Tainted

[miri1984]

Title: Tainted
Words: 1600
Characters: Anders, Saoirse, Carver, Varric
Summary: Carver didn't use enough protection.

The stash they uncovered almost made up fot the near-disaster Varric's injury had visited on them. Packs mostly empty meant they could carry enough valuables to make them richer than Carver's wildest imaginings.

…provided they could make it out somewhere to spend it.

"You all right Junior?" Varric was standing right near his elbow. Maker but the dwarf could move silently when he wanted to. He realised he'd been standing looking at the same handful of gemstones for minutes - not really registering what he was seeing. His head felt fuzzy and wrong and he shook it in an attempt to clear it.

"Fine," he said, and Varric patted his arm jovially before going back to filling his pack and his pockets.

"If we're here for much longer we'll be wishing these were bread and cheese," Anders said, hefting a golden statue. Carver rolled his eyes. Trust the mage to see the worst in a situation.

"Cheer up Blondie," Varric said. 'Think of all the bandages you can buy - or all the paint - you could redecorate the clinic - put in a few potplants, a chaise lounge for your well-to-do patients…"

"I don't have any well to do patients," Anders said, grinning slightly.

"You will, Blondie. Once they find out they can go to you for their… special problems. You really should advertise that skill of yours you could make a lot of coin…"

"Forgive me if I put treating venereal disesases down low on my list of how I want to spend my limited resources, Varric."

"I'm a dwarf. We go where the money is."

"And in your opinion the money is in the crotches of Kirwall's nobility?"

"Hey - it's a renewable resource!"

"Anders will have enough money not to have to run the clinic at all any more, Varric," Carver said shortly as Saoirse picked up what looked like a tiara with, of all things, a griffon carved on it. "Sisi, we don't need that…"

"But I like it," she was smiling. "I could wear it while I do dishes and laundry."

"I'll be keeping the clinic open, Carver," Anders said, standing close to him and watching Saoirse as she laughed. "There are reasons for it. It's needed."

"Suit yourself, mage-y," Carver shrugged, trying to ignore the pounding in his head.

"It's not for me," the mage kept talking, but Carver tuned him out - suddenly more than uneasy. It was an itch in his blood, an urge to reach the surface, he thought, pulling him away from here, away from him, the darkspawn, the caverns… all of it. It felt like months since he'd seen the sky.

When Saoirse motioned for them to go he hefted his much heavier pack and followed her gratefully. The deep roads had been full of trouble and heartache and he wanted nothing more than to get out and never come back.

…He couldn't remember exactly when it had started - he only knew that walking was hard. He'd thought at first it was just hunger - but he'd done hunger before. After Ostagar. Fleeing from Lothering. In the refugee camps outside Kirkwall where you had to fight to hold onto a crust of mouldy bread. But this… this dizziness and nausea… it wasn't hunger.

He knew what it was. Deep in his gut he knew. He remembered Aveline thrusting the knife home into Wesley's chest, remembered the pattern of corruption on his skin…

Saoirse would do it for him. Perhaps that was why he was delaying telling her. It was another thing he'd failed at - another burden she would have to bear for him.

So he forced each foot in front of the other, willing it not to be so, hoping he hadn't been as stupid as he knew he was - after all Anders' imprecations - all his warnings about keeping himself free of the taint - in the end, Carver hadn't.

"This part of the deep roads looks familiar," Saoirse said

"We're back where we started, and in only five days. Not bad eh?" Varric's voice faded in and out and Carver realised suddenly he couldn't… just couldn't take another step…

"Think we could take a break?" he said. "I feel wrong.."

"I think all of our stomachs are feeling a little tender right now," he could hear the grin in his sister's voice.

"I'll wager it was those deep mushrooms we found," Varric said.

"No. It's…" He fell. He dimly felt the impact on his knees, wondered why it didn't hurt more for a few seconds before realising it was simply lost in the aches that burned through his whole body. Taint. Blight. Death.

"It's the blight," Anders said. Well, that's confirmed then. "I can sense it."

"Just like that templar, Wesley," he muttered, unaware, now, if he was speaking out loud or simply dreaming. "I'll be just as dead. Just as gone."

He could feel Saoirse's hands on his shoulders. "This is just like you," she said, "keeping it to yourself."

"I'm not going to make it. Not to the surface. Not anywhere. It's getting worse."

"There might be something we can do…." Anders voice faded in and out, but the gist of what he was saying got through to Carver, enough so he tried to sit more upright. There were wardens in this part of the deep roads - looking for Anders - not looking for him. Doing something. Something that gave Carver an inch or two of hope.

"And what?" he said, "become a grey warden?" The witch - Flemeth, had said that was the only way to cure the blight. They'd been too far away to help Wesley. But if Anders knew where they were… if Anders knew… how it was done…

"Is becoming a grey warden a cure?" Saoirse sounded hopeful. Anders, however, did not.

"Yes, I suppose it is. But it's not without a price. One not everyone is willing to pay."

"What price? Maker's breath, spit it out!"

Carver blinked, trying to bring the blond mage into focus again. He was scowling, his usual expression, truly, but Carver thought he caught a glimpse of something else in those eyes - fear? Sympathy? It was hard to tell and the pounding in his head was so very relentless…

"The process of becoming a warden is unpleasant. And irreversible. It also means you might never see your brother again. He might survive the Blight, but at the cost of becoming a grey warden. It's not an easy life, trust me."

"What about you?" Saoirse said. "You're not a grey warden any more."

The laugh Anders let out was bitter. "You think I got away? Eventually they or the circle will drag me back. I've got no illusions about that."

"This just keeps sounding better and better," Carver muttered. Saoirse's eyes swam in front of his face and he tried his best to give her a reassuring smile.

What came out was probably closer to a grimace.

"Come on then you," she said, hoisting him to his feet. For a mage and a woman she was surprisingly strong. He had a sudden, overwhelming flash of memory - Saoirse and he helping father with the calving, the fifteen year old girl - towering over him at ten, lifting one of the baby animals in two arms, covered in blood and gunk and laughing her head off.

It was a good memory. He tried to hold onto it.

There were darkspawn, somehow he knew it before they even appeared, and somehow he managed to scramble out of the way so that Saoirse and the others could dispatch them. Then, there were voices.

"…..Anders…"

Bits and pieces of memory kept floating to the top of his mind, Bethany when she'd first shown signs of magic…

"Fancy meeting you here…"

"….You mean the boy as a recruit. Of course you do….."

…Father, handing him his first sword, pommel first, smiling that damnable grin of his…

"…..you'd be an idiot to refuse him."

"Stroud trust me when I say this one is worth your time…"

Mother lecturing Saoirse while Carver rubbed broken knuckles from punching a boy who'd called her a whore…

"….may be as much a death sentence as the sickness and you know it."

"…..Take him and try. I'm asking you."

Anders in the Chantry, glowing blue in righteous fury over the tranquility of his lover, Saoirse standing firm and strong next to him despite the crackling presence of the spirit within him…

"If the boy comes, he comes now. Being a grey warden is not a cure. It is a calling."

When the voices fell silent Carver shook his head, feeling again the strength of his sister's arm around his shoulders. It was a comforting thing - the embrace of family. He wondered why he'd never felt that way before.

"Are you sure about this?" he asked her.

"I'm not sure about anything," she responded, and the next words made him blink away tears, "but I want you to live."

The warden - Stroud was stern faced and grim. "We must move quickly if we are to reach the surface in time," he said, and Carver tried to repress a groan.

"Then, I guess this is it," a thousand things he could say to her crossed his mind but wouldn't pass his lips. Not… I love you sister, or, thank you for trusting me enough to take me down here, even if I did screw it up, or even Father would have been proud… instead, "take care of mother," which he immediately hated himself for saying, but it was too late to take the words back and Saoirse was transferring his weight to that of two other wardens and suddenly he was being taken away - away from everything he'd ever known and into something new and different that might kill him…

He glanced back over his shoulder to see her standing, watching them go.

Comments

[analect]

Oh, the banter made me literally lol... 'renewable resource' indeed. *snort*

Loved the way Carver clings to his memories as the taint takes hold, and how visceral, strong and telling those memories are - 'Mother lecturing Saoirse while Carver rubbed broken knuckles from punching a boy who'd called her a whore…'. Some things, it seems, never change. ;)

[miri1984]

Aye. Leandra lectured Carver after that too, but she also gave him a sweet. *grins*