crystal

[stone_blind]

FORM: Sending crystal cause this girl can't read
SENDER: Katia
RECIPIENT: Everyone
NOTES: hopefully contains praxis

[ There's a bit of a fumbling noise on the crystal, then the sound of puffing air. Whoever this is is blowing on it, maybe as some sort of test.

Then a voice - one with an accent that's probably unfamiliar to almost everyone here. This woman has a Dwarven accent, all broad vowels and lax consonants, but it's not quite the same as an Orzammar accent. Tevinters might possibly know it as the accent of a dwarf of the Ambassadoria. ]

I want to know. How many of you are doing all of this because you want things to go back to how they all used to be? Restoring order and stability and all of that. The status quo.

[ And then she waits for a response. ]

Comments

[stone_blind]

But what does that future look like? As you imagine it.

1/2

[reparo]

[ She is getting used to the idea that she will have a say in it, here. That Thedas is where her future is. Or, you know, 'this Hermione' - it's complicated, let's not linger.

Anyway. ]

Free, and unafraid. Mages able to just exist, elves not treated like second-class citizens - in fact, none of that. None of that casual speciesism at all, and if I never have to hear another xenophobic remark as well -

[reparo]

[ Someone got carried away. ]

So - [CLEARS THROAT.] Something like that.

[stone_blind]

[ Another nod. This is clearly not someone who's put off by getting carried away - as if the huge explosions in Minrathous didn't tip Hermione off to this fact already. ]

And how do you get there?

[reparo]

Through hard work and determination? By backing the causes that might lead to that end? I'm not sure, Katia, I'm mostly improvising at the moment.

[stone_blind]

Mm.

[ She doesn't sound disapproving of Hermione's lack of clear answer. She's thoughtful, instead. ]

Riftwatch hasn't identified any of those causes? The ones that'll lead to that end?

[reparo]

Riftwatch seems to me to be actually fighting to end this whole...rift business. [ There is a pause, here. Uncertainty if to reveal it, but also - the anchor shard was hard to miss in Minrathous, probably is hard to miss now. ] And I would rather stay and be useful than get lost in an unfamiliar world.

[stone_blind]

And if the rifts go away, that's great, but it doesn't actually solve anything about what's wrong with the world. There'll be fewer demons, but just as much evil.

[reparo]

Yes, true - but without the demons to hide behind, the evil that gets left behind will be given no excuse and nowhere to hide.

[stone_blind]

Do you really think that? Casteless were getting spat on long before any rifts opened up, and they'll keep getting spat on after they're closed.

1/3

[reparo]

I'm not so naive as to think that the rifts being closed for good will make it easy to convince people to stop being terrible about a whole lot of things, I just think that if they spat again and there would be no order of things to hide behind when they got smacked across the mouth.

[reparo]

Metaphorically, of course. [ No, she'll be the first to throw hands. ]

[reparo]

And I think I'd like to change my answer from survival to equality.

[stone_blind]

That's probably a better answer. But that's not what things were like, before all this. No one got smacked for being a bastard, unless they were poor to begin with.

[reparo]

Maybe they should've. [ Sometimes you have to backhand a Malfoy, you know? ]

What sort of answer are you hoping for?

[stone_blind]

An honest one, first off. And if it's honest, one that shows that people can look beyond their own noses.

[reparo]

How's that working for you so far?