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

[notathreat]

[Confusion.png]

So what's their angle? Can we lean on that to scatter 'em?

[exequy]

If you can believe it,

[ flatly, like it’s not that difficult a thing to believe, ]

some people earnestly think the Chantry’s way is the best solution to the problem we present.

[notathreat]

[A low whistle. And then a pause.]

Maybe that's it. Maybe they should make their own Circle, live their lives how they want. Then if anybody wants to join 'em, they can. With the agreement that they leave the rest of us the fuck alone.

Who says that they have to speak for anybody but themselves?

[exequy]

[ A frustrated, jerky sort of shrug. He doesn't want to play Loyalist Interpreter. He doubts he's doing the right thing often enough without having to argue the opposite. ]

I don't know.

[ But then, actually, you know what: ]

They will say they do not intend to. That it is their right to keep the institutions we built, over eight hundred years—the College of Magi. The Circles. They will say we had just as little right to speak for them when we chose to go to war. You all assume they will declare every mage dangerous, and—I think you are right. Not now, but later. They will. Because we are dangerous. But right now, what it says, [ inarticulate gesture here, ] they do not propose to round us all up. They propose to take responsibility for their people. The children whose parents can't handle them. The mages who can't or won't control themselves—no city guard is equipped for that, and if we are waiting for abominations before the Templars can act, we are sacrificing a dozen bystanders' lives every time, minimum.

The Circles were our solution. We negotiated for them to end an age of being hunted and killed—the Chantry did not create Templars, [ though they weren't known by that name at the time, etc. ] It leashed them. That is what the Loyalists believe we are risking.

[ This is the most he has said at once in a very long time. He's looked more miserable the more he's gone on, but he manages to muster up a few more words: ]

The ones who are not complete bastards on power trips.

[notathreat]

[Ellie goes quiet, digesting the information in smaller increments. She can see it, when he puts it like that. What they tried to do. What they did not account for. The ways that things can go rotten from the inside out, even when they started as good ideas, progressive for the place they were born into. The circles would seem a good compromise, if the alternative was being hunted and killed simply for existing. A place to belong, checks and balances.

They never saw the Circles as the vehicle for abuses that they so often became.

Ellie's not only watched things fall apart. She's watched people pick up the pieces and created something good with hollowed-out remains. She's dug the beds herself, planting flowers among the bones.]

Do you think they would change their minds? If they could see another way, working?

[tender]

There was another way.

[ Derrica has said this before, standing in the snow, looking into Marcus Rowntree's face. ]

Things were different, at Dairsmuid. It was a Circle, yes, but not like the ones they are trying to remake.

[ Which was why it was destroyed. But— ]

It is possible. It can be and it has been, but I cannot say whether anyone in Cumberland will be willing to hear that.

[notathreat]

[The breath in Ellie's chest stills. She finds her hand, squeezes her fingers. Her words, though low, are meant for Derrica. But everyone can hear them.]

He's right. You need to talk.

[tender]

I will.

[ It's necessary. It chimes with what Petrana speaks of, proof positive that such a thing has worked in the past, supports what Skyhold has taken on. So. She will speak of it.

She squeezes Ellie's hand back, trying to think of how to say— ]

If nothing else, it will give the two of you time to find the Grand Enchanter and her people.

[notathreat]

Not everybody's gonna hear you. But maybe somebody will.

[tender]

I hope so.

[ no pressure...... ]

[exequy]

I would be.

[ Maybe? If caught on one of the days he didn't feel like being difficult for the sake of it? ]

If I were there with them— [ not an implausible alternate universe ] —and you all arrived with alternatives to consider instead of fuck you, you don't have the right. I would listen.

This group might have an unusually high number of assholes, but if you convince any of them they can work with you, that is something.

[tender]

Even if that alternative is Dairsmuid?

[ She is not unaware of public perception. ]

[exequy]

[ His head cocks, with the same effect as a shrug. ]

I would not lead with possession. But it was not only the possession that made it different.

[ That's a question, actually, despite not sounding like one. They haven't talked about it. He only knows what was said about it afterwards, by people who were not there—since everyone there was dead.

Almost. ]

[tender]

[ Only the slightest, passing tension.

There are people in this room (and out of it who will surely hear of what was said) that might not take that invocation in stride. ]

Apprentices would see their families, whenever they pleased. All of us did. We could walk out of the tower and back, freely.

[ So. There's the difference. ]

[exequy]

[ A small thing.

But it changes Kostos’ face: a new kind of misery, turning inward like a quiet implosion. Something more personal than political.

Which means it can wait, and has to. He only nods and says, ] Right. I would focus on that.

[notathreat]

[Ellie doesn't thank him. She knows how uncomfortable it would be. But the look she gives him is steady; a glimmer of understanding for the fact that he's dredged out some ugly part of himself and let them see it in order to help.

She nods.]

[tender]

[ It pains Derrica too, even as it reminds her of what Circles have cost mages. Would continue to cost mages, if this proposal is adopted.

She sees how deep the damage goes. She'd had a sense of the shape of this hurt in him, has recognized it in other mages, but— ]

I will, [ she promises. ] I'll tell them everything, about how it was.

[ She has the whole journey to Cumberland to practice, right. ]

[ipseite]

That is why it matters, who we speak to, who speaks for us, what has happened in these past years— what has been allowed to thrive, what we might suggest in place, what alternative ideas we might have that are not only that we must not have what hasn't worked.

That's why it matters how many mage children today have been taught peacefully, how many of them have not turned abomination in the streets, how the world has adapted in the years now already lived without the authority of the Circles. What has been done at Skyhold, and here, and our own collective willingness to see ourselves as part of a whole and be governed fairly, not only to refuse to be shackled but to be willing to work for,

( petrana catches herself, and rather than continuing to clamber up onto her well-established soapbox, presses kostos' arm: ) Thank you for your words.

[exequy]

[ He nods. She's welcome. He's nearly out of them. (The arm-press did not help, on that front.) The next twenty-odd are way quieter. ]

They will be ready to tell you what has not changed and how many times it has gone wrong.

[ Which can't be zero.

It's not an argument, only a likely-unnecessary warning. ]

[ipseite]

Yes, ( agreement, acknowledgment— both of the point made, and that it isn't an argument with her, ) that's so.

They are thinking to the future, and we will fail if we don't do so as well, but these years have demonstrated possibility and Derrica can speak to what a different world once already looked like. We are not empty-handed.

[tender]

[ In passing, very briefly—

A small touch, just Derrica's fingers at the center of his back. Holding there as some minor buffer against the misery in his face before lifting away. ]