#she couldn't understand how someone everyone praised who was so powerful and fun and easygoing

[spainkitty]

Why Can't You Be Happy?

Pre-DA:I/Pre-DA:O

I headcanon my Lanil Lavellan as formerly Lanil Surana. So I realized: why not write a little from her time in the Ferelden Circle, mostly so I can think about what was her relationship with Anders like? Based on WOT canon(?), he's around 30-32 at the beginning of DA2!?! So I'm going off that idea for his age. Surana is 18 for her Harrowing in my 'verse, so there's a good 12 year age difference. No. Romance. Here. Purely platonic, hints at a sibling-like affection for the future.

Lanil's Pieces Masterlist

“Why can’t you just be happy here?”

The words whipped through the air, blunt and forceful, but without heat.

The older mage, an actual mage not an apprentice like her, jerked around. For a mere second, she saw the glare, the fury, but when their eyes met he was smirking, eyebrow quirked, ready with one of his infamous quips.

She liked the anger better. Anger she understood. Whatever the smirk meant, that she didn’t understand in the least.

Instead of lashing out as expected, the mage froze. Both eyebrows rose almost to his hairline. Which was impressive with a forehead that big.

“I know you. Surana, right?”

“Lanil. You’re Anders.”

“The one and only.”

She propped her fists on her hips, legs braced wide and elbows akimbo. His smirk returned but it was softer, more like a smile. He moved to face her more fully, crisscrossing his legs and propping his elbows on his knees. He’d been perched on this windowseat for hours and hours, ever since he’d left the solitary room that morning. It was the only windowseat in the entire library, so of course he’d taken it even though he didn’t have a single book or scroll with him. A few times, other mages and apprentices had started to come over with arms full of books, but had realized who was sitting there, and discreetly turned away. Lanil was tired of the silence. Of no one saying anything. Absolutely useless.

“Well? Aren’t you going to answer me?” she demanded, stomping a foot. And immediately regretted it. Stefani said only little babies threw temper tantrums.

“You’ll have to repeat the question. I was distracted by the scowl,” he said. Teased.

Rude.

Lanil scowled harder.

“It’s a wonder I’m not already on fire, with a scowl like that on a baby mage like you,” Anders said, still teasing her.

“I have excellent control. Wynne says I’m a prodigy,” Lanil retorted, chin rising proudly. A frown flickered over Anders’ face.

“She said the same about me once. Let’s hope you don’t end up the same as me,” he muttered. His gaze dropped to the floor, his shoulders slumping.

“You wouldn’t be so sad if you would just be happy here,” Lanil said, and then frowned. That didn’t make as much sense out loud as it did in her head, and Anders was chuckling at her. “Well, I’m right. This is our home. We can learn all the magic we want, we have food to eat every day, and nice beds and clothes, and we’re family. We’re never alone. Why can’t you be happy here?”

Something odd happened to her voice. It twisted and pitched upwards and her nose stung. She rubbed at it with her fist and scowled at her slippers peeking out from under the skirt of her robe. He remained silent and so did she. She also fervently wished she’d never come over here. It was as useless as everyone saying nothing at all.

“How old are you, Lanil?”

“Twelve,” she whispered.

“You came here… it was six years ago, wasn’t it? It wasn’t long after my Harrowing.” She nodded. “Don’t you remember your real family?”

“This is my real family!” she shouted, hands balled in fists at her sides.

“Okay, okay, I hear you, Laney,” Anders said quickly, half-scrambling from his seat and raising both hands in surrender.

Lanil grimaced at him. “Laney?”

“What? It’s cute like you. Under all that frowning, there’s a cute little girl in there,” Anders said, ruffling her short ivory hair.

She kept on scowling, but her face was heating, her mouth pulling upwards. No one ever called her ‘cute’. Stefani, though, with her honey-blonde hair and big brown eyes and wide smiles, she was the cute one. Some of the older human apprentices would tug at her ears and call her ‘batty’. That was the closest it got to a compliment on her looks, and only because she thought bats were cute and ignored the obvious sneering. She climbed onto the windowseat next to Anders and pulled her legs close to her chest, arms wrapped around her shins, chin on her knees. After a moment, he resettled on the seat next to her, one leg hanging off the edge and the other crossed and tucked under the opposite knee.

“I don’t remember them,” she muttered. “Not much.”

“What do you remember?”

She screwed up her mouth and her nose scrunched. “I remember… a woman singing. My mother, I guess. She sang to me while brushing my hair, when it was longer. It wasn’t… I think she sang in Elven.” She tugged at the short spiky fringe falling into her eyes, probably the longest her hair got these days.

“That sounds nice. My mother sang often, too.”

Lanil shrugged. “I don’t really remember the words. I remember… the smells, I remember those better. Sometimes the cooks make something and it’s like I’m back there. It was small, and dirty, and I was hungry. That’s what I remember more than anything, being hungry. That and someone crying and crying. And sometimes a man shouting. Why would I want to remember more? It’s better here. I’m not hungry or sad or dirty.”

“That’s… true,” Anders said softly. “But there’s no one to sing to you, either. You’ll never remember those words now.”

Her fingers dug into the thick cloth of her robes, curling, uncurling, kneading like a cat with none of the contentment.

“I was twelve when I came here. I remember my mother, my home town, my home.” Anders said. He leaned back and his head bumped the wall behind him. He turned to the window and stared out into the blue summer sky and the iron-grey lake, to the distant shore and maybe farther. All the way to that home that was better than Kinloch Hold.

“What was it like?”

Anders smiled. “Fun. For a long time, it was fun. Happy. My mother loved to sew, she made me clothes and always added these pretty little embroideries on everything. Flowers, bees, cats, horses, you name it, she could embroider it. It used to be a game for me and my father. Finding what Ma had hidden somewhere on our shirts or trousers. One time she made a giant pink and purple butterfly on my pa’s smallclothes, right on his butt cheek.”

Lanil burst into giggles, smothering it against her knees.

“My father wanted me to be a farmer like him, and I liked it well enough. I like animals, I like making things grow, but all I really cared about was playing with my friends. Then, suddenly, between one day and the next, I was a mage. My father was scared of me, hated me, and my mother begged him over and over not to say anything. But he went to the Templars anyway. They put me in chains, dragged me away screaming while my mother cried,” Anders said. He broke off with a scoff, but Lanil could see how his eyes gleamed. “It was so pathetic they let me take something from her. A pillow she’d made for me.”

“A pillow?” Lanil asked quietly. She had nothing from the Alienage; she wanted nothing from there. She chose to keep her hair cut short. The first time someone had tried to make her brush her hair that first year here, she screamed and screamed until she set the hairbrush on fire. It was better not to bother with it.

“Yes. It’s a small thing. I could carry it myself even with the manacles,” he told her, dryly. “Probably why they allowed it.”

“Did it have a butterfly, too?”

“No. Cats, dozens of cats running or sleeping or prancing around,” Anders said, laughing a little. “I’ve always loved cats. Maybe the pillow came first, or maybe my love of cats. I’ll show it to you one day.”

“I like dogs better.”

He recoiled, his hand pressed to his chest, his eyes rolling back. “I have been wounded. Dear Andraste, save this girl’s soul. She prefers dogs.”

“Andraste had a mabari. She prefers dogs, too,” Lanil said, but she was grinning at him. He was so ridiculous.

“Uh uh, she may have had a warhound for her little revolution,” Lanil snorted at ‘little revolution’, “but there’s no Chant about her not liking cats. I’m sure she had the good taste to have plenty of happily vicious mousers in her war train.”

“Like Mr. Wiggums?”

His brown eyes lit up as he beamed. “Exactly like Mr. Wiggums. I didn’t think anyone else called him that.”

“Everyone does now. He didn’t have a name before.”

“I’m sure Mr. Wiggums will more than earn his name. He’s got the makings of greatness, I can tell,” Anders said. Lanil shook her head, but she wanted to smile. “So do you.”

“Me?”

“Wynne did say you’re a prodigy, didn’t she?” Anders reached out and placed a hand on her head. This was the most physical affection she'd ever had. Only Stef ever hugged her or held her hand, and sometimes they shared the same bed. It was... nice. “You’ll be a great mage one day. Exactly the kind the Chantry wants.”

Even though Lanil felt her heart swelling, pride lifting her chin, she couldn’t help scowling. That last bit, those last few words… sounded so sad.

“You’re a great mage already,” she said slowly. Anders’ eyebrow rose. “I’ve heard Wynne talk about your Healing, and First Enchanter talks on and on about you. Even the Templars like you and laugh at your jokes.”

Anders glanced away, back to the outside view. His jaw looked tight. His mouth pulled down even tighter.

“You still haven’t told me why you can’t be happy here,” she added mulishly. And she realized she wanted him to be happy here. She wanted him to ruffle her hair and tease her and praise her magic, too. Like everyone else in Kinloch, she couldn’t help but like him.

“Haven’t I?”

“I don’t like it when people answer questions with questions,” Lanil muttered, scowling. “It’s annoying.”

Anders smirked. “For someone who wants me to be happy, you’re not exactly happy yourself.”

“Of course I am.”

“And yet, this was one of the only times I’ve ever heard you laugh. I almost never see you smile.”

“I’m not going to laugh at everything like an idiot,” Lanil snapped at him, her face heating.

“Everyone needs a job, and I do fill the role of fool so well,” he said breezily.

“You don’t have to. You don’t have to be a fool,” Lanil said vehemently.

“Sometimes only fools survive.” Anders’ smile looked fake and she hated it. “I hope you survive, too. I wish we all could live. Fools and forceful little bullies like you.”

“’m not a bully.” She scowled and wondered why he said 'live' like that. Like it was something he could only dream of, not something he was doing right now.

“Wouldn’t it be great if we could do whatever we wanted? Jump in the lake and swim on a beautiful summer’s day, or play with as many cats or dogs as we wanted… or sit still and listen to our mothers sing while they brush our hair…” Anders trailed off. Again, he was staring outside.

Lanil watched his face. Watched as his false smile fell until there was nothing in his expression at all. His brown eyes, so lively and golden-hued, became flat and dull. Shadows as deep and dark as bruises under his eyes, his complexion already shades and shades lighter than her own now the color of ash and milk. His cheeks looked hollow, almost gaunt. It made her remember those blurry memories of hunger in a dirty little room where that woman cried and the man shouted. How many days had his solitary been this time?

As if he could feel her intense stare, Anders inhaled with a breath that shuddered. He broke his own gaze on the horizon and turned to her. His smirk came back, small but genuine, and it made Lanil’s chest expand, as if she hadn’t been breathing properly during that silence.

“Well, Laney--”

“Don’t call me Laney.”

“--if you really want me to be happy, there’s only one thing for it.” Anders stretched his long, long legs out over the floor. Then, he stood and stretched his arms high over his head. One day she’d be that tall. If he wouldn’t keep running away, she’d have a chance to ask him how to do it.

“What one thing?” she asked, suspiciously.

“Cookies. That’s what I need.”

Lanil blinked. “Cookies?”

“Stolen cookies.”

“Aren’t you too old to be stealing cookies?” Lanil said with a frown. Anders covered his eyes with a hand, swooning back against the wall.

“Old, she calls me. Old. I’m twenty-four, you little brat. Aren’t you too young to have the face of a hag?”

Lanil grinned. “At least my forehead isn’t bigger than a slate.”

“It is not!”

Lanil uncurled from the seat and grabbed his hand. “C’mon. Stef is the best sneak-thief. She’ll help us steal cookies.”

“Another brat ready to make fun of me, I assume?” But he let her lead him by the hand and was only a little stooped doing so.

“Yup.”

He sighed behind her.