justice_is_blond | Inbox for Fade Rift

[ She's shut the door behind them as soon as he's done, slipping inside and taking a seat. ]

You're married, yes?

[Anders dries off his hands and then waggles the fingers of the left one with a smile.]

With the ring and everything. The Chantry might not exactly want to recognize it, but as I'm not their biggest fan...

[He shrugs and lets the sentence end there.]

[ It's a handsome enough thing and it's not as if Sidony gives much consideration to the Chantry as a whole. She frowns. ]

How did it... Happen?

[That's an odd question, and the smile turns into a more quizzical look.]

What, the ceremony? Proposal? Relationship?

All of it, I suppose.

[ And she looks even more uncomfortable. ]

[Anders weighs her with his eyes for a few moments before taking his own seat.]

I'd... I don't know where I'd start. It's a story that's years long.

[And pretty personal. He frowns, fiddling with his ring.]

I'm a shameless flirt. Have been, always. That's one of the things the Templars couldn't be--mm. I flirted with him. Constantly. Relentlessly. He's got a great heart, and other great attributes.

One day, at a sort of challenge day meant to unify the Inquisition more, he snapped and kissed me. It seemed a one-off thing but then he came back a few days later and it... was more.

[Anders shrugs, feeling a little awkward.]

He's apparently loved me for ages, I've fallen in love with him, one night he pulled out a locket that had been in his family and was meant for him to give to his arlessa when he inherited the title that his family doesn't have anymore, and I accepted.

It took more than a little time to locate someone who would speak the words considering who I am, forget what I am as this was before they'd even consider sanctioning mage marriage, but Nate, my husband, found someone and we were wed in front of friends.

[It's a fairly dry summary, especially for him, but he doesn't know what she's looking for here.]

Edited 2018-12-27 21:39 (UTC)

Years. I see.

[ There's an edge of discomfort about Sidony - not necessarily because of the fact that Anders is who he is, which she cares very little about, or because of the nature of his marriage, but because of her own thoughts on the matter. She's trying to organise and rationalise her own feelings and it makes her stomach feel like it is in knots.

She cannot imagine spending years with someone, becoming their friend, and feeling... More. It feels like such a strange and foreign concept to her after all the years she spent focussed entirely on her studies and her work as a surgeon.

Pursing her lips, she smooths down her skirts. ]

How did you know how you... Felt that way about him?

[He fiddles with his ring again. She's been friendly, not cruel, and it's not like answering will share a vulnerability people don't already know about.]

He got hurt, badly hurt, and I was terrified I'd lose him as I'd... I knew I couldn't bear to lose him. For his part, he'd apparently known since he kissed me, if you want something a little less dramatic.

[He knows he's got a habit of being very emotional.]

[ It's not as if she's without her own tendency towards drama - she had fled to the Inquisition in a fit of rage with only her handmaiden and a purse of coins to help her. ]

I think I understand the sentiment. It's very like a novel, isn't it? It's... Charming.

[ But she still seems... Edgy. ]

Like a novel, [he echoes dryly,] except that in novels it always seems to work out, doesn't it? There's the one single big crisis, and then the pair in love makes it work. The hero of the story doesn't lose their first love in the worst way, doesn't see their second vanish, and then doesn't see their third nearly die three times already while the war is still ongoing.

What are you looking for, Sidony? What's the real question?

Novels are never like real life. They talk about all these women that faint and swoon whenever a man walks by and loses her sanity at a single drop of blood, as if women don't see more blood in a month than a man might.

[ She shakes her head, waving a hand idly. ]

I was curious. It... It is not something I had seen at home and I wondered. I did not intend to be rude.

[He snorts at the blood talk, knowing the truth of it, before shaking his head.]

You've not been rude. What about it is something you've not seen? A mage and someone? Two men? Love in general?

[ Sidony looks... On edge somehow, lips pursed. ]

I have not seen... A person and a mage are common in Nevarra, but two people who are of the same... That, I...

[If only he'd been taken to Nevarra and not Ferelden... but he still would have run, he's fairly certain. That's also not relevant to the conversation at hand.]

You think you might like women?

[Definitely not the most difficult guess he's had to make, going off the way she's trailed off and a previous conversation.]

Either instead of men or as well? There's no shame in that, if that's what has you tense.

[ There's a distinct edge of discomfort and uncertainty about her as she glances away. ]

I... It is not out of the realm of possibility.

[ But her cheeks are a vibrant red and she seems most displeased. ]

There is shame where I am from. If my mother had any thoughts that I might not settle and wed as she wished from me...

[Anders is quiet for a few moments before he gets up and pours two cups of water from a pitcher. They're brought over and one is offered up as he sits back down.]

You've one life, Sidony. Does shame outweigh the possibility of binding yourself into something you'd resent and long to be free of?

Yes.

[ She takes the water, holding it on her lap. It shakes, a little, but she clearly focuses much of her energy on calming herself. ]

I have expected a political arrangement since I was five years old. I know my place in society and that is half the reason I am here; to earn respite from it. I cannot run forever.

[He blinks.]

What's the point of a life if you can't find happiness in it? A lady of society can't go be a surgeon, I'm nearly certain, and if you're not attracted to men then where's the enjoyment in being married to one?

Everyone expected me to stay in the Circle when I was hauled into it. That I didn't is the reason I'm still alive, and I've found an actual life.

[Fuck nobility and their expectations, really.]

I'll grant that there's comfort to be found in money and connections, which society would grant... but you're making connections of your here in the Inquisition. Why resign yourself to those of blood?

Because that is my life.

[ Sidony doesn't necessarily look upset by it - this is all she has ever known, after all. ]

Nevarra is in a state of very precarious political control. Every single family is doing what they can to gain more influence, more power, and to have a handsome enough daughter to wed to someone who might give your family the money they need to be more important? That is not something to throw away. There is no such thing as love when it comes to games like these, Anders.

[ Settling back in her chair, she frowns. ]

Whatever I might think the view my mother and father have will be much different. If I married for love I think I should be disowned, and while that might sound wonderful and novel it would mean being unable to return to anything I knew and loved. Nevarra would be closed off to me entirely. I am pushing the boundaries of their affection enough by coming here without their knowledge nor consent.

[ Her fingers twitch around her water, eyes closing and lips set. ]

If I dared to engage with a woman, to profess my love to someone who could not bed and breed me? It would be intolerable. The idea of it fills me with shame. I... [ A breath. ] I was not taught to accept such things. To allow it. I do not think I would be able to survive it without loathing myself after.

[There's also no room for living in these machinations, he's considering pointing out, until she reaches the last part.]

There is nothing wrong with loving someone who you can't bear children with.

[His voice is gentle.]

Sidony... You are not just a thing to be used in the way others deem fit. You are a person. And I think you could use figuring out who this person is, rather than simply what place others expect her to occupy. You're not a, a, a pawn on a chessboard unless you let yourself be, and that would be such a waste of an intelligent, passionate, lead-taking person.

[ She appears nothing more than miserable. ]

There is. There is when it is your purpose to bear children.

[ The gentleness makes her feel worse, the facts of her world - that she is there for marriage, for children, for that future and little else making her sour and frustrated, unsure why she came in the first place - leaving her unsettled. ]

It does not matter what I want or what I wish. I will be married and when I am I will have a husband who will have his children in me and there will be no room for much else. [ No dissections, no surgery, nothing. ] He shall have whatever mistress he shall like and I will have his children. I... [ A breath, shaken. ] My life has been destined for waste since I was eleven. Whatever desires I had ever sought had been taken from me. I am not foolish enough to imagine that the most base of them would be fulfilled.

[Places. Expectations. They work fine when you're born the sort that fits into them, but when you're not...]

I ask you to think about being foolish. To stop, and to weigh it out. You won't have security, likely. You won't have fine things much of the time. But you could have a life. You could have love. You could have something precious in this world that makes everything you've dealt with worth it.

There is nothing like freedom, nor is there anything like being loved and in love. I would trade everything for those things again, in a heartbeat.

Do I need love?

[ There is one thing she had wanted that she would never have and all her other dreams seem like nothing in comparison. Who needs love? Such a silly thing to dream after, the topic of poems and stories the other ladies loved. Sidony wanted her future, but she’d not get to keep it. ]

I - I am not sure what you imagine me to be, Anders, but I am not a creature of love nor lust. I will not be beholden to such things no matter how grand they might appear to be. Love will not guide me or cure me. It cannot. [ A soft, sad sound slips from her mouth. ] I... I will not be seen so kindly - no. I am... [ Not undesirable, but... ] It is not what I was made for.

I imagine you a person.

[His voice is quiet.]

Neither wanton nor desperate. A person who has chosen to be beholden to other people, and other people's whims and wishes rather than her own. There is... There is an easiness to resignation. To saying that you are not in charge of your own destiny, that you cannot change it, that you can only resent it and move on. A comfort, even. That is why so many of my own people are willing to go back to captivity and the Circle - having a place takes a large burden of life off one's shoulders.

[His voice gets less quiet; there's an undertone of passion there now.]

But how can it possibly be worth it? How can you give up the world, your skills, your passions, for a pretty cage with bars made of familial and societal approval? There is no end to the expectations, and no end to the pitfalls. What if he's not able to father a child? What if you're not able to bear? What if he loses his lands and title and you have no place left and are bound to him?

Then I am bound. It is a matter of honour.

[ Her voice is the smallest it has been now. ]

Do not mistake my acceptance for resignation. Do not think that all that I do is - is because it is more comfortable. I am here because I wish to study and learn, because my desire to do what my mother and the Chantry dictate is wrong outweighs everything else. I burn with it. I want to know the human body, to learn the pains and aches, to understand the depths of it and the hurts, but I also know that it is my honour as a Venaras to do as my family bids.

[ She lifts her hand and touches her chest. ]

I cannot picture myself dishonoured. I cannot imagine losing my mother and father and brother, as distant as I am from them. I cannot imagine myself labelled with... The brush of damnation for something that might be as simple as childish excitement. [ And it seems she is well practiced with talking herself out of her feelings towards women, no matter who she is speaking to. ] My pretty cage is as important to me as your freedom.

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