faderift | I'd but smell the growing things

WHO: Siuona and [your face here]
WHAT: Let's check out this here garden!
WHEN: After more or less everyone has arrived at Skyhold.
WHERE: Skyhold garden
NOTES: Open to all!

It was a quiet, chilly morning when Siuona felt strong enough to leave her tent among the healers. With a warm woven halla shawl around her shoulders and slippers on her pale feet, she bundled her belongings in a corner of the tent and secreted herself away to the courtyard where she knew the communal garden to be.

Over the course of her convalescence, Sina had become increasingly homesick for the wooded Free Marches, and had felt her spirits weakening to a point where she knew, from the healer's perspective, that it would affect her recovery if she didn't find a way to occupy herself.
'You're so dramatic', she scoffed under her breath in muttered Elvhen, tugging the shawl around herself as she made her way through the dark, drafty hall and through the archway into the cloister. 'Have some self-sufficiency.'

Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of all the vegetation; having spent the last several weeks tromping around in snow-covered mountains and then wallowing inside a tent inside impassible stone walls, the sight of greenery was enough to bring a sudden rush of tears to her eyes.

Shivering from the chill and her lingering weakness, Sina approached the rows of pots and sat by what she knew to be elfroot, tenderly running her fingers over the leaves, mopping absently at her still-streaming eyes with the sleeve of her tunic. It wasn't until she had refocused her gaze on the elfroot, and really looked at it, that she abruptly noticed something strange.

Why was so much of it missing, and so ineloquently clipped?

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"I do," she replied, quietly, succinctly. Then she hesitated, wondering if, perhaps, she was being presumptuous. She looked up at him again with a sheepish smile. "..I.. can show you, if you'd like."

"Yeah- yeah, sure. If you don't- if that's alright."

Ancient elf secrets? No, that'd be going a little too far. Just horticulture. That's all. But it sounded simple enough, and he could use all the little skills he could get to stay useful to this new Inquisition.

"Serah...?"

Sina blinked at him, her mind racing for a response. Serah? Was that a title??
"...Siuona," she guessed, with an uncertain half-smile. "Dahlasanor. Sina. ..Sina for short." She quickly catalogued everything she'd just said to make sure none of it had been in Elvhen. Did her name count?

"Ah... sit," she decided, gestured in front of her, and immediately fretted she'd come off too commanding. Shem didn't like the People bossing them around, right? Oh Creators she'd be drawn and quartered.

Without noticing a moment of her fretting, Peter sat. Right where directed. Better to get the lesson on with and stop making poor elves cry from his lack of gardening skills.

"Peter. Thanks for helping, Sina."

"Peter," Sina repeated, and gave a small nod before turning back to the elfroot.

"See here, how it's been torn mid-stalk?" she pointed out, "too much of this... it'll stunt its growth, and will prevent anyone from planting more. Clipping the leaves right at their heads will allow more to grow back. That's for tea, mostly." She dug a shallow hole in the pot with her fingers to show him the roots. "The juice is for healing salves and potions. You can make them without, but elfroot is the most effective." She buried the roots again and brought her hand to her lap, where she wiped some of the dirt off on her robe. The tugging motion very briefly revealed the glint of the shard beneath the collar of her tunic, but she folded her hands in front of her and seemed not to notice.

"Are you... from the Circle?" she guessed.

He narrows his eyes as she talks, trying to commit it to memory. Leaves, tea. Roots, healing. Growing. Right. He could manage to keep that straight. For the most part. He blinks back up to the present as she asks him a question.

"Oh, yes. I was. When there were Circles. It's...different. Out here. But you're from the for- the dalish."

Sina nodded, smiling faintly when he got it correct. "It's different for us too," she said, "though perhaps not all of us." She laughed lightly, without much actual mirth. "...maybe just me."

"Well, none of you can be used to this much...humanity. Right?"

That was a thing, he was sure of it. Elves staying away from humans when they could help it.

She shook her head, her smile growing slightly. The boy wasn't like she understood humans to be: if anything, he was enough like her that she was warming to him faster than most.
"I'd never seen a human before," she confessed, "they're... perhaps not quite as bad as I'd imagined."

I'd but smell the growing things

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