003 🌿

[ancarrow]

WHO: Eirlys and OPEN
WHAT: Eirlys realises she belongs both to the Inquisition and the alienage, and simultaneously to neither of them.
WHEN: Beginning of Kingsway
WHERE: Skyhold, then Halamshiral
NOTES: If anyone has messages they'd like Eirlys to deliver to their CR in either Skyhold or Halamshiral, hit me up!

a) Skyhold
She'd made the journey back to Skyhold toward the end of August, to deliver a report about how things were going in Halamshiral. Eirlys is noticeably tired - not in the same washed-out way she's been noticed to be in the past, but a sort of determined resilience that's keeping her going despite how weary she is. She only stays a single night in Skyhold, making sure to do the rounds in the healing tents, and to deliver messages to friends of those that she'd left in the camp in Orlais.

It's during the latter activity when she finds out the news of Asher Hardie's death, and though she didn't know him well, she struggles to keep herself together when she remembers how she'd mixed the medicine into honey for him when she'd nursed him, the same way she'd done with her sister both in their childhood and more recently before her death. The purse he's left her, though, astounds her. She's never seen so much money all at once before, and she's not sure how best to put it to use. Placing it in the deep pocket of her cloak, she heads over to the chapel to pray to the Maker for him, but ends up just sitting with her head leaning against the stone wall, feeling rather numb.

Before she leaves, she ropes anyone she can find into an emergency session in the courtyard to make as many poultices and potions as she can to take back to Halamshiral with her, before loading them into the wagon along with anyone who wants to make the trip, watching Skyhold fade into the distance.


b) Halamshiral
It had become very clear to Eirlys, especially in the incident with the cart, that out here she wasn't regarded as a city elf with experiences and suffering in common with the elves of Halamshiral, but solely as a representative of the Inquisition - an outsider come to tell them how to live, one of a few token elves in a new offshoot of a human institution that had arguably bulldozed its way through southern Thedas. She couldn't blame them, there'd be plenty in Gwaren who'd be just as suspicious, but it still stings as the wagon moves through the narrow streets, knowing that most of the eyes that pass over her see her as an intruder and a target, and wondering whether the supplies she's bringing will even make it back to the camp.

The next few days sees her throwing herself into her work, helping with healing and renovating and logistics, but looking very nervous and unsure when she interacts with the local city elves and a little sad around the Inquisition, really not quite sure where she fits any more.

Comments

[ancarrow]

"Is that so?" She hadn't had the time or been in the right place to observe how Orlais treated its mages, but it surprises her that it's different to Ferelden, as she knew they had both Circles and the Chantry just the same as them. "You may be right there - it's been my experience that when a person or a society has that sort of hatred embedded in them, it doesn't much matter to them who it's directed toward so long as they can spend it on someone. But if there is something in that difference that could help us, I'd certainly like to find out."

[justice_is_blond]

"Maybe it's level of exposure?" He's working as he talks, talking as he thinks. It's far too early to have a solid theory. "Vivienne was able to walk around and be see and heard. Elves were seen... but deliberately not heard. Then again, Arl Rendon," he doesn't get his last name, not anymore, "sold a great many elves into slavery, so I may be entirely wrong."

Hate is messy at every angle... and Thedas has every angle covered.

[ancarrow]

Eirlys lips thin into an almost imperceptible line at the mention of Rendon Howe, and she chops the elfroot a little more aggressively without even realising she's doing it. News had spread quickly between alienages of the elves he'd sold into slavery, and she'd spent several nights curled up in a corner of the basement of the tenement house she'd grown up in, clinging tightly to her sister in the fear that they were going to be shipped off to Tevinter. Not that her adult life working for Wellow had been anything but slavery under a different name, she considers, but at least it had been in Gwaren rather than overseas, and at least she'd been able to keep a fraction of her dignity.

"I'd agree with exposure, but also how it plays into their power. Orlais seems to like its mages able to do party tricks, so giving them a little more freedom may serve to make them more cooperative."

Elves, on the other hand, may as well be part of the furniture as far as Orlesian nobles were concerned.

[justice_is_blond]

He exhales, shaking his head.

"You're likely right. We've use when being shown off, like... like prized cows, so mages there get enough to make them fat and happy and content to await their own slaughter. It seems better, nicer, but in reality it's just a way to keep the mages willing to stay in and even wanting to return to their cages."

No elves want to return to slavery once they've been freed, or the alienage when they have options. And yet so many mages want walls around them again. They're idiots, and it frustrates him. How can freedom hope to stand against an institution that's so used to playing everyone?

"I don't think everyone will see lasting freedom and equality in my lifetime. But I didn't think I'd live to see the Circles fall, either. Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe it's achievable. I," he can't hope, it's too dangerous, "can do my best to help with it."

[ancarrow]

She's a little nervous when he adds that last part, having heard too many stories of the last time he tried to help speed freedom and equality along. She's certain that any freedom borne from violence isn't likely to last long.

"The best thing we can do for now is ensure the Inquisition puts equality for both mages and elves front and centre in its priorities. It has a much greater influence than either of us individually."

[justice_is_blond]

"That, yes, will help. But also things like this. Things where elves and mages are clearly helping and being seen to be helping. You're not doing this for attention, I know. But what attention you get, as it will come, will be helpful."

He's learned. He's still learning, and there's a long road to go. But he can get there, he thinks.

"Leliana, thus far, seems inclined to think about equality. Two of the others aren't in the least; I've no idea where Josephine falls on the scale. But that doesn't mean we stop doing our best just because one of the four appears to be interested in an equal future."

[ancarrow]

"I've only really spoken to Leliana before. That's disappointing - I'd hoped her views were representative of them all." She felt even more intimidated out of ever making eye contact with Cassandra now.

"Do you really think this will help that much, though?" She gestures around them at the work they're carrying out. "In Gwaren I tried hard to stay a model of a good elf, to do everything I could for my people to be seen in a positive light and gradually make some progress and earn some respect, but it was all for naught. Logically I know this is the best way forward, but sometimes I..." she falters, then forces herself to press on and actually voice this for once. "...I'm so scared that they're getting our cooperation and our labour, and once it's all done we'll be brushed aside and everything will return to the status quo that existed before demons started falling from the sky."

[justice_is_blond]

He swallows and looks down.

"I know that fear," Anders says quietly. "That we'll help and work and be forgotten again, relegated back behind our various walls. But this is our best chance. We can be known and seen widely, across countries rather than smaller areas, and maybe we can't be forgotten."

Maybe. "I don't know what else to try at this point. So we reach out, we be visible, and we try to leave such a mark that what good we do doesn't get lost."

Anders nods to what they're making. "Hand these out personally. Make sure your helpers, the ones who are mages or elves or both, are visible. Word may spread, and it can only help."

[ancarrow]

Eirlys nods agreement, not entirely happy but knowing it was the best option they had. "I'll be sure to do so, and to use what little influence I have as liaison. But if there's anything else you can think of, please let me know."

[justice_is_blond]

"Likewise, Eirlys. This is..." He trails off and shakes his head, looking around him. "This is what matters most to me. Find a way to stay free and bring everyone up to an equal status when it comes to how we're born."

[ancarrow]

"I know. And whatever else anyone may say about you, they can't say you lack conviction." She hated that she almost admired him for making such a statement before, though she tells herself it's only because she'd gotten to know him before learning who he is. "We'll find a way forward, I know it."

[justice_is_blond]

There's so much else that some people say about him, but he pushes that thought aside. He can't change the past. He can only work on the future.

"I want us to. We've the people for it, and the opportunity. Maybe we can find it. But for now, I think we've both some work to do on potions and the like so that you can make your trip."