therookery | insert linkin park lyrics here.

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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?

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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. )

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. ❱

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

[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.]

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. ❱

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.

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.

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?

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.

[ Hey. ]

Didn't you hear the last part where I encouraged you to keep on?

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? ❱

Yes.

❰ literally what else is there to do than keep on, that's obvious, why do you think she's still here at all. ❱

So that's not depressing, is it.

[ A huff of frustration. ]

When you think you're safe, that's a weakness, you know. When you think that everything's all right and nothing will change, then you've got no reason to go out and fight for anything. It's good when you know how bad things can get.

❰ 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.

Then you probably have depression and should see a therapist.

❰ good. if adalia were the person she'd been before tevinter, this is where yelling would go. vindictive, snarling accusations of approving of the venatori's actions because at least now she knows she's not safe. as if she didn't already know that, as if she hasn't been railing against thedas since she arrived. as if she needs to be told to fight for things.

but adalia just hums quietly in assent, and continues with her paperwork. ❱

Okay.

❰ a what ❱

I don't follow.

[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.]

Have you tried getting drunk?

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.

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

And have you spoken to your sister lately?

We both work here. I see and speak to her daily.

❰ spent time with would get a different answer, but. ❱

I see and speak to the ferryman daily, but I'd hardly call him a confidante.

❰ ah. ❱

This is all public, and you disapprove of my being so maudlin at the rest of you when I could be talking, privately, to my sister.

❰ not a question. not unreasonable, either, the crystals probably should be handled with a bit more care than airing one's crises to the whole of the inquisition. ❱

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