OPEN POST - there's a green glow coming from the library window

[mythalenaste]

WHO: Pel Ashara and everybody in Skyhold
WHAT: Pel returns from the Fallow Mire with crazy amounts of research and will wall herself up doing work and being totally antisocial unless you save her!
WHEN: 19 Firstfall...or is it the 20th? Today. Today and really, really late tonight.
WHERE: Skyhold courtyard and library
NOTES: This is prior to the general return from Skyhold, obviously. Pel just caught a ride back to Skyhold well ahead of the crowd.

Arrival

It turns out a large caravan full of pious Andrastian humans will leave a tiny heathen elf-woman alone if she carries herself like she's about to kick someone's ass. The trip from the Mire to Skyhold was uneventful. In fact, there was never a good enough reason to use her magic, so none of the van was tipped off that Pel is a mage.

Unfortunately, she had no pack mule, so she's having to haul a lot of crap around by herself. One of the nicer people let her keep her heavier things on his cart, but now she's having to get it all unpacked carrying it with her own two hands. She's too proud to ask for help, but you can offer it if you like.

Library

From the time she arrives, she's in the library. During the day, she can be found bent over books. Sometimes, she's asleep on top of one.

At night, long after the keep has gone to bed, a green glow can be seen in the library window, flickering like flame. If someone chooses to check this out, they will find Pel standing over a stone slab with a veilfire flame in her hand, held over her work like a candle. A rune on the slab gives a faint green glow in response. The fire reflects in the elf's eyes like a cat's as she stares suspiciously at you.

Comments

[mythalenaste]

"That's what magic is, though. Drawing on power from the Fade."

She purses her lips briefly. "Weren't you here for a book?"

[the_effect_she_has]

"Well, I know that. And I don't know how they educate mages, Dalish or otherwise. But shouldn't there be more thought put into what you pull from the other side? The Veil is there for a reason, after all." Katniss held up the candle, one corner of her mouth twisting.

"I am ... but my book is clearly not mage-reading material. I'm looking for Master Tetheras." She showed the list she had painstakingly written out.

[mythalenaste]

"That's why the clever mages don't use magic for just anything. But veilfire is safe, so long as one doesn't try making it something it isn't."

Tethras, eh? She smiles secretively.

"You've found the right elf. I'll show you his good ones. Which have you read?"

[the_effect_she_has]

"Keep it as fire, it will stay as fire." Katniss canted her head a little, "I can agree with that."

Was she actually speaking to a Dalish elf that didn't treat her as a pariah as her mother had? Well, then again, this Dalish elf didn't know she was a half breed so ... yes.

"...All of them." A faint pink tinged her cheek. "I used to own them all before - well. Before."

[mythalenaste]

"Have you met him yet?" Pel heads to the section where Varric's books are kept and starts half-pulling them from the shelf, to show where they are.

[the_effect_she_has]

This was all so ... odd. If she could have imagined her simple life changing this much in such a short amount of time.

She had wanted to go quietly into the fight and just ... leave this world. She was starting to wonder if that was what fate really had in store.

Her fingers went automatically to the 'Tale of the Champion', brushing the binding lovingly before she pulled it out. "No, of course not. Varric Tethras doesn't go wandering through the Hinterlands, looking for hunters to moon over his writing."

[mythalenaste]

Pel smiles like the cat that found the cream. She might have just found a way to make a friend.

"I'll arrange for you to meet him. Privately, of course. A casual tea or something. You'll see him around here and there, but he's much less intimidating once you've got him alone."

[the_effect_she_has]

Well that was an effective way to make a friend - or at least make Katniss less likely to give Pel the side-eye.

Of course right now, she's staring at Pel, grey eyes wide with surprise. "What - why is Varric Tethras here?" Because this was a bloody war zone.

[mythalenaste]

"Because before he was an author, he was bloody good with a crossbow. Far as I can tell."

[the_effect_she_has]

"Well yes, the crossbow is pretty prevalent in the 'Tale of the Champion'... so he came to join the cause?" Wow. "That's ... pretty damn heroic. Of course if I count as coming here as brave, we're all heroes."

[mythalenaste]

"I don't know the details, truth be told. You'll be able to ask him yourself." She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. "What's your name?"

[the_effect_she_has]

"And you truly know him? I could - meet him?" Katniss said slowly, her eyes still wide, before she shook her head. Right, this was not the time to moon like one of those village girls over the Arl's Knights. "Katniss. Katniss Everdeen. And you are?"

[mythalenaste]

"Pel, of Clan Ashara. And I really do know him. I actually work for him, these days. I read his books to look for mistakes before they're published."

[the_effect_she_has]

It's on the tip of her tongue to ask and she very nearly does ... but then again she doesn't want to know. Perhaps it was better to stay that way, to never know what really happened to her mother. She doesn't know what would be worse - finding out she had died, or finding out she had finally abandoned her and Prim totally.

Instead, she says quietly, and with a grudging note of respect, "You must be very smart."

[mythalenaste]

She shakes her head. "I work hard, is all. Just like anyone can. No doubt you do as well."

[the_effect_she_has]

"I do. But I work on improving my aim, my balance and my stance. I work on being able to take someone out with my hunting knife if they get too close for me to shoot effectively, or to take my arrow and use that instead. I work on my tracking, I work on my hunting practices - what parts of an animal I can use to craft other items. It's mostly ... well."

She took one hand off the book she was carrying, smirking. "Hands directly on."

[mythalenaste]

"So's magic. And reading. It's all practice, just like anything else."

[the_effect_she_has]

Katniss considered that, hugging the book to her chest, "Well ... I'd point out that you're born with magic - but that doesn't mean mages know how to use it right off the bat. So, I give you the point. Everyone is good at something."

One corner of her mouth quirked, "Some of us are just better than others."

[mythalenaste]

A faint smile.

"Magic...it's like having a third arm. Except for whatever reason, everybody is worried you're going to punch people with that arm. Not the other two, just that one. And you go through a lot of teaching about how not to punch people with that arm. I guess it's not like that for every mage, but I can't help but think you're going to be more vulnerable to possession if you're taught you might not have the willpower to resist it."

[the_effect_she_has]

"Hm." Katniss leaned up against the bookshelf, her grey eyes quiet as she considered her answer. "I think mages are given a gift that they can either fear, or revel in. Like any other gift, if it's used the wrong way then it becomes a curse on everyone else." She sighed deeply, "... and sometimes there are a great deal of curses around."

[mythalenaste]

Pel shrugs.

"It has its uses. If the same thing can be accomplished without it, that's better. Though I've heard Circles of Magi are filled with books and teachers. I don't see what advantage it gives them with regard to possession, but damned if it doesn't make me a bit jealous. They probably have shelves of books about elves."

[the_effect_she_has]

"I heard that the library for the Circle of Magi in Fereldan had bookshelves twice as tall as I am, filled to the brim with all kinds of books on ... well, all the species." Katniss murmured quietly, thinking, "I think some elf managed to get her way in, somehow."

[mythalenaste]

"So many things we've lost about our own history, and they could be sitting on a fraction of it, knowing we're looking for it. Or thrown it out because it's inconvenient for the Chantry to think of elves as people."

Pel traces the spine of a nearby book with a fingertip.

"Every other race has their history. But we...elves keep losing everything, first to Tevinter and then to Orlais. And we don't have enough of our history together to find any pattern, anything we're really doing wrong, we just blame it on everyone else. We ought to have our mistakes back, so we can learn from them."

[the_effect_she_has]

"And all we have left are stories of Arlathan, and Elvhean. Whispers upon whispers of what was and what could have been." Katniss's gaze looked off across the library, her eyes narrowing slightly.

"I've thought for a long time that maybe we should just let go of that time, those places. We're never getting them back. We're in the here, and now, and should start to build a new world for ourselves. Stop ... hiding in the slums and in the forests. Stop hating ourselves for what we've lost, start looking for a new history to be started instead."

[mythalenaste]

Pel now supposes Katniss must be elf-blooded, to speak like this. But she frowns.

"Easy enough for you to say, while you humans are overflowing with history. Biased, obviously, written in ways that suit the Chantry. And you don't know the histories the Dalish have been keeping since Halamshiral, or how many generations it's been since a great many people had the same thought you did."