open; Give me a field, give me a big sky

[foxsays]

WHO: Araceli, Morrigan, Asher and you
WHAT: Catch-all for Bloomingtide
WHEN: Bloomingtide (post-5th Bloomingtide for Araceli)
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: A proper catch-up for all three characters below with specific starters and some open headers, if you'd like something specific feel free to hit me up! If you'd like a backdated thing for Araceli or Morrigan, let me know and I'll sort that too, I know I've been gone for a fair bit sorry!
Araceli's threads will all be post 5th Bloomingtide when she gets back from her mission in Antiva!
For some ooc details on Morrigan things, please see here, a rookery post will go up shortly for research helpers!
Warnings for talk of violence, blood and language in Asher's threads.

Comments

[the_effect_she_has]

"So it's possible that it was supposed to be there, but it was moved off of say, some sort of pedestal?" She thought about that, making a face. "Of course, one of the tribesmen would have not understood how to work the device - I know I don't - and then just set it aside as 'some weird magical thing.' Have you actually gotten it to turn on?"

That was what she was most curious about, beyond the meaning of the paintings.

She glanced around, and tucked the journal back inside her leather armor, right near one of her knives. Yes, she was armed, people. And she always would be. "Thanks - we would appreciate the help with translation ... I was thinking of asking that Solas guy about the paintings. I've seen some of his paintings from the library, and I thought he might know more about the murals."

[arcaneadvisor]

"I can hardly see them leaving something such as that on the floor, not if what you and Merrill believe is proven to be correct, and we may count ourselves lucky twas not damaged. And to answer your question, no, with all that has gone on in Skyhold lately, I thought it best not to add to potential headaches." Still, she couldn't help but smirk at the thought of Cassandra Pentaghast trying to put her in a cell; after all, finding a cell that could hold a shapeshifter was nigh impossible and she doubted that any of her companions from the Fifth Blight would ever allow her to do that.

But after the abomination, after the rift opening, there was no reason to tempt fate, and certainly not when she'd been distracted by the increasingly frantic reports from her Orlesian scouts and soldiers.

"The ones in the rotunda? I believe those are a fresco, I have only heard little of him since he returned to Skyhold after the Herald's death though having more minds to work on the problem would not go amiss I suppose." Even bald racist egg grandpa minds.

[the_effect_she_has]

"Finding anything not damaged from an elven history is frankly a miracle." Katniss murmured, folding her arms across her stomach, mouth twisting faintly. "Well, I guess experimenting with magic we don't understand is a pretty stupid idea."

She nodded her head slowly, "They have a familiar style to them, and he's traveled in the Fade. He might have some idea of what happened back there, if he's the one who talks to all those spirits." A nod, "Never hurts to ask."

[arcaneadvisor]

"Time has ravaged what Tevinter has not taken, what Orlais has not placed upon the mantle, what the clans have not divided up amongst themselves and likely lost too - who would truly know how many clans have been snuffed out when falling foul of a plague, a town, bandits, wild animals? I know that the clan we met during the Blight were very lucky indeed," she replied with a shake of her head though that was more down to their Keeper truth be told. A part of her hoped little of the truth of that tale had ever made it out, and if it had, that it had never reached certain ears or they would never have peace, even those of them who were there to witness the whole sorry event.

"I have spoken to Pel Ashara too, who recommended Sina Dahlasanor to me not knowing we had already met. I have a private study with the benefit of a door that locks without being open to all and sundry." You know, unlike certain rotundas off the main hall, beneath the library and the rookery.

[the_effect_she_has]

"So it will take time to bring all this history to light again." She folds her arms over her chest, looking at Morrigan. "Do you think we can find enough of these relics to make a difference now, if so many things have been destroyed? After all those other clans died? Can the elven culture be saved?"

She brightened at that, before she nodded. "They are both great scholars." Certainly a hundred times better than her. "And ... what goes in that study? Does it ... come out again?"

[arcaneadvisor]

There was no easy answer to give. Arlathan was long gone. Tevinter had claimed and conquered. The Dales had been crushed, and now Halamshiral had burned as the nobles sat in the high quarter. The clans scattered so far that even she encountered very few on her journeys. "Change is coming to the world," she said at last, because that at least was true, and the tavern with the name and sign above the door allowed for such, here in Skyhold where the sky itself was held back, where the stone drank old power and magic. "What I do...I look at it as a chance to stop the world from becoming mundane. That is the way to look at it."

But she was older. She had lived a hard life with Flemeth, she had so long to do this, to pick over ancient things and to bide her time, and she has a son to prepare for a destiny. She can afford patience.

"Some. Much of what I have found is fragile, people are welcome to come to my study to make use of it but well, we are all aware of what happened with the eluvian, as well as how quickly rumour spreads when anything elven is involved. Precious little of it can be called close to kind." Ellana had been leant a journal Morrigan had made herself provided it be returned to her before leaving Skyhold but after the eluvian, she is wary. Nodding towards Katniss or rather to what she had on her person, she leant across the table, to keep the words between them. "Between you, make a copy as soon as you are able. Better if you make one each."

There was a reason witches had kept grimoires after all, and another reason so few journals left Morrigan's study? She had written the notes herself, painstaking hours until her hands, wrists, and eyes ached from it.

[the_effect_she_has]

Katniss pressed her lips together, then looked away. Feeling her teeth grinding together. It wasn't a yes - but it wasn't a no either. So in this change the world could be something that could be continuing that one half of her soul. It could also destroy it utterly. She pushed hair away from her face, her expression slightly tight ... but she understood. You had to save what you could, or the world would change without knowing what it was missing at all. "Save what you can. Like the world is about to burn, one way or another."

Patience was something when you were hunting. When you were looking to save a people, did it work the same way?

"I have heard about the eluvian ... I don't know anything about it besides what I read in 'Tale of the Champion.' Some sort of ... communication device." She really had no idea if it was that - or if that was more hokum. "As for it being a matter of if elven is bad ... well I guess people are going to have to decide whether or not they like staying in Skyhold, huh?"

She put her fingers on the journal, then nodded. "I'll make a few more, for study, then."

[arcaneadvisor]

"The world has seen the fall of Arlathan, five Blights, Exalted Marches, the rise and fall the Imperium, Qunari invasions, the Mage-Templar war, countless other wars and expansions, and now this. This age was named for the dragons being sighted again after being thought lost, the age of upheaval. The magic is coming back." There were words on the tip of her tongue that her son had said once, to her and yet not, his solemn eyes, his soft sad voice so very far from her even when he had stared right through her when he'd said them. "People fear the next age if it comes too soon."

Mention of the Tale of the Champion had her curling her lip, quickly taking a drink as if it might wash the taste from her mouth. "I would put little stock in what that dwarf might write, the whole tale was tawdry nonsense, the best use of it kindling for a fire were one to be caught alone in the outdoors. Twas very telling how little grasp of any situation he had, you would be better asking Merrill than believing whatever Varric Tethras chose to write about matters beyond his ken." A small mercy that there had been none to pen a tell of Jonas Cousland and his deeds though at least Jonas had done enough to be worthy of a tale rather than stumbling blindly from one crisis to the next. Jonas had put an end to chaos, rather than unleashing more upon them. "People will always find a way to overlook whatever they must in order to carry on, look to Orlais where the nobles wall themselves off in the High Quarter and the elves had all of Halamshiral. Tis the way of things, more often than not. For now, Skyhold is their only option. Unless the Chantry elects a new Divine and decides to march upon the mountain, though I very much doubt that."

It would require the Chantry to be useful, and when had the Chantry ever managed to be that?

[the_effect_she_has]

Katniss rubbed her arm then, looking down at the table, then around the room. As if somehow the change was going to start happening right before their very eyes. After a moment, she breathed in deeply, before she asked, "How do we know the new age hasn't already started?"

It seemed like change hadn't just come to their door - it had battered it right down. Her gaze narrowed a little at Morrigan's tone over Varric's book, before she stated simply, "He's a writer, not an historian, and a good one at that. It's not his fault he doesn't know about elven history - even elves don't know about it. That's half the reason I'm here - you're one of the few who talks openly about what you know."

Her lips pressed together, before she shakes her head, "I've seen the chantries, all across Fereldan and Thedas. They're still reeling. By the time we get a new Divine, this will be over, one way or another."