Open: Nerva has feelings about Mages

[keeperofmagi]

WHO: Nerva and Open
WHAT: Nerva storms back into Skyhold following the Abomination
WHEN: Before / During the Mage Council meeting
WHERE: The Tavern
NOTES: Nerva is her own warning. Alcohol.

Before the Council meeting, Nerva was nothing but a ball of rage. She had not been in Skyhold when the Abomination struck - sent on a quick escort mission down to the crossroads - and had returned to the remnants of destruction and chaos. Destruction and chaos that should have been prevented. Destruction and chaos that she should have been there to prevent, not out gallivanting around the countryside.

Once the meeting itself started, Nerva had attended despite the fact that she had absolutely no vote in the outcome. She had no power, here - though that was not a difficult thing to reconcile. She'd had no power in the Circle, either - too vocal and distrustful to ever be promoted beyond being a mere grunt. She'd gotten used to the fact that she had no say in policy decisions.

Which was why she had to be as loud and as vocal as possible if she was going to influence the council's decisions at all. That she disagreed with the council existing at all was beside the point. It was reality, and she had to face it. But she didn't like it.

However - she didn't stay for the whole meeting. Once she had said her piece she left - fuming and white knuckled - and stalked straight for the tavern. She usually was careful about her alcohol intake, mostly because she disliked being out of control of herself, but today was a good day to drink until she could at least have a conversation without burning holes through someone just by looking at them. Her rage and grief - a grief old as time but torn open anew with astounding regularity - were almost physical presences around her, hunched over the bar and nursing the wine even as she looked at it in disgust.

Comments

[keeperofmagi]

She looks at him - actually looks at him - for longer than is perhaps polite. It's a gauging look, a studying one, as if she is trying to look past his skin and into him.

But then she raises her glass and taps it against his, solemnly. The anger never gone, but pressed back into its rightful place, and turned away from him.

"And Mage/Templar relations," she adds, with a wryness that might almost be sarcasm.

Then, she drinks.

[liberalum]

Dorian's smirk is one of a shared joke, just a touch pleased with himself, and he drinks alongside her, a pull of ale generous enough to be indicative as to what he might think as to the state of Mage/Templar relations.

"You know," he says, once it's down, "I will say this of your specific point of view. You never quite seem to be speaking from a place of fear. As loathsome as I will forever find your propositions, and as abhorrent as you will likely find mine, you talk as though you speak on behalf of mages themselves, for the good of them. I'm not entirely sure what to make of it, and I'll let you know when I decide."

Beneath the bar, his feet swing, and hook at the ankle. "But at the very least, it's different. I'm not sure all of our council quite has experience enough to recognise it."

[keeperofmagi]

She frowned, staring down into her drink, her brows knit.

"My job is to speak on behalf of the mages," she said finally. "Which both sides tend to forget. Templars aren't meant to be jailors - they are protectors, of both the Circle, and the world outside of it. Unhappy, abused mages makes no one safer."

"The council--" She scoffs, there, and takes another drink, rather than say exactly what she feels about the current council.

[liberalum]

"The council is an early attempt at southern mages speaking for themselves," Dorian states, a little quieter than his usual exuberant delivery. "Many haven't had the opportunity. It's a frustrating genesis to witness, speaking as someone who hails from a society where mages could stand to shut up every now and then."

He shrugs, looking into his ale, then casting a glance off towards the gathering in the tavern. "I'll form my own Council of Magi. The donkey outside can be the chairman."

[keeperofmagi]

Perhaps it's the amount of alcohol that she's had, this evening, but the words could stand to shut up every now and then actually manage to crack through her general lack of humour and she snorts - a half smirk pulling at her lips. And then the donkey comment actually gets a dry chuckle.

"I'm sure we could find some useful councillors for you," She said, trying, somewhat lamely, to continue his joke. "A goat, perhaps."

[liberalum]

Judging by his own crooked smile, she succeeds. "That would certainly fill in the standard quota of useless bleating," Dorian says, cheerfully. They'd fallen on very opposite sides, but on the whole, that's the nature of any debate in a public forum such as the council. He's used to that. The matter of southern Templars will never be as personal to him as it is for others, even if he doesn't understand the point of them.

What he is not used to is the frustration that comes with witnessing the consistently uncritical nature of the council's dissection of debate, rife with personal agenda, fragile in its insecurity and distrust in their own colleagues--

--but it is a start. He can console himself with that, along with Fereldan ale and cheap farm animal jokes.

[keeperofmagi]

She snorts again, which is unhelpful, because she was in the process of taking a drink of her own ale. So the snort manages to bring some of the ale right up her nose and she starts coughing, helplessly, snatching at a towel when the bartender offered it. She padded down her face, woken up a little bit to the fact that she was sitting in a tavern, snorting up ale while talking to an Altus.

Maker, but what had happened to her life.

"I think that might be a sign that my bed roll is calling," She says mildly.