faderift | Well it's time to celebrate your birthday, it happens every year

WHO: Anders, Nathaniel, and invitees!
WHAT: Fancy birthday party in Camp Shady
WHEN: Harvestmere 27, evening
WHERE: Camp Shady
NOTES: Will update.

Since many Wardens moved into the Kestrel House, there is plenty of space in the camp for a big top tent. Finding enough candlesticks, tables, and chairs required a lot of time and a number of bribes to pull off. The tables are nicely draped with fabric lent by one of Anders' patients, and each is decorated with flowers. The tent is alight and smells like good food--more donations from grateful patients.

One of the Wardens is known for her fiddling, and she plays lively dances and crooning ballads. In the center table is an ice sculpture of a cat chasing a butterfly (you guessed it--donated by a mage patient). It glitters spectacularly in the candlelight.

On the menu is a slow-roasted pig, spiced hot cider, spectacular salads, jams, cakes, delectably seasoned vegetables, a lamb-flank, and your choice of wine. There is even a hard-won bottle of Antivan brandy Nathaniel had to win several card games to achieve.

Relax, enjoy, greet the birthday boy, and mingle. The nights will be cold soon, but under this tent, life glows.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Teren has to fight not to feel aggravation at his complacency, because, somewhere deep in the recesses of her black black heart, she understands why he might want to find a little peace now.
But peace, peace of the soul, isn't always possible. She looks tired as they crest the hill and she pauses, taking a few deep breaths to mask the ache in her body.

"Aye," she intones at last, with an odd absence of her usual wryness, "that it is. And you're still young enough to make a life of it." She sighs deeply and steps forward again, over to their usual cookfire, which she stokes with a poker that leans on a nearby stump.

He stills near her, hearing unusual sincerity in her voice. If not for that, he might joke. He might talk about how he's got more as a Grey Warden than he ever had in the Circle. But there's something underlying her approach at this party, and he deeply wishes to know her better.

"Survival is all I've had for a long time. This is not the life I would have chosen, this is not a life anyone has chosen. But I've air still in my lungs and strength still in my limbs. I'll continue forward. For myself, for Nathaniel, for the mages, and for my crimes. What life I can make of it, I will."

Staring pensively into the flames, Teren offers the mage a small nod before seeming to go a bit vacant. She's still listening, on some level, but some element of their conversation has launched her into deeper reflection than usual. For the moment, she barely seems aware that Anders is still here.

He lets the silence go for some time before holding out the wineskin he'd been carrying, offering her a drink if she wants it.

"Wine for your thoughts? Because there's something on your mind, Teren, and I've a feeling it's not dancing."

Something in the mood has shifted, and perhaps it's Anders' persistence or the pain in her side that weakens Teren's resolve-- but something does. She sighs, settling down onto the stump, her eyes never leaving the fire.

"Perhaps I was so noble, at some point," she says quietly, "so optimistic. Without someone to do it for, I suppose it becomes less necessary." She purses her lips and closes her eyes in a rare flicker of genuine regret-- perhaps even grief? "You are luckier than you know, Anders."

Slowly Anders sits down as well, watching the fire along with her.

"Perhaps." He'd told Jonas of his luck, once, about what he'd not been forced to endure in the Circles. "Or I may know exactly how lucky I am, because I've seen those who aren't, weren't, and I've been in situations where I thought it had all run out. I have more than I thought possible."

Not more than he'd dreamed of. He'd always dreamed of more, even though he'd never expected it. But the 'someone to do it for' stands out, and he exhales slowly.

"Who did you lose?" If he lost Nate, would he keep going? Anders is fairly certain the answer is no.

Opening up has never been Teren's strong point, and although her walls are upheld near-effortlessly, she does, periodically, get tired.
And bloody Anders has his dogged way, his big stupid eyes and his sympathetic bedside manner...

"Zerique," she says, without any preamble, but then can't help but pause. There's so much she could say, and none of it seems good enough. "...she taught me to use knives," is what comes to mind first, and it elicits a small, almost self-effacing smirk-- really, Teren? That's the most prominent quality? "I never thought I'd have such need of them."

"She taught you well," he says quietly. Zerique. He can't really guess much of anything from the name itself. Perhaps Antivan, perhaps Nevarran, perhaps something else entirely. That's a superfluous detail here. "And she prepared you, at least a little."

The expression on her face is pained for just a moment and he steers away from niceties about her not being fully gone as long as she's remembered; it's a salve for some, but likely neither of them.

"There was another man, once. Karl. He taught me how to perfect my fireballs." There was more to him, a lot more, but he has a feeling there was just as much more to this Zerique.

Teren doesn't disagree there-- she is good with knives.
She isn't astute enough, or at least not paying close enough attention, to fully understand what Anders is doing by bringing up Karl. But he's right, in a way, to do so.
Teren touches her face idly. "Were she to see me now, I doubt she'd know me. And perhaps I her, if she's even..." Her eyelids squeeze shut for a moment, then she shakes her head and straightens to poke the fire aggressively once more.
"It doesn't matter now," she mutters, her voice low and venomous. "If she is still alive, she'll be better off thinking I'm not."

If Karl was still alive... He'd inspired a lot of Anders' passion for freedom for all mages, him and Justice alike, but Anders thinks Karl would be aghast at what Anders had done, at how far he'd gone.

"I think I understand. But at the same time, I'm glad to know you're alive. I'm glad to have you at my side, Teren, and to be at yours. And maybe it's possible that she'd like to know you're alive. Sometimes people make decisions not really considering the person they're choosing for."

And by people, he means him. And others too, but he's done it.

Stranger still than before, Teren turns to look oddly at Anders, her expression pensive but not entirely unfriendly. He's said as much multiple times, but for whatever reason, this is the first time it's really stuck. He is at her side, and she at his. That's... nice.
And also dangerous.
"Aye, they do," she agrees, sighing out her previous irritation, and she lets the poker rest back against the stump with a lazy thud. "Just be careful, boy. Always careful."

"Careful is what I do best," he says with an expression that says exactly the opposite.

"I walked directly into Skyhold with all sorts of safety measures for when they discovered who I was." None. Absolutely none, no real plan except dying. If Nate hadn't stepped in...

"You've nothing to worry about."

Teren snorts. Nothing to worry about? Maybe when she's dead.

"I'll decide that, thank you," she says with a roll of her eyes, and steps toward him long enough to lightly clip him on the back of the head with her palm, just enough to muss his hair a little. "Now go eat your bloody dinner or your Nate and I will have to start forcefeeding you."

He ducks his head, giving her a small smile.

"I've eaten plenty tonight. ...But as the spread Nate's put out is rather impressive, I'll try to eat more. Just for him and you." He pauses after he's half-turned to go. "Thank you for coming, Teren." It means a great deal that she did.

"Good," she replies, and smirks toward him in her standard cryptic way. Maybe he won't have to die tonight. (that's not what it means I just wanted to end it dramatically)

Well it's time to celebrate your birthday, it happens every year

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