whatisright | IC Inbox (Drift Fleet)

[Somehow, she's misstepped. Badly. Her mind races, trying to backtrack. She's normally not so aggressive when trying to help her friends, but the thought of Justice killing himself has her on edge. Him doing that to himself would shatter Anders, and it would do a number on her.

He values his virtue, and she values his life. That's where they're clashing.]

Funny. If you pose that to him, he'd say it's the other way around. [And he has said as much.] You're both equally the victim and the transgressor. You both made the decision to merge. You both influenced the other and turned each other into something you both never wanted to be. You both planned and executed the plot to destroy the Chantry. It's on both of you.

[She pushes the bottle away, leaning over to try and look at him.]

But that doesn't mean you throw your life away. What do you hope to gain from doing that?

[He came here to ease her pain, but it seems like all he's done is give her more. Had he really expected any different? His interactions with mortals have been disasters from the beginning. The only reason he might have ever thought different was because his mortal friends were generous about what they would tolerate.

He avoids her eyes, contemplating the rejected bottle instead. He doesn't want to drink more, especially not when she isn't. If this is how badly he talks to her when he's sober, he doesn't want to know what he'd say if he were intoxicated.]

I hope to serve my virtue.

[When he says it, it's not the usual strident tone he uses when he talks about service to justice. He only sounds tired. His confidence is shaken in everything, but in this one thing he's sure: he wants to be just. He wants to fulfill his purpose more than anything.

He could go on about his logic: if he dies and saves future victims, then that is just, but if he dies and revictimizes Anders, then it is not just, but if he dies and Anders is never hurt in the first place... on and on.

But he doesn't want to. She doesn't want him to die, not because it is just but because he is her friend. No amount of his logic will persuade her, and even trying to explain it would just upset her more.]

Serving my virtue is all I ever wanted to do.

[Him continuing to avoid her would have caused her more pain. And it's just another part of being mortal, having these messy conversations and trying to make headway. It worries her how much he's withdrawing again, and how tired he sounds. She's so afraid he'll turn invisible again and disappear, with no word from him. Maker, she's got to do better than this. As usual, she's letting her emotions get in the way of things.]

You still can. [Carefully she reaches over to hold one of his hands, to ground him to her.] There are people who will need your help. There will be injustices that need to be righted. Both back home and in the fleet, on the worlds we visit.

[She needs to approach this from his point of view, which is a lot easier said than done. How does one think like a spirit, exactly? Hyperfocused on their virtue, to the point of importance above all else.]

Your virtue means everything to you. You see what was done to those killed in the blast as unjust and want to right it. And you see Anders as a victim of your corruption. [Maker, please tell her she's on the right path with this. If she drives another wedge between them, she'll never forgive herself.] But you're not sure if killing yourself is the answer. If you knew for sure, you'd have done it by now. Wolfe must have said something to you to sway you the other way. [Drunk Wolfe managed to talk to him better than she was doing stone cold sober. If that doesn't make her feel like shit...] I don't think killing yourself is the answer, and not just because you're my friend and I don't want to see you die. We can't change what we've done or will do from here, not unless we can find a way to break free from Atroma. They send us back to the point of time they took us from and things carry on like nothing happened. What that means for you when you're sent back, I don't know. Maybe it'll be the same, maybe things will be different.

In the meantime, if you want to serve your virtue, then that's what you do while you're here. You said you didn't know what the just answer was to what you learned about. There might not be one. Or maybe it'll come to you as time goes on. [She squeezed his hand.] You won't know if you're not around to find out.

[She's trying. He can recognize that much. His line of thought is no more natural for her than her line of thought is natural for him, but she's trying to understand as she always has. He can respect that. He can try in return.

Her hand is soothing. He squeezes it back, and like someone's attached a string to his shoulder and tugs it gently, he leans against her side. He doesn't want to withdraw from her. He wants to be close, wants things to be better, but he doesn't know how to make that happen.]

You are correct that I do not know if suicide is the just thing to do. I do not trust my judgment anymore.

[And there's another issue to deal with. If at some point, he thinks that possessing Anders and blowing up a Chantry full of people is a good idea, when can he be sure that his judgment is truly just? He thought his judgment was sound, but he's been thinking circles about this issue of suicide versus atonement and he's no closer to an answer when he should know instantly what is right.

He has changed. He sees it in himself, and he doesn't know when that change will make him incapable of fulfilling his virtue. Maybe he won't even know when it happens.

Maybe it already has.]

I do not trust that I can serve my virtue. If corruption has already set in, it is better to die. A dead spirit is a better servant to its virtue than a corrupt spirit.

[And if he's right, if Atroma can't bring him back to do all those things... then everything is fixed. Except its not. Wolfe's assertion that more people would have suffered if he hadn't done what he did nags at him. The paradox of the train nags at him. If a train is rushing full speed towards three people, but there is someone on the alternate track, is it better to divert the train and kill one to save three? Or is it better to let the train hit the three so you do not intervene and kill the one?]

[The contact gladdens her, and she leans her head against his as she stares at the far wall, wondering how to navigate this treacherous terrain. He means so much to her, and the last thing she wants is to worsen things.]

Why not stick around and find out? You won't know until you try. There will be cases of injustice for you to attend to. Wouldn't that be the best way to tell?

[As she says that, she remembers what he said about corrupted spirits, about how they couldn't tell they had changed. Vengeance certainly thought of itself as Justice still.]

...if you're unsure of something you've done, whether or not it's just, while I'm no spirit, I can at least provide insight. Provided that you still trust me to tell you as such.

[And under her words lies the worst of her pain. He'd said he wasn't sure he could trust her, back when they last spoke. It still haunts her, and she doesn't know if that was said entirely out of anger or if he really meant it. She's not sure what she'll do if he still doesn't.]

[Justice on instinct doesn't want to depend on anyone else for his judgment. He and Riona have disagreed on matters of morality before, and even the most righteous of mortals are vulnerable to vices like hypocrisy and double standards. And that's not even touching on the fact that he knows that she can lie to him now.

He's always known she lies--all mortals lie. He has yet to meet a mortal that doesn't lie at least in little ways, like saying that they are fine when they are not. It's annoying, but not harmful.

That wouldn't make him hesitate. No, it's the fact that she lied about something so big for so long that makes him hesitate. If telling him the truth would hurt him, or she feared that it would make him reconsider suicide, would she tell it to him?

He could filter out her bias by depending on many people, but he doesn't know if he could filter out the lies. The only people he would trust the moral judgment of would be his friends, and he suspects that all of them would lie to defend his life, even if it was just for him to die.

But he also doesn't trust himself to do this alone.]

Swear to me that you will never lie to me about something important again. No matter how you think the truth will hurt.

[And maybe the truth will mean that he has to die, but he'd rather die than to obliviously betray his virtue.]

[It's not unreasonable, what he's asking. And she deserves it, after what happened. Still, it's a hefty thing to promise, especially considering what's at stake. She feels like she's gambling with his life. But she's also risking their friendship. This will be something she will have to talk over with Anders as well in the future, to make sure they avoid this pitfall a second time. And also as a way to warn him to be careful about what he tells her about Justice from here on out. She doesn't want to have to lie again, not when she's about to swear not to.]

I swear. [Luckily, she's not hiding anything else super important from him. Well, nothing that directly affects him, anyway.] Just so we're both clear about it for future reference: what do you define as important? Obviously anything that directly impacts you, and anything related to dispensing justice and the like.

[Like any mortal, Riona has a few secrets. Most Justice wouldn't care much about, but she's not sure how he'd take learning about how she dodged dying when she killed the Archdemon.]

I may not understand it, but I know that you mortals value your privacy. I do not consider it a betrayal if you hide something you consider personal and unrelated to me or my virtue.

[The implication being that he does consider it a betrayal to have hidden the horror of his future from him. He would have thought a betrayal like that would be enough for him to no longer be friends with her, but he doesn't want to not be friends with her. The betrayal doesn't erase all the good things she's done for him, and it doesn't erase his affection for her. He doesn't know how to deal with these muddy feelings, with all this hurt and love mixed together at once.

He has to forgive her, and it's easier with her promise to not do it again.]

Do not lie about your moral judgment. If you believe I am slipping, you must say so. [And yes, he would consider omission in this case to be a lie.]

Thank you. All mortals have their secrets, and there are a few I'd rather keep to myself. I promise none impact you. And there isn't anything else so important that I'm hiding from you.

[Someday she hopes he'll come to understand why she did what she did. Maybe it'll be never, but she hopes. Though it won't happen any time soon even if it does. For now, she just has to take the chances offered to her and try and repair things.]

I will say so. Believe me, I don't want to see you become Vengeance. [The brief glimpse she got once was more than enough.] If there are others you trust in the fleet, you may want to enlist them as well. While I'd do my best to be impartial, I'm only human and I can be flawed. Having multiple perspectives on something can't hurt, should the need arise. [Would he even consider Anders, knowing what's happened? Or will happen, in his case? She's almost afraid to ask.]

[Justice hums in acknowledgment, both to her assertion that she'd like to keep certain secrets and her suggestion that he ask many mortals for their perspective. He will. He can't depend on only one human to keep him in check, especially one that has such affection for him. He doesn't know who else he trusts enough to even try using as a guide, but he will try.

(He doesn't know if it's a good idea to use Anders. If Riona is blinded by her affection for him, Anders has been rendered blind, deaf, and dumb by it. He doubts Anders would ever acknowledge it if he truly slipped into something irredeemable.)]

I will consider what can be done.

[He will figure it out. It's either that or die.

But for now, he just has a lot of feelings that he doesn't feel any more equipped to deal with than he was a month ago. He doesn't know how to fix everything between them or how to mitigate all the emotions poisoning him, but he knows that it makes him feel better to be close to Riona. He takes another drink of wine before offering it to her again, turning to tuck his head in the crook of her shoulder, squeezing her hand. He doesn't think she minds this. If she does, she'll tell him. Probably.]

[At least he's taking her suggestion to heart. That's a step in the right direction. This won't be fixed overnight, but they're making their way towards it. A lot remains up in the air, but Riona has more hope than she's had in weeks. She focuses on it, hoping he'll pick up on it.]

I missed you, for what it's worth. It hasn't been the same without you around.

[Belatedly she realizes that might sound like she's trying to guilt him, but it's not her intention. But she'll let it stand for now and see how he reacts. In the meantime, she takes the offered bottle of wine and takes a drink, squeezing his hand as she gulps a fair amount of liquid.]

[Hope isn't his virtue, but it is easily among the most powerful spirits of the Fade for a reason. He turns towards it like a sunflower facing the sun, letting his arm go slack and wrapping around her waist even as he keeps one hand in hers. She can keep the wine bottle as far as he's concerned. He just wants to be close to her.]

I missed you as well.

[It's a simple and honest admission. He missed her. He's grown so attached to this one mortal that her absence aches, even though she hurt him and he was angry. Maybe that's the biggest indication of how much he has changed. How did that sneak up on him?]

I am sorry that I hurt you.

[She deserved a rebuke for lying to him, and maybe even a length of silence, but this wasn't about punishment or atonement. He withdrew into himself because he didn't know what to do, and he didn't realize how much he was hurting Riona in the process.

He should talk to Anders soon.]

[It's strange to be this close to him, he who used to not know what to do with even a pat on the shoulder. But she doesn't mind; it's certainly better than the distance that has been between them for weeks.

She offers him the bottle of wine all the same, in case he wants more.]

I should be the one saying that. And I am. I'm very sorry. Hurting you was never my intention, but it inevitably happened. [There's no going back and changing it. All she can hope now is that they move forward and learn from this. One step at a time.]

[Justice nods in acceptance. It's possible for both of them to hurt each other, and for both of them to have something to apologize for, he supposes. He doesn't like how messy things are in this world, how murky and uncertain, but he has to deal with it.

He takes the bottle for one more drink before putting it aside. His head is fuzzy, but not drunk. Grudgingly, he has a better understanding of why Oghren may have wanted to prolong the fuzziness forever.]

I know it was not your wish to hurt me.

[Justice may not be able to trust his ability to sense lies anymore, but he believes her. If she wanted to hurt him, there were many ways she could a long time ago. She is his friend, and she's not afraid of him. He has to believe that.

For now, he just feels exhausted. The struggle to deal with all of these feelings and indecision tires him like nothing else ever has. He just wants to be close to Riona.]

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