she rules her life like a fine skylark

[arcaneadvisor]

WHO: Morrigan & you & bonus Kieran
WHAT: For all your witchy needs + all your OGB needs
WHEN: The month we should totally rename Queensway amirite
WHERE: Skyhold/Skyhold area
NOTES: Prose or action spam, I'll follow, feel free to make your own starters too. All starters are in the comments because I like pretty posts shut up

Comments

[serannas]

"I know," Ellana says softly. "It's why I wish things were different. I wish we didn't live in isolated clans, but so much needs to change and unfortunately, that would take time and inclination." Probably not in her lifetime.

"The world feels so different when you're a child. And it's not that it feels more innocent. It's... that you feel nothing can hold you back."

[arcaneadvisor]

"There are a great many who will fight change until the last breath rattles out of their lungs, who will keep to what was because it is all they have ever known." There is a certain irony in the Dalish being bastions of tradition when once they were so much more than what they are now, when so many seem content to press their hands over their ears and scrape out a life, looking down on everyone else as if that is not what all the rest of the world is doing. As if that is not what all the rest of the world has done since slipping free of the chains of Tevinter.

Blowing her tea to cool it, she smiles over the rim of the cup. "Kieran has ever been that way." Morrigan you carried him upon your back as a spider more than once, that's a poor example. "The elven children in the alienage still played at games, and the Dalish children still wished to hear tales I am sure their elders had rather they would not when we arrived. I wandered far as a girl, even in villages and towns."

[serannas]

Ellana agrees, and the look in her eyes suggests that she will never cling to something just because the prospect of the unknown frightens her. She's always had the soul of a bird, wings lifted and ready to take flight; ready to explore all the world has to offer. The world is a dangerous, cruel place, but there are bits of light shining through. It's thanks to Morrigan and her instruction that Ellana can now truly be a bird and sneak into places others dare not go.

"If we had had visitors to the clan, I would have been the same way. Our hunters sometimes met traders while out searching for game. I never saw them." Only what they traded with the clan (or what the clan stole from them, like the novel Cyril gave Ellana).

"In Rivain, there is just such a sense of respect. I got the impression that it was magic that bound humans and elves together. The humans aren't really Andrastian. They have their seers and apprentices, just like the Dalish have their Keepers and apprentices." Her heart gives a momentary lurch as she remembers how she was told all mages in that Rivaini clan were valued equally and taught how to lead as a future Keeper, not cast aside and told they never had a chance, so go light the fires and be useful elsewhere.

[arcaneadvisor]

Now that surprises her, enough that either she cannot hide or simply doesn't bother to, staring at Ellana over her cup. "You never saw them? That surprises me in a clan that allows...what, a good half dozen of their young folk to come to the Inquisition?" Morrigan shields Kieran, yet she went so far with him when he was so small, and a single woman alone with a child would appear a sight more vulnerable than the Dalish. But then Ellana has always seemed somewhat different to those of Clan Ashara that Morrigan has met, and the others she has watched from some perch, or spied upon her travels about Skyhold.

"Not all places are beneath the thumb of the Chantry; I grew up closed to the Chasind with their shamans, wilder than Rivain but again still not a place the Chantry has ever touched. Let us hope that such traditions are not lost. The world would be poorer for their absence." After all, that's something Morrigan is trying to preserve with her own research, something she's trying to pass on to Kieran with all the preparations she makes for the role he will play in what is to come.

[serannas]

"Cyril and Merrick saw humans all the time. They'd steal their clothes or other things." Morrigan can probably guess who got them out of their clothes in the first place. "And Beleth would trade with them because she would suck up and act the innocent, then come back and gloat about how clever she was to squeeze deals out of them." Ellana moves to sip at her drink before she says any worse, like how Beleth is the biggest hypocrite she's ever seen. But when she does speak, she says, "Gavin had already joined while he was out in the world. The rest of us save me wanted to go because one was and the rest wanted to follow. I just wanted an excuse to get out and do something helpful."

And she feels she's been achieving that in her own small way. She's no master spy or tactician, but she fights when it's necessary, explores when she can, and just pitches in where she can in general.

"I feel that way too. The Chantry's ways mean knowledge is disappearing. The Rivaini mages have their own way of doing things, and it shouldn't be lost. Keeper magic shouldn't be lost." Ellana wishes she knew it, but at the same time, it feels disrespectful to learn it from anyone other than her Keeper. She doubts anyone with the knowledge would teach her anyway, since she's obviously not going to be a Keeper, but having sway over plants is such a useful skill.

[arcaneadvisor]

The young men Morrigan knows little and less of, rumour of the temper of the former enough to make sure Kieran knows to keep well away from him on any of his wanderings with his friends, just to be safe. "I am sure many of them heard her; when we went retrieve my eluvian, she could hardly keep from braying the word." Morrigan had carefully not stated to all what it was that she had lost because there was an advantage in keeping it safe, but then Beleth had to go open her big mouth, didn't she? What a fine bard that one will make. "You have more than excuses now, far more."

And where a hunter might know how to lie low, Ellana can be a part of the scenery. A bird is easily overlooked as so many other creatures often are, but one cough, one twitch, one person who cares not for a pointed ear or Vallaslin? The hunter is rumbled and gone, but Ellana will be able to quietly hide herself where they never can. Able to disappear in a flash - a little bird is hard to pierce with an arrow.

Morrigan nods, a hand straying to the pouch where she keeps both grimoires recovered during the Blight. Habit keeps them close though she has less use of their secrets now than she did then. "Such things that we found in Kinloch Hold alone during the Blight, perhaps with the Circles gone all their small ways of thinking will be at an end at last."

[serannas]

Ellana's lips press into a firm line. She's had no one to talk to about Beleth ever since their fight, and it's been eating at her. Overall, she likes Beleth well enough, but certain parts of her personality just irritate Ellana and she doubts things will change there. Now the question is whether she should keep talking about this with the one person she knows for sure finds Beleth irritating too.

"Let me guess: she said it belongs to elves and expected you to hand it over to her without complaint?" Because surely Beleth in all her elfiness would know how to properly use one, right? It's not like they're mysterious objects laced with magic that are so rare that many think them more myth than fact. Oh, no, precious Beleth would just snap her fingers and it would bend to her will, because she's the elfiest elf to ever elf.

Let it never be said that sweet Ellana can't be bitter as can be at times.

Nodding her head in agreement, Ellana sets down her tea. "Even if they try to restore the Circles, they won't succeed in doing what they once did to mages. A person tastes freedom and learns new ways of seeing things and they don't just give that up to fall in line again. Well, anyone with sense shouldn't." She knows full well that many mages were led to believe they needed to be locked away, because they would be protected. It's not so different from her staying with the clan when she wanted so much to go. But she saw her chance to leave and she took it. The Circles falling is their chance to have freedom, and they need to take it instead of falling back into old habits.

"I've left the Mage Council," she adds, since it seems relevant. "We recently gained more pro-Circle mages and I didn't feel like trying to make them see sense. Besides, I initially joined to protect the Dalish mages here, but now that I know the Council doesn't hold any real power over mages, I know my fellow Dalish don't need me to protect their interests." Plus she's overloaded with all the other things she's doing. Plus she really, really hates politics and having to be underhanded. Benny tried explaining to her that it was about listening to people, but she has a feeling Benny wasn't telling her everything. Not surprising, since why would a smart politician give up their secrets in making it work for them?

[arcaneadvisor]

Knowing that Beleth is a student of Leliana's, she does her best to keep her opinions to herself there. Leliana's work is her work, same as Morrigan's work is her unless they overlap as they will. And she is hardly about to be troubled over the opinion of one girl for all that it rankled, yet as with Gwenaelle, there is something to be said about letting it out, even if this is over tea in a study, rather than wine in private chambers.

"Hardly. She did not make it beyond 'eluvian'." If she had? Well, Morrigan and Leliana weren't so close then as they are now, but they were close, and Morrigan has ever been arcane advisor since she arrived. "I did try to speak once to Beleth, civilly, politely, she was not inclined to hear what I have learned during my travels. You might be wise to be careful should you learn anything that does not paint your people in the way she knows." The emphasis is there for a reason, and Morrigan's eyes flash. A careful warning. Old bones are bones, but once they lived and breathed. Once they were bloody things.

"Sheep will always wish to be sheep. Even now there are those who clamour for their return; Vivienne sits upon the Mage Council for one reason only. Within the Circles she was a woman of power, of influence, of rank. Take the Circle from her, take the Game from her, and what is she? A woman, and entirely forgettable. Tis what happens when you allow yourself to become a piece of such a thing." There's little need for Morrigan to guard her tongue when it comes to her opinion on the Mage Council or the little Circle since she's made it plain for so long, and well, Morrigan is the one with Celene's ear, not Vivienne.

Morrigan is the one who did it without bending over backwards to play their games.

"There is the Vashoth woman still, Korrin Ataash? I am sure she will still argue very loudly against the Circles." Finding out more about the Mage Council at first had pointed Morrigan in certain directions, and that it had pointed her to the Dalish had been a surprise but much has changed in-- almost a year. Almost a year and she cannot quite believe it. "The Dalish have never been bound by a Circle before, allowing another to hold your leash...well, the Circles did not learn from that. Perhaps they never will, though I need not tell you that, I think."

[serannas]

"I feel that learning the less savory parts of our past makes our ancestors more real, instead of being so far removed from them now. And it would be wasted breath trying to make Beleth see that." Ellana has learned much from the people here, and one of the most important things she's come to realize is she can only be responsible for herself. Being on the Mage Council meant every word and action could make other elves look bad. Benny had said just that to her, saying that Ellana's manner at the soiree had made things worse for elves. Ellana doesn't want to be responsible for them, whether that's true or not. Others' words can't hurt her if she remembers to be happy with herself. Beleth's refusal to listen means Ellana can't make her listen. Let her live her life the way she chooses.

She nods along with Morrigan's assessment. "From now on, I'm responsible for myself and no one else." Next to Gavin and Twisted Fate, she's probably the least conforming Dalish there is at Skyhold. She'll explore elven ruins, she'll help those who need it, but she's not here to represent anyone anymore -- especially not the Dalish as a whole. Beleth has that covered, for all the good it's done.

"I told Korrin that I was leaving before the rest of them. I owed it to her, since we were the only two councilors raised outside a Circle. We've always had similar views about what harm a Circle could do. She understands my reasons."