#alitlantern

✱˚｡⋆ ↪ 𝐀 𝐂𝐈𝐓𝐘 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐒/accepting!

>sender lashes out at receiver when it isn't their fault.

For once, for once...she had wanted a moment to grieve. It was selfish, she knew, to want to have a small moment to herself. To weep over the loss of the Keeper, the final severance from her clan. Everything she'd striven for all these years, gone within an instant. Because she could never consider the possibility that someone might take her place in all this. No one should have, if everyone would have just listened...

And there she'd been, her frame wracked with sobs as the other promptly crossed her threshold, and staunched her bleeding heart. She knew it would only be to put it in a vice grip...what he had to say was honest, but it was not kind, and it only twisted the knife in her side.

I told you. I told you. I told you. Every one, another dagger.

...but her shaking ceased, and her grip loosened on her arms, and she did her best to stop the sniffling, even if she couldn't help it much. And she stood from her table, wiping her eyes as they fell once more to the Eluvian...the very thing that started this all...

"...I thought...I really believed I was doing the right thing. I hope you understand that much..." Her voice was broken from weeping, scratchy and pathetic and a mess. "...But I was stupid, and ignorant and blind...the last thing I wanted was for anyone else to get hurt, but all this brings is pain."

She leaned over then, to take up her staff, running her fingers along its wooden curves. So many knicks it had taken over the years; each one another memory she could never get back...what was one more, etched into its frame?

"...and I don't want pain anymore...not like this." She lifted her staff, and a cry escaped her as she swung it down against her beloved Eluvian. She felt another sob wrack her body as she leaned against her weapon, her legs shaking as her eyes trailed across her floor, scattered bits and pieces decorating the floorboards. It would never be restored again...

「 LIGHT 」 : for sender to touch the receiver with a feather light pressure.

the inquisitor prides himself on his composure. the pinnacle of professionalism (these days at least) with nary a hair out place. the court can testify to his tenacity, how threats and flirtation barely net a blink.

there is, of course, nothing professional about what they've spent the last two hours doing. he tells himself it's safer for them both if he maintains his distance, but he maintains his distance with everyone these days.

the routine is getting to be familiar. some nights he lingers, but that's just to finish up whatever work they were doing before the distraction took hold. never does he stay longer than an hour, most of the time he's up and off to his own quarters before the sweat can even cool on their skin, determined not to overstep already blurring boundaries between cohort and lover.

but before he can move to slip out of these too-familiar sheets and dress, the ghosting of anders' fingers against his cheek stops him short. the gentle smile that meets his startled expression undoes him in a thousand little ways.

he cannot think of a stupider place to be. a more scandalous place to rest his weary head.

THE QUESTION HAD troubled him for a few days now, both in its truth and in the implications of what was said. While his initial response was more to quiet the apostate than anything else, Sebastian had been truthful then. No one had ever challenged the existence of the Circles – at least, not to him.

It was a splinter under his skin, driving Sebastian mad enough that, by the third day, he was making the unfamiliar trek to Darktown.

The clinic itself was not difficult to find; lantern lights led the way, and, barring that, the growing number of huddled faces assured the laybrother he was on the right path. The stipend he received from the Chantry wasn’t much – a far cry from the resources of his life before – but perhaps, he muses absently, he could make a bid for the use of donations. Not a lot, but maybe just enough to get a hot meal for those down here in need, to show that the Chantry had not forgotten the faithful in need.

Sebastian hesitates at the door, a pit twisting in his gut. Shifting the weight of the small bundle in his arms—a peace offering of supplies that, he realizes now, would be far from impactful—a part of him reconsiders his plan. What would he accomplish here? Would Anders even entertain his assistance?

Maker guide me, that I may reach all your children.

He steps cautiously, shoulders tense, into the clinic.

“Anders? Could I take a moment of your time?” It was foolish, everything about what he was doing here was on the verge of plain stupidity, but he had to make an attempt to understand the apostate.

“Do you need any assistance today?”

     “I wonder at the wisdom of the Warden-Commander’s decision,” Nathaniel says as he stands in the main hall of Vigil’s Keep - a Keep that was meant to be his one day. 

His arms are crossed as he eyes the mage - the apostate - who has helped himself to a mug of ale from the casks there along the wall. Oghren seems to be making himself at home as well, but that is a conversation for another time. 

It will not be long until Josephine, or one of her employ, comes bearing the necessary implements to address it. What will be offered as a gift will also be suggestion: soaps to scrub the wilds from his skin, a straight razor to shape his beard. A fact he knows from experience, although his suggestions came in the form of fresh clothes, his own patchwork attire drawing attention as an apostate.

"It is true the Inquisitor has proven herself sympathetic to the plight of mages, and that has offered safety where there might not have otherwise been any. But I was no one of consequence to these people, what hostility I encountered the result of centuries of prejudice and little else... the same cannot be said of you."

The eyes that haunt Anders's face appear as any other man's might- burdened by his past, but wholly his own. Were it not for the press of the Veil around him, Solas might overlook him entirely, but spirits of Justice are not the sort to exist quietly; second only to Command in their willingness to make themselves known.

"And so I wonder: are you of a single mind in this matter?"

𝐚𝐬𝐤 𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐞.  |  always accepting. 

holding his own in a fight is,  and has always been,  as natural as breathing;  weaving about enemies,  slashing at exposed midsections,  blocking blades and parrying them.  he’s a blur of translucent sapphire as fenris steps through a slaver’s front.  disappearing through the negative space existing between their reality and the next,  only to reappear at his back and bury the length of lethendralis through the very abdomen he’d phased through.  meanwhile, confirmed with a quick,  assessing glance,  the other slavers in the coterie are preoccupied with carver and hawke;  the metallic sound of carver’s upswing cutting through flesh and muscle, followed by a staggered groan. then, that of crunching metal and bone as hawke effortlessly hauls their target into the air and slams them into the stone-laid ground of the courtyard.  there he rests,  motionless.  𝐚𝐬 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐛𝐞. 

but one other exists outside of his periphery.  fenris has little time to regret letting his guard down the moment he realizes he’s done it. 

one moment,  he’s pausing to flick the blood off of his blade,  prepared to turn on the two enemy mages  —  both of which, much to fenris’ satisfaction, are wide-eyed and stumbling, backpedaling, ready to bolt  —  and the next, following a guttural battle cry and a sharp, splitting pain, the world goes dark. 

it’s the throb at the back of his skull as his consciousness claws its way back that stirs him. not the form hovering above him as his eyelids flutter,  drawing the world around him back into an unfocused haze.  not the sound of carver muttering under his breath as he paces away from him. his perspective is skewed.  off.  he isn’t looking head on at the back of carver’s head,  he’s looking up,  angled.  why is he on the ground  — 

 ❛  fenris. ❜  he doesn’t even realize his head swivels toward the sound of his own name. ❛  look at me.  ❜  the blur above him is drawn partially into his vision, and then right back out again. the voice is concerned, tight. midday light flares behind their form as fenris’ vision finally makes a half-hearted attempt to focus, illuminating the strands of blond that have escaped the cord tying it back. 

fenris blinks once,  twice,  as the  splitting  headache  pressing down over his temples pounds in time with the furious beat of his heart.  he recognizes it now.  anders.  the  . . . mage,  whose hand lifts and mercifully blocks out the sun.  the relief is substantial.  ❛  how many fingers am i holding up?  ❜

the number of fingers he’d held up meant very little  —. and fenris mutters as much as he shoves himself upright, one hand braced against the blood spattered walkway beneath him. 

hawke’s chuckle reaches him from his right.  ❛  i think he is fine.  ❜

❛  for now, maybe. ❜  he’d swear that beneath that layer of concern exists amusement in anders’ voice.  his palm twitches,  threatening to curl into a fist against his thigh as the mage continues.  ❛  i would be willing to wager he’s concussed. ❜

❛  concussed,  ❜  fenris repeats,  deadpan and dry-mouthed.  

❛  concussed,  ❜  anders parrots. if he looks hard enough, fenris could swear that the curve of his mouth twitches with amusement as he fishes for something at his hip.  ❛  don’t worry;  hawke took care of the brute who managed to get the better of you,   carver finished up the rest,  and  i  have stopped the bleeding. ❜ 

the familiar,  medicinal scent of  something  touches his senses;  his gaze darts to the uncorked bottle held outstretched to him,  hesitating. 

apparently, the human senses it.  his brows lift, and anders holds the bottle aloft a fraction closer, voice softening,  ❛  it’s an elfroot potion.  might want it  sooner,  rather than later.  it will help with the headache.  ❜

he could be stubborn. fenris could dig in his heels, knock the outstretched offering away with the back of his hand and nurse his wounds on his own with a bottle of whatever he could find in the wine cellar of his commandeered estate.  but the look on anders’ face is almost exasperatingly pleading;  despite the irritation,  fenris hardly has the energy to argue.  the clawed fingers of his gauntlet curl over the glass with a muted clink, and begrudgingly,  he brings the bottle to his mouth.  the contents, downed in one go.  pain relief isn’t instant,  but the cooling sensation blooming through his throat,  into his chest,  and down to the tips of his fingers clears his head of the dulling ache enough.  at least enough to think. enough to haul himself to his feet after some time. 

the smile in anders’ voice is audible. and infuriating.  ❛  better?  ❜

He pushes open the door to the clinic late. His hand is shaking, spattered with blood, pressed over a bar towel over a cut on his forehead. He makes unsteady eye contact with this healer, before his eyes fall on the floor.

"I hear you help people for free. I... I don't have any gold. So if you're going to turn me away, just do it now. Tricks won't work."