at least the dark don't hide it; OTA

[wythersake]

WHO: Isaac + OTA
WHAT: Dream aftermath
WHEN: First day or so after everyone wakes up
WHERE: Gallows
NOTES: Probable vague discussion of torture, will edit as appropriate.

 

Comments

[okayimin]

She glares up at him, but-

"Excommunication or resignation," she snips, "Those are my options."

[wythersake]

"They are options," He grants. "But I'm afraid you've been misled, if you imagine every servant of the Chantry supplicant to the Maker."

[okayimin]

"I'm not completely sunblind, whatever else you might think of me," she says, "They're my options because I chose them for myself. Just a matter of figuring out which is the best for the folks that come after me."

[wythersake]

"Would remaining injure your character, or theirs?"

[okayimin]

Her nose scrunches a little. Honestly, what character did she even have to worry about injuring.

"Run a real risk of turning some of those mud stuck Tantervale type nugfuckers away from the idea of letting anybody they don't like join up properly if I leave wrong. Getting a few high ranking elf Mothers and Clerics might actually get some repercussions for fuckers purging alienages whenever pleases them." There's an Orlesian mayor in a small hamlet with an empty alienage who is at the top of Sawbones' list. And then of course, there was the matter of the Circles.

She sighs, rubbing the heels of her hands against her tired eyes, "Or that Corypheus will make the whole thing irrelevant. Or whoever comes after him. Or Orzammar will fall to the 'spawn and the hordes will start moving through the surface and I'll go mad."

whips a drape over the date

[wythersake]

An elf is not a dwarf, he might say; doesn't. The conversation presents an uncommon view: A picture he has not been previously certain she grasps, much less values.

(Perhaps it would do to be, from time to time, a tad less smug in one's assumptions —)

"Perhaps," He agrees. "But I'd lay odds you go mad before that. Dueling season is around the corner."

A joke.

"If you will permit an observation," He perches temporarily upon table-edge. No purpose, save that it sets him scant inches closer to eye level. "It is that you speak most often as a woman alone."

time isn't real

[okayimin]

She half expects him to. Even lifts her chin in challenge. She's thought about this.
She's been actively encouraged to not speak on it, but the infirmary is dark and the lingering terror of the dream has her snappish and reckless. Instead he gives her a joke and she makes a noise that's almost a laugh, if a bit choked. "Stone, don't remind me. Half hope the gripe comes back and keeps everyone in their beds for another month."

A joke in turn, as much as she makes one.

She doesn't say whether the observation is permitted or not, because she figures he'd offer it anyway. And... well. "Habit," she says, "When you do Caste work in Dust Town, you can't be close with anyone else. If you're caught, best case scenario is you get a quick execution."

[wythersake]

It isn't so alien a prospect: That robes might sanction purpose. One ever claws their way to utility, to those freedoms it affords.

It isn't so alien, to think one might regret the cost.

"There is an identity in survival," He acknowledges. "Which may overtake living."

[okayimin]

"Reckon you know something about that."

She never bothers learning much about her colleagues past, because frankly, there's no point in it. Not when her own is what it is. But there's things that are easier to recognize in others, things that echo back.

[wythersake]

"Then you may suppose that I give dreadful advice upon the matter," I mean. Yeah. "But there is little I have found one to accomplish without declaring an us for the them."

[okayimin]

She arches her brows, "And if I said I considered you and the rest part of my us? Would that even mean anything to some of you while I'm still tied to the Chantry?"

[wythersake]

"To some," Every elf, every dwarf, every mage is a terribly wide pool. "I imagine Brother Gideon one. Enchanter Averesch, another."

To Isaac? Well.

[okayimin]

She makes a soft noise.

"The Brother is another matter." One she can hope to use some of his influence to improve things in Kirkwall. She's not fool enough to assume that help will come cheaply, one way or another. "What does it mean to you?"

She expects he'll side step it. She asks anyway.

[wythersake]

"Were it not for the Chantry, I should be dead a time or two over."

Indebted is not endeared — another shred of common dirt. He props a hand beneath elbow, fishes out a cigarette at last. Whether Isaac intends to remain beyond the hour, he’s settled long enough for a conversation.

"But I might say as much of the Rebellion," Thumb: Spark, smoke. It trickles for the walls, to curdle the paint. "And that the fresher bruise."

The War is six years gone. It has never truly ended.

[okayimin]

Well, that's more of an answer than she was expecting.

"More of a bleeding wound than a bruise," she says with a frown, "And the Divine seems inclined towards amputation than stitching." And then she grimaces. Why is she talking in metaphors? Maybe this is what happens when you have dreams. "Can't do a blasted thing about that."

The metaphors, the bleeding, the Divine. Powerlessness in the face of it all. That's a familiar feeling at least.

[wythersake]

"You know, the former Provost expressed to me a terribly similar sentiment."

Can't do a thing about that. The longer he lingers in Kirkwall, the less compelling Riftwatch's blunt complacency.

[okayimin]

The look she gives him is exasperated, hands on her hips and chin tilted in challenge. "Isaac, there's at least five different things anyone with half a brain could use to invalidate my active petitioning for mage rights. And unfortunately, given how the Mage/Templar war went and Thedas' current common enemy, it's going to take a defter hand than mine to move things in an ideal way at that level. If you'd like to join the clergy, we might be able to pull that off and it'd be a start. In the meantime, you're welcome to come along with me on my Kirkwall rounds."

[wythersake]

"I will bear it in mind,"

He absolutely will not. He offers the cigarette — would she like it? And moves to stand once more.

"Good evening, Sister."

[okayimin]

He won't, but it wasn't much of a suggestion to start with. She takes the offered cigarette, takes a drag and misses the close, stinking air of Dust Town.

"Evening and what good it has for you," she says. "I reckon I don't need to tell you to take care of yourself, seein' as you're one of the few who seems to know how to, but I keep my spare stash of medicinals in the chapel office, if you find yourself needing anything."

Which yes, all right, she's telling him to take care of himself.