he wished now that he'd tried to set a better example for him by standing up to his father, or at least trying to teach Thomas the true meaning of nobility.

His father had made it clear when he'd sent Nathaniel away that if he didn't return a better man, it would be Thomas who inherited his land and title. Nathaniel had had conflicting feelings about that. On the one hand, it was a bit of a relief not to have the many pressures usually imposed upon the eldest son; on the other hand, he had been bitterly ashamed that he was such a disappointment to his father.

"I don't regret being sent there, though," he continued. "It was good training, and it made me a better man in a lot of ways."

Anders cocked his head a little. "Sounds like you weren't happy at the beginning, though."

Nathaniel looked at the mage, surprised at how well the other man was able to read him. For all of Anders' flippancy, he was more observant than most people would believe. Perhaps that was the point; Anders seemed harmless in many ways, so people might have a tendency to underestimate him.

"Being sent away wasn't my choice, no. But it's fairly common for the sons of noblemen to be squired out to other places." Though he'd been a bit older than most when he'd been sent, and until that time there had never been any talk of Nathaniel being sent away.

Anders didn't look as if he entirely believed Nathaniel's reason, but to Nathaniel's great relief he didn't question it further. What he said instead caught Nathaniel a little off guard.

"It was good that you had people who missed you." Anders' smile seemed a little forced. "The only people who were sorry to see me leave the Circle were the Templars, and they don't exactly count."

"When you escaped, you mean?" Nathaniel asked. Anders nodded. "But you had friends there, didn't you? People to care about you?"

"Oh, I had friends," Anders agreed. "But no one I was really close to. I was good at keeping people at a distance." That certainly sounded familiar. "And," the mage continued, "it was hard to keep any close friends when I was running away so much." He shrugged. "Not that I could really lament that fact; I'll take freedom over friends any day."

Nathaniel nodded his understanding. "That would be hard I suppose. And it didn't sound like any of your escapes were for very long periods of time." Which brought up something Nathaniel had been wondering about. "Were you there during the revolt in the Circle?" He'd heard the story from various people, the most reliable one being Gideon. He'd apparently arrived at the Circle just after the revolt had been staged, there seeking help from the mages to fight the Blight. What he'd found instead was a small-scale war being waged between Templar and maleficar, with many innocent mages caught in between.

Anders shook his head. "No. Lucky for me, I'd already escaped by then. But I met up with some old friends a couple of months ago who were there at the time; more than a few mages managed to escape during that confusion." Anders smiled ruefully. "They told me all the details, unfortunately."

"Why unfortunately?" Nathaniel asked.

"Apparently it's not a pretty sight to watch the bodies of your friends get ripped apart by abominations or destroyed by maleficar." Anders' look of revulsion was enough to make Nathaniel regret the question. Of course it had been horrible for Anders to hear the details, seeing as how he'd likely grown up with the mages who died.

"A lot of mages died, many of them friends," Anders continued, confirming Nathaniel's thoughts. "A lot of Templars died, too, but I can't be bothered much about that."

Nathaniel frowned. "You hate Templars that much that you're glad they died?"

Anders shrugged, frowning. "Not glad, not exactly. But I can't say I'm sorry about it, either. Fewer Templars means better chances for escaped mages to stay escaped."

Nathaniel decided to let the matter drop; he had no desire to get into an argument with Anders about Templars. "So, where were you then?" Nathaniel asked.

Anders shrugged. "Somewhere near Lothering, I think. I bounced around from place to place so much, it's hard to remember exactly. I'd escaped a few months prior, during another small revolt."

Nathaniel was startled by that admission. "There was another revolt before that?"

"Sort of. Did you ever hear about what happened at Redcliffe, about Arl Eamon getting sick and his son getting possessed by a demon?"

Nathaniel nodded. "I heard a bit, though not enough for it to make any real sense."

Anders nodded. "I can understand that; you have to hear the whole story for it to really make sense." He looked down at his book, absently creasing the corner of one of the pages. "I wasn't in Redcliffe when everything happened, but I watched the story begin, back in the Circle of Magi.

"There was this mage there named Jowan. We weren't really friends, but we got on well enough." Anders sat back in his chair, stretching his long legs in front of him. "He wasn't very good at magic, actually, he did poorly in nearly every school of magic there is. Healing, primal spells, entropics: he was rubbish at all of them. It turned out that he was really good at blood magic, though no one found that out until after one of his friends had helped him destroy his phylactery."

Nathaniel's eyes widened in surprise. "He destroyed his phylactery? Really?"

Anders nodded. "First and only time I've ever heard of that happening. His friend, Daylen, helped him and his girlfriend sneak into the phylactery chamber. I've no idea how they made it past the magical barriers that must have been set up, but they did it without getting caught." He grimaced. "At least, they weren't until they'd made their way out of the chamber and into the Tower proper. The Knight Commander and the First Enchanter were waiting for them, along with several Templars. Jowan panicked and used blood magic to escape."

"And you saw all of that?" Nathaniel asked.

Anders shook his head. "No, I saw the half-dozen Templars who ran upstairs to try and find out what was going on. There was lots of shouting and stuff—a nice big distraction that I quickly took advantage of. The Templars guarding the main doors of the tower had gone with everyone else, so it was easy enough for me to sneak out. I found Jowan at the dock, trying to figure out how to work the little boat tied up there. He was scared when he saw me, thought maybe I'd come to stop him." Anders' laugh was a little harsh. "As if I'd try to stop a mage from escaping. I just grabbed an oar and jumped into the boat. We parted ways on the other side of the lake, and I haven't seen him since."

Nathaniel wasn't entirely sure what to think of Anders' story. True, he was unsettled by the idea that Anders had helped a maleficar to escape, but he couldn't exactly begrudge Anders the chance at freedom, especially not after everything Anders had told him about life in the Circle.

Anders seemed to sense his discomfort. "Look, Jowan was going to leave, anyway—I just tagged along. I had nothing to do with what happened afterwards."

"What happened . . ." It took a moment for Nathaniel to make the connection. "Jowan was the mage who poisoned Arl Eamon."

Anders nodded, looking a bit sad. "Yeah. Apparently Loghain promised Jowan his freedom if he did it, and Jowan was stupid enough to believe him."

Nathaniel's face twisted with distaste. He'd only met Teyrn Loghain Mac Tir a few times when he was younger, usually at the Landsmeets that his father insisted on bringing him to, and he'd never actually spoken to the man. Watching how he interacted with others was an education, though. Loghain was harsh and abrupt, and always seemed certain of himself. His confidence and his conviction that he was always right were two traits that were especially appealing to Nathaniel's father, a man who would ingratiate himself to anyone who seemed stronger than he. Loghain's hatred for Orlais was notorious, as was his vicious determination to get what he wanted.

Unlike many people, It didn't surprise Nathaniel at all that Loghain had apparently sent an apostate to debilitate Arl Eamon. The arl was the deceased king's uncle, and, if rumors were true, Cailan had depended on his opinion quite a bit. There had even been a rumor floating around that Eamon had tried to get Cailan to divorce his wife, Anora—who just happened to be Loghain's daughter. Nathaniel had never found out if there was any truth to that, but seeing as how Loghain had obviously gone mad with power after abandoning the king on the fields of Ostagar, it seemed reasonable that he would wish to eliminate any opposition he might have.

"Arl Eamon was cured, wasn't he?" That was a story told all across Ferelden still—how Gideon had found the Temple of Andraste within the Frostback Mountains and retrieved a pinch of the Bride of the Maker's ashes, said to cure all ailments. "I never heard what happened to the mage."

"I don't know for sure," Anders admitted. "I've been too afraid to ask Gideon."

Nathaniel raised an eyebrow. "Why's that?"

Anders looked grim. "Jowan was still an apprentice. If he was sent back to the Circle, they most likely made him Tranquil . . . I'd rather not know if that happened."

There was something about Anders' tone that caused Nathaniel to shiver a little. "What does that mean? To be made Tranquil?"

"It's what they do to mages they think might be dangerous or incompetent, or ones they suspect of being maleficar. There's some kind of ritual that they do, and the end result is that the mage is cut off from the Fade. Permanently."

"So they can't dream? That doesn't sound too terrible, really." Admittedly, it doesn't sound all that appealing, but it certainly doesn't seem like a horrible punishment.

"Being made Tranquil is like having your head cut off. All of your emotions are severed." Anders frowned. "Mages have a very intimate connection to the Fade. For us, it's not just about dreaming . . . it's deeper than that." He shook his head. "I don't really know how to explain it. I never actually paid that much attention during lessons. What it boils down to, though, is that Tranquil mages don't feel emotions, they don't feel anything. Not happy, or sad, or angry, or joyful . . . they're just these mindless husks walking around, going through the motions of life." Anders actually shuddered. "It's horrible—worse than death."

Nathaniel felt cold tendrils of ice shiver down his spine. The look of despair mixed with fear on Anders' face was reminiscent of how he'd looked when Rylock had had the sword tip pressed to his throat. He tried to imagine what it would be like, to live without feeling emotion, and found that he couldn't really.

He remembered something that his nursemaid Adria had once told him. He'd been very small, no more than six or seven, and his father had chastised him severely for something he could no longer remember. He had run up to the crenellations, a favorite haunt of his, crying so hard he could barely see where he was going, and feeling as if his life had ended. He had disappointed his father, and to the young Nathaniel there was no greater crime than that.

When Adria had found him a short time later, he had been inconsolable. No amount of hugs or soothing words from her had helped to calm him, and the pain was so great that in his childish irrationality he feared that he might actually die of it. Eventually, though, the tears had finally finished, and he had sat exhausted in Adria's comforting embrace.

It was then that Adria had told Nathaniel how important his hurt was. It was only through experiencing such things as sadness and fear and pain that one was able to appreciate how good it felt to be happy. A person, she had said, can't experience true joy without first feeling true hurt. If everyone was happy all of the time, it would make it less meaningful, and less enjoyable. And the fact that Nathaniel was able to experience such pain was actually a good thing: it meant that someday he would be able to experience great happiness.

As a child, it was more Adria's soft voice that had comforted Nathaniel than her actual words, but as an adult he understood her true meaning: to feel strong emotions—good and bad—is to be alive. The thought of someone not being able to feel either . . . Nathaniel could understand Anders' meaning; it would be worse than death.

"They don't do that to all errant mages, though? I mean, you escaped from them seven times, and they didn't do it to you." Thankfully, Nathaniel wanted to add, but didn't.

Anders shook his head. "The Chantry doesn't allow the Rite of Tranquility to be used on Harrowed mages—mages who've graduated from their apprenticeship," he clarified. "So I was free from that punishment, at least."

The unspoken words, though not free from other punishments, hung heavily in the air. It was on the tip of Nathaniel's tongue to ask what exactly had been done to Anders in the Circle, and especially during his periods of solitary confinement, but he knew that it was none of his business. He also had no desire to bring up even more painful subjects. Anders had already placed more trust in Nathaniel than he deserved, he didn't want to break that trust by prying where he shouldn't.

His smile was a bit forced, but at least it was there, and so were the words that he'd wanted to say but been reluctant to. "I'm glad they didn't, even if your jokes are a bit lacking."

Anders looked at him blankly for a moment before bursting into laughter. "My jokes are fine, Nate, but you just don't have a sense of humor."

Nathaniel's smile became more genuine. "No humor and no imagination. It's a wonder that you're even friends with me."

He noticed the tiny look of surprise on Anders' face at the use of the word "friend." The mage's lips curved into a smile. "You have a few good things going for you." He said no more as he turned back to his book, picking up where he'd left off.

Nathaniel chuckled quietly, shaking his head as he opened his own book.