ataraxion | video | the hero begging change his sword across his knees

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video | the hero begging change his sword across his knees

[Count on another ren faire escapee to trigger an accidental video (or...perhaps not so accidental, although he's certainly ignoring the device at first) as he wrecks electrical mayhem in the holodeck. It's an impressive lightning storm, if you go in for that kind of thing, the figure in the center of it blindingly illuminated as electricity arcs and scorches in wide blazing bursts, the triggered sprinkler system doing nothing to quell it.

Eventually, it dies down, and the man in the middle of it with a rather ragged beard takes a swig from a bottle.]

You know, [he says, conversationally; this isn't an accident, then] I think we ought to vote on a name change for this Maker accursed ship. My darling friend Isabela hinted to me once--pirate captain, lovely woman, would rob you blind in a flash--I believe hinted to me that renaming a ship and properly anointing it with--ah, 'dancing' and alcohol could shift a curse. What with all the murder and mayhem and general poor attitudes I believe we're overdue!

I say we call her the good ship Meredith. But that's only after an old friend. Absolutely mad and murderous. I think it's fitting--oh, oh, or The Death Trap! Something spooky and doom inducing, at least. Who's with me?

[He fixes the camera with his most dazzling (soaked, drunk) smile.]

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I don't like careless lightning spells being flung about in a spaceship, is what I don't like. Are you trying to get us all killed?

Are we all dead, at the moment?

If we're alive it's no thanks to you! Honestly, Garrett, this is why you need space training.

Oh, to the Void with your blighted space training.

Right, we're in the Void. Call it Void training if you like. Your dog is here, by the way.

[you scared Princess Dog you heartless beast you]

That's where she ran off to.

[Traitor. Garrett darkens.]

I don't need to be trained. I've dealt with nastier things. And if I do train I want it nowhere near you.

She practically honed her claws on my door. There are little hashmarks where she pawed it. She's in no sweet mood, I'll tell you that, and now I see why.

[Anders turns the communicator toward Dog so that the reproachful canine visage occupies the entirety of the viewscreen for a few moments. He continues talking, though, in the background.]

I don't see the point of denying yourself and your dog vital training in space survival. And what's this about wanting it nowhere near me? I don't bite.

You bloody well keep her. You wouldn't kill a dog for no reason. Not like she's a Chantry sister, is she? Get her space trained.

[He's...in this kind of mood, one Anders will never have seen before. After Bethany he spent a while like this, crackling as he is now with pain that arcs as lightning.]

Unless you would, then she ought to come back. Maker knows she's no cat.

[It's true, Anders has never seen him like this. He wasn't like this after Leandra passed. He'd been troubled in a ... less pyrotechnic fashion.]

Mabari don't have a history of locking mages up in towers or setting armed sadists to keep them in line.

[Dog makes an unhappy grumble-growl, and Anders takes the communicator back. Dismay etches his face, deepens the creases at the corners of his eyes.]

Maker's breath, Garrett.

[And that kills him, ever so gently. It kills Garrett because it's so Anders, so much himself, and for the last six years that's where he's gone for solace--first in laughter, then in touch. He sags, running a hand through his dripping hair and avoiding Anders' eyes.]

Why--

[But he knows why. Lightning flickers out, emptied, as Garrett stands in what feels like the impossible wreckage of everything.]

Did you ever actually love me? Even for a moment. I need--I need to know. Tell me and I'll believe you.

[Finally. Finally he can ask. Pleading and useless and nothing like the brilliant, hopeful man he was, once, when there still seemed to be hope. Now all he tastes is ash and scorched air.]

[Later, when this conversation is over and he's feeding the dog, Anders will really wish he'd bothered learning to encrypt things. Right now, the whole network can go hang. Anders has never cared much whether he has an audience, anyhow; what will bother him is the possibility that Garrett will replay this, the same way he's replayed everything else Anders has said on the network. The way Anders himself rereads the manifesto he found in his locker after the last jump.

What he cares about, right now, is this: the lightning has stopped.]

I can't believe you're seriously asking that question. [Indignation wars with hurt and, yes, guilt. His mouth thins to a tight line.] Of course I did. I --

[He's about to say he always has. But that's not strictly true, and Anders has a very strong suspicion that if he says anything that won't hold water, anything at all in which Garrett can find so much as a pinhole of a leak, it'll be worse than if he never said anything at all.]

When I've been capable of feeling, I've loved you.

I miss you.

[Garrett has never been much for crying, even as a child. It's not shame that does it--some people simply don't cry much from birth on, and he's one of them. So now, where most would cry, he's simply quiet.]

How--how monstrous is that? I miss you. Everything else I ever loved is gone now, I should hate you. But I miss you instead. What does that make me? At least you have Justice. There's a reason, for you.

And all I have left is you. That's all. And I don't understand. I've tried. I've sat and thought every day, and perhaps I'm just too dull, but I don't understand anything that happened. [He hesitates.] Could I have--was it my fault for not seeing?

Edited 2012-08-28 01:11 (UTC)

[Always all too willing to accept responsibility, that's Hawke in spades.]

None of it was your fault.

[Anders is adamant: no one can be a bigger martyr than Anders is! he wins first prize! no one else should be blamed for what Anders and Justice did. Not even Hawke, an odd distinction for Anders to draw given he went to such lengths to make Hawke an accomplice.]

You've never been dull. You've always had an eye for the main chance. Your heart gets in the way, that's all. And if anyone understands all that happened, it would be Varric. Maker knows I don't understand it all. [Not every thread that went into it: not the Qunari and Isabela, not the Band of Three, not the strange effect of Tevene architecture on Kirkwall's collective psyche.]

Certainly I don't understand what it is you think you should have seen.

Edited 2012-08-28 01:31 (UTC)

I let you go. I saw you slipping and I let...I let you go. I didn't want to press or smother. I thought you needed time.

[He laughs, much more lost than bitter.]

I never read it all, you know. Your manifesto. I could never keep up. Perhaps if I had--

I don't know what to do, Anders. I don't want to be what you made me into. [No blame, really--because he blames Justice, not Anders.] I know there's no choice to it now. But I don't know how to be this. If you'd just....trusted me, we might have...

[Softly, over a whuffle from Dog, who's getting her ears scritched just offscreen:]

You wouldn't have been allowed to change it. You would have had to kill me to stop it.

I could have stopped you.

[Softly. No denial of how. They both know better.]

I don't know if that would have been better.

You set us back--years, Anders. You got your revenge and now they'll believe we're all monsters even more.

Edited 2012-08-28 02:50 (UTC)

I didn't set us back. I set us in motion.

Towards what?

[Helpless. Because--he understands, and hates understanding. What hope was there? And perhaps Anders has bought hope for others in blood and fire, but blood and ash have choked Garrett for now. Blinded him. Hebhas no idea where to turn.]

You never told me what to do, after. You would have left me with no map.

You could have dropped off the map entirely, if you'd wanted. Our part in it was supposed to end there, at the Gallows.

[One of them a martyr, the other a symbol. A classic game of good mage bad mage, with Anders all in black so no one could mistake which was supposed to be which.]

Besides, you've never needed anyone to tell you what to do. You've always seemed to work best when you're making it up as you go along.

Don't.

[And there's the dangerous Hawke again, the mage at the heart of the maelstrom. Ripping down the sky to burn it all.]

You knew--you know my part wouldn't end until I died. Neither would yours. You asked me to kill you. Why? So you wouldn't have to live with what Justice did? So you could escape and I'd be left as a puppet?

I kept you alive. I--don't you dare, Anders. Don't dare abandon this now.

[Perhaps Anders ought to be angry. He feels only a sort of weary calm, buoyed by a perverse self-assurance: what he did was justified, whether Hawke can understand that or not.]

Not to escape. I'd played my part. I would have been more useful dead than alive, at that point. You'd have had all the more credibility for it, too -- if you'd chosen to continue the fight.

Chosen--

Yes, I suppose that seems like a choice where you stand. What are a few more dead children here or there, mage or no? All for the cause, of course. The young make excellent martyrs. Perhaps if I allowed the Templars to execute a few of them, all the better, yes?

Choice? I couldn't let them die for Justice's insanity. There was no choice, you made sure of that.

And every mage after, every one they'll murder instead of allow another mistake, every flinch watched with even more scrutiny-- [and he knows precisely where to strike]--every newly Tranquil mind that shone a touch too bright.

You put us as far back as the Tevinter Imperium. And you don't care, as long as you have your rebellion. You know that even if we all rebelled at once we'd still lose.

You've killed Merrill, you know. They know her. Every mage we've ever spoken to as well. But especially her. She never hurt you or Justice. Tell me--what did she do? What did they do? I can't save them, you must have known that. When did we become acceptable costs?

Edited 2012-08-28 04:05 (UTC)

[A curl of the lip, half smile, half something else.] You're thinking too small, love. You're talking about Tranquility and perpetual scrutiny as though those abuses will continue.

They won't. The Circles will fall. They have to fall from within -- don't you see it? As long as mages agreed to tolerate the Chantry's rule, we'd continue to be oppressed. We were complicit in our own oppression. What I did pushed the Templars so far that mages would have to fight. They'll rise up across Thedas. They know now it can be done. Not by blood magic! Not by the sort of uprising that happened in Ferelden. That's exchanging one set of shackles for another. What I did, I did with blackpowder -- more or less. Anyone could do it.

You think they're all like you. [Quiet. Ever so quiet.] And here I thought I was the optimist.

They won't fight. Oh, we'll be a story apprentices whisper. But they won't fight. They want to live, even caged lives. They haven't fought like we have. They have no stomach for bloodshed. What teacher would watch their students die if they didn't have to?

Anyone could. Only a handful will. And the Templars will come back to the Circles with blood on their armour, and your revolution dies with those brave and bright enough to fight.

They'd live caged lives if the cage were gilded. There'll be no pampered enchanters now, with the Templars cracking down, and the uncertainties of freedom will look much more appealing.

If every Circle were like the Gallows, mages would have risen up centuries ago. There's only so much we can take.

video, forgot to say

permavideo i assumed :3

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