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

[exequy]

In another mood he might be able to make some sort of halting, stumbling speech, about how many mages they have lost to even temporarily secure a world where Myrobalan can carry on with Templars—in whatever capacity—as an equal, about how tenuous their hold on that world is, about how all of the metaphorical and theoretical potential of a leash to save an animal from harm still leaves one party to that metaphor an animal, not a friend, not a colleague—

He is not in that mood. He is in this mood, one that accompanies throwing food at blind elves.

"I am certain you have not done a damned thing," he bites out, with the kind of teeth-gritting civility that frequently serves as a last warning before a fist fight. It's the most he can manage. But he probably won't hit anyone, in this particular situation, given the givens. That would be even more too far than normal.

[faithlikeaseed]

So why, he nearly starts, before the point of it catches him, barbed and recurved for tearing flesh and drawing blood. He sucks in a breath for the sting of it, holds it for a slow count of five (Loyalist traitors will burn with the Chantry!), lets it go. The anger does not go with it--he wishes it would--but it's at enough of a remove now he can place it back on the shelf where it belongs. Deal with it later. For now--

A mad, bitter impulse tempts him toward a joke: I'm doing quite a lot; isn't that the issue, during a strike? But that's the sort of thing that gets punches thrown, the sort of idiot provocation he grew out of years ago. Philomela did not train fools who'd lightly disregard a warning; a fight between allies (friends?) to prove a point was an unforgivable waste of resources.

Other words, though, words to de-escalate and defray--don't come ready to mind, not after another breath and five-count, not after turning back to face Kostos' direction as if he would say something. His jaw works soundlessly a moment before he gives up on it, gives the other mage a nod--heard, acknowledged--and steps across the hallway only to drop to one knee, stacking the books beside him and reaching toward the wall with a careful hand.

He's trying to find the roll. Alienage habit: You don't waste food even if it's got your hair in it, even if it's fallen on the floor--it might be all you're getting, that day or the next. Pity it took an odd angle off his head, ending up much nearer to Kostos than he suspected; pity he's starting all the way over here, leaving Kostos ample room to not hit anyone in.

At least focusing on something else frustrating and demeaning gets him out of focusing on the conversation. It's easier to find something to say once he's not wound up in it. Quietly, then: "That's the problem, isn't it."

Not quite an apology for inaction, for fraternizing, for any of it, but he's heard. He knows.

[exequy]

Kostos glares at him for a few seconds, silent, unsympathetic to the fact that Myr can't see the flat of course that is the fucking problem quality to the expression. But he isn't unsympathetic to the search for the roll—being something less than a monster, being actually something of an incredibly secret bleeding heart, just one that's bad at feelings and people and hardened especially toward people who make the other things his heart is already bleeding over worse.

So after those few second, he steps forward to pick up the roll, unannounced and unnarrated, and forward again to place it on top of the books, before he turns and walks the other way without comment. He's barely down the hall before his self-righteous anger sinks into a sulky and resentful shame. Completely Myr's fault he acted like a child—but he did act like a child.

Still, he doesn't turn around.

[faithlikeaseed]

He sits back on his heels as Kostos walks toward him, marking the footfalls--the pause--and a second pause and wondering only a little at it. No need to reach out and check that his lunch has been returned to him, though he does, and finding it right there back atop the books gets a murmured word of thanks out of him. Never mind Kostos had been the one to throw it in the first place; gratitude is a spinal reflex at this point.

One he's wise enough not to push, though. Books, roll, staff, self-- he picks the lot up with commendable grace, juggling everything without losing it (though the roll ends up in his mouth somewhere along the line; not enough hands) and pausing to orient himself. The nearest glyph pings quietly up ahead, which means he was going this way before--

All of that.

Brief as the interaction was, he'll be a long time thinking about it.