[IC/OOC] Fade Rift Inbox & Contact

[faithlikeaseed]

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Comments

[justice_is_blond]

To interfere. To mislead. To protect. Yes, that's precisely what I'm getting at. You could not stand with us, but now that's given you opportunity to stand for people who have been pulled from their homes and thrown into a hostile world against their will.

[Direct is good.]

Blocking would be obvious. But sabotaging might not be, if they don't have people who know much about phylacteries.

[faithlikeaseed]

[He's silent a long moment, absorbing this.]

You're assuming I wouldn't without your persuasion. [Milder still.]

I'll be exactly as obvious as I need to be about it. It's wrong, and they need to be told so. Simply acting under the table to thwart them does nothing in the long term except confirm their existing distrust of us.

[justice_is_blond]

I am. Because you did not strike, because you were too busy looking for the perfect and letting it be the enemy of the good. And if you're obvious about not being willing to do it, they'll find someone else. They can always find someone else.

[There's a little frustration in his voice now despite his best efforts.]

There will always be someone willing to go further than you in any direction. There will always be someone willing to compromise and bend more. You could make a difference here, you could thwart them in a permanent way if they are convinced that phylacteries do not work on Rifters, whether they do or do not. You could say it has something to do with the lyrium in their blood, anything along those lines.

There is no perfect solution here. Telling them that they're wrong will not be enough because it never is enough.

[faithlikeaseed]

I didn't strike because I know my own limits, serah, as you wouldn't go so far as to let anyone die on your watch.

If, as you say, there's always someone more willing to compromise, I advise you go bend his ear to get what you want. [Or does freedom to choose only mean something if we choose the way our betters think we should, he thinks, but does not say. He doesn't want that fight.]

All they'd need to uncover any perfidy from us here is a second research team with no compunctions about phylacteries and a willing rifter. And the instant they have that on us, we lose everything else.

[justice_is_blond]

There's no one else in the position you are right now.

[He inhales and exhales, biting back other words that come to mind.]

At least please consider it. We've never had positions where we could protect people before. Now we can. I understand you don't want to lose it, you don't want to risk wasting it, but what point is having it if it's not used? If it's simply... had?

[faithlikeaseed]

The position, [there's a sharp edge in there,] means nothing to me and I'm liable to be removed from it the instant someone else is put in charge of the project. If that happens sooner because I refuse to conduct this research, so be it-- But I will not pretend I find it acceptable instead only to lie about my findings--to, I remind you, a rifter, as I report to the Provost.

I will not make that breach of trust. I will not ask others to do it.

[justice_is_blond]

Maker's sake, Myr, what is your limit? When do you stop and stand up to someone in power? When do you see what those in charge do, time and time and time again?

The elf you report to has my respect for calling for calm and behavior, but that is because he does not know Thedas. You do. You're a native. You've lived here all of your life!

The high road, the 'proper' way of doing things, does not pan out in the long run because those who have the power only bother with it so long as it suits their goals. I tried it for seven years in this very city, for mages within these very walls, and that cost so many mage lives during those years. Then the Rite of Annulment was sent for and no one in power cared because it was mages. Just like no one in power will care because these are Rifters, just as expendable, just as unwanted. I don't... I don't get you sometimes! Thedas has patterns, recognizable, demonstrable patterns, and they always end in suffering for the groups the Chantry finds troublesome if people don't stand up. Our partial victory with negotiations came because some stood.

Where? When will there be too much oppression for you?

[faithlikeaseed]

[There's a considerable gap of time before Myr replies to that. When he does, it's in the same mild, even tone he's been using all along.

Somebody had to go punch something before he could respond.]

I believe we were just discussing how I intended to stand up to those in power. I am sorry, truly, that it is unsatisfactory to you, but you offer no solutions other than bending those same old patterns to a different cause. A principled stand out in the open is a very different thing than dealing deceitfully with those same people you wish to save--apparently, by treating them like children or mages to be stripped of agency and herded to safety.

[Though given how many of them have abruptly shown willing to destroy everything around them to get their own way in this, from go, maybe that's not such a bad idea.

He hates himself for thinking it.]

Your ways are not mine. I will not carry out the research to lie about its results.

[justice_is_blond]

[There's a long pause on his end, and when he speaks his own tone is precisely neutral.]

If you do say no, if you do openly take a stand, then that will be something. I don't know if you've actual faith in the system that has happily abused so many, or if you're scared, or what holds you back, but I do not know where you will actually draw a line and it's...

[What is the right word? Or the most accurate one, really. Disconcerting doesn't say enough. His voice goes more quiet as he continues.]

...frightening. Things are far simpler when the people who could cause disaster for their own are assholes like Vivienne, uncaring about anyone save themselves. But you're not like that. You're not uncaring or an asshole. But I fear you will do this, and I fear that more mage phylacteries are on their way as well for just this one troublemaker, and then just one more, and that the leash has not been let go so much as it has been let slack enough for us to not see it's being woven into a net.

I would be glad to be wrong here.

[faithlikeaseed]

[He makes a brief noise. It might be a laugh.]

If you want to know me, Anders, you'd do better not to list off all the ways my behavior might come from malice or cowardice before coming up blank on other reasons.

I will say no. Will you take me at my word this time?

[justice_is_blond]

[Very momentarily he contemplates saying he'd meant naivete rather than malice, but that's not the point. What is the point is something he's struggled with all his life: trust. Faith in people. He'd only spoken to Myr in the first place because he'd trusted that if the elf said he'd sabotage the project he would. This takes more trust... but it is a fair request.

He takes a breath before making a choice.]

I will take you at your word.