Written for a prompt on Tumblr asking for "Something from somewhere in Eye of the Storm. May be light and fluffy schmoop or angsty or both. With cats."
Takes place roughly 10 years after the end of events in Eye of the Storm, 7 years before the epilogue.
Homecoming
It was good to be home again. The trip to Kirkwall had been productive, and it had been enjoyable to see Aveline – now Viscount Aveline – again, and Donnic and Varric as well, but Sebastian had missed Anders dreadfully, and Kirkwall was one place he knew he could never safely take the mage. Just seeing the silhouette of Starkhaven castle on the horizon made his heart lift, knowing how soon he would see his beloved again.
Even after all these years together, it still felt odd to think of the other man that way. The endearments came naturally when in his presence, but apart from him he was still reminded of how... difficult, the reality of their relationship was. The apostate mage, the ruling prince... how much they'd once hated each other. How much they'd now come to love each other, that being parted for any length of time pained them both.
His hand pressed for a moment against his upper chest, feeling the amulet hidden under his clothing there, a small beaded bag concealing the tiny corked and wax-sealed vial that was Anders' phylactery. It only rarely left his person, from the day when Anders had given it to him as a proof of his trust and love, as proof that he wanted Sebastian to always be able to find him, if something or someone parted them again. Thankfully it had never been needed, at least not in that way. They had only been parted twice in the years since, once during the worst battles of the mage-templar war, and now for this trip to Kirkwall.
"Do you think the horses have it in them for a last fast ride?" he asked the elf riding at his side.
Fenris grinned. "Why not... we've been at a slow pace most of the day," he said, then clapped his heels to Arianblaidd's flanks and whooped as his stallion shot forward like an arrow from a bow, the horse seemingly always willing for a good fast run. Sebastian's gelding, well-used to keeping up with the fleet-footed stallion, needed only the slightest encouragement to set off after him.
They did not slow until they reached the approach to the gates, changing to a more decorous pace for their entry to the city and the ride to the castle.
"Will you be staying in your rooms at the castle tonight, or going directly to your townhouse?" Sebastian asked Fenris as they made their way up the hill toward the castle.
Fenris smiled. "The townhouse. I am sure you and Anders can do without my company this evening. Shall I come by and join you two for lunch tomorrow? Or would supper be better?"
Sebastian laughed. "Best make it lunch, to give me an extra impetus to get back out of bed before noon. Thank you for your company on the journey."
Fenris shrugged, looking pleased. "It was good to see the others again. And Zevran."
"I am glad he was able to join us in Kirkwall, however briefly," Sebastian agreed. "I do not know how you and he can stand to spend so much of each year apart from each other; Anders and I could not do so."
Fenris' smile widened. "They say absence makes the heart go fonder. He and I are very fond of each other."
Sebastian laughed. "Merely fond?"
"More than fond; you know that," Fenris said gravely, then sighed. "I do miss him when we are parted, yes. But when we can find the time to be together for a while, here or in Ferelden or elsewhere... it is very sweet. He is worth the wait."
"I am sorry to keep you so often apart from him."
"It is not you that keeps us apart. If all we cared about was to always be together, we could do so, but that would require one or both of us abandoning the people and places that mean much to us; I here in Starkhaven, he there in Ferelden. We would have to be two very different people than who we are. I treasure Zevran as he is; I would not change him. Nor he me, at least not any more than our presence in each other's life already has. Do not feel sorry for me, Sebastian; I am vastly content with my life as it is."
Sebastian nodded. "It may be greedy of me to say so, but I know I would miss you if you left, as would Anders; I am glad you are willing to spend so much time here with us when you could be elsewhere."
"You are my friends," Fenris said, as if that explained all, as perhaps it did. Then he nodded to an upcoming intersection. "I turn there. I will see you tomorrow, at lunch."
"Tomorrow," Sebastian agreed, and lifted his hand in farewell as they reached the next street, Fenris turning off to the right to follow it around the crest of the hill to where his house stood near the far side of the castle, within sight and a short walk from the sally-gate that let into the yard of Anders' clinic. Sebastian continued uphill to the main castle gate, already anticipating seeing Anders again, and looking forward to their reunion. Which, knowing Anders, would likely run late into the night, and leave him completely exhausted and the mage smug and full of energy. The thought made him smile.
His guard had dispatched a messenger earlier that day to let the castle know that they would be returning that day; accordingly, by the time he passed through the castle gates and entered the courtyard it was already swarming with servants and guards come to greet his return home. Guard-Captain Cerin was waiting on the stairs before the main door, Lady Meridwen and her husband Dylan to one side of him. By the swell of her stomach, Meridwen would be presenting her husband with a child of his own soon; the thought made Sebastian smile again, even as he wondered how Niawen – Meridwen's bastard daughter by Sebastian's middle brother Nicholas, and one of Sebastian's two named heirs – would adjust to having a much younger half-sibling. Knowing Niawen, she would adjust quite well.
She and Ewan – the only survivor of his cousin Goren's family and his other heir – were also there on the stairs. As soon as his horse came to a stop Ewan came rushing down the steps, a wide welcoming smile on his face, both his aging wolfhound Tighe, and his friend and servant Pic the elf following close at his heels. Niawen followed them at a more sedate pace, as graceful as the slender gazehound that was her own personal pet, and walking at her heels.
Ewan was his usual exuberant self, and while he might not throw himself at Sebastian for a hug any longer as he had when he was a younger boy, his bow and handclasp of greeting were as energetic as those much-missed hugs had been. Niawen's greeting was far more restrained, as she clasped Sebastian's hand and then rose on tip-toe to kiss his cheek.
"By the Maker, I think you've put on another inch since I last saw you," Sebastian told the girl, then grinned at Ewan. "You've got a lot of catching up to do."
Ewan made a face. As usually happened with women, Niawen had gotten her adult height first, shooting up over the last few years to a height only half a head less than Sebastian's own. Ewan, the younger of the pair, had only just recently started his own growth spurt, and was still considerably shorter than either of them. Though judging by the size of his hands and feet and overall gawkiness, he was due to match or even out-grow Niawen in height at some point.
Thankfully he didn't seem to be at all bothered by Niawen being taller than him, nor when she demonstrated a better skill at mathematics, logic, and understanding politics than he; a matter that greatly relieved Sebastian, as the two would be husband and wife some day, having been formally betrothed as soon as they were both old enough for it to be legally acceptable. Their claims on the throne were about equally valid, and as they were more than far enough apart in consanguinity to do so, the obvious solution had been to betroth them and name them as co-rulers to follow once Sebastian died or stepped down. Thankfully both of them were amenable to the idea that some day they would be a couple, and by all signs to date were fond enough of each other that it might even be considered to be an eventual love match between the pair, though that was some years yet in the future.
"Where's Anders?" Sebastian asked, looking around and not seeing the mage.
"I sent word to him of your arrival," Cerin spoke him. "He sent word back that he couldn't come right now – attending a birth, he said."
"Oh... well, have his guard send me word when he's back from the clinic, if you would."
Cerin had a strange look on his face for a moment. "He's not at the clinic," he said. "He's in the cottage."
"Not in the clinic...?" Sebastian frowned, puzzled. "I don't understand."
Ewan laughed aloud. Niawen and he exchanged a smiling look.
"You two know something about this, do you?" Sebastian asked suspiciously.
"You'll need to go see for yourself, I think," Niawen said very primly, though her eyes were bright with laughter.
"I will then," Sebastian said, "Just as soon as I've washed off the worse of the horse and changed."
Sebastian was still doing up the laces at the neck of his shirt as he hurried down the secret staircase to Anders' cottage, hair still damp from his bath. Not that the existence of a staircase between Sebastian's rooms and Anders' cottage was really all that much of a secret any longer, at least within the castle, but it was still politic to maintain the fiction that Anders was his prisoner and that their quarters were not shared.
The doors at the bottom stood open, making it clear he was at least expected. "Anders?" he called as he passed through the closet that concealed the lower end of the stairway, and into the bedroom.
"Upstairs," came the faint answer from elsewhere in the cottage, along with a bark of greeting from Ganwyn, Anders' dog. Sebastian left the bedroom, passing down the short hallway toward the kitchen before climbing the stairs up to the attic room that served as Anders' study.
"What's this about you attending a birth?" Sebastian called as he reached the top of the stairs, looking around to see where the mage was and not spotting him anywhere.
"Shhh... over here," the mage said softly, one hand rising into view over the back of a couch at the far end of the room.
Sebastian walked over, and found Anders sitting cross-legged on the floor, arms folded on the edge of the seat cushion and a smile on his lips. There was a tortoiseshell cat on the couch, stretched out on its side – her side, Sebastian corrected himself, given the row of kittens tucked in along her belly – in a nest made out of what looked suspiciously like a shirt of Sebastian's and one of Anders' robes. He could feel himself blushing slightly, recognizing the shirt as he quickly did; he'd been wearing it the day before departing for Kirkwall, when he'd come to make his farewells to Anders... farewells that had started in this very room, and eventually ended downstairs in Anders' bed.
"That robe is never going to be the same again," he said lightly, taking in the reddish-brown stains that marked the wadded-up cloth.
Anders smiled up at him. "Nor your shirt, most likely. Well, it might come clean again if it's washed carefully in cold water... it's just stained with some blood and the afterbirths."
Sebastian made a face. "Even if it did wash clean, I'm not sure I'd want to wear it again after a cat had given birth on it. And where is this beauty from, anyway? You didn't have her when I left."
"Showed up with Ashes a couple of weeks ago. I'm pretty certain he's the father of her brood; those two look just like him," he said, a note of fondness in his voice as he pointed out a pair of grey kittens among the others.
"If you say so," Sebastian said; the indicated pair looking much like any grey kitten to him. He sat down on the couch, on the opposite side of Anders from the cat. She lifted her head and glared suspiciously at him for a moment, then returned to licking dry one of her kittens.
"I hope you're not planning to keep them all," Sebastian added, trying to count the little bodies. Two grey, a black, two ginger – one light, one dark – and a tortoiseshell. Five of the little wiggly creatures, all of them with their eyes fused shut, some still damp from birth. One of the gingers came loose from its teat, rolled over on its back, and thrashed around briefly, making a high-pitched squeaky sound, until its mother nosed it back into place.
"Maybe one or two," Anders said wistfully.
Sebastian smiled fondly at the mage. "Sure you wouldn't rather have another dog?"
Anders glanced at him, then smiled. "You and your dogs; you're almost as bad as a Fereldan, you know. No, I prefer cats. Quieter. Less underfoot," he said, and glanced over his shoulder toward the fireplace, where Ganwyn was stretched out on a sheepskin before the unlit fire, his grey-specked muzzle resting on outstretched forelegs that were stiffened and swollen with arthritis, despite everything that Anders could do for the dog in the way of healing. "They live longer, too," he said softly.
Sebastian sighed, and set one hand on Anders' shoulder. "True. He's had a long life, for his breed; and a good one, as your companion."
Anders smiled, and moved to lean his head against Sebastian's knee, smile deepening as Sebastian began to stroke his hair. "I'll miss him, when he goes. Losing Haelioni was hard enough, even as few years as I'd had her. And such a way for her to go..." He trailed off.
"She died doing what she considered her duty; protecting you," Sebastian said firmly.
"I know, I just... perhaps I'm not Fereldan enough myself, for all that I grew up there. I don't believe dogs should have a place in war."
"Perhaps not, but I can only be thankful that she was there to save you when you needed it; I would not have wanted to lose you."
Anders nodded, then turned his head enough to kiss Sebastian's hand, giving him a look from under lowered brows.
Sebastian grinned. "Sure you can leave your patient now?"
Anders smiled, then pushed himself up and rose to his feet. "I'm sure; she's delivered them all, they're all healthy, I'm pretty sure she can take care of things on her own from here." He glanced at his hands, which had a few smears of blood on them, then glanced at his clothes, which had escaped acquiring any similar stains. "I'd better wash first," he said, then looked at Sebastian's damp hair. "I would guess you're not joining me?"
"No, I've washed already. Shall I put together a snack for us? Or come keep you company while you bathe?"
Anders smiled warmly at him. "Both? Just a small snack, something I can eat while in the tub. We can eat properly later. After I've thoroughly ravished you."
Sebastian grinned. "That sounds like a good plan," he agreed