Chapter Text
“We are thrown together with a sprinkling of stardust.”
There was something tickling the back of his ear. He twitched at the sensation, and heard someone giggle. A child, he thought wearily. I hate children. The tickling continued, and he snapped to attention at once, once the sleep had faded completely from his tired body. He sat up and opened his eyes, ready to snatch the one responsible by the collar for disturbing his sleep, when he came face-to-face with an elven girl – most certainly not a child, he mused. The elf had a wicked look about her, what with the way her lips held a sinister, though lopsided grin, as though she knew something about him that he hadn’t yet found out for himself.
“Finally awake, yeah?” she said, waving the feather in front of his face. “About time, too. You were rambling in your sleep about mages and freedom and all that. Shite, you look terrible. What’s your name? Wait, don’t answer that if you’re drunk.” She blinked. “Are you drunk? Is that why you’re out here?”
“I-” he began, but the elf girl interrupted him.
“No, but you’ve got your breeches with you.” She cocked her head to the side, studying him with narrowed eyes. “Not drunk then. I’ve never seen you before. What suit are you from? Not Clubs, obviously!”
“Now you’re the one rambling,” he finally said, raising his voice a little as he grew weary of the elf girl’s incessant chattering. “What are you talking about? What suits?” His head throbbed, suddenly. “What…”
“You don’t know about the suits?” She frowned. “That’s fucking bullshit. You’re pulling my leg, aren’t you? Are you one of the Spades?” She wrinkled her nose as though smelling something unpleasant. “Fucking tits. Always pretending they’re better than us. This a new strategy, then? Pretending you don’t know anything at all, making me nervous?”
He rubbed his eyes. “No, that’s not-”
“You know what, shut it. Give me your name. I’ll find out where the hell you’re from.” The elf girl seemed disgusted at best, as though it was suddenly his fault they were talking in circles.
“My name…” He looked down at his hands. He had hands, that was… normal. Why did he find it so surprising?
“Yeah, Blondie. Your name.”
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The throbbing was getting harder to ignore, now. He tried to recall his name, but it was like trying to catch the wind with his own bare hands. He didn’t know. There was nothing to be remembered. Somehow that frustrated him, and it seemed to have the same effect on the elf girl before him as well.
“Name? Hello?” She thwacked him on the side of his head. “Fucking loony, you are.”
“You’re the crazy one, hitting somebody you only just met!” he retaliated, putting a hand to the spot she had struck him. The headache was intensifying, now. “Damn it, why don’t you tell me your name first? And your suit, for that matter!”
The elf drew back a little, frowning. “It’s Sera. I’m with the Clubs.”
“Clubs,” he repeated in a whisper. “That’s nice.”
“Five of Clubs,” she added, almost as an afterthought. “Well? Understand anything I’m saying yet?”
He ran a hand through his hair, untangling stray knots like he tried to do with his emotions. “Unfortunately not. This is all… strange. I don’t know where I was before this.”
“Spades?”
“What?”
“Are you one of the Spades?”
He sighed. “No.”
“Diamonds, then.”
“No, sorry.”
She pointed at him all of a sudden, shouting with glee. “You’re a fuckin’ Heart!”
He almost laughed at how desperate she was. He, too, sorely needed some validation and some actual answers, but something told him he wasn’t going to find it with Sera.
“I wish I could tell you that was true,” was all he said before she leaped to her feet in frustration.
“That’s fucking weird, right!” She glared at him as though he had offended her, or perhaps tripped her over on purpose. “Everybody knows where they’re from! You’re either a snotty Spade, a Diamond or a Heart. If you don’t know-”
“I’m sorry, Sera, but-”
Anders, something whispered within the depths of his mind. He blinked, and then looked up at Sera again. “Anders,” he repeated softly, almost like a prayer.
“What’s that?”
“Anders,” he said. “My name. I’ll take Anders over Blondie.”
“I haven’t heard of any Anders.” She made an aggravated noise and threw her hands up in the air. “Thought I could steal your breeches if you were a Spade, right? Then you tell me you’re not, and then you say you don’t know where you’re from. Fucking shite, that is.”
“Is not knowing everything so hard to live with?” he asked her, frowning.
“When there are only fifty-two of us in this world, yeah.” Sera rolled her eyes. “You’re not a very good joker. Tit.”
“Unfortunately, a Joker is what he may be.”
Anders turned to his left, where the man’s voice had come from. He thought he heard Sera hiss, somewhere to his right, but he was more preoccupied with the tall man striding over to him at this very moment. He was dressed finely, with dark furs draped over his shoulders and steel armor underneath the red coat. He had a hand on the hilt of his sword, almost as though he was prepared to go into battle at any moment, though his expression was not hostile.
“Stubbles,” he heard Sera mutter begrudgingly.
“Five of Clubs,” the man acknowledged, but not unkindly. “Don’t you recall the rules?”
“What rules,” Sera spat.
“We have two Jokers, Sera,” the man said, almost lamenting. “Just because you go around pretending Cole doesn’t exist doesn’t mean it’s true. You do remember Cole, yes?”
“What, that thing?” Sera growled. “Yeah, sure, whatever. Give it a name if you want.”
The man sighed, and turned his attention back to Anders. “I apologize. My name is Cullen. I am the King of Diamonds. You must be very confused.”
“I’m actually on the verge of a mental breakdown, but yes, we’ll go with ‘confused’ for now.”
The King smiled sympathetically and extended a gauntleted hand to Anders. “Come. We will meet with the rest.”
“Ah, the other fifty,” Anders quipped, casting a glance at Sera, who looked absolutely annoyed at this point. “Great.”
With a lack of better things to do, Anders gripped Cullen’s hand and rose to his feet. Cullen led the way, walking in a way Anders could only describe as regal and animalistic at the same time. Sera skipped ahead of them, clearly caring very little about decorum and posture before royalty. Cullen shook his head and smiled in Anders’ direction. “She has always been a character.”
“You’re just being polite, aren’t you?” Anders returned a smile.
“It’s unbecoming of a King to speak ill of others, even if they belong to other suits.” Cullen kept his eyes forward as they emerged from the forest into a clearing, where horses stood waiting as several people tended to them. One of them was a woman with brown hair that spilled over her shoulders and turned almost red in the brilliant sunlight. Anders was amazed at her beauty. Though dressed in armor, she retained overwhelming grace in her movements as she went over to check on every horse.
“The Queen,” Cullen said, almost reverently. “Levana Amell. Though some prefer to address her as the Warden. Come. I will introduce you.”
As they approached, Anders noticed two more people by the horses’ side. Both of them had black hair, and the only striking differences were the colors of their eyes. The man had striking blue eyes that seemed eager to burn a hole in Anders when he glanced his way. The woman, by comparison, held kinder, softer brown eyes, and she smiled in acknowledgement when Anders met her gaze.
“My Queen,” Cullen began. “This is Anders… our final Joker.”
“Oh?” The Queen of Diamonds dropped the reins of the horse she had been trying to communicate with and turned fully to face Anders and Cullen. She grinned, almost as though in triumph. “I had a feeling our hunting trip would be fruitful.”
“You eat Jokers, then?” Anders couldn’t stop himself. Cullen seemed horrified, glancing quickly from him to the Queen.
“Oh, sure,” Levana said, smirking. “The bones are the best bit. Right, Cullen?”
“I- what she means is-”
Levana laughed. The sound of it was melodious. Anders suddenly thought of how lucky Cullen was to have her as his Queen. “We need to work on playing along with other people’s jokes, Cullen. Oh!” She beamed at Anders, before beckoning to the young man and woman to come over. “You must meet the Hawke twins. This is Carver, and this is Bethany.”
“Hello,” Bethany said, bounding forward to take Anders’ hands in hers. “It’s so nice to finally meet you! Cole has been quite lonely, looking in from the outside so often by himself.”
“Oh, I’m sure,” Anders said weakly. “And what’s your assigned number, then?”
“I’m the Two of Diamonds,” she replied, before throwing a glance over her shoulder. “Carver, come over and say hi!”
The young man seemed to drag himself across the clearing, as though he was being held back by an invisible force. He only gave Anders a quick nod as he greeted him. “Hello.”
“Are you the Three of-”
“Two, actually,” Carver answered quickly. “We’re twins, after all,” he added, almost irritably. Bethany only giggled and nodded to confirm what her brother was saying.
Anders did his best to look like it didn’t puzzle him at all. “Of course. How silly of me.”
Sera had disappeared by the time Anders met with the Queen and the twins. He figured he’d see her around sooner or later, though judging by the disdain she’d had towards the other Joker, he guessed it would be later rather than sooner. Anders rode on the Queen’s horse while Levana rode with Cullen, after being informed that they were returning to the capital, Denerim, in time for a feast at the palace.
“The Spades are hosting this year, so it is only right the feast be held in Denerim,” Cullen explained along the way. “Last year, the Clubs hosted, and we made a mess out of Orlais. Not that anyone minded, of course. The King of Clubs is a gracious host.”
“And a ruthless party animal. In any case, this year is the year of the Spade,” Levana added, smiling. “How nice that we have our final Joker to ring in the new year with us as well. The King of Spades will be pleased.”
“So how is it that there are four sets of Kings and Queens and no wars?” Anders asked.
Both the King and Queen broke into smiles at the same time. “It’s just not done, Anders,” Levana said. “War would take all the good parties away, and the Clubs would die if we deprived them of that.”
“The Spades may seem rather stern but the King is a good man. War is not in his vocabulary, as is the case for his son, the Two of Spades,” Cullen went on, picking up where Levana left off. “He enjoys the thrill of a good hunt every now and then, but he has no desire to cross over into our borders, or anyone else’s for that matter.”
“And what about the Hearts?”
“They?” Levana laughed. “They are disciplined and contained. Good people if you have the patience to know them, and wonderful if they find that they like you, too.”
“And no desire to conquer and overthrow?”
Cullen chuckled. “Their King would not allow it. The Hearts are our dear friends. You have nothing to fear.”
They rode on in silence after that. Anders pondered on his discoveries so far. He understood the hierarchies within every suit now, and geographically, where they reigned. The only thing that was still missing was the knowledge of how he had come to be here, and where he had come from. He knew the world as though he’d known it all his life – places like Denerim, Amaranthine, Orlais and the Free Marches did not seem like strange terms to him. He knew even about Orzammar, but his origins still remained a mystery. His head throbbed distantly every time he thought about it, and he eventually decided to lay it to rest for now and look forward to the feast at Denerim.
The only thing Anders allowed himself to think of other than the food was the other Joker, Cole. If he, too, was a Joker, then he would be able to shed light on Anders’ situation. Appearing out of nowhere with no recollection of before… Anders decided that Cole was the key to understanding more, and made a mental note to search for him during the feast later on.