His dreams were strange, fleeting things. Glimpses of landscapes, strange spirits, an unfamiliar voice murmuring words he didn't recognize. He could hardly grasp the Fade before it pulled away from him again, sinking him into a peaceful, drifting haze.
The first thing he realized when he felt himself pulled back to awareness, was that he could hear a fire crackling nearby.
Also, he was naked.
His eyes shot open, and Anders grabbed the rough blanket on top of him, clinging it close to him to look around wildly. His first fear was that the Templars had found him after all, but there were no shackles, no crushing silence. The clearing was hard-packed dirt, trees and bushes tightly growing around them until the sky was hardly visible through the canopy.
His next thought was a random passerby had found him and brought him to camp, but a white creature caught his eye, and that idea was quickly dashed.
The Halla stared at him from across the fire, orange light flickering across its pale hide. It lay elegantly folded up, a basket of apples next to its forelegs, and a thick blanket over its shoulders. After they stared at each other for a few moments, the deer appeared to lose interest and nosed down to grab an apple to crunch through. Just barely, he could see the pale, puckered scar on its flank where he had pulled out an arrow.
"Well… hello again, I suppose. Glad to see you're doing well."
The deer flicked an ear at him, but didn't stop its happy munching of fruit. Around them, crickets chirped wildly and the pale morning light was starting to trickle down through the trees.
He flexed his fingers, realizing he'd probably been stripped of his clothes to heat him up faster after his swim, and mentally thanked whoever had the foresight. He could still feel his fingers and toes, and a quick check assured him he hadn't lost any parts of his ears or nose, either. They must have found him before Frostbite set in, but after Hypothermia was starting to take its toll. With any luck, he could avoid catching anything in his lungs.
Anders shuffled a little closer to the fire, holding his hands out to catch the warmth as the blanket pooled around his waist.
It was easy to see the careful craftsmanship of the camp around him. From the neat stitches on his blanket, to the tight weave of the basket the deer was eating from, to the elegant arch of young living trees pulled down in curving walls, branches lashed together to create a tight mesh of dried grass and living leaves. It was an unfamiliar design, but if he had to guess, it was probably watertight. He wouldn't expect less from a people he'd been told stories of since childhood. Either brutal savages or ancient founts of wisdom, the stories varied. One thing in common in the tales was a strong tie to nature, and a disdain for humans of any sort.
Anders hummed to himself, having honestly expected more bones to be included in the general aesthetic, but all he could find was carved wood and soft leathers, rough cloth dyed a thousand different shades of green and brown.
"So when are they coming back? Your.. er, whoever brought me here." He wasn't sure why he asked the deer, since he only got a blank stare in return, but it felt good to talk aloud. There was a strange… delight. Excitement. He was camping out as a free man. The Templars hadn't caught him. They wouldn't-
Shit.
"My Phylactery. I forgot to smash it." Anders cursed himself, looking up at the slowly strengthening daylight and mentally calculating the time it'd take before the Templars realized he was missing. An hour, maybe less, before the morning count was conducted.
He pushed himself to his feet, wrapping the blanket around his waist and heading for his hanging clothes. The deer squeaked at him, something that sounded more like a rusty door hinge than a real animal as it clambered up with him. He pushed its head away when it tried shoving its way into his space, trying to pull his clothes down one-handed.
Still damp, ugh.
"Sorry, I can't stick around, they have a way of tracking me. Blood magic, gross stuff. I've gotta keep moving or they'll find me." The deer paused, ears perked forward like it was listening. Well, he hoped it was. It wasn't interfering anymore, at least. Anders hopped into his pants, grimacing as they clung to his thighs and immediately chilled his skin.
"Plus, I don't think they'd react very well to find this camp. People generally don't think elves exist, you know. Dalish protectors of the forest are spooky stories to tell before bed, not-" He trailed off, folding the blanket he'd been using with absent hands as the deer stomped, brandishing its rack of grey horns.
He put his hands up wardingly, the blanket unfolding as he lost his grip on all the corners.
"H-hey, I know you guys probably put a lot of effort into warming me up, and I'm glad you saved my life, but getting you tangled up in Templar business would be a sorry repayment-" he hastily folded the blanket again, setting it on the branch he'd taken his clothes from - hopefully enough of a sign that he'd left of his own accord, and not-
Something about the song around him changed.
Truly? This fast? The Templars really sped-
A hand closed over his shoulder, and Anders nearly jumped out of his skin, too startled to properly lash out and only managing a wild swat at the hand as he yelped and staggered sideways.
There was a figure just behind him - someone slender. He caught a flash of green clothes before his heel caught on a root and he found himself flailing back to fall on his arse.
"Calm down, it's alright." A strange, lilting voice from the person, and Anders finally looked up to get a good look at them. At… her.
She wasn't very tall, even from where he was sitting. Thin arms and a bright yellow scarf, and- Maker's breath, she was an elf. There was no mistaking the long, pointed ears, or the wide green eyes, or just- just the way she held herself, the way she moved as she crouched down to be at his level, long fingers curling around a staff that looked like driftwood. Delicate rust-colored designs curled around her face, brow sloped in a way he'd never seen before. Her proportions were just barely off, in a way he had a hard time explaining exactly how. Something about the length of her limbs, or the fluid, sharp movement of her head when she tilted it to consider him. Like a bird.. Too still. Too smooth. Everything about her seemed just alien enough to set alarm bells ringing in the back of his head.
He swallowed past a suddenly dry mouth, realizing this was probably the person who had dragged him to safety and stripped him to warm up.
"Hello?" Crap, that's all he could manage? Still, the sharp expression on her face melted into something softer, and the elf wiggled her fingers in greeting.
"Hello!" She chirped back, eyes squinting as she smiled. "Are you alright? You didn't hurt yourself with that fall? It looked a bit rough."
"N-no, I'm fine, thanks."
"Oh, well that's good, then. I'd hate for you to die from falling into a fire right after not-freezing. Fen'Harel would probably get a good laugh, though."
He stared at her for a moment, befuddled at the light curl of words shaped by an accent he wasn't used to.
"Is… Fenrel your deer, then? The...Halla?"
"Fen'Harel, no, no, two completely different people. I don't think the Dread Wolf would appreciate being compared to his prey." She giggled, standing up again. "Then again, he doesn't get along well with dogs, so maybe you're safe."
"I'm more of a cat person, actually." Anders commented absently, getting his feet under him. He shook his head, trying to get his bearings back. What did a dog have to do with anything? Anyway, it didn't matter!
"I can't stay." He accepted the blanket tossed back over his head, pulling it over his shoulders as he stood up. "They have-" "Blood magic, I know, I heard you the first time." Anders obediently shuffled closer to the fire when she herded him, hair on his arms prickling at the idea that she'd been listening this whole time, just out of sight.
"Then you should know that they'll be closing in on us soon. On me. We're too close to the tower, I need to get far enough away to-" "What kind of spell do you suppose they're using?"
Anders blinked, off-balance as the elf padded away from him, ducking under the tent cover and pulling out an old book. She plopped down on the ground, pulling it open in her lap.
"I- I don't know, it's a Phylactery-" Anders shifted uneasily, impatient to leave, but also well-aware that he'd freeze his ass off if he ran away into the forest in damp underclothes.
"Well, what's it do? What does it look like? Does it sing, or make you bleed out of your eyeballs, or pick apart your dreams?" She didn't even look up at him, flipping through the pages quickly.
"It… It's a vial with my blood. Shaped like an hourglass set into a circle. It...glows, a bit. They use it to track down escaped mages." He hoped it couldn't make him bleed out his eyeballs.
"Like a tracking stone, then." The words were murmured more to herself then to him, and she flipped back in the book. Anders glanced up at the sky, pulling the blanket around him a bit tighter. She sounded like she might know what she was doing. The urgency still itched at his spine, but her casual dismissal of the problem made him think perhaps… Perhaps there was a way to escape the Phylactery's tracking, after all?
The fire crackled behind him, long moments passing where the only sound around them was the growing song of birds waking up for the day, and the soft slip of paper sliding against itself. He found himself looking around, realizing for the first time that the Halla had wandered off at some point, without him noticing. The elf had captured his attention quite effectively.
She snapped the book shut, dropping it back off inside the tent and pulling a small bag out to root around in. "I know they're in here somewhere…" she muttered to herself, making a small noise of triumph and pulling out a tiny vial with a cork stopper.
"If I had a bigger bottle, I'd use that," she offered apologetically, as if Anders had any idea what she was going on about. "But since I'm a bit low on glassware, this will have to make do. Where would you prefer I make the cut?"
"Where you what now?" Anders tucked his arms under the blanket, alarm bells sounding off again.
"The cut. If they're tracking you with blood, then blood's the only way to throw them off. I'd only be filling up this." She wiggled the little vial between her fingers, patting around her waist before finding and pulling out a thin, short knife. Anders eyed it warily as she approached, keeping his arms tucked away.
"And how do I know you're not a blood mage about to sacrifice me to demons?"
The elf stopped, tilting her head curiously.
"Well, I suppose you don't know that. Do you want me to?"
"What?"
"Do you want to be sacrificed to demons? I'm afraid I'm not the person you're-" "Of course not!" "after, if… oh, well, good."
They stared at each other for a moment, before she lifted the vial questioningly. Anders frowned, chewing on the inside of his cheek. Finally, he held out his hand.
He healed his cut on his wrist as soon as they'd filled the vial, and couldn't find any words to say when she scampered off into the forest with it. He could only hope that she wasn't going to do some sort of malevolent magic with it.
"Maker, I'm an idiot." He groaned, sinking to his knees next to the fire. Swept up in all this, for all he knew it could have been an elaborate trap to get a blood sacrifice. Any minute, her magic would be ensnaring his mind, and he'd be toast.
But, the moment never came.
A few minutes passed, and the soft rustle of leaves heralded her return to the camp. She was talking before he could even ask where she'd gone.
"Alright so I'm going to hope your filly-thing acts like a tracking stone, because otherwise we'll be in trouble, and I'll have thrown a perfectly good piece of glassware into the sea for nothing. How tired are you? Probably not much, you've been asleep since you got here. Well, you'll have to go back to sleep, otherwise this will all fall apart."
"Hold on a minnute, what- 'sssss go... "
The last thing Anders saw was her apologetic expression, before he tilted sideways and blackness consumed him once more.
