voice.

[dashing]

Good morrow, Riftwatch.

( Now, there’s a voice that hasn’t been on the crystals for a time. Years, in fact. The Starkhaven accent is strong as ever, and yet— some more nebulous quality has shifted. What was once careful and controlled, turned to diplomacy through practice, has turned to uniform flatness. Every word placid, every syllable even. )

My name is Herian Amsel. If we were previously acquainted then the possibility that word of my return has reached you already, and were circumstances suited to it, I would offer apology for being so withdrawn.

For those unfamiliar with me, or who have not become familiar with the details of my return, there are elements best not left unspoken.

You may notice differences in my speech and manner. This stems from the Rite of Tranquility, enacted by radicals acting outside the approval of the Chantry and Inquisition. Indeed, the attack was an attack against the Chantry and Inquisition, both.

I remember well the passion and fire of so many in Riftwatch; I share this news not to stoke those fires. These are matter that require thorough investigation. Rather,I speak to be transparent that this state is not one freely chosen, and such a revelation is an unkind one to inflict on others in the midst of other work. A good many find the Tranquil unsettling even before considering the context of how the Rite came to pass.

My presence hence is to serve Riftwatch, and if my presence disturbs you, please do not hesitate in letting it be known. I would sooner remove myself to another part of the keep to do my work, than some disconcerting quality to my aspect interfere with your work, or my circumstances evoking painful memories. One reason I have remained withdrawn was my own contemplations on potential negative impact my return in this state could alert.

Presently I have been assisting Doctor Strange, and learning of medical practices. If any could be troubled to lend assistance through procurement of clay, that would be most beneficial.

If you have questions you win to ask, I will endeavour to answer.

Comments

[dashing]

Yes. Before I was severed from the Fade, I had worked with a Spirit of Honour. Long before that I had viewed it as something absolute.

My contemplations were not to disregard it; shifting to the opposing extreme would hold its own flaws. Rather, I have thought on what changes in myself that I would strive for, or might come, should the rite be reversed. The man who subjected me to it conducted himself with what he perceived as honour.

Thoughts should be better organised before sharing them aloud.

[ipseite]

The idea of honour is, to me, a framework. A set of expectations defined by the moral star by which we navigate, and what values we hold most dear to us. Where a Spirit of Honour has the luxury of an absolute, to bring such a simplified thing out of the Fade risks perverting and warping it beyond measure — we are not creatures of absolutes. We are always in negotiation, and always learning, and always changing. A spirit may be such a star, but it can never fully comprehend what you are navigating, and to operate strictly by its edicts can,

( she will never forget Anders' spirit of Mercy, and the breathtaking cruelty of what it did and did not consider worthy or deserving, and though there is nothing of it in her voice she has never trusted a spirit since, never liked the influence they hold, )

do great harm.

The mistake is not to value one's honour. The mistake is to think that you will ever have every answer before you, and all that you need. It is that perfect certainty that allowed the harm that was done to you. Not what he values, perhaps, but what he does not. What his values allow him to deem acceptable sacrifice to them.

[dashing]

I agree. There is a real possibility that, were he a mage, Honour would not discriminate against working with him, so long as he acted honourably by his own rubric. The values that define that honour are not, themselves, of interest.

( A slightly jarring pivot, perhaps, but the connection seems evident to Herian. )

Shame was most often that which obscured clarity. Considerations to de-fang that shame will be necessary, to have any hope that I do not grasp for honour once more, when re-establishing my frame of reference.

[ipseite]

( more jarring if she had less experience with the idea or the sort of people who hold such ideals in so many words— as it is, the segue seems natural enough to petrana that it doesn't throw her.

shame, in her experience, often drives one to require such a framework. fear, even, of what one might do without it. it is not nearly often questioned enough: what might I do with it? )

Allow me to offer you a different perspective, ( she says, then, ) that to grasp for honour is not the problem you are addressing, but the way you had feared shame.

[dashing]

Shame is what drove me from Riftwatch. A ceaseless sapping of will and joy that I allowed too great a grip. It compromised and shaped me, akin to caverns that the sea carves into cliffs. Not immediate; that would be too easily recognised. I had abandoned myself and those dear to me, for fear for my flaws and errors.

As aware of this as I was before the Rite, and as much labour as I undertook to reckon with myself, shame is not a stone shaken from a shoe. If I have not felt it since the Rite, I may struggle against being overwhelmed.

Guilt, at least, can have a purpose, reflection prompted by external force. Shame is a corrosive thing that we destroy ourselves with, a warping of accountability.


It seems ironic to disclose this at a time when I can feel none of these things. The value of such openness is undercut, perhaps.

[extortionate]

I can get you clay.

[ she still gets a stipend right ]

[laruetheday]

[ ooookay, we're moving right past most of that because she doesn't even know where she'd start with it, ]

What's the clay for?

[ipseite]

( it is striking, for a moment, that— perhaps someone who had been closer to herian would feel differently. they had known each other well enough, had enjoyed an amiable professional relationship. herian had been comfortable enough to lean on her counsel, and she had been willing to offer it, albeit not without her own purpose.

yet: to speak with herian as she is now is less different than that had been than she might have expected. the difference must be stark, within, yet from the outside... well, an argument against the way she had once attempted to smother her own feelings beneath a framework of rules that should have protected her from them.

it is not a new idea to her. the betrayal of coming to understand that the rules were not real, and that she was never safe. )

Honour offered you rules for the world, ( she says, ) and assured you that to follow them would protect you from that. A worse betrayal, then, and a worse shame that they did not, and could not; I imagine it must have been difficult not to see the flaw in yourself, and not in the tenets that you wished to uphold.

( she hasn't forgotten, for instance, herian's early loyalist leanings. or how difficult she knows it can be to lose those. )

Absolutes can only fail us, the way that a spirit cannot hold its shape when confronted with the complexities of our living. What you punished yourself for was your wholeness. A spirit can never err, in this way, and so it can never learn. It cannot bend, so it breaks. I don't believe that you share that quality.

[dashing]

I am guilty of an over-reliance on absolutes. A matter of flaws
in how I navigate reasoning, regardless of emotions influence.

( It is matter of fact, as all of this has been. No condemnation turned inward - simply an observation, as there’s surely no person with objectively flawless reason. Trying to reason things out to come to the right outcome and critique her determinations over and over made her tenure as Ambassador agonising. )

You speak it true. I set my compass star upon an ideal.

( She might have made a joke here, before. “Alas, no Spirit of Do Your Best.” )

It would be preferable if recognition of facts translated to immediate recovery and growth. Uncertainty of what will be felt in the instance that the reversal succeeded is unappealing, even acknowledging it as a necessity.

[ipseite]

Do you think, perhaps, that a wish for such immediate consolation may have been what drove your previous mistakes?

It is difficult to sit in discomfort. I do not find it, myself, any easier. And I have sought my own methods of avoidance. But I do find myself wondering if that is not the thing that you most needed, and may in the future need again, to learn to do.

( her efforts to avoid that shame had created it; it isn't exactly something that's unique to her. riftwatch is littered with examples of self-destruction, of the architects of their own miseries. petrana herself is not immune to falling into that trap, or else she might not know it so well to describe it now. )

[dashing]

Entirely plausible. Accepting the uncertainty of what might accompany undoing the Rite is a necessity.

( Recognising the prospect without capacity to feel it has become the norm. This context only casts them in sharper relief. )

This is not a conversation I anticipated when taking to the crystals.

[ipseite]

I hope that you have found it of some use to you, Herian.

[dashing]

Certainly. Thank you for taking the time, Madame de Cedoux.

🎀

[ipseite]

Of course.

[dashing]

Thank you, that would be helpful. I knew not if it was something able to be requested through requisitions, or better purchased independently.

( limited money for the swindling and/or handling honestly )

[dashing]

( no casual trauma chat, right to business )

I am attempting to create accurate anatomical drawings for Doctor Strange. As there are limits to what can be clearly conveyed on the page, sculptures seemed a sensible strategy.

private;

[overharrowed]

I support Madame de Cedoux's comments [presumably the public ones, though if he'd heard the private ones, probably those too] and mainly just wish to say that while I take no joy in what was done to you against your will, I am at least glad that you are alive and back with us. We've lost too many, recently and it is good to have you here.

Also, [this is why he made it private, actually], don't let Lazar over-charge you for the clay. If you need a point of reference, I'm the seneschal now. I can weigh in on whether he's giving you a fair price. I may even see if we can find a place in the organization's budget, since you are requesting the materials for work supporting our head healer.

[succise]

(This is deeply horrifying, sickeningly interesting.

It is with very little tact that Vega asks,) What is it like? Being Tranquil.

[extortionate]

Best off purchased. These military outfits, they spend little as they can on everything, and you'll need quality. Now, this clay for eating, clay for beauty, clay for building, clay for sculpture —

[laruetheday]

I see. Are you an artist?

[dashing]

( Were she herself, she would be better able to identify a potential effort to influence her. )

Sculpture is closest to my purposes. I am crafting models for medical training and explaining procedures to patients.

[extortionate]

Got lucky, then. You're talking to an expert. Gonna want Ander Red Ultisol. Holds detail and texture like no other. Even pre-coloured.

[ for all the... blood? and gunk in there ]

[dashing]

No. I am creating models to assist Doctor Strange with explaining medical procedures to patience, and to better the outcomes for new healers training. They may be of use to Research more broadly.

[dashing]

( There is not much delay to the response. )

Do you wish to know of the practical differences, or the cognitive experience?

[succise]

The latter.

But if you'll speak on both, I would be interested to know.