LEX LOCI (1/?)
anonymous
July 20 2011, 20:47:10 UTC
All right, OP! I hope this hasn't deviated too much from your original idea, which I loved then and love now, and that this fits what you were looking for. Still not entirely sure where it's headed, hoping to get into the nitty-gritty of alienage life in an interesting way... And of course the Fenris/Anders implications will hopefully be enjoyable as well! ♥ I will keep my fingers crossed, save for when I am typing in recaptchas, and um... Yes! I really hope you enjoy, OP (and non-OP)! And that it doesn't get too long, but sadly, I can make no promises there...
These things happened, not with alarming frequency-Athenril was for the most part even-keeled, which was why Leto preferred to work with her-but they lacked a certain predictability, appearing without warning like a Kirkwall summer storm. Leto crossed his arms over his chest and waited, watched as she toyed with some reclaimed contraband on her desk, scowling at it, as though it was the source of her annoyance.
Clearly, it wasn’t.
It never was. The little things took shape or form that Leto saw no reason to analyze further beyond the basics: that they were a cipher, a projection, and at least Athenril was not scowling at him. Yet.
That could change as quickly as the weather in Lowtown, the air blown in over the docks suddenly shifting sultry and thick from Darktown’s sewers. That had no name-no chokedamp to fear-beyond simply night in the alienage, all its smells and its discomforts.
After so much of it, they were accustomed to the way it went. But they were never truly comfortable, and that was the difference.
‘Now, listen-it’s just a simple recon job, all right?’ Athenril said. It was remarkable how quick her poor humor could switch to something wry, almost a joke, despite the gravity of her orders. But each job had its dangers; Athenril was never truly laughing at anything-or at least, she never found it as funny as she could pretend to. ‘Nothing over the top. Oh, don’t give me that look, Fenris. Just because you’re my best man in the field doesn’t mean you don’t also…stick out. Unless you haven’t noticed?’
Leto weathered the name as he knew he must, the moniker standing slim between his dire hovel in the alienage-Varania’s pointless welcoming touches, wilting flowers on the window-ledge, her ruthlessness with soot and dust-and this, his day job, better known as his night job, or rather the only job someone like him was able to keep. Watching Athenril pace always awakened his instincts to prowl; the twitching in his joints and muscles outweighed that other, deeper pulse, and even small distractions had their uses, at the proper place and time.
‘Perhaps I am the wrong man for the job, then,’ Leto suggested.
Athenril fixed him with one of her hard stares-not at all piercing, but neither was it particularly forgiving, either. Other men balked under that look, not certain how to classify its intent; Leto had known it for years. It was as much a part of life as the gates around the alienage at night-to keep the elves safe, they said, but those elves themselves knew better than to believe every line they were told. Gates of that sort had a double purpose; what they kept out was just as important as what they kept in.
‘You’re in a mood today,’ Athenril said.
She was also in a mood, far more than Leto. He’d even noted that before.
LEX LOCI (2/?)
anonymous
July 20 2011, 20:48:46 UTC
‘…But,’ Athenril continued, as they’d both known she would, ‘just because it seems simple doesn’t mean it will be. You know that. I know that. Anyone worth anything in this blighted city knows it. The easier it looks, the worse it’s gonna be. That’s Kirkwall for you, and I’m not taking any chances. I just need some surveillance-surveillance that doesn’t get distracted by the first well-endowed Fereldan to walk by showing too much up-top. The place is crawling with pests. Carta, Coterie, templars: you name it. And don’t ask me why a hole in the wall free clinic in Darktown means so much to these idiots. If I wasted my time with all the whys I’ve got, I’d be rotting in a ditch instead of talking to you. Remarkable how similar those two feel sometimes, though.’ Leto offered her a gesture to continue. She liked to talk. She also liked to pinch the indistinct bridge of her nose and sigh, which she did then, signaling it was soon time for briefing to be over, for action to begin. ‘Humans, right? Don’t even have the decency to be dependable. Like qunari. Or even dwarves.’
‘A free clinic in Darktown,’ Leto agreed.
Athenril shot him another look, this one barbed as an arrow, but not without its own affections. She always had said the reason she liked him so much-aside from how useful the magical fisting thing was, that he had a gift and didn’t shy away from the blood and guts of using it like most people-was that he was the only bastard in her hire who had the instincts for picking the one useful sentence out of so much clap-trap.
Plus, she sometimes added, with her sly smile, no teeth, training a guy like you to be my kind of useful? I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
There was some of that meaning in her eyes now, the barest of light catching hard as chipped glass. Beneath that, she was tired; Leto knew from experience that she’d been on her feet nearing two full days without rest, and she was looking to end this ‘pleasant chat’ and grab some shut-eye. For however long it lasted.
Usually, it didn’t.
‘No fights,’ Athenril added. ‘Nothing to call attention to us monitoring the situation, either. All right? I just want to know what’s going on there, ‘cause it’s gotta be something. Something that isn’t free,’ she added. ‘Nobody cares if there’s no profit involved.’
‘And we care,’ Leto agreed.
Athenril nodded once, sharp. ‘Which means there’s profit involved. Your cut’ll be the same as always. Rent paid in full, and anyone asking questions about you gets their tongues cut out.’ She paused. ‘Not too many of those lately, Fenris. Maybe you might consider a different form of payment someday? Like…real coin?’
‘No,’ Leto replied.
Unlike so many others, she didn’t pause, or anticipate a further thank you.
‘Oh well.’ Athenril shrugged. ‘Your loss, anyway. Pleasure doing business with you, as always.’ She didn’t show Leto out; he already knew the way of it.
Beyond Athenril’s corner of the market, tucked into half-affected safety nearby the Blooming Rose, a late sun shifted over the Hightown buildings in narrow slants, and Leto headed straight for the stairs into lower climes, where no one looked twice at an armored elf.
*
There were some who believed Darktown worse than the alienage proper, and some who believed there was nowhere in Kirkwall worse than the alienage. Leto had little stake in which assessment was marked commonly victorious; that there was a competition at all said everything it needed to. Both were dank, wretched, vile-in their separate ways, to their separate detriment.
With the influx of Fereldan refugees-the Blight, as Leto understood it, driving them from home, into this unwelcoming place-it was arguably better for the elves these days, at least by comparison.
But that was only if anyone wished to waste his breath arguing about it.
LEX LOCI (3/?)
anonymous
July 20 2011, 20:49:53 UTC
Leto saw no reason to measure his circumstances against another’s. That both were unpleasant was sufficient judgment enough. He had also been granted the means with which to better himself-to avoid making the situation worse-while so many were less fortunate. And, likewise, so many refused the agency to want anything for themselves at all.
It wasn’t all personal action; there was even less purpose. Leto still recalled his arrival some ten years back: crouched between barrels of stinking fish in the hold of a merchant galleon, a stowaway half-starved with a body still desperate to heal, his sister’s thin arms wrapped around his shoulders-though she was too wary to use her magic to help him beyond the feverish embrace. Athenril called him a wounded animal when she saw him, and so he was, in part because he felt like nothing more than one.
He also recalled Varania’s fear, etched tight in every corner of her face as it swam uneven above him, searching for any sign that her brother yet lived.
Her brother, as she knew him-and not the man he’d chosen to become, apparently of his own free will.
But her brother had not lived, not in the way she’d hoped. Leto remembered very little, just their mother’s laughter and, eventually, Varania’s healing touch. Beyond that, he remembered only pain.
‘Pain’s good for you,’ Athenril had said. She was younger then, hungry, just as dangerous. ‘It’s how you choose to work that pain that…might not be so good. So, do you want to work for me or not, kid?’
Leto balked at the idea of being called something that small by anyone when the pain was still so big, but he had no other choice. ‘The name is…Fenris,’ he’d told her, a memorized invective. Someone he never was, but would soon become.
If only to protect Varania, who-from Minrathous to Kirkwall-had protected him.
Long walks from Hightown to Darktown at times inspired not nostalgia, but prolonged bouts of thinking. Thoughts and remembrance were too tightly bound together; Leto made certain of that, from dawn until dusk, through every lone-man job and thankless smuggler’s patrol. He reminded himself of everything he knew-not everything Varania had told him, but everything his own brain could recall-and that way prevented himself from ever losing it again. From waking in the dark with no recognition behind his eyes, that look of despair on Varania’s face.
He’d chosen this life for himself-a truth imparted to him by Varania, and not carried within the uncertain depths and hidden recesses of his treacherous mind. He’d fought for the markings that he bore even now, for the chance to free his sister and mother from a life of servitude. His master, Danarius, had performed the ritual personally.
That much, Leto did remember. In fact, he might never-should never-forget his master’s face, just as he knew Danarius would never forget his. That was what Athenril did not understand-why Leto’s preferred form of payment was so important to this day.
Ten years was a long time, but not long enough for two ex-slaves to become complacent with their circumstances. If there had been nothing remarkable about either of them, Leto might have thought it safe to assume they were well and truly free.
Sadly, as Athenril was so fond of observing, Varania and Leto were not simple fugitives from Tevinter. They were an apostate and a mercenary-Leto’s understanding of his intended place in the world stood on shaky legs, like a vase on an unsteady pedestal, but it dangers, by contrast, were always certain.
LEX LOCI (4/?)
anonymous
July 20 2011, 20:51:05 UTC
Danarius had never imparted his plans, only his lyrium. Presumably, there hadn’t been time. And before any of it was made clear, before the fresh wounds had chance enough to heal, the attack on the mansion had come-white-hot flames and arcane horrors rising from the streets, a magister looking to duel where he thought he’d take the advantage. For the first time in his very long life, Danarius had been caught unawares-and it was Varania, not Leto, who’d used the commotion to their advantage, Varania who’d slipped into the house undetected, retrieving her brother from the dungeons, dragging him with her into the dirty side-streets. It was a bravery Leto still did not understand, no matter his own sacrifices-what Varania, despite the obvious hypocrisy, called foolishness.
As though she was not equally foolish.
In the end, Leto’s new master had only been his for a bare handful of days. In that short amount of time, he’d still managed to leave his mark-beyond what Leto bore on his skin, he also carried the memory of a new name: Fenris, the little wolf.
Of course, he remembered that.
It served Leto well as a false front, a title made for intimidation, born to sow fear in the hearts of his enemies.
At least, that was what Athenril said. She had no reason to see the name for what it was-something granted to a pet by its former master. But Leto was not so lofty-minded that he would discard something of use simply because he found it distasteful.
He couldn’t afford that selfishness. Not when he had his sister to think of.
In truth, it was Athenril’s mention of templars that had firmed Leto’s resolve to visit this clinic in the first place. When they’d first arrived in Kirkwall, he’d never imagined it would prove to be nearly as dangerous for Varania as the Imperium itself. Some days, it seemed that hiding in the alienage was never enough-an elf named Huon had been dragged out of his home just shortly after Leto and Varania’s arrival, and such an event was not uncommon in the time since.
Varania had watched it happen from the window, knuckles white against the sill. When Leto covered her hand with his own, he marveled at the difference-that she did not recoil at the raised markings burnt into his dark flesh. There was some reaction between them, for magic and lyrium were bound together just the same as lyrium and Fenris’s blood were bound, but it did not hurt when it was her.
What did sting was the accompanying flash-how noticeable it was-which was why the curtains were always drawn over their windows, why Varania’s flowers on the windowsill always died.
But whoever manned the seat of power with the templars did not ignore elves the way most humans saw fit to. That made them dangerous. As with all dangers, Leto needed to monitor them as closely as he could.
Understanding an enemy gave him a tactical advantage. And he needed to understand why this run-down clinic in the middle of nowhere-worse than nowhere; it was Darktown, after all-was so important to so many different factions. That there was no coin involved only meant there was some deeper reason, and Athenril’s instincts, like her knives, were always keen.
II. After years of living in Ferelden, Anders knew that the loyalty of the natives was often strongest-for whatever reason-when it was put to the test. That wasn’t to say Fereldans were ever complacent; no one so fond of dogs and ale and cheese could ever count complacency amongst their strong suits. They were a rowdy people at the best of times, often injuring themselves in bar fights or street brawls or even in the comfort of their own homes.
When they had their own homes.
In Darktown, they had only shanties, tents propped up on makeshift poles, broken crates and empty barrels to store their dwindling effects. They injured themselves just as much, though, with more gusto than ever-as though injury itself, pain itself, would remind them they were still actually alive.
LEX LOCI (5/?)
anonymous
July 20 2011, 20:52:25 UTC
Anders understood the impulse about as much as he didn’t understand it. He found he was capable, without actively seeking out physical harm, of reminding himself not only that he was living, but where he was living, which sometimes seemed more important than any other detail. It happened daily, often hourly, whenever the door to the clinic opened and some belching green smell rolled in like smog, followed by a woman carrying a sick child or a man leaning, bloody, against a friend, the ashen pallor of each new face demanding sympathy and care and an answering recoil in Anders’s stomach.
No; it wasn’t always like that. Sometimes, he sat up reading with a little girl, late into the night, distracting her from fear and sadness, doing all the voices, while she especially liked the grumpy dwarf and the beautiful pirate queen. In those moments, it did seem worth it, even if it took the most complicated route to get there.
But, since life was never an assortment of its finest moments, there was all the rest to consider. Daily. Hourly. The door to the clinic opening, the green smell, the belching smog, some fresh tragedy-never a chance of running out of them, not so much as there was a chance of running out on them.
Anders pressed his fingertips into the small of his lower back, stretching the aching muscle there, turning from side to side and waiting for the perfect moment of privacy to sneak in a bit of a heal for himself. It wouldn’t be much; just a little hint of warmth to soothe the stiffness-bending over poorly built cots all day was even more painful than sleeping on the road, on the run-and it was sometimes necessary to better oneself in order to better everyone else.
Despite Karl’s opinion that all healing efforts should be siphoned into doing unto others first, of course, and unto oneself never.
Somehow, Karl always caught Anders at it; he had uncanny timing, which served them well fleeing the templars of the Fereldan Circle, but these days made itself known in other, less pertinent, more infuriating moments. Moments like this one, when Anders’s back really hurt, and all he wanted was to sit in a dark, empty corner, no one asking him for elfroot or bandages or to look at their boy’s nascent rash. He wanted to put his feet up and hold a cup of proper tea, not brown Darktown water already hot straight from the pump, and close his eyes and take a deep breath of air that didn’t have some indescribable texture.
Anders glanced around the room. It was suitably crowded. Karl was in the back, on secret business, which Anders knew about only in hushed whispers and his own, private nightmares. He took a deep breath, arcane heat flaring at his fingertips, pressed gingerly, lovingly, against his own hip.
And who would heal the healer? That was the real question these people should have asked themselves-right after Why didn’t I flee to Antiva instead of this blighted place?
But this time, it wasn’t Karl who interrupted him. Instead, it was Lirene, one of those indefatigable Fereldan women who never let anything stand in their way. She saw too much, some might say, but it was an impressive talent; so was the silence of her step, the way she fell into place beside Anders like a very wide shadow, startling him out of his healing spell.
‘Don’t look up,’ she said, in that pointed voice so many used around here, the dreadful, serious one Anders was never going to be able to get used to, ‘but there’s someone casing this place. Wearing armor.’
‘Again?’ Anders sighed, dropping his empty hands to his sides and trying not to fidget. ‘Really, Lirene, I’m starting to think you should only tell me when there aren’t people wearing armor casing the place. Now that would be unusual, something to take note of.’
‘I would’ve told Karl,’ Lirene continued, sounding a bit tart, ‘but he’s indisposed at the moment. And someone needs to know.’
LEX LOCI (6/?)
anonymous
July 20 2011, 20:54:16 UTC
Someone, Anders thought. And somehow, that someone was always him.
‘What do you expect me to do about it, Lirene?’ Anders asked. Despite the way it sounded-whiny, petulant, tinged with back-pain, thoroughly obtuse-he was, for once, honestly curious. ‘Go out there and fight him, man to healer?’
Lirene snorted. ‘Sometimes all a man needs is to know he’s being watched.’
‘And sometimes,’ Anders replied, ‘not knowing makes him so much happier.’ He paused to wind the bandages around his wrists a bit tighter-one had come loose during his half-jump of surprise, and fluttered like a lover’s token against the back of his hand-then glanced toward the door, hoping it was more subtle than it felt.
‘And here I thought I told you not to look up.’ Lirene took him by the arm, steering him behind a moss-eaten stanchion. ‘It isn’t the templars, at least. Unless they’ve started hiring elves, and discontinued those bloody awful helmets.’
‘Oh, no, Lirene,’ Anders replied. ‘They’d never do that. How would they know who they were when they looked in the mirror?’
‘I can always get some of the boys to take care of it,’ Lirene continued, apparently used to dealing with the blithely uncooperative. ‘If that’s what you want.’
Anders sighed, wishing-not for the first time-that blood magic came without a price, that he had certain, untenable, time-stopping powers, that he could go about his business privately while everyone else stood frozen in place. Some days, that felt like the only way he’d ever catch up.
But that was the sort of ability granted only to demons, and men fool enough to make deals with them. Anders wasn’t quite that far gone. At least, not yet.
He’d be there soon, if people didn’t stop treating him like he was the one in charge here, when in fact the whole clinic had been Karl’s idea, Karl’s front while he established his secret work at the behest of an old friend currently trying, Maker bless him, to make Kirkwall better. Anders was merely along for the ride-along for the freedom, as it were-and he didn’t have the stomach for all these difficult decisions.
Nor did he have the back for them. A twinge of muscle reminded him of that, and he realized all too late that he was grimacing violently into Lirene’s face.
Grudgingly, he relaxed the muscles of his jaw, and went over what limited knowledge he’d gleaned from a few scant months of living in Kirkwall’s underworld. As far as he knew, the templars did not hire elves. Anders had been granted the dubious privilege of knowing a great many templars in his life, and all of them had been human, for better or worse. An elf also ruled out Carta involvement, since those were all dwarves, and Anders couldn’t imagine them expanding their interests so widely so fast, at least not before a few good stories were written about it as fair warning.
That left the Coterie, or some other, smaller outfit that hadn’t yet made its interests known. After all, the one certainty in Kirkwall was that there’d always be another gang vying for control of the streets. Information was traded like currency in Lowtown; after all the interest shown regarding the clinic, Anders could only presume they were the next hot topic of choice, the mystery of their operations concealed only by the impassive wall of Fereldan loyalty that stood between them and being sold out.
Anders was proud of that loyalty, in his own way. He couldn’t count himself a member of its forces-not truly-but the Fereldans had as good as made him one of their own. Every now and then even an apostate needed to belong to something, even if that something smelled of mud and dog and festering wounds.
‘No,’ Anders sad. He stepped away, mourning the crick in his back. It would just get worse the longer he left it; wasn’t he was always warning his patients of the very same danger? ‘That won’t be necessary-I’ll take care of it. Thank you, Lirene.’
‘And we’ll soon see if anyone’s welcome,’ Lirene replied.
LEX LOCI (7/?)
anonymous
July 20 2011, 20:55:21 UTC
For Anders, taking care of it was synonymous with going outside to sniff nervously around. He hadn’t been serious when he’d offered to chase the interested party off through physical means, but if their current unwanted company was looking to attack, they’d have done so already.
No; Lirene’s instincts were usually spot-on. They had another lurker on their hands. Blowing their cover would be the best way to get them to leave-letting them know that they weren’t as sneaky as they imagined would shame them into trotting off, hopefully to tell their employer just how dreadful it was in Darktown’s free clinic. No unsung heroes there-certainly not wealthy ones-but rather an unparalleled collection of the down, the dirty and the destitute.
People so often made the mistake of imagining most Fereldans were stupid; no doubt it had something to do with the mud and the dogs again, but Lirene was the sort who did so love proving people wrong.
Anders was starting to love it, too, if only because Darktown offered few clear triumphs, and ‘feeling smarter than other people’ was one of them.
Outside the clinic, he was greeted with the usual gathering of foul-mouthed children on the landing by the stairs, one of them reciting a joyfully lewd rhyme about the viscount, and either a drunk or a possessed pile of rags was sleeping up against the clinic’s far wall. However, there was no sign of an elf, armored or otherwise.
Anders liked to think his powers of observation had improved since he’d come to Kirkwall. He knew what to look for now, and how to tell by the shiver down his spine when he was being watched. He recognized, implicitly, the glint of sunlight off burnished armor, the soft clank of greaves as someone knelt in the soil, the hiss of a sword being drawn from its scabbard: these were all sounds an apostate had to memorize, to recognize in an instant if he wished to maintain his life and his freedom.
Anders was quite fond of both.
Yet there was none of that in the immediate vicinity. Elves were small, but they were not invisible-last Anders had checked-and the ones who wore armor made just as much noise as everyone else. The longer Anders stood in front of the door, feeling like an idiot as the children stopped their play-time to stare at the funny man with the feathered shoulders, the more certain he became.
If there ever had been someone watching the clinic, they were long gone now.
‘Wonderful,’ Anders muttered. He reached up to douse the lamp over the door, just to be on the safe side. Now that they didn’t know what they were dealing with-now that there was yet another spy out there, one with motivations Anders had no current means of discerning-it made sense to close down for the day.
Karl didn’t like to take chances. He was serious about his other work, even more serious than he was about his precious clinic.
*
Karl was heading out of the back room when Anders returned inside, bearing the long metal lantern snuffer in one hand, the other tucked in a deep, empty pocket. Despite the serious matters they’d been discussing, both Karl and his associate were smiling.
‘Closing early?’ Malcolm asked, rubbing a hand over his graying beard. Anders had always found it peculiar that both Karl and his oldest friend had chosen to cultivate such similar facial hair. It made Anders feel like the odd man out-though not so much that he’d ever thought of growing one himself.
It was one thing to make that decision, to grow anything more assertive than simple stubble-it meant something, signified a definitive choice, and Anders wasn’t ready to be that person yet.
That person: an apostate in Darktown with gray streaks in his beard.
LEX LOCI (8/?)
anonymous
July 20 2011, 20:56:41 UTC
‘You know how it is.’ Anders mustered a sampling from his wealth of cheerful tones, the ones that always-without fail-made templars hate him even more than they already did. He liked to personalize that antagonism, although with Malcolm, it was never easy to tell what he thought. The beard, Anders suspected, had something to do with that: it hid his mouth, the flash of his teeth, whether he was scowling or grinning or a little bit of both. ‘You invite a Fereldan in for supper, he stays for breakfast. We have to set up rules. Boundaries. Otherwise I’d never have anything to eat at all, ha ha, and that makes me rather cranky. Oh, and also-there was someone lurking outside the clinic. Wearing lots of armor. So there’s that, too.’
‘Again?’ Karl clapped Malcolm on the shoulder; there was something meaningful about the gesture, some agreement they’d come to in that Private Business Room in the back, some resolve they were currently sharing even as they said nothing to each other. ‘Really, Anders, I’m starting to think you should only tell me when-’
‘-when there aren’t people wearing armor casing the place?’ Anders concluded for him, with only a hint of a question. If ever there was a sign he’d been with Karl for too long, their penchant for finishing one another’s sentences was it. ‘That’s exactly what I said to Lirene when she pointed it out. Awful busybody, that woman.’
‘Completely invaluable,’ Malcolm agreed.
Anders made a face-he called it his Malcolm face, the one he reserved for moments just like this one. ‘Yes. Exactly what I meant. Not what I said, but I’m so glad you know me better.’
‘Templar?’ Karl asked. Anders shook his head. ‘Carta? Coterie?’
‘Just trying to keep us on our toes, I suspect,’ Anders said. ‘Elf. Armored elf. Fun, isn’t it? You’d almost think we were doing something dangerous, risking our lives for smelly wounds and no profit. Not to mention the body odor-’
‘I’ll look into it, if you’d like,’ Malcolm offered, already halfway out the door.
‘Don’t put yourself out on our accounts,’ Karl said. ‘Really. I insist.’
‘If he doesn’t,’ Anders muttered, ‘then who will? No one, that’s who. And someone’s always better than-’
‘I’ll see what I can have my boys do,’ Malcolm said. He left with a wave for both of them, jaunty and cheerful, and Anders paused where he stood to lean back into the push of his thumbs at the base of his spine, while Karl lit their smallest lamp, just enough to send light through the empty room. Enormous shadows were cast between the pillars, splaying over the floor; Anders spread his fingers wide, and tried, sneakily, to send a few bursts of healing magic into his joints, just before Karl straightened and caught him at it.
Anders smiled weakly. Karl rolled his eyes.
And it was all right, because it was always all right.
‘His boys.’ Now it was Anders’s turn to roll his eyes, perching on a nearby cot and reaching for freshly-washed bandages that were in need of rolling. Karl, he decided, looked distant-not troubled, but thoughtful, which was about as troubled as Karl ever allowed himself to get. Anders busied himself with the busiest work of all, something quick for his fingers to make short shrift of. Every now and then, he had to remind himself why it was so important to be useful. ‘Sometimes I wonder if Malcolm Hawke isn’t as dangerous as the Coterie already. Don’t you wonder that sometimes, Karl?’
‘There’s a difference,’ Karl insisted, ‘between what he does, and what they do.’
Anders shrugged. ‘So you say. But all I’m saying is, it might be nice if that difference could see its way toward being a little more obvious once in a while.’
LEX LOCI (8b/?)
anonymous
July 20 2011, 20:59:26 UTC
‘Better that it isn’t obvious at all,’ Karl said. He was obviously in one of his moods.
Anders twisted clean cotton around his fingers. Everything smelled of elfroot here, in this one, blessed corner of the clinic. ‘No need to be so gloomy,’ he said, plopping the bandage in the crate beside him-all things in their proper place. ‘How about some delicious stewed rat for dinner? That always cheers you up.’
Annnnd that's all for today. I said I would get it up Wednesday and I didn't want to make you wait any longer! So it's a bit early in the day for my usual posting time, but I'm heading out and I just wanted to make good on my promise. Again, I really hope it's not too far off the mark or anything like that, and I usually post every other day, so... I'll see you here again Friday! ♥ Eep. New fill posting jitters are definitely go...!
Re: LEX LOCI (8b/?)
anonymous
July 20 2011, 21:07:03 UTC
Anon likes the look of this. It's so hard for me to wrap my head around Leto instead of Fenris, but I was intrigued by the premise of this prompt, and lo and behold, it looks like it's going to get a quality fill. Definitely watching this for future updates!
Re: LEX LOCI (8b/?)
anonymous
July 20 2011, 21:30:56 UTC
Mmm, your voice for Fenris in this just sings. He's a tricky one to master, and I'm sure the difference between Leto and Fenris is something that's difficult to manage, but here it comes across perfectly. Great job, so far. You've got me hooked.
Re: LEX LOCI (8b/?)
anonymous
July 20 2011, 21:38:02 UTC
Interesting. I've always thought that if anyone understood the plight of the mages, it'd be the city elves. And then they went and had them join the qunari in the game which was neat I guess, but it didn't have the same impact I was looking for. This fill on the other hand, looks to be satisfying on that particular front. And you have "Leto"'s voice down pat, which is something I've struggled with in the past.
Re: LEX LOCI (8b/?)
anonymous
July 20 2011, 21:47:46 UTC
Ha! I love the idea of Fenris being Athenril's "find" instead of Hawke. Obviously it's a different timeline and all, but I thought that was a cute parallel, her being Fenris and Varania's helping hand into Kirkwall the same way she is for Hawke in the game.
Loving this start- it seems clever and fun. I'll be watching for more. :)
Re: LEX LOCI (8b/?)
anonymous
July 20 2011, 21:50:08 UTC
Too cool, anon! It's so wild to read prompts and then see what someone else makes of them. And I love what you're making of this one! I think I'll stick around for the long haul. Can't wait to see where it leads!
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I.
Athenril was in a sour mood.
These things happened, not with alarming frequency-Athenril was for the most part even-keeled, which was why Leto preferred to work with her-but they lacked a certain predictability, appearing without warning like a Kirkwall summer storm. Leto crossed his arms over his chest and waited, watched as she toyed with some reclaimed contraband on her desk, scowling at it, as though it was the source of her annoyance.
Clearly, it wasn’t.
It never was. The little things took shape or form that Leto saw no reason to analyze further beyond the basics: that they were a cipher, a projection, and at least Athenril was not scowling at him. Yet.
That could change as quickly as the weather in Lowtown, the air blown in over the docks suddenly shifting sultry and thick from Darktown’s sewers. That had no name-no chokedamp to fear-beyond simply night in the alienage, all its smells and its discomforts.
After so much of it, they were accustomed to the way it went. But they were never truly comfortable, and that was the difference.
‘Now, listen-it’s just a simple recon job, all right?’ Athenril said. It was remarkable how quick her poor humor could switch to something wry, almost a joke, despite the gravity of her orders. But each job had its dangers; Athenril was never truly laughing at anything-or at least, she never found it as funny as she could pretend to. ‘Nothing over the top. Oh, don’t give me that look, Fenris. Just because you’re my best man in the field doesn’t mean you don’t also…stick out. Unless you haven’t noticed?’
Leto weathered the name as he knew he must, the moniker standing slim between his dire hovel in the alienage-Varania’s pointless welcoming touches, wilting flowers on the window-ledge, her ruthlessness with soot and dust-and this, his day job, better known as his night job, or rather the only job someone like him was able to keep. Watching Athenril pace always awakened his instincts to prowl; the twitching in his joints and muscles outweighed that other, deeper pulse, and even small distractions had their uses, at the proper place and time.
‘Perhaps I am the wrong man for the job, then,’ Leto suggested.
Athenril fixed him with one of her hard stares-not at all piercing, but neither was it particularly forgiving, either. Other men balked under that look, not certain how to classify its intent; Leto had known it for years. It was as much a part of life as the gates around the alienage at night-to keep the elves safe, they said, but those elves themselves knew better than to believe every line they were told. Gates of that sort had a double purpose; what they kept out was just as important as what they kept in.
‘You’re in a mood today,’ Athenril said.
She was also in a mood, far more than Leto. He’d even noted that before.
Judiciously, he said nothing.
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‘A free clinic in Darktown,’ Leto agreed.
Athenril shot him another look, this one barbed as an arrow, but not without its own affections. She always had said the reason she liked him so much-aside from how useful the magical fisting thing was, that he had a gift and didn’t shy away from the blood and guts of using it like most people-was that he was the only bastard in her hire who had the instincts for picking the one useful sentence out of so much clap-trap.
Plus, she sometimes added, with her sly smile, no teeth, training a guy like you to be my kind of useful? I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
There was some of that meaning in her eyes now, the barest of light catching hard as chipped glass. Beneath that, she was tired; Leto knew from experience that she’d been on her feet nearing two full days without rest, and she was looking to end this ‘pleasant chat’ and grab some shut-eye. For however long it lasted.
Usually, it didn’t.
‘No fights,’ Athenril added. ‘Nothing to call attention to us monitoring the situation, either. All right? I just want to know what’s going on there, ‘cause it’s gotta be something. Something that isn’t free,’ she added. ‘Nobody cares if there’s no profit involved.’
‘And we care,’ Leto agreed.
Athenril nodded once, sharp. ‘Which means there’s profit involved. Your cut’ll be the same as always. Rent paid in full, and anyone asking questions about you gets their tongues cut out.’ She paused. ‘Not too many of those lately, Fenris. Maybe you might consider a different form of payment someday? Like…real coin?’
‘No,’ Leto replied.
Unlike so many others, she didn’t pause, or anticipate a further thank you.
‘Oh well.’ Athenril shrugged. ‘Your loss, anyway. Pleasure doing business with you, as always.’ She didn’t show Leto out; he already knew the way of it.
Beyond Athenril’s corner of the market, tucked into half-affected safety nearby the Blooming Rose, a late sun shifted over the Hightown buildings in narrow slants, and Leto headed straight for the stairs into lower climes, where no one looked twice at an armored elf.
*
There were some who believed Darktown worse than the alienage proper, and some who believed there was nowhere in Kirkwall worse than the alienage. Leto had little stake in which assessment was marked commonly victorious; that there was a competition at all said everything it needed to. Both were dank, wretched, vile-in their separate ways, to their separate detriment.
With the influx of Fereldan refugees-the Blight, as Leto understood it, driving them from home, into this unwelcoming place-it was arguably better for the elves these days, at least by comparison.
But that was only if anyone wished to waste his breath arguing about it.
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It wasn’t all personal action; there was even less purpose. Leto still recalled his arrival some ten years back: crouched between barrels of stinking fish in the hold of a merchant galleon, a stowaway half-starved with a body still desperate to heal, his sister’s thin arms wrapped around his shoulders-though she was too wary to use her magic to help him beyond the feverish embrace. Athenril called him a wounded animal when she saw him, and so he was, in part because he felt like nothing more than one.
He also recalled Varania’s fear, etched tight in every corner of her face as it swam uneven above him, searching for any sign that her brother yet lived.
Her brother, as she knew him-and not the man he’d chosen to become, apparently of his own free will.
But her brother had not lived, not in the way she’d hoped. Leto remembered very little, just their mother’s laughter and, eventually, Varania’s healing touch. Beyond that, he remembered only pain.
‘Pain’s good for you,’ Athenril had said. She was younger then, hungry, just as dangerous. ‘It’s how you choose to work that pain that…might not be so good. So, do you want to work for me or not, kid?’
Leto balked at the idea of being called something that small by anyone when the pain was still so big, but he had no other choice. ‘The name is…Fenris,’ he’d told her, a memorized invective. Someone he never was, but would soon become.
If only to protect Varania, who-from Minrathous to Kirkwall-had protected him.
Long walks from Hightown to Darktown at times inspired not nostalgia, but prolonged bouts of thinking. Thoughts and remembrance were too tightly bound together; Leto made certain of that, from dawn until dusk, through every lone-man job and thankless smuggler’s patrol. He reminded himself of everything he knew-not everything Varania had told him, but everything his own brain could recall-and that way prevented himself from ever losing it again. From waking in the dark with no recognition behind his eyes, that look of despair on Varania’s face.
He’d chosen this life for himself-a truth imparted to him by Varania, and not carried within the uncertain depths and hidden recesses of his treacherous mind. He’d fought for the markings that he bore even now, for the chance to free his sister and mother from a life of servitude. His master, Danarius, had performed the ritual personally.
That much, Leto did remember. In fact, he might never-should never-forget his master’s face, just as he knew Danarius would never forget his. That was what Athenril did not understand-why Leto’s preferred form of payment was so important to this day.
Ten years was a long time, but not long enough for two ex-slaves to become complacent with their circumstances. If there had been nothing remarkable about either of them, Leto might have thought it safe to assume they were well and truly free.
Sadly, as Athenril was so fond of observing, Varania and Leto were not simple fugitives from Tevinter. They were an apostate and a mercenary-Leto’s understanding of his intended place in the world stood on shaky legs, like a vase on an unsteady pedestal, but it dangers, by contrast, were always certain.
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As though she was not equally foolish.
In the end, Leto’s new master had only been his for a bare handful of days. In that short amount of time, he’d still managed to leave his mark-beyond what Leto bore on his skin, he also carried the memory of a new name: Fenris, the little wolf.
Of course, he remembered that.
It served Leto well as a false front, a title made for intimidation, born to sow fear in the hearts of his enemies.
At least, that was what Athenril said. She had no reason to see the name for what it was-something granted to a pet by its former master. But Leto was not so lofty-minded that he would discard something of use simply because he found it distasteful.
He couldn’t afford that selfishness. Not when he had his sister to think of.
In truth, it was Athenril’s mention of templars that had firmed Leto’s resolve to visit this clinic in the first place. When they’d first arrived in Kirkwall, he’d never imagined it would prove to be nearly as dangerous for Varania as the Imperium itself. Some days, it seemed that hiding in the alienage was never enough-an elf named Huon had been dragged out of his home just shortly after Leto and Varania’s arrival, and such an event was not uncommon in the time since.
Varania had watched it happen from the window, knuckles white against the sill. When Leto covered her hand with his own, he marveled at the difference-that she did not recoil at the raised markings burnt into his dark flesh. There was some reaction between them, for magic and lyrium were bound together just the same as lyrium and Fenris’s blood were bound, but it did not hurt when it was her.
What did sting was the accompanying flash-how noticeable it was-which was why the curtains were always drawn over their windows, why Varania’s flowers on the windowsill always died.
But whoever manned the seat of power with the templars did not ignore elves the way most humans saw fit to. That made them dangerous. As with all dangers, Leto needed to monitor them as closely as he could.
Understanding an enemy gave him a tactical advantage. And he needed to understand why this run-down clinic in the middle of nowhere-worse than nowhere; it was Darktown, after all-was so important to so many different factions. That there was no coin involved only meant there was some deeper reason, and Athenril’s instincts, like her knives, were always keen.
II.
After years of living in Ferelden, Anders knew that the loyalty of the natives was often strongest-for whatever reason-when it was put to the test. That wasn’t to say Fereldans were ever complacent; no one so fond of dogs and ale and cheese could ever count complacency amongst their strong suits. They were a rowdy people at the best of times, often injuring themselves in bar fights or street brawls or even in the comfort of their own homes.
When they had their own homes.
In Darktown, they had only shanties, tents propped up on makeshift poles, broken crates and empty barrels to store their dwindling effects. They injured themselves just as much, though, with more gusto than ever-as though injury itself, pain itself, would remind them they were still actually alive.
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No; it wasn’t always like that. Sometimes, he sat up reading with a little girl, late into the night, distracting her from fear and sadness, doing all the voices, while she especially liked the grumpy dwarf and the beautiful pirate queen. In those moments, it did seem worth it, even if it took the most complicated route to get there.
But, since life was never an assortment of its finest moments, there was all the rest to consider. Daily. Hourly. The door to the clinic opening, the green smell, the belching smog, some fresh tragedy-never a chance of running out of them, not so much as there was a chance of running out on them.
Anders pressed his fingertips into the small of his lower back, stretching the aching muscle there, turning from side to side and waiting for the perfect moment of privacy to sneak in a bit of a heal for himself. It wouldn’t be much; just a little hint of warmth to soothe the stiffness-bending over poorly built cots all day was even more painful than sleeping on the road, on the run-and it was sometimes necessary to better oneself in order to better everyone else.
Despite Karl’s opinion that all healing efforts should be siphoned into doing unto others first, of course, and unto oneself never.
Somehow, Karl always caught Anders at it; he had uncanny timing, which served them well fleeing the templars of the Fereldan Circle, but these days made itself known in other, less pertinent, more infuriating moments. Moments like this one, when Anders’s back really hurt, and all he wanted was to sit in a dark, empty corner, no one asking him for elfroot or bandages or to look at their boy’s nascent rash. He wanted to put his feet up and hold a cup of proper tea, not brown Darktown water already hot straight from the pump, and close his eyes and take a deep breath of air that didn’t have some indescribable texture.
Anders glanced around the room. It was suitably crowded. Karl was in the back, on secret business, which Anders knew about only in hushed whispers and his own, private nightmares. He took a deep breath, arcane heat flaring at his fingertips, pressed gingerly, lovingly, against his own hip.
And who would heal the healer? That was the real question these people should have asked themselves-right after Why didn’t I flee to Antiva instead of this blighted place?
But this time, it wasn’t Karl who interrupted him. Instead, it was Lirene, one of those indefatigable Fereldan women who never let anything stand in their way. She saw too much, some might say, but it was an impressive talent; so was the silence of her step, the way she fell into place beside Anders like a very wide shadow, startling him out of his healing spell.
‘Don’t look up,’ she said, in that pointed voice so many used around here, the dreadful, serious one Anders was never going to be able to get used to, ‘but there’s someone casing this place. Wearing armor.’
‘Again?’ Anders sighed, dropping his empty hands to his sides and trying not to fidget. ‘Really, Lirene, I’m starting to think you should only tell me when there aren’t people wearing armor casing the place. Now that would be unusual, something to take note of.’
‘I would’ve told Karl,’ Lirene continued, sounding a bit tart, ‘but he’s indisposed at the moment. And someone needs to know.’
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‘What do you expect me to do about it, Lirene?’ Anders asked. Despite the way it sounded-whiny, petulant, tinged with back-pain, thoroughly obtuse-he was, for once, honestly curious. ‘Go out there and fight him, man to healer?’
Lirene snorted. ‘Sometimes all a man needs is to know he’s being watched.’
‘And sometimes,’ Anders replied, ‘not knowing makes him so much happier.’ He paused to wind the bandages around his wrists a bit tighter-one had come loose during his half-jump of surprise, and fluttered like a lover’s token against the back of his hand-then glanced toward the door, hoping it was more subtle than it felt.
‘And here I thought I told you not to look up.’ Lirene took him by the arm, steering him behind a moss-eaten stanchion. ‘It isn’t the templars, at least. Unless they’ve started hiring elves, and discontinued those bloody awful helmets.’
‘Oh, no, Lirene,’ Anders replied. ‘They’d never do that. How would they know who they were when they looked in the mirror?’
‘I can always get some of the boys to take care of it,’ Lirene continued, apparently used to dealing with the blithely uncooperative. ‘If that’s what you want.’
Anders sighed, wishing-not for the first time-that blood magic came without a price, that he had certain, untenable, time-stopping powers, that he could go about his business privately while everyone else stood frozen in place. Some days, that felt like the only way he’d ever catch up.
But that was the sort of ability granted only to demons, and men fool enough to make deals with them. Anders wasn’t quite that far gone. At least, not yet.
He’d be there soon, if people didn’t stop treating him like he was the one in charge here, when in fact the whole clinic had been Karl’s idea, Karl’s front while he established his secret work at the behest of an old friend currently trying, Maker bless him, to make Kirkwall better. Anders was merely along for the ride-along for the freedom, as it were-and he didn’t have the stomach for all these difficult decisions.
Nor did he have the back for them. A twinge of muscle reminded him of that, and he realized all too late that he was grimacing violently into Lirene’s face.
Grudgingly, he relaxed the muscles of his jaw, and went over what limited knowledge he’d gleaned from a few scant months of living in Kirkwall’s underworld. As far as he knew, the templars did not hire elves. Anders had been granted the dubious privilege of knowing a great many templars in his life, and all of them had been human, for better or worse. An elf also ruled out Carta involvement, since those were all dwarves, and Anders couldn’t imagine them expanding their interests so widely so fast, at least not before a few good stories were written about it as fair warning.
That left the Coterie, or some other, smaller outfit that hadn’t yet made its interests known. After all, the one certainty in Kirkwall was that there’d always be another gang vying for control of the streets. Information was traded like currency in Lowtown; after all the interest shown regarding the clinic, Anders could only presume they were the next hot topic of choice, the mystery of their operations concealed only by the impassive wall of Fereldan loyalty that stood between them and being sold out.
Anders was proud of that loyalty, in his own way. He couldn’t count himself a member of its forces-not truly-but the Fereldans had as good as made him one of their own. Every now and then even an apostate needed to belong to something, even if that something smelled of mud and dog and festering wounds.
‘No,’ Anders sad. He stepped away, mourning the crick in his back. It would just get worse the longer he left it; wasn’t he was always warning his patients of the very same danger? ‘That won’t be necessary-I’ll take care of it. Thank you, Lirene.’
‘And we’ll soon see if anyone’s welcome,’ Lirene replied.
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No; Lirene’s instincts were usually spot-on. They had another lurker on their hands. Blowing their cover would be the best way to get them to leave-letting them know that they weren’t as sneaky as they imagined would shame them into trotting off, hopefully to tell their employer just how dreadful it was in Darktown’s free clinic. No unsung heroes there-certainly not wealthy ones-but rather an unparalleled collection of the down, the dirty and the destitute.
People so often made the mistake of imagining most Fereldans were stupid; no doubt it had something to do with the mud and the dogs again, but Lirene was the sort who did so love proving people wrong.
Anders was starting to love it, too, if only because Darktown offered few clear triumphs, and ‘feeling smarter than other people’ was one of them.
Outside the clinic, he was greeted with the usual gathering of foul-mouthed children on the landing by the stairs, one of them reciting a joyfully lewd rhyme about the viscount, and either a drunk or a possessed pile of rags was sleeping up against the clinic’s far wall. However, there was no sign of an elf, armored or otherwise.
Anders liked to think his powers of observation had improved since he’d come to Kirkwall. He knew what to look for now, and how to tell by the shiver down his spine when he was being watched. He recognized, implicitly, the glint of sunlight off burnished armor, the soft clank of greaves as someone knelt in the soil, the hiss of a sword being drawn from its scabbard: these were all sounds an apostate had to memorize, to recognize in an instant if he wished to maintain his life and his freedom.
Anders was quite fond of both.
Yet there was none of that in the immediate vicinity. Elves were small, but they were not invisible-last Anders had checked-and the ones who wore armor made just as much noise as everyone else. The longer Anders stood in front of the door, feeling like an idiot as the children stopped their play-time to stare at the funny man with the feathered shoulders, the more certain he became.
If there ever had been someone watching the clinic, they were long gone now.
‘Wonderful,’ Anders muttered. He reached up to douse the lamp over the door, just to be on the safe side. Now that they didn’t know what they were dealing with-now that there was yet another spy out there, one with motivations Anders had no current means of discerning-it made sense to close down for the day.
Karl didn’t like to take chances. He was serious about his other work, even more serious than he was about his precious clinic.
*
Karl was heading out of the back room when Anders returned inside, bearing the long metal lantern snuffer in one hand, the other tucked in a deep, empty pocket. Despite the serious matters they’d been discussing, both Karl and his associate were smiling.
‘Closing early?’ Malcolm asked, rubbing a hand over his graying beard. Anders had always found it peculiar that both Karl and his oldest friend had chosen to cultivate such similar facial hair. It made Anders feel like the odd man out-though not so much that he’d ever thought of growing one himself.
It was one thing to make that decision, to grow anything more assertive than simple stubble-it meant something, signified a definitive choice, and Anders wasn’t ready to be that person yet.
That person: an apostate in Darktown with gray streaks in his beard.
There were far too many of those already.
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‘Again?’ Karl clapped Malcolm on the shoulder; there was something meaningful about the gesture, some agreement they’d come to in that Private Business Room in the back, some resolve they were currently sharing even as they said nothing to each other. ‘Really, Anders, I’m starting to think you should only tell me when-’
‘-when there aren’t people wearing armor casing the place?’ Anders concluded for him, with only a hint of a question. If ever there was a sign he’d been with Karl for too long, their penchant for finishing one another’s sentences was it. ‘That’s exactly what I said to Lirene when she pointed it out. Awful busybody, that woman.’
‘Completely invaluable,’ Malcolm agreed.
Anders made a face-he called it his Malcolm face, the one he reserved for moments just like this one. ‘Yes. Exactly what I meant. Not what I said, but I’m so glad you know me better.’
‘Templar?’ Karl asked. Anders shook his head. ‘Carta? Coterie?’
‘Just trying to keep us on our toes, I suspect,’ Anders said. ‘Elf. Armored elf. Fun, isn’t it? You’d almost think we were doing something dangerous, risking our lives for smelly wounds and no profit. Not to mention the body odor-’
‘I’ll look into it, if you’d like,’ Malcolm offered, already halfway out the door.
‘Don’t put yourself out on our accounts,’ Karl said. ‘Really. I insist.’
‘If he doesn’t,’ Anders muttered, ‘then who will? No one, that’s who. And someone’s always better than-’
‘I’ll see what I can have my boys do,’ Malcolm said. He left with a wave for both of them, jaunty and cheerful, and Anders paused where he stood to lean back into the push of his thumbs at the base of his spine, while Karl lit their smallest lamp, just enough to send light through the empty room. Enormous shadows were cast between the pillars, splaying over the floor; Anders spread his fingers wide, and tried, sneakily, to send a few bursts of healing magic into his joints, just before Karl straightened and caught him at it.
Anders smiled weakly. Karl rolled his eyes.
And it was all right, because it was always all right.
‘His boys.’ Now it was Anders’s turn to roll his eyes, perching on a nearby cot and reaching for freshly-washed bandages that were in need of rolling. Karl, he decided, looked distant-not troubled, but thoughtful, which was about as troubled as Karl ever allowed himself to get. Anders busied himself with the busiest work of all, something quick for his fingers to make short shrift of. Every now and then, he had to remind himself why it was so important to be useful. ‘Sometimes I wonder if Malcolm Hawke isn’t as dangerous as the Coterie already. Don’t you wonder that sometimes, Karl?’
‘There’s a difference,’ Karl insisted, ‘between what he does, and what they do.’
Anders shrugged. ‘So you say. But all I’m saying is, it might be nice if that difference could see its way toward being a little more obvious once in a while.’
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Anders twisted clean cotton around his fingers. Everything smelled of elfroot here, in this one, blessed corner of the clinic. ‘No need to be so gloomy,’ he said, plopping the bandage in the crate beside him-all things in their proper place. ‘How about some delicious stewed rat for dinner? That always cheers you up.’
Annnnd that's all for today. I said I would get it up Wednesday and I didn't want to make you wait any longer! So it's a bit early in the day for my usual posting time, but I'm heading out and I just wanted to make good on my promise. Again, I really hope it's not too far off the mark or anything like that, and I usually post every other day, so... I'll see you here again Friday! ♥ Eep. New fill posting jitters are definitely go...!
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You're off to a bang-up start here!
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Loving this start- it seems clever and fun. I'll be watching for more. :)
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