[FIC] The Devil Takes Care of His Own: Anders

[alaterdate]

Title : The Devil Takes Care of His Own [AO3]
Series: Dragon Age
Characters: Lachlan Surana (HOF); Anders
Rating: General
Word Count: 716
Summary: Anders meets someone interesting at Amaranthine.
A/N: Part 1/8

Flames engulfed the last darkspawn in the room sending wild shadows across the walls. The door to the dungeon burst open just before the darkspawn burst into flames. As the creature struggled with its burning flesh and collapsed into a pile of its dead brethren—along with a few dead Templars—Anders swung around to face the two new faces. Hopefully not more Templars, but if they were he knew exactly how to get out of this situation.

“Uh, I didn’t do it,” he said, looking back and forth between the dead Templars and the strangers. A mage could get into a lot of trouble for killing Templars. Not that he’d ever do that. Oh no. Not him. Never.

Anders searched the stranger’s faces to get a read on their attitudes. The tall woman’s face sat completely stoic, she apparently didn’t believe him. Go figure. The elf beside her, on the other hand, had a smile on his face. As if amidst chaos there is still amusement to be found. Something about the sharp eyes and the unruly white hair jogged Anders’ memory. “Hey, I recognize you from the Circle!” Anders pivots his hand in the air to show he’s only slightly certain then continues, “Vaguely. Irving’s pet project right? I wouldn’t go within two feet of the codger, so you and I never had a chance to talk. You haven’t come to take me back to the Circle have you?”

The elf’s face fell into a grimace. “I’m no one’s pet anything,” he said, his voice surprisingly light despite the threatening tone of the message. That’s elves for you, Anders supposed.

“I see. I know what they say about me in the Circle too, but, as I said, this wasn’t my doing. Darkspawn attacked out of nowhere and just so happened to chew through the Templars first.” Anders shrugged.

“I don’t care about some useless Templars. I want these darkspawn out of my Keep.”

Now that’s interesting. “Your Keep? You’re a Grey Warden?”

“Not just a Grey Warden,” the woman piped up, “THE Grey Warden. Hero of the Fifth Blight. Warden-Commander Surana.”

“Well now, that’s quite the title you have there. Good for you. Tell you what, I’ll help you and we can discuss what comes later once all these bastards are properly put down, yes?”

The Warden’s face remained gripped by a disapproving frown with eyes sharpened further by wariness, he blinked slowly, not at all unlike a cat. In fact, so much so like a cat that Anders held back a chuckle lest he upset the man again.

“Do what you will,” the Warden said.

So Anders did, and followed the little, angry, cat-like elf out onto the battlements. A darkspawn seized upon them as they made their way across. Without a care, the Warden raised a hand in its direction and it halted in its tracks frozen solid. The Warden clenched his fist and the darkspawn shattered into little blocks of ice and innards. He stepped over its broken body like it was never there. Anders raised his eyebrows. Definitely interesting.

Anders sauntered up to his side. “Can I ask you something, uh, Commander, as a fellow Kinloch Hold...ian.”

“What?”

“What’s the state of your phylactery? I heard news some blood mage incident forced them to move all the vials to Denerim. Is yours there too?”

The Warden stopped in front of the door that would open up into the next building and turned to Anders. "I had Anora scour the Chantry's store rooms in Denerim, but she was told that all phylacteries of Ferelden mages entered into the Order are sent to Aeonar. Of all places." He smiled with a far off look in his eyes. "So, it's intact, for now." The Warden pushed through the door and greeted a swarm of darkspawn inside with a paralysis spell before pulling a sword out from under his robes and mercilessly hacking them down.

The Warden was surprise after surprise. Anders enjoyed surprises.

"I take it you're not opposed to destroying phylacteries. Else you wouldn't have searched for yours," Anders shouted over the fighting.

The Warden felled a beast before turning back. Some emotion clung to his face that Anders couldn't quite read through all the splatter on him. "Not at all," he said.