[OPEN] Be Careful Lest Your Sins Find You Out

[lifeofendurance]

WHO: Aleron Darton and Anyone in the Gallows
WHAT: Someone remembers the Seeker from days gone by. Not happy days.
WHEN: Early Justinian (backdated)
WHERE: Gallows
NOTES: None yet. Al is still a stick-in-the-mud. Although maybe no more than 4-5 tag ins so I don't leave folks hanging? Still open for any previous Kirkwall/Starkhaven mages who want to wtf at him.



It was bound to happen sooner or later.

Ever since receiving the news that the Inquisition was going to set up base in Kirkwall, Aleron has had a feeling in the pit of his stomach that his time in the city prior was going to rear its ugly head. He, of course, doesn't feel he was in any way wrong in his actions. But then making people uncomfortable is part and parcel of being a Seeker. He's used to it, in fact. And thus, the sudden outburst behind his head is not much of a surprise.

"You! What are you doing here?! How could you? How could you have brought us here and left us with that madwoman?"

The source: a woman with a thick Starkhaven accent, face red with rage and barrelling at Aleron as if to tackle him to the ground with her slight frame.

She stops short of tackling him. Barely.

Having his boots spit on? That does prove something of a surprise. And the slap she delivers across his face immediately thereafter.

Comments

[sunshinethroughgrey]

Bethany had turned from Aleron for a moment - just a moment - to stroke Gamlen's little fuzzy ears - when the woman marched up and spat on his boots. Then ... slapped him.

To say she was in shock was, well, an understatement.

"I. What. Why. Excuse me, but why are you slapping my husband?!"

[onlyhymns]

This might have turned out okay. Maybe. If the resident Templar attack dog weren't in the vicinity to see this happen, and immediately flip a switch from doing whatever he was doing to Handling This in the best way he knows how.
Cade appears out of seemingly nowhere to tackle the woman to the ground, where he holds her arms and presses his knee to her back, radiating fury. Sorry Bethany, she probably can't answer at the moment.

[lifeofendurance]

All this chaos erupting about Aleron and he remains as calm and stoic as ever. Even when he places a single hand on Cade's shoulder. Not to call him off but as a physical reminder not to push the matter with more violence until answers can be gleaned.

The woman, however, is disinclined to be reasonable and is practically hissing at all of them. "How could you?" she chokes out from the ground, while thrashing to get free. The rest of her complaint gets tabled in exchange for demands to be let up. "I'm a member of the Inquisition, let me up you fool! Let me up!"

The Seeker doesn't mind if the lady gets up again or talks from the ground, so long as she keeps her hands and saliva to herself. "Only if we've your word you'll control yourself," he replies with a glance to both Bethany and Cade for their agreement or not.

[sunshinethroughgrey]

...Well that escalated quickly.

Very quickly.

In fact Bethany is still trying to figure out precisely where Cade came from. She's never seen a Templar move so fast in her life. She's starting to feel glad she never ran into Cade in Kirkwall -- he would have had her for certain --

"Hm? Oh. Yes. As long as she just ... stops spitting everywhere. The slapping can stop too." She said firmly, folding her arms over her chest.

just let me know if anything doesn't work! ♥

[limier]

She's not happy. That's an understatement.

Wren finds him later, when word's filtered out: Hands folded behind her back, posture rigid, head tipped at such an incline to be mistaken for deference by the unwary.

She’s been avoiding Darton. Doesn’t care to look him in the eye. It had been a desperate, shit decision to drag him to Orzammar — she doesn't care to remind herself of it. But what she cares hardly matters now, now that there's been a scene.

It's difficult to say which aspect of the incident's most left her simmering. The cause? Or the fuck of a way it's been handled? If she's being truly honest, neither's the whole reason there's something burning in her chest.

She raps twice on the edge of the doorframe (some anonymous workspace she's been told he's within) to announce herself.

"Seeker," The words are brusque, her eyes hard. "Ser Coupe. A moment of your time?"

c'est parfait! ♥

[lifeofendurance]

Honestly, Aleron expects hardness from any Templars, past or present. It's part and parcel of the job and he knows it. They don't trust him and he's suspicious by nature. It comes full circle. So he's not put off by Wren's demeanor in the doorway when he looks up from his research notes.

A small nod from him and a beckoning motion for emphasis. Carefully, he lays an unused quill on the precise line he'd been reading to mark his place, then looks up again.

"Certainly. Is there something I might help you with?"

Its as if nothing at all loud and inflammatory happened out in the courtyard. Apparently his unflappable calm sets people on edge, as it turns out, and yet he's still emotionless.

[limier]

"Thank you."

Evenly. She shuts the door carefully behind her (thick walls here; they’ll not be overheard), extends a hand out to the air in polite introduction, and —

"That," It cracks out sharp and furious. "Enormous fucking cockup cannot happen again."

His title was due some respect before, however warily given. He’s blown through it now. How foolish she ever was, to suppose them any different, any somehow better. As though they were anything more than men — good, bad, and petty as any other.

"Do you have the faintest idea what that sort of shitbrained, reactionary aggression costs us? What it costs the Inquisition’s cause? To assault a survivor of the Gallows in public view." She stalks closer, plants her hands on the desk. Snarls: "What did you imagine she was going to do, spit poison? Give me one good reason not to report all three of you to your division heads."

She intends to, regardless. The final decision isn't hers to make, but this must not appear to go unaddressed.

[lifeofendurance]

All Aleron does is raises a single eyebrow in response. This is not the reaction of a man who engages in reactionary aggression. Cade on the other hand? Yes well.

"I'm entirely aware of the inflammatory nature of Ser Harimann's behavior and it will be addressed. If you are looking for me to publicly flog him, however, I fear you will be disappointed."

Aleron doesn't deal with things in public. Aleron doesn't do public. Seekers seldom do. Sticking to the shadows until it's necessary to step out and make their presence known. He doesn't even sigh, even when by all rights a normal person would.

Instead, he motions to a chair with an open hand and a blank, impassive expression. "Please, make yourself comfortable and we can address any other complaint you have about the outburst."

[sulena]

It is on her way to prayer that Saoirse is suddenly startled out of her thoughts by a rage-filled voice with an accent not unlike her own. She spins on her heels just in time to see the woman strike the Seeker, heart racing before she rushes forward to reach out toward the woman and hopefully stop another attack.

"Please," she speaks in a soft voice and equally thick accent. "I know you are angry but we cannot do as they did to us. Some might see and use it as an excuse to act as they did once before."

Not that she is accusing Aleron of anything close to the sort but she is trying, very hard at that, to connect with this woman.

[lifeofendurance]

Unfortunately, Aleron recognizes neither woman. When he oversaw the Circle transfer from Starkhaven to Kirkwall, he never involved himself with learning names or faces. Simply accomplishing the task at hand. He blinks once at the both of them, trying to parse what he's hearing into some semblance of sense. That he's just been smacked barely registers because he's all too used to having people dislike and distrust him. Besides, given how spectacularly large a fail he had missing Meredith's madness, he feels he deserves a bountiful share of blame.

Which doesn't particularly help in this situation where he's trying to look between a spitfire and a voice of reason. Reason is good.

Regardless, he remains entirely blank faced and doesn't rise to the occasion. "Forgive me, but I don't believe we've been introduced."

Not remembering? Isn't helping and just gets the woman that much more riled, "Of course you wouldn't remember." She rounds on Saorise too with her verbal lashing. "Are you defending him?"

[onlyhymns]

When someone else arrives, and Rhona gets riled back up, Cade takes a quick step to stand in front of her, blocking her from Saoirse. Though he doesn't lay his hands on her (yet), he very much stands in her personal space, implying she should step back or regret it.

[sulena]

Saoirse glances between Cade and Rhona with careful glances before Cade's sudden appearance surprises her, watching as he places himself between the herself and the other woman. She reaches out, gently touching his elbow before offering a shake of her head and allowing herself to draw in close to Rhona once more.

"He is Inquisition now, we are all Inquisition now. We must be more than what Meredith Stannard tried to make of us. That is why we're here." She says with a soft voice.

"I know you are hurting, I know you are angry but we must make the first step in breaking this cycle of blood."

[justice_is_blond]

He hears of it later. A mage being tackled, pinned painfully, and flung after her only crime was a slap and a spit. This. This is why Templars and Seekers are problems still. She'd not attacked with magic, she'd not actually threatened him, but she'd been treated as if she was a criminal and he's furious. A little of it's faded by the time he's found Aleron, but not all.

"I want to hear your side of what happened." His voice is cold, anger etched on his face, arms crossed. "I want to hear why a victim was assaulted after slapping someone who could have easily taken it, why yet again the power imbalance of the past was enforced."

Sometimes he wonders if there ever will be any true allies from the Chantry side, or if they're all biding their time and playing nice-ish until they can once more subjugate and abuse.

[lifeofendurance]

Ah another visitor. Anders is not the first, and he's unlikely to be the last. Aleron is just as maddeningly emotionless about this visit as he's been about the others. If anything, he's becoming exhausted with the distinct lack of emotional control in the Inquisition. But only just.

However, Anders is just as likely to walk away as unsatisfied as Wren did. As will any number of others. Because he doesn't have a "side". As far as he's concerned, the slap was more than justified and he's quite willing to let the matter drop. Hell, he's just as willing to let the population of Kirkwall line up and take their shots at him, because he deserves it. He won't be defending himself now or ever. He will give facts.

"A previous mage of the Kirkwall Circle slapped me with good cause. A Templar intervened. Bethany then intervened and took her away for tea and rest." He's not divulging names, he's not divulging particulars, and he is wondering why everyone feels the need to insert themselves into a matter he considers concluded. "I've no intentions of pursuing any further action for the altercation. She has suffered enough."

Matter is settled and Aleron calmly goes about reordering his research notes that were pushed about while Wren was here having her hissy fit.

[justice_is_blond]

"...You think I'm upset at the mage? The one who I've heard any number of things about? While I'm quite certain that the tale of how she was beaten is an exaggeration brought about by rumor, reliable sources say that someone who had good cause as you say, was attacked by the very Templar who has attacked people before. I'd also like to hear more about the cause she had, because that's been subjected to a half-dozen rumors as well."

Word flies. It always has, but especially here in the Gallows. It's the only tradition of this place that Anders welcomes, just as he doesn't welcome Aleron's implications that the mage might deserve more punishment than she'd already gotten. The mess is another indication of why he's only all right with very specific, personally known, Seekers and Templars. These people cannot be allowed to have authority over mages again, ever.

[lifeofendurance]

"She was not beaten," Aleron confirms. "A Templar standing nearby intervened and restrained her for a totality of one minute, until it was clear she did not intend any further physical altercations." He's not bringing up that it is Cade, because Harimann is problem. An epic problem. A problem that he and Malcolm wanted settled a year ago and they were prevented from doing by pleas of mercy. It's starting to seem a rather grand mistake.

If Aleron were a man given to emotional reactions, he would sigh. Heavily. As it is, he remains calm and unmoved by the entire discussion. He's rather exasperated by this rampant excess of emotional exhibitionism, but does not intend to let everyone's tempers rule the day. As it stands, Rhona did strike him first and without immediate provocation. If people poke and prod too hard at the matter, trouble might come down on her head for picking a fight and that is assuredly the last thing he wants to see come to this woman.

"As to her reasons, I am to blame for her having been placed in Kirkwall's Circle under Meredith's care."

For Cade

[lifeofendurance]

For all the tantrums that Aleron's been exposed to today, he doesn't actually much care about the emotions behind them. Nor does he give a nug's ass about "how it looks" or "what people will think". It seems to have pissed off more people. He's rather used to making people uncomfortable and angry, so it doesn't phase him in the least.

What does have his attention is that Cade acted out of impulse, and that impulse was far more aggressive than the situation called for. Restraining someone instigating physical violence was fine and he obeyed to the letter of the direction, if not the spirit. It's the burning rage in the Templar, obvious to anyone present, that has the Seeker concerned.

It's the old question revisited: Has Cade gone rogue?

He's calmly seated at his work desk, finishing the job of sorting his research paperwork when he sends a runner to collect Harimann. But he does take a moment to close his eyes, order his thoughts, and pray to Andraste for guidance.

[onlyhymns]

Having had a bit of time to come down from his rage, Cade trails after Aleron with growing uncertainty. He's still filled with adrenaline, and can tell by the Seeker's tone that this isn't going to be good, his mind racing to uncover his offense. He had attacked a mage, but only after she attacked his superior, and that's just part of a day's work.

His trepidation increases as he makes his way into Aleron's office, hands at his sides and lips pursed, the picture of obedience. "Ser," he says quietly, in greeting.

[lifeofendurance]

Restraining someone being aggressive is entirely within the purview of a Templar's duties. There is no fault to be found in that directly. It is the level of aggression in its execution and the plain writ rage in Cade's expression that goes beyond the ordinary. Rest assured, Aleron is not put out that Cade took steps to insure that Bethany was not also a target. However...

He points at an empty chair, intending that Cade should sit while they talk. "Are you recovered from earlier?"

For Bethany

[lifeofendurance]

After all the interruptions of people losing their tempers today, Aleron has not managed to finish nearly as much of his work as he'd hoped today. So he brought it home. Sheaves upon sheaves of notes to review and see if there isn't something he's overlooked. The chances of him falling into bed anytime before dawn are slim indeed. He's punishing himself for prior failures by digging harder and deeper now.

Still, he ought to thank his precious wife for her intervention with that nasty altercation earlier. Aleron's quite convinced it was deserved, less convinced that someone isn't going to find some way to paint the mage a villain for picking a fight. He puts his work down and comes over to peck Bethany on the forehead and convince her not to try waiting up for him.

Re: For Bethany

[sunshinethroughgrey]

Bethany herself has her hands folded over some knitting she was working on, looking out the window with a pensive expression on her face. She looks up only at the light kiss to her forehead, and a tired smile touches her lips. She lifts her hand, covers his, and tugs at it.

"Stay with me for a moment. I wanted to speak to you."

She folds their fingers together, giving him a quiet look, "Why didn't you ever tell me you were one of the Seekers who came here to look into Meredith?"

[lifeofendurance]

There's a blank look on Aleron's face and it's not the variety of calm detachment he almost always has going on. It's puzzlement. And his answer is simple and straightforward, "I thought you knew."

It's not a secret he's kept hidden and there are any number of people who could and would have said so. But he has kept his personal sense of failure and guilt to himself because that is not a burden for anyone but himself. But he's not going to flinch away from that failure, either. He owns that it is on him and nothing he can do will ever make up for it.

"Had I known you did not, I would have. I want no secrets between us."

[arlathvhen]

If Beleth were to be honest, her reasons for choosing to approach Aleron were far from professional. If this involved anyone besides Cade, would she have gotten involved? Would she even care? But here they all are, and here is Beleth, getting involved.

Even if her reasons are not professional, her behavior can be. Must be, if she wants to get to the bottom of this, and see it solved to her satisfaction. So when she does approach Aleron, her expression is neutral, body language carefully schooled into calm poise.

"Seeker Darton." A polite inclination of her head. "As you know, I've been honored with the responsibility of handling the information relevent to the Inquisition. Therefore, I was hoping you would be kind enough to bear with me, and answer some questions." A small pause, and she offers him a polite smile. "If I may, of course."

[lifeofendurance]

Thank the Maker. This is the first, and possibly the only, person who's sought him out today with a cool head and calm demeanor. The excess of emotionality has been wearing on his interminable patience.

Aleron sets aside his research notes again, marking his spot with an unused quill and motions for Beleth to have a seat.

"Of course, what might I assist you with?"

[arlathvhen]

Beleth takes the seat offered, though her spine remains as straight as a steel rod. Her face remains politely pleasant, as she sets her hands in her lap. Look how nice and calm and composed she is.

"I was hoping that you would give me your personal account of the incident with yourself, the ex-circle mage, and Cade. As I'm sure you can imagine, the rumor mill has been spinning quite a few interesting stories, and I would like to try to get your perspective on it." She relaxes into the chair, clearly planning on being here for a while. "Please, include as many details as you can recall."