faderift | [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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"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?"

[OPEN] Moving forward.

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