The Days That Bind Us 2: Still Bound

[exequy]

WHO: Mages, anyone else who cares
WHAT: Give us liberty or give us potatoes, or: a most noble strike for a most noble purpose, or: pissy mage babies throw a tantrum
WHEN: 14-19 Cloudreach 9:44
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: This is for consolidating RP regarding the strike. Your character doesn't have to be striking themselves to top-level or tag around, as long as it's tangentially related.

The morning of Cloudreach 14, with minimal fanfare, a significant fraction of the Circle mages working with the Inquisition across Thedas stops showing up for work. On the other hand, a significant fraction doesn't stop. But the not-working fraction is significant enough to cause problems, and for the Inquisition to not delay or prolong the discussions already set to take place at Skyhold with a few representatives of the aggrieved mages and a number of Templar and Chantry representatives.

In the Gallows, most of the mages who are refusing to work relocate—voluntarily, unless being scowled at by Kostos Averesch qualifies as being forced against one's will—to the dusty recruits' quarters in the former Templar tower for an indefinite, politicized slumber party, featuring uncomfortable bunk beds and a lot of unseasoned starches. For a cause.

ooc | Remember that striking characters are generally losing access to confidential information, Inquisition equipment or materials, and any amenities, comforts, or privileges beyond the "plain potatoes for dinner" and "not thrown out into the streets" level.

Comments

[dissono]

( the weight of gervais's hand on gareth's elbow—companionable, avuncular—is light, light enough to shake off, far less than the weight of his steady, stoic gaze. the warmth is in the gesture, if not his face; gareth might draw his own conclusions about what might have forged such stillness, in all those years in the spire. )

I, I, ah, I—I maybe, ah, would, w-would, would look different. If the Circles, they, if they, ah, if they fell in, in my youth. And n-n-not yours.

( a pat. he lets go. )

M-m-more like you, maybe. It is. Easier, it, it, it is—it shouldn't be.

( but if he can lend them gravitas, then good. )

[foundmyselfagain]

[ Gareth doesn't return the touch, but he doesn't rebuke it, either. ]

Well, you managed to live past 30, so you were probably smarter at my age than I am. Maybe if I were in a normal Circle--'normal'--[ He even does the air quotes. Normal, as in not controlled by a batshit red lyrium-addled Meredith. With her at the wheel, Gareth was a ticking time bomb, the Chantry just exploded before he did. ] But you know what I mean.

You know, the Circles were founded with a strike. I wonder if there were any more strikes afterwards. I never heard of any, but I can't imagine the Templars really wanted us to know about any more.

[dissono]

H-h-history is, ah, is, is, is what the present, ah, requires. It to be.

( in time, he thinks: this, too. a tomorrow problem. a problem for other men, after he is long dead. he doesn't wonder what they'll say, precisely, but he might spare a thought for wondering who will be saying it, and to what audience. )

Ssss-suh-so are we.