Chapter Text
Many, many years later:
Justice didn’t like the rain.
Technically speaking he couldn’t actually feel it since he was currently trapped in a corpse.
Kristoph, he reminded himself sharply, internal lights flickering on a wince. And Kristoph’s corpse certainly didn’t have any of it’s senses left active being dead and all so he wasn’t able to really experience rain the way a living mortal would. It had been months now since the night he got kicked out of The Fade and he still hadn’t figured out how to turn on the nerves responsible for feeling physical sensations. He was lucky he had been able to figure out how to get the eyes to work and most of the parts to move.
For a moment he tried to take stock of his life. Tried to pinpoint where things went so wrong to be able to find himself cast adrift in the mortal plane of all places. He’d very happily lived for thousands of years in The Fade, and not once had he ever felt any desire to set foot outside. Eons spent chasing down demons, saving lost souls, and righting wrongs. Now he was stuck in an utterly alien landscape with the memories of a dead man rattling around inside his mind and a gnawing guilt that he had accidentally possessed a corpse when he got tossed out of The Fade. Possessed. Actually possessed a corpse. Like a blasted demon. He shuddered. Not to mention he really had no idea what would happen if he tried to leave said corpse.
He wasn’t even sure how to go home.
He fidgeted as he tried and failed to avoid the next logical, terrifying, thought; that he might not ever be able to go home.
Justice very quickly went back to considering the rain.
To be fair, rain seemed to be a harmless occurrence, and it wasn’t that he didn’t want to experience new things. He’d heard the mage Anders babble repeatedly during their trek that day about how wonderful the rain felt, so he would have been curious to try out the sensation for himself if he could.
Mostly the rain annoyed him because after being in the wet for a while his armor would start to stick and occasionally -if they were out long enough, like today for example- make annoying squeaking noises.
He hated the squeaking.
“-and then she said, ‘those aren’t my shoes!’”
“Do you ever shut up, Anders?” Sighed Nathaniel.
Anders paused with his mouth open before he snapped it shut. A mean smile slowly curled the mage’s lips and he leaned into the archer’s personal space and said with a sweet sounding voice, “You weren’t complaining about it last night.” Nathaniel’s face flushed an interesting shade of beet red. “In fact I believe you said something about wanting me to scream something. I believe it was your name. But if you really want me to be quiet we could just slip behind that tree over there and I’m sure we can find a better use for my tongue-”
“Go easy on him, Anders, besides we’re almost there. I think.” Commander Surana called over her shoulder absently still studying her waterproof map as the sky continued to pour down over them. She was a tiny eccentric elven mage, and had so far shown to be an even tempered curious sort of person. Unless she was speaking to a member of the templar group, in which case all bets were off.
Speaking to templars was actually the first time he’d seen her get really truly angry.
Justice flickered worriedly which translated into a frown. He listened to the two men bicker for a while as he thought before he finally spoke up, “Commander, perhaps we should stop for a bit. And set up camp.” The argument between Anders and Nathaniel raised in volume slightly.
The Commander looked over her shoulder at him with a small frown. Her long red hair had spilled out of her hood during their trek and a few strands had somehow plastered themselves to her forehead with the wet. She lowered the map she’d been studying. “What? Why?”
“Nathaniel’s face has changed colors. You’ve told me that usually only happens outside the Fade if a person consumes large quantities of alcohol or if they have become ill. We have no alcohol in our bags so therefore he must be ill.”
Both men stopped arguing to stare at him for some reason. Nathaniel ran a hand over his face and sighed. Anders bit his lip and made a strange almost strangled sounding snort as his shoulders started to shake. He turned to the archer who had become slightly redder and then said in an overly cheerful voice, “Yes, Nathaniel! Are you well? You seem a bit flushed!”
The Commander pinched the bridge of her nose and groaned, “That’s not, no. Justice, we’re adding another biology discussion to your lessons.”
Anders’ strangled sounding snorts became full blown laughter.
Nathaniel growled out a very rude word -which made Justice’s energy and eyebrows shoot up, and then stomped away from them gripping his bow as though he intended to strangle it. “I hate all of you. I’m going to go scout the area.”
“Do you want me to help you scout, my good Ser?” Anders called out cheerfully into the downpour.
“Get fucked, Anders.” The archer called back.
“I’m trying!”
The Commander sighed. “How in the void did the two of you start sleeping together?”
Anders shoved his hands back into his soaked pockets with a squelch and a grin, “We both got very drunk one night and started bonding over our mutual dislike for our fathers.”
Justice looked back and forth between them feeling rattled and a small knot of worry forming. Judging by their reactions, it looked like he said something wrong, but he didn’t know what. “I apologize if I said something to upset all of you.”
Anders knocked their shoulders together with a grin. “Nonsense. Nathaniel just needs to lighten up is all. But Luna- our Commander is right; you could use a few more lessons on how living bodies work.” The last part came out with an embarrassed sounding laugh.
“Which is why you’re going to take over that job.” The Commander said looking up at Anders with an amused smile.
“Hey!”
“And you’ve known me since I was little so stop calling me ‘The Commander.’”
Justice spent a lot of his time at night thinking in the great hall. When he’d first… ‘arrived’ in the mortal plane and started filling in for Kristoph there had been plenty for him to study while the others went into their rooms to do… whatever it was they did at night. He’d been assigned a room as well, but wasn’t particularly sure what he was supposed to do in it. Not wanting to be impolite he’d thanked Luna for the room, and mostly just used it for weapon storage. An oversized weapon storage room considering he only had the one sword and shield. And the armor of course, but he couldn’t see a reason to take that off.
Most nights were spent studying in the great hall. Maps and treaties and battle plans. The battle plans reminded him of home right up until it didn’t, giving their battle discussions a surreal feeling as though he’d forgotten something important. The surreal feeling only got worse when the Commander was the one going over the battle plans. Sometimes -and only for a moment- he’d see an elven man instead of her looking over the maps during those moments. One who looked quite a bit like her -almost startlingly so- but with streaks of gray in his hair. An elven man wearing armor that he couldn’t place but seemed achingly familiar. Those moments were brief, but always made him feel a devastating sense of loss that he had been unable to place or understand so far.
But The Mother had been dealt with. The Architect was dead. The nobles had mostly stopped trying to assassinate the Commander. And suddenly he had more time to himself in the evenings to conduct his own studies of the world he had found himself in.
Tonight he was studying shoes.
He’d noticed a few times now that if they all went on long hikes looking for darkspawn together that eventually a few of the mortals would begin to say that their feet were killing them. Obviously the wounds hadn’t been fatal so far, and the physical appendages couldn’t be the culprit (what sort of creature would have a body that attacks itself?) Which left the shoes themselves. His current theory was that the shoes housed small creatures that didn’t like sharing their homes with mortal feet. Perhaps miniature crabs. He turned the boot he was holding this way and that before again peering inside trying to see if there were any latches or joints to suggest where the creatures were hiding so he could try reasoning with them.
Anders walked into the great hall humming a song with a dreamy smile on his face. He was flushed, his clothing rumpled, and his hair had been half way pulled out of its ponytail. No lights came from that smile though, not even a flicker. Justice jumped slightly, the lack of lights while smiling startling him until he reminded himself, again, that mortals outside of The Fade didn’t glow when expressing their emotions -or ever really. It had been a fairly creepy discovery if he was being honest with himself, but after spending time getting to know a few of them he’d eventually decided it would probably be incredibly impolite to say as much. It wasn’t their fault that they didn’t know how to glow. Justice did frown however when he noticed that the mage was also limping. “Anders, have you been injured?”
Anders’ smile turned into a grin and he flopped into the seat next to him. “Only in the very best of ways, my friend.”
Justice opened his mouth to ask what that meant but stopped himself at the last second. Up close he could see circular bruises beginning to form on the sides of his neck. Last time when he’d asked about the bruises Anders had referred to them as ‘hickies.’ Knowing what he’d seen of the mortal so far the limp probably had something to do with coupling.
Instead he set down the boot he’d been studying and asked, “What is tonight’s lesson?” True to her word the Commander had assigned Anders to teach him more about the mortal world and how to interact with it. She’d only instructed him to teach Justice for a few nights but they’d been having these evening chats for well over a month now. Justice enjoyed them greatly and Anders seemed to enjoy them too considering he kept showing up even though he wasn’t being instructed to any longer.
“We’ve covered most of the big stuff, I think. Though it is kinda hard to tell which parts you still don’t know. But I was thinking you could set the direction for tonight’s thing.” Anders waved a hand in emphasis, “What kind of lesson would you like tonight?”
“Hm. Well. Can it be a personal question instead of a worldly question?”
“Hey, so long as it’s not ‘how big is it?’, go nuts.”
Justice tilted his head as he tried to figure out what object or objects he was theoretically not supposed to ask for the size of but decided whatever it was he was probably better off not asking about it. Instead he said, “I still do not understand why you do not wish to fight against your oppressors. You speak of the wrongs that have been committed against you as if you are alone; our Comman- Luna has expressed the same resentment for the chantry’s ways.”
Anders froze before he relaxed again and the smile became a smirk, “This again? She’s just as much a mage as I am so it doesn’t count. A mage’s opinion never counts.” A bitter edge crept into the end of his sentence.
Justice considered that. “But her opinion matters to a king. I may be from The Fade, but I do know kings are a type of leader for mortals. She was able to make her case for justice to him and convince him of it’s validity. He has since then banned the practice of caging mages in this country.”
Anders cut in sharply. “Which the chantry has been ignoring! I doubt the mages in the Fereldan circle even know they’ve been freed officially. Everyone back in the circle knew the chantry would edit any information they gave us. There were always inconsistencies with the books.” He shook his head with a disgusted look, “From what I’ve heard they’ve locked the circle tighter than it ever was before, and sent Karl-” He cut himself off with a pained expression. He took a long shaky breath and went quiet, gaze firmly locked on the floor.
Justice paused, something else was wrong here, but it didn’t look like Anders was willing to talk about it and he wasn’t sure how to coax it out. For a brief moment he wished he had been born a spirit of compassion. Justice had no qualms with who he was, what he was, but he had no illusions either. Being a spirit of justice did not come with a lot of gentleness. No matter how much he wished for it to be otherwise, he would always be something of a blunt instrument. “How long have mages been imprisoned?”
“For over a thousand years, give or take a few decades.” Anders said through clenched teeth.
“And have there been rebellions in these circles?”
Anders looked up with a frown. “No, of course not.”
Justice considered that and then rephrased his question, “You have said that the religious leaders lied to you on many occasions, would they tell you if there had been a rebellion?”
A worried look slowly settled onto the mage’s face. “I… I don’t- I mean... If there had been I doubt they’d want us to know, they’d probably hide information like that, but it’s not like you can hide a whole tower of mages fighting back-” Anders sucked in a sharp breath like he’d been struck. “Annulment.”
Justice frowned, “What?”
Anders seemed to visibly wilt in his chair and explained what the right of annulment entailed. How if the templars in a circle deemed it beyond ‘salvation’ they would then slaughter every man woman and child in the building. Justice felt his lights start to swirl sickly as he listened to his friend list off the details with a tired matter of fact tone of voice. The mages in Anders’ circle had always been told that over the last thousand years only 5 annulments had happened, but since leaving he’d discovered the numbers were closer to twenty, possibly more. And because all mages involved would already be dead by the time any paperwork on the subject was processed the reports were always written exclusively by templars.
Specifically the same templars that had just finished killing everyone in the tower in question.
Justice took a moment to rein in his horror over what he had just learned and silently swore to take a sword to any templars he could get his hands on. He lowered his voice slightly but it was still a little gravelly with lingering anger, “And what of the people outside of these circles?”
“What about them?”
“If mages spend so much time caged I imagine that many mortals have never conversed with one, in such a scenario how would they know they have been lied to by your religious leaders?”
Anders took a long shuddering breath before slumping even more in his chair. “Even if you were right, it doesn’t change the fact that if I tried to talk to chantry officials about changing things I’d also be within stabbing distance. I’d be lucky if I got the words ‘hi how are you’ out before someone yelled ‘kill the robe’ and stabbed me.”
Justice went still and blinked slowly. He hadn’t been suggesting Anders specifically for this scenario, the mage had already made it very clear he was afraid of templars. And from what he’d seen and heard the mortal had every right to be angry or scared or both. Mainly Justice was baffled by his friend’s lack of action. But if this was where the conversation was going he didn’t disagree with the idea of Anders taking up arms in the name of freedom. Still, not wanting to be stabbed was a good point. You couldn’t fight if you were dead. “Are there no forms of communication at a distance in this realm?”
“What?”
Justice frowned as he tried to figure out how to word his question. Concepts like friendship and lovers existed in the mortal plane but several times now he’d brought up other concepts or customs that he’d thought would be just as universal only to receive a blank or confused stare. “In The Fade we could leave messages for others by attaching songs or memories or images to balls of energy. We could even send those messages far distances. Energy straight from The Fade could be used of course, but the safest type of energy to use to avoid someone tampering with it was your own. But using your own energy makes the act of sending information a little daunting at times and there is always the danger of a demon stealing the energy from a message for one reason or another. Additionally having to tear apart some of your own energy to send information can leave a spirit weakened for a while and an easy target. Some spirits offer their services in guarding these messages for others to lower some of the strain. Sometimes even watching over messages for far distances or through dangerous terrain. I imagine there must be something similar here, but I have been wrong before.”
Anders had an odd look on his face. “That sounds like… Do you mean you had mail? I hadn’t realized spirits had a postal service.”
Justice frowned again. “Then those services are available here? I had thought removing parts of your bodies caused injury or even death in this realm? Perhaps it is instead a matter of how limbs are removed? How long does it take your people to regrow body parts?”
Anders stared at Justice with a blank expression before finally saying, “It’s ah… No. That’s not how writing is done. Not with body… parts. Oooookay, that’s… Alright. We’ll do another lesson on anatomy tomorrow night. And one on writing, I think.” A dawning look of some kind of realization slowly bloomed across his face and suddenly a laugh bubbled out of Anders. And for the first time Justice couldn’t hear a hint of bitterness or fear in that laugh. The mage stood up abruptly. “A quill. I need a quill. And some paper.”
Anders had rushed halfway across the great hall before he slowed to a stop. The fire crackled, and other than the mage’s breathes the room was quiet. He turned around with a determined expression and faced Justice. “Thank you, Justice.”
The spirit tilted his head at the strange display from his friend, but nodded anyway. And then Anders rushed from the room.
It would take Justice some time to find out about it, but that was the first night Anders started working on his manifesto.