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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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-- The Gauntlet, after the First Test
Hawke:
I still felt bad about getting that riddle wrong, I'd worried that not knowing the answers would end our task with Anders still doomed for trying to make the world better. The spirits' stories were much more the lessons than the riddles. I wondered if this had been any different for normal pilgrims like that couple we'd helped on the road.
But the door opened, even if the hallway beyond was not as brightly lit as the room where we'd answered the spirits' challenges. I wondered if all these tests would be as unnerving and troubling.
We stepped through the door and I saw a familiar figure gazing at a statue, even if he was slouching a little. I rushed forward, but pulled up short of a tackle.
He turned, looking just as I had last seen him, saying in such a calm voice, “Aldera, sister.”
“Carver, how are you here? I saw you after that ogre...” I wanted to hug him, my little brother who'd hated that for years, with all of the touchy pride of cocky young man. “I've missed you so much.”
He answered with a bit of his usual sarcasm. “I'm not in your shadow anymore, am I?”
This wasn't what I'd wanted to say to him, nothing about our flight from darkspawn. “Carver, I found swords you would have liked. I so wished I could have given them to you, and seen you become a general or whatever you wanted.”
He rolled his eyes and told me, “You know that I'm really gone, whatever you wish for, whatever you've saved for your baby brother, is useless now.”
“But, nothing's ever been the same, been right, since you died. You, Mother, even Bethany, who might as well be dead to me for all I've heard from her...” My eyes had filled and I wiped them with my palms.
“You have to let me go, Dera. Get over it. I chose to fight darkspawn and to save Mother. Some things only the Maker can protect us from.” His grin became a little mocking. “And you keep using such puny blades when you fight, right?”
I had to laugh at his old complaint from when we were in the army.
Carver's smile became less mocking and more real. “And you just had to fall for a mage, just like Mother, after all I told you.” He paused and looked up, “You have much to fight yet, Sister. When you fight darkspawn again, kill an ogre or two for me.”
He shoved something small into my hand, even if I could feel no flesh as I took it. Then he just... faded away.
Wiping my eyes again, I finally noticed there were other hazy figures about where Carver had been. I peeked at what was in my hand, and it was an old whetstone, the same as the one Papa and Carver had used for years.
Paws nudged my leg; I wasn't sure if he had seen Carver or not, but he could tell when I cried.
Merrill stepped forward, hesitantly saying, “Tamlen, lethallin.”
As she spoke, a Dalish with the blade of a sword showing on his back, grew more visible and solid to me. I'd heard that name before from her, but only briefly. Seeing him made him more than someone from one of her tales like the Dread Wolf, or Cennis, the Bann hunter.
He replied with a fond smile, “Merrill, Sweetings, it is so warm here in this place. I had forgotten the warmth of flame.”
“Where are you? What city did you find? I took it after you disappeared and Dorohel died...” She sounded full of a stretched grief and her voice wobbly.
“You cannot find me now, my track is dust, blown away before the Dread Wolf can find me in the Beyond.”
I looked at Anders, as listening to the normally sunny Merrill being nearly in tears was painful.
Her voice hardened. “I vowed to the Creators that I would find you and bring you back to the Sabrae. The Eluvian was made with a function, I only need to find how to remind it. Then the knowledge is not lost and worthless as you always tho...”
“Lethallan... What was for us is now only da'era, floating away as the seasons turn. I do not yet breathe and seeking that like a curious kitten will only lead you into death.” He sounded irritated. “There is nothing left for your seeking.”
“How can I not seek, when I could not even plant a tree over you?” Merrill asked.
Reaching a hand out towards her face before stopping, Tamlen told her, “Some of the lost can never be found, some mistakes can never be undone. You have suffered enough. It is time to choose something else for your unending curiosity.”
Merrill gave a small, suppressed sob.
“Take this, Sweeting. It is a small thing, but it should remind you when I cannot. Take care.” He faded away, just as Carver had.
Anders had taken my hand while they spoke and I gripped his more tightly. Merrill looked at what she was given, which looked like it was carved jade. She held it close for a moment before putting it away safely.
I was beginning to wonder who was left, and why it almost seemed to be too many figures left, even now. I looked backwards, wondering if we had been followed by the Templar or some cultist. But I saw no one, nor was Paws alert as if a stranger was near.
Anders leaned close to whisper with a grin, “Hold me, Hawke, I'm scared.”
I could hear a bit of nerves in his joke and squeezed his hand.
“Sebastian, last of a blessed line...” The man who spoke this was in fine clothing of an unfamiliar style. It wasn't armor or robes, unlike the rest we'd seen here, and his gauntness seemed more noted than the death that clung to the riddle givers.
Blanching slightly, Sebastian mustered up some outrage. “Begone spirit! I need no lies from demons or spirits!” Raising a hand he began a prayer, “Andraste, under the shadow of Thy robes do we make our refuge until these evils be past.”
“I am gladdened that my line remains true to Andraste and seeks not worldly power,” the man said with a brief smile. “But remember that I did not turn our people aside from Ironfist's way by edicts and commands, but by example. Ironfist was not inspired to deliver the blade of rule by force, but by our faith and steadfastness.”
“Ser.” Sebastian seemed to be struggling with admitting whoever he was facing. “I cannot stand by while ones like Ironfist harm others. ...It seems I am not inspiring as you were, even in the face of the murder of one of Her handmaidens.”
His usual glare at Anders and I was only brief, and I had no impulse to interact with his visitor.
This ancient Vael didn't glare at us. “The Maker gives you what you need, grandson. Ironfist gloried in his power, using it to grind our people until we gathered our faith and courage to act, without armies, without assassins. Did you think none offered that to the cause during the many days of our vigil? Each man or woman must decide when to say, 'Enough,' to any oppression. Ironfist's forces repented and joined us.”
“Malificarum must pay for their crimes,” Sebastian ground out.
Gently the spirit asked, “And do you, merely a mortal man, decide what the Maker's judgment is? Pride and rage are sins. That is what Elthina tried to teach you while you were a Brother.”
“So is sloth,” Sebastian objected, his voice raising in anger.
Anders laughed, and then added, “So it's sloth when it's not mages being hurt.”
I elbowed him and then put an arm around my mage. These were somehow private moments. I was glad when he put his around me as well.
“That's different!” Sebastian cried, turning to look at us. When the spirit was silent, he turned back and demanded, “They killed a Grand Cleric inside the Chantry...”
“They will answer for that when they face the Maker. Ironfist thought he was a king but ruled like a tyrant; none could speak for him as benefiting our people, he was losing before I began.” The spirit's voice showed some thought on the consequences. “You must be guided by your own reason and prayer. Be an example and hold fast to who and what is important, even if you are the only one on the steps of the Chantry. Lead by example and show mercy if you become a leader of others.”
The spirit looked at me this time, without any expression. I wasn't sure if he was encouraging Sebastian to start a vigil against Anders and I, or what.
Sighing, Sebastian gave up his disbelief. “Prayer and admonition over these months has not accomplished anything but betrayal and loss, Grandfather Kyros. Leading only left me an oathbound prisoner.”
The spirit shook his head, “I led those who believed as I. What was the quality of those you led and did they believe in and follow your example? Were you patient as the days passed on your steps?”
Sebastian flushed and shook his head. The spirit held out a hand as if to give him something, and Sebastian looked wary again as he held out his hand. The spirit dropped a handful of what looked to be dust at first. Then I realized that it was a large handful of mustard seed, which meant something to Sebastian.
I looked up and the spirit had left.
Merrill, without comment, pulled out something to catch and collect the seeds before they spilled and Sebastian thanked her absently.
The next figure to become more substantial was in mage robes and had a beard. For an instant I thought it might be Karl and I was afraid that Anders would pull away. I wasn't a mage, and a tiny part of me was afraid that Anders would have been happier with Karl if he had been rescued, that I had benefited from that failure.
But as the figure became more clear to my eyes, this wasn't the man I had met only after he had been burned with the mark of the Tranquil. This man looked older with a gray-streaked beard and slightly bent from his cares. The robes were rich and well made, and obviously of Circle style. I suddenly realized that my father's tunics were of similar dark hues and cut, despite changes needed for manual labor.
The spirit just shook his head and said, “Anders. You know what it costs us to get attached.”
Anders jerked and almost pulled his arm back from around me. “Irving, I haven't been under Circle rule for many years now. Wardens tried to recruit at Kinloch and found me at Amaranthine.”
Irving sighed. “I sometimes wondered if their cause would absorb your rebellious energy better than remaining under Greagoir, but I waited to be sure you could control yourself before suggesting it to anyone. You seemed bent on following your lusts and emotions more than anything else and that was a recipe for disaster. Wynne and Karl learned diplomacy and patience far better than you...”
“What did that get Karl? They did that butchery to him, even if he never wanted to become an apostate!” Anders was getting angrier now.
“Check your conclusions, apprentice! How can you be sure he was not changed by his time in Kirkwall? You changed so much in your brief time with the Grey Wardens, from apostate to near abomination. Did you speak long enough with him that you have proof he still was only the mild teacher you knew and not becoming one of the blood mages endemic in that city?” Irving's stern teacher's voice would have given anyone a pause.
Anders closed his eyes, “There was no time, and unlike him, blood mages wandered Kirkwall freely; that he wasn't working with them can be easily inferred. Fearing the Rite doesn't mean he was guilty of whatever delusion the Templars claimed. Ella and Gascard weren't guilty either.”
Smiling slightly, the older mage observed, “You rant about Circle and Templar rules, but you make similar judgments about innocent and guilty mages... Are you not in a small Circle now, with other mages and near Templars with blades and bow to guard you and guard against you? Maybe you want to be First Enchanter like me? Maybe I should have set you to different lessons?”
Jerking away from Irving, Anders sputtered for a moment. I hugged him a little with the arm that was still around him.
Anders looked at me and tried to smile. To Irving he stated, more calmly, “Mutual aid is not forcing us into a little box and using the threat of having our minds destroyed, our souls cut from the Fade, as whips. Even you needed aid outside the Circle structure that the Chantry imposed on us during the Blight. An apostate, a witch of the wild saved your Circle from a full nullification. You didn't survive Uldred, and how many under your care were like nugs to the slaughter? The outsiders spoke of it and the trained Templars did no better than you. You, yourself even became an...”
“I am quite aware of what was imposed on me,” Irving said sharply. “My belief in Uldred's benevolence was as premature and disastrous as your conclusion about Kristoff's heirs. You still have the chances to correct assumptions which are unfounded, apprentice.”
“Maybe then you can be called a First among mages, instead of rebellious boy.” Irving took a step closer and then dropped something into Anders' free hand.
I peeked, and it was a brooch, akin to the ones I saw on other Circle mages, but Anders seemed a little shaken when he held it. Irving smiled at me and nodded as he faded away, and I wondered what he had known about my father.
Anders gripped the stone, his voice taking on a different timbre even as he began to glow. His eyes a blue lightning flecked darkness, I couldn't hold on to him as my mage was subsumed. I had to close my eyes for an instant of prayer when I let go of him.
“Boy?” He said in disbelief. “Bowing to Greagoir did nothing to protect his charges from Templar abuse. Punishments were cruel, abusive, and not... just for their offenses. When he did nothing to improve the lot of his students and delivered the young and distrusted into the hands of demons, he was attached more to sloth than to them.”
“He is dead now, there's nothing we can do about him or his decisions.” I hoped rational points like this might help, emotional ones didn't.
Their voice rose now. “There are dozens, even hundreds of frightened mages who are repeating his choices! They fear the Templars and Chantry behind them. Treated like children and used like animals, worse than others care for their dogs. They should pay for every life blighted, every future crushed, and every drop of blood shed from the mages!”
My stomach was churning and I was afraid I was about to retch from Vengeance's rant. I feared that I needed my daggers when we were so close to the Ashes; I watched him closely as I hoped I wouldn't have to.
Then I heard Anders' laugh.
But it wasn't.
I was watching him... them... when I heard it.
I turned slightly towards where Carver had been standing before.
Standing there was Anders.
An Anders who looked different, akin to how he'd looked in Orzammar, but not really. He wore very nice robes with feathers and elaborate silver bracers with some kind of bird. He had a different cat in his arms, and he looked healthy and happy. He didn't have the creases between his eyes.
“Andraste's knicker-weasels! I didn't do it! Well, it looks like I did, didn't I? I thought you weren't one of those spirits with sparking personalities.” He seemed to be joking.
“No, those were perverted by their desires. I do not desire things.” Anders' glow had subsided a little.
I relaxed a little, I didn't know what this was, all the others we'd spoken too were dead. Did that mean Anders was already dead, and I loved only a remnant, a rotting corpse like he'd named Kristoff?
“It's rather obvious you don't,” the other Anders chuckled. “You have three delicious looking companions there, and you'd rather blather on about abused mages and Templars in the middle of some... almost romantic ruins. No one bothers to oppress us in dangerous ruins, well no one but Templars, but they are rather dim-witted about that.”
Merrill chuckled quietly at that.
“Have I mentioned that I find tattoos incredibly attractive?” the other Anders asked in a smooth voice to Merrill.
My eyes snapped to him, as he hadn't, at least not to me. He was looking at Merrill, who almost looked horrified. Justice looked annoyed, with the familiar crease at his forehead. Sebastian looked back and forth between the two Anders. It wasn't altogether clear which one horrified him more the abomination he knew, or the flirt who sounded like he was about to proposition him.
“Frivolous distractions. You have a responsibility!”
“And? I'm a talented little mage, I can do both. They are very lovely and you won't be doing anything more enjoyable, even with a much less stinky body now. I'm not sure how I could have lost all my style, it's not like that prevents killing darkspawn or even Templars when they try to go against the queen's orders...” This other Anders shrugged when Merrill shook her head, and turned towards me with a charming smile.
My Anders took a step forward, saying nothing, but still glowing and stepping between the other Anders and us. Me, if I was feeling stupidly optimistic.
I wasn't, he was getting angry with everything the other Anders said, even if it wasn't a full rage.
That Anders waved his arms in a wide shrug and looked around. “At least this is a picturesque kind of ruin, less tears in the veil, less moss hanging off everything like Blackmarsh, less immortal blood mages who can affect even spirits of Justice, less villagers who don't know they're dead...”
“How can he be here?” Sebastian interrupted with what I was afraid to.
With a grin and a shake of his finger at Sebastian, the other Anders said, “Maybe we aren't what you think we are. We might be those who have unfinished business, or maybe even a reminder not to get stuck in old mistakes and assumptions. Maybe I'm here to see if Justice remembers what Anders was like when he was just a Gray Warden. Maybe I'm just here for a spicy shimmy with the lady who's crying.”
I reached up and my cheeks were wet.
Anders turned back to me, his eyes still glowing, but then it faded back to his own brown in only a second. Stepping close, he reached up to brush away the wet. His smile was odd, but he said, “Love?”
When I looked up into his eyes, I worried again that he never would have wanted me if he'd still been like this other Anders. How long until he moved on if he was free of Vengeance? It wasn't like we were married or he was willing to promise through his Calling. Those were the practiced moves of a smooth charmer who had left many lovers in his wake.
I was saying goodbye a little more every time I remembered this. I'd been fugitive all my life, and so rarely found anyone for myself. Where would I go? What would I do when he left? I didn't even know what to say now.
The other Anders coughed and said, “There's more to this side of the Veil than oppression.” He seemed to tap Anders' shoulder and pulled Anders palm towards him. “There's also the running and the screaming and the nasty-ass mages and Broodmothers.” Then he also faded away.
Anders brought up what was in his hand, and his eyes flashed blue before his hand gripped the old ring.
Curious, I said, “Anders?”
“A gift from a friend which should not be here,” he said with reluctance.
When his eyes were brown again, he shook his head. “I don't know, Hawke, it was lost after the Vigil.” He put his arm around me again, his head leaning down against mine.
These items, which I thought were impossible, but the weight of the whetstone I could still feel against me countered that belief. After those... they weren't quite spirits like the riddle-givers seemed, but we weren't dreaming if we could interact with the others' visitors.
I brought the whet-stone back out and showed it to them, “Carver was always better at cleaning and honing his blades.” I hoped I might get a better look at what the others had gotten.
My back was rubbed by my mage, which helped with my refreshed grief a little. I didn't know if I could have endured a vision of Papa's slow death.
Anders displayed two items in his hand, and seemed ambivalent even as he showed them. “This Enchanter's brooch is what I finally accepted that I'd never earn because of my escapes. I was much better at practice than my peers, even before I was conscripted by the Wardens. This is a larger one, for higher rank too.”
“And the ring?” Merrill wondered. “I can feel the power of lyrium singing from it.”
“Lyrium?” Sebastian looked alarmed. “Did you not say that the Knight-Commander was poisoned by her blade?”
A tingle of electricity ran along where I was touching Anders, but didn't hurt.
“That lyrium did not sing, it wailed with some kind of taint not seen even in the Fade. This ring was found in Kal'Hirol, not near Kirkwall.”
I turned to look at his face, but the glow was fading away into his brown eyes again. What seemed so odd was that other than what he said to Irving, he hadn't been really angry, even if Justice and Anders were swapping repeatedly within moments.
Merril held out a carving, worn and looking centuries old, of a jade elven warrior in armor. “This was his dearest treasure, passed down through the ages that he kept with him. It was lost when he was.”
“Prince Kyros lived generations ago, but his lessons in mustard seed are many.” Sebastian sounded thoughtful, not about to start some kind of fasting vigil.
He didn't say more and I wasn't sure if I could pry more information from a prisoner. The statue that had been behind Carver and Irving was some kind of undetailed female figure with a shield. That wasn't very inspiring. “We seem to have a choice between right or left.”
Quiet, very quiet, no one had an opinion, so I moved to the left alcove and doorway. The others stepped forward, too. The room seemed bare, with some wispy cobwebs in the corners and nothing else.
Anders frowned, even as I saw something moving out of the corner of my eye where there had been nothing. I looked and it was Sebastian, already drawing his bow and aiming at me. He was betraying us after that chat with his ancestor! I reached for a smoke grenade so I could dash behind him and finish him.
I never heard the release, but the dragon stomped on my chest, just off center. My armor fended off most of it, but I spun around as I nearly fell and saw Sebastian behind me too.
“We must defeat them!” Anders shouted as he began to glow and to cast a spell.
I saw the other figures now, and I drew back in surprise. I could not afford to add to the confusion with my grenade. Struggling to straighten up, lighting struck me and my legs were encased in ice and I couldn't move.
Screaming, “Hawke!” Anders cast a protective bubble around me
Arrow upon arrow rained down, throughout the room threatening both sides even as an ice storm blew in too, from all directions. I couldn't move, but I threw my smaller dagger at the further Merrill who didn't have plants meshing around her. She had cast a lightning spell that burned me.
The ice around me was cold and hurt me a lot, but it wasn't loosening fast enough for me to act. I wouldn't throw the Bassrath-Kata, leaving me with no blades freed. I scanned the room, and while I saw two Sebastians, two Merrills, two Paws, and two Anders, right now I didn't see another me.
If she could kill like me... I looked for her frantically.
Anders shouted in pain and again blazed suddenly with Justice's presence, while the other Hawke was shoved away. He was gushing blood and I stabbed at the ice holding me, blindly. Another arrow, this one went through my gut and pain erased all thought for a small eternity.
When I managed to shake that off after a flash of heat and I was free to move, I looked around and the only ones I wasn't sure of from a glance were the Sebastians. Anders, with Justice's glow, was still bleeding, while the other Anders didn't seem to have a spirit. The other Merrill had the swirl of blood magic while the one close to me still had the vines. The second mabari was gone, not even a body was visible to my search.
I started to go for the blood mage when the sound of an exhale too close and in the wrong direction made me roll aside. Maker, I... she was hard to kill. I couldn't find any advantage in speed or changing attacks as we each attacked and evaded, our movements in the same quick rhythm. An earthen clump struck her in the head and that distracted her long enough for me to slice her throat.
Her neck cut nearly in half by my Qun blade, it was highly disturbing the hear her death rattle. Had she felt for her Anders, too? Did she worry about her Merrill using blood magic?
“Hawke!” Anders' shouted as another hail of arrows fell on us.
I had to move, to draw attention and cripple if I could before changing targets. My being held lost me too much time. Hurry, hurry!
Then I spotted Paws barreling into one of the Sebastians, so I attacked there next. After the first stab, he used his bow as a club when I was too close for him to draw, and he pulled a dagger to stab back. But I was forcing him out of his strengths and he was easier to fight that way.
Whether I should tell him this as a potential enemy gave me a pang even as I turned about looking for another target. The only one left was the other Anders, and this was more than just a pang. It clawed at my heart.
He cast another ice storm filling the chamber, slowing me even as I circled around him. He was being attacked by earth and ice, but he must have had some kind of protective spell that they weren't reaching him. An arrow actually bounced off as he cast another spell.
From behind I yanked his pony pail to expose his throat, noticing only now that his hair was still blonde with the short queue that I'd played with for years. He looked like the Anders I'd fallen in love with. And he didn't have a spirit either.
I paused.
I hated myself for doing that.
I finished the deep slice, carelessly cutting myself a little, holding my love's twin as he fell.
I was so afraid I would have to do this for real.
Anders dropped down beside me and pulled me roughly into his arms, crooning as I wept. He healed me as we rocked.

--- x ---

A/N: The chapter title is adapted from a quote by Confucius.
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A Match to Tinder