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Morrigan.

( her voice sounds cold, and distant, and so very removed from Leliana that she herself finds it strange to hear. )

We should speak.

( as much as she can imagine it would pain Morrigan to endure such a task. )

Leliana.

[Well it’s not a letter, but she doesn’t know if this is better or worse.]

Over the crystal or in person?

In person, I suspect.

( Which is not good, nor pleasant, and she should likely provide more information but does not. )

Can you come to the Rookery?

[Instead of a response, the sending crystal is deactivated, as if Morrigan has decided to spurn the message after all.

Only soon there is a raven flying in, circling until the scouts are gone before a woman appears, magic dissipating as she folds her arms.]

What business is there that you do not trust to the crystal?

[It’s hardly going to be a social call.]

( That will never stop being impressive, nor shall it cease to spark-- something in her, that old creative bent that composed songs, and has gone long ignored, now. She suspects that is a good part of why Morrigan does it, beside the convenience. It reminds people exactly who she is, and why she is so above them.

Never mind that.
You may wish to sit, she'd tell most. She suspects Morrigan would take that as an insult, or condescending, and so Leliana holds her tongue on the suggestion, instead watching for a moment, her own arms crossed, as well. )

What do you know of a mage called Detlef?

( Part of her wonders if Morrigan has concealed, as well. If Morrigan has lied. It would hardly be beyond the realms of possibility. )

Edited (wrong icon v important change) 2016-03-02 22:57 (UTC)

[There is always a look people get when she materialises though she does it in few places in Skyhold; she is a thing easily overlooked when she is a cat, a bird, even a dog, slinking along as she chooses until she speaks up. And when she does that gasp.

The Orlesians always wondered how she slipped the guards each and every time.]

Detlef...Detlef...the scruffy thing? We spoke once in the library some time ago, I believe he was in the group involved in rescuing Zevran. [A creature of little consequence, one she only spoke with by chance.] He was interested in learning shapeshifting, reading a book about it. [A scoff that say she knows more than a book will, because a book cannot teach you what a soul can, what looking into the eyes of a wild thing does as you walk as they walk, breathe as they breathe. Tis a difficult art to teach and thus far there is only one worthy of having been taught and it isn’t Detlef.] Why do you ask?

[It’s curiousity in her voice, not suspicion. That Leliana knows all the names here is unsurprising, that she summons Morrigan to ask her such a question, to ask her in person? Intriguing.]

Yes.

( Yes, the scruffy thing, yes, the one who helped rescue Zevran. And yes, she can believe he was interested in learning shapeshifting, because he is hungry for power, for more of it, because with power you can instigate change but she does not trust for a moment what he would do with such power.

Better to tell Morrigan, because Morrigan has always been tempestuous and dangerous, and she has never known wild things to become less dangerous when there is a chance their young might be endangered. She should know soon, and she should hear it privately, and she should know because she is one of the people Leliana has known longest, and she cannot entirely reconcile herself to Alistair and Zevran lying to her, and Morrigan not having done so.

Part of her almost hopes that Morrigan's response is to be smug at the revelation, that she confirm that she kept secrets as well, and then this quiet evisceration can be over more quickly. )

I have uncovered his true identity. He is Anders, that same one who blew up the Kirkwall Chantry. The Grey Wardens have taken him into their custody, as one of their own.

[There is a quiet moment. A moment where a small breath escapes as if she has been stabbed, and well, that is close to the truth. When the moment is gone though it is gone entirely; there is a snarl, her lip curls like a wolf's would, her eyes flash dangerously.

If she were the kind to throw things she would but Morrigan's anger starts cold and quiet, her voice low as if being pulled from somewhere deep within her. Her turn to lean against the table, to curl her hands into fists as she speaks through clenched teeth.]

He spoke of motivation. Of 'feeling the wind beneath his wings'. We spoke of shapeshifting, if I was accepting students, telling jokes as if that would aid his cause. An invaluable backup, those were his words, when he spoke of staying free of supervision. [Leliana should know. Morrigan's tongue is less guarded when she's angry and she is furious. Perhaps once she would not have been so, perhaps once she might have applauded or simply sat back to watch what happened but while there is no love of the Chantry in her heart, her world is more than simply her. She can defend herself easily enough but she has a son. She has a son and her son is here, and Anders is here.

It isn't hard to imagine what will happen when the word gets out. There are already Wardens. There are Templars who cannot agree on a path. A Mage Council with Vivienne sitting there and observing all as she does from her balcony.

Anger is better than fear.]

The Wardens have taken him? The Wardens who have come here to do what, exactly? To offer their usual silences and half-truths.

[And then another reason for the anger wakes, stirring as her voice drops back to a whisper.]

He knows, doesn't he?

( Better to wait out Morrigan's anger, she suspects. Fighting with Morrigan seems, at times, as though it might be about as sensible as attempting to yell above thunder, as though tearing your throat raw in the rain with your clothes slicked to your skin and lightning burning the ground will make any progress. (And yet, how many times has she fought Morrigan? Beyond counting, if that year is counted in full, and doubtless more as time stretches on. In this moment, she has no cause to fight with Morrigan. Her yelling is the anger Leliana felt knocked from her the moment Zevran took it all so well in stride.)

Anders turned himself into the Wardens, and they exist outside our jurisdiction. ( Leliana braces herself for what she does not doubt will be the bluntest delivery of anger she has received thus far, and may be the most vicious anger of them all. Morrigan's words cut deep. ) I agreed he should be allowed to them. Ostensibly for his atonement, but... I would not see a man such as he made into a martyr.

( Her expression tightens, anger winding her jaw to clench and her shoulders and neck rigid. She hopes he chokes on that compassion, she truly does. Of all the people to be granted mercy, and she is not fully at peace with it, but what backlash might his death have sparked? Against the faithful, and against mages? It does not sit well, but with the Wardens making their claim, how much ground had there been to order his execution, when there were so many reasons to argue against it? )

I am sorry I did not uncover him sooner. ( Before he had turned himself to the Wardens, before they had already determined to approach the Advisers. Before Morrigan had spoken with him, before any number of things. She wishes she had unravelled his mind when first she went to Kirkwall under Justinia's orders. Another instance of information gone undiscovered, of deaths that might have been avoided, if she had done something better.

Is this going to get worse? Probably, though she isn't sure she wants to drop to those depths. What she wants has not been a question in so long though, has it? )

He knew. ( How many people could Morrigan mean? ) He and Zevran, both.

[The worst passes quick enough, though Leliana will know well enough that it doesn't mean it's forgotten. It sits beneath the surface, simmering away, and woe betide any who cross her path once she leaves here unless they happen to be Kieran. This is the Nightingale she is with this time, she is sure enough of that, because Leliana for all that she played the Game would have shown something more than this, but the Nightingale must be a more careful creature.]

Are they not here? Within these walls, part of your Inquisition? The Inquisition is not a nation that they must bow to and even the Wardens cannot accept that within their midst unless they mean to throw him in the Deep Roads. [Would that martyr him? Someone would find a way to make it so, some idiot from a Circle with a mind too soft to know what they are, still ready for the leash. When they form themselves into a council that spins on and within itself as the Circles did then they are still less and deserve their fates though this time much more has been thrust upon them. That so many did vote is a point in their favour, as is the volume of those who do not wish for a return.

Yet Anders walking free amongst them might change so much.

Instead of thinking on that, she watches Leliana openly, might have given some sign of satisfaction at seeing any sort of reaction before she rights herself and smooths down her robes to give her hands something to do.]

You cannot know every name and face within the Inquistion when there are clearly those who would deceive you and spit in your face as they twist the knife. [Letters soften harsh words somehow, they don't show the curl of her lip, the set of her jaw, the look in her eye.] You are not the one owing apologies.

[Still, it is appreciated, a shame she cannot dwell on it.]

Zevran? Zevran knew? Why on earth would he go along with this farce? [That is worse; Alistair had only spoken of Kieran, glanced at him from afar or haunted their steps in the early days but Zevran? He had been close to her son, giving him toys, telling him stories. She had trusted him simply by allowing him to come so close.

She trusts so few with her son, she cannot even fully trust herself when it comes to Kieran. There are sharp minds within the Inquisition, Weisshaupt Wardens among them, and questions that might be asked.]

It is not so simple as that. ( A little sharp, harsh, though only a little. ) They are a potential means to undo Corypheus. They may yet be able to provide clues to his destruction, and we cannot lose them.

( "We benefit from their cooperation," she might have said. Cooperation, though, would suggest several members had not lied to the Inquisition, that they were not harbouring such a man as that, no matter what the Champion might have decreed.

Another time, Leliana might close her eyes, might brace herself against the force of Morrigan's words and her ire, because they are harsh and cutting, even if Leliana does not suffer as a result of them directly. She feels the impact of their meaning, not as a personal slight, but as a painful truth revealed. It is absorbed, and she stands silent, rather than making a response, and perhaps it is in part because she is not certain that it is true. Morrigan is blunt, she is honest in a way that can be manipulative and cruel and sincere, and none of those things dismiss the possibility of her being wrong. (Ten years ago Leliana would have contended that Morrigan is wrong about most things.) )

That is a question I cannot answer. ( Or that she will not, perhaps, because all the conclusions she draw are painful. Better to withdraw a little. If she pulls back too far she cannot be what she must, but of late she has let herself rise too much to the surface, has let what she felt amplify, as though they were echoes reverberating in an abandoned Chantry. Whispers were loud enough in such places, but a yell or a song? They could fill up the space until it seemed there was room for nothing else.

Leliana cannot afford that, will press them back, even if it feels as though her skin may blister and burst with the fire raging just beneath it.

A long silence - if it is allowed - lingers before she speaks again. )

We have never been close, you and I. ( "We could barely stand each other," she could say, but the words are needless. ) But I meant what I said when I told you that I would protect this Inquisition.

( By extension Morrigan and, more importantly, Kieran. Her eyes and ears tell her much, and yet she needs them not at all to know what the boy means to Morrigan, or at least... to grasp at it. )

Whatever must be done will be done.

( Though what such an assurance will mean, she does not know. )

Or a potential risk within the walls. Potential and may and for what? Only clues? What of value have they given any? Even Alistair only would part with fragments. He can command them, what would he do with a possessed mage?

[If Corypheus comes here, she can fight for as long as she can but Kieran will be lost to her, that she knows and it's what snuffs out the anger, replaces it with dread as surely as being struck by magic. Is it better or worse that there is no eluvian? No easy escape for her if she requires it but more difficult for Corypheus to claim it.

He wants such things, she's sure of it, another one who would know to access it and if he does--

Not the time to tell Leliana. Wait until it is here, until it is safe and within her grasp again, then speak of it or surely she will not get the aid she fears she needs. Although perhaps Leliana would be angrier. Morrigan always did take some savage joy in prompting a sharp word from her and it would reassure her. What happened to you, she thinks far from the first time, where is the girl, the little deceiver, the one who sang so soulfully that even my heard turned to watch? Perhaps now if that Leliana were here they would be closer. Or if there had been no Kieran, ten years alone to grow sharper, to not have learned to love.

Leliana was close to them once. What will they say of the spymaster who somehow missed this? Such a failure in Orlais...a good thing Morrigan isn't even a student of it, merely an often disinterested spectator.]

I assume that there will be repercussions, and that the Inquisition will live up to the name it bears? [At least phrasing so much as a question is natural though the gentle prompting won't go unnoticed, nor the narrowing of her eyes. Already she has questions of her own.

But there is at least an answer, one that she can nod to, mouth pressed into a grim smile that is so like and yet unlike her. Her smiles are rare and when grim they at least look satisfied. This feelse false and she heaves a disgusted sigh as if she could expel it all so easily. What she would give to lose this all in a true fit of temper and destruction but that hasn't been her way for some time.

Yet she's relieved all the same. As much as she can be in the moment.]

I-- [A hesitation that speaks volumes. She is not good at this.] Thank you. I am glad to know.

[To know that there is a blade or a bow between him and harm that I can count on.]

Should you require my aid, you need only ask.

[Who would have thought she would offer so freely but she trusted them and now she remembers why she never tried before if this is the price she must pay.]

More, I think, but I await more information.

( There are whispers that might counter their staying in these walls, the possibility of a camp, but that is not yet a thing confirmed and she will not raise false hope onto to betray it later. There is too much that is uncertain, as yet - the damnable Wardens and their secrets. )

Pray do not speak to me as though I am ignorant of the risks or my responsibilities.

( Not a warning, quite. There is a quiet edge of something else in it, a knife sneaking down into the space between, trying to pry pieces of her apart, though she will not allow it. It is met with too much resistance, for all that it makes it through. It could verge on a request, a rasp of rawness in it that she would snatch from the air if she could - snatch, pull back, and burn 'til there was no evidence remaining. Not anger, but something far worse and something she will not allow herself.

The greatest spy network that Thedas has seen, some say, or fast becoming it. Even so, they had missed this. They had failed to see something under their nose, and it was being kept secret by those she had trusted. Part of her wonders if she is a fool to trust any. Part of her wonders if she has become too cruel for people to come to.

Leliana does not look at Morrigan when she looks up - quite when her gaze dropped she's not sure - casting her gaze towards the window instead. The people who have known her longest now without betrayal are Josephine, Morrigan and Shale. One once idolised her, two had believed her a fool, but all of them had been allies and none of them looked at her as they used to. She would not wish them to, even as she wonders if the betrayals are inevitable here, too.

Then Morrigan speaks of repercussions and drags Leliana's watchful focus back to her, as she smiles that dangerous familiar and unfamiliar smile, and Leliana thinks she might be able to see something else in it, but she does not know if she should trust her judgment in the people she used to know so well, any more. She had tested Josie before she trusted her with the Inquisition. Perhaps Alistair and Zevran deserved no less. )

Do not mention it. And-- Thank you.

( Though she does not know if she should take that offer. Not yet. Not now. )

And do not speak to me as if I am the one who has kept my secrets behind my teeth. I left Orlais to come provide the aid that I alone can, I have not conspired against you.

[She is sharp, she is waspish, she feels she has every right to be when she's sure that she's suspect to many but what she keeps to herself are things that are far beyond the reach of the Inquisition or things they have no right knowing. The greatest secrets are already known to Leliana after spending a year in her company; that Flemeth is real and the stories are true, that Morrigan managed to keep three Wardens alive upon slaying an Archdemon, that her son carries the soul of an Old God.

She is remarkably bare before Leliana now, only her motives for seeking her out and the full truth of her involvement in Orlais to be investigated, should she makes that decision.

But she can be a bird, and there are many ravens, though none that can so easily speak to the spymaster. Who knows what might pass through the lips of Wardens unaware that they are being watched; she said once to Alistair that they were 'his' Wardens but they are no more beholden to his command than Jonas was. Entitled to an opinion but with Wardens from Weisshaupt confirmed to be among them then tis not Alistair leading.

If Alistair could have truly orchestrated this then she'd quite frankly be amazed.]

I must leave, to check on Kieran. [If she needs to she can disappear and go to ground, not even Leliana could find her if she chose to vanish in the night but there is work to be done and the Inquisition is her best chance to get all that she needs. Their goals align neatly but if Kieran is in danger…] You know where to find me, if I am needed. You are not one I would make an enemy of, you might be the very opposite.

[How does one gracefully admit they were wrong in the past without actually having to make such an admission, especially when they aren't entirely sure of who the woman before them is, or why they reach for a girl that they once so openly despised. Leliana would have been hurt by the betrayal, hurt like she'd been with Marjolaine but a storm can be weathered without resorting to the measures the Nightingale will have to face, and woe betide any who think to keep anything from her now.

If it had only been Alistair then perhaps this all would have been easier. Alistair is after all a Warden, and decidedly lacking in anything that resembles a spine or critical thinking; he'd been convinced to go to Morrigan's bed and to lie with her after all, even when he'd despised and mistrusted her. However it was not, it was Zevran, and they had been so close once. So recently she and Leliana had spoken of friends, enemies, allies.

Surely the counting of such things must be easier when so many fall into one singular camp.]

Edited 2016-03-14 20:58 (UTC)

( And that is a shock quite on its own.
Leliana stills her voice on the retaliatory response supplied so sharply by her mind, gaze fixed on Morrigan so she gathers up pieces and tries to gather and weave together what she finds. To think that Morrigan would be the honest one - or at least the one best at keeping the appearance of it. Her concern for Kieran, though, her love for him, seems that it could only be genuine.

And to think, scant weeks ago she had been so incredulous that Morrigan could be a good mother. To think she had been making quiet jokes with Zevran, some of them comments at Morrigan’s expense, and even then he had been lying by omission, while Morrigan had been… loyal is not the right word, but honest is not fully sufficient when considering all the consequences.

Leliana only nods when Morrigan says she must depart, turning away to face down a pile of letters and information, to begin filtering through how they might control this information as it leaves Skyhold, as it inevitably will. Her mind is almost entirely moved on from Morrigan to the larger scale of these concerns and their implications, when Morrigan speaks again.

To be fair, it’s not a personal or friendly remark. Of that Leliana is more than certain. It is a professional one, a pragmatic one, but that does not keep Leliana’s brows from raising or her expression turning a little surprised. )

Understood.

( And Morrigan has lost something here, as well. If Leliana had few friends she could trust, the same must be said for Morrigan, though quite how that came to pass has been very different for both of them. She… pauses, a moment, considers if there is something she can say to reassure Morrigan, and realises that she has nothing to offer, and that the Morrigan she remembers would scorn whatever she did attempt. This is not the Morrigan from the Fifth Blight, though, as she is continually reminded.

Instead she only nods, while her hands smooth over some parchment, and she tries to determine from where they should begin as Morrigan departs. )

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ooc: inbox/plot with me

crystal, as soon after the anders' situation as she can manage (so basically: timeywimey)

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