Then give yourself a little credit. [ for trying to work out the right thing ] He did. If you thought he was smart, give yourself some credit for trying now. Be easy to throw it in. You came back.
[ a snort for the easy way - turned wheeze, palm shoved over lung as if to steady breath. alright. so a griffon did very much crunch him recently. ]
Long way to make it, to turn straight back. Brave.
[ as neutral as that'll come. antosha wasn't the only one to see the use in names: smythe and abendroth; only one northern, only one that twisted up rowntree. he doesn't know every rebel to find the front -
She was that. I didn't know her well, but it was obvious.
[Tsenka (a punch in the mouth, an ultimatum) made sense to Vanya. Antosha's decision to free her, less so. He wants to say so, but he isn't sure how. Even if he could, he doesn't know whether Cedric wants to hear.
The silence stretches, a moment or two, though he's not trying to go back to sleep.]
[ quiet. he's thinking of what it means to save a man in the woods, one enemy; to free a captive, another. one act runs into the other, disunited twins.
(does vanya own that clear a picture of himself?)
the why that sticks with him is this: that everyone falters. that antosha was weird, and funny, and smart - and an obvious fuck-up. that some things don't change for a banner. ]
Think he'd ever want to come back?
[ doesn't really matter. twice a defector, and information would only trade so far. ]
I've never believed he has any special love for Tevinter or their rhetoric. It seems clearer that he prefers it to death or a Circle.
[He'd want to come back if we were winning is near the truth, but doesn't feel fully true. Not enough to say out loud.]
Maybe a part of him would want to come back. Another part probably wants to run. Find some new remote cabin to hide in. But neither of those parts are winning, it seems.
[The question surprises him more than anything Cedric asked about Antosha. It shows mostly in the pause and a certain measured quality to his words when they come.]
...no. Though now that I say it, it seems strange, I suppose. My whole life around it.
Reckon you're safe. If wishing did for it, every kid outside the Circles'd fly. I s'pose it's -
[ i'd like to have done more with my life.
a child's dream: slay the dragon, mend the hurt. raise the dead. save the day. it had taken three months of lifting his own stupid hand toward a rift, and wanting, praying for a broader scope. vanya hasn't found it. the street burned. and cedric,
(when we're called, he'd told barrow. i mean to have something to say.) ]
- I know how much we've been given. How much we owe. I trust, I guess... I have to trust that I'd still know that. That you would.
[He's not sure power does anything good to a person, but it's not as if templars don't have their own. He'd set that power down again; mages lack that option.]
I suppose I think ... I don't know, it sounds a bit. [A pause.] I suppose I've always thought we'll be called to account for what we were given, someday. By the Maker, maybe. I know it's not a very sophisticated view, but I've never shaken it.
Mmm. [Agreement.] I don't think that has shifted, for me, it's just ... as I've gotten older, it's sometimes been less clear what wasting it entails. But it's not an excuse not to try.
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I have been told I am incapable of doing anything the easy way.
[It does sound like a direct quote. But, in case Cedric doesn't take it in the spirit it's meant:]
Thank you. It's. Not many people here knew him at all.
[A brief pause.]
He helped a mage prisoner escape. She made it here, was with us for a while. One of those we got news died in Ostwick.
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Long way to make it, to turn straight back. Brave.
[ as neutral as that'll come. antosha wasn't the only one to see the use in names: smythe and abendroth; only one northern, only one that twisted up rowntree. he doesn't know every rebel to find the front -
but he can guess. ]
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[Tsenka (a punch in the mouth, an ultimatum) made sense to Vanya. Antosha's decision to free her, less so. He wants to say so, but he isn't sure how. Even if he could, he doesn't know whether Cedric wants to hear.
The silence stretches, a moment or two, though he's not trying to go back to sleep.]
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(does vanya own that clear a picture of himself?)
the why that sticks with him is this: that everyone falters. that antosha was weird, and funny, and smart - and an obvious fuck-up. that some things don't change for a banner. ]
Think he'd ever want to come back?
[ doesn't really matter. twice a defector, and information would only trade so far. ]
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[He'd want to come back if we were winning is near the truth, but doesn't feel fully true. Not enough to say out loud.]
Maybe a part of him would want to come back. Another part probably wants to run. Find some new remote cabin to hide in. But neither of those parts are winning, it seems.
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[ however well he covered his tracks, a prisoner escaping bids security review. antosha already made a decision.
his breathing slows, stills. might have drifted off, save that - ]
Ever think on what you'd do with it? Magic.
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...no. Though now that I say it, it seems strange, I suppose. My whole life around it.
Have you ever?
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[ the mortalitasi. theoretically. ]
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[He exhales.]
I'd like to have done more with my own life, I suppose, before I go wishing for one with a broader scope.
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[ i'd like to have done more with my life.
a child's dream: slay the dragon, mend the hurt. raise the dead. save the day. it had taken three months of lifting his own stupid hand toward a rift, and wanting, praying for a broader scope. vanya hasn't found it. the street burned. and cedric,
(when we're called, he'd told barrow. i mean to have something to say.) ]
- I know how much we've been given. How much we owe. I trust, I guess... I have to trust that I'd still know that. That you would.
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[He's not sure power does anything good to a person, but it's not as if templars don't have their own. He'd set that power down again; mages lack that option.]
I suppose I think ... I don't know, it sounds a bit. [A pause.] I suppose I've always thought we'll be called to account for what we were given, someday. By the Maker, maybe. I know it's not a very sophisticated view, but I've never shaken it.
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[ not very sophisticated: ok, just gonna dwell on that for the next six months ]
- I feel the same. We're not supposed to waste this.
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ties bow
i send it somewhere else, he'd told jayce, but fuck if it doesn't wind back around. gone now. limbs again heavy, cold. subdued: ]
Here’s to figuring it out.