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“You had a cat named Ser Pounce-a-Lot? In the Deep Roads.”
The stranger’s smile changed their whole face. They were still big, and there was violence in their stance and the streak of blood red kaddis over their nose, but their eyes creased at the corners, bright and teasing, like they already knew him. Anders wasn’t sure if that was more attractive or annoying.
“He was a gift,” he said. “A noble beast. Almost got ripped in half by a genlock once. He swatted the bugger on the nose. Drew blood, too! The blighted Wardens said he—made me too soft.”
“He does not make me soft.”
“The beast is a distraction,” said Velanna. “Your weakness for it puts us all at risk.”
“Does not.”
“It does.”
“Does not.”
It was early morning in the woods by Amaranthine. The Wardens’ campsite was wreathed in mist and steam from the cook fire, and smelled of burnt coffee and burning nug bacon.
Anders’ eyes were still heavy with sleep. He was perched on one end of a fallen log, Oghren slouched against the other. Nathaniel was “cooking,” if anything the Wardens ate could be called food. Justice was… somewhere. And Velanna squatted close to the fire, sharpening a thin white knife—human bone or halla antler, Anders didn’t know. He didn’t like the way she looked at Ser Pounce while she did it.
“It does have a bell on it,” Nathaniel put in. “You bring it anywhere, the darkspawn’ll hear and be on us like wolves.”
“He won’t be wearing his bell into combat,” Anders said archly.
Nathaniel squinted at the bacon, and flipped one strip over with a stick. It sizzled softly. “What then? Tiny armor?”
“Yes.”
“Leather, plate, or pink and knitted?”
Oghren threw a rock in the fire. “We should drown it.”
“What?” Anders jumped up from the log, shedding bits of moss and bark. “How could you!”
“No rocks in the fire, dwarf,” said Nathaniel.
“No drowning my cat!” said Anders.
Oghren laughed, and scooped up another rock. Nathaniel swiped it neatly from his hands. “No—rocks— in— the fire. There’s water trapped in this. It’ll turn to steam and explode.”
Oghren’s grin was sly and nasty. “What about kittens? Do they explode?”
Anders scooped Ser Pounce off the ground and clutched the cat against his chest. “I can’t believe you. Nug shit for brains and nothing for a heart.” Oghren laughed harder. “I can’t believe you. Maker.”
The little orange cat squirmed in his arms, mewling, and Anders kissed him on the head. “Shh, baby.”
“There, see?” Velanna pointed at Anders with the tip of her knife. “Too soft.”
“And what’s wrong with soft?”
The Wardens turned.
Their Warden-Commander stood at the edge of camp, in a haze of mist and apple-golden sunlight, his hands folded over the strong fat curve of his stomach. There was no way to tell how long he’d been standing there. Max walked so quietly. Always had. When they were kids in the Circle and knew everything about each other. When they met in Amaranthine and were strangers again.
“I think we could all do with being a little softer,” said Max. “Don’t you?”
Oghren almost looked penitent.
Velanna scoffed. “Are you Grey Wardens or aren’t you? All the stories say a Warden is pitiless. Not besotted with kittens.” But she went back to her sharpening.
Ser Pounce began to struggle in earnest. Anders didn’t want to put him down. The cat was so warm and solid, and Oghren’s joke (or threat) had got his heart racing in a painful way he didn’t like. He squeezed tighter, and Ser Pounce squealed.
Then Max was there, so gentle and so close, his tattooed brown hands settling lightly as moths on top of Anders’ own. “I think he wants to be let down.”
“I won’t give him back,” said Anders.
“No one will take him from you while I’m here,” said Max. “I promise.”
Anders opened his arms. Ser Pounce jumped free.
Max smiled. It was worn and soft and confidential, and moved his coppery red beard and mustache in a slight, sweet way. Anders would take on the Fade for that smile. Really he would.
“Is Nathaniel making coffee in my pot?” said Max, suddenly alert. “He’ll ruin the next hundred cups of tea for me, the residue doesn’t come out.” He bustled away to the fire. “You can’t mix tea and coffee, Nathaniel, that’s evil, that’s worse than blood magic…”
Nathaniel flipped another piece of bacon without looking up. He seemed blind and deaf to the Warden-Commander, until Max reached toward the pan and Nathaniel smacked his hand away almost before he’d moved.
“Wait like the rest and take what I give you,” Nathaniel deadpanned. “How much softer do you want to get, Commander?” He poked Max’s stomach with the stick, which only made Max chuckle and reach for the bacon again. Incorrigible. This time Nathaniel let him burn his fingers. He yelped and stuffed them in his mouth, along with a piece of bacon. Anders’ lips twisted up, watching him.
Max saw him looking and winked. So he was distracting the others on purpose. Clever old fox.
Ser Pounce came back to Anders, winding around his ankles and chirping for attention. He lowered his hand. Ser Pounce mashed his face against it—once, twice. His purr was loud and rusty.
This cat was the first thing that had ever really belonged to Anders. Everything before was the Circle’s. Even Mr Wiggums. Even his clothes. Max would have known that. Because he’d been there too.
Anders understood then, and it wasn’t like it had been with Karl, who was convenient and kind and good at kissing, or like it would eventually be with Hawke, who filled the world for Anders. It was matter-of-fact, falling heavy and quiet through him like snow off the tower’s eaves: I’m lucky to have loved him. It was also, on reflection, the kind of thought you’d have about a dead person. Almost like he knew what was coming.
Anders stroked the cat his commander had given him, and watched Max provoke Nathaniel Howe finally into rough, unpracticed laughter, and thought about softness.
“I had to leave him with a friend in Amaranthine.”
“So you came all the way to Kirkwall just to escape the Wardens?”
“You say that like it’s a small thing.” Anders was warming up to the stranger, despite himself. So he told them a true story. Except one detail.
Anders had no friends in Amaranthine. He left Ser Pounce-a-Lot on the street, and Ser Pounce tried to follow until Anders scared him off with a loud crack of magic, because Max was dead or worse than dead and Anders wasn’t allowed to be soft anymore, none of them were, and the ginger cat, running from him, had flashed copper in the sun. Copper like his oldest friend’s hair. And then was gone.