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The rules of 'Truth, Dare, Drink' were both simple and sacrosant: you picked truth or dare, your companions gave you one or other, and if you chose to default on it you took a drink. The Amaranthine Wardens had an additional rule that if you agreed to a dare but didn't complete it you owed the darer ten silvers. It was an effective incentive.
Mhairi had drank the most so far, and despite her magnificent muscles she didn't have an excess of constitution like Sigrun. The beer-- or more accurately, her ritewine concotion-- was starting to affect her visibly. In terms of getting people drunk enough to harmlessly laugh at, she was the obvious choice.
However, for her own inscrutable reasons, Sigrun had decided to pick on Anders instead. "What d'you say, human?" She grinned at him from the other side of their little drinking circle around the fire. Light flickered across her tattoos, thinning her face into a skull. It made the expression more alarming than she probably intended.
Luckily Anders was too drunk to be afraid. He squinted at the stars in thought. “It can’t be any worse than the ogre,” he reasoned out loud, the moonshine numbing his tongue.
“That’s the spirit!” Sigrun crowed. She raised her own bottle to him in a toast.
Mhairi groaned at the pun and wrinkled her nose . "Must we involve him in this?" The group's resident warriors, her and Justice were on surprisingly good terms. Anders would say they were similar sticks in the mud.
Sigrun just laughed. " Yes we do."
“Right,” Anders said decisively. He shuffled a disgruntled Ser Pounce-A-Lot off his lap with an apologetic pat, and stood, only swaying a little. “I’ll be back, ladies.”
At Sigrun’s wolf-whistle he grinned, doing his best to give a good view of his backside in the new armour as he walked towards Justice.
The spirit in question sat at the edge of the campsite, back ramrod straight, on a felled tree trunk. He was watching the forest with rapt attention. He wasn’t even on watch, he just liked studying nature. Something for everyone, Anders supposed. The dead flesh on Justice's face gleamed strangely in the moonlight filtering down on them. The giant sword that Commander Surana had said was made of star-metal gleamed, rather more prettily, across his back.
All in all he made an imposing figure, even when you knew he didn't understand what cats were.
It wouldn’t do to startle the man. Well, not man. Spirit. Anders coughed into his fist. “Justice?”
The spirit’s eyes flickered as if he was waking up. He turned towards Anders and raised his eyebrows. (Kristoff's? His.) “Can I be of assistance?”
Anders wet his lips, inhaled, and abruptly couldn't find anything to say.
It had only been a short walk here from the campfire, but he felt uncomfortably sober. The stillness and darkness of the night sat waiting. The others were far away enough that he couldn’t hear their voices over the brawny Fereldan crickets singing around him. It was, frankly, almost romantic. They were standing in a puddle of moonlight, for Andraste’s sacred stockings’ sake.
“If you’re going to ask me something, then do so,” Justice said after he stood like an idiot for a few seconds. “Otherwise please leave me in peace.”
“Well,” Anders tried again. What had seemed like a good joke was rapidly transmuting into a bad idea. He could just go back to the campfire--
No, no , damnit. He was a coward and he’d freely admit to that, but he wasn't a man who’d go back on a dare once fairly agreed to. He had some honour.
Besides, Anders reasoned to himself, he wasn’t sober, no matter how abominably right-thinking he felt at the moment. If this went pear-shaped he would simply blame Sigrun and the alcohol and never speak to the spirit again. There. Plan made.
“Well-- can I kiss you?” His heart was beating unnecessarily hard. Annoying thing.
That was, he thought with mild amusement, the first time he’d ever seen Justice speechless.
Justice recovered after a moment, resuming his ramrod posture from when he’d pulled back in-- surprise? Disgust? Surprise. He turned away with a roll of his corpse-grey eyes. “Your jest is uninteresting.”
An academic part of Anders, one that'd actually paid attention in Enchanter Sylvia’s lectures on the mind and soul, wondered if he was seeing the spirit’s own mannerisms or some echo of Kristoff's, and how one would differentiate from the other.
Outwardly he tried for levity. “You recognize pranks now, impressive! But no, this isn’t a joke.”
“Really.”
“Really!” He gave his most winning smile.
It only faltered a little when Justice turned back to him, something difficult to determine in his face. “... you know this body I inhabit is dead, yes?”
“Yes, I can see that. And smell it.” Anders said. Then, remembering he was meant to be convincing him to a snog, he added, “Not that the rest of us are much better after the bullfrog swamp yesterday. I still have some algae sticking--”
“I mean to say it can’t possibly be attractive to you,” Justice interrupted.
“Oh, Maker’s blood, no.” Anders had heard jokes about the necromancers from Nevarra, everyone had, but he’d go back to actively never thinking about that, thanks. “It was Sigrun’s idea. We’re... we're making bets.”
“I see,” Justice deadpanned. “And you’ve seen fit to involve me in your amusements.” His mouth twisted.
“Not if you’re not onboard with it!” Anders threw up his hands. “Look, I can see this is a bad deal, I’ll be on my way.” He’d have to take the hit to his coinpurse-- thankfully the literal one, because Sigrun could throw a punch -- but that was better than being stuck in this bog of a conversation. Why were his ears burning?
Anger flared in his chest and he shoved it down instinctively, his smile getting sharper than it had to be. What a waste of his time.
Justice, the spoilsport, put his hand to his forehead and sighed.
A second afterwards, though, the spirit spoke. “Anders. Wait.”
He froze. A series of unpleasant creaks and pops sounded as Justice stood behind him.
Anders turned back. The moonshine had returned with a vengeance and his pulse was now thudding in his temples. “Hmm?”
“You are certain?” Justice asked. He was frowning slightly but seemed less annoyed than before. His eyes were focused on Anders' own.
He was about as tall as Anders. Or, Kristoff had been. It was useful when they orbited each other during fights, since spells or arrows that ricocheted towards him would be caught by Justice’s ridiculous armour. Whenever he fought alongside Sigrun (obviously) or Mhairi, projectiles had a chance of sailing over them to spike Anders directly in his face. He put a lot of effort into that face, thank you. Scars were only dashing up to a certain point.
Apart from his rapidly spiraling thoughts, his mouth was going on without him. “It’s fair game, isn’t it? Yes, I’m certain.”
“I see.” Justice stepped forwards, then, until they were approximately kissing distance apart, and gestured to his face. “In that case I am as well. Do as you must.”
Success! He grinned, glad to be getting headway, but the triumph faded quickly for another feeling: worry. “I don’t must,” he said, then shook his head as if it’d jar his speech back into place. “I mean, I don’t have to. Nor do you.”
Why this seemed so urgent to make clear to the spirit, he had no idea. He remembered, rather suddenly, that Kristoff had been married.
Justice’s smile was grotesque in the fancy art version of the word and the normal one. “I realize that, Anders.”
“Alright, well. Hold still." He leaned forwards, tilting his head sideways to avoid any awkward nose clashes, and planted one right on Justice’s cold lips. (To his surprise the spirit didn't move away at the last second.)
It was different from the other men and women he’d kissed, even aside from the obvious. They were both still. He’d shut his eyes on instinct, and he could feel with unnerving clarity how Justice didn’t actually breathe.
Still ranked above the ogre, though, Anders reasoned. For one thing, human-shaped mouth. For another, much less likely to kill him.
There was also... it was hard to explain. (Oh, it’s hard alright, a voice crowed in the back of his mind. He’d save that for later.) It was a buzz, he thought, but the good kind, more like air crackling after a storm or primal magic coursing through you than when you were sitting on a stump that turned out to be full of bees. It started in Justice and prickled pleasantly over Anders’ skin. It felt like-- like mana swirling in his veins, to his hands, out into the world. Brightness behind his eyes. A flickering in his chest.
He shifted slightly and Justice followed him, just light pressure and the wellspring of magic. Not even of magic, Anders realized a little distantly; of the Fade. The etherea itself. He was genuinely kissing a spirit, an entity formed by the Maker Himself before the beginning of the world.
Something cool and still touched his jaw, and he startled, breaking away.
When he did he immediately retreated a couple steps, the world rushing back to him along with a significant sense of awkwardness. He’d, uh. He'd lost track of that a bit.
Justice stood facing him, lowering his hand back to his side-- oh. He’d been about to hold Anders’ face. That was... something. Tender, even, in any other circumstance. It must be a move he remembered from Kristoff, or that Kristoff’s memories had given him.
Regardless, the spirit looked surprised. Uncertain? Probably surprised. He wasn’t looking Anders in the eye, which was fair enough.
“Well!” Anders said brightly. “Thanks, Justice.” His head was in a bit of a state. He was, he realized, panicking a little. Flames and pyre, what was wrong with him now? He smothered whatever it was under a jaunty smile and a flick of his fingertips in farewell. “Maybe we can do this again sometime.”
“I...”
Oh, Mafcerath’s balls, that wasn’t what he’d meant to say, at least not without the clear implication that he was joking. Deciding to cut his losses, he turned on his heel.
"That was only a bit excruciating," said a voice from the foliage to his right.
Instinctively he threw a bolt towards the noise.
Behind him, metal screeched as Justic drew his blade, and the aura around the spirit crackled energy; Anders felt its bright coldness rushing over his skin.
A muffled cry as his spell hit its target, and then-- a small figure stumbled from the tall grass into their clearing.
The light in Anders' palms died at once. “Andraste’s flaming eyebrows, what are you doing ?” He said exasperatedly, lowering his hands.
Justice huffed as well. "It's extremely unwise to try and surprise us, dwarf."
Sigrun was still sparking from the spell, but as they watched she shook it off, the arcane energy phasing off her enchanted armour and dwarven form like it’d never been there. “Sorry! Just spying,” she said cheerfully as she stood up, pulling a twig out of her hair. “Wanted to know if you’d chickened out.” She nodded at Anders.
“I would never. " Anders put a hand to his chest, affronted and only exaggerating it a little for effect.
"Of course ," Sigrun agreed. She turned to Justice with a grin. "'So... 'us', huh?"
Justice shifted on his feet. "You are alluding to something. I know not what."
She snickered. "Don't worry. Just checking. You can join us at the fire if you want, you know. We're done eating now. "
At this the spirit seemed to relax, and shook his head. "No. Thank you. I will take first watch, I think."
"Hey, if it works for you. Thanks friend."Sigrun turned back to Anders and winked.
On the way back to the fire, she squinted up at him and said in an undertone, "So... 'us', huh?"
Anders flipped her the bird with helpfully raised eyebrows. She snickered again.
"Sadly our mage doesn't owe me ten silver yet, Mhairi," Sigrun announced as they retook their seats by the fire. "Also, it's your turn."
Ser Pounce-A-Lot had made himself a nice scratching put near the coals, and was laying with his belly up. It was adorable. Anders took his spot behind the cat and tickled his ears, smiling at his rumbly ' mrrr?' .
Mhairi looked up at their return, shifting over when Anders sat down to give him more room. "I can't believe you went through with that." Her tone was less surprised or disgusted than simply baffled. "Or that he let you."
Anders wondered if she'd ever imagined fireside kissing games when she'd been dreaming of serving the great Grey Wardens her whole life. "I'm not a coward," he said indignantly. "Or not for dares, at least. And I'm very charming."
"And it's your turn," Sigrun added again.
Mhairi shook her head at his antics. If she'd been less knackered, she might have remembered it was actually their rogue's turn to go. As it was she only nodded stoically and held up her ritewine in salute. "Truth."
"You're too kind to me," Sigrun said, grinning.
Anders' attention fogged over slightly while she plotted. He felt a little lightheaded; his face a bit hot from drink. Yet the coolness of Justice's aura hadn't quite left him.
~