[Closed] A perfect storm

[justice_is_blond]

WHO: Anders, established-CR people; poke me on plurk or in Discord for a top level if you'd like!
WHAT: A pair of triggers collide and fuck up Anders
WHEN: Early Guardian
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: Panic attacks, possible talk of trauma in the past, related issues, dark thoughts

He'd run from being locked up seven times, knowing that the seventh was a death sentence, and been willing to go in alone to what seemed likely to be a lethal trap (and was) to try to destroy his phylactery. With both of them, life like that wasn't worth it.

Now both are back. He's held again, in a Circle, his phylactery is being messed with, and on top of that he can't heal in Darktown so he can do even less than he could in Kirkwall seven years ago.

Comments

[laurenande]

With great effort she turns her gaze from the distant shore to Anders. She can hear him speak but she cannot hear the song that he exudes; only the ocean fills her ears and for that she is equal parts thankful and terrified.

His head is bent and his distress is palpable. Without that sound, that song grating against her mind, against the very heart of her fears, all she can see is a desperate, frightened man. Once she had turned away men like him, had left them to cruel fates, had ignored them to their own doom on her borders, but she was not in Lorien now and he...he had done her a tremendous kindness once.

"Was it truly?" She asks and reaches a hand out. She no longer glows and, with that dreadful change, she knows that she lacks the will to damage him. Even that has faded. Her hand settles on his shoulder and nothing comes of it.

"Or is it fear that drives you, as it does me?" She asks and takes a deep breath. "I cannot abide the templars, and I can no longer shield myself from their sight, so I linger here. Afraid of what is, what was, and what may come to pass...but I cannot regret lingering. If I did not care, I could not be afraid; I am afraid because I care for what happens here, to me, to all of you, and to Thedas should I die ere my goals are reached."

[justice_is_blond]

He barely flinches when her hand lands on his shoulder, expecting pain but he can take physical pain. The lack of burning, though, brings his head back up as he looks at her blearily. Right. Their powers fading. They hadn't asked for this mess either.

"Fear... Fear drove me before. And I could embrace it, before him. I could run, into the night, away, without worrying about leaving anyone behind, or it hurting anyone. It was just me. And now I care, and I'm bound here because of it, because I'm worried about you and the other Rifters, and one of the Templars, and all of my friends and all of my people, the mages."

He exhales. "It's always been fear. But care linked with fear... Care linked with terror." Because that's the true name of what's getting at him. He's not just afraid. He's terrified. "I'm caught in the perfect trap. As are you, it seems."

There's no running for either of them.

"What are your goals here?" That may be a better topic than how he's so scared that if he'd eaten breakfast he'd be throwing it up right now.

[laurenande]

She stares at him, as he explains and as a shaky breath leaves him, and she can see a reflection of herself in him. No, perhaps it is her imagination, or a delirium from the fever. She lets her hand linger as he asks and considers how to answer him. It is such a long answer and she almost dismisses it, for all that it will require her to say--so much of it should not be spoken aloud, not here or anywhere...and yet.

What more can be done to her?

"I am certain you have realized that I am an elf," Galadriel says and gives him a moment for a snide reply. None comes and she smiles a bit as she carries on. "I have never been terribly fond of the race of Men, even before I came to Thedas and discovered the atrocities laid upon my people."

She looks back at the water and her brow furrows. Now she is staring at Kirkwall.

"I have never cared for Men because you all move so...so very quickly. In a few decades you may build a city, given a century you may have an empire, and then if I look away all of it will vanish before I return my gaze."

She gestures with her free hand but the motion is minimal, idle almost.

"In a hundred years this city will be crumbling. In two hundred years it will either be a relic, enshrined in stories, or utterly forgotten and overgrown. In five? The language that is spoken here will have faded away and will remain on parchment alone. In a thousand? Your countries will be distant memories; even your gods may be forgotten.

"I cannot keep up, I cannot protect you...especially you, for there is truly no hope of finding what you have lost. Thedas terrifies me because I cannot know what has happened in this place, not truly, but I recognize enough aspects of it to be truly and completely afraid."

[justice_is_blond]

He's a little lost. She doesn't like humans because she's... old? That she can't protect him he knows, except he's a little worried she still means protecting him from his own blood and setting him on fire in a slightly more dangerous way than holding his shoulder normally would. And Thedas scares her because she doesn't know its history but sees enough in it she's reminded of... home?

It takes him a few moments to find words, especially because he can't tell if she answered his question or not.

"I'm sorry. I don't understand. The aspects, are they what you were wanting to burn out of me? And how old are you that being old makes you not like humans? That's not anything I've ever heard before. I'm not going to apologize for trying to create a massive change in my world in my lifetime."

[laurenande]

She chuckles then, though it is hard to say what has inspired her. She is feverish and only her great focus has held her together this long. She draws a deep breath and lets it out as a sigh.

"I am...how strange, I suppose I am not the eldest in this world...not anymore, but I am very close to it," she says and withdraws her hand. She settles the pair of them on her lap and looks up at the sky. The sight is uninspiring, overcast and grey as it is.

She had told Ellana this once, and had experienced her blatant disbelief. The very idea of such age in a world without the Eldar is jarring. Ellana had been more than willing to accept it...but she did not expect the same reception here. Anders did not have that rapport with her; up until quite recently they had bordered on adversarial. She could not simply tell him, he would think it a lie...or perhaps a hallucination...and how amusing that would be.

"I have witnessed more dawns than the forests that line the hills," she says instead. "I have seen the very height of the glories of the elves and watched as they diminish like cliffs being worn away by the tide. I have watched as empires of men rose and fell and rose again...and in all my time the only constant, the only thing that remains unchanged, is that men always forget.

"Change your world as you like, Anders. I cannot find purchase in this struggle your people have for I am no mage. The name is so ill fitted in my mind that I would sooner think myself a bird. It is a human word, one of so very many....

And here is where she hesitates, visibly and openly, but she forces herself to speak it.

"The last battle I shared with Men was one of the most hideous ever waged. A million men and elves and orcs perished upon my very doorstep; they fought and died and poisoned the earth with their bodies. Three thousand years and still it has not recovered...and the reason they fought was forgotten, as were they, as they would remain had their land not been named by the Eldar."

She is getting side tracked, the dead marsh is not the point.

"They fought a creature there, a shade of the ancient world, who cast his will throughout great Men, and Elves, and Dwarves. He sought dominion and nearly achieved it. They died to defeat him...and they destroyed him...but they also failed their task and he survived. Unfortunately, their failure was forgotten."

She looks at him again.

"That creature, Sauron, was a foot soldier in a greater army. His rank was forgotten long before men knew his name and he served a darker shadow, one whose arts forever poisoned the foundations of earth. His very name became legend, then myth...but I did not forget.

"The song that lives in you is the song that he sang, the song of Morgoth. It is the original notes of discord, the heart of the shadow. I am the only one who remembers...and so I cannot die until I wipe it from this world. It cannot be forgotten...I will find a way and when I do...I too will be forgotten."

[justice_is_blond]

Over three thousand years old. He's not going to call it impossible, he's heard too many things about other worlds to say as much, but it's not something he can easily wrap his head around. Nor is the rest. It almost sounds like she wants to die but cannot until Sauron is dead and she can't hear Morgoth's song anywhere.

There'd been a long time when he'd wanted to die too, after doing just a little more for his people. It's an exhausting parallel, no matter how different their ages.

"The struggle is for freedom, for equality," he finally says after he's run through what she's said a few times. This is the easiest part of it. "For the mages, elves and men and qunari alike, to not be caged in places like this again. To not be leashed again. To live as people. Our lives may seem brief, but we want them to be ours."

Not all of his people want that. But neither of them has the energy to delve into fine details tonight, and he's rather sure she doesn't care about them anyway.

"I was ready to fight a little more for it and then die for who I was, when you met me. That's why I joined the Inquisition. One more push, one more helping hand, and then... an end. And then Nathaniel interceded and changed everything. Nathaniel, who has been Blighted for nearly as long as me, who saved my life and gave it back to me."

He takes a breath. "I want that discord gone, badly, Galadriel. But I didn't have a choice in winding up with it, and neither did he, and neither of us deserve to be burned off the face of Thedas for being made Grey Wardens. I seek to cure it. I've said as much before. What I haven't said is that in four years either I'll have cured it... or we'll both be dead. If we're not dead before then. So in four years, at most, a little less of that sound will be here, even though I doubt this Morgoth ever touched our world."

[laurenande]

She reaches out then, a sadness on her face that is so obvious and blatant that it is truly hard to comprehend, and presses a hand against the side of his face. She smile at him and lets out a short sigh.

"How can you possibly know? You are but a man," she asks and lets her hand linger for a moment.

"And I know you do not deserve it, few ever do, but that is an injustice that resides beyond my power to correct," she adds and withdraws her hands again. Touching him is comfort and damnation all at once. Physical comfort has rarely been afforded to her and now, of all times, it is not something she can take. "It is the way of this world, to take from those who deserve the burden least--I have tried, all my long life, to see that tithe is not taken from the undeserving and...I have succeeded...mostly."

Kirkwall glitters in the distance and she sees that city again as she looks back across the water.

"I will not slay you, not if your time is so short, but I cannot promise I will never burn a warden from this world...undeserving or otherwise. If the song is scoured, if they are all that remains, I will do what must be done and I will weep for them as I do it...but I cannot leave it be...not ever.

"If I can grant but one boon to this world, to any world, it will be to see that shadow cast out. I will spend my very soul to do it, if I must, and I will do so gladly. I cannot abide it; it is the one thing that terrifies me and it should frighten you far more than it does."

[justice_is_blond]

"You could, perhaps, stop insulting the race of someone who is hoping he's something of a friend," he mutters dryly. "This 'but a man' is still a person, and one who has worked extremely hard to get seen as one."

The rest of what she's said isn't as easy to process, let alone joke about. Especially after she's held his cheek in a way that's both fond and almost patronizing. Galadriel is a difficult woman to fully understand.

"And they're people too, Galadriel. The Wardens fight the spread of the Blight, the spread of what you hear in us. We are the line of defense, because the full infection cannot affect us." More or less. Until the Calling, but that's a Warden secret.

"If you must attack the darkness, do it beside us first. Help take out the hordes underground, Corypheus, The Architect, the other five if they're real and still alive. By then there might even be a cure whether it's me who finds it or I'm long dead."

[laurenande]

He rails against her, as though stating what he is carries insult. It may, she would admit, but she does not aloud. He insists cooperation and, in truth, the idea had occurred to her...however briefly. She entertains it now but he is so mistaken she cannot truly respond to it.

"You think I do not consider you people?" Galadriel asks. "No, I know that you are, I have seen the gentleness in the heart of one of your brothers. His dreams of butterflies still echo in my memory.

"It is simply a burden that must be borne. Were I corrupted, my own death would be no less required."

[justice_is_blond]

Dreams of butterflies. Certainly not Carver. Alistair? Loghain? The former is more likely of those two. Anders looks away even as he tries to uselessly puzzle out the who.

"But would you not fight against the darkness as long as you could before dying? That's what we do." She's so casual about her death being required, and while he's been there himself, he's not fine with it. "There are thousands of Darkspawn out there, two more archdemons at least, possibly six more like Corypheus, Galadriel. To simply give up and die would be a waste of everything. We will die in this duty. That's a part of being a Grey Warden. But we do not have to die soon, or die being burned, uselessly. We will die fighting the Darkspawn."