[closed-ish] fearless on my breath

[eolasemah]

WHO: Sina, Pel, and Velanna + any reactions others might have
WHAT: Freaky druid shit
WHEN: Before dawn on some day in Solace
WHERE: The ex-chantry garden, Hightown
NOTES: It was planned such that no one else would be here to see,
but please feel free to react to and speculate on the end result!

The sky has only slightly begun to grey by the time the three mages have assembled themselves in the struggling garden, two on each end and Sina in the center. Each has four small diffusers, humbly constructed for the purpose of burning herbs and bearing no special decoration, and within each container is a crumbling of dried royal elfroot. These are positioned around the three with a ritualistic precision, making each of them the center of a compass.

Bearing no flame magic, Sina lights her easterly diffuser using a match, waiting until the other two have followed suit before moving onto north, and around until they're all steaming. Then, with a solemn glance in both directions, she closes her eyes and presses her palms to the ground.

The silence prevails, no birds or even nighttime insects cutting the darkness as a faint greenish glow begins to thrum from beneath Sina's hands, spreading with the slow certainty of pooling blood. It grows wider and wider, until, with a small nod, Sina signals the other two. Their task is to bolster it, to feel the magic their younger cohort generates and push it to all corners of the garden.

What Velanna and Pel don't have, and what they don't realize Sina does have, is a small and inconspicuous length of brambles beneath her hands. They drive into her thin palms, increasing the strength of the spell through the inevitable result of sharp points against skin.
Sina is strong with magic, and this is her area of greatest expertise. But sometimes one's best efforts aren't enough.

Comments

[mythalenaste]

Pel's braids are pinned into a spiral bun, completely and fully out of the way so all her efforts go undistracted. She wears trousers and a short tunic and bears her staff only. The baby is with Cyril. Everything is taken care of.

Working the magic from Sina is like controlling the flow of a stream of water, bending it, working it into eddies, and sending each toward a place in need of it. It feels every bit as natural as spinning fibers into yarn and twine, both magic and hearthcraft things she learned almost since she could walk and talk. The magic pouring from Sina is great, a flood Pel never could have hoped to create herself, but she feeds it, another source in this great river of life-magic. Sina herself is the river and the land that cradles it. The Chantry fears that mages can cause unimaginable death with their powers; they should fear as much the terrible power mages have over life. Feeding, planting, growing, thriving. Whole civilizations rise and fall based on the fertility of their soil. That is the true power of a mage; not mass death, but limitless life.

[failedfirst]

Velanna hasn't worked with other Dalish in a long time. More out of the awkwardness of being an exile than anything else, but joining magic together in itself was fairly unusual. She's also never been much of a team player, but tonight she can put that aside.

The magic originating from Sina surprises her a little, it seems stronger than Velanna had expected, but she doesn't question it. She just does what she's been tasked to do, adding her magic to the mix, helping Sina's spread further than she alone was capable of.

One thing she's always been good at is applying her razor focus to her magic.

[eolasemah]

Their bolstering helps, and soon the whole of the garden is glowing with a faint green light. On closer inspection, it's not that it isn't bright: it's that the source of it is actually within and beneath the soil, pulsing through like a heartbeat.

After no more than a minute or so of this, the women begin to feel a tickling under their hands, the pushing up of grass which makes it above-ground for about six inches before dying again, browning and crumbling back to the earth, in time with the thrumming of the magic.

And then, as the soil reabsorbs the remains, another set of growths poke their way above ground, and this time, they keep growing.
At a startling rate, the greenery climbs, grasses and the beginning of saplings and vines climbing the surrounding walls. Sina remains deep in concentration, her eyes closed and her palms pressed flat to the ground, the center of a living glyph.

[mythalenaste]

Stirred by the energy, insects move, aid in the decomposition, made ravenous by the increase in activity. Pel shakes something from her hand, but it is not interested in her when there is a feast on the ground. Her head bows, her focus narrowing, but the light before her closed eyes grows, makes it clear that this is the culmination of the greatest of Sina's powers, though what others bend toward destruction and warfare, she pours into making this life. That's the thought that makes Pel open her eyes. Her focus will have to be at least a little divided. Sina may not speak or make any sound if her shard acts up, even while this sort of power courses from her.

[failedfirst]

As the grass grows Velanna lifts her eyes to track the movement, focused still on the energy beneath her hands but now watching where it's directed. She isn't aware of the details of Sina and her shard, but she's not entirely concerned with her health, like Pel is. If the young woman is strong enough for this kind of magic, in Velanna's mind she's strong enough to care for herself.

[eolasemah]

Thus far, the shard is behaving, at least as far as anyone could feasibly tell. The growth continues, accelerating almost exponentially by the second, and before too long there are patches of flowers, seemingly fully-matured and blooming shrubs, and even several trees that, in their own time, would be at least ten years old by the look of them.
Yet still Sina persists, either unaware or uncaring that the job is beyond done. Flowers bloom continuously around them at a supernatural rate, every stem aglow with her magic.

[mythalenaste]

There are tears in Pel's eyes, though she blinks them away rapidly so they won't distort this sight longer than they must. She has traveled the world from ruin to ruin, discovering ancient wonders, and she has never, ever seen anything so beautiful in her life. For a moment, she forgets where she is. For a moment, she is transported to some other world, some pocket of old Arlathan, where the flowers glowed and all magic was turned to the purpose of beauty and creation. She never knew Sina had so much power, such power to rival the most ancient lords of Tevinter. Pel feels it as she lets it run through her, as she amplifies it and becomes one with this miracle. Every moment she believes Sina must be done, Sina must have run out, it becomes more glorious, more astonishing.

[eolasemah]

If Sina's done or running out, she's either not aware of it or failing to heed it.
The trees become too large for the walls to contain them, and the sound of crumbling stone accompanies their spreading roots. The sound of groaning and rustling has been all around them, growing louder with the garden's progress, but only now does Sina open her eyes.
Even so, she may not be awake. Her eyes are a solid glowing green, the same shade as the magic spreading from her hands, her expression placid and unbothered as her short hair wisps about, buffeted by an invisible wind.

[failedfirst]

Velanna's expression darkens as she takes note of the growth, it's starting to become unchecked, this has gone on for more than long enough. When she looks back at Sina she's almost startled enough by the young woman's appearance to break contact with the magic on the spot, but she also doesn't know exactly what that would do.

"That's enough, da'len!" she calls to Sina, her eyes darting briefly to Pel for support.

[mythalenaste]

Velanna's cry is what snaps Pel out of it. For a moment, she fears the worst--possession--when she sees Sina. Her world narrows to a pinprick, those alien green eyes in that beloved little face. She moves to be immediately in Sina's line of sight, blocking everything behind her.

"Sina?" she asks tentatively, then becomes more insistent. "Sina, vhenan, it's finished. Stop. For pity's sake, please, stop!"

[eolasemah]

The magic persists for several more seconds, but hearing her name is powerful. The glow fades from Sina's eyes, and she blinks at the two, smiles placidly, then slumps to the ground as if all her bones just disintegrated.
She's very much alive and not even visibly under any duress. Just depleted and taking a little dirt nap.

[failedfirst]

She straightens when Sina drops, then abandons her circle to run to the young woman, already reaching in her pocket for her crystal to call Anders if she's in danger. Velanna doesn't know much about Pel, and that means she assumes Anders is a better healer.

When she sees Sina is breathing she lets the crystal go, frowning.

"She shouldn't have pushed herself that far. We should get her to the healers."

[mythalenaste]

Pel is no healer either, though she does take note of Sina's bloody hands. Someone will have to get the thorns out with pincers, she thinks. Swiftly, she lifts Sina in her arms, directing magic inward to give herself the augmented strength of an arcane warrior.

"Let's take her to Anders, to be safe." Pel will always be safe when it comes to Sina. "He'll need to take those thorns out of her hands. They're in very deep."

outside, night

[nadasharillen]

With her back to the outer wall, Nari keeps a silent vigil. Despite her fears, she'd only had to stare down one night-time scavenger, doggedly searching the area for anything forgotten by previous looters. The rest of the time there was nothing.

As she'd promised her clansister, the hunter could neither see nor hear the magical goings on, although as the sun slowly lightens the eastern sky, Nari can't help but smell the strengthening perfume of the riot of flowers on stem and branch alike that surge into being behind the ex-chantry walls. She smiled lightly. Whatever it was, it was working.

She began to whistle quietly, now waiting not for adversaries, but for whatever spell or rite or incantation to finish, so she might be of some aid.

[eolasemah]

It's a good half hour or so before the small convoy of Dalish mages reappears, Sina limp in their arms but clearly breathing and looking, for someone unconscious, quite pleased with herself. Her palms are bloody with thorns still embedded in the skin, but she otherwise looks no worse for wear.