open | full circle pt 1

[exequy]

WHO: Concerned mages/rifters/others
WHAT: An emergency meeting!
WHEN: Solace 20
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: Explanation in the OOC post. Please tag this like a network post. There are top-level comments to provide a little chronology/structure, but threadjack to your heart's content.

Before and during dinner on an otherwise unremarkable Wednesday, there's a chain of whispers (or notes, or perfectly audible comments from the particularly unsubtle) about an emergency meeting, at an evening hour, in a basement room, regarding a matter of concern to rifters and mages.

The basement part is probably unnecessary. It's certainly ineffective; the organization is too small, the Gallows too contained, and the halls too echoey for something arranged with this much finesse-wrecking haste to truly remain a secret. They could have done it in an empty office or the recreational dining hall, probably, and sat on chairs instead of storage crates. But Kostos picked the location, and he's dramatic. If nothing else it signals a clear intention to do this as unofficially as necessary.

Anyone who accepts the invitation (or just decides to come see what the fuss is about) will first encounter Marcus Rowntree, posted up outside the door like a bouncer, letting mages and rifters move through undisturbed but stepping in to question and likely bar the arrival of anyone else. Inside, Kostos is nothing but a dark scowl in the room's far corner, picking at a splinter of wood on a crate and not mustering a word of greeting for anyone who comes in. Derrica has parked herself within arm's reach of Kostos, a long gold-edged shawl spilling over one shoulder. Her diplomacy pin gleams from the front of her tunic. The worried pinch to her brow is the only outward sign of anxiety; otherwise, she is tightly contained, watching people enter. Julius–notably not in robes–is serious but calm as people come in, standing next to the ever-composed Madame de Cedoux.

Once as many people have arrived as seem likely to, Marcus closes the door, remaining beside it, and they explain what the problem is.

Comments

[ipseite]

If we can, certainly, but that may not be an end we can achieve in and of itself and we will show our hand in acting on this at all.

We run the risk that when they try again, we find out about it only when it's done. If the loyalists' true desire is to gather themselves beneath her skirts, they will go to her with something, sooner or later.

[tender]

[ A nod. Yes, no matter what happens in Cumberland, they will try again. ]

We should think of who could speak to Fiona. If she would be receptive to committing her people to an idea like this.

[ipseite]

It's clear to me most of all that they are not merely thinking of the long term but planning for it, and we must also. She must understand that our present status quo cannot be relied upon, and our greatest weapon against the loyalists in that future is every mage child born who does not grow up in a circle, and does not feel as they do. Limiting their ability to make more of themselves. Positioning mages as not merely unruly.

[tender]

I would like to know how many are waiting for us at Cumberland.

[ passing thought, on the way to— ]

You think we should be working on our own proposal. No matter what happens with theirs.

[ipseite]

But not to the Chantry, or to the Divine.

[tender]

To the Loyalists?

[ipseite]

To those with whom we share the world.

We go to the Chantry, the loyalists, the Divine as supplicants; we are situating ourselves as lesser things, to whom freedom might be granted or not. They set the terms of the debate, and the expectation that we as people are debatable, and—

The Chantry retains power. The Divine has consolidated much of it, regrettably. But the world that she looks out upon is not the world that was, ten years before, and we would be foolish and short-sighted to ignore the fact that we are not alone. If we wish to live alongside those who we have been living alongside, they are who we must engage. The Loyalists presume support. They presume that children will be handed over to them unquestioningly. They presume that ten years of war have changed nothing irrevocably or meaningfully.

Has it not? I think they presume a great deal.

I don't mean to deliver a manifesto, I mean that efforts broadly should be made not only in direct alliance but in engagement— how many mage children who went to Skyhold in the past decade have gone there with their families? How many mages who have not chosen to take up arms for the Chantry or the Inquisition or Riftwatch might be leading lives now, with friends, and places they have come to care for? How many shopkeepers know you? How many people do you speak to every day who were never in a circle? Why should we take for granted as well that all of those people have not seen anything worthwhile to change, and grant the Chantry the victory without considering the battle at all?

[tender]

[ All this hope, absorbed quietly, until— ]

How do we begin something like this?

[ipseite]

Confidently.

( it is the only way, she thinks. )

But, in practical terms, we do still have contacts within the Inquisition, where many such mages and such children reside. We travel constantly, we are face to face in the world, constantly—

We cultivate that, purposefully. This is a diplomatic responsibility; that we reach out, and that we remain in contact. That we know where the friendly faces are, and that we present ourselves in turn as friendly ears, supportive, willing to act. Willing to connect likeminded individuals who we cannot necessarily act for, but who might aid one another, and remember that we were there.

We can't promise more than we can deliver, but we can make friends, and we can remember our friends to new friends who our positions don't allow us to help directly. And we must be forthright, in such dealings. In our concerns. In concerns that they might share, in offering our thoughts, and hearing theirs. I think, for instance, a mother who has been allowed leave to raise her magical child and see them educated might wish to know what the Loyalists have made no provision to protect that child from, in the event of having their way.

[tender]

[ This is a great plan, however— ]

Will we be permitted to try this?

[ Because they both know, there is an obstacle to a campaign like this. ]

[ipseite]

( petrana tilts her hand— )

What I am proposing is extremely difficult to deny, short of taking the Chantry line and confining us outside of our explicit responsibilities and forbidding us to speak unless spoken to. It is mutually beneficial to Riftwatch if we build trust with those outside of it, and the only truly effective way to stop us from speaking to people is to strip us of any who hold diplomatic positions and behave in ways that Riftwatch's leadership has consistently, indeed, wisely been reluctant to do.

I am not even proposing anything that many of us, certainly myself, are not already doing. Merely that more of us do it, and more purposefully, and more in concert with one another.

More than that— so long as mage children are born to those without magic, freedom will never be something that mages take and depart with, independent of all those who live in the world. Freedom means living in the world, a part of it alongside the rest of it. If we do not believe it possible then we have already failed, and I do not allow that.

[evilstick]

[ taking mental notes respectfully ]

[tender]

When we return, we should meet again to discuss this with everyone else. Make sure they are aware and find ways for them to help.

[ Ways to play to their strengths, because. It's Riftwatch, diplomacy is not everyone's strong suit. ]

Or maybe we try it over the crystals.