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"You should let me help you with that," Anders said as he slid onto the bench, juggling half a dozen mugs of ale for the table.
Fenris looked up from where he had been absently rubbing at the skin of his arm. He scowled when he saw who had occupied the space next to him. "Help with what?" he said sharply.
Anders set out the mugs in a brisk row, and gestured in Fenris' general direction. "Whatever it is that has you always fidgeting that way," he says. "Numbness? Pins and needles? Pain? I couldn't guess, but it's pretty obvious you're feeling some discomfort. It's no wonder; your chi is a mess."
Fenris stiffened and stopped what he was doing immediately, pulling his hands hastily apart. "There is nothing wrong with me," he denied.
Anders gave a snort. "I'll believe that when nugs fly," he said. "There's lots wrong with you, Fenris. But this is something that might actually be fixable."
Fenris looked away. "I have been to various... practitioners," he said. "Nothing they do has made any difference."
"No. No, they wouldn't," Anders said, and his tone gentled somewhat from the acerbic voice he usually used with Fenris. "Because they're not mages. Healers, specifically. Ordinary doctors wouldn't be able to see it, since it's under your skin. But those brands have made a proper mess of your sen lines; I can see it all over, blocks and damaged channels. I could help."
Fenris hesitated, and Anders lowered his voice. "I know, I know, you don't trust the crazy abomination," he said. "But a mage broke it. Maybe it'll take a mage to fix it."
For a long moment Fenris hesitated, then finally nodded. "All right, mage," he said. "I will let you try."
Anders hadn't planned when he got out of bed at sunrise to be here by sundown: up in the mansion of the prickly elf warrior, rolling up his sleeves and washing his hands as Fenris slowly, hesitantly stripped off his armor. He hadn't really expected Fenris to say yes, to allow any mage -- let alone him -- to get within arm's length of him when he was vulnerable.
But this was something that had been driving him crazy for months -- if not longer. It itched at his conscience as a healer, to look at the utter mess that was Fenris' aura and not at least try to repair some of the damage. Fenris' old master -- and Anders had never held any doubt about this -- must have been insanely reckless, and a sadist to boot. Surgeons and poultices could heal much of the damage his experiments had left in flesh, but it would take a spirit healer to try to repair the more subtle damage done to his aura.
Any mage could see a person's aura, but it took the more sensitive eyes of a healer to sense the faint pulses of energy along the sen lines, fanning out from the spine and sending long tendrils into the limbs and hands and legs, pooling at the chakras. Fenris' brands, whatever unnatural abilities they might have given him, played havoc with the gentle balance of the currents -- cutting across the lines, blocking and damaging the channels. As a result his sen lines were skewed and tangled, energy misdirected or blocked entirely, large patches of his aura completely dead. He'd been watching Fenris surreptitiously, trying to discern if the dead areas were something that bothered him -- but, as much as the warrior refused to openly show weakness or pain, it seemed that they did.
Fenris had finished undressing, down to his breeches, and lay on his stomach on his bed. He shifted uneasily, twisting his neck uncomfortably to keep a distrustful eye on Anders despite the strain it must put on his neck. "Well?" he grunted.
Anders finished drying off his hands, rolled back his sleeves, and moved to perch at the edge of the bed -- it seemed a poor idea to try to straddle or otherwise sit on top of the elf, even if it would have been more convenient. Fenris was a patient now, and however they bickered and baited each other most of the time, Anders would never knowingly do anything to hurt or frighten a patient. "I'm going to get started now," he told Fenris, keeping his voice even and calm. "Mostly I won't be making any physical contact with your skin, although a few times I may need to. You may feel some sensations -- heat, pins and needles, maybe itching. It shouldn't be painful, but it's possible that it may get a little uncomfortable -- if you want me to stop, just say so."
"I have endured worse pain than anything you are capable of dishing out," Fenris said disdainfully. He crossed his arms in front of him and rested his face in the crook of his elbows. Only the tips of his ears, flexing and swiveling like the lashing tailtip of a cat, revealed any agitation.
"I'll choose to take that as an acknowledgement that my nature is so virtuous that even you can't deny it," Anders told the back of his head, and then got started.
A deep breath in, then a slow exhale, and he let the biting banter fall away as he recentered himself. He knew Fenris' body well, he had healed him many times… but mostly in combat situations, frantic and brutal and bloody. This was different. This was dropping himself into another level, half-in and half-out of the physical world, concentrating almost entirely on the ethereal.
He cupped his hands together and spread his fingers over the back of Fenris' head, hovering a bare inch off the white hair. Here, the crown of the head, the wellspring from which all chi generated and flowed. It was bright and healthy, and seemed to be undamaged by everything the lyrium had done to him; few of the brands extended up this far, and anyway the skull was a strong barrier against any kind of interference. A fortress of the self.
He left one hand hovering at the crown as his right hand moved carefully down the back of Fenris' neck, still not-quite touching the skin. From the crown, running down the back of the neck and along the spine, was the trunk of the life energy, a strong river of energy and thought. This too was mostly intact, fortunately; breaks to this area could cause limbs or worse to go dead, unmoved and unfeeling. Anders ghosted his hand above the curve of the spine, his own aura wisping healing energy out along his hand, tapping in to the deep well of chi. Crown, head, throat, heart…
From the trunk, as it ran down the elf's back, branched out a hundred smaller channels, running in parallel lines outwards from the spine across the shoulders, the ribs, the back. Here he began to encounter damage, where the burning metal had crossed the lines, and he summoned and channeled healing energy every time he crossed one of the breaks.
For the most part he kept his touch as light as he could, making no physical contact in favor of pure energetic work. But in some places the damage was worse than others, reft auras matching physical knots or scars, and he dropped his hands the last inch to press directly into skin and muscle and bone. The magic in him called to the energy in the body before him, pulling chi into dead or depleted areas or supplying his own, where it was lacking.
He brushed his fingers, feather-light, outwards from spine to side, following the line of the muscles, the structure of the ribs. Pressed his palms along the contour of the elf's sides, the hard ropes of muscle that lay under the skin. Healing, repairing where he could, redirecting and rerouting where he could not, he tried to reconstruct the body's original map of sen lines as best as he could without having ever seen it whole.
Fenris said no word, made no sound, but Anders was highly attuned to his body and could sense his reactions as though he'd shouted them. He felt the nervous twitch of a ticklish patch, and deepened his touch; felt the flinch of a painful spot, and lightened soothingly again. When he reconnected one strong channel in the upper back to its origin on the spine, he saw Fenris' entire left arm spasm in surprise, and then abruptly begin shivering, though the skin was the same temperature it had always been. He paused for a moment, keeping one hand on Fenris' hips as he reached for a blanket to drape over the chilled skin.
As Anders reached Fenris' feet, the flow of chi tapered off; facing too many unnatural barriers in the long journey across his body, there was barely a glimmer of it hidden deep within the tissues. He must not have hardly any feeling left in the appendages at all. Anders felt his face twist into a worried frown, and fought to smooth the expression back into calm professionalism. He curled his hands around the top of Fenris' feet, carefully avoiding putting pressure on the brands, and pressed his thumbs deep into the sole. Healing energy welled from his hands, calling to the life energy within Fenris, urging a proper circuit from head to foot and back again.
When there was at least a semblance of proper flow again Anders let up the pressure, feeling drained. He took a step back, surveying Fenris' body as a whole, matching his inner magic senses to what his outer eyes saw.
On the surface, Fenris looked… beautiful, serene, a work of art. He had been a naturally handsome man -- elf -- before Danarius had mutilated him, and on the surface at least the tattoos only served to enhance that beauty. They made him striking, exotic, setting off his skin tone and drawing attention to the lines of his muscle and bone. But it was difficult for Anders to admire them; not when he could see all too well the damage and suffering that they caused. He would much rather admire the untainted body of Fenris himself, well and whole.
"Are you finished?" Fenris' voice came from the crook of his elbow. His voice sounded rusty, as though waking from sleep -- or maybe just peeved. With Fenris, it was hard to tell.
"I… yes, I suppose so," Anders said, coming all the way back into the physical realm with a start. In truth, there was so much more he wanted to do, to go back and try again, try harder -- but he knew that wouldn't be a good idea. Subtle energy work couldn't be done better by pushing harder, and Fenris was clearly getting antsy.
The elf stirred and pushed himself up on his arms, moving slowly. He sat up cautiously, testing each limb and joint as he moved it, and though he struggled to keep his expression stoic, his eyes were just a little too wide. "This is…" he said, voice trailing off. "Not at all what I was expecting."
"That's the best I can do," Anders said, apology creeping into his voice. "I'm sorry, I thought I could fix it all, but I guess I got a little full of myself. Sorry --"
"Anders," Fenris interrupted him.
" --yes...?" Anders regarded him warily.
"Do not apologize."
"I... okay?" Confusion, at least, temporarily overtook apology.
Fenris sat on the bed for a long moment, working his jaw, obviously searching for words. "You know I have no memories of... life before the markings," he started. "I cannot ever remember a time when... I felt at home in my own skin... when I felt like my body belonged entirely to me. When I felt free in my own bones." He touched the skin of his arm, the same patch he had been worrying at the Hanged Man earlier in the day, and a hint of wonder softened those glass-green eyes. "Thank you."
Anders gaped. "Did I seriously just hear a 'thank you' from you?!" he demanded.
Fenris glanced up at him, then away, looking uncomfortable. "I'm not so graceless as you seem to think," was all he said.
"Really? Are you sure about that?" Anders snorted. "Because I've healed you up from certain death a dozen times in the field, saved you from being crippled on more than one momentous occasion, and I don't remember hearing a thank-you back then."
"Nor do I recall being thanked for a dozen more killing blows that I blocked from you, or any other occasion where I defended you," Fenris said dryly, raising one sardonic eyebrow. "That is not the same. In the field, we are... comrades-in-arms. Our lives belong to each other. We need no thanks and owe none."
Anders wasn't sure he agreed with that philosophy, but he couldn't really argue that he'd never thanked Fenris either. Not that he really needed defending, not with Justice in residence, but --
"But this… this is different," Fenris said with a sigh. He looked up, his gaze meeting Anders' clearly and directly. "You saw I was suffering and you offered to help me, at great effort and no benefit to yourself. Thank you."
"...I mean, it's not like I could have just sat on my hands," Anders muttered, shuffling his feet slightly. "Not when I knew I could help. Nobody's that much of an ass."
"I think you are wrong. I think most people are exactly that much of an ass," Fenris contended. "As abrasive as you insist on being --"
Anders could not believe his round shem ears. "I'm abrasive?!" he demanded. Why, he was the very picture of amiability, compared to the broody elf --
" -- you have a good heart, Anders," Fenris continued, ignoring the interruption. "You have a far more generous view of people than I do. Perhaps more generous than they deserve. Perhaps more generous than I deserve."
"Yes, well... well." Anders bit his lip. Fenris had thanked him, so he knew what had to be said. "You're welcome. -- Anytime it starts to get bad again, call on me. I want to help, you know," he added sincerely.
Fenris nodded. "I do, now." He looked up at Anders, meeting his eyes again, and there was no hostility in that gaze. Only gratitude, and respect, and -- and something more that Anders couldn't fathom, for all the magic in his sight. "And I will."
~end.