[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]

"Well, I don't think you're a demon." For whatever it was worth. In addition to that sharp smile, there was now a glimmer in her eye: the harbinger of good-natured teasing.

"You're not nearly clever enough."

[demonicbeauty]

Ariadne giggled. "Well, isn't that just what a clever person would do?" she asked, bumping her shoulder against Vasran's. "Make you think that they weren't clever at all, so then they could surprise you?"

It was actually Ariadne's standard method of operations. Entirely.

It was just that...well...she had yet to be given a reason to...operate.

[unharrowed]

Vasran's eyes narrowed.

"Hmm. Fair point. I'll have to watch out for you turning up in my dreams."

Yes, that was a semi-flirtatious comment directed at someone who looked very much like herself. All in good fun.

[demonicbeauty]

"Oh, don't worry," she teased. "Dreams have never been my forte." And not just because Alastrians didn't really dream.

...there was also the fact that Ariadne had no magic whatsoever.

"But you should never play cards against me," she continued.

[unharrowed]

"You're a mind-reader?" Vasran guessed, and before Ariadne could answer: "What number am I thinking of?"

[demonicbeauty]

Again, she laughed. "No. Not a mind reader. But I'm very, very good at reading cards. And card players. I always know when someone is bluffing."

Just a matter of listening to their pulse, really. Or, if they had particularly stubborn pulses, then the way they swallowed

Aunt Lysia sometimes joked that she'd have made a better living as a card shark than as a spy. But then, she wouldn't have been able to save people. Would she?