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

[sandsofhell]

"Perhaps it's much more simple than what most people realize." He shrugged as well, downing more of his beverage, looking deep into his cup as if it would hold the answers. Before gazing back up at her. "Well that's for another day too, I guess."

[fleurdesel]

"That would be our luck." Overthinking all of this. "I am by no means an expert. Supposedly there is one with the Inquisition, but I have not seen them or heard of them since we arrived."

[sandsofhell]

"Well let's see if we're lucky enough that they come forward in the next few days." He offered her a smile from behind his cup before putting it down again. "Anything new besides the obvious then?"

Small talk, he's trying to make small talk here.

[fleurdesel]

"Aside from news from the mire and a plague of some sort that needs curing?" Really. Is this what they've come to? Her voice was as dry as the white wine passed around as she rattled off a list. "Apparently there is a new cheese in the kitchens they are not certain what to do with, a baffling case of all the custard having gone missing, someone is trimming the elfroot in the herbal garden improperly while harvesting it for smoking, there is a rumor of a stockpile of stuffed nugs hidden somewhere in the hold, mages that attempted to set a cook on fire are in charge of keeping her hearth clean for the next week, and I have heard there is some sort of 'king of owls' or 'king of pies' lurking in the basement."

[sandsofhell]

"I meant with you." He grunted, reclining slightly. It was hard to make any other form of conversation when you didn't really know a person. Still he'll play along if she doesn't want to talk about herself.

"...Think I'd prefer the title 'King of Pies' to 'King of Owls'."

[fleurdesel]

"Nothing that does not somehow connect to my 'voodoo'- or are you willing to believe in the fact of magic in this world now?" It was difficult to talk about yourself when a good portion of who and what you were was dismissed offhand.

[sandsofhell]

Scratching the top of his head before sighing." Guess I'm not really sure what's real and what's not anymore." But at least people flinging fireballs around is easier to stomach than...certain things. "Not the first time I've seen something I can't quite explain or believe."

[fleurdesel]

"Welcome to Thedas. Seeing things you can't explain or believe could be any day that ends with Y, at least as of late. If anyone told me a year ago that I would see a hole in the sky and people from other worlds would fall through? I'd call them delusional." As they are on this side of the veil and not the fade, it simply has to be some manner of possible.

[sandsofhell]

"And if someone told me that I was going to fall out of that hole in the sky I'd think the same as you." Or, perhaps he has no right to think of someone like that. "Especially if they told me the people on the other end can fling fireballs and lightening around silly-nilly."

[fleurdesel]

"My preferred element is Ice. Easier to control, offers for far more precision than fire or lightening." A demonstration wasn't precisely requested but she turned over her palm, crafting a knight in full plate mail in an obligatory heroic pose.

[sandsofhell]

He watched closely, curiously while an eyebrow raised itself. He didn't see any tricks, slight of hand or other. Instead it just...formed right before his eyes. His mind tried to rationalize it, but it was no use. At the very least it was more real than the cries inside of his head.

"Interesting, must help to keep the wine cool."

[fleurdesel]

"Among other things, yes." She curled her fingers around the knight, melting it back into flakes of snow that she shakes free afterward. "Most mages have skill with the primal school as they are the easiest to learn while young."

[sandsofhell]

Well that is rather interesting, isn't it? Ice, fire and lightening all at your will? He could see the applications for their uses, has seen them. Granted that fridge or ice box could prove to be just as effective, he wasn't about to go there. The rules here are different, as is the knowledge that these people hold. Or at least as near as he could tell, it will be a while yet before he's actually able to make heads or tails of their written language, but he's smart and thinks that he could be making some headway.

Or at least more headway than his people skills are right now. It might not be home, but it still felt a bit odd, wrong to be here and not in a cadaver alongside his friends. "So you've been doing that for a while then?"

[fleurdesel]

"Since my magic manifested as a child, yes. I froze a fountain- not all mages are quite so fortunate- those that manifest with lightening or fire tend to have far more disastrous stories. Some have even lost their families to their gift before they ever understood what was happening." She pauses to sip her wine, considering what he likely knew (precious little) and how much she is of a mind to tell (quite a bit).

"Afterward we were sent to Circles- establishments where mages learn to make the most of their gift and to control it safely. Some of them were better than others, a large part of the disagreements earlier today came from the various experiences of those that lived in them- and those that never had to." Apostates could be quite fortunate.

[sandsofhell]

Well if she certainly has his ear if she really wants to tell him. Leaning back, he chewed on her words for a moment, taking a sip of his wine to choose his next words. This is obviously a rather sensitive subject. "They're not your run of the mill, boarder schools, are they?"

Or would the proper term be were? He's still getting caught up on the goings on in this world.

[fleurdesel]

So long as it did not fall into explaining the nuances of why everyone was shouting at each other earlier in the day? She doesn't mind sharing. This was all background information, something anyone that knew something of mages in this world knew. "We live there and are taught- but aside from that? No. Each Circle ran differently. Some were as prisons, others like those in Tevinter are more prestigious universities but they've vastly different opinions of Magic than the South. Here we are seen as dangerous if left unchecked- and when we are of age we are Harrowed. Part of what makes a mage a mage is a connection to the fade- the realm beyond the rifts you may have seen before you fell through. When we dream or when we die- everyone goes there save Dwarves. Mages have a tighter connection to it and use that to reshape the world around them with their magic. As you saw- Demons are from the fade as well. They are drawn to us like moths to a flame."

[sandsofhell]

Well now he's heard quite a bit about this "Fade" already. But everything else? Completely new. Nobody's really opened up to him about such things before now. Still it opens up a whole slew of other questions, like what makes these "Tevinters" have such different views from their neighbors? What makes these Dwarves so different from everyone else?

Perhaps those questions could be seen on his face as well, as his eyebrows arch up in thought. "Sounds complicated." Was all that he could really mutter for now. That was quite a bit more information that she had unloaded on him than he was expecting. "What exactly makes them so attracted to you?"

[fleurdesel]

"The going theory is that we are easier to possess." That was the strongest in the Spire, that is what she'd been taught. "Mages strongest in the spirit school of magic- or Spirit healers, with a closer still tie to the fade? Are supposedly at even greater risk. But I have never had difficulty differentiating a Spirit from a Demon. Other mages and those that are not mages and encounter them? I cannot say."

It wasn't impossible to be possessed if one wasn't a mage- incredibly rare? Yes. But not impossible. She couldn't recall offhand any stories of those that had been, though.

[sandsofhell]

"So they lock you in a tower?" It almost sounds like a fairytale. If he was Lugo he may have cracked a joke about that, or several as they talked. "Can't be that easy though right? Like you said, you're not exactly trying to freeze me ore any others here."

In other words, it can't be all either, when someone has power, someone has something useful or has learned something useful, are usually the ones that are picked out and ostracized. "Must've given you a growing wanderlust."

[fleurdesel]

"Some circles allow trips out to the surrounding cities, some send mages out to provide their services in times of war or plague or famine in return for coin. As a healer I was allowed out, with an escort, to tend to the ill and injured of Val Royeaux and the surrounding countryside. I saw more than most in the Spire. Honestly? I was happy there. The library was well stocked, I was able to do my research, I could study and refine my skills and teach them to others. Not everyone had so fortunate a time in their circles." Otherwise there wouldn't be a war and a truce.

"Possessions are- I can't say. I've only ever had the one demon attempt it during my Harrowing. To be certain we are strong enough to not we are taken and made to face one in the fade. If we refuse we are made tranquil. If we fail and are possessed? We are killed. If we pass? We are considered mages fully rather than apprentices. Or rather that was the old system. I do not know if it will continue."

[sandsofhell]

That also made sense, if she spent most of her life there then it was only logical that she would come to see it as a second home. Of course not everyone must have felt that way, as she pointed out.

Not everyone's that fortunate.

"Change comes quickly, and catches us all off guard." Some handle it better than others. Once again, he drowned the rest of his alcohol, emptying his cup before sighing. One more before he had enough. "So, what did you do for fun?"

[fleurdesel]

"I will drink to that." She raises her glass and downs the rest of her wine, pulling another bottle from one of the side tables to fill both of their glasses. "Tease templars. Dance. Find wildy inaccurate texts on spirits and the fade and do dramatic readings of them for my fellow Enchanters. Write my family and see exactly how much I was missing by not being involved in The Grand Game and what sort of husband with which I managed to avoid being saddled. Test various ways of applying magic to the fermenting process of grapes to see if we could make a better wine- a Circle in Nevarra managed to perfect an ice wine with magic but we hadn't quite sorted out the how of it for our own take on it before..."

A vague, all encompasing gesture to the camp outside the tents. "Everything."

[sandsofhell]

He lets her fill his glass again this time, listening to her talk as she did so. "Alright, you like to do everything there is to do for fun..." Walker scratched his ever growing beard once then twice before downing more drink. "...What would you say is your favorite thing to do off of that list? It can't be the dramatic readings, or seeing what man your parents want you with. Though I bet making wine is a close contender."

The last part was said with a smirk and a pointed stare towards the bottle and her glass.

[fleurdesel]

"Is there a particular reason you are curious about how I spend my leisure time? Are you looking to take up a hobby?" Not that she minds the curiosity. Were she to find herself thrown into an entirely different world she'd be both terribly curious of everything and thoroughly bored out of her mind. "Aside from enjoying well made wine? Dancing. I have not had much reason to do so for some time."

It hasn't been exactly safe to do so. She has students to mind and patients to tend to. That doesn't conduct itself well to having a healthy social life.

[sandsofhell]

"Curious I guess, not many people here open up that quickly." That is, he doesn't really open up to other people that much. With varying reasons as well, all of which end in, 'they won't understand' or 'I can't tell them'. So listening to someone else talk about themselves and their thoughts is not only insightful to this world, but also somewhat therapeutic and helps to make him feel human.

"This isn't a time to dance? Would think that with all alcohol and food, people would be more rowdy." Again, he kept that smile, feeling more relaxed than he has for a very long time.