CLOSED

[mythalenaste]

WHO: Solas and Pel
WHAT: Pel is going over her notes on the excursion to the Temple of Dirthamen and is trying to make sense of things. Solas might be able to help.
WHEN: Slightly pre-illness-event
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: References to horror, dismemberment, all that shit that went down in Dirthamen.

Since his return, Pel has had the impression that Solas does not like her. Today, someone told her he's like that with everyone. No point in avoiding him, then.

She approaches him in his little study--a spot she walks through every day on her way to work in the library--carrying a wad of notes and feeling a little shy, despite herself. Not of him, necessarily, but of the situation. This has been a mystery she has taken no joy in unraveling, this horror her people wrought so long ago. But this is why she is doing this. The elves must embrace the bad with the good--if there is any good--if they are going to benefit from learning their own history.

"Solas?"

Comments

[mythalenaste]

There's a long, long pause, after which she gives him a faint nod. A wordless acknowledgement that he is mostly right.

She just really, really hates it. She hates how he sees through everything, how naked she feels in front of him. How like a misbehaving child, after being expected to be an adult since the age of nine.

"An elf's default state of being is as a corpse, Solas. If you had people to protect in a place growing ever more hostile, would this be easy for you?"

[singularwill]

"An elf's default state of being is as a corpse?" He repeats, the incredulity obvious in his voice.

"Do you not live? Do you not breath? Do you not dream? The Ancient Elves are dead, yes. Nearly nothing of them remains. The Dalish may be fools but they are not dead. The world is not growing hostile, da'len. It is hostile. It has been hostile for far longer than either of us has witnessed. Only children expect things to be easy, or simple."

[mythalenaste]

Pel can respect someone who is direct with her. Her life is full of indirectness, and it hurts. At least she doesn't have to discern hidden intentions, with him. As maddening as it is, it's the most honest anyone has been with her in her life.

Maybe he's right. She is expecting things to be simple. Cynicism is pretty simple. Hiding in the woods, away from the dangers of other civilizations, is simple. And this is the world she has chosen to be part of. In this world, the old tricks don't keep you alive. In this world, you're just alive. Is that how it is for most people? Being alive means more than being not-dead-yet?

"We're not fools," she rasps. "Primitive. Always on the run. So occupied with staying alive that we aren't very good at anything else, and not even very good at that. But we're trying. Trying to keep our identity, and preserve it for those who want to find it again. We haven't the benefit of learning from other cultures. And that's partly our own fault."

She swallows. Her voice clears a little when she does so.

"What would you have of us? What should the Dalish be?"

Those are not questions she expected to be asking sincerely.

[singularwill]

"You aren't keeping an identity. You are perpetuating ignorance. You cling to traditions that you don't understand the roots of, and turn away all original thought."

He was getting annoyed now. He couldn't help it - couldn't help himself, and it was an old, old argument that had almost nothing to do with Pel herself.

"Do not ask me what the Dalish should be. As if I am some wise creature who will finally set you on the right path. Think. Observe. Learn. I am not here to tell the Dalish what they should be."

[mythalenaste]

"And I am not some power that would bend the People to your will even if you had suggestions." Intimidating as he can be, she's gotten too impatient to allow him to keep treading all over her. Who does he think he is? She gave him a chance. All his keen insight, and he thought she was deferring just by asking. Telling her to think, as if she has to be commanded in order to do so. "But if you have criticisms about my people, you should at least have better ideas as well. Instead of being a pretentious prick, criticizing without bothering to think up an alternative. That's the easiest job, isn't it? Meanwhile, I have an actual job to do."

She turns and marches her way back to the library.