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WHO: Katniss and You
WHAT: A week in the life of a Mockingjay
WHEN: Covering the first week of Haring
WHERE: All around Skyhold
NOTES: Warnings for possible suicidal triggers via music.

Katniss Everdeen is a young woman who does not like to be idle when it can be helped, especially when she is waiting to know where she can help. So if you are looking for the rather brusque 'Some Other Archer', you will find it hard to miss her.

1. Distributing Food and Supplies Through The Survivors

Skyhold has literally become the pilgrimage of hundreds who are seeking to flee from Corpheysus's reign of terror, who are looking for balance in a world gone mad without a Divine, or have lost their homes in one of the many wars blossoming across Thedas. Many of them came without a stitch on their backs, or food to feed themselves -- or their families.

Yet, in the last week, a tall young woman with serious grey eyes and dark hair braided along the side of her head has been handing out provisions - fresh meat mostly, and cleaned leathers and warm furs. Candles, cooking fat, and there are even healing poultices, simple things. She asks for nothing in return, and thanks makes her nervous -- but she is there almost every day to offer assistance where she can. Children make her easier - she brings them necklaces made of leather and small stones, and little toys made of bone.

Do you meet here here or ...

2. Outside in the training areas outside of Skyhold

Someone has taken the time to set up what can only be considered a crude archery training area, out of old barrels and crates, with targets painted on. But it's not just straight targets and dummies, no. It's practically an obstacle course - with the targets being at different heights, and various objects that one had to move around to get a clear shot. It's not just a test of accuracy, it's one of agility and of quick thinking.

Katniss trains here every day, practicing her shots in a dozen different scenarios. Up high, down low, jumping and rolling out of the way to make a shot. Shooting and moving at the same time, weaving between targets. She wants to challenge herself, that's clear enough. Against what? Everything, apparently.

Want to join? Want to gawk? Want to take your barrel back? Come and speak with her, unless you want to speak to her ...

3. Alone On The Ramparts

It's the song that will capture your attention. A beautiful, clear female voice will echo down to you as you climb the stairs to the ramparts, perhaps to go on guard duty. Perhaps only to see the stars. Yet while the voice will make you smile, perhaps, the song itself might just chill you down to the bones.

Or at least wonder who would sing such a song.

"Are you, are you?
Coming to the tree
Where they strung up a man they say murdered three
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree

Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where the dead man called out for his love to flee
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree

Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where I told you to run, so we’d both be free
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree

Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree

Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where they strung up a man they say murdered three
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met at midnight in the hanging tree..."

If you go hunting down the voice, you'll find it soon enough. Katniss is sitting with her back against the ramparts, looking up to the sky and singing upwards to the stars. As if she is trying to reach someone with her voice that she just can't seem to get to.

Will you come and sit with her, or pass by?

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"Only six," she replies quickly. Some seem to think Skyhold is absolutely crawling with them. "The rest are from other clans."

Ellana thinks it over for a moment. "I think the quartermaster might know, since he hands out supplies. His work area is in the building behind the training dummies by the armory."

"Six ... well, that's not huge, but I'm sure your Keepers are all missing you." The Dalish lived and died by how many were in their clans. Or at least that was how her mother had taught her.

A flicker of disappointment? Perhaps for a second, but then it's gone with a contemplative look. "All right - I'll have to seek him out after my practice."

She paused, then said slowly, "Did you want to practice throwing spells at me?"

"Maybe," she says vaguely. She knows the Keeper doesn't miss Gavin, since she was endlessly yelling at him, and she'd hope the Keeper missed her own daughter Beleth, but the two have never really been close. And even though Ellana and the Keeper keep in touch via letter, she isn't sure she's really missed. She's the leftover mage. If anyone would be missed, it's Pel. She still doesn't understand why the First had to come when no one would miss the mage with no real importance to the clan.

The disappointment is brief, but Ellana wonders if she's said something wrong. It's hard to know what people will find offensive, but she was just giving information, wasn't she?

"Oh, no, I don't want to practice on people. Targets are fine."

Now that is going to get a curious look. The Dalish here continued to simply rip down her preconceptions of what her mother had built her to believe. Or maybe, individuals were just different here. They were different people, with different minds. Gavin had taught her that, as had Pel.

"Well, I don't want to keep anyone from practicing -- so we can practice together. I need it, anyways, if I am going out into the field with mages." She hefted her bow again. "Do you have many attack spells?"

Ellana is learning that herself when it comes to others. Here she thought all Tevinters hated elves and wanted them to be slaves, but she's already met two who don't mistreat her at all and hate their country's view on elves. People can be surprising in the best ways.

"That sounds like a good idea to me. I mostly favor the storm tree of spells, and those are more about paralysis, but I know fire spells too." She holds her staff out it front of her. "I really just want to work on the new feel on my staff with this blade at the end." Sam had constructed it for her, and they'd worked on the design together. While it sports a blade at the end, where it connects to the staff, the metal branches out in fine lines to look like the top of a tree. It's a beautiful piece, and will also come in handy if anyone comes into melee range with her.

The Inquisition appeared to be something of an eye-opening experience. Something that would pull your mind to new places you could not expect. Katniss herself was learning to like it.

"Well, you shoot off your spells, and I will work on working around you." Here Katniss smirked slightly, before her eyes widened at the blade. Craftsmanship always had to be admired, "That's nice work. Where did you get it?"

"From Sam in the armory," she answers proudly. "I asked for it to look like a tree branch to match the top of my staff, and he came up with the idea to have the branches reach out to grip the bottom of the staff. He's very talented." And since he's also a mage, Ellana had trusted him to know just what she needed.

"Ah." She's impressed, and it shows, even in her closed off expression, "He does good work, your Sam. Never seen the like on any weapon."

She hefts her bow, and her arrows, "I should get a friend in the armory. Could use some new arrows."

"I'm sure Sam could be your friend too. He has a good disposition and I can't see it being a challenge to get along with him. You'd have to be trying not to like him, I should think." Ellana takes a defensive stance facing the target. "It's worth asking if he knows how to make arrows. He can always refer you to someone who does."

"... there certainly doesn't seem to be a shortage of people who want to be my friend." Katniss snorts softly, "Makes for an interesting change of pace."

She crouched, slightly, before pinpointing one of the targets with her arrow. She exhaled, slowly, and then whistled a four-note bird song before she fired, and then immediately took off running, allowing Ellana to pull her spell before she pulled another shot.

Ellana could say the same. For the entirety of her life, she's been taught that humans are dangerous and that they hate elves, and she's always believed that surely that isn't the case for all of them. Being here, she's found she's right. Sure, some people have been unkind, but overall, people aren't worrying about who she is, rather what she does. They're all here to aid the Inquisition, aren't they?

When Katniss takes off, Ellana spins with her staff, dealing with the new weight and adjusting how she balances it as she shoots a lightning spell at one of the targets. Her magic feels the same as always, so it's good the staff blade hasn't changed that.

There were many common threads here - and later Katniss would say she found another one here, with this all too beautiful elven mage. Yet she didn't feel awkward, didn't feel outdistanced. Instead she felt like ... she found someone else who understood. They were here to help, and they were helping together.

It was ... something.

Katniss darted out of the way of the lightening, hit a roll and then aimed for the target's head, sending an arrow straight through the wood before she ducked and shifted again, watching for Ellana's next blast.

Lightening, she was going to say, was unbelievably useful in a fight.

The way Katniss moves encourages Ellana. She's light and fast on her feet and so the mage isn't too worried about hitting her by accident. If they go out in the field, she can see them working well together.

Since she wants to avoid destroying the makeshift targets, she'll refrain from fire, but she only knows one cold spell, which she uses now. With a flash of white around her body, she Frost Steps through the next target, whirls around, and fires a simple spell at it.

Katniss blinked herself as the other woman moved herself like a shadow across the training area, to appear on the other side. She had to shift to move out of her way, jumping up to one box, but it allowed her to make a leaping shot over Ellana's head before landing, and jumping to move out of the way once more.

There is a release in this - and it is obvious that this is where Katniss feels most comfortable. She has a grace that comes with her bow, as if it is part of her and not simply a weapon to be held.

She, however, is more shocked by Ellana. The mages she had to dispatch in the Hinterlands didn't move like this - their magic was rage filled and choppy. Ellana's was smooth, from start to finish. It was true talent, not something grabbed from an open vein.

Ellana would be surprised to hear that her use of magic had any sort of grace behind it. To her, she feels she knows enough to get by and to not get possessed, but beyond that, she will always feel inferior to Pel and Sorrel; the First and Second of Clan Ashara. Without additional training on how to be a leader to her people, Ellana's never felt quite "mage-y" enough, and assumes it shows, and definitely assumes people think it when they see her compared to Pel.

For the moment, however, she admires Katniss's ability to leap quickly to different spots before she chooses another target to attack with an energy barrage, arms spread wide as the magic flows from her body.

Oh, Ellana can be well assured ... she is miles above the hedge mages that Katniss has seen. Perhaps Pel has more polish, and she's never seen Sorrel fight, but Ellana has an innate grace to her movements. You couldn't be taught that. It just came naturally.

Katniss twisted as the energy barrage flew around the air towards the new target, and put her boots to the dirt, running in between barrels so she could get a clear shot at the target's 'back'.

Ellana waits until Katniss has fired her shot so she doesn't get in the way when she moves again. This time she climbs on one of the obstacles set up and spreads her arms in a way that effects the next target by surrounding it with a sort of white mist that rises vertically around it, making a sort of wooshing noise. Obviously nothing happens to the inanimate object, but she's just cast dispel magic on it.

Katniss doesn't pause in her run, but she does call out to Ellana, because she's never seen a spell like that before, "What does that one do?"

She wants to know, before she considers her next shot.

"It's Dispel," she says, watching Katniss move. "It removes harmful magic or things demons do, like weakening you, if you can do it right before they attack. It also helps take away barriers that mages put out, or wraiths or demons put on themselves." Of course her Keeper taught the mages what to do if demons were ever unleashed on the clan, even though they were first taught to never, ever turn to demons in the first place.

Katniss nodded - that meant whatever defenses they had would be down - so she fired off a quick number of shots in a row, aiming for possible legs and then in the chest area. Take them down, then take them out. If there was ever a first hunter's rule, that should be it.

Ellana takes a breather to let her mana regenerate and merely fires simple spells at the target as well, ready to follow Katniss to the next one. She's getting a good sense of how to perform magic with her staff blade now. It really isn't as difficult as she thought it would be.

"On to the next?"

Katniss let out a huff of air, puffing white smoke in the air. She gave Ellana a bright grin, grey eyes alight. "Oh yes. After you, Madame Ellana?"

She readies her next shot, to come after whatever Ellana is going to throw at the next target.

And so she goes on, firing bolts and blasts and whatever else at the targets, twirling her staff, spinning her body, and executing hand gestures to bring about her spells. It all flows out of her as easy as breathing, and yet the added movements require effort, which gets the heart pumping and leads to shortened breaths. Being young and fit, she isn't gasping for breath or near collapse, but when she finally does stop at the end of the course, she leans on her staff, taking a breather.

Katniss pushes herself harder - mostly because she has someone to work around now. It's important not to get caught in a spell, for one it will hurt horribly and for another ... she doesn't want this new friend of hers to worry about hurting her.

So, she is also slightly out of breath when the finish the last target, but her eyes are bright. "Now that ... was a good combination."

Ellana nods in complete agreement. This exercise wasn't too punishing, but also helped with her battlefield awareness. Unlike warriors who stay pretty still, holding their ground and swinging, a rouge scurries around and a mage needs to know how to avoid hitting them.

"We work well together."

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