faderift | open | There’s tumbling stone

Entry tags:

open | There’s tumbling stone

WHO: Morrigan; open
WHAT: Morrigan and Kieran finally arrive in and explore Kirkwall (and Sundermount)
WHEN: Various points in Justinian
WHERE: Kirkwall/Sundermount
NOTES: Let me know if you want a closed starter

A long journey to Kirkwall from Skyhold at the best of times, one made longer for Morrigan's chosen route with Kieran away from the bulk of the Inquisition. An adventure, she had promised him when they had packed up their things again, only you and I, that I promise. On that she had delivered and so she arrives later than much of the rest of the Inquisition because there are times when she's missed this.

Missed it being her and Kieran alone in the world when there wasn't her place in the court, when she hadn't attached herself to Skyhold for over a year now. Time to go through the wilds and take ship elsewhere and wander through towns and villages her son has never seen before. When they do arrive, one of his satchels is filled to bursting with the treasures he has picked up along the way.

Kieran does not like the Gallows, she learns quickly when she makes her way there to settle them both and so he's very rarely far from her side. When she picks up where she left off with her research and another project of her own not meant for the eyes of all the Inquisition, Kieran is busy with his studies. If she plants some of what she had sent from Skyhold ahead of her or from her personal reserves in the gardens, Kieran is helping or playing. If she is exploring the markets and streets then he's close to her side with his eyes alighting on every new thing he might find, the riot of noise and colour and bustle so different to Orlais, the only other place this size he's known.

It's only to Sundermount that she leaves him behind with someone trusted. Sundermount is the shadow of her mouth that looms over her shoulder and over him, the last recorded sighting and for that...for that she cannot bring her son as she slips away from Kirkwall at first light to make the trek up the paths to explore for some clue, any clue of Flemeth's intentions.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Kirkwall is a city with a certain buzz about it. Ellana knows it's due to the thin Veil as much as its population, but it's definitely something that sets it apart from Skyhold. She doesn't hold it against anyone for taking their time in coming, and Morrigan, more than most, can get away with taking her time. She doesn't think anyone would have the courage to tell Morrigan what to do, and it's honestly inspiring.

Ellana releases a soft laugh and shrugs. "Depends on your definition of excitement. Spirits possessed the statues in the Gallows' courtyard and attacked, they say there are rats in Darktown as big as a mabari, and many in the Inquisition are counting down the minutes until the Viscount says they can move out into the city." She figures she may as well tell Morrigan as not, since all information can have some value. It's what she keeps reminding herself when it comes to her new scouting role.

Promise a boy an adventure and well, the Inquisition had taken Morrigan away far more than she had actually planned when she had come. Advisor in arcane matters, that was the pretty title they had put against her name, neater and more concise than 'advisor in things we know little to nothing about and that tends to make most people uncomfortable but you do that already'. And a sea voyage? So many folk she does not know or trust, no way to leave? No. There are ways to Kirkwall that needn't involve that crossing without a Blight upon them so that is how she had come.

Kieran settles himself after a small greeting, peering above the pages of his book as one might expect, Morrigan allows it. It's been some time since he's seen many of these faces after all. "No one had troubled themselves to remove them in the time between their creation and our arrival?" Rolling her eyes, she pretends to be surprised but this is Kirkwall and incompetence seems to be the rule, not the exception. "This is what we all departed Skyhold for, a setback in work - you will recall the efforts we were part of, not so very many months ago, no?"

Ellana is mindful of Kieran looking at them as they talk, but she's sure if there's anything his ears aren't meant to hear, Morrigan has ways of dealing with it. So she flashes him a smile to say she sees he isn't wholly absorbed in his reading there before turning back to Morrigan.

"Of course not," she replies. There's something about being around Morrigan that brings out her more blunt side. Always trying for diplomacy and walking the middle path is something that makes her feel too mild at times; too wishy-washy. But in Morrigan's company, she feels she can pick a side and not have to worry about the consequences. She can be braver; more sure of herself. It's a feeling she needs to put into practice more in everyday life, but that's a work in progress. "Apparently they thought ignoring the statues meant they didn't exist. Easy when they're on an island, I suppose. They're just lucky that giant metal statues can't swim."

Tipping her head to one side in thought, she continues. "The efforts in Kirkwall that sidetracked us into a pitch black tunnel? Oh, yes." She resists placing a hand to her side where her ribs were shattered by a Vint's maul. Not a very good trip, that.

Given that they've all been living in Skyhold where no one seemed to care enough about their words and before that in Orlais where for all that people claim to veil their words, they don't. Not really. Not in the ways that they think.

Already her son has nightmares. Already she wonders if this was a mistake even when she has left it as long as she can and she cannot be parted from him like this, not when she is here. So she makes herself focus on Ellana's words, on the curl of her lip. "Imagine the shock if they could walk along the silt and sands if they did not sink or rust. Perhaps they might find Shale, one imagines that is where they have become lost. Kelps and brine but hopefully deep enough to escape the notice of gulls. Such a massacre if not." She almost shudders to imagine it.

"The Veil here...I wonder, all the rifters, will they help or hurt it? If any in charge of such decisions had known of such a plan they might have informed us after such work, twas not a thing I would experience again." Morrigan's voice softens at the end, as if it comes from far away. Bruce had been the one with her when the voice had called to show more spectral figures but she had run after it, she had run, she had panicked, she had been so certain--

"I'm here, mother," Kieran says when her eyes linger too long, she smiles but it pulls too tight for comfort.

That mental image makes Ellana's eyes widen in surprise. Now that would have been a sight, and a truly terrifying one at that too. Though knowing Kirkwall, they would probably blame some leftover magic for the statues instead of their own reluctance to deal with them and leaving them in a thinly-veiled place.

"That I can't say. There's still so much we don't know about those with shards in them." She briefly thinks of Sina, who is always looking like a gentle breeze will lay her out on the ground, and of Galadriel, who disappeared like some of the others. Back home, she imagines. Though Galadriel had been frustrated by her treatment here, Ellana believes she wouldn't take off into the wild without telling Ellana... and inviting her to come along. No, she's gone now, and it just makes it all the more frustrating not to know how it happens or how the shards work.

Her attention is drawn towards Kieran and she smiles, not knowing what thoughts swarm through Morrigan's mind.

"Yes, you are! And what are you reading today?"

With their proximity to Sundermount - a thing that casts such a shadow over Morrigan it's a wonder there's any light that can pierce it at all - then they're lucky. A rare sort of luck too when this is the Inquisition and after a success such as they experienced in Val Royeaux then they're overdue some sort of catastrophe, some embarrassment. Something that they should learn from but don't because look to the world and watch it tell the same tale ten times, a hundred, a thousand, walking upon bones and blood under they grind into dust and mud beneath heels.

"There is much I have learned from them thus far, the overlaps in so many tales where none might expect them, where all seems so very different until that one vital thing. How often there comes a dragon. Demons that lurk in the margins." A slow smile, mist on the moors the sun hasn't yet burned away yet. "Where they come from and how they all find their way here and not the many paths of the Fade. Or elsewhere."

The look is not insignificant. Morrigan had forbidden those who had come through her eluvian with her to speak of it at the time but times have changed, plans have changed, there is perhaps a need and Ellana...Ellana she thinks will understand necessity.

But it's Kieran's turn as he smiles, folding the book shut enough to show Ellana the cover; someone's attempt to depict an Ash Warrior (someone who has likely never seen an Ash Warrior). "How the berserkers came to be. Well, this chapter tells that story, it has lots of warrior histories. Rogues like to keep their histories hidden away and mages..." Even someone Kieran's age knows that mage histories are basically bullshit.

"Hmm, good point," she says, knowing that Morrigan speaks of the Crossroads. That incredible place put in place somehow by her people ages ago. It's still startling to think that the elves had so much and yet it all fell apart because of Tevinter. It doesn't seem possible the more she sees of ruins. Were the elves simply dying out before the humans arrived and so Tevinter was just an overwhelming force against a people that had far more knowledge and should have been able to win any fight? Well, this is why Ellana keeps exploring. So much doesn't add up and she wants to fill in those missing pieces.

Kieran distracts her from her thoughts on the Crossroads and she gives a giggle. "And mages are secretly granted powers by a high dragon. I'm sure some book somewhere must claim that." Because people fear what they don't understand, and the things they themselves are unable to do. So why not make up tales to fill in the gaps?

If there's a good thing to be said for being in Kirkwall, they're at least close to somewhere that has parts of elven history not so well explored. Although given the great cost and risk of getting her own eluvian to Skyhold when it nearly slipped from her grasp, she still finds herself aggrieved. First she will get a sturdy door. A sturdy lock. Or two. One for it and one for her own quarters to keep everyone out and away from her. Witchy spells upon it as Sabine once suggested with access strictly controlled.

For now, her presence alone seems to be enough to keep ears from listening too closely to her and Ellana talking. When Kieran has had his turn, of course.

The remark about a high dragon, though only meant in jest has Kieran staring ahead as if very deep in thought. He could well be, Morrigan knows her son, knows his manners, his habits. "No, I don't think this has those sorts of tales. The Reavers drink it in some and in some they hunt the dragons but I haven't read anything about her in them." All high dragons are she, after all. He's not talking about anyone in particular, not at all.

Kieran is a very strange little boy. Naturally some children are more quiet and thoughtful than others, but something about the way Kieran talks suggests he knows things that no child his age should know. Ellana can only guess at this being Morrigan's influence. Her ability to not only survive, but thrive in any given situation must mean she's passed down all kinds of off the wall information to her son. It makes talking to him a unique experience, and often piques her curiosity.

"Her? Is there a famous High Dragon?"

Kieran glances to Morrigan for reassurance and Morrigan finds her heart in her mouth the way she does sometimes because he is her son and he is a normal boy. All things considered. There is a day that will come she is sure of it because the world is not kind, the world always returns for the pound of flesh it believes it is owed, the world will seek to balance the scales however it will when he will not be the boy who loves her. Kieran will know what she did, what is within him, what she prepares him for, why eyes linger upon him when he speaks as he does.

There is no armour that could ever protect from such a blow. This is the price she will pay for her freedom from Flemeth, the price three Wardens paid for their skins.

"There was a high dragon called Andraste in Haven once," Kieran tips his head slightly as if wondering how well-known that part is since he never did get to see Haven but he's heard plenty of stories, "and they thought she was Andraste. But no, not her. The mother of vengeance. You don't know the stories?"

"Ellana's people have a different name, I have taught you it. You recall what the Chasind call her." A gentle prompting from a mother to a son, then to Ellana: "There was much time to talk of old tales and sightings on our way to Kirkwall, that some runners spoke of some of the Inquisition fighting a dragon not so long ago explains much."

(Boys like dragons. That dragon from Zevran? Still one of his most prized possessions.)

Ellana knows stories. But the thing about growing up in an isolated clan is that their stories easily differ from those of both other clans and the outside world. For instance, the person who told her the story of the Fifth Blight and the Hero of Ferelden only knew titles, not names. So there was the Hero, his Warden ally, the Bard, the Witch, the Assassin, etc. It wasn't until joining the Inquisition that Ellana actually learned their names and that they were there among her.

And so Ellana knows the mother of vengeance. But she isn't sure if the story she knows is complete. She glances up at Morrigan. "I think I do. My people call her Asha'bellanar, and you call her Flemeth." But they're getting off the topic here, which had just been Ellana making a joke about dragons and mages.

"Yes, well it would make for a poor Dragon Age if there were no dragons, right? Can't escape them even when we move."

That's the thing about stories: there's always some grain of the truth, always a person at the heart of them. Morrigan had already grown and lived a life as being part of a story before she was even old enough to fully understand that as she does now, the legends of Flemeth and all her terrible daughters, being as she is one of them.

"Kirkwall, or rather Sundermount, is the last place my mother was sighted. I thought her dead once but now...I know not what she is but I know better than to think her so easily slain. She showed her hand with the Hero, with the Champion, that she has not shown it so far? I wonder why." Morrigan sighs quietly, though Ellana isn't likely to be one of those (she hopes at least) who'll think Flemeth comes to help.

Kieran leans forward instead then, since Ellana has probably gone different places to him and Alistair and Zevran, so this is another chance to find out. "Have you seen a dragon? Or fought one? They were meant to be gone forever then they saw them again and now they thrive once more, something so old returned again." Because dragons are old. Old Gods, dragon hunters of old, extinct things, that's how a kid reared on Morrigan's poetic turn of phrase would put it right?

"Hmm. Perhaps if the Herald had lived, Flemeth would have made herself known to her." But for what purpose, is the question. "Now that there's no one main leader, or at least someone who might take the role, she doesn't want to show up." Obviously the Champion wasn't that yet, but Flemeth must have seen something in Hawke.

"I have seen a few, actually. They were in a place called Emprise du Lion, flying overhead. But I didn't fight any of them." And now Ellana's mind travels back to Flemeth again. Like the dragons, she disappears for a time before reemerging. Though while dragons come to devastate the land, Flemeth's ways are far trickier to understand. There are theories, of course, but again, they all are from stories. So a grain of truth, but how much?

"Oh she will be watching from some corner of the world, I have no doubt. These events that shape the world and her not there? She couldn't stand it." Easy to jest in the light of day, not so easy to remember them as such in the dark when the shadows grow longer than those that creep in her heart. The wolf is at the door in the tales of most others but something far worse is ever at the margins of her own where the borders are never so neatly defined.

Usually that is her strength but when she learned it from Flemeth? No, not so neat and easy a thing at all when it can all be turned against her.

"What if they were gone again? There are many things that come from even one dragon and if they are gone again...wouldn't it be sad?"

"Perhaps, little man, tis time for you to return to your book, I am sure Alistair will want to know all that there is to know in it," Morrigan confides with the air of a private joke but it's warm. After all, Alistair is practically family to eyes outside her little circle, at least to Kieran. An uncle.

(If only the world knew.)

"I suppose that would be sad, if those things were lost." Losing a giant creature that can blast you into nothingness doesn't seem like such a terrible thing, but this elf knows of a lost world from an ancient time before humans. She wants to know about it. And she supposes that people would want to know about dragons too. If they are still around to observe, they never have to wonder what they're like.

Continuing their walk, Ellana looks thoughtful for a moment before adding, "Beyond Flemeth being seen there, what do you know of Sundermount?"

Morrigan pauses long enough to watch Kieran as he makes his way off in the direction of Alistair, happy to be back and to hopefully resume his lessons now he has some ridiculous new flourishes to try. And with a cape newly stitched on the travels.

There's a gift amongst all of his things after all that he'd asked her opinion of that can only be for Alistair, Morrigan isn't meant to see the giving of it however and that she understands and respects.

"Sundermount was the sight of a battle long ago, so the tales go. Merrill's clan lingered long here in the time of the Champion, perhaps tis the reason given for why they might come so close to where humans dwell for so long to look for that which has been left behind." Morrigan's voice rises and falls as it does so easily when she tells a tale, as if she isn't entirely aware of Ellana's presence beside her. "A final battle between the Imperium and the ancient elves; such horrors unleashed upon our waking world and now with all their masters long slain they have none to tell them that the battle has ended. That Arlathan has sunk. That the Imperium is a shadow of the glory it once was. They prowl. They wait. They are ever ready."

As she speaks, Ellana walks beside her, taking note of the way Morrigan's voice suits itself to the tale she's telling. Kieran must get wonderful stories from her, that feel as though they're coming to life right in front of him.

"Do you think there are any horrors still up there?" She'd like to explore, but that will require some scouting first. A bird seems a safe bet to scan the mountainside.

Much of how Kieran speaks is an unfortunate consequence of Morrigan's blood meeting Alistair's blood filtered through all the years of Morrigan raising him given how she herself was raised; some things are just a part of them and this way of telling stories might be older than the stories Flemeth told her for the way they were told to her.

She smiles though because Ellana isn't a girl but she's young in that way anyone is who hasn't lived through certain terrible things. "I would not take the Tale of the Champion as a great source of truth but I believe. I believe in what I have seen. What you have seen." Morrigan tucks herself closer, lowers her voice with a glance around for those who might be listening. "Such beings as those that made the eluvians and what lies beyond? If they are capable of that, they are capable of something so simple as nightmares made flesh, unable to find their own rest ages beyond counting after they were given what little purpose they ever were."

What Morrigan speaks of are things that Ellana has only seen a fraction of, but it immediately sets off memories of travelling through elven ruins and the traps that were contained within. She nods seriously and takes a moment to check around them as well before speaking.

"The more I see, the more I realize that... they may be my people, but we're worlds apart. Elvhenan must have been so different than the world today. The magic left over in ruins is still so strong, and every place is full of traps and tests to see who is worthy of viewing what's within. So many of my people want to recapture the lives of our ancestors, but that's impossible. They weren't like us. I just want to know who they were and what life was life back then, but I don't think it's something we should strive for in the world as it is today." A world filled with other races and a religion that sees magic as a terrible thing. In a way, that's sad, but on the other hand, she's never wanted to relive the past. Ellana is all about looking to the future and how having a fuller picture of the elves' past can set them forward on a better path.

That's the advantage of Skyhold; people will know that the gossip has had all that time to come down the Frostbacks to them and along so many roads, not like Kirkwall where people can actually make the attempt to chase it down, catch it by the ear, and drag if back for all the good it'll do them.

"Yet if there is a chance, if it is not studied, not kept safe? It will be gone. There will be nothing left for those that come after you and I to study." Morrigan's voice is always sharper when she speaks of these concerns because they are concerns, they gnaw at her, the occupy a space in her life as if they wake up and go to sleep in her bed, take meals with her sipping their own wine, as if she's set them a place at the table as one would an absent friend that they cannot bear to admit is lost to them. "Where we went to come here previously," and to speak in such a way, is this not where she thrives, the loopholes, the crack under the door, the gap where the window doesn't close all the way, "even that will not last forever. Even that fades."

Not in their lifetime perhaps, not in Kieran's but one day. One day it will cave in on itself as the untended house does when too many winters pass with the snow lying heavy upon it, melting and thawing, melting and thawing, then there will be no one to mourn, no one to remember. "Each Dalish clan that comes to a ruin or finds some piece of the past might recall what they were told which is what someone told them which is what they themselves were told or seen; I learned that well with mother where people tell a story as if a thing is dead, change the meanings to suit their purpose, or because a thing has happened to them. The Dalish want to hold to their past so they tell the tales the same way a mother frightens her child with the terrible witch in the wilds who will gobble them up if they don't behave and do as she says for disobedient children are of course the favourite children of witches." The bitterness comes easily but Morrigan can laugh when she does it, like she always does, not softening it precisely but setting it all out in front of Ellana so she knows what Morrigan means, why she says it the way that she does.

"Yes, that truth is what keeps me searching." Everything fades away at some point. Even those ancient ruins wreathed in unknowable magic have crumbled statues and cracks in the walls within. There are holes in the ceiling, tree roots snaking through stone as nature takes over in the absence of people. That is just the way of the world. Most of her people wish to stay static, to cling to a past they don't even really know, because to do what their ancestors did gives a sense of stability. Ellana doesn't want that. She'd rather have the freedom to explore and come to her own conclusions; to walk forward with her head held high and no hands of the past gripping at her clothes, trying to drag her back.

She looks at her fellow Dalish, especially those who reject everything for tradition, and she knows that they're as far apart as she is from those ancient elves. Selfishness may be a failing, but it's one that she'll now own to, when once it felt like such a sting; an insult. It made her such a bad person to put her wants above those of the clan. But now she sees the truth. To the clan, she's nothing more than one more body to count among the elves, to keep their numbers up as they teach each new generation to live in ignorance of the world around them. Keep to the old ways, shun anything new, scare the shems away, and teach your children to do the same. And for what? To live in isolation and boredom with a hatred of anything different in your heart.

"I look back at those stories now, and I wonder how changed they are from the original. It's all well and good to teach lessons through tales, but if so many parts are changed to do it, then the original tale ceases to exist. And the past is just as lost as it once was." Ellana heaves a sigh, shaking her head. "I am going to publish facts. I'm going to say what the ruin looked like and what happened while I was there. I'll probably add context, like 'oh, there was a sun mosaic here and that's the symbol of one of our gods,' but I'm not going to come up with a bunch of new stories to fill in the gaps. It will just muddy the waters more than they already are."

"The place that was briefly glimpsed in the getting to Kirkwall to aid Merrill," Morrigan begins, speaking around it again as she must, "in time that too will be gone."

She lets it hang as heavy as it must because that was the only home Kieran knew once, the safest she had ever been and ever will be but a day will come to pass when the Crossroads are no more, and Ellana has only had a taste but is that not enough, at times?

(What is selfishness when personhood enters the scene, pulls back her hood and says 'come with me, come live a life and accept the sweetness, the bitterness, accept that there are both at once and all things between'? Not selfish at all to take back when the margins are all you ever had, are all you made yours and guarded fiercely, learned to traverse with care and boldness so people would marvel and wonder how you did it.)

The proposal is considered; Genitivi and life filtered through a Chantry lens, the Tales of the Champion where you flay the page again and again, and once more for good measure for even a shred of the truth in it, what all has passed down from the hands of ancestors since time began, and then this idea. "There are those who will thank and those who will shun in equal measure, a tale has power in it to seize the mind and make a person believe - a man might go to the ruins to seek treasure, his fortune, to test himself, but it is the tale that draws him in too. To play his part in it. You mean to lay out the bare bones for the world to see that they might pick over them as best they can without Tevinter's fingers picking through them or the Chantry casting a light to illuminate by." If she can find someone willing to publish for a Dalish, Orlais is still precarious to say the least, if Celene lasts a year with her head on her shoulders she'll be quietly surprised.

"It will," she replies, and though there's a hint of sorrow to her voice, it's one of those undeniable truths, isn't it? It can't be stopped. Just like she can't stop the Blight from taking Felix early, as much as she might want to find a cure. He had to talk her down from it; get it through her head that she would have to let him go. At the time, she hadn't wanted to give up, but when she really considered it, she realized that ignoring the truth of it made her no better than Gereon Alexius. What would she have done to save Felix? How far would she have gone? It was frightening to think about, and so she's glad sense prevailed and she agreed to let it go. If she was an elf who would do anything to preserve the fading Crossroads, what repercussions would that have? If it must fade, then it must, as disappointing as that will be. Preserving history at the cost of something greater does no good.

"It's the natural order of things. Sad, but inevitable." There's a maturity there that she wouldn't have had a year ago. Being a part of this organization has taught her much, and that's not even including all she's learned from Morrigan so far. "We'll have to collect what information we can while there's still time."

She hums as Morrigan speaks, nodding to show that is indeed what she wishes to do: lay out the bare bones. She already knows the trouble she could have publishing anything, but when she first presented the idea to Varric, he had assured her she would have his help in finding a publisher. Sometimes it's good to have friends in high places. "I'm not expecting a worldwide bestseller, but if there's a chance that even a small group gets to see the truth written out instead of lies, then it's worth it to me." Ellana and Merrill hadn't edited the books in Skyhold's library for nothing. They wanted to present the elven side to history that those books omitted. Of course, they only had the stories that were passed down to them, also biased as can be, but at least it was the other side for once.

There's the possibility of Jonas. No, hold a moment, the idea of him managing to find his own arse by himself with both hands, a map and a torch without the rest of them to offer opinions and advice and aid for him to ignore, debate, and take for granted for the most and for the world to ignore almost makes her laugh. No doubt he's lost somewhere or, as she suggested to Oghren, trapped by his inflated ego and head in the doorway to some ruin until he shrivels away to nothing. "There are eluvians beyond but they are lost, or destroyed, gone dark when they were sealed to prevent their use and so even I cannot say where all my lead," she continues softly. "Some doors should never be reopened. Where do they lead, I wonder? Who can say. There are times...the rifters, I had wondered if they had come through such paths somehow. The Fade and the Crossroads after all are not of our world."

What Ellana does with this, she doesn't know. But Merrill is no longer here with the Inquisition and there must be another she can turn to who will have an interest in this, who has an allegiance primarily to herself before others and Ellana has proven to be able to think for herself. To have chosen her own path. Still. Such a risk. Morrigan has worked so hard for this knowledge.

This is a gift, she thinks. Like all gifts, there is a price. Once known, a thing can never be unknown again.

So long as Ellana doesn't let Varric do any of the writing of her book, then she should be in safe hands. The dwarf has a reputation after all. "There is little I might do to aid in this but should you require it, I would see this brought to light. You have done well and walked your own path, that is not an easy thing to do. Yet here you stand and I would wish you well for whatever the future brings."

"Hmm, that does sound like a way for people to journey here from other worlds. Maybe even how the ancient elves were so advanced, if they had help from another culture." Blasphemous to say about her own people, but it might be true. It might not, though. That's why it's just a theory. There's no evidence one way or the other. Sealed doors don't exactly answer questions, do they?

"There were so many in that place," she says, a covert look to make sure no one is eavesdropping. Though Morrigan called the eluvians by name, what they're for is still pretty much a secret. "The ones that still work are still locked though, aren't they? I couldn't just pick one and walk through." Though walking through any would be dangerous. What if she ended up on the far end of Thedas? What if she ended up across the ocean? And when she turned back, the eluvian had cracked or gone dark so she was trapped? There's the thrill of adventure, but the cold splash of reality too, should something go wrong.

"Thank you, Morrigan." The look in her eyes softens and she smiles, pleased at Morrigan's praise and how she understands. This hasn't been easy, but it hasn't been a terrible trial either. She made a choice, and it's made her happier than she's ever been. "And you know I wish the same for you and Kieran, don't you?"

"It is elven. I know it. It is impossibly old, there is the way it feels upon your skin, to walk there...it can be nothing else than that. Spend enough time in such places or to hold things in your hand and you know it to be true. If they were sealed away by one, if there is a truth to it, imagine what they were capable of once." That's the thing about Flemeth's tales; even the parts that have become tangled up and twisted back upon themselves have all started out from a central place that was true once upon a time.

If they have a need, it would be the work of a moment to duck in somewhere and take flight to a spot elsewhere but she's still not entirely happy enough to leave Kieran far away as she was in Skyhold. Not until he's as safe as she can keep him. "Locked or where they lead to is unknown. There is a story of an elven clan who had two young hunters encounter one once, deep in the Brecilian forest. Neither fared well from it." She would say to go ask Merrill but Merrill is gone and that might have been the first sign of the misfortune to come, the doom of Merrill's clan in a shattered mirror that spilled poison into two struck down before their time.

"I know that, Ellana, and I thank you. The road ahead is long for us all." Even she cannot see what lies ahead.

That sense that Morrigan gets is something that Ellana wishes to have too. It's true that in certain ruins, old magic is something that reaches out to the elves only, like tendrils of smoke that curl closer before entering the nostrils. With time, hopefully she will more easily sense that something is specifically elven in nature.

"That's terrible," she says, face pensive. "And yet I can't help but wonder if they were trying to do the same thing I do: investigate to bring back the truth, instead of just accept the stories handed down." Ellana knows it's dangerous. But she also knows that her life felt directionless before now. Being with the Inquisition has helped her move forward, but exploring ruins has helped her thrive.

"At least we have a hint towards the future that awaits us if we don't look to the North. Now that we're here, we must be heading that future off, but what are we replacing it with? That's the question."

There are times Morrigan has jested, or what has passed for it, that she might not be of Flemeth's body, Flemeth's blood. She knew those things for a lie years ago. But the Crossroads confirmed it if it needed confirming, that she is Flemeth's child and not a stolen Chasind girl left out to die as some are or taken away by the Mother of Vengeance because who would dare deny her? It could only be her and no one else uncovering what she did in the way that she did, her magic from her mother, her education honed in a way no other mage could claim. The Dalish have their ways, the Circles too. But Morrigan? Morrigan is a witch before she is a mage, before she is an apostate.

A small but so very vital thing in her own mind and perhaps that has ever made all the difference.

"The Dread Wolf Fen'Harel tricked all the Creators and locked them away, perhaps in some way the eluvians were involved in all of that or if what Tevinter did corrupted them when Arlathan sank, when all the Ages of hardship began for the elves and they must bear the strain as do the people. Whatever cause, it could be that t'was stupidity and misfortune: two young people stumble upon a thing and dare to reach out instead of turning. What might you have done as a young woman seeing such a wondrous thing before you?" Unlike a boiling pot, the child does not get a chance to learn with an eluvian or with many magical things. That the tale spread is enough, a sign that the warning was understood; this is a dangerous thing, do not lose your youngfolk to it we have so few we can afford to throw away foolishly.

(The Keeper of Clan Ashara it seems was not made aware that the Inquisition was very much the same as that eluvian, if she has one returning to her at the end of all this, Morrigan will be amazed.)

"There is a thing I must do that requires me to look to Sundermount then perhaps to look back, a personal matter more than that of the Inquisition; I may leave for a time and it may take my attention elsewhere than the eluvians. If you wish to have a part in the question, it is yours."

"I probably would have examined it closer," she answers truthfully. "If everyone always turned away from the unknown, we'd never know anything. The fact that we know anything at all about the eluvians is incredible, but that doesn't mean they aren't still dangerous." She doesn't think Morrigan walked into hers blindly that first time, but there's only so much you can get from research. In the end, she just had to take that breath and leap.

Ellana looks intrigued, and knows that Morrigan will fill her in on what they're doing when she deems the time to be right.

"Of course. Whatever assistance I can provide is yours."

You are so young, Morrigan thinks but doesn't say because she hated to be told that when she was Ellana's age even if she never felt it at the time. No one does. It's only after that you have the time to unfold it and look back in mingled shock and horror and wonder at yourself. Was I ever that person? How was it possible that person was me? "What happened in Kirkwall when we went with Merrill is but a small taste of what might come should Corypheus and his Venatori get their way. If they think he will care for where they might lead, he will not. He thinks himself a god and seeks to assault the heavens, and if he is one of the magisters of old then has he not set foot there once?

"No, once mine almost slipped from my grasp in the bringing of it from Orlais to Skyhold, Merrill's was set upon, and in Serault where I spent time once we found Venatori and Red Templars seeking to repair a shattered ruin of a thing. While he lives, they are at their most dangerous," Morrigan nods very slightly as if she speaks the full truth but she doesn't, because none of them know what else walks, that the Dread Wolf is so much closer than they think.

"I will go to Sundermount to explore first, if you wish to come I would not turn away any but when I am gone, there are few who I would trust information about eluvians to. You and Thranduil remain that have been through them and who walk your own paths. I shall speak with him anon but I trust your discretion." You know, the same way Morrigan has discretion when she says what she thinks a person needs to hear but not the whole of it, that sort of discretion, all with an enigmatic smile and a cryptic statement, surely Ellana can make her own way with that and Thranduil his too. "Not everything," she instructs more softly as if not wishing to disturb even her own breath with her words, "need be noted by the one in charge of elven artifacts and whomever this division itself must report to."

(To say their names might summon them, she would rather not.)

It's true, and is something that only the passage of time can solve, because with time comes experience, and Ellana is far from a wise, old being. No one here truly is, except for that caretaker of the Black Emporium -- wherever he's gone off to-- if the rumors are true. There is always more to learn, to experience, to become. Morrigan is right in saying Ellana walks her own path, and that road will be dangerous as well as full of knowledge she's yearning to collect.

"I understand," she says, a slight incline of her head adding to the statement. "Some words are meant to be shared, and others to only be uttered behind warded doors." And places with an intact ceiling, since another Ellana knows likes hiding up there and spying.

"There is a door coming," Morrigan almost smiles as she says it, wondering where another young elven woman with an interest in the places beyond went to, if she has ways of her own right now. "Solid oak. Witchy spells as some might say."

Morrigan's study is not a place to be entered without her permission or for her to bothered more than she wishes.

And, since she has some plans, "I plan to stay outwith Kirkwall. Talking there shall certainly be more free than presently."

"Oh, good. Have I told you how much I like doors?" She glances over with a smile. Though it sounds funny, she's completely serious. "Privacy is a wonderful thing." Since there was almost none in the clan.

"That's good. I would be happy to meet you there when you need me." Because Ellana knows the value of privacy and knows that Morrigan's work is both important and secretive. There are plenty of things Ellana doesn't know about Morrigan, and the woman would probably rightfully snap at her if Ellana turned up unannounced.

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