My prompt is done! Woo-hoo! (school has been kicking my ass this week. Although I discovered I don't actually hate Dostoevsky, I just hate Constance Garnett's translations of him. The Pevear and Volokhonsky translation of Crime and Punishment is fantastic! Glad we're reading their translation of The Brothers Karamazov, too.)
As usual this is set in the AOA universe but you shouldn't need to read that to follow.
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He certainly hadn't expected this to happen. It often seemed like every expectation Anders made for his life was broken down and crushed, one by one. If he had been asked to guess at five, twelve, fifteen, even twenty years old what his life would be like now, this would most certainly
not be it. It wouldn’t even make the long list.
There had been a time when Anders expected that he would have a ‘normal’ life, or whatever most people assumed was normal. Grow up, work with his stepfather in the blacksmiths’ shop, taking over eventually, meet a nice girl and get married, have a pile of screaming obnoxious children. The typical Ferelden existence.
Of course, he hadn’t had many friends in those years, so how he would meet said nice girl was a bit of a mystery. If being half-elf and a bastard hadn’t made him enough of an outcast among the kids his age in town, there was also his own need for secrecy. The closer people became the more likely they were to realize he was hiding something. Even worse, they might realize
what he was hiding. Anders would easily take the occasional loneliness over discovery.
Not that it kept him from getting discovered anyways.
He didn’t know what to expect when he was taken to the Circle of Magi. His mother had told him it was a cold, miserable tower. She had never been there, but after walking in, he realized her description wasn’t far from the truth.
It was, however, full of plenty of people his age, so Anders hoped he could at least make friends since the worst thing that could happen already
had and he didn’t really have much left to hide. He hadn’t realized most children were taken to the tower at six or seven, some of them as young as four, and very very few as old as nine. At twelve he was an outcast. All those children his own age that he saw had formed tight-knit groups of friends years earlier.
Anders was at least able to make a large number of acquaintances when they realized he would be able to tell them what life was actually like outside the tower. He was horrified to learn most had been there so long they didn’t even know
where they lived before. Some couldn’t even remember what their parents looked like. Even worse was the feeling he got when he realized just how few of them saw anything wrong with that. He began to question if he actually
wanted to be one of these strange, broken people. He didn’t know what to expect of mages, but children cowering in fear of armored men, unable to even remember their mothers’ name or face, wasn’t it.
Of course, that was all before his first escape attempt. When he was brought back Anders learned that the brief forays outside were cancelled for everyone all because he jumped into Lake Calenhad the first time he was allowed to join in and swam for the other side. There weren’t many who would
speak to him, much less try to be his friend, after that. He actually endured several months of finding his bedding mysteriously charred whenever he left the room, waking up shivering and covered in ice, and, once, paralyzed while in the bath with the water frozen by an ice spell. He was removed by a senior enchanter several hours later, blue lipped and shivering.
That offense was, if not forgotten, at least forgiven, within a few years. It seemed the older he got the more impressed people became by his attempts to escape. Some kept track, although the numbers never sounded quite right to him. He had long since stopped considering getting out of the
building a true escape. For that he had to make it to the water at least. There were only a couple of those. But, whenever people talked about it girls would smile at him and giggle and do… things with their eyes that made him blush and stammer like an idiot. Did they have some kind of class to learn that eyelash waving thing? Or were they just born knowing it? He certainly couldn’t figure it out and the one time he sat in front of a mirror trying he just ended up looking like an idiot all while giving himself a headache.
Anders didn’t attempt to grow close to anyone, though. Sure, he had plenty who would call him a friend, but no one who could call him a close friend. He would get out of the tower. He wasn’t going to get old here, becoming one of those sad shadows in red robes who haunted the upper floors, eyes downcast. He wasn’t going to become Irving, more Chantry than mage. Anders would get out if it killed him. And the only way he could do that was if he knew there was nothing holding him back.
It was good practice for the rest of his life, he would tell himself as he watched the other apprentices and mages rushing around in tiny groups, heads bowed together as they laughed and shared secrets. No matter what happened, he would always be a mage. When he got out that would make him an apostate. Apostates couldn’t risk living among people. It made you far more likely to be caught. Sometimes they’d bring you back to the tower, sure. But if you were out long enough the templars would just assume you learned something forbidden in all that time. No one ever complained about one less mage in the world.
So Anders had acquaintances but not friends, lovers but not girlfriends. And he was fine with that, really. It wasn’t as though he could expect much more out of life.
Hearing a fist pounding on the door Anders was shaken from his, admittedly depressing, reminiscences. “Move it, Sparklefingers,” called a gruff voice. “We’re all waiting on you.”
He hopped up. “It’s that late already? I had no idea.”
Oghren only laughed. As two of them walked through the halls of the Keep he talked about the latest group of warrior recruit hopefuls. “I swear,” he said, “most of them don’t know what part of the axe goes in their hand and what part splits a darkspawn skull.”
“And they want to be Grey Wardens?”
Oghren laughed. “Heh. Maybe they heard we let you in.”
“What’s this
we business?” Anders laughed. “Your seniority can be measured in how long it took Varel to pry the cup from your hands and pass it to me.”
“And it drives you sodding mad, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, Oghren,” Anders deadpanned. “I’m torn apart with jealousy that you got to drink darkspawn blood before me. I still cry about it, you know. Every night into my pillow. Just ask Maggie.” He smirked. “If anything, I wished I’d gone first so I wouldn’t have to drink from the cup after you. I’m fairly sure it’s your fault I got a rash.”
Oghren was silent for a moment before laughing, hitting Anders hard enough on the back to send him stumbling forward a few paces despite his far greater height. “Ha! Should have said something. Boss got me a salve in town that cleared it right up.”
“Maker’s breath, I wasn’t serious,” Anders said, rubbing his mouth reflexively despite the shared goblet being almost four years behind them.
“You should see the look on your face,” was all Oghren said.
The two of them walked into the dining hall, joining a small group at one of the corner tables. “You’re late!” sang out a chipper dwarven woman, face covered in tattoos.
“Lost track of time,” he said to Sigrun by way of apology as he sat down. She laughed and punched him gently in the shoulder.
“Where’s the boss?”
“I haven’t seen her in hours,” Anders said. As if on cue the Warden Commander ran into the room, quite literally jumping into her chair. And nearly taking out the table in the process.
“Sorry,” Maggie said. “Got cornered by Mistress Woolsey. Some… something about trade routes. Or was it trade taxes? I have no bloody idea. I just grin and nod when she talks and run off as soon as I can.”
“Great,” Nathaniel said. “I hope you didn’t just agree to a tax increase that will send people rioting.”
“Me too!” she laughed, realizing that despite his serious demeanor her second in command wasn’t actually worried about any such thing.
“Your turn to pick,” Sigrun said, grinning broadly. Anders glanced at Nathaniel, the two shared a silent moment of frustration as the dwarves cheered.
“My turn?” Maggie said, grinning. “Great! Tonight’s game is Diamondback!”
Anders groaned, although he
knew she’d pick that bizarre, confusing, complicated dwarven game that only seemed to make sense if you were born a dwarf. Or her, apparently. She always did. Oghren had taught her years ago and for some reason the human mage had taken a shine to it. Nathaniel muttered something under his breath.
“My turn next time,” Anders whispered.
“Thank the Maker,” the dark haired man replied quietly.
Sitting back, Anders watched her dealing out the octagonal cards, small piles growing in front of each of his friends. The description came to him so quickly he hadn’t even realized it. But… glancing at the assembled group, he realized that was exactly what they were.
After a lifetime of isolation by choice and circumstance he certainly hadn't expected
this to happen. But he was awfully glad it had.
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I realized a few of my prompts have taken this same format of flashback followed immediately by related present-tense story. No idea why. I guess because it's the easiest way to shove Anders backstory into my universe.
Modifié par LupusYondergirl, 30 septembre 2010 - 01:18 .
:O:O:O
Anders' healing power probably.
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