Do pigeons have feelings?

[wolfehawke]

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?]

Comments

[whatisright]

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.]

[wolfehawke]

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.

[whatisright]

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.]

[wolfehawke]

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?