[ OPEN ] Let No Soul Hunger For Justice: An Inquiry.

[fleurdesel]

FORM: Sending Crystals
SENDER: Adelaide LeBlanc
RECIPIENT: Everyone
WHAT: Vaguely philosophical question time
WHEN: Current
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: Part of Let No Soul Hunger For Justice.

[ Adelaide’s voice is even, if tired- but what else is new? Still this is a requirement for the next ritual and to that end, she must find some sort of acceptable truth from a variety of opinions. Sequestered in ‘her’ desk in the Library, full pot of coffee warmed to one side, sheaves of blank paper and bottles of fresh ink before her. To her right? Anders with a similar set up, papers, quills, ink- a kitten. To her left, Roul to take just as many notes. Prepared as they are ever going to be- she asks. ]

A few questions for the Inquisition:

What is a soul, truly? What fundamental differences are there between a mortal’s soul and the embodiment of a spirit? Is it the culmination of our thoughts and experiences, our emotions? Is it a combination of our self given purpose and our ambition?

A mortal might change their purpose, might grow and become more due to our experiences- most spirits do not. But what more than that? What sets one soul apart and makes it distinct from another? Can the same be said of similar spirits?

Answers need not be religious or academic- merely true. What do you believe to be the difference, what do you believe to be a soul?

[ ooc: threadjacking is welcome and encouraged ]

Comments

[hlif]

I can tell you what the Avvar think, if you care about us dirty unwashed heathens. Usually people don't.

[Do you remember this dirty patient from the healing tents and that one healer everyone probably told you to keep the hell away from him well whatever he'll probably give you the Avvar heathen opinion anyway.]

[fleurdesel]

I have been told the Avaar have particular views on such things but have yet to actually hear what them. Anything you offer would be quite useful.

[hlif]

Spirits are a larger part of Avvar life than they are in the Circles, or even with the Dalish, or what I know about the Dalish. Our spirits are our gods; invoked for strength in battle, for when you need advice - you might pray to the Maker but I'd ask them when I need their help, and I know I get my answer. I know. [There's a rustling of pelts as he breaks off to cough, it's a lot of talking to be done when he's ill, but he's going to say it even if it's more on spirits than souls but well, one and the same for him, he doesn't split this particular hair.]

Did you know they can live with a hold for generations? We're not known for permanence, but the spirits can exist with us for so long until they're gone, eventually they pass on so much to the new one to take their place. There are offerings made, it takes a whole year - I don't think there's anywhere in this world that respects spirits as much as the Avvar do. For all that you mages in the Circles say you work with them, that's not the same as this. Possession is very different for us. Abominations are very different for us.

But for some of us...well when we die, we go to the Lady of the Skies. Except there are some marked to return to us, their essence - so that'd be the soul, I think at least, just something about a person that's...that's deeper than the flesh, just something deep in them, that bit lives on. So that'd be the difference between spirits and souls. Spirits are our gods, but souls are us, they're people who can do great deeds for the hold one day.

[fleurdesel]

[ For a long moment there is only the sound of a pen on paper, noting all of this down as close to verbatim as she can manage. ]

When you say pass on- Spirits are not mortal. How is it they 'pass on'? I have more questions but I think going one at a time will give you more opportunity to rest. That cough sounds particularly troubling.

[hlif]

And who taught you that one? No, wait, let me guess - the Circle? And the Chantry? And the cough is fine, I'm a big boy, I've had worse. I'm not dead, Christine, Sam, and Eirlys are seeing to that now. [Not yet.] Our augurs and shamans have been around longer than you have, our gods are older than the Chantry. Lots of people like to forget that Andraste was as dirty and unwashed as we were, she wouldn't have looked like any of your paintings or your statues, I'd be amazed if she had all her teeth. Why wouldn't a spirit pass on? Don't you think they'd get tired and want to rest too? It's not like it is for us but nothing is permanent, we know that better than anyone else in all of Thedas. And gods can be killed too. Why else would it take a year of prayer and offerings for the new spirit to take the place of the old?

[Lowlanders, what they know could fill a thimble with room to spare.]

[fleurdesel]

Personal observation, honestly. They exists, they forget, they renew. That they are subject to perception and influenced by it and a great many here tend to believe them to be a certain way so strongly may contribute to it; but testing that is difficult when everyone believes the same thing to some degree or another.

[ Under her voice, the sound of her pen, noting down everything. ]

This would be seen as quite heretical, it is no wonder the Chantry does not know it or care to know. And thus our understanding limited.

[ A shame, that. ]

To my understanding they do not remember enough to be tired- but I think, perhaps, spirits behave differently among the Avaar due to the influence of your belief. Do the prayers and offerings influence the spirit that comes to you next?

[hlif]

Good thing we don't give a shit about the Chantry then isn't it? We're older than anyone 'cept the elves, but we didn't lose our homes the same way that they did. We split up and fractured, formed other things but it's not the same as what happened to them. The Alamarri became the Avvar. We became all the different holds. Our augurs have kept our lore and handed it down the same way my grandfather made sure to come down or to take me to the hold when I was a boy so I would know it even when my mother tried to shove the Chantry and the the prophet down my throat as if she could choke it out.

[He's not bitter. He says bitterly. With a bitter expression.]

You'd need to ask an augur for most of this ideally and they don't leave. They're too important since they council the thane and there's only one for the hold, you can't imagine how important they are to a hold at all - and don't even try to compare it to any enchanter, they speak to the gods. No enchanter no matter how high a seat their arse has warmed is ever afforded such an honour. But it does take a whole year of preparation and I know that there are people who've come to Skyhold and become spirit healers in less time than that, aren't there? The spirits don't want something that's going to bring corruption, or darkness with it anymore than the hold does, and it's hard up there. Imagine living up here but without everything Skyhold has. Without Skyhold. That's hold life. Hunting and fishing, making your own alliances, everyone still resenting you and calling you heathens without anything, other holds still likely to fight and raid, one illness that could wipe you out. Blight did that to a hold near my grandfather's.

[Shit is real: the thesis statement and has Asher ever talked this much or this seriously before, Adelaide be honoured this is very rare for him.]

[fleurdesel]

I don't suppose there's a cultural stigma forbidding lowlanders from learning from your augurs? The theory and the history- because precious little of how you live and believe has been published, and what I have found has been biased.

[hlif]

I can tell you what I know and an augur would tell you some but you would never learn as an apprentice. You're not one of us. We don't really care about you, your Chantry, your Templars, your prophet, none of that's welcome. She used to be one of us a long time ago but well we all know how that story goes and I don't really care for it. Everything that happens with spirits blowing up in your faces and you've only ever got yourselves to blame for it, you know that right?

[fleurdesel]

Without an alternative school of thought available, can you honestly be surprised? We've the Chantry with the lessons they sanction or permit, the Qunari with their leashes, the Imperial Chantry with whatever it is they do with their spirits and that is hardly something I would wish to learn more of, the Dalish that do not share what they know with good reason, and the mysterious Avaar.

[hlif]

If you're expecting me to feel sorry for you, you're out of luck. Korrin's already told me what you're trying to do and for the record, I think you're setting yourself up for failure. The thing is, you're going in with what the Chantry does. You don't have to. It's not like they're in your heads spying on you. All that paranoia is the shit you're taking in with you. Look at the Maker, you think he's turned his back on you and gone off in a huff. Our gods aren't like that. The reason I'm laid up like this is because I've dragged my feet on something I was meant to do for a fellow warrior, when I put it right.

[fleurdesel]

If I wanted pity I'd go to the Chantry. I am asking for information, for an opportunity to understand alternate perspectives so that what I hope to do comes from a place closer to a universal truth and less what I understand to be so. If you would like to tell me more, I would like to hear it. If you wish to condescend? We both have time to spend elsewhere.

[hlif]

And I'm telling you this: every ritual we have is designed to force the spirits out when they speak through the mage or augur, and that when apprenticeship is over, there's another one they have to go through to end the possession. If they don't, they're exiled. If they're a weak mage and simply can't, they're cared for, watched over by our spirit gods to ensure the souls don't become corrupted. We don't want abominations. It would be a disaster. But if there's corruption of the abomination, if that mage might harm the hold, the abomination dies in their sleep. Our gods aren't cruel, and we show respect.

[There's a pause where Asher's breath catches like he might cough, where he's fighting it back and down, breath rattling in the back of his throat.]

Sometimes a healer has to know when to slip the knife into the thigh and let someone go. I'm not trying to be a prick, this is how it is.

[fleurdesel]

That is done because no one has tried to fix this. No one has been allowed to make even a token attempt by the Chantry. A mage is possessed, they are killed. That so many things that could otherwise be avoided or treated end with the sword due to Chantry doctrine is wrong. This is a sickness like any other and it can be cured- if there is a way to undo tranquility? There must be a cure.

[hlif]

It's not a sickness though, this isn't about the body because if it was the body you would be asking about the body, and you wouldn't be asking the likes of me, you'd be asking healers, you'd be asking people from lands you haven't been to or anyone that's gone to some through some fancy schooling with a silver spoon shoved up their arse. You're asking because you know it's not a sickness because it's the spirit and the soul, because it's deeper than flesh to things only a few of us understand. I had to leave Skyhold for a while. Knowing he'd been here all that time. Almost lost a good friend over it. I left to get right with my gods.

[Because a spirit is a god is a spirit, because it doesn't matter what other people believe, it just matters what Asher believes because he lives it, he carries it with him wherever he goes, and he almost died because one of his gods is punishing him for dragging his feet on another matter.]

Rituals can force a spirit out but here's the thing: that spirit is out. You haven't solved the problem. You haven't even halved it, if anything, you've probably gone and doubled it because there's a corrupted spirit and a mess of a person and you can't split yourself in half to deal with it.

[Never half ass one thing Adelaide, whole ass one thing. Not that Anders even deserves a fractional peripheral glimpse of dat ass.]

[fleurdesel]

A tainted spirit can be killed.

[ Cured is-


No one has attempted to do so. No one has tried. And at the moment she doesn't terribly care if Anders is left a mess- he'd done this to himself. What comes after is his to mind, her word is secure, some manner of progress made. ]

I would rather separate the spirit from the man and kill the spirit than stand by the Chantry's tried and true 'kill the abomination' or 'kill the supposed abomination'. We have to try to find something better or there's no point to any of this.

[justice_is_blond]

I'd care to hear about everything save your opinion on soap.

Action

[fleurdesel]

Anders- [ She is saying that quite a bit today. ] Leave it be. I will take this one.

Action

[justice_is_blond]

[The look she gets is confused.]

I was teasing. Did it come out wrong?

Action

[fleurdesel]

If he wasn't biased against you? Not at all. But he...is not terribly fond of you. I'll take this one and if we are fortunate someone in the healing tents will keep him calm.

Action

[justice_is_blond]

[He shakes his head.]

An avvar does. That's about as far from Kirkwall as you can get. But that's not stopped anyone before.

Action

[fleurdesel]

I have long since stopped attempting to keep track with who bears a grudge. The safest place to start is 'they might wish to punch Anders in the face' and remain pleasantly surprised should that not be the case.

Action

[justice_is_blond]

Pleasantly surprised?

[The teasing returns to his voice, though not as strongly.]

Should I be flattered?

Action

[fleurdesel]

It makes research simpler when they aren't predisposed to violence.

Action

[justice_is_blond]

So that's a no, then. A shame. But I do prefer people who aren't fond of violence. Most of them seemed to take jobs as Templars for a while there.