dear_mun | (no subject)

[Have someone who's been doing some research on the Darkspawn. Primarily the whole 'old god' thing.]

So, the alleged god has fallen. Here I thought gods were supposed to be all powerful.

Power is only beneficial if used wisely.

Wisdom is like history in that regard. What is wise or not is decided after the fact by the person who is left standing.

That depends upon their level of intelligence...

Then answer me this. In a war, who decides what is written in history as to how it ended? Does the king make outlandish embellishments that become fact, or do the advisers that plan the strategies and lick the king's boot write about how the king sent hundreds to die all so he could get a slightly larger piece of land?

Why do you ask this question of me? 'Tis obvious enough, surely.

Not if power and wisdom are as intertwined as you say. Power cares not for the intelligence of those that wield it. It simply is.

Wisdom is a result of power's influence. Not the other way around.

Power is but a tool... The only tool which matters, but a tool, nonetheless.

Wisdom, on the other hand, is the result of experience and the cunning to learn from it. Not the strength one possesses.

That is one point I must disagree with you on outright.

Power is everything.

Of course.

I think I know this story! The hut's on chicken legs, yes? Runs around, chasing darkspawn?

What?

I'd call that a formidable opponent against the Blight, wouldn't you? Unless a genlock tried taking a bite out of the chicken leg. A hamstrung hut's no good to anyone.

Ah... Mother's.

I hesitate to imagine what may have sunk into its foundations by osmosis, over the years...

Lots of swampy, marshy goodness, I expect. That, and the blood of bad little children from the Anderfels.

Whoever said they had to be bad?

That's the only kind of child the Anderfels can produce. I'm an Anders, myself. I ought to know.

It seems you were... Unavailable when the Warden came to relocate me.

Interesting.

Yes, well, that's something of a habit, I'm afraid. Making myself conveniently unavailable. [But the airy good humor fades.] It may have had something to do with the Wardens inviting a former Templar into their ranks to play nanny and gaoler, funny how Messere Rolan only ever got assigned to missions I was on, funny how these things work. Why in the Void should I take exception to that?

Wardens. Set a Templar over me and make me get rid of my cat. No, I think I'll continue being unavailable, thanks.

[He clears his throat.] Anyhow, the going shouldn't have been too rough with Flora along. He's never been quite the healer I am, granted. Do they still call him Flora?

I have been watching as my scribe follows your adventures of recent. 'Tis a most unusual series of quests, thus far.

Not that my own with the one responsible for your recruitment had been predictable... I, however, did not have a talent for luring champions into my midst. Apostate or not.

At the risk of assuming Alistair has not taken up a more suitable name... I shall hazard a guess and assume you refer to one of the strays our Warden picked up? In which case, I really could not say. I neither exchanged words nor had the desire to do so. The Chantry's willing pets are best left to the bondage which comforts them.

Adventures? Misadventures, I'd call them. Rescuing the odd bit of cargo, cleaning out some old house or other. Where have you and your scribe last seen me, then?

Cargo is... One way of looking at it.

You seem to have rescued the Viscount's lad from some rival mercenary band's clutches. Seems a good deal easier than my quest... You've only a need to generate enough coin, not unite half of Thedus.

The elven girl seems even more prone to verbal catastrophe than Leliana. Something I had not thought was possible.

Oh, all Hawke's lot are prone to little verbal slip-ups now and then. We're not all blood mages, however. You'll have seen by now how kindly disposed I am toward the elven girl in question.

My scribe has put me through my paces too many times, I think. Every time's a little different, and then she sticks me into these ... other places. Other worlds, where people haven't got the first clue who I am or what I've seen; or else, they think they have, but Hawke's a woman when I expected a man, or a man when I expected a woman. Or I've been loved, when I thought I was only tolerated; or I've been scorned, when I thought I was loved ... It's enough to make anyone dizzy. I suppose that's why I ask. It helps to situate myself. To be oriented, and re-oriented.

I do miss the days when all we needed was to scrape together some improbable amount of coin.

Try others around you being at a loss for who fathered your child... Ambiguity, I find, can be a most trusty weapon to wield.

You did once turn up where I used to reside. 'Twas a short stay for you, though and we conversed little. Perhaps for the better, judging by some accounts.

Hmm... Judging... This reminds me, how is it like to share your vessel with a being of the Fade? You truly have no true awareness of the division?

((Perhaps the Old God Baby's touch is responsible for this?))

Odd you should ask about the ... division. In one world, Justice and I remain joined; yet in another, he and I were parted by the portal that brought me to that City. Losing him hasn't undone the changes he wrought in me, but ... I see things differently. I remember things differently. I find it hard to trace some of the reasoning that seemed to me so self-evident when Justice was with me.

[That is the most astonishing piece of footage in ever. D:]

Well, if you've had someone lodged that firmly inside you, I can see why what came before might seem obscure by comparison, yes...

[A frown. This whole business of Justice being lodged firmly inside smacks of the insinuations Isabela used to make ~~and, in one world, the insinuations she still makes, even with Justice gone.]~~

That ... really isn't funny.

[But he does need to talk about this, with someone, and who better than Flemeth's daughter? where better than this limbo, where consequences are nil?]

Obscure isn't the word for it, though it almost fits. Almost. In the sense that you could say, when light is blocked, your vision's obscured. It's more as if I spent half a decade being really, really drunk. Drunk off my arse, in fact. Only this analogy requires that when I'm drunk I can pass reliably for sober.

Oh, I beg to differ... I find it quite amusing.

[Be glad they were never in a position to team up, Anders. You could have united them!]

Well, you did make Oghren's acquaintance. His breath would surely be enough to imperil you from inebriation by default.

[He tries to shrug it off. Amusement at his expense used to be easier to weather -- he used to provoke it, even. Justice, however, is humorless, and Anders hasn't had much to laugh about, of late.]

[But then she mentions Oghren, and he wheezes a soundless laugh, can't not laugh: what would Oghren say about Anders and Justice becoming one?] Maker. Sometimes I miss that dwarf, even if he did have trouble telling the difference between a robe and a dress. I have a hard time picturing you putting up with him, though.

You would be correct. He had a lot more interest trying to put something up me - and just about anything else.

Really, we could have set his undergarments on fire and smoked the darkspawn out of the Deep Roads, altogether. Were it not for it surely leading to our doom in the process...

[A dramatic shudder.] That might only strengthen the taint.

You have a point...!

On the other hand, a single cup of his dwarven ale could burn any cave clean.

He called a lot of things 'ale'... Mostly, substances which were anything but.

You're a connoisseur, are you? [The smile is friendly.]

I prefer to avoid such foolishness, if possible...

Foolish is as foolish does, I suppose. I avoid most drink myself, these days, not entirely by choice ... except in a certain City.

What do you do for fun, then?

Ah, your... Passenger, I assume?

There is much to be said for experiencing life as animals do. For mastering the art of adopting other forms.

Also, study.

Well, yes. He's not with me, in the City. It's ... it has taken some adjustment.

You're saying you study for fun?

[Eyebrow arch.]

Yes, what of it?

Don't you ever, you know, relax? Let your hair down?

Oh, I have my ways...

Consider my interest piqued.

Next time you are with our mutual Warden friend, ask if they have a spare likeness of a Templar in doll form.

... This wouldn't happen to involve blood magic, would it?

No, but it does involve pins...

And a series of ferociously girlish screams.

[Anders laughs.] You know, you're more than a little scary, but ... I like your style.

Happy to oblige...