Mornings were not her strong point. They never had been, but as an apprentice she'd been forced into a routine that she'd begrudgingly accepted. Once her glory days as Irving's pet had passed, however, she'd sunk back into her old habits of sleeping late and it was difficult to convince her body otherwise, even though these days sleeping late meant two people getting into trouble rather than just one.

Anders had experimented with ways to make the early morning wake ups more bearable - mostly extremely successfully to her mind, although awake and alert didn't necessarily mean decent and useful to others. This morning she was woken by the gentle tingling of lightning on her toes - beautifully relaxing, usually, although today it was spoiled by the raspy swipe of a tongue across her cheek.

"Pounce!" she opened her eyes to see the yellow eyes of the cat directly in front of her, the tongue delicately being withdrawn after its gentle ministrations to her skin. She gritted her teeth and shoved the cat aside, looking down the bed to see Anders sheepishly crouched at the foot. He had pulled back the covers to deliver his lightning spell to her naked toes and had obviously been too distracted to notice Pounce jump up to her chest.

"Sorry my love," he said. "He's sneaky that way."

She twisted her lips in a smile. "I know why you put the cat door in," she said. "But sometimes I think you should get a lock for it."

Pounce, sensing that his status was in danger, jumped up to Anders' shoulder and rubbed his cheek against that of the blond mage, purring loudly. "Oh, don't listen to her Ser-Pounce-A-Lot," he said in his special talking-to-animals voice. "She loves you just as much as I do."

Neria swung her legs over the side of the bed. At least the Pounce wake up was a fast one - it always brought her to alertness more readily than Anders' other methods which tended to start languidly and end... with both of them back in bed usually.

"Joining today," she said, reaching for her robes. It was an important one - this time they had three apostate mages who had arrived at the keep a week ago requesting to join the wardens. The first apostate recruits since Anders. Sigrun, fed up with the lack of mages in the wardens - especially given their most recent darkspawn troubles - had finally bowed to Anders suggestion that they subtly let it be known that apostates were welcome. Well, certain types of apostates any way. The King and Queen had let Sigrun know that blood mages were not an option - not unless they wanted to bring the Chantry down on them.

Anders, still kneeling next to the bed, caught her hand as she gathered her robes and kissed her palm. "Should be interesting," he murmured, his lips still touching her skin. "Apostates abound at the Vigil," he continued, making his way up to her elbow. "We'll outnumber the other mages if all three of them survive."

She shivered as heat bloomed on her skin where his lips touched. "I hope you're not including me in that number," she said, slightly breathless. "I was never an apostate."

"Really?" he said, looking up at her and quirking his eyebrow, his chin resting in the crook of her elbow. "I could have sworn you were..." a slight tingle of power bloomed in the hand that cupped hers - warm and pulsing... "dangerous..." he breathed, letting the power flare outwards to wash up her arm like water.

She met his power with her own in a practiced dance that enveloped them both in light and warmth and she leaned down to touch her lips to his.

They were thus pleasantly engaged when there was a knock at the door. "Blast," Anders swore into her neck. "I forgot I asked for a wake up visit today."

She grinned at him, her fingers currently tangled in his hair. Pounce, disgusted with the carry on, had retreated under the bed.

"Which of us is more decent?" she said. It was a moot question. Anders still had smallclothes on, but was by no means decent. He shrugged at her and flipped to the side, burrowing under the covers on the bed. She rolled her eyes and pulled a dressing robe over her before padding to the door, opening it to find Nathaniel studiously examining his fingernails. He was impeccably neat and alert, as always. Neria couldn't help but run her fingers through her short black hair, attempting to smooth it into some sort of order.

"May I assume the two of you are awake?" he said, raising an eyebrow.

"Assume away," she said, smiling. Nathaniel's eyes twinkled.

"Still needed the wake up visit, though, I see."

"How is it, Ser Howe, that you can come to lewd conclusions about me without even seeing my face?" Anders voice came from somewhere under the covers.

"Experience, Anders," the rogue said, giving Neria a wink. "Sigrun said she'll see you in the audience hall as soon as you're decent. So.. shall I tell her a few hours?"

"Go hump a nug," Anders muttered back at him. Nathaniel laughed and turned to go. Neria shut the door and shrugged off her gown, wadding it into a ball and throwing it at her lover with some force.

"Up," she said. "And decent. In ten minutes. I don't want the new recruits thinking we're all indolent and decadent."

Anders' head poked out from under the covers. "But we are," he said. "Or at least, I'm working on it." He scrambled out of the bed and started gathering his own robes. They dressed quickly, Neria running the brush through Anders' hair and tying it back - a task she'd taken over since moving into his room a month ago. She loved the feel of the long blond strands and he seemed to enjoy the attention in much the same way Pounce liked being scratched behind the ears. He shaved while she attended to her own hair, tying the short braids that kept it out of her eyes.

Anders clipped his gold earring into place and spun on the spot. "Do I look sufficiently rakish?" he said. She was constantly surprised at how much pride he took in his appearance, but she didn't mind it at all - there was something to be said for a man who never smelled of anything other than soap, fresh sweat and the slight tang of lyrium. The occasional splattering of darkspawn blood when they were on a mission only added to the novelty. Even the male mages at the tower who were never more than a floor away from a bath tended to be more offensive on the nose than her apostate warden.

She grinned and leaned up to kiss him soundly, all the response he required apparently as his arms came around her waist and he lifted her from the floor, returning the kiss enthusiastically. She kicked her legs weakly against him and he released her, setting her gently on the floor. "Shall we then?" she said. Pounce, sensing there was something interesting afoot, jumped back to Anders' shoulder and they made their way down to the audience hall.

Joinings were by no means common, even with warden numbers climbing steadily, and Sigrun liked for the senior wardens to be in attendance. Nathaniel and surprisingly Oghren were there already, as were Gabrielle and Garic. Neria had attained senior warden status, much to her surprise. Technically Anders was the head of the mage wardens in Amaranthine, but even he acknowledged that he was terrible at it. Sigrun had privately told Neria that she was in charge of the mages and Anders had breathed a sigh of relief when she'd sheepishly told him. However, as one of the first four wardens appointed after the blight Anders was still looked on with respect by the wardens and his senior status was never questioned.

He was an excellent teacher, as well. Even Neria's rudimentary healing skills had improved exponentially since reaching the keep and spending some time studying with him, although study times often ended up in more recreational activities if the tutoring was in private.

The three apostate mages entered not long after, looking nervous. Two were women and one was a man - all of them had the thin, haunted look of fugitives. None of them were dressed in mage robes, but Neria could feel the potential power coming from them and felt a twinge of excitement - some of the skills they had learned where certainly not commonly taught in the Tower - one of the women, Helena - was a shapeshifter and the man Timothy had somehow acquired the ability to wield arms and wear armour. The small amount they had managed to learn from the two mages in their short week at the vigil had set Neria's scholarly instincts to burning and she hoped fervently that neither of them would become victims of the joining. She had recognised the man, she realised, as someone who had left to fight at Ostagar and not returned. The other two weren't familiar. The shapeshifting woman, although human, had the tattoos of a Dalish and Neria was almost as curious about her background as she was about her magical skills.

"Very interesting, this bunch," Anders said, reading the line of her thoughts. "I'm surprised they managed to travel together for so long."

"Safety in numbers," Neria said. She also noticed that the third woman, without the Dalish tattoos - Serena, Neria remembered - stood very close to the man. Traveling together wasn't the only thing they'd been doing, it seemed.

Anders took her hand as Sigrun spoke the words of the joining. None of the apostates even flinched when they were told there was a chance they could die in the process and Neria nodded to herself. There were things far worse than being a warden for a mage, and she had the feeling that all three of these had faced them.

Timothy took the cup first. When he fell backwards there was a palpable sigh of relief from the senior wardens - his skills were unique as far as anyone had been able to tell and to have them destroyed in the joining would have been a tragic waste. Serena next, then Helena. All three of them survived. Neria was overjoyed, and Anders grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze. "We're taking over," he whispered to her. "Just you watch!"

She tickled his ribs with her free hand before the two of them made their way to the unconscious figures. They were twitching and moaning already - in the grips of their first darkspawn dreams. Anders held a hand over each of them in turn, making certain that the joining had been successful and they were out of danger. When he was certain, the three mages were moved to the three cots that had been prepared in the audience hall. Sigrun liked them to wake up comfortable - or at least as comfortable as one can be after ingesting poison and being plagued by nightmares of darkspawn.

Garic and Gabrielle took their leave, and Nathaniel, Sigrun, Anders, Oghren and Neria seated themselves on the steps of the dais to await the new wardens.

"King Alistair is less than pleased about this," Sigrun said conversationally. "Miranda wrote to me to warn us not to blab about where these mages came from."

"I'd guessed that already," Anders said. "Once a Templar..."

Sigrun rolled her eyes. "She was sure to point out that his reasons were nothing to do with that, Anders," she said. "He's worried that the Chantry is going to start thinking the wardens are a haven for apostates and malificar."

Anders cocked his head on one side. "Funny. I thought the Chantry already thought that."

"The novelty of the order is wearing off," Nathaniel said. He'd drawn his dagger and was sharpening it with his whetstone as they sat, seemingly entirely absorbed in the task. Neria had never met anyone who could stay as still as Nathaniel when he chose. "It seems six years is enough time to forget a blight."

"Sodding Chantry wouldn't have dared question us back when we first moved here," Oghren rumbled.

Neria looked at Sigrun, who's blue eyes were troubled. She knew the dwarf thought of the wardens slipping influence as her fault. Without the Hero of Ferelden at the helm they had lost some of their lustre. People had started calling Alistair the Templar King as well as the Warden King - preferring to think of his chantry connections rather than his role against the blight. The order, which had been looked upon with awe and admiration by the people of Ferelden, was once again slipping into the shadows.

According to the Orlesian wardens stationed with them, this was not a bad thing. No one wanted the order under close scrutiny - there were too many secrets that needed to be kept. And truly those recruits who came to the Vigil with stars in their eyes and hearts full of griffons and archdemons rarely made it to the joining. Nowadays people who turned up at the Vigil's gates tended to have the same haunted, furtive look as these three apostates. They tended to have the skills of the scrapper rather than the knight - be more inclined to hide in shadows and strike swiftly than roar a warcry and wade into the fray.

They still had a steady stream of dwarfs, however, who thought fighting darkspawn on the surface almost as worthy as joining the legion, and another trip around Ferelden was planned for the summer to drum up more legitimate members. Sigrun was doing all she could to maintain their numbers and reputation. They still had work to do - there were pockets of talking darkspawn and entrances to the deep roads that needed to be sealed. But there was a sense of disappointment too - that they were wardens in the time least likely to be needed.

In peace, vigilance, Neria thought to herself. Being a mage, being free of the Tower, having Anders and a group of people she considered more than just friends surrounding her - she couldn't have been happier. She knew Anders felt the same. She only hoped the former legion scout could bring it in her heart to feel the same way eventually.

They needed Zevran to pay a visit. He always managed to cheer her up.

Helena, the shapeshifter, was the first to stir. Anders hopped up and went to her cot, helping her gently to her feet and talking softly to her. Timothy was next, and Neria went to him, power ready to help him with the inevitable joining hangover. When Serena awoke Sigrun gave a big sigh and got to her feet. It was time to deliver the bad news.