faderift | [Closed] Mage Rights Club

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[Closed] Mage Rights Club

WHO: Anders, Nell, Vandelin
WHAT: A meeting of similar minds to see if they can become like minds
WHEN: Now
WHERE: Death's Death's Proud Bear Tavern
NOTES: Nothing comes to mind

The location is fairly easily chosen, one of the shadier bars in Lowtown where no one really looks at anyone else's faces just in case someone sees theirs. They might need this, if they're going to find a way to build their future from multiple angles at once.

Anders arrives first and orders an ale to blend in. It might be good but it's more likely to be awful so he sits with his back against the wall, pretending to read a book while he in reality watches the room and waits.

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Anders watches people as they come in, not so closely that they start watching him, but he's never met with Nell or Vandelin before, and he's unhelpfully not worn anything feathery on his shoulders or brought his cat along for this trip. On the other hand, he's the only one wearing robes in the place currently and he hopes that's enough.

An elf walks in with a staff and Anders considers him for a moment before raising a hand in tentative greeting. He'd never... asked if Vandelin was human or elf, now that he thinks about it. He doesn't know which Nell is either. He might not be great at setting up stealthy meetings, but at least there's another mage here.

Nell may be last to the meeting, but she was apparently first to the tavern, as she enters not by the front door but down the stairs from above. She's easily spotted--between the flash of red hair and the fact that she's laughing as she steals a tankard out of the hands of a man with some sort of elaborate tattoos curling down both arms from beneath the rolled up sleeves of his shirt--but not easily identified, nothing in her long plain skirt or dark blouse marking her as a mage. Nor is there a staff anywhere to be seen.

She drinks as she descends, the mug empty well before the bottom of the steps and the rest of the journey used to scan the room, and she deposits the empty on a corner of the bar before making her way to the table where Anders sits, arriving at just about the same moment as Vandelin finishes crossing the room in response to that wave.

"You know," she says, mostly to Anders though she's looking between the both of them with an arched brow, tone dry, "When you proposed meeting at the most obscure tavern in the city and didn't offer any way to identify each other, I was concerned. I thought it was some sort of extra security measure and maybe you'd become paranoid after so long on the run. But I see now it's just that it would be impossible for the two of you to stick out more obviously than you do right now."

If this prompts an internal little flush of indignation or self-recrimination, a concern that he might be once more out of his depth when it comes to resistance that can't be conducted as openly as he's accustomed to doing, a desire to justify himself or explain why he still wears his enchanter's robes, it doesn't show. He leans on the staff Melys had once attempted to mug him for, and offers Nell his free hand.

"That is a habit of mine," he agrees, his tone replete with irony. "I can't speak for our companion, but I imagine the fact that he's here in one piece would suggest that his level of discretion has served him well enough thus far. Pleasure to meet you."

He can't help but be amused, shaking his head. Extra security measure? He wishes. He wishes he had a high level of discretion too, but Anders isn't good at being sneaky.

"A disguise wouldn't serve me, not here." Not in this city, he means, but he's not going to clarify further just in case someone's listening. He stands, ready to offer his own hand in return to each after they're done shaking. They're both showing confidence and independence thus far and it's nice. They're not meek or seeking approval from a superior, which frankly even some in the rebels and Resolutionists still did. Rather, they seem ready to hold their own as equals and that gives him some hope.

"I'm glad both of you agreed to come, lack of a clear ways to identify each other notwithstanding. I'm also glad you each look like you came through unscathed." A glance is shot toward the tattooed man, but he doesn't seem especially upset by her theft of a mug. He lowers his voice a little as he continues, but it's not like he'd been speaking too loudly to start with. "I asked you to join me because I believe our views of what shape we'd like the future to take have enough parallels to make cooperation beneficial for all three of us, and our people as well."

Nell shakes Vandelin's hand with a brisk, firm grip callused from heavy staff-use. Her mouth quirks up at one corner as she does it as her eyebrows lift and tilt in good-humored concession: point to him on Anders' escape to date.

She takes a seat once that's done, giving Anders' hand about brief clasp by way of introduction--no actual intros needed, she figures, since it's obvious now which of them is which--before settling onto the bench. She listens, and while her face remains still, a bland neutrality that admits only to attention, as soon as Anders has finished speaking her mouth opens and a finger raises as if to forestall the conversation proceeding any further.

"As we're getting to know each other, I do want to remain on the subject of robes for a moment," she says, with a sharp-edged little smile that belies the casualness of her tone, "Specifically why do you both still wear them? Given that they're a restrictive and impractical mode of dress enforced by our captors in order to neutralize, emasculate, and most importantly ensure that we're incapable of going about our lives without being marked out as foreign to normal society."

"Emasculate?" he asks with a raised eyebrow. That's never been an issue in his eyes, personally, but maybe some people are a little more sensitive about robes. He's not sure. That's beyond the point, though, and he waves his hand so as to dismiss the question.

"When I was running away and hiding, I went for any clothing other than robes so I could hide what I was. Deny what I was. Pretend and escape. Now?" He settles back into his seat and gets comfortable. "Now they're a statement. I am a mage. I will not hide it. They need to get used to having mages among them, seen and unseen, for we have hidden enough. I don't see anything awry with not wearing them if they're not to your liking or not useful for you, but I find satisfaction and use in them. ...And as I happen to make my own, I stick to ones that are not restrictive or impractical."

Anders meets her gaze levelly. This is such a small thing to find division in, but she's opened with it. Why? Maybe her response to what he's said and whatever Vandelin says will help him figure that out.

Vandelin's smile, in turn, is serene. "It's kind of you to be so concerned about our masculinity," he says, as if barely concealing a laugh. The tone is a carefully-practiced one.

"We can talk 'restrictive and impractical' in more detail when we're in a combat situation, to be sure. I didn't dress like this out in the Hinterlands--but I presume you didn't, either." He gestures to her skirt, no shorter than his.

"Anders has the right of it. I have no interest in marking myself as anything other than what I am. My aim isn't to assimilate by allowing people to pretend we're still cloistered away. Every positive interaction a civilian has with me is an interaction they will know was with a mage. Every bit of good I do in the fight against Corypheus will be branded visibly as a mage defending people from harm. This is what we look like to people, for better or worse. And we can use it to our advantage in one of two ways. We can disappear among them by taking off the uniform--or we can make ourselves visible, en masse, and change their perceptions."

Edited 2017-10-27 07:58 (UTC)

"You're welcome," is Nell's quick reply to Vandelin, her smile just as neatly pasted on.

She lets them each have their say, eye-contact maintained, chin propped after a time on her knuckles before she folds both hands in front of her again, fingers carefully woven. And then immediately unknit again that she might press spread fingers to the table for emphasis as she speaks.

"I haven't suggested that you ought to hide--though perhaps next time you wish to have a clandestine meeting you might consider it--but there's no need to wear robes to proclaim yourself a mage. The staff does that well enough, after all. And it, unlike robes, has a practical purpose. A tool and a weapon, not a literal dress uniform that hinders movement and provides absolutely no protection whatsoever in battle. A garment that serves no purpose but to make us strange in the eyes of others and to mark us as members of the Circles we voted to cast off.

"When they see that," and she gestures here to Vandelin in particular, "They think of Circles. Or in your case," she allows, hand and shoulders rocking to and fro as she asides, "I suppose they think of Tevinter and wonder how on earth an elf got into his magister master's closet, which is no real improvement, but the point is that by turning up in the uniforms they forced on us, all you do is remind them that we ought to be rounded up and locked in a tower together like we used to be. Dress like a person first, who just happens to be a mage with a staff, and they're far more likely to treat you that way."

If they thought she was done they are wrong, she has one more thing yet to say, as she leans over to steal the not-quite empty bottle of wine abandoned on the next table over when it's occupants got distracted punching each other. She gives the bottle a sniff, and then takes a swig, and uses it to point at Vandelin again. "Worse still, it makes other mages think you loved the Circles. That you're nostalgic for your time there. Are you?" she turns a surprisingly sharp eye on him then as she lowers the bottle, gaze narrow and keenly focused, "Do you secretly hope for their return, just perhaps a little better than they were? Because I was told I was here to meet a rebel but all I'm seeing is a man who is far too attached to the trappings of his old life to have any real commitment to building a new one that's truly different."

(Now she's done.)

Back home, he calls Hasmal when he talks to Myr, and his cousin has heretofore been kind enough not to point out that he sounds like a loyalist when he does.

You could call yourself an enchanter now; there's nobody to say you can't, he tells Myr, and when Myr refuses on the grounds that he hasn't earned it, Vandelin feels a tiny ripple of jealous relief, because he himself did.

And when the magister in the dungeons calls him by that hard-earned title, he's grateful for it no matter how dangerously manipulative it is, because it comes on the heels of the spoilt slaveholder next to him hissing why is this knife-ear trying to talk to me?

There's only so much his trademark, impassive Wicked Grace expression can conceal, and the truer the accusations leveled at him, the lower that threshold becomes. No matter how he reminds himself that he can't afford to sound defensive, his voice, when he speaks, is tight.

"I'll thank you, first of all, not to tell me what I as an elf need to do to be treated like a person." His grip on his staff is just the slightest bit too tight.

"Neither of you is qualified to speak on that matter, and so that goes for both of you in equal measure. If we're to abandon what the Circles imposed on us, we can start with the absurd notion that our magic makes our race irrelevant. Moving on--"

He could address the Tevinter elephant in the room, or more accurately, he could try, but not without regrouping first. Not like this.

"You've asked quite a few questions," he says. "And I have only one for you, but I'm sure you'll do me the courtesy of an answer, as Anders and I have done. My concern, first, foremost and always, is for the generations of mage children that are coming into their magic every day in a world that hates and fears them and doesn't care to help them. What do you envision their education looking like, in this new world you want to build? How do you propose we teach them to use their gifts?"

He doesn't offer any of his own thoughts, having sidestepped her question before asking his. There will be time for that. He wants to see where her mind goes first, and he has no doubt whatsoever that it's another subject she'll expand on at length sooner or later.

He raises an eyebrow at her, and then gives the same eyebrow to Vandelin. Nell is seemingly trying to provoke the elf, and Anders is fairly certain he doesn't deserve the snipe about race. Granted, he's not always treated qunari as people, but he's worked hard to-- and he cuts that thought short.

It doesn't matter.

Little jabs have mattered far too much lately to him, and they're just that, little. The future is big and important, so Anders takes a breath and moves past it.

"I've a model of something on a small scale in Darktown." He's not being asked the question. That's fine. Nell and Vandelin might be in the beginning stages of clashing and he'd like to intervene if possible. "It takes half the building I use for my Clinic, and it instructs anyone in letters and numbers while we teach magic to mages alongside. It integrates. It is, however, small. And it is not enough of an answer to the larger problem. I'd enjoy hearing visions and thoughts from the both of you."

Sure, he's heard some from Vandelin already, but it's best if the other guy repeats it for Nell's ears rather than Anders trying to relay it.

Nell's watching Vandelin closely, for all that she seems interested primarily in snagging a cup and pouring herself the last of whatever wine's left in that bottle. It's only a few inches in the glass, and she manages to look disappointed at that discovery and drink what there is without her observation of the elf ever really faltering. There's something knowing in her eyes and around her mouth when he asks a question rather than answering any of hers, the faint tinge of smug satisfaction, as if his efforts to dodge have told her all she wanted to know. She lets that expression linger as Anders speaks, her attention only flickering to him momentarily. She's heard about his school already.

"They need to be taught control first, above all," she tells Vandelin directly, briskly, "Then to defend themselves. After that, whatever they like. Practical trades primarily, I imagine, things the Circles didn't bother with. A university for the esoteric research stuff. Battle magic for those inclined to combat. Is this really all you two want to work on?" She directs that to both, looking between them. "Education? Because even Loyalists can agree we should be teaching mage children the basics so they don't set people on fire by accident, and few of them will object if we want to teach construction or farming, too. There are much more pressing concerns."

"If you have concerns more 'pressing' than ensuring that our children aren't murdered by their own families and neighbors because there's nowhere for them to go when they come into their magic, you're free to find allies who share them," Vandelin fires back.

"Nobody is discounting the work that needs to be done in the present for those of us already grown. But the longer we put off a resolution to the education problem, the more innocent mage children are going to die--and if they take their villages with them in the process, it puts those more pressing goals of yours further and further out of reach. You have your priorities, and I have mine. Call my title a 'trapping of my old life' all you like, but I remain an educator, and the mage community will always have need of us."

"The mage community needs those who earned the Enchanter title, even as we leave behind Circles entirely," Anders confirms. "It means they have taught before, and education is a pressing concern. The new generation of mages are coming into their powers and are lost and alone, and that is what has always powered the Chantry's control of us - fear."

His voice is harder now, stern. They are here for what Nell mentioned, pressing concerns, and instead the one talking about pressing concerns is lashing at a possible ally.

"I also believe the absolute end of the Rite of Tranquility is crucial, that the Templars being given authority over mages deemed criminal needs to end, that we need to found a place that is separate, for mages, while somehow also assuring nearly everyone in Thedas that we're not going to become another Tevinter, and that we need to fund research into more practical applications of magic. I am here for solidarity and joining forces, and to hear out what the two of you view as critical and pressing as well. Leading things on my own lead to... what we all are aware of. We need to do better and be better, and seek unity rather than division. It would be cliche to say our enemies want us to be divided, but it's true."

Nell has more to say in response on the subject of enchanters and educators, that much should be obvious and probably already come as no surprise. That should holds back is neither a matter of manners nor a case of being cowed by Anders' tone: she glances at him, but continues to primarily watch Vandelin, gauging his reaction throughout.

When Anders has said his piece, she refocuses on them both. "None of the things either of you want to do will matter if we don't strengthen our position before the Chantry recovers. There will be a new Divine, sooner rather than later now, and we need to make sure that whoever she is, she doesn't immediately embrace the remains of the Templars, build them back up, and turn an Exalted March on us."

She exhales a short, harsh huff of breath out her nose, frustrated, and steeples fingers on the tabletop. Despite it, her words remain calm. "I'm not opposed to educating children. Of course that's important. But that's something nearly any mage can do, and nearly any mage is willing to do, no matter their opinion on the Circles. The work that needs to be done to make sure we remain free and even have a future to train them for requires mages with particular skills and convictions. I had hoped you two might be among them, but I can see that we don't share the same interests. Good luck with your endeavors," she says, swinging a leg out over the bench to get to her feet. "I'd advise against ordering the wine, it's terrible."

"Maker's breath," he says as she gets up. "You're going to come in and judge and then not even offer up what you think needs to be done for this strengthening? If that's not a backward way to go about matters, I don't know what is. I said I was listening."

Is she scared? Or is she somehow foolishly convinced she can do things on her own? Because going it alone never works.

"It's an easy thing to judge. It's far harder to be flexible and find common ground and work together. Wouldn't at least giving this a chance be worth it? Say the skills, the projects. Try. For the future of mages, Nell."

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[Closed] Mage Rights Club

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