[ CLOSED ] Loose lips endanger children

[ombranera]

FORM: Sending Crystal
SENDER: Zevran Arainai
RECIPIENT: Mia Rutherford, Vivienne, Pel Ashra, Anders, Leliana, Alejandro
WHAT: SOMEONE TOLD
WHEN: After a mysterious delivery
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: Message is sent individually rather than as a group broadcast, consider this a series of private calls/conversations. There will be swearing

I have trusted you with my greatest treasure and secret and while, yes, I have come to the decision that I will be keeping Luciano and raising him myself here in Skyhold and that I am comfortable allowing people I trust come to know of him-

That does not mean I am comfortable of random envoys being sent to deliver knit goods and gold to my doorstep!

Now not only does the man sent them know, that envoy knows. An Orlesian envoy- who are not known for their discretion or integrity in the face of pain or bribery. I should know, I threatened their employer from them with little more than a glare. Whomever they might have spoken to on the way to Skyhold might know!

Comments

[ombranera]

Well enough?

[ Zevran hops down from the bed where he'd finished arranging the mobile, about to ask for more details when. That.

That name.

Imagining Carver's face when he hears it- when he hears who suggested it? Zevran loses a moment or two to helpless laughter. ]

Maker's breath- it suits. It suits very well and I think you know that.

[fightingale]

Well enough.

( Repeated, as though it might make it more true, more solid.

In place of such an assurance, Leliana does allow herself a very narrow smile at Zevran's laughter. )

He is a particularly determined little thing, I'll give him that.

[ombranera]

Does he look particularly sour? As though he has smelled something unpleasant or stepped in something he shouldn't? From what I heard of his namesake, that seemed to be the air about him.

[ Zevran, alas, would not know personally. But he does lose a little time to leaning back and watching Leliana hold Lucci. Now there is a woman that would do well with a child- when the whole saving and changing the world business is over. Far, far better suited to it than him and that twinge of thought rings for a moment before he attempts to set it aside.

He made his choice, the boy will stay.

Until-

Offering himself that out will not hold forever. Until someone safer comes along, until it becomes too dangerous, until, until, until. He is committed to this thing for...whatever reason. ]

I knew he would be fond of you.

[fightingale]

Mostly he seems to try and puff himself up to look as big as Feathras and Squawke. ( a sigh, though not a terribly serious one. ) Thus far he doesn't seem quite able to keep up with them, but perhaps in time.

( Poor Carver. Does nobody consider the suffering of poor Carver?
No, probably not.

AND ZEVRAN STOP BEING SAD go be a happy loser dad with dad jokes and idk whatever dads do
or, keep brooding and turn into Leliana )

Mm. ( She hums very quietly, absent mindedly bouncing Lucci just a little as she moves. ) He gets that lapse in judgment from his father, I think.

[ombranera]

If he is young he will grow into it, yes?

[ They are terribly clever creatures- perhaps it might be wise to raise a batch for the Kestrel's use? He would have to think on that later. It is less stressful than imagining the child and his life and how he will run a guild and raise a child and-

Is running away to Rivain to live in sin (the best sort of life) still not an option? ]

Leliana I have been fond of you since you told takes of getting spun sugar caught in your hair. It will take more than the choices you have made to make me less fond. Though I would thank you to not teach Lucci that trick, his curls are difficult enough to comb already.

[fightingale]

I suspect as much, yes. It is rather entertaining to see him get so indignant, however.

( Meanwhile, Leliana is a terribly terrible creature, go figure.

Listen, Zevran, Leliana wants to run off and live in sin as much as the next person, but they have shit to get done first. No running off and living in sin. Is the Sinquisition not enough?

Her sigh is one of Great Suffering. )

If only I could make you forget some of the stories I shared. I'm sure they make it much harder to take me seriously, when you know I couldn't be trusted with confectionary. ( And she looks down at Lucci. ) Listen to nothing he says. Nothing.

[ombranera]

Such are our bedtime stories. Tales from the Fifth Blight- and the strange people that fought it. A bard that cannot be trusted with spun sugar, an assassin that fell out of a window, a grey warden that trips into every trap, a drunk dwarf that tried to con a mabari into pulling a chariot.

[ Ridiculous people that fought an insane foe- and lived.

What better tale could there be than that? ]

[fightingale]

( Well, when you put it that way— )

It's a miracle the world survived.

[ombranera]

And thrived, for a short while. [ They did not do so bad. ] Relateable heroes. What a marvel, mm?

[fightingale]

A while.

( Echoed, though she cannot deny the horrors she has seen.

More the work of humanity than malevolent forces, sadly. )

Is that what we were?

[ombranera]

As a group- before we went our separate ways to thrive individually. [ of course. ] That is what everyone continues to tell me what I am despite my only contributions being I failed to die and I managed to keep bot Jonas and Alistair from dying a handful of times- no more or less than the rest of us. If that is all it takes to be a hero? So be it.

[fightingale]

You were certainly a romantic figure befitting many songs. Many of us were.
( Oghren may not have been romantic, and often closer to repugnant with his comments to herself, Wynne and Morrigan, but he was a hero as well... after a fashion.

She keeps playing with Lucci, idly, wiggling her fingers to offer entertainment as they speak. )

You lived well. People do not speak to me of the Blight.

( Maybe because you are scary and also an ass, Leliana, just a thought. )

[ombranera]

You were the one singing a few, if I recall correctly.

[ Some overwrought, some teasing, some sincere- it'd been a strange mix. One he'd fallen into happily for what else could he have possibly done?

Lucci remains attentive, grasping for her fingers and Zevran...finds his hands slipping to his sketchbook, flicking through to a new page. ]

Most of who speak to me are elves, to be honest. I am not always counted among Jonas' party save in the broadest sense. A footnote in history- which is not at all surprising.

[fightingale]

( She stills with his words. Not about the songs; she had performed many and written more and they had been a strange jumble of family.

No, she is still over his mention of himself as a footnote, as... inconsequential, almost.

Her expression is always restrained and difficult to read, but what had been more relaxed in Lucci's presence has faded into sombreness. )

I am sorry I have not done more.

( For mages, yes, but for elves as well. )

[ombranera]

It has actually been quite helpful, not to be recognized or noted. I am, after all, an assassin. The less noteworthy I am, the better.

[ Ever practical, is Zevran. ]

Except apparently when I am included and made a mockery of. Michel de Chevin made mention of plays? And caricatures. I shudder to think what they must have done.

[ If he is to be mentioned, let it be in brief or in truth- or not at all. This in between business suits him ill. ]

About what? You are but one woman, Leliana, with the whole of Thedas already on your plate.

[fightingale]

There were times when using a false name was necessary.

( She should have anticipated it in Kirkwall, perhaps. Still, her mouth snags at the mention of plays - worse in Orlais, she can imagine. Most things were worse in Orlais. )

And yet there were doubtless opportunities to be seized upon or constructed.

( Protests to be made, slaughter in Halamshiral to fight against when Justinia had issued Celene with ultimatums that Leliana had delivered. )

[ombranera]

No.

[ There are few places he might put his foot down with her, truly, but this? ]

You do not get to borrow guilt for humans being full of shit. You, yourself, are not. You treat me well, you treat my son well, you care. That is all I ask. I do not need a crusader for justice and rights, Leliana. Others might- but I myself? Do not. I need my sister. I want her. Step down from your pyre.

[fightingale]

I do not need to borrow guilt. I care and I do what I can to treat those I know well, but that is not enough. To disregard the suffering of the many so long--

( She stops, looking down at Lucci, and it feels so utterly wrong to be holding a child when she is full of such things. Her brow furrows, her expression stops short of crumbling, but there is a critical moment of wavering. )

I admired Justinia for many things, Zevran. But for all that she tried to learn from Kirkwall and to do better for mages, she neglected the elves. She practically condemned them, and I was the hand that delivered her ultimatum.

( Looking up from Lucci, she shakes her head. ) I wonder, at times, if I set too much faith in her, or if I simply place blame in the lap of a woman who saved my life and died for what she believed in.

[ombranera]

A human official in the chantry ignored the elves?

[ He gasps, hand flying to his chest, eyes comically wide- the motion prompts bright, burbling laughter from his son and ah, at least his sarcasm is good for amusing an infant if nothing else. ]

How could such a thing come to pass? The skies will fall down upon us next- [ In light of the breach, perhaps not the best turn of phrase, but he's exhausted and can be forgiven that. ] You followed orders. It is what one does when that is what they feel they must do. I should not have to tell you the blame is not yours in this, Leliana.

[ No more than most would lay the worst of his marks against him. ]

She was human with her own agenda. Regardless of what she wished, being human? Colors her perceptions. And what are elves to humans if not expendable? It is as it is until someone steps forward to change it for the better. Knowing now what you know- You would not do such a thing a second time. So why feel guilty? There is work to be done.