faithlikeaseed | [IC/OOC] Fade Rift Inbox & Contact

"So they deny a champion Andraste herself chose to what, further their oppression and denial of elves?" Nari asks, her voice full of incredulous outrage. Whatever increasingly tangled feelings she has about Andraste, the Chantry continues to climb her shit list. "Nuva Ghilan’nain then asa shud ove arsyl o’tarasyl, i dirash es'an in masa dur su an’banal," she spits what had been Sina's favourite curse out quietly. "Polite company."

[ After whatever necessary business has been seen to and whatever necessary directions have been exchanged, Kostos is at Myr’s door. Easy. Like he promised.

He knocks, and says through the door, ] His friend said he brought a piece of the Fade into the world.

[ His friend, Karl. He, Anders. He’s too deep in his own head to provide any context, but hopefully Myr can keep up, if he can hear through the door. ]

We are doors they step through. [ We, mages. They, spirits. Again: keep up. ] Doors that stay open. That is the difference between a mage and a book, or a corpse. They can choose to go back.

[ This will be about sex in just a minute, assuming Myr opens the non-metaphorical door. ]

"After the Exalted March on the Dales," Myr's voice is quiet, even, a lid over his own emotions on the matter, "it wasn't meet to have Our Lady accompanied by one of the enemy. So they docked his ears and struck his Canticle from the Chant--and the rest followed.

"We're their brothers--"

He cuts the words and the anguish behind them short. Let Nari put some voice to it instead--Myr catches only the name of the Halla-mother in all the elvhen, but the sentiment isn't lost on him. A noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob sticks in his throat.

"Polite company. We learn to not make fusses early on, in the Circles." It got you noticed.

[Not the strangest way a lover's ever appeared at Myr's door, but up there in his top five-- Especially for the long bewildering moment it takes him to catch up, somewhere around the time Kostos makes mention of mages, books, corpses. Conveniently, it's about as long as he needs to leave off what he was doing and get over to that same non-metaphorical door.

He is dressed down and barefoot, high-collared summerweight robe left open at the throat. It makes for an inviting glimpse as he tips his head back, feigning a look up at some point over Kostos' right shoulder (close enough; old habits die hard).] And what about their mediums--d'you lot hover around halfway or choose to come in as well?

[Because, please do-- As Myr steps out of the way with a beckoning gesture.

His quarters are as precisely neat as one might expect from someone relying on memory to know where everything resides, a place for everything and everything in its place but for the tangle of knotwork left out on the desk--presumably, what he'd been doing before Kostos showed up.

It's also exactly as dark in there as one might expect for someone who doesn't have to rely on candles. Careful once the door's closed.]

Light? [At least he's had visitors often enough to remember it.]

Edited 2018-02-25 15:41 (UTC)

How dare they. Just... how dare they. Them and their power and their high claims to righteousness, and their treachery, not just against the People but against the very woman they claimed to revere.

"Is there no end to it?" Nari finds herself asking aloud of her own thoughts. It fits as a reply to Myr as well.

A very good question. “When Andraste returns,” Maker, hasten the day, “and sets all things right. ‘Til then—“

It’s hard to temporize, be patient and long-suffering and trust in the Maker’s plan, in the face of so much anger—with the worst of the injustices against their race dredged up and laid out so nakedly. Yet he’s had years of practice at this, years of swallowing fury and doing what was in his power to do. “—we repair what we can and pray the next Divine continues the work dear Justinia began.”

Edited 2018-02-25 18:32 (UTC)

“And if she does not?” Nari demands, “We what? Let them smile smugly and erase that the Liberator’s charge with one hundred into a cloud of arrows to try and save her from her pyre before ten thousand of her own people dropped their swords was us? That his people were the People?”

She remembered that; the afternoon Andraste died, Cade’s reading gone solemn while she smoothed the planes of the Bride’s face.

Her rage melts into powerlessness, eyes stinging. “Again. It’s always like this. It’s not...” what, fair? What is? “It could be different, with the Inquisition. There are resources, we could find... something, make the Chantry have to change its ways or be exposed.”

There’s a deep sigh and then, slower, “Abelas, Myr, I—this is nothing new to you. I don’t mean to drag everything up again.”

I... Let's set aside the talk of blood magic for the moment, perhaps. That's a large topic in its own right and we're discussing a great deal already. And perhaps the wrongs and rights. We can come back to that.

[Because that's especially interesting in light of Myrobalan's belief. It's not something he's encountered before.]

As far as Templars go, they get their abilities from lyrium, and that same lyrium is an addiction that is by all accounts nearly impossible to overcome. I do not see a reason to make more Templars as if we are scared of policing our own. Those who are already Templars, if they come with recommendations from several mages as someone who has not abused or taken advantage of, we could allow to serve out the rest of their time helping teach their non-lyrium skills to mages.

I feel that keeping them is simply too risky as well, as with mages in charge it could look like an army of swordsmen serving mages. And if they choose to try to take control we've the wolves penned with the... Mm. Wolves and sheep aren't exactly the right comparison, mages have magic, but there is something disconcerting about training people to defeat you, given them the means to strip you down, and keeping them on an addictive substance the whole time. Mages can learn Dispell; we don't need Smite thrown around.

As far as mages who do not train with us but choose to break the law... [He contemplates this for a moment.] I think we need a team of mages at the school that is prepared to go up against the unknown to bring them in. It would be irresponsible of us to say that we will only take care of mages gone wrong if they've been with us when we want Thedas to trust us to do right by them. We have to protect our vulnerable people, but we also have a duty to protect those who do not have magic from those who do.

[ Kostos might be able to torture the metaphor further and answer in earnest, maybe something about windows, but he’s happy enough not to. The point—that they need an open doorway of another kind, one that won’t be left possessed in the aftermath—can wait. ]

Yes, [ he says. He's comfortable in the dark, when it's necessary, but there's presumably more where that glimpse of Myr's neck came from.

In another scenario, one where there had been kissing in an alcove or hands on knees beneath a table before now, Kostos would take his boots off. In this one, that would too presumptuous even for him. He shuts the door and waits just inside it, watchful despite having very little to watch until the light is provided.

Belatedly, an obligatory afterthought: ]

Thank you.

[Pleasure before business, in this case; Myr thinks--thinks--he knows enough of Kostos to know it won't be so hard to pick up the earlier thread of conversation once they're less distracted.

But, to the matter at hand--] My pleasure.

[Soon enough, anyway.

They've options for light; he considers them as he makes his practiced way to the desk. Glyphs would be too much, too bright, the brazier not enough even if he stoked it higher. The lantern, then, for the same flickering intimacy as candlelight without all the risk he might overset it, unseeing. He touches two fingers to it, calls fire from Fade to wick.]

There. Come in, [because he hasn't heard Kostos move from the door,] make yourself comfortable. [Or don't, but as for Myr's part he'll be undoing the clasps of his robe now that the matter of the light's settled.]

"No." There's something hard and sure and implacable behind the word, for all Myr's tone is mild once more. "What's been brought back to light can't be hidden again, now that they've the People among them. We'll see the truth restored, however long it takes. The Maker's hand guided the Divine in returning the Dissonant Verses; it's on us now to carry the rest of His work forward. He'll provide a way."

If there's one thing he's sure of in his life, it's the Maker's intention for all of them. (Whether it would be met--whether it was meant to be met, in his lifetime or ever--that's a little harder to believe, some days.)

"And maybe the Inquisition is that way," though he's other reasons to suspect not, to suspect with so many hands trying to twist it as a tool to reshape Thedas, they'd get nothing useful done in the end, "though I mislike the thought of forcing a change out of the Chantry for fear of what we'd say--anything like that, that's not rooted in the heart, is bound to wither and die."

Or the rot would consume it. He presses the back of his hand to his mouth, musters his self-control. "It's new to you," he observes at last, "and I'm glad of your passion for it. So don't worry--it's worth it being drug up."

There's a thump and the scratching sound of wood across floor that heralds a chair being sat in heavily.

"Everyone keeps saying the Chantry can't be forced, that the good will has to grow and be nurtured, and it's absolutely infuriating to have to treat this powerful monolith that has always dealt in iron fists with soft open hands and kind words and kneeling to beg for what's rightfully ours. Why can't we just--" [Disgusted noise], and the quiet rustling sound of hands dragged through hair.

"What do we do then. Find something? Someone's journal, a carving, a... something else?" Nari sounds resigned, but she's still doggedly moving forward. "If it's on us to find the Maker's way, why not us."

"Not 'can't,'" Myr replies, ruefully. "Shouldn't. Mages were forced, once upon a time, and we see what's come of that. Which isn't to say we need to beg and scrape, or shy away from any firmness whatever--only it's trickier than blackmailing the whole Chantry. Blackmailers can disappear." Especially if they've got pointed ears.

The mention of finding a something else brings a twitch of a smile to Myr's face--a hopeful little sprout of a thing. He hasn't...spoken to anyone of this before except Simon. It's heartening to have another co-conspirator. (And from so unexpected a place--Maker, how mysterious Your ways!) "Not a carving or a journal, no--we need to find a woman.

"We need the next Divine."

Edited 2018-03-09 08:34 (UTC)

[There's a pause here as he takes in the magnitude of what's just said. Her relative calm makes it all faintly surreal.]

Maker's blessed name--forget the office, how badly did it get you? You're under a healer's care, I hope--

[And then what else she's said catches up to him.] --your phylactery. Is this what's been--this is what's been happening to the other mages?

"...We need the next Divine?" asks Nari after a moment, repeating Myr because she wasn't sure how else to respond. "Isn't that... doesn't the Chantry choose that?"

It occurs to her that she has no idea how Divines are chosen. She'd never cared before. As far as she knew, one was much like the next. They were distant voices she never heard, that never did anything to curb the effects of their March. A figurehead at best, a danger at worst.

Christine was fortunately there just as it happened; with her help, I didn't suffer badly, beyond shock.

...yes. I suppose there's not much point in keeping it quiet, now. Are you aware of the location of your own?

Maker be thanked for her--I'm relieved to hear that. [Though that Inessa suffered at all-- That's a reason for anger, sharp and sudden and wisely kept from his voice.]

I am. And I've not been suffering anything the others have. Is there-- D'you need me to take over the project while you sort this out?

[A sigh of relief. At least one of them needn't endure this.]

I do. Given that many are recovering from the recent sickness and now some are as myself, I don't expect the project to cover much ground for a while. But if there are surveys, questions...I would appreciate what you can do for them.

Right. I'll do my best with it--and if there's any help I can offer on the other matter, with the phylacteries, you've only got to say the word.

Thank you. Just...remain alert. I don't know how many others are affected, and they could be bombarded with magic at any time.

[ He’s never comfortable, thanks. But now pulling his feet out of his boots isn’t too presumptuous, so Kostos does so, leaves them at the door, shrugs out of the open heavy robe worn over his tunic and trousers to keep him from freezing dramatically to death in the drafty corridors, and pulls the tunic over his head while he steps closer in his socks—all very practiced and efficient, because it isn’t as if there’s a reason to be showy about it.

He stops close enough to hook his fingers around the highest still-fastened clasp Myr is working on. He doesn’t tug hard enough to move him, just enough to pull the robe taut as an offer, or request really, to handle the rest.

Maybe he should say something, especially given the givens. He takes a breath like he means to. But he isn’t good at that part, so he lets the breath back out without adding any words to it. ]

"The grand clerics come together and elect her--or would, in the ordinary way of things." Such is his determination on this he can keep the faint twinge of melancholy from his voice. "Though the College can be months about a choice, discussing the matter and letting the Maker's inspiration work until they've come to a unanimous decision.

"But--there's always outside influences involved in the choice," and there's something of disapproval to how he says that--but it's useful now, so let it be, "and they've been known to bend to popular sentiment or...other kinds of persuasion. That's who we'd need to push, if we do push anyone--"

Well. He's already said once he'd prefer a cleaner solution, without coercion; no use in vain repetition. He tips his face down as if regarding the table. "--Well. It's something the Inquisition's already at work on; a Divine who's friendly to us would make all the difference in working with the Chantry."

Right, [this time with more worry.] I've a mind to try a nullification glyph or two for some of the afflicted. Let me know if you'll want one.

I absolutely would, yes. My warding rune hasn't been effective, and I'm willing to try anything.

"I suppose any Divine friendly to the Inquisition would be a more worldly woman by necessity," muses Nari, "from whom do they choose? One of their own?"

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