The office settled into a tense hush while Dal read the papers Anders had brought from Kirkwall. Zevran lounged behind Dal's desk, Nathaniel sat in a cloud of grim silence that merged with the one radiating off of Fenris, and Ser Pounce-a-lot had deserted Anders to wander Dal's office, cadging petting from Zevran and Dal. He tried getting some attention from Nathaniel, but butting his head against the man's leg did no good, and when he jumped up on the arm of the chair, Nathaniel carefully picked him up and put him back down on the floor.
Anders was glad that Nathaniel was gentle with Ser Pounce-a-lot, but at the same time, if he had been less respectful, he could have picked a fight. It would have set fire to the tension that was settling around them like a volatile gas and maybe burned some of it off before the real explosion came. He could feel the explosion coming and his choices seemed to be to cause it or to run. He slid a glance over to Fenris, who sat stoically, watching Dal as he read, and silently cursed the elf for his role as the anchor keeping him from the latter option.
Justice roiled inside his head, wanting to push forward to speak with his friends, constrained by his belief that it would be wrong to force Fenris to endure the consequences just for the sake of a conversation. He wanted to tell them that if they must be angry, they could not blame only Anders; he was equally responsible for all that had happened.
Anders half-smiled, knowing Justice would feel his appreciation for that.
"This amuses you, does it?" Nathaniel asked.
Beside him, Anders felt Fenris tense at the sudden break in the silence.
"No." Anders scrubbed a hand over the shaggier than usual bristles on his face and shook his head. "No, and explaining wouldn't make any sense."
"Try me," Nathaniel challenged.
Dal glanced up from the papers before looking over his shoulder at Zevran, who shrugged expansively. Dal nodded as though that had answered something for him and went back to reading.
"You wouldn't like it. You'd probably say I was lying," Anders said tiredly. "It isn't important anyway."
Nathaniel sighed. "You are just as impossible to talk to as ever."
"It's a skill, and this is stupid," Anders said, standing up before addressing Dal. "You don't need me here while you read. I can go for a walk."
Mildly, without looking up from the papers again, Dal said, "If Fenris wants to go for a walk, then yes, you can go, and Nathaniel will escort you."
Anders sat back down again with a heavy thump.
"No, go." Dal slapped the stack of papers lightly against his knee. "I'll be at this for hours. You remember where the mess hall is. Go get something to eat, show Fenris around. Ser Pounce-a-lot can stay here or you can take him down to get reacquainted with Walter."
Ser Pounce-a-lot poked his head out from under Nathaniel's chair at mention of his name and meowed before pulling his head back out of sight.
Dal chuckled. "He can stay. Maybe he can find the mouse that keeps gnawing on my books."
"Walter hasn't eaten it?" Anders asked, standing up and smoothing out his robe while Fenris unwillingly rose and Nathaniel pushed himself out of his chair.
"Not yet." Dal shrugged, and it was almost, almost like old times. "Darkspawn he can manage, but give him a mouse and he's hopeless."
"That's why you need cats." Anders forced a smile. "Let him stay then. You're sort of like his grandfather anyway."
Zevran chuckled. "My dear Widald a grandfather?"
"You know I hate when you call me Widald."
"But of course," Zevran replied, eyes twinkling, "why else would I call you that when we are about to have an empty office in which you may chastise me?"
Anders and Fenris shared a look. "Please save the chastisement for later," Anders said, letting a note of pleading enter his voice. "The sooner Fenris and I are separated the better."
"But he is such a handsome elf," Zevran said. "You could have such fun with that chain. Why once I played such a game with two Orlesian courtesans and—"
"No," Fenris snapped. "I have spent too long chained to the mage. It is only my loyalty to Hawke that sees him standing before you with both hands."
"See!" Anders said, pointing a finger at Fenris. "You try being chained to someone who hates everything you are."
"Anyone who was chained to you for any length of time would hate everything you are." Fenris jerked his wrist, pulling Anders' wrist toward him with the motion. "And you make me regret my attempts to be patient with you."
"He has a tendency to do that," Nathaniel said. "Come, and I will find you something to drink to fortify you against Anders' company."
"Now you're just trying to make me feel bad," Anders grumbled, trailing after Fenris as much as the chain would allow as Nathaniel led them out of the office.
Everything about the situation felt constructed to make him uncomfortable and unhappy. No one was happy to see him, no one trusted him, he suspected that his old friends liked the spirit he shared a body with better than they liked him, he was still chained to Fenris, and worst of all—
—worst of all he seemed intent on throwing a pity party for himself.
This was ridiculous. He was a grown man, a mage of some standing, and he tried to be a good man. He was doing good for people in Kirkwall and helping other mages than just himself. He had a real cause and reason to live.
Besides, that blue and silverite uniform the wardens wore these days just didn't suit him.
• • •
By the time Zevran found them in the mess hall, Anders was more than willing to go back upstairs to Dal's office. Nathaniel had managed to produce a bottle of wine that Fenris pronounced quite acceptable, but Justice had not allowed Anders to partake.
He had been forced to listen, sober while Fenris recounted the story of meeting Hawke while on the run from Danarius. Nathaniel seemed fascinated by the story and by the revelation that Hawke was Dal's cousin. Anders felt a pang of jealousy that the two seemed to be getting along when Nathaniel would barely look at him.
Justice's suggestion that it was his own fault for being hostile and uncommunicative did nothing to help. What did heknow about how people interacted anyway?
Being called back up to Dal's office almost felt like a reprieve.
Dal was seated behind his desk with a map spread open in front of him. It was held down with two smooth stones, Padraic's notes, and a blood-stained book.
"I have good news and bad news," he said by way of greeting.
Anders and Nathaniel took one look at the map and groaned as one, earning a quizzical look from Fenris.
"Lesson one," Anders informed him. "When he says that, there's more bad news than good. Lesson two, when he has a map of the Deep Roads open while he says it, there is no good news."
"Not true," Dal said. "The good news is that I think I know someone who can help you."
"And the bad news?" Anders asked.
"It's the Architect," Dal said.
Nathaniel cursed and Anders honestly contemplated throwing up.
He looked over at Fenris, who could only know that it was bad news, but not why. "I'll play you a game of wicked grace, loser gets to keep one hand."
"Don't be melodramatic," Dal said. "Granted, he's an incredibly powerful darkspawn mage who captured us all, took our blood, and—"
Touched Oghren's junk, Anders thought giddily, trying not to let himself teeter over into hysteria.
"—experimented with it, but he had a reason, and he gave us valuable help with the Mother."
Dal fixed Anders with a level gaze. "I know that Justice never approved of my decision, and he's not alone in that, but it was the right decision. He has kept his word – the Deep Roads are safer than they've ever been, and there are fewer darkspawn sightings on the surface."
"No one has seen him since we killed the Mother," Nathaniel said. "And Weisshaupt sent wardens after him."
"Even though I told them not to," Dal said, brows drawing together in a fierce frown. "I don't like being second-guessed."
"Let me guess," Anders said. "You know how to find him."
"I know how to find someone who knows how to find him," Dal said, easing his frown.
Fenris was left out of the history the three wardens in the room shared. "You want us to seek help from a darkspawn mage? How is that even possible?"
Dal shifted the book he had been using to hold down the map and flipped it open to a bookmark, then shuffled Padraic's papers until he found the page he was looking for. He laid it next to the book and pointed to a symbol on the page before pointing to a symbol in the book.
"I took this from the Architect's rooms after he captured us," Dal said. "It seemed only fair at the time, what with his stripping us down to our smalls and giving our equipment to his experiments." He tapped the book with a forefinger. "This is old magic, I have to wonder how your shopkeeper got his hands on any of it, but the Architect has access to magics humans and elves have not seen in centuries, lost in darkspawn hands. "
"If you believe the stories, Xenon is around four hundred years old, so it might not have been lost magic back in his day," Anders said. "But if you believe the stories, you're also eight feet tall and built like a qunari."
Dal breathed out a laugh and shook his head. "If only. I might not have quite as many scars."
"I like your scars," Zevran said. He had moved to lounge, catlike on the couch, with Ser Pounce-a-lot settled comfortably on his chest. "Especially the one—"
Dal coughed and Zevran gave a throaty chuckle. "You are always interrupting me at the good part. I would almost think you do not want your friends to know that you have a scar on your shapely backside shaped like—"
"Zevran."
Nathaniel spoke up. "I already know about the scar. You bring it up at least once a fortnight."
"This is true, my friend," Zevran agreed, scratching Ser Pounce-a-lot's jaw until Anders could hear him purring from the other side of the room. "But I have not had the opportunity to share the information with our new friends, and surely it is a part of the Warden Commander's legend that should be spread far and wide."
"He's worse than Isabela," Fenris said, rubbing his forehead.
Both Dal and Zevran turned their attention to Fenris. "Isabela?" Zevran asked. "Surely not the lovely and inimitable Captain Isabela?"
"Probably," Anders said. "She likes to brag about the time she took the Hero of Ferelden belowdecks, so to speak."
"Not alone she didn't," Zevran said, leering.
"Is there anyone in Thedas who hasn't known Isabela carnally?" Anders asked, semi-rhetorically.
"A few virgins in the Anderfels," Zevran replied cheerfully. "But I hear she cut quite a swathe through the Rivaini chantry."
"Forgetting Captain Isabela's charms—" Dal said, doing his best not to look embarrassed by the revelation about his dalliance with Isabela.
"But how could we, my love?" asked Zevran. "When they are so… ample?"
"They are at that," Anders agreed. "But if we can get back to the nightmare that Dal is proposing so that I can move on to the screaming in terror part of the agenda?"
"Don't be a baby," Dal said, "It shouldn't be too bad. We'll go here," he pointed to one of the Deep Roads entrances on the map, "and find the Messenger. He has a camp there most of the time. Occasionally he ventures up to the surface, but the odds are good we'll find him there. He'll be able to take us to the Architect."
"And then we shall ask a darkspawn mage to release us from our bonds," Fenris said, not bothering to hide his disbelief. "And he will do it from the kindness of his heart? Or for gold? Or will he simply rend the flesh from our bones because he is a darkspawn?"
"Anders can make the payment." Dal met Anders' eyes and held them. "It's the just thing to do."