[Open] Tell me would you kill to save a life?

[justice_is_blond]

WHO: Anders and, at last, fully open!
WHAT: Anders is back in Skyhold after the revelation and Warden mission
WHEN: Around mid-Drakonis
WHERE: around Skyhold
NOTES: It's Anders. Beyond that, if someone does swing for him, he will be defending himself or we can have a handy-dandy Warden NPC Joeth Smithicus step in, up to you!

1. The Healing Tents

He's more quiet than he was before as he works, trying to stay out of the way while still being available. The atmosphere isn't a pleasant one, and he knows there's a lot of anger, but how is he going to help out if he's sitting in the Warden camp all the time? Even more, how is he going to keep Justice in check if their hands are figuratively tied?

The fact of the matter is that staying somewhere safe where people don't loathe him isn't an option so he's here. He only wishes it wasn't putting a weight on the shoulders of someone he's directly hurt.

Whenever someone comes in he looks over, focusing on the fact that it's all right however many times he hears no as the answer to his question - "Can I help you?"

2. Wardentown

It's not the most glamorous setting, but the life of a Grey Warden rarely is. There had been nights at Vigil's Keep... but those are long gone, and now it's tents and fire pit and keeping snow from piling up.

a) Magic-

Anders is currently kneeling near the tent that he shares with Nate, working on creating a pair of small walls of earth - one around the tent, and another small, circular one nearby. Earth isn't something he struggles with, but keeping them level and not causing any extra dips in the surrounding ground is a challenge. His lips are pressed together as he works on precision, and an approach gets a sharp glance and no words, but he's not annoyed someone's come over. A moment later he'll raise an eyebrow, but he's not starting this conversation.

b) Kitten

No matter how many times he has to keep drying her off and warming her up, Hero of Purrelden doesn't want to stay in his lap today. She's insisting on pouncing on snowbanks, batting at ice, and attempting to climb tents. The latter she's pulled away from each time while protesting loudly, but there's a little smile on his face as she misbehaves. It's nice to have a cat again, no matter how much more difficult than Ser Pounce-a-lot she is.

"Still better than a mabari," he'll say to anyone who comes close.

c) Foraging

He's not alone, which sometimes puts him on edge, and sometimes makes him feel a little safer. All the same, Anders is in the area outside the Warden camp with another Warden, looking to see what foodstuffs can be found to add to the pot. They're not in danger of going hungry but it's best to be prepared and know what's growing out here. There's no telling how long the Wardens will be near Skyhold, after all.

There's also no telling who he'll run across out here, and he's more on edge and defensive due to the fact that he doesn't know how someone might react if they come across him when not anticipating that he might be around.

"Watch the snow back that way," is what he says, though, tilting his head in the direction he's come. "There's some hiding a nasty drop. I've marked it with stones." Let them react to that how they will.

3. Wildcard me!

[[ooc: Come at me bros! Skyhold, Warden camp, whatever. If you've got a question about a scenario, feel free to private plurk me @ Nadat or PM this journal.]]

Comments

[justice_is_blond]

There's a little bit of amusement on his lips when she comes in.

"So Little Shit is better than it. Noted." He does look rather well-cared-for, but he still isn't exactly sure why someone would pick a fox to have around. No matter. People have all sorts of pets, some of them entirely useless like nugs.

"And I'll take the bird comment as a compliment." Even if it doesn't make much sense... unless she knows who he is and has heard stories of his old pauldrons. Now that his identity is out, he should really get some again. It's been too long. "Does Sina feed him? Is that what he's looking for?"

[foxsays]

"His name is Lux. Detlef. Or Anders. Or we could go through the list of things I've heard you called in the tavern and my own bedroom of late, Korrin's very creative when it comes to that." Surely Korrin cannot be so easily forgotten, towering over most men because magic might be magic, but when you've got the longer reach and the strength to go with it, certain things die away. She says it lightly, with a teasing smirk on her face as she shrugs, hoisting the fox up higher so he can rest his head on her shoulder. "He has a name, and he is a he."

No one has told her if abominations slip into another category entirely. Also nugs are cute, she likes going up to the rookery to see if she can pet Leliana's.

"You should know that he nearly gobbled up a whole flock of chickens when someone didn't secure a latch tightly enough on her arrival, lucky that I'm fast, eh?" Varric mentioned the pauldrons in the Tale of the Champion, what with everyone going on about it and the author present? It made sense to read it. And now it makes even more sense. Or rather: if she remembers what Bruce told her then it makes sense. Except the magic bits but well, she's got magic in her hand now so that kind of trumps everything else. "Sina is ever in the gardens, usually planting something or giving out herbs when-- when she's well. He assumes every pretty girl is going to feed him if he looks particularly sad and she's always been so very sweet to him, he probably got hopeful. Are you disappointed Lux?"

A huff. So yes, yes he is. There should always be food.

"I assume the cat was doing the same? Better that than it be hunting rats in a healer's tent, that would be a bad omen."

[justice_is_blond]

"Mm, Korrin. I saved her life once." He can read between the lines and he... doesn't care. If Korrin's pissed, she knows where to find him. Or not. Whatever's said behind his back doesn't matter, especially when there are so many people venting their own futile frustrations out like that. They wouldn't have stood with the Kirkwall mages, they wouldn't have cared, so he doesn't give a damn about what they think.

"And I'm pretty, but I'm not quite sure I'm as pretty as Sina. My apologies for not being Sina, Lux." Anders lets Purrelden back down, and she chooses to start exploring the counter he's been working on. "Purrelden, the Hero of Purrelden if we're to be precise, generally climbs on a friend of mine when she's hungry. I feed her, but he protests loudly when she sits on him so clearly he's her preferred target."

And now she's batting at a discarded, useless stem, entirely entertained. It gives him the opportunity to grab a pouch he's got sitting to the side and pull out a small strip of dried meat, half-offering it with a raised eyebrow to make sure it's safe for the fox. It should be. It's from the kitchens, and he knows foxes eat nearly anything that's meat, but it's also the call of his owner. "And I've not gotten your name yet."

[foxsays]

"Is that how it works in Thedas?" It's a genuine question, even if it might sound naive to the ear; there's much that is strange to someone who comes from such a different world, and he's perhaps the most qualified to answer it. "We don't have Champions where I come from who can make a decision that a thing such as this - and that is another thing that we do not have - obey it. There are no knights, no Grey Wardens, no mages or templars, no elves or dwarves or peoples with various relations to the Qun. There has been no war in living memory." Is this how atonement goes? Like balancing the books at the month end, the quarter end, the year end? She never thought that to have had peace for as long as anyone can physically remember could ever be considered a luxury.

It isn't as if she hadn't killed people before she came here. She had when it was her life on the line, when a duel got ugly, the rare times when another thief decided to take out the competition, or when there was a threat to the safety of Castileos in the last year. The last one is harder, individuals against the bigger picture but the stories of the war with Zimevur were enough when the country still recovers and the refugees come creeping from ships they can't pay the passage on. But there hasn't been anything on this scale for so long, maybe because there's no magic, no people locked up just for being what they are.

The name gets a snort out of her at the very least. "I am sure he must be honoured. To have a she named after him, when I believe he was a dog lord? Cats have needles for nails, I can't say I blame your friend."

Lux will eat anything from oysters to dead seagulls left rotting in the sun for a week if he can slip off before Araceli can catch him, but he's very gentle when he takes the food, never snapping. She taught him manners, of course. "Araceli Bonaventura."

Well there's a bit more but given how fast she rattles it off, no one ever catches the latter half anyway so there's no real point in giving it.

[justice_is_blond]

"When someone recognized as an appointed judge gives a verdict, yes. Especially when an organization needs to be seen as having its own legitimacy. Hawke, the Champion, was given charge of my fate by the highest authority in the city, and the sentence was to serve as best I could. I... hadn't expected that to come up, however." The abrupt changes in topic are a little difficult to keep up with, but maybe it relates to her spending time with a fox. They're supposed to be flighty sorts, dashing this way and that. Like companion, like owner.

"And we've had so many wars. We've had so many slaughters, as well, in living memory. Mages and elves primarily, but there's been others. There's a great deal of chaos, which means justice and abiding by agreements are all the more important. The ally you backed yesterday may well come to your aid tomorrow." And Starkhaven may come to the door before long. It's a mess, a huge one, and yet he's still selfishly glad he's drawing breath. Anders hadn't wanted to die. He'd been resigned to it, but he hadn't desired it.

"Jonas, definitely Fereldan, certainly obsessed with mabari, was also my friend. And he gave me my very first cat. Is. Is also my friend." That no one's heard from him in so long does not bode well, but Anders wants to still hope despite how hard it is. A Grey Warden, exposed to an Archdemon, at a time when Corypheus was running about with what might be another? When Jonas had always been in the heat of what was going on? It doesn't bode well at all, and there's a dull ache in his heart when he thinks about it. Likely another friend lost. The name's not on the list yet, but it's close. "When he hears her name and meets her, he'll laugh."

He feeds the fox with care, watching in case it tries nipping. It doesn't, and Anders is surprised. Trained. Very trained. He hadn't thought that possible with foxes... but then again most people don't think it's possible with cats. Pounce was a model of what cats could be and do. Purrelden wasn't. Yet. They were working on it.

Her name gets a nod of acknowledgement. He's heard the name before with the rescue, but it hadn't stuck. The travel there had been tense, the fights difficult, and the way back he'd been absolutely exhausted. "Did something in particular bring you down to the healing tents tonight?"

[foxsays]

"There would have been two choices: execution, had what you done been deemed severe enough or you would have been taken before the courts, to be sentenced accordingly. Castileos likes due process, we don't believe in execution in most cases, or in things like some of our neighbours do - Zimevur likes to take hands and eyes and feet, to bind someone's eyes and hands then send them out to wander the sands until the die. But we have no religion, not as such, it is the sea for my people and the moon, in other countries it is the forest, or the sands and the sun, souls that can be split in two; none of what you have. You must understand, that footing for some of us is almost as precarious as it is for you, that we are seen as dangerous by some, that we were suspected as demons upon arrival, the first of us." And the vehemence by which she says that can leave no doubt that she was one of the ones to hear that personally, and that she has had that laid against her personally too, more out of misguided fear than malice but it's easy for one to turn to the other, she's merely fortunate she's steered that one down the path of friendship easily.

All she wishes is to gain a true measure of a person. She had no chance with whoever Detlef was and yet that has left a fingerprint because that's how life; there are impressions that were left from rescuing Zevran, things muted from the horror she witnessed, things she tries not to remember, and Anders had already been spoken of before to her whenever people had explained everything leading up to the war and the conclave.

There's a lot to take in, a lot to understand. She has no desire to be the one that stands out and causes any sort of problem.

"Look, when an angry Vasthoh mage - even one you adore and share a bed with - comes in shouting, you don't really get a chance to ask all the fine details you might like to ask about." Plus her head had been too full anyway. Interrogations, Galadriel doing what she had done to her that had left her cold and frightened for too long afterwards, bard lessons stuffing her head full of songs, heraldry, history. "I did wonder though, if Hands considered to be of the Divine are less than those of a Champions, or if there is someone else they are appeasing, but then I wonder how you can all fit in so small a space and not go mad honestly."

No, honestly, drawing all the islands of Castileos would take up more space than a good chunk of occupied Thedas, as near as she can reckon, and then there are many more countries to consider, and all the little outlying islands considered to be their own little sovereign states, never claimed by humans but for fleeting moments to rest on voyages.

"And still, the ally you backed yesterday might well come to your aid tomorrow morning, decide to have lunch with your mutual enemy and betray one or both of you by dinner," she does smile though, to lesson it, slipping a hand in her pocket to lift her cards just enough. "War and taxes are my favourite games. Far more cutthroat that Wicked Grace."

Sometimes it's hard to remember life when she didn't have Lux, when he wasn't able to keep up with her. The little stowaway her father brought back because he reminded her of his only daughter, someone to keep her out of trouble (but he'd winked, her mother had sighed and rolled her eyes, had said Lux would make a fine pair of gloves one day, a fine scarf, as if she hadn't spoiled him too.) A year in a palace had strangely knocked some of the manners out of him; everyone likes to indulge him, and a thief needs someone who'll listen, bark, lead guards off, fight. Someone a little less fat than he'd been upon arrival. "She smells better than the dogs, there's that I suppose, one of the soldiers offered the...kad--kadash? No, the paint? The dog paint? Whatever that's called, he offered it for Lux, I almost slapped him, I don't want him to stink, it took a week to get the smell of the Mire out of him and he stayed in the tent at the camp or with the scouts to keep their morale up."

With a shrug, she lets Lux down so he can wind himself between her legs before sitting between them, batting at one with a paw until she bends to scratch his ear. "Would you believe me if I said curiousity? When a name other than mine is brought up so often in the room where I sleep, then I think I have a right to come find them."

[justice_is_blond]

He blinks, trying to follow all of that. Araceli's problem isn't him if Korrin's that obsessed. It's that Korrin is that obsessed with one take on one action by a person she's not bothered to meet. It's that Korrin doesn't care to learn more or understand about shades of grey, and that's deadly in a relationship.

But he's not going to say that. He's not entirely stupid.

"She sounds obsessed. Maybe you should try distracting her." He allows himself a moment of amusement before he moves on to far more important topics.

"Religion has done a great many a disservice, here. We'd be better off without it, or better off it it wasn't used to oppress whole groups of people. I'm assuming by 'us' you mean Rifters, and I'm glad there was enough chaos they couldn't fixate on you as a new group to pin all that is wrong with systems in Thedas upon. It could still change. You could still join the mages and the elves, but there are enough of us here that hopefully we can keep that from happening."

He shakes his head. "Too many in charge don't see that a great many of the problems stem from systemic oppression. They believe that the harm is from those groups they hold down, while instead if they accepted, if they sought equality, there'd be such a strong foundation to build on for the future. We'd already have the forces enough to face Corypheus if not for hate-based divisions."

The kitten comes to the edge of the table and peers down at the fox. Anders starts petting her, letting her bump her chin and forehead against his hand.

"If you've questions, you can ask them. And if you'd like an ointment for the back of Lux's neck that keeps off pests and smells rather pleasant, you can have that too."

[foxsays]

"You were not here at first, when the Mage Council formed. The day we rifters came through the gate was the day they found the Herald's body, and at the wake - or whatever it is that your people do in your grief for it was not mine to intrude upon - there was unpleasantness between Mages and Templars. You cannot think that there are not those who will use simply your name, your presence, that you went as another until whatever lead to the advisors making their announcement against like a lash against them. Against any mage that they think goes too far. I don't know what it is to be a mage but believe me, I know what it is to have my very life hurled at me to hurt. They have worked so hard to make this council work. I have seen that. They are trying to make something new for the future and there are so many voices that howled already for things to go back to the way they were." For a moment she stops, taking a breath as she remembers Korrin's descriptions of life for a mage (for a saarebas, not even a name, not even a person, a thing, a dangerous thing, she was told what the word meant) under the Qun, and that it is worse even than Circles. "Perhaps try to remember that."

If it were as simple as distracting her, she could do that but Araceli wants the Mage Council to work so badly too because she recognises fire when she sees it, the same fire that drives a queen longing for better for all her subjects, for fairness and equality without bloodshed, without hurting those who can ill-afford it.

The war in Thedas has hurt so many, even now she can't shake the memory of the Red Templars from her head, of their prisoners in their tattered rags huddled and begging, fingers clutching the frozen bars of their cages as she picked the locks, trying to ignore Korrin fighting howling monsters

"It does bring comfort, I wouldn't take that from people but that one of the absent Templar Knight-Commanders saw fit to suspect us of being demons, or perhaps abominations too, something that has never officially been corrected by anyone of similar authority. But I do not think it is ever the place of a human to try to speak for an elf, they should always be allowed to speak for themselves, their lot is worse than that of many others. Confined to alienages, slavery in Tevinter or always on the move in their clans? The insults I heard about them were worse than anything I heard a single other person called at the soiree, believe me." Insults that sometimes cut so close to what she had been called in the past, by men of a certain station, believing certain things about young women of a certain sort of parentage and of what they would call low birth. It isn't something men would understand, not unless they're elven men, but she wouldn't need to say such things to Zevran; he knows already, or he would guess if he had glimpsed her at the party, in the way Martel had moved when a nobleman had tried to catch her alone, a moment's work to close off their conversation.

Here she's human, so she won't say she understands when she can't exactly but there are a few places where she has similar experiences in a particular sort of shared discomfort, of the world not wanting her to rise beyond her supposed station. But she smiles as Lux hops up, paws just touching the table to keep his balance, perfectly still except for his ears. She croons a quiet word or two at him (to be good, her little thief, to be patient, to remember that little things have sharp teeth and claws, just like he did) so he holds still, tail wagging. "He thinks himself king of the fennecs," she confides, as if she is letting slip some grave secret, because it's true, he stands in the snows, or or atop small boulders, lording it over his small brown and tan cousins in his strange colouring, the bright orange bursting through his winter black and grey in thicker bursts now. "I might take you up on that when I next travel. I feed him garlic in Skyhold and when I can sneak it out of the kitchens but the head cook is a harridan and I can't always rely on that when we travel elsewhere."

[justice_is_blond]

"And you cannot think that being a mage wasn't used as a lash before, that those who feared and hated us didn't already have means and insults and doubts and fears they considered entirely justified. I am a new one, yes, I am the most recent mage to pin fear and anger on, yes. But it changes nothing. The people of this world who have lived under the Chanty have been taught that mages are to be feared, even by themselves, that elves are lesser beings, and that anything unknown is likely demonic and should be seen as a threat."

He's had elves take issue with him not specifically mentioning elves before, so he doesn't pay heed to her take on him mentioning them. Their opinion matters on that, as hers does on rifters. Especially when she clearly doesn't know of Circles. Smaller than alienages. Slaughtered just as often. He'll grant that there are more insults directed at elves, certainly... but the populace had more exposure to elves. If the fear and injustice imbalance does not change, mages will have more insults, he's certain. And mages have oft been cornered and abused. It's nothing unique to the poor or the elves. He's lucky that it never happened to him and is fully aware of it, as he'd told the Warden-Commander years ago.

"Equality and a lack of fear will take unity between the oppressed groups. If all stand together, we've a better chance for all. If there is division, then perhaps one group will gain better standing, but the others will suffer yet again. Or, in the case of the Rifters, newly. There's no call for oppression, and there's no call for someone's birth determining whether they should be caged or not. And it will take standing. Being loud. Working on it. Something that you possibly do not know, that most do not care to know, is that I worked for seven years in Kirkwall, exhausting every possible peaceful means to stop the upcoming, inevitable slaughter of mages. There would not be this anger if I had stopped then and the entire Circle wiped out as many have been before, as one has been since. It was just mages. Perhaps try to remember that. I did cross a line. I accepted that, as I accepted death as my punishment, but I was spared and given the charge to help, and that's what I'm working on doing. People will use me against anyone they can, but they would have found something else if they did not have me. Tevinter, for instance, and its prevalent blood magic, have been a constant specter to inspire fear in many."

Power is gained by use of fear, by creating groups that are lesser and can be looked down on and protected from. From puberty he has been a part of one of those groups. From puberty he has been a thing, an object, something to keep down. Now he's a different thing, an object of fear and disdain, and he refuses to settle for it, refuses to bow and accept that he is just that. He's not. And anyone who can only see one person as one thing is wrong.

A far softer topic is his cat. He watches her as she watches the fox, ready to pull her away if she gets aggressive or if Lux does. She's smaller. Younger. She's also definitely not used to fighting. Ants are easy.

"She thinks herself queen of all she surveys. They'd make a great team in their confidence and arrogance, so long as she doesn't stumble upon any crickets." Purrelden sniffs at a fox paw before raising a paw as if to bat at his. Anders intercepts her, gently taking hold of hers and lowering it to the table. "Easy, little one. He's no Darkspawn." And then, to Araceli: "The head cook can be... touchy, most definitely. But part of that is the fact that her joints ache. I get the meat Purrelden eats because I can ease them with magic. If you'd like an ointment you could trade..."

Pets are important. Justice thinks them little better than slavery and wastes of time, but Anders has always disagreed on that. It was a cat that saved his sanity and life when he was imprisoned for a year, alone, in a dark cell. It was a cat that was his very first gift, his very first sign that he had his own life and was a person. And it is a cat now that helps him remember what it is to be human. He owes a great deal to Mr. Wiggums, Ser Pounce-a-lot, and now the Hero of Purrelden.