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It's a rare moment of reprieve when Anders has the chance to escape from the crushing atmosphere of Kirkwall, but sometimes, it's necessary. Apart from the constant stress hounding his body and mind, the water in Darktown is putrid, sulfuric, and useless for his needs in the clinic, so the little running streams in the hills prove invaluable for collecting fresh water, even of only in precious small amounts. And there are herbs to be collected, because not all healing requires the exhaustive use of magic, and even magic salves and potions require natural components one doesn't usually find growing in the cold stone coffin of Lowtown.
It's cool and clear when he sets out on the early morning hours before the sun is fully awake; His boots are drenched with dew before he's even reached the nearby fields. The wind blows down from the hills, balmy but fresh; It rustles the grass at his feet, gently blows a few loose strands of hair carelessly around his face.
Thick, succulent plant leaves are scraped for gels, roots and leaves dug and pulled for grinding into poultices, and when his pouches and containers are filled, robes caked with dirt and streaked with grass stains, knuckles sore and raw, he looks up to see a grey, angry sky overhead and hears a sudden clap of thunder.
By the time he seeks makeshift shelter under a large, stocky tree, he's soaked to the skin.
Lightning darts across the sky, but Anders isn't afraid. He's held that power at his fingertips before, channeled it, mastered it. He's felt all the forces of nature flowing through him in the heat of battle: fire, water, earth, and air.
But it's still a rush to see it burst through the sky, free and unrestrained, dancing through the rain.
It's a long walk home. His robes are drenched, sad and soggy and weighing him down, and he's shivering to the marrow of his bones, but the weight and the cold scarcely touch him. He turns his face up to the grey, angry sky, and smiles.
It doesn't rain inside towers, or inside cold Warden strongholds, or underground, in the sewers.
But out here in the hills, raindrops fall from the sky like fragile little beads full of forgotten wishes, clear and cold and clean, and tasting of freedom.