Insetheneran

She can’t help but smirk back when Solas grins. “Okay, color me impressed. It’s a good system. I’ll try not to play with the electricity while I’m there, although I love a good copper wire spark.”

The clean, bright smell of mint - and the earthier chamomile - signal Miha’s return with the tea. Cian accepts hers gratefully, curling the hot mug close to her chest. “So what have I been missing in the world? Is Dumar still Prime Minister? Whatever happened with those Qunari protests? We only saw the earliest news coverage before it got censored.”

“Yeah, spineless bastard’s still in,” he says with a roll of his eyes, and with less venom and more resignation than one might expect from that sort of statement. “Sat on his arse so long and let the Qunari get so out of hand that one of Kirkwall’s best and brightest decided enough was enough and went vigilante. Or, well... sort of. Hawke honestly seemed to have just been in the right place at the right time, but the point is that they assassinated that Arishok son of a bitch and are now being celebrated as a hero because technically it was self defense.”

He keeps talking as Cian nods off, well aware that she will likely remember little of this by morning, and gently takes the cup from her hands. Her stillness is impressive, but he’d rather she didn’t spill piping hot tea all over herself (or worse, make the couch stink of tea for the rest of eternity).

She’s thinking of the summonings gone wrong in the tower’s library. And the accidental fires that would sometimes need special containment units. There was a reason entirely new hazardous waste containment was designed, after all.

“Thursday, if that helps you orient...”

“Chamomile or mint?” Miha interrupts, holding up two boxes for Cian to see.

Solas falls patiently silent as he waits for Cian to reply, then returns to her on the couch to wait for the water to heat up.

“But... yes. As I was saying before, abandoned tunnels. The less accessible ones you sometimes have to get to through this whole underground network of maintenance and old subway and railway tunnels, which you could honestly probably get to with your injuries, but might have a hard time getting back from. Especially if you’ve spent all day practicing blood magic. The old electric third rails tend to soak up a lot of the residual and electrical spikes are pretty normal when you’re dealing with old wiring, but you know the graffiti that led me to you? Good for absorbing magic as well as radiating it, and graffiti in abandoned places is usually ignored.”

Aesthetics Meme: Cian O’Meara (Red Tongues & Hands AU)

You’ll build your w a l l s 

                        and I will play my bloody part

Admittedly, most of Cian’s knowledge of blood magic is either combative - made up in the heat of the moment - or entirely theoretical. She says as much, unaware of the darkness that crosses her expression. What she doesn’t mention is Ulfric’s revolt, when a small gang of blood mages cut the power grid to the whole tower and the only other time in her life she’s used those powers. It might disappoint them to hear of her involvement, and that’s the last thing she wants to do.

(Miha doesn’t need an invitation -- she drapes herself across the back of the couch like a cat, and observes the new apostate just as keenly).

“And by ‘resources’ I mean ‘abandoned subway tunnels.’ Some of them already have courses and dummies set up and everything -- but getting to them can be a little rough. The more accessible tunnels don’t have anything permanently installed since there’s more of a risk that they’ll be discovered, but they may be our best bet. Depending on your condition in the morning, of course... you’ve got energy now, but that may change in the next twelve hours.”

He looks thoughtful for a moment, and glances toward the kitchen.

“I think people underestimate teenagers, whether they’re angry or scared.”

She pushes back from the table and stands, a trifle unsteady still, but well enough on her feet. One hand goes back to her side as she stretches, careful to bend into her wound rather than against it. “I was lucky enough in the Circle, I suppose. I learned quickly when I could get away with fighting back and when it would go easier for me if I just - well. If I just.”

There’s an almost shy curl to her lips when she looks back at the elves. “Now we know each others’ sad origin stories-”

Cian’s mistake breaks the tension of the moment (not a bad tension, but a tension all the same), and Miha ends up snickering while Solas grins.

“Just wait until the elfroot kicks in tomorrow,” he warns lightly, “your legs will be dying to run laps around the city...”

“...and the rest of your body’s just going to be like ‘no,’“ Miha finishes helpfully. “Been there. So been there. My advice? You’re a new blood mage, right? Get a bit of practice in. It’ll relieve some of the strain.”

“I was fourteen.” she tells them as they work. “My parents were - are - rich. It’s not so hard to hide a mage child when you have the funds. Eventually, one of my nannies decided the Chantry’s divine reward was worth more than her earthly retirement fund.”

Cian grimaces, remembering the fear, the painful grasp of the first Templar who tried to take her and the vehement lash of energy that threw him off. The sound of his head cracking open. “I killed two of the four who showed up. They had been expecting someone older, I think, to send so many. Had they known my age, I might have gotten away.”

“I was sixteen when I killed for the first time,” he says, loudly enough now to be heard without doubt, even over the running water. “I was lucky it wasn’t a Templar; my parents are well-off, especially considering the length of their ears, and because of the length of their ears and wealth in spite of that they made very sure to keep me a secret from the Circle. There was talk for a time of sending me to one of the Dalish clans to be taught by a Keeper -- my grandparents were Dalish, so I have some cousins on one of the reservations who might’ve let me stay with them -- but long story short I didn’t end up going. The first person I killed was actually a Tevene Magister on vacation in my home city -- asked to be seated at a different table at this restaurant we were eating at so the ‘knife-ears’ wouldn’t put him off his supper, then proceeded to talk loudly about how people like us ought to be ‘dealt with.’”

“He ended that night with his head hanging off his shoulders by a thread. Not my most sublte work,” he adds with a small grimace, “but what else would you expect from an angry teenager.”

She nods towards the screen, where the names have begun to replay. “I will pray that they go to their Maker, but I will also know that there are mages in the Ferelden circle who are that much safer for their absence.”

The apostate shakes her head as if to clear it, as if to ignore the whispers of the demons she has invited across the Fade with her blood. She made no deals, and so they will never get in, but they will serve as a constant reminder. She takes one last breath and turns away from the television, back towards the gleaming kitchen and the warmth of the living.

“The important thing to remember” he says with a crooked smile, stands, and begins to clear the table. Miha follows suit, gathering plates and cups and depositing them in the sink. “...is that there is no coffin. You are alive, for one. You are healing. And, above all else, you are free. That’s bound to take a while to sink in.”

His system is a good one, and she nods her approval. She opens her mouth to ask another question when a red alert logo flashes across the TV screen. The news reporter is speaking seriously into the camera while behind her a line of police in anti-mage hazmat suits walks into the Denerim airport. Just at the edge of the screen, at an angle designed to provoke viewer sympathies, is a plume of thick, oily smoke.

A list of dead Templars is running across the bottom of the screen, and Cian leans in to get a closer look, lips moving slightly as she tallies. The regional Captain is among the dead - a high profile loss. Finally, she sits back.

“None of the new kids. And no one who was half decent. That’s good. I wasn’t sure they’d just send the ones I managed to piss off, not that they’d be lacking for choice.”

Cian watches the names scroll across the screen, and Solas watches her. And he listens quietly to what she has to say, nods in understanding, and exchanges a glance with Miha as the weight of the new apostate’s actions seem to settle on her shoulders.

“The first time is always the hardest,” he says quietly. “Killing is...” he sighs and leans forward, settling his elbows on the table and propping his chin up on curled fingers. “...it’s exhausting. It really is. And no matter how righteous the cause, and no matter how deserving of death your enemy may be... it’s difficult. And it’s frightening when it starts to get easier. And it should be. Because when you start to kill for fun, or do it lightly -- when you start to enjoy it -- that's a point of no return. I freely admit that I like getting in fights,” he continues, smirking slightly through his solemnity.

“But I hate killing.”

She downs the potion like a shot, coughing slightly as her lungs protest. The lyrium sings down her throat, into her veins, and she can feel the bedraggled edges of her power starting to pull together again. Even more noticeable is the absence of the tracking device. The technology was designed to instantly adapt to magic in the body, like the body growing around a tumor. The sudden lack was neither good nor bad - just different.

Cian’s description of him catches Solas wholly off guard, and he snorts in surprise, then coughs several times as the bit of pasta that had been halfway down his throat ends up lodged somewhere in his airway. Miha, meanwhile, has propped her elbows on the table and buried her face in her hands, and her whole body shakes with what is -- given the circumstances -- probably laughter.

“Andraste’s fucking arse,” Miha wheezes as the loc’d twenty-something takes a swig of water to clear his throat and grins at Cian.

“Alright, so... you’re not wrong, though usually people don’t start calling me a punk until they’ve seen me with grazed knuckles, bloody nose, and split lip.“ He sits back in his chair and crosses one leg over the other, shifting slightly in order to keep an eye on the TV, and sets his fork down on his plate.

An operative. She turns the possibilities around in her head as she stabs at her own pasta. The idea of just - stopping, standing still, keeping her head down - after she’s made it this far doesn’t really appeal. “I will consider both options seriously, but I will say I’m leaning towards staying on - if you’ll have me.”

“I’d be delighted! The more the merrier, as far as I’m concerned. Think on it for as long as you need, and feel free to ask questions. We can discuss it further later, if you’re still interested.”

“THANK YOU FOR THIS KICK ASS FORTRESS, SOLAS!”

“… i-inquisitor… “