faderift | [Open] But when we are apart I feel it too

Entry tags:

[Open] But when we are apart I feel it too

WHO: Anders and open
WHAT: General stuff around Kirkwall
WHEN: Through Bloomingtide
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: Nothing as of yet!.

1. Making the Band

The crowd is the new mix of normals, people Anders is starting to learn by face though he's avoiding names. Most here do, which he's thankful for. What's not normal is that Juke Bachs has dropped by, and has been singing a new song about two or three times an hour. On top of that, he's been getting some of the more drunk patrons involved in some... Anders can only call it a dance because they're trying to move in time to the music. It involved weird patterns and flailing limbs, and he's deliberately sticking around to keep watching this.

He leans over when someone sits next to him, not quite looking at the person. "A copper on the blond one falling over in the next minute." It seems a safe bet. That guy's more coordinated than the really beardy guy, but he's already tripped over his feet enough that his palms are scraped and nose is bleeding.

Juke starts in on another round of what's apparently called Tearin' Up My Heart, and Anders takes a sip of his drink, very well pleased.

2. CSI: Thedas

He's taken a larger, unclaimed room for this, coating it in ice, using runes to make sure the ice doesn't melt, and he's also gathered as many tables as he can, lining them up together and creating a rather large, cold surface. On that surface is most of a corpse of a high dragon, many parts already cut open so he can get at the heart of the matter. So to speak.

There's a sign on the door warning about what he's working on, doing more research into the taint and the Blight, but that's all - the last thing he's going to do is barricade a door. He doesn't need to invite suspicion or fear any more than his breathing already does.

Those who might be scientifically inclined and he trusts to not take too many risks of exposure have been invited to join him in trying to see what they can learn from how High Dragons deal with the Blight.

3. Call the Anders

Most days, his hours in the medical rooms in the Gallows are regular. There's always more work that needs doing, after all, herbs to be chopped, processed, and mixed into potions, bandages to prepare, healing to do, and even housecalls to make from time to time. Purrelden knows not to be on the table while he works, which is exactly why she's on the table the moment he's turning to greet whatever patient or person has walked in the door.

[ooc: if you take this option and your character is injured/ill, please drop me an ooc note about what he'll find when going to heal them.]

4. Dr. Anders, Medicine Man

There are whispers in Darktown, spreading slowly, that their healer is back. Follow the lit lanterns, they say. Not every day are they lit, and there's no particular order to the days that they are, which is as deliberate as the moving of the clinic down there every time. ...Until today. Today, he's found a small building that two of the Darktown gangs have been fighting over for months. For equal healing for both of them, they're letting him use it. It's win-win for both. Neither is losing territory, and both gain a healer. It's a double win for him too, because it means that he has protection.

Today a new whisper joins the others - there are some tables and chairs, and between healing, he's offering reading and writing lessons. For free, no questions asked. He's also looking for assistants, if there's anyone out there willing to instruct down here or help heal or do prep work around the Clinic. There's a lot to do when setting up something that's going to stand for a while.

5. Anders Howe, Pet Detective.

Dogs and leashes are natural combinations. They take to it well and quickly. Cats and leashes... not so much. Purrelden's legs have apparently stopped working in the middle of the market and she's limp, giving him the saddest expression.

"You're fine," he tells her. "You can walk. This is to keep you safer, and to protect Merrill's twine. Please get up."

Pleading with a cat doesn't seem to ever work, and more than a few are staring at him, but at least they're staring at him for this and not other reasons. He looks up, meeting gazes and giving a slightly sheepish smile and shrug to anyone familiar.

"Cats," Anders says as explanation.

6. Wildcard me!

[ooc: Got something you want with Anders but it's not here? Toss up a header. If you're not sure about it, go ahead and poke me on Plurk at Nadat or on Discord at Nadat#4647 and we can chat!]

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It's taken some time to get all the needed ingredients, but get them he has at last. A couple of days later he sends a crystal message to Kattrin telling her he has it all and asking her here, to one of the old teaching rooms in the Gallows, whenever she had a day free.

That day's arrived, and he busies himself checking to make sure all of the protections from the past were in place. The magic they're doing will be entirely familiar to Kattrin, of course, but it's unfamiliar to him. If he slips up, if the casting goes wrong, he wants things to be intact.

She wasn't familiar with the Gallows since she hadn't been there yet but she found her way easily enough. Though, she wasn't sure she liked it there. Even cleansed it felt as if she could still see the pain that had happened in these walls. Still, she ignored it and made her way to the teaching room, the little fennec at her ankles.

"Good day, Anders," she greeted politely as she took her pack off and looked around the room with curiosity.

"Good day, to you and the fennec as well. I don't recall if you told me what his name was?" He stepped away from the rune he was reinforcing, coming over to near her.

Anders indicates the walls with his thumb. "This was a teaching room. The walls have protective measures in them so students could practice in safety, which means this is a good setting for working with magic that's new to me."

"He has whatever name his heart knows. I have not given one to him for he is not a pet but rather a guide." That was what she believed with all of her heart. Kattrin smiled down at the little creature then looked to Anders who was now explaining this room to her. The reason that he'd picked it.

"Unless one of us is to be injured there is no need to cast magic. Do you have what I asked for?"

"Of course," he says, gesturing to the table off to the side while giving her a slightly confused look. How is he going to learn how she works with spirits without magic? This should be interesting. As interesting as calling a fennec a guide.

Truth be told, he'd always been curious about the Avvar. That the only one he'd known before had been a mess didn't change that.

"So how do we start?"

Moving to a space on the floor, she sat down and crossed her legs. Waving him over, she offered the space across from her as she began to speak to him.

"Set the items I asked you for here before me and I will explain why I asked for them. It is the best place to begin for why the Avvar interact with the spirits so differently than your own people."

It would help him to understand how her people felt about them. And how they interacted with the spirits when it came to using magic as well.

Anders brings the materials over, herbs and lyrium both, and sits down cross-legged as well before setting out everything between the two of them.

"And why leads to how, I take it." He can feel Mercy's closeness as he settles in, the spirit as interested in what she can see through him as he is.

Kattrin watched as the fennec came over and settled near her. Well more like between the two of them just to the side. Much like he was watching over the entire matter to see how it would go. She smiled at him then returned her attention to Anders so she could nod at his statement.

"Those taught magic by the circle are taught by other mages, yes?" It was mostly to confirm rather than simply make an assumption based upon what she had heard from others. It wouldn't be fair to Anders to assume things about the ways he was taught magic. Particularly when he was so open to learning about the Avvar people and their views on magic and the spirits.

"Right. Senior Enchanters is the title given to those who instruct, and students are called Apprentices until they're forced through a horrific ordeal known as the Harrowing, and then we actually get called mages."

The Circles had been insular. He doesn't expect everyone to know what all went on in the Circle.

"This room would have had a senior enchanter and four to six apprentices, or two to three mages, for each class. Generally speaking. ...If Kirkwall did things the way Kinloch Hold did, in my time." There are a lot of qualifiers there. There have to be, with how Circles operate. They also serve as a distraction from thoughts of a specific senior enchanter who was held here for a time.

She nodded. Just from the phrasing she could tell that his time in the Circle had not been pleasant. One of the reasons why the Avvar protected their mages so fiercely. Kattrin let him finish then lowered her gaze to the items, lifting the herbs up and tying them into a bundle like the one she'd given to him.

"Mages who are Avvar are not taught by humans at all. We are under the care of one who will guide us through how to speak to our teachers but they do not actually teach us the gifts we are born with access to."

Once the herbs were in a bundle, she set them by the lyrium again.

"Avvar mages allow a spirit to enter their bodies and that spirit will then teach them what they must know about magic."

And there it is, the thing that had been whispered at in stories, hinted at if you read between the lines. They let a spirit in, and rumor had it they could also let one back out. Karl and Justice. There are two lives lost, or existences lost, weighing on his shoulders here in this room.

"That's... I'd read theories that edged along the border of saying that's how your mages learned. It was hidden in heavy, judgmental language, but that was what I thought it was saying."

His voice is quiet as he watches her deal with the herbs, as he works to push back his own baggage.

"It's part of why I thought... It doesn't matter. Please, continue."

There was much he'd been through and it weighed heavily on him. She could see it on his face, feel it in his words. Anders had been through much in his life and it seemed much of it was...less than good. She wanted to ask but felt that this was a tale he would have to be willing to give to her in his own time. When he was ready.

Kattrin lowered her hands to touch lyrium and herbs.

"When the time is correct we release our teachers. Our ways require us to consume vast amounts of lyrium to do it. Like this that I asked you for here. We can then let our teachers go back to...you call it the Fade?" She paused there. "Does all of this make sense? I could offer further explanation."

"It, I follow." Does it make sense to let spirits in? He can't say. But he understands her words.

"How do you release them back?" It won't change what happened to Justice, but it matters to him anyway. If there's a way to help other possessed people, or... he doesn't quite know. Something about knowing would ease a little bit of the guilt he feels, he thinks.

"A ritual of great magic. We consume all lyrium in this phial then use these herbs and moment of great privacy to begin to release the spirit. It is tiring and very personal for these teachers become cherished friends to us." There were days she missed her teacher. Particularly now that she was having to find a new path for her magic that wasn't becoming the spiritual adviser for the Avvar.

"We are taught to reach out to the spirits for they are our gods. But we are aware that having one within you can damage you and the spirit." Kattrin touched the herbs gently. "You call this...abomination in the lowlands, yes?"

"Yes." It's a fitting word when it goes too far, and Anders and Justice had gone too far.

"How do you prevent the damage? How do you know when it's a good point to release them and they've taught enough but aren't becoming corrupted?" Anders realizes he's flooding her with questions and not helping her in the least. He grimaces, feeling a little guilty there. "I was an abomination. My, my friend, I let him in. And then there were issues."

She could answer him but then she heard him talk of having been possessed. Of having been an abomination. As if he no longer was despite the issues. Yet he was still here... But the spirit was not?

"May I ask what took place? Before I answer your questions?" She was curious and not judging. Just wanting to know what had happened to him that had awoken this guilt in his heart.

Anders looks down, pressing his lips together for a few moments before he begins to answer. It's not easy, but she's helping him. She deserves the information if she wants it.

"Myself and a few others were flung into the Fade. It was a trap, set for us. When we proved too much for the demon who wanted us there to handle, it threw us and the spirit who teamed up with us out of the Fade. The spirit, Justice, wound up in a corpse. For a time that sufficed, but the corpse was falling apart. One... A friend suggested we consider merging. We'd some ideals in common, after all. When I was cornered by Templars who didn't care I was a Warden and should be beyond their power, we merged. He saved my life, because moments afterward I was skewered with a blade. But it... It didn't go all that well."

He swallows and takes a breath. "My anger and his incomprehension of shades of grey combined. Twisted him. He became less Justice and more Vengeance slowly but surely. We had to separate, but he, he didn't want to. So we tried various ancient rituals to try to put him back in the Fade. Four failed entirely. The fifth pulled him out of my body, but purely as Vengeance. Justice was lost, and as Vengeance was attacking, he was fought. He died. Co--There's someone who says in time my friend may find his way again and slowly become Justice once more in the Fade. I hope he's right."

She listened and she could immediately see the problems. The place where he should have released him. This spirit wasn't meant to stay here in this world for spirits didn't belong here. The Fade, as lowlanders called it, was their home. She nodded slowly but there was no judgement as she let the story play out and there was a sadness in her eyes over what had become of all this. The man must have lived such hardships because of this spirit. Not because he'd wanted to but because this was simply what happened when a spirit and a human were merged too long.

"I do not feel that what happened is your fault. You did what you thought best for a friend. Sometimes in this world what seems best is not what will help but that is not always seen until it is too late."

She looked down, like she knew that from personal experience. With a deep breath, she shook her head slowly then closed her eyes, murmuring softly. A small prayer for this spirit friend of his.

"If I'd known how to get him back to the Fade..."

But that hadn't been in any books. How to kill demons was, but nothing about spirits who weren't fallen. The Chantry hadn't really cared about that. It was easier to pretend that things were black and white when consolidating their power, rather than bothering about shades of grey.

"That's part of why the Circles are so much of a problem. They restrict magic knowledge, lock it up with the mages, and prevent us from learning and improving. And we only know Chantry-approved magic, too. The amount of things we're already adding to our knowledge that can help..."

He shakes his head and trails off again. There's so much potential in freedom. There is none in captivity.

"The Avvar forbid the entry of Templar into the mountains to protect the mages from them. I was taught from an early age that we are believed to be barbaric and dangerous to them and would be made prisoners if captured in the lowlands."

She looked down at her hands, clearly saddened by this. She wanted to be able to trust more freely but there was much that had taken place to instill a sense of fear or caution in her and others. It was a harsh reality but one she was learning to get used to.

"It becomes harder still when we can share knowledge but not truly teach other our magic for they are too different." Kattrin sighed a little then shook her head. "I thank you for being willing to listen to what I can do."

Anders shakes his head. "Wrapping one's mind around a new way of doing magic is difficult, but I don't believe it impossible. I think we can learn from each other, and the effort will be worth it." Hermione's magic doesn't translate to here, but Kattrin is from Thedas. There has to be a common ground they can work from to be able to combine their knowledge and help mages out together.

"And I can only hope to have a community eventually that is safe from Templars for the mages. But I believe right now that I'll have to incorporate them if we're to accomplish anything. The Chantry will push back too hard otherwise."

She wasn't sure that they could teach each other magic because the methods were too different. However, she did agree that they could learn from each other. Acceptance, knowledge into other ways. Anything to bring everyone closer.

"I am not so sure I would want to be part of this community until I saw how it worked. I mean no offense by this, simply that I have lived a life without trust for Templar. It will take time for me to learn to accept them at all."

"I understand." Here's a mage who is reasonable about her fears rather than willing to toss them all away for certain shelter. Templars are abusive. Sacrificing freedom and true safety for an illusion of safety is no trade at all.

"As of now, there's only one Templar I'd even allow close to it, one who admits he was part of the problem and that there's blood on his hands. He says he wishes to atone, and I believe him. The rest? They're not ready. They still believe they did things right, and I alone did things wrong. If they can't accept their own failings, they will never be ready to help mages."

She wasn't sure if this was a colored view of his based on his own experiences or not. Honestly she was going to have to actually really interact with some Templar more. It would take time to break herself of a lifetime of mistrust at this point but she was willing if it meant helping this organization.

"I have little to offer in the ways of changing this world due to my circumstances. Honestly, I may seem selfish with the way I may not get as involved. However, I will offer my magic for healing you and your friends should they need it. Even this...Templar." She wanted him to know that. That she would set aside her feelings to help if it could. True she wouldn't step into this school or be part of it yet but she would still help from the sidelines for now.

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[Open] But when we are apart I feel it too

For Kattrin

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