There's No Justice (It's Just Him)
A/N: Initially written for dragonage_kink, comment thread is here. This version has been edited slightly for minor grammatical and style errors. If there are to be any warnings, though, they'd be for unrealistic expectations -- there's no smut, sex, romance or nswf content in this at all.
Original prompt: Please, oh please, someone cross over Ankh-Morpork with Kirkwall. In any way possible! Whether it's Aveline chatting with Sam Vimes while fighting crime, or Reg Shoe and Anders drafting explanatory pamphlets, or the Unseen University vs the templars, anything!
---
The first thing he sees is the rictus grin of a skull in front of his face, blue flames burning away cheerily in its eye sockets. It's crazy, possibly mad to think that everything's over already, but even so he does have to say something. It seems to be expected, after all. So:
"Justice?" Anders asks.
I'm afraid not, the skull replies.
It's about then that he notices the rest of the body -- the rest of the skeleton that's attached to the skull he's talking to, and the scythe et. al.. If he wasn't mad already, then, Anders thinks, he's definitely gone at least slightly insane.
Good thing he's got experience with that, then. Mad Anders, joining the Grey Wardens because escaping from the Fereldan Circle seven times just wasn't enough for him!
"Sorry," he apologises, catching his breath and looking around before he realises that he hasn't got any breath to catch. "You looked like someone I knew, once. Thought all the flesh had finally rotted off him -- that's morbid, isn't it? Wish I could have lent him a hand." He tries to chuckle at that, but the sound of his own voice, joking, seems strangely raw. After a moment, he tries for another laugh, but it falls as flat as the first.
The skeleton gives him an odd look, the flames in its eyes dimming slightly and then flare up again. It looks, if one squints in just the right manner, rather like a slow blink. Since he's not squinting, to Anders it just looks like some lights going off and on.
In a literal manner, some would say that you did do so.
"Wait, what? I didn't quite catch that."
That you lent your friend a hand. And another hand, and two arms, two legs, a torso and a head, along with assorted moving parts.
"I did? I did," he says, starting to remember. Bending down, he reaches a hand out to touch his fingers to the knife buried hilt deep in his back, not entirely surprised when they pass right through it. "That was a good thing to do, wasn't it? Helping a friend. I thought it was what he wanted. Or what I wanted. It seemed like a bright idea at the time, anyway."
There's no reply to that, but Anders wasn't really expecting one. Instead, his brow furrows as he looks over what seems to be his own face.
"Makers Breath," he mutters, "I got old."
There's something that might be a laugh and might be a sigh from the skeleton -- he's not even sure if it counts as a sound, though, since it seems as if he doesn't have any corporal ears to hear it with.
Around him, Anders is vaguely conscious of the fact that something seems to be burning. Still, he can't quite remember what it is, only that it's something he ought to know about.
Whatever it was, though, it doesn't feel very important to him now -- not when there are more pertinent things like being freshly dead taking up his mind. Looking up, he opens his mouth to say something, but then pauses. There are questions he should ask, about people and endings and whether he's made a difference to anyone at all...
"Well," he starts, and then gets to his feet, wondering why his hands seem to be clean. There should be something on them; blood, probably, though he isn't certain whose. "Well, what happens now? And who are you?"
There's a slight tilt to the skeleton's head at that which gives it an almost quizzical appearance, but from the leaden intonations of its speech Anders would figure that very little is, in fact, a puzzle to whomever or whatever it is he's speaking to right now.
You mistook me for someone you knew a long time ago, it says, He was the embodiment of a single ideal. I am similar in function, if not form.
Anders doesn't have to look at his own motionless body dressed in unfamiliar clothes lying at his feet to know what that means.
"So," he says, somewhat surprised to find that he has a smile on his face, "definitely not him, then."
You will not find justice here, Death confirms with a nod. Only me.
---
He isn't sure when the world around him starts to change as the surroundings take on a decidedly surreal appearance, one he recognises from walking about it in his sleep for every night of his life. This time, though, it's a part of the Fade that he's never travelled to before, a desert surrounded by mountains, the chill wind of the night air somewhat refreshing after the chaos and fire that he supposes most of him is still lying in.
"I still can't remember everything, you know," Anders says, looking out into the expanse. "I feel like -- like I've been having a dream that I was someone else, and that I've only just woken up as myself. Do you ever have dreams like that? Or can spirits of the Fade even dream?" He laughs again, and this time, it doesn't feel so forced. "That's a good thought, though, a dream within a dream. Or nightmare. Nightmare within a nightmare? Imagine that, you'd wake up and just go from one screaming horror to another. I don't think I'd wish that on anyone."
The lights in the skeleton's eyes seem to dim again. Not even on the Templars?
"They deal with randy young mages getting up to no good in dark corners by day and struggle with Chantry sponsored lyrium addiction by night, I think that's more than enough trouble without me adding on to it." His shadow seems longer, now. And even though he's still talking, Anders can't help but feel that less and less of this actually matters to anyone but him. There's no one else to tell it to, though, but the embodiment of a concept he's feeling more well acquainted with than he would like to be.
"You know, all I ever really wanted was freedom for myself," he says, "duck my head and lie low, avoid the Templars if they ever decided to come knocking. I'm not even sure if I can blame other people for dragging me into this, or if I'm the one that caused all of it. Maybe it's both. Maybe neither."
I suspect you will have a long while to think on the answer to that question, Death says, looking out at the desert. Anders is inclined to agree. It seems very large, and very empty.
Too empty.
He is suddenly, terrifyingly conscious of the fact that once Death leaves him, he will be alone.
He hasn't been alone for a very long time.
"Wait," he says, "wait, you can't just -- I don't know my way. I don't know where to go."
There is always the other side.
But he doesn't know what's there, he wants to say, or if there'd even be anything at the other side of the desert for someone like him. And though he doesn't remember everything, Anders is starting to become conscious of rather more than he'd like to recall and a good portion of that is making him feel distinctly uncomfortable with the only company he suspects he's going to have for a very long time -- or rather, himself.
His words die on his lips, though, because there's little point in speaking out loud when no one's listening to you.
There's not even Death now. It's just the desert.
---
Anders isn't sure how long he's been walking.
There have been moments where he's thought of giving up, lying down and letting the shifting sands bury him, but each time he tries to do so, it seems as if the past starts catching up with him. The memories of everything he once had start playing before his eyes, and before long he finds himself crawling to his feet and stumbling on. When he walks for hours and only slumps down out of exhaustion, he's too far gone to think of anything but the physical agony, the blisters on his feet, the headaches and the tiredness.
Somehow, it's still better than the alternative.
He's grateful that he can even feel this much. At first he'd been afraid that he'd lost all that, but it seemed as if even though he didn't exactly have a physical body to feel how much this should hurt, his mind happily made up the gap by supplying him with the right amount of pain that he ought to feel.
He'd tried to talk to himself, once, when the silence had been almost too much to take and he hadn't felt tired enough to stop for the night (or day, or twilight, or whatever the time seemed to be). But he'd heard something almost similar to Justice's voice in his own tone and ended up dropping to his knees, wondering if it was even possible to mourn for someone you weren't sure could die.
At that instant, he'd have even welcomed back Vengance, just for the sake of having someone to call him a fool for taking his time and drive him on to do something, anything that would have a meaning.
The moment had passed, though, and since that time he's walked on in silence, accompanied only by the shifting shadows the Black City cast across the sands when it passed before the moon.
Since he died -- and he's coming to terms with that, he realises, though it'll be a long while before he's able to think of it without recalling the sensation of a sharp blade sliding between his ribs and into his heart -- his mind's been clearer than it's been in years.
He knows, if nothing else, that any thoughts he has here, in this place, are his alone. It's a bit of a pain, since there's no one else he can blame them on but himself, but... at the same time, he thinks, and smiles.
At the same time, it's not so bad.
---
He's heard nothing else but the sound of his own breathing for however long it's been since that last disastrous attempt at speech that he half suspects he's going mad again when he realises that something else is moving out in the desert. Anders knows he's not so tired that he should stop just yet, so he slogs on.
Only to stop dead in his tracks when he hears something that's too familiar for his liking.
"You bastard," he says, "you wouldn't."
Breaking into a run, he heads for an outcrop of rubble that's a short distance away. There'd always been items inside such small piles, he'd cracked a joke once that whoever was who kept leaving valuable amulets and belts around in rocks ought to have their heads and wallets checked by him but this time he simply crouches down before even reaching it and digs about in a pouch he hadn't realised he was carrying until now and takes out what's inside.
"Come on, you," Anders calls, his voice hoarse and barely above a whisper. "Come on, I know you're there. This is your favourite, isn't it? And you must be hungry for a treat, you always were --"
There's a second meow, before Ser Pounce-a-lot pads out, gingerly accepts the offering of smoked fish from his fingers and then crawls into his lap.
The weight of the cat is a constant, heavy presence on his legs and Anders can't help but think about how real this all seems as he rests his hand on the cat's back, ruffling its fur. "You got bigger," he says. "You got bigger, but since I got older I think that's fair. Maker's breath..."
For all he's saying, though, Ser Pounce-a-lot seems as oblivious to his words as ever, turning to sniff at his hand and then at the pouch on his belt that Anders knows is filled with all sorts of treats that he won't be running out of any time soon. It's all going far too well, except --
"Kitty," he asks, "are you dead?"
If this is what a dead cat looks like, though, then he has to say he's impressed. Then again, he's a dead human with no sign of a knife in his back, his coat and boots still both in good condition. Given all the walking he's been doing, that's also somewhat unexpected.
It's a shame that cats can't talk back, but from the way Ser Pounce-a-lot has sunk claws into his legs while trying to open the pouch with his teeth and how it hurts in a manner that's completely different from how tiredness hurts, or memories hurt, Anders figures out quickly enough that this question is fairly irrelevant. The cat may or may not be dead, but it is still a cat and it is, apparently, hungry for snacks.
"I suppose it's enough that you're here," he says, smiling and scooping the cat into his arms before standing up. "You know, I can remember everything now, and I can certainly remember that you didn't use to be so heavy. You've been conning food out of the nice Warden Commander, haven't you? Sneaky fat thing."
The only reply to that is a meow, and this is also something he remembers, talking idiotically to the one pet that had meant so much to him. Only it's not a memory, any more, this is old and new again.
"Do you know, kitty," Anders starts, "I thought --"
I'd lost you, is what he wants to say, but obviously he was wrong, so it's something that doesn't need saying any more. Doing its part to contribute to the conversation, though, Ser Pounce-a-lot clambers onto his shoulder and while Anders can't quite catch the expression on the cat's face, he's willing to bet that it radiates smugness.
This would not, in itself, be an unreasonable bet, given the tendency of cats to radiate only a number of different emotions, of which smugness is an unbearably common one.
He catches himself laughing and stops, listening to the sound fade off into the desert, every bit as wide as the first time he saw it.
"I still don't know if there's even another side, you know," he says, "but there ought to be something else in this place. And if you're sticking around, well, who knows what we might find? There might be anything out there! Hurlocks, mabaris, adventure..."
And maybe, he thinks, just maybe --
If he walks for long enough and far enough, he might even find himself.
Original prompt: Please, oh please, someone cross over Ankh-Morpork with Kirkwall. In any way possible! Whether it's Aveline chatting with Sam Vimes while fighting crime, or Reg Shoe and Anders drafting explanatory pamphlets, or the Unseen University vs the templars, anything!
---
The first thing he sees is the rictus grin of a skull in front of his face, blue flames burning away cheerily in its eye sockets. It's crazy, possibly mad to think that everything's over already, but even so he does have to say something. It seems to be expected, after all. So:
"Justice?" Anders asks.
I'm afraid not, the skull replies.
It's about then that he notices the rest of the body -- the rest of the skeleton that's attached to the skull he's talking to, and the scythe et. al.. If he wasn't mad already, then, Anders thinks, he's definitely gone at least slightly insane.
Good thing he's got experience with that, then. Mad Anders, joining the Grey Wardens because escaping from the Fereldan Circle seven times just wasn't enough for him!
"Sorry," he apologises, catching his breath and looking around before he realises that he hasn't got any breath to catch. "You looked like someone I knew, once. Thought all the flesh had finally rotted off him -- that's morbid, isn't it? Wish I could have lent him a hand." He tries to chuckle at that, but the sound of his own voice, joking, seems strangely raw. After a moment, he tries for another laugh, but it falls as flat as the first.
The skeleton gives him an odd look, the flames in its eyes dimming slightly and then flare up again. It looks, if one squints in just the right manner, rather like a slow blink. Since he's not squinting, to Anders it just looks like some lights going off and on.
In a literal manner, some would say that you did do so.
"Wait, what? I didn't quite catch that."
That you lent your friend a hand. And another hand, and two arms, two legs, a torso and a head, along with assorted moving parts.
"I did? I did," he says, starting to remember. Bending down, he reaches a hand out to touch his fingers to the knife buried hilt deep in his back, not entirely surprised when they pass right through it. "That was a good thing to do, wasn't it? Helping a friend. I thought it was what he wanted. Or what I wanted. It seemed like a bright idea at the time, anyway."
There's no reply to that, but Anders wasn't really expecting one. Instead, his brow furrows as he looks over what seems to be his own face.
"Makers Breath," he mutters, "I got old."
There's something that might be a laugh and might be a sigh from the skeleton -- he's not even sure if it counts as a sound, though, since it seems as if he doesn't have any corporal ears to hear it with.
Around him, Anders is vaguely conscious of the fact that something seems to be burning. Still, he can't quite remember what it is, only that it's something he ought to know about.
Whatever it was, though, it doesn't feel very important to him now -- not when there are more pertinent things like being freshly dead taking up his mind. Looking up, he opens his mouth to say something, but then pauses. There are questions he should ask, about people and endings and whether he's made a difference to anyone at all...
"Well," he starts, and then gets to his feet, wondering why his hands seem to be clean. There should be something on them; blood, probably, though he isn't certain whose. "Well, what happens now? And who are you?"
There's a slight tilt to the skeleton's head at that which gives it an almost quizzical appearance, but from the leaden intonations of its speech Anders would figure that very little is, in fact, a puzzle to whomever or whatever it is he's speaking to right now.
You mistook me for someone you knew a long time ago, it says, He was the embodiment of a single ideal. I am similar in function, if not form.
Anders doesn't have to look at his own motionless body dressed in unfamiliar clothes lying at his feet to know what that means.
"So," he says, somewhat surprised to find that he has a smile on his face, "definitely not him, then."
You will not find justice here, Death confirms with a nod. Only me.
---
He isn't sure when the world around him starts to change as the surroundings take on a decidedly surreal appearance, one he recognises from walking about it in his sleep for every night of his life. This time, though, it's a part of the Fade that he's never travelled to before, a desert surrounded by mountains, the chill wind of the night air somewhat refreshing after the chaos and fire that he supposes most of him is still lying in.
"I still can't remember everything, you know," Anders says, looking out into the expanse. "I feel like -- like I've been having a dream that I was someone else, and that I've only just woken up as myself. Do you ever have dreams like that? Or can spirits of the Fade even dream?" He laughs again, and this time, it doesn't feel so forced. "That's a good thought, though, a dream within a dream. Or nightmare. Nightmare within a nightmare? Imagine that, you'd wake up and just go from one screaming horror to another. I don't think I'd wish that on anyone."
The lights in the skeleton's eyes seem to dim again. Not even on the Templars?
"They deal with randy young mages getting up to no good in dark corners by day and struggle with Chantry sponsored lyrium addiction by night, I think that's more than enough trouble without me adding on to it." His shadow seems longer, now. And even though he's still talking, Anders can't help but feel that less and less of this actually matters to anyone but him. There's no one else to tell it to, though, but the embodiment of a concept he's feeling more well acquainted with than he would like to be.
"You know, all I ever really wanted was freedom for myself," he says, "duck my head and lie low, avoid the Templars if they ever decided to come knocking. I'm not even sure if I can blame other people for dragging me into this, or if I'm the one that caused all of it. Maybe it's both. Maybe neither."
I suspect you will have a long while to think on the answer to that question, Death says, looking out at the desert. Anders is inclined to agree. It seems very large, and very empty.
Too empty.
He is suddenly, terrifyingly conscious of the fact that once Death leaves him, he will be alone.
He hasn't been alone for a very long time.
"Wait," he says, "wait, you can't just -- I don't know my way. I don't know where to go."
There is always the other side.
But he doesn't know what's there, he wants to say, or if there'd even be anything at the other side of the desert for someone like him. And though he doesn't remember everything, Anders is starting to become conscious of rather more than he'd like to recall and a good portion of that is making him feel distinctly uncomfortable with the only company he suspects he's going to have for a very long time -- or rather, himself.
His words die on his lips, though, because there's little point in speaking out loud when no one's listening to you.
There's not even Death now. It's just the desert.
---
Anders isn't sure how long he's been walking.
There have been moments where he's thought of giving up, lying down and letting the shifting sands bury him, but each time he tries to do so, it seems as if the past starts catching up with him. The memories of everything he once had start playing before his eyes, and before long he finds himself crawling to his feet and stumbling on. When he walks for hours and only slumps down out of exhaustion, he's too far gone to think of anything but the physical agony, the blisters on his feet, the headaches and the tiredness.
Somehow, it's still better than the alternative.
He's grateful that he can even feel this much. At first he'd been afraid that he'd lost all that, but it seemed as if even though he didn't exactly have a physical body to feel how much this should hurt, his mind happily made up the gap by supplying him with the right amount of pain that he ought to feel.
He'd tried to talk to himself, once, when the silence had been almost too much to take and he hadn't felt tired enough to stop for the night (or day, or twilight, or whatever the time seemed to be). But he'd heard something almost similar to Justice's voice in his own tone and ended up dropping to his knees, wondering if it was even possible to mourn for someone you weren't sure could die.
At that instant, he'd have even welcomed back Vengance, just for the sake of having someone to call him a fool for taking his time and drive him on to do something, anything that would have a meaning.
The moment had passed, though, and since that time he's walked on in silence, accompanied only by the shifting shadows the Black City cast across the sands when it passed before the moon.
Since he died -- and he's coming to terms with that, he realises, though it'll be a long while before he's able to think of it without recalling the sensation of a sharp blade sliding between his ribs and into his heart -- his mind's been clearer than it's been in years.
He knows, if nothing else, that any thoughts he has here, in this place, are his alone. It's a bit of a pain, since there's no one else he can blame them on but himself, but... at the same time, he thinks, and smiles.
At the same time, it's not so bad.
---
He's heard nothing else but the sound of his own breathing for however long it's been since that last disastrous attempt at speech that he half suspects he's going mad again when he realises that something else is moving out in the desert. Anders knows he's not so tired that he should stop just yet, so he slogs on.
Only to stop dead in his tracks when he hears something that's too familiar for his liking.
"You bastard," he says, "you wouldn't."
Breaking into a run, he heads for an outcrop of rubble that's a short distance away. There'd always been items inside such small piles, he'd cracked a joke once that whoever was who kept leaving valuable amulets and belts around in rocks ought to have their heads and wallets checked by him but this time he simply crouches down before even reaching it and digs about in a pouch he hadn't realised he was carrying until now and takes out what's inside.
"Come on, you," Anders calls, his voice hoarse and barely above a whisper. "Come on, I know you're there. This is your favourite, isn't it? And you must be hungry for a treat, you always were --"
There's a second meow, before Ser Pounce-a-lot pads out, gingerly accepts the offering of smoked fish from his fingers and then crawls into his lap.
The weight of the cat is a constant, heavy presence on his legs and Anders can't help but think about how real this all seems as he rests his hand on the cat's back, ruffling its fur. "You got bigger," he says. "You got bigger, but since I got older I think that's fair. Maker's breath..."
For all he's saying, though, Ser Pounce-a-lot seems as oblivious to his words as ever, turning to sniff at his hand and then at the pouch on his belt that Anders knows is filled with all sorts of treats that he won't be running out of any time soon. It's all going far too well, except --
"Kitty," he asks, "are you dead?"
If this is what a dead cat looks like, though, then he has to say he's impressed. Then again, he's a dead human with no sign of a knife in his back, his coat and boots still both in good condition. Given all the walking he's been doing, that's also somewhat unexpected.
It's a shame that cats can't talk back, but from the way Ser Pounce-a-lot has sunk claws into his legs while trying to open the pouch with his teeth and how it hurts in a manner that's completely different from how tiredness hurts, or memories hurt, Anders figures out quickly enough that this question is fairly irrelevant. The cat may or may not be dead, but it is still a cat and it is, apparently, hungry for snacks.
"I suppose it's enough that you're here," he says, smiling and scooping the cat into his arms before standing up. "You know, I can remember everything now, and I can certainly remember that you didn't use to be so heavy. You've been conning food out of the nice Warden Commander, haven't you? Sneaky fat thing."
The only reply to that is a meow, and this is also something he remembers, talking idiotically to the one pet that had meant so much to him. Only it's not a memory, any more, this is old and new again.
"Do you know, kitty," Anders starts, "I thought --"
I'd lost you, is what he wants to say, but obviously he was wrong, so it's something that doesn't need saying any more. Doing its part to contribute to the conversation, though, Ser Pounce-a-lot clambers onto his shoulder and while Anders can't quite catch the expression on the cat's face, he's willing to bet that it radiates smugness.
This would not, in itself, be an unreasonable bet, given the tendency of cats to radiate only a number of different emotions, of which smugness is an unbearably common one.
He catches himself laughing and stops, listening to the sound fade off into the desert, every bit as wide as the first time he saw it.
"I still don't know if there's even another side, you know," he says, "but there ought to be something else in this place. And if you're sticking around, well, who knows what we might find? There might be anything out there! Hurlocks, mabaris, adventure..."
And maybe, he thinks, just maybe --
If he walks for long enough and far enough, he might even find himself.