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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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He stiffens when she suggests they talk with the Council. It's logical, but that would be a death sentence. Maybe none of the mages would recognize him (unlikely,) but hearing about an abomination would bring Templars too, and if he didn't die for being possessed, he'd die for who he is.

Then she hesitates, and he can see her change her mind. Right away he feels guilty, because there's things he hadn't thought about when talking with her. She's on the Council. Will she still be after this? Does he have any right to want confidentiality? It's too late to take back this whole conversation, though. He may have just hurt someone he's started giving a care about all over again, just like he always does.

He's going to owe her. Like he owes Varric and Hawke, in a way he can never repay because he's hurt them so much.

Slowly he takes a breath, aware of how he'll never stop messing things up for others. "We've been together, so to speak, for eleven years. And I... I realized there was an issue about eight years ago. A Templar had taken a mage out of their Circle so he and his friends could make her Tranquil and assault her with no struggle. We came upon them. I was infuriated. And Justice wanted to lash out at more than the Templars directly responsible. I've been trying to find solutions ever since, but it was Cole who told me something had worked."

"Eleven years?!" And there have been no explosions of flesh and bone, no physical deformities- her hand stretches out to take Detlef by the wrist and allow the first pulse of Compassion's awareness to take hold. Now that they know what to look for? They see it.

Justice bound so tightly into Detlef's bones it's likely strangling them both. How they have lived this long in such a state without losing themselves entirely-

A spirit of Justice does not dance, does not tease, does not flirt. It has a purpose, an exacting one that needs to be fulfilled. Denying a spirit it's purpose is much like setting her before a patient and telling her not to treat them- or that it is impossible. That it is pointless. It twists at the core of them and- yes- would enrage them.

For Adelaide, little would come of it. For Justice...

"How many incidents have there been?" A beat and she narrows her eyes faintly through the glow of Compassion's power. "How often is he able to fulfill his purpose?"

Cole she will get back to- but this? She must know.

"I've let him fulfill it as often as possible. But a great deal of justice relies on laws and authorities seeing to matters. I'm no authority. It's had to be more direct things. The chaos... It's easy to let him deal with bandits harming innocents on the road where there is no guard to step in. Other places it's been more complicated."

He reaches up and rubs his temples with his free hand. They can both feel Compassion and Adelaide seeking out the issues.

"Healing also helps. The act of healing, of seeing to people who need help and can't manage it on their own. He feels fulfilled like that, and it's a relief to us both sometimes." Which is why he's sometimes very late to get sleep, and always very early to rise. But there's another question he hasn't answered yet, and he knows she won't like the only answer he has.

"And I don't know how many incidents there have been. In the last year, very few. One or two." The chaos has helped them greatly. Any Templars that are attacking mages on the road he's been able to take out. Bandits, slavers, they die and they die fast.

"Before this last year, it had built up to a few a year." He has holes in his memory, more than a couple. Anders exhales slowly.

"It was stupid. I know it was now, but he was my friend and he saved our lives. I couldn't well let him suffer. And we thought that since we agreed on several matters it could work."

"How bad to they become?" How dangerous is this mage she's just chosen to protect? All the talk she's made about being careful, about being aware, of informing the council and the advisors-

Of Cassandra's question.

She might hang for this, if he loses control. If this comes to light-

and 'if' is being far more optimistic than she can afford. When. When this comes to light, she'll hang. Or be exiled. All the work she's done, that she might do...is it worth what she might offer him? What they might find in return.

It ties neatly into a way to avoid demons. To prevent Harrowings, abominations, possessions. If there is a way back-

She has no alternative and no support other than herself and Compassion.

"How long since your last?" Symptoms. Think of the symptoms, of the triggers. Treat it like a disease- for that's what this is. An answer will come. "Can you predict them?"

How bad.

Bad enough that he'd been worried enough to speak to her, bad enough that he regrets even starting down this path of conversation. He's an abomination and he's just put the weight of healing him on someone else when he can't even heal himself. He should have just gone hunting after Rhys. Left and gone looking. Along the way he could have continued to deal with Templars and bandits and demons, and maybe he never would have made it but at least he wouldn't have been weighing down someone who only wanted to help.

"If I'm... If I'm asking too much, Adelaide..." Can he even leave? Physically, yes, but then he can't come back and this is where they need to be to help. This is where Justice feels the need to be to help. There's nothing else that Anders can do.

Another breath, and his eyes don't leave the ground. He needs help and it's a mistake to get it. He's only going to bring down everyone who cares, not help them. Varric, Kallian, Merrill, Adelaide, Bruce, Zevran, Alayre, all of them and more.

"The last time was... months ago, but they tend to fall into a sort of pattern. There's an injustice, and either it can't be righted but there's some way nearby to deal a small amount of justice, or there's an injustice and righting it doesn't bring the right reaction. Which is a great many words to say the last time it happened was when I saved two men and a woman from raiders, and once saved one man yelled about me being a mage and came at us with a pitchfork. It was on fire before I knew it. I offered to heal his hands, after, but they... They wanted nothing more to do with me."

He'd been charged, though, by that man. It couldn't be justified, but it could be understood. And he'd blacked out for a second, which was enough to know it wasn't him at fault for the fire.

"You cannot take this back." Telling her. Trusting her. No more than she can take back her resolution to help him through this, help him cure this. "And I, now knowing what I know, cannot stand idly by and do nothing."

Not if she wished to keep her contract with Compassion- and she does. It is everything for her- doing this. Being this. Beyond teaching or the Council, beyond politics and sculpture- healing is the one thing that she has always had to stand against and be proud of; it is as much her purpose as it is Compassion's. Ignoring Detlef's plight is impossible now that she knows- to do nothing? To tell him to go to anyone else, or to leave the Inquisition-

The latter might be the wisest course. Before he hurts himself. Before he hurts anyone else.

Her lips press thin as she listens, the warm pulse of Compassion's power meant to soothe. "We must find small injustices that you might right on your own to fulfill his purpose and keep him sated until we find a way to separate you two...have you ever- has he ever attempted to leave you?"

He can't. He's put so much on her shoulders and he can't take it back. This is why it never pays to be friends with him, why it never works out. He's too much of a weight and a burden.

Compassion burns bright through Adelaide and makes him feel all the more guilty and alone. By joining with Justice he'd ended the bond he had with the spirit, and sometimes he misses the gentle touch of Compassion as opposed to the blunt edge that is Justice.

"We haven't tried. How would he get back across the Veil? What would happen to him when he couldn't? I've searched for any records I could find about this and found nothing. We simply don't know how to get him back. The small injustices idea is a good one, though, I'd like to note. He agrees."

"The rifts might be of use- coming to this side through them twists spirits into demons but we do not know enough of them to take that risk. It bears research." Fortunately they are in the perfect place to do that research. No other organization throws their forces at the rifts quite so regularly. "If there is another influx of rifters I will take what notes that I can of the phenomenon."

Even as they burn bright and scream with the raw discord of the Fade's magic and demons- she will try. She owes them no less.

"It can be imprecise or seem insufficient on this side for you, I know. But I promise I will do what I can to make help and make it safe. Losing control as a mage is frightening. I cannot imagine how it must be for you." As much as Adelaide speaks to Detlef- she and Compassion look through his eyes and into the Spirit that shares his skin. They speak to Justice.

Edited (i missed a vowel ff) 2016-01-20 11:29 (UTC)

He hadn't thought about trying to use the rifts. Generally he'd stuck to helping fight the demons that came through and otherwise avoiding them. But they are tears in the veil.

"Thank you. If we wind up near any in the future I'll observe what I can as well." But the fixing needed to happen first. He couldn't simply shove Justice out in this state and expect him to not fully turn into Vengeance.

She continues speaking and for a moment Anders is confused by her words. Then it sinks in, as both spirit and mage understand. She's speaking to Justice. Seeing Justice. It's terrifying and somehow calming at the same time. Anders isn't about to let Justice speak back, the last thing they need is to suddenly start glowing, especially after evening has fallen when blue light will be more visible, but Justice appreciates being addressed.

"He... He agrees with your words. Strongly." Anders looks away, feeling a little ashamed. He takes Justice's feelings into account only sometimes. "And he's thankful. As am I. I didn't... I only meant to help. But intentions don't always work out the way we mean them to. Even if it did work for a time."

"Intent shapes the world in the Fade." Here- not quite so much. Intent is well and good and it can lead to great change, great works- but more tan mere intent is required. Adelaide reaches up tentatively to touch his cheek and turn his eyes back to her. There is an ache in him, in Justice that she and Compassion can feel now that they know what they are looking for. Mending this anger, soothing this grey area of change-

No one's ever attempted it. A spirit is a spirit. A demon is a demon, an abomination an abomination- the nuanced areas of transition are foreign as study in this has been forbidden for entirely valid reasons. But this is more than mere study.

This is someone she's come to be fond of in no small way. "We will find a way to make it right- but it will take time. You will both have to be patient, doubly so as we are attempting this in secret."

He looks back at her, a little startled. Gentle touch has been exceedingly rare in his life, and that she's still able to touch him after his possession is revealed shocks him. Maybe it shouldn't. She works with Compassion. But that doesn't mean blindly looking past things. It means seeing them in truth.

Anders takes a shaky breath before nodding. "I know it won't be an overnight thing. That it will take time. Causing the damage took time, after all. That you're... That you're willing to try to help... Thank you, Adelaide."

It's humbling and guilt-inducing all at once. She'd do this for Detlef, but would she do it for Anders? She's his friend based on a lie he told. He's using her. And he has no way to stop, no way to prevent this inevitable avalanche of backfire and pain, save with the information that would end his life. Anders hates himself a little right now, even as Justice is resolute in his opinion of how necessary this is.

"You do not have to thank me." It is something that must be done- for him, for all mages, for what might come after. To protect the spirit he's taken on, for Justice to find his way home. She has an obligation as a researcher, as a healer, as a mage to see this through. Moreover she has an obligation as a member of the Council to take action-

And as his friend to help him. This cannot stand.

The hand on his cheek becomes a bit more confident, a bit more firm- and a bit warmer as Compassion offers a soothing pulse of warmth for Detlef and for Justice. Mending an aching spirit is not easy but-

She's attempted it before. She'll do as best she can now. "We will find a way, De-De. You have my word."

Maker. The debt he owes to her... It will never be paid. He will never make up this lie to her, and he will never be able to pay her back for her kindness. The fact that he likely wouldn't have this if he'd been honest doesn't change anything. He is what he is, who he is, and thus undeserving of her words and actions to begin with. He sorely wants to admit everything right now, but he knows that if he tries Justice will stop him. Anders will not be allowed to get distracted from the cause by someone else again.

"You are the perfect fit for Compassion." Yes, the spirit lends itself to healing often, but no one has mirrored the virtue as well as this in his experience. As wholly as this. To take advantage of it makes him feel sick and want to pull away, but he's been so starved of people caring that he can't move.

"If it gets too difficult, if things come up, I'll not hold you to your word, Adelaide. There are so many things that could go wrong. But that you've offered it means the world to me. ...And that you're still calling me by nickname."

She sees him, not just a possessed mage. Few have, few ever will. And he will hurt her.

"I do not know about that." Compassion cares more than any mortal is capable of caring- and some of their urgency is pressed across the veil. Adelaide... she does what she can. On occasion what she must. To be a healer is, in theory, to be compassionate but she has not been overly accused of patience, kindness, or compassion in the past two years. She hadn't the mind for it. The words are kind and sincerely meant-

Even if she does not feel worthy of them.

"What did I tell you?" Feeling bold- she slips her hand from the side of his face to his hair, tugging him close enough to rest their foreheads together. An affectionate headbump. Something like forgiveness, something like benediction. This close she can all but feel Justice humming in his skin, a strong and exacting refrain against the comfortable, fluid, flexible notes of Compassion. "LeBlancs keep their word."

She pulls back before she does or says something they might regret, her hand slipping to his shoulder. A respectable distance. "And I mean to keep mine- as you are my friend. I do not have so many that I would abandon you."

He closes his eyes, breath catching at the touch of their foreheads. The moment she's pulled back he misses the closeness, but he's already had a dangerous amount as it is. Wanting for more, asking for more, is to go too far. Any longer and there might have been a kiss. That's a line he can't cross.

"I don't have so many either," he replies quietly. And before long, he'll have even fewer. Is it so wrong to want to be someone else, to fake an identity and do better? Maybe it wouldn't be if he could fully change, if he was free of Justice and no one from his past recognized him. As it is, there will be no becoming Detlef. He's Anders. There's no changing that.

"You're a true friend, Adelaide, even if you can't accept that that you're compassionate. It's easy to see in you." And despite what he wishes, Justice is part and parcel of him now. "...Should I take my leave for a time? I know this is a lot to put on someone."

"Now you are projecting." It is not cute. She does what she does because it needs to be done. Because some spark of curiosity bids her to seek out answers, better answers, better solutions to the problems they have. To find alternative methods- more often than not she manages to make use of it in the healing tents. "But if you say so I shall not argue."

Not today. Not with what he has told her, not with what he carries. She'll have to be more careful, now. More aware of not only Detlef but of Justice settled behind his eyes. To see one is to see both. To speak to one is to speak to both and Spirits of Justice...

They did not often get along with her when it came to ideals.

But she shall try. For him, for what it would mean for all mages? She shall try. "...we have a half hour yet in our usual tea time remaining. I see no reason to cut it short- but...if you wish to leave I shall not keep you." Should he remain it'd likely be one of their quieter mornings- where there is little flirtation and flattery and a good deal of tea shared in placid company.

She's reaching out to someone she's only known a month, taking risks on their behalf, and seeking to help. He's certain he's not projecting. Especially as he and Justice could feel how much Compassion had reached out through her.

"I'd prefer to stay, honestly. I didn't want to put undue pressure on you. Despite your protests, you've been kind from the start, and I appreciate it." Anders picks his teacup back up as he speaks, relaxing a little in the seat. Somehow one of his two secrets hasn't sent her running. The other will, certainly. All the moreso because he's not telling her right now. But he's trapped here. He doesn't want to die. She won't understand, there will be a limit to her kindness and compassion, but he can't blame her for that.

He takes a slow sip of his tea, savoring it. "Have I mentioned that I've never had opportunity to take tea with someone before? I might have. It's one of those things I simply didn't expect to happen. No time, always something that must be done. But I like this." And he'll treasure the memories of it when it's over.

"...Perhaps my kindness is a shade of my own projecting. I have been here months and you are the first other Spirit-Healer I have met since the Spire fell." As best she could tell she was the only one to have survived the slaughter and made their way to the Inquisition. To have even a scrap of normalcy, an echo of the familiar? Perhaps she had been too kind, too quick. Not that she intends to take any of it back now. "I have missed it keenly."

Having a peer. Having someone to speak with that understood when she slipped into academic commentary on spirits, that could offer their own opinions. Detlef had been more than a clean note in the midst of a dull, white rumble of the Inquisition's mages; he'd been a relief. Even with this-

She is glad to have him.

"...no, I do not think you've mentioned it." But that comes as no surprise. Healers are up to their elbows in patients more often than not. "It began as something I would do with Bruce- the surgeon? He and I...we both work too hard for too long without taking time for ourselves to rest. I had to drag him to my tent, bid him to sit, eat, and drink tea. We never spoke the first few times- we still spend more time in the calm and quiet without having to mind anyone or anything. We all need that. A space to breathe. In the Spire we had unofficial tea rooms, study rooms with braziers where we would smuggle kettles and water and boxes of tea. We would study, of course, but- for a little while we did not feel like we had to. For a little bit we weren't students or mages. We were simply...us."

"I've missed it too, honestly. I didn't exactly get along with the Spirit Healer who did much of my teaching, she was a Loyalist. I'm not. But sometimes it was nice to discuss other things with her. Safer topics." Things that didn't touch on running away and why she looked down on him. "Granted, the first time I flirted with her I was fairly certain I was about to be punched through a wall. ...I wish she had, rather than lecturing me for hours on the duties of mages to the Chantry and how flirting was a waste of time. It would have been over more quickly."

He shouldn't have flirted with her to begin with, really. But he'd been bored. Bored, and wanting a break from another lecture on how to properly approach spirits.

"We didn't do tea either. Social things weren't exactly encouraged, and since I've left the Circle you're the first Spirit Healer I've come across."

At least he'd had time with his fellow Wardens. Those were nice memories, untainted by what came after. Or rather, entirely tainted since they'd been Wardens but not in a bad way.

"Maybe we'll be more common, the longer we're free, the fewer people are held back from trying the task due to fear. The Templars have always wielded fear with the precision we use for healing."

"I think we have established that I ought to waste more time; and thus flirting is actually quite productive." After a fashion. Several sideways fashions but, a fashion. Just as she and her peers had tea after a fashion and this was...in some ways, considering what Varric called it when they met, a date.

After a fashion.

Not that she considered them thus- they were appointments.

Checking in with a friend and a peer.

"There were five at the Spire, Rhys included. It is not a branch of study that was encouraged and...rightly so. It is dangerous and the risks are many; but we could do more if we had been given more reign with how we managed our research. At least here I can work with whatever I like, on whatever I wish, without a Templar hovering."

He wears a faint smile briefly when she calls flirting productive. It is, in a way. It helps build a feeling of unity, makes people feel better about themselves, encourages, and it's fun. Flirting also doesn't require a great deal of time.

Just like tea dates don't. And they're practical too.

"There are a great many risks, but imagine the shape of the world if there were more spirit healers available. If it wasn't about the rich paying off the chantry for the services of the very few, but instead about there being spirit healers around the world, helping where they will. We can change the world in a positive way." Personal freedoms are excellent, but to make them last, they have to think about the future.

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