Anders, hypomanic and anxious, pacing his room and his clinic at all hours because he's going too fast. His thoughts are too fast. He's so agitated and he can't stop it. He can't sit still. He's got so many ideas he can't think straight anymore, and his anxiety whispers things he can't understand. But it's ceaseless and if he stops pacing, stops moving, it will all eat him alive. He's so tired, but he knows he won't sleep. He could run a marathon and rip the horns off an ogre and still fill out another page of his manifesto. But he doesn't want to. He wants to sleep. And Vengeance is in his head, pushing, urging, screaming. He rocks back and forth on his cot when he does finally sit, but he's crying because he just wants it to stop. Anders healing his patients and functioning normally during the day, and at night his anxiety keeps him up well past any sane bedtime. He thinks about the Templars, what to do if they catch him in the mage underground... who will watch the clinic? Would he be made Tranquil? Would he lose control if they came for him and wake up painted in their blood? He rolls around on his cot, stuck in a loop of worries that has neither a beginning nor end. Anders lays on his cot, staring at the weak beam of light peeking through his cracked door. That's all he can do: stare. His body is so heavy - an irony, given that it was empty. He was hollow inside. He was dead. He wanted to be, anyway, but the thought of moving was the weight of the sea on his chest. He feels like screaming, but he can't move. And even if he did, it would be pointless. There is nothing he can do to fix this. All his failure - everything he had ever done - was proof that he deserved less than nothing. His stomach pinched, woefully empty. But he just doesn't care. Anders flying through ink reserves faster than he thought possible. It's like the Maker himself is fueling his hand, and he churns out righteous commands in his powerful manifesto that shines like gold in his dark clinic. He knows he can do this: he knows he can take on the Templars. He knows he's right, and Justice is in his head supporting him. There's nothing he can't do because their path is just and true. It will be done, and he is but an instrument of the rightful destiny of mages. He's so excited. He hasn't slept and he just doesn't notice or care. He spends his meager savings on parchment and ink, ignoring his body's plea for life sustaining foods. Who has time to eat when all this work needs to be done? He can't stop, and he has 4 projects going at once. He feels hyperfocused but is completely distractable and has almost no concentration. But he's in his groove. He's hit his stride. And nothing can stop him. Anders realizes how wrong he was. He feels so foolish, and his cheeks flush with rage. Depression pulls on his senses weakly and he knows it's coming. But he thinks he deserves it now. He deserves to be punished for his behavior. Crashing down from his highs, Anders finds himself in an irritable cascade that stiffens the shoulders of his patients and only makes him feel worse. Soon he's guilty. And he's sad. He's forced into this wretched situation by the Templars and the Chantry. He wishes he weren't a mage sometimes. He wishes he just weren't at all. He can't get out of bed until afternoon, and eats something that couldn't sustain a mouse. He's agitated again. Justice has been waiting and resting in this slump long enough, and he ought to be doing something. But he can't focus, and he paces again, sleepless and agitated and without focus. The cycles begin again.
