justice_is_blond | Inbox for Fade Rift

He's not been given permission and a wave of frustration rises and is shoved back down. He wants to do everything he can for her; anger will only add to the limitations she's placed on him. Giving up on magic for the moment, Anders places a hand on her forehead to feel for a fever.

"No." No fever, either, which makes her question a little worrying. "Spirits and demons visit all people. Mages are simply more aware of them than most because we're always connected to the Fade."

He's seen possessed Templars, after all.

"That, and they spend more time harassing mages because we're physically easier to possess." Anders sits down next to her. "Is there... Have there been visits?"

When Anders feels her forehead, Teren leans away irritably, but not before he's had a chance to find that she's not feverish. She idly swats him away with a characteristic sneer, because he's being ridiculous.

"Maybe," she sighs, taking another drink and then handing him the bottle if he wants it, never mind that it's like six-thirty in the morning. "As a rule, I don't have vivid dreams that don't involve darkspawn." And every Warden has those, so it's no big deal. "Either that's not true anymore, or I was paid a visit."

"Either's possible."

He exhales, straightening his robes for lack of something better to do with his hands before the bottle is handed to him. Anders looks in and then sets it to the side. He's brought enough attention back on himself lately; he doesn't need to be drunk.

"Would you like to tell me about it? And if you're still up because you're trying to avoid sleeping again?"

"No. And yes." Teren purses her lips in a stubborn scowl, preparing to dig her heels in... then sighs, dropping her head forward to rest her brow on her hand. "It was ...a bit too specific. To be entirely happenstance."

The Fade is an odd place, but he's not going to be patronizing. If Teren says it was too odd to be happenstance, it was. Anders nods.

"What will you let me do for you?" She doesn't want an ear, but he can't leave her here like this.

She actually thinks about it, instead of immediately brushing him off. Teren also doesn't complain that the whiskey is gone, since it's probably for the better anyway.
"Just..." Tell her she hasn't done him any lasting damage, swear he won't turn on her, promise not to laugh or jeer at her many insecurities, physical and emotional.
"...sit with me."
There was a time she couldn't even have that much, and it feels far too recent.

It's absolutely unexpected... and absolutely welcome.

"Of course." He doesn't really know what to do with it, being wanted like this. The last time anyone other than Nate sought his company like this for comfort was... Wasn't. It's a feeling he's unfamiliar with and he shifts a little, reconsidering the whiskey. Certainly a drink would make this easier, but he knows better.

"Did you know I'd another cat once? His name was Ser Pounce-a-lot." Babbling fixes everything, right? "Jonas found him for me after, after..." His voice loses strength. It feels a little too soon to be talking about Jonas, but he tries to continue. "After he, the cat, I mean, survived a shriek. He was... I think I should probably stop talking."

Teren can't bring herself to even be annoyed when Anders starts rambling about cats, since the company is distracting and... well, deep down in her shriveled little heart, she maybe finds it endearing.
"Tougher than most, by the sound of it," she concludes, raising an eyebrow at him. "Go on."

It is a strange thing, to be asked to talk more about his cat. Teren must have had a downright awful dream. Anders nods.

"He was absolutely tougher than most. He clawed a genlock in the eye, jumped on an ogre's head to distract it so we could get to safer positions, went on so many trips into the Deep Roads with me... He was fantastic. A true little warrior." He gives her a small smile. "I've been trying to train Purrelden as his match, but there was something inherently scrappy about Pounce. Maybe it's that I got Purrelden as a kitten and he had some time on his own, or maybe it's simply personality. I've no real idea. Have you ever had a pet? Aside from Shoes over there."

He knows he gave the druffalo the wrong name. Right now he's trying to pull her out of her mood, and that may just help.

Sometimes Anders talking about his cat is irritating, but it's also reliably Anders, which is pleasantly grounding when one is trying to remember that dreams aren't real.
Teren smirks slightly, appreciating the heroic feline of the narrative. She's fine enough with Purrelden, but she may have really liked Pounce.
At Anders' question, she looks dully over her shoulder at Boots and shrugs indifferently; they can call him whatever they want, he's never going to know his name. "Just the cats round the docks," she muses, "they weren't mine, but I'd watch them hunt the barge rats."

The name teasing didn't get the sort of reaction he'd been hoping for so Anders drops it. At least she seems to be amused by tales of Pounce.

"Rats can put up quite the fight; I can imagine the cats were excellent hunters. I want another one. Another hunter. Not to replace Purrelden, I love her, but a cat I could take down to the Deep Roads. It's... dark down there."

It's a lame end to the sentence, but he can't put into words why he dislikes the dark so much even if he was willing to simply wander into telling someone about the fear starting while he was in solitary.

"I've never liked them, but a cat makes them bearable. Except if I brought Purrelden I'd worry about her constantly rather than focusing on what we were there to do, so that's not an option with her."

Other trips are still fair game, and he wonders if he should blather on about that next or if Teren would prefer to hear him chatter about something else.

Being irritated by jokes about the druffalo she didn't want is all but admitting she wants the druffalo, so of course Teren doesn't react. Also, in the deep dark recesses of her shriveled heart, she finds 'cutesy bootsy' endearing.
Revolting.

"Most of the journeys we take are no place for a cat," she observes, "it's kinder to leave her here." Not that the cat can't fend for herself, but not all of them will be Pounce.

"Which is why I've not brought her along." He's not stupid. Much of the time. "Sometimes I wish there was a country that would create a combat cat much the way people think mabari were created. I'd have no objection at all to a giant, purring lump that avoids getting muddy as a general rule taking up my lap, and even less if they were good at killing Darkspawn, bandits, and... the like."

Templars. Until they dropped their attitudes of being jailers of mages and superior, the war would go on. And without the protection he has, he'd wager that more than a few would be willing to risk everything just to kill him. A part of him wants to ask if she's actually interested in Wren, but he also thinks he might not want to know. If she is he'd have doubts he doesn't want to have around Teren.

Teren smirks thoughtfully, looking at the ground, visibly exhausted. "Perhaps it's nice to have a creature around who doesn't care for war." Loathe though she may be to admit it, Boots is a calming presence. At least when he's not eating something he isn't supposed to, or shitting somewhere he isn't supposed to.
"If I could occupy my days chasing rats and sleeping in the sun, I daresay I might be more optimistic about the future."

He breathes out a chuckle, giving her a small smile.

"It feels like a lifetime ago when all I wanted was a warm fire, a cat, someone to share the fire with, and the right to shoot lightning bolts at idiots. I was a lot more optimistic then."

Anders studies her. She still looks so tired.

"I can't cast you into a dreamless sleep, though there are mages who can. But I can make a potion that will help, provided you take it sparingly, not more than once every three or so nights. If you wind up taking it too often you could find you can't sleep without it."

Magic is, of course, out of the question. But a potion...
Teren stares at the ground for a few moments, considering. She doesn't like to show weakness, to indicate at all that she might need something from someone else, but the offer is tempting. After deliberating, she sighs. "..would you?"

"Yes." That she's asking for it means she needs it. Anders stretches his arms out before nodding in the direction of the city.

"Would you like to walk with me? We can go to the Gallows infirmary or my Clinic in Darktown, and I can put it together now."

She sighs. If they weren't already in the Gallows, Teren would immediately choose the infirmary in Darktown, but that's a bit of a walk and she already has so much to do here. "The one here," she grumbles, gesturing vaguely. She doesn't like it, it's full of chantry types, but so is the Gallows. She's used to it by now, or at least should be.

"Most of the others don't simply wander in to the room I use," he assures her as they start walking, assuming her worries are about her privacy. Teren is not someone who likes to show weaknesses, after all.

"Sometimes a few people come in hoping I'm doing something they can get me executed for, but that's always been when I'm alone." The easier to try to intimidate him, in their opinion, but now he's got Warden leadership who won't betray him and Anders isn't afraid.

The walk isn't long and he gets to work right away. This isn't something he keeps on hand as it's dangerous, but at least it also isn't going to take long to put together.

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