Anders held his arms out to Delilah to take Ser Pounce-a-lot from her, feeling a swell of joy in his chest that caught in the hollow of his throat to form a lump that made it nearly impossible to breathe. When Ser Pounce-a-lot pushed off Delilah's chest to leap into his arms, the lump broke, spilling out words he had honestly never thought to say again.
"Ser Pounce-a-lot, who's a good kitty? You're a good kitty, yes you are." He turned his face away from Fenris to wipe his cheeks before continuing. "Look at you, you've gone and grown up. I bet you're the terror of all the mice in Amaranthine."
He was babbling, he knew it, but he realized that he loved this little creature. Ser Pounce-a-lot had never wanted anything from him but simple things – food, affection, a safe place to hide from the darkspawn, and in return Pounce had bumped his head into his hand to show that he approved of the petting, purred by his ear at night when the taint nightmares had made him thrash and cry out, and well, yes, there was something even more special about Pounce—
— a memory, fragmented, of waking in the middle of a raging battle to a raspy little tongue on his cheek—
—but what made Ser Pounce-a-lot special was that he loved Anders back, and now he was in his arms and purring and shoving his head into Anders' hand to be petted, digging his claws into Anders' bare chest as he kneaded the skin under his paws to show his contentment—
—and Justice remembered him. Justice remembered his concern that the creature was imprisoned in a manner that was unjust. Justice remembered watching Anders cooing over the kitten and remembered his inability to understand the relationship between mage and feline. Justice remembered and finally, finally understood.
Anders felt Fenris' eyes on them and turned his back as much as the chain between them would allow. This was a special moment, and he would not tolerate the broody elf ruining it even for an instant.
"I missed you so much," he confessed, stroking his fingers over Pounce's fur, reassuring himself that this was real, and not some dream of longing he would wake from. If nothing else, being tethered to Fenris ensured that this wasn't some pleasant dream. "Kirkwall would be a much better place if you lived there. Do you want to come to Kirkwall, Pounce? There aren't many cats, you'd have all the mice you can eat."
He looked up at Delilah, struck by a thought that pained him as much as a sword thrust. "Unless you're happier here," he said, as much to her as to Pounce. "If you're happier here…." He couldn't bring himself to finish, and Delilah rescued him.
"He missed you, Anders," she said. "He hasn't been this affectionate with anyone since you left him with us. He lets me pick him up, but this— " She indicated the two of them together, "—no. He doesn't act like this with anyone."
Good.
Anders felt a grin spread on his lips. "He's a one-man cat. Knows the meaning of loyalty, Ser Pounce-a-lot does. He's a noble creature, my little Orange Warden."
Fenris, of course, broke the spell. "You aren't thinking of bringing it along."
It?
Anders nearly lost his smile, but Pounce seemed to sense his sudden annoyance and butted his head up under Anders' chin.
"Ser Pounce-a-lot is a noble and loyal companion," Anders said slowly, not turning to look at Fenris. "And if he wants to come with me, I am not abandoning him again."
He glanced up at Delilah, who nodded. "I would never keep two friends apart, you know that, Anders. I always told you that he would be here for you if you ever came for him."
Anders chuckled, still petting Pounce. No matter what the future brought, he had this happy moment, and that helped immeasurably. "You got all the best of the Howes," he joked. "How to be kind, how to be generous, how to—"
Delilah cut him off. "How to tell you to save it for my brother. You are going to see Nathaniel, aren't you? You owe him that. He mourned you."
"What, with wailing and gnashing of teeth?" Anders asked defensively. "Did he rend his clothes, too?"
"He mourned you in his own way," Delilah said, her expression so steely it reminded Anders of her brother. "And if you think that I'm not going to tell him that you aren't dead, you're dead wrong."
Anders felt the air start to leak out of his bubble of happiness.
"I'm going to the Vigil," he said. "Is Nathaniel there?"
"Last I heard, he's there," Delilah said. "Though the way you wardens keep your secrets he could be having tea with King Harrowmont in Orzammar for all I know."
"Mm. Is…" Anders looked down at Pounce and let that bit of happiness buoy him. "Is Dal there?"
"If he's not off saving Ferelden again, I imagine he is," Delilah said. "He checks in with me even less often than Nathaniel does."
Anders ignored Fenris clearing his throat and nodded. "Thank you. Will you forgive us if we—?"
"Go?" Her stern expression softened and she came close enough to pet Pounce's back. "Isn't that what your sort are always doing – dropping in with half of a revelation and then disappearing as quickly? Although, if you're off to Vigil's Keep with an elf chained to your wrist—" Both Anders and Fenris stiffened. "—if you wait until tomorrow morning, Albert has a caravan headed that way and you can travel with them. If might be safer for all of you."
"Albert is her husband," Anders explained for Fenris. "That's a generous offer, Delilah."
She folded her arms over her chest. "I'm only doing it for Ser Pounce-a-lot's sake. Traveling with you and your companion won't be easy for the poor dear."
"If only you knew," Fenris growled.
"Thank you," Anders said, ignoring Fenris because that was often the right way to go. "Just tell us where to go and we'll be there in the morning."
• • •
Anders tried to give Fenris a tour of Amaranthine - And that warehouse is where I thought the templars were storing my phylactery but it was just a trap and Here's where we found the man who killed himself because he thought he was unworthy of his wife and which made me realize that love is a terrible idea and Over there is where we stood when Dal made the decision to put the city to the torch and return to the Vigil.
The best he could offer was "Oh look, that pitchfork is still there." Which, as far as sightseeing tours went, was rather pathetic.
He finally gave up and led Fenris to the rebuilt Crown and Lion.
Both he and Justice remembered The Crown and Lion. He remembered the smuggler's tunnel in the back room and Dal smacking a few so-called blight orphans on the backside with his staff. Justice remembered it as the last roof over Kristoff's head , the last place that his first host had stayed, thinking of his wife and yearning to be home with her. They both remembered another Gray Warden's last thoughts of his wife only to find that she could not even be bothered to be broken up about her husband's death, busy as she was in the arms of her lover in another of The Crown and Lion's rooms.
Even with Ser Pounce-a-lot a comforting weight in his backpack, Anders found The Crown and Lion a disturbing place to stay.
The innkeeper that they remembered was not present, but the bartender was the same red-haired dwarf that they remembered from years before. He did not appear to recognize Anders, but considering that back then he had traveled with someone far more likely to draw the eye, Anders did not find it surprising.
"The back room, the one on the left, the one with the bathtub," he requested of the bartender before the dwarf could offer the room that had been Kristoff's. They couldn't stay in that room. The mere thought made him ache with someone else's pain.
He laid some coin on the counter and added a few extra coppers. "And send someone up with water for the tub now. You don't need to heat it."
The back suite had been rebuilt just as he remembered it – a large bed, a huge bathtub, and a luxurious amount of space after sharing a ship's cabin with Fenris for the past week.
Brutal promptly claimed the couch next to the bed for himself, stretching out to cover the entire piece of furniture with his legs dangling off the end while he basked in the heat from the fireplace. Ser Pounce-a-lot jumped out of Anders' backpack to turn circles in the center of the bed before deciding that Brutal had chosen the best spot. He jumped over the back of the couch to land on the mabari's barrel chest, giving him a few kneads of his paws before settling down to use the nonplussed dog as his mattress. Anders watched until Brutal decided he had been defeated by a cat, then smiled fondly before turning to Fenris.
Fenris beat him to the punch. "What are you thinking bringing a cat along on a trip to Vigil's Keep? With our circumstances we have enough difficulty simply protecting ourselves and you want to add another liability to our journey?"
Anders snorted, remembering Pounce's aplomb in the middle of fireballs and hails of arrows alike. "Don't talk to me about liabilities until you've met Oghren, and he's a warden. Ser Pounce-a-lot will be fine. He was weaned on battles, sharpens his claws on genlocks, cleans his teeth with… you get the idea. He's coming."
Fenris must have read something in his expression that cut the argument right there. Anders wanted to find a mirror to see what the expression was and practice it for future reference. His thoughts on practicing his "shut up, we're doing it my way" expression were interrupted when a young woman and an equally young man trudged in with buckets, dumping them into the tub and disappearing without a look or word for Anders or Fenris.
On the bright side, the interruption reminded him of something much more pleasant that he had planned for the evening.
"I'm having a bath and you aren't going to complain about it. Neither of us smell like Orlesian dandies right now and I'm sick of it."
Fenris eyed the large stone tub until Anders thumped the banner hanging from the ceiling next to the tub. "We don't have to take a bath together and you don't have to worry that I'll be ogling your goodies, if you take a turn in the water too."
Fenris shifted, checking the bottoms of his feet in that way he did when he was either bored or looking for a distraction when he was uncomfortable. "I cannot undress fully," he admitted.
"I know that," Anders said, trying for kind instead of impatient. "But you can get almost everything off, and I'll even hold that last piece of your shirt wossit out of the water for you."
He grinned as the servants returned to dump more water in the tub. "But it was my idea, so I'm going first."