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that word of my return has reached you already, and were circumstances suited to it, I would offer apology for being so withdrawn.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 One reason I have remained withdrawn was my own contemplations on potential negative impact my return in this state could alert.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

[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.