freedom_is_grey | walking down the trousers of time

"Yes," Ysalwen says slowly, drawing out the 'y' sound quite a bit.

"Do you know her by reputation? Or do you know her? If -- "

Her mouth twists at one corner.

"How worried do I need to be? Given -- I think she knows you. Or knows of you. I'm not sure which."

On third thought, how worried does Cullen need to be?

Edited 2016-02-21 03:47 (UTC)

Cullen lets out a breath. "I -- well. There's... news. A great deal of it."

He looks out at the lake for a moment, and starts walking. It'll be easier if he's moving. "She's -- the Right Hand of the Divine. And she and the Left Hand have come to Kirkwall. I thought this would be -- " He shakes his head. "Too much information. It's not an Exalted March, Hightown doesn't have any new heads on pikes -- and that includes mine, and the mages with us -- but yes. She... came here from the Kirkwall I know. And is trying to terrify her way through yet another interrogation, I have no doubt. But I don't know how worried you need to be. Not at all? I hope?"

She keeps pace with him, arms wrapping around herself to hold everything in.

"But you're -- I mean. She doesn't frighten me."

Much.

"Do you -- is your head going to stay not on a pike? And the rest of the people with you? I -- "

Wait. No, seriously, wait.

"I mentioned you. When she was accusing me of being a liar. I -- should I not have? Will that cause you trouble?"

Cullen shakes his head. "No. She did her research. She -- knows. About Kinloch. -- why would she accuse you of being a liar?"

"Cousland's daughter," Ysalwen says. "I don't know if she realized I -- "

Came from Kinloch, maybe.

"I mentioned being Warden-Commander. And Arl. It -- seemed like a bid to be safe. In case she had ideas about my station and her responsibilities. Here, I mean."

Ysalwen swallows, teeth digging briefly into her lower lip.

"And elsewhere, I suppose. She asked if me I might know where she could find said Cousland. Later."

She said some other things later, too.

"She's not -- holding it over you, is she? Kinloch."

If so, Ysalwen will kill her.

"No!" Startled. "No, she -- rather the opposite, in fact." But he's distracted by something else she said. "She's not -- she doesn't have ideas about -- Circles? You'd tell me if she did? I don't -- "

There is no way saying this isn't going to be mortifying. Cullen stops, rubs his hands over his face, lets them drop.

And says, low, furious (because really, fuck it): "I will do everything I can to make sure she does nothing to you. Your freedom over everything else, every time. You have my word. And my sword, should it come to it."

"Oh."

Oh.

"I -- "

It's not as if she doubted it, really. Maybe she should have? Except --

"I don't think she did. Does. No. I just wasn't sure until -- . That's good to know."

She drops to crouch beside Ci, just now, and ruffles the young mabari's ears.

It's probably a better choice than hugging Cullen. Even if she wants to.

(She didn't know she was so ~~frightened~~ worried until a lot of that is suddenly eased.)

Edited 2016-02-21 04:14 (UTC)

Which means that Cullen is left standing by himself. Which is... awkward.

He clears his throat, folds his arms, looks at the ground. Not at her, though.

Low:

"I -- of course you have reason not to be sure. That's, that's why I said it. It needs to be said."

Because if Ysalwen thinks he makes bad choices now, wait until she hears the rest of it!

"No!"

The word flies out without her quite meaning it to, even as she looks up from her regard of Ci, eyes wide.

"That's not -- I figured -- I wasn't actually worried. About that. I thought you -- "

This is terrible.

"I thought you would be for me. If she tried -- something. I wasn't worried. I -- was that horribly presumptuous? It was horribly presumptuous, wasn't it? To just think -- but -- you know I wouldn't do anything that -- "

He's shaking his head a little. "You should be suspicious of me. It's -- it's healthy. I'm... what I am, by my own choice."

Which is the crucial part, isn't it. His choice.

"What binds me is my word. Which I've given you. So -- that much, at least, you don't have to worry about."

She gets to make her choices, too. But they've had talks like this before, so --

"Thank you. It -- helps. To know that -- "

Anyway.

"Anyway, it helps. So."

She stands up again, after one last pat to Ci's back, and starts walking again. Maybe a little less rapidly.

"Um."

Edited 2016-02-21 04:36 (UTC)

Cullen's arms stay folded, even as he walks.

(Ci stays close by his side. She might be young, but she's not stupid. She can tell when he's --

Well.)

"She troubled you," he says. "Was that -- the only thing?"

Liranan stays pressed close to Ysalwen's side, too, even now.

Even after --

"No. It -- "

She inhales, holds it for a five count, then lets her breath out.

Slowly.

"She said Anders blew up the Chantry. On purpose. That's why Kirkwall -- "

Cullen's silence might be answer enough.

"What I can't figure out is why."

It's been driving her progressively more mad as time goes on.

"He had to have known what it would do, to have a mage do that."

She shakes her head, lost for a minute inside her own pondering.

"He's always hated the system, I've always known he hated it, he'd avoid talking about it with really terrible biting jokes but you could still see it, I just -- "

"Are you asking me."

Cullen's voice is soft, tired.

"It's -- it's not senseless. There's logic. If you want to know, truly -- I'll tell you."

Maker damn Cassandra.

"If -- please."

She doesn't mean to sound desperate, but she probably does.

A little.

"I don't know anyone else who can tell me."

I can't do this is immediately followed up with you must do this.

"Let me think a moment." Faint.

"If I tell you there were more maleficar in Kirkwall than at Kinloch -- would you believe me?"

He wouldn't be surprised if she didn't.

There's a faint buzzing in her ears, but now is not the time.

"If you tell me that," she says at last. "Yes."

"There were. I -- somehow they'd even figured out how to force a demon into templar recruits, making them into abominations. That -- that shouldn't be possible. And -- "

He runs a hand through his hair; it's a harsh movement. "It's a port city, full of smugglers' caves, thousands of years old. It's almost impossible to maintain order. With maleficar everywhere. I'm not going to -- there is no excuse for what Meredith Stannard did as Knight-Commander, or what I allowed to happen as her second. But this was the situation that made her make these decisions. And that's even before we get into the smugglers, the street gangs, the cultists -- "

But none of that tells her why Anders --

(Into templars? How -- why -- no, that's not the point here. It's horrifying, but it's not the point.)

"But if it was maleficar -- he was never fond of blood magic, either, but how was taking down the Chantry going to -- "

"That's just the beginning." His mouth tightens. "Believe me, I've spent quite some time with the same questions you've got. I'll get there. I promise. It starts with explaining about Meredith, and what she did, and why. Because her preferred method of dealing with things was to take away more and more of the rights and privileges of the Circle. With even harsher punishments for those outside who aided and abetted mages."

Cullen rubs the back of his neck. "I think -- about a year before the Chantry explosion, she even started having us questioned weekly, to try to find and expel any one of us who might have any kind of sympathy for the mages. And it was an open secret that the Champion of Kirkwall and her friends harbored apostates, and that Anders ran a free clinic for Fereldan refugees in Darktown. I -- it was helpful, I suppose, how much everyone else in Kirkwall hated Fereldans, and how occupied Meredith was with other things. That's why Anders lasted as long as he did, even though nearly everyone knew about the healer in Darktown. And of course even Meredith would have extreme difficulty bringing in friends of the Champion."

He glances briefly at Ysalwen. "The other part of this is the Grand Cleric, who was in the Chantry at the time. She... was the only one in the city with the authority to stop Meredith who was also the least likely to fall victim to whatever counterstrike Meredith would plan. Her method of keeping peace, for years, was to do nothing. She didn't rein in Meredith, but she didn't openly support her, either. It was the same thing with the First Enchanter. And so we had this... situation... that just kept building and building for years, and meanwhile we grew more and more afraid and the world of the Circle mages got smaller and smaller. And into that went Anders, and the mage resistance, along with the smugglers, gangs, cultists, and everyone else."

He wonders, briefly, if he sounds as exhausted as he feels.

"It seemed as though everything just got... more and more extreme. And then on the day Meredith called for the Right of Annulment... that was the day Anders blew up the Chantry. If he felt that was the only way he could get everyone's attention, or was looking for some way to get the last word in the city's madness..." Cullen shakes his head. "I cannot say I understand it. But even I can see it wasn't senseless."

It was a clusterfuck. She knew it was going to be before Cullen even started talking, given some of what he's already said.

But that everyone -- every single person with any claim to authority abrogated that power and stayed silent --

No, she's not surprised. Angry -- so furiously angry she can't quite catch her breath -- but not surprised.

And still, it doesn't explain Anders at all. Not --

"But Meredith -- to my understanding Meredith couldn't have called for the Right while Elthina was still alive. It had to go through her. So if Anders -- when Anders -- "

"He wasn't saving anyone. He couldn't have been under any delusions that he would. So I don't understand -- I still don't understand -- "

Half of it? A quarter of it?

"What he wanted."

"I don't know what he thought would happen," Cullen says after a long moment.

"I... don't think it was about saving anyone. That much I can say with confidence. The only thing I can guess..."

His pace slows; so does his voice. "When you approach the limit of what can be endured... the feeling -- it's as though if you scream long enough and loud enough, you might create just enough of a pause that it's like a space to breathe. Even if it's just for a moment. It's the relentlessness that gets you."

Projecting.

"The only thing I can think is that since actual screaming never did any of the mages any good, he felt he had to do something that would... make that space. Even though there was no possible way that would help anyone. If you've been living with something long enough, eventually consequences cease to matter."

"Their deaths would certainly be like a scream."

She stops, hands clenching and unclenching once, at her sides.

"And all the rest of it, too."

Catalyst and not the cause, maybe. Not quite, or at least not the only one.

How do you begin to unpick a knot this big, without even a guarantee that it's the same knot you're trying to unwind?

"He was always a healer."

She doesn't mean to sound so lost.

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