sixthiterationlogs | One | Fate Emptied of Hope

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One | Fate Emptied of Hope

WHO: Alistair Theirin
WHERE: Fountain Square/Inn
WHEN: Dec 27, Evening
OPEN TO: One at the fountain (Claimed by Zev), OTA at the Inn, per usual.
WARNINGS: None - will edit if any occur.

'Cross Veil and into the valley of dreams:

"Very funny," came the voice from near the fountain. Dripping wet and cold, Alistair looked challengingly up at the sky, arms held out to either side. "But I don't know how you thought I'd fall for this! This isn't Redcliffe," he called. "And it's definitely not Denerim or Kirkwall or Wycome. It's not any of those tiny towns in Orlais. I've never seen this place before, so it's not my memory, cheater!"

Bending down, he picked up the first thing he saw - oh, a rock, that'll help - and threw it upward, not really noticing where it went. He heard it fall on the ground somewhere, but that was neither here nor there. It was proof he'd thrown it the wrong way, if anything.

"I don't trust you, Nightmare!" More agitated, he started to look for another rock. Another anything. "Or is this some Despair Demon's work? Encroaching on your territory now that you lost the Inquisitor? Well tough luck to you both - I'm not afraid anymore, and there's nothing left for me to Despair over. I might be the Maker's own idiot, but I'm not going to trust this illusion!"

Where had his sword gone. His shield, his armour. Which direction was the damned Nightmare?! He couldn't fight the damned thing if he couldn't see it, and he couldn't see it. Anywhere. Whatever Demon it was fueling this illusion, it was better than any he'd fought through yet, and he didn't want to think about what that meant.

In ignorance stumbling:

There was a good fire burning, and that was nice. Really, the place was nicer than roughly every other inn he'd ever seen, including the Hanged Man -- Well, honestly, it far surpassed the Hanged Man, the Pearl, definitely the Spoiled Princess. Places with names he couldn't remember because all he'd been concerned about was finding the bottom of his mug and then having another.

No such luck here, not that he minded. He'd had years to leave that particular vice behind, not that it had been a kind one while he'd had it. But at least now he was warm, dry, and, though confused, knew a few things for certain: There was food, there was shelter, and there was a chance - at least something of a chance - that this wasn't the Fade.

As he stood by the fire, pleasantly toasting himself, he realised he had a lot to think about. And that thought made his head hurt. Nose wrinkled, Alistair rubbed at his temples, muttering a quiet, "Ow."

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Tevinter.

His first thought, seeing the cast of his skin, the colour of his hair - even the accent - was Tevinter, and that matched part of his theory.

And so, though the man seemed friendly enough, he found himself wary all the same. No reason to let on, though, and he said, almost flippantly, "Just thinking too hard. I've been warned against it before, you know - Morrigan always liked to tell me that if I think too hard, eventually I'd burn out what brains I have. Which, according to her, isn't much."

It was always easier to ramble, to give a little more, to distract from reality while he tried to figure out if this was a particular push of the Fade or if someone was just... unfortunate enough to look and sound Tevinter when, last he'd heard and seen, a Tevene Magister was trying to rip open the Fade and let Nightmare through.

Gaius had grown accustomed to the variety of accents he heard in this place, without being able to necessarily name where they came from. He'd heard accents vaguely like this man's before, so he didn't need to adjust to it, which WAs a good thing, because the man spoke quickly, his vowels very different from Latin.

"There are many things to think about here, maybe Morrigan would think hard here too." Gaius said. "You are newly arrived? It is a confusing place."

He was well aware that the man seemed wary for some reason, and that he didn't know what it was. But he was a politician, once, before he'd come here, and he'd been good at connecting with people, so he didn't let that dissuade him.

"My name is Gaius Sempronius Gracchus. I stay here at the Inn."

"What part of Tevinter are you from?" he asked idly. "And how about your family? Altus? Laetan?" And while his pronunciation of those words might not have been perfect, it was... close. Ish. Tevene taken through the Fereldan meatgrinder of accents. To most, he'd sound English of some stripe or other. To him, he just sounded... Redcliffe.

"My name is Alistair, by the way."

And he really needed to stop being so blunt. He did, he knew he did, but damn it, he was tired, and... And he needed to take Zevran up on that offer to sleep for a week.

After he ate, though. Ate and thought.

"It is good to meet you, Alistair."

Gaius was used to people not expecting him to be from Rome, so far in the past according to their understanding. He had also grown used to the strange feeling when someone here had not heard of his home, although it was the brightest light of civilization in his time. But he wasn't used to people asking about where he was from as though they knew, but with terms he didn't recognize. The closest he'd experienced to date was being asked about Italy, and that had been simple to work out.

Tevinter, however, was not. Nor was the rest of the question: high? Happy? Gaius let the confusion show, his brow furrowing as he repeated the words silently, as he'd had to do many times while he learned to speak English.

"I do not know where Tevinter is," he said, careful to pronounce the strange name as closely as he could to Alistair's pronunciation. "I am from the city of Rome. Do you know of it?"

"...Nnnno. Huh." Worth thinking about. Worth turning over in his mind a few times. "You look just like most Vints I've seen, though. Skin's the same colour. Hair, too. But I've heard there are people here from other worlds so maybe your Rome is our Tevinter and our Tevinter is your Rome. That kind of thing."

It made a sort of sense at least, and one he could live with - especially since he was still somewhat convinced most of this was Demons.

"This whole place is off by about three feet, though, when it comes to everything I've ever known."

It is a theory that Gaius hasn't heard expressed so clearly here, and the curiosity on Gaius' face is not a construction of the interest a politician takes in the people around him out of political necessity, but in the idea itself. The idea of people being from different worlds is now one that he's used to, as strange as it had been to first encounter the idea in this place. But the idea that there may be parallels of the same places in different worlds was a compelling one.

"Much about this place is wrong," he agrees, after a moment to parse the idiom he hasn't heard before. "It is an interesting suggestion. What is Tevinter like?"

"Horrible, from what I underst-- ...I just stepped in it, didn't I."

Alistair pursed his lips. First he'd made the parallel between Tevinter and Rome, and now he was insulting it. Oh what a genius he was.

"I mean. Maybe it's all right for--

"This is going to come out badly no matter what," he sighed, resigning himself. "Those of us from the rest of Thedas are basically taught to hate Tevinter from before the time we can say the word. They have slaves, sometimes kidnapped from the rest of Thedas. Their mages do blood magic, usually using their slaves' blood. Sometimes they kill them for it. They're always at war with the Qunari, and it seems like the bad things they do like to seep out into the rest of the world. But. I did meet a man from Tevinter not long ago - Dorian was his name - and he had... ideas. Ideas on how to fix things. To get rid of the blood magic, for all I'm not sure of his stance on the whole slavery thing."

'The whole slavery thing', as Alistair put it, was one of the things that Rome and Tevinter had in common. It was also something that Gaius had long ago learned was very different in the cultures that most of the people in this place came from. And for all he was a man who loved his city, who had been born and raised in its service, Gaius was also a man who knew that there were honest grievances to be had with Rome.

He made a small gesture, a little wave of his hand that said, go on. His people had eliminated Carthage, and he'd set out to establish a colony on the site. His people exploited the allegiance of their Italian neighbors without granting them the rewards they should have earned, exploited their own poor and, yes, their slaves.

"It is true that Rome has made slaves of people captured in war. But to kill a human for magic is against the laws of the gods."

It was clear from the look on his face that he truly meant that. It was am impious, nefas act, horrific to any right-thinking person. Perhaps he and Alistair had more in common than Alistair thought.

"It's against the laws of our Maker, too, but that doesn't stop them," he answered, lifting his shoulders in a shrug.

"They're seeking power. More than anything else, every last member of the magisterium. They want to take back all of Thedas. Needless to say, all of Thedas doesn't really want them because they're quite happy ruling themselves.

"And they've been stealing people for slaves, and they've been killing people, undermining people, meddling in wars to try to benefit themselves..." Alistair exhaled, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "But then there are people like Dorian and I... don't know. I feel like it's not hopeless if there are people like him there - he's a good person. So, really, I should apologise for relating them to you."

"There are good people to be found in the most corrupt group."

Gaius could understand that, and he spoke with feeling, from his own experience. Not on the scale that Alistair was suggesting; in his time, Rome had the ambitions to expand across the mare internum, but was not yet the ruler of the entire sea as he'd learned it would be. He could hear the parallels starting to line themselves up between Rome and Tevinter.

He loved his city, but he still loathed the Senate for what they'd done to him, to his brother, to the people they were supposed to be caring for.

"There are people in Rome who seek power above all else, no matter who they hurt. You may not have been so wrong."

"Well." He paused, not sure how welcome the thought would be - but in the end, he still presented it. "Maybe you can be like Dorian, then. Start trying to change things instead of letting it plod along in a bad path because it's easy or it's tradition."

But then he shrugged. "Easier said than done, I know. But... Probably worth it, right?"

He hoped so, at least. Someone still needed to change the Wardens. He certainly wouldn't be able to, and he had a feeling that Sereda wouldn't want to. The way they were structured now--

No. No, he was not going to think about that.

"I believe I have missed my opportunity."

There was wistfulness in his voice as he said it; he didn't often speak of who and what he'd been in Rome, and less about what he'd tried to do with who he was. It could have been easy, for him and Tiberius. If they'd kept their legislative proposals safe and uncontroversial, neither of them would have met the difficulties they had. Tiberius might still be alive, and Gaius would not have been under pain of death if he ever returned to Rome.

"I thought it would be worth it, but I believe much of what I did will be undone."

He was sure of it. It had been Opimius' aim as consul to revoke his legislation and reassert the Senate's grip on that he had managed to slightly loosen. That had been the start of the violence that had killed Antyllus and led to the standoff on the Aventine that had been his last day in Rome.

"What anybody does might be undone," Alistair answered, "but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done in the first place. When people try to do the right thing, people benefiting from the wrong thing always fight back. I've seen it myself."

He shrugged, then reached over to pat the man's arm. "I mean, not that the whole idea isn't kind of moot as long as we're here. But it doesn't mean you can't still do it when and if you go back."

Just because he wouldn't get the chance didn't mean no one else would.

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One | Fate Emptied of Hope

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