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

[overharrowed]

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.

Comments

[ipseite]

“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.”

[overharrowed]

"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."

[ipseite]

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.”

[overharrowed]

"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.

[ipseite]

“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.

[overharrowed]

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?"

[ipseite]

“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.”

[overharrowed]

"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."

[ipseite]

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.

[overharrowed]

"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.

[ipseite]

“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.”

[overharrowed]

"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."

[ipseite]

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.”

[overharrowed]

"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.