points the faith in higher things,

[dashing]

WHO: Herian Amsel & open.
WHAT: the party don't start 'til she walks in. (Introducing Herian & her recruitment to the Inquisiton.)
WHEN: mid-July & onwards.
WHERE: Halamshiral & surrounds, maybe some Skyhold later?
NOTES: Prose/brackets are both fine!
Open starters in the main post (more to be added), closed starters in the comments, if we've discussed any plans feel free to barge in with a wildcard or prod me via pm or pp @karmacharging and I'll whip something up. If you'd like some information on this problem child, here is her info post.
WARNINGS: Herian's background includes themes of violence, torture and death, as well as discrimination and her own post traumatic stress disorder. While she will not in general be vocal about some of her own prejudices (against apostates, Dalish and nobles as some examples) it is very likely to come up in narrative and could come up in dialogue depending on interactions. Here is an opt out post if you'd rather certain things be avoided, or if you'd like to opt out of interactions with her in general.

Arriving with the Inquisition ( open. )
Herian Amsel exists in shades of winter, even when the world around her is dusty from heat. Her hair is dark, the black of a tree stripped of leaves and colour and grasping at a grey, unsympathetic sky, her eyes a pale, blue that people might foolishly attribute to ice in a fit of romanticism. For all that she appears to carry winter with her, summer has rolled relentlessly through a country already bearing the scorchmarks of war, making the people and the landscape seem to blur together. It is the dirt, she expects, the clouds of dust that have rolled over them on their journey. Even the grass feels dry and brittle. The closer they have drawn to the estate of Duc Hugues Pelletier, the more she has wondered just what difference there will be between the state of the gardens and the grass the common folk can wander on outside. It seems comical, if not downright insane that she be leading a group of elven refugees to the estate of an Orlesian noble for sanctuary, but she promised them she would bring them to the Inquisiton, and if the Inquisition is in Halamshiral then the group will have access to better food and medicine and more protection than she can afford them if she were to escort them to Skyhold as their sole guard.


Option A.
Herian is on foot, leading a palomino stallion with an elven woman on his back, pregnant and exhausted. Mage as she might be, Herian carries no staff. Instead a sword hangs by her side, and something like twenty refugees follow behind her.

"Inquisition," she starts, and her accent is defiantly and perhaps unexpectedly Starkhaven. "These refugees seek sanctuary amongst your number, and to lend their hands to your cause. To where shall I lead them?"


Option B.
Still on foot, Herian accompanies a smaller number of elves, now, heading towards the makeshift Medical Tents. The pregnant woman from before is with her, Herian leading her so that the woman can rest a hand on her forearm, Herian move slowly and patiently.

"This way. The mages here work under the Inquisiton banner, so if your need is dire then they are well qualified to bring you aid. You need not spend any time in the presence of those that set you ill at ease." Her voice is soft, and she has not yet looked up to the person standing nearby. "Can I have the names of your elven healers, for my friends?"


Other Increasingly Ridiculous Prompts ( open. )
Option C.
There is something singularly satisfying about the burn of muscles after exertion. Usually it comes in the form of training, practicing forms over and over for hours on end. Today, though, Herian is chopping wood, ensuring that those she accompanied who are still tired or injured need not worry should they have need, or perhaps so she can be useful to the Inquisition in some form.

Largely she does it because she likes to work, and the steady routine of grabbing up the heavy slabs of wood and breaking them apart with an axe is steadying. Not quite the meditation technique that she was taught in the Spire, but it sets her in the right frame of mind all the same. Her breath, her mind, and the regular thud and splinter make her feel better. Sweat rolls down her back, the thin material of her shirt sticks to her skin, and the tangled mess of her hair seems wilder even than before.

.... Although it is after noon and she's doing it non-stop for a long time in the summer sun, so perhaps an intervention would be wise.


Wildcard me, bro.

Comments

[dashing]

"You are Eirlys Ancarrow, yes?" Herian studies her carefully, bracing herself for the familiar scent of healing tents. Memories are woven into smells, and she knows well that some herbs drag up more than she can readily deal with after such a journey. She will not, however, abandon her post for such a need. "The liason for elves from the cities?"
It is a question while also... not actually being a question at all, and a slightly odd emphasis on from the cities. She has encountered on Dalish healer claiming a desire to help already, and has little desire or interest in happening upon another.

Herian guides the woman to the cleared spot, and offers Eirlys something that might, on a day with less disasters to be navigated, have been a smile. "This is Cerise." A moment, and she looks between Eirlys and Cerise, hand briefly on the woman's shoulder before she takes a respectful step back. "Would you sooner I wait outside the tent for a time?" For privacy and attending to matters of health, and possibly making sure no more Dalish appear out of the woodwork.

[ancarrow]

"I am, my lady." She's a little surprised that Herian's heard of her specifically, even with being the liaison. It's still odd to think that she has a place in the spotlight now, and she's always equal parts proud and daunted whenever it occurs to her.

"Well met," Eirlys says to Cerise, offering a smile that she hopes is reassuring, before addressing Herian's question. "That's up to our patient here. There's not much room for you while I tend to her, but she may wish a familiar face to stay with her."

[dashing]

"No such titles are necessary. I hail from an alienage, same as you." They are equal in that, if nothing else. She is not so naive as to assume all of them have lived the same, just as she knows the same is true of Circles.

Herian glances to Cerise, speaking quietly with her for a moment - a brief interchange about privacy if Cerise wants it, and just being outside if she needs, and then Herian nods and offers a smile. It is small, but genuine, even if it disappears quickly.

"I will wait outside, and see to some arrangements. If I might speak with you after, Healer Ancarrow, I would be most grateful."

[ancarrow]

Eirlys looks a little puzzled as she says she's from an alienage, eyes automatically flicking up to Herian's ears. There hadn't been any elven blooded humans in Gwaren, not for many years before she was born, but it seems like the most logical answer here, and she nods understanding. "Forgive me if I slip into the title now and then. Old habits die hard."

About twenty minutes later she emerges from the tent, looking a little tired herself and wiping her hands on a towel that she stuffs into a pouch on her belt to wash later. "She's sleeping now. She's very tired and dehydrated, but she'll be fine. I'm afraid baby may be quite weak, from how little she's had in the way of nutritious food to be passed to him in the womb, but as long as she rests well and produces enough milk, I think they'll be fine." She offers Herian a grateful smile. "It was lucky you got her here when you did."

[dashing]

The shift in gaze is not lost on her, and Herian keeps her gaze straight ahead, ignoring it. It is an interrogation she is much used to, and she knows well is justified. It simply remains—

unpleasant. An unhappy thing, truthfully, though such a feeling is childish at best. There is no room for it, and she does not allow herself the indulgence. What she feels now is a faint echo of what it used to be, even if she cannot quite contain the horror that boils in her gut every time she's labelled shem. It doesn't matter.

While the healer sees to Cerise, Herian organises the rest of the group - who is injured, who needs to be seen to. Most are well, all are hungry and thirsty, and so the last of their provisions are distributed. An elven scout happens upon them and offers to bring them to the site closest to the medical tents, for Cerise's sake, and the others move there so they might begin to organise what precious few belongings they have left to them.

When Eirlys emerges, Herian stands as straight and rigid as might befit a statue. "I played little part in that. We were fortunate the Inquisiton was here present, and the trip to Skyhold was not a necessary one." Otherwise the luck would not have been theirs to claim. Still, Herian offers a slight bow. "I realise in my travel-worn state I neglected my manners. Herian Amsel, of Starkhaven and the White Spire. I am much indebted to you for seeing to Cerise so promptly."

[ancarrow]

Eirlys bows slightly in return. "Well met." She doesn't add her name, still uncertain as to whether 'Mistress Amsel' would do, years of beratings and beatings when not treating anyone with rounded ears with the utmost of respect hard to shake off. "You owe me nothing at all -- I'm glad to help, especially one of our own."

[dashing]

"Pray do not undercut the value of your work. I've some small notion of how taxing a healers work can be." As such it is not lightly or easily that she requested Eirlys time, now. It might be better spent cutting and preparing herbs and poultices and potions and the myriad matters that healers have to attend to at the best of times, without serving so vast an operation as the Inquisition, or resting, quite possible.

There is a long moment of silence as she considers, carefully watching Eirlys as she does. She has become too keen and too sharp, a blade ever ready. She can be a cutting tool when there is no need. She may be too vigilant now, but such habits are not so easily ceased. "How find you the Inquisition?"

[ancarrow]

She hesitates, not quite sure how to answer and feeling daunted at the weight of responsibility that her opinion carries here. "I found it difficult, at first. In truth, the first time I crossed paths with the Inquisition, I abandoned them after a month. But I continue to be pleasantly surprised by them. The Inquisition truly wants to do the greatest amount of good for the greatest possible number of people. It's only by working within it for change that I can hope to include the People in that." She says that with some pride, and has done ever since Ellana had taught her that's what the Dalish call the elves. "There are those with their prejudices, of course, but most people here have been very kind to me."

[dashing]

Two words make her blood run with an awful chill, and thing that makes the suggestion of a sneer flicker around the corners of her mouth and her nose, disappearing almost before it could be noticed.

"The People," she repeats, rather deliberately. A distance is in it, and to Herian's own ears it feels as though her voice comes from far off. Her heart beats harder; pain wells in her chest, squeezing at her lungs and seeming to weigh on them. It is a familiar thing, this feeling that she must fight for her breath, and she stands there as upright and ably as if her lungs and heart were not staggering in her chest.

For a moment, everything else Healer Ancarrow says is pushed slightly aside, to be reexamined later. "And what have the Dalish ever done for the elves of the cities that did not bring them pain?"

[ancarrow]

Eirlys shrinks back a little, knowing she's said something Wrong but not really understanding why Herian should suddenly turn so cold and distant over that turn of phrase. She frowns, looking apologetic and a little wary.

Herian was right, of course. The Dalish had done nothing for them in Gwaren, just left them to rot. But neither had they deliberately caused them pain. She wondered just how far she'd become dazzled by her own idealistic image of the Dalish and how quickly she'd taken to the lessons in their language.

"My friend Ellana, she said that was a term for all elves, one we could use and reclaim to define ourselves against the shemlen that have kept us down." She had far more hatred for humans than she could ever have against other elves, Dalish or not. "But if it upsets you, I shan't-- I know other alienages must have suffered in far different ways than mine."

cw; brief reference to murder

[dashing]

The way Eirlys seems to withdraw makes regret sting as freshly as the lash of a fresh wound. Herian does not flinch, or withdraw, even as Eirlys says shemlen; she is ever steady, akin to marble given life. The one tell is the tightening and loosening of her jaw, making a tendon flex visibly, and the brief drop of her gaze. "You are not beholden to me, Healer. The decision is yours. I will not be a human dictating what elves may think or do or believe."

That she will say first. That is the most important point of all, before all else. It would be one thing if she were an elf, but even as her blood runs elven, as her heart beats for them, she is human. She cannot forget it; the cost would be too great. She is a shemlen, even as it makes her wince. And she is called shemlen so often, so lightly. It is not always an offence, but it is burned in her mind as surely as the sight of her father's body. Shemlen, the mark of what she is, and all she is not. It is as Eirlys as said: shemlen have abused elves. They have been cruel beyond words.

But so too have the Dalish.

"Our party was attacked by the Dalish on the way here. I will not see them made fearful because of the presumptions of those—" For a brief moment there is fury that catches her mouth, her nose and her brow, a distortion that is a ripple from far off that disturbs the surface all the same. "Their crimes should not be forgotten simply by virtue of their flesh and ears, Healer."

Somehow, somehow she says it very calmly.

sorry this is so late, feel free to ignore if needed

[ancarrow]

At her words, Eirlys' countenance flushes a deep red with embarrassment at her own foolish ideas about the Dalish and regret that she'd assumed that Herian's experience of them must have been the same as hers.

"I must beg your pardon. I had never met the Dalish until I came to Skyhold, and the one I befriended there slotted right into the image I had in the stories my sister and I would tell of them as children."

It feels odd to her, having her own eyes opened to the suffering of the elves of the cities in the same way she tries to open the eyes of humans to that suffering, and makes her feel as though she's failed at everything she's been trying to achieve. She decides that, especially as their liaison, it's probably a good idea to take a step back and listen to what others have experienced rather than try to push forward that narrative herself.

"I can promise you, though, that you will come to no harm here. From the Dalish or anyone else."

it's totally okay! I'm happy to keep going but we can wrap it do & something new, if you prefer?

[dashing]

"I will believe the Dalish will do no harm when leagues lie between them and those I protect," Herian replies, quiet again, but not unkind. There had been a time, after all, when she believed in the Dalish just as earnestly, when her father had. A good, kind man.

She doubts that Healer Ancarrow is anything but unkind, in her own right. And yet, this is no time to go into the injuries she has suffered, nor the reasons for her beliefs. Those things are not relevant, are not things to be displayed easily, without being asked. Her heart and her past are free to be examined, but she will not simply lay them out to be ignored.

"Let us not be at odds on this. I would sooner lend my hands and strength to aiding you. Humans, even the elf-blooded, have no place correcting elves." It is painful, to be what she is; to be an affront to her father's memory, to her grandmother, to so many, even if she is fiercely proud of her mother.