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“Here’s a new one.” The paper hit Anders’ face, wilting in a frankly pathetic spiral for an arrest warrant. Had about as much constitution as a Templar, actually. “It’s the usual. Mage, dangerous. They’ve added a ‘do not approach’ this time too.”
“As if we haven’t been the perfect picture of hospitality.” There were Templar ashes scattered past the bottom of the garden. Not that they’d stay here long enough to see a vegetable harvest, but there was no sense in ruining the garden for whoever did manage to make it stick.
“It’s a wonder I don’t get turned away at every shop door.” As proof of his actual labours, Galen hefted two large bags onto the table. On top of the maps, but they both knew the late night strategy was to soothe first, plan second.
“Any good bread?”
“Flour,” Galen admitted, sheepish in the dread he had swelling in Anders’ chest. “In case it was the baker who reported us last time.”
“Did you tell Varric?” He’d pay him off. Not without a grumble and a reminder that one of them could still save his image, but he’d pay nonetheless.
“Flour can travel.” Galen wanted to move on. Anders could empathise; they’d been here a while now, long enough to have several unwanted visitors.
“Does the description pinpoint us that well?” Anders plucked the notice from where it fell, smoothing out the creases to reveal the damnation beneath.
‘WARNING: noted maleficar operating in your area. Galen Hawke, 30s, pale with dark hair, possibly bearded. Travels with individual, late 30s, blond, known only as ‘Anders’ - bears Anderfels facial features. Individuals wanted for involvement in events in Kirkwall…’
Anders scoffed; no, the description didn’t pinpoint them at all. It was a wonder, truly, that they’d been identified in the area at all. There were better descriptions for his apprehension by the Templars when he lived in Denerim, and that was before he killed anyone.
“Not quite.” Galen agreed, then. “You’d think we hadn’t lived in the same city for seven years.”
“You’d think you weren’t a public figure.” Galen had once been at the head of the city, one of the best known people in the Free Marches, but they had no better description than that? Did the Templars think they could magic half their looks away?
Galen glanced down at the paper again. “At least they got my name. ‘Known only as’?”
Anders grimaced. That was certainly one way to put it. “They’re not entirely wrong. It is my name, through habit if little else.”
“Aren’t they meant to have records of that kind of thing?” In a single movement, Galen tugged the paper from Anders’ hands and towards the kindling.
“In the Circle? Yes, of course.” Galen didn’t ask the follow up question, just raised his eyebrows. “They were so busy dragging me away, they didn’t ask my name. Or think they’d need it from anywhere but my mouth.”
“So, Anders?”
“Anders,” he agreed. “Of course, they’d brought me from a village in Ferelden, but almost everyone in the Circle was Fereldan. They couldn’t call me that, and they didn’t have a name. I was ‘the kid from the Anderfels’ for a while, or ‘that one that won’t speak’.”
“I can see why they didn’t catch on.” Galen’s words were joking, but his fingers rubbed small circles into the back of Anders’ hand. He appreciated it.
“So, in the end, that was the name that went on the records. When they realised they really needed to keep one, after my second escape. The name of the village I’m from is on there too, how I was brought to the attention of the templars. My escape attempts, the punishments I received. The age I passed my Harrowing.”
“Did they change it when you went to the Wardens?” Galen asked. “And… after?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “You’ve heard what happened to that Circle, right?” Hawke nodded. “I imagine they stopped keeping records after that. At least of the people they were no longer concerned with. I imagine they don’t need a record to remind them of who I am now.”
“I’d hazard a guess that you’re right there.”
“Mhm. I… got a bit off track, didn’t I?”
“You don’t need to stay on track.”
“I want to tell you, though.” He could say it. The words had spent long enough caught up in his throat. “I… have another name, of course. I haven’t heard it since I was twelve, but I remember what it was. I could use it, and sometimes I thought about it — telling them that they didn’t get to decide who I was, that I was a person before the Circle and I could be one after, but—”
“That sounds more like you’re saying how you think you should feel rather than how you should actually feel.”
He let out a weak chuckle. “I think you’re right,” he said. “Needless to say, I don’t feel like that. The name just… belongs to a different person. He was smaller, and he didn’t know what magic really was. He didn’t have the thoughts and feelings I have, and never could, not until everything that happened. I could use that name, but he isn’t me anymore. I’m not him.”
“I think that makes sense.”
“Really?” He laughed. “I don’t. I should want to reclaim the thing they took from me, and yet… I don’t. I said they couldn’t steal my soul, but they made me feel like the person before that was gone. Out of my reach. I—”
He clenched the hand Galen wasn’t holding into a fist. He’d thought he was ready to talk about this. Maybe he was wrong. “Sometimes, I don’t even wish that I could be that boy anymore. I just want to be me, to make Anders mean something that isn’t Circle mage or apostate.”
“Anders could be a husband,” he said. Anders’ heart fluttered just a little at the way he said it. “Anders Hawke.”
Galen was joking, of course; he was good at that. So Anders laughed lightly and tried to push down the feeling. It wasn’t like they could ever actually get married.
Galen, as always, saw right through him. “I mean it, you know.” He let his thumb brush over Anders’ knuckles. “Find somewhere no one knows our names. Lie, if we have to. Make something recognise who we are.”
“It’s a nice idea.” It was. Galen said it so sweetly, Anders could almost imagine it: the flowers, the smiles on every face for a mile around, bells ringing from some tiny Chantry that probably wasn’t even on a map.
He could imagine Galen, especially. His shit-eating grin slightly softened, smiling in a way that brought out the lines at his eyes, every reminder of all the times he and Anders had laughed together before.
Anders held Galen’s gaze for a moment, then let the image go. It wasn’t something they could do, no matter how nice it was to imagine.
In the end, it happened as an accident. They moved on quickly from that place, packing up in autumn despite the knowledge of the oncoming cold. It wasn’t safe to be there anymore — wasn’t safe almost anywhere, but at least it was harder to be recognised on the roads — so it was time to leave that little hearth in the dust.
They went north, this time, because last time they went south. And it was an accident, just a chance of the direction the roads led them, but there was a little village up by the northern coast. Most of the place was destroyed, and no one seemed to live there but sheep; probably wrecked in the civil war at the turn of the Age.
The reason didn’t matter. What mattered was the little steeple, rising above the wreckage.
Half of the building was gone, the walls crumbling under the weight of damp and age. Even from outside, Anders could see that the eternal flame had gone out, and the statue of Andraste must have been taken somewhere along the line.
But he looked at Galen. Galen looked at him. They picked their way across overgrown streets, tied their horses up just outside, and clambered through a gaping hole in the stonework.
The sun was just starting to set, its golden glow shining through the remaining shards of stained glass. Through the hole, Anders could see the sky, the sea, the horizon.
He took Galen’s hands at the altar, and he knew he wouldn’t want this any other way.
It had been a very, very long time since Anders attended a wedding.
“I don’t know what to say,” he admitted.
“I think the Mother usually says it,” Galen fired back. “You could say vows? If you want.”
“Galen…” Even the first word caught in Anders’ throat. “No one else is ever going to hear these words, so I’m sure you don’t mind if they’re not pretty.” Galen squeezed his hands. “No one has ever meant as much to me as you do. You’ve stood by me in ways I never could have imagined. Lifted me out of a darkness I used to only be able to run from. I cherish every moment we have. Would you have me forever, however long that may be?”
Galen’s lips twisted into a wry little smile. “I’ll have you any way you want me to,” he answered, eyebrows raised high. Oh, it always came so easily to him. “Anders, you’re— I’m not good at serious, not in words. Actions, I can manage, so… pick dust out of my hair for the rest of our lives, and stop me from saying heinous things to the wrong people, and complain about when I track mud everywhere?”
Anders laughed. Fuck, Galen always knew how to make him laugh. “Always.”
They didn’t have any witnesses. There was no officiant to take it down in the Chantry’s register, no rings to tell anyone else who would ever see them that this had happened.
It didn’t matter. None of it mattered.
The only thing that meant anything at all was the two of them. Anders and Galen, Galen and Anders; Anders Hawke, Galen Hawke. They came as a pair, and their names would always be said in the same breath. Was that any different from an official marriage, in the end?
Chasing away the bite of the sea air, Galen leaned forward, capturing Anders’ lips in his. Anders didn’t wait a second longer — he threw his arms around Galen, pulling him as close as he could.
Right now, they were together, the only two people in the world standing right at what felt like the edge of the world. In that moment, Anders was as sure as he’d ever been that they would never part.