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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.

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Ellana turns from the horse she's petting at the call of her name and smiles brightly at Araceli. She looks rather energetic today, and Ellana wonders if it's because Araceli is out of that frozen wasteland now, since she's used to a much warmer climate.

"Araceli, hello! I am well enough, especially now that I've seen Sina and Merrick and know they're on the mend." In fact, Merrick is about to head to Emprise. He bounced back quickly! "And you? I take it Emprise didn't agree with you. We really need to visit a place by the sea."

Escaping Emprise du Lion is part of it but being able to see friends she’d worried for has done her the world of good, and her lessons that eat up the empty hours when she’d think of home. Even playing cards hurts when you miss what a proper loud tavern is like.

“I heard about Merrick, we had so little time when the Crows had a lead on us and I didn’t wish to intrude when we’ve only met a few times, I am glad to hear he’s on the mend. I stopped to see Sina though, I’d written to her but that’s never the same..” Merrick has enough real friends and his family around without someone he’s spoken to all of twice appearing to peer in and Araceli knows Sina, feels protective of her and not just because of where her shard is. “I won’t be returning there in a hurry, I thought my fingers and toes would freeze off entirely! I keep hoping a rift will open up over an ocean, I must be among the most qualified for such a dangerous venture, no?”

She’d just stow away if she wasn’t allowed to go anyway so whatever.

“Ah, I see my friend has found something for you,” she says with a wide smile as the fox scampers over, pawing gently at Ellana’s leg, a small parcel in his mouth. “I owe you a drink too, that is customary.”

What is not are the dice, carved from deer antlers, and a cup of wood carved with vines and painted green, a liar’s dice set all of Ellana’s own.

Ellana once tried to explain to someone what being in a clan felt like, but she couldn't really find the word she was looking for. For some members of their clan, they look at all the others as family, but Ellana doesn't think that's the best idea. After all, they're isolated and have no choice but to marry within the clan, only getting new blood every ten years with the Arlathvhen. They're a close-knit community, but Ellana doesn't know the concept of neighbors, so that's not the word she'd use. They're just... a clan. She looks on Gavin as an older brother because they share similar views about the world and the clan. Merrick has never felt like family to her -- not the way Cyril sees him, at any rate -- but that doesn't mean she doesn't hold him close in her heart. They're clan. And so when she received the news he was poisoned, she'd cried, feeling so helpless and lost. The world wouldn't have been the same if he had left it.

It feels that way with Sina too. The two may not have grown up together, but Ellana's glad they're friends. Any of the People would see Sina and be proud of her for her views, her beliefs, and her ways. Ellana knows they're different, and probably won't agree on Ellana's growing feelings for a human, but she hopes that their friendship can endure whatever is to come.

"It was definitely harsh on my ears. I should have been better prepared with a hat or a hood." But it's a lesson she can learn from for the next location the Inquisition ends up sending them. "I wonder if any rifts already have opened at sea. I wonder if the demons fall out and drown. They must, since they can be killed with weapons."

In that case, such rifts wouldn't be a priority since the demons coming out aren't assaulting anyone. Thank the Creators for small favors.

The fox grabs Ellana's attention and she looks down with a soft exclamation. "For me?" Bending down, she gently takes the package from the animal, turning it over in her hands with a look of intrigue. She smirks, carefully opening the package as she asks, "Customary for what?" She doesn't yet realize that this is a birthday gift. But it soon all comes together and she grins, shaking the dice in the cup.

"My own dice and cup! This is so thoughtful of you. And so beautiful, too." The vines remind her of the forest, and maybe Araceli was thinking of the elves when she came up with this gift.

So far from the sea it’s hard to think of crew, and though she’s never officially joined one it’s the unspoken bond Castileans all share; everyone can work together when the times are rough, and since she joined the guards that’s been true too. A strange sort of sisterhood. There isn’t really a good word for it when you’re all entangled with one another and the woman you’re guarding but only Korrin and Zevran know that she’s more than what she’s shown herself as, a particularly savvy thief with a pirate and whore for parents, with a penchant for being a talented gambler. But she understands the closeness when she feels it for certain people here, always checking up on them even if it’s just a quick look when she makes her way around Skyhold on the rooftops and the battlements.

“I was more scarf than person,” she admit with a laugh. “I managed to win this huge blue thing from someone before I went off, so long I could wrap around and around myself until only my eyes showed but I couldn’t have fought in it.” Not easily at any rate but it had helped with some of the worst of it when she was used to cold winds and not something so constant that liked to steal whatever warmth she managed to find mere seconds later. “One of my dearest friends lives in a place like that though they have a sea not a river and special ships that can break the ice but I understand how she was so miserable when she first came to live in my country, where it’s so hot almost all the year round.”

“I don’t know much about demons really,” she would prefer not to but understands that she’ll have to learn given the mark. “But I would still argue that the sea should be respected, there are wonderful things within it, I would not wish demons upon them.”

Making a quiet pleased sound, the fox trots back, tail wagging as he watches with Araceli who gives a little shrug. “Water does not keep on the open seas but we all must drink and so we drink rum. In the same way it is tradition to have rum with friends on our birthdays because that is giving life in a way, the greatest gift we can give to another.” There’s more, but that’s about the sea and she’s feeling homesick as it is.

“So you can keep practicing! I thought about your Vallaslin, and the colour is not the same but forests should be green and lush. The dice came from some sort of deer antlers, our best dice are made of bone or teeth, the ones I showed you, they were sperm whale teeth, that way they have also lived.”

Ellana laughs, picturing Araceli wrapped head to toe and waddling around in the snow as a scarf person. Would Lux have traveled instead the warm cocoon, or outside of it?

"That's true. There are many things hidden in the sea, but it shouldn't have to be fouled up with demons. The land has already suffered from them." She thinks back to scorched earth from rage demons, dead flowers from the frost of despair demons, and the rest. It's terrible to see what demons do when given freedom to roam unchecked.

"Oh, I've never tried rum before, but I'd be happy to share a drink with you." Ellana will try anything once, as long as it's not harmful. She's not going to try blood magic just once, for instance. Looking down into the cup, she shakes the dice and then takes one out, examining it.

"My people make nearly everything we use out of what's around us in nature. Leather from animals, weapons from ironbark, -- rare as it is -- baskets from reeds. Everything nature grants us can be of use." She puts the die back and holds the cup in both hands, close to her chest for a moment.

"Would you like to head to the tavern now?"

Considering he’s actually a fat little pig in the guise of a fox? No. She would’ve sunk in the snow if that had been the case.

“I hope that when all is said and done, when the rifts are gone that no one loses a home that cannot be easily rebuilt.” It’s something they share at least, though Araceli’s people have never dwelt on their loss really, they mourned, they moved on, they built above and around what remained to them. Perhaps Thedas will learn to do the same this time. “Where I live there are beasts that can swallow seven ships whole, maybe there are some here that will keep the seas safe for sailors. Those...angry fire demons, they could destroy a ship so quickly.”

She’s bad with demon names, they take longer to remember.

“I can water it down, Korrin and I did that for Sina but with wine, rum’s nicer watered down though, you can still taste it.” But it was Sina, and neither of them wanted to get her hammered when Araceli knew she had never tried alcohol before so sweetened wine had seemed the best way to go about it. Rum is always good though, Araceli was literally raised on it (and brandy. And wine. And a few other things. Start the kids early so they don’t go out and get hammered the first chance they have.)

With a smile, she finds herself nodding; it’s strange, the things you find you have in common with people in Thedas. “We are the same but it’s the sea, though it does make it much easier for us to get everything we want and need when we’re the best sailors and shipbuilders once the lumber gets to us. Ironbark is still wood, yes? I think I saw a mention of it in a book I was reading.” She is a giant nerd Ellana, half her life is spent in the library these days it seems.

“If you would like, I don’t want to drag you away if you’re busy or have plans.”

"I would love that," Ellana says, believing it's good thinking on Araceli's part, since she would know the strength of the drink better than her. "I'm not really busy."

Gesturing towards the stairs, she starts to walk.

"Ironbark comes from trees, yes, but it is both stronger and lighter than steel. Only my people know how to work with it for crafting. Even I don't know how they do it. But that makes ironbark items very special and valued."

Instead of showing off for a change, she follows along, whistling for Lux to keep up when he hovers behind her for too long.

"The ships that could be built with such a wood," Araceli murmurs quietly. They have strong wood of their own but nothing quite like that, and ships have fallen foul of so many reefs or run aground, been split apart by cannons and a wood both light and strong would only be an advantage to them. Especially up north where they have to carefully break the ice so food can make it to the people.

"So is it magic then? Everything I've read of history here seems to suggest that elves and magic are more closesly entwined than humans and magic, or at least for longer than them."

"Well, the craftsmen are not mages themselves, but I suspect it could be, if ironbark has magical properties itself." It's strange how her people work to preserve all they are, but even others in the clan aren't privy to some secrets. The hunters have the secrets of Andruil, the First and Second learn the Keeper specialization, and the craftsmen work with ironbark.

"Back in the days of our empire, magic was everywhere. We were even immortal once."

"It could be, they say in a land where I come from that all the trees are alive in some way, and that whatever they craft from them, the soul or the spirit of that thing, or at least some small piece of what it was? It dwells within it still." It isn't something she's entirely sure she believes but she never begrudges her friends their beliefs and it's one of the few things about forests that she knows for certain. "Maybe ironbark is something like that, a thing that is more somehow, and we will never know and are all the richer for it."

At least not in this life at any rate.

"Immortal?" Now that is worthy of a few moments of silence to think on such a thing, to even imagine that when forty seems old to her. "Would that not be so dull though? Life is change, but if you are immortal you would be the same person, in the same state until...well until something rather drastic. You wouldn't move on to another place."

Ellana's lips quirk up in a bit of a smile. "I suppose you haven't heard any tales of wild sylvans yet, have you?" Because that sounds similar to what exists in Thedas, proven to truly exist by Morrigan. "They are spirits or demons -- usually demons, though -- who possess a tree and twist its shape until they can become mobile. That, however, is not where ironbark comes from, though you can use that wood for things too, once the sylvan is dead."

Have one more unbelievable thing to add to your notes, Araceli.

"They say that such a life could feel weary, and so the elders would practice Uthenera. They would lie down to sleep, and it was the type of sleep that lasted years. Their consciousness would travel deep into the Fade, and they would find peace there. Some found it so peaceful that they never returned, and let their bodies wither and die. Others came out of Uthenera after many years."

"Zevran mentioned such things to me once! He said some of them even speak in rhyme, I think I only remember because it sounded so utterly ridiculous, that a tree could speak. But he failed to mention the possession part to me, even though we were off to the Fallow Mire where everything was possessed. Even cats, apparently." No she is not still sore about running around with Harding avoiding being scratched by a possessed and plague-ridden cat.

But at least now she can have the full story about them, just to be safe should any rifters encounter them on their travels.

"I can hardly imagine such a thing." The words are a hushed whisper, as strange and unsettling as they are oddly beautiful. "We go back to the sea when we die, wrapped in a shroud made of byssus, weighted down by rocks and stones so that whatever is in the ocean will feed on us and grow strong, that our people will eat those and grow strong too. We give ourselves back to what gave us life. Don't you find it sad though? That they could be so very tired?"

"The Fallow Mire was a terrible place," she says with a shudder as they reach the tavern door. "So that does not surprise me."

Once inside, Ellana waits for Araceli to get things started with the rum, and takes the opportunity to answer, her expression showing her sad smile.

"To be elvhen is to know true sadness. Everything about us is sad, even the good things that we lost, I suppose. But now that we do die and are buried, it doesn't sound so different from yours. We are buried -- not burned -- and a tree planted on our grave, so we may feed the tree and help it grow strong. And though we may not last the ages, the tree will. I hope we can travel to the Emerald Graves someday. I could show you the many graves of our Knights."

"I'm hoping that now Korrin has her spirit blade that I don't have to go back. Just because I know how to walk there without waking up corpses most certainly does not mean I enjoy it." But should there be a need to go again, she'll offer to train people up just so she doesn't actually have to go back and smell like a corpse herself.

With most of the bar staff knowing her well enough, she manages to jump the queue with a wink and a smile, Lux already stationed carefully beneath the table so he won't get stepped on. The rum isn't as strong as her usual and once again there's a pitcher of water balanced carefully in the crook of her arm - she's not entirely sure how common drinking is around the Dalish now thanks to Sina and Korrin's comments.

"My people have never dwelled on our grief. Maybe it's easier because the sea has always been around us and in us - what are tears after all?" She pours as she speaks, adding a splash of water to Ellana's at first just to be safe. "I was unaware the Dalish had knights."

Generally she's still wrapping her head around even the concept of knights.

There is also the fact that Ellana is a waif who won't be able to absorb the alcohol fast enough too, so the water is wise.

"And for us, we have always been chased off our land, or pulled from it in chains," she says, explaining where the difference may lie. Her hands curl around her mug and she pulls it towards her, looking inside like the rum has some secrets to reveal to her.

"Oh, yes. When we established our home in the Dales after escaping slavery in Tevinter, we decided to isolate ourselves from humans once more. It was thought perhaps we could regain our immortality that way. And so we had brave knights who patrolled our borders to keep humans away."

A little practice and she'll teach all the Dalish girls. But it's easier when you really did start as an infant.

"Zimevur tried that. Their land is rich in stone and great military minds, they are good at the art of war. Or were. They swept through two countries – one where so much of our fertile lands are, another of great sprawling forests – and into a third rich in ores and gems. When they came to us, well every native is a sailor. There was never a war after that." There are things like slavery, she's seen enough as a guard but that's saying too much, something she could tell Zevan or Korrin, a few others too but Ellana doesn't need to know about the less savoury parts of Araceli's life that aren't funny or daring.

Shaking her head, she sighs quietly at the very concept of knights, how strange and elaborate the whole concept seems even compared to the Grand Game. "That was the true thought? That just being near to humans would make you live long again? Like a quarantine in a plague?" There's no judgement, just curiousity, how bizarre a notion that is but she's had a lifetime to know that eighty is a good age to live to, that they always go back to the sea in the end.

"Good health to you and the year ahead," Araceli toasts, raising her glass.

Ellana shrugs, lifting her mug to take a cautious sniff. She'll take it easy with this, having never been one to go overboard on her birthday.

"The humans came down from the north, and immortality was lost. It wasn't so strange to think if we stayed away from them, that we would gain the ability again. But by then, so many years had been lost in slavery, that it was hard to recall the old ways. We've preserved what we could, and continue to pass it on. As for myself, I don't think I'd enjoy immortality. I wouldn't want to see such a passage of time. Waking up from Uthenera, I'd probably feel completely lost."

But she's stalled long enough. Lifting her mug, she clinks it against Araceli's and takes a cautious sip. She makes a slight face of displeasure, but tries to hide it.

It's only through effort and practice that Araceli doesn't laugh. "It won't bite, I swear it. There are no sharks in the rum."

As if to prove the point, she takes a long healthy swallow of her own as she listens, still scarcely able to wrap her mind around such a thing. "We used to be able to go between water and land easy as we pleased, then whatever caused the sundering? Anyone on the land was on the land then and could only dive for as long as they had breath in their lungs and enough to get back to the surface. Those in the water...we see glimpses. Merfolk that come when a person is drowning to take them home, storm hags that lash the land and water with lightning, sirens that sing so sweetly you won't shed a single tear when the hull splits on the rocks. I don't think we ever had immortality, not like you. When we die we go back to where we truly came from and we'll live out the rest of our lives beneath the waves."

What happens after that is less clear, Araceli wants it to be a surprise.

"You're doing better than Sina and we tried her on watered down honeyed wine," she teases, "but it's an acquired taste. I started as an infant so my mother could get some sleep unless it was a rare night when my father's ship was in the port."

Ellana sets her chin in her hand and listens to Araceli's tale. She's always loved listening to this world of Araceli's, so different to Thedas. Though maybe there are places by the sea here in Thedas where they have tales as she does. It all sounds so beautiful.

"Merfolk breathe the water as fish do, don't they? And here lightning is my favorite tree of spells to use. I hope you won't think me a storm hag for it!" She's joking of course, and after a chuckle, she takes another sip.

"It will take some getting used it, that's for sure. You must not get drunk off rum at all, do you?"

"Yes, they have gills like fish do on their necks and on their ribs," and she says this as if she has seen one but she believes, and belief makes things real. "They can breathe above the water too though, we came from them, and some will still come up to ships or on the rocks to sing and comb their hair, the men too."

Absently, she spins the bracelet on her wrist, a slender silverite band with a mermaid at either end, Korrin's gift that means perhaps even more than the other woman realises. There's more to mermaids than that but they're things that go so deep in her people, things that just are, and that makes it more difficult to explain.

"Oh I do. On a ship it's watered down plenty so the sailors can do their duty, we've got rationing on board too for all other alcohol. We all grew up with a little wine at dinner too, this stuff? I've got a good tolerance, true, but I'm not the biggest person, if I don't space it out I'll end up legless." Fortunately no one but Korrin saw her after the maraas-lok because she'd remembered she had legs, just not what her legs did, or where she'd apparently left them.

Ellana raises a hand to rub at her neck, imagining what that would be like. Though, knowing her, if she were a mermaid, she would probably wish she could live on the land instead. That's her; always wanting more, wanting to experience so much more.

Her eyes are drawn to the bracelet and she smiles. She now has a new piece of jewelry herself: a gift from Sam, though he told her about it before her birthday actually arrived, because he's in Emprise right now and she had to go to his room to retrieve it. A silverite ring with halla etched into it sits on one finger. Obviously silverite is a very good metal for jewelry.

She laughs at Araceli's description of losing her legs to the drink. "I wonder if the sailors on the ship we used to come across from the Free Marches drank watered down rum too. The journey wasn't very long, and we had wine to drink along the way, so I never found that out.."

A shame she hasn't told Ellana about Leandra, how Araceli had spent so long wondering if there truly were gills hidden somewhere because she was so like the ideal, so like the paintings and the statues, the fountains, like everything her people believe. One day she'll find the words for more than just Korrin but she doesn't want to lie to her friends and saying 'a friend' will only carry her so far.

Perhaps one day she'll get to the sea in Thedas and she'll find shells and stones, old worn rope to weave them together to give her friends gifts but it's a welcome reminder and it serves well to help ground her the days that she feels lost.

"Water doesn't keep. Remember in the Mire? How the water stank? Well you try to keep water in a barrel and it does that before you get very far, rum's pretty cheap and it waters down better than other stuff. Wine is for paying passengers, though I hope they treated you better than Sina."

"Well, we weren't thrown overboard, so I suppose that's something," she says, and her tone of voice suggests she's joking, but in that way people do when they're hiding the sting in something. "We kept our heads down and Merrick spent a great deal of time with his knives out, so everyone gave us a wide berth."

She sips her drink, and it goes down a little smoother this time. It also steels her for her next question.

"Do I want to know about how they treated Sina, or will it end with me crying?"

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