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

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?

[matchymatchy]

Disapproval requires investment, darling. The thing about family is that they so often care. Is that the trouble?

[thunderproof]

No. I'll be sure to exclude you from all future correspondence on the subject, Serah Gardet-Lorier.

❰ it's not even snippy, ottoline just won't hear the rest of the conversations. enjoy your peace and quiet, madame matchmaker. ❱

[faithlikeaseed]

Good.

[the rest of that takes him longer to answer; part because he's thinking on it, part because he's collecting things off the desk in his new office. at length,]

Why do you have to? Keep living in it?

[matchymatchy]

[ well that's a good deed done for the month, time to get shitfaced ]

[thunderproof]

What other option is there?

❰ honestly, myr, you don't commit suicide in wartime, especially if you have an actual job that needs doing. your life isn't yours until the war ends. ❱

[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.

[exequy]

It's bracing.

[thunderproof]

But you don't care about me.

❰ which she's not like, mad about, kostos just has never shown any particular interest in adalia, nor has she in him. they only have the very vaguest of associations, and neither of them has seemed inclined to change that. so. what the heck, kostos. ❱

[faithlikeaseed]

Beyond the obvious? [a brief huff of a laugh.] Find your way into the Fade. Leap into a rift. All bad ideas--I s'pose, [the sound of a pile of something being tidied and picked up,] I'm asking what keeps you here aside being bound to your duty.

Can you bear company right now?

[exequy]

Which is why I am not asking if you want to talk about it.

[ He doesn't care about anyone.

Or, he totally does care about some people, but almost all of them are people he's bled with. It's a bonding activity.

Or, even deeper than that, he actually cares about a lot of people, plus people as an abstract concept. He just demonstrates it by not wasting anyone's time or indulging anything he thinks is stupid. It's a favor, and they're all welcome. ]

[thunderproof]

❰ well. that's settled. does she want to get in a fight? that seems like it would require more energy than adalia is currently in possession of, and a bit more emotionality as well. on the other hand, she is curious for the first time in a bit, about what kinds of people kostos would want to fight, and where he would go to get in one. ❱

Right now?

❰ it's not a no. ❱

[thunderproof]

Should something else keep me?

❰ other than, you know, passion for her work and dedication to the cause and stuff like that. ❱

It wouldn't bother me.

[faithlikeaseed]

Where are you?

[because he's giving the other question due consideration, before:]

I don't know. It's valorous, certainly. To keep going that way. But we're made for more. Cold comfort at the bottom of the pit, I know.

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.

[motherfucking_ghost]

Uh, okay, so--modern medicine, that's modern in my world, we have this knowledge and understanding that the brain doesn't always work the way it should not because of any specific failing of that person, but because there are--balances, chemical balances in the brain that are out of whack. Sometimes we're able to treat that medically, and sometimes we aren't, and sometimes it doesn't need like any physical treatment and just needs help along the way, psychologically. So, therapist. Uh...

Someone who understands how thinking works and is able to help people think in a way that's better for their mental health? Talking about issues that bother them and giving them the figurative tools they need to make it past those roadblocks to cope with fucky thoughts and feelings.

So like, super not at all a professional in any way, but generally 'not able to feel things anymore' teeeeends toward depression.

[rathercommon]

[ Another sigh. ]

Look, you asked the questions. I'm just responding. If you didn't want responses, you oughtn't have asked in the first place.

[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?

[somethingwild]

[Newt lets out a breath. That is a good question, and he isn't sure he has a good answer for Adalia.]

For that, I usually recommend long visits with friendly creatures. It's not a cure, by any means, but it helps.

[He pauses, considering a moment before coming up with what he hopes might appeal to Adalia.]

Which, considering, would you like to meet my demiguise?

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?

[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.

private ;

[rowancrowned]

Has my lady extended an invitation to our wedding?

[thunderproof]

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

No.

[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. ❱