Let The Revolution Take Its Toll: parts 16-20
Lookie! More vignettes. For anyone interested, I have taken to calling this universe of stories Let The Revolution Take Its Toll. Mainly because I needed something to call the files on my computer...
Moments of Truth
Prompt: Alone
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 256
Characters/Pairing: Anders, Justice
Summary: “Human identity is the most fragile thing that we have, and it's often only found in moments of truth.” - Alan Rudolph
“I'm slammed with an identity that can no longer say a word; mute with responsibility.” - Kate Millett
He runs. Away from the bodies, from the blood, from the horrific evidence of what they had done. What he had done. The words get twisted up in his brain - he him they them - until even he can't straighten them out anymore. Who is he? He is Anders. He is Justice. He is Vengeance. He is at once everything and nothing of what he was before. He is no man and he is no spirit. He is both. He is neither. Nothing is clear anymore. Nothing, except his cause.
Freedom. Justice. Vengeance. He offered everything he was for this. (He sacrificed everything he was for this.) It is a touchstone, something that Anders and Justice and this strange entity they have become can recognize, can support. It is a center around which he can rebuild himself, discover who (what) he has become.
Ronan's betrayal means he cannot stay among the Wardens. They will not understand. (No one will understand.) They will try to stop him, will see him as no more than an abomination (isn't he?). No one will understand. He must eliminate all distractions. (He can't let anyone see him like this.) From here on out, he is on his own. This is the price of his transformation. This is the cost of his crusade.
It is Justice who turns from the path to the Vigil. It is Anders who looks back toward the only home he has ever known. It is something else entirely who picks up his staff and walks away.
Firsts
Prompt: first person
Rating: PG
Word Count: 248
Characters/Pairing: Anders, F!Tabris
Summary: They say you never forget your first...
Within five hours of their initial meeting, Warden-Commander Kallian Tabris had something else to add to her growing list of heretofore unheard-of accomplishments: she had gained Anders’ respect, if not necessarily his loyalty. Serene in front of the templars demanding his head, she had done what no one had ever bothered to do before. She looked at Anders and saw something more than just a mage, a dangerous apostate, more than just an apprentice with a penchant for trouble. She saw someone worth defending, someone worth taking a risk on. She saw potential, saw what he could be rather than what he was. She was the first person to not only dare him to do better, but gave him the means and the motivation to do just that. She challenged him and in challenging him made him stronger. Better. More.
And, okay, let’s be honest here (he wasn’t, as a general rule, but for her he was willing to make the effort). The whole “drove a sword through the Archdemon’s skull” thing may gave had something to do with it.
She enthralled him and intimidated him in equal parts and that was enough to keep him at her side through talking darkspawn and chalices of poison, through reconstruction and haunted marshes. Long after all experience said he would flee, he was there.
Three weeks later in an abandoned warehouse in Amaranthine, surrounded by dead templars, Warden-Commander Kallian Tabris earned not just Anders’ loyalty, but his devotion.
Poker Face
Prompt: everybody lies
Rating: PG
Word Count: 272
Characters/Pairing: Anders, F!Hawke
Summary: Anders: apostate, revolutionary, abomination, and owner of the worst poker face this side of the Waking Sea.
[I should not be nearly as amused as I am by my use of a Lady GaGa song for a title...]
Hawke shook her head in amusement as Anders shoved another handful of bits toward Varric with a scowl. She wasn't certain why the mage kept letting himself get drawn into these games - he didn't even have the excuse of alcohol clouding his judgment the way the rest of them did. But every week without fail he ended up embroiled in the second most pathetic attempt at Wicked Grace Hawke had ever seen (the most pathetic attempt sat two seats down from him, frowning at her cards as though they had personally offended her. Despite Isabela and Varric's best attempts, Merrill still did not quite understand the concept of a bluff) and every week he walked out of the Hanged Man several silvers poorer than when he had entered. She couldn't figure out why Justice hadn't put a stop to it weeks ago.
It was funny, in a way - Anders: apostate, revolutionary, abomination, and owner of the worst poker face this side of the Waking Sea. She hoped that whatever plans he made to further his revolution did not require any actual deception, because she couldn't see how he would manage to fool anyone. It was something of a comfort to know that this was someone who would not - could not lie to her, a relief after dealing with the world of high society into which she had only just been thrown. She could trust him, if only because she would always know when he was lying to her.
(It takes six years for Hawke to realize just how wrong she was and by then it was far, far too late.)
Someone Else's Fairy Tale
Prompt: Jealousy
Rating: PG
Word Count: 333
Characters/Pairing: Anders, F!Tabris (F!Tabris/Zevran, one-sided F!Tabris/Anders)
Summary: His commander was completely, utterly, without exception off-limits, and that was something Anders was just going to have to accept.
The assassin made her happy; that was the wost part of this whole thing as far as Anders was concerned. He made her genuinely happy, the kind of happiness that you only heard about in tales, the kind that “happily ever afters” were made of. The kind that lead to the normally-composed Warden Commander of Amaranthine all but dancing through the halls of Vigil's Keep, dopey grin on her face. And that was when he was a thousand miles away. Anders couldn't imagine what it was like when they were together.
It made everything infinitely more difficult. If she hadn't loved him, if she had stayed with him out of some overdeveloped sense of loyalty or for the comfort of the familiar, then Anders would have had no qualms with insinuating himself between them, luring her away from her absent Antivan and toward him. But it wasn't duty, it wasn't loyalty. It was love. It was Maker-blessed storybook love and even Anders, philandering mage that he was, could not bring himself to try to come between them. Andraste's mercy, he had faced the blighted Archdemon at her side; how was Anders supposed to compete with that? All he had managed to do during the entirety of their acquaintance was embroil her beloved Wardens in a hopeless stand-off with the templars.
But that was the point, wasn't it? He wasn't supposed to compete with that. His commander was completely, utterly, without exception off-limits, and that was something he was just going to have to accept. And he would. He would take his ill-advised, inappropriate... affection for her and he would tuck it away deep inside himself, let it wither away into something more suitable for a subordinate to feel for his superior officer. Loyalty. Admiration. Friendship, even, if he was very lucky. He would have that, and he would be satisfied. Because he was caught up in her orbit now and no matter how painful it might be, no force in Thedas could make him leave her side.
This Broken Blade
Prompt: Mercy
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 284
Characters/Pairing: F!Hawke, Anders (F!Hawke/Anders)
Warnings: Dragon Age II Endgame spoilers, canon character death
Summary: Hawke knows what will happen next, knows from the moment she steps toward Anders how this will end. What she does not know is why.
Hawke knows what will happen next, knows from the moment she steps toward Anders how this will end. Even as she stares down at where he sits, hunched over on himself amidst debris still falling from the sky, her hand grips the hilt of her knife. She knows what must follow.
What she does not know is why.
What is it that drives her forward, that forces her into this act that twelve hours ago would have been utterly unthinkable?
Sebastian kneels not twenty feet away, calling for justice for Elthina, justice for those dead at Anders' hand. Justice. Maker, how she hates that word.
Is it justice, what she will do here tonight? Will another death truly atone for the sins that have been committed in the name of that ideal? Will this balance the scales?
She does not believe that. It has been a long time since she has believed in justice at all. How can she, when everywhere she looks justice and vengeance were so easily confused?
She does not believe this is vengeance, either.
She knows what will happen, should she falter in her course now. Knows the punishment Kirkwall inflicts on her rogue mages. She has seen their empty eyes, heard their lifeless voices everywhere for the last seven years. They have dogged her steps, haunted her dreams. A fate worth than death, he had called it.
Tranquility.
The greatest terrorist Kirkwall has known in an age will not be spared that fate, not if the city has anything to say about it.
It is not justice that drives Hawke's blade into Anders' spine, not vengeance that sends him into a crumpled heap on the ground.
It is mercy.
Master list of vignettes is HERE.
Moments of Truth
Prompt: Alone
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 256
Characters/Pairing: Anders, Justice
Summary: “Human identity is the most fragile thing that we have, and it's often only found in moments of truth.” - Alan Rudolph
“I'm slammed with an identity that can no longer say a word; mute with responsibility.” - Kate Millett
He runs. Away from the bodies, from the blood, from the horrific evidence of what they had done. What he had done. The words get twisted up in his brain - he him they them - until even he can't straighten them out anymore. Who is he? He is Anders. He is Justice. He is Vengeance. He is at once everything and nothing of what he was before. He is no man and he is no spirit. He is both. He is neither. Nothing is clear anymore. Nothing, except his cause.
Freedom. Justice. Vengeance. He offered everything he was for this. (He sacrificed everything he was for this.) It is a touchstone, something that Anders and Justice and this strange entity they have become can recognize, can support. It is a center around which he can rebuild himself, discover who (what) he has become.
Ronan's betrayal means he cannot stay among the Wardens. They will not understand. (No one will understand.) They will try to stop him, will see him as no more than an abomination (isn't he?). No one will understand. He must eliminate all distractions. (He can't let anyone see him like this.) From here on out, he is on his own. This is the price of his transformation. This is the cost of his crusade.
It is Justice who turns from the path to the Vigil. It is Anders who looks back toward the only home he has ever known. It is something else entirely who picks up his staff and walks away.
Firsts
Prompt: first person
Rating: PG
Word Count: 248
Characters/Pairing: Anders, F!Tabris
Summary: They say you never forget your first...
Within five hours of their initial meeting, Warden-Commander Kallian Tabris had something else to add to her growing list of heretofore unheard-of accomplishments: she had gained Anders’ respect, if not necessarily his loyalty. Serene in front of the templars demanding his head, she had done what no one had ever bothered to do before. She looked at Anders and saw something more than just a mage, a dangerous apostate, more than just an apprentice with a penchant for trouble. She saw someone worth defending, someone worth taking a risk on. She saw potential, saw what he could be rather than what he was. She was the first person to not only dare him to do better, but gave him the means and the motivation to do just that. She challenged him and in challenging him made him stronger. Better. More.
And, okay, let’s be honest here (he wasn’t, as a general rule, but for her he was willing to make the effort). The whole “drove a sword through the Archdemon’s skull” thing may gave had something to do with it.
She enthralled him and intimidated him in equal parts and that was enough to keep him at her side through talking darkspawn and chalices of poison, through reconstruction and haunted marshes. Long after all experience said he would flee, he was there.
Three weeks later in an abandoned warehouse in Amaranthine, surrounded by dead templars, Warden-Commander Kallian Tabris earned not just Anders’ loyalty, but his devotion.
Poker Face
Prompt: everybody lies
Rating: PG
Word Count: 272
Characters/Pairing: Anders, F!Hawke
Summary: Anders: apostate, revolutionary, abomination, and owner of the worst poker face this side of the Waking Sea.
[I should not be nearly as amused as I am by my use of a Lady GaGa song for a title...]
Hawke shook her head in amusement as Anders shoved another handful of bits toward Varric with a scowl. She wasn't certain why the mage kept letting himself get drawn into these games - he didn't even have the excuse of alcohol clouding his judgment the way the rest of them did. But every week without fail he ended up embroiled in the second most pathetic attempt at Wicked Grace Hawke had ever seen (the most pathetic attempt sat two seats down from him, frowning at her cards as though they had personally offended her. Despite Isabela and Varric's best attempts, Merrill still did not quite understand the concept of a bluff) and every week he walked out of the Hanged Man several silvers poorer than when he had entered. She couldn't figure out why Justice hadn't put a stop to it weeks ago.
It was funny, in a way - Anders: apostate, revolutionary, abomination, and owner of the worst poker face this side of the Waking Sea. She hoped that whatever plans he made to further his revolution did not require any actual deception, because she couldn't see how he would manage to fool anyone. It was something of a comfort to know that this was someone who would not - could not lie to her, a relief after dealing with the world of high society into which she had only just been thrown. She could trust him, if only because she would always know when he was lying to her.
(It takes six years for Hawke to realize just how wrong she was and by then it was far, far too late.)
Someone Else's Fairy Tale
Prompt: Jealousy
Rating: PG
Word Count: 333
Characters/Pairing: Anders, F!Tabris (F!Tabris/Zevran, one-sided F!Tabris/Anders)
Summary: His commander was completely, utterly, without exception off-limits, and that was something Anders was just going to have to accept.
The assassin made her happy; that was the wost part of this whole thing as far as Anders was concerned. He made her genuinely happy, the kind of happiness that you only heard about in tales, the kind that “happily ever afters” were made of. The kind that lead to the normally-composed Warden Commander of Amaranthine all but dancing through the halls of Vigil's Keep, dopey grin on her face. And that was when he was a thousand miles away. Anders couldn't imagine what it was like when they were together.
It made everything infinitely more difficult. If she hadn't loved him, if she had stayed with him out of some overdeveloped sense of loyalty or for the comfort of the familiar, then Anders would have had no qualms with insinuating himself between them, luring her away from her absent Antivan and toward him. But it wasn't duty, it wasn't loyalty. It was love. It was Maker-blessed storybook love and even Anders, philandering mage that he was, could not bring himself to try to come between them. Andraste's mercy, he had faced the blighted Archdemon at her side; how was Anders supposed to compete with that? All he had managed to do during the entirety of their acquaintance was embroil her beloved Wardens in a hopeless stand-off with the templars.
But that was the point, wasn't it? He wasn't supposed to compete with that. His commander was completely, utterly, without exception off-limits, and that was something he was just going to have to accept. And he would. He would take his ill-advised, inappropriate... affection for her and he would tuck it away deep inside himself, let it wither away into something more suitable for a subordinate to feel for his superior officer. Loyalty. Admiration. Friendship, even, if he was very lucky. He would have that, and he would be satisfied. Because he was caught up in her orbit now and no matter how painful it might be, no force in Thedas could make him leave her side.
This Broken Blade
Prompt: Mercy
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 284
Characters/Pairing: F!Hawke, Anders (F!Hawke/Anders)
Warnings: Dragon Age II Endgame spoilers, canon character death
Summary: Hawke knows what will happen next, knows from the moment she steps toward Anders how this will end. What she does not know is why.
Hawke knows what will happen next, knows from the moment she steps toward Anders how this will end. Even as she stares down at where he sits, hunched over on himself amidst debris still falling from the sky, her hand grips the hilt of her knife. She knows what must follow.
What she does not know is why.
What is it that drives her forward, that forces her into this act that twelve hours ago would have been utterly unthinkable?
Sebastian kneels not twenty feet away, calling for justice for Elthina, justice for those dead at Anders' hand. Justice. Maker, how she hates that word.
Is it justice, what she will do here tonight? Will another death truly atone for the sins that have been committed in the name of that ideal? Will this balance the scales?
She does not believe that. It has been a long time since she has believed in justice at all. How can she, when everywhere she looks justice and vengeance were so easily confused?
She does not believe this is vengeance, either.
She knows what will happen, should she falter in her course now. Knows the punishment Kirkwall inflicts on her rogue mages. She has seen their empty eyes, heard their lifeless voices everywhere for the last seven years. They have dogged her steps, haunted her dreams. A fate worth than death, he had called it.
Tranquility.
The greatest terrorist Kirkwall has known in an age will not be spared that fate, not if the city has anything to say about it.
It is not justice that drives Hawke's blade into Anders' spine, not vengeance that sends him into a crumpled heap on the ground.
It is mercy.
Master list of vignettes is HERE.