[OPEN] Running with my roots pulled up

[amygdalae]

WHO: Bruce Banner and whoever else
WHAT: Rumors abound. Bruce is good at pretending he can't hear anything. A dracolisk makes everyone's life hell.
WHEN: Across Justinian
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: Belated open log thing for the remainder of June; prompts and such are under the cut. Starting in brackets but feel free to switch to prose and I will follow. If you want specific prompts/starters, let me know @ knightblazer or PM this journal!

one. trouble on four hooves. (stables)

[It's not exactly the first time the horsemaster is on his case and it probably won't be the last as well, if the current situation is to go by it.

Horsemaster Dennet wasn't exactly thrilled with the dracolisk that had decided to trail all the way back here with him (muttering along the lines of 'as if one of them wasn't enough'), but the one that Bruce... was stuck with had a tendency for more collateral damage. Nothing major, at least, but after breaking three gates and four fences in its apparent nightly ritual of getting out of the stables there were some lines that needed to be drawn. Thus, this current situation.

The hammer in his hand pounds loudly against the nails as Bruce does his best fixing up the damage the dracolisk had caused in the last few nights. The sleeves of his threadbare shirts are rolled up, for even with the chill here pounding away like this still made him sweat quite a bit, especially as he continued to toil away the hours.

Beside him the dracolisk chewed delicately on some hay, clearly much calmer and less prone to violence now that its human was around.]

two. not quite back to business (healing tents, courtyard)

[It was impossible to ignore the rumors, even if they weren't that hotly circulated, for better or for worse. But still the damage had been done and it would be a lie if he said that things were the same as before.

Nothing was the same as it used to be. After the fallout with Adelaide things didn't really quite look up. Patients who once came to him for help now avoided his gaze entirely and went to others, and the new ones who came in now looked at him with wariness, with all the suspicion that frustrated Bruce more than anything else. This was one of the reasons why he hid his magic away, why he stuck to herbs and what he could do with nothing but his head and his own two hands. He was here to help and he didn't need his magic to do it. It wasn't worth any of this.

(But of course, he deserved it. He knows that. He deserves every bit of this.)

Still, regardless of everything, he came here to do a job and despite all that had happened, there were always going to be people who needed help. So Bruce does the best he can, going around the courtyard to treat whoever was willing to accept his help and aiding anybody who came to his tent while he was in there.]

three. midnight mulling (battlements)

[The battlements had, in a way, become something of a sanctuary to him now. When the night gets this dark and most of Skyhold is asleep, the biting chill of the cold and the silence of the night comforts him well.

On most other nights he'd have the excuse of potion brewing to be up here but tonight that desire isn't there. He sits on the floor, back against one of the walls as he glances out to the mountains that surround them, the sky above that twinkle with countless stars. When everything feels so vast and overwhelming its easy enough to lose himself into the sight, to let them take him away from the chaos of his mind and his soul. To find that momentary peace within himself again, when every part of him rages for something else otherwise.]

wildcard.

[Feel free to throw in your own prompt or PM/contact me to plot out stuff!]

Comments

[amygdalae]

[The mention of the spirit healer has Bruce pausing yet again. They're always a hard topic - harder now, considering Anders and what he did. It's not a lie that spirit healers were just a few bad days away from turning into the very thing that the Chantry fears, as is the case with Anders. But still, Bruce can't help but have a sense of envy towards them - he's the utter opposite of what they are, after all. The only thing he can ever do is to destroy with his powers. Its why he doesn't use them.]

Magic has already caused so much destruction - even that which tries to help usually ends up hurting instead. [Kirkwall being one famous example.] It's too unreliable, too volatile, and as much as we try to control it its never really in our control. The safer option is to not depend on it at all.

[Though with that said... Bruce sighs and rubs his hands, fingers idly massaging his bony wrists.] I've had years to wean myself off the conditioning; I only ever allow myself to use it in times of dire emergency. [Such as that one time with Zevran, or back in the Fade when Adelaide was in danger. It's only when every other option is exhausted then does he let himself do it.]

[arcaneadvisor]

[When Anders had so neatly driven such divisions between tentative friendships being formed, when he had wished to learn shapeshifting from her when she is sure he would have used it to hide when he is the sort of mage that makes life difficult for all the rest who have never known Circles, for her son who has barely known life? Well he will never be anything but the abomination. A flippant little fool even now from what she's heard over the sending crystals.]

Magic has done no such thing. Men with agendas have done that starting with the Tevinter Imperium when they set a tone by which each one of us has ever been measured against; how many believe even the simplest mage to be a maleficar? The Circles were places of subjugation where mages were ruled by the Chantry and by Templars, neither of whom understand magic. They sought to control that which they do not understand, to have mages live in fear. Small wonder so many Circle mages fall prey to the things that prowl the Fade. [Magic was a gift, not from the Maker the way others believed but it was power. Raw and simple, and Morrigan's sang in her bones; changing her shape is a particular skill that she's worked hard on all her life so it's no small wonder that she revels in it. Yet it isn't exactly anger in her voice. Yes, she scoffs at him, she tuts, but she's no longer a girl. It's disbelief that colours her words more than anything.]

That sounds more like a Templar speaking of lyrium than a mage speaking of magic.

[amygdalae]

Isn't it the same thing? Lyrium, magic - we've all come to depend on it, one way or another.

[As much as magic is feared people somehow can't imagine a life without it - the necessity it brings is just as ingrained as the fear. It's a strange dichotomy, and one that many don't dwell upon. Bruce was the same too, until the status quo changed for him.]

If we still don't understand magic and the Fade after spending so many Ages on it, then how can anybody ever expect to control it properly? [Honestly, he doesn't blame the Chantry and the Circles for what they did - the idea had always been noble, but time always had a way of eroding even the best of intentions.] Perhaps time is what is needed, but at this stage--maybe we're just not ready for it. [For magic.]

[arcaneadvisor]

Hardly. The Templars are fools to allow themselves to be bound in such a way. Magic was here long before men - can you imagine what Arlathan truly was? I have been to the ruins of the ancient elves, I have seen the cracked open bones stripped clean of the marrow. Or would you have us be as the Qunari?

[As much as she admired Sten as a singular entity, she would fight to the very death if it came to it should the invasion happen in her lifetime, if she could not find a place to hide and wait it out safely, if the Crossroads were not an option for herself and her son. His strength, his resolve, his will, those were all a credit. But the goals of the Qun? Morrigan would have no part in that, not now, not ever.] There is a way to cut yourself off, if you are so entirely - repelled? Is that the word? - by your nature. [Although that's probably off the table entirely now.

But to be a fly on the wall (or a swarm, to be a singular fly is quite impossible) should the Tranquil discussion ever be raised in a Council session…]

When the Circles seek to wipe out so many teachings, how can there ever be understanding? How much do you think we have lost even since the founding of them? My own magic was not taught within the Circles, the loss of even a single Dalish clan will result in the loss of irreplaceable knowledge. [What she has salvaged has broadened her own mind immeasurably and hers was not narrow when it came to magic in the first place but putting magic into neat little categories never works, not when something is raw, when something shouldn't be understood but simply lived, experienced, felt throughout the whole of a person.] If what this little Mage Council is seeking to accomplish does not hold when all this is at an end, Kirkwall will seek to restrict ever further, a tight little noose for even the unborn.

[amygdalae]

And yet the elves themselves eventually fell. [Bruce doesn't mean anything by that, but it is a fact - none of them would be here today if the elves were still as powerful as they used to be in the past. Now what is left of them can only be seen by the Dalish, or the city elves that try so hard to scrape by each day.

But he isn't here to start an argument. Bruce sighs quietly and casts his gaze down to his hands, his left rubbing his right wrist, thumb unconsciously tracing the ghost of an old scar hidden beneath the long sleeves of his loose shirts. He doesn't like what he is, its true, and its also true that he could do what Morrigan is hinting, but--

Well. He never had much of a choice in the matter anyway.]

I'm not here to discuss what's right and what's wrong. [Because, in the end, is there even a right and a wrong in this matter? Perhaps there is, but it doesn't apply to him any more - people like him don't deserve that kind of fair judgement. He's lost his right a long time ago.] I made my decision to live out my life the way I choose, not the way I was determined to be. This is the path I choose for myself.

[Even as he says that though he can feel it echoing hollowly in his ears. This was never a life he chose, for he was forced into it. For it is the only way for him to survive in this place. Every other alternative was worse.]

[arcaneadvisor]

I would caution you to be careful whom you say that to, if you value having your hearing intact, Beleth Ashara is the last one to bring up elven history around. [A little levity can be allowed, though there's a particular sigh from Morrigan since her few encounters with the young woman have grated on her. But she is careful now to keep certain opinions very much to herself, instead watching him.

How many years did she do this as a girl? Ever on the outskirts looking in on others, better still as a bird, as a cat, as a dog or sometimes more daringly as a wolf from some hidden spot.

Old habits, she gives herself a shake, drawing the hood of her robe up when the chill prickles the back of her neck.]

I am hardly the one to judge either way. [It's almost an apology. Almost.] Sometimes change is what sets a person free, no matter if they fight it with every fibre of their being. But I do know something, about choosing a path of mine own and not the one another would have seen fit for me, tis not quite so easy as some think. There are always pieces left behind.

[There will always be a little girl staring down at her tear-stained face in a shattered golden mirror as the mud of the Korcari Wilds swallowed it when her mother cast it down in anger.]

[amygdalae]

[There's a small, quiet laugh from Bruce - though its more dry than amused, and Bruce gives a small nod of agreement and understanding.]

I know better than to talk to elves about elves. [Its not like he knows a lot about them, only the basics and some things he heard in his years across Thedas. But enough to know that elves were a very sore subject for--well, elves. Which was funny in a sad, morbid way.

He listens to the rest of Morrigan's words, hearing what she says the things she doesn't say that he can pick up. There's not much he knows of her beyond her involvement with the Hero of Ferelden during the Fifth Blight ten years back, but as he's come to realize very quickly, her and everyone else in there were more than just figures of some epic story. They were people, too, with their own pasts and their own difficulties.]

Yeah. [He says eventually, fully comprehending. No matter how far he runs or how he hides, the ghosts of his pasts will always follow him, haunting. The sins will always be on his shoulders, the nightmares always in his head, the rage forever boiling underneath his skin.

He'll never be free, no matter what he does or tries.]