fadewalk | RP: Anders

Marian left Fenris attending to his business and went up the stairs, back to the battlements. She wanted to take a good look in the courtyard and see if there were anyone else around, maybe someone who could actually try to figure the situation.

She had barely climbed the stairs when she found a familiar face, where there was nothing before.

First, Fenris. Now, Anders. If this is not some kind of demon's work, someone here surely has a weird sense of humor.

Marian considered approaching the man, but she wasn't quite sure of how to proceed.

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Anders sat with his back to the parapet, wedged in a corner where he cannot be seen unless you come face to face to him. He had his legs drawn up to his chest, and the mysterious journal on his knees. His brows were pinched, and one hand gripped the staff lain flat on the ground beside him tightly.

He looked up at the sound of boots on stone, and blinked at the strange woman before him.

"Ah...hello." Blue cracks skittered down his skin, and he shook his head as if to drive them away. He squinted at the woman. "...Bethany?"

Edited Date: 2015-08-03 04:05 am (UTC)

"... no, I'm Marian, the older sister. And you, obviously, is not the Anders I know."

She rolled her eyes, motioning her hands with a hint of frustration, before sitting in the railing, back facing the large emptiness and the dark, tempestuous sky.

"Welcome to the Fade. And to parallel realities."

It took Anders a moment to process this statement, a moment in which he simply stared at the woman calling herself Marian.

"Yes, I see the resemblance. Something about your nose. Your hair's the wrong color, of course, and your eyes don't have any green, but otherwise..." He shrugged. "You do look like a Hawke."

Looking down at the journal in his lap, Anders sighed. "Too much to hope for that there's another one of you running about, with red hair and an axe taller than she is? Calls herself Jicosa? I'm getting the sense from this thing that it's not entirely unfeasible."

"Haven't seen anyone who fits the description, I'm sorry. But I met a Fenris, probably not the Fenris you know, I don't know. Perhaps I'm just out of lucky today."

She shrugged, faint hint of a smile on her face.

"Well, at least we skipped all the demon-or-not-demon and then the hawke-or-not-hawke arguing. That's a relief."

Anders sighed. "Well. I can't say I'm surprised." He closed the journal and tapped it with two fingers. "If the Fenris you're talking about is the Fenris writing in here, he's not my Fenris either." He glanced away, the next muttered so quietly that perhaps Marian doesn't catch it, "No, it's back to three years ago with him, clearly." On his staff, his fingers tightened.

He cleared his throat and looked back to her, lips twitching like he's amused, but too distressed to smile properly.

"Please. This is the Fade. Or part of the Fade. Something like the Fade. It's wrong, yes, but Justice is still able to tell the difference between demons and spirits and...people who are real against all explanation. One good thing to be said of having him rolling around and screeching in my brain."

"For what is worth, I guess having a spirit with you might come in handy, eventually."

Another sigh escaped her mouth and she smiled this time, standing up.

"Nice to meet you, Anders. Any other consideration about this odd Fade place?"

Anders stood as well, the gesture automatic. He tucked the journal in his black feathered coat, next to his heart.

"Pleasure, Hawke. Er, Marian. Sorry, I'm going to call you Marian. That seems less weird to me." He pinched the bridge of his nose, between his eyes, and looked up at the darkness around them.

"It's not natural, but beyond that, I can't tell you much. There should be spirits here, demons drawn to our confusion, spirits to our need. There aren't. I guess that means we can rest...semi-easy? Well, the rest of you. I can't be possessed. Again. Or...whatever." His lips drew into a thin line. "Sorry, babbling. Whoever - whatever - did this, they're very powerful. And it's not a magic I've ever heard of."

"To transport people and to place this whole fortress in the Fade... indeed, someone very powerful did this. But why? And what about the time discrepancies? Perhaps we're here to fix this? To aid someone? I don't know... at least I don't have Nightmare Demons running after me anymore."

Anders leaned on his staff, only now noticing that the blade on the end was still tipped with blood. He frowned. When Marian spoke again, his eyes snapped back to her.

"Nightmare...demon? Maker's balls, it just keeps getting worse and worse, doesn't it."

"Well, I still can consider it an improvement, giving the circumstances. I have been fighting Nightmare Demons since... I don't, for a long time now. Good to have a break."

She stared the sky.

"Even if this break involves a place like this..."

Anders studied her, looking like he was not sure whether to be sympathetic or curious.

A blue light appeared in his eyes, and then Justice spoke through his mouth.

"WHAT IS THIS NIGHTMARE YOU SPEAK OF? WE HAVE NOT HEARD OF SUCH A DEMON."

Anders reeled backwards when Justice subsided, his skin going back to it's natural shade, or as natural as it could be in all this weird light. He grimaced.

"Sorry," he said. A statement he seemed to be making a lot, lately.

Edited Date: 2015-08-03 04:57 am (UTC)

"I'm used to it, nevermind. Justice really knows how to make an entrance."

She smiled in a reassuring way.

"The Nightmare Demon. A demon capable of praying our worst fears and to turn them against us, to make him stronger. I was aiding the Inquisitor and the Grey Wardens when I had to make a hard decision, so I stayed behind to let them escape." Marian glanced at her feet, rather uncomfortable with the subject "I thought I would... but I didn't. Instead, I was trapped in the Fade, in flesh, fighting minor nightmares until today. That's pretty much my story."

Anders leaned back against the wall, planting his staff in front of him and lacing his fingers together around it. He seemed to relax at the display of trust, only marginally in the set of his shoulders, but still. It was better than the constant tension he'd been holding in since his arrival here.

"There seem to be several mentions of this...Inquisitor? Inquisition? in the book. It sounds dire, I confess. Perhaps you could explain it to me?" His tone was gently probing, and he might have been attempting to distract her from what was clearly a troubling memory. Or perhaps he was merely curious. Difficult to say.

"Are you sure of it? Then, perhaps we should sit."

Anders inclined his head. He looked down at the stone beneath them.

"Well, we could sit here - Varric suggested I stay put, with circumstances...how did he put it, 'already sitting on a powder keg'. But that was hours ago. Or what passes for hours, in this place. And you're here. I could go for moving somewhere more comfortable. Can I take it you know your way around this place, a little?"

"If it's like the Skyhold I visited, then we should find a tavern if we follow through the battlements. I guess there is no one there and some ale would really come in handy."

Anders nodded.

"Well, I'll just...follow you, then, Marian."

He looked for a moment like he was going to add something else, and then he stopped, and simply nodded again.

Marian walked through the battlements with no rush, eyes lingering over the place where she first met the Inquisitor.

She opened the door to the tavern soon after, glad to see things were still as she remembered, going down the stairs to the tables near the fire and the barrels of ale. The place was dark and cold as she had never seem, though.

Anders followed just as slowly, clearly ill at ease, jumping at shadows as they move, his hands gripping his staff tightly.

He sighed and scrubbed a hand down his face as they entered the tavern.

Strange, how this woman could be Hawke, and yet not Hawke. Anders tried not to dwell on it too much, or he'd be liable to go mad. There was something comforting about her, however, something familiar.

...which was also a peculiar line of thought, and a dangerous one. Justice decidedly did not approve. Typical.

"Do you mind lighting the fireplace while I fetch some ale?"

Being near that Anders was just as odd as being near that Fenris; she knew him but he didn't knew her, so she had to keep in mind to not do anything she would do with her friends, to avoid making them uncomfortable.

Difficult situation, even more considering how desperate she was to see some familiar faces.

"Right. Yes. Certainly." Anders wandered over and pulled a few logs from the stack by the fireplace and arranged them in the hearth, before summoning a small fireball to light the whole thing. The wood caught fire quickly.

He stared into the flames for a moment, squatting there in front of the fireplace, unable to keep from wondering what had become of his Hawke and his Fenris. They had apparently not been pulled to this place, so perhaps they were all right, still aboardship and sailing away from the ruin of Kirkwall to safety. Or perhaps there were other places like this, locations that were not-the-Fade where every conceivable possible universe, and some that strained credulity, converged. Perhaps they were in one another place, like this, but not the same. Anders rubbed his forehead. Thinking about it was giving him a headache, and it wasn't as though he could actually do anything for them right now.

Even still, he worried.

There was a part of him, only a small part, that whispered darkly, It's only what you deserve, after all. Losing them. It's a more fitting end for you - not death, but being alone, and still living.

Marian is about to make her way back to the table when she see Anders, near the fireplace, lost on his own mind.

Feels like home...

She clears her throat before approaching, handing him a mug full of ale.

"This ale tastes like piss, but at least feels like the Hanged Man."

Anders started when the other Hawke's voice interrupted his reverie. She rather sounded like Cosa, actually. If he didn't know it wasn't her, he would have sworn...

He turned, finding Marian there. With a sigh, he stood, taking the mug. He sniffed its contents.

"I don't know whether to be grateful, or disturbed," he said. "Didn't think I'd be drinking anything like that particular brand of piss again...well, ever."

Edited Date: 2015-08-03 06:39 am (UTC)

"I know right?" she laughed, brightly, before taking a seat. "So, tell me... what year did you come from?"

Anders sank into a chair beside her and twisted the mug in his hands. He took a long drink before answering, ignoring the half-hearted objections Justice offers in his head. Times like these, with Justice so distraught over this extremely wrong place that is his home and not his home where they find themselves, the spirit isn't one to complain overmuch about the perils of alcohol.

"9:37," Anders finally said. "We were on a ship, just outside the Gallows, me and Hawke and Fenris, and the rest, Kirkwall burning behind us." He closed his eyes, drew in the memory of Hawke's fingers tangled with his own and Fenris's breath on his neck, like a drowning man clinging to flotsam.

Edited Date: 2015-08-03 06:51 am (UTC)

"9:37, okay. After the battle in the Gallows, in my reality, the Circle of Magi struggled internally to be free from the Chantry. The Templars weren't happy about the College of Mages voting their independance from the Chantry and they left, too, to pursue the mages out of Chantry's reach. After three years of civil war, Divine Justinia decided to call up a meeting with leaders from the Chantry, the Circle and the Templars to find some common ground and end the war. The Conclave. But it exploded mysteriously."

She paused to drank some ale and to see if the story sank in.

"The Left and the Right Hands of Divine Justinia, then, supposedly following her orders, re-opened the Inquisition, to find out who killed the Divine and to close the Breach in the sky, a side effect of the explosion. A hole connecting our world with the Fade, demons crawling out of rifts everywhere, the Veil weakened. The Inquisition was also known as the Herald of Andraste... some elven girl attending to the Conclave that didn't die, with the ability to close the rifts and the Breach."

Anders cupped his hands around the mug of ale and listened, sipping occasionally.

“They...they voted? In favor of their own independence?” A tiny smile appeared. “Wow.” He fell silent for a moment, gnawing on his bottom lip and clearly processing.

“So this...this weird Fade shit isn’t really all that weird from where you’re coming from, if I’m understanding correctly.”

"Yes and no. Fade is still the Fade. But being able to enter it physically and not causing some sort of plague, like the old magisters did, well that's new."

She took a deep breath.

"Corypheus caused the explosion, he demanded the sacrifice of the Divine so he could crack open the Veil to go after the Golden City, again. The Grey Wardens helped him, they were being controlled by magic, and there was also the whole Templar Order infected by Red Lyrium. A whole new world, full of memories from the past to bite you in the ass."

Marian clearly wasn't happy about Corypheus being alive and free to do what he wanted. Maybe their presence in the Fade, now, meant the Inquisition had failed to stop him...? Maker forbid such fate, but things were looking quite grim.

Anders looked a little lost by all of this information, but he seized onto the first part, raising a hand to slow her.

“Wait, wait, wait, you’re talking about entering the Fade physically? That’s...that is...”

There was the telltale flash of blue in his eyes again, and the Fade cracks splitting open. Anders sat straighter in his chair, and then Justice boomed,

“IMPOSSIBLE. IF MORTALS COULD ENTER THE FADE PHYSICALLY, ANDERS AND I WOULD HAVE DONE SO LONG AGO. DO YOU NOT KNOW WHAT THAT WOULD MEAN? I COULD TAKE HIM TO THE FADE AND LEAVE HIM. I COULD...” the spirit’s voice became softer, insomuch as he could, and he looked away from Marian. “I COULD GO HOME.”

"Yes Justice, you could go home." she smiled "I'm not much of a expert on the Fade, but if we were really in the Fade now, you would be able to tell, right?"

The spirit nodded. "THIS IS NOT THE TRUE FADE. BUT...CLOSE, I THINK. IT IS VERY WRONG."

(OOC: I think Isabela is planning on a big 'let's all get drunk in the tavern' shindig; what do you say to starting a new thread so she can join in and find us already in the tavern?)

Edited Date: 2015-08-03 11:14 pm (UTC)

(ooc: Oh, that would be great! Just lead the way ^^)

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