Oh, I was better at it than you were? I was better at it? We had to choose the same way?
[He never raises his voice with anyone but Myr, never lets anybody but his cousin see him this furious and exposed, but he can't help it now.]
You would never have dreamed of compromising the way I did for you. It would never even have occurred to you that I could be something to choose over the Chantry. The idea's never even crossed your fucking mind. But of course, it's different when you do it, because your principles are holy ones.
You get to spend your entire fucking life choosing your principles over me and claim the automatic moral high ground because it's for Andraste, and then you chastise me for finally doing the same thing for what I hold sacred.
[Cas doesn't figure in here, because he can't rebut that, can't address it, can't think about it. Cas hasn't figured into Van's arguments in years, because he could never be used to win them. But there are other misconceptions to clear up right now.]
What the hell do you think freedom means to me? You think all I wanted to do was leave the Circle, and that's what I was fighting for? Like I wanted to have fun traveling the world, sipping champagne in fancy Orlesian gardens, and that's why I left?
Do you think I want to be here? In fucking Kirkwall? Three different people try to mug me every fucking time I leave the Gallows, and you think I just left because I wanted to be somewhere other than a Circle tower? You think I spent months starving and freezing and running and watching my friends get butchered one by one because--what, I wanted to see what it was like to go camping?
no subject
[He never raises his voice with anyone but Myr, never lets anybody but his cousin see him this furious and exposed, but he can't help it now.]
You would never have dreamed of compromising the way I did for you. It would never even have occurred to you that I could be something to choose over the Chantry. The idea's never even crossed your fucking mind. But of course, it's different when you do it, because your principles are holy ones.
You get to spend your entire fucking life choosing your principles over me and claim the automatic moral high ground because it's for Andraste, and then you chastise me for finally doing the same thing for what I hold sacred.
[Cas doesn't figure in here, because he can't rebut that, can't address it, can't think about it. Cas hasn't figured into Van's arguments in years, because he could never be used to win them. But there are other misconceptions to clear up right now.]
What the hell do you think freedom means to me? You think all I wanted to do was leave the Circle, and that's what I was fighting for? Like I wanted to have fun traveling the world, sipping champagne in fancy Orlesian gardens, and that's why I left?
Do you think I want to be here? In fucking Kirkwall? Three different people try to mug me every fucking time I leave the Gallows, and you think I just left because I wanted to be somewhere other than a Circle tower? You think I spent months starving and freezing and running and watching my friends get butchered one by one because--what, I wanted to see what it was like to go camping?