howtoactfereldan | (no subject)

(no subject)

There's a large rock by the inlet. Cullen likes it -- likes sitting in the shadow of it, resting his head back against it, looking at the sky and the water and trying to get his mind to quiet. Sometimes it even works.

Here in Milliways the sun is setting; it's the middle of the night in Kirkwall. Cullen appreciates the option to sit in sunlight.

Yesterday -- today -- whatever -- it was long. Bad. Aid from Starkhaven was supposed to arrive, but they got held up on the road, and so it was Cullen and a patrol who found the dead children --

-- but he's not going to think about that. He's going to watch the light play on the water, feel the welcoming stone against his back, and if his eyes drift closed -- there's little harm, yes?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Moldable."

Meredith's response is quick, sharp, and merciless.

"You were ready, or so I thought, to understand the truth. About mages, about what we are, about what we must do to protect ourselves, our charges, and the entire world from the threat that mages pose. You saw it yourself, just like I did. The Order thought you were ready, as well. And now here we stand, with you listening to a mage's advice, fretting about their happiness, their safety, their sense of autonomy."

Each of those words she spits like a curse.

"Watching over them like a mother hen with her chicks. Sickening. Does the Order mean nothing to you, that you should bring us so low as this?"

Cullen is flinching, shoulders turning inward, head lowering --

Until her question.

His fists clench. He turns -- but doesn't advance on her.

"After everything I have given to serve -- " He's not sure he can breathe. He has to stop, for just a moment, to remind himself. " -- how could you ask me that question? Are you in earnest? You wanted me! Because you thought I knew!"

The Knight-Commander merely stands, stance square and powerful, ready to sling down her greatsword and tear the heart out of any threats in her vicinity.

That she doesn't do so now shows great forbearance. Or so history suggests.

"And apparently I was wrong. You didn't know. You have no idea. So how best to show you, I wonder? What lesson do you yet need to learn that will finally make you see what they are?"

At that her eyes blaze red, fierce and sickly burning, cracks lining her face and also emitting that searing crimson glow.

"Or maybe -- "

Those lines fade, and all she is is that haggard woman from moments before.

"Maybe we don't want you. Perhaps we don't need you. Certainly we don't if we can't use you."

That glow --

Oh.

Now the grip in his chest is fear. Which is an improvement. Fear can be conquered. Not -- not whatever it is that's got him all --

Not important, he tells himself, not now. You can see that she is not -- she manipulates. You know this now. Start there.

"Knight-Commander," Cullen says, and he's fiercely glad his voice is even, "which one of us animated the Tevinter statues at the Gallows, just like a mage?"

"Are you questioning me, Knight-Captain?"

There's a dangerous silkiness to her voice, faint overtones of resonance that don't belong there.

"Be very, very certain of yourself. Some things a Templar of the Order cannot take back."

"I asked you a question, Knight-Commander, as is the responsibility accompanying my rank."

Cullen folds his arms.

"Maker knows I have that right."

Not that I exercised it enough.

"The Maker."

Scorn drips from her voice.

"What does the Maker know that we do not? He is the one that made mages in the first place, and look at what that has done to us."

"You blaspheme, Knight-Commander."

There. Now that's anger.

"Do you serve the Order? -- which, it seems I must remind you, is sworn to the Chantry? Or do you serve your own power?"

(He's breathing again. He can breathe. He can breathe -- )

"What power fueled your magic, Meredith? You used your magic to rule over the Order, rule over Kirkwall -- you have no right, when that commandment is the source of our authority!"

"It was the only way!" Meredith roars, red glow exploding out of her, armor shooting out defensive spikes even as her voice vibrates across the water.

"There will be no peace, no rest, no safety for any of us until they're dead. Until they are all dead."

The smell of blood and half-burned corpses briefly swamps the putrid lyrium.

"Mages are the enemy. They are a blight on the skin of this world, and I will see them razed from it if it is the last thing I do! The last thing any of us do!"

Low, and very sure:

"You are the enemy, Meredith."

Something flashes in his field of vision -- flashes like a (very familiar) energy cage. Cullen gasps for air.

No -- I'm not there, I'm not --

And manages: "You take -- and what do you give? Nothing."

"Do you not want safety? Security? Peace of mind? Freedom from fear and regret and the terrible uncertainty of choice? I gave you those, Cullen."

Her stare is direct, and in the red of her face the pure blue of her eyes is clearly visible.

"Only I ever could."

Cullen snaps:

"I was doing fine out here -- "

He waves a hand at the lake.

" -- until you showed up to disturb my peace."

And then Cullen can no longer meet her stare. Those eyes.

"That's all you've ever done, isn't it. You took that away. Why did you take that away?"

And then that scorn is back, but this time it reaches her all-too-human blue eyes, no trace of red to be seen.

"What use to any of us is a peaceful Templar?"

"That's what we do."

Maker's breath, that should not sound so much like a question when he says it.

"We protect, so that others may live in peace." Cullen shakes his head slowly. "We preserve the Maker's peace. And whether you like it or not -- he made mages. You cannot say they are not the Maker's children."

You cannot say I am not.

"How can you be so -- cruel?"

"Cruel? This is cruel? I used to think you knew what cruelty was. Abominations and demons and the sight of someone you love turning into something that wants only to destroy you."

That is cruel. Her speaking of it is not, or so suggests the faint hint of softness in her eyes.

"And now you think a few blunt words are too hard to take?"

It is not cruel to speak of it, no.

"Blunt words are not too hard to take."

Cullen rubs at his eyes suddenly. "But blunt words are not bringing statues to life and setting them to attack your own men. Or refusing to let the nobles choose a new viscount. Or -- Meredith, you know what you've done. You know. Everyone knows."

"And you see how little it changed, how little it mattered. Shouldn't it have mattered, Cullen? Shouldn't you, my Knight-Captain, have continued my work?"

Her good, good works?

Edited 2015-10-31 06:32 (UTC)

"No."

His throat hurts -- because he shouted.

"It's not about you. It's not. It never should have been."

His lip curls in distaste as he moves forward, step by step -- as close now to her as she was to him, when she'd awakened him. "You don't deserve the armor you wear. You're corrupt. You're wicked."

And Cullen, who is not particularly blessed, faltered in his duty.

Edited 2015-10-31 06:38 (UTC)

She looks faintly puzzled, perhaps at his nearness, perhaps --

Not.

"I am only what the great city of Kirkwall made of me. What they needed me to bee."

As Orsino was only what it made him, and so, too, the Viscount and the Seneschal and all the rest.

"How can you stand to do less?"

Faintly, echoed on the breeze, a different question.

What will you do instead?

"Right now," Cullen says, soft, dangerous, "Kirkwall needs me to keep the peace, clear the rubble, find the corpses of children -- "

He breathes out, sharp, through his nose. "And keep everyone from killing each other, with no support from the Spire. I do not do less, Meredith."

But what will I do instead?

Meredith, shoulders square, eyes intent, takes her own step forward into Cullen's space.

The corrupted lyrium smell comes with her.

"Bring them to the slaughter, Cullen, let them wipe each other out. Be an example of the only way there is to deal with mages. The only way to keep the world safe from their depredations. I -- yes, even I -- was too weak at first to do what had to be done. But now, now -- better they die as children than grow up to become monsters."

That last is snarled right into Cullen's face.

Her breath smells like the grave.

The stench of writhing, roiling decay surrounds him.

And, clearly, Cullen says:

"That is not the task of the Order."

Blessed are they who stand before the corrupt and the wicked and do not falter.

"No matter what you and Greagoir think. Or command others to think, to their harm."

Do not falter.

"I removed you from command for a reason. And Maker help me, I should have done it a long time ago."

"And will you do it again, now? Can you do it again, Knight-Captain, tired and foolish and weak as you are?"

When rest is right to hand, a task and a purpose that one does not have to think to carry out.

What person could ever do such a thing?

Meredith's eyes are very, very blue.

That's the question, isn't it.

"That is no longer yours to worry about, Meredith."

And he knows -- he knows -- that even though Meredith is right about his exhaustion, his foolishness, his weakness... that is how he arrived in Kirkwall, she could have helped, and she chose to make it worse.

"You are no longer in command."

Of me, or of anyone else.

She screams in frustration, stabbing her greatsword into the ground in a burst of red light. The sound of stone cracking in its moorings is incredibly loud.

"On your head be it, Knight-Captain."

And then she is gone.

Cullen's ears ring.

On my " -- conscience," he says, finding himself standing by the quiet lake. "More like."

Cullen looks around, breathes out -- and all the tension he'd been carrying rushes out too. He runs his fingers through his hair, stretches. Just another nightmare. A particularly well-aimed one, true, but just another nightmare.

At least that is what he thinks until he glances at the ground and sees the faint scorch marks on the grass from what was surely not really Meredith's sword.

Not really.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only