faderift | Moving Day

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Moving Day

WHO: All the Wardens and whatever onlookers/helpers they may find.
WHAT: Moving Day
WHEN: Current-ish
WHERE: Skyhold and just outside Skyhold
NOTES: The Wardens are grounded. They have been told to camp outside Skyhold. So it's moving day.

It is a relatively flat and pretty utterly frozen piece of land outside Skyhold that the Wardens have found. Since there are only a couple dozen of them, they don't need a large space, at least. There's going to be a premium on slightly more elevated spots, so it's first come first serve. Some Wardens arrive with the sun and lay claim with canvas, stakes, ropes, and poles stacked up while they go back for heavier things. Digging into the frozen ground with the stakes is rough, especially for those who brought wooden stakes instead of iron. Some will be forced to wait until the sun softens things a bit. Some are chasing away the feeling of eviction by making themselves at home, starting fires in pits, or making light of their work through periodic bouts of horseplay. For example, one large longbowman with a wounded right arm, fed up with teasing for his inability to do heavy lifting, carries with his left arm a blond mage who hits him repeatedly with a pillow. Unperturbed, he continues on.

But when the tents are pitched and the sun is down, the cozy camp is a little less strange. People will gather around fires for warmth and companionship, knowing that after one sleep, this will start to feel like home.

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For all the ill that may come of their actions, the Wardens are necessary. Those who lived through the Blight understand this. Mia is therefore likely more forgiving of whatever measures they take, even if she has her own private feelings on the matter.

She's come to offer what assistance she may, just the same. It falls in step with her regular self-appointed duties, making certain supplies are organized and bringing along armfuls of whatever might be carried by hand.

Mia also has lunch, in limited amounts, for whoever gets to it first. Nothing spectacular, just some smoked meats, bread, a little salty cheese and some fruit. But everyone's hard at work, and a little nourishment might be just as helpful as lugging along a crate full of metal stakes.

He makes a note of every person who isn't a Grey Warden who helps out. It's not about debt, as this is entirely their choice, and it's not about who is fine with him either, because he's not quite arrogant enough to think that. They're assisting. That's enough. Even more, they're showing that some people won't react to everything with anger.

Mia gets more than noted, especially as she's brought food. His stomach complains, making him try to figure out if he had breakfast or not. Not being sure is a sign he should go over.

"Mia. Thank you for this." He nods to the food without touching it just yet. There's a chance he'll be told it's for others and not him. It isn't a high chance, but Anders is trying to keep any hoping down today. Especially considering she's one of several he's lied to.

Including Adelaide. Which she's not quite forgiven him for.

Still, she doesn't make any move to restrict him from taking a share in the food. Her lips twist, but she does offer up the basket to him regardless. "Things will be difficult enough for the Wardens in the days to come. People forget the good they can do when the measures they take seem a step too far. But I am not one of them."

The look she gives him is rather steely, just the same.

Anders gives her a nod, accepting the disdain he's fairly certain he sees in her eyes. It's fairly easy to read between the lines, that she feels they've gone too far in accepting him. So be it. He'd murdered a great many. She has every right to feel like that.

He takes a small piece of fruit when the basket is offered, though.

"That you can still help despite their acceptance of me is a credit to you. And I am sorry, Mia. You were kind to someone who did not deserve it."

There'd been a great deal of kindness given Detlef that people would not have wanted to give to Anders, and for good reason. He shouldn't have sought it as much as he did, but he's not sure he could have stopped.

"Perhaps. But I don't mete out kindness based on who seems the most deserving of it," she replies bluntly. If Anders sees disdain, let him. But there are a number of feelings all jostling around in her head at the moment.

Admittedly, more than one of them wants to grab him by the robes and shake him until his head rattles. That wouldn't be precisely helpful in this case.

Her eyes dart over him quickly, obviously sizing him up now in this new light he's been shown in. "I wasn't the only one fooled. You didn't seem precisely the monster I expected when I heard tales of you from Kirkwall."

She's odd... but it's not a bad thing. It simply means he rarely knows where she's coming from, and her statements add all the more confusion to it. Is she mad? Is she perhaps still giving him a chance despite mentioning monster? Anders can't tell. What he can tell is that he probably shouldn't make any comment about her being different from the Chantry only being kind to those they choose to see, and definitely not mages. He's not always dumb.

"Mm. Let me guess. Murdering people for the pleasure of it, laughing the entire time? I've heard that story." There are others that are more sympathetic, but she'd used the word monster. She's not referring to any of those. No, there are plenty that exaggerate in ways that say the teller had never been there, and likely knew no one who had been remotely close. "Varric's book isn't too far off. He has a flair for the dramatic, and yet the truth is tucked in there. But sensationalist rumors are far more wide-spread."

Anders shakes his head. "I'm a person. And any person can be backed into a place where they'll do something monstrous and desperate. It simply happened that I had the means and opportunity to make a more extreme last stand than many, and then the 'last' part didn't happen."

There was something sad in that, being so willing to throw his life onto the same pyre he'd built for the others, and then not burning with them. Surviving to be hated and hunted. Perhaps that was more just, in the end, to live to see the consequences of his actions. But she isn't here to judge him for his crimes.

"I expected someone crueler," she admits. "Someone colder. But Detlef was well-liked, as I understand it."

There's the obvious implication there. If he lied about the name, he could have easily lied about everything. Had any part of those prior encounters been true? Or had he deliberately hidden all of himself away, for fear of being known for what he was?

He takes a bite of the fruit, looking past Mia before meeting her eyes again.

"It would be easier if I was crueler and colder. For everyone, myself included. And, I suppose, easier if the name wasn't the only deception. I'm liked, except when people know who I am."

He's heard the accusation in more clear terms already. Anders' expression gets a little wry. "You might say I'm easy in the only way you don't want me to be."

"When they know what you've done," she corrects. He doesn't get to pretend that it's just a name that marks him. There's no denying what he's done, what effect it's had on their world.

But it's not her place or purpose to judge him for that. Whatever she feels, she doubts she would be the first to decry his actions. He half looks as though he expects her to take to the usual arguments and declarations.

So she refrains, taking a piece of cheese for herself. "But you couldn't have very well joined our efforts as yourself, could you? They'd have tossed you to Kirkwall, or Starkhaven. Perhaps worse."

This is not her agreeing with his choices. These are facts, plain and simple.

He gives her a confused and slightly surprised look. Done, is, there's a deeper meaning to who he is rather than just what he's done, but if she wants to separate deeds from Anders' identity, then he won't protest. Justice thinks that's taking the cheap way out, but Anders selfishly wants the little bit of relief that comes from someone seeing his actions as separate.

"I think Starkhaven would be the worst. Aveline would either stick by what Marian decided, or go for a simple execution. She's no desire for the dramatic. Vael, on the other hand, would make a show of it." Not even Weisshaupt would be cruel in how they used him. Sebastian very likely would be. "Far more likely, though, I would have died the day I tried to join if I did so under my own name."

Her approach is entirely practical. It's... probably what he should have been expecting, all things considered.

"That being said, yes, I know it was stupid to come here and try to help in the first place. I've not got a history of wise choices."

"Of your unwise choices, I'd hardly call that one the most damning."

That practicality is what's saving him from behind shaken by the lapels, right now. There's certainly a chill to her that had not existed before, but there's little point in yelling, expecting him to feel remorse.

If he feels it at all. Hard to say. Anything he says or does now is suspect in her eyes.

"Though it's certain to cause no end of trouble. Any mage that associated with you as Detlef is likely to feel the consequences once the truth is known."

And there, there is where her eyes harden significantly.

It's most definitely not the worst he's made. There are definitely a few that top it. And honestly... he's still not sure that coming here was actually entirely unwise. Being out there meant he was only helping one person at a time, maybe two. Here there's a mess, but he's helping something bigger.

Though she has a point, and the look on her face shows it's personal. He looks down.

"They didn't know my identity. They don't deserve any consequences. And I wish... I... If there's anyone being harassed for not realizing who I was, I can step in. I don't know what more I can offer, but if you've ideas, I'd like to hear them. I don't want anyone else to pay for what I've done."

"No, I think you've done quite enough, all told."

Going now, trying to speak of behalf on anyone, would hurt more than it would help. Even she knew that. Oh, Anders looks sorry enough. She even believes his regret is real, for all the good it does.

Somehow, that makes it worse. That means he knows, that it's not just willful ignorance putting people in harm's way again and again.

"There will in time come a point where you may want to consider the consequences of your actions before committing to them. Feeling sorry afterwords only counts for so much."

"Because I calculated for everything, saw everything coming." His voice was dry as he shook his head. "You and a great many others give me credit for a gift of foresight I don't have."

The plan hadn't involved getting close enough to anyone for them to face any trouble or suspicion. But he and Justice had miscalculated exactly how lonely he'd been and how bad he was at keeping a distance. It's too human for one to grasp, and a sign that the other is still weaker than he'd like.

"I thought I knew what the general outcome would be." Anders shakes his head, looking at the camp that's taking shape around him. "I was wrong on nearly every count."

"One hardly needs foresight to know what would come when you were discovered, amidst mages who would swear for you. Who cared about you. The rest might be more fortunate for that, but you of all people should have known how harshly they would look upon them."

She takes a breath, lowering the cheese and looking aside, shaking her head.

"I didn't come here to argue this with you, if you can believe it," she utters drly. "I'm certain you've heard enough from everyone else," she manages at last. "And there's nothing to be done now. The Wardens have spoken, and whoever was seen associating with you will likely have to ride out the storm."

They weren't supposed to care, but saying that when she didn't want to argue would push yet another person away and despite how he hadn't been supposed to care either, he does. The topic thankfully isn't of enough interest to Justice and Anders exhales and takes another bite of his fruit.

"There's a great deal to be done. Just nothing about that, for now. " He's alive. Somehow, again. Anders doesn't think he dares to count how many times he should have died and didn't. For all that life had a habit of going horribly wrong, it still kept going. And maybe, with the time given him, he can mend what wounds he's caused. He's a healer. Ostensibly.

"Would you like a tour of the camp? We've tents, tent stakes , and the ever- exciting drainage ditches taking shape for rain and snowmelt. Zevran's building a shaving station as well because grizzled Wardens break his heart." His voice is a little lighter and he's trying very hard to sound like everything's fine. There's strain anyway; his ability to bluff is lacking.

"Is he now?"

She allows herself a very small, very quiet smile at that. "I understand he has a history for the Wardens. I wouldn't doubt that's true."

But her eyes travel over what is actually here readily enough. It's heartbreaking to see the Wardens all but cast out for this, only kept close out of some need to know that they won't just turn Anders loose the second they're out of sight. That's how it feels, at least. The truth is for those of higher rank, certainly.

He doesn't know how to respond to that, or her look around the place. Maybe there's not something to say. Maybe it's time to leave her be.

Anders shrugs after a moment, trying to act far more unbothered than he really is. He's not sure he's successful, but he's also not really sure it matters. "There are a number of people who have traveled with Jonas here. History is one way of saying it."

Being a living part of history is... not something to be glad about, he's fairly certain. Better to be alive than dead, certainly. But hearing people talk of your actions, of the actions of your friends, judging as if they'd been there, isn't pleasant in any definition of the word.

Jonas. He uses the man's name in too familiar a way to be coincidence, or she's the queen of Antiva. It seems he's enjoyed the company of a great many heroes in the years past, then. There's some irony there, surely.

"Ah, the illustrious Hero of Ferelden. He did mention him in particular. A very exciting tale it was." Her eyebrows lift, a thoughtful look replacing her amusement before too long. "But history will likely remember it as a footnote, if they care to at all. So many details become forgotten over time. Even now people begin to forget what the Wardens did for us all such a short span of years ago."

Anders snorts, a little bit of bitterness in his expression.

"Yes. They do. Vigilance and sacrifice is part of being a Warden, but people so quickly ignore what all you've done when it's more convenient to only see what happened after seven years of failing at peaceful solutions and the slaughter of friends. I'd be surprised if more than a dozen non-Wardens could tell you what I did at the end of the Fifth Blight. Or even the true end of it, the aftermath that only came past when the archdemon fell and Jonas' first group of companions moved on, save Oghren."

He should shut up. No one knows... because no one cares. Looking for anyone to give a damn about the whole picture of who he is rather than the simple, easy title of murderer is a waste of time and energy, but he's always had trouble shutting up. He'll be in the history books for the Chantry alone, not for being key in saving Vigil's Keep, not for helping take out the Mother while placating the Architect, not for anything he does here. He shouldn't care. He does anyway.

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Moving Day

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