faderift | [Open] No boom today. Boom tomorrow.

Entry tags:

[Open] No boom today. Boom tomorrow.

WHO: Anders and anyone! Or, well, almost anyone. Sorry, Fenris and Cullen...
WHAT: Anders arrives at Skyhold, takes a new fake name, and tries to get a measure of the Inquisition while keeping a low profile. Starting in prose, but will switch to brackets to match if that's preferred!
WHEN: Mid-haring
WHERE: All over Skyhold, choose your location?
NOTES: Warning for Anders? I can't think of any real ones atm, I'll update if that changes.

He's tired, but that's nothing new. The road's been long. It shows in the way he leans a little on his staff, a fairly generic-looking thing that's far from his old appreciation of things flashy, just as it shows in the state of his rather ragged-looking robes and the scruff of a beard that he doesn't exactly like. At least he's not dead on his feet - the company of a few refugees more than willing to bear the brunt of conversation on the way up had made the last couple of days more bearable than usual.

Now he's here, and the strain is back on his shoulders. Skyhold holds more than the usual level of danger but there's no getting around the fact that he has to at least visit this place. The Inquisition is likely to be a player in the future of mages, and Anders will not see the little bit of progress made be undone out of fear, or laziness, or naivete, or any other number of things that could cut down freedom for his people.

But that doesn't mean he knows how to go about working toward that, just yet. And that means he's slowly going around the fortress, gathering information by listening and asking simple, short questions. They have to be short. The second-to-last thing he can afford is to slip up and let Justice get too accusatory, which could lead to the last thing he can afford - to be recognized by someone who would turn him over to the 'authorities,' such as they are.

"Have you been with the inquisition long?" is one of the most frequent questions, along with a follow up if the answer is yes: "Do you think they treat mages well here?" It's not like he's hiding the staff, after all. But there are more simple questions mixed in as well, questions about the need for herbalists or healers, about where one might find a warm enough corner to sleep in, or where one can lose what few coppers they have over a game of cards. They're general. Careful. They have to be. He's no longer ready to die.

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He's been taught the same words, though he'd been an impatient student whenever he'd been in the Circle. The offered touch means more than any of those would have, and even takes him a little by surprise before he realizes why she's reacting as she is.

Suffering is the story of so many mages. He has no monopoly on it. But they've endured so much, and been so beaten down, even to the point where some weren't even aware of it. Some welcomed the imprisonment because they'd been brainwashed to the point they were afraid of what to do without it. For all their lives they'd faced this, struggled with this, simply due to the very nature of their birth, and it was wrong.

This is why he's done what he has. And this is why he's here. The cycle has to end, and he's already crossed a line that cannot be uncrossed. Mages will have a future, and it will be free.

"I'm impressed that you managed to bring them with you. Hiding from Templars while alone is challenging enough. I can't imagine protecting younger mages as well." His voice may be weary, tone a little dull, but the words are sincere. She'd taken care of them at risk to her own life, and she's here offering him sympathy. Commonality, too, Spirit Healer to Spirit Healer.

There is hope in Skyhold, as hard as it is to feel.

"When I... After I'd been on the run for a time, I tried to get one other person out." It's not a story he's seen in the pages of Tale of the Champion. It's a poor offering of truth because there will be an exchange of names shortly here, and he'll lie. He'll like like he's lied so much, despite her kindness, and as much as he knows he must do so it weighs on him. "I didn't... It didn't work. He died. The fact that you managed to get students out and to the Reach, or even simply managed to shepherd them to safety here, and that you're on this Council... It's good news. The best I've had in some time."

"Pretending not to be a mage did much of the work for me. 'Oh no, Ser templar, no mages in this caravan, only a surgeon and poor orphaned children seeking shelter from the cold. Why your Knight Captain has the gout? Of course I'll tend to it-' Offer the proper incentive and keep your head down long enough, it is a simple matter to hide. Not that it made dealing with them any less terrifying." She can admit that fear to him- he knew. She can feel it in the twist of his voice, the ache in his bones. He knew that fear well.

The rather pithy comment earlier about being beaten for daring so much as to flirt tells her more than enough what manner of Circle he might have endured.

"Wear pants and hide the staves and we're no different from any other caravan of refugees." Frustrating to hide their magic? Yes. But the alternative had been far too great a risk to take. "We came from the Spire before the Reach. They are the ones I was able to get out before..."

She shakes her head, focuses on the spell. It's easier there. He does not need her story, even as he offers her a piece of his own. "My condolences. It is terribly little, I know, but- you have them. As well as my word that you will be safe from Templar meddling while in Skyhold, you may work and flirt as much as you like. No beatings."

He bows his head. Maybe if he'd been less proud, not showed off as much as he used to... but it's not as if he'd had much of a chance, with Templars using his phylactery in the pursuit, and then Rolan later watching his every move. When she'd left, by the sound of it, she'd left during the chaos he's heard muddled stories about. Chaos spurred on by his own actions, which is both comfort and not. Her freedom, which should have been hers by right, is partly due to him. But so, likely, are deaths in that Circle, people she's lost, whatever she broke off from telling.

It's better than them all dying as prisoners and slaves, but that's not always the easiest thing to come to terms with.

"From one mage to another, condolences mean a great deal." Not everyone's struggled the same amount, but they've all been held. There's a commonality there, in being prisoners when they'd done nothing wrong, in being treated like they were less than human, in the glares and fears and disdain and cruelties.

"Though you might want to be careful who you promise not have beaten for flirting." Anders' voice is a little lighter, now, and there's a little smile in his eyes. "You fluster rather prettily, and now it sounds like I've got your word you won't slap me."

It's not like he'd push that far, to the point where he'd really deserve a slap for flirting, or that Justice would be willing to allow Anders to get distracted by things going much further than flirting, but sometimes he needs to joke as much as he needs to breathe.

"Then I am glad to have not wasted them." It isn't a level of naked emotional sincerity she offers anyone anymore. The world too dark, too harsh, too dangerous. Strong emotions call demons- stir up spirits in fear. There is more than enough roiling about without her adding to it.

A low pulse of light, another wash of warmth and she lets her hands drop away from his, the blue glow dimming from her fingertips. That should hold him over for awhile- and what good it cannot do the tea and soup and heat should manage. "I- what?"

Speaking of flustering. No longer facing away the pink in her ears returns and even extends onto her cheeks. One did not flirt in the Spire. They sniped, they argued, they debated.

And once the debate was over, stirred to passion by intellectual prowess or pretty eyes, they found an alcove and made do.

"LeBlancs do not fluster." Yet another reason why she is a terrible LeBlanc.

He's feeling better physically than he has in ages. Soreness and aches added up subtly, unnoticed, until they were all piled on and far too much for him to address while on the run. And then by the time he had breaks, there'd been the people injured that he was partly responsible for. Would they have ever taken the side of a mage? Likely not. But that didn't change what one of the triggers for this war had been his hand.

His gaze goes from her hands dropping away to the clear blush on LeBlanc's face, and there's a little sparkle in his eyes.

"So I should take it that is not your name, then?" The dusting of pink is rather lovely, and he's a little surprised to find an adult who still can blush. "Seeing as you're decidedly flustered, and after such mild words."

This isn't a time to push his luck. She's just healed him and the last thing he wants to do is make her regret or feel uncomfortable about offering a bed in her rooms.

"But if you'd like, I'll tell no one about it. I could even stop. I've been known to have self-control on rare occasions." Every moment he's not glowing he has some, at least.

"I am not flustered. I am-" There's a word for confused or confounded or baffled or something to that effect that isn't flustered, there must be. "Flattered."

There they were.

Wait, no, that isn't entirely right either- even if she IS and he's. Teasing. She can normally take teasing in stride but not when there are flirtatious comments thrown her way, with her the focus of said comments. It isn't- she's the healer, the teacher, the mentor that paced the halls at night to nudge wayward apprentices to bed. Not. Someone people flirted with. But she's committed to a word and must keep to it. Merde.

"This is me, flattered. Not flustered. Therefore, still a LeBlanc- Adelaide in fact." Youngest daughter of that noble house, so on, so forth, not much of it matters as she's a mage. "Please don't- my students will never let me live it down. They'd probably encourage you, were I honest. Something about my needing to get out more which is absurd- I am out and about often enough."

She is decidedly not muttering. At all. "Flirt if you must. I shall not keep you from exercising your hard earned freedom to do so."

Flattered and not flustered. Even through his weariness there's amusement showing on Anders' face. She's utterly flustered... but he'll accept flattered.

"Flattered, then, Adelaide." Every now and then he has a reminder of who he used to be, before Justice. This is one of those moments, when a lovely woman is flustering and even giving him permission to flirt more.

"And as I believe that Spirit Healers can never get enough flattery, I'll make sure to flirt often." Mischief shines in his eyes as he allows himself to not focus on guilt for just a few moments. "But certainly you deserve some time out and about."

Hypocrisy should really be his middle name.

Oh how wonderful, there will be more of this in the future.

...

Actually that is wonderful in it's own way and once she has gotten over the loss of her composure, she'll likely recognize it for the kindness it is. "I am out and about often enough. I was recently out and about at the mire though that is less 'out' and more 'in' as is the way with most bogs."

She shudders in memory, the undead and the red lyrium and the plague and the spirits- the whole mess of it had been thoroughly unpleasant but it had been out. Isn't that enough?

"Bogs don't count. Bogs decidedly do not count. There was one time I tried to take a shortcut through one. I was--" Running away. He really can't talk about that with a Spirit Healer, because she has to know how closely they're watched. Maybe her mind won't go to an infamous runaway, but he needs to make it sound more recent and not like his fourth (or was it fifth?) escape attempt.

"Right. I was running. I'd come over a ridge and startled some nugs which startled a bunch of Templars I'd not seen, and Templar armor has a way of weighing its wearers down, thank the Maker. I thought cutting through the bog would be faster for me and I'd get away safely."

He shrugs.

"On the bright side, I did escape from that group of Templars." He hadn't escaped the others, the ones with his phylactery. "On the darker side, I ruined my only pair of boots, and if I never see creatures spilling out of swampland again it will be too soon."

There's a beat and he gives her a calm smile as if he hasn't just had to alter his story mid-telling to protect himself.

"My point is that bogs don't count. Dinner counts. A peaceful walk just outside of Skyhold would count, where everything is quiet but still alive, still wild. There's little as satisfying as being just outside large walls that you're not forced to stay in."

She can't fault him for the running- honestly she couldn't fault any Circle Mage that ran before the war. Think them foolish for the attempt and potential violence? Of course. But fault them? Not at all. But the hitch in his breath registers as a change in pace, in tone- but she does not ask after it. Those that run, that ran, the stories of those weathering the war aren't hers to know if they are not willing to give them.

Demanding anything of the sort is the worst sort of arrogance.

"I walk outside the walls- mostly to find herbs for the garden; and I eat when I remember to do so while researching-" In the library, up to her elbows in texts and conflicting opinions of long dead academics. "...I am not helping my case in the slightest, am I?"

She doesn't pry, and it's a kindness. Many mages have stories they don't want to tell, and while he'll share some of his, coated in jokes and sarcasm, there are some things that are far too dangerous for him to talk about.

Unlike this.

Anders leans forward, elbow on knee as he sips his tea, starting to actually smile in earnest. He's with another mage, another spirit healer, they're not locked up, there aren't Templars coming in, he's feeling better physically than he has in months, and she's easy on the eyes as well as easy to tease. He feels... human again.

"Not in the least. Though I'm no stranger to forgetting to eat. Perhaps we should help each other with that. A meal together, from time to time. And getting you out. Out of books, away from patients and students, far, far away from bogs. We've a freedom, Adelaide. We should make the most of it."

Most being more like working on writing a new manifesto, for him, between what patients he'll be seeing here, also forgetting to eat, hiding from some of the people here, trying not to glow blue... There's a lot of work to do to survive, but for the future of mages it's worth it.

"I do not have time- there are patients and I am training two mages that wish to be spirit healers, I've the council and the templars poking about council business to mind, the nonmage masses to educate on what is and isn't possession- poultices and potions to brew to keep the Inquisition stocked-" She cuts herself off mid gesture, sinking back into her chair. Truly all she is doing is proving his point for him- that he continues to smile so at her doesn't help.

Her composure is regained but she's still pink. One day she will be better able to hide when she is flustered or flattered or whatever it is she calls it to save face.

"We are sharing a meal now. That must count for something, yes? Even if I do not know your name- I feel as though if I am to be flirted at- with- if you are to flirt and get me out, I should know your name." So smooth, Adelaide- she is terrible at this. Has always been terrible at this- give her an academic seduction and she can manage with half a mind, but this? Teasing? She's never learned it or learned how to work around it.

A little bit of his good mood fades away at her request. It's fair. But it also means he'll be lying yet again, and yet again to someone he doesn't want to lie to. This is the bed he's made, though.

"Call me Detlef, Adelaide. And I full intend to flirt with you and get you out. I'd even not object to being flirted with in return, though for now your.... flattered... pink cheeks are enough of a return." The pause is utterly deliberate, calling far more attention to the choice of word than it would otherwise have.

"And I can help out with some of what you're doing, as well. Poultices and potions, patients. I could presumably assist with students, though I've never had any before. A burden shared is a burden... I can't remember how the saying goes. But I've come to help, if you'll have it."

"Detlef." It's softer than how he says it, rounder at the beginning, brighter at the end, the hard cut of the 't' almost smoothed over entirely by her accent. A strange name, an Anders name, but he does not sound as though he is from the Anderfels. Curiosity tugs at her a moment more before she lets it be.

If it is worth telling, one day he might tell her.

Her lips press thin to fight the smile she feels blooming- a fight she fails. Fine. She is flustered, flattered, and relatively pleased by both.

"Le partage de charge est réduit de moitié la charge. Halved. It is a burden halved. I will be glad for your assistance, Detlef, and would be happy to have you." Wait- that sounded- oh Maker she should better mind what she says around him.

This... This is a part of him he'd thought lost, these last few years - the ability to tease, to be interested, to actually have anyone interested in him in return even if it's just for flirtation's sake. In Justice's opinion, this is dangerous. It's distracting. It's not work, and it's not necessary. But Anders welcomes it as one would a sip of water after a long day fighting Tal Vashoth on the Wounded Coast.

"You certainly move fast, don't you? But I'll never say no to a beautiful woman who wants to have me."

It can't last. It won't last. Something will go wrong because it always does, but this is the best moment he's had in quite some time and Anders will enjoy it fully.

"Perhaps, though, it should wait until I've had a chance to get a little rest. I wouldn't want to disappoint you." He can't describe the ways in which this makes him feel whole. Maybe, for a short time here, he'll be able to know what it's like to be what he's never had a chance at - a normal person.

"That is not- that- I did not mean it that way and know it-" No, no recourse. Composure? What composure? Adelaide buries her face in her hands, gone from pink to full blown red, shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter at her own foolishness. Maker, how long has it been since she's felt this light? Since she's been teased? Since she's wanted to try (and fail, never forget failing) to tease back? Not since the Spire fell at the very least and some time before.

She should know better than to speak again. Does, in fact. And yet the habitual response to 'disappointment' slips out all the same.

"I am often disappointed as I have impossible standards." She scrubs her face once before reaching for the bowls. Stew. They have stew. She's being a horrible hostess. In for a copper, in for a sovereign. It is easier to make the attempt at banter if she is not looking him in the eye "So it would not matter if I am disappointed by you- it'd be remarkable if I wasn't."

Edited (wrong red) 2015-12-30 09:31 (UTC)

"Well then. If you're already set up for disappointment, why wait?" He's always been good at disappointing people, after all. He got there too late for Karl, he lied to Hawke, ditched the Wardens, frustrated Irving to no end... Maybe he should have gone with a name meaning disappointment. If anyone needed a surname, he'd go with that. He'd be Detlef Enttausch. Then no one could even protest, because it's right there, for all to see.

"I'll never meet impossible standards, but I can make you blush and I can make you laugh before you wind up furious with me. And then, when you set me on fire, I can heal myself. Less messy cleanup for you. Who said seeing a Spirit Healer doesn't have perks?"

Granted, there would be more perks if he was any other Spirit Healer. Bad enough that he's possessed, but as soon as he's identified, he's likely dead and he knows it.

"I said I would give you somewhere to rest. Intercourse-" She doesn't know him well enough to be quite so casually vulgar just yet. Key word there being yet. "Is hardly restful. Eat your stew and stop smirking like that."

He keeps smirking and it keeps being pleasant and her face keeps burning despite all attempts to reign it in. He's charming. She's supposed to be accustomed to charming- but not quite something that's charming and this personal. Her sisters would laugh at her if they knew; LeBlancs are supposed to handle such things with wit and grace. Perhaps he'd been right- she is a terrible LeBlanc.

"My trade is in Ice, not fire. You will likely know my fury is in the making when the temperature drops twenty degrees." She still doesn't quite have a handle on that, but she is getting better. "And I cannot use my magic to do harm. It is part of my Agreement with compassion. And I've promised not to slap you for flirting. I suppose I shall simply have to endure it."

Halfway-obediently, Anders takes a bite of his stew. Only halfway, because he's still smirking around the spoon for a few moments longer until it fades into something that's merely warm. He hasn't had a good, thick stew in some time and it's a definite pleasure all in itself.

Her continued words bring the smirk back, though.

"Compassion? They were my favorite for some time. ...And as now they're helping me keep from being harmed, I think they might be my favorite all over again." His eyes sparkle. "And with no harm, no slapping, tea, stew, friendly so far, you may have just become my favorite member of the Inquisition."

Not like he's met many yet, but the point stands.

"What did I say about the smirking?" Not that she expects him to stop. Honestly- she likes the smirking. It looks better on him than that weary resignation he'd been wearing when she'd found him. Suits him far better than anything half so stern and glum; this will have to be one of those moments when she's glad to have listened to Compassion's nudging out of more than mere obligation.

She'll not be so arrogant as to assume she's made a friend but- a friendly, flirtatious acquaintance. One that is charming. And a peer. And not entirely unattractive.

Her own stew is hot enough, thick from cooking over the coals for most of the morning, and rich from the application of Fereldan wine. At least it is good for something. "You have not known me near long enough to say so. Give it time, Detlef, your tune will change."

"I don't recall what you said about smirking. You may have to refresh my memory." He recalls. He'd even wager she knows he recalls. But that's the point, really. "Perhaps it was something like 'please smirk in direct correlation with how flustered I am,' which means I should increase my smirking."

A beat. "Right, sorry, how flustered you absolutely are not. The stew is excellent, by the way, and I'm prepared to name you favorite for that all over again."

He's got a warm meal, a warm smile, and at least one night of safe lodging, where he won't have to worry if the next twig snap will be Templars or bears. But maybe he's going a little heavy with the teasing. The smirk tones down some, but there corners of his mouth are still tilted upward.

"Sorry. It's... been some time since I've had the company of another spirit healer. Or I've had a stew that's clearly taken some time to make. I may be letting my mood get the better of me."

"You are baiting me. I will not fall for it." She's not going to deign him with a response, not even a little. No. She remembers too well being baited into teasing discourse by her peers in the Spire and how that usually ended; her frustrated and biting and cutting egos where they need not be bled.

This is something she wants to keep for a little while longer. Until he learns better. But for now her smile and the blush remain.

"I have not shared a meal with another Spirit Healer since everything went wrong in the White Spire. Even at the Reach- most of the mages there were not of my specialization. You are the first other that I have met in far, far too long. As for the stew- most any Orelsian tent will manage the same." She settles back in her chair, a lot of that anxious tension from before settling easily. "I am attempting to teach others but- it is not the same."

"I am baiting you and I'll likely continue to do so. You're free to rescind the offer of a place to sleep." He knows she won't by the color in her cheeks and the smile on her face. "And the bad news for you is that all the response I need in return is a smile." Which, technically, isn't really bad news. But what they both know doesn't need to be said.

He takes another bite of the stew, listening to her and nodding. "I can't actually remember the last time I spent time with a Spirit Healer." It would have been Wynne, likely, in one of her judgmental visits as she talked about how being a mage was a responsibility, and a healer even more of one, and how he needed to stop running and face up to the gift life had granted him with. Magic is a gift. But he wasn't about to sit and be lectured on why he needed to submit to imprisonment for that.

"Fourteen, fifteen years? A few other healers, here and there, but none like us." And none like him, which is for the better, really. "And, on the topic of stew, I feel like more mages should know how to cook. The more attempting to teach it, the better."

They needed survival skills, period. If this thing didn't work out...

"I gave you my word that you would have somewhere safe to rest tonight- and Leblancs keep their word." The sky is blue, Fereldans smell of dog, and LeBlancs keep their word. Always. Breaking it is unthinkable; all the more so over something as trivial as teasing. he feels safe enough to tease- that is remarkable considering the state he'd been in when she brought him to her tent. She cannot begrudge him this- will not.

Especially since it brings her a little warmth, a little light in an otherwise dreary day of patients and promises and political maneuvering she never wanted a part of in the first place.

This she wants to keep. Just for a short while, before she has to be more than Adelaide the Spirit healer again. "We are something of a rare breed. Though there are some things I could do without. The undead following me around like ducklings. Being candy to demons- that is literally what I was told by the Pride demon during my Harrowing. I am candy to them. It was a little disturbing."

More so than the usual.

"I learned to cook on the coal braizers in the study labs of the Spire so I could continue my research without having to leave to eat. It worked out quite well- I also developed a few...cheats. I put everything for that stew in the pot about an hour ago." And yet the meat is as tender and flavorful as though it had been simmering all day. "Haste. Not just for outrunning bears."

"I find the fact that you keep your word far more believable than the claim that you don't fluster. So I'll trust your word, thank you." He's been teasing, knows she's teasing back, and if he could wrap himself up in this feeling and carry it with him he would.

"Also I'd suggest being less sweet if you don't want to be candy." Oh, he knows what she meant, and what the Pride demon meant. Still. "On the other hand, I hear that fire candy is the best answer for Pride demons, and heartily endorse setting them aflame whenever opportunity presents. In fact, I find myself rather proud of my fire response to them."

Imagine if any of his Circle instructors could hear him joking about demons. He'd likely be scrubbing the floors for hours all over again, and having to rescrub when a group of templars inevitably kicked over his bucket and stomped muddy footprints through it.

Her comment about haste has him scooting a little bit away from the stewpot, though.

"...And it didn't explode?" He'd tried it once. One single time, when on the run and needing a meal fast. When the Templars caught up to him, he'd still had boar bits in his hair.

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