Destination: Carcosa

[polymods]

✖ Carcosa

Ⅰ. THE TEMPLE
You can read all about your character's arrival in the game lore.
The island's harbour is full of other ships, although not a single one of them seems to actually have a human being aboard. (You could certainly try to steal one, but doing so is an exercise in futility - you will find that even if you set off into the ocean you will wind up right back in the harbour again after spending a few hours lost in the fog.) Beyond the harbour is a glittering city of glass and gold. Curving arches and sharp geometric lines are the hallmarks of the architecture - an art deco paradise that whispers of decadence and hope for the future.

The people who crowd the streets wear suits and hats, drop-waist dresses and furs. Their faces are all blank smiles. It's the roaring twenties, darling, why do you look so concerned?

If it is your first experience of the Endless Isles, you have access to the High Temple. Should you wish, you may also seek out the island's own temple as well, which is located inside the city, in a district mostly forgotten by the residents. Don’t worry - your feet will carry you there.

The building is not large, and it is old and neglected. It has a domed ceiling, with panels of glass crisscrossed with metal painted gold curving upward. Whatever fine pattern may have formed there is lost to time; the glass at the centerpoint of the dome is gone, letting in the smell of the sea.

There are rooms equipped with beds spreading out like a spiderweb from the middle of the building. The temple proper is of course in the exact center, below the broken dome. In the middle of this circular room you will find dead branches gathered together to make a vaguely humanoid shape. This crude figure has been haphazardly painted yellow. A slab of concrete sits in front of it. There is not much to explore here; it is very quiet.

Either temple is a good place to simply rest, or meet some of your fellow Travelers. The High Temple of course has the Temple Chef and its usual Guardians, Flock, and Lantern.

The Island Temple has its own Guardians, which are small, pale humanoids with perfectly blank faces and small antlers like young deer. They will leave you alone unless you try to meddle with the central room. Doing so will result in one of them approaching you, and you will find yourself falling unconscious on the floor.

---

Ⅱ. THE MASQUERADE
Through happenstance, you find yourself in an enormous ballroom. Low couches are dotted everywhere, and a live band plays somewhere at the end of the massive space. A long bar takes up one side of the room, bottles sparkling under the light cast from the many cut-glass chandeliers hanging overhead. Champagne flows freely, and the scent of gin pervades the air.

All of the attendees are wearing masks.

You're dressed for the occasion, of course - you will find yourself wearing something reminiscent of 1920s America, with a small yellow sigil of some sort pinned to your breast. Ask any of the guests about it and they will tell you, "ah, it's a secret." You too, of course, are wearing a mask. You did not pick this mask, but if you look in the mirror hung over the bar you will find that it nonetheless hints at some aspect of your personality.

Which would be all well and good, except that you can't take the bloody thing off.

Moving around the ballroom, you will discover that a few other people also have the yellow sigil pinned to their clothing. It probably shouldn't surprise you that these people are all other Travelers, equally unable to take their mask off.

No, you can't unmask until you share something with your new-found friend: a secret. A REAL one, the sort you'd never speak aloud.

Of course, you can choose not to share. If you choose that route, however, you'll find that the mask is fusing with your skin. Leave it on past midnight when the cries of "UNMASK! UNMASK!" begin, and it will simply become your new face for the duration of the month.

---

Ⅲ. THE PLAY
Maybe parties aren't your style. No fear, there's plenty more to do and see in such a wondrous city. There's a theatre - the Meliora Grand as a matter of fact - and perhaps you're just the sort of person who would like to take in the arts.

The theatre has plush seats, and fabulous electric sconces lining the wall. Once you take your seat you'll find yourself looking at the stage, where a blood-red velvet curtain hangs. The theatre doesn't seem to fill up - indeed, it really seems that there's only you and one or two other people there. Curious.


The lights go down and the curtain is drawn open, revealing... well. Not much.

There are two chairs on the stage, a table between them. On the table lays a pallid face: a mask. Just a mask. Why not go on up and take a closer look?

Should you choose to touch the mask, you will feel a deep urge to speak to whoever else is in the theatre. You will, in fact, feel the desire to act out some sort of emotional trauma with them. Perhaps they suddenly look like your mother, your father, a lover who left you. Why don't you tell them how you really feel?

Naturally, you can both just sit in awkward silence instead. You'll be waiting until the morning to be let out, if that's the case.

---

Ⅳ. LOST CARCOSA
CW: the undead.
You find yourself walking along the beach at night. Along the shore the cloud-waves break, and black stars rise above you.

You can't quite pinpoint when you realise you are no longer alone. Maybe there is only one other person on the beach with you, or perhaps a few; you move as one down the expanse of sand until you realise there is something laying up ahead of you.

There is a heap of yellow cloth there, dry and tattered with age. It smells faintly of spices. Nestled among it is a jewel-encrusted human skull. Its empty sockets compel you to sit down in the cool, bone-white sand, to sit and speak to those around you about loss.

Everyone has lost something important to them. A person, a thing, a place, an aspect of the self. Something that's gone and you're never getting back. The skull grins endlessly, endlessly, encouraging you to speak about something you may not have laid to rest.

You can resist this compulsion. Maybe you were never good at sharing. Refuse the skull's silent request and you may continue down along the beach, or perhaps head back the way you came. As you walk, however, you will notice that there is a fog rolling in. It comes in off the sea/sky, obscuring the beach until you can barely see.

It's a terribly handy cover for the corpses that are shambling out of the surf. Wet, bloated, with eyes that glow a dim gold, they head for you silently. They wish to drag you back with them, into the depths. Better hope you can outrun or outfight them.

Bonus: What's that? You want a Carcosa playlist? You've got it, babes!

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Comments

[mewnifestos]

[ Being watched isn't a new feeling. He's spent years under the Templars' heavy gazes, and when that itch settles just there, high in the middle of his back, he does what he's always done, by painstakingly honed instinct— He pretends not to notice. He continues to mingle, letting the - decidedly unpleasant - sensation slide off him, as he distracts himself with more meaningless pleasantries and drink. 

Behind his mask, his curious gaze roves the crowd a little more deliberately, catches and lingers on passing strangers as they go. But none of them look his way for more than a moment. It's only by accident that he spies his audience, the purely incidental snag of his wandering eye on that veritable shadow of a man in the corner.

Well. At least he thinks that's the source of this prickly, watched feeling. Anders has no special sense of these things, in particular, and as much as these masks help to disguise his own wandering eye, they hinder the certainty of catching another's.

Not that it makes much of a difference. He approaches with the singular confidence of one who has rarely known shame, the edge of a flat smile on his lips. ]

I realize there's a lot to admire, but you could be a bit friendlier, if you're going to stare.

[nightschool]

[He assumes, of course, that he's marked and catalogued just the same at the same time, as effortlessly as he's been marking everyone else with a glimmer of the otherworldly to them. Witches have their ways of knowing, even if he doesn't know what about his kind stands out to theirs, merely that it does.

And he expects that to be the end of it--marking, mutual acknowledgement, and carrying on. He would much rather let the witch go about his business; watching, perhaps, where his efforts take him. Magic is their forte. If any creature should make inroads here, it would likely be a witch.

But he couldn't fail to notice when the witch in the feathered mask goes from circulating around the crowd to rounding on him.

Briefly, Kit considers abandoning his nearly-finished glass of some sweet-tasting liquor on the side table and retreating with the hope the witch will leave him be, but some vestige of sullen pride keeps him seated, pressing his back farther into the cushion. Inwardly bracing for whatever's to come, for much the same reason he'd resisted Hubbard's offer to install a witch in his household--ostensibly to care for the chores, in actuality to keep an eye on him. He'd believed so many stories about them were just inflated myths, but after her, and the firedrake--

Too late to change course now. A loudly chatting couple moves out of the way, accompanied by the clacking of the woman's pearl necklace, and the other creature steps out from behind them. The thinness in the smile might be the most familiar thing from home he's encountered thus far.

Adjusting for height, he lifts his chin, gaze landing first on the matching yellow sigil, then climbing; at this distance their eyes have no trouble locking on, reinforcing what he can already tell.]

I thought I was.

[Being friendly. At a distance. Politely ignoring one another, as incidents of shared spaces oft goes.]

[mewnifestos]

They don't say hello where you're from?

[ His amusement is light and - seemingly - honest, that edge momentarily fading from what of his expression is actually visible. He's more wary than ill-meaning, though, uncertain if he should be entertaining this stranger's apparent interest in him or high-tailing it out of here, disappearing into the crowd.

There's not much to garner from the partygoers without that squiggly little mark on their finery, though. And that leaves curiosity the more appealing avenue, unfortunately.

Anders sets his mostly empty glass aside as he helps himself to a seat on the other end of the couch. He leans back into the arm, turned conversationally toward the other man. ]

You'll have a lot more fun if you don't waste the whole party brooding in a corner, you know.

[nightschool]

[Without ever intending to, they've slipped into speaking separate languages. Where the man sees an overly inquisitive wallflower in need of uprooting, Kit is busy determining if the mild, ribbing greeting is meant in jest, mockery, or a precursor to a more troublesome brand of exchange. Of course they wouldn't say hello, and of course a witch wouldn't be the one running from a daemon.

He finds it difficult to read the signals he's given, and not just because of their circumstances or the obscuring masks. London teems with creatures but he cannot say, in all his years there, one of an opposing kind had ever just... walked up for a conversation. Or sat down, as it were.

Well, that's not precisely true. One had. But he must cast away the thought before the pain of it burns him, like flesh held over a fire.]

They do where you're from? [With more haughtiness such a reversal might have served as a glib retort, but it comes after a contemplative pause, and neutrally at that. He's too tired to be the first to throw stones.] For the likes of you and I? I wouldn't say so, no.

[Kit tracks him, head turning all the way around to the other end of the couch, with a spare seat between them. He thinks he spies blonde hair glinting beyond the border of gold-trimmed feathers. Blonde. Must it be blonde?]

You came to offer free advice?

[mewnifestos]

More often than they don't. But I suppose I can't be charming in every culture.

[ Anders laughs again, a sound edged with cheerful incredulity. Had he felt some kind of worried suspicion of this man, before? A glaring miscalculation, he's sure, now. He doesn't seem to know whether he's coming or going. At least not to any degree Anders can discern.

Unless, perhaps, he simply is that obliviously sincere? Either way, it's more amusing than offending, thus far, and he merely sketches another shrug, twirling a hand aimlessly through the air. ]

Only if you've a need. The advice of a healer can be quite costly, though, so you might as well consider it.

[ This, too, is in jest, of course. He'd rather not spend his time diagnosing strangers' minor aches and ills, with all this intrigue about. (Not that he wouldn't anyway, if asked.) ]

[nightschool]

[The sense that something rings slightly off-tune here continues, rising to a bemused jangle.]

Culture...

[He echoes the peculiar choice of qualifier, still where he sits, studying the other as steadily as before--if not more so as he works to understand the blonde's aim in this. What need does this charade serve? He can't see it; that worries him no less than the masquerade's aim.

... That is, supposing, the witch knowingly plays at charades. A thorn pricks him--a tenuous, doubtful line of thinking.]

I'm surprised. I would not have expected your kind to offer either service to mine.

[Kind. A deliberate choice on his part; a subtle probe wrapped in low, noncommittal tones. Surely the metaphor extends to more than superstitious healers and their gullible customers.]

[mewnifestos]

Well, you're clearly not Fereldan, so...

[ He's not sure there's a better word for it. (Or maybe he does have one, but the enormity of its suggestion is too much for him to want to consider, at this very moment. Other worlds draws so much more on the unknown, doesn't it?)

His kind pulls something more of a response from him; it may hardly be the first time Anders has heard something like that, but he thinks it the first he's heard it so unexpectedly. Usually someone has to know he's a mage before they - well, know he's a mage.

His initial impression returns to him, a flutter of suspicion he doesn't really know how to place - as if he did, the first time it fell on him. Still, he doesn't leap to confirm what he doesn't know is already certain, maintaining his innocence still. ]

My 'kind'? What, handsome, gregarious strangers willing to entertain the curiously lingering attention of others?

[nightschool]

I'd guess not.

[A simple enough confirmation when he has never before heard of such a people--and he does not think it overly prideful to believe his command of history and geography such that he would have, were they commonly known in his time and place.

Setting aside what he isn't, that leaves what he is. What they are, and what they should be to one another.

Although he sits at ease in his half-turned position with his back resting against the couch's arm, the only part of Kit that moves besides the rise and fall of his chest are his eyes--taking in everything still, and giving little away in return. Watchful. The discrepancies keep ticking away. Multiplying and stacking.]

A gregarious witch. If the other applies, it's too soon to say in costume.

[It's after a pondering second that he decides to cut to the heart of what seems to him a dance of confirmation, easing into a wry remark. Their conversation is all but lost in the noise, but he lowers his voice further anyway, reserved for the two of them.]

[mewnifestos]

A what?

[ Anders nearly laughs - only he doesn't find this funny, even in some crooked, fatalistic way. He's not been shy about what he is, here; why bother, when this might as well all be some strange and dangerous corner of the Fade? But being called out on it so plainly is another matter entirely. Even if he thinks should the Templars actually manage to find him here, he might have to commend them.

If this doesn't mean they haven't already. He can think of few others who'd have such an easy time of sussing him out, and this man, though odd, doesn't exactly exude those more sinister auras. ]

I suppose I've been called worse, but I tend to prefer mage, if we must bandy labels about like insults.

[ He sits back farther into his corner of the couch, crossing his arms, withdrawing in defensive fashion. His amusement seems to have withered on the vine. ]

How did you know? You haven't been following me, have you? I'll have to rethink our budding friendship, if that's the case.

[nightschool]

[All it takes is that one small act of calling a creature into the light, and the show of surprise and baffled wariness that follows, to cast some of that light onto their shared confusion. But if anything, greater understanding just brings with it greater disbelief. Good God. Could it be? Had the witch come over not knowing, and all this time after?

It's like a poor semantic riddle: when is a witch not a witch? When they use a different name. But it's the claim he's been insulting that provokes an incredulously amused huff of breath.]

Insults! [As if the very distinction they covet is offensive! Now that is funny. He pivots, reclaiming some of his placidity in the face of misunderstanding:] Ah, my apologies. I... assumed you could tell. Many can.

[Privately, he can't imagine why this one can't, but it certainly goes toward explaining a few things. What inspires tension in the witch (mage) seems to have the opposite effect in loosening his, and he relaxes by degrees, tilting his head with more curiosity than he'd allowed himself before. He'd been more uneasy thinking he was the one misunderstanding some gambit on the part of the other. Not comprehending the angles of a ruse.

But perhaps there is no ruse or gambit. Perhaps it's not gregarious acting, but a genuine lack of bandying the right label, as the other puts it.]

I am a daemon. Your glaem gave you away.

[This, to him, is not much of a secret; at least not to another creature, when he'd been under the impression his true self was already known. The devilish black mask remains affixed right where it is.]

[mewnifestos]

[ Well, that's one way to kill a mood. Those last clinging shreds of his cheerful facade fall away as Anders presses even farther back into the opposite end of the couch - he looks ready, in fact, to crawl right over it and make his best effort to disappear back into the crowd. Permanently, this time.

Distaste breaks through his confusion, though it's still heavily tempered by it. A demon? Really? And one that seems to want to be known for what it is, rather than keeping up the mask to play its games? (And yet also seems to have as much interest in him as one would have in touching a hot stove— Though he supposes now, that'd be a rather apt way to lure him in, wouldn't it?) ]

What do you want with me, then?

[ Not that he'd ever entertain it. He didn't pass his Harrowing and suffer through that year of torment in solitary just to let the first demon to ask to waltz into his head. But this could be a problem, couldn't it? Being known by something like... that. Here. Where he's just as alone. ]

You've already got a body, from the looks of it. And quite a handily possessed one, too. Hardly monstrous at all! And since I'm rather fond of mine, I don't see us coming to any sort of a bargain.

[nightschool]

[For the barest moment he thinks they've finally come out the other end to some sort of common view he finds comfortable and lived-in. The contemptuous recoil is closer to what he'd expect for a wearh--but the flavor of aversion is still closer than not to what he'd expected from the encounter.

But surprises continue to abound. The moment passes and the daemon in question is sure he's misheard. Must have. The man couldn't have done a more effective job catching him off guard than if he'd stretched the distance and kicked him in the mask with one long leg. He stills again, this time in taken aback, open-mouthed surprise. A rare state for him.

The three creatures assume and accuse one another of many things, on many fronts, but not once has he ever heard such ridiculousness from the mouth of anyone but a human.]

Oh--no, you can't mean--

[The laughter that bubbles out does so against his intentions, pulled out as if snared on the end of a fish hook wielded by sheer disbelief. It's a surprise in its own right, it's rusty, and it only builds into a quiet, mirthless hilarity until he puts a hand over his eyes to try and quell it.

At another time, he might've laughed freely until the tears came. He would've pulled Tom into the joke, laughed with Matthew about it until they were both grinning like fools. But there's none of that now, and any humor feels as though it rises out of a lonely, echoing place in his chest that leaves him feeling cold and unsatisfied instead of warm.

Even Diana, who'd known nothing about her own self, had known this much.]

If I'm possessing this body, I've only done so since birth. What monstrousness comes with it has not a drop to do with spirituality, I assure you. [He rubs his eyes clear and lowers his hand, unable to resist a fleeting smile.] It's been a while since I spoke to someone who believed in those superstitions.

Perhaps we mean different things. I am as you see. Flesh and blood.

[mewnifestos]

[ He'd be offended, perhaps, if any of that laughter sounded the least bit genuine. It's real, certainly, but rather than annoy him it just serves to further unsettle. No bit of his own tension dissipates, holding firm.

Of course, it doesn't take long for the first shock of irritation to twist through him, once the other man opens his mouth to speak again. Superstitions? He might as well be calling the air they breathe imaginary, hunger or thirst a child's fairytale. They're as solid and certain a facet of reality - as Anders knows it, anyway. ]

Oh, is that all they are? Just some old wive's tale? Well, I'll just trot back to Thedas and let all those mages who didn't survive their Harrowings know the good news! They can't be dead; the demons who turned them into abominations were only make-believe.

[ His faux-saccharine tone twists into bitterness too quickly, bleak and unflinching. Whether he means to or not, he's all but kicked open a festering wound, himself. ]

I remember their names and their faces and what their twisted corpses looked like when the Templars dragged them from the tower to be burned. But I'm sure I would love to see as much humor in it as you do.

Obviously demon is just some funny little title, where you're from. It's not the same everywhere.

[nightschool]

No more and no less a marker of status than witch.

[Sobering from the shock of what he would've described, just days ago, as being as likely as an angel dropping down from heaven's embrace and shitting on his head, it behooves him to reconsider the impossible.

Yes, what bitter irony; he can near taste what the other swallows in choking mouthfuls. Despite not recognizing the primary details, or the image of daemons with influence to rival magic reflected back upon him, he recognizes the rest: the bloody brutality of otherwordly conflicts.]

I can only speak for what I know, and we do call them superstitions, stories spread and embellished by people who assign abilities to those who don't have them, or else very little. I know as many daemons died at the hands of Templar knights as witches and humans on the wrong side of history. I know I do not have the power to affect a witch.

[He bows his head, as small an act of apology as he imagines would be desired coming from someone who's written and profited off of and derided the lived reality of the other.

As much as it seems their kind are destined not to mix well in any place, he can have sympathy for the ring of suffering in the witch's voice.]

I also now know there are worlds upon worlds beyond my reckoning, and what I do not know, I cannot speak for.

[mewnifestos]

[ Contrition is not something he expects. Ordinarily, this conversation ends with him being written off - along with all the atrocities the Circle stands for. He's always making a big deal out of nothing, surely just exaggerating; so some mild acquiescence from a stranger from another world is the last thing that should come from this seemingly ill-fated meeting. (Or at least it seemed so, a moment ago.)

Anders doesn't really relax, but some of the edginess eases out of his demeanor. He doesn't understand - not anymore than he appears to be being understood. But the lack of an argument or even more derisive laughter assuages some of his offense. ]

Well you're right about that.

[ Though the same could just as easily be said of him. But Anders isn't feeling particularly self-reflective, at present. ]

Why call yourself a demon at all, then, if you bear no resemblance to one? It seems counterproductive, at the very least. Especially if you prefer not to be slain by an errant Templar. Or anyone else with a taste for self-preservation.

[nightschool]

[Not long ago, it'd have been more than he'd normally offer unprompted to a stranger, let alone another creature. But Matthew's farewell to him had left marks, though the physical wounds were healing under his clothes. In some blackened, guilt-ridden part of him, he is contrite, but he doubts his crimes against the last witch he'd acquainted can be forgiven.

He'll pay the price for it--and soon. Her final words for him still lodge in his chest like a ball of ice, chilling his blood right down to his core. Deeper still he knows he doesn't have any right to try and dislodge it.

Self-preservation. He's silent until that point when another mirthless half-smile threatens to tilt his lips. However, it's shorter-lived than the last, his earlier laughter burnt out with no spark to reignite it.]

I don't resemble them. They resemble me.

[And yet he gestures along the side of his face, as if contrasting his words with the very reality of his mask.]

To the ancients, daimonoi were intermediaries between man and deity. Now we're tormentors of the innocent and the faithful. In another thousand years, it'll mean something different.

But in most company I call myself Christopher Marlowe and leave the rest to the imagination.

[If the witch doesn't care for labels and silly titles, they'll have to resort to names.]

[mewnifestos]

[ That's not really an answer, satisfying or otherwise, to what he's been trying to get at - but even it has a ring of familiarity. He still isn't sure what, if anything, differentiates the man across from him from simply being some maligned human (as Anders would consider himself, honestly, because mage isn't also mutually exclusive, there). But he's also starting to feel like asking is pointless.

And he had been managing to scrape some sort of enjoyment out of this dreary party. That alone is enough to maintain his mild yet persistent ire. ]

'Tormentors of the innocent and the faithful'? I think I heard a Chanter shout that about mages, once.

[ Or maybe it was just in the Chant. Anders might have a propensity to get a bit preachy, himself, but he's never been devout enough to actually pay attention during sermons. ]

You can call me Anders. Though if you're always going to be so sour about it, I pray you won't often.

[nightschool]

As have I. All creatures share that in common, if nothing else.

[And among cultures, it would seem--along with the same rampant hypocrisies. There's no gain in taking a swipe at the request and all it contains of the latter; he merely acquiesces by putting a hand to his chest and, wordlessly and wryly, inclining his head in a more overt bow the second time around. As you say.

Now that the witch understands--and by all accounts, agrees with--why he'd kept his distance, he doubts they'll have much contact worth worrying about. He tamps down on the many questions he wants to ask, save for the most pressing.]

Perhaps this Ancient will see fit to answer them. As for my interest in you, I was wondering how you and your magic were faring with this enchantment.

[mewnifestos]

[ Anders doesn't understand half of this mess he's waded into, but he doesn't imagine himself special in that regard. He wouldn't be surprised if Serah Marlowe has a habit of making such illustrious first impressions, on mages or otherwise.

He scoffs, shaking his head as he turns his gaze to the crowd again. Perhaps forlornly eyes another tray of that obnoxious, fizzy drink. If he just bolted now, he could probably catch it. ]

I'm not a creature, first of all. I'm a human being.

[ He's pretty sure he deserves that much, whatever obscure facet of his existence has so offended his present company. ]

And I hardly think my magic is any business of yours.

Do you often ask probing personal questions after insulting and belittling someone? Because it's usually better done with at least a modicum of charm.

[nightschool]

Ridiculous. [Immediate and unbending and laden with choked laughter.] Of course you are.

[Behind his mask, blank incomprehension reigns. What contention is there to take in what they are, creatures, those that live among humans but stand a fraction apart? He hadn't been tearing the other down; he'd been drawing a bridge between them.]

The only one here who seems determined to insult you is you. And myself. Your own people. All three of the creatures.

[Thunderstruck disbelief returns with twice the vengeance, loaning him animation where'd been a pointed lack of it before. Sitting up straight, his posture lights up with the incredulity of the downright extraordinary. He finds himself leaning forward, scarcely daring to consider adding this, too, to the list of impossibilities this one interaction has managed to birth.]

My god, do you come from a place where you believe yourself to be human?

[The very thought! Now the witch's sulky sourness begins to make sense in its totality. To one, a common enemy in human imagination is almost a point of camaraderie. To the other, an egregious mockery. Unable to hold back a surprised smile, he leans closer still as if departing some conspiratorial wisdom--or more to the point, the extended history lesson required to shed light on this backward back-and-forth.]

To call a witch human would be the gravest of injuries--I might as well offer my hand to their face and be done with it. They take great pride in being anything but. Have you felt I've been quite unmannerly naming you a part of the world of creatures? [He chuckles softly, genuinely touched by amusement.] I was paying you the due respect, you silly fool--there's your insult. Unless they do not yet know they belong to it, no witch, daemon, or wearh I know would suffer being mistaken for human among one another.

How strange you are. [Musing.] It's as if our histories face each other in a warped mirror.

[mewnifestos]

[ Anders can't help but roll his eyes as he's treated to yet another short sermon on why he's so wrong about his own life and lived experiences. If it weren't so stiflingly familiar, he'd almost be offended. As it is, it's just exasperating. And insulting. ]

Oh, please. You wouldn't know respect if it were a furry little creature that jumped up and bit you on the ass. You know, I listened to you when you said you weren't a demon-demon. You could at least do me the same courtesy.

[ His humor is less strained as he settles into what feels like the most nostalgic dynamic in the world, now. Being talked down to is such a second nature to him, after all his wasted years in the Circle. These days, he's more used to it coming from the nobles who pass through Vigil's Keep, all wanting something or conspiring some way. And always the errant Templar on the road, of course.

His surprise has faded, now, and he regards the other man with the cheerfully bland contempt he's more or less perfected, as it always pertains to someone who wants to speak to him as if he's the one not listening. ]

I know who I am and I know what I am. A mage - as I've been trying to tell you? Not a witch, not a creature, not a monster.

I'm as human as an elf is still an elf, or a qunari is still a qunari, when they just happen to be born with magic. No one owes us respect for that any more than they would someone born with green eyes or freckles or a perfect nose and chiseled jaw. Most of us just want to be treated like we're anything better than the Chantry's property.

[nightschool]

[A gesture of a hand--a welcoming invitation for the other to serve a lesson in turn. Even at the risk of inspiring further outrage, he's interested to hear, especially with the concept of birth unexpectedly up for autopsy on the table.

He can see the wound for what it is now, and how sore. He had thought it strange to be likened to Christendom's devils on one end and humankind on the other, but it would be odious indeed to desire humanity while being halfway severed from it already by the very nature of one's magehood, just to be threatened with a complete split with a call to the otherworldly.]

Then please forgive a creature his ignorance. I've never heard the like before and mistook a common ground we don't share. No discourtesy intended.

[Warped and inside out and fascinatingly incongruous. And still, the apologetic admission is sincere, for what little it matters; he had not imagined it possible, this. All of this, right down to so inverting one's sense of self.]

[mewnifestos]

I think it's a bit late to make that claim.

[ Some discourtesy had certainly seemed intended, amidst all that backhanded frippery. Anders did not in the least get the impression, here, that he was in any way a welcome presence - before or after the necessary clarifications began.

But he shrugs his way back toward the throng of the party, thinking of fresh air on a balcony and more of that bland, fizzy liquor again with longing. ]

In any case, my evening's not spent, yet, and I'd rather make something more pleasant of it while I still can.

[nightschool]

[He watches, equanimous in the face of the rejection. The ultimate irony in the shell game of claims: how very like a witch, to choose one's pleasure over the predicament of many.

No one can say Kit hadn't tried this time.]

You'll believe as you like, I'm sure. Good luck.