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[rathercommon]

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

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[rowancrowned]

( briefly taken off his thoughts of the coming winter- )

You are sure? I am unfamiliar with mortal children, but I would have thought you had a few years left.

[rathercommon]

[ He sounds like Bartimaeus. Well, no, he doesn't - Bartimaeus would be a lot ruder about it. ]

No. This is as tall as I get.

[rowancrowned]

How do you know?

( now more curious than anything. )

[rathercommon]

I - I don't know.

[ ????? ]

Because - you don't grow anymore when you're a teenager.

[rowancrowned]

( he's squinting at the crystal elfishly. he'd ask gwen, but she doesn't have much to work with. he'll ask- wait no he doesn't have any other human friends. romain?? maybe. coupe? no. romain it is. )

Will you need help moving your possessions?

[elegiaque]

( 'he kept me company when all I could do was sit in bed sewing' paints one picture, and 'because a wyvern had fucked up my leg while I was getting supplies for an illicit attempt to undo Tranquility' another entirely. she says neither, though she thinks about it. )

Probably. Yeah.

But that's—I wouldn't make you be around him just because I trust him. You don't. Guilfoyle can be with you any time I'm not. Coupe pauses when he's in a room.

[rathercommon]

[ ??? ]

I don't think I know Coupe well enough for that to mean anything to me.

[elegiaque]

He's very good at what he does.

[rathercommon]

And what is it that he does?

[elegiaque]

( a sort of verbal shrug— ) Whatever I ask him to.

He's a retired assassin who was my lord's gentleman, he did...everything. I've been trying to find him more relaxing work than he used to do, frankly, but bodyguarding is well within his remit.

[rathercommon]

Well - I mean - all right. If you think he's trustworthy.

[elegiaque]

Then it's settled. You'll come and stay with us, and Guilfoyle will make sure you're not left alone.

[rathercommon]

Help? Oh - no. I haven't got much.

[rathercommon]

Unless I want to be.

[saam]

Like I said. Never met a karasten before.

Take care, ashkaari.

[rowancrowned]

Gather it, then, and come when you are ready.

[elegiaque]

Unless you want to be, ( graciously. )

crystal.

[ipseite]

You asked me once if I had done as I did for the sake of witches—of mages—in Sulleciel. In what was my home. And we debated the precise...the semantics of what magic is and is not to one world and another. Of why that was not my motive, and indeed why it could not have been, but I did not answer the question that I think, that I presume lay behind it.

( why did she act as she had. and while it's a fair assessment that they had got somewhat derailed, it's also fair to say that petrana might not have ever intended to answer, regardless. on a day that had been a great deal of unwilling exposure already. )

I was put in mind of that conversation, recently. I wished to say, what I imagined was—

It was unusual for a woman to be educated the way that I was. A novelty, like watching a dog walk upon its hind legs. Amusing, but ultimately irrelevant. A man might better himself, but a woman might only hope to catch the eye of one who had. The structure had rot within it, but so long as there was someone else lower, who would risk burning it? If they might lose, and be crushed beneath it. A woman need not perform magic to be called a witch for the sin of opinion.

That was why. And when it had taken from me all that it could, I had no reason not to fight it. I was meant to be grateful that I might be an exception, that but for a living brother I might have been a dull flower set upon the sill of a dull man. But I was not remarkable, I was simply lucky, and how could I not see the unfairness in that? I did not deserve more by virtue. I was given it because I had no brother to come before me. What might any of us do, if we were a little luckier? I thought to find out. It betrayed the lie of the whole of it.

Magic did not free me. It was a choke-chain to control me, and until Thedas it was never more than that. But education is what allowed me to see what was wrong and think it need not always be. That in recognizing it I had a responsibility to act upon my knowledge. I fear I did not do enough, then. But that is one thing that I have learned from the past.

—this is doubtless a wearisome lecture. I thank you if you have listened to it.

[rathercommon]

Erm -

[ Wow. This is a lot to wake up to. Especially when you're waking up from a midday nap. ]

You've - clearly been - doing a lot of thinking.

[ what the fuck is this ]

[ipseite]

( rueful, )

Yes. I apologise if in the interim it has rather become less compelling to know.

[rathercommon]

No, no, it's not less compelling.

[ Embarrassed - ]

I've just - you know - forgotten a few of the details of exactly what we were talking about.

[ipseite]

Well—it is rather awkward to announce, but I suppose, myself. I preferred not to press you on what spirits displayed, but mine were—regrettably talkative.

[rathercommon]

Yeah. I remember that bit.

[ipseite]

I suppose it rather lingered with me. A question I am not often asked, doubtless the answers must seem—self-evident.

( which is not a critique. the way she's comported herself in thedas, it is a natural assumption that she's always championed a mage's cause. )

I was very angry with Marius for what he'd done, when I found out. I hadn't known the crime for which he was exiled when I followed him. It was a very different world.

[rathercommon]

But you stayed with him, right?