Chapter Text
Love… it was the first thing that had made Anders truly begin to hate the Circle. Oh, he had always disliked it in that way that no one who has been imprisoned for something they had no say in could help but dislike their prison. But he hadn’t hated it, not truly, not until he fell in love. He still remembered the first moment he’d seen her, the new mage who had been transferred from a different Circle standing in the dining room, her long, glorious golden curls cascading around her shoulders like a spell. She’d turned to look at him, deep blue eyes flashing with interest as her lips curved into a smile and she extended her hand.
“I’m Aurora,” she had said, and he had been lost.
He would have done anything for her. Anything. Burned the whole Maker damned Circle to the ground if she’d so much as hinted at it. She had known how he felt, of course, everyone had. He’d had all the subtlety of a blood mage when it came to his affections. But then, he hadn’t learned yet just how dangerous it was for a mage to love anything, much less anyone.
It had all been his fault. His big, fat, stupid mouth. Why couldn’t he have just taken the Templar insults on the chin like the rest of the mages? Bowed his head submissively and done what he needed to, stayed out of trouble? But no, he’d had to look Sir Payne in the face and tell him that he hoped he experienced one fraction of the pain he had inflicted on others. It had hardly been unproved. Sir Payne was a bully, punishing the mages for no reason other than his whims, especially the pretty ones. The things he had done to them… Anders still had nightmares, and that particular day, he had been beating a boy, hardly fourteen for no crime greater than too loudly in the halls. Anders had been angry, so, so very angry. If he hadn’t known he would be made tranquil in an instant, he would have incinerated him in a ball of flame that would have been too good a death for a man like him. Instead, he had walked right up and punched him, punched him and then told him that one day the Maker would punish him for his sins, and that his punishment would come by Anders own hands.
He had fully expected repercussions, being thrown into a cell alone, perhaps, denied food and water until he was too weak to stand. He had even expected to be beaten to within an inch of his life, and it was nothing he hadn’t been ready to endure for that one, sweet moment of justice. But Sir Payne had done nothing, nothing except stare at him with a shocked expression, his gauntleted hand on his cheek where Anders had struck him. He had let him go, signaling to the other Templars not to stop him as he strode away, and for one, beautiful, unfathomable moment, he had allowed himself to believe that his words had made a difference. They hadn’t, of course. No, Sir Payne had an entirely different punishment in mind, one that had hurt a thousand times more than being starved or beaten ever could.
It hadn’t been till then next day when he’d found out what they’d done, when he’d realized what his brazenness had truly cost him. He had been walking the halls to see the healer under whom he was an apprentice when he’d seen her, walking calmly away from him as though simply on her way to breakfast. She hadn’t turned as he’d drawn nearer, given no signs that she even heard him call her name until he was directly behind her. When he had touched her arm, however, she had stopped and looked at him. In that moment, as she turned slowly towards him, it had felt like his entire world had spun to a halt. Gone were the sparkling, expressive blue eyes he had so adored, the teasing smirk that had been too apt to cross her lips when she saw him. Gone was the mirth, the joy, the love that had once filled her every feature, replaced instead by a cold, empty expression, eyes devoid of absolutely any emotion. It felt like he had been punched, no, stabbed with a dagger coated in poison. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t stand. He needed to be somewhere, anywhere but standing in front of the woman who was the woman he loved no more.
“Can I help you?” She had asked calmly, just as calmly as if she was speaking to a perfect stranger instead of the lover whose name she had been screaming in ecstasy just two days before.
He had backed away, eyes wide with shock, shaking with untamed rage and horror as all color drained from his face. Only Sir Payne’s rough hand on his arm stopped him from fleeing, from flinging himself out the nearest window to his death.
“No,” he had hissed into his ear. “Don’t run. Stay and see what your insolence has caused.”
His hand was replaced by two more Templars, ready to smite at the slightest whisper of magic from him. Sir Payne moved forward to where she stood, the love of his life, as unmoved by his distress as if he weren’t even there.
“So pretty,” he murmured, lifting the hair off her shoulder and inhaling lasciviously. “So pretty and so obedient now.”
Anders began to struggle frantically at his words. He had to get her out of here, had to do something. He would kill her rather than let her be taken by these… these beasts. He knew it was what she would want if she were still able to choose, knew she would prefer death to being the plaything of the Templars.
“Such a shame,” continued Sir Payne, “That such a very well-behaved mage should have had to be made Tranquil, but such is the price of your actions, such is what happens when you attack a Templar.”
Anders let out a sound that was something between a scream and a sob, reaching frantically for his mana to make it stop. He needed it all to stop. The Templars were quicker, however, cleansing him of any magic before he could so much as light a spark, leaving him scraping painfully for something, anything to release him from his agony and her from hers.
“Come, Aurora,” said Sir Payne, taking her arm. “Let’s go.”
“No!” Cried Anders, his voice hoarse with agony. “No, please. Kill me. Punish me. Make me Tranquil. Anything! I’ll do anything. But don’t hurt her… please.”
Sir Payne, a smug expression of self-satisfaction on his face just said, “I’m not going to kill you, and I wouldn’t give you the relief of being made Tranquil. No. You’ll suffer much more knowing your former lover has become my pet.” And with that, he motioned to the Templars holding him to take him away.
They dragged him, screaming and struggling to a cell and locked him there. How long they kept him there, denying him any magic, anything sharp enough to allow him to end his own misery, he would never know. Weeks? Months? Years? It didn’t matter. She was gone, gone to a fate worse than death, and Anders had never hated himself or the Templars so much. He had sobbed and yelled at intervals, been angry and then miserable and then angry again. He had tried to cast spells until he was drained and exhausted, hit the walls until his hands were bloody and torn, but eventually his anger had simmered into something else, a promise of revenge against Sir Payne and every other Templar who had dared to touch a mage against their will, dared to destroy a living soul simply to torture another. His misery had grown calmer too, more rational, becoming a promise to himself from that day forward that he would never fall in love again. Never. Love was too dangerous as a mage, nothing but a tool they could use to wound you more deeply than their swords ever could. No, he would never love anyone else as long as he lived, never give a Templar the power to hurt someone because of how he felt for them, not ever. Love was a luxury a mage could not afford, and Anders knew better than to live beyond his means.
The promise had been easier to make than to keep, but he had done it, mostly. With the exception of Karl, he had never formed a serious attachment again. Sure, he and Karl had slept together now and again, and they were friends, closer friends than he should probably have allowed himself, but surely a man couldn't be expected to live his life with no lovers AND no friends. It had never been more than friendship, at least not for Anders. He had never let it become more. He had been guarded, too guarded for Karl who had wanted to be more than friends with benefits, and when he had been transferred to the Kirkwall Gallows, he hadn’t written to him for years. But it had been better that way, easier to lose him. At least the Templars hadn’t hurt him when Anders had escaped, at least they hadn’t realized there was someone it might wound him to lose. Even after that, after he had escaped, Anders hadn’t dared to let anyone too close. Life was never truly safe for a mage, no matter where you were. There was always a chance that you could frighten the wrong person into calling the Templars to drag you back to the nearest Circle, the chance that they could kill anyone you’d grown close to in revenge for harboring you.
He’d kept on the run, never staying one place for long, satisfying his physical needs when he found someone willing and visiting brothels when he couldn’t. When he had met Justice, allowing him to possess him hadn’t been a difficult choice. He was a good spirit, a spirit that stood for the one thing Anders had always wanted most, and it hadn’t changed much anyway, not really. All it had done was cement in Anders mind the impossibility of his ever being in love again. He hadn’t exactly been a prime object of desire before, and who would want him now? A hunted Apostate mage with a spirit living in his head. No, love was not going to be in the cards for Anders. Finding a way to bring true justice for the mages would have to be enough, and it probably would have been. He might have lived the rest of his life toiling with a single goal in mind, might have died young and happy in pursuit of a cause so much bigger than himself. It should have been enough. He had wanted it to be. It almost had been… until he had met Hawke.
The moment he’d met her, he’d known he was in trouble. She had breezed into his little clinic in Darktown with the easy confidence of a woman who knew what she wanted and was determined to do whatever was necessary to get it, all dark hair and pale, freckled skin with eyes so blue he could have sworn the very sky was reflected in them. She had been too pretty, too charming, too persuasive, too… everything, and to top it all off she had been an apostate that supported mage freedom as openly as ever he had dared to. He should have left right then, walked straight out of his clinic and refused to help her. He should have ignored the way those big blue eyes had fixed on his face, the way her mouth had quirked up at the corners when she’d said, “I don’t do anything involving children or animals.” The warm feeling in his chest at her smile should have been more than warning enough, warning that spending time with her was going to lead to a very dangerous place. But he was an idiot, a blasted, Maker-forsaken idiot. He had thought, no, he had been sure, that he could use her help to rescue Karl, Karl who had finally written for help to escape the Gallows, and then never see her again. It would be easy, like all the other little flirtations he’d had. There was no danger, surely, in enjoying the company of a beautiful woman so long as it was temporary, even one whose mere presence could make his heart pick up its pace like he had just run a mile.
True, he had expected her to refuse his request. Going up against the Templars was no small matter, and maps could hardly be worth being killed, or worse, made Tranquil over. But she had just smiled at him, a slow, dazzling smile that seemed to light up the room like the sun and told him the one thing he had never thought he’d hear from another mouth besides his own.
“I would help any of my fellow mages, maps or no.”
And he, the man who had avoided the merest thought of love since he was twenty years old, had known beyond a shadow of a doubt in that moment that he had made a grave miscalculation. Marian Hawke was not just going to be another casual flirtation. If he helped her, he was going to fall in love, and it was too late to turn back now. He was screwed, absolutely, irrevocably screwed.