( OPEN ) old nerd gets drunk and shakes a cane

[aenseidhe]

FORM: Crystal
SENDER: Iorveth
RECIPIENT: Errybody
WHAT: Ranting about the Divines and the likely continuation of systematic oppression
WHEN: nownownow
WHERE: Kirkwall alienage?
NOTES: idefk, i'm sorry

[ why hello there good friends. the voice you hear is the same snide grumble, but there's a slur to it, words spaced with the occasional gulp from what can be correctly assumed is a tankard of something that sure isn't water. aka, iorveth is shitfaced and getting his political rant on. ]

Divines. A farcical parade in just how ploughed the oppressed would like to be: moderately sullied but stocked enough in intoxicants to endure, or gathering up their young in the night to flee to the hills from the rallied masses? [ there's a snort, that turns into a snicker, that turns into another gulp of whatever he's chugging. don't drink and go on SJW rants, kids. ]

Much as the humans of my homeworld were conniving, cowardly worms, they were at least consistent enough to cheat the various religious sects in grabs for power as they did all others. Certainly, the feverishly devout, with their shrunken, diseased minds stuffed to the brim with fervent paranoia and prejudice could, and did, frolic about strapping dwarves, elves and whatever they could slap 'heretic' onto to pikes and burning them in the city square, but if the lord of the land found the stench disagreeable, the city guard could be sent down to disperse it.

Here, we're watching them puzzle over a woman that could proclaim our entire force abomination and cripple the effort to save the idiot masses that raise her to do so. There's only one of them I'd believe wouldn't look to stuffing our mages back into towers and crushing the non-humans further into the dirt, but her mind's rumored to be half-addled. Not that she's like to win, having radical opinions like 'perhaps we shouldn't be such arrogant, imperial twats', or 'maybe we should let the elves out of their mud-pens now and again', and 'do you think the mages might like us more if we didn't kidnap them and lock them in towers?'

[ a sigh, and iorveth seems to be winding down, the creak of wood signaling him lounging back. ]

Assuming the one we're stuck with isn't so daft as to take a bat to the Inquisition's kneecaps, the best we can hope for, on the civil end, is a... [ oh, we're fading, we're fading fast. ] Is a dra... Is...

[ aaaaand he passes right the fuck out before he can say something horrible like "let's hope a dragon swoops down and devours them all right after Corypheus bites it." Any replies will be answered some hours later, when his dumb ass wakes up hung over and confused. ]

Comments

[elegiaque]

—Iorveth?

[aenseidhe]

[ some hours later: ]

...Gwenaëlle.

[ a w k ... ]

[elegiaque]

Not that I disagree, mind you, but what the fuck.

( it's fairly mild, rather than chastening; it's an odd moment. it's been months since they've really spoken, and she isn't entirely sure what it looks like now. )

[aenseidhe]

[ oh. she's mad. he remembers rambling about something before passing out, but the specifics are escaping him. he also remembers probably throwing down with some people before getting home, so really, it could be anything.

a vague hrm sounds as iorveth's trying to discern what the fuck indeed. ]

You'll have to be more specific.

[elegiaque]

( the more she answers, the more it's clear she isn't, actually, just feeling out...whatever that was. )

You're not usually one to casually share with the entirety of Kirkwall and all their dogs. I didn't know you felt so strongly about the Divine.

( she doesn't. her opinions are similar, admittedly, but a little more aggrieved that it's even a priority. why must they always prop up this dying institution? why not let it falter? )

[aenseidhe]

[ a pause, and iorveth lets out a low chuckle. it's been a while since he's gotten onto a soapbox, hasn't it? he does usually tend to say these things more with a burning village and a pile of corpses, but he can't really do either of those in Kirkwall without more risk that he's willing to take. ]

I could always stab another message board, but I'd hate to give your surrogate aunt an actual reason to despise me.

[ hi coupe. ]

Aside from, you know. The murder and terrorism.

[ for real, he's so offended someone hates him for reasons that have nothing to do with him actually being a horrible individual. ]

[elegiaque]

( oh, now there's a sore point; she's not mad at iorveth, but there's a different edge when she says, )

I wouldn't worry, I don't think she's capable of feeling anything.

( so that's probably fine. )

Frankly, I don't see why we insist that the race matters.

[aenseidhe]

[ there's a short silence, because despite his own ire for the woman, he'd know she was someone important to gwen, and while there were arguments before (because gwen argues with everyone, bless her perfect soul), that statement isn't something he'd expect to hear from her. fuck him but he cares. ]

Troubles?

[ said somewhat softer, probably while he finds a cool cloth to put on his face and somewhere to settle down again and chat. ]

With the Divine? Because of how much backlash the Inquisition is willing to put up with. The ideals the woman's bringing matter little else. [ if by 'we' you mean 'the Gallows at large'. not so much iorveth. iorveth cares a lot. but iorveth also wants corypheus dealt with above anything else. mostly. probably. ]

[elegiaque]

Nothing time won't solve.

( ...she means because coupe will die, eventually, that's. not the most comforting sentiment, in the tone she says it. )

As for the Divine, I've said before and I still think it's worth remembering the Inquisition exists because the Chantry lacked the power to stop it. Why prop it up when we could cut it off at the knees instead?

[rowancrowned]

Because cutting it off may well fracture the existing systems of support that Chantries provide, both materially in the form of aid, and spiritually, to nearly the whole of Southern Thedas. There has been a Divine for nearly one thousand years [ haha that's so short ] , and it ought not to be a tradition we encourage the breaking of lightly,

[ pause. ]

and there is the matter of the Black Divine himself looming.

[elegiaque]

I wasn't suggesting it lightly.

( your adorably mouthed apology will get you nothing!!! )

fist around crystal

[rowancrowned]

[ wow what about a quick aside of, ]

Not all can be as cosmopolitan and agnostic as you, particularly those who must ascribe the rising and setting of the sun itself to the Maker.

[ wholly different tone: ]

Should I go on, or have I appeared to be a properly zealous convert?

hers covered, too,

[elegiaque]

I could have been living in the woods with a mercenary right now. I can't believe I married you.

( you politician. )

[rowancrowned]

I assure you, dear wife, that we will return to the woods and never return to a Mannish city ever again when and once I manage to untangle the knot that this place has worked itself into over the last-- how long has it been?

[ head against the back of his big fancy division head chair, c o u n t i n g. ]

The first Blight was in the Third Age, yes?

[aenseidhe]

[ boooooi you did not just walk up into his rant talking about let's not murder the chantry because everyone's comfortable with it. ]

...Gods forbid we shatter the time honored tradition in support of racial genocide and oppression of the closest people we can call kin in this realm because some humans may feel adrift.

private ;

[rowancrowned]

Ah, Iorveth, good morning.

How are you faring? Have you eaten yet?

private ;

[aenseidhe]

Shitty. Anders is making tea.

[ why are you doing this to him while he's hung over?? ]

[coquettish_trees]

And immediately alert the monarchs of all nations that we are indeed willing to do what they fear we shall?

The bell that will sound with even the first seeming use of the might of the Inquisition against any but our common foe cannot be unrung.

[elegiaque]

Good.

( that that's all she says is all the deference thranduil gets. )

[coquettish_trees]

[ le sigh

but she’s not about to fight a Gwen who already has her teeth set. (Well, not about this anyway.) ]

[rowancrowned]

[ one (1) small pain au chocolat is delivered to lexie's study table in the library by a speedy runner. ]

[coquettish_trees]

[ blesssssss ]

[aenseidhe]

I wonder at what point Thedosians will suffer inconvenience in the name of doing what is right. Perhaps once all the elves, dwarves, Qunari and Tal-Vashoth have been driven to extinction, and there's only humans left to subjugate humans.

[ a beat, and he adds - ]

Of course, this is assuming Corypheus doesn't flay us all, but it isn't as if the Chantry grinding the weak or short numbered into the dirt is a new tale, is it?

[coquettish_trees]

Being flayed does sound inconvenient. Although I suppose it affords one manner of equity.

[aenseidhe]

[ a snort sounds, but it's an amused one. ]

That is the one pro in the campaign of Corypheus for Divine. He flays indiscriminately.