#I am not even in the “hate Aveline” club

[zundely]

One thing that annoys me to no end about how Aveline's involvement and inaction im "Prime suspect" questline pans out is that they basically took the worst of both worlds.

Like you could want Aveline's inaction to be part of her development and a character flaw- which is very consisten with how she usually prioritizes the guards safety and overall image over literally anything else including their duty to protect the people. Like the investigation wasn't going anywhere and it made the guard look bad so she is dropping it because to her the smallest chance that Emeric is in fact right and people are in danger isn't worth the damage to the guard in case he is wrong. This is also good foreshadowing for when this worst trait of Aveline results in Qunari invasion. The only thing that makes me doubt this was the intention is that Aveline never gets the "Oh shit, I am not meant to protect the guard- I am meant to make sure the guard protects everyone else" moment, which was dierly needed if that's what they were going for. It was direly needed in Aveline's case in general because considering all the characters get their "Questioning beliefs" moments... Aveline's questioned beliefs are the most vague.

So lets imagine this is not what they were going for for a moment which honestly I find plausible considering the game tends to frame Aveline as mostly reasonable and how the talk afterwards goes if you do point out it was her fault. Lets imagine that Aveline wasn't supposed to be the one to blame here, the game just needed a reason for why Hawke got mixed up with the investigation- I still to this day do not get why they didn't use the perfect reason we later learned they had.

The investigation was constantly being poisoned by Orsino. Since we learn in the end that Orsino was aware of Quentins existance but keeping it under wraps to not justify Meredith's methods, he could also do what he can to make sure he was untraceable. And obviously he wouldn't know exactly what Quentin was involved with, he wouldn't believe the rumors that were cirrculating- they make every other apostate sound like a bloodthirsty killer after all.

Aveline would notice something is off and official ways of investigating are being stopped in their tracks. So she goes to Hawke with "listen this may be nothing but I feel someone really doesn't want us to find out anything in this case, and I have a bad feeling."

This way you kill two birds with one stone- you absolve Aveline of all the responsibility for what happens and you give a hint Quentin had some powerful friends.

Now I know this would put Orsino in a worse light were in the game he just turns the blind eye, but at least to me it doesn't make him necessarily a bad person? Just a man under immense amount of pressure who is very aware of how one bad thing a out one mage puts all of them in danger. I think this would also potentially make his relationship with Hawke absolutely heartbreaking especially if Hawke supports the mages. Like how do you tell the one most powerfull ally you have that you are indirectly responsible for the worst thing that happened to them.

While I personally think having Aveline be responsible for what happened and take some time to think on it would be better for the story and for her character growth I think the second option also had a good narrative potential- but instead they sort of took both of those but not really. Aveline's inaction hurts the one she swore to protect... but not really. Orsino knew about Quentin and is therefore to some extent responsible for what happened... but not really. Hawke's mother is dead and we didn't even get a churro out of it.

[5lazarus]

Anders in Autumn, Ch. 9: howling wind

Finished Ch. 9 of Anders in Autumn, posted on AO3 here. I am not tagging cozy-autumn-prompts because is a chapter with quite a lot of violence, but I do recommend you check out the account for what others have done with the prompts! It gets lighter after this. But this is Fenris and Anders we’re talking about, so a glance into the darkness is necessary. Ch. 9, howling wind: Negotiations break down, and the guards are tasked to break the strike. Anders cleans up the mess.

The Veil in Kirkwall is paper-thin. The wind howls and it shifts. An angry thought can thin the weave, and Justice is always angry. Anders struggles in the week up to the strike, hating the suspense as negotiations start and fall apart and begin again. Fenris keeps inviting him to the Hanged Man, ostensibly to keep an eye on him, and he is a rare beacon of sanity and reality. Anders struggles in the Hanged Man, watching Aveline and Varric in their complacency, and he struggles visiting Hawke in their mansion. Everywhere he goes he sees everyone besides them struggle: child pickpockets fingering threadbare pockets, Carta thugs shaking down already shuttered shops, and the cold. The wind howls and Anders feels himself screaming with it. It is all far too much. At least Fenris sees it too.

Only preparing poultices keeps him grounded. As that mid-autumnal gloom settles on Kirkwall, Anders grinds a new wear into his mortar and pestle and chops new scars into his favorite cutting board. He had brought them both from Amaranthine--gifts from the Hero of Ferelden, who still paid his warden pension. He has processed so much elfroot he stinks of it, and on his way back from the bar, he gets stopped by a guard who thinks he’s cutting it with lyrium dust. Luckily he manages to keep his cool through the indignity of it. “I’m a healer. I run a clinic,” he tells the guard testily. She is one of the newer, Kirkwall-born recruits. Aveline does not like her, but Aveline hates everyone in the guards, even as she thinks she can reform it. “I’ve treated your brother for gonorrhea. Leave me alone.” The guard lets him go after that, but still,  the anger burns. He wants the right to walk through this city unmolested. Lyrium addicts should be left alone, too--most of them are former templars Meredith threw out anyway, and it is so typical of this city and this chantry that they refuse to even clean up their own waste. Anders is left cleaning them up, literally sometimes--withdrawal is a mess, but it is only right to help, it is only justice. Burning with disgust, Anders wonders when Elthina will finally step into this muck, rather than quietly letting the guards “legislate” against it. When will justice come to Kirkwall? Spirits press against the Veil at that thought, and he winces as the whispering rises almost to a shout.

“Soon,” Anders mutters. “Soon.” The day the negotiations break down is gray but clear. Anders comes down to the docks to watch the speeches. The first one to go is a elvhen man, the same who visited his clinic, with a pronounced Orlesian accent. He stresses the righteousness of their cause, and the international nature of it. From the sheep-shearers of the Ferelden highlands to the weavers of Wycombe, to the tailors of Val Royeux, Kirkwall is a vital nexus for them all. Kirkwall facilitates the flow of cash through the whole of northern Thedas, so it is only right that they do not get killed for it, hurried along to pack and unpack ships. It is only right and fair that they earn their money’s worth. The next few speeches are less eloquent but rile up the crowd. Anders finds himself smiling, slouching in the shadows with his medic’s kit. These speeches have been said before, from the slaves’ rebellion and before, he knows so sharply that it is Justice who has watched this: and they will be said again, before my time is done. He blinks and rubs his head, unsure of whose thought that was, unsure of what that meant. Had Justice wanted to return to Kirkwall? Is that why he is here? How much of his life is at the mercy of these forces he thought were under his control? A Ferelden dockworker is leading the crowd in a rousing chorus of “Andraste’s Rebellion.” Anders tenses: they have included the verse about Shartan. He scans the crowd anxiously, looking for guards, and as the wind howl he notices Varric looking disgusted, at the other end of the embarkment. The dwarf is easily to spot, he is the only bit of bright color amongst the lot. When Varric leaves, Anders realizes: oh, it’s about to get bad. The guards come in, with clubs rather than swords. There are two for every protesters, and the speaker falls silent as the crowd turns. People begin clutching at each other. Others brace themselves. The mood is grim. Anders reaches for a knife, just in case. A high clear voice cuts over the murmuring crowd, the sloshing and creaking of the waves against the docks. “You have been given orders from the Viscount’s Office to disperse, else you will each be charged with vagrancy and suffered to surrender a week without pay. You have two minutes to disperse and return to your posts.” “Fuck that!” someone yells from the crowd. People begin booing. A hand touches his shoulder, and Anders whirls around to bat it away, but is restrained. Fenris stares back steadily, wrapped in a dark cloak, hood up. The lyrium branded on his skin glows softly. Fenris says hoarsely, “It is time to prepare. I will make sure you can do your duty.” “What?” he whispers back. “I don’t need a bodyguard.” Fenris looks grim. “There are templars about, so yes--you do. There are enchantments on one of those ships that the Knight-Commander wants. Be ready.” The wind howls as the guard charges the crowd, and Anders dodges blows and returns a few of them as the strikers scream as blood flows yet again on the streets of Kirkwall. Fenris tackles a guard who has left off his club and is just punching a man, and Anders flinches at his battered face. He checks his pulse: still there, thank the Maker. “We need to get him to the clinic,” he says. “So many of them. They need magic. More than this.” Then he feels it more than hears it: rage, hot and sudden cutting through the chilly day. A woman is screaming. It is that Dalish woman. Fenris says, “Fuck.” He rushes over and Anders follows, weaving through the melee. The people, somehow, are gaining ground, but of course most of them fought the Blight. You don’t survive the Blight, fending off slavers and bandits, and at least five years in Kirkwall just to let a guard beat the shit out of you. You don’t survive just to let the Merchants’ Guild cheat you out of your money. You don’t survive just to die. Fenris backhands a guard and Anders kicks him in the crotch to make sure he stays down--a trick he learned from escaping the Circle. He almost slips on a puddle, and then sees--that was blood. He understands why the woman was screaming. She is bent over the man, pressing on a gaping wound. A guard stares at her own hands, holding a blood-slickered sword. Justice pushes through Anders’ shock and then the sword is in his own hands. It is raining now. Fenris is yelling, “Get him to the clinic, you fucking fool!” Anders drops the sword and they begin the difficult process of carrying the wounded through Darktown. They have inflicted enough damage that the guards have retreated, but Anders wonders if this was enough. The Dalish woman is steady as she and Fenris carry the man, even as she is doused with his own blood. She notices Anders looking and grimaces. “Not the first time,” she says haltingly. “Not the last.” What sort of fucking life you live, Anders almost says, and then he realizes: the same as his. He looks down at his hands and sees them covered in drying blood. He scratches at them as they enter the clinic. Lirene greets them, already stressed. “We’ve got half the Ferelden population in here,” she says. The clinic reeks of blood and piss and shit. Fear does that to a person. “Work your magic, mage.”  So he begins, setting Fenris at the door to vett people as they come in. The last thing he needs is a Carta bomb going off as he treats all these head wounds. The Dalish woman helps, her magic flaring and heating up the room so much Lirene has to bank the fire. It is exhausting work. He stumbles into the back at some point, to get the lyrium potions, but to his disappointment the lock on the chest has been broken. Whoever broke into it left a turnip and two vials, and he and the Dalish mage split them. Lirene takes the turnip. Most of the strikers are in stable condition, and he expects almost all of them to recover within the next few days. Magic is meant to serve man, and how wondrously it does. The Dalish man pulls through after six blood replenishing potions, and Anders worries, because that is his entire stock, and tomorrow will find him entirely unprepared. That one trip to the Sundermount was not enough. Only one person dies: a woman from the alienage, one of the first elves to work with the Fereldens at the docks. The elves do not let him touch the body. Merrill comes with the hahren and wraps her in a beautifully-embroidered green shroud. He watches as they load her onto a cart drawn by the two of the last halla in Kirkwall, and a long procession follows them back to the alienage. Exhausted, he leans against Fenris as they stand at the entrance of the clinic. Fenris, cautiously, puts his arm around him. “She’s with the ancestors now,” he says. “Or the Maker. Whatever she believed.” Anders shifts. “Did you know her?” “A little. It doesn’t matter.” Fenris turns and pushes him gently back into the clinic. “You should rest. You’re no use to us like this.” Anders wavers on his feet. There is so much to do and  Justice is urging him on. He is afraid of what will happen if he blacks out and Justice takes it upon himself to do what must be done. “Right,” he says. “Rest. That sounds nice. What a concept. Love to try that sometimes.” “Mage,” Fenris growls, “get yourself in a bath before I have to scrub the blood and shit off you.” He really shouldn’t be turned on by that, but he is, and he laughs, and takes a bath, and falls asleep. When he wakes up he has been dressed and tucked into his own lonely bed.