I've done my sentence but committed no crime

[wolfehawke]

Who: Adalwolfe Hawke and you!
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: On the Iskaulit
When: Nowish

Broadcast

[The video pops up with Adalwolfe's face centered in the camera, but with the background moving behind him, clearly showing the familiar corridors of the Iskaulit. He's making his way to his new job at Málum as bartender.]

So I noticed on the list of scheduled lectures posted a bit ago that there are several on magic, not to mention several people I've spoken with having positive or relaxed reactions to its use. It's incredibly strange to me that everyone is so open and accepting of this, considering the doctrine regarding magic in my home of Thedas, so it begs the following question and I hope at least someone from outside of Thedas will indulge me:

What is magic like on your world? Is it regulated? Does everyone have the ability to use it, or only a small number of people? Are there prejudices that go along with that.

Ah, well, I suppose that's more than one question. Still, if you're willing to talk about it, please feel free to respond to this post and I'll get back to you when I'm finished with work. Thank you!

[The video clicks off.]


Action

It's only a short walk from the hanger to the bar, but Adalwolfe takes his time since he can't watch where he's going very well as he's recording on his device. Which could lead to all kinds of problems. He seems to be avoiding walls okay, but if a person, say, came out of a corridor nearby or happened to step in front of him at just the right time before he put down the little screen, he might just bowl right into them, or walk right past without noticing a mischievous foot out for him to trip over. Honestly, he's an open target. Or at least seems like it...

Comments

[ofkirkwall]

[ Maker's ass she wants to laugh but she doesn't, can't, too wound up in knots that she can't smooth out. ]

not over the network

[wolfehawke]

[Look he really enjoys the fact that you can make faces in text. It's so much nicer than having to decipher tone through the slant of letters or vocabulary used, half of which isn't even possible in typed text.]

I'm at work, at Malum.

[Which could either be an invitation or an excuse so he adds another bit.]

It's empty right now.

[ofkirkwall]

[ She thinks about replying but her fingers are already tremble, so she pockets her device instead and gets on a shuttle. The trip is... agonizing, her head spins with a lack of sleep and everything that refused to give her peace. Should have done this sooner, should have punched him in his bloody stupid face that day. Not that it would have done much, not that it would do much even now, except maybe make her knuckles hurt.

It's damn tempting to do it still, just say nothing and smack him right in the jaw, the look on his face would be hilarious. Might even make her laugh.

When she arrives it is without the usual dramatic entrances Hawke is known for, there is less spring in her step, less... well everything. It doesn't take much to tell she hasn't been sleeping, even less that something is clearly bothering her. Though one would be hard pressed to properly guess as to what. ]

So, you talked to Fenris.

[ Nevermind that. ]

[wolfehawke]

[She doesn't respond and so he's not certain where that leaves them. He has to assume she's coming to talk to him about whatever it is that she's being cryptic about...

His mother did this too, and Bethany sometimes. Even Carver in fits of pique would respond with 'you just don't understand!' when he'd ask what was wrong, or otherwise imply that he 'knew what he did' when honestly he had no idea whatsoever.

But here, at least when Marian appears suddenly while his back is turned putting up bottles for the night, she makes no secret of her suspected displeasure.]

...Ah.

[He looks away, to the bottle in his hands, then promptly pours two shots.]

Is that why you look as if a turnip cart overturned on you?

[He means it as a weak joke, shifting his weight from one foot to the other as if it will bolster his sinking heart and the roil of guilt in his gut that rises every time he even thinks about the Elf. It's hard to keep it from his face.]

[ofkirkwall]

[ Little point in hiding it from him. They are the same person, different in certain ways but overbearingly similar, like the worst sort of twins. The ones who could finish the others sentences or know exactly what the other is thinking. A more messed up Bethany and Carver with a penchant for attracting disaster and intense self loathing. Better with the blunt approach, she capable of little else at this point. Too wound up for anything else, too tied up in knots.

His attempt at humor only makes her sneer, hands lifting for mock inspection as feet carry her close towards the bar. ]

Oh this? [ She looks down at herself with a bitter laugh, shoulders rolling flippantly. ] Just so happens a lack of sleep can make you look like ass. Who knew?

[ Being a smart little shit isn't going to help anything, but she's angry and upset and frankly could not care if she is helping the situation in slightest. Could not care if he is standing there with the bloody bottle of alcohol feeling uneasy, guilty, or whatever the else his blighted ass might be feeling right about now. ]

Couldn't do much about it either, seems finding out someone you bloody care about was killed tends to make sleeping a little hard.

[ It's more than that really, always been more than that, but her nightmares isn't the important thing here. No, no. Another subject for another day. ]

[wolfehawke]

[Adalwolfe's jaw clenches visibly in an almost flinch at her accusatory tone. He deserves it, he knows he deserves it, and so he just looks down at the bartop with an inscrutable expression and a sense of poetic irony that in all technicality her yelling at him is being hard on himself.]

I didn't sleep either, after that. For weeks. Maybe months.

[He takes one of the shots and downs it, leaving the other for Marian if she wants it.]

[ofkirkwall]

[ He doesn't deny it and she can't tell whether that is a good thing or not. It would have probably useless if he tried, who'd see through it better than her? She knows his tricks, their tricks, too well. All she does know is that she wants to be sick. ]

Did you even try? Did you even bother?

[ Try to save him, try to befriend him, try not to kill him? Even now she struggles to accept that Fenris had to die, that it was the only option available to him. ]

[wolfehawke]

I thought I did.

[He keeps staring at the bartop, staring into the past instead of looking at Marian.]

I visited him sometimes, but conversations rarely were more than small talk and he always seemed so uncomfortable around me. I thought it was to do with my being a mage, so I left him be much of the time. I thought I was doing him a service by not bothering him more than necessary.

[He closes his eyes, the lines around them readily apparent, deep cuts of regret etched into his face.]

When he showed up after Meredith went crazy, I thought at first he'd come to see something had to be done, but... That wasn't it.

[He pours himself another shot and downs it with a grimace, leaving Marian's still there alone on the bar.]

So no. I didn't try. I should have, even if it was unpleasant. I regret every day I still draw breath that things happened the way they did all because I couldn't make myself have a bloody uncomfortable conversation.

[He puts the shot glass down with more force than necessary.]

I'm not going to make the same mistakes again, here. The people I care about, they're going to know it. They're going to know that I will lay down my life to protect them no matter our difference in creed or country because I will absolutely not let that happen again.

[ofkirkwall]

[ It's like a knife in her gut twisting further and further with every word he speaks, making her equal parts sick and angry. He didn't try, he never bothered, he just left the elf alone in hopes that would make everything better. All but abandoning him. Their friend, their family, her -

Something ugly rears it head in her, something brutal and dark. It would be so easy, so simple to make him fucking hurt for this, to make herself hurt. Even in her anger it is hard to miss how ironic it all is, she is practically hitting herself! Haha, isn't that funny? Isn't that the most hilarious thing ever to be heard? In this moment she couldn't hate him more but doesn't that mean she hates herself as well? Haha, she'd bloody laugh if she wasn't so consumed, so twisted into knots. Wanting more than anything to reach out and... and... do something.

( break his nose and warp his own blood into a weapon, throw him out of the nearest airlock. ) ]

He would have stood by you, he would have managed to get past the fact you're a mage and been there. [ She speaks through gritted teeth, hands curled into trembling fists. ] Even if you didn't agree on everything he would have stayed.

Maker's balls, haven't we lost enough? There had to have been another way, you could have done something other than bloody killing him!

[ If she keeps telling herself that maybe it'll be true, maybe she won't have to face the fact that there probably wasn't any other way. Fenris wouldn't have given him a chance. ]

[wolfehawke]

Marian.

[He doesn't mean to, but he says her name like his father said his when he was a child, when he railed against their life on the run, against the other children in town who eyed him as an outsider, against his magic, against the world. He says her name that way to try and calm her, to bring her into the now instead of wallowing in the pain that causes her upset.]

I didn't know it at the time. It doesn't excuse my lack of action with him, but I had no clue that he wouldn't turn me in to the Templars in those early days. We were vermin to the city, Ferelden refugees that most thought had no place in Kirkwall. I had to protect Mother and Carver and I couldn't do that from the Gallows.

[His voice grows quieter as hers had crescendoed just before, trying hard to keep the waver out, to remain a calm and stolid presence in order to diffuse the feelings threatening to choke them both.]

I tried to talk with him, to reason that day when he confronted me. I asked him to join us against Meredith's tyranny, that even he must see that what she was doing was wrong. Instead, he raised his sword to me.

[He lets out a breath.]

I still should have done more, over the years we'd known each other, but what it came to that day I couldn't have prevented. You know how he fights. I would have died trying. I nearly did.

[He'd been on the defensive the whole time, focusing on the Templars with Fenris instead of the man himself, trying to think of the right thing to say, to do, that would still change Fenris' mind. But there was no magic word, no silver-tinged phrase to make the elf calm down and see reason. He was in a rage and it broke Hawke's heart to have to do what he did.

Almost literally.

Deliberately, Hawke undoes a button and pulls the collar of his shirt down just far enough to show the top of a jagged scar disappearing down the left side of his chest.]

He aimed to kill me. I had no choice.