[closed] blasting yourself into the present

[birdhousesoul]

Date & Time: shortly after this
Location: Unit 205
Characters: grumpface noble_nate and magebutt birdhousesoul
Summary: This is not my beautiful house! This is not my beautiful wife!
Warnings: ANDERS


Well. That was a pleasant conversation. Surely things can only get better.

Anders almost wishes he had a set of decent mage robes. He hasn't worn robes in years -- too conspicuous, and in Darktown the hem would have trailed in sewage. Yet he feels he really ought to be wearing robes on this inauspicious occasion, just for old times' sake. For one half-hysterical minute, he seriously contemplates pinning together a bedsheet toga. What decides him against it is the slim but real possibility Nathaniel might mistake him for some deranged Tevinter magister.

(There were Tevinter mages in Denerim, or so Anders heard it rumored, in the last weeks of the Blight. Trolling the elvhen alienage for likely slave flesh. Unlikely as the rumor sounded, anything seemed possible in those surreal days, caught between civil war and darkspawn incursions.)

Pounce demands to be let out, and Anders complies. Now it's just the dog and Anders in the apartment. Nathaniel's dog, Padric, alias Prince Puddingface (a name Nathaniel refuses to utter). Anders realizes Nathaniel won't remember the dog, either. Poor Puddingface. Will Nathaniel be touched at unexpected overtures of canine friendship, or will he sneer at a dog who isn't a mabari? He might well consider himself entitled to a whole kennel of mabari. Fereldans aren't called dog lords for nothing, though the epithet's hardly a compliment in the Marches.

"I suppose we'll find out," Anders muses aloud to Puddingface. The dog lowers his head onto his paws. "Oh, don't look that way. This could be fun."

And if it isn't, at least it'll keep Nathaniel too busy to try killing Cousland just yet.

Comments

[birdhousesoul]

A twinge of hurt at the words, no more; foul demon, that stings a bit, that's all; but this is that old Nathaniel who used to be such fun to discomfit, and Anders has to deal with him as that Nathaniel, or else he won't be able to deal with him at all.

"Would a demon really put me in such boring clothes?" Not even robes. Just what passes for ordinary street attire in Exsilium, shirt and slacks, and his shoes are off. "Or provide you with an adorable little brown dog? All right, he's not so little anymore. He just thinks he is."

[noble_nate]

Said dog chooses that moment to rest his head on Nathaniel's lap. He'd followed Nathaniel closely during his search of the apartment, and settled himself obediently on the floor next to the couch when Nathaniel sat down.

Nathaniel looks down at the dog, focusing on the task of scratching behind Padric's ears and hoping Anders doesn't notice his embarrassment.

"A desire demon might," he says gruffly.

[birdhousesoul]

Anders watches man and dog for a silent moment. This really is the Nathaniel he first met all those years ago: gruff, stiff, formal, ready to work himself into high and righteous indignation at the drop of a pin. And in some ways, Nathaniel's the same man all these years later too. Grown more comfortable in his skin, grown more certain of his own esteem in a Ferelden no longer hostile to every Howe, but the same prickly-vulnerable person inside.

Anders can know him better now, and know these things about him, only because Anders has done some growing up himself. The Anders who was contemporary to that younger Nathaniel had been a creature of surfaces, glinting bright, willfully shallow. He'd been too wrapped up in his own problems and pursuits to dig much past the surface someone like Howe might present. Even so, he'd tried for some shared feeling -- expressed through Howe jokes, alas. And some part of Anders, too, will always be the same man as he was then. He's been indulging that part just now. Finding humor in what could well be a very serious situation; forcing that humor onto poor Nathaniel, at Nathaniel's expense if also at his own.

When he speaks again, it's in a more subdued tone.

"I'm sorry. This must be hard for you. If it's any comfort, the disorientation you're feeling ought to pass, sooner or later." All the other changes Exsilium has wrought upon them have passed. The drugged food and water, the memory-simulation ...

[noble_nate]

Nathaniel looks at Anders sharply. "Sooner or later? Well, that certainly is comforting." Nathaniel's sharp tongue seems to have returned as well.

"I remember this place, and I don't remember it. My father's murderer is here, as is a mage whom I've never met before and not only claims to know everything about me, but is also apparently intimately familiar with me. Forgive me if I don't find your words reassuring."

[birdhousesoul]

Anders sets his tea down. Leans forward, elbows on knees. Narrows his eyes at Nathaniel.

"I never claimed to know everything about you. What I know is what you've told me, and what we've lived through together. What I know about your father, I know from people I trust, and some of it from you yourself. I know that if Cousland hadn't killed your father, he would almost certainly have ended up being executed in a much messier fashion, by popular demand. I think if given the choice, he'd have preferred to go out the way he did, fighting. Wouldn't anyone want that? A clean death, with some dignity remaining to him. Not drawn and quartered."

They're not nice words, but Nathaniel isn't responding to niceness, and Anders knows him well enough to know he can withstand this.

"You came to terms with that. You restored honor to your family name through your valor as a Grey Warden. You won't remember this, I suppose, but you are a Grey Warden, and that's irreversible. It can't be ignored or pretended away." He straightens at last. "That's how we met, incidentally. We were Wardens together."

[noble_nate]

Nathaniel doesn't visibly wince at Anders' harsh words, but they stab at him nonetheless. His natural instinct is to stab back with some cruel remark, but he reins himself in. Not as easy to do as it once was... or rather, will be.

"My father was an honorable man; whatever he did, it must have been for the good of Ferelden."

[birdhousesoul]

Anders shakes his head. "You're the one who's restored honor to the Howe name. The things your father did during the Blight had tarnished it in the eyes of all Ferelden. Killed off the Couslands to claim Highever. Locked up the heir to Denerim so he could hold the arling. He didn't even try to pass it off as what was good for Ferelden, from what I hear."

With a shrug he sinks back into the couch cushions, though he's too tall really to rest his head there. Lazily, loosely, he crosses his legs, right ankle balanced atop left knee. (You can't sit that way when you're wearing a robe. He hasn't worn mage robes in years. Can't imagine going back to them now, the restriction of movement they enforce.) "Nor did he seem to have his sons' best interests in mind, nor his daughter's. Your sister's doing well, by the way. She lives in Kirkwall now. You have a nephew."

[noble_nate]

Nathaniel's eyes widen in suprise. "A nephew?" He shakes his head in disbelief. "Maker, I wasn't even sure if Delilah was alive."

It was one of the reasons why he'd had no reservations about heading to Vigil's Keep to take care of Cousland: everyone in his family was gone, everything he had had was lost. He wasn't suicidal by any means, but he was well aware that killing the Hero of Ferelden would likely earn him his own death as well. But he'd been so certain he had nothing to lose.

"Tell me," he says quietly, looking at Anders intently, "do I kill Elissa? In the future?"

[birdhousesoul]

Anders meets his gaze calmly. "You don't. You'll have every opportunity to betray her, but you won't. We'll have fought so many battles together, there are so many ways she could have died -- you could have made it look like an accident, if you'd wanted. That doesn't happen. You're an honorable man, Nathaniel."

[noble_nate]

A hand goes to Nathaniel's forehead, rubbing at the headache that has suddenly bloomed.

"It seems that honor comes at the cost of failing to avenge my father."

[birdhousesoul]

"If you had remained convinced he needed avenging, you would have avenged him at any price. I'm sure of that." Anders resists the natural impulse to go to him, to help rub away that headache. He stays put. "I can't say what you thought on the subject. You never discussed it with me, or with anyone to my knowledge, save perhaps your sister." For a moment he wishes Delilah were here to share her insight with Nathaniel as she'd once done. A moment, only, before Anders thinks better of it. Who'd wish anyone into Exsilium?

"I can't convince you. You don't even remember who I am," and despite Anders' best efforts, a thread of pain glints through the admission. "Take this for what you will. I know that if you try to harm Elissa Cousland now, you'll hate yourself for it later." When he comes back to himself. When his memory's restored, when this temporary madness passes. Maker grant it will. "You would do yourself more harm than you'd do to her. Besides, she doesn't even recall what happened to your father. For her, it hasn't happened. What sort of vengeance could you really win from her then?"

[noble_nate]

Nathaniel sighs loudly, leaning back in his seat. Anders was right; whoever he is, he knows Nathaniel well.

"And what of you?" he asks quietly. "When did we...?"

[birdhousesoul]

"When did we what?" Anders will make him spell it out, for sheer contrariness.

[noble_nate]

Nathaniel rolls his eyes. "When did you and I become... romantic."

[birdhousesoul]

Anders laughs. "You're safe for a few years, yet. From my viewpoint, we've been together ... very nearly a year."

[noble_nate]

Nathaniel shakes his head wonderingly. "I must have changed quite a bit over the years to become involved with a mage."

No rancor in the statement, just truth; Nathaniel has grown up believing mages are dangerous and need to be kept away from everyone else. The idea that he would fall for a mage--regardless of how attractive said mage was--is almost unbelievable.

[birdhousesoul]

Anders gives a soft snort. "You haven't changed all that much. Spending time around real live mages may have altered your viewpoint somewhat, I suppose. I've seen you flirt quite convincingly with a mage who was Dalish, to boot. She'd been attacking caravans before she met up with the Wardens. Didn't seem to daunt you much."

Why, yes, Anders is still jealous of Velanna. Even when Nathaniel doesn't remember Velanna.

[noble_nate]

"A Dalish mage?" Nathaniel wondered what kinds of adventures Elissa dragged them all on for them to encounter one of the Dalish. He notices the tone of Anders' voice.

"I take it you didn't like her very much."

[birdhousesoul]

Anders demurs. "Let's just say you liked her better than I did. The point is that you hadn't any aversion to working with mages, or spending time with them outside work. It pleased me to think we had something in common, mages and Howes: both of us were vilified for something beyond our control. You were born a Howe. I was born a mage. Neither of us asked to be what we are. But, being as we are, it stands to reason we'd want to be good at it, don't you think?"

[noble_nate]

"I'm proud of being a Howe," Nathaniel answers, "are you proud of being a mage?" He pinches at the bridge of his nose again, the headache getting stronger. "Never mind, it doesn't matter... I just wish I could remember any of this."

[birdhousesoul]

"... Was that supposed to be insulting? You really don't remember me. Yes, I'm proud to be a mage. I talk about it often. I believe very strongly that magic is a gift of the Maker, not a curse. I'm a healer. I heal people; I've healed you." A sigh. "You'll remember it all in time, I expect. Funny things happen to us here, sometimes; they wear off eventually. We might want to change your diet and see whether that helps. Eat only packaged foods, drink only bottled water."

[noble_nate]

Nathaniel frowns at that last part. "Do you think I've been poisoned?"

It was certainly possible--Nathaniel knew of a few poisons that would cause memory loss, though usually the amnesia is complete, wiping away all memories.

"I suppose it's possible, though I have no idea who would do such a thing. There haven't been any other signs of the United Earth attacking, at least not that I know of.

[birdhousesoul]

Anders' mouth twists and thins to little more than a dour line. "It's happened before, and not from the United Earth. The Initiative felt we'd be more useful to them if we liked them a little better, so they spiked our drink, as it were. It wasn't a memory loss, it was something else. Visions. Anxiety. It affected mood and thought. Once you were clean of the drug, you were yourself again. Only I shouldn't be immune, if we're being drugged again ..." He shrugs helplessly. "I can't say what's going on." And it's clear this takes a toll on him. He's a healer; he wants to heal whatever's been damaged. He wants to fix what's gone wrong. He simply has no way of diagnosing it.

[noble_nate]

Nathaniel notices Anders' distress, but he doesn't comment on it; he's more concerned with his own problems at the moment.

"So I just have to wait it out." His brow furrows. "I'm not sure if I have the patience for that."