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A Match to Tinder	By : Anesor Category: +A through F > Dragon Age (all) > Dragon Age (all) Views: 4095 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Age 2, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story. Aldera is my character, as are a few new ones.

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-- Orzammar, Grey Warden Outpost
Anders:
During the ambush I knew I bled, but I'd stabilized Hawke, enough for that moment. Now we had to win the battle and I reached, demanding more from Justice. There were too many if I couldn't deal with them quickly enough, so I summoned as much ice and cold as I could, praying and channeling energies in almost forgotten ways. Our enemies slowed as frigid winds hit them and ice formed even as they attacked. Slowing them gave me more time for other spells and even using my staff-spear with growing exhaustion.
Merrill was still casting when I heard more shouts and battle cries. Only as the first two slammed into our attackers, did I realize those were cries for the Grey. They were Wardens, I could feel it. Seeing the blue uniforms on them only confirmed what any Warden could tell by instinct in the dark of the Deep Roads.
They surely could feel I was too, unless they were very new. They weren't many, but that didn't matter for Wardens, and our attackers died quickly.
The bigger surprise was that I knew the one commanding them, someone I hadn't really expected to meet again. Sigrun was the most cheerful dead woman I'd ever met. By some miracle, she didn't decide that I deserved to die too when we spoke. I needed rest so after so much magic in the wrong armor; all I needed was sleep. Instead we got a quick march to Orzammar and Hawke was nearly carrying me when we reached some underground room with a real bed.
I didn't even remember undressing when I woke in that bed.
My thoughts had been foggy earlier, but now I was worried about dealing with Wardens again. No one had clapped me in irons on my arrival or while I'd slept, that had to be good. But now what would happen?
Mew woke enough from my motions that he wanted some attention, but Paws was gone, as was Hawke. Did I trust Sigrun? I felt only a mix of respect and annoyance but no anger from inside.
I dressed and put Mew on my shoulders as I prepared to look for Hawke, and maybe something to eat. They had to have food here somewhere.
Turning right outside the door, I found Merrill in a larger chamber. The room looked like a worn common room in an inn, with a few more homey touches. Tables and benches, as well as a couple of bookshelves with odd-looking tomes were scattered around the vaulted room. She had a few of the books beside her on the floor as she pored over a smaller one.
“Are any of those Dalish in origin?” I asked her.
She looked up and smiled. “I cannot be sure. This one does not match the lore I have been taught. It is a short treatise on some kind of arcane collection of abilities to strengthen a mage. The source was described as an ancient ruin of the People. There is no author listed and the binding has a griffin on it. Still it speaks of ancient ehlvan as 'elves' so it was done by a human. It is a fascinating puzzle, as some of the concepts are very much of how we are trained, not what humans would know.” Then she frowned and said with disapproval, “Of course it could be false delusions by some human.”
I had to smile, as her seeking lore didn't bother me at all, compared to her dealings with demons and blood magic. When I stepped over to peek at what she was reading, the writing was more in brief summaries and raw facts. Hints, but not the entirety. What almost made me laugh was that the handwriting was familiar to me. “I suspect it's not complete because the Warden who found it, recorded everything they learned without truly understanding parts. Wardens really don't work against each other on anything having to do with combat. Their lives depend on each other too much. It may be incomplete, but not wrong.”
Looking excited, she said, “I will need to copy this at least once. Are we staying that long?”
Shrugging I admitted, “I don't know, maybe long enough for one copy.”
Rising gracefully, she started chattering about finding materials to make a master copy at least and said she was going outside to the merchant stalls. That left me alone with Mew. I found another Warden, who was disapprovingly polite, but he did point me towards food.
And thank the Maker, I was directed towards a supply closet. I could collect things I needed, for combat and even for drinking, here between missions. Posted there were strong warnings about reselling supplies. Hawke might like some, even if I might only sip.
What made parts of me sing was an ample supply of lyrium flasks, dozens of them. I looked around, wondering if anyone was watching me. Then I scooped an armload and hurried back to our room to look at my booty. I almost felt guilty, but I left most of the vials.
Some.
No, I didn't feel guilty.
I could feel that Justice wanted some. I was still a little tired from casting and drank one.
Justice hummed in the back of my mind, and I remembered how much he liked that ring that the Warden gave him. I wondered what had happened to it when we fled Amaranthine.
My hands moved out without my intention and I asked, What are you doing?
I can feel the Fade with this. He almost sounded hesitant with a kind of echo.
So I let him go as he drank another potion... and then another. I felt warm, like I'd had a bottle or two, and we moved off to the bed to play with the next potion. The potion glowed with the bright blue light of pure lyrium.
I did not trust nor did I want to use lyrium potions made from the red lyrium I'd seen under Kirkwall. I'd never seen or heard of it before. I tried convincing other mages, but I had no evidence for my disquiet. I wondered if my word now about what Meredith had become with that tainted lyrium would carry any weight, but that faded into my pleasure at watching the liquid flow.
These potions had flecks of the bright and glowing blue in a viscous suspension. That material was the only secret about making lyrium potions, really. It had to be thick enough that the lyrium didn't settle out of the mix and not so much that it couldn't be swallowed. Some have used honey, but that had its own problems, like it attracted ants. The metal flakes gave it a bad enough flavor, that the addition of half a mouthful of ants looking for the honey made it much worse.
This didn't taste too bad, but it wasn't honey-based. I would have to find out what was in it, in case I had to make my own potions again. I pinched the liquid between my fingers, enjoying how it clung. I realized I was humming, but that didn't matter as I watched how the light reflected off my skin and the shadows of my scars.
I heard the door unlatch and Hawke entered with her dog. I hadn't noticed, but the room was brighter now when I looked at them. She looked different somehow, more like how I had seen her in the Fade, her hair darker, armor heavier and blood spattered. But still this was my Hawke and my skin vibrated when she entered the room with every thought and daydream I had for years. With all the lyrium in me now, she... we were in a timeless now that hadn't happened, was happening now. My hopes, my dreams, my love, I was so happy she was here with me. We had all the time in the world.
Her thoughts were on outside things, but I could be patient. I wanted her to see me as I saw her now, like the purity of the Fade but as real as the broken glass she was collecting. I had a seed of fear that what she saw would not be as joyful for her, but I could only feel hope... I was entirely a creature of hope right now, a distant hope for the future and hope for right now and sharing with my love.
Dera reminded me about it being lyrium and unsafe for her.
Justice sounded amused to my inner ear. She cannot subsist on the stuff of the Fade like a mage at a bowl of fresh cream.
Her being careful with the potion I had been playing with, made more sense suddenly and I wished there was some way we could.
I wanted her to be happy.
Happy like we were right now, not the tense and pinched forehead she'd had for weeks and months. I almost frantically cast about in my head looking for some way and could only think of getting her drunk.
Saddened and worried a little that she couldn't be happy with me, I was so relieved when she agreed to drink wine with me.
I didn't need much, but she did relax at least some before we made blissful love.
When I woke later with a headache that oddly echoed three times with every tiny sound, her constant worry weighed on me even more.
The headache did not respond to a healing spell, but I cast one for Hawke and she hummed in her sleep. She nestled closer, even asleep, relieving my fear a little. Enough that I could sleep again too.
Hawke woke me later, fully dressed.
“Come on, sleepyhead. I think Sigrun wants to talk to you.” Dera twirled her fingers around one of the braids in my hair.
I smiled before I was even completely awake, even with Hawke's warning. Underground like this, I had little idea what time of day it was, but this might be the first time I was happy while in a cave. I didn't feel any darkspawn anywhere close, and this place was newly carved without links to their tunnels.
Maybe this was just a carryover from last night, but I wasn't that worried about Sigrun either. “We can eat first, love. Wardens know food is important when you never know when you'll eat next.” I sat up and looked around.
The towels Dera had used last night were thrown into the corner near a washstand, and I could still see bits of lyrium glow. Looking down at myself I wasn't glowing, but there were spills all over the bed still. Worried suddenly, I pulled Hawke closer to examine her, especially her eyes.
There was the faintest trace of the haze in her eyes. I'd seen that haze much more often in Ferelden, but I knew she was careful to avoid lyrium. Remembering last night, she had to have gotten it from me. How much lyrium had I taken? My spirit was quick to tell me it was five. Five, and I hadn't used it for magic. Oh, Maker.
I'd never tried this or even wanted to, but I stood and took her over to a bench. “I'm sorry, love.” I scanned her, noticing where there were the most traces of lyrium in her system, where it had been partly absorbed by surrounding tissues. Absorbed but not used, like it was for me.
“What's wrong?” She sounded worried.
I cupped her cheeks and traced my thumbs over her tattoos, looking into her eyes which should have been her normal mossy green, but weren't. I had trouble saying it. “I poisoned you, a little, last night, and I have to try to heal it.”
“Oh. I see.” Her understanding showed in her eyes.
The only way I could think of was to use the mana in her flesh as part of my healing of her. It was like when I'd had to be careful to not do that when healing the elf. I looked in her eyes after I cast the healing spell on her, and they looked better. I supposed all Templars could have been healed if they were treated by healers the next day. But I really doubted many left healers willing and able very often.
My perception narrowed and I grasped the lyrium inside her again and again to drain the Fade-enegry, leaving only the metal bits to pass. I wasn't exactly tired when I finished, but I had a headache. Her eyes were green again and I hugged her tight.
Hawke looked into my eyes and said with a slight smile, “I guess next time you decide to overindulge in lyrium, you'll have to sleep alone.”
I had to laugh. “I doubt it will happen very often. I don't think anyone would expect that I would grab as many potions.”
“Anders... if you are going to steal, you really need to plan it so it's less obvious. Do you know how many Warden mages are staying here right now?”
Given the way my luck ran sometimes my answer had to be one thing. “Uh, none?”
“Very good, mage.” Hawke's lips were twitching with her amusement.
I washed and dressed in a hurry, putting on my own armor though only Paws wanted to come with us. No one here would be fooled by my role of a fumbling mercenary. There was ample food in a large kitchen, dried if we didn't want to cook. Some had been put aside and marked for mabaris. I'd never mastered that many recipes, all were for practical foods. I could have, if I had the time, never became a Warden or then fought for mages. Potion recipes would not be more complex than food. There was more than enough to cobble together a good meal.
After I gobbled down enough to really feel full, rare for me, I realized they had finished eating a time before. Even the dog had. “Sorry, love. I guess I was reminded of the Warden appetite...”
Hawke half-smiled. “That's fi...”
“Did Sparklefingers ever tell you about how he'd disappear for a couple days into his quarters with his favorites, some wine bottles, and a few cured ham quarters? The Warden started to wonder if we'd have to break the door in and only find withered corpses.” Sigrun arrived and built herself a plate of food.
Justice rumbled inside me, he'd scolded me then, especially if I missed a mission. But I rarely did.
Grinning, I shook my finger at her. “I think I got pretty good at guessing how long she'd disappear when that other Warden visited with messages.”
She laughed as picked up and weighed her plate. “That you did. Even if that left me with Oghren's crude comments and disapproval from the others. You owe me for that alone, I couldn't even read sometimes when that Dalish and Howe started complaining about you.”
Sigrun looked around the empty and open room and said, “We have more to speak of, in privacy.”
Her office looked like a cross between a library and a merchant's shop that sold oddments. One table had a pile of locks, and Hawke's gaze drifted towards them at least twice before we all settled on some chairs in front of the desk.
Sigrun ate a few bites before turning to place the plate on the desk behind her. “Okay, Anders. I don't know much about when you left Amaranthine. I do know there was a furor... the First Warden's representative, the Warden, even some Chantry-folk in Amaranthine made for quite a shouting match from what I heard. I do know after that the Warden was removed from command, officially and permanently that time, of the Grey Wardens in Ferelden. But she was still Arlessa when she was ordered to Weisshaupt. We were told not to expect her back at a posting in Ferelden. Was it worth it?”
Her question had been slid in with the other comments, all with the thread of anger, and I didn't recognize it at first. “What?”
Hawke gripped my hand, but stayed quiet.
“Whatever the reason was that you slaughtered a whole bunch of humans and fled.” My friend Sigrun wasn't amused and wasn't smiling now.
“You ask as if I had a choice that day. Ambushed like any mage, despite being their 'brother,' he and his friends had been Templars and minions of the Chantry, not Grey Wardens that day. I was still Warden and healer and this should have been resolved with my conscription and Rylock.” I felt outrage as myself and from within. “They wanted to kill me, right then and there, and nearly did.”
Brushing off Hawke's attempts to calm me, I wasn't that kind of angry and took off my shirt. The scar was big and ugly, and they both knew how well my healing usually prevented that.
Sigrun winced at seeing it and leaned forward to see the old scar tissue larger than my heart.
Hawke put an arm around me and gave me half a hug. I didn't normally like the feel of her champion armor against my skin, but I met her eyes sadly as I put my arm around her.
“Why didn't you stay?” Sigrun's voice had a new emotionlessness to it.
My old anger had burned out, so much else had happened since then. “Before this, Jean-Maurice had made it very clear he favored the Chantry in this, the Orlesian bastard. If the Warden-Commander of Ferelden wasn't going to support his mage, who would?”
“What about Justice? We'd spoken about his being slain here. Well, after I returned his ring.” Sigrun's voice may have lightened a little, but her eyes were still narrowed.
“I remember.”
She looked sadder but said, “So Roland was right, that you did become one of those abominations, someone possessed by a demon.”
“I am not a demon, Warden.” Justice was angrier, but not violently so.
I realized Hawke was rubbing my back and we turned to look at her.
“Burned remains of a tent, melted armor, bodies torn limb from limb... how is that very different, Justice?” Sigrun was sounding angry. “You probably don't want me to name the other ones who can kill like that.”
Hawke's eyes showed again her uneasiness from Halamshiral, but I turned to look at the dwarf.
“We defended ourselves from Templar attack, mages are not... nugs to be put down at whim. We... I wanted to help the mages, who suffer under injustices. They hate, they fear, they hunt mages, even the harmless ones. We are not harmless.”
There was a long moment of silence while we looked at Sigrun. I wasn't thinking much, and only wondered in a distant way what she was thinking.
Finally she smiled, “Well, you can still make jokes, Sparklefingers. So you aren't one of those things that we'd killed by the dozens, even if you've lost all your dress sense. What's with all that black, anyway? I don't think humans have funerals for their Wardens like we do when we join the Legion, do they?”
Maker, that might have been where the idea came from. I made... I wore what I wanted for my funeral? Not Chantry-like robes or even Tevinter style, but something else. I prayed something else could be born from what we did.
I floundered, as I didn't want to say this in front of Hawke and make her worry about it now. Sigrun would probably understand it better than me. “It might be... have been a bit like that.”
“He did have a blue and gray set of robes he wore for years, but during his upgrades, bits kept changing or getting stained. I do like how he looks in blue better...” Hawke confided to Sigrun fondly.
Sigrun grinned, “There is Gray Warden armor. I'm sure we could have a set made up for him.”
“No uniform. I'm not a Warden now.” I didn't even think before I objected.
Sigrun snorted but let it go. “So that's why you left, what brought you back again? A darkspawn nest?”
A little to my relief, she and Hawke took over the conversation, talking about the spider-like construct and the spawn that had been blocked inside those ruins. They both pulled out their maps, compared and marked them on various points of interest after the ruins and markers for finding them were already noted. I was very glad they were getting along, that Sigrun didn't sound like she was reporting me.
Sigrun's map was much more detailed on the Fereldan side of the mountains, and she was narrating some of the places she'd been since reaching the surface. Most I'd been to or heard of: Silvencoomb, Haven, Cragscar, and Redcliffe. Sigrun hadn't been further east very often since I saw her last.
When they'd settled to swapping tall stories and techniques for dagger fighting ogres, I'd settled back only to listen for a while. I'd spoken only when Sigrun challenged one of Hawke's stories of our finding an ogre frozen solid like a kind of ice statue. She wanted Justice to verify it was true.
After a while, I noticed Paws look up and give a whuff. Head butting my knee, he glared at me for a moment. Hawke was just turning her attention towards us when everyone could hear a meow from the hallway.
Paws almost glared at me, while Hawke and Sigrun snickered. I stood up to open the door, and tried to look dignified.
When he entered, Ser Mew was glad to see me. I lifted him up to my shoulders after I put my shirt and coat on again. He made a small noise at landing on the feathers instead of the leather I'd worn of late. Before long, he was chewing on one of the feathers.
Or maybe he didn't like the black feathers either.
Their talk had turned to Orzammar and thaigs. Hawke had never been in any living areas underground. Thinking about it I hadn't been that much more. In Kal Hirol, we'd only been on the edges of the dwarven held areas, never traveling through them. Hearing the tales of things done to the casteless again irritated Justice. I had somehow thought dwarves had missed that kind of bias, since none I'd met really worried about mages. I'd thought Sigrun's tattoos were voluntary, like Hawke's had been.
Talk turned to Provings, and I'd heard about them from Attryne, at least from a human viewpoint. At first I didn't notice the intent of this talk was about the details a Proving.
“Hawke, you aren't planning to enter, are you? You haven't been trying to convince her of this, have you, Sigrun?” I remembered tales of violence, death, and cheating. Some of Varric's tales were worse.
The dwarf looked embarrassed, she had been.
My Champion patted my arm. “Love. She asked yesterday, and I said no. But I thought about it. We've been slowly dribbling away our money, and how often do we have the chance to make some money, gobs of money? Money for equipment, money to give mages we rescue, money for bribes. We can't get money from the Bone Pit or other investments and paying jobs have been scarce.”
Her money was locked up in Kirkwall and Varric had handled bribes for me. I may not have needed much money for what I was doing, but my friends had spent it freely around me.
“Don't worry, Anders. We won't brag who she is, but only Gray Wardens get any respect for a Proving.” Sigrun looked smug. “I can't get good odds anymore on my own, and if we accidentally let it out that she's not a Warden, the odds should get a lot longer. We'll clean up, between betting and prize money.”
“We can make this not to the death and maybe keep you nearby too. I'll be careful,” Hawke promised.
I doubted anything could be that easy.

--- x ---
A/N: Chapter title taken from a quote by Percy Bysshe Shelley.
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A Match to Tinder