Alex Agar

 ❝ Yeah ? ❞     There’s always those, and what a shame it is. If there had been more questions, maybe those in power would falter, she’d like to believe anyway.   Loyal hounds,  yet it’s be an insult to mabari to call them such. She keeps her lips sealed, comments cut off from escaping the confines of her head. The commander knows better, in the midst of this chaos and rage, to act as a warden should.     ❝  Must be killing you.  ❞    Literally.   How long can the average templar last without it ? She wonders, slowly drifting between thoughts.  ❝  If you’re no longer ‘so loyal’ to your comrades … Would you be willing to part with some information ? I can make it worthwhile   ❞   He just needs to tell her what his currency was, coin or lyrium dust.  

If it was just detoxing from regular lyrium, he wouldn’t have that much of a problem. Alex knew from experience that if you looked hard enough, you could get your hands on lyrium by back channels. Sure, they were illegal by all standards, but desperate times called for desperate measures. 

                         his kind had always been stubborn. walls of iron that could not be pushed about and refused unless there was a syringe of lyrium dangling before them on a string. ultimately the champion was no different; the fact often brought up in jest, but he was all too aware of the truth behind it. still he remains of stone, his voice doesn’t waver with a kind of sympathetic emotion and eyes threaten to roll, ‘if you do not want it to pass then you do not let it. if you truly wanted to stop you would not have given up so easily,’

                   ‘there is a difference between giving up and knowing the odds are impossible.’ he didn’t expect the champion to give comfort. why would he? alex was a RED templar. one, who still had the corrupted lyrium on his person. that was something that couldn’t be denied. not now and not five minutes from now. he still was dependent on the substance.

                    a reason to why he reached into his small bag. it was a risk, but one he was willing to take. to show the other just how far he was going to go. if it mean another year or two alive, if it truly meant being able to break away, he would at least attempt again, but as per-usual, he always ended up falling back on the substance. 

A contradiction of words. It matched the contradiction of a city state. Tevinter buildings, Orlesian titles, Free Marcher attitudes, and through it all the iron grip of the Chantry and its Templars. Aveline bared teeth in a ham-fisted semblance of a smile. She was used to being not wanted, a small wonder being the only Fereldan in the city guard and rising quickly through the ranks forby. But wanted or not – she was needed. By Hawke. By the rest of her countrymen in this forsaken place.  

“By your leave Ser,” she said gauntlet raising as stiff pointed fingers gestured him ahead. A lingering glance at the shield matching her own. “I have your rearguard.”  

A nod was given in return. If this had been another Templar, they would have known how Alex was with these tasks. He went above and beyond the line of duty as that was how it suited him. Yet, she wasn’t part of the Templars, and it was why he had to be a bit more careful.

A reason to why he was planning to make this a simple question and answer mission. No chasing down odd leads. No spending hours tracking down the Apostates. Not fighting. No blood. 

                        Amell raised her eyebrows at the man as he spoke, and she let out a sound from the back of her throat.  Almost a laugh.  ❝ Really?  What does it do to people? ❞

She could almost hear the voice in the back of her head.  ‘Stop sassing the Templars. You’re a Warden, not a Circle Mage.”

                        But, gee, some of them needed it.  ❝ I haven’t had magic my entire life, or anything. I’m completely  oblivious to the horrors it can bring into a person’s world. ❞ 

                  There was a perpetual roll of his eyes at her words. Alex may have been beyond a Templar now, but he still fell back on what he was taught. For good or ill it was part of him and there was no denying that little fact.

“…Doesn’t matter? What else could matter more?” Aghast at the Templar’s words, Fenris simply stared at him a moment, lips parted in shock. “It seems as though anyone with any benevolence at all would do better. Assigning guilt without proof or even justification beyond this insane witch hunt… when do you expect this to end? You’ve moved beyond your chosen prey to any that stand in your path. Or even to those that do not. Eventually there will be none left at all, and you will rule but a kingdom of bones.”

“I–I’m aware, and I apologize.” Said Pelle. 

Pelle used to be like most mages, detesting templars under accusation of them abusing mages and usurping power they did not have to put others where they deemed their place to be. Being with the Inquisition however, had changed this. 

He would be a liar to say he had completely forgiven the templars for the way they treated other mages, for the way they even treated him when he struggled to get to Fereldan and had endured even more ridicule from the order after arriving in Fereldan as well. 

Meeting Cullen hadn’t shifted his opinion of the order as a whole but–it did make him think twice about judging a templar on individual ground. They were given orders and trained to follow them explicitly, could he really condemn all of them individually for such a thing? 

“I may disagree with–” who was he kidding? Disagree was putting it midly. “okay more like strongly loathe your order and the way it believes that it is standing for some kind of greater justice however, I imagine refusing to obey orders wasn’t taken with a simple ‘okay’ either.” 

“Before the breach, things were different, but after.... everything changed.” It wasn’t simply tracking down mages. Nor, was it dragging them back to the Circle, but as the war brewed on.... it was quite clear that nothing was going back to normal. 

Whatever the Mages hoped for had become twisted and more resorted to blood magic. It was something that couldn’t be prevented. Not when Alex knew from personal experience that most Mages, if given a chance, would fall back on blood magic.

“Not that I minded at first --- it was nice to start moving towards a goal. Even more so when it would end the fighting, but no. It wasn’t.” Alex wasn’t about to go into detail about what happened. It was far too personal and on some days... he thought he deserved it, “Templars don’t disobey orders.”

                             he speaks so casually about problems that have plagued him for years and the champion finds himself in a vague discomfort. he looks away for a moment his gaze wandering to find the marks and the veins of his abuse, hidden well under layers of armour and the tender loving and care from his lovely harellan (at least someone was going to look after him… it was never going to be himself) and yet still, he sees it. he FEELS it crawling under the skin and he wished it would leave him; but he is not one of the lucky ones. the RED that ridded him of his eye almost ruined him… the blue will never cease, not for a long time, ‘it is easier yes, but not the desired result, hm? you need to keep trying…’