faderift | when they tell you you are made of stars, tell them you know.

( The note that arrives for Araceli is, of course, nothing so gauche as a summons. )

Mistress Bonaventura,

I can only describe myself as immensely glad to have discovered you are yet with us, and I will dare to hope my own return to the Inquisition fold might be greeted as warmly. It has been some time since we last spoke in Skyhold; dare I further hope we might have more to say to one another after such time? Allow me the small imposition on your time and join me in my workspace this afternoon - I have brought a number of Nevarran teas you may enjoy.

Lady T.

( but nevertheless, she is expected at the set time. Benevenuta is attended, as ever, by the companionship of Husband and Max—the former beneath her desk chair, and the latter near the doorway, to better inspect visitors. There is water boiled, and tea steeping, and the room smells of spice and magic and Benevenuta's musky perfume. )

There had been rumour that the Inquisition had returned with a plus one not from the rifts, and that it had very much been a return so the letter has Araceli smiling, definitely clearing out her day so she can be there on time.

A more polished girl to turn up at Benevunta's workspace, all smiles, a murmur to a dog large enough to give her pause when she arrives.

"Lady Thevenet, I'm so glad to see you again!" Sincere in a way she usually is but wouldn't need to be with all people who might return to the fold, Araceli can push down some embarrassment at what she must know if Lady Vivas knows it too. "How have you been? Oh there's so much to tell you now even since we landed in Kirkwall." How much has she missed someone who knows all this better than her?

A great deal, apparently.

And if this isn't something to lighten her heart, then what is? Benevenuta rises—a fur-lined shawl the concession to the weather that her neckline is not, skirts thick and sweeping when she moves—and clasps her hands in warm greeting, ushering Araceli into the space and past the sentinel mabari.

(He is getting fat and spoiled in her care, but he is an old man like his master was, and in her opinion at least one of them ought to be fat and happy in his twilight years.)

“My dear, I'm all the better for such a welcome! Come; sit. Tell me everything.”

No, really.

So many left - people like herself who hopefully returned home (though now it's less certain, what becomes of them, she's not so sure these days) or those who went elsewhere in Thedas to continue their work for the Inquisition or themselves - but so rarely do they come back. The squeeze in return is gentle before making herself comfortable, wondering where best to begin but of course, it comes to her.

"You can't have missed the garden Kirkwall boasts now where a Chantry once stood." It could sound light but for her mouth twisting; Sina is dead, no loyalty is owed here when they'd argued over it without making any peace on that account. There aren't so many people Araceli would let her feelings known plainly before but Benevenuta has earned that candour. "It's not entirely the beginning of all that went on but if looking for a place to start, that might be the easiest when I know most of it, a little less involved with certain matters together though it starts the same: people who don't think about the ripples when a stone is cast in the water, all those it touches, who do a thing because they believe they have the right."

While Araceli begins—and she's is certain that it is only the beginning, the very tip of the iceberg, she remembers her time in Skyhold too well to doubt it in the slightest—Benevenuta pours tea into cups, aware of but ignoring the way that Husband noses interestedly past her skirts to see the second pair of knees above her. Not quite interested enough to actually move out from beneath the chair, and so let it be.

“Ah, so we're referring to someone within the Inquisition,” is the dry prompt.

She'd assumed as much, but it's hardly politic for the Inquisition to have officially taken responsibility for its creation, and so her quiet inquiries into the matter have so far not borne as much fruit as she might have hoped in terms of deciphering the situation past almost certainly involving the Dalish, an assumption made following that march of them toward the thing.

But here is Araceli, a most helpful and informative girl. Benevenuta has missed her, for all they knew each other only a little. It's so hard to find good help these days.

Slipping a hand beneath the table for Husband to sniff in recognition of the same curiosity she'd expect to see from her own fox when he curls beneath her desk, Araceli sighs softly, the memory stirring but there's only so much you might owe to the dead when the living depend on you yet with an unstable unpredictable foundation provided for their future.

"Sina Dahlasanor was one. She passed recently but given how ill she was by then and the extent of the forest, there was no way she would have accomplished such a thing alone, though when I asked her how it came to be I was told that I couldn't be told since it was a secret of the People. So that would lead me to believe Pel Ashara, being a First one same as Sina, a mage just as capable." A project head of all the things, partaking in something as utterly foolish, and them with a Dalish elf as a division head even then too. The selfishness of it when there had been plans for the Chantry garden with Kirkwall's natives unhappy with them frustrates her. "When I attempted to explain it to her, it was as if she didn't want to hear me but that hardly surprises me even when we're outside of Skyhold now.

"'It was sick. I healed it.'" Araceli repeats the words scornfully, pausing to take a sip of tea. "She called it a gift for the people of Kirkwall; I'd call it something very different for all our laps."

“In a way,”

eventually, holding her teacup beneath her chin, smiling over it in that strange, fox-crooked way she has,

“we really have to admire the Dalish capacity for arrogance. I think that, singularly, is what took me by surprise in them when we were all first in Skyhold. I think it shouldn't have, in retrospect; theirs is an uphill battle of survival. That survival must depend much on their own sense of themselves. Their certainty in their judgment.”

(This is borderline a professional opinion; one terrifying egotist to an entire people.)

A moment later, sweeping it all aside as easily as that: “I imagine it serves them better in the forests.”

"For the most, we aren't the people we were before we came to the Inquisition. We are the Inquisition, and that requires sacrifice; you can imagine how well that argument went down, even between two people who had been friends since long. Beleth has a dragon, a miniature one, she's had that since Skyhold but all the time we studied under the Nightingale together."

A pity they don't seem to be using it for the good of something they could all stand to benefit from, but it's as Benevenuta says, and Araceli has become accustomed to the taste of disappointment in her mouth.

"The cold might solve the forest for us, draw a line under one embarrassing chapter. As for Seekers, Templars, and certain Mages disgracing themselves to varying degrees." Well that's absolutely her damn business.

As useful as Araceli's information is—and it is, catching Benevenuta up quickly on the great deal that she'd missed wading hip-deep in the different-familiar muck of Nevarran court politics—it crosses her mind that a young woman sits before her who had been bursting to unload her accumulated aggravations. She wonders, only fleetingly, if this is how her mother had felt when she began; sifting through many words for the ones that will serve purpose, but not so heartless as to ignore those around them, or the context in which they come to her.

She's bright, though, and few words are wasted; serve their dual purpose of clear frustration in need of outlet and the necessity of sharing information. If she lives through this, if the Fade doesn't reclaim her, then she may yet go far.

Mmm. But not out of reach, Benevenuta decides, tabling that thought for another day.

“Why don't we start with the worst of it?” she sighs.

Perhaps starting with the garden was a mistake, but mistakes are lessons to learn from; her grief still twisted up in it, that something productive might come out of it at the very least. Araceli takes a breath, considers Benevenuta's words and knows what probably has to be brought up.

"There was an incident in the Gallows not long after we'd all finally arrived and settled here between a mage, Seeker Darton, his Warden mage wife, and a now former Templar. The mage shouted at him about what happened in Kirkwall and slapped him, then Ser Harimann restrained her. Violently. And had him hold her there on the ground for a time while questioning her.

"A member of the Inquisition. All of them." Mmm, wait, she amends that. "Not his wife, independent ally but it was at the very least an incident. A Seeker allowing that when mages are allies could be seen as encouraging the worst of Templar behaviour from the past, and in the Gallows too. His wife being a mage could bring the accusation of double standards. Part of me had hoped for a little better for a man who came to aid cleaning up the mess his colleagues left at Dairsmuid."

when they tell you you are made of stars, tell them you know.

araceli.

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