dumbshow | highly new, slightly improved open post

[Intent matters with Anders, or at least it should, given his intent on blowing up Kirkwall's chantry was, in theory, noble. And what Fenris had intended to do, honestly, was light a fire.

Not so hard, right? He knows mage children can do it, it's one of the most basic bits of spells there is. And far be it for him to praise magic, but it was always also a bit of a relief to not have to mess with flint and wood when Anders or Merrill or Bethany were around--

--not that they're around now. Not that he thinks of them (bitterly, longingly) in the least. He's an independent slave hunter now, specializing in mages, and he needs no one and nothing. Kirkwall was . . . Kirkwall was an anomaly, a strange dream from which he's finally woken; now he's alone, and that's just as it should be. He throws himself into hunting mages and slavers, and it's good work. It's hard, of course, even when he finds a few people to assist him, and maybe it's a little lonely, but the shock and relief that newly freed slaves offer him is worth it.

Except a few weeks ago, everything had changed.

He could have found the others. Merrill still lives in Kirkwall, after all, and Bethany wouldn't be so hard to track down. But it's Anders he seeks. Not so hard to track him down either, frankly, although harder than Fenris had expected.

Why Anders? Never mind why. The point is--

The point is he's here, now, and the fucking tent is on fire, and his hand is on fire, and even slapping the dirt a few times won't put it out because magic is a fucking nightmare. His tattoos are going to start glowing in a few minutes unless he figures out how to stop it, but suddenly there's a familiar voice and his priorities shift.

(The intent was: light a fire, sit around, wait for Anders to return. Explain the situation with an appropriate amount of menacing threats, and then demand Anders teach him how to control it. He'd look so badass and so threatening, which definitely historically has worked on Anders before, no problem with authority there. Ah, maybe he hadn't thought it out so well, but to be fair to him: the past few weeks really have been a panicked nightmare).]

It isn't the tent that offends me.

[It's such a cool line, and he would look so badass right now if his fucking hand wasn't still on fire. He still rises, straightens up, turns on the balls of his feet to face Anders. This isn't quite the badass entrance he'd wanted to make, but so it goes. He'll just lean into it.]

Don't bother running.

[Because he will literally set a forest fire if he chases after him (and he will chase after him).]

I'm not here to turn you in.

[Yet. Probably. Hey, you know what's not great to be next to a hand on fire? Clothing! Clothing is getting singed right now, not that he quite realizes.]

[Oh, fantastic, Anders thinks, when the familiar voice comes just moments before visual confirmation. It is Fenris, so this day keeps getting better and better. The fire, however, is definitely magical in nature, and so no offense Fenris but the first thing Anders does as he steps out fully from behind the tree is scan the ground in the clearing for an actual mage's body. It seems far more likely that someone he could have allied with if even for a second was here and then Fenris killed them and the tent being set ablaze is the result than whatever is actually happening.

But there is no body, and stranger: Fenris' hand is on fire, and he is making not a single broody, I-Fenris-am-the-only-one-who-has-ever-suffered kind of complaint.

So that's new.

That Anders has immediately marched out from behind the tree is not because he trusts Fenris not to try and put a hand through his heart, of course not, they both know that— but he could electrify Fenris faster than the elf could get across the clearing to him, he's pretty sure, and the way he holds his staff makes that abundantly clear. Just try him, punk, he dares you...

Or, after a moment of scrutiny, the gears slowly beginning to turn:]

Your clothes are on fire, did you notice? Did you finally go selectively blind to magic? Your shirt hasn't.

[Haha, Fenris doesn't know what to do with magic fire!!

...

Huh.]

Try not to do anything stupid in the next thirty seconds, [he says, and moves his staff to point at the poor burning tent and choke the flames in a wave of ice. He sighs, too, as the thing slumps and collapses into a charred heap; it was a good tent. Then he kindly does the same for Fenris, coating his magic fire hand in a layer of frost rather than hear criticisms about doing it with a whole chunk of ice.

Now Fenris owes him, obviously. He's still standing over by the tree, not looking like he wants to pay any heed to "Don't bother running." Running would be nice... Instead he must stand here and solve this mystery starring one of the most aggravating people he's ever had to endure, hmm-!!]

What are you doing here?

[Maybe it would've been better to go to Merrill after all.

(No, it wouldn't. She'd be full of cloying sympathy, clucking over him as though he ought to be pitied, and he'd rather burn to death than endure that. There's no risk of that nonsense from Anders, though, and that's utterly refreshing. Anders makes no pretense about liking him, and that's nice, in its own way).]

You must have felt it. Something's changed.

[It has! It does not explain why Fenris sought out Anders, though, and yet he wishes desperately it did. His hand (chilly, now, which is an interesting combination with the smell of burnt cloth) flexes, fingers curling and uncurling.]

Many elves have been gifted magic now, despite never showing signs of it before.

[Again: an explanation, but not the one Anders asked for. Ah, but this one is harder to admit, because it's not just many elves, is it . . .]

I require . . .

[Hrgh.]

A teacher. You, preferably. [He says it swiftly, and then adds:] And before you scoff, know that you aren't as subtle as you think you are. I killed two bounty hunters tonight on my way to find you. You need to get better at fleeing-- or get better protection.

[After all, that's something they've got in common, isn't it? Hiding away from those who would hunt them down, but Fenris bets he's just a little bit better at it. Being captured and taken to a Circle, he thinks, despite everything he's learned, despite all the horrors he knows take place in them, is far more preferable than slavery. So yes, Fenris is probably better at hiding, which means he has something to offer Anders.]

[Well first of all, he is so good at fleeing, thanks--]

Maybe I was saving those two for later. [He... was not, admittedly, but to say aloud that he had no idea he was being tracked while so distracted about Fenris, to Fenris, and then implicitly thank him for the help? Horrid. He shifts his grip on the staff, tentatively, more relaxed by fractions; the only sign that he isn't going to set Fenris on fire himself and run.] Disposing of mage killers hits the spot after a long day of being a fugitive.

[Gaze... but alright, alright. He can pack his snark for just a minute, to think about this concept: Fenris with magic. Fenris the mage, the apostate elf, and oh, it's so funny.

Not, perhaps, as funny as it might have been years ago when the world wasn't going to hell around them, but still up there.]

You did set my tent on fire, to say nothing of how many times you expressed quite clearly that mages all deserve what we get over the years. Forgive me if I don't fall over myself to teach you anything.

[Like, he's going to. That's a done deal, but grovel a little. As an apology.]

[Well, of course it's not so easy as that, and yet a part of him kind of wishes it was. Far easier to have Anders-- what, exactly? Accept Fenris without the slightest moment of mockery or superiority? Well, yes, frankly, that would be ideal, but here they are, and Fenris would act no differently if their positions were reversed.

(He would likely act a lot worse, he knows).]

The tent was an accident.

[He will not apologize for the fucking tent.]

And given what you did to the Chantry, I hardly revoke my position. You are dangerous, and even more so without--

[No. He breaks off with a scowl, glancing away. It takes longer than he'd like for him to continue.]

. . . I am dangerous, now. And I will become more so if I don't know how to control this. At best, I kill only myself; at worst, I become possessed. You know how dangerous I can be; imagine what a demon would do with me.

[It's not an apology, because frankly, he's not there yet (give him a little time, a little development). But it's . . . something, sort of. It's grudgingly admitting that Anders does know better, at least in this matter.]

I need your help. Is that not enough?

[For a long moment, Anders just looks at him. There are so, so many things to unpack in what Fenris is saying, least of all that Anders doing what he did to the Chantry was any more dangerous than the Chantry itself, but for a moment... he's silent.

Then he sighs, and shakes his head, and finally steps forward toward him, only to pass by and poke at the charred remains of the tent with the back end of his staff instead. He crouches down by it a moment later; true enough that everything else he owns is on his back, but it never hurts to be certain that he didn't leave something identifying in this now useless thing. He'll have to burn it all the way to ashes before he goes— before they go, he supposes, which is the thought that finally gets him to speak without looking up:]

It is. Enough, I mean.

[To need his help is enough, regardless of the rest of the garbage that spills out of Fenris' mouth all the time. He offered nothing in the Darktown clinic for the fame and fortune, after all, and helping the mages escape was just the same. Anders frowns, bites his tongue on some comment like You aren't as gullible as Merrill to make deals with demons, but Fenris doesn't much care for his opinion, he thinks; and Merrill, for all of her idiotic blood magic, at least understood the first thing about her magic, in the end...

He reaches for two corners of the burned tent to pull them together and start making a smaller thing to burn. Grumble mumble, Fenris....]

Have you considered— [mmmm don't ask him again if he's considered killing himself mmm behave, Anders—] What would you if I refused? Kill me and pick a different mage, keep going until it works out for you?

[It's idly said, but the truth is already Anders crouched on the ground with his back to Fenris, as vulnerable as a pissy apostate can be to a glowing hand in the back. Still, it will take a while to... synchronize, he supposes; to figure out how to speak to Fenris without every other word being biting.]

If you fear it, it's never going to get better.

[Lesson one: act like a little bitch and it will get worse, bud.]

[What was the plan if Anders refused? Turn him in for the reward money? No. He wouldn't. He might not necessarily intervene if templars came up the hill to capture Anders, but nor would he turn him in, and that's . . . unnerving to know about himself, frankly. He ought to be fine with handing him over, but now everything is all mixed up and different.

But no, he wouldn't have killed him. It wasn't a real question, though, and so he doesn't respond. Just stares at him, idly noting the little differences from the man he remembers: the hair that's just a little too long, the robes that have seen better days . . . even his staff is a bit worn.]

I don't fear it.

[He says it with his arms crossed over his chest, because he might be thirty-five but also, sometimes, he's like 12. Still: this isn't so different from where they used to be. A lifetime later, or so it feels, and yet still they end up like this: disliking one another, but at least trusting one another enough to interact. It's something.]

I simply don't want it.

[Suppression is definitely a healthy coping mechanism. Also: he definitely does fear it, for the record.]

I just need to know enough to keep it under control.

Edited 2020-06-06 22:34 (UTC)

[Anders laughs, an abrupt and short-lived thing that doesn't believe Fenris at all. Of course he fears it, they all do at some point; he'd feared Justice for some time, which is different, but the point is the same: don't lie to him about magic.]

You have it now, and it doesn't go away unless they make you Tranquil.

[Which is not, technically, the magic going away anyway. Anders looks over his shoulder just long enough to shrug, then resumes making a crude ball out of the tent.

It's an odd feeling, doing this while Fenris broods somewhere behind him, almost like he's packing up a campsite instead of preparing it to burn, like they're waiting for Hawke and the others to come back out of the woods and declare it time to return to the city, their goals complete. But no, that life is over, whatever any of them were to each other in Kirkwall over with it; Anders has wondered if Hawke ever thinks of him, to be sure, and occasionally he wonders what the others are up to, but he never expects to know.

So it had to be Fenris who finds him, didn't it. He stands, looking down at his tent ball, still frowning.]

I will help you, against somebody's better judgment. Still working on whose.

[Perhaps Fenris will tire of his help by week's end and disappear, who knows. He steps back and takes hold of his staff again, gesturing to set the tent on fire again and watch it smolder.

Eventually he glances at Fenris.]

What in the world did you do to your hair?

Edited (wordz) 2020-06-06 22:47 (UTC)

[Oh my god, back off from his hair? It's so unexpected he actually blinks for a moment before half-raising a hand self-consciously, and then realizing that's stupid.]

It was getting in the way. One of the elves I worked with suggested it.

[And he looks badass with it, right? He definitely does. But no: in a way, he's almost grateful for this, because it's a great deal easier than thinking about how he has magic. About how Anders is right: it won't go away, it will never go away, and he has to learn to live with that.]

I see you haven't done anything with yours. Doesn't it hinder you? The first thing people go for in a fight is your hair.

[He looks goofy, that's what— no, he looks different, but only just enough to remind Anders that they can keep quipping at each other like it's years ago, but it really, really is not. Fenris has gone off and found some other elves to kill people with, and that's not a surprise, but ah... perhaps it really is just Anders who's spent all of his time since Kirkwall very, very alone.

He's not thinking about it. He's raising an eyebrow at Fenris' wild haircut, drumming his fingers on his staff like, well—]

I've got better range than you.

[Remember? Mage? That thing Fenris is now too, somehow, barely? Maybe if he teaches him to light up his awful sword with fire magic, he'll crack a smile.]

But no, it doesn't hinder me. If only the worst thing a templar could do to me was pull my hair.

If only indeed.

[Which might be taken as commiserating, except his tone makes it clear the ending of that sentence is more along the lines of perhaps then you'd shut up about the templars. Which is so wildly unfair, but then again, so is Fenris.]

Come along.

[Because he has a tent of his own, presumably. Or at least: he has a room in an inn not too far from here, and if Anders takes off that feathered cloak and pulls a hood up, he might just be able to sneak through without being caught.

Oh my Maker, they were roommates . . .

But, ah, he waits until he can stride further ahead (still impatiently waiting for him) before adding:]

I've cycled through all the elements.

[Is that typical? Do you often veer wildly between lightning and ice and fire and god knows what else? He knows that mages can do all three, but most seem to specialize, and maybe that's just down to personal preference, but maybe not? He really does not know a whole lot about mages on the most basic level. Advanced, horrifying blood magic, sure, but not Magecraft 101.

Anyway: that's a question. Is that normal, what is normal, Maker, but it stings his pride to not know. To have to ask.]

[Don't tell him to come along, Maker, this totally professional arrangement is going to end very quickly if he gets come along-ed enough times.

But he is coming along, once he's sure the tent has burnt to enough ash that it can't even be recognized as a tent anymore. And oh, they're doing this now? Right now. Okay...]

It was fire for me.

[And he was twelve, and his father sold him out before he had a chance to cycle through anything, but Fenris doesn't get to know that right now.]

The Veil is... well, truthfully, I haven't got any idea, but something is pushing magic into the world more than it was before.

[That's his guess, anyway, and so it's probably fine that Fenris is having his magical puberty now, and to such an extreme. Most likely. Anders' gaze lingers a moment on one of Fenris' tattoos, because Maker preserve them both, what does that do to an elf now suddenly made mage—

Well, he can't answer that. Take solace in the fact that he hasn't made fun of Fenris for being clueless about magic.]

[He notices, oddly enough, that lack of mockery, because of course he'd been braced for it. Anders has every right, and yet he doesn't, and that's . . .

Hmm.]

Fantastic. Of course there is.

[But that isn't really directed at Anders so much as to him. Is this what having a conversation feels like? Maybe! And so, some information in return:]

I don't know if it's affecting humans. But it is the elves. Every single one I've encountered has shown signs.

[Which means his job has become not just killing mages who are slavers, but in fact freeing mages too. It's weird. This is all very weird, he does not care for it.]

. . . is that a guess, or can you feel it? The Veil.

[Oh, so he cares about oppressed mages now, does he. Anders doesn't poke that particular bear, not yet, but he undoubtedly will; for now he simply hums, filing that information away: elves, then, because the humans...]

I can tell something is different. You can feel it, can't you? The pull in the air.

[It's different to Anders only because he's felt it all his life, but surely Fenris has some idea of how the magic feels around them.]

I've heard rumors, [he adds, slowly, like it's a poor choice to attempt to talk to Fenris about anything but elves.] Human mages overpowered by their own magic— not abominations. Faster than that.

[One minute a mage, the next minute practically burned through from the inside— or so say whispers in taverns, here on the edge of Tevinter. No one can joss me until DA4 is actually released, so that's the haps as of right now.]

I haven't seen it myself, but my social life is a little on hold, lately.

[It's canon now, Bioware.

Can he feel such things? It's hard to say, in no small part because he's adamantly avoided thinking about anything to do with magic since this first began. No, instead: he'd been focused on finding Anders. The man is good at shaking people off his trail; for weeks, Fenris has only had to think about him.

Anyway. He pulls a face, which says that he thinks those mages might have deserved such a fate-- but honestly, even that is more because it's expected of him than because he really thinks it.]

And what keeps you from such a fate? The abomination you host, or mere chance?

[Oh, whoop, there it is.]

[Oh Fenris, he did miss the callous judgment, truly he did. Or: he smiles thinly, as Fenris has given him the right to throw hands at any time now, but look: he's not. He is so generous.]

Maybe I'm just lucky.

[No, it's probably Justice. Or a bit of both.]

As far as I'm concerned, all this means is freeing the enslaved mages is more urgent than ever. Before the templars start slaughtering them all just in case.

[Do not argue with him about this, just pretend he's only talking about elves.]

[The problem: he doesn't disagree. It's not slaves' fault that they had magic forced upon them, and it would be the height of cruelty to abandon them now. But--]

If you mean that, you won't mind coming along with me on my next raid.

[It's not an argument? It's just different from what Anders had meant. Which is all well and good, but as they approach the inn, he adds:]

Put this on.

[His cloak, pulled off his shoulders and offered stiffly. They're gonna sneak up to his room.]

I thought— hmm.

[He thought this was just about teaching him some magic tips and then going their separate ways, not joining his group for however long. But they're in town now, and proximity to strangers makes him skittish as it always has. He still gives Fenris' cloak a look as he takes it, because ew, Fenris— but he tugs it on and pulls the hood up without complaint.

It's not like it's a nice gesture, he thinks, just a security measure, so he doesn't offer more than a vague grunt of thanks. You know, he didn't want to hang out in an inn, much as sleeping in an actual building is a rare luxury these days...

He gestures for Fenris to lead the way, and to his credit, he isn't about to cause a scene just because Fenris pisses him off. He'll follow him up to the room in silence, not speaking up again until they're upstairs and the door is shut and he's counted to twenty, just in case:]

What raid is this, then?

There's a transport of slaves coming through the area soon. Six or so.

[Did anyone notice? Did anyone see Anders? He doubts it, but he's also going to be on his guard all night, just in case.

His room is literally what one would expect it to be: impersonal, with all his things gathered in one place. He sits heavily on the bed, his arms braced lightly against his knees, and looks up at Anders.

It's strange for, god, so many reasons right now.]

If any of them have been turned into mages, we'll accomplish both our goals at once.

[Anders stands there a moment before awkwardly shrugging off the cloak and passing it back to Fenris. Then he just sort of shuffles back to the wall and sinks down to the floor, where he will enjoy sitting, do not comment on this, thank you.

So, then. Six mages, or at least, maybe six, and either way, six people who will most likely be in need of someone who knows a thing or two about healing. It's a tiny bit aggravating how much it makes sense for the two of them to do something like this together, actually.]

How soon is soon? Days? I'm to spend days holed up here in this room, with you?

[It's not like he can wander around town! And there are only so many magic lessons he can give in a day.]

Would you prefer to sleep in the woods? That can be arranged.

[But sleeping in the woods sucks, so maybe that really is the worse option.]

Three days. You can withstand that, I think.

[Part of him would rather sleep in the woods, yes, the part of him that knows sleeping in the woods leaves him less likely to get murdered in his sleep.]

I suppose I will have to.

[But can he, for now, just slump back against this wall and frown about his life in general? That sounds great.]

...Did you actually kill a pair of bounty hunters?

Not in cold blood. I attempted to dissuade them from you by claiming the bounty myself. They disagreed with me. Blades were drawn.

[So it goes, etc etc. Fenris shrugs.]

They will not be missed, I suspect.

People who wanted to capture me? No. I just didn't know if you were making it up to persuade me to come along.

[Not that that's really Fenris' style... Anders is sure he'd have been clocked in the back of the head and bullied into helping out in an abandoned warehouse somewhere, probably. But you know.]

If you decide to collect on my head, let me know, will you?

Certainly.

[He leans back, resting his weight on his hands.]

It would be far too dull otherwise. And why shouldn't I earn my pay? It's certainly big enough.

[Maker above, that's almost a joke, lazily drawled out as he stares down at him.]

Do you know how much you're worth now?

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