freetogoodhome | and when you kiss me, I'm happy enough

Blondie-

swing by my place later. got something to show you.

[It's meant as "swing by a little early before Diamondback with Anders, Fenris, Isabela, and the dog," but the meaning of "later" is easy to misinterpret.]

[Anders' apprentice handed him the note during a slow moment at the clinic. The morning hadn't been crazy, but he'd been down a pair of helping hands and there was a choking illness going around darktown. She had sent him out to get a breather while she took over for him for a while, to run some errands for the clinic, and she had passed him the folded note because he'd nearly tripped over it. He recognized more than just the nickname, he recognized the handwriting, the sharp, neat quill strokes.

So, while he was out, he might as well pay the dear dwarf a visit.

He makes the stops he has to first, and then turns his feet toward the Hanged Man, dutifully trying to ignore how his heart skips a beat at the idea of what could possibly be waiting for him. Ever since the Deep Roads expedition three years before, ever since he started noticing the Coterie bothering him less and the aid to the clinic coming a little easier in donations of food and blankets and even manpower, he knew it wasn't Hawke doing all the little things for him. As much as he wanted to be suspicious of any kindness, the years had passed and there had been not even the slightest indication that Varric intended to hold his charity over Anders' head.

Varric had been nothing but a friend. Which was dangerous, because Anders didn't know how to hold onto friends without doing so with all he had, putting his heart and soul out there to be stepped on.

Corff the bartender was used to all kinds of people coming and going from Varric's rooms (and, likely, even more used to keeping his mouth shut about anyone he saw), so when Anders walked in he spared the man only a nod as he made his way to the stairs.

And found Varric's rooms... Empty. Hm.

Well, Varric did say he had something to show him. A little snooping wouldn't be too bad, right?]

[His room is messy. Well, more accurately, the table is messy- it’s covered with an assortment of books, papers, letters, and even what appears to be some antique scrolls and parchments. Further inspection reveals a common theme: magic. Research for the book he’s been working on for years about the Circle.

There are letters to mages in different circles, stolen letters and memos from templars, a response from someone affiliated with the mage collective- even a dog-eared copy of Anders’s manifesto, with some underlining and small margin notes seeming to connect to other things on the table.

Notably, some accounts - stories of tranquil, an account of a peasant family being threatened if they try to ask about their mage son - have small holes in them, from where a quill pierced the page too forcefully. One especially galling account, written in a dry inhumane tone, has the simple margin note: fuckers.]

[Anders knew Varric had thought about writing a book about the Circles. But he also hadn't spoken about it with the dwarf since he'd told him where to start researching ("Start by talking to people who are personally involved, the people who have been torn away from their homes and imprisoned"), so he'd thought maybe he'd decided that it wasn't worth his time after all. Or maybe he'd started researching and decided he didn't care enough to keep going. Or, with everything that had happened in the Deep Roads, he had just...forgotten.

The books catch his attention first. They're the same dry, boring histories of magic that he remembered being forced to study as an apprentice. The party line, so to speak; magic is a curse from the Maker that must be overcome, mages chose the Circles over serving in the Chantry, etc. The only unusual part about the books is how Varric got hold of them, when Anders had only ever seen them in the Circle. But the letters were infinitely more interesting, all respectfully addressed to Master Tethras, all of them referencing letters that he'd sent. They were from all over Southern Thedas, from Enchanters and Senior Enchanters, to...]

Irving?

[He picks up the letter from the First Enchanter and reads over it, anxiety curling in his stomach as he looked over every word to see if there was any indication that Varric had mentioned him or Karl by name.]

[The letter is far less terse than one might expect from knowing the Enchanter: it feels like part of a long-continuing correspondence. Irving clarifies a few questions from Varric's last letter, expounds for a page or two on college politics, and...

And yes, there is a bit about Karl. Karl Thekla. Here, the letter takes a sadder tone. Much is made of Karl's abilities as a teacher, but more as a mentor: Karl, Irving reports, had the uncanny ability to convince some discontented mages to be more content in their lot in life. Not an especially glamorous trait, but one Irving found essential to the survival of their kind. Pragmatism is so overlooked as a virtue, Irving lamented, and Karl was a genuinely good person. Had he the power to stop him from being sent to Kirkwall, he would have. Nobody deserved the Gallows.

This section has markings on it: circles, underlines, arrows leading to other parts of the letter, and margin notes that seem to indicate connections to other areas of Varric's notes not included with the letter. "Discontented mages" is circled three times and underlined- clearly, Varric thinks he knows who Irving meant.]

[Anders' eyes start to glaze over quickly and he admittedly skims the several paragraphs expounding on the nuances of Aequitarian viewpoints. But he stops skimming abruptly when he sees Karl's name.

The pages shake in his hand before he masters himself. He feels Justice rise inside him like a sudden roll of nausea, feels tears sting at his eyes. He blinks them away in frustration, wiping at his eyes with one hand as he keeps reading. Discontented mages, even without Varric's handy annotation he would have known exactly who Irving meant with that.

It hurt him, inexplicably, even knowing how much Irving's kindly grandfather persona was a cover, to see Karl's limitless patience touted as pragmatism. He rankled at the implication that he or Karl had ever been content; they had simply had someone to commiserate with, and that had made the injustices easier to bear.

He had to put the letter down and move onto the next thing, before he ripped it up. It had been three years already since Karl died, and yet the wound ached no less than it had then. It was as if he'd stabbed himself, that night, and the wound had festered ever since.

The next thing he picks up is because he notices... his own handwriting.]

My manifesto.

[He's left enough copies around Hawke's mansion, Varric having gotten his hands on one is no surprise. What is a surprise is that it looks like he's started... annotating it? Anders' lips purse as he scans over Varric's marks, thinking at first glance that he's correcting his grammar or spelling.]

[To be fair, there are a few places where he corrected grammar or spelling. That's in blue ink.

More important, though, are the annotations in other colors of ink: one color seems to be for connections to other works- he has little margin notes saying things like "de fer" or "irving" or more cryptic things like "TL 2", and sometimes arrows or notations about other pages in the manifesto. There are also things underlined, circled, notes that seem to connect to a "Character List" buried in the pile of papers. Varric is connecting certain things in the manifesto, and the other letters and sources on his desk, to characters and plots he's building.

There are also places where his notes are less organized. Simple scribbles of "what the fuck?" or "gross- research this" dot the more shocking sections of the manifesto. A couple paragraphs are circled, noted with: "sounds personal?" or "oh, blondie". One section seems especially careworn, though not marked: it has creases from being repeatedly dog-eared and marked, and many a pencil note seems to have been erased from it, as if Varric returned to this section many times, but never knew what to make of it. It's a section about punishment in the Circle, about the templars' ideas of discipline, and how they don't care if their methods break the minds of their charges. It describes beatings without consequence, and it describes solitary confinement in disturbing detail. That paragraph in particular has several erased and scribbled-out notes next to it. One, in pen, can still barely be read under the scribble: ~~karl? blondie? a friend? shit~~ and a hole, where the quill pierced the page. Unusual- Varric is normally very cautious with his pen.

Beyond the manifesto is a pile of correspondence with Mage Collective individuals, all of whom sound surprised that Varric even knows about the Collective, much less managed to gain enough trust to make direct contact with any of them. Some of the memos, letters, and even some official documents - passed between First Enchanter and Knight Commander, or between templars, or from Seeker to Templar - detail punishments for templars, or disciplinary measures taken, or action not taken in response to complaints by mages. There's a lot that's galling and horrible, and a lot that isn't- to add nuance and detail to form a more complete picture.

Off to the side is something else. Seemingly in a place of honor, in its own little tray, set away from the pile of mess, is a single letter addressed from First Enchanter Orsino. The letter begins by congratulating Varric for managing to make the bribes and connections required to find the man's private correspondence, unmonitored by templars. The two men seem to be in the process of negotiating some kind of private interview, with Orsino saying I appreciate the gravity with which you seem to be handling this, Master Tethras. If my testimony is so crucial to your book, and you can promise a respectful depiction, then perhaps we can have a conversation.]

Edited 2018-05-26 15:59 (UTC)

[The sheer amount of research - of care - is completely overwhelming. He's well aware that in the drafts of his manifesto he tends to leave lying around sometimes he gets distracted and writes himself in circles in too much personal detail. In the drafts that he finishes, he self-edits, but he keeps all the previous drafts and, well, they find their way into the books on Hawke's shelves, or in this case into the hands of his favorite dwarf.

When he gets to the part where Varric evidently became so overcome that he pierced through the manifesto with his pen, he realizes that his predilection toward oversharing might have actually hurt his friend.

He goes through the rest of the notes, the hairs on his arms standing on end like the prelude to a thunderstorm, Justice hot and heavy and vindicated rolling in the pit of his stomach. Letters from templars, men and women who might have been good people if they weren't pawns to an oppressive regime. Complaints by mages, dozens of voices crying out for help, for oversight, for justice - and many of them silenced.

The notes become easier to read, lit up with bright lyrium blue instead of the candlelight. He doesn't realize that he's become a light unto himself, that his emotions are overwhelming him and that Justice is just as eager to witness their friend's change of heart. The light coming off of him isn't the harsh, cruel fury of a lightning storm, it's more like a warmth, an ache too sweet to name. It's the healing magic he uses in his clinic, but it's not directed toward an external wound.

I appreciate the gravity with which you seem to be handling this, Master Tethras, Anders reads, and his heart swells like his own thoughts have been put into prettier, more eloquent words than he could manage right at that moment. Varric cares. Not just about Anders himself, or the work that he does for those poor that the gilded Chantry ignores, but he cares about the mages. About the suffering of those that have been leashed to the Chantry's yoke for millennia, held under the thumb of merciless, power-hungry templars. About our cause.]

[It's another hour before Varric gets home. Another hour before his voice can be heard from the downstairs of the Hanged Man, asking Corff for a drink, complaining about something or other, asking for "my usual" to be brought to his room. Another hour before the door opens.]

[By the time Anders hears Varric approaching, he's half-fallen into Varric's usual chair lest he hit the ground in a faint from shock with each new letter he picks up, as he goes from looking at each item by itself to putting together the footnotes that Varric's made in the margins (especially the ones that tie back to his manifesto).

When he hears Varric's voice over the ambient sound of the bar, he jumps up, trying to put everything back the way he found it.]

[Unfortunately for Anders, Varric opens the door well before he even gets a fraction of the way to righting the mess.

All Varric really wants is to take a load off after that fucking Merchant's Guild meeting- shit, he can't even remember the last time he actually went to one, but with Bartrand in the wind he needs to take some control of his businesses. All he wants is to sit down and relax before he has to clean up for Wicked Grace, but what he sees stops him dead.

Shit.]

So much for my secret project.

[Anders looks up guiltily when the door opens, eyes wide almost like, for a split second, he's afraid of how Varric will react.

His heart is racing a thousand miles a second, so fast that his cheeks are flushed, and his expression is... raw, is probably the easiest way to describe it. Like it's never occurred to him before that everything he said about mages wasn't just shouting into the void. Like it shocks him to the core that someone took not just his words to heart, but did research as well.]

I- I... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to intrude.

[The look on Blondie's face makes him pause. It's more than just surprise at Varric's choice of research topics or at being caught going through his shit. Whatever he sees there makes Varric step inside and close the door behind him before giving his friend a measured look.]

It's alright. Guess we have different definitions of "later."

note slipped under his door | just before act 2 starts

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Justice Friendship +10, Anders Friendship +30

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about a week after Anders moves in

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