Video

[scowls]

[ For a few moments, all that’s visible in the slightly shaky view is an exciting expanse of bland-colored carpet. A light scratching sound is audible in time with the tilting of the image, as though the material that covers the device is moving against something unyielding and metallic. To someone who’s seen this sort of thing before, it’s indicative of someone examining the device.

A moment later, the image blurs and the boring carpet is replaced by large green eyes, shaggy white hair, thick black eyebrows, a scowling mouth, and a chin marred by white lines. ]

Hn. [ It’s a derisive snort, though the word that follows is even more so, heavily laden with disgust. ] Magic.

[ The image spins again, resolving a few dizzying seconds later to a crooked view of a sparsely furnished room. It’s the sort of room that looks to have never yet been lived in, the furniture of the most generic sort. Prowling near the far wall is the owner of that too-close face.

He’s wearing spiky armor, sharply pointed gauntlets, and a conspicuous lack of shoes. Pointed ears poke out of his hair and when he turns to unlimber a large greatsword from his back, more of the white lines are visible on his skin where it shows through gapes in his armor. As is probably apparent, he has no idea that he’s being recorded and continues to examine the room with wary unease.

The video will continue for quite some time, documenting a positively riveting video of an over-armored elf doing nothing but poking around a room, until he’s alerted to the fact that the device is both active and broadcasting his business to others.

Someone, quite clearly, does not know how to use the communication device properly. ]

Comments

video;

[circlejerked]

<sub>[This device-and-network combo of quirky technology is a treasure trove of interesting sights and snippets of conversation as Anders is finding out the more and more he plays around with it. He'd failed to give it his full attention over the months, but since managing to successfully post a message, he's beginning to think he ought to rectify that.

And what should he find as he's cycling through the images on his screen? Now this is a familiar sight!]</sub>

Hey, pointy ears!

_{[This cheerful exclamation brought to you by a youthful Anders and his completely and utter lack of tact the moment he gets a clear glimpse of Fenris. He points at the other male, lips spreading in a grin.]}

An elf!

_{[Ten points to House Mage for observational skills.]}

[scowls]

[ It's almost like Fenris has been struck by lightning. He jerks, his body going rigid, before he whips around. His eyes are very, very wide.

This voice he well knows. It's far more cheerful than he's ever heard it, but after eight years in its insufferable company, there's no way to mistake it. ]

Anders.

[ His voice is a hiss of disbelief as he snatches the device up. He looks younger, Fenris thinks, in an oddly detached way, but it's him. Alive. Or some approximation of life. His voice hardens, becomes demanding. ]

How is this possible?

[circlejerked]

_{[For one perplexing moment Anders wonders why what amounts to a moving portrait is speaking back to him, and he visibly puzzles over this until it clicks.]}

--Oh right, I almost forgot you can see me, too.

_{[Whoever said eyes are the windows to the soul clearly hadn't experienced video conferencing.]}

Strange, isn't it? But neat! _{[Grinning wider for effect, he waves.]} Hi!

_{[What's also strange is that the elf knows who he is without needing to be told, but he can't remember seeing this elf before, either in Wonderland or in Thedas. The green eyes and milky-white hair ring unfamiliar to him--the elven heritage is about the only thing he does recognize.]}

[scowls]

[ Everything in him wants to irrationally blame Anders for this. It was Anders fault—aided and abetted by Hawke—that the mages and templars went to war. And it's probably his fault that Fenris is trapped here now with this magical box.

And why in the Void is he this cheerful? Where's the vitriol? Where's the disgust?

It has to be a trick.

Fenris glares at him, neither smiling nor waving back. ]

What's the matter with you? How did you survive?

[circlejerked]

You should see the look on your face when you zoom this thing in for a closer look. So serious.

<sub>[Mock shudder. You're well on your way to dampening a perfectly good mood with a look like that, elf. Though Anders supposes he can't really blame him--he has that lost traveller look about him which suggests a few things about why he's rifling through the room like that.

Anders just isn't sure he wants to know more. As ever, people knowing his name before he gives it has generally not amounted to much good.]</sub>

Survive what? Are you certain you have the right Anders? Because I don't believe we've met.

[scowls]

[ Misdirection and jests. It isn't the first time he's heard Anders try to make a joke and Anders is sorely mistaken if he thinks Fenris will fall for something as paltry as that. ]

There is only one of you, mage. [ There's the slightest inflection on that title. It's harder, colder than the rest of his words. ] Your trickery will not work on me.

[ He tosses his head back, glaring down his nose at him. No doubt it would be more effective in person, even if Fenris is shorter than Anders, but they aren't standing before one another and Fenris has never been one to let inconvenience stand in his way. ]

[circlejerked]

<sub>[O-kay. If Anders is acting, then the curiously clueless look he shoots the small screen recommends him as an Oscar nominee because he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt he doesn't know this elf from a hole in the head. What, had he peed in this fellow's cereal in a past life?

The way the elf flares his nostrils over magic, a mage might have done so.]</sub>

Yes, my name is Anders and I'm a mage. Tricky me, trying to slip those things past you! You caught me.

_{[Anders would sooner eat the device than admit it, but he's suddenly a little glad he'd picked a spot outside to sit and monitor the garden... and isn't currently anywhere in the vicinity of Mr. Serious Eyebrows' room. He senses he'd regret it if they were speaking face to face, not he doesn't already regret it a little now.]}

Listen, I'm sure you're busy turning out drawers so I'll keep a long story short--

_{[Blink once and the average person would miss it, but Anders lets his usual taunting humor fade by a hair's breadth. Just a bit. He thinks he knows what's wrong here and it's not really a laughing matter when it's his reputation floating around out there, picking up more crimes to his name like a snowball growing in size as it rolls out of control down a cliff.]}

--but I don't know what you're talking about. Or I don't remember you. Take your pick which, it amounts to about the same. Time magic and missing memories, blah blah blah, it's a whole thing. _{[A hand wave.]} So! Whatever you think I didn't or didn't do... er, well, sorry. I don't have answers for you.

[scowls]

[ Now that sounds more like the Anders he remembers. Cocky, arrogant, ready with a sarcastic quip to cover his inadequacies. And there were so many Fenris could barely count them all at the time. But aggravating as it is to admit, he cannot blame Anders completely.

He is no magister. Born to power, he isn't necessarily born to cruelty and depravity. If he'd had the proper guidance, if Hawke had been a leader and a role model instead of a selfish tyrant, perhaps things would have been different. Perhaps the fault lies with her. For all Fenris knows, she may have used her blood magic to turn him to her own ends.

Because he'd been different in the beginning. Insufferable, yet not mad. But in the end...

Fenris blinks out of his musings, then scrutinizes the image he sees before him. It is Anders. ]

You don't remember. [ It's not quite a question and Fenris isn't entirely certain how he feels about it. On the one hand, he understands what that feels like. On the other, the bastard doesn't deserve to forget what he's done. ] We spent eight years together.

[ It doesn't occur to him how that might sound. ]

I am Fenris.

[circlejerked]

Eight years!?

<sub>[He aborts a splutter--barely. For someone who lives his life one month at a time, seeing evidence of Cullen ten years older and hearing tales he's due to spend the same decade in the company of strangers ties his imagination in knots.

His expression falls somewhat. Blighted time magic.]</sub>

The breakup didn't go amicably, then.

_{[It's the best he can say under the circumstances. Without Justice, humor is the next best weapon he has against uncertainty.]}

[scowls]

[ Fenris doesn't take the exclamation or the comment personally. He's accustomed to Anders' unique sense of humor and dismisses the romantically-laded turn of phrase as typical nonsense. ]

You murdered hundreds of innocent people, started a war that killed more of your mages than the Circles ever did, and were slain by Hawke for it.

[ If it was anyone else, he might have tried to be marginally more gentle with that delivery. Because it's Anders, he doesn't bother. However, the most vitriol is saved for his utterance of Hawke's name. That he loads with every ounce of anger he possesses. ]

So yes, Anders. The breakup—[ That is pure sarcasm. ]—went poorly.

[circlejerked]

<sub>[A thick, buzzing silence fills the space that Anders should be using to counter with some clever retort. Absently, he lowers the device so that camera angle skims the edge of his jaw and the blue sky behind him, a sudden weakness in his muscles he can't explain.

Of course it's a lie. But it's a particularly hard-hitting lie that that takes him by surprise. Repulsion, he's used to. Scathing back-and-forth debates, he's used to. Block, parry, jab... he knows all the steps on how to hold a combative conversation. It's a dance, but he's missed his cue for a comeback. He's stumbling, forgetting his steps. More than that, he can't breathe. His chest has clamped like a vice and he has to remind his lungs to take in a breath of air.]</sub>

So we aren't close is what you're saying.

<sub>[A thousand thanks to the Maker that his voice holds steady when he speaks, wavering just slightly on the comedic note. He even manages to readjust the camera and smile faintly into it.

He refuses to think about what the elf has said--it's a ringing in his ears he can't think about right now for fear of what his expression will reveal if he does--but his guard is up.]</sub>

[scowls]

[ He thinks that he's landed a blow when the image shifts and no blithe quip is forthcoming. It should be satisfying. It is in a way. But more than triumph or satisfaction, Fenris feels a baffling sense of weariness. It has no place within him now, but before he can analyze it, the absent comeback arrives and he bristles all over again. ]

No. [ It's spoken through clenched teeth. ] We aren't.

[ And perhaps they could have been. Fenris isn't blind to that. They both were so violently opposed to slavery. They both abhorred blood magic. If Anders hadn't been such a champion of mage rights, they might have discovered more common ground than they realized.

The fault of Justice? Anders' weakness? Fenris' blinding rage? Hawke's cruelty and negligence? He doesn't know and that just makes him angrier.

His voice drops to a hiss. ]

After a lifetime as a magister's slave, I find it difficult to get close to an abomination.

[circlejerked]

<sub>[That's just fine. As said, there's only one Anders, and he isn't close to anyone. He doesn't expect friends. He doesn't know this elf, and the world Fenris thinks he remembers isn't his. The events described mean nothing to him.

Seen in that respect, there's nothing to be sorry about, is there? Case of mistaken identity. Simple. Done. No reason to care about magisters or being referred to as an abomination while the rest of these hints about Kirkwall and disaster dangle over his head.]</sub>

It's a good thing you won't be finding any in those cabinets, or anywhere else in this place.

_{[Spoken with idle disregard. He won't rise to the bait. This is about someone else, not him.]}

[scowls]

[ It's too flippant. Too unconcerned about all the deaths he's responsible for. Whether he remembers it or not, he ought to at least react. A shred of remorse. Anything to prove he isn't wholly a monster.

But Kirkwall had been rife with monsters. It's no wonder it drew Anders to its filthy, overcrowded streets. ]

I've already found one.

[ It's a snarl, Fenris' lyrium lighting up in response to his ever-increasing fury. And because he's furious, because he wants nothing more than to reach into the image and tear out the bastard's shriveled heart, his fingers clench too tightly around the magical box and crumple it like parchment, rather abruptly terminating the connection. ]

[circlejerked]

<sub>[Where does this guy get off snapping and snarling at him through these little magic screens? This is getting to be a bit much even for Anders--somebody needs to take a calming bubble bath before remembering they're not each other's enemies. Anders hadn't whisked him to this world.

His eyebrows come together, a scoff on the tip of his tongue, but then the elf is glowing and his likeness on the screen abruptly cuts to black. The question--what in the name of Andraste's knickers?--and the friendly reminder that he's not the Anders Fenris knows abruptly die with it.

Left uneasy and unsatisfied, he ends up huffing to no one but himself and the birds. Well, be that way!

Searching back to find the network identity the video feed had originated from, Anders fires off a last message.]</sub>

WELL, IT'S NICE TO MEET YOU, TOO

and you know you might want to get that checked out by a physician

[scowls]

[ It's quite a while before Fenris sees this message.

First he has to regret breaking the magic box, which takes a while. Then he has to inadvertently get the closet to provide a new one; namely, by wandering past it grumbling under his breath about wishing he had another one to finish his conversations. When a replacement appears, he has to figure out how to turn it on. And then he has to finish his other conversations.

Eventually, he finds the message. More writing.

A lot of blank staring ensues before he shrugs and turns off the device. If he can ever find it again, he'll ask Carver to read it for him. ]