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

Entry tags:

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

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

1. Making the Band

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

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

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

2. CSI: Thedas

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

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

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

3. Call the Anders

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

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

4. Dr. Anders, Medicine Man

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

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

5. Anders Howe, Pet Detective.

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

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

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

"Cats," Anders says as explanation.

6. Wildcard me!

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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He turns to see who it is every time someone comes in. This is something he's got serious stakes in, and every person gets noted. Hermione, though, gets a smile as well.

"It is a, and it is dead." There's amusement behind those answers as he sets down the knife he's using.

"This isn't entirely safe, no. I needed a High Dragon because I'd found some notes that suggested they deal with the Blight differently, and I wanted to know how. Apparently," Anders gestures at a strange, sack-looking growth inside the chest cavity, "that's how."

He steps over to a wash basin and cleans his hands, gesturing for Hermione to come over. "The way we make sure you're on the safer side of things is one, making sure you've no cuts, two, you stepping back any time you want to talk so you're further away, and three, being very careful with how we cut into things. I want to remove that as intact as possible. ...But if there's some other system of the dragon you're curious about, we can work on that to be even more safe."

She frowns a little at his amused response, though she recognizes it as simple teasing. Though Hermione wants to peer into the creature's chest when Anders points it out, she also doesn't want to go anywhere near it, and actually arches back a little bit.

Dead dragons don't bother her, not really. But the size of the thing, along with knowing that Anders was using it to research the Blight, is daunting to say the least.

She does come to him when he beckons, though, as though afraid that not doing exactly as he asks from here on out is a surefire way to end up contracting something she'd rather not. "What exactly is 'that?'" she asks even as she looks down at her hands to make sure she doesn't have any paper cuts or other wounds. "The thing you want to remove, I mean. I confess, I don't know a great deal about dragon physiology, and I've never seen any of your High Dragons in anything but illustrations, so I don't really know what to expect."

"It's..." He trails off, trying to figure out an explanation in his head before he puts it into words, because even he isn't completely sure what the dragon is doing there just yet.

"You know how Grey Wardens can sense the Blight and Darkspawn? I'm not certain what the dragon's body did with it, but I can sense blight in it. It's like the dragon can... seal it away. Contain it, somehow. I need to know how it does that, and see if it's something can be replicated. And done more permanently. Maybe something that can form and be removed from the body, if there's no other way of dealing with it."

It's complicated. And theoretical.

"The rest of its body, aside from this and one other nodule, is completely free of Blight. I've not seen that in any other species."

Anders' explanation doesn't exactly do much to quell her worries. "Are you saying that that... sac, or whatever it is, contains the Blight? As in, if you cut it in the wrong place, you may or may not end up unleashing it on whoever happens to be in the vicinity? Meaning us?"

It can't be that, she's sure of it. Anders wouldn't do anything so risky, especially not with Hermione there. And if he would, well, he'd take the proper precautions. She hopes.

"Dragons are bigger and hardier than most other people," she points out. "If they can contain the Blight without any ill effect, that could simply mean that they've evolved to be equipped for that sort of thing. While I can't speak personally for Qunari, elves, or dwarves, humans aren't nearly so resilient."

While she'd meant that to say that Anders shouldn't have high hopes for this little project of his, bringing up the other races does set her thinking. "Is the Blight magical in nature? Because I've heard that dwarves do have a resistance to magic, so if that were the case...."

And this is why Hermione should never be invited to look at anyone else work. Backseat hypothesizing, at its worst.

"The Blight isn't airborne." He's not sure if she knows that or not, but her worries make it sound like she might not. "And I'm not going to cut into the sac. Not with someone who isn't a Warden present. I want to detach it from the dragon and from that see what systems it was connected to."

The dragon is hardier than people. It could be something that has no relevance to what he needs to learn. But there's a chance and he'll take any tiny chance he can get with this research so he can try to save Nate's life.

"As far as magic..." Anders trails off, shaking his head. "It may be. It doesn't seem to entirely be disease, and stories say that it came about when the Golden City turned Black. The... There's... We've some information from an ancient source that implies the stories could be true. It could be punishment for arrogance. Or it could be something that's existed since the beginning of time."

Hermione gets a helpless shrug. They're treading into territory few have dug into here, and dangerous territory at that.

"We can examine some other part of the dragon if you'd like. The wings are fascinating, with where their musculature ties into their chest, for instance."

Though she'll keep quiet when he brings up that the Blight isn't airborne, it's still communicable and dangerous, and she'd much rather not risk it. That much is obvious by the way she presses her lips together, frowning as she lingers back. She trusts that Anders wouldn't willingly put her in danger, but Hermione hasn't made it this far in Thedas purely on trust alone. A fair bit of caution has seen her through more than once.

She doesn't know if his research is purely academic or if there's a threat that can be helped with this sort of thing, but it sounds like a worthy enough cause in its own right. And it especially sounds like something that can use an outsider's insight, given that she has to fight not to roll her eyes when he claims that there's a chance that the Blight is a form of divine punishment.

Instead of rolling her eyes, she tries to offer as pragmatic a point of view as possible. "The Golden City - or Black City, now - is in the Fade, is it not? Then something in the Fade has been corrupted, its impact being felt in the real world? It sounds as though the way to ultimately fix it, if such a thing is possible, is to study the Fade." Perhaps even talk to various spirits, since that's better than actually going there... though Anders' track record with spirits makes her just a little wary of saying so. "That's not to say that there isn't a short-term sort of solution that can be found here in Thedas, or that you should stop looking. But often, knowing the root of the problem is half the battle, and the reason why so many of the universe's mysteries get left unanswered."

Hermione would really rather not examine a dragon at all, given that she'd never done very well with dead animals. As interesting as dragon anatomy sounds, she still looks over at the creature rather reluctantly, gauging her own fortitude for this sort of thing. In fact, the only real curiosity she's ever had about dragon biology is....

"What about its heart? I-... in my world, different parts of a dragon are used in various potions and other kinds of magic, and their heartstrings are so powerful that they're used as the magical core in many wands. Including mine."

He opens his mouth to start in on the heavy, complicated topic of the Darkspawn and Black City and such, when she switches the topic to the dragon's heart. It's still in its chest, frozen, and seemingly unBlighted.

"That's not something we've really studied. Dragons have been thought extinct for Ages, after all." And now they're suddenly everywhere. It doesn't really make much sense, but that's the way of the world. Anders sets down the tools he was working with on a separate tray and washes his hands before nodding to a tray of clean tools.

"We can take a look at the heart and feel what there is to feel. I'm entirely open to any ideas. I've got four years to cure something that hasn't been cured in literal ages."

It's not a lot of time. "As far as the other... Do you want a rundown on the Darkspawn, Blight, and how it may tie into the Fade?"

Morrigan had told Hermione a bit about dragons, including that they'd "disappeared" for a bit, but she hadn't known they'd been considered extinct. If these dragons behave anything like the ones she knows back home, they're often elusive and secretive, and it would have taken quite a long time before anyone outside of specific dragon researchers would have noticed that there were no longer any signs of them whatsoever. But then, Anders did say this thought has pressed on for ages; whether he means a literal Age or simply a very, very long time, she trusts that he wouldn't just live under an assumption without good reason.

Though she had asked about the heart, Hermione isn't sure that she's really ready to look at it, especially if Anders is nodding towards those tools as an invitation for her to take them up. She works much better in an observational capacity. Much less of a chance of getting sick all over the specimen. There's no sense in risking contaminating it, after all.

But then he says something that successfully distracts her from her preoccupations, and she looks at him in alarm. After a moment of her quietly observing him, she replies, "You can talk about whatever you like, but first tell me where this 'four years' deadline is coming from. You're not-... not sick, are you?" She doesn't know what the Blight actually looks like, after all, or how long it takes to ultimately kill someone, so while Anders might look perfectly healthy....

He looks up from where he's moving items over, preparing to take a look into the heart, and his expression goes very gentle.

"All Wardens are." It's not something that comes up in casual conversation, so he's not entirely surprised she didn't know. All the same, this is the first time he's had to explain this. "Darkspawn carry the Blight. But because we've... been exposed, so to speak, and we've survived but carry it, we can fight them. For a time. Until the Blight progresses too far. Then the Grey Warden goes down into the Deep Roads to fight to their death. But it's not me that only has four years."

No one except Nate has been told at this point. He'd been poking into the Blight already, it's hardly a surprise he'd work at it harder, but right now he's fairly certain it's just him, Nate, Teren, and Zevran who know what's coming.

"Please don't, please don't spread this around. But the people who went to the future discovered that there's one Warden who will be losing his fight in a little more than four years." A beat. "Nate."

And there are his stakes in this, laid bare.

The Grey Wardens she's known have all been fairly secretive, and she's come to accept that that's simply their way. A few of them have even cut themselves off in conversation with her, explaining that they couldn't talk about whatever they'd been about to say, with one even citing an oath of some sort. But for Hermione to not know that a large percentage of the people she'd come to know as friends carried the Blight and may well die from it....

His confession makes her blink in surprise and no small amount of horror. She doesn't know Nate very well. Outside of a mission or two, she only really knows of him in the context of how he relates to Anders' life; that is, that he's a very, very important part of it.

"Anders...."

She could say she's sorry. She could promise to help him find a cure, to work with him until her minimal understanding of the Blight becomes an expertise. But promises are a hard thing to keep in Thedas, especially for a rifter. She might be sent out to help close a rift and not ever return, or else somehow find herself back where she should be, like what she prefers to assume happened to Harry. So instead of making any false promises or dredging up too many emotions with her sympathy, Hermione instead looks at the dragon at the table, trying to get herself used to the sight of it and to the idea of working with it.

"I think it's ridiculous, spending all your time fighting Darkspawn and then simply walking into a death trap instead of figuring out a viable way to cure or at least control an infection you know you carry. Honestly, Anders, why didn't you ask for help earlier? I'm sure there are any number of researchers who would have jumped at the chance to help you, even if you didn't want the reason for it getting around."

Looking at him again, she offers in a softer voice, "Which it won't. I can't make many promises, but that's one I can make. Along with the promise that I'll do whatever I can to help you, and no one has to know where I am or what I'm doing if you really don't want them to."

Outsider viewpoints are refreshing.

She doesn't have the whole picture, but she cares and that makes all the difference in the world. Anders reaches over and takes one of her hands in his newly cleaned ones, giving hers a squeeze after a moment.

"It's a risky area of business. That's one reason few have delved into it. The other... Wardens are, often are, misfits and criminals. People like the idea of us serving for a time and then dying. Curing us is not a priority." Most Wardens are resigned to their fate, too. Anders simply isn't ready to give up yet.

"You're welcome to help me, and you don't have to hide that you're helping me. I simply don't want my greatest cause for doing this to become common knowledge. I don't want anyone to have reason to want to sabotage this."

It's not that Hermione forgets what Anders has done in his past, but rather, she's more focused on the man constantly trying to atone for it than on anything else. So the idea that there are apparently people in Thedas who don't mind the thought of the people protecting them from Darkspawn simply dying is a bit sickening, and she returns the squeeze to Anders' hand.

"It should be a priority," she stubbornly tells him. "You're people, all of you. And at your hearts, you're all good people, despite whatever may have happened in your pasts. You shouldn't just be swept under the rug, not after all the good you do in this world."

It's a disheartening thought, that one day Anders might die as part of his duties and not many would actually care, and it makes Hermione forego the hand-holding to step forward, giving him a hug.

"No one is going to sabotage this," she murmurs, voice implying that anyone who might try is going to have to deal with a very angry witch. "You and Nate and Teren and all the rest: you're all my priority now. Just tell me what you'd like me to do."

"Thank you."

He closes his eyes and hugs her back. She has so much kindness in her heart, and he's sorry for how much he hopes Hermione is here for a while yet. Thedas needs to be exposed to people like her, people who still care and haven't sacrificed who they are.

She gets a nod when she's done speaking and he's released her, and Anders goes back to looking at the dragon.

"Let's take a look at the heart. Maybe there's something in common between our two worlds, and a dragon's heart is a key. You've experience with a dragon heartstring. If we remove one, would you be able to sense similarities?"

As he speaks, Anders moves the tools over for easy access. It's about time the dragon started revealing some of her secrets.

If Hermione knows for certain that there's a way to travel between her world and this one, she wouldn't mind staying in Thedas for as long as possible in an effort to have an impact on the many changes it needs to endure to make it livable for someone like her. As it is, while she's willing to make the best of her situation, she's still rather preoccupied with ultimately finding a way to get home. She hates the thought of leaving Anders and the others behind, but that's just motivation for her to work that much more closely with them while she can.

When Anders lets go of her, Hermione has to take a deep breath before she can bring herself to look at the dragon. While not squeamish, she's simply not looking forward to the idea of cutting into what had once been a living thing, but she can manage it if she has to. Probably.

"Dragon heartstring doesn't typically have the amount of magic necessary for most wizards and witches to be able to feel it, though I've only ever dealt with a small amount of it at a time, and that had been on the inside of my wand. The closest I ever came to it myself was when my wand chipped upon my arrival here and I was finally able to see a bit of the inside, though it was dry and brittle by then. So it would warrant a bit of experimentation to see just how powerful it is, if it's powerful at all."

Unfortunately, she's not a master wandmaker, or a wandmaker at all, so they'd have to find a smith to actually craft something with the heartstring at its core, if the raw material doesn't exhibit a significant store of magic on its own.

"Mm." He considers her words as he looks the heart over, reaching out a few moments later to cast Creation magic and see what he can feel. There's something to the heart, more magic than they'd find in the body of your average person, but that's typical of dragons. He's not certain if the heart in particular has more magic.

With a shrug, Anders picks up one of the knives and starts opening the pericardial sac, working at getting a closer look at the organ itself.

"Why do they choose to use it in wands if it doesn't tend to have a lot of magic? Or is that common for things used in wand making? I can't say I'm exactly familiar with that art."

He gives her a small smile before removing the sac and beginning to carefully sever the arteries and veins that lead too and from the heart; it will be easier to examine on a tray rather than inside the dragon still.

Hermione can feel her bile rise a little when Anders starts cutting, but honestly, it isn't as though she'd expected him to have a tray of sharp objects besides him and a dead dragon with an open chest cavity in front of him and not start cutting into something. She's no surgeon even when it comes to other humans, so she doesn't touch anything, instead forcing herself to look on in the event that she'll learn something interesting.

"Oh, no, it does have a lot of magic," she explains, trying to both watch what he's doing and mentally disengage from the gore of it. "But the average witch or wizard wouldn't necessarily be able to feel it. We can only sense if a large store of magic has recently been used, especially towards a bad end. Dark Magic that leads to widespread death or chaos, for instance, leaves an almost permanent scar on a place. Those who are more fine-tuned to the way magic feels often use their talents towards a specific career, such as wand-making. Dragon heartstring, phoenix feather, and unicorn hair are the three most common cores where I'm from, though it varies greatly depending on the region and on the specific wandmaker."

She would happen to have the core that can't really be gathered with the magical creature in question still being alive. It's unfortunate, and she wonders now - and not for the first time - why her particular wand had chosen her. There are any number of explanations and pieces of lore, but as far as Hermione's been concerned, they're about as reliable as zodiac signs and the like.

She looks... a little ill, Anders realizes with a glance at her, and he's not quite sure what to do about it. She's still looking, so she's not disinterested. He'll just be careful and try to make everything as clean as it can be when one is cutting into a corpse.

And just as quickly as he's resolved to be careful, her words distract him from that.

"The permanent... Can you feel it here? A scar like that in Kirkwall?" It wouldn't all be his doing if she did. The magisters who slaughtered slaves here to try to weaken the Veil were responsible too, but he'd most certainly been a part of it. The other listed creatures are interesting; stories of bog unicorns are odd in the extreme, but he has no idea what a phoenix would be other than some sort of bird, likely.

"And forgive me for the sight, if it's getting to you. I could put myself between you and it, if that helps?"

Hermione is about to tell Anders that no, she can't really feel any such thing in Kirkwall... except, now that she thinks about it, that isn't true. She'd been uneasy about the place since she'd first arrived, and had just attributed it to what her first impression of the Gallows had been, five years in the future where she'd been held captive in one of its cells. And while that would certainly sour someone on a place for an extended period of time, it doesn't account for what she's actually been feeling, not just in the Gallows but throughout the entire city.

"No, that's all right," she answers absently when he offers to put himself between her and the dragon. "I'll get by. We've had to use various animal bits for potions and the like; I'd just never seen an entire animal still mostly intact quite like this."

Though really, she's glad for the excuse to look away, wrapping her arms around herself as she looks about the room in thought. "I do feel something here, but it's... different. Thedas' magic in general is different from what I know, so I just hadn't really realized what it was until now. I've heard stories, enough to know now why I'd feel this constant sense of unease, but considering that I don't automatically equate Dark magic with blood magic, I just hadn't realized it before."

It must be some sort of specialized field, getting the central components for wands. Then again, there are hunters in this world too. Maybe it's not odd that she wouldn't be used to seeing this.

His expression becomes a little downcast as she talks further, eyes focused on the heart he's working on rather than her. Anders takes a breath before asking his next question.

"Does it... Can you get a sense of time?" What he'd done had been wrong, but had it been dark and evil? It had certainly lead to widespread chaos and more than a few deaths. Nate, and others, have helped him not see himself as lost and evil anymore, but the doubt always lingers. He's not good. He can't be considered good. But he'd like to not fall in the other category. "As in, how old the dark magic casting was?"

All things considered, Hermione's seen more things than the average student might have seen, and even then, it's been fairly sheltered. And really, if she were to stop to think about it, she'd rather see a dead dragon than a dead human; she's had more than enough of those to last her a lifetime.

Though she isn't looking at him initially, Hermione notices a slight shift in Anders' tone, leading her to frown as she wonders over why he'd ask such a question. Had he been here when something terrible had-...?

... ah. She had never really asked for details from any one source, but had a sense that she knew enough to get an idea of what may have been bothering Anders. It makes her hesitate, but only for a moment. There's no sense in making him think that she's trying to sugar coat anything on his account.

"It wasn't recently," she answers, though she knows that's a vague response. "It's hard to tell beyond that. If it had happened just yesterday or last week, it would be much more intense. But this is... quieter. I don't think it's to do with any one thing, really, as it feels a bit more layered than that. More than one awful thing has happened here over the years; I suppose we should just be thankful that they're in the past and hope that they won't happen again in the future."

He's quiet as she answers, taking his time to carefully isolate what might count as a heart string - a taut line of muscle - and laying it on the tray once he's done. Then she gets a nod as he glances over at her.

"If all sides have learned rather than just one or two, perhaps we can avoid anything even remotely like what's happened in the past. Though Tevinter likely still does some of what they did here, killing in one place in a deliberate attempt to weaken the Veil."

Who knows what could have happened if the annulment had happened? If every mage in the Gallows had been killed? Things could have been so much worse in Kirkwall, aside from how much higher the death toll would have been.

"The future still has a chance. I believe that. But it will take a great deal of work, and I worry sometimes that there are too many allowing this period of comfort to lull them into thinking it will last. That they don't need to work to establish the future, it will be handed to them. I worry that instead if we don't, the Chantry will have means to quell any future rebellions."

He sighs again.

"I know the people vying for position as the next Divine are thinking about this, the seekers too, and those who would lead the Templars in the future as well. And I've... Maker. I don't want to see things ever get that desperate again."

Hermione tries not to put too much attention on what Anders is doing, though she's probably unaware of the way she's scrunching up her face. She can't bring herself to look away, since it is fascinating in its own way, but that doesn't mean that she's particularly excited about watching a dragon be dissected right in front of her, even if Anders is doing it for a good cause.

It's the mention of Tevinter that makes Hermione look up at him, frowning as she wonders whether he's really telling her the unbiased truth. Did people really murder others simply so they can weaken the Veil? And does that practice really still continue in Tevinter? She's learned not to be surprised by the atrocities people can commit, but sometimes certain facts still catch her off-guard.

Instead of asking him any questions that might get him worked up, she opts for comforting him, since high emotion isn't exactly conducive to a delicate surgical procedure, even if the subject is already dead. "They won't be. People learn from their mistakes and from the mistakes of others. That doesn't mean there won't be people with the same awful ideas who think they've worked around the flaws in their predecessors' plans, but it means that the rest of the world would have remembered how awful things had been and will know what to look out for. I've seen it happen in my world. It might take a while for people to see the signs of things going wrong again, but it won't get as bad as it had been, not if people have really learned from the past. And in my experience, most people do, so long as the right people are put in place to teach them."

And many people are also stubborn idiots who don't see the truth until it's literally standing right in front of them, but that's not exactly the most comforting notion, and so she doesn't bother bringing it up.

He looks up at her as he sets the tools down, consideration in his expression. Is she right? Are the people of his world as likely to stop and think and see as the people of hers?

"I can see them learning if they accept the stories of mistreatment as true. It's... It's possible they may. Enough of my people have visible scars, after all. But there are those like Vivienne who act like it was only those who deserved punishment who got abused, despite how many children died in the Circles and how many mages were picked as targets by Templars for the fun of it. Most have never seen how awful things truly got, which means most don't understand why we're fighting for freedom. We had, generally speaking, food and shelter and water and an education, and those aren't certain things for many."

But the perks could never outweigh the abuses. Where one mage found comfort, another was beaten. His meals hadn't been consistent, nor had the meals of many others, and they'd had no options.

"I don't know how to make it real to people. Even if I walked into the middle of the city and bared my back, they'd see the scars, hear that I got them for escape attempts, and deem them deserved. How do you help people understand something they have faith in to keep them safe was instead harmful?"

He sighs and steps to the side to clean his hands before bringing a towel over and dabbing the unnecessary fluids off what he's fairly sure counts as a heartstring. Hopefully she can say whether it does or doesn't.

"And then you have people like Cullen," Hermione brings up insistently. "He'd been a Templar, and while he'd done it for what he'd considered to be perfectly good and noble reasons, he saw what really went on. He's a friend of mages now. For all I know, he always has been." After all, what Hermione knows of Cullen's past is fairly bare bones, considering that it's clear he doesn't like talking about it. But from what she's managed to parse together, both from him and from when his sister had been here, he proves that not all of the Templars agreed with the way things had been being run.

She doesn't pay much attention to what Anders is doing in regards to the dragon anymore, and she steps towards him and tilts her head to try and look into his face. "Not everyone is your enemy, Anders. Not yours, and not of all mages. Yes, there are terrible, heartless, ignorant people in the world; there always have been, and there likely always will be. The same can be said of my world. But that doesn't mean that everyone is predisposed to be hateful. Vivienne and people like her have their opinions, and they came about those opinions from their own personal experiences. But that doesn't make yours any less valid."

Shaking her head, she offers him a simple shrug as she concludes, "I don't know enough people outside of the Inquisition to know how the average person really feels, or what would sway their opinion. Things like this won't always feel real to people until they're affected by it themselves - their child turns out to be a mage, or their best friend, or someone else close to them. Some people would be willing to fight for equal treatment if that concept is posited to them, and other people just don't have that sort of imagination."

Cracking a small smile, she adds, "But remember your birthday party. How many people showed up to that? You have friends, Anders, even for as pessimistic as you might feel sometimes. And so do other mages. You're not alone, and you won't just be swept under the rug. Thedas is going to have to learn how to cope with the existence of magic in a safe, humane sort of way sooner or later, if it knows what's good for it. That much I do know."

"Cullen, always been a friend of mages?" There's shock in his voice as he looks at her. "Saw what really went on? Maker, he called for one anullment himself, one slaughter of a whole Circle full of mages, my Circle, and stood by as Meredith's second in command as she called another. Stood by for years as mages were made Tranquil for no reason except to be abused since then they couldn't fight back. Stood by, fine with it, while she killed them through many years for any little infraction she could find, or none at all if she felt like it. He only stopped supporting her when she was clearly insane to the point he'd lose everything if he kept standing by her. He had as much a hand in what happened in this place as I did, as Meredith did, as the Seekers did, but who is the one person they all point a finger at?"

Anders shakes his head. "He speaks a pretty game now, but has he once said he did wrong? Has he once had to face his past? No. Because he's a Templar, and killing mages was entirely, utterly legal until the Circles broke. Vivienne and Cullen and everyone who wants the Circles back are my enemy, because if they return, the abuse will return."

His voice isn't angry, but pained. "The people in power will do all they can to sweep us back up, Hermione. Cullen, Cassandra, whomever winds up being Divine, and so on. They gain power from telling the public that they're being protected from mages, and by telling the mages that being enslaved is for their own good. I have friends. I'm not alone. It's a massive difference from before, but I don't know if it will be enough. I'm terrified that it won't be."

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bookish_lioness - 2017-07-06 11:36 (UTC) - Expand

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