~*Village of Trewick, Skywept, 9:24 of the Dragon Age*~

Young Anders lay panting on his back, looking at the gaping hole in the family barn; there was no saving it from the blast, the barn burned like tinder for a campfire. His mother, having heard the thunderous sound, came running to see flames hurrying into the barn, pulling her baby to safety.

At the supper table for the past several evenings, his father warily eyeing his son, his beloved boy as he was stuck in perpetual confusion, Anders avoided his eye; his confusion reflected his father.

For a month, Anders hardly saw his father; his once loving embraces and smiles now distant; tears filled the man's eyes. No longer the three of them, his mother made excuses for why his father was absent. It was glaringly obvious he was avoiding his only son.

Another month his father came in, that sad look in his eye, pointing to the boy who sat at the table eating his lunch happily, with a Templar entering behind his father.

His mother whipping around, looking between her husband and the templar entering. "What? Why?" his mother cried, running to her boy, his father wrenching his wife to him, holding her tight, wordless.

Anders' fear rising of what was coming, his face hot, throat tightening, grabbing for the loving hand that tucked him in, caressed his cheeks, wiped his tears. His mother's hand extended, panicked, to hold her baby's hand.

"Please, don't. Don't take my baby! He can control it; let me go!" She hit and shoved her husband. Grunting for him to release her.
Anders saw, through his tears, his father cup her cheek, forcing her to look at him. Her face twisted with anger, then sadness.

Anders could not see the pain in his father's eyes as they clasped heavy irons on his wrist, dragging the thrashing boy away, who was pleading and crying furiously.

Mother rushed into the house and just as quickly to the Templars. Her face was splotchy with red freckles and reddened eyes brimmed with tears. "Please, allow him this?" In her hands was an embroidered pillow.

The Templar looked at her, and the item in her hands, nodding his agreement, when he relieved the item from her. "You have a moment."

The last hug and kisses his mother placed, farm worn thumbs rough, but lovingly soft touch as they wiped his tears. The whispers of how loved he was and how sorry she was. As the wagon pulled agonizingly slowly; as the parents, the farm and the village he knew faded away from sight.

~*Kinloch Hold, 9:24 of the Dragon Age*~

The few days' ride, a vast lake with an imposing tower that sat in the middle loomed. As they rode across the lake, the shadow of the tower felt as if it was swallowing him. The large oaken doors creaked open, allowing entry. Two templars at the doors inside stood wordlessly; Anders hated it. Although the one templar who took him from his home was kind. He wanted to go home.

Anders saw a mage; his first time seeing one, he did not include himself.

"Mage, I leave him with you." The templar said as he removed the irons from his small wrists.

"Thank you. Hello, my name is Deedolett. You?"

~*Amaranthine Arling, Month 9 - Kingsway, 9:32 of the Dragon Age*~

Anders' heart pounded in his chest, hard to breathe like air wrung from his lungs.

"He is waking..." One said a short distance away.

Anders knew the voice, hearing them getting closer. Someone he knows, someone he clearly had been desperately trying to avoid.

A deafening ring in his ears, the rising muffled sounds like he was underwater, coming up to the surface. Head spun, as if he had been drunk from too much ale.

"What in the Maker's name happened to him? Where's the other, Warden Kristoff?" Another voice answers he did not recognize.

"He went mad and killed him, obviously! His eyes were glowing, skin cracked open as if he was on fire. Just kept raving like a bloody madman, something about injustice. A revolution? Thought I was going to have to put him down like the dog he is, then he just collapsed." A snort of disgust followed with. "Damned mages."

"Why say that? Both of you, they are people, too."

"A disgusting plague on this world, especially this one." A third spoke.

Anders tried to get up; he felt heavy, his hands shaky, feeling around a tree behind him. He struggled to stand, legs felt non-existent as he was bracing himself against the trunk. Blinking to focus his sight, he has to face them like a man, not the shat out ogre shit he felt like. His eyes coming into focus, he can see them now. The heavy armor, an embossed flaming sword of the Chantry, and Grey Warden Griffon. They stood there watching him cautiously.

Panting, it unnerved him, his pulse rapidly thrumming. Why were they here? Had something happened? "Wha-" Anders remembers nothing, except that Warden.

A templar now one of the order, Rolan. Anders' encounters with him had never been pleasant. Another reason for him to run.

When Anders had pleaded to be a Grey Warden, the Warden Commander granted the generosity. He thought his recruitment would keep him from the maltreatment of templars.
Rolan, he was one of them; before the Chantry, he was stationed, destroyed by the darkspawn. Then he felt the calling to join the Wardens. His turning up was not alarming, though the suddenness of every assignment had been together since was.

The mage could see them talking, planning. What he did not know. He felt fear creeping, Anders was scared. "Justice?"

It couldn't have been a coincidence that for the past several weeks Anders felt someone watching. Their order must have received word that Rylock was embarrassed about the failed capture of her prize. To Anders' dismay, it was all too clear that they had been sent to watch him.

"What happened? Wh-why can't I remember?" Anders gasped, just loud enough to be heard.
"I was on my way back from Amaranthine… Justice? Are you here?" Anders called. Ignoring his audience. His head still felt muddled.

Rolan took a step toward the mage. "Who is Justice? Where is Warden Kristoff?"

Anders heard what Rolan said; he felt a wave of nausea, the hate for Templars, his mistreatment from them. He felt his mind shifting, giving him a headache. Little did Anders know that the headache was Justice, just behind his eyes absorbing the thoughts Anders held tight. Because Anders' thoughts are his own and now Justice's. "Justice? My head…" his eyes closed briefly in pain.

Rolan's eyes narrowed as he stood in front of the mage; the white griffin on his chest plate glared brightly, making the pain in Anders' head worse. As with the steel grey flame sword on the other's armor, who was the third voice that Anders had not recognized.
It was then that Anders knew he was being hunted, and Rolan had every plan to kill him.
"The Wardens agreed we can't harbor an abomination," He said, his nasal voice heavy with satisfied snide smugness.

"Silence." Anders growled, hands balled tight into fists at his sides. He need not hear more from the man; his voice grated further on his already splitting mind. Rolan had unleashed the templars upon him.
The days since Rolan and the other templars that had arrived had their orders to do what Rylock could not; this was just the opportunity they had been waiting for.

"What did you say to me, you dog?"

Anders' vision grew hazy; the pale blue light crept into the edges of his line of sight. "I said silence." That was not his voice, Anders knew what he sounded like, and whoever just spoke was not him.
The flashes that appeared, quick, precise. "No." Anders gasped.
Anders only stood watching the reflection in their eyes, hearing the sounds of their screams. Smell of seared flesh and hair, molten metal pooled where they once stood. The trees caught fire around them, everything around them, him, scorched and charred, embers still alight crackling of fire in various places, breaking the silence that fell on the area.
As if he were watching a grizzly twisted dark performance on a street square. "No!" He pleaded. Certainly, the faint smell of blood did not assault his nostrils a reality. Right? "What am I?" His mind whispered.

Rolan's fear came, his eyes darting to see the damage lay before him; though he swallowed it down, he wavered, sword arm raised, the blade level with the abomination's chest, poised at his heart.
He stood alone, confronting the monster he was trained to kill. His mission was to kill Anders. "I-I am of the O-order t-th-there shall be no abominations with-w-within the W-w-wardens. No m-mages with their d-d-damnable curse." The fear would not subside.

The spirit took a step back, glaring menacingly, the hunted, becoming the hunter. A sword in the hands of this boy was playing the part of doling out justice was laughable, the spirit was not of mortal men. The memories of what others of his ilk had done fueled the burning rage within.

Rolan gathered his courage charging, his sword sank hilt deep into its flesh with no reaction. No scream, yelp, no outward or inward reaction. He looked him in the eye, no emotion, there was nothing there. That was when he turns and runs, dropping his tower shield; he ran hard. The hunter became the hunted. Far from the Keep, deep in the woods, he called out for help, any help, his heart pounding, pulse quickening. He just needed to get to the Keep.

The spirit watching on at the pathetic display. Pulling the sword from his body, he let it hit the ground with a dull thud. He lunged, a hand full of hair black hair intertwined around his long fingers, With a sickening twist he tore his head off as the body that fell to a dead stop, hitting the forest floor, the blood gushes like a geyser splashing into his open mouth, like honeyed wine, the warmth spreads through. He hated Anders, feared Anders, hunted Anders, and he was dead. The spirit smiled.

"They shall all die. Every templar, every holy sister who stands in the way of our freedom. They shall die in writhing agony, their deaths, our fuel. We will have justice . We will have vengeance ."

Anders blinked; he saw he was alone, still standing in a burning forest, with the bodies of templars and wardens at his feet. He did something unimaginable. "I killed them. No, I saw them killed, murdered. Justice?" There was no answer. Anders turned, walking from the spot to look for Kristoff's body. "Justice!" Frantically he searched, his mind flashed, they went to see Aura; they had discussed what would happen once he gave the body back to Kristoff's wife.

"You have shown me an injustice greater than any I have faced. Do you have the courage to accept my aid?"

"I believe you have a responsibility to your fellow mages, then." Justice looked back at Anders with an unbroken gaze. "You have seen oppression and are now free. You must act to free those who remain oppressed."

This is not justice; what happened was not justice. He spotted the body some feet away, looking down at the corpse limp, he remembered. The body Justice once inhabited. They were heading back to the Keep to allow Kristoff's body to rest.
It was then that Rolan and the others had ambushed them. The sudden deal he made out in the open. Tears welled in the mage's eyes; the one in him is not the spirit whom he once called a friend.
"What have I done? Has… he done? What have I become? What has he become? We have to leave; we must get away from here. There is no place left for me now."

Anders never looked back; fear mounted on what he had done, on what he became. He ran to where he knew not, but he knew he needed to get as far away from Ferelden as possible.

Would that be far enough? Would he have anywhere left to go?

"Anders, wait!" Anders' name being called went unheard.