faderift | she rules her life like a fine skylark

Ellana is no stranger to Morrigan's study, and today she comes up to the open door, giving a soft knock and hoping the woman isn't too engrossed in anything. If she is, Ellana will be happy to come back later, as she doesn't want to be a bother. And what she wants to speak of isn't really vital, but something interesting nonetheless.

Glancing up just long enough to see who it is, Morrigan manages half a smile. "Ellana."

It's been a while since last they spoke, the Sulevin Blade if she recalls correctly, but she does want to finish these notes before the thoughts vanish from her head. Ellana is no stranger to her study after all as she frowns in concentration for a moment to find the correct wording, the quiet scratch of her quill filling the air until she decides she can be done for the moment. At least her work bore fruit. More than she had hoped for, and that must count for something in these times.

"What comes, more news of an expedition?"

The address is enough to get Ellana to come in -- carefully tiptoeing around Kieran's homework -- to take a seat across from the desk and wait.

"Nothing more on that than one of Leliana's scouts helping me research my clues so we can pin down the exact location. But I did come to tell you about my trip to Rivain. I met with the Dalish elves there. The clan has a unique perspective, since the humans of Rivain are barely Andrastian and have no hatred of the elves."

"I had heard that some travelled there, though I have never ventured there myself." Attention fully on Ellana now she gives her a less distracted smile since she's done. "Many of my readings come from what Genitivi has written. Having met the man--" But that's for another day really, since he was much more trouble than he was worth, and Ellana has clearly come here to talk about something she cares about.

"Tell me, then, are they so very different from the elves of your clan? Clans can vary greatly but if you are telling me this then I must guess then Rivain must have left them much changed."

"They were wonderful people," Ellana says. What she doesn't add is that they were the way she wishes her own clan could be. That's an opinion she's not sharing with anybody. "They pass down our stories and keep our culture alive. They work with ironbark and gather elfroot for medicine. And yet their clothing, food, and other things are influenced by the humans of Rivain. It makes sense, because there is open trade between the clan and humans, so fabrics, spices, and other materials pass back and forth."

Well they don't have Beleth so that would already be a marked and drastic improvement Ellana. (Morrigan that was savage.)

"Ironbark so far north?" Oh does that bring back memories of Jonas and the merry band, traipsing through the Brecilian Forest with talking werewolves, darkspawn, talking trees, angry sylvans, and a mad hermit. Crazy days, classic times. "Elsewhere trade is very limited. Long ago, when I encountered a Dalish clan - after my travels with the Warden - I was expecting not to be welcomed, even though I had come entirely alone. And closer to Orlais, relations are…"

Well she hardly needs to say that they are what they are, that they are undoubtedly worse as of the civil war. That Halamshiral's impact will remain to be seen.

"Life must be easier then, in some respects."

They don't have Beleth or her mother. Lucky Rivaini Dalish. (Morrigan isn't the only one Beleth has pissed off.)

"Oh, yes. It's not plentiful, but they've found it." They've made such good lives for themselves there. It's amazing what friendly relations can do for a group of people. Even more so when the humans in Rivain don't fear magic either. Ellana spent her life always moving to outrun humans and always hidden to avoid Templars. She was even hidden from the other Dalish because it was wrong to keep an extra mage when other clans desperately needed one. And Beleth had the gall to call Ellana selfish for not getting on her knees and praising the Keeper for hiding her away and making her feel like a burden. The Keeper was the selfish one if she put the entire clan at risk for one mage.

"It is. They move where the food is, and are never chased out. They stay in the clan because they choose to, not because they'd be treated terribly or killed outside of it." Which is the reason Ellana stayed in her clan as long as she did. "Their Keeper doesn't really like attending Arlathvhen, because the Dalish outside Rivain are so... different. So angry and bitter." So snotty. There are plenty in Skyhold who wouldn't give a Dalish elf the time of day, and probably half of them do so because they've encountered terrible Dalish in the past. There's a difference between being wary and protective of your clan and stringing people up from trees or forcing them to wear Fen'Harel's Teeth.

"Only the Dalish can craft it." Morrigan allows the words to hang for a moment before she continues. "Or that is what any Dalish crafter I have ever met has told me, there is little lore that I have found on the subject. Either it has not survived or that is not how such instruction was passed down." Knowing the Dalish and their history, more than likely it's a mix of both. The Chasind are much the same however, and there was so little Morrigan was taught that she teaches to Kieran in turn that was written down to be passed on; anything that was written was destroyed, or taken away. To be kept safe. To keep others safe. Yet somehow there were no abominations or blood magic during her instruction unlike so many Circles it would seem.

A soft laugh follows that, with Morrigan inclining her head politely before she rises to begin making tea, talking as she goes. "There is more freedom of opinion then, not the one mind and mouth the Dalish I have met so often speak with?" It makes them dreadfully dull, truth be told, all parroting back the Keeper by rote. "One clan I knew had a foundling city elf as their First, her life had not been made easy from such scorn though she knew little and less of any other life but the clan, and to hear her speak she had passed all tests before her fairly."

"I can't confirm that only a Dalish can, but they certainly wouldn't be writing down how. They're prized in weapons, so the crafters wouldn't like it if suddenly every human had one." She can't blame them for that. It's the same as Ellana only teaching elves their language. The same as her never calling Felix by an elven endearment. It just wouldn't feel right. "I don't mind exploring elven ruins with humans, or telling them what I find, but there are some things... as long as they keep being passed down through elves, it will never be lost. Some things we can keep close to our hearts, because we've allowed other knowledge to be out there." She doesn't know if Morrigan will agree, but it is what it is. Morrigan has done much to help preserve the elves' history, but the elves have always done the same themselves. It's isolating themselves that has hurt them, which is why Ellana wishes things were different.

"I would say so. They were respectful to our group, and the group was respectful in turn. We spoke of the differences between Rivain and further south. The children weren't afraid and could hardly wait until the Keeper was done talking to us to come meet us strangers."

"Yet tis more than likely there are humans with them that have taken them by force," she points it since that is the way of the world, same as scavengers that pick over old bones. (She does not doubt either, though she would not say it, that there are a few in some places who have found it, who might not craft like the Dalish but have bent it to their will.) "When one clan disappears however, all that they might have known is lost."

Known is a strong word. Tales change in the telling and Morrigan's upbringing is proof of that when the Dalish speak of Asha'bellanar as they do, when they don't tell the stories of her that the Chasind do who live on her doorstep, or even Fereldans frightening their children into obedience. She pours the tea, allows herself a hidden private smile at Beleth Ashara who again is proof of one who is such a danger: believing she is so right, that she knows all there is to know, the closed little mind that would see the world grow smaller and smaller about her.

"Children are like that. Even during the Blight there were many still much themselves, braver than the adults about them." Or is that her seeing it differently now, with a child of her own? It's difficult to say.

"I know," Ellana says softly. "It's why I wish things were different. I wish we didn't live in isolated clans, but so much needs to change and unfortunately, that would take time and inclination." Probably not in her lifetime.

"The world feels so different when you're a child. And it's not that it feels more innocent. It's... that you feel nothing can hold you back."

"There are a great many who will fight change until the last breath rattles out of their lungs, who will keep to what was because it is all they have ever known." There is a certain irony in the Dalish being bastions of tradition when once they were so much more than what they are now, when so many seem content to press their hands over their ears and scrape out a life, looking down on everyone else as if that is not what all the rest of the world is doing. As if that is not what all the rest of the world has done since slipping free of the chains of Tevinter.

Blowing her tea to cool it, she smiles over the rim of the cup. "Kieran has ever been that way." Morrigan you carried him upon your back as a spider more than once, that's a poor example. "The elven children in the alienage still played at games, and the Dalish children still wished to hear tales I am sure their elders had rather they would not when we arrived. I wandered far as a girl, even in villages and towns."

Ellana agrees, and the look in her eyes suggests that she will never cling to something just because the prospect of the unknown frightens her. She's always had the soul of a bird, wings lifted and ready to take flight; ready to explore all the world has to offer. The world is a dangerous, cruel place, but there are bits of light shining through. It's thanks to Morrigan and her instruction that Ellana can now truly be a bird and sneak into places others dare not go.

"If we had had visitors to the clan, I would have been the same way. Our hunters sometimes met traders while out searching for game. I never saw them." Only what they traded with the clan (or what the clan stole from them, like the novel Cyril gave Ellana).

"In Rivain, there is just such a sense of respect. I got the impression that it was magic that bound humans and elves together. The humans aren't really Andrastian. They have their seers and apprentices, just like the Dalish have their Keepers and apprentices." Her heart gives a momentary lurch as she remembers how she was told all mages in that Rivaini clan were valued equally and taught how to lead as a future Keeper, not cast aside and told they never had a chance, so go light the fires and be useful elsewhere.

Now that surprises her, enough that either she cannot hide or simply doesn't bother to, staring at Ellana over her cup. "You never saw them? That surprises me in a clan that allows...what, a good half dozen of their young folk to come to the Inquisition?" Morrigan shields Kieran, yet she went so far with him when he was so small, and a single woman alone with a child would appear a sight more vulnerable than the Dalish. But then Ellana has always seemed somewhat different to those of Clan Ashara that Morrigan has met, and the others she has watched from some perch, or spied upon her travels about Skyhold.

"Not all places are beneath the thumb of the Chantry; I grew up closed to the Chasind with their shamans, wilder than Rivain but again still not a place the Chantry has ever touched. Let us hope that such traditions are not lost. The world would be poorer for their absence." After all, that's something Morrigan is trying to preserve with her own research, something she's trying to pass on to Kieran with all the preparations she makes for the role he will play in what is to come.

"Cyril and Merrick saw humans all the time. They'd steal their clothes or other things." Morrigan can probably guess who got them out of their clothes in the first place. "And Beleth would trade with them because she would suck up and act the innocent, then come back and gloat about how clever she was to squeeze deals out of them." Ellana moves to sip at her drink before she says any worse, like how Beleth is the biggest hypocrite she's ever seen. But when she does speak, she says, "Gavin had already joined while he was out in the world. The rest of us save me wanted to go because one was and the rest wanted to follow. I just wanted an excuse to get out and do something helpful."

And she feels she's been achieving that in her own small way. She's no master spy or tactician, but she fights when it's necessary, explores when she can, and just pitches in where she can in general.

"I feel that way too. The Chantry's ways mean knowledge is disappearing. The Rivaini mages have their own way of doing things, and it shouldn't be lost. Keeper magic shouldn't be lost." Ellana wishes she knew it, but at the same time, it feels disrespectful to learn it from anyone other than her Keeper. She doubts anyone with the knowledge would teach her anyway, since she's obviously not going to be a Keeper, but having sway over plants is such a useful skill.

The young men Morrigan knows little and less of, rumour of the temper of the former enough to make sure Kieran knows to keep well away from him on any of his wanderings with his friends, just to be safe. "I am sure many of them heard her; when we went retrieve my eluvian, she could hardly keep from braying the word." Morrigan had carefully not stated to all what it was that she had lost because there was an advantage in keeping it safe, but then Beleth had to go open her big mouth, didn't she? What a fine bard that one will make. "You have more than excuses now, far more."

And where a hunter might know how to lie low, Ellana can be a part of the scenery. A bird is easily overlooked as so many other creatures often are, but one cough, one twitch, one person who cares not for a pointed ear or Vallaslin? The hunter is rumbled and gone, but Ellana will be able to quietly hide herself where they never can. Able to disappear in a flash - a little bird is hard to pierce with an arrow.

Morrigan nods, a hand straying to the pouch where she keeps both grimoires recovered during the Blight. Habit keeps them close though she has less use of their secrets now than she did then. "Such things that we found in Kinloch Hold alone during the Blight, perhaps with the Circles gone all their small ways of thinking will be at an end at last."

Ellana's lips press into a firm line. She's had no one to talk to about Beleth ever since their fight, and it's been eating at her. Overall, she likes Beleth well enough, but certain parts of her personality just irritate Ellana and she doubts things will change there. Now the question is whether she should keep talking about this with the one person she knows for sure finds Beleth irritating too.

"Let me guess: she said it belongs to elves and expected you to hand it over to her without complaint?" Because surely Beleth in all her elfiness would know how to properly use one, right? It's not like they're mysterious objects laced with magic that are so rare that many think them more myth than fact. Oh, no, precious Beleth would just snap her fingers and it would bend to her will, because she's the elfiest elf to ever elf.

Let it never be said that sweet Ellana can't be bitter as can be at times.

Nodding her head in agreement, Ellana sets down her tea. "Even if they try to restore the Circles, they won't succeed in doing what they once did to mages. A person tastes freedom and learns new ways of seeing things and they don't just give that up to fall in line again. Well, anyone with sense shouldn't." She knows full well that many mages were led to believe they needed to be locked away, because they would be protected. It's not so different from her staying with the clan when she wanted so much to go. But she saw her chance to leave and she took it. The Circles falling is their chance to have freedom, and they need to take it instead of falling back into old habits.

"I've left the Mage Council," she adds, since it seems relevant. "We recently gained more pro-Circle mages and I didn't feel like trying to make them see sense. Besides, I initially joined to protect the Dalish mages here, but now that I know the Council doesn't hold any real power over mages, I know my fellow Dalish don't need me to protect their interests." Plus she's overloaded with all the other things she's doing. Plus she really, really hates politics and having to be underhanded. Benny tried explaining to her that it was about listening to people, but she has a feeling Benny wasn't telling her everything. Not surprising, since why would a smart politician give up their secrets in making it work for them?

Knowing that Beleth is a student of Leliana's, she does her best to keep her opinions to herself there. Leliana's work is her work, same as Morrigan's work is her unless they overlap as they will. And she is hardly about to be troubled over the opinion of one girl for all that it rankled, yet as with Gwenaelle, there is something to be said about letting it out, even if this is over tea in a study, rather than wine in private chambers.

"Hardly. She did not make it beyond 'eluvian'." If she had? Well, Morrigan and Leliana weren't so close then as they are now, but they were close, and Morrigan has ever been arcane advisor since she arrived. "I did try to speak once to Beleth, civilly, politely, she was not inclined to hear what I have learned during my travels. You might be wise to be careful should you learn anything that does not paint your people in the way she knows." The emphasis is there for a reason, and Morrigan's eyes flash. A careful warning. Old bones are bones, but once they lived and breathed. Once they were bloody things.

"Sheep will always wish to be sheep. Even now there are those who clamour for their return; Vivienne sits upon the Mage Council for one reason only. Within the Circles she was a woman of power, of influence, of rank. Take the Circle from her, take the Game from her, and what is she? A woman, and entirely forgettable. Tis what happens when you allow yourself to become a piece of such a thing." There's little need for Morrigan to guard her tongue when it comes to her opinion on the Mage Council or the little Circle since she's made it plain for so long, and well, Morrigan is the one with Celene's ear, not Vivienne.

Morrigan is the one who did it without bending over backwards to play their games.

"There is the Vashoth woman still, Korrin Ataash? I am sure she will still argue very loudly against the Circles." Finding out more about the Mage Council at first had pointed Morrigan in certain directions, and that it had pointed her to the Dalish had been a surprise but much has changed in-- almost a year. Almost a year and she cannot quite believe it. "The Dalish have never been bound by a Circle before, allowing another to hold your leash...well, the Circles did not learn from that. Perhaps they never will, though I need not tell you that, I think."

"I feel that learning the less savory parts of our past makes our ancestors more real, instead of being so far removed from them now. And it would be wasted breath trying to make Beleth see that." Ellana has learned much from the people here, and one of the most important things she's come to realize is she can only be responsible for herself. Being on the Mage Council meant every word and action could make other elves look bad. Benny had said just that to her, saying that Ellana's manner at the soiree had made things worse for elves. Ellana doesn't want to be responsible for them, whether that's true or not. Others' words can't hurt her if she remembers to be happy with herself. Beleth's refusal to listen means Ellana can't make her listen. Let her live her life the way she chooses.

She nods along with Morrigan's assessment. "From now on, I'm responsible for myself and no one else." Next to Gavin and Twisted Fate, she's probably the least conforming Dalish there is at Skyhold. She'll explore elven ruins, she'll help those who need it, but she's not here to represent anyone anymore -- especially not the Dalish as a whole. Beleth has that covered, for all the good it's done.

"I told Korrin that I was leaving before the rest of them. I owed it to her, since we were the only two councilors raised outside a Circle. We've always had similar views about what harm a Circle could do. She understands my reasons."

she rules her life like a fine skylark

very early in the month, she should have done this sooner omg

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