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

[amygdalae]

What would the elves say? Well Bruce has no concrete idea, but if he had to guess it'd be something along the lines of hating shems and other related things. Understandable and unsurprising, but Bruce did wish things wouldn't be this way. Nobody was benefiting from this mess in the end, especially not with Corypheus and his army still out there, waiting to strike.

There was going to be no use for honor and politics where there wasn't even a Thedas left to do any of that.

"It would be... a step, at least." Though who knows what kind of step that might be; and its definitely hard to say if that's better or worse. Not to mention if it was even possible. Considering the fact that the animosity between Celene and Gaspard had been so great to begin the civil unrest in the first place it was hard to imagine them agreeing to work with each other. Even though it really should be the most obvious choice. Orlesians.

His mind wanders off for a moment, glancing over back to Kieran again and seeing the dracolisk continuing to very much enjoy his company. He watches them both for a second more before Morrigan's question has him glancing back to her, and his expression quickly twists into a mild grimace that he tries to smooth away just as swiftly.

"It's been... fine." There were the standard reasons, mostly, and some burnt bridges here and there - but its nothing Bruce hasn't dealt with before. "It could have easily been worse, but I'm still allowed to do my job here with some extra duties placed on top of it." And of course, he had to go on missions now, too, being an official agent and all, but he could live with it. "All things considered, I know I should have gotten worse, and I'm grateful to the advisors for being understanding enough."

[arcaneadvisor]

If the Dalish find out what Morrigan's mirror does - well, outside of Merrill who understands the necessity of keeping some things secret at a time like this - then Morrigan will likely be detested just as much. Celene whispering in her ear, Morrigan whispering right back, caring for nothing. But then they all so easily forget the horrors of a Blight, especially those who only saw the refugees flooding out of their homes, and some who think Asha'bellanar or Flemeth will offer aid or mercy.

So long as the dancing stays in Orlais. Let them shoulder the cost of it this time rather than Skyhold.

Who knew she would miss a Landsmeet quite so much.

As if feeling the eyes on him, Kieran turns from offering a mabari crunch - it's elfroot and deep mushroom, practically medicinal, healers and doctors would approve, so a healer-doctor would doubly approve of course - to the dracolisk to smile. An unsettling sort of smile. Encouraging. Boys that age should only smile like that at other kids. He knows. Or does he. The mystery.

"Always in need of healers, I am sure. Encumbered with warriors who cannot look before they place their feet." Traps. So many traps. Always someone blundering into the path of a spell. Slapping a poultice only gets you so far after all; times were when they were near dead on their feet, holding it together until true healing work can be done. "Do you not feel unburdened now? No longer having to look over your shoulder?" That part is-- well she cannot imagine that that might be like, not really.

[amygdalae]

There was always something a little... off about the child, but right now, in this very moment - that feeling exemplified more than ever. Something uneasy took root in his gut, starting to spread outward, and Bruce suddenly found himself wanting to look away in shame. There was just something that he couldn't quite place his finger on--

Morrigan's response has him focusing back in reality, and he blinks, coming back to the present and he quickly chases those thoughts away. He must be just feeling paranoid, that's all - the stress of the last few weeks getting to him. His mind always tended to overthink on stuff when he didn't keep his thoughts in check. Surely that smile was just a normal smile and nothing more.

"I suppose so, though I am only one person - there's a limit to what I can do." He shrugs as he says that, managing a weak smile. The other part of her question, well... "It's hard to say if it was ever a burden for me - I've made the effort to keep it hidden for so long that it's already part and parcel of how I am. As for looking over my shoulder--I'm afraid that's a hard habit to break." Years of ingrained instinct at this point wasn't going to go away, even though he had already been here for far longer than he ever anticipated himself to.

[arcaneadvisor]

The longer he's in Skyhold, the more Morrigan finds herself almost...waiting. The ugly outburst that saw her burning bridges, one of which she only recently repaired, came from such a fear, the Kieran's oddness would be discovered among so many because she notices. Of course she does, she's his mother, she is so very aware of everything about her son. They're all learning so much about their enemy and how different would Kieran be? How long before a few put together too many pieces?

(There is an eluvian, she tells herself, she can slip through it and be gone to somewhere safe. Somewhere with Kieran. Just like before.)

Perhaps she should have Kieran spend more time with friends his own age against instead of allowing him to tag along with so many adults, privy to conversations he shouldn't always be present for.

"Was it not to live as if with a limb cut off, a sense removed? A piece of yourself gone? Not all of my instruction was on magic yet at times that is what I remember most. How different you might have been." Somewhere else, somewhere that wasn't a Circle. Unbidden come memories of Wynne and how she could have Morrigan clenching her jaw or rolling her eyes at her arguments for the Circle each and every time the subject came up. But it's the other part that has her...has something not quite falling but almost. If she would fully allow it. A quiet little 'oh' that escapes without her fully meaning to. "I see," and that's a pause to breathe, to think, more than anything meaningful in and of itself. "I...I can understand that. I had only wondered. Out of curiosity."

The tale of the Warden is not so well told in all the gory details. The Tale of the Champion makes rather more mention of Flemeth, and of her daughter, and some part of Morrigan is still always waiting for that dreaded day.

[amygdalae]

Morrigan wasn't wrong with her assumptions, and Bruce could easily admit as such - which he does with a nod. "It was definitely hard, but there wasn't much of a choice in the matter if I was going to go into hiding." And wasn't that the irony of it - that no matter how most other mages tried, they ended up revealing themselves through magic anyway; the fact that despite 'freedom' they were still imprisoned by their magic. One way or another, it eventually ended up back to that.

The corner of his lips quirk up into something of a wry smile at her latter response, his expression looking as one of understanding more than anything else. "There will always be scrutiny as long as you're a mage, even if you mean no harm. For them, the danger is always there. Which is why I made the choice conceal myself the best I could. Without a staff, without the telltale robes - nobody looks at you twice for it." Far easier it had been to lose himself with work, with one thing after another until the Conclave happened and... well, here he was now, just as here she was too.

"I lived in the Circle for twenty years before I was forced to flee," he says, an admission of sorts. "I went in when I was just a boy, by the time I left I was already an adult. Until that point Thedas was only known to me through books and news, a world that existed outside of the windows I could look through." He shuffles a little and tucks his hands into the pockets of his pants, feeling a bit self conscious at his words. "Being out here... its definitely a whole different life for me. And considering what's happened, its still hard to say if living out here is any better than living in a Circle." In a way, mages were still trapped just for the very nature of who they were. Was it truly any different if they were in a tower or outside of it?

[arcaneadvisor]

"What gave me away for what I was as a girl was never having been around people. All the touching. Sitting at a table politely. Things mother failed to teach." When it came to magic, to history, to survival, the lessons were extensive yet the common courtesies she has tried her very best to instill in Kieran? Not so much. "I suppose that is one small advantage of a Circle at the very least, or at having whatever life you had before." Not that she's prying since she...well what details she offers are details that are always so very known, things that she can share, the ones that don't quite sting so much.

Let them all think twice before anyone might decide that this is such a time to ask Flemeth or Asha'bellanar for her aid. Let whatever friends or allies they have remember any scrap that might say to them no, do not ask, do not even think her name and invite her here.

"Ah, to learn to light a fire without summoning flames from your fingertips?" The same smile is returned because after all, she is a practical woman who grew up most of her life without any sort of access to lyrium potions, why waste mana on something she could do with scraps of flint? "I have wondered at how some of them cling to their Circle robes now they are free, when any variety of anything is available to them."

Is that a dare to point out how she dresses? Doing apostate fashion harder and better than anyone else back before textures popped into frame? Whatever, she dresses like the Chasind do, thank you very much.

Still, she frowns to recall something that tugs on her memory. Kinloch Hold most likely since that is her primary source of experiences within a Circle, or the mage that had already escaped there as her brow furrows somewhat"Forgive me, tis my understanding that there are very few reasons for a mage to be forced to flee. And I have seen my share of blood mages and fools." That there is such an overlap is hardly surprising, especially when one considers a certain Circle tower in Ferelden but that is neither here nor there for the moment. There was the one encountered in the dungeons of Redcliffe who was most certainly both but very much a fool, every single blood mage that attacked them on the roads during the Fifth Blight - one could hardly walk, it would seem, without being attacked by some manner of something - but she tuts, a sigh catching. "Tis a better life. You will live as you would live anywhere. With difficulty. But the choices are all your choices. The roads you walk shall be your own."

And if she looks to Kieran, well, she does know what happens to the children Circle mages have. Wynne spoke of that too. "Some things are worth hardships," she says, more quietly than before, but the smile is warmer.

[amygdalae]

For all the faults that the Circles were, it was a fact that they had their fair points too. And for years that had been as such for Bruce when he lived there - the Circle was his place to be when he had lost everything in his childhood, without anybody to care for him or even want him because he was a mage. It was the Circles that took him in, that housed him and fed him and allowed him to grow up in the safety of the towers, without any worry of having to be attacked by fearful mobs or starve to death eventually. He owed a lot to the Circles, truly. But with that said...

"It was a good place, in theory. But the nature of it made it all too easily corruptible." With the Circles so isolated, so separate from the rest of Thedas, it was only all too easy to see how such corruption in both Templars and mages could occur. For who would truly care about a mage? And all the mages had were themselves, too. Templars were free to do whatever they want and mages would never dare to speak out for fear of the consequences. And such was the cycle that continued until the Circles were finally dissolved.

There's a brief pause when mentions how rare it is for mages to be forced to flee, and Bruce scratches the back of his neck, thinking for a bit how to best explain himself. "I made some wrong choices and trusted the wrong people. But that was a long time ago." A lifetime ago, as it were, at least to Bruce. Now he leads a very different life, for very different reasons.

In a way, he has to agree that it is better, in some ways. He makes a hum of assent and gives a small nod, smiling more properly as he sees her looking at her son. He knows as well what happens to children born in the Circle, and he is glad that there is one who doesn't have to go through such hardships. "I'm sure he's glad to have a good mother like you."