therookery | Closed to Circle Mages

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Closed to Circle Mages

FORM: Crystal
SENDER: Colin
RECIPIENT: All Circle mages
WHAT: A lively debate about Divine candidates
WHEN: Current
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: This will be followed, hopefully, by a formal vote as to which candidate the mages throw in with.

I was thinking--oh, um, it's Colin--I was thinking if mages don't unite behind a candidate, we're likely to get one that doesn't have our interests at heart. I think if we voted to rebel, we can vote to stand together behind one of the candidates and do what we can to get them elected. Unofficially, I mean. Of course unofficially.

So let's talk about it, argue about it very loudly, and then vote on it. Who should be Divine?

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I'm not asking whether we should have a vote. As Myr said, it's a question of what the vote's results mean. There's no internal leadership we've all agreed to in place, for one thing. And there's a difference between "working together to amplify our efforts" and demonizing fellow mages with whom we disagree.

My point was actually to be mindful of whether we're asking people whose preferred candidate loses to do nothing, or to actively work toward an outcome they don't believe in, rather than working for the future they think best. That may be worth the trade-off of presenting at least a somewhat united front, especially if there's a decisive majority. But given that part of what the rebellion was about was a chance to choose what's best for oneself, I want to be clear about what we're asking of one another.

That's what this *is* about, though. We don't have any guarantees. We're just trying to find a candidate who will respect whatever future the mages design for themselves. This isn't a vote for a specific future, just for a hand in it. And Elise and Agathe, I'm sure they'd be fine if we all decided to go back to the way things were.

I understand what we're talking about.

[Even.]

My point is that "sit back and do nothing" and "unanimously work toward only one choice" are not the only two options unless we decide they are. What are the consequences for mages who don't feel either of those choices are best? Based on this conversation, I'd guess at least some of them are likely to keep their heads down and say nothing and do as they please. We've certainly not made a strong case thus far in this debate for our ability as a group to adapt to a plurality of opinions.

Poke holes all you want, if it's fun. What's our better options?

I'm not asking these questions as a hypothetical case. They're concrete questions, right now. I didn't want to presuppose the answers, frankly -- I don't know how I can be clearer about the fact that we may decide it's worth running roughshod over a great many mages' opinions in pursuit of getting something done than by saying what I said a moment ago. But if we do decide unanimity is the only way forward, I want that to be a conscious decision, not something that just happens because people were busy shouting at one another.

If I didn't want to help, I wouldn't be involved in the discussion. There's nothing compelling me, or anyone, to be. Everyone who's spoken up cares what happens next, and likely a great many people who haven't spoken up too.

I don't know. This is why I never do these things. But I'm not punishing anyone who decides to do differently than what the vote turns up. I'm just--

--fucking scared, Julius. It doesn't have to be this. It just needs to be something.

I know. But as I just said... the war isn't over yet. Whoever becomes Divine, that's still going to be true, for good and ill. And if we don't want it to come to open fighting again the moment Corypheus is dealt with, we need to be able to disagree without attacking one another.

Mages have always disagreed. That's why fraternities existed. But jumping straight to accusing moderate voices of apathy, stupidity or both is going to drive an already loose federation apart, and that's not going to get us an outcome any of us want.

...Sorry. It's just. A lot.

I know it's a great deal. But lashing out at people who care enough to have a stake in the outcome isn't a great place to begin. I'm participating because I think it's important. We're all going to have to hear a lot of perspectives we disagree with before this war is properly over, and probably well past its end.

...Right.

[Colin is rarely this combative. It may hearken back to when he was an apprentice, shy and reclusive, save for a couple of outbursts of fistfights. He's not a boy any longer, so his anger is more muted, but just as directed.]

All insisting we give up everything and go back to a life you know I can't go back to, but I can't get testy about it because that would be rude.

[The barest pause. Very mild:]

Who do I support, Colin?

The Chantry, unless you've become an Aequitarian.

Yes, unless I've missed something, all five of them are vying to become the head of the Chantry. You know that wasn't what I was asking.

I must have missed when you said who you're supporting.

I haven't said, which is the point I was attempting to make. I observed that there's self-evidently some serious disagreement within those responding to your poll and asked how we planned to handle that. That's all.

If any of the five candidates would be equally bad in your eyes, I'm baffled as to why you opened this conversation. And if it wasn't meant to be a real conversation, you might have picked your audience better.

[It's perhaps worse for how plainly it's said; not unkind, simply laying out an observation.]

[Heavy chest, shaking hands, is he dying? As soon as the thought comes to him, he knows what he needs is a few deep breaths. There's a pause as he breathes.]

I'm sorry, I've, um, worked myself into a panic. Not your fault. I didn't mean those things I said.

[Implying Julius' loyalty is to the Chantry first and foremost, when it is demonstrably untrue? Maker, what an awful thing to say.]

[A short pause. Then:]

I accept the apology. But it's only going to get more important to find a way to work around or through that fear. Everyone participating in this discussion wants a better future for mages in Southern Thedas, even if there's disagreement on what that better future should look like.

We're eventually going to have to deal with people for whom that's not a priority, before this done. And if you lash out this hard at people who are, essentially, your allies, it could go much worse when it's people who are neutral to us at best.

I'm lashing out because they are allies. They've been in the Circle, they should know better. You should know better. You think you can reason with a Divine that's already made up her mind and that's not how it works. No one but our own will give us a fair shake, and our own seems to be rushing forward to give what little power we do have back to the Chantry. And it's bad, it's very bad to have been powerless back then. But to know your fellow mage, who saw the same things you did and knows everything you know, is happy to make you powerless again as well as himself, and pats himself on the back about it because he feels very moderate and reasonable when I'm just trying. Not. To die.

None of the candidates were mages, last I checked.

[A little flat.]

The fact the Chantry was temporarily without a leader didn't mean we'd won anything. Giving anything back isn't what we're talking about, because the war is not over, it's a truce while we deal with Corypheus. That's not new information. I think more than one of the candidates is likely to honor the gains we've made through negotiation, especially if the Inquisition remains the force I expect it will in the aftermath of all of this. But if you're going to immediately fall back on the position that any mage with an approach other than the one you've seized on is an active betrayal, of you or in general, I think perhaps this conversation is unlikely to go anywhere especially productive just now.

I've not seized on any approach, Julius. I'm just trying not to die. Take whatever moral high ground you want, but it's of no use to me if I die on it. Your moderate candidates would put me in a Circle without asking either of us first, and in the outside world, I can at least look after myself.

It isn't about the moral high ground. It isn't about your tone, or your manners, or any of the other things you've accused me of reacting to in this conversation. It's about the fact that it feels distinctly as if you're responding to what you imagine I think, rather than to what I'm actually saying.

You're an adult, Colin, and you can and should make your own choices. Running, not running, or anything else. But I don't see the point in continuing to discuss this with you when your mind is made up and you see compromise as tantamount to accepting death.

The Circles are death. That they weren't so for you doesn't mean it's an exaggeration.

[He doesn't say "Elise hasn't promised to dissolve them," because they are more or less past the point of attempting to have a reasonable debate regardless, and he suspects it would only make things worse.]

You've made up your mind, and this isn't getting us anywhere. I've no desire to keep agitating you, and we've strayed a long way from the original topic. I'll leave you to overseeing your vote, and I'll cast mine when the time comes. Perhaps let's leave it at that.

[It... isn't really a suggestion. For all that he's no longer Colin's teacher, the tone's still there when he reaches for it.]

Fine. [There's some shame at hearing the tone, knowing from it if nothing else that he should have shut up ten minutes ago.]

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