Chapter Text
At first, when he hears the other apprentices talking about the ‘apostate’, Anders thinks they mean him. The word has been sneered at him often enough over the years, throughout his numerous escapes (and subsequent recaptures—usually with the templars doing the sneering). Apostate. It’s not the worst thing Anders has ever been called. It has sort of a ring to it actually. Especially when a ‘wanted’ is tagged onto it. Really, if you’re not set to become a senior enchanter it’s about as important as a mage can get in the eyes of the Chantry. And after escape attempt number four, Anders is getting used to the attention.
So, when he’s thrown back in among his fellow apprentices and he hears that word being whispered around, he thinks nothing of it. He puts on a smile, undeterred by the scowls of those who think he’s making the rest of them look bad and actually quite enjoying the attention from the ones who crowd him, wanting to hear all about his adventures out of the tower. Anders can hardly be blamed if he plays it all up a bit for them. What else is he supposed to do now he’s stuck back here? The templars will be watching him more closely than ever now. He’ll probably have to lie low for a bit but that doesn’t mean he can’t have some fun.
The first clue that something might have changed while he was away should have been the number of those gossiping apprentices. It seems to him that managing a fourth escape and more or less getting away with it (they haven’t made him tranquil yet after all) should perhaps have earned him a little more attention than he’s currently receiving. But apparently not so: there are definitely fewer people than usual gathering around him asking him questions about what it’s like out there, if he was afraid, what he did when he realised the templars had him cornered. Still, it’s not necessarily a bad thing and Anders simply shrugs it off.
It takes a few days to realise that his initial assumption was a little bit off. He hears it in the library, that whispered word again, “Is that him? The apostate?” But when Anders looks up it’s not him the whispering apprentices at the far end of his table are looking at.
It’s someone new.
The boy now making his way across the room probably wouldn’t have otherwise grabbed his attention. He's human, maybe a few years older than Anders himself and has short brown hair. If he stands out, it’s in how he’s maybe slightly less weedy than some of the others, a little less pasty but there’s still little doubt that he’s one of them, unfamiliar though he is. He wears the resigned look of so many of the other mages here and if that weren’t enough to mark him as one of them, the standard issue apprentice robes he has on would probably do the trick. He crosses the library and Anders’ are far from the only pair of eyes that follow him. If Anders wasn’t entirely certain he hadn’t seen that face before, that would be a giveaway in itself.
They get new mages now and then, all after completing their Harrowings, of course. New apprentices, however, are usually quite a bit younger than this boy. Anders himself came here at the age of twelve and even that was considered old for magic to manifest in a child. If it’s truly his first time in a Circle then it’s no wonder he’s caused such a stir.
The boy pays no notice to the watchful eyes of the other apprentices. Or, he tries not to. It’s sort of obvious, really. Even if he wasn’t clearly trying quite so hard to keep his gaze focused on the floor in front of him, the faint blush colouring his cheeks would do it. He has the definite air of someone trying not to be noticed and failing miserably at it.
Anders shifts along the long table he’s supposed to be studying at and plops himself into a seat beside one of the apprentices who had first drawn his attention to the new boy.
“Who’s that then?” he asks, quietly enough not to draw the attention of any templars who might be lurking nearby. Some of them hardly need the excuse, even for a misdemeanour as minor as talking in the library.
The apprentice who turns to look at him in surprise is vaguely familiar in a way that most of the apprentices Anders doesn’t regularly talk to are to him. He’s used to seeing the same faces every day and even if he can’t put a name to all of them, there’s never anything obviously out of place about them. He thinks the girl he’s just sidled up to might be called Rosie or something like that. When her surprise at Anders’ sudden appearance beside her subsides, she replies with, “You haven’t heard?”
Anders shrugs. “I’ve been busy.”
Rosie raises an eyebrow and Anders can’t help but feel her knowing expression is a bit much considering she can’t be more than fourteen. He definitely prefers the younger apprentices when they’re looking at him in awe at the tales of his daring escapes.
“Templars brought him in last week,” says Rosie’s friend, who is clearly the more eager gossip of the two. “They’re saying he’s never been in a Circle before but he’s had his magic for years. He’s been hiding all this time,” she whispers excitedly. “The templars never found him!”
“Until now,” adds Rosie. Something in her tone says she thinks it was only a matter of time. Which is true enough, really. Even without a phylactery, staying hidden from the templars for long can’t be easy. All it takes is one slip up in front of the wrong person. And for an untrained mage those slip ups will be all the more difficult to avoid.
So it’s no wonder all of Kinloch is abuzz with the new arrival. Once Anders notices it, he can’t help but wonder how he missed it those first few days. Everyone is talking about it. He might be bothered that his own return has failed to pull their attention away but, now that he’s aware of the gossip, he’s sort of drawn into it himself. He can’t blame them really; Anders has escaped and been recaptured enough times now that it’s old news but this, an apostate, who evaded capture by the templars for years—well, it’s longer than anything Anders has managed. The Templars have Anders’ phylactery so he’s not feeling too outdone but even he has to admit it’s impressive.
He sees the new apprentice around a few times after that first time in the library. On the second day, he gets wind of the boy’s name: Karl Thekla.
Karl doesn’t look like an apostate. And it’s not just the Circle robes, it’s his entire demeanour. Anders has yet to speak to him at all but he gives the impression of being shy and far from comfortable with the attention he’s gained among the other apprentices. It’s not that Anders wants to contribute to causing that discomfort but it’s difficult not to be interested. To go so long without any real training while avoiding the templars must have taken some fair amount of skill. Or else he was just very lucky. Until now, that is.
It can’t be easy. As a rule, Anders tries not to think about his own arrival at Kinloch Hold but he remembers it all too well. Karl’s silence hits a little too close to home. He doesn’t know if Karl being older makes it better or worse. He’s had a much longer taste of freedom than anyone else here so he wonders if that just makes it more difficult to give up. Or perhaps there’s no point in comparing it. They’ve all ended up here one way or another.
Anders tries to tell himself he’ll stay out of it but in the end his interest gets the better of him. That, and they’re put into a class together. Which makes sense, Karl may be older but if he’s really untrained then he has some catching up to do with the others. The curiosity that Anders has been keeping at bay for the past few days comes to a head in closer proximity and he thinks it couldn’t hurt just to introduce himself. In fact, it would be downright friendly of him.
It doesn’t quite go to plan.
Anders begins by dropping into a conveniently empty seat in front of where Karl is sitting. “You’re the new apprentice. Karl, right?”
Karl looks up at him. It’s the first time Anders has seen him look in his direction. His eyes are blue. Anders spends the long moment it takes for Karl to respond appreciating that. Overall, his looks are sort of unremarkable. Anders has already established that he’s really not one to stand out in a crowd and, between that and his obvious shyness, if Karl’s arrival hadn’t caused such a fuss among the other apprentices, Anders isn’t sure if he’d have noticed the older boy at all.
But he does have nice eyes. If nothing else, he thinks he might have noticed that, given the chance.
“Yes,” says Karl.
It’s all he says, which makes Anders feel slightly awkward when he persists in introducing himself. “Anders.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Anders,” Karl murmurs in a tone that’s polite, if not exactly bursting with warmth. Anders isn’t sure what to do with that but he’s already established that Karl is shy so it seems to make sense just to keep trying. He tells himself that some people just need a little more encouragement than others to open up, that’s all.
He doesn’t get off to the best start with that. “People are calling you the apostate.”
Karl sighs, “I wish they wouldn’t.”
“That’s what you were though, weren’t you? Until recently, of course.”
“I’d really rather not talk about it.”
Anders watches Karl’s gaze slip away from his and fall back to the book on the desk in front of him and he thinks he might have been misunderstood. “Hey, I’m not trying to give you a hard time about it. I think it’s great. Well, not the getting caught and dragged off to a gloomy old tower in the middle of a lake and never being allowed to leave part, obviously, but staying hidden for so long. It's quite impressive. Not many could pull that off...” Anders trails off as he realises that, again, his words aren’t having quite the intended effect and maybe reminding people of recent potentially traumatic experiences is not the way to go about making friends. This usually isn’t so hard. Still, he perseveres and decides to try a different approach. “I’ve been called apostate once or twice myself, you know. Never really took, though.”
“So I’ve heard,” says Karl.
“You’ve heard about me?” Anders doesn’t know why that’s surprising. Perhaps because in all the time he’s been watching Karl, he’s never really seen him talking to anyone else. Which suggests people are talking about Anders’ latest escape after all, and loudly enough for Karl to pick up on it. Good to know he’s being appreciated. Maker knows there isn’t much to keep people entertained in this place.
“Once or twice,” says Karl. “Look, Anders, I appreciate what you’re trying to do but I really just think it would be better if I kept my head down for a while. There’s a lot I need to catch up on. I shouldn’t let myself get distracted.”
Anders wonders for a moment if he’s said the wrong thing (or, more likely, several wrong things) but Karl looks so apologetic he realises that’s not it at all. More likely that the terrible first impression has done very little to counter the rumours about him: that he’s a troublemaker. Which isn’t exactly unfounded but Anders doesn’t know how he feels about it being used as a reason for someone not wanting to know him. Though perhaps it makes sense. Karl’s just been brought in, in the sort of circumstances that can only make him an easy target for the templars. Even someone new to the Circle can see the dangers in that. Immediately taking up with Kinloch’s most infamous escape artist definitely isn’t the wisest choice he could make now. Anders gets it. But it still stings a little.
“Right,” Anders says. “Point taken. I’ll just... leave you to it then.”
Karl gives him one last apologetic look then goes back to his notes as Anders walks away.
That might have been the end of it except that they’re both confined to a tower together and that doesn’t exactly lend itself to staying out of each other's ways. Especially when it turns out that they have more than the one class together. It starts to become more clear over the next few months how Karl can have made it as long as he did (though however long that might be is still uncertain) without formal training. He’s a model student without even seeming to have to try. He’s the picture of calm and discipline, so unlike Anders that he finds it baffling. Karl can’t have had much opportunity for academic study before coming to the Circle so Anders thinks he must be trying to make up for lost time. He’s so rarely seen without his nose in a book. He’s exactly the sort of apprentice Anders has always done his best to avoid.
But Anders can’t get his mind off him. More specifically, he can’t wrap his mind around how little the idea of him as the 'apostate' all the apprentices were talking about matches up with the reality of the quiet, studious Karl he's become used to seeing around. It would be disappointing except that it doesn’t quite make sense. Which makes Karl something of a mystery. And that makes him interesting.
None of the other apprentices seem to share Anders’ view on this. At least, as far as he can tell. After the first few weeks, the gossip surrounding him dies away. Karl stays true to his word and keeps his head down. He’s liked well enough and is accepted by pupils and teachers alike as a normal apprentice. A little behind the others in his age group in some respects but otherwise gifted enough to make up for it.
After the initial rejection Anders doesn't try approaching Karl directly again. Though he does a commendable job (in his own opinion) of not holding it against him. Any bitter feeling he may have begun with evaporates as he watches Karl over the following months. Anders can't help but think he seems lonely. A difficult feat in the confines of the tower but somehow Karl seems to have managed it. As nice as he is to anyone who approaches him, he doesn’t seem to let anyone in. It’s easy for Anders to recognise the signs. He did the same thing himself when he was first brought here. Seeing it now in Karl, Anders can’t hold it against him.