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What if you found a living body to possess? What if the person were willing? Perhaps together, you can do what they cannot do alone. If you gave instead of taking, I would consider you no demon.
Those had been my words to Justice. He had outright refused to contemplate the possibility at first, but one day he hesitated when I brought it up, and one night he came to me, when everyone else was sleeping, and confessed he had been thinking about it.
Then there was Anders. I don’t know how he found out, but he laughed at the idea at first. He always laughed. I had found this trait of him irritating when we first met, the same way I had found his cocky attitude and his silly jokes impossibly annoying, until I understood he wore his laughter as a mask.
The mask came off, eventually, and so did mine. We grew closer without even noticing, the three of us. Anders had been right: we had much in common, after all. He called me and Justice his friends, and he took great pride in this word. But things were changing in the Wardens. As time passed, some people left, and new ones arrived. It soon became clear that Justice’s body was reaching its limit. I started to realize Anders was not laughing at the prospect of Justice finding a living host anymore. He was concerned about the future, and asked me what I thought. He trusted my judgment, he said. He wanted to hear my opinion.
So it was me. I was the one who planted the seed. I knew where this was going before even Anders knew. The probabilities were turning into certainties and I was doing nothing to stop it. I did not want it to stop.
It became real the day the messenger came with a letter for me. It was from Anders, and contained only a few words:
“It is time.”
I froze, staring at the letter, incredulous. He and Justice had been sent away in a mission with other Wardens. This was not a good time, this was not how it was supposed to be. He could not be serious. We had talked about this; about the importance of being careful and discreet.
Maybe he had meant they would make it happen once they came back, but deep inside I did not believe that was the case. I was overwhelmed by a sense of doom and the crushing urge to go after them. I knew the place they had been sent to was an ancient elven ruin, where eldritch activity had been detected, and I knew it would take me hours to arrive, so I rode as fast as I could, wishing I could make it there on time.
The empty ruin was deep into the forest, and at the entrance I saw a halla of impressive size observing me. Under the light of the moons, the animal appeared to shine with a golden luminosity. It ran off when I approached it, and I felt compelled to follow it into the woods. As soon as I lost sight of it, a familiar smell hit me: burnt flesh.
I stopped, trying to identify where was the smell coming from. He came out of nowhere then: blood dripping down from his hair, his fingers, his clothes, everywhere.
“Anders!” I said, as I got off the horse and rushed to his side.
“Stay away!” he cried, lifting a hand to cast a Glyph of Repulsion around himself.
When he looked at me, his eyes were different. They were glowing with a blue color. One better look at him and I understood. They had done it. They really had. They were one now.
“Justice?” I asked.
“They brought harm to us. They tried to kill us.”
“Rolan,” I said. That was the name of the former Templar who had been assigned to every mission Anders had been sent to since the Commander left. He distrusted our group and hated Anders. It had to be him.
“Yes,” Justice confirmed my suspicions. “He is dead now. Everyone is.”
“Is Anders injured?”
“I defended him. They wanted him dead; I kept him alive. But he’s scared, and I’m tired”
“Let me help you, please.”
The Glyph vanished and Anders dropped to the ground, feverish and confused. His blood was mixed with the blood of others, making it hard to tell how wounded he really was. He was gagging on something, and when he managed to spit it out I could tell it was magebane: I had seen it used against him before, and its effects were disturbing. I managed to carry him up to my horse somehow. I needed to find a safe place, as far as possible from the camp.
“I told you to stay away,” he said, his voice terrifyingly weak.
“No.”
“What if I hurt you? It wasn’t just Rolan. There were others. I don’t know how many. I don’t know what happened. I can’t remember. It could have been you, if you had been there.“
“You’re not going to hurt me.“
“Why did you come? How did you know?”
“The letter.”
“What letter...?”
He huffed and said no more. He kept slipping in and out of consciousness as I tried to find my way through the night. I was glad we were protected by the darkness, but I didn’t know where to go. I thought I saw the halla again, and headed in that direction. I became convinced that the sight of that halla had been my imagination, but it led me to an abandoned hut surrounded by a watercourse. The door was open.
“It’s wrong,” Anders whispered. “Everything is wrong.“
The words pierced me like daggers, but I did my best to ignore the anxiety. This was no time to be weak. I went into the river carrying Anders with me and let the water take away as much blood as possible. I had to cut through his clothes to check the state of his wounds. Most of them were almost closed, but the one on his chest, which was the worst, was still healing. I had some potions and tonics with me, but was unsure about how much they could help.
The inside of the hut was dusty but surprisingly intact. There was a fireplace, and some old books spread through the floor. There were even some trinkets that seemed valuable, and no sign of trespassing. I placed Anders on the bed after clearing the dirt off the blankets. I noticed the golden earring was gone: it had been torn off his ear.
He was still clearly in pain. He had always been good at hiding his own discomfort, or burying it under a pile of bad jokes. This time, when the blue shine came through his skin again, he screamed. It was followed by a seizure, and his body was shaken by spasms that seemed to go on forever. There was little I could do, so I stayed by his side until it stopped. With water I brought from the river I cleaned him again, and took care of the pool of vomit by the bed. I wrapped my cape around his body and stayed close until his breathing became regular. I was trying to start a fire in the hearth when I heard his voice, raspy and tired, calling my name.
“Nathaniel.”
“I’m here.”
“But you shouldn’t.”
“I get to decide that,” I said. Anders smiled a little, and sat up to reach the bowl of water I had left for him next to the bed.
“What is this place, anyway?”
“An old hut. Seems to have been abandoned a long time ago. It’s safe for now.”
Suddenly, the fire I was trying to light came alive with a simple gesture from Anders’ fingers. He giggled and I cackled. It was not the first time this happened. When I went back to his side, he took my hand.
“I can’t stay,” he whispered.
“We’ll think of something,” I reassured him. He looked at me and his eyes filled with tears.
“I’m going to Kirkwall.“
“Kirkwall? The Templars are merciless there. Are you sure it’s a good idea? It’s not a good place for a mage.“
“The Templars are merciless everywhere. Yes, it's even worse there than anywhere else, and that's why I need to go. There’s something I need to stop postponing. I need to help Karl. And everyone.“
I knew at that point there was nothing I could do or say to change his mind. There was no point in trying. He would go to Kirkwall whether I liked it or not. So I said the only thing I could say.
“Be careful,“
Anders let out a poor shadow of laughter, then shook his head as he tried to wipe out the tears that followed. “More like other people should be careful of me.“
“Justice said they wanted to kill you. Knowing Rolan, he would have.“
“I should have known better than to make my deal with Justice where others could see me. But there was no time left. I had no choice. Or maybe I did. Maker, I don’t know.“
“I should have been there.“
“No. I’m glad you weren’t,“ he said. He was still holding my hand.
I don’t know how it came to be, or who started it, but it happened. He looked up, I looked down, and his lips met mine. It was soft at first, only a caress, humid and warm. I tried to force myself to stop it, but I couldn’t. I clung to the feeling, the foreign sense of closeness becoming familiar despite my doubts and fears. His hands were on my chest, on my cheeks, then on the back of my neck. My hands were on his hair, his thighs, everywhere, until he moaned softly with pain and I remembered where we were.
“Fuck,” I whispered, as I pulled away.
Anders’ eyes were fixed on me now, and they followed me when I stood up and walked away from the bed. “Wait,” he said.
“Things are complicated enough as they are.”
I didn’t want to see his face. I didn’t want to think about it. I had done a good job not thinking about all this for a long time.
“I know someone in Kirkwall who can help you, “ I said. “Her name is Lirene and she is originally from Ferelden. She can be trusted. Maybe something can be arranged.“
“And what about you?”
“I’ll think of something. We have some time, but the Wardens will have questions. I’ll distract them; they don’t need to know what happened.”
“I don’t know what happened myself. Not sure I want to know.”
“What matters is that you’re safe.”
As I stood there, staring at the fireplace, still afraid to look back, I felt his presence behind me. He rested his forehead on my shoulder, and wrapped his arms around my waist.
“It doesn’t have to be complicated tonight,” he said.
Giving in would only bring pain, I told myself, and I had hurt him and Justice more than enough. But he managed to make me look at him again, and I couldn’t say no. He slept next to me that night and the nights the followed, and when I felt his breath against my neck, I couldn’t help but to wish things could be different. He was going to leave, but I would stay with him until he could travel. I would keep the Wardens away from him, if that was what he wanted. I would help him reach Kirkwall.
He made me promise I would recover his mother's pillow from the Keep and that I would bring it to him once he was in Kirkwall. In person, he said, because he wouldn’t trust anyone else with the task. I said yes.