The Salle, Friday Afternoon

[seeks_truth]

Cassandra had woken up with strange urges.

Not unfamiliar, but strange in their intensity.

She had lasted what portion of the day she could not spend elsewhere by thinking very hard about doing something else. Not something that involved the urges or anything related to them, mind you. Something far more cathartic and useful. Something she was, now that she had the time, at last capable of doing.

Within minutes of her arrival, the head of one dummy had gone soaring, slamming back against the wall. Cassandra gritted her teeth and lashed out again, this time leaving a long gauge in the dummy's arms. And then again. The third time, she kicked the dummy so hard it fell over, and she shoved her long blade straight into its chest.

She pulled it free with an angry hiss and turned towards the next dummy.

... the school could fund their replacement, surely?

[[ open! ]]

Comments

[not_every_mage]

Anders sputtered a bit but couldn't come up with a reasonable disagreement, especially since she had been there first.

"I've as much right to be here as you," he said instead, sulkily.

[seeks_truth]

"I did not tell you to leave," Cassandra pointed out.

He had nice hair.

... no, she was not doing that again, Maker.

[not_every_mage]

"You didn't," Anders admitted, breath coming more quickly than the exertion warranted.

It occurred to him, uncomfortably, that Cassandra's coloring was similar to Nathan's. He'd always liked dark eyes... and he was going bloody insane. Obviously.

"Let's just go back to what we were doing," he finally suggested. "I'll sing songs in my head to block you out."

[seeks_truth]

"As long as you do not sing them out loud," Cassandra said.

He was looking at her. And breathing. ... That was ridiculous, most people did that. But he was breathing very auspiciously, and she... was finally flushing in earnest. Why.

"...Or I will... I will make you leave," she said, her eyes narrowing above the blush. Mostly as a defense mechanism, honestly.

[not_every_mage]

"How were you going to do that?" Anders asked. He'd meant for it to sound like the kind of semi-playful taunting he got up to about every time he spoke to Cassandra. But he saw that blush and her narrowing eyes and it came out ... well, like something else. Like a dare.

[seeks_truth]

Cassandra's lip curled. "I can... easily make you, if I need to," she said, though really, the 'easily' was up in the air, considering she had yet to take her Vigil. Normally, she wouldn't have bought into this dare, but today, something combative (or... something else) made her take another step forward. She might not have had the elements at her fingertips, but she had training, and she was tall for a woman her age.

(This was ridiculous. Why was she doing this?)

[not_every_mage]

Without thinking about it, Anders took a few steps toward her as well. There were no more than a few feet between them, now.

She was close to his height, and much better-trained in close combat. Anders knew that if it came down to a fight, he could easily lose. But at that moment, that only made this completely ridiculous idea more exciting. (Exciting how? He asked himself, but there wasn't an answer he couldp ut into words -- or not ones he'd admit to, anyhow.)

"You're welcome to try if you're that sure," he said, voice going thick.

[seeks_truth]

"I am."

Cassandra frowned.

At him, first, challenge and voice (what was that voice?) both. Then at herself, second. Then, finally, as a precursor to the act of reaching out and shoving at his shoulder, not as rough as she was capable of, but not gentle either.

[not_every_mage]

Anders flinched, more in surprise than in pain. He hadn't expected her to actually lay hands on him.

Still. He wouldn't let her say he backed off. But he strapped his staff to his back before moving again. She hadn't used a weapon; it was unsporting to have his at hand.

"Well, good," he repeated, a spark in his eyes, and (with roughly the same amount of force) shoved back against her shoulder. "But I won't go easily."

[seeks_truth]

Cassandra's shoulder barely even budged. She was not surprised - being that she had laid the first push - and she had weathered stronger.

She took another step closer, attempting to crowd him out of the space with her presence. "Leave."

[not_every_mage]

Anders leaned in, close enough to whisper his answer. "No."

He didn't touch her again, but his hands closed into fists at his side at the strain of wanting to. He wasn't even sure if what he wanted was to smack her hard or ... something else.

[seeks_truth]

Cassandra twitched, her blush deepening as surely as her face was frowning more. If she'd a moment of clarity to think about this, she would realise how stupid it was to let herself be goaded like this, but it was difficult to.

... of course, if she'd had a moment of clarity, she would have also realised that he was not so heavy that it would be difficult to simply sling him over her shoulder and carry him out.

There wasn't much space left to fill up, but she tried it anyway. "Yes."

(After this, she was going to sit in her room for hours basking in embarrassment.)

[not_every_mage]

Anders reached down to try to grab her wrists, feeling more confused by what was happening than truly angry. There was the smug satisfaction of getting to Cassandra this way, anchored by his general annoyance she was on the island and that insistent thrum of desire that he seemed to feel towards everyone who crossed his path today.

"You don't think I'd fireball you if you tried?" He wouldn't, actually -- he was a brat, not a murderer -- but he sent the slightest nudge of electricity through his fingertips where her skin was closest, as if to make good on his threat.

[seeks_truth]

Cassandra brought her wrists down, and then outward, a trained and instinctive gesture to keep him from taking hold of her arms. She was grateful for it a second later, both because of the proximity of the electricity, and because she was not sure contact was a good idea.

"You think I would allow you the chance?" she said.

[not_every_mage]

"Sweetheart," Anders said, which sounded far less sarcastic in his current state than he intended it to, "do you think I move slow?"

The electricity stuttered to a stop when she pushed his hands away, but he didn't budge an inch.

[seeks_truth]

Cassandra's upper lip curled up. He called her sweetheart? "There is a difference between you and I," she said. "I have been training to fight, and fighting, your kind for years. You have lived in a tower, playing games. Your magic does not scare me."

His proximity, and the things it was doing to her skin, on the other hand-- that was terrifying. But she was as of yet too preoccupied with the notion of besting him to linger on that terror.

[not_every_mage]

"Must do something to you, with how red you are," Anders said -- and wished he hadn't, since he knew his own cheeks were also flushed.

He stepped back just enough to cross his arms between them. He had a growing feeling he should back off before he did something he'd truly regret, but he refused to let her think she'd won.

"Anyhow," he continued, equally stubborn. "You can't be any older than I am. Quit playing the grizzled knight. It doesn't impress me."

[seeks_truth]

"I am not trying to impress you, it is the truth," Cassandra said flatly, though she was quietly relieved he had stepped away - and it was starting to dawn on her what had just almost happened. "I have been training with the Seekers since I was a child."

[not_every_mage]

"And how old do you think most mages are when they take us in?" Anders asked quietly. (He'd been slightly older than average, but if Cassandra didn't know that he certainly wasn't enlightening her now.) "I've seen child templars and child mages, Cassandra. The mages would win every time."

He felt a throb of relief to be back on this familiar, unresolvable argument. If he'd touched her any more than he already had -- he wasn't sure what would have happened. Nothing that would have been fun for more than a moment, he knew that much. (Though the fun he would have had in that one moment would provide ... fodder for thought for the rest of the day.)

[seeks_truth]

"I am not a Templar," Cassandra said flatly, "And I have faced mages in battle before, as I said. You may be mistaken. Your kind often prefer to prey on the weaker."

She was beginning to lose her temper. It was a relief. Anger, at least, she was well-acquainted with. Though in her relief she may well have given away more than she wanted to.

[not_every_mage]

"Weaker?" Anders repeated, face softening in surprise. "Who's weaker than a mage? There's a whole system to lock us up and remind us we're cursed. You can't fight a few blood mages and think you know everything about us."

Self-righteousness was as familiar to Anders as anger was to Cassandra, and about as comforting.

[seeks_truth]

"Thedas is not made of Templars and mages alone," Cassandra said. "There are many who are weaker, and there are many apostates happy to take advantage of them, to hurt and to kill. That you do not wish to see them does not mean they are not abundant!"

She was angry, yes, and frustrated, also, but the name that was her actual answer to Anders' question did not come so easily to her lips.

[not_every_mage]

"Maybe I'd get to see them if the Chantry would let me bloody go home where I belong," Anders exclaimed, equally frustrated. "And maybe then you'd see the mages who just want to live. Like anyone."

He knew he was picking a fight, but in some ways that dance was easier than ... whatever they'd been doing before.

[seeks_truth]

"You belong in the Circle," Cassandra snapped. "That is home. Perhaps you should make peace with it."

[not_every_mage]

"Maker's breath, I didn't believe that when the senior enchanters said it, and you certainly won't convince me now," Anders told her, equally flat. "How can it be home, when I can't travel, or live on my own, or raise children if I want to, or even walk to the blighted market without a Templar to chaperone me? Do you have no sympathy at all?"