Fight for Them, Fight for Her

Anders spends his days healing the miserable and desolate. It is exhausting work, physically and emotionally, but he knows he cannot stop. He is the only thing keeping Kirkwall's poor from simply dying in the street. The aristocracy must hate him for not allowing them to die like good little urchins. He is glad for the secret passage from the estate, on the few occasions that he has been faced with his neighbors he's had to fight for control against Justice as they sneer out their carefully chosen words, perfectly polite but laced with their disdain. His goal had always been freeing the mages from the misery that was the Circles, but as he became more exposed to it, he grew all the more upset with the class system.

One perfect example of that was how a wealthy family could buy a mage better treatment from the templars. Marian had recently started working again, now that Leto was three months old, and one of her first missions had been hunting down three escaped blood mages. For Meredith. She hadn't wanted to, but Meredith had written to her to ask for assistance, and rejecting Meredith would likely outweigh her status as Champion, now that the bitch had taken over as Viscount. They couldn't risk her getting arrested and taken to the Circle, so they agreed to the mission.

Two of their targets were blood mages, but had only become such as a way of fighting back. A man from the Alienage, and a refugee woman who was taking care of orphans in Darktown. But their third target was a pathetic young man who had only claimed to be a blood mage for the prestige. They returned him to the Circle, which he did object to, but Marian insisted that the fool wasn't cut out for apostasy, that he would be dead in a week, and this really was the best thing for him. His parents were wealthy elite, and used that influence to quell Meredith's anger. A fool who escaped the Circle by luck and told every woman he met that he was a blood mage went unpunished because his family had money. It was disgusting, yet entirely to be expected.

When he wasn't in the clinic he was helping the mage underground, checking in on safehouses and escorting escapees through the complicated maze of tunnels under the city. The people he helped would tell him about their experiences; the pain that had etched itself into their very souls. Justice was always just beneath the surface, tense as an overdrawn bowstring, ready to snap into action at any second. He had a plan to neutralize the Chantry here, to leave the Templars directionless and force the tension to break, allowing the conflict to finally take full swing. The mages of Thedas had spent centuries on thin ice, barely able to move forward as they took each anxious step. Force the conflict, and the ice would be gone, forcing the mages to sink or swim, but at least swimming they would finally make forward progress.

He did make a point of being home before dawn, to have at least an hour of sleep beside his love, and then breakfast with his family. These were the only moments of peace he had anymore, and he cherished and coveted them. Marian was worried for him, of course, and had complained about only really getting to spend any time with him when he agreed to accompany her into battle. Even Fenris had expressed concern that he was wearing himself too thin. But Justice was a constant voice at his ear now, demanding his time and devotion to the cause. He couldn't tell them though. Marian would try to help, and Fenris would stop trusting him. He wanted Marian to stay as safe as possible, and he really didn't care to have Fenris loathe him again as a general rule.

On this night, he returned home just as the sky was starting to shift into the gray of early morning light. He went to their bedroom, fully intent on getting whatever sleep he could. He opened the door quietly and saw that, as usual, Marian and Fenris were sleeping with a spot open for Anders to join them. In the bassinet next to the bed Leto was sleeping peacefully. He had just started unbuttoning his coat when he heard noises coming from the nursery. He peeked his head into the nursery to see Liz sitting up in her bed, beaming up at a little snow cloud above her. He gasped. Liz turned to look in confusion, then grinned again upon seeing him.

"Hi Daddy! Look what I did!" She pointed up at the cloud.

"I see it. Where did you learn to do that?" He entered the nursery and shut the door behind him.

"I dweamed it! There was a nice lady in my dweam, she showed me how do it."

"A nice lady? Did she tell you her name?" He stomach dropped. A spirit had come to her. She was only three, she wasn't ready to defend herself against spirits and demons.

"Uhm... Cuwosity?" Liz answered slowly, then shrugged. "She looked silly, Daddy."

Anders breathed a sigh of relief. A spirit of curiosity. That made sense, toddlers were naturally very curious creatures, and if her magic had manifested at this age, that natural desire to learn and play probably attracted the spirit.

"She sounds like a nice lady. Any time you have dreams of people you don't know, just remember that we don't talk to strangers without a grown up, okay? Curiosity is a nice spirit, but there are lots of mean ones that pretend to be nice so they can trick you."

"Oh. Okay Daddy, I 'member."

"That's my girl." He went over and scooped Liz up out of her bed, hugging her tightly.

"Ewww Daddy, you stinky!" Liz complained, scrunching up her nose.

"I'm sorry sweetheart. I'm just so proud of you!" He gave her a few quick kisses all over her face, making her giggle before putting her back down. "You know, I didn't get my magic until I was twelve years old, and here you are doing magic at three!"

"Wow Daddy, you learned slow."

"Hey now, that's not nice. Not everyone can be born amazing like you." He smiled down at his little girl, his heart swelling with pride and fear in equal measure. "You should go back to sleep though, it's still very early." He tucked Liz back under her blankets and kissed her forehead before leaving the nursery. Instead of going to bed he went to Marian's desk and wrote a quick note, explaining that something urgent had come up so he would regrettably be missing breakfast today. He included details about Liz's discovery of her magic and spirits, then slid the note under the bedroom door and left, returning to Darktown through the passage.

He had been hesitating before, aware of what he must do but putting off taking the final steps. He couldn't do that now. Liz was a mage, and she was too young to be able to hide her abilities or understand why that was needed. If he didn't act soon, Liz would certainly be discovered and taken away. Living in the Circle for any amount of time was agony, growing up in it from such an early age? The long-term damage would be indescribable, assuming they didn't just make her tranquil. He would not allow that. First stop: the sewers.