[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

[overharrowed]

"Of course," Julius says again, quietly but without hesitation. "Look, you know I don't agree with everything you've done, and I'm certain some of my actions have seemed... we'll say 'worth criticizing' for lack of being more specific. And I know you didn't think of Kinloch Hold as anything like a home for long, if ever. But I did, once, which had much more to do with the people there than the tower itself. We've both lost a lot of people, you and I. Too many."

He pauses, then, not out of uncertainty but at the sheer massiveness of that particular understatement. Between Uldred, the Blight, the rebellion and the war... how many of the mages the two of them had grown up with even still drew breath?

"If we're all to survive Corypheus... if we're to rebuild a better world after. We won't do it by refusing to meet each other halfway. I'm willing to do that if you are."

[justice_is_blond]

They've lost so many, and Anders is tired of losing people. He shakes his head at the pause, a few names standing out among the so many others before Julius starts speaking again.

"I'm willing to do that," he answers. He believes Julius will genuinely work at that, too. There are few Loyalists he can have that faith in.

"We... Briefly, in Nevarra, we talked about putting something together to remember those we've lost. Let's. Let's make a book, if we can find mages who are interested, a book of stories of those mages lost from the different Circles. They'll be remembered by more than just us, and it could make us people in the eyes of so many who've never met a mage."

The thought is a welcome distraction from everything else, giving him the energy the quarantine has been draining away.

"I can put a call on the network asking for the stories, happy and sad, we can speak with a printer... It could help with unity, too. With bringing mages together despite our differing points of view about the future's shape."

[overharrowed]

"I think that's an excellent idea," Julius says, warm. "So much of the writing about the Circles has been academia produced by mages or focused on conflicts. But the people who lived in them deserved to be remembered the way they would if they had families to think of them. Landon always had a joke ready when you needed cheering up, or Bridget had a lovely singing voice and was an excellent teacher. That sort of thing."

He's thought before, and thinks now, that he's not even really sure who has and hasn't died among those he didn't see fall with his own eyes. He's sure at least a few people had needlessly mourned him, during his disappearance. No matter what they built next, or what they hoped to build, much had been lost and perhaps acknowledging it would help.