[Closed] This isn't even my final form

[justice_is_blond]

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!]

Comments

LATER

[justice_is_blond]

They've left the tower, and Anders is still in shock. Yes, Bethany and Nathaniel had been convinced he'd be protected, but he'd never risked actually hoping. How could he? His life has been a story of how everything that could go wrong, did. And yet he still might have a future.

Once they reach their room, the first thing Anders does is scoop up his kitten. The second, and no less important matter, is him turning to Nathaniel and shaking his head.

"I... I can't remember the last time something didn't backfire."

[pinprick]

"Something had to go right eventually." Nathaniel sits and rests his elbows on his knees. "Although I suppose that's what gambling men say while they're losing everything they have. How do you feel?"

[justice_is_blond]

"Like a gambling man who expected to lose all he had and then didn't." He sinks down too, shaking his head. "I don't know how that happened. Mind, I'm not complaining. But I spent all of today and part of yesterday on farewells and now I'm not... gone."

Granted, they're taking this to the advisors next, which could still spell his death, but it's been postponed.

"Shock. That's the word for it."

[pinprick]

"I agree." Nathaniel touches their shoulders together, and oddly, he finds himself comforted by it. All his promises, though they had ultimately meant nothing either way, had become predictions which came true. But it could easily have gone the other way, and he would have failed yet another person.

"I've had it happen a couple of times. Turn around, and you're...suddenly living someone else's life. It's a while before it starts to feel like yours again."

[justice_is_blond]

He's always been comforted by little touches, signs that someone else sees him as human too, and the contact from Nate is just as helpful to him. Despite that, Nate's comment gets a short laugh from Anders before he's got that back under control.

"Maker. I'm not even sure I've ever been free to live my own life. Imagine how I'd mess up someone else's."

Imagine if he got to live his own life. That's not a thing that will happen, though, unless somehow they find a way for Justice to heal, or to return to the Fade, or... well. He doesn't know. But he's an abomination. Even ignoring the Calling and the fact that he's once again a Grey Warden, his life is not his alone.

[pinprick]

"You were free to have your own life, once." Then you gave it away to a spirit of Justice. "But it was taken away. Now, it'll be real."

Nathaniel rubs Anders' back soothingly, turning his words over in his mind.

"A lot of Wardens will understand. Give you time. Not everyone's towers are literal."

[justice_is_blond]

He bows his head forward as Nate rubs his back. There's still a lot of tension in it, but at least he's taken the hardest step, the first one.

"True. I didn't mind the life of a farmboy. Just the chores." Then the Templars had come, and then they'd never stopped coming. A few months had been good, though, when Cousland had been around. ...And they were trekking through the marsh. Maybe good wasn't the word for it. His. A few months had been his.

"You know, if they no longer want me in the healing tents, I could always milk the cows. Between Wardeny things. Seeing as the motion is just grab and stroke firmly, I believe I'm still in practice."

While barely there, his voice does have a trace of humor in it.

[pinprick]

A bubble of laughter from Nathaniel.

"Your skill set will be of great value in the Wardens. Witty quips and...milking. But it'll be good to have you. You've been missed."

[justice_is_blond]

"I do like to be of service. The had part depends on the person doing the having, really."

He's always used humor as a defense and as a way to recover, but this isn't just that. The joking around is also like feeling air in one's lungs after holding their breath for a long time.

"And the missed part also depends on who is missing. I most enjoy it when Templars miss me."

[pinprick]

"I missed you." Nathaniel smiles faintly. "Whatever it counts for. Nobody's been quite the pain in my arse you were."

[justice_is_blond]

"You're making this far too easy, Nate." He gives Nathaniel the smallest smile back in return. "Service, having, pain the arse, one might think you were flirting. Then again, I'm fairly certain no one in the Inquisition is... Mm. I was going to say foolish enough to flirt with me, but then there's Zevran and Isabela and I'd not call them foolish. Foolhardy, perhaps."

[pinprick]

"Not flirting, exactly, but I have to leave something for you to make fun of. Consider it a massive growth on my part, that I can do that nowadays."

[justice_is_blond]

Now the smile reaches his eyes.

"So you were having trouble getting a massive growth before, or sustaining it? You should have said something. I'm a healer."

[pinprick]

This is why Nathaniel keeps doing this. It's like leaving crumbs out in a line to lure a mouse into a trap, except the trap is having fun.

A grunt. "I have no trouble keeping it massive. Thank you for keeping the word 'massive' in there, by the by."

[justice_is_blond]

"Well. In some ways, a big head can be a good thing. I see no point to not feeding your ego."

The shock is slowly fading, being replaced by the realization that he's alive, and likely to stay alive, even under his own name. It's an impossibility... or it would have been if not for his friends.

"Personally, I don't need the flattery. But I'd never turn it down."

[pinprick]

"What about a drink? I feel like a drink. None of the swill in the tavern, though. I have good Fereldan whisky. Tastes like peat. Good stuff."

[justice_is_blond]

"Everything from Ferelden tastes like peat. Even the air tastes like peat." It's not a no, though. He takes a seat on his bedroll and brings his cat up to his free shoulder before looking back up at Nate.

"Why not? Only a little, though. He never has approved of drunkenness."

[pinprick]

Nathaniel flinches at that last, a familiar tightness pressing in his chest as he is reminded of someone else. He finds two cups and his bottle of whisky.

"Neither did my mother, unless it was my brother who was drunk." It slips out before he can stop himself. Anders doesn't know what Eliane Howe was like, or why the comparison with Justice is particularly damning.

He pours both cups and hands one to Anders.

[justice_is_blond]

The flinch and the way Nate's speaking about his family the way he never does, have his mood sobering. Justice. Nate still hates Justice, but there's something more there.

Anders takes the cup and looks at him, really looks, for a moment. "You don't speak about them often."

[pinprick]

Nathaniel sips from the cup. Proper Fereldan whisky, all right.

"Mm." A wordless sound of acknowledgement. "Nobody asks about them. The Butcher of Denerim, yes, but Mother was dead a few years before that, and Thomas died in the war. People usually assume he was complicit in our father's crimes."

Now with the right icon

[justice_is_blond]

"I can't say I really paid attention to any of the talk or the crimes." His life had been mostly contained within one cold tower, except for when he was on the run. "I'd like to know more, if you're of a mood to talk."

He takes a tiny sip and struggles not to make a face. At least it's not the horse piss of the Hanged Man.

[pinprick]

"About my family?" Normally, people asking about his family piss him off. But this isn't like that. Anders is getting to know him, not prying under the pretense of concern. Part of him is actually rather touched that Anders shows interest. Nathaniel shrugs a little and takes another sip.

"None of it's very cheerful, I'm afraid."

[justice_is_blond]

He pauses, trying to weigh the response. It could be deflection. Nate might not want to talk about it. Or it could simply be a little bit of a warning.

"I didn't think it would be, which is why I'd not asked before. We can talk about something else, if you'd like."

[pinprick]

Nathaniel shakes his head.

"No, it's...fine. There just aren't many people I've talked to about my...about them. Poor Thomas..."

Nathaniel stares into his cup for a moment, gathering his thoughts.

"Thomas was the favorite. Mother and Father hated each other, and he was one of the things they argued about the most. They both sort of...bribed him, tried to make him take their side. He loved that. He loved how they made such a fuss over him, and how much he could get away with. It...was very hard for me to reconcile that they didn't love me or Delilah, but they adored Thomas. But ultimately, I think it was his downfall. They addicted him to their love, and when Mother died, Father was his only source. And he did what he had to do to keep Father's love. Poor Thomas.

"Then Mother was...bitter. Incredibly bitter, always. Delilah and Thomas seemed to make her happy. I...couldn't. Maybe she blamed me for tying her to Father, I don't know. But she hated me."

[justice_is_blond]

He's quiet for a few moments, before taking a second sip of his drink and shaking his head. He hadn't known any of that. But who would gossip with any sort of sympathy for a Howe?

"I would have done anything to regain affection from my father. I can't say love. No one truly loves a child if they can so easily choose to take them to the Chantry and send them away. But despite that, there was a time when he was kindly to me, and I wanted that back terribly."

Anders sighs.

"Poor Thomas indeed. And poor you. to not be loved by either... I'm sorry, Nate. Family is sometimes not at all what it is supposed to be."