Jealousy
Wincing, Anders tried to ignore the whispers behind him. Maggie, oblivious as always, bounded on ahead of him to buy candy from a market stall. “Two boxes,” he could hear her say. “No… make it three.”
“Is that her?”
“You think? Just… buying candy? Here?”
“Sure looks like her.”
“How’d you know?”
“Seen the statue in Denerim. Better looking in person, though. Nicer legs.”
Anders stepped closer to her. “I got a box for us,” she grinned, offering him a piece. “Another for Oghren’s daughter, and one for Jowan’s daughter.” She rarely referred to either girl by their name, probably because both of them were named after her. It had to be a bit strange.
Listening to the men behind them discussing how short her robes were, Anders took the candy right from her fingers with his mouth. “You see that? How’d he end up getting someone like her?”
“Eh, probably just because he’s a mage. Stick to their own kind, you know.”
“Ignore them,” she whispered. Not as oblivious as he thought, then.
Chewing the candy, Anders nodded. “This is fantastic. What is it?” That was all it took, evidently, for the elderly Antivan woman running the stand to begin loading them up with examples of everything she made. They left with several loaves of bread filled with fruit and even more candy. “She cleaned us out!” Anders exclaimed, walking away. Somehow three boxes of candy at a few silvers each became several sovereign worth of sweets. “Give me another piece,” he added.
“The marzapane or the torrone?”
“I don’t really care. Something sweet.”
She handed him something white, with chunks of nuts in it. As he munched on it several children came over to speak with her; their parents wanted to talk not long after. He shifted from one foot to the other as what looked to be half of the population of the city of Amaranthine passed by, all eager for a chance to meet the Hero of Ferelden. As though they hadn’t before. As though this didn’t happen almost every single time they came into the city.
Eventually she managed to extract herself from the crowd, pleading the time. “We need to get moving,” she whispered. “Or we’ll never be home by dark.”
Thanks to another group who cornered them by the stables at the city gates it was well after dark when they rode into the courtyard of the Keep.
The next afternoon the latest recruitment mission returned home, a wagon of fresh faces from several of the towns along the Eastern coast of Ferelden. She wasn’t as hands on with recruits these days, with good reason. He remembered back when she was. They had gone on trips together to find people, in fact. Half of them wouldn’t be able to fight without tripping over their own feet the second she looked in their direction. And there would always be someone ready and eager to challenge her, as though somehow the entire nation had been tricked and they would prove she couldn’t actually hold her own in a fight.
So, other people did the scouting now. She would talk to the recruits before their trip into the Deep Roads, though, and conduct the Joining after. “It only seems fair,” she said. “I’m the Commander, it’s my responsibility.” But, that meant she was a veritable stranger they saw for a little while, in her fancy armor or robes, before stomping off into the basement with nothing but her reputation in their minds.
Book in hand, Anders sat in the hall near the barrier door, trying to pretend he was reading above ground, outside. With no mages in the group he had joined them, waiting in case of an injury. Granted, they thought he was there as an observer, perhaps testing the current Wardens, but warning them about the potential to get injured would only make them more nervous, and then more likely to get injured. It was the same charade they went through every time a group of recruits went through this without a healer among their numbers.
“Well she wasn’t what I expected,” one of them was saying. “I mean, did you see those legs?”
Anders clenched his fist, counted to ten. The kid could be dead in an hour, beating his head into the wall now would only be cruel.
“Legs? Nah, I was looking a bit higher up.” More crude laughter. “Hey, might get to see a bit more one of these days. I read that book about her. I guess she was going at it with the king all during the blight, Loghain at the end and half the nobles in Denerim. Plus all them templars in the mage’s tower.”
“You don’t really think that’s true, do you?”
“Who cares, it’s worth a shot.”
Curse that book, Anders thought. The author actually had the nerve to introduce himself when they were in Denerim for the fifth anniversary of the blight. Anders, who had been trying to watch the unveiling of the statue, had told him off before hitting him with lightning. Maggie still didn’t know about that, he wasn’t entirely sure she’d be pleased. She was never as fond of his ‘hit fools with lightning’ policy as he would have liked.
Someone was laughing hysterically. Looking up, Anders saw Tobias, one of the most senior Wardens in Ferelden, recruited on their very first trip after the Architect had been killed, clutching his sides and leaning against the wall.
“I am amazed you’ve kept your temper,” he managed after a moment. “There’s a burn mark on your book’s cover, and another on the floor.”
Anders raised an eyebrow. “Can you blame me?”
“Not at all,” Tobias said. “I’m just surprised that’s all you’ve done. We were taking bets, you know. I could lose five silver to Aidan unless you feel like setting someone on fire very quickly.”
Anders stood up, chuckling. “You don’t have to live with her. I do that and, well, it won’t be pretty. For me.”
“Yeah, but five silver!” Anders rolled his eyes.
The two recruits, who had been with the first group and were waiting for the others to return so everyone could leave together, glanced at the Wardens. “Are… we missing something?” one said after a moment.
“Oh yeah,” Tobias replied, laughing even harder.
“Is this one of the Warden secrets we can’t hear about yet?”
“Nope,” Tobias said. “Not even close.” He looked over at Anders. “Can I, or do you want to?”
“Go right ahead,” Anders said, waving his hand. “I’d hate to spoil your fun.”
Tobias grinned leaning against the wall, his bow casting strange shadows on the ground. “Let’s see,” the elf said, smirking. “How can I put this...? Well, if you’re ever looking for the Commander’s bedroom, it’s the second floor, east wing, fourth door.”
The two recruits exchanged a glance, grinning. “Really?” one said.
“Absolutely,” Tobias went on. “Coincidentally, if you’re ever looking for Anders’ bedroom, it’s also the second floor, east wing, fourth door.”
Another exchanged glance. “I don’t suppose you’re, um, across the hall from each other?"
“No,” Anders said flatly. After listening to their stumbling apologies for several minutes Anders sighed. “Just… stop talking. Please,” he finally said.
They fell mostly silent, whispering between each other. Tobias laughed again a moment later. “No, you didn’t hurt his feelings,” he said. “He’s doing his best not to kill you. Probably because the boss yells if we, you know, kill recruits. One of her rules. Don’t you know you should never ****** off a mage? And especially her.” He dropped his voice to a theatrical whisper. “They can kill you with their minds. ” Anders rolled his eyes as the recruits retreated as far away as they could manage in the confines of the tunnel.
Mercifully, the final group returned and Anders could escape the collective idiocy he had been subjected to all morning.
A table, formerly part of the main hall décor, was sitting in the courtyard. Well, it had been a table. Whatever happened had left it a bit too charred to be called one anymore.
“That was pretty good,” Maggie said as they got ready for bed. “Eight out of ten! Really good, actually.”
“It was,” Anders agreed, sitting under the blankets watching her. “I wonder why we get better results than anyone else.”
“Because Fereldans are tougher than everyone else,” she said matter-of-factly, grinning at him. “That and I avoid anyone who uses the words ‘honor’ or ‘glory’ like they were covered in open sores. I think they’re jinxed.” She paused for a moment. “Any reason two of the new wardens spent ten minutes asking me to pass an apology on to you?”
“There was a misunderstanding,” was all Anders said. She raised an eyebrow. “You know that book about you? The one you hate?”
“The one written by the guy you hit with lightning that said I had sex with every third man in Ferelden during the blight? Yeah, I know it.” Oh, apparently she did know about that.
“So did they,” he said flatly.
“Damn book,” she grumbled, crawling in next to him. “Sorry.”
He shrugged. “I can deal with sharing you with the whole country whenever we leave the Keep. That’s about where my patience ends, though.” Anders lifted his arm so she could scoot closer. “Don’t worry, I didn’t hit anyone with lightning.”
“Something like that,” she said, “well, maybe we can make an exception. I don’t really need anyone thinking the Warden Commander is no better than a common prostitute. It’s bad enough everyone thinks I’m a maleficar.”
“You are a maleficar.”
“I know that! I don’t want people to think I am, though. It’s bad publicity.”
“Right,” Anders laughed. “How could I forget? So, what happened to the table I saw outside?”
“Oh… nothing,” she said quickly.
Anders shifted so he could look her in the eye. “Maggie…?”
“I might have, um, used it to prove a point.”
He smirked, sitting up. “Now you have to tell me. What point would this be?”
“Maybe a ‘new recruits shouldn’t talk about wanting to see how muscular Anders is under his robes where I can hear them since I can kill with a flick of my wrist’ sort of point?”
“You set a table on fire?!” Anders looked at her and burst out laughing.
“No!” she said. “I’m not insane!” He stared, waiting for the explanation. “I hit it with lightning. Which, um, sort of set a book that was sitting on the table on fire. It kind of spread from there.” She made a face at him. “Hey, I was tempted to hit them. I think the table they were sitting near was a fair compromise.”
“Of course it was, sweetheart,” he said, still laughing.
“Shut up,” she pouted.
He pulled her back over towards him. “All right,” Anders said. “You know I love only you, right?”
“I know,” she said. “And I love only you. Well, the kind of love that involves getting to see me naked, at least. There isn’t even anyone who I have the kind of like for that involves seeing me naked anymore! And I used to have a lot of those.”
He made a face. “Yeah, well Jowan saw you naked,” Anders said.
“Maker’s breath, I was five and there was a heat wave. That doesn’t count.”
“Just saying.”
She made a noise of frustration. “Just stop talking,” Maggie demanded. “That whole seeing me naked thing? You’re completely wasting it.”
Anders had to admit, she had a point.
Sigrun isn't as clever as she thinks she is - or maybe its just her experience with duster men ;-)
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