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I am sorry.

[His voice is quiet.]

I have been an ass.

[To say Myr wasn't expecting this is an understatement.

But he's good with the unexpected.]

Forgiven, Warden Anders--what's mine of it to forgive.

Thank you.

[He feels like it should be more difficult than that, but apparently Myrobalan is in a forgiving mood.]

Um. Until later, then.

[If you think you're getting off that easily-- Myr would say, were this a friend who'd wronged him and avoided him until the emotions from the clash had time to fade, but--]

What prompts this?

[--something more diplomatic is in order.]

[Myrobalan had implied he wanted little to do with Anders previously, so he'd been trying to make this short. But if he's asking questions then that's changed.]

I was... reflecting. After Sina's passing, and speaking with a few people. I...

[He takes a breath.]

I'm sure it's all very boring to anyone who isn't me. You don't have to hear my thoughts, or hear me out.

[This still has all the feel of walking the edge of a collapsing dune and not knowing when it's going to slide out beneath his feet.

But Pel's illness has changed things. Sina's death has changed things. And there are things the Maker expects of him--

And his own curiosity besides.]

Would it help you to put them into words?

I don't know.

[For several moments he's quiet. His thoughts have gone in a lot of circles lately, especially with Nate being injured and losing Sina, and some of them are convoluted, but maybe saying words would help him sort it out.

His words are slow when he speaks, as he finds them through his thoughts.]

I... I hold on to things. I've always held on, I think. Or maybe it's only... Sorry. For as long as I remember, I've held on to everything that I've lost as if letting go of it and my anger would make me weaker. And as if letting go of any of the people I've lost would be a betrayal to them.

There's always been an agency that killed them, that took them away. It's always been the Circle and the Templars, so I've always had, it's always built up. But Sina... There's nothing to aim anger at. The shard was, was inanimate. It took her and it's also gone. I can't even blame myself because I know I did everything I could.

So I have to let go. Holding on won't do anything. And it's only thinking about that that made me think about everything else. And how I'm always remembering. Which doesn't, doesn't lead to... rational reactions, all the time.

[Anders exhales again.]

There was more, but that's, [he huffs, a self-conscious almost-laugh,] that's a lot of babble already.

[If there's one gift the Maker has given Myr--besides magic--it's the ability to listen. That he couldn't to Anders before now was--

Upsetting. But when the older man's sorrows are framed this way, laid out in reflection and not accusation, makes it easier.]

There's wisdom in knowing when to lay the sword aside. [He says it partway to remind himself.] Knowing when you won't get any further with the old tactics--it's not an easy lesson to learn.

I'm sorry, myself.

The balance I've yet to figure out.

[The sword is so often out, too often, but it doesn't mean it shouldn't be out at all. There still is a future to fight for. He has more learning to do as he sorts this out. A lot of learning to do. But he's going to try taking the steps, at least.]

I accept your apology and forgive you, Myrobalan.

Practice, that's all. You'll get there.

[He's silent a long moment--because this, too, he hadn't expected. Yet--]

Thank you.

You're welcome.

[He can hardly not forgive when he's been forgiven. And he'd had to let go of his issues with Myrobalan to give the apology in the first place. Saying that he forgave Myrobalan was the easiest part of the whole process.]

I don't... I hadn't really planned anything to say except for the apology. I'm not usually at a loss for words. Shall I let you go, or is there anything you'd like to discuss?

[He hesitates before replying, thinking carefully over what he might say.]

There's much we ought to discuss, I think. That we--all of us as mages--ought to discuss before we're done here.

But I don't know where to start. Or when.

There's a great deal, yes. I'd not planned on attaching it to the apology as I didn't want it to seem like the apology was contrived, or, or reliant on discussion, or something, but I'd be glad to listen and talk now.

Starting is... the tricky part.

[He's quiet for a few moments, trying to find words that won't be the wrong ones this time, words that won't start another fight. Letting Myrobalan go first seems the most productive way to begin.]

Why don't you say what comes to mind to you to say first?

Fair. [There's a laugh behind the words; not much humor in it, but a laugh all the same.] Very fair.

[He's likewise silent as Anders cedes the first statement to him, rolling his sending crystal between his fingers as he picks up and discards what he might say. Perhaps it's best to begin at the beginning--]

We got off wrong-footed from the start and I won't say I'm at all innocent in that, but I think it's left an impression of me that's far from the truth.

I believe magic is the Maker's gift to us; the idea that we're cursed for having it is the vilest piece of false doctrine imaginable. For all it's done to give demons a ready supply of fearful hosts in this world, I'd almost believe they came up with it. [He pauses, considering--

Then lets that stand as is. Better, he thinks, to see where Anders' questions might take them than lay it all out as he might for an opponent in formal debate.]

[It's surprisingly nice to hear that Myrobalan doesn't see magic as a curse. Many of the Loyalists he's known think otherwise. It shifts his view of the elf slightly... as had Myrobalan's acceptance and returned apology.]

It's done a great deal of damage to mages. And it's spread by the Chantry, Templars, and Seekers alike. This is part of the reason I can't see safety in them.

[He keeps his voice calm. He really, really doesn't want to cause offense.]

It's part of the reason I can't see a future there. But I know there's reasons you can. I'd truly like to understand a little. Not because I believe there's any chance I'll change my opinion on freedom, but because I want to see a future where the needs of all mages are met.

It's done a great deal of damage to all of us, mages or not; anything that's got its roots in rejecting what the Maker's plainly told us is doomed.

But it's something that can be corrected; if we hadn't lost the Divine... [It's been years and still his throat closes at the thought of it; he has to pause a moment before continuing.] --we'd be that much closer to reform and a better future for mages when--or should--the Circles return.

And I do hope they return in some form because there isn't a future for us if we've not got a place within the larger world. The power the Maker's given us is an awesome thing--a fearsome thing--and we've got a responsibility to use it wisely. It's not simply about our needs, but the needs of those around us.

Which is not to say the world's best served by locking us up and abusing us; those who bring harm without provocation to the least of His children are hated and accursed of the Maker. There need to be changes if we're to save what's good.

[He takes a slow breath. Hated and accursed of the Maker rings a little close to home. There'd been provocation, sure, but few would argue it was enough. He wouldn't even argue that.]

I believe that everyone has a place in the larger world. From cow farmer to spirit healer. If we are out in the world, we can use our abilities for all. Our place is to serve, but the place of all is to serve. To live in a way that best helps the greater good without sacrificing themselves.

The best use of magic is if we're in the world, working in our various communities. It's not... I don't think it's selfish for any person to want a life, to want the chance to shape their own life, based on their temperament and whatever gifts they have.

In... far shorter terms, I don't know what is seen as good about the Circles and I'd like to know what you see there.

It certainly works for the Avvar and the Rivaini and the Dalish. [His tone is even, agreeable.] But they've many fewer mages than we do, and even their mages aren't free to shape themselves into whatever they'd like to be. Not at first--not until they've learned the place that's been made for them and how to control their magic. The Circles are the Chantry's answer to the problem of keeping us and everyone around us safe.

[A brief and thoughtful silence. Then:] I lived my first seven years in an alienage. My father did his best to provide for us--but we didn't always have food, and I'd barely learned my letters by the time I first came to my magic. If I hadn't been a mage, I'd've lived out my whole life there--if I weren't kidnapped and sold into slavery in Tevinter or killed by a shem for not knowing my place.

It wouldn't have been the worst life, if it was the one the Maker asked me to lead. But it might not have been a long one, and I'd never had the opportunity to learn what I have.

The Circle gave me chances the world wouldn't. It gave so many of us chances.

[Quietly,] It came at too high a cost. But I had a chance.

[Another surprise, the admission that the Circles carried too high of a cost. It runs counter to the earlier statement of the Circles keeping them and everyone else safe, but the context of the conversation helps him see, he thinks, more of where Myrobalan is coming from.]

I started with advantages. I will never know what it is to be an elf, to know that hatred. I'd numbers and letters so that I could inherit and run the family cow farm when I was of age and my father was retired. It was not a luxurious life, but it was a life I was happy with.

Then I was taken somewhere I did not speak the language, punished for insolence when I did not understand, and it set the tone for the next decade and a half of my life. It took and took, and I learned what it was to be seen as a thing rather than a person. I don't believe a place truly run by mages could do that to mages. I think we would see each other.

Would you see the same value and chance in a place that's divorced from the Chantry and run by mages? If we built something without Templars?

Edited 2018-01-04 04:52 (UTC)

[Interesting.

Myr's briefly silent as he processes all of this, teasing apart what Anders has said (and what he hasn't) and getting his own questions in order.]

Before I answer that, might I ask a question of my own?

[It isn't that he doesn't have an answer ready--but there's something he needs clarified before he runs off and makes a poor assumption.]

Yes, of course.

[It's nice to have a dialogue. Anders is actually finding the conversation... pleasant, surprisingly.]

Why do you believe mages would do better than anyone else in how we treat other mages?

Because while we've failings like anyone else, we understand the struggle and joy of having magic.

[He pauses to try to get his thoughts in order before continuing.]

A Templar can look at a mage and see something beneath them, something they don't recognize as a person. It was easy for them, for so many of them, to injure mages because they weren't mages. They were... disassociated, perhaps might be the word.

In general, we can't do that. I don't think we can look at a pair of mages in love and say it's wrong, it's forbidden, and tear them apart because we want love too. We feel worthy of it. We can't rip a mage child from their parents because we want families and know the pain of losing. We can't sentence another mage to Tranquility because we don't want it used against us. The worst of the horrors and cruelties strike too close to home for us to repeat against our own, I believe.

[It is, and isn't, what he'd expected to hear and once more he spends a long moment in silent consideration.

Then, gently,]

It's a lovely thought--that such empathy could blossom out of the pains and frustrations we'd suffered. But not all Circles were alike, and those lessons won't last beyond our generation. [If there'd even be another generation--a thought he doesn't examine too closely, for many reasons.]

And that's saying nothing of apostates or--other mages who weren't raised in the Circles.

I don't know why pain would have to be a teacher for all.

[His voice is equally gentle.]

I think mages would look at the rules of the Circles and most would reject them for how cold and cruel they were. Not all Circles were alike, it's true, but what mage would think it only right to send a child into the Fade against a prepared demon? I feel like having the issue in mage hands would make it a lot more personal. And personal is what would protect us.

And the mages who never knew Circles should stand even more against it. They've no rationalizations for the abuse. I know more than a few mages saw others being abused and thought it was their own good behavior protecting them, or their skill at political maneuvering, like Vivienne. Those free of the Circles are free of that baggage.

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