[open]

[eolasemah]

WHO: Sina Dahlasanor and you!
WHAT: Sina has a shard in her chest and has been told the rifters have similar ones in their hands. She wants to seek out rifters and investigate this further/compare marks/find out if they're demons or not.
WHEN: Frostfall
WHERE: Around and about Skyhold
NOTES: Please feel free to join if not a rifter! People on surveillance duty are also encouraged.



The diminutive elf resembled a deer as she made her way through the scattered crowds of Skyhold: dignified and alert, but ready to bolt at any sign of danger. The shard in her chest glinted conspicuously beneath the light shawl she wore, and her careful grey eyes scanned the area for any glowing that matched it. It was like a homing beacon, and for the first time since she'd acquired it, Sina wasn't trying to hide it.

[The Herald's Rest]

She'd never been in here before, having been warned off over raucous drunken humans and sword-happy Templars. She had a mission, however, and hoped she was right to assume the tavern would be less frightening in the daytime.


[The Healing Tents]

It was a wild guess, but surely some of the newcomers would need healing? She wandered along the rows of tents, seeking out the telltale green glow.


[The Dungeon]

The very act of going into this dismal place of stone walls made her feel ill, but perhaps there were still prisoners here, those accused of being demons. She steeled herself and made her way down.


[Wherever!]

Anyone who wants to be found somewhere else is welcome to post in! She's being very thorough.

Comments

[serannas]

"Oh," she replied, eyes full of understanding. "Our clan was larger than most, but an illness swept through when I was a child and our numbers are fewer now." It had taken both her parents, and she was far from the only to become an orphan then.

"All right." Ellana followed and tried her best to keep up, but soon she was lost, biting her lip as she worried that she didn't have the mind to understand this sort of thing. Or perhaps Sina was going too fast?

"I, um, I'm afraid I didn't understand all that." She picked up a plant, picking at the leaves. "But I can tell you're very wise. It comes so easily to you."

[eolasemah]

It was likely the latter, since the girl had gotten herself all flustered. "Ah-- ir abelas," she stammered, "I've... I've never given a lesson." She nearly knocked over the vial she was filling, but caught it just in time.
The compliment caused her to blush again. She ducked her head and fidgeted with an errant strand of hair, tucking it once again behind her ear. "I'm not, terribly," she replied, "I just... remember things." Immediately aware of her own wording, she shook her head and splayed her fingers over her eyes.

[serannas]

Ellana dropped the plant and reached out to touch Sina's shoulder.

"Don't worry yourself, please, lethallin. You don't have to act the teacher here. We can just be two people talking. All that you've said is valuable, but I just couldn't take it all in at once. Please, don't be troubled."

Maybe Ellana had sounded too expectant when she arrived. She should've have come on so strong. But she loved learning new things, hearing stories, and asking questions. She knew she had to overwhelm some people with her nature.

"Ir abelas," she murmured.

[eolasemah]

To be fair, Sina was easily overwhelmed, especially when it came to social interaction. She smiled gently, with a twinge of embarrassment when Ellana touched her shoulder, but she didn't pull away.
"Perhaps, when... more herbs arrive, you could help me plant them?" she hazarded, blinking furtively at the other elf, "and we can make something together, rather than me showing you." Her blush deepened and she looked down, resting a hand on the back of her neck. "That's how I learned."

[serannas]

"I would like that. I know nothing about plants." Her eyes glanced back at the table as she let her hand fall away from Sina. "But I feel it's an important thing to know if the Inquisition sends me out somewhere and there are no healers among us. I should be able to do something." Her forehead creased in thought.

"I need to learn healing spells too, but I think potions are an easier way to start."

[eolasemah]

Sina's smile widened, and she nodded. "...I come here every day," she said, "you can find me here, whenever we get more herbs." Pausing, she pursed her lips. "I admit... I'm probably not the one to teach you spells. I was still learning, myself, though I have some knowledge." She looked down at the table, contemplating. "My training is on hold until I can find a way to extract this and return to the Keeper." Lightly, self-consciously, she touched the glowing shard in her sternum.

[serannas]

"That's the good thing about so many mages being here; there's so much we can learn from each other." Her head tilts on Sina mentioning the shard. Nari mentioned how Sina had spent her time with the healers. They must be as baffled at this shard as they are with the ones in the rifters' hands.

"Do you need a distraction from it? I would be happy to help you there." Since there's nothing else she can do for her concerning it.

[eolasemah]

"It's true," Sina agreed, "though I'm... still getting used to the way they do it outside the clan. To be a First to some and apostate to others... I'm still adjusting."

She looked at Ellana, her curiosity piqued. "...maybe," she said, "though the garden does keep me busy." She met the woman's eyes again, and looked away with a blush.

[serannas]

"Well, if you change your mind, you can let me know." Ellana isn't going to make Sina talk to her if she doesn't want to. It isn't in her nature to poke and prod at the shy until they suddenly aren't anymore. Besides, things don't really work that way.

[eolasemah]

Sina hesitated, then nodded silently again, wondering what Ellana had in mind.

[serannas]

"Is that a yes?" she asks, smiling growing. It's so hard to tell with her since she doesn't say things so much in words, but in her expressions.

[eolasemah]

Realizing that she hadn't answered, Sina laughed awkwardly, and immediately covered her mouth. "Yes," she murmured.

[serannas]

"Then let's discuss our clans. I think living apart as we do, some things must be different between them." As she spoke, Ellana went back to pulling the leaves off a plant.

"Do you have a halla keeper, storyteller, hearthmistress, warleader -- all that?"

[eolasemah]

"We used to," Sina thoughtfully replied, watching Ellana trim the plant and beginning to do the same.
"We don't have any of those, save a storyteller," she said, "Dirthal'halaan is the father of a large family of hunters. They all have red hair, like a fox, so we call them all halaan." She grinned at the thought of them. "They adopted Nari. There aren't many other families, though my mother and father make the weapons and clothing for the clan." Having procured a number of leaves, she began to clip them to a line she'd hung near the table, spacing them out for drying.
"Then there are our scouts, Sedi and Nymii. Sedi's clan was wiped out by the same shem'len who destroyed ours, and she came to us after living solo until she was grown. She has..." Sina pursed her lips, unsure of how much to say. "...a vengeful nature. A mean streak. And Nymii came to us from the Kirkwall alienage."

She paused in her leaf-hanging to look over her shoulder at Ellana. "Ir abelas, how I've gone on. ...we are few, but I love them." She lowered her hands to the plant again. "Tell me of Clan Ashara?"

[serannas]

Ellana listened, moving a pile of leaves closer to Sina to allow her to hang them too. She wanted to ask questions, but then she was asked of Clan Ashara and she decided to answer that first.

"Our Keeper is Deheune. Her children are Beleth, who is here, and Sorrel, who is her Second. Pel is also here, and she's First. I'm... not anything. I mean, I am. I'm Hearthmistress -- or, I was before coming here. But I'm a mage too. The Keeper was kind enough to keep me after my parents died." And Ellana was grateful for that, but at the same time, she could have been First in another clan, and that would have given her purpose. She found she was lacking that.

"I enjoy spending time with Sulahni, the halla keeper. She's wonderful with them. We have a healer, crafter, warleader, and storyteller too. And then the hunters, of course. Beleth, Gavin, Cyril, and Merrick are all hunters, and they've all come here to help the Inquisition."

[eolasemah]

Sina smiled, though it turned to surprise when Ellana listed the number of mages. "I didn't know that was--" she sputtered, and before she could stop herself, concluded, "..possible. What were your duties as Hearthmistress?"
Coming from such a small clan, such a position was unheard of, or if nothing else, it was part of her own job as one of two mages present.

"Beleth," she mused, "I met her, the night of the wake." [and she's met Pel by now, but I'm thinking this scene takes place before the mage meeting]

[serannas]

"It is uncommon, to be sure." And served to make her feel out of place. "I lit the camps' fires with my magic and collected firewood in the forest. It was the furthest I was allowed to wander, and not nearly as far as the hunters were allowed to go." She'd never crossed paths with any humans out there.

"And then I just... made sure the fires stayed lit. There really wasn't much to it. I did other things too, to keep busy."

[eolasemah]

Sina watched her, still slightly confused, and now verging on sympathetic. "If I... forgive me if this is rude, but..." She hesitated, swallowed, and asked, "...why weren't you sent elsewhere? To become a First or Second?" What a squandering of potential, she thought to herself.

[serannas]

"No, I understand. I came into my magic a year after my parents died. A great deal of the clan died in a plague. We were probably one of the largest clans before that. And my Keeper... well, she raised me. She taught me how to control my magic and didn't want to send me away to strangers after I became an orphan." Ellana paused and glanced around the garden to make sure no one else from her clan was about.

"Sometimes I wonder how things would have been different if I were First someplace else. But I think I'd be a completely different person." Would her heart long for things the clan couldn't provide? Would she feel settled and full of purpose instead of drifting without one?

"In the end, I can't blame the Keeper for keeping me around. It was kind of her to take pity on an orphan."

[eolasemah]

In the end, Ellana had a point. Sina considered her perspective and nodded slowly, accepting the explanation as reasonable. "I expect that's what I'd have wanted, if I'd been in the same situation," she pensively replied. Never mind that she had parents and was more or less estranged from them; each clan was quite different, she was beginning to see.

"...I suppose... while we're here, we might as well make the best of it," she remarked, after a pause. "It would... likely benefit me to learn spells that aren't related to healing."

[serannas]

"I think so, yes. You and I are here for different reasons, but new experiences can be beneficial." And fun. Not always, but she was determined it be so in her case. She wanted to do good here, and enjoy herself while she did.

[eolasemah]

Sina nodded with a close-lipped smile, still uncertain about times ahead, though she was growing bolder. New experiences could be beneficial, surely. She hadn't keeled over yet.

Unless Ellana filled it, Sina would allow a companionable silence to lapse, in which the two of them continued their methodical plucking and clipping of leaves.

[shall we end the scene here?]

[serannas]

[ ooc: sounds good! ]