faderift | [Closed] A perfect storm

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[Closed] A perfect storm

WHO: Anders, established-CR people; poke me on plurk or in Discord for a top level if you'd like!
WHAT: A pair of triggers collide and fuck up Anders
WHEN: Early Guardian
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: Panic attacks, possible talk of trauma in the past, related issues, dark thoughts

He'd run from being locked up seven times, knowing that the seventh was a death sentence, and been willing to go in alone to what seemed likely to be a lethal trap (and was) to try to destroy his phylactery. With both of them, life like that wasn't worth it.

Now both are back. He's held again, in a Circle, his phylactery is being messed with, and on top of that he can't heal in Darktown so he can do even less than he could in Kirkwall seven years ago.

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He's not panicking every moment of the day, thankfully. He's got friends who are suffering too, and while he can't help himself, he can still maybe help them. When Colin comes in on his regular drug-running schedule, he finds a pale Anders paging through his notes and muttering to himself as he makes more notes on another page.

Both cats are in attendance; apparently they've some caretaker instincts after all.

Colin has managed to keep his composure by mentally singing I'm freaking out for nothing to the tune of "The Maid who Lost her Bonnet," which is a deceptively dirty song and that alone raises his spirits. The Gallows is more spacious than the brig he worked aboard, but at times, that makes it worse and not better. He arrives with hands in his pockets and a hesitant stance.

"Anders?"

He knows that song, and it gets a faint flicker of a smile on his lips as he waves Colin in. Company is a welcome distraction. Plus it's nice to not have to find an excuse to find Colin and check on him.

"Please, come in." There's hesitation written in the young man's frame, so Anders grabs the other chair and brings it close to his desk rather than asking Colin to do so. The effort would be a clear invitation, even more than his words. "Join me."

Colin stops humming and manages to creep in and sit in the offered chair, looking at Anders impassively.

"How are you holding up?" Because this is hard for all of them, and just because Anders is take-charge doesn't mean he's not also fraying around the edges. To the contrary, that seems to put people at greater risk.

It's hard to not think about something when someone brings it up specifically. Clear weariness shows up in his eyes before he's shrugging and trying to cover a little.

"I'm here," he answers quietly. "I've yet to bolt for it, even though I know how. So that's... something." His gaze comes back up. "How about you?"

"All things considered, not too terribly." Colin sounds rather less rattled than he feels. "Maybe the difference right now is, we have power. We do hold the key to that door. The key is a cure. But since mind tricks don't always work against a mind that's tricking you, I keep lavender about. I'll give you some to add to your tea. And if I've learned anything from travelling at sea for so long, it's to get up in the sky every now and then. If I start feeling faint, I get up on the roof and take a breather."

He looks away, pulling out a cloth wallet with various herbs in it, fishing out a pouch of lavender.

"Anders? How did you know you wanted to be a healer?"

'And here's the healer, being looked after by his apprentice,' he thinks but does not say. Anders only has so much strength, and the phylacteries had worn him down a great deal before the cage doors shut around them. He takes the offered lavender with a murmur of thanks before approaching the question.

"At first it was simply a hope for myself. Healers had the greatest chance of getting to leave the Circle on little errands for rich people." There's a little wryness to his voice, but as he continues speaking his expression softens. "And then there was more to it. The ability to help... I don't know how to put it into words, exactly, but there's a fulfilling feeling like nothing else when you return hope to peoples' eyes, and when you give them a chance they'd not had moments before. We've been given such a gift, and with this we can give back."

Colin puts his hands back in his pockets, clearly contemplative. All this time, he's been making drugs and more drugs, and giving them to sick people and making them feel better. Whether they're cured or not, or grateful or not, he's taking care of people. And when they are grateful? It feels transformative. It's something he loves about cooking, though not all he loves about cooking. People feel good, people make connections, and it's meeting a basic need. Colin is not a hero. He is not a fighter. In the Circle, you were taught to fight, heal, or teach. And Colin had been in an awkward place, the rules around working with spirits so restrictive after Uldred's rebellion. He hadn't been considered for instruction in healing right away because he'd been more talented with spirit magic than creation, and by the time he was old enough to be considered for instruction in spirit healing, Harrowed at last and no longer a boy, the Circles were dissolved. And he had been too resentful of his magic to grow attached to any particular use for it.

He peers at Anders.

"Can you teach me?"

He waits through the quiet, wondering what questions might come next. While Colin's eventual question isn't a huge surprise, it's still gratifying and makes him feel a little happier and calmer in this whole mess.

"I'd be glad to, Colin. You've definitely the aptitude for Creation to warrant the training, and the attitude for it too. It's been... yes." There's a little pride to his voice and mood too. Colin trusts him, despite how much of a wreck he is right now, to guide him into becoming a healer. "As soon as this current mess is over, as we're both running all over the place and what you've been doing is invaluable. I hope you know that. The tea, the cooking, but especially helping people sleep. They'd be worse off without that."

Colin inhales, then releases an unvoiced laugh, breaking out into a smile. "Thank you. I feel...good. About this. Like either way I'd keep trying to become one, magic or no. And self-taught medicine might be grand at first, so long as I wasn't my own patient, but I think the long-term would be less bright."

He glances away, smile wavering briefly. "I've started, um. Giving some of my own lyrium. I'll take a loss on it, but they need it more than I need the money, so." A shrug. He never thought he'd say such things, or do such things, for Templars, but Cade's small thank you and that trusting gaze had been...different. Maybe the Templar order betrayed a number of its own, in addition to its charges.

"Spirit healing can certainly accomplish more than self-taught medicine. Or even simply Creation healing. There are still limits, of course." A glance around the infirmary will confirm that. "But I've never regretted being a spirit healer. I don't think you will either. I think you've the temperament for it."

Not everyone does. Communicating vaguely with a spirit can be tricky, let alone finding one drawn to them, and then making sure to at least hold to some of the spirit's ideals so they didn't up and quit took some work too.

As far as the other goes... Anders reaches out and rests a hand on Colin's wrist. "That ties into what a spirit healer needs to do. When it comes to healing, and saving lives, fear and dislike need to be a little overlooked. Not always. Sometimes you have to weigh healing against what the patient is likely to do; I've let a serial killer die, I've stood back when Templars I knew to be abusers could have been brought back, but there are going to be many times when mercy is the path to take. Even when it's difficult."

The casual touching is a little disquieting, but Colin knows it's innocent. Briefly, he wonders what he would do if Ser Lutair was brought to him for healing. Any spirit who would blame him for letting that man die would have a very narrow view of mercy indeed. And that is the one situation where Colin would prefer losing a spirit to letting someone live.

"I don't know how I'm going to feel," he says quietly, "being known as a mage again. I think I've done all right on my own because pretending I wasn't a mage meant all the things what happened in the Circle really happened to someone else. Now, it's like...going backwards in time."

Anders nods.

"I don't know how it will feel either. That wasn't my coping method. But I do know you've friends around already who will support you through this. You're not alone."

He releases Colin's shoulder and leans back in his chair. "If you also want to learn how to make stupid jokes to cover what you're going through I'm not as good at it as I used to be, but I'm not bad. That was what I did. Joke, smile, taunt, and as long as I could keep doing that they hadn't won."

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[Closed] A perfect storm

Colin

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