faderift | [Open] No boom today. Boom tomorrow.

WHO: Anders and anyone! Or, well, almost anyone. Sorry, Fenris and Cullen...
WHAT: Anders arrives at Skyhold, takes a new fake name, and tries to get a measure of the Inquisition while keeping a low profile. Starting in prose, but will switch to brackets to match if that's preferred!
WHEN: Mid-haring
WHERE: All over Skyhold, choose your location?
NOTES: Warning for Anders? I can't think of any real ones atm, I'll update if that changes.

He's tired, but that's nothing new. The road's been long. It shows in the way he leans a little on his staff, a fairly generic-looking thing that's far from his old appreciation of things flashy, just as it shows in the state of his rather ragged-looking robes and the scruff of a beard that he doesn't exactly like. At least he's not dead on his feet - the company of a few refugees more than willing to bear the brunt of conversation on the way up had made the last couple of days more bearable than usual.

Now he's here, and the strain is back on his shoulders. Skyhold holds more than the usual level of danger but there's no getting around the fact that he has to at least visit this place. The Inquisition is likely to be a player in the future of mages, and Anders will not see the little bit of progress made be undone out of fear, or laziness, or naivete, or any other number of things that could cut down freedom for his people.

But that doesn't mean he knows how to go about working toward that, just yet. And that means he's slowly going around the fortress, gathering information by listening and asking simple, short questions. They have to be short. The second-to-last thing he can afford is to slip up and let Justice get too accusatory, which could lead to the last thing he can afford - to be recognized by someone who would turn him over to the 'authorities,' such as they are.

"Have you been with the inquisition long?" is one of the most frequent questions, along with a follow up if the answer is yes: "Do you think they treat mages well here?" It's not like he's hiding the staff, after all. But there are more simple questions mixed in as well, questions about the need for herbalists or healers, about where one might find a warm enough corner to sleep in, or where one can lose what few coppers they have over a game of cards. They're general. Careful. They have to be. He's no longer ready to die.

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Alfsigr's head had been bowed when he'd approached and started speaking, one hand swallowed by a pot of earth where she's burying a seed that she very much hopes will take root. It takes a moment before she realizes she's being addressed, and she lifts her head with a start, embarrassed.

"Oh, I've only been here a very brief--"

That face. She knows that face. The pot resting on her knees goes tumbling to the ground, the shattering on the courtyard stone in a horrible mess of clay and dirt. This is apparently not the first time she's been clumsy, because there's not much more than a cursory look in their - her direction, and a roll of eyes. "You're alive!" she whispers, knowing better than to cause more of a scene than she has already. There's no desire to call Templars down upon their heads.

Anders jerks back the second she whispers, fear in his expression. A moment later he's fairly certain he recognizes her in return and he wishes that had come a little sooner. He can't turn and run, though. He can't do anything. Yes, people have turned their attention back to their tasks and conversations, but if he makes any sudden movements it will be right back on the two of them.

"I..." He can't even deny things. "Yes. Apparently. And you are too. That's good." It is good, but he's worried.

"And you're here." Maybe not as good. She could end things right here and now.

Alfsigr is not the best with people - or animals or plants, honestly - but she knows enough to hold very still and keep her expression neutral. It's okay. We're okay.

"So're you." Finally, she smiles. He's an old friend, after all. Or acquaintance, at least. Counting him among her friends might be too presumptuous. "How? Why? You shouldn't be here." She isn't sure where it is that Anders, the absolutely most wanted man in Thedas, should be, but it probably should not be with the Inquisition.

Or... maybe it should? Alfsigr is so uncertain of the right answers to this or any situation. She gets to her feet, the movement slow. "I kind of want to hug you right now. Is that weird?"

A smile and an offer of a hug. He blinks in surprise but now he has an answer to how she feels about him. A little awkwardly, he ducks his head.

"It's... Most people have the opposite desire when it comes to me, so in that, yes, it's weird." He takes a breath and looks back up, fear gone and replaced with something a little wistful. "But as I'd not mind a hug in the least, it isn't."

"Only if you're sure you don't mind being seen hugging me, considering. And as far as the other questions, the answers are something of a long story. The short version is that I still want what I've always wanted. Freedom. The Inquisition is the best way to get it for all mages." Before Justice he'd just wanted freedom for him. Now his scope is broader.

"It's not a crime to hug someone," Alfsigr insists. That's an oversimplification, of course, and she's not unaware of the risks of being a known associate of the Anders, but she's not about to let a thing like notoriety get in the way of what she feels is right. "Besides, you look like you could use one."

So, that's what she does. The conversational distance between them is breached long enough for the shorter woman to wrap her arms around the man's midsection in a warm hug. It doesn't linger terribly long, being a gesture born of impulse, but she doesn't jump back like she's regretted the action.

She's so very concerned for him. While it's true that everyone's looking for monsters and demons in every shadow, it's very easy to blend in with the crowds here. There's new faces all the time, and in that way, his is no different. She knows how easy it is to be overlooked when you're just an expected fixture. "The Circles have fallen and everything is chaos. Is this what freedom looks like to you?"

The hug might be short, but he's had a shortage of them for so long so it's perfect. He'd come to Skyhold thinking he was out of friends completely, and steadily Anders is discovering this isn't the case. Never before has he been so glad to be wrong.

"Freedom is the ability to make choices, not the guarantee of a good life. You've chosen to be here, I've chosen to be here. So yes." He looks around and takes a breath. "No Templar can ask for the Rite of Annulment and have that hang on the choice of a single person. If one of them chooses to attack a mage, others will actually pay attention. It isn't... pretty, and it isn't all we could want. But we've the ability to pursue what we do want now."

It would be nice if there wasn't fighting as well, but no revolution is bloodless. And it really isn't like he could have known they hadn't killed Corypheus.

"The other choice was death. That's no choice at all." It can be, of course. Rarely do people get to choose the manner or hour of their own demise, but sometimes to die can be a statement as much as a choice. Alfsigr's would have been pointless.

"I liked Kinloch Hold," she explains in a quiet voice. That isn't new information to him. She may have been young and full of bitterness for the loss of her freedom when she first arrived at the Circle, but she changed over time and embraced the Circle, because her mentors had embraced her in a way that her clan never had. "I knew where I belonged there. Here? Not so much..."

There's a resignation in the deep sigh that follows. "But they do treat us well, mostly. Some of the Templars make me uneasy, but that's hardly new. We make them uneasy too." Her lips pull to one side and purse. "There was an incident with an abomination. People are reminded why we need to be watched."

Justice wants him to argue about options, but Anders doesn't want to push that. There are other things to say, and often what the spirit wants leads to people being pushed away, another thing Anders doesn't want.

"There was no choice in whether or not you were at Kinloch Hold." Just as much as he knows she liked it, everyone knew he'd hated it. No one would escape multiple times, especially escaping again after a year of solitary confinement, for a lark. "We don't need to be watched. If some mages want extra protection and want an optional set-up like the Circles, then by all means, seek that. But one or two losing control does not mean that hundreds should be locked up."

Just like one or two murderers didn't mean that everyone with a sword should be locked up, and so on. They're people. Somehow the world needs to realize that at the same time so many beaten down mages do.

"It's... simpler, to be told what to do, yes. But like this? If ever you dreamed of taking musical lessons and singing in taverns, you can do that. If you wanted to learn how to tend horses, you can do that. You can take up any occupation you would like, and you don't even have to because you can use your magic to make a living instead. That's what I mean."

There's an earnestness in his voice that borders on pleading. He knows what the Circle does to imagination and hope - crushes them - but he can hope some of it can be resurrected.

[Open] No boom today. Boom tomorrow.

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