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

[foxsays]

Safe is something a little different when fell out of a rift in the sky from your own cosy little world to find demons shrieking at you. To then be branded a potential demon by a Templar within days, when you only just learned of such things, when the whole world is at war with itself and your hand is suddenly aching for unknown reasons and nothing and nowhere cares about you. Safe...safe changed a great deal for her in those first weeks and months.

"I'm sure she managed to more effusive than that, even were she in polite company." An almost severe creature then, she thinks, maybe even verging into dour if she were inclined to be more of an uncharitable young woman but well, luckily she rarely slides that way. At least with other women. Men are another story.

Her reply takes a moment or two, a snarl stealing her concentration and her breath before she speaks again. "Think nothing of it." If there's a common thread about Araceli, it's that she offers most anything freely: her time, her smiles, her possessions. "There is precious little kindness to be found, and smaller acts of it even rarer still, I could use every reminder, honestly."

[dashing]

A shadow appears on her cheek for a brief moment, the suggestion of a simple rather than the reality of one. Her smiles are echoes of past mirth. "She managed well enough."

It sounds fond, in a very understated kind of way.

For a moment Herian looks at Araceli pensively, wondering what to do, or what she can do to ensure she is not taking advantage of the kindness. She looks inadvertently severe. "What would you have me do?" Does she just stay here against the back of the bath? Does she move? How do? What? Help. (In the knightliest and most stoic way, of course.)

[foxsays]

After a moment to think, piling her her up on her head to pin in place for the moment, she finally comes to a decision.

"Sit." For someone small, Araceli levers herself up and out of the water with ease, slippery as a fish as she pads across to kneel behind Herian entirely unconcerned about her state of being. "Tell me how you came to Skyhold? I was away studying then conducting an impromptu mission in Dairsmuid, I missed seeing the new arrivals."

Most people simply shrug when Araceli tells them of how she gets around at home, accepting that she'll get around the same way at Skyhold but she can see without being seen. Watch all the comings and goings from a quiet little perch without anyone to spy on her in return. A story is fair trade to a pirate's daughter.

[dashing]

If Herian is surprised, it doesn't register on her face. Neither is she scandalised by nudity; she simply sits and positions herself in such a way as to be endeavour to be helpful, and masks that she is faintly bemused by all these goings on. Sitting behind her there are more scars to witness - underneath the mass of her hair there are burn scars that wrap over her shoulder and reach towards her neck, and then tumble down the right side of her back. They are heaviest all around the shoulder and shoulder blade and at her ribs, before the trail downward lessens. Some parts are smooth, shiny things, but in a couple of areas the scars are more pitted and vicious.

"I escorted a group of elves to Halamshiral to meet with the Inquisition, and once their health was better restored and an Inquisition party with aid was travelling this way, I joined them hence. Better to ensure the safety of the group." Quiet, even, understated. She does not speak with grandeur or exaggerating how very noble her actions were. It is simply matter of fact, understated, even.

She doesn't turn to look up at Araceli - comfort with nudity does not bring with it the inclination to stare or look - but does angle her face very slightly more in her direction. "Spend you much time in Rivain?"

[foxsays]

Settling herself comfortably, Araceli gets to work with the wide-toothed comb first, slow and gentle. "If it hurts or snags, please tell me," she murmurs just loud enough to be heard, working from right to left though she swaps to her fingers where she must. They're much more nimble. The scars she avoids. Not out of fear but out of a strange sort of respect - she hasn't earned the story behind them so they aren't hers to prod at (Herian can't see her face like this, the way it pinches; the mages had stories of the Templars lighting fires in some of the rooms in Dairsmuid and she can't help but recall those now.)

"I have only been to Val Royeaux once but I saw the way my elven friends were treated for daring to walk into the same shops with me, handling the same garments. I...I can imagine how easy it would be for them to be preyed upon." Watching friends usually so bold in Skyhold rendered hesitant, almost meek? It had set her blood to boiling. "There are few who care about them but that's the way of anywhere where people don't care to look down unless they wish something."

A slight shake of her head comes as she leans forward for a hair pin to start working section by section. "No, this was my first voyage there. I went to study the culture; it fascinates me but even Skyhold's library has very little on it. I ended up staying far longer than I planned, though I doubt any of us regret the reasons for it."

[dashing]

A nod, just one motion, that might be easily mistaken for something proud. Perhaps it is for the best that she misses that pinching of Araceli's expression, the echoes of memories it would inevitably carry. Herian has her own shadows that she does not easily allow to stretch and distort by granting further light. Neither would she risk banishing them completely.

"It is impossible to imagine just how easy it is," Herian replies evenly, no harshness creeping into her tone. "Even growing up in an alienage, seeing it first hand, I have held separate advantages. I do not think anyone could imagine it." Not an elf-blooded human, and certainly not any other type of human.

Herian tilts her head slightly, not enough to look over her shoulder, but enough to express a measure of interest. "It sounds as though there is a story in that," she observes, without any demand.

[foxsays]

"I would not presume," Araceli agrees easily enough without sounding offending. There are no elves where she hails from and there might be overlaps in pains and hurts and problems but they aren't quite the same; she will offer support, her voice, if and when she is ever asked, and a place for them to speak, but she would never presume to speak for them. Elfblooded then, at least she does know enough to know of them without having to ask any awkward question. "I am entirely human. Looking around Skyhold? I realise that in comparison to so many my life has been one where I have been very fortunate. There is not a day where I do not give thanks for that." Not a life of ease, not a life free of hurts, but she has been spared so much violence and pain that it drives her to do more, to do all that she can to help.

"Did word ever reach the White Spire of the Annulment of Dairsmuid? Rivain is a port, the Inquisition had freed slaves in Antiva not so many months ago; sailors talk, I know my blood very well in that respect. Some of their loved ones came to me after a long day of studying their traditions to speak with me late into the night." Araceli recognises an interrogation, even a tentative friendly one over drinks and dinner. "The next day they came with the journal of First Enchanter Rivella they had smuggled out of that place. Seekers and Templars had come across the bay from Ayesleigh to slaughter them though some escaped, survived, hid in the wilds with those who would give shelter. Rogue--"

Her lip curls, she comforts herself in the steady motions of smoothing Herian's hair. Sorting tangles layer by layer as she sweeps a finished section over her shoulder to unpin the next and get to work. A shuddering breath escapes her before she can continue. It still aches and it isn't entirely her hurt.

"Rogue Templars were hunting them and they could not get to safety. I had to call for aid from the Inquisition, that they would come without delay before more lives were lost."

[dashing]

"No," she replies, simply enough. They had whispers of Kirkwall being terrible, rumours that had seemed so over the top and bizarre that many of them had dismissed them as distortions born of the youngest Templars and mages exaggerating fragments that might have been heard. So many seemed to think that the Circles had easy means to contact one another, akin to the crystals so many in the Inquisition held, for how they assumed and accused. The words of Anders' accusations regarding what she did and did not know, what those of the Spire did and did not know, carried the sting of salt pressed to an open wound.

There is a careful pause before she continues, trying to weigh up the words, the meaning, the tone. She is not so terribly good at it, any more, and perhaps it had never been her great talent, and she is spared needing to stitch together a further response by Araceli beginning to speak more. Her fingers clench into fists under the water, and loosen again.

"Annulments are meant to be conducted only under very particular circumstances." Circumstances which were not always honoured. Her tone is very quiet and very calm, and carries no edge of accusation even as she can feel her heart starting to hammer harder in her chest and feel the swell of nausea in her gut. She will not yet assume, not leap to a conclusion based on the phrasing of one person, but in equal turn she keeps any edge of accusation out of her tone. "Why do you label these particular Templars as 'rogue,' may I ask? If there was an Annulment called and granted, some would consider them completing a task laid upon their order."

Her shoulders are very tense, for all her calmness, the definition of them shifting under her skin. She does not volunteer that they may well have been slaughtering innocents and children. She does not say many things.

[foxsays]

"Oh." It could mean a lot of things. But what's done is done, Araceli didn't even know other worlds existed when all this began in earnest but that seems to be the way of Thedas; that no matter what you do, it will always feel like too little, and it will always come too late. She doesn't say that she was told of Annulments, not when it's another chance to hear what another person might say of them. You never show your hand.

"The Templars hunting them during my time in Rivain were under no orders. Templars have either broken from the Chantry to follow the Lord Seeker, or they have allied themselves to the Inquisition. That makes up the most of them." Not all, she's not so foolish as to think that accounts for nearly all of them but enough. "In Dairsmuid they believed in one thing only: slaughtering every last survivor that had made it out of the Circle in the first place. Destroying those last artifacts they hadn't crushed beneath their heel. Burning every last book. The order for the Annulment came nearly two years ago.

"And Rivain...Rivain is not here. Rivain had traditions that belonged to Rivain alone." That had been the reason for Araceli going in the first place, and there's almost a smile in her voice for a moment when she says that - but then people would call her a heathen at best for her beliefs if they knew. What would this woman make of her, if she knew? She moves to the next layer of hair, one more then she can switch to a smaller comb, find tangles she's missed. The words keep coming anyway. "The Circle wasn't the way a Circle in Orlais or Ferelden is, not even Nevarra; Mages saw their families, Mages practiced their own arts including those of the seers, Mages helped the Templars when asked. The Seekers came though. The Seekers did not like such...heathen practices. When we did rescue them, one of the Templars was joking about how long it would take to poison them to death with magebane, and if a Seer would take longer to kill than the rest."

Aintza, her mind supplies neatly, they were talking about Aintza, and they would have moved to Raffaella next, and she had a bruise as if they'd struck her, and her mouth was torn at the corners from a gag. Ciro could barely even walk.

[dashing]

"I understand that a good many have abandoned their vows." Her disgust sneaks into her tone, even as she manages to control so many other things and keep them from it. "And I understand that a good many have little grasp of what it is to be a knight. They undermine their honour and the honour of all their fellows through their selfishness."

Her disgust is a thing that sounds harsh and hollow in the same moment, sincere, but as if she was trying to deprive that fire of air even as she spoke. It is better to listen and understand before taking action. She wonders how many of those Templars had even tried to think. She remembers Elodie, and for a moment her eyes drift shut.

Templars seeing an order through might be deemed honourable. In these circumstances those same standards do not seem to apply, not from the outside. Not if this woman's words are to be trusted at all, though she is not quick to assume Seekers condemned simply for displeasure—

Her hands clench into fists below the water, and flatten again. The Spire had not warranted it, either, though Rivain and its unique practices are of little interest to her. It was the land lacking Chantry influence and with much of the Qun and of pirates. Beyond that she knew little.

"Vile." The only word she has for it, and there are complicated emotions woven into that one syllable.

[foxsays]

"Do you understand what it is to be one? Only I wonder if I have ever met a knight at all here." Her sigh echoes in the room more than she means it to; all the stories of brave knights, of honour and valour and chivalry that leave her grimacing and in need of rum to wash the taste out when she finishes her studies for the day. It's easy to guess what a knight would say of most of her home but she'd still take honesty over all of that. Honesty isn't upholding someone then butchering the people that can't defend themselves. What good is a vow when it does nothing to help those truly in need?

She takes up the next comb, works it through Herian's hair before she speaks again, close to her ear when she catches that motion. (Her parents daughter, and they their parents' children before them, there is nothing she won't miss in the water.) "Calma," her voice is low and easy, even if she doesn't feel that way, "calma."

One last check of Herian's hair - sleek for the moment, the cramp in her fingers that she last felt when she returned herself rom the Mire and scraped mud and things she didn't want to think about then or now from it standing testament to that - and she sets down the comb in the basket again. The steam has warmed the oil but when she pours a generous quantity into her hands she rubs them together just to be certain, moving to shift her weight when her legs start going to sleep. The noise she makes as she massages the oil in is an agreeing one. All of those mages are her friends now but even if they weren't? She can't stand to see anyone hurting that way.

"I live in hope that with enough hard work that such things will never be repeated. I am not afraid to roll up my sleeves and pitch in as necessary." The cheer is false but she's determined, that much is plain even if knowing where to start when no one even wants to agree is utterly daunting at times.

[dashing]

"I would be a poor knight indeed, if I claimed myself an expert above all others. And yet, there are those times when I wonder if any remember what meaning there is to the word. Knight-Commanders and Knight-Enchanters alike should conduct themselves to protect, and to be honourable." She cannot glance at Araceli easily, though her gaze flickers to the side, an estimation of a look her way. "Does your question an interest?"

Or was it simply a pondering and a lamenting? Herian does not hold the desire to inflict her thoughts upon those with no interest as something close and dear and precious.

Herian is tense, though. Tense, angry, wrestling with the world and herself. The quiet roll of the strangers words over her accent then them soothing. She rolls her reck as Araceli warms the oil on her hands, a noisy crackle up her spine and a quiet crunch in her muscles issued in response. Somehow she resists the urge to grimace. There are more important things to consider.

"Thank you," she says, softly. "For you aid to those needing in." Mages, moreso than her hair.

[foxsays]

"Everyone must find their way in the world again. Some cling to the familiar even if it no longer fits them, others try on a new thing to see if it will suit. Captaincy is what I understand better, that sort of responsibility to so many people, and Knight-Commander would come with more strings than Knight-Enchanter. Unless Knight-Echanters are more formally recognised than I have been told, in which case I must apologise for my ignorance." So yes, there's an interest of a sort, in a roundabout sort of a way which is how Araceli does tend to work with some of these things when she's conducting her careful lines of questioning as regards mages and their matters. There's no reason she can't do two things at once here. Three if she counts distracting herself from Rivain.

A sympathetic wince tugs at Araceli's face at that sound. "You need to come here every day for at least a week, and to sleep in a real bed. Or a hammock, take all the weight off your bones if not your shoulders." Not so easy with the latter but Araceli still keeps the hammock she fashioned for the sleep she snatches away from Korrin in the middle of the day even if it isn't hot enough to require a siesta in Skyhold.

"There is no need to thank me, I only did what was right."

[dashing]

A very slight shake of her head, not eager to interrupt Araceli's work. It is very strange to have someone seeing to something that feels so very whimsical, but it is not... unpleasant. "Knight-Commanders have a good many under them, both to issues orders and to protect. Knight-Enchanters hold some recognition, but not near the same. Our position is a unique one amongst mages, I think."

Tricky to explain, though she is musing how to best shape her feelings into sentences so that they make sense.

"You are very kind," Herian starts, with that same calm that presses over all of her words and sculpts them, seems read to sculpt her, as well. "My place is with the refugees. I'll not sleep anywhere they do not. I deserve no privilege above them." There were those amongst them who would benefit far more from the relief to their bones, she is sure, but Skyhold has not beds enough to house all the refugees. At least, not so many newly arrived ones. Perhaps she can look into these barracks and discover how great their numbers are, but then stands the worry of how they will stand being parted from one another, if that should come to pass, if there will be apostates amongst the people staying there, and her shoulders tense a little with the progression of her thoughts.

"Doing what is right is not always much appreciated. Honour is too easily cast aside. Pray do not undercut the value of having acted as you did."

[foxsays]

"I have spoken with a few in my time, though only one at any great length," Araceli explains, seeing no real point in dragging the names of Baratheon or Sauveterre into the discussion if she can help it, not when both men are long gone from Skyhold now too. "Knight-Commander Norrington is the only one of such a rank here, he was good enough to answer many of my questions but I know the dangers of relying on one perspective alone. A Knight-Enchanter then does not hold the same sort of authority as an Enchanter, or Senior Enchanter, or First Enchanter would have, correct? Or still does, such things, like the fraternities, still have power." Such things might still have a use if it salvaged carefully.

It would be very wasteful, perhaps damaging otherwise.

"I slept in the hayloft above the stables my first few nights here. It wasn't quite so busy, warm enough, no one bothered me. Once I had the things to make a hammock though, I could sleep wherever I could hang it, usually wherever was warmest - I had not seen snow until I came here." As if that is some sort of terrible confession, the way she says it, her hands in Herian's hair to let the oil work its own sort of magic, moving to the side to wash her hands in the water and then the combs so she can use them again to get rid of the excess. "You will need rest though, to be the very best aid you wish to be to them, but at least there are more than just tents in the snow now. Skyhold actually has options." Who would have thought.

A little taken aback, she stills, blinking at Herian's back; if Lux were here, they would share a look. Greatest double act either side of a rift. "I am still adjusting to so many having moral compasses that point in the wrong direction." Easier to deflect than to say that girls like Araceli are seldom accused of having honour.