#mageunderground

It takes some creative digging to finally put a name to this new place: Kirkwall. He has never personally set foot in the city before, but he knows the Free Marches. This is Thedas. He's home.

Well, not home, exactly; Antiva is a few days' trip away, at least. But it isn't Spirale. The thought is oddly bittersweet.

He does not dwell on it for too long before another thought is popping into his head, completely unbidden. Had Anders made it back, too? The mage had wanted to return to this very place with such fervor it bordered on madness. It would be horribly ironic for Zevran to wind up here only for Anders to be left behind. Ironic in a way that does not sit well with him.

He has to ask for directions to find the clinic. The woman he asks is reluctant to tell him anything, at first, but he assumes the most disarming yet firmly insistent manner he can muster until she finally relents. When he sees the lantern the mage had mentioned, he knows he has found it.

The relief he feels when he sees the familiar face among his patients should be very concerning, if he were not currently too thrilled with all of these new events to care.

"There you are! Happy to finally be home?"

Thank you so much! I hope you like this one, it was very fun to write

(If you’d like me to write you a dragon age fic, send me a prompt from here!)

@dadrunkwriting

Pairing: Nanders

Characters: Nathaniel Howe, Anders, Sigrun, F!Hero of Ferelden

Tags: near death experiences in Kal’Hirol, gallows humour, canon typical violence, hurt/comfort

Rating: Mature

Dying in the Deep Roads is a fitting ending for a Howe, albeit one that had come sooner then any of them could have anticipated. Nathaniel stares up at the ceiling of Kal’Hirol and breathes as deeply and as evenly as he can. Above him, Anders’ face is pale and pinched with tension, his blonde hair streaked black with darkspawn blood. His hands are almost hidden beneath a veil of blue magic as thick as fog. 

Nathaniel regains control of his arm after a moment, fingers cold and too heavy as he lifts them. Clumsily, he bumps his knuckles against Anders’ clean-shaven cheek. The mage startles, and the magic around his fingers sputters like a fire in the wind. Then he frowns, and the magic comes back full force, washing like springwater over Nathaniel’s lower torso. Far off, or close by, there’s the shriek of monsters and the sound of fighting. The sound is distorted by the echo of the cave walls, and Nathaniel’s own hearing, muffled as if he is underwater. 

“It’s going to be alright.” He says, the words melting together in his mouth like treacle. Anders doesn’t look at him, the ring in his ear blue as lyrium in the reflected light of his magic. Nathaniel goes on. “I don’t mind dying here. It’s a fitting end for a Howe.”

Anders purses his lips, glancing up at him with brown eyes drawn tight and narrow at the corners. “Sure. But it’s a terrible ending for a Why, and I think your father was having it on with your Aunt Agnes.”

Nathaniel frowns, and his skin moves like fingers pushing through wet clay. “Who’s Aunt Agnes?”

Anders huffs a laugh and doesn’t smile, leaning forward as his palms move over the rough area of Nathaniel’s belly. His eyes are glowing, faintly. “Lovely woman. Has sixteen cats. I’ll introduce you to each of them personally. One of them is a duchess.”

Nathaniel tips his head back, skull bumping against the gravel. “You’re deflecting.”

“You’re dying from a stomach wound,” Anders bites back, lightly, before recommencing scowling at Nathaniel’s chest, “But who’s counting.”

Nathaniel bites the inside of his cheek. Not far off, the river of the thaig runs endless and impassive, ringing against its pebble shores like the shells on a real beach. The cavern far above their heads is a poor imitation of the sky. Nathaniel’s hand moves once, twice, and on a third attempt hits one of Anders’ arms. The magic hits him like an electric shock, but the sensation is dulled. Nathaniel ignores it and Anders stops casting, catching his breath as he looks down at him. Nathaniel tries to meet his eyes.

“Listen to me. It’s alright. It’s not your fault.”

Anders grimaces, and pulls his hand back roughly from Nathaniel’s grip. The spell lights up his arms as if they’re plunged into a basin up to his elbow. He looks up and away from Nathaniel, in the direction of the shrieking monsters. “Sigrun! Commander! Where are you?”

There is no response but the shrieking of things not yet dead. Nathaniel can taste blood and bile at the back of his mouth. He grabs at Anders’ elbow again, and Anders swears, “Dammit Nate!” He blinks rapidly, eyes shining in the light of his magic. Nathaniel holds onto his elbow as a drowning man would a lifeline.

“You need to go, Anders. You can’t die here. It’s a bad ending for a mage.” 

Anders huffs, and the sound comes out cracked as he turns away from Nathaniel again. The shrieking of the monsters is getting closer. “Haven’t you heard? All endings are good for mages. It means a mage, ending.”

Nathaniel shakes his head, and pain cracks into the back of his skull as he does so. “No. You should die...somewhere high up. With a view.”

Anders scoffs, gingerly resting the heels of his palms over Nathaniel’s broken armour. Bile hurls itself thick and hot into the back of Nathaniel’s throat, and he nearly drowns on it before swallowing it down. Anders speaks in a whisper, glancing up again and again at the rest of the cavern that Nathaniel cannot see. “What, like a tower?”

Nathaniel scowls. “No, like a mountain. Free.”

Anders catches his breath, and looks up again at the far wall of the cave, voice getting louder as he shouts. “SIGRUN! COMMANDER! I NEED YOU!”

Numb, Nathaniel tries to manoevure his arms into letting him sit up. Anders flinches, moving to push him back down, fingers still wreathed in blue fire that doesn’t burn when he touches him. “No, stop, lie down.”

Nathaniel shakes his head. “You need to go. I can’t let you die here.”

Anders pulls a face. “Well I can’t let you die here either. Looks like we’re at an impasse. What a shame, oh well, now lie down, shut up and let me fix you.”

“I’m dying, Anders.” It is as certain as the fact that the dwarven sky is grey and endless. Anders stops moving, becoming as still as a frightened bird. Nathaniel moves, resting one hand heavily on his shoulder, and the soft suede-like fabric of his robe. “It’s alright.” Nathaniel says, heavily, and the words rasp in his throat. “Go.”

Anders purses his lips in a sudden, bitter smile as he shakes his head, even as tears run down his cheeks. “No. You can’t die. I won’t let you.”

Nathaniel opens his mouth to respond, but at that point a Hurlock comes howling over the boulder behind which they’d been hiding. Anders flinches, covering Nathaniel’s body with his own as he raises one hand to his temple. The creature flies backwards: right into the waiting axe of their Commander. It’s head topples onto the gravel-strewn earth as its body crumples onto its knees, oozing black blood. Anders’ arms are shaking and tight around Nathaniel’s back, careful not to put pressure on his lower chest. 

Gingerly, slowly, Anders lets him go and sets him back down onto the earth, blue light reigniting around his fingertips. “Commander. Just in the nick of time.”

The Warden Commander raises an eyebrow. “It’s my speciality.” She lowers her gaze to Nathaniel, and grimaces when her eyes reach his stomach. “Is he -”

“He’ll be fine.” Anders’ tone is as sharp as Nathaniel’s old tutor’s cane. He doesn’t look at either of them, and Nathaniel feels more magic rush into his body like a wave. The Warden Commander looks at him for a long moment, her face lit by the blue light of his spell. Then she nods, once, and turns around.

“Sigrun! Hold the line.”

She braces her feet, and raises her axe, standing at the gap between the boulders. Anders looks up at Nathaniel and offers him half a smile, thinly. “See? No one’s dying today.”

Nathaniel nods, and leans his head back against the stone. Slowly, he begins to shut his eyes. The rush of magic tingling across his skin grows as distant as the sunlit shores of Seheron. Darkness beckons…

It is a fitting end, for a Howe.

*

When Nathaniel wakes up, it is to a snowy landscape of freshly laundered white linen that smells faintly of elfroot and lavender. Sunlight is washing in through the window, and the roof above him is close and brown and even, and nothing like the craggy grey sky of the Deep Roads. Feeling returns in increments: his toes are warm, and wrapped in woolen socks. His belly is a mass of bruising and stiff with bandages wrapped so tight he feels them when he breathes. One of his arms is pinned beneath his body and numb with it. The other is pulled across his chest like a tether, and his palm and fingers are warm. There’s the soft sound of snoring. 

Nathaniel’s mouth pulls in the direction of a smile before his eyes land on the slumped, tall figure hunched in the stiff wooden chair beside his bed. Anders is sleeping soundly, mouth slightly ajar, a thin line of drool running from the corner of his lips. His hair is mussed and pressed loosely around his face. His fingers are holding Nathaniel’s hand, tightly, even in sleep.

Nathaniel lets out a long, deep breath and rolls onto his back, trying to work some feeling back into his arm. He does not let go of Anders’ hand. 

There's much less green, for starters. Really, Zevran can only remember bits and pieces of his time in the Fade, having never been given a chance to traverse it the way the Hero of Ferelden had. But he remembers green, and he remembers pain, and he remembers Crows. Other recruits much like himself, as mocking and ruthless and proud as he had once been. Their jeers had only made him all the more eager to prove his worth in blood. Maker, how he had once wanted to be an Antivan Crow so very badly. How he had once thought it an honor.

Now he finds himself jumping at shadows.

Thankfully this approximation of the dreaming world is cheerfully bereft of such demons. None that he can see, anyway.

( not yet )

When movement catches his eyes, however, he tenses. Turns.

"Anders."

Well. One less thing to worry about.

"Ah, but I am happy to see you are alright, amor."

(then there are the thoughts of his time in Kirkwall that continue to plague him in quiet moments, when he cannot busy himself with anything else)

And now this island has the audacity to snow.

Snow is something Zevran has never truly gotten used to, even after so much experience with the terrible stuff back in Fereldan. He is a man suited for warm climates. Beaches. Sun. Not this oppressive cold that seeps into his very bones and sends his teeth chattering. To think he had once found the idea of winter frost romantic. Now he's been spending much of his days curled up under blankets whenever he does not need to leave the apartment. It's pathetic.

He is in his little cocoon of blankets when he hears a knock at the front door. It is sorely tempting not to move, let the visitor take the hint that they should leave; particularly if they happen to be here for his roommate, who is not home. But he gets up to answer, anyway, probably looking every bit as grumpy as he feels.

Of course Zevran notices the change in the island's decor -- it is difficult not to, wintery-themed festivities now being paired with pink and red lights, hearts, flowers, chocolates. Heart's Wake, someone tells him, although he has no idea what that means until a giggling young maiden shoves a small box into his hands, gushing about this holiday dedicated to strengthening bonds. A day for lovers. Zevran finds the idea charming. The little bottle of perfume he produces from the girl's giftbox is charming, too, when he is finally satisfied there's nothing wrong with it. It's a floral scent. Sweet, but not overpoweringly so.

He does not feel unusual in the slightest when he smells it. Not at first.

It is only when he is sitting on the couch of Anders' apartment with the ridiculously named Ser Pounce A Lot 2 curled and purring in his lap -- his Satinalia gift to the mage, a sweet orange cat who'd taken a liking to him off the street -- that he begins to feel...different. Not a bad different, necessarily. Just. Different.

In the time since Anders had offered the proverbial olive branch in the form of a home-cooked meal the two had begun working to repair the rift between them. They both seem content to leave their affair in Kirkwall behind them; or rather, Anders seems content. Zevran is not so sure. He has tried, of course. Tried to be willfully ignorant, to ignore the obvious, to make excuses, but he can no longer deny what he knows to be true -- that somewhere along the way he had begun to develop something for the mage. He had felt it with Taliesen and then Rinnala, long ago. Something he cannot put a name to, something that makes his stomach lurch and his heart feel full. He had been in no great rush to share this epiphany. Ever.

Now he feels like he must say something or he might explode.

Ah thank you so much! Sorry for how long it’s taken me to reply, I hope you enjoy!!

(If you’d like me to write you a dragon age fic, send me a prompt from here!)

@dadrunkwriting

Pairing: Handers

Characters: Anders, Garrett Hawke

Tags: the Circle is awful, angst, hurt/comfort, post All That Remains, fantasy bigotry

Rating: Mature

“There was nothing more you could have done.” It feels like a hollow platitude even as he says it, and not for the first time Anders’ wishes that Garrett were as fluent in the coded gestures of comfort he’d been raised with. He wishes he was able to understand what solace Anders did know how to offer: silent touch, humour, magic. But Hawke has all the magic of a sledgehammer and, for the first time in a long time, Anders finds the fact making him nervous. 

“Isn’t there?” Hawke’s voice is too loud in his high vaulted room, voice bouncing against the rafters. Anders flinches. Downstairs, Dog is barking, and Anders can hear the muffled voice of Sandal trying to soothe her. In the grate, the fire spits. “I should have seen the signs - I should have known,” Hawke’s voice breaks, and Anders steps forward, feeling himself drawn closer as if piano wire had been strung through his chest. 

“You’re not omniscient, Garrett -”

Hawke whirls on him then, and for all that Anders has half a foot on him in height, Garrett has always been far thicker set than he is, stocky and strong as his mabari, and any good Fereldan warrior. “But I’m not stupid, either.” There’s a knife in one of Garrett’s hands now, and Anders tells himself his heart doesn’t skip a beat, and tries to ignore the race of it as it tries to make up for lost time. “Everything I’ve ever learned about mages - I should’ve have known. I should’ve known this would happen eventually.”

Anders has been stabbed through the heart. It hurt less than this. He falters. “I -”

Garrett looks up at him, then, and in the dark of his room his brown eyes are nearly black. “Shouldn’t I? Isn’t that what mages do? Play god. Twist life and death. Hurt people.”

It’s suddenly very difficult to breathe. Anders blinks, and shoves every thorn curling around his heart down inside his chest. “That’s not -” his voice shakes, and he tries again “- you don’t mean that.”

“Don’t I?” Garrett’s voice is high, suddenly, as a wounded dog. In the firelight, his tears are bright as gold. “I thought, I thought I was doing the right thing. But look at this, Anders! Does this look right to you?” He gestures, suddenly, to the darkness of the empty room, and when he does the blade of his knife catches the firelight and gleams copper. This time Anders does flinch, bodily, skittering backward like a frightened halla and hating himself for it.

The anger falls from Hawke’s body like rain from a cloud in his sudden confusion. His gaze follows Anders’ to the blade, and he drops it abruptly as if it had burned him. “Wait, fuck, no, Anders, I’m sorry.”

As it always does, anger rises in Anders fast and hot to smother the shiver of his fear. Anders tells himself it isn’t fuelled by the ozone taste of Justice on the back of his tongue. “No, no, it’s fine. Don’t let me interrupt. You were saying something about how all mages are murderers.”

Garrett grimaces, hands curling into loose fists before they loosen again. “I didn’t -” He looks so lost, then, in the dark, hands empty at his sides. Anders finds himself moving forward without meaning to, drawn to Hawke as inexorably as the tide. “I just -”

“Needed someone to blame?” Anders asks, and cannot entirely hide his bitterness. 

Hawke shrugs with one shoulder and looks down and away from him. “It’s easier than blaming myself.”

“Garrett.” Anders speaks, firmly, over the crackling murmur of the fire, resting his hands on Hawke’s shoulders. “There was nothing more you could have done. This was - there aren’t words for the cesspool of steaming hot fucking bullshit that this was. And if you want people to blame I’ve got an itemized list, including but not limited to: Meredith motherfucking Stannard, the farce that Aveline calls a City Guard, the awful fucking mages who wrote that magic in the first place and, most importantly, the murderer himself. May he rest in bloody fucking pieces. You know who I don’t blame?” Anders’ squeezes Hawke’s warm, broad shoulders, fingers pressing into the soft leather of his armour. “You, love. There was nothing more you could have done.”

On the streets of Kirkwall, a cat yowls, and distantly a crowd of drunks descends singing into Lowtown. Through the window, the night sky is clear and blue and beautiful. Dried blood is itching on Anders’ arms, and both of them stink of sweat and viscera. In the grate, the fire cracks, sending jumping shadows against the stone. 

Hawke’s shoulders slump, and he shuts his eyes, expression crumbling. When he falls, Anders catches him, supporting his lover as his arms come up and around his back. Hawke’s body shudders with the force of his tears, and when he speaks he does so thickly through them. “I don’t know what I did. I don’t know what I did wrong. I keep losing them. I lost everyone.”