[video]

[songofvalor]

[ A FEW MINUTES AFTER THIS THREAD. Leliana's voice is shaky and her accent heavier than usual, too much anger bubbling inside her. ]

Anders! Where are you, you fiend?

I can't believe I thought you were a good man. You were one of Elissa's friends, for Andraste's sake! To find out this out from someone else while you walk around like you didn't... you didn't...

The blood of Kirkwall's grand cleric is in your hands. Grand Cleric Elthina! How could you murder one of the holiest people in Thedas!? What have you to gain!?

[ ANDERS BRO GET YOUR ASS IN HERE BEFORE SHE HUNTS YOU DOWN HERSELF ]

[ ooc: I am so sorry for spamming! Important development that can't be delayed and stuff. ]

Comments

voice;

[ladyspitfire]

[She had expected Anders to have had some sort of involvement in the mage and Templar war that spreads across Thedas in five years. But not that he would kill someone to do it. She doesn't even know if that's the true cause.

Her voice is barely maintaining her calm, anger wanting to rise up.]

He is a good man, Leliana. There has to be a reason for him to have done this.

[A very poor reason, obviously, but a reason just the same.]

voice;

[songofvalor]

What reasons could he possibly have for killing the grand cleric?

[ She says the words very slowly to make it clear that nothing could ever redeem him in the Maker's eyes. ]

voice;

[arlathansgrace]

[Merrill rushes do to damage control; her efforts to threadjack and redirect can be ignored!]

He's a very good man, and he does have good reasons, he was just trying to help the mages. He just wanted to help.

[Voice]

[uncalled_for]

Anders did what? You're absolutely sure of this?

[Voice]

[songofvalor]

Of course I am. His friend told me, like it was accepted, historic fact. She even apologized to me! She was killed in Kirkwall!

[Voice]

[arlathansgrace]

[Merrill rushes do to damage control; her efforts to threadjack and redirect can be ignored!]

No, no, you mustn't be mad at Anders, he was only trying to help!

[Voice - Private]

[noble_nate]

[He'd known this would come out sooner or later, he'd just been trying to avoid it.]

Calling Anders out publicly is not necessarily the best way to handle this. You've just broadcast to the entire Hold that Anders is a murderer.

[Voice - Private]

[songofvalor]

This is nothing! If we were in Thedas, he would receive nothing less than a public execution.

[permatext]

[stonefaith]

is everyone making public accusations this week

[audio]

[arlathansgrace]

[Merrill rushes do to damage control; her efforts to threadjack and redirect can be ignored! And because she hasn't figured out typing yet, he gets an audio clip.]

Leliana is upset, please, you mustn't blame Anders for any of this. Oh, I-- Please understand.

[permatext]

[songofvalor]

If you don't know how dire this accusation is, then we have nothing to talk about.

video;

[passive]

What?

[guess who is from a few years before the Chantry incident and had no ideaaaaaa...

Bethany has always believed that Anders was a decent (if somewhat extreme) person with good intentions. This is not something she would have expected from him.]

Are you certain, Leliana...?

video;

[championhawke]

Bethany.

Of course she's not certain. This is Anders. He nurses wounded kittens to health, for Maker's sake. Does he really strike you as the type?

video;

[arlathansgrace]

[Merrill rushes do to damage control; her efforts to threadjack and redirect can be ignored!]

It's more complicated than that, Bethany, you know how it is for mages. Anders was just trying to help.

video;

[songofvalor]

I wouldn't do this if I weren't, Bethany. You've heard it from Merrill. Decide for yourself what he is.

video

[championhawke]

Oh, shut up.

[Because it's not true.

It's not even that Garrett has to convince himself. It's just self-evidently nonsense, at best, and offensive slander at worst. And he's tired and irritable as is, with a thousand things to think of, and this is absolutely not what he has any desire to deal with.]

Why don't you quit drinking, step back from speaking to people, and think very hard about what you've done? Thank you.

video

[arlathansgrace]

[Merrill rushes do to damage control; her efforts to threadjack and redirect can be ignored!]

She hasn't been drinking, it's something I said. Oh, Hawke, I shouldn't have said anything. But she wouldn't let me explain. Andes was just trying to help.

[onemoredeath]

I have no reason to think that he would do such a thing without a just cause. [ Takegami knows what a murderer smells like and Anders was not one to be soaked in blood like he was. ] Calm yourself and try not to shout so.

[audio]

[arlathansgrace]

[Merrill rushes do to damage control; her efforts to threadjack and redirect can be ignored!]

Anders was just trying to help the mages, his friends and-- oh, this is-- But you haven't to understand-- Please, Anders was just trying to help.

video;

[lovesgod]

Public accusations of horrible crimes! My favorite!

video;

[arlathansgrace]

[Merrill rushes do to damage control; her efforts to threadjack and redirect can be ignored!]

It was an accident, he didn't know!

video;

[its_storytime]

Blondie? The Grand Cleric?

...You sure that wasn't actually the Knight-Commander?

video;

[arlathansgrace]

[Merrill rushes do to damage control; her efforts to threadjack and redirect can be ignored!]

Varric, please, you have to help me calm everyone down. You were there, you remember. It was a-- Andes was trying to help. To help all the mages. I don't think he meant to--

[Merrill: Not helping anyone with anything since the Dragon Age.]

[ video ]

[arlathansgrace]

Oh, Leliana, no, why did you--

You should have let me explain. [She's very, very distraught.] Anders just wanted to help the mages, he never meant to hurt anyone. [OR MAYBE HE DID who knows, she's trying to run damage control.] I don't think he even knew Elthina was in the Chantry when it--

[Yeah, maybe you should just stop, Merrill.]

[ video ]

[songofvalor]

Help the mages? How is killing the Grand Cleric helping his cause when they're in thin ice with the Chantry already? Do you know what the Right of Annulment is, Merrill? He only doomed his fellow mages to die.

[video]

[birdhousesoul]

I'm here.

Do you expect me to hide? Do you expect me to be ashamed? I'm not. What I did was hard. I spent years trying to avoid it, using words as my weapons.

Surprisingly, no one listened. As no one has listened for the literal ages the Chantry has held mages enslaved and imprisoned. A life sentence at best, with the perpetual option of death hanging over our heads, all for what crime? Being born as the Maker made us. With the gift of magic, which the Maker himself surely gave us.

I stood by for six years in Kirkwall. Six years of watching your Grand Cleric dither and stall. She ceded every ounce of power, every scrap of it, to a Knight Commander who was almost as high off lyrium as off the fumes of her own reeking self-worship. She let mages be made Tranquil after their Harrowings, in direct defiance of Chantry law -- Chantry law! I'm saying nothing of justice or equality at this point; they were breaking the strictures whose support they were sworn to uphold. Now, I can't claim to be an expert on Chantry hierarchy or the priorities of Val Royeaux, but I'd think the Divine herself might have a word or two to say about that.

And, as it happens, she did. She sent an agent to investigate. Nothing more than that. No action, direct or covert, to stop the madness afflicting Kirkwall. The city was without a viscount for three years. The Knight-Commander ruled everyone, not only her Templars, not only the mages under her heel, every citizen of Kirkwall under Chantry-sanctioned martial law. With Elthina's supervision and, therefore, approval. Or, to be more frank, shall we say that Elthina didn't care to put her hand in? She simply let Meredith do as Meredith willed, without check or restraint. You call this holiness? 'One of the holiest people in Thedas'? I call it idleness, and cowardice, and evil.

The people clamored for a new viscount to be named. Meredith bluntly refused.

Now, tell me, what hope did anyone have of justice under their regime? Anyone at all, let alone the mages who are, let's be honest, slaves. But because slavery's called illegal, you know -- only those evil Tevinter magisters have anything like the institution of slavery -- no one is willing to name the mages' plight as what it truly is. The Chantry opposes slavery, surely it wouldn't keep slaves! Only it does. Towers full of them, prisons full of them, taken from their parents' arms, hunted in the fields or mountains wherever they may try to hide. Families will sometimes go on the run to protect their children, do you know that? And they live that way, fugitives, their whole lives -- until they're apprehended, which is by far the most likely.

But that's the best chance any mage ever has: to be kept from ever falling into the Templars' hands at all, from birth onward. Because once the Chantry gets its hands on you, the Templars make a little device they call a phylactery. They make it out of your own blood. Blood magic, Sister. And they use that to hunt you down, track you wherever you go. They keep it in storage against the future possibility of your escape. There are whole racks of these, whole storehouses.

It's unlawful to harbor a mage. An apostate, because we can't possibly say runaway slave, no, these must be criminals against the Maker's law who would slip such holy bonds! Simply wanting freedom is enough to implicate you as a maleficar. And maleficarum are subject to summary execution.

As you well know. All of this, you know. How dare you call me to account, and call my actions murder? My people have been murdered for hundreds upon hundreds of years, with your Chantry calling it just and fair and good.

There was no other way. And what I did in Kirkwall was only the beginning. Every Circle must be broken.

I'm not ashamed of what I've done. I've kept my silence about it here for one reason: many of you are from a year prior to mine, and if you're returned by our gracious captors to that year, you might seek to stop me.

I can't allow that.

[video]

[championhawke]

[The manifesto his Anders has is a smaller thing, by far.

It's smaller, and closer, and easier to stand with.

And yet what Anders says now is no less than Garrett has felt, years upon years. It's not enough to sway him, not enough to change his heart. But it makes a certain bleak sense he's never known before. It puts to words all that he's never said, for he's never been so clever.

And it's Anders. Anders who saved part of his family, one way or another. Anders who is his friend. His closest friend. The one who understands.

He grew up with a father and a sister running. They both died of hiding. Of loss. Of ignorance. He has had magic thrumming in his blood since birth. Fire and pressure have danced for him since childhood.

And this is Anders, who is always so good. So kind. So right.]

You did it, then.

[And he does not know what to feel because it makes so much sense, and yet--]

You shouldn't...

You shouldn't have had to.

video;

[assumeddirectcontrol]

[Well this is something certainly interesting, enough to pull Shepard out of her heap of self-pity. She's met Anders before, of course, but she has more interest in Elissa and Fiona.] Well... Terrorism of that sort usually does get its point across.

I'm assuming he had a point for it.

[Even if that sounds distasteful.]

video;

[songofvalor]

So, what? We excuse it?

video;

[bloodyantivan]

[Any shock that Zevran feels is quickly covered, gilded over by that smooth, detached, annoying amusement he frequently purposes for himself.]

I knew it. You are simply stunning when you are angry.

video;

[songofvalor]

[ Leliana makes a small, irritated sound. But thank you. ]

Not. Now. Zevran.

Video;

[woahwoahawkward]

[Alistair's at a bit of a loss, here. Is this something he needs to touch? Technically, it isn't something he has to worry about directly, but ...]

I am sorry, Leliana.

[He's angry, too, but that can be dealt with later.]

If you need company, or an ear ... I feel it's only proper for me to offer.

Video - Private

[songofvalor]

Sorry doesn't make this go away, Alistair.

[ She rubs her throbbing forehead. Maker, it's been a long day. ]

Some ale would be nice.