[Open]

[freedomscall]

What| Anders trying to adjust to a new environment.
Where| Around the capitol.
When| Now?
Warnings/Notes| None at the moment


Everything was too big. He should have felt relief: this city was larger than anything he had seen before. There was so much grandeur, all glittering and beautiful and so easy to focus on. A man like him could have been swept away, swept under the rug, swept up in everything and easily forgotten. He could hide in the crowd. With so many people, no one would notice just another man.

Anders, however, felt nothing but suffocated. Every glance caused him to flinch and bury himself deeper within himself. The knot in his stomach pulled tighter, and tighter with every turn he made and every person he passed.

He had no idea how long he had been walking, or even where he was anymore. A heavy sigh escaped him as he rubbed his forehead.

"Andraste's tits...What is going on?" . For a moment he let his situation consume him, let the whole Capitol consume him.

It was the sound of footsteps coming up behind him that snapped the mage out of his stupor.

Comments

[revocation]

"You have no idea," Cullen says bitterly. "No idea of the problems you caused. You didn't make things more difficult for the templars. You made things worse for mages. The rebellion may not have been nearly so bloody if Kirkwall hadn't been fresh in everyone's minds. When the mages and templars went to war, everyone suffered. And while you aren't at all important enough to lay the blame squarely at your feet, you certainly contributed."

He gives the other man a withering look. "I contributed too. In my own small way, but somehow I doubt you care. About any of the damage you did."

[freedomscall]

“Something had to be done, Cullen. You aren't so bloody dense that you couldn't see that!” he snapped, his hands balling into fists. “If you were in my shoes would you have sat by, idly watching your friends get turned into mindless- mindless puppets?”

He gritted his teeth, “You can't just let the world pass you by, and hope things get better some day. I wasn't about to let your order turn us all into husks. You knew mages once. Picture Solona Amell as one of those emotionless things!”

Anders shook his head, his body trembling at his rage. He drew a breath through clenched teeth. He needed to calm down. There was no need for this. He did not need Justice.

“You can't just sit by and hope it gets better”.

[revocation]

Cullen just shook his head at the man's rantings. "No one was ever going to make all mages tranquil. Not even Meredith at her most extreme. You're deluded, Anders, and you're speaking of things you know nothing about. I'm done listening to this. I have far more important things to do."

Like find a way for them to get back to their home - as fucked up as it might be.

[freedomscall]

“No one was ever going to let us live freely, either, Cullen. You may disagree with my views on Meridith and Tranquility but you can't deny me that. We were never going to have freedom. Your lover, your children, your family- if ever they were a mage they'd be forever locked in the walls of a circle. You call me delusional but you cannot deny that”, his voice came out calm, quiet. Anders would make no friends with the former Templar, but he knew Cullen wasn't an idiot.

[revocation]

With that, he rounded on the other man, with a glare that was like daggers.

"My lover is a mage," he hissed. "And back home, she was doing what you would've been too cowardly to even try. She was uniting people, fostering understanding and tolerance. She was repairing the damage that you, and I, and Meredith, and so many others caused. All mages will have more freedom, because of her. Certainly not because of you."

With that, he turned on his heel and started walking away.

[freedomscall]

"Then why can't you understand?!" Anders called to the former Templar. For a moment he felt a small tug of guilt for what he had said, but only a small tug.

"What I did had to be done. Do you think I like being a murderer? Do you think I can sleep soundly with this? If your lover is a circle mage then she knows about how harsh, and hard, and unbearable being no better than nuggets shit is to the rest of the world. You stand here and tell me she it's making change to a world I helped destroy." Anders shook his head. "Can you tell me any of what she has done would have been possible with the Chantry and Templar chains?" The fact that the woman was out of the circle at all, that she had the respect of a former templar, showed Anders that something in their world had finally given way.

It was a small victory.

[revocation]

"I understand that you had a choice, as we all do," Cullen said. "It was a choice, make no mistake. The difference between me and you, however, is not that one of us is better, or worse. It's that one of us recognized that he was part of the problem. And it wasn't you."

There was no victory, not for Anders, not as far as Cullen was concerned. He did nothing but cause destruction and death. That was his legacy, and always would be.

[freedomscall]

Anders tried not to laugh, tried not to shout, tried not to throw a fire ball at the Templar.

“Maybe so, but you never tried to find a solution to the problem. At least I did something. I could see the reality of it. I know you could too. The difference between you and me is that I wasn't a coward.”

[revocation]

He has nothing to say to that - it would be pointless. Anders has no idea of the things he's done since that time, no idea of his commitment to atone for his negligence. Frankly, he doubts trying to explain it all would do anything to change the man's perception of him - Anders wants to vilify him, caricature him as an evil Templar because it's easier to see the world that way, and nothing Cullen can say will alter that.

So he walks away.