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It's remarkably easy to let down his hair and grow out his stubble into an unkempt beard. It's not exactly inspired, as far as disguises go, but as long as he also stays away from crowded areas and draws no attention to himself, at all, ever, it works just fine. For a brief moment he considers cutting his hair entirely, but his vanity wins out. He's already a fugitive and an outlaw, he's allowed this one indulgence.
It's not long until he remembers why he's kept his hair up most of his life, but if anything, he's stubborn. He diligently picks out the little flecks of... nature that end up tangled in it, and spends an inordinate amount of his downtime gently combing his fingers through stubborn tangles, fighting a losing battle against the elements.
It's the one damn thing that's still his, he reasons.
Justice was a roaring wildfire of Vengeance inside him, but he refused to concede.
He has not acquired a new staff since discarding his at the Docks before leaving Kirkwall (it was a nice staff, too, dammit all). He's too paranoid to summon even the most rudimentary spells, even if he knows there isn't a living soul around for miles, and he's truly pleased he got to hone his survival skills during his several escape attempts from the Circle, because the really do come in handy now.
Exiled from home, voluntarily cut off from his magic, with nothing but a spirit for company; what a life he leads.
The mages are rebelling, and dying. Templars are fighting, and dying, not that he cares much for the latter. The mages, though, he's responsible for. He spent years guiding them to safety, fighting for them, for their freedom, and in his hubris, he doomed them all.
The mages are paying for his crimes, as he sits at the mouth of a damp cave, picking out leaves from a particularly stubborn (and possibly, very likely, entirely doomed) tangle at his nape.
It's been about six months of... this.
He's heard of Circles revolting, and how the lives of mages within have become even more restricted as a result. He knows how bad it got before. He's horrified to imagine how bad it is now.
How is there an actual pebble in the damned matted mass at the back of his head?
He groans and looks around briefly before picking up the least disgusting stick he can spot within an arm's reach. He uses it to try and sort out his hair.
Justice is eerily quiet. It feels like silent judgement. He's inclined to agree.
He’s so engrossed in his task, doing his damned best to not make things worse by adding debris rather than digging it out, that it takes him a split second too long to hear the soft footfalls approaching him.
He shoots out a Mind Blast entirely on reflex, sees a blur of blue light in response, and wonders if this is truly how he goes: a failed apostate rebel, with sticks and stones in his hair.
Death does not come.
When he opens his eyes (And when had he even closed them? Who is this twitchy coward he’s become?), he’s staring into the very bewildered, yet somehow rage-filled face of an elf who he supposes would very much like to chop him into tiny bite-sized pieces and feed him to the first beast he could find, set the beast on fire, and dump the ashes into The Waking Sea.
“Hi,” Anders says, like a moron.
“You,” Fenris says, and at least it’s nearly as stupid.
The elf clearly takes in the scene before him: eyes moving from the pathetic display of a once powerful mage now curled in on himself, a broken stick poking out from the back of his head, to his beard, to the dying fire to his right, to the staff that isn’t there.
He makes a face, and Anders would be offended if he didn’t know exactly what he looks like.
He is offended when the elf actually sets down his sword, and his pack, and sits down on the other side of the fire. He’s still a mage, he just threw a spell at at the stupid elf – it’s not like he’s become an entirely impotent, completely non-threatening, unlikely opponent. He blew up an entire Chantry and started a war not that long ago, for Maker’s sake!
They sit in a bizarre silence for an uncomfortably long time, until Fenris reaches into his pack and offers him a water skein. Anders stares at it. Fenris stares at him.
This is entirely too weird. There must be demons involved.
“There are easier ways to kill you than simple poison,” the elf says evenly, and Anders is definitely becoming more offended by the minute.
He hasn’t had much more than rain water in days, though. It’s not really an issue, per se, and he’s survived on less for longer. He can survive for days still, and he knows he’ll eventually come across a stream of refreshing crystal clear water that he can drink, and bathe in.
But he also has a stick and a stone in his hair and he’s fairly sure one of his toes is poking through his left boot, and the spirit that possessed him to change the world is currently not speaking to him.
He grabs the skein, pride be damned. He takes a polite sip and begins to hand it back.
“I have another,” Fenris says, not even looking at him.
Anders sits and stares, water skein in hand.
“Why?” he asks, slowly, with deep suspicion he hopes is evident in his voice that has, honestly, grown a little rough from disuse. And dehydration, to be fair, even if he’d rather die than admit it out loud.
Fenris turns to give him a look, and oh, Anders knows exactly what irritating, pompous, snarky remark he’s about to be subjected to.
“Not ‘why do you have this much water on you’, you ass,” he rushes to correct himself before the elf can, “but ‘why are you giving any of it to me, the person you very much wanted dead the last we saw each other?’”
There’s an eyebrow.
Anders would gladly pluck it out of the elf’s face.
“Thanks,” he says instead, and drinks.
He should probably leave a little for later, but he has no idea if there’s going to be a ‘later’, or if the elf will either snatch back his offering or, more likely, run him through with the massive sword he lugs around. The last person to try it didn’t exactly have a good time, but Anders is genuinely not sure Justice would step in this time around.
Gods, he’s sunk low. And he used to live in a glorified sewer.
The elf seems perfectly comfortable not leaving, and just sits there, silent and stoic.
Anders tries, discreetly, to pry the stick from his hair and eventually tosses it into the fire. He tends the flames back to life, hating how he feels like he’s trying to prove something. Oh look at me, knowing how to perform basic survival tasks without magic! Aren’t I a wonder!
“Why, though? Really?” he asks, after a while, looking at his fingernails and only briefly glancing at his uninvited companion.
“It will rain soon. I thought I’d ask to share the fire, and the cavern looked large enough,” the elf explains, inclining his head a little to point at the space behind them.
“I didn’t realise it was… you.”
Never has the word you sounded so much like an insult.
“Well,” Anders sighs, “thanks for not murdering me on the spot, then.”
“No. It seems… this,” Fenris looks him up and down, the prick, “is punishment enough.”
They sit in silence a while, two, longer. The sun begins to climb down towards the horizon, behind the distant Frostback Mountains, and the air feels colder.
“It’s not raining,” Anders notes. It doesn’t make the silence any less awkward.
“It will.”
Anders takes a breath to argue, decides against it, and just groans instead.
“Well, this has been fun,” he says, making sure his tone implies just how much fun he is not having. He slaps his palms on his thighs and makes to stand up. His back and knees are definitely protesting, and he would never sit on the ground for as long as he has, in normal, everyday circumstances. He hides a wince.
Annoyingly, Fenris gets up as well, but instead of leaving like Anders had hoped, prayed even, he just makes a quick trip around the area and comes back with more wood to burn. He steps just inside the cave, starts building a fire clearly just to show off his far superior skills at building and maintaining one, and then goes to put out the (perfectly passable) one Anders had set outside.
Anders stands there, stupidly, just observing. He knows his frown is deepening by the minute, and he has absolutely no idea what he’s supposed to do. Should he help? Would he just be in the way? Should he leave, even if this was his shelter to begin with?
Fenris brings his pack and his sword further inside, and turns to look at Anders.
“Have you slept?” he asks.
“Why?” Anders responds, squinting, and receives an eyebrow. He is truly going to carve it out.
“Are you trying to nurse me back to health just to murder me once you’ve deemed me a worthy opponent again?”
And oh, he knows he’s set himself up as the question leaves his lips.
“You were—“
“—never a worthy opponent, yes, yes, thank you, we know.”
Fenris smirks, the bastard. He detaches a bedroll from his pack and tosses it at Anders. Anders catches it easily and hates how impressive he thinks it is.
The entirety of his pride long since swallowed, he silently sets down the bedroll – he has a perfectly serviceable cloak, thank you, and no need for such luxuries as a bedroll of his own, but he cannot deny he’s a little excited about having at least a little bit of a barrier between himself and the cold earth.
It does begin to rain, and soon there’s a full storm raging outside. Fenris seems to have built the fire just far enough, and just sheltered enough, that the flames barely move, even if there’s a howling wind beating against the stone.
Fenris tosses him a piece of bread and some dried meat. He accepts them quietly, and remains standing as he eats. Tries not to liken himself to a city pigeon fed with crumbs.
“No darkspawn?” the elf asks, suddenly.
“Uh, no? I checked for any tunnels, and this shouldn’t be anywhere near The Deep Roads, anyway.”
He chews, swallows.
“And I can’t feel any, either.”
Fenris nods.
“Good.”
Well, at least one of the things that have doomed him to an early demise is useful. Not that there’s any reason for any darkspawn to be crawling out of the disgusting depths of the earth at present, and he knows Fenris must know this. Which means he’s… making small talk. In a way.
Huh.
He decides to risk it.
“Would you mind if I… would you murder me if I used a spell?”
Silence, not even an eyebrow. Just a stare.
“I got rid of my staff so I don’t even have a conduit, and I’ve haven’t used magic since, well, since. Aside from the Mind Blast earlier.”
An eyebrow, and “Your point?”
“My point. Is that it’s cold, and I’d like to be warm, and I know I could at least heat up the stone a little.”
Silence.
“I swear I’m not going to cook us alive, I’m not an idiot.”
An eyebrow.
Anders groans.
“Andraste preserve me, fine. No magic,” he concedes. “Just a cosy little fire, in this cosy little cave, where it nice and cosy and... damp.”
He chews on his bread like it has personally offended him.
“Go ahead.”
Anders nearly chokes.
“What? Why? Really?”
An eyebrow and a smirk. Anders is really being mocked now, but does he care? No. Well, yes, but pride, gone, et cetera.
He doesn’t dignify any of it with an actual answer, just presses one palm against a wall, and one against the ground, and lets the magic flow through him. It’s a very elementary Fireball, significantly weaker than he could summon with a conduit, but it’s his and he’s a very, very powerful mage, who can modify his spells and use them for more than just destruction or restoration. Like heating up a cave.
He can actually feel Justice stir a little, can feel the cracks on his skin, and it makes him smile. A small, nostalgic smile that’s more a twitch of his lips than anything else, and he knows he should be at least a little worried that the spirit might get ideas and fully lash out, but the stone feels warm against his hands, and he did that.
“I had wondered if it was gone.”
Anders snaps out of his brief reprieve to find the elf looking at him with furrowed brows and disdain on his face.
Anders takes a breath and shakes his head, just a little.
“Still there,” he says, swallowing. “He’s become completely entangled in my magic, so he’s been— quiet, now that I’ve gone without.”
“How long?”
“Like I said: since.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“I haven’t exactly wanted to make myself known,” Anders snipes. “I don’t know if you’re aware, but mages aren’t exactly thriving out there.”
He sighs in advance. He really stepped into that one, too, didn’t he.
“And whose fault might that be?” Fenris says, more than asks, and oh, Anders would Fireball him into oblivion if it didn’t prove a point he doesn’t want to make.
“The Chantry, the Templars, all the centuries of oppression and mistreatment, societal systems that deliberately place those with magic in a position where their options are subservience or death… take your pick.”
He takes a breath, continues.
“And yes, sure, I may have had a hand in the most recent… developments, absolutely, but it wasn’t me who called for The Right of Annulment, it wasn’t me who ruled Kirkwall like tyrant for years, and it definitely wasn’t me who decided that every mage in Thedas should be punished in my stead.”
He’s not going to stop now.
“Of course, I should have stayed and died for my cause, but what good would it have done? Mages would die anyway, Circles would be annulled anyway, all the Knight Commander Merediths of the world would keep going until every last shred of magic is gone. They fear us, they fear the potential evil they’ve imagined and implanted into us through their fear.”
He’s pacing, perhaps glowing a little.
“Mages turn to blood magic out of terror, because they’re told that’s what they’ll always end up doing, and that’s what the Chantry and the Templars are protecting them from. They hurt us until we fight back, and then we’re called evil, we’re called monsters and abominations, and we’re fine to kill.”
He takes a deep breath, willing Justice to settle down, to not play into the expectation. He points a finger at the elf.
“And if you say a word about Tevinter, I will turn you into a toad.”
Fenris looks at him, blinks rapidly for a bit, and nods.
“Are you done?” he asks, sitting by the fire, elbows on his knees, the very picture of indifference.
Anders sighs, and sits down across from him.
“Yes,” he looks up, nods, waits a beat, “thank you.”
He finishes what little was left of his bread and meat, staring into the fire, and enjoying the warm stone around him, and a soft bedroll under him.
“I don’t suppose you have any more water with you?” he asks after a while.
Fenris shakes his head and almost looks apologetic. He digs into his pack, though.
“I do have wine,” he announces, brandishing a bottle that looks like it has not contained decent wine it at least a decade, if ever. It’s perfect.
“Oh, I think I love you.”
Fenris uncorks the bottle, takes a generous swig, completely unaffected, and hands it over.
“Imply anything of the sort again, and you will not see morning,” he says, and Anders knows the threat is absolutely genuine.
The wine is disgusting.
He does see morning.