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Who: Lavellan
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: On the Red Fish
When: Now!

[ When the feed comes on, the woman featured mostly looks... Awkward, and unsure of herself. It takes her a moment to realise her pressing buttons worked, and then she brightens, leaning forward so that her face is in the camera a little more. She's trying, but modern technology is still a bit of a leap for her, despite knowing how to use it thanks to her augment. It's foreign, but she's doing her best. ]

Andaran atish’an. My name is Leilani of Clan Lavellan - I was told there were other elves here, from Thedas. I was hoping to meet them, if I could? It's not necessary, of course, but...

[ But she does rather want to be with her people right now, or some of them, if she can. She doesn't feel particularly comfortable and she thinks she has reason enough to feel on edge, all things considered.

Hopefully, no one will notice her lack of vallaslin. She's not in the mood. She seems to steel herself, at least, and something settles as she sits up. ]

I'd be glad to speak to anyone else, as well, especially if I can be given more information about this place. I would appreciate it. Ma serannas.

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There were rifts between the Fade and our world, and a giant Breach in the sky - I had to close them. But... He also needed me alive so that he could take the power for himself.

[ It makes her feel as though there's a hollow part of her that's opening up, a gaping space where her heart had been. Her eyes close and she bows her head, swallowing the uncertainty and discomfort she feels, the sudden burn of tears.

She knows why Solas had left her. He wanted to tear down the Veil and bring the Fade back to the world, destroying everything in it. What she doesn't understand is why he did this to her - why he played along with her, why he had let her love him as desperately and intensely as he had, kissed her and held her, always knowing that he would abandon her in the end.

A distraction. That's what he had said of her. He had meant that he was distracting her, but...

Finally, she looks up at Justice. ]

He needs the power in my hand, in the end, so he had to keep me alive.

[Justice may not be a spirit of compassion, but he's not stupid. Her feelings are clear, and he internally winces at his own clumsiness with mortals, though his stare remains stern and unblinking. He has probably said something terribly insensitive.]

I have upset you. I apologize. [The language is stiff, but he's being completely and utterly sincere. He may be clumsy and insensitive, but that doesn't mean he doesn't regret hurting innocent people's feelings with his own terrible social skills.] I understand if you find this difficult to discuss. You do not have to answer my questions.

[ It's not as though he knew and, so, Lavellan can't really find it in her to blame him. She set herself up for it when she brought the Anchor and its purpose to his attention, and all she can do is shake her head, trying to offer a gentle smile. ]

There is no reason to apologise, Justice. It's simply the truth. [ Lifting her shoulders, she shrugs. ] I don't mind answering. Maybe it'll help make it less painful.

Is that how it works? [Justice doesn't actually know. He's never had to deal with grief, or if he has, then he made himself forget it long ago. His limited experience with sadness has been largely abstract, closer to melancholy than genuine anguish. His only knowledge of mortal coping mechanisms comes from the Fade and Kristoff's memories.

(Also Oghren, but Oghren is literally the worst example of coping mechanisms ever to be seen.)

But who is he to question her if she thinks questions might make it better?]

Why did Fen'Harel want this power?

Sometimes. Sometimes it's easier to keep it all inside, but other times you need to talk about it so you can start to move on. Feelings are strange like that.

[ They're a mess, Justice, you don't want to feel them at all. Don't even think about it, really.

Lavellan manages to nod her head, though, forcing something of a thin smile onto her lips, her attention focussed on the spirit in front of her. Speaking to someone genuinely impartial isn't exactly hurting, in the end. ]

He wants to destroy the Veil.

They do seem... strange. [He hopes he never has to feel them all. They're hard enough to handle when other people are feeling them.

But that train of thought is swiftly derailed, because she says that.]

What?

[Destroy the Veil? Is that possible? Why would he do that?

The tingling in the back of his head returns.]

[ And there it is. Lavellan sighs, the sort of sigh that comes with exhaustion and bitterness and being too damn tired for all this fucking nonsense, but it's her job to sort it out. She's the Inquisitor and the lover of Fen'Harel; she doesn't have much of a choice. ]

He wants to destroy the Veil so that he can make the world the way it was when he had been younger, in the days of Arlathan. I'm trying to get him to see that it might be a terrible idea.

[ Frowning, she turns away, trying to think of how to explain it. ]

To do that - destroying the veil - would mean... Destroying our world.

It absolutely would. Mortals have trouble handling the Fade when they only visit it in dreams. I cannot imagine what would happen if there was no division between my world and yours.

[The demons, suddenly presented with non-magical mortals to possess as well as magical. The spirits, spurning any interaction with mortal kind, already having judged them unworthy of help as they are devoured by demons. Justice could imagine perhaps some spirits of compassion or justice or even perhaps courage attempting to intervene for mortals, but the most of the rest would simply withdraw because they have no inner need to help and mortals are unpredictable.

The mortals would be destroyed. If not by demons, then by the Fade itself, taking apart their sense of time and order until they waste away without notice.

But what's she saying about Arlathan?]

He lived when the worlds were one?

[That idea should bother him. The worlds were never one. That wasn't a thing, could never be a thing. And yet it doesn't feel viscerally wrong like it should, like maybe he knew a long time ago, but he had forgotten. Maybe something he learned from a spirit of wisdom and discarded as unimportant, swept up in forgetting something else. The tingling is still in the back of his head, but he brushes it away, burying it into the recesses of the forgotten.]

The world may be more beautiful, and people would understand and accept spirits - that's what I heard. The world before the Veil existed was beautiful, but it laid the path for the Pantheon to take advantage of people, their minds and their hearts. The Elven Gods were not Gods at all but powerful mages who took their strength too far.

[ Her people's connection to the ways of Tevinter continues to make her uncomfortable and her entire body feels on edge. It hurts to talk about it, to admit all the things that Solas had told her, all the things she had seen in the crossroads for herself, the spirits and the stories and the thousand and one things that had broken her heart time and time again.

They had all been so foolish. The whispers of Mythal in her ears simply echo it; they were fools. They raised generation after generation with slave branding on their faces and a history that wasn't even half-true.

Turning her head away, Leilani frowns, her attention on her memories, her expression souring even as she tries to find the words to express it. ]

Fen'Harel slept for a millennia. He awoke to a world where, in his eyes, the people were all more akin to Tranquil than anything else. No one had the right feelings, the right mind, and he knew the mistake he had made. He created the Veil to seal the Elven Gods away from the world, but in doing so he had created a world where the magic was limited, where everything was wrong. Or so he said.

[Justice... is really not as surprised by this as he should be. Did he know this before? Perhaps he did, and simply forgot.

He knows in his essence that her words are true, so he accepts them without fuss. What he doesn't have to accept is the Wolf's view on the new world.]

He is a fool. Magic is only a piece of what makes the mortal world beautiful, not the whole. To destroy what you mortals have created all for the sake of renewing magic would be like removing all the colors of the rainbow save for one, and then calling that one remaining color the full breadth of beauty.

[Justice does not believe that the vast majority of mortals would survive the Veil falling. At best, a handful of mages and Templars powerful enough to withstand the initial shift and fight demons would live, but the rest would go quickly if the shock of being thrust into the Fade didn't kill them first. Creating an old conjoined world without mortals misses the heart of what's wonderful in the waking land.]

Were he not consumed by nostalgia and regret, he would see that.

[ Lavellan wishes she could give Justice more - but she's not quite capable of that. It aches, deep in her chest, and she feels uncomfortable and uncertain, and even as she speaks she feels her voice wavering. The hurt that Solas left in her chest is still fresh and raw, and she's not entirely sure how to handle it without getting both overwhelmingly furious and desperately unhappy.

Justice's words fuel her, though, and she nods her head. For all that Solas was wonderful, for all that she loved his mind and his heart and his passion, he was a complete and utter fool. ]

That is his problem. He awoke in this world and sees only what it lacks, not all the things it has.

[ She remembers all the words he said to her, the whispers of things that Cole said aloud between them - that if she was different then maybe everyone was, that perhaps the world could be saved, and perhaps that is why he pulled away from her. Better to leave her to die and rot, to break both their hearts, then to believe that the world might be worth saving and loving.

It leaves a bitter taste in her mouth, and there's nothing she can do about it. ]

I wanted to change his mind, but he was blind to it. He just wanted to complete his plan.

He is a powerful being who intends to destroy your world. People like that are not easily swayed.

[Justice's eyes drift back to her hand. It's beautiful and croons a song that makes his heart ache, but it's killing her. If she's lucky, Atroma will keep her alive, but no one can know at the moment.]

What do you intend to do about him now?

[Assuming, of course, Atroma doesn't keep her forever, and that she doesn't die before she has a chance to do anything. Both of these things would be obstacles that even Justice has to admit would make it impossible for her to do anything.]

That does not mean I'm not going to try my best.

[ Leilani is desperate to be the one to help Solas stop, to turn his attention back to her, to redeem him, to have him understand the folly of his plan and the foolishness of destroying one world in the hope that another might emerge, that it might be better. It infuriates her that he is blind to it, blind to the goodness in the world, but there is nothing she can do here. ]

I'm going to try and convince him that he's wrong. I'm going to show him that our world is worth saving, and that he can live in it, no matter what it takes.

[ With her, if he makes that choice, but perhaps not. She has forgiven him for his lies, but if he doesn't turn back... She loves him, but her love can only stretch so far. ]

Why?

[Fen'Harel has sentenced her to death, used her, and intends to destroy her world. Why does she want to try talking him out of this rather than fighting him? The urge to redeem wrongdoers is one that Justice can respect to a point, but when a wrongdoer is set on continuing to do wrong, then it is only just to fight them.]

Because he was my friend.

[ Was. A friend. It tastes sour in her mouth and she breathes out, bowing her head, feeling the awkwardness pile on her shoulders. ]

It will hurt to lose him, but I will kill him if I need to.

[Justice's frown gets deeper, but he's trying to understand mortals better, and he can only do that if he at least tries to see their perspective. So he tries to imagine what he would do if one of his own precious few friends revealed themselves to be a traitor bent on world destruction. It's hard to imagine, since he can't actually see any of them doing that, but he tries. What would he do?

He knows what he would do. He would destroy them. But it wouldn't be without trying to turn them onto the right path again beforehand, and the thought of killing any of them is so unpleasant that he puts it out of his head immediately.

Yes, he thinks he can appreciate why she wants to redeem him. He hums, the edges of his frown softening.]

I see. I am sorry.

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