A bottle of white, a bottle of red

[fleurdesel]

WHO: Open to anyone that wants wine and warmth and a little company.
WHAT: Wine and no whining.
WHEN: After the mage meeting wraps up.
WHERE: Close to the healing tents, specifically the Orlesian section.
NOTES: There will be wine, drinking, unwinding, and nibbles.

The meeting had been stressful for just about everyone involved. Tempers had flared, opinions made known, a few rounds of confetti and arguing before some manner of accord. Whether it would last or however long it might? No one could truly say. In the interest of being quite done with the stress and headaches such debate brought on the Orlesian healing tents clearing out the potions, bandages, and poultices in favor of what cushions and braziers they had on hand for light and for heat. The space was open, warm, and inviting with an odd assortment of tin mugs or clay glasses set around flat side tables propped up with stones to keep them from wobbling and tipping the whole mass onto the ground. There are some dried fruits and hard cheeses, dried meat and hard crusted bread- whatever scraps they could scavenge or spare and a few bottles of wine or brandy. Across the entrance to the tents there was a sign:

Bring a bottle or food to share for entry.

Tacked below was a list of rules:

• Everyone is welcome, don't make a fuss
• Don't hog the wine
• Don't hog the food
• Don't fight or argue
• If you finish a bottle open a new one, don't recork it for someone else to find
• Clean up after yourselves

Comments

[mythalenaste]

Pel frowns faintly. Ellana doesn't seem as confident as she expected, though Pel has always figured someone as gorgeous and charming as Ellana must...know it, somehow. She wishes now that she knew her better, to read her.

"They most certainly can do that here," she says carefully, "and they will try. Often. They tried in that meeting, and they won't stop.

"You don't...have to do this. It was only a suggestion."

[serannas]

Ellana knows that some in the clan (those paying attention) are aware of her fascination with humans, but that doesn't mean she plans to let them walk all over her or the others in Skyhold who have never needed a Circle.

"Tried, but didn't succeed," she points out, or else the outcome of the meeting would have gone very differently.

"I'm... honored that you thought of me, Pel." She hadn't expected her name to come to anyone's mind when it came to a role such as this. "I know Sina would never want to be the center of attention, and-- well, there's Merrill. What do you think of her?"

[mythalenaste]

Pel immediately shakes her head.

"Merrill left the Dalish. She won't have our best interests at heart, or she wouldn't have left. And claiming to return just to take a position of power over us would be...no. Not Merrill."

[serannas]

"Oh." Ellana nods along, though Pel's dismissal does make her heart sink a little. She's always wanted to go out and see the world, but like Gavin, she would always come back. Ellana would never really leave the Dalish, it's just that she wonders if they would want her to come back.

"I don't think Merrill has it in her to claim power over anyone." Her head tilts in thought. "I wouldn't do that to us either -- act like I had power over the rest of you. The point is to be a representative, isn't it? To make the Dalish voice heard and make sure we aren't being overlooked, or made to do things we don't agree with. Right?"

[mythalenaste]

"That's...more or less what power is, Ellana. If you're doing it right. Sometimes it means being the deciding voice if there's a split vote, or if nobody has strong feelings. And when those times come up, I don't trust Merrill to choose in a way that favors the Dalish. It'll be some abstract greater good, and that's what gets used as a bludgeon."

[serannas]

Her pale cheeks color a little, and she dips her head in understanding. This is an example of something the Keeper left out of her own training as a mage.

"Merrill is good and sweet, but if she's decided she's no longer one of us, then she wouldn't be the best voice, no." That doesn't mean Ellana doesn't like Merrill as a person, because she does.

[mythalenaste]

Pel seems to relax a little. A faint smile touches her lips.

"Maybe you shouldn't. And not because you would do poorly--to the contrary, I think you'd be excellent. I just..."

She figures out how to word it, and releases a breath.

"Sorrel and I were always raised with a certain expectation. You escaped that. I'd hate to see you chained. Least of all right when you came to a place where you could be free."

[serannas]

"Is that how you see it?" Ellana shakes her head. "I've always looked at you and saw that you have a purpose. You can think of your future and know where you're going. I've always lacked a purpose. I've been drifting." And she's always been a little jealous of Pel having that security, but she doesn't voice it aloud.

"The Inquisition has been freeing. More than I can put into words. But I'm not here to escape the clan; I'm here to help do good, to protect people, and that includes our clan, even though they're far away from all this. Evil will spread to them unless we cut it off here."

[mythalenaste]

"It's not that you didn't have a purpose, lethallan." Pel is suddenly mildly alarmed, eager to banish this way of thinking. Poor, dear Ellana! "It's that your purpose was always in your own hands and no one else's. You were free to decide what it was. There's scarcely a mage in Thedas with that freedom. You can be anything you want to be."

A smile.

"You could be a member of the mage council in the Inquisition. You could craft extraordinary tapestries or transcribe histories. You could be a duchess. Elves can't even be duchesses and you could be a duchess."

She barely even knows what a duchess is, but it sounds lofty.

"And you don't have to decide now. You don't even have to feel any way about it now, just...put it in the back of your mind and see if it makes you happy."

[serannas]

Now it's Ellana's turn to be surprised. "But I couldn't do that before, not in the clan. Everyone already had a role, and the Keeper wouldn't let me leave. At least you were allowed to attend Arlathvhen. But here, things are different. I think I could find something that fits."

Her eyes lower to her lap, but she's smiling to herself. "It's exciting. I'll have to see what happens here."

[mythalenaste]

Ugh, Arlathvhen.

"I had to attend Arlathvhen, and my time there was monopolized by my blood family. If you wanted to come, you could have asked. Or...did you?"

Pel was such an independent child that their Keeper only half-raised her. There's every reason for her to wonder now if Ellana had a very different experience with her.

[serannas]

Ellana can't see what's wrong with spending time with her blood family. But then again, Ellana has no family left and only has good memories of them. Another chance to see them is one she wouldn't waste.

"I couldn't go. I did ask, once, but Keeper Deheune said that everyone would assume I was there to be given to another clan, and we would look selfish if I wouldn't go with them. So I had to stay behind." It was like Ellana was Clan Ashara's secret, always hidden away. "She was good to me. She didn't have to keep me, but she did."