[OPEN] Interview With A Mage

[sulahnan]

WHO: Athessa and you!
WHAT: Talking to Magefriends about Magic and Abominations
WHEN: August; Post-Abomination, Pre-Modplot
WHERE: Around the Gallows
NOTES: none yet

i. colin

It's one of the days that sees Athessa helping out in the apothecary, which means busy hands but a mind free to wander. She's separating the buds from dried, woody stems to place each into jars for their individual uses when she speaks:

"I've been thinking a lot about what happened..."

ii. kostos

This isn't a conversation that is going to happen organically. After reading through some esoteric writings on magic in the library, she gives up for a time and stalks off to find Kostos.

"Oi," she calls to him, jogging to catch up with him. "Got a minute?"

iii. isaac

[ Some late night crystal call when Athessa's eyes get tired of reading ]

Isaac, can I pick your brain a bit?

iv. derrica

[ They've had their fair share of difficult conversations of late, and this one bodes no different. The kicker, of course, is that it's far more personal to Derrica than it is to Athessa, so when the latter seeks out the former, she comes bearing gifts. Little spiced cookies and coffee over ice - does Derrica drink coffee? ]

It's not spice cake, but the flavor is pretty close.

v. wildcard/bring out your mage

[ either hmu on disco or plurk and i'll make a starter for you or wildcard me, whichever! ]

Comments

[tender]

[ Derrica accepts the coffee, though cookies are the real draw. The coffee is an indulgence, which makes Derrica wonder exactly what this is prefacing. ]

I can't believe you even found them, [ Derrica tells her. ] You should let me give you half of what they cost.

[sulahnan]

Sure, you can give me half of nothin', [ She laughs, setting down next to Derrica and of course sitting in a way the seat was not made for. #bisexualdisaster ] Colin made them.

[ She sips her own coffee, which was the real expense here. Not that she'd expect recompense for something she gives freely. ]

They're also a little bit of a bribe, because I was hoping I could ask you some stuff about magic.

[tender]

[ Ah.

There's a split second of hesitation, where Derrica clearly tries to parse what's motivating this. Between the mage in the Gallows and Marcus' post, she hasn't decided which avenue would be easier to tackle. But she sits up a little straighter, breaks off a bite of the cookie as she nods. ]

Yes. What kind of stuff are you curious about?

[sulahnan]

[ She tips her head side to side, knowing that everything is too broad, and abominations too sharply focused. ]

Well...there's a lot, but...I guess in general I just wanna know more so I can figure out a way to help, or something. Dalish Keepers don't go to Circles or anything, but I'm not a mage so I don't even know that much about how Keepers deal with spirits and demons, or if —

[ If they become abominations. Another sip of coffee, a bite of cookie, a shrug. ]

I dunno. But I refuse to be scared of my friends, and can't help being scared for them.

[tender]

[ Derrica puts her cup down.

What does she say? There is a way to approach this matter softly, but the subject as a whole— ]

I don't know if you can help. [ Derrica says this as gently as she can. She presses on, trying to soften it further: ] I hardly know if I could help.

[ And anyone Derrica knows to ask is long dead, or thousands of miles away. ]

Marcus was right when he said that the majority of us here are beyond the point where that is a real danger, but...

[ Derrica trails off with a sigh. There is always a chance. Derrica more than anyone knows this as a Seer. ]

[sulahnan]

But it still affects you. Not like how it affects non-mages.

[ She'd seen how much it weighed on Matthias, not just because of the burns. And Jenny Lou, and others. ]

I mean we both saw how Matty withdrew into himself, and Jenny Lou...it's not just fear, but loss, too, right? And the rest of us — I don't wanna wish grief on anyone but I don't want fear to drive anyone into thinking that the Chantry is right.

[ About mages, about elves. Fear is a tool that the Chantry is proficient in. For any of them to have a chance, it's a tool that needs to be taken away. ]

[tender]

"You can't stop that," Derrica says, so gently. "It's..."

It's bigger than Athessa. It was bigger than any single person, bigger than Riftwatch even.

"It will always affect me. But there's no easy answer to it. And I wouldn't ask you to put yourself between us and the Chantry."

If anything, she would want Athessa far from whatever the Chantry sent for them. She has seen an Annulment once. She doesn't trust a templar to check his blow to make certain he wasn't putting his blade through someone uninvolved with his orders.

[sulahnan]

"You wouldn't have to."

However dense that statement, she does understand that it isn't what Derrica wants to hear. Derrica surely knows by now that all she'd need do is ask and Athessa would do just about anything for her.

She sighs, resigned.

"I know I can't fix anything. I don't know anything, I'm not a mage. I can't even begin to imagine how you must feel about all of this, or of me asking you to help me understand," She contemplates the ice in her coffee, the delicate click-clacking of it against the sides of the cup. "But. If I can, I will. And if the only thing I can do is listen, or hold your hand or bring you cookies, then that's what I'll do."

[tender]

There is a weight to that profession. Derrica is quiet for a moment, processing, considering the depth of what Athessa is offering.

It is a responsibility, in a way. If Derrica is careless, Athessa could be very hurt. (This is not new, but she comes to realize the fullness of it more and more every time they speak.) She reaches across to take Athessa's hand.

"It is hard to hurt me with this," Derrica says, which feels true in the moment but she knows on some level is false. "Most of us have lived through worse things than people's fear and suspicion."

They've lived through the end result of those emotions. Derrica is thinking of Matthias, but of Kostos and Leander and Ilias, how different their lives would have been if people regarded magic differently.

"The only thing I would ever ask you to do for me is to treat Matthias as if nothing's changed in the way you view him."

Easy, surely. Matthias is young. He deserves some respite from the worst possibilities magic holds over him.

[sulahnan]

"It's what they'll do because of fear and suspicion that worries me," Athessa says, and because she said she would, she curls her fingers around Derrica's hand. (She might be selfish, but she won't be made a hypocrite.)

But she laughs, softly. A sharp exhale through her nose, accompanied by a fond smile. "'Course I can do that. For him, and for you. He's already more mature than me half the time but I'd like to let him be a dumb kid as long as he can be."

A nice thought, if increasingly impossible to achieve.

[tender]

There's a minor shake of the head. Matthias has never been a dumb kid, not in Derrica's eyes. He's seen just as many atrocities as she has. Matthias carries that weight lightly, somehow.

"They won't do anything they haven't been doing for hundreds of years," Derrica cautions, satisfied at least with Athessa's promise not to let this weigh on Matthias. "What happened, it's not going to shift anything that isn't already in place."

And those bonds have been tightening around them whether abominations happen or not. Her hand tightens slightly on Athessa's, expression intent.

"Have you been afraid of us? Ever?"

The question is not wholly fair; Derrica isn't certain how much magic Athessa has seen, but surely there is enough for a basis. No one is ever really neutral on magic, as far as Derrica has seen.

[sulahnan]

Her thumb brushes over Derrica's knuckles (that's all she'll allow herself) and she shakes her head. "Not of you," she says, looking away before she ends up gazing too long. "Or of Matty, or Kostos, or Isaac. Nobody here."

The implication being that there was someone, once. And there was a time, once. But only once.

[tender]

"But there was someone," Derrica posits.

The point is getting away from her, a little. There's no reason to even be accusing Athessa, other than the fact that Derrica can't help but wonder the same of anyone without magic who interacts with mages. Which moment gave them pause, even among mages they knew and trusted?

[sulahnan]

"A maleficar," she says, simply. It's so matter-of-fact that she even shrugs a little. "In Orlais, last Harvestmere."

Athessa and Derrica had only just started fooling around at that time, known each other and their respective work only enough to warrant a brief the job went wrong in explanation. All that had mattered was that Athessa sought comfort and Derrica provided.

"I started reading every book we had on blood magic afterwards, until Kostos told me it was pointless. But that was the only time. Ever."

[tender]

Jobs going wrong meant a lot of things in Riftwatch. Maybe Derrica should have picked up on that in hindsight, considering how she had been explaining her own sojourn in the dungeon, how hastily she had breezed past the details when she was speaking with Leander.

"I didn't know that."

Her grip tightens again on Athessa's hand, as if to ward against the memory no matter how lightly Athessa speaks of it.

[sulahnan]

"Yeah, well. It's not exactly easy to slip into conversation, is it," A lopsided smile finds its way to her features, still making light, trying to joke about it to offset the gravity of it. "Hard to be casual about being a blood puppet. So the only people who know are the people who were there, Kostos, and you."

Athessa mostly goes without thinking about it too much, these days. It was harder, in the aftermath, when every involuntary twitch or spasm would fill her with fear and dread. One of many reasons she's taken to smoking so much.

"But I've seen far more good done with magic than bad, even if the memory of it is stronger."

[tender]

The point is there, close at hand. Derrica could say so simply, that is what people fear all of us will do.

But she can't bring herself to do it. Not like this. Not with something painful, something that Athessa has kept to herself for so long. The joke doesn't mask the intrusion, made worse by what Derrica knows now about what other things Athessa has survived.

"It is hard for people to see the good," is what she says at last. "So we must correct them. And I am glad that you want to help, but I don't know what to tell you to do. When this is over, there will be a different war unless something changes drastically. And I wouldn't ask you to join that fight."

[sulahnan]

Her lips twitch, slightly, as she resists the impulse to say once again, you wouldn't have to. Kostos has said much the same, that after this war is over he'll be fighting another and Athessa will be...well. Neither of them knew at that moment where Athessa would be.

"At this point almost all of my friends are going to be fighting that war," she says, which seems kind of like the same gist without the exact, devoted wording. "Doing nothing would be...I wouldn't want to be a person who doesn't fight alongside my friends."

(Would she ask them to fight for elves? A thought she never considered before.)

"You don't have to tell me what to do. I don't know what I would even want to be told, but you know how I can be. Soon as I get an idea about something I get kinda single-minded about it," Just another fool thing your fool friend does, don't worry about it. "You can just tell me what you wanna do, instead."

[tender]

I don't want you to be hurt.

The sentiment hangs there, unspoken. Derrica doesn't know quite how to frame it in a way that would ward Athessa away from whatever comes after the war with Corypheus. And does she even have a right to do that? Athessa makes her own choices. Derrica can only temper them so much.

"I don't think it's so simple," is what she says finally. "Nothing with mages ever is."

A little bit of an understatement, a little bit of a feint away from the question itself.

"I'm glad you want to help. But sometimes, it's..."

Derrica trails off, faltering at the idea of voicing impossible. She wants to be hopeful. But more often than not her views fall in line with Kostos, anticipating something ugly and drawn out in their futures.

[sulahnan]

"I meant what you wanted to do now," She explains, gesturing with her coffee. They've got time. An hour, the rest of the day, the week... "But nothing is simple with elves, either."

[tender]

"You've never talked about that," Derrica says softly.

Because discussing the tangle that is elf rights is easier than trying to think what they do next. This conversation feels fraught to Derrica, as if she will say the wrong thing and hurt Athessa all over again. Veering from abominations to mages to elves is somehow easier territory than what might happen if they stray into other areas.

[sulahnan]

Athessa's shoulders lift in a shrug. "You've never asked."

That lightness, at least, she doesn't have to force. She doesn't care that Derrica never asked her about elf stuff, not really. It's a topic that doesn't really lead to happy endings.

[tender]

There's a lot of things they haven't asked each other about. Derrica's quiet for a moment, before gently releasing her grasp on Athessa's hand.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

It's a fair offer, isn't it? Athessa would have drawn out all the ugly parts of abominations, the worst parts of magic that even Derrica fears. She could hear this, if Athessa cared to talk about it.

[sulahnan]

Maybe it's just the heat of the day that makes the retraction of that touch feel like a brand against Athessa's skin. She holds her coffee with both hands, rolling the cup across her palm.

"I dunno. I feel like I've been talking about myself a lot lately," When all I really want is to understand you. "But I'll talk about it if you wanna hear it."

She dips another cookie into her coffee and eats it.

[tender]

Gently, "I do."

Derrica knows a little of it. She's sailed with elves, met them on the road alongside other mages and other travelers just trying to make their way from one point to the next. But not everyone related to the bigger concepts of what freedom and happiness looked like in the same way. Derrica knows that is true here, even in how she moves through Riftwatch's assembly of mages. It cannot be so different for elves, who have to all have their own ideas on what security would mean.