faderift | OPEN: And you can shake the mountains with a whisper

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OPEN: And you can shake the mountains with a whisper

WHO: Hermione Granger and YOU!
WHAT: Hermione ventures out of the library. Sometimes. But she's also in the library most of the time, because she's Hermione.
WHEN: Late Justinian, creeping into early Solace if need be.
WHERE: Throughout Skyhold, just outside of Skyhold, pick a place far away from Skyhold and find a reason to drag her there.
NOTES: If you'd like a particular starter and/or would like to hash out some minor assumed CR that can lead into this, feel free to let me know either via PM or plurk (

StarryOblivion). Otherwise, feel free to have them randomly bump into one another!

The Herald's Rest.

Hermione doesn't often come in here, not since receiving an odd look when she'd first asked for just some water (really, given how young everyone here seems to think she is, she'd been surprised that the surly bartender had thought she'd wanted something harder). But sometimes it's a nice change of pace, sitting among the mostly quiet chattering of the other patrons and enjoying the fire as she reads or looks over her notes. Presuming, of course, that no one is foolish enough to have too much to drink and try to bother her. Talking is a distraction she'll accept with no fuss, but Merlin help anyone who's had enough alcohol to think she's open to anything friendlier than that.

Stables.

When she'd first arrived at Skyhold, the stables had seemed relatively empty and were a fine place for practicing her magic without risking hurting anyone. She'd thought she could do the same now, only to find that there are considerably more horses - and, er, other creatures - residing there. Magic might only frighten them, she decides, but they're so pretty that she can't help visiting with them for a bit, getting as close to them as she dares. It's been years since she's ridden a horse, but she's entirely certain that these mounts aren't exactly the type that would trot gently along a given course for an inexperienced rider, so she isn't even going to ask after something so silly, even if the interest is clearly there in her eyes.

Courtyard, not too far from the healing tents.

When the stables prove not to be the best place to practice with her magic, Hermione decides that it might be best to find a little corner close to the healing tents instead. At least then there would be other mages around, and so it was less likely that anyone who stumbled across her would look at her disdainfully. And if anyone gets hurt, a healer wouldn't be too far away. Of course, she highly doubts that anyone would get hurt just because she was unsuccessfully attempting to transfigure leaves and pebbles and whatever else happens to be in the vicinity. Transfiguration doesn't seem to be an aspect of her magic that's carried over into Thedas, or at least Hermione can't manage it without more practice, given that she's growing more and more frustrated as she continuously taps rocks and other objects with what looks like a stick, muttering to herself in exasperation.

Library. Because of course.

If you've been to the library, you've seen her. Whether you know her and enjoy talking to her about rifter politics or think it's entertaining to scandalize her or have never bothered to approach her, Hermione can more often than not be found in the same little niche in the library, nose in a book or a quill hastily scribbling down notes. Or even, occasionally, dozing off, since she hasn't exactly claimed any sort of sleeping space for her own and more often than not loses track of the time when she doesn't explicitly have somewhere to be.

Wildcard!

Hermione wanders, and while she tries to be careful, sometimes it takes her places she just shouldn't go. If it doesn't look like a private room or setting, it's safe to assume that the young witch has made her way there, likely looking for a quiet place to read or do magic or just to get a few moments of silence. And while she doesn't often journey outside of Skyhold, she can definitely be tempted beyond its walls if she has the right incentive, or the right company.

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"Do you feel the wind on your face?" There was such a painful longing in the pit of Ariadne's stomach that some of it crept into her words. But it was the part she'd always anticipated the most, when she took off. The resistance of the wind felt a little bit like flying into the heart of the gods themselves.

Which was something she couldn't even begin to explain, even to herself.

"And how high do you go?" she asked. "Above the canopies of the trees?"

"Oh... well, no, the entire thing is enclosed, since you're traveling so high and so fast that it would be dangerous for it not to be airtight." She almost felt bad telling her that much, since it seemed as though Ariadne wanted to believe that flying out in the open like that was a possibility. It was, just... not with planes.

"You can travel thousands of feet in the air in an aeroplane," she revealed, "which is another reason for it to be closed up like that; air gets thin when you're that high up, making it hard to breathe. Brooms don't usually travel nearly so high, though, so if you wanted to feel the wind in your face, that would be the better option for you."

Looking up towards the horses in the pens before her, she smiled a little and added, "Or you can just ride a horse. You're close to the ground then, so there isn't that far to fall."

Her disappointment at the idea of being enclosed was quickly squashed when Hermione told her just how high one of these aeroplanes could fly. The Alastrian body had its limits. She'd never been able to get much higher than a mile or so off the ground.

How small the world had to look from such a height.

She smiled slightly. And laughed a bit. "I'd rather try one of these aeroplanes than a horse. There's something just a little strange about riding another living creature."

"Well... yes, aeroplanes are generally more convenient for all sorts of reasons, but given that they're not readily available...." Hermione shrugged a bit before glancing back up at the horse.

"I've ridden a few living creatures before. Hippogriffs, thestrals,... a dragon. Needless to say, I'd rather not repeat those experiences again - especially that last one - but as they'd all been flying, that could just be my distaste for leaving the ground. Horses... I don't know. I suppose so long as they don't actively buck me off, they don't seem to particularly mind carrying people about, so long as that person is respectful."

As was ever the case, Ariadne was immediately ready to pepper Hermione with a thousand more questions. She was just so interesting. And unlike the natives of Thedas, she seemed genuinely willing to talk to Ariadne.

After a moment of debate, she finally settled on the most important question. And just one:

"What's a hippogriff?"

Hermione could hardly fault anyone for asking too many questions. It would be a painfully classic case of the cauldron calling the kettle black, and besides, she just wasn't the sort of person who would shut someone down simply because they wanted to learn.

And it could be much worse. At least Ariadne was actually listening to her and asking her things based on what she said, unlike, say, Luna Lovegood. Hermione was reasonably sure that Ariadne wasn't just making things up whenever she talked about her world. Probably.

"A hippogriff is an animal that sort of looks like a cross between a horse and an eagle," she explained. "Imagine a horse, but instead of its head, it has the head of an eagle, along with a pair of feathery wings. They're very proud, and can also be very dangerous if you don't treat them with the right amount of respect."

Hermione painted an intriguing image. Ariadne smiled slightly, tilting her head to one side. "It sounds...a little like a centaur. Do you have those? They're men with horse bodies. Also very proud. I met one once on Death Mountain. He didn't like me very much, he didn't like any strangers. I think he only let me pass because..."

...because she was also a demon...

Ariadne cleared her throat. "Because I spoke his language."

"Oh, they're nothing like centaurs," Hermione replied immediately. "Hippogriffs are sentient, but they're still animals at the same time, non-verbal and relying primarily on instinct. Centaurs are people. Why, I had a centaur for a professor, once. But they don't really seem to approve of humans all that much. My friend and I were once encircled by a group of them in the Forbidden Forest, and they'd only let us go because they considered us mere children at the time."

Never mind that they'd only been there because Hermione had fooled that foul Umbridge woman to trespass on their land and thus get carried away by them. She never had learned the specifics of what had happened to her during that time, but well... she could guess.

Sentient, but animals. Far too many humanoids used that exact phrase to describe Alastrians. But then, her species wasn't just verbal. They were very, very verbal.

She smiled absently and nodded, trying her best to understand the distinction.

But it was a struggle.

"It's interesting," she remarked, "that both your world and mine have at least two species in common. Humans and centaurs. I wonder if there are others. Do you have..." She tried to think of something innocuous. "...owls?"

Hermione didn't think poorly of animals, whether they were magical creatures or not. But there was certainly a difference between them and people, whether or not those people happened to be human. It was a very fine line, and one that she was willing enough to openly debate, but given that she wasn't actively being asked about it, she was hardly going to start that sort of discourse herself.

At Ariadne's question, Hermione couldn't help letting out a laugh. "Oh yes, we have owls. We use them the same way the Inquisition uses ravens. Of course, since owls are bigger, they can carry larger parcels, so we've developed quite a system of it. All told, though, I'm sure we have more in common between our two worlds. I also have dwarves and giants and spirits and all sorts of other beings that exist in Thedas, though the details occasionally veer off when it comes to specifics."

"Giant and spirits I knew about," Ariadne said. "But dwarves are a bit new to me. I've only met one. He seemed friendly, though."

And sympathetic to Rifters, which was important.

She shrugged. "I just wonder if it means anything. That two worlds could be so vastly different, and yet have such odd and unexpected similarities."

Ariadne wasn't religious. Not at all, really. She liked the idea of the Elf Goddess, because they gave hope to the world. But now she found herself thinking about the Divine. At the idea that all worlds could be connected. And that gods and goddesses were just avatars, saints, and angels of some greater power.

It was a bit much to consider. Too big for probabilities.

But it was interesting.

"I haven't met any dwarves here yet. I've seen a few people from afar that I'm assuming might have been dwarves, but I'd prefer not to assume any such thing, especially since the one person I'd taken for a dwarf was actually something else entirely." Though in her defense, the hairy feet and pointed ears are the only way to tell a hobbit from a dwarf.

"All it means is that certain species have found favorable conditions in more than one universe," Hermione replied, ever logical about this sort of thing. "And that certain vague characteristics and broad terms have carried over between worlds and languages, hence why elves look very different here than they do in my world." Shrugging, she remarked, "Any other explanation could be chalked up to coincidence as much as anything else, at least until a sound theory that connects it all can be worked out."

It was a dry argument, but that didn't mean it was wrong.

What a curious girl Hermione was. Ariadne couldn't quite figure her out, but that didn't make her any less appealing. She was friendly and thoughtful and a Rifter to boot.

More than enough.

"What do they look like? In your world? Elves, I mean. Because they look the same as here in mine."

In Hermione's mind, it was no argument. Oh, she wouldn't step on anyone's toes if they chose to think of it all as having some sort of divine rhyme or reason, though she might be hard-pressed to hide her skepticism. But until a theory other than it's fate or some other ethereal nonsense could be presented, Hermione is going to chalk it up to nothing more than coincidence and/or evolution, depending on one's take on the subject.

"Elves seem to look the same everywhere other than where I'm from," Hermione mentioned, frowning just a little at that. "It makes me wonder just what was done to them in the past to have made them evolve so differently." She knew precisely what had been done, but she hadn't wanted to imagine that things had been that bad.

"They're smaller, generally only coming up to about the vicinity of my waist. They have the pointed ears, but they're much, much larger, as are their noses and eyes. Many wizards use them as little more than slaves - if they're lucky - and so most of them are painfully underfed and perpetually frightened, with subservience written into their very natures. It's quite sad, but given their contributions to the Second Wizarding World, I'm hopeful that they'll be granted more and more rights as the years go on and will soon be looked at as equal to wizards, especially given that their magic is so much stronger than most of ours."

No matter how much her way of thinking differed from Hermione, if there was one sure way to get Ariadne's sympathy, it was with the word 'slaves.' Alastrians weren't always enslaved, necessarily. But they were certainly treated no better, even if they happened to be free. The only escape was to disguise oneself as a Human, something only a quarter or less of her people could do.

Ariadne had been one of the lucky ones.

She scowled deeply. "Apparently your world and this one have that much in common. I've been told that many of the Elves who live in cities here are rounded up into ghettos with almost nothing to eat and very little freedom. I don't know how the natives can just stand by and let it happen. It's so...wrong."

"Mostly it's to do with their history and culture," Hermione replied. "From what I'd been able to find, believing in their gods means that the elves have turned away from the Maker, which most Andrastians - which is what the majority of this world is - believe to be a cardinal sin. Many people are under the impression that they're now paying for that sin by living the way they are, and so the poor treatment is justified."

She hesitated, then, not sure if she wanted to turn this into such a serious conversation when she'd tried veering away from potentially touchy subjects, but it bore mentioning. "It isn't much different in my world. Not with elves, no; there's no official religious position on elves, insofar as I've been able to tell. But the major religions of the world seem to have a scapegoat for why the world is the way it is; it could be members of a smaller religious sect or it could even be women as a whole, depending on how you interpret the texts. As such, there have always been people that have been marginalized for the sake of 'the greater good'."

Ugh. The greater good. How a term that had once seemed so noble could be twisted as much as it had was beyond her.

Oddly enough, it was because so many religions insisted on scapegoats, on darkness, that Ariadne had begun to study the Elf religion from Valeria. It offered hope, where no other faiths seemed to.

Because as far as marginalization went, who knew about that better than an Alastrian?

Still, she wrinkled her nose a little bit. "Women as a whole?" she repeated incredulously. That was a new idea. And one that made no sense, given how many more goddesses there were than gods, in her life. "Well, that seems ridiculous. You can't blame one half of a population for everything."

"You can blame anyone for anything, if you have enough supporters for it," Hermione replied, clearly not relishing the thought in the least. "It's a constant that seems to have survived in this world, my own, and most others that I've heard of."

Shaking her head, Hermione tried to push past the uprising of negative feelings, focusing on the horse in front of her. Reaching out, she slowly stretched her hand out, allowing the horse to sniff at it and hoping she wasn't tense enough to disturb it.

"It's sad, isn't it? That it's always the worst qualities that seem to be perpetuated throughout the cultures."

"It is very sad," Ariadne agreed, taking about half a step back as the horse nosed forward. "But it's also unnatural. Which means that people can learn better. It's just a matter of finding someone who can teach them."

She paused, frowning a little. "I don't mean to sound like some kind of holier-than-thou missionary," she added. "But I really do believe that people are good. Sometimes, they just forget about it."

"It's unnatural to hate?" Hermione asked, chuckling a bit more bitterly than she might have two year ago. "For some people, it's as natural as breathing. That doesn't make it right, and that doesn't automatically mean that they're beyond learning, but never underestimate a person's capability for irrational thoughts and behaviors."

Glancing back at Ariadne as the horse nosed curiously against her fingers, Hermione told her, "People are people. They're neither good nor bad. They just choose to do good things or they choose to do bad things. And sometimes, that choice is made for them due to circumstances beyond their control. All anyone can do is the best with what they have."

Ariadne normally didn't push back, but she somehow felt that Hermione needed it. She was an intellectual, clearly. So there was nothing wrong with an intellectual challenge. At least, every now and then.

"People were designed to be cooperative," she argued. "It's built into the design of the humanoid body itself. Otherwise, we'd be equipped with arms that could go all the way back and scratch that spot you can never reach."

The idea of intelligent design once again raised the topic of religion and spirituality, and Hermione still didn't want to go toe-to-toe with anyone on that subject and risk being insulting. It was bad enough in her own world, but here, where there were even more varieties of theology and dogma, she didn't want to chance tempers flaring. And while Ariadne seemed to be rather cheery most of the time, she still struck Hermione as more emotion-based than logic-based.

"Or we'd be equipped with enough common sense to develop backscratchers, or to simply rub up against something rough until it scratches the itch, the way cats do. Even felines have been able to work out that much for themselves, and they're as solitary as they come." Shaking her head and even managing a small, vaguely sad smile, she concluded, "Just because we're social creatures, it doesn't mean we all want to cooperate with one another. Oftentimes, our need to socialize can be more selfish than not."

She didn't take offense to Hermione disagreeing. But it did make her wonder, was she the type to disagree for disagreement's sake? Did she really believe the things she was saying? Or had something awful happened to her?

Possibly all three. You could never discount the infinite number of combinations out there.

Smiling to put her at ease, to make it clear that this wasn't a confrontation, she asked, "How can you socialize selfishly? Do you mean like, competing or lying? Because those aren't innately bad things. They just get twisted."

Hermione generally wasn't argumentative, not unless she truly did disagree with something. She'd just seen both the best and worst in humanity, and what she'd seen of Thedas hadn't exactly given her the impression that things were much better outside of her little sphere in the universe. Ariadne's optimism, while nice, was also liable to get her hurt if she didn't take on a more pragmatic viewpoint.

"I meant more along the lines of being friends with someone purely for your own benefit rather than for theirs," Hermione pointed out, letting her expression soften a little. She hadn't viewed the conversation as confrontational in the least, and she hoped Ariadne hadn't looked at any of it as such. "I'm not nearly so jaded as I appear, honest. I just know that not everyone has their friends' best interests in mind."

"I'm not sure I understand," Ariadne admitted. "How you can be friends with someone...and not benefit from it." She paused. "Although, I have to admit, I've never had very many friends."

As if that weren't blindingly obvious.

Airy was cheerful and optimistic and kind. But she did tend to leave people at an arm's length. Even here in Thedas, no one knew much about her. She would talk about home sometimes, but not about herself.

Katniss was the only person who knew she'd lost several sisters.

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