{Open} Extending an Olive Branch

[didifuckingstutter]

WHO: Aveline and You!
WHAT: Now that the quarantine is over, Aveline parked herself in the Gallows hoping to talk to/be helpful to members of the Inquisition. So, if you're in need of help from a 5'10 walking tank, come on over. Boy, does she have time for you.
WHEN: Late Guardian into Drakonis
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: Feel free to PM me here or on discord (Nurfhurrdurr#4899) if you'd like to do anything fun to do. I'm open.

With the quarantine lifted, Aveline knew it will take time for the affected persons to get back into fighting shape. She stopped by the gallows, looking to be useful to those who were still recovering, and just help in general.

She walked around the gallows, hoping to be as personable as she can. The Inquisition has helped Kirkwall a great deal, and she hopes not only to help in kind, but to also foster some strong relationships with the Inquisition's members. She walked around, making an active effort not to glare at anyone, and hoped others would feel comfortable coming up to her.

Comments

[mactears]

This is not the first time a veteran of Ostagar has approached him thusly, and Loghain doubts very much that it will ever be the last.

Which probably explains the expression of careful neutrality that greets Aveline as he looks up from his task to consider her approach. He's grown still; he isn't ignoring her, she has his complete attention, but her clear upset has him taking careful inventory of his own situation. Would this altercation become violent? He hopes, privately, desperately, that it does not.

"Officer Vallen," he greets her quietly by name--he always did have a good memory for those who served under his command, in any capacity. He leaves her assertions about where he's been 'hiding' alone; rage, resentment, pain, are deeply personal things. He's learned not to question them, especially when he knows he is their root cause.

[didifuckingstutter]

He remembered her. He remembered her, but doesn't acknowledge any more than that.After hearing his voice she felt like a young inexperience officer again, and she had to resist the habit of coming to attention and saluting the man. That made her blood boil even more. She had trusted him. Believed in him. They all had. And he sold them out to further his own ambitions and his own legacy.

"I was, once a long time ago. Last time I was Officer Vallen was at Ostagar. You took that away from me, along with everything else I was. Along with everything else I loved. My king, my husband, my country. Because of you I lost everything!"

[mactears]

Her words are not unfamiliar to him. Loghain has long since stopped offering up justifications for the choices that he made, even the ones that now, a decade later, he continues to stand by--like his decision to retreat at Ostagar. For him, and for the soldiers whose lives were saved by that choice, the wisdom of the order seemed without question. Yet for those who the choice to retreat left behind in the valley... yes. They did lose everything.

As he told Wynne a decade ago, he can still remember their names.

He sits still in the face of her rage, her anguish, and doesn't question her. When she is finished, he says the only thing that he can say: "I'm sorry." No defence. No protestation. No justification. The sentiment won't be enough to stand on its own, but it is also all he has to offer.