justice_is_blond | Inbox for Fade Rift

It was black and white. There were no shades of grey.

[The clipped, precise tone now has a mournful note in it.]

Some things were wrong, and must be set right. And if setting them right caused a wrong, then that must be set right as well. There were no half-measures for him. He was Justice. It was his entire purpose, his entire being. To a spirit, if they're not living up to their purpose, they are at risk of being a demon and that is what they...

[He breaks off as he searches for a word.]

They don't fear, exactly. But as close as Justice could feel to fear, that was what he felt. To not serve Justice was to risk corruption, and corruption was the worst fate that could befall him. I... I don't know if that answered your question.

[If he keeps his tone very even, if he pretends this is entirely an academic exercise and not him actually speaking to the abomination of Kirkwall, he won't start screaming.

He won't.]

Not entirely, serah.

Was it simply a matter of "right" and "wrong"? How did a spirit define these ideas?

[It's so complicated. He doesn't know if they have the language to explain or understand this, and he rubs his temples. Who even is he talking to? He's heard the voice before, but he doesn't know if they're mage or not, Chantry-aligned or not.]

With himself. I'm not trying to be obtuse. Justice defined Justice by what he perceived as just and unjust. Slavery was unjust, oppression was unjust, abuse was unjust. Someone taking advantage of someone poorer or weaker would rouse him to fury; someone stealing an apple because they were starving was seen as acceptable.

He was Justice, therefore what he saw as unjust was, to him. There are few spirits as... as... Maker's kneecaps, I don't know how to explain what he was. With Compassion there's... fluidity. She lends her aid whether the matter clearly needs her or not. Mercy is much the same way. Justice was rigid. Right and wrong were less matters of moral judgment and more matters of... equality, cruelty, whether or not there was suffering involved.

[Once again he's run up against the point where he wants to say too many things, all at once, and can't choose which of them to pursue.

A long silence stretches out.]

Did you destroy the Chantry under your own volition, or his?

[He notices only after he's said it--in a distant, clinical way--that there was an edge to those words.]

I didn't fight him on it. For seven years we'd tried things my way, with letters and pleas, working constantly for the city in hopes of someone listening and we got nowhere. I didn't fight, and therefore, both.

[Not like he thinks he could have won that fight. He would have lost, Justice would habe taken control. But he didn't even try and that condemns him.]

The Rite of Annulment was sent for and granted and I'd no ideas and no hope left.

And-- [...No. That's his limit of being polite for the day; another question is too much.]

Never mind.

Thank you.

...Right.

[He reminds himself that he's not technically being used when he offered answers, but it still feels like he's just been used. Then again, he's a mage. He's always been just an object to many. Most.]

[Your anonymous troll is back, Anders.

This time he's apparently discovered his ability to be civil.]

Do you have time to answer more questions, serah?

[Oh, he gets manners this time. They're moving forward. Maybe. Or the questions are more personal this time and he's being bribed.]

A moment, please. I'm nearly finished with a patient.

[There's a fuzzy noise as the crystal is stuck inside a handy roll of bandages, Anders' voice muffled as he speaks to someone, and then the noise repeats as he pulls it back out.]

Yes. So long as the Mudkings and Caveborn have ceased their hostilities for the day.

[Myr is patient.

He sits with the crystal in his cupped hands and waits for Anders to return; ignores the crumbs of life and a job left out for investigation and starts right back in on the questions:]

You said your first objective was to delay the Annulment and thought killing the Grand Cleric would effect that.

Why was it impossible to target her alone?

I believe the last time we spoke I mentioned the significance of the building.

[He wishes he could think of a way to buy time, because Maker is this a conversation he can see backfiring horribly.]

What has... It's...

[He takes a breath. He doesn't have to explain further. He could leave it like that. It's not like full disclosure has really served him in the past, but he's trying to offer full truths here.]

The Fade is simple. It is a good home for a spirit. Our world is not simple, and the confusion along with the constant battering of injustices he could not right were, were changing him. There was...

[Another breath.]

There was Vengeance present as well. The many deaths, including the man who died in the Chantry, provided an emotional context that he was not prepared to handle. And there is nothing that can prepare someone to handle Vengeance.

[...Ah.

Now this is getting somewhere.]

I understand.

[Not completely; he doesn't overestimate his own ability to empathize with others, not when pieces of this are so foreign, so awful. But he understands what Anders is saying here.]

How long had you planned this? Or was it spur of the moment?

[He doesn't understand. Anders restrains himself from saying as much, despite how no one could understand what it's like to feel their friend change from the inside, warp to become something they never wanted to be.

Instead he takes a breath.]

A couple of weeks. One of the Templars bragged about Meredith sending for the Rite of Annulment, and then a source confirmed she'd received authorization. I was still writing during that time, trying to let people know that the mages in the Circle were not all corrupted blood mages like they were being told, that the rite was not required, but no one wanted to listen.

[Frustration returns to his voice despite his best efforts.]

No one could take a single day. Hundreds of mages were not even worth that little of anyone's time. Not the Grand Cleric's, not the Seneschal, not the Divine, not the Seekers, no one replied and no one tried.

My people's lives were worth so little that not a one could bother themselves for several hundred of them.

[He can't understand, of course. He has no context for this, no frame, nothing in his experience that begins to match the situation Anders is describing. His griefs are small and private for all they are painful along many of the same lines--and yet.

And yet, there is what Anders did--or allowed to happen, if he's to be believed.

Be still. Listen. You are more than your anger.]

Serah, [his tone is gentle now, not brittle, not rigidly polite,] there are many who would have lifted a hand if they were free to. We weren't unaware of what was happening, in the north.

But I understand how little that matters when you're in dire need.

[Three years to think about why Vandelin and the others couldn't be persuaded with words. Three years to think about Kirkwall and Dairsmuid and what if Hasmal had been next?]

Do you regret what you did?

[Seeker, then? Templar? They wouldn't have helped. For all their claims about 'protecting,' they'd only ever wanted to protect themselves.

But now is not the time for a rant.]

Yes.

[He regrets it, even as he knows there had been no other way to save any of Kirkwall's mages.]

[He considers his other questions carefully--questions he's spent hours turning over in his head, honing them like he would if he were disputing with his cousin.

But Anders isn't Vandelin, doesn't have Van's taste or drive for argument, and the marginal satisfaction Myr would get by continuing to dig away at the other mage isn't worth the cruelty of continuing.]

Thank you, serah. I won't trouble you again.

Maker walk with you.

[He doesn't immediately cut the connection; no taking the last word by force this time.]

And with you.

[He doesn't believe the Maker gives a damn, and further, he doesn't think the Maker walking with someone would be a good thing, but he understands the sentiment of it. Today he's not fishing for a fight, and so he'll return the emotion the way it was meant rather than bickering about the Maker.]

...I didn't catch your name.

[There is a moment of hesitation, a moment where he considers demurring; there is every tactical reason right now to maintain his anonymity until he has a better understanding of the political situation in the Inquisition.

The moment passes.]

Myrobalan Shivana, of Hasmal Circle.

Edited ((nervous fidgeting ensues)) 2017-08-16 15:05 (UTC)

[Of Hasmal Circle. Templar or mage, and he's leaning toward the former. He resists the urge to say 'hopefully never again' in regard to that 'of.'

Regardless of what Myrobalan might be, he keeps his voice quiet.]

Hasmal would not have come and helped. That you would have is kind to say, but there is something you're forgetting.

The Rite of Annulment would not have been approved for a Knight-Commander the Chantry did not have faith in, Myrobalan.

The Chantry is an organization of men, serah, and men invented sin; the Maker has left it to men, likewise, to correct it.

And, [his voice grows quieter,] you did.

I speak in regard to your mention of people who would have offered aid if they knew.

[The words are slow. He doesn't know how to do the mental math of someone still calling themselves 'of a Circle' but saying Anders corrected matters, especially after all of the questions and the previous brusqueness. It means he has no idea what this man's motivations, thoughts, or true position is and he's a little off balance.]

And the men who make up the Chantry know the power that holding mages brought them, and men do not easily let go of power.

[He's quiet as he puzzles over this; he'd clearly misjudged what Anders had meant by bringing the Chantry into it, thinking it an unbeliever's jab at the organization. It's an accusation he's so used to fending off that--to his chagrin--he hears it even when it's not being made.]

I apologize for misunderstanding, then. But regardless of the Chantry's faith in the Knight-Commander, we mages would hardly have been the ones sent to correct things.

[It's because of his own earlier misstep that he's more careful in considering Anders' next words (listen) before responding:]

That, they don't--but their hold is broken now and it remains to be seen what they will do about that.

I've faith we can root out the ones who abused and betrayed their charges, and retain the ones who remembered their responsibility toward us.

[Mage. He's always disappointed when he runs into a Loyalist. They have so much faith in a system that is set up to fail them, but they think that's the exception. Anders sighs.]

Subjugation invites bullies, and bullies protect other bullies. Even if we root out every single one who harmed a mage, we're still left with those who were silent and allowed it to happen.

[There's earnestness in his voice, a plea for Myrobalan to listen rather than an attempt to lecture.]

It should not be left up to what they will do, as they have already failed mages. It is on us to put together a system in which we are treated as people first, mages second. A system in which we truly have power, rather than First Enchanters being symbolic, because we need recourse when we are beaten, when we are punished for getting too close to someone, when we are assaulted, and so on. A system in which there is an end to Tranquility and a beginning of understanding and assistance.

I don't have the faith that you do. ...As is likely very clear. But I think we could build something that all of us could have faith in.

By definition, the latter type betrayed us as well--though without abusers to follow their cowardice makes them well-behaved. That makes removing them touchy, if you'd rather be seen as a reformer than a monster.

Besides, if we punished everyone who stands by in silence while injustice goes unaddressed, we'd gut the Inquisition as well.

[The chill's back in his tone.]

Our goals aren't so far apart as you seem to believe them, serah. But--

[Thinking too hard about what Anders describes reminds him of Hasmal Circle and what isn't anymore and if he thinks too long and too hard on any of this he's going to lose his temper or worse and that will do neither of them any good.

He exhales raggedly.]

Forgive me. There's much of this I'd be glad to discuss--but I haven't the self-control for it at this time.

[When he was possessed, he would have pushed. He would have pressed and kept on it because Justice was not patient and needed to be swift. Even now he can feel the temptation, the lingering imprints of the spirit on his mind.

But he resists.

Anders takes a breath of his own. Myrobalan is listening and is willing to talk later. That's more than many, especially loyalists.]

All right. I will speak with you later, when you are ready.

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faithlikeaseed - 2017-08-17 05:42 (UTC) - Expand

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justice_is_blond - 2017-08-17 06:29 (UTC) - Expand

Inbox for Fade Rift

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crystal, the next day, evening;

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tfw when you sleep on a tag and go "wait, that's not IC" the next morning; sorry!

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