Why don't I just do a little dance?

After Nathan got him home from town the day before, Anders had slept 12 hours, woken up for just long enough to devour three sandwiches and a sleeve of cookies, showered, filled Lachlan's food bowl and made some abject apologies to the cat who was now ignoring him in retribution, and then gone back to sleep for six more hours.

He was awake again now, though he almost wished he wasn't. When he was asleep, he wasn't thinking about how bloody stupid he'd been to fall prey to someone obviously evil just because he dangled the right kind of shiny. It wasn't as if he hadn't been warned it was all too good to be true; he'd just chosen to ignore it.

He didn't like to think about what that meant for him the next time he went up against a real demon at home. Possession was a fear for any mage.

Even knowing he'd forced Cassandra to spend a week on a fool's errand didn't give him much satisfaction. He supposed he owed her some kind of apology for his conduct, though not nearly as intense of one as what he owed Kathy. That might take cookies at a minimum. (Or some kind of present, anyhow. He wasn't sure what exactly said "sorry I almost froze you to death while I was in a demon's thrall.")

He laid on bed with his eyes open, thinking all of this over. He'd heard people were gathering at the clinic, and he'd go there to see what he could do. Later. Right now he was still weak and achy, and still needed most of his energy to finish healing himself.

[OOC: Mainly a linkdrop but open if you want!]

Anders didn't get much mail, so he was surprised to find something waiting for him in the dorm mailboxes. What was even stranger was that the envelope, seal and stamps all looked like those used in Ferelden.

He tore the letter open with shaking hands. True, Templars weren't in the habit of sending notes to runaway mages -- they were more the type to show up unannounced -- but he supposed there was a first time for everything. And the fact anyone knew where he was posed some level of risk.

It was a puzzle, then, that the letter seemed to be nothing more than a common enough piece of junk mail touting some worthless potion as a "miracle cure" for flatulence, pimples, back pain or the common cold. Anders was about to throw it out when he realized the runes bordering the parchment were not simple decoration at all. Instead, they were an obscure Elven alphabet that Circle apprentices used to smuggle messages between themselves.

Decoded, they read A - Am back in the Circle. Portal dropped me by gate as if no time had passed. Thanks for the vacation. Hope to do it again soon. - K

So that was that. The Circle might not be anyone's idea of a happy home to come back to, but Anders was simply glad Karl wasn't being tortured or worse. He didn't want to think about how his friend had bribed, begged or threatened to get the message out so quickly; he was just glad he'd done it at all.

He reread the letter a few more times as he sat on his bed, trying to work out if there was any safe way to answer it.

[OOC: Cracked door, open post!]