Chapter 7

A/N - 1191 words

"I am going to be honest Meredith, I do not like the approach you take on most matters..." Guylian spoke as they were standing in the commander's office, as the evening sun illuminated the large office.

"And I am pretty sure my policies don't sit well with you either and that's fine, people can't agree on everything. But what you are trying to step into now is way beyond your current capabilities" Guylian continued as Meredith stared at him.

"Are you saying that I am not qualified enough?" she spoke as Guylian smirked.

"Current you is not, the one who would be replacing me should be," The knight commander spoke with a smile, "So what I am going to tell you does not leave this room, do you understand?" the voice came out of Guylian's mouth made Meredith freeze up, as the hair on her back stood up feeling the weight of those words.

"Understood!" she replied as Guylian nodded.

"Tell me Meredith how much do you know about William Trevelyan?" Meredith answered without hesitating after all William Trevelyan was regarded as one of the great Templars of this age.

"He is one of the most decorated Templar, and is considered one of the best in the entire free marches in terms of combat capabilities," Meredith replied making the old commander chuckle.

"Well you are not entirely right but not entirely wrong either, he is one of the most decorated Templars yes, but in terms of combat capabilities He stands at the very top of what is humanly possible...haa thinking about it still makes my bones ache" he grumbled.

"It was 9:14 when the Trevelyans had come to visit Kirkwall bringing along their son, who had become intrigued with Magic, like most kids tend to be and according to Banness Trevelyan it had only been a month since his interest in magic had picked up.

So when he had visited back then he had wanted to see the Kirkwall circle, it wasn't much of a problem since Maceron was all too happy to give him a look, but it was then that things spiralled out of control when a group calling themselves the Eye of Andraste, made an appearance attacking the circle calling it a blot on Andraste's teachings you were there I am sure that you remember the attacks?"

"Weren't they just small ones on the outskirts?"

"not really the main damage was inside the circle rather than the outside and it was during that the children were kidnapped from right under our noses using one of the many escape routes built by the old magisters that had seemingly gone unnoticed by everyone and one of those children that were kidnapped was Kenric Trevelyan."

"So he got caught in the middle?"

"Yes, and it was during that time that things had reached a boiling point after all it was one whole month that it took us to locate the children. Normally it would have been a serious matter if they had just kidnapped the mages, but what they had done was touch something they shouldn't have.

And since we weren't able to find Kenric even after two weeks led to the fight between 7 of us knight commanders alongside the high seeker Aldrean and other senior seekers we even had the mages come out trying to prevent a rampaging William Trevelyan from flipping the city on it's head to find Kenric.

and the reason I wasn't in the office for the following week wasn't because I didn't want to come it was because I couldn't come." Guylain spoke touching the scar running down his neck and clicking his tongue afterall he had his pride as a knight-commander.

"Sometimes Humans are worse than darkspawn, at least you know darkspawn would turn you into one of them, but humans...I was thankfully out of commission when they found Kenric barely alive covered in wounds that had started to rot, being the only one without mana he was used as a test dummy, given just enough to be kept alive and healed just enough so that he could scream for Andraste....or that was what the mages we brought back were willing to tell us, Kenric does not speak about it.....heck it wouldn't have been a surprise if he had just locked himself in a room never to step out." Guylain spoke as Meredith listened.

"So when I saw him today, it made me question the sanity of the seekers for the first time in a while. Since they know what he could have gone through they threw him back into this dump to weed out his weaknesses." Guylian spoke as the wooden table creaked under his hands.

"And the thing you were about to walk into was this, and if William Trevelyan decided to kill you. No one would be able to save you." Guylian spoke before sighing.

"I don't know how that boy is still standing there willing to join the seekers maybe he isn't right in the head but there is only one advice I will give you as your senior Meredith, never ever poke the war horse of the free marches it ends badly."

Meredith on the other hand remained silent as she stared at her commander who seemed to have a heavy burden lifted off his shoulder.

"haaah, Do you drink?" Guylian spoke grabbing the whiskey bottle as he poured two glasses handing one to Meredith who took it while Guylian sat back in his chair trying to forget his old scars.

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.

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"One beer please" Kenric spoke tossing a coin at the bartender of the Hanged man,

"aren't you a little too young to be drinking?"Corff spoke while pouring the beer anyway, as Kenric smiled at him weakly before grabbing the drink and gulping it down.

"Trouble?" Croff spoke as Kenric shrugged,

"Just trying to forget some shitty things," He replied as Croff nodded in understanding and let Kenric remain by himself occasionally pouring him the light beer, there was no need to prod an open wound, if Kenric wanted to talk he was more than happy to listen.

It took a while and a few kegs before Kenric began to loosen up a little, "...I was just curious about magic...." he muttered as he touched his arm feeling the scars that lay beneath.

"..or maybe I was just naive enough to think that this new world would be all sunshine and rainbows...."

Croff raised an eyebrow before shaking his head, the bastard was drunk and had started speaking bullshit.

"...that one month was a rude wake-up call huh..." he muttered as he sighed before he looked up where the rooms were located.

"Haha...I might just be drunk as I am seeing a familiar face after five years ey" Kenric spoke as he looked at the archer standing on the balcony staring straight at him.

Kenric picked up a fork and pierced it right into his stomach just enough to snap him out of his drunken stupor as his eyes refocused as he smiled looking at the woman.

"Long time no see bitch!"