Chapter 1

Patriarch

Time was an odd phenomenon. When you are having a good time it slips through your fingers like sand; when you are having an awful time it slips through your fingers like mud. When you are on the verge of death it seems to sit in the palms of your hands like a book, the pages rapidly flicking before your eyes, telling you everything and anything that you might want to remember before your mind is lost forever.

Time and death, hand in hand, had taken his soul and laid it bare. Sitting before the fire with his mother singing in the background while she sewed or cooked or bundled herbs, filling the air with delicious smells; Karl's raucous laughter when Anders had tripped Cullen with the rug, followed by reserved snickering while he was being scolded; Mr Wiggums purring contentedly as Anders scratched beneath the cat's chin, taking the moment of comfort to ignore the thought of his year long incarceration as best he could. Hawke's wonderful smiles. His calloused fingers, threading through Anders' hair. His sweet kisses, trailing along Anders' jaw. The dagger sliding into his body, the dagger spiralling away from his hand, the dagger sliding into his body, the pain, the dark and the fear slipping into numb acceptance.

There is only so long you can run from death before you are caught. Time and death, hand in hand; time had chased him down and death had taken what was rightfully his. So many times he had wanted nothing but this terrible finality to take his life and so often he had evaded its grasp. Ironically this was one of the few times his dreadful urge for death had not been true.

He did not want to die. He did not want to leave behind Hawke and his friends and his cause and the Darktowners and the resistance and Madam and his life. He did not want the big 'this is it' to descend and sweep it all away...but he would give it gladly in sacrifice for their lives. For Hawke, whom he loved more than his own life, and for Callum, whom he saw as so like himself. For them he would give it. For them he would gladly face the darkness with a smile and a 'you took your time'. Admittedly he had not known what to expect; eternal nothingness, a loss of all consciousness, something else entirely? In this spiral of doubt, which had continued to plague him as he wound his way through his memories and beyond, he wondered if Vengeance had been right. That there was no afterlife. That death was the end. If that is so, Anders thought, then why do I still think?

He did not remember waking. As quickly as he had thought that very thought, of the paradox of his continuing existence, he had found himself here. If there had been some sort of time lapse between these two rather major events, Anders knew nothing of it. One hundred years could have slipped by him like a running stream and he would have been none the wiser. All he knew, as he looked around the room in which he now stood, was that he was quite sure the afterlife wouldn't look as arbitrary as this.

It was somewhat familiar and yet not from any memory of his own. It was familiar in the way a fairy tale castle would have been familiar, as described vividly and theatrically by an enthusiastic parent. Oddly enough the transition between disembodied consciousness and this sudden wholeness of being was smooth and seemed, somehow, entirely normal. Anders looked around himself and took in this new construction with eyes unclouded by fear or doubt.

He recognised its features more than recalled the image as a whole. A small house by the feel of it, low roofed and reinforced with thick beams, a cosy fire burning in a deep fireplace, a table covered in herbs, minerals, powders and empty, sparkling vials. He could have sworn he heard chickens clucking outside the window. The air was warm, wet and smelled distinctly of marjoram. He felt as if he should know this place and yet everything was as familiar as it was unfamiliar.

It was an odd sensation, this calm. He remembered, so vaguely, the vivid pain in his chest, the idea of blood flowing and the smell of fire and rotten death. The newness and purity of the scene seemed to him a placid layer of sunlit water under which was rising a dark, hateful bubble of reality, working its way furiously towards the surface. Where is Justice? Anders thought laconically, where is Vengeance? Where am I? He turned around in a slow shuffling circle, only to stop dead as the sunlight hit his face.

The man who stood in the doorway, staring at him with a deep frown marring his forehead, was entirely unknown to him. Anders stared back, unsure what to say or feel or think. Instead of doing any of these predisposed actions the mage opted for the simpler option of taking in as much information as possible.

The stranger was taller than Anders himself although not tall in the scale of things, clothed in a rough brown shirt and black trousers. He was broad shouldered and yet did not seem overtly muscular. His face seemed somewhat recognizable, his eyes deep set and a wonderful chestnut brown beneath heavy brows, their jet blackness matching his windblown hair. The man held a long pipe in his left hand, the smoke from which tangled itself around the ivy trying to creep its way into the house through the open door. Anders thought he should feel a greater sense of displacement, of disillusionment, and yet this strange turn of events seemed to demand something of him. You should have been expecting this, the cosy and familiar scene told him, shouldn't you?

Should I? Anders thought in confusion. He stared at the man even as the urge to look down at his chest became a thick and building urge. Am I dead? He thought. Do I still bleed? Where is the knife? More importantly...

"Where am I?" he asked, amazed at the clarity and strength of his voice; for so long it had been tainted with weariness, fear or despair.

"...Somewhere I expected another to be," the man said after a long pause, his voice slightly refined and yet seemingly overpowered by a roughness only bred in the countryside; eventually he released Anders from his suspicious gaze and walked into the house. Anders was afforded a glimpse of a long, dirt path beyond the doorway and, at the end, a gathering of wooden buildings around a small square, a bridge beyond that, over a small river...it was quickly shut from view as the man pushed the door decisively shut.

The enclosed room, without the intrusive, glaring daylight, had a soporific and gentle feel. Anders lifted his hands without forethought and rubbed at his arms, soaking in the heat. No pain, was the first thing he registered and which seemed wholly more significant, for a blazingly irrational moment, than the fact that he was apparently alive. He looked down unconsciously and found himself without injury, his clothes clean and mended.

"You should sit down," the man said authoritatively, jerking Anders' attention once more away from that looming reality, so much so that Anders did as he was told without question; or perhaps, he had later thought, it was more to do with the fact that in this directionless place with his mind completely lost amid scattered thoughts, he had been desperate for any sense of influence besides his own.

He could feel the heat of the fire against his side as he sat down, crackling and spitting against the crude iron grate. There was a pot hanging from a pole above the flames, audibly bubbling. The wonderful smell which emanated from it was something he had not noticed until he had witnessed the pot itself. What is this place? Anders thought warily, looking around what seemed to be a solid and altogether real space and time. The man began fiddling adeptly with the herbs and powders littered around him, pouring some into bowls and others into a large mortar and pestle to be ground down noisily.

"Excuse me," Anders said hesitantly after another minute's silence, "could you...could tell me..?"

"My, my," the man interrupted, not looking to Anders once as he put down the pestle and picked up his pipe, taking such a long draw on the pungent tobacco that the crackling emanating from the pipe nearly rivalled that of the log fire; when he stopped inhaling the man replaced the pipe back onto a plate on the table and allowed the smoke to emerge languorously from his nostrils, as a lazy dragon would, "and here I am, used to seeing you far more forceful than this."

"I don't think we've ever met," Anders rebutted quickly, feeling somewhat slighted by this stranger and his strange situation.

"We haven't," the man said, flicking his deep brown eyes up to Anders, making eye contact for the first time since they had laid eyes upon each other, "not formally. Although I have watched you both, from time to time, when there has been a chance. Now it seems you have fallen to my care, something I am not entirely sure how to deal with."

"Is this..?" Anders hesitated once more; so many questions were suddenly clamouring in his mind, fighting to work their way out of his mouth. Watching us both? What was that supposed to mean? And who was this man and where was he and was he alive or..? He sighed harshly and balled his fists. For goodness sakes what is wrong with me? I need answers and I'm pussyfooting around the subject like new born kitten, "Am I dead?"

The man did not cease in his movements. Having ground whatever was in the mortar and pestle into dust and having evacuated the full inhalation of smoke out through his nose, the man tipped the newly ground power into a glass jar along with the others. The silence was most irritating and disturbing but Anders forced himself to bear it. In a way he was glad for it. He had made himself ask the question because it needed to be answered and yet the answer itself was now nothing more than another terrible, waiting dread sitting in his mind. The man stood up from his chair and walked quietly to the other side of the room, picking up a large, earthen ware bowl and dipping it into a barrel of what looked like water. Anders stared at the table, breathing slowly in and out. The vessel was filled with a swift slosh.

"Of course you are," the man replied casually while he lifted the bowl, holding it steady as he returned to the table, "you wouldn't be here if you weren't."

"And where is here exactly?" Anders inquired quickly, unwilling to dwell on the issue of his being dead for any longer than was strictly necessary.

"That's a little more complicated," the man frowned, drawing a long, steady sigh as he ladled the water in on top of the powders, hydrating the mixture and turning it a wondrous, pale yellow, something akin to sunlight on an early summer morning, "this is...somewhere I've been keeping safe for a long time."

"Is this the Fade?" Anders asked, wondering if he could possibly just get a straight answer or whether the man was intent on being cryptic for as long as possible, "Look, can't you just tell me..?"

"I already told you that it's complicated," the man said sternly as he stirred the mixture with a long wooden spoon.

Anders opened his mouth to argue further but was interrupted by something that, once he had heard it, he wished never to hear again. Vengeance's howls from within the cage had been vile and torturous, as had the voice of Alesis as he whispered into his ear, the voice of the contemptible Pride demon the blood mage had summoned, the sounds of his victim's screams as they begged for him to stop...yet nothing compared to the noise which ripped through the serene room at that moment.

The deep, looming noise was incredible in its ability to both induce fear and be indescribable. The best Anders could do was to liken it to a dragon's death rattle, simultaneously a high pitched squeal and deep, cursing, mournful roar. He heard it as if underwater, dulled and muted. It was incredibly unnatural, a sound he could not fully describe because its elements would never be produced by anything in the real world. Yet the frightful effect did not stop at the sound itself. The distant quality of the noise was thrown by a sense destiny, of a sudden approach, of a realisation that it had sighted its prey. It made the reality around him quiver and shake subtly. It made the hairs rise up on the nape of his neck. It drew his eyes instinctually to the doorway which the man had shut behind him.

Then, just as suddenly, the serenity returned as if it had never been interrupted, crackling with the fire and clucking with the chickens.

"What was that?" Anders said in a hushed voice only after the sound had fully drifted away; talking about it when it was still occurring seemed too foolish to consider.

"Something which you don't want to be here for when it arrives," the man replied as he closed the lid on the vial and snapped it shut with a small lever.

"Really?" Anders snapped sarcastically; the noise had broken the tranquillity which had been in play since he became aware of this space around him. He wanted it back but, somehow, knew he would never get it. The finality of death seemed to once more loom over him. But I'm already dead, am I not? "Can't you just answer my bloody questions?"

"Not exactly," the man shrugged, "but this does mean that we don't have a lot of time."

"Time for what?" Anders said wearily, "I'm dead. Surely all I have is time."

When the man smiled Anders felt something akin to a small and yet surely significant triumph. The man shook his head and let out a small chuff of breath, somewhat akin to Fenris's abrupt and restrained laughter.

"Precisely what I used to think," the man said, once more looking up, "it seems there are many preconceptions we have to break down before we can truly understand death. I, myself, respect the rules it holds to; its inconsequentiality, its infiniteness, its slow degradation. I do not, however, believe in one of its many aspects; its finality."

"Are you trying to tell me that death isn't the end?" Anders asked in what he would later think as foolish contempt, "Is that it?"

"For most places, yes it is," the man said, "but not here. I spent a large part of the end of my life in terrible fear of death. It came for me not like a wild dog, leaping and ravaging me quickly, but like a cat, lying in ambush, watching me with its cruel eyes as my health failed me. I wished nothing more in those days than for death to come and take me once and for all, and yet at the same time I feared it constantly. That was when I began working on this."

The man lifted his hands and indicated the space around him. Anders took a moment to once more survey the flawless rendition of a country home and could find no fault in its constituent parts. From the stonework of the walls to the dried bundles of herbs, garlic and onions hanging above the fireplace, everything seemed both as perfect and as imperfect as real life truly was.

"It is a memory," the man said as he once more began fiddling with the ingredients on the table, "if you care to know. Somewhere I knew very well. I died in the room next door..." Anders looked instinctively to his left and observed a doorway in the far wall which he was sure had not been there moments before, "which is perhaps why I didn't chose to include it, until now of course."

"You created all of this because you were afraid?" Anders frowned, "And yet you're still here...surely then there is nothing to fear?"

"If only that were true, my young friend," the man smiled slightly, "I created this place because I feared the finality of death. I created it because, in my pride, I did not want my children to ever suffer that same fear. I created this because I knew that when he came here I would catch him. Yet it seems that things do not always work out the way you hope them to, however hard you try."

"Him?" Anders frowned, feeling a growing tension in his spine; was that a noise in the distance? There was something, definitely there, just beyond his reckoning, something that he was sure could only be growing closer, louder, "What do you mean? Wait, you weren't expecting me. Who was it, who did you want to see? And why am I here?"

"It's all very simple," the man smiled sadly, "and so very complicated. I don't have time to explain everything."

Anders opened his mouth to ask what on earth the man was talking about but was stopped once more by the blood curdling cry of the unknown presence. Yet something was different.

It was closer, far closer. There is a second sound, Anders thought in fear. The cry was no longer the only frightful thing, it was now accompanied by a steadily growing din akin to beating hooves or monsoon raindrops smacking against a rooftop. It was so nerve inducing that Anders all but sprang to his feet, the air coursing in and out of his lungs. He felt terribly on edge. Everything seemed suddenly tainted by imminent destruction. He stared with wide eyes down at the man who was still seated at the table, contentedly bottling his herbs and powders.

"We have to get out of here," Anders squeezed out through his constricted throat, "please, can't you hear that?"

"I hear it," the man said, "but it is nothing I can escape by running. I have been expecting it for as long as I have been expecting someone to eventually turn up here. We don't have much time. I need to know what you want to do."

"What I want to do?" Anders looked at the man, aghast, "I want to get us both the bloody hell out of here! I don't care if I'm destroyed running, I won't sit here and wait for-for...whatever is out there to show up!"

"Soon there won't be a place left to leave," the man said, sniffing and taking another draw of his pipe; the steady beat of a hundred, thousand somethings grew to an audible cacophony, "I shall put it simply. Do you choose life or do you choose oblivion?"

"Life? What are you talking about?" Anders ground out through clenched teeth, "I'm dead, you said so yourself. I remember...I remember doing it!"

"That isn't important here," the man shook his head in irritation, the first break through in his calm since the frown he had given Anders from the doorway, "this is a gateway, one of few, something that I have survived within for many years. For every gateway there is a way back and a way forwards. I need to know which you choose."

Insanity seemed to be the third brother of time and death, something which you perhaps only encountered when you finally passed beyond that which you could not return. Yet here was an insane choice, being offered to him in an insane little pocket of his own death, by a man he had never seen before in his living life while a hideous something crashed towards them both.

A sacrifice of blood. That was what Vengeance had asked for and that was what Anders had given the demon in return. The sacrifice still stands, Anders thought, still stands if I live? How is any of this even possible..? No, no time for speculation, dear Maker, something is coming, something awful. We need to get out of here. I need to know...

...I need to know if Hawke is alive. I need to know. Is that a good enough reason? A reason to lose this subtle freedom which I had promised myself I would one day have? Yet death, it seems, is perhaps not as free as I first assumed. The others, they need you, and I want to live. I don't want to be dead. Please, let me go back, please...

"Let me go back home," Anders said just as another terrible squealing, like grinding metal, pierced the air and rent it viciously, "fuck!" he cried out instinctively, backing away from the table and feeling his hands begin to shake; the other man stood and stepped around the table, putting himself in front of the closed doorway, "Come with me, you have to!"

"I can't," the man said with a serious look, "it's too late for me. Listen, I did not expect to be detected so quickly. I wanted time to talk to him. I wanted time to apologise. Perhaps...perhaps you could do it for me?"

"I don't even know who you're talking about!" Anders shouted, the rising din elevating to a new level; by the Maker, it's outside! Anders thought, terrified.

"Tell him I'm sorry!" the man shouted over the echoing roars, high squeals and what sounded like a hundred women wailing in lament, screaming and screaming, "I'm sorry that I asked him to hold the fort!"

The room began to shake visibly, the potions on the table jiggled and rolled from the table, smashing onto the floor. The pot above the fire sloshed back and forth, spilling hissing swathes of broth down onto the smoking flames. The vibration was terrible and the fear intoxicating. The man reached out, taking hold of Anders' arm with one hand, keeping them both steady. Anders stared at him in fear while the man reached up with his other hand and took hold of something around Anders' neck. The mage was given no time to look down before the man yanked it forcefully from him, snapping the leather thong which held it to his throat. Pictures fell from the walls, stones began to work themselves loose, grinding against the mortar. When the man retracted his hand Anders was too confused and terrified to, at first, truly comprehend the significance of the silver amulet with the green stone at its centre which dangled there.

"Tell him to look after his sister!" the man yelled, "And tell him...tell him that I love him, that I always did!"

"Wait," Anders said, his face going slack, "you're..."

The rest of the sentence became lost on his tongue. His larynx continued to produce noise but it did not emerge as words. The doorway slammed open and there, behind it, loomed a terrible empty void, replacing the dirt path and the chickens and the houses and the square. It was gone, all gone, and there, standing in the doorway, half blocked by the man's body, was it.

Anders' eyes widened to the point of insanity. His open mouth released a scream which did little to convey the true horror of the thing he saw there. It stared at them both and time seemed to slide into its eyes. The man lifted the amulet high in the air and brought it down onto the table. The green jewel shattered audibly.

Everything disappeared.

He jerked awake with the terrible scream still full on his lips. His eyes seemed to burn as they flew open and his back sent a spasm of pain flaring through his system as he sat bolt upright. At first he could not comprehend where he was. His eyes ached. His vision was blurry and distorted. He felt himself slipping from whatever he lay upon and managed to steady himself only with great effort.

He blinked again and again, hating the darkness that descended over his eyes as he did so, vanquished over and over by the recurrence of light as his eyes slid open and closed. Soon, after a quick, shaky analysis of his situation, his pained, dry eyes took in a grey, stone room with a closed door, the two thin windows streaming blinding light onto a vague rug on the floor, and finally asmall, stone alter which he was currently half falling off of. He was given no time, however, to process this new and bewildering information.

When the door banged open the blurry images that stormed inside were discernible only by their very obvious drawn swords. It took a further moment of hysterical breathing and continuous blinking to notice the bold brands on their chest plates; the white griffon rampant. Anders felt his mind flip over and over and down and up. His sheer, unadulterated panic returned. He heaved in difficult, creaky lungfuls of air tried to make his deadened limbs respond. No, he thought, no am I dead, am I dead still? Where am I? It wants me, it wants me, someone help..!

Calling upon his magic was instinctual, no more than that; a need to defend himself against an obvious threat. He did not think about it, did not consider it odd, until he found that he could not call upon his reserves at all. Nothing met his call, nothing but emptiness. He tried again, desperately seeking the reason behind his sudden inability to use something he had possessed for almost his entire life. That was when he realised it. That was when he understood what he was doing wrong. He was calling on his power through Justice, through Vengeance, directly through the spirit and into the Fade itself as he always had since they had joined. It no longer worked because...because he could no longer sense Justice or Vengeance, he could sense nothing of the spirit whatsoever. He had no idea as to why and it made his heart race. Is he gone? Anders thought fearfully, has he returned to the Fade? Is that it?

The only thought that struck him as he considered this incredible concept was one thing. If it was true, what had the spirit returned as? A demon or a pure spirit or...something else? Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately given his weak a vulnerable state of mind, there was little to no time for consideration of this subject.

"Anders? Anders! Get out of my fucking way!" a voice cried as a figure appeared, pushing past the fuzzy wardens and running straight at him; Anders found himself enclosed tightly within a strong pair of arms and he allowed his body to go limp, his head falling against Hawke's shoulder and laying there lifelessly, "He was right, by fucking Andraste he was right! Aha! Ah ha ha! I don't believe it, I don't...I can't...oh thank everything and everyone that you..!"

Anders was sure Hawke would have continued if his voice hadn't, instead, strangled out into nothing. He could hear the choked emotion in Hawke's breathing, the shuddering in his body as he tried his best to hold himself together. He felt the warm lips against his cheek as Hawke leaned in to kiss him not, as usual, out of lust but seemingly more as an affirmation of Anders being alive at all. Anders could sympathise. Am I alive? he thought in fear and hope, am I alive? He both felt and heard his laboured breathing, feeling as if his throat was swollen and his chest was being stood upon by a horse's weight. The noise of each breath was creaky and loud. His mouth was terribly dry.

"Go to the dungeon and bring that idiot Callum up here!" he heard Hawke cry, "And find Howe, hurry!"

Anders opened his cracked, dry lips and brought his tongue to his hard palate. It was an action he had performed subconsciously since he had first begun to make sounds as a small baby, something entirely instinctive and intrinsic to the motion of his life so far and yet...

...and yet the word which he had been trying to form, 'don't', a simple demand, seemed to lose itself somewhere between his forming the word in his mind and creating the sound in his larynx and mouth. Anders tried form the 'd', he tried again, he tried and tried until he could no longer understand what he had first been trying to say. Hawke was talking to him, trying to explain something, trying to calm him down, trying to reassure himself, yet it all seemed to build into the same sort of cacophony as the one which...

Maker no, no, I won't think of it. Never again, I can't, I won't, I can't..!

He lifted his right hand with terrible difficulty and placed it shakily over his right ear, his left ear pressed tightly against Hawke's shoulder, and blocked out all sound. It was an odd sensation and unfortunately it did not have the desired effect. Instead of stopping the sounds he was trying to block out it merely muted them before highlighting those he barely ever noticed. The thrumming of his own heartbeat, thumping his blood through his veins, the sound of Hawke's deep tone vibrating through his body as he spoke, the somewhat latent high pitched whistle in his ears that he couldn't account for, the thick rattling of the breath pulled heavily into his lungs and then expelled. Anders closed his eyes, desperate to stop the barrage of sensory input, desperate for quiet, but the darkness merely leered at him from behind his eyes.

His eyelids flew open, accompanied by another startling sound which it took him a moment to realise was his own rusty, crackling scream. Hawke was rocking him back and forth, making no noise other than a whispered 'shh, shh' in between kissing the top of his head softly. Anders felt the tears running down his face but couldn't comprehend what was happening. Why can't I talk? He thought desperately. What has happened to me? Am I dead? Am I alive? Where am I? What was that..that...not, no!

Hawke's kisses were soothing to him in an entirely regressive way. He felt safe in a childish fashion as he was rocked back and forth, as the muttered placations reached him purely through the vibrations in Hawke's chest passing through to his own body. Anders felt the soft, affectionate touches move from his hair down to his cheek once more, where Hawke lingered. Anders chanced a look up at the rogue's face, trying his best to blink some much needed moisture into his burning, dry eyes. Hawke looked terrible; deep circle's below his eyes, his face drawn and thin and yet, oddly, his cheeks rosy and filled with colour. Anders swallowed with difficulty and allowed Hawke to lean in and capture his lips. It was a union of relief as well as a declaration of feeling. Anders felt his lips trembling under Hawke's powerful embrace.

I love you, he wanted to say as they broke apart, I love you so much. Yet the hideous memory of those eyes in his mind, the revolting feeling of the knife entering his body and the sheer unknown confusion of his living or dying, seemed to stand like a barrier between his mind and his mouth. Anders pushed his face into Hawke's chest and let his hand fall from his ear as he heard footsteps approach.

Some decisions were made in haste. Not badly, just badly informed. Did you expect what you saw when you awoke? Anders' asked himself, did you expect what you felt?

No, he replied.

Did you expect to find Justice gone, it continued, did you expect to find your power weakened, to find your body useless, to find yourself surrounded by enemies?

No he replied.

Do you regret choosing the option of life?

No, he replied

He had made his decision and he would hold to it, no matter what happened after that. It seemed that it was the more difficult option, the harder option, but then when had he ever chosen anything for being easy? In fact sometimes he was sure he opted for the worst choice possible, most of the time witlessly.

Still, it did not matter. It was worth it just to know, know the one thing which had counted the most towards choosing life. It made him happy in his selfish joy that he was allowed to know this one thing at least; Hawke was alive. Callum was alive.

He was alive.

I have to be positive, he thought even as the monolith of dark thoughts sat in his mind, looming above his fragile sanity, I have to see further, see beyond it all.

Hope sat on the horizon, both as a rallying cry and a cruel taunt. He would reach for it, he would not fall.

He would reach for it and no fate, no destiny, would stop him.

"You're going to have to get him to talk. Do you think the Second Warden is going to stand for a silent account of the burning of Nordbotten?"

Anders sat on top of the bed, to which he had been carried after the Warden's had returned, with Hawke standing protectively at his side, and watched Nathaniel Howe pace back and forth as Callum knelt before him and checked the wounds on his chest. It was a rather surreal situation but, considering all of the bizarre and dangerous situations they had survived just to reach this point, it was actually fairly normal in comparison. Anders had forced himself to push away all of his demanding thoughts and pull himself into the here and now.

You are alive, he thought again and again, you are alive. Being unable to speak was almost an inconvenience in comparison to having his consciousness obliterated from existence. Although he was sure that excuse would become defunct rather quickly. Being unable to communicate was already hideously difficult, debilitating and increasingly frustrating. Knowing that the fault lay within his own mind, something he had always been proud of mastering, seemed to only make it worse. He should be able to master this fear, he should be able to overcome this foolish obstacle and yet...and yet the darkness there still lingered.

And the darkness had its eyes.

Not only that but there in the back of his mind, hiding with the dark thoughts, lurking, was the idea that he may never be able to talk again. He hid from this thought as much as it hid from him.

"I can't just make him talk," Hawke replied to Nathaniel harshly, one hand placed angrily at his hip and the other planted firmly atop Anders' shoulder.

It was with subtle and yet desperate need that Anders allowed the subtle touch to act as a conduit. He had seen the colour in Hawke's face earlier, believing with all hope that was left to him that it conveyed good health and not an over stimulation of emotion. He wanted to believe that Hawke was well, that the phage no longer ravaged his body, but he couldn't and wouldn't believe it until he had checked for himself. Not that I could detect it before, Anders thought, but I can at least see how his body feels; and it felt fine. Anders found it odd, forcibly making himself seek his magical essence through his own connection to the Fade, something which Justice had completely controlled since their joining; it was a challenge but it was doable at least and he managed to survey Hawke's health without too much effort. Everything, from his organs to his nervous system, seemed in wonderful working order. Other than a little fatigue and malnutrition, Hawke seemed well and good.

"Don't you understand just how much we've gone through in the last few weeks alone, never mind everything before that?" Hawke continued to rant, "For Maker's sake we thought he was dead! It's a miracle enough that he's alive without interrogating him. If your Second Warden wants to know what happened at Nordbotten maybe he should be asking that filthy corpse downstairs!"

"Which seems like a wholly unreasonable request," Howe replied, "considering he's dead."

Anders forced himself into the role he had always played, mainly as a distraction to keep the memories at bay. His mother's terrified screams, Vengeance consuming the newly dead, their blood dripping down his face, Alesis's vile words sliding into his ear, and then pact, the pact they had made...he did not face it; instead he shrugged and looked unconcernedly down at his chest which made Callum smile covertly and Nathaniel frown. Putting a smile on the other man's face made his day at least seem slightly brighter, considering the spidery shadows that still clung to his mind. Hawke simply sighed and shook his head.

"This isn't the time for your sarcasm, love," Hawke chided; Anders, despite everything, was still amazed by the fact that from his one simple gesture both Hawke and Callum had completely understood what he was trying to convey; that the dead status of whoever they were discussing was surely questionable since his own seemingly miraculous return.

Of which he had been informed, at length, by a very surprised Nathaniel Howe when the rogue had first stormed into the room, in which he had awoken, and asked Anders exactly what he thought he was doing in scaring the living hell out of his men by rising from the grave, literally. Anders would have had no answer for him even if he'd had the freedom of speech. Suffice to say that other than Nathaniel begrudgingly admitting that he was glad Anders was alive, their conversation had been rather short lived. The building questions which were still clamouring to be shouted out were left to merely stew in his mind while Anders was left trying desperately to mime whatever he wanted to know.

His voice, it seemed, was in perfect working order, confirming to Anders that the block was purely psychological. Callum had looked him over and told Hawke and Nathaniel that there seemed to be nothing physically wrong with him except from slight atrophying of the muscles, a build up of toxins in his system and weakness of constitution which, considering he'd been literally dead for over a week, put him in rather excellent health. This was all before Anders had pulled Callum into a rather spectacular hug, of course, to which Howe had once more looked confused and Hawke had ground his teeth.

Then they had told him, of the daring rescue and their long travel on the road. The Warden outpost they thought they had passed on their way to Nordbotten had turned out not to be a stronghold at all, but a camp. A camp of very familiar Wardens; the large group which Cousland had sent north after their last meeting in Kirkwall. It was a fortuitous meeting, except for the fact that he had been dead when it had happened. The Wardens had, despite Anders being sure they had not noticed them, sensed Anders as he had passed. Scouts had been sent out to follow them. When the disaster at Nordbotten erupted into an inferno the scouts had rushed back to their camp and returned with a full complement of Wardens. They had, apparently, taken care of the remaining residents of Nordbotten as best they could. Many had called it the second saviour, yet another set of Wardens riding in to save their village. The talk of the aftermath left Anders cold. For the first time since he awoke he was almost glad for his loss of speech. The deaths at Nordbotten were not something he would wish to discuss for a long time, if he ever managed to brave that excessively dark territory.

They had found them on the Hill, Hawke barely conscious and Callum screaming for help as he did his best to drag both Anders and the rogue away from the rotting corpses in the dire little burnt out husk of a house. The mage had at least heeded some of Anders' last words, having saved enough of his strength to heal his own mangled body and Hawke's rather devastated legs. The Wardens, one of which was Sarah, whom Anders had met in Kirkwall, thankfully recognised him, even in death. It was then that he learned that, if not for Callum, Anders would already have been nothing but ashes, burnt on a premature funeral pyre.

It was the tall apostate who had been stalwart, to the point of sheer obstinacy, that the clearly dead Anders was in fact alive. Apparently he could sense Anders' life force, dwindling and infinitesimal as it was, and had refused to allow his body to be served the last rights. It had taken a lot of convincing on Callum's part to persuade the others of this truth, during which some rather unsavoury facts about the mage's involvement with Alesis had come to light. Which made more sense to Anders who had, at first, been wondering why on earth Callum had been brought up to them from the dungeons.

When Callum was finally dragged to their room it had been to both Hawke and Nathaniel's consternation that Anders, as soon as Callum was at arm's length, had reached out and shaken the heavy chains linking his wrists angrily and looked to the other men with a stern countenance. He helped save our lives, Anders had thought furiously as Hawke shook his head, Maker damn you both he saved my life! He had shaken the chains again and glared at his lover as crossly as he could manage considering his lack of energy.

"Fine, take them off," Hawke had spat, "it'll make it easier for him to work. But just his hands. Leave the feet."

At first, once Callum had begun his work, Anders had been amazed that they were somewhere with a dungeon at all. Which was then he had been informed exactly where they were.

Weisshaupt? He had thought in panic. The one place I didn't want to be and that's where you've led us! The glare he already had focused on Hawke had merely intensified, to which the rogue had looked neither repentant nor upset. Choosing life over oblivion had suddenly seemed like a very bad decision. Am I to live once more only to die at the executioner's sword? he had thought with facetious humour. Which was when he had been informed that the First Warden was at least absent from the stronghold, leaving his second in command in charge during his absence. It was small consolation but consolation at least; from what Anders had heard of the First warden the man was a strict traditionalist and rather bigoted towards mages. Anders' miraculous recovery from death apparently already had half of Weisshaupt looking for his head, suspecting blood magic, without their biased leader there to fuel their distrust.

"If the Second Warden wants to know what happened I can tell him everything he needs to know," Hawke said sternly, unmovable as a brick wall, as he usually was when someone threatened his authority or those he cared about, "that Nordbotten was attacked by a demon, a demon summoned by that same corpse now lying in your basement. I'm quite sure that the survivors you brought with us can corroborate my story. In fact I'm sure they already have, which makes this discussion a moot point."

Anders sighed, thinking that his own antagonistic contributions to this conversation, for which Hawke had scorned him, were nowhere near as inflammatory as Hawke's own words. Anders ignored them both as they continued to squabble. He couldn't focus on it or entirely grasp everything they were saying. All he knew was that if Hawke could convince Nathaniel then, perhaps, Nathaniel could convince this Second Warden. If that happened, then it happened. No matter what anyone did, even himself, he could not breach the barrier that appeared like a looming monolith of hideous murk in his mind every time he tried to speak.

He was already finding it difficult to purely focus on the situation at hand or the horrors lurking in his recent memories. Both were just as confusing and sickening as each other. Distraction, Anders thought as he reached out and touched Callum's shoulder, getting the man's attention. The tall mage looked as healthy as Hawke did but also just as tired and thin. His vivid blue eyes seemed dulled and broken, something that pulled at Anders' heart. It wasn't your fault, he thought over and over. Even without proof to back up his claim he somehow knew that Callum was innocent. Seeing him persecuted for being deceived by Alesis was almost too much to bear. Anders knew exactly what that felt like. Instead he tried to divert both their minds from their current predicament while Hawke and Nathaniel bartered back and forth.

Callum watched him closely as Anders struggled to think of a way to ask his question. Maker this is hard, Anders thought in terrible frustration. He tried to shake his hand to indicate a tail, but that only confused the taller man, then he even tried indicating ears on his own head, which only made Callum's frown deepen; eventually he used his right hand to mime stroking a dogs head. Callum finally nodded in understanding, his face drawn.

"Sascha's fine," he said with a weak smile.

Anders felt cold. He watched Callum with a hopeful and yet sad expression as he brought up his hand in a fist, palm forwards, and lifted his index and middle finger, indicating the number two. Callum looked at his hand as if it were some sort of condolence. He shook his head and returned to his work. Anders felt his heart sink further and let his hand drop, swallowing with difficulty. After a respectful moment of silence he lifted his right hand and stroked the side of the other mage's face. Callum leaned into the touch ever so slightly and his eyes fluttered closed, hiding glassy eyes. Anders retracted his hand once more and stared into space.

The time before Nathaniel left was indeterminate. Anders felt himself falling back into the strange numb calm which he had felt before he closed his eyes in death and which he had initially felt in the strange dream of salvation he'd had before he awoke here. When he was gone, however, with Hawke telling him that he would personally keep an eye on Callum, closing the door exasperatedly behind him, Hawke wasted no time in sitting down on the edge of the bed and looking straight into Anders' eyes.

"What happened to Justice?" he asked bluntly.

Callum looked up, trying to mask his interest but failing miserably. Anders looked back forth between them both and could do nothing but shake his head and lift his hands impotently. He too wanted an answer to that question, complicated as it was. Hawke sighed and rubbed gently at the small of Anders' back. The mage revelled at the wonderful, real feeling of Hawke's touch against his skin, allowing the sheer physicality of the action to pull his mind away from the dangerous, dark thoughts which prowled his mind, demanding answers.

What had happened to Justice? Justice no longer existed, as far as Anders could understand it, and neither did Vengeance to an extent. The spirit who had closed Anders' eyes, whose words had followed him down into the deepest reaches of death, had been something else altogether. Anders himself struggled to understand exactly what that was. He wasn't sure if he could ever truly understand the concept of something so new, an entirely original being, something that wasn't technically anything; nothing that could be defined in words, perhaps only in feelings. The hideous tainted feeling he had felt when he had stared at the trapped spirit howling in its prison, the wonderfully safe feeling he had felt as it had touched his eyes closed. The apathy and the contrast and the infectious familiarity all fell into one strange, confusing abyss which he could not bring himself to look down into.

He looked down as Callum pulled his shirt closed and leaned back, obviously finished dealing with his many wounds. It was then that Anders realised that his clothes were not, to an extent, his clothes. He frowned, tugging at Hawke's shirt as he pulled at his own clothes in confusion.

"What is it?" Hawke frowned, "you...need something else to wear?"

Anders bit his lip in frustration and shook his hand, indicating to forget that he mentioned anything in the first place. Hawke seemed like he would inquire further but, from the look Anders was sure he had on his face, Hawke respectfully gave up trying. The silence that descended on the three men was edgy and taught. Anders hated it. He lifted his hand once more and pointed forcefully down at the floor, repeating the motion. Hawke stared at him, his sharp eyes conveying just how hard he was trying to understand Anders' motions. The mage stopped pointing downwards and instead started alternating the gesture with another; his hand sliding across his throat.

"Who is the filthy corpse downstairs?" Hawke asked eventually, repeating his earlier phrase.

Anders nodded enthusiastically. He had a sneaking suspicion but he wouldn't believe it until he heard it.

"It's Alesis," Hawke said with a wry twist to his lips and a violent sparkle to his eye, "the Wardens found his body lying half way down the hill. There didn't seem to be anything wrong with him but he was stone dead, just like he deserved. All I regret is not being allowed to eviscerate the bastard myself."

A bright flash of exaltation entered his system and yet it was simultaneously dampened by an all too familiar inconvenience. Too easy, Anders thought harshly, it's all too pathetically simple. Alesis dead? Killed by his own summoned Fade spawn? It was fittingly ironic and yet did not seem to fit well in Anders world as he believed it should be. Yet neither does coming back from the dead, he thought. The twin thoughts of his own salvation and Alesis' incongruous death were not something he would want associated. Anders rubbed at the flesh of his arms, feeling the goose bumps as his flesh prickled. He looked once more to Hawke.

How dead is dead, truly? And how alive are those with life? I am given life once more only to be trapped again within this web of rules and regulations, labelled traitor. Yet I am, a traitor to my own feelings. I led us all, all of us, to what was very nearly our deaths. Yet you still love me Hawke, why? Why is this? After all I've done and all you have reciprocated and our love still exists. Is this what true love is? It just...keeps going, no matter what. There was an odd comfort in that, in the stability and reliability, and yet something strangely stale pervading it. His fears and doubts and terrors had before forced him to the extremes of his emotion but now, having come down, even if only slightly, from the high of death, he was beginning to view the world through cynical eyes once more.

"Alright," Hawke said after another moment's silence, "if we're going to do this, then we have to do it now."

The suddenness of his statement and its seeming incongruousness made both of the mages look to him in confusion. Hawke, in contrast to their bewilderment, was surveying the room with inquisitive, serious eyes. I can't talk, Anders thought sarcastically as he watched Hawke, and I make more sense than you do.

"What are you talking about?" Callum asked with a frown, finally voicing Anders' own thoughts, still kneeling on the floor with his legs bound.

"What do you think I'm talking about?" Hawke said impatiently as he slipped an unseen key from his shirt cuff, "I'm talking about getting the hell out of this death trap. I don't know about you two," he continued as he knelt down behind a startled Callum and undid his leg bracers, "but I think we've already outstayed our welcome."

"You..." Callum stared at him in disbelief, "where in Thedas did you get that key?"

"You're not the only one with light fingers," Hawke said with latent pride, "and Nathaniel Howe doesn't know how to protect his belongings."

"But..." Callum continued warily; Anders simply stared at Hawke with guilty affection. That I ever doubted you my love, Anders thought with renewed vivacity, pressing his dark thoughts further from his conscious mind, "what are you doing? I thought..?"

"You thought what?" Hawke said with an, albeit small, smile and a raised eyebrow, "that I was going to sit here and wait for them to come back and slice Anders' head off for either being a blood mage or a Grey Warden deserter?"

"Actually," Callum said as he stood up, his tall form dwarfing Hawke as he knelt and Anders as he sat, "I was thinking more of the part where you were letting me go."

Hawke watched them both, standing up slowly. Anders held hope in his eyes while Callum held disconcerted confusion. The rogue shook his head and placed his hands on his hips, looking towards the window as he spoke.

"You must be dense," he said, "do you think I have no heart in my chest? You were taken in by Alesis? Well you're not the first person to be deceived by a blood mage and you won't be the last. I'm not saying that I forgive you, I can still hold other offences against you, but...I'm saying that I trust you enough to help me. You saved the life of the one person in this shit hole of a world that makes it worth living and you think I'd just leave you here to die? Because that's what is going to happen. These Wardens will hand you to the templars and they, in turn, will kill you. I, for one, am not going to be responsible for that. All I want, all I need, is to get back to Kirkwall where we are safe. Where my name means something again. Where I can protect Anders. Now are you going to help me get him home or aren't you?"

Anders wouldn't have had any words to say even if his mind would let him speak. The muscles in his legs felt strange as he rose unsteadily from the bed, as if they were not fully connected to the rest of his body. Anders wobbled but did not let either Callum or Hawke hold him steady as he faltered. It was with difficulty that he managed to stumble the five shuffling paces to Hawke's side but he forced himself to manage it. If we're going to escape from here, he thought with determination, then I can't be a dead weight dragging us down.

He reached up with both hands and slipped his arms around Hawke's shoulders. The other man did not seem to have been expecting it, going rigid in the mage's grasp. There was a hushed silence, in which Anders leaned back slightly so as to place a lingering, chaste kiss against Hawke's throat. He felt the rogue swallow and breathed in deeply, savouring the musky smell even as it was mixed with the heady scent of unwashed flesh. Hawke seemed to pull back unwillingly and yet with a sense of purpose. He looked into Anders' eyes and nodded. Anders responded by kissing him. Yet it was not simply a kiss, it was a declaration of love in its purest form. No words and no promises, just plain and simple, unmitigated love. He held Hawke close. He could feel the muscles moving in the rogue's arms as they slid around him and held him in return.

He poured everything he had into their embrace; his hope, his fear, his needs, his wants, his truth, his lies, his passion and his apathy. All the contrasting aspects of his almost vicious love for the man he embraced were fed into the kiss. I'm going to take care of you, Anders thought as he pulled back, staring at Hawke thoroughly, I'm going to look after you until I can no longer.

You're a beautiful person, Garrett Hawke, he thought as he gripped Callum by the arm and smiled at the man. With his other hand he reached up to grasp the silver amulet with the green jewel at its centre which still hung around his neck. He lifted it up and stared at it; the jewel at the centre was fractured, straight through the middle, and it no longer gave off the magical radiance it always had at his touch.

"I told you that I would never lose you again," Hawke said with harsh determination, staring into Anders' eyes, "and I meant it. We're going him, love. I'm going to take us home."

You're a beautiful person Garrett Hawke, Anders thought as he closed his hand around the silver amulet and shut his eyes, and your father loves you very much.