Chapter Six: Vetting the Possible LI
Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Age.
After all of the excitement at the Chantry was taken care of, the Hawke siblings stumbled home and to bed where they didn't get up until half-past noon.
Emma decided that she wanted to go see Anders and then talk to Aveline. Carver decided to go with her while Bethany stayed at Gamlen's looking for the amulet Flemeth had charged them with delivering.
"Remind me why, exactly, you're following me to Anders'?" Emma asked, her eyes twitching, as they walked to the clinic.
"Because if I don't then there's a decent chance you'll start dating a psycho," Carver said matter-of-factly.
"Now where would I meet a psycho at Anders' clinic?" Emma asked him. "One of the patients?"
"I was talking more about the healer himself," Carver replied.
"Anders is great," Emma insisted. "I like him."
"Did you see what he did to those templars this morning?" Carver demanded.
Emma sighed dreamily. "Oh, I saw all right…"
"That had the opposite effect on you that it would have on someone sane, didn't it?" Carver asked tiredly.
Emma ignored him as she stepped into the clinic. "Anders! Lovely to see you!"
"Oh, hello Emma, Carver," Anders said, coming over to them. "You caught me at a good time. No one needs immediate attention."
"Do you have our maps?" Carver asked bluntly.
Anders nodded and pulled them out of a pocket in his robes. "Yes, here they are. Now listen, I think I owe you an explanation about what happened earlier."
"No explanation necessary," Carver said hurriedly. "Now, if you don't mind us, we'll be going now. Please don't contact us."
Emma stayed where she was. "I want to hear his story! He's cute!"
"Can't you ever like anyone not crazy?" Carver asked, annoyed.
"Carver, try to think about me with a not crazy person and tell me how you think that relationship would go," Emma said reasonably – for once.
Carver did as she asked and quickly paled. "Oh Maker…less crazy, then? Surely that's not out?"
"I like him," Emma said stubbornly, pointing to Anders.
"Are you sure that's such a good idea?" Anders asked, concerned. "I mean, you saw what happened in the Chantry."
Carver pounced on that. "What exactly did happen in there?"
"Does it matter?" Emma asked rhetorically. "He killed those templars quite nicely."
"It does matter, actually," Anders told her. "Back when I was a Warden, I was forced physically into the Fade where I met a spirit of Justice."
"And this demon of Justice possessed you?" Carver guessed.
Anders shook his head. "No, no, no. He's not a demon. He's a spirit. There's a difference, you know. Demons embody the sins of mankind while spirits emulate their virtues. Desire, rage, pride, those are all demons. Valor, compassion, justice…those are the spirits."
"That makes no sense," Carver argued. "Just because the Chantry wanted to humanize these demons doesn't mean there's really such a thing as a good spirit."
"The thing about spirits is that they choose their name. They choose what virtue to embody. It doesn't matter what the Chantry's stance is because Justice was the one who told us to call him that because he sought to be a living embodiment of Justice," Anders said heatedly. "And do you know what he was doing the first time we met? He was calling out an Orlesian blood mage Baroness who habitually stolen villagers for her rituals because it was her 'right' and then when the villagers rose up against her she took them all to the Fade with them and was holding them prisoner!"
"You really could have just stopped at 'Orlesian' and we would have gotten the picture that she was evil," Emma informed him.
"Justice had no ulterior motive for helping those poor people, all he wanted was to end an injustice and, with our help, he did," Anders finished. "How does that make him a bad spirit?"
"How does one go from defending the helpless to possessing a mage and slaughtering people?" Carver countered.
"They're hardly innocent people," Emma interjected. "They're templars."
"And that makes indiscriminately killing them okay?" Carver couldn't believe it. His sister was uncompromisingly pro-mage but that was really going a little far. "Does the act of being a templar make them pure evil in your eyes?"
"Do you really want an answer to that?" Emma asked.
"Probably not," Carver admitted, sighing again. "But you dated a templar!"
"And that was quite the messy break-up, remember?" Emma shot back.
"When we managed to get free of the Fade, Justice was forced back with us. It's not like he wanted to come to our world but he hadn't had a choice and there was no way for him to get back," Anders picked up his narrative. "He was trapped in a corpse and what did he decide to do? Help us kill darkspawn to avenge the injustice that was the man he was inhabiting's death. Corpses decay, however, and so he needed a new host in order to stay in the mortal world. I figured a willing friend was the best choice and so I volunteered to serve as his host. Is that so wrong?"
"Let me think…yes, yes, an emphatic yes," Carver replied promptly.
"Why?" Anders challenged.
Carver snorted. "Do I really need to answer that?"
Anders crossed his arm. "I asked, didn't I?"
"You can't have a host without a parasite," Carver pointed out. "Parasites are thus named because they benefit at the expense of their host."
"Justice is not benefiting at my expense!" Anders argued. "He gives me the power to do things I couldn't do otherwise."
"Which you can't seem to control making it at best useless and at worse a menace to society," Carver countered. "Just because you don't seem to mind doesn't make it not parasitism. Then there's the fact that Justice should have gone back to the Fade when the body he was stuck in decayed. Why didn't he? Sounds a lot like that human sin you were mentioning demons have. What was it? Oh right: desire."
Anders eyes glowed blue. "I desire nothing!" Just as abruptly, the light in his eyes faded.
Carver nodded. "Yes, that's definitely under control."
"Hey, you're the one accusing him of being a demon," Anders said indignantly. "You can't expect him to listen to that calmly."
"So anytime anyone calls him a demon he freaks out? What if he comes out when a templar is going after an innocent mage and then the mages gets scared and calls him a demon? Will he kill him or her?" Carver demanded.
"Of course not!" Anders snapped. "Justice and I were planning on working together, to bring justice to every mage who was ever ripped away from her mother's arms to be sent to the Circle. We wanted to stop the fate that your sisters managed to avoid. But…" he sighed. "I guess I had too much anger in me. Once he was inside, he…changed. He's no longer my friend Justice."
"You tried to help a friend!" Emma declared passionately. "Surely no harm can come of that!"
"Except…all the time that bad things do happen because of that," Carver said, valiantly trying to resist using his 'are you stupid' tone. "What if your friend is on the run from the guards because they killed someone. Would helping them escape be the right thing? Or say your friend gets possessed by a demon. Would sheltering them be the right thing? Or say your friend is a demon that wants to possess you. Would doing as they ask be the right thing to do? Or say your friend needs your help to do bad things. Would that qualify as a bad thing?"
"Maybe that last one," Emma admitted. "But as for the other ones…if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country."
"Well I wouldn't!" Carver exclaimed. "That's a horrible thing to say! If my friend ever crossed that line and made supporting him legitimate treason – not just corrupt leaders claiming it's treason – then they are on their own."
"See, that's why you have trouble making friends," Emma said sagely.
"No, I think it's because I couldn't afford to get close to people since more than half my family are apostates and we've been busy this past year. Not to mention that no one cares about refugees…" Carver said glumly.
"So…did anyone actually want to weigh in on what I said?" Anders said, bringing them back on track. "And by 'anyone' I mostly meant Carver since he is an appalling mage-hater."
"I do not hate mages!" Carver insisted.
"Could have fooled me," Anders muttered.
"You do tend to rail against magic an awful lot," Emma said, looking thoughtful.
"That's because your views on immediate and uncompromised freedom for all mages are delusional," Carver argued. " 'Poor mages' or not, untrained mages are just as much a danger to themselves as to others and a mage versus the vast majority of non-mages isn't even a fair fight. Still, you and Bethany are both mages and I don't hate you."
"So they're different because they're your sisters," Anders said, sounding disgusted. "They don't 'count.' Is that it?"
"Hardly," Carver scoffed. "I just know that they both – yes, even Emma – know what they're doing with their powers and won't get possessed. We've been here a year and not a week goes by where I don't see a crazy blood mage killing people in the streets! I'm for moderation, here. Emma and Bethany don't need to be locked up not because they're my sisters but because they don't target innocents."
"Your sisters really are something, aren't they?" Anders said, smiling appreciatively Emma's way.
Carver looked away from the sickening display. "Anders, I'm not sure it's healthy to blame yourself for the fact that Justice turned into a demon. I mean, yes you were angry but do you really think you had more anger in you than your average person on the street? And even if you do, this really is just a cautionary tale about why you don't let a demon possess you…even if they say they're your friend. I mean, don't they teach these things at the Circle?"
"When you're six," Anders explained. "I was a bit older when I was brought in so I missed that lesson. And of course this is my fault! Nothing bad happened when he possessed Kristoff!"
"Wasn't Kristoff kind of, um, dead?" Carver asked awkwardly.
Anders nodded. "What's your point?"
"Possessing a corpse is probably easier than possessing a living being," Carver philosophized. "You only have to deal with echoes and not a living, breathing person who is constantly feeling and reacting to things. Blaming yourself for his problems makes it sound like you're in an abusive relationship, I'm not going to lie."
"It's not like that," Anders said flatly. "Justice doesn't really exist as a separate entity anymore. We can't talk and I can hear his thoughts as my own. No one could tell you where Justice ends and I begin."
"Except when you get glowy eyes," Emma piped up, not really interested in the debate her brother and potential love interest were engaging in. "Then we're reasonably sure it's Justice."
"You know, I hate actually admitting this but…Emma's right," Carver said, looking physically pained. "You talk about him like he's a separate entity and sometimes he takes over. You are separate entities. It's like…you partially merged or something. Or like you just have two personalities which, by the way, doesn't make you sound any less crazy. I can see why she likes you." He jerked his thumb Emma's way.
"At least one of you does," Anders sniffed. "Listen, Emma, you have my maps and if you need me for anything else at all please don't hesitate to let me know. The life of a possessed apostate healer isn't anywhere near as exciting as you'd think it might be."
"Do you want to go out sometime?" Emma blurted.
Anders stared at her. "…I'm possessed."
"Is that a 'maybe'?" Emma asked hopefully.
Afterwards, the pair decided to stop by and finally see Aveline.
"Yes?" she asked distractedly, barely glancing up from her paperwork. "What do you want?"
Emma looked hurt. "Aveline, we haven't seen you in nearly a month! That's long enough for you to show a bit more interest in seeing us and not nearly long enough for us to be strangers!"
Aveline blinked and looked sheepish. "Sorry, I forgot how long it's been."
"You've been blatantly abusing your power as a guard to have us followed again, huh?" Carver realized.
Aveline colored. "I am not abusing my power! You three are troublemakers. You used to be smugglers and two of you are apostates!"
"Say that louder, why don't you," Carver muttered, looking around nervously.
"Why?" Emma asked innocently. "I heard her just fine. Is there something wrong with your ears, Carver?"
"Why is it that the guard is fine with you doing this and yet they keep rejecting my petition to join them?" Carver demanded.
"Carver, you would make a horrible guard," Aveline said bluntly. "Being a guard is about thinking about others before yourself."
"And I would be horrible at that because…?" Carver prompted. "Aveline, you know that's the story of my life."
"And you seem tired of it," Aveline pointed out.
"If I seem tired of 'it' then that's only taking care of my sisters with no thanks and without getting anything out of it," Carver argued. "Particularly when Emma has no regard for the concept of discretion and half the time I think Bethany wants to end up in the Circle!"
"I'm sorry, Carver, but the guardsmen are held to a higher standard," Aveline claimed. "By the way, now that you're no longer a smuggler you should really get a job instead of this stupid expedition I heard you joined."
"A job as what?" Carver demanded. "No one wants to hire a refugee and you won't let me be a guard. Who am I supposed to turn to, the templars?"
"You really should stop making excuses," Aveline said seriously. "Emma, your brother's a bit of a tit."
"Why do we still hang out with you?" Carver wondered aloud. "You only ever have negative things to say about me and Emma killed your husband."
"And I will have my revenge," Aveline said serenely.
Carver started. "What was that?"
"Nothing," Aveline lied.
"I think she just doesn't like you, Carver, and that's why she's being so ridiculously hard on you and yelling at you for not improving yourself while simultaneously sabotaging your attempts to do so," Emma theorized.
"For once, I think you're right," Carver told her. "Wait…didn't I think you were right about something earlier today? Maker, I must not be feeling well…"
Aveline crossed her arms, annoyed. "Did you two actually want something?"
"We wanted to know if you know of any opportunities to earn money so we can buy our way into an expedition you think is reckless, stupid, and a waste of time and money," Emma explained.
"Well…there's no guarantee that you'll actually get paid for this but there's a caravan raid going on at Sundermount in two days," Aveline told them. "I really can't stop it by myself so I'll need your help."
"Can we loot the bodies of the ambushers and then sell their stuff?" Emma asked eagerly.
Aveline nodded. "I don't see why not. Just don't take anything from the caravan itself, okay? There's no point in stopping an ambush if we're just going to take everything."
"Unless the point was to make a lot of money," Carver pointed out.
Aveline glared at him.
"What?" he asked, holding up his hands defensively. "I'm just saying…"
"This is exactly why you would make a horrible guard," Aveline sniffed.
"I didn't say it was a good idea or that I would ever do that, just that it's a valid reason to stop an ambush only to rob it yourself!" Carver insisted. "What are you writing down?"
"The date, time, and quote for the next time you apply," Aveline explained, scribbling away furiously.
"Joining the templars isn't supposed to be an attractive option!" Carver complained.
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