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Chapter Text

It was a cloudy day in Kingsway when Anders arrived back at Kirkwall’s docks. The weather was starting to turn cold, but the summer’s storm season did not quite seem over, leaving the skies moody and temperamental to suit Anders’s mood.

Isabela, his companion on the trip to Dairsmuid, immediately and without the courtesy of a farewell left his side for a room at the Rose. She’d grown utterly sick of him over the course of their travels, and Anders couldn’t even blame her – he’d grown sick of himself as well. Anders left to spend the night at his clinic, wallowing in his own misery.

Put simply, the trip had not been the success Anders had hoped. And his mood only worsened when Hawke sent word the following morning explaining the events that had transpired in his absence: A Chantry force headed by the Right Hand of the Divine had visited Kirkwall. And, before the dust had settled, she’d gone and captured Varric and carted him off to give testimony to Divine Justinia herself.

It was true that Varric had not quite been the warmest on Anders since the whole fiasco with Kirkwall’s Chantry and the Gallows. But Anders considered him a friend, one who historically occupied a rather significant place in their social circle. Varric had been Anders’s friend long before most of the others had bothered to give him the time of day, had seen to shielding Anders from the Templars when nobody else had the influence to, and had been the one to insist on Anders’s place at their weekly Diamondback table even back when Fenris would rather have done without him. His absence from Kirkwall filled Anders with grief, and no small amount of guilt.

It was with that in mind that Anders spent the next few days hard at work in his clinic, paying penance for his mistakes, ignoring all solicitations, lines of poetry sent by courier from Fenris, and a rather unwieldy fruit basket from Merrill. When Hawke finally kicked down the door nearly a week later.

“I’ve brought your old ball and chain!” Hawke announced, pointing back at Merrill and Fenris as he sauntered over the threshold.

“Ooh! Which one am I?” Merrill asked eagerly. “I think Fenris should be the chain since he’s so very shapeless.”

Merrill giggled when Hawke ruffled her hair. And Hawke, empowered by this response, turned to pinch Fenris’s cheeks, which flushed considerably at the attention.

“What is it, Hawke?” Anders said, surprised at his own ability to sound irritable instead of merely exhausted. “I’m busy with the clinic.”

“Not really, you aren’t,” Hawke insisted. He aimed a pair of finger guns at the various messes around the clinic and pretended to shoot. “I’m sure we can have everything important wrapped up within the hour.”

Twenty minutes later, Anders had healed his only patient and begun to unload the disaster that had been his trip to Dairsmuid.

“Three hundred children!” Anders said. “Three hundred children, and you know what Isabela tells me?! That she’s sure the fishwives will pop out as many more ‘magelets’ before the year is out!”

Merrill grimaced and worried her bottom lip. “Oh, that does sound terrible…” Her ears fluttered. “But I’m sure Isabela didn’t mean much by it. She probably only meant that there was no use worrying about what’s already happened.”

“Three hundred children!” Anders screeched at her.

“Oh dear, I think I’ll go check on the goldfish tank,” Merrill begged off.

Fenris turned and watched Merrill’s back, as she walked to the other side of the clinic (where there was certainly no goldfish tank). Anders narrowed his eyes, as Fenris turned serenely back.

“I suppose you don’t care much either way,” Anders accused. “What’s Thedas with three hundred less mages?”

Fenris didn’t dignify this with a response. “It is a tragedy,” he said. “But Isabela said, with help, the Rivaini seers and Templars were able to stop the Antivan Chantry from carrying out the annulment in full. Perhaps you should count your achievements, not your failures.” Fenris shrugged, stood, and followed after Merrill, feet pattering against the uneven floor of the clinic.

Anders felt the twinge of something uncomfortable in his gut. He knew he shouldn’t really be bringing up old arguments with Fenris or lashing out at the people who cared about him (and Justice seemed to agree). But Anders looked up at Hawke, who was still sitting across from him at the clinic’s makeshift plywood table, eyes wide.

“Three hundred children gone,” Anders said.

“Yeah,” Hawke said.

“Varric’s gone too.” Anders pouted.

“Uh-huh,” Hawke nodded sympathetically.

Anders hadn’t really liked the Rivaini mages either. Not that he regretted doing everything he could to save them. But many were arrogant and ingracious. Many were cowards that fled home, leaving the rest of the tower to defend themselves. Most of them were close with the Templars that shared the tower with them, but not in the way Anders was familiar with – not in the way Wynne had clung to Greagoir’s favour for her own protection.

Anders hadn’t understood it, but Isabela had. Well of course you wouldn’t let a future village seer go to the capital to study without a friend to accompany them, Isabela had said. And of course you wouldn’t disrespect them just because a foreign Chantry paid you to.

Anders didn’t understand it. He didn’t understand when so many of the Rivaini Templars decided to stay and fight against the Seekers and their Templar forces from Antiva (although Anders hardly could have refused their help). He didn’t understand why most of the seers would trust their Templars, and trust Isabela, more than they trusted him – a fellow mage.

Anders sulked. He knew he was being petty, and he decided to reveal some of that to Hawke.

“I thought they would be more grateful for my help.”

“Mmm,” Hawke agreed.

“Fiona wasn’t gracious either, when I contacted her.”

“She doesn’t know who she’s missing out on,” Hawke said.

“I-” This next part was a bit harder to explain. “The Rivaini seers have a tradition of spirit possession. I thought they would… understand about Justice, you know…” Anders sniffed, still feeling offended. “Instead they told me it was no wonder I was ‘erratic’ since I’d gone about getting possessed all wrong, and hadn’t they taught me how to do magic properly on the continent?”

Hawke grimaced expressively. “They just don’t know what they’re talking about,” he said, despite all evidence to the contrary.

“Right,” Anders agreed. He bit his lip, feeling coy. “You know I asked Isabela if she minded playing gracious for me, you know. Showing a little appreciation for mage saviour~” Isabela had responded by asking if Anders minded being keelhauled the rest of the way back to Kirkwall.

Hawke seemed to understand though. “Say no more.” He winked, then reached across the table to slot Anders’s hand in his. “Come by later, and I’ll get my grateful Rivaini seer costume ready for you.”

Anders looked at where Hawke squeezed his hand and felt his cheeks flush. He glanced to the side, to where Merrill and Fenris were rolling bandages on the other side of the clinic (or tying bandages a griffon-shaped clump of knots in Merrill’s case). Anders thought Merrill’s smile was wide and beautiful, and Fenris’s intent look of concentration was very handsome, and there was really no reason for this dalliance with Hawke. Anders really shouldn’t be holding hands with Hawke, when his lovers could turn and see at any moment. And Justice must have disapproved because Anders could feel a burning heat of his judgement pool in their stomach. But Anders just felt impossibly warmed by it and absolutely giddy when he glanced back to Hawke’s grin and black tousled hair.

Anders probably would have agreed to anything at that moment.

“See! I knew you’d feel better after seeing everyone and complaining a bit!” Hawke said, letting go of Anders’s hand and clasping him on the shoulder. “Let’s get you out of this clinic. A day around town is just what you need!”

==

Anders wasn’t quite sure why what Hawke thought he needed was a twisting hour long walk through the sewers, followed by an hour of trying to pawn off old rags to a blighted demon of an antiquarian.

“I do not understand why I would need a set of Circle-issued robes,” Xenon sniffled haughtily, like he’d been insulted.

Hawke’s nose wrinkled. “Well, the ones you’re wearing seem a little musty.”

It was an interesting turn of phrase for the tattered rags hanging off Xenon’s shrivelled skeleton.

“Also they must be a few centuries old by now,” Merrill reasoned. “So they’d have to be terribly out of style.”

“As opposed to the mere century out of style those Circle robes are,” Fenris cut in.

Merrill clicked her tongue disapprovingly.

Hawke just turned to Fenris with large, sad eyes. “Whose side are you on anyhow?”

“The side of vogue and modernity,” Fenris said.

There was no small amount of protest to this, but Anders tuned it out. He browsed through Xenon’s collection of rare staffs, then the spellbooks he had out for loan before, inevitably, Anders found himself in front of Xenon’s Mirror of Transformation.

He knew the mirror was an object of evil, worse even than the one Merrill had hidden in her Alienage home. Even the merest peek at it could alter the minds of everyone who’d ever looked upon you. But something about it always appealed to the otherwise dormant vanity in Anders, and he spent some time standing in front of it, altering his hairline and the width of his nose and hips and shoulders – a little wider and a little narrower, but always coming back to the shape he and Justice were most accustomed to.

“Altering your appearance again?”

Anders quickly shifted his ass back down to its normal size and shape, and turned to face Fenris guiltily. “Is Hawke finished pawning?”

Fenris snorted. “No. I was told to keep out of the way of progress.” His expression gave nothing away, and Anders wasn’t quite sure he wasn’t upset, until he approached and turned Anders by the shoulder so they were both facing the mirror side by side. He snuck a peek at Anders’s behind, before lacing their fingers together and leaning his head against Anders’s shoulder. “I would not be disappointed to have a little more of you… But do not forget you are appreciated as you are.”

Anders watched as Fenris’s eyebrows turned a shade darker in the mirror, just like they had always been. And, in spite of himself, Anders began to feel a little giddy. He squeezed Fenris’s hand tighter, and watched Fenris allow it, slouched carelessly into his side. It was only them reflected in the mirror – whose magic honed in on living forms, and threw the backdrop of Xenon’s shop into a cloudy, black vortex. Anders smiled. They were really quite the pair.

“Oh, what are we doing now? Are the two of you fawning again?”

Merrill stepped into view of the mirror just as Anders looked away from it. And before Anders could make much of what she was doing, she’d braced one hand against his shoulder, grabbed a fistful of the back of his coat with the other, and lunged a leg up. Her toes dug into his side and found purchase against his jutting hipbone.

Anders winced slightly, but caught her right thigh under his right arm instinctively.

Fenris had leaned off his shoulder, and was watching curiously as Merrill climbed onto Anders’s back. He hadn’t let go of Anders’s hand on the left, and Merrill worked around this, wrapping her left leg tighter around Anders’s waist to better hold herself up.

“Xenon and Hawke are arguing about how many of which coins they’ll be exchanging now,” Merrill explained. She tugged at Anders’s shoulder and spread her arm out, pointing towards the other end of the shop. “Oh, won’t you take me to see the library, vhenan? You know I can’t reach the top shelves myself.”

Merrill was perched high enough that her face was cropped out of the Mirror of Transformation’s reflection. Anders watched as she swung her right leg from the knee, foot dangling under where Anders had propped her up.

“You know you could have just asked me to reach them for you,” he said, a bit more irritably than he was really feeling. “And I hope you’re not thinking about checking any of them out!”

Merrill hummed in appreciative, if non-committal, acknowledgement and quickly redirected her attention elsewhere.

“Oh, Fenris,” she began, “you said you knew a scholar who had written on alternate understandings of the Veil and its physical properties? What did they call themselves again?”

“Did you mean Mareno of Minrathous?” Fenris asked mildly.

“Tevinter names are rather tricky, but it does sound like what you said before,” Merrill agreed. “The way Xenon has gone and organised everything doesn’t make much sense if you ask me, but we’ll keep our eyes peeled for the ‘M’s.”

Something about the exchange did not sit well with Anders, who wouldn’t have expected Fenris to make room for Merrill, in what had been a private moment, without so much as a grumble. Let alone volunteer information about some slave-owning Tevinter scholar to her without protest. But before Anders could make much of it, Merrill had gone and run her fingers against his scalp, scritching idly as she smoothed his hair and flicked away bits of dandruff. And it was tremendously hard to overthink things, or feel anything but contented, with both Merrill combing her hands through his hair and Fenris’s palm pressed against his.

Fenris called for Xenon’s urchin, and fifteen minutes later found the poor boy with an armful of books to reshelve, as Merrill balanced several in the precarious space above Anders’s head.

“Think of the Veil, instead, as opening one's eyes,” Merrill was reciting from one of Mareno’s volumes. “Before you opened them, you saw our world as you see it now: static, solid, unchanging. Now that they are open, you see our world as the spirits see it: chaotic, ever-changing, a realm where the imagined and the remembered have as much substance as that which is real – more, in fact.” She flipped through more pages, and lifted the book up to check under it, like it might be hiding something beneath its cover. “He seems to believe our world and the Fade aren’t so much different places as the same place, just spirits and mages sometimes look at it a bit funny. But he hasn’t provided many measurement tables. Or diagrams. Or pictures.”

“It’s obsolete scholarship,” Anders groused. “The traditional understanding of the Fade is fine: two realms, split by the Maker.”

“Or split by Fen’Harel… But is it?” Merrill gave an unimpressed hum. “Your understanding doesn’t account for what’s on the other side of the Eluvian at all. Something that isn’t the Fade but isn’t this realm either… Maybe the world of the Fade and our world are sometimes the same, at least overlapping so you can’t tell the difference in places. Like you and Justice.”

“Justice can tell the difference between here and the Fade,” Anders said. Merrill had shimmied higher up to sit on his shoulders, and he turned his head to press a petulant kiss to the side of her knee. “They’re not the same realm. The Fade isn’t just how he sees our world. He travelled from one to the other, and he sees the mortal world the same way I do.”

“Does he?” Merrill asked. She dropped the book down to the urchin. “Are those Justice’s words? Or are you just saying whatever you like for him again?”

Anders was about to tell Merrill off, when Hawke swaggered up and clapped his hands to draw their attention. “Twenty silvers in store credit!” he announced.

Merrill immediately shuffled the tomes in her hand and applauded Hawke’s success, but not everyone was so impressed.

“Hawke, you’re a Hightown noble,” Anders pointed out. “You have enough coin to fill the whole of Isabela’s ship and then some. You don’t need twenty silver in store credit.”

“To hear Aveline tell it, the Keep is still thirty thousand sovereigns in debt to you,” Fenris agreed.

“That’s no reason to be wasteful,” Hawke pouted.

“You know Xenon does it just to get you looking at his wares,” Anders grimaced. “You’re going to waste more money finding something to spend the silvers on than you would have just burning your rags in the fireplace at home.”

“Nonsense,” Hawke waved him off. “Mother always said you’re wasting money if you’re buying at full market price.” He turned and clapped his hands together with an exuberant wave of his arms. “Let’s see what new wonders you’ve gotten in, Xenon!”

“Excellent! Excellent!” Xenon shouted his agreement from the throne at the room’s centre. “I think you and your friends will be very impressed by this season’s finds!”

The urchin was in the middle of sorting the pile of books Merrill had rejected. He was looking a little sullen at the extra work she had created – work he was doing at no benefit to himself or his master, so long as Merrill refused to check them out and risk the tender mercies of the library’s overdue curses. But upon hearing Xenon call for latest acquisitions, he quickly pushed the books aside and ran to the other side of the shop.

He triggered a rune that rearranged a panel of wooden planks on the shop floor into a descending staircase, and hurried down.

A few minutes later, a procession of three golems ascended the stairs, each carrying a treasure gently in their large stone hands. And the urchin followed behind, shooing the golems into line and waving the centre one forward.

From a ream of shining silver cloth, the golem unwrapped a small golden crown inlaid with onyx.

“A crown said to have been given by Dumat, the Old God of Sleep and Silence, to the greatest of his followers. Said to bestow all the benefits of a restful night’s sleep to the wearer, without ever the need for the act itself. Although it is said to come at the expense of the wearer’s voice.” Xenon hummed appreciatively. “I believe there is some continuity between its enchantment, and those found in older pieces belonging to Dirthamen’s scribes. Though few are so ornate or in such good condition as this piece.”

Merrill had stacked the rest of the books sideways on the shelf and began to disentangle herself from Anders. With a quick parting kiss under his ear, she slid off his back and approached to stand next to Hawke. Both seemed to be considering Dumat’s Crown with far too much curiosity.

“Hawke,” Anders warned in his firmest voice. He still didn’t know how to feel about the discovery that stories of the Old Gods were not mere Chantry propaganda, but the last thing any of them needed to be involving themselves with were old cursed Tevinter relics.

Luckily Hawke and Merrill’s interest seemed… professional.

“Didn’t we run into one like that when we were in that Warden prison in the Deep Roads?” Merrill said. “Right before that Cory person decided to start a fight with Justice right in Anders’s head?”

Hawke nodded sadly. “A real shame. We might’ve made a fortune pawning it.”

“It was quite a fascinating artefact!” Merrill agreed. “But Justice probably would have broken it anyhow. The way he broke all the bottles of health potion in his pack when he tried to stop-drop-and-roll Cory out of him.”

“Maker, could you stop bringing that up?” Anders felt himself flush in embarrassment.

“Let’s see something else!” Merrill chirped. And Hawke acquiesced, clapping his hands and waving the next golem forward.

The golem stepped forward with a teal coloured urn.

Merrill and Hawke blinked curiously at the urn in question.

Fenris sighed. “Another soul-eating urn?” he asked in a bored voice.

Xenon huffed with affront. “No, not the urn! Preposterous… Even if it were the urn, it bears none of the distinctive characteristics of the Nevarran Tower Age Soul Eaters – not the wide brim, nor the distinctive seals that later became the symbols of the Mortalitasi. Andraste’s grace – the thing is made of porcelain, not clay! No! Look inside the urn!”

Fenris rolled his eyes, and looked away. But Merrill and Hawke dutifully took turns peering down the neck of the urn.

“It is a relic of Maferath the Betrayer,” Xenon said primly. “In the literal sense.”

Merrill squinted and tilted her head. “It’s all shrivelled, but it looks a little like-”

“It is his phallus and testes, yes,” Xenon agreed.

“Ew!” Merrill grimaced, lurching back from the urn.

“Squeal all you like,” Xenon said. “Alamarri magical tradition includes a number of anthropophagous rituals, and this relic may still be valuable used in any one of them… Although from my perspective, it holds greater historical curiosity. Much is made of Maferath’s jealousy, in sharing his bride with the Maker. But if this is indeed Maferath’s phallus, it corroborates the lesser known story: In Andraste’s despair at being unable to conceive, she chopped it off! Lest her husband bear children with anyone else!”

“That’s ridiculous,” Anders cut in. “Everyone knows Maferath had three sons, and who knows how many daughters, with his concubine, Gilivhan. Andraste raised them herself!”

“That-!” Xenon boomed, “-is what they want you to think!”

“They?” Anders repeated, baffled.

“I don’t think we’ll be needing any shrivelled shemlen bits at any rate,” Merrill said, shooing the urn away. “We have enough at home.”

Xenon grumbled, but quickly regained his composure. “No matter! I have saved the best for last!”

The golem holding the urn lumbered off, following as the urchin led him and the first golem back down to the storeroom.

“Behold!” Xenon announced. “The Genvian Falones Din!”

The third golem stepped forward and unfurled a sheath of creamy white cloth to reveal the final artefact.

Everyone looked down at it.

“What is it?” Anders asked.

“It’s, ah-” Merrill scratched at her chin ponderously. She didn’t precisely seem to know.

“Yes, you have understood,” Xenon decided. “After centuries of searching, I have finally gotten my hands on it – the Genvian Falones Din – a porthole in the Veil, leading to the seat of the elusive Elvhen God of Death.”

The porthole in question looked like a bit of black tar pressed flat. Anders was half sure the magical energy radiating off the thing was simply that the cloth it was wrapped in had been enchanted to stay clean.

“People can’t just physically cross over the Veil,” Anders said.

“Not anymore,” Merrill agreed, but her attention was rapt on the object. “Why would such a thing exist?” she asked. “Why has no one used it before?”

“Patience, patience,” Xenon urged. “I should deserve a little, I should think, after the patience required to find this artefact.” He made a sound like he was clearing his throat, which Anders found odd since Xenon didn’t possess a throat anymore. “It is said,” Xenon continued, “that when Fen’Harel succeeded in trapping the other members of his pantheon across the Veil, no few of the Forgotten Ones had managed to slip from his grasp.”

“If they were around, why would we forget them?” Merrill asked

“Who can say?” Xenon harrumphed. “For most, we only know that, at some point in the last millennia, they were forgotten. But we know slightly more of one of them in particular.” He paused dramatically, and continued in a booming voice. “This particular Forgotten One was a lovely young woman and, despite the contentious relationship those of her court had with the Evanuris, she held a secret torch for Elgar’nan’s secondborn, Falon’Din, who was as pale and sickly as she was dark and healthy, as morbid as she was vivacious. And so, when the Veil was erected, she began plans to create an object of great power that would circumvent it – a porthole that would lead her to her lost love.”

Nobody said anything for a moment. A single droplet of water fell from the sun portal at the ceiling of Xenon’s shop, and splattered against the back of his crumbling throne.

Fenris sighed. “And-?” he prompted for all of them.

“And she died,” Xenon said carelessly. “What did you think happened? She’s a Forgotten One. She was hunted down by Agents of Fen’Harel, killed, and her name was stricken from record.”

Merrill pouted furiously.

“But!” Xenon rumbled. “She finished her porthole before Fen’Harel’s agents came for her. And with her dying breath she cursed them, refusing to reveal to them the hiding place of her grand invention, so that it might survive and free Falon’Din from his prison. So great was her hiding place, that none were able to unearth its location… Until Me!” Xenon finished proudly.

“You are indeed a genius, Serah,” Xenon’s urchin was quick to assure him.

Xenon lost a few moments, crowing and preening at the encouragement of the urchin.

“It’s a large piece of tar,” Anders said, pointing at the so-called-porthole. “You can’t possibly believe that pile of dog shit.”

Merrill sniffled sceptically, seemingly in agreement with this assessment. “He didn’t say where he’d heard this tale at all. Or where the artefact was found.” Then she turned to face Hawke with enormous, pleading eyes. “Oh, do you think you could please buy it for me, Hawke? I’ve gone and left my purse at home.”

“I did not intend to sell it,” Xenon spoke over them. “It is an intriguing curio, but no one in their right mind would wish to free-” He said something else here in Elvhen that Anders could not catch. “-to walk freely amongst us of the waking world.”

The only proof that Merrill heard this was that she began tugging with increased fervour on Hawke’s sleeve. “Oh, please! Pleeease, Hawke! Please buy it for me! You don’t have to get me anything for that satin holiday of yours this year! Or the next five years! Just pleeease buy this for me! I’ll do anything!”

Hawke made a long ponderous sound, raised a hand up to stroke his beard, and pretended to think about it. But he was already smiling, and there was a twinkle in his eye, and Anders knew the stupid thing was already as good as bought. (And Merrill wouldn’t be sacrificing any Satinalia presents for it either.)

And wasn’t it just typical! Everyone had barged into Anders’s clinic and insisted on taking him out to make him feel better! And somehow Merrill had already hijacked the trip and was anything even about Anders anymore? Was Anders the one getting presents? No! When was the last time anyone had ever gotten him a present anyhow?!

“Did the witch not send you a fruit basket a few days ago?” Fenris asked.

“That’s not the point!” Anders protested.

Fenris had never been an audience particularly easily engaged, being neither particularly impressionable, nor reactive, nor sympathetic. Anders knew he might have chosen a better target for this rant but, to Fenris’s credit, he made a valiant effort to refrain from logic or criticism and only nodded disinterestedly as Anders explained the rest of everything that was going wrong about the day.

“Sold! Eight hundred and fifty sovereigns! (Minus twenty silvers store credit.)”

The bartering had ended, and Xenon’s shout and Hawke’s whoop of victory cut through the store. Paperwork was signed. An automatic transfer was authorised.

The golem handed the porthole to Merrill, who scrambled to clutch it to her chest, pulling the cloth wrapping up from where it was beginning to drag on the floor.

“Just apply the porthole to any flat surface to activate it, and remove it and wrap it in the cloth when you’re done,” Xenon announced, at the same time Hawke ran up to grab Fenris and Anders by the shoulders and press them towards the store’s exit. “Thank you for visiting the Black Emporium! As always, please remember: No Refunds!”

“Hah!” Hawke laughed under his breath, as he quickly grabbed everyone’s weapons from the umbrella stand at the door. “Let’s go quickly! Before he changes his mind! That was an absolute steal!”

“You paid nearly eight hundred and fifty sovereigns for a ball of tar, Hawke!” Anders hissed.

“Mmm.” Merrill’s ears twitched, as she slipped out ahead of them into the Darktown sewer network.

“At least we’re finally out of there,” Anders groused, as Hawke pressed him ahead.

Although, by all measures, Xenon’s shop had been more welcoming. Most of the Darktown tunnels were still partly flooded from the recent storms, and Anders and the others all spent a while simply wading through filthy seawater inundated with Kirkwall’s waste. Until-

“Oh,” Merrill gushed. “Oh, can we please try the porthole? I’m just so very excited to see if it works!”

“It’s a flattened ball of tar!” Anders insisted.

“I don’t see what it could hurt,” Hawke shrugged. “Xenon said all you needed was a flat surface, right? Looks like we have one right here.” He slapped the wall of the tunnel.

“You know this stone is porous, right?” Anders despaired. “It’s not flat. It’s full of holes.”

He quieted when Merrill shoved the enchanted cloth the porthole was wrapped in into his arms.

Merrill narrowed her eyes and swung the porthole in her hand experimentally, before flinging the disc flat against the wall.

It landed with a loud splat, and stuck there. Much like a piece of tar might. A round circle of black against the white-brown stone wall. There was no sound except the sloshing sea water, up to Anders’s knees. Nothing seemed to be happening.

Anders bundled the sheath of cloth in his hands, and looked over his shoulder to Fenris. But Fenris was looking elsewhere. Anders followed his line of sight to Merrill’s hand, which had touched the porthole and come away clean.

Suddenly the porthole flashed. Anders blinked, and a rune he’d never seen before was drawing itself in pink and green over the front of its black face. It expanded to reach the edges of the porthole, and then curled in on itself, vanishing into its inky depths.

This all struck Anders as vaguely ominous.

“I told you eight hundred forty-nine sovereigns and eighty silvers was a steal!” Hawke insisted.

“I- er-”Anders was quite out of things to say.

“It goes through!” Merrill said. She stuck her hand through the porthole, watched it disappear into the pitch black on the other side, then reappear as she pulled it back out. “Oh, I have to get a better look! But I put it up too high,” she fretted, biting at her nails. She reached for Anders’s arm and pulled him closer to the porthole. “Help me up, vhenan!”

“I’m not-” Anders said, dropping his bundle of cloth as he reached out a hand to help. “You can’t just jump through some experimental porthole into the Fade!”

“Oh? Why not?” Merrill asked, like she was genuinely curious. The floodwater was halfway up Merrill’s thigh, and it cascaded off her leggings as she pulled herself face first towards the hole. “I think I’ll fit through if I go in with my arms stretched ahead of me.” She kicked back at Anders with her feet, trying to use him as the foothold to press herself through.

“Why?! You have no idea what’s on the other side of there! You might get hurt!” Anders cried, as he grabbed ahold of her kicking legs and helped to lift her.

“Oh, it’s just a little peek. And you’ll pull me out if there are any problems, vhenan.”

Anders should have said something then. One last attempt to try to stop her. Or pulled her away from the porthole altogether. But Merrill spoke so surely, and she smiled with such confidence in him and affection for him. Anders’s heart caught in his throat, and there was nothing he could do but let her go.

Merrill pulled herself though the porthole, until she was through up to her waist. Anders rushed to hug her left thigh to his chest. But, thankfully, Merrill was stopping there, butt hanging out on their end of reality, legs dangling down the side of the dirty water-stained wall.

There was nothing to do but stand there and wait, anxious with anticipation.

Anders glanced back at Hawke, who was smiling with that blank expression that meant he was completely overwhelmed. Then at Fenris, who appeared to be pondering the situation intently.

Anders turned back to Merrill. He squeezed her thigh a little tighter. He really wanted to believe the rest of her was as whole and healthy on the other side.

She said he had to pull her out if there were any problems, right? But how would Anders know if there was a problem in the first place?

“You know,” Fenris finally began.

Anders looked to him hopefully. Fenris often had some reasonable and level insight to offer in absurd situations that defied conventional understanding. Maybe he would say something that let Anders know what to do and how to proceed.

“Isabela had a book where someone was locked kneeling in a pillory with their -- exposed.” Fenris raised a finger and outlined the shape of Merrill’s behind in the air. “This is reminiscent of that.”

Anders looked at him aghast. Then at Merrill’s butt. Then back to Fenris.

“I think I read that one,” Hawke agreed mildly. He elbowed Fenris in the side. “I think there were about three guys crowding behind her in the book too.”

Fenris chuckled. The tips of his ears went a little red. “As you say.”

“I can’t believe you both! Her upper half might be melted in a Fade flare for all you know, and the two of you are-!” Anders glared at Hawke and Fenris, then turned wide-eyed to Merrill’s round behind.

The worst part was Anders was pretty sure he remembered the book too.

“Do you think she’s okay?” he asked the others, trying to shake the redness from his cheeks. Anders looked anxiously away from Merrill’s butt, down at her dangling legs. “She hasn’t really moved for a minute or so here.”

“Why not check on her then?” Fenris suggested. “Give her a little pinch. See if she reacts.”

Anders glared, but turned back to Merrill’s behind. The suggestion didn’t entirely lack merit.

After a moment, he bent Merrill’s leg up at the knee, let it flop bonelessly back down. Picked it back up. When still not a muscle tensed, he pinched her toes in order, starting from the biggest and working his way out.

Merrill did react then, shaking her foot from his grip. She bent her knee, pulling her foot up, and for a moment Anders was relieved she seemed okay. Before her foot jutted out and the rough edge of her calloused heel struck him directly in the face.

Anders let out an indignant cry. “She kicked me!”

“You did fondle her foot when she was helpless to stop you,” Fenris pointed out, crossing his arms over his chest. “I merely suggested you pinch her posterior.”

“Your prodding did seem a little presumptive,” Hawke agreed solemnly. “Like getting hot and heavy without any warning or build-up at all.”

“I hate you both,” Anders hissed. But he was distracted as Merrill began thrashing more in earnest. Anders quickly regained his hold on her leg. Fenris hurried to get ahold of her from the other side and help pull her out.

Merrill gasped as her head popped out on this side of the porthole. “He’s coming!” she said, frantically.

Fenris glanced across at Anders, down about his waist. “He is halfway there at most, I would say.”

Merrill slapped a hand lightly across Fenris’s shoulder as she sunk back down into the flood water. “Don’t be so silly. I mean Falon’Din is coming! Through the porthole! We should all help and welcome him.” She smoothed the top of her shirt. “Make yourselves presentable!”

It was a little difficult to do this in a flooded sewage corridor, and Anders didn’t really make any attempt before a crown of white hair breached the surface of the porthole.

Anders watched, gaunt faced, as the head of hair plunged back into the darkness. Resurfaced. Bobbed down again. And then a pair of hands with sharp nails and rings across the fingers reached out. They felt tentatively along the edge of the porthole, and then dug into the edge and tried to pull themselves through.

“Oh, please help,” Merrill pleaded, looking around at them.

Fenris stepped back, but Hawke stepped forward in his place. And Anders figured that if someone was trapped inside a Fade porthole, it would be unjust to leave them to it. He grabbed ahold of the person’s right hand, and Hawke grabbed their left, and together they pulled the man out of the hole and grabbed him by the waist. The man from the portal struggled a little, seemingly instinctively, but soon forced himself lax in their arms and let them dip him down to stand in the flooded corridor.

Anders stepped back to get a better look at him.

The man was an elf wearing a set of slippers and finely made baby blue robes. They were in a design Anders had never seen before, with a low neckline and an embroidered pattern of owls over the front, though not enough feathers for Anders’s liking. Despite (or perhaps because of) the status his robes, jewellery, and bearing seemed to suggest, Anders couldn’t help but think he looked a bit unimpressive. In fact, he seemed rather pitiful with the tips of his ears drooping, standing soaking wet in the corridor. And he was very short – shorter than Hawke and Fenris, nearly at a height with Merrill. Besides that, he bore a superficial likeness to Fenris, between his white hair and rich brown skin (albeit of a warmer shade).

The man seemed to realise this as well, because he turned to Fenris and said something very quickly in a language Anders had never heard.

Fenris considered him. “Non intelle- I don’t-” His nose pinched, like he was frustrated with himself. “Aneth ara. Whatever.”

“Fenris!” Merrill scolded. “You’re being much too overfamiliar. This is one of the Evanuris! You can’t just ‘Aneth ara’ one like the Hahren changed both your diapers together.” She turned and bowed her head apologetically to the man, and began talking a mile a minute in Elvhen.

Now that they were both speaking in time with one another, it was clear that there was some similarity between Elvhen and the language the man from the portal spoke. Although the tone and rhythm of what they were saying seemed discordant to Anders.

“Even I can tell his accent is terrible,” Fenris said after a moment.

“I told you!” Hawke whispered gleefully. “An absolute steal!”

Merrill interrupted herself to speak in the common tongue. “Oh, you let the covering for the Fade porthole get all wet,” she sighed, bending down to collect the white cloth from the water. “Oh well~” She shrugged, shoving the bundle of dripping sheets back into Anders’s arms. “Let’s get it back off the wall and get going then.”

==

Kirkwall had never been much for tourism. It was not a centre of culture, cuisine, or theatre. The poverty in the city’s lower levels, and the privatism in its upper levels, left few public spaces well groomed enough to be worth spending much time in. The city’s one draw had once been the cathedral at its peak, drawing in Andrastian pilgrims from across the Marches, and good fucking riddance to it and them so far as Anders was concerned.

This did not change the fact that there was hardly anything to show their new guest of the city. Hawke had shown this presumed ‘Falon’Din’ the figure of the Hanged Man above the pub, the painted Vhenadahl in the Alienage, and now they were at the docks. But it was a foggy day out on the Waking Sea, with the cloudy skies sprinkling droplets intermittently into their midst, and so there was not a particularly good view out on the horizon.

“And this,” Hawke announced, “is a statue of me.” He struck the same pose as the behemoth statue of the Champion at the edge of the docks, raising one of his daggers to the sky, and beamed widely as he turned towards the group.

“Sort of,” Fenris said. Because the statue in question looked absolutely nothing like Hawke.

Falon’Din did not appear to be paying attention. In fact, he was lagging behind some hundred metres, absorbed in a private conversation with Merrill as they made their way up the promenade.

“There used to be slaver statues too, but we got rid of them,” Hawke announced, to no one in particular.

Good riddance, once more. But all it really meant was one less thing to see in Kirkwall. Their group continued along the docks, passing by the hastily erected barracks that housed the mages overflowing out the damaged structure of the Gallows.

Seeing these barracks always put Anders in a foul mood, and he frowned tremendously. “What are we going to see next, Hawke? The paper mill? The stinking foundry? How about we take a tour of the prisons under the Keep? Oh, Anders, come out of your clinic for the day~ You’ll forget all about Rivain and remember all the things you’ve done for this city~” he mocked. “Hawke, this city is a blighted mess!”

The barrack windows were largely curtained or empty, but several mages were looking out at the passers-by, and Anders waved his arms and shouted futility up at them. “You’re free! Don’t you have anywhere you’d like to go?! Anything you want to see?!”

Most of the mages didn’t seem to hear him, or pretended they couldn’t at any rate. A few backed out of sight. One elf on the second floor, who had their window open, shouted down: “It’s raining.”

Anders cursed. It was barely a drizzle out.

“You expect too much of them,” Fenris put in mildly. “They have no families. Have spent their whole lives knowing nothing else. Most are unequipped for combat, and the bravest of them have already left. Let the others move on in their own time, in their own ways.”

“You’d think they’d at least want out of the Gallows,” Anders insisted.

“At least there aren’t any Templars harassing them anymore,” Hawke pointed out.

“Better they stay inside than be taken in by Tevinter radicals,” Fenris muttered darkly at the barracks. But he shook this off, and turned to Anders. “Your pessimism is… You do realise we have been missing you for months, and the first thing you did upon your return from abroad was lock yourself away for a week?”

Anders was taken aback. No, he hadn’t really thought of it like that. He felt himself pale as he studied Fenris’s all too inscrutable expression.

“I am not angry,” Fenris reassured. He took Anders’s hand again, and lifted it to press a quick kiss to the back. “I am accustomed to your neuroses. But you could stand to be more self aware.”

Hawke’s mind appeared to be elsewhere, and he scratched at his chin ponderously. “Speaking of Templars, whatever happened to that Knight Captain guy? With the curly hair? He was working that remote patrol route Aveline set him to in the Vimmarks, wasn’t he? But I don’t think he came to give Aveline and Merrill his report this week.”

Fenris’s ears flickered, and he turned to answer. “I believe the Seeker relieved Knight Captain Cullen of his post and sent him ahead with the Left Hand to meet the Divine.”

Hawke made another ponderous noise as he led them further along the docks, towards the shipyard.

But Anders, who had felt a bit ashamed to be called out on his thoughtlessness (in spite of or perhaps because of Fenris’s permissiveness), quickly latched onto another source of shame. “Varric should be here,” he said despondently. “It shouldn’t be you, or me, or anyone else giving this Falon’Din person a tour. It should be Varric. He loved this city more than anyone… And he’s not here because of me. Because the Chantry hunted him down for what I did.” He looked down at his boots.

Fenris said nothing, but retained his grip on Anders’s hand.

Hawke seemed uncomfortable, but managed to force an optimistic tone. “You shouldn’t worry too much. Not that it was the best of circumstances, but you know Varric can get a little- egh- about this place. Even I’m better travelled than him, even if it was mostly roaming around Fereldan farmsteads. It’ll do him some good to be out seeing the world.”

Anders remained unconvinced. “Why did you let him get taken away, Hawke?” he pleaded. “I still don’t understand. Why did she have to take anyone away?”

Hawke’s answer was sympathetic. “We tried, Anders. We did. But… The Right Hand and her Seekers were persistent. Relentless. After Aveline tipped us off, we went into hiding. We dodged her investigation for three weeks, but she didn’t seem close to tiring. And too many people had let too much slip. We knew one of us had to lead her off the trail, so we split. Said whoever she got to first would cover for the rest.”

Anders felt the lump in his throat bob.

“Will say I was surprised it was Varric – Mr. Sneaky Shoes – that got caught though,” Hawke said, more lightly. “Thought for sure it would be the glow-in-the-dark elf,” he teased. “Or Merr getting distracted by a cloud and tripping over her own feet again.”

Fenris seemed to be irritated with Hawke’s poor assessment of his skill at stealth, and grumbled a bit under his breath.

It’s not like Anders would have been very happy with any of them being taken. Well, any of them except- “I don’t see why the Seeker couldn’t have dragged off Aveline,” he muttered poisonously.

“Um, she is Kirkwall’s Guard Captain,” Hawke explained patiently. As if Anders didn’t know she had political immunity that none of the rest of them did.

Fenris elbowed him in the side. “You’re awful. Think of Donnic, at least.”

“Donnic would be fine,” Anders insisted. “He’d just find someone better anyhow.”

“Unbelievable.” Fenris’s scoff sounded a bit like a laugh.

“Well, it wasn’t Aveline. It was Varric.” Hawke shrugged helplessly. “I guess that’s just how the cookie crumbled this time.”

There was a moment of silence for Varric. Anders wondered if Hawke and Fenris were thinking the same thing that he was: Had Varric let himself be caught, so that the others could remain safe? He’d always had a bit of a self-sacrificing streak, underneath it all.

“Varric should have been here… Imagine how excited he’d be writing up story ideas for this.” Anders sighed. “He would have given a really good tour.”

“I liked your tour, Hawke,” Fenris offered.

Hawke shrugged, unbothered. “That Falon’Din seems to have enough to talk about with Merr for the time being.”

They turned back to look at where Merrill was pointing out to the shipyard. She bounced on her heels and the staff on her back bobbed in the air. And as she babbled excitedly, her companion observed everything with a pinched expression.

“She is the only one capable of understanding him,” Fenris pointed out. “It is unsurprising he would want to be with that whom he finds most familiar.”

“It must be quite the culture shock,” Hawke agreed. “I know I found Kirkwall a bit intimidating when I first moved here. The three of you too, right? I can’t even imagine how strange it must be to find yourself here after a thousand years in the Fade.” He made that expression again – the smile that meant he was overwhelmed. When he shook himself to awareness, he said this: “Maybe a snack would help! I’m sure I’d be hungry after a thousand years. Do you think he’d like some kettle corn?”

“Hawke,” Anders sighed, attempting to forestall the inevitable.

But Hawke had already wound himself up. There was a storefront built into one of the warehouses, where the stevedores purchased lunch, and Hawke rushed ahead to throw coin at the woman running the place and ran back with an armful of goods. He tucked a paper bag under Anders’s elbow and set a caramel apple, wrapped and tied with a bow, into Fenris’s hand.

“I’ll go check on them! Be right back!” he promised, before running off towards Merrill and her Evanuris friend.

Fenris withdrew his hand to tuck the caramel apple into the bag on his belt. Anders unfolded the paper bag Hawke had given him, and offered Fenris some kettle corn before taking a handful himself.

They watched as Hawke’s black hair was tousled by the sea wind. He made a show of handing Falon’Din a bag of kettle corn. And then Merrill, who beamed at him with a smile so wide it crinkled the lines of her vallaslin.

Hawke and Merrill seemed to be taking a moment to chat. And Anders, munching on his kettle corn, felt consumed with little poison thoughts: Fenris had said that they had been missing Anders for months. But not only had the day seemed not to really be about him, Merrill seemed to care a lot more about walking around with this Falon’Din than with him. And she probably liked him more than Anders, too, seeing as he was one of her creator gods and all. Yes, of course she did, Anders thought jealously. And how was he supposed to have known that Xenon’s artefact would end up working? And-

Anders reasoned he shouldn’t have been the only one to take issue with this.

He turned to look down at Fenris.

Fenris turned to look up at him.

“You’ve been awfully quiet today.” Anders narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

Fenris blinked, like he was a little surprised to be addressed in such a manner. But the surprise softened and the crinkles in his forehead relaxed. “Perhaps I have spoken around the subject too much. I will say it directly: I am pleased to have you home.” A rare quiet smile curled at the edge of Fenris’s lips – the kind Anders typically only saw when they’d been alone for hours and Fenris was feeling particularly affectionate.

If Anders had been wiser, he would have left it at that.

“No,” Anders said. “I mean you were quiet about visiting the Emporium. Flipping though Xenon’s little Tevinter library. This whole fiasco with the Fade porthole and immortal Elvhen mages. Shouldn’t you be groaning about the evils and dangers of untested magic?”

The change on Fenris’s face was subtle. His smile flipped minutely into a frown, not like he was upset, but rather that he was pondering Anders’s words.

“Nothing has changed,” Fenris finally concluded. “The witch and the antiquarian are powerful blood mages. It is inevitable that they will find means to justify exercising such power in their own demonic interests, at the expense and slaughter of those without.”

Anders squinted. “Yes, but why don’t I believe you?”

Fenris had delivered these lines with dispassioned academic clarity, and even now he seemed unconcerned. He did not bother to respond to what Anders chose to be unconvinced by, and instead weathered Anders’s scrutiny with an infuriating poker face Anders associated with losing games of Diamondback.

Before Anders could figure him out, Hawke jogged back up to them. “That went well,” he panted, catching his breath.

“Did it?” Anders asked grimly.

Hawke nodded eagerly, seemingly oblivious to Anders’s reservations on the subject. “She told me everything was going fine and she was having a lovely time,” he reassured. But then he paused and scratched pensively at his ear. “Strange though. She told me I might want to get out of spell range.”

“Na melana sahlin!”

Anders had never learned what those words meant, but he’d heard Merrill say them enough times on the wrong side of slavers, highwaymen, and darkspawn getting sliced in half, that he knew the battle cry for what it was. He turned in time to see Merrill’s opening move.

She’d swung Voracity off her back, and dragged the edge of the staff sideways behind her so it tore stone from the wall of the closest building and from the concrete ground. She then flipped the staff to grab in both hands, and swung it like a club, directing a Stonefist directly into Falon’Din’s side.

Falon’Din crashed sideways into the shipyard building.

“Andraste’s tits! What in the blighted void, Merr?!” Anders hissed under his breath.

“Stay alert,” Fenris commanded. He’d already moved to unsheathe his sword, and fell into a battle stance. But he stood for a moment, waiting.

It was reasonable to think that an attack like that from Merrill would be enough to cause anything from a concussion to death. But when the dust settled, Falon’Din was still standing, crouched behind a magic barrier. Anders saw his eyes flash black.

Merrill had already begun casting Chain Lightning, but the spell unleashed erratically, throwing static all through the air, when Falon’Din flung a wave of pointed ice directly through the spell at Merrill. It would have been enough to break skin, Anders thought. And, although he could not see Merrill’s face from this angle, he knew well enough the smile she got when her blood came to life, sizzling with power, misting in the air around her and cutting anyone who came close like knives.

Anders resolved himself. In the end, it didn’t matter who or why they were fighting. Anyone who touched any of them didn’t live to speak about it.

That was when things got weird.

Before Anders and the others could cross the docks to Merrill, there was a rumble that shook the entire city. Countless screams seemed to rise over what had been a passably quiet Kingsway afternoon. A few stevedores and passing washerwomen rushed behind Hawke, presumably recognising the Champion. And out of the alleys and sewers began rushing Corpses, Skeletons, Revenants, Horrors. They ran, hobbled, shambled in to fill the entire platform at the docks, closing the gulf between Anders and Merrill. And even as Hawke and his collection of passers-by backed towards the wall of the nearest warehouse, even more undead were climbing from the sea, grimy decaying hands scaling up posts and dikes and the stones to the side of the breakwater.

And they were here. Anders drew up a wall of flames and pressed the line directly ahead of him back.

Hawke had his daggers out and was aiming to snap as many spinal cords as he could. Fenris was swinging his sword wide, trying to hit as many corpses as he could reach.

“Where are they coming from?!” Anders shouted.

Fenris huffed, fighting to get the words in between the precisely timed breaths that were a staple of his swordwork. “Around,” he said, quite unhelpfully. “It’s him. Go to her.”

“What?!” Anders cried. He flung a few smaller fireballs at the corpses sneaking up beside Fenris and Hawke, then a large one at the horde that was pressing them closer to the wall of the warehouse. It exploded a number of corpses into ugly bits of gore, and sent quite a few more rocketing back through the air, but the horde was still growing and soon filled the gaps.

“The witch!” Fenris called back. “I have Hawke! Go, mage! Help the witch!”

Anders startled as a Revenant took a swipe at him. He dodged quickly and plunged his hand through its helmet, before sending a burst of spirit magic through it. He shook the Revenant off, and blasted the next wave of undead with frost. “But what if you get hurt?!” he cried back at Fenris.

Fenris let out a string of expletives in Tevene.

The passers-by were completely backed against the warehouse wall, and Hawke was attempting to provide them cover with limited success.

Anders didn’t know what to do. He was knocking away as many undead as he could manage. Nobody seemed to need healing yet, but it was only a matter of time with this crowd.

But Fenris stepped intentionally back, away from Anders, to cover Hawke’s back. The two of them stepped in time – Fenris swinging his sword, and Hawke his daggers, in a carefully timed pattern. Anders saw flashes of them between an increasingly dense crowd of corpses, occasionally mowed down by the wide swing of Fenris’s sword.

“If I am hurt, I will use my brands to phase through the crowd to you! Satisfied, Anders?!” The gritted teeth and snarling tone indicated Fenris was not merely overexerted, but frustrated. “Now- Go! Help! The! Witch!”

Anders took a deep breath, then acted. He turned away from Fenris, sent a burst of flame ahead of him into the thickest crowd of corpses, and ran after it.

The corpses piled at him, clawing at his shoulders and legs and the sleeves of his coat. A few managed to bite into his hands, or drive whatever weapon they had scavenged into his side, but it did not matter. He was not of mortal men, and whatever accursed poison they attempted to bite and bury under his skin was nothing to someone cursed with darkspawn taint and magic both.

Using Justice’s strength, he tore them apart. His palms surging with white hot energy that melted their rotten flesh as he ripped them limb from limb. And it felt like the blink of his eye and hours all at once, by the time he wrenched the head off the last Arcane Horror standing between him and Merrill.

Merrill was still on her feet, exchanging blows of pure entropic energy with Falon’Din that discoloured their skin on contact. Her blood was hot and static in the air, and she was holding the corpses around her at bay with her signature move – tendrils of raw magic that spread out from the ground her feet to alternatively press away and ensnare her enemy.

But she didn’t look good. There was a gash on her forehead that was bleeding all the way down her face. Her reaction time was starting to slow. And Anders could tell she was hunched to compensate for what was probably internal injuries to her core, likely the result of entropic organ failure.

She flung another blast of entropic energy at Falon’Din with a jut of her staff.

Falon’Din managed to deflect it with a sidestep and a wave of his hand. He seemed worn too, although it was difficult for Anders to tell exactly how much. He drew another entropic spell into his hand, aimed right for Merrill’s head, and suddenly that was the only thing Anders needed to know.

“Don’t you dare!” Anders lunged forward, trying to get between Merrill and her attacker.

Anders only made it halfway before hitting the ground, but his spell didn’t. Falon’Din was caught off guard as a burst of flame exploded at his feet, sending him tumbling back.

Anders scrambled, trying to get to his feet on a stone platform torn to gravel by Merrill’s magic, with the air still sizzling with blood and electricity and so much raw magic it made Anders’s head hurt. His hands were sore and blistered from so many spells and everything Justice had done, and Anders flexed them, trying to get a grasp on the situation.

Merrill was hurt. And Fenris and Hawke were probably hurt as well. And if he could just get to them, he could heal them.

“I won’t lose you!” Anders screeched frantically. “Merrill! Stay back!”

Merrill did not stay back. It seemed that Anders’s attack was exactly the opportunity she’d been looking for. Falon’Din was lying prone, and Merrill’s face set with determination. She dropped her staff, bit her lip, and took a running, flying leap at Falon’Din. All the blood surrounding her in the air pooled in her right hand, covering her palm and extending off her nails. The tendrils of raw magic that usually surrounded her base all twisted forward, and wrapped around her bloodied hand in curling circles. And, with all her magical resources focussed into one concentrated attack, she pinned Falon’Din to the ground and drove her hand into his chest.

He screamed as the magic in Merrill’s palm spun through his robes and his flesh like a drill, splattering tattered fabric and gore around them.

Merrill extended her arm to press in further, and press herself up where she’d fallen over Falon’Din, sitting up straighter, spreading her legs to straddle and pin him more securely.

Then Falon’Din stopped screaming.

He must have been dead, Anders thought. Nobody could survive that. Or some people could survive that, if they were abominations or immortal gods, maybe? But Falon’Din was down for the count, and Merrill could stop now.

Merrill did not stop. She groped around Falon’Din’s chest cavity, like she was looking for something. And then her arm seized, and she ripped something out of him.

Anders had never seen anything like it before. It was a glowing pink orb, with a pattern like a fingerprint over its surface.

Anders didn’t get much time to form an impression because, just as soon as Merrill had wrenched the orb free, it flashed. She screamed like it burned.

“Merrill! No! Drop it!” Anders let out an anguished cry. He succeeded now in getting to his feet then and hurried to make it to her side.

Merrill did not drop it. More blood poured from the gash on her face, it travelled down her neck and over her shoulder and arm to surround the orb in her hand. She wasn’t screaming anymore, or acting as if she were in pain. But she seemed fainter than ever, delirious from blood loss. And when Anders reached her and crouched next to her, she slouched back into his lap, propped against his chest.

Anders readied himself to heal her. The air shifted as he pulled healing wisps into the space around them. But blood was still flowing from Merrill’s head wound, electric with magic, finding its way to the orb.

“Are you doing this on purpose?!” Anders demanded.

There was a small tilt to Merrill’s head that Anders very badly wanted to believe wasn’t an answer.

The hand holding the orb had drooped down to lie in her lap, like she didn’t have the energy to hold it up.

But she did. And she dragged the blood soaked orb in her palm up to her front, pressing away green fabric to find a gap in her armour. And, with a violent shuddering breath, she plunged the blood soaked orb into her own chest.

“No! Stop it!” Anders screamed insistently. “Why are you doing this?! Stop! Stop with the blood magic already! I can’t heal you like this! I need to heal you!” He shook Merrill by the shoulders, and began to reach for her hand and the orb, but stopped short.

Her flesh was bleeding badly where her magic broke through skin and muscle and bone and the orb gouged inside her. But it also… rippled? Like Merrill’s body was trying to reabsorb its own blood and the orb with it, and just hadn’t quite gotten the hang of it yet.

Flesh wasn’t supposed to do that.

There was no way to tell if forcibly removing the orb at this point would cause more blood loss than pressing it the rest of the way in. But she needed to-

“Stop! Stop!” Anders continued screaming, until Merrill’s elbow swung up into his chin.

The blow was too weak to do more than brush his whiskers, but Anders was quite honestly impressed that Merrill had found the energy to struggle at all.

She pressed the orb in further, with only a few stray fingers.

“Quiet,” she muttered under her breath. “Almost done. -- be unconscious soon. Can heal me all you like then.”

Anders suddenly felt blisteringly angry in addition to blisteringly afraid. “Excuse me for caring if you die!” he shouted.

But then the orb finished breaching Merrill’s chest. She pressed it in tangent to the plane of where her skin would have been. And then it… sunk in further. Her flesh closed in on itself – a patchy bit of inflamed and bleeding skin and muscle stretching over where the orb had shorn its way inside.

“Creators…” Merrill shuddered in his arms. “Oh, that’s…”

Anders didn’t get to figure out what ‘that’ was. Merrill had finally fainted. And Anders finally stopped screaming.

Several of Merrill’s vital organs were failing, and she’d lost more blood than anyone had any business being conscious to witness. Now came the hard part, but it was also the easy part. The synaptic energy in her blood had calmed, the hold her magic had on her body had receded, and Anders could heal her now. He could do something. He was no longer doomed to sit in a tower and watch helplessly as the people he cared about were tortured and killed.

Anders called all the wisps he had at his disposal and got to work.

Witnessing these traumatic events befall his sweetheart, and the task of healing her in the aftermath, occupied the entirety of Anders’s attention. And so please forgive him for having lost track of the movements of the undead horde. Anders did not find out until later, when Fenris explained to him:

The undead had ceased attacking sometime prior, presumably at the moment of Falon’Din’s demise. But it wasn’t until Merrill fell unconscious that the corpses in turn fell to the ground – returned finally to their natural, restful state.

Chapter Text

It wasn’t often that Anders ran across a medical concern that his long years working as a healer had left him entirely unprepared to address. And this was the second one in less than a week.

The miner had been in a secluded pocket of a local silver mine when the chokedamp came seeping up through the ground, and was in the late stages of hypoxic-anoxic brain injury by the time he was carried into the clinic by three of his companions. Anders freshened the air with his magic and got to work attempting to heal the damage, but the miner’s companions were grim faced as they begged off back to work. Their overseer had only given them an hour to take the injured miner in for healing and get back, and it was a calculated risk which one would disobey the order to deliver the news to the man’s wife.

Anders cursed Kirkwall – its wealth and its poverty, its callous inhumanity, the seeming futility in Lirene having spent years to ensure jobs and housing for Fereldans, only to be met with these ends. And then Anders cursed himself, because even as he poured his magic into the miner, the man continued to deteriorate.

Anders could regrow damaged tissue and bring life back to limbs and extremities that had gone pale grey, deprived of blood and air. But he couldn’t return whatever the chokedamp had strangled out of the man’s mind. And so much had already been taken that Anders could do nothing but wage a losing battle, attempting to keep the miner’s body alive as his nervous system shut down and progressively took the function of his organs with it. The miner’s wife arrived just in time to see her husband draw one final breath, then stop.

“I thought I could- I had to- I- I couldn’t do anything!” Anders sobbed.

“There, there,” the miner’s widow offered, patting him awkwardly on the shoulder.

“I- I-” Anders gasped for air. He wiped his eyes against the widow’s smock. “He was alive when they brought him to me. And-” The miner had been robust, and seemingly without other medical complications aside. He had to have been in perfect health just that morning, and now he was- “He was alive and he died in my arms!” Anders cried.

“Well, you did everything you could, right?” the widow said uncomfortably. “Nobody can expect more than that.”

“But if- If I-” Anders grasped for something he could have done, something that could have resulted in a different outcome, and only felt worse when he couldn’t find one. He began to break into another wail. “He didn’t- I couldn’t-”

“Oh, stop it!” The widow shoved him off her shoulder, and abruptly stood from the bench where they had both been seated.

Anders blinked harshly, taken aback by her outburst. He wiped the tears from his eyes, though they kept flowing.

“Stop it!” the widow commanded. “Stop whining! Stop crying! Stop-” She hissed in frustration as she struggled for the word. “-it! Just stop it!”

Anders blinked away more tears, and felt his face wrinkle into a frown. “Excuse me for feeling something!” he said hotly. “A man just died! In my arms!”

“He was my husband-!” the widow snarled back, “Not yours! Why should I have to comfort you?! Do you think I don’t want to cry?!” She sniffled, but no tears fell. “Pull yourself together, healer!”

Anders did, begrudgingly.

She sniffled again, but her words were sharp and clear. “I’ll need to make arrangements and deliver the news to the appropriate parties. You’ll take care of disposing the body, won’t you, healer?”

Anders scowled petulantly as he wiped away the last of his tears, but nodded. That was a service he did provide for the deceased.

“Thank you,” the widow said, though her voice was stiff and her tone did not altogether convey gratitude. “I’ll be taking my leave then.”

She didn’t wait before turning on her heel and heading straight out the clinic.

Left in her wake and the silence of the empty room, Anders felt a little bereft. He took a moment to wipe his face clean and scuff his boots against the floor, moving piles of sawdust side to side. Water dripped irregularly from a leaky drainpipe in the corner. The miner’s corpse was still lying on the examination table, where his fellows had hoisted the body while it was still alive.

After a moment, Anders stood and headed for the back room of his clinic.

There was a simple wood trunk with an iron latch that Anders kept piled under a few others with clothes and bandages and medicine and other more daily necessities. He dug it out from the stack resignedly, and opened it to the pungent smell of bundles of funerary herbs, dried for burning. And, no matter how long the period between needing to open the chest, he could not help but wish it would be longer the next time.

That was normal, right? To feel distressed when people died. To want to do everything you could to stop it from happening again. As Anders stuffed a few bundles of herbs under his arm, he began to feel freshly irritated with the way the widow had treated him. And he felt even more irritated when he stood, observed his empty bed and the jar sitting atop his desk, and recalled the first of the recent medical concerns he had no answers for.

Anders had brought Merrill to his clinic the evening after she collapsed at the docks, and she had spent the night and two nights more there, as Anders administered treatments and monitored her vitals. She had been improving steadily, it seemed, sleeping and waking, occasionally murmuring something in the Elvhen language or beckoning him for a kiss. And then on the afternoon of the second day of her stay, she’d started coughing until she hacked up a heart.

It was… a heart. A normal one, it seemed. A bit of bloody muscle with four chambers for pumping blood. Presumably it was Merrill’s, because whose else could it be? Unless it was that Elvhen god guy’s. And it didn’t really make even a little sense that it had found its way to Merrill’s windpipe in the first place, and Anders wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen her cough the thing up itself. But once he’d finished hyperventilating about it, he checked Merrill over and realised she still had a heartbeat and pulse, was breathing more normally without the obstruction in her throat, and was now drifting back to sleep.

So Merrill might have grown a new heart, although Anders had a sneaking suspicion the orb she’d shoved in her chest had replaced it somehow. But it was hard to tell without performing surgery to check, and that would have been a needless risk with Merrill still recovering and, apparently, recovering well. So Anders plucked the old heart off the floor, sealed it in an enchanted jar to keep it fresh, and resolved to continue keeping a close eye on Merrill’s condition until they could discuss things further.

And then Merrill had slipped away yesterday afternoon while Anders was busy in the main clinic dealing with a massive infestation of pox, leaving Anders with the dirty dishes from her first meal in three days, a heart in a jar, and no answers. She hadn’t stayed for a check-up, debrief, or even filled out the discharge paperwork.

It was, frankly, just like Merrill to muddle with dark magic, scare everyone half to death with unfathomable disregard for her own well-being, and then wander off disinterestedly before anyone could come to terms with it. And Anders was working himself up to proper indignation about the injustice of it, when there was a rattle in the main room of the clinic, like someone had knocked over a chair or one of the cots.

Anders felt properly unnerved. The clinic had been empty when he came into the back room, and he hadn’t heard anyone else come in since. He peeked his head out the doorway of his room to look. “Hello?”

He scanned the clinic. One of the cots had been knocked over. There was a flash of movement, as a foot slipped out the clinic’s front entrance into the Darktown corridors.

Anders scanned the clinic again and found it even more vacant than he had left it. The examination table where the body had been was empty.

Anders’s first thought was that the miner had somehow miraculously survived. But- no. Anders had watched the man die. Double and triple checked as his vital signs faltered and failed, one by one. The man was dead.

Anders’s second thought was that the corpse must have been possessed. Possession was a sort of inevitability for corpses left out indefinitely, as there were natural fluctuations in the Veil that brought wisps across in search of a body to take refuge in. But it would have been very unlikely for such a fluctuation to have happened in such close vicinity within the half-hour or so since the miner’s passing. And such natural possessions were sudden and unexpected for the spirits involved, and usually left the wisps confused, stumbling aimlessly around the location they’d been brought into the mortal realm until they thought of something better to be doing.

Anders considered a moment longer, before placing the bundles of funerary herbs on the empty examination table. He walked briskly to catch up with the corpse, using his magic to adjust the false wall and extinguish the lamp that marked the clinic’s entrance as he went.

Anders hurried down a ramp, and caught sight of the miner’s corpse as he turned the only corner to one of Darktown’s more central thoroughfares.

It was moving purposefully, if not quickly, and stopped to pick up a half-rotted plank of hardwood to tuck into its elbow, where several other pieces of scrap wood were already collected.

Anders darted up next to the corpse, not particularly aggressively, but close enough so as to invite an attack. But the corpse seemed to take no notice of him as it continued to walk through the undercity. At least, not until Anders brought his hands together and began casting to send whatever spirit was possessing it back across the Veil.

The corpse turned and swatted his hands apart before the spell could be completed.

“Hey!” Anders protested. “What do you think you’re-?” He cut himself off with an indignant huff.

The corpse had dropped a couple of pieces of its scrap wood in the process, and was once again taking no notice of Anders as it bent down to retrieve them.

The swatting hands and altogether dismissiveness of the corpse’s gesture had a certain… familiarity.

Certainly Anders could have forced the issue – disabled the corpse, dispelled the necromancy, and sent the spirit in possession packing. But the spirit was clearly aware of itself, and of its surroundings, and of Anders too, even if it liked to pretend it wasn’t. Whatever it was doing and wherever it was going, it was doing so with intention and reason, and Anders intended to find out what that was.

The corpse had already started to amble away again, and Anders fell into step behind with growing unease.

The behaviour of the corpse was alarming, but perhaps even more alarming was the complete lack of reaction to it from the locals. Darktown appeared to be chugging along like normal. Tomwise was hawking his poisons and grenades. The Carta runners ran. Waifs sewed rags, gossiped, coughed, and pissed in the mining corridors. A group of dwarves were marching past in the opposite direction, and passed nonchalantly within arm’s reach of the corpse. Anders watched their expressions as they hurried past: serious, grim, tired, grey-

Wait! Anders did a double take. That latest dwarf – her expression wasn’t just grey in some metaphorical sense. Her face was quite literally blanched grey with livor mortis! Anders craned to get a better look.This was definitely a second walking corpse! Its eyes were glassy and shrunken, and its chest did not heave with the regular intake of breath. And it was carrying a bucket that jostled with its uneven pace, rattling with bits of scrap metal and old nails.

Anders felt quite torn in opposite directions. His breathing accelerated as he glanced between the retreating corpse of the dwarf and that of the miner, which was distracted poking at a pile of garbage that may or may not have been some waif’s nest. And Anders had just about decided to stay with the corpse he knew when, somewhere between his frantic glances, his eyes caught on a familiar pair of boys, steering a draisienne stacked with twine-strung packages.

Perhaps they would have answers. Anders waved, and they drew to a stop as he approached.

“Good day, Healer,” Walter said, a sentiment quickly echoed by Cricket.

“Yes. Good day. Good day,” Anders agreed. He felt anxious and distractable, and his eye caught on Cricket’s fancy neck tie. “Weren’t you taken in by Hightowners, Cricket? Shouldn’t you be… there? They treating you alright?”

“Oh, don’t go sounding like them, Healer,” Cricket scoffed. He sounded very haughty for a boy barely ten years of age. “They’re alright. Or they will be once I’ve taught them a bit of common sense. They always make a huge fuss whenever I come down here. But it’s not so bad – since they’re always trying to butter me up with sweets afterwards.”

“I keep telling Cricket the same thing as you, Healer – Shouldn’t you be up in Hightown? – but he won’t listen. And, well, I can’t say I’m not glad that Cricket hasn’t forgotten the rest of us.” Walter was the eldest of Evelina’s children, nearly a man now, and Anders was glad to see he’d developed an air of responsibility around himself. “Cricket’s helping me run my deliveries,” Walter went on to explain. “Although it’s not a terribly busy day so we’ve been strolling for the most part.”

“Right,” Anders agreed. He turned to look at the miner’s corpse, which was currently struggling to get a grasp on a piece of plywood twice as wide as it. “So, er- You’re seeing this, right?” Anders was pretty sure he wasn’t imagining this, but it didn’t hurt to check.

“You mean the dead guy walking about?” Cricket asked. “Yeah, they’re all over.”

“Yeah, it’s a bit strange,” Walter agreed. “There was a big uproar about four days ago where a lot of them started running about. And then there was a day when there weren’t any of them, save just lying about on the ground. But they’ve gradually started getting to their feet again and ambling around. They seem pretty active today, although not so aggressive as they were when they first appeared.”

The corpse finally managed to lift the plywood, and was now struggling to steer it through the Darktown tunnels.

“And- That’s it?” Anders asked. “There are just… corpses… walking all around Kirkwall? And nobody is panicking? Or doing… anything?”

“Well, it was a bit scary at first. But they’re not really doing much of anything.” Walter shrugged. “Even the ones at the beginning didn’t really attack anyone as much as knock a few people over running to the docks. And they seem much calmer now.” He rolled the draisienne back and forth idly, and the packages swayed. “Honestly it was much worse with the Qunari rampage five years back. And that time with the Chantry when the docks were all overrun with demons… I suppose some people are upset enough to board themselves inside, but other than that it’s business as usual.”

“Nobody’s doing anything?!” Anders repeated.

Cricket rolled his eyes. Nobody had taught him any manners.

“You just have to think about it logically, Messere Healer,” Walter urged. “If you think about it, there are really only a few people that could be responsible, especially with how the Guard is keeping track of who enters and leaves the city. It could be the Antiquarian, or the Alienage Witch, or First Enchanter Harvester-”

“Or you,” Cricket cut in.

Walter levelled a kick at Cricket’s shin and gave him a sharp look. He looked back to Anders with a mollifying smile.

Anders wasn’t having it. “You think I did this?!” he screeched.

“No, no, of course not, Messere!” Walter reassured. “But just hypothetically, if it was you, what would any of us do about it? It’s not like we’d manage to accomplish much. In fact, it would be pretty foolish to start a confrontation with an abomination-”

Cricket, who was a vindictive little shit, took this opportunity to return the kick to Walter’s shin.

Walter winced, be it from the kick or Anders’s warning look. “A healer,” he corrected. “You wouldn’t start a confrontation with a healer over a bunch of corpses that aren’t hurting anyone. And it’s the same for all the rest of them. In fact, if the Darktown Healer or the Alienage Witch are involved, pretty soon the other one is too, along with the Champion and the Lyrium Ghost and the Captain of the Guard, so there’s just no point in starting any trouble to begin with.”

Anders felt intrinsically there was something about this statement to protest, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it and, well, he was out of time to contemplate it. The corpse of the miner had figured out how to turn the plywood through the tunnel, and Anders needed to catch up.

“Well, er- Thank you for the information, but I had better get going. Take care of yourselves, Walter, Cricket. If you or any of Evelina’s ever need anything, my clinic is always open to you.”

“Thanks, Healer. We know.” Walter smiled.

The sentiment was echoed less enthusiastically by Cricket, but Anders didn’t wait around to take it in. He loped after the corpse, and caught up to find it climbing one of the few stairway passages up to Lowtown. It was still struggling with the plywood sheet and, after a moment, Anders helped lift the side of it.

The corpse did not thank him – Why did Anders expect a corpse to thank him? – but it managed to climb the rest of the way to Lowtown unimpeded and, once on flatter ground, was able to manage the plywood itself. And it wasn’t stopping to pick up scrap anymore, now that it had found a prize large enough, and instead hobbled a more direct path through the city.

Anders followed as they circled around the edge of the Market District and up into the Old City Slums, and took note of the city around them.

There were more corpses up here, all bustling around carrying a variety of junkyard material – trying to put the Darktown recyclers out of business it seemed. But they were docile enough, even the larger Horrors and Revenants. One group of them that passed appeared to be working together to carry a wrecked and upturned dinghy as large as six of them.

And, like Walter and Cricket had insinuated, Kirkwall was largely moving along in spite of the undead activity.

There were maybe less living people out than normal. A few of the regular market stalls appeared to have closed for the day, from what Anders had managed to see from adjacent alleyways. The people that were out gave the corpses a wider berth than the passers-by in Darktown – perhaps less accustomed to the particular smell of rotted flesh. But there was no screaming or chaos or the kind of widespread indignation Anders would have imagined.

Anders was in the middle of pondering this, when he rounded a corner after the corpse, and found himself face to face with quite possibly the person in all of Thedas he wanted to see least. Or maybe not, because Thedas was still full of Templars and Seekers and Wardens and ancient, body-hacking Magisters and altogether horrible people. But she definitely cracked the top thousand.

Anders quickly looked elsewhere. Maybe if he pretended not to see her, she would pretend not to see him, and they’d both be happier for it.

Aveline did not allow him the courtesy. She lowered her shield as she approached, but her eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s a public street, isn’t it?” Anders said, to be petulant. “I might as well ask you the same thing.”

“Not with the same authority.” Aveline groaned and rolled her eyes but, after a beat, she answered. “As Captain of the Guard, I’m investigating the-” She groaned again and jerked her head at the miner’s corpse plucking along ahead of him. “-infestation,” she decided. “You wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with this, would you?”

“No,” Anders spat. And then kind of wished he’d said ‘yes’ just to see what Aveline would do about it. But he supposed it would have been more trouble than it was worth anyhow. “I didn’t find out about it until today. That’s my patient,” he jerked his own head towards the miner’s corpse in turn. “Walked right off my examination table.”

“Didn’t think you did have anything to do with it,” Aveline sighed. “The Keep didn’t have much information to make sense of the first couple of days – just another freak magical accident. But today’s reports paint a rather clearer picture.”

“What picture? And- wait- why are you following me?” he interrupted himself as Aveline moved into step behind him, following the corpse down the next twisting street.

“I’ve said before, City Guard information is classified. And I’m not following you,” she clarified. “I happen to have business in this direction.”

“Yes, perfect,” Anders said sarcastically. “You just happen to have business following my corpse?!”

“Or the corpse has business the same place I do for a reason.” Aveline rolled her eyes again. “Idiot,” she punctuated.

Anders scowled. He didn’t like how effortlessly Aveline did, in fact, make him feel stupid. And through no brilliance of her own.

They walked together in silence for as long as Anders could manage to stay quiet. Right now, that was about two city blocks.

“So,” Anders began, “what have you been up to? Beat up any homeless people lately? Stolen any beggar bowls for your evidence locker?”

“Ugh, it’s been a nightmare at the Keep the last month,” Aveline groaned. “Even before all of this with the undead. That Seeker and her people turned the building upside down with their investigation, and nothing has been in order since. You know she conducted her interrogations between our premises and the Dwarven Merchant’s Guild, using sentries from my Guard?!” Aveline made a strangled noise. “Between her people and mine, I have five different accounts of her final interrogation with Varric, and not a single time stamp matches between them!”

Anders didn’t want to hear this. “You know I was just insulting you, right? I wasn’t really asking how you’ve been.”

“I know,” Aveline said, “but if I spent my time waiting around for you to be civil, nothing in this city would ever get done.”

Anders huffed. If any good got done in this city, it was more in spite of Aveline than because of her. And Anders was plenty civil to her, all considered! He magnanimously tolerated his friends’ friendship with her, and had forgiven the whole thing where she’d once married a Templar, and let her win at Wicked Grace that one time as a favour to Donnic! Not to mention the times he’d healed her or had her back during outings with Hawke!

Really, Anders thought, he deserved a medal for how civil and patient he’d been with Aveline. In fact, if anyone knew what he had been through, Divine Constance V herself would have awarded Anders with the Silver Wings of Valour! Of Patience! Of Civility! Of Divini-!

The paths of several more corpses had converged with theirs, each walking in rhythm down the steps out of the Old Town Slums, but Anders’s train of thought did not derail until he turned the corner to the wide flight of steps down into the Alienage and- Maker’s Breath.

The miner’s corpse continued down the steps, lugging the sheet of plywood, and was soon lost to the crowd. But Anders stopped dead in his tracks, because this- This.

If the undead were insects, this was the hive. There were hundreds of corpses. Maybe even thousands. And they had transformed the central plaza of the Alienage into the largest workshop Anders had ever seen. Larger than Meredith’s in the Gallows. Larger than the Glavonak Brothers’ at Vigil’s Keep. The Largest.

The plaza was divided unevenly into quadrants. One centred around a large set of tenements built into the cliffside, which were in the process of being systematically demolished, top-down. The scrap from the demolition was carried to the second quadrant, a makeshift supply yard, where it was sorted along with the scrap carried in from the rest of the city. The largest quadrant was the workshop itself, where the undead sawed and hammered and pieced their constructions together, before storing the fruits of the labour in the fourth. The flow of the undead and their combined work gave the impression of a smooth counter-clockwise movement about the Vhenadahl. Or it would have, but the Vhenadahl – usually the tallest figure to be found within the Alienage walls – was now dwarfed by several belfries towering above its lush leafy branches. And, opposite the stairway descending into the Alienage, at the head of all of this, was a dais built out of the tenement Anders was most familiar with. The dais was lined with tables and half covered by a peach coloured tent but, there, in a sunny spot at its centre, stood the queen bee, directing her swarm.

It took Anders a moment to realise Aveline had pulled ahead of him, and he hurried down the steps to walk in her shadow. For having neglected to assign attribute points to any other area of skill, Aveline did make a passably good battering ram when moving through a crowd. Although, probably not as good a battering ram as the… literal battering rams they passed along the way. Along with the ladders. Arrows. Pikes. Catapults.

Anders still hadn’t put it all together by the time they crossed the plaza and climbed up to the encampment on the dais.

Merrill was standing amidst a small group otherwise comprised of three elves, two Arcane Horrors, and a very tall human woman whose blonde hair was braided and ornamented in the latest Hightown style. A large green book was opened in Merrill’s palm, and she was pointing to its pages and lifting it to show the others, when Aveline and Anders’s approach drew the group’s attention.

Two of the elves scattered reflexively at the arrival of the Captain of the Guard. And Merrill turned, ears alert and lips pursed softly in surprise, to the spaces at her side they’d vacated, and then to where they were vaulting over the side of the dais. But Anders’s eyes were only for her.

She looked healthy – the colour returned to her cheeks, and the grace in the way she folded the fingers in her hand. But there were so many things Anders didn’t understand. “Sweetheart,” he called to her.

It was drowned out by Aveline’s bellow. “Merrill!”

Merrill turned to them, and looked startled for only a split second before managing to suppress it. “Aveline! Anders, ma vhenan! It’s good to see you both~” She shooed the Arcane Horrors away, and used the misdirection to shut the book in her other hand and slide it unobtrusively onto the table behind her.

The Arcane Horrors bowed slightly to her before flying off. And the remaining elf, who Anders now recognised as the Alienage Hahren, likewise gave her farewells and brushed swiftly past, shooting Anders a critical look as she went. This left behind only Merrill and the human noblewoman.

Aveline’s boots cracked furiously against the wooden planks of the dais as she stomped forward. She spoke down at Merrill in a furious hiss. “What in the Maker’s name do you think you’re trying to pull, Merrill?”

“Oh, nothing,” Merrill said, innocent and wide-eyed. But she seemed to recognise Aveline’s line of sight wandering, and she stepped sideways to centre herself in Aveline’s vision, as if it might hide the view of the trebuchet directly in the plaza behind her.

“‘Nothing,’ she tells me,” Aveline huffed. “So unnatural magic, who knows how many corpses crawling around Kirkwall, answering to you, tearing apart homes for whatever war game you think you’re running – that’s nothing?”

There was something provocatively dismissive in Aveline’s tone, and Anders couldn’t help but take the bait. “A game?!” Anders repeated. “You think necromancy on this scale is a game?!”

Aveline turned to glare at him, jerked her head to indicate Merrill, and mouthed something he couldn’t catch.

Merrill was tracing runes against the palm of her hand with her fingers, a nervous habit as she pondered Aveline’s question. “Well, I suppose it’s something,” she finally admitted. “But nothing too important.”

“Merrill!” Aveline growled in reprimand.

“Wait, so- It is Merrill doing this, for sure? With the-” Anders waved back at the undead horde. He finally swallowed down the horror he’d been digesting all day. “Oh, Maker help me, what did that thing do to you?!” he said aghast at Merrill.

“Ugh!” Aveline groaned. “We don’t have time for you to process every belated revelation, Anders!”

Anders ignored her though as he hurried forward.

Merrill looked rather startled as he pressed a hand to her forehead and checked its temperature against his own. She was bit colder than him, but that was normal for her, and by the time Anders wrapped two fingers about her left wrist and began counting her pulse, Merrill no longer seemed concerned with him.

“Merrill, you had no right to tear down one of the Alienage tenements,” Aveline insisted. “It’s property that does not belong to you.”

“I used to have no right to it,” Merrill corrected. “But Lady Thrennhold was really very kind and signed over usage of the property to me yesterday.” Merrill waved her right hand lazily, and the noblewoman scurried forward with a bundle of paperwork. “Oh, it was very exciting,” Merrill gushed. “She had this big garden where she served tea and scones and these tiny sandwiches, and there was this funny little man with a quill and spectacles that wrote down everything she said. So everything should be in order.”

Aveline seemed unsure, but accepted the paperwork from Lady Thrennhold. She skimmed through the top pages, before she was able to break free from the siren call of legal documentation. “No! No!” she insisted, shoving the paperwork back at the noblewoman. “It doesn’t matter what Lady Thrennhold has to say on the matter. Those tenements are built directly into the cliffside. They’re the property of the City of Kirkwall.”

Merrill seemed unperturbed. “The way Lady Thrennhold tells it, they’ve been in her family seven generations.”

“Leased to her family,” Aveline grit out. “The right to use and sublet the units in the building is afforded to her family by a long term lease with the Keep. She can’t just go tearing the whole building down.”

“But she is responsible for renovations and upkeep,” Merrill retorted. “And since she hasn’t fixed the mould or the contaminated pipes. Or the leaky roof or the broken windows or the holes in the stairs. In the entire ten years I’ve been here. While she collected rent from the elves living in squalor.”

Anders was alarmed when the whites of Merrill’s eyes flashed briefly black.

They were back to normal by the time they crinkled with Merrill’s smile. “So since Lady Thrennhold must have been saving up to do all the repair work at once, there’s a lot of demolition and rebuilding to do all at once,” she concluded soundly.

Merrill’s heart rate was within her normal range, about eighty beats a minute. “Going to check your eyes next, sweetheart,” Anders forewarned.

Merrill made a small humming noise in acknowledgement, and cooperated as he held her eyelid open and used a spell wisp to flash light in her eye. The pupil of her left eye seemed to contract and dilate like normal. The right one too. Her irises were their usual dusty hazel colour, and her sclerae a healthy white. Looking at Merrill’s eyes now, there was nothing unusual about them, and Anders could think of no explanation for how they’d turned black a moment before.

“Those tenements are built directly into the cliffside,” Aveline said. “Repairs on them have to be done piecewise for a reason. They’re holding the rest of the city up. There could be landslides without them.”

“It is terrible – living in a city that’s always about to collapse on top of you. But, oh, it wasn’t too difficult to fix that part. All the cliff needed was to be packed together a little tighter. With some tree roots to hold it all together.” Merrill made a little gasp and tips of her ears wiggled, like she’d stumbled upon a sudden revelation. “That must have been why Lady Thrennhold agreed to hand the project over to me!” she announced with a small preen. “She must have known I had the magic to make sure the cliff didn’t go falling over itself like stumbling out the Hanged Man at last call~”

The human noblewoman on Merrill’s other side, presumably Lady Thrennhold, had spent the entirety of the conversation smiling with a dazed look on her face. But at this statement she nodded agreeably.

Aveline studied her grimly, before making a show of spreading her feet shoulder distance apart and folding her arms over her chest. “Merrill,” she said firmly, “you said you met with Lady Thrennhold yesterday. And if I had asked her the day before whether she had any intention of signing the building out of her family’s name and over to an elf, what would she have told me?”

“I suppose we’ll never know, will we?” Merrill waxed ponderously. “Given I asked her yesterday, and neither of us asked her anything the day before.”

“Less than two years ago, she tried to petition the Provisional Viscount to make ‘rabbit’ hunting legal,” Aveline gritted out.

“Isn’t it lovely when people have a change of heart?” Merrill sighed appreciatively.

Anders stepped back and considered the situation. He had concluded another series of tests to determine if Merrill was, well, possessed. But to inconclusive results. She was emitting an unusually high volume of spirit energy. But it seemed centred around her core instead of her sensory nervous system, the way it would have been in a typical abomination. (The way Justice, who was in many ways far from typical, occupied Anders’s mind before his eyes and ears and nose and tongue and the top layer of his skin, and all of those before he spread out through the rest of Anders’s body.) And Merrill didn’t seem to be displaying any of the other signs of possession – extra limbs, speech impairment, erratic shifts in temperament.

Aveline and Merrill were still arguing. This time about the legality of evicting the elves from the demolished tenements for the duration of the ‘repairs’. Merrill was claiming the residents had moved out of their own volition, and the Hahren could attest to it – But not today, lethallan. She already said she’d be out the rest of the afternoon and evening, helping Lia show her new fiancé around town, and it really wouldn’t do to bother them. – when the debate was interrupted by a new arrival.

“You there- Witch!” Fenris was standing near the base of the dais, and he knocked a few corpses out of the way before ascending the stairs, looking like fury incarnate. His scowl lightened momentarily as he nodded to Aveline.

“Fenris,” Aveline acknowledged in turn. “Can this wait? I’m interrogating Merrill about the demolition of Alienage tenements.”

“Really, Aveline?” Fenris huffed. “That is how the Guard is choosing to approach this problem? The building was ready to fall over even before the witch got involved. Try again.”

Aveline snorted derisively but, by the way she hung her head, she appeared to take the criticism to heart. “Aren’t you mouthy today?”

“I have good reason to be,” Fenris asserted. “Now then-” He resumed his attempts to stare Merrill down. “Return them,” he commanded.

“Hmm?” Merrill made an unconvincing sort of noise, like she didn’t understand his meaning.

This was a good thing, Anders thought. Fenris was far more likely to talk sense into Merrill than Aveline.

“The corpses,” Fenris said. “You took the ones from the floor of my manor. Return them. I was using them to grow samples of rare fungi, and I don’t need them tromping about the city picking up spores from common varieties.”

“Seriously?” Aveline demanded.

It hadn’t quite been what Anders was expecting either.

“Fenris,” Merrill huffed, “you’re not going to get good samples growing them uncovered in your cellar with no climate control.”

“Do I care, witch?” Fenris crossed his arms over his chest. “The corpses are mine and you had no right to take them.”

Merrill sighed, but she began to get this sly little look on her face. “Well, I suppose returning a couple of them couldn’t hurt… That is, if you don’t mind petitioning me in the traditional fashion, Fenris.”

Fenris rolled his eyes and hemmed and hawed, but in the end he did as she asked. “Yes, fine.” He brought clasped his hands together. “O great Creator. Lady of the Dead. She, who walks us safely into the beyond. Hear my prayer and- Return to me my fungus samples.” He leaned in and spoke directly to Merrill’s ear in a low, commanding tremor that left Anders wondering if he were only imagining the subtext.

“Very good~” Merrill cooed. “And the ritual tribute?”

Fenris sighed again, but the slightest of smirks graced his lip. He turned Merrill by the shoulder, stepped to stand behind her and, without warning, slapped her hard on the ass.

Merrill’s knees buckled a bit, knocking in on one another. She broke into a fit of giggles. “Oh, alright,” she said coyly. She turned to Fenris and tiptoed up to press a kiss to his cheek. “I suppose I can answer the prayer of such a devout worshipper.”

Anders turned to Aveline. “Alright, what in the Maker’s name was that?”

“Don’t know why you’re asking me,” Aveline muttered. Her face was red and she seemed to be making a concerted effort to not meet anyone’s eyes. “I endeavour to know as little as possible about your bunch’s relationship and whatever games you play in the bedroom.”

Anders scoffed. This wasn’t some bedroom game… or was it? Maybe he was missing something. He probably was better off asking- “Um, Fenris, love?” he interjected.

Fenris had seemed light-hearted a moment before, but his glare returned in full force as he turned to Anders. “Oh? Is the mage deigning to speak to me now?”

It was such an unnecessarily hostile thing to say, Anders wasn’t quite sure how to respond. The only thing Anders could think of what that he must have upset Fenris… somehow. But before Anders could figure out how, his time ran out.

Merrill had finished waving a pair of fungus-covered corpses across the yard to the bottom of the dais, and Fenris snorted ruefully and looked away from Anders.

“I’ll be taking them home to their cellar then,” he informed Merrill. “And Isabela and I haven’t forgotten our dinner engagement with you and Donnic this Sunday,” he assured Aveline, before turning and descending the steps off the dais the way he came.

Anders watched him leave, followed by those slaver corpses of his, and allowed himself to feel a little melancholic.

Aveline quickly took the opportunity to go in for round two. “Ugh, Merrill… Merrill, Merrill.” Each successive repetition of the name was more exasperated than the last, and Aveline heaved a sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose. “You can’t be doing this. I know the Keep is in the process of ratifying several changes into the law books in relation to-” She drew her hand away from her face to shoot Anders a dirty look. “But even if we ignore all the magic-related provisos, this is a felony – desecration of a corpse. Or a few hundred felonies for a few hundred corpses!”

Merrill seemed as prepared for this topic of verbal assault as the last. “Well you can just add it to the pile, can’t you, Aveline? Would you?” Merrill’s eyes began to sparkle. “Oh, I wonder how many crimes I have built up now. Isabela would be just so very jealous if I managed to make it to four digits.”

Aveline did not seem amused. “Merrill, it’s improper. We can’t have hundreds of corpses walking around Kirkwall doing Maker knows what! It’s offensive. It’s a health hazard-”

“I’m still working on the embalming,” Merrill cut in. “And I’m sure Anders will help if anyone catches anything too grimy. And anyhow the city was hardly less filthy with them just lying about. And they could probably help-”

“It’s disrespectful!” Aveline shot her down. She was visibly angry now. “No matter your or my feelings on the matter, these people are Andrastian and expected their corpses cremated after their death, not puppeted about by dark magic!”

There was a pause in the conversation. Merrill frowned in concentration, as she picked a scab on her elbow. “Oh?” she asked. “And I should be respectful? Because humans are always so respectful? Because they never go digging up Elvhen gravesites and looting them? And never build cities or mines on the corpses of the People?” Merrill abandoned the scab and turned to smile serenely at Aveline.

Aveline was scowling ferociously. “What do you want, Merrill?” she grit out.

“I think you know what I want,” Merrill said. “We’ve worked together many years. You’re very clever, Aveline. And I don’t think I’m a terribly unreasonable person. Bring me something I’d like, and I will release an appropriate number of corpses to you.”

All the anger seemed to have left Aveline now. Her face set in a grim expression. “This doesn’t end well, Merrill,” she warned.

“No, maybe not,” Merrill agreed. “But I liked you all the same… Now, I think ma vhenan has been waiting to speak with me, so I’ll just borrow him for a moment and let you work out the rest with Lady Thrennhold.”

“This isn’t ov-!”Aveline said.

Merrill snapped her fingers and Lady Thrennhold, who Anders had quite forgotten about, jumped suddenly to attention.

“This is outrageous!” Lady Thrennhold shrieked, descending on Aveline. “I demand to speak with your manager!” She jutted her chin aggressively as she continued shouting in Aveline’s face and, with surprisingly little concern for her self preservation, blocked Aveline’s attempts to sidestep her bodily.

Anders hadn’t quite worked out who in that mess to feel sorry for, when Merrill grabbed him by the arm. She stopped at one of the wooden tables outlining the dais and quickly shoved a few charts and the book she’d been reading earlier under her arm, before proceeding to drag him to the peach-coloured tent on the other end of the dais.

The tent itself was rather large, and open on several sides so it functioned more as shade from the sun than total privacy. And it was surprisingly empty. The Eluvian stood opposite its entrance, clouds moving over its smooth surface, and other than that there was only another wooden table, where Merrill dropped the book and papers she dragged in from outside.

Anders took a closer look at them now. There were maps of the city, along with what appeared to be construction charts for the trebuchets and towers, several architectural surveys, Merrill’s notes from Kirkwall’s brief Qunari Insurrection, and the book titled Forts, Towers, Weaponry, and the Making and Taking Thereof; a Military Manual for Beginners.

“Are you borrowing books from Xenon’s library again?” Anders demanded. “I wish you wouldn’t, sweetheart. I’ve told you before: The whole library is cursed. If you miss the due date-”

“Is that really what you want to be asking me?” Merrill said distractedly. She’d let go of his arm, was quickly tidying the papers on her desk, and hurried to grab the Eluvian and drag it closer. “Just I may have to scurry out of here on short notice and-” The Eluvian’s wooden frame clattered lightly as it hit the edge of the desk, and Merrill forced a deep breath. She seemed to re-evaluate as she circled back around the table ahead of Anders. “I’m sorry, vhenan. You must be terribly confused.” She reached to clasp his hands in hers and threaded their fingers together. “I’ll try to answer your questions the best I can.”

“Right,” Anders agreed. But now that Merrill’s eyes and hands and attention were focussed fully on him, he realised he wasn’t quite sure what to ask. “Er, Merr, I- I guess I don’t really understand anything that’s happened since that Falon’Din person-”

“I’m Falon’Din,” Merrill interrupted.

“What?” Anders said.

“I’m Falon’Din,” Merrill repeated, “the Friend of the Dead, that’s what it means in the language of the People.” There was a pause before she continued. “Oh, but you probably meant Spike.”

“Who?”

“The former Falon’Din, Spike,” Merrill explained. “We met him in the porthole the other day. Or, no, you weren’t in the porthole with me, so of course you didn’t meet him there.” Merrill’s face scrunched as she pondered this, but after a moment she waved this off. “I wouldn’t worry too much about him. He really wasn’t very nice. He said some very rude things about the woman who made the porthole… and Fenris… and my hair.”

“And that’s… Spike?” Anders asked.

“Right,” Merrill nodded. She squeezed his hands, and her face broke into a soft smile. “Like I’m Merrill.”

“And… Falon’Din?” Anders tested.

Merrill nodded again.

“And that has something to do with the necromancy and all the corpses?”

“Yes,” Merrill agreed. “There are a great number of spirits who have sworn fealty to Falon’Din, the Friend of the Dead. And that’s me, so…”

That still didn’t explain what they were doing running wild in Kirkwall but-

“I’m sorry.” Merrill dropped his hands and rubbed at her neck, as she broke into a babbling apology. “I’m just not very good at this. I knew I would somehow mess it up and make it sound confusing. But I’m sure Fenris or Isabela could help explain it to you. Yes,” she decided, “you should go see Fenris and ask him.”

That reminded Anders of another problem. “He seemed upset with me,” he despaired.

“Oh, mmm,” Merrill bit her lip. “Well, you did spend the entire summer in Rivain… And then not go see him when you came back… And then even after he came to see you, you spent another four days cooped up in your clinic.”

“Because you collapsed! I was looking after you!” Anders reminded.

Merrill ignored this. “And Fenris sent Justice some poetry too, didn’t he? And you haven’t even given Justice a chance to re-”

“Yes, okay, fine,” Anders said, just to put the topic to rest. “But what about…? Come to the clinic for a full check-up!” Anders’s tests earlier hadn’t shed much light on the situation and- “I’m worried about you,” he pleaded. “We still don’t know what that- thing- that orb- did to you. Andraste’s tits, you coughed up a heart! And you haven’t been right since, and-”

Merrill grimaced. “You want to give me a check-up? Now? You don’t mean one of the fun ones, do you? I’m just very busy today. Maybe we can reschedule for…” Merrill tallied off the fingers on her hand. “…Drakonis?” she asked.

“That’s six months from now!” Anders cried.

“Does that not work for you?”

“You were bedridden for three days!”

“I don’t need a check-up.” Merrill crossed her arms defensively and pouted. “I already know what the orb did. It made me Falon’Din. It granted me the power of the Creators. I only suspected before, but the memories confirm it. It is what they’ve always done. It is why June crafted one for me.”

A few things about this account struck Anders as off. “Wait…” he narrowed his eyes. “For you?! The memories?! Do you have Falon’Din’s memories?!”

“I’m Falon’Din,” Merrill reminded irritably. “You mean the former Falon’Din. And if I had his memories do you think I’d be reading this?” Merrill tapped the book on the desk, A Military Manual for Beginners. “I only have a few of his memories.”

“A few?!” Anders shrieked.

“I’m not sure you can digest that much power without getting a few bits of other things,” Merrill reasoned. “Like if you ate a really large bowl of salad, or a whole pot of stew, and there weren’t even a few stray bug legs mixed in somewhere.”

“Merrill, this isn’t lunch at the Hanged Man! This is your mind and soul and demonic magic and-!”

Merrill’s eyes flashed black again suddenly, and she jerked her head abruptly to the side. “Wait just a minute, vhenan,” she instructed. Her ears twitched, like she was listening to something Anders couldn’t hear.

And then it seemed to end, and Merrill looked back. “I am sorry,” she cooed at Anders, “but I did say I was very busy today and might have to go on short notice. But-” She fussed a little, smoothing the sleeves of Anders’s coat and brushing the feathers, and then began to press him towards the front of the tent. “Try not to worry too much. I love you, and nothing too startling has really changed, and I’m sure I’ll have more time to spend with you after the siege if you-”

“The siege?!” Anders squawked. “What siege?!”

“Oh,” Merrill winced theatrically. “I probably shouldn’t have said that. If you would just forget I had, for a few days at least, I would really appreciate it, vhenan… Not that I’d make you forget,” she clarified. “I’m not even sure I could, with Justice and all. But even if I could, I wouldn’t because you are my heart. I just mean if you would pretend to forget for a while – as a favour to me, I mean – I would like that.” Merrill worried her bottom lip a little, and pressed up on her toes to peck a quick kiss the bottom of his chin, before dashing back to the centre of the room where the wooden desk and the Eluvian waited. “I’ll meet with you later then.”

Anders was still trying to make sense of half the things Merrill had just said. “But I-” was all he managed to get out, before the wooden planks of the dais opened up beneath Merrill.

They bowed to the side, bendy and liquid in the way wood only was when Merrill’s magic had reached into it. But before Merrill could fall too far, and a wave of earth surged up to meet her feet, followed by a circle of jagged spikes that surrounded her and the desk and the Eluvian. The dirt churned and spread in the air, forming a sort of spherical pod around Merrill and her things. And, once it was fully sealed, it sunk into the ground and burrowed away.

Anders was left staring at a giant hole under the tent of the now ruined dais and a burrow of freshly tilled earth underneath.

He didn’t know if it made him feel better or worse that this was completely normal behaviour for Merrill and, in fact, not the first time she had ended an argument this way.

Anders exited the tent to find Lady Thrennhold and Aveline still in the midst of a confrontation. They were standing near the edge of the dais, locked in a one-sided wrestling contest where Aveline appeared to be trying very hard not to snap and break the noblewoman in half.

“I am a paying customer!” Lady Thrennhold was insisting rather loudly. “Or I was! Think of how much coin I’ve put into this shop over the years! Gone! I’ll be taking my business elsewhere from now on!”

“Please do,” Aveline groaned tiredly. She noticed Anders, and called over Lady Thrennhold’s shoulder to him. “She escaped.”

It didn’t really sound like a question. Anders nodded anyhow.

“Shit,” Aveline grumbled. She gave Lady Thrennhold a great shove sideways.

Lady Thrennhold flailed as she toppled over one of the wooden tables and screamed as she fell headfirst off the dais. There was a great clatter as she hit the ground.

The table had managed to fall to its side, but hadn’t slid off the dais. Anders walked up and peered over it to where Lady Thrennhold had fallen. She appeared to have broken her leg against one of the belfry’s wheels, and was still babbling about how she was owed a refund between tears.

“Did she really petition the Keep to make elf hunting legal?” Anders asked.

“Good riddance,” Aveline said darkly.

Huh. Anders shrugged and looked away.

Lady Thrennhold’s crying grew louder.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Aveline continued, shaking her head irritably.

“I know!” Anders agreed. “Why is Merr-?”

“No, that part makes perfect sense,” Aveline contested. “Merrill and her mirror were always a disaster waiting to happen. What doesn’t make sense is this.” She waved out across the Alienage plaza, where the corpses were still milling about in vast numbers.

Anders wasn’t sure if he caught her meaning.

Aveline groaned again and rolled her eyes. “There shouldn’t be so many corpses in Kirkwall,” Aveline explained. “We burn our dead. This isn’t Nevarra. This shouldn’t be happening. Not unless someone’s going around, indiscriminately killing vast swathes of the population, and leaving the bodies tucked away in corners nobody else would bother with.”

==

“Hawke! How many times have I told you?! You can’t just leave corpses lying around after you’ve gone and cleared out back alleys and Coterie workshops and smuggler dens!”

Hawke blanched, but continued to smile blankly as Aveline’s tirade washed over him. She’d beelined to him directly from the door as Anders, who was a fucking gentleman by comparison, removed his coat for Bodahn.

“I’ve said before Hawke,” Aveline said insistently, “when you find yourself with a corpse, you have to alert the Guard and file the paperwork so the body can be identified and then burned, not leave it lying around for spirits and necromancers to walk off with! It’s not the Guard’s job to run about cleaning up after your messes!”

“It’s not?” Hawke said stupidly.

“Hawke! No! You absolute-!”

“Will you and Messere Hendyr be requiring late supper?” Bodahn asked pleasantly, as he folded Anders’s coat over his arm.

“Oh, wait, I forgot something-” Anders said distractedly.

Bodahn accommodated Anders as he fished through the pockets of the coat for a few enchanted buttons he’d picked up somewhere and saved for Sandal and, having triumphantly found them, slipped them into the boy’s waiting hands.

“I can’t speak for the Guard Captain,” Anders proceeded to answer, “but I’m only here to ask Hawke a favour. It shouldn’t be long.”

“Well, if it’s anything like the last favour, I’ll go ahead and prepare your guest room just in case,” Bodahn winked.

Anders supposed he deserved that.

“Sorry, sorry,” Hawke ameliorated at Aveline. “I’ve been trying to be better about it, but you know how it is. You’re piling the corpses together, and you’re getting all ready to call the Guard and build the pyre, when the second wave of enemies hits. And then you’re all distracted because you’ve gone and put a knife in someone’s arm or the other way around, and Anders is yelling about healing and Isabela’s yelling about loot and Fenris and Merrill go a little overboard with the blood splatter so there’s coin and spells and organs flying about every which way. And you think to yourself, ‘We all ought to get out of here before a third wave of enemies hits,’ and so you run and forget all about the corpses. You know how that is, right?”

“No,” Aveline lied.

“Are you and Sandal doing well?” Anders asked Bodahn. “Hawke mentioned he was trying to get Sandal set up with a store manager and business of his own.”

“Enchantment!” Sandal hissed excitedly, as he studied the buttons.

“I’m doing just fine, and indeed, he is,” Bodahn agreed. “You know, I was mighty frightened when he first suggested it. It’s always something I wanted for my boy, but I never met anyone in the Guild I felt sure would arrange it without taking advantage.” Bodahn brought his hands together with a hollow clap. “But between how good he’s been to us all, and how he managed to get that petting zoo opened and turning profit over at Maharian Quarry – if there’s anyone I trust, it’s Messere Hawke.”

“It’s not right, Hawke,” Aveline was saying. “If you’re not going to pick up after yourself, the Keep is going to hold you responsible. If we say a fifty silver littering fine per corpse-”

“Aveline, really? It’s me,” Hawke pleaded.

“Or I could charge you for murder instead,” Aveline suggested.

“Thirty silvers a corpse,” Hawke returned offer.

Bodahn smiled fondly at Hawke and Aveline, as they bartered over how much this latest fiasco would be taking off the Keep’s debt to Hawke, and then he gestured Anders ahead towards the sitting room. “If there’s anything I can do to make your visit more comfortable, Messere Anders, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

Anders waved to him and Sandal, before heading ahead to the sitting room.

“Forty-five silver,” Aveline said.

“Forty,” Hawke returned.

Aveline pursed her lips. “Forty-two.”

“Sold!” Hawke crowed. “Forty-two silver a corpse and a discount on the next hundred!”

“Alright, everyone stop arguing about coin!” Anders insisted.

Aveline shot him a nasty glare for interrupting, but Anders made a point to ignore it.

He put on his best forlorn pout. “Hawke, I need a favour.”

“For you – anything!” Hawke announced boldly.

Anders took petty, vindictive pleasure in the way Aveline scoffed and rolled her eyes. Yes – him! Hawke would do anything for him, and not her, and hah!

“Would you talk Merrill for me?” Anders batted his eyelashes. “Get her to stop with all the blood magic and necromancy and come in for her medical check-up?”

“Anything but that!” Hawke amended quickly.

“Hawke!” Anders cried.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Hawke waved him down. “But I already promised Merrill I wouldn’t get involved. You can ask me for anything else! Really!”

“Haw-aw-awke…” Anders whined.

“Wait- Wouldn’t get involved with what, Hawke?” Aveline interrupted. “What is she planning?”

“Well, it’s a bit of a secret,” Hawke said in a stage whisper. “But I’ve been really disappointed with my last few nameday gifts to Orana, and Merrill is finally going to help me get her the kind of present that she really deserves. And I really don’t want to risk ruining the surprise so-”

There was a knock at the door and a crisp footsteps across the tiled floor later, Bodahn announced another visitor into the room. “A messenger for you, Guard Captain Hendyr.”

“Ugh! What now?!” Aveline groaned and gnashed her teeth, which just had to make the boy recruit that came through the door feel wholly appreciated at his job.

The boy’s armour was too large for him, and it clinked as he saluted. “Er- There’s been, uh, complications of a sort… Captain… speaking…” He looked anxiously at Hawke, then more anxiously at Anders. “Er- Should I be relaying this message in compa-”

“Speak freely,” Aveline prompted impatiently.

“Yes, Captain, Serah!” The boy saluted again. “At nineteen hours, we went to unload our siegecraft defences from the warehouse behind the Keep, as you instructed. Only… we were too late.”

“Too late?” Aveline prompted. “In what sense?”

“Well, we unlocked the warehouse and it was, er- empty. They- I assume it was them- cleared it out.”

“Andraste’s bloody-!” Aveline cursed. “Locks broken? Picked?”

“Picked, it seemed,” the messenger said miserably.

“Why do I get the feeling Isabela is involved?” Aveline muttered.

“It’s what I would have assumed,” Hawke said unhelpfully. “You know, since it can’t have been me since I was here all day.”

Aveline chose to ignore him in favour of her subordinate. “So we have nothing in terms of defences?!” she demanded.

The boy recruit looked uncomfortable.

“Fine,” Aveline said, resigned. “Since you all are of no help…” She picked herself up and strode towards the exit ahead of the recruit, who hurried to follow after. “Forty-two silvers a head, Hawke!” she shouted back over her shoulder.

“And a discount on the next hundred!” Hawke shouted back, with a joyful wave of his arm.

“Something tells me it’s going to be a long night,” Aveline sighed.

Anders watched her retreat. “Maybe I should-”

“Oh, you’re not really going to go after her, are you?” Hawke pooh-poohed. “You and Aveline?”

Well, yes, exactly. On the one hand, she was the only other person in the city that seemed intent on doing something about this. But on the other hand, she was Aveline. And it was one thing to follow her to see Merrill or Hawke, and another to walk into the Keep she ran with the people she commanded and deal with her one-on-one.

“Come on,” Hawke brayed. “Stay for a bit.” He stepped behind Anders, and reached up to massage his shoulders.

Anders hunched his back and stretched up, pulling away and leaning into Hawke’s hands in equal measure. His willpower cracked the same time his back did.

“You’re all tense, see?” Hawke said. “I bet you’ve been running around all day.” He gave Anders’s shoulders another rub, and got distracted twiddling fabric between his fingers. “You’re wearing the shirt I gave you.”

Anders was. It was a cotton dress shirt, most notable for the high thread count and deep burgundy colour of the fabric. “I didn’t really have much of a choice. You tossed all my old ones out when you replaced my wardrobe.” He looked back at Hawke and pouted, to hide the fact that he liked the shirt.

“It looks good on you,” Hawke smiled.

Anders was pretty sure he blushed as deeply as his shirt was red.

Hawke took him by the arm and led him through the hall. “Are you alright? Have you eaten today?”

“Yes,” Anders lied. He didn’t want Hawke fussing to get him food that he couldn’t justify eating while people in Darktown starved. Being a Fade-sustained abomination meant he didn’t really need to eat in the first place.

Hawke thankfully didn’t question him further, and began to direct him towards the study. “We’ll just do drinks then,” he said, as he let go of Anders and pressed the study door open.

Anders’s attention was elsewhere. “Er, Hawke- Why does your hallway lead directly out to a pile of rubble in the gardens?” The corridor stopped abruptly a little way from the double doors into the study, direct out to the chilly night air and moon risen early amongst the clouds. “Is… the entire southern wing of your estate missing?!”

“Oh, that,” Hawke waved an arm dismissively, and pressed Anders into the study. “Merrill asked me if she could have it.”

“She-?! What?!” Anders demanded. “She asked for the southern wing of your house, Hawke, and you said ‘yes’?!”

“Well, no,” Hawke clarified. “She only asked to borrow it, really. Needed the raw materials for something. She said she’d put everything back in a week or so, but I told her not to bother.” He flipped his hand dismissively. “I have too many rooms around here anyhow, and Orana keeps cleaning them all no matter how many times I tell her not to bother… I mean, to be fair I think Orana enjoys it – the cleaning – but that’s why I think she’ll rather like my present,” Hawke said giddily.

“You’re really just- fine with this?! Merrill raises an undead army, takes off with a third of your estate, and-?!” Anders sighed and slumped down in the divan Hawke was pressing him towards. “You really won’t talk to her for me, Hawke?”

“I’m really fine with it.” Hawke was now fixing them drinks from the enchanted cellarette. Brandy for himself. Seltzer water for Anders. He pipetted a few drops of strawberry essence from a smaller bottle into the latter, for flavour. “And what do you need me to talk to her for anyway? She’s your wife. She’ll hear you out if you’re worried.”

“Well, she didn’t before disappearing out of my clinic,” Anders sulked. “Never comes in for check-ups.”

“What?!” Hawke laughed. “I thought she loved your ‘check-ups’. Sitting on Doctor Anders’s examination table and being prodded here and there~”

“Yes, well, I’m not talking about those check-ups!” Anders snipped. “I mean the real ones! Where I’m concerned she’s gotten herself hurt, or possessed by some demonic orb, or want to check that she hasn’t gone anaemic again, but she just doesn’t-” Anders cut himself off with a sigh.

Hawke strolled over and handed Anders the glass of seltzer water, tapped his own glass against it before taking a drink. “Yeah, Merrill’s really not the easiest that way. You know it’s hard for her to take on faith that the people worrying for her aren’t going to sabotage her.” Hawke took another drink before perking up. “If it’s any consolation, I think it’s impressive she trusts you as much as she does. She probably wouldn’t have pushed so hard that day on the docks, if she didn’t trust you to be there to pick up the pieces for her after she fell.”

Anders couldn’t seem to decide how he felt about that. Was it really so difficult for Merrill? He would have hoped she always knew he’d protect her and heal her to the best of his abilities. And he hoped the best of his abilities would always be enough to keep her safe. But Anders also knew Hawke was trying to flatter him and, well, there was something about Hawke that was always so… infectious.

“How do you do it, Hawke?” Anders teased. “How do you stay so calm and cheerful when the entire world is just-” He shrugged. “-spiralling into chaos?”

Hawke seemed a bit put on the spot. “Ah, well...” he began bashfully. “Mother always used to say that a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush, and to always add a few extra cups of water to the soup.”

That didn’t… actually make sense, did it? Anders was pretty sure. “Hawke, that’s nonsense.”

“Well, it’s just something Mother used to say.” Hawke shrugged, looking down at his drink and avoiding Anders’s eyes. “I felt really guilty when she died, you know. I missed her, I did, but it’s easier not living in the same house as her.”

Hawke downed the rest of his brandy and reached for Anders’s empty glass.

Anders acquiesced, although he couldn’t seem to remember having taken a drink at all. Had he been sipping at the seltzer water this whole time? The taste of strawberry on his tongue seemed to only draw suddenly to attention how parched he still felt.

His attention broke back to Hawke, who talked as he placed the empty glasses on the cellarette. “I guess it feels a little lonely sometimes. With Beth and Carver both off and settled with the Wardens. And I’ll start feeling a little guilty like, if I feel that way, then it’s my own fault for not wanting something similar to what you have going on with Fenris and Merrill.

“But, you know-” Hawke’s voice picked up as he continued. “Then I think this is probably just how decent parents feel when their kids leave the nest – a bit sad, but also proud, because you raised them well and they’re doing good things even without you there.” When he turned back to Anders he was smiling. “I was going to wait until Satinalia to send them another care package but, you know, talking it over I think I’ll send one off before then after all.”

“Oh, Hawke…” Anders sighed fondly. Because even if he didn’t understand all of it, he understood that it was a miracle Hawke’s generosity hadn’t gotten him killed.

“So when I think about it, I’m doing pretty well,” Hawke flopped down to sit on the divan next to Anders. “My baby siblings are off being heroes. And I have a comfortable home, and Barkfly, and a lot of amazing friends that make time and room for me and my eccentricities in their lives. I really couldn’t ask for more.”

Then he stuck his hand down Anders’s trousers, in a very friendly way indeed.

Anders reclined on the divan and couldn’t manage to bite back his moan.

Oh, Hawke’s hand felt so good, palming him like that. This all felt so good, and it was all so wrong, but also a little inevitable. Like gravity. Hawke had always been a little like gravity. That was right. Or at least it was the excuse that sounded good to Anders in that moment, as he reached to pull Hawke over him and smash their lips together.

Hawke hummed into the kiss, and then pressed himself back up. He’d succeeded in pulling Anders’s trousers halfway down his thighs, and bit his lip as he looked down and slapped a hand lazily against Anders’s haunches. “Turn over for me, would you?” he said. “Would like you face down on the divan.”

Anders chuckled and complied… and the regret didn’t come until a good long while later, when there was a bark at the study door.

Hawke flailed and nearly pushed Anders off the divan in the midst of rolling his socks back on. “Oh, that’s Barkfly. Let him in, would you?” he prompted Anders, as he squirmed on the divan, tucking himself back in his trousers.

The double doors barked again.

“Really, Hawke?” Anders asked, making it a point to scoot back in his seat, and roll his socks extra carefully. “Now that we’re done fucking, I’m your doorman. You’re kicking me out so you can cuddle with the dog.”

“It’s Mabari snuggle time!” Hawke protested. “You know I have other commitments. Need my space.”

“All the space a two hundred pound slobbering monster pet can provide,” Anders said.

“Yup!” Hawke agreed cheerfully.

Anders sighed. He went to answer the door in only a shirt and socks, but Barkfly was kind enough not to mention it. Anders could admit, privately, that Barkfly was a considerate Mabari – one who bothered Anders with neither aggression, nor doggy slobbery affections Anders didn’t want. He simply barked in thanks when Anders opened the door, and then rushed past into the study and leapt up on the divan with Hawke.

“There you are~” Hawke cooed. “Who’s a good boy?”

Barkfly barked in a self satisfied sort of way.

“Yes! It’s you!”

Anders walked back towards the divan, picked his trousers off the floor and, for the duration it took to pull them back up his legs, was forced to endure the company of a man and a Mabari snuggling on the divan he’d just been fucked on.

“Disgusting,” Anders harrumphed, as Barkfly licked a stripe of doggy drool up the side of Hawke’s face. Although Anders was keenly aware he was the disgusting one, betraying Fenris and Merrill like this, and for what?

“Don’t be like that,” Hawke said, between doggy kisses.

“You’re kicking me out for a dog, Hawke,” Anders reiterated.

“You’re always welcome to stay,” Hawke insisted. “There’s a guest room with your name on it. Literally! Did I tell you? I finally got the plaques for everyone’s rooms back from the engraver while you were off in Rivain!”

Anders tried to feel annoyed instead of smitten, with mixed results.

“But I think we both know you should go home, Anders,” Hawke went on to say. “And I don’t mean to that ratty old cot in your Darktown clinic. Go see your husband already.”

Anders didn’t say anything for a long moment as he fixed his clothes, brushed back his hair. “He’s upset with me.”

“For not going to see him,” Hawke pointed out.

“He’s upset. He wouldn’t even talk to me earlier.”

“He’ll forgive you.”

“Well, maybe he shouldn’t!” Anders snapped.

“Well, he wants to,” Hawke insisted. “He wants to see you. He wants to forgive you. And he’ll be ready to do it the second you walk through his door… C’mon, Anders. You asked how to stay calm while everything’s plummeting to the void? Count your blessings. Appreciate what you have. Go see him. He loves you. He misses you. He talks about you all the time.”

“That doesn’t sound like Fenris,” Anders said.

“Well, he wants to talk about you all the time. I can tell.” Hawke waggled his eyebrows. “Really, Anders? He’s not stupid. He knows your trip to Dairsmuid and Merrill being bedridden both took a toll. He doesn’t want much – just to know that you’re thinking of him. And you are, so go let him know it already.”

Anders pulled on his boots and turned to look down at Hawke, lying cramped side-by-side with Barkfly on the divan.

“Bet you he’ll even let you work out the rest of that Warden stamina on him,” Hawke added.

“Goodnight, Hawke,” Anders said.

Hawke took the hint and dropped the conversation. “G’night,” he yawned back.

Anders exited the study, extinguishing a few lamps on the way and clicking the double doors shut softly. He stood in the hall for a moment, looking out at the now-aired-and-open pathway where the estate’s southern wing used to be, and then walked in the opposite direction towards the entrance hall.

Bodahn was gone – to bed, presumably. But he’d left Anders’s coat out on the rack by the door, and a few tonic’s on the stand. Anders retrieved his coat and slipped out to the Hightown streets.

For some reason the world did seem calmer, more bearable, at this hour.

The streets were quiet, largely devoid of passers-by. There were a few corpses still ambling about in the shadows and alleys, so far as Anders could tell. But they really weren’t hurting anyone, like everyone else had already gathered. Maybe it was just too surreal, too easily denied that they were corpses at all, observed in the dim light of the newly waxing moons.

Maybe it was that Anders still, after almost three years, had never really shaken the relief that he now lived in a city without Templars, a city where Templars could not ruin a peaceful night such as this with a surprise ambush on his person.

Maybe it was none of that, and only that Anders’s body was pleasantly worn and relaxed from having been freshly fucked into a divan.

Or maybe the things Hawke had said were getting to him.

He wants to see you. Appreciate what you have.

Fenris’s mansion was three streets down, whereas Anders’s Darktown Clinic was an hour’s walk. And, well, Anders did want to see Fenris. Maybe he didn’t deserve to or shouldn’t have, but he did. And it was also true he was afraid Fenris would be upset with him. But even that seemed more bearable to consider at this hour, when it was unlikely that Fenris would do anything worse than simply turn him away. And Hawke hadn’t been wrong either – becoming a Warden had rather destroyed any semblance of a refractory period. And, above all, Anders wanted to see him. He wanted to wake Fenris up, and watch his nose scrunch and his eyelashes flutter as his eyes focussed out of bleary unrecognition and into greedy, drowsy adoration.

Anders was still debating the base selfishness of this desire, but it didn’t stop him from approaching Fenris’s place. He checked the door, and pressed inside when he found it unlocked. Anyone could have walked inside, and how long had it taken Fenris to be so careless?

Anders took the long way, wandering some of the better travelled rooms and checking them over idly. Fenris appeared to have done a decent job of not getting the place too dirty since Anders had last cleaned at summer’s start. Anders found bread and salami in the kitchen, kept far from the dirty dishes Fenris had stacked neatly in a wash basin. Anders threw a few mage lights into the cellar to confirm the corpses Merrill had returned to Fenris were inert.

But Anders wanted to see Fenris and so, sooner rather than later, he climbed the stairs, headed down the hall, and pressed open the door to the master bedroom from where it was left ajar.

Fenris’s bedroom was messier than the rest of the house at this juncture, but in a more lived-in sort of way. There were a great number of sheets and blankets piled on the bed, and most spilled out onto the floor, which was littered with dirty clothes and crumbs – Fenris was in the habit of taking meals in bed. And although there were shelves across the walls, books were still stacked in piles about the floor and next to the oil lamp on the nightstand and on the cushion of a wide armchair.

It might have been a bit too early in the year for the hearth to be running but, since Fenris was always complaining about the weather being far too cold in the South, Anders was surprised to find the casement windows open and letting in a chilly draft.

But as Anders approached the bed, it became clear this was for Isabela’s sake. She was sleeping on her side with her back to the window, covered partly in a sheet and wearing a gossamer grey underslip that fit too tight on her. Fenris was snoozing further beneath the covers, curled in her arms with his face pressed against her stomach.

Isabela woke up first. Filtered lines of moonlight shifted over dark, oiled skin as she turned to look up. She squinted at Anders, and waved nonchalantly, before reaching to shake Fenris by the shoulder. She leaned down to speak above Fenris’s ear, and it was quiet enough that Anders could just make out her whisper: Looks like your husband wants something from you, sweet thing.

The sharp green of Fenris’s left eye gleamed in the darkness, as he blinked groggily awake, and then squeezed tightly shut again. He stretched, disentangling himself from Isabela as he shifted further up the bed, and then turned so he was lying on his back, propped against a bulky stack of pillows. He really was very endearing, just as Anders had imagined, with his nose pinched and eyes fluttering, kicking away the comforter.

But, peering down from the bedside, Anders couldn’t quite read his expression. And, for a second, he worried that Fenris would somehow intuit something, and everything Anders had would fall apart.

Fenris reached for him, pulling Anders down by the collar. He pressed back the flaps of Anders’s coat with his palms, until the sleeves slid off his shoulders and halfway down his arms.

Anders struggled to slough the coat off the rest of the way, although it was difficult given the way Fenris had now snaked his arms around under the coat, fingers pressing into Anders’s back.

“Sleep,” Fenris mumbled. “Come to bed.”

Anders heard himself laugh, light and awkward. And he let Fenris pull him down so their bodies were flush against one another.

Fenris kissed his cheek. “You’re late. Sleep.” He kissed Anders again, on the nose, then glanced downwards, like he could see the space between them. He wiggled his hips experimentally, thighs brushing Anders’s erection. “Or this first?” he asked, voice still sleepy. “A few rounds?” He considered the conundrum himself, and then parted his legs of his own accord.

Anders loved that about him – the circuitous way he would deign to indulge you, how warm and pliant and welcoming he was when he did. Anders loved him. Anders wanted to sink into him. He surged forward a little too forcefully, and the bed frame creaked a little as he pinned Fenris and mashed their lips together.

Fenris chuckled, a deep rolling sound that bubbled out of his chest. He turned his head so their noses were not quite so pinched against one another’s and, without missing a beat, opened his mouth to let Anders in.

Anders took the invitation to press his tongue to the roof of Fenris’s mouth. His palate and tonsils tasted faintly of wine and less faintly of the ground cloves he chewed before bed. Anders rolled tongue over the sharp line of Fenris’s teeth, and there was something to the fact that Fenris never used them to bite, not even when Anders was a little rough with him.

Anders thought he would have been content to lie there as long as he could get away with it. But, after a minute or two, Fenris began to squirm and pressed Anders away by the shoulders.

“Enough,” he gasped. “Undress. Get on with it. We will be up all night if we indulge every aspect of your insatiability~” Fenris couldn’t seem to help sounding fond, even in his impatience.

Anders sat up and hurried to unbutton his shirt and trousers.

“Mmm, you too,” Fenris urged. He turned to Isabela.

Isabela had sat up at some point, and was at the head of the bed leaning against the headboard, which was mussing the scarf she’d bundled her hair in. “What about me, sweet thing?” she asked between a yawn. She seemed to be feigning affronted disinterest, although Anders sincerely doubted she’d minded spectating thus far.

Fenris seemed to doubt it too. “Join us?” he pouted, all bright eyed and innocent. He tugged on the edge of her slip, which was ill-fitting enough it did not stretch to cover her hips.

Her yawn broke into a sly smile. Isabela sat up on her knees and bent down to kiss him.

Fenris met her halfway, reaching to cup her cheek in his hand and brush a few stray hairs from her face. And, when she sat up again, Fenris turned his head and turned his attention to her thigh instead – hooking his hand around the inside of it and pressing kisses to the outside.

Anders pulled off his underclothes and tossed them to the floor with his trousers, before focussing his attention back to Fenris.

Fenris wasn’t wearing any pants. Only a loose fitting tunic that bunched up easily over his pectorals when Anders ran his hands up Fenris’s obliques. And, mmm, Fenris was solid, but sensitive, arching and shivering at every touch. Anders took his time, teasing his hands over Fenris’s quads and glutes, but when he pried them apart he realised Fenris was already slick and stretched.

No doubt it was from something Fenris and Isabela had done together earlier. And the thought was inexplicably hot. Maybe in the same way that doing this with Hawke’s seed leaking out his own arse was.

He lined himself up and pressed into Fenris without further warning – one long stroke that had him sheathed near completely (Anders always found he had to really work for that last inch) and the only resistance just how fit and tight Fenris was around him. He moaned, and heard the sound harmonise with the muffled groan Fenris sighed into Isabela’s skin.

“You know,” Isabela said, interrupting Anders before he got too deeply set into a rhythm. Fenris had wrapped one of his arms around each of her thighs, and she smiled smugly as she adjusted herself and lowered down to straddle his face. “Upon reflection, I don’t think we did half bad in Dairsmuid… We make a pretty good team, Anders, Justice.”

It was hard to argue this point with Fenris stretched out between them, already wriggling and moaning and lapping between Isabela’s legs so eagerly. And Anders knew that what Isabela said was as close to an apology as he’d get for their fighting in Dairsmuid.

He responded in kind. “Yeah.” Anders pulled his hips back and snapped them forward again, relishing the way Fenris gasped and writhed. He wrapped a leg around Anders’s back and urged him closer. It was good to see him enjoy himself. And it was good to see Isabela’s body jiggle and undulate, as Fenris paid the favour forward. “A pretty good team,” Anders agreed.

…

“Have you calmed down then?” Fenris asked later. He drew back, having pressed a kiss to the whiskers on Anders’s chin.

They were lying aside one another now, and Anders hugged Fenris closer. He was pretty sure Fenris could feel exactly how much he had and hadn’t calmed down, though they’d already agreed it was enough for the night. It took Anders a moment to realise Fenris wasn’t talking about sex.

“Good,” Fenris agreed. He smiled and pressed another kiss to Anders’s cheek. “Everything is fine with your clinic, and Hawke, and Isabela. And everything will be fine with Varric, and the witch, and your revolution. There is no need for you to be so highstrung.”

Fenris let Anders kiss him once more, before rolling over so his back was to Anders. He didn’t seem quite aware of how bulky his shoulders were, as he snuggled back into Anders’s chest, pulling Isabela with him.

Fenris yawned. “Did the courier I sent read the verses I gave him? Did your demon hear it?”

Anders must have been drifting himself, because he didn’t really mind the soft blinding blue at his eyes, or when Justice answered Fenris for him.

“It was masterful. I have been preparing a response, but I fear I am unable to do your work the justice it deserves.”

Fenris made a pleased sound, and snuggled closer. “Recite for me what you have so far.”

There was a long moment. Anders closed his and Justice’s eyes and listened to Fenris and Isabela breathe – felt the rise and fall of his own chest. Then Justice spoke, in a low soft voice, and Anders caught only a little before he drifted to sleep:

By the time he saved them,
From the clutches,
Of their arrogant tormentor,
There was nothing left,
But dark and mist and dust.

He had believed in eternity,
As had the Baroness,
All from the wisest of spirits,
To the lowliest of demons,
And now he doubted them all.

The crates in the yard corroded,
With only the memory,
Of rotten fish.
The marsh was quiet.
The body was empty.

But you were alive.
You inhaled something of the world,
And spat mud and curses,
For that you had ever,
Escaped to make it this far.

You made promises,
And broke them,
And kept them,
And travelled docks at night,
When no one else could see.

It meant something to me…

So when you ask me,
‘Is it wise to live,
‘As if pain had never touched you?’
Know I have never been wise,
And never been so wise,
As when I was a fool for you,
And followed your breath,
Out of that Faded ruin.

==

Clang! Clang! Clang!

There was a steady beat like cymbals moving closer and closer, but Anders woke to the rumble that underlay it – the thing itself rather than its premonition. He blinked at the light coming in from the open window. And it took Anders a minute to place himself – the bedroom, the sheets, the heights of Hightown, and Fenris slipping out of his arms as he and Isabela were each roused in turn by the noise.

Neither Fenris nor Isabela appeared to be moving very quickly, each taking time to squint at one another and fumble with the coverlets, and Anders took the opportunity to climb over the top of them and lean out the window.

What was out there was-

“No. No. No. No,” Anders muttered to himself. Maybe this was just another Warden nightmare. He hoped it was, even if he couldn’t really bring himself to believe it. And it was uncomfortable seeing this trajectory mimicked in the windows across the street.

Anders wasn’t in the habit of empathising with Fenris’s neighbours about anything, but he understood immediately the way they peered into the road below and looked like they’d rather not have.

Because the undead were teeming, marching up the street in rhythm with the clanging noise Anders could not source. At the front ranks were a line of Revenants who, with the occasional application of force magic, scattered any passers-by who hadn’t taken it upon themselves to vacate the passage. And they were followed by rows and rows of lesser corpses, armed and ready with spears and bows and ladders. A line of belfries was being push-pulled along with the crowd – How had Merrill even gotten them up so many steps from the Alienage Plaza?! – and the entire procession appeared to be moving west, before turning up-

“They’re heading up Viscount’s Way!” Anders announced. “The Keep!”

Fenris groaned unenthusiastically. “The most reasonable place to conduct a city-wide takeover.”

“What?” Anders said.

Fenris groaned again.

“This already?” Isabela pushed Anders aside and, after peering out the window herself, reached for the handles to pull it soundly shut.

“What are you-?!” Anders paused though. He supposed it didn’t much matter if the window was open or closed. What mattered was- “It’s the undead! They’re trying to take over the city! Merrill, she’s-! It’s terrible!”

“It is,” Fenris agreed. “The morning bell hasn’t rung. Hightown’s noise ordinance specifies we should have quiet for another hour at least.”

Isabela collapsed face down on the mattress with a groan. She reached for one of Fenris’s pillows and wrapped it around the back of her head and over her ears.

“No!” Anders disagreed. He climbed out of bed and rushed to his feet. “Merrill’s gone out of her head! We need to go get her!”

“Is that your concern?” Fenris asked groggily. He was sitting on the side of the bed, reached for the drawer of his nightstand, and pulled a pair of earplugs, which he began fitting himself with. “She will make time to sleep over soon enough.”

“That isn’t- Take those out of your ears this instant!” Anders demanded.

Fenris shot him a weary look, but reluctantly removed the earplugs and set them atop the top book on the nightstand – a historical text on the rise and fall of the Dwarven Empire.

The clanging noise and pounding of undead feet continued to reverberate all through the street.

“What is it?” Fenris asked. “It had better be worth making me suffer this racket. It isn’t even noon.”

“I’m not the one making the noise!” Anders shouted.

“Only the one screaming at me and preventing me from blocking it out.”

“Get up! Get dressed!” Anders stepped around the floor, trying to locate Fenris’s day clothes. “Merrill’s trying to lay siege to the Keep!” he reiterated. “Maybe we can still make it in time to do something! Stop her! We have to get up there!”

Fenris didn’t bother standing. “Must we?”

Anders startled out of his task. “Why would you even say that?! This is-! Merr, she-” He began to pace, treading over fallen sheets and books. “This is all my fault! I knew this was a problem yesterday! And I should have put it together with the army and siege engines! I let you and Hawke distract me, when I should have-!”

“Mage,” Fenris warned. “Amatus. Stop.”

Anders was already spiralling. “I should have stopped her the other day, with the porthole! I should have know it wasn’t going anywhere good to mess around with Xenon’s artefacts! And, now, she’s-! Is she-?!” He forced himself to swallow the lump in his throat. “But maybe it’s not too late, if we can just get over there! We can still stop her, and save the city, and-!”

Anders was quite surprised when he turned to continue pacing, and found Fenris on his feet and blocking his path.

“Anders! Think!” Fenris hissed furiously. He cursed briefly in Tevene. “For five minutes-! For once in your accursed life-! Think!”

This was a bit insulting. But Anders quieted out of respect for the fact that someone, finally, was affording the situation the emotional emphasis it deserved.

Fenris forced a few deep breaths before continuing. “Fine. Let us indulge your hypothetical. You succeed in persuading me out of the house. We dress and arm ourselves and make our way up to the Keep. Then what?”

“Then?!” Anders squeaked. “We stop her, of course!”

“How?” Fenris prompted. “The witch has spent a decade looking for the means to elevate the social status of her People and reinvent the legacy of Arlathan. And now – partly thanks to your own intervention, I might add – she finally has those means,” he enunciated. “The witch will not back down. So what do you intend? Do you intend to fight the witch and her army? I will grant that you and your demon together may stand a chance at defeating Merrill. But you would take Aveline’s side against her – your own lover? And for what – to protect the comfort and ignorance and corruption of this city’s government and nobility?” He spat these last words like poison. Almost like he was-

“Are you agreeing with Merr?! With what she’s doing?!” Anders said aghast. “All your talk about magic, but in the end you’ll go on and let undead roam the streets and blood mages and necromancers take over the city by force?!”

“I never said I was in agreement with her!” Fenris snapped viciously. “Since my very first day in this city, I have spoken against the corruption of blood and magic! I do not recall you being eager to listen then!” Fenris took a few calming breaths before continuing. “No, I merely understand these are decisions that have already been made. I made a decision when I associated with Hawke knowing his affinity for mages, and when I helped to rout the Knight Commander and her Templars from the city, and when I acted in defence of the witch on the docks the other day. You and others have likewise made your own decisions. The point we are at now is merely the summation of them. I cannot fight the witch, and I cannot fight Aveline. So I am here.”

“So you think we shouldn’t do anything?!” Anders demanded. “We’re not even going to try to manipulate-mansplain-malewife our way out of this?!”

“Only the third one,” Fenris said.

“Love, you can’t-”

“Mage-!” Fenris’s eyes flashed furiously. “You, of all people-! You once conspired to change this city forever! In the name of Mage Liberation, you turned against the powers holding this city and took, by force of your magic, what had been denied to you! Should we have fought you, amatus?” Fenris asked. “Should we have turned on you and the chaos you caused – the inevitability of future mage corruption – with no consideration for what you were attempting to stop? Should I have turned against you, with no consideration for what you meant to me?”

Fenris’s eyes were pleading.

Anders felt a lump catch in his throat. Part of him couldn’t believe that Fenris would throw that day back in his face like this. “Well,” he croaked out softly, “if you really believed what I was doing was-”

“Augh!” Fenris’s groan was a little more like a shout. He collapsed his head in his hands and tugged angrily at a fistful of his own hair. “Festis bei umo canavarum! No, mage! We should not have! The answer is a clear, unambiguous-”

“Shut uuuuup!”

Something flew from the direction of the bed and beaned Anders square in the face before flopping to the floor.

“I wasn’t even the one shouting that time!” Anders shot back, as he rubbed at his nose.

“You’re shouting now, aren’t you?” Isabela said. She’d turned on her side, away from them, pillow still wrapped around to cover her ears. “The two of you can never stop going at it, and not even in the fun way. Reminds me why I don’t sleep over more often.” She shuffled a little in bed, smoothing the skirt of her slip. “Now, if the two of you will quiet down, I still have womanly concerns to sleep off.”

“Womanly concerns?” Anders huffed. He was pretty sure hangovers and sore orifices didn’t count. He looked to Fenris for support.

Fenris did not seem ready to provide any. He had bent down to scoop up what Isabela had thrown.

It took Anders a second to realise it was the overstuffed pink throw pillow his mother had given him for his one-way trip to the Circle. Anders couldn’t quite remember the path by which it had ended up in Fenris’s bed.

But it didn’t really matter. It didn’t feel like a mistake. When Fenris plucked the pillow gently off the floor and hugged it to his chest, it felt like the exact place the pillow should be. He squeezed it twice, held and released it like a stress ball, and then shuffled it into the crook of one arm.

“Love, please,” Anders sighed. “We can’t just let this happen.”

“We?” Fenris huffed, unimpressed. “Perhaps you cannot. I have made my stance on the matter clear.”

“Fen-”

“No,” Fenris cut him off. “This discussion is finished. It is too early to be awake. I am returning to bed.” He paused a moment, and looked Anders up and down. “You are free to join me, if you are able to keep quiet,” he allowed. “Otherwise I must ask you to leave. Your shouting is disturbing Isabela, and it is disturbing me.”

“There is an army marching through the streets banging pikes and trebuchets and ladders, and you want me to keep quiet?!” Anders hissed. “The world is falling to pieces outside, and you want to hole up in here and pretend you can’t hear it?! I can’t believe how blighted selfish you-”

Anders only became more upset in the face of Fenris’s disconcern.

As the rant washed over him, Fenris fluffed the pink pillow and set it carefully back on the bed, before reaching for the nightstand. He deftly fitted his earplugs back in his ears, and didn’t flinch when Anders shouted louder to compensate. He only picked Anders’s coat and trousers and boots off the floor, walked to the door, and flung them out into the hall.

Anders baulked. “Wait! What are you-?!”

That was all he managed to say, before Fenris grabbed him by the shoulder, steered him firmly out the room, and slammed the door behind him. There was a beat, before Anders heard the lock on the door click into place.

That was… Andraste’s sodden underpants.

Anders supposed he deserved that. Or maybe he didn’t. Or maybe it didn’t matter. He could always work things out with Fenris later. For now, Anders scrambled for his trousers. He had to get dressed and head up the Viscount’s Way as quickly as possible. He wrestled with his coat, shoved his left foot into the shaft of his boot, and hopped on it until his heel slid into place.

He was out Fenris’s front door within the minute, and immediately took off running through the crowded Hightown streets.

And in the end it didn’t matter. The morning’s assault turned out to be less of a siege and more of a storm. The important decisions had already been made.

By the time Anders arrived, Provisional Viscount Bran Cavin and Guard Captain Aveline Hendyr had already surrendered. And Merrill had already occupied the Keep.

Chapter Text

“This little piggy went to market,” Anders said.

“Uh-huh.” The boy swung his legs where they were dangling off of the edge of the lounge chair, and waited eagerly for the next line.

“And this little piggy stayed home…” Anders continued. “And this little piggy had roast beef… And this little piggy had none.”

“We always have roast beef for Satinalia,” the boy interjected. “Mother and Father always have a big party, and invite everyone from as far as Nevarra for networking.” He pronounced this last word as if it were unfamiliar, merely repeated from his parents without any concept of the meaning. “But I get to see Annie and Dale, which I like… But Father says we might not have roast beef this Satinalia. Or anything at all, unless Starkhaven comes to save us. Do you think Starkhaven will get here before Satinalia?”

“Er…” Anders felt quite put on the spot.

But this was silly. This was only a boy. A sickly boy, winded from having spoken so many words in a row, and fixing Anders with an expression that was not accusatory so much as mildly curious and hopeful.

“Vael had better not march if he knows what’s good for him,” Anders said as neutrally as he could. “But Satinalia is still a few months away, and by then your parents will have you settled somewhere that’s not…”

Anders looked around them. There was… not really a word for the type of encampment the Hightowners had found themselves in. Attending to this child, sitting at a glass lounge table beneath a wide-brimmed parasol in a Hightown Garden, Anders might have been mistaken for a healer summoned for a house call to the private homes of the Andrastian elite. (Ironic, considering Anders had never been considered mentally fit enough for such an assignment as a Circle mage.) Only, the Hightowners were now crammed twenty families to one yard, living out of caravans stuffed with as many valuables as Merrill would let them take before they were tossed from their homes entirely.

“Father says only elves don’t have food on Satinalia,” the boy said.

Anders cut this off before the implications had time to settle. “Everyone is entitled to a hot meal and warm bed, whether it’s Satinalia or not, and whether or not someone is a human or elf or dwarf or qunari or mage… Don’t you think?” Anders challenged.

The boy seemed to ponder this at length. But he broke off into a giggle when Anders wiggled his pinky toe and flicked a sparkling flutter of magelight at his face.

“Still have all ten fingers and ten toes, I see. Now we just need to check your breathing, if you don’t mind pulling up your shirt and leaning forward. I’ll tell you when, and you’ll breathe in and then out as deeply as you can.”

Anders pressed his ear against the boy’s back, counted down inhales and exhales, and listened to the lungs with his ears and his magic. The child had a bout of bronchitis, perhaps even the beginnings of pneumonia. To Anders’s understanding it was the result of a chronic condition that ran in the family and, although this was only a mild case and the boy had clearly been well-cared for through previous infections, Anders worried that living in this garden and sleeping in a caravan on the windswept cliffs of Hightown might be detrimental to his continued health.

Anders directed spells to clear the boy’s brachial apparatus, soothe the inflamed tissue, and revitalise him, so he was better equipped to fight off infection. “There we go.” He clapped the boy on the back. “You can run off now if you like. Just don’t overexert yourself playing with the others.”

“Thanks, healer!” The boy had pulled his shirt back down and was up in a flash. He sounded much better already with a full breath of air in his lungs, and Anders watched fondly as he ran through the corridors of the garden encampment, between the other caravans looking for adventure.

Anders turned his attention to his next patient. The boy’s mother, Lady Stathis, had fallen to sleep in the adjacent lounge chair, in the shade of the umbrella, a wide brimmed hat, and a dark tinted pair of eyeglasses. She was in quite a depressive state – as a consequence of the recent political upheaval, Anders had been told, but the pitcher of vodka-spiked ice tea on the glass table next to her appeared to tell a different story. Anders left her to it, and eased the baby lying across her abdomen up right-side up and into his arms.

“There we go~ You’re a beautiful little girl, aren’t you?” he cooed at the baby.

And she was quiet too. Too quiet, Anders thought, for a baby of five months. She’d barely stirred when he’d picked her up. And a quick bit of diagnostic magic revealed some of the same respiratory issues her brother had. He began to craft a spell, but smaller lungs required a more precise and delicate touch. And if the time it took to do this gave him a little more time to bounce the baby in his arms and press kisses to her forehead, he had no complaints at all.

He kind of wanted one – a baby. But Merrill hadn’t seemed accommodating of the idea at all. And Fenris had pointed out that, even going off the assumption that they were adequately functional people with the skill-set to both fiscally provide and emotionally care for a child, Anders was too busy on account of his work in the clinic and that war he’d gone and started. And then Justice had gone and agreed with Fenris, which had to be the biggest display of favouritism since Justice had forced Anders to make an apple pie as an apology for eating all of Fenris’s groceries. And Anders had given up and dropped the subject, only a little resentfully.

“I think I would make a good father,” Anders told the baby. “Don’t you? Don’t goo-goo?” He descended into babbling baby talk.

His magic appeared to be working, because the baby came slowly to full alertness, wide-eyed and curious. She yawned, taking in a deep breath of air that had thus far been denied her, and began immediately to cry.

“Yes, that’s some powerful vocal work now~ Been holding it in a while, haven’t you?” Anders checked the baby over. Her diaper was still dry, so she might have been hungry. But a quick look around revealed no bottle, and her mother hadn’t yet woken. Anders wondered if the family had had a wet nurse before they’d been forced to live out of a caravan.

Anders rocked the baby in his arms trying to soothe her. She hadn’t stopped crying yet, but Anders knew from experience that things were better when you still had the energy to cry out in retaliation. He felt a surge of indignance at the injustice of the situation! This baby had had food, and was now going hungry because of the havoc Merrill had wreaked on Kirkwall!

Anders was still working himself up to a boil, when a man in dark trousers and waistcoat and a clean pressed dress shirt approached.

“You must be the healer,” the man announced. “My Lady Wife told me we could expect one today. Lord Stathis,” he introduced, holding out his hand.

“Oh, erm-” Anders shifted the crying baby into one arm so as to return the handshake. “Hello.”

“Just ‘Hello’? No ‘My Lord’, or ‘Messere’? Not even a ‘Serah’?” Lord Stathis tisked. “They just don’t make mages like they used to.”

“They do, actually,” Anders harrumphed. “Same way they make everyone else.”

“Snippy,” Lord Stathis said. “I meant no offence though. Beggars can hardly be choosers, and it’s good of you to provide your services when the rest of the Circle – or what remains of it, I suppose – have sold out to that witch tyrant in the Keep.”

Anders was not sure exactly how to respond. He’d never liked the way Orsino had organised the Gallow’s mages, not a decade ago and not now. And Orsino himself was a coward that had let himself be an accessory to the crimes of everyone from Meredith to Quentin, and it was no surprise he was doing the same with Merrill. But Anders didn’t entirely trust the way Lord Stathis had said ‘witch tyrant’, although Merrill was certainly both witch and tyrant.

The baby was still crying, and Anders let this little conundrum lie as he rocked her in his arms. “It will be okay,” he promised in a hushed voice. Times were dark, but- “We’ll get through this, you and I. One day you’ll look back and realise you’ve forgotten the day entirely.”

There was a tap on Anders’s shoulder and, when he turned, he saw Lord Stathis standing behind him. He’d procured a glass baby bottle from somewhere – one full with milk, thank the Maker – and tapped it lightly against Anders’s shoulder. It felt like an olive branch.

Anders accepted it gratefully. “Thanks.” He quickly pasteurised the milk, a gentle application of heating and cooling magic, and began feeding the baby.

Lord Stathis heaved a sigh and leaned himself against the side of his family’s caravan. “We still have donkey’s milk enough, thank the Maker, but if the elf who sells it isn’t gouging prices. They’re trading a bottle away for no less than a full piece of gold or silver jewellery. Same with half a pound of oats, or a satchel of elfroot. And it’s not like we can rightly defend ourselves, with the witch’s corpses everywhere, keeping watch, ready to pith anyone who so much as looks at an elf funny.”

“What she’s doing is awful,” Anders agreed, eyes intent at the way the baby greedily lapped milk from the bottle. “She can’t be allowed to hold food and medicine and other necessities hostage!”

Lord Stathis let out an offended huff. “If I had known grain would be fetching its weight in gold, I would have thought to pack more of it. But three hours! When she forced us to vacate our homes, three hours is all she gave us to pack whatever we could in these caravans. One per family. There was hardly any time to plan. It was all we could do to grab as many valuables as we could before we were barred entry to our own homes!” Lord Stathis shuddered, clearly upset to be reliving the brutality he’d faced at Merrill’s hands, but something kept him talking through his pain. “And the entire time, those corpses, those abominations, on our heels, checking over what we’d packed and picking through what few belongings we’d been allowed to keep!”

Anders felt himself become emotional at that. Mages had no ownership rights under Andrastian law, and the Circle and Templars had had more or less free reign to run searches and confiscate whatever of a mage’s belongings they’d liked. Anders was lucky to still have his mother’s pillow, his journal and grimoire, and a few letters in Karl’s handwriting. Their value might largely be sentimental, but he’d seen Templars collect and burn items of their nature for no purpose other than to satisfy their own base sadism. He swelled with so much outrage, tears began to bead in the corner of his eyes. “I can only imagine some of what you’ve lost is irreplaceable. I won’t let the injustice of this situation stand!”

“She took our Dar’haselan, our Spellweaver!” Lord Stathis exclaimed, propelled by the tenor of their conversation. “Beautiful enchanted, jewel-encrusted sword! Five hundred fifty sovereigns at auction last spring in Nevarra! We’d just about packed it up when there’s this big commotion with the corpses, and then the witch tyrant comes to personally ‘assess’ our belongings. She took a collection of halla horn rings right out of our caravan too – passed down in the family for generations. It was so long ago I can’t know for certain, but my grandmother always told me our ancestors had won them back in the Glory Age Exalted March!”

Anders felt his outrage dampen and simmer a bit. Stealing another man’s belongings was unjust, of course, and Merrill still had a lot to answer for but… Lord Stathis did realise that participation in the Orlesian Annexation of the Dales wasn’t exactly something to brag about? There’d hardly been any Exalted March worth bragging about since the first one Andraste led against the Imperium.

“She took everything from us!” Lord Stathis continued. “Look at us now, scrambling for scraps of food. In my cellar I had a year’s worth of emergency dry provisions, corn and beans and rye. A year’s worth! Lot of good it does now. The witch tyrant seized all of it for distrib-!”

“You had-” Anders sputtered. “You had a year’s worth of food locked in your cellar, while there were hunger riots in the Lowtown Market, while people in Darktown ate cats?!”

Lord Stathis seemed very offended. “It’s not like there was enough for everyone. Better that some survive our city’s bouts of famine than none-”

“Look,” Anders interrupted hotly, “I’m trying very hard to be angry with Merr right now, and you kind of ruin it for me. When you talk, I mean. So maybe it’s better if you don’t.”

Lord Stathis mumbled something about ungrateful mages and subpar help, but he did fall quiet, and Anders refocussed his attention on the baby.

Yes, the baby. This poor, sweet, adorable, perfect baby. Because even if Lord Stathis deserved everything that happened to him, this baby was an innocent. This baby was the real victim of Merrill’s tyranny. And she deserved a warm home and plentiful food and proper medical attention – not just whatever emergency check-ups Anders could manage to provide.

The baby seemed done with milk now, and she was reaching out, grabbing curiously at Anders’s coat and the scruff on his chin. And Anders pressed her against his shoulder and began to burp her.

“So, um…” Anders regarded Lord Stathis. If nothing else, they had this one concern in common. “We should talk about long-term plans.”

“Excuse me,” Lord Stathis huffed.

“Long-term treatment plans,” Anders specified. “For your children’s lung conditions.”

“Well, that’s what you’re here for, isn’t it? Weren’t you able to heal them, healer?” Lord Stathis said expectantly.

“Their bronchitis, sure,” Anders said. “But their constitution is weakened due to what are probably congenital malformities. So they’ll be prone to more respiratory infections, possibly into adulthood.”

Lord Stathis let out a tired sigh. “So you’re no different from the rest of the mages we brought out to see them…”

“If we’re to prevent future illness, they need proper shelter from the elements, regular meals, and to keep bundled up and warm while they’re playing outside,” Anders soldiered on, still cradling the now contented baby against his shoulder. “So, um… Do you have family elsewhere in the Marches, or anyone else that can take you in?”

Lord Stathis snorted. “‘Take me in’?!” he demanded.

Anders didn’t think it was that strange a question. A number of Hightowners had left the city already, for Ostwick or Tantervale or distant country homes. And most of them hadn’t even had a pair of sickly children whose well-being dictated it.

Lord Stathis, apparently, had more pride than that. “This is our city! I’m not going to run off with my tail between my legs while a witch tyrant takes it over! I’m not going anywhere until Starkhaven’s army arrives! And I’ll march up to the Keep every day until them, until the witch tyrant hears my petition! Just the way I did this morning!”

“Yes, well, I was petitioning at the Keep this morning too…” Anders bit his lip and looked down guiltily, before steeling himself. “But who even knows if or when Starkhaven will arrive!” he said flippantly. “And your children- As you’ve already said, prices for milk and food and medicine aren’t going down here in this encampment, and you won’t have the gold and silver you salvaged from your manor forever…” Anders cleared his throat and borrowed a bit of rhetoric from Justice. “It is unjust to leave your children in harm’s way, while you still have the means to provide for them. You can always return to fight Merr- I mean- the Viscount, once their health-”

“I did not invite this soap-boxing from my healer,” Lord Stathis replied curtly. “What I do with my family is no concern of yours! And we won’t be going anywhere until we’ve heard more from Starkhaven.” He reached out his arms. “Now, if you’re finished with your medical check-up, you will return my child and see yourself away.”

All this talk of Starkhaven was really grating on Anders’s nerves. Anders clutched the baby tighter to his chest and stood. “No.”

“I beg your pardon?!” Lord Stathis went red with fury.

“I don’t think you deserve this baby, if you’re just going to let her catch cold and get sick in this encampment!” Anders declared. Not this baby, who was poor and sweet and innocent – the perfect undeserving victim of both Merrill’s crimes and her (stubborn, bigoted, noble) father’s neglect.

“This is an outrage! Who is your supervisor?! I should have you hanged for-”

Lord Stathis was yelling all sorts of insults and obscenities at this point, and attempting to rail against Anders.

But Anders was feeling pretty good about this.

He’d always wanted a baby, after all. And even if neither Merrill nor Fenris had been especially supportive of the idea… Eh! They’d forgive Anders! They always did in the end. And it would be unjust to leave this baby where she’d go sick and hungry anyhow. And maybe her brother could come along too. And-

Anders was backing away from Lord Stathis. The man looked like he was going for his saber, and Anders wasn’t particularly worried about that. Not where it concerned his own well-being, at least. But he clutched the baby tighter, shielding her with his shoulder, hushing her as she began to cry again.

And it was then that something collided with the back of his head.

“Ow!” Anders winced. But it hit him again, and again, and he reached one hand up away from the baby to cradle the back of his head.

Lady Stathis was up from her lounge chair. She whipped the white lace parasol she’d broken over Anders’s head to her side, and snapped her dark eyeglasses shut in her hand. “Stay away from my daughter!” she hissed furiously, vodka breath in Anders’s face.

Lord Stathis’s hand had dropped away from his saber, and he’d run forward, arms outstretched, to pull his baby from where she was propped under one arm against Anders’s chest.

And, well, maybe Anders could have fought it. But it happened so quickly. And what if the baby got hurt? What if Anders got hurt, somehow? He could already feel the ache in his heart. So, for whatever reason, Anders let the baby slip through his fingers and into Lord Stathis’s arms.

Lady Stathis swung the broken parasol against Anders’s back. “Get out!” she commanded. “Never come near my family again!”

And she wasn’t the only one. Several of the families from the neighbouring caravans were getting involved now, shouting, pulling out weapons of their own. Another lady with a parasol whapped Anders in the side.

“I saw what you did!” she screeched. “Trying to steal Lord and Lady Stathis’s baby! Out with you!”

Everyone was screaming over each other, trying to herd Anders towards the garden’s exit.

“I told you he was with the Dalish witch!” Anders heard one lord shout over the others. “He’s working with the Dalish to steal the children of good Andrastian families!”

“They don’t even do that!” Anders shouted angrily. “That’s just anti-elf propaganda!” And Anders should know! He’d once spent a week in the doghouse after repeating the superstition to Merrill!

“They’ll take our children! They’ll take everything!” the man screamed.

“Get out! Out with you!” others were shouting.

“Alright, alright! Break it up! I’ll take it from here,” a dwarf in Carta armour interrupted as the crowd reached the edge of the garden square.

“He’s trying to take our kids!” one lady shouted.

“Yeah, well, he won’t be,” the dwarf said. “What you’re hiring me for, isn’t it?”

“Where was this coordinated effort when it was the Templars showing up to snatch your children?!” Anders yelled, outraged. “Or do you not care so long as it was only your mage children?!”

The dwarf ignored this and raised his voice above the crowd. “All right all of you calm down and back to your wagons! And you-!” He pointed to Anders. “Better not stick around where you’re unwelcome.”

Anders sulked, but followed to the gates leading out of the garden encampment. “You know you wouldn’t win in a fight against me?” he asked the dwarf.

“Do I have to to get you to leave?” the dwarf asked back.

Anders pouted. “No.”

“Then what does it matter?” The dwarf stopped at the edge of the gates, raised an eyebrow, and waved Anders out towards the rest of Hightown.

Anders looked him over. The Carta armour was old, rough. Impossible to tell the dwarf was a card-carrying member, or just posing in the uniform. But there were little signs of wealth. Gold earrings and hairpieces. A neat, clean line of white teeth.

The dwarf shrugged. “Better than my last job. At least you’re less likely to get bitey when nobody’s cheating you out of proper lyrium, huh?”

Anders squinted suspiciously. Had they met before?

The dwarf defied proper placement in Anders’s memory. He shrugged again and jerked a thumb back towards the garden encampment. “These guys still have gold. And desperate nobles will pay a lot just to feel a little bit safer. Doesn’t matter if they really are.”

Anders scowled. More opportunism. Just like the price gouging. But Anders wasn’t even sure he could ascribe blame. The dwarf had diffused the situation well enough, hadn’t he?

Without another word, Anders turned on his heel and walked moodily off into Hightown, muttering to himself about Templars and mages and baby-theft. He was still upset. The Hightowners hadn’t found their mage children worth fighting to keep. But they’d fight Anders for the right to let their kids sicken in a cold damp garden. And the fact that Anders was acting in the role of the Templar in this scenario was now making him feel guilty and a little ashamed. He hadn’t taken it well, after all, when the Templars tore him away from his mother.

Evelina had turned herself into the Templars trying to save herself and her children from starvation, and they’d tortured her until she went mad. Feynriel’s mother had tried to turn her son into the Templars to save him from demons, but she’d spat at Anders’s and Merrill’s feet when they’d climbed down from Sundermount, having routed Audacity from the Keeper’s corpse. The only children that had made it out of Dairsmuid Circle alive were the ones the Rivaini Templars snatched and smuggled out before their Antivan supervisors caught and expelled them. Anders really had become an old man with too many memories. He turned them over in his mind but, like mismatched puzzle pieces, they would not fit together.

He hated these moments, where things were quiet enough to allow for introspection and nebulosity. When things weren’t hectic enough to necessitate absolutes.

Anders was distracted by a child, screeching with laughter. He turned to his left, following the noise.

Merrill hadn’t removed many of the Hightown manors in the week since she’d taken the Viscount’s chair, but the lot ahead of Anders was empty. And beyond it, directly ahead of the bluffs before the Waking Sea, where the manor would have once blocked it from view, was a freshwater swimming pool.

It was a decadent thing, lined with painted tiles of porcelain and ivory, encrusted with heating and cooling runes to keep the water pleasant and temperate. And it would have been an unimaginable expense to maintain for a single family in Hightown, where clean water was worth its weight in silver and runework its weight in gold.

Merrill had uncovered five others like it, hidden in the shade of Hightown’s richest manors. And this one she had opened for the public.

Despite the gloomy weather, families were queued up at the gate surrounding the pool, waiting for their turn to splash in the water for the half hour the guards permitted. The guards were, of course, a regiment from Merrill’s undead army. One particular Revenant was standing watch at the poolside, presumably to prevent any drownings, but it was distracted by a pair of children – siblings, half-elf and half-dwarf, it appeared – tossing a beach ball back and forth over its head. The Revenant’s helmet bobbed comically, up and down and side to side, as it followed the ball’s arch.

Anders harrumphed. Even if it was just thirty minutes in a public pool, of course there were plenty of people willing to take Merrill’s bribes. Like the elves who’d evacuated the Alienage tenements that Merrill had demolished to build her siege engines. She’d given them first pick of the apartments she was divvying from the Hightown manors she’d seized. And all around the city, people were whispering anxiously about who, if anyone, would be given next pick. And who, if anyone, would be the next target for her undead army’s rampage.

Anders continued through Hightown.

You couldn’t have called the streets busy exactly, except for standing and patrolling regiments of corpses. Business hadn’t reopened in the Hightown Marketplace or in the plaza ahead of the Dwarven Merchant’s Guild. And Anders remembered the storefront Hawke had arranged on Sandal’s behalf, and sourly considered the possibility that many of the stores would shutter for good.

Anders turned the corner back towards Hightown’s residential districts. And, though Anders hated to admit it, Hightown was easier to navigate now. The manors Merrill had removed had been strategically chosen, it seemed, to open the view above the harbour so that one could better measure their position along the cliff face. Several landmarks – abstract hunks of metal – had been erected at previously unmarked intersections. And a mural of a bright orange peach with a green stem had been painted on a wall near the stairwell that headed up Fenris’s street, which did make it a lot harder to miss. Anders peered up the stairwell, at the small crowd of Hightowners protesting at the entrance of Fenris’s mansion, before moving past. Anders wondered if they realised Fenris wasn’t there.

He proceeded two streets down to Hawke’s and this was where the bulk of the protestors had gathered. Come to tear down one of only a handful of people who’d managed to retain ownership of their estates during the political turmoil. They were carrying everything from placards to brooms to swords, and railed against a heavily armed guard of Skeletons and Revenants, who were holding the line a few metres from the entrance.

“You can’t hide in there forever, Hawke!” Anders heard one woman shouting.

“We made you who you are, dog lord! You were a nothing smuggler! And this is how you repay us?!” a man screeched.

But this was not the least of what was passing for peaceful protest ahead of Hawke’s place.

“Get your blighted elves under control!” one protestor started.

“Out with the knife-ears!” another agreed.

“Leash your bitch, dog lord!”

Three young men in stiff looking suits were pumping their fists in time with a chant, one that was picking up steam:

Burn Hawke’s witch! Burn Hawke’s witch! Burn Hawke’s witch!

“Everyone stop!” Anders tried to shout over everyone, as he elbowed through the crowd towards the Amell Estate’s front entrance. “You shouldn’t resort to-! You know, mage burning isn’t as antiquated a practice as you’re all making it out to be?!”

“Burn Hawke’s witch! Burn Hawke’s witch!” the crowd chanted, apparently unconcerned about the general insensitivity of their rhetoric.

Justice flashed blue, and Anders shoved a man with a baton to the side with a little too much force, as he stumbled towards the head of the group of protestors. A Revenant reached forward to catch him, and helped pull him through their barrier.

But it wasn’t Anders’s intention to hide behind Merrill’s goons. Anders brushed himself off, blue static dissipating off his hands as he did so, and made his way to one of the stone pillars marking the walkway to Hawke’s double doors. With only a little difficulty, climbed up to stand atop it.

“Look, everyone shut up!” Anders shouted, borrowing from the magic Justice used to project his voice.

This did, thankfully, buy Anders a brief window of silence as the crowd turned their attention to him.

“Look, why are you all protesting at Hawke’s? What’s the point in attacking the one person who got to keep their mansion, like you all should have gotten to, and not the person who took everything away from you?!” Anders demanded. “Why aren’t you taking this protest to Merrill at the Keep?!”

“She’s his elf, isn’t she?!” one of the protestors answered.

“Hawke screwed us over for his knife-eared bitch!” a human man with grey-black hair bellowed.

Anders inhaled deeply. “Okay, first of all, I know you’re upset with Merrill, who is an elf, but this language isn’t helping!” Anders said hotly. “It’s an injustice what she did to you. But the way you’re all shouting only makes you sound like a bunch of bigots!”

“Burn the knife-eared whore!” someone shouted.

“And second,” Anders screamed over them, “she’s not Hawke’s elf! She’s not anyone’s elf! She’s not a possession. She’s a grown woman, responsible for her own actions, and you should be taking any problems you have with her to her personally!” Anders took a deep breath. “And even if she was someone’s elf, she’d be my elf, since she’s my girlfriend and all!” he exhaled very quickly.

“Why are we listening to Hawke’s bloody robe?!” someone demanded.

“I’m not Hawke’s either!” Anders was getting the distinct impression that everyone was missing his point.

“Get Hawke’s slut mage off the stage!”

Something that was probably a rotten potato sailed through the air and pelted Anders in the stomach. He stumbled, and only stopped himself from falling by crouching down to the base of the pillar.

Which was probably for the best, given the brick that sailed over his head shortly after.

A pair of Revenants rushed to his side to shield him, as they pulled him down off the pillar and pressed him towards Hawke’s double doors, and Anders didn’t need them. He could have torn through that whole crowd of protestors like they were a three-tiered wedding cake.

But, much like his violences against the dessert table at Aveline and Donnic’s wedding, Anders decided the mass murder of people who’d just had their homes and livelihoods stolen was, perhaps, a little uncalled for. So he let the Revenants push him through the entrance to Hawke’s estate with only a little grumbling, and scowled over his shoulder as they pressed the doors shut behind him.

It was already much quieter just in the foyer of Hawke’s manor. Burn Hawke’s witch! Burn Hawke’s witch! could still be heard through the doors, but it was muffled, by noise cancelling enchantments applied to the door perhaps. By the time Anders marched through to the sitting room, the crowd was no longer audible, but Anders had something new to scowl at.

“Oh, didn’t hear you come in, Messere Anders,” Bodahn said, as he twisted the top shut on a bottle of orange nail lacquer. “Will you be joining Messeres Fenris and Isabela for their Saturday appointment?”

“No, thanks, Bodahn,” Anders said, as mildly as he could while glaring at Fenris and Isabela, reclined in an adjacent pair of armchairs.

Isabela’s hair was freshly braided, her face was covered in cosmetic cream, and her fingers and toes both sparkled pink as she stretched in her chair.

Fenris was likewise lathered with cosmetic cream. He had a pair of cucumber slices over his eyes and, blindly but carefully, he turned a champagne flute in his hand, blowing his nails dry as he did. The bright orange liquid in the glass matched that of the nail lacquer a disorienting amount.

“They’re about to break down the door out there, and you all are sitting around with your eyes covered and ears shut getting manicures?!” Anders remembered he’d been talking to Bodahn. “You and Sandal will be okay, won’t you?”

“There are all those undead soldiers – Revenants, they’re called – watching after us. And Messere Merrill and my boy updated the enchantments on the Estate to boot,” Bodahn explained. “And, worse comes to worst, we have Messere Fenris to help. And an emergency route out in the cellar, of course. I’d say we’re about as prepared as can be, presently.”

“Was rather nice of Hawke to let us stay here and use his guest rooms for the duration of the fuss outside,” Isabela said languidly.

“He’s an uncommonly good man in many regards,” Bodahn agreed. “Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he bowed shortly, “I have my own Saturday appointment to be seeing to, with Messere Tethras’s latest publication~”

“Your service and kindness has been very much appreciated, Bodahn,” Fenris said.

“Always~” Isabela sighed contentedly. “Have fun with Varric’s friend fiction~”

“I do plan to, Messeres!” Bodahn agreed brightly, before tottering off.

Anders watched him leave, before turning moodily back to Fenris and Isabela.

“They threw a brick at me,” Anders said.

“Mmm.” Fenris took another sip of his mimosa. “I trust your spirit has protected you from any lasting harm?”

“They could just as easily throw bricks through the window,” Anders said.

“They have already tried,” Fenris retorted. “Sandal’s enchantments made them bounce back off again. The mob was displeased to discover this.”

Anders scowled. He felt… “I don’t understand them,” he said, exasperated.

Fenris shifted in his seat, turning minutely towards Anders, though his eyes were still covered with cucumber. This time his voice came out a little softer. “What is it you do not understand, amatus?”

“They’re throwing around anti-elf slurs out there!” Anders said, aghast. “When did everyone become so bigoted?”

Fenris snorted. “‘Become’?” Another snort. “They are as they always were. They tolerated the witch so long as they believed she knew her place in the Alienage, under Hawke’s supervision. Now that she has proven she only let them believe so for her own convenience, they retaliate.” One last snort. “It is not entirely dissimilar from the way you, yourself, are acting.”

“Me?!” Anders gasped. “I’m not the one going around shouting slurs and decrying Elvhen rights! I wouldn’t!”

“That remains to be seen,” Fenris said disinterestedly. “But, for what it is worth, amatus, I remain at your side in the belief there are some violences you are disinclined towards.”

Anders pouted. “I wouldn’t,” he insisted.

“Mmm.”

Anders’s pout turned into a scowl. “You don’t seem to trust me very much.”

It was Isabela that snorted this time.

“If that is how you choose to see it.” Fenris set his mimosa flute on the stand next to his reclining chair, and smiled as he stretched his arms above his head. “I am of the impression that I have trusted you tremendously and unreasonably.”

“I’ll say,” Isabela agreed.

Anders grumbled.

Fenris removed one of the cucumber slices from over his eyes, stretched again, and extended his leg out to swipe Anders with his foot. “I instructed Bodahn to refrain from painting my toes,” he said.

Anders let his eyes drift down to Fenris’s bare foot – nails clean and cut and washed, but colourless. The heel and ball were badly callused, but the arch between them was soft and-

“I had thought you would enjoy doing the honours.” Fenris’s green eye sparkled, as he pressed the edge of the cucumber slice against his lip.

Anders flushed. He did like it when Fenris let him rub his feet, and when Fenris let him rub up against his feet, but-

“Not right now, love,” Anders muttered. His libido only seemed to be getting him in trouble lately.

Fenris grumbled and withdrew his foot.

“Now that’s got to be embarrassing,” Isabela snorted. “If a man rejected me like that, after I’d gone and pandered to his bizarre sensibilities, I might go ahead and stab him and toss him in the bay.”

“The day is still young,” Fenris said.

“Dagger right between the shoulder blades,” Isabela suggested. “I say we toss him out where they dump the sludge from the paper mill.”

“An appropriate fate,” Fenris intoned.

“So we’re in agreement?”

“Hmm…” Fenris pretended to ponder this. “Upon further consideration, he is abominatus. So we are unlikely to accomplish anything more than making him soggy, irritable, and foul-smelling. Perhaps we should shelve this plan for another time.”

“See, I knew you’d say that,” Isabela laughed. “I think, you’re just making excuses because you’re far too sweet on him~”

“And what about you?” Fenris challenged. “Should I expect to wash up in the harbour the next time I decline your company for the evening? Or have you found a similar soft spot for me?”

Isabela laughed again. She reached over to the seat next to hers, clasped her hand over Fenris’s thigh, ran her fingers fondly over him. “Don’t tell anyone,” she whispered.

“If you’ll both stop flirting now.” Anders was feeling hostile. “How are you both sitting here flirting, while the city’s going up in flames around you?!”

Fenris rolled his one eye, the one that wasn’t covered with cucumber. There were scoffs and grumbles from the both of them, but Isabela did pull her hand off Fenris’s thigh.

“Bit of an exaggeration I’d say.” Isabela said. “Nothing’s actually on fire. Kitten’s got it under control. You know Kitten could never really do anything wrong~”

“She’s throwing children out of their homes and onto the streets!” Anders said hotly.

Fenris sighed and hoisted himself up and out of the chair.

Anders thought he might have finally been spurred to action. But instead Fenris snatched his mimosa flute, and proceeded to the bar at the edge of the sitting room. He filled his glass halfway from the pitcher Bodahn had left out, then went to spike it with a disproportionate amount of vodka.

“Love, you really shouldn’t,” Anders whined. “It’s still early. You’re going to ruin your liver doing that.” Although it was hard to say what exactly was going on with Fenris’s liver to start with. The last time Anders had gotten the opportunity for a proper look at it, he’d found Fenris’s liver growing solid lyrium crystals. Which was concerning, and all the more concerning for the fact that it seemed to be working perfectly fine.

Fenris turned to Anders and did not break eye contact as lifted the mimosa flute to his mouth, drained the entirety of it. “You drive me to this,” he said, before immediately mixing himself another.

Anders pouted. All he did was try to help. Try to look after Fenris. Love him. Worry over him. And- The lyrium crystals in Fenris’s liver. The heart Merrill had coughed up a week and a half ago. He had no idea how these things even made anatomical sense. If Fenris or Merrill’s health started to fail, would he even know how to save them?! Would he-?!

“It was a joke, amatus.” Fenris sighed.

He reached for Anders’s hand and held it – albeit a bit stiffly, with his fingertips turned out to avoid smearing the polish. And Anders let himself be calmed by Fenris’s tangibility and the steadiness of his breath. Fenris was here now. He was healthy and – if Bodahn was to be believed – safe.

“Was your visit to heal the displaced Hightown nobles uneventful?” Fenris asked, when he finally pulled his hand away.

Anders looked away guiltily. “That part went fine,” he lied. Fenris would not be pleased to hear about the attempted baby snatching.

“Mmm.” Fenris blew once more over his nails to dry them. “Then I take it your trip to the Keep this morning did not go as you intended.”

Anders scowled just remembering the disaster that had been.

“And I suppose you will not settle until I have heard all about it,” Fenris sighed.

Anders took this for permission, and immediately launched into his account of what had transpired five hours prior.

==

Five Hours Ago…

Once upon a time, Justice had been panicking about something or other – the horrors of existing in a world where time and space and consequences were all so very tangible and measurable, where every sensation was too intensely blinding and deafening and even the air in their lungs and the floor under their bare feet were unbearable to the touch. And Anders rarely knew what to do about these moods of Justice’s, but Fenris seemed to. He’d opened the book he’d been reading on Imperial design elements and spoke paragraphs and pages and chapters aloud until Justice had calmed. And the most amazing thing about this was that the words had not just gone in one ear and out the other. Anders still remembered Fenris’s voice, droning serenely about how cafeterias and operating theatres and the handle of a pitcher should be designed, and the word ‘ergonomics’.

With Fenris’s lecture still clear in his mind, Anders felt it was safe to say Kirkwall’s Keep was an absolute ergonomic failure. The entry hall and first stairwell were always packed to bursting, the space divvied into tight little rows separated by rope partitions, where visitors and petitioners queued to speak with the Viscount or various lesser bureaucrats. The entrance hall also accommodated foot traffic to the adjunct Kirkwall Guard’s headquarters and barracks, whose placement Anders might have understood if the close proximity of the Guard had actually been any help when either the Arishok or Merrill had stormed the Keep. The Throne Room and Assembly Hall towards the back of the Keep could easily accommodate the crowd that suffocated the entrance, but Kirkwall’s leaders rarely if ever took audiences there. The room was filled with a terrible echo and was empty of the records, resources, and accommodations they used to actually make their decisions, so meetings were typically held within their private offices. With the front of the Keep so full, and the backside so empty, Anders was surprised some days that the whole building didn’t unbalance itself and tip off the cliffside into the sea.

The congestion in the entrance hall was not in any way helped by the crowds attempting to petition or protest various aspects of Merrill’s occupation. Nor by the forty or so walking corpses that were stationed at various choke points. The crowd seemed to be giving them a wide berth – because of their rank and rotting flesh or because of the swords and pikes they wielded threateningly, Anders did not know. But Anders, who had no reason to fear disease nor steel, pressed through the crowd to the second floor landing and came up against a barricade five walking corpses across.

This was not the first time Anders had made it to the second floor landing. In fact, he’d made it here thrice over the past week, before being pulled away to more pressing concerns – breaking up a violent fight that erupted between two petitioners at the entrance of the Keep, or responding to a wailing mother who’d lost her children somewhere up Viscount’s Way. Once he’d made it up to the fifth stair landing ahead the Viscount’s office, before he’d been informed Merrill was not in the Keep at all, but was away attending an assembly in the underground headquarters of Kirkwall’s Dwarven Merchant’s Guild.

He glared at the line of corpses, determined neither they, nor anyone else, would keep him from seeing Merrill today. But before Anders could get himself worked up to a properly intimidating stature, the crowd swelled behind him, causing him to stumble forward. He knocked against the front of one walking corpse’s shield and the heraldry of the Kirkwall guard – orange paint on brown wood.

The corpse held the shield upright, as Anders steadied himself against it, and… Something may have passed between the corpse’s spirit and Justice, because Anders’s forearms flashed softly blue and there was a sound like ringing and static and the Fade, and the corpse stepped back, breaking the line and allowing Anders through.

Anders turned back, and the corpse with the shield had already stepped back into line and reformed the barricade. Someone near the front of the line, a human man in a white dress shirt and red pantaloons, was demanding to know why he was still waiting when Anders had been allowed through. But his cries were lost in the disorganised bustle of the Keep and Anders, unused to being on the favourable side of administrative access, allowed himself to be escorted by a pair of Horrors up the third flight of stairs, past the guard barracks, and then up the narrower staircase towards the balcony ahead the Viscount’s office. He glanced down over the railing at the crowd – dots for the birds-eye view afforded by the height of the Keep, and then turned to the living retainer waiting for him at the top of the stairs.

“The Darktown Healer and Chantry Bomber here for his ten o’clock,” Bran Cavin met him with a sneer and a groan, and made a mark on his clipboard with an ornate green fountain pen. “Too much to hope I’d seen the last of you when you came to pull Hawke out of his annual finance meeting. Now you’re the closest thing we have to a First Lady. Ugh,” he groaned again.

“What are you doing here?” Anders asked, eyes narrowing suspiciously. “You were Acting Viscount. Didn’t Merr boot you out when she took over?”

“I’ve retained my former position of Seneschal,” Bran said, tapping his pen against the clipboard once more. “I’d like to see anyone try to run this place without me. Try to hold a grasp on all the treaties and commitments and laws the Keep has to uphold. Though I suppose it matters less to the current Viscount than her predecessors,” he muttered, “given the number of documents she’s already tossed in the fire…”

“So she booted you and then kept you on for a lackey,” Anders surmised. He was feeling petty and mean, so he allowed a sneer to grace his face. “And the demotion didn’t hurt your pride at all?”

“On the contrary,” Bran said sharply. “I prefer working as Seneschal. The Keep has been overtaxed without bodies to fill its seats. Now I’ll finally be allowed to take all the vacation time I’d saved up.”

Anders scowled. “And Merrill’s the Viscount you’ve always dreamed of then?”

“As Seneschal it isn’t my place to speculate on the fitness of our Viscount,” Bran huffed. “But, given your close relationship with the parties at hand, perhaps I can allow myself a moment to relax and speak freely.” He jabbed the fountain pen against his board, and hissed lowly. “At least she’s not bloody Hawke.”

“What’s wrong with Hawke?!” Anders demanded.

Bran Cavin gave him a look that conveyed there wasn’t much he didn’t think was wrong with Hawke.

It was true that Hawke wasn’t very politically minded or dutiful, and that he quickly lost interest in projects that didn’t involve enough blighted dragons, but… “I like Hawke,” Anders muttered sullenly under his breath.

Bran scoffed under his own breath – curses for Hawke, and Tethras, and then Anders himself. “Boot me? Outlasted Thrennhold and Dumar and Stannard, didn’t I?” He turned his head up to address Anders. “You know, you’re the one lucky she doesn’t boot you,” he asserted. “I told her the arrangement with you and your group wouldn’t be winning her any favours, when there are families in Ansburg and Ostwick she might consider marriage alliances with. Admittedly being a Dalish elf narrowed her prospects, but I compiled a list of some noble families fallen on hard times and nouveau riche merchant families, who might not have the luxury of being picky.”

This… wasn’t something that Anders had ever felt the need to worry about with Merrill. With Hawke, maybe, but…

“Oh, don’t sulk.” Bran rolled his eyes. “She folded the list into paper roses and then set it on fire right in front of me… But you could stand to better mind your place.”

A lot of people had told Anders over the years that a mage should mind their place, and it left him feeling none too charitably towards the Seneschal.

“Bran, I still have the records from all your clinic visits,” Anders reminded. “Every time I treated you for pox, crabs, and the clap.”

“Only because my Ren wouldn’t trust the healer reports out of the Gal- Oh, nevermind. What time do we have on the hourglass?”

Bran was not suddenly filled with the gratitude and respect Anders felt he deserved, but Bran did relent. He turned towards the anteroom ahead the Viscount’s office and waved for a walking corpse, who dutifully carried the hourglass to Bran’s attention. Its top bowl was still about a quarter full.

“We’re close enough to your appointment time that our Viscount can manage,” Bran decided. He beckoned Anders forward, as he shuffled into the anteroom, where several Arcane Horrors were at work sorting the tomes on the shelves.

“Wait,” Anders protested, even as he fell into step behind Bran, “what’s this about an appointment? I don’t remember making one.”

“Well, you’re here and you’re on the schedule,” Bran snipped. “The Viscount said she would be entertaining you in her office at the tenth hour, and would take lunch over the course of her next appointment. It was apparently important enough that I arranged the rest of the day around it.” He sighed derisively, before knocking against the closed double doors. “Lady Merrill!” he called. “Your beau has arrived early, if I could send him in?!”

There was a brief pause, before Anders heard Merrill call back through the door.

“Oh, yes, that should be fine! I think? Send him in if you would, please!”

Hearing Merrill speak, her words pitched with the slightest bit of anxiety and hesitation, made Anders feel a bit better. She didn’t sound like a tyrant or viscount or some god of the dead. She sounded like the girl who had come to the clinic to watch Anders show Fenris how to make salves. Who, after a day of mercilessly teasing Fenris, lingered behind to ask in a stammering voice if Anders might like to go for a walk together. And ask if, while they walked, he'd like to hold her hand or hold her hip, as she searched for specimens to fill the terrarium Isabela had given her.

And then Bran opened the door and ushered Anders inside, and all of Anders’s good will evaporated as the betrayal hit.

The chair at the Viscount’s desk was empty, and Merrill stood to the side of a table that had been set up at the front of the office and laid out with two maps – one of the Free Marches as a whole, and one of the bluffs and cliffs more immediately surrounding Kirkwall. Merrill was wearing the pearly white set of armour Hawke had gifted her with and, though the outfit had always struck Anders as ostentatious, she did not even really stand out in it, dwarfed as she was by the others around the room.

It turned out it wasn’t just Bran Cavin, resident bureaucratic ass, who had decided to pitch in with Merrill. There was a rather impressive collection of figures surrounding the table and the maps. Aveline stood most immediately at Merrill’s side, in her Guard Captain’s armour with her arms folded over her chest. But also the Alienage Hahren. A dwarf that Anders did not recognise. Lirene – Ferelden Community Organiser, former associate within the Mage Underground, and still the business manager and chief sponsor to Anders’s clinic. And First Enchanter Orsino, the only one among them sitting, spread between three chairs to accommodate eight arms, four legs, and the rest of his abominated form. His many arms moved furiously, taking down minutes and manning a samovar and tea set for the rest of the table, and- Maker, Orsino and his spirit were giving abominations a bad name! It wasn’t like Anders and Justice went trotting around town with extra limbs out for everyone to see! Not most of the time, anyway!

“You’re all familiar with him, I think. By reputation, at least, if not more personally…” Merrill’s lips scrunched peculiarly, as she made the introductions. “Oh, he’s got quite a lot of names at this point, and most aren’t really very flattering, but we mostly just call him ‘Anders’.”

There were vague sounds of assent around the table.

“And you already know Ghemaril and Lirene and Orsino and Aveline,” Merrill told Anders. She gestured between the Hahren and the others, before coming to a stop before the dwarf. “And this is Yannick Davri, who is, um, forty-third in line for Chief Executor of the Dwarven Merchant’s Guild, and due to be sworn in for the post tomorrow morning,” she said brightly. “Oh, I think you’ll like him, vhenan~ He has some very interesting stories about this cousin of his and Varric~”

“Pleasure,” Yannick Davri nodded his head brusquely.

Anders wasn’t sure he was understanding this right. “If you’re forty-third in line, why are you being sworn in for Chief Executor?” he squinted.

An uncomfortable silence descended across the room and shuffled in place. Merrill was the only one who would meet anyone else’s eye, and she fixed Yannick with a prompting stare.

Yannick cleared his throat and, despite his clear discomfort, spoke smoothly. “The Merchant’s Guild is in a period of transition after a large number of our senior executors died last night in their sleep. Cardiac arrest. Of the living members of the Guild, I am the highest ranking.”

“It’s very tragic,” Merrill cooed.

“Indeed,” Yannick said. “A freak accident. We’re thinking it’s the result of a lyrium power surge. The wrath of the Titans.”

“But like Hawke says, every cloud has a silver film or something,” Merrill continued brightly. “Because when I went to visit all the dwarves in the big underground conference hall, nobody except for Yannick seemed very interested in what I had to say. And we talked a little after the meeting was over, about how unfortunate it was that he wasn’t the one in charge of the Merchant’s Guild. And now he is! And we can all go through with our plans to help the city after all~”

Yannick nodded seriously. “The Merchant’s Guild is committed to seeing our building proposal through.”

Anders was pretty sure he saw what was happening here, although he didn’t quite believe it. “How can the Merchant’s Guild be committed to anything when over forty of its members died overnight?!”

Yannick Davri seemed uncomfortable, but he endeavoured to explain anyhow. “They say that surface dwarves leave caste and stone sense behind when they leave Orzammar, but the Guild is more traditional than you think. The majority of its executive positions are filled by members of only a few families descending from Orzammar’s Merchant and Noble Castes. Despite the upheaval in the upper echelons of the Guild, the lower rungs – primarily former Warriors and Artisans and Casteless – have remained relatively untouched. It’s in their interest that they continue their daily business, and that they have the guidance to do so.” Yannick snorted, and for a moment he seemed almost amused. “Can’t expect all you humans to know it, but this is typical Dwarven Politics.”

Anders was incensed. “How can you talk about daily business, when people are being ki-?!”

“Anders!” Aveline cut in with a sharp warning. “Leave Davri alone. He has it difficult enough without your prodding.”

Yannick let out a sigh of relief, as Anders turned to face Aveline.

She’d squared her shoulders and lifted her head. She didn’t seem to be done with him. “Remember you’re at the Keep, in the Viscount’s presence. I don’t know why Merrill bothered inviting you, but it’s all daily business here. We have a city to run.”

“What about you?” Anders said. He hadn’t liked it much when Aveline had seemed to be his only ally against Merrill, but he liked it infinitely less now that she’d jumped ship. “A week ago you were trying to stop Merrill,” he reminded. “This doesn’t end well, you told her. And now you’ve gone to work for her?!”

“I had a change of heart,” Aveline said dispassionately.

“What ‘change of heart’ explains this?!”

“Donnic, he…” Aveline’s face had gone very red, and the embarrassment served to make her more curt and snappy. “He reminded me I have other responsibilities now, ones more important than risking my life for Kirkwall’s sovereignty.”

Anders had always taken Donnic for a reasonable person but, although he trusted Aveline’s recount of Donnic’s argument not at all, he felt himself grow affronted anyhow. “What could Donnic possibly say to make you-?!”

“No. Oh, no,” Aveline cut him off emphatically. “I’m not explaining this five different times to each one of you separately. You’ll be at Wicked Grace tonight with the others, Anders. And you’ll find out same time as everyone else.”

“What is that supposed to mean?!” Anders demanded. “How can you talk about fair procedure and impartiality when-?!”

“I don’t have to justify myself to you!” Aveline scoffed. It was unclear what she meant by you – mage, abomination, terrorist, or simply Anders as a person. “Like it or not, Merrill’s the only authority this city has now-”

“Because you let the previous authority collapse,” Anders accused.

“There hasn’t been an authority, Anders,” Aveline snarled. “The viscountcy has been in turmoil since Marlowe Dumar’s death seven years ago, and you didn’t exactly shrink the power vacuum when you deposed the Grand Cleric.” She huffed. “Like I said, like it or not, Merrill’s our Viscount now, there’s a chance for some order and stability in this city for the first in a very long time, and she has the Kirkwall City Guard’s full support. End of discussion.”

Aveline crossed her gauntleted arms over her chest and fixed Anders with a challenging glare, and the effect was ruined only minutely when Merrill elbowed her in the side.

“Aww, that was very sweet of you, Aveline,” Merrill cooed. “Isabela said you would come around. You’re always so soft and sweet under all that armour.”

Aveline hung her head bashfully and allowed a smile. “Just don’t let my men know it. I have enough trouble getting them all listening to me to begin with.” She looked across the round table at the others present at the meeting. “I suppose all of you would know something about that.”

“Absolutely,” Lirene said.

“Your secrets won’t leave the room,” Yannick Davri agreed.

There was a general consensus of nods and approval.

“I will say your undead army did sweeten the pot quite a lot, Merrill,” Aveline went on to say. “A week ago we had no practical way to repel Starkhaven’s impending invasion, and you made a solution appear overnight. Can’t say how happy I am we won’t be begging Ostwick for soldiers.”

“Oh, I have been told my pot is very sweet~” Merrill snickered and elbowed Aveline again. “I said something dirty. Did I do it right?”

Watching Merrill pal around with Aveline only made Anders feel more sour, but he supposed he was wrong to expect reason and impartiality from Missus Guard Brutality to begin with. He turned angrily to the rest of the room. “And what about the rest of you?!” he demanded. “Are you all convinced that an army of corpses taking over the Keep is such an asset?!” He rounded on Orsino. “I suppose I can’t expect the First Enchanter to take issue with the practice of dark magic!”

Orsino was organising a pile of folders on the table ahead of him and, with the second of his eight arms, lifted a teacup to his face, took a sip, and cleared his throat. “Anders…” His voice was smooth and gentle as he began to chastise. “I know we haven’t always agreed in how to best help Kirkwall’s mages. And I know you haven’t forgiven me for the concessions I made to Meredith, or for what happened between Quentin and Hawke, or for my part in our failed collaboration to apprentice mages to your clinic. And I don’t expect your forgiveness either,” he clarified, “but I want to do what is best for our community, and Merrill is providing an opportunity to integrate mages back into-”

“Your apprentice wouldn’t stop chewing gum in my clinic!” Anders shouted. She had also called Anders an uptight old man, humiliated him by quizzing him with her Spirit Healing textbook, and hadn’t taken well to eighteen hour shifts. “I don’t need you passing your problem children off to me!”

And then Anders felt bad. Because he was shouting about things long past that no longer mattered in light current events. And also because all the Enchanters in Kinloch had made it very clear that Anders himself was the very definition of a ‘problem child’. He looked away from Orsino, to save face, and turned his attention back to Yannick Davri.

“You know over forty Merchant’s Guild members didn’t drop dead overnight of natural causes!” Anders insisted. “It doesn’t take much to induce a heart attack using blood magic! And Dwarven resistance to magic isn’t all it’s made out to be! How are you okay with this?!”

Yannick had picked up a large feathered quill made of white peacock down off the table. And he avoided Anders’s glare entirely as he fidgeted with it, ink pressing over his thumb. “I am choosing not to discuss this with you,” he replied curtly.

“So you know it’s not right!” Anders announced victoriously. He was sure he had an in with the dwarf.

Then Lirene crossed the room and stomped her heel over the toe of Anders’s boot.

“Ow!” Anders yelped.

Lirene linked her arm in his and turned to face the others in the room. “As a leader of Kirkwall’s Ferelden Community and a long-time associate of Anders, I hope nobody minds me apologising on his behalf.”

Anders pouted defensively. “Don’t need you apologising for me,” he grumbled, but it was drowned out by the others in the room.

“Not at all, Lirene,” Orsino said magnanimously.

“Of course, sweetheart,” Hahren Ghemaril agreed.

“Much appreciated.” Lirene nodded her head courteously. “And, Lady Viscount,” she addressed Merrill, “I believe we’ve reached an accord regarding my responsibilities in the plans going forward. Would you mind if I stepped out for a minute to have a word with Anders? It would give you and the others the opportunity to wrap up any loose ends before our meeting is adjourned.”

The tips of Merrill’s ears flicked approvingly. “Oh, yes, that does sound like a good idea~ I was just about to ask, if you wouldn’t mind, please.”

Lirene bowed her head, a bit deeper this time, and pulled Anders’s arm down with her as she did so. And once she was done with that, she turned them both and pulled Anders out of the Viscount’s office.

Lirene closed the double doors behind them, and they were out in the anteroom again. Bran was no longer anywhere to be seen, but several Arcane Horrors remained, one still sorting the tomes on the shelves built into the west wall of the room, another watering a collection of potted ferns set along the south wall. Lirene took no notice of them, she pressed Anders towards an isolated corner of the anteroom and rounded on him.

“What is it you think you’re doing?” Lirene hissed.

“Me? What about you?!” Anders demanded.

“No, I don’t actually care what it is you think,” Lirene decided, ignoring Anders’s question entirely. “Just cut it out!”

Anders couldn’t help but feel a little hurt. He hadn’t been happy to see any of the crowd in Merrill’s office, but Lirene was the only one he really considered his friend. And he couldn’t fathom what had possessed her to do any of this.

“Why are you here at the Keep?” he pleased. “Why are you at the Keep, meeting with Merrill, like she’s some-? She’s a-” He struggled for the word.

“Viscount?” Lirene asked.

“Despot,” Anders said. “She’s terrorising the city with an army of the undead and repossessing the property of anyone who doesn’t like it.”

“Oh, Anders,” Lirene sighed. The wrinkles on her face smoothed as she relaxed, crow’s feet around her deep brown eyes, and she reached up to smooth the hair out of Anders’s face and flatten the feathers on his coat. “You know I like you, right?” she said. “I’ve always believed in and supported your work, and I kept you and the clinic afloat through the rough patches, right?”

Anders pouted. He had crossed the threshold into middle aged a while ago, but somehow never felt quite adult enough standing next to Lirene. It was true what she’d said though, and he owed her a lot, so he nodded.

“Right,” Lirene agreed, “so you know I mean it kindly when I say that you are going to put aside whatever relationship issues you’re having and suck it up,” she hissed. “I don’t give a Maker’s flying fuck that Merrill Sabrae is a maleficar, a murderer, a blighted arrogant megalomaniac, or that she wouldn’t eat the liver muffins you made especially for her,” she mocked.

“She was anaemic and she fed them to a halla right in front of me!” Anders protested hotly.

“Do you know why your girlfriend called me up here this morning?” Lirene said. “She’s getting us jobs, Anders.”

Anders raised an eyebrow. “But you already have a job. And I’m far too busy with the clinic to-”

“No. You are so-” Lirene cut herself off with a frustrated huff. “Not ‘us’, as in you and me. ‘Us’ as in Fereldans. She’s getting us jobs. And real jobs, under the open sky instead of crammed down in a mine in the dark with chokedamp and blacklung and nests of giant spiders about to bite everyone’s heads off.”

Anders squinted at Lirene, but she seemed as serious and humourless as ever. “And how is she planning to do that?” he asked suspiciously.

“It’s a big project, and I don’t want to say too much before it’s even gotten off the ground,” Lirene warned, “but your girlfriend is planning to terraform the land east of the city.”

Anders wasn’t sure what he expected, wasn’t sure what this ‘terraforming’ even was, but-

“She’s looking for a solution to the food shortages,” Lirene explained. “They’ve been a problem for as long as I’ve lived here, and no one is sure how much longer Ansburg will willingly trade with us given the circumstances.”

“Circumstances she caused,” Anders reminded.

“Maker, I don’t care!” Lirene seethed. “Jobs, Anders. Focus!”

Out of respect for Lirene, Anders tried his best to focus.

“It’s not just jobs, Anders,” Lirene said. “If this goes well, we’ll have farms, homes. People will be able to raise families. The Keep is signing fixed rate contracts so, in thirty years’ time, we’ll have bought out over half the farmhouses and cottages it’s having built. That’s why she has the dwarf here. To get his people to build us something that’s not bloody, leaking tenements in the ghetto.”

Anders tried to piece this information together, to no avail.

Lirene sighed. “I’m not saying it will be easy,” she said tersely. “I’m sure there will be a lot of stumbling. This first season is going to be lean. We’re relying on a lot of untested alliances, and we might see some riots. And it all depends on whether Orsino’s people can figure out how to magic rock and sand and barren cliffs into proper fields in the first place but- I’ve seen what mages can do.”

She looked up at Anders, brown eyes shining with determination and belief.

Anders wasn’t sure why he flushed and shied away from it.

“I think we can do it,” Lirene declared. “It won’t be easy but- I’ve been at this for years, Anders. Trying to pull us Fereldans together, petitioning the Keep, writing trading and building companies. And for so long – nothing. I never asked for easy,” she declared. “I just wanted a chance. A fair chance. For someone to come to the table, and try to work with me instead of against me. And, Anders, you aren’t going to ruin this for me!” she hissed.

“Me?!” Anders felt rather put on the spot. “What do you think I’m-?”

“This is our big break,” Lirene cut him off. “You got yours when you set off some bombs and got the Champion and the City Guard to chase the Chantry and Templars out the gates. And I pulled for you when half of Kirkwall was screaming for your head on a pike in the aftermath.”

Anders looked away again. He wasn’t sure why everyone was so intent on bringing that up, as if they were scolding him for it.

“Well, this is my big break,” Lirene went on to say. “If there’s one thing Fereldans know how to do, it’s farm. And if all we have to do to farm, and to secure clean homes and full bellies and fair pay for fair labour, is play nice with the Alienage-? Then I’ll tell the elves whatever they want to know and say whatever they like.”

Lirene snorted. But she was not finished. “And I don’t believe for a second, that blighted Merrill Sabrae would have even known my blighted name to call upon today, if it weren’t for our mutual association with you.” She jabbed her index finger at Anders’s chest. “So I’m telling you now, you aren’t going to say or do anything that jeopardises this project, our alliance, your relationship with her, or her seat as Viscount in any way. Do I make myself clear, Anders?”

Anders winced as he pulled away from her jabbing finger. “Yeah, alright, fine.” He’d come to understand that Lirene was unlikely to be any help to him and, having lost interest in the conversation, Anders was already back to thinking about how to jeopardise Merrill’s seat as Viscount.

“Good,” Lirene said firmly. She took his arm and marched them back into the Viscount’s office.

“Oh, leave the door open a moment, if you would,” Merrill said, as they stepped in.

The meeting appeared to be wrapping up. Orsino was packing a briefcase and passing out copies of the minutes to the others in the room. The Hahren carried the samovar set to a side table. And Aveline was rolling up the maps that were spread across the table set ahead of the Viscount’s desk.

Once more, Merrill’s eyes flashed unnervingly black. She curled her hand in a beckoning wave, and a troop of walking skeletons followed into the room soon after. Most crowded to lift and carry the extra table and chairs from the room. But a few settled in to stand attentively at the Hahren’s and Lirene’s shoulders and, after a moment, an Arcane Horror entered as well, escorting two well-armed dwarves to Yannick Davri’s side.

Aveline left first. With a quick, ‘We’ll talk later,’ at Merrill, she tucked the rolled up maps under her arm and strode brusquely from the room. She did not acknowledge Anders as she left.

“Us in the Alienage aren’t used to this kind of work,” the Hahren was saying. “But we’ll just have to learn to manage.” She turned to Lirene. “I’m relying on your people’s guidance through all of this. I expect you’ll teach us all we need to know without prejudice.”

“Of course,” Lirene capitulated easily. She turned to bow shortly to Merrill. “I’ll have a list of the first hundred or two hundred heads by Friday, if that suits you, Lady Viscount. Should be ready to start tilling as soon as you and the First Enchanter are finished with the prep work.”

“Oh, that would be lovely~” Merrill agreed.

Lirene bowed again before turning back to the Hahren. “Hahren Ghemaril, if you’re also heading back to Lowtown, if you’d allow me to escort you. There are a few things I’d like to discuss in more detail.”

“I’d like that very much, sweetheart.” Hahren Ghemaril held out her arm for Lirene.

Lirene took it, and Ghemaril leaned into her as they walked. And Lirene allowed this, supporting the other woman, as if the Hahren were some elderly crone instead of perhaps a decade older than Lirene at most.

So Lirene could play-act deference as well as Wynne ever had. What a betrayal. Anders scoffed petulantly.

Lirene met his eyes with a glare and afforded him a few mouthed threats, before she and the Hahren brushed past out the doors, followed by a small entourage of walking corpses.

Yannick Davri spoke up. “I’ll have over the first shipment of tools and equipment over before the end of the week and we’ll say… first batch of blueprints by next Wednesday.” He checked the time on a golden pocketwatch. “I’d better head out too. Have a couple of funerals I need to be getting to.”

Anders was at a loss for words. “You’re-?! Maker’s Breath! How can-?! Funerals?!” he sputtered incoherently.

The dwarves in Yannick’s retinue chuckled under their breath.

Yannick Davri tucked his quill and a sheath of papers under his arms. “I have chosen not to discuss this with you,” he reminded Anders, before sliding out the door next. His retinue and the Arcane Horror followed him out.

That left only Orsino, Merrill, and Anders in the Viscount’s Office. And Orsino appeared to be packing the last of his things.

“That’s everything then,” he announced, as he folded the last of his papers in his briefcase and tucked a box of sample runic enchantments under his fourth arm. “I have just the apprentices in mind for the Primal magic you’ll be teaching. Here’s to a long partnership between the Keep and Kirkwall’s former Circle Mages, Our Goddess of the Dead.” He bowed at the waist, with a flourish of his third and eighth arms.

Merrill giggled at the flattery. Rather inappropriately, Anders thought.

“And, Anders-” Orsino turned to him. “It is good to see you. Despite our differences, I will always be grateful for the things you’ve done on behalf of Kirkwall’s mage community. If you ever need anything from me, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

Orsino sounded guileless and entirely sincere, and somehow that made everything worse. Anders harrumphed and refused to watch as Orsino shambled out of the office.

He shut the double doors behind him, and Merrill approached them warily, ears twitching as she turned to hear through the door. And, after a moment, she let out a sigh of relief and bolted the lock.

“Oh, good, they’re gone. Thank the Creators~” she breathed.

Anders was taken aback. Everyone had seemed to be firmly on Merrill’s side. He didn’t know why she’d be happy her supporters were gone. “And here I thought you were all getting along great,” he snipped.

Merrill blinked, like she was surprised. “Oh, we are! At least, I think we are?” She considered a moment, before shrugging these worries away. “It’s not that I dislike any of them. I like them all rather a lot, actually. They’re all very keen and make themselves easy to work with~ It’s just they’re…” Merrill scrunched her face curiously.

“What?” Anders demanded. “Unscrupulous cowards? Haven’t got a single principle between them?”

“No, I don’t think that’s true,” Merrill disagreed. “I was going to say they’re not you.”

Something caught in Anders’s throat, and his cheeks heated as he swallowed it down. “And what would you want with me?” he said irritably. Because right now he was Merrill’s detractor. Her critic and her enemy and her worst nightmare. He could be intimidating. He could do this.

“Oh, what I want you for…” Merrill giggled like he’d made a joke. “We’ve hardly had much time together this past week. Only ten minutes here and there. And always with someone else around.”

“Because you’ve been busy invading the Keep and assassinating politicians and tossing people out of their homes!” Anders accused.

“I’ve been very busy,” Merrill said distractedly, “and tense.” She’d walk over to the armour stand at the side of the room, and began fiddling ineffectively with the clasps on her armour. “Could you help me get this off, vhenan? I do love this armour, since it was a gift from Hawke. But you know how difficult it is to get on and off.”

Anders rolled his eyes and stomped forward, hands flying immediately to the first set of ties and clasps beneath Merrill’s shoulders. He’d done this before – they both had – and it was beyond him why Merrill insisted on wearing this armour when she knew she couldn’t get it back off again herself.

“What you’re doing is unconscionable, Merrill,” Anders began his petition. “Every man has a right to their safety and property, and-”

“Oh, ow,” Merrill squeaked. She shivered, where Anders had carelessly pinched her with the rings of her chainmail, beneath the plate. “A bit more gentle for now, please.”

“Right, sorry,” Anders agreed brusquely.

He forced himself to move slower, unknotting the leather ties and metal clasps with a more precise hand, as he continued his lecture. And Merrill was giving him vague and ponderous responses (Oh, is that what has you worried? Oh, yes, vhenan, I can see why you’re so frustrated.) which had Anders incensed, up until a point.

“When Andraste said that magic was meant to serve man, not to rule over him, she meant- er-”

Anders had finished removing the back, breast, and shoulder plates, pulled them high over Merrill’s head. And he found himself entirely without words, as he unfastened the chainmail underneath and uncovered her neck. Which was slender and, well, disproportionately long. But there was… something. And Merrill reached a hand back to rub at the tawny skin, like she could feel an itch where he was staring at her.

She turned to face Anders. “Meant what, vhenan?” she asked, before lifting her arms up so he could unclasp her bracers.

“Er- Andraste meant…”

The ties clasps dug so tightly into Merrill’s skin they left little red marks where Anders released them, and Anders rubbed his fingers over the indents. He wasn’t sure if he should heal them, or dig his fingers and nails into her. Make more.

He raked his eyes over the rest of her. As she directed his hands to remove the faulds of the mother-of-pearl armour. She was wearing a short green smock with a high neckline and a pair of brown leggings underneath, both well worn. And you couldn’t have called the outfit seductive or revealing. But, wearing them, she looked comfortable and dishevelled and accessible in a way that made Anders imagine how easy it would be to place his hands on her hips and slide them up her waist and under her smock.

“Oh, is whatever the woman from the statues meant all those years ago really what you want to talk about, Anders?” Merrill interrupted his thoughts. “Oh, that was quite a stupid question, wasn’t it?” Merrill’s smile wobbled and broke into a laugh. “I know you do love talking about the statue women.”

“I- er-” Anders flushed. He wasn’t quite sure what to say. He reached out in his mind for Justice. Justice was always able to put these things to words, to cry out injustice even when Anders was too unfocussed to do so.

“The greaves too, vhenan,” Merrill instructed.

She turned and tapped the tip of one foot against the floor to draw his attention down, and Anders crouched down on one knee and bent to undo the greaves tied around the back of her calves. And some part of him reminded himself – she could have gotten this part of the armour off herself if she wanted to.

He looked up to somehow confront her about it but, kneeling behind her where he was, all he could see were her legging, hugging tightly against her thighs and round behind. And her smock was loose enough he could see up beneath it and trace her spine up her back, skin slightly wrinkled. And, Maker, it really would have been so easy to press up against her back as he stood, to pull down her leggings and his own trousers and enter her right there. And he knew her well enough to know exactly how she’d react. How she’d chide him for being eager – allow him a few fond insults, maybe, if he was lucky – but she’d resist him not at all.

In other words, he’d realised she was distracting him on purpose.

He stood, handed her the greaves, and glared. “Fine, forget about Andraste,” he said. “Let’s talk about what you’re doing.”

“Oh? What am I doing?” Merrill pouted coyly, as she laid the greaves over the armour stand.

“You’re terrorising people with necromancy and blood magic,” Anders said, “holding the Viscount’s chair by threat of violence, and practising nepotism. You’ve put together a cabinet of yes-men, given Alienage elves the run of the city, and let Hawke and Fenris alone keep their mansions just because they’re your friends.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Merrill said.

“That’s right?!” Anders repeated. He wasn’t sure if it would have been more or less offensive if Merrill wasn’t admitting to her crimes.

“Well, no,” Merrill said distracted. “I think ‘friend’ is a wee bit of an understatement where Fenris is concerned. And I let Bran and a few others keep their manors too. And I’m doing other things to secure my position. But for the most part, I do agree with you.”

“You agree?!”

“There have been three-? Four different Viscounts since I started living here?” Merrill’s face scrunched as she pondered, before she shrugged the question away. “And everyone was always fighting about it. With swords and shields and poison and blood – not just with words the way you and I fight with one another, vhenan. And all the Viscounts were handing out favours to all their friends, and giving preferential treatment to other humans. Isn’t that what that Dumar did with Hawke?”

It was different. And Anders was sure he could prove how given a few minutes.

Merrill huffed and crossed her arms. “I spent a decade watching everyone in this city be cruel to the elves in the Alienage, and the mages in the Gallows, and all of your people in Darktown. Well, it’s my turn to hand out preferential treatment now, isn’t it?” she scoffed. “I understand now: I was always meant to be Falon’Din. I bided my time and worked hard at my craft until I could be deified. But my time has arrived. And what is a god for, if not for passing out wrath and favours? Why shouldn’t I reward those that have pleased me, and punish those that haven’t?”

Merrill sounded entirely serious about this interpretation of events, and not even a little like she was joking. And Anders didn’t know how to argue with someone who thought it was their divine right to toy with people’s lives. He sputtered, but decided to try anyway.

“You’re holding the entire city at knife-point trying to hold the Viscount’s chair!” Anders repeated.

“It is a very comfortable chair,” Merrill said, almost apologetically.

“What is it that makes you think this is okay?!” Anders insisted.

“Did you want to try sitting in it?”

“What?”

“The Viscount’s chair,” Merrill specified. “Why don’t you sit in it for a while? Oh, you’ll see it really is very comfortable.”

“I-” Anders was less sure than ever of what was going on. Merrill wasn’t offering him the Viscountcy, was she? But if she wasn’t then…?

Armour gone, Merrill flitted away. She rearranged a few things on the Viscount’s desk, straightened a stack of books, before dragging the chair back with both hands. “You just seem very, um- high strung. And frustrated. So I do think you’ll feel a bit better if you sat in the chair for a while.” She slapped her hands against its back. “It’s two hours before my next appointment. So you can have a nice sit-down. Relax. And-” She bit her lip. “It’s a very special chair, vhenan. So while you’re sitting in it, you can boss everyone else around, and they’ll do their very best to do whatever it is you’d like~”

Merrill crossed the room and returned to his side. And Anders looked on suspiciously at her seemingly guileless smile.

“So if I sit in the chair and tell you to withdraw your army, you’ll do it?” Anders asked.

Merrill laughed, vallaslin scrunching on her cheeks. “Oh, no, don’t be silly. Of course I wouldn’t do something that foolish~ Withdraw my army~” she giggled.

Anders scowled.

“But I could sit beneath the desk,” Merrill continued suggestively. “While you were in the chair, I mean. And I could use my mouth, or anything else you’d like, to make you more comfortable~”

Anders felt the frown waver on his face.

Merrill’s cheeks had flushed a dark red brown, but she didn’t look embarrassed. She pressed up on her toes, bounced back down giddily. She just looked- so joyously happy. It was impossible not to-

“You know, sweetheart...” Anders reached for her, like he was going to cup her cheek, and instead traced her jawline and reached up to pinch Merrill’s earlobe. He let his smile grow a little mean. “I would say it ruins the point if you’re the one bossing me into bossing you around.”

Merrill winced as he pinched her earlobe again, but he let go when she reached up to take his hand in both of hers. She turned it, kissed his palm, and opened her mouth to wrap around his thumb. Her eyes were closed, as she alternated between lathing him with tongue and sucking gently, and she looked like she rather loved the feel and taste of his hand, and-

Anders knew he wasn’t really that special. Maybe when he was young and vain he might have bought it. But he was wrinkled and washed up, not a Champion like Hawke, or so fit and fetching and adoring as Fenris. Anders was pretty sure there was no explanation except Merrill must like him terribly.

Merrill opened her eyes, and her sclera flashed briefly black, holding his gaze as she eased her mouth of the tip of his thumb with a wet pop. “No, I don’t think so,” she told him. She gently placed his hand on her waist. “Maybe being bossed into bossing would ruin it for some people. But not you. Won’t you get in the chair, vhenan?”

Anders ran his hand over her hip and squeezed a little, before going to sit in the chair.

“Good,” Merrill cooed. She scrambled over him to squeeze through the gap between his knees and the top of the desk. She made herself comfortable, stretching a bit before easing down to sit at his feet – viscounts were apparently afforded legroom. She pulled his chair in, closer to her in a choppy movement, and spoke, “I brought you a few short story collections and a few of your dull Circle books, or there’s a quill if you’d rather-“

Merrill’s sentence broke off into a squeaky whimper as Anders bent down at the waist and pinched Merrill’s nipple through her smock. “I think I can decide what I’ll be doing myself.” He let go, and looked away and crossed his legs and feigned disinterest. He needed to calm down, get in the right mindset, not quite be so flustered and worked up as Merrill had already made him.

Merrill thankfully seemed to understand. She’d grown quiet, and waited patiently as he thumbed through the books she’d set out for him. There were a few medical texts, a treatise on the spirit branch of magic, and a fictional retelling of Andraste’s life – not quite in the genre of Hessarian’s Spear, but full of heresy nonetheless. Altogether they were the kind of books Anders would read and not the kind of books Merrill probably thought he should read, and Anders felt rather touched.

To the best of his ability, Anders resigned the feeling to the realm of academic curiosity, cracked open The Alamarri Bride, and read the prologue until he was calm enough to start being impatient. At which point he uncrossed his legs and spread them under the desk as nonchalantly as he could.

“Well?” he said expectantly. “You wanted me in your mouth, didn’t you, sweetheart? Hurry to it.”

Merrill did. Immediately. Lithe deft fingers shooting up to undo his buttons and pull his softened member from his trousers. She passed him gently between her hands, cupping his testicles as she eased his trousers down a bit further. And then she spread her lips over the uncut head of his cock, pressing the foreskin back a little as she inched up his shaft and began to suck and-

“Whoa, sweetheart!” Anders interrupted. He swiftly set his book face-down on the viscount’s desk, and reached down to ease Merrill off of him. He caught her hand massaging the side of her jaw, and her fingers slipped between his, lingering a moment before falling away and letting him cradle her cheek.

He scooted the chair back a bit and bent down to look under the desk.

Merrill’s expression was wide eyed and inscrutable. And Anders ran a thumb sideways over the line of vallaslin on her cheek, brushed the side of her nose, and watched her face scrunch as she tried and didn’t entirely succeed at holding back a smile.

He dipped his thumb down under her lip and ran it back against her gum, tracing the top line of sharp edged fangs and molars.

“Try to pace yourself, sweetheart. If you’re straining your jaw to swallow me while I’m soft, it’s only going on to get worse for you the harder you make me.” He tisked softly in a poor imitation of concern. “I won’t stop you from sucking me if that’s what you want. But you already know us Wardens can go on indefinitely once we’ve started. And you said this was a two hour appointment. And, to be honest with you, sweetheart…” He leaned down and spoke more softly, like divulging a secret. “I don’t plan to let you up from under that desk for the rest of it. Just like I don’t plan to let that pretty little mouth off my cock again either.”

Merrill’s eyes went wide and hot – hazel around dilating pupils shifting like molten earth. And she wiggled her hips a bit, like she was trying to build the friction between her legs.

Anders chuckled as he pulled her face forward and tilted her mouth back over him. He was feeling rather self-satisfied with that little act of his. And Merrill’s mouth was hot and velvety soft around him, even when she wasn’t sucking. It felt, well… comforting.

Anders sat back up, feeling contented as he retrieved his book and opened it to the page he’d left of. He didn’t really intend to hold Merrill to two hours of this – as if he even could. But it was fun to pretend, and flattering to see Merrill excited by the idea, and nice to prolong the moment a little and just enjoy the intimacy of her and her hot breath against him. He began reading again.

The author of The Alamarri Bride had started Andraste’s story much earlier than most accounts, and seemed to have a morbid fascination with the daily social and religious lives of Alamarri tribals. There was a strange amount of detail about gory magical rituals, the relationships with Avvar and Chasind neighbours and, oddly, belt buckles. As well as some speculation between the lines about the structural aspects of the heathen religions that were carried over into Andrastianism. But it was all woven into a rather personal tale about a young woman who would someday wed Maferath and the Maker both.

But Merrill really wasn’t all that patient. Anders was barely at the end of the first chapter, when she began licking and sucking him again. And he only made it partway through the second before he needed to abandon the book altogether to run his hands through her hair. He held her in place as he rocked his hips forward to fuck her throat, and moaned as she constricted around him.

She swallowed several times while there was nothing but saliva and precum to take in, and then several times more as his ejaculate spilled in to fill her mouth and throat. And then finally she began to gag and pulled back, trying to get off of him.

Anders let her go, hands falling from her hair. His fingers brushed lightly over her shoulders as she sat up and back, and listened awkwardly as Merrill coughed. Her breathing was heavy and raspy, wet with saliva and his cum, and Anders thought they’d probably do something else then. He wasn’t sure whether to end the scene – to bend down under the table and begin comforting her.

But Merrill had apparently taken what he’s said to earlier about her pretty little mouth to heart. After a few more breaths, she leaned in, wrapped her lips back around him, and began sucking anew.

Anders muffled his moan and attempted to resume play-acting brusque entitlement. Like Merrill, between his legs on her hands and knees, was to be taken for granted, and he didn’t owe her anything – no reassurances or even a glance her way. He leaned back in the chair and luxuriated the feeling of her lips bobbing up and down the shaft of his cock.

She was right. The Viscount’s chair really was amazingly comfortable.

Maybe Merrill really did stay down there for two hours. Anders had lost track of how many times she’d swallowed for him when she finally pulled herself free and turned to shove her arse against his crotch instead. They had definitely gone overtime by the time he’d finished fucking her under the desk, and atop the desk, and let her climb into his lap on the chair.

“You’re- ah- really good to me~” Anders panted in her ear. It was a bit beyond him to be anything but grateful to her at that moment. “So good. And sweet. And perfect.” He peppered kisses to her neck and jaw and forehead, trying to spell away any soreness as he went.

Merrill sighed happily. She had wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and she pulled herself up to turn her face into his kisses, before sinking slowly back down to the base of his cock.

She was sweet. He loved how sweet she was. All her good intentions. And he loved how even after indulging him this long she still found the energy to do that light little bounce in his lap.

She felt so good, and it took all his awareness to register the knock on the door to the Viscount’s office – another pointed reminder from Bran. Anders pulled back and forced out between shallow breaths, “Didn’t you have another appointment after this, sweetheart?”

Merrill laughed a little as she tightened around him. She pulled herself up to kiss him on the lips, and swung her foot idly where it dangled over the armrest of the chair. She said something in Elvhish. ‘Vhenan’ was the only word Anders managed to catch.

“You know I can’t understand you, darling~” he said, switching to speak in Ander. He kissed up her neck and pressed his tongue inside her ear.

Merrill giggled again, but took his meaning. “I said I’m one of the Creators, Anders. And the Viscount. And if I want to spend a little extra time with one of my loves, my heart… Well, what can they do about it? They’ll just have to wait until I’m finished~”

“Oh, and are you close to finished, sweetheart?” Anders asked. He slipped a hand between them, over Merrill’s abdomen, and brushed his thumb over her swollen clit.

Merrill broke fully into a fit of hiccuping giggles at this point. She picked up the pace, moving her hips a bit more frantically, fucking herself up and down on his cock.

“Mmm, minx,” Anders teased. He was getting close again too. “Miss Viscount. Sweetheart. Little Goddess.” He brushed his lips against hers, and whispered directly against them, “You’re perfect.”

==

“Why are you telling me this?” Fenris had removed the second cucumber slice from over his eye and was chewing on it contemplatively. “It was not particularly titillating, if that was your intent.”

“I thought it was alright,” Isabela cut in to say. Glittery pink nails tapped against her own mimosa flute. “Could probably use some brushing up before publication. And I’m not sure anyone will believe the Warden Stamina bit but-”

“It’s not meant to be titillating! It’s what happened!” Anders said hotly.

“Just because a story is realistic doesn’t make it believable,” Isabela explained. “But depending on what you’re going for, believability isn’t a must for friend fiction either.”

“I’m not going for anything or trying to write anything!” Anders insisted.

“Is this... bragging?” Fenris tried next. “Are you bragging about your encounters with the witch?”

“No!” Anders insisted. Although maybe he was. Just a little.

“Then you are attempting to manipulate me into pleasuring you orally,” Fenris concluded. “My answer is still no.”

“What?” Anders asked. “No, how are you coming up with this? I just need you to-”

“No,” Fenris reiterated a little stronger. “The task is physically draining, uncomfortable and, worst of all, you are never finished, amatus. Fellating you is Sisyphean horror. I might as well spend time dusting furniture or mopping floors, which would at least leave things cleaner instead of covered in countless, endless expulsions of-” Fenris broke off in a shudder, and jerked his head side to side, like he was still trying to shake himself clean. “No. This debate will remain closed until your nameday. In the meantime, since the witch clearly enjoys performing the task, I would say let her.”

“Would you listen?!” Anders hissed. “I’m not asking that of you. I just need you to come up to the Keep with me next time.”

Fenris crossed his arms and raised a challenging eyebrow.

“Well, obviously I can’t get anything done going up there by myself. She already knows exactly what to say to distract me. I’ll only end up fucking her again,” Anders huffed. “I need someone there with me, a united front, to keep me on track.”

“No,” Fenris said. “I see how this ends. You will have me hunched under a desk, giving myself an aching back, when with a little patience I could have you while lying on my perfectly comfortable bed.”

“I’m not trying to trick you onto your knees,” Anders said, for what felt like the millionth time. “I just need someone to keep her from seducing me!”

“What makes you think I am any less susceptible to her manipulations than you?” Fenris snorted. “It will end the same way for you, no matter how many times you visit the Keep. All else being equal, I would save myself the sores and blisters incurred from being shoved against a hardwood desk.”

Fenris really was making this difficult. “You know…” Anders said, voice going silky smooth. “I could be the one under the desk, and you could be the one in the Viscount’s chair.” He ran a pair of fingers up the front of Fenris’s chest, stopping to flick Fenris’s nipple under his tunic, before continuing to brush them over Fenris’s neck. “It is a very comfortable chair, love.”

Fenris seemed to consider this for a moment. “Or,” he leaned forward and whispered huskily into Anders’s ear, “I could wait for you to come home and service me in my bed.”

Anders laughed. “You’re really no fun, you know that?”

“So I have been told.” Fenris leaned back on the heels of his feet. He seemed pleased with himself, trying to hide a smile with limited success.

Something was still off though. Different. Something about Fenris’s ‘susceptibility’ to Merrill’s charms. And Anders hadn’t forgotten the way Fenris had slapped her on the behind the other day.

“Something happened between you and her,” Anders said, “between you and Merrill.”

Fenris tensed immediately. “No, it didn’t.”

“You’re sleeping with her,” Anders accused.

Fenris relaxed. “Oh, that.”

“What do you mean, ‘Oh, that’?” Anders mocked.

“You’re sleeping with her, too,” Fenris reminded.

“Yes, but I was already doing that,” Anders said. “You and her weren’t sleeping together before. Not one-on-one, at least.”

Fenris’s brows furrowed. He looked for a second like he wanted to deny what Anders said, or at least amend it. But in the end he decided against it. “You and Isabela were away in Rivain for several months. The witch and I grew closer in your absence. I do not understand your difficulty comprehending this. When we discussed the terms of our relationship, we agreed that any future intimacy between the four of us would be permissible-”

“Yes, yes,” Anders agreed hastily. Maker, it was boring whenever Fenris and Isabela went off discussing the ‘terms’ of their relationship like it was contract law. “I don’t care that you’re sleeping with her just-” The injustice and outrage of the situation was starting to get to him again. “The woman you’re sleeping with decides to go full tyrannical mage dictator and you don’t care at all?”

Fenris frowned slightly. “I would not say that.”

“You used to find fault with everything Merrill did but, now that you’re rutting, suddenly all your principles have gone out the window. Is that it?”

“I knew who she was when I chose to invite her to bed. And some might say it was better I didn’t invite her until I was certain I could accept her as she was.” Fenris did sneer here a little, wry and deprecating. “Did you think you were going to change her? Orgasm the blood magic out of her?”

“It worked on you, didn’t it?” Anders snipped defensively. And, yes, that was right, wasn’t it? What Fenris had said had made him feel quite stupid and foolish, but that had been what happened. Anders chuckled self importantly. “Fucked the mage hate right out of you.”

The humour in Fenris’s expression vanished entirely. He let out a strained sigh. Turned his head down to the floor, up to the ceiling, and finally away from Anders entirely.

“Isabela?” he called.

Isabela stretched in the recliner and blew at her nails. “What is it, sweet thing?”

“Five months ago,” Fenris began, “the mage came to cry on my shoulder, saying he had only ever brought me unhappiness and difficulty, and that I deserved better.”

Isabela snorted. “Load of poppycock. I remember.”

“Now he is saying,” Fenris continued, “that he cured my paranoia, mistrust, and trauma with his magic prick.”

Isabela’s snort was more forceful this time.

Anders scowled. Okay, fine. It did sound bad when Fenris put it like that. Anders tried to suppress the redness in his face. “Alright, you’ve made your point, love.”

Fenris ignored him, slinking back into the chair beside Isabela. “Should I disabuse him of the notion,” Fenris asked, “when he will be saying the opposite in five months time regardless?”

“Your decision, not mine, sweet thing,” Isabela sighed carelessly, brushing her braids up off her neck and pinning them over her head against the recliner. “This is why I stay out of the three of yours little domesticity thing.” She wrinkled her nose in distaste. “You let someone into your life like that, and pretty soon you’re married and it’s just this bullshit-” She waved vaguely in Anders’s direction as she said this. “-all the way down.”

“A grave mistake,” Fenris said seriously. He slid his arm against Isabela’s, lacing their fingers together, and she let him turn her arm to press a kiss to the back of her hand. “I am pleased you had the foresight to keep things between the two of us casual.”

Anders rolled his eyes. “Yes, because you two aren’t domestic at all with your manicures and monthly planners and brunch five times a week with Bloody Marys, toast, and the Deshyr's Daily Journal.”

Without letting go of Isabela’s hand, Fenris took another drink from his champagne glass, reapplied a new pair of cucumber slices over his eyes, and gave Anders the middle finger along with one orange lacquered nail.

Anders harrumphed and stomped for the hall. He knew when he wasn’t wanted.

“Wait, Anders, before you go,” Fenris called.

“Hmm?” Anders stopped and looked over his shoulder. He was always a little surprised when Fenris decided to address him by name.

Fenris tilted his head on the recliner, towards the sound of Anders’s voice. The ovular cucumber seeds gave the impression of bug eyes watching Anders. “I assume you plan to leave through the cellar?”

Of course Anders had no intention of braving the mob at the manor’s entrance. “There’s something I need to check on in Darktown.”

Fenris nodded. “Isabela and I will be following in a few hours time to be in attendance for drinks and cards at the Hanged Man tonight. I assume Hawke or Donnic or the witch have already informed you of the details?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Can we expect you at the eighteenth hour?”

Anders grumbled unenthusiastically. These people would gamble and drink their way through anything from annulments to Andraste’s second coming. “I guess?” he finally spat. But he couldn’t contain his frustration, his grief. “I don’t know why we’re doing this without Varric though! It won’t be the same without him…”

“We do it because of Varric, fool mage.” Fenris’s voice was pithy. “Do you think Varric would appreciate us falling out of the habit in his absence?” He scoffed. “Be there, Anders. And when Varric returns after reporting to the Divine, our weekly games will still be running, as if he never left.”

If he returns, Anders thought coldly, before exiting the sitting room.

Chapter Text

“Are you sure this is a good idea, Healer?”

Anders, intent on multitasking, folded a freshly sewn cloth diaper a little too vigorously. “Why wouldn’t it be a good idea?” He furrowed his brow.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t it be a good idea?” Cricket pestered. He was sitting on one of the clinic’s workbenches, adjacent to the one Anders was using, and amusing himself with a game of jacks.

Walter didn’t hesitate to shoot Cricket a glare, even as he shrank a little under Anders’s scrutiny. “I just mean that things probably aren’t going to go well if any of the big players start fighting amongst themselves.”

Anders wasn’t quite sure what he meant. He tucked the diapers into the care basket next to a couple of pamphlets on neonatal care that Varric had printed, a knitted cap and bottle of anti-inflammatory salve that Fenris had made, and a sealed jar of squash soup that Donnic had cooked up.

“I mean, if it comes down to a public fight between the Darktown Healer and the Alienage Witch, people are liable to take sides. And with all the spells that are likely to be flying around if it comes to that… I just don’t think that’s good for anyone.” Walter bit his lip. “But also probably not good for you, you know. A lot of people still blame you for the mess with the Chantry and the Templars from a few years back, and they only stay quiet because they don’t want to get the Champion and the Alienage Witch and the others on their bad side anyhow.”

The truth was that Anders’s recollection of the weeks preceding and following his attack on Kirkwall’s Chantry and Meredith’s subsequent call for the annulment were not as clear as he would have liked. He’d been rather sick with anxiety and guilt and anger and fear. And it hadn’t helped much that he’d hoarded himself away beforehand, constructing a bomb he knew for certain would kill people but wasn’t sure could save anyone, and then been hoarded away in the aftermath, as Merrill and Aveline and Varric had managed the greater part of the fallout without him. The days he’d spent entombed in his clinic and in that room on Isabela’s ship and in the cell in the Kinloch Hold basement, unaware of the movement of the sun and cosmos overhead, seemed to call up every terrible feeling and bad memory Anders had ever had.

So Anders promptly dismissed them in lieu of being defensive. “I tried to stop the Grand Cleric and the annulment when nobody else could bother!” he protested, as he began packing the next basket on the workbench. “And it worked! How can people blame me for that?!”

“Yes, Healer. Of course, Healer,” Walter agreed, too quickly to have really given it any thought. “I just mean, if I were you, I’d want to remain peaceable about the whole thing, really.”

“The way a bunch of corpses patrolling in full armour and weapons is peaceful?” Anders demanded.

“They’re not so bad,” Cricket cut in. “Caught one of ‘em building a seesaw in the yard the other day. Stayed around to weigh down the other side for me once they was done.” Cricket bounced the ball for his game of jacks against the workbench a little too vigorously.

It ricochetted and landed between the dirty sawdust on the clinic floor.

Cricket wrinkled his nose disdainfully and gave the ball a dirty look, but didn’t make any move to retrieve it.

That reminded Anders. “Are you and your adopted family doing okay, Cricket?” he asked, eyes wide and piteous. “It must be terrible, now that Merr’s kicked all the Hightowners out.” Truly this had to be terrible for Cricket, who had lost his home three times over at this point.

“Oh, we’re alright, Healer,” Cricket disagreed airily. “They were a bit useless at first, but now they’re finally learning a bit of common sense,” he said, almost proudly. “They actually listened when I told them that camp up in Hightown’s just some dunghole waiting to be cleared out. So I got them in touch with Bonny Lem and settled into Lowtown. Now they’re always going on about what an amazing son I am, for knowing better than them what to do.” Cricket snorted haughtily. “I already knew that, of course, but it is nice to be appreciated.”

Walter was making a jerky signal for Anders to abort this line of questioning. “Yeah, I wouldn’t worry about Cricket. He’s, um…” Walter didn’t seem to know how to characterise it. “I wouldn’t worry about Cricket,” he repeated.

Anders sulked as he folded a swaddling blanket into the bottom of the next basket. He wished he had someone to productively worry about.

“I’m just saying,” Walter directed the conversation back, “it’s probably best to think things over before you start some bloody war with the Alienage Witch with casualties and all.”

Wait, casualties? “I wouldn’t do that!” Anders protested. Whatever Merrill’s flaws were, she wasn’t a blighted Templar. Of course she could be reasoned with! “We just need to show her we mean business. Show her that she’s wrong. Once she knows we’re not going to let her quietly get away with this, she’ll back down.”

“R-Right,” Walter agreed. “But I’m not sure these people you want me to help you contact are all on the same page.”

“Why? What did you hear about them?”

Walter hemmed and hawed. “Well, I don’t know anything for sure, really. This guy’s just someone one of my coworkers at the delivery service knows from somewhere. I haven’t even talked to him, so I don’t have any real reason to be suspicious of him, just…”

“If he’s trying to recruit people to rout Merr and her army from the Keep, that’s enough.” The rest Anders could sort out later. He’d die to keep Merrill from getting hurt, if he had to. That hadn’t changed and, so long as it didn’t, he was sure everything would work out fine.

“Just tell the healer, so we can get going already,” Cricket said, impatient now that his game of jacks had gone south.

Walter sighed and relayed the details, as Anders put together the last of the baskets on the workbench. His contact was a man, originally from Ostwick, who worked doing intake at one of the warehouses at the docks. And he’d reached out to the friend of Walter’s coworker to join a secretive militia, which was apparently formed to aid in the betterment of Kirkwall and the preservation of its values and culture.

“I’m told most of their recruiting is by invite only,” Walter said. “But I can pass on a name and your location, and my coworker says they’ll show up to scout you within a few days, if they think you’re a legitimate candidate.” Walter swallowed uncomfortably. “If you want to go ahead with this, I think you should spend the next few days lying low. I got the impression it could be a black mark against your recruitment if they see you with Lirene or the Rivaini woman or any of your normal sort.”

Of course. It made perfect sense that, if Anders wanted the militia recruiters to trust him, Anders couldn’t be found associating with people who were openly working with Merrill.

Anders sighed, as he packed the baskets into a crate. “Walter, do you think you can deliver these to Lirene for me?” Care packages for new mothers. Even if Anders shouldn’t be seen with Lirene right now, even if he wasn’t sure he could see her without wanting to shout at her, and even if he wasn’t lucky enough to have his own baby- These were supplies that someone in Kirkwall desperately needed, and Lirene would be able to get it to those someones.

Walter blinked, like something about this surprised him, then smiled. “Sure thing, Healer,” he agreed.

“And, ugh,” Anders groaned, “I promised Fenris I’d be at the Hanged Man for Wicked Grace tonight. You don’t think that would muck up my chances with these recruiters, do you?”

“I’m not giving your information over to the recruiters until tomorrow, so you should be okay for the night.” Walter loaded the crate of care baskets onto his draisienne, and shrugged. “Well, it’s a guideline more than a rule anyhow. It’s not like who you are and who you work with is much of a secret in this city. So… probably if they look into you, it’ll be because they’re a good sort, looking for other good sort like you, I hope.” He tapped his knuckles lightly against the crate.

Anders locked up his clinic, split with Walter and Cricket for different exits from Darktown, and made his way to the Hanged Man.

The walking corpses had blocked off the street around the Hanged Man, but they allowed Anders through their barricade without a fuss. Anders walked up to where Aveline, Donnic, and Fenris were gathered around the tavern’s entrance.

Donnic noticed Anders first, and raised the arm that wasn’t slung over Aveline’s shoulder to wave him over.

Fenris turned. He was wearing a black jacket and a pair of dark eyeglasses that, if anything, made him more conspicuous. “Good, you are here.” He nodded seriously, with an expression so blank, it was nearly impossible to tell that he was pleased.

“Good,” Aveline echoed. “I don’t want to have to do this twice.”

“Do what twice?” Anders said.

Aveline answered with only a moody grumble. Donnic leaned in to plant a kiss to her cheek.

“She refuses to confirm or deny my suspicions,” Fenris said. “But I assume it will become clear as the night progresses.”

Anders grumbled. He was pretty sure he was going to hate any secret of Aveline’s anyhow. “What are we waiting out here for?”

“Hawke is inside finalising the arrangements with Corff,” Fenris said. “We are currently waiting for Isabela and the witch to return.”

“Return?” Anders asked. “Where did they go?”

Fenris snorted. “They are taking another circle around the block. Isabela wished to take a ride in the witch’s-” Fenris’s nose scrunched. “I do not know the word in the common tongue. ‘Lectica’.”

“Litter,” Aveline said. “Palanquin.”

“Thank you, Aveline,” Fenris nodded.

“What’s that?” Anders said.

Fenris tilted his head, as he thought of how to describe it. “It is… a raised platform or coach, that may be carried and moved so those inside need not walk from place to place.”

Before Fenris could finish his explanation, the object in question rounded the corner of the block, and Anders did not need to hear to understand.

It was a large and decadent platform, painted red, with no walls, but a roof to protect from sun and rain. It was being hauled the shoulders of no less than eight walking corpses, and atop it was a spread of cushions, atop which Merrill and Isabela were reclined.

Merrill was back in her leggings and a plain set of brown leather armour, but wearing an absurd amount of jewellery – multiple rings for each finger, no fewer than eight necklaces, and earrings from the lobes to the very tips of her ears. All very expensive looking.

Isabela was in her usual attire, tucked into Merrill’s side and against her shoulder. And they were engaged intensely in what appeared to be a rather intimate conversation, when Isabela suddenly swivelled, to roll atop Merrill, grab her cheeks for a kiss, and press her into the cushions.

Merrill laughed and flailed beneath her.

Anders scowled.

“They are a typical sight in Tevinter,” Fenris continued his explanation. “A sign of decadence and decay in any society. The weight of those favoured borne atop the shoulders of those most unfortunate.” The words were sharp and critical.

“Does that mean you’ve changed your mind?!” Anders asked hopefully. “You’ll help me stop Merrill?!”

“I did not say that,” Fenris said.

“Woo!” Isabela cried out. She pressed herself up off of Merrill and flounced, as the palanquin came to a stop ahead the entrance to the Hanged Man. “Fenris!”

Fenris sighed, and allowed himself to be summoned to the side of the palanquin, as Isabela leaped from the platform and landed heavy in his arms.

“Ooph~” Fenris breathed. “Have you had your fill of this ridiculous swanning then?” he asked, as he stood her gently on the ground.

“You know, you could have taken the ride around the block with us, sweet thing~” Isabela said, with a sultry bat of her eyes and a kiss to his nose.

“Ooh, you really could have, Fenris,” Merrill agreed brightly. The walking corpses lowered the palanquin to the ground, and she stepped off it easily.

“I have ridden them on enough occasions,” Fenris replied. “The novelty wears quickly.”

Anders was hoping that his scowl, and the resoluteness with which he refused to participate in this nonsense, were sending the intended message.

But Merrill seemed not to notice. She directed the walking corpses and the palanquin away, smiling widely, and smiled wider when she turned and saw Anders. Opened her mouth as if to say something-

“Woo!” Isabela called out again. She snatched the dark glasses off Fenris’s face and stuck them on Merrill. Then grabbed Merrill by the arm and began dragging her towards the entrance of the Hanged Man, stopping only to slap the back of Aveline’s thighs. “Looking good, Big Girl!” she whistled, before sauntering inside, dragging a laughing Merrill behind her.

“I swear, that- ugh,” Aveline groaned. “Isabela!” she called, as she and Donnic followed into the tavern.

Anders thought about slipping away while everyone was distracted, but Fenris turned to him.

“Come,” he commanded, beckoning Anders behind him. So Anders followed him moodily through the doors of the Hanged Man and up the stairs.

Hawke had apparently rented out the inn and tavern for the evening, as the main room was empty apart from a handful of regular boarders. And Norah was waiting for their party at the top of the steps. She pulled out a ring of keys and flipped through them a minute, before unlocking the door to Varric’s room.

“Been keeping it nice and clean while he’s gone, so don’t go getting it all a mess,” Norah warned, as she let them inside.

“Woo!” Isabela crowed. She dropped Merrill’s arm as she rushed in, bypassing the sitting area, where a table had been set for cards, to go direct for Varric’s bed and dresser. “You think he left anything worth taking?” she asked, as she rummaged through the drawers.

“Isabela,” Aveline groaned. But, surprisingly, she held back her frustration to give a serious answer. “Probably not. The Seeker’s people tore through it and confiscated most of it. Then Varric was given a few hours to pack. And if Norah and her staff had their hands through it cleaning afterwards…”

“Yeugh! Fourth pick,” Isabela agreed. Picking an ugly collection of knitted Satinalia sweaters from the drawer, and letting them drop back down through her fingers.

“Oh, that really is a shame,” Merrill said, as she took a place at the head of the ovular table in the sitting area. “But…”

The seats in Varric’s room were all dwarven-carved stone, and covered in red and gold cushions displaying Kirkwall’s heraldry. And as Merrill flopped down in hers, she took a pose, stretched tall in her seat and jutted her chest outward, displaying the collection of necklaces she had strung around her neck. And as she patted the cushion on the seat next to her, she fanned her fingers to display the collection of rings on her hand.

“If you come over here…” Merrill bit her lip over the little smile she was offering Isabela. “I’ll let you have first pick of whatever’s on me, vhenan.”

Isabela was bounding back across the room in the space of a heartbeat. She flopped down into the chair next to Merrill and immediately began running her fingers through the collection of beads and metal about Merrill’s throat. Breaking her appraising gaze, to tug on the bands and pull Merrill in for a kiss.

Fenris fell into the seat on the other side of Merrill, and Anders next to him, as Donnic and Aveline took places on the opposite side of the table.

But Anders had put something together, and was starting to feel awfully suspicious. “Where did you get all that jewellery in the first place?” He didn’t think Merrill had that much saved up from Hawke’s holiday gifts. “Are those the things you stole from the mansions you cleared out?!”

Isabela had picked out a thin gold necklace filled with emeralds. And she’d twisted her braids up in her hand, revealing the nape of her neck as Merrill latched the necklace around her.

“Oh, you wouldn’t believe some of the things that were hiding in those mansions, vhenan,” Merrill replied.

(Anders tried to dull the spike of irritation that seemed to arise whenever he and Isabela were in the same room, and Merrill was calling them both ‘vhenan’.)

“You weren’t so very pleased with all those years I spent trying to repair the Eluvian,” Merrill was saying. “But- Fenedhis lasa,” she cursed. “I think I was probably a wee bit more frustrated when I found three separate ones in the basement of the Adelbrant manor. The whole time – they were here! Just gathering dust!”

Anders thought this was very much not the point when Merrill was requisitioning personal affects on behalf of the Keep, and then using them for no greater purpose than to buy favour with Isabela. But the issue of the damned mirror – or damned mirrors now, he supposed – gave him pause. Conversations about the Eluvian never seemed to go as well as he would have liked. And Merrill always acted like he was somehow supposed to have known all along that it was a priceless holy artefact, even when it had just been an ugly bunch of broken glass that seemed highly likely to give her blight poisoning.

“You think we could use them?” Aveline cut in to ask. “Against Starkhaven, I mean?”

Merrill pursed her lips and seemed to consider it. “Fenris,” she turned, “the Tevinters use some form of teleportation magic in their battles don’t they? Do you know how to incorporate-”

“No,” Fenris cut her off sharply. “I have seen enough war on Seheron to know I want no more part in it. Fight your own battles, witch.”

“I suppose that’s fair,” Merrill agreed.

“Maybe we should leave the shop talk for when we’re back at the Keep,” Donnic suggested. He reached an arm over Aveline’s shoulder, and massaged it softly. “You’ve both been hard at work all week. So at least for the evening, maybe let’s all relax and talk about lighter things.”

Aveline grumbled, and Merrill seemed to consider before nodding thoughtfully.

“Or maybe,” Anders said, irritated, “we should talk about how Merrill seized people’s homes, and is now handing their jewellery out to Isabela!”

This suggestion was not received with the same ease as Donnic’s.

“Let’s not,” Isabela said, with a wiggle of her torso and a flippant roll of her shoulders.

“Who’s ready to play Grace?!”

Everyone turned to where the door had slammed open. Hawke sauntered in, helping Norah with a tray of mugs – six ales and a spiced cider that Anders recognised as his usual order. Norah herself followed in after with her own tray, and began serving up sandwiches – corned nug and cheese melts – and eggs and vegetables from a large ceramic pickling jar.

Anders hoped that Hawke would come sit beside him, but Hawke scurried off with a wink, after dropping off Anders’s mug of cider, and drew up a chair between Isabela and Donnic on the other side of the table. He slapped his hand over the deck of cards he’d brought, and began to shuffle, in the fancy way with the bridge that made Merrill bounce in her seat and applaud the performance.

Isabela went straight for her sandwich, as it was served. Aveline went straight for her ale. Donnic raised his mug up and apologetically asked Norah if he could get a cider instead.

Anders poked moodily at a slice of pickled egg, before shoving half the corned nug melt in his mouth.

He didn’t pay too much attention as the first set of cards made their way around the table. Since Aveline was in attendance, they weren’t playing for anything more important than meaningless wooden gambling tokens. Anders switched out a few cards about as his turn came around the table, without any concern for the discards being made by the others, and glared as Hawke and Isabela and Merrill all chittered on meaninglessly about Corff’s tavern gossip, as if one among their number hadn’t gone tyrannical.

Hawke called the round of Grace, Anders folded early, and watched the rest of the table take turns whining about their defeats or, in Isabela’s case, bragging about her victory.

“Oh, you’d think after a decade I’d have a handle on this game,” Merrill sighed dramatically. “But I still have no idea where to put all the cards and what order they all go in or how to do any of the fancy hand tricks, and now I’ve gone and misplaced all the important little pieces of wood too.” She tapped her hand on the table ahead of her, where her gambling tokens had gone mysteriously absent, and sighed again. “Oh well~” she brightened, as she turned to Isabela. “I suppose you’ll just have to choose another token off me instead, vhenan~”

Isabela took both of Merrill’s hands in hers, and bit back a giddy smile as she rubbed her thumbs greedily over the rings on Merrill’s fingers.

The two of them spent most of the next game ignoring the proceedings at the table, giggling as Merrill made a show of removing the rings on the third finger of her left hand, one by one, until she got to the one Isabela wanted. And then twisted it neatly onto Isabela’s finger, before replacing the rest on her own hand.

Anders cast a helpless look around the rest of the table, still half-hoping that Aveline would intervene, if not out of an impulse to quash law-breaking ne'er-do-wells, then at least to spoil Isabela’s fun. But she seemed too busy exchanging hushed whispers in a private conversation with Donnic.

“Have you eaten enough, mage?” Fenris asked. “Or should I call for Norah to bring a second serving?”

“Hm?” Anders looked down at his plate, empty but for the small edge of a pickled green tomato. He realised he was chewing the final bite of his sandwich, and swallowed slowly. “I’m fine. I don’t need any.”

“You should not starve yourself and then binge the way you do,” Fenris said.

Hawke called the second game, and quickly swept up everyone’s antes.

“Terribly underhanded of you Hawke,” Isabela challenged. “Sweeping in to steal the game while a woman’s distracted.”

“You’ll live,” Hawke said.

“Oh, and look at me, still out of wood chips.” Merrill heaved a sigh. She ran a hand over Isabela’s shoulder. “Won’t you pay Hawke for me, Isabela?”

“Mmm?” Isabela turned and kissed Merrill on the forehead. “You plan to keep going until I’ve taken everything off you, Kitten?”

Merrill giggled. “Oh, you are so very beautiful, vhenan. I think it would all look better on you than on me… And much much better than it looked on Lady Thrennhold.”

Hearing this, Anders was feeling rather furious. He was about to stand up and give Merrill a piece of his mind, when Fenris reached over to stop him.

He laid his arm over Anders’s thigh and gave Anders’s knee a warning squeeze.

“Anders,” Fenris’s voice was low and quiet, private. “Leave Isabela and the witch be.”

“Leave her be-?!” Anders whispered back furiously. “How can you ask that-?!”

“The witch allowed you nearly three hours of her time this morning, did she not?” Fenris cut him off, though his voice remained calm and low. “By your own account, she doted on you the whole time.”

It wasn’t exactly like Anders could deny it, after having told Fenris all about it. “After she ignored me for a week,” he sulked.

“Indeed,” Fenris agreed. “She has had similar difficulties finding time with which to indulge Isabela,” he said pointedly, before his voice softened. “Perhaps in several months, she will have more than a half-day free per week but, for now, allow them to enjoy their evening together.”

“So what am I supposed to be doing,” Anders demanded, “if I’m supposed to just ignore Merrill draping Isabela in stolen jewellery?”

Fenris heaved a sigh. He removed his hand from Anders’s knee, pulled Anders’s hand back into his own lap to place over his own knee. Then released it, and called for Norah to bring another sandwich and some more ale.

For the next few minutes, Anders tried very hard to focus on nothing but the second corned nug melt Norah brought him, the shape of Fenris’s knee against his curled palm, and playing Wicked Grace one-handed.

The others were celebrating Isabela’s latest victory cheating at cards, when Hawke clapped his hands suddenly.

“Everyone listen up!” he said. “I have an announcement to make!”

The table went quiet.

Hawke cleared his throat. “I just want to say… that Orana’s nameday party was a great success! And it’s all thanks to Merrill! Applause for Merrill!”

Anders drew his hands up, hesitated. Hawke and Isabela were applauding the most exuberantly, but Aveline and Donnic, even Fenris, allowed a couple polite claps of their hands.

“Oh no, you don’t have to-!” The tips of Merrill’s ears fluttered, and she hid her flushed face behind her hands. “I didn’t- Well, I did- But I didn’t do all that much, Hawke!”

“Nonsense!” Hawke beamed. “I never could have gotten her such a great present by myself! Her very own mansion and estate!”

“Woo!” Isabela cheered.

“Oh, you are exaggerating, lethallin,” Merrill pooh-poohed, but she was smiling brightly. “Or maybe not. But I think Orana is the one doing me a favour, really. We need some trustworthy people to manage the new apartments in Hightown – to keep them clean and orderly and collect the rents. And Orana seems very well suited for the job.”

“Well, that’s exactly it!” Hawke agreed. “She loves to clean! She’s always dusting the rooms at my place over and over, whether they need it or not. But this way, she’ll have better things to clean – her own apartment on premises, and the ones everyone else is renting from her. And this way, she’ll also have a place for a family of her own if she likes.” Hawke waggled his eyebrows. “Bodahn overheard that she has a gentlemen friend she’s been meeting at the little Chantry in the Alienage. So I gave her a couple of free tickets for the petting zoo at the Bone Pit, too. Maybe they’ll go visit the dragons together~”

“That does sound like a very thoughtful gift, Hawke,” Aveline said.

“I can imagine she was very pleased,” Donnic agreed.

“She was so startled when Bodahn and I took her to see the place, she started crying right there,” Hawke said. “Promised up and down that she’d come visit us. And made us promise up and down that we’d come visit her, too.” He had a tear in his own eye now.

“Aww, you sap!” Isabela said, slapping Hawke on the shoulder.

“It is… nice,” Fenris spoke so quietly, that Anders might have been the only one to hear him, “to know at least some good ultimately came out of Hadriana’s visit to Kirkwall.”

“Well, I’m-” Merrill seemed a little choked up as well. “I’m very happy I could help gift her that mansion then, lethallin.”

“It’s not your mansion to gift!” Anders hissed.

“Mage,” Fenris warned.

They were drowned out by Aveline clearing her throat, projecting her voice over the table:

“Well, as long as we’re all doing announcements…”

Aveline’s skin had gone as red as her hair. She paused, took a deep breath.

Donnic rubbed a hand over her shoulder, wrapped her hand in his, and gave her an encouraging nod.

“Donnic and I…” Aveline bit her lip. “We’re pregnant.”

Merrill and Hawke immediately let out joyful little squeals.

“You’re kidding me!” Anders snarled. Was everybody in this city getting a baby except him?!

“Oh, oh Creators! Oh my! That must be so exciting for you both!” Merrill enthused.

“Always knew you had it in you, Sideburns.” Isabela reached over Hawke and slapped a sheepish Donnic on the shoulder. “But who knew you could get it, Big Girl?!” She made a crude hand gesture.

“Isabela,” Aveline warned.

“Aww, pretty soon, there will be a flock of little Avelines running all over the city~” Isabela sighed happily. “Streaming red pigtails flying behind them~ Crooks screaming for mercy wherever they go~”

“Isabela,” Aveline had started to laugh in spite of herself.

“My congratulations,” Fenris was looking between Donnic and Aveline and smiling warmly. “I have always thought the both of you would make admirable parents.”

Hawke was shouting about all the things there were to plan and all the supplies they’d have to prepare, begging Aveline for permission to host the baby shower, and this was all getting to be a little too much to bear.

Anders stood and stormed from the room.

He didn’t look back as he went for the door and proceeded down the stairs.

Everyone would rather just stick their heads in the stand than deal with what was happening in this city. Nobody wanted to listen to Anders! Everyone just wanted to talk about nameday parties and baby showers!

Merrill had gone and raised an army of the dead. She’d stolen estates and jewellery just so she could hand it out to Orana and Isabela. And nobody cared!

Varric had been abducted by the Divine’s Right Hand because of Anders. And Isabela went digging through his things like it was some kind of joke. And nobody cared!

And everyone except Anders was having a baby. Fenris thought that Aveline and Donnic would make great parents, but considered Anders unfit for the task. And nobody cared!

Nobody cared even a little bit, so long as they were all happy and the card games kept going and the ale kept flowing. Nobody cared. And nobody cared about Anders anyhow, so why should he bother-

A shout interrupted Anders’s thoughts.

“Mage!”

Anders turned to see Fenris descending the stairwell after him, skipping every other step as he lunged, light on his feet.

Oh… So Fenris had cared to- Anders scowled, forced a frown over his reddening face. “I guess you’re the only one who noticed I left,” he said petulantly, stepping back out of the main walkway through the tavern.

Fenris came to a stop ahead of Anders and raised a critical eyebrow. “Everyone noticed you left, fool mage. And that you left without congratulating Aveline and Donnic.”

“And Merr didn’t care?”

“I told her to allow herself to focus on Isabela for the evening. And I recall telling you to allow her the same.” Fenris glared. “I volunteered to be the one to go after you.”

“Oh,” Anders said.

He thought Fenris would say something more. But Fenris didn’t. Only looked up, watching Anders with sharp green eyes.

Anders watched him back.

Very slowly, the crinkles in Fenris’s brow relaxed and smoothed, as the tension left them.

And, very slowly, Anders was starting to feel a bit better too. Like just maybe people cared about him after all.

“I’m going underground for a few days,” Anders announced, once it seemed that neither of them would say anything, unless Anders started it.

Fenris arched his left eyebrow once more.

“Walter had a lead on a group that plans to stop Merrill,” Anders explained. “I’m going to see if I can track them down and volunteer my services to their cause.”

He was eager to see how Fenris would react to this news, and Fenris did react, but something about it was inscrutable. Fenris crossed his arms and frowned, ears twitching in agitation and nose scrunching in distaste. But none of it seemed to be directed at Anders specifically.

Finally Fenris uncrossed his arms and spoke. “What do you know about this group?”

Anders huffed. “Merrill’s gone mad with power, and they’re risking themselves trying to stop her. What more do I need to know?”

Fenris shuffled uncomfortably for a second, then reached for the collar of Anders’s coat. Anders thought for a second Fenris was trying to yank him back or pull him down, but it was a softer gesture than that. Fenris stepped forward and began tidying, latching buttons and smoothing the fabric of Anders’s lapels.

It was a strangely intimate gesture. Anders fought down the blush creeping up his face, and cleared his throat. “Anyhow, you can tell Merr and the others that I’ve left and not to wait up for me… if anyone asks,” he pouted.

“You were not present that day at the rally in Darktown,” Fenris said, “where Aveline executed her former Guard Captain.”

Anders blinked at the non-sequitur. Of course he didn’t make a habit of sticking around for every second of Aveline’s barbarism.

Fenris continued. “Be vigilant, amatus. There are certain… factions in this city.” Fenris’s orange nail tapped pointedly against one of the many clasps on Anders’s coat. “Extremists and fanatics. They do not oppose the witch or Guard Captain Aveline on the same grounds as you or I, only resent someone they believe beneath them has stepped into a dominion they consider theirs by birth. But they will not hesitate to take advantage of your moral indignation to further their own goals.”

Anders wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean. Except. “You’re talking paranoid about your Tevinter radicals again?”

Fenris glared. “Venatori presence in the South is no longer conjecture. Whether you wish to see it or not, Tevinter radicals stoked the flames of your rebellion to destabilise the Chantry and plant their own militants in the Marches. One would expect more concern from you, given it is your mages they prey upon.” He yanked at Anders’s lapels a little too stiffly. “But, no, I was speaking of something else.”

Fenris appeared to be finished with both the lecture and Anders’s collar, but he lingered anyhow.

Anders found himself doing the same. “You’re not going to stop me?” he asked.

“How would I stop you?” Fenris snorted. “Next they will ask me to stop a torrent of rain. A stampeding herd of druffalo,” he muttered, before letting his hands drop and turning away with a sigh. “You are too stubborn, Anders,” he said, but his irritation in his voice broke swiftly into something else. “And wild. And beautiful. Even if I could stop you, I would not wish to.”

Anders’s heart might have skipped a beat. He moved without thinking and somehow did not expect, when he placed a hand on Fenris’s shoulder, the way Fenris turned to him. Nor the way, when he slid his hand up to cup Fenris’s cheek, that Fenris tilted his head and parted his lips.

His mouth was so warm, so soft, when Anders leaned down to kiss him. So open, too. He really was so precious. Anders reached his hand further up Fenris’s jaw, massaged his fingertips behind Fenris’s ear, enjoyed the way Fenris melted into him, gasping against his tongue.

And, Maker, Fenris really underestimated himself. He’d said he couldn’t stop Anders. But if Fenris asked, Anders was pretty sure he’d give up this business with underground resistance movements and Walter’s contact, for tonight if not for forever. Anders was pretty sure he would have done anything, followed anywhere, if it was Fenris asking at that moment.

Fenris didn’t ask though. And maybe the fact that he didn’t was actually what made him the sweetest in the first place. He broke away prematurely, and pulled out of Anders’s grip. Left them both wanting.

“Then I will see you when you return, mage.” Fenris threw a smile back over his shoulder, as he retreated back towards Varric’s old room. And he paused, only briefly, at the foot of the stairs. “I will let the others know you have departed early.”

==

Five Days Later…

If there was one thing you could count on, it was that a bad situation in Kirkwall would always find a way to get worse in unexpected and unpredictable ways. Like the Tranquil Solution giving way to the Annulment, or the Qunari Riots serving as a smokescreen for the attacks that led to the deterioration of the Mage Underground. And, for Anders, where to go after everything went from bad to worse had become second nature.

Anders tore through the halls of the Amell estate. Bodahn had pointed him in the right direction, and Anders made his way towards the estate’s former southern wing, before turning sharply towards a familiar set of double doors.

“Hawke!” Anders called as he burst into the study. “It’s terrible, Hawke! You’re not going to believe what happened with Merr!”

Hawke, who was sitting at a nearby round table nearly jumped out of his seat, scattering a sheaf of papers on the table ahead of him.

And he wasn’t the only one. Fenris startled badly in the seat next to him. There was a screeching sound as the legs of his chair slid backwards across the floor.

Anders was distracted momentarily by the intensity of Hawke and Fenris’s shock.

They both took a moment to catch their breath. Hawke’s face had flushed a warm shade of red-brown. Fenris slouched against the table in front of him, head in his hands, elbows on the pages of an open book.

“Oh…” Anders said. “I didn’t expect to find the two of you together.” Not that it was a problem they were together, just Anders had been kind of hoping it would just be Hawke.

Hawke wheezed a little, but Fenris recovered first. His ears twitched, as he picked the open book off the table and displayed its cover to Anders. The Little Sisters of Old Ciriane. It was a green volume, with a gold filigree of flowers up its edge.

“We are having our weekly reading lesson,” Fenris said.

Anders’s brow furrowed. “Now?”

Fenris raised an eyebrow. “Hawke and I have had reading lessons every Thursday for six years.”

“But you already know how to read,” Anders said.

“Which is why they are not my reading lessons. I am teaching Hawke how to identify and analyse themes within a text.” Fenris had become rather irritable over the brief course of this conversation. “Do you ever listen to anything I say, mage?!”

Hawke had recovered himself, and spoke up in a bare-faced attempt to head off further conflict. “Fenris and I were talking about how Alouette’s grief at the loss of her sister Miranda – she was married off to the Avaar Chieftains – is presented subtextually through an avian motif.” Hawke waggled his eyebrows. “I have no idea what that means, but that’s what Fenris said at any rate.”

Fenris snorted.

“Didn’t you and he have this exact same conversation about our reading lessons before?” Hawke asked, slouching lazily against the table.

Had they? When Anders thought about it, perhaps he could vaguely recall…

“Yes,” Fenris answered tightly. “Five separate times.”

“I think Varric said once that you have to say something seven times to get someone to remember,” Hawke said. “Maybe give your husband twice more.”

Yes, Anders definitely remembered Hawke saying that before. Albeit when Anders had more tries to get it right.

“Yet you remember this factoid after Varric said it once,” Fenris pointed out.

Hawke pouted, but made no retort, and Fenris seemed smug and vindicated by his silence. Together they gathered together their scattered papers and neatened their space at the round table.

“So what was it you wanted to tell me about Anders?” Hawke asked. “Something terrible to do with Merr? I take it she’s not hurt.”

Fenris looked up at Anders expectantly.

“Oh, right, well…”

Anders bit his lip. He really wished there was a way to tell Hawke alone. Not that he wouldn’t have to tell Fenris what had happened during his time underground eventually. But Fenris was guaranteed to be at least a little upset by it, and Anders had hoped for a little more time to prepare.

There wasn’t any putting it off now though, so Anders resigned himself and launched into his account of what had transpired five hours prior.

==

Five Hours Ago…

Despite the decade Anders had spent living out of Kirkwall’s underground, he had no measure on its full scope – every nook, byway, cavern, and safe house.

Large swathes of the underground were cordoned off by the Carta, Coterie, the local Varterral Gang, and various other criminal enterprises, in places bleeding seamlessly with the Dwarven enclave beneath the Merchant’s Guild and Hightown Manor basements. And, while Anders had something of a reputation as irreverent of such boundaries following an episode where the Carta had sold his clinic bogus Lyrium potions and he’d rampaged through their main headquarters trying to lodge a complaint- It hardly meant Anders made a habit of exploring areas of the Underground with which he was unaccustomed and obviously unwelcome. There was enough to be doing manning his clinic, sneaking mages from the Gallows, and cleaning up after Hawke’s messes.

So it was not entirely unexpected that Anders had never reached this particular juncture in the Darktown passages before.

“Hey, Rob. Good to see you tonight.”

The man ahead of them was a bouncer of some type. A mercenary, Anders guessed. He had a large war hammer strapped to his back, where most making their way through the passage carried no more than perhaps a concealed dagger. But he seemed friendly and disinclined to aggression, having addressed Ander’s companion, ‘Rob’, in a congenial way.

“Hey, Mar,” Rob replied, waving as he approached. “Crazy week, huh? But I think we’re finally about ready to start getting somewhere after tonight.” He slapped the bouncer, ‘Mar’, on the shoulder. “How’s the wife?”

Anders stood behind. He wondered what ‘Mar’ was short for. Had the passing thought it was remarkably close to ‘Merr’, his nickname for Merrill, which might have been Hawke’s nickname for her before that. But it wouldn’t have been good to say anything about that here, so Anders tried his best to keep quiet and just observe what passed between ‘Rob’ and ‘Mar’.

It was mostly small talk about their wives and kids. Troubles of the work week. This put Anders at ease. These were average people with average concerns (besides Merrill’s hostile takeover of the city, of course). And they were Marchers, but they didn’t seem that different from the Fereldans he usually worked with, or that different from the Ander community of his childhood before his magic came in and cast Anders out.

“And who’s this?” Mar asked, turning to Anders.

Rob leaned back. He waved Anders forward and slapped Anders on the forearm, before answering for him. “New guy. Name’s Freddie. He’s here to see what we’re all about.”

“Hullo,” Anders said, a little awkwardly.

Mar looked him over, but didn’t seem to recognise Anders as ‘Anders’, the Chantry Bomber, the Darktown Healer, et al. And it wasn’t that Anders and Justice were precisely lying about who they were: ‘Fred’ was less of a pseudonym than ‘Anders’ by some measures, and it wasn’t like they wouldn’t tell the truth if anyone asked directly. Just Anders had also left his favourite coat at the clinic, cropped his hair for the night (he could grow it back later with Creation magic anyhow), and wasn’t going out of his way to mention anything that might give him away.

Rob had explained to them that this was a necessary precaution for the meeting they were attending. It wasn’t that Anders would be on these tenterhooks forever. But Anders was new and it would be better for him to not to advertise who he was until he’d garnered some trust, so Rob helped Anders figure out which parts of his identity to play up or shy away from until such a time they could be more honest.

Justice hadn’t liked this much. Hadn’t liked Rob much at all, as a matter of fact. But Anders understood. The Mage Underground had also been slow to trust newcomers, when any unknown person might be a Templar infiltrator or informant. This was just an inherent part of running this type of anti-establishment militant group. And, besides, Anders had taken a liking to Rob thus far.

Rob was nodding. “Fred’s a good type. Dog lord, but a good type.”

Anders snorted. “Yeah, I don’t know why we’re all ‘dog lords’. I prefer cats myself.”

Everyone did the courtesy of a friendly laugh at that.

Mar elbowed Anders. “That’s how you tell the good ones,” he said, before nodding at Rob. “Go ahead. We’ll see what he thinks after the Grand Champion gives his speech.”

Rob led Anders ahead, up a small flight of stairs to a wooden ladder. And Anders scaled the ladder into a surprisingly plush meeting room.

It was a bunker or cellar, of sorts. The kind Anders would have assumed came attached to the basement of a Hightown manor, once. Either way, it was furnished with a number of cosy-looking divans and armchairs.

Thirty or so people were spread about the room. Mostly men. Though there was a woman in a red and white mask – different from the kind you saw on Orlesians – standing behind a buffet table and chatting amiably with the guests as she served olives and baked brie and slices of meat pie.

And a number of warm orange banners streamed along the walls, drawing the eye to the room’s largest banner – a white flag behind the buffet depicting an eye impaled on a sword, both encased in flames. This heraldry seemed to incorporate design elements from those of the Seekers of Truth and the Templar Order, though it was a direct copy of neither. Anders found it somewhat uncomfortable, but Andrastian imagery was very prolific and there was no saying what in particular it symbolised. In fact, giving the flag a second pass, the eye twitching on the shaft of the sword looked vaguely heretical, which excited Anders and convinced him to press any lingering doubts from his mind.

“Here. Let’s get you a plate and show you around,” Rob said.

Anders would have declined the food, as he could technically do without. But there seemed to be more than enough for everyone present, and the pie did look particularly good. The woman winked behind her mask, as she handed it to him, and Anders felt his cheeks go pink.

It was the first thing anyone commented on, when Rob drew Anders into a circle of his acquaintances.

“She makes the best mince pie in all the Marches, but don’t go getting any ideas, Freddie,” a man with thick curly brown hair warned. “She’s the Grand Champion’s wife. So she’s taken.”

“Oh, like she’d go for a guy with a big nose like that to begin with,” another one laughed.

Anders stuffed some brie in his mouth, and let them enjoy the laugh at his expense before asking. “Who’s this Grand Champion everyone keeps talking about anyhow?” Anders snickered to himself. “They give Hawke a promotion when I wasn’t paying attention?”

It was hard to miss how badly the joke landed, given the scowls it precipitated amongst the group.

“Watch what you say,” a bald man growled.

“Wouldn’t compare that elf-lover with-”

“Whoa, whoa!” Rob cut in. “Fred didn’t mean anything by it. It’s his first meeting, remember? Hasn’t even met the Grand Champion yet.”

“Hasn’t met him?” someone asked.

“Naw, Freddie’s new!” another someone reiterated.

“The Grand Champion-” A man with thinning blonde hair began to explain. “Well, you won’t catch us calling him by name, but he’s a real someone in Hightown, and he’s on our side.”

“I think we all owe him something,” the man with the curly brown hair agreed. “City’s gone to shit the last decade or so, ever since the last Blight. But the Grand Champion’s seen us all through a lot of messes. Food shortages. Lost jobs.”

“After they’d all been handed away to O’lesions and rabbits and dog lords,” someone cut in with a snarl.

“No offence, Freddie,” curly brown hair amended quickly. “Know you’re Fereldan yourself.”

Anders repeated what he’d said earlier about preferring cats. This joke landed much better than the last. Everyone had a good laugh.

“The Grand Champion is the true Champion of Kirkwall, before they started handing out the title to just anyone. Real blue blooded Marcher. He was working to chase the Qunari oxmen out of Kirkwall before Hawke even got the chance.”

“Don’t think Hawke would have gotten anything done at all, if not for the Grand Champion.”

Anders’s brow furrowed, but he held his tongue. Defending Hawke didn’t seem like it was going to make him friends here. And he supposed it really wasn’t so strange that everyone had a problem with Hawke right now, given Hawke’s association with Merrill.

“Seen us through a lot, our Grand Champion. You’ll like him, Freddie. Everyone does.”

“At least everyone worth anything does,” the blonde man amended.

Anders considered. It really did seem like this Grand Champion must be something special, if he’d inspired this kind of loyalty in so many men. And helped them through unemployment and food shortages. He sounded, Anders thought, kind of like Lirene.

Everyone seemed to want to delay talking business about how to stop Merrill until everyone arrived and the Grand Champion gave his speech. Which was fine. Anders listened to the others talk about their jobs and families and the difficulties of both, and was at one point prompted to share an anecdote about his own woes – a time Merrill had gotten drunk, thrown up in his poultice mixing bowl, and needed to be carried home to bed – albeit with the names omitted.

The group divided, coalesced, and divided once more. Anders was once again left alone beside Rob, and was beginning to think mingling was going rather well, when a newcomer beelined up towards them.

“You gotta be shitting me, Rob, that’s Hawke’s mage, isn’t it?”

“Shh. Not so loud, would you?” Rob hushed him, before making introductions. “This is Fred. Freddie – Harold.”

“Doesn’t matter what you call him. Hawke’s mage is Hawke’s mage,” Harold said, albeit more quietly.

Anders frowned, as he popped another olive into his mouth. He was getting a little tired of the hostility everyone seemed to have for Hawke. And beyond that he was getting really tired of this ‘Hawke’s mage’ business. Whatever his relationship with Hawke, Anders wasn’t some defanged Circle kiss-ass that had gone begging to be pimped out to the nobility.

The Fenris in Anders’s mind’s eye scoffed.

Am I to assume there was a high demand for mage servants such as yourself? the memory said. An unmannered Ander immigrant, gargantuan in stature, irreverent and prone to fits of histrionics? Fenris had snorted. Who is to say what you would have done, how amenable you might have made yourself, had they wanted you?

Anders couldn’t remember how he’d responded and how the conversation had progressed. Had he known at the time, that Fenris needed to make sense of how he’d offered himself to be branded his former master’s favourite?

The Anders in his mind reached for Fenris, hugged him tightly. Are you saying nobody wants me? He didn’t really think that’s what Fenris was saying.

Fenris scoffed against his chest. I am saying you are lucky, in your own way, to be appreciated by only those of the finest quality.

Are you of the finest quality then? Anders teased.

Anders’s mind drifted. He was thinking now of how the crown of Fenris’s head smelled, how strong Fenris’s arms were when he pulled Anders close, how it had been five days since they’d last seen one another…

“You know he’s Hawke’s mage,” Harold was saying. “And Hawke’s a dirty rabbit-fucker at the end of the day. And his mage ain’t any different.”

Rob waved him down. “Hey, hey now. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything. You of all people should know- Just because you want an elf under you, sure doesn’t mean you want an elf above you, calling the shots in the Viscount’s chair, right?” He prompted Anders with a jab of his elbow.

Anders, who’d been thinking about just how nice it was to have Fenris under him and appreciating him, blinked, distracted. His flush deepened, as the question caught up with him and he recalled his last encounter with the Viscount’s chair. It might have been nice to reverse the roles, actually. To have Merrill sit above him in the Viscount’s chair and plant her foot in his face. But he was pretty sure nobody was asking his private thoughts about that.

“Er, right?” he agreed hesitantly.

Harold seemed undeterred. “What are you thinking, Rob, bringing Hawke’s mage here? You going to invite Hawke’s witch next?”

“Look-” Rob made a zipping motion with his hand. “Think of the big picture here.”

“No big picture with Hawke.” Harold shook his head.

“What is everyone’s problem with Hawke?” Anders asked.

Harold gave him a pithy look. “Dog lord, for one.”

Anders thought that was rather uncalled for, and was about to say so.

“Now, now,” Rob waved them both down. “Hawke is an Amell in all but name. Good Marcher family.”

“You think so?” Harold raised a sceptical eyebrow. “Because I talked to Gamlen Amell on the docks once. Invited him to one of these meet-ups. You know what he told me? Told me to go fuck myself, that the whole city was shit, and that he didn’t need to ‘swan about in a room full of queers – sucking each other off and reminiscing about good times that never existed’ to be a ‘hateful bigot’. Bastard said he had that covered all on his own.” Harold scoffed as if, despite the clear offence he took at the words, he couldn’t help but be a little impressed with Gamlen Amell’s audacity.

It took Harold a moment to recover, working himself back up with a quick series of nods.

“So I think the Amells are shit,” he concluded. “And I think Hawke is, if anything, double-shit for being related to them.”

Anders could concede that, if all you knew about Hawke was his Uncle Gamlen, you’d reasonably be left with a poor impression of him. And besides, it made Anders feel a little better to hear that the people around him were no more fans of Gamlen Amell than he was. In fact, if Gamlen Amell disliked you, it was practically an endorsement of your good character!

“Okay, but Hawkes and Amells aside-” Rob waved this off. “Big picture, Harry.”

Harold gave him a weary look.

“No, you’re not thinking about what it means to have one of them on our side,” Rob urged. “Think of the information. Think of how we can use this!”

Harold seemed unimpressed. “You’re playing with fire here, Rob. Get ‘Freddie’ out, before-”

Anders was distracted when the enchantments in the room flickered, quieting its occupants, and drawing attention to the person stepping up onto a platform at the head of the room. The man was dressed in finely tailored clothes, and a mask much like the one worn by the woman at the buffet, though Anders could see his clear blue eyes blinking behind it.

This must be the Grand Champion, Anders surmised.

The Grand Champion tapped a box on the pulpit, an enchantment. And when he began speaking, his voice carried through the whole of the underground bunker. Loud enough by far to drown out the hushed argument still taking place between Harold and Rob.

“If it isn’t good to see you all here today!” the Grand Champion announced. “Welcome! Marchers! Kirkwallites! Distinguished guests! Those for whom Kirkwall was built!”

Technically, it was built for Tevinter slavelords, Anders thought.

But Anders supposed nobody much felt like his nitpicking. A cheer had picked up throughout the room.

The Grand Champion waited for his audience to settle before continuing. “I cannot emphasise enough how important it is to stand united now,” he said. “Truly, we’ve been beset with nothing but plague after plague, since the Blight ten years ago. But this may be the most dangerous yet.” The Grand Champion chuckled and shook his head. “It… has been a week.”

Everyone joined in laughing at the understatement of these words.

Rob was shushing an exasperated Harold, refusing to engage his friend’s argument any further.

The Grand Champion was nodding. “We all know what’s happening out there.” He pointed upwards. “A tyrant stands in the Keep of our city! A duplicitous Dalish witch!” he spat. “One who steals our homes, our belongings, our food, even our corpses! One,” he paused, “who knows nothing about – has no right to – our city and our culture!”

There was hollering from the crowd, insults for Merrill.

But Anders ignored them. He was unable to take his eyes off the Grand Champion. It seemed he’d finally found a kindred soul – someone taking the problems with Merrill as seriously as he was.

“Now, I have already put out the call to our brothers and sisters in the Order of Fiery Promise!” The Grand Champion said. “And they will help us! They will answer us! They will help purge this city of the lesser vermin who have no right to it!”

Anders blinked. Whatever spell had taken hold of him barely a moment ago, seemed less mesmerising now. The crowd was cheering but…

Anders wasn’t sure he liked this talk of purges. It reminded him, a little, of annulments.

“But it will be some time, before the Order of Fiery Promise arrives to help cleanse our streets,” the Grand Champion said. “And this is our city! Do we need our brothers’ and sisters’ help to get started?!”

“NO!” the crowd shouted.

“Will we tolerate the witch tyrant in our Keep?!” the Grand Champion asked.

“NO!” the crowd shouted.

Anders still couldn’t quite put his finger on it. But he really didn’t like how everyone was calling Merr that.

“Will we tolerate an elf in our Keep?!” the Grand Champion asked.

“NO!” the crowd shouted.

What’s wrong with an elf being Viscount? Anders thought irritably. It really seemed like everyone was being very bigoted these days. When had everyone in this city gotten to be so bigoted?

Anders was still unprepared for the Grand Champion’s next bit of rhetoric.

“Will we tolerate a mage in our Keep?!”

“NO!” the crowd shouted.

Anders’s jaw clenched. He dropped his plate of pie. Blue light was already filling his eyes, spreading down his neck and through the veins on his arms.

“Maker curse you, Rob! I told you!” Anders heard Harold curse.

The Grand Champion didn’t seem to have noticed yet. “Then I say,” he shouted, “we march to the Thrennhold estate! We bust down the doors! And we show those knife-ears what happens when they try to take what’s ours!”

And that was the last thing Anders remembered, before Justice took over.

==

“So, um, yeah, I… kind of accidentally infiltrated a human supremacist hate group and then killed everyone,” Anders admitted. He looked up for his friends’ reactions.

Hawke blinked. Eyes wide and blank.

Fenris had dropped his face into his right hand, and was pinching the bridge of his nose. Eyes shut tightly. Anders hoped he wasn’t too, too upset.

Hawke floundered for words. “Well… At least we learned something nice about Uncle Gamlen?”

“Your uncle thought asking the witch and myself how us ‘knife-ears’ avoided getting hookworm, was an appropriate topic of conversation during last Summerday brunch, Hawke,” Fenris reminded. He hadn’t yet lifted his head from his hand or ceased pinching the bridge of his nose. “The fact that he felt no need to further legitimise his bigotry by joining an angry mob of human supremacists is hardly an achievement.”

“But he didn’t,” Hawke pointed out.

“Unlike some people in this room,” Fenris sighed.

Anders frowned guiltily.

“Wait, what did any of this have to do with Merr?” Hawke cut in suddenly. He turned to Anders. “You mentioned Merr said something or did something when you first interrupted our reading lesson, right? Where does Merr come into things?”

“Oh, uh…” Anders shifted uncomfortably. For some reason this part of the story embarrassed him most. “So, um, Justice was finally starting to calm down and was-” He waved a hand dismissively. Hawke and Fenris both knew what Justice did, and they didn’t need it spelled out for them that Justice had been chomping down on someone’s bloody dismembered arm. “And then Merrill and Aveline showed up, I mean- broke down into the bunker through this sealed staircase and, um… confronted us.”

“Was Merr upset with you?” Hawke’s eyes were big, greyish brown, sympathetic.

“Um, no,” Anders admitted, looking away. “She said she and Aveline were following a tip-off and had come to eradicate the group, and that I hadn’t needed to take care of these ‘troublemakers’ for her, but she was glad all the same.” He cleared his throat again. “Apparently they’ve been following up on leads, trying to dismantle human trafficking rings in Kirkwall and, um- the Grand Champion and several of the other guests at the meeting were apparently leading organisers of the Marches-to-Tevinter pipeline…”

Fenris heaved an even heavier sigh.

“And, um-” Anders spoke very smally now. “Merrill said she planned to award Justice and I a medal for our services towards dismantling Kirkwall slave trade.” He looked nervously up to his companions.

Hawke had moved his lips into a wordless ‘o’.

Fenris allowed himself one last sigh, then finally lifted his head from his hand. “Mage,” he said, eyes narrowing, “you understand that you have done nothing to deserve these accolades.”

Anders pouted. “I understand.” Although, no sooner had he said it, than he began to grow petulant. Okay, so he’d barely known what he was doing and had been there for all the wrong reasons and had made a fool of himself accidentally joining up with a bunch of slavers. But-! It wasn’t like anyone else had done the dirty work and killed the Grand Champion and helped dismantle their enterprise. Why shouldn’t Anders (and Justice) get credit?

Fenris ignored this inner turmoil. “Good,” he agreed with a snort. “So long as you understand, then I will magnanimously overlook your transgressions. I will allow you to accept your rewards from the witch, but we will otherwise not speak of this again.”

Anders felt a bit miffed by the way Fenris had locked him into a deal that was, objectively, pretty good.

Hawke pursed his lips. “And all this happened…?”

“Few hours ago,” Anders said.

“And Merr and Aveline are…”

“Still at the crime scene,” Anders answered. “Trying to catalogue everything and find more leads. And you know how Aveline is with her reports.”

“And you came right here?” Hawke beamed.

He looked so enthusiastic, so happy to see Anders… It felt a little dangerous, with Fenris right there.

Anders’s cheeks went pink. “Just stopped by the clinic first to get my coat.” He shrugged. And then he went even more red in the face, turned his head down with shame.

He felt a little disoriented still. Rob and his friends had seemed so normal for a while there. And, even now, Anders struggled with the sympathy he felt on behalf of their families. The sympathy they pointedly didn’t have for the families of those they’d kidnapped for the slaver ships.

It was uncomfortable, and made Anders feel like a different, worse person. So it had felt nice to return to the clinic – grow his hair back out and change his clothes and wrap his favourite coat around him. To tuck ‘Fred’ away, and become ‘Anders’ once more.

Hawke seemed to realise some of this. “Well, you’ve definitely had a wild few days but- Oh!” He lifted his hands and shot finger guns at Anders. “I bet I have something that will cheer you up.”

Hawke quickly stood from his seat, and rushed across the study for the desk at its head. He hummed to himself, and swung his shoulders and his hips in a little dance, as he rustled through the papers atop the desk, before picking out an envelope raising it above his head with a triumphant ah-ha!

“What’s that? Some letter?” Anders said unenthusiastically.

Hawke waggled his eyebrows. “Letter… from Varric!” he opened the envelope and snapped the letter open in his hands. “Here. I’ll read it to you.”

He cleared his throat and recited the following:

..

Hawke, you’re not going to believe this shitshow.

You’d think: Oh, Haven’s just a jump across the sea and a hike up the mountains. It can’t possibly take that long to get there.

And you’d be right! But, Maker, someone tell the Seeker that! We’ve been zigzagging over the whole damned continent.

First she picks up a lead to go track down the Arlessa of Amaranthine. So we were camped outside Warden central with a bunch of pyromaniac dwarves guarding the gates, along with a Dalish witch that could give our Daisy a run for her money.

Next we’re taking a boat to Maker forsaken Cumberland to bother the College of Enchanters. Spent a week listening to every Nevarran and their corpse gasp just as soon as they heard the Seeker’s name.

And you’d think we’d just touch down in Orlais after that! But no! For some reason it’s back to Highever in Ferelden, and then up the Frostbacks where – you’ll never believe it – blizzard!

Now we’re stuck taking shelter in Orzammar until the weather clears. And can I say— Dad getting our whole family kicked out after rigging the Provings? Best thing that ever happened to us.

Worst city I’ve ever seen. The food is bland. The scenery is depressing. I haven’t eaten anything but roast nug and peas for a week. The only way to tell time is passing at all is the damned chimes from the Shaperate every four hours. More than one stodgy schmuck has gone and turned their nose up at me for being a surfacer, as if they’re not going crazy huffing the sulphur that Volcano farts out. And King Bhelen keeps glaring, like he’s about to have us all face the business end of a war hammer. But the Seeker knows about as much about Dwarven politics as she does about fine literature, so she keeps ploughing on obliviously, like everyone in Thedas should be delighted to play host to a Hand of the Divine.

But if there’s one good thing about Orzammar, it’s that I knew who to bribe to slip away and get this letter sent through the Merchant’s Guild.

I don’t know, Hawke. I’m looking at this letter and thinking it’s a real pile of nug shit. But I want you to know I’m safe – the time the Seeker stabbed me in the book aside. And you stay safe too. Look after Daisy and the broody elf. Keep your head down. I’ve got things under control, and I’ll contact you again when I can.

And you know… I never thought I’d say this. Never thought I’d forgive him even an inch. Probably haven’t really. But I’m glad I have no shitting idea where Anders is, because even he doesn’t deserve to have this nutjob Seeker after him. And he wouldn’t know how to handle her like I do in the first place. I hope he and the Rivaini are okay, wherever they are.

Send Kirkwall my love, Hawke.

Varric

..

Recitation finished, Hawke folded the letter back into the envelope and waggled his eyebrows again. He seemed very pleased with himself, though Anders had no idea why. Had no idea what about this letter was meant to ‘cheer him up’.

“So Varric still basically hates me, and hasn’t forgiven me at all,” Anders scowled. Though that wasn’t even the worst of it. Apparently Varric was miserable, still being brutalised at the hands of a mad Seeker, and all of it was Anders’s fault.

“What?” Hawke said. “No! You~” He shot a finger gun at Anders. “He covered for you! He protected you!”

Anders was sceptical.

“You’re kidding right?” Hawke said. “It was the strangest thing! He must have been more worried about the Seeker intercepting his post than he let on! Either that or the sulphur fumes are getting to him, and he forgot entirely that you and Bela were in Dairsmuid together! But I don’t see why you would-”

Fenris cleared his throat. “Hawke,” he interrupted sharply.

“Hmm?” Hawke blinked distractedly.

Anders was distracted by the smooth way Fenris brushed against his side and wrapped an arm around his.

“I hope it is no trouble if we end our lesson early this week,” Fenris said, addressing Hawke. “I would like to spend some time with my amatus, now that he has returned from the latest of his ill-conceived schemes.”

Hawke set the letter face down on his desk, and leaned back against it with a smirk. “Oh, I see how it is~ Your husband comes back and suddenly you’re all about your marital duties?”

“Yes,” Fenris said simply. He leaned harder against Anders’s arm.

“Far be it from me to stand in your way then.” Hawke gave a mocking bow, but his smile was genuine. “Are you okay with discussing the second half of The Little Sisters of Old Ciriane next week then? I know historical fiction isn’t your favourite, and it was your turn to pick the book…”

“It is no trouble to continue with your pick next week, Hawke,” Fenris said. “The genre may not be my favourite, but I am glad for the excuse to expand my palate. I would read nothing but poetry and nonfiction, were it not for you and Isabela.” He swallowed uncomfortably. “Hawke, you know I enjoy our lessons…”

“And you know that I enjoy the anticipation,” Hawke finished for him. Hawke stretched his arms wide and clasped both Fenris and Anders on the shoulders.

His hand felt warm, even through Anders’s coat, and Anders flushed. It felt a little dangerous the way Hawke’s hand lingered, when Fenris was right there, pressed cosy into Anders’s side.

“You know I’m always rooting for the two of you,” Hawke smiled kindly. And he seemed to really mean it, but he gave Anders a wink before shooing him and Fenris both out the study door.

==

Anders was seething. “I can’t believe what Merrill is doing.”

Fenris sighed.

“Can you believe what Merrill is doing?” Anders asked.

“Look,” Fenris pointed above the treetops. “The clouds have cleared and the stars are visible.”

“And Lirene, Orsino, Aveline- They’re all working with her!”

“And the weather is pleasant,” Fenris said, folding his arm back around Anders’s.

“Am I the only one in this city who cares?!”

“And we are here,” Fenris said. “Together,” he specified. “On a moonlit walk… Through the botanical gardens…”

“But it’s fine,” Anders insisted. “Even if I’m the only one who cares. Even if the whole of Thedas is against me, I won’t let her forget what she’s done.”

Fenris huffed irritably. “Nothing? No jokes or flirtations? None of your spirit’s poetry?”

“You know what she told me?” Anders said. “What’s a goddess for, except passing out punishments and favours? Why shouldn’t I play with people’s lives however I want? That’s what she told me!”

“Yes, mage, I remember the first time you relayed it,” Fenris said wearily. “I gave up my evening with Hawke for this,” he reminded.

“She thinks she can just do whatever she wants and nobody will retaliate. Well, I’m retaliating!”

“I gave up my evening with Hawke,” Fenris repeated, “and I am beginning to wonder why!”

Something about this made Anders startle.

Fenris was holding onto Anders’s arm no less tightly. But when Anders looked down, he found Fenris glaring.

“You don’t mean that?” Anders said as pathetically as he dared.

“I do not,” Fenris admitted with a sigh. “But you should afford attention to your surroundings and the immediacy of your current business.”

Anders blinked, and looked around him.

They were in a garden. Arm in arm along a dirt path lined with little grey stones and beds of flowers – marigolds, daffodils, and embrium mostly. But further from the path were mostly collections of fungi – sprouting iridescently blue tendrils, interspersed with flat black and white caps. They looked like Deep Mushrooms, only they’d grown as large and wide as a person – sometimes two or three metres in height.

Anders looked back along the path. Come to think of it, where they’d walked in from had been no less strange. Another stretch of garden with spindly wild rose bushes and patches of elfroot. But above them had been trees thirty metres high – like old growth forest had sprouted in Hightown overnight.

“This wasn’t here five days ago,” Anders realised.

“No,” Fenris agreed. “Merrill saw to expanding the Hightown Gardens.”

“Why are there mushrooms taller than I am?” Anders asked.

“Because the witch is an insufferable show-off!” Fenris said hotly. He dropped Anders’s arm to gesture angrily. “I allowed her to use some of my specimens, but of course she could not accept the gift for what it was. Instead, she must use magic to grow them ten times as large, bragging all the while.”

Anders blinked. He hadn’t expected this, of all things, to be the sore spot it was. But he felt a little better that Fenris, in his own way, was taking issue with Merrill. “I’m sure she recognises she wouldn’t have been able to grow them in the first place without you.”

Fenris grumbled and preened all at once. “She is accrediting me for my contributions,” he admitted. “Some monument or other. It will be good to be known for something that isn’t an innate efficiency at killing.”

Anders remembered he had said some pretty awful things over the years about Fenris’s frankly monstrous efficiency at killing and that, all in all, it was a bit of a miracle that Fenris had forgiven him. Wisely, he chose to say nothing now.

“And it is… pleasing…” The tips of Fenris’s ears twitched. “To have these public gardens… It has been years in this city with nothing to do for leisure that did not involve ale, gambling chips, or whoring. The garden’s path stretches from the back of my mansion, to the lot southwest of the Keep, to the cliffside below the Hightown Marketplace. One could spend the whole day walking and picnicking.”

Anders traced the path Fenris had laid out in his mind.

Fenris cleared his throat, and his ears twitched again. “Slaves were not permitted unaccompanied access, of course, but there were a number of gardens, fountains, and artistic and cultural exhibits opened free of charge to the citizens of Minrathous…” He paused briefly. “Such places, though lively and colourful, were often crowded and dirty with people. But until Kirkwall’s citizens accustom themselves to the idea, it would seem we have this garden largely to ourselves… to do with as we wish…”

Anders realised something. “This garden would pass right through the one where the Hightown nobles were encamped then.”

“Mage.” Fenris let out a frustrated grunt.

“No, but it would, wouldn’t it?” He gestured, circling his finger around one abstract quadrant of the space in front of him. “See, if your mansion is here, and the Dwarven Merchant’s guild is over here-”

“You did not realise the Hightown encampment had been dispatched with?” Fenris raised an eyebrow. “You did not realise their lanterns were unlit, that they were not hounding at Hawke’s door when you decided to barge inside?”

“I thought they were just taking a night off,” Anders whined. “I was wondering how Merrill was planning to fit everyone into this blighted city, since she keeps tearing down buildings to make blighted belfries and plant blighted gardens and open blighted swimming pools- But I guess she was always planning on tossing whoever she didn’t like out for good!”

“She is fitting upwards of five families in manors where only one resided before, and working with the dwarves to refurbish apartments throughout the rest of the city,” Fenris said dryly.

“What happened to them? All those people!” Anders was thinking about the baby. That perfect poor innocent baby, and her brother, and their weak lungs, and no assurance that anyone was looking after them.

“Gone,” Fenris said.

Anders gasped.

“To Starkhaven, mostly,” Fenris clarified. “The witch rounded them up for private interviews. Most were all too eager to attend, given she spent the week prior ignoring their petitions. Idiots,” Fenris snorted derisively. “At the conclusion of the interviews, the majority decided to leave for inland.”

That wasn’t nearly as bad a fate as Anders might have suspected. Was, in fact, what he’d advised Lord Stathis and his family do to begin with. Somehow this was even more irritating.

Fenris shrugged. “Convincing them, apparently, went easier than expected. As a number of them were concerned for the fate of their children, and accused the witch of having sent someone disguised as a healer to steal them.” Fenris raised an eyebrow suspiciously at Anders. “I suppose you know nothing about this.”

“No, nothing.” Anders broke eye contact.

“Mmm.” Fenris did not seem convinced, but did not press Anders either. “In any case, I believe she gave the nobles different stories about what had happened here in Kirkwall to relay to the Prince.” He snorted derisively. “No doubt it will confuse and infuriate Sebastian.”

“Good,” Anders huffed. “It’s what he deserves.”

“You killed his mother,” Fenris pointed out.

“Please, the Grand Cleric wasn’t his mother,” Anders protested. “His real mother died a decade earlier, remember?”

Fenris’s stare was withering, and he left Anders to the weakness of his own argument, turning forward to continue up the garden path.

It had been enough to make Anders feel a little bit guilty. He slouched and looked down at his boots as he shuffled after Fenris, and he knew that Elthina had been the closest thing Sebastian had to a living parent. And he hadn’t wanted to kill her – not really. But she’d refused to stop the Knight Commander and refused to vacate her position under threat, and Anders wasn’t going to let her collect wealth and prestige from the blood of the Gallow’s mages. So he wasn’t really sorry he’d killed her either.

But he’d never really been able to tell if Fenris had forgiven him for that. And Fenris got terribly snippy and irritable whenever Anders gathered enough courage to ask. But Fenris must have been upset at least, because Fenris and Sebastian had been friends, of a sort, before Anders had… ruined it? he guessed.

He glanced up, and Fenris had stopped to look up at the cap of an overgrown deep mushroom. It was glowing the same iridescent blue as was etched along the surface of Fenris’s forearms, stretching from where the cuffs of his coat had been rolled up over his elbows to where his hands were stuffed into its pockets. Fenris’s shoulders seemed relaxed, and his expression was inscrutable – feelings carefully tucked behind the small frown his lips naturally curled to.

Anders cleared his throat. “You’re okay with it, then-?” he asked. “Merr playing mind games with Sebastian like that?”

Fenris wrung his lips, as he looked up at the mushroom cap, then turned down to the soil at its base. “It does not make me happy, if that is what you are asking.” His eyes caught on a row of flowers and smaller mushrooms that lined the edge of the path. It had been partly torn up by careless footsteps and, after a moment’s consideration, Fenris knelt, knees in the dirt. “But I cannot say I would do any less than the witch at the end of the day. Or, if I did, it would not be for any strength of character.” He pulled his hands from his pockets and began to right the line of flowers. “Hawke has built a life for himself here. And Aveline and Donnic. And any number of citizens and refugees. And I have built a life here,” he said, “with Isabela, and you, and the witch… It is not something I can allow Sebastian to take from me, rightly or wrongly, for better or for worse.”

Fenris still hadn’t looked at Anders. But Anders stood above him, and watched as Fenris ran lyrium-lined fingers through the dirt, rearranging red-orange marigolds and silver-blue deep mushrooms into a little piece of art. And the gentleness and diligence of the action affected Anders, as did the bead of sweat that condensed on the nape of Fenris’s neck. He kneeled down behind Fenris and kissed it away.

Fenris hummed softly in acknowledgement, but continued working on the garden as Anders pressed increasingly persistent kisses to the back of Fenris’s neck and wrapped his arms around Fenris’s waist. And Anders was beginning to wonder if he was only imagining that Fenris was leaning back against him, when Fenris spoke under his breath. “Don’t crush the flowers.”

Anders’s laugh broke against Fenris’s back. He struggled a bit and managed to lift Fenris up just enough to rotate him, so when Anders fell on top of him it was sideways on the empty dirt path rather than forward across the line of flowers. He eased up a little and pressed a kiss behind Fenris’s ear. “You don’t mind if I crush you then?” he whispered. “Or crush on you?”

“Mmm, you may… a bit…” It was crazy how expressive Fenris could be, even when he barely said anything. His back arched as Anders ran a hand up his side, and he ground his hips forward into the ground and then back against Anders. He squirmed, and pressed Anders away just far enough to flip onto his back. “If you must,” he finished muttering, before pulling Anders flush against his chest.

Anders pulled at the collar of Fenris’s coat, to better reveal his neck and the top of his chest, and they lay there for a while. Anders pressed kisses to any piece of skin he could reach with their clothes still on. But this part of the garden path was secluded, under the canopy of mushrooms. And though this was technically a public pathway, most Kirkwall residents were hesitant to brave the city at night, as Fenris had already implied, and Anders doubted anyone would happen upon them. He ran a hand across the top edge of Fenris’s leggings. “Can I-?”

“Yes,” Fenris breathed, cutting Anders off before he could finish the question.

Anders reached for the drawstring on the leggings, but fumbled. He kissed Fenris’s shoulder a few more times before breaking down into a wheezing set of laughs.

“Anders?” Fenris stilled, and Anders looked up at his face, vaguely aware of the concerned look that passed over it.

“I knew you were full of it,” Anders laughed. And when Fenris seemed confused- “About the Viscount’s chair! You just didn’t want to go confront Merrill! I knew your whole thing about only wanting to rut in a bed was dogshit.”

“That is hardly a revelation. You have already-” Fenris turned his head away, but Anders saw the edge of Fenris’s smile, and could feel the snort of laughter in Fenris’s chest. “Mage?”

“Yes?” Anders replied dutifully.

“Consider putting your mouth to better use.”

“Right away, Serah,” Anders snickered. He pressed another open mouthed kiss to Fenris’s neck, to feel him squirm. And Anders was already planning the rest – how he’d unbutton Fenris’s coat and shirt and kiss down his abdomen to his groin and then blow him, because Anders really wanted to blow him. But he’d only got to the second button when his body jerked upwards and his eyes filled with a nearly blinding amount of blue light.

“NO, YOU CANNOT!” Justice said, panicked. And it was a strange hearing Justice’s voice emerge on the end of a wet smack as their lips broke from Fenris’s skin – like the collision of two songs falling into disharmony over one another.

Anders guessed the butterflies in his stomach hadn’t merely been his own giddiness, but he wasn’t sure why Justice was making such a fuss. Justice didn’t usually interfere with these sorts of encounters these days, and Anders was feeling a little peeved Justice had taken over their body in full. Justice knew he hated that.

Fenris seemed surprised as well. His expression was inscrutable once more, but Anders saw him tense for the briefest of moments, before relaxing where he lay against the ground.

“THIS PLACE IS-” Justice took a deep breath and forced himself calm. “There are a great number of wisps in this garden! Far more than most places in Kirkwall! And it would be unjust to corrupt such young and impressionable spirits with our-!” Justice couldn’t seem to find the word for what they were doing, but Anders felt their cheeks flush.

There was no response for a moment, and Anders was trying to make sense of what Justice had said when Fenris shifted beneath them.

“Ah.” Fenris averted his eyes momentarily. But it was only a moment, and then the full force of them met with Anders and Justice – wide and vividly green and strangely demure in expression, even as he laid the both of them bare. “Would it… really be so terrible…?” he asked. “If we were to influence a few wisps towards becoming spirits of passion? Or desire?” Fenris cleared his throat softly. “Or love?”

There was such an intense surge of feeling at that, that Anders was sure it wasn’t just his own emotions. He was pretty sure that Justice wanted Fenris in that moment just as much as he did – wanted to fall over him and hold him so close and bury so deep into him that they’d never be torn apart. And if they both felt that way, then why wasn’t Justice-?

“I BELIEVE I AM FEELING SELF-CONSCIOUS!” Justice shouted.

Oh, that explains it, Anders thought.

Fenris’s eyes widened with understanding. “Of course. My apologies.” He eased Anders and Justice up, and himself out from underneath them. He smoothed their coat a little, took their hands, and pecked a kiss just below their right eye. “It was not my intention to discomfort you. If that is your only objection, we may continue this at home.”

Justice squeezed Fenris’s hands like a lifeline. He seemed abashed, and broke eye contact against Anders’s wishes. “I did not mean to cause you and Anders trouble,” he muttered.

“Do not let it concern you.” Fenris stood, pulling Anders and Justice up with him. “Anders causes me more trouble each day before breakfast.”

“Hey!” Anders protested. “Maybe I wouldn’t if you took breakfast earlier than three in the afternoon!” Oh, Justice had receded. He could speak again.

Fenris seemed entirely unbothered. He tiptoed up to press another distracted kiss to Anders’s cheek. “Let us return home.” He dropped Anders’s right hand, and tugged on the left, clearly intending to drag Anders back to his mansion by it.

But the other shoe had finally dropped for Anders. “Wait,” he began. “What did Justice mean when he said the garden was full of wisps? There shouldn’t be any more ambient wisps here than anywhere else in Kirkwall.” Except, now that Anders was paying attention, he could clearly feel that there were. There was a tremendous amount of spirit energy surrounding them, and spirit energy that couldn’t be accounted for merely by Justice or by Fenris’s lyrium brands.

Fenris’s ears twitched. He tugged on Anders’s arm a few more times, and sighed heavily when he realised Anders wasn’t budging. “Must we do this now, mage? I’d like my bed-” His voice dropped in a raspy tremor which might have been his best attempt at seductive. “And I’d like you.”

The whole thing made Anders all the more suspicious. “Fenris, you know something. What did Justice mean? Why is this place full of wisps?!”

Fenris dropped Anders’s hand. “Ugh! Mage! You are-” Fenris took a deep breath and, when he turned to answer Anders, he was calm. “So far as I understand, the witch scheduled a consultation with your other half regarding the…” Fenris grimaced, and seemed to struggle to find the words. “…the needs of Revenants and other corpse-possessing spirits.”

It took Anders a moment to put this together. “Wait- Are you talking about Justice? You mean Justice!” He felt suddenly enraged. “When did Merrill talk to Justice?!”

“You are not awake every moment of the day, mage,” Fenris said.

“What?! So she’s got Bran pencilling in meetings with Justice now?!” Anders demanded. “She’s coming to hover over me while I’m asleep to pick Justice’s brain?! He’s my spirit, you know, not hers!”

“Your possessiveness is not endearing.” Fenris seemed unimpressed.

“What does this have to do with the garden anyhow?!”

Fenris heaved another sigh. A theatrical one, Anders was sure, and it did not stop Fenris from answering. “It came to light that when your spirit possessed- the Grey Warden he possessed before you? Karstiv, was it?”

“Kristoff,” Justice corrected, quickly taking control of their mouth.

Anders attempted to mentally swat Justice away, like a stray hornet.

Fenris nodded graciously at the correction and continued. “There were concerns about Kristoff’s body and its propensity for wear and tear. The witch has been researching ways to better preserve her army’s cadavers. If her spirits spend idle hours inhabiting living bodies, the cadavers could be reserved for use during work hours. To my understanding this,” Fenris waved a hand expressively, “concept was incorporated into the design for the public Hightown gardens. Though she discussed the idea of building a full mausoleum at a later date.”

Anders looked at the garden around them again. The shifting branches of the trees, and the rows upon rows of iridescent mushrooms, larger than Anders had thought them capable of growing.

“There are spirits in the mushrooms,” Fenris deadpanned.

“Maker, there are spirits in the mushrooms,” Anders agreed. And probably not only the mushrooms, but also the flowers and trees. Merrill had designed a public Hightown garden full of Sylvans.

For a moment this knowledge just sat between them.

“There,” Fenris said, patiently. “If your curiosity is sated, we may return to our previous order of business and-”

“The spirits are all in the mushrooms!” Anders said triumphantly. “If her spirits are spending their nights here instead of spending them in the corpses that make up her army. That’s- That’s something we can use!” Anders hadn’t quite figured out how yet, but he was sure of it. They could use this to dethrone Merrill – Goddess or Viscount or both.

Fenris rolled his eyes. “That is not going to happen.”

“Why not?” Anders asked. “Why wouldn’t it happen? This is just the kind of advantage we’ve been looking for! We can do something with this! Why wouldn’t it happen?!” he repeated.

Fenris had reached the end of his patience. “Because I know you, and I know the witch, and I know between the two of you some things are impossibilities,” he hissed. “And, more immediately-” He reached again for Anders’s arm, and tugged it hard.

Taken off guard, Anders stumbled and caught himself only a few centimetres from Fenris’s face.

“You and Justice have promised me the evening,” Fenris snarled, “and I have no intention of releasing either of you until you have fulfilled that commitment.”

Fenris didn’t seem in the mood to be trifled with. Which was honestly kind of hot. It wasn’t often Fenris chose to take the initiative, and even more rarely he felt inclined to order Anders about. And if it meant an hour of Fenris snarling insults in Anders’s ear, instructing him to go harder, faster, rougher, gentler, more, more, more, amatus, more, until Fenris forgot he was supposed to sound annoyed completely… Well, Anders could let this thing with the possessed garden go. For now.

“Alright,” Anders said.

“It will be,” Fenris bit out. He began stomping back down the path the way they’d come, yanking Anders along by the hand as he went.

But the walk was not short enough by any means and, by the time they reached their destination, Anders had already figured out how he was going to use what he’d learned to stop Merrill.

Chapter Text

“What do you mean, ‘no’?!” Anders demanded.

He gesticulated to an empty clinic, snapped his head wildly from side to side. But the information he needed would not dislodge itself from the forgotten corners of his mind. Justice, it seemed, had a vice grip on it.

And of course there was no way that Justice could have mentioned this before Anders finished hauling half a ton of drakestone into the city, gotten elbow deep in bat guano, and realised he had no memory of how to refine them into explosives.

“Blighted stubborn spirit!” Anders cursed. “You can’t do this to me! You can’t hold my own memories hostage! How is that ‘just’?!”

Anders was flooded with what he was pretty sure were Justice’s own emotions. Something between indignation and guilt.

How dare Anders accuse him – accuse them – of such a violation!

But, whether an admission of guilt, or an attempt to aid Anders’s abysmal powers of recall, Justice relented and drew up a series of memories—

The curse lacerations sprouting on their arms. The glowing check out cards from under the covers of the overdue books from Xenon’s library.

The tears of frustration streaming from their eyes, as they shoved a charcoal pencil and a pile of unfinished chemical calculations towards a concerned and bewildered Merrill.

Anders’s lethargic misery, as Justice used their hands to harvest white crystals from the bottom of a bowl of murky grey water.

Anders frowned as he considered.

Okay, so he might not have been as self-sufficient in his attack on the Kirkwall Chantry as he might have hoped but-

Anders readjusted the spells he had on upkeep to prevent the curse wounds from sprouting over his skin. He wondered if he still had Xenon’s copy of The Tevinter Anarchist’s Cookbook around somewhere to reference. He scanned the clinic, and considered the crates of drakestone blocking the entrance down to Anders’s (further) underground storage space.

There had been a number of times when Anders, alone in his clinic, had been interrupted suddenly by someone – let’s say, Templars, or the Carta, or Hawke and Varric and friends – while holding something he had no desire to explain – let’s say, reports from Lirene, or a parcel of lyrium and deathroot, or a book on magically brewing explosives – and solved the problem by bending down for the storage room’s hatch, tossing whatever he was holding down past the ladder, and resealing the entrance before anyone was the wiser. Having made a habit of this, the storage room collected junk easily, had gone uncleaned for quite some time, and was the most likely hiding place for years overdue library books.

And Anders was formulating a plan for how to access the trapdoor, when he was hit with a sudden resounding conviction that he would not be digging up the Cookbook. At least not for any reason other than to return what he’d borrowed to Xenon.

“What in the Void, Justice?!” Anders snarled, trying to buck off the unwanted thoughts. “This is our chance to stop Merr! It’s the perfect plan! Why wouldn’t we take it?!”

The problem was that Anders was unable to think of a way to stop Merrill’s ascent to Viscount and subsequent rule other than by fighting her directly. Or he had been, until now.

Merrill’s new powers were predicated on the army of corpses she had at her disposal. And it just so happened that the majority of the spirits piloting those corpses were all congregated in the same place between the twenty second hour of the night and the fourth hour of the following morning.

An explosion in an empty park in the middle of the night, which would send the spirits at Merrill’s disposal free and rocketing back across the Veil? It was a perfect victimless crime. One that would cripple Merrill’s forces long enough so that… Okay, Anders didn’t know who, but someone or other would wrestle control of the city back from Merrill.

It would also cripple Kirkwall’s defences against Starkhaven. Or against the Sunburst Throne, should they decide on an Exalted March or other campaign to regain control of the Marches.

Anders pressed the thought away. The important thing at the moment was stopping Merrill.

More thoughts pressed back. Was this a victimless crime?

Anders was assaulted by the memory of Fenris, standing under the mushroom samples he’d contributed to Merrill’s Hightown Gardens.

It will be good to be known for something that isn’t an innate efficiency at killing. Fenris’s green eyes were so bright, his voice so soft, in their memories.

Anders quashed his guilt with red hot jealousy.

“Yes, we all know you like to play favourites, Justice,” Anders accused. “Fenris will get over it.” Which was true. Fenris always forgave them in the end.

Justice changed tactics.

The park would not remain empty throughout the night forever, Anders was reminded. The people of Kirkwall were already becoming accustomed to nights out in Hightown.

“Then it’s better we act as quickly as possible, before there are too many people to corral out of the way,” Anders urged.

But Justice was saving his most strenuous objection for last.

And what of the spirits themselves?!

Anders’s brow wrinkled. “What?”

The spirits are bound to the service of Falon’Din. What have they done to deserve our violence?

“They forcibly took over the city!”

On the blood witch’s command.

“Spirits don’t even die!” Anders protested. “They’ll just be reborn on the other side of the Veil!”

Without their memories, or identities. Hadn’t Anders and Justice found the idea frightening to consider with regards to themselves, enough that it had been a major factor in their joining? And hadn’t Fenris found it distressing, to have Leto erased from him?

Anders groaned.

“I can’t believe you,” he hissed. “This isn’t the time for some Spirit Rights Manifesto!”

Only it was, apparently. Because it would have been terribly unjust to condemn these spirits without even attempting contact with them first.

We will attempt to reach out to these spirits, ask them about their aims and experiences, and then see if they might be persuaded to our side.

“Yes, fine!” Anders shouted. “Andraste’s tits! We’ll just go talk to them and forget about all this drakestone we had hauled here then! Just filler for the garbage heap! Is that it?!”

“Um, healer?”

Anders startled. He whipped himself around, having apparently missed Water and Cricket coming up behind him.

Walter fidgeted uncomfortably, rolling the handles of his draisienne against his palms. “I, uh, brought the last crate of drakestone…”

Cricket was less delicate. “Oh, good. It smells like poop in here, and the healer is shouting at himself again.”

“Er, right. I was, er-” Anders flushed, and dropped the subject as he came forward to haul the last crate of drakestone off the draisienne. He piled it atop the others, in the mound in the clinic’s centre. “Thank you for bringing that for me. It was, er, very good of you, Walter.”

Walter’s lip wrung, and for a moment it didn’t seem as if he would speak when – “Please tell me you don’t want it dragged to the trash heap next.” – came rushing out in an anxious tremor.

“Oh, no, just-” Anders might still need the drakestone sooner or later. And there was no point in dumping it when it fit here just as well. And Anders hadn’t meant to make Walter feel unappreciated. “Just when you bill Lirene for the shipping, if you could tell her I also need about half a litre of liquid lyrium.”

“I told you you’d regret giving the healer a discount, didn’t I?” Cricket prodded, as Anders searched for quill and ink to sign off on the invoice.

That was how Anders found himself back in the Hightown Gardens with Fenris two nights later.

“And what are you doing now, amatus?” Fenris asked. Voice deceptively mild, compared to how irritable he’d been during their last trip to these gardens.

Anders was on his hands and knees, dipping a paintbrush into the canister of liquid lyrium that Lirene had gotten him and poring over yet another library book, freshly borrowed: Beyond the Veil; Your Guide to Memory, Grief, and the Fade. Which was full of psychobabble drivel that made Anders alternately tearful and furious, but also the only book Xenon had with half decent glyph diagrams for what Anders was trying to do.

“What does it look like?” Anders snapped, as he attempted to recreate the patterned edge of the glyph in the diagram with his brush. “I’m trying to perfect a ritual so Justice and I can talk to these blighted rotten corpse spirits. Because apparently it’s unjust to bomb spirits without asking their rutting feelings about it first!”

“Ah, I have heard this one,” Fenris said dryly. “Attempting a dark ritual to commune with demonic beings. An endeavour that, in all of history, has never ended poorly.”

“Yes, fine, laugh it up.” Anders was not in the mood for Fenris’s sarcasm. “Go ahead and run for the Guard~ Save everyone from the scary abomination trying to have a spirit garden tea party~”

Fenris’s answering snort was amused. “You have no idea the things I have seen mages do, amatus. Things that would hurt you to know.”

He did not seem to be of a mind to enlighten Anders. He stood from his perch, approached the glyph Anders was attempting to paint against the lush mossy ground, retrieved the yard stick and rope Anders was using, and remeasured the dimensions of the spell circle.

“It is several inches short on the west side, amatus. And I would double check your diagram. I do not believe the candle nodes should be arranged in a regular pattern.”

Anders double checked his diagram, and was all the more moody for the fact that Fenris appeared to be correct.

Fenris walked up behind him, scratched his nails along Anders’s scalp. He drew the loose hair out from Anders’s face and tied it back into a ponytail.

He oversaw the rest of Anders’s work, double and triple checking as Anders corrected his mistakes and finished painting the lyrium glyph over the ground. And Fenris collected the candlesticks Anders had brought, lyrium infused wax, and stuck them carefully in the dirt at the nodes indicated by the corrected glyph.

Anders took his place sitting at the centre of the glyph. All that was left was to light the candles and draw mana up into the glyph and set it alight. But Fenris shuffled, crouched before where Anders was sitting, and met his eyes.

“What is it you expect this ritual to look like?” Fenris asked. “How will I know it is proceeding on course?”

Anders wrung his lips, but he supposed he owed Fenris an answer. He supposed he’d been very irritable, when Fenris had done nothing but help him.

“It shouldn’t look like anything from my end,” Anders admitted. “I’ll be entering a trance, one that should make it easier to mentally project images and ideas, and thus communicate with nearby spirits. At which point Justice will take over and handle the rest.”

“And how will you exit this trance?” Fenris said.

“Once the glyph’s lyrium is used up, or Justice steps outside the circle, there shouldn’t be anything keeping me in it. So Justice only has to wake me up at that point.”

“Hmm…” Fenris pondered, ears twitching. “This is not a ritual one would typically undertake without supervision. Had you no spirit to micromanage you while under this trance, it would require another – someone to look after the candles, to snuff them, drag your unconscious form from the confines of the glyph, and wake you in the case of an emergency.”

That was true enough. Beyond the Veil had detailed as much, emphasised the need to conduct the ritual in a safe and private space, with a servant or friend or medical professional to safeguard one’s body. And Anders was a little impressed Fenris had put that together without even reading the book.

He smiled, feeling a bit smug. “Are you going to watch over me then?” he asked.

“You are cruel, amatus,” Fenris said. “Do you even think of how many times I have been asked to carry out these kinds of duties?”

Anders blanched. He hadn’t meant to invoke those sorts of memories for Fenris, and hadn’t considered how cruelly his teasing might be construed.

Fenris was not finished though. “…Or how few times I have been asked, when I was fully capable of denying the request?” Fenris huffed a laugh and smiled wryly. “Of course I will watch over you, Anders.”

Anders cleared his throat, fought the blush out of his cheeks. “Can I ask for another thing?” He didn’t wait for Fenris’s answer, before pressing the envelope. “Can you talk to Justice for me? Ask him how talking with the spirits went, so you can tell me when I wake up?”

Anders and Justice would manage either way. But it wasn’t always the easiest to have a clear conversation with Justice, when he and Anders were sharing the same mouth and brain. Even the thoughts they had that Anders knew for sure could be ascribed to Justice, seemed muddled and interpretative, such that Anders would not have known how to correctly put them to words.

Not that hearing Justice’s words second hand from Fenris was any less interpretative. But, well, the nebulosity of language and intention always seemed a less pressing concern when Fenris was in their arms, speaking in his smooth baritone. And when Fenris relayed their messages between them, he somehow managed to also convey some of the goodwill Anders felt towards Justice and vice versa, in a way neither of them seemed to know how to get across by themselves.

“Of course,” Fenris said, like this was the easiest thing in the world for him, like he wasn’t aware how much this small service made Anders’s life immeasurably better. “If that is all, amatus…” He stood, bent down to kiss Anders on the forehead, and then turned and walked past the boundary of the glyph.

Anders watched him go, then took a deep breath and called up fire past the Veil to light the candles on the edges of the glyph. The world went alight in an orange and blue glow, as Anders drew more mana into the glyph. And he looked to Fenris, watching him from outside the spell circle. The second moon, Satina, was hovering over his right ear.

Anders blinked.

The blue and orange glow was gone. The candles were extinguished, burnt to the wick. He was sitting several metres to the left of where he’d been before, closer to the edge of the glyph, which was now black and inert. The lyrium had long been burnt clean or seeped back into the soil.

The garden’s trees had shifted in the background, but Fenris’s face still centred in his vision, closer to him now. Anders took in the little differences in the way his hair was mussed.

“Mage?” Fenris asked.

“Fenris?” Anders responded, still disoriented. “What happened?”

“You are awake,” Fenris said. It was unclear if he was reassuring himself or answering Anders’s question.

“The ritual worked then!” Anders realised triumphantly. However little he liked the sensation of losing time the way he had, it seemed at least everything had gone according to plan. “What happened? What did the spirits say? What did Justice tell you?”

“Mmph,” Fenris grunted. “That would be your first concern.” He bent down to take a seat in front of Anders on the mossy ground. Reached for Anders’s hand, and wrapped it idly around his wrist. “It has been some time. Allow me to recall…”

Anders laughed. “It’s still nighttime. How long could it have possibly been?”

Fenris grumbled.

Wait. Anders blinked. Satina was over Fenris’s left ear now, lower in the sky than before. And considering the direction Anders was facing – Anders turned to check – unless the moon had decided to move backwards in the sky…

“How long have I been out?” Anders asked suspiciously. He’d hoped this would only take four hours or so, but the lyrium for the glyph shouldn’t have lasted far past sunrise.

“Hmm…” Fenris pondered. “Nearly forty-six hours, I would guess.”

“Forty-six?!” Anders demanded. “That doesn’t-! It wouldn’t-! You let Justice use my body for two whole days?!”

“We took a walk,” Fenris said. “And shared poetry.”

“For two days?!”

“I have said before: your possessiveness is not endearing,” Fenris reminded. “I have not begrudged you your romantic needs, even when you have seen fit to fulfil them elsewhere.”

Fenris snorted irritably before continuing.

“Your spirit saw to your business here in the gardens. After which, he and I took a walk. We returned to the mansion to share our poetry. I required a nap. And when I realised I had overslept, and was late reporting for a job Aveline and Donnic requested me for, your spirit offered to accompany me.”

“For two days,” Anders grumbled.

“Most mages who allow themselves to become possessed can expect no further use of their body at all.” Fenris harrumphed. He took hold of Anders’s hand again, lifted it to his mouth and kissed the back of it, before wrapping it back around his own wrist. “You are here now, mage. Do you want to hear of your spirit’s discoveries, or not?”

Anders considered Fenris’s wrist – surprisingly bony despite the muscle definition in his arms – and gave a begrudging nod.

Fenris spoke. “Your spirit talked with them for quite some time with the spirits of this garden, as long as the glyph’s lyrium would facilitate such easy communication. And he struggled even after to continue their discussions, and to visit the spirits in more remote areas of the garden… Obviously he heard more than could be relayed to me, but these spirits are old, amatus, and stubborn.”

Anders didn’t like the sound of that.

“Your spirit said they mocked him at first,” Fenris said, “as a child who had lived not even a millennia. But they shared with him stories of the time before the Veil, before mortal and immortal existed in opposition. They told him of their hopes at the founding of Arlathan, when they pledged their loyalty to the seat of Falon’Din. They shared the times the lineage of gods and usurpers who bore the title, both benevolent rulers and terrible tyrants, and how the last to hold the title before the blood witch…”

Anders could care less about this lesson in Ancient Elvhen history, and was rather hoping Fenris would get to the point.

And then Fenris did.

“They were trapped with him, amatus. In a prison beyond the Veil. They were confined, bound to the service of a man they considered bloodthirsty and mad, even before he’d spent eons in captivity. Your spirit seemed very sympathetic with their plight. He likened it to your own time in solitary confinement, and my own time in servitude to Danarius.”

“What?!” Anders demanded. He didn’t much like Justice using his memories of solitary to be making dogshit comparisons like that. And it bothered Anders more that he could feel Justice’s sympathy roil in his gut, mixed with what might have even been Anders’s own capacity for compassion.

Fenris squeezed Anders’s hand, in a way that was probably meant to be reassuring. “I believe your spirit had his own reasons for empathising with them,” he admitted. “The spirits told him how pleased they were to be freed of their prison. To see the new world across the Veil and be given such a variety of tasks under the witch’s rule as Falon’Din.” Fenris grunted. “Apparently many are enamoured that the things they build do not unmake themselves when they turn away. And I was treated to several hours of commentary about one spirit’s fascination with the different consistencies of mud they had discovered, while digging ditches for the aqueduct.”

If Anders did not know better, he might have thought Fenris was joking. And the other option, that Fenris had spent hours listening to the equivalent of watching paint dry…

“Your spirit seemed reminded of his own discovery of the mortal realm, and what had led him to choose this life with you.” Fenris’s voice had the barest hint of apology. “Moved by their plight, he requested he be allowed to return to the gardens to speak with them in the future, to poll for their concerns and advocate for their needs from the witch.”

Justice seemed very determined and adamant about this course of action. Seemed very emotionally attuned to the highs and lows of Fenris’s verbal delivery. And Anders squashed those feelings down.

“I already said, this isn’t time for a Spirits Rights Manifesto!” Anders protested.

If not now, when? someone thought petulantly.

“No!” Anders threw his hands up. “We came here to convert these spirits, or get rid of them! Not to organise their union campaigns!”

“Amatus…” Fenris sighed.

“Merrill has taken over the city!” Anders insisted.

“Yes,” Fenris agreed tersely. “She has.”

“How are you so okay with this?!” Anders demanded. He wasn’t sure if he was shouting at Justice or Fenris at this point.

“You changed the world, amatus,” Fenris hissed. “This is the city your influence has built! Why are you so opposed to living in it?!”

Anders blinked, tearful. “But Merrill-”

“If you change this city again, do you think you will be half so lucky, Anders?!” Fenris demanded. “To have someone who cares so much for you at its head?! Who goes out of her way to accommodate your mages and your Darktown waifs and your every other foolish concern?!”

“But-”

Fenris looked furious. “Take your Justice’s advice, and leave the spirits of this garden unharmed!” he commanded.

Unformed words struggled in Anders’s throat, and then died there.

The truth was Anders already knew, since Justice had first posed his objections, that they would not be bombing this garden. That it would be too great and horrific an injustice to bear. And that these last couple weeks, collecting drakestone and guano and researching magic rituals, had been the futile efforts of, knowing how badly they’d been defeated, at least insisting on going down swinging.

Fenris was watching Anders with a particularly sharp and calculated expression. “The job I took on behalf of the City Guard… It was to eradicate an apostate.”

That got Anders’s attention.

“A blood mage who had made his base in one of the less decrepit areas of Lowtown,” Fenris said. “I was told he was a mage of the Gallows once, before he was freed in your uprising.”

Anders frowned. He wasn’t sure what to make of Fenris’s accusatory tone of voice, or the reminder that the freedom he’d fought so hard to give mages was, at times, squandered in the worst ways possible.

“You killed him?” Anders asked.

Fenris nodded.

“And Justice was there with you?”

Fenris nodded again.

Anders grumbled. He wasn’t happy about it, but- “Well, I guess if Justice thought he was bad news then-”

“So you will trust your spirit’s assessment of the situation, but not mine?!” Fenris hissed furiously.

“What am I supposed to say?!” Anders protested. “I already know you take jobs for the Guard! And I already know apostates can do horrible things! Like Grace and her-”

Anders swallowed around the lump growing in his throat, wiped the tears that were beginning to bead in the corner of his eyes.

Fenris scowled.

“Of course I’m not going to be happy about it,” Anders said. “But it’s not like I can tell you to- It’s not like there’s anything I can do but trust that you and Justice wouldn’t just kill some mage for nothing. So I don’t know what you-”

Anders’s grief and his frustration mounted into a sudden flare of anger.

“Why would you even bring this up?!” he demanded. “You know we’re only going to fight about it if you bring it up! And I don’t want to fight you! I love you! And you know I’m going to choose to trust you at the end of the day anyhow! So I don’t see why you have to drag me through doubting you and fighting you first!”

“Yes, fine!” Fenris hissed. “You are correct, I-” He heaved a sigh. “I do not want to fight you, Anders. Or I should not want to…”

He looked so distressed for a moment, Anders could not help but feel alarmed.

Fenris sighed again. “Anders, amatus…” He reached again for Anders’s hands, squeezed them in his own, and did not meet Anders’s eyes. “This… is not working for me…”

He said it so soft and anguished, it took a moment for Anders to realise what he might be saying. For the panic to rise in his throat.

“A-Are you saying you’re leaving me?!” Anders demanded.

Fenris let out a frustrated grunt, and slapped Anders hard on the knee. “No, fool mage!” he said vehemently. “How could anyone quit you?” he muttered, with just a touch of despair.

Anders didn’t know what to make of that. Nobody ever seemed to have a problem leaving him before. Nobody had ever had trouble deciding that he was far, far more trouble than he’d ever been worth.

Fenris seemed to be struggling for the words. “But I cannot do this either,” he said hoarsely. “I cannot follow behind you… hoping you will turn your attention to me, hoping you will answer when I come to your door, hoping you will find cause to speak to me of something other than the witch… only to be disappointed time and again… I cannot do these things endlessly without resenting you.”

Even as Anders felt the guilt sinking into his stomach, he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something ridiculous about this. It wasn’t as if Fenris was some neglected victim in this, or had ever had any problem ditching Anders to go see Isabela, or wasn’t widely understood to be far out of Anders’s league and capable of leaving Anders at any moment for greener pastures.

Surely, between them, Anders was the real victim.

“Oh, come on, Fenris, love,” Anders scoffed. “I haven’t been that ba-”

“You have been obsessed,” Fenris cut him off sharply.

Anders felt his tongue stick in his throat. Apparently guilt was winning out again.

Fenris sighed once more. “I understand you are not entirely in control of these moods of yours, amatus. That it is in your nature to be consumed with these flights of obsessive activity, and then wallow in the aftermath… It is part of why I wished to speak with your spirit,” he admitted. “I wanted to know if he was able to dampen or redirect this energy of yours.”

Anders was feeling rather upset again. “And?!” he demanded.

“He said, even if he were capable of such a thing, it would be unfair to you, amatus,” Fenris sulked. “I believe he is correct.”

That made Anders feel a little better.

“It changes nothing,” Fenris said irritably. “This does not work for me. And your spirit’s apology to me made clear that he could not predict when your mood would turn once more.”

Anders wasn’t sure how to approach this. Fenris was at once pathologising Anders and accepting Anders for all his flaws. Fenris was at once condemning the inadequacy of their relationship and insisting he had no intention of leaving Anders.

“Where does this leave us then?” Anders said.

“I cannot chase after you, so I won’t,” Fenris decided. “You know where to find me, once you have calmed and are done perseverating on this business with the witch.”

He leaned in slowly, and tilted his head up to kiss Anders right on the lips.

And for a moment, Anders didn’t think about anything else. Just Fenris’s hands gripping his knees and Fenris’s lips pulsing softly against his own.

Fenris broke away. “I want you, Anders,” he whispered. “And I need you.”

He disentangled his hands from Anders. Stood.

“But do not come to me until you are able to afford me your full attention,” he concluded. “I expect I may be left waiting. But, when we speak next, I expect not to hear about the witch or your revolution or any other concerns.”

So don’t talk about anything worth anything, Anders thought bitterly. Don’t talk about anything worth getting rightly upset over.

But there was one thing. Something they both thought was worth everything.

“I want only,” Fenris said, “to hear how much you have missed me.”

And with that he turned on his heel, and left Anders alone in the garden, with a burnt out spell circle and the wafting smell of lyrium and mud.

==

It was the afternoon of the following day when Anders finally made it back to his clinic. It had taken some time to wipe the evidence of the spell circle from the Hightown Gardens. Afterwards, he’d swung by the Gallows to check on the former Circle mages, only to find they were occupied with decorating the barracks in advance of Satinalia and required nothing of him. And, even after that, Anders had continued his walk around the city, stewing on what Fenris had told him and changing his mind about it a dozen or so times.

Obviously Fenris was being difficult. Asking Anders to jump through hoops and withhold his own concerns in order to prove what didn’t need proving. And wasn’t Fenris always the one setting the pace for their relationship, ever since the beginning, when he and Merrill had decided to drag Anders unwittingly into whatever they already had with Isabela? It just didn’t seem fair.

And yet Anders couldn’t bring himself to think that anything Fenris had actually asked for was terribly unreasonable or undeserved.

The whole thing soured Anders’s stomach, that Anders might not be able to see Fenris at all until this business with Merrill and the city and the Viscountcy were fully resolved. And it soured Anders more to think that he no longer had any form of resolution in mind.

Anders was lost in thought, thinking about how he might fix a problem that seemed increasingly unfixable, when he came upon the clinic doors and found a red painted palanquin propped against the Darktown wall.

He narrowed his eyes first at the empty litter, then at the troop of walking corpses guarding the clinic door, which was held ajar, though the lantern above it remained unlit. But the troop made no movement to stop him, as he moved past and into the clinic.

From the far end of the room, vast and disconcertingly empty, Anders saw Merrill’s ears perk and her glowing black eyes turn towards him.

“Oh, vhenan, you’re back!” She stood and pressed away from the oval table she was seated at, sclera flashing white again.

There was one thing in particular on Anders’s mind.

“What did you do to my clinic?” he demanded.

Merrill blinked and looked around the room.

“Oh, you mean all the crates that were here?” she asked, but she didn’t wait for an answer. “I had my army carry them away, of course,” she announced, as if she was very impressed with herself. “It was very good of you to collect all that bat poop for fertilizing the fields, vhenan. And drakestone is trickier, but Yannick Davri said the dwarves could use it for reinforcing walls and ‘structural fill’, whatever that means. So it will be very useful all around.”

So she’d gone and confiscated his explosive ingredients?! And now she was pretending she didn’t even have any idea what they’d been intended for?!

But pressing Merrill on the issue, admitting what he himself had planned, might get her all sore with him. And why bother? Justice had already gone and thrown a bucket of cold water over Anders’s designs on the Hightown Garden. He didn’t really have a use for drakestone or guano anymore, did he? So Merrill might as well take it for her farming project.

But something was still eating angrily at Anders’s gut, so he redirected his attention elsewhere.

“And what’s that?!”

Merrill blinked, and turned to look at where Anders had pointed against the wall near the clinic’s entrance.

“It’s a goldfish tank,” she answered.

This was plainly evident to anyone with working eyes. It was a large glass case welded to a metal frame and set in the wall. Filled with water and rocks and seagrass, and a great number of small golden fish, flitting back and forth, oblivious to Anders’s distress on the other side of the glass.

“I remembered looking for a goldfish tank last time I was here, but you didn’t have one,” Merrill said sadly. “So I thought I’d get you one! It does make this place brighter and cosier, don’t you think? And your patients can watch the fishies while they’re waiting to be treated, and then everyone would be so much more relaxed,” she babbled. “And the glass is enchanted not to break, so even if some hooligan gets mad and throws a rock at it, it shouldn’t make a difference. And I also had fresh linens brought and everything swept and clean-”

“You can’t just go installing fish tanks and cleaning up my clinic!” Anders snapped. Although he wasn’t exactly sure why she couldn’t.

Merrill’s eyes went very wide, and she pouted in a way that, predictably, made Anders want to comfort her.

“Do you not like it when things are clean?” she asked. “Do you not like the goldfish tank?”

Anders pouted.

He sulkily admitted he liked the goldfish tank.

“Oh, good.” Merrill smiled.

Her ears wiggled, as Anders quickly scanned the rest of the clinic.

“…I admit it was a bit selfish of me, vhenan,” she confided. “I wanted you to have a more comfortable space, of course. But I was also thinking this is actually a very important place in this city. And it would really be better for everyone if there were more places like it, and if they were more cosy so people felt more safe visiting them. So I-”

Anders wasn’t listening. He was squinting suspiciously at the oval table Merrill had been sitting at a moment earlier.

It was another new addition to the clinic – a nice carved piece of cherrywood with a set of matching chairs. It looked quite picturesque at a glance, set with a teapot, trivet, and an untouched plate of biscuits. But, upon closer inspection, three of the five chairs on the far end were occupied by guests sitting far too still and rigid.

They were occupied by a trio of corpses.

Anders blanched, as he brushed past Merrill and stepped closer to observe this trio.

They were sitting in well-polished Dalish armour, too robust and colourful for their shrivelled forms and wan complexion. And Anders was starting to think-

“Merrill,” he said dangerously, “you didn’t…? Did you bring your Keeper’s corpse down from Sundermount?”

The way Merrill bit her lip was all the answer Anders needed. Though she still had the sense to look embarrassed, as she stepped up to the table.

“Oh, um, I suppose I never got the opportunity to conduct formal introductions but, um-”

Merrill took Anders by the hand, pulled him forward, and gestured to the first corpse – the crone with grey hair tied in a tight bun.

“This is Mirthadra Marethari. Which would be, ‘Our Venerable Keeper Marethari’,” she translated, “since you wouldn’t know our honorifics, vhenan.”

She gestured to the other two corpses, a man and a woman.

“And these are Ghi’lan Fenarel and Ghi’lan Ineria, Hunters Fenarel and Ineria,” she said. “You, um, killed them I’m sure you remember… Before we got down the mountain and could explain to the rest of the clan.”

‘Explain’ was a charitable word for Hawke and himself making abundantly threateningly clear that they’d be leaving Sundermount Camp and would be taking Merrill with them, unharmed, no matter what anyone else had to say on the matter. And so everyone had better think twice about trying to stop them.

But, yes, Anders remembered these hunters.

He remembered them ganging up on Merrill outside the shrine at the mountain’s peak. He remembered the elf woman, Ineria, screaming in Merrill’s face, lunging at Merrill with a blade, and Merrill lifting her own knife and stabbing Ineria through the chest. The elf man, Fenarel, had meanwhile raised a club to strike Merrill over the head from behind. And Anders remembered being furiously angry with Merrill as he used his magic to blast both her assailants off the side of the mountain, because she’d been so careless with her demon and her people, that now she had no choice but to sob miserably at the consequences.

Merrill squeezed Anders’s hand and cleared her throat.

“And this is Anders,” she told the corpses. “He’s, um, my shemlen lover, is what I think you’d call it. One of them.”

The corpses bowed their heads respectfully, teeth clattering.

“No, I knew you wouldn’t approve,” Merrill replied icily. “You didn’t approve of Arianni’s husband either. And Anders is Era'elgar. And he can be very rude, too, which is why I didn’t want to mention it earlier. But he is my heart, and I love him, so-”

“Do you hear yourself?!” Anders demanded. “You’re talking to a bunch of possessed corpses?!”

Merrill startled at the outburst, dropped his hand. And Anders lifted it to rub at his brow, bury his face in his hands.

“You went grave digging for your dead family’s corpses?! So you could have biscuits and a chat?!” Anders wailed. “What kind of mage does that sort of thing?”

“Aren’t there a bunch of them in Nevarra?” Merrill pondered. “Mortalitasi, or something?”

Anders struggled not to cry.

It was true that Merrill had always been odd and a bit morbid, without reverence for the moral and social concerns that plagued Anders and his relationship with his own magic. But Anders himself had days where he hardly knew who he was becoming, hosting Justice within his mind and soul. Being Justice, in essence.

And now Merrill was going through the same thing, but worse. And Anders was afraid of her and what she might become, and more afraid that he might lose her in the process.

He was going to lose her. And Fenris too. And he had no way to stop it.

“Oh, um, Anders?” Merrill was saying now. “I’m sorry. I know this must look very silly, with the corpses, I mean. Of course I know it’s not really them. I-”

She reached up to place her hands over his and stepped closer.

“Things have changed a lot very quickly,” she said. “I’m sorry it’s been so hard on you, vhenan. I know it’s scary. But I promise I’m still myself, even if I’m other things now too. I can explain, if you want.”

Anders let his hands fall into hers, and let Merrill wipe the tears off the bridge of his nose.

She placed his hands on her shoulders, and wrapped her own arms around his stomach. And he felt a little calmer, once he’d bent down and pressed his lips against her forehead and inhaled with his nose pressed to her scalp. For once, she smelled like neither lyrium, nor singed blood.

Merrill drew back.

“I was just thinking there were a lot of things I’d never gotten to say to them, vhenan,” Merrill explained. “A lot of grievances I should have shared before everything got as bad as it did. So I thought I might as well try to say it now, even if it’s only for my benefit…” She shuffled anxiously. “Isabela thought it was a good idea… And Bran,” she added. “And this book.”

She reached for a book lying on the table, and knocked several sheets of paper and a vellum scroll to the floor as she handed it to Anders.

Anders startled at the title, Beyond the Veil; Your Guide to Memory, Grief, and the Fade. A quick look inside the cover at the check out card revealed it was the very same one he’d borrowed from Xenon’s library.

He supposed he’d lost track of it, but when had Merrill picked it up?

“It really is a very interesting book if you wanted to read it, vhenan,” Merrill said. “I know you’ve had people you never got the chance to reconcile with before-”

Anders slammed the cover of the book shut. He never wanted to look at blighted Beyond the Veil ever again.

“Why here though?” he demanded. “Why are you in my clinic, cleaning it and- using it for this?!”

Merrill, surprisingly, went red in the face.

“Oh, erm…” She began picking at the cuticles of her nails.

Anders went ahead and grabbed her wrist before she could rip them to bleeding.

“I- I just wanted to think of you,” Merrill startled out.

“Think of me?” Anders said suspiciously.

“Yes,” Merrill said, face flushing deeper now. “You’re so tenacious, Anders, and you never compromise. You were always saying that mages deserved better, and that you deserved better, even when everyone was against you. Even when you had to tell off people you loved, or that loved you, or were only trying their best to look after you. Like that teacher that taught you your Spirit Healing.”

Anders felt a little shocked that Merrill even remembered what he’d said about Wynne. It made him wonder just how deeply she’d considered him, committed him to memory.

“It’s so hard to talk to them,” Merrill muttered. “They’re dead, and I’m Falon’Din, and even now… It’s so hard to look the Keeper in the eye and say she was wrong about me,” she said vehemently. “To say that I didn’t need her doubts. That she should have supported me from the start, or left me in peace.

“But…” Merrill swallowed, looked up at Anders with those big hazel eyes. “I thought I could say it if I borrowed a little of you, vhenan. So I thought I’d come here, where I’d be thinking of you.”

Anders felt his own face grow hot. He gaped, trying to think of something to say to Merrill, but all he could think was that her eyes were so wide and so full of an admiration that left him so heady and warm and nauseous – like the intoxicating sweetness of rotting fruit.

He felt so angry with her, tearing up his clinic and reshaping it in her image. Inviting corpses and demons inside, like all his worst critics had always promised mages were bound to do. And then hearing Merrill say she’d been thinking of Anders, wanted to borrow a bit of him as she faced her struggles. Saying she admired him, if not in so few words.

There wasn’t anything about him to admire, Anders was sure. Everyone had always said. Anders had always been too unruly and reckless and selfish and cursed. Everything about him was cursed – a violent, abominated failure. And it was no surprise the terror Merrill was becoming, if the person she was taking cues from was him.

Anders released Merrill’s hand. He closed his eyes and turned his head down to the floor.

He couldn’t look at her. How could he look at her? How could he love a goddess that saw anything in him worth loving?

And how could he not?

How could he look at her, who made all the worst parts of himself holy, and not see in that his own salvation? How could he not love her, if he looked at her?

The paper and vellum that Merrill had mistakenly knocked over were lying on the clinic floor, and Anders bent to pick them up and stack them atop Beyond the Veil, just to have something else to do and focus on. The paper was just equations and notes, written in Merrill’s familiar slanting script, but the vellum scroll-

Merrill strode forward. “Oh, you don’t have to read that, vhenan.”

She reached for the scroll, climbing practically on top of Anders trying to take it back. But Anders, overtaken by anger and frustration and a contrary impulse he’d never been able to quash, shoved her away as strenuously as he dared.

He lifted the scroll up high, above his head where she couldn’t reach, and defiantly began to read.

..

Dear Merrill,

 It’s good to hear from you, and good to know that you’re doing well and coming out the other end of these dark times with something to show for it. I preface with this, because I don’t want the contents of this letter to make you forget that I am, in my own way, proud of you.

  But as generous as your offer may be, it’s a bit idealistic to expect that Clan Sabrae take up your offer to settle in a city they spent six years looking over with fear, and with opinions of you in the Clan so mixed.

 You know I think Mirthadra Marethari was too harsh on you, but Fenarel and Ineria were hardly the only ones who felt our former Keeper prioritised business with you over the safety of the rest of the Clan. And I cannot entirely blame them their resentment, even without the added complication of the grief from Fenarel and Ineria’s deaths. And, in the way that many in the Clan were not pleased by your presentation on the Eluvians with Warden Velanna at the last Arlathvhen, I believe even fewer would be pleased with you stylising yourself as one of the Evanuris.

  Having consulted with Ilen and Paivel and Arianni, as Acting Keeper of Clan Sabrae, I will have to decline your city’s hospitality. If your offer for sending a caravan of supplies and provisions is still open in a season’s time, I may take you up on it, but I don’t think it will change the fundamental realities of the situation.

 I’m sorry, Merrill. I appreciate what you’re trying to do. And I don’t think any of us wanted things to end this way. But I think we’re all just going to have to learn to let this one go.

  Feel free to write me again, whether you’re in need of advice, or merely want to keep me appraised of your life happenings. My hands as Clan Sabrae’s de facto leader are tied but, as your first archery teacher all those years ago, it brings me joy to hear from my student and know she has succeeded.

Dareth shiral, lethallan.

Ghi’lan Junar

..

Anders turned the scroll over in his hand, looking for some additional postscript, some better resolution to the problem at hand. And finding none, he let his hand drop, tucked the scroll under his arm, and realised Merrill had let him read the whole thing unmolested.

“I had better responses from Clans Enansal’len and Lavellan,” she was saying now. “So it looks like either way, Kirkwall will be the first Dalish settlement outside of the Rivain peninsula for… seven hundred years or so? So that’s exciting.”

She was turned away from him, had taken a seat and was looking down at the cherrywood table. And she did sound excited. But the tips of her ears were drooping.

“Only I’m not sure we should call it Kirkwall anymore,” Merrill confessed. “When I asked Aveline what it meant, she said it was old Alamarri for ‘Chantry on the Bay’, which isn’t really right anymore, since you got rid of the Chantry and all.” She pinched a dustbunny on the table, rolled it between her fingers. “Though I guess there is still the little Chantry in the Alienage where all the elves go to worship. But it’s not really right on the bay, and I hardly think that needs a whole city named after it. What do you think, vhenan?”

Anders grabbed a free stool from in front of one of the cots, dragged it next to Merrill, dropped the scroll and other papers on the table, and took a seat.

“I think we should look into other options. For names, I mean.” Merrill said seriously. She still wasn’t looking at him. “I think there are definitely better names than ‘Kirkwall’.” She snorted. “Well, of course there are. Even ‘Merrill’ is a better name than ‘Kirkwall’. But the tricky part is it can’t just be any name. It has to be a city name that’s better than- Ooph!”

Merrill wheezed as Anders pulled her against his chest and hugged her tightly. She squirmed a moment, trying to free her arms, before going limp against him. She shifted softly, burying her head in the gap between his body and upper arm. Her hands tightened and loosened, gripping the edge of his coat.

“My family didn’t want me either,” he reminded, as he ran one hand up through her hair, cradling her head.

Merrill curled in on herself, sniffled. It took her a moment but, when she spoke, her voice was clear.

“You don’t have to be nice to me,” she said.

“I don’t have to,” Anders agreed, ducking down to kiss the crown of her head.

“You and Fenris were really mean up on Sundermount,” she reminded.

Anders barked out a laugh. “Well, Fenris is an idiot.”

Merrill chuckled, weak, watery. She stretched, after a moment, to wrap her arms around him.

For a moment they just held each other.

Then she laughed again. “You shouldn’t make fun of Fenris like that, vhenan. Not when he loves you so.”

“Mmm…” Anders kissed the top of her head again, and privately thought that he’d poke as much fun at Fenris as he liked.

“I thought the name New Arlathan was very boring when Hahren Ghemaril suggested it,” Merrill admitted. “Like it’s just what everyone expects when an Evanuris comes back to the world.” She squeezed tighter. “But it’s a little like moss… starting to grow on me… It means ‘a place of love’, and this is the place we’ve all loved one another, isn’t it?”

It was.

All of Anders’s concerns from earlier seemed suddenly irrelevant.

What did it matter what kind of goddess Merrill was – whether she embodied his damnation or salvation? What did it matter who Merrill the Goddess was to him, when she’d already been so much for Anders just as herself?

She’d been at his side the whole of the last decade – every skirmish and retaliation and rebuke. Her eyelids had fluttered, as he’d pressed his fingers inside her abdomen and folded the skin and stitched up her wound. She’d fed him blackberries out of the palm of her hand, and laid next to him during the darkest and most terrifying nights of his confinement.

He’d already fallen for her. And you couldn’t choose who you loved in the first place, Anders reasoned. And even if you could, all this nonsense about whether he was allowed to love a goddess so savage and imperfect only made him want to love her and comfort her more.

He craned his head down, kissed her on the lips this time.

Merrill’s lips were soft, her grip on him – loose. She felt pliant in his arms now – as if still unmoulded and unmade. Still unsure. Still stymied by grief and abandonment. And Anders tried to take hold of her, both gently and firmly – imbue her with a little more mettle and confidence, whatever he had to spare for her.

And she slowly took shape – clutching his side, puckering her lips back against his, sliding her torso against his hand. Like becoming. Like apotheosis.

They continued a while longer, methodically exchanging this art and comfort with one another, until Merrill finally broke away – bottom lip wet and red.

Her unfocussed eyes flashed black, and she glanced over her shoulder at an approaching Arcane Horror.

“Oh, just a moment, vhenan,” she grumbled. “It seems Bran is waiting for my instruction or something…”

She reluctantly disentangled herself from Anders’s arms and pulled herself off his lap, and walked about fifteen paces towards the centre of the clinic to convene with the Arcane Horror in private.

Anders watched her brow furrow in concentration, her arms cross loosely over her chest, her lips purse in a disinterested frown. And Anders remembered the little frustrated sounds and faces Hawke had made, when he’d had to negotiate with the Arishok or Grand Cleric or whoever else. It had always been the silver lining to an otherwise rotten bunch of negotiations, and Anders found himself no less charmed seeing this version of it on Merrill now.

Maker, she was cute when something managed to worm its way under her skin. And she let him do the worming half the time, didn’t she?

“Trouble in paradise?” he asked smugly, once Merrill had waved the Horror off and returned to his side.

“Hmm…” Her face scrunched as she considered. “Not any real trouble, vhenan. Little disagreements about our different projects and scheduling. The normal sort of stumbling you’d expect from a halla just learning to walk… So they’re all very simple problems, with simple enough answers. But there are so many of them and they all take time and-”

She heaved out quite a large sigh.

“Running a city really is a terrible amount of work, isn’t it?” she asked.

Anders snickered, pleased by her expression – irritable yet resigned.

“Thinking about giving it up?” he asked.

Merrill’s most immediate answer was a dismissive scoff. But then she reined herself back in, pretended to think about it.

“Maybe just for the night,” she suggested, smile full of sharp white teeth.

She held out her hand, limp at the wrist, for Anders to take.

Anders lunged to grasp her by the elbow instead.

Merrill let out a delighted little yelp and attempted to bat him away, pretending to struggle as Anders tried to get a grip on her.

He dug his fingers into her forearm, waist, kneecap, thighs – watched her wince and break into breathy gasps, before she gave up the pretence and practically jumped back into his lap, straddling him and forcing him back into his seat.

She kissed him more passionately this time, bolstered by the strength and confidence Anders had tried to pass onto her. And he replied in kind, matching her energy and heat and breathy laughter.

“Oh, I’m being very silly, aren’t I?” she gasped out, as Anders ducked his head down to nibble at her neck. “Getting myself all sad about my clan and old things?”

Anders wasn’t sure about that. There were plenty of old things to be sad about – memories and traumas. And he wouldn’t have called any of them silly, but he didn’t really have a solution except to kiss Merrill’s collarbone and suck on her jawline – to try to drive off the bad memories by making the current moment as viscerally pleasing for them both as possible.

And Anders worried this wouldn’t be enough, when Merrill let out a pealing little sigh.

“I think I must have wanted badly for you to comfort me, vhenan,” she confessed.

The tension left Anders’s shoulders. His whole body hummed with warmth.

So she still needed him. And he was providing the exact solution she’d come for, when he grabbed for her and pulled her close and marked up her neck.

Merrill let out a little moan, and she arched her back, trying to press her torso against his. Not that it was entirely possible, given the way Anders hunched his back to be able to reach his mouth to her neck. But her stomach brushed against his. Her thighs rubbed over him, as she spread her legs wider. And she pressed her sex – so intensely warm even through her clothes – against his hipbone and began to rub herself over it. Slowly. Firmly.

Anders barked a heady laugh into her collar. She was so greedy. Greedy. Selfish. Never had a problem taking what she wanted when she wanted it. Always asking forgiveness instead of permission, if she asked for either in the first place. She was amazing like this. And it made everything about Anders’s own greed, his own selfishness, his own lack of repentance, suddenly tolerable.

Merrill allowed him a couple more love bites, and a couple more moans, and a couple more rolls of her hips before she broke into giggling laughter.

“Wait a moment. Stop.” And when Anders didn’t immediately comply, she laughed harder. “Oh, you~ Stop! Stop it now~!” She raked a hand over Anders’s scalp, grabbed a fistful of hair, and yanked him back none too gently, so he’d know she was serious.

Anders pretended to pout as he pulled off her, stopping to press a not-quite-apologetic kiss to the side of her eye. When he looked down at her, her grin was so wide and toothy. The dimples on her cheeks indented profoundly.

“I know we’re both very excited, vhenan,” Merrill said. “But… do you think we could do this somewhere where they wouldn’t be watching?”

They? Anders looked at her quizzically.

Merrill bit her lip and jerked her head across the table.

Anders turned, felt his heart jump in his throat as he found three withered blank-eyed corpses staring back – Merrill’s Keeper and her two clanmates.

Maker’s bollocks! He startled badly. Clutched Merrill by the waist, pulled her closer to him, and rocked against her thighs as he caught his breath. Shit! He’d forgotten all about them!

“Oh, did you catch yourself a fright?” Merrill said, as she rubbed a hand over Anders’s back.

Damned right he had! Anders grit his teeth angrily, squeezed her more tightly.

The jawbones of the three corpses rattled.

“Mmm… Not that it’s not a little fun to flaunt our courtship, and imagine how they’d disapprove,” Merrill admitted. “But it’s also sort of…” Her nose wrinkled against his chest. “Bad,” she decided. “I’d rather go somewhere private, I think.”

“Why did you bring your Keeper’s and their corpses here to start with?!” Anders whined. He thrashed petulantly in his seat, and only managed to rub his hardening cock against Merrill’s left thigh.

“Oh, mmm…?”

Merrill shifted in his lap, and hesitated a moment before speaking again.

“I did already say why they’re here. We’re sort of… moving back in the conversation aren’t we?” Her lips pursed into a frown. “Do we really have to go over all of it again? Now? Even though we’re both already this excited, vhenan?”

She bounced in his lap just right here – with the perfect amount of weight and friction over the bulge in his trousers.

“That’s- I-” Anders couldn’t resist bucking his hips up to meet her. “Th-This is all your fault!” he wailed. “What were you thinking?! Bringing them here?! Getting me all excited in front of them?!”

The corpses looked between one another, teeth clattering a bit more. One stood and wandered off to look at the goldfish tank.

“It’s not fair!” Anders said.

He moved his hands down the small of her back, over her behind and to the start of her legs, pulling them even further apart.

Merrill snickered. “Oh, it really isn’t fair, is it, vhenan?” she cooed.

Anders shook his head.

“Nothing is feeling very fair right now,” Merrill agreed sympathetically. “But maybe I can make it up to you.”

Anders nodded eagerly. He was listening.

Rather than attempt to make things more fair, Merrill instead decided to ask him for more.

“Can we move into your room? Could I sleep there for the night?” she asked. “It’s just everything is so busy and new and I miss when it was simpler sometimes. So I think I’d like to sleep over and pretend it’s just us in the cot and Justice in your head, without all these extra spirits standing guard at the door. The way it used to be.”

Anders sulked, trying to pretend this didn’t already sound like exactly what he wanted as well.

Merrill took the cue and sweetened the deal.

“And we can play one of your favourite games,” she announced. “We can do the one where you’re one of your god’s priestesses and I show up to upset Andraste and kidnap you, or something.”

“Oh?” Anders ducked down to nip at Merrill’s earlobe. “You’ve been thinking you’d like to torment poor Sister Alouette some more?”

Merrill giggled slyly. “Maybe just a little~” she admitted.

It did not turn out to be ‘just a little’.

Having relocated to the back room and finished their preparations, Merrill gave Anders a tremendous shove.

In of itself, this might not have managed to topple Anders – might not have even gotten him to do more than budge. But the tendrils of her magic had caught hold of his ankle, dragging him down, pulling his feet out from under him.

He fell, his back flat against the cot, and Merrill’s magic continued to wind its way up his leg, beneath the skirt of the Chantry robes he’d donned for the occasion. It left burns that singled his body hair and marks that spiralled up his calves.

Anders hissed, tried to wriggle away from the pain. He wasn’t sure if the pain itself was good or bad, but he liked that it was Merrill doing this to him. Punishment and catharsis for all the times he’d taken a cane to her backside, and for something more than that too. Because the way she tilted her head and smiled and spoke so liquid and languid as she hurt him – it made him feel loved. It made him feel like she must have known, all those times he’d hurt her, that he loved her too.

“Back again?” Merrill asked, eyebrow arching as she surveyed her conquest. “For a human so delicate and meek, you’re awfully eager to sneak away to come see me~”

Merrill stood over him at the foot of the cot. And speaking realistically, the ceiling was low – low enough that Anders wouldn’t have been able to stand where she was without bumping his head. But looking up at her from below, Merrill looked grand and towering. She filled the whole room.

Anders let the panic this inspired in him reach his voice. “Y-You know perfectly well why I’m here!” he sputtered shrilly. “You th-threatened me!”

Merrill made no acknowledgement of the accusations thrown at her.

“Oh, Sister,” she sighed. “Alouette~ Little bird~ What would your Reverend Mother say? What would she say seeing one of her Chantry sisters run off in the middle of the night to the den of a heathen Dalish witch?”

And Anders felt vindicated in that, for all Merrill pretended not to know anything about Andrastianism – was always calling Chantry sisters ‘priestesses’ and Chancellors ‘hat-men’ and the All-Seeing Eye ‘the hairy eyeball’ – she always remembered the right words to use in precisely these moments. And she’d say them – not out of respect for the Chant or the Maker – but only for the sake of enhancing Anders’s torment and pleasure.

“I didn’t want to come here!” Anders protested tearfully. “Maker preserve me, He knows I didn’t want to!”

“And what would the townsfolk say, if they saw you squirming in my bed like this?” Merrill continued calmly. “With those pale slender legs splayed, and your pretty long hair all wild?”

“You’ve tied me down!” Anders cried. “You’re using your spells to-! A-And the Maker knows! He knows, even if-”

Anders didn’t even have to fake the way Sister Alouette’s throat would seize up, and the tears would spring into her eyes.

“Even if everyone else doubts me,” he croaked out, “the Maker knows. He’ll forgive me.”

Merrill’s smile looked almost kind for a second, before she forced it wider and meaner.

“Oh, will he?” Merrill cooed, lips pursed with faux-sympathy. “Even though he was the one that cursed you? Right from the very beginning?”

Anders’s breath hitched a second before Merrill’s magic tightened around him, tendrils sneaking up higher to graze his behind.

Merrill leaned over him. She took her foot and placed it over his diaphragm. Not pressing her weight down, but tracing his ribs with her toes.

“What do you think they’d do to you, if they knew you were an apostate?” she asked.

His lungs strained with panic, heaving chest pressing back up against Merrill’s foot.

“N-No,” he said. “No, no, please. They c-can’t know. You can’t tell them!”

“But can’t I?” Merrill asked, tapping a finger to her chin as if this genuinely puzzled her. “It would only be a little walk into the village. I wouldn’t even have to talk to anyone really. I could just pin a few bulletins to the notice board, or whisper a suspicion or two to some travellers, and the Templars would drop by your rooms. Just to check, of course.”

“Please,” Anders begged. “I’ve been good. This whole time I’ve been good! Every day I’ve done my work in the Chantry, and sung Andraste’s Chant of Light, and repented for what I am. Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him,” he recited. “And every day I’ve been good and served, and never tried to rule over anyone. So p-please, just-! Let me-!”

Merrill cut off Anders’s protests with a scoff.

“Oh, you should tell them that,” Merrill suggested, eyes bright. “Maybe they’ll be nicer to you, if they know you love their god while you beg for their mercy.”

Her face went hard.

“But I don’t have any reason to care that you’ve sung some song every day,” she reminded. “And we both know you haven’t been very good at all, have you, little bird?”

Merrill dragged her foot slowly down his abdomen to his groin, over his stiffening cock. And when she leaned into him this time, she put actual weight into it.

Anders let out a groan, as the bony heel of her foot jabbed at sensitive flesh. She pressed painfully into him several times, before sliding down to fondle him with her forefoot. Which was only marginally gentler. The pads of her feet were rough and badly callused, and Anders could feel their ridges scrape him even through the peach and maroon dyed hemp of the Chantry robes.

And– Oh, Maker! –she felt good. She was finally touching him now, and not just via the proxy of her magic. She was touching him – disdainfully, maybe – but not squeamishly. Not shyly or delicately. She touched him entirely without shame.

Anders felt himself respond – cock growing harder to press back against the bottom of her foot. And he watched Merrill eye the growing tent in his robes, grin breaking wider over her face.

How overtly she took delight in doing this to him.

“What would your Maker say,” Merrill said, “if he saw how much this excites you?”

Anders bit back a gasp. He shook his head.

“Or do you think he’s watching you now?” Merrill pressed. “Do you think he sees how big and hard you’ve gotten for me?”

It was certainly a thought – that the Maker might be watching over them even now. Anders wondered how this would look to Him. Anders might be blaspheming, mocking the Maker and His Chantry and His followers. But as a sexual encounter, it was far more affectionate, joyous, painless than many of those Anders had partaken in, between the Circle and his life on the run.

Would the Maker see that? Would the Maker care?

Anders felt suddenly taken over by a sense of revulsion. And he did not know if his disgust was for the Maker, or for the witch who had ensnared him with loves and joys altogether too good to be trusted, but he flailed in the grip of Merrill’s magic.

“I didn’t want this!” he cried. “I- I don’t! The Maker knows!”

Anders had never asked for this. Had always known it was too much to ask for. That was why he never asked anyone to love him or accommodate him or stay with him more than a night.

“Oh, but we both know that’s a lie,” Merrill said.

She drew her foot back to kick up the skirt of Anders’s robes, and Anders shivered as she flicked her big toe against the head of his cock – hard smooth nail sliding flat over the slit.

“Look at this dirty thing,” she scoffed. “Look how red and swollen and long and hard it is, reaching out for me.” She snorted mockingly. “I would say you want this quite badly, Sister.”

“I’m not-! That doesn’t mean-!” Anders began to protest.

But he looked down his body, over the bunched up Chantry robes, to where his cock arched up, visibly leaking from the tip, with Merrill’s foot – its gentle arch and the round pads of her toes – pressed against the underside. Then up Merrill’s long legs and torso and neck – bare but for her red undershirt. And then down to her groin, cunt flushed red and glistening wet, on full display with the way she’d lunged over him.

Oh, it was clear how much they both wanted this.

So Anders skipped to accusations instead.

“You’re using magic on me!” he shrieked. “You used magic to knock me down! And you’re using magic to make me… want you too!” he huffed euphemistically, before breaking into a pained gasp.

Merrill stepped harder into him, grinding her foot side to side, as if punishing him for his words in a fit of anger.

But, when she spoke, her voice was warm.

“Am I?” she lilted. “Would I?”

Anders’s chest heaved, as he tried to catch his breath. Felt the heat break over his brow and sink into his cheeks.

“Don’t pretend you can’t. Or that you wouldn’t. Or that you’re… above it, somehow,” he finally managed. “Everyone knows you’re an evil witch! Blood mage! Maleficar!”

And not only that, Merrill was a–

“Necromancer!” he accused.

The word startled Anders, even though he was the one who’d said it.

He’d never called Merrill that before. Not in all the times they’d taken up these roles and acted out this skit – brainstormed, experimented, rehearsed, and refined – until it had all the comfort of a well-worn stocking.

And Merrill herself seemed to notice this deviation as well, given the way her eyes widened and her right eyebrow rose, as if to challenge him.

Anders hesitated a moment longer, massaging the lump that had welled in his throat. He didn’t want to upset Merrill or ruin the scene by making it too real. But even as he considered holding back, he felt the anger rise in his chest and urge him on.

He was right, and he refused to back down.

“Everyone knows you steal into the morgue when everyone else is asleep,” he told her. “And you take off with the bodies of good Andrastian men and women before they can be burned! To use instead in your perverted magicks!”

Merrill let out a cackle, having taken the accusation in good humour. She pulled her foot off him briefly, turned it, and jabbed her heel into the top of his thigh instead.

Anders let out a yelp.

“That’s right,” Merrill admitted. “I did all of that, didn’t I, little bird?”

“R-Right,” Anders blinked, feeling very helpless and pitiful with tears welling once again in his eyes.

Of course. No matter what accusations he threw at Merrill – no matter how he appealed to universal kindness and goodness, or the sensibilities of moral Andrastian behaviour – she would remain unrepentant and unmoved and fearless.

“You’re t-terrifying,” he blubbered. “How can anyone stand up to an evil so powerful? Even the T-Templars are too frightened to come hunt you. So what’s a meek Chantry sister like me to do? How can the Maker blame me for falling victim to you?”

“Is that who you are, Alouette? A victim?” Merrill giggled, as she bruised up his leg. “But I’m not the only mage here. You’re one, too,” she reminded. “A powerful one, even. There’s more mana in the tippie-tips of your toes than most mages have in their whole body.”

She chose this moment to flutter her toes over his hip, before stepping off him entirely.

“So if anyone could stand up to me,” Merrill said, “I would think it would be you. If you used your magic – your Maker’s curse – I’m sure you could break through whatever spells I’ve cast. You could free yourself. You could stop me.”

Merrill readjusted her stance on the cot – steadying herself, placing one hand on her hip, and setting one foot between Anders’s spread legs. She lifted it so Anders could see and admire its shapely form, as she pried her hallux and second toe apart, revealing a rare smooth crease of skin between them.

“But I don’t think you will stop me,” Merrill said smugly, as she lowered her foot back down, and tucked the underside of Ander’s cock into that crease – half pinch and half caress. “Because you love to be here, and you love to be bullied.”

And then she began to rub that gorgeous foot of hers up and down, sliding that half inch of skin between her toes up and down the length of his shaft. All pleasure now.

“You get so excited, don’t you, waiting for me to summon you to my den?” Merrill said. “You love sneaking away to come here. Are you a little desperate, Alouette, to be around someone you don’t have to hide from or act ashamed for?”

Anders screwed his eyes shut, focussed on Merrill’s words and how her foot was rubbing him so nicely. His brow furrowed, and he nodded. He was sick of hiding and he was sick of shame. He wanted all of Merrill’s boldness.

For the first time that night, Merrill’s words had turned sharp and icy.

“The humans in your town call me a heathen and a savage,” she was saying. “But aren’t they the real savages, ready to turn on you and lock you away just for your magic? Aren’t I the only person in the world you can actually be free with?”

“No,” Anders croaked, eyes still screwed shut, hips still jutting up to meet Merrill’s caress. “No. No. No.”

“Well, of course not.” Merrill scoffed piteously. “Of course you won’t be free, if you only lie there and cry like that. You have to use your power if you want it.”

“No. No,” Anders shook his head.

“Oh, that’s fine, too. I like you just like this, too, pretty little bird…” Merrill’s voice turned so soft, it was almost a whisper. “I think I’d like something to remember you by, when you’re back home in your Chantry cloister, thinking of me… I think I’ll pluck-pluck-pluck at your tail feathers. Pluck out the very last one and keep it on my mantle.”

“No! No! I won’t!” Sister Alouette cried. “I told the Maker– I promised! –that I’d never use magic against anyone! That I’d never hurt any living creature! I-!”

Sister Alouette gasped, overtaken by the sensation of Merrill’s toes rubbing up the base of her cock. Which brought into focus how neglected the rest of it felt, exposed to the chilly air of Kirkwall’s underground.

“No! No! No!” she broke back into a barely coherent chant.

But privately, Anders was starting to think Sister Alouette was being exceedingly stupid.

What was the point in remaining loyal to a god who had rejected you? One who created you just to curse you and abandon you to His Templars? One who left you to struggle in darkness and ignorance, and never made Himself known no matter how you cried for Him?

Insofar as gods went, hadn’t Merrill been a much better one? She actually did things! She sowed seeds and built alliances and refurbished homes. She invited Dalish clans to settle in the city and chased slavers and Templars out of it.

Merrill might not have created this city, but she was working to make it better for everyone. She was tangible and there, and never neglected Anders for longer than the space of a week. To the contrary, she’d ducked under the Viscount’s desk and taken him in her mouth and blown him. She was standing over him and letting him fuck her foot right now.

And had the Maker ever blown Anders? When had the Maker done even half so much for Anders?! When was the last time He’d done anything for anyone at all?!

“There, little bird,” Merrill cooed, as she pressed heavily into Anders, holding back his jutting hips. “You know just what to do, don’t you? Even if you say ‘no’, your body knows exactly how to wriggle to-”

And Anders did know exactly what to do. Exactly how to use everything that had been given to him.

He reached for the Fade and heaved himself up, sending out a tremor of magic to confound Merrill and disrupt her spells. And she stepped back and let out a startled yelp, as Anders broke himself free, seized her by the waist and tackled her down.

Merrill wheezed, as she fell down on the cot. But it had turned to a breathless laugh even before Anders had finished crawling on top of her.

“Y-You’re right!” he cried, as Sister Alouette. “You were right! I came here because I love it! Because I love when you bully me! Because I’m tired of hiding and pretending!”

Forget the Maker! Fuck the Maker!

“You’re the only one I can be free with!” Anders confessed. The only god he didn’t have to be ‘good’ for.

Merrill coughed and cackled, as she turned her face up to him.

“I know,” she said. Her smile showed fangs.

That was permission, Anders realised.

He grabbed frantically for his cock, bunching the Chantry robes at his waist as he reached for himself and pulled Merrill’s legs apart and positioned himself to enter her. He thrust inside none too gently and laid his full weight over her, smothering her against his chest, as he bucked his hips.

It was so good. She felt so good. Warm and tight and so much better than the empty words of the Chant and the icy cold absence of the Maker.

Anders only managed a handful of thrusts, before spilling inside her. And even once he was all spent, he continued to thrust until a belated languor overtook him, and he realised he was crying.

Merrill was wiggling under his now inert form. “Oh, that was a big one, wasn’t it?” she said, rubbing a hand over his side.

Anders felt himself shrink back with sudden embarrassment. Had it been?

But Merrill apparently hadn’t meant it as a criticism. “Good job,” she said crisply, and allowed him a pat on the back and a few affectionate strokes over his arms as he pressed himself off of her.

He wiped his face and blinked through his tears – still flowing fast – and watched her as she came to attention herself.

Something seemed to worry Merrill though, when she took in his face in kind. Anders watched her wince and bite the edge of her bottom lip, before making the decision to speak.

“Erm, sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt if this is just part of the game. But I’m not so sure your Alouette character would be crying so hard if it was just… her,” Merrill said apologetically. “Oh, please let me know if I’ve upset you, vhenan.”

Had she upset him? Anders wondered.

But, no, if anything, it was everything else that had upset him.

Anders had lost years of his life. Years of paying thought and tribute to a god that cared for nothing and helped no one. A lifetime of pleas and promises and angry rebukes to a Maker who had done nothing for Anders, just as He’d done nothing for the nobles Merrill had so effortlessly dispelled from Hightown.

Anders had spent seven years in this city, trying to find a way to condemn the Templar Order without condemning the Chantry with it, before giving the cause up for lost. And all the time before it – the time spent wringing his hands and writing his manifesto as if to write away the base greed of the Maker’s earthly institutions – it had been time wasted. Mages had toiled and suffered and died in the Gallows, for Anders’s inability to accept what was.

And even now, he grieved for it. Everything had changed so fast, once he’d set the bombs and blown Kirkwall’s Chantry off the face of Thedas. It had all changed so fast, and faster still since Merrill had taken control of the city.

Everything was changing – changing far too fast for Anders to keep up. Would anything he knew and believed still be real, once the dust had settled – settled on this brave new world without the Maker anywhere to be found? Would there still be injustices in this world? Would Anders know them when he saw them? Who was he, Justice, without any injustices to fight?

Anders was terrified. Everything was terrifying. Sometimes he just wanted to go back to the suffering and the dark, just because it was familiar. Sometimes he thought he’d rather be dead, than see this place he’d never planned on living to see. But-

Anders looked at Merrill laid out under him. She was watching him with such kindness and concern.

But if anything made this new world worth seeing, it was that She was its goddess, and that She’d be there to see it with him.

Anders wiped his eyes, a futile gesture given how fast the tears were falling.

“I’m- I’m just so moved,” he told her, blubbering. “I’m so happy to be here with you, sweetheart.”

Merrill’s face broke with relief. “Aww,” she crooned. “I love you. I’m so happy too, vhenan.”

Anders cried. No god had ever loved him before.

“Are you okay to keep going?” Merrill asked, hopefully. “It’s just I didn’t quite get to finish. I was thinking Sister Alouette might need to clean up after the terrible mess she’s made.”

She wiggled her hips and, finally pulling free of his softening cock, rolled her hips up to give him a vivid look at the mess in question.

Anders jumped on the opportunity.

“Of course,” he said, as Sister Alouette. “Of course I can’t just leave you with evidence of my…”

He bit down the last word, as he scuttled down the cot. And, once he was lying comfortably on his stomach, he grabbed her hips so as to drag her cunt down to meet his open mouth.

Merrill responded immediately. She squirmed beneath him, smearing him with his own spend. She jutted her hips up to meet his tongue, clit red and hard and growing to fill a space Anders knew would fit perfectly between his pursed lips.

And Anders let out a sigh of misery and relief and all the catharsis in the world.

He just wouldn’t have known what to do with himself, if he didn’t have a way to worship Her.

==

The morning chased away the worst of the Darktown Clinic’s dank and grim disposition. Light filtered down through the planks of the abandoned walkway that sat above Anders’s room, and gleamed off the face of the enchanted chronometer posted to the wall – stolen from some chest on Isabela’s ship and put here by Merrill, back in simpler times. It featured a brightly-shining sun and a dim pair of moons, taking turns to travel a twelve hour course across an enchanted panel of lapis lazuli, cut in a semicircle.

The bright white light of the chronometer’s sun caught Anders’s eyes, just as the blue glow of the Fade left them. And it seemed, along with the night and the darkness and the urgency of Anders’s love and arousal and blissful orgasmic afterglow, so too had gone the greater part of Anders’s drive and belief and hope, leaving behind a void of sullen ennui and lethargy.

Merrill didn’t seem to be having this problem. She was fully dressed, above the waist at least. Dark green jacket and shining chainmail fitted over a blouse whose frilly cuffs and collar could still be seen poking out the sleeves and neckline, embroidered with silver and gold thread. Exactly the sort of thing you’d expect the Viscount and martial goddess of a nation to wear.

She was straddling his chest – squeezing him with her thighs and bouncing up and down slightly. And she peered down at him with her wide hazel eyes, like a child greedy for a sleeping parent’s attention.

“Anders? Vhenan? Are you awake?” she asked. “Justice told me you were about to wake up.”

Anders let out a groan. He rolled to flip himself face down on the cot, slowly enough that Merrill managed to keep upright atop him – her thighs and groin brushing over the side of his ribcage as he turned.

He grabbed for the folded blanket he used as a pillow and buried his head in it.

“Now, vhenan…” Merrill began to scold. “It’s already past the seventh hour. You’re usually up earlier than this. And you know it doesn’t help your moods to sleep in – you’ll only make yourself more tired and grumpy.”

Anders let out an indistinct whine and shook his head.

He didn’t want to be in a blighted good mood!

“Oh, Anders~” Merrill sighed.

She gave him a moment longer, before leaning over him and beginning to press kisses into the nape of his neck. Although Anders figured it was less her kisses, than cold chainmail rings jingling against his back, that brought him to full disoriented wakefulness.

“Wake up,” she commanded softly, and gave his ear a nibble. “There’s something I’d like you to do for me, vhenan.”

Anders got himself up and pulled together. By the time Merrill had accepted a pair of leggings and cuisses and sandals from a Horror at the door and finished her immaculate ensemble, Anders had managed to throw on a shirt and trousers and coat.

Merrill lingered behind as he finished a last few messy touches. She grabbed a stool from the corner of the room, and set it beside him.

“Here, vhenan,” she said, tapping the seat for him to set his boots atop.

And Anders found it obnoxiously hard to be upset with her, when she leaned over and ran her nails deftly through the laces, to tighten and tie. Doubly so, when she took his hand and led him out to the main room of the clinic.

As it had been the day before, the clinic was empty but for corpses and goldfish tanks, and Anders pouted.

He hadn’t really kept reliable clinic hours as of late, which made it no surprise that his clinic’s dwindling clientele weren’t breaking down the doors. Even if you ignored the extra trouble the presence of Merrill and her army brought on.

The corpses of Merrill’s Keeper and her clan’s hunters were gone. But there were still Revenants about, repairing broken cots and bringing in new furniture and equipment. They moved through the clinic much easier without crates of drakestone obstructing everything, and the trapdoor down to the extra storage area had also been uncovered and unlatched. A pair of Arcane Horrors floated up through it, each carrying one side of a broken armoire that Anders had once used as a supply cabinet. And more Horrors followed, carrying broken bottles or old soggy bits of paper or stools with cracked and splintered legs.

“What are they doing going down there?!” Anders barked, turning to Merrill and pointing at the open hatch.

Merrill blinked widely. “There was more cleaning to do,” she said. “You really did let things pile up, vhenan~”

“What are they doing with that?” Anders demanded, pointing to the armoire being carted away. “That’s mine! I needed that!”

“Oh, it’s broken.” Merrill was starting to sound a bit impatient. “The glass window on the door is all shattered. And the other door is all wonky and loose and won’t shut. You haven’t used it in years.”

Nobody’d used your blighted mirror for centuries, and it didn’t stop you from thinking it was worth keeping around! Anders thought hotly.

But saying it aloud would probably mean giving up the way Merrill was holding his hand, so Anders refrained.

“What about my supplies?” he said instead. “I had supplies in that cabinet! Are you just throwing out my things?! Taking them the way you went after everyone’s things in Hightown?!”

“Anders.” Merrill sighed. “They’ve emptied your cabinets and sorted out anything worth keeping already. It’s only getting rid of a bit of trash.”

“So you’re sorting through all my things and deciding what’s trash or not for me?!” Anders cried.

“We put everything personal aside,” Merrill said sharply. “And I already ran the rest by that Keeper of yours, Lirene. She said your clinic had been overdue for renovations and new supplies, and I volunteered to help. So you’ll have yourself a new cabinet, one with all the proper hidey-holes, soon enough.”

Of course, how could he forget?! Of course the clinic wasn’t actually Anders’s! Of course it was Lirene’s all along – to rearrange and refurbish as she saw fit! Over a decade free of the Circle and its Templars, and there was still nothing that Anders could say was his!

Anders pouted. He crossed his arms over his chest, yanking Merrill’s arm – hand still clutched in his – with him as he did so. Savoured the little wince she made, as she stumbled closer to him.

“You’ve decided to be very cross and foul today, haven’t you?” she asked, frowning up at him.

Anders pouted harder.

“That’s alright. I don’t mind,” Merrill forgave him pre-emptively, and in her most condescending tone of voice. “You can be as mean and nasty with me as you’d like. I can count on you to behave when you’re healing people at least.”

Anders frowned. Who was she to go deciding when he’d ‘behave’?

The tip of Merrill’s nose wrinkled, as she turned it up arrogantly.

“I know it’s very difficult for you, vhenan, when you start to feel so down,” she said. “But you’ll feel better the longer you keep yourself busy, so I made sure to prepare a couple of honeydew things you can do for me.”

Anders squinted incredulously, let his curiosity get the better of him.

“Honeydew?”

“Maybe it was cantaloupe…?” Merrill pondered, before waving this away dismissively. “It’s some type of melon list. Aveline and Guardsman Donnic have one.”

She tugged Anders over towards the cherrywood table, where the Arcane Horrors were neatly stacking books in a pile already a foot high.

“Now it’s only two things, and if you do them quickly you should have time to play the rest of the afternoon,” Merrill assured. “But they’re both very important,” she emphasised gravely. “I was able to get you your patients back.”

Anders looked around the clinic sceptically. There were no patients there – only Merrill’s corpses, who were scaring away anyone who actually needed help!

But even before Anders could finish the thought, he felt the outrage go limp and damp.

The clinic had never fully recovered from Anders’s attack on the Chantry, or from the seven weeks leave he’d taken in its aftermath.

The city had been in an emergency state of lockdown then. The need for the Darktown Healer’s services, and his reliability, had been greater than ever. But Anders had been so unwell, mentally and physically, that he’d failed to see their needs through. It had been Fenris and Merrill, and Donnic and Hawke, that nursed him back to good health, rather than the other way around.

And in that time, the greater part of his patients had moved on. Taken to purchasing tonics and simple magical remedies from either Orsino’s people, or opportunistic blackmarketeers, rather than rely on Anders for their treatment. Anders still accommodated Lirene’s contacts in Kirkwall’s Fereldan community with check-ups at the shop and regular house visits to the chronically ill, but patients to the clinic itself were few and far between. They only visited as a last resort, and only with the most dire conditions – ones that had worsened and festered through unsuccessful attempts at being tonic-ed and remedied away.

Anders had never thought he’d find himself in want of patients.

(Him! The person that Orsino, in attempting to arrange apprenticeships for his students, had called the best healer in the city! The person that Fenris, upon hearing Anders brag about this encounter, had agreed was the best healer in the city!)

Anders didn’t think he’d ever find himself in want for patients. How many times, over the years Anders had run his clinic, had he thought the teeming mass streaming into his clinic – ill and injured and malnourished and crippled and starving – was never-ending? How many times, overcome with fatigue and despair, had Anders prayed between breaths for a reprieve from the queue that still extended past the open doors of the clinic, long after sunset?

And now? What would Anders give to have those times back?

Merrill gave him a soft knowing smile, as if to say she could not have understood Anders’s wish more intimately had it been her own.

“You remember how that Lusine woman kicked you out after you got rid of the Chantry?” she asked. “Saying nobody would want to visit the broth house if they saw you there?”

Anders scowled.

He did remember. She’d expelled him from the door behind the kitchens into the alley, and he’d pleaded and shouted – said it was on her own head if the entire place broke out in genital warts, with her denying her workers treatment. But the heartless bitch had been unmoved, and Anders found himself wishing she’d at least shoved him out the front door. That way everyone would have seen the righteous fury with which he accused her, and the callousness of her response.

“What? She’s had a change of heart now, trying to get in good with the new Viscount?” Anders snapped furiously. “I don’t care what she has to say for herself! She’s going to have to do a lot more than apologise to get me to even think about going back there!”

“Oh, I’m sure she’s done quite a bit more than that now.” Merrill giggled into her hand, like she found something about this terribly funny.

She turned back to soothe Anders’s mounting fury with a placating coo.

“Don’t worry~ She won’t trouble you anymore, vhenan. She kicked you out, so I kicked her out,” she said simply. “Serendipity is in charge now. And she says all the workers miss you, and want you back so~”

Anders blinked incredulously.

That was-

If Lusine was gone, there really wasn’t any reason not to go to the Rose then. And even if she’d still been there… Anders wouldn’t really have refused, with the health of her workers on the line.

But Anders scowled harder. He didn’t need Merrill fighting his battles for him.

Anders knew that if he told Merrill to stop fighting for him, she would turn contrary and impossible, but maybe there were other ways he could make this uncomfortable for her.

“Are you sure you want to send me there?”

Anders was still holding Merrill’s wrist in one hand. But with the other he reached for Merrill’s hip, dug his fingers into her skin, heard her squeal. And before she could acclimate herself, he spun her sideways into him – ringmail clattering – and ground himself against her buttocks – trying to emphasise just how quickly he might be ready for her or anyone.

“Are you really okay with sending your ‘vhenan’ alone to some brothel?” he demanded huskily. “You’re not at all worried about what I might get up to?”

“Mmm…?”

Merrill didn’t even seem to notice him rubbing against her behind. Her lips were twisted softly, her head tilted in an expression of deep consideration.

“You can’t go making them uncomfortable, vhenan,” she finally decided, speaking firmly. “Remember, you can’t go giving their feet dirty looks during their check-ups. If you’re going to do anything dirty, you need to discuss it with them properly, and make sure they know they don’t have to agree just because you’re their healer, and pay them appropriately at the rates they usually charge.”

This wasn’t what Anders wanted to hear. He snuck a hand down her leggings, over the side of her thigh, and pinched a lump of her flesh between forefinger and thumb – hard enough it would hurt.

Merrill whimpered and laughed, and she turned then to face him, reached up to cup his cheek in her free hand and draw him down to kiss her.

Anders obliged, bending down to reach her. But no sooner had their lips brushed and teeth knocked together, than Merrill’s hand lit up.

“Ow!” Anders hissed, reeling back from the yellow-blue sparks cracking and exploding across his face. He released Merrill instinctively, and felt her slip away from him. But her spell left behind a pleasant hum that moved down his chest and settled in his groin.

She cast it a bit more painfully than Anders ever had, but it was impossible to mistake the spell for anything else: the sex magic he’d been pestered into showing her – what Isabela had called his ‘electricity trick’.

Anders cursed himself. Merrill seemed to be getting more use out of the spell than him these days, but if these were the things she was using it for – entertaining Isabela and getting one over him during their love spats – Anders regretted ever having taught her.

“Oh, don’t give me that look, vhenan~” Merrill began to pout, before Anders even realised he was glaring. “You know I love you, and how mean and silly and dirty you are. But we won’t get anything done today, if we don’t try to focus.”

She tapped her knuckles against the stack of books on the cherrywood table.

“I brought all the ones I could find,” Merrill said, “and there were even more in the room under the clinic. But most of them are terribly overdue, if you wouldn’t mind taking them back to Xenon, please.”

But Anders was only half listening. He walked forward to examine the pile of books, and he saw they were all there: The Tevinter Anarchist’s Cookbook, Beyond the Veil, One Hundred and One Uses of Drakestone, Inoculation Against Infectious Disease, and What to Expect When You're Expecting.

Anders felt furious Merrill had gone poking her nose so far in his business – poking through his things and collecting his overdue library books as if he was still some troublesome Apprentice back at the Circle Tower.

But it wasn’t only his books in the pile. There was also A Military Manual for Beginners, A Thousand Years of Lampworking; a History from Elvhen Antiquity to Antivan Modernity, and other books on crafting and history and magical theory that Anders had seen Merrill toting about over the years.

He disrupted the pile to check the cards in those Merrill had borrowed, and was furious and relieved to find that Merrill had checked out these books under his name and account, rather than risk the backlash from Xenon’s curses herself.

“How is this something you need me to do?!” Anders demanded. “They’re my library books! What difference does it make to you when I return them?!”

“Now, Anders,” Merrill said reproachfully, “you know they’re past due. And you know it’s not good for anyone if-”

“I’m not finished with them yet!” Anders protested.

“It’s been years,” Merrill countered. “Even if you’re not finished with them, it’s better to go check them back in and take them out again later when you actually plan to read them. You know Xenon is using the overdue curse to siphon your mana for himself. It’s not good for your health or your mood to have that strain on you all the time.”

“That would mean a whole lot more,” Anders shouted, “if you hadn’t added your own damned books to my pile!”

“Oh?” Merrill wrung her lips and raised a hand to her chin ponderously. “I thought you had asked me to do that, rather than check them out myself. But I guess I remembered wrong…”

“I guess you did!” Anders seethed.

“Sorry…” For a moment Merrill looked cowed, ears drooping. But then she perked up, face set with determination. “But I’ll find a way to make it up to you, vhenan. And I can always check things out under my own name from now-”

“Don’t you dare!” Anders snapped. “You know you don’t have a way to continuously heal curse wounds the way I do! You’ll get yourself bleeding out in the middle of the Keep!”

Merrill was silent a moment, but it wasn’t until she pulled her mouth shut – drew it into a flat, thin line – and crossed her arms over her chest, that Anders realised she planned to wait him out.

He let the tension stand a moment, until he could no longer bear it.

“Come with me!” he shouted out. “If you want me to do all this so bad, come with me at least!”

“Oh, vhenan…”

Merrill clutched her hands to her chest. Her hazel eyes had gone very wide, shining with emotion in the dim light of Anders’s clinic. She looked absolutely touched.

“No,” Merrill said. “I can’t. There’s a lot to do today, and Bran and the dwarves and the delegates from Ostwick’s Former Circle will be very upset if I spend all of it with you.”

Anders flinched and recoiled. But he should have anticipated it.

Of course she didn’t want to come with him – didn’t want to spend another minute with him! Of course she didn’t care about him – only cared about her precious city!

But shouldn’t the Viscount put the city first? another thought cut in. And hadn’t the blood witch shown them plenty of care and consideration through the years of their mutual association? Hadn't they been pleased with her attentions the night prior?

Maker, Anders thought, save me from spirits that don’t understand blighted hyperbole!

“Oh, don’t be upset,” Merrill urged. “We can go for a walk together some other time. And I’m sure you can find someone to keep you company today, if you ask around. Fenris and Hawke and Donnic and Isabela and your Fereldan friends can’t all be busy.”

“I don’t see why I need to do any of your errands!” Anders snapped.

“Do you remember the first walk we took together?” Merrill asked, ignoring his outburst. “Not the very first one – I don’t think I can remember all the times you steered me away from the Templars and the Chantry when I first came to the city. But the first walk when we started courting, I mean.”

Anders frowned, unsure of where she was going with this.

“You were so upset, vhenan. You said that the Knight Commander was ruining everything. The Underground had broken up. Orsino and the Grand Cleric woman were being no help at all. And you didn’t understand why you were wasting time showing me and Fenris how to make salves, or coming with me to dig up worms and bugs for my terrarium, when there were so many worse and more important things going on.”

Anders remembered it, but he didn’t want to. Not that part of things. Not how much a boor he’d acted, in the middle of what had become one of the most special days of his life.

But Merrill was merciful, and she moved quickly to the part Anders did want to remember: her response.

“And I told you that it was probably because you didn’t know how to solve any of the other problems yet, but you knew how to dig up worms and teach us to make salves,” Merrill said. “But also you probably didn’t want to know why you were doing what you did, as much as you wanted to know why Fenris and I were doing what we did, and why I had invited you along to start with. And I said-”

Merrill took a moment to clear her throat.

“I said that it was because I thought you would do it just to help me – the way you did things just to help Hawke and Fenris and Isabela. And that when you figured out how to help things with the Circle and the Cleric and the mages, you’d do that just to do it too. And I thought that was the most lovely thing about you.”

Anders felt his cheeks blossom red. His throat felt dry and scratchy, suddenly at a loss for words. Just like he’d been when Merrill had first said it, almost four years ago now.

“And then I saw a worm and some roly bugs in the dirt,” Merrill finished her reminiscence. “And told you I was going ahead but you could come after me if you liked. And when I got down on my hands and knees to dig, you…”

She trailed off, breaking into a girlish giggle.

Anders knew the rest of it – knew all of it. He’d knelt down behind her in the dirt, hiked up her skirt and pulled down both their leggings. And when he’d climbed on top of her, he’d half expected her to stop him – expected her to take everything she’d said back before their coupling was over.

But instead he’d finished inside her, and she’d flipped herself over and asked for more, and afterwards she’d said she loved him. And Anders had reciprocated – said it back word for word – and he knew it was true even though he’d never thought it before. He’d just never had the opportunity to realise it before that moment.

“See, vhenan?” Merrill smiled gently. “I still remember everything I said that day, and I haven’t changed my mind about any of it. I still believe in you, and believe you’ll take care of these chores just because it would help me and the people at the Rose and yourself.

“And I’m working hard to help, too,” she asserted, “and to be as lovely as I think you are. So it would be nice if you believed in me, too.”

Anders felt hot and sick at this point. He wasn’t built for this – hearing anyone pay him this kind of favour. And yet he was more convinced than ever it was what he’d been born to do – to accept all of it and overheat and break apart in the process.

“Well, you’re not giving me much of a choice are you?!” he shouted.

Not about believing in her! Not about loving her! Not even about these bloody chores or how he spent the rest of his bloody day! Not that he wouldn’t have done all of it anyhow. But he at least wanted a choice!

Merrill wrapped her arms around herself. Flushed as if the cold jangle of metal on metal – ringmail on ringmail – warmed her to boiling.

She didn’t bother to deny it.

“Well, it’s not as if you gave me or anyone much of a choice either, did you, Anders?” She favoured him with one last triumphant smile before taking her leave. “You didn’t ask anyone’s permission, did you? You went ahead and changed things, and all I could do was get swept up in you.”

Chapter Text

Anders had climbed five thousand steps and three hundred ladder rungs, and only had half a block left in front of him, when he came to a sudden halt – let the bookbag slump off his shoulder, and dithered in the middle of the street.

We probably shouldn’t be dropping in on Fenris right now, should we?

Anders couldn’t tell if it was his thought or Justice’s, but he supposed it didn’t matter much. It didn’t change the fact that Fenris was in some sort of mood, and had asked Anders to stay away for some reason. And Anders knew by now that disregarding such a request – and when Fenris was in a mood – was bound to have consequences.

It was nearly impossible for Anders to pinpoint when these moods started, or what had caused them, but knowing when they ended was easy. Eventually Fenris and him would run into each other during a meal or a card game or a scuffle with their mutual friends or enemies, and Fenris would find an opportunity to slide up next to Anders and give him a look – one that was both sharp and soft at once. And that was when Anders would know it was once again safe to wrap an arm around Fenris and squeeze his behind, and to invite himself to as much of Fenris’s company and hospitality and affection and commiseration as he liked.

Anders was eager for this moment to be upon them once more, but he had learned the hard way there was no rushing Fenris’s moods. Attempts to do so were liable to end in shouting and tears, and Fenris’s searing anger at having to deal with Anders’s tears. And it always delayed the natural passing of these moods – only meant that much longer for them both to wait, before Fenris inevitably sidled up next to Anders and forgave them both pre-emptively for whatever happened next.

Anders clenched his fist and allowed a few sparks of electricity to crackle off his boots and sink into the cobbled street. He couldn’t help but be irritated that none of this would happen on his own time – that Fenris’s moods had a schedule of their own. But Anders did his best to forgive this pre-emptively, as he turned heel and headed another thousand steps across Hightown.

“Returning books to Xenon’s library?” Hawke repeated, once he’d seen Anders into the sitting room.

“Right,” Anders grumbled.

Bodahn had already taken his coat, and Anders pulled one knee into his chest and hunched his shoulders as he leaned sideways into the armchair.

Hawke brightened. “That’s a great idea!”

Anders grumbled some more.

Fenris wouldn’t have said it was a great idea. Fenris would have at least agreed that Merrill was a hypocritical and demanding little snatch, before telling Anders to return the books anyhow.

Hawke finished mixing a glass of strawberry seltzer water and handed it to Anders.

“Are you sure you don’t want some breakfast?” he asked. “Bodahn made eggs and hash.”

“I don’t need you to coddle me, Hawke!” Anders snapped.

“Have some hash,” Hawke urged. “Favour to me, even if you don’t need it.”

He waved to Bodahn at the sitting room’s entrance, and gave him a thumbs-up.

Anders sulked. Fenris wouldn’t have made him eat breakfast.

Hawke picked up the bookbag Anders had left strewn on the floor. He propped it against another seat and unpacked it, silently looking through the books and repacking them neatly as they waited. He perked up attentively when Bodahn re-entered beneath the archway, and went to retrieve a cast iron skillet filled with eggs and hash and several slices of bread, clutched in two heavy oven mitts.

“Come on,” he coaxed. “Doesn’t it smell good? You know Bodahn makes a great breakfast~ You know you’ll feel- Hey!”

He shouted in protest, when Anders reached over and yanked the cast iron from Hawke’s hands, ignoring the way the hot metal sizzled against his hands.

“Maker,” Hawke said grimly, “I know Justice isn’t about to let you burn yourself. But you have to know how unnerving that is.”

Anders glared at Hawke as he plopped the pan into his lap, on top of the pair of brown trousers Hawke had gifted him. And if the bottom of the cast iron pan got them stained with soot? Well, that was just what Hawke got for giving Anders anything so nice to begin with.

Hawke just sighed, and went to refill the glass of strawberry seltzer water. Once again, Anders realised he couldn’t even remember having taken a sip. The same way he didn’t remember covering his toast with eggs and taking the bite he found himself currently chewing on.

“I know you don’t want breakfast,” Hawke told him. “Just like you don’t want to listen to Merrill and take your books to Xenon. But don’t you feel better when you’re not hungry? And won’t you feel better once you’re not holding onto all those cursed books?” he asked.

Anders scowled as he dug a handful of hash out of the pan and shoved it in his mouth.

Fenris wouldn’t have asked all these leading questions. If Fenris thought Anders was being an idiot, he would have at least had the courtesy to tell Anders directly to his face.

“Thanks for the food, Hawke,” Anders growled. He bit down, and felt the egg yolk burst on his teeth. “But you can butt out of my-!”

“What if I made it worth your while?” Hawke cut in with a smirk of their own.

Anders shot Hawke another glare. He didn’t like being cut off. But after a moment, for better or for worse, he raised a challenging eyebrow.

He was listening.

“You wouldn’t have come here if you didn’t want my company for the trip to the Emporium,” Hawke reasoned. “But company for a walk ’s not enough incentive for you to see things through, right?”

He ran a hand through Anders’s hair. And Anders winced and flushed, as Hawke fisted his hand and tugged lightly. But Hawke released him, to run a hand down over his bicep and squeeze.

“I remember saying I’d play grateful Rivaini seer for you, a while back,” Hawke said. “But you forgot, didn’t you?” He sighed, sounding far too pleased for someone who was scolding. “You’ve been so forgetful and unruly lately. You haven’t been very good at all, have you?”

“Go step in dogshit, Hawke,” Anders snarled. “You don’t keep me around for ‘good’. You keep me around to treat your rheumatism and fight off your darkspawn and help corral your dragons at the Bone Pit.”

Hawke only gave Anders’s collarbone a slight squeeze in reproach.

“How about this?” Hawke said. “If you’re good today, and come with me to return all your library books, I’ll make sure you get your treat after?”

Anders wanted to snap back, but his voice caught in his chest – warmth spreading out through his torso and limbs. Or maybe that was just the eggs and hash.

Fenris would never have offered him a treat.

Anders swallowed.

“You’re an asshole, Hawke,” he finally returned.

“I know,” Hawke said indulgently.

He swivelled and bent down to peck Anders on the lips. It was brief and, when he pulled back, he wiped the back of his hand over his mouth, rubbing off the grease from the eggs and hash he’d taken with him.

Anders went to grab for his waist, nearly knocking the cast iron pan to the floor in the process, but Hawke took a quick and dextrous step back.

“Nuh-uh-uh!” Hawke scolded. He winked, and shot at Anders with a pair of finger guns. “You have to be good to earn your treat, remember? No more until you’ve finished your breakfast and we’ve returned Xenon’s books.”

Anders grumbled, but he paid attention this time as he reached for the glass of seltzer water and downed it – felt the bubbles crackle against the back of his throat. He shovelled the rest of the eggs into his mouth at once.

Fenris would never have offered him a treat. But he never would have dangled affection over Anders’s head like this either.

Fenris was unfalteringly direct. If Anders had grabbed for him, he might tell Anders to release him, if he was angry. Or, if he was pleased, he might tell Anders to take whatever he wished, at Anders’s own discretion. But either way there would be no games and no bargaining. Everything Fenris offered to Anders was offered freely and completely without caveat, or offered not at all.

Anders glanced to Hawke, who smiled serenely as he waited for Anders to finish eating. And Anders glanced back to the Fenris in his mind’s eye and flushed.

He liked when Hawke played games with him – made him work for his treat. And he liked when Fenris refused to play games – said ‘no’ clearly, or provided no resistance at all. Anders tried to decide which he liked more, but that was the problem wasn’t it?

He couldn’t decide. He liked and loved the both of them too much.

==

Xenon’s urchin eyed Anders critically, but eventually he let up. He signed off the check out card, and struck out the last line on Anders’s ledger of loaned titles. He handed the book off to the golem behind him, who proceeded to re-shelve it.

“Can I interest you in any replacement reading material?” Xenon interrupted, voice booming. “I have procured a new collection of medical journals from as far afield as Par Vollen that may interest you. Or perhaps, a volume on Alamarri ritual?”

“I just got rid of the ones I had out!” Anders replied peevishly, turning to shout at Xenon who was, as always, stuck in his chair at the Emporium’s centre. “Don’t you have anyone else to curse and suck dry for mana?!”

“More than you know,” Xenon answered drolly. “Do not blame me, if the more popular titles are all checked out by the time you return.”

Xenon turned his attention away from Anders.

“And you, Messere Hawke?” he asked. “Are you satisfied with your premium dog treats, or is there anything else I might interest you in?”

Hawke was crouched down on the other side of the shop. Barkfly was attempting to snatch the rest of the treats from Hawke’s hand. And Anders watched as Hawke pulled away, allowing Barkfly another few scritches behind the ear, before he stood.

“Are the next season’s finds in already?” Hawke asked. “I thought I was on the mailing list for advanced notice.”

“They are not in yet. Pity.” Xenon made a rumbling sound. “There is an expedition I am funding – uncovering shipwrecks in the frozen Sundered Sea – that should produce some interesting artefacts. But shipments have been delayed by the current political upheaval.”

Xenon took a moment to scoff, before continuing.

“Your Dalish friend has many concerned that their artefacts might be confiscated by City customs, though I have reassured my contacts that my transport lines are secure. And, besides, she’s only interested in Elvhen artefacts anyway,” Xenon said dismissively, as if this was a marker of Merrill’s poor taste.

“And Maker forbid your damned supply lines get clogged up!” Anders found himself bristling defensively on Merrill’s behalf, although he couldn’t have said why.

Xenon ignored him. “Mmm, if I had known selling her the Genvian Falones Din would cost me this much in insurance and delays, I would have charged another half the price, I’d say.”

“I told you it was a steal!” Hawke whooped at Anders.

Barkfly barked in agreement.

Anders let out a strangled cry of indignation and disbelief. How could Hawke be so bloody blind to the fact that Xenon was ripping him off?!

Xenon heaved a dramatic sigh.

“Though I suppose it’s for the best the Genvian went to someone who could get some use out of it, rather than leave it languishing in private collection,” he admitted. “And none can deny the Dalish witch has become one of the more interesting Viscounts and reformers to take control of the city! Certainly the most cunning, since I first set up shop here in the underground.”

“And when was that?!” Anders seethed.

He did not like how, with the benefit of retrospective clarity, everyone was claiming to have known how brilliant and ambitious Merrill had been all along. Sniffing like hyenas at a prize Anders had long since claimed for his own.

“I’ve always said that people underestimate the elves,” Xenon was pontificating now. “Many have put forward theories about their ‘subpar intellect and magical talent’ or ‘natural subservience’. But it has always seemed to me, that they have become quite clever – learned to accomplish more with less resources, to play others’ expectations to their own gains, and to strike definitively once they’ve grasped the upper hand.”

“Well, aren’t you progressive?!” Anders said sarcastically. When had everyone in this city become so damned bigoted?

Hawke scratched at his chin.

“Well… Guess you don’t get up to the alienage much. There are all kinds there.” He smiled. “But if you’re talking about Fenris and Merr, nobody can deny they’re pretty canny.”

“Oh, yes. Oh, yes,” Xenon agreed. “Very keen. A pity they could not visit with you today.”

Anders sulked. He was upset that Fenris and Merrill weren’t there, too. But he didn’t see why Xenon should care either way.

“But you weren’t here last time, were you, boy?” Hawke crouched back down, to rake his hands over Barkfly’s coat. “Next time we’ll have to bring you and Fenris and Merrill and Isabela all at once, right?”

Barkfly grunted in agreement.

“Whatever happened to that crown you had last time, Xenon?” Hawke turned to ask. “And that-” he snickered, and made a crude gesture with his hand.

Xenon sighed at the ribaldry. “The Crown of Dumat?” he reiterated. “It was purchased by a buyer – confidential, naturally – in the neighbourhood of Ostwick. I have promised to reveal no more. As for Maferath’s member… Let us only say there was a buyer closer to home.”

“Oooh~” Hawke whistled. “Guess someone wanted to take him out for a spin? Who’s the lucky boy or girl this time?”

Xenon hummed non-committally. “It is not for me to say. I do not reveal information about you or your purchases to my other clients.”

“Not even a whisper?” Hawke teased.

“Maker help me, Hawke,” Anders growled. “Xenon just realised someone had sold him a dried up sea cucumber instead of an actual relic. He probably just tossed the thing back into the Waking Sea before anyone could accuse him of being gullible.”

“Do you doubt it then?” Xenon rumbled with displeasure. “Is your scepticism for the tales of Andraste and Maferath? Or merely that power may be held in the soma, even long after death?”

He scoffed, like he found Anders interminably stupid.

“You’d think having seen darkspawn and blood magic and necromancy would be proof enough. But I suppose you will stubbornly disbelieve until someone is halfway done shearing a relic from you,” he told Anders. “An ear, or your nose, or phallus, perhaps.”

Anders bristled defensively, taken aback by the ludicrousness of the suggestion.

“Is that a threat?!”

“A certainty more,” Xenon said. “Do you think they can afford to overlook the flesh of a mage of your calibre forever? That of a mage bathed in spirit energy from such a long, and remarkably stable, possession?”

“Who is they?!” Anders demanded.

“Have they come to take relics off of you before?” Hawke asked at the same time, voice tinged with mild curiosity.

“Oh, countless times!” Xenon’s braying laugh came out rough and broken. “More frequently before I upped security. Only one time did they succeed, in taking a knucklebone from my left hand.”

The laughter died.

“But even now, I admit, it distresses me to think of that knucklebone,” Xenon said solemnly, “far away from me, if it has not since been crushed, or dissolved, or consumed.”

Anders rolled his eyes and made a show of his disdain, as Hawke offered his sympathies to Xenon.

But Xenon wasn’t finished with Anders.

“And you!” he called, before Anders could finish turning away, and inch back along the wooden planking towards the Emporium’s exit. “I know you have once rejected my offer, but you would do better to reconsider.”

“What offer?” Anders asked suspiciously. “You’re not stealing my bollocks or toenails for resale!”

“No,” Xenon said distractedly. “Oh, where is it?!” he demanded. “Urchin!”

There was a clamour – golems and falling ladders, before the urchin ran up to Anders. His dark-rimmed eyes were narrowed, and his scowl furious, as he thrust a book into Anders’s hand. Unmarked brown leather cover, binding dry vellum.

Anders opened the book to a handwritten title, Flesh & Magic & Reaving: a Constructed History of the Ancient Alamarri Arts.

Merely looking at this title piqued Anders’s fury.

“I already said no more books!” He raised his arm and flung the volume across towards the centre of the shop at Xenon.

It didn’t make it halfway, before flopping to the floor. The urchin gave Anders a dirty look, before running to retrieve it.

“If you damage the text, I will have no choice but to charge you for the cost of duplicating the manuscript,” Xenon warned.

“Find someone else to leach off of!” Anders shouted.

“I can handle this,” Hawke said, looking between Xenon and Anders with an anxious smile plastered on his face. “Anders, why don’t you take Barkfly out for some air while I wrap up the tab with Xenon?”

Barkfly could read between the lines. He gave a woof of agreement, and bounded over to escort Anders out of the shop.

“Yes,” Xenon agreed. “Perhaps that is for the best for today. He is free to return, once his disposition has improved and he is ready to accept the truth.”

“The only truth you’re serving is-!” Anders snapped back angrily, only to be cut off by another bark from Barkfly.

He ran a wide circle around Anders, then nudged closer to herd him out of the shop.

“I’ll only be a minute, Anders!” Hawke called reassuringly.

Anders gave up, and Barkfly led him away with an excited wag of his curlicue tail.

Once they’d passed back out into the sewers, Barkfly sat on the moist ground, and scratched at his ear.

Anders stood awkwardly, looked between Xenon’s closed door and the empty Darktown tunnels, before conceding that the dog was the only point of interest.

“I’m not really that hard to get along with, am I?” he asked.

Barkfly let out a whimper and gave Anders a dumb, doggy look that approximated apology.

“Maker,” Anders cursed, “talking to the dog? I’m going as insane as every other Fereldan.”

Hawke exited the shop a moment later, tucking his bag of dog treats into the now-empty pack Anders had used for the books. He tied it closed, and knelt down to give Barkfly a few more scritches, before skipping up to Anders.

“There, errands done!” He slapped a hand over Anders’s shoulder and started them both on the walk back to Hightown. “Told you it would go quick once you just got down to it!”

Anders grumbled unenthusiastically. But he proceeded forward, leaning into Hawke’s shoulder as he went.

“Don’t you feel better,” Hawke asked, “now that you’ve returned all those overdue books? You seem more energetic.”

Anders grumbled again. He did feel a bit better in some ways – lighter, more energetic, like Hawke said – but he didn’t want to feel better. And it wasn’t like his conversation with Xenon had been much of a pick-me-up either.

“I didn’t make trouble for you with Xenon, did I?”

“Oh, nah,” Hawke said, a little too quickly to be convincing.

He tugged Anders forward, up a flight of steps towards the surface.

“You don’t think I was too rude to him?” Anders asked leadingly. Hawke better not think he’d been too rude.

Hawke wrapped an arm around his shoulder, and glanced sideways with a knowing look.

“Well…?” Hawke pretended to think about it. “He did sort of implicitly threaten you.”

Anders nodded seriously. Xenon had. Had practically accosted him.

“Right,” Hawke said. “Went on about someone trying to cut off your ears.”

Hawke leaned in, and nipped lightly at the lobe of Anders’s left ear.

Anders felt the air seize in his throat. Like something electric moved through him at Hawke’s touch.

“And your nose…” Hawke flicked a finger softly over the point of Anders nose, and Anders’s eyes fluttered instinctively shut.

But Hawke had already taken his hand, and dragged it down between Anders’s legs. He cupped Anders’s groin softly.

“And your cock, right?” He spread his fingers, and dragged them gently over the crotch of Anders’s trousers. “Can’t let that happen. You’re keeping a lot of people happy with that thing – Fenris and me, and the Viscount herself – so we can’t let anyone endanger you.­”

Anders leaned forward, only to find Hawke had already pulled away.

Barkfly was bounding up the steps, and Hawke followed. He took the steps quickly, two at a time, climbing further and further up into increasingly brighter space, until he was a silhouette of dark rough hair against the impending sunlight.

Anders pursued, head pounding, and caught Hawke just before the lip of the clay stairs spilled out into open street. Grabbing Hawke under the arm, he yanked Hawke back a few steps into the dark, and pressed him up against the wall.

Anders only managed to brush against Hawke’s warm thick lips once, twice, before Hawke jammed his hand between them.

“Nuh-uh~” Hawke trilled. “Not yet.”

He sounded so confident – in-control. Anders let out a frustrated groan.

“But I did everything!” he whined, pressing Hawke’s shoulders harder against the wall. “You said I could have my treat, once we finished returning the books to Xenon!”

“Sure~” Hawke smiled winningly. “But you’re going to want to wait until we get back to my place, don’t you think?”

Hawke sounded absolutely certain of it. He was hopelessly pinned – couldn’t have struggled his way out of Anders’s grip if he tried – but there appeared no question in his mind that Anders would let him go willingly.

“And why would I think that, Hawke?” Anders pouted, though he was eager to see how Hawke would justify shifting the goalposts.

“Just think about it,” Hawke urged. “Anyone could walk past this entrance to Darktown and recognise us. And you wouldn’t like that, would you?”

Anders bit his lip. His brow furrowed with irritation of some form – irritation with himself? With Hawke? With the situation?

He wanted Hawke, and wanted him now. But Anders could already feel the strength bleeding out of his arms.

“You wanted to keep things secret, right?” Hawke asked smugly. “You wouldn’t want Merr and Fenris finding out… would you~?”

The thought was heady in his mind.

Part of Anders wanted to be caught out more than anything – let everyone see how red and hot his face was, how eager his body, and how much he wanted Hawke. Let Fenris and Merrill be aghast, and then impressed with the boundlessness infinity of his ardour and affections.

But Anders let his arms fall to his sides. He stepped back and let Hawke free.

“No,” he admitted. He couldn’t hurt them like that.

Hawke took his hand and winked. “Then let’s head back to where we’ll have some privacy.”

Hawke dragged Anders by the hand for a couple blocks, then he let go to chase after Barkfly. And the three of them – Anders and Hawke and the dog – ran the rest of the way back to the Amell Estate, laughing like children. And Anders couldn’t remember the last time he’d run like that – carefree and innocent, instead of terrified. And towards something eagerly anticipated, instead of away from somewhere wretched.

They rounded the gate and raced up the walkway to the estate. Anders grabbed hold of Hawke’s hips and raked his teeth over the back of Hawke’s neck, as Hawke fumbled with his keys and the enchanted locking mechanism. And, as soon as the lock clicked open, he shoved Hawke through the door with such enthusiasm, it nearly sent Hawke tumbling to the ground.

But Anders caught Hawke by the elbow mid-fall and kissed up his arm and shoulder and neck. He shut his eyes as he mashed their lips together, and moaned into Hawke’s mouth.

Hawke’s breath was so hot. He was pulling Anders to him nearly as urgently and roughly as Anders was pawing at him. Anders enjoyed the force of it, pressing his tongue back against Hawke’s, before finally breaking away to drag lips and teeth up the side of Hawke’s face.

He blinked his eyes open to a vivid impression of Hawke’s brow and coarse black hair. Hawke was so handsome too – rugged and strong, with little wrinkles and hairline scars over his brown skin, collected most prominently to the side of his eye. Anders nipped at them.

“Okay,” Hawke laughed. “That’s enough right now.”

With two fingers, he unleashed a series of sharp jabs to the side of Anders’s abdomen, and finally smacked Anders away.

“I promised you some costume time, didn’t I?” Hawke smiled. “Come on, Anders. Give me a break and let me settle my debt.”

“Maybe I don’t want you out of my debt,” Anders suggested. “About time someone owed me, instead of the other way around.”

Hawke laughed, but otherwise ignored him. And Anders pouted, as Hawke circled back around him to shut the front door. Then scowled, as Hawke bent down to kiss Barkfly on the top of the head.

Satisfied with this tribute, Barkfly wagged his tail and bounded off for the kitchens, or perhaps through the house into the backyard.

But Anders wasn’t feeling all that satisfied. His face twisted with disgust, as he considered a mouth full of dog fur.

“Yeah, guess you had better go get changed,” Anders said irritably. “And you’d better wash your mouth while you’re at it.”

“Oh, you sure?” Hawke danced closer to him, waggling his filthy tongue. “Does this bother you?” He latched onto Anders’s side, and licked his tongue up the shoulder of Anders’s coat.

“Maker’s breath, Hawke!” Anders cried. But his gasp of scandalised offence betrayed a laugh. And pretty soon Hawke was laughing too.

Hawke wiped his mouth with his forearm and let Anders go with a smile only half-repentant.

“Yeah, sure,” he said. “Wash my mouth? Got it. I’ll go do that, while you-” He whistled, and shot Anders a pair of finger guns. “-go find somewhere to get comfortable and wait. While I get myself dolled up for the role.”

“And you expect me to just sit and wait for you?” Anders demanded.

“I’m sure you’ll find ways to entertain yourself, if the desire strikes.” Hawke winked. “And, anyhow, you shouldn’t rush me. You can’t rush the artistry, the beauty, of a performer’s work!!”

“You’re full of it, Hawke.” Anders grabbed Hawke’s hand, and nipped fondly at the ring finger. “Want to go at it in the study, again?”

“I told you before that I got the plaques done,” Hawke said. “There’s a guest bedroom with your name on it~ But you haven’t even slept in it yet!”

Hawke pouted.

“Isabela and Fenris and Merrill have all dropped by to use theirs, you know?”

Anders pondered this for a moment. Carrying on in the room that had been specifically marked out for his use didn’t feel all that exciting. But…

“So Merr’s been by her room?” he asked Hawke, his sense of urgency renewed. “So she’s got her own bed here, more or less?”

“Ooh, I think I see where this is going…” Hawke narrowed his eyes suspiciously, but his grin betrayed him. “You’re being pretty bad today, aren’t you?”

“Meet me in her room?” Anders asked. “No reason she has to know, right?”

“Excited for me to fuck you in your wife’s own bed, huh?” Hawke asked with a heady chuckle.

He leaned in, reached around Anders, and squeezed his backside. And Anders jolted, as Hawke released him and gave him a slap.

“I think I can do that for you.” Hawke winked, before sauntering down the entrance hall and skipping up the stairs.

Anders reached around, to rub the feeling of the slap further into his skin, and then made his way to the west wing of the house and its suite of guest bedrooms.

Anders skipped past his own door – first in alphabetical order – then the ones labelled for Aveline and Fenris and Isabela, before coming to Merrill’s, not quite at the end of the hall.

Anders considered the plaque – the thin panel of gold, the sharp cut of the engraving, the curved flourish on the capital ‘M’. And he glanced side to side, as if he were afraid of being overseen, as he turned the handle and slipped inside her room.

The light was dim inside. There was only a single window – facing out to the neighbouring plot of land and covered with a dark gossamer curtain. Anders used his magic to light the lanterns along the opposite wall, and surveyed the rest of the room.

There was a quill and ink and blank parchment set out at the desk, along with a dried up vase filled with two wilting sunflowers. Merrill had clearly stopped by to sit here and scribe something, although there was no trace of what precisely. And Anders identified the lute tipped against the wall beside the bed. The Hahren had forbidden Merrill from playing in the Alienage tenements some while back.

But the room did not look exactly lived in. A quick check inside the wardrobe revealed an extra pair of leggings, but no complete outfit. And the bed looked freshly made – the quilt atop it smooth and unwrinkled.

Anders removed his coat and boots, then his trousers. He sat on the edge of the bed, unbuttoned his shirt and removed it, then pulled it back on still unbuttoned, hanging loosely off one shoulder.

He bounced against the mattress, then tipped himself back. Greasing up his hand and beginning to finger himself.

And while he did so, drew his fingers over his puckered asshole and began to stretch himself open in anticipation, he thought of Merrill on this bed – having a well-deserved sleep.

She might be some type of Elvhen goddess, but she still had to sleep like everyone else. She’d slept here before, Anders decided quite suddenly. Merrill had slept right in this room, and she’d do it again… Once the quilt and sheets had been washed clean. After Anders had lain here, with Hawke inside him, and come all over them.

And Merrill would be none the wiser about any of it – all the ways Anders had shown her and her position his utmost spite and disrespect.

He turned his head, inhaled the fresh scent of the sheets. He didn’t know if he was imagining a hint of Merrill’s more sour, earthy scent in there. Maybe she’d be able to smell him on this bed too, next time she so innocently came for a nap, and then would dismiss it as a product of her own imagination.

Anders rolled over on the sheets, rubbing against them as he finished stretching himself. He gave his cock a few strokes, sat up and looked around the room again, imagining how Merrill had looked moving about it, and stroked his cock a few more times. And just as he’d gotten his hand back off himself, there was a knock at the door.

Hawke didn’t wait for a reply, before opening the door and stepping through.

He walked in wearing a white headband and brown boots. Muscled chest and hefty limbs, covered in so much thick black body hair, were bursting out of a too-tight leather jerkin, sleeveless and with a plunging v-shaped neckline. And a set of studded-leather pteruges covered him from waist to the tops of his knees.

And Hawke’s exposed skin, where his body hair wasn’t so thick as to restrict it, was decorated with bright red swirling kaddis warpaint. Over the bridge of his nose and down his cheeks. It choked the room with the smell of ash and cinnabar.

“What do you think?” Hawke asked, stretching his arms out and beaming.

Anders blinked incredulously.

“I thought you were going to play Rivaini seer, Hawke,” he said flatly.

“Well, that was the original idea.” Hawke scratched the back of his head, and gave a sheepish grin. “But I was asking Bela for help with the costume a few weeks back, and-”

This piqued Anders’s anger.

“You told Bela about this?!” he interrupted hotly.

“Maker.” Hawke heaved a sigh. “Would you relax? I didn’t mention your name at all. She has no reason to know you were the other party.”

“Because Bela’s definitely known for keeping her nose out of things and not putting them together!” Anders snapped sarcastically. “And not known for going around blabbing and waving everyone’s dirty laundry-!”

“Anders, shut up.” Hawke barked a laugh, entirely without aggression. “You know how Bela and I are. We go to each other about these sorts of things. It’s normal for us – unremarkable. She didn’t think twice about it.”

Anders shuffled uncomfortably, sitting on the side of the bed, and whined petulantly.

“But what if she-?!”

Hawke crossed the room, stood over Anders, and reached for his hands. And with only a petulant frown, Anders allowed Hawke to take them – squeeze them comfortingly.

“Bela didn’t put anything together,” Hawke reassured. “And even if she did, she’s not going to tell Fenris and Merrill anything that would ruin any of this. Nobody wants to ruin this. She’s not going to hurt you, Anders. None of us are going to hurt you.”

Anders scowled. He didn’t need Hawke’s condescension or reassurances.

But somehow a frog welled in his throat, and tears scratched at the back of his eyes, as he squeezed back at Hawke’s hands. They were small and slender for a man Hawke’s size, but not as bony as Anders’s.

Anders had never imagined a life, where nobody was trying to hurt him.

“Now,” Hawke prompted. “Are you going to let me finish the story?”

Anders regarded Hawke, wearily and irritably, but he still felt too choked up to speak, so he only nodded.

“So I invited Isabela over. Was showing her the seer costume I picked up a while back and was in the process of modifying. You know how it goes~” Hawke was saying. “But…!”

Hawke paused for dramatic effect. He released Anders’s hands and reached up to snap his jerkin’s shoulder straps, before continuing.

“Bela ended up getting surprisingly snippy with me,” Hawke admitted, though he didn’t sound altogether too bothered by it. “She asked me if I didn’t have my own culture to misrepresent in bed. So… I gave that some thought and… ta-da!”

He spread his arms wide once more, and gave a winning grin.

Anders’s wasn’t sure if what escaped his own lips was a huff of laughter or frustration.

“See?” Hawke rushed to say. “All the upset was about seer and Rivain type stuff. Your name never came into it. So Bela’s not about to go tattling on you. Nobody is.”

“Okay, fine,” Anders managed to breathe out.

He brushed this away, feeling less concerned about Isabela at this point.

“But really?” he pouted up at Hawke. “Your best idea was dressing as one of your dumb Fereldan dog trainers?”

“Ash Warriors,” Hawke corrected with one raised eyebrow and a waggle of his finger.

“What’s the difference?” Anders scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest. “You want me to be your bloody dog? Is that it?”

“Oh, I’m sure I don’t need you bloody,” Hawke protested with a smirk.

“Want me jumping up and slobbering on your face?”

Anders looked up the plane of Hawke’s chest – shining wiry black hair and red kaddis and brown skin bursting from the jerkin – all already sheened with the slightest coat of sweat.

He met Hawke’s eyes as he licked his lips.

“Like some dumb mutt?” Anders suggested.

“Maybe like a smart one,” Hawke said huskily. “You know Mabaris are as smart as people.”

Anders lunged up the way a dog did, elbows folded into his chest, he gripped against Hawke’s shoulders, tried to drag Hawke down to him.

“No, no! Bad Anders! Bad dog! Shit!”

Hawke laughed as he shoved Anders off. He patted his outfit down, and looked down at Anders, inviting him to share the same joke.

“Bad, you know?”

Anders returned the laugh, as he sunk back down to sit on the bed.

“Maybe I don’t want to be your dog, Hawke?” he suggested.

“I think you’re getting into the role already,” Hawke disagreed. He raised an eyebrow, and gave Anders an apologetic but knowing smile.

Anders snorted non-committally. Though the flush in his cheeks probably gave him away.

“What kind of doggy things should I do then?” he asked idly, trying not to sound too interested.

“A well-trained Mabari can do all sorts of things,” Hawke asserted brightly. “Shake hands. Cheat at cards. Rescue cats from trees. Diffuse cultural tensions with the Qunari.”

“What about a poorly trained one?” Anders asked airily. “Should I bark at your guests? Dig up your yard? Whine? Beg?” He let out a snicker. “Should I go ahead and piss on your leg, Hawke?”

“Don’t you dare,” Hawke warned sharply. “Better save that disgusting nonsense for your husband and wife, and spare me.”

“Maybe I should…”

Anders trailed off as he rocked back onto the bed. He stretched his arms above his head, and probably looked the picture of languid innocence for a moment, before he flipped over onto his stomach, and pressed himself up on his hands and knees.

His eye caught on the pillow at the head of the bed, and he wiggled his ass.

“Maybe I should tear up your nice fitted guest room, Hawke.”

And then, without further warning, Anders lunged for the pillow, tearing into it teeth first. He lifted the pillow in his jaw and swung his head wildly side to side, before clamping a hand down on the pillow’s right side and using the leverage to rip its cover open.

“No! Bad dog! Quit!” Hawke commanded ineffectively. “Dammit! Where did I-?!”

Goose down flew into the air and over the sheets, as Anders continued to whip the pillow back and forth in his jaw. And just as the pillow cover deflated entirely, emptied of its stuffing, a wooden switch bore down to Anders’s left and hit the mattress.

Anders dropped the pillow, leapt away from it instinctively, only to halt as the switch came down to hit the mattress on his other side, boxing him in.

He turned, scowling, to face Hawke, who was standing over Anders with his switch propped against his shoulder and looking far too pleased with himself.

“So that’s the great dog trainer’s plan, Hawke?” Anders sneered, mockingly. “Just beat the misbehaving dog with a bloody whip? How humane.”

“Look, I didn’t hit you, did I?!” Hawke protested. “It’s a directional tool. Not an excuse to cane you.”

“Sure,” Anders scoffed. “That’s what they always said right before they found an excuse to cane me.”

“Oh, you~”

Hawke let out a sigh, and it was difficult to tell if it had been dramatised. He took a moment to consider, before continuing.

“I think the old dog can learn some new tricks,” he asserted, tapping the switch against his own shoulder. “Come on. You want your treat, don’t you? You’d like a belly rub?”

Anders narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

He did want a belly rub. Just how to get one…

“You’ll just do a couple tricks, and then I can reward you,” Hawke said. “How’s that?”

Anders grumbled, rolled his eyes, but acquiesced.

“Alright!” Hawke grinned triumphantly.

He raised the switch, and tapped it against the mattress.

“Point right!” he commanded.

Anders turned slowly to the right and assumed a position like a pointing dog.

“Very good~” Hawke gushed. “Now point left!”

Anders grunted, as he turned himself to the left.

“Not much sense in pointing in the middle of a bedroom, Hawke,” Anders complained. “You’re not going to find any game here, unless a couple of dust bunnies count.”

“It’s just so we can see how well-behaved you are,” Hawke insisted.

He turned the switch in a pin wheel type motion.

“How about this?” he said. “Roll over.”

Anders laid down, folded his arms and legs to his chest, and rolled himself sideways, flattening displaced goose down against the sheets.

“Impressive! Very good~!” Hawke cheered.

He swivelled the switch.

“Now about face,” Hawke commanded. “…No, other way! Counter-clockwise.”

Starting and stopping, Anders moved contrary to the turn of the switch. He made a false start in one direction, then lunged to his left.

“No!” Hawke said firmly. He brought the switch down, striking the mattress and attempting to block Anders back in.

But Anders was ready for him. He pounced at once, seizing the switch in his teeth.

“No! Bad!” Hawke protested.

But Anders thrashed, yanking the switch from Hawke’s hand. He sat up onto his haunches, took the switch in both hands, and bent it over itself, snapping the thing in two.

“Nice try, Hawke,” Anders said smugly. “But this is child’s play. I’ve bratted for far worse than the likes of you.”

Hawke let out a weary groan, as Anders tossed the broken switch behind him, over the side of the bed.

“This mongrel’s going to do what he likes now,” Anders announced, as he stretched towards the edge of the bed, easing back onto all fours.

And then he lurched forward once more, grasping for the backs of Hawke’s thighs and pulling himself closer. His fingers tangled in Hawke’s wiry body hair. And Anders bent down to lick up the inside of Hawke’s thighs, before ducking his head under Hawke’s pteruges.

“Bad! Bad dog!” Hawke scolded. “You know that’s no place to be sticking your nose!”

But his hand was gentle, when it settled on Anders’s shoulder. And Hawke wasn’t wearing undergarments, which was a better indicator of how he’d expected this encounter to go, than anything he could say.

Anders pressed his face defiantly upwards, turning his head side to side as he rubbed against Hawke’s balls and the underside of his half-hard cock. He inhaled deeply and noisily – taking in the cloying smell of sweat and musk.

“Maker,” Hawke wheezed, “you are really going at it.”

It’s not the Maker going at it, Hawke. It’s me.

Anders felt his irritation pique once more, but he only gave a shake of his head and resolved to have Hawke calling for him by the end of this.

He huffed a few more deep breaths, then darted his tongue out to lick up the underside of Hawke’s shaft. And after a few licks, he opened his mouth over the wide head of Hawke’s cock, covered it with his tongue, and sucked strenuously.

Groans were peeling out of Hawke now. He braced harder against Anders’s shoulder and shuddered, going fully erect in Anders’s mouth.

“Oh, nobody does this like you~” Hawke groaned.

Anders inhaled through his nose, let out a snort. He knew nobody did. He hollowed his cheeks and sucked harder.

Hawke mewled in disbelief. “How do you even get so much suction?!”

Anders wasn’t about to tell, but he was distracted by the way Hawke tugged at his shoulder now. Not quite rough, or wholly insistent, but definitely urging Anders to move his lips down the shaft of his cock – take more than just the glans.

That wouldn’t work, Anders decided. He wanted Hawke’s cock up his ass before the end of this – thick and heavy, and just long enough to hit all the right spots. And that wouldn’t be happening if Hawke came now.

Anders pulled back, breaking away from Hawke momentarily, before dipping his face back underneath – nuzzling Hawke’s testicles with his nose and allowing himself a moment to take in the added smell, and taste, of salty bitter precum. And as he swished his head side to side, he felt the head of Hawke’s cock slide up the bridge of his nose and smear against his forehead.

Anders sat up, reaching now for Hawke’s waist, as he hauled himself up and buried his face into the plunging neckline of Hawke’s jerkin. He rubbed his stubbled chin against the wealth of hair covering Hawke’s chest, and huffed another few breaths, dizzy with the smell of Hawke against him.

Hawke rubbed his hands over Anders’s back and shoulders, and then finally over the nape of Anders’s neck and back down.

“Here, let me have a look at you,” Hawke finally said.

He pinched Anders on the scruff of the neck, and for a moment Anders felt as wide-eyed and helpless and compliant, as Hawke had doubtless wanted this whole time. He didn’t resist, as Hawke tugged him back and pulled him off.

Hawke laughed, voice warm and booming. “Look at the mess you’ve made of yourself! …Here.”

He brushed his hand over Anders’s face, attempting to wipe it clean of sweat and fluids, and no doubt failing.

But Anders had to allow it was the thought that counted. He felt very smitten with the gesture.

“You really are such a bad dog, Anders,” Hawke snickered, nose wrinkling. “Don’t think we’ll ever get you properly housebroken. But, ah~” He let out a fond sigh. “I just can’t stay mad at you~”

Hawke tipped Anders’s head up, as he tipped his own down, and Anders felt himself melt into Hawke’s breath, right before their lips met.

Hawke kissed him gently at first, and then more firmly, groaning a bit as he sucked his own flavour off Anders’s tongue.

Anders hadn’t been entirely aware of where Hawke’s hands were going, until Hawke pulled away.

He’d grabbed Anders on the right leg, just beneath the buttocks, and wrapped his other hand over Anders’s left shoulder. And with a strength and deftness, he pried Anders’s leg up, tipping Anders over and unbalancing him, and using the other arm to lay Anders gently on the bed.

He reached for the front placket of Anders’s shirt, and brushed it carelessly aside.

“Now, weren’t you looking forward to that belly rub?” Hawke asked.

Anders came to attention, nodding eagerly.

But Hawke’s hands were already on him, not bothering to wait for agreement.

Hawke bent, hovering above Anders, and rubbed his right hand over Anders’s stomach, abdomen, the edge of his rib cage. And Anders bit back a moan, rubbing back up into Hawke’s hand, arching his back, and wiggling as Hawke scratched him.

And that was before Hawke’s other hand reached to rub up the shaft of his cock.

Anders moaned freely this time, panting and breathless as Hawke closed a fist around him. And Hawke jerked his hand up and down the shaft, managing to coordinate even as his other hand rubbed circles into Anders’s belly.

Hawke dragged his hand up to the head of Anders’s cock next, palming the head and squeezing his fingers – large and beefy and muscular – in a ring about the corona.

Anders thrust up into Hawke’s hand, losing himself in the hot frantic friction, and the soothing hand rubbing over his stomach.

“You know,” Hawke tisked, “it’s no good when you can’t trust your dog not to start humping you and the guests and the furniture without notice.”

Anders hissed a breath through his teeth, as Hawke continued fondling him, swiping his thumb over the head of Anders’s cock.

“But what’s a Mabari without the rutting impulse, right?” Hawke went on to say. “When they’re trying to mount and dominate the other bitches in the kennel, that’s how you know they’re healthy and strong~”

Anders groaned, frustrated by all this talk of dogs. But there was something heady about the way Hawke was calling him healthy and strong, powerful even.

The same way there was something heady in how enthusiastically and greedily Hawke rubbed Anders, like the body in front of him was more than just sagging and scarred and wrinkly. Like it excited Hawke to touch it.

Anders registered vaguely that Hawke was still speaking – issuing more compliments and chastisements in equal measure. He could no longer focus.

But that didn’t stop Anders from continuing to buck his hips, wiggling and writhing against the sheets, until he finally reached his climax.

A loud long wailing sound escaped him, and he threw his head back as his cock twitched, ejecting bursts of semen over Hawke’s hands and his own stomach, onto the bed and over the side of it.

Anders panted and blinked his vision clear, as he came down from his high.

Hawke was tutting softly, as he rubbed the cum coating his hand off onto Anders’s stomach.

“Look at this,” he said, taking one finger, and rubbing it up the underside of Anders’s cock.

Anders flinched, overstimulated from just having come, and tried to squirm away. But Hawke took pity and drew his hand away, rubbing down in the crease between Anders’s thigh and buttocks instead.

“But look at you~!” Hawke insisted. “You just came how much? And look at how hard you still are~!”

Anders looked down instinctively, though he already knew what to expect. He knew what his cock looked like, and knew what it looked like hard, after only one round.

Hawke snickered and leaned in to whisper conspiratorially.

“Solid as a rock~”

Anders let out a weary groan.

Hawke already knew all the explanations: Warden taint. Abominated physiology. Stamina spells – if Anders still needed an erection and all else failed. Hawke didn’t need to be ooh-ing and aah-ing now.

Shut up, Hawke, Anders tried to say. But it came out as only as a slur and a wheeze.

Hawke was massaging Anders’s hips now.

“This is how you’re keeping everyone happy, huh? With that.” He snickered. “You’ll come here and get off how many times, and then go right home and fill up Fenris and Merr, too, huh? No wonder they’re none the wiser.”

Anders grunted, trying to sound unenthusiastic, even as he felt his entire body flush, right up to his cheeks.

“Bet you could roll off one of them, and stick it right into the other, without even catching your breath between,” Hawke said smartly. “They ever let you do that?”

Only once or twice.

Fenris had always craved attention a bit too zealously, too much want to share with Merrill in the same bed at the same time. But Anders still coveted the memory of those exceptions to the rule – of having listened to Fenris scowl and complain the whole time Anders was in Merrill, and then watch all those complaints evaporate into thin air when the time came for Anders to finally grab him and press into him, cock still coated with Merrill’s slick.

Anders declined to answer Hawke’s query into his private business with anything but aggression. He thrashed up with a sudden surge of energy. Grabbed Hawke by the shoulders, and yanked Hawke down over him.

Hawke grunted, breath knocked out of him as he fell onto the bed, on top of Anders.

But Anders latched on tighter – gripping Hawke’s shoulders, wrapping his legs about Hawke’s waist. He pressed his face into Hawke’s neck, kissed, inhaled.

“Come on, Hawke,” he said impatiently, bucking his hips up into Hawke’s stomach. “Stop with the talk. Don’t make me wait any longer for that cock of yours.”

Hawke chuckled. “Touchy, huh? Don’t like me mentioning your wife and husband, do you?”

Anders growled, squeezed Hawke tighter to him, bucked his hips harder.

No. They were his. All his, just like this moment with Hawke was. And Hawke could shut up about what didn’t belong to him.

“I want you, Hawke,” Anders heard himself shudder instead. “I want you inside me so bad. Stop dragging this out. Give it to me.”

Hawke attempted to lift his hands in surrender.

“Alright, alright,” he said. “But you have to let me up to get in position at least.”

Anders held tight to Hawke’s shoulders for a moment longer, pressing another pair of kisses to Hawke’s neck and the underside of his beard, before releasing him.

Anders waited impatiently as Hawke steadied himself back on his feet, Anders’s legs still wrapped loosely around him.

Hawke lifted Anders by the thigh, and lunged his own left leg up, sliding his knee under Anders on the edge of the bed. His other leg he left braced against the floor and, with his right hand, he flipped up his pteruges, took his cock in his hand, and stroked it.

He let out a sigh as he spread Anders’s buttocks apart.

“The good dog got himself all slicked up and ready, didn’t he?”

The only sound Anders could make was a whimper, before the head of Hawke’s cock prodded his hole, and then sunk in, spreading Anders wide as he went.

It didn’t take long for Hawke to get fully inside, but Anders felt enraptured by the time he did. He loved the blunt simplicity of Hawke’s cock – loved imagining it as a stopper for a sink, plugging him shut with its girth as it prodded his insides. His legs felt weak.

Hawke was so good at making Anders feel this way. And he did it without all the frills – the magic and instruments – Merrill used when she penetrated Anders. And he didn’t even make Anders get on top and ride him for it, the way Fenris nearly always did.

But just thinking about all these different ways he’d been had and breached and touched… Thinking of lying with his head in Merrill’s lap – the way she smiled indulgently down at him and ran a hand through his hair, as she orchestrated the searing burn making its way up his behind… Thinking of Fenris’s hands gripping his knees, the way he twitched and shuddered and his deep voice rumbled as Anders clenched around him, watching his expression turning increasingly vacant and blissed out…

Anders let out a groan, felt his cock and hole both twitch at the memory.

What was he doing here?

Hawke had already pulled back, and begun pumping in and out of his asshole. But Anders was lost in thought. In one thought in particular:

I should be with one of them.

He had already been so greedy – so damnably greedy ! – in taking two lovers to begin with. And Fenris and Merrill had hardly mistreated him or denied him! They’d always indulged him, shown him their most impish and endearing and generous sides. They’d given Anders no reason to look elsewhere – given Anders no reason to betray them.

This was wrong . He shouldn’t be here, sneaking off behind both their backs to rut like a dog with Hawke.

He thought of how hurt Fenris and Merrill would be, were they to ever discover what Anders had done here today (and last week, and during the Satinalia feast last year, and during dozens of other meetings with Hawke). And Anders was nearly moved to tears.

What was he doing here?

But as if in answer to that question, Hawke’s face suddenly came into focus above Anders.

Hawke was holding Anders’s hips snug and still, as he thrust in and out. He seemed consumed, grunting with the effort of his exertion, but when he saw Anders watching him, his face blossomed with a wide and roguish grin.

In that moment, with his dark hair and broad nose and winning smile and kaddis-stained cheeks, he looked like the most beautiful man Anders had ever seen.

Ah!

Anders moaned as Hawke thrust into him again and sent a jolt of pleasure up his spine.

That was why he couldn’t give this up. He just loved Hawke too much.

Anders shifted, wrapped his legs tighter around Hawke, and rocked his hips up to meet Hawke’s thrusts.

Anders decided that was it – there was just too much love in him.

Anders was bad. No good. Voracious and insatiable and never satisfied. He was betraying himself and everyone he loved – Fenris and Merrill, and probably all of Justice’s cherished principles and ideals, too. But Anders couldn’t do anything else. There was no way around it, because he was absolutely bursting, brimming, overflowing, with love.

“You feel so good around my cock today, Anders,” Hawke gasped, picking up the pace of his thrusts. “Soft. Warm.”

Anders responded with gasps and moans of his own, too lost in rapturous pleasure and spiritual nirvana for mere words.

This would all end badly, Anders knew. Eventually he wouldn’t be able to hide the boundless depths of his feelings for Hawke, and Merrill and Fenris would discover his affair. And at that point everything Anders had worked so hard to nurture and build would come crashing down around him.

Heartbroken, Fenris and Merrill would no longer be able to endure Anders and his philandering ways. They would finally have learned what Anders knew all along – that he wasn’t worth it, had never been worth it – and they’d leave him. And they’d turn away, unhearing, when Anders beseeched them – said he loved them, had never stopped loving them.

Anders’s eyes misted over with emotion. Hawke felt so good. Lying on Merrill’s bed – the mattress and sheets covered in flyaway goose down – also felt so good. It was all so wrong and felt so right. It was terrible and tragic and cathartic.

It was a tragedy, Anders thought, that he lived in such a time and place. That being so boundlessly, endlessly full of love was such a sin.

What he was doing was horrific. Anders was guilty. He could not be saved.

But sinful as he was, Anders could not help but feel terribly tragic and misunderstood and martyred for this – that he could not help but love Hawke with all his heart, no more than he could help loving Fenris with all his heart, and Merrill, and all the accursed and downtrodden of the world.

In another time maybe, they would have seen this for divinity. They would have seen Anders as a veritable god for how endlessly and freely and compassionately he loved, and bore love in return. They would have seen every grunt and gasp and passionate look and buck of his hips as an act of utmost—

Anders realised belatedly a clatter had sounded through the room.

He froze mid-thrust, spine suddenly rigid, a cold icy sensation radiated out from his tailbone.

The doorknob clacked and the door frame rattled, and Hawke twisted to look over his shoulder as someone stepped into the room.

Anders could not see very well, lying on the bed flat on his back, but he caught a few wisps of curly black hair. And he would have known that hairline, above tawny brown skin, anywhere.

“Oh, sorry. I didn’t think I’d be interrupting anything.”

Merrill’s voice was anxious and clearly uncomfortable. And if Anders had seen and identified her from such a poor vantage point, there was no way she hadn’t seen and identified him from her much better one.

“I suppose I should have known what the noises were,” Merrill continued to babble. “But I was sort of distracted thinking about golems and griffons and dwarves. And Bodahn said I could find you here, Hawke. Because I was looking for the calipers – the shiny silver pair – for my meeting at the Merchant’s Guild. And Bodahn could only find the bronze pair, and I just don’t think that’s as good. And also I need the notes I left here last time, before we got distracted and… This is my room, right…?”

She trailed off.

Anders was finding it difficult to breathe.

But Hawke cleared his throat. “Merr, do you think-?”

“No, you’re right,” Merrill cut him off. “Sorry. This was all very rude of me, wasn’t it? Why don’t I leave you both alone so you can finish? Let me just sneak back out.”

Merrill stepped backwards, and the door creaked and latched shut.

Anders forced an exhale, an inhale.

Hawke turned back. He hadn’t pulled out of Anders this whole time.

“You okay?” he asked.

Anders’s breathing had accelerated to a brisk pant.

Hawke continued on, resuming the swing of his hips, moving them in a lazy roll. “I mean, it was pretty bracing, wasn’t it?”

Something about Hawke’s tone sounded a little too casual, and it brought Anders to a halt.

When he blinked up incredulously, he found Hawke’s face twisted with mirth.

“Shock to the system’s not so bad every once in a while though~” Hawke grinned.

Anders breathing accelerated further.

Hawke was finally starting to look concerned. He stilled himself and rubbed a comforting hand over the side of Anders’s hip.

“Hey, it’s oka–”

“How is it okay, Hawke?!” Anders snapped.

The utterance expelled the last of the air in Anders’s chest and, as he sucked a breath back in, he began hyperventilating in earnest.

“Whoa, calm down,” Hawke was saying. “It was just a mistake. Maybe it’s on Merrill for walking in on us. Or maybe it’s on us for not being more discreet. But this sort of thing takes a bit of mutual looking-the-other-way from time to time.”

Anders didn’t know where Hawke got off telling him to be calm when Merrill had just walked in on them! But before he could say so, the door rattled open again.

“Sorry,” Merrill said, more assertively, “but I thought it through and actually I don’t think I need to be sorry for anything. My meeting with the Merchant’s Guild starts in a half hour and I really do need those calipers now, Hawke. Do you know where I could find them?”

Anders jolted up to sitting and shoved Hawke away.

He’d known this all was going to end in terror and tragedy, but not today. Please not today. He loved Merrill so much. Please let him hold onto her and her love and be with her just a little bit longer. Please let something in this world last.

He launched himself to his feet, pulled his shirt further over his shoulder, and raced to her side.

“Sweetheart!” he half-sobbed, half-bellowed.

Merrill’s hazel eyes blinked, wide and surprised, as he seized her right hand.

“Oh,” she mumbled, looking him up and down with an uncomfortable half smile. “Hello, vhenan.” Her cheeks flushed red.

Hawke sighed, and took the opportunity to slip out the door behind her.

Coward.

But it was fine. Anders would handle this without Hawke.

He clasped Merrill’s hand in both of his.

“You don’t understand!” he insisted, even though he had no alternate explanation for what she had seen prepared.

“I don’t?” she asked, looking a little startled again.

Her eyes darted about as if, poor soul, she was still trying to piece together what she’d walked in on.

“Did you finish all the things on the cantaloupe list?” she finally ventured a guess. “And now you’re having a treat to celebrate?”

Anders reeled back incredulously.

“What?! No!” he denied. Even though that had been pretty much exactly what had happened.

Merrill frowned.

“So you haven’t finished your chores then?” she said reproachfully.

“Why are we talking about chores?!” Anders demanded. “Look-!”

He squeezed Merrill’s hand more tightly.

“I love you!” he declared. “I love you so much! I never meant to hurt you!”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure you’ve meant to sometimes,” Merrill disagreed. She winced, as she tried to tug her hand out of his grip.

Anders held on even more tightly. He couldn’t let her leave him.

“Please!” he begged. “I love you! You’re the most wonderful woman in the world! The most fearless mage I’ve ever met!”

“Oh!”

Merrill flushed a deeper red and looked away uncomfortably.

“No, I think that can’t be right,” she mumbled. “Because you’ve met Isabela and Aveline, and they’re both prettier and more brave than me. And that’s just the people we both know, and there are a lot more women in the world than ones we both know…”

“Please!” Anders cried, breaking down into a sob.

Merrill used the opportunity to yank her hand out of his grip.

Anders curled in on himself, shoulders shaking with sobs.

But Merrill did not use the opportunity to run from the room. She cradled her hand to her chest and frowned, shooting Anders an accusatory look.

Her wrist looked a bit red – sore . Something occurred to Anders.

“Maker,” he breathed out, “did I hurt you?”

Merrill nodded curtly. Then she tilted her head imperiously, and extended her arm back out.

She let him take her hand, more gently this time, as he called up wisps to heal her sprained wrist.

Something about the experience was numbing, the way healing the cuts after she’d used blood magic was. It calmed Anders enough that he wasn’t actively crying the next he spoke.

“I know I’m no good,” he told her. “I know I’m cursed and ill-tempered and only a burden to everyone around me.”

“I don’t think so,” Merrill said. “Or if you were a burden, at least you’d be a very good one. Like a particularly shiny or interesting shaped rock you pick up and keep in your pocket for good luck.”

“And I know you’re a goddess,” Anders continued. “Brilliant and young and clever and beautiful.”

“Not really,” Merrill said. “Ineria always said my neck was long like a snake and my face was all pinched like a weasel. And I’ve been alive three decades, so I’m not all that young anymore either.”

But Anders was examining her now-healed wrist and her hand in his. It was so small and delicate, and smooth where his was wrinkled, flushed with colour where his was saturated with pallor.

“I know you could do so much better than me, sweetheart,” he insisted. “But I love you. No matter what happened between Hawke and I.”

“Yes, that’s the fourth time you’ve said so,” Merrill pointed out. “Just in the last minute, I mean.”

And Anders couldn’t help but note that she seemed completely unmoved by it.

“You can be angry with me!” he cried. “Take it out on me, if you’re angry! But please-!” he begged. “Don’t leave me!”

He broke down again, dropped his head into his hands to catch his tears.

“Oh!” Merrill said, as if something had just occurred to her. “So you want me to be angry with you? You want me to be mean to you?”

Anders felt his face scrunch. He picked his head up, felt a stab of irritation seeing Merrill’s placid expression. Though he wasn’t quite sure where he got off being irritated with her right now, given the circumstances.

But Merrill was now swiftly working herself up into a huff.

“Ooh, you…!” she seethed. “Doing naughty things with Hawke?! You’re very… naughty!”

She raised her arm above her head, and brought her hand down to thwap against Anders’s forehead.

Anders blinked incredulously, as her palm bounced off his forehead.

Merrill lowered her hand, rubbed her palm. Her lips twisted unsurely.

For a moment neither of them spoke.

Then Merrill pouted.

“No, that wasn’t very convincing, was it?” she admitted. “Sorry, vhenan. I can try being mean again later, but I don’t really have time to play games with you right now. But actually I don’t think I really should have to be sorry,” she amended instantaneously, “since I already explained I’m very busy and have to go meet with the dwarves.”

Anders’s irritation burst into full-fledged anger.

“I’m cheating on you!” he shouted.

But his attempt to impress the gravity of the situation on Merrill fell short of the mark.

“Cheating?” Merrill’s ears wiggled as she pondered this. “Like cheating the rules? Like a sport? Are we competing to bell the halla, and you dashed ahead before the starting horn sounded?”

Merrill tutted insincerely.

“Did you want the Keeper to put you in time out?” she cooed.

“I’m fucking Hawke!” Anders tried again. “I snuck around-! Behind your back! To fuck Hawke!”

On cue, the bedroom door rattled. And Merrill turned, as Hawke stepped back through the threshold.

“Success!” he boomed.

With a wink, he extended his arm to Merrill – a pair of silver calipers clutched in his hand.

“Ooh!” Merrill pursed her lips as she accepted the calipers. “And my notes, Hawke?”

Hawke circled around Anders, heading for the desk. He began rooting through its top drawer.

Merrill, meanwhile, was adjusting the lock screw on the calipers.

“Does that look about right?” She held them up in front of her, one eye closed, as if measuring the width of Anders’s head in her vision.

“I’m cheating on you!” Anders reiterated. “Why doesn’t this matter to you?!”

Merrill adjusted the calipers, so they spread a little bit wider, before letting them down.

“When you’re a First or a Keeper or a Viscount or an Evanuris,” Merrill began, “one of the first things you learn, is that you can’t go around getting upset and trying to punish everyone every time they cheat the rules a little bit…

“Or you can, but you won’t get anything else done then.” Merrill nodded smartly and preened. “Aveline said she had to learn that too, as Captain of the City Guard.”

Anders couldn’t believe that Merrill, his sweetheart, was subjecting him to Aveline-approved lessons on how much corruption was acceptable in a criminal justice system.

“This isn’t some pickpocketing urchin in Lowtown!” Anders protested. “This is us! Our relationship!”

“But there is one thing…” Merrill said ponderously, tapping the calipers to her chin. “I’m probably just being very stupid and silly, but what rule did you even cheat to begin with?”

Anders stared at her dumbly.

Hawke approached, clutching a sheaf of papers in his hands.

“See, everything’s alright,” he announced, as Merrill snatched the papers from him greedily. “No need to get worked up. Notes and calipers and friends all accounted for. We’re all friends here. See?”

He leaned forward, clasped a hand on Anders’s shoulder, and moved his fingers up to caress Anders’s neck. And Anders had only just finished shivering at the overfamiliar gesture, when Hawke turned to Merrill next to him, grabbed her by the waist, and lifted her up.

Merrill, flipping through the papers, grunted in protest. But it turned swiftly into a set of giggles as Hawke pressed a kiss to her cheek.

“See,” Hawke said, as he set her back down. “Nothing to worry about. This walking in on each other business? It happens to all of us from time to time~”

But Anders stared, entranced, at where Hawke had left his arm. He’d rested it casually against Merrill’s shoulder – the two of them pressed together side-by-side.

Anders was starting to get a picture of what had happened here. But he supposed if he went with his first impulse and shouted at Hawke to keep those hands off his girl, there was no way he was getting out of this situation looking anything but hypocritical.

“But what about everything about not letting anyone find out?!” Anders demanded instead. “Everything about how we didn’t want to hurt them and how awful I was sneaking around and keeping them none the wiser?!”

Hawke blinked, like he was genuinely surprised.

“I thought you liked when I talked about them,” he said. “You seemed to like getting yourself all worked up about betraying husband and wife?”

“But-?!” Anders wailed. He had liked it, but- “It wasn’t-?! Not like th-!”

Merrill cut in, eyes still fixed on the papers in her hands. “You said it was more exciting that way, remember?”

Anders blinked incredulously.

“When we had that meeting.” Merrill looked up, hazel eyes meeting his. “Remember Isabela said it was always better to talk through these sorts of relationships, so we all knew what everyone else expected. And Fenris was very keen on it, too. So all four of us met at the Hanged Man”

Anders vaguely remembered this, because Isabela was where spontaneity and romanticism went to die. Because it wasn’t enough just to love who you loved and let that be what it was. No, Isabela had to call a meeting and set rules to make sure no one infringed on her precious right to sleep around. And of course Fenris had hurried to second the motion – pussy-whipped bastard.

Merrill’s version of events was much more forgiving.

“And you know Isabela isn’t happy if she feels like she’s tied down too tightly,” she was saying. “But you and Fenris and I all said we didn’t think we needed anyone but one another. Only-”

She giggled, knocked sideways into Hawke, and gave him a smile Anders thought was altogether too fond.

“Well, we all have a history with Hawke,” she said. “And we know what he is and isn’t capable of. So we all knew he wouldn’t do anything to get between us or make things too strange.”

At this Hawke gave a winning smile, as if he lived to serve. As if he wasn’t just cheating attention out of the whole lot of them.

Merrill seemed oblivious to this obvious injustice.

“Only then, Isabela said that sneaking around with Hawke was much more exciting than just doing dirty things out in the open,” she continued her explanation. “And I agreed. But Fenris said it was stupid, and we didn’t need to be skulking about like naughty children. So I shook you by the elbow – you were writing your manifesto or something – but when I asked you if it was more exciting to sneak around or not sneak around, you said sneaking was definitely more exciting. And then Fenris gave in since everyone else seemed so certain.”

Anders couldn’t remember this at all. Had he said that? Did Justice remember?

But either way, Anders had to admit that it at least sounded like something he would say. If it came down to which was more fun – sneaking or not sneaking – there wasn’t much choice.

“So you haven’t cheated any rules so far as I can tell,” Merrill concluded. “But if you wanted to, just a little bit, I don’t think I would mind all that much… But then Fenris might be upset about it, so maybe it’s best not to.”

She shrugged carelessly, folding the papers Hawke had given her over in her hand.

She turned to kiss Hawke on the bicep, carefully avoiding where he’d smeared his kaddis. “Thank you for finding the calipers for me, Hawke.”

Hawke beamed.

But Merrill stepped forward, leaned her face into Anders’s chest. Pressed another kiss directly below the scar over his heart.

“I love you too, vhenan,” she said. “And I know you said it four times, but the other three times I say it back will have to wait for later, after I’ve gone and talked to the dwarves and you’ve finished the rest of your chores.”

She flitted away, smiling over her shoulder as she slipped through the door and pulled it shut behind her.

The silent emptiness she left behind felt like a raw gaping wound.

Anders sniffled, rubbed his face clean. He folded the plackets of his button-up shirt over one another, and shivered – groin and legs still exposed.

It was then that Hawke finally spoke.

“That was a lot,” he intoned. “But glad we got it sorted out so easily in the end.”

Anders felt another spike of irritation.

He turned away, looking around for his trousers. Instead, he caught sight of the ruin of a bed, covered in goose down and sweat and cum. Not only his own cum, he realised, but Merrill’s too, assuming Hawke had entertained her here. Assuming she hadn’t insisted on being entertained in Anders’s guest room instead.

“Should we have a snack or a game of cards?” Hawke offered.

He came up behind Anders, and reached to grab Anders by the wrist.

Hawke’s voice was deep and sultry. “Or do you want to pick up where we left off?” he suggested.

Before Anders could think further, he’d already rounded on Hawke, yanking his hand back, teeth gnashing.

“Why would I even want to fuck you?!” he demanded. “Now that I know Merrill and them are just fine with it?!”

Anders regretted it instantly. His face fell the same moment Hawke’s did.

“I-I didn’t mean that!” he stammered out urgently.

He didn’t. He loved Hawke.

“I’m sorry!” Anders insisted. “I didn’t-! I shouldn’t have-!”

But Hawke pulled his lips tightly shut. He shook his head disbelievingly.

“I didn’t mean it, Hawke,” Anders pleaded.

“You know, Anders?” Hawke said, voice uncharacteristically firm. “I know I can never fully understand or appreciate everything you’ve been through. But I still don’t think I did a single thing to deserve that from you.”

Anders blanched. He opened his mouth and gaped uselessly.

There was nothing to deny. Nothing to say.

Hawke shook his head again. “Maybe it’s best if you head over to the Rose and see to the rest of the chores Merr assigned you… I think I’d just rather have that snack by myself.”

==

The candlelight flickered beneath the red frosted glass – dim in the day’s light.

Anders scowled at the lantern, feeling persecuted, but he ducked beneath it and entered the perfumed interior of the Blooming Rose with grim determination.

No sooner had he crossed the threshold, than a voice assaulted him.

“Maker, is that you, Anders?!”

He looked up crossly at the voice – so jaunty and bright that it threatened his righteously dark mood – and met a pair of expectant eyes.

Anders swallowed uncomfortably. He knew Cora, the way he knew most of the old guard at the Rose. He’d healed her once, after a particularly unruly client had left bruises on her, and had for a second felt her hand shake in his.

Cora’s hair had a bit more grey in it than Anders remembered. But otherwise, she looked no different. There wasn’t a wrinkle on her face or her pleasantly sagging breasts.

“You’re kidding?!” another voice cut in.

Leonato, who’d been talking to Cora, whipped around on the spot. He leaned over one of the barrels in the entry hall, turning to see for himself.

He was another matter entirely. He’d grown his hair long since Anders had last seen him, and his forehead was noticeably etched with wrinkles and creases.

“Maker preserve us!” Leonato cheered. “Or I guess you’ll be doing that!”

He laughed, before turning to call down the hall.

“Everyone! Guess who just walked through the door!”

“No, let’s not,” Anders protested irritably. “You don’t have to-”

But Leonato ignored him. “Darktown Healer’s back in the house!” he whooped for everyone to hear.

Anders let out a long-suffering groan, but that hardly mattered now, when it would be only a matter of time before he was completely swarmed.

And sure enough, a moment later they had him surrounded, buzzing like a cluster of bees around a newly-established hive.

“Ren did say you’d be coming by~” Porfiria walked backwards, dancing in front of him as the others ushered him into the lounge. “Think you’ll be able to look at this bad tooth of mine? Or is it only bed wounds now?”

“Oh, come on,” Sabina scolded, before Anders could reassure her. “Let the healer settle in and get comfortable before you start flashing him your every wart and boil.” She’d already taken the liberty of removing Anders’s coat, and folded it neatly as she walked.

“Oh, I’ll make sure he’s comfortable~” Adriano giggled.

He’d been holding Anders’s hand and, at this, he pushed up Anders’s sleeve and began pressing kisses up his arm.

This prompted several protests and more than a few laughs at Anders’s expense.

Anders could only sulk. He was uncomfortable with how eager the Rose workers were to butter him up at the best of times, and he was extremely not in the mood to be fawned over right now, after having gone and alienated Hawke.

“It’s been years, hasn’t it?” Osric was saying. “So much to catch you up on! And all the new blood to introduce you to!”

“Jethann went to see him a while back, didn’t he?” Porfiria asked coyly. “Said he could deal with the clap, but Lucine could go boil before making ‘im sit around with fleas any longer.”

“Well, most of us don’t have Jethann’s spunk,” Osric pointed out.

“Costs too much to get a load from him these days,” Denier called over from one of the lounge chairs.

Everyone had a laugh about Jethann’s ‘spunk’.

“How is everyone?” Anders cut in sternly. “Anything serious I should know about?”

He was trying to direct the conversation back to business. To get an idea of the severity of the maladies he’d need to treat.

Osric didn’t quite pick up on this.

“Well, Faith and Kat ran off together,” he said, clearly excited to catch Anders back up on local gossip. “Took the whole night’s till with them, when they left. So… unfortunately couldn’t keep correspondence with Lusine fuming about thieves.”

“Bitches stole four sovereigns out of my salary,” Sabina said darkly.

“Oh, let it go, Sabina,” Osric urged. “Let’s just hope they’re okay and happy together. No more tragedy, after…”

There was an uncomfortable pause. Osric glanced anxiously at Anders, before dismissing this with a wave.

“What?” Anders prompted, attempting to ignore the kisses Adriano had resumed pressing up under his chin.

“Oh, just- Cerimon,” Osric said glumly. “He’s not with us anymore. And I don’t just mean us. Got on the Coterie’s bad side and…”

He let out a deep sigh before continuing.

“Dunno. He was afraid. Even back when Lusine had you making regular visits, he was afraid. And it only got worse after. But a lot of us were afraid after the whole mess with the Chantry and the Gallows, you know, so I didn’t think-” He cut himself off with a shrug. “Probably should have said something sooner, before he turned up… how he did…”

Osric let himself trail off, guilt still in his voice and the corpse still in his eyes.

Anders swallowed, felt his Adam’s apple bob back against Adriano’s lips.

It was the kind of story Anders had heard more than once, between his work at the Pearl and his work in Darktown. Entirely too expected, and it instilled in Anders a feeling of abject hopelessness.

The workers here at the Rose had continued on in his absence. They’d gone through periods of sickness that they’d since recovered from, or not. Some had eloped, and some had died. And the ones that hadn’t had become greyer and wearier when Anders hadn’t been around to see it happen.

And Anders couldn’t help but wonder, with Osric mentioning the Chantry bombing and attempted annulment, if he was being blamed.

And was it, in fact, his fault? Was everything that had ceased or changed or continued on, since that miserable night, Anders’s fault?

“Ceri’s at the Maker’s side, I like to think,” Porfiria was saying. “…Or at the Maker’s feet, maybe,” she corrected. “You know he’d like that~ Be bragging all year long that he managed to suck the Maker’s cock, whether he really had or not. You remember what he was like with that Prince fellow from up North?”

Adriano finally broke away from Anders’s neck with a laugh. “Maker, that was annoying,” he said. “Would give anything to hear his blighted bragging now though~”

“Let’s not dwell on it,” Osric said. “Hazards of the occupation. But plenty of good has happened too.”

“Maker, you haven’t seen my boy since he was barely cracking double digits, have you?” Sabina asked. “You won’t even recognise him anymore! Won’t believe what he’s done with his hair!”

“Nicked a couple silvers and paid one of the First Enchanter’s people to magic it,” Osric said surreptitiously.

Sabina huffed. “That’s what they should put in the Chant instead of whatever drivel: Magic exists to serve man, and never to change his hair black and green.”

Anders wondered of this new addition to the Chant, and what was wrong with black and green, when a deep voice called over from the bar.

“Alright, everyone leave poor healer boy alone.” Serendipity raised one arching eyebrow. “And back to your posts. You know we are an establishment open for business.”

“Oh, Ren.” Porfiria batted her eyes. “Can’t we finish catching up with Anders first?”

“Let us have some quality time with him,” Adriano urged. “It’s early yet. You know it’s only going to be a few stragglers in for a quick job before nightfall.”

“You’ll have plenty of quality time with him during your check-ups, hon,” Serendipity reassured. “One-on-one. You can show him every nook and cranny… But back to your spots in the meantime.”

Sabina hung Anders’s coat from the rack behind the bar. Porfiria sauntered off with a pout. And Adriano followed, after giving Anders’s bum one last squeeze.

Osric was the only one to linger behind. He narrowed his eyes at the glass in Serendipity’s hand.

“Going to share your drink, Ren?” he asked. “Got a glass for me?”

“Aww,” Serendipity pouted. “Not with the customers, darling. You know you’re going to need your wits dealing with them?”

“And you don’t?” Osric laughed. “Madame’s getting special treatment.”

“That’s exactly right~” Serendipity said. “You know I love you, Ozzy. And I have a whole pitcher here with your name on it for after hours~”

There was a glass pitcher on the other side of the bar, and Serendipity ran her hand lovingly over the handle.

“But-” Her tongue darted sharply off her teeth. “After hours, like I said~ So, shoo. Let me talk with Anders sweetie for now~”

Osric rolled his eyes, and turned to Anders with a short laugh, as if they were sharing an inside joke. Then clasped Anders’s shoulder and walked away.

Anders’s brow furrowed.

“Don’t remember him being so tetchy with you,” he told Serendipity. “That seemed… weird…”

“You think so, hon?” Serendipity said breezily. “It’s been a lot of big changes. So they have to test where the new boundaries are. See if they can live with them. Thought you of all people would understand~”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Anders grumbled.

Serendipity broke into a wide smile. “It means I missed you, hon~ Nice to see you back at the Rose~”

She waved him over, inviting him to take one of the seats at the bar. And Anders took stock of her, as he slipped into his seat and she – behind the counter.

Serendipity cut a different picture as a Madame than Lusine had. Different than Sanga, too, who Anders remembered in heavy maroon velvets, speaking in an accent excessively Fereldan – stern and austere and fair-minded to a fault.

In comparison, everything about Serendipity seemed soft and loose and gay. Albeit too neatly and purposefully to be entirely natural. Brown leather sandals. Soft powdered face. Kohl painted beauty marks and a smile on her rouged lips. She’d cut her dark hair into a fashionable bob, and wore it loose so it bounced off her shoulders in line with the dimples at the base of her cheeks. And her long flowing gown and shawl and jewellery – yellow and brown and gold – seemed to emphasise the petiteness of her figure.

She seemed at once too expensive to touch, and utterly approachable.

“Can I get you anything, hon?” she asked. “My treat, of course.”

“You know I don’t drink,” Anders muttered.

“Well, you can sit right there while I finish mine.” Serendipity declared, with the slightest edge in her voice. She refilled her glass and dipped a mixing spoon inside, knocking the edges of the glass as she stirred up a whirlwind of cut fruit suspended in bright yellow juice.

Anders scowled, but Serendipity refused to be rushed. She set the spoon aside, took one long drink from her glass, savoured it, and took another before speaking again.

“So should I send your pay to Lirene the way Lusine used to do?” she asked. “Or should I pay you direct-?”

Anders cut her off before she could finish. “You know I don’t give a shit about that.”

Serendipity gave him a look – searching and sympathetic. It made Anders feel the slightest bit pathetic.

“I don’t let my workers take coin direct from the clients,” she said. “They don’t touch anything – not until we’ve closed up for the night and I’m counting out from the box. But I know it was a big deal when we sat down and negotiated rates, and I let them set their own prices within the agreed upon minimum and maximum. Lusine didn’t let us set our own prices.”

She gave Anders a pointed look.

“So I’m asking if you want to get paid directly… or do you trust your woman not to skim coin off the top?”

Anders sighed, frustrated that Serendipity had the sense to ask. Frustrated that she knew enough about being taken advantage of, that she knew to worry over him.

“No, Lirene’s not like that,” he said. “And what do I need coin for anyhow? She knows what to do with it better than me. For the community and all.”

“Whatever you say, hon~” Serendipity shrugged. “But if something goes pear-shaped and you need to revisit this, you’ll know where to find me~”

She took another gulp of her drink, gazed at the ceiling, and smiled to herself, as if something just occurred to her.

“Guess I shouldn’t worry about you too much. You’re doing pretty well, huh, sweetie?”

She reached across the counter, and brushed her fingers lightly and suggestively over the collar of Anders’s shirt – sky blue. It was one of the ones Hawke had bought him. She proceeded, dragging her finger up to tug lightly at one of the hoops in his ears.

“Got the Champion and the Viscount looking after you~” she said. “You know I ran into you once? Was rushing to the Merchant’s Guild just down the street – some favour for a friend of a friend. Saw you from the back and said to myself, ‘I recognise that ass from somewhere.’”

“Oh, get a good long look, did you?” Anders returned her leer.

“You know I did, hon~” She smirked – the same flattery she used on clients, Anders was sure – before continuing her story. “I wanted to go shouting and waving you down, since I hadn’t seen you since Lusine kicked you to the curb. But, oh~” She sighed. “I just couldn’t. You were with that guy – the angry glowy one – holding his hand and gloating about something. You looked so happy.”

“Fenris,” Anders said.

“Guess everyone calls him the Lyrium Ghost… but it’s got too much mystique.” Serendipity waved the title away. “Remember when he first walked in here a decade ago, talking about corruption and exploitation and sins of the flesh or whatever, and Jethann and I teamed up on him?” She chortled. “Whenever I hear ‘Lyrium Ghost’, it’s that guy I remember – the one stammering apologies at my cleavage while Jethann used the distraction to nick his coin purse.”

“Pretty sure he doesn’t remember you at all,” Anders said flatly.

“Oh, someone’s being mean~” Serendipity snickered, before taking another gulp of her drink.

“Andraste’s ass,” Anders groaned. “Am I here to heal your workers or to gossip with every one of you?”

“Not much of a multitasker?”

Serendipity gave an exasperated shake of her head, before setting her drink down and retrieving a ledger from behind the till.

“I asked around – got everyone in private – and tried to put together a list of who to prioritise. Figured you might not be able to get to them all today.” She scanned the list, double checking it before she released it to Anders, and took her drink back up.

Anders checked it over, and was pleased to see she was treating Porfiria’s bad tooth as seriously as the bedroom diseases, but-

“You’re not on here,” Anders pointed out. “Should I start with you?”

Serendipity laughed and waved him off. And Anders was all ready to start lecturing – Just because Serendipity was the Rose’s Madame now, didn’t mean she got to skip her check-ups more than anyone else here! – when Serendipity said something he wasn’t expecting at all.

“Oh, no. I had a private check-up a few weeks back, hon,” she told him. “And anyhow, I’ve stopped taking clients off the floor, you know?”

Anders had to stop himself from doing a double-take.

He didn’t like this part about seeing another healer. Who knew if they were trustworthy, or just hawking spindleweed tonics and lies? But the part about not taking clients-

“Have you?” Anders was genuinely curious.

“Yeah, I’m only seeing a few of my favourite regulars these days!” Serendipity smiled brightly. “More as a personal favour than because I need the work. I’ve just been so busy with managing and-”

Serendipity’s eyes sparkled, and she broke into an even wider smile, as she drew her left hand up in front of her face. She wiggled her fingers, where a gold and silver woven band glittered on her ring finger.

“Notice anything differently about me?” she asked.

Anders squinted intently at her. “You did something with your hair, didn’t you?” he said, just to be contrary.

Serendipity laughed easily, and her new bob cut bounced off her shoulders.

“No, silly.” She reached across the bar to slap playfully at his arm. “Bran and I are getting married! Spring of next year!”

Anders didn’t know who he expected, if not Seneschal Bran Cavin, but he blinked in surprise anyhow.

“Um, wow,” was all he managed at first. “Didn’t think he’d man up and propose.”

Serendipity laughed. “Oh, you’ve got it all wrong, hon. He’s been proposing to me for years. I think it was-” Serendipity bit her lip in concentration. “Eight times? Before I said ‘yes’?”

That was a lot of times to ask. And a lot of times to say ‘no’ before going through with it.

“What changed?” was the only question Anders could think to ask.

Serendipity exhaled deeply. “Well, you know how it was, Anders. He was a Hightown noble. I was the girl that got kicked out of Ostwick Alienage thirty years ago. And he wanted me to do the whole thing – move in, meet the kids, scandalise the neighbours, you know. I’ve never lived like that – out of someone else’s drawing room.”

Serendipity paused to take another sip from her glass. Anders was struck by the way her teeth bit into an orange slice.

Serendipity shook her head and continued her story. “I thought, if I go move in there, and things go belly up, I’ve got nothing. No job. No connections. Not a bed to sleep in. I knew that hag Lusine wasn’t gonna let me stay on part-time if I moved out. You should have seen the absolute fit she threw when she found out I spent my time off on that trip to Château Haine with Bran. Yelling at me about giving her goods away for free. Like it’s her pussy and not mine, right?”

Serendipity rolled her eyes, and retrieved her spoon to fish more fruit out of her drink.

“…Right,” Anders mumbled. He knew Sanga hadn’t been half so bad to him, as Lusine had been to the workers here. But he’d felt the same way.

But Serendipity seemed oblivious to the melancholy she’d stirred up for Anders. She couldn’t seem to keep the smile off her face as she continued.

“But when Bran proposed to me this time, I thought, what the hey? He’s pushing pencils in the Keep for a Dalish elf. I’m running the best establishment in the City. And all the noblewomen that would have tried to make my life hell as Missus Madame Lady Cavin have gone and skipped town. Me and Bran – we’re not so different anymore, are we? Why not get married? Why not let myself be happy?”

And Serendipity did look happy. Radiantly and effervescently joyful.

Anders pouted. “Well, I’m glad Merr installing herself as the city’s dictator fixed all the problems with your love life,” he said sarcastically.

“I know, right?!” Serendipity agreed cheerfully. “Who would have thought?” She downed the rest of her drink, scraping a few scraps of fruit from the bottom of the glass. “That wife of yours really knows what she’s doing. When she called me in for an audience at the Keep, I was scared out of my skin. Had me answering all these questions about how different government higher ups had treated us workers at the Rose over the years. I never thought she’d end up offering me a ten-year contract to run the place!”

“You know, she’s not actually my wife.” Anders’s scowl deepened. “That’s just a joke that Hawke and Isabela came up with to poke fun at how domestic we are. Mages aren’t people according to Kirkwall law, we’re property. We’re not allowed to marry.”

Serendipity scoffed. “Maybe not in the old Kirkwall. In this new Kirkwall, who knows?” She shrugged. “Did you ever think your life would be what it is now, when you took your first job as a working boy at the Pearl all those years ago?”

Anders snorted. “That was before Justice.” Everything had changed after Justice.

“How about when you first came to this city?”

“No,” Anders admitted. He’d never known how anything was going to go. Not with Karl or Justice. Not with Merrill or Fenris. Not with the Gallows or Dairsmuid Circle.

“Look, if it can happen to me,” Serendipity tapped the ring on her finger, “it can happen to you.”

Anders spent a while mulling this over in his head – the abstruseness of where his future might yet take him. He thought of it while inspecting a patch of warts on Adriano’s backside, pondered it while pulling Porfiria’s rotten tooth, and kept considering it, until the foul-smelling yellow discharge from Cora’s swollen vulva drove it out of his mind entirely.

Anders headed back towards the main room of the Rose, when a sullen looking teenager greeted him by name.

Anders did a double take, trying to place this interlocutor – half-elf by the looks of him. But the teenager pulled the hood of his jacket up, covering a head of black hair striped with green, and proceeded to sweep a broom up the corridor. And Anders didn’t realise until the boy was gone, that he must be Sabina’s son.

He really was unrecognisable, so different from the mischievous child Anders remembered. And it only left Anders feeling more bereft, as he re-entered the lobby.

Having made it through the day’s check-ups and only half of the brothel’s regular staff, Anders was feeling utterly exhausted. Not so much from mana expended – he would have treated the rest of the staff that afternoon, if Serendipity hadn’t brusquely informed him that he was encroaching on the edge of the evening rush and should return in the morning – it was a deeper nostalgia and malaise that exhausted him.

It was the too-dim lamplight, the cum-stained velvet coverlets, the powders and creams the staff used to conceal everything from wrinkles and moles to bruises and infection. It was the floors that Sabina’s son – unrecognisable after having lived in this brothel all his life – had swept clean. It was the strum of the lute from the main room, and the amiable chatter of Anders’s patients.

The workers at the Rose seemed more natural and at ease with Anders than the majority of their patrons. But they still smiled a bit too wide, laughed a bit too enthusiastically, and talked about one crass abuse after the other, like they never hoped or wanted love to touch them.

It reminded Anders a lot of who he’d been, years and years ago now, glutting himself on the most minor reliefs the Pearl had offered him as a refuge from the Circle. Back when he had hated himself even more than he did now.

Anders hated him – that callow, selfish, stupid boy he’d used to be. And yet he didn’t feel so far from that boy now, lost in the spinning colour and music and bodies of the Rose’s main room, with Isabela coming to attention, sitting up in her seat and waving him over with a whooping catcall.

Anders scowled and turned away. He’d left this life already. He attempted to finish crossing the room and make for the exit.

Isabela’s voice followed him for a few steps, and Anders thought he’d just managed to escape the assault – the liquid and illusory enchantment of her siren song – when Isabela’s very solid boot came sailing through the air and hit him on the shoulder instead.

Anders scuffed the dirt off the sleeve of his coat and shot a glare over his shoulder at Isabela.

She’d stood up – her hands on her hips, one stockinged foot braced against the coffee table, skirt flipped up and fanny on full display. And now she pointed to the boot she had thrown, fallen sideways on the floor next to Anders, beckoned him to bring it back.

Anders scowled, but he bent down, retrieved the boot. And Isabela swayed side to side, miming spooling in a fishing line, as if her boot was the bait and Anders was a particularly ornery catch.

“Finally,” Isabela scoffed, snatching her boot out of Anders’s hand as he approached. She wasted no time before stepping into it, pulling it up to her knee. “The things I have to do hold your attention~”

“Try a little less, next time,” Anders groused.

“Rude.”

Isabela finished latching her boot buckles, before speaking more.

“Come on. Take a load off.” She gestured to an empty chair, set perpendicular to the one she’d been reclined in a moment before. “Don’t you know? If you stand too long, you’ll get rickets or a Qilin’s curved spine.”

Anders let out an exasperated sigh. “That’s not how that works.”

“It isn’t?” Isabela sounded neither surprised, nor concerned. “Guess you’ll have to sit and tell me all about it then… Sit,” she commanded, pointing again at the chair.

Anders hesitated. But fighting with Isabela when she was in this sort of mood wasn’t liable to get him much of anywhere. So he adjusted the seat of his coat, took the chair Isabela indicated, and didn’t bother explaining about rickets when she clearly didn’t care to begin with.

“There we go.” Isabela took a seat herself. “So,” she snickered, “haven’t run into you here for a long while~ What brings you to these grand halls, stranger~?”

“Healing. I’m a healer,” Anders reminded curtly.

He wasn’t just some pretty powdered thing for Isabela to poke fun at. Not anymore.

“And what about you?” he asked. “Picking up some new venereal disease to pass on to the two of them?”

Isabela bit her lip and knocked her boots against Anders’s shins. Too forceful for a love tap and too soft for a rebuke.

“You’re in a real snit today,” she levelled at him. “You’re impossible! Ignoring me? Trying to walk past when I’m right there? Aren’t we friends, Anders?”

Anders pinched his nose, tried not to think about it.

“How long have we known each other?” Isabela pressed. “Fifteen years? Longer than either of us have known Fenris or Hawke or Merrill,” she reminded, before reaching for someone’s abandoned drink on the table – whisky on the rocks – and downing it.

This was true. And Anders could begrudgingly admit that, if Isabela wasn’t his friend, then he could hardly claim to have any at all.

“We’ve fought Qunari and Templars and bloody-arsed Seekers together,” Isabela reminded. “You can handle one pleasant conversation with me.”

The reminder of Seekers – of their mutual work in Dairsmuid – had Anders successfully chastened.

“What brings you here, Bela?” he tried again more softly, only a bit begrudgingly.

“Oh, that actually worked?” Isabela grinned widely. “Here I was just bluffing. Couldn’t be sure you and Justice had pleasantries in you~”

Anders glared, and caught a bit of blue spirit energy flare over the top of his cheekbone.

Isabela continued on nonchalantly, refusing to be intimidated.

“Going to be out of the city the next five days. Things finally seem to have settled down enough here – Kitten and Big Girl have it handled between them. So I figured I’d take Fenris and The Impossible Bottle out on the water for a pleasure spin.”

Anders grumbled. He didn’t think it was much the time for pleasure cruises or other luxuries. But he was all too aware of the jealousy coiling in the pit of his stomach.

So Fenris had found the time and patience to indulge Isabela, but not him.

Anders was sure that, if he challenged Isabela’s plans, she would pick up on that jealousy, and find a way to mock him for it.

“And since I’ve all but gone daft,” Isabela was still finishing up her explanation, “signing up for five days of Fenris clinging like a limpet, I decided to take tonight for myself at least. Get myself some space and a bit of variety~”

She waggled her eyebrows, to make explicitly clear the sort of variety she meant.

“Good for you,” Anders said in flat monotone.

“Only…” Isabela heaved a sigh. “I hired Denier for a couple hours. The nice thing about dwarves, you know, is that they have their mouths right at crotch level if you’re both standing.”

Anders let out a weary groan.

“But once he got done eating me out, I just…” Isabela shrugged. “Felt sort of tired and old womanly, I guess. Spent the rest of the time I’d bought playing Grace and chatting. Reminiscing.”

Isabela shook her head wryly, and her gold earrings swayed and caught in her curls.

“Do you ever feel like you’re getting old, Anders?” she asked.

All the damned time.

“You don’t know what the word ‘old’ means,” Anders said. “Bother me in thirty years when you’re incontinent – leaking so much shit and piss the workers here won’t take you. I’d like to see you cry then.”

“Guess you eventually get too old to inflict yourself on a whore, but you’re never too old to inflict yourself on a healer.” Isabela smiled, more to herself than Anders. “I’ll look forward to knowing you for another thirty years.”

Anders couldn’t manage to hold back a laugh. “Look at you being all poetic~ And when neither of us has a drink to toast with~”

“Call one of the servers over, if you want one,” Isabela said carelessly. “You know I’d pay to see you and that stodgy old spirit of yours drunk.”

Anders shook his head, until his smile died.

Thirty more years of Anders and Isabela seemed unfathomable. But there was nothing to stop it from happening. In fact, Anders was pretty sure Fenris and Merrill would both be fighting tooth and nail to make sure it did happen.

It made him feel more useless than ever. Since when had he turned into someone else’s cause?

“So…” Isabela stretched her arms and legs, and reclined in her seat. “Back to healing the good whores of the Blooming Rose? Good of Merrill to get you in with the new Madame. Someone needed to see about breathing some life and health back into this place.”

“This place is a shithole,” Anders said. “Loveless gaud and gilt. Guess some things never change. Blighted depressing.”

“Oh, you’re full of it,” Isabela pooh-poohed. “This place has been the cause of at least a few nuptials. And look at how much happier everyone is with Serendipity running things!”

Anders scowled. He leaned forward, rested his elbows against his knees, and looked down at the floor where he wouldn’t have to see how happy anyone was.

“Did you see the sign with the specials?” Isabela snickered. “They practically immortalised you on the board. Two gold for thirty minutes of feet and piss with the lady or gentleman of your choice. They’re calling it, The Chantry Bomber. And for another two gold, you can upgrade to The Blue Light Special, with poetry, a bath and massage, and the girlfriend experience.”

Anders had seen the sign, and it didn’t impress him.

“And they just happen to know this about me?” He looked up to narrow his eyes accusingly at Isabela. “Don’t try to tell me it was Fenris or Merr that went blabbing to the staff here about what we’ve gotten up to.”

Isabela didn’t bother denying it.

“Oh, loosen up, Anders,” she scoffed. “It means the people here like you. And you needed the reminder not to take yourself so seriously, anyhow.” She leaned back in her seat, and rubbed against the back of her armchair like she was scratching an itch. “It’s not only you. They have me up there too, The Penniless Pirate Queen. Three gold for as much rigging and pearl diving as you can fit into an hour.”

Anders had seen. Other specials had included The Champion Dog Lord, The Handsy Harvester, and The Wallop Washout, among others. And though no such special had been named after Merrill, they were proudly advertising the anellini and herb soup from the Rose’s kitchens as The Lady Viscount’s Favourite.

“It’s a bit of harmless fun,” Isabela declared. “They’re hoping for tourists. Varric’s book put the city on the map, and Merrill’s finally making it somewhere worth visiting. So you can hardly begrudge them trying to capitalise off their local celebrities.”

“I didn’t live through that-! I didn’t-!”

Anders hadn’t escaped the Circle, or joined with Justice, or spent years running his clinic and the Underground, or taken Merrill and Fenris to bed and loved them with everything he had, just so that everyone else could turn it into some farcical-!

“I didn’t bomb the Chantry for celebrity!” Anders cried.

Isabela gave him a piteous look, but her words brokered no mercy. “Well, celebrity is what you got.”

Anders felt some of the energy drain out of him. He let out a sigh, long and defeated.

“Aww, there there,” Isabela said. She placed a hand over his knee and patted it lightly. “Could be worse, couldn’t it? You’re here, aren’t you? Made it to the other side? You even made it mean something. And I certainly wasn’t expecting you to pull that one off~”

“Did I?” Anders said, a bit more desperately than he’d intended. “What did I make it mean, then?”

“You wanted to get rid of the Templars, didn’t you?” Isabela asked. “Well, they’re gone, aren’t they? And it looks like they’re even staying gone, against the odds. Don’t see how they’ll be back anytime soon with all these corpses to fend them off, now that you’ve helped Merrill into the Viscount’s chair.”

“So everyone’s just blaming me for this?” Anders whimpered.

He remembered Fenris had already accused him of easing Merrill’s way into power, for starting the chain of events that had driven off the Templars and allowed necromancy to take the city. Aveline had accused him, too, of creating the power vacuum that Merrill had filled.

“You were there the day she dug up and deposed that other Falon’Din, weren’t you?” Isabela asked. “She said you helped her, among other things. Went on quite a bit about portholes.”

Anders groaned.

He knew they were right. He had been there, hadn’t he? And he’d inadvertently helped Merrill take over the city when he ran to her defence on the docks, hadn’t he?

But what else was Anders meant to have done, with his sweetheart in danger?

“I kept telling her, ‘I don’t think ‘porthole’ means what you think it means, Kitten.’” Isabela was saying. “I asked her, ‘Are you sure you don’t mean ‘portal’?’ But she was absolutely insistent!”

Isabela stretched and reclined, already looking pleased with herself.

“So I told her a porthole is a hole in the hull of a ship you use to mount a cannon. And if she ran into any more ‘portholes’ to old Elvhen gods, she might want to forego the rest and just stick the barrel of a cannon through it and start firing.” Isabela snickered. “She seemed to like that idea.”

“So that’s what everything I did meant?!” Anders demanded. “That’s what it was all for?! To get a murderous tyrant – one ready to spray cannonfire at anyone – in charge of the city?!”

Anders let out a wail, and flopped down in his seat.

Isabela allowed him a moment, before scooting forward in her seat. “You know…” she began solicitously. “Everyone’s much happier with Merrill running things. Everyone important, at any rate…” She leaned in, as if to divulge a secret. “I’d even wager that you count among them.”

It was the last straw. But which camel got their back broken this time, Anders wasn’t sure.

“Maybe I don’t want to be happy!” he snapped furiously.

“Fine then,” Isabela shot back. “Be miserable.”

“Well, I don’t see how I can be!” Anders returned. “I don’t see how I can be miserable when everyone keeps giving me everything I’ve ever wanted!”

Isabela let out a sigh, rolled her eyes, and turned away from him. And she didn’t turn back when Anders whimpered and curled further in on himself – didn’t say a word.

It took Anders a moment to realise she was ignoring him, and quite persistently given how loudly he was sighing and groaning.

Anders felt himself grow indignant. Ignoring him?! After she’d been the one to call him over here and insist on talking to start with?! Anders couldn’t let that stand!

He shouted out the first thing that came to mind.

“You know, Fenris was there too!” he said. “That day on the docks, when she took out that Falon’Din guy, he was the one who told me to go to Merr and defend her in the first place. This is his fault as much as mine!”

That did get Isabela to turn back.

“…Right,” she agreed. Though she sounded a bit unsure.

But Anders suddenly wasn’t feeling unsure at all. It was a fluke that he’d said this, of all things, to begin with. But the more he thought about it the more sure he was.

“And he distracted me the night she was planning her coup,” Anders said, picking up momentum now. “And in the morning he delayed me heading up to the Keep! And he wouldn’t come with me to confront her later!”

Anders was certain now.

“He’s been sharing information with her the whole time, hasn’t he?!” he accused wildly. “This whole time, he’s been as good as working with her! Working with her to manage the city. And working with her to manage me! Even worse than they were managing me when I was sick after the Battle at the Gallows!”

Isabela didn’t deny it. She was studying Anders closely, and didn’t have a word to say in their defence.

“And they didn’t get along at all before,” Anders said, bewildered. “Don’t you remember? Don’t you remember telling me that one time, how afraid you were they’d never get along?! That I… That we…” Anders croaked. “That Fenris would never be happy having to tolerate her for our sakes?”

His breath hitched. Anders was suddenly deathly afraid that Isabela didn’t remember. That the past he’d lived through had never existed, and he’d made all the memories of it up himself.

“Oh, is that all this is about?” Isabela shook away her wariness with a laugh. “Of course I remember, sweet thing,” she reassured. “And I remember saying at the time that it was up to Fenris and Merrill, so there’s no use straining our heads about it… And I’d say that goes double, now that everything’s worked itself out.”

“But why?!” Anders demanded.

He sputtered ineffectually for a moment before finding his voice.

“It shouldn’t have worked out!” he insisted. “None of this was supposed to work out!”

It wasn’t supposed to work out. Not even one person was ever meant to love him to start with – let alone two. Anders had never deserved to be happy.

“Well, it’s not that surprising, is it?” Isabela said flippantly. “After they worked together to take care of the Seeker and Varric, and trick the Chantry forces and half the city in the process? I think you’d have to bury the hatchet, after something like that.”

This startled Anders right out of his thoughts. He blinked dumbly for a moment. When he spoke, his throat was dry like chalk.

“Varric?” he asked.

Because he didn’t know what Varric had to do with any of this, but he knew that this was it – all his suspicions confirmed. Anders knew that any good that had come to him, couldn’t have come without a catch.

Isabela snorted. “Oh, come on, Anders.” She gave him that look of hers – the warmest one she possessed, dripping with affection and pity. “You didn’t really believe, of all the people the Seeker could have caught, that she got to tricky-toes Varric first?”

Chapter Text

The hallway was a blur of movement, sound of the blood pounding in his ears, and then pain – as Anders raised his arm and rammed into the door to the master bedroom.

The door swung on its hinges and slammed against the wall and bounced back, but Anders was already inside – ready for answers, ready for justice.

Fenris turned to him. He was standing over his bed, folding underclothes and sleepwear into an open trunk.

Anders panted, winded from his flight up the stairs. “Why?!” he demanded. “How?!”

Fenris let out a long sigh, as he dropped a sleeping cap into the trunk. “Hello, Anders.”

“Don’t ‘hello’ me!” Anders snapped. “Is that all you have to say for yourself?!”

“You were… expecting something else?” Fenris asked.

“Of course I was!” Anders wailed. “How can you even live with yourself when-?!” He broke off and let out a cry of frustration.

“I have become practised in it,” Fenris answered in deadpan. He reached for a set of leggings and rolled them into a bundle.

“How can you just stand there?!” Anders cried. “Acting like-?! Doing your…?”

He trailed off, as he observed the scene again.

“Wait, what are you doing?” he asked, suddenly aware Fenris was packing to leave for somewhere, and for somewhere without Anders.

“I am making preparations for tomorrow,” Fenris said. “Isabela is taking me on a fishing trip this week, and she wishes to leave before daybreak.”

He let out an unenthusiastic groan, before turning to study Anders.

“I am certain Isabela would allow you along,” he said, equally unenthusiastically, before his voice turned sharp and snarling. “But I am equally certain you will find yourself otherwise occupied with the witch.”

Right. Anders remembered now. Isabela had mentioned taking Fenris out on her ship. But-!

“You hate fish!” Anders reminded.

“Which is why I have packed alternate rations.” Fenris gestured at a stack of crates secured tightly to a dolly, beside Anders at the door.

Anders turned to inspect them.

“…This is three crates of wine and a sack of dried apples and jerky.”

“Alternate rations, as I have already said,” Fenris snarled impatiently.

“You know you’re going to kill yourself on this diet!” Anders cried.

“One can hope!” Fenris retorted harshly.

Anders flinched. “You’re not serious?”

Fenris heaved another sigh. “No,” he admitted. “But I suspect I would have to be to warrant your shitting attention!”

That didn’t make any sense. Anders was paying attention to him right now, wasn’t he?!

“It doesn’t make any sense!” Anders shouted. “Why are you going on a fishing trip when you hate fish?!”

“For sport,” Fenris answered. “I intend to pass along anything I catch to the beggar children at the docks.”

“And Isabela will just let you?!” Anders knew Isabela had a poor opinion of charity, and she’d never let him hear the end of it for distributing food and healing services free of charge.

“What can she do about it?!” Fenris snapped back. “She may complain all she likes. I do not require her permission to do as I like with what is mine.” His face twisted angrily. “The same way I do not require your permission to leave on this fishing trip!”

“How can you even think about about a fishing trip, after what you did to Varric?!” Anders roared.

At this proclamation, silence fell over the room.

Fenris’s eyebrows raised slightly. “Ah.” He set down the clothes he was folding.

So he wasn’t even denying it?! Anders felt one last hope die in his chest, before his anger reared him back up.

“I can’t believe it! You sold him out! After everything he did for us, you betrayed him! You-! You-! You liar! You betrayer!”

“Was it Isabela that told you?” Fenris, ironically, sounded calmer now.

Who else was he going to hear it from? Or-?

“Oh,” Anders laughed hysterically, “was everyone in the blighted city in on this except me?!”

“Hawke does not know. I doubt the witch would have admitted to anything. And Aveline noticed no more than a few inconsistencies,” Fenris explained. “But Isabela confronted me within a few days of your mutual return from Dairsmuid. It seems most likely she is your source, as you have had no opportunity to medically examine Varric yourself.”

“Medically examine?!” Anders cried. “Maker, you-! What did you-?!”

“How much did you hear from Isabela?” Fenris asked.

“Only that the two of you teamed up to get him captured by the Seeker!” Anders said. “And that you muddled everyone’s heads about it after! But…”

Anders looked at Fenris – dressed casually in a tunic and leggings, and standing over his half packed trunk. His arms were crossed, and his lips were curled in that slight frown that could have meant anything. And he still looked calm.

How could he be so bloody calm?!

“You really did…” Anders said, in shock. “After all your dogshit about blood magic and maleficars, you really went and did this. You tossed Varric to the wolves. To the bloody Chantry!”

“It seems she told you very little,” Fenris said.

“You teamed up with a blood mage and manipulated everyone like some-?!” Anders realised there weren’t even words for what Fenris was. “Even when they used us, they didn’t-!”

“Anders,” Fenris said irritably.

“I knew it!” Anders shouted furiously. “I knew there was a catch! I knew Merrill being in charge of the city was too good to be true, and that going along with it only meant blood spilt elsewhere! I knew we weren’t supposed to be happy, while Varric was off rotting in some bloody Seeker’s cell! I knew-!”

A bundle of socks flew through the air and hit Anders on the forehead. And Anders startled, as they bounced off and fell softly to the floor.

“Anders!” Fenris snarled, arm extended and teeth gritted. “Did you come here for an explanation or not?!”

Anders rubbed at his forehead, where the wool socks had scratched him like a kiss.

He, or maybe Justice, reasoned that it was probably best to hear Fenris out.

“Good!” Fenris hissed. “Then quiet yourself, so I may begin!”

His brow was tightly knotted, as he went to retrieve the socks off the floor. He tucked them into the open trunk, and took a deep breath, before continuing his packing and beginning his story.

==

The Seeker’s men dragged Fenris in for questioning already subdued – cuffed and with a bruise over his left eye that had left blood matted in his hair. And most worryingly, drugged with magebane.

It was with the magebane they had captured him in the first place. Fenris might have slipped away from them otherwise – phased through the buildings and floor and ran. But when he walked into his home, intent on descending into the basement and boarding it up, he had found it filled with fumes. His lyrium brands had suddenly felt much heavier – more like inert rock than electric flesh. He could not seem to activate them correctly, and that had been before he’d been hit with the darts, then surrounded and tackled down.

The Seeker was a hard-looking woman, with short black hair and a sharp jawline. More handsome than beautiful, she had a scar over her left cheek and the All-Seeing Eye blazoned over the front of her silverite armour.

Had they both been standing, she would have been at a height with Fenris. But as things were, she stood towering over him, as he was pushed into a hard wooden chair at the centre of the room.

“Step back,” she told her men in a thick Nevarran accent. “I would speak to him without interruption.”

Fenris said nothing, as she turned her dark eyes on him.

“You and your associates have given me quite the chase,” the Seeker said.

Perhaps it was true, but Fenris felt it was nothing compared to the chase the Seeker had given them. Three claustrophobic weeks of jumping from safehouse to bunker, growing increasingly irritable and argumentative all the while.

The Seeker’s people had routed them – himself, Hawke, Varric, and the witch – from their final hideaway at the Bone Pit the previous morning. Braving the mountains, and with it the threats of wilderness survival and the possibility of running into Starkhaven’s troops, was an option quickly considered and dismissed. And from there it had been a mad scramble back to the city.

But when they finally arrived and snuck past the city gates, Varric had suggested they split ways, and split the Seeker’s forces with them.

Hawke had agreed. Merrill had gotten a ponderous look, but said nothing. And Fenris? He had likewise voiced no complaint.

Anders would have complained, had he been there. Fenris wished in that moment for Anders, that he might appear to voice the protest Fenris felt in his bones.

But Anders was far away in Rivain, and Fenris said nothing… Even though Fenris knew he was by far the most noticeable of his companions, between his dark skin and blue-white lyrium brands. Even though he knew he had no place to go. Even though had exhausted the last of his mental and material resources, and did not trust himself to find the audacity to drag Donnic or Aveline or Lirene or his mercenary associates further into his struggles.

He, quite reasonably, shared none of this with the Seeker.

“I am Cassandra,” she said, “the Right Hand of Most Holy Divine Justinia the Fifth. She has charged me to speak with her voice and act with her will in the investigation of the dissolution of the Circles and the start of the so-called Mage Rebellion. In everything I ask you, it is to Most Holy you show your cooperation, or your defiance.”

Fenris said nothing. He found the topic of the Mage Rebellion extremely frustrating, and had about as much respect for the Orlesian Divine as the Tevinter one.

The Seeker sighed.

“And you are Fenris?” she asked. “The Fenris of author Varric Tethras’s bestseller? Hawke’s associate, and a participant in the Kirkwall Mage Uprising of 9:37 Dragon?”

Was he?

Fenris went out of his way to keep out of Anders’s work in the Mage Rebellion. Fenris had been there for the uprising at the Gallows, certainly. But he hadn’t really felt like a participant. He’d stood around, feeling helpless and upset and relieved in turn. He’d watched the mages rally, and watched the First Enchanter reveal himself as an abomination, and watched Hawke shake Orsino’s hand anyhow. He’d borne witness when the Knight Commander attacked her own subordinates. He’d stepped in only when he had to, to save his people, those he’d come there with. And, most of all, he’d hoped beyond all reason and measure they knew somehow, and appreciated moreso, why he had done it.

Because he hadn’t done it to be part of anything big – not to stake a claim in history, nor topple the hierarchy of the city, nor even to liberate the slaves of the Gallows. He’d done it, really, only for love. For Aveline and Donnic. For Hawke and Isabela. And Anders and the spirit he saw, sometimes, dancing behind Anders’s eyes.

And Fenris was a coward in all things, and could not let them know the power they held over him, that he would have done anything for them.

But he’d spent that night at the Gallows hoping, irrationally, desperately, that they knew anyhow. He’d hoped they’d read it into all the thousands of little things he’d said and done. All the times he’d thanked Aveline and Donnic for buying him groceries. All the times he’d sat with Hawke as Hawke penned letters to his siblings. All the times he’d held Isabela while she slept and bit his tongue on his feelings so as not to frighten her. And every time that night he’d stood between them and the templars and thought Over My Dead Body.

He had sneered at Anders. “Satisfied, amatus?” Snarled a response before Anders could come up with one. “No, you wouldn’t be, would you?”

And as he turned away he hoped that ‘amatus’ had been the only word Anders had heard. The first time Fenris had ever said it to him.

So, no. Fenris had never been a participant in Kirkwall’s Uprising. Had never believed in the world that Anders and his spirit saw – the abstract utopia of Mage Freedom. But he believed in Anders, and in the support nearly all of his friends had shown Anders that night. He didn’t know if it was prophecy or delusion, but it was a belief so strong and persuasive, it changed Fenris’s world. That was what he was a participant in.

Fenris didn’t think the Seeker would appreciate the distinction. He cleared his throat.

“Yes,” he said.

The Seeker’s face darkened. She nodded sternly, and took a note in a black bound book.

“You are a Tevinter?” she asked next.

Fenris saw no reason to deny this. If his accent hadn’t given it away, his facial features and skintone definitely would.

“Yes,” he said.

“Would you say your background has predisposed you to sympathies with mages and their anarchist political agenda?”

Fenris was absolutely certain that his background had thoroughly convinced him that mages were selfish, dangerous, tyrannical snots, best kept away from the rest of society. And he was also absolutely certain that he still considered them more admirable, worthy, and empathetic, than most southerners did.

He did not think the Seeker could possibly understand his position as a former slave. He said nothing.

“Are you a spy for the Imperial Chantry, or a member of the Venatori, the Cult of Zazikel, or other fringe Tevinter political group?”

Fenris rolled his eyes. “No.”

“But you are familiar with the Venatori and the Cult of Zazikel?” the Seeker pressed.

“One would have to bury their head in a metre of sand to be unaware of them,” Fenris snarled.

The Seeker frowned, but seemed to concede the point. She left another mark in her book and altered her line of questioning.

“Where would I find the Champion of Kirkwall, Hawke?” she asked.

Fenris blanched. He drew his mouth in a tight thin line.

The Seeker attempted to wait him out. But when he would still not speak, she attempted to prompt him.

“Has he fled south to Ferelden, or north to Tevinter?” she asked. “Or is he still here in the Marches? He appears to retain the employ of servants at his Estate, here in Kirkwall.”

Fenris said nothing.

“Are you familiar with his sister, Warden Bethany Hawke, or brother, Warden Carver Hawke? Do you believe he has gone to the Wardens for protection?”

Fenris said nothing.

“You will not speak?” the Seeker asked.

No. Fenris would not speak.

Varric had coached him briefly – coached all of them – on what to say if the Seeker caught them.

But Fenris knew already that he could say nothing. He was a poor liar. He could hold his face still, so as to hide his emotions from an observer – it was how he managed to break even at weekly Diamondback games. But as soon as Fenris spoke, the Seeker would know what he said for truth or lie, and it would damn Hawke.

He had no way to fool her. Fenris could say nothing.

“What of the Apostate Anders?” the Seeker asked. “Are you as loyal to him, as you are to Hawke?”

Yes, Fenris thought. Though he did not dare say it.

The Seeker turned away momentarily, she walked to the far side of the room, and retrieved something off a desk. When she returned with it clutched in her hand, Fenris recognised Varric’s book about Hawke and the rest of them. The Tale of the Champion.

“Are you familiar with this book, Fenris?” she asked.

Fenris cleared his throat.

“Populist drivel,” he managed to say.

“It says here-” She flipped through the pages. “-that the Apostate Anders was responsible for the attack on Kirkwall’s Chantry, and the subsequent call for the Annulment and Battle at the Gallows. Is this correct?”

It was. But Fenris would not admit to it. Not to the Seeker, who only knew how to condemn.

“This book also indicates that you and the Apostate Anders argued frequently, and that neither of you bore kindness towards the other… If you are protecting him for the sake of your mutual friends, know I will keep what you have shared secret between us.”

Fenris had to work not to flinch at that.

It was not what the Seeker had said – which had been the natural conclusion from what Varric had written. And it was not what Varric had written – he had understood very little about Fenris in some ways, and had begun drafting the book when Fenris had been greater at odds with Anders.

But Fenris felt somehow sad that this was what had been immortalised of himself and Anders. And that, if Fenris perished here, there might be no one to remind Anders that Varric’s account of events was untrue. Or not all that was true, at any rate.

“Where would I find the Apostate Anders?” the Seeker asked directly now.

Fenris said nothing. He would not say anything. He would not move at all – not even breathe – if he could help it.

“You refuse to speak. Even after I have told you that I speak in the name of Most Holy, and when you do not answer, it is her that you defy.”

The Seeker was not asking a question this time.

Still, Fenris said nothing.

The Seeker let out a sigh.

“I do not imagine you are very familiar with the Seekers of Truth,” she said.

Fenris said nothing. He knew a little – but only what he had read.

“The Maker bestows us with gifts, so we may carry out His will,” she explained. “Special abilities. No two Seekers’ gifts are alike.”

Fenris said nothing. He had read this before. But he betrayed nothing, not even a twitch of his eye or ear.

The Seeker removed her glove, flexed her fingers, and drew a power into it. Whether this power was holy or demonic, Fenris could not say. But it was magic of some sort. He knew magic when he saw it.

“My gift,” the Seeker said, “is to set lyrium aflame, so that it burns to the touch.”

That did not sound promising. Although, still, Fenris betrayed nothing.

“It is usually Templars with lyrium in their blood. And it is the responsibility of the Seekers to oversee the Templars,” the Seeker explained. “So I have always seen my gift as a sign from the Maker, that I should rein in the undisciplined of the Order.”

She paused a moment, before continuing.

“But perhaps the Maker also gave me this gift, intending for me to find a use for it now.”

Pain suddenly seized up Fenris’s sides, bursting over his skin as his lyrium brands lit up white hot. He clenched his jaw, and failed to hold back a strangled cry of pain as he convulsed in his chair.

And, still, the pain did not recede. Fenris could barely think for the burning agony that had overtaken him. His skin felt like it would peel off him, pulling blood and veins and nerves with it. Like being flayed alive, over and over, layer upon layer, and with no end in sight.

He couldn’t see for the tears that had sprung into his eyes. Couldn’t hear for the sound of the screams in his ears. Couldn’t breathe for the burn constricting his throat. His entire world was the pain and paralysis coursing through him. And at such an intensity, Fenris couldn’t remember ever having felt such an agony before. At least not since he’d first been branded – since Danarius had first affixed the lyrium to his flesh to start with.

Fenris felt a sudden surge of anger towards Danarius – the likes of which he had not felt in some time. For Danarius had been the one to affix these lyrium brands to Fenris – the ones the Seeker was using to torment him with this unspeakable pain. Danarius had made him, it seemed, to be tortured.

And yet, Fenris had to concede, if Danarius had made him to be tortured, he’d never shown the Seeker’s interest in following through with this intent. He had never visited this type of physical pain upon Fenris just for the sake of it, no matter how Fenris upset him with his reticence or unruliness. He had never turned his magic against Fenris like this and revelled in the base sadism of watching Fenris writhe in agony, simply because Fenris could find no answer to please him.

Even Hadriana, Fenris realised, had never hurt him quite like this. Fenris thought she had shown him the limits of human cruelty, when she’d tormented him on the examination table. But Fenris saw now that Hadriana was outmatched by this Seeker and her magic, and those limits were really as depthless and endless as the Void.

Fenris could have said how long that pain lasted, but it was gone, as suddenly as it had come. His whole body was still shaking, his muscles spasming, and his eyes streaming with tears. But he could see and hear and think clearly again. He could breathe, and his lungs gasped wildly for breath.

He’d fallen out of his chair, and two of the Seeker’s people grabbed him, twisting his arms and wrists where the cuffs restrained him. They forced him back into his seat, facing the Seeker.

Her expression was hard and tight, as if it had been cut from marble. There was no mercy in her eyes.

“Let me ask again,” she said. “Where would I find the Champion Hawke, or the Apostate Anders?”

Fenris snarled and spat, and said nothing.

He saw now that this Seeker was far more dangerous than anyone they had faced. And Fenris knew with a certainty that could not allow her near Hawke, or Anders, or Justice, or any of them. He was still himself, and he knew that he would do anything to prevent that outcome. He would rather die, than lead this Seeker to any of those he loved.

But Fenris also knew that he would not survive this.

Oh, it was possible that his body would make it out alive, in some form or other – even his mind, perhaps. But he would not be making it out of here alive – the person he had worked so hard to become during his time in Kirkwall – the one that would never again stoop to the atrocities he’d committed in Seheron and betray those who had shown him love and freedom and kindness and trust.

The Seeker intended to overwrite him – to break his mind and soul, and remake him in her own twisted image. Fenris knew this because it had happened to him once before. He knew it, also, because he had overseen the torture of Qunari prisoners in Seheron. And he was not foolish enough to believe himself so unique or special, as to think he might succeed in saving himself where they had failed.

For the moment, Fenris was still himself, and he knew he would endure anything to protect his loved ones. But a month, a week, a day, an hour from now… Fenris did not know how long it would take, but eventually he would be someone else. The Seeker would tear everything away from him – all love and dignity and every conviction he possessed – everything except pain. And at that point, Fenris knew whatever he became would say anything – do anything – just to make it stop.

It would tell her about Hawke and his family, and every cause Fenris that had helped Hawke champion since he’d come south. It would tell her everything it knew about Anders and Isabela’s plans in Dairsmuid. It would tell her every fond secret Fenris had been too embarrassed to share, and every cruel jibe that Fenris had known better than to voice.

The thing that she would make Fenris into would betray all of them completely. And even if Anders and Isabela managed to avoid the worst of the Seeker’s retribution, make it home safely, and find it in themselves to forgive such an animal – to love such grotesquerie – Fenris did not think it would be capable of the same.

But, Fenris reminded himself, for the moment, he was still himself. And he would hold onto that – hold onto himself – for as long as he could. He would not give the Seeker Anders’s and Isabela’s location, nor Hawke’s. And he would do his best to take that information with him, when the Seeker shredded him to pieces.

“You are not going to make this easy, are you?” the Seeker said, magic coming alight in her palm once more.

No, Fenris thought.

But he didn’t say it with anything except his glare. He grit his teeth. He had to brace himself for the next round.

He had to keep his mouth shut, so as not to say anything. He had to keep his mind empty, so as not to have anything to say.

The pain shot through him again. And Fenris tried not to think about it, or think about anything, as it lanced up his spine and burned its way down into his bones. The searing treachery of his lyrium once again chased away the world around him and plunged him into a singular state of pulsing hurt.

He couldn’t have said how long the pain lasted, anymore than it had the first time. But when Fenris came to his jaw was open, saliva pooling on the floor. And he was afraid he had already said something – given something up – when he felt the cuffs at his wrists fall away, withered by magic.

Someone was looking down at him with wide hazel eyes. There was blood flowing from a cut so high on the inside of her forearm it was nearly at the crease beneath her elbow.

“Are you all right, Fenris?” Merrill asked.

Fenris didn’t have to think then either. It hardly mattered who had saved him, or how, or with what evil magicks. He lunged up and grasped salvation with both hands.

Encircling his arms around Merrill’s back and burying his face into her thorax, he clung to her.

“Oh!” Merrill let out a startled gasp of breath.

Her skin was cold. He could feel the edge of her ribs digging into his brow, just below the abdomen. And when she blanketed her arms around his shoulders, the flowing blood on her arm brushed over his neck – hot and stinging with magic. Compared to the Seeker’s magic, it felt like a caress.

“It will be alright, Fenris,” she said, as he pulled her closer, pressing into her diaphragm. “It will be alright.”

He took a couple of shuddering breaths, before speaking.

“Why?” he asked.

“Hmm?” Merrill ran her fingers over the part in his hair, and brushed it down. “Why what?”

Fenris felt his throat constrict. Was she just playing dumb, the way she always did?

“Why are you here?!” he demanded. Why you? Why me?

“Oh,” Merrill said. “Well, I went to see Aveline here at the Keep, after Varric and Hawke decided we should split up. And I was telling her that it really didn’t seem fair – the splitting up – when they’re so good at sneaking and have all the contacts they do and are much better at negotiating with humans than us. And she didn’t seem very happy with it – with me, I mean – but she told me to hide in the closet and to not cause trouble by breathing too loud.”

That wasn’t what Fenris had meant. She had to know this wasn’t what Fenris had meant.

“So I was here, in the Keep, when they brought you in. Not that I saw you, I mean. But Aveline told me about it and said she was worried but couldn’t get in the way of it. And I told her I’d get in the way instead then, so I am.” Merrill bit her lip and looked a little guilty. “Only you won’t be able to talk to her about any of it, because we agreed it was best for everyone the less she knew – or best for everyone but the Seeker, I mean.”

That wasn’t what Fenris had meant. Why was Merrill saving him? After three weeks snapping at her in the too-close confines of their safehouse. After some eight years of animosity. After all the times they’d fought over favours from Isabela and Anders and Hawke.

This was the perfect opportunity – the best one she’d ever have – to be quietly rid of him. Varric and Hawke had already given her a ready-made excuse. All the witch had needed to do was stand back and let the Seeker have him, and then she could have taken Isabela and Anders all for herself – their attentions undivided – and neither would have thought to blame her for it.

Fenris was sure it was what he would have done, were their situations reversed.

“Let’s hug more later,” Merrill said, interrupting his thoughts. She prodded Fenris’s arms loose and eased him to his feet. “We need to do something about the Seeker. And we can’t go rushing and making mistakes, but I won’t be able to hold her forever.”

Fenris turned his attention to the rest of the room. The guards were slumped against the wall, dazed and unconscious. But Merrill had been more careful with the Seeker. She stood, frozen in place – her lips pursed and The Tale of the Champion clutched tightly in her fist. And Fenris winced, observing the anger and fearlessness on her face.

But Merrill had gone for the door on the far side of the room. She reached past the threshold and took someone by the hand – a broad hand in a heavy leather archery glove – and pulled them through.

Fenris blanched as she led Varric, as silent and docile as a lamb, into the middle of the room and eased him into the chair where Fenris had once sat.

“That’s it~” she said.

Varric’s unfocussed eyes met hers, as she bent down and spoke. Droplets of blood went static in the air, and seeped slowly into Varric’s ears and eyes and nose.

“It’s better, I think, if you don’t remember where Isabela and Anders are,” she told him. “You’ll have to make something up to tell the Seeker about Hawke and Fenris. But Isabela left for the Eastern Seas a few months back. And Anders? You were so angry with him, you didn’t want to know where he was going at all.”

Varric made no acknowledgement of what had been said, but Fenris knew, even with his senses and brands dulled by magebane poisoning, that the witch’s spell had closed around him.

“The Seekers’ men caught you in Darktown, beneath the Dwarven Quarter,” she was telling him now. “It wasn’t very interesting how it happened. You were outnumbered, and there was nobody else nearby to distract them with, so you surrendered and let them bring you here. You can imagine the details how you like, but you don’t think they’re worth worrying much about. It wasn’t the sort of exciting thing you’d want to put in a book.”

Merrill brushed her lips briefly over his forehead, as she massaged bloody fingers against his temples.

“You’ll be good and keep yourself and everyone else safe,” she said. “And you won’t irritate the Seeker too much – telling her that her mother and father are her Makers, and not whatever sky god she thinks. You’ll be smart, but not so smart you’ll get yourself in trouble.”

Fenris watched as Merrill let Varric go. And then she went to the Seeker, gave her the same story about how Varric had been captured, then reached for the knife at the Seeker’s belt.

Merrill studied it for a moment – the clean polished steel, the orange pommel, the unusual serrated tip, before slicing it against her arm and coating it in her own blood. She didn’t flinch, as she eased the blade into the Seeker’s left hand.

Merrill moved back, a step first, and then a startled jump as the Seeker came to life and lunged forward.

Fenris startled himself, braced to fight the Seeker, or else endure her retaliation. But the witch held up her arm and pressed him back.

“They shouldn’t be able to see us,” she muttered at him under her breath. “But we shouldn’t do anything to draw their attention anyhow.”

And Fenris saw that this was true. Because it was not him or the witch who the Seeker’s eyes were fixed upon, but Varric, who had similarly come alive and squirmed uncomfortably in the chair.

“You know exactly why I’m here!” the Seeker cried.

She whipped the book up in Varric’s face, and the flat side smacked against Varric’s nose, before the book fell open on his lap. And Fenris tensed again, as she held the dagger – and Merrill’s blood evaporating off its surface – to Varric’s throat.

“Don’t,” Merrill mumbled, still holding her arm up loosely to block Fenris’s way. “She won’t.”

And the Seeker didn’t. She flipped the dagger in her hand and drove it through the open book, narrowly avoiding Varric’s leg in the process.

“Time to start talking, dwarf,” she commanded. “They tell me you’re good at it.”

Varric lifted the skewered book and looked at it dumbly. “What do you want to know, Seeker?” he asked.

“Where are they?” the Seeker demanded. “The Champion Hawke? The Apostate Anders? Where have they gone? What are they planning?”

“Would that I knew.” Varric shrugged and let out a sigh. “I haven’t seen them in years. I don’t know where they are now.”

They continued. The Seeker repeated many of the questions she had asked Fenris, and a number of others. Varric claimed ignorance more often than not, with the occasional grain of truth to give a better impression of believability.

He had always been a much better liar than Fenris. Calmer affect. Fewer tells. And the sort of congeniality that gave the impression you were always being lied to a bit. Which made it all the much harder to tell small flatteries from great deceits.

Fenris suspected, were he in the Seeker’s shoes, he would not know what to believe.

And slowly, slowly, Varric was starting to get a word in edgewise, between the questions. A suggestion here and there. An answer that dangled dangerous implications, tempting the Seeker with the prospect of challenging them.

Fenris looked to Merrill, who was watching the interrogation intently, and paying no mind to the blood wafting from her arm. He wondered how much she was influencing the turns the conversation was taking, and then dismissed the question.

He huddled, taking shelter behind her.

Something Varric had said made the Seeker bristle indignantly.

“The Champion and his apostate sister came to Kirkwall to spread subversion against the Chantry,” she insisted.

Varric had taken on a look that was almost sympathetic.

“Maybe it’s not as devious as you’re imagining, Seeker,” he suggested. “The Fifth Blight sent plenty of people running north.”

“So the Champion just happened to have dealings with the Qunari, joined forces with an abominated rebel Warden, a Dalish blood mage, a raider of Rivaini descent, the then-expatriated Prince of Starkhaven, and a Tevinter spirit warrior and fugitive?!”

There was no reason he should have been surprised. But Fenris flinched anyhow.

“And for what?” the Seeker demanded. “Coin?!”

“Hey!” Varric’s smile cut like glass. “Magical Tevinter elves need to eat too, Seeker.”

Fenris looked down at his feet. He already knew it, but-

He really was no different than a mage to them, was he? Just another accursed undesirable, with which to build the case against Hawke.

They traded repartee a bit longer. But the Seeker seemed more worn now.

“You say he came here to escape the Blight.” she was saying. “The Champion was at the heart of it when it all began… and you knew him even before he was Champion…”

She sounded more unsure than ever before, but she jutted her chin up, in a show of pride.

“Tell me then,” she commanded. “If you can’t point me to him, tell me everything you know.”

Varric looked absolutely shocked for a moment, though he swiftly covered his surprise with an air of pomp.

But it was a little too obvious the way he stalled for time – making a point to lean slowly forward in his seat. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again, several times before he committed to words.

“You aren’t worried I’ll just make it up as I go?”

“Kaffas,” Fenris muttered, unable to stifle the curse in his frustration.

And Merrill had, similarly, taken on a sharp frown.

Varric had played their hand too far. And the Seeker’s eyes were boring into him now, so sharply and critically that Fenris was sure this entire charade was over.

“Don’t worry. I have it,” Merrill said, in a fierce whisper.

Do you?! Fenris nearly exploded at her.

Because it was just like a blood mage to think they had a situation like this under control, to think their magic limitless, and then fumble it.

Fenris knew this experiment might be only a second from failure. And Fenris knew there were only so many times you could alter someone’s mind and rewrite such a confrontation, before crippling their mental facilities beyond repair and, more importantly, beyond his and the witch’s current need for subterfuge. And Fenris knew also that the witch had only so much blood to use, and how many failures could she tolerate, before needing to bleed out one of the guards for more?

“I have it,” Merrill seethed. She gave her bloody arm a great shake.

More blood saturated the air, and the witch winced from the pain. But she held back her whimper. She made no sound as she focussed on the Seeker all her magic and will.

There was another moment, and then the Seeker spoke.

“Am I worried?” she scoffed. “Not at all.”

Fenris let out a sigh of relief at the exact instance Merrill did.

She had done it. For all the witch’s arrogance and hubris, she had at least not failed.

And Varric, too, had himself mastered this time. He gave the Seeker an enigmatic smile, and began his story.

Fenris spent a while listening.

Varric was embellishing a tale about Hawke and Aveline’s escape from Lothering, which included more details about Aveline’s first husband than Fenris imagined she’d be pleased by.

Merrill had stepped away, gone to inspect and alter the guards she’d left unconscious at the back of the room.

But it wasn’t until Varric neared the end of this chapter in his story, that Fenris deemed it safe to leave him and the Seeker to their own devices.

“Salvation was at hand,” Varric declared, “if you can call it that, Seeker, when it’s a Witch of the Wilds offering.”

“You are making this Witch of the Wilds part up,” the Seeker replied, in a voice more mulishly amused than truly critical.

Varric brushed this off. “In any case, the Hawkes and the Vallens had cut a deal to be escorted to Gwaren. And they were just about to depart when, without warning, brave Ser Wesley collapsed to the scorched earth!”

The Seeker’s face fell.

“The Hawkes all gasped,” Varric said. “They were shocked! Devastated! Even Bethany, sweet girl, who, as you can imagine, wasn’t altogether too pleased to be travelling with a templar. But Aveline… Aveline just…”

Varric trailed off here with a lamenting sigh, a shake of his head, and a sharp eye fixed on his audience. He was watching to see her reaction.

The Seeker did not disappoint. After a moment, the anticipation overcame her.

“What?” she asked. “What did she do?”

Fenris scoffed, turning away in disgust as Varric obliged her.

It was for the best that things had taken so favourable a turn, but Fenris could not help but feel bitter. Not thirty minutes ago, this Seeker had seen fit to have Fenris tortured for information. And now? She was eating lies freely from Varric’s palm.

Fenris went to approach Merrill, who was bent over the first of the two guards and whispering blood and memories into his mind.

There was less blood condensed in the air around her, now that so much had been burnt and consumed, and the intensity of her remaining spells had waned. But her arm was still cut and bleeding freely, and her face had gone from a warm and healthy brown to a sickly grey.

She stood that first guard up to his feet – still dazed, but rapidly regaining himself – before turning to Fenris.

“Oh, Fenris!” She spoke as if she’d just noticed him, although Fenris was certain she’d seen him approach. “We’re almost done here. It’s just this other man and we can leave,” she said, pointing to the second guard.

She faltered for a moment.

“And then the ones in the hall,” she added. “And then the other woman that came with the Seeker – the one with the red hair… And anyone else that saw you…” Her ears twitched uncomfortably. “But maybe we can do some of them tomorrow, after I’ve had a sleep and some water or something to eat. You know what Anders is always telling me about blood salts or sugars or something…”

She proceeded to the next guard, and bent over to begin beguiling him. But before she did-

“We should also have the Seeker move her investigation,” she added seriously. “It might take a while, if Varric is going to tell the whole story. And I think Aveline is tired of having them in the Keep.”

Fenris scoffed, as she finally turned her full attention to the guard in front of her.

Who did the witch think she was fooling with her stubborn grit and veiled insinuations? She was going to drive herself to illness and exhaustion before she made it out of this room, let alone down the hall.

And what victim would she find and use to complete her dark magicks then? Whose blood would she extract as tithe? His?

But Fenris knew before he’d even finished the thought. He realised that, really, he’d known for a long time:

The witch was too proud to ask for his blood. Far too proud. Which, if Fenris twisted the words and removed the unhealthy amount of cynicism he knew he possessed, really meant that she was too principled to ask for it.

She would finish this job herself, or faint from blood loss before making it out of the Keep. The way Fenris would have died before betraying everyone to the Seeker, Merrill would have died before asking or extracting his help with this.

And he could have left her to it, he realised. He could have left her to do whatever she could manage herself, and then left her unconscious on the Keep’s red rugs while he escaped. Or he could have carried her to Aveline, or the former Circle mages, if he felt like being kinder.

The witch had come here to save him, and Fenris knew she would let him act like he wasn’t even a part of it, if it was what he wanted. She would have let him act like he owed her nothing, if that was what he needed.

Fenris was a coward in all things. But he would not be a coward in this. Not now.

He raised a hand to his forehead, where the Seeker’s people had struck him above the eye. The blood had congealed, clotting in his hair and over his forehead, and Fenris tugged at it – scraped it free and scratched the bruise to bleeding once more. He cupped his hand over the blood and collected it, before squatting down and reaching for the witch’s hand.

“Here,” he said, as he scraped clot and scab and blood over her palm.

Her lips pursed into a frown, and she would not meet his eyes for shame, but she accepted it. His blood turned hot and electric in her hand, as her magic coursed through it. And it evaporated as she bewitched the guard.

So even though she would not ask for his blood, she would accept it.

That was a good thing, Fenris thought. It was one thing that she thought herself too good to ask this from him. But he didn’t think he could love her, if she thought she was too good to take from him.

==

Fenris draped over the top of his luggage a thick sealskin coat – one that would weather the elements on the open sea. He tucked its edges inside the trunk, and pressed everything under it down. And he finished his story, as he flipped the lid and latched the trunk shut. As if, now that his confession was complete, any stray complications could be tucked back inside Paragon Pandora’s box.

Anders gaped and sputtered.

Fenris hefted the trunk off the bed with a grunt, and carried it to set beside the dolly and the stacked crates of wine. Everything packed for the trip down to the docks the following morning.

“There,” Fenris declared. “Now if I have satisfied your curiosity, mage, I must attempt to rest before-”

No, no! Fenris would not dismiss him now! This was unacceptable.

Anders pointed an accusing finger at Fenris. “You- You-” he sputtered.

“Me,” Fenris agreed warily.

“You-!”

Anders was once again struck with the inherent injustice of the universe. A mage who used blood magic was forever labelled maleficar. But what did you call Fenris when he-?!

“You used blood magic!” he shouted.

“Yes.” Fenris shirked none of the responsibility, even though he hadn’t been the one to cast the spell.

“On Varric!” Anders cried.

“Yes,” Fenris agreed.

“You used blood magic on Varric?!” Anders said. “You let Merrill use blood magic on Varric!”

A strangely besotted look made its way over Fenris’s face.

“It was the most horrific thing anyone has ever done for me,” he said wistfully. “…And mages have done some rather horrific things for me, in my life.”

Anders flinched and reeled back.

“She-? For you, she-?” he muttered, feeling almost hurt. Before he felt a surge of indignation flood him. “You let her use blood magic on Varric?!” he screamed.

“I have explained what happened in full to you, amatus.” Fenris was starting to sound impatient. “I have no need to hear it repeated back to me.”

“You turned on him!” Anders wasn’t sure if he was screaming or sobbing at this point. “You turned him over to the Seeker! You let them take him! All this time I thought it was…”

Anders gulped down tears. He had blamed himself the whole time. The whole time he’d blamed himself for what had happened with the Seeker, and with Varric, but-

“But it was you!” Anders wailed.

“Amatus…” Fenris sighed wearily. And, for the first time since he’d begun his story, the guilt finally seemed to be weighing upon him.

What could this mean, except that Anders’s anger was righteous?

He reared up. “You did this!”

“I- I believed you would-”

Fenris cut his own protests off with a groan. He massaged a hand over his forehead.

“No, I only hoped you would not blame yourself, Anders,” Fenris admitted grimly.

Anders bristled. This wasn’t about him.

Fenris was still speaking.

“Perhaps it was cruel of the witch and I to conceal from you-”

“You sold Varric out!” Anders cut him off. “You sent him off with the Seeker! To be tortured, or imprisoned, or executed in your-!”

“Stop it!” Fenris returned, furious once more. “We did no such thing! The witch and I took pains to ensure Varric’s safety under the Seeker’s care!”

“Safety?!” Anders demanded. “How can you talk about-?!”

“Varric had a way with her,” Fenris asserted, with a challenging jut of his chin. “A far better way with her than myself. He was able to convince her of his value to her alive and whole and sane. And she…”

Fenris rolled his eyes with a groan and a grimace.

“She enjoys his stories,” he said petulantly.

“And what happens when she’s decided she’s heard enough of them?!” Anders demanded.

“The witch and I trailed Varric and the Seeker for nearly two weeks following their departure from the city,” Fenris said, ignoring Anders’s question. “We monitored them closely. In that time, the Seeker instigated no more violence against him. And we decided to turn back for home only when…”

Fenris trailed off, crossing his arms over his chest and shuffling uncomfortably on his feet.

“When what?” Anders said, voice hard. What was it then, that had made Fenris and Merrill decide it was safe to abandon Varric?!

Fenris’s face pinched into a frown.

“They began… flirting with one another,” he admitted.

Anders recoiled.

“No,” he protested hoarsely.

Varric wouldn’t. Would he?! Not with the Seeker, surely?! Anders remembered them leading the force from Antiva to annul Dairsmuid Circle, and they’d been even worse than the Templars!

“It became uncomfortable to watch,” Fenris said grimly. “Varric would…” His face pinched in disgust, but he soldiered on. “He would sneak chickpeas from his stew and place them in a napkin. Having secured this supply, he would wait for a chance to throw them at the back of the Seeker’s head, then deny it when she turned to confront him.”

Anders couldn’t believe this.

“How is that flirting?!” he demanded.

“Perhaps one needs to see it for themselves, to understand,” Fenris allowed unsurely. “In any case, Varric was well. And the witch and I were running short on supplies, and eager to be home and abed.”

Fenris had begun to look smitten again, tips of his ears twitching with embarrassment.

“I can’t believe you!” Anders shouted. “You sold Varric out! You sold him out to go get your bloody rocks off with a blighted blood ma-!”

“And what should we have done then?!” Fenris shot back. He looked more furious than ever now. “Should the witch have left me then, given me up to be tortured by the Seeker?! Would that have pleased you, Anders?!”

“N-No!” Anders cried out in startled protest. “Of course I didn’t want-!”

Fenris wasn’t having this. “Then would you have preferred the Seeker capture Hawke? Or the witch?!” His face twisted into a sneer. “Or am I the only lover you find yourself so discontented with, that I am to be badgered, as if Varric’s discomfort was no price to pay for my safety?!”

“Of course I didn’t mean that!” Anders hissed, half-plea and half-admonishment. “I just-” Anders let out a strangled whine in his frustration. “I don’t see why anyone had to be taken to start with! You should have fought for everyone-!”

“We should have slaughtered her then?!” Fenris demanded. “The Seeker, and all her men, and the Left Hand of the Divine, after Aveline had already promised them the hospitality of the Keep?!”

The look Fenris gave Anders was full of loathing.

“And what should we have done when the Divine retaliated?!” Fenris prompted. “We should have further provoked an Exalted March upon the city – already under pressure from Starkhaven – and with only the Guard and a handful of sellswords to defend it?! You recall this was before the witch acquired her use of necromancy and her standing army of corpses!”

“You should have tried to save everyone!” Anders roared. “We could have- You could have-”

Anders sputtered ineffectively for a moment, before regaining his footing.

“You never should have split up to start with!” he insisted. “If I had been there-?!”

“‘If you had been there’?” Fenris cut him off with a sneer. “Had you been there, I am sure you would have engineered some ingenious solution,” he spat sarcastically. “Found some offensive landmark or work of architecture to blast into oblivion, perhaps?”

Anders blinked incredulously, taken aback by Fenris’s sudden renewed vehemence about his attack on the Chantry. But Fenris gave him no time to take it in, before continuing on the offensive.

“But you were not there,” he reminded, voice dripping with contempt. “You and Isabela were in Dairsmuid – halfway around the known world. So you will have to live with the meagre amount the witch and I managed to salvage in your absence: both of your lovers, the integrity of your clinic, the Chantry’s continued ignorance of your dealings in Rivain and with the leaders of the Mage Rebellion, Hawke, the ongoing safety of the Gallows mages, the lives and good names of your associates in the Fereldan community.

“All of this you retain,” Fenris concluded his list of Anders’s blessings. “But, no. Clearly you have every reason to be displeased by this outcome,” he spat.

“This isn’t about me!” Anders protested. “Don’t change the subject! This about you and what you and Merrill did to Varric!”

“I told you I did not want to see you!”

Fenris roared, finally angry enough to begin shouting in earnest, and Anders stood up taller, stretching away from Fenris’s gnashing fangs.

“I told you to give me no reason for disappointment or resentment!” Fenris shouted. “To come to me only when you were prepared to shelve all other concerns and afford me, and only me, with your attentions and affections!” He scoffed, as he went to fluff his sheets for bed. “And instead you have barged in here at the first sign of discontent, to interrogate me about an episode concerning Varric and the witch, the result of which has long since been decided!”

Anders shied back. He did feel a little guilty for disobeying the letter of Fenris’s law. But what else was he meant to do, after hearing what had transpired with the Seeker?!

“And I have accepted your presence!” Fenris pointed out. “Though you ignored my express wishes! I have remained patient, so as to explain the situation to you. But I have indulged you long enough.”

He pulled back the sheets, took a seat on the edge of the bed, crossed his arms and one leg over the other, and glared up at Anders.

“If you will not leave, I will change the subject as many times as I like,” Fenris declared. “If you wish to talk, then talk: did you truly believe the witch and I were ignorant of your dalliances with Hawke?”

Anders felt his throat constrict. His forehead suddenly felt balmy and damp. He studied Fenris, looking for some clue to the answer he was meant to give – but it seemed Fenris hardly expected one. Fenris knew the answer already.

Anders coughed uncomfortably. “So did Merr tell you about-?”

Fenris cut him off. “I told them,” he seethed. “I told them your word could not be trusted!”

Anders curled in on himself, feeling defeated.

So Fenris had never trusted him. Had always doubted Anders’s ability to be true and loving and faithful. And of course, Anders had given him every reason to doubt – was too sinful to do anything but hurt Fenris more.

But it seemed Fenris was talking about another sort of trust. One that made it harder for Anders to sink into his desolation and self-pity.

“When your demon came to me, concerned about your behaviour, confessing to infidelities with Hawke, and I took it upon myself explain to him that it was only what we had agreed upon- To explain the nature of love and compromise and what you found exciting about play-acting betrayal-” Fenris made a disgusted noise before continuing. “I told Isabela and the witch! I told them you hadn’t been paying attention when we set the terms for our relationship! I told them you were too distracted with your Cookbook and iconoclastic ambitions to know what you had agreed to! And what do they say to me?!”

Anders was too busy trying to comprehend that Justice had tattled on him to Fenris to hazard a guess.

Fenris cleared his throat.

“You’re being silly again,” he intoned, in a disturbingly accurate impression of Isabela. “You know Anders is terrible at keeping that dodgy spirit of his up to date. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t paying attention at our meeting. You’re worrying yourself over nothing, sweet thing~”

Fenris gave another snort of disgust before continuing.

“You really are too hard on Merrill, Fenris. Blood mage or no – she’s as sweet as a button~ Kitten would never hurt a fly! Let alone take over the city with a roving army of corpses!” he broke out of his falsetto to snarl.

Anders was taken aback by this, too. It seemed now that Fenris was as least as angry with Isabela and Merrill, as he was with Anders himself.

“I told them!” Fenris spat furiously. “I told everyone! And it was not paranoia! I was correct! I knew it all along! All of it!”

There was a pause, as Fenris’s chest heaved, and he caught his breath.

Anders shuffled uncomfortably on his feet. “Well, if you knew all of it – about me and Hawke – then I guess you’re not too upset about it?”

Anders was tentatively hopeful. Merrill hadn’t seemed all that upset about it, after all.

Fenris regarded him darkly.

“You think not?” he asked. “You entertained an affair with Hawke in the belief that the witch and I had not given prior permission. You assumed your actions would be the cause of injury and offence, were I to learn of them, and you carried on anyhow. What evidence is there then, that you would not jump into bed with whoever next catches your eye, with no consideration for my wellbeing or the promises you have made me?”

Anders already knew the answer to Fenris’s question. He’d known it even before Merrill had caught him out, when he’d been alone in bed with Hawke, hadn’t he?

He couldn’t help loving with all his heart – couldn’t help but try to take in all the accursed and downtrodden of the world.

And Anders couldn’t give that up. He couldn’t have taken it back – not without taking back the love he had made to Fenris and Merrill and Hawke and Karl and hundreds of others between the Circle and the Pearl, not without taking back the place in his body and soul he had offered to Justice, and not without taking back the bombs he had planted beneath the Kirkwall Chantry. And he would never take that back – none of it, never.

So there was none. There was no reason to think he wouldn’t make the same mistakes again. No evidence he’d stop himself next time, where he hadn’t with Hawke. Anders knew he would always be this impulsive and selfish and filled to the brim with love.

Anders didn’t want to admit this to Fenris.

But Fenris seemed not to need the admission.

“Do you consider the generous allowances I have made to your appetites and eccentricities insignificant trifles in your singular pursuit of whatever best suits you, and only you?” Fenris said sharply. “Do you consider this behaviour appropriate? Would you be pleased and without anger towards me, were our positions reversed?”

Anders already knew the answers to these questions.

No, he didn’t consider everything Fenris had indulged and forgiven in him trifling or insignificant, but Anders knew he had acted like it. And, no, he didn’t think that was very fair or just. And, no, he wouldn’t have been happy sitting where Fenris was.

He didn’t really want to say any of that either – didn’t want to put to words how much he knew that he was difficult, that he was cursed, that nobody who loved him could escape being hurt by him, and that none of it would stop him from loving Fenris, and taking Fenris’s love in return.

But it occurred to him that Fenris probably didn’t want to go over all of that again either. That he’d already said that he’d had enough of Anders’s apologies for a lifetime. And he’d given Anders an out from the start, even though it was only now that Anders felt ashamed enough to use it.

“I… don’t really want to talk about this…” Anders muttered.

Fenris’s eyes flashed victoriously.

“No,” he agreed. “I did not think you would.”

He uncrossed his arms and reached for a jar on the nightstand, unscrewed the lid with one practised flick of his wrist.

The smell of fermenting elfroot permeated the room – the smell of the anaesthetic Anders had taught Fenris how to make.

Fenris used the salve much less often than Anders would have prescribed for someone with his condition – he’d cited not wanting to build up immunity to its numbing effect – but there was no hesitation today, as he gathered a glob on his middle finger and smeared it over the back of his neck.

He replaced the lid, before leaning back into bed, turning away from Anders, and wrapping his sheets and blankets around himself like a cocoon.

“You may help yourself to whatever is in the pantry, or any of the beds in the rest of the manor.” Fenris’s voice was muffled by the coverlet. “But as I have already said, I must attempt to rest before my fishing trip with Isabela. See yourself out of my bedroom.”

Anders stood for a moment, examining the shape of the lump on the bed. Fenris had somehow managed to curl up into a very small space, for an elf so large.

After a moment, his clawed hand emerged from the cocoon and groped about on the other side of the bed, before clasping around a volume – Lurking Horrors of the Deep: Palaeontological Evidence of Giant Squids, Whale-Sharks, and More­ – and dragging it into his sanctuary beneath the covers.

“I love you,” Anders said, voice shaky and watery.

Fenris let out a groan – strangled and furious. Like he resented this more than anything.

“We would not be having this argument if I did not love you, Anders!” Fenris hissed. “Now, get out of my room!”

==

Anders exited the mansion feeling wretched and miserable – tears overflowing from his eyes.

Hawke didn’t want to see him, and now Fenris didn’t either. Or actually it was Fenris who hadn’t wanted to see him first. But it didn’t matter because nobody wanted him regardless.

Anders sniffled, but it wasn’t quite yet the sort of feeling that made him want to head back to the clinic and curl in bed and forget he existed.

There was something urgent and angry in him, demanding to be heard.

Anders ran down the street, winced at the last sliver of sun reflecting off the Waking Sea caught his eye and momentarily blinded him. He let out a wracking sob, and ignored the startled passers-by who turned to look at him. And some of those passers-by were doubtless elves and vashoth and foreigners and mages – people who maybe hadn’t had it so good a year or a month or a day ago – but were now wrapped in the comfortable lives that Merrill had gone out of her way to build for them.

Something about that made Anders howl with fury and sadness. And everyone looked at him like he was crazy, and maybe he was. Because he knew he should be happy for them, but he didn’t see how he and Varric could be the only ones left behind?!

Why, if Merrill had done everything right, were the two of them still miserable?!

There were only two people fit to answer for this. But Varric was far away, in the custody of a Seeker, and Anders himself was in no mood for introspection.

So Anders raced ahead, into the setting sun. And he intended to turn up the next boulevard and head for Viscount’s Way and the Keep beyond, but the sun winked below the horizon, leaving the world to burst with orange autumn dusk. And Anders saw another wink of bright red-orange making its way across the last landing before Kirkwall’s main stairwell dipped into the Lowtown market.

Nobody but her, would have been riding around in that blighted palanquin.

It floated down the stairwell – only a red dot in the distance – but Anders felt suddenly calmer, locked onto this moving target. Rage and determination filled him, and tears and sweat evaporated off him in a haze as he took off following the palanquin along the cliff face, looking down on it from above as it travelled east through Lowtown.

He tore through the yards of several of Hightown’s former mansions – now retrofitted into apartments – and ignored the broken gates and trampled pottery and scorched earth he left behind him. And having returned back to commercial streets, he passed the stairwell heading up Viscount’s way, and proceeded to the edge of the city’s highlands beyond.

The red dot was turning now, spiralling in on itself as it began the slow process of settling inside Lowtown’s most easterly plaza, tucked right into the cliff face.

It was a straight shot downwards from here, and Anders rushed behind one of the overpriced inns that sat right at the city gates, to one of Kirkwall’s less famous set of stairwells – a rickety wood thing originally constructed for the maids and porters and trash collectors that had needed a discreet entrance into Hightown from the Alienage each morning.

The stairwell remained a small and dingy thing. It was only wide enough for two people across – so passers-by kept to their right so as not to impede those travelling in the opposite direction. And it was rife with rotting planks. But it was now supported by one of the great fig trees – larger than any should usually grow – that Merrill had propagated along the top and side of the cliff to prevent soil erosion.

Its larger branches had been carefully placed beneath the shakier parts of the stairwell, before twining up around the arch at the top of the stair to hold the gates into Hightown open. And one gnarled root had hopelessly jammed the lever that had been used to collapse the top part of the stair, during times when the Alienage was on lockdown due to riots or breakouts of pestilence.

Descending that stairwell, under the shade of the fig leaves, Anders felt like he’d stepped into some sort of jungle out of the Circle picture book – rife with lions and tigers and other creatures too wonderful to be real. And yet another part of him was convinced of a grim reality – that when the fig tree had the opportunity to fruit next season, more than one poor kid was going to crack their neck trying to climb it, hanging a hundred feet above the Alienage plaza with only thin air between.

Considering this and all of the other problems Merrill had created since she became Viscount, and trying to keep an eye on where her palanquin was crossing the Alienage, Anders was so incensed that he could hardly pay attention to his descent.

He lunged down the stairs two at a time, as quickly as he could manage, and was not entirely cognisant of the winding turns in the stairwell, or the passers-by hastening out of his way – cowering on the landings rather than come close to him.

Anders moved with such careless haste, it should not have surprised him when, rather than any hypothetical child, it was him that lost his footing.

He tripped on an uneven step. And instead of pulling himself back, Anders leaned into his error – intending to use the misstep to gain greater forward momentum – miscalculated how quickly he could turn, and flipped over the railing, which came up only halfway up his thigh.

There was a split second, as Anders tipped over into empty air, that an icy panic seized his chest. He cold see clearly the distance to the ground – and every jutting edge of the tree trunk and tenement rooftop he’d make impact with on the way there – and his muscles tightened and his joints locked with spastic pain, rendering him quite paralysed.

But Justice had made Anders so that he never need fear frail mortality. And a searing burn spread through Anders’s chest, melting away cold fear and distorting the world around them with the smell of brimstone and scorched tree bark.

The ground gave way, and Anders plunged beneath its surface into a pool of boiling hot fury and molten earth.

Anders floated for a moment – submerged in that warm and comfortable space – and then it was like he was falling upwards. He was lurching back up to break the surface, some distance from his point of impact.

The palanquin was directly in front of him when he manifested at ground level within the Alienage plaza.

The corpses carrying it startled and proceeded to lower the platform off their shoulders.

They were chittering and chattering, and it was easier for Anders to understand them like this. The creaking of their bones sounded more like words – even though they were not speaking in words, but something more like intention. Like magic.

The corpses were saying that Anders shouldn’t be here. And he shouldn’t be disturbing the Mistress, the Friend of the Dead, like this.

Or that’s what a few of them were saying anyhow.

Another bunch were saying to be quiet. Couldn’t they see this interloper was agitated? And there was no way they could fight off a Rage without at least a few Horrors or Revenants on their side. And the Mistress would not want them to fight anyhow. So it was better to just shut up and stay out of the Rage’s way.

And one corpse in particular was saying that it was very unfair for the Mistress to show this spirit so much preferential treatment, when he was so pompous and green, and there were much older and wiser spirits to show favour to.

At which point everyone else said to shut up and that, even if there were older and wiser spirits, the Mistress had known this one the longest. Or at least her body had. And anyhow there was no questioning how love worked, unless you were a spirit of love, which none of them were.

Anders left them all to argue that one out amongst themselves. He reached with his claws for the edge of the palanquin, leaving behind black burn marks and flecks of magma, as he hauled himself up.

Having boarded the palanquin, he lurched forward into the shade of its canopy. Forward to her.

Merrill was sitting on a pile of cushions, reclined against a back rest. She was browsing a series of reports clutched in one hand. In the other, she held one of the muffins that Aveline made sometimes – bran and honey, half-eaten.

Her eyes turned to him suddenly – wide and hazel and alert. She yawned and stretched and quickly stuffed the rest of the muffin into her mouth.

“Hello, vhenan,” she said, crumbs falling from her mouth.

Anders rose up angrily, and tore into her verbally… mentally?

How could you do this?! How can you call yourself a goddess when you-?!

There were a thousand thoughts moving through Anders’s mind. Lava and time and space and blood and the Blackmarch and the Baroness and Varric. And Fenris, who probably didn’t love him anymore. And Hawke, who’d probably never loved him at all. And Merrill, who had always, since her very first day in this city, gone as far out of her way as possible to belittle-

“Ooph,” Merrill winced badly. “Do we have to talk like this, Anders? I have to talk like this to all the spirits all day for work. And it’s tiring enough with them, but you’re not actually very good at it at all, are you? Your thoughts are too jumbled up to make much sense of.”

And whose fault was that?! Anders protested.

But even that was jumbled.

Anders didn’t know why it was Merrill’s fault. He just felt like it was. It had something to do with the way she'd taunted him after he'd almost attacked innocent Ella, and the way she’d fed the liver muffins he’d made especially for her to that halla, and the way she’d gotten between his legs and opened her mouth so wide and pressed her soft fleshy tongue-

Anders didn’t even notice the way Merrill had gotten to her feet and approached him, until a spray of frost blasted him in the face.

He hissed, as the cold sunk its way through his skin and into his core.

“You really need to calm down, vhenan,” Merrill said, shaking the snowflakes off her palm.

But as she paused, more ice condensed over her hand. And she tiptoed up, pressing it over his forehead.

“See, you have a fever for sure,” she told him. “And no mouth, so I can’t understand you.”

Anders felt himself boil with even more rage.

“And what about this?” Merrill said.

She pointed at a claw that had sprouted out of Anders’s torso – red and lava and liquid. Though it shrivelled and turned black, as Merrill jabbed it back with her icy hand.

“You’re always giving Orsino a difficult time about going around looking too abominable,” Merrill scolded. “So if you’re not going to be nicer to him, you could at least get rid of these extra hands and feet and other bits.”

Anders grudgingly felt that Merrill might have a point. That, if nothing else, he did at least want to be better than Orsino. So he worked very hard, if not to calm down, then at least to experience anger and vengeance in a more mortal sort of fashion.

He reached up to carve a mouth into his face, then moulded the rest of himself. His molten surface cooled and hardened into an earthen shell, which then cracked and began to peel off, revealing warm pink skin.

Anders hastened the process, scratching and ripping at his reborn skin with his nails, so the dirt crumbled off of him. He took turns running his hands under the sleeve of the opposite arm, and shaking the extra matter out of his coat.

His coat was the only piece of clothing enchanted to repel heat and fire, and thus the only thing he was still wearing.

“I can’t believe you!” Anders hissed, just as soon as he’d finished remaking himself. “How can you even-?!”

Merrill reached up suddenly and pressed her forefinger over his left eye, tracing a line of stinging pain over his brow.

“Ow!” Anders slapped her hand away angrily. “Don’t touch me!”

He reached up to cradle his eye and, as he brushed his fingers over his brow, he realised the pain was from his eyebrow growing in – hair follicles rapidly expanding as coarse hair broke through them.

“Sorry,” Merrill said, not sounding very sorry at all. “I think you’re upset with me. But it’s hard to tell exactly what sort of expression you’re trying to make when you don’t have any eyebrows. So I thought-”

“That doesn’t mean you get to touch me and use magic on me without asking!” Anders roared.

Merrill frowned.

“But if you don’t have eyebrows-” she began to protest.

“I can grow them in myself!” Anders snapped.

Merrill’s nose pinched, and there was probably something she could have said about how he never asked permission to touch her or use his magic to heal her. But she just crossed her arms over her chest moodily and waited Anders out as he ran his hands, glowing with creation magic, over his brow and scalp and chin.

As he brushed his hand over his stubble – making sure it was properly coarse and bristly – he realised the palanquin had come to a stop, and that it had at some point begun moving to start with.

Merrill reached out for the breast of Anders’s coat this time, attempting to fold it the garment closed and cover his nudity in the process.

“Why don’t we go have this conversation inside?” she offered.

“No!”

Anders pulled away from his sweetheart, seizing his coat back, and wrapping it even tighter and more protectively around himself.

“You’re always trying to get me somewhere inside and private to seduce me!” he accused shrilly.

Merrill blinked at him curiously. “But don’t you like it?”

“Don’t try to confuse me!” Anders retorted hotly. “It doesn’t matter if I like it! What matters is you squeezing out of responsibility for everything!”

Merrill turned. The walking corpses had placed a portable set of steps against the front edge of the palanquin, and Merrill went to descend them.

“Wait!” Anders followed her down the stairs, ignoring the judgemental chatter of the corpses – once again unintelligible to him – as he brushed past them. “Where are you going?”

They walked out into the Alienage, which was stranger and quieter than Anders remembered. The tenements Merrill had torn out were only half-rebuilt – temporarily abandoned mid-project. Another quadrant of the Alienage appeared to still be in use as a lumber and scrap yard. But the vhenadahl was properly tended. And the little Alienage Chantry – where Merrill had once picked a month-long fight with the congregation about the way they syncretically prayed to the Maker and Andraste and the Evanuris all – appeared newly renovated. The path leading up to it was paved in a mosaic of multicoloured stones and bits of glass.

“I’m going inside,” Merrill said, drawing Anders’s attention back with a light rap of her fist against a wooden door. “You can come along if you want. It’s not somewhere private where we can do dirty things, if that’s what you’re worried for.”

Anders snorted incredulously. Because he would have recognised the entrance to Merrill’s flat anywhere, and he could hardly think of a place they’d done more ‘dirty things’.

But a bell at the top of the door rang as Merrill pushed it open and walked inside. And as Anders drew closer, he saw that visiting hours were posted on the door panel – one hour after sunrise to zero hours after sunset. Which was peculiar and curious enough, that Anders was compelled to grasp the handle and follow in after Merrill and the truth.

The inside of Merrill’s flat was at once extremely familiar, and the most foreign thing Anders had ever seen.

The space was filled with a number of partitions – stands with coloured rope you were meant to see over but not step over. They created an aisle through the front room and into the hall – a nice clean-swept aisle that separated visitors from a carefully curated mess.

There was Merrill’s table set for tea – several cups chipped. There was Merrill’s shelf – books leaning over in their stack and threatening to topple onto her carved Halla figurine and Dalish buttons. There was Merrill’s reading stand – Xebenkeck’s tome opened upon it – turned facing towards the aisle and open room, instead of away as it had been when Merrill had lived here. And through the entire place, were little plaquettes with bilingual annotations in Elvhen and the trade tongue.

Anders’s eyes scanned a few of them, picking up the odd fact and a series of repeated phrases and ideas. They came together in his mind as a cohesive whole.

This was where our glorious leader, Falon’Din, the Mistress of the Dead, lived. This is where she received visitors – even back when she only had blood and water to offer them. This is where she studied history and the magical arts, under a leaky roof. These were Dalish crafts, made from maplewood and ironbark. This was a tome scripted by one of the Forbidden Ones, that our glorious leader retrieved from a forgotten lair beneath the city.

Merrill had proceeded ahead into the hall, and her attention had caught elsewhere.

“You two get out of there!” she barked, pointing accusingly towards somewhere Anders could not see. “That’s you, isn’t it? Adaia and Darrial? You know your mothers will expect you home before long.”

Two sullen Elvhen teenagers made their way out of the hall, looking very poor and persecuted as Merrill, who was shorter than both of them, shooed them with an outstretched hand.

“And this is no place to go snuggling and snogging anyhow,” Merrill said imperiously. “Out with you. Get yourselves home.”

Adaia, the girl, frowned miserably. And the boy, Darrial, wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulder and quickly hurried them past Anders and out the front door.

But Anders had no more attention to spare them. He made his way up the aisle and into the hall, to see the place that was no longer one for snuggling and snogging.

Merrill’s room was also cordoned off, beyond a small viewing platform. There was her wooden cot, and a replica of her magic mirror.

The water pump and drain pipe at the end of the hall were also roped off.

Anders paced and turned his head wildly, in an attempt to take all of this in. And the words on the plaquettes began to blur, as he felt himself overcome with anger and sadness and fear.

This was where our glorious leader, Falon’Din, the Mistress of the Dead, entertained her lovers and worked all through her nights restoring the Eluvian – one of the most important artefacts of the People.

And further on, this pump over here, was where she got her drinking water – the same place as where she pissed – into that pipe right there. Only sometimes the pipe wouldn’t drain. When it rained and the alienage flooded, the pipe would instead overflow and spit sewage back into the hall, and there would be no place to piss at all.

And all the elves in the city lived like this once – in places that were drafty and damp – impossible to keep dry in the rains, impossible to heat properly in the winter, and impossible to keep free of stink and filth even in the summer. Only most of them lived in places more crowded than this. They would live five or ten to an apartment flat like this! Our glorious leader, Falon’Din, the Mistress of the Dead, was only allowed this flat to herself because the venerable Hahren, Ghemaril, understood that one of the Dalish, a First trained in the magical arts, needed room to practice them away from prying eyes. But all the elves lived in flats like this once, crowded like sardines in a can.

And thank whatever gods you have, that it’s over – was implied – Thank the Creators, or the Maker, or whatever god you worship, that those times are gone. Whatever charms there were to waking up next to you in that cot, Anders. Lunching with you at that table, Anders. Complaining with you in that hall, Anders. And upsetting the neighbours making love too loudly for these too-thin walls… Anders… Thank whatever maker you have, Anders, and thank me, your goddess, that those times are over and done.

“Vhenan,” Merrill said, reaching to get Anders’s attention.

But Anders brushed past her, pacing angrily up and down the too short and too narrow aisles of the flat turned museum exhibit.

The first new thing he noticed was a stairwell on the hall’s other side that hadn’t been there before. It was roped off, with a sign that read ‘Staff Only’.

The second new thing Anders noticed was a box, arranged strangely to the side of the other exhibited items. It was painted red, and stamped with a symbol that would have once let the stevedores know it was filled with salted herring. And Anders felt it looked vaguely familiar, but he didn’t place it, until he read the plaquette, which was placed on a portable stand atop the box.

This is the box upon which Friedrich Weber – better known by the name Anders, the Darktown Healer and Chantry Bomber – attempted to martyr himself on the fourteenth of Justinian, 9:37 Dragon (8436 FA), following his attack on the Kirkwall Chantry for its complicity in the abuses against Circle mages and other internees at the Gallows. He was unsuccessful at the martyring, as his loved ones swiftly restrained him and forced him from the box.

“What’s that doing here?!” Anders hissed, pointing accusingly at the box, and swinging his head wildly about for Merrill.

Merrill blinked, hazel eyes wide, and considered the box.

“Oh, it really doesn’t fit this current exhibit, does it?” Merrill admitted. “But it’s in safe-keeping here, until we can open another exhibit at the site of the old Chantry or at the Gallows. We’re not sure where we’ll have it yet. But we need to unmoor and polish the gold feet of that one statue woman that only got half-melted by the bombs first, so-”

In an impulsive fit of passion, Anders reached over the partition and hauled the box over his shoulder. The plaquette dropped to the floor.

“We don’t need to keep trash like this about!” he shouted furiously. “Reminding everyone of-!”

He cut off as he flung the box at the wall – hard enough that it splintered on impact.

Or it started to, at any rate.

Merrill’s eyes flashed black, and she raised her hand – dark magic condensing in her palm. And the box immediately reformed, and flung itself back at Anders with the same force he had thrown it with.

Anders wheezed as he caught it against his chest, one edge ramming directly into his diaphragm.

“You can’t go destroying parts of history just because they upset you, vhenan,” Merrill said crossly.

Anders let out a cry and a huff, and he let Merrill struggle with taking the box back from him and lowering it back into its place in the exhibit. It was cumbersome for her smaller figure to manoeuvre.

“What have you done to this place?” Anders cried. “Why are we even here?”

“Well, I was heading to the Eluvian workshop upstairs,” Merrill said. “But you said you didn’t want to be anywhere private where I might do something dirty to you or someth-”

“That doesn’t explain anything!” Anders shouted at her. “Why is everything all wrapped up and on display?! It hasn’t even been half a year since you took things over!”

“It’s important to preserve a record of things while they’re still around to preserve.” Merrill was starting to sound a bit irritable.

“So you’re just tossing everything out then?!” Anders demanded. “Everything that doesn’t fit?!”

“No,” Merrill said, over-enunciating her words like she was talking to a dunce. “It’s being preserved. In this exhibition.” She waved to the room around them.

“What about Varric?!” Anders screamed. “You just tossed him out when you didn’t want him anymore!”

“Well, Varric wouldn’t be very good in an exhibition, would he?” Merrill tutted. “You’d have to hire people to feed and water him all the time, and then he’d just bribe them to let him loose or something.”

Anders blinked at her incredulously.

Merrill tilted her head. “Oh, did you expect a serious answer, vhenan?”

“You used blood magic!” Anders yelled. “On Varric! Fenris told me all about it!”

“That’s right,” Merrill admitted. “I was wondering when you might find out about it.”

Anders considered her – the curious pique of her expression.

“How could you?” he demanded hoarsely, voice starting to crack.

“Oh, I thought you’d be pleased it was Varric instead of Fenris,” Merrill said, looking a bit surprised. “Isabela was.”

Anders heard himself let out a strangled sob. He didn’t want to think about how he might feel if it was Fenris instead of Varric still in the Seeker’s clutches. He didn’t want to think about just how relieved he was, that Fenris had escaped safely. He resented everyone trying to force gratitude from him.

But Merrill only considered her own words thoughtfully, before shaking her head.

“But I suppose it doesn’t matter which you’d prefer,” she finally asserted. “I didn’t do it for you. It was wrong of Varric to think up a plan where Fenris was so disadvantaged, and it was wrong of Hawke to go along with it, so I took care of everything.”

“You-! You maleficar!” Anders accused. “You used blood magic on Varric! You sold him out to the Seeker!”

“I did,” Merrill said firmly, remorselessly.

“You did! You-! To him, who never did anything but help you and pay your Alienage fees and-!” Anders let out a cry of despair and fell to his knees. “How can you be so evil?!”

Merrill tilted her head and gave him a look that was cold, unimpressed.

“You haven’t been right!” Anders spat at her, feeling suddenly like he had reached the heart of the matter. “Not since you fought Spike and became Falon’Din! Ever since you’ve had that orb you’ve been doing nothing but terrible things! Tossing people out of Hightown! Stealing whatever catches your eye! Killing people who oppose you! Raising up corpses everywhere! And using your magic to mess with Varric’s-!”

Anders cut himself off, blinking confusedly.

Maybe it was Justice who had realised the contradiction in his words. It took a moment, before Anders could finish wrapping his own head around where he’s misspoken.

“Wh-What you did to Varric…” Anders said quietly. “You did that before you became Falon’Din…”

When he looked up at Merrill, she was watching him carefully. After a moment, she nodded.

Anders felt something inside him die.

“Y-You were always like this then…” he said, quiet, defeated.

Merrill nodded again. “I told you before, I was always meant to be Falon’Din. I was always me, always the best suited to be me, and even before I knew it myself.”

Anders heard this and despaired. After a moment, he resumed crying.

It was a horrible thing, he thought, to love someone so terrible. Who had always been so terrible.

Merrill didn’t comfort him this time. He cried louder, and louder still, and she still wouldn’t comfort him. But eventually someone in the adjacent flat, which Anders hadn’t realised was still occupied, banged on the wall and told him to shut up.

Anders responded the way he always had when Merrill’s neighbours had attempted to quiet him in the past. He became louder, crying out with an additional groan and a wail.

“How could you?!” he cried. “How could you?! You’re no goddess! You’re nothing but a tyrant! You’re-!”

“Oh, stop it, Anders!” Merrill finally snapped.

She stepped forward, ignoring the way Anders tried to slap her away, smacking his palms against her thighs.

Merrill smacked her own palms against Anders’s forehead, and then ran her fingers through his hair, tangling it in her fists. She scratched at his scalp, ruffling his hair back and forth in a way that made it difficult to tell if he was being praised or scolded.

“I’ve tried to be patient with you. Everyone has,” Merrill said sharply. “But this-? This just isn’t cute anymore, vhenan.”

Anders felt another stab of anger and guilt.

“Not cute?!” he snarled. “The way you using blood magic on Varric was cute?!”

“Oh, stop it,” Merrill commanded.

She fisted her hand tighter in his hair, and yanked him back up. Releasing him as she helped him unfold back to his full height.

“This isn’t about Varric,” Merrill announced, with a self-assurance that Anders most certainly would not have felt in her shoes. “We all know what this is really about…”

Anders squinted at her through his tears, feeling affronted and more than a little distrustful.

Merrill sniffled, and tilted her nose pompously in the air.

“It’s just not cute anymore,” she said, “how jealous of me you are.”

Of all the things she could have said, Anders hadn’t been expecting that even a little.

“Jealous?!” he repeated. “I’m not jealous of you!”

“Yes, you are,” Merrill said insistently.

“What would I be jealous of?!” Anders demanded.

“We all know how much you wanted to be a god,” Merrill scoffed. “Like the second coming of the statue woman or something. You wanted to be a god, and for everyone to say how pretty and sad and brave and revolutionary you were.”

Anders didn’t even know what to say to this, it was so ludicrously offensive.

“But that doesn’t mean-” Merrill shot Anders a glare. “-that you get to be all cross and rude with me, just because I managed to become one first.”

Merrill balanced on one foot, and took a moment to scratch at it with the callused heel of the opposite one, before going on.

“If you want to be a god,” she said, “then you need to make a plan and work to pursue it. You can’t just spend all day scowling at me like I’m hurting you by succeeding too well.”

Anders was taken so far aback by the callous self-important audacity of what Merrill was saying, that he hardly knew what to say.

He felt the anger build in his chest, opened his mouth, felt his anger fizzle, closed his mouth, built his anger back up, and opened his mouth again.

He was going to tell her off for being so arrogant. For being so ready to call her reign a success. For being so maniacally convinced of her own greatness, that she could even begin to think he was jealous of her?!

“D-Do you really think I can do it, sweetheart?” Anders heard himself plead instead.

For a moment, only a desperate silence filled the flat.

And then Merrill’s face broke out in an open smile.

“Of course I do, vhenan,” she said emphatically. “You’re so lovely and talented and determined. I think you can do anything you put your mind to~”

The tears that sprung into Anders’s eyes this time were ones of abject relief. He blubbered, sighed, and laughed.

And Merrill laughed too – laughed herself sick to tears.

Both of them seemed to feel it – this sudden purge of their former anger and ill-temper and hopelessness. Refreshed by a sudden feeling of camaraderie and mutual understanding, they basked in the moment. And then Merrill reached her hands up to cradle Anders’s face, and Anders bent down so she could kiss his cheek.

“B-But I don’t even know where to start!” Anders protested, bracing against her shoulders with a giddy chuckle. “I never considered what would actually go into becoming a god before! Outside of, you know, fantasies of playing Andraste at the Satinalia pageant.”

He felt dizzy, overwhelmed with the breadth of the idea.

“Oh, well, I’m hardly an expert on your sky god and your statue woman,” Merrill confessed. “But this might help you, vhenan.”

She procured a book from behind her back: Flesh & Magic & Reaving: a Constructed History of the Ancient Alamarri Arts. Xenon’s glowing check out card was poking out the side, with Anders’s name etched on in Merrill’s handwriting.

Anders accepted the book, flipped through it idly. But what was on his mind was the conversation he’d had earlier with Xenon and-

“Lola, I mean- Warden Commander Tabris, she mentioned-” He could hardly get a handle on articulating his own thoughts. “I mean, I think I might have a lead…”

“Ooh!” Merrill’s eyes widened. She clapped for him, looking very impressed.

“But I’ll have to leave Kirkwall to follow up on it,” Anders admitted, with a flush. “Do you think…?”

He trailed off, waiting expectantly to see how she’d interpret his hesitation.

Merrill nodded seriously.

“Well, I wouldn’t be able to go with you,” she said, and Anders was encouraged by the regretful tone of her voice. “It is sort of important for the Viscount to be in the city, especially in these early days,” she apologised.

“No, that’s fine, Justice and I can manage,” Anders reassured hastily. “I mean-” He bit his lip. “Fenris…”

“Oh!” Merrill said, with sudden realisation.

She pondered for a moment.

“I mean… He’s going to be out sailing with Isabela for the week anyhow,” she reasoned. “And he’s pretty upset with you anyhow, isn’t he, vhenan?”

Merrill winced empathetically.

“It might be better to give him some time to cool off,” she suggested.

“Right, right,” Anders agreed, nodding to himself. “I guess I’d better get going and hurry back then?”

Merrill nodded eagerly. “That sounds about right – the hurrying back part.”

Anders felt a sudden surge of affection for her. He reached and pulled her into a crushing hug, felt her wiggle and giggle as he pressed a line of kisses up her neck and the side of her face.

“Sorry,” he said, kissing her on the nose before releasing her. “I want to stay, but I’d better go pack if I’m going to do this.”

“Oh, go on then~” Merrill giggled again, and she’d begun to shoo him off when she let out a sudden shout. “Oh! Except-!”

She reached for Flesh & Magic & Reaving in Anders’s hand, and pulled at a slip of paper so it peeked out from under the cover, lined up next to Xenon’s check out card. It was the honey-do list.

“Just remember~” She pointed at it importantly. “Make sure to finish with the rest of your patients at the Rose tomorrow morning before you leave. You can’t leave Serendipity and the others with your chores half-done for who-knows-how-long.”

“Right,” Anders agreed, attempting to commit this to memory amidst the tremendous number of plans he was trying to get in mental order.

He really didn’t want to leave the rest of the workers at the Rose with untreated illness, before he skipped town, and it was good of Merrill to remind him.

He turned to her, in love all over again.

“Thanks for always looking after me, sweetheart.”

Merrill beamed. “I love you too, vhenan… And I think I still have to say it back another two times, but I’ll wait until you get back from journeying first, I’ve decided.”

Anders couldn’t help but bend down and kiss her one last time, and then he pulled himself away.

He tucked the book on anthropophagy under his arm and hurried out of the exhibit – to his clinic to pack, and to a tomorrow full of the Frostbacks’s bounty. And the bell on the door rang, as he crossed the threshold.

Chapter Text

It was a clear afternoon a few days into Wintermarch when Anders arrived back at Kirkwall’s docks. The air was cold and crisp, icicles were forming off the ship rigging, and Anders’s breath frosted as he exhaled.

There were a great number of passengers upon the vessel, most carrying more than the simple pack Anders wore upon his back. And more than one family had told him they had taken all they owned, and planned to settle within the city – Kirkwall or Emerius or New Arlathan, or whatever they were calling it now.

Anders let the rest of the ship disembark ahead of him. He waited patiently as they passed him by, and responded warmly when the odd passenger stopped to wish him good fortune and a happy homecoming. And it wasn’t until he reached the head of the gangplank, that he saw who was waiting for him ashore.

They waited on a raised platform at the end of the dock, well behind the rest of the crowd. Merrill and Fenris stood arm in arm, bundled fully in scarves and coats and boots. Hawke stood nearby, holding a large parasol to ward off the occasional burst of wind and mist. A couple of Revenants and Horrors were arranged nearby as a guard, but even they seemed relaxed, communing among themselves, rather than wary and alert.

Hawke was the first to notice Anders and pointed for the others’ benefit. Merrill, who had started to drift off leaning against Fenris’s shoulder, startled as Fenris elbowed her awake. And Anders watched a little breathlessly as Hawke led Merrill forward through the crowd, while he himself descended the gangplank.

He lost sight of them as he lost his vantage point. And then he stepped around a pair of vashoth, and Merrill was there.

She reached for him, tiptoeing up on her brown leather boots, and wrapped her arms around his shoulders as he lifted her into an embrace.

“Happy new year, Anders,” she whispered, nuzzling against his ear.

“Happy new year, sweetheart.”

He held her a moment, rubbing a panacea spell into her back. But when they broke apart, Hawke was there. He swiftly pulled Anders into a hug himself.

“Our wayward mage and spirit and would-be god returns!” he cheered.

Anders laughed. “Not so would-be anymore, Hawke.”

“Ooh, ominous~” Hawke slapped him hard on the shoulder.

“I’ll tell you about it once we get someplace warm.” Anders squeezed Hawke tighter, pressed a kiss to his whiskery cheek. “Thanks for coming to greet me, Hawke. And for looking after Merr for me.”

“Hey!” Hawke slapped Anders’s shoulder again, before releasing him. “What are friends for, right?”

Anders stepped back. He wiped a sheen of sweat from his brow, feeling a bit too warm under his coat, looking between them.

“How’d you know when I’d be back anyhow?” he asked.

Hawke shrugged. “Merrill has scouts in different port cities and places. Someone sent information ahead.”

Merrill just gave a toothy grin. The sclera of her eyes flashed black.

She was teasing him, Anders realised. He bent down, enjoyed her giggle as he kissed her on the nose.

“Oh! I brought you something!” Anders remembered, as he drew himself back up. He swung his pack off one shoulder and started digging through the side pocket.

Anders had been lucky enough to come into an unexpected windfall on his journey back to Kirkwall.

He’d stowed away on a passenger vessel leaving the Amaranthine port several weeks prior, intending to remain hidden for the duration of the trip. But only three days in, sea sickness and fever had coursed through the ranks of passenger and crew alike, prompting Anders to reveal himself and take charge of healing the ill.

And it was Anders’s good luck that, instead of a crazed and superstitious crew bent on tossing the apostate overboard, a couple of grateful nobles had returned Anders’s goodwill by paying his fare to the crew and legitimising his stay on the vessel. They had gone on to give Anders an extra allotment of coin so he might pass the trip and the upcoming holiday in comfort. And when the ship made a stopover in Highever, and the passengers deboarded to the festive street market set along the docks and coastal promenade, Anders came to a sudden realisation what the coin was meant for.

He drew a pair of gloves from his pack – made from crimson Highever weave, fashionably stitched and tailored – and presented them to Merrill. Reaching for her hand and comparing the size.

It seemed he had chosen correctly – closer to a size too large than one too small. And Merrill giggled as he shimmied the gloves over her fingers, tracing the stitching and the shape of her palm as he went.

When he was done, Merrill rubbed her newly gloved hands together, went red in the face as she raised them to her cheeks and absorbed their heat.

“Sorry I don’t have a gift for you,” Anders said, turning to Hawke. “Do you mind if I get one later?”

Everyone had learned early on that Hawke didn’t like receiving gifts nearly as much as giving them. And so it was no surprise to Anders, when Hawke waved this off with a shake of his head.

“Just don’t be a stranger.” Hawke winked. “Make sure you haul yourself up to my place for Wintersend dinner, and we’ll call it even.”

Anders let Hawke and Merrill wave him ahead. But it wasn’t until he’d made it halfway across the pier that he understood the full gravity of where, or rather to whom, they were leading him.

Fenris hadn’t come forward to greet him like the others. He stood almost unerringly still on the platform at the end of the pier, his arms crossed over his chest. He did not smile or say a word, eyes scrutinising Anders’s approach.

Anders stepped forward, climbed to him.

“Fenris,” he breathed.

Fenris blinked at him lazily.

“Mage,” he finally returned.

They were right in front of one another now, and Anders was still a little in awe that Fenris was here at all.

“You came to see me,” Anders said. “I thought you said you weren’t going to chase after me – were going to wait until I came to you.”

For a moment Fenris said nothing – expression unreadable – then he slowly uncrossed his arms.

“No one was here to greet you last time you returned from abroad,” Fenris pointed out. “You locked yourself in your clinic for five days, which prompted a series of events that returned the Elvhen mage gods to the world and infested the city with necromancy.”

Fenris harrumphed, before reaching his conclusion.

“I could not risk this happening a second time.”

For a moment, all Anders could do was gape.

“That’s–” he began.

But he shut his mouth swiftly, before he could say anything to jeopardise Fenris’s good mood. He began digging through his pack.

“I brought gifts,” he announced. “Here!”

He unloaded a brown wax-sealed jug of Chasind mead directly into Fenris’s arms. And followed it with a slab of polished oak wood, covered and wrapped with a collection of hard cheese and dried fruits and six varieties of preserved meat – Amaranthine’s famous Slaughterhouse Six Charcuterie Board.

These hadn’t been from the Highever holiday market. Anders had stolen them from Oghren’s secret stash of liquor and munchies at the Vigil. And Oghren had caught him stealing too, but Oghren had just looked on with something like pity or fondness, before loudly announcing that that too-sweet honey wine was only for women and queers anyhow, so Anders might as well take it off his hands.

Anders flushed, as he tilted the board against Fenris’s chest.

“It’s an apology for…” he began to explain, before petering off.

He didn’t think Fenris would appreciate him calling himself a failure of a lover. And Fenris had said he’d had enough of Anders’s apologies for a lifetime anyhow.

“And I got you these for First Day!” Anders added, pulling a pair of earmuffs from his bag – crimson Highever weave, to match his gift to Merrill.

Fenris’s arms were too full to accept the addition of this last gift, and Anders acted before Fenris’s inscrutable poker face made him lose his nerve. He quickly held the muffs up to his mouth and breathed hot air into them, then lifted them over Fenris’s head, carefully tucking the fluttering tips of Fenris’s ears beneath the wool.

“There,” Anders said.

He dropped his right hand, but stopped with the left one hovering over Fenris’s cheek.

Fenris said nothing, but he leaned into Anders’s hand, tilted his head up, and gave Anders a look. And then it was all Anders could do to have him as immediately as possible.

He brushed his other hand over Fenris’s shoulder, and leaned down to press their lips together.

Fenris leaned into the touch, and Anders kissed him until he whimpered and gasped for air.

“Welcome home, amatus,” Fenris breathed, when Anders finally pulled back.

“Glad to be back, love,” Anders returned. “You don’t know how much I’ve missed you.” He pressed one more kiss to the crown of Fenris’s head and felt blue spirit energy crackle over his forehead, before stepping back.

Merrill was consulting with the guard of Horrors and Revenants, and Hawke judged this a good time to step in.

“Hey, that looks pretty tasty,” he said, eyeing the charcuterie board in Fenris’s arms. “Planning on sharing that?”

Fenris glanced down at the charcuterie board, then briefly to Hawke. And then he turned and his gaze seized upon Anders.

“I suppose you are welcome to the leftovers, Hawke,” Fenris answered, looking Anders straight in the eye. “Once I have had my fill, that is.”

Anders felt his face burn.

“Oh ho~! Look at you~” Hawke elbowed Fenris in the shoulder.

Fenris broke eye contact and hunched his shoulders, clutching the mead and charcuterie board to his chest.

“When did you get to be so possessive~?” Hawke asked.

“Allow me my fun, Hawke,” Fenris said sullenly.

Hawke reached over to ruffle Fenris’s hair, and allowed him his fun.

Together, the four of them made their way up the pier and across the port.

Handrails had been erected along the boardwalk, so passers-by could not fall off the edge of the dike into the water. And they were strung up with ribbons and tinsel, which lined the path up to the barracks where Orsino’s mages were housed. And even Anders had to admit the barracks were not such a dreary reminder of life in the Circle, when there were decorations along every window sill and the front doors were open to receive visitors.

“Should I get us some snacks?” Hawke asked. “Might be a while before we’re properly settled and served at the Hanged Man.”

He didn’t wait for an answer, before running off. And he returned a moment later with four bundles of waxed paper.

He checked the insides of each one, before distributing them.

“I made sure to pay the extra copper for chile oil on yours, Fenris.” Hawke identified the correct one, and passed it onto Fenris.

“You have my gratitude.” Fenris sighed contentedly, as he juggled his gifts in his arms, and accepted Hawke’s offering. “Finally one may purchase decently spiced street food in this city.”

Anders accepted his own wax paper bundle, and unwrapped it to find a wedged potato, drizzled with a brown sauce that, upon closer inspection, was ground from peanuts.

“Of course you’ll say that now, da’len” Merrill muttered, pouting at Fenris. “But a couple months from now, when potatoes are all there is to eat before spring harvest, how nice will you be then?”

“Discover for yourself,” Fenris scoffed. He pressed his potato up under her nose, and smiled meanly when the chile pepper made her turn away and sneeze.

Anders continued to study this new delicacy intently. He dipped his fingertip in the peanut sauce, tapped it to his tongue, and was interested to find it was oily and sweet. Shovelling one of the potato wedges into his mouth, he found it moist and warm, and just the right amount of bland to be complemented by its garnish.

He swallowed another potato wedge, and another, as they made their way further into the city. And after a moment, Anders leaned to the side and knocked his elbow lightly against Merrill’s shoulder.

“No palanquin today, sweetheart?” he asked.

Merrill pressed a hand to her mouth and stifled a yawn, before answering him.

“Oh, we don’t bother with that anymore,” Merrill said dismissively. “Fenris said it would get boring to ride them after only a little bit, and he is right about things sometimes. Mmm…”

She leaned against Anders’s side, stumbling so she’d have an excuse to brace herself against him, and heaved a pleased little sigh.

“And I think it’s nicer to walk places together with you, vhenan,” she confessed to Anders.

Anders felt his cheeks heat.

“And anyhow…” Merrill yawned. “We have the Eluvians all set up now, so walking everywhere is much less difficult~”

“Yes, I can see, sweetheart.”

As they’d made their way towards the steps heading back towards the Lowtown Market, Anders could not have helped but notice a shining mirror at the bottom of the stairway. And several more at the top of the steps. And further up Kirkwall’s cliffs there were even more – most only little glints of light in the distance.

At the nearest Eluvian, a queue had gathered. Kirkwall natives and guests alike were waiting in line to pass through it and vault themselves higher into the city, avoiding the steps entirely. The stairwell itself had an aisle for those without the patience to wait in the queue, but the greater width of the steps had been taken up by groups sitting and resting and conversing and lunching atop them.

“Or it’s less difficult for most people,” Merrill sighed wearily, rubbing a hand over the side of her face. “It seems the Crossroad between the Eluvians isn’t as hospitable to humans and vashoth as it is to elves and dwarves. Some old man ruptured his ear travelling through them.”

Anders frowned. “That sounds serious. Did he get to a healer in time?”

“Of course he did,” Hawke cut in with a scoff. “Not that it stopped him from sending me hate mail. They took him to one of the clini-”

“Oh, let’s not mention them,” Merrill cut Hawke off hastily. “Let’s have a good Anders’s-first-night-back before we start fighting over things.”

Anders narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

“Why? What would we fight over, sweetheart?” he asked.

“I’m sure you can find something if you try, but maybe wait for tomorrow,” Merrill said vaguely, before changing the subject back. “The old man got healed up okay. But now there’s some lawsuit, and all the researchers in the Eluvian workshop had to stop everything else they were doing to work on finding a way that humans and everyone can travel through the Eluvians more safely.”

Anders considered this for a moment, remembering that fights over ‘those damned mirrors’ never ended well. But maybe Merrill was right and there wasn’t anything to fight over, if nobody was hurt too badly.

“That sounds like a lot of work,” he told Merrill.

Merrill nodded her head emphatically up and down.

“It is mostly good work,” she said. “Getting the Eluvians working properly. And solving disputes between Clan Lavellan and the elves from the old Alienage. And the spirits are negotiating terms for paid time off and coffee breaks – even though most don’t even drink coffee. And Audacity has the rights to some of the ideas I wanted to incorporate into building the mausoleum on the coast, so there’s a lot of fuss about that too. And there’s figuring out what to do with everyone we captured from the Starkhaven army…”

Merrill took a deep breath,

“It’s a lot of work, but most of it feels good – moving ahead with things everyone should have moved ahead with years ago. Pretty much everything is good work, except handling all those blackbirds the old nobles sent, except Fenris took care of most of that. He even offered to contact Isabela’s old friend for me, even though he’s terribly jealous of him.”

“Blackbirds?” Anders asked, confused.

It was Fenris that cut in this time.

“Let us leave ‘blackbirds’ and casanovas for tomorrow,” he suggested, with a put upon grumble. “You did not want to worry for tonight, remember?”

Merrill nodded absently, then began to yawn again, and released Anders to cover her mouth with her gloved hands.

“Hawke,” she called, stepping ahead to catch him. “Did you get more hate mail? It really is sort of frustrating that so many people still call me your witch, isn’t it?”

The conversation faded as Hawke and Merrill proceeded forward, but Anders lingered behind, swallowing the last of his potato.

There was a set of merchant stalls set up along the east end of the boardwalk, leading up towards the stairs. They were less lavish than those in the Highever holiday market, but this stretch of the docks was still more lively than he had seen in years.

And not only lively – youthful, Anders realised, as he came upon what had once been the Qunari Compound, and an empty lot for years after.

The iron gate was strung open, with winter roses threaded through the bars. A group of Revenants was standing guard near the entrance. But inside was a playground – with swings and slides and a seesaw and sandpit and benches.

It was teeming with children at play, wrapped in scarves and coats for the winter. And around the edges of the compound were sets of benches filled with the lucky parents, watching over the most precious of their treasures.

A group of boys and girls were ascending the stairs of the slide, and Anders watched them for a moment, feeling some indescribable mix of envy and joy. When a deep baritone broke through his thoughts, and Anders realised Fenris had turned back for him.

“Are you thinking there were never so many children in this city before?” Fenris asked. “Or perhaps it only seemed there were not, with all of them begging and smuggling and stealing, instead of playing the way children should?”

“I, er-” Anders felt himself flush again. He wasn’t sure how to answer. “Why do you ask?”

Fenris watched him, gaze scrutinising.

“It is what I was thinking, amatus,” he confessed.

Ah.

Anders bit his lip, still not knowing what was safe to say and to share. He just watched Fenris, standing four paces up the street with the mead and charcuterie still in the crook of his arm. And Fenris was watching him just as intently – his sharp green eyes alert.

“The Deshyr’s Daily Journal released a report,” Fenris finally said, “about the best places in Thedas to seek employment and business opportunities… and to raise children.” He cleared his throat. “The witch’s city scored quite high on their index.”

Anders swallowed uncomfortably around the lump in his throat.

He didn’t care what some blighted index in Fenris’s favourite journal said. But he couldn’t tell Fenris that, if what Fenris meant was-

Anders cut the thought off, afraid of letting himself hope this meant more than it did.

“Right,” he answered lamely, after a moment. And then neither of them spoke for another moment after that.

Fenris shuffled uncomfortably, and let out a sigh.

“The Rebel Mage Insurgence you helped to incite continues on, with all its complications,” he reminded testily. “No doubt it will continue on occasion to require your time and efforts, as my own work requires mine.”

Anders nodded, unable to deny the enormity of what he and Justice had committed themselves to.

“But perhaps…” Fenris went on. “Perhaps things have settled enough, in this corner of the world…”

The tips of his ears were wiggling so hard, his earmuffs flicked forward and back in time with them.

“You understand neither Isabela nor the witch will indulge us this,” Fenris started again, voice harsh once more. “But if you… with me…”

Fenris trailed off again, and Anders thought he might burst from anticipation, when Fenris took a deep breath and steeled himself once more.

“If you still desire a child – and you prove to me you can behave yourself over these next few months – perhaps we can discuss plans for an adoption.”

Anders felt tears spring to his eyes. He had been so sure Fenris would never- That he would never-

“Fenris, love…” Anders began.

He wanted to say yes – yes, yes, yes – in a billion ways. And he began by lunging forward to embrace Fenris.

Fenris hissed and took a quick double-step back.

“I said, if you behave yourself!” he reminded furiously. His brow wrinkled and his ears were wiggling like crazy beneath the muffs, as he turned to go.

Anders caught him, wrapping his arms around Fenris’s shoulders, which always seemed too broad and solid – like a brick wall – when Fenris was facing away from him.

“Thank you,” Anders said, inhaling deeply and tears falling freely as he buried his face into the crown of Fenris’s head. “Thank you.”

Fenris stood and let him cry a moment, before replying in a soft murmur.

“You do not need to thank me, amatus. It is a favour you are doing me.”

He took Anders’s right hand in his and, still facing away, pressed a kiss to the back of it – his fangs brushing lightly against the well-worn skin.

And before he proceeded ahead to guide Anders home, he spoke, entreating in barely a whisper.

“Behave,” he said. “At least until we arrive at the Hanged Man.”

==

The platter was spread out ahead of them, and Anders folded a slice of salami over itself into a small round roll like a flute.

He turned it carefully in his fingers, before pressing the tip past Fenris’s parted lips. And he watched Fenris bite into the meat – a white flash of teeth.

Anders tugged his hand back and watched the delicate meat fray and tear, breaking apart from where Fenris’s sharp fang had dug into it. Fenris licked over the line of teeth, and Anders folded what was left of the morsel in his hands, before feeding Fenris the rest.

Fenris swallowed slowly, and proceeded to kiss the salt off Anders’s fingertips.

Anders pulled back a little and took in the half-lidded green eyes gazing up at him. Fenris felt warm, tucked under his arm and leaning languidly into his side.

Anders reached again for the charcuterie board, repeated the gesture as he fed Fenris a grape, a slice of persimmon, a roll of prosciutto.

“Mmm,” Fenris mumbled, stretching as he swallowed this latest bit of meat. “You should eat as well, mage,” he whispered, reaching to pluck a thick slice of smoked gouda from the board. “I have said before, that I would prefer to have a little more of you.”

He placed the slice of gouda between his teeth, and stretched up to press his mouth against Anders’s. And Anders took him in, let the cheese snap apart in his mouth as their teeth grazed one another softly.

Chew. Swallow. Kiss.

Fenris stretched against him. Reached a hand between Anders’s legs, and kneaded him through his clothes, just twice, before dragging his fingers more lightly over Anders’s stiffening cock, outlining its edges and the aching curve of its head through Anders’s trousers.

Anders shared a few more pieces of fruit and meat and cheese with him, before needing to bite back a moan. Fenris was deft at this kind of play – touching Anders so lightly and delicately, pulling away at all the best and worst and most enticing moments. It made Anders so desperate for him.

“Love,” he breathed, nuzzling his nose down into Fenris’s hair, whispering into his ear. “Think of where we are… If you don’t stop that, I’m going to make a mess of my trousers.”

“Mmm,” Fenris hummed in acknowledgement. He brushed his hand once more over Anders’s length before pulling away. “We would not want to embarrass you,” he agreed. “Do your best to restrain yourself… but…”

He stretched again, warm against Anders’s side, and he was the one to whisper in Anders’s ear this time.

“I am sure I missed one of your namedays, while you were traipsing across Ferelden… So if you do make a mess of yourself, as a belated gift, I am amenable to cleaning you up.”

Fenris pulled away then. He slid off the booth and stood.

“I will see about getting glasses for the mead from Corff,” he announced.

But he had one more thing to say before leaving.

“Witch.” Fenris looked past Anders to Merrill. “Do not allow the mage to touch himself while I am gone.” He arched an eyebrow. “We are in public, after all.”

“Hmm?”

Merrill, who’d been leaning into Anders’s other side, blinked fully awake.

“Oh, of course, Fenris~” she agreed, smiling sleepily and snuggling closer into Anders’s side. “I’ll make sure.”

Anders bit his lip, as Fenris walked off. Set both his hands in plain sight on the table before him.

It felt like torture, after what Fenris had just said to him.

Anders wanted to come. He wanted Fenris to lean over his lap, and peel down his trousers, and lick. Suck the cum out of the soiled fabric, swallow all evidence of Anders’s love and arousal, and proceed to lavish the same attention on Anders’s cock. He wanted Fenris to lick it clean, then press the bulbous head past his lips, and suck and swallow, and look back up at Anders with dilated pupils and watery green irises.

Anders wondered if he could get away with kissing Merrill, rubbing a hand over her side and over her chest, while Fenris sucked him off. He turned to her.

Merrill blinked at him, hazel eyes wide. And her hair already looked a bit dishevelled, wild.

She smiled sweetly.

“Fenris said you aren’t allowed to touch yourself,” she reminded him.

That was right, wasn’t it? Fenris hadn’t said anything about anyone else, had he?

Anders wrapped his arm around Merrill, pushed her back into the corner on the inside of the booth.

She giggled encouragingly, as he pressed kisses over her cheek, down her neck. Giggled harder when he pressed a hand down under her leggings, and felt for her sex.

Mmm, she was wet. Wetter and closer than he might have expected. He brushed his fingers over her, found her swollen clit and pinched it between his fingers, before releasing and rubbing over it in a circular motion.

He bit into her neck, and Merrill squealed, but a bit too loudly. So he pressed his full weight into her, pinning her between the booth and the wall with his body, and clamped his free hand over her mouth.

Merrill seemed to enjoy that quite a lot. She clung to him tighter, thrust her hips down against his hand, and let out a series of well-muffled yelps, as he rubbed her to climax and she shuddered in his arms.

“Did you miss me, sweetheart?” he asked afterwards, as he licked her cum off his fingers.

“Oh~” Merrill laughed as he let off. She tucked herself back under his arm, smiling happily. “Of course I did, vhenan.”

He felt calmer, more fulfilled, in the aftermath of her climax. The ache in his own groin seemed a little less pressing, as he wrapped an arm around Merrill’s shoulder and watched her smile as she drifted into semi-consciousness.

Fenris scoffed as he returned to the table, eyes slanting to toss an irritable look over his shoulder. The stack of shot glasses he had brought with him clacked and rattled, as he brought them down a bit too hard on the surface of the table. And in his distraction, he pressed Anders over in the booth a bit too roughly, so that Merrill, on Anders’s other side, blinked her eyes open and muttered something in Elvhen, before settling again.

“Is everything alright?” Anders asked.

“Mmm?”

It seemed to take Fenris a moment to reorient himself.

“It is nothing, amatus,” he said. “Corff is merely irritable we’ve brought outside food and drink into his establishment. No doubt he will wreak havoc on my tab.”

Fenris rolled his eyes, as he unstacked the shot glasses, then elbowed Anders in the side.

“Pour my drink for me, mage,” he said imperiously.

Anders snorted. But he reached for the bottle of honey mead and ripped off the wax seal. And once he had poured Fenris a glass, Fenris was predictably less tetchy about returning the favour. He reached to retrieve the bottle and poured a second glass for Anders.

Fenris wasted no time getting a taste of the liquor. He took a sip, then downed the glass.

“It is smooth,” he said. “And sweet.”

Anders raised his own glass, and took a sip just large enough to wet his lips and get a taste for himself. It was as sweet as Fenris had said.

He turned the glass in his hand.

“Here, you have it,” he told Fenris. “It’s your gift.”

Fenris’s green eyes widened – startled, maybe even a bit afraid – as Anders reached out to hold the glass up to his lips. He leaned back, as if trying to escape. But as he did so, he inadvertently tipped his chin up, and his lips parted with some seemingly involuntary impulse, as Anders pressed the rim of the glass to his mouth and tilted it up.

The mead splashed over Fenris’s lips, wet and glossy, reflecting the overhead lanterns. And Anders watched Fenris’s throat bob and constrict as he swallowed. And when Anders pulled the glass back, and Fenris tilted his head back down and met Anders’s gaze with pupils dilated and unfocussed, Anders decided this was just about as good as watching Fenris swallow his cum.

Fenris coughed, leaned against Anders’s shoulder, and spoke in a deep rasp.

“It’s ambrosia,” he said. “You’re ambrosia.”

Anders snickered. He ducked his head down, and nuzzled Fenris’s nose with his own.

“Your voice is ambrosia,” he returned.

Fenris barked a guttural laugh. But he grinned, wide and toothy, like he almost never did. And as he slumped against Anders’s chest, he entwined their legs together.

He rocked slowly against Anders’s hip, and reached intermittently to fondle Anders through his clothes, as Anders fed him another few mouthfuls off the charcuterie board. But when Anders tried to feed him a third dried apricot, Fenris whimpered, swatted it away, and pointed to the bottle of mead on the table. So Anders took care of pouring him another glass.

He set the glass in Fenris’s hands this time, so Fenris could sip from it at his own leisure. And Fenris accepted it and was cradling the glass against his chest when Hawke returned.

“Must be our lucky day~” Hawke cheered. He raised an arm above his head, and a series of letters flapped in his hand, as he slipped into the booth across from Anders and the others. “First Day greetings from all~”

Anders looked up at the letters with interest.

“Who wrote, Hawke?”

He squinted, trying to see if he could recognise the handwriting across the envelopes, but Hawke swiped them back and stuffed them under his seat.

“No, no.” He waggled his finger. “First Day greetings from those who came to greet us in person take precedence~ Think you owe us a story, Anders.” He waggled his eyebrows and leered. “What’s this about becoming a god, your holiness?”

Anders’s face pinched. “Maker, you don’t have to call me that. You don’t have to mock me.”

“Oh, come on, your holiness~” Hawke cajoled. “Sure I do~ Keeps you humble.”

Fenris scoffed against Anders’s chest. “What mage was ever humble to begin with?”

He stretched and then reached sideways to press the charcuterie board across the table.

“Help yourself, Hawke,” he said, before bracing against Anders’s thigh and wriggling closer once more. “And wake the witch,” he told Anders, “in case she would like to hear your story.”

Hawke pumped his fist victoriously and helped himself to some ham and cheese, while Anders shook Merrill gently by the shoulder.

“So I had remembered something the Warden Commander told me about.” Anders settled back in the booth, feeling very warm caught between Fenris and Merrill at either side. “Something that had happened to her during the Fifth Blight.”

“Right,” Merrill nodded, and raised a hand to cover a yawn. “I think you mentioned that before you left, vhenan.”

“I forget you’re some kind of minor celebrity sometimes,” Hawke said, ignoring his own celebrity. “Can’t believe you know the Hero of Ferelden~”

“I couldn’t believe it either, when the Templars and I first dropped by Vigil’s Keep, and who walks through the bloody door when the darkspawn attack but Soris’s scowling baby cousin.” Anders snorted. “She was just some girl who’d saved my sorry behind in the Denerim Alienage one Satinalia. Never thought she’d show up again as Commander of the Grey.”

Hawke snickered. “Guess you’re even then~ How could she have known she was meeting the future famous Chantry Bomber?”

Anders groaned. He’d better not be taking that nickname to the grave.

“Continue your story,” Fenris growled. He rocked against Anders’s side, grinding against Anders’s hipbone in a way that made his arousal more than clear. “Talk about the Hero of Ferelden some other time, or we will be talking all night.”

Anders smiled. “Feeling jealous of everyone I knew before you, love?”

Fenris’s eyes narrowed. He dug his nails into Anders’s thigh, rocked against Anders’s hip once more, and gave no other answer.

Anders pressed another kiss to his forehead before continuing.

“So I dropped by Amaranthine to go over the story with her. Turns out, right in the middle of the Blight, they went out hunting Andraste’s ashes – some miracle cure for the King of Ferelden’s uncle. Hard to believe they went through the trouble, given Lola had precisely nothing good to say about the guy.”

“Huh?” Hawke considered. “Bit surprising. Can’t think of anything nasty anyone had to say about Eamon Guerrin… Except that he once married an Orlesian, of course.”

“Apparently he was pretty nasty about having to raise up the King, back before the King had any claim to the throne. Sold him off to the Chantry – tried to make him a Templar of all things,” Anders said bitterly. “And one or five of Lola’s cousins are adopted or something. You know, it’s the Alienage. Everyone crammed in the same tenements and all the uncles have adopted all the cousins and vice versa. She doesn’t have much tolerance for anyone, much less anyone who doesn’t look out for family.”

“Guess I wouldn’t either,” Hawke said soberly.

Merrill muttered something sleepily about clans and keepers. She was clearly losing the battle to stay awake.

“We’ll get back to him at Castle Redcliffe,” Anders promised. “I went to find the ashes first. There was some big fuss about a new Chantry being built over the temple where the ashes were found – some huge mess involving the Divine – but Lola gave me some inside info. The ashes were spirited away between the time she first discovered them and when the Divine’s Left Hand and Brother Genitivi returned to claim them later. And the story that ended up spreading was that the Maker had taken them back, and would return in some later time of need. But Lola had a simpler explanation.”

“Did she?” Hawke leaned eagerly forward in his seat, ever the appreciative audience.

“There are reaver tribes all through the Frostbacks!” Anders said. “Old Alamarri and Avvar and Chasind barbarians! Dragon cults! Lola had fought some of them, trying to get to the ashes, and she suspected that one of the tribes had got in and taken the urn of them after she left. So she said if I was looking for them, I should forget about Haven and the Divine, and take it up with the tribes to the south.”

Anders shrugged and tilted his head up proudly. “So I did.”

He allowed a moment for this to sink in.

“What?” Hawke laughed. “You just did?”

“I said I’d become a god, didn’t I?” Anders said, feeling a bit miffed. “So of course I did.”

“Sure,” Hawke said. “But how?”

“Well, I went trudging through the southern Frostbacks and asked around.” Anders shrugged. “It was mostly a lot of walking and camping. And it wasn’t like the first tribe I ran into had the ashes, but we’d talk and they’d point me off in another direction, and then there’d be more walking and camping.”

“But eventually you found the right people?” Hawke prompted.

“Yeah, they called themselves the Remnants of Andraste’s Disciples, or something,” Anders said. “They threw me in a pit with a bear.”

Another pause fell over the table.

“How did that go?” Hawke finally asked, smiling like he was overwhelmed.

“I guess I killed it,” Anders said, a little guiltily. “And I think there was some Hakkon trainer too…”

He trailed off, hoping it hadn’t been too many of them he’d torn into.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “There were a lot of trials in some sort of arena. I remember fighting, and also healing. And then after that there were a bunch of spirits asking me riddles, but I wasn’t very good at them.”

He shifted uncomfortably, hugging Merrill and Fenris a little tighter to him.

“I wasn’t sleeping, I don’t think. So I can’t remember well. But Justice was with me, taking care of things.”

Hawke nodded understandingly but, when he spoke, he sounded a bit disappointed.

“It’s just not much of a story, if you don’t remember it, you know?”

Fenris scoffed once more.

“What is there to understand, Hawke?” His voice was a deep raspy purr. “The mage set out to make true his ambitions, met challengers well versed in all manner of demonic arts, and proved that he was the most powerful and barbaric among them.”

He slipped his hand between Anders’s legs again and rubbed over Anders’s cock – slow and firm and reverent.

“The most virile and godly mage of all,” he muttered headily.

Anders flushed, quite unsure what to say. But as Fenris stroked him once more, it became clear that he shouldn’t say anything at all. The only thing he could do was swallow the moan that threatened to spill up his throat and past his lips.

"Fenris is pretty far under already, isn’t he?” Hawke laughed. “This your new godly powers in action, Anders? Getting Fenris to crawl all over you in the middle of the Hanged Man?”

“Do not joke, Hawke,” Fenris growled. His eyes grew sharp and focussed, and he pulled his hand off Anders. “How many times have I been overtaken by paranoia, unsure of the genuity of my own feelings?”

“You know I didn’t mean it like that~” Hawke smirked, still sounding amused.

Fenris harrumphed.

“You will allow me my fun, Hawke,” he insisted. “If we must all live in a world of evil magicks and endless injustices and unconscionable abuses of power, I should at least be allowed to enjoy myself.”

Hawke’s grin widened even further. “Oh, there’s the Fenris we know and love~”

Anders used the distraction to move his arm down and wrap it around Fenris’s waist and thigh.

“Love?” he addressed, as he pulled Fenris into him, grinding his hipbone into where Fenris had straddled his right leg.

“Hnn?” Fenris grunted softly. His vividly green eyes were already looking far less sharp and focussed.

Anders leaned in and spoke directly into his ear.

“I think we both know you’re more sensitive than me, love. If you’re trying to see which one of us can make the other mess himself for desire in public… You know you’re not exactly playing a game you can win.”

He pressed Fenris down over the side of his hip to make a point, and heard Fenris hiccup and felt him shudder.

“So why don’t you try to be good a little longer?” Anders asked, leaning down to press a soothing kiss to the side of Fenris’s face. “I promise I’ll get to you soon. I wouldn’t leave you in this state overnight~ You know that, don’t you, love?”

Fenris’s eyes were more unfocussed than ever, but he nodded. And when Anders slid his arm back up over Fenris’s shoulder, Fenris curled docilely back into his chest.

Anders squeezed Fenris’s shoulder – firm and muscular – and revelled in the soft grunt it elicited from his lover, before turning back to Hawke.

“Where did I leave off?”

Hawke leered, elbow propped against the table as he helped himself to a roll of cheese off the charcuterie board. “You were making sure Fenris stayed all giddy, I think?”

When Anders pouted, Hawke only laughed.

“You two are definitely a match – so easy to upset.” Hawke peeled the rind off the cheese, before swallowing it whole. “Justice was making friends for you down south, after you got them angry enough to throw you in a pit.”

Anders pouted harder.

That made it sound like he had only gone making trouble, and Justice had done all the actual work. Never mind that he and Justice were one and the same.

“Well, we got ahold of the ashes somehow,” he said petulantly.

He vaguely remembered falling off the top of some mountain onto the stronghold’s stone balcony, and then tripping through the interior for the urn. But Hawke hardly needed to hear it.

“So you got this urn filled with the world’s oldest ashes,” Hawke prompted. “And you’re just- lugging them around?” He snickered. “How do you go from that to godhood?”

“It’s all in that book Merr gave me…” Anders frowned distractedly, craning his head and trying to catch sight of his traveller’s pack.

Where had he put it? Was the book in it? Or had he left it behind somewhere on his travels? He hoped he still had that book, or else Xenon would definitely spend the next millennia using it to leach mana from him.

He turned to Merrill, intending to ask her. But his throat constricted when he found her lax and snorting against his shoulder. She looked very small and delicate tucked into his left side. And, unlike Fenris, her shoulders were slender enough that most of his forearm draped down her side.

It would have been tremendously easy to reach under her shirt and cup her breast and pinch her nipple between forefinger and thumb.

Anders shook the thought away. He guessed finding the damned book could wait.

“I don’t know,” Anders said. “There’s a ritual that goes with it. Glyphs and chanting and lyrium and the like.”

It was only a little lie. The ritual as written in the book had called for blood, not lyrium. But Anders had figured the recipe wouldn’t fail for a minor substitution.

Not that any of it had ended up mattering.

“None of it really does anything. Only calls up flashing lights, fills some flame braziers, grows ice crystals in pretty patterns.” Anders scoffed contemptuously. “The only part of the ritual that actually does anything is…”

He felt a little uneasy admitting it, but he soldiered on.

“You have to eat the ashes,” he said.

“Oh…”

Hawke was wearing that placid smile once more – the one he got when overwhelmed. It was another moment before he spoke again.

“Can’t imagine thousand year old ash tasted very good. Do you get to cook it into something at least?”

“It doesn’t matter how you eat it,” Anders said defensively. “Stir it into stew or butter it on toast, for all anyone cares.”

The truth was Anders hadn’t bothered with any of that. He’d given the ashes one taste, before deciding to save himself the trouble and swallow the urn whole. But Anders didn’t really like to think about how he’d managed to get his mouth around something wider than his head, or about any of the more… overt physiological changes that came with being an abomination.

But once Anders started thinking about what happened after that… What happened after was…

“I… don’t know how to describe it,” he said, still awed by the experience. “After I ate the ashes… It’s like you suddenly understand – really understand – just how large the world is, and how small.”

Hawke didn’t have to make that confused face for Anders to know he didn’t understand – couldn’t understand – but Anders couldn’t stop himself from going on.

“And you see and hear all these things – more than any one or any hundred people could ever experience, throughout all of eternity – but it’s all you. They’re all you. And you feel like… You know suddenly you’re the strongest person in existence, but only the way an ant is strong.”

Anders let out a shudder, felt the magic course through his limbs, and Fenris and Merrill’s hearts beating on either side of his.

Hawke blinked.

“Okay,” he said.

“But I wasn’t actually a god yet,” Anders told Hawke, remembering the frustration he’d felt, once he’d finished consuming the ashes and the fever dream that followed, and known. “I don’t know how, but I could feel I wasn’t there yet. You know how you just know when you’re a hair’s breadth away from a revelation? So close you know what you’re not tasting? It was driving me half-mad.”

Fenris let out an incredulous snort. Anders could have sworn he muttered ‘all-mad’.

Hawke paid this interruption no attention.

“Sure,” he told Anders indulgently.

“It was driving me mad,” Anders said, “until I remembered what Lola said about why she was looking for the ashes to start with. And what she took a pinch of them to do.”

An ominous silence descended over the table.

Hawke helped himself to some fruit and salami.

“You know, nobody liked the Arl very much,” Anders said, feeling defensive all over again. “Lola wasn’t the only one upset with how he’d treated the King. Fiona was too.”

“Yeah?” Hawke asked, picking a wayward seed out of a slice of dried pear.

Anders scowled.

“Fiona was always fighting with him about how he’d handled the King. And the King’s half-sister. And his own son, Connor. And his son’s demon, Fancy. You know he nearly got his own son possessed?!” Anders shook his head disdainfully. “Fiona was always fighting with the Arl. And he was starting to threaten her too – talking about how he was going to kick all the rebel mages out of Castle Redcliffe, if they couldn’t stop making trouble.”

“That’s pretty awful,” Hawke said sympathetically.

Merrill let out a particularly loud snore.

Fenris merely began tracing circles into Anders’s thigh.

“I know!” Anders squawked. “He was practically threatening to feed them to the Templars – his own son with them!”

He let out an indignant huff, before continuing.

“So, really, you’d think she’d be a little more grateful when I ate him, and solved the damned problem for her!”

For another moment, Hawke only managed to blink, but he caught himself soon enough.

“Not very gracious of her,” he agreed.

“When is Fiona ever?” Anders snarled. “You know, I told her this was a good thing. I told her: with Arl Eamon tucked away, I’m a god now. Anything she needs me to do for the Mage Rebellion, I’ll do it. I wouldn’t even question her! I’d take her lead and put my full power towards supporting her and the rebel mages! And what does she say to me?!”

“Nothing good, I’m sure,” Hawke said.

“She said that if I was so desperate for something to do, I could go out and sweep the field for rogue Templars, or head off to Rivain again, or go back home to my crumbling Marcher city. But most of all, I should stay out far away from her and the other mages, while she talks to Teagan and tries to re-establish the credibility that I’ve apparently ruined!”

Another bit of silence fell over the table, as Anders nursed his wounds.

When Hawke spoke, it was in a low croon. “It’s difficult when people can’t appreciate you and all you have to offer.”

Anders whimpered and nodded emphatically.

Hawke smiled warmly. “But you’re back home now, surrounded by people who appreciate you plenty.”

Anders was feeling pretty well-appreciated with Fenris and Merrill to either side of him. Hawke was smiling so gently at him, from across the table. And Fenris had resumed ghosting his hand over the crotch of Anders’s trousers – no doubt trying to test how much he could get away with, before Anders retaliated.

Anders flushed, feeling as ashamed as he was smitten. He’d been looking for appreciation when he’d headed back to the Vigil from Castle Redcliffe, after all.

“That’s pretty much the whole story then,” Anders said. “I swept out all the rogue Templars I could find and headed back to Vigil’s Keep. Had to let Lola know how everything turned out, and let her medics run some tests and all.”

Anders shrugged, trying to look nonchalant. But in truth, he’d stayed in Vigil’s Keep quite a bit longer than it would have taken for a report and a lab appointment. He’d spent nearly three weeks there in advent of the twelfth month – taking advantage of Nathaniel and Sigrun’s beds in addition to Lola Tabris’s usual brand of abundant if ill-tempered hospitality. But he was all too aware of the hand gently cupping his groin, and how little Fenris would be pleased to hear about this particular set of misadventures.

“Didn’t want to overstay my welcome though,” he concluded brusquely. “Pretty sure Lola was one frayed nerve from either buying me a ticket back home, or assigning Justice and me to patrols in the Deep Roads. So I made sure to drop and note and vanish before she could get around to either.”

“And here you are!” Hawke boomed.

“And here I am,” Anders agreed, swallowing his guilt and leaning down to nuzzle the crown of Fenris’s head – kissing him in secret, silent apology.

Fenris seemed pleased by it, given the way the tips of his ears fluttered.

“So…?” Anders looked back across the table. “Time for those letters, Hawke?”

“What? No!” Hawke let out a dramatised gasped. “Come on, Anders. Holding out on us? If you’re a god now, you have to have some special divine powers!”

“Really, Hawke?” Anders whined. “They’re really not anything special.”

But in spite of this show of humility, he let out a huff, leaned back in his seat, and spread his legs a little wider, so Fenris could touch him more thoroughly.

“You’re not even going to show them off to us?!” Hawke demanded.

Anders tried to make a show of declining. But before he could get more than a few words out, Fenris straightened in his seat, pressing his knees into the booth and sliding up Anders’s chest.

“Do it,” he commanded, pressing his lips against Anders’s. “I wish to see it. Show them the breadth of your dominion, amatus, and everything that will come beneath it.”

Anders was pretty sure those words had left him harder than any of Fenris’s touches. But even so, he could hardly argue, as Fenris took his arm and yanked him out of the booth.

Merrill startled awake, as she nearly fell over in her seat.

“What happened? What are we doing now?” she asked, the edges of her words spreading into a yawn, as she scooted sideways across the booth, after them.

“Anders is showing us the powers he won, absorbing Andraste’s mantle,” Fenris answered curtly.

“That should be fun,” Merrill said agreeably, with yet another yawn. “Are these the ones he got fighting that bear and eating that man the Grand Enchanter was so very cross with – Marl or Carl or Varl or something?”

Fenris let out an unimpressed grunt. “You know the word ‘arl’, witch.”

“Wait, sweetheart, I thought you were asleep for that,” Anders protested.

“Oh, I was,” Merrill agreed, reaching to hold herself against his arm. “But that was what you said, wasn’t it? You were telling yourself a story about how terrible this Jarl was, so you didn’t have to feel bad about how you were going to eat him anyhow, right?”

“That wasn’t what happened!” Anders hissed defensively.

They bickered as they climbed to the second story, piled into Isabela’s old room, and took the ladder up to the viewing platform on the roof of the Hanged Man.

“This should do nicely enough.” Anders stretched his arms out in front of him, then over his head. “Everyone stand back,” he called.

Everyone stood back dutifully – Merrill to one side of the platform, and the men to the other. Fenris’s heel knocked into Hawke’s boot, as he retreated. But when he glanced behind him, he gave in, crossing one foot over the other and leaning back against Hawke’s shoulder.

With the way clear– “Now!” Anders cried.

He wiggled his fingers. And at once, streaks of white cloud began to draw themselves into the air above him.

They slashed the air above, one after the other – more and more in thicker and thicker strokes – until they blotted out the sky for as far as the eye could see. And they swiftly grew dense and grey – textured and mean – and let out a great roar.

All at once they unleashed themselves, raining down upon the earth with thunder and lightning and thick fat drops of water and flecks of ice.

Anders turned back to his companions. He opened his arms, accepting the bounty of the sudden shower, and ignored the shouts from the street below, where passers-by cursed the sudden turn in the weather.

“Oh, that’s quite a storm,” Merrill said cheerfully. “Though if I had known…”

The whites of her eyes pulsing black momentarily.

Fenris’s face scrunched irritably, as he huddled in his jacket. And he hunched his shoulders and curled further in on himself, as Hawke wrapped an arm up to help shield him.

“Well, what do you think?” Anders asked, breathlessly.

For a beat, the only sound was the call of thunder and the patter of rain and hail upon the platform.

“You were always talented in primal and elemental magicks, amatus,” Fenris said drearily.

“Yeah, Father knew this one too,” Hawke piped up. “He said they called it Tempest in the Fereldan Circle.”

“This?!” Anders waved irritably at the storm above him. “This is a lot bigger than some measly Tempest!”

An Arcane Horror floated up from the street to the balcony, carrying a red and pink patterned parasol. They presented it in both hands to Merrill, who accepted it graciously.

“I’m sure it will be a lot of help when we have droughts and need to water the crops, vhenan,” she told Anders, as she struggled to press the parasol open.

Anders let out an affronted gasp. He wasn’t just some water delivery service for Merrill’s fields! Not that he wouldn’t make sure the crops feeding the city didn’t die of drought, but-

The rain soaked through his coat and its feathered pauldrons. In the near-freezing winter, he was beginning to feel cold.

“But-!” Anders protested. “I could call up a hundred storms like this if I wanted! All at once! I basically have unlimited mana now!” he boasted.

Hawke and Fenris shared a look.

Merrill finally managed to force the parasol open, but even as she lifted it over her head, the storm above was already fading into a light drizzle. No point in flooding out the undercity, Anders reasoned.

“Didn’t Justice already increase your mana pool?” Merrill asked.

“Yeah,” Hawke agreed. “When was the last time you were too mana-sick to cast a spell?”

“During the Qunari riots six years ago,” Fenris answered for Anders. “Or grandstanding at that Coterie underground rave, directly after grandstanding at that wyvern hunt – but you hardly needed to extend yourself that far to impress criminals and fools, amatus.”

“Pretty sure it was you I was impressing!” Anders shot back. “You think I didn’t see you grinning whenever you thought my back was turned?!”

Fenris shrugged. “As I said: criminals and fools.”

“No, but Hawke and Fenris are right,” Merrill agreed, the tips of her ears fluttering. “How long have we known you for, and we can only think of two times you’ve needed treatment for mana deprivation.”

“Well, next time, I won’t need treatment at all,” Anders replied haughtily. “I can cast soooo many spells! At least five times as many as before!”

The others looked between themselves again. They were clearly thinking on the profound difference it would make in their life for Anders not to get mana-sick the next time he might have otherwise been due for it – another five years from now, if their current statistics were predicative.

“I- I can do something else!” Anders tried. “I could… part the Waking Sea!” He pointed frantically towards the harbour. “Just open up the seabed so people could walk across it!”

Hawke and Fenris looked no more impressed.

“Or I could make a mountain rise from the earth!” Anders pointed inland. “I could put one right over there!”

This at least had Fenris looking ponderous for a moment.

“Earth was never your preferred primal manifestation in the past,” he acknowledged.

It still wasn’t. Anders preferred the reactive friction and bursts of energy between shifting states of matter, more than he enjoyed shaping something as solid as earth. But if a mountain was what it took to impress Fenris-

“No, I don’t think so,” Merrill tutted.

She stepped forward and took Anders’s hand before he could even think to start casting, tucking her parasol into the crook of his elbow and holding him steady.

“I don’t think we need any tidal waves or earthquakes today, vhenan,” she told him. “Maybe some other time, if you’re being good.”

Anders pouted, but he knew she was right. There was no saying how many sailors and dwarves and civilian lives would be disrupted, if he started moving that much earth and water around.

The clouds had dispersed, but everything was cold and dreary and sodden from the downpour.

Merrill retrieved the parasol and folded it shut.

“Let’s get back inside where it’s warm and dry,” Hawke suggested.

They climbed back inside. And Anders saw to drying everyone – starting by pulling Hawke against him, and raising his body temperature so the water evaporated off them in a puff of steam.

Fenris patted Anders on the back when it was his turn. “Perhaps the lacklustre nature of your apotheosis merely goes to show that you were already half a god.”

Anders grumbled, but pulled Fenris a little tighter into his embrace.

He wanted Fenris to be bowled over by his divine powers, not sympathetically resigned to their sterility. But it was difficult to fault Fenris, when he was speaking in that raspy purr, so obviously trying to make the best of the circumstances for the sake of their mutual gratification.

“No, I think that’s the problem.” Merrill climbed up Anders’s side and wrapped her arms about his neck, seemingly without a care as to whether she displaced Fenris in the process. “You and the statue woman were too similar, so you were already half-her when you ate her ashes.”

She sighed contentedly, as she pressed her cold wet cheek against his neck and felt steam rise off of it.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Anders grumbled, as he released Fenris and focussed on warming Merrill.

“Well, when I came into my powers as Falon’Din, they were completely different from the ones I had before,” Merrill explained. “You know I was never very good with spirits, or manipulating Fade energies. I was good with somatic magics – blood and bodies, tweaking the insides of people’s heads so they’d stumble and black out. Moving things already on this side of the Veil around.”

Anders wrung his lips.

What Merrill was saying was true enough. He hadn’t shared many magical specialities with her, before she’d come into this recent affinity for spirit magic. They were both good with ice magic, but Anders knew that even those spells they didn’t cast the same. He drew ice and cold from the memories of the Fade, while Merrill mostly seemed to bludgeon water into crystals. On particularly hot and dry days, she couldn’t cast ice spells at all, unless she had a nearby body of water to draw from.

“So when I found out I was Falon’Din,” Merrill said, “it seemed like I could suddenly do twice as many things. Suddenly I could call a bunch of sprits and energy from the Fade, and it let me fill up all those corpses and herd them around in a way I never would have been able to before. And that was in addition to everything else I was already good at.”

Merrill sniffled, stretched, and patted Anders on the back, and let herself down – calm and dry.

“But you and Justice were already good at drawing things out of the Fade, and healing people for hours on end, and raining storms and lightning and fire and ice down on everyone,” Merrill pointed out. “So if the statue woman was good at all the same things, now you’re only double good at them. Which doesn’t seem as impressive since you were already better at those things than most anyone else had a use for.”

Merrill blinked widely.

“Or have you noticed any other changes in your magical resonance, since you ate her ashes?” she asked.

Well, Anders had been having visions about blood and dragons and reaving. And some blighted obnoxious demon who insisted on calling himself ‘the Maker’ had taken to harassing Anders in his dreams – telling him to do this and that. But Justice had thankfully taken up guard to keep Anders safe from the pest.

None of this was particularly worth mentioning to Merrill though.

Anders pouted.

“It’s alright, vhenan.” Merrill gave Anders a comforting pat on the arm. “I’m sure you’ll get better, more complementary god powers next time.”

Anders sulked for a few moments, before his surroundings managed to distract him with another thought.

“Where’s Isabela?” he asked.

Not that he’d expected to find her here in her old room at the Hanged Man. Since she’d moved her things onto her ship, The Impossible Bottle, she spent most of her nights at the docks, when she wasn’t with Fenris or at Hawke’s or visiting the Pearl.

“How has she been?” Anders asked.

“She’s been doing good!” Hawke answered. “Kept herself busy enough while you were gone. Ran her ship here and there, smuggling supplies into the city for Merr’s sake.”

He led Anders and the others out of the room and back into the hall.

“Isabela thought you’d rather have husband and wife to yourself, first night back,” Hawke went on to explain. “But you’ll see her tomorrow. We figured we’d all take the day to hike up the Vimmarks. I’m setting everyone up with tickets to see the dragons and petting zoo at the Bone Pit~” he announced proudly.

“The Bone Pit again?” Anders grumbled. But he wasn’t really disappointed, just looking to give Hawke a hard time. “Who put you in charge of date planning, Hawke~?” he teased.

“The dragons aren’t too bad, even if they’re not griffons,” Merrill cut in to defend Hawke. “And anyhow, we put in so much work to fix up the Bone Pit for Hawke, we might as well go appreciate what came out of it.”

“All the work you put in, huh?” Hawke raised a challenging eyebrow.

Fenris tugged at Anders’s sleeve.

“Speaking of Isabela, she and I have made plans this upcoming Drakonis,” he informed. “There is a place on Rialto Bay – a legal no man’s land on the Antiva-Rivain border – docks and warehouses famous amongst slavers en route to Qarinus. Isabela and I have made plans to sail. We intend to infiltrate and sabotage operations.”

Fenris’s expression had become very stern and serious. Anders thought he looked very adorable and fierce, when he was worked up about injustice.

“And where are you going to find the time to adopt, between all these dangerous missions to end the Tevinter slave trade?” Anders smiled indulgently, as he reached for Fenris and brushed a tuft of hair out of his eye.

“You are one to talk, amatus. Aren’t you the one who will not be satisfied, unless you have it all?” Fenris let out an irritable grunt. “Isabela and I will be going to Rialto Bay as a certainty. But if it suits yours and your spirit’s interests to accompany us, I am sure there will be ample use for your magical talents.”

Saving would-be slaves in Rialto Bay didn’t sound like half a bad idea for a god and a spirit of justice. So Anders leaned over and kissed Fenris on the neck.

“Hey!” Hawke cut in. “No fair, getting a head start cutting into his schedule like that,” he told Fenris. “In that case, Anders, make sure you leave time for appointments with Bodahn and Sandal and Orana. You know they’re going to need their new year’s health check-ups.”

With Fenris and Hawke vying for his expertise and attention, Anders was feeling much better about this god business by the time they made their way back to the lower floor of the Hanged Man.

The Revenants from Merrill’s security detail had held the booth for them while they’d been away. And Merrill went forward to greet them and shoo them off, as Anders and Fenris and Hawke committed to their plans.

“Alright!” Hawke cheered, as they slid back into the booth. He reached into his pocket, and pulled out the envelopes he’d stored before. “First Day greetings!”

Merrill had entered the booth first, and she’d leaned back against the wall and folded her legs over Anders’s lap this time. Fenris tried unsuccessfully to swat her back, but Merrill jabbed at his hands with her heels, and eventually Fenris gave in and hugged Anders’s arm to his chest instead.

“Greeting number one from Bethany!” Hawke announced, breaking the seal and unfolding the letter inside. He began to read it aloud for the table to hear.

It was the platonic ideal of a First Day greeting. Polite and courteous – wishing her brother and his friends and household well in the new year. She’d included enough about her current occupations for the writing to feel personal, but not so much as to feel self-absorbed. And she’d left more than a few polite inquiries into everyone’s health for Hawke to follow up on.

Anders didn’t really pay too much attention. He wasn’t too embarrassed to admit he’d been distracted – rubbing a hand over Merrill’s calf and thigh, trying to figure out the most comfortable way to lean himself sideways against Fenris, enjoying the comforts of having returned home.

“Greeting number two from Carver!” Hawke announced, going for the second letter.

It was not as unfailingly polite as the first.

“‘Stop sending me shitting care packages!’” Hawke read off the paper. “‘Stop it with the gift baskets and surprise bundles and boxes of blighted pears!’”

Anders snorted. “Maker, he sounds unhappy. Just how many packages did you send, Hawke.”

Hawke shuffled uncomfortably in his seat.

“Oh, just a couple packets for him and Bethie here and there and… sixteen.” He shrugged, before continuing his recitation. “‘I bet you think this is funny. But I don’t need you sending Binky the Monkey to help me get to sleep, like I’m still a blighted toddler! Do you know they’re throwing them around the blighted barracks and calling them Hawke Socks?! You’ve sent enough for the entire unit at this point!’”

“Your brother likes monkeys then?” Merrill perked up. “But there aren’t any monkeys living so far south as Ferelden, are there?”

“Only ones made of old socks,” Hawke said. “Carver loves them. I used to sew one up from the castaways, after Mom and Dad got him new socks each Satinalia. He used to have a huge collection of sock monkeys in Lothering before the Blight… I can make one for you too!” He offered Merrill.

“Oh, Binky the Monkey and Feathers the Griffon could go on all sorts of adventures~” Merrill said wistfully.

Hawke read on.

“‘Bethie’s too nice to say it, so I’m telling you for the both of us: You’re embarrassing yourself and everyone else! Think about how it looks when the Seneschal walks into the mess hall to deliver us the snacks and toys brother-mommy sends every other week! Nobody can take us seriously! Stop sending things! Why just the other day we were out chasing Shrieks out of Tantervale, when that bastard Walton comes up to me with a bottle and a roll of stockings and-’”

The letter continued through the humiliations and mundanities of Carver’s and Bethany’s work in the Deep Roads – any details that might give away the Wardens’ plans or intel carefully omitted. And as Carver’s letter came to a close, he seemed to have lost steam on the outrage he’d begun the letter with.

“‘Yeah, whatever, I guess,’” Hawke read. “‘First Day greetings to you. Many happy returns to you and your household. Thank Bodahn and Sandal for the shortbread for me. And-’ Oh!”

Hawke cut off excitedly and waved at Merrill.

“He mentioned you!” he announced, before continuing. “‘And I heard Merrill made some kind of name for herself or other. Good to hear she’s finally getting herself some of what she came to Kirkwall for, I guess. Wish her a happy First Day for me. Along with those other jerks you spend your time with. Why not, right?’”

Carver had closed out the letter soon after, but Merrill leaned in, watching wide-eyed as Hawke folded the paper over itself.

A smirk spread over Hawke’s face and, when he moved the letter side to side, Merrill’s eyes followed it.

“Did you want to see?” he laughed, holding the letter out to Merrill.

Merrill wasted no time snatching it up. She unfolded it and began scanning the handwriting, holding her finger up to trace a line. And as she did so, her leg bent and she tucked her foot beneath Anders’s thigh, and pulled herself closer to him – her thighs sliding over one another and where Anders’s hand had gripped her.

Before Anders could decide how he felt about whatever had happened between Merrill and Carver, before Mirrors and Darkspawn and Wardens and he himself had gotten in the way, Hawke lifted up the final envelope.

“Greeting number three from Varric!”

Anders’s eyes widened, as Hawke ripped the envelope open and pulled out Varric’s letter – the paper crumpled and blotched, like it had gotten wet from snowfall, and then dried again.

Without reservation, this greeting interested Anders in a way that neither of those from the Hawke siblings had.

Anders had done his best to trust that Fenris and Merrill had been true to their word, and had ensured Varric’s safety in travelling with the Seeker. But part of Anders still worried – worried that Varric was beaten down and mistreated, had been discovered for a liar, or was spending his time in abject misery – misery Anders and the others had used to buy their own happiness.

And so Anders listened attentively, breath held in anticipation, as Hawke read Varric’s letter in full, uninterrupted.

..

Well, we made it, Hawke.

Escaped the blizzard outside Orzammar, and it’s a straight shot to Haven from there, right? That’s what you would have said, don’t deny it, Hawke. It’s what I would have said, too.

And I’d have been wronger than a Silent Sister strapped with Qunari blackpowder.

We get urgent orders from the Divine, and the Seeker’s dragging me across the Bannorn to Therinfal to check in on the Templars. More orders – and the Seeker’s dragging me across the western desserts to investigate some ruins someone’s dug up in an oasis – all locked up.

So I’ve been about three-quarters of the way around Thedas with this psycho. Almost asked her if we were going to visit my cousin in Qarinus next – but figured then she’d make me explain why I have a cousin in Qarinus to begin with.

But we made it, Hawke. Halfway up this damned snowy mountain to the Conclave at Haven, to meet the Divine and put this whole story and this whole stupid war to rest.

And what do you know? Halfway up the mountain, standing on a set of old dwarven steps, with the Seeker barking at me to hurry it up, and a huge explosion blasts the sky apart! Blew the Divine and the whole Conclave to bits! Really not a good decade to be a Chantry Granny, what with explosions turning out to be a common way for them to go. And if the Seeker and I had arrived one moment sooner, we’d have been gone with her!

So at this point I’m thinking this whole business stinks like a bad dream. We’ve got a burning Chantry, a dead Granny, demons popping out of thin air. It’s like I’m back on the docks that night he decided to blow Kirkwall to smithereens. But at least I’ve got Bianca back on my side – the Seeker finally admits she can’t expect me to march up to Haven unarmed.

We get up there, and what does she find? A Tal Vashoth. With some weird glowy magic on her hand. The sole unconscious survivor.

And now I’m really thinking we’ve got Anders Numero Dos on our hands. Mage with a bone to pick? Trying to put an end to anyone vying for peace? The Seeker’s thinking the same thing – getting this woman all comfy in chains. Searching for experts to examine the magic on her. Trying to figure out if she’s connected to the hole in the sky shitting out demons.

Things are looking bad – real bad. But then the vashoth woman wakes up. Says her name is Adaar.

She says it’s all a misunderstanding. She came on orders from her mercenary captain – just to watch and report on which way the political winds are turning. She says she doesn’t remember anything about the explosion, but she certainly didn’t cause it. And she wants to put right whatever she can.

Didn’t believe her at first. But she seems reasonable, polite. Not like Anders Numero Uno. And you catch more flies with honey, right? We have some elf saying the anchor on her hand can help close the rifts and seal away the demons, and the Seeker decides we’ll try this out and report to the Left Hand. So we’re heading up the mountain, chatting. I’m trying to get what I can out of her, but the Seeker is about as subtle as a shield bash – keeps threatening the woman into clamming up.

But, well, it works. The Seeker thought we were going to have to retreat, withdraw the soldiers, give the place up for lost. But with Adaar we’re pressing forward. We’re stopping the demons. Saving the troops. Adaar closes four Fade rifts on the way up, and takes a good crack at the big one, before losing consciousness. And then-

I don’t know, Hawke. I would have chalked it up to me losing my damned mind, if it were just me. But those rifts in the sky go shifty – and every one of us on that mountain sees it. Some kind of vision of a memory. And someone who looks a whole lot like Andraste pushes Adaar out of the Fade, saying to go, saying that she’s the one with the power to save us.

So Adaar- Everyone’s calling her the Herald of Andraste. Worshippers have come all over to pay their respects and pledge allegiance to her. The Seeker and her pals have called an Inquisition to help support her.

Sounds crazy, right? Part of me thinks so. The biggest part of me doesn’t know what to think at all. But something’s going on here and I’m having a hard time saying it’s all just some big coincidence. Adaar does have that mark on her hand, after all. And she can close these Fade rifts even if no one else can.

The Seeker says I’m free to go, now that there’s no Divine for me to tell my story to. But I think I need to stay and see this through, Hawke. There’s a hole in the sky, and the new Inquisition, and that whole war Anders went and started. And there’s Adaar. Whether she’s Andraste’s Herald, or something else, they might not be wrong about her being our only hope.

Happy First Day, Waffles. Give everyone there a hard time for me.

Varric

..

Hawke was smiling vacantly, overwhelmed once more, as he finished the letter. He checked the back and, finding it blank, turned it idly in his hands several more times, before folding it away.

Fenris stretched, releasing Anders’s arm and slumping back against the booth in a fit of despondency.

“Kaffas,” he cursed, having realised the trajectory the night was about to take before the others.

“But- But-” Anders heard himself sputtering.

Concern for Varric forgotten, Anders’s eyes welled with hot angry tears.

“Pretty strange bunch of happenings,” Hawke said. “But at least the Seeker decided to let up and let him go, huh?”

This was all too much for Anders.

“But I’m the one that ate the ashes!” he spat furiously. “I’m the inheritor to Andraste’s legacy! I’m the one that took up the quest and fought all those people and ate the Arl and inherited all her divine powers!”

Anders let out a cry of rage and dismay.

“And now some Qunari strumpet – one that everyone was pretty sure bombed the Conclave to start with! – closes a couple of Fade rifts, and everyone’s calling her Andraste come again?!” he demanded.

Hawke smiled blankly and gave a few confused blinks.

Fenris let out a sigh, and knocked his head back against the booth.

“You know, I can close Fade rifts too!” Anders snarled. “Justice and I were closing Fade rifts years ago! In the Blackmarch! Nobody was running after us and calling us the Herald of Andraste and joining up with our cause then!”

“Why didn’t you close some of them then?” Merrill’s eyes flashed black, and she folded Carver’s letter in her lap. “There haven’t been reports of mass tears in the Veil this far north yet, but you didn’t see any when you were in Ferelden?”

Anders thought back. He guessed he’d seen a few winks of green and blue in the sky, when he’d stopped over in Highever, but-

“I thought it was just a swarm of green bees or something,” he whimpered.

Merrill reached for his hand, took it in hers, and squeezed sympathetically.

Anders continued to mutter furiously.

“This woman blows up a Chantry and does a little magic, and Varric’s hopping around saying she might as well be Andraste’s Herald. But I do the same and all he calls me is ‘unreasonable’. I’m the one that got Andraste’s blessing!” he cried. “Not her!”

Fenris let out another sigh, but he wrapped an arm around Anders’s back and rubbed a hand over his shoulder.

“I guess it just goes to show that godhood is as much about publicity and marketing, as it is about divine talent,” Merrill said solemnly.

None of them seemed to have much more to say on the subject, after that.

Anders sat in the Hanged Man, in the city that had become a home to him. He was warm and safe, with a full belly, surrounded by friends and lovers. He had a place to sleep, a man and a woman to take to bed, and the divine right to shoot lightning at fools. And he even had something that was starting to look like prospects for the future – a future where he and Justice were alive and well – one with an expanding family and fulfilling work to see to, where they’d be able to address the ongoing injustices of the world.

Anders scowled, glaring at Varric’s letter across the table and feeling immensely dissatisfied.

“This sucks,” he said succinctly, and only grudgingly allowed the others to comfort him.