SUNBLIND | Open.

[alankazam]

WHO: Alan Fane, Wren Coupe, Melys + YOU
WHAT: Catchall for my dudes this month.
WHEN: Throughout Justinian.
WHERE: Kirkwall.
NOTES: Probably language.

[  hit me up on plurk or discord (oeste #8807) if you'd like a specific starter/need anything ❤  ]

Comments

BELETH | Closed.

[alankazam]

There's always been something going on since their arrival here; little chance to speak. Little chance before that, either —

— If Alan feels a touch guilty for the way they left it, he's not the sort to shirk it forever. Beleth's stuck her neck out for him on more than one occasion, and if he'd readily do the same, that perhaps doesn't mean quite as much as being there in the moment.

(He's always been better at one than the other,)

So distracted as he is, he slips into the scouting office during some mid-afternoon lull, raps twice on the side of the door as he's seen others do,

"Congratulations,"

Another bit of study. Not a phrase he's had much call to use before.

[arlathvhen]

Guilt is one of Beleth's oldest friends, and she knows it as well as her own name (ha ha). It nags at her about Alan, if she'd done enough, if Alan was just being polite in accepting her apology. But she had that guilt had a different relationship since she's arrived in the Free Marches. There's more to do here, more ways to stay focused and useful, and the busyness helps.

But it also keeps her from doing things to actually alleviate her worries, or much else (she still had to get Pel her baby present, write a letter to Val, check in on some people, etc etc). So it's a relieved smile that greets Alan's knock, after Beleth looks up from the paperwork at her desk. He sought her out on her own--that's good. She hasn't done anything unforgivable. Yet.

She immediately stands, shoving the papers to the side and into a pile, one of many that cover Beleth's desk in a haphazardly organized fasion. "Thank you, Alan. It's--It's really something, isn't it?" Not wanting to feel like an Important Boss Guy while trying to talk to him, she slips around to the front of the desk, resting against it as she continues. "I can hardly believe it. Proof that my goals are actually within reach, as long as I apply myself."

It's a rare moment of self-appreciation for Beleth, temporarily basking in her achievement. The soft smile on her lips turns to something wryer as she glances to the side, then at Alan. "I think Kolgrim appreciates the promotion even more than me, though. If just for the extra space I have, now. I think that's a good reason to take responsibility for an entire division, yeah?"

[alankazam]

"I didn't know it was the sort of thing you wanted,"

He admits, and perhaps it's true; perhaps it isn't. He can't recall them speaking of it, but it's been such a time. He rakes the hair from his forehead. This is more than papers and names and extra space, he knows; still, it's difficult to conceive of what it means. Not a job description, but a purpose,

What this means. What her goals do. He offers a tentative smile in return.

"What are you reaching for?"

[arlathvhen]

It's not something Beleth speaks about easily--what she wants, her ambitions and desires. Especially since some of them are...not exactly things that some people would take particularly well to, if they saw the full extent of her plans. Even when Alan asks, she freezes, momentarily debating. Not that she doesn't trust Alan--he is, as ever, a separate entity from other humans in her mind. A drifter between cultures.

But saying something out loud always poses a certain risk. There's a period of thought, brows furrowed as she tries to decide what she can say, how she could even say it--she knows what it is that she's reaching for, she's got the image clear in her mind. But that doesn't translate well to clear, concise wording that other people can understand. Even as she thinks about it, she moves forward, past Alan and to the door. Once it's shut firmly, she turns back around. Words are never easy, but maybe she can show him the picture that's in her head.

"I want a voice. A chance. I want a presence in the political spheres of the word." She's fidgeting with her hands as she walks to the window, staring out of it. "My people have been sliding further and further away from who they were, their position in the world growing more precarious. There are two ways people have been dealing with it--withdrawing into the forests, isolating themselves, never to be seen again. Or they shed their culture, as if it is an old skin you can outgrow and cast aside. They run to the humans, abandon their heritage and assimilate." She's probably talking to much now, probably more information than is wise to share, more than Alan wants to know. But bottle your feelings up for long enough, and it's hard to keep the overflow in check when you finally uncork it.

"But there's another way. I know there is, it's just that no one has done it before. I want to play their Game--I want to win it, I want to show everyone that the Dalish are not barbarians to be slaughtered, but we are not to be ignored, either. We can work with the humans without abandoning who we are, I know we can." And now she's pacing, her voice laced with a rare sound--raw emotion, passion, a desire that's clear in her mind. "I want us to be heard, to be acknowledged, I want us to have political sway. That's why I became a bard in the first place. It's one of the few ways that an elf can reach high enough to influence others in the way I need to be able to do. I'm reaching for a chance to keep my people safe. Not by slaughtering humans, what has that ever done? I want to reach even higher, up to the heart of the matter, where nobles decide what is and is not allowable. I want to say to them, 'The Dalish are here, and you want us to stay'."

And then she finally turns to look at Alan, an uncensored smile on her face, as hopeful and raw as her words. "Even if I can't do it, even if this project outlives me--Everything I do, every trail I blaze, that's one step that my successor doesn't have to make. The further I go, the further the next Dalish will start off, and the further beyond what I accomplished they'll go. It will happen, I know it, this is proof that it can happen, Alan. And once it does, my people won't have to hide, or fight, or assimilate, just to be survive. We'll stop surviving, and we'll start living."

bats some tl;dr at ya

[alankazam]

She moves to shut the door.

He listens in silence, listens patient, tries to hear what she's saying; the obvious weight of it. His fingers uncurl. All these months later, and the bones still creak.

A voice, a chance, This story she's held silent. There's trust in the telling — but rather less peace. What has he been doing here but shedding his skin, but seeping into the shape required? What is she doing now?

Alan isn't unaware of how she thinks of him, of how people do: Always other, always else. Beleth's not. If he's apart, Beleth's a part. She throws herself into society, into people, and maybe that's fear. If it is, he can't grudge it.

No one's alone, He tells Cade, and lately he doesn't know whether he believes it. No one's ever alone in the Maker,

"Their game," Not an echo now, but a conscious venture. A cautious one: "Means their rules."

Beleth knows what she wants. He worries that she'd give too much for it. What wouldn't he give for his own convictions? His own people,

(What people?)

That he has reservations of this — perhaps it's only that he likes Beleth the way she is now. That he so little regarded the Winter Palace and all its strange, self-serving wounds, a snake choking over its tail. He doesn't want to see this devour her. They're all making compromises for this cause, for the Inquisition, and it's worthy. It's worthy, it's only that,

"I only," She's smiling like that, and he needs to find it in him somewhere, the optimism he knows this deserves. "I only wonder that it's living."

[arlathvhen]

Beleth recognizes that his concerns have merit to them--certainly, neither of the objections that he raises are untrue. She can't blame him for having them. The entire thing must be similar to watching a friend wading into piranha-infested water, hoping they'd come back before they'd been stripped clean.

But he's also right in that there are few things Beleth wouldn't be willing to sacrifice. Her lives, other lives, whatever was necessary. What one individual (especially when that individual was her) could compare to the preservation of an entire people? Of her people?

"Their rules make allowance for me, for now. Look at what Briala has accomplished. I don't think I'll be making that kind of headway right away," Because the city elves have been playing the Game long before Beleth was ever born, and she didn't have being the ex-handmaid of the Empress (and lover, if the rumors were true) to use as additional leverage. "But she shows that it's possible. That this isn't out of reach."

Was it living? Beleth didn't have an answer for that, certainly not one that she wanted to admit to. To admit that wearing masks was no oddity to her. That acting, subtle manipulation, and social climbing were as much a part of her as hinting, gardening, scouting. The Game was ugliness masquerading as beauty, and there was a kinship there that Beleth was as ashamed to admit as she was hard-pressed to deny. She didn't want Alan to see that ugliness within her. She didn't want him looking at her like she deserved.

"I have to do it." That's what she goes with instead, her voice quieter now. She leans against her desk, the fidgeting and energy pulled out of her. "I'm the only Dalish that can. Who else, if not me?" The others were all too interested in the human world, and conversely, not interested in their politics.

There's a moment of silence to let him digest that, and let Beleth silently debate with herself, gazing off to the side as she mulls over something of a completely different nature. Well, she's talking about taking risks, isn't she? Might as well have a go at it. She glances back over at Alan, a small, shy smile pulling at her lips. "Are you worried about me...?"

[alankazam]

Look at what Briala has accomplished, painted as she is above Kirkwall streets in the dead of night; patron to a breed of optimism Alan knows better than to lay any more claim to than as witness.

Look at what Briala has accomplished, and he supposes it’s a lot, but it’s a lot that was still worked by their rules — worked inside a set of allowances stood on end as carefully as the bars of a cage, of the teeth of a trap. Everyone caught up in the confines of civilization, and somehow he's found himself among them, squeezing after always a little out of pace.

Working within the system: This isn’t out of reach,

Neither’s the bait in the snare.

"Will it still be you?" Softly. She hasn’t given him an answer, and that’s an answer in itself — if he still doesn’t know its shape. The way she twists from that small confession immediately into something much shallower. He doesn’t mirror her smile now. "I don’t worry that it’s a bad choice."

He trusts her judgment rather more than that.

"I worry that it is one."

[arlathvhen]

The smile slips away, replaced first by a grimace, then seconds later a more neutral look. She doesn't meet his eyes, staring off to the side instead. A poor response to a poor idea, she supposes.

Her initial response to his words is, Who cares if it's still me? There's nothing about me that's worth mourning if it's lost. Casting aside bits of her to be replaced with something more appropriate to the situation is no sacrifice--it's what she's done since she could remember (Is she good enough now? What about now? The answer, of course, is always a resounding no).

But she knows how that sounds, how it'd be taken. "I understand your concerns, and in all honesty, I think that they're quite true." And she does, because she knows both the possible risks and the definite costs. It's understandable, to be worried about a friend having to pay them. "But...What would you suggest?"

It's partly a genuine appeal for advice, and partly a less-genuine appeal for him to please consider the situation, and that she's doing the best that she can. After all, while most humans couldn't even fathom the Dalish situation, maybe someone who once only had one singular community, separated from the world, and watched it be destroyed can understand what Beleth fears so much.