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[rathercommon]

crystal | letter | cease and desist notices slipped under her door | action

Comments

[elegiaque]

( the main lesson that gwenaëlle has taken away from this, if she's honest, is that she needs to properly dispose of mail she doesn't intend to send. )

K.

Your point itself isn't bad—and it'd stand whether I thought so or not, no one within the Inquisition gives a fuck what I think, and outside of it I rather prove your point by being irrelevant without the right surname attached, that other twat banging on knew all about Lady Vauquelin, but let's not pretend that Baudin will get me anywhere near as far in the world—but you do it a disservice by making it so easy to dismiss you by ignoring the context in which you argue it.

No one has to defend the Inquisition's position on who matters if you steadfastly argue it in a conversation regarding how we handle war criminals and the red lyrium creatures they drive ahead of themselves as cannonfodder. What you're doing is pissing into the wind in the hopes of breaking a drought. You don't have to care about battle tactics, but battle tactics are expressly and explicitly what was being discussed. Because we are going into a battle. For the Inquisition, which for all its many flaws—and they are many, and they are probably going to doom us, but as no one else is doing fuck all about Corypheus this is what we have—has never claimed to be here to do anything but stop Corypheus. The Inquisition was formed to find out who murdered Justinia, figure out what the bloody hell is going on with the massive glowing sky vagina, and deal with those things. That is its purpose, and any other good it does is incidental—that has been long since proven.

What you're fighting for is survival. That's what we're all fighting for. The world is in a state of massive upheaval and we have a chance, a very slim chance judging by what I see all around me but a chance nevertheless, to not only stop our annihilation but to define what happens next. The Inquisition plays a role, but we've all seen what that role is. Stabilizing Thedas isn't the same thing as revolutionizing it. I will say this: on an individual level, I'm sure that it has as many hypocrites as it does idealists, but institutionally, the Inquisition has writhed in place like a bleating animal trying to avoid being forced to take any fucking stance, controversial or otherwise, beyond "we don't wish the world to end". You can't have hypocrisy where you don't even have the balls to lie in the first place. Don't pin your ideals to the Inquisition; I can say from experience it will only disappoint you.

Ask the right questions. Who are we sending to the front lines, and why? What will the Inquisition do if our people are taken prisoner? Thranduil gave you a very fine opening that you ignored when he noted that a prisoner our enemy values has worth in potential prisoner exchanges; who do you think the Inquisition would be prepared to trade such a resource for? Who do you think would simply be told not to allow themselves to be taken alive? That's a conversation worth having. Shard-bearers can't be allowed to fall into Venatori hands, but would we rescue rifters if it looked easier to simply burn down the place they were being held and ensure no intelligence could be taken from it? These are better questions. They address what it is you truly wish to know, which is something what you were doing before did not.

If you want to know if the Inquisition, institutionally, values the lives of the common folk: not more than it values safe familiarity, and it never will. Knowing what the people next to you care about seems quite important, given that. There is no tactical advantage to taking rank and file prisoners from Corypheus's army both because Corypheus cares about them significantly less than even the Inquisition's bleeding heart free-thinkers and because the most likely outcome is that they spread red lyrium blight throughout the Gallows and we all die, pointlessly. How people feel about that is an easy get: we get to blame Corypheus no matter what. No one has to take responsibility for what they think of that because he did the hard part already. He's destroying his own army from the inside out because all they are to him is weapons, and we have no cure to offer that but death, and so that absolves us of responsibility. Not you, probably, you're very responsible, but you see what I mean: the water here is very fucking muddy. What we're prepared to do—or not do—for those fighting against him is a harder thing to simplify away from us.

It demands a better answer. It at least demands some thought.

G.

[rathercommon]

Gwenaelle,

I ought to say - because it ought to be said - that I am not in fact fighting for survival. I am a Rifter; my lifespan, if what others have told me is true, is likely to be no more than a few years. At any point I could fade into nothing after losing my mind and personality. For someone like me to fight for survival,is completely ludicrous. Of course - I am sure that, upon reading this, you are mentally preparing a very profane reminder that I am no one special, that anyone can die at any time; but that is precisely the point, is it not? There is no point fighting for survival when, at the end of the day, no one survives into the long term.

So: a bit of thought, then. A few questions. I think it is worth asking ourselves: should our primary task truly be to stabilize Thedas? Obviously, Corypheus is dreadful; he is cruel, and terrible, and uses people awfully and abominably. But so, too, does the Empress of Orlais. So, too, does the Queen of Ferelden, and the Divine, and the Black Divine, and the Archon, and every person who holds power. We fight to stabilize Thedas - and then what? It goes back to how it was before? With all the diseases it had before, all the nasty creeping illnesses that gave rise to the likes of Corypheus? With elves crushed under the boots of their masters, with the poor beaten and killed for being poor, with nobles told 'you're grand because of your father' and peasants told 'you're nothing because of your father'? Is that worth spending our few years of life on?

These are real questions. I am not asking them because I believe the answer is 'no'. But you say we are here to stabilize instead of revolutionize. Why? Whom, truly, does that benefit? It certainly does not benefit the slaves up in Tevinter, nor the elves of the Alienage, nor the soldier in the field who gives up his/her life for this fight and will never see tomorrow, who was born in filth and is forced to die in filth because this world permits nothing else.

Sincerely,
Kathleen Jones

P.S.-- Please don't send back a great lot of 'you're a Rifter & barely even know this world & how dare you criticize us' because if you do I will SCREAM and not only will I scream I will do so directly into your ear and it will be very painful.

[rathercommon]

That's a good point. The democracy gets smashed to bits - because of course, it must be easier to smash a democracy to bits, with all the indecision and squabbling - or maybe not, because a democracy must produce more good ideas than a monarchy, so maybe it's stronger...But say, for argument's sake, that a democracy does get destroyed. Like the old Parliament. If it's a small democracy, if it stands alone, it's probably like snuffing out a spark. It probably doesn't even leave behind burn-marks, to let others know it existed.

She lets out a slow breath. "You could write books, I suppose," she says. "Leave behind what you knew. But then whoever comes after, they'll be like the magicians back home - burning the books they don't like, keeping the common folk illiterate." She drops her chin into her hand. "Teach other people, and hope they'll teach the ones who come after. Hope that they'll outlive the folks who want to snuff out freedom, too."

[elegiaque]

K.

I said that's all the Inquisition will do.

G.


( if kitty sees no future, then there's nothing else to offer her. the world not ending benefits everyone, but it's only an opportunity for change in that upheaval, in who is left standing afterwards. the inquisition won't do it. she won't lie to her about that to make her fight. )

[rathercommon]

Gwenaelle,

Then let's not talk about the Inquisition. Let's talk about a future that goes beyond what they're offering. I'm sure you have thoughts on that, haven't you?

Sincerely,
Kathleen Jones

P.S.-- That letter was pathetically short, and completely a waste of paper. Come on; I know you've always got far more to say than that. Did your hand cramp up or something? Were you interrupted? Were you kidnapped?

[katabasis]

"As you said - balance is required. It can't all be done at the end of a sword," he agrees, though there is tar black on his neck and a knife in his belt. "Show people irrefutable proof that what they know to be true doesn't have to be, whether that's by taking something away or by giving it, and they can be persuaded."

He pauses then, struck all at once by some sharp ache. He's sent messages North. Maker willing they will find their way to Madi at whatever line of defense she has fallen back to.

"Will you be at Ghislain?" Spoken suddenly across the edge of his cup.

[rathercommon]

That's...a topic that's a bit harder to cheerfully intellectualize. She curls in a little closer to herself, wrapping an arm around her knobby knees.

"I guess I will." She gives a small shrug, trying to look casual, but there's something a bit pinched about her expression. "Don't know how much good I'll do, but I've got a mabari that loves me, and I guess I'll be sending her out there. Which seems..." Her face settles into a deep sort of unease. "Wrong. But what can you do."

She gnaws on the inside of her lip a moment, then blows out a long breath, shaking her head. "Anyway. What about you lot? It's landlocked, isn't it? Will you be going?"

[katabasis]

"I'm technically under Scoutmaster Ashara's command." So that's a yes. "But the crew isn't Inquisition and I believe their talents are better applied elsewhere."

He has work for them to do here, something to keep them occupied while prying eyes are either turned elsewhere or removed from Kirkwall entirely. Which-- for a moment he nurses the cup, contemplating the brazier's coals and measuring the nearly intangible weight of the packet inside his coat light at his side. Then he looks at her. Speaking of talents that would benefit from being pointed in certain directions...

"What does the Inquisition have you doing, Kitty? Specifically, day to day."

[rathercommon]

"Research," she responds. Then, with a tilt of her head, she admits - "Well - I sort of have myself doing research, more precisely. I think they were a bit squeamish of telling me to go into any particular department, on account of my age and all that. So I decided what I could get the most use out of, and where I could do the most good."

Which is partially a lie. She could, perhaps, do a bit more good out on the battlefield, where her resilience could let her get at targets that others couldn't. But also, that seems like a quick path to a quick death - and everyone's trying to kill Corypheus; better to spend her time working on problems that aren't getting worked on yet.

"So - you're going, but your men are staying behind?" It's an interesting way of doing things, and one she doesn't disapprove of. Those in charge, she thinks, ought to be spending their time out on the front lines.

[shri]

[ It's not that she's... nervous.

Alright, perhaps she is. The stiff pinch in her shoulders, that way she doesn't quite settle. Doesn't hold into one spot completely. Ready to move - but where or what for when she is the one willingly here is - ]

Hello, Kitty. May I speak with you?

[rathercommon]

Yeah. Of course.

[ The nerves make her nervous. But she moves aside, waving her in towards the room's lone chair. Kitty closes the door and bolts it. ]

D'you want something to drink?

[shri]

[ She steps through, keeping her hands at her side and her step long. Biting on her tongue on the nag that comes almost unbidden, I hope you're keeping your room properly.

Instead, she takes a slow breath. ] No, it is alright. I will not trouble you too long.

[rathercommon]

[ "Properly," for Kitty, is keeping the room bare: the place is utterly devoid of personality, as bland as it was when she moved in. If she disappears tomorrow, the place will bear no trace of her. But it is clean - spotlessly so, not a bit of dust to be seen.

She takes the bed, drawing her legs up to sit crosswise. ]

I'm not busy. Trouble me as long as you need.

[shri]

[ Where to ... begin. This was already more direct than with Marcoulf. That was something half thought through at the time. Some sense of - she doesn't know. ]

I wanted to... apologise. For... all of it. The fade, for never telling you the whole of who I truly am. You deserved... better from me.

[rathercommon]

[ No sooner than she speaks is Kitty shaking her head, waving her hand to brush it aside as one would wave away a mosquito. ]

Oh - that's all done with. Don't fret about that, please. [ Then, more directly - ] You've got the right to keep your secrets, and you've got the right to try to get home. I'm not about to abuse you for it like they've all done.

[shri]

[ That honestly - takes her a second. Her mouth clicks shut with a little clack of her teeth against themselves. Her fingers brushing against each other in a fiddle of trying to work out where this goes. ]

Still. I never... expected anyone to follow me. I thought it would fall only on my head, whatever came of it. I never meant for you...

[rathercommon]

[ Kitty interrupts dryly. ]

Sorry - are you apologizing to me for my choices?

[katabasis]

"Not that it's my preference to go to Ghislain and be stabbed, but--" What's the eyebrow equivalent of a shrug? Whatever it is, his face manages to do it.

But, refusing to do the one thing of any significance the Inquisition has actually ordered him to do seems-- well, unlikely to do him any more long term good than getting killed might, and he thinks the odds are strong he can keep himself from being slaughtered in Orlais. He'll figure it out.

"As for the men, they're the closest thing the Inquisition has to a crew for its ships right now. Better to keep them on hand than risk wasting them on a battlefield. What kinds of research?"

[rathercommon]

He seems genuinely, surprisingly, interested in her activities. So, after a little frown of curiosity, she answers more directly.

"A few different things," she says. "My primary project - the thing I care most about - is seeing the slaves up north freed. As we talked about. So I'm reading a lot about Tevinter, and about the history of slavery there - not that there's much to read about, given how utterly dull and uninteresting most educated folks have apparently found the lives of slaves." A deeper frown shows what she thinks of that. "But I'm reading about Andraste, too, and her life, to see if it'd be possible to stir up the religious types and their religious feelings to mobilize them in the cause for freedom.

"Other things I'm looking at - Lyrium, red lyrium specifically, that's something I've been researching. Awful stuff - absolutely dreadful - the more I read the worse it seems. History, still, though I feel like I've got a firm enough grasp on a lot of parts of the world - not all of 'em, but enough that I'm not scrambling for an explanation of some reference I come across every two paragraphs. Every seven or eight paragraphs, instead, now." A wry shrug. "And a little bit about magic, but honestly, magical theory is so complicated here that I feel as though I'd need another lifetime to even start to get a handle on it, and it doesn't seem as though there's all that much that learning about it is adding to my general knowledge. Few other things, too - but I'm chattering on, I don't know if you wanted this much detail."

crystal.

[elegiaque]

( —as seamlessly as if they'd been speaking already: )

If you don't see a future past the Inquisition—and all the Inquisition offers is that there'll be one, that's it's one job—there doesn't seem much purpose to wasting a great deal of paper discussing what I plan to do or not. Also, ( frankly, ) I'd be a fucking idiot to write any of that down.

crystal.

[rathercommon]

[ God, Gwen is - unpredictable. With a bit of a sigh, Kitty fishes out her crystal, and answers - ]

I always burn letters after I get 'em.

crystal. tmw all my icons are variations on "distressed" or "vaguely sexy".

[elegiaque]

On the Inquisition's behalf I quite literally once went to my lord's estate to collect letters he'd intercepted, made copies of and allowed to be delivered in their original form.

smoulder at me

[rathercommon]

Which would be relevant if any of these letters were being delivered by messenger. I'm carrying mine to your room myself. But - whatever.

[ A little huff. ]

Honestly, the only thing you care about is stopping Corypheus?

SMOULDERS

[elegiaque]

Absolutely all of my letters were delivered by messenger.

( obviously. what, gwenaëlle was going to carry them down herself? no. and guilfoyle handles most of her correspondence, and is entirely trustworthy, but he's also got knees old enough to have little knee grandchildren and shouldn't be bothered for everything. )

But no. Of course not. What I care about isn't what we were discussing.

[rathercommon]

Ooh, right, cause a conversation is like exams - you've got to stick to the theme that teacher decides on. What do you care about, then?