faderift | The secrets in the snow

"You may ask anyone and everyone that you could possibly think of: until this very month, I have not attempted to climb the walls but I was deemed fit and well to do so again. Same with my riding which, aside from our trip, I did not attempt either when The Walrus would crush me without meaning to if I fell off him." Also she didn't want to see if certain Rivaini healers would actually strangle her with her own hair if she tried any funny business because she's protective of her hair, she trusts so few people to lay a finger on it.

"I will." The breeziness is an attempt to cover up that even now she still feels a little embarrassed admitting to those she's known for some time that she does more than she lets on. Most people would probably say 'oh I started learning the lute' months ago instead of camping out on the rooftops with it mostly. "Some singing, some playing the lute, polite conversation with dreadful, boring and dreadfully boring people."

"I do not envy you that task," Christine replies, thinking back to her time in the Circle and the non-magical lessons they had in order to play the Game. She got out of what she could, but took the dance lessons as they were so fun and freeing. She had had no interest in the Game, and still doesn't to this day. Standing around the palace as an Inquisition guard while her countrymen say the most horrible things holds no appeal to her, and so she won't be attending.

"The Walrus?" Her eyes flicker to the nuggalope. "That is his name?"

"There is nothing that teaches you patience so well as listening to men talk and pretending to be interested. And when men are talking to a young woman they believe to be interested, it is incredible the things that will fall out of their mouths. I learned that before I came to Thedas thanks to my mother and father." Was there ever a time in her life when she wasn't watching and listening, when she wasn't so aware that everything is more than what it appears? Maybe when she was very small, before her mother sat her at the dresser and her father upon his knee at the card table. Now she does it without thinking, natural as breathing. "There are many lies, half-truths, all the shades between but you put the pieces together and something comes out that can be tucked away for better use. Information is sometimes more valuable than the rings they might have on their fingers or the coin in their pockets."

Araceli is a thief, Christine knows nothing more. And again she is uncomfortably reminded that she has been in Thedas longer than she has been in the guard with the palace now.

Laughing, she lifts her shoulders in a little shrug, patting his side fondly. "Do you not think it suits? Sometimes they come to some of our islands to haul out. Tusks not horns, flippers and tails instead of legs but very much the same...girth. He needed a name of great bearing."

"Well, I cannot deny that such talk may be beneficial," she says tentatively, because the idea of pompous nobles saying anything useful is so rare as to not be believed. "But the trial of having to learn such patience is one I am not yet willing to endure." She smiles faintly before adding, "Life in the Circle teaches you to hold your tongue and yourself in check at all times. I suppose I could endure their company if I had to, but I am better off here seeing to patients. Those skills you possess are very valuable, though. I see that." And it's lucky for the Inquisition that Araceli is willing to take one for the team and listen to all that nonsense that falls out of nobles' mouths. It was hard enough having to talk to them at Skyhold.

"I cannot say. I have never seen a walrus before. I have heard of them, but have never seen a drawing of them either." And she can't imagine she's likely to either. She has no great desire to travel to where they might dwell.

"But they are creatures deserving of grand names."

"Not even if it may benefit your research?" Araceli says it lightly, very lightly, scratching lightly under her mount's ears until he makes a pleased noise that she takes note of for later because she didn't know he liked that just as much as Lux did. "So many things my parents taught me when I was little, and it was fun, learning how to gamble and win money, or knowing things grown-ups didn't know that I knew. But it wasn't the way the Circle was. I wasn't watched. It was a game. I was running around with thieves when I was twelve, I know for almost all mages that's something they can scarcely imagine even at that age." Or: teach a girl to do it long enough and she forgets until other people tell her she's doing it, or she consciously stops herself from doing it.

"Not even a drawing! You break my heart, I cannot go on, hearing such things as this. What a terrible place this is when people have not seen a walrus - I shall draw you one when we are in Skyhold proper and it shall be yours to keep, that you may have a walrus of your own in Skyhold, the envy of all." Flinging a hand over her eyes - carefully so as not to spook the other walrus in this situation - she sighs heavily, as if her heart is well and truly broken. And you call yourself a healer Christine!

But it does make her wonder, when she pulls herself out of her dramatics with a giggle, with the way the other woman says it. "If you were to have one, what do you think you'd call it?"

Christine scoffs. "I only needed the nobles for their money in order to fund my research, but now that the Inquisition has Samson and his armor, I am quite well set up for funds." And therefore she has no need of the nobles anymore.

She hums at Araceli's observations. "No, indeed. Our lives were very strict and confined." But no longer. Here she is walking in the crisp air with a nuggalope of all things at her side. A chuckle escapes her at her friend's dramatics, though she is curious to see such a drawing.

"Oh, Maker, I do not know! I suppose something like..." There's a pause as her eyes take in the animal and his massive size. Like a mountain, he is. A brief smile touches her lips.

"Korth, perhaps."

"Do you work with him? Around him?" Lyrium research didn't make her so skittish when it was something she didn't understand. Now when it's something that's been done to her? Even if it's a completely different type of lyrium, when the research is vital, when it's being done by good people with good intentions who won't abduct anyone and hurt them, the word itself can still sit there as a ridiculous stumbling block.

Thus far, she hasn't had to deal with a Red Templar since that time in Emprise du Lion but given what they're facing, she knows well enough it's on the horizon.

"I do not want any of you to have to return to that," she replies, so serious again; there's work to be done, things she has to get back to when this is a new year and no one seems to know what any of the last was supposed to hold. The Walrus chooses to turn, nudging himself very carefully against Christine because excuse, there is much of him here for the petting if you don't mind? "Come to the library whenever you're free, I spend a god part of my day there from the late morning to the early afternoon, I can draw you a walrus during my break."

Flicking his ears when Araceli switches the hands she's leading him with, she casts her mind back, eyes flicking up as she tries to remember where she heard that before. "Korth...why does that seem familiar? I cannot think where I might have picked it up."

"I believe I will be soon," she answers, giving the Walrus a curious glance when he presses into her. But in the space of a blink she understands what he wants and starts smoothing her hand over his side. If Araceli wishes to know more, Christine will discuss the bits of her research that can be common knowledge, but if she doesn't wish to go down that road, it's fine.

"Ah, no wonder I rarely run into you. My hours in the library tend to be later." Closer to evening, when the already dim space is even dimmer and she sets up her candles on the table to be able to see her readings. Squinting isn't good for the eyes.

"He is an Avvar god. Korth the Mountain-Father, they call him. It seems appropriate given a nuggalope's size."

Yeah, that's the good stuff Christine, he is a happy nuggalope now. Lux can be a jealous little shit all he wants but he's small enough to sleep in the bed smooshed against Araceli and Korrin so he doesn't really have the right to be jealous of this. Araceli does lean over to see what his feet are doing but no, still fists. Foiled again. "Please take care. I have no wish for anyone to-" she swallows, not quite looking at Christine when she continues, "to be...affected so."

Like I was, she means, knowing that red lyrium drives people to lock others in cages in the middle of a freezing waste.

"I try to eat with Korrin, get some time on the walls and rooftops, and I have work to do in the tavern. It is a hard job to part so many from their money at the tables but if it must be done each night by someone, then I am willing to take on such a task. It reminds me of home - I'd go there most nights with friends, though they were all on the streets, more like places in Antiva but close enough." The level of gossip is on par and that's the bit that counts more so it's why she can't really miss more than an evening here or there.

"I like that. And they came from the mountains too, I think we might have been flattened without the help of that Avvar hold."

"Of course," she replies gently. "We have a rotation, so no one works near it more than one hour a week. In that way, we have protected ourselves from its power." And it's all due to Varric's suggestions on how to handle it that Christine enforces this plan.

Humming in amusement, Christine lifts a hand to massage behind the nuggalope's ear. "If that is how they wish to be parted from their money, then so be it. And I agree; these creatures are so foreign to us that it was good to have the help of the hold. They are all so practical there. It appeals to me."

Over the noise the nuggalope makes, especially once he decides he's happy to keep moving on, Araceli hums in approval. It's probably about as safe as it can be for something that can do what she's seen it do to people in the very end.

"You do not find it to be, how do I put this, rugged?" Is that polite enough? You know what, she doesn't really care if it's not because even if she's not a spoiled princess, there's a certain level of outdoorsy that Araceli can only deal with for short periods. Those tend to be getting to wherever they need to go and Inquisition forays to get a foothold into a new area. Beyond that? The Avvar way of life is too cold and too wild for her tastes.

The question makes Christine chuckle lightly, because Araceli is definitely right in her observation.

"Oh, I find it very rugged. They live far differently than I have. But... it appeals, in a way. I have never seen people who feel more free than them." And Christine gravitates towards freedom. Not in the way some mages have, with gnashed teeth and fire in their palms as they wish to mow down all who stand in between them and their goal, but in a quiet, steady way.

"They treat their mages like anyone else. I like that."

"Rivain was not so pleasant in the end for us even if it all worked in our favour but what they had there once? A Circle where they could practice their old ways, where they could be with their families? It was a better way to be than what was here before. A front as they got on with everything that had served them well." Maybe they'll get that back one day, maybe they won't. The Rivaini that came to Skyhold seem divided on it when they discuss it. "Some day you must go sailing though, all that ocean for miles - Christine, all the maps in your libraries and no one knows what sits at the edges of them!"

She smiles, tips her head back to imagine a sun that bursts through the clouds that is warmer than this, where the wind that so often tugs at her curls doesn't cut through.

"Maybe you might stand on a mountain and I might stand on the deck of a ship, and we will both be free and looking for more places like that for the rest."

"No doubt you have heard some Chantry sister or Templar say by now that it was mages themselves who first asked to be isolated in Circles with Templars to protect them." There's a dryness to her voice as she says this. "They do so love omitting the fact that mages wished for the isolation because villages were banding together to slaughter them. If the Chantry taught more peace and acceptance than fear and revulsion, Circles never would have existed in the first place." But training mages to learn how to safely use magic is important. "I always thought how nice it would have been to have schools to teach mages that allowed you home for holidays. Everyone -- not just the rich. And once you had proven you were a capable mage -- without being subjected to a Harrowing -- you could leave school and make your place in the world. If only the Rivaini way had caught on."

She chuckles at the idea of sailing, since she truly has no idea where she would even go. Adventure has never been something she's longed for. Safety and happiness are her goals in life. But she is curious about those who have sailed east and never returned.

"I wonder," she begins, an intrigued tone to her voice, "if those who made the attempt were lost in a storm or if they made it to a new land that is such a paradise that they have no desire to ever return." She shrugs. "Or perhaps they met hostile natives. It is difficult to say what might be out there." But a smirk slides onto her face as she glances over at her friend. "Are you saying you wish to see what is out there? If the land is empty of people, you could name it yourself!"

"Something like that. The time of Ambrosia the Second, mages protesting no better use for their magic than lighting the eternal flame - that is the correct term for it, no? - before they barricaded themselves within the cathedral for three weeks. The separation then from the Chantry into the Circle for study though of course, it sounds much too neat, too simple for it to have been that way for all." Araceli did discuss it with a Seeker when they had been discussing said book but she isn't about to reveal her source so easily. Still, she isn't wholly ignorant, not compared to some given that she does wish to help mages gain their freedom. "Perhaps some place such as the University of Orlais and the Circle of Dairsmuid before the Seekers came to it, if such a thing could ever be."

Which...isn't something she's voiced before but it's something perhaps to test. To try out. And of course there is Nevarra with their own ways, and then to see if there is anything they might salvage of the Circle without stirring up so much feeling on either side that any debate is made impossible. If there is even a scrap they could take from Tevinter not considered tainted.

(Perhaps, she thinks, it might be time to write to Lady Thevenet once again to truly test the waters.)

Then they are talking of the sea and she is able to smile same as the sun might appear through passing cloud.

"Naming a land isn't what interests me, no, land has been keeping me far too long already up here in the mountains. I am of a nation of sailors who upon finding each country where I call home still sail with our hungry hearts to remind all who settled where they came from, so I would keep searching, keep roaming." When she talks this way she can taste the salt-spray on her tongue, hear the gulls screaming overhead above the groan of the hull, the lash of the sails in the wind. "I want to see. I want to know it - I know every island of Castileos and every rooftop, there are no mysteries of Thedas on your maps for me to discover when your scholars have picked them clean."

"History is written by those in power," Christine says simply. "And since that is the Chantry, you can imagine all the truth that has been lost through the years." It feels good to speak this way, knowing the person she's talking to won't run off and turn her in for being a heretic. The Chantry turns a blind eye to Dalish elves and the dwarves when it comes to worshiping the Maker, knowing that their Exalted Marches have hardly accomplished the spread of the Chant to all corners of the world, but an Orlesian human not licking the Chantry's boots? Maker forbid!

"Perhaps. I do believe mages need training, and it is unrealistic to expect every village and town to have a school, but if there was less fear, there could be more freedoms." But like Araceli, she doesn't know if such a thing will ever come to pass.

"I see you have a wanderer's spirit," she replies good-naturedly. "You and I differ there. I have always wished for safety and security -- of my own choosing. Not barred doors and being watched, but simply the feeling that I am protected. Becoming a Knight-Enchanter has helped with protecting myself."

"I doubt even in your larger towns that all the people there can read, and if they write then it's the writing that they need to know; to sign a name, to know a few numbers if it involves paying for things, recognising the essential and the basic things. It's the same where I am from and in other countries there." An old and painful thing, maybe not what a mage or any mage wants reminding of but they've had an education most can scarcely even dream of. It's not even something people talk about in Thedas at all from what she's heard. How can anyone hope for better when there's so little understanding, when people can't learn for themselves, when unless a rare glint of light shines upon them or they're born to a life of wealth they simply aren't afforded the opportunity.

"My parents aren't noble but being their daughter, it meant that where I grew up, there were people looking after me. Watching out for me. I got into the worst sorts of trouble and if you go to the wrong place in Castileos, bad things can happen but I need the wind in my hair. I need risk, to roll the hard six. But in Thedas? Being a bard is the best way to accomplish what I must, same as being a Knight-Enchanter is for you."

"Mmm, true, but you would be surprised. It is more than you would think." For some reason, Thedas is a world of letter writers, journal keepers, and amateur novelists. Even around Skyhold, there are discarded lists, notes, orders, etc. from the wide array of people here.

"I am glad you have opportunities here," she says, slowing her steps as they reach a point where she wants to turn back. "And that in some ways we can give you what you need. I often think what if I was the one who was sent to another strange world, and I am not sure how I would fare. But you have done wonderfully."

She nods back up the path. "And with that said, I think I should be heading back. Enjoy your ride, Araceli."

The secrets in the snow

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