"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?”
There's a muted flicker of a smile at Strange's correction; the idiom isn't one he'd use, but it's clear enough.
"I think some people you'd ask would say I hadn't properly left until I gave up the lyrium. The Divine's election was when I formally resigned: gave up my rank, stepped out of the chain of command. That said." He pauses, considering his words. "I think the crisis might have come sooner, if it weren't for Corypheus, at least in hindsight." The hesitation is less because he thinks Strange will be an unsympathetic listener and more that he's told this story so seldom. At least in this way.
"The attack on the Divine Conclave in 9:41. The timing was." Another pause. "The mage I mentioned, the one who defected to the Venatori. He saved my life, during the Mage-Templar War. Wasn't in it, he was an apostate hiding in the woods, but ... it would have been very easy for him to let me die. All he'd have had to do was nothing. But instead, I was recuperating in his home when the Conclave was attacked. When we got word, heard of the Inquisition ... we went to Skyhold, when I was strong enough to travel."
He looks out at nothing in particular. It feels as if it should make things easier, though it doesn't, especially. "I was still a Templar in name, but without formal leadership from the Chantry, we all had ... it felt like most people were happy enough to put the war to the side. We had Red Templars and Venatori to deal with, it meant pressing politics was mostly frowned upon, for a while."
The narration comes slow and halting, riddled with pauses, like something painstakingly excavated from deep, deep earth.
Strange listens to it with the gravity it deserves. Patient, attentive. And it is an interesting story, as far as he’s concerned. It’s a crucible, and he’s well-acquainted with crucibles.
“Hm,” he says, thoughtful. “I mean, I get it. With such a bigger distraction at hand— when the entire building’s on fire all around you, you’re not exactly going to take the time to sit down and ponder how you feel about ethical questions writ large. You’re only trying to put the fire out. I suspect some of the others are still in that situation, too; it’s not like the war’s ended yet.”
"Yes." Simple and direct, after how many pauses it took to get him there. "No one asked too many questions about why I turned up to Skyhold with an apostate; they were all too happy to welcome two more pairs of competent hands. But as time drew out, things." A full stop and a longer pause.
"Have you heard about the negotiations that surrounded a cache of recovered phylacteries? It was before Riftwatch broke off, so some of the longer-tenured Riftwatch members were directly involved, and others I assume remember it firsthand. The Inquisition's mages organized a strike when the organization wouldn't hand over the phylacteries to the mages they affected after securing them."
“I heard a bit,” Strange says. “Baudin and the Seneschal were kind enough to entertain some questions on the subject. I heard the phylacteries of identified mages were supposed to be destroyed.”
Although it’s a different context here, discussed with a former templar; the hunting hounds meant to hunt down wayward mages using those very phylacteries.
"Yes. As I recall, the Seneschal was deeply involved. I was not, but there was ... The Inquisition brought both its templars and its mages to the table, to try to negotiate out of the strike. The mages won the right to decide what to do with the phylacteries, those that could be identified as belonging to Inquisition-aligned mages, at least. But it came at the cost of some concessions. I am not a diplomat, but my understanding is that everyone leaves the table somewhat annoyed is not an uncommon outcome of this sort of discussion."
He sighs, though, and goes on. "I mention it because... I do not know for sure, but in hindsight, it seems to me, this was about when Antosha began to lose faith in the Inquisition. Based on some conversations we had," sometimes arguments, though not always, "I believe that he did not defect because he agreed with Corypheus. He defected because he feared that even if the Inquisition won the war, his reward would be imprisonment in a Circle. That the Inquisition would not shield him, or might even actively hand him over to the Chantry." Quieter, he adds: "I do not believe the man I knew would agree with all or most of the Venatori's politics and aims. But I can believe that he would hold his nose and tolerate them if it kept him out of a cage."
Vanya had been able to believe, for a time, that their identities as Templar and apostate were less important than their identities as Inquisition members. In hindsight, if Antosha had ever believed that, the belief hadn't lasted as long.
Mage rights. So often it always, always comes back to mage rights, like a steady heartbeat in the back of his skull.
“Not to pardon a defector, but it’s a valid question. What are we fighting for, if you wind up put in a cage after your service.” A pause. It’s gotten too personal, somehow accidentally slipsliding backwards into the topic again, and there’s a slight squirming discomfort in Strange’s chest at the prospect; but it feels a vague honour to be privy to it, too. Here’s one of the only other men more reticent to discuss their feelings than Stephen Strange himself, and they’ve found the inadvertent lever to pry that door ajar. This isn’t really a doctor’s checkup any longer.
“Strictly speaking, it’s not too different a situation than the rifters are in, too. We still have no idea what everyone will do with us when the war’s over.”
Or if they’ll even still exist if rifts stop happening, or if they’ll be able to keep enough people in one place that the anchors don’t kill them either, or, or… But those are problems for another day.
“There was a saying, where I grew up: don’t borrow trouble from tomorrow.“ It’s a rural, folksy idiom. “I expect we’ll just have to focus on the present problems and cross that other bridge when we get to it. Sorry your guy didn’t wait.”
Which is a plain way of putting it, but— Strange means it.
"Yes, I am as well." He's well aware how impolitic it is to say I miss him about a man who's been (as far as Vanya knows) actively aiding the Venatori longer than he'd been part of the Inquisition. Even so.
"Regardless. I suspect I would have left the Templars even without meeting him, sooner or later. By the war, I had doubts about the disconnect between the rhetoric and the actual actions I saw our leaders taking. But he likely sped things up. And then the new Exalted March was ... I was ready for a catalyst, I think, when it came." A short pause. "I wanted to believe it could be reformed, the Order. But I do not think the momentum is going that way, now."
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portalling) wrote2022-04-02 01:17 pm
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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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"I think some people you'd ask would say I hadn't properly left until I gave up the lyrium. The Divine's election was when I formally resigned: gave up my rank, stepped out of the chain of command. That said." He pauses, considering his words. "I think the crisis might have come sooner, if it weren't for Corypheus, at least in hindsight." The hesitation is less because he thinks Strange will be an unsympathetic listener and more that he's told this story so seldom. At least in this way.
"The attack on the Divine Conclave in 9:41. The timing was." Another pause. "The mage I mentioned, the one who defected to the Venatori. He saved my life, during the Mage-Templar War. Wasn't in it, he was an apostate hiding in the woods, but ... it would have been very easy for him to let me die. All he'd have had to do was nothing. But instead, I was recuperating in his home when the Conclave was attacked. When we got word, heard of the Inquisition ... we went to Skyhold, when I was strong enough to travel."
He looks out at nothing in particular. It feels as if it should make things easier, though it doesn't, especially. "I was still a Templar in name, but without formal leadership from the Chantry, we all had ... it felt like most people were happy enough to put the war to the side. We had Red Templars and Venatori to deal with, it meant pressing politics was mostly frowned upon, for a while."
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Strange listens to it with the gravity it deserves. Patient, attentive. And it is an interesting story, as far as he’s concerned. It’s a crucible, and he’s well-acquainted with crucibles.
“Hm,” he says, thoughtful. “I mean, I get it. With such a bigger distraction at hand— when the entire building’s on fire all around you, you’re not exactly going to take the time to sit down and ponder how you feel about ethical questions writ large. You’re only trying to put the fire out. I suspect some of the others are still in that situation, too; it’s not like the war’s ended yet.”
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"Have you heard about the negotiations that surrounded a cache of recovered phylacteries? It was before Riftwatch broke off, so some of the longer-tenured Riftwatch members were directly involved, and others I assume remember it firsthand. The Inquisition's mages organized a strike when the organization wouldn't hand over the phylacteries to the mages they affected after securing them."
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Although it’s a different context here, discussed with a former templar; the hunting hounds meant to hunt down wayward mages using those very phylacteries.
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He sighs, though, and goes on. "I mention it because... I do not know for sure, but in hindsight, it seems to me, this was about when Antosha began to lose faith in the Inquisition. Based on some conversations we had," sometimes arguments, though not always, "I believe that he did not defect because he agreed with Corypheus. He defected because he feared that even if the Inquisition won the war, his reward would be imprisonment in a Circle. That the Inquisition would not shield him, or might even actively hand him over to the Chantry." Quieter, he adds: "I do not believe the man I knew would agree with all or most of the Venatori's politics and aims. But I can believe that he would hold his nose and tolerate them if it kept him out of a cage."
Vanya had been able to believe, for a time, that their identities as Templar and apostate were less important than their identities as Inquisition members. In hindsight, if Antosha had ever believed that, the belief hadn't lasted as long.
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“Not to pardon a defector, but it’s a valid question. What are we fighting for, if you wind up put in a cage after your service.” A pause. It’s gotten too personal, somehow accidentally slipsliding backwards into the topic again, and there’s a slight squirming discomfort in Strange’s chest at the prospect; but it feels a vague honour to be privy to it, too. Here’s one of the only other men more reticent to discuss their feelings than Stephen Strange himself, and they’ve found the inadvertent lever to pry that door ajar. This isn’t really a doctor’s checkup any longer.
“Strictly speaking, it’s not too different a situation than the rifters are in, too. We still have no idea what everyone will do with us when the war’s over.”
Or if they’ll even still exist if rifts stop happening, or if they’ll be able to keep enough people in one place that the anchors don’t kill them either, or, or… But those are problems for another day.
“There was a saying, where I grew up: don’t borrow trouble from tomorrow.“ It’s a rural, folksy idiom. “I expect we’ll just have to focus on the present problems and cross that other bridge when we get to it. Sorry your guy didn’t wait.”
Which is a plain way of putting it, but— Strange means it.
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"Regardless. I suspect I would have left the Templars even without meeting him, sooner or later. By the war, I had doubts about the disconnect between the rhetoric and the actual actions I saw our leaders taking. But he likely sped things up. And then the new Exalted March was ... I was ready for a catalyst, I think, when it came." A short pause. "I wanted to believe it could be reformed, the Order. But I do not think the momentum is going that way, now."
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