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.
‘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.
Reply
Leave a comment