faderift | [Open] The Boys Are Back In Town

Secrets always have a way of coming out. The last month has been... particularly rife with information being revealed that Thor is of mixed feelings on, but that doesn't mean he's too distracted to read the reports going through, especially where the word 'magister' is involved.

Though that doesn't mean he knows how to respond to this particular reveal. Thor mulls over it for a few hours before he finally heads to Hanzo's room in the Gallows and knocks.

"It is Thor," he announces at the wood. Maybe he should have called by crystal, but he is never entirely certain how secret conversations on those are.

Hanzo had known the secret would emerge eventually. There was no way to hide something from an organisation of this size for this length of time, not when they were travelling to and from Tevinter with some kind of regularity. The Shimada name is one that is not as loud as others, but it is not one that can be ignored, not when the Venatori have returned and carry his blood with them.

It's a kind of agony he had not expected. He had spoken to Kostos about reclaiming his title, of bringing the Shimadas under heel, but this does nothing more than hurt him. To see his family brought into such disrepute, to see the dishonour they bring to the name and legacy of his blood...

He groans at the knock to his door - expected and unwelcome. Barely able to move to sit, Hanzo sits up and breathes out gently.

"Enter."

The noises from within are quiet, but say a great deal. For a rare moment Thor hesitates. He has no desire to impose. He also does not want to abandon someone he's coming to consider a friend to whatever the South chooses to pile on him for his bloodline and heritage. They will not be kind; they are never kind.

So decided, Thor comes into the room and closes the door quietly behind him. After a short mental debate, he finds a convenient stretch of wall near Hanzo and leans against it before focusing on the magister.

"I read that you are revealed." Hanzo knows why he's here, doubtlessly. There's no point in pretending there's some other cause. "I read it in your hand."

He raps on the door, feeling... if not quite happy, at least content. Not everything is death and disaster, and this particular patient isn't likely to be able to escape the way some have a habit of doing. Unless someone intervened, Anders isn't going to have to chase Julius around Kirkwall. And Julius survived, as did all the people Anders most needed to make it through this war, so for once Anders isn't rolling in his usual pessimism.

"Cat Charity Collections," he calls. "Do you have a few coppers to spare for starving cats?"

People do not look fondly at people from Tevinter here, do not demand their time or their attention. It has been difficult enough for Hanzo without the additional knowledge of his status and power being revealed to Kirkwall, but there is no hiding it now. People will have heard of the assassination attempt, will have heard of his family's connection to the Venatori, and he will be judged for it.

Being a Magister will come second to the chance of him being a spy, the chance of him being a danger to this entire organisation. It sickens him to think his chosen path might be broken so horrifically after the dedication he had shown thus far.

"Yes." He sits up a little more, rubbing his palms into sore legs. "Venatori assassins came for my head on the outskirts of Kirkwall. There was no hiding it."

Having the start of a cure is big. But it's not enough. There are three more deaths on his hands, deaths he'd directly caused after they'd put themselves in his care, and he knows the Blight is terrifying enough to bring so many more seeking the cure despite the risks. There's work to do.

Which is what brings him to Cosima's lab. He ducks in, carrying a basket with a few rolls from the kitchen.

"I bring bribery in hopes of a free microscope. And your always-enjoyable company."

Edited (I'm dumb) 2018-12-01 21:07 (UTC)

"I am sorry." Thor's enjoyed a few assassination attempts - they'd come at good times for him to get out frustrations by bashing in heads and setting truly expendable people ablaze - but most of them are stressful affairs even when it isn't your own brother trying to kill you. And now Hanzo has lost the anonymity he'd so wanted, on top of that.

"Do you have an idea of what you will do?" It's not just curiosity fueling the question. His mansion is large enough that-- except it also houses a qunari. Venhedis. He can hardly help his own house, but he can at least still try to help Hanzo if it's needed.

Thor needs a drink. Or five. Hanzo might too, by the looks of him. Thor fishes into his robes to find his flask and takes a deep drink of ale before offering it out.

It's impossible not to notice the other healers when working; even now there are a lot of injuries and a lot of people bustling around with more than the usual haste. The war in truth has set in. He's nodded to Sidony a few times in passing, as he grabbed another potion for burns, as he'd refilled his tea, as he'd retrieved some bandages, but this time he stops. She's stopped.

When she doesn't snap back out of it, or even seem to realize he's watching her, Anders comes over.

"Are you all right?"

"It is not the first and it shall not be the last." Hanzo knows the Shimada family will not give up on removing him, not until he either takes them down or reclaims his position as Magister. It is not something he had truly abandoned - there is no Magister of the Shimada household other than him, no one strong nor brave enough to replace him - but it is something he had given up. It was no longer his.

Frowning at his legs, reaching for his bow, Hanzo strokes over the edges. The wood is familiar, warm, and he can feel the dragons envelop him before anything else happens - why hide them now? Two blue spirits emerge from Storm Bow, wrapping around him and comforting him, nudging against his neck, his jaw, his arms, resting on his lap.

Surprise, he thinks wryly.

"I will stay here. I will report to the leaders of the Inquisition and see if they will remove me. If not... Then I will plan my future." He frowns at the flask, smells it, winces, but drinks it all the same. He needs it.

The days since the battle have been difficult. Sidony had been trying to rationalise her thoughts by writing, listing her feelings in unsent letters, but she feels out of sorts completely. Finding herself, finding how to be herself in the midst of all this, is something she cannot wrap her mind around. It's something she can't quite imagine, and it's what has her staring into the distance, fingers playing over her bandaged arm, breathing a little awkward with still healing bones.

She doesn't notice Anders coming over, barely hears him until something snaps inside of her, head turning as she stares. It seems a little like she might be a startled doe, gazing at him as if she's afraid he might come at her with a knife.

"I'm very well, thank you, ser." Not entirely a lie. "I apologise. My thoughts were elsewhere."

He comes to the library with a book under his arm - not for Bene, but for himself. There's an entirely likely chance that the Tevinter mage will leave him waiting and Anders doesn't have a whole lot of free time.

Anders settles into a nook that's at least got a tiny bit of sunlight coming in, lets Pawdric drape himself over his shoulder, and gets comfortable for the wait.

Surprise indeed. Thor gapes at the blue forms, completely uncertain about what magic is going on there. They're spirits. He's fairly confident there, but beyond that? They seem to have come from Hanzo's bow, no less, which might put a certain amount of protectiveness in regard to it at a certain dinner in more clear light, but it doesn't clarify anything else.

"Of course," he says somewhat automatically, accepting the expected pragmatism. He holds out against his curiosity a few more seconds before he has to give in. "What sort of spirits are those?"

Hanzo's fingers reach out and stroke along the edges of the spirits, who curl against his touches. One of them is far smaller than the other, as if something has stunted its growth, and that is the one that Hanzo gives a touch more attention to, stroking against the image of scales. Both the dragons twist and lope around his body, settling against his chest, and Hanzo relaxes, softening just a little.

He is more at ease with them nearby, there is no denying that.

"Honour." There is no hesitation. He thinks that Thor will not be surprised at their union.

Avoidance is not working. It never works, in truth, but Thor feels like there's something constantly eating at him now and he doesn't know how to continue going on pretending the issue isn't there. The dinner table is echoingly empty without his... What even is Loki? Thor slams a fist down onto the table, frustrated, confused, alone. He has no brother. He has never had a brother. Only a scheming, malevolent creature waiting for him to slip so it could take House Asgard down.

So why does he hurt?

Thor gets up to stomp through the house, looking for the interloper. He should crush the creature and kick it to the curb, show what happened to those who would do whatever it is Loki had done. Wormed his way into Thor's heart. Treacherously. Snakily. (He loves snakes.) Loved. Hates, maybe.

And yet the sight of Loki draws Thor up short. It's illusion. Not real. A fake shape created so long ago, a trick, and yet Thor can't attack. His purpose, which had been so clear when he got up from the table, is lost. He cannot remove this qunari. He cannot fulfill his duty to his people and his house. He has failed.

It's easy to accept that her thoughts were elsewhere. There's a lot to think about if one stops to do so, though he's trying very hard not to.

"That can happen," he says gently. The apparent nervousness and use of 'ser' have him wondering if he should see if someone else can help with whatever is bothering her, but she's not entirely brushed him off. "...Anders, rather than ser, if you don't mind. Can I offer you tea?"

She's fumbling with a bandaged arm. It might be bothering her. At the very least he can offer her help there, even if he can't exactly be innocent of his own role in starting war.

Sidony has stopped and perhaps that is the problem. Perhaps that is why she is so adrift now - there is nothing to anchor her now. She had her work, but the joy of her work has been broken with images of broken arms and bloody limbs.

"Anders." People here are so out of shape by the titles she gives them. It's not the first time she has been corrected and Sidony is beginning to imagine it might not be the last time. Her nose wrinkles, her head finally turning to look over at him, drinking in the shape of someone familiar.

"... Yes. Thank you, that would be kind."

"Honour," he repeats, weighing it against what he knows. It fits the man before him well enough, if it could be said to fit anyone. It still doesn't explain how a bow has honour spirits seemingly bound to it, but there's all sorts of things magic can accomplish that he's not 100% familiar with. Especially where blood mage and Tevinter come into play.

There's a quiet pause before Thor unfolds his arms and takes a seat rather than continuing to hold up the wall.

"Is this the beginning of reclaiming your heritage? Of getting House Shimada in order?" It is not a fair question, when Thor has no idea how he'll get his own in order anymore, but it is what comes to mind as he watches the small things curl up with Hanzo. He's a little jealous, truth be told. He has never before been as alone as he is now.

Apparently who he is isn't one of the problems here. That lightens his mood enough that he can give her a small smile as he tilts his head to indicate his desk and the stools there.

"Have a seat and give me a moment." The small jar of honey takes a few moments to track down, it has a habit of wandering, but once he's retrieved it and found a second mug Anders rejoins her. "Here we go. It should still be warm."

It isn't. But that's also quickly fixed with a little fire applied to the outside of the pot and then he's pouring the slightly-bitter-for-sitting-there brew for them both.

"May I call you Sidony?" Someone who addresses him as ser to be proper, rather than distant, might want to be called something else. He should ask. Especially considering how he hadn't been... exactly the most friendly at the start of their previous conversation.

It is something that is natural to the Shimada household: all their children had been given a spirit. Hanzo had two and he loves them, adores them so deeply and intensely that he had almost lost himself. He had almost lost one of them, and the realisation of that is what had torn him away from the path he had been walking. Genji's death had been the last nail in the coffin, so to speak, literally and figuratively.

Leaning close, he lets them nudge his forehead, soft and tender with him.

"I am uncertain." Kenji and Tomo dance around him and he sighs softly. "I have spoken with others about the idea of reclaiming my seat as Magister. It might become a benefit for the Inquisition to have some support from Tevinter, especially if I can reclaim the family from the Venatori."

Loki, unlike Thor, has done his utmost to avoid pondering their discovery. He has thrown himself into his work, for the Inquisition, for his own purposes, and has spent hours upon hours in his study. He has eschewed company but, as always, his brother feels little need to honor his implicit wishes. He stomps up the stairs, through the house, and eventually throws open the door to his study and then pauses.

Loki glances up from his reading but says nothing. At least, for a moment.

"If you required something you could have sent a servant," Loki reminds him. "If something of yours is aflame, for once, it is not me who is at fault."

Reclaiming his seat. Going back. Thor contemplates that before he nods.

"And not the Inquisition alone, though that is the current priority." As much as he'd like to rush off and fight for Minrathous and his people back home, he can do more to help here. As can Hanzo. As the battle has proven. "Corypheus must be openly opposed, and that is something that few of our people have the clarity of mind for."

Sure, once they see a weakness they'll swoop in, but right now Corypheus is strong and Tevinter follows the strong even to their own destruction.

"Even my father has not fully declared himself, for all that he is resisting and aiding there." Thor sighs. Now is not the time to dwell on that. He left his house for a reason. "Would you be comfortable reclaiming the seat? You have shown the opposite of interest in that before, and it would be a lifetime task, not one that ends when the war is over."

How can he just sit there? How can he calmly be going about everything as if it is all right, disguised yet again as a human? Everything has changed and Loki is still being... Loki.

Thor's fists clench. It doesn't help that he doesn't know what he wants, and that it feels like everything is aflame. He has fought the qunari for what feels is his whole life, and the man that has tried to kill him most often is qunari, shouldn't that be lining up to form some tidy answer?

"How long?" he finally growls out. Realizing the question may not fully make sense, he tries again. "Did you know? Have you been..." Been hiding it, pretending, shapeshifting always just to continue the ploy?

Loki's whole demeanor shifts as Thor growls out his questions. He goes stiff, his attention fixed firmly on his book, and a slow scowl overtakes his face. There is a dangerous sort of silence, then, lingering as Loki considers what to answer, if he should answer at all.

Ultimately, the shape his rage takes is sarcasm--that is unusual for something of this level of importance, but the scathing quality of it is very much in tune with his mood.

"Oh, only a few years now," Loki sneers back at him and snaps his book shut. "I converted and decided--why not become a brutish monster just to torment you, Thor? I am so powerful a mage that one day I just decided to become Qunari rather than, I don't know, anything else I could have possibly done with such power?"

One thing he absolutely must do is unravel the depths of the deception. Some questions can only be answered by his father, someone Thor isn't quite ready to contact, but some are easier.

Sort of.

He approaches Lexie at meal time, another meal that Loki is skipping, and takes his seat with a calm he doesn't feel.

"You are recovered from the party?"

"Books!" Of course she's looking at books. He's found her in the library, it's not like one would find druffalo in here. Probably. Teren's not here, so it's very unlikely. But there's something nice about finding someone buried in interesting books rather than needing healing or petting a dozen dogs.

"And on enchantment, no less. Do you have a specific enchantment in mind, or is it more of a general study?"

[Open] The Boys Are Back In Town

For Hanzo

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For Julius

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For Cosima

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For Sidony

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For Bene

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for Loki

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for Lexie

For Petrana