justice_is_blond | Inbox for Fade Rift

[ this is why she doesn't take vacations. there are forests,

evenly: ]

I would beat about the bush, but what purpose, when they spring up overnight? [ he won't be involved. he's not quite that bloody stupid — she. she hopes. ] Your take on this, Warden?

[Despite his best efforts, he snorts. Situational jokes are a weakness.]

I can tell you it's not Darkspawn doing. Beyond that? My take is that it's a visual improvement but people want to hold on to scars of the past so it will continue to go over poorly. And then I'd suggest looking in a Dalish direction, because I've seen what they can do with plants and it's astounding. And almost entirely beneficial, I'll note, before you decide to take some Templar friends over to question them.

Edited 2017-07-28 04:19 (UTC)

[ she has a few words about beneficial, but there's no point to airing them. she's speaking with anders. dead templars are absolutely in his benefits column. ]

Were I to redecorate your clinic without warning, I am certain that you would be similarly joyed.

It is best for everyone that this is handled quietly and amicably — but you recognize that it must be handled, yes? This cannot happen again. The Dalish need the Inquisition, and the Inquisition needs peace in the streets.

Edited 2017-07-28 04:43 (UTC)

It would be entirely different if a Templar were to redecorate my Clinic. They've done it many, many times, after all, always enjoying smashing what we hadn't been able to get out because we didn't have enough warning. Cots, healing potions, salves, everything.

[The amusement is gone from his voice. Is she threatening him? It's not like he went down and grew plants all over the place. He'd already done enough at the scene.]

I'm not sure why you're telling me this must be handled, and it's not even certain it was the Dalish. Why are you messaging me? Just to make me worried that you're going to lead the next raid and follow in Meredith and Cullen's glorious footsteps? You'll not intimidate me into stopping.

What purpose to intimidating you? We both know that I cannot follow through.

[ more importantly, it just makes him more stubborn. she's seen that from their first meeting. ]

If it will rest you easier, I am in Orlais through the coming week. I reach out because I hope to hear your views — you understand why they might be of interest.

[ monsieur crater ]

This need be handled. If you would sooner not see it done by templars, then a whisper or two to your own would be wise. Upon such note, [ the faint tap of fingers upon a desk, ] Harriman has been stripped of rank. He is to remain under Darton as a ward of the Inquisition; I will be working with him outside this.

Edited 2017-07-28 05:19 (UTC)

[It's never stopped Templars from trying before, he thinks, before remembering that actually, they'd always been able to follow through before. Now he has protection. She can't just break things he's worked hard to gather for those who can't afford them, and she can't simply attack him. It's nice.

Her words draw him away from those thoughts.]

Stripped of rank.

[It's repeated with clear surprise.]

I'd truly not expected anything to happen. Templars and Seekers in my experience only seem to follow through when there's a way to harm a mage.

[She'll mock it, no doubt. Doubt it, even. But he takes pleasure in being exceedingly honest with her because she more than likely misses a vast majority of it. It's safe to be absolutely honest as she won't buy or believe it.]

As far as handling goes, I'm near-certain it was none of mine. I can make certain, but my whispers will do nothing here. There's no cause being riled up, so far as I can tell, no declarations. Simply... plants. Should someone turn this political with a speech or a leaflet, then there's something I can do. Until then...

[He's shrugging, even if she can't see it.]

I've no idea what I could say or do in regard to the situation that isn't "I wish I knew how to do that."

[ you do it with blood, she thinks of saying; doesn't. these aren't accusations to sling about without concrete evidence, and even then —

— even then, she's inclined to quash it. might have already done so, had daesun not involved the others. too late now, though; and even then they'd need find the perpetrator.

(it's one thing to turn a blind eye. it's another to stand about in the dark.) ]

Very well. Thank you.

[ just plants. maker. questionable magic of massive scale, conducted without the consent of the citizenry, at the site of a slaughter? of course it's political. one needn't write a manifesto to make waves. ]

If you wish to forward your gratitude to the Seekers, you've a crystal same as I.

[ anders will undoubtedly guess her displeasure, even if he can't divine its true source. that harriman isn't about to be executed is a small victory, but how this mess has been handled —

problems remain. with darton, with harriman, with everyone's public image. severed of his chantry ties, the inquisition can't so neatly disavow cade in the future. and with all his ability, all his training intact? with the same fucking seeker still giving him orders? ]

To my knowledge, he will be allowed to continue use of lyrium, [ she hates to need to tell him that. it's not his business, save that, ] It is my advice that continuing to avoid physical engagement would be in your mutual interest.

I'm not cruel.

[His voice is quiet. There's a long pause in which he debates saying more or not. He doesn't owe her anything. She only told him this because it cost her nothing and could potentially help her in keeping order her.

Finally he decides that speaking also won't cost him. It likely won't gain him anything either, but at least she talks and halfway listens.]

I've no desire to gloat by thanking them. And it's not like the Seekers are truly taking responsibility here. They're washing their hands of him despite how he's a product of the system they enforced. Cade is Kirkwall. He is how Meredith and Cullen shaped him, he is what many Templars were taught to be, abusive without a second thought, blind to the personhood of mages.

They're not doing nothing, which does help with the fear many mages carry. But they're not doing something that will actually change matters. No. I'll not be calling them.

And you'll not be either.

[It's not exactly a question, but it is an opening. He can hear that she's not happy and he's curious about the source of it.]

I think, [ quietly, ] You oversimplify Harriman.

[ but she won’t betray more than that. if cade’s spoken to her, it’s in confidence. no one thinks they’re cruel — yet anders has reached often enough for the knife. ]

We own similar concerns; this is a cloth draped over deeper cracks. If the Inquisition cannot account for ourselves in such isolated quantity, so minor an incident,

[ tap. tap tap. ]

Edited (word choice is important here) 2017-07-29 04:36 (UTC)

Everyone oversimplifies nearly everyone. It helps us survive.

[She's not naive, and he's not amused by her statement. Of course there are dozens more issues at hand, and it also takes someone willing to be a bully to be molded in to one.]

Come out and say it, Templar.

[Speaking of oversimplification.]

You've an agenda in coming to me, I've an agenda in speaking with you, say what you're after here rather than continuing to suggest I'm a fool or heartless.

Do inform me if my jaw slips, I shouldn't wish to complicate the task of placing words in it.

[ tap. a long, tired breath out, she stills her voice once more: ]

You and I agree upon very little, yes? To say the least. When there is common ground, there is reason to consider its cause.

[That gets a snort.]

No one who has a strong opinion on Kirkwall who wasn't there, who didn't try to help, gets to ask me that. You've all placed plenty on me with no grasp of what was going on. Which we'll not agree on, likely, so yes. We will agree on very little.

As far as Harriman goes...

[A beat.]

This is not an actual solution. We agree on that, it seems. But while we might even find something together that could be ideal, this is a done thing, is it not? He is stripped of his rank, they are stripped of responsibility, and the next time he harms a mage it's the Inquisition that suffers the appearance blow. And there will doubtlessly be a next time.

I can make no claims about knowing what it is that drives him, nor can I pretend I can cure whatever madness lurks in his head when I'll not have opportunity to examine him. What I can guess at, however, is that this gives him nothing left to lose. And I speak from personal experience when I say that someone who has nothing left to lose is at their most dangerous.

Someone needs to give him a goal or it's likely that next time the mage will suffer serious harm at the least.

Edited 2017-07-31 02:47 (UTC)

[ peculiar, how one acquires opinions of the-time-you-did-the-explodey-thing even from afar,

it's not another mage she expects to come to harm, at this point. perhaps that's projection. she's still glad enough the man isn't rooming alone, at present. tap. ]

What goal did you find?

[ they've spoken of this before, however elliptically. she'd been a bit preoccupied with a burning throat, with the pressing question of how to approach the problem his presence here posed. ]

[There is such a stretch of silence. His every trained instinct is saying to give her a mocking answer because she can't use that against him, but there is a teeny, tiny mental voice asking what if she's being sincere in wanting to know? She almost definitely doesn't want to hear it, almost definitely will wield it to hurt him later. It's what nearly everyone has done.

But they've been able to do it because he keeps taking the risk in case someone in the crowd legitimately gives a damn about more than their own experience and survival.

When Anders speaks, his voice is tight and his words are slow and measured. He is no fancy speechmaker, and he wants to make sure his meaning comes across.]

To make sure the world changes so that something that horrific never happens again. That no one ever again sees hundreds of their people signed away for the slaughter and also sees no other way to give them even a chance to fight back except by going too far.

My goal is equality, and my goal is peace. Mock its scope if you will; I have no illusions about accomplishing it single-handedly. Mock the whole concept altogether if you will. I have enough people aligned with those goals that you'll not shake me.

[Okay. Maybe there's a little lie in there. If someone with her seeming sway mocks this, he will be a little shaken. But he'll also go on. There is no other choice.]

[ she half assumes he's hung up — but then he's speaking, and her eyes are closing, and what a thing it is to wonder now: whether he's gotten a better measure of her than she'd thought.

the simplest solution,

anders has been fiery thus far, a defensive breed of aggression. a man who finds threat in every shadow, who begins snarling before it might ever close in. a frustration before, a signal now: she doesn't expect this for a lie, not with his talk of mockery. the man is not a skilled manipulator.

(the best never appear as though they are, but there is a point at which even orlesian paranoia must be reined in)

he's found her weaknesses before, and he's pushed. regardless of his aims, she'd sooner not cede him this ground now, would rather not connect a pattern to her opinions. but this isn't something that she can lie about. however dearly she might try, the words would taste false.

the truth does, too — she knows it wasn't anything to satisfy amsel, will not be here and now. but,

the simplest solution cuts the sharpest. very well. ]

They say that the Spire's Annulment, [ she puts the pen down. better not to indulge that bad habit any further, they'd have a bloody drum march. ] Marked the beginning of hostilities in the South. Perhaps.

But holding things together, those final few years —

[ there's only so tight one might grip before forming a fist. refugees from the north sowing trouble. other apostates growing bolder, the fraternities inside set to boil.

detached, as though an afterthought: ]

— Until the very end, you know, I believed that we'd make it.

[She doesn't attack.

He spends his life on the defensive because he's been attacked regularly, frequently. He's lost everything before, repeatedly, had it stolen multiple times by the Templars. Almost all of them have attacked every chance they've had.

This doesn't mean he will trust her. He cannot. She still sees the Circles as a 'we.' As together. It's a naivete that is dangerous and over-trusting of the Chantry, eyes closed to how mages are people too, but at least it implies she may be one of the few who were not abusive.]

The Circles were always going to fall. It was just a matter of time.

[It's quiet.]

If you deny a people personhood, lock them away, some will accept it. For them, a cage is better than the lives they left behind. But there will always be many that suffer as well.

[His voice is calm throughout. She can listen or she can choose not to. All he can do is speak when someone might listen.]

For every Vivienne, every mage who thrives, there was a mage who said no to an assault and was made Tranquil for being too willful, and there was a mage who died, and there was a mage who could not find the strength to say no.

We are people, Ser Coupe. We want families and lives, not to have everything torn from us over and over. If the Circles rise again, they will fall again, and likely in a more bloody fashion. The cycle can be broken here and now, for good. The bloodshed can end.

It will take unprecedented cooperation and understanding from multiple sides. It will take work. But I believe it is worth it to spare my people another fifty, hundred years of suffering, and to spare Thedas yet another war at the end of that.

[She had faith in the Circles. In the Templars. Anyone still calling themselves one does. He can't completely fault her for trusting in something she's served for Maker knows how long, but he does have to wonder if she can be reached.]

[ Ser. It sets her hackles up here before he’s ever finished; how often has he used that title for invective? To push it towards platitude here must be a fucking strain —

At once it seems foolish to fear he’s seen her true; the man might glimpse pieces, but he’s no interest in finding their shape. Cannot.

There will always be many that suffer, and that’s the world. Those evils: cracks seeping water, eating the foundation. It doesn't make it right, but if you live in a hovel, you don’t take a hammer to the walls, you build.

He’s right in this: This has gone too long. They've all grown too used to ruins, and so few yet remain. An entire generation of mages wiped out, the curated work of Ages alongside, and who will teach the new ones? Who will guide them? The Order is dying by slow rot, each new bloom of corruption excised until nothing's left, no one.

It will take decades to make whole; the public trust may never be. There are those that will see a swift end to this as a solution for all involved: That more blood hasn't already been spilled is a testament to how screwed the South is in every other respect. The countryside, the cities, they're afraid. Some it might bully into compromise (she may dearly pray), others will see their resolve hardened. Thin odds, thin enough to sliver down the end of a blade.

Perhaps he finds hope in that,

She doesn’t. When she thinks of the way this will end, all she finds is flood. It’s never been trust that binds her to the Chantry; it’s grief. To have everything torn from us over and over, as though he didn't rip it from the hands of so many.

The Circles were always going to fall, he claims. They didn't need to fall like that. Not hers. Not her people.

Softly, ]

You have spared us nothing.

[ The creak of wood, she moves to stand. ]

You see it, yes? To act in the name of others, when that is what you rally against?

[She hasn't listened. She'd looked for words to try to use against him, and he feels frustration at himself for trying yet again and seeing it fail yet again. In losing the Circles, the Templars have lost their comforts and their power. Very few will ever see beyond that.

There's an edge of anger in his words now.]

You are no part of us.

[Spared her? What should the Templars be spared?]

I act for choice when we had none. Should some wish to return to being constantly watched because the Chantry has driven into them a fear of themselves, they should be free to. Even now they could ask for it.

The rest of us should not be dragged down with them, dragged to where we are, at best, forgotten to die in dungeons like the very one in White Spire. And at worst, made Tranquil for daring to believe we have the right to say no to sex.

You want to be a part of us, Templar? I've plenty of Resolutionists who would be glad to spend a week roleplaying Templar to your mage, to show you exactly what their days were like. We'd even give you the luxury of setting limits, something we were never given, and you'd have the extra luxury of knowing it would only last a week.

But you won't take that offer. Because you thought you were going to make it, to still hold tight the bars around the mages, to still make mages bend and bow and come at your beck and call.

Good day, Templar.

[He's done wasting his time for the day.]

Do go and enjoy convincing yourself that you've suffered enough to be one of 'us.'

Edited 2017-08-12 19:08 (UTC)

Inbox for Fade Rift

crystals;

crystals;

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this is what happens when i can't find synonyms

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apologies for her everything, and for my blatant theft of your metaphors from other threads lmao

Heehee

itp: two rational people have a completely unemotional rational conversation

Inbox for Fade Rift

crystals;

crystals;

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

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this is what happens when i can't find synonyms

no subject

no subject

no subject

apologies for her everything, and for *my* blatant theft of your metaphors from other threads lmao

Heehee

itp: two rational people have a completely unemotional rational conversation

apologies for her everything, and for my blatant theft of your metaphors from other threads lmao