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

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[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!]

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"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."

Hermione winces, not having expected Anders to have any sort of personal dealings with Cullen, at least not in any sort of negative way. She's quite fond of him, quite fond of them both, but it isn't hard for her to see how their histories might have made for a fairly acrimonious relationship. As such, she resists the urge to jump to Cullen's defense, because she knows very well that she doesn't know the whole story, and that Anders is by no means obligated to like everyone she likes. After all, there are probably plenty of people who judge Hermione for being friends with Anders.

But she can't let his tirade go by completely unnoticed, and so she throws in a quiet, "You don't know what he was thinking, and unless you've talked with him about it, you don't know why he did what he did or didn't do what you feel he should have done. From the outset, people would feel justified in thinking all sorts of monstrous things about you. But I came in as a blank slate and listened to you, and I understand your actions, even if I can't say I fully support them. I feel the same about Cullen and his past."

Shaking her head, she can only shrug tiredly as she offers, "The state of Thedas is abysmal, but mages aren't the only ones who've suffered for it. If people could only learn to sit together and talk, to understand one another's points of views, a lot of the world's problems could be solved, or at least better understood. I'm not naive; I know that's no easy task, nor even a wholly feasible one. But it doesn't have to be completely impossible. It just has to start somewhere."

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

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