crystal.

[exequy]

FORM: Crystal
SENDER: Kostos
RECIPIENT: Everybody
WHAT: Nothing remotely inflammatory
WHEN: Time is a manmade construct and I refuse to be bound by it
NOTES: Context.

The next time any of us— [ That isn't an all-inclusive us; he means, specifically, mages and rifters and maybe templars, but everyone can figure that out on their own. Or not. He doesn't care. ] —is in the position to make demands, I think we should make sure we have a say in which rifters go to which Circles. We could pick in turns. Like choosing teams.

[ That's all. ]

Comments

[faithlikeaseed]

[It's easy to get crossways of whatever it is Kostos means in these discussions. He's learning to wait a little longer, think a little more (though isn't, as ever, perfect in execution).

That one doesn't require much of an intuitive leap to understand, though.]

You think they'd have an easier job wiping us out--and the rifters with us, now.

[He doesn't believe it but he's willing to treat the idea as serious, if someone he respects so much does.]

I don't know they've the will for it. [He hopes they don't. He hopes he can still trust that much at least, when all the rest of what he's trusted has been steadily violated.] Or the numbers.

[exequy]

They had both before.

[ At Kirkwall. At the Spire. At Dairsmuid. And at Redcliffe, the Grand Enchanter had thought—must have known, to be willing to sell them all to Tevinter. ]

I know you have made friends, but I assume— [ for their sakes, and also for his, because electrocuting anyone in the baths would only be helpful in the short term ] —they were never the ones cutting us down to begin with.

[faithlikeaseed]

But now? When we've four years of influence outside the Circles--when they've had to see us more than charges or sleeping demons?

[More than friends, he doesn't say. And thinks, also: Simon was at Kirkwall.

But that is a faith he's never worried would be broken.]

Maker, no, [vehement.] After the uprising at Hasmal, we had wounded we couldn't move. They stayed with us-- They could've left us to the city, saved their own skins and followed the Lord Seeker.

[More quietly,] We were the exception. We shouldn't have been.

[exequy]

Ideally.

[ Speaking—or not speaking, as it were—of Simon, it's possible there were more exceptions to the rule than Kostos thought, with at least one confirmed case of him seeing a villain when none was there. Or it's possible Simon is also an exception. ]

But the ones who saw us as demons over ten or twenty years of sedate research—the ones who now have to live with the fact they slaughtered terrified teenagers hiding in the woods—

[ Not that he knows anything about the drive to believe the horrible things you've done were for a good reason. ]

—I do not see why four years of watching us tear apart battlefields while our enemy reminds everyone of the worst we could be... I do not see why that would change their minds.

i really need a "weirdly intense" icon

[faithlikeaseed]

Because we remained. Because we'll die against him, too.

Because the templars aren't the only ones watching and we don't only tear apart battlefields. You've heard stories--ordinary folk will close ranks around an apostate who heals their children or keeps the wolves away.

Because with the Order torn open as it is--with the Chantry torn open--the rot's exposed to light; some of those minds that won't change are part of it. [And what do you do with rot but burn it away.]

commission several artists for "weirdly intense" with no elaboration

[exequy]

Optimistic.

[ Not quite scornful. Maybe dismissive. He's heard stories. He's also gone without robes for years and learned to feel comfortable without a staff at hand because it was the only way to talk through city streets, because for every village that protects an apostate there's another where a child is held under water to drown the magic out, because mages have been dying in wars for ages and a Circle has been annulled every thirty-five years since the Right was first granted and it was never too much for Thedas to stomach.

But his desire to be a total downer is being outstripped by his desire to not talk so much. ]

We will find out. Or we will not. We could all die.

this sounds optimal

[faithlikeaseed]

[He wonders that Kostos didn't choose foolish or naive; he's heard those as often in that same tone from others.]

I wouldn't be otherwise. [There's a double meaning there.]

We could. And if we've covered all the options we won't be surprised however it comes out.

[exequy]

The rifters might be.

[ Surprised. ]

[faithlikeaseed]

[He thinks about that a long moment, weighing his words. Then:]

If we've done our duty to warn them and they're still surprised when it catches them in the teeth, it's not on us any longer.

You get the feeling they've faced such long odds at home they can't take any of this seriously.