OPEN: Like the High Tide Takes the Sand.

[keeperofmagi]

WHO: Nerva and OPEN
WHAT: After swearing an oath to Cassandra, Nerva has foresaken her title as Templar, and sworn to serve the Inquisition only.
WHEN: Over the next couple weeks so that whoever is wherever can still come bother her.
WHERE: Either Emprise, directly after her oath, or in Skyhold after they return
NOTES:The Oath, also warning for Nerva and her Opinions....

There is something uncharacteristically quiet about Nerva, these days. A solemn silence where the passion should be, a held tongue instead of the lash. After returning from Nevarra, after trudging through the snow of the Emprise, she retreated further and further into herself.

That didn't mean the passion was gone. Rather it was turned inward - almost self-flagellating in its intensity, ripping through everything she believed, and the things she thought she believed, until her soul was left at it's most raw, most pure state.

She needed a purpose. She needed a path.

And so she made one.

Any doubts she had, she did not voice. Any doubts she had, were gone, after she made her oath.

She did not have room in her heart for doubt. She did not have room in her heart for the wretchedness that had been there, for months. No. She only had room for commitment, for the cause. And if she could not fully live one, she would live the other.

If she could no longer be Templar in word and deed, then she would be no Templar at all.

She would turn herself into a sword for the Right Hand.

Over the next few weeks, her downtime was used to carefully and painstakingly remove all symbols of the Templar Order from her armour, her clothing, her weapons. Everything she had owned, had come from the templars, and she had no funds with which to simply replace them, so she worked. Mostly on her own, removed from others. She had no desire to make a big display. Her faith - her purpose - was her own, no one else's. There would be no announcement.

Just the careful and purposeful continuation of Duty.

Comments

[keeperofmagi]

"Our path, apologizing to mages for our supposed crimes, while never addressing theirs? Pretending that they don't risk all of us while they lust for their supposed freedom? While they try to make a second Tevinter in Thedas?" She turns her eyes up and there is a real fire burning there, low and dark, that she had been trying to suppress for days to no avail.

"I have found my path, Ser. I will see the Divine's will done, and I will see myself as a sword for the Right Hand, and I will see Corypheus dead. But I will not continue to play games with our lives."

[equanimiti]

The fire within her gaze is just as telling as her words. It's the same fire within Alayre that caused him to lash out. He grown weary of the politics involved with the Inquisition and it showed in his angry tirade. "We will not have another Tevinter." The man says in a harsh whisper.

"Not as long as the Order stands." A deep sigh leaves him. Alayre is obviously conflicted. As much as he desires for the Mages to be free, he isn't about to sacrifice Thedas in the process. "No one is playing games here, Nerva." He replies as he leans against something like a wall or beam to support him. Still somewhat healing from his ordeals, Alayre honestly looks haggard.

"The lives of our men and women take precedent over all things else." He trails off for a moment. "Though, I do admit it doesn't seem that way." The old Templar let's out another sigh as he strokes his chin pensively.

"I want this Corypheus dead as well but the Inquisition isn't prepared to face him." A sobering truth. "None of us are."

[keeperofmagi]

"Everyone is playing games!" She doesn't mean to snap, but the several weeks worth of frustration pull it out of her like a bull whip, and she has to bite her lip to hold it back.

"And the Order doesn't stand! There was an abomination in Skyhold and we did nothing. A rift opens up, and we do nothing. We have no reason to capitulate to the mages and yet we do, constantly, and consistently."

His weariness does nothing to soothe her anger - only enforces it, like embers lighting tinder. As if she is enraged by what she perceives as his weakness.

"We will never be prepared as long as everyone is too pre-occupied with a future that may not even exist."

[equanimiti]

Maybe Alayre is indeed weak on some level but he doesn't believe the Order is weak. Confused, yes, but not weak. "Then clearly this line of thinking we've adopted must change." He replies after a moment of tense silence.

"Instead of directing our attention to a future that may never be, we focus on the now." Alayre honestly holds himself personally responsible for the Order's hesitance to act. They've tried too hard to appease everyone that they forsook their duties as Templars. They wore the shame of others as a mantle for themselves and in turn ruined themselves.

"I will not be the one to lead the Order but I will be one to set it on the right course." It's his mistake after all. "There's many who have cause to loathe us for our past misdeeds but be damned if we'll remain idle because of them."

He takes a breath. "It wasn't my intention to lead the Order astray but after years of violence and bigotry, I thought I could bring about change."