faderift | open | wherever we go, we'll never be lost

Entry tags:

open | wherever we go, we'll never be lost

WHO: Pietro Maximoff & YOU
WHAT: Arriving, complaining, settling in, poking his nose into things, etc.
WHEN: Anytime in April
WHERE: The Gallows, around Kirkwall
NOTES: Feel free to toss your own starter at this post! Gimme anything and I'll find a reason for Pietro to be there.

Arriving;

As accommodations go, the Gallows is one Pietro doubts he'll soon forget. After a long day of travel, longer still from Skyhold and the Brotherhood's latest camp beyond, watching those great white walls rise higher and higher from the approaching ferry, he's surprised he doesn't get a crick in his neck by the time they dock. When he finally comes to be standing on its front steps, feeling approximately the size of a pebble, he's started to wonder if all this was really such a great idea. Leaving. Pledging his loyalty to an organization he doesn't yet know if he trusts. Going to Kirkwall, of all places.

At least it's something different.

"Is all Tevinter architecture so oppressive?" he gripes under his breath as he starts up. "And spiky?" This seems like an unnecessary number of spikes. He's just saying.

—The garish pink birds milling about do help lighten the mood, he'll admit.

Group Quarters;

Inside the mages' tower, the long open rooms and rows of bunks are a little less intimidating, if no more welcome. It's been years since he's slept in an apprentice's hall, his sister tucked into the bunk above him, seeing who could whisper quietest as they fell asleep — or how silently she could toss a pillow at him for whispering something rude, often as not. Nostalgia isn't the right word for the memory of a time you wouldn't repeat, for the particular closeness that comes from living in shared fear, but it's heavy on his limbs the same way.

Still, this is the prudent choice. The choice their father would tell him to make. Best to have reason to linger within earshot of his fellow recruits. He wastes little time finding an unoccupied bed, dropping his travel pack and staff onto it with a resigned whumph.

"Just like old times," is wry.

Only the doors to this cage aren't locked anymore. One hopes. (He checks, actually, just a quick brush of his fingers over the mechanism, a glance for fresh wear on his way to the bath. Just in case.)

The Gallows;

Once he's had a chance to clean the dust and smell of hay and travel from himself, Pietro sets about getting the lay of the land. A new lean elf can be found surveying the training grounds with a close eye, not necessarily looking to participate but— appreciating. Magnus's training had been thorough, but he hadn't had anything so permanent to offer.

The herb garden and adjoining alchemy rooms earn a passing-through too, but it's the library that sees him pulled in for a longer visit. Careful fingers ghost over the spines of the books there, reading each title before pausing to pull one or two from their shelves with a sort of uncertain side-glance and a lift of the chin, as if daring anyone to question his right to them. If he is to work on behalf of this Inquisition, he ought to get something out of it. A history, perhaps, or a particularly esoteric-looking tome on magic, or even a book of myths might earn his attention, and a spot on the nearby reading table he's temporarily claimed.

Ostensibly, he ought to be looking for the proper office to report his arrival to, but — well, he doesn't seem to be in any hurry.

Wildcard;

[[Feel free to run into Pietro somewhere else in the Gallows or around Kirkwall, e.g. running errands or loitering in pubs in Lowtown, hanging around the alienage when he gets tired of shemlen, or plurk ping me for a closed starter, I just ran out of steam for more general starters tonight... x_x ]]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

For the duration of Gwenaëlle's stay in the Gallows, this time, she's been using the heated communal baths in the former Templar tower. She's made herself a touch too comfortable in Thranduil's quarters, more than the last time she'd been sleeping in them, and there's no sense in inviting serving staff up the stairs with hot water to see as much—at least not yet. So, with nearly as much regularity as she'd indulge in her own home, she has made the trek all the way down to bathe. She's never been shy, particularly, and steeling herself to use the hot springs in Skyhold had worn down some of her discomfort at sharing the scars she's grown more used to, now—

She knows that silhouette. Dimly. Recognition is not instant, which is why she's still standing there when Pietro rises all the way out of the water, instead of having prudently fled to deal with this some other way, preferably while both of them are wearing more clothes.

She's got a robe on, at least. She hadn't actually taken it off.

Before her mind can catch up with her mouth, it's already said, “Fancy meeting you here,” like an idiot.

Pietro hasn't got a robe on.

Privacy isn't something he's learned to expect in much abundance; certainly the facilities in Ghislain hadn't been so different from this, and living rough had done little to improve his options. But this isn't Ghislain, or an isolated farmhouse, or a creek in the blasted woods. This standing up stark naked in the middle of what seems suddenly a very large, very empty room, and turning his head to see it's populated only by Gwenaëlle Vauquelin brandishing an awkward pick-up line.

(He's had nightmares like this, he's sure.)

At least his back is still to her. Mostly. Not that she had any interest in any side of an elf, as she'd made abundantly clear the last time they spoke. Pointedly, his eyes drop from her. To hell with it, he's going for his towel.

"Mademoiselle Vauquelin," he manages, wedging formality between them with all the subtlety of a crowbar as water sloshes around his ankles. "I did not mean to—" be this naked? Get here first? Contaminate her bath water? He's very swift in getting that towel around his waist. "—I was not aware you were in Kirkwall."

Or he might have turned around and left. That seems simpler.

“Baudin,” she corrects him—without thinking, something that's swiftly becoming habitual, digging her heels in and taking back what she can of her own fall from grace with her nails. It's only after she's already said it that it crosses her mind that name will mean something to him, and...and. And she'd almost rather not be so easily untangled; had always rather been cruel than pathetic.

He looks different than he did when they were barely more than children. She wraps her robe tighter over her scars, and annoyance tightens her expression when she realises she's doing it, as if she should be self-conscious. As if it would matter if she were found wanting in comparison to what she'd been—she'd been awful, that's what she'd been, she's sure what he remembers about her isn't that she was pretty.

In any case, it could be a married name, but isn't: “Mademoiselle Baudin. I wasn't aware you were alive.”

That sounds—worse. Than she'd thought it would.

Optimistically, she thinks perhaps they'll skate past the rest if he's too affronted to care.

Married is precisely what he thinks first. Because of course she would be. That is what young Orlesian noble ladies do, isn't it? Seek out an advantageous arrangement? Play the Game? And in her absence, it had been easier to imagine Gwen as one of them, a cruel stereotype instead of the sharp-witted girl he once thought he knew, or the real woman who stands in front of him now, both of them having grown into their bones.

—But she isn't married.

"Sorry to disappoint," comes out automatically, in t's sharp enough to cut glass, and if the words were much more than reflex, that might be sufficient to distract him, but as it stands the opposite is more true. Pieces continue to click unstoppably into place one by one. Uncertainty cracks the surface of his cool regard.

"...Baudin, as in Gueniévre?" It's mildly incredulous, and only mildly because if she is not married, then why on earth else would she—

Always, Gwenaëlle has been so easily read; wearing her broken heart on her sleeve, and lashing out with sharp claws in the direction of any who foolishly notice. Masks never hid the tension in her shoulders or the shift of her weight or the curl of her lip, and without a mask—Maker, without more than a dressing gown—the way Guenievre's own name twists like a knife in her gut is hard to miss. That she's braced for it, that she's spoken of her so much lately—

It's not that it's Pietro, particularly, saying it, except that it is—that her name is this time in the mouth of someone who had known her. Maybe even better, in that brief way, than she had; the weeks they'd spent together before her death marked mostly by distance, and weighted silences, and how there had been no last words and it was so unfair in the most fittingly awful way. The elaborate dance of dealing with the nobility, that tightrope—Gwenaëlle still cannot imagine what Guenievre might have been like behind the closed doors of the servants wing.

What sort of things might she have said to people whose good opinion was not a knife to her throat? Had she liked Pietro, or his sister? It occurs to her that she'd never wondered, at the time, never wondered what Guenievre might have thought of...well. If she'd known, if she'd not known. They were a problem that solved itself, if she had—

That Gwenaëlle had solved.

That she is not terribly proud of solving.

“Yes, well, it turns out protecting my reputation wouldn't have mattered,” she says, expression tightening into something that looks like a smile, if an observer were to be very generous. “As it's now 'uppity elfblooded cunt', which I think you'll agree is broadly accurate.”

Under the circumstances.

He'd thought once, a long time ago, that he would like to be the one to keep wounds from ever needing blossom in her the way they are so evidently now — as if, of the two of them, she was the one in a vulnerable position. (As if her happiness was the only one that mattered, perhaps; as if he'd never learned to love another way.) To see her hurting now, whatever the reason, strikes through his chest in a way that he—

aggressively pushes back down again, which is made all the easier by the way her words sort of drop a lit torch into the chasm that seems to have opened up inside him, and set everything on fire.

Uppity elf-blooded—

Those aren't the words he would have chosen, if the abrupt tightening in his jaw is anything to go by, but he doesn't have the wherewithal to argue semantics with her right this moment. For a stupid, fleeting fraction of a second he thinks, maybe that fixes everything. There isn't so much difference between them. There never had been.

There never had been.

"And you knew," comes slower, the words measured out like spoonfuls of poison. "All this time." They haven't spoken in years, and might have gone the rest of their lives without speaking again, but he'd lived with this old knot of rot beneath the ribs, all that time. His next exhale could be a laugh if it didn't sound so close to drowning.

"You knew and you just— what, thought it didn't matter as long as you still had someone to step on?"

“My mother,”

a breath, and—

she wants to defend herself, because of course she does, because she's a soft stupid mortal thing with feelings and the only thing she's ever known to do is lash out (preferably first, preferably harder), but if that were all then she wouldn't, she thinks, because Maker, he might as well think whatever he wants of her. What she did was small and cruel and if they had never seen each other again, then that would be all she was to him; that could still be all she is to him.

It's just,

“My mothers, they—I was the worst fucking thing that ever happened to them. Do you think it was bad, what I did?”

Yes. Because it was.

“It was nothing. It was stupid. We were children. Here is what mattered: my father drained the life out of two women he did not deserve and they put everything into me, into what I was supposed to be, and I was not supposed to throw it away on some fucking runaway elf nobody because it was not mine to give away. My mama didn't spend my entire life yes my lord and no my lording that selfish, worthless, spineless—”

(even then there had been ice between them, Gwenaëlle and her doting, determined papa)

“She didn't do that and give me to him when he asked, like a Comte has ever 'asked' an elf for anything. For that. For this. And now she's dead and none of it matters at all, so that's brilliant, anyway, I might as well have been an embarrassment then for all the fucking difference it'd have made. What if I'd had a baby? Chain you to me, like he did. Honestly,” in the tone of someone about to say something incredibly inflammatory, “I did you a favour.”

Edited (icon) 2018-05-08 08:26 (UTC)

"A favour?"

It is dizzying, listening to her, when he can so clearly imagine the lifetime of small, terrible acquiescences that had gone into keeping her reputation intact. He may never have been much for my lording anyone, Maker knows he's never had a talent for balancing anyone's good opinion on a dining table let alone a knife's edge, but he hasn't survived this long without learning to cut pieces from himself to become more palatable to the wolves at his door, and it is not difficult to picture Gueniévre doing the same with far more efficient resolve. The thought of a life spent and lost that way makes him– feel a little ill.

It does not, however, make what happened between the two of them nothing, Gwen, Maker's breath—

"You made me believe I wasn't worth the mud scraped off your boot, Gwenaëlle," as if she'd been the only one, the root instead of just the tipping point. "That everyone else in the world was right about me, about what little an elf would ever matter to anyone, and I'd been a bloody idiot to even dream of—"

Not of bedding her. If she hadn't noticed what sort of boy he'd been all those years ago, if there hadn't been time to say then what he won't say now, perhaps the fact that he won't, that even nearly giving voice to something so painfully naive is enough to make him bite back the words in shame — perhaps that is a clue. (She needn't have had a baby, to chain him to her.)

"Is that what you imagine your mother worked so hard for you to do?"

—is probably not a fair question, all things considered. Maybe later, that will matter to him.

Edited (i accidentally a word) 2018-05-09 08:07 (UTC)

A hundred different things want to happen all at once, namely: that she barrel forward and knock him clear into the heated water, hands fisted around his throat so he can never, ever say anything to her like that ever—

when she takes an unsteady step backwards, she looks as if she's been struck. She wants, quite badly, to strike him. The voice in her head that murmurs really, that's how you're going to make them proud, now, is it sounds like Alix, and her hands ball into fists and she

turns. Straightens her shoulders. Calmly, and deliberately: flees.

Sometime in the afternoon, a slight, pale elven woman enters the library. She is not alone; at her side is an adult mabari, well-groomed and and quiet. He's aware this is no playground and behaves accordingly, following his mistress around as she begins to gather various tomes for a reading session. Padding over to their usual reading table, he perks up at seeing it's occupied and sniffs at the newcomer, looking up and wagging his tail hopefully.

"He's quite shameless, sorry about that." His mistress emerges from around the stacks, with a slight apologetic smile. Not everyone's a dog person, hard as that is for a Fereldan like herself to believe, and she tries to be aware of that. "Though to be fair, that is our usual reading table. Do you mind if we join you?"

If the slightly withering look Pietro gives the mabari is any indication, he is in fact one of those dog-neutral monsters. It's the slobber, probably, or their reputation as formidable trackers, but either way, he doesn't make a fuss about it, content to simply veer a pant-leg away from an approaching wad of dribble.

"As long as he hasn't got a taste for vellum," he answers, rolling his eyes a little at the creature's efforts. (All right, fine. If his hand happens to drop down to give it a bit of a scratch on the head all the same, that's purely coincidental.)

"Research division, I take it?" If she's in here regularly enough to have a usual reading table.

"Fortunately, he does not." Setting down a few books on an unoccupied spot, she turns around to retrieve a few more from a nearby shelf. Satisfied with the bit of attention, Garahel paces around and plops down at his usual spot on the floor. "And yes, I am. I'm Warden Serra, project leader for the Rifts and the Veil. I have some reading in my office, but it helps to take advantage of the wider archive available to us."

Pietro gives a slight raise of the eyebrow — surprise, perhaps, that they've put an elf in charge of anything, even if she is a Grey Warden. That fact doesn't come first for everyone. Saying as much seems counterproductive, though, as he'd much prefer elves were in charge of everything actually, so by all means: project leader.

"Rifts and the Veil — is that primarily how to close the first and keep the second from falling to pieces, or is there more to it than that?"

"That's part of it, but it also involve studying the anchors that all rifters and some natives possess. They're a source of great interest and concern, as a previously unheard of connection with the Fade. That kind of connection doesn't come without consequences, and I wish to study how best to alleviate them."

"Ah, I had heard stories of them, the Rifters." Pietro nods, considering. It had been a subject of some discussion before he'd left his father's side, in fact, and something in the set of his shoulders shifts, a subtle caution infecting his otherwise casual demeanor.

"One would think that so strong a connection to the Fade might have its benefits as well, considering what a mage can do with substantially less."

"Well, sealing rifts is alone quite a boon. Aside from that, the connection causes them to dream as a mage; they are lucid in the Fade, with all the good and bad that comes of it. And their anchors are known to have the potential to evolve, for defensive and offensive purposes."

"Offensive and defensive purposes, as in, it allows them to wield a sort of magic? Assuming they could not before, of course."

"Yes; one manifestation creates a protective shield that deflects ranged attacks. Another manifests as bursts of energy, as damaging as any mage spell known. Fortunately, anchor-bearers seem to gain proficiency rather quickly, as I haven't head of many incidents."

"Fascinating." —Is not necessarily the appropriate response to that, uh. He leans back a touch, affecting a more casual air. "And fortunate, of course, that it is not so difficult to control as regular magic is for some."

Not him, obviously. Number one mage here.

"This is what happens after Marchers get their hands on it," comes a drawling remark, which originates from a dark youth in simple mage robes, lounging brazenly against one of the columns and smoking a rolled cigarette. He boredly looks the newcomer up and down, and makes no move to approach him.
On a closer glance, the Templar standing nearby is constantly checking over to Benedict, and looks antsy to do literally anything but this. Somebody's on Vint-sitting duty.

Edited 2018-04-10 07:37 (UTC)

Pietro takes in each of these things in turn — the mage robes, the man's similar age, the cigarette, the nervous Templar. Of the lot, making that poor Templar's day a little worse seems like the most important thing, in Pietro's estimation. At least for the moment. Also, he's curious. He comes to a stop just inside conversational distance, the butt of his staff coming to rest on a stair.

"What, did they install extra spikes?"

Doubtful. But, despite his current dispute against this unnecessary number of stairs, not what's peaked his interest.

"I was not aware the Inquisition was keeping any mages under guard."

"They contaminated it," is all Bene says, flatly, and it's difficult to tell if he's joking or not. Pietro's observation nets him a small, bitter smirk.
"Now you are," he replies, "not from Tevinter, are you? Well-- even if you were I doubt it'd matter." His attention fixes on one of Pietro's pointed ears.

Ah.

"If by that you mean you'd not know me, and I might know next to everything about you, then yes, I suppose it would not matter." For a given value of not mattering. Because he's at least been a servant long enough to know which party in that relationship pays more attention to the other's business.

"Thankfully, I am spared that. Did you do anything in particular to earn such negative attention, or was your nationality enough?"

"It was plenty," Bene decides, dismissively waving his hand. "The nationality, I mean. Of course I haven't done anything." Of course.

[ places a link here so i can find it again ]

There’s a fistfight about to break out in the third ring. Isaac lounges with his hands in his pockets, and waits.

Hot heads, new recruits; insults crossed some invisible line. The pair circles like oversized puppies, still clumsy to their armor, to the practice swords cast into slush. They’ll be wrestling in a moment.

His eyes wander between heavy clouds and mud-soaked paths, skate over the Gallows’ usual press of faces,

Stick in place. Isaac blinks, glances aside (look without looking). It's a moment to realize what he's seen. The features aren't so different, but the expectation —

He ambles to his feet.

"Old friends everywhere," He says, instead of Maximoff, or I didn’t suppose you were alive. An idle gesture, one that expects to be followed. Behind him, a nose bursts into red. "We can speak inside."

Better to prepare the Infirmary now.

"–Is friend the word we're using now?"

Like he may need to rethink its definition. Not that Pietro imagines that was meant sincerely, or that its insincerity particularly needed pointing out, but like a pebble beneath a fingernail, it's in his nature to irritate, well before he's bothered to consider if he should.

So he hasn't changed too much. But he does follow, with just a beat of staring after the other man, his brain still catching up to the more complicated reality of his presence. Inside, his eyes flick through the space, noting the exits as much as sizing up the man in front of him. Habits he didn't have four years ago.

"So this is where you have settled in?"

"There’s an armistice, isn’t there." With someone else it might be cheerful, or dry, or much at all beyond distracted — "We’re bosom pals."

A short walk down the hall. The sickbay’s yet sized to a Circle, far more than they need. Rows of spare cots sit stripped and empty, Isaac’s small domain carved into an empty corner. The telltale trappings of herbs and bottles and rolls of bandage; little changed for the years, for the absence of robes or obligation.

Diminished, somehow, against the space.

"Two years. The Imperium lacked charm." And the Grand Enchanter to sell it. He doesn’t bother to lower his voice. They’re alone, if only for the moment, and whispers only court suspicion. A small business of drawers and rags unrolled, a passel of Elfroot and a knife pushed in his direction without fanfare. "Chop. Are you using your name?"

Before anything else, best to have the particulars out.

Edited 2018-04-16 07:55 (UTC)

A brief, flat, Chop it yourself sort of look passes over his face — just for a moment, before his palm finds the knife. How quickly this place makes him feel like an apprentice again, bucking against the hollowed out remains of someone else's Circle.

"I am." A handful of Elfroot is neatly straightened, the heel of the knife hitting wood in a sharp, even chops. "The Inquisition's leadership is largely aware of my history."

Largely. He says it like he hasn't got anything to hide; the truth is probably more that he isn't a good enough liar to hide more than is strictly necessary, but, well, he'd be equally proud of that, in his own way — of being brave enough for honesty, these days.

"And yours?"

The herbs are an excuse for outside eyes; no need to clarify what he's already set to. Possibly the boy will feel better with a blade to hand, Maker knows he'd never been anything special with a spell —

"What do I have to hide?" Largely. It's too light to be anything but bitter. "Half the malcontents have taken up this outpost. Few of them from the battlefield."

A moment, he remembers to add:

"Kostos is here."

Edited 2018-04-22 09:26 (UTC)

Evidently, he has a similar level of talent for subterfuge.

The mention of Kostos brings a certain pause to his chopping, though. The knife teeters on its heel. "Good."

Here means alive. Pietro may not have been in tremendous agreement with Kostos either, last time they spent any significant amount of time together, but-- well, Isaac may recall the way he used to follow the other boy around like a half feral kitten. He'd grown out of it, but only so much.

"And the Inquisition, has it been as hospitable to 'malcontents' as they say?"

Hospitable is probably not the word people use, to talk about that.

A slightly more common sight around the Gallows of late is Morrigan, usually with her son somewhere nearby if he doesn't have lessons to attend to. She should be reporting herself, really, after all she went from the Tirashan to the Sunless Lands with little respite between those two things, but the forest was fraught enough that she has little desire to find herself bogged down in all that it would require of her.

Instead she's in library, muttering to herself as the search becomes increasingly pointless though why she expected anything other than that she has no idea. Nearly all of what she's learnt has come from going to a place herself, to painstakingly piece it together, which is perhaps why she's interested in what a stranger is looking to instead of her own scribbled notes and volumes for the moment.

"More luck with your own reading, one hopes?"

"Well, it has not insulted my mother, or whatever it is yours has done to offend you," Pietro answers, dry but not unamused. He'd noticed the muttering. And has some sympathy for her plight, apparently, or at least enough to take a break from his own uninspiring reading. Setting his quill neatly to the side, he tilts his own book to flash the spine— Fade and Spirits Mysterious.

"Brother Genitivi is—" How to put this diplomatically, for however short a time he cares to be diplomatic, "Quite devout, shall we say."

"I am thus far unconvinced of the value of an Andrastian perspective on the Fade, specifically, but he has a lot to say all the same, and it seemed prudent not to skip anything."

"If it were insulting my mother I'd be a sight happier," and who knows, maybe it is and she hasn't quite slotted all those pieces together yet as one grimoire sits as it has for the past ten or more years in a pouch at her waist with the same tree upon the cover. "Either the simple wrote this or a drunkard with the aid of a great amount of elfroot without even using the eyes in their head for what they looked upon."

Which is to say: pretty much every elven ruin in Thedas, or every hint of elven anything in Thedas, through a Chantry lens or a 'scholarly' lens which isn't much different. Swap a few words round here and there but the Maker still elbows his way in.

Genitivi though, a name she sees all too often but her mouth curls upward, a knowing smirk of distate. "I had the..particular fortune to meet the man once. A most tiresome fellow. I would have left him to his fate, truth be told, the world would have been spared more volumes that way." Eat the scholars, feed them to cultists.

"And yet their thoughts on the Fade are those that we see and hear everywhere; what is it that you prefer instead? Something of the Beyond? The beliefs of the Avvar or other tribesmen?" If she leans forward, it's hard not to after all when she's thought about it so often with the rifters, with the eluvians, worlds beyond worlds and dreams and spirits being what they are now, something much more than they ever were before any of this began.

"A pity." About Gentivi. It's genial, though.

"The Avvar believe— what, something about spirits being akin to gods?" Pietro winces, keenly aware of his own relatively ignorance on this subject. "The books the Circles kept about them were probably even less accurate than the ones about the Fade," he explains, wryly apologetic. He hasn't had many library breaks since the White Spire fell, either.

"I do not know about worshipping spirits exactly, but," Well. This is more than he should say, probably, but she certainly doesn't seem overly devout herself; she seems interested, in things he doesn't often get to discuss outside his father's echo chamber, and there's no one here to tell him to be more cautious. "I have known mages who took a more neutral approach to the Fade, let us say."

"It benefits the Chantry to instill fear of it — fear that makes it very easy for some to say a mage should spend their life confined for the supposed safety of everyone else. If I object to the second assumption, it seems only natural to question the first. To seek out other perspectives, if I have the chance."

"I know more of the Chasind," to look at her, it wouldn't be surprising when more than ten years removed some things don't change, some things are too much a part of you. The dirt might be gone from under her nails only to be carried with her in other ways, and there are so few Avvar though this is an Inquisition and after watching so many Dalish come from their clans only to leave entirely, perhaps they are wise to keep to their mountains. "They believe in gods of some description though they lean towards animals. Some men and women are beloved of the gods, and if you've seen the weapons of the wilders, they've been made in the image of animals. 'Tis said that when a Chasind kills someone with that weapon, the gods will not believe 'twas the Chasind who did the killing but the animal the weapon is shaped for, say a wolf, that they can be confused."

Maybe it's superstition, or maybe it's what happens when they spend so long apart from the rest of the what became the Avvar, but in some part of her she might admire it. The trickery in it. To fool another thing more powerful than you, that might wish to exact a price, to cheat it.

"A mage that fears their magic is useful to the Chantry. Easily cowed, easy to be taught what to learn, to not reach for more than the Chantry allows. In time how much more would have been ground to nothing but dust? Mages who fear magic have no the strength to resist the demons when they come." Her first Circle was Kinloch Hold, not so easily forgotten the abominations, the growths stretched along the walls reaching as the bodies did for a hand, an ankle for anything to hold to. "Circle mages are...perhaps more reluctant to speak of the spirit practices even now, unless they use it for healing. I suppose that was the most acceptable use of it." Which is an encouragement to say more of it, after all there's what the rifters are and well it could be a very interesting discussion to have with someone who holds a neutral view.

That earns a half-smile from Pietro, the idea of confusing a god. It is clever, in its way.

"The most acceptable, yes, but surely not the only use for the help of something so powerful."

He gives a glance to the doorway, the room — both empty but for the two of them — before leaning a tad closer. "I knew a mage who, even as a child asleep in her bunk, would speak to spirits of the Fade as friends instead of enemies." Who does still, though he'll not say it. His sister's secrets are her own.

"It is a difficult thing, I think, as we get older and that rhetoric of fear sinks in, to keep the mind from twisting our perceptions of the beings we may meet in dreaming, as much as it is a challenge to avoid possession by those who do mean harm. But in childhood, there is a certain ease I wish was encouraged instead of prohibited."

Of course her thoughts go to Wynne, who had a spirit come to her. A spirit who healed but still came to possess a woman lying on a floor of the Circle tower to say get up, get up and fight again. How known are the truths of the Fifth Blight without any one of them to write them the way the dwarf had for the Champion?

"Limiting," she agrees but that's always been her opinion of Circles and the magic in them. Put it in a box. Define it comfortably for those without magic. Make it smaller and smaller. Crush it down into nothingness if you can. As she listens to him, her eyebrows climb higher and higher at what she hears. Children-- well she has a son who is strange. Who knows more than he should but she knows why, and aren't children always seemingly that touch more sensitive before they learn not to be? So it's not without admiration that she speaks. "I saw Circle dormitories but once, beds packed so close even a whisper would travel far; she must have been a rare girl not to have been afraid to speak with them with so many other ears that might wake in the night to hear."

To speak. To report. Morrigan imagines those things happen. People inform so commonly, it was half the Game to go listen in then run off and tell someone else behind a hand or the cover of a mask.

"My son is growing closer to the age where he would be put through a Harrowing had he been in a Circle, I see how he looks at the world, what he loves of it, what he fears he fears the way any boy might: there is a thing outside that makes a noise, I read something terrible I shouldn't have by the light of a candle and I don't want to say it's why I'm awake in the small hours." You know, if boys will insist on reading about Darkspawn and dragons when they have active imaginations. "There is a chance now, with those of the right mind to choose a path now. I have seen enough who carry whatever hurts from those days with them. More on the roads. How many are kept from sleep by the horrors they conjure themselves from their waking hours? Needless."

"There was a little time, before the Circle." Not much, but a handful of moments, nights that shaped the twins' understanding of what they were before the Chantry or even their mother's fears about magic had a chance to take hold. They'd always been in a world of their own, full of secrets known only to each other. That some of those secrets were later deemed more dangerous than others didn't change the way they approached these things between themselves first, without judgment. "And some she trusted, after."

Him. And she's right, almost no one else. The Circle hadn't taught them to trust, any more than the rest of the world did.

"Your son—" Maker, that is a thought. Young mages growing up without the Circles' high walls keeping them in. "I hope he will not be the only one, to grow with no more to fear than what any boy fears. Even the apprentices, the ones I have traveled with since the White Spire fell, we teach them now to question the Chantry, but also how to run swiftly, to hide very well and stand very still should a Templar ever come near. I do not know that there will ever be a place in Orlais, or Fereldan or even the Free Marches, where we do not have to teach them to fear it."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

open | wherever we go, we'll never be lost

the gallows ;

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Gallows library

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apologies this is so late, feel free to disregard if it's too crusty but i'd be happy to revive it

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Arriving

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apologies this is so late, feel free to disregard if it's too crusty but i'd be happy to revive it

it's okay! but maybe we can switch to a newer post? (modplots work)

sure thing!

gallows; training grounds

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library;

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apologies this is so late, feel free to disregard if it's too crusty but i'd be happy to revive it

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