lelιana ( adorable нereтιc ) dragon age. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fightingale) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
faderift2016-03-04 01:42 pm
fightingale) wrote in faderift2016-03-04 01:42 pm
(open, kinda) it's not enough to say, it's not what's in your heart
WHO: Leliana & open to friends of Detlef/Anders and those who need to talk to Leliana in the post-Anders aftermath
WHAT: Following Leliana figuring out Detlef's true identity (after he went to the Wardens but before they had a chance to approach the Advisers), Leliana is interrogating those who knew him under either identity. However, if your character has cr with Leliana and would like to speak to her just because, they're also welcome.
WHEN: mumbles vaguely, after this log - somewhat timewimey to allow for flexibility. Mostly the first half of Drakonis, with some flexibility for folks outside of Skyhold for any reason :Db
WHERE: SKYHOLD.
NOTES:
1. by no means do you have to have your character interrogated by leliana if they knew anders/detlef! we can handwave it or come up with something else!
2. information on interrogation and sign ups are here! you don't have to reply to that comment, but it would be really helpful to give me an idea of what information leliana could find connecting your character to anders/detlef, what her scouts might have observed or what gossip there is, and sort of... anything that'll help me blather my way through this. iff you feel so inclined, filling in this form would be super helpful but is not required! :Db
3. if you would like a thread that isn't an interrogation/interview but is instead your character coming to approach leliana to discuss anders fate or even anything not anders related, basically, let's do it! just chuck in a starter or pm me or something
INTERROGATIONS
There are so many parts of Skyhold, so many still under construction and renovation. Leliana has secured such a room for her interrogations. Nothing remarkable, not greatly furnished, or even fully completed. Ivy tumbles through a hole remaining in the old roof that has yet to be patched up, accompanied by stray drips, if an interrogation is taking place during the early morning. Other times, glancing up might reveal a silhouette partly blocking the light that would normally cut down through the hole, the long leg of a spider resting there, sharp black eyes staring down through the hole, or just the occasionally click and chitter of a giant spider's observations.
(Leliana owes Morrigan thanks for more than one helpful contribution during these interrogations, yes. Such is the nature of the offence - even these two have found common ground.)
When one of her interviewees are summoned, they will be escorted to this chamber, or one remarkably similar just nearby, by her scouts. Weapons must be handed over, and then they are free to wait in the stone room, occupied only by a table can chair. The wait is oftentimes an hour at least. Up for four, sometimes, if Leliana is busy with another interrogation, or business that is privy only to the master of spies.
When she does arrive, she waits before the door a long moment, before one of her scouts open it and enters behind her, setting down a chair for her to sit, and waiting just inside the door as a silent presence. Leliana does not sit right away, nor does she speak, instead waiting a long moment before speaking, just to see if her company will speak, first. What they will say, how they will act, allowing herself a moment to watch and to consider.
OOC Note - OPTIONS!
Please pick which one (or combination!) you feel your character would be most likely to respond to, would get them a bit off balance, or that you think would make for an interesting starter. We can pretend that leliana deduced this based on logic and intuition, or her scouts giving her information.
Please note!
Leliana will not be doing anything that could endanger people or cause them harm while they wait for interrogation. She will, however, allow them to be uncomfortable.
For example, if your character has a phobia of spiders, she’d ask Morrigan to not be skittering around over the hole in the roof, and would probably not go for the webbing option. However, if your character just doesn’t like spiders? Totally on the cards. Similarly, if your character has delicate health she isn’t likely to make them sit in the cold, etc.)
1. unbalanced.
One of the legs of their chair is just a bit shorter than the others, so it’s impossible for them to get comfortable or sit for any period of time, without wobbling.
2. sticky situation.
The entire table and their seat is spread with a very fine layer of spider webbing, too thin to see, but enough to just be… kind of sticky and weird oh god why is it sticky???
3. uncomfortable.
The room is either weirdly cool or weirdly warm. Not to a level that would harm health, but just enough to have them sitting there, uncomfortably.
4. fiddling.
Quill, ink, parchment + a long wait. What are they going to do?
WILDCARD.
For other conversations, Leliana can be found mostly in the Rookery. Almost always in the Rookery, in fact, though there may be rare occasions when she is walking the ramparts or wandering in the garden to clear her head, usually very late at night or obscenely early in the morning.
Hit me with your best shot.
WHAT: Following Leliana figuring out Detlef's true identity (after he went to the Wardens but before they had a chance to approach the Advisers), Leliana is interrogating those who knew him under either identity. However, if your character has cr with Leliana and would like to speak to her just because, they're also welcome.
WHEN: mumbles vaguely, after this log - somewhat timewimey to allow for flexibility. Mostly the first half of Drakonis, with some flexibility for folks outside of Skyhold for any reason :Db
WHERE: SKYHOLD.
NOTES:
1. by no means do you have to have your character interrogated by leliana if they knew anders/detlef! we can handwave it or come up with something else!
2. information on interrogation and sign ups are here! you don't have to reply to that comment, but it would be really helpful to give me an idea of what information leliana could find connecting your character to anders/detlef, what her scouts might have observed or what gossip there is, and sort of... anything that'll help me blather my way through this. iff you feel so inclined, filling in this form would be super helpful but is not required! :Db
3. if you would like a thread that isn't an interrogation/interview but is instead your character coming to approach leliana to discuss anders fate or even anything not anders related, basically, let's do it! just chuck in a starter or pm me or something
INTERROGATIONS
There are so many parts of Skyhold, so many still under construction and renovation. Leliana has secured such a room for her interrogations. Nothing remarkable, not greatly furnished, or even fully completed. Ivy tumbles through a hole remaining in the old roof that has yet to be patched up, accompanied by stray drips, if an interrogation is taking place during the early morning. Other times, glancing up might reveal a silhouette partly blocking the light that would normally cut down through the hole, the long leg of a spider resting there, sharp black eyes staring down through the hole, or just the occasionally click and chitter of a giant spider's observations.
(Leliana owes Morrigan thanks for more than one helpful contribution during these interrogations, yes. Such is the nature of the offence - even these two have found common ground.)
When one of her interviewees are summoned, they will be escorted to this chamber, or one remarkably similar just nearby, by her scouts. Weapons must be handed over, and then they are free to wait in the stone room, occupied only by a table can chair. The wait is oftentimes an hour at least. Up for four, sometimes, if Leliana is busy with another interrogation, or business that is privy only to the master of spies.
When she does arrive, she waits before the door a long moment, before one of her scouts open it and enters behind her, setting down a chair for her to sit, and waiting just inside the door as a silent presence. Leliana does not sit right away, nor does she speak, instead waiting a long moment before speaking, just to see if her company will speak, first. What they will say, how they will act, allowing herself a moment to watch and to consider.
OOC Note - OPTIONS!
Please pick which one (or combination!) you feel your character would be most likely to respond to, would get them a bit off balance, or that you think would make for an interesting starter. We can pretend that leliana deduced this based on logic and intuition, or her scouts giving her information.
Please note!
Leliana will not be doing anything that could endanger people or cause them harm while they wait for interrogation. She will, however, allow them to be uncomfortable.
For example, if your character has a phobia of spiders, she’d ask Morrigan to not be skittering around over the hole in the roof, and would probably not go for the webbing option. However, if your character just doesn’t like spiders? Totally on the cards. Similarly, if your character has delicate health she isn’t likely to make them sit in the cold, etc.)
1. unbalanced.
One of the legs of their chair is just a bit shorter than the others, so it’s impossible for them to get comfortable or sit for any period of time, without wobbling.
2. sticky situation.
The entire table and their seat is spread with a very fine layer of spider webbing, too thin to see, but enough to just be… kind of sticky and weird oh god why is it sticky???
3. uncomfortable.
The room is either weirdly cool or weirdly warm. Not to a level that would harm health, but just enough to have them sitting there, uncomfortably.
4. fiddling.
Quill, ink, parchment + a long wait. What are they going to do?
WILDCARD.
For other conversations, Leliana can be found mostly in the Rookery. Almost always in the Rookery, in fact, though there may be rare occasions when she is walking the ramparts or wandering in the garden to clear her head, usually very late at night or obscenely early in the morning.
Hit me with your best shot.
no subject
The wardens are not to be lightly dismissed, nor their sacrifices forgotten.
"They were not there. They do not support what he has done, but the Wardens take in those who wish to atone, and they carry out the sentence ordered by the Champion of Kirkwall herself. He is to be spared, and he is to atone."
no subject
It's snapped out before she can stop it, and Maria bites her tongue after. That table that had been the target of her ire gets a little more, being hit by a fist before she closes her eyes and uses the abused wood to steady herself. Champions, wardens. It didn't matter to her. Nor did infiltrating templars. Nothing could excuse his actions. Nothing could atone. Not for so many innocent.
But it wasn't her choice to make.
"You must...a martyr he should never be. But it sets a dangerous precedent. There are too many that want their own version of justice. Mages and Templars. Will the Wardens take them all?"
no subject
It is, perhaps, more than she has spoken all at once for the past few days, and Leliana exhales slowly.
"The Wardens take him only because he was already theirs." It galls her, but her hands are tied. It is not as though she can deploy a scout and see his throat cut; there are only so many capable of infiltrating the close guard kept on him by the Wardens, and all eyes would turn to her eventually. Spymaster and Bard she may be, but she cannot break her word when it has already been given, and she has sworn herself not to let his death be anything glorious or sympathetic. He will die alone, miserable and rotting, if she has anything to do with it.
"Believe me, he stands as the exception and not the rule. He breathes only to honour the independence of the Wardens and the verdict that Marian Hawke was lawfully granted control over, not because the Inquisition does not wish to mete out justice."
But the cost of any lives he took would weigh on her. Cassandra had been against his survival, and Leliana is still not convinced within herself that Cassandra was not right, no matter what anyone else might have to say. What right had he, to declare the lives of some innocents more disposable than others? And by the same turn, how could they have left those mages to die? What right to life did a Grand Cleric have over a terrified, abuse mage simply for her rank and her belief in the Maker? She cannot breathe without the back and forth pressing at her.
no subject
Without requesting permission she sat heavily in a chair at her newly claimed table. Using any motion to burn off some of her radiating anger, doing whatever she could not to lash out unforgivably at the woman she was sworn to. She understood, even as she wanted to scream. Not because the Inquisition does not wish. It was out of Leliana's hands.
But that didn't make it chafe less.
"And what..." Another breath. "May I ask what he now preaches? To the many mages crying for blood in our ranks?"
no subject
"He insists that he acted only in justice, and does not see the hypocrisy stitched into his words." Leliana wonders if the same could be said of her. She speaks of what is required, of what must be done, and yet no action is without cost. She has learned that many times over, and her conscience bears each strike. Even mercy has a cost. "He howls that mages are treated unfairly, but cannot see that there is good within those who serve the Maker, and all that the Chantry should stand for."
Should. Not does. She remembers the Circle she saw in the Fifth Blight. She would not have seen animals treated in such a way. She remembers the templars so willing to abandon the mages and sentence them to death. She also knows there are those who genuinely stand to protect both mages and Thedas, who believe theirs is a sacred duty and not a means to abuse freely, but that does not change that families are broken apart in order to ensure that protection, and it does not change the abuses of power that have already taken place.
A breath. "I am in the midst of interrogations to determine how many concealed his identity, and how much influence and sway he might have gathered. If anything has been set in motion."
no subject
So. The problem at hand. How many concealed his identity. Other than the Wardens themselves, how many mages had gathered around the man that struck the first blow of the war? And how had no one reported it to the Inquisition's spymaster. That last part was the most unsettling of all. Revolution could be sorted, justice handed out. But a blind Inquisition was of use to no one.
"Do you believe any of ours knew? Without reporting it."
no subject
And how long might that take? Her voice is flat, quiet, and she walks to the window, looking out of it as she watches for ravens, a though the Frostbacks might offer her some enlightenment.
"Zevran concealed it," she starts. Not one of theirs in the strictest sense, but an independent contractor, someone she had trusted implicitly. One of the only people she trusted so, in fact, a brother to her, most beloved and most cherished. "Isabela. A good many others of the Champion's acquaintance, though she is most closely connected to our work."
She is very quiet, because quiet she can allow herself, but anything more raw, more exposed? No. Not even with Maria. What she will say, what troubles her more than anything else, has gnawed at her, is this.
"What does it say, when those who would stand with us or turn to us for aid, so easily turn a knife against us?"
no subject
As simple and as difficult as that. For all the good the Inquisition had done, it was still a new and unknown power, lead not by a single figurehead but split among many. For all her current aggravation at the Wardens, in truth they were little better than that group when it came to strange abilities and goals they asked to simply be trusted with. It bred mixed results.
"And it's time to recruit more agents of your own within, rather than just for, the Inquisition."
no subject
"They join us in a common cause, but do not trust us." Shaking her head, Leliana also flexes her hand (once, and a second time), to resist the urge to rub her hand across her mouth and her jaw. Not here, not now. She can be tired later. "It hardly seems consistent, does it?"
That earns a sharp look, curious and cautious. "I had considered bringing more into the fold. There have been a few who I believe show promise - rifters among them, but we must ensure their loyalty to the cause." To me, she wants to say, but she and the cause must be one. After a long moment of deliberation, Leliana speaks.
"I cannot but wonder if the fault lies within me. If the Inquisition had trusted me better if this secret might have been avoided... but such a thought is foolish. Spymasters are not made to win love."
That was not what earned her this post. She was the Spymaster because she achieved what none other could, because she was building a network greater than anything previously seen within Thedas. Alistair was wrong. So many of them were wrong, blinkered by their triviality. "Our only option may be to scrutinise within Skyhold, as well as beyond it."
It does not sit well with her, but it may be the only way. She has her scouts and her ears, but she had not thought to employ them so thoroughly here. Dissatisfied with the idea, she adds, "It would hardly breed an atmosphere of trust and unity."
no subject
Maria looked up at Leliana at last, her grim expression reflecting exactly how distasteful current situation was. Rock and a hard place came to mind. The world would know Anders was here, there was no avoiding that leak with the number of merchants that came and went and the habit of soldiers to gossip.
Far worse, the whole thing was turning too close to what had happened to the Templars for her taste. Declaring to the world they were devoted and just, while rotting from within due to neglect. It couldn't happen again. Preventing any future surprises through better information was all they could do now.
"I'd rather risk knowing too much than not enough. If we do it right, there's no need for the majority of the Inquisition to know anything's changed at all. But we can't ask anyone to trust the Inquisition, let alone you personally, if the advisers can't prove capable of providing stability and order."
no subject
That is the unhappy truth. What others might there be here? People prepared to commit mass murder for their cause, no matter how worthy it proves, could surely not be trusted. After Halamshiral, especially, the elves had as good a cause as any for action, and yet they had not seen to attack the Winter Palace (not yet, not so far as she knows.) Leliana exhales, slow and measured, and faces Maria properly, rather than lingering half-turned towards the window.
"We have our work cut out for us, then, if this is the path we are to take."
She thinks, a moment, weighing up her next words. "Are there any you would trust within the Templar ranks?"
no subject
It isn't a happy confession, but it is what it is. The Templars were still as much an unpleasant mess here as they had been before joining with the Inquisition. They simply had new distractions and marching orders to keep them from thinking too much about it. Still, she could gather information from them without them knowing what for. It was something, at least.
"If there's anyone you want tested, of any affiliation, I'm at your command."
no subject
Her mind is reaching through possibilities rapidly, lining them up for consideration, though there are some she would sooner tear down as soon as her thoughts touch upon them. The Inquisition cannot become a cage, a place where people are too afraid to breathe or move or speak, where they are trapped and under observation. The Inquisition must be a beacon for hope and for freedom, and it would be a foul thing if it contradicted itself at its core. Then again, is that not what she has always been? The hand that struck to do the Divine's will, when that will could not be done so publicly or gloriously, when more diplomatic channels would not work. Is this not what she is, inherently? A monster in the dark, to ensure that those in the light remain safe and free.
It does not seem right. It does not seem--
She cannot think on this, just yet. This will require more reflection. What she does know is that it cannot be ruled out quickly or carelessly.
"Some. Some have expressed interests in becoming scouts, others I feel have potential to give us reach into other groups. I think our best chance would be subtle tests. Assess their actions and their awareness, without their knowing. Then we can better gauge the truth of them."
no subject
People reporting to Leliana may not be likely, but seeing who could keep a secret or discover the truth behind a particularly interesting piece of falsehood could help. Or maybe Maria was just desperately looking for a real task to perform at the gathering, rather than simply socializing all night.
no subject
"The ball," Leliana amends, and though she isn't smiling yet, the brief reprieve of amusement is a welcome one. "It would also, conceivably, be a fine opportunity for you to relax and take an evening from your duties."
But they both know that's a lie, because there is never a moment of rest in the Game, and that is exactly what this ball will be. Relaxing is a luxury.
"The work would have to be subtle," she adds, rather dryly. "You may be required to dance."
no subject
It's meant as a polite no. No, she will not be floating around the dance floor with whatever noble was having fun slumming it with the locals. She was fine on the sidelines, testing the recruits.
no subject
Leliana relents easily enough, for the time being, as essential as dancing is to going unseen in a ball. She is a bard and Maria is a templar, and people hold them to different standards, although (Still, the information is filed away for later consideration.)
Another matter is whether she should consult with Vivienne before turning her ball into a subtle training ground for her potential spies, but that seems rather the opposite of the point, doesn't it? Back to the test:
"Perhaps a coded message. A series of them."
no subject
"Ones that'd be of clear interest to the advisers of the Inquisition."
no subject
"We should confer with Harding," Leliana says, by way of agreement. "I think we may have our work cut out for us."