highly new, slightly improved open post

[appliances]

assorted morons

☆ @ the muselist

optional prompts/ideas

☆ caught in the rain meme ☆ little steps meme ☆ affectionate physical contact meme ☆ picture prompt also acceptable but link them so it's tidy ☆ AU ideas: soulmates AU, reincarnation AU, Bad End AU, canon divergent/roleswap AU, dorky college AU, crossover AU, super indulgent high fantasy AU ☆ melodrama is ultimate tier ★ SHIPPING AND FUCC: ☆ non-fluffy relationship types I'm down for: codependent, master/servant power imbalance type ships, "we're bad for each other but worse for anyone else," other things I am failing to think of tbh ☆ things I am not into: noncon (includes "dubcon"), incest, tsundere shit if your tsundere is just verbally abusive, gratuitous torture porn, you'll probably have to ask me about harder kinks and they will vary by character ☆ I don't have a kink list so pitch me an idea if u thirsty ☆ if you would prefer a locked post I can also make that happen

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[doggish]

[He listens, which is rare enough. He doesn't really think about how mages are taken to their Circles in places outside of Tevinter, truth be told. He had a vague idea, sure, but there's something about the image of a child in shackles that's, hm, distressing, even to him. Even Fenris doesn't fear a mage child; he just fears what it will grow up to become.

What I may become, he remembers with a jolt.

He barely notices when Anders finishes tying him off; he's too absorbed in this conversation. It may be the first one they've had that hasn't immediately devolved into sniping. Why? Because Justice is no longer present? Because Fenris has a slightly better appreciation for being on the other side? Both, maybe. He'll figure it out later.]

Those who were only recently taken and sold still tend to dream they can return home, and often so do. Those who were sold by their families are . . . less enthused. They have no desire for slavery, but nor do they know what to do with themselves.

Some assisted me for a time.

[Others fled to the Dalish, or took their chances on the road. He isn't responsible for them once they're freed, for his sanity's sake.]

Their spirits aren't yet broken. That, I think, is the deciding factor. You were twelve when you were taken. Perhaps you knowing what freedom was pushed you into constant escape. Those bred into slavery, those who are enslaved for over a year and have had the horrors of what attempting escape will bring beaten into the forefront of their mind . . .

Yes, those return. And so I rarely bother to try and free them.

[There's a quiet implication stitched in there, and one Fenris certainly hadn't meant. But it's notable, comparing Anders' plight with that of slaves within the same sentence.]

[glowup]

You don't?

[It comes as a surprise if not a shock, although Anders supposes there is a logic in it. If they would return anyway, if it would be worse for them upon said return... Being thrown into solitary at the Circle had been the worst of his punishments though not nearly the only one, and he can objectively acknowledge that a, hm, weaker mind wouldn't last through so much cruelty.

Still. To simply leave them puts an uneasy pit in his stomach, pitying; perhaps if Thedas would just invent therapy, instead of killing or making Tranquil anyone who dares to defy the latest arbitrary laws of wherever they are—

It's exhausting, to step back and be faced with just how many uncertainties there still are. Instead he shakes his head, looking down at the ground and then back at the road, into the distance. Hmm.]

I wanted to go home, the first time I escaped the Circle. If only to see my mother again— to see if she was alright. I hadn't said a word since they took me away and the first thing I ever said to the First Enchanter was some blubbering, wailing gibberish about my mother. He told the templars to be kinder to me, so that I wouldn't try it again.

[He's quiet a moment, then shrugs. A childhood free of templar shackles and constant supervision did spoil him, then, sure.]

After that I just wanted to escape.

[doggish]

[What does he know of mothers? Very little, frankly. He has faint memories of a hand brushing through his hair, a warm presence, but even that might not be real. And yet some part of him must remember, because his stomach twists sickishly as Anders describs that.

He can almost imagine it. To be so traumatized that one goes silent-- oh, he knows that feeling well. It's common, never mind in a child. So take that feeling, yes, and apply it to someone small and blond and-- and a mage, yes, someone who needed to be taken away for both their and the world's own good, but still.

It's a story that's discomfiting. It's nothing he hadn't known about in theory, but still. It's different to hear it applied to someone he knows. Different, too, in the wake of seeing those freed slaves stumbling away, fleeing from horrors unknown.

Hmm. Anders has been asking piercing and yet idle questions to both their success-- so you know what, it's time for him to return the favor.]

Would you ever go back?

[It's not as if he has anything tying him down to their present location. Besides: the Anderfels are right up against the Tevinter border-- and far be it for Fenris to suggest a roadtrip, but still, he's just thinking, it wouldn't be the most inconvenient thing in the world if they gently headed in that direction.]

For your mother. Just to see her again.

[glowup]

[It's not a question that takes him by surprise, even coming from Fenris, who surely does not have any real investment in Anders seeing his mother again. It isn't the first time he's been asked, either, although years and years ago in hushed voices in the Circle tower, it carried a different weight than this.

He thinks about it, though not for very long.]

I wouldn't even know if she's still there.

[His parents were farmers and so she is either still there or she's dead, and it's been a lifetime, it's been actual decades, and he's— well. He still carries her pillow, faded and nearly flattened with age, and the same part of him that longed to see her again for so long also fears, in the small way of a child, that he would find her with a new life, another son who isn't a mage and still has parents who care for him, or something. It would sting.

...He did also blow up a Chantry, which surely wouldn't endear him to anyone back home.]

No. I wouldn't. The risk would be too much, besides— well, besides. The templars took everything from me time and again. If my last memory of my mother is to be her anguish so that the templars won't darken her doorstep again, then so be it. For her sake.

[And would it press on something dark in him if he were to return, anyway? If his father still lives, if he looks him in the eye all these years later and sees the same resentment and fear, if the bitterness stirs itself up to a frenzy, then what?

No, it's better this way.]

Maybe I'll write. [but probably not,] That would be one hell of a surprise, wouldn't it?

[doggish]

[He snorts, glancing away, glad to break the moment of sentiment just a little. It's likely for the best, anyway: it's not as if Fenris himself can say that things will go well. Look at his meeting with Varania, after all: perhaps in the long run he was better off at least having closure, but certainly it hadn't been a pleasant meeting.

For her sake. He doubts that's the only sake, but he won't press.]

What would you even say? The truth, or a pleasant lie?

[glowup]

Who knows? Even when I was escaping the Circle, I didn't think that far.

[Maybe once he'd fantasized about marching triumphantly home, declaring to his father he'd never, ever leave again, and collapsing into his mother's arms, but that too was a long time ago. And just a boy's dream, at that. Now, after all this time? He wouldn't know where to start.

He raises an eyebrow then, scrutinizing. Hey... wait....]

I can write a letter all the way through without mentioning templars, you know.

[Has he, in years? No, but- beside the point.]

[doggish]

I'll believe that when I read it.

[JUST SAYING.]

I suppose you could always mention you're now running around freeing elven mages. I'm sure that would go over well.

[glowup]

Who said you get to read my letters?

[Turn of phrase, blah blah, it's the principle!! Believe him, he can do it. It, sadly, takes him a second to actually process the rest, so awkwardly:]

So... Are you trying to say I should stick around? Again, after this? You do all need a healer handy.

[Fenris and his dumb arm included.]

[doggish]

[He desperately needs a magic tutor, too. He isn't fool enough to think a few days of training are going to be enough to suppress this for good. So his motivation is in part selfish, it's true. But Anders is right: having a healer around is massively useful for the slaves alone. Infection, broken bones, sprained ankles, exhaustion, starvation . . . just because they're required to arrive in one piece doesn't mean they're not tormented.

It's also dead useful to have someone else who can fight around. Anders is . . . Anders is frustrating, yes, immensely so. He's an abomination, or at least he was, if Justice hasn't either fled or simply merged in with Anders' waking mind. He's biting and sharp and petty and just an all-around pain in the ass, but he's also incredibly useful.

And perhaps it wouldn't hurt Fenris to finally listen to some of the things he has to say about mages. Perhaps.

So yes, that's what he's trying to say, though then Anders has to go and point it out, Maker, the things Fenris has to deal with . . . he scowls.]

Yes.

[So, you know. There it is. Absolutely an eloquent invitation to adventure, or at least a scowling, sullen semi-command to stick around, please and thank you.]

Or was camping in the woods more preferable?

[Must he be like this? Apparently so. But this is awkward and embarrassing, so sullen it is.]

[glowup]

Preferable to being shut up in the cheapest inn rooms you can find, yes.

[Remember his tent, Fenris? Or more seriously, remember how much it grates to be shut up in one place all day and night? The only consolation he has these days is it's his own fault that he's a wanted man, for once.

But still, he says it like he mostly means the tent-that-shall-not-be-brought-up-again. Never mind it.]

Where to next, then?

[He's long since decided, but it's only polite to make it sound like he's coming along as a favor.]

[doggish]

[Oh, well, then. That settles that, and he's as surprised by it as he is . . . mm, not pleased, exactly. But if nothing else, at least he'll have someone to talk to.]

Closer to the border. So long as you're here, we'll try for bigger caravans. Two, three wagons . . . perhaps more, if we find them near an inn or camped out somewhere.

We'll go through the forests as often as possible.

[Because templars are everywhere-- and if Anders is to teach him magic, then it might be best to be in a place where random bursts of ice or fire have a chance to go unnoticed.

Two weeks pass, and Fenris finds that traveling isn't quite as awful as it could be. It's far from the most peaceful trip he's ever had-- he and Anders still snarl and snap at each other, their topics ranging from petty grievances to their old standbys. But even that takes on a new flavor: for once, he has more of an interest in the argument. He actually has cause to listen to Anders when he speaks the horrors of the Circle, of the traumas mages were forced through, the horrors of losing friends to Tranquility, to starvation, to beatings . . .

They've all but dissolved now, of course, but still. The fact remains mages are ill-treated across the land, as Anders reminds him time and again.

It still isn't enough to convince him that all mages should just wander about freely. He truly believes that they're too dangerous for that. But . . .

Would he have gone to a Circle if they hadn't all dissolved? He doesn't know, and the uncertainty haunts him. He promised to never be anything but a free elf, and the thought of submitting to an authority that would dictate his life is . . . disturbing. But a necessary disturbing, surely. Surely he would have gone, no matter how sick it made him; he was no hypocrite.

But he'll never know for certain.

Anders continues to teach him, for better or worse. He is getting a handle on it, though now his problem is less random spurts and more a size and power issue. He intends for fire and accidentally sends a magical force straight into their pile of sticks; he means to conjure ice and instead electrocutes an entire river. It's maddening, but at least it doesn't happen at random. It's something, at least.

Two weeks, and in that time they manage to attack twice more. That, at least, is immensely satisfying work. In those moments, he knows perfectly well who he is. He cuts his way through limbs and throats, and when it's done, knows how to help. There's no self-loathing, no fear, no disgust . . . just him and his blade, and the familiar shock of fighting with someone he knows.

It's Anders injured this time, not him, which really is a problem they ought to have anticipated, but here they are. His right arm is broken, albeit neatly.]

Don't tell me to concentrate.

[It's a little terse, but this is also his first time healing anyone. And he'd rather not fuck it up in front of Anders, thanks. Or break his arm any worse, that too is a worrying thought.]

I'm aware. I am.

[Is he?]