open; Dry your smoke-stung eyes

[foxsays]

WHO: Araceli Bonaventura; open
WHAT: Post-Rivain catch-up, gifts for friends, general open in and around Skyhold things
WHEN: August (timey-wimey if needed)
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: High likelihood of Dairsmuid being discussed so annulments etc. Will update if/when needed. If you'd like a starter let me know but feel free to make your own!

Comments

Re: closed; sina

[eolasemah]

Lux is not being a pest, and Sina bends to pick him up in a delighted hug when he comes barreling toward her. She nearly drops him again at the sight of Araceli backflipping off the stairs, and it takes her a moment to realize that that was on purpose. "More surprising than that?" she asks, still smiling, but with trepidation.

[foxsays]

Sina you will get a cold nose in your boobs for you trouble because this fox has absolutely no shame and he pretty much grew up shoving his face in Araceli's. (It's amazing he didn't get smothered at some point after she went through puberty.) "Perhaps less," she admits though she has a different way of measuring things compared to most folk.

"Remember when I spoke to you on the crystal after? When we were off seeing the Dalish clan in Rivain?"

[eolasemah]

She has no boobs to put a cold nose in! Or at least... not much.
Cuddling Lux, Sina nods her affirmation. "I do," she replies, "please tell me about it?"

[foxsays]

"It was incredible," Araceli begins with a smile as she moves to take a seat; it was perhaps the first thing about the trip that wasn't wholly associated with horror in her mind. "Where to begin...the two that met us on the path - the lanterns hanging from the trees, Sina, they were so beautiful - they greeted so kindly. I didn't know if I should go, being human, even if elves and human co-exist much more kindly in Rivain than elsewhere. But all their mages are taught Keeper magic! I know enough to know that such a thing isn't how it is here, it was...it was in case anything happened. If Keeper and apprentice both died. That way there would always be someone to lead the clan."

It seems very sensible and very fair to Araceli, and she's sure that sort of thing is the first thing Sina would want to know given what she is to her own clan as she continues, settling a package between them with care. "I asked them if they sailed too since they live so close to the sea, and though they love their halla too dearly to give them up, they've passed down the crafting of fishing boats too."

[eolasemah]

Sina listens with a smile, her eyes beginning to tear up as she imagines what Araceli describes. "It does sound incredible," she says with a weak laugh, "and... wonderful. Perhaps with the Templars dissolved, more clans will feel safe keeping more mages."

[foxsays]

"If Rivain manages not to become too involved in the Chantry - the Chant has never truly reached Rivain, though the nobility, those with a great deal of money? Those are the ones with an investment in the Chant - then there is more hope for it. Elves are treated far better there. Even compared to Antiva, Rivain felt so much like home it was…" It was like tearing the skin off my fingers to leave, but she trails off rather than saying that.

Before she continues speaking, she hands over two packages. "A permanent settlement near Rivain would perhaps be the one least endangered. So long as the Chant doesn't take hold and the Inquisition might play a part in telling what sort of relations the Chant will have with Rivain, and so long as it's far from Kont-aar, the Qunari settlement to the north."

[eolasemah]

Sina watches Araceli with a pensive but hopeful smile, though her attention is derailed when she's given the parcels. The halla yields a grin-- it will join her beloved herd on a table in her tent-- and the pendant evokes a small intake of breath as she takes hold of it and peers into the glass.
"This is..." she guesses, "...from a tree in Rivain?"

[foxsays]

"The one with the brown stalk is a fern of some description - with such a large group of us, asking questions was something of a premium. The other is a water weed, it was meant to show the balance in their lives, something a little more unique to their clan," she explains with a smile; plants aren't really her thing, it's only seaweed and kelp she can really reliably discuss at any great length. "How they still live on the land, and by the land, but the sea and the water has an influence on their life too. I hoped you'd think it was interesting, and it was pretty. Like you."

Suave charming motherfucker right here.

[eolasemah]

Observing the pendant closely as Araceli describes it, Sina nods silently. She turns it over in her hands, fingers against the glass almost as though she's trying to touch the greenery within, even if logic dictates that's not possible.
She looks up at the compliment, and her face goes a bit pink with her smile, but her words are serious when she says, "I love it. Serannas, Araceli. It means so much."

[foxsays]

"Perhaps one day, when I have enough money to have a ship and a crew of my own? You might come with me. All of my friends would be invited, sailing up to Antiva and Rivain, when things are less dire here." Sometimes it hurts to make plans, even gentle silly teasing ones, about a future in Thedas when there's so much future waiting for her back home but this...well this one isn't so terrible.

It wouldn't be so bad to sail as her father does, to perhaps be the one who goes exploring off the edges of the map.

[eolasemah]

Sina's already told Araceli how she feels about sailing, but perhaps it would be different in the right company. She grins, a bit chidingly. "You're the only person I'd get back on a boat for."