idk my bff minor vandalism

[aenseidhe]

FORM: Crystal
SENDER: Iorveth
RECIPIENT: All erry1
WHAT: Reacting to this, specifically the part about Rifter phylactaries.
WHEN: Right meow.
WHERE: Kirkwall, the Gallows announcement board
NOTES: Rudeness and vandalism. Open to crystal chatting and action!! Though he'll be storming off pretty fast after this.

[ For a long several moments, silence broadcasts over the crystal, Iorveth having just activated it after reading the announcement on negotiations results posted, lost for words. When they do come, it's like they're being spoken through a snarl. ]

You left to end the blood leashing.

Not push it off on the next lesser group.

[ there is a deafening thud that sounds before Iorveth's voice goes out, and anyone physically standing by the Gallows announcement board will have just witnessed Iorveth pull a dagger (with at least a foot worth of blade on it) free, and slam it through the notice and into the board, metal and splinters jutting out the opposite side, before walking away.

He mad. (And he'll come fix the board later, leave him alone) ]

Comments

action.

[champions]

It was not a decision made with relish, nor one the mage negotiators suggested. We fought against it as long as we were able to. None of us are happy with it, I promise you.

( I mean, she's not miserable about it, but she isn't happy.

She stands near the announcement board, peeling an orange so that the peel hangs in a large spiral. A woman in an elaborate dress, low key by her standards, but fine quality silk in bright colours, and so on. )

[aenseidhe]

[ Iorveth is a bundle of raw nerves, and hearing something that sounds even close to an excuse from someone so unlike himself, in race, station, privilege or dimensional nationality, does not soothe that. ]

Clearly not hard enough. Do I seem concerned with how happy anyone else is about this? [ beyond the Rifters. He remembers Marisol from the mission, and she'd been kind and amiable enough then. But Iorveth's in an entirely different mindset now. ]

And if we refuse this? Will they chain us up and force us to manage their demons still? See if a Rifter can be made Tranquil?

[champions]

We are diplomats, not miracle workers. Do you expect water not to freeze if you argue hard enough against it? Stop a body losing blood with willpower?

( She scoffs, and shakes her head. ) If you think reacting like this will be a means to tempering the Inquisition's consideration of the process, then you are naive. Your tantrums will only make it seem justified, and spur them on. "Rifters, so volatile," and so on.

[aenseidhe]

No. And such is the problem with diplomats. We never should've tried to negotiate with slave masters.

[ some things can be compromised and reasoned over - territory, cultures, trade agreements. but basic rights and freedoms? when you come upon a person so cruel that making objects out of people feels like a worthwhile idea, those should be faced with swords, not placating.

Marisol gets a snort, and a laugh that's near incredulous, turning back to here from where he was about to walk off with his head shaking in disbelieve. tempering their consideration? no, that isn't the goal here, not even in the least. ]

I think that I give fuck all what right the Inquisition believes they have to my body and blood. They can take it from my corpse. [ that is what he believes you answer to assumptions of ownership or authority over your person. anything else is sickening crime. ]

[champions]

You are a fool. They rescued you from a wasteland. Fed you and housed you. "Slave masters," ( she laughs, incredulous. )

We fought for you - for all of you. We fought tooth and nail to keep phylacteries from being created, because they are against everything we believe in. If more mages had stood with us, more rifters, more people of the Inquisition when the strike was in sway, then perhaps we'd have had the influence to keep this from being suggested. If people had not been so gutless that mages had to fight for their basic rights, had not said it was our concern and not their business, this would not have come to pass.

( She shakes her head. ) You are giving them cause to, with your childishness. Curb your temper and redirect it, or soon you will need to rearrange that scarf to cover both eyes. That is a caution, Iorveth, not a threat.

[aenseidhe]

Bloede dh'oine, you're all so fucking blind. They came because of these. [ Tugging his glove off, Iorveth shows the green glow of the anchor.

When they first arrived, the thought was in his head, voiced to Kylo at the time. No army fighting such a dire war expends resources for a group of strays out of the kindness of their hearts. And he's far from the belief that he'd have died in that tundra. The food offered here he doesn't need, nor the housing, and that's the really infuriating part of this - he'd been hoping to leave the city walls. At least stick close enough that the shard doesn't cause much agony, but have some semblance of privacy and space while unobserved. A means of escape, even if temporary. independence is freedom to him and his people. ]

If any of you had possessed the sense or the nerve to just turn the phylacteries into an inferno, I'd have been there lighting the fuse. [ And yet he'd been told, again and again and again that talking it out was how it should go, so he accepted it wasn't his choice to make. ] But the choice was silence and negotiation instead, so I brought food in place of guts.

[ legal consequence has never been a thing that threatened iorveth, and really, not much does. he's had so much robbed from him already. ] It's far from the first time I've heard that particular caution spoken to me as well. Then, just as now, by humans telling me to shut up and be grateful for their mercy. I'd rather have the knife and burning brand again, thanks.

[ which would be how the first eye was carved out of his skull - a knife heated in embers and sunken into the socket. ]

[champions]

( The sound that escapes her doesn't quite make it to being an incredulous exhale. )

It doesn't matter if they came to save living individuals, or the shards. The material point is that you lived because they came to your rescue. You have all been in their good graces and living at their expense for years - it's surprising that it went this long before phylacteries for rifters were proposed, when people in proclaiming great powers and outrage. This isn't just about you personally, or your actions, but all the rifters together.

( She smiles, and there is a suggestion, finally, of the Merchant Princess that lies beneath the smiles and jokes, the ice and edges of knives. )

You berate me, mages, and you blame humanity time and time again. Everyone else is to blame, whether for their actions or lack of them. You question our nerve, you scorn diplomacy, but you know nothing of us. You cannot accuse others of arrogance and folly so liberally without being guilty of it yourself.

[aenseidhe]

[ His head tilts, squinting at her, like there's a point here utterly missed. The next is said like it ought to be obvious. ] What choice do we have but to remain here?

[ The shard in his hand is lifted up - a literal anchor, told when they'd first stepped into Kirkwall that they'd either stay close, or they'd die. ] You aren't talking to every rifter right now. For that, I'd suggest a higher platform and a louder voice. The most I've taken from this place is bath water and a few apples. If such debt going unpaid to our benevolent overlords offends you so much, by all means, give me the time to find a few buckets and a tree no one's staked claim to yet.

[ It's a point Iorveth makes to be self-sufficient, because it means freedom to him, and freedom is all that matters. Just being lumped in with the rest of the rifters sets his nerves on edge. Iorveth's hunted his own food, slept in trees or gardens, crafted his own weapons and worn his own clothes or those he bought with wages given for working missions under the Inquisition. He walks the streets of Kirkwall and feels his skin crawl. Nothing of this place feels like a favor to him. ] What exactly have I done to these people in the two months I've been here that means I've earned shackles like this? What justifies it for anyone here, rifter or otherwise, or is it only valid outrage when it's native mages?

[ There's no real hostility left in Iorveth's voice for the majority of what's said in this last round, mostly watching and contemplating the worth of hearing the rest of this out. Just kind of done. ] I understand living with a boot to your throat, knowing you're the expendable party any time someone needs a scape-goat, or a drunk wants a punching bag. Enough I'm not willing to do it again, for you or anyone else in this realm or my own.

[ no one will say 'enough' for you, he'd been taught by his world, regardless of how many of them are bleeding in the gutter next to you. ]

In truth, I don't blame mages for this. But there's nothing one does to ask for a crime like this. Surprise in the fact it's not yet happened speaks volumes. [ you'd think basic compassion and empathy most are born with makes that kind of truth self-evident, but then places like thedas and the continent exist, and you wonder how people can be made so soulless. Sighing and rolling a shoulder, he glances back towards the division lead tower he'd been headed towards originally, ready to move on. In the end, this talk really boils down to the one thing - ]

Next time, when you don't give a shit, just say you don't give a shit. Wastes much less air and time. [ spare him the merchant princess smiles and diplomacy. ]

[champions]

For someone who scorns diplomacy, you certainly enjoy the sound of your own voice.

( A shrug. Bummer when you get dead, dude. )

[aenseidhe]

[ A sharp laugh, because it is actually funny, and Iorveth shrugs, before turning on his heels, calling over his shoulder as he wanders off. ]

So I've been told. Rebel manifestos don't write themselves, you know.

[ peace, homeslice. ]