(002.) hello fade rift my old friend

[dashing]

FORM: crystal
SENDER: Herian Amsel
RECIPIENT: all the Inquisiton
WHAT: sup
WHEN: whatever today might wind up being in fair Thedas.
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: Hello! So Herian's background has some dark themes,
and she has some pretty harsh attitudes about mages, the Dalish, and pretty much anything that takes her fancy. I've got an opt out post if there's anything you want me to avoid touching on.

I fear it had been overlong since last we spoke, Inquisition.

( Crisply spoken words, the touch of Starkhaven shaping each sound. )

For those not yet known to me: I am Herian Amsel, Knight Enchanter of the White Spire. For those better acquainted with me, I apologise for my abrupt absence. My orders bid me elsewhere.

( ... and that's all she has to say about that, smoothly moving on. )

I hope the seasons and the Free Marches have not treated you poorly. However, I am bound to lament our residence in any portion of them that is not Starkhaven.

( There is just the faintest touch of humour, maybe. Possibly. You probably imagined it. )

Maker willing, Kirkwall will treat you all with kindness.

Comments

[dashing]

Honour might be a means for all these to be avoided; a salve for such weaknesses. Wisdom as well, if it were applied to spare a soul from oaths foolishly made. Honour grants us means to transform ourselves into something better than what we might be by nature. Those who were honourable would not have forged on with orders to slaughter innocents, for example. Children, the sick and frail, struck down as quick as though they had spilled blood.

( It is a slight flare of temper - too much of one, and she pauses, biting her tongue. A knight does not cause wanton offence, that is part of the code, but so too is the necessity for a knight to stand steady when wrongdoing is done, to seek justice. To speak bluntly of the Spire's annulment, aye, that was no wanton injury caused. )

If ever the Circles are to be restored, I pray they have better champions.

( Mayhaps not templars, and yet surely the Chantry will be necessary? To protect mages, to educate them, to show them the light of the Maker. Better templars, better Circles, where they can be all they should be.

... so this will be a super friendly training session, basically. ) — And you, though I doubt you'll have great need of a Knight Enchanter beyond the field.

[limier]

[ Better champions.

And where do you imagine, Her jaw grits hard to hold the words back. Where do you imagine to find those? The system begs statues, not men; incorruptible as those wailing terrors that stood outside the Gallows not so long ago. Honour is a child's fantasy, a blanket upon the fire of personality — honour could no more have saved the Spire than it saves a single soldier on the field, than it's saved all the children who came before the tower's fall: Young and innocent and no less dangerous for it.

People are not honourable. That abstract notion, perhaps it appeals to some of their better natures. Perhaps. But fuck, oughtn't they be capable without it? The world is not made of goodness, but dirt; you fight to lift it from the mud by any means you must. You fight because you can't stand by and watch.

Her teeth grind, and Amsel doesn't need to hear it. Let the girl cling to what she must; if she'll not look askance at Ceallach's prayers, at Serra's earthlier devotions, she mustn't tear at Amsel's now. This isn't the province of marble and bronze. This isn't her home, her people to lament.

(Twenty-three years and how could they be anything but hers? ) ]

The Inquisition must make overtures towards the Southern Chantry. I am presently organizing our efforts — we've need of any able hands and willing voices. If you would see honour raised, it is an opportunity to speak.

[ Maker knows they could use a few more bloody mages in the mix. A lump of templars making the decisions, the connections, alone? It doesn't matter which way the wind blows. It wouldn't stick. ]

[dashing]

( There is a long pause before she replies, weighing up the words, considering if there is some hidden blade in it. The silence almost pulls taut, and then Herian speaks before it has a chance to drag painfully at them.

She had thought highly of the Knight-Lieutenant, once, but she had thought highly of so many who were revealed as naught but murderers. )

I would be glad to join in such a cause.

( The words are too clipped to be entirely casual or pleasant. She is not sure she would trust others to see to it, is not sure she could stomach her own negligence if she did. )

Will you keep me appraised of meetings, or would you sooner we discuss it between us, first?

( Perhaps while they are hitting each other with swords would be a good time. Nice and friendly and casual. )

[limier]

While I welcome your presence, relations within the fortress are tense. It would perhaps behoove us both to review them before committing.

[ One of the last things she wants right now is Amsel to hear of the recent incident secondhand — particularly if called to work beside those involved. ]

[dashing]

Aye, that would be wise.

( A long pause, where she has no set purpose to the silence. It is a pause born in uncertainty, a hesitation rooted in the knowledge of what came to pass at the Spire, what followed in the days after. Waking unconscious in dust and rubble, trying to drag out the bodies of her mentors and friends and students and give them some chance at flames and rites when they would not be afforded the dignity of Andrastian pyres by the Chantry. Not when the Chantry had been so ready to forsake them, it seemed beyond possibility.

It had been agonising, those days, every moment and hour, and try as she might to consider it without personal agenda, to be objective and honourable, it is personal.

But duty must come before it. She did not own her emotions, for this. )

Name a time, Knight-Lieutenant. I shall attend.