the days that bind us

[exequy]

WHO: Lots of people
WHAT: Recovering lost phylacteries
WHEN: Guardian 23, 9:44
WHERE: The Storm Coast
NOTES: Violence! OOC post over here.

All signs point to the Storm Coast, and once scouts have narrowed down the location it's only a short journey across the Waking Sea to move a small force onto the rocky coast. They row ashore just after dawn in driving rain, and follow the beach for at least a mile before finding a path that actually reaches the top of the cliff. The rain fades to a drizzle but the day remains relentlessly overcast as they hike toward their goal, grey and dim even at noon, with a raw breeze off the water.

Comments

b

[justice_is_blond]

"Why, exactly, are we taking crates of phylacteries back?" He's picked up one of the spilled vials, expression icy. There is no one that can be trusted with them, no one that should be trusted with them, in his opinion, but they're going to hand over leashes? It's not something he's fine with.

"They should be destroyed. They're nooses around the necks of anyone who has one, you have to know this from what's just happened." Loyalist or not, mages had suffered. Kostos has to be able to see this. "If there are mages in Kirkwall who want theirs that's one thing. But this is another entirely."

I ROLLED FOR IT AND SANDAL SMILED UPON ME

[doneisdone]

One such keen eye does notice (literally one, the other's under the patch for now), and Kostos receives a brief suspicious glance before Teren turns away to continue aiding with the cleanup. She won't say a thing, the way she didn't say a thing when he and Nell imploded the Circle in Nevarra City, but only as long as he's not a fool about it. That can never be guaranteed.

maker bless that dwarf

[exequy]

For a moment Kostos isn’t looking at Anders; he’s looking after Teren’s turned back, unsure what she may have seen. Unsure whether he should care. Never mind keeping quiet about Nevarra. She’s a Warden, and presumably here out of choice or loyalty, not because she was told she had to help mages she didn’t give a damn about.

He lets it go—not that there was another option at the moment—and turns his impassively impatient expression on the Warden talking to him instead.

They have orders, he could say, if he liked giving long explanations for anything, and there’s a Seeker here, along with various other witnesses, surviving prisoners and Inquisition personnel alike, who could attest to their leaders at the Gallows or at Skyhold that the total destruction of several thousand phylacteries was no accident. There are the thousands of mages those phylacteries belong to, whether at Skyhold and the Inquisition’s other outposts or elsewhere, who don’t deserve less of an opportunity to have a say or hold their own vials just because they aren’t in Kirkwall. And there’s the long game, one of earned trust and carefully chosen battles, that those of them who can’t retreat behind a griffon insignia have to play.

If the Inquisition locks the phylacteries in a vault, that’s fine. They’re being careful. They’re being useful. One of them will have access to a key.

And he’s a Loyalist. That, too.

“We are not all Wardens,” is what he does say. The abridged version. “Some of us are accountable for what we do.” He sets the last of the vials back in the crate and secures the lid, and he pointedly doesn’t look at the one in Anders’ hand. “And what we allow.”

[justice_is_blond]

He's frustrated, but literally anyone could have seen that coming.

"Accountable to the Inquisition, or accountable to those who could have them used against them again?" It's rhetorical; there's nothing else he can do here as he's not going to attack Kostos. Or take on the rest of the people in here. And Teren's not interested in interceding either, not that he can blame her.

It would be nice to have someone to blame right now, though, aside from a Chantry institution yet again.

His own pocketing isn't subtle, but he can't well smash the vial on the ground by Kostos' feet when the guy is clearly pretending to ignore Anders having it. He doesn't know whose he has, he hadn't spent time looking for a label, but at least he can get one more free today. And he can plan for a future day. ...Which probably also anyone could see coming, including Kostos as Anders looks directly at him.

"We are not all Wardens. We do not all have protection and friends. Which is why the burden is on those of us who have some or both to help those who do not." A beat. "When opportunity arises."

He'll be stopped today. He's hoping Kostos will choose something better in the future, considering he fought when it came down to it.

[exequy]

On a bad day (so, a day like today) Kostos’ response to someone lecturing him about burdens would most likely be an obscene gesture. But at the moment his hands are preoccupied with the crate, so there’s no gesture. And he doesn’t care what anybody thinks of him enough to stand there and explain who he holds himself accountable to and what that means to him, so there’s no verbal answer, either. There’s only a facial expression—a lolling head tilt with narrowing eyes, a nonverbal sarcastic please—before he adjusts to get a firmer grip on the crate and walks away with it.

He waits until he’s out of everyone’s sight, halfway through the rocky hills between the compound and the ship, to put the crate down again, rubbing feigned pain out of his hands in case anyone does see him, and move the vial in his sleeve to a safer location.