faderift | [Closed] This isn't even my final form

Entry tags:

[Closed] This isn't even my final form

WHO: Anders and close CR
WHAT: Detlef makes his last appearance for some goodbyes in case, Anders gives some warnings, and basically he tries to prepare.
WHEN: Around this time, a little backdated for the ride, but generally 24th-ish
WHERE: Ride back from EDL and in Skyhold
NOTES: Anders.

[ooc: This is various starters for Detlef's end and Anders warning some friends and admitting things to another. If you'd like a starter, ping me at Nadat on plurk and I'll put one together!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I hadn't considered the consequences- what it might mean to actually succeed. It was a puzzle." A private, harmless puzzle. Something to pick at between other projects, something she twisted about in her spare time to keep her mind busy, to work herself into exhaustion. It's easy to lose sight of what the ramifications of such a puzzle being solved when you don't think it ever truly will.

She still has the one- she'll not make another.

"For what? You have done nothing more than voice a completely valid concern." One she'd needed to hear.

He won't consider taking the easy route for a second. She deserves far better than that.

"For not being fully honest with you from the start. For putting the weight of Justice upon your shoulders as well. For judging you for taking up a puzzle when I've not just become an abomination, but a killer as well."

This time the point of no return is a relief. He can't take back any of those words and has to continue. He can't lie to her anymore.

"I'm going to Skyhold to turn myself in, Adelaide, but you deserve to have the whole of it from my lips before I surrender and the rumors spread. My name..." Actually, he should be completely clear. No mostly-truths. "I don't know my name. But what I've been known as for the longest... It's not Detlef, Adelaide. It's Anders."

I have lied to you. By deliberate omission, since we first met.

She'd been reaching for him to steady him. To squeeze his shoulder, to offer some comfort for the distress she'd caused with her research- but those words have her locking up entirely. Lies. She doesn't weather them well, she does not abide them, and for the second time in this month she is faced with them from someone she's come to care for and trust.

Warm as the tent had been in the previous moment it goes cold despite the brazier; though the chill comes not from the air beyond but Adelaide herself.

Turning himself in. A killer as well-

One name. One word and the bottom is ripped out from under her world.

"Anders?" The mage that-

The apostate at Kirkwall. The one that lit the fires that led among so many other things to the ruin at The White Spire.

He already knows this is going to hurt her before the cold, but that's complete confirmation. Everyone he cares about he hurts. Would it truly be so bad if he was executed, considering? At least then he couldn't wound more people.

"Anders," he quietly confirms. "There's..." There are things he can say about Kirkwall, about the situation, but none of it makes up for deceiving her. For getting close and letting her get closer. For the kiss at the party.

"I'm sorry, Adelaide. That doesn't even begin to make up for it, but I am. I shouldn't have gotten close, I shouldn't have... None of it." He'd been so starved for kindness and caring, and now someone who had given it is paying.

"You-" Her hand is still hovering in the space between them, trembling- and this cannot-

This is not-

A joke. A horrible joke. Rationalizations crackle through her mind faster than she can discount them, attempting to reason with this face, this person she now must reconcile with the monster that attacked Kirkwall's chantry. Every mage knew of him in the Spire. A warning, a lesson, the dangers of the world without. "Do you have any idea what you have done?"

One explosion, hundreds of lives. Thousands in the rebellion, in the war. The fear of something similar turned the incident at the Spire vicious quickly. For a horrible, visceral moment her composure snaps, her face crumpling as her arms curl about her ribs as though that will sill the roiling emotions threatening to overcome her.

Palm pressed to her mouth to- what? Prevent her from saying something rash? Keep her from retching at the vivid memory of the Spire's halls, the smell of ash and blood and death? Breath fogging through her fingers in a strangled noise- a sob, a laugh- a wounded something-

It passes. She swallows it back, swallows it all down, squeezes her eyes shut and tries to breathe. Freezes it and tucks it under her ribs withe very other hurt and frustration. The tent warms, her hands fall back to her sides, her face smooths over in a cold, distant mask. "You are turning yourself in- to who? The Advisors of the Inquisition?"

The ice isn't gone. It's simply internalized, and the pain from that is exactly what he deserves, especially after what he's just seen and what all she's told him. She's distant, like a stranger. It's better this way, he reminds himself. She'll be safer.

In return, he tries to gather himself, but all he really manages is to sound and look exhausted.

"I'm a Grey Warden. I'm turning myself in to them. I can't... I cannot turn myself in to an organization that's helmed by someone who tried to annul my Circle, and when he failed, went to be the right hand--"

Anders cuts himself off just as he starts to gather steam. No. His issues are his own, and none of them will be added to the burden she's already carrying.

"The Wardens," he repeats.

"You are a danger to the Inquisition." There's no heat to it. No condemnation, no disdain, no scorn. It is as clipped and flat as her voice has ever been, entirely devoid of warmth. "Hiding with the Wardens does not change that."

She should have reported him when he came to her as an abomination. She should have known him for the danger he was and taken him to the Advisors immediately as the rest of the Council agreed. Undermining herself, undermining them? Being a known associate of his? Protecting him? The reality of this sinks into her bones and crystallizes there like so much ice.

The look in his eyes is dead. He is a danger. She doesn't even know the half of it. A part of him simply wants to let her say whatever she wants, but the anger that he'd felt earlier from Justice won't let that happen. Who is she to judge him? A former friend, he wants to answer, but he can feel that it's not enough for the spirit.

"There will be no hiding." There's a hollowness in his voice, and it's not entirely due to Anders' weariness. "It is the Wardens we have abandoned, and they will be fair. They will be just." He exhales, and the extra depth is gone. "If I wanted to hide, Adelaide, I'd not be here. I'd not be telling you this. I'd already be gone, and my heading would not be what it is."

He looks at her a moment later before standing. There are so many self-indulgent things he could say and he won't. She's right to hate him. It hurts. A lot. But she's right.

"Goodbye, Councilor Leblanc. Should you think of me in the future..." Anders trails off. There's nothing to say. "Don't. Spare yourself that."

"Then you damn them as well." Everyone they've touched, everyone they have reached out to, everyone that has knowing or unknowingly harbored them- Adelaide's lips press thin as she watches him, them, leave.

It was easier, she imagines, to write this strange, mad apostate off as a frothing lunatic, as a monster before she'd had to meet him. Before he became a person to her- someone with hopes, someone with a sense of humor.

Someone that dances.

"Go." What else is there to say? What else is there to think but to damn herself for not knowing? For not seeing this sooner, for not suspecting?

Anders nods. This is his life. This is the mess he's made. The only person he can blame for any of this is himself, and he can't even be surprised at the lonely ache he feels at the last word. It's far too familiar.

Without saying anything else he leaves, headed to grab his pack and find his horse and wait. He is damned. He can only hope that he takes no one else with him.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Closed] This isn't even my final form

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject