#dad anders

When the children ask why Ori only has one arm, Anders tells them very seriously and earnestly that she lost the other one in a fight with a bear.

Have a little Dad!Anders this morning!

Prompt: Legacy: The LI’s thoughts as they watch Hawke discover and learn about their father wishing their child would not be a mage. 

“Look, Varric, he’s so clever already!” Hawke said excitedly as she magicked a small tongue of flame just out of reach of her son, who was trying to reach it with his tiny, chubby fingers.

“He’s got your self-preservation instincts, I’ll give you that.” The dwarf grimaced as he gingerly handed the baby to her as though it was a ticking bomb, then wiped his hands discreetly on his pants. Hawke didn’t seem to notice, or maybe she just didn’t care; she generally refused to hold any babies who weren’t Liam as well. Varric hadn’t had much of a choice when she had thrust him into his arms and looked glad to be rid of him.

She smiled at the infant, who smiled back with a wide, toothless grin. “You’re a charmer just like your daddy, aren’t you?” she said with a laugh and a tilt of her head towards Anders. “Who’s the best little tainted fade baby in the whole wide world? You are!”

He hated when she called him that. It was a reminder that Liam should by rights never have existed, between his Grey Warden taint and her inadvertently carrying him physically through the Fade. The descriptor also brought to mind memories of the Wardens at Weisshaupt trying to ‘convince’ them to stay so that they could study the miracle child. It was not fair, not to him, not to Hawke, and especially not to Liam. And so they had run, perhaps unwisely, straight to Kirkwall and entered Varric’s new viscount residence under cover of darkness. 

Only the cluck of the asshole rooster and the three hens who wanted nothing to do with him hustled across their small farm. There wasn’t anyone for miles, which was how Anders liked it. He glanced across the falling-down fence to a single pile of straw bales he’d set up.

An old templar helmet perched on the top, and a grotesque, crude face was painted upon the side facing him. “Okay,” Anders declared, trying to reassure himself, “you can do this. Hand up, palm flat--”

“I know, Dad!” The tongue sliced through him in a second. This twelve-year-old monster that inhabited his once sweet son rolled his eyes and flared his fingers out.

“Well,” Anders folded his arms and leaned back against the less-rickety side of the fence. “Since you seem to already know everything, then you don’t need me.”

His son’s face knotted up, those once chubby cheeks pulling tighter to his closed eyes. A dribble of veilfire tumbled from the extended fingers as sweat gushed from the boy. With a great gasp, his son released the force inside himself and glanced at the undisturbed bale.

“Damn it!”

“Language,” Anders reprimanded without thought.

Those same snarling eyes burned through him, but the boy’s newfound vocabulary remained unspoken at least. “This is so stupid!” his son shouted, a foot lashing out at the injustice of the world. “I can’t do it! I’m not a...I’m not...” Tears rose in those sparkling eyes and Anders crumbled both inside and out.

On his knees, nearly eye to eye with Anders’ growing weed, he took the boy’s hand that’d shown signs of sparking fire for days. “You can do it,” Anders said. His son glared at him, trying to hunt out the lies. “Here,” he opened the clenched fist of his son and aimed it for the flammable straw. “What are you thinking about when you try to call the fade?”

“I dunno. Fire stuff, I guess.”

“You’re trying too hard. Think of the fire traveling from your palm, the great flames flying through the air, and knocking that ugly helmet off.”

“Fine,” the boy rolled his eyes for the seventh time that day, but he shut his smart-ass lip at least. Anders stepped back, watching as the crunched-up force of his son gave way to gentle guidance. Blue flame licked around his palm, spurts darting off the tips. With a flex of his hand, a ball of firey lightning shot clean off and struck the templar-bale’s face.

“I did it? I did it!” his son cried as Anders grabbed the water bucket to douse the flames. The macabre face of the old enemy vanished from his son’s first use of magic. “Sweet Maker,” the boy shouted to the world, “I’m a mage!”

There was no fear in his voice. No worry of what that would mean to him or his future. No concern of hiding it from the world. No hate.

He was happy, joyfully pumping a fist in the air at this sentence written at his birth. At the fact that magic touched him. He wanted it in a way no other mage before him could. How every mage wished they could.

“Dad?” the triumphant voice faded as he stared across the grounds. “Are you crying?”

“No,” Anders lied, wiping the tears from his cheeks. “It’s the smoke from your fire, which you made.”

“I did!” his son giddily danced in a circle of joy. The baby he got to hold in his hands, to teach to walk, to change a million diapers for. To watch the child grow into a man, to not have to look over his shoulder forever worrying that his only baby could be taken from him. To stand in the light of the Maker and teach his son the glories of what it is to be a mage.

“Dad,” the stern visage glared at the aging man who’d stared off into the past, “I wanna do it again.”

“Of course,” Anders smiled. “And this time, try for two fireballs.”

“Can I do that?”

For Father’s Day, I’m sharing a bunch of short stories about the various Dragon Age guys as dads.

"Dad?"

Water lapped against the pair of twin lines plunged deep into the murky depths. Hawke rustled a hand through his beard, trying to scratch at an itch buried somewhere on his chin. He almost had it when concerned eyes twisted to his.

"Yes, son. What is it?"

Malcolm looked particularly perturbed, his lips twisted in a knot as he watched his line do little more than sit undisturbed in the weeds. A trio of cattails wafted in the breeze, cooling the pair sitting on a dock.

After wringing out his neck full of whatever concerns were there, the boy asked, "What are we doing?"

"Fishing! I told you all about fishing. How my father used to take us whenever the spring thaw came in. Your aunt would squeal at the worms we dug out of Mom's garden, and Carver..." Hawke fell quiet a moment and shook his head, "Carver got it in his head he could catch fish with his barehands. Never worked. Only thing he ever caught was a snapping turtle, which was none too pleased to have its leg grabbed."

He laughed at the memory, clinging to the image of his brother's panicking face, the hiss of the turtle trying to bite his fingers off, and how far that poor thing flew when Carver sensed up enough to throw it. It didn't do him any good to remember the reason Carver wasn't here anymore. Though, Maker his brother would be an awful influence on his nephew.

"I know we're fishing," Malcolm smarted back, "I'm not stupid!"

And some days it felt as if Carver never left them.

"I want to know why we're fishing."

"Because," Hawke twisted around to eye up Anders sitting in the bushes and licking his wounds. "Your other Dad is shite at catching rabbits."

"I almost had it this time!" Anders called back, well aware of the two watching him. Outdoors and wildlife was not the man's strong suit, but he was willing to try.

"Sure you did, Sweetheart," Hawke called with a cheery wave. "Sure you did." Wrapping a hand around his son's shoulders, Hawke stared out across the still lake, watching the setting sun play off the water.

"What if we don't catch anything?" his son worried.

Hawke leaned down close to Malcolm's ear to whisper, "We'll sneak into Kirkwall. I think you're finally old enough to see the inside of the Hanged Man."

"Hawke!" Anders shouted, the man possessing the ears of a bat.

"Yes, fine, not until he's thirteen," Hawke accepted before winking at his son. He had to maintain his cool dad status after all.

"Dad," Malcolm brushed the bottom of his bare foot over the water, "I'm glad we came camping."