Magic Box, Sunday, 05/10

[not_every_mage]

Anders had picked up that today was a holiday about mothers, and that made it a good day to send a letter that was probably long overdue. He didn't say much in it: That he was safe and happy and far away, that he missed her, that he loved her.

(He wrote that he didn't blame her, scratched it out, and covered the line with a sketch of a flowering vine. It was true, but why even put that possibility in her head?)

Under the vine, he wrote that he slept with the pillow she'd made just about every night of his life. There. That was nicer.

He signed off with his birth name, drew his favorite old tomcat beneath the signature so she'd believe it was him, and dropped the envelope in with the rest of the shop's outgoing mail. He didn't believe the templars were still watching his parents' mail after so long, and even if they were, he doubted anything as impossible as that he'd taken a portal to another universe would occur to them. Let them make themselves crazy trying to track him down in Par Vollen, for all he cared.

And then he went to unpack a shipment of altar tapestries, feeling strangely lighter.

[OOC: Open post, no OCD.]

Comments

[halfbad.livejournal.com]

Nathan hadn't visited Anders at work lately so today, he was pushing open the door and making his way in with a brown paper bag knocking against his thigh as he walked.

"Hey," he said, waving with his free hand.

[not_every_mage]

"Hi," Anders returned, smiling and turning away from his work. This was the best type of excuse to take a break. "What's up?"

[halfbad.livejournal.com]

"Nothing much," he said, wandering closer. "I brought you some lunch if you haven't eaten already. If you have, I'll eat it all."

[not_every_mage]

Anders shook his head. "I hadn't even thought about my lunch break yet," he said, also stepping a bit closer. "So I will happily eat half of whatever you brought. Thanks for thinking of it."

[halfbad.livejournal.com]

"It's a few sandwiches from one of the shops nearby," he said, settling the bag on the counter. "And some potato chips. They smelled good so I bought a few of them."

[not_every_mage]

"Perfect," Anders decided, and leaned toward the bag to see if he could catch its scent himself. "Mmm. And there's water in the back, or I could make tea."

[halfbad.livejournal.com]

"I don't mind either way," Nathan said, shrugging. "Whatever you'd like."

He shook the sandwiches out of the bag followed by the chips until they were in a pile on the counter.

[not_every_mage]

"Water's faster," Anders said, and crammed a few chips into his mouth before padding off to the little fridge in the back office to retrieve two bottles of water, which he put next to the rest of the food.

"There," he said, that errand done. He hovered over the sandwiches for a moment before selecting one. "Now. Lunch. Did you have a good week, by the way?"

[halfbad.livejournal.com]

"It was quiet." Which meant it was good. "My classes are interesting. A little less taxing than last semester. What about yours?"

[not_every_mage]

"Squirrels decided Cassandra and I should do radio together again," Anders said, rolling his eyes. "So that was charming. But I liked my classes. I took another of Bob's classes on magic, and one on running away, and driver's ed."

One of these things may have been slightly less predictable than the other two.

[halfbad.livejournal.com]

"Driver's ed?" Nathan repeated, unwrapping a sandwich. "You're learning to drive now?"

[not_every_mage]

"I know, but it sounded fun," Anders shrugged, a little laugh in his voice. "And they do it in the danger shop, so I can't actually hurt anybody. Probably won't be the least practical thing I learn here."

[halfbad.livejournal.com]

"How did that go?" he asked curiously. "Did you get to sit in a drive and start it?"

[not_every_mage]

"Yeah," Anders said, around a mouthful of turkey and Swiss, before he remembered to swallow. "The teacher wanted us to learn by doing, so he took about five minutes to show us how to start the car and then let us race. I was second in my heat."

His heat of three.

"And I didn't go half as fast as some of the others."

[halfbad.livejournal.com]

"Second!" Nathan said, smiling broadly. "That's good! You didn't crash into anything?"

[not_every_mage]

Anders shook his head. "I almost went off the road, but I fixed it before I ran into anything. Beginner's luck, probably."

[halfbad.livejournal.com]

"Better than I would have done," he chuckled, leaning against the counter. "I probably would have ended up upside down and in a tree despite there being no trees around."

[not_every_mage]

"Maybe the Danger Shop would make there be trees, just for you," Anders suggested, sounding amused by the mental image, and stole a few more chips. "Honestly, nothing that dramatic happened in class. The worst I saw was one of the new ones hit a lamppost."

[halfbad.livejournal.com]

"You don't have cars back home, right?" He wasn't sure if he'd ever asked that. "How do you travel?"

[not_every_mage]

Anders shook his head. "We walk, mainly. Horses if you have the money. And there are oxcarts and things if a lot of people are going a long way. But mostly it's walking."

So, so much walking. At least until the third game.

[halfbad.livejournal.com]

"Daunting," he said, rubbing his thumb along his lip. "But probably normal for your people since you haven't known anything else. Imagine if you somehow got a car over there."

[not_every_mage]

"Normal for us, and most of them don't go very far anyhow," Anders added. "If I got a car over there -- Orzammar and Denerim are at opposite sides, practically, and that's only a few hundred miles. You could cross my whole country in an afternoon."

He smiled, imagining the Fereldan landscape through the window of a car. "Maybe I could convince them a very clever dwarf made it."

[halfbad.livejournal.com]

"The only downfall that I can see is that you'd probably be hunted ruthlessly for it," Nathan said, nodding. "Who wouldn't want something that fast in a place where there is nothing equal to it?"

[not_every_mage]

"There is that," Anders sighed. "I don't suppose there's such a thing as an invisible car, is there? It'd solve so many problems."

[halfbad.livejournal.com]

"Do you know a spell for that?" he wondered. "Can you magic yourself invisible for a time?"