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One thing Anders hadn’t counted on this morning, when he’d been trudging through the muddy Ferelden Hinterlands, was that he’d be spending the night in a cosy woodland cabin, with a fire going and an old acquaintance chopping vegetables for a stew. He can already smell the cooking and, as his mouth begins to water, he can’t remember the last time he ate a decent meal. He suspects he’s largely been surviving off the Taint for the past couple of weeks, if not longer.
Now he’s even washed his hair and changed his travel clothes for a clean comfortable tunic and breeches. They’re a little short on the leg but Anders is far from complaining. He’s been a mess for longer than he’d care to remember. With the amount of beard he had to cut off before he could shave, it’s a wonder Surana recognised him at all.
She had, though. Somehow. It had taken Anders longer to place her as the apprentice, several years younger than him, who he’d often seen around Kinloch Hold. She’s not even changed that much. She’s aged ten years, obviously, but she still has the same round cheeks and freckled ears peeking out through her mouse brown curls. She just smiles more warmly now than she ever used to.
They hadn’t been close back in the circle but Anders had been aware of her back then as Irving’s star pupil. Anders still can’t quite understand how she ended up a simple hedge mage, living in the woods.
“Long story,” she told him when he asked. “Wait until Jowan gets back. He tells the story funnier than I do.”
Done making himself presentable, Anders decides to offer her a hand with the food. Surana points to a small pile of root vegetables and he gets to work chopping them. She looks surprised as she glances up at him, her eyes lingering a moment as a blush colours her freckled cheeks. “Wow. You still clean up pretty nicely.”
He raises his eyebrows and gives her a self-deprecating smile as she winces, as though regretting speaking her thoughts aloud. He’s fairly certain that any truth in that is only due to how bad he’d looked before. Living in Darktown sort of rendered a lot of his former vanity pointless. But it’s still flattering to hear.
Surana looks good, though. The ten years or so since he saw her last have clearly been kinder to her than they have to Anders. She seems happier, quicker to smile, or laugh. Honestly, he’d always thought she was sort of uptight back in the circle. Freedom must have taught her to loosen up a bit. Or, perhaps Anders just didn’t know her well enough.
They work side by side, chatting and cutting vegetables, and avoiding the subject of what Anders has been doing for the past few years—more specifically, why exactly he was on the run, unable even to stop at an inn long enough to freshen up. He’s grateful for that. It’s not something he feels ready to talk about.
So when Jowan comes in, and his jaw drops as he recognises him instantly, and his first words are, “I remember you!”, it doesn’t look good. “Anders, right?” he asks, rubbing his chin, thoughtfully. “Didn’t you blow up a Chantry in Kirkwall?”
Anders sighs. “I’m afraid so.”
“Wow,” says Jowan. Then he just stares for a while before going, “Why are you in our house?”
“I can leave, if you want me to,” Anders says resignedly. He looks to Surana, wondering what she makes of all this. She’d seemed unconcerned earlier, but then she’d never actually mentioned the Chantry incident.
“I’m not going to just turn you out into the cold after I’ve cooked for you and everything.” Anders must have looked doubtful because she sighs then and goes on to explain, “I stopped trusting anything the Chantry says around the time they attempted to annul the Ferelden Circle. They’d have killed the lot of us just because they didn’t want to fight a few demons. So thinking about what happened in Kirkwall. I don’t know… something was up there. I’m thinking you must have had a reason.”
“They were going to annul the Circle there too,” Anders confirms. “They’d planned it for months, and Knight-Commander Meredith was only waiting for an excuse. I was just trying to give them a warning—a fighting chance. And deliver a message, that we wouldn’t submit to their abuses anymore.”
Surana and Jowan stare at him wearing appropriately solemn expressions, Jowan is even nodding along a bit.
“You can tell us about it later,” Surana says firmly. “But I think we could all do with something to eat before we get on to that topic. Who wants stew?”
“Oh, I do!” says Jowan.
Anders sighs in relief. “I’m definitely not going to say no to that.”
After dinner, they sit around and enjoy the warmth of the fire. Anders really enjoys the warmth. And the softness of the stuffed chair he’s sitting on. It’s nice for such a simple little cabin. It’s downright luxurious compared to what Anders is used to. He can’t remember the last time he was this warm and full and content.
He listens to Jowan and Surana talk about their adventures since leaving the Circle, which have been plentiful, it seems. The two of them have long given up their life of crime—crimes of apostasy not included—for a simple life, helping refugees and now rebel mages, fleeing the Circles. Anders imagines it’s probably getting less simple now that more and more Circles are falling.
Jowan was out that very day offering his help to one mage camp not far from here. Surana was supposed to join him there, before she’d been distracted by the scruffy apostate fugitive who’d been creeping around their small barn, peeking in at their windows, and he’d wondered what happened to her.
“Sorry for worrying you,” she’d murmured, pressing affectionately against his side where they sat, sharing a blanket beside the fire.
It’s sweet. Anders can appreciate that. There’s just something about seeing two mages free of the Circle and happy together. It’s everything he’s been fighting for for nearly ten years, he figures, so it makes sense that he likes seeing it.
It makes him feel a little lonely, though. He’s not even sure when the last time someone held him might have been. At least… not like that. Isabela gave him the occasional hug, back in Kirkwall, but he’d always turned down the offer of anything more. Always thinking of the cause, not allowing himself the distraction. And then letting himself get distracted anyway by a certain someone who he’s determined not to think about now, while he’s actually feeling pretty good about himself.
It’s not like that ever went anywhere, anyway.
He allows the two mages who have shown him such hospitality to distract him now. It’s welcome, and Justice has settled enough these days to allow him the rest. He likes Jowan and Surana. Their stories are about the people they’ve helped and the ways they’ve defied the institutions that tried to imprison them, the same way they did Anders. Anders wonders what they’d make of Justice’s approval of them.
Jowan seems fascinated by him. Justice, that is. The fact that Anders can be possessed and seem so human. He’s so impressed that Anders can’t help but enjoy the attention. He’s just not used to it after so many years of people fearing him. But he and Surana are so easily accepting of him, it’s making Anders warm to them in a way he couldn’t have expected. After so many years of being alone. Maybe he’s just starved for affection. And touch. And probably a great many other things.
He can’t stop thinking about how much he wishes he was under that blanket with them.
And then it comes time to turn in for the night, and suddenly he’s faced with a realisation of something he probably should have noticed much earlier. The cabin is small, made up of one room, divided roughly by a few partitions, separating off a small kitchen area, a living space with the fireplace and a few chairs and a dining area. The tiny bedroom isn’t even really a room and more of a corner, taken up nearly entirely by a decent sized double bed. Other than that, there’s just the rug by the fireplace and a few blankets. Which, in all fairness, looks to Anders like a decent place to sleep. But that’s it really. Just the one room. Just the one bed.
“You should just join us,” Surana says.
“What?”
“Well it’s way more comfortable than the floor. And let’s face it, when you showed up here, earlier, you didn’t exactly look like someone who’d slept in a bed anytime in the last—well, the last Age, really.”
“Thanks,” Anders mutters. But it’s probably true. He’s seen himself in a mirror after all. It had been bad. And, no, he really hasn’t slept in a bed in a while. The idea sounds more appealing than he wants to admit. He’s pretty sure he’s already been caught stealing longing looks at the soft crocheted blanket atop the warm, inviting sheets.
But he can’t just insert himself into bed with this couple who he’s never really properly talked to before today. It just seems rude and he’s already taken advantage of so much of their hospitality.
“Hey, it’s fine,” says Surana. “As long as no one thinks too hard about how Jowan used to have a crush on you back in the Circle, it won’t even be that awkward.”
“Rose!” Jowan hisses while Anders’ eyebrows shoot up and he stares at the other man, watching his pale skin flush scarlet. Surana just laughs.
“Oh, come on. That was years ago!”
“Yeah. I know but,” Jowan drops his head into his hands. “Oh Maker…”
Anders laughs awkwardly. “I can just sleep on the rug. It’s fine. I’ve certainly slept in worse places.”
“No. No. There’s no need for that,” Jowan sighs “There’s room for all of us and Rose is right about you looking like you could use it.”
Anders searches his face for any sign that he might not really mean that, but he seems to be genuine. “If you’re sure,” he says, and might not have managed entirely to keep the hopeful note out of his voice.
It’s just that if there’s one thing he hadn’t hated about the Circle, it’s that you never had to be alone there—unless, of course, you were a serial escape artist and they threw you into solitary confinement for a year as punishment. But usually, there had always been someone there, and physical contact was often the only thing mages could offer each other as comfort for the situation they were in. Anders hasn’t had that for a long time. And for months, his only companion has been Justice. He hasn’t truly been alone since they merged, but there’s not much the Fade spirit sharing his body can do for him on those cold nights when he just really needs to hold someone.
So it doesn’t really matter that Surana and Jowan are two people who he only sort of knew well over a decade ago. They were all at the same Circle once. It makes them feel like family in a strange way that only a Circle mage could probably understand.
When they climb into that one bed together, and the three of them have to press close in order to fit, Anders breathes a sigh of relief as Surana’s arm slips automatically around his waist. He barely pauses before nuzzling into the crook of her neck. He can smell her hair, a hint of lavender beneath woodsmoke and the leftover scents from the meal she cooked. She lifts her hand to comb her fingers through Anders’ hair and he lets out a small, involuntary whimper at such a sweet affectionate gesture.
"Oh," she murmurs, like she's suddenly realised something and she presses a soft kiss to the top of Anders’ head. Then a little louder she says, "Jowan, you should switch sides."
Jowan makes a confused noise.
"Remember that time you got locked in a dungeon for poisoning the Arl of Redcliffe and I had to bust you out and then every night for weeks afterwards you kept crawling into my bedroll until eventually we just had to start calling it our bedroll?"
"...yeah?"
"Don't you think you'd have appreciated an extra pair of arms back then?"
Anders pulls back to look at Surana, doubtful that she can really be serious. Then he looks up at Jowan who’s shifted into a sitting position and looks appraisingly down at him. He doesn't exactly want to discourage Jowan, but he doesn't want to make him uncomfortable either.
Eventually, Jowan sighs. "Oh alright. You two budge over then."
They each perform the required shuffling around, while Jowan mutters, "I don't know why you always have to bring up that old poisoning-an-Arl thing every time."
"Sorry, my love,” Surana grins, “but the Arl of Redcliffe survived and so will that story."
Jowan settles in behind Anders and wraps an arm around his waist, below Surana’s as she resumes softly petting his hair.
Anders nearly weeps from the feeling of the warmth pressed along his back, the arm wrapped securely around him, Surana’s much smaller form, snuggled up in his own arms while she whispers soothing sounds, like she knows exactly what he’s thinking.
“It’s been a long time hasn’t it?” she murmurs.
Anders nods wordlessly. There doesn’t seem to be any point in pretending otherwise.
“It’s all right. We’ll take care of that. You’re very much welcome here. Isn’t he, Jowan?”
“Mmhmm,” Jowan mumbles, his breath a pleasant tickle on the back of Anders’ neck.
Hesitantly, Anders lifts the hand trapped between himself and Surana and brushes his fingers over Jowan’s where it’s placed on his waist. Jowan hums and slips his fingers through Anders’. In that moment, Anders isn’t sure what he did to get this lucky.
For the first time in years, he drifts off to sleep feeling warm and comfortable and not even a bit lonely.