[OPEN] That which makes you different...

[madame_de_fer]

WHO: Vivienne and OPEN
WHAT: Catchall for November, including Mage Liason availability, prospective clothing choices for the Winter Palace, Knight-Enchanter training, and etiquette lessons
WHEN: Start of the month, leading up to Winter Palace event
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: Open to all, if there's something not listed here you'd like to do, lemme know or dive on in.

[Balcony]
So much is happening now and in the weeks to come. As always, Vivienne is installed at her balcony, holding court in a sense. Most days, her attention is given wholly to the business of meeting and working with the mages in the Inquisition in all their varied backgrounds and philosophies. No matter how petty, or grave, their concerns, she listens to them with undivided attention. Uncouth behavior will earn them a displeased stare, but those instances are few.

There is, however, an addition to her balcony in the form of a favored tailor. The Inquisition will be present at the Winter Palace for peace talks, as security and support. But they absolutely cannot show up at the Empress' home in Halamshiral looking like scruffy ragamuffins. The Iron Lady is pleased to offer advice, and the services of the tailor, to assure that a good and respectable impression is offered and maintained. Both in fashion and in manners.

[Courtyard]
Mentoring the young mages is just as important to Madame de Fer as is being available to the adults in their number. In truth, she finds the proper care and education of the apprentices and novices to be just as crucial as putting forth the proper foot when mingling with the nobility. As she has reminded others, there is nothing so dangerous to a young mage as a lack of knowledge. Vivienne has no intention to be thought of as negligent when it comes to the training the children. And privately? She enjoys it.

The First Enchanter stands in the center of a gaggle of youngsters, delivering a lecture on staff creation by apprentices. It's a skill they should all acquire and practice as it will serve them all their lives. The lesson is going less than ideal, however, as random outbursts of giggling break out when some apprentice thinks she's not paying attention. The source of their glee appears to be a copy of Thunderstorms In Your Room! being passed around with only middling sneakiness.

[Chapel]
Typically Vivienne keeps her personal devotions both personal and private. There is, naturally, a small icon of Andraste which she's had added to her balcony, but beyond that, she makes no grand showing of her faith. Some cynics could argue she expresses it in her adamant support of the Circles and their place under the care of the Chantry. (They wouldn't be wrong.)

But today is something of an outlier. In the early hours of the morning, she breezes into the chapel, as if strolling into the summer breakfast room at Bastien's estate. On entering, she crosses her heart and then lowers her head to recite the Chant. Only someone who frequents the sacred space regularly might realize how unusual an event this is. Has she turned more devout or is there something pressing on her heart? And does she even have a heart?

Comments

[mythalenaste]

It had been a prayer to Mythal to raise with Vivienne's prayer to the Maker, though Vivienne is human. But Mythal is the only god Pel expects to hear her, locked away though she is. She prays to the elven gods because they are the only ones in this universe of absentee deities who take elves seriously.

Pel had been clutching a ring she wears on a cord around her neck--fine silver with a green amber stone, and clearly an antique. Now she releases it and gives a faint, fleeting smile.

"I just...aneth ara, Vivienne." Whatever she had been about to say, she has changed her mind. "I've baked a cobbler. I thought you might like to have a little with tea."

[madame_de_fer]

Her whole life, Vivienne has made a practice of schooling herself to only show what she wished to be seen. It is a matter of self-preservation. Even so, on rare occasion, something will take her by surprise and leave her disarmed, if only for a fleeting second or two. Pel's offer falls under that category. It's the random offer of kindness on a day when she's feeling vulnerable that surprises and warms her. A genuine smile spreads across her face and she nods.

"Darling, you are a treasure. Thank you, yes, I would."

And while she very much wants to return the favor inquiring after Pel's welfare after her terrible ordeal, Vivienne doesn't want to taint the sweetness of the moment bringing up something harsher. Instead her eyes fall to the jewelry her Dalish friend is wearing. It's not shallowness that prompts the comment on it, but signs that it is dear to Pel.

"What a lovely ring. I've not seen craftsmanship like that in ages."

[mythalenaste]

A surprised blink. Vivienne is always surprising. Humans don't usually comment openly on the unique beauty of elven craftsmanship, not even antiques. It's one of those little things she does that seem to validate the cultures of the elves. Normally the ring would hang under Pel's tunic, but the corset has made things rather shelf-like up top, so it tends to sit rather than dangle.

"My mother gave it to me before I was...before I went to Clan Ashara." Before I was given away sounds like complaining, though it feels rather more accurate. "It's been in her family since Halamshiral, maybe before. Something passed down through daughters and granddaughters."

[madame_de_fer]

Ah now that hesitation Vivienne does catch and reads between the lines. It's no secret that the Dalish manage their mages by having excess numbers put out of the clan, either sent to another or packing off entirely on their own. It seems a terrible practice to the Iron Lady to leave a defenseless child to fend by itself alone and unwanted.

The sentiment behind a family heirloom is touching, however. It makes her just a tiny bit envious. "A connection to your heritage then. I cannot say I have been so fortunate myself. I have no memory of my family, though I am told they were Rivani merchants."

Perhaps dropping your daughter off at the nearest Circle on the road is no more a kindness than shuffling off excess elven mage children.

"It's good to know that some things have been preserved through the ages. Too much has been lost to mishandling and greed."

[mythalenaste]

"I've only met mine at the Arlathvhen." Pel has spent the last year certain she has little in common with Circle mages. She hadn't considered this very important commonality, least of all with Vivienne, who is a champion for the ways of the Circle. "I was too little to remember them, when I left. I'd...sort of thought Circles would be easier, by comparison. Ivory towers full of books and warm blankets and hot baths and all the food you needed. Full of people who don't know how hard you have to work in order to be a free mage."