faderift | [OPEN] Moving forward.

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[OPEN] Moving forward.

WHO: Atticus Vedici + OPEN; starters for Myr, Petrana, and Simon
WHAT: Atticus interacting with Petrana, Myr, and Simon, and whomever else chooses to visit him.
WHEN: Now-ish.
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: CW for discussion of slavery. For the first prompt, people can visit Atticus in the dungeons either before or after Myr arrives, though that conversation will be a closed thread. For the third prompt, everyone can pop in at any time, though it is presumed that (poor, unfortunate) Simon is stuck babysitting the magister again.

I. THE DUNGEONS (OPEN + MYR)

It is the nature of dreams to be both dynamic and formulaic, but when the formula itself becomes dynamism, that is where trouble can brew--for a somniari magister, that is. And so when Atticus Vedici slips into Myr's dreams in the month following his vivid nightmare, he takes care to disrupt very little of what he sees.

He sees quite a lot, too: visions of Myr's home in Hasmal's Circle, and the horrors wrought upon him during the rebellion. There are other, more abstract horrors that shift and undulate in the periphery of his sleeping mind, of an imagined Tevinter with sinister spires, and the clink of chains around brittle ankles

It's tired impulse that has Atticus soothe this one into dreamless, cool blue quiet, rather than yank that chain taught around the bones it cleaves to. He wakes sometime later in his cell, and by the time mid-morning is upon him he has dressed and found his research supplies, and is at work decrypting another cypher at the rudimentary desk set up by the wall.

He can't always work in the library.

II. THE FADE, AND THEN THE DUNGEONS (PETRANA)

This time when he visits Petrana in the Fade, he spells into existence for her a vivid, stylized portrayal of Minrathous, with its ancient sculptures and masonry that predates the founding of the Chantry, and magical architecture which enables whole buildings to float like islands in the sky. He leads her through streets ladened with history--or the history that he recalls, at any rate; the detail is extraordinary, but it is still detail borne out of his memory. It will invariably have gaps, that he fills in with elegant, imagined filigree.

They while away their lucid dreaming hours together in their usual way; this time, however, when Atticus can feel the fingers of wakefulness tugging at the edges of his consciousness, he slips an arm around her waist and prompts her quietly with, "There's a matter I'd discuss with you in person--if you can contrive an excuse to visit me."

He will leave it up to her to concoct the reason; whatever she decides, she will find him in his cell in the dungeons the following morning.

III. THE BATHS (OPEN)

It's not feasible to completely clear out the Inquisition's bathing facilities just so one prisoner can have access to a bit of hot water, and so they aren't. If Atticus is rendered at all uncomfortable by stripping down and getting into the water while still sporting shackles around his ankles and wrists, he does an impressive job of hiding it--though he doesn't take his time with the task at hand, either.

Once out of the water, he covers himself with the worn robe that was provided to him for this occasion, then turns his eyes on the familiar Templar tasked, yet again, with keeping a keen eye on him at all times--even, it appears, at times when Atticus would personally prefer a bit of privacy. He extends one of his shackled hands Simon's way; bits of water still cling to his hair and skin, making him look decidedly un-magisterial.

"I'll make use of the straight razor now, if you don't mind."

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Who wouldn't be unsettled, the Dragon had said to Myr, by falling through an otherworldly tear in their realm? Of course it will manifest in dreams, too.

While the dislocation of mage from dying Circle wasn't so total as that the rifters experienced, it's still an unwelcome uprooting. Nightmares were only to be expected. Nightmares of drowning, destruction, dissolution--

But this one hadn't been birthed out of the anxieties of a sheltered life shattered. Elves missing in Kirkwall-- The disappearance of his kinsmen has been playing havoc with Myr's thoughts since he learned of it, awakening foggy memories of Hasmal's alienage. Tevinter slavers weren't just childhood bogeymen there, so close to the border, and if someone vanished overnight there was little question what fate must've befallen them.

Missing elves, and his subconscious knows where they must be going missing to. It places Myr in the coffle of the lost; conjures up rough dreams of kidnapping, confinement; puts shackles on his limbs and a collar around his neck and the taste of magebane on the back of his tongue. It's a dream black to blindness as he struggles through a maze of mist and shadows, despair demons dogging his barefoot steps and mocking his voice as he calls and calls for help. "Father!" and "Ben!" and "Van, please--"; with the logic of dreams he knows they're trapped here with him, bound to the same chain that threads between his hands, and he needs to find them so they can all escape. But the darkness is only growing deeper, twining around his legs, ramifying blackness upon blackness that threatens to swallow him...

Then silence replaces it, broad and deep as an empty summer sky. It's so welcome a change he sleeps an hour past when he'd usually wake and has the luxury of a slow return to consciousness. It doesn't last long but it's a blessing while it does, until the themes of his interrupted nightmare finally break in on the warm lassitude and spur him out from under his blankets. Tevinter. Slaves. The missing elves.

Morning prayers, ablutions, and a bite of breakfast later, Myr makes his careful way down to the dungeons and the magister housed there, the ticking of his staff announcing him before he arrives. "I'm here to speak to the prisoner," he declares himself simply to the guard; is as simply marked down in the logs and permitted into Atticus' presence.

This time he has his questions prepared beforehand and the courage of that keeps him from hesitation. "A moment of your time, Magister Vedici." There's nothing that says he must be polite to one of the Inquisition's prisoners--to a Venatori--but the man's never been anything less than creepily pleasant to him. He will not reward the unease Atticus wakes in his breast with a loss of manners.

Edited 2017-09-13 00:43 (UTC)

"I'm here to speak to the prisoner."

Atticus pauses in his work; recognizes that voice.

He removes his cracked spectacles and sets them on his desk, examines with some displeasure the new ink stains on his fingers, but decides they cannot be helped. When Myr reaches his cell, Atticus is standing at the bars.

"Messere Shivana," he replies courteously, scrutinizing what he can see of the young man's face for evidence of... what, he isn't certain. Only that he'll know it when he sees it. He smiles. "How may I help you?"

Given ample time to prepare, Myr can mime total composure with the best of them. (Still, he stays well back from the bars; it's a reasonable precaution.) He tips his chin up at Atticus' acknowledgment, the honorific still sitting uneasy with him (better than the undeserved Enchanter at least), and returns the other mage's regard eyelessly for a long moment.

"I assume you kept slaves," he says, without preamble. Didn't most anyone in a position of power in Tevinter? "Were you involved at all in their trade or acquisition?"

He knows it's more a question for his own satisfaction than any actionable information. The suspicions that seemed to him so firm and definite on waking are much less so now in the light of day. And even if they're well-founded, it's unlikely--damned unlikely--that Atticus would know anything of slavers at work in Kirkwall.

But Myr still has to ask.

Atticus' eyebrows quirk. Myr's question is not entirely without precedent--he is an elf, after all, and one with at least some passing connections to Tevinter--but it is still one Atticus had anticipated fielding from a different source.

"My household has slaves, yes," he replies, and makes an idle gesture with one hand that Myr cannot see. "They are all of the same two or three families who have been a part of the Vedici estate since before my birth. Occasionally some marry away from or into these families, which requires the sale or purchasing of contracts to or from other estates. We haven't had cause to acquire slaves via--" A pause, before he says in a genteel tone, "--alternative avenues, in some years."

He tilts his head some. "If you're asking me whether or not I maintain my wealth through the buying and selling of slaves, I do not."

Alternative avenues. What a pretty euphemism for kidnapping terrified elves into lives both brutal and short. His fingers tighten on his staff; he draws in a careful breath to cool that instant's flash of fury, making himself listen to the rest of Atticus' answer.

But of course the man didn't deal in slaves; that would be too convenient. Myr had suspected as much, and that suspicion makes it easy to keep the disappointment from his face. "Thank you; that is what I'd wanted to know.

"Why did you countenance it?" This wasn't on the list of questions he'd prepared; it simply volunteers itself. "Even if you don't deal in the trade directly." For all the reading he'd done, it's a part of the Imperium's moral philosophy he doesn't understand, not on a gut level.

Edited 2017-09-17 04:17 (UTC)

He could say, 'Because I do not care,' and it would not be a lie. He doesn't say this.

What he asks instead is, "What power and influence is it you believe I wield in the Imperium, that a word from me might upend centuries of tradition? The institution exists, and will persist as long as there is an appetite for it, or until it becomes untenable and is destroyed." A curious light enters his eyes then. "Not unlike your Circles of Magi, I suppose."

It's the comparison he'd expected--had argued with himself before, when he hadn't argued it with Van--though not quite how he'd expected it. A Circle mage, after all, was hardly freer than a slave in many ways.

But here in Kirkwall, in the Gallows, it's got a certain extra resonance to it that suggests an answer to Atticus' return question: "It was a mage with neither power nor influence who touched off the war that ended the Circles, magister." When the subject's kept at arms-length this way, he can discuss Anders' crime without wanting to scream.

"And Andraste herself was of no account to the Imperium and still overthrew the whole order of the world with her death. It's often those with the least left to lose who accomplish the most."

Edited 2017-09-19 06:57 (UTC)

"I don't disagree," Atticus rejoins without pause. "With that in mind, what purpose does my opinion on the institution serve you, Messere Shivana?" Best to drill right to the point with this one; the young man has demonstrated considerable prowess with talking his way in circles around the question he wants to ask.

Time to rip that comfort away from him.

"What brings you down here to my cell, asking me these questions today?" He steps closer to the bars, entreats in a voice that would be kind if not for its cold undercurrent, "What can I do for you?"

"Elves are disappearing from Kirkwall."

His fingers curl tight around his staff and he sets his teeth against further words. He's been baited into a response and knows it; it's a long moment before he's composed enough to continue. (He will not admit that he dreamed of them, will not admit it so unsettled him that he was willing to walk into the lion's den again to quiet the feeling he's not doing enough--)

"In Hasmal, there's really only one place they disappeared to." Tevinter. "As we have a unique resource in you, magister, I thought it worthwhile to ask if you had any insight into the process of acquiring slaves. I did not, however, expect you did." He pauses a moment to think over what he's said, to try for calm. It's some dim satisfaction to know he's gradually improving at reclaiming a few shreds of poise when Atticus has rattled him.

"But it's also a matter of interest to me how someone might so-contort his Maker-given intellect to believe slavery justified or even moral. You've made much out of the folly of the Circles but they--at least by intention--served to protect the powerless from the powerful.

"Is your objection to them," to me, he wants to say, but doesn't, "merely personal rather than principled?"

Edited 2017-09-20 05:59 (UTC)

Atticus laughs. It's a genteel-sounding thing, quiet and subdued, the sort of sound you'd expect to hear over a dinner table, or in a smoking room amongst one's professional colleagues, and exceptionally cold. And as is to be expected, the answer he delivers doesn't satisfy.

"My opinion on this subject seems to mean a great deal to you," is all he says; a cat contemplating from a great height how best to pounce upon a mouse.

"You're quick to bring them up whenever we speak," Myr retorts, sharper than he'd meant. Then he swallows the rest of what he'd say--and the unease provoked by that chilling laugh--to regard the other mage eyelessly through the bars.

If it truly came to a staring contest, he's not certain he could hold the man's gaze, and that thought galls him.

"Yet you are the one who comes to me, time and time again," Atticus reminds him pointedly. He spreads his shackled hands. "Here in my prison cell, or where I work in the library."

(Well. Perhaps that is not an entirely truthful statement. Curiosity did bid Atticus seek out Myrobalan in his dreams, to study the talented young mage who had taken him to task in defence of the Southern Circles. But Myrobalan needn't know that.)

He steps close enough to the bars to rest his fingers against them. "What difference does it make to you, Messere Shivana, whether my objection to the Southern Circles is grounded in principle or my personal desire to set my own course? Whatever my reason for not wishing to be caged, why does it matter to you?"

There's no hostility or anger in his quiet voice, but the words are charged with controlled intensity nevertheless. "What do you want from me?"

He stands there transfixed as an insect on a pin, caught out by the truth of Atticus' observations, by the pointed questions. Why do you keep coming back, Myrobalan? Whence this fascination with the charming monster in the cage--the monster that knows your fear and your name, and has taken so keen an interest in you? Because it isn't just the dream, however awful; it isn't just worry over missing elves and a tenuous link to Tevinter that drove you down here.

(He can't say: To prove I'm not afraid. He can't say either that Tevene blood flows in his veins, that if his father hadn't fled south he truly would be Atticus' countryman, that he sometimes wonders what it would have been to be raised among people who saw magic for a gift just as he did. That he believes Andraste a mage as well as the Maker's Bride--believes of himself he's not a monster, a mistake, an unrealized conduit for demons to cross the Veil.)

Dreams or not, he shouldn't have come down here; but there's no undoing his mistake by fleeing. He swallows hard, tipping his chin up and forcing his shoulders square. His reply, when he can make it, isn't so far away from the underlying reasons after all:

"I want to understand you, magister. Who you are and why you are."

Edited 2017-09-22 06:18 (UTC)

"And to what end will I be so dissected and examined?"

A touch of cold, creeping condescension now, more boredom than hostility in his voice. Atticus makes a noise somewhere between a scoff and a chuckle, and it is a decidedly unkind sound. "What impetus exists for me to divulge justification for my decisions to you? If you seek my perspective only to bolster some moral scaffolding around your fallen Circles, you waste your time, as well as my own."

Something in all of this startles an answering laugh out of Myr, relieved and self-deprecating alike; for one instant, the signs of obvious anxiety leave him. He can't bring himself to grin at Atticus or make a mock of the danger the man represents--but his response to these questions comes easier than the last.

"If it were only that, I should be ashamed to show my face down here, let alone expect answers of you. The Circles have fallen--evidence enough they couldn't continue as they were. Our fate as mages here in the south remains uncertain; I'd take insight even from an enemy if it might ensure a better future.

"But that," he continues, more quietly, "is for after Corypheus is defeated. Why did you follow him, if you believe the Imperium doomed by their own inertia?"

Ah. That is a more interesting line of inquiry, one that, under different circumstances, Atticus would very much enjoy exploring. And assuming he is able to play his cards right, perhaps he will enjoy that opportunity very soon.

But for now, he demurs courteously with, "I regret that I cannot tell you."

Do you truly? he wants to follow with, but that's a useless question. Instead, he lifts his chin in acquiescence to Atticus' demurral.

"You'd mentioned certain magical practices of the Imperium that aren't so universal as they're portrayed." Delicately, now, with a thought for the guard who must be listening. "Are you likewise bound to silence on those, now?"

'Certain magical practices.' That's one way to put it. Already, Atticus' lips have twisted into a transparent grimace of distaste, but when Myr asks whether this particular topic is off-limits, he gives his head the slightest shake.

"No," he replies, similarly keeping his tone pitched low. There's an understood 'but' at the end of his response; if either of them has reason to avoid any overt discussion of blood magic, it is Atticus. He must tread lightly around the subject. "What do you wish to know, beyond that it is a grotesque perversion?"

The baths are a decidedly unpleasant place to be when one is bedecked in full templar armor, and Simon's physical discomfort is only compounded by the more abstract discomfort of being expected to stare at a naked magister while he washes up. After the recent embarrassment with the book and the Knight-Commander, he can't afford to be anything but a perfect model of discipline and attentiveness.

Given a choice of naked people to observe at length, a mage nearly old enough to be his father would not have been Simon's first pick, but the view is, at least, unobjectionable.

The idea of handing over a razor to a dangerous prisoner seems ill-advised, to Simon--his mind flashes unbidden to the image of Wren raising her blade in a frenzy, charging, aiming for the chinks in his armor--but the powers that be have decided that Vedici is entitled to one, and it's not Simon's place to withhold it. He hands it over without comment, or means to, until the condensation on his gauntlet makes it slip from his grasp and tumble down into the bath.

"...all right, look, that was my fault, but I'm not exactly in a position to wade in and fish it out. You understand."

And there it goes.

Atticus stares after it, then turns a look of frank annoyance on Simon. "For your sake," he says in a deceptively mild tone of voice, "I hope you wield your sword more deftly." Then he yanks off the robe, tosses it onto one of the wooden benches along the wall, and wades back into the bath after it ~~like some kind of exceedingly cross river monster~~.

He disappears under the surface of the water just long enough to locate the razor and grasp the handle of it with careful fingers, then comes back up again and gives his head a shake to get rid of the excess water. Simon, being the nearest convenient target for his ire, receives a baleful look, before the magister pulls himself, shackles, razor and all, out of the water again.

There's an old looking glass affixed to one of the walls. Ignoring the robe--it's coarse and likely filthy anyway--he walks over to the mirror and considers his reflection critically, before going about the boring task of shaving. Simon will just have to deal with the view a little longer.

"If it weren't for the possibility that I might have to, I wouldn't be wearing armor in a bathhouse in the first place," he snaps back. "But by all means, pretend you're the only one who'd rather be somewhere else."

He does have to wonder where a magister gets a physique like that. He's known his share of well-built Circle mages, but he's always envisioned Tevinter mages, particularly the rich ones, as soft indolent things lounging on couches with grapes. All the more reason to stay on his guard and be grateful for the solid breastplate between him and the prisoner, he supposes.

"You realize," he begins after some time at his task, "that you hardly need armour to incapacitate me. Don't you?" Atticus briefly flinches as the razor grazes his skin too closely, drawing blood; it's difficult to do this work without the aid of salve of some kind.

"You realize that's not what armor is for," he retorts, "don't you?" He understands the question, but nonetheless, he doesn't think it deserves the consideration of a more serious response.

But he opts after a moment's surliness to give one anyway. "I'd like to think you have a bit more respect for our intelligence than to expect us to lower our guards around you, Magister. There are all manner of reasons why you could be cooperating with us. Most of them don't end in our favor. If you decide to aim that blade at a templar's throat, it won't be mine."

He watches that bead of blood well up, wonders at the limits of the shackles. If all they can do is neutralize mana--maybe it isn't his own throat he needs to worry about protecting.

Edited 2017-09-13 20:47 (UTC)

"If you decide to aim that blade at a templar's throat, it won't be mine."

"Rest assured that if anyone's throat is at risk currently, it is mine." Atticus flinches again when he nicks himself another time, swearing a soft oath under his breath in Tevene. Thus far he seems to have no interest in the blood on his skin, save to find it annoying and distasteful.

It's not the cleanest job he's ever done on his face, but neither does he appear to have done lasting damage to himself either. Scrutinizing his work in the looking glass, he seems more or less satisfied with his job, and turns to walk without a scrap of clothing on back over to Simon. Momentarily, he detours by the bath water to pointedly clean the blade there. Then, straightening, he hands it back to the Templar, handle first.

There's a challenge in his eyes when he fixes his gaze on Simon again. "You know, that's not a question anyone has bothered to ask me yet."

"That's not reassuring me." Don't give him ideas, some overcautious part of his mind whispers, but he knows how foolish that is. If the magister is going to weaponize his own blood here, he'll have planned it out regardless of anything Simon does or doesn't say.

There's no indication that he's considering any such thing, but it only ever takes an instant for things to go horrifically pear-shaped. Simon doesn't let his gaze leave Atticus for a moment, though at this point, he really rather wishes he could.

He reaches out for the razor, keeping a firm grip on it this time, and tucks it back into his sash. The sheer audacity of that challenge makes his lip curl.

"And you'd give us a perfectly trustworthy answer, would you?"

"I suppose you'll never know unless you ask," Atticus replies silkily. He smiles, decidedly unkind, then turns and walks back over to where his robe was discarded on the bench. It takes a little finessing to put the thing on with his shackles, but he manages it, more or less. He looks like he's readying himself to be escorted back to his cell, and, short of some barbed commentary, nothing sharp was wielded at Simon during this outing.

Beleth is significantly adverse to the idea of random strangers seeing her without her clothes, and thus wears a simple slip whenever she goes to the baths--and even then, she usually prefers the times when there are as few people as possible. So, she didn't expect to be sharing the baths with anyone when she went in to use it. And she certainly didn't expect that person to be a Tevinter magister.

And yet, when Beleth turns around in the water to see who the new occupant is, that's exactly who she sees.

Her response is an ungraceful noise that's a mix of surprise and discontent. Without taking the time to think, she moves to the edge, and grabs her towel to hold up to herself--even though she's still. Wearing clothes. The towel is soaked, but she can just get another one.

"What are you--" No, wait, it's pretty obvious what he's doing in the baths. He's bathing. Incredible. She stops, trying to think of a better way to word her disgruntled distress. "I didn't realize they would bring prisoners here at this time."

To his (very limited) credit, Atticus glances Beleth's way only when he hears the ferocious splashing commotion she makes while scrambling to the ledge of the baths. Then he pointedly returns his attention to fastidiously scrubbing dirt out of his hair and the unruly beard that has grown along his jawline.

"I didn't realize they would bring prisoners here at this time."

"If you'd like to lodge a complaint," Atticus says dryly, then simply gestures over his shoulder at Simon.

The glance that Beleth lobs at Simon is full of accusation, as though she were indeed considering several complaints to file with him. But Simon's eye roll and unenthused expression hints that it wouldn't go very far. So she shuts her mouth to form a displeased line across her face, contemplating a variety of cutting remarks that she dare not say, in her current position.

Her position as head of scouting, that is. Not her position as a mortified woman sharing a bath with a Tevinter magister.

"Very well," She says, trying to look as dignified as she can, circumstances considered. "Well. I suppose they didn't ask you what a good time to pencil it into your schedule was." It's said dryly, though it's an attempt--somewhat--at a conciliatory remark. It's not entirely your fault you're here, in her space, in a public building that's open to everyone.

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Maybe he's grown accustomed to her particular gait as she comes and goes, or maybe he happened to catch a glimpse of her out of his peripheral vision. Either way, Atticus turns his head in time to catch sight of Petrana tightly belting her robe again and making her hasty retreat from the baths, and is incapable of preventing himself from staring, just for a moment, at the loose fall of her hair across her shoulders--

He recalls himself to the present moment sharply, and is quick to turn his back on the doorway and focus instead on making use of the cold water pouring in from one end of the baths. Much, much colder water.

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[OPEN] Moving forward.

cw for slavery right off the bat here :c

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