7.) Is there one event or happening your character would like to erase from their past? Why?
Codex entry: on regrets.
Interview continued with Grandmaster of Antivan Crows, Zevran of House Arainai, on the subject of the Warden-Commander Leandaros’ regrets.
ZA:Oh, but that’s the attraction with such people, isn’t it. Like Icaro, their highs claw constellations, but the lows that follow are abyssal. They’re all marked for death from the moment they are born, and not one among loved ones, friends and children, but alone and forgotten, and no one will visit their gravestone, because there isn’t one. Who loves them by the time they fall for the final time?
Your Warden-Commander was always hard on himself, but it wasn’t the kind of self-torment one could vanquish with sweet words and affirmations. All the love in the world won’t fill the hole where the soul is supposed to be. They burn. They are ice cold. Every mistake they make is something to overcome, disregard, or to blame on somebody else, yes? We’ve all met one of those. The only person they’ll ever listen is themselves. Unfortunately, ‘themselves’ is easily lost in isolation and delusions of their own capabilities.
No, I don’t think he regretted anything during his life. Any regrets he had happened moments before the end, in that cold hole under sterile sands, hungry, alone, and all but forgotten. Ashes, I tell you. You can unearth bones a thousand years later, and gain understanding of who they might have been, but our dear Warden-Commander of Ferelden? Ashes in the Sea of Ash. There was that one time, in the beginning, in the Deep Roads when we caught a moment. He didn’t know it yet, but he stared at his fate. He said to me: “I don’t want to die, and if I do die, then not here, in some hole in the ground while God is laughing at me.”
You and I can now guess his regret. I’m not sure he would change it, though, prideful little bastard. If it’s a hole in the ground, then it’s a hole in the ground, but at least it was a life all his to lose, lived just the way he chose to. That I can respect. Not admire, I’ve felt its bite. But respect.
Codex entry: a letter found in possession of Anatole Montilyet of Amaranthine, the grandson of Laurien Montilyet of Antiva, brother of the Inquisitor’s Chancellor Josephine Montilyet of Antiva
“What was your name, little one? Young Inquisitor. Solemn, curious girl. Razikale sings to me of mysteries I did not even know to long for. She has not yet been found, but she is calling. Pristine or blighted, She will claw her way out of stone, and wage war against the Maker. I’m inclined to go with her, I have words for the bastard, and a Handful of the very death he blessed us with. A taste of His own medicine, if you will. We are going, shadow by shadow upon and within the unseen and the impossible, and demand answers. What comes next will not be kind to you and yours. I should have liked to meet you, young Inquisitor, and look you in the eye. Rare is a door that I do not have to break down myself, rarer still a hand that invites me in. This is why I warn you. Dark days are coming, but if we prevail, then I promise you that you’ll never have to doubt or fear anything again. And if not, then such is life. Not the first fool who challenged God.
Atish,
LeanWarden-Commander of FereldenArchmage Leandaros Rahe Surana [crossed out especially aggressively] the Yellow Prince. This is what She calls me, so this is what I am.
