I think if I sink a knife into him and his soul has departed from where I am stuck, then murdered is still appropriate. I have killed him in some way, if not permanently.
[ he hums a response at first, quiet, digging a toe into the sand. his hands are still all bandaged up, and the marks on his neck have deepened into bruises - more dark bruising settled heavily under his eyes from the broken nose. ]
You've seen what happens when we are together. It is not good for anyone. People get hurt.
I don't know exactly how it was in your world, but many of you come from conflict. It is hard to get along when you're born into complicated situations that continue all around you. There's more to balance in your lives than just yourselves with each other.
[ she hesitates to add more for a moment, because it is bringing up the thing people have been upset with them for. but ultimately she has so little filter that it comes out anyway. ]
This place was supposed to be an escape from outside forces. In that way, we failed you.
I did blow up a Chantry. It was of my own free will.
[ he did. do that.
but he doesn't really seem upset when she brings that up, just reaching a hand up to gently touch the marks at his throat. ]
I don't know that it's your fault. Wherever people are, we will bring our sins and failures and triumphs and virtues with us. I know this place isn't the Fade, necessarily, but it seems close enough. It is always reacting to us, ever-changing. Pretending we could ever escape entirely was the failure.
It was of your own free will, but was it not in reaction to something outside of yourself? Something bigger than individual conflict. I'm not saying that it was completely justified. I don't know enough to assume that.
But I'm sure that you did have your own reasons. And I don't think that they were shallow.
[ she watches, then glances away like she thinks that might be a little more polite than staring. ]
... The larger realm of Heaven is more reactive than these parts of it should be. I don't think that this is because of any of you.
[ this is not said unkindly, just... like she's clarifying. ]
I'm not sure, yet. Others among you theorized there's an outside influence, and that seems the most likely to me. At first we thought it may have been an illness carried by Jing Yuan that caused the first incident, but it doesn't sound as if that would be contagious, nor should illnesses advance to that point to begin with. And with more going wrong by the day...
Perhaps someone in the wider realm of Heaven who disapproves of this program.
When people disapprove or think something is unfair, they turn to sabotage. To taking lives.
[ not a small amount of people. the grand cleric, certainly, but it ... was a large explosion. chantry sisters, templars, anyone who might have in the vicinity and honestly quite a few people beyond. it had spread debris and shrapnel across the city. and in the aftermath, every mage who didn't survive the onslaught, every civilian caught between the combatants. fighting a war in a city is brutal, and bloody. ]
It's not as if I can't understand that.
[ maybe it is unfair? maybe whoever has been ruining this chance has been screaming at the powers that be for years about how it should not be this way.
maybe they are a petty, violent, insane person who has jumped to violence as a solution that will change nothing but draw more blood. ]
I believe that it's the duty of all living things to protect the lives of others.
But I also realize that if violence is already being enacted on someone, insisting they remain peaceful is not saving lives. It's deciding who's will be lost. It's a decision I've had to make before, and it's more complex than I'd like it to be. And just like me, each one of you have your own reasons for what you may have done in life. Some of it may have been justified. Some of it may not.
But death is not necessarily an ending. I believe in this program, and in all of you to use your deaths as a new beginning.
It's just... become a different obstacle with these occurrences.
Everything comes in waves. Beginnings and endings and new beginnings again.
I chose to let go of the one I love. To try to put an end to a larger conflict at the cost of their life, even if I wouldn't be there to see peace brokered myself.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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A day after murdering Hawke in a violent, righteous fury? I've been worse, I suppose.
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But please don't lose hope when his soul is still out there.
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It makes us even, at the very least.
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You've seen what happens when we are together. It is not good for anyone. People get hurt.
no subject
I don't know exactly how it was in your world, but many of you come from conflict. It is hard to get along when you're born into complicated situations that continue all around you. There's more to balance in your lives than just yourselves with each other.
[ she hesitates to add more for a moment, because it is bringing up the thing people have been upset with them for. but ultimately she has so little filter that it comes out anyway. ]
This place was supposed to be an escape from outside forces. In that way, we failed you.
no subject
[ he did. do that.
but he doesn't really seem upset when she brings that up, just reaching a hand up to gently touch the marks at his throat. ]
I don't know that it's your fault. Wherever people are, we will bring our sins and failures and triumphs and virtues with us. I know this place isn't the Fade, necessarily, but it seems close enough. It is always reacting to us, ever-changing. Pretending we could ever escape entirely was the failure.
no subject
But I'm sure that you did have your own reasons. And I don't think that they were shallow.
[ she watches, then glances away like she thinks that might be a little more polite than staring. ]
... The larger realm of Heaven is more reactive than these parts of it should be. I don't think that this is because of any of you.
no subject
[ the hand will drop after a moment. ]
If not us, then who?
no subject
[ this is not said unkindly, just... like she's clarifying. ]
I'm not sure, yet. Others among you theorized there's an outside influence, and that seems the most likely to me. At first we thought it may have been an illness carried by Jing Yuan that caused the first incident, but it doesn't sound as if that would be contagious, nor should illnesses advance to that point to begin with. And with more going wrong by the day...
Perhaps someone in the wider realm of Heaven who disapproves of this program.
When people disapprove or think something is unfair, they turn to sabotage. To taking lives.
no subject
[ not a small amount of people. the grand cleric, certainly, but it ... was a large explosion. chantry sisters, templars, anyone who might have in the vicinity and honestly quite a few people beyond. it had spread debris and shrapnel across the city. and in the aftermath, every mage who didn't survive the onslaught, every civilian caught between the combatants. fighting a war in a city is brutal, and bloody. ]
It's not as if I can't understand that.
[ maybe it is unfair? maybe whoever has been ruining this chance has been screaming at the powers that be for years about how it should not be this way.
maybe they are a petty, violent, insane person who has jumped to violence as a solution that will change nothing but draw more blood. ]
no subject
But I also realize that if violence is already being enacted on someone, insisting they remain peaceful is not saving lives. It's deciding who's will be lost. It's a decision I've had to make before, and it's more complex than I'd like it to be. And just like me, each one of you have your own reasons for what you may have done in life. Some of it may have been justified. Some of it may not.
But death is not necessarily an ending. I believe in this program, and in all of you to use your deaths as a new beginning.
It's just... become a different obstacle with these occurrences.
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[ even here. ]
... What did you decide?
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I chose to let go of the one I love. To try to put an end to a larger conflict at the cost of their life, even if I wouldn't be there to see peace brokered myself.