peopleofthedas | Leap chapter 3 - A perfect longterm solution

Title: Leap: chapter 3 "A perfect long term solution"
Game: Dragon Age 2
Pairing: Mage f!Hawke/Anders (eventual)
Rating: E for now, eventual M
Wordcount: 3000
Summary: "Watch for that moment...and when it comes, do not hesitate to leap." Malina has spent her life hiding from the Templars, but she's starting to realize fear can be just as much a prison as the Circle.

7 Harvestmere 9:27 Dragon
Lothering, Southern Bannorn, Ferelden

"All right," Malina stared at a small ledger, inkwell at her elbow. "If the weather holds, and you charge at least as much as last year… we'll have enough to make it through winter and pay all the taxes."

"Let me see that," her father said, spinning the page around. "Huh. I'll be damned. No idea we had such a good spring."

"Drought in South Reach," she said. "No competition."

Malcolm considered that. "And if we lower prices?" he asked. "If there's drought… people are probably desperate."

"We starve," she said flatly.

"Malina—"

"Fine," she said. "Five percent… we… oh, fun. Five percent and we can't pay all the taxes. Ten percent and you'd better hope bandit attacks go up this winter since we'll starve unless someone with coin needs healing."

"That bad?" he asked.

"That bad," she nodded. "I don't know what this is, though." Malina pointed to a line in the ledger, occupied only by the letter B and a shockingly large number.

"Oh, that," her father said. "Well, bribes of course."

"Oh, of course," she said flippantly. "Bribes?"

He raised an eyebrow. "How long have we lived here? And never been caught?" Malcolm shrugged, leaning back in his chair. "I like having a home more than I like gold," he said. "A bit of coin to a few templars keeps the lot of them at bay. Whenever someone mentions us one of my, um… friends speaks up about how he's already investigated the situation thoroughly."

"Bribes to the Chantry!" she laughed. "Oh, that is my favorite part of services. 'Blessed art thou who exist in the site of the maker, blessed is thy coin, with which Ser Robert can hire a whore.' Always makes me feel so proud to be an Andrastian." She sighed. "Really, can we convert to the Tevinter chantry? Please."

"How did you know it was Ser Robert?"

She smirked, the corner of her mouth twitching up. "Since I can't believe any templar is so inept that he would proposition the neighborhood apostate and not notice." She sighed. "Sit down, father. It isn't like I accepted."

"Still, he knows you're my daughter!"

"Can't even get loyalty from the people you buy these days. The whole country's gone to the Void." Malina quirked an eyebrow up and laughed. When her father only glared she dropped her smile and returned her attention to the ledger once more. "That's more than the taxes on the farm," she said slowly. "Maybe we should move on."

"No!" Malcolm said. "Absolutely not. This is our home. We've lived here for seven years! We've built a life here, I won't abandon it." He put his palms against the table. "I'm through running away."

"All right," she said, hands up. "Fine. I was only making a suggestion. Let's just all cross our fingers and hope they don't start asking for more. I'm sure if we hope really hard it'll work!"

"Why do I have you help me with this again?"

"Because Mother's too busy and you can barely count past ten without taking your boots off?"

Malcolm rolled his eyes. "Oh, I'm sorry, I spent my entire life learning how to master arcane power, knit living flesh back together, and control the forces of nature. I didn't have time for algebra. What, you think the Circle teaches math?"

"Actually, I do," she said.

"Well… you'd be right. And shut up. I'm the father here!"

Eyes meeting across the table, both broke out into laughter. "I swear," her mother called from the kitchen, "only the two of you would find bookkeeping so amusing."

"I, personally, find hopeless situations hilarious," Malina said.

Her father smirked. "Nothing sets me off like a whole row of negative numbers. All those minuses look like a little ladder to failure!"

Leandra came out of the kitchen, worry on her face. "Are things that bad?"

"Nah," Malina said. "Just making a joke. We're actually doing good. Better than last year. You know, providing the bribe totals don't go up."

"Bribes?" She looked from her daughter to her husband. "What's this about bribes?"

"Oh, shit," Malina stood up. "I, um… need to go talk to Bethany about… magic."

"Language!" her father shouted. He was quickly shouted down by her mother, though.

"No changing the subject! Who in the Maker's name are you bribing, and why!"

Slamming her bedroom door she burst into giggles. "What happened?" Bethany asked, setting the book she had been reading aside.

"Oh, remember how we were wondering just why the templars never caught us?"

"I remember," Bethany said, narrowing her eyes. "Why?"

Malina flopped down next to her. "Apparently our father has been paying them off!"

Bethany looked up. "I don't see this ending well," she said after a moment's consideration.

"Really? I thought it was a spectacular plan." She smiled. "A perfect long term solution."

Bethany rolled her eyes. "How bad?" Malina didn't respond and she made a face at her older sister. "That bad, then? Well, lovely."

That night, once everyone had gone to bed, Malina quietly slid open the window. "Have fun," Bethany called from her own bed.

"Come with me! I'm meeting people for cards."

"No thanks," her sister replied, rolling over and snuggling deeper into her blankets. "I'd rather sleep than listen to idiots tell me how pretty my eyes are."

Malina laughed, swinging her legs over the sill. "Your loss."

Walking into the local tavern, she looked around, spotting her friends in the corner. Carver rolled his eyes as she sat down. "Does mother know you're here?" he asked.

"Does she know you're here?"

"I'm not a…" she stared at him, eyebrows raised. "…girl," he finished lamely, realizing how close he came to informing half the tavern that his sister was an illegal mage.

"Carver!" one of the others said, smacking him across the back of the head.

Picking up her cards, Malina sighed. "There's nothing quite like the love of a younger brother," she said. "And I should thank the Maker for that."

The girl who had hit Carver shook her head. "For as much as the two of you complain, you're much closer than me and my brother."

"Your brother is nine, Peaches" Malina pointed out.

"Still," she said. "You two have all the same friends, you're always together. I don't think you hate each other nearly as much as you pretend."

"I don't?" Carver said. "Well, that's a shock."

"To you as well as me, brother dear," Malina said drily. She pushed his glass towards him. "Now drink your poisio— ale. Drink your ale."

She laughed as he eyed the glass warily.

The night went on, and Carver eventually disappeared with Peaches. Malina was about to head home when one of the other stragglers elbowed her. "Isn't that your father?"

"Here?" she was doubtful, but stood up to get a better look from their table on the second story. Glancing past the railing she saw it was, in fact, her father. "What's he up to?"

"Like I know?" she shrugged. "He hurt his knee again? Got his walking stick with him."

"Oh, Maker," Malina groaned. She could see, on the floor near his feet, his 'walking stick.' There was no doubt she was the only other apostate in the room. Anyone else would notice a staff so powerful it all but glowed. "He… must have."

"Shame," she said. "Anyways, I'm heading home. Want to walk with me?"

Malina glanced from her friend to her father. "No, I'll finish my drink. Stick around and make sure he doesn't need help making it home. You know, the bad knee…"

Wishing her goodnight, the final member of their card game headed home, leaving Malina alone.

She sat quietly, sipping her ale. Her father seemed to have no idea she was there, he kept glancing towards the door. Finally, a middle aged man entered and froze. Some unspoken signal passed between the two of them, and he sat down with her father. She could see how nervous he was from her position above them. A potential patient, most likely. Or the relative of one. It was a scene she had watched play out more times than she could count over the years. Before she had shown signs of magic he would occasionally let her tag along, believing seeing him as a family man would make people in need less nervous about speaking to an apostate.

Realizing that, she wasn't surprised when he pushed several coins across the table to her father. Of course, they were refused, since that's what he did, and the man seemed to insist again. Eventually Malina could see her father hold his hands up, as if in defeat, and pocket the gold. Moments later they both left.

She resisted the urge to chuckle, seeing her father clutching his 'walking stick' and adopting an exaggerated limp.

After a moment's deliberation, curiosity got the better of her. Pounding back the last of her drink and tossing a few coins on the table for the waitress, Malina slipped out of the tavern, following the now-distant figures. She could hear her father in the distance. "She said most of the pain was on one side?" he asked. After a muttered response from the stranger he followed it with more questions.

Tracking them to a small freehold outside town, Malina waited outside. She could feel magic flare inside the house. After several more spells were cast she began to get bored. Healing magic, one spell after another. Nothing unusual or exciting. Deciding to avoid the inevitable questions about why she was out at this hour, Malina headed home before he left the house.

Walking on the ground, in the shadow of the elevated Imperial highway, she had to chuckle. One of her friends had been teaching her how to sneak around, the lessons had apparently been going better than she expected.

Hopping back to the roadway to cross over the Drakon River, she cast a quick glance back. "Shit."

The word came out without warning, and she regretted it immediately.

In the distance she could see the horse gain speed. "Who's out there?" called the armored rider. The moon was just full enough to reveal the etched emblem on his breastplate: a sword of Mercy. "Have no fear," he called. "I'm on the Maker's business."

Without time to think, she spun and took off running towards home.

Bethany!

Realizing the idiocy of hoping to find safety at home, Malina stopped and took a breath. Sucking in as much air as her lungs would hold, she turned, stepped back, and jumped.

The water was freezing.

"Hey, girl! Are you all right?" She could hear the templar shouting from the highway above. He had raced over to where she jumped and dismounted. "Girl?" Holding her breath, she swam under the surface of the road, hoping to remain hidden. If she was lucky the distance from bridge to river, combined with the heavy stone above, would keep him from sensing a mage nearby. "Maker's breath, fool girl. I can't go after her in armor!" He was speaking to himself now. "Poor lass, probably thought I was some bandit! Hope she can swim…"

Letting her breath out slowly, Malina tread water. He hadn't known. She could hear the man mount his horse once more, hooves clicking against the stone. Shaking from the cold as much as her own fear, she kicked her legs against the current and waited for him to continue on his way.

He seemed to have no intention of moving on, and as the minutes passed her legs grew more tired from fighting the current. Even shielded by one of the massive stone supports for the roadway she could feel the water trying to send her downriver towards the Amaranthine Ocean. Heavy, wet clothing joined to pull her down. She had no choice, staying in the water any longer would be her own death. Judging the distances, Malina began to swim back towards the shore, away from home. It was just slightly closer.

She had swam the width of the river before, of course. Every teenager in Lothering had. Swimming it in the dark, fully dressed, with boots on her feet, was a new challenge, though. Attempting to do it silently so as not to attract the templar's attention added another exciting new facet to the endeavor. One she could just as happily have done without.

After far, far too long she reached the shore, barely managing to drag herself onto the bank. Too tired to go on, Malna pulled herself under the ramped surface of the road, stretching out on the sand to catch her breath and wait for the soreness in her legs to ease.

Waking with a start, she gasped and sat up. The shouting that woke her stopped almost as soon as she was aware enough to understand. Malina could hear a horse making noises of protest, followed by the sound of hooves. Counting in her head, she waited what seemed like a safe amount of time before peeking over the edge of the road.

It was still dark. Malina had no idea how long she had slept, but her clothes were now merely damp. She warily crossed the bridge, eyes peering ahead into the darkness for any sign of the templar. He was gone, though, having apparently decided the girl who jumped to avoid him was either dead or not worth the trouble.

Nearing the midway point of the bridge she heard a groan.

Suddenly Malina remembered why she had been so far from home, forgotten in the horror of almost being intercepted by a templar. She began to run.

With a strangled cry she skid to a halt, dropping to the ground next to a prone figure.

Her father blinked up at her in surprise. "Sweetheart?"

"D—Daddy?"

"You're out too late," he said, before coughing. Blood splattered across her face and there was a horrifying wet quality to his voice.

She shushed him, holding up her hands. As she readied her spell he reached up with a surprising ferocity. "Don't you dare," Malcolm hissed. "Do you want him to come back for you, too?"

"I'm not letting you die!"

"You're not the Maker himself!" His words were cut off by a sound of pain, his eyes clenching shut briefly. Finally her father managed to whisper "this is beyond what either of us could fix." She glanced down at his stomach, closing her eyes and shuddering. He was right.

Malina began to cry, still clinging to his hand. Malcolm shushed her, eyes intent.

"Shh, sweetheart. You have to listen to me." His voice was becoming more strained. Eventually she was able to quiet herself, realizing how important this was to him. "You need to take care of your brother and sister," he said. "And look after your mother." He coughed again. Malina agreed easily. He looked relieved and, after another of those horrible sounds of pain, was gone.

Malina sat in shock, refusing to believe what had happened. No I'm proud of you, no I love you, not even tell your mother I love her? Wiping her face, she decided that must have been one of those things people only had time to say in books.

Eventually she forced herself to look down. It wasn't her father. Her father smiled, he laughed. He messed up her hair when she walked by and flung dirt at her when they were working in the fields. He smelled like the soil and magic and sun. The shell next to her stared blankly into the night sky, mouth hanging open. It smelled like copper and waste.

Shaking, Malina stood and began walking down the center of the road, away from home.

I know, I know... but it had to happen. Well, not like that. But yeah. Otherwise it would be a very short story when he killed Anders in a fit of dad!rage.

Leap chapter 3 - A perfect longterm solution

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