The Hanged Man's so-called ale was foul: it burned on the way down – it burned on the way out – it had particles in it that were best left unexamined, and it tasted like an alley cat's piss, but it had alcohol in it, and when one happened to be a mage sharing headspace with a teetotaling Fade spirit who had briefly lifted the drinking ban, the alcohol was the part that really mattered.
Anders wanted to enjoy the feeling of being more than tipsy and just a little less than drunk, but he had other things on his mind that ruined his enjoyment. Widald Amell. Dal, to his friends, Hero of Ferelden, Warden-Commander, and living bloody legend to everyone else.
Everyone wanted to know about the Hero of Ferelden. Other than the long trip from Kirkwall to Amaranthine, why wouldn't Anders want to go back to Ferelden, where mages were held in much higher esteem than in the Free Marches?
That, Anders decided, was none of their damned business.
"Right," he said, raising his head from where he had been staring blankly at the sheets of paper covered in Bethany's tidy handwriting and runes older than Kirkwall. He had been hoping some answer would coalesce out of the ink if he stared hard enough, but it hadn't. And damn the paper while he was at it.
"We've seen the smith, we've been experimented on by a dwarf, we've even taken the chained apostate to the Gallows for a game of 'how ironic is this?' and I'm still stuck with the dour elf." Anders complained, ignoring Fenris' glare.
"But before we go traipsing off to Ferelden, someone please tell me there's something closer to home we can try."
Fenris tapped the pages in front of Anders. "You're the only one among us who can understand this—"
"Except for Daisy," Varric cut in. "Why not let her have a look? Then you probably have tried everything."
Both Anders and Fenris glowered at the suggestion.
"Yes," Fenris said. "Let us involve the witch. Perhaps she can ask a demon to assist us."
"If it means blood magic, I'd rather stay chained to Fenris." From the corner of his eye Anders saw Fenris swing his head around to look at him, but he kept his attention on Varric. He was fairly certain that if he met Fenris' gaze what he would see would be a promise of amputated limbs in their future.
"That's nice, boys," Isabela said blithely as she swung herself up off of Hawke's lap and headed for the door. "I'll be back with Merrill in a two shakes, and you can tell her yourselves."
Anders started to push out of his seat, calling after her, "Isabela—"
"Let her go," Hawke interrupted. "I'll be certain to spank Merrill if she tries any horrible unwanted blood magic rites on you two helpless, unsuspecting men."
He dug in his backpack and pulled out one of several bottles of Antivan brandy that Anders knew he had stashed in there. That man was a packrat, as though his torn trouser collection weren't proof enough. "We can try this while we wait. I picked it up…" He tipped his head and stared into space trying to remember just where he had picked it up. "…I think it was in the Chantry storerooms. That should add a certain delicious apostate flavor to it, don't you think?"
While he spoke, he pried the top off the brandy with the thin knife he kept on his belt. "You said your thoughts needed lubricating, didn't you?"
"I said lubricating," Anders retorted. "Not greased right off the skids."
It wasn't always easy to tell his thoughts from Justice's. Sometimes he knew without a doubt that it was Justice's disapproval, Justice's thoughts, Justice's demands that drove him, other times he would find himself taking actions that only in retrospect seemed more the spirit's doing than his own.
This time he could feel Justice's disapproving twist behind his eyes, telling him that this self-indulgence was going too far, that the drinking the first night was bad enough, that his thoughts in his bed the second night were worse, and that this was unworthy.
"Sod unworthy," he said, ignoring Hawke's raised eyebrow as he raised his tankard. "Why aren't you pouring yet?"
He should not do this, he should keep his faculties clear, he should not—
Widald. Amell.
Justice's voice went silent.
Despite that, Anders only sipped the brandy. He had made his point to himself and to Justice, and wanted to keep some of his faculties about him for Merrill's arrival.
Fenris declined Hawke's offer, but Varric took a dash of brandy in his mug and joined Anders and Fenris at their end of the table.
"Let's say Daisy can't help you any more than anyone else has so far," he said. "Should we start planning a trip?"
"We?" Fenris asked pointedly.
"Well, you," Varric conceded. "I can't really leave Kirkwall for as long as it would take to get to Amaranthine and back."
Hawke joined them so that all four men were gathered at one end of Varric's table with Anders sitting at the head. "I can't go either," he said after taking a swig straight from the bottle. "I can't leave Mother, and I think this qunari situation is going to blow up soon. As much as I'd like to meet my cousin, I can't go."
Anders kept his eyes fixed on the swirling brandy in his tankard. He had known that he could not expect Hawke to drop all his other obligations to go jaunting off to Ferelden, but he would have felt better about facing Dal with another Amell at his side.
"I will not travel with the witch," Fenris said firmly. "I do not think we could convince Isabela to leave your side, Aveline has commitments here."
"And I am not going anywhere with the choir boy," Anders added just as firmly. "Which means it's just you and me, Captain Happypants."
Hawke thumped the brandy bottle on the table. "I'll send Brutal with you."
"Brutal?" Anders considered the four-legged siege engine that Hawke called a dog. "But he's imprinted on you."
"And he'll do what I tell him, and if I tell him it's important that you two get back to Kirkwall alive, he'll make sure it happens."
Anders' pictured Brutal meeting Dal's mabari hound, Walter and winced. There would either be blood or copious amounts of drool. Either way, it was bound to be messy.
Maker, how he missed Ser Pounce-a-lot.
Ser Pounce-a-lot!Anders must have made some kind of sound because Fenris tugged on the chain. "You have thought of something."
"Nothing that will help us," Anders said, but he couldn't help smiling just a little. If they had to go to Amaranthine, there was at least one good thing that could come of it before they found Dal and he faced the consequences of running away years ago. "I was thinking of an old friend."
"You may socialize when we are free of one another," Fenris told him.
"Come on, Broody," Varric chided playfully. "Let's all take a moment to be amazed that Anders has old friends at all."
"Mind that," Anders said. "I used to be quite the social butterfly. And I have heard that being struck by lightning can make a person's hair fall out." He stared pointedly at Varric's chest – and chest hair – until Varric splayed a hand out to cover it from his sight.
"If you did that, Blondie, half the women in Kirkwall would throw themselves into the ocean."
"And a quarter of the men," Isabela said cheerfully as she came through the door, Merrill in tow behind her.
"Only an eighth," Varric corrected. "Most of the men aren't 'flexible' enough to appreciate what I have out on display."
"Why do they have to be flexible?" Merrill asked guilelessly. "They don't have to bend down to see it, just look down a little. It's right there in the open after all."
"Not that kind of flexible, Kitten," Isabela said with an indulgent smile. "Now have a look at Anders' papers there so we can see what comes next."
Anders passed the papers to Merrill and watched her settle into a chair farther down the table, pulling her feet up off the floor to tuck them under thighs. Her usual vague bemused expression fading into something stronger, more knowing as she shuffled through the pages.
He had to admit that he was surprised that she actually appeared to understand any of what she was reading. He supposed that somewhere in the back of his mind he had written her off as lacking any intelligence when perhaps she was less unintelligent and more stupid and misguided.
While she read, Isabela let Hawke pour her some of the brandy and produced a deck of cards. She riffled through the cards with a thoughtless grace before dealing out a hand of diamondback for everyone except Merrill.
"What?" she asked when Fenris frowned at her. "If you two end up running off to Amaranthine together, this might be one of my last chances to steal you blind, I mean, win at cards."
They played diamondback, and for all Isabela's threats of stealing, she won no more often than Varric or Hawke did.
Anders and Fenris, on the other hand, did not win at all.
"I knew that playing three thieves was a bad idea," Anders groused as he threw down another losing hand and watched Varric smugly gather his winnings out of the center of the table.
"I prefer rogue," Hawke said loftily. "To go with my roguish charm, roguish good looks, and roguish sense of humor."
"A thief by any other name…" Fenris said, unexpectedly paraphrasing a famous Fereldan playwright.
"…would still be a bastardy thief," Anders finished for him.
"Um—' Merrill interrupted what would surely have become a heated debate about the nature of thievery. "I'm done?"
"Any luck?" Hawke asked, swiveling in his seat to give her his full attention.
She shook her head. "I made a few notes that might help Anders or whoever he's going to see, but this isn't elvehn magic, and only a few things were familiar. I'm really sorry," she added, looking past Hawke to Fenris and Anders.
Anders really wished she would stop looking so cute and vulnerable. It simply was not fair for someone who consorted with demons to look like Merrill – an elf who seemed more likely to cry than call dark magics down on someone who upset her.
Appearances mean nothing.
No, Anders corrected himself and Justice, appearances meant many things, but they could lie. No one would look at him and guess that he was a possessed Gray Warden mage after all.
"You did your best," Varric assured her, when neither Anders nor Fenris made a move to be conciliatory. "I'm sure the boys would thank you, but you know they were kicked out of finishing school."
Anders held out his tankard to Hawke and let him pour in another generous splash of brandy.
"Looks like we're off to Amaranthine," he said to Fenris. "I can't wait."
• • •
"No!" Anders tried to fold his arms to go with his denial and got a jerk on the chain from Fenris for his effort.
"Be reasonable," Hawke wheedled. "We're doing this for your own good."
"You're doing this to have one last joke at our expense before we leave," Fenris snapped.
Anders and all of Hawke's traveling companions were gathered together in the Hanged Man just hours before the ship was due to leave for Amaranthine with Anders and Fenris as passengers. They were all staring at a beautifully embroidered length of cloth that Merrill was holding up for their approval.
"No," Hawke said, "I am thinking about something other than your pride. You two can't go jaunting off to Ferelden looking like you just escaped from prison. You'll attract too much attention and you," he leveled a finger at Fenris, "are already going to stick out like a sore thumb. You are both going to let Merrill sew that over the cuffs and chain and you are going to use the cover story Varric came up with."
"I am not telling people that it's a newlywed custom," Anders said hotly. "Are you mad? Everyone can tell we can't stand each other and you want us to say we're married?"
"It's an exotic newlywed custom," Varric said patiently. "To go with Fenris' exotic looks. That way when someone says 'newlywed custom? I've never heard of such a thing,' you can point at Fenris and say, 'and have you ever seen an elf like him?' Throw in a bit of doe eyes and everyone will shut up."
"There will be no doe eyes," Fenris snapped. "And I will not pretend to be his—" He jerked a thumb at Anders with an expression of disgust. "—husband!"
"You're no prize either," Anders said, nettled. "As if I'd marry a man like you. As if I'd marry!"
"Shut. Up!" Aveline's bellow settled the argument faster than anything else their friends had tried. "You're going to do it if I have to hold Fenris down while Hawke sits on Anders' chest. This is not about embarrassing you—"
"That's just a bonus," Isabela added helpfully.
"Shut up, whore," Aveline snapped. "This is not about embarrassing you. We want both of your sorry arses back in Kirkwall."
"Are we certain about that?" Sebastian asked. "I'd settle for just getting Fenris back."
"Hawke," Aveline looked to their fearless leader. "Who do I hit first?"
"Oh, I don't know," Hawke drawled. "How about whoever pisses you off next?"
Anders pressed his lips tightly closed and held his wrist out to Merrill.