driftfleet | Do pigeons have feelings?

Entry tags:

Do pigeons have feelings?

Who: Adalwolfe Hawke
Broadcast: Yes, video
Action: Yes, Malum or Tourist.
When: In the wee hours of the morning, during drift week

Stop me if you've heard this one.

[Hello fleet, it's a very drunk Adalwolfe Hawke on your feed tonight. Which is weird because usually he doesn't make drunk posts, but hey it's been a hard wee- no, mont-... year? No, not long enough.

Life. It's been a hard life. And sometimes that catches up with him, so hooray alcohol and existential 2am thoughts.]

But, right, so, some people in the fleet are from earlier that other people in the fleet from the same versh.. version of the same world, right? So then would them changing someone when they get back - or if I guess 'cause who knows - would them changing a big thing then change that thing for the people here from later there? If say... Idunno, I was from before all the stuff and decided not to go to Kirkwall, would other stuff have happened instead of my stuff? Would that change all the... the stuff?

[Maker he needs Varric or Carver to translate his drunkspeech. He's not so far gone that he can't tell he's making the least amount of sense.]

Or if-if... I dunno if I should say that nevermind, but you all get my point, right? Is it set in stone? Or is it like... all these different Thedaseses that everyone is from, they just get made when something else changed so it still happened but the other thing happened too, somehow? Uh.

[He frowns into his mug. These are very murky, complicated thoughts. Clearly he needs to wash them off with more alcohol.]

Were we meant to do things or do things just happen even if we don't do anything? You get what I'm trying to say, right?

[Someone? Anyone?]

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[It's so late its early and Adalwolfe is still drunk, working on the logic that if he doesn't go to bed just yet he can stave off the monstrous headache and queasy stomach he knows is coming upon waking. It's not the best plan, but right now it's the only one he has concerning his own health. His other plan, more concerning Anders' mental health than his own, is to bring the steak he'd pilfered from Malum out to the Blameless and feed Justice's cat. Caring for cats of any stripe (ha ha, a joke) always earns him brownie points with Anders, and especially when no one has really seen hide nor hair of the spirit in some time. Who knows if he remembers to feed his pet? It figures Justice has enough to worry about what with everything he has to process, so Hawke enters the room without so much as a knock, assuming he's just... away somewhere.]

Here kitty kitty, I've brought you a nice juicy meal.

[He seats himself unceremoniously in the middle of the room and puts the bottle he'd brought with him down to his right in order to extract the steak from the paper bag he'd brought it in. He sets it on top of the bag like a makeshift plate and leaves it out for the leopard to pounce on, grabbing for the bottle with his now free - if a bit sticky - hand.]

[The leopard kitten in question had been napping on Justice's bed when Wolfe comes in. She perks at his voice, waking up fully at the smell of steak. She wastes no time pouncing on it, tearing into meat like she hasn't eaten in weeks. Although to her credit, she doesn't look like she's been starving, though perhaps she hasn't had the best diet for cats.

The room is not quite as barren as Justice's room usually is. Earmarked legal textbooks are piled on the floor. Books on moral philosophy checked out from the Iskaulit are among them as well--if Wolfe cares to check the bookmarked pages, he'll see that someone has marked chapters discussing moral paradoxes. There is one book on the theory of time travel among all of them, and the only page marked there is the page discussing killing someone in the past.

Justice, for his part, was asleep on the floor when Wolfe came busting in. It's not the first time since finding out his future that Justice has slept, and he doesn't have the energy to be worried about that and its implications for his health when he's spending every waking hour wondering if suicide or atonement is more morally righteous. He almost wishes that Anders had just come out and agreed that Justice should die for what he did, because that would make Justice's choice so much easier.

But now Anders' boyfriend (Hawke) is in his room, feeding the cat that won't leave him alone. Justice doesn't make himself visible. Instead, he just watches, half wanting to push the mage out, half wanting to tell him that he understands now, and half wanting to just watch passively and let the man feed the cat undisturbed. The latter wins for now.

He had been watching the man's post on the network earlier. He wonders if the thought has occurred to him, too--that maybe killing Justice would solve all their problems retroactively.]

Looks like someone's been feeding you, just maybe not the right things.

[He's glad to see that, at least, though he does make a note to come check on her more frequently. He'd rather pin Justice down to have a talk about taking care of animals - something he's far more experienced with regarding dogs and farm animals, though Anders' influence over the years has earned him some small knowledge regarding cats too - but he knows this isn't his top priority. He should be contrite anyway considered even after his own mother had been murdered and he didn't leave his own depressive stupor for weeks, he'd at least still fed Ser Drools, but Justice is a spirit and can't be expected to be held to the same standard.

He has nothing but sympathy for Justice now and it rolls off of him like a mist. He's usually unconsciously adept at hiding his true thoughts about people, diplomatic as he is, but drunk like this with his inhibitions lowered, it's easy to see exactly what he's feeling for any spirit that may care to know. Sympathy, even empathy is there in spades where wariness and distrust were once all encompassing. He knows what Justice must be feeling, or at least has an idea. He was there, and it still keeps him up nights sometimes.

Idly, Wolfe reaches for the nearest book, flipping through it to a marked page. Its some philosopher he's never heard of but the subject matter is about what he expected given his understanding of the spirit's mood. He even makes a darkly amused sound at finding the passage on time travel.]

I hope your master isn't actually going to try this one.

[He shows the book to the cub as if she'll understand. She doesn't even look up from her meal and he's not surprised at all, going on regardless.]

It's not really possible according to basically everyone in the fleet, and more people would be worse off anyway.

[He looks down at the passage again, letting the words jumble into an unintelligible pile of letters instead of absorbing anything more from it. He's more lost in thought instead.]

Something had to be done. I used to think 'but it didn't have to be Anders that did it,' but maybe it did. Maybe it had to be Anders and Justice together because they were right. There can't be a compromise. It's not a compromise if only one side holds all the power.

[He sets the book aside and sighs, rubbing his face with both hands. He feels grubby and unpleasant and is starting to regret all the drinking based on the small throbbing ache starting to build at his temples, threatening to become something monstrous. Clearly that means he should drink more to stave off sobriety just a bit longer and he follows through on that by taking a pull from the bottle he'd brought with him.]

Edited 2018-01-24 15:31 (UTC)

[There are right things to feed a cat? Justice had just assumed that anything edible would work. He’d even let the cat pick what she wanted from the fridge and pantry, since she didn’t have he thumbs to open and close things with ease.

This seems like the kind of thing he should know. Anders would be able to tell him, but...

It doesn’t take long to notice the sympathy. Justice doesn’t know how to feel about it. A part of him detests it, hates that he’s getting any sympathy at all when he’s the one who failed at the only thing he’s meant to do, and a part of him feels more at ease knowing that the mage doesn’t hate him, which he’s suspected up until now. He doesn’t know if he wants to talk or wants to let the mage conclude his business and leave. He pushes himself into a sitting position, picking up one of the legal textbooks and holding it tightly, feeling the memories of certainty and patient legal schalorship. It’s his only self-soothing mechanism now. He’s put his lyrium ring in his drawer, and it’s too painful to take it out now.

But the mage keeps talking to the cat. Justice considers asserting for the millionth time that he’s not the cat’s master, but what’s the point? All the humans around here are convinced that the cat belongs to him now.

It’s when the man mentions the time travel that Justice really pays attention, but he’s unconvinced. Everyone was saying that he would remember none of this when he went back to Thedas, but he doesn’t have to remember anything if he’s too dead to return there. It would be as if he disappeared all of the sudden and never came back. His Warden friends would worry and search for him, but eventually, they would give up and assume that he’s dead or returned to the Fade. They will forget eventually.

But something else catches Justice’s attention. He furrows his brow.]

What do you mean, more people would be worse off?

[He doesn’t make himself visible, so he just comes off as a disembodied voice coming from everywhere in the room. He hadn’t considered that anyone might actually think that things worked out the best they could, or that maybe the destruction of all those innocent people was worth it. Anders had said something about the fallout, but Justice had honestly had trouble listening after hearing about killing all those people.

Killing those people was wrong, even if they had a good reason for it. Justice can’t believe that it was the best means to free the mages. He can’t believe hat things would have been worse without him.]

[The voice doesn't startle him. It's not that he knew Justice was here, mind, but he'd gotten used to spirits speaking out of nowhere with Cole and Dezel having been around and even if it's still unnerving it's not something that makes him jump any longer. The alcohol probably helps too.]

The mages, obviously, and the world really, if you think on it. It's all cause and effect, right?

[He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.]

The Chantry goes, so the Templars crack down in the South, so the White Spire rises up, so the Templars retaliate there, and yes you have a war but it lead to so many Circles breaking and free mages and the Conclave. That would have been fantastic, an actual negotiation where the Chantry doesn't just have all the power. But then Cory-fuss has to mess it all up, of course, but even that - the way that went - that's got to be better too because then the mages joined the Inquisition and proved themselves and Leliana ends up Divine and abolishes the Circles.

[It's a bit of a jumble, but from where he's standing it turned out in the end. Or it will, anyway. It hasn't yet for him since he arrived at the Fleet only on the other side of the week he'd fallen out of the Fade, but he knows with conviction that's how it goes because of others in the Fleet. What did Leilani say?]

The tale is the same, but the characters may change.

[He's not entirely aware he actually said that aloud.]

I thought a lot about this. Something was going to happen, it had to. Maybe it didn't have to be the Chantry in Kirkwall, maybe the White Spire massacre would have happened regardless, but it wasn't going to stay like it was. It couldn't, and people were going to die either way.

[He aches for that, even if he believes it entirely. He hates that good people who really believed in what the Chantry is supposed to stand for died along with the bigots and the truly hateful.]

I'm not sure you were ever a demon.

[It sounds fractured from what he'd been saying before, maybe, but the logic is there, as awash in a different kind of spirit as it is.]

Vengeance has a place, when its put to use. What you two did, it was violent and abhorrent, but so much came out of it and it didn't just come from hate. It came from love too, it came from desperation but you don't get that desperate for something unless you truly, deeply care about it. You... let Anders feel that, I think. Strongly.

[He leans back on his hands, still rambling half to Justice but half to himself too.]

I met him before, you know. When he was first in the Fleet he was from before Kirkwall and he was a mess. He was a mess in Kirkwall too but he was a driven mess. He cared so much about so many people. Passionate and kind, with those amber eyes that look right into your soul...

[Ahem]

But before he was nothing like that. He was a coward, for one. He had opinions but no values. I don't have to tell you, you knew him. I wouldn't say he was awful, he's still Anders, but he was... selfish is probably the right word. You made him care. You made him the person I fell in love with. I can't believe that's not worth something.

[He looks up at the ceiling, the recessed lights wavering in his vision, but he's not really seeing them, he's seeing Kirkwall, he's seeing near a decade with his love and everything that comes with that. Upset, yes, but joy too. The greatest joy he'd ever felt, that he still feels whenever Anders looks at him with those adoring eyes. He'd struggled so hard after he'd felt Justice's love and care for Anders and recognized it as so similar to his own, but he's been thinking since then and it's perhaps not corruption but instead growing pains for them both. Maker knows he had them with Anders too, he can't imagine how much more difficult it is if you can't even separate your thoughts from each other.]

Murdering innocent people does not sound demonic to you? [It’s the first time he can say the word out loud in reference to this, and it tastes like bile. He opens the legal textbook and fingers the pages until the overwhelming sense of sickness fades.] Doing the wrong thing for the right reason does not mean it is not wrong. I should not be able to do that. I am not mortal. I should not be able to compromise my virtue, not unless I become something else.

[But it also doesn’t sound exactly like the demonic behavior Justice is familiar with. Anders has lost weight, but it doesn’t look as though he’s had a demon devouring him from the inside for years on end. It doesn’t sound like he went out of his way to stoke vengeance for other reasons, such as in the hearts of those who were cheated on by a lover or somesuch.

He almost asks how Anders behaved after the explosion. A demon may be satisfied with consuming that level of violence for a while, but it would get hungry again before long. It would goad Anders into further vindictiveness, perhaps by hunting down the children of Templars or murdering a Chantry Mother and displaying her for her congregation to find.

But does it really matter if he didn’t behave like most demons? He betrayed his virtue and he wasn’t worthy of the title of ‘Justice’, so he was nothing the moment he possessed Anders.]

I cannot believe that there was not a just method of freeing the mages. If the Grand Cleric was truly indifferent to the plight of her flock, then perhaps it was just for her to die, but not all of the others. Why would we destroy a building with so many innocent people in it, if only one person was our target?

[It reminds him of all those paradoxes he’s been reading about: the question of the train, and whether it is better to be inactive and allow it to kill five people or to redirect it and kill one person who would have otherwise been safe. The idea had upset him enough that he’d refused to read further, but the question has stuck in his mind. Is it possible that there are situations where there is no truly just answer? Is it possible that there are situations in the mortal world that force compromise, regardless of the strength or weakness of a person’s conviction?

Were he any other spirit, he might consider suicide simply to escape the harsh, unyielding reality of this world, but dying to escape when he has responsibilities is wrong. He will only die if he is convinced that it really is the just thing to do, regardless of what he actually wants.

It hurts a little to hear the effect he had on Anders talked about like that. He doesn’t know what kind of hurt it is. Hurt on behalf of what Anders was? Hurt to have it acknowledged that the dramatic personality shift was his fault? Hurt from relief, that maybe his effect wasn’t all terrible? Maybe a little bit of all of it.] Anders was deeply flawed, but he is human. He had a right to his selfishness. I encouraged him to be better, but I had no right to take it away by force as I did.

[And maybe that’s what upsets him. He doesn’t feel like he helped Anders grow and change as a person. It feels like he’s bent Anders’ personality to his will, forcing Anders to behave the way he would want him to, and Justice never had the right to do that. It’s demonic to take a person’s free will that way, and it feels like someone is tearing his heart in two when he thinks of what the Anders he knew would think if he saw himself now.]

He trusted me, and I betrayed him. [His voice cracks just a little at the word ‘betrayed.’ That’s the core of his pain associated with Anders specifically, isn’t it? He loves Anders, swore up and down that he was nothing like the demons he had encountered, and Anders trusted him. Anders trusted him where nearly no one else would, and yet the moment Justice was allowed into his body, he stole his free will like any demon. It’s not right. Regardless of how many people it helped, regardless of how much this mage loves this changed Anders, it was wrong that Justice did that. He hurt his friend terribly and he can’t forgive himself for it.]

Edited 2018-01-25 19:30 (UTC)

[It's always awkward to talk to someone who's not there, but the floating book helps. Wolfe uses that as a guide to look where he imagines Justice probably is sitting.]

You're more mortal now than you ever were. It happens to spirits outside of the Fade for long periods of time.

[He says like he's an expert, but really it's all he's learned from Cole and Varric's telling him about the same. Still, it can't be that different; people do the same thing. Elves always among humans start acting more human, surface Dwarves who couldn't care less about Orzammar because they were born under the sky, displaced people finding new homes and adopting the nation that adopts them.]

It happens because of the people you meet, too. Friends rub off on you, their mannerisms and the things they say, and it happens to you too whether you believe it or not.

[He swallows, coming to terms with what he's already suspected was true for many years, what Anders had been trying to tell him in insisting he couldn't tell where he ended and Justice began.]

Anders... He tried. He tried so hard for the seven years after I met him in Kirkwall, but he was angry well before that. I can't blame him, who could? You know what the Circles do to people. That anger had a direction in that last year, and while you played a part, he's the one that feels it. Still does. You fed each other like that, neither one of you really at fault but both of you suffering for it by being in the same mind and body.

[Hawke tilts his head.]

It's awful what happened, I'm not disputing that, but it matters that neither of you meant for it to go like that. You care, and he cares, and you're both flawed because everyone has flaws, even spirits. You didn't betray him and he didn't betray you, no matter what either of you thinks, because you want the best for each other. You just... made a bloody mess of it trying to get there.

[His voice gets rough at that and he goes back to the bottle for a moment, unable to censor himself with the alcohol swimming around in him. He doesn't know the difference, other than he talks more, but others have noticed that drunken Adalwolfe doesn't bother to hide his thoughts or feelings for the sake of protecting the feelings of others as he does in his normal day to day.

Maybe some of this would help Justice too, he reasons. Spirits for the spirit to raise both their spirits. Hah.

He holds the bottle waveringly out towards Justice.]

Do you want some? It helps for the moment. Can you even get drunk?

Impossible. [It's a quick dismissal of the possibility that he could become 'more mortal', but there's no bite behind it. Can he really be sure he knows anything at this point? He's in a physical form and a mortal has said he loves him. Many impossible things have been happening.

Justice eyes the bottle. Under normal circumstances, he would dismiss the offer out of hand.] Anders and I fought besides a dwarf that was never sober. I sipped his drink once. I do not know if I can get drunk, for I detested the taste. [And yet despite that, he takes the bottle and drinks a mouthful. He hasn't even had water since coming to the Fleet, so the strange, intrusive burn in his throat makes him wince and grimace before putting it on the ground, not that the mage can see his reaction.

At least the taste isn't as awful as he remembers.]

He would have never taken up the cause to that extent if I had not pushed him to. His anger was always there, but it was never such a force of destruction. I made him into something he was not and he has suffered for it, regardless of my intention. That is betrayal. [Though of course he doesn't consider the fact that Anders did the same thing to him. Justice similarly was turned into something he wasn't and suffered, but he doesn't care as much about the hurts that Anders accidentally inflicted on him. It is easier to forgive Anders' mistakes than to forgive his own.]

I believe this... care, this 'rubbing off', is the problem. I possessed him because I did not want him to die, not because it was the right thing to do. I fear that I might still do it, if his life were threatened and that was the only means for him to survive.

[If Anders was about to die, and if he asked Justice to take him again... would he do it?

It's one of many questions that have been plaguing him.]

I could make myself forget him. Riona, as well. I could make myself forget everything that I have experienced since I discovered the Baroness and her victims. Perhaps it would destroy the corruption in me. Or perhaps it would simply make me vulnerable to making the same mistakes.

[He fingers the pages of the book, trying to ignore how the thought of tearing his feelings for his friends out of himself like that hurts.] Death is the only foolproof means of making sure I do not hurt others. I doubt that Atroma would be able to bring back that which no longer exists on any plane, and perhaps Anders can be spared. Or perhaps I would simply do him another wrong by dying without atoning. I do not know.

Don't be stupid. Of course you've changed. If you hadn't you wouldn't be questioning if you should forget. No, you've gone close to native my friend and I think you're better for it. We all are. Even Anders. Especially Anders.

[He takes the bottle back to drink, then hands it over again. There's a rhythm to drinking together and speaking of heavy things and Wolfe falls into it with practiced ease.]

Not wanting someone to die is the right thing to do. He doesn't deserve to die, especially didn't then just for existing free. And protecting your friends is also right and just, we both know that.

[He pauses a moment, regarding Justice, or the general area where Justice seems to be anyway.]

Death is the only foolproof means of making sure no one hurts others, but we also both know going about and murdering everyone is fundamentally wrong, so why would you think that killing yourself is right? It's never the answer. You can't fix anything if you're dead or don't remember.

[He sways a little bit, trying to focus.]

...look, this is really difficult when I can't see you. Do you mind?

[Justice hums noncomittally. Wolfe has a point that Justice would have made himself forget without hesitation if this all happened before he met the Wardens. He doesn’t like the idea that he’s become so attached to these memories that he won’t get rid of them even if it’s the right thing to do, but maybe all these memories have done is make him question whether or not he knows that it’s right.

And maybe that questioning is corruption. Or maybe it’s just change. He doesn’t know, and he’s getting pretty sick of not knowing.

He accepts the bottle from Wolfe, his frown deepening at the request to be visible, but what is the point of remaining unseen while they speak together? It’s not a small though the man isn’t aware that Justice is there.

So as Justice raises the bottle to his lips, he allows Wolfe to see him. From his appearance, it’s clear that he’s not well. He doesn’t look quite human as he should, like he’s a very good imitation but he’s missed something fundamental that makes him look wrong. It’s hard to put one’s finger exactly on what is wrong with his appearance, though. He looks sick, like there was a light in his skin that’s gone now, and his complexion is gray and ashen.

There’s no frost or heat in the air. He’s lived long enough to know how to aggressively remove corruption before it gets to that point, but the roots that make him feel sad and angry are still tightly holding his heart, and it makes him look like he’s wilting, like his own feelings are slowly poisoning him.

He takes a swallow from the bottle, and this time, the face he makes is visible before he passes it back to Wolfe.]

Normally I would agree with you, but I know for a fact that I will do something wrong and I may have the means to prevent it. Is it not wrong to simply let it happen in this case? Maybe I would spare Anders the scrutiny of the Wardens the first place. It is not as if the Orlesian Wardens did not have healers in their ranks, even healers accused of killing Templars. The only thing that made Anders special was that he was friends with a possessed corpse.

[It’s spat out bitterly, bubbling with all the pent up guilt plaguing him and the frustration he hasn’t allowed himself to feel until now. A part of him is just angry that nothing he ever does will ever be enough for some mortals, that he’ll only ever be an abomination to them. He can fight for them, bleed for them, struggle to learn a completely foreign way of life for them, and he’s still not allowed so much as a friend.

But overshadowing all of that is the guilt. Regardless of how fair or unfair it is, it’s the reality and he should have made allowances for it. He should have known that the suspicion they had against him would become suspicion against Anders, increasing ever more every time Anders spurned the company of his fellow mortals in favor of spending time with Justice. He doesn’t believe Wolfe when he says that Anders is better for his presence, even if he doesn’t sense deception.

Justice should have known better than to let Anders indulge him with friendship. He should have known better than a lot of things.]

I do not understand why you care to talk me out of it. You have wanted me gone since I arrived.

[There’s no bitterness or accusation in his tone now where there would have been before. Justice understands now. A point of resentment has become a simple statement of fact. Wolfe had good reason to want Justice gone, and a part of Justice wonders if he isn’t right.]

[Ostensibly, Adalwolfe knows Justice looks bad. He's pallid, almost something he'd call corpselike if Justice hadn't looked like an actual corpse before. But Adalwolfe is also very inebriated and he hasn't seen the spirit in his new more human guise yet so instead of immediate concern at the wrongness of him, his mind just bubbles 'oh shit, they made him attractive. Why???'

Thankfully he's not so far gone as to not censor that thought on its way to his lips.]

That was before I knew you would react like this.

[He huffs out a breath, almost a laugh though it's aimed at himself and his change of heart rather than Justice or the situation.]

I didn't know you, just you. I didn't know that you'd regret what happened, that you'd consider harming yourself before allowing any harm to come to your friends. I didn't know you. I just thought I did. And I was wrong.

[He examines his hands, relinquishing the bottle to Justice once more and turning his palms to trace the small scars of a life wielding primal forces and twirling staves.]

I just thought of you as a sort of illness Anders had, something that forced him into doing what he'd never have wanted if he were just himself. A parasite. But that's not what you ever were. You were - are - his dearest friend, even if sharing the same consciousness. He loved you, still loves you, and for you to die would do him more harm than you could fathom, especially as he blames himself for it.

[He looks at Justice again, eyes bright and perhaps a little bit watery.]

The Templars would have been after him anyway, regardless of you. They can't abide mages outside the Circle. It had little to do with you and everything to do with the fear on which the Chantry built the Circles. You know, or you'll come to know anyway. Kirkwall was by far the worst for it. The thing that made Anders special was he escaped. They had him in the Tower and he was able to run away and stay away thanks to Riona. Not all people think like her; she's a good one.

[He sighs.]

The fact is, I thought I knew what you were like but I was wrong. Anders had been telling me for years, but I never believed him until now. He's right about a lot of things.

[Unfortunately, just because Wolfe doesn't say it doesn't mean that Justice doesn't hear it loud and clear. Justice casts him a look, one eyebrow quirked as he takes a long drink from the bottle.]

I heard that.

[Does he know that he's not supposed to make it clear when he hears things embarrassing? Yes. Does he know that Wolfe would probably find that thought embarrassing? Also yes. But he does it anyway. Think of it as retribution for assuming the worst of him for nearly five months. Now they're even. Sort of.

Petty justice is still justice. Or maybe that's just the wine talking. His head is beginning to get fuzzy. Is this what Oghren called a buzz?

It stings to know just how little the human thought of him, how little all humans who meet him in the future probably think of him, but he brushes off his own petty hurts. They never really mattered in the grand scheme of things.] I thought you simply hated spirits, but I understand now. I would have seen me as a parasite as well. Anders has a generous view because he is kind, and I saved his life.

[And Justice doesn't feel all that deserving of that kindness. Yes, he saved Anders' life, but at what cost? What did he take away from him? What did he twist Anders into becoming?

Justice still doesn't believe that things would have turned out the way they did if he weren't Anders' friend. Maybe the Templars would have been after him, but would the Wardens be so eager to betray him? Justice doubts it. Healers are invaluable in the fight against darkspawn, far more valuable than a handful of Templars.

It breaks his heart a little to hear Wolfe talk about how important Justice is to Anders. He feels the sincerity, even before he sees the glassiness in his eyes.]

No one was ever meant to care for me beyond my ability to live by my virtue. The idea that anyone would have any warmth for me after I have proven a failure is... strange.

[He's always honest, even without wine, but the fuzziness in his head are making the painful truths flow just as easily as the neutral ones. It's like exorcising a demon, in a way.]

I do not know what to do with it. I believe I love him as well, and I do not wish to cause him any more pain. But I do not see the value in my life if I cannot be relied on to fulfill my purpose. I think it would be a greater service to justice to die, but that would hurt him, and I do not wish to hurt him or Riona or any of the mortals who have shown me kindness. I do not know if my indecision is corruption or an indication that there is no truly just answer. I do not know which would be more upsetting.

[And there it all is. The heart of his indecisiveness, and his grief. He doesn't know the answer anymore. He doesn't want to hurt Anders, but no matter what he does, hurting him seems inevitable. He doesn't want to be corrupted, but it feels like it's already too late. He wants to die as himself, but maybe he's no longer himself anymore.]

[The acknowledgement of his thought might embarrass Adalwolfe if he wasn't drunk, but considering he is all he does is level an annoyed gaze to Justice that he read his mind and lets it go at that.]

I think he's entitled to have a generous view because you saved his life. That was a kind thing to do, you didn't have to.

[He sighs and leans back, ending up laying on his back and staring at the florescent lights in the ceiling.]

There's nothing for what was 'meant' to be. Who decides that, anyway? Even as a spirit, that's up to you, what you're meant for, and even things you think of as failures other people don't. It's point of view. You don't see value in your life because you're not what you thought you should be, maybe, but Anders sees value in you because of what you are and none of that is corruption. It's just... life. Influence and changing thoughts are part of that outside the Fade.

[He twists in order to look at Justice again.]

Like I said, you'd a lot more mortal than maybe you even want to believe. And justice is a.... I mean, it's a weird concept, right? Justice as a concept is only what's fair, but life isn't fair all the time. Life just happens and that's not to say you can't try to be just but I don't think it's something that can be ultimately fulfilled, just something to try and live by.

[He mulls that over for a moment.]

I guess what I'm trying to say is it wouldn't really be fair to anyone for you to give up and off yourself. That's not a just thing, that's you being scared of your part in all this. We don't even really know whose idea it was but it doesn't matter. Pain or not, it freed a lot of mages, it saved a lot more people than it hurt in the long run. At least, that's what I believe. And where's justice for those people without you?

[This conversation is making his head hurt. Or maybe that’s the wine. He drinks another mouthful and offers it to Wolfe.]

If a creature springs fully formed into existence with one goal in mind, is that not its purpose? Is that not what it is meant for? Mortals choose their purposes, but spirits always have them. To betray them in any way would mean becoming something else entirely.

It is natural for mortals to change. You are born and you grow and you become who you are through your choices. It is not natural for a spirit to change so much. Change is a harbinger of corruption.

[He should have seen this coming. He noticed how much he was changing, but he’d dismissed it as harmless, even beneficial for learning how to live in this world, and let it stand. He became careless and paid dearly for it.]

This world has changed me. My friends have changed me. I have picked up new mannerisms, new desires, new ways of relating to others... but none of that changes what I am. I am still a spirit of justice, and I do not know how long I can survive without corruption in a world where justice may not always be attainable.

[And that’s a horrifying thought. That maybe he’s doomed no matter what he does. He puts down the bottle in favor of rubbing his temples.]

I have read about decisions like this. A train is about to hit three people stuck to the track. You can divert the train and save the three people, but there is one person on the new track who would die due to your intervention. Which is the right decision? Is it better to actively kill one innocent person to save three others, or to passively allow three innocents to die so that you do not directly kill someone?

What would you do?

Making different choices wouldn't change what I am either. I'm a human, I'm a son, I'm a brother. Those are just labels, and I think there's labels for you too. Spirit of Justice. Fine. But you get changed, just like everyone, not at the core but the rest of it too. It's like...

[He sways a little, looking at the bottle for a moment.]

It's like the bottle. Or no, that's stupid. It's like a peach. You've got the fruit on the outside that'll change and be eaten or get moldy or whatever, but the pit is always the same. And the pit is where new peaches come from. All the other stuff, it may change the peach, but it's still a peach at its core and it'll always be what it is. It doesn't think about what it has to do to stay a peach, it just always is.

[He runs a hand back through his hair, feeling sweaty and unpleasant from all the alcohol and uncomfortable that he can't seem to get through to Justice, that he can't just bend his words to fit in the spaces where they need to go. Maybe it's the alcohol ruining his ability to talk or maybe it's just that spirits are different, but that second part feels wrong. Spirits and mortals are so similar, especially spirits who've been made to walk the world. Cole was confused too, but in the way of a child learning how the world works. This feels the same, and Justice's moral question proves it.]

I would probably get myself killed trying to save everyone.

[He laughs helplessly for a moment, running his hands down his face.]

The right decision is always the decision you can live with. It's the decision that comes from knowing you tried your best to do what you thought was right, and if it comes out wrong then the right thing then is to fix what you can and apologize for the rest. Nothing ultimately good comes from death. Even... even people who abuse their power, maybe they need to be put down, but that's just an end. It's not the best case. The best case is that they see the error of their ways and turn it around to do good. The best case is you manage to get the train to stop or all the people off the tracks. Best and Right don't always get to go hand in hand.

[He watches the lights in the ceiling, halos forming around them and pulsing with his budding headache.]

It's more personal than general. It always is. Even spirits can't help but be guided by a personal morality.

What do you call demons, then?

The minor ones were always as they are, but the more intelligent ones, the more powerful ones by and large are corrupted spirits. They used to be just as dedicated to their virtue as I am, but they lost their way and became a different creature in the process. If a peach rots away, the pit will still become a tree, but if a spirit becomes a demon, then everything it ever does is poison.

[Justice considers Wolfe's answer, frowning. Honestly, he would probably get himself killed trying to save both too, but that's not exactly an option here. Either he dies and possibly saves Anders and all the people in the Chantry, or he lives and possibly saves the mages of Thedas. He's not sure if he can live with either decision.

But maybe he doesn't. Maybe that's why he's not in Anders anymore--they put him down before he did more damage. He considers asking Wolfe to confirm, but he doesn't want to hear it from Wolfe. He wants to hear it from Anders.

The thought of Anders makes him feel sick.]

I do not like that answer. If there is no objective truth, how am I meant to strive for a virtue? How can I know that I am doing it correctly?

If I try to be just without knowing what justice is, how can I ever be sure I am who I am? [He's scared of slipping. He's scared of this keystone of his identity cracking. He doesn't know what to do when this fundamental truth of his has crumbled in his hands.]

Demons are the same as spirits, aren't they? I mean, I know they're not, but demons were spirits once and so what if demons can turn back into spirits? Nothing is ever permanent but death, that's all I'm saying. People change, spirits change too, just in your case it's more... literal. But a bad person doesn't always have to be a bad person, maybe a demon doesn't have to be a demon.

[He waves his arms, maybe a bit excited to have someone to bounce this theory off of even if some small sober part of his mind is screaming that Justice is the literal actual worst person to express this too. Shut up brain, drunk Hawke is talking.]

There's so many lies the Chantry tells about magic, what it can't do or shouldn't do or whatever and people influence spirits so much that in my understanding, we make you what you are, or at least define your virtues. But nothing is subjective. Everything is objective. An apple to me is a pomme to Orlais and a potato is an apple too but in the ground and justice is different for everyone. Someone being killed for murdering someone else is just under the law in one country, but in another imprisonment is better, or being put to work until whenever the law dictates, but those things are all just to those groups of people.

[He's babbling, and sort of getting away from the point he's trying to make. If he was ever trying to make a point.]

We've all been a lot of different things, sometimes things we're not happy with, and even maybe lose sight of who we are, but what matters is that you believe you're doing what's right. Even if it wasn't right in hindsight, you still know you did what you thought was right at the time, and if you're still alive then you make up for it. You work to correct it, and that's staying true to yourself and your virtue.

In all my considerable life, I have never seen a demon become a spirit again. [That he remembers. To be fair, he doesn't actually know how much of his life that he's forgotten. Usually that doesn't bother him, but all the uncertainty of this moment makes him wish that he knew some things for sure.] If you truly believe that demons can be redeemed, have you ever attempted to talk one down?

[All this speculation about the nature of justice is giving him a headache. He's spent his life considering justice and what it is, but he's never wondered whether there was an objective standard.]

Just because a person, or even a people, believe that they are right does not mean that they are. Most Templars and Chantry officials truly and sincerely believe in the justice of the Circles, as do many non-mages across Thedas. Most magisters and citizens of Tevinter truly and sincerely believe in the justice of slavery, and most Qunari truly and sincerely believe in the justice of forcing others into their way of life. Find any random wrongdoer in the world, and chances are better than not that they will think themselves just. Just because they believe they are just does not make it so.

[Justice takes the bottle so he can have a drink. He really needs another for this conversation.]

Your kind does create mine. You have more effect on us than I believe you will ever know. [How can a mortal understand what it is like for the mere expectation of someone else to change his shape and behavior?] I can try to correct the things that I do wrong, but if I know that I will do wrong again, is it service to my virtue to carry on regardless?

N...ot as such. This only occurred to me recently though. It's not as if I've had a chance to test it.

[He waves it off, making a grab for the bottle and tossing it back. There's only a few swallows left now.]

But that's what I mean, is if there's so many concepts of justice, how can you be just one? You can't. No one is just one virtue or flaw or what have you, you've got to have both, even spirits. I think especially spirits or you just can't cope with the mortal world. That's the thing isn't it? The world doesn't change and people change too much and the Fade is the entire opposite.

[He points at Justice triumphantly, as if everything makes sense now.]

What you need to know is that you still can change the world around you, even if it's not like you did in the Fade, right? Even if it doesn't look like anything's changing, it absolutely does. Absolutely. All the time. So you're always going to be correcting, everyone's always got to be correcting because you never know if what you know is really right or if there's other things you don't know that later make your right wrong and you have to work on the new right like people stealing books or or or going too far with mirrors. You have to come to terms with the things before to keep going, and know that you did what you thought was best even if it turned out wrong or right or just complicated.

[Justice isn't sure if it's him or Wolfe who's drank too much, but he's losing track of whatever Wolfe is trying to say.]

What is this about books and mirrors?

[Justice waves it off before Wolfe has a chance to respond, taking a drink from the nearly empty bottle before offering it back.] Never mind. There are situations where context does matter in the rendering of justice. True justice should have room for mercy and atonement as well as punishment.

But there are some things that are wrong no matter what the context is, no matter what culture or motivation a person has. You say that you create my kind--you do, and all mortals have a part in creating us, including the mortals who are harmed by what others deem necessary evils. To question the wrongness in things that harm innocents is an invitation for corruption and sloth in the face of injustice.

Examples. It doesn't matter.

[He waves his hand dismissively, reaching to finish the bottle and realizing that would be rude so he hands it back over despite the beginnings of a pounding headache.]

And you're right, atonement, you're very right. So atone for it though, don't try and preempt it. Some things are meant to happen so other things can happen. Anders had to be freed by the Warden and end up in Kirkwall before I could ever meet him, things like that, but he didn't know that. He didn't do it to do that. Sometimes you do and sometimes you don't and in this case the Chantry had to go so the mages could be free. He tried for ten years and then, and then-- and it's not just him either! Or you. Fiona too, I heard, in Orlais. Leader of the rebel mages later. Naive woman from what I understood but she had to do what she did too, even if the vote made the Seekers crazy. Or demons did. Whatever, it's all too much to go through for one person. What matters is, what matters is, is atonement for the necessary wrongs. I'm not saying innocent people dying isn't wrong, I'm just saying it was... necessary. Regrettable and terrible but...

[He presses the heels of his hands to his eyes, seeing Kirkwall burning behind them, seeing the Templars cutting down mages in the streets, mages just trying to survive. Seeing those who turned to blood magic tearing through the streets, tearing through guardsmen just trying to do their jobs. He sees Meredith, drunk with the power of raw red lyrium, tainted beyond coherent thought.]

She'd already called for the annulment, you know. Before Anders and you made no room for compromise, there was already a request to the Divine to sanction the murder of every mage in the gallows in their beds. Every mage. Children as young as six.

[He'd heard it in harsh whispers in the gallows, seen it in the strain on every mage and templar's face.]

Not doing something would have been sloth. Not doing something would have been wrong. You can tell me that at least, can't you?

Not doing something would have been wrong, yes. We agree on that. But I cannot believe that murdering all those people was the only thing that could be done. If the Grand Cleric deserved to die, why did we not only kill her? If the spectacle of her death was necessary, why did we not kill only her while the Templars were watching?

[Justice shakes his head, nose wrinkling as he drinks the last of the bottle. These are all painful questions, but they have to be asked.]

And if those deaths were necessary for what happened next—and that is if—it does not change the injustice inherent in killing them. I am not a spirit of duty or necessity. If means to a righteous end never mattered, then the Fade would open and spirits would simply force mortals to behave virtuously. I am a spirit of justice. I cannot abide by committing such injustice, even if it is to right another.

[Justice rests his hand on his face, pinching the bridge of his nose. All of this philosophizing is getting to him.] At least I thought I could not abide by it.

[And there’s another issue, one much more personal and harder to articulate. To live would submit himself to his eventual complete destruction of self. He is dedicated to his virtue above all else, but his identity and free will are important to him too, and he’s seeing a future where both are withered away until he’s just the destructive extension of a mage’s anger, such that people who meet him don’t see him as anything with more individuality or personality than a parasite. Issues of justice will always be his priority, and he will sacrifice everything for it, but that doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t be a terrible sacrifice.]

Because Anders isn't wrong, he did change you.

[Wolfe exhales, frost curling in his breath but less because of his emotional turmoil and more because his drunk-brain just wants to watch it coil and fall in the air.]

He's angry. I'm angry. All the mages are angry and any that aren't are either too scared or aren't paying attention. It makes sense to want revenge for that, for wrongs done to you for no other reason than the circumstances of your birth. I was angry too, as a boy. I didn't want this.

[He waves his hand through the frost hanging in the air, making whirls and eddies.]

I wanted to be normal, not have to hide from Templars all my life. But it's wrong to make people feel that way, and it's still wrong even if the way you go about dealing with it is... vengeance.

[He sighs again.]

It's complicated. I don't know what he was thinking exactly either. Maybe he did want vengeance hand in hand with wanting freedom not just for himself but for all mages. Maybe it was a very clinical decision; that he couldn't warn anyone for fear of them finding and undermining his efforts. Maybe everything is true at once. What I do know is what happened, and the change that followed.

Vengeance does not have to be unjust. Killing a man who wantonly killed someone you loved is vengeance, but it is still justice. But the Chantry...

It is wrong, what is done to the mages. And it is wrong to see that injustice and do nothing. But it is also wrong to kill innocent people. I was truly changed, if I was able to do it regardless.

[Justice doesn't think that Wolfe will ever be able to appreciate just how horrifying this future is to him. Knowing that he will lose his free will, his independent mind, his sense of self, and then betray the very core of his being... it is the very worst nightmare any spirit could imagine.

He doesn't blame Anders for this fate, but that doesn't mean it's not still utterly mind-numbingly horrifying. Justice has never been the sort to fear the future, but he is afraid now. He is afraid of what he will lose. He is afraid of what he will become. He is afraid of what he will do.]

It is not Anders' fault he was angry. His anger is natural, and its effect on me was not something he could have predicted. But I do not relish my fate.

[The justice of destroying the Chantry and hurting Anders will always be his primary concern and everything that happens to him in the meantime is a distant second, but still. The thought of being absorbed into another person, twisted by their anger, unable to know his own thoughts any longer, unable to even speak save through their mouth, utterly consumed by their rage and the injustices they suffered until he is unrecognizable even to himself... it's not something he'd look forward to even if everything else about it were just.]

No, I guess you wouldn't.

[None of them do. Adalwolfe doesn't enjoy being the Champion of Kirkwall and everything that everyone around him thinks that entails. He doesn't like being responsible for unleashing one of the worst evils Thedas has seen as a secondary Blight upon the world and then leaving the Inquisition to clean it up. Anders feels the weight of being the most wanted man in Thedas like a stone pressing on his chest, far lighter than imprisonment in the Circles of all mages, but still making it hard to breathe. But at least they still have their faculties. They still know who they are, what they are.

Justice turns to Vengeance, Vengeance can turn to Rage...

He goes for the bottle again and frowns to find it empty.]

I should get more. Do you want more?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Do pigeons have feelings?

Closed to Justice

CW going forward for suicidal ideation

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