faderift | Eyes black, big paws and

The one downside to training dummies; near half her spells are pointless to practice on them. A dummy isn't a living being after all so why should she even bother with those spells that twist order and disorder upon itself, confusion and vulnerability. More's the pity since those are spells she holds so very dear to her heart. Not flashy light shows like the lightning she summons between both hands above her head to rain down upon something she might be imagining to look like certain chevaliers and baronesses but subtle elegant things.

Spells that tricked many a foe into being unable to attack. Into wandering off down the wrong path when following a girl then a young woman through the Wilds if ever she were found.

Breathing hard after the burst of her spell rattles the centre dummy hard enough that the head cracks, lists lazily to the side and the others groan worryingly in protest she turns just so. Brow arched, tries to force herself to sound natural. Less out of breath. Less like she's sweaty because Witches of the Wild do not sweat like normal mortal beings.

"Am I so very fascinating? Surely you have seen such spells before?"

Ah, she noticed him.

...not like it was any real loss, but still. Bruce knows it is a little weird with how he looked right now, and looks adequately sheepish as he gives her an apologetic smile.

"Yes, but not in the fashion you cast them." Every Circle had their ways and means but Morrigan was very decidedly not one of the Circles, nor even one of the Dalish for that matter, for even they had their particular brand of casting. Morrigan, however, had very much her own, and it had always intrigued Bruce to a degree - the old scholar in him that never really died out even after he fled the Circles.

Still, the last thing he wanted was to distract Morrigan from her training. "If I'm in the way, I'll gladly take my leave. I don't want to trouble you."

Before, those hazy days with their bruised ever-darkening skies, Morrigan would have put words in his mouth that would all have come from Wynne. Even now in so many ways it's impossible to divorce Wynne from the Circle, from all of what a Circle mage should be from their talks as sharp as Morrigan could be throughout them all, some old woman sticking her nose in where it wasn't wanted. Magic to be cleaned up or kept in some forbidden restricted volume, much like a grimoire given to her as a key in a lock.

Bruce is not Wynne, the Circles have cracked and crumbled, and Morrigan has grown.

The staff comes down in a move to clear ambient magic as she considers it with a grim little smile. "My first experience of a Circle contained far more demons and abominations present than I understood to be permitted within such strict oversight. Twas my mother who taught me."

Mana restored, she ices one dummy, watches it trail down over the head and 'arms' and to the ground. The lightning shatters the ice to pieces. "Unless you mean to stand in the way of a spell, you are not a problem."

Bruce had no desire to say if what she did was 'right' or 'wrong' - for what was really right or wrong when it came to something with so many unknown qualities? Everyone knew the basics of what shouldn't be done, but beyond that... everything was nothing more than a large, grey area.

Besides, Morrigan could very clearly handle herself, and Bruce doesn't have any right to tell her anything, not with his own messes - as her response so clearly reminded him. Klinoch Hold was something he only ever heard about, but the stories alone were enough for him to remember.

"I'll do my best not to do that," he returns with a quirk of his lips. "Getting zapped is not really on my bucket list."

Well, does it not all depend very much upon your point of view? Morrigan knows blood magic. Of a fashion. But then if magic is within mages, same as blood, could one not argue that in some way all magic is blood magic and that even the use of a phylactery is a type of blood magic? Morrigan would not have the argument unless she wished to test the nature of a person because she knows the types that would respond to it. (Or thinks she knows. That alone assures her she has the right of it.)

"What an odd thing to say." A 'bucket list'? Truly, Bruce, are you so morbid? Morrigan told Cousland to live gloriously when they parted at the very last for that is how life is to be lived. "Is it so different? To watch this way? I have found myself more interested in how the Dalish use their magic but-"

A break for her to continue casting, less showy flourishes than many other mages because she wasn't raised that way of dramatic flamboyant movements. In true combat she'll use her staff to get her where she needs but she has noticed how other mages fight and the wasted effort and energy, flailing themselves around. Her mother certainly would not have approved of such a thing.

"Not how a Circle mage uses it. Save Wynne though she was...a unique situation, I am given to understand."

Bruce gives something of a shrug in response, though he's still smiling. "It's always interesting to see from an academic perspective. The differences can be incredibly visible or in the minute details - but they all can affect how a spell is to be cast. It's simply intriguing to see something like that."

He had watched the Dalish as well - Pel and Sina mostly, along with Velanna. Their ways certainly held intrigue as well, but in the end they were just part of everything else that encompassed what magic was. There was just so much about it left unknown, and though Bruce has no desire to poke the snake, as it were, it was still something he could enjoy watching when it was applicable.

"Its always rare to see a mage who wasn't instructed by the Circles. I find it interesting to see how things deviate from what the Circles put forth as the norm." His smile becomes apologetic once more. "I didn't mean to offend in anyway, of course. I'd be the first to admit that the Cirles were not perfect by any means."

Give her a moment, she needs to picture you with a pair of spectacles balanced on the tip of your nose Bruce. "Should your title be arcanist instead?" It's meant as teasing, but she doesn't know what Bruce did before he became what he was and healing seems to be such an easy path for mages outside a Circle, a way to hide, a way to be accepted, to move around. True, he's somewhat different but she doesn't know.

Maybe the prodding will bear fruit, maybe the way she spins her staff only so she can get herself closer to the dummies with the fewest steps, hand outstretched to cup the head of one will. If she felt like it, she'd cast walking bomb but what would the point be? There's no blood to do anything with. She'll need to go to the wilds. Or an abandoned battlefield if she wishes to practice that spell.

"There is much the Chantry learned from some of us in the beginning. Things they have stripped away to make clean if they were allowed; look to the elves and humans, that shared history." The world is filled with scavengers picking through old bones until they have scraped the flesh clean, cracked them open to get to the marrow. "Is combat taught much within them?"

Bruce lets out a quiet chuckle at the remark. Well, his work back in the Circles wasn't too far from the truth to some degree. Not that he was ever really going to say it aloud, but... its still a thought he could amuse himself with. One of the few things he could actually find actual amusement with rather than irony.

He watches for a moment at the way Morrigan spins her staff, seeing the magic around them react to her casting. Seeing all of this would be a dream for the him of before - the younger him who dreamed of big things, who was far more ignorant and foolish than he was now. Usually that was a bad things, but times like these... well, maybe it was a good thing, somehow.

At her next words he falls quiet then, considering, mulling over his answer to her and making sure it sounded right before he said it aloud. "A lot of what I had been thought was... theoretical, usually. There was some instances where we were allowed to actually practice, but usually its just more theory than actual casting." His smile turns wry once more as he continues. "Of course, that's just in the Circle I grew up in. It tended to be a bit more traditional and stringent than most from what I've gathered."

No chance of a mage doing something if they couldn't be sure of the how, after all. No matter how much theory you knew casting was always very different; a fact Bruce knew very well now.

How different it is to see Bruce like this, she thinks, and honestly she does prefer him when he isn't so very serious. Morrigan cannot understand those who view their magic as a burden or as something not to be proud of and that they can speak like this? She welcomes it.

Perhaps there will come a day she can get him in here. Call it instruction for Kieran when he is at an age where things stop being as much about the fun and games. He's going to have to stay alive in this world.

"Lest you have a chance to learn what you were capable of and grow accustomed to it? That magic is not something to be feared?" How many cut down because when the demons came whispering they were not only frightened but utterly unable to fight back against them because they lacked any sort of tool? Only one being was ever meant to possess Morrigan, not an abomination, not a demon, so she had been taught so very well.

It isn't pity exactly, even now she doesn't know what she feels for those mages in the towers that stand lonely vigil throughout Thedas, filled with memories and likely spirits and more cluttering their halls. Some pity, yes. Revulsion, anger, directed at mage, Templar, and Chantry alike.

"You did make the leap from theory to practice, enough not to burn us all alive." And that's said cheerfully enough for her, no malice, just teasing because Kirkwall was a nightmare and she appreciated you being there for that ghost child thing when she had her meltdown.

Magic will always be a burden to some degree - as long as the power is there, the responsibility is tacked onto it as well, and abusing that responsibility never ends well. At the end of the day, he's been burned too much (ha) by his own power to ever be dependent on it; at the very best, its a cautious arrangement.

"Less chances for mages to be able to fight back should anything happen." Another small shrug. Once again the story of Kinloch Hold echoes in his mind, and Bruce can only feel sorrow for such a terrible incident. That was one of the many things why mages were how they were right now, with little to help them until the Inquisition. And even then things were still uncertain.

Her next comment does bring another wry smile from Bruce. "I suppose we can all be grateful for that." Control had been the name of his game since that moment when his life change, when he crossed the boundaries of what humans should not have touched and until now he continues to pay the price of his mistake. But he's learned control, and that's one of the only things he has in his life. The little control he had over himself while the rest of his life was so out of control.

At least Flemeth had allowed Morrigan to revel in her own magic, in the freedom of slipping into a skin not her own to run and fly as she saw fit. A joy so very difficult to put into words and not a discipline easy to master by any means but when she bursts back into her own skin after flight? Impossible not to feel powerful and utterly in control of herself.

And there's the terror a giant spider rouses in even the bravest man when it comes charging at them, fangs glittering. To each their own, as it must be.

"Yet the Harrowing involves such, does it not?" Not a physical fight as such but a person still has to know how to do it, how to draw deep within themselves, to cast and stand their ground, to brace, resist, not to flinch, to recover and regroup. She stops to allow to regain her mana since she so very rarely uses lyrium; unlike a Circle mage, she seldom had any of it as a girl, and she wants to see him when he answers. The Harrowing has always felt like the height of hypocrisy since she learned of it. Throwing them to the wolves to justify its existence when so many of them don't know how to resist a demon in the first place.

Laughing, she leans on her staff and gestures to Skyhold with her head. "Should you ever do that, you shall find yourself hanging from the ceiling of the main hall. You have seen the webbing of a giant spider, have you not?" Is she joking or is she not, your call Bruce. "Though I did not expect a surgeon to be capable of such things, I expected a powerful spirit healer. Perhaps I expected someone like Wynne with fewer lectures and an old woman's inclination to intrude into my personal life to satisfy curiosity."

The wry look returns to Bruce's face once more at that. "Pretty much." He's not going to deny the hypocrisy of it - it would be stupid not to. Back when he underwent his Harrowing he never really thought much about it, but now after spending time outside of the Circles he could see some things in a broader perspective.

(And briefly he thinks back to his own Harrowing, the parting words that the demon he had defeated said to him: All that anger, that rage… make sure you remember that, boy. It’ll serve you well, one day.

He wonders if the demon ever foresaw something like this happening.)

Her next remark changes his wryness to something closer to genuine amusement. "I've seen quite a few, yes. I definitely wouldn't want to be at the end of that." Or face her wrath, for that matter - he could easily guess how that would generally turn out. As for what she says next, its hard to tell if she meant it as some sort of actual compliment or a backhanded insult, but since she isn't really threatening to set him on fire or something as well he'll take his chances and guess that its the former rather than the latter.

"I just do my best." Its the only thing he can do, really. Make the best out of the life he has now. "And I'm just glad you're alright with it. It's been a while since I could... indulge, I suppose." To sate the scholar inside of him; since Harlem he's mostly stuck himself to non-magical avenues of study but after seeing and working with Morrigan several times, he can't help but be intrigued with what she presented. It was very different from what he had seen before, and his curiosity won out in the end despite knowing better.

Rescuing a First Enchanter and his fellows from a Harrowing chamber from a blood mage intent on twisting them into abominations with a Templar urging them to kill them all (the Commander in fact, does he remember her at all she wonders now and then) is...well. People will draw their own conclusions. Have done. Morrigan is at least thankful that the story of the Fifth Blight is not as the Tale of the Champion.

"Tis reserved for a small chosen few, you are not in danger." There's a list about as tall as she is of worthy candidates that will probably include all of Gwenaëlle's suitors as a test too after the last so he's relatively low on that one. "Should you wish to learn how to combat one however, you will find me obliging, given the state of Skyhold."

Is there a nest of giant spiders lurking somewhere or is it the arcane advisor making her mark: someone stands to make a lot of gold if the betting pool can confirm and come back alive.

Here, she finds a more common ground with Bruce a little unexpectedly, glancing over at him after moving back to a comfortable combat stance, rolling her shoulders because nope, not quite so young as she was now. "I understand," she agrees quietly. "I have taught my skills to a chosen few in Skyhold but for years now I have dedicated much of my life to my study of the arcane. I would miss it, have missed it when Inquisition work has drawn me into the field overlong. So much is lost without those who will try to hold onto something for the future, to record it somewhere, somehow, to seek to understand it better so that they might too." And that pains her. How much more dull is the world already? How little light is left in it from the Ancient days of wonder?

Bruce supposes he should feel... honored? For that? Mostly he's just glad that it means Morrigan isn't going to shoot lightning at him any time soon, though more for the sake of everyone else. Him being in any kind of life-threatening situation doesn't really end well for everybody involved.

"I'll be sure to keep that in mind." If there really are giant spiders lurking around here he probably shouldn't meet them just to be safe. In case they want to eat him or something. Bruce is pretty sure that wouldn't end well either.

He pauses a little after that because he hadn't quite expected Morrigan to actually understand, but then again considering her expertise--he can see just where she comes from. He gives a small nod of understanding.

"Maybe when things settle down a bit more you could--take some time off?" It's not the best suggestion, he knows, but--he's trying. "Take a trip, if you can allow yourself that. Give yourself some time to do something you like." She probably needs it, after everything that's happened so far - and Bruce knows he's only witnessed part of it.

Well there's her. Lurking. Sometimes. When she feels like it. Do you know how many soldiers she's terrified out of their wits just rubbing her big hairy spider legs together somewhere in the dark where they can't see even the glint of her eyes? All hail the Inquisition and their brave men and women. Even Thranduil is uncomfortable though there are other reasons which is why she plans to make it something of a point.

Take a trip he says and she almost laughs. Itching to get out of the Wilds; hasn't everything since the day the Wardens first stumbled into her life once and then again been some strangely extended jaunt, miles beneath her feet and settling down where she could for however long felt right before moving on once again.

"I have Kieran." Her voice softens for a moment (there's a heartbeat's worth of guilt that she'll always have that no one but a chosen few are ever going to ever guess at) before she continues. "Prowling the wilds here to hunt when my stores grow low or the itch beneath my skin cannot be ignored. To be a different creature out there with few others who might find me unless I wish it is more freeing than one might imagine."

Well, Bruce never said his suggestion was a good one. His smile turns sheepish at that - he did think about Kieran, but since Morrigan managed it once she could have managed it again... but then again, he supposes things are different from before now. Everything is.

And in a way, he can understand what she means. Though his life on the run before this had been hard, in a way it had also been liberating. He had the (relative) freedom to do what he wanted, could be somebody else instead of what the Circles had intended for him to be. Not that his life inside was bad (certain things excluded) but being outside of it was simply... different.

"It's nice to be something else from what others expect you to be," he says in his way of agreement. "I'm just sorry I can't be of any real help myself."

Kieran is a known thing now, not a separate entity from her. A polite lad still but he's an odd boy that can be connected so firmly back to her in ways he never could in Orlais, a boy who spends time with Alistair, Zevran, Gwenaelle; she has to be here with him, has to watch so much more carefully than she ever did in the past.

These days Morrigan must pick her arguments with far more care and sometimes she almost finds herself missing the times she strode through the hallways of some palace of Celene's in a black mood, furious after whatever spat they'd had. When you think about another person? It tempers you. The remarks are for behind closed doors and wine, or they're phrased more delicately so a person might not realise she's wounded them until after.

"I have long become accustomed to it, I am Flemeth's daughter, a Witch of the Wild. In Ferelden you cannot swing a cat without striking one who knows the tales though here at least there have bee fewer to speak of them." A small mercy too that the Dalish have kept their mouths shut about Asha'bellanar in her presence for the most that she can recall. Laughing softly, she says words that might strike fear into the hearts of many. Alistair should probably come offer his condolences. Ask if she tried to suck out his soul or something like that. "We have our talks, such company is few and far-between."

Having responsibility over another always changes you. It's why Bruce always tries to avoid that - its one thing to be responsible for a patient, but its another thing enough to be responsible over another that'll be part of your life. There will always be far too much meaning into it for Bruce to desire something like that - not with how he is now.

He smiles back faintly in response to her words. "I'm glad I can provide some sort of comfort, then." Morrigan may have an understandably fearsome reputation, but right now like this Bruce can only place her as the same as everyone else here - in where everyone is keeping the will to struggle and live on no matter what. It's an admirable trait, and Bruce can respect that, among many other things about her.

Not a thing to dwell on overlong with Alistair or she'll think about how long he simply watched her and Kieran from afar after they arrived before he dared to open his mouth. Not like Zevran, the chance meeting in the Hinterlands, or Leliana and how openly they spoke even with the tension that had been there from the start that had given way to something she cannot think of now. Alistair had passed many things over to others but then how little of Alistair's life had been his. (How little of her own had been hers until it had, until she had it in her grasp and now she will decide how to live it, will not allow another to dictate it. Life is what it is, and she is determined not to be something. Perhaps that makes all the difference in her mind.)

"Should you have the desire to learn something a Circle shall never teach for they have not the skill nor the knowledge, come seek me in the woods away from Skyhold. I prefer privacy for such things. I will show you what it is to be something not yourself outside of battle where you have seen it in only glimpses." It's a rare offer, infrequently extended. Bruce please enjoy your magic bonuses and the little approval gains bouncing off your head.

Bruce blinks at the offer, honestly surprised by it. He knows that Morrigan teaches her craft to a select few and even though its not the same specifically its still an offer that shows--well. Bruce doesn't try to think too deeply into it. It's probably for the best.

"I'm honored by the offer," he replies, inclining his head, doing his best to be as polite as possible. "I'd be glad to experience first hand what your magic is able to accomplish." Really, really glad. It's a chance of a lifetime, more or less, and Bruce knows better than to squander it - especially when it interests him so.

Eyes black, big paws and

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