After the demons and after Vanya’s more important physical check-ups, Strange had quietly tabled the lyrium topic with the thought, I’ll get to it eventually,
but then eventually had turned into a mass attack on Kirkwall and the Gallows as a whole, and so the priorities kept shuffling around. It remained on his to-do list, however, a small pebble in his shoe, faintly and perpetually nagging whenever he had a moment to breathe. But Vanya is demonstrably and assuredly off the lyrium, so the urgency of the conversation had shuffled downward compared to where it had started.
Today, Vanya finds the doctor seated at his desk, staring bleakly at some correspondence (inventory, requests for supplies denied, mercantile routes even more dried up, everywhere in the city is hard-up on things like elfroot and bandages). But. Hey. At least the infirmary itself survived.
“Always,” he says, then, “Well, not always. You know what I mean.” He scoots backward in his seat, gratefully shuffling the papers away. “Is everything alright?”
(He tends to assume the worst whenever people come to visit, now. Habits of the trade.)
He considers, briefly, and answers, "About as it was yesterday." Despite the deadpan delivery, it may be possible to recognize this as something like a joke.
He comes in to take a seat. Strange's doctor's eye can probably clock that he's a bit sore, for all he's moving through it well enough. But nothing suggests he's in immediate need of medical attention.
It takes him a moment, and then he says: "I understand you wished to speak to me about lyrium, while I was gone." He doesn't emphasize the part where Strange had that conversation with a demon instead. Neither of them needs to belabor that point. "I thought, if you had a few minutes, I might put myself at your disposal. If you still had questions." If he's not exactly eager, the offer at least feels genuine enough.
“—Ah,” he says, and there’s the brief mild disappointment at realising they’re finally about to do this, after so much postponement. Then again: that pebble, that shoe. He’d probably have circled back to the topic eventually too, just to cross it off his list.
Strange doesn’t sound over-eager himself (he’d already done this with not-Vanya, it is gruesomely pettily unfair that he has to tackle this mortifyingly personal subject again) (although not as unfair as to Vanya, so). But he takes a deep breath and steels himself again, for the fourth time, and bites down the deja vu. He has already heard this exact voice discussing this very thing. He hadn’t known the voice well enough to tell at the time.
“It’s a little different, now that I know you’ve already quit the lyrium. The intent was to get a sense of each person’s current regimen, to be able to administer the correct dosage on the correct timing if they’re ever incapacitated themselves. You’re already off it, so that’s a moot point. But…”
But in the time since, Strange has chewed over it and thought of some additional angles. “I’d be interested in hearing more about it otherwise, medically. What the detox experience was like. What helped, what didn’t. What the experience has been like after: any lingering symptoms, any cravings.”
Vanya nods. It's a reasonable request, and Strange's own discomfort makes clear enough his interest isn't prurient or macabre. If anyone else in Riftwatch decides to quit, or if a shortage puts them into involuntary withdrawal, it will be important information. He considers where to begin answering the question.
"As I understand it, quitting is likely a little bit different for everyone. For me... I was under supervision in the infirmary, and others may be able to tell you more than I could about the first few days. I was severely disoriented. As you may know, lyrium can affect the memory; it felt, subjectively as if." He stops, evaluating his language. He's never described in this sort of detail before. "Subjectively, it felt as if my memories were a stack of printed cards, and when I quit, I dropped them all on the floor. It took a day or two before I'd picked them up and reordered them, so to speak." A pause before he adds, quietly, "I suspect there are some memories I've lost, partly or fully, but I think that's the use, not the discontinuation."
Strange nods. Feels the itch to write this down; remembers he can’t.
“I suppose that makes sense, given everything,” he says. “The effects on memory being slower and more gradual with habitual use, but that withdrawal then heightening it, worsening it on its way out. When you say picking up the memories and reordering them, what does that entail— was it simply disorientation, or were they hallucinations? Did you stop all usage at once, or taper off more gradually? Do you know if there’s a tendency in former templars between one or the other approach? Either one being more dangerous or life-threatening, for example.”
It’s a quick, business-like recitation of queries, clearly ready-to-hand, the itching medical curiosity he’s stockpiled but hasn’t had a chance to indulge until now. With the angle and drive of these questions, Strange’s motive and agenda isn’t too hard to intuit: he wants to be prepared to usher the next one through it. If there is a next one. (If he has his druthers, there’ll be more someday.)
"I believe I may have had some hallucinations in the worst of it, though I don't clearly remember. But the reordering ... as I healed, it was clear that the memories were real, I think, it was more that they'd sometimes come detached from the context. I'm not sure if that makes much sense, but it would be as if ... someone would be turned away from me in the memory and I couldn't be sure who it was, or I knew the event happened but I had no idea how old I was when it did. That sort of thing." He hasn't talked about this before and finds it, if not precisely easy, then at least easier than he'd braced for. Giving a report is something he knows how to do, even if the content is usually much different.
(And if Strange notices a certain detachment, he probably has enough training to guess where that comes from.)
"I didn't trust myself to taper off," he adds, frankly, of the later question. "The addictive properties of lyrium are ... intense. I informed the Commander of my intentions and let him advise me if he had concerns about the timing, and I reported to the infirmary. But I feared if I tried to. If I had access to any at all, I didn't trust that I wouldn't become a problem in trying to secure more." Still even.
It’s a terrible (and terribly personal) context, but they are both so very good at that clinical detachment. This is easier to broach when it’s little parcels of impersonal fact, giving a report: this is simply what happened. The doctor would sooner set himself on fire than ask and how did you feel about that, emotionally?
“Also reasonable,” Strange concludes. “With some drugs, the withdrawal symptoms are simply too dangerous to field going off it all at once. But it seems you must have made the right call if the side-effects were… manageable. What about physically? Fevers, aches and pains, nausea, any of that? Nothing that seemed life-threatening?”
"Lyrium withdrawal causes excessive thirst. In me, and from what I've read, it's fairly common. Fatigue and muscle weakness, especially for the first week or two. Headaches. Deeply unpleasant, but manageable if you plan to stop and make provisions for others to assist you. I imagine involuntary withdrawal, or withdrawal in the field, would have serious dangers." He pauses before he adds:
"It was part of why I did what I did, for what it's worth. Stopping on my terms, in a place where I knew there was an infirmary, at a time that there wasn't a crisis." To avoid the dangers of involuntary withdrawal.
There’s a small flicker of a bleak smile at the corner of Strange’s mouth as he feels that deja vu again. This is such familiar ground. He had this conversation with Vanya’s doppelganger; still hates that for him; and decides, once again, not to mention that part. They’re just doing the do-over.
“That’s the exact reasoning I’ve been trying with one of your colleagues.” He doesn’t name specific names; there’s still that lingering instinct for a physician’s privacy. “It just seems— a tremendous risk. Even if someone never goes into the field, there’s still continual trade disruptions, and lyrium can’t be that easy to get a hold of. And the chance of being incapacitated and going into unplanned withdrawal is perpetually there, considering the nature of our regular fieldwork.”
A beat. “Or, say, if someone’s captured and in captivity for an extended period of time, unable to reach their supply.”
For whatever it's worth, the real Vanya clearly isn't enjoying the conversation, for all he's cooperating. The beats may be the same, but the framing in tone and body language is markedly different.
"I did think of that," quietly, of the illustration he'd just had of why quitting had been practical. As much as part of him wonders if he'd have been captured in the first place if he still had his abilities, most of him is grateful all four of the captives had been spared the additional stress of his involuntary withdrawal.
"Even so, I sympathize with the others. I think ... I'd resigned from the Order years before I gave up lyrium. I can't speak for everyone's reasons for continuing to use it, but for me — obviously the addiction was a factor. But I also think." He pauses, weighing his words. "Our training, and our experience. It creates a certain frame of mind. By design, I strongly suspect. It was hard for me not to feel that I would be useless to Riftwatch, or anyone else, without the abilities lyrium granted. Especially after so many years' dependence on it."
He's not sure he would have been able to articulate the insidiousness of that, even a year or two ago. But the more distance he has, the clearer that aspect has become to him.
As uncomfortable as this conversation is, it’s also offering some valuable insight, and neatly dovetails with what Gwenaëlle had mentioned about Vanya. That he’d already left the Order long before quitting, and therefore already started walking down that road.
It’s all a topic that Strange circles often and which keeps cropping up with Mobius, with Gwenaëlle, even those brief awkward check-ins with the other templars. Vanya laying out that reasoning is so familiar, in fact — words echoed in another mouth — that it speaks to the very point Vanya’s making.
The lessons drummed into you, the message swallowed. Your worth. Your worth intrinsically tied to your value as a templar. How do you unwire that.
Strange has settled back in his chair, thoughtful. “That’s the same thing I’ve been hearing. That those abilities are supposedly too crucial to give up, that they want to be of the most use in the war no matter the personal cost to themselves. And god knows I might know what that’s like; I so hated losing my abilities and feeling useless that I bankrupted myself and went halfway around the world and threw it all out the window in an attempt to get it back. So. Probably it’s a tall order, asking your fellows to give up what they know.”
Good thing the doctor never flinches from tall orders —
"I wouldn't presume to speak for anyone else." It seems unlikely Strange would have assumed Vanya would presume anything, but even so. "But having been off it roughly a year and a half ... it's true and it isn't. There are many things I can't do anymore that I once could. I still have to work around some of my instincts, avoid maneuvers that require abilities I can no longer access. On the other hand."
A pause. This isn't getting easier.
"There are a lot of things about my training I still use every time I'm in combat. You don't need lyrium for tactical thinking, and there's a lot I know about mages and magic that's still useful with the ability to directly counter it. It's not as if all that knowledge and experience just evaporates with the ability to Silence someone." A bit quieter, he adds, "I haven't done anything to prove it, but I also think ... my memory may be improving, a little? I can't attest to that, though, it may just be wishful thinking."
“That would make sense. It is a very active drug, and if it’s slowly eating away at your memories over the long-term, then presumably cessation should help those effects.” Strange doesn’t sugarcoat it — he doesn’t really know how — although, blessedly, he doesn’t launch into a tangent about deteriorating neurons. “And as you say, you can still swing a sword, you can still fight, at the end of the day you’re still a well-trained and experienced warrior.”
There’s a small flicker of dry humour at the corner of his mouth, perhaps ill-advised, but: “If you ever feel like putting on a workplace presentation for your coworkers, called something like I’m A Year And A Half Off Lyrium And I Feel Fine And I Can Still Kick Ass… I’m just saying.”
He considers it, which is maybe more than Strange expected given his general vibe as a man allergic to public speaking. After a moment: "I suspect it might do more harm than good among most of them. I haven't the strongest ties to most of our templars or ex-templars. And those who've been around since the Inquisition or cared to look into it." He hesitates. "...given Riftwatch, I don't that anyone other than Keen deeply cares, but I was involved with a mage, seriously, years ago. He defected to the Venatori. I may not be telling you anything you don't know, but it's not as if ... What I mean to say is that my Templar credentials weren't sterling before I stopped using lyrium, which was a large part of Mlle. Baudin's point, I think. I may not serve as much of an example to those who still care more about the Order."
Maybe useful to those who don't. He's thought, before, of Barrow's awkward well-wishes soon after he quit. But it feels unnatural to put himself forward as any kind of object lesson.
“I’m deeply, exaggeratedly out of the loop in terms of people’s romantic histories and reputations, don’t worry.”
Defected to the Venatori, though, is a serious issue; it’s not just became a runaway apostate. Strange’s thoughtful expression deepens. This part isn’t necessarily relevant in the same way that physical symptoms are, but… The social context. That part matters, too. It’s such a large part of his disadvantage here in Thedas, trying to wrap his head around years’ and decades’ worth of history, of differing priorities, of an entire population that ticks differently than he does.
“Judging you by proximity to another person’s choices years ago, however, seems tremendously unfair.” He isn’t going to ask how Vanya feels about that. Instead: “How close do the others’ loyalties still lie to the Order, do you think?”
"I suspect there are notes on that. Acting Commander Rowntree likely has some." From another man it might have been bitter or sarcastic; from Vanya, it's just an observation.
"Others may know more than I do. But from my observation... Keen has made no secret of the fact he's not here by free choice. It doesn't take an especially sharp eye to see he still thinks of himself as a Templar first. Carsus, too, has an anchor shard. I do know Carsus, some, and I think he's a man who sincerely wishes to do the right thing in a broad sense. I suspect he still finds a place for the Order in that framework in a way I don't, but I don't know to what degree he prioritizes it."
He weighs it a bit before he adds: "I think Barrow is who he says he is. An older soldier who believes he's too old to do things differently. But I think his loyalty to Riftwatch is genuine. And I don't know Mobius that well, but I think if he were still attached to the Order, he might not have hidden his former connection to it at first. But." The hint of a rueful smile. "As I said, I may not be the most expert opinion you could consult."
“The trouble, then, when ‘doing the right thing’ involves still following the Order’s philosophy and its rituals,” Strange says, dry, a little bitterly disapproving; his professional mask is good enough, but little bits and pieces of his real opinion have been bleeding through during this conversation.
Getting them off the lyrium is, apparently, such a tangled knot: one might need to untangle their loyalty to the Order first, then the men’s own hangups about their usefulness on or off the substance. What a goddamn mess.
His mouth is still settled into a thin line, mulling it over, fingers tapping on the edge of the desk before he broaches these next words. “For what it’s worth— I know the decision’s long-gone and you don’t exactly need my validation— but I think you did the right thing. You’re ahead of the curve, and it’s a relief that I have one less templar’s mental condition to fret over.”
Cedric is, without question, the most personally complicated for Vanya, of the men they've just mentioned. Vanya has his own thoughts on the Templar Order, some of them strong, but he's still not sure how or whether to raise them. So many people he knows and respects in Riftwatch are in a position to easily say the Order is bad straight through; Vanya, for all he doesn't regret his turn away from it, is haunted by the ways in which he'd spent years believing in its goodness.
All of that would be a lot to drop in the doctor's lap, so he opts not to.
Instead, he says, "Kind of you to say. I don't expect to be lauded for it, when it's just ... Gwenaëlle was right that I had already made the harder choice, leaving the Order in the first place. Hanging onto the lyrium as long as I did after that was addiction and fear. The supposed benefits weren't worth the ways it made me a liability to Riftwatch more broadly."
“Precisely,” Strange says, firm; and it’s oddly nicer to be agreeing with Orlov on these topics rather than his demonic doppelganger.
And he could probably leave it be, let sleeping dogs lie, but— now that the door’s open for once, there’s an opportunity to ask. And Stephen Strange has been accused of being many things, but incurious isn’t one of them. So he pauses for only a moment, before ripping off the band-aid:
“What got you to make that choice, the first time? To leave the Order.”
It's interesting when he realizes how rarely anyone, regardless of their affiliation, has bothered to ask. But that's not something to dwell on (now, at least).
Instead, he says, "I'm not sure if you're interested in the much longer version, but the short one is that I had been uneasy for some time, but while working with the Inquisition, I could stay a Templar and focus on opposing Corypheus in ways that made sense to me. After Beatrix was elected Divine, my choice was stark: head out with the Exalted March or resign."
He pauses, then adds a little more quietly, "I think the election also made clear to me that reform for the Order was unlikely, at least in the short term. A don't know if I'd have left, with a more liberal-minded Divine in power. Or maybe I still would have eventually. But probably not right at that moment."
“I’m always interested in the longer version,” Strange says; and it is, actually, the truth. For all his brusque impatience in professional matters and a tendency to want to get to the point already, he is, still, curious about the pieces that cobble people together. The ways they tick, and understanding why.
Wong and the Ancient One had worked on drumming that particular patience into him, a willingness to listen and pay attention. It’s not always about you, Stephen.
“So you support more radical reform? I didn’t realise you for a rebel, Orlov.” His voice is light enough to make it a gentle prod; under the guise of faint humour.
Vanya's expression flickers, not quite a smile, as if he's not sure how much that last remark was a joke. Still, he answers it in earnest. "I did not set out to be." It's not quite the same thing as I'm not.
He pauses, as if deciding where to begin with "the longer version" or elaborating on his answer. It turns out it's more or less the same, when he speaks. "I was recruited when I was in my teens. Fifteen, when I started the process, and I took my vows about two years later. I don't know... since you're a rifter, I am not sure which impressions you've had of the Order, especially, given..." A shorter pause. "I cannot speak for every Templar, but for me, I did not join because I wanted to have power over someone. I did not even especially want acclaim, though I did know my parents were proud of my choice. The Templars who recruited me said ... at least in Nevarra City, where I was. They said that it was important work. That we protected mages as much as we protected others from them. That we were needed, for everyone to live together in harmony."
He glances down at his hands. "From here, with all that has happened since, I can admit that I was naive. But it was also — I had never left Nevarra. There were still Circles, but mages there... When I first heard of some of the things that happened in Ferelden, the Free Marches, even some places in Orlais. They seemed so extreme. I don't know how much you know about Nevarran mages, but it was. The problems there were less brutal and less obvious." He realizes the account he's giving is a bit fragmented and maybe not the most easy to follow. But it's been some time, since he spoke about his experiences. Certainly this part.
It is useful, that they’re having this conversation after Stephen and Gwenaëlle have already touched on this topic. Her perspective as a person without magic, a civilian growing up into this.
(Ten years ago, I had only seen mages enough to count on the fingers of one hand, mostly at a distance, and everyone had told me my entire life that Templars protect us and them. That Tranquility is an unequivocal good for offering a broken thing a use in the Maker’s hands. That Circles are the best, safest places for mages to be. That it is heroic to haul someone screaming back into one.)
The doctor pauses and sorts through his words, more delicately and more careful than he usually does. “My impressions are biased, sure,” he says, with a tilted incline of the head; he’s a rifter, condescendingly modern, and a mage near enough as it matters, but…
“But I don’t think— well, it’s not necessarily naive or foolish, if that’s the way you were raised, and if the treatment in Nevarra is better than most. You were operating realistically based on what information you had available to you at the time. What matters is that you’re able to take in new information, reassess, and reconsider your approach. A certain malleability of perspective. Being able to accept when what you knew was wrong and turn over a new leaf. That’s what counts.”
Strange has turned over more than a few himself, out of both grim necessity and stubborn reinvention.
"It wasn't only one thing. That changed my mind." He assumes that's probably true of most people, who go through such massive shifts in their worldview. And there are just as many who double down: fear of losing their place in the world, reluctance to give up the advantages they'd secured.
"Lord Seeker Lambert’s decision to dissolve the Nevarran Accord was ... before that, there were appalling things happening, but it seemed like small local problems cropping up in the wake of the tragedy here in Kirkwall. But with the Accord gone, it was war, and that was. I didn't feel my vows left me much choice. But I do think it was a first step. Long before the election that put Beatrix in power. There were others, in between."
It's not (only) that he feels uncomfortable taking any sort of credit for changing his course. It's just that it's felt so gradual to him that he wants to make clear it wasn't a journey he set out on purposefully. He looked up one day and the boat of his own sense of morality had carried him far from where the rest of the Order stayed on shore, he sometimes felt.
“I assume that’s generally how it works. Most people don’t have a come-to-Jesus—” Strange pauses, banks the phrasing sideways, adjusts, “come-to-Andraste moment of sudden sharp awakening overnight to change a worldview. Instead it’s presumably a piling-up of evidence until it hits critical mass.”
Humming along beneath this entire conversation is the running question on his mind: how does he reproduce Orlov’s journey with other templars. How can he sever that thread of loyalty and obligation and duty? It seems such a colossal task, chipping away at them for years.
“So when was the crisis point, when you finally left, or considered yourself to have left? The new Divine’s election?”
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portalling) wrote2022-04-02 01:17 pm
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but then eventually had turned into a mass attack on Kirkwall and the Gallows as a whole, and so the priorities kept shuffling around. It remained on his to-do list, however, a small pebble in his shoe, faintly and perpetually nagging whenever he had a moment to breathe. But Vanya is demonstrably and assuredly off the lyrium, so the urgency of the conversation had shuffled downward compared to where it had started.
Today, Vanya finds the doctor seated at his desk, staring bleakly at some correspondence (inventory, requests for supplies denied, mercantile routes even more dried up, everywhere in the city is hard-up on things like elfroot and bandages). But. Hey. At least the infirmary itself survived.
“Always,” he says, then, “Well, not always. You know what I mean.” He scoots backward in his seat, gratefully shuffling the papers away. “Is everything alright?”
(He tends to assume the worst whenever people come to visit, now. Habits of the trade.)
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He comes in to take a seat. Strange's doctor's eye can probably clock that he's a bit sore, for all he's moving through it well enough. But nothing suggests he's in immediate need of medical attention.
It takes him a moment, and then he says: "I understand you wished to speak to me about lyrium, while I was gone." He doesn't emphasize the part where Strange had that conversation with a demon instead. Neither of them needs to belabor that point. "I thought, if you had a few minutes, I might put myself at your disposal. If you still had questions." If he's not exactly eager, the offer at least feels genuine enough.
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Strange doesn’t sound over-eager himself (he’d already done this with not-Vanya, it is gruesomely pettily unfair that he has to tackle this mortifyingly personal subject again) (although not as unfair as to Vanya, so). But he takes a deep breath and steels himself again, for the fourth time, and bites down the deja vu. He has already heard this exact voice discussing this very thing. He hadn’t known the voice well enough to tell at the time.
“It’s a little different, now that I know you’ve already quit the lyrium. The intent was to get a sense of each person’s current regimen, to be able to administer the correct dosage on the correct timing if they’re ever incapacitated themselves. You’re already off it, so that’s a moot point. But…”
But in the time since, Strange has chewed over it and thought of some additional angles. “I’d be interested in hearing more about it otherwise, medically. What the detox experience was like. What helped, what didn’t. What the experience has been like after: any lingering symptoms, any cravings.”
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"As I understand it, quitting is likely a little bit different for everyone. For me... I was under supervision in the infirmary, and others may be able to tell you more than I could about the first few days. I was severely disoriented. As you may know, lyrium can affect the memory; it felt, subjectively as if." He stops, evaluating his language. He's never described in this sort of detail before. "Subjectively, it felt as if my memories were a stack of printed cards, and when I quit, I dropped them all on the floor. It took a day or two before I'd picked them up and reordered them, so to speak." A pause before he adds, quietly, "I suspect there are some memories I've lost, partly or fully, but I think that's the use, not the discontinuation."
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“I suppose that makes sense, given everything,” he says. “The effects on memory being slower and more gradual with habitual use, but that withdrawal then heightening it, worsening it on its way out. When you say picking up the memories and reordering them, what does that entail— was it simply disorientation, or were they hallucinations? Did you stop all usage at once, or taper off more gradually? Do you know if there’s a tendency in former templars between one or the other approach? Either one being more dangerous or life-threatening, for example.”
It’s a quick, business-like recitation of queries, clearly ready-to-hand, the itching medical curiosity he’s stockpiled but hasn’t had a chance to indulge until now. With the angle and drive of these questions, Strange’s motive and agenda isn’t too hard to intuit: he wants to be prepared to usher the next one through it. If there is a next one. (If he has his druthers, there’ll be more someday.)
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(And if Strange notices a certain detachment, he probably has enough training to guess where that comes from.)
"I didn't trust myself to taper off," he adds, frankly, of the later question. "The addictive properties of lyrium are ... intense. I informed the Commander of my intentions and let him advise me if he had concerns about the timing, and I reported to the infirmary. But I feared if I tried to. If I had access to any at all, I didn't trust that I wouldn't become a problem in trying to secure more." Still even.
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“Also reasonable,” Strange concludes. “With some drugs, the withdrawal symptoms are simply too dangerous to field going off it all at once. But it seems you must have made the right call if the side-effects were… manageable. What about physically? Fevers, aches and pains, nausea, any of that? Nothing that seemed life-threatening?”
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"It was part of why I did what I did, for what it's worth. Stopping on my terms, in a place where I knew there was an infirmary, at a time that there wasn't a crisis." To avoid the dangers of involuntary withdrawal.
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“That’s the exact reasoning I’ve been trying with one of your colleagues.” He doesn’t name specific names; there’s still that lingering instinct for a physician’s privacy. “It just seems— a tremendous risk. Even if someone never goes into the field, there’s still continual trade disruptions, and lyrium can’t be that easy to get a hold of. And the chance of being incapacitated and going into unplanned withdrawal is perpetually there, considering the nature of our regular fieldwork.”
A beat. “Or, say, if someone’s captured and in captivity for an extended period of time, unable to reach their supply.”
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"I did think of that," quietly, of the illustration he'd just had of why quitting had been practical. As much as part of him wonders if he'd have been captured in the first place if he still had his abilities, most of him is grateful all four of the captives had been spared the additional stress of his involuntary withdrawal.
"Even so, I sympathize with the others. I think ... I'd resigned from the Order years before I gave up lyrium. I can't speak for everyone's reasons for continuing to use it, but for me — obviously the addiction was a factor. But I also think." He pauses, weighing his words. "Our training, and our experience. It creates a certain frame of mind. By design, I strongly suspect. It was hard for me not to feel that I would be useless to Riftwatch, or anyone else, without the abilities lyrium granted. Especially after so many years' dependence on it."
He's not sure he would have been able to articulate the insidiousness of that, even a year or two ago. But the more distance he has, the clearer that aspect has become to him.
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It’s all a topic that Strange circles often and which keeps cropping up with Mobius, with Gwenaëlle, even those brief awkward check-ins with the other templars. Vanya laying out that reasoning is so familiar, in fact — words echoed in another mouth — that it speaks to the very point Vanya’s making.
The lessons drummed into you, the message swallowed. Your worth. Your worth intrinsically tied to your value as a templar. How do you unwire that.
Strange has settled back in his chair, thoughtful. “That’s the same thing I’ve been hearing. That those abilities are supposedly too crucial to give up, that they want to be of the most use in the war no matter the personal cost to themselves. And god knows I might know what that’s like; I so hated losing my abilities and feeling useless that I bankrupted myself and went halfway around the world and threw it all out the window in an attempt to get it back. So. Probably it’s a tall order, asking your fellows to give up what they know.”
Good thing the doctor never flinches from tall orders —
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A pause. This isn't getting easier.
"There are a lot of things about my training I still use every time I'm in combat. You don't need lyrium for tactical thinking, and there's a lot I know about mages and magic that's still useful with the ability to directly counter it. It's not as if all that knowledge and experience just evaporates with the ability to Silence someone." A bit quieter, he adds, "I haven't done anything to prove it, but I also think ... my memory may be improving, a little? I can't attest to that, though, it may just be wishful thinking."
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There’s a small flicker of dry humour at the corner of his mouth, perhaps ill-advised, but: “If you ever feel like putting on a workplace presentation for your coworkers, called something like I’m A Year And A Half Off Lyrium And I Feel Fine And I Can Still Kick Ass… I’m just saying.”
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Maybe useful to those who don't. He's thought, before, of Barrow's awkward well-wishes soon after he quit. But it feels unnatural to put himself forward as any kind of object lesson.
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Defected to the Venatori, though, is a serious issue; it’s not just became a runaway apostate. Strange’s thoughtful expression deepens. This part isn’t necessarily relevant in the same way that physical symptoms are, but… The social context. That part matters, too. It’s such a large part of his disadvantage here in Thedas, trying to wrap his head around years’ and decades’ worth of history, of differing priorities, of an entire population that ticks differently than he does.
“Judging you by proximity to another person’s choices years ago, however, seems tremendously unfair.” He isn’t going to ask how Vanya feels about that. Instead: “How close do the others’ loyalties still lie to the Order, do you think?”
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"Others may know more than I do. But from my observation... Keen has made no secret of the fact he's not here by free choice. It doesn't take an especially sharp eye to see he still thinks of himself as a Templar first. Carsus, too, has an anchor shard. I do know Carsus, some, and I think he's a man who sincerely wishes to do the right thing in a broad sense. I suspect he still finds a place for the Order in that framework in a way I don't, but I don't know to what degree he prioritizes it."
He weighs it a bit before he adds: "I think Barrow is who he says he is. An older soldier who believes he's too old to do things differently. But I think his loyalty to Riftwatch is genuine. And I don't know Mobius that well, but I think if he were still attached to the Order, he might not have hidden his former connection to it at first. But." The hint of a rueful smile. "As I said, I may not be the most expert opinion you could consult."
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Getting them off the lyrium is, apparently, such a tangled knot: one might need to untangle their loyalty to the Order first, then the men’s own hangups about their usefulness on or off the substance. What a goddamn mess.
His mouth is still settled into a thin line, mulling it over, fingers tapping on the edge of the desk before he broaches these next words. “For what it’s worth— I know the decision’s long-gone and you don’t exactly need my validation— but I think you did the right thing. You’re ahead of the curve, and it’s a relief that I have one less templar’s mental condition to fret over.”
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All of that would be a lot to drop in the doctor's lap, so he opts not to.
Instead, he says, "Kind of you to say. I don't expect to be lauded for it, when it's just ... Gwenaëlle was right that I had already made the harder choice, leaving the Order in the first place. Hanging onto the lyrium as long as I did after that was addiction and fear. The supposed benefits weren't worth the ways it made me a liability to Riftwatch more broadly."
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And he could probably leave it be, let sleeping dogs lie, but— now that the door’s open for once, there’s an opportunity to ask. And Stephen Strange has been accused of being many things, but incurious isn’t one of them. So he pauses for only a moment, before ripping off the band-aid:
“What got you to make that choice, the first time? To leave the Order.”
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Instead, he says, "I'm not sure if you're interested in the much longer version, but the short one is that I had been uneasy for some time, but while working with the Inquisition, I could stay a Templar and focus on opposing Corypheus in ways that made sense to me. After Beatrix was elected Divine, my choice was stark: head out with the Exalted March or resign."
He pauses, then adds a little more quietly, "I think the election also made clear to me that reform for the Order was unlikely, at least in the short term. A don't know if I'd have left, with a more liberal-minded Divine in power. Or maybe I still would have eventually. But probably not right at that moment."
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Wong and the Ancient One had worked on drumming that particular patience into him, a willingness to listen and pay attention. It’s not always about you, Stephen.
“So you support more radical reform? I didn’t realise you for a rebel, Orlov.” His voice is light enough to make it a gentle prod; under the guise of faint humour.
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He pauses, as if deciding where to begin with "the longer version" or elaborating on his answer. It turns out it's more or less the same, when he speaks. "I was recruited when I was in my teens. Fifteen, when I started the process, and I took my vows about two years later. I don't know... since you're a rifter, I am not sure which impressions you've had of the Order, especially, given..." A shorter pause. "I cannot speak for every Templar, but for me, I did not join because I wanted to have power over someone. I did not even especially want acclaim, though I did know my parents were proud of my choice. The Templars who recruited me said ... at least in Nevarra City, where I was. They said that it was important work. That we protected mages as much as we protected others from them. That we were needed, for everyone to live together in harmony."
He glances down at his hands. "From here, with all that has happened since, I can admit that I was naive. But it was also — I had never left Nevarra. There were still Circles, but mages there... When I first heard of some of the things that happened in Ferelden, the Free Marches, even some places in Orlais. They seemed so extreme. I don't know how much you know about Nevarran mages, but it was. The problems there were less brutal and less obvious." He realizes the account he's giving is a bit fragmented and maybe not the most easy to follow. But it's been some time, since he spoke about his experiences. Certainly this part.
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(Ten years ago, I had only seen mages enough to count on the fingers of one hand, mostly at a distance, and everyone had told me my entire life that Templars protect us and them. That Tranquility is an unequivocal good for offering a broken thing a use in the Maker’s hands. That Circles are the best, safest places for mages to be. That it is heroic to haul someone screaming back into one.)
The doctor pauses and sorts through his words, more delicately and more careful than he usually does. “My impressions are biased, sure,” he says, with a tilted incline of the head; he’s a rifter, condescendingly modern, and a mage near enough as it matters, but…
“But I don’t think— well, it’s not necessarily naive or foolish, if that’s the way you were raised, and if the treatment in Nevarra is better than most. You were operating realistically based on what information you had available to you at the time. What matters is that you’re able to take in new information, reassess, and reconsider your approach. A certain malleability of perspective. Being able to accept when what you knew was wrong and turn over a new leaf. That’s what counts.”
Strange has turned over more than a few himself, out of both grim necessity and stubborn reinvention.
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"Lord Seeker Lambert’s decision to dissolve the Nevarran Accord was ... before that, there were appalling things happening, but it seemed like small local problems cropping up in the wake of the tragedy here in Kirkwall. But with the Accord gone, it was war, and that was. I didn't feel my vows left me much choice. But I do think it was a first step. Long before the election that put Beatrix in power. There were others, in between."
It's not (only) that he feels uncomfortable taking any sort of credit for changing his course. It's just that it's felt so gradual to him that he wants to make clear it wasn't a journey he set out on purposefully. He looked up one day and the boat of his own sense of morality had carried him far from where the rest of the Order stayed on shore, he sometimes felt.
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Humming along beneath this entire conversation is the running question on his mind: how does he reproduce Orlov’s journey with other templars. How can he sever that thread of loyalty and obligation and duty? It seems such a colossal task, chipping away at them for years.
“So when was the crisis point, when you finally left, or considered yourself to have left? The new Divine’s election?”
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