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WHO: Katniss and You
WHAT: A week in the life of a Mockingjay
WHEN: Covering the first week of Haring
WHERE: All around Skyhold
NOTES: Warnings for possible suicidal triggers via music.

Katniss Everdeen is a young woman who does not like to be idle when it can be helped, especially when she is waiting to know where she can help. So if you are looking for the rather brusque 'Some Other Archer', you will find it hard to miss her.

1. Distributing Food and Supplies Through The Survivors

Skyhold has literally become the pilgrimage of hundreds who are seeking to flee from Corpheysus's reign of terror, who are looking for balance in a world gone mad without a Divine, or have lost their homes in one of the many wars blossoming across Thedas. Many of them came without a stitch on their backs, or food to feed themselves -- or their families.

Yet, in the last week, a tall young woman with serious grey eyes and dark hair braided along the side of her head has been handing out provisions - fresh meat mostly, and cleaned leathers and warm furs. Candles, cooking fat, and there are even healing poultices, simple things. She asks for nothing in return, and thanks makes her nervous -- but she is there almost every day to offer assistance where she can. Children make her easier - she brings them necklaces made of leather and small stones, and little toys made of bone.

Do you meet here here or ...

2. Outside in the training areas outside of Skyhold

Someone has taken the time to set up what can only be considered a crude archery training area, out of old barrels and crates, with targets painted on. But it's not just straight targets and dummies, no. It's practically an obstacle course - with the targets being at different heights, and various objects that one had to move around to get a clear shot. It's not just a test of accuracy, it's one of agility and of quick thinking.

Katniss trains here every day, practicing her shots in a dozen different scenarios. Up high, down low, jumping and rolling out of the way to make a shot. Shooting and moving at the same time, weaving between targets. She wants to challenge herself, that's clear enough. Against what? Everything, apparently.

Want to join? Want to gawk? Want to take your barrel back? Come and speak with her, unless you want to speak to her ...

3. Alone On The Ramparts

It's the song that will capture your attention. A beautiful, clear female voice will echo down to you as you climb the stairs to the ramparts, perhaps to go on guard duty. Perhaps only to see the stars. Yet while the voice will make you smile, perhaps, the song itself might just chill you down to the bones.

Or at least wonder who would sing such a song.

"Are you, are you?
Coming to the tree
Where they strung up a man they say murdered three
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree

Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where the dead man called out for his love to flee
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree

Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where I told you to run, so we’d both be free
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree

Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree

Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where they strung up a man they say murdered three
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met at midnight in the hanging tree..."

If you go hunting down the voice, you'll find it soon enough. Katniss is sitting with her back against the ramparts, looking up to the sky and singing upwards to the stars. As if she is trying to reach someone with her voice that she just can't seem to get to.

Will you come and sit with her, or pass by?

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Now in possession of a new staff blade at the end of her staff, Ellana needs to practice with it. It's an added weight and adds height too, so she wants to be comfortable with it before facing any enemies again. Yet she's aware that not everyone will look kindly on a mage practicing her magic in front of them, either because of their own prejudices, or simply because magic makes them uncomfortable. If she were in a group all practicing magic together, it would be different; people could just move away if they didn't want to see it. But by herself, she thinks it better if she finds a quiet space to practice.

And that's when she finds the archery set up. The targets will work well enough for a few of her spells. She's certainly not going to set them on fire or anything like that. Mainly, she's focusing on the new weight of her staff and how to swing it to make use of the blade, should anyone come into melee range. She's only at it for around twenty minutes before she sees Katniss approach with her bow.

"I was wondering when I would see some archers turn up," she says pleasantly as a greeting. "I'll move out of your way."

Katniss herself has her bow over one shoulder, and several quivers filled with arrows with her. She paused herself, as she saw the mage - Dalish mage standing there with her staff out, blade glinting in the light. She raises an eyebrow, but her shrug is light as she continues to move forward into her training area.

"No need to on my account. Always glad to see a mage learning how to keep their spells going in the right direction." She looks at the targets critically, and made a quiet noise of approval, "No fire. Thanks."

"Oh, I didn't want to ruin anything," she replies, eyeing the targets. "I have a new staff blade, so I'm mainly practicing with the added weight as opposed to going through all my spells." She looks over Katniss's bow and all her arrows. Ellana has never paid too much attention to what the clan's hunters carry. Or, at least, not anymore. She once was in love with a hunter and she knew what his bow looked like as it lay discarded off to the side while they fooled around, but she is by no means familiar with archery.

"Are you a hunter? Or, I mean, ordinarily a hunter. The Inquisition has us filling new roles, doesn't it?"

"Well, it's not like they would be much of a loss. I took these all from places where people were piling up rubbish." Katniss snorted softly, as she put the quivers down, hooking one on her fingers to swing over her other shoulder. Any hunter will tell you that you should bring several quivers and store the extras in a safe place so you can have access to them once you've used up all those in your quiver.

However, if you are having a bad enough day that you haven't caught anything with one quiver of arrows -- perhaps you shouldn't be hunting that day to begin with.

"I was." Katniss rests her bow on the ground, giving the staff a thoughtful look. "Do you want to test some of your spells?"

The question makes Ellana smile a little. If Katniss was uncomfortable with magic, she wouldn't be giving her the opportunity now to use it, would she? It's good to find so many who have no problems with it, or at least trust her not to misuse it.

"I could. I'm Ellana, by the way. I haven't seen you around before, but I did just return from the Fallow Mire."

Katniss had never had any problems with magic - in a lot of ways she sympathized with mages. She understood what it was to be outcast with something that you were just born with.

What she had a problem with was the mages who thought they were better than everyone else, slit their wrists open because more power has to be a good thing, and didn't look at all to see if they were hurting innocent people. From what she had seen of Pel, and the other mages here? That was not the case.

So ... Ellana seemed all right. "Katniss. Everdeen." She offered the woman her hand, before her grey eyes narrowed thoughtfully, "You wouldn't have happened to see an older man, there? Dark curls, kind smile, always getting down on himself? He goes by Bruce."

Ellana is happy to shake Katniss's hand, her pale, delicate hand giving a fair squeeze to show she isn't as delicate as she looks.

"Oh, yes, I saw him." He'd arrived with Gavin and Zevran, but she had seen Bruce before, hovering around the healer tents here at Skyhold. "He looked well the last I saw him. You two are friends?"

Great Maker - everything about this girl seemed delicate, light, and beautiful - except for her grip. Her grip was clearly from a lifetime of carrying a staff with her. Perhaps another sign of do not judge appearances for the actual content of a person..

Relief flashed over Katniss's face, before her mouth twitched, "Friends, yes. Although I often act the part of his annoying, nagging sister."

That makes Ellana giggle and nod. "I have someone that I could be called the nagging sister to, if he is the reckless brother." She'd given Gavin an earful in the Mire for taking off as he had, but the two had later reconciled. She really only nags him because she worries about him.

"Do you have a sending crystal to use to keep in contact with him?"

"They're a pain in the ass, brothers." Katniss stated with a straight face, before she gave her a curious look, "Is he here, your pain in the ass brother?"

She's not sure she would have brought Prim here -- but no. That was a lie. She would have, in a heartbeat.

"I - no. I thought those were for important people." She said slowly, because they seemed like valuable equipment that you didn't just hand out to anyone. Especially some bumpkin from the Hinterlands who wasn't officially part of the Inquisition yet.

"Not at the moment. He's back in the Mire now." And he tends to disappear with no warning, leaving people like her worried for his safety. "His name is Gavin, if you ever come across him. We're both from Clan Ashara."

Ellana shrugs at Katniss's answer, not exactly sure herself, but knowing that she probably shouldn't have one if that's the case.

"They were found here at Skyhold, and someone started handing them out. I'm certainly not in the chain of command, and I have one. Maybe you could ask? I'm not sure if they're running low and perhaps they decided to save them for certain people."

Katniss blinks, not just once but twice. Then she sighs a little, "Yeah, I know Gavin and yeah, I know Clan Ashara ... just how many of you are here, anyways?" It felt like they had their own Dalish clan -- which if they were all like Pel, Gavin, Salem and now Ellana ... might not be too terrible.

Hm. Well, she supposes she should go ahead and ask then ... hmm.

She tucks her hair behind her ear, looking at Ellana carefully. "So, I should go ask Commander Cullen, then? Before they run out, or something."

"Only six," she replies quickly. Some seem to think Skyhold is absolutely crawling with them. "The rest are from other clans."

Ellana thinks it over for a moment. "I think the quartermaster might know, since he hands out supplies. His work area is in the building behind the training dummies by the armory."

"Six ... well, that's not huge, but I'm sure your Keepers are all missing you." The Dalish lived and died by how many were in their clans. Or at least that was how her mother had taught her.

A flicker of disappointment? Perhaps for a second, but then it's gone with a contemplative look. "All right - I'll have to seek him out after my practice."

She paused, then said slowly, "Did you want to practice throwing spells at me?"

"Maybe," she says vaguely. She knows the Keeper doesn't miss Gavin, since she was endlessly yelling at him, and she'd hope the Keeper missed her own daughter Beleth, but the two have never really been close. And even though Ellana and the Keeper keep in touch via letter, she isn't sure she's really missed. She's the leftover mage. If anyone would be missed, it's Pel. She still doesn't understand why the First had to come when no one would miss the mage with no real importance to the clan.

The disappointment is brief, but Ellana wonders if she's said something wrong. It's hard to know what people will find offensive, but she was just giving information, wasn't she?

"Oh, no, I don't want to practice on people. Targets are fine."

Now that is going to get a curious look. The Dalish here continued to simply rip down her preconceptions of what her mother had built her to believe. Or maybe, individuals were just different here. They were different people, with different minds. Gavin had taught her that, as had Pel.

"Well, I don't want to keep anyone from practicing -- so we can practice together. I need it, anyways, if I am going out into the field with mages." She hefted her bow again. "Do you have many attack spells?"

Ellana is learning that herself when it comes to others. Here she thought all Tevinters hated elves and wanted them to be slaves, but she's already met two who don't mistreat her at all and hate their country's view on elves. People can be surprising in the best ways.

"That sounds like a good idea to me. I mostly favor the storm tree of spells, and those are more about paralysis, but I know fire spells too." She holds her staff out it front of her. "I really just want to work on the new feel on my staff with this blade at the end." Sam had constructed it for her, and they'd worked on the design together. While it sports a blade at the end, where it connects to the staff, the metal branches out in fine lines to look like the top of a tree. It's a beautiful piece, and will also come in handy if anyone comes into melee range with her.

The Inquisition appeared to be something of an eye-opening experience. Something that would pull your mind to new places you could not expect. Katniss herself was learning to like it.

"Well, you shoot off your spells, and I will work on working around you." Here Katniss smirked slightly, before her eyes widened at the blade. Craftsmanship always had to be admired, "That's nice work. Where did you get it?"

"From Sam in the armory," she answers proudly. "I asked for it to look like a tree branch to match the top of my staff, and he came up with the idea to have the branches reach out to grip the bottom of the staff. He's very talented." And since he's also a mage, Ellana had trusted him to know just what she needed.

"Ah." She's impressed, and it shows, even in her closed off expression, "He does good work, your Sam. Never seen the like on any weapon."

She hefts her bow, and her arrows, "I should get a friend in the armory. Could use some new arrows."

"I'm sure Sam could be your friend too. He has a good disposition and I can't see it being a challenge to get along with him. You'd have to be trying not to like him, I should think." Ellana takes a defensive stance facing the target. "It's worth asking if he knows how to make arrows. He can always refer you to someone who does."

"... there certainly doesn't seem to be a shortage of people who want to be my friend." Katniss snorts softly, "Makes for an interesting change of pace."

She crouched, slightly, before pinpointing one of the targets with her arrow. She exhaled, slowly, and then whistled a four-note bird song before she fired, and then immediately took off running, allowing Ellana to pull her spell before she pulled another shot.

Ellana could say the same. For the entirety of her life, she's been taught that humans are dangerous and that they hate elves, and she's always believed that surely that isn't the case for all of them. Being here, she's found she's right. Sure, some people have been unkind, but overall, people aren't worrying about who she is, rather what she does. They're all here to aid the Inquisition, aren't they?

When Katniss takes off, Ellana spins with her staff, dealing with the new weight and adjusting how she balances it as she shoots a lightning spell at one of the targets. Her magic feels the same as always, so it's good the staff blade hasn't changed that.

There were many common threads here - and later Katniss would say she found another one here, with this all too beautiful elven mage. Yet she didn't feel awkward, didn't feel outdistanced. Instead she felt like ... she found someone else who understood. They were here to help, and they were helping together.

It was ... something.

Katniss darted out of the way of the lightening, hit a roll and then aimed for the target's head, sending an arrow straight through the wood before she ducked and shifted again, watching for Ellana's next blast.

Lightening, she was going to say, was unbelievably useful in a fight.

The way Katniss moves encourages Ellana. She's light and fast on her feet and so the mage isn't too worried about hitting her by accident. If they go out in the field, she can see them working well together.

Since she wants to avoid destroying the makeshift targets, she'll refrain from fire, but she only knows one cold spell, which she uses now. With a flash of white around her body, she Frost Steps through the next target, whirls around, and fires a simple spell at it.

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