open | sending crystal

[extramural]

FORM: Sending Crystal
SENDER: The Outsider
RECIPIENT: Open!
WHAT: A morbid question.
WHEN: mid-month
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: Talk of death, horrifying things, the Outsider being himself.

Tell me. What would you consider a fate worse than death?

Comments

[ancarrow]

Being made a slave.

[extramural]

That is specific, despite also being not at all.

You would not feel hope for escape, for freedom?

[ancarrow]

It would likely mean being taken across the sea to Tevinter - no Ser, I would feel quite hopeless.

[extramural]

One can always return from distant lands, if one arrived there in the first place.

Those not of Tevinter rarely speak of slavery there, in my experience. It is common, then?

[ancarrow]

Aye, and not just for elves. I've heard they even enslave their fellow humans.

[extramural]

Is it simply a matter of labor, for them?

[ancarrow]

Would that it were, for that could be replaced easily enough by paid labor. No, from what little I've heard it's a deeply rooted part of their whole culture and society. They send slaves off to die in their war against the Qunari, they have them labor for them - even free laborers there end up selling themselves into slavery as they can't compete - and they have endless supplies of slaves to use as sacrifices for their blood magic rituals. [She shivers just thinking about it.]

[extramural]

[ back up ]

Why do they war against the Qunari?

[ancarrow]

The Qunari want to convert everyone to their way of life, even if invasion is necessary. [It sounded little better than slavery to her.] The other nations all agreed peace with them, all except Tevinter. I'm afraid I don't know the specifics, Ser, we don't get much detailed news from that part of the world where I'm from.

[extramural]

What is their way of life? I know only that they sew the mouths of their mages shut.

Ah- no matter. [ Though he is rather tickled at being called 'Ser'. ] It is a place to start.

[ancarrow]

I don't know many of the specifics myself - most of what I've heard is that their religion makes it so that everyone has a defined role in life which they aren't allowed to stray from. [Compared to slavery in Tevinter, or even the poverty of the alienage, it doesn't sound as undesirable to Eirlys as she thinks it ought to, apart from the instinctive distrust of it that comes from being raised Andrastian.] They're very strict about it, and they mean to make everyone in the world live the same way if they can.