insert linkin park lyrics here.

[thunderproof]

FORM: Crystal
SENDER: Adalia
WHAT: Adalia is tired.
WHEN: Nowish
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: Talk of Venatori captivity may come up!

Do you ever think about the point of the Chant?

❰ it's been a while since adalia spoke on the crystals about... much of anything, really. her voice isn't quite as energetic as it's been in the past, her words coming out more slowly. there's the faintest sound of a pen scratching against parchment as she goes on. ❱

I used to think I had it figured out. It wasn't about the actual story and history of Andraste, it was all about power. Who had it, who was willing to use theirs to hurt people, what people would do to keep it. The Chantry had learned all the wrong lessons from it, I thought. Bunch of wolves, hoarding over the carcass of the truth, tearing strips off and eating them to deny the rest of us access. Uncaring that eventually they would strip the bones bare and leave nothing behind.

❰ for all that adalia's words are blasphemous, inflammatory, she doesn't sound any different than when she started. ponderous, if there had to be a word for it, and if someone could be ponderous while also being uninterested in the answer to their wonderings — she switches topics without so much as a change of inflection. ❱

What do you do when you're angry and it doesn't help? When all of the things that should keep you safe fail and you're powerless and the last thing you have is your anger and then you don't even have that? Is there anything to do, or is it just... this, forever?

Comments

[elegiaque]

The point of the Chant is to bring the Maker back to the children he abandoned. He turned his back on this world, and he'll let us burn in our own fires until every single voice sings his praises. Every voice that doesn't sing his name damns the world, that's how it goes.

So I don't know; if he's up there, ignoring the faithful because they haven't converted or slaughtered enough heathens yet, I think the Chantry has exalted him exactly the way it sounds like he wanted to be exalted.

( cruelly. )

[thunderproof]

Mmm.

❰ gwen's — missed the point, a little, of what adalia was driving at, but it doesn't matter. she wasn't really driving so much as meandering, anyway. there's no attempt to bring them back to what adalia meant to talk about, just a hum of maybe-agreement, and the sound of more pen scratching. ❱

[elegiaque]

( rudely ignored it, more like, but she can take a hint the tangent isn't welcome, and leaves it at that. )

[somethingwild]

[Newt is worried about Adalia. He isn't sure how she would feel on him coming to check on her, so he figures communication through the crystals is a safe way to approach her with his concerns.]

It doesn't last forever. I find it helps to find something in which to channel that anger, or the remnants of anger, at least, into; some kind of project, something that you're passionate about.

Throwing yourself into what you care about won't cure what you're feeling, but I find it helps a bit.

I can't quite speak as to the point of the Chant, I'm afraid.

[Given that he strongly feels that there is none.]

[thunderproof]

And if you're already doing that and there's still nothing?

❰ adalia is very tired. she's tired of being angry and it availing her nothing, and of being sad and it availing her less than nothing. she's tired of thedas and its problems and of clawing and scraping for every inch of caring she can drag out of people and never feeling like it's enough. this is the most she's felt like interacting with anyone since the return from tevinter, and she hardly even wants this conversation, much less any others that might be coming, but she invited them so she can't just ignore everyone.

she was angry and she fought and she screamed in tevinter and it did nothing. being sad did even less. numbness is all there is left. ❱

[rathercommon]

There is no such thing as safety.

[ Her voice is firm and even. ]

Everyone's powerless in one way or another. People who think they're powerful are just suffering under an illusion. That's always been the conditions everyone's lived in. But that's no reason not to keep fighting.

[thunderproof]

An illusion? Hm.

❰ this sure sounds like someone with a story to tell. adalia feels a vague, dull sense of curiosity... but also sort of like hearing about whatever could make kitty so certain of that would be exhausting. ❱

You're very depressing.

[motherfucking_ghost]

Keep being angry and focus that on somewhere you think it'll do good. I figure I can't do anything to not be angry when I'm angry. I can't make myself stop being angry, so like, you gotta take anger and be angry at something anger might be good at solving.

Like, if you're angry about religion, be angry at, like, a nail that won't hammer in straight, or be angry about the lack of proper orphanages in the city and petition to open some, or, I dunno, yell at some dumbass recruits who don't know the stabby end of a broadsword from their asshole until they shape up more.

If it's one of those things where you're, like, angry at God, or, a god, whatever, because he-she-it-they won't listen to you and all the things you got taught sound more like bullshit when you apply them to the real world, that's...I mean, that's just a personal thing you gotta deal with, but it's sure not uncommon.

But far as anger goes, yeah, that's what I got.

[thunderproof]

And if you can't be angry anymore?

❰ that would all be good advice if adalia had any anger left in her. but she was angry, and it did nothing, it didn't help her escape and it didn't protect charis and it didn't mean a damn thing. so why even be angry, when it doesn't help?

and then what else is there to be, if you can't e angry, or sad, or happy? where are you left then? ❱

[faithlikeaseed]

Always, [quietly,] I always do.

[he doesn't respond to the rest even if I used to think I had it figured out is a kind of opening, except you don't take those when someone sounds like that.

even if it hits so close to the quick for him right now.

but as to the rest of the questions--

he switches things to private.]

I spent three months on my back cursing everything, the Maker included, while what was left of my Circle went to the Void around me. I thought about never waking up, or having them make me Tranquil. [it's matter-of-fact.] And then they needed every pair of hands just to give us a chance at staying alive, so I got up and learned to get around again.

Eventually how I felt mattered less. I don't know it ever went away, [because it still crawls out of him, sometimes, when he's talking to Van or Anders or the other rebels,] but I found a place to put it.

You sound awful. Can I help?

[thunderproof]

❰ adalia might have gotten along with myr better if she'd shown up when he was angrier. it's a terrible thing to think, and not a thought she'll voice, but she does have it, as he describes the months after his blinding. that sounds about where she'd been, before tevinter. ❱

Probably not, ❰ is what she ends up on, truthful but not unkind. not much of anything, to be fair, but not unkind. ❱ How I feel already doesn't matter and I'm carrying on. Thank you, though.

[matchymatchy]

Have you tried getting drunk?

[thunderproof]

My sister hates drunkenness, and I don't want to hurt her.

private.

[exequy]

Would you like to go pick a fight?

[ Because he would. ]

[thunderproof]

❰ where were you pre-tevinter, kostos. where were you. to be fair, this does give her more of a pause than anyone else's responses have, as she tries to puzzle out why in the world kostos averesch of all people would ask her that.

she can't figure it out. this is the most she's felt in a few weeks, and it's all confusion. ❱

Why?

[provenforce]

You can do a few things. You can let it swallow you, become a creature you wouldn't recognize in a year, and survive on that bitterness. Or you can find the hope that things can change. That there's something out there that you should still be working your way towards.

It's not easy, but you can take it day by day. Mark the days off, if it helps. That's what I did.

Private forever

[justice_is_blond]

When the anger runs out you stop. You stop, because you're lost, and exhausted, and tired.

[There's a short pause.]

And then the next day, you find a reason to take another step. And one more step after that. And you work to find reason for one more step until finally it comes naturally again. Maybe it takes a week, maybe it takes a year. But you find it, and you'll feel again.

[wroughtamiss]

That is not the truth of the Chant, what you've learnt of it had been misrepresented though here you've barely faith to float a thimble without it capsizing. The Chant of Light is the text of the Chanty, our holy book with the teachings of Our Lady Andraste written by her followers, transcriptions of the songs she sang to the Maker so long ago. Songs that caught the attention of the Maker that he turned his gaze upon the world. Songs that upon all corners of the world singing them once again, his gaze will turn back and paradise will be delivered, and it will not be but shed tears for the suffering of the undeserving.

[If they are undeserving. This is education, the type he'd give to the ones soaked through with ale or bloodied same as him, breathing hard in an alley but he came here for a purpose.

This is it, passion and a lifetime of dedication written over belief pressed into the marrow of the bone.]

There is action and there is inaction. You make the decision of what you must do next but no one can make that step or decision but you so you make it: will it be that you remain on the step with the foot hovering in the air forever? Will you retreat to all that you know or think that you know, or will the foot fall even if you might stumble or plunge yourself into a distasteful thing you need wade through on the way?

[thunderproof]

I am aware of what the Chant is, ❰ is all adalia has to say in response. she's spoken to true believers before and it always ends poorly, and what's the point anyway when everything's bullshit and being angry over other peoples' being wrong won't change anything? being angry doesn't change anything period. this andrastian can spout dogma all he likes, it doesn't mean anything except to him. ❱

private.

[swordproof]

The Chant is for other people to find hope in. It is not for us, unless we wish it.

[ Then softer, quieter: ]

Might I speak to you of Sarenrae?

[thunderproof]

They want the chant to be for everyone, though. ❰ it's not arguing, really, so much as correction. ❱ The Maker won't return if it isn't.

❰ at least sarenrae will only abandon you if you leave her plane of influence. the maker's just a shitty little toddler, throwing a tantrum over his favourite toy. ❱

If you like.

[libratus]

[ If that is what you think is the point of the Chant— seems a pointless argument, at this point. Ilias had been told to expect cultural differences, outside Nevarra. At this outpost in particular. Is this normal? Maybe this is normal.

Maybe the rest, he understands a bit more intimately. ]

I don't know. [ He admits, more one for honesty than hope. ] But I think— nothing lasts forever, does it? Life, and everything in it, it is all temporary in the end.

[thunderproof]

❰ prove her wrong, assbutt.

or don't. she doesn't care. ❱

That's the dream, right, ❰ is the dispassionate reply. thank the gods all this is going to be over someday, because if adalia had to live like this forever she'd go insane and kill everyone. ❱

private ;

[rowancrowned]

Has my lady extended an invitation to our wedding?

[thunderproof]

❰ thranduil. what. how are these things related. ❱

No.