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WHO: Anders and You*! (*unless you are someone who will turn him in. ONE DAY THERE WILL BE CR. /reaches sadly)
WHAT: Detlef going about his days, helping out, being argumentative, everything
WHEN: Mid-Wintermarch
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: Probably nothing? I'll edit if that changes

Healing tents

Anders is found in these most often during the day. Everything's easier when he works, really, when he and Justice can both be on the same page. They're doing good. They're furthering the cause of mage freedom. And more importantly, no one is being hurt. Are you a patient? He's probably checking you over before getting to work. Co-worker? Hand him the elfroot salve, please? Or just drop by and find him where he's most willing to be chatty as he works.

Garden

There's nothing like seeing a mage seemingly talking to a tree. Considering previous events, it's probably a little worrying. But upon closer approach one can see that there's a terrified cat clinging to a very small branch that's just barely supporting its weight, and they can hear the mage trying to talk the cat down as if the cat can understand anything that's being said.

"You can do it. Just step... Come on. A little lower. Please?"

Just outside Skyhold

There's a garden inside the walls. It has plenty of things growing in it, including basically everything Anders is looking for. It's hard for him to stay inside the walls for too long, though. He needs to be outside, to wander some, to remind himself that the walls aren't keeping him in. While it isn't the healthiest method of coping, there are certainly worse ways to go about it.

Anyone running into him out here gets a look that's a mix of surprised and bashful - the latter due to him not really having any way to explain why he's out here with a handful of easy-to-get herbs in hand.

Library

He's seated in the Library, head buried in a book the way it never was when he was at the Circle, with a pair of large tomes next to him. They're probably not that surprising for a spirit healer, treatises on spirits and their nature, but he doesn't look pleased. And he isn't. He's not finding anything that will help with his situation, and Anders is aware that he might not have a lot of time left for the looking.

Approaches from strangers get a glance up and a nod, before he'll ask if they need to get to something past him. Known people get asked a little absently how their day is going before he turns another page.

[Or] Alternately, he's curled up off to the side, on the ground, paging through a book on obscure magic that talks about various rumored spells that the author doubts really exist. His attention is primarily on the shapeshifting portion, and he looks a little wistful. Anyone approaching who glances at the book get a half-smile and asked if it wouldn't be fun, being able to transform into animals.

Wildcard

[Hit him up wherever? He grabs food in the kitchens on the go, sometimes is at the tavern in a corner near the back, sits on the walls and looks out sometimes, surreptitiously feeds the stray cats around skyhold (and scolds any dogs that try to take the food,) and may, every now and then, see if he can zap armor in just the right way so straw and fabric and all sorts of things stick to it.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

How is he supposed to explain?

That's the question that's held him back from bringing up the Spire with Adelaide despite seeing her daily, but eventually it gets to the point where he needs to ask. It really isn't like he and Justice can continue as they are, after all.

When he finally gets to it during tea, he's a little tense. He's been a little tense the whole time, which means she might know something's up. "Did you..." Anders trails off and sighs before shaking his head. "I've a couple of questions about people in the Spire, but I know that might be a sensitive topic. If you don't want to talk about any of it, I'll understand."

Justice won't, but he's never truly understood grief and suffering.

They've been dancing around something all morning- he'd been distracted during lessons enough that his usual lines had felt more obligatory than teasingly sincere. That had been odd enough- that he's so tense in her tent afterward when he's long since stopped sitting while wound to the point of fretting? Something is wrong.

When he finally asks it's something of a relief. "That...depends entirely upon what it is you wish to ask, Detlef."

The Spire held many mages, many templars, and now? Many dead. It isn't something she cares to think on often but if it is important? She can remove herself from the pain and the fear of that night well enough to answer.

Even when given an opening it's still difficult to talk. Anders doesn't want to lie more than is necessary, and being evasive is going to tell her something's up. He'll just... move forward, muddle through it. Like he always does.

"There are two people who were there who helped a... a friend. Rhys, a mage, and Evangeline, a Templar. Did you know them? Do you know what sort of magic he specialized in?" Can he even call Cole a friend? Friendly, certainly. At least Cole knows what he is and doesn't fear him for it.

"Rhys? He was a Spirit Healer of great skill." That much she knows for certain. "We had different mentors and were never sent out together- they did not like having many spirit mages interacting at any given moment and at the end of it all...we weren't allowed out of our rooms for anything other than meals."

It'd been terrifying in no small way, the weeks leading up to that final, damning meeting. Her hands are carefully still in her lap, tea set aside for the moment. "Evangeline is a name that sounds familiar, but I do not recall anything of her."

A spirit healer. Of course. He feels a little dumb for not guessing it, but with this he can't really afford to make any assumptions. He also can't afford to give into the flare of emotions that comes from how easily mages are locked into rooms and sectioned off, treated like nothing more th--can't afford it. Cannot, and he repeats that thought forcefully.

"She may not have been as crucial, with him being a spirit healer," he says quietly, half to himself. Could that be the real key here? A friend who is a spirit healer? Or is there something else to it? "Is there anyone else here in Skyhold who you think would have known him? Or is there anything else you can recall about him?"

"None of my students knew him." Her voice levels out from it's usual rise and lilt- not becoming clipped but not as warm as it might be either. On the beginning threads of formal if only to allow herself the distance thinking of that time requires. "I cannot speak for any of the other mages that survived the Spire. We do not exactly sit and have tea and reminisce about the situation. Most of us would rather forget and rebuild."

Maker knows that is her preference.

"He was a Spirit Healer, he lived, studied, and did his research and courses on a different floor. Aside from the odd exchange of notes when our research would align, which was not often and most of those were read over by-" Unger. By Unger. "A templar."

They're getting into territory she doesn't want to delve into - her tone backs up her words and he sighs. It isn't like he wants to reminisce about his time in the Circle either, so he can't blame her. All the same, to possibly be this close to finding help and then hit a wall...

Anders gets up, pacing, looking more at his teacup than anything else. Cole doesn't know about asking them for help, Adelaide doesn't know anything more than specialty, and he's been warned about speaking with Vivienne. He shouldn't have let himself hope at all, but despite how it never works out he'd done it anyway.

"Right. I'm sorry." He realizes how this must look a second after he speaks and drops back into his chair. "I won't ask you to think back on it any longer."

But if it only takes a friendly spirit healer, not Rhys in particular, he's got one right here. One who has no idea of who she'd be helping, forget the fact that she's given no indication of feeling something abnormal from Justice. How does he start that conversation, though, and is there any way to keep some of what he is back if he starts it?

At least there's one clear thing he and Justice agree on - they can't continue like this indefinitely.

"Have you ever tried to help a spirit, or felt if there was something amiss with one?" That's not the worst start, he thinks and hopes.

If she'd been at all uncertain before as to Detlef's agitation, the pacing cinches it. There is something he wishes to know, something he is compelled to know- and she cannot recall enough of Rhys or this Evangeline to be of assistance. They were in the same Circle, to be certain, but she hadn't had a great many peers on the other floors. Her work was her own, her students her own, her mentors her own.

Everything neatly compartmentalized for better control.

A subtle tension winds its way through her shoulders the longer he paces- the tent not so large a space that he has far to go in either direction. One of them needs to keep a level head and for the first time in a fair while when faced with such a situation- she's genuinely tired of having to be that person. But- she breathes. Sips her tea. Locks it away. "There is nothing more that I know."

She won't apologize for it. The Spire had been what it had been. She had no hand in their association or lack thereof.

"Not as often since I have narrowed my focus to healing specifically. Compassion once could feel when one of their fellows was unwell or agitated. With the shift of our combined focus from a general sense of pain and distress to the physical so I might be a more precise healer; it has become more difficult. I would have to know what it is we are looking to mend." That is what Compassion does. Their purpose.

"You've always been clear about your... precision." His voice is a little tired, the joke delivery isn't great, but it's offered anyway. It's not her fault she doesn't know Rhys, and not her fault she doesn't sense anything wrong about Justice. No one else has, though he hasn't run into many Spirit Healers since the merge.

The question now is if he tells her something about what's going on and asks her to help.

Anders looks over at her as he considers. She's a little tense already, and he's he's prodded where he shouldn't have. Maybe he should just let the topic pass. It isn't like he has so many friends that he can risk losing them all again, and he likes spending time with her.

"I'm sorry," he says again. "There's a spirit that's been unwell for some time, and I thought I had a lead on how to help. I can get... focused, some times." It's the mildest way to explain it, really.

"Fixated." She corrects without missing a beat. "I know the feeling well."

She's fallen into that herself more and more often as of late- it is far easier to fixate on something, anything, other than her own ghosts, her own wounds. Time is all that can mend it; otherwise she'd have made herself better already.

But this? This she might manage. It's far better than attempting to sort out the best way to shake off Unger's grip.

"Define 'unwell' and we shall go from there, yes? Perhaps a fresh perspective might be of assistance. I have not often given aide to unwell spirits and it has been...at least a decade since I attempted it last; but if I know what we are looking for and who needs our help that will make it easier."

Fixated is the proper word, and his lips quirk upward at the correction for just a moment. He's fixated a great deal, as has the spirit. And now there's an offer of at least trying to help to focus on.

Anders takes a breath as he looks at her. "It's a little complicated. As so many things with spirits are." She knows that as well as he does, but he's trying to buy time and realizing there's nothing to really buy here. If she's going to help, she has to know. The thought of sharing what he is is a little terrifying, though.

"It's Justice." That alone will explain why it concerns him so much. "I've been angry for a, a very long time about the injustices I've faced and so many mages I know have faced. I believe I may have harmed him with it." She's a Spirit Healer; she can put anger and Justice together and get Vengeance. And avoiding outright calling Justice a demon means he doesn't risk Justice taking control.

"There's another aspect to it too, but that's the heart of the problem."

"You are dithering. It isn't attractive." Does he wish for her help or not? Stalling for time does not help him, the spirit, or her better understand what it is he needs.

Not wants- what he wants is irrelevant for the moment. What he needs is where they ought to turn their focus.

Apparently he needs to end a negative feedback loop of fixation, anger, and the slow crawl from a frustrated spirit to demon. She has read of this once before but- not with Justice. Compassion that became Desire or rather came frightfully close to it before they were made to forget. It is the best and simplest answer; but when paired with a spirit healer? It is more difficult to manage. That level of interaction to the point that it might taint the spirit- that it would double back on the mage...

"Justice does not care to forget, does he?" Compassion did if only to keep themselves safe. To offer that distance they need as to not burrow into her skin and be lost. "I cannot offer a cure to an illness unless I know all the symptoms. What more than anger?"

"We can't all be completely attractive every moment of every day. It would be exhausting." The delivery isn't there. It's not a joke so much as it is him trying to find a way to protect himself. He is an abomination, and maybe this is a huge mistake.

He takes a slow, steady breath. Does he know her enough to trust her? To risk everything? On the other hand, does he want to risk going longer without helping Justice? She's matched with Compassion, and she could be the only chance of them finding some stability any time soon. How many here are at risk while he's like this?

Anders meets her eyes.

"I told you the demon threw us all out of the Fade. I meant all. Not simply the friends I went in with. Justice too. He'd saved our lives, Adelaide. And he couldn't exist without a body. My anger is the problem."

He sets the cup down and threads his fingers together. "We've made it work for so long. Years and years. But I've been getting worried of late. And then Cole told me Rhys managed to help Compassion. I can't go chasing after Rhys; finding one man in all of the chaos is near impossible." He would know. He's thankful of this fact, usually. "But you're a Spirit Healer. A Spirit Healer who works very well with her Spirit. I've been able to feel it since the day I got here. You might be able to help."

And she might send him to his death right here and now. But there are too many people he didn't want hurt here. Again. Didn't want hurt again.

"Detlef." There is the disappointed Enchanter voice, usually saved for when he's being particularly insufferable and she must focus. But this is something dire, something serious- and he is treating it with all due seriousness; that alone has her concerned. A troubled spirit is no small thing but this uncertainty?

This hesitance? Is irregular. But what can be more concerning than tainting a spirit with anger? With legitimate concerns and frustrations?

That. That would be quite dire-

The implication is-

And there'd been fears, some rough abstract papers on the possibility- rumors about several of her fellows that seemed too in tune, to connected but nothing had ever come of it. But this?

The words aren't spoken but they hang in the air.

Abomination. Possessed.

But like this isn't it a technicality? A question of semantics? It is no demon Detlef has taken on.

"...We need to speak with the Council." They need to know that this is possible without the destruction and loss that Lauren caused- and more minds would be useful. More perspectives- but.

But.

How many of them were Spirit Healers? How many of them were trained to exacting standards? How could she have missed this? But she hadn't seen or sensed anything other than a particularly close bond between mage and spirit. The other members of the council didn't understand her skillset- not near as well as she and Detlef. His fears and secrecy are not unfounded but

Merde.

Tell the Council and he'll be imprisoned at best, executed by the templars at worst. This doesn't solve his problem. It saves no one. She'd been researching this in some degree or another for the better part of a decade. Who else could be more qualified? He didn't even know that of her and he trusted her with this-

If it comes out afterward it'll be the ruin of her.

If she turns him over, she'll never be able to live with herself.

Of the two, the first is something she can bear. Her reputation she can sacrifice. Her integrity? Never.

This will not end well- no matter what answers she finds, even if she is able to help him? It will not end well. But to not make the attempt is beyond her. Adelaide drags a hand over her face, pressing it tight against her mouth as though holding back all her excuses, all her logic. She swallows it down.

She's already made her choice. All she can do is abide by it.

"...How many years, and when did your anger first begin to change him?"

He stiffens when she suggests they talk with the Council. It's logical, but that would be a death sentence. Maybe none of the mages would recognize him (unlikely,) but hearing about an abomination would bring Templars too, and if he didn't die for being possessed, he'd die for who he is.

Then she hesitates, and he can see her change her mind. Right away he feels guilty, because there's things he hadn't thought about when talking with her. She's on the Council. Will she still be after this? Does he have any right to want confidentiality? It's too late to take back this whole conversation, though. He may have just hurt someone he's started giving a care about all over again, just like he always does.

He's going to owe her. Like he owes Varric and Hawke, in a way he can never repay because he's hurt them so much.

Slowly he takes a breath, aware of how he'll never stop messing things up for others. "We've been together, so to speak, for eleven years. And I... I realized there was an issue about eight years ago. A Templar had taken a mage out of their Circle so he and his friends could make her Tranquil and assault her with no struggle. We came upon them. I was infuriated. And Justice wanted to lash out at more than the Templars directly responsible. I've been trying to find solutions ever since, but it was Cole who told me something had worked."

"Eleven years?!" And there have been no explosions of flesh and bone, no physical deformities- her hand stretches out to take Detlef by the wrist and allow the first pulse of Compassion's awareness to take hold. Now that they know what to look for? They see it.

Justice bound so tightly into Detlef's bones it's likely strangling them both. How they have lived this long in such a state without losing themselves entirely-

A spirit of Justice does not dance, does not tease, does not flirt. It has a purpose, an exacting one that needs to be fulfilled. Denying a spirit it's purpose is much like setting her before a patient and telling her not to treat them- or that it is impossible. That it is pointless. It twists at the core of them and- yes- would enrage them.

For Adelaide, little would come of it. For Justice...

"How many incidents have there been?" A beat and she narrows her eyes faintly through the glow of Compassion's power. "How often is he able to fulfill his purpose?"

Cole she will get back to- but this? She must know.

"I've let him fulfill it as often as possible. But a great deal of justice relies on laws and authorities seeing to matters. I'm no authority. It's had to be more direct things. The chaos... It's easy to let him deal with bandits harming innocents on the road where there is no guard to step in. Other places it's been more complicated."

He reaches up and rubs his temples with his free hand. They can both feel Compassion and Adelaide seeking out the issues.

"Healing also helps. The act of healing, of seeing to people who need help and can't manage it on their own. He feels fulfilled like that, and it's a relief to us both sometimes." Which is why he's sometimes very late to get sleep, and always very early to rise. But there's another question he hasn't answered yet, and he knows she won't like the only answer he has.

"And I don't know how many incidents there have been. In the last year, very few. One or two." The chaos has helped them greatly. Any Templars that are attacking mages on the road he's been able to take out. Bandits, slavers, they die and they die fast.

"Before this last year, it had built up to a few a year." He has holes in his memory, more than a couple. Anders exhales slowly.

"It was stupid. I know it was now, but he was my friend and he saved our lives. I couldn't well let him suffer. And we thought that since we agreed on several matters it could work."

"How bad to they become?" How dangerous is this mage she's just chosen to protect? All the talk she's made about being careful, about being aware, of informing the council and the advisors-

Of Cassandra's question.

She might hang for this, if he loses control. If this comes to light-

and 'if' is being far more optimistic than she can afford. When. When this comes to light, she'll hang. Or be exiled. All the work she's done, that she might do...is it worth what she might offer him? What they might find in return.

It ties neatly into a way to avoid demons. To prevent Harrowings, abominations, possessions. If there is a way back-

She has no alternative and no support other than herself and Compassion.

"How long since your last?" Symptoms. Think of the symptoms, of the triggers. Treat it like a disease- for that's what this is. An answer will come. "Can you predict them?"

How bad.

Bad enough that he'd been worried enough to speak to her, bad enough that he regrets even starting down this path of conversation. He's an abomination and he's just put the weight of healing him on someone else when he can't even heal himself. He should have just gone hunting after Rhys. Left and gone looking. Along the way he could have continued to deal with Templars and bandits and demons, and maybe he never would have made it but at least he wouldn't have been weighing down someone who only wanted to help.

"If I'm... If I'm asking too much, Adelaide..." Can he even leave? Physically, yes, but then he can't come back and this is where they need to be to help. This is where Justice feels the need to be to help. There's nothing else that Anders can do.

Another breath, and his eyes don't leave the ground. He needs help and it's a mistake to get it. He's only going to bring down everyone who cares, not help them. Varric, Kallian, Merrill, Adelaide, Bruce, Zevran, Alayre, all of them and more.

"The last time was... months ago, but they tend to fall into a sort of pattern. There's an injustice, and either it can't be righted but there's some way nearby to deal a small amount of justice, or there's an injustice and righting it doesn't bring the right reaction. Which is a great many words to say the last time it happened was when I saved two men and a woman from raiders, and once saved one man yelled about me being a mage and came at us with a pitchfork. It was on fire before I knew it. I offered to heal his hands, after, but they... They wanted nothing more to do with me."

He'd been charged, though, by that man. It couldn't be justified, but it could be understood. And he'd blacked out for a second, which was enough to know it wasn't him at fault for the fire.

"You cannot take this back." Telling her. Trusting her. No more than she can take back her resolution to help him through this, help him cure this. "And I, now knowing what I know, cannot stand idly by and do nothing."

Not if she wished to keep her contract with Compassion- and she does. It is everything for her- doing this. Being this. Beyond teaching or the Council, beyond politics and sculpture- healing is the one thing that she has always had to stand against and be proud of; it is as much her purpose as it is Compassion's. Ignoring Detlef's plight is impossible now that she knows- to do nothing? To tell him to go to anyone else, or to leave the Inquisition-

The latter might be the wisest course. Before he hurts himself. Before he hurts anyone else.

Her lips press thin as she listens, the warm pulse of Compassion's power meant to soothe. "We must find small injustices that you might right on your own to fulfill his purpose and keep him sated until we find a way to separate you two...have you ever- has he ever attempted to leave you?"

He can't. He's put so much on her shoulders and he can't take it back. This is why it never pays to be friends with him, why it never works out. He's too much of a weight and a burden.

Compassion burns bright through Adelaide and makes him feel all the more guilty and alone. By joining with Justice he'd ended the bond he had with the spirit, and sometimes he misses the gentle touch of Compassion as opposed to the blunt edge that is Justice.

"We haven't tried. How would he get back across the Veil? What would happen to him when he couldn't? I've searched for any records I could find about this and found nothing. We simply don't know how to get him back. The small injustices idea is a good one, though, I'd like to note. He agrees."

"The rifts might be of use- coming to this side through them twists spirits into demons but we do not know enough of them to take that risk. It bears research." Fortunately they are in the perfect place to do that research. No other organization throws their forces at the rifts quite so regularly. "If there is another influx of rifters I will take what notes that I can of the phenomenon."

Even as they burn bright and scream with the raw discord of the Fade's magic and demons- she will try. She owes them no less.

"It can be imprecise or seem insufficient on this side for you, I know. But I promise I will do what I can to make help and make it safe. Losing control as a mage is frightening. I cannot imagine how it must be for you." As much as Adelaide speaks to Detlef- she and Compassion look through his eyes and into the Spirit that shares his skin. They speak to Justice.

Edited (i missed a vowel ff) 2016-01-20 11:29 (UTC)

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