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[the_effect_she_has]

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?

Comments

[serannas]

"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."

[the_effect_she_has]

"... 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.

[serannas]

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.

[the_effect_she_has]

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.

[serannas]

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.

[the_effect_she_has]

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.

[serannas]

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.

[the_effect_she_has]

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'.

[serannas]

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.

[the_effect_she_has]

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.

[serannas]

"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.

[the_effect_she_has]

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.

[serannas]

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?"

[the_effect_she_has]

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.

[serannas]

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.

[the_effect_she_has]

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."

[serannas]

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."

[the_effect_she_has]

Katniss flashed her a half smile, leaning on her bow a little. "Then ... I suppose we'll have to go out on a mission some day then, eh? See how we react on actual battle field conditions."

That would be the real test, right there.

[serannas]

"Yes, I would like that. Hopefully someplace with better weather than the Fallow Mire. I just came back from there recently." And she's far from the only one who didn't enjoy the conditions there. She'd tried to keep her spirits up with warm wine, friendly conversation, and numerous changes into dry socks, but the mood of the Mire was still pretty grim.

"Now I think I'd better head back inside to wash up. What about you? Walking back or staying awhile?"

[the_effect_she_has]

"I've heard a lot about the Fallow Mire." Katniss murmured, as she hooked her bow back onto her back, and started to pull arrows free of the target. "Mostly that it lived up to its name."

She looked around at the targets, "If you give me a moment to gather my arrows - I'll join you. I hate to waste when we're so thin on supplies as is."

[serannas]

"Of course. It's what the hunters in my clan did too, when they could." She puts her staff on her back and moves towards a target. "Need help?"

[the_effect_she_has]

"Well, if you help your hunters ... then yes, as long as you can pull arrows out without breaking the shaft." Katniss gave her a quiet little smile, before she carefully pried out another one.

[serannas]

Ellana has some experience with arrows. One hunter years ago used to show off to her when they took off into the woods together, and she'd help him pull out his arrows. She twists one back and forth as she pulls back, until it eventually comes free. Then she continues on with others, humming as she does so to make the work feel less tedious.

[the_effect_she_has]

Katniss nods her head in silent approval, as she too start to pull the arrows out, one by one. Carefully putting them back in her quivers, checking them for damage. Without thinking about it, she starts humming along with Ellana, and it makes the work go faster between the two of them.

[serannas]

She half-turns to look over at Katniss when she joins in, surprised that she knows the tune. But she doesn't comment until she's finished, bringing her collection of arrows over to her.

"I didn't know that our Dalish songs were known among other races," she says, sounding pleasantly surprised.