driftfleet | fashionably late to the mingle party

...oh, don't tell me he's done such to others.

[Shit. She hoped it was limited to just her.

But it wasn't, was it? That laugh sends a cold chill down her spine. One that makes her lift her head, eyes clearing a bit as concern steps in where grief was. Still is, really, but it's a shared space now. The way her brow furrows, eyes searching hers: it's an expression Leliana would have seen often on their journey. She wore it when she told her about Marjolane. It was there, too, when Morrigan explained to her the horror of what Flemeth planned to do to her, and when Zevran told her he'd come after her with the intent to die. It's the worry of a friend, and it's there in full force now.]

You did not fail me. You remember Alistair being alive and well, so it was not you. You cannot hold yourself responsible for the actions - or inaction - of another Leliana. And perhaps even she did not have the power to prevent what happened.

[Maker, she'd been so caught up in her own feelings that she didn't even consider how this might be hurting Leliana. And she clearly missed much more. Something in her friend claws and rips at her, something Riona knew about but not how much. Her stomach feels hollow, like someone dug a pit in it.]

Faith is not everything, but it is still something. What keeps so many going when all else has failed. [And now she's seeing it, how wrecked Leliana's faith is. She knew it took a hit, but not to this extent. How did she not see it before?] Oh, Leli. You haven't failed anyone. An explosion, some terrible darkspawn with powers beyond anything we ever knew... how could you have known? We should accept responsibility for our failures, yes, but there's a limit to what we can take credit for, for good or ill. You're still continuing her work, her hope of bringing peace. And I don't think she would have made you her Left Hand if she did not believe in you.

I can only imagine what he's said to the others - I only barely know Fenris or Anders. Hawke could probably handle herself with him, though. She's a fierce one. After the Blight I went back to Lothering for a time to return to the Chantry there. Hawke and her family lived there and I became good friends with her younger sister so while I only know of Hawke's companions we've become somewhat better acquainted.

[She sighs rather shakily for a moment, pulling one of her gloves off to wipe a tear. Lothering had been a simpler time. She wished still that she could go back to being just the dreamer she'd been. The sweet Lay Sister who'd had visions of the Maker and had found Faith in a friend.]

'Though all before me is shadow,
Yet shall the Maker be my guide.'

[A sad smile as she squeezes Riona's hand.]

You cannot know how much I have done that lead up to that day. I tried to stop it, you know. I warned the Grand Cleric in Kirkwall and I could do nothing but watch as the mages chose rebellion and the templars chose carnage over peace. I don't blame the mages and I don't blame the one responsible for what happened in Kirkwall. He does not yet know it - what's to come, what his choices bring about. I won't wish it on him. He seems a good man and like any good man - temptation leads us to ruin. A mage pushed too far resorts to what they would not have before. Part of me wishes I could have killed him myself when I had the chance if I had known. Perhaps it would have ended things before they started, but then I can't imagine Hawke would have thanked me for it.

[Perhaps she's saying too much. She's already implied that the person responsible is here and he's close to Hawke. She's already implied that he's a mage. That only came with the obvious answer and she didn't want Riona looking at Anders differently for an action he had no idea he would take.]

I have been cautious in what I tell you but I wonder if sometimes I should just be out with it already and spare you the guesswork, but then I don't want to see you troubled by what you can't change. Knowing you it will feel anticlimactic to finally hear it all, no?

[She laughs, though nothing about the conversation seems all that funny to her.]

Kirkwall isn't even the worst to come. The thing that killed Justinia - I only hope that the Inquisitor can finish it. I suppose there's no sense in me hoping when I am not there.

My hope is he has had nothing to say to the others. That there is nothing in which he could hurt them with.

[Tears. Maker's breath, she really is hurting.

Surprise flits across her face when she talks about Kirkwall. Up until now, she thought it had been Hawke who'd blown up the Chantry. Marian mentioned being on the run from the Chantry, and Leliana had said a mage was the one who set those events in motion. But it seems she assumed wrong. Leliana's description leads her to only one conclusion, one that makes her gut clench.

It can't be him. Not Anders...]

I... I don't know. Perhaps, but I do not know if I could handle much more bad news right now. It already sounds as if there's more, and about someone I know. Will know.

[Right now, her heart can't take too much more. Maybe later, she'll be ready to hear all of it.]

In the long hours of the night
When hope has abandoned me,
I will see the stars and know
Your Light remains.

It's not over, Leliana. Thedas can be a shithole, but it's a durable one. It's survived five Archdemons and darkspawn, stupid wars and Maker knows what else. It'll survive this. And you'll have helped with that. Isn't that Justinia would have wanted?

[Leliana listens, her thoughts reeling. She could think of a few things he could say to Anders, to possibly Fenris - for all she knows there is some shit realm where all of them die. It's entirely possible.]

Now you're quoting the Chant at me? Isn't that my job?

[She laughs, smoothing her thumb over the back of Riona's hand. Truly the Maker had blessed her the day he'd pointed her in the direction of the Hero of Ferelden.]

I don't know what Justinia wanted... I have ideas but then I look around and see that ideas are a grand thing but if the idea consumes you then what happens to those left behind? There's so much work still to be done. She would want me to continue it, I know that much. I don't know that there will be peace at the end of it or ruin. I suppose that depends what happens, no?

[Really this sad talk is just... disheartening. She hates thinking about it and she hates putting it on Riona who is already grieving.]

Perhaps when all is said and done I'll make a trip to Redcliffe and see you both. Maker knows it's been long enough since I made a trip with you to buy new shoes.

[~~shhh, we don't talk about those world-states~~]

Someone needs to keep you on your toes. [And remind you of the hope that remains. It couldn't all fall on Leliana to keep the faith going.]

And you will continue it. I am sorry she is no longer with you, to counsel you when your faith has been broken. Would I but have the words to give you... but my own has been in tatters for some time. And I'm barely in any state to help. [She snorts derisively. So much for being the strong one.]

Do you think I will have returned by then? You mentioned that I had left Ferelden, to find a cure for the taint. [Then there's that issue, the enormity of which she's been avoiding.]

I suppose even I deserve to be surprised now and again. [It helped, honestly. It helped so much having Riona around to keep her going. Sighing, Leliana looks down at her lap. She had no answers to carry herself through her grief. Justinia was gone and the only thing left of her she had that truly belonged to her was an empty box.]

She left something for me... a message. It said 'The Left Hand should lay down her burden.' but truly - I can't. I need to finish what she started and I don't believe it will ever truly be finished until Mages and Templars find peace with one another. Maker knows many have tried to guide us there, Justinia included.

[Scoffing, she runs her fingers through her hair, frustrated.]

It would have been so much easier to have you there. I don't know whether you'll be back at Redcliffe or not when I return, should all of this madness with enemies about cease. I want to hope that you'll find a cure so that you'll be there waiting.

Your burden? [So Justinia's last "order" was freeing Leliana. From what, Riona isn't entirely sure. She finds it hard to believe she'd want her to give up trying to bring about peace. Perhaps she meant something else.] Do you think that is what she meant? Your burden being her cause? Or something else?

[Riona picks up the plate of food Leliana brought earlier and sets it between them. She picks at a piece, popping it into her mouth as she thinks over Leliana's words.]

I am sorry I could not and did not help. I hope it'll be worth it in the end. Can you imagine the good that can come out of finding a cure? [She gives Leliana's hand a squeeze.] We'll see each other again back home. I promise. And perhaps we can shop for shoes to our hearts' content. [A pause, and then her voice softens.] If I manage to find a cure, perhaps we'll be so lucky enough to be looking for little shoes for my child.

She thought she was using me, as Margolaine once did, but I've always known where my place was. I've always known what good I could do for the Maker, no matter the cost. Even when others would ridicule me for the vision I had - you believed in me. You believed and Justinia believed in me. I did everything I could for you both and so that gives me a clear conscience.

[Truly there had been a lot of dirty work. She didn't regret it.]

Justinia worried, I think, that the things I did for her were too great for my conscience to bear. It wasn't exactly the same as slaying an Archdemon.

[She squeezes Riona's hand back, smiling. She wanted her and Alistair to be happy, to have the family they'd always wanted.]

I'm sure you'll have the family you both want. I have faith in that. You wouldn't risk everything for something trivial - you'll find the cure.

[And it occurs to her just now that she's not all entirely sure what a Left Hand does. But when Leliana mentions Marjolaine, and Justinia's fears, her stomach clenches.]

What... exactly did you have to do as Left Hand? I know you extended the Divine's reach, but how?

[Because she's more curious than ever. And concerned.]

Maker, I hope you're right. If I manage... promise you'll come to Denerim when the baby is born. Please? I'll cajole Zevran and any of the others I can manage, too

Diplomacy was Cassandra's duty as the Right hand. She was who promoted the Divine's decrees as needed. When Diplomacy failed, that was when I was needed.

[She knew Justinia hated it. More than once they'd spoken about it, about whether Leliana was alright or if she needed someone else to take an assignment. Leliana refused and took her work seriously.]

Should anyone be thought to want to harm her... it was my job to stop it, whatever the means. I couldn't stop Kirkwall's rebellion and I couldn't stop Justinia's death. I failed in my duty.

[She takes a small breath, leaning back against the wall and reaching to steal a bite of food as she looks over at Riona]

I have never been afraid to do what needed to be done. I miss the simpler days of quiet behind the Chantry walls, but I do not begrudge that Justinia needed me. You needed me once, too.

[So, in essence, Leliana returned to life as a bard. One part bard, one part spy, and one part assassin.

It made her stomach turn. Because she remembered how Leliana had wanted to get away from that, after what it had done to her. What Marjolaine had done to her. She devoted herself whole-heartedly to people. First Marjolaine and playing the great Game, then Riona and fighting the Blight, and then Justinia and her pursuit of peace. And now the Inquisition and its aim to... fix things, it would seem. Leliana never gave any less than her all.

The pieces were starting to come together, and what she saw worried her. She suspected it would, but Maker, she had wanted to be wrong.]

Leli, the ends don't always justify the means. It's tempting sometimes, to do what's expedient or most thorough, but... the price is not always worth it. Justinia may have needed you, and she could not have picked better, but that did not mean she didn't ask for too much. It did not mean that you didn't break off pieces of yourself in the process.

[Perhaps she saw too much into it. Maybe she was overreacting. But her gut told her otherwise.]

There's always a line, there's always a point where it's going too far. How many times did Justinia ask you to cross that line?

Most times my duties involved more secrecy than dispatching justice. I investigated the uprising in Kirkwall, assessing whether or not an Exalted March was needed to suppress the conflict in the city. There was a group of apostates as well, called Resolutionists, and then there was the task of trying to convince Grand Cleric Elthina to return to Val Royoux but that was all for naught. The Chantry was destroyed. Justinia was a peaceful person and exercised what restraint she could but there were times where there was pressure to no longer stay her hand, namely during the growing times of conflict that followed Kirkwall.

[But since then she's learned that peace could only promise so much. Change needed to take root first, before peace could happen. Unfortunately neither was so easily won.]

And she acted through you. If a mage destroyed the Chantry, the backlash against the mages would have been considerable. So I imagine some of those actions may have been harsh.

[But she's purely guessing here. Guessing at the future and what will be done. She's not clairvoyant and she feels as if she's flailing uselessly.]

I can't be sure of all that you did, Leli. But I can say this: when we do the Maker's work, it's not just in what we do but in also how we do it.

It was considerable. There's still a lot of violence brought on by it. Uprisings everywhere, Templars and Mages at war... if you can picture that. Still, not all share the same sentiment. There are good and bad on both sides, as it's always been.

[She gives Riona a steady look, her blue eyes sharp as a hawk's.]

I did not do what my conscience wouldn't allow, I promise. There are times where I have regretted my work but never if it meant Thedas' continued stability. You know I will always champion the Mage's freedom. Why should they not share what you and I both so readily have? They should be given choices, and yet there are some on both sides who would see the Circles be their prison 'for their own good' or some rubbish like that.

[She scoffs and shakes her head, thinking of Vivienne. She was a smart woman but Leliana didn't see eye to eye on several things with her.]

But, I think we've lost sight of why I brought you food.

[She taps Riona on the nose with a gloved finger, smiling sadly.]

What can I do to help you through this? I know that things are bleak back home but you and I are still here. We are together. I know if Alistair - your Alistair - could be here he'd be here by your side.

[But what has your conscience come to allow? The question remains unspoken. Right now, she's not sure if she really has enough evidence to back her gut feeling, and frankly she's too tired to deal with it much more tonight.]

I hope it all works out. Maker knows Thedas could use a break.

[Most of her viewpoints line up with Leliana's, but they've had this discussion in the past, and again, way too damn tired.]

You're doing all that can be done. It is simply something I must work through. [As hard as it was.] It doesn't help I miss him so much. Having that Alistair here, it both helped and made it worse.

I think I could use a break too - all of us could.

[She laughs a bit, genuine and not sad or bitter for once.]

I do what I can, for as long as the Maker - or the Atroma - allows me to be at your side. Your role in all this isn't easy. I think, among our band of Thedosians, you have the least first hand knowledge of events to come. I don't envy you that in the slightest and wish I could make it easier somehow. I wish I could bring you joy more than I do.

fashionably late to the mingle party

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