{ OPEN } Shine with all the untold

[serannas]

WHO: Ellana + OPEN + various closed starters
WHAT: playing catch up
WHEN: covering the month of Solace until she leaves for Rivain
WHERE: Skyhold

Closed starters in comments, but here's an open option:

{ halla at ya }
Back in the clan, Ellana was close to their halla keeper, Sulahni. She could always tell when Ellana was upset, and told her she needed her help to feed the halla. And since Ellana is a soft-hearted soul who often ties herself into knots over things, she spent a great deal of time with the halla, feeding them out of her hand, helping Sulahni apply salves to their wounds, and just sitting beside them as they gazed at her with understanding eyes. She knows she doesn't have the gift of understanding them like halla keepers do, but she's dedicated to taking care of them here. They've had a long journey and she wants to help them settle.

She hasn't chosen names for them, because they don't belong to her. Halla are free and she doesn't own them. But she would love to have one as a dedicated mount, and she had assumed eventually one would stand out as the one who would allow her to ride it. Imagine her surprise when early on, one took a shine to her, nudging her shoulder for treats and following her around to the edge of their allotted space down in the valley, before she gently had to convince him not to go with her. Everyday she can be found with the halla, either feeding them from her hand or petting them, with one trailing her steps and sometimes setting his chin on her shoulder.

"Would you carry me if I asked you to, brother halla? Would you allow me to give you a name so I can call for you?"

Comments

[arcaneadvisor]

Since Leliana's poisoning, Morrigan has rarely been in her study during the usual hours. Instead, much to the irritation of most of Leliana's scouts (and the healers, and anyone else having reason to be there) she'd moved to her chambers instead with her work, though little of the work had been done in truth. A lot of talking, a lot of worrying, a lot of lying in bed with Leliana's frozen hands in hers resenting every interruption.

Still, there are times that she is there and this is one such time, her call to enter sharp since she half-expects a scout as she reviews the situation in Orlais, a letter from herself to Celene that she'll pass to a runner to keep her appraised; I am working, all is well. The usual sort of lies you tell since that's what she's getting from Celene though she'd rather her on the throne than Gaspard.

"Ellana," she greets, tucking the letter away in an envelope to be sealed and sent later. "Sit, find a seat." Translation: move the books somewhere else she's been coming and going a lot lately so it's a bit of a disaster in here.

[serannas]

Ellana doesn't know very many details about Leliana except she's been ill, and it was intentional, but she has faith that she'll get better with the help of the Inquisition. After all the work she's put into this organization, Ellana knows that everyone would rally to save her.

She tucks her journal against her chest and moves the books with one hand until the seat is free and she takes it.

"I hope you and Kieran have been well. I just got back from Emprise du Lion where I saw elven ruins, and I wanted to get your impression on what I found." She knows better than to waste Morrigan's valuable time, so it's straight to the point.

[arcaneadvisor]

"We have both been well, thank you, Kieran has found a new friend in Gwenaelle Vauquelin, I am grateful to her for keeping him entertained of late." There's been an awful lot of 'Gwenaelle says' around Morrigan's rooms recently, and anyone who might bump into Kieran is sure to catch wind of it too. But she settles herself more comfortable, appreciating something that draws her mind back to work once more.

"Tell me what you found, spare no detail, I will be glad to hear all of them," she encourages, and though it's slight, there's still a smile on her face as she says it.

[serannas]

"The one who writes about the Inquisition?" she asks, since that's all she really knows about her. That and she's definitely Orlesian, with a name like that.

Ellana is happy to do so, and though she brought her journal, she doesn't open it just yet. Instead she rests both hands on top of it and begins to speak. "It was a site just on the outskirts of Emprise du Lion. It had lay undisturbed for centuries, though we did find two dead Tevinters inside. They hadn't made it far in, and we found evidence that they'd killed each other in a feud and it was nothing within the ruin that had done it. Coming inside from the outer doors was a courtyard. There were beautiful mosaics and wall paintings. Falon'Din was portrayed on one, and harts on the other. There was also a statue to his owl there between two staircases. But once we entered, there were statues and murals dedicated to many of the gods -- even Fen'Harel."

[arcaneadvisor]

"The very one, we met shortly after her arrival. She has a keen mind." They have wine and gossip sessions, and Morrigan perhaps encourages her enough that people should worry but she cares, genuinely, sincerely. None can deny they need help getting support and Gwenaelle is the one who took the initiative, and she is proud.

"Do you suspect Venatori? My eluvian was briefly captured by them after all, tis something we should keep track of when the ancient Magisters took so much from your ancestors." That and another theory of hers she cannot voice, not yet, not when she knows it would cause alarm if it spread throughout the populace to speak openly of the Arbor Wilds presently. "The mosaics of green and gold stone or glass? I have seen their like in other places on my travels, and the paintings throughout Orlais should we turn to the Exalted Plains or to the Emerald Graves, I would be glad to show you to where I have ventured, should you wish it. To have lasted so long…" Well it does make one wonder just what the ancient elves did, or even those who made the exodus from the Dales.

But to the present, and she smiles, listening to what Ellana says as she commits it to memory. "Fen'Harel is usually depicted outside when he is depicted. I have met Dalish clans and their statues always had him facing away from them though picking through the legends to find the truth becomes...difficult." Trying, is more apt but to have Fen'Harel depicted within is odd.

[serannas]

"Thankfully they were not. Their bodies had been there for ages. The last visitors to the place." Felandaris grew outside the ruin, and the thinness of the Veil there made people uneasy. It was a good way to keep the curious out.

"Oh, yes, just like those!" And now she does open her journal and offers it to Morrigan. The images aren't done by a skilled hand, but it should be easy to tell they are images of what she just described. "Yes, we do the same in our clan. To see him in the corners of rooms facing out was something new for me." Then she dips her head towards the journal. "On the next page is a sort of sunburst pattern. These were repeating mosaics on the walls of one of the rooms. The ones with Fen'Harel."

[arcaneadvisor]

"Strange, though fortunate. You will be sure to let Leliana know?" All reports must be submitted but Morrigan doesn't bother passing any information to anyone else but Leliana, assuming that the spymaster will strip the necessary information from it and feed it back to the rest. "There might be some within Skyhold who might be able to date precisely when though so long as they were not involved with Corypheus, they are hardly important."

No one will mourn more dead Tevinters, least of all either of them.

With a light touch, Morrigan runs her fingers over the sketches, reminded of when she began the same sort of work. She's pleased to see that Ellana took her advice. After all, with so few records, having these will prove invaluable one day, especially if she is to go off and forge her own path. "Do you believe the sun to be a representation of Elgar'nan in some form?"

[serannas]

"Yes, there are a lot of things I need to tell her once she's feeling up to it." Inquisition business seems more important right now.

"That was my first thought, and nothing has seemed to come up to replace it. The simplest answer is usually the right one, after all."

[arcaneadvisor]

"Was there anything else of interest that you found within? I have not been to Emprise du Lion at all in my travels, it was too far and too inhospitable for my liking when I was in Orlais, other parts of the Empire kept me far more occupied." After going over the Frostbacks during the Blight, and again when she'd been pregnant of all things, she hasn't been in much of a hurry to really go traipsing around in frozen wastes again.

[serannas]

"Yes, several things, but the most important is a clue left behind as to the location of the Sulevin Blade." It may be just a sword, and one with a dark history for the elves, but it was a symbol of superior elven craftsmanship before that, and could be a symbol for good again, if she can find it.

[arcaneadvisor]

"You are not the first to come to me with talk of the Sulevin Blade. Katniss Everdeen and I spoke of it in...Bloomingtide, it must have been." How has the year moved so fast already? How have so many months slipped through her fingers with so little to show for it?

[serannas]

"Yes, she was with me when I found it. We'll have to make sense of the clues." It's an exciting prospect, but her enthusiasm at the find has had a chance to mellow on the journey back to Skyhold, so she's not bouncing in her seat about it.

"I wondered at all the artwork, though," she continues. "I noticed that it wasn't all devoted to just one god, but to all of them. The ruin wasn't really that big -- just several rooms, really. So I was trying to understand why there was such a mixture of art. Obviously the place was in use until the fall of the Dales, if the Sulevin Blade is mentioned. Do you think it's possible that the elves grouped all the art together in one shrine or temple devoted to all the gods, rather than space them out?"

[arcaneadvisor]

"I will warn you if I have not already: the elven language, the written form in particular, can be insufferably vague. What few fragments survive can mean many things at once. There is something poetic about it." Poetry has a time and a place, and when attempt to understand specifics, the vagaries of language can leave much to be desired of.

"Tis rare; I have often wondered at the singularities of worship. Your people speak of the Creators and indeed, many stories depict aspects of family in a way; Father and Mother in Elgar'nan and Mythal, lovers in Andruil and Ghilan'nain, twins or twin souls in Dirthamen and Falon'din. Even Sylaise and June would have some overlap between hearth and craft and home depending how one looks. Yet…" She pauses to think since she isn't entirely sure herself where she's going with these words; Ellana is more progressive were she to think in such terms but Morrigan isn't Dalish. She might have studied a great deal, she might have had access to things a clan could barely dream of but she isn't Dalish. What she says might upset Ellana, for all that she certainly doesn't doggedly cling to her ways like some. "Worship seemed to be Temples devoted to one. Separate. I had wondered if bringing them together came after yet if this was used until the fall of the Dales, that would change things. I doubt others would move them there, however. So elves, yes. Though why and for what reason? That I cannot say."

[serannas]

Insufferably vague it may be, but to Ellana, it's amazing. She imagines the ancient elves being people of such wisdom that their words had layers upon layers of meaning within them. Everything could be taken more than one way, and riddles were common. Of course Morrigan is right too, because here in this time it makes deciphering it all that much harder a prospect, but she just can't help the tiny thrill she gets at imagining the ancient elves and their ways.

"I could probably come up with some theories," she replies, not offended by anything Morrigan's said. "Maybe the elves of the Dales brought the worship of the Creators to one location to better hide their temples from wandering humans? Or styles of worship changed, and they made offerings to each deity at one location, at one time instead of spreading it out."

[arcaneadvisor]

Unfortunately there's the chance Corypheus and his followers might have an advantage compared to them when it comes to the ancient elves; if he truly is what he professes to be then they have no way of knowing what he has seen. All of them know their history. All of them know of Tevinter and the ancient elves.

It's precisely why she took a great deal of pleasure in killing the Venatori that sought to take her eluvian from her.

"As I offered in the past, I am unopposed to working with others on such matters. It could be that we might never know the truth though it might well stare us in the face though all ancient elven ruins are spread far from one another. Your people have never left roads. Not once." Morrigan knows why but she's never asked if the Dalish have any theories as to why. She's never needed to since she learned that the eluvians were for much more than mere communication.

[serannas]

"Maybe they were dirt roads?" she suggests, having not considered this before. "I know the ruin we found had grass and tree roots throughout. Nature was reclaiming it." But then she smiles faintly, adding, "Or perhaps all ancient elves were shapeshifters and they took the form of birds to travel from place to place."