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

[faithlikeaseed]

[if he hadn't been impossible to get along with at the time.

it had been. bad.

he makes a noise that's not quite humor.]

Just because it worked out that way doesn't mean I recommend it. It matters--you matter--to me.

[he knows (casimir) saying that isn't enough to bring someone out of the dark but it's important to have said.]

[thunderproof]

I know I do.

❰ that myr cares about her has never been something adalia doubted, the way she's doubted some other people. how much, she's pondered on occasion, more inclined to think of herself as a bothersome younger sibling with a good heart somewhere beneath all the assholery than a friend, but myr is relatively guileless, when it comes down to it. if he didn't at least feel moved to pity by her, adalia's pretty sure she'd know. ❱

But there's really nothing for it. The world will keep being awful and I'll keep living in it because I have to and that's that. What I feel isn't relevant when the world's on fire and I'm helping to put it out.

[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?

[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. ❱

[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?

[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.