Chapter Text
Anders has been a reluctant guest of Ferelden’s Circle of Magi for less than a year when he accidentally stumbles upon the best idea of his life – or so he likes to think, anyway.
“So,” he says nonchalantly, piling his plate high with whatever grayish mush the kitchens are passing off as stew today, “I think it’s about time we get out of here, don’t you?”
Jowan chokes on his water, and Anders has to thwap him heartily on the back a few times. Across the table, Solona’s eyes are as wide as dinner plates as she stares at him.
“Do you want to get us all sent to wash dishes for the next year?” Jowan finally manages once he’s caught his breath.
Anders shrugs and points out, “She’s not paying attention.” The enchanter set to watch over the apprentices as they eat is staring moodily off into the distance. Anders is fairly sure he could set her hair on fire without her noticing; he thinks briefly of trying it, but discards the idea, as his last experiment with flames ended in the charred ruins of his father’s farm and a one-way trip to the Circle in manacles.
Solona recovers her composure and returns to primly nibbling at the food on her plate; she may be in oversized, secondhand robes rolled over her elbows to keep them out of the gravy, but something of her noble upbringing still lingers. She looks fairly silly, but Anders feels a little sorry for her – she’s only nine, and still crying for her mother every other night – so he doesn’t say anything. “They said we can’t ever go home,” she points out quietly.
“Yes,” Anders says flippantly, “well, I don’t want to go home, particularly.” His father wouldn’t consider that any kind of blessing. “I just don’t want to be here anymore.”
“If it were so easy to run away, everyone would be doing it,” Jowan mumbles under his breath, still sending concerned looks at the disinterested enchanter, who is now twirling a lock of hair around her fingers and making doe eyes at a templar across the hall. Anders grimaces; anything not to be reduced to that.
“How do you think you’re going to manage it?” Solona asks after a moment; he can tell that she’s trying not to look too hopeful.
“Well,” Anders says, nearly bursting with pride at his own brilliance, “I was up on the fourth floor the other day, looking for a book-”
“In the Harrowing Chamber?” Jowan interrupts. “We’re not supposed to be up there!”
“There are other rooms up there, you know,” Anders says. “And I never said I was supposed to be up there, I just said I was.”
“Oh,” says Jowan, as if such a thing would never have crossed his mind – which, to be fair, is probably the case. Jowan isn’t the most creative individual Anders has ever met, though he’s generally game for some fun, once he’s been convinced.
“And lucky for you I think those rules are a bunch of codswallop; you wouldn’t believe what I found! A window,” Anders says, once they’re both looking at him expectantly. “One without bars.” He doesn’t mention just how tiny the window is; the way he figures it, a dislocated shoulder is a small price to pay for freedom. He’s still scrawny, but before long he’s sure he’ll start growing into his hands and feet, by which time it will be too late.
“A window,” Solona says slowly. “On the fourth floor. Over the lake?”
“Well yes, over the lake,” Anders says. “Of course over the lake. The tower is in the middle of a blasted lake.”
“You’re not supposed to say ‘blast,’” Jowan points out.
“I’m not supposed to a lot of things,” Anders says with a laugh. “So, the way I see it, all we have to do is jump.”
“Into the lake?” Solona says, giving him an odd look.
“You’re really fixated on that lake,” Anders says impatiently. “Yes, down we go. It’s the best plan ever – we just swim to freedom.”
“It’s winter,” Jowan says incredulously.
“Well, the lake wasn’t frozen over when I saw it yesterday,” Anders responds. “And anyway, you Fereldans don’t know what winter is. Spend a winter in the Anderfels, then we’ll talk. Your nose near freezes off if you stick it outside.”
“I don’t think your plan sounds very safe,” Jowan says ponderously.
“Fine, don’t come,” Anders retorts.
Solona looks down into her plate. After a moment, she says softly, “And I can’t swim.”
Anders sighs. “Well I didn’t say it was a perfect plan.”
***
In the end, he jumps from the window alone. Only it isn’t so much a jump as a grunting, miserable tumble; he dislocates both shoulders and probably breaks his wrist against the window ledge, then hits the water sideways and drops out of consciousness, sinking like a stone.
***
He wakes up four days later in the lakeside inn, feeling rather appropriately like he fell from a cliff. He’s covered in bandages and weak as a kitten. The innkeeper stands in one corner, looking put-out; a templar stands in the opposite corner, looking thunderous; Senior Enchanter Wynne stands over him, looking exasperated. “Well,” she says, “you’ve had a bit of an adventure, haven’t you?”
“Surprised he came around at all,” the innkeeper says. “I thought he was dead when we pulled him out.”
“You did the right thing, calling us,” Wynne says with a deep sigh.
“I’m still not so sure I should have,” the innkeeper says sourly. “What goes on up there with these children that they go leaping out of windows…”
“Nothing so dire as you are thinking,” Wynne replies, shaking her head. “And there aren’t meant to be any windows for them to go leaping from, to begin with.”
Anders wants to say, that’s sort of the point,, but finds he is unable to do more than croak like a frog.
“Careful what you say there, friend,” the templar speaks up. “You wouldn’t want to be thought a sympathizer.”
“All right, young man,” Wynne says mercilessly, ignoring the templar’s words, but gesturing for him to come and lift Anders into a sitting position. This turns out to be even more painful than lying down, something Anders wasn’t aware was possible until this moment. “I believe you’re safe to be moved now; it will hurt, but that is what you get for your recklessness.” The templar lifts Anders out of the bed; it is a relief of sorts when he loses consciousness again.
***
After he can walk unaided, he is set to scrubbing pots in the kitchen for two months.
“Told you so,” Jowan says one evening, watching him rub ointment onto his hands, which are chapped from hot water and lye soap.
“Oh, shut up,” Anders grouses, trying to wrap a bandage around his hand so as to let the ointment properly soak in.
“I’m glad you’re better,” Solona says, batting his hand away and tying off the end of the bandage in a neat knot. She adds a bow; Anders sighs and lets her do what she likes. “Don’t do that again.”
“You’re right,” Anders says with a decisive nod. “That window really was too small. I need a better plan.”
He ignores Solona’s assertion that this was not what she meant.