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open!
WHO: Eirlys and OPEN
WHAT: A day in the life of a city elf who is way out of her depth
WHEN: A couple of days before leaving for the Mire
WHERE: Around Skyhold
NOTES: Discrimination in prompt b). Prose or brackets are both fine. If you'd like a different starter, hit me up at![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
viridianwings and I'll write something up for your character!
WHAT: A day in the life of a city elf who is way out of her depth
WHEN: A couple of days before leaving for the Mire
WHERE: Around Skyhold
NOTES: Discrimination in prompt b). Prose or brackets are both fine. If you'd like a different starter, hit me up at
a) Courtyard
Technically weapons were forbidden in the alienage, but Eirlys had slept with a knife hidden under her pillow for as long as she could remember. She'd been unarmed on the road though, knowing that Wellow would surely have found it travelling in such close quarters -- though she knew that it wouldn't have made any difference when faced with the demons, that she would have panicked in exactly the same way.
She'd been a little surprised that she'd been allowed weapons here, still feeling very much an elvish outsider in a human run organisation, but the only odd looks she'd got when she'd taken them from the stores were the sheer amount and variety that she carried. Now she's got them laid out on the ground in front of her - a couple of swords and axes of various sizes and weights, a bow and arrows, a dagger only slightly bigger than the one she'd got back home, a spiked mace that scares her a little looking at it - picking them up in turn and swinging them around, trying to get used to the feel of them and see which one worked best for her. If she was going to help the Inquisition, after all, first she'd better know how to defend herself.
b) Medical tents
Things were relatively quiet, the influx of wounded having slowed to a steady trickle. Eirlys spends most of the afternoon as more of a first aider than healer, inspecting days old wounds for signs of infection, changing bandages and poultices, giving advice to far less severe cases - a man with a bad rash; a couple of cases of food poisoning; checking up on a pregnant woman. It's the sort of work she likes, providing a definite solution and feeling like she's making a difference, but without the same weight of the world that she'd felt with the pressure of the seriously wounded from Haven or the epidemics she'd helped treat in the alienage.
She's about to leave and find some dinner when a group of young men, barely more than teenagers, saunter up to the tents. One of them is limping badly, his arms around the shoulders of the other two, who are holding him up. A sparring injury, most likely. Eirlys stands as they approach, offering a smile that's far more confident than any she's given here so far-- then jumps back, startled, as one of the men spits at the ground in front of her, barely missing her feet. "Forget it," the wounded man says. "Don't want any knife-ear looking at it. Take me inside and get me an ale, I'll wait for one of the human healers."
The newfound spring in her step has disappeared as she makes her way back to the kitchens, and she walks with her shoulders hunched over, gaze fixed on the floor, her confidence having fled entirely.
c) Kitchen
She'd taken her supplies back with her, intending to distract herself by grinding up the necessary herbs for poultices, hoping that the mind-numbing work would help her forget and make the bitterness brewing in her disappear. Placing the vials of ingredients in the corner she's claimed, she turns her back for just a moment to see if there's any food left over when a cat comes bounding through, a huge chicken leg in its mouth, being chased by one of the cooks. As it evades the broom she's wielding it comes clattering through Eirlys' corner, the vials spilling over and the herbs scattering over the floor.
With a resigned sigh, she bends down and begins to clean up, sweeping up the elfroot leaves into one vial, embrium petals into another, and so on. However a keen eyed observer would notice that the neatly written labels on the vials don't match the ingredients she's pouring into them whatsoever. The spindleweed is tidied into a bottle reading blood lotus, the blood lotus in the elfroot jar, and so on.
She can't read. She's managed to conceal it so far -- although only to her detriment, as so much of the goings on at Skyhold have been communicated through the bulletin board, which she's entirely unable to make head nor tail of. But anyone walking through would be able to get the picture fast enough, even though Eirlys is oblivious that she's doing anything wrong.
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It's difficult for her to ask for help, especially with something like this, but she knew that there really wasn't any other option. She just had to swallow her pride and get it over with, glad that at least it was Korrin who'd found her, someone who wasn't going to belittle her for it. "If you wouldn't mind. It would be a great help to me."
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"Perhaps there should be drawings on the labels, in case it happens again. Or if you end up with the spare time, I can do my part to help make them intelligible to you." She's never taught anyone other than in matters of how to hold a staff and use battle magic. Reading is another issue, but since she already knows how, couldn't she find a way?