TEST DRIVE MEME!

[faderifting]

TEST DRIVE MEME

Maybe you’ve been around for a while, or maybe you’re new to the Inquisition. Maybe you’re new to Thedas, having recently fallen from a tear in reality and been collected by uniformed rescuers. Whoever you are, you’ve been sent to Kirkwall, to an outpost where many of the Inquisition’s members and allies work on some of the biggest mysteries and problems the organization must solve if it’d like to keep the world from ending, where “ending” means “falling under the power of an ancient powerful corrupted being who wants everyone to bow to him as a god.”

And just to be clear, it would like that. It would like that a lot.

I. THE GALLOWS: The Gallows is an island fortress in Kirkwall’s harbor. It’s been home to, in order: Tevinter slaves, a Circle of Magi, a lot of creepy red lyrium, and now the Inquisition, which has occupied the fortress with the provisional Viscount’s blessing. There are walls that still need rebuilding and corners that still need dusting, but for the most part the Inquisition has gotten down to business. There’s space in the stone-floored courtyards to train or spar; or, if your skills don’t lie in the realm of hitting things, there’s a large library and several offices supporting the Inquisition’s areas of research and diplomatic efforts. If you don’t know what to do with yourself, then by all means, ask; someone will definitely be able to put you to work.

II. KIRKWALL: A quick row across the harbor will take you to Kirkwall proper. The city is built into the cliffs, from exclusive and wealthy Hightown at the top to impoverished Darktown in the abandoned mining tunnels below. In the middle is Lowtown, home to taverns, merchants, and plenty of trouble to keep anyone looking for it happy. You’re welcome to spend your free time and your money here—but try not to annoy the locals too much, please, in case their welcome runs out. It’d be a shame to have to pack again so soon after arriving.

III. QUESTING: Barely had time to make yourself at home, did you, before you were sent away from Kirkwall again—but this time on a mission. There’s a rift outside of Markham, pouring demons into the fields, and the Inquisition has been asked to lend a hand. Maybe literally. If you have an anchor embedded in your palm, you’re needed to close the damn thing. If not, maybe you’re here to fight demons or guard against bandits on the road, or to gather samples and take notes on the rift’s location once its closed, or to speak to Markham’s nobility afterwards to make sure that they fully appreciate the Inquisition’s efforts. Regardless, it’s a long trip, so we hope you like campfire cooking and sharing a tent.

IV. SENDING CRYSTAL: Joining the Inquisition gets you access to the very latest in barely-understood magical communication devices—namely, a crystal, small enough to wear around your neck, that will allow you to communicate verbally with anyone else who has one. Or everyone else who has one. Say hello.

V. WILDCARD: The whole of Thedas is yours to explore, from coast to uncharted wilderness. Choose your own adventure!

Comments

[didifuckingstutter]

She complied, letting go of him with a jerk, clenching her fists.

"Trying to be better, Anders?" she wailed harshly. "We trusted you. I-trusted you. I thought you better. Better than those who hunted you. You were helping people, healing them! I had guards look the other way, loosened patrols around your clinic, all because I- Because I cared about you! Believed in you. You think the only person who's heart was ripped out that day was Hawke's? You're a fool if think that!"

Her chest heaved, breath shaking as she looked away from him. This was not going how she wanted, but her grief was too fresh. Seeing his face, and his stupid smile had just- she sank her shoulders forward defeated, all her rage gone. "And I am even more of a fool for thinking my screaming at you will ever change your mind."

[justice_is_blond]

He straightened his robes a little defensively. For a long time he'd clung tightly to the thought he'd only let down Hawke, that he only really owed her, but Varric and Merrill and Bethany had shattered that months and months ago. Not like he's sure he feels like acknowledging that and being any sort of vulnerable when she's ranting at him and dismissing him.

"You looked the other way for myself, Hawke, and Merrill," he says evenly. "Because to you we were people. The rest? You weren't helping them. You were handing them back. I understand," Anders says, raising a hand to forestall a likely interruption, "now, that you could not have kept your position and also aided them. But no one who should have been helping those who were suffering in this very building were. And they were about to all die. You know this. Anyone who stops and thinks for a half-second would know this. How would you have saved any of them, Aveline? Would you have?"

He hadn't done the right thing. He knows it. But he's too proud to easily concede anything to a vast majority of people.

What else would we do but scream at eachother?

[didifuckingstutter]

Her brows knit together in anger as she paced in front of him. "You think I have not asked myself over and over what I could have done? How I could have prevented it? But, I had faith in Hawke. Faith in you. Faith in us all. Together we would have routed it out, we just needed time! We'd done it before, and we would do it again."

"Merideth was looking, waiting for a reason to deliver that final blow. And you gave it to her, while destroying lives yourself. Yes, I saw the injustices your people suffered. It was my job to protect them, and I knew that even more than you. I sought peace for everyone in Kirkwall, mage or otherwise. In one desperate action, you ripped me from the only family I had left. We scattered to the winds, and the home I had fought tooth and nail for was raised to the ground!"

[OOC- She and Donnic never got together. She had feelings for him, but they never did anything about it.]

Tea is clearly right out.

[justice_is_blond]

"There was no time left!" He'd like to stay calm, but she's making it steadily harder. "What else could she have taken from them? She was ready to move, and we all know Elthina didn't give a nug's ass about helping! That night she was already furious with Orsino and prepared."

He shook his head, arms crossed. "The people I'd fought for for so long were all about to die, and they'd all lost all the family they'd ever had. No one protected them. Peace was at the cost of their lives, Aveline, one after another, day after day. The blood of my people paid that price and they received none of the benefits of that peace."

Slowly Anders takes a breath, watching her pacing form. "There was no peace, Aveline. I... Yes, I should have had more faith in people, but there was no time left and none of us had a single good plan among us anyway." It's a small concession. It could easily get ignored.

No Scones or cucumber sandwiches for us unfortuenately.

[didifuckingstutter]

She wanted to take him by the shoulders and shake him. To make him see how if he had just confided in them, how things would have been different.

"She was prepared, Anders. We were not blind to that. But, if she had struck out against the mages, do you honestly believe we would have stood by and let it happen? You think Hawke would have let that happen? We would have acted, and we could have taken her down without having to cause a civil war to do it! She was mad, her own men could see that. Many of your friends in the circle still died, along with countless others. There was no victory that day, only loss. Only pain and misery."

She kicked at the pillar he tried to hide behind, and bit back a small yelp as pain radiated from her foot in waves. Well, that was just fucking brilliant.

"I cannot change the past by wishing," she said shakily looking down. "No matter how I try. I cannot bring Hawke back."

[justice_is_blond]

He sighs heavily. It's the mention of Hawke's absence, really, that breaks down his angry defensiveness and his him looking down when he starts talking.

"No. No, I don't think we would have stood by. But hindsight... I was terrified, Aveline. All I could see, all Justice could see, was how she'd almost certainly get away with a lot of slaughter. Some of her men saw her madness, yes, but what of Alrik? What of Keras? What of all of the ones who took pleasure in hurting mages and worse? We would have had to fight her and a great many of her men as well and... And I was scared. And he was angry. It wasn't, it wasn't smart. I know that. But I know that now, Aveline. And hopefully Hawke will bring herself back from where ever she's gone. If anyone can, it's her."

He gestures at her foot with a resigned look. "Do you need me to see to that?"

[didifuckingstutter]

She grumbled, and hobbled closer to him, jaw set stubbornly. This time she did take him by the shoulders and shake him, although not very hard.

"Nothing is quiet so terrifying as feeling you must go up against everything alone. I know that, Anders. What do you think I have been doing here? After we fled, I was the only one to come back. I have been wading through this shithole again, only this time I had no one to turn to. And I've been terrified."

"Varric is with the Inquisition thinking he's too important to be useful, Merrill is of doing Maker knows what with some ruddy mirrors, Fenris is off being broody per usual, Isabella is sailing and plundering whatever she can I imagine. Sebastian has threatened to invade with Starkhaven's forces twice and Hawke...is just gone. Vanished."

She let him go, and ran her hand over her hair. Maker her foot hurt. With a sigh, she awkwardly lifted it up closer to him. "If you could, I would be greatful."

[justice_is_blond]

He flinches at the grab and shake, fear showing in his eyes for a brief second before he's hiding it.

"That was my whole life until recently," he points out with a little bit of grumpiness returning as he reaches down to support her foot with one hand and start casting with the other. "Hawke cared about the--many of you cared about the mages, but there was always other business to be done too. It felt like I was the only one watching the noose grow tighter, because I'd been the only one to see it before, elsewhere."

When he'd been driven out of the Wardens initially, for instance. That grudge has faded into a dull ache, but it still lingers.

"Merrill, by the way, is likely trying to figure out the secret of walking through those mirrors. There's a lot of them still intact or only partially damaged around Thedas. She was with the Inquisition for a time too. Fenris... he's somewhere around Kirkwall. I don't care to find out where. Some people don't mature. Isabela swung by as well, but you're right that she's vanished again, likely to the sea. Varric's at Skyhold; hopefully he'll be coming here." He pauses, finishing the easy repair work and straightening. Nothing broken means nothing too difficult.

"Bethany and Carver are here, though, and they were recently looking for Marion. I was helping elsewhere, or I would have gone with. And fuck Sebastian. He can pray to his crotch until he rots, but I do have fond dreams of an Ogre stepping on him."

[didifuckingstutter]

"Of course there was other business to be done," she said as she poked him in the shoulder lightly. "The city was held together by naught but a piece of twine and our collective hatered for it! But, that never, ever meant that your concerns would have fallen on deaf ears. We would have helped, you big tit! If you had just let us."

She tested her foot out on the ground. It was good as new, better even because just a few days ago she kicked down a door to get into a slavers warehouse. "Thank you," she said, only a little sternly.

I'm so sorry for the gap, the flu kicked my ass

[justice_is_blond]

It had been so hard to believe that anyone really cared about him when he'd been possessed. Once, Anders had thought his perceptions reality, that they'd all been judging him and looking down on him. The longer he goes without Justice, though, the more he sees he'd been wrong and it's difficult to deal with. How much of the paranoia had been him, and how much of it had been the spirit? Did it matter?

Anders is looking away as she thanks him, still trying to find some way to respond to what's being said.

"Of course," he finally says. "Look. I..." Anything he can say won't really do anything. It's all the past, and she's not so angry that she's stabbing him, at least. Anders reaches up and rubs the back of his neck as he sighs.

"It was a mess. For my part, I'm sorry, Aveline."

Totally fine, it was the holidays and all! :)

[didifuckingstutter]

She let out a harrumph, and then her shoulders drop with a sigh. "Yes. A real fucking mess, Anders. But, help us clean it up. The people here are desperate. So desperate, I've been named as Emissary of Kirkwall, and I'm to go find aid, starting by knocking on the Inquisition's door. Hopefully they will give us some supplies and some troops to shove right up Sebastian's arse."

She huffed and held her hand up to him, trying to stop him before he could laugh at her. "And before you say anything, yes, I am aware that I am probably the worst choice for this sort of thing, but the point was made that I'm the only choice. Doesn't do well to inspire confidence, but, there you have it."

She reached out to him, grabbing his arm and squeezing, perhaps a little harder than she should, but she was never known for her softness.

"I know that your time here wasn't happy for you, Anders. But, I also know you want to help people who can't help themselves just as much as I do. So...find a way. Help them. Help...someone. Anyone. It's the only way any of us can find redemption." She thought of Wesley, and her throat tightened a little. She couldn't help him, and that grief still weighed heavy on her heart.

<3

[justice_is_blond]

"That's why I'm here," he says with more patience than he would have in the past as he tries to get his arm out of the squeeze.

"That's why I met up with the Inquisition in Skyhold." He doesn't need to go further, explain he'd met up with them to help and then to die. His plans never exactly ended the way he thought they would. "And much of why I rejoined the Wardens when they saw fit to reclaim me. I've the Clinic running again in Darktown, I heal for the Inquisition, and I've helped with more than a few missions the Inquisition and Wardens have seen fit to assign me."

Her face looks sad. Is she speaking of finding redemption herself? He doesn't know. He doesn't know what she'd think she needed to find redemption for, unless she does see some of the mess at the end as her fault. The guards had not guarded the most vulnerable citizens, the mages, so maybe that's the root of her expression. Maybe that's why she's come to the Inquisition herself.

"What do you hope to get for Kirkwall here?"

[didifuckingstutter]

She let him go after he shook her off his arm. Being alone for so long had made her a seek out contact more than she ever had before. She felt isolated, and more that a little abandoned, but due to her stubborness, she could never admit that. She would simply barrel down the path before her as she always did.

She realized long ago that Anders never really recuperated the friendship she tried to instill, and perhaps that never would change. He would always see her as an enemy, a perpetural part "them", whoever "they" happened to be.

"I'm trying to give them a future. A better life than we had, without the pain and...loss. Better opportunities. But, even more pressing, I'm trying to keep people fed. Keep them warm, give them a roof over their heads. Keep them safe. I feel like everyone's looking to me to save them, but I'm not-" her voice cracked a little, but she clamped it down. "I will never be Hawke."

[justice_is_blond]

He breathes a little easier when his arm is released. After all the years of Templar abuses, having his arm be grabbed and held tight has always been frightening no matter who is doing it. As she talks, Anders looks down before nodding.

"No one else will ever be Hawke. And that's all right. If there were more Hawkes, she wouldn't be as special as she is." And he's still using the present tense. They may not know where she is, there may be plenty of reason to worry, but he's not going to give up hope just yet. She's Hawke, after all. "Don't try to be her. Just be... yourself. You've always been a force, Aveline."