SANCTUM AND HEALING (12/?)
anonymous
November 28 2011, 22:01:45 UTC
It was Varric who took his seat there, though Anders could feel the dwarf’s eyes lingering on him-just as he could feel the sight of the mechanized crossbow, also lingering, should he attempt to make a run for it.
Anders’s ankle gave an untimely throb, almost as though it meant to remind him how well that escape plan would fare. And if he did run, where would he go? The City of Chains was out of the question, just like a man wouldn’t run from the darkspawn into the burbling pits of the Blackmarsh while imagining a preferable outcome.
Anders wished he’d asked Nathaniel more about his time in the Free Marches, boring as those stories were, without all the danger and roguish excitement and sexual charm he’d expected. Mostly, he wished Nathaniel had mentioned the mountain mages, and whether Ostwick had a port that sailed ships back to Ferelden, taking wanted apostates on board for little to no coin.
Fenris continued to stare Anders down-he might just as well have been the demon, a gaze bestowed with more deadly promise than Varric’s weapon-but Hawke’s back was to Anders now, and Anders’s question went unanswered, just one of many.
‘Tell me you have good news,’ Hawke said instead. His fingers traced the corner of a worn patch against his knee, where someone had sewn a tear in the fabric. It was a restless motion, the first time Anders had seen him close to fidgeting. He wondered if Hawke regretted not bringing his staff, to have something solid he might steady his hands against, the same way Anders was doing now-tracing a familiar line up and down the curved wood with his thumb, until the skin started burning.
‘Starkhaven is as vile a seat of exploitative power as ever,’ Fenris said. His fingers flexed-he had the talons, whereas Hawke, despite the name, didn’t. ‘The Circle has expanded to three separate sites in order to accommodate its prisoners. The newest is guarded more fiercely than the king himself, while the others stand at the center of town, surrounded by merchants and their wares. They do not think to guard them, because there is nothing of value worth stealing inside.’
Anders felt the grip of an icy fist close around the pit of his ribcage-a sharp hand, just like Fenris’s, reaching through muscle and bone to bury shards of frost in the quickening muscles of his heart. Nathaniel had never mentioned Starkhaven or its Circle, but Anders couldn’t imagine such news would have escaped Lake Calenhad’s gossip-a place where there were too many imprisoned mages to be stored within a single building.
Varric whistled, but it wasn’t a jolly tune. ‘Choirboy sure turned out to be one determined enthusiast, didn’t he?’
‘Sebastian is doing what he believes is just,’ Fenris said, wide eyes hooded beneath his lids. ‘As are you, dwarf-and you as well, Hawke.’
‘And you,’ Hawke added, the easy grace of his shoulders lost, or at least forgotten. Anders could see the bad back he’d mentioned now, all the spots of raw tension where he carried his burdens the way Keran had hefted that desk, the sort of ache a good poultice couldn’t fix.
‘Yes-and me,’ Fenris agreed. He rubbed his nose against a steel-tipped knuckle, snorting inelegantly. ‘We are all fools. And now-’ His sharp fingers swung through the air, gauntleted thumb curved into a point, forefinger tracing a single line that stretched from his chest to the nose on Anders’s face. Anders pressed at the side of said nose with a knuckle, shifting the balance of his weight, watching light glint off dark metal and the light swallowed up by Fenris’s narrowed eyes. ‘And now,’ Fenris concluded, ‘this.’
There was no mistaking the subject of his appraisal: Anders, the only other person left standing, squared off against a formidable enemy. He knew the elf’s name, but not his purpose, nor the source of his animosity, nor whether he’d be dragged up to the nearest peak and tossed over if Fenris decided he was having a bad day. Which, from the looks of it, he was. His fingertips scrabbled along the insides of his gloves, a skittering sound, like the chitinous scramble of childer grubs unfurling their armored bodies, scuttling across the stone floors of Kal’Hirol, conferencing in childer-grub chatter in the dark.
Anders’s ankle gave an untimely throb, almost as though it meant to remind him how well that escape plan would fare. And if he did run, where would he go? The City of Chains was out of the question, just like a man wouldn’t run from the darkspawn into the burbling pits of the Blackmarsh while imagining a preferable outcome.
Anders wished he’d asked Nathaniel more about his time in the Free Marches, boring as those stories were, without all the danger and roguish excitement and sexual charm he’d expected. Mostly, he wished Nathaniel had mentioned the mountain mages, and whether Ostwick had a port that sailed ships back to Ferelden, taking wanted apostates on board for little to no coin.
Fenris continued to stare Anders down-he might just as well have been the demon, a gaze bestowed with more deadly promise than Varric’s weapon-but Hawke’s back was to Anders now, and Anders’s question went unanswered, just one of many.
‘Tell me you have good news,’ Hawke said instead. His fingers traced the corner of a worn patch against his knee, where someone had sewn a tear in the fabric. It was a restless motion, the first time Anders had seen him close to fidgeting. He wondered if Hawke regretted not bringing his staff, to have something solid he might steady his hands against, the same way Anders was doing now-tracing a familiar line up and down the curved wood with his thumb, until the skin started burning.
‘Starkhaven is as vile a seat of exploitative power as ever,’ Fenris said. His fingers flexed-he had the talons, whereas Hawke, despite the name, didn’t. ‘The Circle has expanded to three separate sites in order to accommodate its prisoners. The newest is guarded more fiercely than the king himself, while the others stand at the center of town, surrounded by merchants and their wares. They do not think to guard them, because there is nothing of value worth stealing inside.’
Anders felt the grip of an icy fist close around the pit of his ribcage-a sharp hand, just like Fenris’s, reaching through muscle and bone to bury shards of frost in the quickening muscles of his heart. Nathaniel had never mentioned Starkhaven or its Circle, but Anders couldn’t imagine such news would have escaped Lake Calenhad’s gossip-a place where there were too many imprisoned mages to be stored within a single building.
Varric whistled, but it wasn’t a jolly tune. ‘Choirboy sure turned out to be one determined enthusiast, didn’t he?’
‘Sebastian is doing what he believes is just,’ Fenris said, wide eyes hooded beneath his lids. ‘As are you, dwarf-and you as well, Hawke.’
‘And you,’ Hawke added, the easy grace of his shoulders lost, or at least forgotten. Anders could see the bad back he’d mentioned now, all the spots of raw tension where he carried his burdens the way Keran had hefted that desk, the sort of ache a good poultice couldn’t fix.
‘Yes-and me,’ Fenris agreed. He rubbed his nose against a steel-tipped knuckle, snorting inelegantly. ‘We are all fools. And now-’ His sharp fingers swung through the air, gauntleted thumb curved into a point, forefinger tracing a single line that stretched from his chest to the nose on Anders’s face. Anders pressed at the side of said nose with a knuckle, shifting the balance of his weight, watching light glint off dark metal and the light swallowed up by Fenris’s narrowed eyes. ‘And now,’ Fenris concluded, ‘this.’
There was no mistaking the subject of his appraisal: Anders, the only other person left standing, squared off against a formidable enemy. He knew the elf’s name, but not his purpose, nor the source of his animosity, nor whether he’d be dragged up to the nearest peak and tossed over if Fenris decided he was having a bad day. Which, from the looks of it, he was. His fingertips scrabbled along the insides of his gloves, a skittering sound, like the chitinous scramble of childer grubs unfurling their armored bodies, scuttling across the stone floors of Kal’Hirol, conferencing in childer-grub chatter in the dark.
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