faderift | The secrets in the snow

Bruce glances in the direction of the voice that calls his name, taking a moment to place both the voice and the face - not that it takes long, since Morrigan does stand out quite a bit from everybody else. No offence intended.

"Hello," he returns the greeting, managing a small smile he does so. Close by he can see Kieran occupying himself rather well, and the sight of the child having such fun is quite... heartwarming. It's good to see that despite it all, children could still be children and not anything else.

He turns his gaze back to the spread of herbs in front of him before continuing to speak. "Probably the same as you. We pretty much have the same stocks, for the most part." Give or take a little.

"I have warned them to stay well away from the stables. I can hardly imagine the carnage of horses, dracolisks and now nuggalopes caught by a stray snowball," she murmurs conspiratorially though from the way she almost smirks, she just about can imagine the devastation in the aftermath, at least a little.

"Yet I doubt we have the same intent in mind when using them; I know more ways to poison with this one," she taps one of the bundles in her own basket, something that looks and is relatively harmless most of the time, "than to heal. Perhaps when one side or the other emerges victorious in Orlais we might find some things more easy to come by before the inevitable influx of weary and wounded souls is upon us once again. Did you attend the ball? I was...preoccupied."

Which she says in a way that leaves no doubt that she spent much of the evening 'politely' upsetting and terrorising some guests, and imagining the ways in which the others might have some sort of tragic mishap when she couldn't find some sort of fitting company.

It's all too easy to imagine the disaster that might come from what Morrigan suggests. Bruce lets out a small snort of his own before he shakes his head. Hopefully that's something they'll never have to actually see with their own eyes.

At the next part of Morrigan's response Bruce shifts his gaze over to the bundle that Morrigan taps on, and a wry smile crosses his face. He's hardly surprised by her words, honestly, though the thought of the mess happening in Orlais ending was a nice idea. It was about high time that happened, really.

"I didn't," he replies with a shrug. "Even if I'm an agent now, I'm still a surgeon first and foremost. Somebody like me has no place in the Winter Palace." Even if he had... certain positions he never asked for.

Imagine if you will: we now commend the soul of this horsemaster to the Maker, we all know he only ever wanted good proper honest Fereldan horses, what have you people done to him?

"I did not think I saw you there, though I would have welcomed more who could hold a meaningful conversation with less fluttering and less...less being Orlesian." All thess years and honestly it really can only be summed up in such a manner. "And yet given the penchant for poisonings, stabbings, all the many tricks a bard might employ not to mention the possibility of assassins when so much is at stake? Such skills might be more in need than you know."

An Orlesian party of such a scale without at least six deaths is considered a dull affair.

At least the horsemaster now has much better job opportunities after all of this - not many can say they've taken care of horses, dracolisks, nuggalopes and also griffons.

The smile remains on Bruce's face at Morrigan's response. He certainly wouldn't have minded her company as well if he had been there - he could easily imagine himself not being part of the main event at all. "Considering how everything is so... Orlesian there, I have a feeling anything I might do to help has a possibility of only making things worse in one way or another."

Help this duke and some other duke feels insulted; aid a lady and another sends their wrath. Bruce knows better than to try and push through the incomprehensible subtleties that take place within the Great Game.

"Ever so hard on yourself." A small roll of her eyes as she hands over her coin and turns from the merchant, her business concluded with them for now. The Circle marked you well, she might have said but so many things stay in her head and don't make it out of her mouth. Again, she's changed. "Though without some to remain in Skyhold I am certain some calamity would have befallen it; did anything go amiss? Assassins within the walls? Rifts opening? The water supply fouling itself?"

Out of respect for certain missions, she doesn't bring up abominations. And Bruce was there in Kirkwall (was it Kirkwall? Wherever Merrill's eluvian took them) when she ran through the darkness chasing a boy not hers.

"One trip away to Kirkwall and now is the first I feel I have had time to gather breath in Skyhold since."

"Being complacent never got me anywhere." All it got him was pain and anger and hatred. Those were things Bruce hoped he could move from, one day. A tall order, of course, but the hope was there. Or what little was left of it anyway.

After Morrigan makes her payment Bruce does the same as well, settling on his own purchases and thanking the merchant for their help and service. He puts the the herbs into the basket that he's taken along with him, and another wry smile crosses his face at her words. "Some of the chickens decided to kick up a fuss, but otherwise things were pretty quiet here." Which was definitely the best he could ask for.

He takes a moment to ensure that his purchases are properly stashed away before continuing to speak. "It has been a rather busy few weeks. It's good to have some time to breathe after all that's happened thus far." Though he can only hope this calm doesn't lead to anything worse.

"What has meaning in the world, now more than ever? Survival, I believe. Power there is too, but power is so many things." Time and distance, and now she can value the survival bit more than she did before, so maybe that part of Flemeth's teachings isn't so hopelessly warped. Because for a lot of people here, simply saying that yes, they did make it, they are here, is likely one of their greatest accomplishments.

(Maybe she simply doesn't wish to think of it as one of hers when it implies Flemeth too close behind, when it implies too much gratitude to another, when it's too many complicated things that all have teeth and sink into her like the swamps of the Wilds.)

A snowball almost comes too close just as she starts walking but a short burst of magic gets rid of it, both eyebrows suggesting that perhaps all the children should run along. Kieran waves with his bright red cheeks then races to catch up so she's sure she knows who the culprit is. "Is that not the very last word you are meant to say at such times? What old wives would call tempting fate, as if such a thing needed tempting in the first place." She's teasing, though given the state of things…

"There is a danger, however, when there is little else to look to. A time when too many look within, look at all that they dislike within the Inquisition, all the differences they might find with naught to turn themselves to. You might have your healing, but how many others have such works?"

Survival, huh. Bruce supposes he can see that... though for somebody like him, normal things rarely applied to him, if ever. Such as this case. Survival was far from the most important thing that mattered to him.

(How could one think of survival when he couldn't even throw his life away when he wanted to?)

He startles a little when a snowball seemingly comes from nowhere, having been lost in his thoughts, but Morrigan takes care of it before it does any sort of damage. He turns his gaze towards the children, seeing Kieran as he waves back at his mother before following along the other children. Kids would always be kids, as they say. Bruce certainly hopes that can hold true throughout all of this.

"A wish then, I suppose," he replies, and his expression turns a bit more somber at what she says next. "Big organizations always has such risks." Be it the Seekers or Templars or even in the Circles when they still stood, those sort of feelings were there in some shape or form - after all, it was because of those kind of emotions that drove Bruce down the path he was stuck on now in the first place. A desire to be more, to try and make a change against all the things that were against you. "harder still, when none of us here really have a person to look at for answers when we seek them." Not since the passing of the Herald.

There are a few people, outside of Kieran, that Morrigan would fight tooth and nail for. Leliana. Alistair. Zevran. Gwenaëlle. Then there are another few who have managed to sneak in there, individuals whom if lost in some way she would miss, she would seek to harm whatever had caused it. Bruce has snuck himself in there somehow.

(Also do you want Kieran to come stare directly into your soul because that's just tempting fate right there.)

So far, even the children that she knows have been touched by the war - the ones from the Circles that Kieran attends lessons with, the children from the camp that he likes to play with that have come from far and wide seeing blood and carnage along the way - still know how to be children. Everyone has nightmares. If there are those in this world that don't, then she would imagine they're often those in the position to be helping to put an end to them.

"I wonder, whatever happened to that first Inquisition? Did they seek to escape all that was thrust upon them? Imagine, attempting to lead all of this; 'twas enough for Jonas to gather a single army across a single country with existing treaties with a Blight upon the land." Okay so maybe not everyone had agreed about the Blight but it's pretty hard to argue a Blight by the time a Darkspawn army has started biting you in the arse. "Only a fool would be willing to take this on. Are you offering to stand yourself?" There are worse candidates, generally the entirity of the Templars or pro-Chantry/pro-Circle folks but is she teasing, it's so hard to tell when she's giving you Enigmatic Smirk Number Seventeen.

It was important that children could still let themselves be children - never having the chance for a child's simple life himself, Bruce considered that a privilege. It was good that children had their days of playing and caring little of the world beyond what was around them. Once those times were lost... they could never be recovered, not fully.

(People looking directly into him has never been his favorite thing to experience.)

"I can scarcely imagine." To... everything, really. The former Inquisition, as well as the team that was now known as the Heroes of the Fifth Blight. Sometimes just talking to people like Morrigan and Zevran like this now made it hard for him to imagine them ten years back during the Blight. Then again its not as if he had much experience of the outside world then, since his life was still confined to the walls of the Dayton Circle.

For the next part though, Bruce quickly shakes his head. "That's the last thing I want. I don't do well with responsibility." Or at least, that kind of huge responsibility. He almost had that once, in Harlem, and the thirst for more proved to be his undoing. He's learned a lost since then.

What is childhood? The shadow of a thing that looms larger than either of them, something sharp that bites and claws, that places a hand on the shoulder at an unexpected moment as if to drag a body back through the years perhaps. For both of them too there are Templars though Morrigan's all died at least, chasing after a shrieking girl in a bog who never understood that part of the game was dangerous too.

What her son knows about the world as it is, cannot be helped, must be what they are to keep him alive, to make him ready. But he walks taller than she did at his age at least.

Heroes. Do any of them feel like heroes? Oghren, perhaps, when he has enough drink in him but such a title appended to her own name has never felt fitting, not entirely. A young woman with a plan, making a friend she had not thought to, and now she wonders where he is. Mostly, she hopes that he's well. Assures herself that somehow she would know in her bones that if he was lost to them that she'd feel it, she'd know it, surely she would, she would.

"Do you not have that now? As you are within the healers?" It's a genuine curiousity since she doesn't know how they actually govern themselves at all, if they answer to anyone or even each other. "I had thought you headed a mission of no small importance not so very long ago also."

Even if Morrigan didn't consider herself one Bruce was pretty sure that there was at least some people who would. After all she was one of the ones that saved Ferelden from the Blight, had been one in Warden Cousland's groups with Zevran and Alistair. Even from that alone she had her reputation.

But as it always was with things like these, there was always more to it than just their reputation.

He shakes his head in response to the question. "No, I'm just simple surgeon." The healers generally were more of a community than having any kind of authority over one another, as far as he was aware. There was a time where it seemed like some of them wanted to have some kind of organization... but that never really happened, so. "And that mission wasn't anything really important. Just some gathering of materials and such." And he always preferred to let somebody else lead - it was better off this way. "I'm just glad I can contribute somehow."

Have you ever watched an owl perched in a high branch? The particular way one ever so slowly turns its head to an angle that doesn't quite seem natural? Something about the way Morrigan looks at him and holds herself carries the suggestion of it.

"I have seen my share of them." Some, she thinks, might have been little better than the village butcher called in at a time of crisis in some cases, perhaps the blacksmith. "Ever this insistence on shrinking away; an admission of pride in oneself and skill does not mean baring your neck to the demons." That's about as gentle an admonishment as Morrigan can make it in all honesty, as if he's being more than a little ridiculous but she can't quite understand it. The only time she plays at false modesty is if she has ever wished for some sort of praise, when she's wanted to play coy.

Mostly she's past that. Not that she would admit it, she'd wrap someone in webbing from the rafters in the main hall before she did.

The wry smile that crosses Bruce's face pretty much shows that he got Morrigan's point there. He knows that she means well, but though she doesn't know he had been there before - the fool who prided on his work, was once proud of his achievements and all that he did. The pride made him raise his head high, had made him think himself more than who he really was. And that mistake had cost him everything. He knows better than to tempt fate once more.

"It's just good to keep things in perspective," is all that he says in response. "The last thing I want to do is to have my head in the clouds." He would never want to lose himself again like that. The price for the first time had been great. He knew he was probably not going to go through a second time intact in any fashion.

"What of the year to come then? You must have some plans." Perhaps she is better to refocus lest they talk themselves in a circle, or before she might well lose her patience or say the wrong thing. Time has taught her that she does indeed do that. Some of it is on purpose, some of it not. "The dust settles in one arena yet there is much of Orlais marked by the war. Even in Serault."

Serault, the backwater of the Empire for all that it still produces beautiful things.

"The Exalted Plains ravaged by the war, who knows what state the Emerald Graves lie in. Will you turn to those places or will you remain closer to Skyhold?"

It's hard to say if he really had plans. Plans were for people with a future, with a tomorrow that comes, and neither of those were things that he truly deserved. For him all he could really do was to live each day as it passes by, doing the best he can in every moment.

"I'll probably stay in Skyhold unless I've been sent out on a mission." Especially since a good number of people here are part of the Inquisition as well; being able to help them will mean more aid for the Inquisition in general, and more help was always good. "But I guess that can change depending on whatever happens." The dust in Orlais was finally starting to settle, but inevitably something else was going to take its place. All they could do was to be ready for anything.

"Should the Inquisition turn toward the Emerald Graves, tis not an opportunity to be turned aside. There is such history there, a place man has spoiled far less than elsewhere in recent history." It didn't have quite what she was looking for so her time spent there wasn't so long as other places but this is Morrigan who has always been able to admire the beauty of somewhere wild and unspoiled. Lush and green in her memory, dotted with summer homes of the nobility as is the norm for Orlesians but war hasn't touched it.

Such a small thing to be grateful for, that the ruins there will not be scarred by yet more battle.

The Emerald Graves... Morrigan wasn't wrong with what she had said. It had been relatively safe from the conflict thus far, and it would be good to keep it that way. The wildlife there was also something to be appreciated as well. Going there would be a good idea.

"Maybe," he eventually replies. "I'll keep it in mind if the Inquisition is going to head there next."

The secrets in the snow

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