faderift | OPEN - I'm gonna do my best to take my place in the sun

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OPEN - I'm gonna do my best to take my place in the sun

WHO: Pel Ashara and YOU
WHAT: Catch-all/open post for May/Bloomingtide
WHEN: All month
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: Will update with any warnings as needed.

1 - Outskirts

A grey wolf is haunting the slopes outside of Skyhold.

She doesn't appear to be stalking anything. She is simply roaming the hillside, taking in her surroundings, occasionally sniffing something out. Her yellow eyes do not search; she is only taking everything in, as if she is discovering the world.

She hears and smells you before she sees you, and isn't worried, though her ears turn to listen. If you come closer, she will look up at you, waiting for you to do something to make her reveal herself.

2 - Library

The hour is absurdly late, but she can't sleep knowing this paragraph is not written. More accurately, it has been written a great many times, but she doesn't quite like any of them.

You might find her toiling. You might find her asleep on top of her own drafts.

3 - Hot spring

For whatever reason, you have just arrived, are in whatever state of dress or undress as you are in, when the water is disturbed and Pel's head pops out. She wasn't under longer than fifteen or twenty seconds--not long enough for you to get much done, but long enough for her to, perhaps, surprise you a bit. Though she looks surprised herself, seeing you.

4 - Wildcard

Pel's Daily Schedule

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"'It is in the best interest of elves for us to be honest with ourselves, and to pursue knowledge of our history without expectation of finding something glamorous'--no." She scratches that out. They are in the garden together, Pel having brought a board she can write on, working on the sort of mission statement for her next book. "It's not about expectations, more about how we see things colored a certain way. Self-serving bias, but said in a kinder way."

Edited 2016-05-11 03:46 (UTC)

He works with wood, she works with wool.

When it first becomes apparent that he will be a constant in the barn--two or three days after he returns--she picks up her trade blanket and wheel and moves closer to the barn door. Now he is in the corner of her eye while she spins and works the shop, which she's generally only doing in the late afternoons.

After a few days, she starts carrying books to the barn and studying and writing. It's a nice change of scenery, and it's a good place to go to have company that doesn't try to talk to her. So the hours she spends writing anything that isn't part of her job with the Inquisition, she spends in the barn with the strange, quiet, hairy man and his rocking-gryphon. She doesn't ask about his project. Clearly it's for children, and it's very clever and creative. Such a thing would be completely impractical for a Dalish lifestyle, but city children have the storage space for big toys like that, maybe. Or at least, maybe shem children do.

The first week, it's spinning and writing. Spinning and writing, and spinning while she thinks about what to write. Sometimes there are some young folks who help her sell her yarn, but she's never really close to Blackwall except when she's otherwise alone. She comes here to get away from those young people, even from her cousin who sells traps nearby, because those are all people who want her to carry on a conversation and be sociable and she just can't be expected to do that constantly.

The second week, there's a sweet rhythm to it. They already know to expect each other, and might even make eye contact, understanding the purpose they serve for each other. If someone wants to interrupt Blackwall for some nonsensical, chatty purpose, one glance from him will cause Pel to give them an icy, threatening stare until they leave him alone. She is petite, but she did once take down a red templar in full armor without the use of her magic. She can muster up some menace.

The thing that breaks the companionable silence between them is completely stupid. Pel carelessly stands up right on the narrowest part of her niddy-noddy, cracking it with a bare foot. She hops back, more alarmed by the sound than in pain, and gives a loud curse in elven.

"It's difficult to be biased over something we know so little about," Sina remarks. She's sitting on the ground, potting some of the new growths so they can be replanted where the others won't choke them out. "We don't need a glamorous past, we just want to know who we are."

"Most of us want to think we were a glorious society," Pel says tensely. "And that our glory was taken away by the humans. It's better for everyone if we understand the truth as it was, as best we can, instead of trying to prove a theory we've already found to be desirable."

She thinks for a moment, then starts writing that down.

"I sent back the proof of my first book," she says as she finishes. "It should be available to sell in a few weeks."

The cultural ethnography about the Dalish, the one that is Pel's test to see whether she can get a book published at all, in preparation for writing more.

"Even if it wasn't glory, they took everything from us," Sina replies, her voice going a little lower, more serious. "Everything except what we've managed to remember." She sits up and wipes her face with the back of her hand, leaving a smear of dirt along her brow. "...we need our pride. And our search for glory. Otherwise, we have nothing."
She blinks a few times, then looks at Pel, a bit confusedly, as if she just landed on something she didn't expect to say. "Then we're just the remnants of a race that was meant to die out. ...I refuse to believe that."

Her face softens when Pel mentions her book. "That's so exciting," she says, breathily, and grinning as she fits roots into a hole she's dug. "I can't wait to read it, all put together."

"We'll find the glory. Mixed in with all the shame. Dirthamen isn't the whole of the story of our people, it's just some of the bad stuff. Every society has things to be ashamed of. The wise ones learn and move forward differently."

A faint gleam comes to her eye. "It'll be strange, seeing my name on the cover of a book. Stranger still if anyone buys it. Maybe it'll get round a little before the new Divine bans it. That's the best I can hope for."

Sina nods her concession, happy to continue with the discussion of Pel's book. "She can't ban everything," she remarks with an impish grin, "and not all of us recognize her authority anyway."

"She can keep it from being sold by anyone who does recognize her authority," Pel says quietly. "A Divine would have a particular reason for doing so. Making the Dalish seem like people means it might have been wrong to drive the elves from the Dales."

She says, as if there are no elves in the Dales currently, or elves who stayed in the Dales as farmers' hands or servants.

"Something that I wonder about Dirthamen, though...do you suppose they did that to the Highest One because they thought he couldn't be killed? That ancient elves either believed they were immortal, or...they were actually so?"

Sina can't help but be dismissive. When one lives outside most of society's laws, one has no problem with things like a black market or forbidden items. Sometimes, they're all anyone has.
She refrains from saying so, however, instead considering Pel's question. "...I don't know," she admits, pursing her lips, "perhaps he did something they felt made him undeserving of Uthenera. Perhaps Dirthamen himself ordered it done." It's all just conjecture, but what else do they have?

"...were there any runes? Or inscriptions?"

Pel nods. "He was going to enclose all the priests inside the temple, to keep Dirthamen's secrets hidden forever. The priests, naturally, objected, and...did that to him. I thought they could have taken care of it by killing him, but they chose to do something so much worse, with so many more chances of going wrong."

With how much time they both spent in the stables, Pel quickly became woven into Blackwall's routine. She quietly did her work as he quietly did his, and without saying much of anything to one another, they just clicked. It's not long before he's nodding in greeting to her when they pass by one another. The way she seems to step in and glare off unwelcome visitors doesn't go unnoticed either, and he returns the favor if anyone seems to be hassling her.

It doesn't take long to learn her name, and he's sure she knows his by now, though they've never introduced themselves. It was easy enough to overhear noisy greetings and pick up that much.

He never really stops to think about how odd it is that he considers someone he's never spoken to to be a friend, but Pel had unassumingly and silently worked her way into his list of favorite people.

The crack of wood grabs his attention, but it's the loud curse that draws his concern and has him moving over to where she's working.

"You all right?" He asks, worried the snapping wood might have cut into her foot.

Being in the hot spring with Cyril means seeing him without his make up, so it's very rare for him to be here with other people. There's only a select few that he wants to see him like that, Pel just happens to be one of them.

When she pops out of the water he starts a bit, expecting to be found out, but when he sees it's just her, he relaxes. "Pel?" he asks.

She's not even thinking about her foot. She picks up her broken tool and sits back down, trying to piece it back together.

"I'm fine. Have you got any sinew I could wrap this with?" She doesn't need it to be pretty, she just needs it in good enough shape to wrap yarn around it. The yarn that was already wrapped around it is sagging sadly and falling off, a neat pre-skein devolving into a tangled mess.

She wipes water from her eyes and squints at him.

"Cy?"

He chuckles a bit and comes closer. He already has the kohl off of his face, so she gets a nice view of his bare face. "Please don't let me stop you from enjoying yourself."

There are times when James just needs to stretch his legs a bit - and usually he does that with a ride on Dauntless. There's a long stretch of riding done today, because he has a lot on his mind and a number of kinks to work out in his thoughts.

So he is altogether surprised to suddenly come upon the grey wolf, and he pulls Dauntless up short, although the horse doesn't seem perturbed by the wolf at all. James reached for his sword, and waited, to see if the wolf would charge them and if he would have to defend his mount.

When nothing happened, he took his hand away, looking curiously at the animal. "Well, you're an odd sort of fellow."

A huff of laughter. She's seen him without makeup, he's seen her naked, none of it matters. They're not like city folk, who have to worry about nakedness.

"I've grown far too accustomed to hot baths. It's going to do me in, later in life. Making do with cold again."

It's automatically easier to remain a wolf, when in the presence of James. Cowardly, certainly, but there's no reason to snap out of it yet. This will be a good exercise, smelling someone familiar as a wolf. Learning how to learn.

She takes a step forward, tail low but wagging (it is hard to be stoic as a wolf because wolves aren't stoic, they are merely wolves, and shapeshifting is more than changing shape).

He chuckles a bit. "I know what you mean. Mind company?" because it isn't weird for them to bath together, just as it isn't weird for them to see each other naked and without make up.

Amusement colors his face, as he looks down at the wolf. He's not sure what's familiar about the beast -- but it wags it's tail at him, so ... for whatever that means, it's a friendly beast. Perhaps the hunters had befriended it.

He reached into his satchel, and pulled out a few pieces of jerky. Then he tossed it down to the animal. "There you are, fellow. It's a bit tough, but it should keep you through until your next meal."

"Uh... sinew, right," He nods, moving back over to the work bench and fumbling through the tool and things lying on it with purpose. "I know, I've seen some around... Here we go."

He grabs the spool of sinew and comes back over to her, handing it over. With her attention on the broken wood, his goes to her foot, attempting to discreetly get a glimpse of it to check for a scratch or puncture. There doesn't seem to be any blood on the floor, which is a good sign.

There is no real hurt on her foot; at least, no breaking of skin or bone, nothing that will not pass in a moment. People are not as fragile as they feel.

"Thank you." The courtesy of saying thank you in the other person's language was part of even her backwater education. She starts wrapping the sinew around the broken shaft of the niddy-noddy.

"There's a few apricots under my knitting in the basket." A basket a few inches from where she's sitting. "Help yourself."

"Apricots?!" He raises an eyebrow in pleasant surprise.

"Uh, well, thank you... I don't think I've seen any ripe ones yet this season. Stroke of luck for you. Or maybe the Storm Coast doesn't have the soil for it," He wanders over to her basket, uncovering one of the little treasures. "Plenty of raspberries though. You want one? -I mean an apricot... not one raspberry, that'd be ridiculous."

Waiting for an answer, he takes a bite. Definitely, a good find. He's actually a little jealous.

She has bathed naked with people she knows less well than Cyril. It doesn't bother her.

"Hop in. This isn't very much like it was when Vivienne spoiled the Mage Council, but it's still luxury."

Oh, now this is just dishonest, if she accepts this while letting him think she's a wild wolf.

When she shifts, she is on her hands and knees, a woman again, and she picks up the jerky and stands up to hand him his offering.

"I must be getting pretty good at this."

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Page 1 of 6

OPEN - I'm gonna do my best to take my place in the sun

for Sina

for Blackwall - forward-dated

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Hot spring

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1 - Outskirts

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