DA2 - Prologue, Stories

[miri1984]

Title: Stories
Words: 700
Character: Anders
Summary: Post EVERYTHING Anders begins to tell his story.

Ok, prologue of sorts for the stuff I'm writing little drabbles of. I know it's first person and it's out of order and all of that, but Anders wanted me to explain things, so I had to use his voice, and goddammit that man has a sexy voice that I can't not pay attention to, so here is his little bit of stuff :D.

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I am called Anders. Now. It wasn't the name I was born with, but then, I've changed so many times, even since I adopted it, and how many people can claim to be the same person they were when they first became aware of their name? We become the things people label us as. I was labeled "mage" far too long ago to have any attachment to the name I bore when I was born. My lover is "Champion" despite the fact that had she had the choice she would have turned her back on the fate of a city, wanting instead to protect those she loved. My closest friends have borne titles they never thought to - Commander, slave, pirate, guardsman, warden, malificar…

…storyteller.

Oh, and I've borne far too many of those names myself.

I never thought I would be one to tell stories. But I've been convinced that some stories are worth it. Varric once told me that stories had power. Varric once wanted to make me the hero of a story. I laughed at the time. "It's not a good story unless the hero dies," he'd said.

Perhaps my story would have been better if I had.

All the stories that started in the Tower ended badly. Save my own, which has not yet ended, but has certainly had its share of bad, and Alim's, which I suspect will go on forever. Our stories both began in the Tower, though. What came before was not important. What came before didn't shape us.

The Tower was a place where we told stories that had happy endings. Because dealing with the story as it was… well, that was unbearable.

"Set the scene, Blondie," Varric would tell me. "Introduce your main characters! Hook your readers!" Oh, if I could, I'd tell you the story of Saoirse's childhood, of Alim's dashing circle career, of the Blight and the archdemon and the Arishok and the Knight Commander. But all I can offer you is my own turn of events, and I was… less involved than people might think.

I can still remember the fire in the barn - most people would say my story began there. But the beginnings of the story come from so much longer ago. A thousand years ago, in pain and war and death, when a single woman sought to end tyranny against her people and brought down the wrath of an empire upon her shoulders. Before that, when evil magisters corrupted the Golden City of the Maker and caused him to turn his back on his creations…

…or so the story says. I have never seen proof of it, and I have… a unique knowledge of the fade and of the time that has passed there.

When it comes down to it, we have only ourselves and our stories to rely on. Saoirse taught me this. Alim taught me this. Varric, bless him, taught me this better than the other two combined. People's lives are what matters in the end. Millions of people. Living out their lives. Beginnings, middles… inevitable endings.

So I'll tell my story, in the hope that it will show people why I did the things I did. It may be lost amidst the outrage and the pain and the retribution and the war. And I would not blame people for hating me for my role. I certainly hate myself enough most days.

I will never be forgiven. But perhaps, if people read this, eventually I will be understood.