faderift | Let No Soul Hunger For Justice: Nothing But The Truth

Singing does not seem so agonising, in retrospect.

( A spymaster compelled to speak the truth? Disaster. Leliana exhales, and after a pause of consideration, speaks again. )

Are there resources that you need for this assessment?

No, no it does not.

[ She would rather another round of that than this. ]

No. It is all theoretical work. If there are additional translations or documents to explain the remaining rituals and you have not yet found them? They either do not exist or have been destroyed. What we have is what we have.

( At least she has a reputation for thoroughness, if nothing else. That's a terrible consolation prize, but what is there to be done? )

Then we will find the means to proceed. If not for Anders, than for the others that your work will help.

Since I learned that he is that Anders- I have not been doing this for him. It was the one way I could forgive myself for keeping his secret of being an Abomination from the Mage Council. It was my excuse. 'Ah, but who else might know enough to be able to help them? Think of the good you can do. They would never agree to these experiments.'

[ A drink. ]

I should have known better. Those are the same arguments offered me by Demons. It was arrogance. I should have come to the advisors as soon as he told me of Justice.

Show me a person who has not acted with arrogance or the belief they were working for the greater good.

( Not said with overwhelming sympathy, or in the tones of an expert at consoling and comforting. She is too pragmatic for that, now. )

I will not argue that we should know when abominations stand among us. However, ( she starts, watching Adelaide carefully ) I knew a woman bonded with a spirit very well, and she was a woman who did great things to help the world. Standing alongside a friend is not arrogant.

( Different times, different circumstances, etc. Even so. )

I am willing to put coin on her not tainting the spirit she was bonded with at the time.

[ Otherwise there'd have been some sign- probably not so grand as a chantry's explosion, but something none the less. ]

We are not friends. We are... [ She wants to say 'nothing' but cannot. So they are not nothing. But they are not friends.

What in the Maker's name, then, are they? ] I do not know what we are.

I do not know much of spirits, ( she admits, very freely. ) But I do not think she could have, no.

( Leliana's smile is wry. )

Bewildering acquaintances?

It is damning enough that we work together- keeping his company reflects upon me and what I am fighting to build with the Council. More than that he is everything we are cautioned against as Spirit Healers, and what he did? Compounds matters.

But he is kind and he is funny and there are moments when I forget what he has done and what he is and I wonder-

[ She shakes her head. ]

Foolish things. And then I remember.

( And then I remember. That is a tragedy with which Leliana can well relate. How often had she awoken after the Conclave, and remembered that Justinia had died, so that the ache rung through her all anew? How many times in that dungeon has she remembered that it was Marjolaine that drove a knife into her?

Remembering could be devastating, living the grief over and over again in unrelenting waves. )

I'm sorry.

( And for all that she is a pragmatist, there is nothing good in prodding at someone in their grief. ) Do you mind if I ask you about what it is you want to build with the Council?

( It is both an inopportune and excellent time to ask and she's berating herself for asking for multiple reasons. )

C'est la vie. It is what it is.

[ And what it is, is bullshit. And she would gladly do without- but she cannot bring herself to say as such and that worries her far more than it ought. More than enough that she is grateful to Leliana for changing the subject. ]

A foundation. If we can show that we can govern ourselves fairly and sensibly- that we do not need the strictest measure of what the Circles once were but make them instead similar to what they are in Tevinter- universities, places of learning, voluntary- while still being able to protect both new mages from people that fear them? We will have earned the pardon that the Herald gave us and repaid her kindness.

I was not among those mages- but what was done rests on all of our shoulders. I do not imagine it will make up for Redcliffe, the war, Kirkwall or Kinloch. We are ever marked by our sins before we are our virtues and it is frustrating- that blood is not on my hands and yet. [ A tense flick of her fingers at the empty vault, a 'there we are' sort of thing. ] Perhaps I think if I do enough here it will make up for not staying behind and helping more of my fellows, for saying nothing when the vote was called in Andoral's reach. Or perhaps I hope it will prevent something like the Spire from happening again. It has been my greatest fear for so long- and I was promised I ought not be so worried. Try as I might to put it from my mind- it lingers.

That doesn't make it pleasant.

( Said with all the evenness of someone well versed in things being what they are, and fighting against them with everything she has.

The mention of Evelyn is not easy to hear, but she makes no show of it. It is never easy being reminded of those fallen, those friends lost, and with the anniversary of Tug and the Waking Sea and Denerim looming she feels it all the more keenly. This year she will drink for Tug, and for Evelyn and Dorothea and Wynne and maybe even Jonas. There is an extended pause before she replies. )

Such worries are natural. Once something is done, it raises the possibility that it will be done again, perhaps with even more brutality. ( Kirkwall, Starkhaven, Redcliffe. So many deaths and horrors spread across the Ages, and now doubt there were more unknown to them than known, especially when the acts were commited against, rather than by or for, mages. )

I would like to do whatever I can to aid in this foundation. I believes mages should have their freedom and choices laid before them, rather than being caged. What I have seen was seen with the eyes of someone who is not a mage, and cannot know the precise fears that come with it. From what I understand, a lack of places to train and be taught is every bit as dangerous for a young apostate as being hunted by Templars or an angry mob of villagers.

( There is so much more she could have - should have - done in the past ten years. So much that she let slide to follow Justinia's plans for peace, when she should have pushed harder. )

Whatever must be done will be done. That is my hope.

Dorian has the utmost confidence in you and your fellows. He assured me you would not allow it to come to pass.

[ Cullen- is militant and a templar before all else. Josephine is a diplomat and her concerns would likely protect them in so much as it would look poorly for them to go back on the Herald's word. Cassandra-

Adelaide does not care much to think of her last conversation with Cassandra. ]

And in you I find is trust has not been misplaced. [ The others she will not speak of as she does not spend as much time around them in a professional capacity. ] What you have done to help me with the Council has been invaluable. Some mages that were...wary have been made aware of your support and while they do not buy in entirely to what we are trying to build, they are more willing to come to us with their concerns. They need not abide if they are uncomfortable doing so and they make no trouble- but that they know we are here to help them? Is worth much.

( Leliana is quiet for a time, thinking. Her response, she realises, may sound awkward - a change in topic, of sorts, and yet... not truly. )

I have known mages who were truly noble in their character, compassionate in act and word, people of such bravery and faith that little could compare to it. Wynne taught me more about kindness and faith than almost any other.

( She exhales, slowly. ) I move freely, but I am a spy. I do whatever is necessary, and sometimes what is necessary is not compassionate, nor faithful, nor brave. There is no nobility in it. It is abhorrent, is it not?

I am prepared to do whatever I must for the sake of mages being free - mages, elves, all people who have been subjected to cruelty and suffering. The world should be better than what it is. The Inquisition can make it so, I know it. We begin with your Council, but the work and influence will spread far beyond that. It must.

( Compassion is the root of it, but compassion is not hers to wield. )

I found her to be almost hypocritical in her politics. It is easy to bid patience when you are free to move as you like from circle to circle and travel unattended. Aside from that? I knew of her, but did not know her. I know...she tried. And that is more than most might say with the absolute mess of things the Spire became.

[ Adelaide takes a moment to swallow past the memory with more of the gifted wine- a fair year. A warm counterpoint to the ice in her gut whenever she speaks of the Spire's fall. ]

If ignoble acts are all that are left to see what must be done, done- we have failed already. To come to this point- everything has broken. Every system has failed. It might be considered naive to think that we should build the foundations with compassion and understanding- that we can manage it without ignoble acts but- such things were done to build the Chantry in the first place. Do we not owe it to ourselves to at least attempt to try a kinder path?

Doing what one must- it cuts at you just as much, does it not? You ache in hollow places you have built for yourself. [ That- that is a bit too much. ] I apologize. It is not my place to say such things.

Edited 2016-05-12 11:06 (UTC)

( Something in Leliana's countenance cools, with that. The truth is painful, but Wynne is a rawness still unhealed, when the injury was reopened with Justinia, and again with Evelyn. Her jaw tightens, and her fingers curl toward her palm. It is subtle, really, the slight changes in manner that some might miss, and others might notice without understanding. )

Wynne was not perfect. She would hardly be a person if she were. I have not done all I could, in the past. ( Her tone softens, just slightly. Perhaps I am a hypocrit as well-- but that is not a new thought. Wynne, though, Wynne had given her life to protect her students in Kinloch from templar and blood mage and demon alike, when the Spirit of Faith came to her and gifted her with more years. )

Patience was the call of she and Justinia both. A longer game, for a more stable peace, slow changes to set them in stone.

( That had not worked either, so: ) But I agree. A kinder path. A kinder world.

( Leliana gaze might have dropped, with that, but she makes herself hold Adelaide's own, and it is tempting to stand and leave immediately. ) It is you who is required to be honest. Not I.

( But she does not deny it, and that might be damning enough. )

It might have worked, the longer game. If not for... [ She waves a hand vaguely.

If not for everything.

If not for every possible thing that might have gone wrong to have gone wrong in roughly the same year. ]

Have any of us? We do what we think will be enough and more often than not, it is sufficient. It is inevitable that a time will come when we do not offer all we can simply because we are unaccustomed to having to do so, or we misread the situation, or it is beyond all saving. I loose sleep less often over the Spire, now, but I will always wonder if more of my students would have survived if I had not spent the past three years arguing against such a tight focus on offensive magic. We weren't at war, there was not blight on the horizon- there was no reason for it.

[ And then, suddenly, there was a need for those skills. ]

...Compassion is aware of the ache. I thought it was bruising. We do not- we are not often aware of pain that is more than physical, for that is our focus. Because that is something I can heal. This is... [ She shakes her head, turning her eyes away from Leliana for a moment, staring into her wine instead. ] Something I cannot fix and it vexes me.

( Literally everything. 9:40-1 Dragon, wtf has been going on.)

That is true. That does not mean I must excuse myself my own shortcomings. ( Still, she must say: ) I am sorry about your students.

( Compassion is rude as hell, tbqh.
When Leliana speaks her voice is very quiet. )

I would kindly request that Compassion spare you knowledge of those particular aches. They are not for public consumption, and there is no need to vex yourself on account of such things.

( She straightens her back, glancing back the way she came. It is not a retreat, it is a... timely exit in order to see to her work, necessary before the prodding of Compassion came along. ) I have distracted you from your work overlong, already. Do you have need of anything? I can see to it that someone attends you.

I did not intend- when we are unable to help in the way we want- if I lose a patient to injury or plague, they become distressed and wish to seek out more ways to fulfill their purpose. Down here-

[ She flicks a hand at the Vault, far from anyone else in Skyhold at the moment for no one truly had business in the cool room. ]

There is no one to focus on but myself, and I can ignore them. I am sorry to have breached your privacy in such a way- it is one of the worst things a healer can do.

You have breached nothing.

( Quietly, softly. )

It takes more than the speculation of spirits to disturb me, I promise you. Please don't be distressed.

I do not like the idea of unsettling those that I hold in high esteem. You've done much to help when you have had every reason not to trust me in this and I am still mortified over what happened last time.

Even though I found your voice remarkable.

And wish I had a chance to hear it more often.

( Leliana just-- stands there for a moment, uncertain quite what response she wants to offer. )

Flatterer.

( A brief moment of humour, dry as it is. )

I will serenade you at the next opportunity, you have my word.

( For the given value of what a spy's word is worth, but you know. Stuff. ) Good day, Councilor.

It is not flattery if it is true.

[ Even if she looks as though she'd rather melt into the stone- ignore the blushing, Leliana, please. ]

I- good day, Sister Nightingale.

Let No Soul Hunger For Justice: Nothing But The Truth

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