not_every_mage | Anders' Cell, Circle Tower, Thursday Afternoon Fandom Time

The Templar on guard duty outside Anders' cell was new to him, and so young and thin he didn't properly fill out his armor. Novelty was rare enough to Anders these days that he couldn't stop watching the curly-haired young man.

Besides, templar or no, he was rather handsome.

"Stop staring," the templar -- Anders thought he'd heard the name Cullen attached to him --snapped, after an hour or two of not-infrequent glances. "Don't you have books to study, or a rat to turn into a princess, or whatever?"

"I didn't mean to stare," Anders said, not apologetic at all. "I just didn't know the Templars had taken up robbing nurseries to fill their ranks. How old are you, anyhow?"

Cullen shifted his weight from foot to foot before deigning to answer. (Maybe he was a little bored too, Anders thought. He couldn't imagine that vigilantly watching a mage play with his cat and read books was exactly enthralling.) "Sixteen," he said.

"Younger than me. I'm seven -- no, wait. What day is it?"

The templar studied him, trying to find a trick. When he didn't find one, he grudgingly supplied, "The sixteenth of Justinian."

So Anders had missed his birthday. It was hard not to feel a bit of a sting at that reminder of the passage of time. He kept talking, hoping it would make the sting go away. "So almost two years younger than me, and you're already a full templar? Impressive."

There was more foot-shifting. "I'm still training, but they're short-staffed today. Senior recruits are filling in. And don't think that means you can get away with anything. I've been training for this since I was 13, and I'm more than skilled enough to take you on."

"Take me on? Sounds fun," Anders observed smugly, and waited for that to sink in.

"You're disgusting," Cullen replied, once it had.

Anders shrugged, not disagreeing, and went back to sit on his cot. He rather hoped Ser Curly-Hair would be his guard more often; he was exactly the kind of self-important mage-hater Anders could never resist teasing. Which probably wasn't wise policy, but at least made the hours go faster.

[OOC: NFB.]

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This time, when Anders closed his eyes in the real world for a nap and opened them in the Fade, he'd find he had yet more unexpected company. Kathy was waiting for him, sitting patiently on a rock, just like the first time he'd seen her.

"Hey," she said, giving him a soft smile. "Welcome back. Missed me?"

"So much," Anders said, giving in to the vision with a little sigh. He knew he needed to stay on his guard if this were a demon -- but he'd seen Kathy before, and she never wanted to do more than say hello. If it was a demon trying to tempt him, he almost wished it'd get on with it.

"How have you been?" he asked, claiming a seat on a rock of his own. "Or is that a dumb question?"

Her smile turned into something caught between 'wistful' and 'wry.' "About the same," she agreed, edging a little closer to him, but maintaining a polite distance all the same. She didn't want to invade his personal space without permission. "Have some time to talk? Or is that a dumb question, too?"

"I think I can squeeze it in, with all the nothing I'm doing," Anders said wryly. "What's on your mind?"

"Guilt," Kathy said with a laugh that sounded a lot like despair if you listened closely enough. "Hurt. Anger. Grief. Take your pick."

"Why are you guilty?" Anders asked, raising an eyebrow at her. "I'm the one who tried to get you back and failed utterly."

"Because I pushed you to get me and now you're here," Kathy said. "Because I need saving in the first place. Because you loved me and I hurt you. Pick a reason."

"You didn't push me, I jumped," Anders shrugged. "I was so -- lonely, and broken, and when you came to me I just wanted to believe I could get you back."

A pause. "I still want to believe that."

"I don't know anymore," Kathy admitted. "I'm so cold and lonely and it's dark. I don't know where I am or what's around me. I can only rarely make my way here. I don't know what that means. I want to believe you can, but it's hard."

"Maybe I can't," Anders admitted softly. "I want to, Maker knows, but I'm not sure wanting it is enough to let me raise the dead."

He looked at her, hesitant. "But if I can't,
you'd just be -- gone?"

"I--I think so," Kathy said. "I'm pretty sure you're my last chance at anything beyond this." She gestured to the Fade, a refuge and prison at once. "I'm not sure if I'll even be able to stay here. It's not--not mine, if that makes sense. I think I can only get here because you love me."

"I do," Anders said immediately. "More than I ever knew I could love anything."

He slouched forward, resting his chin on his hands. "I wish I could promise I'd get you out. But right now I don't even know how I'll get myself out. If you have to go ... I can't force you to stay."

"I don't have to leave yet," Kathy said quietly. "But...once my time runs out..." She shrugged. "I'll probably fade away or something. I don't know, I'm not sure how this whole thing works. I've only ever died the once."

"One more than me," Anders joked, or tried to joke.

There wasn't much funny here.

He scooted closer, dropping an arm over her shoulders. "Either way. You're here now. Maybe we just need to think about that."

Kathy snuggled close, burying her face in his chest and just inhaling his scent. "Anything new or exciting going on in your life?" she asked, continuing the parade of dumb jokes. "Cause I've got nothing going on in mine."

Haha.

"I met a handsome young man today," Anders said, rocking slightly to keep her close. "It was lust at first sight -- him with his golden curls and Templar armor, me with my robe and staff. If there hadn't been bars between us I daresay we would have made love all afternoon."

Kathy tried to remember if such a thing should make her jealous. She didn't think so and went with a joke instead.

"Sounds more like a lack of imagination to me," she told him, turning her head so he could understand her more easily. "I'm sure I could have made it work, bar or no bars."

There. That was more like her, right?

"You're more creative than I am," Anders chuckled softly. "Of course, there was also the tiny problem that he had no sense of humor and kept glaring at me. So we would have had to get past those trifling issues, too."

"And that, my darling, was why the Maker invented hate-sex," Kathy said with chuckle. "It would have been hard to glare at you with your dick in his mouth, I'm just saying."

"And I wouldn't have cared if he had," Anders laughed in return. "Damn. Now I'm going to regret the lost opportunity."

"Maybe he'll be back and you can have another go," Kathy said, petting Anders' pretty, pretty golden hair. "Ask yourself What Would Kathy Do? and go from there."

Anders laughed. "Three months ago I would have said Kathy wouldn't get herself locked up in a Circle," he pointed out. "Now ... not so much. We're both idiots."

"At least we can still be together," she said, her hand sliding from his hair down to cup his cheek. "At least for however longer we have left. Which is still more than I expected."

"That's a nice way to think about it," Anders said, smiling against her hand. "And even after you're gone, I'll still have my memories."

Anders' Cell, Circle Tower, Thursday Afternoon Fandom Time

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