faderift | open; My girl, linen and curls

[Though Sina doesn't understand every ritual, Araceli and Korrin came to her bonding, and she'll be blighted if she can't return the favor to some degree. She follows a short while later, allowing her friend a bit of time just to be alone and do her thing, and announces herself several minutes with the shrill yelp that comes of putting her foot in water that is ice cold.
In a similar state of undress, Sina is thin and shivering and hugging herself, but trying. She smiles apologetically at Araceli and puts her other foot in, wincing.]

Da'fen, [she shivers,] I hope I'm not too early.

[When her lungs burn, Araceli surfaces.

Breathless, tossing her head so her hair falls in a long wet rope down her back hard enough to sting she blinks the salt from her eyes to see-- yes, that's Sina. Araceli swims closer to the shore until she can stand comfortably, the tide pulling at her from the waist down.]

No, this part? This part is done first and early. Alone or with the people we're closest to if they want to come be part of it. [Maybe Sina will mistake the tightness of her voice from just having been under the water for who knows how long instead of the lump there is in her throat. It was one thing when it was Korrin because your lover is always different, but this is such an old thing, and having a friend here is more than she expected.

She swallows hard.]

Once you get moving in the water, the chill goes away, but there's no rush this is time to be with the sea. And the sea is older than all things.

[Araceli is under long enough for Sina to start worrying about her, and she exhales a small sigh of relief when that thick curly mane resurfaces. Reassured, she wades in a bit farther, making a face like she's being tortured.]

The sea is older than all things, [she repeats breathlessly, like a mantra. If there's anything that can get Sina behind a ritual, it's reminding her that it's old and far greater than herself or anyone she knows.
The reflection of her anchor in the water sparkles cheerfully, and tints green a small radius around them as Sina submerges her chest. A gasp escapes her, but from the cold, not pain.]

[Sometimes this is what life has to be: your eyes tight shut, the pressure building, your heart louder and louder inside your ears until you feel fit to burst and then the moment of bliss in your burning lungs when you breach the surface.

Letting herself drift so the tide can pull her where it may as it ever has, as it ever will, it isn't her place to fight the inevitable when it guides her wherever it's meant to go.]

Last year I was in Rivain with Korrin, and I was worried that the sea would think I had forgotten it. That I no longer loved it. That it would no longer love me either. Some traditions are harder to keep up a mountain than others. [Araceli pushes off with her feet so she can float on her back, eyes mostly shut but still keeping an eye on where Sina is with an almost-smile on her face to say 'how silly of me, what a ridiculous sort of worry to have' but some things are easier to talk about after and by the water.] I still remember my mother holding me under when I was too little to do this alone. This is being born again in the sea, even if it isn't the sea that gave me life, it still does, in its own way.

[Though she remains with both feet in the sand at the bottom, Sina has come out far enough that she's on her tiptoes, uncertainly treading the water. She learned how to swim once, long ago, but it's never really been relevant; if their ship had gone down on the way to or from the Storm Coast, she'd have been done for.
Not that... no. It's not time to think about that, it's Araceli's birthday.]

I understand, [she muses, and she does.] It's a living place, like a forest. Or the mountain, even. [She did come to like Skyhold, even if it was never really home.] I worry that too, sometimes. About my clan. I have to just know they continue to love me as much as I do them.

My parents are holy people. Their lives are dedicated to the sea and always will be. My mother gives the embrace of the sea with her body and my father sails to remind all people where we all came from. They raised me to know these things. [Knowing and believing are separate things ater all, and belief must come from the self.] When they had me, because of who they are and what they are, it's always been believed and known that I'd be born lucky. Beloved of the sea.

[A breath out with the admission. A gull wheels high above their heads, calling sharply.]

My father couldn't have lived in Skyhold. He's never been away from the sea and his ship for a whole day and night, the ship he was born on that's now his, the ship he and my mother met on and travelled together on, that I was almost born on before they made sure my mother would be back to have me in Castileos in the brothel I was raised in. [What is she saying when she says this? That the sea had as much of a hand in the making of Araceli as a man and a woman did maybe but more than most. Her parents are holy people. Their lives are not fully theirs to live.]

[Sina smiles to hear her talk, chin and mouth bobbing in and out of the water as her large hazel eyes remain fixed on Araceli.]

Then I'm glad there's a piece of it here, even if it's not the one you were born to. [Her brow knits sympathetically.] I'd think every sea would love you.

The seas here are not the waters of my birth. You don't feel that? [Araceli pushes forward so she's treading water again, little fish darting past her bare toes and ankles.] Not every forest or wild place can love you, can it?

[Sina considers.] Perhaps not the same as the Planasene, which is home. But all forests shelter and provide, and I feel love in th-EEAAGH

[She jolts away, creating a big splash and briefly submerging before popping her head back out and shaking her head. Staring distrustfully at where she was just standing, it's apparent the fish made their way over to her as well.]

...something touched me. [She's more abashed than frightened, starting to blush. There are risks to going out of one's element.]

We aren't deep enough for anything dangerous or too likely to do more than give a little nibble. If it was a jellyfish, you would have felt the sting. [What a great reassurance job there Araceli.] Let me--

[She takes a breath, dives under and comes back up a while later with cupped hands to keep the fish in them but under the water.]

Only curious. All things belong to the sea, there isn't life without it, they have every right to inspect as they please.

[ARACELI IT WAS A SMALL SLIMY THING SHE COULDN'T SEE HAVE PITY

--however, the fish themselves are adorable and not worth screaming over. Sina smiles weakly, admiring them, but still holding herself a little more tightly than she was before.]

Of course, [she agrees,] I just wasn't expecting them. [She never expects a wood spider on her face either, which generally yields a similar result.]

[Also not an eel. Or a lamprey. One night Araceli is going to find any good book from the library with sea creatures and talk about what she sees if she lies on the floor of a building.]

When we were in Rivain, there was an octopus that attached itself to me, a little one. Did you know Alan saw one here? I didn't know what he was describing at first but I got a little, no, I got very excited. I didn't know what they'd have around here. And I love them. So--

[Okay let her just let our fish friend go and start swimming to the shore.] I got some new tattoos. One for myself and one not entirely for myself. Korrin hasn't seen them yet.

An octopus?

[Sina knows they exist, and has a vague idea of what they look like, and as a result she goes a little pale. Aren't they huge and terrifying? She doesn't say so, and is glad for the change of topic.]

Oh! Can I see? Or is it...? [Y'know. Personal.]

Pulpo.

[Her word for them. No wonder Alan disappeared, she basically shrieked it down the sending crystal at him.]

You can see, they're just easier to see when I'm standing. [All of them are, including any Sina might not have seen before but the new additions are an intricate octopus taking up a good chunk of her left thigh, arms reaching down towards her knee, all linework instead of a more realistic pattern. Above it and settled over her hip is something closer to a watercolour of a dragon, blue and red, meeting as purples in places.] I had to work very hard to hide those from Korrin. What do you think?

[Sina swims back into shallower water to see when Araceli stands, and she gasps with delight.]

Galaron! [she breathes,] she'll love them. They're magnificent.

They aren't healed all the way yet, I spent so long thinking about getting any here but if I go back, I go back. And maybe I remember none of this, maybe I remember everything, but I will always have these. Not so easy to remove a thing like this. [Considering that she's got tattoos on both forearms, over her heart, the back of her shoulder and her lower back, to go this long without one has been akin to a drought.]

[Periodically Sina has to remember that Araceli isn't from here; she might as well be, for how well they've come to know each other. How time flies.]

I could help, maybe, [she offers,] I can do little things, superficial wounds. If you want them to look nicer before Korrin sees them.

No healing magic, remember? Or potions. The best thing for a tattoo is letting it heal naturally, it's what I did with all the others. I had aloe I rubbed on them before bed. Especially colour. But thank you, for offering. [It's not got the ritual aspect that Vallaslin has but it means something to her, all the tattoos she had arriving marked out a part of her life, some chapter of it.]

Were you allowed to heal the Vallaslin with magic?

Right-- right. My apologies. [She holds up her hands, perhaps to indicate she'd never do anything without Araceli's consent.] No, though... I don't recall it taking very long to heal. I suppose it's not very unlike your tattoos.
[There's a particular ritual to the blood-writing, but it is, at its core, essentially just putting ink in skin like any tattoo.]

It's a rite of passage, some things you have to go through without something else afterwards. And it's on the face. The face bleeds a lot very easily from not very much, I wondered if there were scales to be balanced. [Some lessons have to be learned the hardest way possible and some of the scars on Araceli's body attest to that as she goes to where she's stashed towels so they can sit on the beach without getting sand and shingle in uncomfortable places.]

It does. [Sina laughs a little, touching her face, remembering how horrifying she had looked-- and Nari, and their other friends-- on the day of their rituals, as symbolic and important as they were. Blood is always alarming.] I think we just kept them clean. The wounds weren't deep, of course. Just... sore for a while.

No one gets more done anywhere else? Mine are for important things: the fox, of course, is for Lux, the anchor and compass for my father and how sailing is so important to us. [Forearms outstretched, tattoos Sina's seen dozens of times but the rest are more easily hidden especially since Skyhold was cold and Araceli not a fan. Turning, she sweeps her hair over her shoulder out of the way.] Whales are special, beautiful and wise, and my father's mother sails now to watch over them and I love them through her. I think I've said much about mermaids to anyone who'll listen but this one makes me think of my mother and how I'd watch her at her vanity.

[Turning back to face Sina, she lies down without a care, points to the one above her heart.]

This is the moon, the tidemaker, and the waves, and this is the heart and lifeblood of my people, and I wouldn't be here without it. I know they'll be there the rest of my life. A map of where I've been. [Not where in a literal sense exactly although for a lot of people that's what it is but how much she's grown and changed and learned as a person.]

Oh, they do, [Sina says, nodding quickly,] just not me. I'm not very good with pain.

[Smiling sheepishly, she tucks a strand of wet hair behind her ear and leans in to better see the tattoos, listening quietly as Araceli explains, and inspecting each as one would look at drawings in an art gallery.]

They're beautiful, [she says softly,] I'm glad you have them. [Still sitting up, she takes her weight off one hand to gently brush her friend's hair from her face, smiling fondly.] They make me love you more.

Not everyone has to be. We have our own strengths and weaknesses. I had done things like fall off rooftops and break my wrists, I had been in duels and been stabbed, I had been shot. Those were-- I was ready for the tattoos, they were less than the other things each time.

[Each time it was always 'there has been worse, I can do this' which has served her oddly well in Thedas because now she's lived through the worst thing and come out the other side of it. Not untouched but she's here. Alive. Whole.]

A mi también. I'm glad you came here today Sina. And that we met. [Guess how much more painful this makes a certain conversation in hindsight, fingerpistols.] You've been such a good friend to me, one of the best and truest. [It's the most natural thing to close the distance and gather Sina close to hug her tight (how many more chances will she get after all?)]

[With each new injury listed, Sina cringes further, but it melts away when Araceli pulls her into the embrace. Sina hugs her tightly back, resting her head on her friend's shoulder, inhaling the sea and enjoying the skin-to-skin warmth. Perhaps there's more to it than what meets the eye, but... no reason to dwell on these things.]

open; My girl, linen and curls

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linking all the tattoos in one go for laziness

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