Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

You awoke to a feeling behind your right ear. All around you the rocks pressed in, cocooning, keeping, but right there, air.

Thick, rotting fingers brushed against you, and all around your head the pressure lightened. You shifted your jaw experimentally. Stone shifted and loosened. Rocks were lifted from your eyes, and you opened them. There, before you, your army—all gaunt, grey faces and gleaming eyes, a thousand score strong.

You opened your massive mouth and roared.

Garrett Hawke awoke to a stabbing pain behind his right ear. He winced and moved his neck tentatively. This, of course, woke Bethany, whose eyes opened groggily. Though the siblings were grown, they still shared a bed as they had as children. Garrett on the open end, to protect his younger siblings; Carver against the far wall, restless enough that if slept anywhere else he was liable to fall off; and Bethany, snug in the middle. “Everything alright?” Bethany whispered.

“Headache,” Garrett whispered back. “And weird dreams.”

“Weird how?”

“I dreamt I was… big. Very, very big. And buried somewhere deep underground. And these disgusting people were moving the stone around me, and they woke me up. I don’t know what they were, but they had these gaping mouths and weird skin, and they looked dead. Very ugly.”

Bethany frowned and touched Garrett on the side of his neck, right where the pain was.

“Does any of that sound familiar to you?” Garrett asked.

“No.” Bethany shook her head softly. “I wish we could ask Father. He probably would have known.”

“He would have,” Garrett said, and squeezed Bethany’s hand.

Anders awoke to the feeling of tears on his mother’s pillow.

He couldn’t even remember taking it out the night before. He stashed it back under his pallet, just in case the Templars came by early. He couldn’t risk them taking it.

Anders moved slowly, shoving the residual sadness to the back of his mind in favor of more biological concerns. His muscles were cramped, as was usual – it got particularly cold at night in his cell. His head also ached. Probably dehydration. He ignored the pain for a moment to stand and lick the morning dew from the walls. Not the most dignified thing to do, but the Templars rarely gave Anders enough water, so he was used to it. Besides, there was little point in dignity in an isolated cell.

The water didn’t help the headache, but at least Anders was standing now. He set about his stretches. One muscle group at a time, counting to ten in each stretch, deep breathing, the whole lot. Anders couldn’t remember where he learned this, but it helped with the muscle stiffness. And it kept him calm and centered, normally.

Right now, Anders didn’t feel centered. He felt expansive, broad as the stormy sky and just as turbulent. He was sad, and then he was scared, and then he was angry. His heart thundered in his ears and no amount of deep breathing could calm it.

Fenris charged at the mercenaries. There were two of them – Danarius always liked to hire in pairs – and they had set upon him with no particular skill. He’d backed up artfully, drawing one closer, the other three  paces back and to his right. The closer mercenary brought his sword up to parry, but that mattered little. Fenris simply phased through him, materializing with his sword in the chest of the further. He died, naturally. Another short phase for Fenris to face the right way and for the dead man to slough from his sword.

The other mercenary was only just turning to react. His eyes widened just as Fenris slammed the flat of his sword into the man’s chest, sprawling him on his back. The mercenary’s sword fell to the dirt.

Fenris stepped on the mercenary’s chest. The man’s right hand scrambled for his sword, so Fenris cut it off. He put the tip of his blade to the man’s throat. “Unlike Danarius to hire such amateurs,” Fenris said. There was confusion in the man’s face, evident even amidst the fear. “A third party sent you, then?”

The man swallowed. “Our cap’n sent us. He didn’t say who the client was, just that we were to take a tattooed elf traveling south from Tevinter. Take ‘im alive, he said,” the man added, pleading.

“Was anyone else given the same task?” Fenris asked.

“No, just us two. We weren’t given enough money for more’an a pair. So if you let me go, nothing’ll happen. Swear it!”

Fenris smiled bitterly. “Doubtful. Danarius is just spreading his resources around.” 

The man kept pleading, making Fenris’s head pound even more than it had when he awoke. “Still, you’ve no more reason to hurt me. I let you go, and you let me go, and everything’s fine.” He sounded a bit delirious, probably from the blood loss from his hand.

“You were trying to kill me,” replied Fenris.

“It’s just what we were hired to do. Please!”

“Perhaps your captain will learn to be more discerning with his clients then,” Fenris said, and pushed his sword through the mercenary’s throat.

Aveline pressed her sword against the recruit’s throat.

“Captain! Cap’n!” the recruit croaked, and Aveline came back to herself.

“Shit!” Aveline said and lifted the wooden sword. 

The recruit took a few shuddering breaths. She wasn’t hurt, really, just a bit roughed up. Still, Aveline felt bad. Her head was everywhere this morning. 

Aveline turned to the crowd of other recruits. “Well, um, as you all can see, if your enemy gets your feet out from underneath you, you’re quite vulnerable to them. It only takes a few pounds of pressure against bare skin to cripple or kill you. That’s why it’s important to always keep your shield up and your stance steady.” Green as they were, the recruits didn’t seem to much note Aveline’s stumble.

Aveline helped the recruit up, who was rubbing her throat. She’d be fine. Everything would be fine.

Merrill could not focus on her book. She would look down, and, after a few moments, her eyes would drift up to watch the archers. Not all the archers. Mostly Tamlen. He looked especially pretty today, and Merrill wanted very much to kiss him. 

Merrill felt hot and flushed, and the tea Keeper Marethari had given her for her headache helped little. She didn’t normally think about kissing so much – at least not in the middle of the day. Normally, she could push her feelings down until she got into her aravel (being First meant she didn’t have to share) at night. 

So why now?

Isabela came in time with the ocean crashing around her ship. It filled her like a breaking tide, pushing every other sensation down and away. And when it withdrew, she was left with nothing but happy buzzy tingling.

Lina lifted her head from between Isabela’s legs. A small and swarthy thing, she was, with strong muscles and a wickedly talented tongue. “Your head feel better now, Captain?” she asked.

“Just a bit,” Isabela giggled, still giddy.

Lina pressed her face into Isabela’s thigh. “Deadly weapons, these are,” she said. “Nearly broke my damned neck.”

Isabela snorted. “They’re nothing. I should tell you about this one Orlesian Chantry sister I knew—”

“You’d better not,” Lina said, extricating herself from Isabela. She searched the floor for her shirt.

“In a hurry?”

“I was busy fixing rope when the Captain requested my help with a personal matter. Unless she requires more assistance?”

“The Captain does not,” Isabela smiled.

Lina pouted, “Such a slavedriver,” so Isabela kicked her gently in the rear. “Deadly weapons,” Lina repeated on her way out the door.

Isabela luxuriated for a moment, still feeling a bit tingly. Lina was fun, and always good at following orders, be they ship chores or getting rid of a foul headache. 

Which was, unfortunately, starting to come back.

Varric walked the streets of Kirkwall. He’d woken up with not just a headache, but an unshakeable tug in his gut. It took him out of his bed well before noon, an hour when most decent people would be getting into theirs. It brought him out of the only good part of Kirkwall, Lowtown, and into the miserable streets of Hightown. And now, it dragged him all the way to the steps of the Grand Chantry.

“Andraste’s tits!” Varric said to the tug in his gut. “You can’t actually expect me to go in there. I mean, when was the last time you saw a dwarf in the Chantry? It’d be like seeing a Fereldan in the bathhouse. Or a whore in, well, in the Chantry.” He was, regrettably, still climbing the stairs. 

Varric paused with his hand resting on the Chantry door. “We’re really doing this? Fine. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Sebastian prayed. Since the moment he’d opened his eyes, he’d been assaulted by strange visions. A mage trapped in a tower, a blood-soaked elf on the open plains, a licentious pirate, and more and more. The visions kept coming in flashes, rending his mind into slashes of pain. Sebastian knew not what demon assaulted him so, or how it reached him in his waking hours, but he would stay here in prayer until it was gone. So he knelt at Andraste’s feet, begging for her deliverance.

Suddenly, the twisting in Sebastian’s gut tugged sharply. Backwards. Towards the Chantry door. Whatever was coming for him was close. Sebastian heard the door open behind him, and every hair on the back of his neck stood at attention.

Chapter Text

Two men visited Anders in his cell, and neither used the door. 

The first looked like a human man, sharp-jawed and angular, with curling black hair. Anders thought he probably was a human man; he was handsome enough to be a desire demon, but he didn’t act like one. When he appeared in Anders’s cell, he didn’t notice Anders at first. His head swiveled from wall to barred window to wall, and he ran to the door and beat his fists on it, screaming “Bethany! Bethany!”

Anders moved to touch his shoulder, to calm him, but the man jumped before Anders even reached him. His eyes met Anders’s, and he managed a faint “Who?” before he vanished. 

The second visitor looked more like a demon. His form was something like that of an elf, but he had strange tattoos that glowed blue, and his armor was impossibly tight and spiked. Anders crept back from him carefully, but, again, the elf didn’t mark him at first. He regarded the walls of the cell slowly and ran one hand across them. The hand shook, barely. Could someone that looked like that be nervous?

The elf looked at Anders, and Anders could see anxiety bobbing in his throat. “I know this place not. Where have I been taken?” the elf asked, voice low.

Maybe he wasn’t a demon. Anders tried to be kinder than the Templars had been when he asked them the same question, more than fifteen years ago. “You’re in Ferelden,” he said slowly. There was some recognition in the elf’s eyes. “In Kinloch Hold, near Lake Calenhad.” No recognition. “A Mage’s Circle.” The elf took a step back, eyes wide. 

“You are a mage?” the elf asked. Then he, too, vanished.

Anders had never known demons could be scared.

The drinking helped with the weirdness. Varric and Sebastian had already done the whole seeing you seeing me crap, and frankly it made Varric’s head spin. Hence the liquor. “Seriously, Choir Boy,” Varric said, “have some. It helps. If everything feels like shit, then this shit feels less like shit.”

“How poetic,” Sebastian grumbled. “You said you’re a writer?”

“Only in editing. For now, I’m just a drunk.”

“I don’t drink, anymore. Besides, I do not need alcohol to cope with the trials the Maker has sent me.” Even though he hadn’t touched a drop, Sebastian’s words were starting to slur. Could Varric be getting him drunk by proxy? This shit kept getting weirder.

“You still think it’s the Maker doing this? This reeks of magic.”

Sebastian harrumphed.

“Come on, dreams about darkspawn, weird psychic links? Bits to bars, this is some blood mage shit gone wrong. That, or demons. Or both. Half the time it's both.”

“Then how did we come to get caught in it, dwarf?”

“You think I understand magic shit?” Varric shrugged. 

“Clearly, then, this is divine providence. Perhaps it is atonement for my past sins, or perhaps you are meant to lead me to some greater destiny.” Sebastian let out a hiccup, then glared at Varric. “Probably the former.”

“I don’t know. I can get behind that ‘greater destiny’ part. Cause I think there’s more than us two that’re like this.”

Sebastian nodded. “I’ve seen them too.”

Varric continued, “Whatever’s going on, I think we’re meant for them, and they’re meant for us.”

“You’re so weird, Merrill,” said Tamlen.

Merrill frowned. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I’ve just never kissed anyone, and I wanted to try it.”

“You can’t just walk up to someone and ask to kiss them. That’s not how you start the conversation.”

“Well, that's how I start the conversation.” Merrill started to walk away.

Tamlen sighed dramatically. “Fiiine,” he said, as if she’d just asked him to muck out the halla pen. Merrill let Tamlen step up to her and press his lips against hers.

The sadness in the air was palpable as soon as Aveline got home. Wesley sat at the table, ashen-faced. 

Aveline knelt beside him. “Wesley? What happened?” she asked.

“There was a messenger for you. King Cailan is calling his forces to Ostagar for some grand battle. All of his forces,” Westley said.

Aveline felt her back stiffen. She took Westley’s hand. “We knew this could happen when I joined. Little point in a soldier that sits at home. Did the messenger say why?”

“He did not.”

Aveline was silent, mind racing with possibility. Another war against Orlais? Why now, when relations were warmer? An expedition into the uncharted wilds? Why so many troops then?

“There is some good news, of a sort,” Wesley continued. “They are sending some mages to the front as well, so they will need Templars to accompany them. I will endeavor to be one of those Templars.”

“Then we won’t be apart for long?”

“Not so long. A few weeks, at most. Still, I worry for you, my love.” Westley was crying a bit, and Aveline felt tears well in her eyes. She kissed him gently.

As Merrill pulled away from Tamlen, she burst into tears. Was that supposed to happen when you kiss someone?

Tamlen wrinkled his nose at her. “So weird,” he repeated, walking away.

Merrill sniffled. She usually only cried when she was upset or when things were too loud or too bright for too long, but maybe kissing was one of those things that caused her tears as well. She pulled her staff in front of her and counted the whirls, and her breathing began to calm.

“Did that mean boy make you cry, kitten?” a voice said from behind Merrill.

Merrill spun around. It was a very pretty shem woman, with tan skin and shiny gold baubles on her neck and in her ears. She looked nothing at all like anyone Merrill had ever seen before, but, despite that, Merrill felt she knew her. Merrill said as much, and added, “Isn’t that strange?”

The shem gave a tinkling little laugh. “It is strange. But I know you too. I keep getting glimpses of you, and of others. Do you get those too?”

“I do,” Merrill said, voice low. “But they’re not really there. So I think they must be demons.”

The shem smiled wryly. “I’m no demon, kitten. Just Isabela. Well, Captain Isabela of the Siren’s Call, Queen of the Eastern Seas, and all that. And I may not be really here, but I am here.” And suddenly Merrill was in a small wooden room, the ground swaying beneath her feet. It happened in less than a moment, not even an eyeblink – as if she had been in both places all along. “What’s your name, love?”

“Merrill, First of Clan Sabrae.” When Merrill spoke, they were suddenly back in the woods of northern Ferelden, the rest of the clan a hundred yards away. “Are you really a queen?”

Isabela shook her head. “That’s just a title I made up for myself. My turn for questions. Why did that boy make you cry?”

“He didn’t. I think that’s just what happens when you kiss someone.”

“I can assure you it is not, kitten,” Isabela laughed.

“Have you kissed a lot of people?”

“Less than most people think.”

“I don’t know what most people think. How–”

“My turn for questions.”

“Oh, did that last one count? I didn’t know.”

“It did, and that one did too.” Isabela was smiling in a way that made Merrill feel warm and confused. “Now, here’s the big question. Have you tried following the glimpses yet?”

Merrill shook her head. “I thought they were demons, and I try to stay far away from demons. But I’m not sure of anything anymore. Have you?”

“I have,” Isabela said, ignoring the fact that it hadn’t been Merrill’s turn. “I keep seeing such fascinating people, but I don’t think they’ve seen me. Until you.” Isabela stepped close and brushed her fingers on Merrill’s hand. 

And Merrill felt it. 

The world around flickered rapidly between ship and forest. 

“You should try to follow them too. You might like who you meet.”

Anders kept seeing his visitors, glimpses of them. He tried to follow the glimpses, again and again. Glimpses of the human man brought him to a bustling town square, or outside a cottage on a hill. Glimpses of the elf took him to an endless dusty road that stretched from horizon to horizon. And then there were other places. He’d find himself on the deck of a ship, or at the head of a column of soldiers, or in a Chantry so large and opulent it made his blood run cold. He could see people, at a distance, but couldn’t reach them before he came crashing back to reality.

And then he had another visitor. An elf, but a different one this time. She was short and slender, with uncomfortably green eyes and Dalish tattoos on her face. “Oh! You’re new,” she said, mouth curling around an unfamiliar accent. “I’m Merrill.”

“Anders.”

Merrill looked around the cell. “Do you live here? It’s… a bit dark, isn’t it?”

Anders chuckled. “It wasn’t exactly by choice. Where do you live?” he asked.

“Come see.” And then Anders was on the back of some great wagon, flying through the sky. Its red sails puffed and twisted in the air as Merrill guided the wind into them. Anders stumbled backwards and saw an endless emerald forest, impossibly far beneath. “Do hang on to the railing!” Merrill called.

“This is incredible!” Anders shouted over the wind. “Is this how all the Dalish travel?”

“Most of the time! Especially if the ground’s a bit rocky.”

“I’d give anything to be as free as this!” Anders yelled. It echoed too loud in his ears, and he realized he and Merrill were back in his cell. 

“Why don’t you then?” Merrill said, cocking her head.

Anders stepped away sharply. “You don’t think I have? You don’t understand what it’s like for human mages! They don’t just let us go around the world. They keep us locked here like animals, forever. And that’s the ones whose minds they don’t take. I’ve escaped six times and they always, always find me.”

“That’s terrible,” murmured Merrill, frowning. “We’ll find a way to get you out of here.”

“What ‘we’? You and the other demons in my head?

“I’m not a demon!” Merrill paused. “Let me introduce you to Isabela. Her home is even better than mine, and I’m sure she can think of something to get you out of here.”

“Introduce me… So you’ve figured out how this whole thing works? I can’t get anyone to talk to me, or go where I want.”

“I can’t either, mostly, but Isabela is special.” Merrill took Anders’s hand. “Let’s go,” she said,  and they were gone.

Chapter Text

Anders awoke to the sound of two sets of footsteps outside his cell. That was unusual. It was too early for his meal, and the Templar that brought the food usually came alone. Anders heard keys jingle near the lock.

He checked himself hurriedly. He’d spent the past week beneath the beating sun on the deck of the Siren’s Call or atop the back of Merrill’s aravel, but his skin was no tanner. He’d gorged himself on salted fish and Dalish hearth cake, but his belly was no less thin from hunger. For all his travels, he was no freer.

Two Templars came into the cell. One, blond and young, hauled Anders to his feet and out the cell, while the other, Antivan and older, stalked behind him . “Getting out early for good behavior, am I?” Anders joked.

“Just for today,” the Antivan Templar said gruffly. “We’ve got a visitor. Grey Warden. You being in solitary makes us look bad.” Anders bit back the obvious comeback that he hadn’t stuck himself in an isolated cell for months. The Templar continued, “No talking to anyone. No making trouble. No nothing, or you won’t see light again. Capisci ?”

Anders nodded and let himself be led to the dining hall. 

Tables were laid with porridge and hard rolls, and Anders fell upon the food with gusto. He’d been hungry for months, and there was so much here, just sitting out. Morsel after morsel went into his mouth, until Anders heard a voice call his name. It snapped him from his trance, and, belatedly, Anders remembered that eating so much after so long would make him sick. He forced himself to drop the food and look at who had spoken.

It was Neira Surana, one of the older apprentices. Anders had known her since she was a girl of ten, and she still had hints of baby fat in her face today. She looked terrible, eyes red-rimmed and skin clammy. Still, she sat across from him and repeated his name, voice full of warmth and worry. 

Anders rapped the table deliberately, drawing Neira’s attention to his fingers. “Are you alright?” he signed. It was a simple hand talk that all mages learned early, but Templars never did.

“Harrowing,” Neira signed, hand making a claw over her heart. “Just now.” 

Anders didn’t know what to say. Congratulations seemed the wrong word, since very little actually changed after your Harrowing. The Templars could still imprison you, make you Tranquil, or just kill you whenever they wanted. So, instead, he signed, “You survived.”

Neira smiled weakly. “They let you out?” she signed to him.

“Just today. Because of the Warden.” Anders had to spell it out: w-a-r-d-e-n. “Have you seen him?”

Neira signed, “D-u-n-c-a-n,” and pointed over Anders’s right shoulder. Anders turned. He had to crane his neck and twist his body, but finally he caught sight of the Warden. He was tall and dark, armored gleamingly. 

And then Anders met Duncan’s eyes, and his head screamed in pain, and his vision went white, and his body jerked spasmodically, and the last thing he heard before he went unconscious was Neira’s yelling. 

Anders was back in his cell. No kind ministrations for him, apparently; there was a knot the size of an apple on the back of his head. If only he could heal it. He sat, and he paced, and he watched the shadows lengthen.

Finally, Duncan appeared in Anders’s cell. It wasn’t a shock, after everything that had happened lately. If anything, Duncan seemed more surprised to be there. And saddened. He regarded Anders slowly and finally said, “So, a Blight truly is upon us.”

Well, that was unexpected. “I beg your pardon?” asked Anders.

“Right. My apologies, young man–”

“It’s Anders.”

“Anders. I shall start at the beginning. You are what we refer to as a ‘sensate’. You were born with innate psychic abilities, dormant for many years, and activated now by exposure to the Blight.”

“Unless a darkspawn snuck in here and bit my arse in my sleep, I haven’t been exposed to the Blight.”

“But you have. Grey Wardens primarily encounter sensates that join us unknowingly, or dwarves that are infected with the taint underground. But, when an archdemon is woken, so too are clusters of sensates.”

“Clusters?”

“You have seven other selves now, Anders.”

Anders blinked, and started to tally on his fingers.

“You may not have met them all yet. How long has it been?”

“A fortnight, give or take.”

“Only a fortnight. Then there is still time to stop the Blight before it truly begins,” Duncan muttered, mostly to himself. He turned to Anders, “Time is short. The first thing you must learn now is the difference between ‘visiting’ and ‘sharing’. Visiting is what we are doing now. It’s not something you make happen, it’s something you let happen. You can and will visit with anyone in your cluster, as well as any sensate with whom you make eye contact.”

“That’s what happened at breakfast?” Anders asked. Duncan nodded. “Does it always hurt like that?”

“It will not. You are still so young.” Duncan looked sad for a moment. “Sharing you can only do inside a cluster, and so Warden histories of it are fragmentary. We believe you will be able to access each others’ knowledge, language, skills.” 

“But not yours?”

“No.”

“Did you know about me before you came here?”

“I did not. I am here purely as a Warden, to invoke the Right of Conscription to gather mages against the Blight.”

Anders grasped Duncan’s hand. “Conscript me, then. I need to get out of here, especially if a Blight is coming.”

Duncan shook his head. “I cannot. I have taken who I need already. And you will be of more use to meet in the world, away from the fighting.”

“Out in the world?! I’m trapped here!”

“Escape.”

“How? I have no weapons, no staff, no magic.”

“You have seven other selves. Use them.” With that, Duncan vanished, but Anders pushed through to follow him. They were outside, now. Duncan was leading his recruit away from the tower. A small elven thing, familiar. Neira. Had Duncan deliberately picked the youngest, the most vulnerable? Or had she jumped at the first chance for freedom? No matter, no time. More pressing things.

“How long do I have?” Anders demanded. “Before the Blight comes here and kills me?”

Duncan started. “Months,” he whispered, glancing at Neira. “But there will be… strangeness beforehand. If we do not stop it, the Blight will spread north from Ostagar, and unusual and dangerous happenings will spread out across Ferelden, then Thedas. Get yourself out of danger as soon as you can. All your selves.”

It was easy to get to Merrill, so Anders went there first. She was sitting at the bedside of an elven boy who looked about her age. He didn’t look visibly injured, but his cheeks were gray and sunken, and oozing black sores sprouted on his face and arms. Merrill looked despondent, hands wringing along her staff. 

“What… What happened to him?” Anders asked.

Merrill lifted one hand and wiped her eyes. “He went with Tamlen to the mirror. Tamlen’s gone, and now Theron is very ill. I tried to take him back to the mirror to find Tamlen, but there were darkspawn everywhere. The mirror made him sick; it’s making everything sick. I broke it, but that didn’t help anything.” Her hands moved up and down her staff, fingers running along the whirls.

“I can’t pretend to understand all that, but you said there were darkspawn? And this sickness, do you think it's the Blight?”

“Keeper Marethari thought it might be, but we’re not near any old dwarven ruins, so she didn’t see how.”

Anders remembered what Duncan had said about ‘sharing’, and touched Merrill’s staff, feeling the cool, knotty wood. Gently, he pulled in a bit of magic. After so long, even a trickle felt like standing in a thunderstorm. 

Merrill made a small noise of surprise, or maybe of protest. Anders stepped closer to the boy on the bed. He guided the spirits to check Theron for injuries and illness. His skin was as unbroken as it had seemed, but there was something in his blood, something Anders had never seen. Black sludge, coursing, carrying vileness to every corner of the body. Anders was not sure he could even heal like this, but even if he could, he knew nothing he could do to remove the infection. He directed the spirits to ease some of the pain, and then dropped Merrill’s staff with reluctance. 

“How did you do that?” asked Merrill.

“Listen, Merrill, this is going to be hard to explain, but I met someone. He’s like us, sort of, and he told me a little of how our abilities work. He’s a Grey Warden, and also he told me there’s a Blight coming. He said it was starting near Ostagar, in the far south of Ferelden, so I don’t know how it got up here. But clearly it did. Merrill, you need to go. Get out of Ferelden.”

Merrill stiffened. “I’ll not abandon my clan,” she said firmly. Anders opened his mouth to protest, but she raised a hand. “But, we’ll move again after the funeral. Funerals.” Merrill shoulders sagged again.

“Fine. Just, go soon please.” Anders paused. “I think there’s two more of us in Ferelden: a dark-haired mage, and a red-haired soldier. Have you seen them too?”

“I think, briefly. We haven’t spoken.”

“Well, I’m going to try to warn them.”

“What about Isabela?”

“What about her? She’s on a boat, Merrill. She’ll be fine.”

“She should know!” Merrill made an angry, choked noise and vanished.

Merrill found Isabela in her cabin, bent over a map.

“Kitten!” Isabela said happily. Then she saw Merrill’s face and repeated, “Kitten? What’s wrong?” She took Merrill’s hand in hers, and the brush of her fingers felt warm and nice.

“Where is this ship going?” Merrill asked.

Isabela looked confused, but she pulled Merrill closer to the map. “We’re here,” she said, pointing, “near Wycombe. We’re traveling south from a delivery in Rivain, and we mean to turn into the Waking Sea and look for work there. I’ve got contacts in Ostwick, Cumberland, and Val Royeaux, so we’ll be stopping there. Why, kitten? I know you’re in northern Ferelden. Do you need me to come get you?”

“No!” Merrill exclaimed, pulling away. “Whatever you do, don’t stop in Ferelden!”

“Why?” 

“Anders met someone. A Grey Warden, but with abilities like ours. He said there’s a Blight coming to Ferelden. I’m leaving with my clan, and Anders is warning the others and finding a way to leave. But I wanted to make sure you don’t plan to stop anywhere in Ferelden.”

“Do you know where the Blight is going to start?” Gentleness had evaporated from Isabela’s voice.

“Ostagar, Anders said. He said it was south.”

Isabela looked back at her map. “Thank you for letting me know, kitten,” Isabella said coolly.

Merrill started. People did not come naturally to her, but that didn’t mean she didn’t understand them. She’d spent a long time learning how to tell if they were serious or joking or making fun or lying. And Isabela was making the face liars make. “Isabela?” she asked. 

“Yes?”

“Isabela, what do you intend to do?”

Isabela sighed. “Kitten, I appreciate your concern, but everything will be fine. Better than fine. You’ve just told me there’s going to be a lot of people in need in Ferelden, and I’m going to go help them.”

“Help them!? I wanted you to stay away.”

“I know, Merrill, but in a crisis, desperate people need people like me to get them away from that crisis. And, usually, they show that need with an awful lot of coin.”

“It's alright to want to help people, but you’re going to go closer to the Blight for a profit?”

“I’ll be fine, kitten. I’m on a boat. The Blight can’t get on a boat.”

“Maybe I should get Anders. He can explain it better than I can.” 

Isabela stood, chair clattering to the floor. “It’ll be a hot day in the Void before I let Anders or any other man tell me what I do with my ship!”

Merrill backed against the wall. Yelling was bad. She didn’t like yelling.

Isabela’s face flashed guilt, this time for real. She walked up to Merrill and took her hands again, holding them close to her chest. “I’m sorry, kitten. I shouldn’t have yelled,” Isabela said. She pressed her lips against the tear-tracks on Merrill’s cheeks, kissing one side, then the other. “I’ll stay safe, I promise. I’ll check every refugee, and I’ll stay out of the southernmost parts. Okay?”

Merrill nodded.

“Alright, love.” Isabela wrapped her arms around Merrill’s shoulders. “You were all shook up when you came here. Want to tell me all about it?”

Merrill opened her mouth, but words were very hard right now. “Soon,” she managed, and pressed herself deeper into Isabela’s arms. 

It’s not something you make happen. It’s something you let happen. Easy as that. If Anders can’t force his way to wherever the dark-haired mage is, he can at least let himself. Anders closed his eyes and tried to feel the mental space he’d carved at the back of his mind for the mage. No pushing, just acknowledging. Not swimming, but floating with the tide.

Anders was in a kitchen, filled with warmth and the smell of baking bread and roasting stew. The dark-haired mage was alone, just looking up from the cookpot.

“I see you’ve gone from making guest-appearances in my nightmares to trying to steal my dinner,” the man said, smiling. Anders’s heart thumped, not entirely with relief. 

“You’ve been seeing me?” Anders asked, surprised.

“Not until you buy me a few drinks.”

“I meant–”

“I know what you meant.” The man grinned. “I have to apologize for my rudeness on our first meeting. I often dream of myself or my sister Bethany ending up in circumstances as grim as yours. It wasn’t until I found myself in your cell several times when you appeared asleep, and when I caught glimpses of you across the town square, that I realized you were not just a figment of my imagination. My name is Hawke. Garrett Hawke.” He stood and stretched out a hand for Anders to shake.

“Anders.” He shook Hawke’s hand, feeling callouses. Hawke didn’t add up to Anders: he had a farmer’s hands, a merchant’s home, a mage’s staff leaned against his chair, and a noble’s bearing and accent. Thinking about that, it took Anders a moment to remember what he meant to say. “I’m very glad to meet you properly, but I have something important to tell you.”

“One moment, then,” Hawke said. He leaned over the hearth, grabbed a flat iron pot from the far end, and walked out the door. Hawke called, “Bread’s ready!” as Anders followed him to a sitting room. A middle-aged woman sat in one of a pair of armchairs, while a man and woman, several years younger than Hawke, rushed to the warm bread. Mother, brother, and sister Bethany, Anders assumed from the resemblance. Hawke deposited the pot in the middle of the table and chided, “Oi, piglets! Sit first, at least.”

Bethany plopped herself in a chair on the long side of the table, while Hawke’s brother moved for the chair at the head of the table. “That’s your brother’s chair,” Hawke’s mother called. 

Hawke took the opportunity to yank the chair from underneath his brother. “The stew will be ready in two minutes,” Hawke said on the way back into the kitchen. Once inside, he turned to Anders. “Sorry about that. Since Father passed, Mother’s been very intense about silly things like who sits at the head of the table. And Carver’s always an arse. What was the important thing you had to tell me?”

It took Anders a few seconds to recalibrate. He couldn’t remember ever seeing such quiet domesticity, except in the far vague recesses of his memory. And with not one but two apostates in the family? After probably too long, he blurted, “Right! Sorry! The Blight.”

“Which one?”

“A new one. The Blight is coming to Ferelden. Where are we now?”

“In Lothering, in the south of Ferelden.”

“Then you need to get out of here, as soon as possible. A Blight is to start in Ostagar, very soon. It will spread quickly. Take your family and leave.”

Hawke narrowed his eyes. “There were soldiers passing through town,” he said slowly, “a few days ago. They were going south. Wasn’t safe to go out, but it gave me a funny feeling in the gut. This must be… How did you find out about this?” he asked Anders.

“I met a Grey Warden, gathering people for the effort at Ostagar. He has psychic abilities like ours–”

“Shit, stew’s burning!” Hawke exclaimed. “I’ll talk to my family and come find you after.” Hawke stood to pull the cookpot from the fire. Anders took a step back, preparing to leave. “And, Anders?” Hawke said. “It was very good to meet you.”

More floating, this time towards the soldier. The image of her in Anders’s mind was on horseback, but when he found her, she was standing on two feet.

She was in a war camp, or the beginnings of one. Carts rolled through, carrying lumber and stone for tents and fire pits. Clusters of grass still stood where they hadn’t been trampled into dirt yet. The soldier stood at the mouth of a clearing, watching her troops erect a campsite. “Mind that you tuck your tarp all the way under your tent, or you’ll be sleeping in a bog!” she yelled. “I’m talking to you, Cooper. Witt, Becker, I know I said to clear the area of rocks and sticks, but at some point your tent actually has to go up!” She caught sight of Anders. “Oi, mage! Get back to your camp.”

Several of the recruits looked up, glancing between her and the (from their perspective) empty space she’d yelled at. Anders let the confusion set in for a moment. He sidled up to the soldier and whispered in her ear, “I would, but I think you’ll find I’m not really here.”

Aveline jumped, and they were back in Anders’s cell. “What trickery—? How did you—?” she sputtered. 

She knew even less than Hawke had, apparently. Anders knew he had to take a slower tack. “Let’s start at the beginning,” he said. “I’m Anders. We’re in Kinloch Hold right now, and also in…?”

They were back in the war camp. “Ostagar. Captain Aveline Vallen, at your service. I think.”

“This is Ostagar?” Anders muttered. “Then you’re in terrible danger.”

He walked Aveline along the perimeter of the war camp and told her everything Duncan had told him. She’d seen glimpses and had strange feelings, the same as Anders, but hadn’t thought much of them. Or made a point of ignoring them , Anders thought. Aveline seemed like the ignoring type. That said, she wasn’t overly surprised at the coming of the Blight. “A force this size? Had to be something important,” Aveline explained. “And there've been Orlesian emissaries around, so not another war. Only something like a Blight could get those people to work with us.”

“You see the danger, then?” asked Anders. “You’re right at the front, and the Blight could start any day now. Where will you go to get away?”

“I won’t.”

“Beg your pardon?”

Aveline raised her chin. “I’m a soldier. This is my job. I’m not about to abandon my troops, and I’m not going to abandon my country.”

“What part of ‘you are going to die’ do you not understand?”

“I understand it perfectly, but it doesn’t change anything. I have a duty.”

“You’re just as likely to die on a darkspawn’s blade than make any kind of a difference!”

“If that’s so, then so be it,” Aveline said with finality.

Anders turned away in disgust. He wasn’t sure if there were causes worth dying for out there, but this? This was just suicide. He went back to his cell.

Chapter Text

Hawke, Isabela, and Merrill sat against the walls of Anders’s cell. With so many friends there, Anders thought it felt almost homey.

“Mother spent today wrapping up affairs,” Hawke was saying. “We’ll be leaving tomorrow at first light. All things considered, she took the whole ‘I have other people in my head and also there’s a big scary Blight coming to kill us’ thing rather well,” he laughed.

“You went with honesty? Not what I would have tried,” said Isabela.

“Do you think ‘there’s a big scary Blight coming to kill us, but don’t ask me how I know’ would have gone over any better?”

“Point taken.”

“What about you, Merrill?” Anders asked.

“The clan moved on today,” Merrill said. “We’ll be moving westward around the Waking Sea, and follow it all the way to the Free Marches, as I understand. I’ve never been to Orlais before. That’ll be fun, I think.” Her lightness sounded affected.

“It is fun!” said Isabela. “And great food. Even the prison in Val Chevin had these little fried pastries that were just to die for.”

“What did you do to get yourself thrown in an Orlesian prison?” Hawke asked.

“Broke in, actually, to rescue my first mate, Casavir. It wasn’t so bad, especially compared to this shithole.” Isabela stood abruptly and looked at Anders. “So, what are you going to do to get out of here and away from the ‘big scary Blight coming to kill us’?”

“It’s a very secure shithole, unfortunately,” he said. “What can I do, anyway, without magic or weapons?”

“You’ve got a window.” Isabela walked over and stuck her hand into it sideways. She couldn’t get any further than her knuckles.

“Yeah, that’ll work great! If I were the size of a worm.”

“Well, can you turn into a worm? Any of you?” She looked at Hawke and Merrill, who shook their heads. 

Anders shot Isabela a look. 

“What? I don’t know how mages work.” She moved around the cell and examined a small circle of wood wedged into the floor. “You have… a literal shithole?” she asked, and Anders nodded. “Same problem, then?”

“Pretty much.”

“Out the door it is!” Isabela exclaimed, without further elaboration.

“Are you all right in the head?” Anders asked, frustration growing. “It's locked. With a big, heavy lock.”

Isabela waved her hand dismissively. “We’ll deal with that. But first, you need weapons.” She leaned the pallet from the floor against a wall and kicked it until it splintered.

Hang on. That framing required more thought. Isabela wasn’t literally there; she could only do anything because Anders perceived her to be. Anything else was sharing, so it was Anders’ body actually doing the things. So Anders leaned the pallet against the wall and kicked it ? That wasn’t right either. He didn’t know how to break wood like that, and it hadn’t been his idea either. It was Isabela’s will, acting on his body. But not entirely. He sensed that if she had wanted him to do something he truly did not wish to, he could have stopped her. So sharing required some degree of cooperation then, like following a dance partner’s lead. His instinct had been right: best to think of it as Isabela leaned the pallet against the wall and kicked it .

Isabela picked up two particularly long and sharp splinters and stuck them down Anders’s sleeves. “Ta da! Weapons.” She looked at Anders’s mother’s pillow on the floor. “Oh. Better take that too.”

His robes were loose everywhere except the middle, so Anders stuffed the pillow against his stomach. “Were you planning to pick the lock with bits of wood, then?”

“We could just freeze it,” Hawke chimed in.

“With what magic?! They don’t exactly let you keep your staff in here.”

Hawke and Merrill glanced at each other awkwardly. Merrill asked Anders hesitantly, “Do you really need your staff to do magic?”

“You… two… don’t?” gaped Anders.

“I mean, it helps,” Merrill began. 

Hawke shook his head. “What are they teaching you here?” he joked. “If I may?” he asked, and gestured at Anders’s arm. 

Anders let Hawke press his palm against the back of Anders’s right hand. Warmth built up between them as Hawke led Anders towards the door. He pressed Anders’s hand against the lock, and the two hands became one. Cold concentrated in Anders’s palm, then Hawke pushed it into the metal of the lock. The lock grew colder and colder, colder than ice, colder than anything Anders had ever left. When he lifted his fingers away, they were white and chapped.

A flutter of hope, small as a baby bird, filled Anders’s chest. Escape, so distant just a minute ago, seemed suddenly possible. The outlines of the rest of the escape plan formed almost unconsciously. He just needed to make it to the north side of the building, and he could make for the lake. It’d worked before. 

“Ready?” Isabela asked, bouncing on her toes. Merrill ran her hands over her staff, and Hawke cracked his neck.

“One moment. Duncan?” Anders opened his mind to the Warden, and he was there. “Duncan, I’m escaping now.”

“You have come into your power then, young man. You are no longer just you,” Duncan said. He didn’t look at Hawke, Isabela, or Merrill, nor they at him. They must not be able to see or hear each other, Anders reasoned.

“Right, thanks. Look, can you help me? Swing a sword for me or something?”

“I cannot share my skills with you as those in your cluster can, but I can watch for threats and provide advice.”

“That’ll have to do.” Anders took a deep breath and looked back at Isabela. “Now I’m ready,” he said, with far more confidence than he felt inside. 

Isabela grinned. She walked up to the door and gave the lock a single, strong kick. It shattered. Anders pushed his way into the hallway. The Templar guarding the door rushed at Anders, so Isabela kicked him in the shin. She rolled the splinter from Anders’s right sleeve into his hand and stabbed the Templar in the eye. He staggered against the wall, screaming.

“Behind you!” Duncan called. Anders turned. Another Templar was running at him, sword in hand. Merrill flicked Anders’s wrist. Vines erupted from the floor, engulfing the Templar in the blink of an eye. The sword scattered across the floor. Anders picked it up by instinct, though not his own. “I can’t even use a sword!” he said, running past the vine-wrapped Templar.

“I can.” A new voice. Anders turned, still running. It was the tattooed elf. The one with the strange armor. “Fenris,” he supplied.

A pair of Templars were running at Anders, so Hawke shot a fireball towards them. They dove apart and out of the way. One had been too slow, Anders saw as he neared, and was badly burnt. The other was not. Her hands moved in a familiar pattern, and Anders’s heart jumped in his throat. He’d be cut off from his magic, and then they’d recapture him, and–

Fenris cut the woman’s hands off in a single swing. As she staggered, Fenris grabbed the vial of lyrium from off her belt. Anders was too out of breath to even ask him what for. 

Anders kept moving. There were no more Templars on this floor, but more would be coming, he was sure. He was on the north side, so he tried the nearest door. Locked. The next was locked too. He was ready to freeze the lock again, when Fenris smashed the lyrium vial over his head. Anders suddenly found himself inside the room, and he hadn’t even touched the door.  

“What happened?” Anders panted. 

“You have phased,” said Fenris. “An ability granted by the lyrium in my tattoos. Your doing it appears to have consumed the lyrium entirely, however.”

Anders touched the top of his head. Perfectly dry. Phasing was useful, if he could get more lyrium, but too much to think about right now. He cased the room. Wide window with a heavy curtain, hanging from a thick iron rod. That would do, if he could find some rope. Where would they keep rope in here?

“You don’t need rope,” Isabela said, though Anders hadn’t spoken aloud. She grabbed the curtain and cut most of it from the rod. “This’ll do,” she said. She took the sword and began cutting slashes along the top and bottom ends.

Footsteps were coming in disquieting numbers. The doorknob rattled, and voices murmured anxiously. “Almost done?” Anders asked. 

“Just about,” Isabela said, right as the door burst open. Templars, too many to count, burst into the room. Isabela grabbed the curtain with both hands, letting the sword clatter to the floor. 

She jumped out the window.

Anders careened through open air as the curtain stretched like an accordion in his hands. He made a wide arch and crashed into the tower about eight feet down, his shoulder wrenching. The curtain began to fray rapidly along the cuts, but Isabela was still able to get Anders’s feet beneath him. She roared in delight at the barely-controlled repel. “Incredible!” she whooped. “Even Casavir didn’t let me try this!”

“Don’t blame him,” Anders grimaced as he half walked, half fell down the side of the tower. “It’s not your body that’ll break if this doesn’t work.” Anders dared to look down and realized two terrible things. First, he’d misjudged the room he’d picked, and he wasn’t over the lake at all. Second, the Templars had picked tonight to have drills outside. 

He needed to get sideways somehow, and then jump off the tower’s face. Could he find a handhold? If there were any, he couldn’t see them at this speed. Could he swing the curtain to the side? Not likely.

“Anders!” Duncan warned. Anders glanced back up, and his blood ran cold. A Templar leaned out the window-frame, sword sawing at the curtain. He had only seconds until it would snap. Maker forgive him.

Merrill looked below at the foliage and spotted the half-dead ivy crawling up the tower walls, ten feet below them. It exploded upwards, reaching towards Anders. He jumped from the curtain just as it fell past him. But the ivy didn’t stop growing. It thickened into netting, encircling the walls of the Tower on either side. Isabela spider-monkeyed across it towards the lake. 

Templars scrambled on the ground below to keep up, assembling themselves between the building and the lake. But that didn’t matter; Anders didn’t intend to touch the ground. He braced his feet and hands flat against the wall. The vines surged beneath him as he pushed off, soaring in an arc far, far above their heads, where no one and nothing could catch him.

In that perfect, hanging moment, Anders was free.

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At the apex of his arch, Anders put his arms over his head and brought his head below his feet. He plunged into the water with an imperfect but functional dive. 

He was spinning beneath the waves. His robe filled with water immediately, keeping him below the surface. He grabbed his remaining splinter of wood and made frantic cuts at the fabric around his thighs. He would’ve stripped naked, but he didn’t want to lose his mother’s pillow, still pressed tightly against his chest. With a tug, the bottom of his robe came free. He broke the surface, breathing the sweet cold air. The splinter snapped the stitching on his sleeves easily, and those too were left behind as he began to swim. 

Anders has made this swim across the lake before, but Isabela is a far stronger swimmer than him, so he let her take control of his limbs. He settled into himself. Into his body, or into his mind? Where was his mind? He was here, in the lake, surrounded by friends who aren’t really there. And he was with each of them, where they were, everywhere all at once. 

(He is marched past the lake, manacles clattering loose against his prepubescent wrists. He sees the open water and knows he must find his freedom there.)

Isabela moved his limbs automatically, kicking and treading through the waves with perfect form. His mother’s pillow grew heavy and sodden against his stomach. 

(The rivers glitter in the moonlight far below the bridges of Antiva City. She wants to jump into them, to free herself one way or the other, but her husband’s heavy hand encircles her waist, rooting her to the earth). 

He opened his eyes in the water. His cluster was there, dancing in the depths below. Moonlight dappled their bodies. 

(His tiny feet splash in the fountain, chasing glimmers of sunlight. A woman’s voice, warm and only half-remembered: “Leto.”)

They drifted beneath him, lazily. Bubbles rose from their lips, breaking for the surface. 

(Bubbles are already rising from his sister’s mouth by the time he notices she’s fallen in. Less than half his age and still so small, her head can’t even reach the surface of the pond. He gathers her up in his arms as soon as he reaches her, but later his mother strikes him for his carelessness anyway.)

Gooseflesh prickled Anders’s skin where it met the air. The cold here bordered on dangerous. 

(The river is too fast-moving and too deep for the halla to cross, so she plunges her hand in up to the wrist. She draws heat and leeches cold until ice crystals bloom and thicken. She will burn with fever for days after, but she does what she must for her clan.)

He neared the opposite shore. The shallows below glowed blue in the moonlight. 

(In the early days of her marriage, her husband dares enough to drop a lyrium vial into the bath with them. The luminosity is all-encompassing, and the small blasphemous part of herself wonders if it’s magic.)

Anders raised his head. There was a cave just ahead, one of many. He swam straight for it. 

(He looks across the harbor, at the space between the chains that dangle from the necks of weeping statues. Evening light stains the water crimson, and the ships beyond the chains cast long shadows). 

Anders passed through the mouth of the cave. 

He dragged himself onto a rock, flopping onto his back. He lifted a hand to channel a trickle of magic, letting tiny spirits flow over him. They repaired his frostbitten fingertips, soothed the strain in his shoulder (worsened by the swim), and even worked at the lingering effects of malnutrition. How had he not seen it before, how simple it was to part the Veil and let them through?

When Anders opened his eyes, he saw that his head was in Hawke’s lap. Hawke beamed down at him. “I’m so glad you’re alive,” he said. Perspiration curled the fine hair at his temples.

“Me too,” said Anders, and smiled back.

“Should you not keep moving?” said Fenris, pacing. “Your captors will find you.”

Anders coughed as he lifted himself on one elbow. “And stumble around the lake in their heavy armor in the dark? Not likely. They’ll start watching my phylactery. They’ll only follow if I stay on the same road too long, or when I stop somewhere. Still, I’ll move on in an hour or so.” He turned to look for Isabela, and found her kneeling on a rock nearby, wringing nonexistent water from her perfect hair. “Isabela, I can’t thank–” he began.

“Oh hush, you big sop.” She gave him a sultry wink. “It was good for me too.”

Merrill piped up from behind Anders, “Where will you go?”

Anders sighed. “Denerim, I think. I know a safe route, and people that will hide me there. From there, I’ll catch a ship to who knows where.”

Hawke looked thoughtful. “My family was planning to go to Gwaren to get a ship, but maybe we could go to Denerim as well. It’s not much further.”

“I’d like that,” Anders smiled. “Think we could convince Aveline to join us too?”

“Not bloody likely,” Aveline said.

Hawke pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t actually believe you have a death wish, so when everything inevitably goes terribly wrong and you’re forced to flee your suicide pact, will you at least consider fleeing in the general direction of Denerim?”

Aveline rolled her eyes. “If things go utterly pear-shaped, I’ll start to think about it.”

“Well, that’s something,” Hawke said. “Where should we go from Denerim?”

“Wherever the first boat will take us, I suppose,” said Anders.

Merrill shot a significant glance at Isabela, who rolled her eyes dramatically. “I suppose that I can pick you up,” Isabela said with an affected sigh. “I’m going that way anyway. But I’m not stopping just for a half-dozen idiots. You’ll have to find me some paying customers.”

“Who says the Hawkes can’t pay? I’ll have you know we have several pots in which to piss,” Hawke said.

Isabela chuckled, “Well then, your great Wealthiness, where should my humble ship take you and your esteemed family?”

A new voice cut in: “You should go to Kirkwall.” Everyone turned. It was a beardless, red-haired dwarf with an open shirt and an impressively hairy chest.. “Varric Tethras, at your service. I apologize for barging in, but I thought you ought to know,” he paused for dramatic effect, “there’s two of us here.”

“Two?” Anders echoed faintly.

A man stepped out from the shadows behind Varric. He was tall, with robin’s egg eyes and an aquiline nose. “I am Sebastian Vael, Prince of Starkhaven. I have been a Chantry brother here in Kirkwall for some time, however.”

“Oh, are you a prince the same way Isabela is a queen?” Merrill asked.

“No, I think he’s a real one, kitten,” Isabela said.

Sebastian opened his mouth to respond, but Varric cut him off. “Don’t get too excited, Daisy: he’s the spare. Choir Boy and I started feeling weird shit around the same time as all of you, I think. Being in the same city, we found each other in person almost immediately.” (“Unfortunately,” Sebastian added under his breath.) “Personally, I’m hurt that none of the rest of you bothered to reach out. But I’m willing to put that aside and pay for the rest of you to get set up here. Hawke and Blondie,” he indicated as he spoke, “you can get here on Rivaini’s boat. Aveline, too, if you decide to join; I won’t try to convince you either way. And Daisy and Broody are walking in the right general direction, so you’ll get here eventually.”

“We are?” Fenris asked.

Varric nodded. “South from Tevinter, through the Vinmark Mountains, head for the depressing-looking city on top of a cliff. You can’t miss it.”

Karl ’s in Kirkwall , Anders remembered. His heart twisted, but Anders kept his face impassive. “As long as it's not in Ferelden, Kirkwall’s as good a spot as any,” he said with a forced shrug.

“Mother mentioned we have some family there, so I think she’d be willing to go as well,” said Hawke.

“Kirkwall’s a wretched, stinking ditch. Just my kind of town,” Isabela smirked. “Always happy to go back.”

Aveline grunted. “I’m not going, but if I did, I would.”

Varric smiled broadly, while Sebastian sighed. “Oh, don’t look so glum, Choir Boy,” Varric said. “We’re getting new friends.”

Chapter Text

Anders followed his shadow as it lengthened towards the horizon. He’d taken some breeches and work shirts from a washing line, and some cloth for a bindle, and even put in an earring he’d found abandoned by the road. He was quite taken with the changes to his silhouette.

It took Anders some time to notice the man that appeared next to him, for he cast no shadow and made no footsteps. When Anders did, he greeted him with a smile, “Fenris.”

“Mage,” Fenris replied, not at all warmly.

Anders’s steps faltered. “You say that word like it's a curse, but you helped me escape the Circle Tower. Why?”

“I saw one whose captivity reminded me of my own, and I thought it an injustice.”

“Are you saying you were mistaken?”

“Perhaps not, but,” Fenris sighed deeply, “it never ends. I escaped a land of dark magic, only to have it haunt me at every turn. It is a plague burned into my flesh and soul. I find my mind taken again by yet more mages, and there is no escape.”

“You were mistreated by the magisters in Tevinter, but not all mages are like that. We’re slaves, just like you were.”

“The moment they are free, mages will make themselves magisters.” Fenris stopped walking and looked Anders straight in the eye. 

Anders felt anger flash within him, and his hands balled into fists. “That’s not–!” he began.

Fenris glanced at Anders’s fists and said, “Will you strike me, mage, or set me aflame, and prove me right?” Anders could feel a stutter of fear in Fenris’s chest, but he did not flinch.

Anders forced himself to take a deep breath. Any man that could stand unflinching before an angry mage was either ignorant of the danger or knew it all too well, and Anders did not think Fenris was ignorant. Instead of giving in to his anger, Anders looked at Fenris closely, focusing on the taut psychic ties between them, seeking out each emotion Fenris felt and what lay beneath them. Finally, he said, “I don’t know about other mages. I’ve only just escaped, and I can’t think of much beyond finding my next meal or a safe place to sleep. But I’d like to tell you some things about myself, if you’ll listen to them.”

Fenris said nothing, but he cocked his head in hesitant agreement.

“Anders is not my name,” he began calmly. “It’s my homeland. I was taken from my home in the Anderfels by Templars when I was twelve years old. I have scarcely any memory of my family or my country. The Templars gave me this name, and I don’t remember any other. I was chained on my journey, and frequently in the Tower. I was kept under watch constantly, and permitted few friends and fewer intimate acquaintances. I lived under the threat of losing my mind or my life for the slightest misdeed. I was told my treatment would improve when I passed my Harrowing, when I proved myself ‘safe’ by the Templars’ own arbitrary standards, but it did not. 

“I ran away six times. The first, I only wanted to go home. Nonetheless, when the Templars found me, they put me in solitary confinement for a month. I was still only thirteen. The other times I fled felt almost ritual. I would run, they would chase, and I would be taken back and punished. I didn’t even bother to fight when they would put their shackles on me again. It felt inevitable. My captors had returned, and my fantasy life was over.” Anders fell silent. The evening had grown darker, and Anders could scarcely see Fenris anymore, but he could feel his heart racing. 

Finally, Fenris said, “Quite the story. I will not do you the indignity of saying I feel sorry for you.”

“Please don’t. I’m not looking for your pity. I just wanted you to hear that, and if anything there felt familiar, for you to think well on it.”

“I doubt I will be able not to,” said Fenris, and he disappeared with the last of the evening light. Anders walked on.

At last, a bed , Anders thought as he flopped. He stretched, luxuriating in the feeling of cloth and down under his back. He took his mother’s pillow from his bundle and tried to fluff it, though it had long since gone completely flat. 

“Nice room,” Hawke commented, appearing at the far corner. 

“It’s no arl’s suite, but it’s better than anything I’ve had for a long time. The couple that owns this farm is quite kind; they’ll lend a room to any old runaway in exchange for an afternoon’s worth of chores. Which took a lot less than an afternoon with magic, so thanks for that.”

Hawke shrugged. “Eh, I’ve been splitting wood from across the yard since before I had hair on my chest. It’s easy.”

“Why do I feel so spent, then?”

Hawke raised an eyebrow. 

“Magically, I meant.” Anders felt his ears warm a bit. 

“I’m not sure,” said Hawke. “I think that even if it’s my technique, it’s drawing on your pool of magic. I’ll have to investigate it.”

“Maybe in the morning,” Anders yawned. He stretched like a cat, then hugged his mother’s pillow into his chest. He wanted to sleep, but he was conscious of Hawke in the corner of his vision, hovering anxiously. 

After a minute, Hawke sat on the end of the bed. “I wanted to ask you about that,” he said, indicating the pillow with his head. “It seemed very important to you when we were escaping.”

Fear flashed in Anders. So long spent hiding what mattered from everyone, because everything that mattered could be taken in a moment. His hands tightened around himself instinctively.

“I understand if you don’t want to talk about it,” said Hawke. 

Hawke wasn't like that. He’d helped. He wouldn’t take things. “No… it’s alright,” Anders began, and sat up, letting the pillow rest on his lap. “My mother gave me this pillow, before the Templars took me. It’s the only thing of hers they let me keep. It’s probably the only reason I remember her at all.”

“What do you mean?”

Talking to Fenris had been vulnerable, but controlled. Just enough water to drown him in. This was… well, when the dam cracks, everything comes spilling out. “My memories from before the Circle, they’re so vague. I remember that I used to have friends, and that we would play together under the sun, and I remember a fire in the barn, and I remember being taken away. I remember my mother weeping, and I remember my father looked glad that I was gone. I think without this pillow, I would have forgotten all that, and my life would be nothing but the Circle, from beginning to end.” Anders felt his face burn, and ducked his head away. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said all that.”

“Yes, you should have.” Hawke took Anders’s hand. “For what it’s worth, I’m so sorry for everything that was taken from you. Most of all family. I couldn’t imagine living without mine, much less the memory of them.”

Anders lifted his head and smiled faintly. “Well, you have an incredible family.”

“I do,” Hawke smiled sadly. “We lost our father, two years ago, and every day I cleave tighter to them. I promised myself not to let anyone I love die, ever again.”

“Everyone dies, Hawke,” Anders said.

“Not until they’re old and fat and have a dozen insufferable grandchildren, if I have anything to do about it.”

Anders laughed, “Is that a promise?”

“Yes,” said Hawke. He smiled, not amused, but gentle. “I don’t just mean that for my blood. I mean everyone that I love. Do you understand?”

Anders’s eyes felt wet, and the stuttering of his heartbeat sounded in his ears. “I don’t,” he said, though he knew he did.

“I care for you, deeply,” Hawke said, brushing his lips against the back of Anders’s hand. “You lost your family. Be a part of mine.”

“I… Thank you. It means more than you could possibly imagine.” Anders squeezed Hawke’s hand hard enough that he probably would have broken something if Hawke were there physically. “Stay with me until I fall asleep?” he asked, stretching out again. 

“Small bed,” Hawke smiled, but lay down next to him. There probably wouldn’t have been enough room for two in other circumstances, but Hawke fit just fine. Visiting was a blessing from the Maker, Anders decided.

“We’ll make it work,” said Anders. He dried his eyes and let himself relax into a fine, deep sleep.

Late one evening, the Hawke siblings sat around a crackling fire. Mother had already retired to her bedroll, and Ser, the family mabari, snored against the stone fire ring. The twins were, as they often did, pestering Garrett.

“Go through them again. The people in your head, I mean,” Bethany said.

“Again?” Garret sighed. “I already told you all about them.”

“Yes, but nothing real.” She put her fists on her hips and lowered her pitch mockingly. “‘Anders, a mage. Merrill, an elf–’”

“‘Fenris, a different elf,’” Carver cut in, making the same pose.

“We want details,” Bethany smirked, back to her normal voice.

Garrett rolled his eyes. “What details?”

“Their appearance would be a good start,” said Bethany. 

“I think I can manage that. Who shall I start with?”

“The pirate!” Carver and Bethany declared in unison. Garrett gave Bethany a sideways look. 

Isabela appeared behind the twins. “Oh, you’re talking about me! My favorite subject,” she said, grinning. She lifted one arm in a sultry pose and pouted theatrically.

Garrett squinted at her. “Okay, Isabela,” he said. “Well, she’s Rivaini. She’s got dark hair that curls a bit, and a small nose, and…” Isabela draped herself over Bethany so that her breasts rested on the top of Bethany’s head. “And a piercing below her lower lip,” Garrett finished.

Bethany sighed petulantly, and Carver said, “You’re useless, brother.”

“What? That’s what she looks like. All those things are true.”

“They may be true, but there’s no poetry to them,” said Bethany, waving a hand in the air. “Say things like, ‘Her skin is the color of the finest Antivan coffee.’”

“‘Her lips are as round and soft as cushions,’” continued Carver.

“‘Her eyes burn with the deepest gold in the evening light.’”

“‘Her bosom is as full and large–”

Mother coughed pointedly from her bedroll.

Carver looked sheepish. “You get the idea.”

“I do,” said Hawke. He glanced at Isabela, who was now sprawled across Bethany and Carver’s shoulders and smiled smugly. “I just, I have no talent for poetry. You both know that.” His hands had already dug through his pack and pulled a notebook into his lap.

“I’d bet you could find some poetry if we’d asked about Anders first,” said Carver.

“I’m sure I haven’t the foggiest idea of what you mean.”

Bethany walked over to Garrett and examined his notebook. “Who’s drawing right now?” she asked.

Garrett looked down. A striking accurate sketch of Isabela was forming itself beneath his pencil. He looked to the side and saw Sebastian, moving his hands across the notebook. The vertigo of both being and sitting next to the artist threatened to overwhelm Garrett, but he pushed it down. “Sebastian,” he said to Bethany, then to Sebastian, “I didn’t know you could draw.”

“Aye, it’s part of any decent education,” Sebastian said pointedly.

“Funny, mine taught me manners instead,” Garrett said under his breath. 

Sebastian scoffed, but kept drawing. When he was done, Garrett spun the notebook to show the twins. Bethany stared in fascination at the portrait, while Carver’s shoulders slumped a bit. “Not bad,” Isabela said to Sebastian. “Next time, you’ll have to do me the Antivan way.”

Sebastian blushed deeply and rubbed his neck. Garett decided to take pity on him and asked the twins, “So, who next?”

“If Sebastian’s here, could he do a self-portrait?” asked Bethany. 

“Easily,” Sebastian said, and set to work again. 

Isabela was bent over her desk when Hawke found her. Well, that was a pretty filthy way to describe sitting and reading a manifest, but she liked to think of herself in filthy ways. Good practice for when she needed to make someone’s ears burn. 

Hawke’s ears were already burning when she turned around. Andraste’s pants, this bond was fun. “Did you want something, Hawke?” asked Isabela, leaning back in her seat.

“I’ve a favor to ask, but first, I want you to promise me you won’t make an innuendo out of it,” said Hawke. 

“Not even one?” Isabela pouted. 

“Restrain yourself, Isabela.”

“I’d rather you restrain me.”

“That was your one.”

Isabela nodded, smirking. “Go on then.”

“I’d like to try something with you.” I’ll try anything once. “I want to try to do magic as you, in your body.” You want to be inside me? I thought you’d never ask. “You know, I can still feel you making these jokes, even if you’re not saying them. It’s not fair.” But it’s funny. “So, what do you say?”

“Sure. It’d be fun to be able to shoot fireballs without having to worry about all that pesky ‘getting possessed by a demon’ stuff. Let’s try it,” she said.

Hawke settled into Isabela. He flexed her wrists experimentally, then tried to make a ball of light appear above her palm. Nothing. He tried again, but still nothing. He touched a glass of water on the desk, trying to leech heat from it into Isabela’s hand and make it freeze. It didn’t budge by a degree. At last, he tried a simple meditation to attune to the magical energies of the room. He could feel the temperature of the air, and the moisture, and the grain of the wood beneath his hand, but none of the energies beyond them. He stopped sharing. 

“Well, shit,” said Isabela sympathetically.

Hawke frowned. “It’s fine. Father always said magic was in our bones and our blood. I suppose he meant that literally. It just means I can’t help you out of a scrape the way you helped Anders.”

“You think I can’t take care of myself? I’m almost offended.”

“I’m sure you take care of yourself regularly.”

Isabela nearly fell over laughing. “And you were complaining about my–”

A knock at the door interrupted her. “Captain?” That was Lina.

“Come in!” Isabela called.

Lina popped her head in, and looked confused. “Talking to someone, Captain?”

“Just myself. What’s going on?”

“Orlesian imperial ship spotted starboard, making around five knots. Should pass just behind us in around two hours, but the first mate thought you should know.”

Behind her back, Isabela signaled for Hawke to leave, and he did so. “Any escort?” she asked.

“Not a one. Damn fine ship too. They’ve got lanterns up, and I swear to the Maker she was glittering. Leave it to the Orlesians to put gold on the outside of a ship.”

Isabela looked again at the manifest. They had enough supplies to make it to Denerim, easily, but not Kirkwall. Especially not if she had to take on a boatload of refugees who might not even pay. She could stock up in Denerim, but that took time and gold, and she was sure to lose at least one crewman to some fetching Ferelden barmaid or merchant. “How’s the ship sitting in the water?” asked Isabela.

“Lower than a whore’s knickers,” Lina grinned wolfishly. 

Isabela rubbed her hands together. “It’s been a while since I’ve had a good tumble, and if she’s going to make it so easy…” 

She stood and strode past Lina, out of her cabin and onto the deck. “Listen up you lot! Snuff the lanterns and shorten sail. There’s a fine Orlesian lady over there,” Isabela indicated starboard, “and we mean to have our way with her, but first we’re going to let her come to us. Make ready for a good dance in two hours. And, remember, if we kill them…”

“We get their stuff!” her crew cheered. Isabela laughed, big and loud and free. Oh, this was going to be fun.

Garrett had just finished relieving himself in the woods when Anders appeared before him, completely naked and slightly damp. Garrett jumped.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle,” said Anders. He was smiling in a way that made Garrett feel somewhere between nervous and excited. “I was just thinking about you.”

“You’re naked,” Garrett managed.

“I was in the bath,” Anders said, and then Garrett was in the bath with him, also naked.

“You thought about me, and you were in the bath.”

“Is that so strange?”

Garrett forced them back to the woods and tried to get the burning behind his ears to cool. “What were you thinking about, with me?” he asked in what he hoped was a cool and charming tone. He rinsed his dick quickly with the waterskin he’d brought and felt the instinct to tuck it away, but it seemed a bit silly, given Anders’s current state. 

“I was thinking about sleeping next to you the other night, and what it feels like when you touch me.” 

Oh, Maker help me , Garrett thought. 

“What I mean is– put your hands behind you, on the tree if you would.” Garrett complied, and Anders put one hand flat on his chest. Wherever the Maker was, he was clearly far from here. “You can feel me, right? Even though you’re not touching any part of yourself. And I’m not touching myself, but I can feel you, just like you were here with me. I can feel your skin, and I can feel your heart doing a funny little dance–”

Garrett couldn’t take it anymore. He grabbed Anders by the back of the neck and pulled him in for a rough kiss. He felt Anders’s lips on his, and he felt Anders feeling his lips. He felt his own arousal, and he felt Anders’s, and he felt Anders feeling his, and he felt himself feeling Anders’s, and on and on and around it went as they cycled from woods to bath to woods and back again and again until the world was a blur of white and neither could stand properly anymore.

Anders broke away first. “Oh, this is going to be a disaster,” he breathed.

“Shut up,” Garrett said, and kissed him again. And then another few times for good measure. 

Somewhere, between all the kisses and the lightheadedness, Garrett got an idea. Kissing Anders in the bath, he broke away for a moment. “I never told you how much I like the earring,” he said, and took it into his mouth. But, in the woods, Anders was still kissing Garrett on the lips. Two versions of reality, two places, two people, coexisting impossibly. And, yet, it worked.

Maker did it work. Anders realized what was happening with a quiet “Oh.” In the woods, he pushed Garrett further back against the tree and began to suck at the soft hollows of his neck, while, in the bath, Garrett kept nibbling his earlobe. It felt like nothing less than pure music. No dissonance there, just perfect polyphony. 

(The Siren’s Call rammed into the Orlesian ship, and Isabela’s blood sang in her as she swung to the other deck.)

Mouths and hands traveled impossibly. Garrett lifted Anders’s hips to the lip of the tub, while Anders opened every button of his shirt with his tongue. 

(Isabela landed, knives already out and swinging.) 

Anders’s mouth traveled down the last crucial inch, and, a moment later, so did Garrett’s.

(Isabela sheathed her knife into the nearest Orlesian’s chest, and then the next, and the next. She was tumbling, she was dancing, she was getting her hands well and thoroughly wet, and everything, everything was a delight.) 

The reverberation of feeling was overwhelming. Neither man could last long like this. 

(Too many soldiers for a ship like this. Don’t stop, wait to loot. Cut a swath, right to heart, and take what you want.)

The end was expected, but glorious, the last crescendo of a symphony.

(She found what she was looking for, whatever it was. Pride of place in the captain’s cabin, guarded but not anymore, wrapped in cloth of gold. She took the small chest and ran with it).

Garrett lifted his mouth away, still shuddering. Surprisingly, his mouth was clean and the bathwater wasn’t. Neither was a small bush in front of Garrett, when Anders broke himself away. 

(She danced back through the deck, but drew no more blood. Called her own people back and they broke away, free and clear and mostly unharmed).

Garrett slid down the tree, pulling Anders into his lap until they both returned to somewhere in the vicinity of their senses. 

“I think you’ve ruined me,” Anders said at last. “I don’t know if anything else will ever compare.”

“I know,” Garrett agreed. “Imagine what it will be like when we’re in person.”

“Imagine what it would be like with more people.”

Garrett started.

“I’m sorry,” Anders blushed. “I shouldn’t have said that. Just slipped out.”

“No, ah, it’s fine. Did you, ah, have someone in particular in mind?”

Anders’s face was unreadable for a moment, and he said, “No. At least, not right now.” Then he smiled genuinely. “I couldn’t imagine being any more satisfied than I am right this second.”

“Me neither,” Garrett said, and kissed him again.

The next morning, Isabela took a break from counting the obscene pile of riches she’d stolen from the Orlesian ship – twenty gold necklaces, five rings, thirteen goblets, two dozen loose gems so far, plus the cloth of gold wrapping the chest and whatever that strange book was – to break the bad news to Hawke and Anders. She’d be late, she explained, because she needed to stop in Ostwick to repair some damage to her ship. She left out the part about how her ship was damaged, but added that it wouldn’t take more than a week. “And I’m sure you’ll find some way to amuse yourselves while you wait,” she tacked on with a wink.

Chapter Text

Rotting, grey faces pressed and swarmed all around. Fingers reaching and clawing for her. Aveline swung her sword, knocking the darkspawn back in a wide arc, but more and more kept coming. 

Westley had his back pressed to her, guarding her as she pushed through the thickening swarm. She could sense where the darkspawn army thinned, near the edge of the woods, if she could only get there. The others helped where they could – Isabela, weaving and dodging her body through the throng, Fenris, lashing out with blinding speed when one got too close – but they couldn’t do much against this. The beacon burned above, bright as Andraste’s flaming sword, but there was no deliverance here.

A Templar fell in front of her, darkspawn sword through his neck. He landed on Aveline’s foot. She kicked him up to grab the vials off his belt and shove them in her own pouch. Beneath his helmet, Westley looked askance at her, and she lied, “For you.”

Heavy footsteps passed far behind Aveline. She couldn’t afford to look, but the darkspawn around her did. She took the chance, pushing through a cluster of them. “King Cailan,” Westley gasped as he scrambled behind her. She didn’t look. The edge of the woods was just visible.

Fire bloomed to the left. There. A small darkspawn – genlock, the Wardens had taught them – ten feet away. Westley flared with holy light, stopping the gout of flame in its tracks. Fenris smashed a vial on Aveline’s head and appeared with her sword through the genlock’s neck. 

She could see the thing that had killed King Cailan now, the ogre, and the Warden with two swords in its chest. It hit the ground as Westley caught up with her, mouth agape. She would tell him everything, if they survived this. When they survived this. It was decided. 

Westley fell in behind Aveline again, and she turned to keep moving. “Duncan,” she heard Anders groan. It didn’t matter. They were so close.

Two darkspawn stood between them and the edge of the woods. They were huge, and bore spiked shields twice again her size, but they were the only thing between her and safety. Fenris smashed another vial over Aveline’s head, phasing onto the back on one, sword through its neck. Aveline stabbed into the neck again, just to be sure, and jumped to the other. Her sword point wedged into the soft place by its shoulder, momentum driving it deep through its body. It fell sideways, Aveline on top of it. She gripped her sword tightly as it slid out of the creature and she tumbled to the ground.

Aveline pushed herself up and ran around the shield. A darkspawn was on Westley, a horrid, pointed-eared thing, mouth on his neck. Isabela kicked the thing off, and Aveline speared it through that wretched mouth. She grabbed Westley, hauling him through the trees. 

He was bleeding badly, neck torn open from the bite. Blackness oozed through his jugular, creeping below his armor and towards his face. No, no, no, no!

“Anders!” Aveline yelled, hands grasped around the wound. Anders stared at Westley, eyes wide. “Fix this, Anders!” Aveline screamed at him.

“You could wrap the puncture in cloth,” Anders’s voice was distant, rushed, “and apply pressure. But the Blight is in him already. You can’t, I don’t know how to…” Behind him, Merrill’s mouth worked, but no sound came out.

“You lie!” said Aveline, but the blood soaking her hands grew blacker by the second. 

“Aveline, please,” Westley wheezed. He put one hand on hers, lifting them from his neck. 

“No, I can’t do this!” 

“Be strong, my love.”

Aveline ghosted a kiss across Westley’s lips, already too cold. “Yours, always,” she said, and lifted her hands. Westley breathed in and out twice, then no more. She ran.

Aveline tripped through the woods, blinking back tears. There were far fewer darkspawn here, but still some. Keep moving, eyes up. Everything was so dark, and dangerously blurry.

She almost collided with a Warden, his deep blue and grey armor nearly black in the night. He looked ghastly, face drained of all color, breathing unnaturally slow. He was covered in blood, and there was a deep slash across his tabard, but it must have been superficial, or he wouldn’t be standing now. “Which way to the road?” the Warden asked, voice creaky. 

Aveline gestured with her chin. “There.”

“Come,” said the Warden. She followed, relaxing infinitesimally with the knowledge the Warden’s senses would alert them of any darkspawn nearby. They moved quickly but in silence through the woods. It took a half hour to clear the forest, but they met no darkspawn on the way. When they reached the road, the Warden asked, “Where will you go?”

Aveline breathed deep, still jittery with adrenaline. “Denerim. And you?”

“I must go to my wife in Jader. Passage there may be acquired in Denerim. Let us go together.”

This time, Aveline led the way. She made as much distance as she could, moving half at a run. The Warden followed tirelessly behind. The road was quiet, distant sounds of battle fading as they moved. It took several hours for the adrenaline to leave her, but when it did, Aveline snapped. 

She collapsed on the road, shaking with sobs. Her husband was dead. She’d killed her husband. Darkspawn killed her husband. Darkspawn killed the king. Darkspawn would– Arms wrapped around her. Her cluster. She leaned into them, let them take the shakes and sobs of her grief. They were wordless; words were inadequate, but their presence was priceless. Slowly, her breathing calmed. Aveline looked up. The Warden was standing over her, face impassive. He offered his hand so she could stand. When they were eye level again, the Warden turned to keep moving. 

It occurred belatedly to Aveline that she didn’t know the man’s name. “I’m Aveline,” she introduced herself bluntly.

The Warden kept walking. “Kristoff,” he said.

Even grim determination ran out eventually. After a few more hours, as predawn darkness snuffed the last of the stars from the sky, Aveline knew she needed rest. “I can’t keep moving,” she said.

Kristoff looked at the roadside, and Aveline followed his gaze. The grass was thick, and the low hills provided cover from passersby. “You rest,” he declared. “I will keep watch.”

“Wake me when you need to sleep too,” Aveline said. She walked exactly as far as she needed to, then let herself lie down. She felt arms around her again as she plunged into a merciful, dreamless sleep. 

Aveline awoke to the noonday sun beating on her skin. Kristoff was gone. There was a Ferelden soldier’s pack beside her. She recognized the shape but not the contents. Two full waterskins. Rations, a week’s worth of hardtack and salt pork. Bedroll. Flint. A cup, plate, spoon. A carving knife. Underclothes and stockings for a woman likely shorter and wider than her. A folded letter, paper soft from handling. Aveline didn’t open it. She’d been gifted another woman’s life, and she didn’t want it. 

She kept moving, carrying the pack with her nonetheless.

Garrett staggered as his heart twisted in his chest. He stumbled, and Bethany had to catch his arm. 

“You alright?” she asked. 

“I think Aveline just woke up,” he said. Even after seeing her out of danger, Garrett had slept fitfully, consumed by visions of a moonlit road and grief that wasn’t his own. Mother had had questions when he awoke hollow-eyed and morose, so he told his family everything. Even Ser could sense something was wrong, hovering under Garrett’s hand all morning for idle pets. 

“Is it, ahh, any better than last night?” Bethany asked. 

“It’s a little soon for ‘better’, I think.”

“You should walk with her, to make sure she’s not alone right now.”

“Or ‘she’ could walk with you,” Aveline said, appearing. 

Garrett started. 

“Is that Aveline?” Bethany asked. 

“It is,” said Garrett. He looked at Aveline, “Are you…?” It seemed too foolish to finish. 

“I’m here because I wanted to ask you where you are now . Also, you have a dog,” Aveline said, especially bluntly. 

Garrett ran his hand along Ser’s back so that Aveline could feel his fur too. He looked around. The landscape here was odd. The road wound through tall hills, which formed irregular mounds to his left and fell away perilously into the river valley to his right. Garrett craned his neck out to his right and pointed to the largest village he could make out. “I’m not rightly sure, but Mother’s maps indicate that’s South Reach. Why? Would you like us to stop and wait for you there?”

“Don’t be stupid. I’ll catch up within the week.”

“We’ve been walking for some time, and we had a lead; Lothering is two days north of Ostagar.” 

“There’s four of you to my one. And, meaning no offense, but your mother is slowing you down. I’ve dry rations enough not to have to stop to forage or cook.”

“You’ll drive yourself to exhaustion at that pace.”

“I don’t need a mother hen.”

“I’m not trying to, I’m just saying—“

“If something happens to me, go ahead and say ‘I told you so’. I’m sure you’re dying to say it already.”

Garrett stopped short. “Aveline, I don’t! I would never.”

“Never?” she snorted. “I’m sure you’ve thought it, and you’re just waiting to say it out loud until it seems funny.”

Garrett didn’t respond or move from his spot, though he desperately wanted to tell her it wasn't true, that he didn't believe she thought so little of him. He could sense something moving over the rise ahead. Nothing visible, but the feeling was there. He put a hand on Bethany’s shoulder. “Something up there,” he murmured to her. He motioned to Carver and Mother behind him to stop, and for Bethany to follow. Ser stood at alert. He was a spoiled old hound, normally loath to move from his favorite spot by the hearth, but now he looked every inch a war dog. 

Garrett, Bethany, and Aveline crept up the hill, and what Garrett saw at the top made his blood run cold. Two darkspawn, approaching the base of the hill, and another barely visible on the opposite ledge, holding a longbow. Aveline hissed. “How did they get so far north?” she whispered. Garrett shrugged. He pointed out the far darkspawn on Bethany, then motioned down the hill for Mother to stop and for Carver to move around the hill. 

Garret counted down with his fingers, 3-2-1, and then action erupted. Bethany shot a roiling ball of fire at the darkspawn with the bow, while Garrett lashed out with ice at the nearer of the pair at the base of the hill. Ser rocketed from his spot, tackling the other darkspawn before Carver even had a chance to reach it. Garrett dug the ice deeper and deeper until Carver rounded the corner, shattering the darkspawn with one swing of his sword. Bethany kept up her rain of fire against the archer, now retreating up the hill. It was still shooting, though. Merrill wrapped vines around its ankles, knocking its shots wide and away from Carver and Ser, who were cutting the last darkspawn to pieces between them. Another shake of the vines, and the archer tumbled down the hill. It was immolated and then frozen in quick succession, and then all was quiet again. 

Its bow and quiver had rolled away in the fall, Garrett saw, and were mercifully intact. He slid down the hill and made for them.

“Andraste’s arse, what was that?!” Carver exclaimed, closing the distance. 

“Darkspawn,” said Garrett. “How could they be so far north already?” 

“Their army was only just at Ostagar. Even darkspawn can’t move that quickly,” Aveline said. 

Mother cut in, “The histories of the last Blight say that where darkspawn spread, they turn the earth brown and lifeless. And it’s still green here.

“Maybe they were lost?” said Carver. He reached for the bow, Garrett held it away from him. Carver rolled his eyes. “What, are you some master archer now too?”

“Yes.”

“This is ridiculous. You and Bethany have magic. What do you need a bow for?” Carver kicked the ground, like he was still six years old and Garrett was holding his favorite toy above his head. 

“This has a better range than magic, and doesn’t exhaust me out as much.” 

“You’re being ridiculous, Brother! Just because you—”

Garrett sensed two darkspawn coming over the ridge. Sebastian shot the first in the eye, then the second in the knee so it would fall forward, and then the eye again as it rolled down the hill. He picked up the arrows from the second darkspawn’s quiver and added them to Garrett's. Carver was silent. 

“Probably not lost, then,” Bethany chimed in in a small voice. 

“Scouts,” said Aveline. “A small group, small enough to be mobile, but big enough to defend itself. They fan out in advance of the army, gather intelligence about the land, the defenses, and report back to the main force.”

“How do they report back from so far away?” asked Garrett. 

“The same way you and I are talking now, I imagine.”

Garrett looked at the landscape for any way to escape. The cliffs to the right were too perilous to consider. The hills to the left were mostly passable, but only mostly, and they’d be in clear view of any darkspawn archers. “The only way out is through,” he said, gazing down the road.

Bethany had pulled the kerchief from her neck to her nose. She passed out more to Garrett, Carver, and Mother from her bag. “We should wear these, to protect us from getting the Blight in our mouths.” 

“I’d like to muzzle Ser,” said Mother. She had one hand in Ser’s mouth, cleaning his teeth with a small cloth. It was wet with saliva, but nearly free of red or black blood.

“Is that wise?” Bethany asked. 

“It won’t do to have him contract the Blight, would it?”

“Of course, Mother.” Bethany reached deeper into her bag and pulled out a length of cord. She held Ser by the snout and throat as Mother wrapped the cord around his mouth. He whined and growled, but didn’t fight. 

When they were done, Garrett said, “Let’s go.” They kept moving down the road. Everyone was quiet, even Carver. Twice, a darkspawn passed across the road ahead, but both times it was quickly dispatched. But, Garrett could sense a larger force of darkspawn, numbers indeterminate, approaching. 

He paused at the mouth of a plateau. “We make a stand here,” he said. It was a good spot. The road sloped away in all directions, so they would see anyone coming from far off, but they’d be hidden until darkspawn got closer. “Bethany and I will be on the plateau. Mother, stay back here where the road is narrower. Carver, you hold the choke point.”

Carver nodded gravely, tightening his grip on his sword.

Mother pressed Garrett’s hand. “Do us proud, Garrett Hawke.” She nodded at Bethany, who gave her a tight smile.

Garrett and Bethany took their places. Ser circled, antsily. It didn’t take long until the first darkspawn appeared over the horizon. Garrett counted a dozen, clustered in twos and threes. He had only six arrows left, but Sebastian made them count, downing four before they reached the base of the plateau. Bethany threw a fireball into the nearest cluster, scattering it. “Preserve your energy,” Garrett cautioned. She switched to swarming motes of flame, killing another two darkspawn.

The first cluster crested the plateau near Garrett. Ser launched himself into the nearest, knocking it over and making the other two stumble. Garrett stepped forward and swept ice in a cone around them. He dug the ice in deeper as Ser beat and thrashed at the prone darkspawn until it shattered. Garrett heard a whumph from behind him. Darkspawn around Bethany fell in a wide circle as she scrambled backwards. Garrett sent another wave of ice at the darkspawn on the ground, and she followed him with fire. The nearest darkspawn to Garrett popped , leaving a cloud of searing steam.

But it wasn’t enough. Some of the darkspawn were standing again, and another four were cresting the plateau. Sweat beaded on Garrett’s forehead. Fenris touched his arm. “Allow me,” he said.

Garrett nodded. 

Fenris kicked a darkspawn blade from the ground into his waiting hands. He moved like a wave, cutting through the half-prone monsters with absolute force. He crashed into the newly arrived group and leapt into the air. Fenris hit the ground with such force that all four staggered, sporting fresh wounds. Ser eagerly jumped on the nearest, tearing into the gaping wounds with his paws.

There was a strangled sound from far behind. Carver was engaged with two darkspawn, Mother carefully retreating behind him. Isabela threw the sword from Garrett’s hand, straining to manage the extra weight. It didn’t land as expertly as her knives would, but it hit with enough force to drive one darkspawn onto Carver’s blade. The darkspawn sloughed off his sword, and a bolt of ice from Garrett helped Carver deal with the other.

Then the ground shook. Garrett stumbled. A blur of horns, impossibly tall, barreled onto the plateau, feet away from Bethany. “Maker, give me strength,” she cried, and shot fire at it. The ogre wrapped Bethany in its fist.

Time slowed to a crawl. Bethany was off the ground, feet kicking. The great hand began to squeeze.

Merrill stepped in first. She wrapped the ogre – feet, legs, arms – in vines. Garrett started to run.

The hand squeezed tighter, but the arm couldn’t move.

Ser broke free of his muzzle and leaped at the arm. He bit into the wrist. 

It spasmed. Bethany fell. 

Varric flashed the image of ligaments, tensions, weak points into Garrett’s mind. The vines tightened, piercing.

The ogre staggered, fell sideways. 

Carver threw himself onto its chest. His sword sliced through into its neck. He lifted it, then thrust again. The ogre was dead.

Garrett reached his sister. Her tunic was soaked in blood, bone protruded from her arm two just above the wrist, and her breathing was thick and ragged, but she was still breathing, thank the Maker. 

Anders slipped one hand under her back and pressed the other to her chest. “Three ribs cracked. No internal bleeding, thankfully.”

Spiritual energy flowed from beyond the Veil into him, then into Bethany. Her ribs reknit with an awful grinding noise. Bethany gasped wetly. “No concussion,” Anders said, passing a hand over her head. “That’s good. I hate brain stuff.” He looked Bethany straight in the eyes and flashed her a charming smile. Her eyes found his for just a second before losing focus. “We’re going to have to do something about that arm, okay?” Anders said. Bethany nodded. Anders pressed his left hand just below the elbow. His right hand, still-glowing, wrapped around her hand and pulled. Bethany howled. Mother and Carver rushed to her, holding her head. Blue energy flowed from Anders’s hand up Bethany’s arm. It straightened, the skin closed, and her screaming abated. 

Bethany breathed deep. Her eyes stopped their frantic swimming about. She smiled and squeezed her hands. “Anders, thank you,” she managed. Anders let himself sink back on his heels.

“Is she stable now?” Garrett asked Anders.

“She’s just fine.”

Garrett wrapped his baby sister in his arms. Bethany coughed, “Too tight!” but it was useless. Carver and Mother threw their own arms around her, completing the cocoon.

“Healing avulsions is tough,” Anders was saying. “The skin on her arm is too tight now, so she’ll itch something awful for at least a week.”

Merrill piped up, “If you make a poultice of elfroot and dandelion, it’ll loosen the skin up. No more itching.”

“Really? That's good to know.”

Merrill started rambling, listing the lesser-known healing uses of dandelion. Garrett could barely hear her from within the embrace, but sensed Anders’s genuine interests. He extricated himself from his family to admire the two of them. His cheeks hurt from smiling already.

Anders met Garrett’s eye. “One more thing,” he said. Anders grabbed Ser by the scruff with one hand and pressed the other into his stomach. Blue light flashed, and Ser vomited dark bile directly in Garrett’s lap. Anders smirked, “That should stop the Blight from getting into his blood.”

Garrett pulled the beautiful man who had saved his sister’s life and dumped mabari vomit in his lap in for a long kiss. “I love you,” he declared. He looked around at his blood family, still holding each other and looking deeply puzzled, and at his newfound family, clustered around them with mingled anxiety and relief. “I love you all.”

Chapter Text

Anders always associated Denerim with the feeling of being hanged. For everything else that’d in his life, he’d never actually been hanged, but this was how he imagined it. You were on the scaffold, rope resting against your neck, waiting for the floor to drop out from beneath you, and then your neck was snapped and you were dead, or you were being strangled slowly and painfully if your hangman was particularly lousy. But in the middle there would be a moment, just one, where you couldn’t feel the rope, or the floor, or the worry, or much of anything at all. That was Denerim. 

And, in particular, that was The Pearl. 

The Pearl had a strange sign: the lettering always seemed more distinct in the dark. In the early afternoon light, it was nearly invisible. Anders opened the door with a creak. There were no customers at this hour.

Sanga noticed him first. “Anders!” she exclaimed. “You’re back!” In a flutter of motion, everyone was around him, pressing hands, hugging, smiling. Over his shoulder, Anders noticed Merrill, Isabela, and Fenris hovering near the back. Merrill ogled everyone and everything, Isabela looked thoughtful, and Fenris perturbed.

Anders felt someone kiss his cheek. “It’s good to see you,” said Felicity, wide elven eyes sparkling.

“You too,” Anders said, and kissed her back on her forehead. Behind him, Fenris vanished with an unreadable expression.

Anders’s tiredness must have been apparent, because Sanga quickly waved people away from him. “Are you here to stay?” she asked.

“For a time. A week, maybe more.”

“You can take Room 4. We’ve been using it for the nug trick, but Brin assures me they clean it every night.”

“Course I do. I’m no slob,” Brin protested. 

Sanga continued, “And we kept your things safe, from the last time you were here. Why don’t you get settled in your room, clean yourself up, and we’ll lay them out for you? Looks like you’ve had a long road getting here.”

Anders smiled wanly. “I appreciate it. Thanks, for everything.” He started for the back hallway towards his room. 

Sanga walked with him, hand tucked into his elbow. “This is always awkward to ask,” she said, her voice low. “I’m not saying you have to do anything, but I want to know what to expect. And the girls all miss your electricity trick.”

Isabela gasped behind him. “That’s where I know you from!” she laughed. Anders searched his memories of that time. People tended to blur together here, but thinking about it he could remember a talented card-sharp with a hollow leg and a particularly fine pair of breasts. He was an idiot for not putting it together before. 

Anders blushed and looked back at Sagna. “Don’t worry about it; I’ll sing for my supper. Just maybe not tonight, alright?”

“Take your time,” Sagna said, and she left him just inside the door of his small room.  

Then Anders was alone. Or, he would have been, if Isabela and Merrill weren’t still hovering. “You used to work here?” Merrill asked earnestly. “What is this place?”

“It’s a brothel, kitten,” Isabela said, wrapping her arms around Merrill from the back. 

“Oh, do you make broth here?”

Isabela gave a tinkly laugh, but Anders didn’t crack a smile.  “Something like that,” he said.

Merrill frowned briefly, but continued, “That elven woman who kissed you on the cheek was quite pretty.”

“Felicity. She’s quite popular, at least among men who are into that sort of thing.” Merrill looked confused. “The wrapping doesn’t match the present.” No hint of understanding. Anders sighed. “She has man bits.”

“Oh! I think pretty is pretty. Doesn’t matter about the bits.”

“Oooh, good girl,” Isabela cooed, and began to nibble on Merrill’s earlobe. Merrill looked like she was having trouble keeping on her feet. 

Anders rolled his eyes. “Get a room, you two.”

“We’re in a room,” said Merrill. “Three, actually.”

“Mine is really more of a cabin,” said Isabela.

“And mine’s a wagon. But I like this room. It has pretty saffron growing outside.” She gestured at the purple flowers in the window box. “Keeper Marethari says saffron is ‘a natural aphrodisiac.’” Merrill made the air quotes. 

Isabela laughed. She leaned over Merrill to unlatch the window and pluck herself a sprig. “Good to know,” she said, breathing deeply. 

Merrill looked right at Anders. “You should smell it. You seem quite grumpy today.” She giggled, and she and Isabela vanished together. They left the sprig of saffron resting on the sill. 

Back in Isabela’s cabin, Merrill fell away from her in a shower of giggles. “That was fun!” Merrill exclaimed, sitting heavily on Isabela’s bed. “But why did you do that?”

“Do what, kitten?” Isabela sat next to her.

“Flirt with me.”

Isabela grinned. “Because it made Anders uncomfortable, and that’s funny to me.” Merrill’s face fell. “And because I like flirting with you. Does it bother you?”

“No, not at all!” Merrill bit her lip. “But, doesn’t Lina mind?”

“Lina? Why would she?”

“It’s just, I see you kissing her a lot. And, ah, mating.” Merrill felt warm. Her thumbs made little circles around her palms. The motion felt better with her staff, but she didn’t want to get that out right now.

“Have you been watching me, kitten?” Isabela looked conspiratorial.

“No, I!–” Merrill gulped. “Just a little.”

Isabela took a piece of Merrill’s hair in her hand. “It’s okay, sweetness. I don’t mind the audience, but Lina might. And things with Lina are just fun. Good fun, but they don’t mean anything. Also, I don’t think it's mating if it's two– if both people have the same bits.”

Merrill nodded. “With elves, it's hard to tell anyone’s bits from the outside. Lots of people don’t match the way shem think they’re supposed to, and sometimes the bits even change from day to day. That’s why the Keeper tells us to stay away from mating unless we’re ready to make babies with that person.”

“Is that why you said that bits don’t matter to you?”

“A little.” Merrill chewed on her lip. She’d never tried to put this into words before. There hadn’t been much reason to. “I just think lots of people are pretty. Even shemlen. I don’t remember to wonder about the bits until after they go away.”

“And what does ‘pretty’ mean to you?” Isabela had moved from playing with her hair to making small circles on the back of her neck. It felt very nice.

“Pretty means… If I think someone is pretty, I want to kiss them.”

“Do you think I’m pretty?” Isabela’s face was getting closer to hers.

“Very pretty.”

“Do you want to kiss me?” Their noses were almost touching. 

“No.”

Isabela paused, lips a hair’s breadth from Merrill’s. Merrill felt air move against her upper lip as Isabela made a confused little snort. “Can I ask why not?”

“The last time I kissed someone, I cried, and then he died. I don’t want you to die.”

Isabela’s face crinkled. Merrill expected the rush of laughter to come any second, but it didn’t. “Kitten, if I promise that I won’t die, will you kiss me?” Isabela asked.

“Do you swear it?”

“On the Maker and every elf, dwarf, and nug god out there.”

Merrill smushed her lips to Isabela’s. Her heart was racing so hard it felt like it would explode out of her chest. Merrill was a terrible kisser, or she should have been a terrible kisser, but she felt like she knew just what to do, where to put her mouth, her tongue, her hands, when to breathe and when to not and how to just barely keep her head when the whole world was spinning. Merrill was bad at almost everything in the world, everything but magic and now this. If Mythal herself appeared before her and said Merrill was born just to kiss Isabela, to keep kissing her forever and ever, it wouldn’t have changed a thing. 

Isabela broke away first. Her eyes were glassy and wide. “Woah,” she managed.

“Woah,” Merrill agreed.

Isabela’s eyes focused again. She looked down at Merrill’s hands. “What’s wrong, kitten?” Merrill looked down. Her thumbs were back to making circles on her palms. “Your hands are doing the thing they do when you’re upset.” Isabela moved to grab her hands, but stopped herself. 

That was good. Merrill hated when people tried to stop her from moving around. If Isabela knew not to stop her, maybe she would understand. “Nothing’s wrong at all; I’m still happy. I just think I’m too small,” Merrill began. It was a terrible explanation, but it was the best one she had. “I get these feelings that are so big that they don’t fit in my body. Not just sad or nervous, but happy and excited too. I have to move, to touch things, just to make them fit me, or I get very uncomfortable. I know it’s very strange, but that’s the way it is.”

“I think it's perfect. I think you’re perfect, just as you are. But if you ever want to put those big feelings in someone else,” Isabela touched her own round belly with a smile, “I’ve got plenty of room.”

Merrill stretched her hands out to touch Isabela’s stomach. She ran her thumbs across the rough laces and bumpy stitching. The boning of the corset pushed back pleasantly against her touch. The textures were nice, almost as satisfying as the whorls on her staff. In some ways, even better, considering who they were attached to. Merrill kissed Isabela again, thumbs still making fine circles. 

Anders eyed the sprig of saffron Merrill and Isabela left on the sill. Idiots. 

He needed a bath.

The bath in the Pearl was communal: a long trough of perpetually warmed water, with buckets hooked to the side to pour water over your head and small tables for soap. Anders took a place in the center and let the water slough down his back. It could’ve been hotter.

He missed Hawke. Since the brush with the ogre, whenever Anders visited, he always saw the Hawke family walking in a tight cluster, even more inseparable than ever. Anders and Hawke had managed to speak just once, whispering nose to nose in Hawke’s bedroll, long after dark.

(“It's strange. I expected Mother to be angry with me, but the only thing she said was, ‘You did the best you could.’”

“It’s the truth.”

“Yes, but Mother’s always angry with me whenever Bethany gets hurt.”

That didn’t make sense, Anders had thought, but he hadn’t wanted to press the issue. So he’d changed the subject. “How’s Aveline?”

“Bitter.”

“That’s to be expected, I guess, with everything.”

“Yeah. I’m giving her some space for now.”)

Anders rubbed soap into the side of neck, then his shoulder. He worked his way down, watching dirt fall from him and drift down the sloped floor. He tried to keep his thoughts on the here and now, but they kept drifting, swimming away from him. Luka had stepped up to the other side of the trough. He flashed Anders his familiar, charming smile. Anders smiled back weakly. Luka was good company, but not the sort Anders needed now.

He made his way back to the room, stopping to grab some clothes from the communal bin. Road dust had saturated everything in his bindle, and Anders couldn’t stand the thought of wearing any of it again. 

Someone had laid out Anders’s things from the last time he was here. 

There was his coin patch, feeling just as heavy. There hadn’t been much need for coin in the tower, but Anders supposed it would be of use in Kirkwall. At the very least, it would keep Isabela from calling him a mooch. 

Then there was his staff, mace head on one end and dragon’s teeth on the other. It hadn’t looked like that when Anders had arrived, but Sanga had gotten it done up with a discrete blacksmith. She said it gave him an edge. The metal was good and solid enough to bash a Templar’s head in, so Anders didn’t mind.

Last, there was the coat. Just like the staff, it’d come with Anders from the Circle, but Sanga had left her mark. She’d altered the cut so it was more of a coat than a robe and sewn buttons at the bottom of the feathers on the mantle to make them puff up. Anders had to admit, as he settled the coat on his shoulders, that it gave him a striking silhouette. He looked every inch the runaway mage, the daring apostate. It was the truth, but it didn’t make it any less of an act. 

He missed Hawke.

He could go out, Anders supposed, catch up with everyone. They were good people, and he liked them. Or close his eyes and go drinking with Varric or walk with Aveline. Or sleep, or wander the streets of Denerim, or work. Anything he wanted, almost. Anders toyed with the sprig of saffron, rolling it between his fingers. It did smell nice.

There was pacing in his room. Fenris, hand gesticulating angrily. “Pack of liars, all of you. I was told—when there are places like this. You shit on my tongue,” he muttered hotly. 

“I’d rather not, thanks,” said Anders. 

Fenris paused. “Rather not what?” he said, arching an eyebrow. 

“‘Shit on your tongue’. Sounds unpleasant for us both.”

“That’s not— You speak Tevene?”

“Apparently I do,” said Anders. Fenris huffed. “What’s got you so upset?” Anders asked. 

“I have been told, time and again, there is no slavery in the south.”

“There’s not. Unless you count the Circles, but I don’t think you do.”

“Then how do you explain this place!?” Fenris exploded. 

“Nobody’s here by force, and we keep half of what we make.” Anders jiggled his coin pouch. “People chose to be here, and they can leave at any time.”

“None would choose this.”

“I did.”

“That’s not a true choice. You were desperate, a runaway mage.”

“I was desperate, but I could have hidden myself among the beggars, or stolen from people, or joined a gang. But I chose to work here instead, because the people are kind and the beds are warm and I don’t mind the work. And it's much the same story with anyone here. Felicity chose to be here because there’s little work in her alienage, and because a woman like her wouldn’t fetch much of a dowry. Would you call that desperation? Brin is here because they ran away from the family farm, and it was the first job they could find. Is that desperation? And most people are here because they like the sex. That’s not desperation.” Anders pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, I won’t lie and say that, if the world were perfect, everyone would still choose to be here. But they did choose.”

Fenris was silent, nearly motionless but for a faint tremor in his hand. Anders took it as anger, at first, but it didn’t feel quite like that. Anders took hold of the chord of emotion and delved it to its source. Confusion, fear, and, beneath it all, rage.

Anders touched Fenris’s hand. He drew back as if burned. “Fenris?”

Fenris met his eyes.

“I know you have your reservations about me and Hawke, but you’ve been an invaluable help when we needed you. I know you've been dealing with mercenaries on your tail, and I know you can handle them yourself, but I think it bears saying that, when you need help, we are here for you. I am here for you. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

Fenris didn’t say anything. His eyes slid past Anders’s and towards the window. “There’s a Templar outside,” Fenris said flatly.

Anders wheeled around. The Templar was two blocks down, in the main square, but still visible. Anders pulled the shutters closed and latched them. “Thank you,” he said to Fenris.

Voice detached, Fenris asked, “Why did you do that?”

“Because I didn't want him to see me.”

“You’re a slave, yes, and that Templar is your captor? Why not go out and kill him? You’d succeed, with the cluster helping you.”

“I’m not picking a fight with a Templar in broad daylight in the middle of a town square, especially when I don’t know how Templars are with him. I’m not suicidal.”

“So you sit here with the shutters drawn?”

“For now. Isabela will be here soon enough, and I can keep moving again. Don’t need to do anything stupid before them.”

Fenris stepped in close to Anders. Anders was a good half-head taller than Fenris, but Fenris still seemed to loom. Anders took a half step back, and Fenris put one hand on Anders’s throat. “For you, this place is the end of the world,” Fenris said, eyes narrowed. “Soon, a day will come when the wolves have your back to the wall, and you must choose to fight, or let them have you. Before I let you handle my affairs, prove to me you will make the right choice.”

Chapter Text

Aveline heard the burble of voices from just beyond the curve of the road. Hawke and his family were so close that Aveline could feel a tug in her gut. It barely seemed like visiting when she tuned in to listen to them.

“Garrrrreetttt,” Bethany was saying, with exaggerated petulance, “can we please move on already?”

“Just, a few minutes more,” said Hawke. “Eat your lunch or something.”

“Already did. And refilled my water skin, and used the little girl’s forest. Pleeeeeease. I’m bored, and we’re burning daylight.”

“Just, calm down a second. We can move on soon.”

Carver jumped in, “Well, if we’re sitting here anyway, I think I saw a stream a half-mile back. I’m gonna go for a swim.”

“No!” Hawke jumped. “Just stay here, would you? Both of you, I swear–”

“Why can’t I go for a swim? We’re just sitting here.”

“Because you’d run into me on the way there, and your brother wants me to be a surprise,” Aveline announced herself. 

Bethany and Carver spun around. Hawke grinned wildly, and ran for her. Aveline barely had time to register the sudden slackness in the chord of emotion between herself and Hawke before he wrapped her in his arms.

The hug was intense ; that was the only word for it. There were layers and layers of cloth and leather between them, but every square inch of skin reacted to the proximity. Aveline felt Hawke’s arms around her, but she also felt her own arms around him, until it felt like she was wrapping herself in the embrace she so desperately needed. Pure compassion flowed to her in an unrelenting torrent, unrestrained by distance or language. Aveline felt the hard shell she had made of her grief crack against the pressure.

Hawke broke away, only for Bethany to replace him, wrapping her small arms around Aveline’s shoulders. In the past week, Aveline had let her resentment for this girl fester, that she was alive and Westley was not, but Bethany felt so small and kind that Aveline simply could not feel that way any longer. The torrent of compassion washed it all away. Aveline smiled, a stray tear falling on Bethany’s dark hair. 

Carver opted for a half hug instead, throwing one arm over Aveline’s shoulder. “It’s good to finally meet you,” he said. 

“You as well. All of you. Serah Hawke,” Aveline bowed towards Hawke’s mother. “Or is Serah Amell better?”

“Leandra is perfectly fine. Please, sit,” said Leandra. She had a quiet, self-assured command that hadn’t been apparent when Aveline had visited the Hawkes. 

Aveline settled herself on a boulder, its slant lifting her pack off her shoulders slightly. The relief was immeasurable. Ser leaned himself against her legs, adding a pleasant pressing sensation, but no real weight. Aveline closed her eyes. She took a moment to feel the lightness, to feel the gentle familial affection that flowed between the Hawkes. Hawke was not the center of it, but he did direct the flow, perhaps unconsciously, so that Aveline too was enveloped by its gentleness. 

She blinked away tears. “Please. You all, ah, don’t have to wait any longer on my account,” said Aveline thickly.

“Nonsense,” said Leandra. “We can take our time. Your pack looks rather heavy. What can we do to lighten it?”

“That’s really not necessary,” Aveline began, but, glancing behind her, she saw Bethany and Carver already digging through her pack, pulling out this and that. Carver took the bedroll, Bethany her cup and plate, Hawke one of the waterskins. 

“It’s really alright, dear,” Leandra said gently.

Aveline took a steadying breath. “Thank you,” she said. When she finally stood, Aveline felt lighter than she had days. 

Bianca,

My dearest love, it's been so long since I’ve written, and I have much to tell you—

Bianca, 

Hello, darling. I know I haven’t written in a while, but I have so much to tell you about that I didn’t—

Bianca,

You’re not gonna believe this shit. Turns out—

Varric pushed the letter aside. If this had been one of his novels, he would have balled it up and thrown it in the waste bin, already overflowing with failed drafts. But, instead, the discarded letters were spread loosely over his desk, overlapping and smudging each other. He’d have to remember that, if he was ever writing a scene like this, and found himself at a loss for words again. It didn’t happen much.

Varric dug through the pile and pulled out his first attempt. He had to admit, inadequate as it was, it was his best try. At the very least, it was as honest as he could manage.

Bianca,

Yeah, I know, I’m an asshole. I got your letter three weeks a month ago, and I haven’t had the courage to write back. I have some big news for you, but every time I try to write it down, I keep thinking of you, and that little purple nightgown you were wearing the last time I saw you, and I get distracted.

Varric dipped his quill in ink and picked up where he left off.

That’s a shit excuse, but it's the best one I’ve got. What I have to say, you can’t really say in a letter. You’ll think I’ve gone batshit. When’s the next time you can make it to Kirkwall? I hope it’s soon.

Yours through it all,

Varric

Yeah, that’d have to do.

After just a few days staying in the Pearl, Anders got stir-crazy, so he took to walking. Mostly, he walked to his safe-places – inns with backdoors near sewer grates, market stalls with hidden back rooms, homes with adjoined attics. Anders had scoped them out carefully on prior trips, so a few gentle reminders and some coin in the right palm were enough to reassure Anders that he could go there in a pinch. He stuck to the poorest parts of Denerim, regardless, where guards were few and there was little love for the Templars anyway. And he wore his street clothes and left his staff at home, just to be safe. 

Another few days of this kind of walking, and Anders dared enough to venture a little further to the docks, to find a packet boat bound for Kirkwall. He’d kept the letter to Karl simple – Ran away again, coming to Kirkwall. Will find you -A – and stuffed each layer of the envelope with enough coin that the message should get inside the Circle. Varric had caught him in the act (“Writing a love letter and you didn’t ask for my help? I’m almost offended, Blondie”), but Anders didn’t think he’d told anyone. Which was good. Anders promised himself he’d tell Hawke about Karl when they were in person, but he wasn’t quite ready to have that conversation yet. 

So the letter sat heavy in Anders’s pocket as he wound his way towards the docks. The streets here were narrow, crowded with sellers and beggars sitting on the ground. 

A flash of white caught Anders’s eye at the far end of the street, a hundred-odd feet away. Templars, a pair of them. Shit.

Anders kept his head. He walked straight at them, careful not to speed up where they could see him. He drifted deliberately towards the right side of the street. He walked past the first turn to his right, but took the second. It was a narrower alley, so Anders let himself walk faster. Hung a left, and then he moved a little faster. Anders zigged and zagged from street to street. He looked for any of his safe-places, best he could while stepping lightly around the people on the ground. Bad for them to remember him panicky, worse yet for them to be angry enough to grass. 

He found one, an alehouse with no sign. “Tavern” would have been too kind a word for it. It served only two things: strong, and weak. Weak was for the people so poor they needed to drink their daily bread, and strong was for the tipplers; both sorts lay  along low benches or on the floor, in various states of unconsciousness. Anders stepped over them carefully and made for the back room. He wedged himself behind one of the two enormous casks and maneuvered a fingernail between two boards. A panel swung open, just wide enough for Anders’s shoulders. He pressed himself into the narrow cabinet, which was crowded with secreted bags and baubles, bent double to close and latch the panel, then stood ramrod straight.

The cabinet was built against the outer wall of the alehouse, giving Anders a view of a narrow sliver of street from out a knothole. If he turned his head just so, he could look down one alleyway for three blocks. No sign of the pair of Templars. Yet. 

Anders waited, not quite daring to breathe. Fenris was not here, but Anders could imagine him nonetheless, his quiet scorn. Hiding, like a coward. Again. Anders tried to hear anything from the street outside, but the wood let almost no sound through. Just from sight, there was very little movement. Beggars and buskers tended to stay where they sat, until someone gave them a reason to move.

Two blocks away, a cup scattered sideways across the alley, leaving coins trailing in its wake. No one moved for them. Two flashes of white passed, perpendicular. Anders inhaled involuntarily. 

Maybe the Templars would move the other way?

Five minutes passed. Anders got itchy, but he wouldn’t move. He fancied every sound of movement was Templar footsteps, or the clinking of their armor. A block away, and a beggar scrambled around the corner, clutching at his foot. The flashes of white passed again, moving the opposite direction. They were sweeping the streets, and coming closer, no doubt now.

Someone else moved in the street just in front of Anders. The figure paused, mere feet from the knothole. He was clad head to toe in battered Grey Warden armor, save for the helmet, which hid the face entirely and didn’t match in the slightest. What in the Maker’s name was a Warden doing in Denerim? News was, they’d all died at Ostagar. 

Then the Templars were on his street. Anders leaned away from the knothole and held his breath. The Warden met them. Words were exchanged, too muffled to hear and obscured by helmets and Anders’s field of vision. There was lots of gesticulating. One of the Templars put her hand on the Warden’s shoulder, and he put his on the pommel of his sword. More words were exchanged. The Templar with her hand on the Warden’s shoulder gave him a shove, then the pair walked away. The Warden stayed, waiting. 

Anders let out a shaky exhale.

He gave it a few more minutes, then left the alehouse. His savior was still there. “The Templars spoke of a mage they were hunting. You must be him,” the Warden said. His voice, though muffled beneath his helmet, sounded strangely familiar.

“Why did you save me if you didn’t know who I was?”

“I saw only thugs and bullies, and knew they needed to be stopped.” There was a righteous, rippling quality to his voice. It didn’t sound entirely natural.

“Well, thanks for that, anyhow. I’m Anders. You are?”

The Warden paused. “Kristoff.” That’s the Grey Warden that helped Aveline out of Ostagar. How did he get here so quickly?  

After a moment, Kristoff raised his visor. Anders recognized the face from Aveline’s memory, but, in the daylight, there was something very obviously wrong with it. It was unnaturally gaunt, eyes dark and sunken and cheekbones protruding beneath puckered, graying skin. No one should look like that and breathe still. Anders pressed his energies against the Veil, and, sure enough, he met the spirit wearing that face. “Justice,” he breathed.

Justice leaned in conspiratorially, one armored finger against his lips, then closed the visor.

“Why are you here? On this side of the Veil?” asked Anders. He had so many more questions. Outside of dreams, it was so rare to find a spirit, and those that came in dreams were not the sort it was smart to talk to for long. 

“I wish to return this body to its wife, in Jadar. Will you aid me in this, mage? I have sought passage at the docks, but my attempts have come to naught.”

“Well, I happen to know a captain swinging by to bring me to Kirkwall.” Anders rubbed at his neck. “I think I can talk her into adding a leg. She won’t do it for free, though. Can you pay?”

“I have heard of this ‘payment’. The other captains asked for it too. What is it?” 

Anders laughed. “Walk with me… Kristoff, and I’ll tell you everything you need to know.” And they walked together towards the docks.

“You’re skipping, Garrett.”

Garrett paused, looking at his sister. “Am I?”

“Yes. It makes you look suspicious. Denerim is a city, and city people always go around like–” Bethany pulled an exaggerated frown. Garrett chuckled.

“Then you should be telling Carver to pick his jaw up off the ground. People in the city don’t gape like idiot farmers, either.” He ignored the sound of Carver’s protest and continued, “Besides, I have good reason to be excited.”

“Where is Anders anyhow?”

Anders answered, “Next right past that blue house over there,” and Garrett related it to the group. He picked up his pace, taking care not to skip or hum or do anything that would draw undue attention to himself or Bethany. With Carver and Aveline around to protect them, he was not overly concerned with Templar harassment, but it still paid to not be stupid.

The next right past the blue house turned out to be a long blind alley. Anders, lurking at the back, broke out in a dead run when he saw Garrett. They crashed together in a tangle.

Meeting Aveline, Garrett got a little bit of a sense of what it was like to be in the same place as another member of the cluster, the dizzying giddiness of overlapping consciousness, of perceiving and being perceived all at once, of colliding universes of emotion and sensation. But holding Anders elevated that feeling by an order of magnitude. Time and distance collapsed. They were the same being; they knew each other as intimately as they knew themselves. When their lips touched, there was a singular, perfect wholeness.

It would have been paradise to stay like that forever, but life had other concerns. After a moment that was both infinitely long and painfully brief, Garrett put his hand on Anders’s chest and gently pushed him away. He fell on his back foot, still reeling from what Garrett conservatively guessed was the best kiss in the history of Thedas. 

Aveline moved in next at an uneven pace, eagerness warring with caution. She went in for a quick, high hug, but when they touched, she and Anders clutched to each other's shoulders like drowning men. Garrett could feel the complex, thorny feelings between them, but in that moment they were forgotten. “It's good to see you,” Aveline whispered.

“You too.” 

Anders stepped back. Ser did not give him a minute to catch his breath. He bounded up, nearly knocking Anders over, and Anders gave him a tentative scritch between the ears. “Sorry, cat person,” he told Garrett apologetically.

 Carver cut in, “Well, that’s a point against him. And he’s a bit skinny. But overall, not too bad.” Then his face screwed up like it was the funniest joke in the universe, and he clapped Anders on the back heartily. 

Bethany came in next, giving Anders a tight squeeze around the middle. “Thank you for saving my life,” she said, almost shyly.

“Of course,” Anders grinned. “I’d say ‘anytime’, but let’s not do that again, shall we?” 

“No thank you, please.”

“Mind if I check on my work?” Bethany rolled up her sleeve obligingly, and Anders poked at the skin. “Well, I’ll be damned; Merrill’s trick did work.”

Mother touched Anders on the shoulders. “I should thank you as well, young man, for saving my daughter's life.”

Anders straightened, then inclined his head respectfully. “Really, I’d have done it for anyone. But I am very glad it worked.”

“As am I.” She turned to Garrett. “You chose well.”

His cheeks burned with the praise. Now that introductions were done and Anders looked to have caught his balance again, Garrett glanced down the alley and asked, “Where’s your things, Anders?”

“My things?”

“You didn’t expect Mother to stay in a brothel, did you? We got rooms in the Gnawed Noble on the way in.”

Anders started. Garrett could feel a little worm of diffidence twisting inside him. “I just didn’t think…” He trailed off.

Garrett gave him an encouraging squeeze of the hand. “Come on. I’ll walk back to the Pearl with you and help you pack while Mother settles in.”

Bethany turned to Mother, “Oh, can we –?”

“Absolutely not,” Mother began, but then she raised her fingers in front of her and pressed them together in different combinations, calculating. Garrett didn’t know exactly what she was thinking, but he could guess at the rules. Anders must go back to the Pearl. Mother absolutely will not go to the Pearl. Garrett must be with Bethany to protect her. Three mages alone together is too dangerous. One sensate in each group, in case of trouble. All that left only… “Fine. Bethany, Carver, you may go with your brother. Garrett, I trust you’ll keep them out of trouble?”

“Absolutely, Mother,” he said as Bethany and Carver exchanged conspiratorial glances behind him.

Mother put her head in her hand briefly, then turned away with a quick “I’ll see you all very soon.”

As Anders led them to the Pearl, Garrett kept their fingers intertwined, still savoring the feeling of closeness and trying to calm the unease he felt in Anders. Bethany and Carver trailed behind at something like a respectful distance.

“You said ‘rooms.’ How many?” Anders asked in a low voice. “At the Gnawed Noble, that is.”

“Three rooms.”

Anders chewed his lip. “So I’ll be sharing with Aveline then?”

Garrett narrowed his eyes at him. “Don’t be silly. It’ll be Mother and Aveline, Bethany and Carver, and you and me.”

“But you always share with your siblings.”

“They’ll manage without me for a week.” Garrett leaned into Anders’s shoulder. “I’ve finally got you here, next to me, and I don’t plan on letting you go any time soon.” And the smile that split Anders’s face was as bright and warm as the sun.