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[wearyallalone]

Messages, correspondence and private exchanges with Vanya Orlov.

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[wearyallalone]

Given the results, I assume drawn from a hat.

[It's almost a joke, except he also feels like none of the division heads have enough of a taste for chaos to purposely do it another way and get the results they'd managed.

He hoists the other end. It seems that he's more or less recovered from the demon incident, at least when it comes to lifting moderate weights.]

[dissolving]

Guess it still beats Skyhold,

[ too much winter for those tents. not an accident that he takes a little more of the weight – just to begin with, just until he's sure. vanya shoulders up, and his own ease; end dipping for the shift. ]

Heard from Mobius. 'S fine. You two ever talk?

[ who are vanya's friends? gwen. gela. fuck knows if he'd admit to either. ]

[wearyallalone]

Not at any length, though at least on my end, that hasn't been purposeful. Our work hasn't overlapped much.

[And, perhaps a bit more awkwardly to observe, he imagines Mobius wasn't deeply keen to spend time with someone who'd been so public about his past in the days when Mobius wasn't sharing his own. But that's speculation, regardless, so he leaves it unspoken.]

[dissolving]

He made, uh – clătite? Pancakes. Probably rope you into it, y'let him.

[ a hobby. one could say: a suggestion. cedric shrugs, stepping backward to the doorway. ]

Don't have a good read on him yet.

[wearyallalone]

Oh, he kept up with the pancakes. [He sounds surprised but not unpleasantly.] Last year there was a rifter vanished who was pretty well-liked. He used to do the pancakes. I think Mobius and I both had the thought that someone should try, after he'd gone. But given the reception we got, I let it be after that first little tribute.

[In fairness, Vanya's pancakes probably weren't inedible. They just hadn't been Jude's.]

I'm not sure I have a much better read, though. I um. I try not to push my company on places where I might be unwelcome.

[Mages and templars, current or former, especially. But he's trusting Cedric's assessment that Mobius won't mind sharing the sleeping space, at least.]

[dissolving]

Jude, yeah?

[ that talk for memorials, pretty well-liked strikes an understatement. he juggles the legs around frame: ]

Sounds welcoming himself.

[wearyallalone]

Jude, [he confirms quietly.] I didn't know him well, but he had a way of putting people at ease. We were on some missions together, here and there. [He adjusts as Cedric repositions.] I would say he was friendly to me because he was a rifter and didn't have the same associations, but to be honest, I think it was more his temperament than a lack of context.

[dissolving]

Dunno how many folks look for that. Context.

[ the rebellion's one thing. keen's another. but outside them? vanya might just be welcome — ]

If they do, they let you know quick. Apostate here's the one found me.

[ for whatever siorus still counts as. warden makes the point moot ]

[wearyallalone]

Oh? [He might have had other thoughts about Riftwatch's attachment to context or lack thereof, but the apostate comment catches his interest in the meantime.] How was that?

[dissolving]

He's alright. [ cedric shrugs, stepping back down the hall ] Might've been having a laugh – said they had him drink spawn blood. Th'Wardens.

[wearyallalone]

I truly don't know enough about Wardens to have a guess either way. [Sounds plausible, but then, most anything would given how little he knows.]

I've had a mage or two here give me the time of day, for what it's worth. I only ... I haven't had a reason to press. Take more ground than offered.

[dissolving]

Just don't see how you do it without dying – th'blood, I mean -

[ obviously. secret herbs and spices, alright, it’s still mad. kind of joke you play on the templar, see if he flips. cedric considers. got his own ideas for why vanya holds back, and yeah, some of them are sound. look at his own life lately, and maybe he ought to take some pointers. only,

worth hearing it out his own mouth. ]

You got a reason not to?

[wearyallalone]

[A small shrug.]

I'm sure you knew a lot of people had opinions at the Inquisition. Before and after Antosha left. [Vanya suspects Cedric had opinions, considering.] When I came here, I thought. I didn't wish to be a distraction, for anyone. If people speak to me first, I have no reason not to respond in kind, but in the absence of that, it felt ... for the best.

[That he kept to himself, presumably.]

[dissolving]

[ cedric bangs an elbow on a corner, and the grunt might be a substitute, here and now, for those opinions. feels shakier ground than the last time they talked antosha.

(i can tell them no, he'd told keen, but he still hasn't told them why.) ]

S'pose it's – just reckon that's distracting, too. Let folks take y'on their terms, sure, but you never set yours then they're gonna wonder. Maybe worry for it.

[wearyallalone]

[It gives him pause. (At least metaphorically; he doesn't stop helping.)]

I suppose I hadn't thought of it in that light.

[Terrific, now he can be anxious both when talking and when not talking to people.]

Rowntree offered to start training with me. After I got out of the infirmary, with the lyrium. [The lack of it.] It was a surprise [an understatement], though I took him up on it.

[dissolving]

[ first thing he thinks is — don't tell mobius —

but he did tell cedric, who's currently doing a yeoman's job of a straight face, or what'll pass for that while manuevering furniture up stairwell. if he thinks vanya oughta get out more, it's still not the direction he expected, ]

How's that been?

[ rowntree. training, and all the uncharitable reasons cedric can think to offer it. ]

[wearyallalone]

Odd. Useful. I wanted to know how bad it would be, fighting a mage without the ability to Silence them. Not sure what Rowntree wants.

[And now he's the Commander, so there's also that, though it hadn't started with that dynamic in place.]

I'm not sure that it matters. Too useful for me to say no. [A grunt that's mostly exertion, but partly a verbal shrug.] It's not like we chat before or after.

[dissolving]

So he — what — walks up, bashes you, y'never talk about it again?

[ dude what ]

[wearyallalone]

[Well now you've made it weird, Cedric.]

We're not in complete silence, we say hello and goodbye. Discuss what weapons I'll use, decide whether it's best of three that bout, that sort of thing. But he doesn't tell me about his day.

[dissolving]

[ is he. is he the one who made this weird. ]

Hello, hand-and-a-half, first one t'points, [ if he wasn't carrying a bed he'd gesture: ka-pow! ] He wants t'know how to fight one of us if he's Silenced, is what, and he figures you're safe ground.

[ it feels painfully obvious. so does the follow-up: and you're just fine with that? ]

[wearyallalone]

[He exhales, not quite a sigh.]

I didn't want the first mage I fought after I quit lyrium to be a Venatori. I'd prefer Riftwatch's mages not be helpless against red templars, either, frankly. There are good reasons.

[And Cedric still has time to drop his end of the bed and leave Vanya to Voss, if he wants to.]

[dissolving]

When's th'last time you saw a Red?

[ weak point: vints can always make more, and it wasn't the reds burned herian. there are good reasons, ]

There's some fucking bad ones, too. It were me, [ it has been. offered it to vega, ] I'd want t'be real sure it weren't those. Y'even know how he feels on you? On Barrow, or Mobius, or Keen?

[ of course not. that would require having a conversation. ]

[wearyallalone]

[All at once, he sounds tired.]

I'm not going to grill every mage in Riftwatch for how they feel about me.

[A brief memory, unbidden, of Tsenka punching him in the jaw.]

Two years ago, he asked me if I was still corresponding with anyone in the Order. He was taking notes; I wouldn't be shocked if he asked everyone. [By which he means templars or former ones.] But he's also never been unfair to me as watch captain, or as Commander, since he took that on.

What specific bad reasons are you worried about?

[Even if Vanya can guess, he's going to make Cedric say it if he plans to.]

[dissolving]

Y'fought the war. Reckon he's put it down, same as you?

[ cedric doesn't. ]

Reckon all his friends have? Don't gotta grill them t'know they talk. Y'certain none of them'd take a shot, if they could?

[wearyallalone]

Maybe one of them would. I don't think so while we're still fighting Corypheus, but you're right that I can't prove that.

[A beat.]

But I also didn't have to come here at all. I know that's not the same for you, and I'm not blaming you, if your math is different than mine. But I'm here because I think opposing Corypheus is more important than keeping myself perfectly safe. If I felt otherwise, all I had to do was leave and not come back.