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

[liberalum]

If there's red vinegar in the world, Dorian opts not to enlighten her. There's already a dimly mischievous curl of a smile when she banters back, even if not in good spirits. (Some sort of spirits, anyway.)

"Crow? Oh, yes, crowing about such a fine showing of mage democracy, debate, and politics. I've seen more constructive argument play out in the Magisterium -- at least, on the days nobody's assassinated."

But he isn't exactly here to commiserate with Nerva, even if he can't help himself but to bite back, his own personal frustrations flashing to the fore. His voice flattens out wry from its usual colourful affect as he continues. "Neither of us got what we wanted, put it that way. But then, we Vints are very difficult to please."

(So, maybe a little heckling.)

[keeperofmagi]

Dorian couldn't have known exactly how many buttons he managed to hit in all of three sentences. One, he could have guessed. But the rest? Probably blundered into by mistake.

Not that Nerva would be able to parse that - after all, one secret discovered was already one too many. To have her trauma waved so bluntly in front of her face from a man she had only just started to be able to differentiate from the men who had committed it?

That did not go down well.

The look that she gave was one that could only be described as absolute, complete, hatred. Not for Dorian, exactly, but for Tevinter, the Magisterium, and mages as a whole. She had gone absolutely still, her skin reddening even as her knuckles turned white where her grip around her glass suddenly strengthened.

When she spoke, every word was its own sentence, filled with ice and fire.

"I. Am not. A Vint."

[liberalum]

Whoops.

Well. A little whoops. Not as whoops as Dorian should feel, but certainly, he can feel her immediate rage emanating off of her as if she were a woman-shaped campfire, and there is a look of reassessment in his grey eyes as he studies her. Yes, that's more buttons than he thought he'd be pushing. But he really only had the word of a ghost to go off of.

He glances at his ale, but doesn't sip it, held at a negligent hover. "It's not a word I'm fond of myself," he says, going a little more cautiously, an eyebrow raising. "If, likely, for very different reasons. Your secret is safe with me, you know."

Even if he sort of casually uttered it right here. Details.

[keeperofmagi]

The rage does not dissipate. Indeed, it cannot. It never has, and it never will, being shoved back behind her eyes for most of her life didn't stop it from burning.

His words aren't any sort of apology, or even a denial, and do absolutely nothing to appease the fire. It is only years and years of careful repression that keeps the glass from shattering in her hand.

"You can't keep a secret you don't know," She snapped. "Don't presume with me, Dorian."

[liberalum]

Probably, the average person would be apologising by now, if only because that that's the human response upon causing offense. But Dorian's apologies are things that usually quicken over time, even amongst friends, and there is nothing about Nerva that tells him he ought to handle her gently.

There is a silence is the wake of her snap, before Dorian looks back at his drink, lifting it to study.

"You first," he says, finally. "I'm not like my countrymen, you know. For starters, I'm here, not there. I don't presume to know your secrets, but I will presume to imagine that you could appreciate the difference yourself."

[keeperofmagi]

It's the calmness in his voice, the hint of disdain, that unsettles her but tempers her anger at the same time. Because despite herself, he is right.

He is here, not there. As she is.

"I was forced to flee Tevinter when I was eight." She said bluntly. It wasn't an apology, but it was as close as he was getting. "The only hold on me that Tevinter has is death. That is what you use to name me 'Vint', Dorian."

[liberalum]

She talks, Dorian drinks, a deep pull of ale that indicates he genuinely enjoys the stuff, don't tell his friends in the Imperium. (Just kidding, he doesn't have any friends.) But his attention is most certainly on the woman beside him, rewarding explanation with eye contact by the time his name is pulled back into the mix.

"Then I'll withdraw my sense of national kinship," is a little sarcastic, but of a different kind. A different direction than Nerva herself.

Tevinter is a problem, as much as he might, himself, still love it. "And propose a toast instead," he offers, very optimistically. "To pasts better left in the dust." If she's not going to touch her glass to his, he will helpfully do all the work for them.

[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.