[Open]

[unharrowed]

WHO: Vasran and OPEN
WHAT: Celebrating being declared a Real Mage, training with her very own staff
WHEN: Late August
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: N/A

In the end, the pseudo-Harrowing endorsed by the Mage Council had turned out to be just like dreaming. Vasran had been prepared for what she was about to face, as well as one could be prepared. To walk in the Fade was to know that nothing could be trusted except one's own mind. And it was the mind that was truly important, because demons could trick the eyes, could distract the senses, could so easily toy with emotions. Logic and will, two things which were so simple and yet so difficult to wield effectively, were the only things that could be counted on.

It was a Desire demon that had tried to take her, offering her comfort and wealth and position enough to take whatever she wanted from a world where everything had once been lost to her. Of all things, it was Vasran's pride that allowed her to refuse the demon's offer.

She would take what she got back from the world on her own terms, and no one else's.

The day after she woke again, she celebrated in the Tavern, a place where she had rarely been seen before, dancing and tossing back as many cups of wine as she could afford — or convince others to pay for. As the evening went on, she got bolder, approaching a few people head-on with her empty cup and shoving it toward them.

"Buy a drink for a demon-slayer!"

In the days after — once the subsequent hangover had subsided — she could be found on the Training Grounds, drilling battle techniques with her staff, sending bursts of electrical energy toward the targets.

Comments

[unharrowed]

Vasran wrinkled her nose, out of confusion rather than distaste.

"Why couldn't he just go back?"

[justice_is_blond]

"He didn't know how. There weren't exactly rifts opening up all over the place that we could get roughly predicted. And when we went into the Fade later to save a boy from demons holding him in dreams, there was no way for him to detach and stay behind."

Imagine how much easier everything would have been, though, if somehow Justice had stayed behind. Then again, there's no worth in that wondering.

[unharrowed]

Vasran nodded. She knew very little about spirits, compared to some — so that much, she was willing to accept.

Which brought her back to the one point she was still stuck on. She paused a second, mentally preparing herself for the question. Reminding herself who he was. There were bound to be biases in his answer.

And she could always ask someone else later.

"Did they really," another pause, for emphasis, "rip people out of bed?"

[justice_is_blond]

He blinked, a little surprised. Was the whole history of Harrowings being whitewashed? Is that why she was so proud to be Harrowed? It... wouldn't be surprising.

"Yes," he said. "No one was allowed to talk about what the Harrowings were, what a mage could expect, so all we knew as apprentices was that one night, the Templars would be literally pulling you out of bed, dragging you through the halls, and you might or might not survive."

A beat. "Fear has always been the most powerful tool the Chantry has. Knowing that was coming, and that around half of the people who vanished from their beds would never be seen again had a striking effect on most."

Hopefully that helped to set the record straight.