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Anders’ fingers tapped a steady tattoo on his hip pouch. The dull rhythmic thunk-thunk-thunk had Fenris growling and reaching out with one cold foot to push against Anders’ butt. Anders stumbled forward out from under the lip of the shallow cave and into the steady icy rain. He yelped and backpedaled under the cave lip. Cold water dripped down his hair and ran under the edge of his coat. He turned and glared at Fenris.
“That wasn’t nice.”
“You were being annoying. Sit down and just...be still.”
Anders turned back around to face the rain. He crossed his arms over his chest. “We shouldn’t stay here all night. I can see the rain already freezing to the bushes and rocks. It’ll be too thick in the morning to get out.”
“Like the Void am I walking back to Kirkwall in that rain.”
“If we stay here, we freeze. We could get back if we leave now.”
Fenris grumbled, but stood. “And just how am I to walk back with the paths already turning icy?”
Anders gripped his coat and then let his arms drop. “Fine. Here. Climb onto my back.”
“What now?”
Anders shrugged out of his coat and then hunched forward. “Climb onto my back and then drape my coat over both of us. I’ll get us back to the city. I have on boots.”
“I am not letting you carry me back.” Fenris crossed his arms over his chest and pressed his back to the frigid rock wall of the cave.
“So, you won’t walk, but you won’t let me carry you. We can’t stay, and you won’t be able to walk on the ice tomorrow if you can’t walk on it tonight.”
Fenris’ nose scrunched up as he mumbled a curse word. He stood and took a step towards Anders. Another mumbled curse and he climbed onto Anders’ back.
Anders straightened and handed his coat to Fenris, who held it so that it covered Anders’ head and his back. Anders wrapped his arms around Fenris’ legs to steady him and then stepped out from under the rocky overhang.
The path to Kirkwall was slick. The cold rain gradually turned to ice pellets and coated the trail and made the road treacherous. Anders moved at a slow pace, feeling out the path in front of him with his staff to keep from falling or skidding while gripping Fenris with his free hand. By the time they reached the city gates, he was shivering. His hands and feet felt like ice. In fact, the only warm part of him was his back where Fenris was huddled.
No guards stood at the gates, and no crowds filled the streets. In fact, Kirkwall appeared to be a ghost town. The only signs of life were the flickering lights in the windows of the homes Anders passed. The streets were as ice-covered as the paths out on the Coast had been. The stairs were nearly impossible to traverse, and several times he almost fell.
By the time he reached Fenris’ door, he figured divine intervention was the only reason he hadn’t fallen and either hurt himself or Fenris. He fumbled with the doorknob, his hand nearly blue-white from cold. He managed to wrench the door open and stumbled into the warmer, dryer interior of Fenris’ crumbling home.
Fenris slid from Anders’ back. Wordlessly, he held out Anders’ coat for him. Anders took the sodden garment before clearing his throat.
“So…”
“Do not speak of this to anyone. I will not be the focus of their jokes.”
“Right. Because me helping you home in an ice storm is cause for so much joking.”
“I am serious, Anders. Not a word. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”
“Seriously? I just helped you home and you’re sending me back out in it?”
Fenris stared at Anders long enough for Anders to see the barely concealed annoyance.
“There is nothing for you here. Return to your home.”
Fenris turned and picked his way across the dusty, dirty hall and disappeared up a rickety staircase. Anders stood still for another minute before angrily pulling on his coat, turning, and letting himself out.
***
Darktown was covered in ice. Anders was impressed by the amount of ice that had accumulated in the bowels of the city - or would be if he could catch his breath. His clinic was filled to bursting with the sick and injured. The ice had exacerbated lung illnesses and sinus infections. People suffered from frostbite, others had broken bones falling on the black ice that lurked in Darktown’s tunnels. All were miserable, cold, and hungry. And all had gone to see the Healer in the hopes that he could help.
Anders pulled magic into being to knit bones, relieve breathing, warm limbs, and heal infections. He hadn’t had time to change from his trek to the coast and his clothing had dried as he healed. He stood up from one patient and felt his back pop and let out a long sigh. The crowd wasn’t getting smaller, not yet at least. He shuffled over to the next patient, dredged up a tired smile, and bent down to start his examination.
He worked tirelessly. Hours passed as he healed, drank lyrium, and healed some more. The steady stream of patients gradually tapered off and then stopped. The clinic slowly cleared. And finally, Anders stood up and realized he was alone.
Ice still pattered down outside. He could hear it through the windows carved into the thick stone walls of his clinic. His breath bloomed warm in the chilly air as he took in his messy clinic. There was laundry to do, bandages to boil, potions and tinctures to make up. But exhaustion overtook him, and with the last of his energy, Anders closed and locked the clinic doors, headed back to his room, and fell face-down on his cot.
Eventually, the ice storm passed, and the sun came out. Anders shifted restlessly as a fever flush bloomed over his skin. His breathing grew shallow and irregular, and he wheezed wetly with each inhale. He managed to get his boots and coat off and the blankets over him before falling into a fever sleep.
***
Coolness stroked over Anders’ forehead, down his nose, over his lips and chin. It disappeared only to return and stroke over both of his cheeks. Water ran back around his ears and wet his hair, but it was blessedly cold. He opened his lips and ran his dry tongue over the wet skin and sighed. The cool wet reappeared, this time dribbling water into his parched mouth.
Blinking repeatedly, eyelids gummy from fever and sleep, Anders forced his eyes open. The ceiling above him did not look like his clinic in Darktown. It was carved wood covered in dust and spiderwebs. He licked at his wet lips again and then turned his head.
Across the room stood Fenris. His back was to Anders and he was fidgeting with something on a table pushed against the wall. Fenris turned, a bowl and spoon in his hands, and stopped.
“You are awake.”
Anders closed his eyes, counted to five, and reopened them. Fenris still stood there, bowl and spoon in his hands.
“Yes…”
“You are in my bed.”
Anders pondered that statement, his mind sluggish to comprehend all the nuances in Fenris’ statement. Finally, he began to struggle to sit. Fenris hissed out a breath, put the bowl and spoon down on the table, and rushed across the room to push him back and adjust the covers.
“Do not be foolish. You have been very sick. This is the first time in a week that you have looked at me with lucid eyes. Usually, you waken, eat as I tell you, use the chamber pot as I tell you, and then sleep. This is the first life I have seen you exhibit. Do not undo my hard work.”
“In your bed…”
“Yes. You are safe in my bed. Hawke is overseeing your clinic with Sebastian and Merrill’s help. Sebastian is the one who found you. He was delivering blankets to the clinic when he discovered the doors locked. He apologizes that he picked the locks.”
“Sebastian picked the clinic’s locks?”
“Hawke was going to put you up at her mansion but…” Fenris sat down on the edge of his bed, though he didn’t move his hand from Anders’ chest. “But this is my doing.”
“Me getting sick isn’t your fault.” Anders stopped speaking to cough and clear his dry throat. Fenris reached for a cup on the bedside table and helped Anders sit up so that he could take a sip of cool water.
“Worked too hard…”
“You carried me home in the ice storm, fool. You were shaking, your lips were turning blue, and I was ungrateful and sent you back out into it.”
“Didn’t expect anything else.”
Fenris winced. “I know. And for that, I apologize. I was...angry.”
“At me for carrying you?”
“At myself for not being prepared. At Hawke for getting separated from us. At the wisdom in your words. At being carried like a burden. I...I did not wish you around while I wallowed.” Fenris hung his head. “And now you are sick.”
Anders reached for the cup. Fenris gently brushed his hands away and lifted the cup to Anders’ lips. When he had had enough of the water, he leaned back against the pillows.
“Apology accepted. I’m sorry I had to carry you.”
“Don’t be. It was good thinking. Intelligent. Unlike my anger, which was petty.”
“I can return to my clinic now…”
“Like the Void you will. I have a broth for you, some soft bread, and tea. You will stay here until you no longer wheeze and rattle when you breathe.”
“I can’t take up your bed for that long.”
“You can and will.”
“I could stay with Hawke…”
Fenris shook his head. “No. I want to do this. You kept me safe. Please, let me keep you safe.”
Anders flushed when he opened his mouth to respond and yawned instead. Fenris chuckled and put the cup down.
“You are in no shape to return to your clinic now, Anders.”
Anders’ sighed, but relaxed back against the pillows. Fenris’ smile was wide, sincerity evident in the little crinkles around his eyes and the tiny wrinkling of the tip of his nose.
“I was going to see if you wanted broth, then work on my reading.”
“I could help…”
“I do not wish to push you into anything.”
“I’m just laying here, Fenris. Nothing else going on. Let me help you with your lessons.”
“Fine. But only after you eat.”
“Bossy elf, fine. Broth and bread and then reading.”
Fenris patted Anders’ chest and then stood. He moved across the room to pick up the bowl of warm broth and a spoon. He turned back, a smile on his face.
“So how did a Circle Mage come to know so much about ice storms?”
“Oh well, see...the Wardens have no problems with going into places filled with ice and snow.” Anders wiggled into a more comfortable position. “Want to hear about it?”
Fenris sat down on the bed and turned to face Anders, the bowl on his lap.
“I do.”
“Well you see...it all started in Amaranthine…”