faderift | Open | Words in my mouth

Entry tags:

Open | Words in my mouth

WHO: Colin + you
WHAT: Catch-all for February
WHEN: February/Guardian
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: Starters available by request.

Clarke - Apothecary

Once the ghosts are gone and Colin is permitted back to work, he finds himself short of almost everything. He's come back from the garden with a fresh batch of winter herbs to dry and is hanging them in the closet when he hears the door open.

"Right with you!" he calls out, voice muffled by the wooden walls. A second later, he's walking out and shutting the closet door behind him, giving Clarke a searching look.

Cade

There is a knock at Cade's chamber door; upon opening, he will find Colin there, looking a little uneasy but smiling wanly and holding a box.

"You didn't pick this up," he says, offering the lyrium.

Julius

Colin arrives at Julius' work space with a box of cookies. He gives a little wave and sets the box before him. These are spicy, chewy things with bits of candied ginger. He heard how bad things got here, and it sounds like Julius could use a lot of delicious cookies.

Byerly - Lexie's apartment

"So." Colin shows Byerly in to where he has light refreshments set up--tea, anise seed cakes, and buttered bread. A small smile is on his face. "I had to learn your name from someone else, but at least I got it."

It's a light jab; there are no hard feelings here. He pours tea for his guest.

Lexie & Byerly - Lexie's apartment, a while after By arrives

Of course, it's too much to hope they could chat in private about things no one is supposed to know about. Colin asked the servants to take a break when By arrived, but didn't realize they hadn't stopped working after they left. It's not really an underestimation of them as much as of Alexandrie, who he has slowly come to realize has way more of a past than she will ever admit to him. Which is just.

Fine! It's fine. It's, it's fine. It's fine!

Myr - Delivery

A package is delivered to Myr's doorstep. It is full of sketches. The first is an abomination, not drawn in great detail except for the tattered remains of an apprentice's robe around its waist. There's page after page of hands, the same pair of hands in various positions--clenching, scratching, clawing, clinging to brick and mortar. There's an almost informative sketch of a fortified wall--two layers of stone sandwiching crumbling clay. A templar with a terrified face. The Great Doors, shut so tightly not even light can get through. Wide-open faces of screaming mages. Shallow-eyed corpses. A glimpse of a lake beyond broken brick. Dirt under fingernails, a pair of twisted legs learning to walk.

Wildcard

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Colin ladles a hot, spicy soup into Myr's bowl, sticks in a slice of fresh bread, and shrugs. He's been on weird terms with the elf since their arguing, and though there's no debt between them, Myr has put a lot on Colin's mind. He's still not sure how he feels about most of it.

"I've been better. And worse. It's a day. You?"

"'It's a day' is as good a summary as any," he replies, juggling bowl and utensils so he can take a bite of the bread and assess the soup soaking into it. Perhaps not the politest thing to do after striking up a conversation, but that's curiosity for you. "S'great, as usual," comes the verdict--and then he sets it aside and clears his throat.

"Have a moment to talk?"

Colin meets Myr's eyes like he sees a big dog someone assures him is perfectly docile.

"Um. Sure. Why not?" He gestures at a seat before taking another seat for himself.

He catches the look.

Not for nothing did Lexie assess he already had the tools to play the Game well. He reaches to pick up the bowl again--not quite doing it, not quite preparing to leave, but putting his foot out the door as it were. "It isn't urgent," he says, "and we don't have to discuss it, now or ever."

Which at least frames what he intends.

Oh.

Colin nods slowly, brow furrowing, before he walks to the door, shuts it, and locks it. His gaze falls to his hands for a moment, mind going blank, before he turns back and sits again. He nods again, indicating that he is ready for whatever it is Myr has to say.

Well. Myr observes this all in silence before taking a seat of his own, leaned forward with elbows on knees to make himself even smaller than he is.

"I got your package." A pause, then, a brief hesitation because he wasn't exactly sure where to go from that. "I've--looked at all of it."

Oh. Oh, all right, this is about that thing and not the other thing. Colin seems to breathe a little, and nods.

"Sorry. It, um, it seemed to make more sense in my head, to communicate it that way. And it turns out, I can draw, so..."

Narratives don't make very much sense, where Uldred's rebellion is concerned. Only memories, only images and sounds, and he can't draw sounds.

"It made better sense out of it, too." He graces the words with a lopsided smile. "It's--more affecting that way. Visceral. I don't know how you'd tell it otherwise and get that across.

"How old were you?"

Okay. That means it was marginally easier, like sketching a dream instead of dissecting it, and also more helpful for an outsider. Good to know.

"Twelve."

"Maker."

Not a surprise, not really; he'd known Colin for younger and could work rough dates in his head without asking. Still.

"Did it help to get it out on paper? Or was that all--because I asked."

Colin glances away.

"Yes?" Is that relevant? "It, um, it, it, it's not exactly, it doesn't lend itself to description. I mean, I sat inside a wall for, for however long it was. Everything I saw before then is what I was thinking of for the rest of it. And I heard, I heard things? I heard awful things. But I didn't want to try to draw any of that because it feels like, it feels like I'm usurping what the real victims knew."

Some of the 'real' victims made it out alive. Far, far more of them didn't, and can never tell their story.

The real victims. Myr looks up--not sharply, not quite--at Colin to hear that. The urge to argue that is there--but so's the residue of their last argument, and the lingering sensation (like finding a too-deep hole with your foot) that he isn't nearly well enough equipped to talk about this kind of thing the way he ought.

Yet.

"It would be a kind of lying--even if it was on their behalf? And by doing it you'd remove them from their own stories. Not a kindness to the dead." His tone's oddly tentative, the ideas searching for a fit.

He blinks a few times. Then shakes his head.

"I guess that's wrong." And it is only partly a guess. No, it's a certainty. "The dead can't speak for themselves. But I'm not them, either. I'm just a coward who hid inside a wall and listened to their screams. Who am I, to speak for them?"

That's what people don't really understand. Even all these years later, there's no disconnect between who he is now and who he was then. He can't think of himself as some twelve-year-old kid, just as the coward who hid, who wasn't worthy enough to die then. He knows he couldn't have done anything more, anything braver, but that doesn't help him. Maybe he should have realized earlier that he is the best witness to the only real witnesses--those who can't speak for themselves.

"You were twelve. You were alone, and your world had just come apart. If they'd found a way in there with you--to hide from what they couldn't help stop--would you begrudge them that?"

Though maybe that's not the exact crux of the issue, and Myr adds after a moment: "And if you'd died, and they lived, and you were looking down from the Maker's arms, with no way to tell anyone what had happened to you--would it hurt you to have them tell it truthfully as they could?"

The Maker's arms. He can see why it brings some people comfort to believe it.

"I don't believe in the Maker," he says flatly. "I don't think the dead are in any position to know what's happening here. But I see what you mean."

He swallows. "I'm never any good at talking about things. And I, I couldn't draw a crowd of apprentices--kids--banging on the great doors after the templars shut them in their faces. I suppose I could, if I practiced."

Neither did many Circle mages; Myr doesn't bat an eye. "Then they're beyond any harm that might cone of our actions and our proper concern is the living."

That includes you, he doesn't say; not for want of believing it but because--from bitter experience--believing oneself above one's own contempt for cowardice could feel an awful burden when imposed from outside.

There are other ways to show it; there's concern naked in his eyes. And horror: after the templars shut them in their faces. "Maker's breath," the poor, terrified things. "They shut the doors on them-- You could. I've no doubt you could--and then you'd not have to bear that image alone."

"I don't bear it alone. Lots of apprentices survived because of Enchanter Wynne. I just don't, um, talk to them anymore, so it's my fault."

So he does bear it alone, and he bears the responsibility for that alone. He's still in the wall, still listening to the real witnesses. He shakes his head a little.

"People should know. The ones who died shouldn't get left out of the story. People think the Hero of Ferelden was so brave and strong to clean up the mages' mess, but they don't know the first victims were mages. Mages trying to stop them, being tortured by them, being killed by them. Mages who died alongside the templars who were left behind. Maybe that's why I survived it."

"I think that's the most withering part of it--living among everyone else who went through it, knowing they've knit back up again and left you out of it because you couldn't reach out to them." Because you pushed them away, as the case might be, but Myr'd not assume so much of Colin.

He just knows his own reasons for not writing Hasmal's other survivors as often as he should, without even the excuse of still needing a scribe.

But that's neither here nor there.

"They should know. You're well-equipped to tell it--and who knows that you'll not find a patron among the Inquisition to help get it published."

"I don't think I can do that," Colin immediately says, regretting every moment of this already. "No-no-no no books, no authors, I'm not built for publicity. I wish I could just write it all down in a letter and give it to someone to publish anonymously, and bury it in with a lot of similar stories from other mages. I don't want attention, I don't want pity, I don't want platitudes. But I don't know if I have a choice anymore, with Divine elections coming up, and it's my last chance to--"

That line of thought fizzes out. He knows where it leads. He's not going back to the Circle.

Ah. Myr lifts his hands to let the idea go, guessing at the trail Colin's run down. "In light of that," he says, gently, "--the election, that is, I'd spoken with Warden Anders about sharing all our stories. Because it will make a difference. I imagine many or most would want anonymity."

A breath's pause as he marshals his thoughts. "I imagine as well, however it comes out, that the Circles won't return until Corypheus is dealt with; the Inquisition can't afford to give us up. That's time enough to negotiate what they might be. Time enough for mages to vanish, otherwise."

Colin seems to wind down a bit at that, but says nothing about the last statement. It seems naive to him.

"That's not very anonymous. Out of, what, two or three of us with stories about Uldred, it would take nothing to know which one is mine. Anyway I don't know where...someone is. That doesn't make sense. Um, the, the templar who did things to me. I couldn't risk him finding me, and he'd know the story was mine."

"Every mage we could get to, not just us in Kirkwall--ideally," and there's a wry twist to Myr's mouth because ideally doesn't come out so very often, or ever, these days.

Case in point. Whatever grim humor he had at himself vanishes in an eyeblink at his intuition of what those things that were done might've been. (Probably he can't imagine it as bad as what it was; they were sheltered in Hasmal. But they'd heard.) "D'you have reason to suspect he's somewhere in the Inquisition? Or elsewhere?"

A deep shrug, shoulders nearly to his ears.

"I don't even know if he's alive. I don't want to find out. If I'm public about anything, which I'm not keen on in the first place, I might not just find out whether or not he's alive. I just...I want other mages to understand--especially ones like you, whose experience wasn't as bad--what's at stake for the rest of us, and what we need in order to keep going. Maybe the rest of society needs to know as well. The Chantry certainly knows, and has known all along, but never faced pressure from the rest of society to change."

He sinks forward to rest his elbows on his knees.

"You asked what system I'd introduce to protect mages from their caretakers, even if those caretakers were other mages. There's no magical solution to keeping people from being hurt. But what I faced was, if I said what was happening to me, he would have killed me. If they'd kept that from happening, and if they didn't believe him saying he caught me doing blood magic, they'd probably transfer one of us. If he got transferred, he'd just start doing the same thing in a Circle where he had a clean slate, and his friends would have avenged him through me. If I'd been transferred, he'd stay in a Circle where he'd be protected by his friends and able to keep abusing apprentices. Nothing would change there. Then I'd be safe, but nobody back home would be. And all of that is assuming I survived and wasn't made Tranquil.

"Maybe the solution isn't to have mages taking the place of templars. If we could design a Circle that was more like a village, and a First Enchanter is more like a mayor or something, and there was no Rite of Tranquility, maybe that would work. Then have the templars in the towns, with the normal people, to protect them if something happens. Make the mages separated from everyone else, but able to trade outside their Circles. And in those Circles, we can do what we like--fishing, farming, masonry, anything, while still practicing and learning our magic."

He mirrors Colin as he listens, elbows on knees and fingers laced together before him--looking off at some corner of the shop a moment before returning his gaze to the younger man. (Ones like you. Well, he wasn't wrong.)

Attentive to all of it, even so, to the point of marking pieces down beneath signs and symbols in the Circle tower in his mind. This is what he's been asking them all for, after all; this is what they're going to have to build on, sooner or late--both the horrors of the past and their collective dreams for the future.

"They feed back into each other--the Chantry, society. And so long as the worst among 'em can keep the unknowing convinced that all a mage is, is terror and death for them and theirs, neither's going to change. It's more than knowing what's at stake--it's knowing that we are at all, with hopes and fears, dreams and ideas just as they've got. But I do," low breath out, "understand."

He does, viscerally, even more so that Colin's laid it out for him. "It doesn't seem sufficient to say I'm sorry but--I am, Colin. You needn't do anything that would put you back at risk. But should you, and should he come looking--the Inquisition's already broken one templar for harming a mage."

Never mind what happened to Cade was unjust; it was precedent all the same.

"Your vision for a Circle, though--I'd assume any mage who wanted would be free to leave for another Circle? That we'd stay where we were for the company of our own kind," some part of him still finds that a little odd to stay, stumbles over the words, "rather than being penned in by walls?"

He taps his fingertips together, considering the idea from all angles. "It'd be a good solution. Something like the way Dairsmuid was, from what I know of it; there's still a concrete place for us to be but we're in touch with the outside world. Not so removed from it someone can vanish without anyone's noticing. I doubt it would float with the Resolutionists who think we've got to be a part of society exactly like anyone else--but we'd need a transition to that, anyway. And this is as good as any and better than most."

It's getting there that's the problem, of course.

"And you know what happened to Dairsmuid." A shake of his head. "Whether they're avenged or not, or whether I am, it doesn't make any difference. If he catches up with me, if he kills me, it won't make much difference what the Inquisition does to him. And if the Circles come back, which they almost certainly will, he'd be sent to Kinloch Hold again. His father is a bann, and would arrange for that so he would stay close to home. And if I'm sent back there as well..."

He scratches his arm. His hands are shaking.

"This isn't politics. It's arithmetic. The Chantry won't be happy unless it's actively staving off the next Imperium. Templars are their army, so we will be under their supervision again. I'm not going back to that. And people will act like it's unreasonable of me to ask not to be murdered or raped. To have a system that won't allow it. I'm some...acceptable loss. An unfortunate extreme that hardly ever happens and doesn't deserve to be taken into account, but we can all pity him on our way to our old Circles, that should be enough to prove we're all compassionate."

There's moisture in his eyes now, and he doesn't do anything but blink it away.

Open | Words in my mouth

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i am still not sure this tag is worthy & thank you for your patience in waiting for it <333

it's beautiful

YOU'RE beautiful

and now I'm super late

...AND beautiful

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