faderift | CLOSED: a prayer that will be answered

"I didn't... want to join, actually. My choice was be executed for apostasy, or be conscripted. I figured better a life as a Warden than no life." He exhales. "It was. ...I take it you feel Warden life wasn't better than village life, though? What did you... What were your prospects? Before leaving?"

Teren gives a humorless chuckle. "We have more in common than I thought." And then his question.
"Prospects? Being a seamstress, like my mother," she says quietly, "...growing into an old maid, unlike her. Though I suppose I've done that anyway." The corners of her mouth are pinched, her expression hard.

"Apparently so," he says before listening to the rest. Anders looks down again as she continues.

"Would you have enjoyed being a seamstress in a village more than being one for a lady? I suppose if you're sewing in an estate you don't see a lot of the world, so travel isn't one of the things you get to experience. I can't... I don't know if you want to talk about being single or not."

"Not really," Teren says, the answer coming easy if perhaps a bit too hastily. "It would have been different. Not in the best ways. Sewing won't always pay for food and lodging, but there are ways a seamstress can keep her head above water." She continues to stare fixedly out. "At least in a lady's home, one is provided for. ...as long as she wills it, anyway." Until murders happen in her quarters.

He's quiet for several moments, staring out into the dark.

"I'm sorry," is his eventual response. "For what it's worth, I'm glad to have the chance to get to know you. Even if I think sometimes you're one loud noise away from stabbing me." The smile he gives her is small, just enough to show that he's teasing with the last.

Teren looks at him when he apologizes, her brow furrowing in either confusion or irritation. "For what?" she asks, then promptly looks uncomfortable when he starts getting mushy. Oh no. Must deflect.
...but he's not such a bad kid.
"Nonsense," she says gruffly, "the knives are for darkspawn. I'd smother you with your pillow."

The exhale from him is nearly a snort, nearly a laugh.

"That would hurt less, but I think I'd still prefer the knife." He's spent enough time trapped in the dark, struggling to breathe. Sure, it had been panic that choked him, but the main point is the same. "Perhaps just a quick thrust. That would be the best option."

At his laughter, Teren can't help but break her stern tableau, the corner of her mouth twitching up in a smile. "I'll keep that in mind," she decides, and casts him an odd look. "You think often, about ways you'd like to be killed?"

He shrugs, not quite looking back at her. "It's something I've had opportunity to think about for a very long time."

Another shrug. "I was an apostate, ran an underground healing clinic, smuggled mages to safety, and then destroyed the Chantry. I've had a death sentence looming over my head for... something like thirteen years." Joining the Wardenshad given him a break, oddly enough.

Seems legit.
"No harm in being realistic," she concedes. It may be a morbid way to live, but she can hardly fault anyone for embracing the facts of their existence. "Lucky you've managed to keep your sunny disposition throughout." The words are delivered with sarcasm, but may, perhaps, contain a tiny bit of sincerity.

His expression becomes wry.

"Would you believe I was an optimist once? I believed I could be free for a time, I believed I could find happiness in the Circle for a short time after that, I believed I could regain my happiness and gain freedom after that..." He'd been broken of those notions, of those habits of hoping. Eventually it had become desperation and defiance driving him, until defiance failed and it was only despair and fear and grief and anger.

"It's better in our little camp of tents. Sky, cat, and Nate. And people who don't entirely mind me. Or they like me better than they like my humming, at least." He gives her another small smile.

Teren's smirk mirrors Anders'. "Do you not consider yourself free, as you are now?" she asks, with some genuine curiosity. "Being a Warden is a choice, after all. Choosing to live, even in unfavorable circumstances, is a sort of freedom."

"I'm free in that," he assures her. "The Wardens aren't jailers, and while I'm not fond of the Deep Roads, I don't resent being a part of the Grey Wardens. I mean that I've a dozen pairs of eyes at any given time watching me, waiting for me to make any mistake with which they can hang me."

And hanging is high on the list of ways he doesn't want to go. "My actions mean I'm not free, and I won't be free. Not that I'm saying I should be. It's simply that... I won't be."

"Ah, well." Teren gives a small shrug, and pats him on the shoulder. "Perhaps it'll die down in time. It's amazing what people can manage to forget, given enough distraction."

He half-chuckles. "Perhaps it will, though if Corypheus, an ancient Tevinter magister, running around riding a dragon isn't making people forget... Well. We'll see."

A beat. "So I take it you've not thought on how you'd prefer to go out, if you had a choice?"

The reminder causes a sudden shudder. Corypheus, the dragon... She'd never seen an archdemon before, and it was enough to shake even Teren to her core.
She's silent for several moments, either mulling that over or considering Anders' question. Then, "my only choice is that it be my choice." Her eyes harden. "I die in my bed an old woman, I heed the Calling and descend to the Deep Roads of my own volition. It would be the direct result of my own decisions, the path I've willfully taken, not becoming the hapless casualty of another's cruelty or carelessness."

He nods as she answers, taking it even more seriously than he did.

"I respect that." He doesn't know how likely it is that she'll get to die at a time of her choosing, but the Calling is a definite possibility. Anders studies her for a moment, truly looking at her and searching for signs of the Blight. He can't see any. That doesn't mean anything. "Let's hope the latter doesn't come for some time yet, though."

In the dark, alone except for Darkspawn... he doesn't want to go like that. And while he at least knows he won't go alone now, that's not much of a comfort. He doesn't want to think about Nate dying.

Teren catches his last remark, and glances at him with a small smile, fonder than it is wry. "Let's hope," she agrees, "I have much to do in the meantime."

Now he gives her a full smile.

"Like eating all the best snacks?" Why not go back to that with a tease? "But I know what you mean. There's always more work to do, always more that can be done. Life does not pause for breaks. And on that cheerful note, I think I should attempt sleep again. We'll need healing tomorrow, no doubt."

"Yes," she states definitively, glad the matter of snacks is settled. "And do that. We'll need to be at full strength in the coming days, I expect."

CLOSED: a prayer that will be answered

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