faderift | when you've gone about things all wrong,

WHO: Myr + YOU! (With starters for Herian, Vandelin, and Newt.)
WHAT: Bees, glyphs, knight-enchanting, just plain Chant(ing), and other things relevant to Myr's interests
WHEN: Early to mid-Solace
WHERE: All around the Gallows & Kirkwall
NOTES: Will be added as needed!

i. when the day begins to break // the Gallows courtyard

With the height of Kirkwall's summer cresting hot and muggy, Myr's made even more effort to confine his conditioning to the early morning hours. He's up and out before dawn to run laps of the prayer garden (much smaller than the courtyard, but fewer people there and the obstacles don't change day to day); after that, staff-sparring or grappling with whoever might be about, or barring a live opponent, a session with one of the dummies.

Then, magic: Today, he bends all his focus to a knight-enchanter's disruption field, throwing a rippling bubble of slowed time over a secluded corner of the courtyard. A footstep overheard, a voice--at the sound of someone approaching he'll toss a sunny smile their way, and a request: "If you've got a moment, d'you mind stepping inside there? Promise it's harmless; you'll just slow down a bit."

ii. in the things & the way they could have been // the library

Thursday evening, Chant discussion group. In light of recent concerns over the rifters, Myr'd opened the floor to talk of spirits--something he'd never have done on his own, uncomfortable as he is on the subject, if it hadn't felt like an inspired necessity. Tonight's discussion lingered long over Senior Enchanter Baden's treatise, with particular attention to how mankind's darkest desires intertwined with with the spirits' needs to lead them both into destruction. Not an easy topic to cover, not by a long shot, but--there was no true acrimony behind any of the arguing and no one had stomped off in a huff this time, so it went well enough.

Thus it's with a quiet sense of relief that he lingers as the rest of the group files out; he's usually the last to go, since it's his pledge to the archivists that gets them the study room every week and they expect the door locked when it's not in use. But today especially he needs a little bit of extra time to process what's been said and tuck it away--

Though he'll not be averse to anyone who wants to talk a little more privately on anything that came up in discussion.

iii. don't forget son when he's out on his own // Kirkwall alienage

Like many city elves born to the alienages, Myr's no precise idea when his nameday falls in the year. "Mid-Solace" is the closest he remembered from the little celebrations his father and Ben threw for him; he'd chosen the fifteenth himself much later out of a love of symmetry. (That it happened to coincide with the nameday of the comely Imayn--whose eye he'd been striving to catch at the time--was a nice bonus.) It had since stuck there, celebrated informally in Hasmal's Circle right up to the year of the rebellion.

After that--

After that he hadn't felt much like celebrating another year's survival, nor had anyone else. It still feels a little wrong to do so, even though the Inquisition's been a boon in other ways--but it is his thirtieth and that requires something to mark it.

He brings honeycomb and wildflowers to offer at the vhenadahl, that little bit of paganry even his father embraced. (The Maker, Iolan had said, had made the People as they were and given them to the lives they now led; He would not begrudge them their traditions, so long as it drew their hearts back to Him in the end.) He kneels at the foot of the great tree to make his gift of them; remains there, after, in quiet prayer to the Maker and His Bride, asking guidance for the coming year.

And then, as quietly: "I hope you can hear me, Dad. I know the Chantry says otherwise--but you'd always believed the Maker kinder than that, and I want to, too."

iv. wildcard

(Surprise me! Or hit me up on Plurk or Discord if you'd like a specific starter.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Kylo had come to the meeting on a whim, still curious about the Chant and some of the things he's learned about it so far. So, he found himself sitting in on the discussion in stony silence. He struck an imposing figure, clad from head to toe in black. He was careful to keep his ideas more close to chest as the discussion went on but by the end he found himself alone with Myr.

"I found your lecture interesting." He turns over his own words, trying to think of how best to explain his feelings. "It was the part about the Maker's creations that interested me. No matter what he did they didn't seem to work in his favor. They deviated from his wishes."

If Myr were able to sense the glowering presence sitting in on the group, he'd certainly given no indication of being disturbed by it. (Some of the other participants had maybe a little less sangfroid; a hulking rifter in all black was unusual and anything unusual was a cause for worry to some minds, but...no one had objected, since Kylo was quiet.) He's not any more bothered now as Kylo speaks up, instead favoring the other man's rough direction with a smile that's a little abashed around the edges.

"I hope it wasn't too much of a lecture," he replies, warmly enough. "Though it's a trickier topic to discuss." And so he'd had to fill in holes in the conversation, goes unsaid.

It's tempting to reply to the rest of Kylo's comment with one of the theologian's usual lines about free will; it's easy to hear it as an implicit attack on the Maker's divinity--but something in the phrase catches Myr's attention and halts his tongue until he's given it better consideration. "That they did, and to disastrous effect in every case. Does it surprise you that it should be so?"

"No. I- well, perhaps it surprised me a bit. If they were created from him, why give them the ability to go against him? I suppose the easiest answer is 'free will' but I'm still curious if he wanted his creations to fail."

It seemed the most obvious idea - that it was all as the Maker intended, including the state of Thedas now. It was an interesting idea, but at the same time it reminded him a bit of himself. Perhaps the Force willed him on the path he'd walked as well.

"That might be a hard question to answer."

"I don't know I'd put it as He wanted them--or us--to fail; certainly if He had, He wouldn't have been disappointed when we did, don't you think?" Though it's a very interesting way to put it, and certainly it's something Myr's wondered a time or two about the path he'd been put on. (Was there a reason behind all of it? Did the Maker intend martyrdom or to make an example of him? He didn't know. It's discomfiting not to.) "Rather--He allowed them to fail. Because otherwise--what would 'success' mean, if there wasn't another option?"

"That makes better sense. Forgive me, I was imagining him to almost be cruel in the way things were created. He gave each side aspects of him, but neither seemed to meet his expectations regardless. At least, that's what I interpreted. It seemed almost unfair."

Not to criticize or anything. He's just not unfamiliar with a benevolent force twisting and turning things to it's own whims. The Maker also reminded him of a well meaning parent who never was satisfied.

There's something a little sad about Myr's smile in response to that. "Completely forgiven. From the mortal point of view, that's not so strange an interpretation at all. The Realm of Opposition--the world we're in, rather than the Fade--well, the name says it all, doesn't it? It lends to the idea He abandoned us to suffer for something He'd Made us to do--and that does feel desperately unfair."

Something about what Kylo's said catches at Myr's imagination--He gave each side aspects of Him--and he tucks the thought away for later. Rifters are spirits... "D'you believe in someone like the Maker, back where you came from?"

"Not specifically a 'someone', more of a 'something'. Where I'm from we call it the Force. It's the energy in all living things and between those living things, binding it all together." That was roughly what Luke would have said, at least, having drilled it into him so many times in his youth.

"The Force is the balance between all living things. People, for example have light and darkness in them. The Force is what binds those two things together."

Huh. Myr's smile dims to an expression of quiet puzzlement as he sorts through that idea; it's not totally foreign--didn't the Rivaini believe something like it?--but nor is it something he's had much cause to consider. Nearly everyone had gods of some sort, and whether or not they were incorrect pagan traditions that probably arose out of spirit worship, it at least made sense mortals would want to embody divinity as something like themselves. Something understandable.

A faceless binding energy that didn't seem to have volition of its own is harder to wrap his brain around. "And does it act to preserve that balance if people go too far out of it? Do people worship it, or--try to placate it or serve it?"

when you've gone about things all wrong,

ii. /waltzes in late with starbucks

pfff three days is barely late

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