interfaith dinner mingle!!

[stefanged]

Who: Interfaith Center regulars & the not-so-regulars (party crashers are welcome too!!)
Broadcast: Nope
Action: Interfaith Center on the Iskaulit
When: Forward-dated to November 4th

[The Interfaith Center sounds far more bustling and busy than usual - and anyone peering inside would quickly figure out that a communal dinner is underway! Take off your shoes and walk in: the lounge has extra tablecloths on the floor as well as buffet tables with non-alcoholic beverages and all sorts of food, including Jordanian cuisine (or the outer space equivalent of Jordanian food).

The board games are out of their hiding nooks; the furniture's arranged for the maximum seating possible; and even the teddy bears donated by Kitty & Winn are out for cuddling, should anyone want them.

The kitchen's bustling with helpers - Stefan's running around at vamp-speed to make sure everything's a) done on time and b) cooked to perfection - but he sure wouldn't mind an extra hand. And if you're still not up for some food? Well, the prayer rooms are open as usual. There's always a quiet moment to be found, even if the laughter's louder and the scent of freshly-baked mansaf's wafting through the long corridors.

Anyone and everyone who's ever been inside the Interfaith Center has been invited (via text message - and Stefan even used the fancy emoji). If you're not particularly faithful or devout? Well, drop by anyways. There's more than enough food to spare.]

Comments

[wolfehawke]

No, of course not! And I know that, I just thought to bring it to you because you and your nug looked so comfortable.

[And its the polite thing to do. Jeeze Leliana.

Also who has a pet nug? That is so weird.]

No matter, I suppose. Let's try some of this stir fry.

[He's just going to grab both of them plates now to try and save face.]

[nugqueen]

[Excuse you Schmooples is a legendary hero of the Fifth Blight. You should treat him like a king.]

As you wish. Besides, neither of us minds.

[And it's funny to make him nervous.


Leliana follows him, watching him sort out his plate with almost too much interest. Was it making him uncomfortable? Andraste she hoped so because she liked the humor it brought in her.]

[wolfehawke]

[He gets them both plates, both of the same amount of food with a practiced hand. Force of habit from having to feed both of his siblings and Carver being one to complain that everyone else got more than him.]

Here you go.

[He offers her the plate, looking a little pensive. It's not just her presence that makes him nervous. Or rather, it is, but not for the reason she thinks.]

Sister, may I ask you a question concerning faith?

[nugqueen]

You may ask. That is, after all, what this place is for.

[She takes the plate from him, grabbing up a fork as she gestures for him to follow her to a secluded space where they can speak freely.]

[wolfehawke]

[He's silent at first, not sure how to ask what he wants to ask. It's an old question, and the only one not born of his having magic. That's always been a problem with the system, but this? This deals with the Maker.]

My sister used to go listen to your stories at the Chantry in Lothering.

[He begins abruptly, after they've moved to a more private area. He doesn't yet touch his food.]

She loved your stories, would try and retell them when she got home. The rest of us only really went to weekly services to keep up appearances, but Bethy... She believed. It wasn't just going through to motions for her. She'd pray to the Maker like she had something to be guilty for when she'd never done anything wrong in her life.

[Another pause and Adalwolfe looks down into his plate, creases apparent around his eyes and mouth. He doesn't look his age usually, blessed with a naturally ageless face, but there are times like now that the years weigh on him and stoop his shoulders just enough to show.]

I never understood it. The guilt I got, that was the Chantry doctrine, making mages feel guilty just for being what we are, but I've never believed the Maker intended for that. That's just people.

[He runs a hand along his jaw, looking up for a moment.]

I've never really believed the Maker intended anything. What I never understood is how anyone can follow Him when all He's done is turn away from us for being what He made us. That's the story, isn't it? He turned away, Andraste caught His attention, and then He turned away again when She was gone. It all just seems...

[He presses his lips together, not sure he should take that last step over into blasphemy, but he's come this far and the question of it has been one brewing at the back of his mind for a very long time.]

You don't abandon your children just because they do something you don't like. How can a god who acts like a tantrum-throwing child Himself really be worthy of worship, especially when we're told He's not listening anyway?

[nugqueen]

[All of that just gives her pause because he speaks the exact same thoughts she's had for well close to a year since Justinia had passed. She doubted and she had hated the Maker for the loss. She still felt adrift because of it. It was as if his words giving voice to her own thoughts had somehow cracked something inside and it made her wish she could just push it away. She didn't like being vulnerable in front of someone - even a friend.]

I don't pretend to be a scholar and while I do not always believe in some of the doctrine of the Chantry clerics, I do believe that despite everything we are here for a purpose. That purpose the Maker set for me lead me to the Hero of Ferelden and He lead you to Kirkwall. It's just that besides all that - He has a terrible sense of humor. The Maker punishes innocents so that someone might rise up. He turns away while we suffer - I don't pretend to agree with all that but I do think that it falls to us to find strength in such things. Riona taught me that.

[And it had taken her so long to find that feeling again that at least she had the Hero of Ferelden with her now to put her to the right path.]

Faith only has strength when you lend strength to it. I think your sister understood that in her own way.

[wolfehawke]

I never talked to her about it, but you're probably right. I wasn't about to step all over anything that made it easier to deal with what we went through.

[He'd wished so hard he could find some comfort in her belief when she'd died. Weeks on that boat in a stinking hold - still hardly allowed his own grief for taking care of his mother's, and Carver grieving on his own in a sullen corner, no help at all in that. Leave it to big brother, he doesn't need to grieve, superhuman as he apparently is. Adalwolfe had needed to remind himself that Carver needed that space. That's just how his brother is, and there's no use in anger. Moreover, that he was hardly angry at Carver at all. Just himself for letting Bethany die and at the Maker for letting the Blights go on at all.

He draws his mouth in a thin line for a moment, willing himself not to ask Leliana if she really thinks Bethany was punished so that he would get to Kirkwall.]

If that's true, if it's all the Maker's cruel joke, how do you find faith in that? If some regular person could have stopped someone dying and chose not to for their own amusement, we wouldn't show them deference. If a monarch abandons their lands, you crown some other monarch, you don't just pray for their return.

[He lets out a long breath, trying to keep his anger in check. Part of him - a blasphemous part of him, he knows - blames the Maker. Anyone else and Adalwolfe can see what makes them tick with enough information; Meredith was insane, but she did at first care for the people of Kirkwall, as twisted as that became under the influence of Red Lyrium. The Arishok did as his own morals bade him, and he was not wrong on some of his summation of Human behavior. Even Quentin, damn him to the Void for what he did, Adalwolfe can see why. People, even Qunari, are just people. Some are kind, some are cruel, and it's not within him to allow cruelty to simply continue. Only with the Maker, there's little he can do about it besides not believe.]

If He made us, then He made us to be both cruel and kind. And then He punishes us for being either, for exercising this life He dumped on us. I don't see any reason to even want Him back if he gives up the second we don't act how He wants, as if He was unaware what free will is.

[He closes his eyes, setting his plate down as he gives up all pretense of eating.]

Is that why so many people turn their prayers to Andraste instead? Or am I just some insane blasphemer?

[nugqueen]

Ah. No, not a blasphemer - merely a skeptic. Your skepticism is kinder than Morrigan's though, I'll give you that.

[She smiles a bit, understanding his struggle completely.]

You aren't the first to ask these questions and you won't be the last. Considering all you've been through, I am hardly surprised. I can't answer all of that, though. Only that I find faith by looking around me, by seeing the good still in people even if it isn't always easy to see it of late.

[Though she had been quite judgemental of Anders, she'll give him that. It had been out of concern for those who were innocent, but still her lack of faith in finding a way to remedy the wrongs done had been part of why she had lost her way.]

I have questioned the whys and the hows... even moreso with recent events, but I never doubted that if the maker truly wanted us gone we would be. It isn't a clear view, but faith is what has kept me going all these years despite everything that goes on around us.

[wolfehawke]

It's not that He wants us gone. It's that He doesn't care.

[He's heartened that she doesn't judge him, and it encourages him to try and sort this out. With Anders, he's always felt that he needed to tread carefully lest he insult his partner with his own lack of faith and questioning beliefs. Leliana though, she all but seems to welcome the discussion. Not that Anders wouldn't, he just doesn't like that hopeless look that crosses Anders' face when he can't make Wolfe understand why he still prays.]

Ambivalence is worse than anything else He could have done.

[He'd almost rather be despised than ignored. Almost. Adalwolfe craves positive attention too much for that to be entirely true, but even if someone hates you, they still spare you a thought now and again. It's attention. It's acknowledgement of your existence. It's something.]

It's not that I don't believe the Maker exists, I just don't believe in the Maker. I wish I did, then maybe there would be some peace in that, but I just don't see believing in someone who doesn't believe in me.

[nugqueen]

For what it's worth, I do know the Chantry has done horrible things in the name of the Maker. Look at the Circle of Magi or the Elves and that's proof enough. It's enough to make anyone not want to believe when so many horrible things happen all around us in His name.

[She thinks on her words carefully, not sure what else she can do to really help him through whatever internal struggles with Faith he might have.]

There doesn't need to be Faith entirely in the Maker. He made us independent for that reason. I have many days where I wish I didn't ask myself the whys and the hows, but my faith has never wavered. I can't say the same for everyone else. Least of all you, who has lost so much in your life.

[wolfehawke]

[He presses his mouth into a line at her sympathy, not in rejection of it but because he doesn't know how to take that. When his father died, he'd had to step in with all the logistics as head of household. When Bethany fell he had to keep everyone moving. Even when his mother was killed most everyone tip-toed around him. They made things easier by dealing with the things he should have been doing but other than Anders there weren't words exchanged, there wasn't overt sympathy, and by the time he left the estate again there were Qunari to deal with and they had to keep moving on. To have his history of loss so openly sympathized with is not something he expected.]

So I'm not the only one?

[It's all he can manage, having no earthly idea how to address the rest. To thank her for understanding, or to dismiss her citing his loss as hardly having anything to do with his non-relationship with the Maker. He doesn't know what of that is correct, in any case.]

[nugqueen]

And you'd certainly not be the last.

[She won't give her own sob story, but truly finding the Maker had been the best thing for her in the end. It was either that or let Marjolaine continue to hunt her and to keep punishing herself for her sins. Justinia had saved her from that fate. If she could do that for someone else in some small way, it was more than enough.]

You don't have to believe in the Maker to adapt his teachings to your life. Nor do you have to take the Chantry's teachings as gospel. Some of it is heavily steeped in prejudice, such as the removal of the Canticle of Shartan, and the isolation from other races being allowed into priesthood.

[wolfehawke]

If it's the same to you, I think I'm alright without now that there's even the option. It's... still nice to know that I'm not some raving heretic, though.

[Somehow, hearing it from Leliana is far more comforting than just knowing that his father had shared similar views. Anders and Bethany before him, with their ability to believe even though by all accounts everything is against them always made Adalwolfe feel he was somehow wrong for believing what he did. Now he knows it's not necessarily wrong, just understandable, considering.]

Yeah the Chantry itself has messed up in that way. Really if it was all distilled down to 'stop making arses of yourselves and help each other' it'd be better.