WHO: Morrigan, open WHAT: Witching around WHEN: Drakonis; present timeline WHERE: Skyhold NOTES: If you'd like a specific starter, grab me on discord. Starters in threads as per usual.
Many things can be forgiven; not a lesson that ever came easily to Morrigan (still a work in progress in areas) and she understands, has been absent from Skyhold herself and swallowed by work then swallowed by it whenever she'd returned. She hasn't wanted to push. Not after something was spilled into her hands, into her lap, an even more violent reassessment of how did this girl survive this world.
She is more proud.
(Her teeth are bared quicker.)
"I trust you have been busy? The arrival of family can be...something of an upheaval, I am given to understand." From overhearing Orlesians talk, she can't exactly speak for her own experience. "Though after your most recent work, a rest would certainly have been earned, twas no small work."
"My grandfather is, I think, biding his time to talk about that." Her most recent work, that is; shots fired and much less obliquely than the time she'd so pointedly not distinguished Vivienne from her compatriots on the Council of Mages or whatever it is they call themselves, whoever it is they all are now as some come, some go, and the Dalish seem interchangeable. "I don't imagine it's going to be a terribly thrilling conversation."
But she sounds less resentful than she might - the question of her grandfather is a complicated one, what with how related to her he isn't, but his affection for her has always been apparent. She doesn't relish the prospect of being spoken to like a silly little girl who oughtn't take such notions into her head, but she is at least comfortable knowing it comes from a place of concern for her safety, and she isn't immune to enjoying a small reminder that her safety matters to someone.
She just prefers it from Morrigan, on the whole. Romain might surprise her - but it would be a surprise. Morrigan's pride is something she feels she can strive for; that she should always be striving for, never resting upon what came before. It asks more of her, and yet she feels more equal to the task.
"You will remind him of his place then. As the new arrival. As the one without official backing or sanction? The Inquisition is not Orlais, how much does a title mean in these days?" Oh Vivienne how did it rankle when the little Circle didn't toe the line. That they had formed had been a victory, certainly, but so many voices all clamouring, not letting her get her way, not allowing her to be the one rising high above them all? She cannot have enjoyed that much more than she enjoyed Morrigan's place at Celene's side.
These days, Morrigan does wonder about the little Circle when all seems to have gone so very quiet. When they were louder it was more interesting to go and be the cat amongst the pigeons with various members as it suited her. Still, when it comes to things one does not enjoy, she knows that were her mother to turn up at the gates, she would take it with absolutely no grace. Blind panic that would turn into her lashing out.
People that can have family show up and just have family show up? How very odd.
"There must be other news I am not privy to, there are many things that pass me by. Runners are not given to gossiping with the likes of me." Nor is she given to gossiping with them but obviously the fault lies squarely with them when she's bringing it up here and now.
Who was the last person put Romain de Coucy in his place, Gwenaëlle wonders; the thought of being the one to do it does curve a troublemaking smile at the edge of her mouth. She can't imagine it happens to him often at all. She doesn't think ever, in her memory -
"I've been wondering how long I might yet enjoy that official sanction," she says, archly, comfortable enough with Morrigan by now to pour her own wine - and for her hostess, while she's there. "Considering that last piece." No small work, indeed, and like as not to ruffle feathers on all sides of Orlais' political equation. Maybe a few bleeding hearts elsewhere, too. The unprecedented showing of support for Orlesian elves, and the Comte Vauquelin's only heir poking holes in the whole affair, questioning its worth -
She makes an indelicate noise over her cup, little lady that she is.
"Celene has put a poultice on a gut wound and Orlais is going to keep bleeding, but I don't suppose that's something you missed. Well - Lord Luthor is gone," and that is all, her small smile fixed in place, a little matter not to be dwelled upon. (Her heart hurts, a quiet ache she can't express, remembering how he held her after her mother and wondering: did it matter more, in the end? Or did she only matter less.) "So I suppose best I had Kieran's dragon from him before he went. And,"
let's breeze quickly past feelings, if at all possible,
Play to your strengths and always remember the things men choose to believe about women, things Morrigan has expanded upon since leaving the Wilds with more to draw on. After all, she just had Flemeth's 'lessons'.
"The Inquisition is for all," Morrigan can parrot a trite saying and turn it into a challenge if she so desires before she sighs, staring into her wine for a long moment. "This is not a time to play safely, you have had proof enough of that already. There are those who would lend support if that is what you seek, and gratitude is owed, if others must be reminded." There are ways to play the Game that aren't exactly playing it, if you're so inclined, and after everything to get Orlais to pay attention to anything beyond itself? The Inquisition is owed.
Perhaps next time the Winter Palace ought to be burned, picked apart inch by inch for the cause. Of Celene she's more damning than she's been elsewhere but that night at the palace trapped in a room and she is still furious to look back upon it. "Celene thinks she sees all. She dons her mask and never thinks to wonder at how little of the world there is to see when she looks ahead only. I had wondered-- he is a fool, poorer for the lack of you." Hopefully those words don't sound as empty as they might. She can't say she knew him, certainly can't say she liked him but this is Gwenaëlle and she wants happiness for her, however that may come.
"About your hand or something else? With Alistair it can be a great many things, as I have learned."
Alistair and his Wardens (as the only one she trusts and the least useless Warden to exist) have certainly done well at going unremarked upon.
He is gone, and - whatever else, that is the whole of it.
(It matters, though, to hear Morrigan call someone poorer for lack of her. To come and sit and drink wine and gossip and complain and feel trust, the simplest comfort that is knowing there's someone on her side. A comfort she's never quite trusted, before, and for that reason clutches all the more greedily, jealously.)
"About the Wardens."
There's a slight pause, and then she elaborates - "When I first started writing. When I first spoke of beginning." A crease in her brow, but she's remembering Varric's reaction in that moment, not Alistair's; she makes herself set it aside. "Alistair asked me to give him my word that I wouldn't speak of the Wardens in it without his say so. He promised me an undisclosed favour and secrets of the Wardens in exchange- I didn't ask. I'm not stupid, I agreed," opportunistic minx, "but I'd like as not have done it if he hadn't."
She thumbs the rim of her cup, examining the wine.
"No one's ever asked about that," she observes, apropos of only her thoughts. "I know people in Skyhold read what I write, I know that they all know the Wardens are here, but no one's ever asked why I don't speak of them." Morrigan, she thinks, might well have made an educated guess; there are only so many reasons Alistair and Gwenaëlle might have first encountered one another. But everyone else, she's always wondered why it's never been questioned. If they assumed ill-intent, ignorance-- that she'd somehow not noticed all of the fucking Wardens running about as if they own the place.
The Wardens and Morrigan can feel the terrible weight that sometimes sits in her chest sink deeper into her stomach. How long ago it was that her fear made her lash out, burned bridges newly-mended and tentatively built further but Wardens these days are a prickly beast.
Wardens one day might become too wrapped up in her son, and there is such a sharp mind sat with her in this room, drinking tea and wine. Kieran is a boy, is her son. Kieran also carries something great and terrible inside of him. (But perhaps - is it foolish or selfish to hope - that Gwenaëlle would somehow come to understand that part as well.)
"If you know much of how Alistair came to be a Warden," Morrigan begins so very carefully because they aren't friends but he is a good man, Kieran's 'uncle' to the world but though they've both agreed, the fact is that he's still the father of her child. Neither of them can change that. A man who has suffered a great deal. "Then you will understand why they are what they are to him."
Or were. Morrigan skirts around the issue. Makes sure that the Wardens will never know enough about Kieran or so that they can be gone - how much difference would they find between him and what they've struck down in these times.
"The Wardens came with their begging bowls in hand and do very little beyond coming into the field; Wardens keep their secrets, as they have ever done. To some they are great heroes of old or more recent if they were caught in the hold of the Fifth Blight. One can imagine how others view them." Morrigan herself goes back and forth, uncomfortable with so very many of them who got to make the decision on Anders in the end, with everything the way it was then, when all others are so transparent-- She takes a breath, sips her wine. "No one is quite sure what to do about the Wardens, if you were to write of it then we would be forced to. People are often uncomfortable when they show up without Darkspawn to slay."
"I understand his reasoning - I understood that immediately," Gwenaëlle says, gesturing vaguely towards 'some direction Alistair might be in, possibly, is the camp that way, who knows' with her cup. "But I think it's giving a great deal of credit to people who don't see the harm in in having the man who blew up a Chantry walking about unattended to say everyone who didn't ask what my reasoning is have considered it in that light." Anders isn't completely intolerable, but Wardens care about their reputation and its impact on the Inquisition very selectively.
She considers that for a moment, and then allows--
"And if they have done, I don't know they're all so charitable as to think I have."
When she's puzzled by the silence, it's not because she doesn't understand what she's doing and why; not for no reason does she concede that she'd have done it for nothing if Alistair had offered her nothing. But it interests her, what conclusions are drawn elsewhere- what people think drives her. If they think the advisors forbade it, if they think she thinks the Wardens too low-rent to merit discussing, if a thousand possibilities.
Probably, she supposes, no one has ever asked because they don't care.
"When it comes to their own-- though when Loghain's life was spared when Ferelden required more Wardens, a rather different tune was sung." Her tone belies her words when she's never dropped her voice so low with Gwenaëlle since there isn't anyone else this could come back to but background. Context. "I am certain that as some of them must have done to others at the time shall give you the same justifications as they ever have. That the Wardens recruit all, even criminals. Though he became the criminal after. Tis how long they kept the secret when so much has been at stake for this Inquisition that bothered me."
That people lied to Leliana who was already hurting and didn't require another betrayal from the few she might call friends. It's the only reason Morrigan has ever written a letter to Vivienne in warning, so angry was she.
"How long does your charity extend with the Wardens? They sit in their camp, they accompany others into the field, that seems to be the extent of them. How much might some of them know that may help that they keep to themselves. Things that have not yet been asked in the light of day at least." Unless that's why Alistair went to see her.
"This far," Gwenaëlle says, holding up thumb and forefinger pressed together. This far, and no further. "But for Alistair," there is a gap, suddenly, and it widens until she's stretched her hand so far as tendon and ligament allow. It's a small hand, it doesn't mean he's got enormous leeway. "And then to the matter of not plunging the world in which I happen to also live into another kind of chaos--"
She spreads her arms comically wide, and only narrowly avoids sloshing wine on the floor, startled into laughing at herself by it and taking a drink when she rights. That could well have been more undignified than she quite intended. Oops.
Finally, "He told me some things, in confidence. With one of their band of idiots--" Kaisa might not have made the best first impression, although in fairness to her the day they had chosen, some time ago now when Gwenaëlle's wounds were still new and raw-- Alistair didn't give her a good impression, that day, "--along to be sure he didn't say too much. But it was, is, important to him that someone know. That there's some sort of...not only accountability."
But that, too, she thinks.
"That someone outside of their number knows some of the risks of keeping them here."
On that they are agreed, on both counts. "The Wardens might all do well to remember that twas not so very long ago that their Order was only allowed to return to Ferelden. If you are inclined, you might look to the tale of Sophia Dryden." Sorry but not sorry Wardens, you were the means to an end with Flemeth via Cousland and you made your bed with Anders, she isn't about to see things sabotaged here because everyone is sitting around just waiting.
She does jump-- wonders if she should have sought Gwenaëlle far earlier. All the more reason to happen past her more often.
"I wonder if the idiot was a choice or not, and if so if it happened to be an idiot of his choosing. Alistair has a lack of sense when it comes to a great many things for all that he is a good man." That needs to be said quite casually, that despite all the things she might say about him, might have said about him, that she can still think that of him too and hold two truths at once equally in her heart and mind when it comes to him now.
A part of her is sad to hear it worded that way for all that she'd despised the way Alistair was ten years ago, when everything about him rubbed her the wrong way, when she'd been so quick to try to bring him down with a cutting remark. The Wardens had been everything. How times have changed and it shows on her face because why hide it, everyone knows they all knew each other back then.
(Everyone has to grow up in the end.)
"How he's grown these past ten years," is what she says in the end, words that fall so painfully short but still manage to sound enough like Morrigan. "Alistair was never the leader though it's far more than any of the rest of them have done thus far, with some sensible thinking. After all, we have only their word to go on and with a foe such as we face, is that enough?"
Sophia Dryden; Gwenaëlle will remember the name. (She remembers most things that Morrigan says to her, many of them to be repeated later in other conversations, parroting her hero--)
What she says for now, though, is: "No," very frankly, sitting back against her seat. "No, I don't think it is. Which is why I wanted to talk to you about it."
Above all else - above all others, really, Gwenaëlle trusts Morrigan. With everything, and certainly, with this - so much that she isn't even sure she'll be telling her anything she didn't know. Morrigan could respond to just about any strange new tale without turning a hair, with a cool, of course I knew that, and Gwenaëlle would think it perfectly reasonable in all ways. Of course she would know--
but the matter of the Wardens is troubling, and it troubles her to carry. She knows herself to be clever, but she knows cleverness to be something different to wisdom; doing what she thinks is best, she knows, might not be what is best. She might miss something, she might misunderstand, she might...a hundred things. There are things here that mean nothing to her, and how can she be sure she grasps what's so separate?
"He wanted me to know that they're susceptible to Corypheus's influence."
Perhaps not something Alistair will thank her for. Not a thing any Warden would thank her for; all the more reason for it to be known and to be remembered by someone who will sit outside it.
"That changes a great deal."
How would it ever be easier to hear such a thing? That the Wardens who have ever been the valiant heroes in the darkest hours of Thedas when all the world sat poised on the brink of destruction saved the day. That their enemy is capable of such a feat that can twist the mind.
She continues though, with facts, or something like them because what do they truly have to go on with Corypheus after all this time? The progress (the lack of it) is maddening to her. "If Corypheus is as we think, then magisters of Tevinter used blood magic, and that is why such a thing is feared even to this day; to twist the minds of the powerful so that they might do as they say. Such rumours followed me in Orlais with Celene. Did he say if he knew that they were free of it for certain or are we to take their word for that too?"
Such rumours of Morrigan were once whispered in Gwenaëlle's own ear at court events, girls on the edge of the evening watching the more glittering stars of Orlais - it feels so much further away and longer past than it really is. A year feels as if it's aged her far more than it has any right to do.
"What he said was that they aren't."
And isn't that comforting.
Still, she explains: "It's proximity - when the Wardens had Corypheus imprisoned, all those years, he says whenever anyone got close to him, to think of killing him, all of a sudden they were trying to let him out, never knowing quite why. Never able to explain it. The Wardens are only free of his influence if they're free of his presence."
An unsympathetic reading of that might be that one of the least useful groups just got less useful. Gwenaëlle is not a sympathetic sort of woman, but she tempers her sharpest edge for the sake of Alistair, if not his fellows.
After a moment, "Corypheus made them believe they were dying. I don't know precisely how, Alistair wouldn't go into great detail, but he says that being a Warden can - can cause a death, that sometimes it's something they can feel coming. And Corypheus could make them feel it, he made all of them feel it, and that's why they did all of those stupid things at Adamant, they thought they were about to leave Thedas without protection from the darkspawn. And they wouldn't ask for help."
If word gets back to the other Wardens-- they might handle schism and internal strife slightly better than a Circle or Templars but that's hardly saying much, least of all these days. They might tear themselves apart and allow their newly rediscovered feathery symbols of hope to eat their tainted carcasses before they're returned to whatever Maker or Creator or whatever else will have them.
"Vimmark. The Warden prison." Morrigan was there, she had some information but clearly not enough at the time and now she feels uncomfortable at the thought she had been with one there. Silly when she knows enough of magic but this is the Wardens. Things never go as expected with them.
A long way back to the surface in the dark should it have gone amiss down there.
"The Archdemon commands the Blight and the Darkspawn horde, if what the Chantry says of those magisters is true...then the implications are disturbing. The Wardens have kept their secrets a long time, perhaps Corypheus himself could be where such a thing became habit." Morrigan is feeling no more charitable herself but it poses a serious problem; Wardens line up to slay Archdemons but they aren't influenced by the damned things unless they're truly at the end.
Because she trusts Gwenaëlle after what Gwenaëlle has entrusted her with - things Morrigan shouldn't know about the Wardens precisely but things one likely would after spending so long with them defeating a Blight, she gives a name to it if a name was not given. "The Calling. That is what it is. Perhaps if they had fewer secrets," the pot calls the kettle black, a glass house shudders at the sight of so many stones, "then there might be less reason to fear. And we might not have 'allies' sat in Skyhold who might turn again should Corypheus get too close."
"The Calling," she repeats, wondering what more Morrigan might know of the Wardens that had been deemed out of bounds to share with her earlier (wonders who was involved in that decision-making, how many of the Wardens in Skyhold even know that she knows anything now); wondering what are the best avenues to pursue, otherwise. Because it does seem like something that can't be ignored, that must be pursued, if...quietly.
Carefully.
"It would be so much easier to look into if there weren't the matter of what an absolute fucking mess it would be if too much of it did get out," she says, looking down at her wine with a small, persistent frown. "I don't think they're useful enough to protect, precisely," a matter that's not for her to say or decide, but that's neither here nor there when she has so many opinions on a wide range of subjects no one sees fit to consult her on, "but everyone is already pulling in so many different directions. Fighting them over it is a waste of time and energy. I just-- I do wish there were something being done."
Softly softly with the Wardens, even before another creature put a whisper in their heads how many had a cause to jump and flinch at them wondering how soon the darkness of the Deep Roads beckoned, when it no longer seemed oppressive but something more welcoming.
This is more outside interference than they've been involved with on this scale that she can recall that hasn't ended in disaster though there's time yet. The Fifth Blight might cover the Landsmeet. Or the matter of both Alistair and Jonas having suitably noble blood running through their veins. Morrigan doesn't precisely care about the distinctions there enough to go find out for herself.
"Grey Wardens have a great deal of treaties that stretch back so long it would take far too much of either of our lives to unravel what went into the writing of them, where it all began, whom it began with. The Grey Wardens fight Darkspawn, they have warriors, rogues, mages, what need have they of protection? They have lasted this many ages in this world and I will not be dragged down with them nor see those I care for come to harm as payment for their stupidity." Morrigan hopes they all feel the lash of her tongue in their camp even if that's an impossible thing but she curls her lip, eyes flashing and had she less control over her magic there might be sparks or flames at her fingertips. "This is Inquisition is an unwieldy beast with many a snarling head that given a task might distract itself long enough to forget that the heads will quarrel, that some limbs are shorter than the rest, others longer, that sometimes parts of itself might set itself aflame that sets another part of itself to shrieking. All the while being asked to dance far too often for the likes of those who forget that there is still a war."
Vivienne, for one, with that ridiculous farce that Morrigan is still bitter about. Celene she expected it from because Celene is the empress but from Vivienne it was ridiculous, and the advisors going along with it before they had barracks in the valley soured the wine in her mouth.
And yet, she cannot stop herself after a long drink of wine to calm herself from that fit of temper. "When there is little else for it to think upon, it will gnaw and bite and scratch as if it has something festering beneath the skin it cannot rid itself of. Such a thing happened before with the mages and templars, and that is far from over." Gwenaëlle is sharp enough to know all the many other problems lurking beneath the mask the Inquisition wears to parties.
"It's the rest of us as need protection from being dragged into one more irrelevant conflict," Gwenaëlle says, sourly, draining the wine from her cup. "Nothing of value will come of pinning another target on the Wardens. Nothing of value came from the last one, and they do it themselves more than enough." They closed ranks around Anders and that was that - and they will have to do it again, and be even less fucking useful if it's because everyone wants them to make good on their suicide mission.
And that's that, but -
it can't be, there has to be more. There has to be something that can be done, some information that be discovered, and she worries at it like a tongue against a loose tooth. She'd never taken an interest in them, but what Alistair has told her cannot be ignored; she can't possibly be expected to simply let what she knows now be.
"We have a need of them still, if they will not divulge all their secrets, for two more Blights still."
More telling than it appears. Grey Wardens end Blights, yes, but do many people sit down and question it? If the number of Old Gods is correct that is. If they rise one at a time as has been the pattern for the previous five.
"None of them have ever gone back to the Anderfels after going off and retrieving their precious sacks of beaks and feathers, not to see if the situation has changed, if there is more that might be done, if their presence is required. If they might do more good elsewhere. Alone. Far from the rest." But a good point has been raised that she can't ignore, draining her glass too as she sets it down, considering it as the shrike does the mouse it breaks upon the thorn. "Were those outwith the Inquisition to be privy to more, there would be no conflict. There would be no support for the Wardens. How could there be? There have been riots for far less." Goodwill extends only so long and the will of the people is a powerful thing. Rulers have always belonged to their people in the end.
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She is more proud.
(Her teeth are bared quicker.)
"I trust you have been busy? The arrival of family can be...something of an upheaval, I am given to understand." From overhearing Orlesians talk, she can't exactly speak for her own experience. "Though after your most recent work, a rest would certainly have been earned, twas no small work."
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But she sounds less resentful than she might - the question of her grandfather is a complicated one, what with how related to her he isn't, but his affection for her has always been apparent. She doesn't relish the prospect of being spoken to like a silly little girl who oughtn't take such notions into her head, but she is at least comfortable knowing it comes from a place of concern for her safety, and she isn't immune to enjoying a small reminder that her safety matters to someone.
She just prefers it from Morrigan, on the whole. Romain might surprise her - but it would be a surprise. Morrigan's pride is something she feels she can strive for; that she should always be striving for, never resting upon what came before. It asks more of her, and yet she feels more equal to the task.
Maybe that's growing up.
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These days, Morrigan does wonder about the little Circle when all seems to have gone so very quiet. When they were louder it was more interesting to go and be the cat amongst the pigeons with various members as it suited her. Still, when it comes to things one does not enjoy, she knows that were her mother to turn up at the gates, she would take it with absolutely no grace. Blind panic that would turn into her lashing out.
People that can have family show up and just have family show up? How very odd.
"There must be other news I am not privy to, there are many things that pass me by. Runners are not given to gossiping with the likes of me." Nor is she given to gossiping with them but obviously the fault lies squarely with them when she's bringing it up here and now.
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"I've been wondering how long I might yet enjoy that official sanction," she says, archly, comfortable enough with Morrigan by now to pour her own wine - and for her hostess, while she's there. "Considering that last piece." No small work, indeed, and like as not to ruffle feathers on all sides of Orlais' political equation. Maybe a few bleeding hearts elsewhere, too. The unprecedented showing of support for Orlesian elves, and the Comte Vauquelin's only heir poking holes in the whole affair, questioning its worth -
She makes an indelicate noise over her cup, little lady that she is.
"Celene has put a poultice on a gut wound and Orlais is going to keep bleeding, but I don't suppose that's something you missed. Well - Lord Luthor is gone," and that is all, her small smile fixed in place, a little matter not to be dwelled upon. (Her heart hurts, a quiet ache she can't express, remembering how he held her after her mother and wondering: did it matter more, in the end? Or did she only matter less.) "So I suppose best I had Kieran's dragon from him before he went. And,"
let's breeze quickly past feelings, if at all possible,
"Alistair spoke with me, recently."
That sounds ominous.
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"The Inquisition is for all," Morrigan can parrot a trite saying and turn it into a challenge if she so desires before she sighs, staring into her wine for a long moment. "This is not a time to play safely, you have had proof enough of that already. There are those who would lend support if that is what you seek, and gratitude is owed, if others must be reminded." There are ways to play the Game that aren't exactly playing it, if you're so inclined, and after everything to get Orlais to pay attention to anything beyond itself? The Inquisition is owed.
Perhaps next time the Winter Palace ought to be burned, picked apart inch by inch for the cause. Of Celene she's more damning than she's been elsewhere but that night at the palace trapped in a room and she is still furious to look back upon it. "Celene thinks she sees all. She dons her mask and never thinks to wonder at how little of the world there is to see when she looks ahead only. I had wondered-- he is a fool, poorer for the lack of you." Hopefully those words don't sound as empty as they might. She can't say she knew him, certainly can't say she liked him but this is Gwenaëlle and she wants happiness for her, however that may come.
"About your hand or something else? With Alistair it can be a great many things, as I have learned."
Alistair and his Wardens (as the only one she trusts and the least useless Warden to exist) have certainly done well at going unremarked upon.
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(It matters, though, to hear Morrigan call someone poorer for lack of her. To come and sit and drink wine and gossip and complain and feel trust, the simplest comfort that is knowing there's someone on her side. A comfort she's never quite trusted, before, and for that reason clutches all the more greedily, jealously.)
"About the Wardens."
There's a slight pause, and then she elaborates - "When I first started writing. When I first spoke of beginning." A crease in her brow, but she's remembering Varric's reaction in that moment, not Alistair's; she makes herself set it aside. "Alistair asked me to give him my word that I wouldn't speak of the Wardens in it without his say so. He promised me an undisclosed favour and secrets of the Wardens in exchange- I didn't ask. I'm not stupid, I agreed," opportunistic minx, "but I'd like as not have done it if he hadn't."
She thumbs the rim of her cup, examining the wine.
"No one's ever asked about that," she observes, apropos of only her thoughts. "I know people in Skyhold read what I write, I know that they all know the Wardens are here, but no one's ever asked why I don't speak of them." Morrigan, she thinks, might well have made an educated guess; there are only so many reasons Alistair and Gwenaëlle might have first encountered one another. But everyone else, she's always wondered why it's never been questioned. If they assumed ill-intent, ignorance-- that she'd somehow not noticed all of the fucking Wardens running about as if they own the place.
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Wardens one day might become too wrapped up in her son, and there is such a sharp mind sat with her in this room, drinking tea and wine. Kieran is a boy, is her son. Kieran also carries something great and terrible inside of him. (But perhaps - is it foolish or selfish to hope - that Gwenaëlle would somehow come to understand that part as well.)
"If you know much of how Alistair came to be a Warden," Morrigan begins so very carefully because they aren't friends but he is a good man, Kieran's 'uncle' to the world but though they've both agreed, the fact is that he's still the father of her child. Neither of them can change that. A man who has suffered a great deal. "Then you will understand why they are what they are to him."
Or were. Morrigan skirts around the issue. Makes sure that the Wardens will never know enough about Kieran or so that they can be gone - how much difference would they find between him and what they've struck down in these times.
"The Wardens came with their begging bowls in hand and do very little beyond coming into the field; Wardens keep their secrets, as they have ever done. To some they are great heroes of old or more recent if they were caught in the hold of the Fifth Blight. One can imagine how others view them." Morrigan herself goes back and forth, uncomfortable with so very many of them who got to make the decision on Anders in the end, with everything the way it was then, when all others are so transparent-- She takes a breath, sips her wine. "No one is quite sure what to do about the Wardens, if you were to write of it then we would be forced to. People are often uncomfortable when they show up without Darkspawn to slay."
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She considers that for a moment, and then allows--
"And if they have done, I don't know they're all so charitable as to think I have."
When she's puzzled by the silence, it's not because she doesn't understand what she's doing and why; not for no reason does she concede that she'd have done it for nothing if Alistair had offered her nothing. But it interests her, what conclusions are drawn elsewhere- what people think drives her. If they think the advisors forbade it, if they think she thinks the Wardens too low-rent to merit discussing, if a thousand possibilities.
Probably, she supposes, no one has ever asked because they don't care.
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That people lied to Leliana who was already hurting and didn't require another betrayal from the few she might call friends. It's the only reason Morrigan has ever written a letter to Vivienne in warning, so angry was she.
"How long does your charity extend with the Wardens? They sit in their camp, they accompany others into the field, that seems to be the extent of them. How much might some of them know that may help that they keep to themselves. Things that have not yet been asked in the light of day at least." Unless that's why Alistair went to see her.
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She spreads her arms comically wide, and only narrowly avoids sloshing wine on the floor, startled into laughing at herself by it and taking a drink when she rights. That could well have been more undignified than she quite intended. Oops.
Finally, "He told me some things, in confidence. With one of their band of idiots--" Kaisa might not have made the best first impression, although in fairness to her the day they had chosen, some time ago now when Gwenaëlle's wounds were still new and raw-- Alistair didn't give her a good impression, that day, "--along to be sure he didn't say too much. But it was, is, important to him that someone know. That there's some sort of...not only accountability."
But that, too, she thinks.
"That someone outside of their number knows some of the risks of keeping them here."
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She does jump-- wonders if she should have sought Gwenaëlle far earlier. All the more reason to happen past her more often.
"I wonder if the idiot was a choice or not, and if so if it happened to be an idiot of his choosing. Alistair has a lack of sense when it comes to a great many things for all that he is a good man." That needs to be said quite casually, that despite all the things she might say about him, might have said about him, that she can still think that of him too and hold two truths at once equally in her heart and mind when it comes to him now.
A part of her is sad to hear it worded that way for all that she'd despised the way Alistair was ten years ago, when everything about him rubbed her the wrong way, when she'd been so quick to try to bring him down with a cutting remark. The Wardens had been everything. How times have changed and it shows on her face because why hide it, everyone knows they all knew each other back then.
(Everyone has to grow up in the end.)
"How he's grown these past ten years," is what she says in the end, words that fall so painfully short but still manage to sound enough like Morrigan. "Alistair was never the leader though it's far more than any of the rest of them have done thus far, with some sensible thinking. After all, we have only their word to go on and with a foe such as we face, is that enough?"
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What she says for now, though, is: "No," very frankly, sitting back against her seat. "No, I don't think it is. Which is why I wanted to talk to you about it."
Above all else - above all others, really, Gwenaëlle trusts Morrigan. With everything, and certainly, with this - so much that she isn't even sure she'll be telling her anything she didn't know. Morrigan could respond to just about any strange new tale without turning a hair, with a cool, of course I knew that, and Gwenaëlle would think it perfectly reasonable in all ways. Of course she would know--
but the matter of the Wardens is troubling, and it troubles her to carry. She knows herself to be clever, but she knows cleverness to be something different to wisdom; doing what she thinks is best, she knows, might not be what is best. She might miss something, she might misunderstand, she might...a hundred things. There are things here that mean nothing to her, and how can she be sure she grasps what's so separate?
"He wanted me to know that they're susceptible to Corypheus's influence."
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"That changes a great deal."
How would it ever be easier to hear such a thing? That the Wardens who have ever been the valiant heroes in the darkest hours of Thedas when all the world sat poised on the brink of destruction saved the day. That their enemy is capable of such a feat that can twist the mind.
She continues though, with facts, or something like them because what do they truly have to go on with Corypheus after all this time? The progress (the lack of it) is maddening to her. "If Corypheus is as we think, then magisters of Tevinter used blood magic, and that is why such a thing is feared even to this day; to twist the minds of the powerful so that they might do as they say. Such rumours followed me in Orlais with Celene. Did he say if he knew that they were free of it for certain or are we to take their word for that too?"
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"What he said was that they aren't."
And isn't that comforting.
Still, she explains: "It's proximity - when the Wardens had Corypheus imprisoned, all those years, he says whenever anyone got close to him, to think of killing him, all of a sudden they were trying to let him out, never knowing quite why. Never able to explain it. The Wardens are only free of his influence if they're free of his presence."
An unsympathetic reading of that might be that one of the least useful groups just got less useful. Gwenaëlle is not a sympathetic sort of woman, but she tempers her sharpest edge for the sake of Alistair, if not his fellows.
After a moment, "Corypheus made them believe they were dying. I don't know precisely how, Alistair wouldn't go into great detail, but he says that being a Warden can - can cause a death, that sometimes it's something they can feel coming. And Corypheus could make them feel it, he made all of them feel it, and that's why they did all of those stupid things at Adamant, they thought they were about to leave Thedas without protection from the darkspawn. And they wouldn't ask for help."
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"Vimmark. The Warden prison." Morrigan was there, she had some information but clearly not enough at the time and now she feels uncomfortable at the thought she had been with one there. Silly when she knows enough of magic but this is the Wardens. Things never go as expected with them.
A long way back to the surface in the dark should it have gone amiss down there.
"The Archdemon commands the Blight and the Darkspawn horde, if what the Chantry says of those magisters is true...then the implications are disturbing. The Wardens have kept their secrets a long time, perhaps Corypheus himself could be where such a thing became habit." Morrigan is feeling no more charitable herself but it poses a serious problem; Wardens line up to slay Archdemons but they aren't influenced by the damned things unless they're truly at the end.
Because she trusts Gwenaëlle after what Gwenaëlle has entrusted her with - things Morrigan shouldn't know about the Wardens precisely but things one likely would after spending so long with them defeating a Blight, she gives a name to it if a name was not given. "The Calling. That is what it is. Perhaps if they had fewer secrets," the pot calls the kettle black, a glass house shudders at the sight of so many stones, "then there might be less reason to fear. And we might not have 'allies' sat in Skyhold who might turn again should Corypheus get too close."
She uses allies very, very lightly.
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Carefully.
"It would be so much easier to look into if there weren't the matter of what an absolute fucking mess it would be if too much of it did get out," she says, looking down at her wine with a small, persistent frown. "I don't think they're useful enough to protect, precisely," a matter that's not for her to say or decide, but that's neither here nor there when she has so many opinions on a wide range of subjects no one sees fit to consult her on, "but everyone is already pulling in so many different directions. Fighting them over it is a waste of time and energy. I just-- I do wish there were something being done."
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This is more outside interference than they've been involved with on this scale that she can recall that hasn't ended in disaster though there's time yet. The Fifth Blight might cover the Landsmeet. Or the matter of both Alistair and Jonas having suitably noble blood running through their veins. Morrigan doesn't precisely care about the distinctions there enough to go find out for herself.
"Grey Wardens have a great deal of treaties that stretch back so long it would take far too much of either of our lives to unravel what went into the writing of them, where it all began, whom it began with. The Grey Wardens fight Darkspawn, they have warriors, rogues, mages, what need have they of protection? They have lasted this many ages in this world and I will not be dragged down with them nor see those I care for come to harm as payment for their stupidity." Morrigan hopes they all feel the lash of her tongue in their camp even if that's an impossible thing but she curls her lip, eyes flashing and had she less control over her magic there might be sparks or flames at her fingertips. "This is Inquisition is an unwieldy beast with many a snarling head that given a task might distract itself long enough to forget that the heads will quarrel, that some limbs are shorter than the rest, others longer, that sometimes parts of itself might set itself aflame that sets another part of itself to shrieking. All the while being asked to dance far too often for the likes of those who forget that there is still a war."
Vivienne, for one, with that ridiculous farce that Morrigan is still bitter about. Celene she expected it from because Celene is the empress but from Vivienne it was ridiculous, and the advisors going along with it before they had barracks in the valley soured the wine in her mouth.
And yet, she cannot stop herself after a long drink of wine to calm herself from that fit of temper. "When there is little else for it to think upon, it will gnaw and bite and scratch as if it has something festering beneath the skin it cannot rid itself of. Such a thing happened before with the mages and templars, and that is far from over." Gwenaëlle is sharp enough to know all the many other problems lurking beneath the mask the Inquisition wears to parties.
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And that's that, but -
it can't be, there has to be more. There has to be something that can be done, some information that be discovered, and she worries at it like a tongue against a loose tooth. She'd never taken an interest in them, but what Alistair has told her cannot be ignored; she can't possibly be expected to simply let what she knows now be.
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More telling than it appears. Grey Wardens end Blights, yes, but do many people sit down and question it? If the number of Old Gods is correct that is. If they rise one at a time as has been the pattern for the previous five.
"None of them have ever gone back to the Anderfels after going off and retrieving their precious sacks of beaks and feathers, not to see if the situation has changed, if there is more that might be done, if their presence is required. If they might do more good elsewhere. Alone. Far from the rest." But a good point has been raised that she can't ignore, draining her glass too as she sets it down, considering it as the shrike does the mouse it breaks upon the thorn. "Were those outwith the Inquisition to be privy to more, there would be no conflict. There would be no support for the Wardens. How could there be? There have been riots for far less." Goodwill extends only so long and the will of the people is a powerful thing. Rulers have always belonged to their people in the end.