![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
open | full circle pt 2
WHO: Many people, mostly mages and rifters and Templars/Seekers
WHAT: Stop that Circle!
WHEN: Late Solace
WHERE: The College of Magi, Cumberland, Nevarra
NOTES: OOC post! Please note we are not doing the points game part yet. But we will later and your tags will still count then.
WHAT: Stop that Circle!
WHEN: Late Solace
WHERE: The College of Magi, Cumberland, Nevarra
NOTES: OOC post! Please note we are not doing the points game part yet. But we will later and your tags will still count then.
I. THE JOURNEY
After the meeting, there's time to talk, pack (lightly), and get a full night's sleep. But after an early breakfast the next morning, everyone heads up to the eyrie at the top of the Gallows' central tower to load onto griffons.
They do it with the sanction of the Division Heads, accompanied by some rules, like no violence, and some mandatory company. A few Templars (and a Seeker) are sent along with them, in Riftwatch uniform rather than their more traditional and more inflammatory armor. Mages and rifters and interested others have the choice of donning their uniforms or not.
The trip to Cumberland is short an uneventful. Trained griffon riders and the animals they've bonded with lead the flock, but other griffons follow cooperatively behind, each carrying one or two riders and their effects. The group lands once or twice in the Planascene Forest to stretch their legs, have a meal, etc., while the griffons help themselves to a buffet of wildlife. A few of those without bonded riders might need some extra persuasion to get back in line, when it's time to go, but nothing goes significantly wrong.
II. THE COLLEGE OF MAGI
It's late and dark when they swoop down on the city, but the College of Magi is easy to spot, because it's a palace with a hammered-gold dome roof that shines in the moonlight. The griffons land and consent to being tethered in an enclosed courtyard that, after years of neglect, is no worse off if they trample the greenery a bit. The doors inside are guarded not by Templars, but by Cumberland city guards assigned to keep looters out of the palace in the mages' absences. Once they've taken in the presence of the griffons and uniforms, they put up no resistance to Riftwatch's entrance.
Inside, the halls are quiet and opulent: in addition to the famous collection of sandstone busts of every Grand Enchanter from the last 600 years lining the entrance hall, there are marble pillars, bright frescoes, vases, art, gilded vines crawling the walls. Everything shines and glitters in the light from the braziers on the walls.
The mage who comes scuttling down the hall to give them a bewildered greeting, robes flapping and a basket of bread on his arm, is Senior Enchanter Erfried Neumayer, noted Loyalist, formerly of Hossberg. He is well into his nineties, spry but mostly blind, and very friendly. He explains, eventually and in pieces, that they have not even started the conclave, unaware they might have needed to rush, and the others are currently having a late dinner and an idle chat in the dining hall. Thus the bread.
The rest of the mages are not glad to see them, albeit mostly in a polite and/or passive-aggressive way. They make a fuss about not being prepared to house or feed any additional participants, but in the end do show everyone to one of the bunk bed-filled rooms that used to house apprentices.
The first night and every night afterwards, Riftwatch has overnight watches—not to watch for danger, but to make sure the other mages don't sneak around and convene while they're asleep. (A few of them might be caught trying to organize exactly that.) The beds are musty from years of disuse but otherwise fine. Food is grudgingly provided.
Before, after, and between sessions on the floor, there's time to explore the palace. Said to have been donated by a Duchess to keep her mage child in the comfort she was accustomed to, the College is an arguably over-the-top display of wealth and comfort, dusty from disuse but still overflowing with gilding and cushions, baths and kettles enchanted to heat and cups enchanted to cool and dozens of other magical novelties that make life a little more comfortable, art and a badminton field and a massive library. The Harrowing Chamber looks like a place where someone would be honored to complete a rite of passage; the dungeon exists but is small, clean, and devoid of spooky skeletons. It's exactly the sort of place that could serve as evidence that living in a Circle was great, actually.
III. THE CONCLAVE
The conclave, such as it is, begins the next morning, in a room whose domed mahogany ceiling has had it dubbed the Red Auditorium. It's designed to hold a few hundred attendees at a time, so the fifty or so Loyalists (and Aequitarians and Lucrosians) and dozen-plus Riftwatchers have plenty of elbow room.
At least in a parliamentary sense, Senior Enchanter Erfried is in charge—to Riftwatch's benefit. The Loyalist Contingent leads with an attempt to ignore Riftwatch's presence and ram their proposal through with no further discussion or procedure on numbers alone, but Erfried is a stickler for the rules. The name of the game is delay, distract, divert.
Fortunately, the mages prove delayable, distractible, and divertable. Creating a record of attendees and participants devolves into a series of short debates about who counts as a Circle Enchanter anymore and whether rifters have any right to be there, which easily take up half a day. From there, arguments about whether the Conclave has met all the finicky requirements to actually count as a Conclave swallow a few hours as well. Unfortunately, two witnesses profess a messenger was sent to alert the Grand Enchanter, and there's no evidence she did not reach it, so Erfried allows things to continue. In theory. Having spent so much of the day on procedural matters, there's no time to get into substance before adjourning for the evening.
Breakfast the next morning is interrupted by the arrival of the small team Riftwatch sent to alert the rebel mages at the front—and by Grand Enchanter Fiona herself, riding behind Ellie on Artichoke. She's only one mage, but she's an angry and important one. And others are coming. She makes a show of being concerned about whether it will be enough people to counteract the fifty-odd Loyalists, to avoid inspiring them to work too hard, but within Riftwatch, word gets around that they'll definitely have the numbers. All they have to do is stall.
The Loyalists do make every effort to resume the proceedings and make progress toward voting on their proposal. How unfortunate that circumstances prevent it. (Invent your own circumstances. Filibustering, general chaos, and minor property damage are all fair game.)
IV. THE CALVARY & THE DEBATE
The Grand Enchanter's people arrive only a few hours later than expected. There are easily a hundred of them—enough to doom the proposal, certainly. There's a sense of doom among the Loyalists when the proceedings resume. A few leave early in defeat. But the rest stick around, as they finally, finally proceed into discussing and voting on the substance of the proposal, and make fairly impassioned arguments on its behalf.
They evoke the history of the Circles: a compromise that saved them from being hunted by the early Inquisition and from being confined in Chantries to do nothing with their gifts but keep the fires lit. The hundreds of years of peace (they say) compared to what's come before and what will come after.
They say there was a mage child in the Nahashin Marshes, turned out by his illiterate and reclusive family, who appears to have lived alone for several years before recently reappearing, warped from possession, to slaughter his entire village. A town in Antiva realized a few of its new residents were mages and burned their house down, killing one and leaving the others with nowhere to go. A young fellow who'd wandered away from the Inquisition's camps once he came of age was caught picking pockets in Ferelden's West Hill and, in his attempts to flee, froze all of the tavern's occupants solid. Several didn't survive the thawing. They report—with no actual statistics, but a few anecdotes—that incidents of (child abuse cw) suspicious child drownings are on the rise. They ask, rhetorically, whether rifters think they will be left in peace by their neighbors when Riftwatch is gone.
And they go on for quite some time about their responsibility to Thedas. The risk of mages amassing power and establishing dynasties—a hundred years stand between that and a new Tevinter, optimistically. The risk of kings and emperors seizing control of the mages within their own borders, if mages are beholden to them rather than to the Chantry, and wielding them against their own people or their neighbors.
They have a reason for every item in the proposal. It's all very depressing and very sincere. A sizable number of the rebel mages from the front are moved by the presentation of the problem, if not convinced that their solution is correct.
But in addition to talking (and talking and talking), they also listen. They don't really have a choice, now that they're outnumbered. While only Circle Enchanters are technically permitted to vote in the College, Erfried will give anyone the floor for at least a few minutes. And between impassioned speeches, there are regular recesses when the Red Auditorium dissolves into more private conversations. Some are quiet, some are loud—but most mages have years of training in keeping their composure, so only a couple get worse than half-raised voices.
V. CUMBERLAND
With the mages from the front, the pressure on Riftwatch lets up somewhat. There's no longer a need for every Riftwatcher to be on-site at all hours of the day to prevent the Loyalist contingent from voting, so there's time to slip out into the city, whether for business—posting messages, buying supplies, running Riftwatch errands unrelated to mages and Circles—or just a break.
VI. THE RESOLUTION
In the end, not much happens. The proposal is voted down. It is not replaced by anything. But a date is set, three months in the future, to reconvene in a more orderly and less underhanded way to consider other options for mages' (and rifters') future. The Grand Enchanter also consents, in good spirits, to this future gathering deciding whether she stays in charge.
Riftwatch is invited. They have until then to do whatever maneuvering and advocacy they can.
It counts as a victory.
NPC NOTES
- You can do threads with NPC'd mages, or you can thread around their presence: discuss strategy, complain about a conversation with an NPC that happened off screen, take a break from the speeches outside, etc.
- Feel extremely free to make up NPC mages of your own! For natives this can include mages they already know or have history with. If you make up an NPC who you'd like kept in mind in the future, you can put them on the wiki page for this plot.
- The Loyalist camp consists mainly of Loyalists, but also some Aequitarians and Lucrosians. They're a mix of mages who sat out the war, Loyalists who fought with Madame de Fer against the rebels, and mages who fought with the rebellion but have since come around to wanting some kind of system back.
- The rebel mages who arrive on scene are mainly Libertarians, but also have some of every other fraternity—Aequitarians, Resolutionists, Isolationists, Lucrosians, and a few Loyalists along for the ride. They're all mages who fought with the rebellion and then joined the Inquisition.
- Grand Enchanter Fiona is present! If you want your character to have a significant conversation with her, either to get info or try to convince her of anything, do an info request—since she's so important and influential on her own, deciding what she would say or do is a mod call.
- You can invent friends/future contacts from either camp for your character to keep in touch with on their own. I don't have any info beyond the scope of this plot to hand out right now, either as a player or as a mod, but for the belated Part III in a few months I will try to gather folks whose characters have Done Work in the interim to distribute influence/information accordingly.
art gallery
Mobius makes a noncommittal hum at her comment when he comes to stand beside her, hands folded neatly in front of him. "Any particular reason it shouldn't be comfy?"
no subject
"Because something like this makes it easy to see why they're loyalists." It sits bitter on her tongue. "And maybe they think all Circles were like this one."
She's thinking of the distance in Derrica's eyes, the hurt and anger that never burns out of Matthias.
"Or, maybe they just don't care that the others weren't. They got theirs. Why should they care?"
It comes out as a whisper, something that says maybe this hits a little more deeply than she wants it to.
no subject
"As I understand it," he starts with care, "this building was a donation. Not every Circle had an obscenely rich parent-of-a-mage to care with an extra palace sitting around to simply give. You can see why this became the seat, the College of Magi. Could you imagine anyone having picked the Gallows?"
But that's not what this is about, not really. Something about this hurts her. Specifically hurts her. He could ask. Maybe he will, eventually. But not right now.
"This doesn't belong to any one of the fraternities more than any of the others. If they had tried to convene a conclave anywhere else, it would automatically have nullified any legitimacy before any of the rest of their shenanigans could."
no subject
She understands, yes. But something about this place rubs her raw, and she's still trying to distill it down to why. She tips her head back, looking at the beautiful, scenic paintings in front of her. Even with windows into gorgeous things, surrounded by opulence and comfort, it feels artificial. Cold. Sterile. Nothing about this is restful or real.
She presses her booted foot into the floor, leaning her weight onto it, off again. A fidget that makes her look younger than she is, concentrating on the repetitive movement instead of the uncomfortable whirling of thoughts.
None of them are anything she can tease out, quite yet.
"What do you think's going to happen?"
no subject
Looks at her. Looks back at the art. Wishes he'd had that back at Ostwick.
"I think your guest of honor and her buddies are going to make sure to put the kibosh on the whole proposal. I think there are gonna be a lot of sore egos and hurt feelings. And I don't think it's going to stop," with a brief motion to encompass all, "all this, just hopefully make sure it's still out in the open next time it does happen. I think we're about to make a lot of new friends and a couple unhappy enemies."
A shrug.
"So, same shit different day, broadly."
no subject
"I'm not going in a Circle, Mobius," Ellie says quietly.
She remembers the day that Derrica told her what was coming, and asked if she would stay, and fight. The day that Ellie had told her point-blank that it would be a fucking bloodbath, and she didn't want the possibility of being forced to fight people she cared about.
She thinks of Derrica, who ran once and regrets it with all her heart, even though she would've died there. One more name etched in stone with nobody to speak for her. Ellie knows why she has to stay and fight, why she's made promises to herself, why she's choosing to stand her ground and refuse to take more even if it kills her.
She thinks of Astarion, who is still running, with his wary eyes and sharp teeth and his breath stuttering in ways that still say hunted, still say haunted. He fears Ellie's been seduced into a passive form of suicide, when truthfully, Ellie's been a walking shell since the day she turned fourteen among shattered pottery and spent tears, with a bite mark fresh on her arm and a kiss still going cold on her lips.
What else is there? she'd asked as a little soldier, complicit and helpless with a smoke bomb in her hand and Riley's voice in her ear, asking her to fight for something else.
Same shit, says Mobius. Different day.
Different world.
"That's the only thing I know."
no subject
He doesn't know about the mages. The natives. They might. They maybe even should, to an extent. Will that ever happen? Maker, not at this rate. It'll go right back to war, and people will hate mages even more for it, and nothing will ever fucking get solved.
But the Rifters don't belong there.
Deep breath in. Hold it steady. Let it out slow. Rifters seem to have very firm opinions about something they've never experienced, which means if he ever hints that he might ever argue for something even remotely in the vicinity of Circles, he'll probably have to pack his bags. He's had years to pick it over in his mind, every interaction, every rule. Was it always so bad, all of the time? Had it always felt like a cage to every mage? Was the blindness willing, or was it simply ignorance?
"What do you think the solution is?" He asks it genuinely. Because for fuck's sake, maybe to break all of this and start to fix it, they need an outside perspective. He's not asking her to solve the problem, necessarily. Just her opinion. Where this goes. Where it should go.
no subject
And people aren't perfect. And she doesn't know everything.
It's tempting to shake her head and push off the responsibility, let people who are smarter than her deal with this. Surely they'll have better ideas. Ellie's life has been so contained. Her and her people.
You can't fix the whole world, kiddo.
Joel would walk. She knows that. He'd get his, and he'd keep her safe, and he'd leave them to fight their petty battles.
And that kind of mentality is exactly what made her hate the loyalists so much. Ellie bites the inside of her cheek, and just- accepts. She can't wait for somebody else to decide her future.
"I think," she says slowly, "That we need a system that gives everybody freedom, but still holds everybody accountable. The circles were supposed to be a solution to mages being left to fend for themselves. It was supposed to protect them. Instead they ended up being prisons, and worse."
They ended up being a pool of potential victims. Ellie has met a Tranquil only briefly, but it's been enough to spook her to her fucking core. And that's only the very surface of things. Kirkwall's history alone is full of dark, twisted corners, and the Gallows are full of ghosts.
"All of those things they talked about- the kid who came back and slaughtered his village as an abomination? Kids like that need a place to learn, to meet people who get it, so they won't turn into that."
Ellie bites her lower lip.
"Mages need schools, not circles. They need somewhere to learn how to use what they've got, and then leave so they can be people.
"And if they fuck up being people, then they need to answer for it, just like everybody else."
Ellie takes a deep breath, lets it out again.
"I'm not a mage, so I can't just go and decide everything for them. But I feel the same way about Rifters. If they come in here and they fuck up being people, they have to answer for it."
It seems so fucking simple that it hurts, but she knows it's more complicated than that. It always is.
"And I think that we need to stop letting the Chantry decide things. Maybe they took charge of mages originally to try to help, but- now they act like they're in charge of them. They're not. They're not in charge of Rifters either. Why the fuck are we "petitioning" the Divine? Fiona's people haven't answered to her in forever, and the Rifters never answered to her. Why are we acting like it's her place to decide anything at all? Sure, they can have an opinion, because they live here too, but they shouldn't be calling the shots. And-"
Fuck. Mobius gets so much more out of her than most people.
"I think the mages are being fucking stupid about wanting to set up their nation or settlement or what the fuck ever. I get why they don't want anything to do with the rest of society, because all it's done is treat them like shit, but down the road- ten years, twenty? A hundred? If you've never talked to somebody who doesn't have magic, and all you know about them is that they hate you, and they do because you never let them see anything different, how are you gonna treat them?"
Ellie's voice is tight, all over again, her movements jerky and contained, upset, her eyes shiny and her face flushed.
"And part of it is just people. You see a mage and you see a walking bomb. You see a rifter and you see a demon, or some selfish asshole who doesn't give a shit about this world or the people in it. You see a templar and you see somebody who got their fucking jollies by kicking mages around. And yeah, some people are exactly those things. But nobody's bothering to find out and so fucking pissed off about it, like, all the time."
no subject
That there is no good answer. No easy answer. That all sides are right and wrong, and that the issues go so much deeper than just the base idea of locking people up in a tower. That even when decent suggestions are put forth, people are people. People being people are why he doesn't give the Chantry his full trust. The Divine, at the end of the day, is still just a mortal human woman elected into a position, not someone specially chosen from on high.
And the kicker is thus: if she can see it, he knows damn well that almost everyone else in this building can also see it. And yet there doesn't look like a way forward. There never does. Most mages seem to want freedom, period, with no exceptions. A school, a school is not a prison cell. A place to learn and be around one's kind in a safe environment for them and from others, that's not a prison. Those are what Circles are. Were.
Should have been, and were twisted into something else.
Ellie's closer, somehow, to all of this in some manner. It never sounded like magic was inherent to her world, so there's some other situation that hits near. Or is she simply that empathetic to the plight of the rebel mages? She names the preexisting prejudices, mages, Rifters--names Templars.
He can feel the air exit his lungs. Loki had sounded so...tired. Accepting, like maybe he should have somehow put it together earlier, and explaining that he wasn't one anymore had made him feel better. Probably too exhausted to react. Too raw and open and truthful. What would Ellie think--what would Abby think, or Sylvie? Astarion kept his end, never to his knowledge telling anyone for as long as Mobius never breathes a word of his vampirism. Still friends. Hadn't changed anything, perhaps because the powers had saved them both. She gets that people aren't just the worst impression of a group they're in.
Maybe she should ask why he asks what he does. Maybe he should explain himself.
He doesn't wobble, but he feels nearly like he's run a mile. "I'm going to sit. I think you should join me." He looks as old as he feels when he sinks into a bench in front of a different piece of art.
It's a long quiet while he tries to settle his nerves, to figure out what to say, how to say it. He's bad at talking about himself even on a good topic. On this...on this, a secret he has kept for years, it feels like swallowing fire. The art here is a modest piece, not flashy expressionism but technically superb, a realistic and stark rendering of a funeral pyre. The light of the fire at night, red orange yellow burning bright dimming dimming dimmed, lighting figures dressed for mourning with faces from just enough distance to tell some expressions (pained saddened resolute stony), and the dramatic deepened shadows outside the circle of bodies stretching and stretching and stretching out. The charred wood where the fire was lit and the dried cracked browns of those not yet turning to ash. The sparks spinning and popping off of it. Trees vaguely in the distance as looming figures, a scattering of stars through the smoke above that. A purple-black, blue-black, on the edge of blackness. If he looks at it long enough, he can smell the woodsmoke, feel the heat. It is not a joyous piece, but he can imagine it being coveted by collectors all over the countryside, bid on in Orlais, stolen in the dead of night to sit pretty in the home of an Antivan prince.
It has sat collecting dust. He blinks, and he can see it, the light tinge of grey. Old things. That still matter, even if they've been forgotten or sealed away.
(How many never got a proper funeral? How many have just been left to rot where they were slain?)
His fists bunch in his lap, quake for a moment from the sheer effort, and then relax again.
"We never had art like this in my Circle."
Start there. Start with that. The same kind of admittance as he had slipped to Loki. If Mobius really wanted to save face, if he wanted to truly lie, he could still call himself a brother of the Chantry, a position that only technically doesn't exist, that he taught scripture to Templars, to mages.
He won't, of course. But it's the next step that seems harder. Where to go from there? No one else is around, but he keeps his voice quiet. Steady. Does not look at her. Looks at the flames, the licks that rise high above heads.
"We had a gorgeous library, though. Not as grand as the one here, but I could have stayed there all my days and never read through it all. Sturdy tables to hold up piles of the big tomes. Seats in secluded corners that were definitely second or third hand from the way the cushioning was worn out, but comfortable enough. The stockkeepers always fretted about candle use, would never fill all the holders because it was a waste to light them all all the time. I liked shifts standing guard in the library, because I never actually stood there like a statue watching, no. I grabbed books when I could, when either no one was around to tell me off about it or when I was on duty with someone who didn't mind. Helped, sometimes. Drove the librarian, Eton, a little mad when I knew where some book sections were better than he did. Pallas was never very good at reading but great at listening when someone read to her. Aumanis was a wisp of an elf who could never reach the higher shelves and was a little afraid to get on the ladders; they were clumsy, nearly set themselves on fire a few times even without magic."
No. Don't invoke their names. It doesn't matter, now. The details. Do they? He holds them in his mind's eye. Because they'll slip away. If he remembers them now, if he can still remember them...
"We all lived in the Circle, together. Dealt with stingy candle rations, ate the same food where you could tell who was on kitchen duty that day for how burnt or undercooked the bread was, shared books, told jokes, complained about leaky roofs during bad storms that were then fixed, swear they're fixed, only for them to keep leaking in the same places next time a bad one rolled in."
He's going somewhere with this. He swears he is.
"That should be comfortable, I think. I think it's a place where there can be art and finery. Not to this extent, maybe. It's very over the top. But in a place where mages can be protected, to learn and to grow, whether you call it a Circle or not, there should be comfort. There should be art. There should be cushy chairs where you can read and appreciate the art."
He thinks that should be it. That should be all. But he knows better. Takes a breath, feels a little shake to it.
"Fine art and physical comforts don't remove the fear. There shouldn't be fear. I don't know if there will always be fear, but it would be nice if someday there wasn't."
no subject
Ellie stands next to Mobius and gets a sense of that age, that hollow hopelessness that only those who truly lost can exude. She knows it well. Joel had it, every fucking time he mentioned his little girl. Every time she backed him into a corner. Every time she told him that she didn't need him.
They sit.
Mobius's brow pinches, and for a second she almost asks him to stop, because whatever's coming, she knows it's going to hurt.
And fuck, it really does.
At the word Circle, Ellie turns to him fully, her expression silent, suspended horror as he speaks, that only builds and resolves as he explains in pictures, in vignettes that live and breathe. Names, people. Things that spoke of home and comfort.
There's a lump in her throat, a thousand twisting, aching things all at once, but they're all behind a heavy veil. Inside it, she's here, sitting with him.
There is silence between them, the kind of nothing that is so vast it becomes its own entity. She swallows. Once, twice, and then finally manages it on the third time.
"... when did you leave?" she asks, and her voice hardly sounds like her own.
no subject
There isn't an explosion of anger. It's just a quiet where she digests what he's given her. She has a right, to some degree, to be angry. If she wants. He doesn't look at her. He just stares at the painted fire.
It's as he told Astarion. It was home, for a majority of his life. And sure. There's comfort there for his position, in being a Templar, someone who could freely and safely go out beyond the walls, who was only ever under threat from Seekers if they ever thought they weren't doing their jobs, who could shut down a threat before it ever became a threat. But also the comfort of a place that was more home than the vague and nebulous concept of home from when he was a boy. Creating a new life outside of that was terrifying.
She asks a question. He breathes it in. Most others, he might suggest that it doesn't matter. And in reality, for a Rifter, for one who hasn't been here for years and years, it shouldn't matter. But it's Ellie. And that matters.
"I left the Circle when it fell. During the rebellion. We all did, those who were still alive. I left the Order when the Herald of Andraste fell. Seven years ago."
no subject
Right now, in this second, she wonders if she does know him at all.
Which is unfair. She knows Mobius. She knows his kindness, his care, the way he goes out of his way to know people for who they are, to make them feel valued. She can talk to him for hours even and especially about the things they disagree with. He'd been one of the very small handful of people who had found her, when things had gone so wrong. Who had both listened with empathy and held her accountable.
It all sticks in her throat.
She thinks back to the times they'd crossed through Hunter territory, of Joel's talk about knowing both sides. She thinks about all the blood on her hands. Maybe some of it was justified. Maybe even most of it.
But not all.
Ellie picks at her fingers in her lap, and follows Mobius' attention to the painting. It's mourning, and it's catharsis. It's truth. It makes sense.
For all that it hurts, it makes sense.
"Why'd you come here with us?" she asks. There are people who are going to hate them for this. People who are going to find out and turn on him without a thought.
no subject
It's a truth. It's the truth, but he knows he needs to be more specific. Helping depends on the definition.
"I shouldn't--" He shakes his head, dips it to stare at the floor instead. "I shouldn't have. Because I'm not a mage, I'm not a Rifter, and I'm not even technically Chantry-affiliated anymore. This doesn't have anything to do with me directly. But it matters. How am I supposed to just sit back on my heels if I can do something?"
And what is it that he can do that no one else can? No, it isn't about that. It's about voices. Adding one more voice to the pile instead of being silent. It's about talking to people. It's always about talking.
He looks at her at last. Because she needs to get that. She'll understand that. Sitting back on his heels, he would never be able to. "This is the wrong way to go about any possible plan. It's wrong. Whatever is decided, it needs to be decided together. I don't even disagree with everything that's proposed," he admits. "Some of it I do, some of it I question, but it's surprisingly lenient for Loyalists. Still can't just go behind everyone and send something off waving for the Divine's attention. Do I think it would go anywhere while there's still a war and an Exalted March going on, no; I don't think they can afford to divide their attention. But they don't need much excuse. If they're given reason, even suspect reason, to believe the mages as a whole want this, then the second the war is over, that's what'll happen. I can't speak in that room," he says with a motion vaguely in the direction of the auditorium. "But I can speak to everyone else I can, get a read on people, make suggestions, make connections, make arguments. I will do what I can to protect people and preserve what very little peace we have."
He sags with a tired exhalation, tipping his head back as though praying or waiting for some message from on high.
"If I get vilified for doing what I think is right, it wouldn't be the first time, and it won't be the last."
no subject
She twists her fingers in her lap, shuts her eyes and just breathes.
"I really wanna be pissed at you," she says, finally letting a part of the hurt carry into her voice.
"And I am. Even though I get it."
no subject
no subject
Ellie doesn't see what that was undesirable at all, given her inclination to riding all the things.
She presses her lips together, though, and looks at him, this time seriously.
"You should tell people. More people."
It might go badly, but damn, if he hadn't told her this and she'd found out on her own...
no subject
Not the point. But bears mentioning.
At her suggestion, he shakes his head lightly. "I've been...advised of that before. And it isn't that I don't see why, to some extent, but..."
It doesn't matter. It shouldn't matter. It does matter, and that's so fucking backwards and frustrating.
"The people who are going to hate me for it will hate me whether I tell them first thing or they find out later. That won't change. If they get to know me first, it might at least mitigate the damage. Instead of saying, 'hi, how are you, I used to be a Templar', and them instantly deciding I obviously can't be anything more than a bloodthirsty magekiller, they can know me for me."
Is that simplistic? Childish? Maybe.
"We're all just people."
no subject
Ellie sighs, drops her shoulders.
"Just like you did with me."
Ellie won't tell a soul, but she also won't promise not to. She wants to let him do it on his own time, but this isn't something that should be kept a secret forever.
Like with the mages; there is no one right answer.
no subject
He should have heeded Barrow's suggestion, but it's not something he's going to back down from. He spent seven years trying to be something else. It doesn't get to define his very being anymore.
"I'm not going to wear it like a badge on my chest again."
no subject
The words sound cold, and maybe they are. But in the end, it's his choice, not hers.
Maybe it's mitigated by the way her hand settles on his arm, staying there. Maybe not.
It sucks. This sucks. It's heavy and terrible, to be seen as a monster everywhere you go, and Ellie has no idea what that's truly like. She can hide the worst parts of herself, and not everybody can.
It's weighty, the knowledge of it. And she can feel the pain in the stiff, hurt way that he holds himself next to her. She hates it, but backing down isn't in the cards.
Ellie loved Joel, of all people.
This isn't nearly so hard.
no subject
But she stays. She lays a hand on his arm. The miles between them on this bench feel a lot shorter now.
He won't apologize for being what he is. He won't apologize for waiting to tell her. Under other circumstances, ones different from this, he probably would've kept it for as long as possible. Maybe if he hadn't come along, for instance. He doesn't owe her any explanation for himself.
She gets it. And she gets that situations are complicated. That people are complicated. That there are no easy, simple solutions.
They're going to be okay. Not right away, maybe. But they'll get there. He's never had a child and certainly won't ever at this point, and he would never think to even suggest anything that sounds like trying to replace Joel. He wouldn't put that on her. But he thinks, sometimes, that maybe he sees what it's like. Maybe across time and space and reality and unreality and life and death, he feels the briefest flicker of kinship with a man who had no relation to this young woman and treated her like a daughter anyway.
He moves his arm so he can offer his hand instead, wordlessly, palm up and open.
no subject
It's hard to be a person. And she still has a lot of things to tell him, things that won't be handled in one day, maybe not even a year, or a lifetime. There are plenty of things Ellie is ashamed of, and plenty of parts of herself she grieves.
There are horrible things she did that she still believes were right, horrible as they were.
"Thanks for telling me," she whispers. Because really, that's what she's going to remember.
That he didn't hold back.