BSN Prompt - Tranquil

[miri1984]

Title: Tranquil
Rating: T
Words: 1162 (hey! I've swapped to a program that does word counts!)
Characters: Anders and Jowan
Summary: Spoilers for Fractures, so don't read if you don't wanna know!

For the first week, Anders avoided him. He told himself it was because Neria needed time to catch up with her friend, without a jealous lover hovering over her every interaction with him. He told himself that Jowan had never liked him, in the tower, that they'd never really exchanged more than a few words with each other for the entire time they'd been in residence. He told himself there was nothing about the man to be worried about, or afraid of…

 But he knew he was lying.

The first time he'd seen one of the tranquil he'd been thirteen. There were none in Highever, where he lived with his mother and his stepfather, but his parent's shop stocked things that could only be supplied by the Circle tranquil, and the circle would never trust an un-tranquiled mage to transport them. Felix had sent him to meet the delivery wagon at the gates of Highever.

The driver had been tranquil.

Anders' mother had told him that the Circle tranquiled mages, but he'd never met one before, and the concept of being severed from the fade really hadn't sunk in.

Talking to the woman on the way to his family's shops had given him nightmares for months.

He would never have admitted it to anyone, but part of the reason he'd been so desperate to escape the Tower before his harrowing was the fear that they wouldn't let him do it, that he'd be taken out of his dorm one night by helmed Templars to have everything about him ripped away. The first time they'd captured him, he'd fought the entire time back to the circle, shocking his capturers with his ferocity, because he was certain what his fate would be. Sometimes, at night, he woke up in a cold sweat, wondering how he'd managed to avoid it.

So seeing Jowan, knowing what he'd been through, was a bit like prodding a sore tooth. He burned to ask what it had been like, but at the same time the thought of actually asking was like sticking his hand into a hornet's nest.

"Why won't you talk to him?" Neria asked him one night. "You're not jealous, are you?"

He grinned at her. "The way you're still jealous of Maggie Amell?" he said. She mock-slapped at his arm. "Of course I'm not jealous. I just think you should have some time together without me pocking my big head in all the time."

"Anders, he thinks you hate him."

"I don't hate him."

"He thinks you do."

"Tell him I don't."

"Why don't you tell him?"

"If he thinks I hate him he won't believe me if I tell him."

"He won't believe me if I do either. Anders…"

He heaved a sigh. "Fine. I'll talk to him tomorrow."

A small hand gripped his chin and his head was tilted towards hers. "Anders, do you hate him?"

"No!"

"Good. Talk to him then. He's actually a very nice person for a blood mage."

The next day he found Jowan down in the mage training room, staring at a practice dummy with a slightly pained expression on his face. It was early. He'd left Neria sleeping with Pounce curled protectively on her hip. Jowan looked up as he entered.

"She spoke to you then," he said softly. "I knew she would."

"She thinks I hate you. Or that I'm jealous of you. Or something."

"So you didn't tell her why you've really been avoiding me?"

"You know?"

Jowan snorted and looked back at the training dummy. "Of course I know. It's why most of the mages here can't bear to look at me. And it's not because of the blood magic thing." He lifted a finger and prodded the dummy. It swung back a little on its spring before stilling. They gave them faces - the dummies. Some of the more… mature mages had made this one look a good deal like Knight Commander Cullen. "This was me," he said softly. "For the last six years."

Anders swallowed. "What…"

Jowan fixed him with his blue gaze. "The worst thing about it? I quite liked it. Really. For the first time in my life, I was completely at peace. I had purpose. I was content. I never felt pain, or anger, or fear." The dark haired man shuddered hard. "I dream about it, sometimes. When I wake up…. " He closed his eyes for a moment. "I can tell you, it's a damn good thing Sigrun gave me a room on my own. And that the walls of the Vigil are thick."

"It's why I escaped before my Harrowing," Anders confessed. "Maker's balls, I was stupid." He shook his head, remembering exactly how stupid he had been. "Irving rescued me. Because I was… well… Anyone else and I would have been…. Without Neria to help me either…"

Jowan laughed. "She's very determined when she puts her mind to something," he said. "That's why I asked her to help me. I knew she'd tell me I was being an idiot if she thought I was… of course, that's also why I didn't tell her about the Blood Magic. Funny how I was willing to listen to her on somethings and too stupid to follow her advice on things that actually mattered."

"Neria understands why you turned to blood magic. Andraste, I would have, if I thought it would get me out of being made tranquil. You really didn't have any other choice."

Jowan pursed his lips. "Didn't I?" he said. "I suppose I didn't. At least now, with what the two of you have done, mages who are just sub-standard like me won't be subjected to that fate."

"Sub-standard?" Anders said. "I've seen you take down an ogre on your own…"

Jowan wiggled his fingers. "Blood mage, remember? There's a reason people are afraid of it."

"Your regular spells are just fine, Jowan."

"You sound like Neria used to," he said, smiling. "She never really knew… I was always better when she was there to help me."

"That doesn't make you a worse mage," Anders said. "We all need people around us."

The blue eyes clouded. "Not if you're tranquil," he said. The two men contemplated the training dummy for a few moments. It felt odd, to think of the man next to him as a maleficar. There was just something so… nice about him. Which was, of course, half the problem. If he'd just told Neria how jealous he was of her power, perhaps she would have talked him out of his uncertainty. Made him confident enough to allow the Templars to call him for his Harrowing.

"You know what, Jowan?" Anders said. "I suspect ninety percent of your troubles come from trying to be nice to people."

Jowan laughed. "What about the other ten percent then?"

"Plain old stupidity, like the rest of us," Anders said, clapping the other man on the shoulder.