Anders had a sudden vision of almost hallucinatory clarity – he was bolting, dragging Fenris behind him all the way out of the keep, robes flying out like wings. They could run and they could find some other way out of these chains. They didn't really need four hands between them, did they? That was just greedy.
Justice shut down that train of thought. Killjoy. He wanted to see Dal whether Anders did or not.
There was Dal, picking up his staff from where it leaned against his desk and coming around to face him directly.
Oh Maker, he was going to die.
Ser Pounce-a-lot did not seem to share his fear. He jumped down from his perch on Anders' backpack and situated himself directly on Dal's feet.
"Anders," Dal said so mildly that Anders could almost forget how implacable he actually was behind that mask of calm and patience, "where have you been? And by any chance do you know where Justice is?"
Anders forced himself to meet Dal's eyes. "Ah, yes… that's… a bit…"
"Complicated?" Dal supplied for him, one eyebrow raising ever so slightly.
Fenris made an exasperated noise. "It isn't complicated. He is the demon's new host."
"Spirit," Anders and Dal said together.
Dal continued, giving Fenris a look that brooked no disagreement. "Justice is a Fade spirit."
"That spirit is possessing him," Fenris said, not flinching. "Whatever you wish to call it."
"Anders…?"
Anders, unlike Fenris, flinched.
"It's true," he said at last. "Justice and I are together now."
Dal's attention sharpened to the point that Anders felt as though he should be bleeding. "You and Justice," he said slowly. "I must have misjudged you both. There's a reason I stopped letting Justice and Nathaniel patrol together, and here you went and did it instead."
Anders felt his surprise amplified by Justice's surprise. "Justice and Nathaniel? But he's—"
"Dedicated, direct, humorless?" Dal said. "They might have made a deadly match don't you think?"
He planted his staff on the ground in front of his feet where Ser Pounce-a-lot was blithely rolling around on his back, still ignored by the men in the room.
"Should I take it that whatever you and Justice did together is what caused the carnage that the wardens found after you disappeared?"
This would be the time when he would be smote. Smited? Smitten? Smiting was about to happen.
"You let them set a templar on me!" Anders accused, deciding that if smiting was coming, he would go down fighting. "You just left us all to go off without a word and they immediately shoved a templar straight up my arse! Does it matter that I followed you to the Fade and back? Fought not just a high dragon but an undead high dragon by your side? That I was right there with you to fight the Mother? That I didn't step a bloody toe out of line from the moment I took my Joining until you up and disappeared?"
He could feel his rage rising and he let it come because he was so damned scared by this confrontation that it was easier to roll with the rage than let the fear pull him under.
"Do you know what I have to say for the Gray bloody Wardens? To the Void with them! I was ready to die for them in exchange for my freedom from the Circle and what did I get?"
He jabbed an accusatory finger at Dal. "A templar 'partner' who acted like I was pissing straight blood magic!" His voice was growing louder, his heart beating faster, his blood was pounding in his ears, and the last, most damning pronouncement took the entire room by surprise: "And they made me give up Ser Pounce-a-lot!"
He looked down at the orange cat still rolling around on Dal's feet and felt the rage pour out of him in a rush that left him just tired. "Bastards."
"My, my," came a smooth voice that tore Anders' attention away from Ser Pounce-a-lot to find an elf leaning insouciantly in a now-open doorway in the office's back right wall. He wore a matched longsword and dagger on his back and an air that he knew how to use them. His almost shoulder-length blond hair was held away from his tattooed face by pair of braids.
"You never told me the mage was so fiery," he went on, his words laced with an unmistakably Antivan accent. "You know how I like fiery mages."
Dal huffed and shot a look over his shoulder at the elf. "Zevran, how can I maintain a proper degree of righteous disapproval if you go flirting with my warden? I told you to stay out of sight and just listen in."
Wait. What? My warden?
Did that mean that smiting was not forthcoming?
"You have also neglected to ask who the fiery mage is chained to, my dear warden, and why they are in such a position," Zevran went on. "Unless you also failed to mention certain, shall we say, proclivities of his? In which case I must say bravo, ser, bravo."
Dal glared at Zevran, who held up his hands, grinning unapologetically. "I am sorry, do not let me interrupt your righteous disapproval, it is so very sexy. You may use it on me later and I promise that I shall be thoroughly chastised."
Fenris stirred beside him. He should have known it would have been too easy if Fenris had actually kept his mouth shut through all of this. "My name is Fenris, and I am unwillingly chained to him through a magical accident. We have sought other help to no avail. The mage says that the Warden Commander might help find a way to separate us. You are our last resort."
Anders shot him a look. "Tactful."
"And blaming him for your choices was better?" Fenris retorted. "A green templar recruit can resist possession under torture and you just hand yourself over to this 'spirit' of yours."
"I wasn't blaming him, I was explaining," Anders snapped. "I didn't just wake up one morning to find that Rolan had spat in my porridge and decide that being a host for a Fade spirit was a viable life choice. I haven't even gotten to the part about the injustices the rest of the mages who aren't the Hero of Ferelden have to endure."
"Enough." Dal didn't raise his voice, but he laced it with enough magic that Fenris involuntarily reacted, his tattoos flaring under the touch of magic. Ser Pounce-a-lot reacted as well, swiping his claws over Dal's ankle before he swarmed up Anders' robe to settle on his backpack, glaring reproachfully over Anders' shoulder at him.
Anders should have noticed the fact that Ser Pounce-a-lot had left bleeding gouges in his flesh, clawing his thigh, hip, bare chest, and shoulder on his way up to his perch, but Fenris' unexpected loss of control had him swaying on his feet, struggling not to lose control in a more embarrassing manner.
"Bastard, bastard, bastard," he chanted, squeezing his eyes closed and clenching his hands into fists.
He dimly heard Zevran ask, "Is that his O-face? It is rather fetching, no?"
"Bastard."
"Right," Dal said crisply. "Through there."
He felt Fenris take his right arm and Dal take his left. Together they maneuvered him around the desk and through the door where Zevran had been lounging.
He knew before he even opened his eyes that they were in Dal's private office. He had spent many hours in this room with Dal either alone or with some of his closest warden companions, making plans for the next mission or sharing stories and drinks. The front office was for official business, for building a reputation that left people confused about who the Warden Commander was, for – as Dal had once said – armor.
His private office was less cluttered and more comfortable, with a second desk, several chairs, and a long couch that Dal and Fenris settled him on after removing his backpack. Ser Pounce-a-lot draped himself over Anders' lap, purring loudly and kneading his paws into Anders' thigh.
"What's wrong with him?" Dal asked once they had him settled. "I've seen him stand up to more than a little bit of force magic without so much as flinching. Is it something to do with Justice?"
"He is right here," Anders said, dabbing at the bleeding scratches on his bare pectoral, ignoring Fenris when he jerked back against the chain's pull between them from the motion. At least this time he had known what the sensation was when it hit him, and it had not been as strong as what Fenris had done on the ship. Despite that, he was rather grateful for Ser Pounce-a-lot on his lap, keeping him from tenting his robe, but at least he wasn't going to need a sudden cleanup.
"He's right here," he repeated, trying to gather his thoughts. "And sort of desperate if you haven't guessed."
Dal settled a hip on his desk – this one was mostly clear other than a blotter and quill and ink. There were books stacked in piles on the floor next to his desk, but at least the desk itself was clear in contrast to the mess in the front office. Zevran dropped into Dal's chair and propped his feet up on the blotter, looking for all the world as though they were guests in hisoffice.
"You've left me with too many questions to ask at once," Dal said once Anders looked up at him. "So we're going to start with what's important to me before we think about what's important to you. Can I speak to Justice?"
Anders shook his head. "Not exactly. Mostly he and I are one."
"Mostly," Dal said. "Mostly doesn't mean completely."
Anders ducked his head. "It's complicated."
"You said that already." Dal leaned his staff against the desk and folded his arms across his chest. "You came to me, you want my help, so stop trying to tell me that it's complicated and just answer the questions."
"He has folded his arms," Zevran observed. "Do you know what comes after the folding of the arms, my friends? Surely you do not wish to try my beloved warden's patience enough to find out. It is a terrible, terrible thing."
It might have served as a better warning if Zevran did not sound so deeply amused.
Dal frowned. "Zevran."
"I shall be as quiet as the Chantry mouse now, yes?"
"Yes."
Anders watched this byplay, and in another time and place, it would have been amusing, even endearing. He had heard tales of the assassin that Dal had spared only to fall in love with, and Dal had been devoted even when he and Zevran were separated. Certainly Anders' flirtations and those of others Anders had seen had all been kindly but firmly rebuffed.
With Zevran settled, Dal's attention on him was sharp enough to cut. "I want to speak to Justice."
"You can't," Anders said. "Or rather you can, but he can't answer you. Not right now. Not unless you want to see Fenris on the floor. That glowing thing goes both ways through the chain and I'll light up like he does if Justice comes out."
It wasn't a lack of desire from Justice to speak with their old friend. In fact, seeing Dal stirred Justice to a level of separate consciousness that was rare when they were relatively calm. But neither Anders nor Justice wanted to see Fenris writhing for an audience when he had done nothing to deserve it.
"You'll have to help us get this chain off if you want Justice to answer you back." He felt like a manipulative ass saying it, but it served a dual purpose. "Ask Fenris if I'm lying. He hates me, so he'll be happy to tell you if anything I say is untrue."
Dal and Zevran's attention shifted to Fenris, who nodded. "He does not lie. The only times I have seen this Justice, it comes with a glowing manifestation that has… side effects because of the chain."
Zevran chuckled, which likely violated his promise to be as quiet as a Chantry mouse, but at least he said nothing.
"Ask him what his tattoos are made with," Anders said.
Dal looked expectantly at Fenris who said, "Lyrium. The tattoos are lyrium."
Zevran let out a long, low whistle, but Dal reacted the way Anders expected. He remembered. Of course he remembered.
"Whatever happened to the ring I gave Justice?" he asked, confirming Anders' expectation.
"We—I had to sell it. Rolan brought templars after me after Justice and I joined. I had to run. Maybe if you—"
"Don't." Dal cut him off. "Just don't, Anders. I give second chances, but only to people who take responsibility for their choices."
Behind him Zevran spread out his hands as though to indicate that he was a lucky beneficiary of Dal's second chances.
Anders felt Justice acknowledge the truth, the rightness of what Dal was saying, but that didn't mean that Anders did not hate him for it, just a little. He knew Dal gave second chances, as though Alec and Zevran were not illustrations enough. As though Widald Amell had not given a strange apostate a first chance upon their first meeting when Anders had been surrounded by templar bodies, and a second chance when he could have handed Anders over to the templar who had accompanied King Alistair.
He could try to blame Dal for not being there, but Dal had never promised to be his nursemaid, forever protecting him from the Gray Wardens, or from himself.
"We made our choice," he said. "My friend wanted to give Aura a body to bury, I wanted to give my friend a place in this world, and my friend wanted to give me… everything. I would never be alone, never lack direction, never wonder what the point of being a mage was in a world where most everyone thinks we're barely a step above demons ourselves. That's what we did, and it wasn't your fault, it was our choice."
Dal was silent for so long that Anders had to fight not to squirm under the man's scrutiny. Beside him, Fenris was likewise silent, and Anders wondered what he thought of all this – the Hero of Ferelden, his elf lover, the stories, the setting, the man himself.
He had not told Fenris what Dal looked like because he had wanted to see his reaction when his expectations were thrown for a loop, and that much would have been gratifying if this entire scene weren't so fraught with other, more pressing concerns.
Finally Dal stirred himself from his considerations. "Let's have a look at this chain, since it stands between me and having a word with Justice, and you can tell me what you've been doing since you ran."
He unfolded his arms and pushed away from the desk. "Zevran, go find Nathaniel and bring him here. I'm sure he'll want to talk to Anders, and I could use his and your opinions on this chain."