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It was always the same, you would wake hours before any of the other apprentices, bathe and dress in the clothes that your mentor provided for you, then you would leave as silent as possible.
Normally, you might swing by the dining hall and have something to it before going to the library, or you would just head straight to your corner. Other days, you would roam the empty halls, barefoot and silent, always searching for something, something new, something different.
Normally it was always the same, but today. Today you were roaming the halls and noticed a crack in the wall, behind a statue. You briefly wondered why you had never noticed it before. You approached the crack and came to the conclusion that it was because a banner had covered it prior.
You stepped behind the statue and ran your fingers along the crack, feeling a cold draft, you smiled and began running both your hands along the crack, searching for something.
Click! You grinned now, and with a soft push, the door swung open to a dusty room. The room was musty and obvious hadn't been used in several years. Thick tomes lined the walls and filled up two towering bookshelves that sat against the side walls.
The far wall held a window that overlooked Lake Calinhad, you found yourself immediately drawn to it. The breeze from below smelt of the sea and you reveled in it. You drug a sheeted chair over to the window and stood on it, sticking your head out the window. You took a deep breath and smiled wide.
After several minutes you turned away from the window and hopped off the chair, you looked over the tomes and found some of them to be in languages you didn't recognize, and some of them had titles you recognized as banned by the chantry and with childish delight, hugged the books to your chest.
You left the bookcases and traversed the room, pulling yellowing sheets off of furniture, plush, velvet seats and cherry wood desks. Your favorite discovery however was the stack of chests filled with silk sheets, fur blankets, and feather pillows.
As soon as you made the discovery, you gleeful took an armful of the surprising nice smelling linens, shoving your face into them and collapsing onto the floor. You lay on the floor for almost an hour, occasionally rolling about with a laugh.
However, you were broken out of your heavenly stupor when a soft light began creeping into the room. You became dizzy from how quickly you leapt off the floor.
Rushing to the window and almost tripping twice, you froze as for the first time in years, you witnessed a sunrise. As silent tears ran down your cheeks you silently wished you could share this moment yet wished to keep it all to yourself.
You wiped your cheeks and moved to leave the room, so you wouldn't get caught and have to reveal the room.
You placed the linens back into their chests and left, the secret door quietly clicking shut behind you. You fixed the statue so the crack wasn't visible unless you were looking for it.
**
After the Templar had gone around telling everyone to head to bed, you returned to the secret room. It was a bit chilly in the room, and you noted some logs stacked by the fireplace. Walking over, you cleaned out the fireplace as best you could and checked over the logs for anything before placing them as you normally would.
You set them aflame with a small fireball and went over to the chests, pulling out the blankets you put them in a pile by the fire and grabbed several pillows, unceremoniously dropping them to the floor near the blankets.
Perusing the bookshelves, you pulled out a rather old looking tome and blowing off the dust, you settled down near the fire and began reading.
The book seemed to contain notes in another language and you left the cocoon of blankets you had created to see if you could find something to help you translate them.
You coughed and covered your mouth, fanning away most of the dust that hung in the air as you looked through shelves, starting with where you found the book in the first place.
After half an hour of finding nothing you gave up and returned to your pile of blankets. Sitting down and curling into a cocoon once more you became lost in thought.
You hadn’t talked to Jowan in a few months, but you still saw him around the tower. You were getting better with handling your night terrors, but you were definitely still suffering from lack of sleep. You just couldn’t bring yourself to sleep knowing you would only have nightmares, and the bags under your eyes reflected it.
Rubbing your eyes, you hummed quietly to yourself, one of the songs Jowan always used to help you calm down. Eventually, you fell asleep.
“Where do ya think you goin’ kid?” A hand grabbed your wrist. You froze, turning on your head and staring up at the brute of the man that had stopped you. Shaking with fright, you tried clawing the hand off with your nails.
“Let me go!” You cried out for your family, but the only response you received was the low chuckles of the man that held you.
“Ain’t no one comin’ ta help ya.” You whimpered and desperately tried to pull your wrist out of the man’s grasp. The man just grinned, pulling you close and speaking low. You looked away, cringing at the man’s rotten breath.
“No!” With desperation, you pushed the man’s face away from you, tugging on your arm once more, you attempted to pull the man’s hand off your wrist.
With a shout, you were released and speeding down the hall, you rubbed your wrist, looking back only to freeze once more.
The skin around the man’s arm was red and blistering as he lied on the floor, unmoving. With a shaky breath you cautiously approached the man once more, taking small, quiet steps.
You heard your name from the end of the hall and turned to see your mother, and as tears gathered in your eyes you sprinted towards her, the man all but forgotten. You gripped silk skirts and balled. A shaking hand on your head caught your attention.
Looking up, you were no longer in the arms of your mother, but at the feet of a Templar. You felt fear shooting through you once more.
“Abomination.” You screamed as a sword came down upon your head.
You shot awake with a shout, breathing heavily you gripped the blankets with shaking hands.
As your eyes adjusted to the dark you all but threw the blankets off, anxiously getting to your feet. You momentarily stared out the window at the stars but quickly turned, heading out of the room.
Closing the secret door, you peered around, normally you wouldn’t have any trouble with the Templar from walking about at night, since they were used to your nightly rounds; but you didn’t want anyone to see you exit the room, especially from the light from the glow of the moon.
Small fires burned in braziers scarcely placed around the halls, you unconsciously stayed near them as you wandered the halls. Closing your eyes, you took several deep breathes, paying attention to the soft sound of your bare feet on the stone floors.
“Little dear, there you are! I was worried when I didn’t find you in the Apprentice’s Quarters.” You squeaked as your moment of calm was interrupted. You turned to see your mentor, Edlyn behind you.
“Ah, I.. fell asleep.. in the library.” Edlyn gave you a look and sighed, running a hand through her dark curls.
“Of course you did.. but, seeing as how you're making your nightly rounds, and I was able to startle you, you had a nightmare, didn’t you?” With a silent nod in response, Edlyn gave you a bright smile before stepping beside you and wrapping her arm around your shoulder. “Well then! I shall simply have to take your mind off it, how about I read you a book? I just go this new serial from Orlais that arrived this morning..”
With a small smile you kept your eyes on your mentor as she spoke, leading you both to her room to grab the books, then to your corner in the library.
You were almost stopped by a Templar but as soon as they saw you, they went back to their normal rounds. You silently thanked the fact you were Gregoir’s favorite and continued watching your mentor.
Making your way to your corner, your mentor broke into an amused smirk and stopped talking, which caught your attention, straining your ears you heard quiet grunting coming from one of the aisles. You covered your grin with a hand as you noticed a Templar approaching.
Subtly gesturing to the Templar, Edlyn got what you were saying and you both made your way to towards the sounds, you were tempted to cover your eyes but reminded yourself that this was the Circle of Ferelden and decided against it.
As you neared the sounds, moaning and subtle waves of magic caught your attention. You almost laughed as your realised who it was, because of course it was.
As you rounded the corner of a bookshelf, shoulder length blonde hair affirmed your suspicions.
“Oi, Anders. Templar incoming,” You informed, receiving a long sigh from said blonde.
“Might want to finish up,” Edlyn laughed, and waved her hand in a dismissive way towards you. “You're ruining my innocent dear with this display, kiddo.” She received another grunt, followed by a moan in response. “Oh, good morning Kels.”
“I’m just gonna.. go distract the Templar..” You left the aisle and quickly approached the Templar, quickly recognizing him as a Senior of the Order. “Good morning, messere, sorry to bother you, but I can’t seem to find my book, I think it might’ve accidentally been taken to the restricted section.. again.”
“Honestly.. which one is it this time?” You grinned and quickly named a title off the top of your head, and after a moment the Templar left to the restricted section. You returned to aisle, upon approaching you shook your head.
“Talk about stamina, damn.” You heard Edlyn whistle and groaned, rubbing your hand over your face.
“Aren’t you supposed to be a mature adult, Edy?” You stopped beside the tall mage, eyeing her.
“Hah! I may be an adult, deary, but I never once claimed to be mature!” Edlyn laughed, patting your shoulder. You snorted, waves of magic brushing across your skin once more, you heard a small gasp of recognition come from beside you. “You're that kid with the electricity trick, the one everyone’s always talking about!”
“They talk about it? I’ve never heard anyone talk about it.” You spoke, a disgusted look on your face.
“Maybe not anyone you know, deary.” Edlyn flicked your nose and you scowled, crossing your arms.
“Could you two- ah- keep it down?” A breathy voice asked, Edlyn and you gave silent nods, continuing your conversation in whispers.
A few moments later, the pair detached and the female quickly left.
“Anyway! I didn’t know you were let out of solitary Anders.” You approached the red-faced blonde.
“They let me out last night, went to sleep, woke up, got bored, what have you been up to?” Anders asked with a grin, turning to you.
“I was about to read her my new serial, care to join?” Edlyn gestured towards your corner.
“Oh? What’s it about? Smut, I hope.” Anders was immediately at your side, joining the two of you as you made your way to your corner.
“Would she read anything else?” You asked aloud, as your mentor laughed in response.
"Mm, you've got a point."
"Nice thighs by the way." You commented, grinning at Anders as you left to grab another chair.
"Now who's mature!" You laughed.