faderift | { OPEN }

WHO: Ellana Ashara + OPEN (with closed starters for Sabriel, Sina, and Merrick)
WHAT: Ellana returns to Skyhold from Emprise to catch up with people and settle back into life here.
WHEN: Guardian 20th through the end of the month.
WHERE: Skyhold

{ open }
After Ellana fulfills her duties in Emprise du Lion, she's allowed the opportunity to return to Skyhold or stay and wait for more assignments. But after everything that's happened while she's been away -- especially to her friends -- she wants to see Skyhold in person again. The journey back is thankfully uneventful, and as she gets through the front gate, she already has a list of people to see. But over the coming days, she settles back into a routine around the place, namely: visiting the mounts in the stables and petting those who seem agreeable to it, taking supplies down to the refugees encamped down in the valley below, reading out in the sunshine, or practicing with her new lute, which is a birthday present to herself.

[ ooc: feel free to have your character know it's Ellana's birthday from a scout if they want to give her a present. it's on Guardian 22nd! ]

{ sabriel }
Ellana is looking forward to getting back to Skyhold and flopping back into the bed she shares with Sabriel. It's not that sleeping in a bed roll is tough, seeing how she's done it her whole life, but her bed is something new and wonderful, and she's actually missed it. Coming into Skyhold, she sees not much has changed after the event with the rift. She heads to her room, drops her bag, and flops back onto the bed, sinking her head into the pillow and sighing happily. She'll unpack later. For now, she'll rest until Sabriel turns up and the two can catch up.

{ sina }
Hearing about what happened to Sina made Ellana want to return home, but she couldn't abandon her duties to the Inquisition, and she was assured Sina was recovering. Still, after resting from her journey back, she goes to find Sina to see how she's doing. There's a quick stop to the gardens first, where she picks some flowers. Her eye catches the Dalish memorial in the corner and she kneels beside it for a moment, relieved that Sina's name doesn't have to be added to her clan's stone. Then she returns to her goal of finding Sina.

{ merrick }
First Sina, then Merrick. Sam had told her what had happened to him via crystal and she had burst into tears. But Merrick was strong and Ellana had known he could beat the poison in his system. She also knows that what Merrick likes doing with Ellana more than anything else is to sit and sing, so she travels down to the merchant stalls with coins jiggling together in her purse, hoping the lutes she once saw there haven't all been bought up yet. She's been saving up to buy herself a lute for her birthday, and now the time has come. Thankfully, there are several available in her price range, and she selects one, testing it out. It will suit her, and she pays, taking the lute and adjusting the strings until it sounds as near enough to Zevran's as she can get. She still doesn't know many songs, but it's a start. And she can play for Merrick. Since the lute has no strap (she'll have to find someone to make one) she carries it in hand as she searches for her friend.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ellana is lightly dozing, but the door opening rouses her and she rubs at her eye, forcing herself back to alertness. Sabriel is impressive with that stack of books and drink, and she merely watches her until Sabriel notices she's there. Then she laughs and swings her legs off the bed to stand.

"Like you wouldn't believe," she answers, coming over to give her friend a hug. She feels they've easily come to that point, sharing quarters as they do. "It's hard to give up once you try it."

Sabriel returns the embrace without complaint, made much easier for the lack of teacup. The books are still present, though, she tries to avoid jabbing Ellana with a sharp corner. Moderate success.

"Truly. We are fortunate, in this case, that repairs to Skyhold are slow." She lets Ellana go, placing the books next down next to the tea. "How was Emprise du Lion, lack of beds aside?"

"Cold, stark, pretty miserable." But she says it in the voice of someone who is looking back on it now from a warm, comfortable spot. She did feel sorry for those people still there, especially the villagers whose homes are wrecks.

Ellana moves back to sit on the bed, one leg tucked underneath herself and ready to tell all, the good and the bad.

"I went with some others to free villagers from cages. The Red Templars had imprisoned them to mine out lyrium, but one said that the Templars were going to recruit them and turn them into-- well, into what the Red Templars now are. Monsters."

It isn't an easy thing to discuss, but Ellana and Katniss have made sure that information has spread around. Now matter what the common, non-magical folk thought of Templars before, she can't see them looking kindly on those who are imprisoning people to turn into ruined creatures.

"Luckily none that we rescued were already in the process of conversion. They were untouched."

"Sounds much like the Fallow Mire without the rain," Sabriel observes, but the description is about as expected. Was all of southern Thedas wet and cold, and would the Inquisition ever go someplace warmer?

Thoughts for another time, as she tucks one arm under the other, barely leaning against the wall as she listens. A frown settles on her face as Ellana continues her telling of what's happening further down in the valley. Something had been amiss for the villagers to go missing in the first place, but this-

"It is fortunate the Inquisition arrived when it did," she says, quietly. "That they were willing to involve innocents in their scheme- but I suppose it is not truly theirs, anymore, is it..." Not if they were monsters. They didn't really have a choice then, did they?

"It's hard to say. Some of them could still speak, but their minds could have been so altered that they had no idea what they were fighting for." In her mind, it's better to put them out of their misery. Templars may have been a frightening deterrent all her life, but she can't imagine them years ago looking ahead and wanting this.

"I also helped clear out darkspawn at a place called Valeska's Watch. I was careful to keep my mouth and nose covered." Before Sabriel starts to worry. "I helped the Wardens who took the mission: Hercules, Kaisa, and Scipio." She tries not to let her voice change, because she is certainly mentioning the latter for reasons, but a smile touches her lips regardless. Ellana really needs to work on hiding her thoughts via facial expressions.

"I wonder if there is a way to save someone once the conversion begins." It's a thought, but also a throw-away one. She has too much of her own business to burden herself with discovering a cure, but she did wonder if there was a point when it was inevitable. Or was it more like the Wardens that, once tainted, that was that?

Sabriel tries, at least, to not look too interested when Scipio is mentioned. Really, she tries too hard - her head whips sideways, her eyes light up, and any colour, even slight, is noticable on deathly white skin. The creeping smile, which she halts about half way, might also be another give away. She can tell Ellana probably knows from her own expression, and her response helps not at all. "I did hear about Valeska's Watch." Such restraint, not diving in to what she wants to know. "I doubt it will be the last time a place that is - for the moment - abandoned has to be emptied of darkspawn. Hopefully, this one will stay that way. And, I'm glad to see you are safe." And, well. She absently picks at her hands. "Scipio? Is he well?" Asking for a friend. Cough.

Ellana has wondered that too. Oh well, that blonde healer has been talking nonstop about studying red lyrium, so maybe something will come of it.

Oh, Sabriel is nearly as bad as Ellana when it comes to hiding what she's feeling! Maybe she too could do with lessons from Araceli. Ellana's smile widens because she fully supports her friend having romantic feelings for someone. Sorry, Alistair. Ellana is a born romantic.

"Thank you. I'm happy to return safe. And Scipio is well. I think he could bounce back from anything with a cheery attitude."

She knew that Alistair didn't approve of whatever she, they, Scipio and herself, were doing - or at least, he acted the part well. She had no clue what the rest of the Wardens thought, but oh, they knew. Disrection was not something that was taught at a Circle. Expected, tolerated, maybe, but Sabriel had been more content to actually follow those rules and concentrate on her studies and who she might be one day. Leave the Prince Charming and the romance to her daydreams.

Even if now, she had the reality, too. "He might complain about it first, but-" Frostback flashbacks, but it's said with endearment, "-I do not think anything could keep him down for long. Something will catch his eye and make him smile again."

"Something? I was rather thinking someone would." Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Ellana giggles and pats the mattress beside her. "You'll probably see him soon. Then he can tell you all about the adventure from his perspective. We were separated for the start of it, and met up in the middle."

"Ellana," Sabriel objects, but not too seriously; her smile is in place, and it's half-hearted, more obligatory than anything. She can sense that nudging or whatever it is you're doing. No shifty looking expressions here, because yeah, y'know. Just. Interested. In her companions! Yes. That's it.

She does, however, sit. "Grand heroic adventures, I expect, as the Watch is now free of Darkspawn," she observes. "Perhaps I will save those stories to hear from him."

(ooc: i'm happy to continue chats in the dance thread buuut perhaps present giving as the goal for this one? does ellana want gifts, there will be gifts]

{ OPEN }

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so i'm just gonna assume he's fine since the thread is ongoing

roger that!

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sorry for coming back to this so late!