she rules her life like a fine skylark

An open door policy has always been in place for Morrigan's study with various caveats: if she is gone then the door is firmly locked, severely warded. If she is within then even should the door be ajar you are of course to announce yourself. (And there are some who will always have privacy: her son, Leliana, Alistair, Zevran, should they find themselves within her study then the door will always be warded with them within. Who better understands precious stolen moments than Morrigan?)

Still, summer will soon be stolen from Skyhold to be replaced by autumn then winter, and this far up in the mountains there will be very little difference between the two. So the door is flung open where Morrigan sits at her desk, stacks of papers, careful piles of books, curious plants growing. There might be tea. Oh and don't step on Kieran's homework that he's so helpfully left on the floor.

Whenever Kieran is free from his lessons, Morrigan can be found with him. Usually they're somewhere around Skyhold together off on some sort of adventure or another because that was her childhood, wasn't it? It wasn't classrooms, it wasn't learning by rote, it wasn't stuffy tutors and dull instruction. It was experiencing it all.

There may or may not be a mabari with them some days. Doghren lives to blight Morrigan's life, she holds Alistair responsible.

Kieran just likes having one of his other besties around for the day.

Avoiding only the Warden camp, Kieran is the one who gets to lead the way as he recounts his adventures or asks questions. Nowhere is out of the question. From the gardens to tend to the plants Morrigan has helped to nurture from seeds brought from the Wilds and beyond, to the stables to pet the various mounts, the library because he loves books as much as his mother, and the market stalls because he does love shiny things just as much as his mother.

He will probably clatter into you. Or ask you a question. Or stare at you. He's ten you can't be mad.

There is a place ~~somewhere only we know~~ close to Skyhold where the world begins to melt away, where the trees are almost thick enough to keep out the worst of the snow. A decent hike though hunters must brave it if they wish for game, or anyone wishing to replenish their stock of herbs without picking the gardens bare.

As someone raised in the Wilds, Skyhold presses in. Skyhold is too many people too close even after years of civilisation and Morrigan yearns for the freedom of nothing but the wind in her hair, for the only eyes to crawl over her skin to belong to things incapable of speech. This was all she knew once, and though she longed for more, she admitted freely enough that she returned.

In the quiet there are only birds - ravens, larks, a thrush - or smaller beasts nosing through the grass and leaves for food before winter. Everything larger is somewhere else. She would still be the most dangerous thing, even if she is relaxed, either walking with her hair unbound or resting against a tree with a book in her lap.

When dark falls and the moon peeks out from behind the clouds, there is a wolf that prowls, one with eyes too keen and gold for the liking of any man. The kind of wolf that might inspire tales. Better that than a spider, surely.

Where does Morrigan get her garments minus that incredible ballgown from the soiree that was clearly assembled by a team of the finest artisan weaver spiders, all sworn to the strictest sort of secrecy, along with some demons and blood magic. Clearly. (No rumour is too outlandish for Orlais.) But more realistically speaking: a girl learned that once she was a certain age, she was expected to take care of herself in the Wilds.

So as Kieran plays with a toy dragon and a formation of soldiers and Darkspawn, and various other creatures (wolves, werewolves, giant spiders, why yes there is even a golem in there), Morrigan can often be found outside in the garden, taking up a bench with her sewing.

There is one project that does seem to command a great deal of attention. A doll. Perhaps it might look rather like Alistair, or that could just be your imagination.

[Ah yes, the wildcard. Pick your poison if you want something different and I'll roll with it!]

He comes out here to breathe. When the staring and mutters get too much, when he doesn't want to bother Nathaniel with needing comfort, when the patient load is low. It's quiet. Here he can remember the adrenaline of every escape he made and the way the wind ran through his hair. Simpler times. Easier times, almost, if just because things were so clearly good or ill.

It's only when he starts to get chilly that he turns to go... and spots the wolf. Anders' hand goes straight to his staff as he waits to see what it does. He doesn't want to simply attack it, but he does need to be ready in case it decides he looks tasty.

"Easy does it. I don't want to hurt you." In moments like these, when he's talking to animals, he's glad that there's no one around to hear him. Even if everyone has likely already heard him talking with Purrelden.

"You know--" Alistair says, coming to a stop beside her bench.

Out of nowhere would be giving him too much credit. He's big, he's noisy. But his trajectory had originally been one ending at Kieran and his battlefield, before her project caught his eye and he abruptly stopped, so maybe there's still some element of surprise. Maybe.

"--I'd like to say that I'm not even going to ask, but I am. I'm going to ask." A pause, and then, in case she wasn't sure: "This is me asking."

Ellana is no stranger to Morrigan's study, and today she comes up to the open door, giving a soft knock and hoping the woman isn't too engrossed in anything. If she is, Ellana will be happy to come back later, as she doesn't want to be a bother. And what she wants to speak of isn't really vital, but something interesting nonetheless.

Ah. Well.

This... is not what had expected when he arrived here, surely.

Bruce stares a little as he sees the dracolisk clearly enjoying the petting that its currently getting from the boy - Kieran, he needs to remember the name. It looks as happy as its ever seen it, tail whipping around excitedly, ears flicking with every pat. It's also pressed its snout into the boy's hair, too, through Bruce does hope that it hasn't tried to actually chew on it like it has with him.

"Ah--hello." A greeting, because its rude to not to, and he has to have his manners in mind when around children. Can't be setting a bad example to them, after all.

It is during one of her walks in the gardens that Josephine happens upon Morrigan's sewing station. The sight is odd enough to stop her momentarily in her tracks, head curiously cocked to the side as she assessed the soon further. She must admit to a certain curiosity, of late, when it has come to the mysterious witch, and try as she might to convince herself it has nothing to do with Morrigan's relationship with Leliana, it has everything to so with Morrigan's relationship with Leliana.

She takes a steadying breath before carefully reassembling her composure. She is too curious to let her investigations be sidetracked by nerves, even if Morrigan does intimidate her sometimes (most of the time).

"I must admit I did not take you for a seamstress," Josephine remarks as she approaches, but there is no judgement in her voice, no malice, just barely restrained curiosity. "What is it that you're working on?"

With a wolf's nose she can smell the world far better, and with a wolf's ears she can certainly pick up each and every sound. The cold doesn't bother her through thick fur (though given how little she tends to wear, and a lifetime growing up in a swamp, it's debatable if she ever feels it at all) and she stares when she sees him. There is a temptation. Wolves are wolves. A man walks alone and there are bigger things she could be.

How many remember the true horrors of a blighted wolf with flesh that looks fit to slough off? Only her mind would be hers, clean and sharp and intact. But no growl comes from the wolf, only the rising of hackles the same way her back would be up were she herself anyway.

Contrary to some lurid speculation, a shapeshifter can't speak like this. The air about her shimmers with magic, faint unlike when she's teaching because she has to make sure a student sees it, a faint puff of purple though when she straightens, her own staff in hand, though that could even be her robes. materialising from fur "You could not," Morrigan replies neatly, still something of the wolf in her voice.

With much of her attention on the work on her lap or on offering suggestions for how best to flank the advancing forces Kieran has set up in the tall grass, she does turn somewhat more sharply. Or perhaps Alistair annoys her less these days so he no longer sets off the 'impending fool approaching' alarm.

"Alistair," she greets as Kieran perks up, abandoning the troops to wave, legs kicking in the air as she does move her actual sewing out of the way. If he would like to sit. Like they're two people. Watching Morrigan's son play like old friends do (or more: watching the small person they made play like grown adults do when only two other souls in Skyhold know that they made the small person together.) "We are both well, thank you for asking, and you have suffered no ill health yourself I presume?"

A neat stitch is tugged, pulled tight. Her smile would be innocent on any other face. "Like deserves unto like, does it not?"

Glancing up just long enough to see who it is, Morrigan manages half a smile. "Ellana."

It's been a while since last they spoke, the Sulevin Blade if she recalls correctly, but she does want to finish these notes before the thoughts vanish from her head. Ellana is no stranger to her study after all as she frowns in concentration for a moment to find the correct wording, the quiet scratch of her quill filling the air until she decides she can be done for the moment. At least her work bore fruit. More than she had hoped for, and that must count for something in these times.

"What comes, more news of an expedition?"

"Could you become one?" Kieran is asking, fortunately too engrossed in delivering high quality petting to notice the way Morrigan's nose wrinkles when he says it. Bruce however should get a really good view because wow, kiddo, way to wound her.

"I...could. If I chose to." But saved by the Hulk-- by the good doctor Bruce; Kieran smiles but does not dislodge himself from the dracolisk with half his face smooshed into an alarming combination of boy and beast, and Morrigan attempts to school her features so she doesn't look like her son just low key insulted her. (This is Alistair's side of the gene pool.) "I trust we are not disturbing you? Kieran has only ever seen a dracolisk in his books."

"They should let them into Val Royeaux. They're more exciting than the horses!"

When it comes to the advisors, Morrigan doesn't precisely avoid them. That would suggest she actually puts some sort of effort into it in the first place but when Kieran stops chattering to his line of infantry to stare before he returns to it, she looks up. Continuing, a smirk settles in place as she tugs a stitch tighter with the needle flashing in the weak watery sun.

"There are a distinct lack of seamstresses in the Korcari Wilds. Even my mother would not have me dressed in rags, lady ambassador" she greets, sounding somewhat amused. What does it say when that is about as charitable as she gets when Flemeth is concerned? Even if Morrigan did rather follow the Chasind women and what they chose to wear, though if that amused her mother or not she cannot say. "Clothes for the winter to come. I have spent time in the Frostbacks before. The arrival of winter here will be bitter, one imagines."

Finishing her stitch, she turns the garment just enough to show a dark purple coat that's finally taking shape now it has one sleeve in place, dark beadwork taking up much of the front.

The woods are not the sea, but they are wild, and for the moment that is close enough. For a being who could be everywhere, see everywhere, to be suddenly trapped in one place, to barely be able to see anything at all in comparison- it would be enough to drive one mad, if he had not already survived thousands of years of terrible visions. He goes to the woods to learn, to see the animals and plants of this world (familiar but strikingly different from his own), to practice what this world has gone to his magic away from judgmental eyes.

It is dark, and he is contemplating simply remaining in the forest to sleep (yet another thing he now must do after so many years of not). He's been out later than usual, having found the half-eaten carcass of a deer; flesh and meat have been cut away, some of it cooked for himself but the rest tossed away into the bushes for the creatures of the forest. It is the bones that he wants, and he had settled in a tree to carve them hours ago; there is a small pile, everything from charms to figures, at the base of the trunk. The forest had gone back to its usual sounds, growing accustomed to his presence, the steady movements of his hands -- it is why when everything glows quiet, stills, that he moves.

His own eyes do not glow, blacker than the night sky above them, but he has no problem seeing; a moment of focus and everything is outlined for him, magic seeming to whisper in his ear. There is a wolf -- or not a wolf at all. It could be interested in some of the meat he had previously tossed aside, and the Outsider shifts in his spot in the tree, legs dropping down from the branch to dangle.

"Are you hunting, I wonder? Or do you seek something else?" It's mostly to himself, but certainly loud enough to hear.

Could not. There's some wry amusement on Anders' face for a moment as he tilts his head, a little relieved that it wasn't an actual wolf and that he hadn't simply attacked. Everyone here is mortal. All it would take is one attack, and she could easily be hurt. Oh, she's strong. He has no doubt of that. And he doesn't doubt she knows spells the Circles would never teach. But again. Mortal. One thing slipping past the guard.

"You've no idea of what I could and couldn't do. But since I've no desire to hurt you or a wolf, that discussion is moot." Anders exhales. "So what brings you out on this... rather nice night, all things considered?"

Bruce certainly notices the way Morrigan grimaces at the question from her son, but he knows better than to bring it up - and its not like he doesn't understand where she comes from. There were probably better things to shift into besides a dracolisk.

He watches for a moment as Kieran happily lets the dracolisk content itself with... nuzzling his hair, turning back to Morrigan after that and shakes his head at the question. "No, its quite alright. Besides, I think it likes the company." And almost as if to prove that true, the dracolisk begins to try and nibble on Kieran's hair just as Bruce feared, prompting the man to quickly scurry over to make it stop doing that. No trying to eat the hair of the very nice boy giving you pats, dracolisk.

Edited 2016-09-07 15:06 (UTC)

The address is enough to get Ellana to come in -- carefully tiptoeing around Kieran's homework -- to take a seat across from the desk and wait.

"Nothing more on that than one of Leliana's scouts helping me research my clues so we can pin down the exact location. But I did come to tell you about my trip to Rivain. I met with the Dalish elves there. The clan has a unique perspective, since the humans of Rivain are barely Andrastian and have no hatred of the elves."

It's the smell of blood that draws her in even if it has never been her choosing to eat in this body. Some habits are harder to break than others, and though if it ever came down to survival she likely would? Well she is not some useless Circle mage incapable of looking after herself now is she? Still, there is blood and she follows it, follows another scent that she's caught around Skyhold before when she has come and gone as other things (cats, dogs, ravens, giant spiders perched on rooftops when she must) that strikes her as--

Other. And the Crossroads did not have a particular scent unique to them but that same feeling skitters down her spine, has her fur standing on end as she finds a young man. Slender, spindly were she to be unkind, her eyes peering up and into the dark. Wolves are rarely so bold even when hungry if they are alone but she is no true wolf, approaching on silent feet. The carcass is investigated with fleeting interest - not for her, but done by human hands - and up her gaze flicks again.

A pity that she cannot speak this way. Some stories like to say that shapeshifters are capable of all sorts of feats but she is limited to whatever sounds the soul she copies would make, bound by the body her magic allows her to create. It is not impossible to switch between bodies however, and there is purple smoke or something like it shimmering about her in the cool night air, the wolf seeming to burst into feathers before there is a raven. Does that answer a question? A raven gets a better look first at any rate, of strange men in trees when there is blood and flesh, gristle and meat, but no bones. How curious.

"And you are not Flemeth's daughter." He might have met her - the Tale of the Champion mentioned not one but two meetings with her mother but she paid little heed to what friends might have been there for the second - but she can count on one hand those who know what that means. That she survived that sort of mothering. Let him think what he will of that but there are worse things in the world than Templars to watch for over your shoulder.

A Templar has the decency to remain dead. Flemeth, ah, nothing quite so pedestrian for Flemeth.

Settling her garments more comfortably about her again (her mother makes her skin prickle in Skyhold, there is something about such old stones that drink down memory and magic and power, even here in the woods her mouth tastes sour from it) she replies after a moment of pause. "I was raised in the Wilds, and Skyhold is...loud. There is always some nuisance at the door."

Sorry Bruce but that is a face not even a mother could love. Who bred the first dracolisk and thought yes, on this day I have made a good thing for this world?

Morrigan does have to laugh at the sight before her although she'll need to wash slobber out of her son's hair unless she can somehow rope Alistair into it. Maybe. If she just glares enough at the sending crystal then surely he'll appear, then she can point the way and off they'll go. Wishful thinking, like no wheedling about bedtime.

"Am I to understand it belongs to you?" Morrigan asks, happy to observe since Kieran is willing to let Bruce safely extract his hair and retreat to a safe petting distance to dole out optimal chin scratchings, awwwyissss do you like that dracolisk, look at that no doubt terrifying visage.

Kieran of course, is quite happy to peer up at Bruce too, and to continue talking. "All things should have friends, no matter what."

"I had heard that some travelled there, though I have never ventured there myself." Attention fully on Ellana now she gives her a less distracted smile since she's done. "Many of my readings come from what Genitivi has written. Having met the man--" But that's for another day really, since he was much more trouble than he was worth, and Ellana has clearly come here to talk about something she cares about.

"Tell me, then, are they so very different from the elves of your clan? Clans can vary greatly but if you are telling me this then I must guess then Rivain must have left them much changed."

Anders refrains from asking if it's the lack of cleavage that gives away how he's not Flemeth's daughter. Instead, he considers her point for a moment before shrugging. There's not a chance he could have hurt Flemeth if he'd been dumb enough to challenge her; he's still wondering if she somehow knew what was to come from her words and the way she'd looked at him. But Morrigan isn't Flemeth. She hadn't known who he was in an instant, and he hasn't ever heard of her flying around as a dragon. She's got a presence... but it's not Flemeth's.

"I've always liked the outdoors more myself. The openness, the sounds of it." The promise of it. The way he can breathe more out here. But the mention of the Wilds brings something to mind, and he glances from the sky back to her.

"You survived out there on your own part of the time, right? Or is that just one of the rumors swirling around you?"

Fortunately, the Warden camp isn't the only place Inessa can be encountered, as she'll venture into Skyhold fairly often. Most of the time, that means the library or courtyard, but this morning, she's lingering at the market stalls, inspecting various wares. A blank rune is snagged up, for the new staff she bears, but a studded collar gets her attention as well.

"What do you think, Garahel? Yours is looking a bit worn...."

Garahel perks up and barks, which she assumes means he agrees with her until realizing that he isn't looking her way at all. Evidently, something else has caught his attention. That would be another mabari, which he must rush over to greet, tail wagging madly. The boy looks friendly, too.

she rules her life like a fine skylark

i; the study

ii; adventures with kieran

iii; the woods

iv; gardens

v; wildcard

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w o w

very early in the month, she should have done this sooner omg

staaaaables

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you started it she'll finish it

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