(open-ish) out of the slumbers of my head

[fightingale]

WHO: Leliana & open-ish - see notes
WHAT: FREEDOM. talks about freedom/the Chantry/wherever it takes us.
WHEN: throughout late-late-late Drakonis and early/mid Cloudreach, can be after hearing some rumours.
WHERE: Default setting will be the Rookery, others possible on request.
NOTES:
1. Likely referral to imprisonment and torture in narrative, others to be added if they come up.
2. It's not exactly open-open because I'd like to be able to keep the different threads unique and avoid burn out on the topic, but if you are interested then just shoot me a pm or talk to me on plurk and we can figure it out!
tldr I am flexible with who/when/where and such, but hammering out some info first would be greatly appreciated.
3. Prose or brackets are totally fine, I'll match style :]b

Too long has she stayed her hand. First it was her ignorance that silenced her, and then it was loyalty, the belief that Justinia wished to make the world better, stronger. A more just world, where all would benefit rather than a rare few. As time has passed, though, and as the Inquisition grows, Leliana has realised more and more that Justinia's peace and her vision for the Chantry were not enough. For all that Justinia had once been a worldly woman she had not fought in the Blight, had not fought side by side with mage and elf alike. She had moved as a player of the Grand Game must, small moves, small changes, and stability had always been her first thought. It was Justinia who had threatened to deny aid to Celene in the settling of mage and Templar if Celene did not cease the elf rebellion simmering in Orlais before the burning of Halamshiral. Justinia was a good woman, a good friend and teacher and mother, and she had great vision. Even so she had been blinkered by the prejudices that ran rife throughout Thedas, the small mindedness that seemed to define each country in different ways. No one should be enslaved or punished simply for being; no one's personhood should be compromised by the simple facts and circumstances of their birth.

Most often she is in the Rookery and must be sort out between scouts and ravens bringing reports, or meetings with the other Advisors. The tower is cold, and candles flicker from a shrine to Andraste and make shadows dance. (And, if visitors come late in Drakonis and early in Cloudreach, they may find evidence of Dorian's prank, for which there will be dire consequences.)

Comments

remember that time you said 'carnage of a tag' well i present this to you now

[arcaneadvisor]

"Ten years is a long time." She did not have the luxury of being allowed to actually experience the world because it was not allowed, and though she is still quite frankly appalled by what she finds, by the way the world is restricted, carved up, made smaller, stripped back, made to fit, she has at least been allowed to see it, to live it. Leliana had been allowed further than the outskirts of her birth, and though she's hardly spent all her years doing nothing, she's had a long time to think. Has she not even made a tentative peace with Alistair who has wronged her far more than Leliana that extends even to allowing him time with Kieran, without her supervision even? "Why don't you tell me, I am sure you have more experience than I."

After all, it has only ever been her. There has been no one allowed so close, there have been no dancing partners and the way she had gasped or flushed so red hadn't been a ploy. She isn't that good to fake them or to hide them.

"There are fewer rules in the wilds about setting people on fire or encasing them in ice, how any of you get through the day I cannot fathom," she teases, or tries to. Is this how it goes? Are they close enough to allow that or will this become what it threatens to each time with them, two snapping wounded things trying to gain the upper hand where neither wishes to reveal the damaged flank for fear of another bloodied strip being torn clean away? Beneath everything, those who know how to survive know that civility is something you shed far quicker than your clothes. "Yet in the end I like to think I am more than simply a garment my mother wished to wear for herself." Even now she cannot stop the bitterness from entering her voice, and that tiny jagged piece of hurt, a shard of glass that tears at her. "You are more than what that woman shaped you to be, even if you left pieces of yourself behind when you stole yourself back from her."

That's the part that gets left out. That you are snatching yourself out of the jaws of a terrible thing before they snap shut. There are heroes in stories, just like there was a Hero in the one they were a part of but sometimes you must be your own in a way folk never think of or never speak of, in quiet ways, in ways you wouldn't want them to speak of because it aches, because you can't turn back the hands of time for selves that came before and suffered so.

It isn't the answer she's expecting, and she looks at Leliana in surprise. "When did she-- Was it back then?" Ever has there been something complicated and ugly, a thick tangle of knots and vines that chokes out everything when the word mother is ever breathed, one that only seemed to grow and swell with Kieran. She has pruned it back somewhat - she is a good mother, she likes to think, he is happy, he has friends, he sees the world, she teaches him so much and she tries to cause him so little harm, she does so much that he might never know anything close to what she did, as if she can make up for what she did before he ever drew breath when he slumbered beneath her heart, for when she raised him in a world between worlds, for her absences, for the lies in the court, for the dreams and nightmares, for something she knows that he knows about himself but doesn't have the words for.

Is it a debt Leliana owes her then that she carries out even now, even with that woman dead? If a Mother might lead her flock, if Morrigan might still feel the lash of Flemeth's words, what might this woman do that had changed so much, that had moved Leliana to lead this thing forward without even a Herald or, more correctly, an Inquisitor now?

"Could a woman in her position trust anyone?" Do you expect her to believe that Leliana? Trust in the heart of Orlais, playing the Game with a more shrewd hand than any Empress seated upon her throne? "So many of us return from stories, the past calls to me to find it before it is utterly lost - but can I not wonder at what became of someone who had the world before their feet ten years ago and yet stands before me now with names given to her once again?"

There is no game, not with her. Perhaps that makes it even more galling that with others when Morrigan honestly has so little to gain when she certainly can't take real personal satisfaction from it anymore the way she might have once, when she would have crowed, and smirked, and made light of it to see if she could break that mask.

wow if that's how it's going to be

[fightingale]

"I would think you were teasing me," Leliana admits, easily enough, though her gaze is one of assessment.

"I would think that any person who intimated any such attachment between they and I wanted something. Secrets, powers, a means to undermine the Inquisition, or to further their cause. I would think that they underestimate the Nightingale," she adds, a sort of clarification. "Coming from you, perhaps you wish to win more support or influence, or resources for your research. Perhaps you would be seeking more security for your son. We would find ourselves circling as we ever have." After a moment she sighs, shrugs, and rubs her face with her gloved hand. She is Sister Nightingale to most, but she has always been Leliana to Morrigan, and her tiredness shows through for a moment. "And I would think that you know well enough that if you wanted any of those things you could simply ask for it, or you would find ways to appeal to me that did not involve insulting your own sensibilities or mocking an old acquaintance." It doubles back and weaves around and, honestly, she has no idea where they would be.

With another equally tired gesture, Leliana indicates for Morrigan to sit, checking that the door is properly shut and locked before sinking into a seat of her own. "I first met Justinia when she was the Revered Mother, Dorothea. Marjolaine had... framed me for treason and I found myself imprisoned, for a time. Dorothea roused me to action, gave me the tools for my escape, but more important than all the rest was that she gave me hope. Nothing that I am would have been possible without her, certainly not the young woman whose faith lead her to join the lone wardens."

Idly, Leliana's gloved fingers trace the grain of the wood, and she continues. "She trusted me because of who I was before she ascended, and my trust was entirely hers." This conversation is not easy, and yet seems... necessary. "Stop looking for her, Morrigan. I chose to follow Justinia. I chose this, to embrace what I am. The girl from the Blight was nothing more than a foolish delusion. This is who I really am. It's that simple."

i don't even know if this makes sense i'm very sad and tired

[arcaneadvisor]

"And we certainly could not have that, now could we," she continues because honestly she would rather have this, she would have someone she can rely upon and feel some measure of closeness to unless Leliana shuts that door in her face because no matter who she might meet here, there's too much that's come before that she can't simply spool out to those who weren't there for it. It is Leliana or no one. Her and Alistair will never be friends, Shale will always be Shale, she and Zevran might never salvage anything now when she is so angry that he dared to bring up what he did when he cannot ever understand what her life has been, that Kieran is her son, that Wynne was not her Wynne. That she wants a friend for the first time in ten years that she can rely upon can't be so strange a thing, even for her.

"Then tis a good thing that I require none of that and that you know me to be blunt." They both know that's not entirely the truth but equally they know that Morrigan doesn't play the usual sorts of games, that she might not tell the entire truth but that she does provide the help that is required, that she brings a great deal to the table as it stands. "I have kept Kieran safe alone for a long time, I enjoyed Celene's patronage though not without argument as I am sure you are well aware now though I far prefer you and know you to be a great deal more honest about your desires than someone vying to keep hold of what she has before she would see any change in the world that doesn't benefit her first. But we do what we must. Even she knew nothing of Kieran." So it is something then that he's known more in Skyhold though that's more an inevitability but at least Leliana is trusted with the information, given that she knows more than most.

Taking the offered seat, the nug thankfully loses interest in her for the moment before those little paw-hands can decide to bat at her legs, or worse, at her own hands for further attention. Ten years and she has even more of the creatures Morrigan passed over innumerable times on her journeys across Orlais.

"I remember parts of the story," she says very quietly, little deceiver running through her head but now she's better at putting fragments together and filling them in when she's spent the past ten years doing nothing but that. "Do you mean literal tools or something else - you will forgive me, there have been lessons I have been teaching others who might seek to walk alone, who would do well to know how much is already within themselves." No one should have to make themselves small and disappear after all, should they? They should all be able to walk proudly, tall and free, their heads held high, answering to no one. "You believed in something that earned you nothing but scorn from those about you but still you believed, is that not the same as now? How many would seek to tear down what this Inquisition stands for when it brought together the Mages that fled the Circles together with the Templars that turned from the Chantry with a Divine who stood for a great deal that worried the faithful? I do not pretend to be privy to the specifics of Celene and Justinia, but I do not pretend I did not know more than the rest of her court. That girl is still there, she is simply no longer a girl same as the girl I once was is no longer a girl. I know how to sheathe my claws better now."

And that she can say with something that's actually a laugh because she can read Alistair's face so easily, and who would ever have thought that she and Alistair would ever be at a party hosted by such exalted folk, dressed in their finery and discussing their son like adults?

"Our lives should be our own though, no matter how we come to take hold of them. It is so easy to damage another, even when done with good intent, I have tried so very hard to keep my life from ever touching Kieran's in a way that might do him harm."

[fightingale]

The response coaxed a smile from her, though whether it is wry or genuine is something Leliana herself is not entirely certain of. A world without Morrigan teasing her, Maker forbid that ever be a possibility. More grimly, a world where another friend turned against her, tried to manipulate her, that would not be well done at all, and Leliana schools her expression into something more even. “It would not be advisable.”
Dry, as if this were an easy joke, and as if the both of them did not know better.

The little nug abandoning Morrigan for a moment catching Leliana’s attention, and she makes a little clicking noise with her tongue to catch his attention, as she leans forward and pulls a grape from the bunch on the table. There is an audible little squeak of interest, and Nugistair scurries over to lean up on his hindquarters, one paw rested against Leliana’s leg and the other reaching out to grab the grape. She pets his snout, murmurs something to him in Orlesian, and hands the grape over. Nugs are much more pleasant to think about than politics, as a general rule, and though the matters she glossed over were personal, the lives of the First Blight veterans seemed inherently political, in some way or another. She should make some response to all of that, to the acknowledgement of Morrigan’s independence and her secrecy and Kieran’s safety, but she doesn’t know quite what to say that would be anything meaningful, and there is so much weighing on them already that she stores the information away, nods in acknowledgement and understanding.

“Both,” she admits, after a time. Truthfully, there is a moment when Leliana considers leaving it at just that, in leaving the story as buried as it can be when someone already knows fragments of it. They are a complicated thing, though, stories - they shift with their audience, remake themselves. Part of Leliana wonders what story it is that Morrigan would hear, contrasted with what Leliana lived. "It is hard to pick a lock when you have nothing to you, whether that is the will to carry on or the tools to fight for your freedom.”

Another grape is plucked, Nugistair snuffling around for more, peering up between the two of them hopefully. She rolls it across the table to Morrigan, to see if she will stoop to the terrible low of offering it to him. (She takes her amusements where she can.)

“I agree. But I have changed myself so that others need not. I cannot reconcile what I am now to who I was. I… am not even sure she was ever so pure as I made myself out to be. It is hard to discern.” A shrug. “Freedom is an ideal, Morrigan, and one I fight for. I am content to give up myself to see it won for the many. Justinia's vision for peace was not enough, but what this Inquisition can do must be.”

[arcaneadvisor]

"I am not so foolish." She says, then reconsiders, curls her hands and looks down at them because it's easier when it makes her recall exactly how she felt when Leliana told her what Alistair and Zevran had done. "I would have someone I might rely upon here who does know me." That isn't easy but whatever might be out there listening she is trying and she has been trying, she will keep trying until she has exhausted all other possibilities.

Lost as she is in her thoughts, the grape almost slides past her when she considers that. "I suppose in his way Jonas provided the same when he found the grimoire for me to allow me to know exactly what my mother had planned." People grasping for something might say 'we are not so different' but that doesn't need to be said when they know the ins and outs of the particular sorts of ugliness they've experienced, so instead she rolls the grape between her fingers, looking to the nug, then to Leliana.

"If you tell him," there is only one him she can mean when she lowers her tone, "what the Tevinter has done to your rookery will be nothing." If Kieran hears then there will be little living with him either but that she can handle compared to Alistair finding out that Leliana can have her bending forward to offer grapes to nugs.

"Is that what she would have wanted? My mother...she is not a Mother but you will know how the Dalish speak of her when they call her Asha'bellanar; I know that she would have wished me to become whatever she wanted or needed me to be, regardless of the cost." It is hard to reconcile everyone's opinions of Justinia after all because no matter what Leliana says about that girl no longer being there? She clearly loved this woman, and that is what keeps her questioning, what makes her sincere. She doesn't know mother's love from this side. "If her vision was not enough then what is?"

[fightingale]

Ah, Jonas. The man who had been there through so much for each of them. She is silent a moment, and only nods.

There is not really time to relish in the moment of Morrigan accepting the grape. It has Nugistair trotting over to her, squeaking and snuffling and blinking his little eyes at her, snout and neck extending in a line to reach up as much as he can. It's adorable, really, and Leliana wishes there was a way to capture such a moment. Proof, perhaps, or simply for the sake of her own memories. Her expression is a little softer, but she holds up a hand, placating. "Your secret is safe with me."

And what a secret it is. A tragedy, honestly, that some things were condemned to silence. There is little chance to dwell on humour, though, in a conversation such as this.

"My actions were born of the need to see her orders done. Whatever was necessary, and whatever she needed. She understood that my methods could not be what a Divine would wish for." It is a cold way of looking at it, but she has learned to be cold. That coldness cannot entirely reconcile itself to the fire that burns in her, constant, and what she says next is... it is presumptuous. Arrogant, perhaps, and radical without question. Above these words Leliana favours visionary and necessary. If people cannot see it, it is because they blinded themselves, and they have none to blame for that but themselves.
"My version. That would be enough. One where freedom need not be a distant goal, but an immediate one. Where the innocent do not have to wait to appease those who so gleefully inflict suffering upon them."

She opens her mouth to speak further, when a knock comes at the door. Enter, she calls out, and a scout opens the door, stepping in to stand just inside the door and looking at Leliana, a message clasped in one of their hands. The Nightingale nods, before looking to Morrigan. "I am afraid I must cut this short."

I am sorry I cannot speak to you longer is what she means, because Morrigan speaking of her mother is not something easily won or coaxed, and to have be done without it coming slung with spite and vitriol is a marvel in and of itself.