DA:O - Jowan's Shame

To Jowan's shame, the Warden never failed to look him in the eye when they spoke.  It was more than anyone else in the castle would do, that mere human contact.  What few of Redcliffe's defenders remained alive, all men he had so recently stood beside when the Warden left on his desperate journey to the Circle tower, supplicated and cajoled fought for when the demon overcame the boy once more and so many of the men's minds ceased to be their own, had returned to being his jailors.  None of them could look at him now, men he knew by name and by peril, their fear, disgust or shame written in their averted eyes when they passed his meals between the bars of his cell.  When he spoke to them, asked them what news of the Warden, many cursed him.  Some did not reply at all.  Only one, a knight whose courtesy overcame his revulsion, would answer him honestly.  

Information trickled in by bits and pieces, painfully slowly for a man who spent his days in darkness and isolation with little else to occupy his mind.  There had been rumors of the Warden's appearance in Denerim, the soldier told him.  Soon after a family of traders boasted that they'd helped the Warden and his allies liberate a former stronghold of the Grey from demons. Then, word of the Warden and his party encountered travelling along the northern highway, to the west.   A rumor was spreading that he'd killed a whole regiment of Loghain's men.  He'd saved a refugee caravan from the Darkspawn, they said.  One of his strange companions, a giant of the Qunari, had been spotted buying supplies at a town in the foothills of the Frostback mountains.  Then for a long time, no word, no sign.  Jowan always thanked the knight, for the news but also for being kind enough to speak to him at all.

Jowan did not ask about the Arl.  If Eamon's health failed, he would know soon enough.

Left alone for the vast bulk of each day in his small cell, he could not avoid returning over and over again to the same subjects in his thoughts.  Foremost was Lily.  Always… Lily.  But that hurt more than anything else, made his heart feel like it had burned away to dull ashes.  Jowan tried not to think about Lily anymore.  He'd grown far too weary for tears.  

Instead he lingered upon all of the stupid decisions he'd made these past months and years, the things he'd done out of fear and pride, turning them over in his mind and watching as guilt and self-loathing flooded out from underneath like ants from under a flagstone.  Over and over again his fingers traced the ragged scars on his palms, never properly healed.  He thought about the way Tobiah looked at him, before his departure to seek the Urn.   "I'll see you through this, Jowan," he'd said with such finality, such conviction the last time they spoke.  The two mages clasped arms together between the bars, firmly and with lingering regret; a gesture of brotherhood.  To Jowan his own grip felt false, as much a comforting lie for the sake of a friend as he felt certain was the promise that tumbled unbidden from Tobiah, but with amazement (and to some small degree, dismay), when Jowan met that grey gaze he knew that there was truly no condemnation to be found within, however well deserved.  There was pity for him there (and it hurt to know that he was pitiful, that he had lain himself so low), but beyond it he only saw a kind of passionate sincerity that he did not understand.  Tobiah remained a puzzle, just as he always had been.  Totally guileless, yet somehow equally unfathomable.

Only later in the long solitude that followed, in the time that Jowan had to think and think and do nothing else, did he distinguish the mysterious quality in Tobiah's expression that had baffled him since the first moment they'd stared back at one another in shock through the door of his cell.   It was a realization that unsettled Jowan deeply upon its arrival.  All this time, had it been loyalty he still saw in his old friend?  It was difficult to deny, once recognized.  Honest, fierce, unrelenting loyalty.  After all that had happened between them, for the Maker's sake why?  He didn't deserve it, couldn't even begin to understand.  

It felt like whole months dragged by in waiting before one day (or night, he never knew) his kindly disposed jailor appeared at his cell door to murmur, "The Wardens have returned."  Jowan gripped the bars as the knight strode away, his knees threatening to buckle under a wave of dread.  He thought he had prepared himself for this, but apparently no amount of waiting could have been enough.  He had even thought himself ready to face whatever sentence awaited him… was it facing death, though, that frightened him so badly?  Or was it facing his friend?

He waited.

Tobiah arrived alone.  Jowan hadn't been able to rest during his anxious vigil, even to sit, alternating between pacing and propping himself against the bars for… how long he did not know, yet the moment he got a good look at him Jowan had the strange feeling that the other mage was so much more tired than he.  The Grey Warden looked, pale, drawn, uncertain, the very mirror of how Jowan felt.  Jowan's heart turned to lead at the recognition of what it must mean.  So that was how it would be.  For a little while, neither of them said anything.

"It's good to see you, Jowan," said the Warden finally.  He smiled halfheartedly, forlorn and defeated.

"You too."  To his relief, Jowan found that he meant it.  He leaned his forehead against the cold iron bars, closing his eyes.  He felt stupid, inadequate, but what else was there to say?  After a moment he felt Tobiah's hand on his upper arm.  Bracing.

"We found the Urn.  It was all true… the ashes are real.  Arl Eamon woke only a few hours ago."  He paused, and it was clear that much in that moment was going unsaid.  "Jowan, I am so sorry."

Jowan opened his eyes and saw his friend's anguish as well as heard it, etched into the lines of his face.  Tobiah's hand clenched harder around the bloodmage's wasted bicep.  "This wasn't your fault.  You were deceived.  I won't-" his voice broke and he only stared back at Jowan for a few seconds, two pairs of grey eyes meeting each other and knowing.  "I won't allow this."

Jowan slowly began to shake his head, stepping back from the cell bars.  "Please don't tell me this isn't my fault, Tobiah.  It is.  I played my part, like a fool, and I'll accept responsibility for it."

"They're asking me to decide," pleaded Tobiah, his hand slipping helplessly through the bars and to his side.  "You're to be executed here, or sent to the Circle.  What kind of choice is that?"

Jowan suppressed his shudder.  They both knew what a return to the tower really meant.  He was a known malificar, and Templars had never been forgiving of bloodmages; now, after what had happened in the tower so recently, he doubted that his end there would be merciful.  Or perhaps if they were feeling particularly cruel, he would be made Tranquil.  That they might do to him the very thing that compelled him to flee in the first place, to ruin his life and Lily's in the process (even Tobiah's, he thought bitterly, for what had happened to him these past months to make him look so much older, so tired?)  was an horrible irony.  Then again… after everything that had happened, wouldn't it be better not to care?

"It doesn't have to happen," Tobiah broke into his thoughts, unable to wait any longer for a word, a reaction.  "Leliana- a friend.   She's waiting by the stairs.  She thinks she can pick the lock."  He swallowed, hands clenching.  "She'd do it for me.  All I have to do is call for her, and we can get you out of here.  The Arl and the Bann will be angry, but…"

His voice cracked, and Tobiah looked at Jowan imploringly.  "Jowan, please, don't make me stand by and let them murder my best friend."

Jowan stared back at his friend, the esteemed Warden, and realized that somehow he wanted to do as Tobiah said more for the other man's sake than his own.  It so defied Tobiah's nature to even offer this escape that the gesture itself astonished Jowan.  A pious follower of the Chant his whole life, a resolute abider of rules, a boy who had always avoided trouble as though it might carry a plague… and now he would set a bloodmage free for the sake of a friendship that Jowan had done everything in his power to ruin?  He still couldn't comprehend the man's devotion, but although he did not deserve it, he was so overwhelmed by gratitude that he found himself gaping and unable for a second to speak.

Yet despite Tobiah's best intentions, it was all for naught.  He was so impossibly tired, weakened by his time in the dungeon and the lingering memory of Lady Isolde's prescribed torture.  If he had to go on the run now… he didn't think he'd make it five steps out the door.  He hadn't even been able to make it more than a few days the first time he tried, captured despite destroying his own phylactery!  Wouldn't it only be worse to allow himself to believe he could be free, to give himself more false hope?  With an aching certainty, Jowan knew he couldn't hide from the Chantry forever.  Running would only delay briefly an end made all the more ignoble by cowardice.  Yet how did he explain that to the man trying to save his life?  How could he tell his only friend that he was ready to lay down and die?  

"I can't, Tobiah.  Tell them," he smiled gently, already steeling himself against the desperation in the mage's eyes, "that the Circle can decide my punishment."

"No!  Jowan-"

"Please, just listen."  He implored weakly, slumping against the frigid stone wall.  "It's… the right thing to do.  I've hurt a lot of people, you can't look at me and honestly tell me I haven't.  In the end I couldn't really even help fix any of the problems I caused, and you know what?  Thank the Maker you didn't let me!  I would only have made things worse."  He glanced away, unable to bear the wounded expression on the other mage's face.   

"It feels right, in a way.  I still have a lot to atone for.  I didn't believe it before, but blood magic- it really is evil.  Look at all that's happened just because I learned a little.  They'd never have sent Lily to Aeonar if I hadn't been so stupid.  They might not even have suspected that we were together.  Whatever they do to me, if that's the penalty for being a malificar, I deserve it."

Tobiah shook his head stubbornly, angrily, mouth pressed into a thin line.  The anger was a stranger sight than anything yet, foreign on the features of a young man who always seemed so polite, so meek.  "Don't believe that.  Don't.  Terrible things can happen despite the best of intentions, we both know that, and it isn't evil to hurt people by accident!  Our magic isn't what defines mages as people, no matter what we're told.  Surely a mage can't be damned… just for the magic he uses."  Tobiah stopped himself and tried to regain his composure.  He raised his scruffy chin and stared Jowan down from beneath his hood, defiant.  "You're not a bad person because you've made some bad choices, Jowan.  You don't deserve what they would do to you. "  He closed his eyes tightly.  "You're a bloodmage, but- Andraste's sake, you're not a monster."

Baffled, Jowan had no idea what to make of Tobiah's passionate change of heart.  He could still remember the matching horror in Lily and Tobiah's expressions after he'd unleashed blood magic in the tower, that unbearable moment when he'd turned back to the people he'd meant to defend only to realize that in a single act of foolish desperation he'd lost the faith of both.  Jowan had never been very religious himself, at least not until Lily, but even in his ignorance he detected the hint of sacrilege seeping up through his friend's words.  He'd been shocked that Tobiah would even speak to him, when next they came face to face; he was grateful enough for that alone, and had never expected (nor wanted) to hear his pious childhood friend speak in such ardent defense of his sins.  "Tobiah," Jowan said, hesitating.  "I know what you're trying to do for me, and I'm... I'm honored that you care enough to give me the chance.  Really, I am.  But you have to understand, there's nothing else left for me to do to make this right."

It was a little surreal; here he was doing his honest best to get himself killed, yet he found himself far more concerned about his friend.  He added uncertainly, "You don't even sound like yourself, Toby.  Is it that bad out there?  What's… happened to you?"

"I don't even know," Tobiah murmured weakly.  "I didn't even want to be a Grey Warden, and now- there are only two of us, and we have to do so much.  I've done things that I…"  He looked for a moment as though he meant to confess far more, but the haunted look that lingered on his face hardened quickly and withered away.   "This isn't about me: it's about what's going to happen to you if you won't leave.  They'll kill you, Jowan!"

Jowan shook his head with perfect finality.  "They can do whatever they like with me.  I'm ready."  He looked up, searching Tobiah's expression with concern.  "Honestly, the thought of being done with all of this is such a relief, I think I'm looking forward to it.  Right now, I guess I'm more worried about you."

At that the Warden seemed speechless.  He crumbled, a dam breaking somewhere inside, exhaustion and disappointment washing over him visibly.  Tobiah pulled off his hood, running a hand through brown hair plastered to his skull from stress and sweat and being too long on the road without a bath.  "So you're serious?" he asked, trying to look dispassionate but belied by the pain in his eyes.  "If you insist, I'll tell them."

"I do."

Tobiah only nodded, eyes flickering to the floor.

Jowan didn't know what else to say.  There was only one thing that still seemed important.  He pressed himself to the bars, reaching through with one hand outstretched imploringly.  "Can you forgive me?"

His dearest friend did not hesitate, grasping the proffered hand in both of his own, each man crushing the other's fingers with trembling sincerity.  "Maker's breath, Jowan.  I should be the one asking you that."  

All that seemed to remain was to find some way to say goodbye.  They lingered, watching one-another in silent dread.

"I'll miss you," Tobiah managed finally, his voice thick.

Jowan smiled from the shadows of his cell, more touched by his friend's words than he could find a way to express.  "Like I'm sure you miss my snoring from the top bunk?" he joked feebly, desperate to cut the tension.   "You'd better go, Toby.  I heard something about how you're going to save the world, and I wouldn't want to keep you."

Tobiah smiled back dutifully, but in his eyes there was only regret.  "I'm not sure where they got these funny notions about me saving anything.  I don't… seem to be very good at it."  He withdrew his hands with great reluctance.  They trembled.  "Goodbye, Jowan."

"Good luck," Jowan replied softly.  He watched his only friend turn hesitantly and walk away, the weight of the world on the Warden's shoulders, and felt dim horror dawning within him.  In the moment their hands parted he'd glimpsed something he could only pray he'd imagined; maybe it was a trick of the shadows in this dank place, or of an unbalanced mind, but…

Tobiah's palms bore far more scars than his own.