Chapter Thirty-Five: Two Lousy Options
Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Age 2.
"I know you fear us and I know that there have been a lot of very good reasons for that fear but this is still getting ridiculous!" Orsino pontificated, pacing along the lengths of the platform at the edge of the Gallows. "Meredith has taken control of your city and everyone knows that she is absolutely insane! And don't even get me started about this farce of the Qun-convert Saemus living on Par Vollen being our viscount!"
The large crowd of mostly nobles – why were they even there? Did Orsino advertise for this? – seemed to agree with his words. Then again, they always seemed to agree with whoever was talking at the moment.
Meredith arrived then, flanked by her faceless guards as per usual. Templar guards, that is, not useless city guards.
"She's gotten a lot more visible since she went off the deep end," Varric murmured.
"Return to your homes," Meredith ordered. "You know how I feel about free speech!"
Obediently, the nobles turned to go but a word from Orsino stopped them.
"Wait! Perhaps there are some who might disagree with you, Knight-Commander," Orsino challenged.
Meredith laughed. "As the completely unopposed dictator carrying out the will of our distant viscount, I don't care if everyone in this damn city disagrees with me because I can do what I want."
"Oh, not this again!" Orsino cried, throwing his hands up in the air.
"I happen to know for a fact that our Champion gets more letters from the Arishok than you do from Saemus!" Orsino burst out.
"He's my pen pal," Emma said defensively. "He gets me. And how do you even know that anyway?"
Meredith's eyes widened. "Do not hide behind the Champion. She has no role in this nor could she possibly care what this city does one way or the other."
"Right here," Emma said, waving her hands. "Stop talking about me as if I'm not."
"Then tell us what you think," Orsino urged.
"You're only saying that because she's on your side," Meredith complained.
"Like you wouldn't do the same if she were on yours," Orsino countered.
"Of course I would," Meredith agreed. "But the fact that she's not is the problem. And just because the Arishok liked her and her friend brought back that sacred book that was keeping the qunari here doesn't mean she's qualified to have an expert opinion on this! Even if she'd killed the Arishok she wouldn't be qualified."
"You wouldn't be saying that if she were on your side," Orsino pointed out.
"But she's not," Meredith said again.
"You know, your measures are pretty extreme," Emma remarked. "I mean, I ignore all of them but I heard something about a curfew or something."
"Isn't it true that blood mages killed your own mother?" Meredith asked, suddenly sounding sympathetic."While cold corpses are yet to be found we need security more than we need freedom."
Emma blinked. "No, actually, he didn't. He targeted her but was stupid enough to announce his intentions and so he got nowhere near her. Unless you're talking about something that happened since this morning?"
Meredith looked annoyed. "Okay, whose my information-gathering person? Whoever it is, fire them."
One of the templars stepped forward and whispered something in her ear.
Meredith's eyes lit up. "Oh, what's this?"
"I don't know, you'll have to tell us," Varric replied.
"Apparently the one to notice that something was wrong and who you left behind to guard your mother was our very own Ser Carver," Meredith said pointedly. She frowned. "In fact, all of your friends appear to be templars. An odd outlook for such a pro-mage spokesperson."
"Are you aware that you're publicly admitting to the fact that those who are pro-mage can't really get along with templars?" Varric questioned.
Meredith narrowed her eyes. "You are one of my templars, Ser Varric!"
"We unionized," Varric explained. "It was my idea. And that guy you tried to fire is one of us, too, so you really can't."
"Not all of my friends," Emma argued. "My fiancé Anders isn't. And come on, Carver being a templar had nothing to do with it! He was off-duty – probably – and she was his mother!"
"I can only call it as I see it," Meredith said innocently.
"When will you stop seeing evil in every corner?" Orsino demanded.
Meredith shrugged. "There are three valid possibilities, actually. I could die, I could be forced to step down from being too far gone with my lyrium addiction, or I could kill or make Tranquil all mages. Huh. I guess there was a fourth option there."
"We are so lucky Blondie isn't here or he'd have blown something up by now," Varric whispered.
Emma nodded.
"Do we really want someone who is so bad at basic math to be in charge of our city?" Orsino cried out.
"I'm not bad at math!" Meredith defended. "I was just taken aback by how right I was."
"Pick a side," Orsino urged, poking Emma with his really cool-looking staff that Emma was perpetually about two minutes away from stealing.
"Um…I don't know," Emma admitted.
"You don't?" Varric asked, shocked.
"Well, I do support people rising from nothing and that's certainly what Meredith's done. I feel really bad, too, that her apostate sister didn't get proper at-home training like my sister and I did and so got possessed and killed seventy people including the rest of her family. I understand that that is very traumatic. And Meredith even comes off very reasonable in spoken conversation. That said, her measures – from what I know of them – seem kind of insane and she doesn't always monitor what her people do. Ser Alrik and his abuses of the Rite of Tranquility and of the attractive young mages in his care comes to mind," Emma began.
"Then, of course, there's the fact that under her leadership the problem isn't going away but is actively getting worse. I don't know if anyone else could do it better but I can't imagine how it could be done worse and we should probably try anyway. There is a huge blood mage and abomination problem in this city and part of it may just be down to the unspeakable abuses that have been done in this city rendering its populace more susceptible to this kind of thing. On the other hand, all of these restrictions are only leading to more desperation on the part of mages and a desperate mage is far more likely to do something stupid like get possessed or start using blood magic. We've seen an extremely significant positive correlation between the restrictions on mages and the incidence of possession and blood magic."
"But our other option is Orsino who chooses to enable blood mage serial killers to try and get something out of their actions rather than trying to stop them or reporting them. I don't even know if it's worse to actively enable than to ignore because while he's actively helping the serial killers, chances are that without his help the murders would continue and there might even be more as he has no idea what he's doing and has to keep experimenting. None of this might be necessary if reporting the problem wouldn't lead to Meredith coming down even harder on the mages and everything thinking that all mages are Quentin."
"So while I personally have a problem with Orsino's actions in this manner, I have to commend his bravery in risking all manner of punishment by actively and regularly angering the one woman who has the power to utterly crush him and is losing the sanity that would convince her that doing so might be a problem given what a public figure that he is. And I have always been a supporter of freedom and what's being done to these mages are terrible. There is no oversight, nothing to stop the abuses. Meredith is almost all-powerful and even if her slipping sanity weren't a huge issue, that's too much power over too many people for anyone to have without any hope of redress."
"I know you guys don't think much of Ferelden but this sort of thing, from the knight-commander, from the grand cleric, from the king and queen, would not have stood there. These innocent children are treated like slaves because they have the power to do so much good, power gifted to them by the Maker? Whatever happened to 'magic must serve man'? I don't recall it being 'magic must be locked up forever while we try our best to pretend that it doesn't exist.' I'm not saying we should become another Tevinter because, frankly, that place has issues but maybe if we gave these people less of a reason to want to kill us all then we'd have fewer incidents of them trying to kill us all. Just a thought."
Varric stared at her. "Okay, where exactly did that come from?"
Everyone else apparently wanted to know the same thing if their stunned stares meant anything.
Emma shrugged. "Mage rights is an issue that I'm very passionate about. You know that."
"Well said, Champion," the grand cleric said as she made her way slowly to the front of the crowd. "It is a very complicated issue. There are no easy solutions no matter where you stand on the issue and we need time to try and find one that works."
"We're running out of time," Orsino said desperately.
"You have to hold on," the grand cleric said gently. "Now, please return to the Circle so as to try and prevent another riot. And Meredith, dear, do try to be more understanding. A man in a trap has very little to lose and if you push them too far, you'll find out just what that really means."
Meredith nodded eagerly. "I shall think on what you have said, Your Grace."
Varric sighed. "Do you remember the good old days when we could go walking down the street without it turning into a big incident?"
Emma nodded. "I do, yes. And I hope that I never, ever have to return to that kind of dreadful obscurity ever again."
Varric chuckled. "There's little chance of that happening, I think."
Gamlen was staring at a mess on the floor in front of the fireplace in fascinated horror. "Emma, is your dog in the habit of eating people?"
"That's a strange question," Emma replied.
Gamlen nodded. "I know and normally I wouldn't ask but I think that's a severed human hand…"
"He only ate the one guy," Emma said defensively.
Gamlen practically choked. "I…what?"
"It's not a big deal, Gamlen, you always get so worked up about these things," Leandra said, shaking her head. "Emma told me all about it. Apparently, a thief broke in and he hid in a closet when Loghain came sniffing around."
"How does that translate to your dog eating the poor man?" Gamlen demanded.
"Justice suggested it," Emma explained.
Gamlen groaned. "Of course he did. You know, I'm really not comfortable living in the same house as an abomination and, really, I was here first. I'm especially not comfortable when I hear things like this."
"You know, this is my house and you don't have to live here," Emma said pointedly.
"I kind of do, actually," Gamlen corrected. "I turned my old house into an illegal gambling den."
"And you still don't pay rent," Leandra complained.
"Neither did you," Gamlen countered.
Leandra put her hands on her hips. "Do we need to have another conversation about you basically selling my children?"
"So you've done well for yourself after all," Gamlen said abruptly, clearing his throat. "I never did like that Hawke fellow but I guess he had good genes. You're ridiculous successful and your brother and sister…well, they're not dead, I suppose."
"Bethany might as well be," Emma said gloomily.
"I would have sworn you would have said Carver," Anders said, sticking his head into the room.
Emma shrugged. "Carver chose to be there."
"So did-" Gamlen started to say.
"If you finish that sentence then I am throwing you out," Emma threatened.
Gamlen held up his hands in a gesture of peace. "For a long time, you know, I thought that the Amell line in Kirkwall would end with me. I'm glad you and your siblings have pulled it out of the grave."
Emma's eyes widened in horror. "Don't!"
"Don't what?" Gamlen asked puzzled. "Anyway, I just wanted to suggest that you change your name to Amell at some point and don't change it when you get married. That goes for Bethany and half for Carver as well."
Leandra's eyes had lit up. "Getting married! What a lovely idea! And now that you're the Champion, you're sure to have many many suitors."
"Wouldn't the fact that Emma is a mage serve as a...deterrent of sorts?" Gamlen asked delicately.
"Yes! Thank you!" Emma exclaimed gratefully.
Leandra waved the objection off. "It didn't stop me."
"Well, no, but you had to go live in Ferelden for twenty years," Emma pointed out. "Mind, I wouldn't mind going back there. This place kind of has problems. Most people wouldn't be willing to do that."
"It is truly sad the kind of anti-Ferelden prejudice that continues to this day," Leandra agreed. "But as you're the Champion and everyone either will never notice you're a mage or doesn't really care, it's not as much of a problem as you might think."
"I'm engaged!" Emma insisted, holding up her hand to show her mother the ring.
"For two years, dear," Leandra said flatly. "Sooner or later, we've got to move forward on that one way or the other."
Anders was suddenly nowhere to be seen.
"Isabela," Emma wheedled, "come on! It's been three years! Can't you please just forgive me for whatever I did or whatever and talk to me again?"
"After three years, most people would have gotten the point and ceased pestering me about it every day," Isabela said tiredly. "Especially when they can't be arsed to visit their sister."
"Well, I just happen to come into the Hanged Man every day and that's where you always are," Emma said, shrugging.
"You go to the Gallows every day, too," Isabela pointed out.
"That's not fair!" Emma objected. "You know that I have to as a matter of principle since there's nothing Meredith can do to stop me, a mage, from barging into her office whenever I want to!"
"You could always stop by to see Bethany," Isabela hinted.
"Why does everyone always lecture me about Bethany?" Emma wondered.
"Probably because you've only seen her once in six years and the last time I stopped by she was very upset about that," Isabela replied.
Emma's eyes widened. "Wait, you visit Bethany? Since when?"
"Since she was first taken," Isabela answered. "We all visit her. Even Anders visits her on days he thinks he's less likely to snap and kill everyone there and, while this understandably doesn't happen often, it does still happen and you know what he's like about templars and the Chantry."
"So when are you going to forgive me for…whatever?" Emma asked again.
Isabela sighed and shook her head. "It's not me that needs to forgive you, Emma. I just completely screwed you over and I'm having a hard time pretending it didn't happen like you obviously are."
"You didn't screw me over," Emma insisted. "I said you could take it and you took it. I would have appreciated a goodbye but, well, that's hardly 'screwing me over' material. And anyway, you came back and I didn't have to fight the Arishok and so all's good."
"We don't even have anything in common anymore!" Isabela insisted. "You're a Champion and I'm just a lying, thieving snake."
"We never actually had anything in common," Emma countered. "I'm a mage and you're not. But who cares about that? You're awesome and you don't judge me and you go out with me to kill things. And I'm getting the feeling that that's going to be needed again soon. So won't you join up with me again? Please?"
Isabela couldn't help but laugh at that. "Okay, fine. I will."
"And try to stop the sulking, too, because that forces me to try to comfort you and there are few things in this world that I find as abhorrent as having to comfort people," Emma informed her.
Isabela's eyes widened. "Even mages?"
Emma nodded solemnly. " Yes, as hard as it is to believe, even mages. I just never know what to say."
Isabela shook her head. "I really don't think Kirkwall had any idea what it was doing when it made you Champion."
"I'm just glad that they made Saemus the viscount instead of me," Emma said, relieved.
Isabela shrugged. "Well, you never know. If ever the day comes when Saemus has stepped down or died or something and you happen to be on your way out of Kirkwall, you could be living the dream, too."
They heard Varric shouting from upstairs. "AND YES, CASSANDRA, SHE REALLY SAID THAT, TOO!"
"I worry about him sometimes," Isabela confided.
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