Our aspirations are wrapped up in books

[bookish_lioness]

WHO: Hermione Granger and Open!
WHAT: There's a new witch mage wandering around Skyhold. Come say hello?
WHEN: Backdated to her arrival near the end of Guardian and onward throughout Drakonis.
WHERE: The library. All over Skyhold. But mostly its library.
NOTES: Feel free to run into her pretty much anywhere, or have her run into you. And be prepared for all the questions about your character and Thedas/their homeworld and everything in between.

If not for the fact that Hermione had spent so many of her formative years in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Skyhold might have been overwhelming

As it was, the sprawling fortress was a little hard to get used to, since the academic environment that had given Hogwarts some sense of structure amidst the chaos wasn't present here. There was a library, thankfully, and she spent much of her time there, though it was so small that she was certain she'd end up reading every book in there in two weeks' time if she didn't actually go out and explore the rest of her surroundings.

And so every so often, she pried herself away from the cold little corner she'd set aside for herself and wander the rest of the area, though granted, she more often than not was carrying at least one book with her. Usually it was one of the books that had survived the trip through the Fade; anyone who might spot her in the garden or tavern or a safe distance away from the sparring going on in the training grounds might notice her engrossed in such unfamiliar titles as Hogwarts, A History or occasionally digging through Spellman's Syllabary in the vain hope of finding recognizable runes on various inscriptions throughout Skyhold.

After all, just because she was endlessly fascinated by all the new people and cultures and history and magic, it didn't mean she didn't occasionally need a bittersweet reminder of home. Especially when her other major reminder was her wand, which - despite the fact that she'd taken to finding the most solitary places she could find and practicing with it harder than she ever had the night before an exam - still wasn't behaving properly at all. Apologies to those of you who end up slipping on some wayward ice or getting sprayed with pebbles from a spell gone wrong.

Comments

[justice_is_blond]

It will be in the next generation's hands anyway, whether it's the native-born ones like Kalli or the rifters like Hermione. They're the ones that will shape this world as his generation dies out. And hopefully they'll be smart enough to ignore Vivienne and her delusions about how their cage had been so wonderfully gilded that to leave it was wasteful.

"You don't have our history or our background, but you're here now. If you've already made yourself known as a mage, a witch, then that is how you will be seen. It's getting better, though. Here. In Skyhold. But I wouldn't travel far from here, especially as there's something of a war on."

He pauses and frowns. "Has anyone... told you the rest of what's going on? Is there any sort of primer to our world put together?"

[bookish_lioness]

Hermione wouldn't know how to feel about being considered part of the next generation of mages in Thedas, given that she's under the impression that her stay is a temporary one. But while she's here, she's more than happy to help Detlef in whatever way she can to make sure mages have a shot at a better life in the future.

"I arrived in a snowy place called Emprise du Lion," she explains. "There were demons, and... some sort of soldiers with red crystals jutting out of their bodies. If that's what's waiting for me outside of Skyhold, I'll gladly stay here until things either calm down or I can make my magic work the way it should again." She might have survived a war back home, but she'd done it with magic; not having her full spectrum of spells available to her means that she's going to have to force herself to hang back for the time being.

Shaking her head, she smiles a little and remarks, "I know there's a war though not between whom, though I've heard things about the mages and templars, but I think that's sort of a background war? And there had been a native woman with one of these shards in her hand - she'd been called the Herald of... Andraste, I want to say? - and she'd died while closing the breach. But I'm afraid that people have been assuming I know bits and pieces that I don't, and there aren't exactly any books available on current events. I don't suppose you have a newspaper or some other daily or weekly publication here, do you?"

[justice_is_blond]

"Wouldn't that be a thing, a listing of what's gone on." Anders shakes his head. He can tell by her scattered description of things that no one has really helped straighten things out... but then again, where would they start? The story goes back hundreds of years.

"We don't have anything like that, but let me try to... outline. The world was made by the Maker. Big surprise there. There are two parts. The waking world, which you see, and the Fade, touched by dreamers, walked by mages, and home to spirits and demons. The Maker hung out in the Golden City until who knows what happened. He got bored, frustrated, it doesn't really matter. He buggered off. Left the City behind.

"A group of very powerful mages from Tevinter, a country, decided they'd take the Maker's place and went into the Golden City, turning it Black. You can see it from any part of the Fade, dark and foreboding. The point is, one of them was named Corypheus. Or at least he's claiming to be one of them. That's the guy the main war is against, and this was over a thousand years ago. He's powerful enough that I believe him.

"Jump forward not too much further, to about nine hundred years ago, and there's a woman named Andraste who sought to stop the spread of the Tevinter Imperium. Mage-run empire, enslaved and slaughtered elves, were trying to spread across the continent. Fighting happened, she got betrayed and killed and set up as the Maker's bride and basically worshiped. The Tevinter stopped spreading. This is about the time when people decided that just because some mages were corrupt and loved power, all mages must be evil and seek it out, and they should be locked up for the safety of everyone else. This was justified as Andraste's will, because one of the things she said was that magic should serve men, not men serve magic.

"And now we come to recent times. We're finally finding freedom after a few things have happened - Lord Seeker Lambert causing a slaughter, a mage blowing up a Chantry, a building dedicated to the worship of Andraste, and the destruction of the conclave, meeting of mages and Andraste's worship's highest figure, the Divine, by Corypheus - the Templars who were are jailers are angry, everyone's threatened by Corypheus and his massive dragon, elves have still been being slaughtered by humans, the qunari want to enslave most of us and kill the rest, it's a lovely time to be visiting Thedas."

His lips quirk upward despite how he tries to keep from grinning. "Any questions?"

[bookish_lioness]

Any questions, he asks. He clearly hasn't cottoned on to just who he's talking to.

A lot of what he tells her is familiar, either from her readings or from her various conversations with people. It still seems odd, foreign, and that's because so much of it is tied to religion and legend. The fact that he starts off with telling her about the Maker is telling, though so is the way he simply disregards this being.

"Did people come to worship Andraste because she tried to stop the spread of an empire that treated elves so poorly?" she asks, wanting desperately to believe that Thedas had been filled with caring people at one point. Of course, she's also a realist, which leads her to dryly follow up with, "Or was it only because they hated mages more than elves and so loathed the idea of a mage-ruled government?"

Frowning by now, she adds, "Mages aren't the embodiment of magic, so there's no reason for them to have been subjugated simply because of the poor choices of the few. How many non-mages have blundered their way through history, after all?"

That frown does take on a sadder quality as she considers Detlef's last words, though, and she looks up at him, obviously torn. "Why is it that mages are finding freedom when there's so much chaos in the world? A slaughter? Blowing up a-.... These are all acts of terrorism, you understand. I know that mages have been oppressed, but becoming the monsters everyone wants to think they - ... wants to think we are, it isn't going to help us in the long run. It's just going to muddy the waters."

She does try and think about non-mages, though, which leads her to a brief follow-up question. "When you say that qunari want to enslave or kill us... I assume you mean the followers of the Qun? Is that true, or does it just seem away because their religion is so much different from the rest of Thedas'? Does anyone ever actually talk to them, outside of the ones who left the Qun or were born outside of it?" Because she's met Korrin and the Iron Bull, and they both seemed to be nice enough, if a bit intimidating at first glance.

[justice_is_blond]

What on Thedas has he done? There's a dozen or twenty or more questions in there and Maker, he can't follow them all.

"All right. One... set at a time. People hated mages more than elves because people are selfish pricks. I'm sure some of them gave a damn about the elves, but most just didn't want mages in charge. Also Andraste said and wrote a lot of things, many of them vague and airy sounding enough that people could find what meaning they wanted to in them. She was an easy figurehead who was inoffensive and had the thoughtfulness to die and be tidily out of the way, so Andraste was used."

He does not have the highest opinion of the Chantry, for good reason.

"As far as the terrorist acts, let's take them one at a time. What Corypheus did isn't something any mage approves of, and the demon in him has long ago twisted him from anything human. That's not our doing. Lord Seeker Lambert was not a mage, he was a Seeker. The chaos he caused was not the fault of the mages. Those two were blows that showed the few mages that their cages did not offer the protection they thought. And the other..." The deeply personal one? Anders shakes his head with a grimace. His act had been terrorism. And she's right. But at the same time...

"There's... there was, a law that allowed Templars to declare an entire Circle of mages too rebellious, too dangerous, too anything, and kill them all. That's hundreds of mages, legally slaughtered if the right forms are filled out. It was about to happen again to the Circle in that city, which meant the choice was to stand by and let that happen yet again, and hear no outcry because they were just mages, or act and try to let the final death toll be lower."

There's a short beat. "It wasn't lower, or if it was, it wasn't by much. But it lead to outcry because it wasn't just mages dying. It... did something. There's no denying it was crossing a line. But there's no one else suggesting any alternatives that could have saved lives, and this is after quite some time. The choices were death either way."

It's no comfort that no one has suggested any other options. It doesn't make the death toll easier, doesn't make it seem right. It's still the only thing he could have done, and he hates that the situation had gotten like that, hates that no one else acted to save mages when there were people whose job it was to protect. In some ways he even hates the people who hate him - their anger is well-founded, but he's the most convenient face of so many who are at fault for what's happened.

"And on the final topic, provided I'm not missing or skipping something, it's the followers of the Qun who believe in enslaving or killing. If you don't join it, then you're not worthy of life, according to them. Plenty of people talk to them. I've spoken with followers of the Qun. I'd like to never do so again, because their take on what should happen with mages is even worse - lips sewn shut, shackles at all times. Let's hope that no Qun-following qunari come to Skyhold."

[bookish_lioness]

It had been a long time since Hermione had actually been so out of her depth that she felt the need to ask a million questions a minute; it's little wonder that Thedas would bring that back out in her. She's only glad that he seems perfectly willing to indulge her in all her inquiries.

It's far too easy to draw a correlation between Andraste and a certain other popular religious figure from her world whose words are occasionally misconstrued to selfish ends. Considering that she has no opinion on religion in general without any empirical proof one way or the other, she's going to reserve full judgment of the Chantry for the time being. But it's probably plain to see on her face that at the moment? She doesn't exactly hold them in high esteem.

While most of the other acts of terrorism they'd briefly discussed are too distant for Hermione to really have much of an opinion about, she can't help but feel the personal hurt simmering when he explains this so-called law that had been in effect. She can't imagine any kind of government normalizing outright genocide simply as some sort of fallback plan. "And who got to make the decision that killed off an entire Circle? The same Templars that may or may not have been corrupt the entire time?"

Shaking her head as she tried to swallow back the disgust, Hermione murmurs, "The entire system is flawed, which means that no apparent solution will be flawless. But there had to have been a way to minimize damages. Doing something so drastic, starting a war that would keep getting people hurt.... I've lived through war. I've lost people. I might not have experienced life in a Circle or grown up in Thedas, but I know there aren't really winners in a war. Just survivors."

She shrugs a little, looking down and trying hard not to think about Fred or Remus or Tonks. "Maybe I'm still too naive for all I've been through, but I'd like to think there's a non-violent solution to anything. Assuming the people in power aren't sadists, at any rate."

Taking a deep breath, she tries to forget about the less pleasant aspects of their discussion as she meets his eyes once again. "Surely followers of the Qun must understand that keeping a mage from speaking or waving a wand - or using a staff - doesn't necessarily keep magic at bay. People can't stop being who they are. Not teaching someone about their potential or trying to hide a dangerous weapon without knowing how to handle it... it never ends well."

[justice_is_blond]

He lets her digest his words and question everything before he gives her a sad smile.

"If the Circles are truly broken and we're out, we win. Not without losses. Not cleanly. But we're away from the Templars who, yes, can make the call to kill a whole Circle, who are often corrupt, away from the cages that were gilded for a few and awful for so many more. You've no idea how I wish someone could suggest something non-violent that would have stopped Kirkwall from being wiped out, no idea how much I wish someone had been able to stop the Rivani Circle three years later, two years ago. No one did."

The smile tightens. "And you won't hear anyone who isn't a mage be upset about that the way they are Kirkwall. They don't care. And the collars the qunari use? They dampen magical ability. Lock it. Make it so that their captive mages, who are beaten down into believing they are nothing more than dangerous things, can only use magic on command. We're not people to so many. They are. We're not. Which is why Skyhold is so important."

He takes a breath as well, looking around the library. "If we're seen, and heard, if we help and we're invaluable, it won't be just mages wanting mages to be free. If people know mages, one-on-one, as people... If they can see us, we've that peaceful chance we wish we had all along."

[bookish_lioness]

The picture he paints of the world she'd found herself in is even darker than the one she'd seen with her own eyes or the one she'd read about in all these books. Which means he's either lying, or he's experienced firsthand some of the cruelties this world has to offer. Had he been friends with someone from another Circle who'd been killed? Beaten for disobeying the rules? Or had he encountered true Qunari and had been their captive at one point?

Any of those is just as likely as the others, but she isn't about to ask, not now. She's only just met him, and that's never a good time to dredge up personal trauma. But it's as good a time as any to work towards being a friend, since either way, he sounds as though he might need one.

"I'm sorry for whatever you've had to go through," she tells him sincerely. "We'll have to agree to disagree on whether violence is necessary, simply by virtue of that having usually been a last resort for me in my world; given that almost everyone here travels with a weapon, maybe that would have been different if I'd grown up here and had experienced firsthand how mages were treated. But I am sorry that you experienced it. You probably would have fared better in my world, but since we can't change that, I'll just hope that things get better here."

Shrugging a little as she also looks around, she adds, "And I'll do what I can to help things get better while I'm here. I can't promise that it will make a difference, but there's no sense in doing anything that might make things worse for myself, especially when it will also make things worse for other mages."

[justice_is_blond]

The smile returns to sad. Last resort. It really had been the last resort, one turned to in desperation, but in the end that doesn't matter. He'd killed people who weren't mages and so the world is furious.

"I think we agree that it should be a last resort. And I will hope that time does not show you what it has shown me, and every mage I've cared about."

Anders stands, brushing a little dust off his robes. There are some people he actually needs to speak with before sealing his fate in a few hours, and while this had been pleasant and given him a little hope for the future, he should move on.

"Fare well, Hermione. And know that every person who believes mages should be free helps, which means you will make a difference." One pebble can start an avalanche. Granted, he pretty much blew up the mountainside to start one, but further ones, smaller ones, are needed now.

[bookish_lioness]

Every mage he'd cared about. Either he's particularly melodramatic, or is his hasn't been a happy one. Either way, Hermione looks up at him, eyes wide and sad, though there isn't anything she can really say to make him feel better, not when she doesn't know the extent of what's happened to him. And at this point? She isn't going to ask simply because it sounds painful for him, and not just because it wouldn't be polite to ask.

Maybe he's already hurting, and that's why he breaks away from the conversation. She isn't going to stop him, but it wouldn't be right to let him go without offering an encouraging word or two. "I hope I will, Detlef. For all our sakes. Please, if you ever feel like talking, seek me out. Maybe we can help each other."

[justice_is_blond]

There is no help for him. He appreciates the offer, and he nods, but there isn't anything that can be done at this point. Or even should be.

"We'll see what the future brings," is all he can say before giving her yet another nod and heading off. He expects to die. What help he can give, he has, as little and as possibly useless as it is.