faderift | ( closed ) one track mind, one track heart

Entry tags:

( closed ) one track mind, one track heart

WHO: Advisers (Cassandra, Cullen, Josephine, Leliana), some Grey Wardens (Herc, Bethany, Nathaniel) and that other Grey Warden problem child (Anders); closed
WHAT: Leliana informs the Advisers she discovered Anders, the Wardens call dibs, everyone is grumpy and stressed.
WHEN: almost immediately following this with some timeywimey in the middle, before Cassandra and Leliana's epic disagreement
WHERE: War Room? War Room.
NOTES: AHHHHH
Not sure about warnings so I'll edit here as necessary, however! If a warning-worthy thing pops up in a tag, pls warn in the subject line!

More ooc notes, I think I got this all correct from our discussion but prod me if I got this wrong:

Leliana's initial starter - open to all the Advisers, Anders reveal, discuss
Grey Warden starters - individual starters for Herc, Bethany and Nate, advisers feel free to thread individually as you see fit or as your whims/character stuff guides you, no need to tag all wardens unless you are keen to :]b

and then freestyle discussion threads, basically :Db

And finally:

How everyone is going to feel after this, probably

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Cullen's been across the room from him, careful to check his anger.

There's a part of him that wants to go up to him, to provoke the mage within and have an all-out brawl. To fight for all of those who died by Anders' actions, not just in Kirkwall, but even in the events that spiraled after. Cullen knows he's far from innocent in anything related to mages, but he was doing his duty in most cases. And Kirkwall... he doesn't want to think about how his anger was manipulated.

It's unconscious as he walks over, fully intent on moving to have a conversation with Cassandra when he stops in front of Anders, turning to look at him. His gaze is cold, his tone sharp and low. "You've caused so much chaos and yet you stand here silent." He pauses, not removing his eyes from Anders. "Nothing to say for yourself?"

Anders meets Cullen's eyes, raising an eyebrow.

"Funny, that this comes from you." His voice is ice and equally as quiet. "It must have been satisfying to finally run down mages in the streets after you failed to get that pleasure in Kinloch Hold."

There's a shake of his head. "You don't want the full of what I have to say. But I'll make it short. I killed innocents. I went to the Wardens expecting to die, hoping that this way my death didn't cripple the freedom of my people. You? You've killed innocents, and... what? Nothing, because they're mages. You don't feel a bit of guilt over that, do you?"

How many have died because of Cullen? He'd tried so hard to have innocents slaughtered in Ferelden's Circle after all of the guilty parties were dead. Of course he'd gone to Kirkwall and joined up with Meredith. The amount of Tranquil made, mages slain, there will never be an accounting, because in the eyes of people like the man before him, they don't count.

"Satisfying? You think it satisfying for me to kill a mage?"

His hand clenched at the hilt of his sword, jaw clenching equally as tightly. "I did my job. My duty. I was young while I was at Kinloch. I was -" He pauses abruptly, pursing his lips together. Kinloch Hold is a very touchy subject for him. But Anders wouldn't understand that.

"I do feel guilt. Guilt over how many innocent mages were killed on Meredith's orders. I realized that too late. But you? You answered one wrong with another wrong, and look what it's caused."

"Your duty? You realized too late?" He shakes his head. "You were second-in-command. You thought it fine that so many were ordered killed or made Tranquil up until Meredith turned on Hawke? That was when the realization came?"

Anders takes a slow breath. "I tried to stop a wrong with a wrong. I admit that. I knew the Rite of Annulment was coming. Anyone with half a brain did. I couldn't see any other way to give the mages the slightest chance of running or fighting, and I regret the lives taken that were not Elthina's. You? You're hiding behind excuses. Your job, your duty, Meredith's orders, you were young. Well done. You've answered my question completely - you feel no guilt for your actions as you've chosen to put them on others."

Justice wants to help argue. But Justice's help will be no help, and Anders' stiffness is not merely the disgust he feels for the man before him, the one who will never understand that mages are people. Instead he has to keep the spirit at bay. Already he may be speaking too much. Cullen has an army that the Wardens cannot match; if Cullen swings with the blade he's holding so tightly that will be it and it will be unanswered.

Edited (I will always fail html) 2016-03-07 03:43 (UTC)

"It is because of someone like you that I became that way!" He shouts, exhaling a breath that he didn't realize he was holding.

That wasn't supposed to come out. Not many people know of what happened to him back in Kinloch, and if there was anyone Cullen didn't want to know, it would definitely be Anders. "I was tortured by mages when Kinloch fell. For days. And you blame me for the way I reacted?" A brief pause. "And Kirkwall - all of the anger I felt in Ferelden only amplified when I was under Meredith. Yes, I wanted the mages dead, tried to find anything I could to back up her claims. And yes, I feel guilty for everything I've done. For every mage I've killed whether innocent or to blame."

He takes a step closer. "But you? You feel no guilt, because what do the lives of innocents matter if mages do not have freedom?"

"For days? Oh, you poor thing." And now he's crossing a line, but he's too angry to care. "Compare that to a year for me. A year in the dark, alone, left by your brothers in Kinloch in hopes I would do them a favor and die down there!" And that's something he's only told one person about, something he's held onto for so long.

He doesn't step back when Cullen gets in his space, but neither does he step forward. "You know nothing. About me, about the lives of mages who are regularly tortured for the whole of their lives. Who were held, who were beaten, who were raped, who had no rights and no hopes while the Circles stood. Days of torture are not nothing. But you have lived a life where all around you people were being hurt constantly, and you ignored them."

Ignored them, helped hurt them. He sincerely doubts an angry Cullen refrained from striking out, because he knows well how metal fists and booted feet often struck mages.

"You may well be willfully ignorant enough to have missed what Meredith was doing. You're clearly being willfully ignorant in ignoring everything I've said about guilt and innocents. I'll not repeat it. You're not worth it."

Leliana has been listening - it is what she does, after all. Listens, watches, and she wonders if she has not been listening and watching enough, for this to go unnoticed. Are there those within her ranks that helped keep this secret? Is she simply blind, incapable? Has she endangered the Inquisition by letting such a man dwell within it for months unchecked. Oh, certainly, in the guise of a healer, but what damage might he have been able to wreak? What Templars might have lost their lives to his hatred of them, from an apathy to healing those who he thinks so foul and corrupted and worthy of death?

She remembers Kinloch. She remembers thinking it reprehensible, that not even animals should be kept in such conditions. She remembers seeing Wynne fighting there for her life, for the lives of all the mages, and how willing the Templars had been to lean to the Rite of Annulment, even though it would have cost innocent lives of mages and templars both. Cullen had still been trapped inside the tower, after all, and there were sure to have been others hiding or trapped.

It is when Anders starts to speak about the lifelong suffering of mages that she stands. His anger is justified, yes. She agrees with so much of what he says, all of it, but what he did? To think that death is an answer?

And Cullen is a good man, one who tries, who is doing so much to try and counter his own struggle with mages. He is a faithful man with a good heart who struggles with the past as much as any of them do. She will not see him suffer for striking a man under custody, nor in goading Justice's ire, as she had. Bethany had been there to step between her and Anders, and so now she steps easily between Cullen and Anders - she makes no move to stop the strike immediately, should there be risk of one. Cullen can stop his own fist, unless he needs her to deflect it at the last moment, then she leaves this to his control - his resolve. She believes that he does not need her to stop him.

"Your ire is justified," she says to Anders over her shoulder, still looking at Cullen. "None of the crimes committed against mages are acceptable. To have lived in such conditions is unimaginable, and to know that innocent mages have suffered when there are those of us guilty of so much who walk free is reprehensible." Her hand rests on Cullen's arm, then, just lightly. "But you misjudge Cullen. He is a good man, one who joined the Inquisition because he knew change was necessary, and he was willing to fight for it, for peace for everyone in Thedas. It was not an act sanctioned by his superiors, but one he took because he knew it was right."

She looks to Anders properly, then, and there is something pained in her expression that lingers for a moment before she seals it away, though it is never truly gone. It still burns in her, has burned ever since Marjolaine betrayed her, and she knows well that such suffering cannot compare to a full year of imprisonment. "One groups suffering does not discount the suffering of any others. It does not earn any of us, mage, nor templar, nor any other a right to drown our empathy and our compassion. I saw Kinloch when I travelled with the Hero of Ferelden, and I saw the White Spire, and I believe this Inquisition has a chance to make the world a better place for mages and the faithful, both, for all in Thedas. Independent and in unity, not one above the other."

She really meant to just step in and stop a punch, but she's still a bard and still Leliana - speeches happen. Ask Morrigan, she can verify how annoying it is.

"If we want things to change, truly and permanently, how does comparing our wounds and injuries help us in any way other than to remind us of the wrongs done to us, and allow the wounds to continue to fester?"

Cullen's fist had gone up to strike the mage, and when the Inquisition's Spymaster took it upon herself to step in between two colliding forces, he held himself back. He will not take the risk of possibly hurting her just to make a point to someone who doesn't want to see it. His arm lowers, and he takes a moment to breathe. Actually breathe, deep breaths in and out to calm himself down. He has not been this angry in years.

Still, her words ring true. Anders in justified in his anger, just as much as Cullen is in his. He takes a step back, still full of anger but calm, for now. There is no point in striking a man who has already turned himself in, despite how good it might feel temporarily. "It does not help us to fight." He states finally, looking to Leliana. "Forgive me. I've overreacted."

The raised fist hadn't surprised him. A mage talks back, of course a Templar is going to strike. And then Leliana steps in and forces Anders to realize he'd sold her so very short... and then Cullen lowers his fist. Anders can't bear to think that maybe she's right about Cullen. Not yet. She hasn't been that right about him, after all, so he'll take comfort in the denial he can still hold on to.

Every mage he'd cared about save one had nearly died at Cullen's urging, and then the one he'd cared about most had died where Cullen had authority. It's still something he can't accept yet.

All the same, some of the tension leaves his shoulders. She's the first person who isn't a friend to call his anger justified and it steals away his fury's momentum. Anders studies Leliana's eyes when she looks at him, and while he doesn't know her well enough to read her, he does believe she means what she says. After the study, he looks down. Here he is, with people standing with him for the first time who fully know what he is, and he's letting his hatred get away from him.

"It does not." There's a pause the length of a few breaths before Anders looks back up. His voice is level, calm, Justice receded back to weigh her words and contemplate where true justice lies in all of this. "For as little as it is worth, I do regret, and feel guilt for, the deaths of the innocents I caused." Not Elthina. Not Meredith. Not the templars that died that night. Everyone else, though, and there are so many.

"I've one question of Cullen, if he'll answer it." His gaze shifts from Leliana to the man in question. "Did you have anything to do with the fate of Senior Enchanter Thekla?"

He could ask about his network, on whose orders they'd been slaughtered, too, but they've already established Cullen acted in anger against people. What happened to Karl had been cold. Planned. Alrik had the most to do with it, but there's no way he would have gotten as far as he did without the support of someone in power. And Anders doesn't know if it can be a coincidence that the one mage taken from Kinloch Hold to Kirkwall suffered like that.

"We all struggle with the world." What it is, what it makes of them. Her hand lifts from Cullen's arm, and she draws back from between them, so they can talk. Cullen needs no forgiveness from her, certainly, and Anders temper at least appears to have cooled. They are adults, all of them, and it will not allow progress is she looms and hovers like... well. Like a reprimanding Chantry sister, in some of her experience. (They hadn't liked her very much, either. Too radical.)

Though she was not obviously holding her breath, she just feel the space between her shoulder blades ease when Anders agrees with her, though her posture remains upright.

Rather than immediately pull away, or linger unwelcome, she looks between them both.

"If you would both prefer, I can allow you space to speak more privately on these matters," she starts, careful in her wording - she has no intention of making Anders feel he is being abandoned to some dreadful Templar, nor Cullen feeling unsupported in the face of such an emotional evisceration. It is never easy to face what you have done. "Or I can remain."

Because maybe they will need an intermediary. Life as the Left Hand was unpredictable, though she is not sure this is the sort of adventure she'd ever had in mind when she began life as a bard.

"I'll answer it." He nods to Leliana. She's done more for him in these few moments than she might know - stopping him from being that Templar stereotype he had been so long ago. He shouldn't lash out just because Anders spoke like he did. He would have proved everything Anders had gone on about, proved that in the end, Templars can't do anything but harm and oppress mages. "Stay, please."

Cullen takes a deep breath, settling his anger deep within his chest to physically calm down. Of course Anders had a right to ask that. He knew Senior Enchanter Thekla from records, and from the way the templars had reacted toward him were appalling. "No. I had nothing to do with what happened to him." He pauses, finding the right words. "What happened to him was wrong. Tranquility shouldn't happen to anyone unless under the direst of circumstances. It was used to draw you out and I am sorry it happened."

He flinches at the last. Not the apology, but that the man knew why they'd hurt Karl. That was something he'd told absolutely no one. He hates being vulnerable more than nearly anything, hates how often the Templars had stripped him bare emotionally and broken him down, but in front of him stands someone who knows more than anyone else and he's a bloody Templar.

And Leliana will now likely know in mere hours, and how far will it spread?

Anders crosses his arms without even thinking about it. It had been stupid to ask in front of her, but he'd needed to know. He doesn't even have the comfort of suspecting Cullen is lying, not when the man is saying he's sorry. If he'd been involved he would have said he didn't know. It leaves a bitter taste on his tongue and a tight feeling in his chest, the latter of which is reflected in his voice when he speaks again.

"I..." Maker, he hates all of this, and the hatred and anger are so much safer than whatever this is. They can't hurt him ever again if he gives no more openings. "I ask," and there's some bitterness there, "that the details of that are not repeated. They hold no danger to Skyhold, and therefore are not relevant to anyone else."

For the most part she remains silent, only nodding at Cullen's request and taking a half step back so she is not still posing a physical barrier between them.

She watches and she listens, for that is what Leliana truly excels at, and only speaks softly when Anders voices his request. "So long as I deem that information is not pertinent to some threat, they will not pass me."

That is the best she can do, really, though her tone is not entirely cold. Sometimes things can be a risk in ways that cannot be anticipated. For the present moment, at least, Leliana cannot imagine how that information would be necessary to share. Disliking the man did not warrant cruelty.

He raises an eyebrow at her, straightening, himself turning cold.

"You deem. So this man you call good, this man who commands your troops, you don't trust to make that call? You question his intelligence and his ability to make that choice? The question wasn't for you."

Pertinent. The points she's earned with him are nearly lost, now. This is his. It's the secret he's held closest out of all of them, and it's bad enough Cullen may know the full context of it.

"If you've actually placed faith in him, then I'd think you'd allow him to answer."

"She is allowed to make that call. It is her duty to do so."

Cullen's tone is sharp, defending the Inquisition's Spymaster. It's not often that they defend each other; more often than not they are arguing until they are all blue in the face. But there is something about the Advisors that despite the amount they argue, or if they are angry with one another, they are a tightly-knit bunch that will protect one another just as fiercely they would protect the Inquisition.

"If Leliana needs to know, then I will tell her. But no one outside the three of us will know, and you have my word.

He'd always suspected Cullen was an idiot. At least now he has proof.

"Her duty to question your judgement. Your authority. Well. That does make the whole structure of the advisors' 'council' that much more clear." Cullen's a handpuppet, Leliana moving his limbs. Josephine is the moderator, and Cassandra is... Cassandra. Anders' arms cross in front of himself again defensively, because the world of hurt that could be done to him at the hands of these people has never been so clear and threatening. Killing him would be a mercy compared to what else they could do. And might. He'll have to keep his guard up at every possible moment.

"And you should well know your word has no worth to me. Keep it, and perhaps there will be value the next time you give it. Currently? I trust you as far as I can throw an Ogre."

"Why do I even bother? This is useless."

He tried to be reasonable, tried to be nice with Anders. He tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, allowing himself to be brought here in front of everyone when they could just certainly call for his head on a pike. But again, like a petulant child, Anders continues to throw a fit.

"If anything happens and you step out of line? Don't expect the Wardens to save you. There are plenty here who want you dead."

Nathaniel has been watching this fall apart quietly, but now, he can't stay silent. He approaches, eyes narrow.

"Are you, Commander, threatening to permit such chaos in the ranks that will allow the rabble to murder a man? Or are you saying it would be an organized assault, with you at the helm?"

Edited 2016-04-24 04:14 (UTC)

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( closed ) one track mind, one track heart

this is a horrible decision.

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