faderift | [Open] the one who survives by making the lives of others worthwhile

WHO: The Medicine Seller and Open!
WHAT: The Medicine Seller wants to get his bearings. Or sell medicine. Since he’s a medicine seller.
WHEN: Feb 2017/Guardian, 9:43 Dragon
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: Open starters below - message me on this journal or at

GreenRivers if you want a private starter.

A. Got A Remedy For That
The thing the Medicine Seller noticed about people was that they generally saw what they wanted to see so long as it fit their personal narrative of the world. Despite his numerous tells, he'd passed easily as human in his own world. He was the right general shape, and what words couldn’t explain away, a pretty face could certainly distract from.

Here, it was even easier to go unnoticed. Most had but a passing familiarity with the Dalish and their lore, so when they saw his pointy ears and facial markings, and assumed he was just some elf who'd nicked an Orlesian noble's bathrobe and was going for A Look, it made things quite convenient. And he wasn't one to deny people their assumptions when they benefited him.

Dalish may have had a stigma, but between that or being considered the very thing he existed to fight, the former misconception was infinitely less trying.

He didn’t have a stall set up, so much as a few planks of wood balanced together to make a crude, make-shift table. Which he had then covered with a cloth. There were bottles, flasks, vials, powder packets, small, colourful silk pouches and ornate lacquered boxes, bright and vibrant against the gray winter backdrop of the fortress. He’d set a few other planks down to sit on, sparing his knees the cold, winter mud.

He was out of the way of the main hubbub of the merchant stalls and there were no signs or boards with a list of prices, but the vibrancy of his attire and stock made him and his wares impossible to miss. If one was in need of a remedy, they could do far worse.

B. The Price of Knowledge
Being a stranger in a strange land was new to the Medicine Seller, but once the novelty of it wore off, it really wasn’t so different from home. People were people wherever you went - however different their appearances, customs, and cultures, they were still driven by the same emotions.

Still, customs were important, and moreover, he hated not knowing things. Especially things that could make him seem ignorant. It didn’t do to be ignorant if you could help it.

The library had proven beneficial. At the very least he had become acquainted with the Chantry’s version of Thedosian history. He doubted it was in any way accurate or removed from bias (which the historian Genitivi had at least admitted to in his writings), but it was still useful. The more he read, the more he understood the attitudes and inclinations of this society.

The books on medicine were also quite informative - elfroot seemed to go in just about every cure for any ailment which certainly made his job easy. Deep mushrooms also seemed to be a fairly common component.

He was not particularly neat with his research - books were scattered about his work space, some half open, others in haphazard stacks. His notes on Thedas’s medicinal herbs were just as erratically spaced, though his calligraphy and brushwork copying the illustrations was meticulous and quite skillful, if completely illegible to almost anyone in Skyhold.

Still, history and medical books could become a bit tiresome after a while, even for someone with the Medicine Seller’s boundless patience. He deemed a break necessary and went in search of some fiction, leaving his mess for now.

Hard in Hightown 3: The Re-Punchening sounded like some particularly delightful literary schlock. He returned to his spot, lit the tobacco in the bowl of his kiseru, and sat back, prepared to be thoroughly entertained.

C. Curiosity Killed The Cat
Skyhold was a curiosity in and of itself, and the Medicine Seller could hardly refrain from exploring the grounds. It wasn’t often one got the opportunity to poke around a fortress, and while there was work ahead of him here, he was rather nosy.

The ramparts offered quite a view of the chilly Frostbacks. The great hall was aptly named, altogether rather grand with its high ceilings and the imposing throne. The stables held a wide variety of peculiar animals. The gardens had all manner of botanical goodies. The place was absolutely huge and, if rumour was to be believed, quite a windfall for the Inquisition in its budding stages.

Such things were very interesting to the Medicine Seller. He’d move on once he was able to play by this world’s rules and pass through society without too much in ways of questions, but this was certainly ideal for the time being.

D. Wildcard!
Is the Medicine Man eavesdropping on your business? Did you spot him petting a good cat or talking to his weird sword? Did he sell you some faulty medicine? Anything goes!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"What do you call natural and unnatural? Some might say that changing shape from woman to wolf or raven as it might please would be enough to be enough to call her maleficar."

Which is the problem with trying to neatly label magic when you can at most say 'this is fire, or ice, or lightning' before you remember once again that it's artifical, that all of it has been carried through so many hands and minds and years as to render it near unfit for purpose in the end.

"I am the arcane advisor to the Inquisition." That's never been a secret, far less so as the months have carried on with certain objects arriving in Skyhold with her involvement in some fashion. "I have studied such things, delved deep into ruins, ventured to many a strange destination. Tis why I am here, after all."

"Change is the state of both the heart and mind," he said simply.

"There is little reason for it not to be the state of one's exterior as well."

After all, there was a long tradition of beasts turning into humans and humans turning into beasts in folklore where he was from. He saw no reason for it to be otherwise in another land.

"That is a considerable position," he remarked, lowering his head in deference. He wasn't sure what was or was not considered polite or what the social pecking order was, but he was fairly certain merchants fell under arcane advisors. It didn't hurt to err on the side of caution and keep up the facade.

"Such places must have been of great interest."

"Here tis something feared, fought, resisted by many. They cling so tightly to what they knew simply because it is what they knew. The mages that clamour to return to the Circle who do not look to the elves and what became of them, who do not think that the very same thing will not become of them when there are a great many things that might be done to them." Tranquility, death for so many reasons, learning to fear their magic leaving them without any strength should the demons come. "The notion that elves might deserve to be treated as equals boggles the mind, anything more and heads might well explode."

She exaggerates but should that be the case, it might not be such a bad thing. Maybe they could get something done without those voices howling so loud and so long against everything.

"A means to an end, the scornful sorceress is another name or 'that dreaded maleficar'. Or Celene's pet apostate. Whatever they prefer depending on the fashions." Smiling, because the names amuse her far more than those that gave them to her, she does wonder what such a person as a medicine seller might be nicknamed in time. Everyone collects them after all.

"Many are nothing short of wonders though little remains; what the ancients were capable of...able to bend space and time to suit their whim, if you can imagine such a thing."

There was a hint of a smile as the Medicine Seller contemplated Morrigan's colourful use of imagery. Change was slow to come when the status quo benefited those in power, but it would come nonetheless.

"My, what a mess that would make."

As Morrigan rattled off the list of 'titles' she'd acquired, the Medicine Seller suspected that she was no one's 'pet' anything.

"So many names - I suspect by their volume, none are really able to stick."

Such was often the case when it came to a person who did not allow others to define them.

"I would be interested in hearing what you have seen and learned, however. Such places sound truly fascinating."

"To give a name is power. Simply my name suffices, or Witch of the Wilds." After all, she is still very much that. Not even Flemeth can wholly lay claim to it when the tales do make mention of her daughters.

(Daughters. Only one she ever tried to sink her claws into.)

"Much of the fighting in Orlais will have come to an end now so the Exalted Plains, Dirthavaren as the elves know it, will no longer be rife with fighting. I do not believe the Emerald Graves were ravaged so, they have far greater history within. Though any farflung corner will have an elven site if one knows what to look for; the Hinterlands, the Brecilian Forest, Sundermount in Kirkwall. Should you wish to visit any, there are many to choose from."

Maybe not Sundermount. On account of how the things raised there to fight Tevinter never passed with those who called them to such a purpose, so now they wander, ready to inflict violence upon any on those paths.

He didn't pass comment. The only indication that he'd even heard that was the slow curl of his lips into an unmistakable smirk. That was a truth that seemed almost universal.

Which is why the Medicine Seller never bothered getting a proper name. Or staying in a single place long enough where one might be required.

"I have heard the Brecilian Forest mentioned once before."

He pondered for a minute, resting his chin between his thumb and forefinger.

"It is not often tree spirits grow wrathful."

"It played a role in the Fifth Blight though I believe there was a group who ventured there not long ago. For what I am not entirely sure." There's a hint of annoyance; a cat smoothing its fur after having it rubbed the wrong way by someone's hand before it passes.

That takes a moment though, she hates that something passed her by. (She can blame Cousland though. Another thing to add to the long list.)

"Do such things exist where you are from? They are sylvans here, unpleasant to fight if you are caught amongst the branches, spirits or demons - rage demons mostly - that possess trees and twist them." Magic, dragons, demons existing at all, she has asked after those things but trees do not have spirits of their own here, it is something new to consider.

Morrigan's agitation didn't pass him by. He wondered if there was something of greater interest to her in the forest.

"How unfortunate. Perhaps another opportunity will arise."

If it did, he'd certainly be interested in taking a look. The woods seemed to contain much more than angry trees.

"They are called Kodama in my homeland. Though on the island of Okinawa, they are known as Kiinushi."

The faint smirk had vanished as quickly as it appeared, his features mask-like as ever. He'd spent a great deal of time traveling through wild lands - forests, mountains, wetlands - when trees were enraged, something was very wrong.

"They do not possess the tree, however. So it is, perhaps, not the same."

No less concerning, though.

More a missed opportunity that another got to discover. She hates that. Hates not being the one to know something best about what she has dedicated so much of her life to now.

"Many old things are returning whether the world wishes to see it or not, a great many of us have been retracing the steps of our younger years." Morrigan too has found her attentions wandering in the direction of the Wilds for the first time in so long, thinking to return, to go looking, to actually follow up on any of the tales for the first time since she departed.

"Are they spirits of nature or wood themselves?" Her eyes light up at hearing something so very new that no one else here might have heard at all, another thing that might overlap in some way with Thedas. Rather hard to forget, after all, the lady of the wood.

"Old things," he repeated, "Like a monster believed lost to legends?"

Corypheus was, after all, what much of the Inquisition was abuzz with. But all the Medicine Seller could really find about him were disjointed rumours and old legends. He wondered just where Morrigan might be retracing old steps and if it had anything to do with monstrous magisters or something else.

"Sometimes the latter. Sometimes both. We have nothing like the Veil, so a spirit may be quite... complicated."

[Open] the one who survives by making the lives of others worthwhile

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