faderift | we're hell raising and we don't need saving

Ill-tempered. No. Herc isn't, and neither is she; not angry at him, or the Wardens, or the Inquisition. Not even, ultimately, all that angry with Anders - he made a fucking mess, made all of this so much harder than it might have been, made her side look bad in a way that matters, but what he did was the act of a desperate madman, she thinks. The product of what she opposes. In and of himself an argument for mage freedom because look what fucking happens.

What angers her is the situation. This untenable reality of a world that isn't good enough, of having to fight always for every little thing, of -

Here, in the warm languorous afterglow, there isn't anything to fight. Benevenuta measures herself before she provokes one just to have it, just to fight someone about this bullshit.

"I wonder your thoughts," she says, her fingertips finding his heartbeat and lingering there. "About him."

About all of this.

"He's a Warden. One of my men, and my responsibility. We stand together."

And yet, he doesn't put a lot of effort into masking the weariness in that, for all that he's glad they have Wardens to stand together. "I think what he did in the Chantry was beyond stupid, but the Champion passed her verdict, and the Wardens argued for his life. I respect that."

Though he wouldn't have minded tossing him over the damn ramparts, in the moment. He wouldn't have minded doing that with a few of the Wardens, when they got on a roll about how many each of them had killed, like it was something to be proud of. War was war. Death was death. Bragging about how awful you were before you became a Warden doesn't bring anyone any honour or victory.

A beat, and then, "But I think he's a bit of an arse. Sorry bastard," he admits, "Could've been a good man if the world hadn't messed him about, but the world is full of people that've gotten messed about, and they don't all go blowin' up Chantries." Finally, he lifts his arm, smile just slightly curling the corners of his mouth. "And yours?"

"A martyr's death at the beginning would have saved us a great deal of hassle," she says, which is a good deal more frank than anything she's said elsewhere, or intends to. "Not that I desire he be martyred - as representatives of my cause go, he is a poor one."

To say the least. For all that Benevenuta tends not to loudly discuss her own personal viewpoints in great detail, it's no particular secret that she supports mage freedom unequivocally, that she's been a steadfast Libertarian for years. What Anders wanted to achieve is not what she objects to, but to have done it this way, for it to have played out like this, a civil war that's ravaged Thedas and mages more feared than perhaps they've ever been... there is little sympathy to their cause when it's those dastardly rebel mages wreaking havoc across nations while Templars that the smallfolk look to for their protection, their holy mandate and their polished damned armor, step heroically in to strike back.

And strike down. So many people have died, and they are too much in flux now to even say for what.

"The verdict was lawful and it is upheld. If the Maker wills that he be shown mercy, so be it, but it is a costly gift he has been given, and he will not be the one to pay. I hope," with a sigh, easing down into Herc's side, "that he is suitably grateful."

Edited 2016-03-13 08:51 (UTC)

"Wouldn't have minded chucking him off the bloody ramparts before it became an issue," he admits, finding a point on the ceiling and making a careful study of it. Fascinating things, ceilings. Still, there's a thoughtful pause, and he looks at her then, more curious but still keeping his tone even. Non accusatory, he finally says, "Wouldn't have figured you for being all for mage freedoms, and that."

Probably makes sense, of course, Nevarran Necromancers probably wouldn't like to be bundled up in the Circles so much. He's been so wrapped up in the Wardens that the outside world and poltiics sometimes - usually - is a secondary thing, him. When she settles down next to him, Herc is happy to let his fingers idly trace over the tattoo that he knows is there, now, even if the tracing is guessed and probably inaccurate.

"Grateful?" he breathes. "Manner of speaking, I suppose." Paints himself as a victim, and the rest of the world as the villains for wanting recompense, even if he said he'd understand the verdict at the beginning. That's what Herc reckons, though he's not necessarily going to say that much. "Can't imagine it's much better than the Circles he was already complaining about, getting guarded by someone all the time."

Her eyes close; his fingers close enough to their mark that she can guess his aim and smile at it, a warm and private thing nothing to do with anything they're discussing. (It is nice, she thinks, to have warm and private things, little nothing things to wrap her hands around, quiet where no one is looking. She is still someone, when no one's looking.)

"That it is a compatriot and not a Templar, I am sure that distinction matters."

Maybe not in a way that Anders seems grateful for, but the luxury of complaining about it isn't nothing for all that if he complains, now, Benevenuta would sort of like to rip his tongue out with her bare fucking hands. Speaking of what they aren't going to say out loud, even here.

After a moment - "Do I not strike you as free, Hercules? I promise you, I put my fate in no hands but mine and the Maker's."

Herc makes a noncommittal sound at the mention of the distinction. Given some of the Templars around here? Yeah, maybe. Given the Templars in Kirkwall? More than likely, if anything Bethany said was worth going off. But some people take and they take, and they aren't ever satisfied. Getting too much into Warden business, though, even in vague terms, wasn't likely to go all that well.

(And maybe he's all right with this. Idle chatter, even if this isn't all that idle. It's talk in a warm bed while tracing patterns on skin, and that's not nothing. He's not sure what it is, if it's anything, but he's pretty all right with it.)

"You do, yeah. You got your freedom already, no matter what happens to the other lot. Noble, Mortalitasi... means your pretty well set in Nevarra, the way I understand it." So he's looking at her with quiet interest, trying to puzzle it out. "Not everyone who's got their freedom already is that concerned with getting it for anyone else. Could've just been content with the world the way it was."

He's seen enough people like that. He's fought enough of them.

"I am not so lazy a creature," she says, and she isn't taking care to disguise the casual contempt that she has for those who are - there is, for a moment, none of the diplomat who will cultivate them in spite of her personal feelings because she can and must make use of people who will not even make use of themselves.

No; she isn't pretending anything. Very little disgusts her more than what he describes, and she makes no bones about it.

"Nor so stupid as to believe that my own freedom is anything but conditional and worthless if I were to be. We do not live in a world with which I am content; that has been true for longer than it has had holes in the sky. As has it been true that I work to improve it. The Inquisition is where the most urgent work is done - I am here to do it. It is not a change."

In her. She wasn't inspired, she didn't suddenly see a new truth - she is just living the same truth she always has, in a new way.

Could've fooled me, he'd say, if he were in the mood for teasing or being hit with another pillow. He and the pillows have been through some wars together, but they get by all right.

"Is that right?" Not accusing, not mocking. There's a lot of things his tone doesn't carry, but he's got quiet interest woven in pretty well.

He's quiet a moment, mulling that over, thinking it through. Makes sense, of course, and it's not that he didn't think she was smart. It just a matter of figuring out how much is for the greater good and how much is securing what is good for herself, and it conveniently happens to help others. Herc prefers to lean on the side of greater good, in seeing that side of people, but eventually you learn to be a little more cautious. "That's good to know."

She rolls over onto her elbows, pushing herself up to rest on them - to better meet his eyes, brushing her hair out of her own because this is important, this is something that it matters for him to understand about her. (She has no need to examine why; it's nothing she's not freely said to other people. She'd said as much to a girl she met once, briefly, by the side of a fire. That Hercules should understand as much as a girl who danced with her once is - perfectly reasonable.)

"You and I," she says. "We are in a position to aid those who do not have the means to aid themselves. You with your..." A gesture of one hand, a curl of her hair still tangled in her fingers; Warden business, large weapons, musculature, chiseled and scruffy jawline. "You go out and you do for those who cannot do for themselves. Well, I have a different set of skills and resources, but I have them, and it is no less my duty to act upon that than it is yours."

Her chin lifts, a little. Some fierce thing in her eyes is older than this moment, a banked fire that burns always within her - "There is no worth in a person who doesn't see that."

And then, a bit gentler, "But I would give for them, as well. To give of yourself is the right choice - the only choice. And it is not for me to decide to give only to those I deem most worthy." There are plenty of people she doesn't care for, and - what sort of world does she fight for, if she only fights for the people she likes?

She is surgeon and open wound, both.

"I see."

He understands. She's a sand storm, this one, charged up and cultivated by a world that's been neglected and turned rough. The kind of force of nature that people don't understand how dangerous it might be until they're caught in the middle. Maybe the storm'll only last a few minutes, or maybe it'll be months, blinding you and changing the landscape.

Herc mulls all that over in silence. Sounds good, reasoned - generous and right, even, the most important parts, and all the while his fingers are still tracing that rose, until his hands still.

"My what?" To clarify: "You never said what used to help people."

He is not being a shit, except that he is, a bit.

we're hell raising and we don't need saving

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