your pose as the dust settled around us

[dashing]

WHO: HERIAN and some others.
WHAT: some open stuff, some closed stuff; basically a belated catch all.
WHEN: through September
WHERE: various, I think all Kirkwall
NOTES: some of the open stuff will have caps for how many tag-ins I'll be able to handle, just for variety's sake
WARNINGS: Nothing as yet, but I have an opt-out over here for particular topics with Herian (or just CR with her generally) as there is potential for themes of PTSD, torture, and generally terrible things.

OPEN: in the alienage
OPEN: in hightown

More to be added! If you'd like a specific set up then get in touch and we can plot up a storm.

Comments

NO this is perfect also i know this is super light so no pressure to reply

[dashing]

Joy. That, as she understood, what a privilege elves were rarely afforded in the Starkhaven alienage. There was so often a shadow that hung over things. Joy was not pure joy that came with a blade swinging over one's neck, uncertain whether it would clear the flesh, rasp painfully, or simply slice through in one swoop.

"I never had the pleasure of meeting her,"

which is perhaps a statement so obvious that she need not ever state it, "but my father had a penchant for... pranks, I suppose you could say."

It had limited opportunities to manifest to the level of his imagination, she rather suspected, which was perhaps a blessing for her mother, the people of the alienage. Pranks too big or elaborate could catch attention; cleverness and knowing how to play tricks, that allowed stealth.

Perhaps Cerys Amsel was safer outside the Circle than most mages would be. Herian smiles, very slightly. "Thank you. Did she— do you think she was happy, in Hasmal?"

neveeeer I love this even if we're both literal snails

[faithlikeaseed]

"As much as anyone can be, I think." Within or without the Circles, the world is full of sorrows; happiness is no guarantee. Truly, there were griefs unique to the Chantry's kept mages--but was losing a childhood friend to a Harrowing any worse than losing one to an illness or starvation or slavers? Yet-- "Hasmal is--was," Myr catches himself; someday, he'll place it properly in the past, "kinder than most Circles. We weren't allowed as much freedom as some would've liked, but we were never abused."

It made for a very different perspective on the value of the things, to have been rescued from alienage life and given to a place he could call home, with people he could call family--though they'd never erase his love for his own flesh and blood.

He's tempted to tease, to ask her if pranks ran in the family and what she got up to in her spare time, but it feels somehow wrong with someone who wears her sobriety like a cloak the way Herian does. Instead, kindly: "It's not much likely with the state of the world and how adamant she was about being let go, but our knight-commander might be able to send a message on. If you'd like to let her know she's got family here in the Inquisition." It's what he'd want to do.

GLORIOUS

[dashing]

“I had thought much the same of the Spire and Starkhaven. I never… I did not know the suffering others endures or… perhaps I did not listen when such information crossed my path. The thoughts have been so much turned over that I can scarce remember what is truth and what is my own doubt and dread, or where I might have blinkered myself.”

Her voice is calm and soft, but there is an inescapable weight in it, even so. At times her own thoughts are as weights bound to a drowning man’s ankles. “The Circles gave me so much that I never imagined they truly took from anyone.”
Was it blind loyalty? Foolish faith? Were all who loved the Chantry celebrating something false? She hardly knows, and cannot bear to give it voice.

“Is your Knight-Commander here?”

local snail crawls over finish line, immediately expires

[faithlikeaseed]

To hear the thoughts of one's own heart--the doubts, the recriminations, the blackness of those idle months in the infirmary asking why--articulated in another's voice is always a shock. It leaves Myr briefly speechless; for all the time he's spent thinking about that very topic, for all the arguments he'd formulated on why the Circles were worth saving and not just because of his own peculiar experience, he's yet to find any answers that felt satisfying. (Let alone ones that might be exculpatory for all he'd overlooked--)

Maybe there isn't a perfect answer. And maybe he's done himself a disservice, over the years, in searching for one. "That's something I know too well myself," he says at length, the words nearly a sigh. "And I've yet to come up with any answers for what I might have done otherwise. Only--we pass on the good that's been given us, when we can."

And keep moving forward, keep striving, to stay out of despair's grasp. "I'm afraid to say not--he's gone on to Skyhold with the rest of our contingent. But it shouldn't be too hard to contact him, if you'd like..."