Happy Friday! For DADWC, how about "I wouldn't ask if I wasn't desperate." for Anders and your Warden?
Oooh yes… Going to use Fiharri for this — a Tabris rogue who uses she/her.
The Blight comes for everyone. Every warden, that is. Fiharri can feel it growing in her veins as the years go by, as it becomes harder and harder to hide from Morrigan. Morrigan wants to fix it. She doesn't know how — even with Kieran at her side, she doesn't understand it. Can't understand the way Fiharri wakes in the night hearing the call from below the Earth. Come down, down, down.
Anders has been AWOL since Kirkwall. She knows this. She's been technically AWOL since the end of the business with the Architect. Fiharri doesn't want to be pulled into politics, she wants a quiet life with her wife and son and to not constantly hear the echoing song of the Deep Roads.
Anders was one of her best students. But she's always been a shit teacher. She found him between camps of mages, pulling a cloak around to hide his face. She knows he feels it too. It's been nearly ten years since he took the oath.
"Andraste's tits, Fiharri?"
"It's good to see you, Anders." She smiles at him.
"The world must be ending if you're smiling like that." The haggard mage pulls her into a warm hug, and she can feel how skinny he is. At least in Circle life he had three square meals a day. She regrets that she is part of why he ended up the way he is. He would've left the Circle anyways, she knows.
"Only for us grey wardens," she responds and tugs a few of her curls from her face.
"It's about the Blight, then."
"The real one is over, thank the gods." She never swears by the Maker, not deliberately, but by a more vague set of gods. The elven gods? She wasn't even sure she believed in them when she was with her Dalish family. "But yes."
"There's a lot going on. More than the Blight. This is bigger than you or me."
"Anders." Fiharri looks him in the eye. "I wouldn't ask if I wasn't desperate."
"It's because you were infected before Joining, isn't it?"
Fiharri has suspected the same thing for some time now. Those months of pulsing grey veins hidden behind sleeves and what little face powder they could get. She was marked for death long before Duncan showed his face.
"I need your help. You're the only person I know who's a healer, a warden, and who I trust."
"It's not like I've got the cure for the Blight in my pack. If I had it, you'd be first on my list, honest."
"I'm asking you to come with me. There are parts of the Deep Roads that haven't been explored…out in the Wilds."
Anders stares into space for a few moments, and he says, "I don't know."
"That's okay." Fiharri wishes it didn't feel so bitter to say, even if she means it. "But we're both stuck with this. I need an answer before I go."
"I'll give you one. You can stay as long as you like."
"No I can't, but I'll stay for a bit anyways."
When Fiharri steps out of Anders' tent, he can see the lines of Blight peeking over the edge of her armor. He wonders if he has the same.