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You know what to do.

[He breathes a shaky sigh of relief.]

We got to the town a few days back, they'd asked for help because of disappearances. People taken. A merchant had lost some of his partners, too, on a road to another nearby village so we went that way. We were decently far out when we found pillars. Red lyrium pillars. And then red lyrium Templars with them.

This was the work of red templars?

It had to be. They were everywhere, Maker, so many of them. And the books that had notes were from Circles, too. Plus... This isn't the first time I've known Templars to make abominations. They did it in Kirkwall with some of their own. They want power. They always want more power.

[This isn't time to argue about the goodness of some templars.]

Templars can do that? [That's a whole new level of horrible.]

They can. We saw one of them change in front of our eyes, tracked down what happened, and it was Templars. On their recruits. And here, the notes, they're not, they weren't healer's notes. They were based on cutting into rather than what Creation magic could tell them, as far as what I could see.

All of the disappearances, they all went through this. The names and notes, they were detailed. They took people, put red lyrium into them, and watched what happened. And some of them were children. Just children.

Maker.

[The sounds of Nathaniel packing still for a moment. Children, children like his nephew or Zevran's baby, cut open and implanted with...anything. Let alone red lyrium.]

I'm coming to you as quickly as I can, all right? I'll be there soon.

Thank you.

[He wishes he wasn't so weak, but at the same time he doesn't think anyone is doing well after this.]

I... I didn't want to kill another innocent. We didn't have a choice, but I wanted to never... never again.

This isn't the same as what you did before. Not at all. But I know why you feel this way. And it's good that you do. It means you will never do it unless there is no other choice, and not in the way Templars claim they have no choice. There really must have been no other choice.

[He breathes in shakily. If Nate's saying that, he believes it, and Anders needed to hear it.]

He set, set Herian and myself on fire. And his eyes, they'd changed. The humanity, his humanity, was gone. We lost him to Rage and I could see the moment it happened, the moment it was all over.

Edited Date: 2016-09-12 02:27 am (UTC)

Oh, my love. [Nathaniel is walking now, headed to the Wardens' supply of food for travel.] My darling, I am so sorry you had to see that.

It could have been me. It could have been, except I had you, and Bethany, and Adelaide, and so many others, and he had no one. He saw them kill his parents and he had no one.

And I couldn't even be there for him.

[It's not about Anders having to see it, then. It's about the fact that it happened. And Anders was right in front of it, and could not stop it. Anders isn't just a bleeding heart.]

You know you're not to blame. You know you couldn't have done anything.

[He wants to argue that, but can't come up with any arguments. He'd done all he could. He hadn't turned the boy into an abomination. He hadn't angered the boy. He'd just not saved him.

Another exhale.]

I know. I know I did all I could. But I'm never going to forget the way he cried out for his parents, or the way it felt to help Herian cut through his neck. But he was in pain and I couldn't let the pain keep getting worse.