fandomhighdorms | 5th Floor Common Room, Saturday Morning

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5th Floor Common Room, Saturday Morning

Kathy was a zombie this morning.

No, really. After staying out far too late in Baltimore last night, she'd come home with the sun well on its way to being up and flopped down on her bed to catch a few blissful hours of sleep. But apparently something had taken her 'few' at face value and decided that a few was all she needed before being woken up by a phone call informing her that she had a kid.

With Ezra.

Oh god.

A weekend of childcare was not something she could deal as sleep deprived as she was, so after a trip downstairs to make sure she hadn't just dreamed that whole conversation, she'd come back up here to try to make herself functional. Which meant coffee. So much coffee. Ridiculous amounts of coffee to be consumed as quickly as possible. And then also food, because she was starving and there were kids and they'd probably be starving and at least Fandom had had the decency to stock the fridge before inflicting small people on the island?

With a second pot of coffee brewing (she hadn't been kidding about needing her caffeine, okay?), Kathy set to work making a decent amount of breakfast for anyone who'd be interested. Omelettes with various kinds of filling, bacon, and toast would make for a decent breakfast for kids, right? And some hoddeok for dessert because she needed some delicious comfort food that reminded her of home right now.

Home, where she didn't have children.

[Open to kids and students!]

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"They can't -- usually -- but why are we friendly with someone who doesn't like me because I'm a mage?" Anders wondered aloud. "I have better things to do with my time. Like pulling my beard out hair by hair with rusty tweezers."

He'd missed the cause of Kathy's 'WTF' eyebrows. It wasn't that he supported the slavery in Tevinter, but the Imperium was so different from the rest of Thedas that he scarcely gave it much thought.

"Cause he's friends with Auntie Marian and we all do what she says," Carys said solemnly. "Cause she's the Champion. And besides, you like beating him at Wicked Grace in the Hanged Man. It makes you happy when he has to give you money, even though sometimes it's still covered in spider guts and Mommy yells at you about how it smells when you get home."

She pondered that. "You know, Mommy, you never are mad about it when you win."

"I'm sure I wash the spider-guts off before we get back to the house," Kathy assured Carys, a sentence which might top the weirdest ones she'd ever said. "...But can we get back to the bit where Daddy is more concerned about how much he's disliked by someone than the bit where that someone is an escaped slave?"

"Well, the slavery's only in Tevinter," Anders shrugged, still not quite grasping Kathy's concern. "It's been outlawed in the rest of Thedas for nearly a thousand years, since Andrase brought down the Imperium. I'm not a fan of it either, but it doesn't give whoever this Fen- person is the right to be an anti-mage bigot. It's not as though she said he doesn't like me because I'm better at cards than he is."

He wanted to hear more about the part where he was hanging around with a Champion.

"Gee, I don't know, maybe he's bitter because he's an escaped slave," Kathy pointed out. She didn't even have to know anything about the history of the Imperium to be able to figure that out. "And I'd be careful about throwing about the b-word, mister, considering it's something I apparently have to talk to you about, too."

Carys didn't seem to be all that fussed about her parents sudden turn towards arguing. She just sat next to them, quietly humming to herself.

"So you're judging me based on what a five-year-old says?" Anders asked incredulously. "How fair is that? And he can be bitter about Tevinter all he likes. It doesn't change how bad things are for mages in the rest of Thedas and anyone with any sense would see that."

Said the bitter person.

"Oh, because she magically pulled the word 'bigot' out of thin air!" Kathy snapped, throwing her hands in the air. "That's a normal part of every five-year-old's vocabulary. And it's not like there's a gold medal for the Oppression Olympics! Things can suck for both sets of people!"

"Are you gonna start kissing soon?" Carys asked, with the world-weariness of someone who has seen this play out a million times already in her short life. "I want another hoddoek."

Anders had been about to launch into a rant about how Kathy had never even met an elf, let alone set foot in Thedas, and was possibly not the best-qualified person to start lecturing him on the social dynamics of the world he'd grown up in, but Carys's question brought him back to reality. So he glared at Kathy for a second before shifting his attention to the girl.

Apparently, in between the fighting, they kissed enough to make the most beautiful little girl in the world. So that was something.

"We don't do that yet," he said. "But if you want more breakfast, I could probably manage something. Are their hodoeks left over or should I try to make one?"

"I'd love to see you make one," Kathy grumbled in response to that glare. "Breakfast and a show, sounds like a good time."

And then instantly felt guilty for it. Regardless of what she and Anders believed, they had no right to make a little girl watch her parents fight.

"I'm sorry, sweetie," she said, drawing Carys into a hug. "We shouldn't have argued in front of you. We're not mad, though, I promise. Not at you or each other."

Aggravated, maybe, but not mad. Anders was just wrong, that's all.

Carys rolled her eyes and shrugged out of the hug, far more interested in what her dad was doing with the hoddeok. "It's okay," she said. "You fight a lot at home. Auntie Isabela used to call it four-playing until you and Daddy yelled at her."

For incomprehensible grownup reasons, of course.

"Uncle Varric says that nothing can beat the fights you had about Andraste when I was born. He says that Miss Merrill nearly cried sometimes and Mister Sebastian still hasn't forgiven you for saying no."

Anders had just about figured out that the bowl of dough was probably involved in making a hoddoek somehow, but he wouldn't give Kathy the satisfaction of seeing he had no idea what came next. All his phone had told him so far was that it was not spelled "haddock."

"Right," he said as he looked up, running a hand through his hair. Because Kathy wasn't Andrastian, and he doubted she wanted her daughter to be, and ... he was momentarily jealous of his older self who had all of this more or less settled. (Also, wasn't Varric a dwarven name? What kind of company were they keeping?) "Well, we aren't quite there yet, but it must have turned out all right in the end. You're here."

Weird how Kathy would want their daughter to be raised in a religion that didn't oppress and persecute her for abilities beyond her control. So weird!

"Your Dad's right," Kathy said, lifting Carys up and setting her down on the counter so they could watch Anders 'cook' together. "The most important thing is that we always say sarang-hae, right?"

"Sarang-haeyo!" Carys said, giving them both a warm and happy smile. Frequent bickering or not, their other selves had managed to raise a bright and happy child, filled with curiosity and excitement about the world, even with all the forces arrayed against them. "Sarang-haeyo, Daddy!"

And, contrariwise, weird how Anders wasn't going to give up the good things about the faith he'd been raised in because the humans in charge at the moment were proper arseholes!

That was an argument for another day, and perhaps one it was for the best they'd never have in earnest.

"Saraeng-hae, Carys," he returned, and then -- a bit more sheepishly -- "And saraeng-hae, Kathy." He didn't mean it quite the way his other self did, but he figured it was true enough for the moment.

He found a website on making hoddeok that made some sense to him,then -- after reading for a moment -- dug his long, clever fingers into the bowl of dough, frowning in concentration as he rolled out a ball for the pancake. He glanced at Kathy every few seconds, hoping she'd signal if he got it wrong.

"Sarang-hae, Anders," Kathy replied, giving him an understanding smile. No, they might not mean it entirely the same way, but what they had was good enough for them. She nodded in encouragement, letting him know he was doing it fine, and nudged a small bowl of flour his way, surreptitiously pointing to the cutting board.

"This is a good way to end a fight," she added, turning to include Carys in the conversation, too. "Saying 'I love you' and then having delicious treats. I should make a habit of trying this more often."

Carys, hand hovering over the bowl of sugared walnuts and cheeks bulging slightly, froze in place at being spotted by her mother.

"Don't steal too many of those, nugbreath," Anders teased with a grin, shifting the ball of dough to the cutting board and awkwardly shaping it to hold the filling. "There won't be anything left for the pancake if you do."

This really was an excellent way to end an argument.

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5th Floor Common Room, Saturday Morning

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