faderift | You'll fight and you'll make it through

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You'll fight and you'll make it through

WHO: Hermione and OPEN!
WHAT: Catch-all for the month (let me know if you'd like a particular starter)
WHEN: Wintermarch, going into Guardian if need be
WHERE: Throughout Skyhold
NOTES: Feel free to assume prior minor CR between them, especially if your character would have taken/taught any classes involving magic or Thedosian history/culture. I'm willing to handwave more major previous CR if that would make the thread move along more easily, but we can hash out those details either via PM or on plurk (

StarryOblivion).

Archery range

To her credit, Hermione was trying.

Her magic still wasn't coming along as seamlessly as she would hope, and so she'd bitten the bullet and decided that she'd need to learn other ways of defending herself, since she couldn't rightfully stay within the confines of Skyhold forever. Most weapons were too large or heavy for an untrained person of smaller stature, and the ones that weren't would force her to get much closer to an enemy than she would want to, especially if bloodshed was going to be involved. Given all that, archery seemed the best bet. She could stay a safe distance from most of the fighting and also run with her weapon without it tripping her up or throwing off her balance. And besides, she'd used a bow and arrow before.

Once.

For fun.

And she hadn't been very good.

Which explained why she'd raised the bow before the arrow was properly nocked, resulting in the arrow unexpectedly flying loose with an almost comical twang! and a gasp from the startled young witch. She widened her eyes as she instinctively looked around, hoping that no one had seen that, before realizing that she should be more concerned with where the arrow had gone and fervently hoping it hadn't managed to somehow hit someone.

Perhaps she should stay away from weapons for a while?

Training Grounds

She'd made it quite clear to anyone who offered to spar with her that she didn't know the first thing about fighting without any sort of magic, but even so, Hermione wasn't really going to leave anything to chance. She'd been tortured before, and while no physical injury could match what had been done to her, she still wasn't a big fan of pain and was in no hurry to subject herself to any injuries that may require more than a quick visit to the healing tents.

Long hair pulled back into a bun and wearing as much light armor as she could get away with without hindering her movement, Hermione always stood stiffly as she eyed her opponent, looking for weaknesses. She was small and fairly fast, so if she could assess her situation before the match even started, she could try to use that to her advantage and end things as quickly as possible. Still, she was here to learn, and one didn't learn without asking questions, so there was no shortage of those as she awkwardly went through the motions each and every time.

"Is my stance all right? Where should my hands be while I'm defending myself? You're not going to actually hit me hard, are you? I don't fancy a broken nose, and I'm not looking to hurt you. You know I'm only looking to defend myself, don't you? You'll stop if I ask you to, won't you? What should I be doing with my feet?"

On and on it went, and if she couldn't get herself used to any kind of bare-handed combat, Hermione was just going to have to get her hands on her own staff and start practicing a different sort of sparring, assuming that her mage friends wouldn't mind showing her how to use a staff in a less traditional sort of way.

The Baths

While she always did what she could to keep herself clean, Hermione had managed to avoid the baths for an extended period of time. It was easy enough when making water was one of the only spells she could still reliably do, and she'd been forced to get used to limited hygiene during the year she'd spent on the run. But now that she was actually involved in regular physical activity, she couldn't really make do with a quick wash or a mostly-clothed dip in the bath.

Though it always seemed like most of the people she would see down there relished their time in the water, Hermione had never exactly enjoyed communal baths. Still, she did happen to go down there while it was mostly empty, and there was no rule saying she had to be completely nude to get herself clean. She was a grown woman, and if she wanted to sit in a bath with her underwear on, she was surely entitled to it.

Besides, the hot water felt good on her sore muscles (she was getting muscles now; when did that happen?), and so it was easier for her to relax than she might have thought otherwise. So long as no one tried to engage her in conversation while their privates were less-than-private, she could almost enjoy soaking in there for a bit.

Library

The drawback to not having your own small, private, contained bath was that you couldn't read in the tub, and despite her newer hobbies, reading will always be Hermione's first love. While she might not be as much of a fixture in the library as she used to be upon her initial arrival, anyone looking for her could simply hang about the vicinity long enough and she would find her way back there before too long. These days, she mostly read for the various classes she was taking, but she still found the time to read one of the "lighter" books available in Skyhold's library. Sometimes, these books were written with a very marked biased, and whoever might be sitting close enough to the young rifter might be drawn into a heated discussion over said bias. It was all right, though; she usually kept her voice down, given that it was a library.

Wildcard!

Choose your own adventure!

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Despite joining the Inquisition originally as more of an advisor, Morrigan can't deny that a part of her has missed being back in the field once more even if she truly hadn't intended on so much in so short a time. What she certainly hadn't intended on is just how much has managed to build up in her absence; between Kirkwall and Vimmark, Serault and the Winter Palace, too much of her work has slipped to one side for now, too many of her projects being ignored or left to gather dust.

Not so now, up in the library to read on the Circle teachings of Knight-Enchanters, or rather their history given how much she does know about how they've scavenged from the elves.

She doesn't quite intend to be drawn into any conversation, but her mouth pulls into a smirk, one brow arched. "Is the writer a Chantry scholar, by any chance? They are a particularly tiresome creature, even moreso in the flesh if you can imagine."

"From the looks of it, most writers are Chantry scholars," Hermione finds herself muttering under her breath as she frowns down at the book in her hands. "Or Chantry toadies, if nothing else."

She really needs to stop reading so many things that spark her ire, but she sort of can't help it. During her first few weeks in Skyhold, she'd taken everything she'd read for face value, since it had been her first go-around with attempting to understand Thedas as a whole. Now, though, she's been re-reading a few texts, and she has enough of a sense of perspective to know to be annoyed and spot the biases for what they are.

Glancing up at Morrigan, Hermione's frown deepens and she asks, "Is this really the prevalent belief system in the world? I suppose I can see some similarities between it and the major religion of my own, and they're both rife with inconsistencies and circular logic, but I fail to see how so many people can read this sort of thing and not question it. Especially when the Chantry isn't exactly shy about how exclusionist it can be."

"Once I had the misfortune of meeting Genitivi. A pity the cultists never finished him off." So much trouble for one man in the end, a man with such incredibly dull, tedious, biased writings that serve more use as kindling than anything else. "The Chantry has a long arm, a powerful arm."

It gets her to sit up though and to set her own work entirely to the side; what little is known of the Chasind elsewhere can wait when it's so very rare that conversation is truly interesting. When there are so few willing to challenge, to disagree.

"A tale that has been told since fabled Andraste herself, though how well Andraste is remembered..." Well, she can leave Hermione to wonder that one, can't she? "In the dark days when the wicked men of Tevinter placed so many in shackles, when the Blight spread across the land, when the wicked elves had what humans believed belong to them when they no longer wished to honour old oaths? It gave them something I imagine. There is a power in old words. And there is a greater power when you are settled in Orlais, when you might cast yourself as the white light of the world against the dark. When you have so many Templars though they do not have them now. The Chantry teaches many things, it also likes to forget many things. You will not find mention of Thane Shartan unless you go hunting for him."

"I wouldn't say it's a powerful arm if people are simply moving aside rather than attempting to wrest it of its claim to power," Hermione sniffs. "I respect authority as much of the next person, but when that authority is used to pin people down rather than help lift them up, it's time for a revolution. Which I suppose is what's happening now, in its own way; how terrible that this whole business with Corypheus is happening at the same time."

Clearly, Hermione has no issue with challenging the status quo, especially when it feels so inherently backwards compared to what she's used to. So long as Morrigan shows no signs of wanting to shove her into a cell on charges of heresy of whatnot, she has no qualms with continuing to talk.

Or listening, which is what she's keen to do now, given that the woman before her seems to speak with the ease of a natural storyteller. "It's not forgetting if it's willful. It's simply glossing over the truth. In other words, lying." She pauses for only a brief moment before reaching for a nearby quill, ready to take notes as she asks, "Thane Shartan? Who is he? Or who was he?"

"You might wish to take care, the walls of Skyhold have ears." Morrigan could probably attempt to sound as if she's discouraging that line of thinking rather than actively encouraging it but what does the world gain by sitting by and becoming stagnant? "That the Chantry and Orlais are so tightly bound is little accident. That the Grand Game is at the heart of Orlais...if there are those who wish to rise within the Chantry? They must play it well. I wonder what the Black Divine in Tevinter makes of all this, watching as the Chantry bickers amongst itself still."

The old is returning, and Morrigan isn't sorry for it but she would rather not see the Imperium emboldened enough to attempt to rise anew, not after battles with the Venatori. If the whispers of Corypheus are true...Well, she has played her part in slaying one magister of old, bloated and corrupt, she did not think she would see another rise in her life.

The face you would make at this one Wynne, she thinks with what is maybe savage fondness if that's even possible. "Would glossing not imply a measure of care? To some of them I would imagine they think of it as cutting off a gangrenous limb that the body might not sicken, or hiding the corpse in a shallow grave, unmarked, to be forgotten. As for Thane Shartan, he was leader of the elven slaves at the time of Andraste, and using what they might find as weapons - how little we move on, for in alienages even as you and I speak now the elves are not allowed such things - they ambushed and overwhelmed the forces of their masters. That was how Andraste's army noticed them. They fought together as equals, so it goes, he was named her Champion after a great battle yet were you to ask a Chantry mother or sister, they would not speak of it. His canticle was, after all, named the Heresy of Shartan."

Hermione responds to Morrigan's warning with a look of dull incredulity. "You understand that both the Chantry and the average Orlesian likely still think I'm some sort of dangerous demon, don't you? Whether or not I use words like 'revolution', there are some who would just as happily kill me as they would find some way to help me home. But I've done nothing but help the Inquisition and I wouldn't do anything to jeopardize its place in the world, and so Skyhold's walls can listen to as many of my grievances as it likes. If any one person should find him or herself insulted, we can speak like rational adults."

That isn't necessarily true, of course, because rationale seems to be as rare among adults as it is among children, much to Hermione's chagrin. But she isn't out to antagonize anyone, and she knows the value of keeping quiet and not showing too much of one's hand.

She isn't going to argue with Morrigan about whether the Chantry is right or wrong for burying certain secrets; Dumbledore had done the same, after all, on a smaller but no less dangerous scale. Instead, she jots down quick notes of what the woman tells her of Shartan, frowning a little at the unfairness towards elves, as she's been doing since long before she'd ever heard of Thedas. "One would think that, rather than not giving the elves weapons, humans would learn not to give them reason to use weapons instead." Under her breath, she mutters, "If humans want so badly to feel superior, perhaps they should change their behavior rather than put chains on everyone they consider to be an 'Other'."

"What they might do to you for being a demon and what they might do to you for what you say are very different things. Do you think Andraste went willingly to the flame? This was before Tevinter had their Black Divine, a time before they too believed in the Maker. So many say the Inquisition is made up of heretics, even within these walls it is a many-headed creature. Too long without something else to focus on and how soon before it begins to tear itself to pieces anew." After all, things with the Mages and the Templars have settled down remarkably compared to what they were, things with the Rifters are nowhere near so fraught as they were at the time when Morrigan arrived. Orlais might upset it all.

Orlais has a knack for it, likely much to Celene's chagrin for all she sets herself and her empire out to be a shining beacon of a golden era of enlightenment for her country and all its people, whether they wish that light cast upon them or not. Celene has forgotten the shadows though, seated upon her throne, and Briala moving in them as she must? Well, Morrigan will be gone from the court but she does wonder how it's going to play out.

"And is your world so very perfect?" Morrigan is no longer as sharp as she was but a cutting question will always be what it is, enough that one of the runners usually tasked with fetching and carrying for her stops before thinking better of it, hurrying along again. "No, humans are much the same. Mankind blunders through this world, it crushes, it bludgeons, it destroys. Not only elves have suffered such; dragons, magic, much and more. What it does not understand? That is what it seeks to grind to nothing more than dust."

"At its core, heresy is simply an opinion," Hermione replies shortly. "The same can be said for religion. What might be heresy for some may be common sense for another, and what may be common sense for that person may be scandal for yet another. Different people, different upbringings, different opinions. If the 'Maker' wanted us all to be exactly the same, I'm sure there are those who believe him perfectly capable of willing it so."

Again, her words and tone are careful, as she doesn't want to sound flippant on the matter. It's not so much that she'd been raised to respect the beliefs of others, although she had. She simply doesn't want anyone thinking that she cares enough about theism nor atheism nor any other sort of dogma to have malevolent or revolutionary feelings on the matter.

Despite the sharpness of Morrigan's words, Hermione doesn't seem at all bristled by them. "Not at all," she replies coolly, though that coolness doesn't seem to be directed towards Morrigan specifically so much as the situation as a whole. "No world is perfect, nor is any world necessarily better than any other. That doesn't mean that the people living in this one can't try better themselves, though. There have been enough instances of things going wrong when an issue isn't fully understood that at least a few of those in influential positions of power might try to educate themselves and thus avoid making the same mistakes."

"Tis said that the Maker turned his back upon Thedas after the betrayal of Andraste that came after the Magisters corrupted his Golden City. The Chantry would have us all believe that when all corners of Thedas sing the Chant of Light then he shall return to this world once more." Leliana believed differently. Morrigan had scoffed once, had set it to the side but these days she can see it as something far more admirable - and heretical, really - than the dry tired words told time and time again. Repent, repent again, suffer and suffer anew, convert and crush until all the world is so very small. "Elves have their Creators, Qunari have the Qun, dwarves worship their ancestors. Though elves in the cities and dwarves on the surface may know the Maker better than they have known anything of their blood."

The young woman thinks for herself and she speaks her mind, speaks it clearly at that. So very rare in Morrigan's experience that her smile holds no mockery or condescending slyness that it would with those who have in the past sought to change her mind on certain subjects. People too close to things, so tightly bound in a thing that they no longer feel the noose about them.

"Celene made what, perhaps, we might call a valiant attempt." Here she pauses because it's-- it's complicated which would be a trite way of putting it but there are so many things to consider, though elves would see it very differently. "She wished better for the elves of Orlais. Places for them at the University of Orlais where the children of the nobility sit, if sponsored by nobility. Halamshiral still burned. War raged across the empire. People in power might educate themselves but should it be the choice of their throat or not? I think they shall always choose not, that each time it will be those they shall justify in some way time and time again sacrificed. There are always sharks in the water, they know this, and they will not fall prey when another will do."

"Elves and Qunari and dwarves have always existed though, haven't they? If that's the case, then the Maker knows that the Chant will never be sung everywhere and by everyone. There will always be those who stick to their old ways, to what their culture believes to be right, and if he had a hand in making them just as he'd had a hand in making humans, he must have always known that." Shrugging a bit, she admits, "But then, I don't know the common origin stories of Thedas, since so many only bother focusing on Andraste and what came after. In my world, it's largely believed by many who put stock in a Creator that they'd been made with free will, and that accounts for why, of the three largest religions in the world, they all have a common God but vastly different ways of worshiping him."

Again, there's no judgement and no sign of defensiveness; if Hermione were to see proof of a fair and just deity and could be convinced of a logical reason for why worship would be required, she wouldn't be against considering herself a devotee. Religion simply has the misfortune of being a man-made construct, and mankind is inherently flawed.

She listens to what Morrigan has to say, still frowning a little in thought. Finally, she remarks, "They are not sharks; they are men and women who have great ambitions. And that's perfectly acceptable. But any sort of elevation in standing is cheapened by kicking the person beside you down, whether that person is a human or an elf of anyone else. Cheating and oppression don't lead to success; they lead to fear, resentment, and a complete and utter halt of progress, and no one can truly succeed in that atmosphere."

"The ages of this world have existed only so long as the Chantry. Should you read of times older then you will hear of the ancient and that is what we mean of the elves. Dwarves I cannot say, their history is not a thing I have studied, nor the Qunari. What I do know of dwarves is that they do insist they are born of the Stone." Make of that what you will. As for Qunari, well she prodded Sten about mages more than she did anything else along with what other conversations she heard on the road but that was the end of it. "Arlathan...I believe Arlathan's founding sits around seven thousand and six hundred ancient, Arlathan being the great city of Elvhenan. The humans came from the north far, far later. We sit now in the ninth age of this world. So many Blights, so many wars, so much destruction and death and the Chantry founded at the start of the Divine age.

"I have asked before of rifters and the worlds many of you come from for the things like our world, the things that your worlds share. Dragons, magic, demons; three common elements in some form or another stretched between so many." This is another one she has to add to the list then in some form though religion is always a more complicated area to get right but still, how can she ignore it when her eyes light up, when she has leant forward as if all the world has narrowed to them and only them.

"Gaspard was a warmonger, that was his great ambition." Morrigan makes no attempt to hide her disdain for the man, not even now, curling her lip even at the thought of him and all he had ever done, might have done. Even so, a part of her is reminded of Leliana enough that it manages to smooth out her expression again. "Spoken as if those words have made a home within you already, I wonder, are they for Thedas or for the world that sits upon the other side of a rift?"

Though the idea of being borne of stone strikes Hermione as odd, she isn't going to judge what the dwarves do or don't believe, especially not without one there with her to clarify matters. She has to wonder where humans believe they'd come from, then, because if the Maker had created elves first, there's no sound reason for mistreating the elves. Perhaps even the Maker was an elf, one of the ancient ones that had been revered as gods, but even she knows that speaking such a thing without some sort of proof would be dangerous. People can get so caught up in what they believe that they can't even conceive seeking out actual facts.

At Morrigan's question, Hermione doesn't need to stop and think about a response. "They're for both, and more worlds beyond that, if such exist. Wherever there are people who are discriminated against because of what they are, or where people will defer to corruption to achieve their goals, those sorts of words need to be heard. And if no one from that world will speak them, maybe there's a reason the rifts have opened up and tossed certain people about the way they have."

Whatever the Maker is or isn't-- Well, Morrigan might not care for the Chantry but even she has a belief in a thing larger than herself though she's never needed to put a name to it or involve herself in any sort of worship. Sadly their enemy who would have seen the Golden City and been cast out is likely never to be regarded as any sort of reliable source of information, not compared to blessed Andraste and her visions. Then of course there's the not inconsiderable matter of the Dalish and the Creators.

Locked away. And the Forgotten Ones. But with Thedas there's always a danger of too much all at once as she learned when having to pick her way through explaining much of the nature of the Fade itself to someone long ago.

"A noble goal, to be certain. These are dark times when so few will dare to raise their voices when they will do the most good; the magic of this place has seeped into the stones, so ancient is it, so holy." It's a quiet encouragement but it's there in the end because she wants to see what these people do when they find something in a world not theirs that calls out to them in some way. "I had wondered at that though. The arcane is what I study in addition to elven lore but there is no single trait that binds any of you but the obvious. That you were chosen. That you are here. Well, that and all of you have survived thus far, no small feat when one considers how you might have arrived when none seem to recall the specifics."

Hermione has always been set very firmly in the agnostic camp. Research and common sense have always guided her, so if she ever finds herself confronted with a being who makes very solid claims about its divinity, she'll be happy to incorporate that into her worldview; otherwise, life is complicated enough without having to wonder which god or gods or goddesses or whatnot are actually what they claim to be.

As such, she replies, "I'd say that we were brought here randomly rather than for any grander scheme. I've tried finding correlations between rifters when I'd first arrived, trying to connect the dots in terms of how many of them knew about magic in their native worlds and just what that magic entailed. But it's something of a hodgepodge; all I can gather is that none of us have led what one might call an 'ordinary' life."

Hermione pauses for a moment, wondering if Morrigan can actually help her suss out even more of the mystery behind why she and the others are here, if they'd indeed been chosen. Harry, she can understand; it doesn't account for why she'd been plucked from her world a considerable amount of time before him, though.

"I was dreaming before I wound up here," she explains. "More of a nightmare, really, though it was based on something that had actually happened to me, some months prior. I was being chased through a forest and then, suddenly, I was falling, and I landed in the middle of a fight between what I now know to have been the Inquisition and demons and Red Templars. I automatically tried using my magic to defend myself, but my wand had been damaged. My magic still isn't quite right. If not for the efforts of a handful of people, I would have never made it out of there."

"The connection you share is the one that allows all of you to seal rifts. Perhaps when so many of you are required to seal a rift when the Herald alone was all that was needed prior to her death is why each of you must be unique in some way." It's something of a reach but what other theories are there exactly that don't involve demons, spirits, or Andraste herself reaching out to pluck people from their slumber elsewhere to bring them here? "I had wondered at dragons when Corypheus possesses one and when we had thought this to look far closer to a Blight given all that happened with the Wardens. They sleep, these Old Gods. Tis something to consider, is it not? When a Tevinter magister walks the world once more?"

Maybe this is something she'll have to try to draft Alistair into as well if she can, at least to shore up some Warden details and to make sure what the official line is as far as 'things Morrigan is allowed to say to people' given she knows far more than the average person.

"I had not heard that the magic one possesses elsewhere would be altered, I wonder if it is the mark alone or coming through the Veil that would cause such a thing. A mage such as I draws from the Fade to cast a spell, and the Veil separates our world from it." Morrigan's voice drops to a lower murmur as she considers the idea, the latter seeming more likely in her mind though ask ten mages and get twenty answers at the very least, that's always how it goes. "Are you able to use magic at all?"

The predominant theory, at least in Hermione's mind, has always been that people have been encountering and falling through rifts randomly. If there was something unique to those who've been selected, she hasn't been able to find a common thread in terms of life experiences or magical abilities. Perhaps it's more scientific, involving some sort of gene or a specific sort of brainwave activity. However, even if Hermione were trained to be able to determine that sort of thing, Thedas lacks the equipment that would make such research possible.

"Our version of a Tevinter magister walked my world recently," she replies dryly. "It hadn't been fate or destiny that had made it so; it had been his lingering supporters, gathering their forces and working on strategy to grant him the power he so desperately sought. Whatever Corypheus is or isn't, he has a plan; so long as that plan hasn't come to fruition, it can feasibly be stopped." And that's all there is to it, really. People had thought Corypheus dead, but he hadn't been. It doesn't mean he's immortal or mystical. It means that people had underestimated them. All fate and destiny do is make people assume something is beyond their control.

"I can use magic," Hermione confirms. "But I can't use all of the spells I'd been able to back home, or they might work but come out differently." She pauses for a moment. Hermione has likened her trouble with magic in Thedas to tuning a radio to the right frequency, but that analogy doesn't work on native Thedosians. Likely because of their lack of radios.

"From what I have been able to see, my magic has always come from me, as an extension of myself. Here, however, for whatever reason, it's filtered through the Fade. I've never had to gather magical energy from any sort of external force, and so I've been having difficulty exerting just the right amount of energy on any given spell. Too little, and nothing works; too much, and something may explode. It's why I've been cautious about trying some of my trickier spells. Apparating is dangerous enough on its own without worrying about only half-succeeding or going catastrophically overboard."

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You'll fight and you'll make it through

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