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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.]

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She lurks here often, near her brother's side or off to the corner, listening to those who pass through. The Veil reflects their thoughts, an echo she can hear overlapping, layering one on top of another. Often a cacaphony.

Anders is polyphonic, sometimes in harmony. Sometimes just slightly out of tune. But the resonance draws attention. So she watches him while he works, since she rarely has anywhere else to be. Simon wants her close at hand, especially with the new potions he wants to test. To see if they cure her.

The noise is softer, but she still stares at its source, from her little nook inside the tent. If she's out of the way, they don't tend to complain about her being underfoot.

He knows when he's being watched, practice from years of trying to stay away from people who always kept catching him again. Slightly wary, he looks around to spot a girl who is frequently at the tents. Normally she's with Simon when he's seen her, but a glance around doesn't spot him. No matter.

Anders finishes crushing the herb he'd been working with before looking directly at her. "Did you need something? I'd offer to do a jig but there's no music." The noise from being a Warden doesn't count. It's not the Calling, he doesn't need to dance to it.

She tips her head, considering for a moment. "Too many variables. The music in the stone is old and soft, but there are too many threading together. Makes it noisy enough without dancing." Her tongue darts over her lips before she peels out of the corner and inches a little closer.

She looks intently at his work now, the grind of the mortar and pestle, the grip of his fingers.

Well. That's... something. She's no Dwarf, so he's not sure what the music in the stone is... His expression gets a little puzzled as he takes another herb section and starts to work on it. Deep roads? Is she a Warden? Is it getting to her more than it has been him? Anything's possible, and he's wondered sometimes if Justice is helping him with the sound.

"So no show from me, then," is all he says on that. If there's something else going on and she's mentally damaged, it would explain why Simon has her at the tents so often as well as mean that calling attention to how confused he is would be rude. Talking about what he's doing it is.

"I'm working on a salve for the horses. Or any animal that has to walk in snow, but generally those that carry burdens. Something healing and insulating. The roads are cold, this time of year, and they're never gentle. Would you like to help?"

She's watching what he's doing, after all. Anders nods toward the shelf where a few more mortar and pestles sit.

Not in the way then. She looks a little surprised by the offer but threads her lower lip through her teeth and nods, inching closer still.

There's a quick moment of study -- component he's looking for increases circulation -- before she reaches for a jar with delicate fingers. Careful but swift, she reaches for the tongs sitting nearby. Elfroot you could touch with bare fingers, but this one? Better not to. Especially if you were prone to rubbing your eyes.

It's clear from the way she assembles the ingredients that she was watching him very closely.

She's quiet, and there's a... smallness to her that doesn't really have anything to do with size. It's the way she tends to stay back and moves so quickly once she's joined him, and the way she'd clearly studied what he's been doing. Maybe he's not as good at noticing someone watching him as he'd thought, and Anders raises an eyebrow at her.

"Have you made anything with Simon before?" It's as decent a question as any other, and Anders isn't that great at working in silence when there are others around.

She shakes her head. "Sometimes...I hear what's aching in them. Hurts he might not see with eyes. But he needs to concentrate. Harder when he's watching me."

The pestle gripped, she starts to grind. Careful, methodical motions. Mimicking what she's seen. She picks things up quickly enough, even after only a few moments of observation.

Anders stops, mid-grind, at her words and glances over. Hears the hurts? Is she a mage with healing abilities? He hasn't seen her help at the tents, though. Maybe she's simply young or untrained. ...Or they could go back to the troubled theory and he presses his lips together for a moment. He can't very well ask her if he can see how she's doing because he'd like to see if he can help.

"How do you hear the hurts?" He resumes working. Careful questions could lead him to what's going on here.

"They echo, like raindrops on the window. Sometimes too soft to tell them apart. They're different, but they muddle."

She pauses then, tilting her head as though listening to something distant. There's a thrum underneath of something threatening. Something she should not call to, not even in dreams. "...Yours is deeper. Too many droplets, coming down like a storm."

That can't be so easily written off. He takes a breath before looking over at her again. This isn't injury she's talking about, after all. She may be reaching, or she may be sensing something about him. Magic takes so many forms that he can't say for sure.

"Too many? Is it... too loud? Or is it something else?" Does she just feel what he's been through, or is she sensing that there's more than one being in front of her?

"Yes." Then, after the pestle lowers. "No. Not rain. Pebbles. Rock. Stone and fire to break the chains, to upset the scales. What they deserved."

It tumbles out of her mouth before she can stop herself, or think about what she's saying, but it's there. Simmering, under the surface, and for a moment it looks as though she's staring past him.

"What was just."

Maker's breath. When he'd come here, he'd thought the only risk of discovery was from people knowing his face. But first Cole, and now this girl who hangs around the tents... She's not acting scared, though. She called it deserved, and she's not screaming or running. That's something. What, exactly, he doesn't know. But it's something.

"What was just. May I... May I ask how you hear that? Magic? Spirit? Something else? ...And may I ask you to not repeat it, please?"

Most people probably won't get it without more context, but it's a little scary anyway. If she said it near the wrong person, Cullen or Fenris, for example, that could tell them everything they needed to know about his presence.

It's not a reflection of her own thoughts on the matter. He'd felt it was just. That was the reason, the motivation. Justice. It resonates softly under the surface, an aura almost imperceptible otherwise.

"...you're hiding."

She tips her head, brow furrowing, fingers twitching faintly around the pestle before tightening.

"We're hiding, too."

He feels relief from her words. Someone who is also hiding won't be turning him in, then. But it's a dodge. There's no answer to his question of how, and that's... Well, he doesn't really have grounds to be worried, does he? Considering what he is, to push for an answer from her would be rude. Not that a desire to be polite has really stopped him before. She's got his secret, though, one he doesn't want to be shared, and a tiny bit of self-preservation says that the shouldn't push the girl who has the info on him.

"What are you hiding from?" Not mages. Templars, likely. He can sympathize with that.

She pauses, the answer lingering on her lips for a few seconds before finally finding its way out, quiet and solemn.

"Everyone."

It's not just the templars, though she's had no fear of the ones here in Skyhold. More important are the mages who'd sunk so much into her creation, her evolution as they might call it. The ones who would want their precious research back.

Everyone. That's a familiar pain. Until Varric and Merrill had greeted him kindly, Zevran had smiled, Isabela had welcomed him, he'd felt like he was hiding from everyone as well.

"You've no need to hide from me." Honestly, whatever the girl's done, it can't compare to what he has. Or maybe it can, but it would be equal. Anders isn't worried.

"Is there something I can call you? You can call me Detlef."

But he wasn't. He isn't Detlef, she knows who he is. Crowned in flame, blinded by the grasp of lyrium-soaked hands, surrounded by destruction. He used to be more things until they were torn away, or faded, or forgotten.

Then again, they're all pretending to be something else.

"...River." Her gaze falls to his hands, then flickers up again briefly, eyes dark enough to be black.

There's a reason he's not saying his name is Detlef, only to call him that. He also is certain she knows that's not his name. ...There's even a chance she knows Anders isn't, but he doesn't know how far her sensing can go.

"River. I'm glad to meet you." She's not entirely stable, but he is glad to meet her. He spends so much time fearing that people will discover who he is that being around someone who already knows is a great relief.

"Do you like helping in the tents?"

Which was a reminder of the herbs they were neglecting. Nodding, River started to grind once more, the rasping sound returning to a more rhythmic pace.

"Sometimes. Sometimes they're too loud. They hurt, regret things they didn't do. Sometimes they don't get up."

Not as often, now. The casualties had been far greater when they first arrived, but now and then one slips through the cracks and she feels that pull, the snap before they fade away. It pulls at her skin. She wants them to get back up again.

For a moment he's utterly confused. They're working with herbs. Does grinding them hurt? And then seconds later he clues in. The patients. She feels their pain, their regret. Maker. That's a burden he'd not put on anyone.

"I'm sorry." He can't change it, isn't at fault, but he can express the sympathy anyway. Seeing the damage, delving into it, is painful as it is.

"Does anything help? Is there something I can do?"

"Simon's been trying. The potions make things slow and itch, murky like swamp water. But tastes worse." Her nose wrinkles at the memory. She's gotten better at slinking out of view whenever he's got a new batch ready.

Does anything help? She glances up, towards the flap of the tent, her hands going still again. "...one of the templars made it quiet, for a little while. But it hurts. Feels gray and empty and lost."

Gray and empty and lost. There's a tightness in his chest as he recalls familiar words about all of the colors in the world taken away.

"There's got to be a way to live with it, to make it bearable, rather than taking away everything." Silence is brutal and it's no solution. "That's not a way to live, merely one to survive, which means it is no option."

Survival might not be an option. It all depended on what came, how long she kept her defenses up, repelled the demons and hid from those who hunted. If any of those things conspired against the people here in the keep, she couldn't stay. If anything threatened Simon...

"Necessary measures."

She'd said it out loud, without quite meaning to, and her eyes go a little wider as they lift to fix on Anders once more. "...that's why it was dark and lonely and deep. In case things went hollow. The vase breaks and the water goes out, but something else could slip inside." Her fingers twitch and curl tighter.

"You were different. You were friends. The ones that visit aren't friends, fiends, false. I don't want them."

It's still disconcerting, hearing Justice be spoken about by someone he's not met before today. Cole had only prepared him in part. It's also worrying as well as fascinating. She can see who he is. She can see through anyone. Nobody would enjoy that being used on them, many would enjoy it being used on others. She is, honestly, in more danger than he is. It triggers a protective instinct only helped with how quiet and nice her brother seems. No wonder he's trying to help River; so many people could want to hurt her or use her or both.

"You shouldn't want them. You should close them out. Is there a way to... strengthen the vase?" He's not exactly sure what she means by that comparison. Her mind? Her body? Either way, this might be an avenue worth pursuing.

Her expression suddenly becomes much more withdrawn, haunted almost.

"They tried," she murmurs. "Hallowed halls echoing in the dark, smell of blood. Forging means fire, a weapon no one could see coming, knives at night that leave no trace. But it was wrong. There was too much..."

Her voice is becoming strained, rising in pitch with each word.

[Open]

Healing Tents

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