faderift | [Open] My Hearth Is Yours

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[Open] My Hearth Is Yours

WHO: James Norrington and You
WHAT: Dining with the Commander
WHEN: Throughout Wintermarch
WHERE: The Great Hall
NOTES: Nothing but 'seriously dude, you're hiding something aren't you?'

Even Templars need to eat.

And drink.

Sometimes they have to do a lot of drinking, honestly, but Norrington kept his portions of wine to a reasonable amount when he had it with his supper. He always dined in the main hall, few times with his men, but often times he came in in alone with papers and letters in which he worked upon while he broke meat and bread off and slipped it into his mouth without thinking. His pen never seemed to stop, as he scripted pages and pages of writing -- before tossing some of them aside and grumpily burning others.

Once and awhile, you could catch him with no papers at all, but a book, his head propped up on his hand and his green eyes distant as he read the words on the page and sipped from his glass of wine.

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She smiled prettily. "Well, I always try to be good," she said. And it wasn't with a hint of irony or sarcasm. Just genuine truth.

Which was just the way that Ariadne preferred to conduct herself, when she could. Ironic for a spy.

Delicately, she nibbled on her bread a little bit more. "May I ask your position in this Inquisition, Lord Norrington?"

"Oh, don't we all." James's was slightly sarcastic, but the look on his face was warm. Seeing the best in people was always a dangerous game - but he did want to believe that people could make amends. Try to do better.

He took another few bites, before answering, "I am a Knight-Commander with the Templar Order, a rank I still hold here in the Inquisition. I'm also training the soldiers on how to deal with abominations, demons, and soon, blood mages."

A hollowness filled the pit of her stomach at the mention of demons. And within the same breath as abominations.

She found herself looking down at her hands. She was only just beginning to get used to seeing them all pinkish and Human-like. She was going to have to stop thinking of herself as a demon. Especially here.

As she turned her palm over, the glint of the Shard flickered up.

"What's a blood mage?" she asked.

James glanced over at her, for she had fallen silent for a moment. He glanced over, and saw the gleam of green against her palm, and then she asked her question.

Ah.

A Rifter, then. So he picked his words carefully, "There are certain mages who use blood in their magic - in fact they primarily use it. Some of them simply cut themselves a little - it's harmful but not overtly dangerous. There are others though - who sacrifice other people to gain power. We call them maelificarium."

The idea of using blood in a spell wasn't entirely foreign to her. Certainly, the Elves back home didn't do anything like that. But the Darucs...well. They believed that magic was tied to blood. Of course, their rituals didn't involve sacrifice or cutting so much as the belief that every action resonated in the blood.

The mountain trolls, on the other hand...

She could only shudder a little. The rumors she heard were dark.

"That's horrible," she said.

He pressed his lips together at that shudder, he had no idea what she was thinking. Still, either way, blood mages should be considered dangerous and she wanted to make sure she knew about them? He would be glad to educate her.

"It absolutely is." He said firmly.

It didn't sound like he was patronizing her. A lot of people took her simplistic views of good and bad and mistook them for a child's opinion.

She was pleased to be taken seriously.

"Are there many of those here?"

Simple does not mean it is basic. It means that she has very clear ideas of what is good, and what is evil. Considering how grey the world is, with good and bad, having firm morals was never a weakness in Norrington's mind.

"There are quite a few, yes."

The answer wasn't surprising. Just disappointing. But Ariadne should have been used to being in proximity to evil.

She frowned a little, turning the thought over in her head. "How do you recognize a blood mage?" she asked.

The scent of blood seemed like a good clue. But her nose could detect what others could not. So what did they use?

James sat up a little more, because this was his field of study as a Templar, outside of military history. He'd actually composed a number of pages on what to recognize with blood mages - patterns he had seen emerging.

"Blood mages, outside of the smell of blood on them, are always going to look wan. Sallow, even. They are constantly hungry - for food, for wine, for just about anything. Sometimes, if they are careless, you will be able to see scars. Their servants will be terrified of them - not just - 'Oh he beats me' but more like, 'I will not move, if I do not move he cannot hurt me'."

She scowled a little, listening. And she couldn't help but think of some of the servants--no, slaves--of the Red Dragon. She knew he wasn't a blood mage, of course. But that terror was still in their eyes. A terror that made her desperate to do...desperate things. Rescuing sort of things.

Suicidal things.

"Is there a way to make a blood mage stop being a blood mage?" she asked.

If he had known that was where her thoughts lay - then he would have been in one hundred percent agreement with her. After all, it was what he had dedicated his entire life to. Protecting people from having 'that look' in their eyes.

"Well yes, if they stop practicing blood magic altogether. The stain will be with them -- and if they take another's life they are typically executed."

A measure of relief flooded her gray eyes. Ariadne didn't necessarily believe in absolutes--apart from right and wrong. It was nice to know that there was a way to turn back. That someone bad could be made good again.

No matter how unlikely.

"Then it sounds like you need to focus on ways to get them to stop practicing," she said.

"Well ... that will be difficult. The reason most turn to blood magic is to gain more power than they would from just lyrium. The only way to get some of them to stop."

He mixed his meat with his potatoes, looking thoughtful. "I suppose the best way to start is teach the dangers of blood magic."

"Prevention is important too," she said. "But you can't just...give up on someone who's lost their way. It sends a bad message. Both to them and to other people who might be on the edge of slipping into oblivion."

Sometimes, she wondered what would have happened if someone could have kept the Red Dragon from going into the deep end.

Of course, no one really knew how it happened. But she was pretty sure Lysia and Princess Amanda had some solid theories.

He looked at her thoughtfully, before he leaned back in his seat. Now this was something he had never heard about this. "So, what if they committed murder to gain those powers? How lost do they have to be, before we take them out to start protecting the greater good?"

She stared right back at him, all eyes and earnestness.

"Killing people is wrong," she said. And she said it with absolute conviction. "There's no question about that. But killing to stop killing is just...killing. Two wrongs don't make a right."

Ariadne paused. "Although, I've been told that three lefts make a right..."

"Well, I will not deny that. But what if they won't stop? What if they just keep taking lives one after another?" James asked quietly. "A life for a life is just ending both lives - but if I end one life to save hundreds? I would consider it a cost well paid."

His lip twitch. "That they do."

"There must be other ways to stop them besides ending them," she said reasonably enough. "That's what dungeons are for, isn't it?" Not that she loved dungeons. But it was better than the alternative.

And more importantly...

"Rehabilitation. Like we just talked about. That's important too."

James stared at her for a long, long moment, before he ... well. He blinked. Then he thought about it for another moment, and blinked again. "That ... is not entirely bad idea - but not a dungeon. No one really rehabilitates in a dungeon. They simply bide their time until they are free."

It was probably true, she supposed. Not that there had been a dungeon designed yet that could hold Ariadne.

"When people have the threat of death hanging over them," she continued, "it means they have nothing to lose. And a person with nothing to lose is more dangerous than someone who has the chance for...I don't know. A fresh start, I guess."

Really, the promise of rehabilitation could save everyone a lot of trouble, to her mind.

James pressed his lips together, folding his hands together then interweaving them. He could protest - he wanted to protest - but in his mind his pride would not allow such a thing. The one thing they had been consistently charged with was their lack of compassion, and their inability to change. Norrington had to fight at the bit every single time someone slapped that in their face, and take it.

But what if the roles were reversed? What if instead, the Templars offered redemption instead of death?

"It would take ...a great deal of planning."

"Nothing worth doing is ever easy," Ariadne countered. It was a constant refrain, ironically enough, that she heard from Aden. And she was told that he'd gotten it from his father before him, a pioneer in the world of peace and diplomacy.

He'd been executed, if she remembered correctly (and she always did). Beheaded in the public market, outside of Starlight Castle. His final words had been words of peace.

She shrugged. "Think of it like this. Suppose someone you loved very dearly became a blood mage. Wouldn't you appreciate any planning that went into a way to save that person?"

He lifted his eyebrows at that - because he did care deeply for a mage. What would happen if she was forced to go into blood mage? What if she was trapped and needed it for survival, then couldn't stop? It was a ... sobering realization.

"I would appreciate it." He said slowly, still resting his chin on his fingertips.

Ariadne knew immediately that she'd struck a chord. She could hear it in the fluctuations of his pulse.

Whether she meant to or not was a separate issue. But she knew immediately that now was the appropriate time to back off. Too much more and she'd get sanctimonious and preachy.

Clearly, he had things to think about.

"I apologize, my lord," she said, rising from her seat. "I shouldn't be talking about things that are none of my business."

[Open] My Hearth Is Yours

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