faderift | I'm Gonna Burn It All Down Today (Closed)

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I'm Gonna Burn It All Down Today (Closed)

WHO: Julius and Petrana
WHAT: Julius stops lying to himself, maybe, and Petrana gets to say she told him so if she wants
WHEN: Shortly after the IC split announcement
WHERE: Petrana's room
NOTES: No warnings for now.

Julius had told himself that he would abide by the results of this vote, just as he would abide by the results of the Consensus. It's better, at least, than breaking apart in chaos, Kirkwall's outpost turning on itself. This was orderly. Democratic.

He still felt depressed, above and beyond what he'd expected. It represented a lot of work wasted, many opportunities lost, and he was not about to let his displeasure show to anyone, which meant a lot of extra work ahead to hide it.

Petrana, however, had long graduated past "anyone," for all they still had things they didn't talk about. He went to seek her out: not with a bottle of wine, this time, just himself and his restless dissatisfaction. He felt, sometimes, that he'd come to lean on her for comfort too quickly, especially when he was more or less certain she didn't come to him for the same. But the damage was done there. He'd enjoy her company as long as he could.

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Petrana considers her bowl of ashes, her flickering candle.

“This all has the feel of the inevitable about it.”

A year ago, perhaps not. Has much changed, or has she simply allowed herself to see better? It frustrates her to think she truly isn't sure; weighting her opinions with the awareness of how familiar some of them feel. Does she think Marius would agree with her because once Marius was possessed of sense, or because she is coming undone of it? She had rather bury herself in her office with her ciphers and her codes than wrangle always.

She cannot. Or at least: can't only. No, she must order her thoughts, and plan ahead.

“We merely name a thing we have already seen. How many times had I to remind those I spoke with that the Inquisition was not some thing from which we were apart? That it was folly to think...no. Better to own the truth of the matter than to be a poison inside it. The Inquisition owns little loyalty here, beyond what common sense owes our common cause, and sooner or later that would have been exploited. We are better placed and may better serve. If it is merely better in comparison to something worse,”

she blows air out, sitting back in her seat. (The corset has been discarded; she is wrapped in her soft robe, the better for slouching the little she ever does.) “It didn't have to be so, but it is.”

Edited 2019-05-15 11:54 (UTC)

"It is a bit of history repeating that I could have done without. It felt much the same, in the time between the destruction of the Kirkwall chantry and the White Spire revolt. An irresistible momentum some of us tried to resist." He runs a hand back through his hair. He looks tired.

"I suppose it doesn't matter now what I thought I was coming to the Inquisition to do. It does feel a bit as if the choices I'm most sure at the time are right tend to be the ones that circumstance turns into dead ends, for the past few years. But perhaps it's rude to lament the choosing to you, considering that you hadn't much of a choice at all." She wasn't in a position to just give up and go back to attempting to hide in Antiva if she wanted.

"We'll just get on with it in the morning, but we can be frustrated in private tonight, I think. Assuming you'd like to be."

The reminder of her lack of options is not a particularly welcome one, but it lands as one dull thud among several. She thinks it ought to sting more, now more than ever, but perhaps she's worn in that scar tissue already. She grimaces, only, and folds her arms about herself.

“It is the best of the options we had before us.” And with those options before her, she voted for it, though she doesn't know whether or not saying so in this moment particularly is altogether wise or useful. “And in that respect, it is...not without potential. The grace with which we are permitted to do this isn't nothing. Remaining hitched to the Inquisition would have torn this place apart, I don't doubt. It's only I regret the truth of it.”

Her frustration is complicated, contradictory.

She puts her feet in his lap. “I cannot remember for the life of me the last time I received good news I didn't question.”

He reaches to touch her immediately, a reaction almost without thought, lightly but skillfully beginning to massage her ankles.

"Better this than tearing ourselves apart violently, that is true," he says. "I think that's the way of the world, or at least the way of this one. It's the rare piece of good news that comes without a caveat or a condition. If we'd done this violently, or stayed and withered on the vine while more and more people came to distrust Inquisition orders... this is less of a gift to Corypheus than those, at least."

Not nothing. Worth reminding himself of, it seems.

"So. Here we are, cut adrift. We were always going to have to actively shape our own futures after, it's just... a bit starker now, that's all."

Her expression holds a sort of wryness that he's not unaccustomed to seeing, lately—

“Ah, that. You did wear your loyalism very well, Julius, but.”

But what?

But what that she hasn't already said. That he doesn't know. He is not beholden to this place the same way that she is; if his convictions are as strong as all that, then the Inquisition is where he belongs. And they would take him, she's sure. All the more gladly for being specifically a loyalist returning to the more Chantry-aligned fold. Any mage who has served here alongside Anders for any significant stretch of time would be quite the feather in the Divine's cap, she doesn't doubt. Useful.

It isn't that she thinks for a moment he will.

He stills, though he doesn't take his hands away. "I thought about it," he says, after a pause. "Going back to Skyhold. I might have, if we'd broken away sooner after I first arrived. It's certainly the strategy I'd know how to use better, in the short term at least." Easy to parlay the decision to stay aligned directly with the Inquisition, to use that choice to soften his reputation as a troublemaker after the phylactery business.

But. He hadn't want to leave her. And he felt, increasingly, that the Chantry was likely to crumble beneath his feet if he remained close. Both of those were reasons.

"I know you think me foolish over it; you've made no secret of that. But if I am not a loyalist, no more am I a proper rebel. This election has made that starkly clear to me. Mages are the only people who will have me, and the mages here in Kirkwall evidently think me cruel, stupid or possibly both. If I've called myself a loyalist longer than I ought, it's because I don't know what other word to use when I'm reluctant to give up the dream of sustainable reform."

The press of her toes to his thigh is a prompt, when his hands remain still. He had been doing so well a moment ago; he has terribly clever hands. Sometimes, she thinks, they are all the cleverer when paying less attention to the foolishness known to come out of his mouth.

“You are a pragmatist. Now more than ever, I must think that is what the world has need of. This place,” one single finger extended, tapping imperatively upon the desk beside her, “this place will have you. And we don't know what the devil it's going to be called, either. The world is going to look different when we are done. That is a true thing now. An inevitability. What differences...and whether or not they hold. Those are the things that we still have room to influence.”

She leans back, balling her hand into a fist and pressing it to her mouth.

“I don't think you a fool, I think you stubborn. You are brilliant, but so long as you persist in attempting to apply that brilliance to things that are not so any longer, it is wasted. As,” pointedly, “you have seen.”

The thrust is well-aimed. He doesn't quite flinch, but it's obvious he gets her point without her having to articulate it further.

After a moment, he starts back in on her ankles. "I worry," he says, after a pause. "My experience with Thedas is one that has taught me it is a conservative place. I'd planned around that. Things loosen, a bit, when there is a threat. Corypheus is worst than most, but a Blight is bad enough. People make allowances when their backs are to a wall. But the threat goes and then..."

He exhales. "You and I know that 'Circles' and 'freedom' are not the only two options on the table. I sometimes wonder if anyone else remembers that." Surely they must, but he doesn't always see evidence of as much.

“Freedom can mean many things,” she observes, watching his hands instead of his face from where she's sunk back in her chair, head tilted against the back of it and her hair falling over her shoulder. “I suspect it means different things to half of those speaking it. And when it's so...”

So large, so all-consuming a prospect. When the alternative has been so oppressive.

“Wanting freedom. It's easy to forget that no one has it, unbeholden to anything. Freedom is a gentleman's agreement. A list of rules written and unwritten. A conversation. I suppose it's difficult to stop shouting, when that has been the only way to join the conversation.”

"I'm not..." He exhales. "It's not as if I don't understand why. But nothing lasting is going to come out of a refusal to compromise. I suppose I'd always rather get the result I want than have someone acknowledge I'm right, in the not infrequent instance I must choose between the two." It's not as if it's news he doesn't mind being perceived incorrectly when such misconceptions can work to his advantage.

He's quiet, a moment or two, then he adds: "Agathe was meant to be a compromise, though, and see how well that worked. Perhaps the world is changing faster than I allowed."

The problem, as Petrana sees it, is largely that the misconceptions have ceased to benefit him. And so have many of the accompanying compromises. They're in the uncomfortable space between one moment and the next, drawn out to its breaking point, and it's easier to dissect than it is to look ahead.

Particularly now, when looking ahead makes her tired.

“Every day this war drags on is another day in which a mage going about his business in the meanwhile becomes less and less remarkable. It's hardly an ideal method, but it isn't to be ignored, either.”

"I suppose," he allows, softer. "But Kirkwall is... I was going to say odd, which is also true, but an anomaly is probably more accurate. I try not to let myself forget that." He glances down toward her feet, with the barest sketch of a smile. "Isaac asked me, not long ago. Why I persist in wearing robes."

...not entirely an accurate recreation of how that came up, but close enough for the point he's making.

"But we're not just like everyone else. And whether our aim is total independence or not, pretending we are doesn't serve. I'd as soon remind people that I'm here." As she said... going about his business.

“You do look very well in trousers,” she notes, wistfully, which is neither helpful nor remotely the point either of them are making, but nevertheless has to be said.

It startles him into a genuine laugh. Some of the tension eases in him eases. "Well, that is fair, I suppose I have set aside the purely aesthetic considerations. Do you feel very deprived?"

“I merely think you do a disservice to your diplomatic role in not considering all of your resources,” she says, so primly as if she hasn't just proposed that his shapely thighs might sway hearts and minds.

Then, more thoughtfully, “As much as Kirkwall is an anomaly, and so too is—whatever it is that we'll become, I think we shouldn't forget, as well, that we still are not alone. Kirkwall's oddities are not the only mages who are being seen, going about their business. We may not be a heart-part of the Inquisition, but every mage within the Inquisition did not come here as every rifter and anchor-shard did. There are eyes on us, but not only us.”

"Yes, that's so." He kisses her cheek, then gets distracted and kisses her mouth, though it's brief. "I suppose it's my own ego that makes me feel as if it's so much on my shoulders. There are many mages, with all sorts of opinions, and I shouldn't criticize others for believing we all think the same and then turn around and fall into the same trap simply because I'm frustrated."

A pause, and then, because he'd been waiting for the right time and it suddenly occurs to him it's probably now: "During the Divine election. Ilias Fabria spoke to me about the Selwyn matter, in passing. Nothing came of it just then, but... you've been very good to give me space to think it through. But nothing good will come of waiting until I must react to someone else's initiative there. I don't mean to rush into anything, but I suppose this vote is as good a reminder as any that we might be making plans. Or at least discussing them."

Appropriately softened by this show of affection, our little lady of making plans comes very slightly more alert at this sideways shift in topic, not unpredictably. Her head tilts, and she considers him, and his gracious acknowledgment of her goodness and patience, which has required the exertion of some effort and therefore merits acknowledging.

“What plans would you like to discuss?” she asks, a little wryly. It sits between them unsaid what sort of plans she might like to, when she had all but measured his mother's sitting room for new drapes when they visited—

There is so much they could do, she thinks. Ferelden would be a wonderful place for them to do it. The Selwyns have no better heir; she strongly suspects Tiberius would thank them for doing it, that they might win in him an ally rather than see him begrudge the loss. Why should only Orlais or Antiva enjoy the fruits of mage ambition? How patriotic might the first Bann to wield a title and a mage's staff be.

...she is getting ahead of herself, but that she hasn't voiced these things doesn't mean she hasn't been thinking them, or considering her moves within their context.

"I've spent months dodging every time you bring it up," he says, frank and rueful. "Surely you've some idea of where you'd begin. I suppose... I've been modifying the same set of plans since I was a child, revising as necessary. This is the first time I've started over more or less from first principles."

Now that she's gotten him here, he's got to start thinking it through. He could do it on his own, but he sees no reason to start from nothing when she has self-evidently been thinking about what might be made of the Selwyn title for longer than he has.

“It's the same,” she says, eventually. “On principle, I think it isn't so different as you imagine. You are—most excellent at grasping a system and working within it. What I propose is merely that we,” the two of them, together, “grasp a different system. And work within it. You have the polish and the instincts for the position,”

if she would assess his polish differently were they aiming for Orlais, that is besides the point,

“and the rest you are more than able to learn. The practicalities, the ins and outs. The obligations. You understand duty. You embrace duty and marry it to ambition in a way that I think your brother, Thomas, would be endlessly grateful to you for. And he would function, in the beginning, as a safeguard. If we manage to push the matter of the right to inherit, there's no need for Tiberius to set aside his claim, he is the younger. He would be your heir.”

At the beginning.

“That safeguard would allow a measure of time in which your peers might become accustomed to the situation, with the assurance that if such an experiment proves a failure, little has been necessarily lost. But the experiment does not need to fail. You can do more, with more. And you are in many ways a desirable candidate, you are a veteran of multiple wars, you are an increasingly experienced diplomat, you have proven yourself in your work. You might prove your loyalty to the crown, and find it grateful.”

Edited (i know name) 2019-06-09 11:28 (UTC)

"You've a point about Thomas," he says, absently, working his way through the rest. "He had the air of a man sentenced to hang every time inheriting came up. We'd have to win over Lady Selwyn, though. I get the sense that she will need convincing that we're not robbing him of his due."

Not a task that strikes him as impossible; just one that will require care.

"I'd be interested to know how Queen Anora has been leaning on inheritance for mages, more generally. She's been... less hostile, in general, than some of the other monarchs the Inquisition has dealt with. I suspect that, if nothing else, my record during the Fifth Blight can't hurt." He leans his head against hers for a moment. "Is it what you'd like as well? Building in Ferelden. It's a large opportunity, yes, but I wouldn't want to start down a path where you didn't think you could be satisfied when we succeeded."

Not all the means of dealing with—neutralizing—Lady Selwyn would oblige them to persuade her of anything, but it would certainly be useful to have her support, for all that Petrana is confident in her own ability to remove her from play if they cannot gain it. Moreover, for all that she is somewhat doubtful of the elder Selwyns collective worth under the circumstances, it has been quietly apparent that Julius's feelings on his mother are somewhat more mixed than the way that he regards his father.

She is not wholly persuaded it's merited when it seems very much as if the Lady Selwyn is simply more gifted than her husband, but it is not irrelevant. His question allows the matter to go, for now, untouched past that—

“Certainly, I see that it may not seem...my most natural fit.” Orlais. Orlais is her most natural fit; she would doubtless thrive there, has already cultivated connections that might secure her the patronage she would require to begin. She might parley her novelty, but she would have ease where other rifters might not in softening her own origins in memory. Orlais is a familiar melody with lyrics sung in a new language, that's all, but— “But I have, as you observe, given the matter some thought. I see a great deal of potential in Ferelden. And I am minded to support Queen Anora, if she should be so gracious as to give us the opportunity to do so.”

"Anora's been good for the country, generally, at least as much as one can tell from a distance. We could do much worse, for a place to try to make inroads." He pauses, studying her a moment, then adds: "For all that Ferelden has reason to chafe at anything that smells even faintly Orlesian... there's envy along with that resentment, especially in the upper classes. I can think of half a dozen ways to use the things about you that suggest Orlais without being Orlesian, which means I'm sure you've thought of 18 ways by now."

It isn't flattery if it's true.

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I'm Gonna Burn It All Down Today (Closed)

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