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Date & Time: After this network post
Location: Super secret mage hideout, aka Unit 205
Characters: Residents of said abode (Anders

birdhousesoul, Martin Septim

septim, Nathaniel Howe

noble_nate)
Summary: Frosted Flakes marshmallow squares have been made.
Warnings: None at present, possibly angsty microchip discussion ~~or discussion of WHAT WAS UP WITH BEING ALL BLUE AND GLOWY~~

In the days following the Masked invasion of Unit 205, Anders has made himself scarce. He's been out doing things and having discussions. He won't say what, or with whom, or where, but he hasn't been taking Pounce with him, and the cat's been taking it out on the furniture and limbs of Anders' flatmates.

Tonight, he's at home, a change from the recent status quo, and he's monopolized the kitchen with some mysterious process involving foodstuffs never seen in Thedas. Martin's love of frosted flakes has not gone unnoticed (how could it?) and Anders has consulted a recipe on the back of the box, without consulting anyone else on how it can best be followed.

It's a testament to his Circle teachers' alchemy lessons that Anders doesn't burn the results: frosted flakes marshmallow squares. He's in the kitchen trying to chisel them out of the pan.

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Nathaniel had been incredibly worried about Anders, though he hadn't voiced his thoughts to anyone. He knew that the man was blaming himself for what had happened, and nothing Nathaniel said was helping. That he would have smashed the microchip just as Anders had, apparently didn't matter; Anders was determined that this was all his fault.

So Nathaniel had tried to let him be, and though it bothered him that his lover had all but disappeared lately, he hadn't commented on it. Even when he was home, he kept his distance, and in many ways that was even harder.

But he's home tonight, and Nathaniel hopes that this will become the norm once again. The smells of baking lure him into the kitchen, where he sees Anders trying to leverage some strange concoction of frosted flakes out of a baking pan. "Is that edible?" he asks, somewhat skeptically.

"That's the idea." Anders succeeds in prying a square up. Strings of marshmallow stretch from that to the rest of the cereal brick. It reminds him unwholesomely of a childer grub. Yet the smell is wonderfully sugary and altogether tempting, neither of which are properties of a childer grub. "It should be more edible than it looks, anyhow. I will admit it's not the prettiest thing I've ever made."

Technically, nothing Anders has ever made is pretty. In the Circle no one cooks for himself. In the Wardens, he learned bog-standard campfire fare. In Darktown, he ate whatever people bartered or gifted him. His specialties include gruel and a wholesome chicken soup. The common theme: boiling something in a pot for a long while.

"But all this stuff," he waves his free hand to encompass vaguely the whole of the kitchen with its stove and oven and things, "makes it fairly foolproof, I think. You just turn a knob and it stays as hot as you like, no cooling or flaring up."

Apparently he has no intention of bringing up anything more serious than cooking, although the drawn expression on his face isn't warranted by marshmallowy treats.

Between clinic duties, reading lists and working out, Martin hasn't paid much attention to Anders' absence. Not that he doesn't care, rather that he doesn't think it's right for him to mommy the other mage, aside from polite concern, now that Nathaniel lives with them.

Pounce's restlessness, however, hasn't gone unnoticed. There's scratch marks on his wrist and fingers from when he had the brilliant idea to cast a magelight, but before Martin could spell the mote away so Pounce could follow it, he'd gotten antsy and attacked his arm instead.

The kitchen, as the library, is his sanctuary. Martin shuffles onto the linoleum floor on laundry day, so he's only in the black undershirt and loose pants that are worn under his signature priest' robe. He's in the mood for, surprise surprise, frosted flakes drowned in whole milk, until he spots and smells the commotion in the kitchen.

"Is that what I think it is?" With the wide-eyed excitement of a child, Martin peers at the trays.

Edited 2012-03-12 02:16 (UTC)

Nathaniel isn't exactly fooled by all of Anders' talk about cooking; the lightness of the conversation is overshadowed by Anders' haggard expression. Nathaniel's terrible at things like this, and he's not sure if he should press Anders about his absence or let it drop.

Martin's entrance winds up being a welcome distraction. "Anders says it's edible," he says dryly. He pulls off a corner of the square in Anders' hand and pops it into his mouth, chewing it slowly. "Not bad," he says, mildly surprised.

Anders has always excelled at meaningless chatter. "There you have it. Eminently edible." He presses the rest of the square into Nathaniel's hand and goes back to work on the pan of gooey cereal it came from. Wielding a utensil that bears a suspicious resemblance to a putty knife, Anders carves out some more squares, more easily now that the first one's out.

"Never fear. I did not use up all your frosted flakes in making these. Well, all right, I did, but I also brought more, so there is still cereal for your ordinary cereal-eating needs," Anders informs Martin, who really loves cereal.

Pounce, meanwhile, has jumped up onto the counter and seems about to stick a paw into another pan of undivided cereal treatstuff.

"You can't go wrong with cereal and sugar," Martin says as if he were an expert on cereal and sugar. Considering there's enough empty cereal boxes to make a fort out of, he pretty much is.

He waits for Nathaniel to finish his piece first, for politeness' sake. Once the approval is passed, Martin takes a swipe at a piece and, atypical of such a refined scholar, shoves it into his mouth.

It's...delicious. A bit on the sugary side, so Martin has to pour himself a glass of milk to wash them down, yet just the right amount of crunchy. Just to make sure his assessment is correct (or due to greed, same thing) Martin goes for another piece, savoring the treat this time.

Martin stares at Anders, looking grateful. "This is amazing, Anders." From the corner of his eye, he catches Pounce about to paw at some of their treats, so he moves the pan aside. "I don't know what I did to deserve this, but...thank you so much."

Nathaniel finds Martin's obsession with frosted flakes rather amusing. They were undoubtedly good, but nothing special. Though, as a Warden, he wasn't the best judge of what tasted good. One of the first things a Warden learns after taking the Joining is that his appetite has increased tenfold, causing everything to taste good.

He grabs Pounce (it's taken ages for him to finally agree to recognize that the cat has a name) and places him gently on the floor and out of the way of the food.

"So, did you just come home to bake?" he asks as he takes another square. It's said casually, but there's the barest hint of an edge to the question, a reminder of Anders' recent absences.

To Martin's thanks, Anders only shakes his head and says, "It was a whim. Thank the Maker I didn't burn anything."

To Nathaniel's remark — well, that's more difficult to tackle. Tactless as he may sometimes be, Anders knows better than to say he came home to check on the cat.

"Where else should I bake?" He offers a too-bright smile. Pounce meows loudly, as if to object. Anders glares at the cat, then sighs. "Look, working culinary wonders takes a lot out of a man. I'm calling it an early night, fellows."

He leaves the kitchen, leaving pans and all behind him. He's not terribly good at the whole clean-as-you-go philosophy of kitchen maintenance, either.

[[Because Anders wasn't quite ready to talk about what he's been doing, yet. Feel free to compare notes on blue glowyness or just chow down on cereal treats]]

Martin's extremely empathetic, yet even someone who's emotionally stunted would be able to discern why Anders is in such a dour mood, dodging questions with witticisms and vagueness.

"Night." No point in wrestling that. Martin stands, clearing the pans of treats, placing them in containers, then cleaning the kitchen. It isn't that he's ignoring Nathaniel, but that cleaning provides an excellent venue to think what needs to be done, or said.

After a couple of minutes, he breaks the silence, smiling apologetically as he dries his hands. "I didn't mean to ignore you, I just wanted to figure out how to cheer up Anders. He still blames himself for what the Masked did."

Nathaniel had sat himself at the table and was lost in thoughts of his own. "I don't mind," he says to Martin's apology, "I don't usually talk much anyway." He offers the man a weak smile.

"As far as Anders goes..." he sighs as he rubs at his eyes tiredly. "I have no idea what to do. I keep trying to tell him it's not his fault, but he won't listen to me."

That weak smile erases Martin's question, you don't mind being ignored? Both Thedans are in clear distress, yet they can't speak to each other about it (at least not yet) due to being the cause and effect of the problem themselves.

"As a priest," Martin begins, atypical for him to speak about his past, so he chooses his words carefully, "People would come up to me will all sorts of problems, expecting me to have an answer and worse, a solution. When it came to pain, or blame, I always told them the same thing I know from experience: it takes time to come to terms with suffering and mistakes." He sighs, tucking his hands into his sleeves, cross-armed. "Not comforting, I know. Sadly, it's the same for Anders."

Edited 2012-03-13 03:39 (UTC)

Nathaniel smiles ruefully. "A few months ago I was worried that Anders and I would never actually get to be together, other than getting together once every few months if we were lucky. Now we have all of this time together, and we're spending it apart."

He considers Martin's comment about being a priest. "Wasn't it hard? To know that you couldn't offer comfort to the people you were counseling?"

"'Always toward absent lovers love's tide stronger flows. Sextus Propertius,'" says Martin, verbatim, as if some obscure nugget of wisdom from a long-dead Imperial poet is supposed to mean anything to the Thedan. "Which means 'absence makes the heart grow fonder'. Since you saw each other so infrequently, the emotions ran stronger."

Mulling over the question, Martin decides to pull up a chair and sit, elbows off the table. "Yes. Healing the body is easier than healing the mind. I did what I could. Often, it wasn't enough." Not at all, the Oblivion Crisis proved that. Martin lowers his gaze, wistful.

Nathaniel's more dismayed about Martin's quote than he's willing to let on. If absence really does make the heart grow fonder, perhaps Anders' fondness for him will diminish now that they're together rather than strengthen.

He focuses instead on Martin's other comments, curious about the other man's past. So you preferred being a healer rather than a priest?"

Martin knows he's said the wrong thing. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't try to advise you on romance. I've never been in love, so it's not my area of expertise," he admits factually, no regret or sorrow.

"In Tamriel, priests are healers, of body and soul. My duties as a priest were both counseling and healing wounds through magic. I can't say whether I like one over the other."

Nathaniel nods thoughtfully. "From what I can tell, priests in your world are comparable to the Chantry clergy in Thedas. But they're not capable of performing magic. If they could, they wouldn't be allowed to be members of the clergy; in Thedas, mages are mages, and they can't be anything else.

"From what Anders told me of the Chantry, I'm not sure I would've been as devout in Thedas." Martin offers an awkward smile, knowledgeable that he would've lived his existence as an indentured servant in some fortress, enchanting items for the good of society, and for profit to the Circle of Magi. "Forgive me, I shouldn't speak ill of realms I know little about."

Edited 2012-03-14 00:03 (UTC)

Nathaniel can't help smiling. "You needn't keep apologizing. I love my home, but the treatment of mages there is horrible." He grimaces a little. "There was a long time when I thought the Chantry had the right of it, that mages should be locked up. It wasn't until I became a Grey Warden and met a couple mages that I realized how wrong they were."

"Mages like Anders." Getting close to someone has a way of letting you see what they see, understand the struggles they through. It's no surprise a Thedan who used to agree with mage oppression would retract that statement once he fell in love with a mage. "The way he speaks of the Chantry, I have to admire his willpower and strength to fight them."

"So do I," Nathaniel says in agreement. "When I served with him in Amaranthine, years ago, he wasn't nearly as adament about it." He grabs another one of Anders' cereal squares. "He escaped from the Circle several times, and he hated how mages were treated, but once he was free he never really tried to help his fellow mages." He smiles ruefully. "Justice used to get irritated with him for that."

He looks up at Martin. "Has Anders told you about Justice?"

Surprising, that once upon a time, Anders didn't feel as strongly about mage liberation as he does now. Or maybe not, as he had enough trouble keeping himself hidden from the Chantry. "I assume we're not speaking about justice as a moral concept." No, how Nate is speaking about 'justice' sounds as if a name, an entity. "No, he has not."

[Massive tl;dr incoming!]

Nathaniel hesitates a moment, unsure whether or not he should tell Martin about Justice; he had been fairly sure that Anders would have already said something. But if his suspicions are correct about what happened to Anders when the Masked stormed into the apartment, then Martin should know the facts.

"It's...a bit difficult to explain to someone that's not from Thedas, but I'll try. It requires a bit of an explanation of how some things are in our world; forgive me if I wind up being long-winded." He smiles wryly.

"In Thedas, when people fall asleep and dream, their minds travel to a place called the Fade. I don't know if it's a real place or not, Anders would probably be able to explain all of that better than I. What I do know is that most people can only go there when they're asleep, but mages have the ability to travel there when they're awake."

He gets up abruptly and grabs the carton of milk out of the fridge, pouring himself a glass before sitting back down. "There are two types of beings within the Fade: the first are demons. There's all sorts, and all of them are dangerous and malicious. There are also spirits -- personifications of ideals.

"When Anders and I served as Wardens together in Amaranthine, there was a sort of invasion of darkspawn -- hideous monsters that the Wardens are dedicated to fighting, if you didn't already know that. During one of our battles with them, a few of us were transported to the Fade against our will. We managed to make it out with the help of a spirit called Justice. Something happened, I'm still not sure what, and he was transported back to the mortal world with us, and was trapped within the dead body of a fellow Warden."

Nathaniel grimaces at that. As much as he'd grown to like Justice, serving with a sentient reanimated corpse had always seemed a little gruesome to him.

"I'll leave the details of this part to Anders to tell you, because I wasn't there. But the long and short of it was that some time later, Anders offered his body as a vessel to Justice. Since he was inhabiting a corpse at the time, there was always the possibility that the body..." another grimace from him, "would wear out. So, Justice and Anders merged with each other, and became one being."

Martin listens intently, keeping his hands folded on his lap as Nathaniel explains the nature of the Fade, its connection with mages, and Anders' possession by a spirit of justice, aptly named Justice.

There are many questions lingering in the tip of hist tongue, but he buries his curiosity in exchange for politeness. This can't be an easy tale to give, certainly not a tale that many would be privy to in Thedas—Martin has an inkling that the fact that mages can enter the Fade, thus be open to possession by its denizens, is likely a reason as to why mages are feared, and oppressed.

"I thank you for telling me this," he nods with a grateful expression. "I promise I'll keep this private. I'm more familiar with possession than most. Let's just leave it at that." Cryptic, but necessary. Explaining his own possession, and death, at the hands of Akatosh is more than he cares to share at the moment. Maybe someday, but not now.

Nathaniel raises an eyebrow, curious about Martin's last statement, but he refrains from asking about it.

"I thought you should know, just in case." He doesn't elaborate on that statement, not wanting to say anything about the events in Kirkwall and Anders' role in causing a large-scale revolt of mages. That story is definitely Anders' to tell.

"When the Masked stormed in here and attacked us, you saw Anders start glowing blue and speaking...strangely." It's a statement rather than a question; he vaguely remembers Martin walking into the room in time to see that. "I think that that might have been Justice coming out." He stresses the word "think," as he's not entirely certain that that's what happened; he'll need to ask Anders about it later.

He takes a drink of his milk. "I don't know the full implications of Anders' merging with Justice, but I do know that it changed him. And maybe not for the better. I don't know, I've never seen that happen before. And I don't know how dangerous Anders might be when he gets like that, or how much control he has over himself at those times.

"I sensed powerful magic." Primal, indomitable power, as if a rip to Aetherius itself opened. "I decided against becoming involved, I was...hesitant to be in the middle of that." Get torn asunder in the present of an unknown variable. "The voice itself wasn't human, certainly not Anders."

Perhaps this isn't the best time to bring this up. Martin, however, believes in the necessity of knowing all the intricacies of an issue before acting. "In Tamriel, as in Thedas, possessions corrupt people." A sigh, his fingers fidgeting once, then stilling. "Even if the spirit leaves the body, there's often lingering effects. Unless the mage has a particularly strong mind, we're advised against summoning spirits, or opening doors to their realms, such as Oblivion." He closes his eyes for a couple of seconds, then continues. "I wasn't always a priest. During my youth, I followed a different path. It brought knowledge of the unpleasant sides of magic, such as conjuring and..." The fragility of life. "...I'm sorry, this isn't important at the moment. What I wanted to say is that I'm not afraid of Anders and if you ever need help, divines forbid, against this Justice, I can help you."

Nathaniel nods. "It helps that you're a mage, you probably understand possessions and spirits better than most. And thank you for your offer of help." He offers Martin a sincere smile. "I'm not afraid of Justice, and I'm fairly certain he wouldn't attack me intentionally." Though there's always the possibility of getting caught in the middle. "Anders says that he and Justice are one now, not two beings in the same body. I think that, since Anders loves me, Justice wouldn't try to harm me unless I was threatening their safety.

The smile turns into a small frown. "I feel responsible for all of this, in a way. It was me who suggested to Justice that he merge with a willing host. That the relationship could be beneficial to both. I had no idea that it could..." That it could corrupt them both.

"It's the least I could do." Martin matches Nathaniel's smile, though it's anemic. "I know Anders is strong, but that doesn't mean we're not at risk." Him, more than Nathaniel. There isn't an emotional, romantic connection to Martin as there is for Nathaniel.

"You wouldn't have known. Don't blame yourself." In a world where magic is feared, these are the consequences—ignorance of its populace towards powers that should be embraced and understood, for their own good. "I doubt Anders and Justice completely understood the danger of such a relationship themselves."

"No, I don't think they would have agreed to it had they known..." Nathaniel looks thoughtful for a few moments. "Anders seems to think that their merging was a good thing, more or less. I don't know whether I should feel relieved or dismayed that he doesn't regret it."

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