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portalling) wrote2022-04-02 01:17 pm
portalling) wrote2022-04-02 01:17 pm
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It’s a little odd to be sitting here looking at Benedict, when their initial thoughts had run along the lines of he must be a traitor, or possessed, or; and now the sorcerer’s having to reconcile that with the weak, diminished real man in front of him.
Strange might have felt some guilt for those uncharitable thoughts, for having believed him to be the perpetrator at the time, even baffling as it was; but he’s simply too tired himself to work himself into knots about it. It is what it is.
“No, he’s fine,” Strange says. “He didn’t imbibe too much of the poison, and I was able to get to him quickly. I’m assuming you don’t know why the demon would have targeted him?”
Strange might have felt some guilt for those uncharitable thoughts, for having believed him to be the perpetrator at the time, even baffling as it was; but he’s simply too tired himself to work himself into knots about it. It is what it is.
“No, he’s fine,” Strange says. “He didn’t imbibe too much of the poison, and I was able to get to him quickly. I’m assuming you don’t know why the demon would have targeted him?”
[This is the first time in quite a long time that someone has outright stated that he is invaluable to anyone other than a devil of a god of murder. Not that he needs the ego boost, but it's nice to have anyway.
Still, there's a question he needs answered,] No one here has healing magic?
Still, there's a question he needs answered,] No one here has healing magic?
A couple. Derrica does, but she’s often busy with her own responsibilities in Diplomacy. That new spirit healer, Rutyer’s cousin.
Otherwise: no. The rest of us you’ll meet in the infirmary — myself, Gwenaëlle, Abby, Clarisse; and Cosima you’ve met, although she has her Provost duties — it’s just medical training.
Otherwise: no. The rest of us you’ll meet in the infirmary — myself, Gwenaëlle, Abby, Clarisse; and Cosima you’ve met, although she has her Provost duties — it’s just medical training.
"Good," Benedict sighs, a bit of tension leaving his shoulders; he obviously hasn't spoken to Julius yet, but it's nice to know that he, or someone that looked like him, hasn't completely destroyed the organization in his absence.
He gives a little scoff at Strange's response, as if to say, isn't it obvious?
"It identified him as my direct superior," he explains, "it would've kept going up the chain, given the chance."
He gives a little scoff at Strange's response, as if to say, isn't it obvious?
"It identified him as my direct superior," he explains, "it would've kept going up the chain, given the chance."
“Is that what they were after? Just going up the ladder and targeting as much of Riftwatch leadership as they could?”
Perhaps he shouldn’t already be grilling his patient, but this is also his first opportunity to do some gentle digging for information, for context, for understanding. Vanya and Gela hadn’t been in much of a state to discuss it properly, that first night.
Strange leans over, fusses with more of the supplies on the endtable. Pours some cold water into a mug, making sure it’s within reach to keep the kid hydrated after the saltiness of the broth.
Shifting from metaphorical sorcerer’s cap to doctor’s cap: “And how do you feel?”
Perhaps he shouldn’t already be grilling his patient, but this is also his first opportunity to do some gentle digging for information, for context, for understanding. Vanya and Gela hadn’t been in much of a state to discuss it properly, that first night.
Strange leans over, fusses with more of the supplies on the endtable. Pours some cold water into a mug, making sure it’s within reach to keep the kid hydrated after the saltiness of the broth.
Shifting from metaphorical sorcerer’s cap to doctor’s cap: “And how do you feel?”
"I think so," Benedict says, in a low, uneasy voice, "that's more or less what it..."
He trails off, his gaze going somewhere else, "...said." You know, inside his mind, while it rooted through his innermost thoughts and memories.
He takes the water gratefully, looking a bit less far away now that he's had a sip and been asked another question.
"Um," he pauses, unsure of quite how to answer that, "alive?"
He trails off, his gaze going somewhere else, "...said." You know, inside his mind, while it rooted through his innermost thoughts and memories.
He takes the water gratefully, looking a bit less far away now that he's had a sip and been asked another question.
"Um," he pauses, unsure of quite how to answer that, "alive?"
Strange makes a small noise in the back of his throat, a kind of dissatisfied cluck. But he bears with it.
“Do you have any injuries,” he says, patiently, “or did any other harm come to you besides the starvation? I spoke to Orlov and Baynrac, but since they escaped sooner, they couldn’t speak to what had happened to the rest of you in the interim.”
“Do you have any injuries,” he says, patiently, “or did any other harm come to you besides the starvation? I spoke to Orlov and Baynrac, but since they escaped sooner, they couldn’t speak to what had happened to the rest of you in the interim.”
Benedict stares at him a moment, his eyes going distant as he tries to decide how to answer that: more than anything, it's hard to tell, what with his body devouring itself and all that. But eventually, he shakes his head.
"Octavius was there," he explains in a rasp, "when they found us. He did something... stabilizing. I think." His memory's foggy, to say the least.
"Gela and Orlov," he continues, "they made it?"
"Octavius was there," he explains in a rasp, "when they found us. He did something... stabilizing. I think." His memory's foggy, to say the least.
"Gela and Orlov," he continues, "they made it?"
I'll write Sabine, she says, into her crystal. She means to do it—
sits at her desk, overlooking the water and the smoldering wreck of Kirkwall, and stares at a nearly blank page in front of her. She has written, SABINE, at the top and there is a wet splodge in the middle of the page that makes her rub at her eyes and push away, setting the quill down with a short spill of ink that is no more eloquent than anything else that's sat in her chest like a fist so far. Her hands grip the back of the chair and she stands there, furious, forlorn. Shoulders tight. Her stomach twists with something that is grief, and something more bitter, and why had she thought any of them would be safe anywhere, but least of all Casimir.
Gwenaëlle does not burst into tears, only because she has already been crying, only half aware of it, without her say, but the sound that she makes is animal rage, a wounded roar of pure frustration, the sound of her desk-chair breaking to pieces when she wheels around and crashes it against the wall of the alcove that part hides her (their, now) curtained bed.
She doesn't feel better for having done it. She sits with the pieces.
sits at her desk, overlooking the water and the smoldering wreck of Kirkwall, and stares at a nearly blank page in front of her. She has written, SABINE, at the top and there is a wet splodge in the middle of the page that makes her rub at her eyes and push away, setting the quill down with a short spill of ink that is no more eloquent than anything else that's sat in her chest like a fist so far. Her hands grip the back of the chair and she stands there, furious, forlorn. Shoulders tight. Her stomach twists with something that is grief, and something more bitter, and why had she thought any of them would be safe anywhere, but least of all Casimir.
Gwenaëlle does not burst into tears, only because she has already been crying, only half aware of it, without her say, but the sound that she makes is animal rage, a wounded roar of pure frustration, the sound of her desk-chair breaking to pieces when she wheels around and crashes it against the wall of the alcove that part hides her (their, now) curtained bed.
She doesn't feel better for having done it. She sits with the pieces.
That original message on the crystals had landed like one last bomb set off in the Gallows, and Stephen’s been delicately walking around in order to not step on any subsequent land mines. He sees others in Riftwatch weather that blow, a tightness in their jaws and around their eyes and their small clustered conversations; he feels the helplessness of it, seeing it all from a distance and not having much of a reaction himself. Most of the names had meant nothing to him.
But it means he’s one of the steady ones; here, at least, maybe, is a thing he can try to patch up and hold those broken pieces together.
He’s downstairs sifting through some copies of damage reports when he hears it above him, that splintering crash. As if to emphasise the point, Small Yngvi comes streaking downstairs like a flash of lightning, tearing out of the room and away from their mistress. Stephen looks up, waiting for any further noises.
Nothing.
After a moment, he sets down his papers. Climbs the stairs, poking his head into her (their) bedroom, and finds Gwenaëlle sitting on the floor with the wreckage of that broken chair scattered around her. His heart twists in his chest, and he takes a breath in the doorway to simply look at her. (This tableau could be another painting: Lady in Mourning, Lady in Fury.)
Are you okay is the wrong question here. Not the right time for a joke about the cost of upholstery and the Gallows’ desperate need for scrapwood, either.
So, in the end, he just settles on a quiet: “Hey.”
But it means he’s one of the steady ones; here, at least, maybe, is a thing he can try to patch up and hold those broken pieces together.
He’s downstairs sifting through some copies of damage reports when he hears it above him, that splintering crash. As if to emphasise the point, Small Yngvi comes streaking downstairs like a flash of lightning, tearing out of the room and away from their mistress. Stephen looks up, waiting for any further noises.
Nothing.
After a moment, he sets down his papers. Climbs the stairs, poking his head into her (their) bedroom, and finds Gwenaëlle sitting on the floor with the wreckage of that broken chair scattered around her. His heart twists in his chest, and he takes a breath in the doorway to simply look at her. (This tableau could be another painting: Lady in Mourning, Lady in Fury.)
Are you okay is the wrong question here. Not the right time for a joke about the cost of upholstery and the Gallows’ desperate need for scrapwood, either.
So, in the end, he just settles on a quiet: “Hey.”
"Fucking Anders was such a prick,"
is probably not why she broke a chair on the wall. It is almost certainly not the name on that list that most significantly affected her, which is maybe exactly why she starts with it. Easier to impugn the name of someone she barely remembers the details of her conflicts with (self-righteous, she thinks, convinced the world revolved around him, see, she remembers it fine) than to start to speak out loud the thing that's still tying knots inside her. Things that need saying,
she takes a breath that makes her shudder and her face is wet when she looks up, unhappy and wretched with it. None of that artful, artistic sadness; none of that third person self aware sort of sorrow, tilted to just the right angle. She's blotchy and damp and has a splinter.
She's so angry.
"Would you sit with me?"
is probably not why she broke a chair on the wall. It is almost certainly not the name on that list that most significantly affected her, which is maybe exactly why she starts with it. Easier to impugn the name of someone she barely remembers the details of her conflicts with (self-righteous, she thinks, convinced the world revolved around him, see, she remembers it fine) than to start to speak out loud the thing that's still tying knots inside her. Things that need saying,
she takes a breath that makes her shudder and her face is wet when she looks up, unhappy and wretched with it. None of that artful, artistic sadness; none of that third person self aware sort of sorrow, tilted to just the right angle. She's blotchy and damp and has a splinter.
She's so angry.
"Would you sit with me?"
“Always,” Stephen says, and it’s the truth. There are unexpected echoes of their encounter after Granitefell in the gesture, as he picks his way across broken timber (once shattered glass in a Hightown parlour) and finds his way to Gwenaëlle’s side and settles on the floor.
(For him, Granitefell had been worse. Even in the cold hard numbers for Riftwatch itself, Granitefell had been worse. And they recovered from Granitefell. Which also begs the question, if they could deploy the time machine once more— but Wysteria’s in Orzammar and Tony’s gone and they’re out of dragon blood and it’s too many variables besides, too many butterflies furiously flapping their wings and setting this inexorable trainwreck on this path. How do they stop the coup all the way over in Minrathous? How do they stop all those outposts being hit at once? They can’t.)
So. In this particular miserable timeline, Stephen sits down beside her again, comfortably cross-legged as if he’s about to meditate, and picks up the one thread she’d dangled for him.
“Who was Anders?”
He remembers hearing the name in the announcement.
(For him, Granitefell had been worse. Even in the cold hard numbers for Riftwatch itself, Granitefell had been worse. And they recovered from Granitefell. Which also begs the question, if they could deploy the time machine once more— but Wysteria’s in Orzammar and Tony’s gone and they’re out of dragon blood and it’s too many variables besides, too many butterflies furiously flapping their wings and setting this inexorable trainwreck on this path. How do they stop the coup all the way over in Minrathous? How do they stop all those outposts being hit at once? They can’t.)
So. In this particular miserable timeline, Stephen sits down beside her again, comfortably cross-legged as if he’s about to meditate, and picks up the one thread she’d dangled for him.
“Who was Anders?”
He remembers hearing the name in the announcement.
"He's the mage who blew up the Chantry in Hightown, he was only still alive because he was made a Warden and they're..."
A vague gesture of her hand. Complicated. Slightly exempt from the usual rule of law, which is already a more malleable thing in so feudal a series of interconnected and overlapping cultures. Sometimes it's just who yells the loudest with the biggest stick, which is not unrelated to the way the mage rebellion had kicked off with a really big fucking bang.
"A spirit healer, if you can believe it."
That, and not the terrorism, had been her first encounter with him; she hadn't yet known the name of the terrifying mage who'd set the world on its ear, so it hadn't meant much to her when he'd said it, meaning to give her the opportunity to object if she preferred some other pair of healing hands. Nearly a decade ago, now; sometimes they'd been civil, and others significantly less so. She'd learned from him, a bit, and they'd snapped at each other, and she doesn't even recall what specifically she'd decided to never forgive him for.
It doesn't really matter, now. It probably didn't matter all that much then, either.
"Alistair was a Warden, too. The best of them, I think," and if she knew Ellis better then she might have an asterisk, but Alistair was her best friend before Alexandrie was, so, "he was one of the first people I ever talked to about my mother. He was Fiona's son." Elfblooded, too. "I wrote him when she was killed, I don't know if he got it. Sabine must be alive, they've said everyone from here, I don't know if she'd have been at the Keep with him or not. I have to write to her."
To say what? Come back.
A vague gesture of her hand. Complicated. Slightly exempt from the usual rule of law, which is already a more malleable thing in so feudal a series of interconnected and overlapping cultures. Sometimes it's just who yells the loudest with the biggest stick, which is not unrelated to the way the mage rebellion had kicked off with a really big fucking bang.
"A spirit healer, if you can believe it."
That, and not the terrorism, had been her first encounter with him; she hadn't yet known the name of the terrifying mage who'd set the world on its ear, so it hadn't meant much to her when he'd said it, meaning to give her the opportunity to object if she preferred some other pair of healing hands. Nearly a decade ago, now; sometimes they'd been civil, and others significantly less so. She'd learned from him, a bit, and they'd snapped at each other, and she doesn't even recall what specifically she'd decided to never forgive him for.
It doesn't really matter, now. It probably didn't matter all that much then, either.
"Alistair was a Warden, too. The best of them, I think," and if she knew Ellis better then she might have an asterisk, but Alistair was her best friend before Alexandrie was, so, "he was one of the first people I ever talked to about my mother. He was Fiona's son." Elfblooded, too. "I wrote him when she was killed, I don't know if he got it. Sabine must be alive, they've said everyone from here, I don't know if she'd have been at the Keep with him or not. I have to write to her."
To say what? Come back.
Have you? (Time magic, she hasn't heard of that before. She wants to ask him more about that, what he did and how he did it, if they wrote their method down so she can read the notes, but he cuts across her suddenly. Rudely.)
Lady Arany! And — yes, I would.
Thank you.
Lady Arany! And — yes, I would.
Thank you.
He’s used to the way this happens: Gwenaëlle’s meandering tangents, her half-finished thoughts, teetering from one idea to the next. The name Grey Warden Alistair does ping recognition, because Stephen’s done his historical research, and the presumably-a-king's-bastard son who fought alongside the Hero of Ferelden is a figure for the literal history books. And then there’s the parts he didn’t know: Grand Enchanter Fiona. Starkhaven. The pieces of the tapestry starting to come into view; tug on one thread and the rest moves as one.
I’ll write Sabine, Gwenaëlle had said over the crystals, and it’s easy enough to guess why she can’t simply have have Guilfoyle handle this particular correspondence.
“I’m shit at giving bad news, too,” Stephen says after a beat. “Always one of the worst parts of the job.”
Give him a knife and blood-stained hands and he knew what to do; he could roll up his sleeves and get to work, focus on the problem and its solution. Give him a grieving family in plastic hospital chairs, looking at him and waiting to hear, and he perpetually found himself at loose ends and over-analysing his own facial expressions and if he was reacting enough, or too much, or too little, and was his voice too warm, too cold, too brisk, such that in the end—
“Honestly, I wasn’t even good at the good news either. But do you want to talk through it?”
I’ll write Sabine, Gwenaëlle had said over the crystals, and it’s easy enough to guess why she can’t simply have have Guilfoyle handle this particular correspondence.
“I’m shit at giving bad news, too,” Stephen says after a beat. “Always one of the worst parts of the job.”
Give him a knife and blood-stained hands and he knew what to do; he could roll up his sleeves and get to work, focus on the problem and its solution. Give him a grieving family in plastic hospital chairs, looking at him and waiting to hear, and he perpetually found himself at loose ends and over-analysing his own facial expressions and if he was reacting enough, or too much, or too little, and was his voice too warm, too cold, too brisk, such that in the end—
“Honestly, I wasn’t even good at the good news either. But do you want to talk through it?”
Instinctively, she thinks: no, definitely not, and is briefly diverted trying to imagine how badly one can deliver good news, but she's managed that, she's pretty sure, so actually maybe that makes perfect sense. And then she thinks, she would quite like to break another chair, or to talk about how once she banned all Grey Wardens from the de Coucy mansion and only discovered Anders even was one when he came to her in high dudgeon, presuming the decree personal and specific, and then maybe cry for a bit more, utterly unrelated. To recall: Alistair, on the ramparts, his head probably doing what hers had been days ago, if I die, you have to tell them it was a demon.
Everyone had been so much less concerned with her urgent, panicked crystal demand for a healer when they'd realised it was for Alistair and not for her, which annoys her anew remembering, and then that—
The delay is hard to read, except that maybe she is trying not to just blurt out seven unhelpful, barely-related thoughts as they bounce through her mind, distracted, distressed. She sets aside the part of the chair she's still holding with the very deliberate gesture of someone who is choosing not to throw it, and slumps sideways until she's lain her head in his lap, which is a more pleasant place to be all of these terrible things. It means she can gaze at an unimportant part of a wall, noticing the way that the floor meets it ever so slightly uneven. Where the finish is not perfect, and there is a very slight lift.
“My aunt wrote me this letter,” does not immediately seem related. So there's that. “Weeks ago. I thought I was talking to Orlov about it and it was the fucking demon. I can't stop thinking about it, now, because I'm so fucking angry with her that Casimir is dead and I'm likely never going to know why he was with the fucking Grey Wardens to die in the first place, which is why I fucking banned them from the mansion anyway, and she is— hallucinating me in the woods.”
Gwenaëlle closes her eyes. Against his thigh she has the tension of something about to move, and remains still; an active choice to do so. Difficult.
“I don't want to write to Sabine to tell her terrible news she likely already knows, I want to ask Coupe if the conversations she's having with me in her stupid cottage with my stupid uncle living in stupid political sin until she's so addled it's not safe to let her live are ever about the last fight that we had and if I've won yet and I don't. I was right. It was right. It was right to give Casimir himself back, it was wrong that he was ever treated less a person for the disconnection, it— he was a miracle,” she says, her mouth twisting, struggling to say it steady. “We made a miracle happen. Trevelyan died, I don't know why I'm surprised.”
He was a miracle to her, though, and she has never met loss but to be undone by it.
Everyone had been so much less concerned with her urgent, panicked crystal demand for a healer when they'd realised it was for Alistair and not for her, which annoys her anew remembering, and then that—
The delay is hard to read, except that maybe she is trying not to just blurt out seven unhelpful, barely-related thoughts as they bounce through her mind, distracted, distressed. She sets aside the part of the chair she's still holding with the very deliberate gesture of someone who is choosing not to throw it, and slumps sideways until she's lain her head in his lap, which is a more pleasant place to be all of these terrible things. It means she can gaze at an unimportant part of a wall, noticing the way that the floor meets it ever so slightly uneven. Where the finish is not perfect, and there is a very slight lift.
“My aunt wrote me this letter,” does not immediately seem related. So there's that. “Weeks ago. I thought I was talking to Orlov about it and it was the fucking demon. I can't stop thinking about it, now, because I'm so fucking angry with her that Casimir is dead and I'm likely never going to know why he was with the fucking Grey Wardens to die in the first place, which is why I fucking banned them from the mansion anyway, and she is— hallucinating me in the woods.”
Gwenaëlle closes her eyes. Against his thigh she has the tension of something about to move, and remains still; an active choice to do so. Difficult.
“I don't want to write to Sabine to tell her terrible news she likely already knows, I want to ask Coupe if the conversations she's having with me in her stupid cottage with my stupid uncle living in stupid political sin until she's so addled it's not safe to let her live are ever about the last fight that we had and if I've won yet and I don't. I was right. It was right. It was right to give Casimir himself back, it was wrong that he was ever treated less a person for the disconnection, it— he was a miracle,” she says, her mouth twisting, struggling to say it steady. “We made a miracle happen. Trevelyan died, I don't know why I'm surprised.”
He was a miracle to her, though, and she has never met loss but to be undone by it.
“Ah, good.” It’s so very nice having their stable of healers replenished, having more to rely on now than mere antiseptic and bandages.
And leaning back in his chair, Strange nods. Tries to make his voice as gentle and reassuring as possible, terrible as he might be at it. “They’re fine,” he says, which is maybe stretching the definition of fine a little, but… “In much the same state as you but otherwise broadly uninjured. They’ll be very relieved to hear that you and Edgard were safely retrieved.”
And leaning back in his chair, Strange nods. Tries to make his voice as gentle and reassuring as possible, terrible as he might be at it. “They’re fine,” he says, which is maybe stretching the definition of fine a little, but… “In much the same state as you but otherwise broadly uninjured. They’ll be very relieved to hear that you and Edgard were safely retrieved.”
There’s the brief moment of Stephen going very quiet and motionless as she settles in his lap — even now some part of him still needing to grow accustomed to this, to such casual touch, to being this possessive with each other — before he readjusts the tilt of his knees to make it more comfortable for her.
Those seven barely-related thoughts make it out after all, leaving him perplexed as he tries furiously to keep up. (Who’s Casimir? Why is Coupe coming up— ah, that’s the aunt, somehow Gwenaëlle had never actually mentioned her name. What miracle?)
But he lets it happen and simply goes with it, the way you might meditatively float along in a current, letting it carry you wherever it will. Stephen reaches down, brushes a few unruly locks out of Gwenaëlle’s face and out of the way. He considers which metaphorical string to pull on out of all that tangled mess, lost without context. In the end, he chooses this one, the name delicate like handling spun silk, having heard how it must matter to her:
“Who’s Casimir?”
Those seven barely-related thoughts make it out after all, leaving him perplexed as he tries furiously to keep up. (Who’s Casimir? Why is Coupe coming up— ah, that’s the aunt, somehow Gwenaëlle had never actually mentioned her name. What miracle?)
But he lets it happen and simply goes with it, the way you might meditatively float along in a current, letting it carry you wherever it will. Stephen reaches down, brushes a few unruly locks out of Gwenaëlle’s face and out of the way. He considers which metaphorical string to pull on out of all that tangled mess, lost without context. In the end, he chooses this one, the name delicate like handling spun silk, having heard how it must matter to her:
“Who’s Casimir?”
( Ordinarily Strange would be happy to chatter on about time magic, but somewhere between shoving the sandwich in his face and running around attending to the seneschal’s poisoning and knowing some very bad news is about to hit the Gallows as a whole, he doesn’t much have the energy. Another day. )
Perfectly welcome. I’ll touch base, once things are less— ( how does one even describe what’s going on ) Well. Just, less.
Perfectly welcome. I’ll touch base, once things are less— ( how does one even describe what’s going on ) Well. Just, less.
“Lyov,” she says, and that's never going to be her whole answer, but this comes slower than the rest. The tight press of her mouth eases under that gentle touch to her hair; she twists her fingers in the edge of his robe, allowing herself to be grounded. Present, in this moment, and not spinning dizzyingly out into a hundred previous.
More haltingly—
“I don't— what do you know about the Tranquil?”
More haltingly—
“I don't— what do you know about the Tranquil?”
A slow exhale, remembering his one proper conversation on this topic and dredging up the recollection with his usual pinpoint precision.
“Julius and I discussed the practice a bit. I know they undergo a procedure to cut themselves off from magic, from dreaming, from their own emotions. In the hopes of being safe from demonic possession, only for it to not be a complete assurance after all. I know it can be a voluntary alternative to a Harrowing, but isn’t always. That it can be forcibly misused.”
Stephen bites off whatever he was about to say next. Getting into his heated opinions about lobotomisation parallels probably isn’t really what this conversation is about.
“Julius and I discussed the practice a bit. I know they undergo a procedure to cut themselves off from magic, from dreaming, from their own emotions. In the hopes of being safe from demonic possession, only for it to not be a complete assurance after all. I know it can be a voluntary alternative to a Harrowing, but isn’t always. That it can be forcibly misused.”
Stephen bites off whatever he was about to say next. Getting into his heated opinions about lobotomisation parallels probably isn’t really what this conversation is about.
Gwenaëlle's own strong opinions on the matter of Tranquility are not dissimilar, probably; also, probably not quite the same. She swallows something she might have said, on the matter of misuse, and —well. Maybe this isn't not that,
“Casimir wasn't an apprentice. He had been harrowed. I don't know if it was a...sentence or an agreement or the quantifiable difference between those things in a Circle.” Tranquility is not meant to be forced on anyone, but what is voluntary in a life without free choice? She remembers: you don't have to feel something about it to understand when people are behaving disrespectfully towards you. She remembers, I have not forgotten manners.
“Averesch, the mage one, knew him before, I think. I only knew him after. We were friends. That's—”
a breath out. The other Averesch isn't even around any more for the distinction to matter, except that it very much matters Kostos Averesch knew Casimir Lyov because they were both mages.
“You know, my adventure in the swamp— Guilfoyle was with me, and Adalia, you don't know her, she was a rifter. Hakkon's Wrath. The wyvern.” The one that left a gnarled scar at her inner thigh that he's got to know more intimately, recently. “I was there because we were seeking ingredients that the mages needed for the ritual that. He used to be Tranquil, Stephen. We demonstrated that the cure was real and repeatable and that it could be undone. He chose to undo it. It wasn't sanctioned and Coupe was furious and we thought the Chantry might have him fucking assassinated and I don't know why I thought there was anywhere he'd be safe.”
“Casimir wasn't an apprentice. He had been harrowed. I don't know if it was a...sentence or an agreement or the quantifiable difference between those things in a Circle.” Tranquility is not meant to be forced on anyone, but what is voluntary in a life without free choice? She remembers: you don't have to feel something about it to understand when people are behaving disrespectfully towards you. She remembers, I have not forgotten manners.
“Averesch, the mage one, knew him before, I think. I only knew him after. We were friends. That's—”
a breath out. The other Averesch isn't even around any more for the distinction to matter, except that it very much matters Kostos Averesch knew Casimir Lyov because they were both mages.
“You know, my adventure in the swamp— Guilfoyle was with me, and Adalia, you don't know her, she was a rifter. Hakkon's Wrath. The wyvern.” The one that left a gnarled scar at her inner thigh that he's got to know more intimately, recently. “I was there because we were seeking ingredients that the mages needed for the ritual that. He used to be Tranquil, Stephen. We demonstrated that the cure was real and repeatable and that it could be undone. He chose to undo it. It wasn't sanctioned and Coupe was furious and we thought the Chantry might have him fucking assassinated and I don't know why I thought there was anywhere he'd be safe.”
"Good." A sigh that seems to come over his full body, his eyelids fluttering closed briefly. Odd how difficult it is to spend two months in close imprisonment with someone and not develop a bond with them, even if it's just a concern for their well-being.
"It's... good to be back," he adds, looking up at the ceiling, then back to Strange. Understatement of the year. "It. Didn't seem like." They would be.
"It's... good to be back," he adds, looking up at the ceiling, then back to Strange. Understatement of the year. "It. Didn't seem like." They would be.
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