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

[eolasemah]

An especially painful night had Sina sleepless, and wanting to make use of her time rather than toss and turn uncomfortably for hours, she left her tent in shawl and nightshirt with the intention of checking on some of the herbs she'd left to dry. She hadn't yet made it to the courtyard, however, when she saw the green glow coming from the fortress window. She stopped, squinted, then hesitantly moved toward the doors of the main hall.

This was the first time Sina had been in the actual fortress since the meeting of mages, the third time in total, and she was amazed by how spacious it truly was when not crowded full of people. Her bare feet padded silently along the stone floor as she followed the glow through the crack in the door by the fireplace, and into the eerily-lit round room where the mages had met. She stood in the center, peering up at the flickering-- was it a flame?-- and although her usual sensibilities told her to turn back and not put her nose where it didn't belong, her chest felt heavy and pulled her forward.

She crept up the stairs to the library, squinting in the suddenly bright light of the veilfire. To her surprise, she recognized the wielder. "Pel?" she said, before she could stop herself.

Library

[the_effect_she_has]

Katniss had, through the kindness of Varric Tethras himself gotten a list of all of his books that were there. She went late at night, when she couldn't sleep, leaving Buttercup to hunt the mice in their tower.

Most of Skyhold is quiet, this time of night, and Katniss is able to avoid most of the servants and guards without disturbing anyone's rest or work. So she is faintly surprised to find green eyes glaring at her out of the darkness -- but the Dalish woman isn't the only one with feline in her genes.

She glares right back, offering up a challenge to question why she doesn't have a right to be where a Dalish elf is.

Library

[wickedchase]

There's a large amount of wandering Dalish here, which is not something he'd expected. He'll hand it to them; at least some of them can look beyond than their own little hovels and caravans, so there is that.

And this one, it seems, is researching something magically-inclined or some such.

Terribly exciting, he's sure.

Twisted Fate raises a brow at her, mildly curious as their eyes meet in the dark of the library. In his hands, he'd holding a novel, the cover all but reassuring that it's some kind of trashy love book. She can study runes, he can read his indulgence.

"Well now. Dare I ask what you've got there?"

[amygdalae]

Bruce had heard news of Pel's return, but he hadn't managed to find the time to speak to her until late at night when most of everyone else was fast asleep. Asking the guards informed him that she was currently in the library, and thus that was where Bruce set his path towards.

Climbing up the stairs he soon noticed the familiar figure of her, and as he approached closer he cleared his throat, just loud enough so that Pel could hear him and he wouldn't startle her. "Didn't you just return from the Mire today?"

[byblow]

There wasn't a moment when Alistair decided not to go to the Fallow Mire to help, or any conscious and rational reason why he didn't. He's invented a few by now--someone ought to be here in case there's news, he's the one any Grey Wardens out hunting for them are most likely to recognize on sight, never know when there might be darkspawn in your mountaintop fortress somehow. He came briefly close to thinking about the fact that he hasn't put a toe into Ferelden in ten years, and then he veered away into thinking about something less fraught.

Anyway, he's here. He's been here. He's struggling to feel useful enough to justify the fact that he's been here, and being a pack mule for someone who lacks one is better than staring at clouds.

"Here," he says, stepping in toward Pel and her lots of crap with his hands already extended. "I've been training for this my whole life."

Library (Forwarded some time after after Salem's arrival)

[el_tybs]

Great, just great. The Elf he had been treating at the tents for frostbite had up and left. Or stolen by another Dalish, but that seemed rather unlikely since Salem had been in the healing tents for a reason, and would hope that they trusted the healers in the Inquisition to do their job.

Ugh. He had hoped after coming back from the Mire things would settle down a bit, but there was still plenty of things to stress over. Running around Skyhold looking for an elf didn't help that any - they were damn good at hiding. If he didn't find Salem today he would have to suspect that he wouldn't be able to until the Elf made himself seen. Sam could only hope at that point that where ever he had went he was treating his wounds. Without proper healing and bandaging Salem could have some major issues.

He'd already covered a good amount of places he figured the Elf would or could have hidden without luck, so the library and rookery were his next destinations to check - it was high and out of the way so it made sense. At least that was the plan up until he spotted Pel. Maybe she had seen something.

"Pel?" he asked in a low voice, it was the library after all, not really wanting to bother her.