faderift | [Semi-Open (Elves)] bad news on the television

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[Semi-Open (Elves)] bad news on the television

WHO: Nari, Fern, Sorrel, and whoever else has pointy elf ears (sorry Qunari/Vashoth frens) and wants to get something rude off their chest
WHAT: A good old-fashioned yellfest about the Chantry Forest fire
WHEN: Backdated to mid-Guardian, a day or so after the Quarantine lift
WHERE: Gallows kitchen storage cellar
NOTES: CW: Dalish being Very Dalish, human bashing, mentions of character death. Salt is a way of life down here.

The cellar is cramped, but the walls are thick, the hustle and bustle of the kitchens is loud enough to further dampen the sound of incredulous and irate voices, and there are plenty of places to perch. Nahariel is sitting on one such stack of crates looking like a stormcloud, although every so often she jumps down to pace back and forth like a caged cougar, absently picking at the scar on her thumb. Her head snaps up when you come down the stairs, her lips pressed tight like they're trying to keep her helpless rage compressed inside her.

They fail.

"How could they?" she blurts out violently, as if every human in Kirkwall had held a torch and lit the underbrush on purpose.

[Let's just do this all in one thread for maximum hubbub :D just try to be aware if anyone's getting left behind]

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"They'd just yell 'blood magic', burn it again, and worse. They couldn't hit the Inquisition, we're too big, but the Alienage--" Nari wishes fervently for a knife of her own.

Something cold and hard came over Adasse's face then, as his gaze went from surprised to murderous rage in a heartbeat.

"If they come near the alienage I don't care what they yell. I'll slit all their throats before they can say a word or a whimper."

He put his hands on his hips, exhaling slowly. Thinking hard.

"...listen, I'm no mage and I'm no Dalish, but who says this has to be out in the open?"

By now, Fern's eyes have grown wide, and while there is still evidence of her tears, and her anger, Adasse's words have clearly put a different kind of fright in her expression.

"Wait," she blurts out, "wait a minute, just--just stop." She extends her hands out and looks amongst all those gathered. "We aren't really going to hurt anyone. We're not thinking about that. ..Are we?"

She turns her eyes almost desperately to Nari, seeking reassurance from her.

Nari shakes her head, placing a hand heavy with that desired reassurance on Fern's shoulder. "No, we're not," she says. It's not just for Fern's benefit that she says so, although she doesn't look at either of the men. "Not if they don't come after us. As much as any of us might want to, it would just make more trouble, and most of it for elves."

It was always mostly for elves.

"But we do need to do... something." That said, she's at a loss. For all that she'd sent to them, Nahariel isn't a leader. Now she does look at Sorrel. After all, he's her First now.

“You’re not going to hurt anyone.” It would be thematically appropriate for both her words and the whole bard spymaster thing if Beleth had just materialized from the shadows. But she’s not quite that leveled up on barding, so instead she appears at the doorway, arms crossed and expression grim. “Some of us can do it without it being tracked back to other elves.”

Her eyes flick to Sorrel and Adasse as she walks into the room. They, perhaps, are aware of the entire gang that overnight had mysteriously vanished, to the last man.

“Though, that means that we’d lose the message that we’re sending. It would just be done to punish them. Which they deserve, of course, but that has to be taken into account. Though—we should do something that we can be obvious about.” She trails over to Sorrel now, standing next to him, chin set, and eyes hard. It’s been a long couple months since Sina’s death, and Beleth’s patience for shemlen bullshit has been long gone.

“There should be some noise made about this. Some push back, besides them all just getting their faces kicked in. They need to hear us, because we’ve suffered in silence for too long. Let them know that’s not going to fly anymore.” There’s a brief pause as she muses over her own advice. “We could send letters.” The bane of all politicians.

"Who would you send them to?"

Myr, on the other hand, is about as stealthy as a small blond bear--which is to say, not. He's also not often in the habit of poking into basements, but Beleth's voice and the muted sound of others, half-recognizable, drew him here to the top of the stairs.

"And what will you say to persuade them?"

Reassured by Nari's hand on her shoulder, Fern takes a small, instinctive step nearer towards her, then looks towards the doorway again as both Beleth and Myr appear. The sight of a division head here makes her eyes widen a hair--shit, are they busted?--but then Beleth weighs in on the discussion in such a way that it becomes clear that no, no one here is in trouble. Maybe they all might be soon, though.

She keeps quiet, worrying her lower lip.

There are several parts of Nari which would like very much for Beleth to make a few of the "entrepreneurial" woodcutters disappear. The leaders, whoever it was that started the fight that led to the fire. Her eyes are hard, but Fern is using her as a shelter right now, and she can't bring herself to be another harsh voice near the fragile-seeming girl who'd loved Sina.

Besides, the others had that avenue covered.

"The Scoutmaster's letters might have more impact than anything the rest of us could write," she says. "Couldn't speak for the rest of you but I certainly have no influence whatsoever."

Beleth's lips press into a thin line at that, but she nods. "I'll...see what I can do. The letter may carry more wait, but as the Scoutmaster, I have, ah. Constraints on what I can do. Publicly." There's more than a little politics at work here, and Beleth has to maneuver through them carefully. Her job is to do what's best for the Inquisition, and even if she...didn't always strictly adhere to that, it's one thing to have private side projects, and another to attach her name to a very public opinion.

"But you shouldn't discount your voices. Even if I'm the Scoutmaster, I'm just one person. If I send them a letter, even if I say 'and other people are mad, too' all they'll get out of it is 'oh we pissed off the scoutmaster'." She gives a wave of her hand, with a frown. Idly, her eyes turn to Myr, and then Fern. They are not people prone to agreeing with bouts of casual murder, and may have to be maneuvered around in order not to stop on their toes but also do the whole murder thing.

Nari...seems opposed, but maybe that's just for Fern. Beleth has heard what Dahlasanor does to humans. Surely a few disappearances aren't that big of a deal.

"What's important isn't making my voice heard. It's making everyone's voices heard. Loud enough that they can't ignore us. As for who..." She tilts her head, hands on her hips as she thinks. "I don't know. I doubt Bran will care, really, but at least if we go and petition to him first, we can say that we tried."

"... okay seriously, can I just - " Maker that got out of of hand really quickly before Adasse could toss in a word edgewise. He cleared his throat, rubbing the back of his head for a moment as he looked around once more. To Sorrel, to Beleth, over to Myr, back to Fern and then to Nari.

"I'm not saying we secretly murder people. I'm saying we secretly set up little magical groves right under their noses."

He looked over at Beleth, "You're powerful boss, no lie, but Bran's main goal in life is to Not Cause Waves."

"No-- I have an idea."

Sorrel has been sitting quietly, brow furrowed ever since Nari looked to him. That wasn't the glance of a friend, of someone who shared pain and needed support. There wasn't mere solidarity there, it was... She wasn't looking at him, she was looking to him. He felt the weight of that settle like a heavy coat.

"Small groves hidden everywhere will only start a hunt for more, nd any that get found will turn into firewood. We need something safer, something right in the Alienage that even the shemlen can't justify burning down or cutting up," He tilts his head, one hand spread open, palm-up. There's only one thing in the Alienage that the humans can't really do away with, not without serious repercussion, "With a little luck and some magic, we could grow fruit on the Vhenadahl."

"With a little luck and some magic, we could grow fruit on the Vhenadahl."

Finally--a solution to the problem that makes the knot of helpless feeling in Fern's chest loosen a little bit. She looks to Sorrel and smiles some.

"I could help with that," she ventures, stepping a bit out from under Nari's protective shadow.

Silent with concentration, Myr feels his way down the stairs to join the (rest of?) the conspirators; perforce he ends up standing some way away from them, the better not to go stumbling over crates or barrels or bags in uncertain array. (He tries not to think about the distance.) “But what will you say?” he persists at Beleth. “Simply that there’s discontent over what happened? That Kirkwall owed more to Sina’s memory? That they still do?”

Sorrel’s proposal gets a surprised noise out of the blind mage. “It’s an oak,” isn’t it? Theirs in Hasmal had been; elven transfers to the Circle usually spoke of oaks in their alienages. “Keeper magic can do that?”

Magic is something Nari leaves entirely to mages, trusting her friends to make the right decisions about it.

Seeing that Fern has found a positive idea to latch on to, and fellow mages to do so with, she moves to speak more easily with Beleth and Adasse.

"I suppose getting the branches to graft to the Vhenadahl would be our purview, then."

"....Huh. Well." Now that was an interesting thought, and he looked over at his lover with admiration. Sorrel was so damned clever. He looked over at Beleth, a smirk coming across his lips.

"Permission to rob rich people's trees?" He asked lightly, because honestly, this was right up his alley.

"Of course it can-- of course you can," Sorrel says, first to Myr, and then more gently to Fern, "It'll be delicate, we might have to come back a few times and make sure the tree isn't taking it too badly, but, it should be possible. I'll teach you how, though we ought to wait until spring..."

He makes eye contact with Beleth, a brief ghost of a wide-eyed look. Holy shit, they listened to me. Now I have to be in charge?

"...So don't just go around stealing branches from fruit trees, at least until the spring thaw."

Beleth presses her lips into a thin line as Myr continues to press her. "I don't know, yet. Maybe that the forest was a gift to Kirkwall from a dying woman, and burning it down is a tarnish on her memory--but I doubt Bran would care." She sighs, running a hand through her hair, then shoots Sorrel a wry smile. Being in charge is fun, isn't it? Or: It's completely terrifying, when you realize how far reaching your stupid ideas suddenly are.

It's perfectly normal for Beleth to lean against Sorrel as she tries to sort through troubling thoughts. It's even normal for the way that she leans her head on his shoulder, looking to comfort and be comforted by her twin in the touchy feely way that they're prone to. There is a brief moment where, as she leans against him, she shoots Adasse a Look. But maybe she's just listening to him talk about stealing.

"I'm sure that you could do it. And I've seen Myr with creation magic, he's really great. I'm sure you'd be able to show him how to use the Keeper's magic. And Fern, if you'd like...?" She straightens slightly, to look over at the young girl. "But either way--hold off for now. At least wait until the trees start blossoming."

"Likely not." There's something desolate about Myr's tone, and bitter. "But a gift's gone from our hands once it's given, and who are we to dictate what use it's put to?"

The people of Kirkwall hadn't asked for the forest grown over the graves of their loved ones, no matter the intent behind it. Many of the more staunch among them had made that clear to him--at length--as he'd been about his promise to Sina. All the gentle suasion he knew, the reasoned arguments, failed in the face of that. They were owed the choice.

Even if the choice they made felt like the worst possible one to him.

His expression sharpens briefly from melancholy at the continued thread of conversation, at the assumption that places him right in the heart of the budding (ha!) conspiracy. "If," he says, iron behind the word, "you've the hahren's permission for this--his and the alienage's--I'll lend my aid. But not without that."

And much as a part of him yearns desperately to learn Keeper magic-- "I'd not ask to learn the magic, though, unless you think it right, First." --it isn't a part of his heritage. City elves and Circle mages went a different way.

"I'd be happy to speak to the hahren about it. Perhaps I'll reach out to Saoirse and a few others, I know that she in particular is familiar with the members of the alienage. I have little doubt that Thranduil would be a boon, as well." If this is a conspiracy, then it's a conspiracy that should have at least a few tall elves wading through them. Saoirse is a little trickier, Beleth is not largely familiar with her--but what she does know says that it can't hurt to ask.

Beleth's words are polite, diplomatically worded, but there's a firmness to it. An expectation that things will shape themselves into the vision that she sees, if only she is willful enough to make it. As Beleth looks around the room, Sorrel might notice that for a moment, there's an uncanny resemblance to Deheune.

"Of course we think it's right. You are an elf, and the Keeper's magic is the magic of the elves. It is your rightful heritage." They were all descended from Arlathan, after all. If nothing else was useful about the unfortunate way that half-elves turned out, it was that they could all be sure in the knowledge that every elf was the child of an elf before them, all the way back to the days before shemlen. She turns to Sorrel, and swats his arm with a frown. "You'll show him, right. Right? He's my friend. I know he'll handle it perfectly well."

"...But a gift's gone from our hands once it's given, and who are we to dictate what use it's put to?"

"Well chopping it up and setting fire to it shouldn't be acceptable either," Fern snips back at Myr, automatically defensive of the place where she and Sina spent so much of their time together before she fell ill. Myr's tone wounds her in a way she hadn't expected, and she folds her skinny arms over her chest and draws nearer to Nari, turning her eyes towards the shadows.

Nari's angry and she wants to be angry and stay angry because it's easier than grieving. It's simple, clean, bright. It's an ember to clutch to keep the darker things at bay, but it wounds as much as it saves, and as much as it makes her grind her teeth to say so, Myr is right.

"It's not really a gift if those who receive it aren't allowed to do with it as they will," she says in a dull tone somewhere between resentment and despair. "You can't give something if your hands are still on it. I could spend a hundred solid days making something beautiful, could put every fiber of my heart and soul into it, but it wouldn't matter if the person I meant it for wanted something else. It would be a great work, but not a great gift."

Why, why, why did it matter whether or not the fractious, petty, small-minded humans of Kirkwall were upset. This line of thought was taking her dangerously close to questioning Sina's judgment and that makes her skin uncomfortable, so Nari squeezes her hands open and shut a few times and wrenches the reins of her mind back to those who would see the gift properly for what it was.

"It's a good plan, Sorrel. To speak to the hahren, try to pass the gift to people who will truly appreciate it."

"Listen, I'm not going to stop anyone from doing anything to anyone who's too careless to live, since it's none of my business what any of you do in your own time," Sorrel tells them, practical about practical things, and a little bit savage, "But-- Beleth's right."

He would say this much even if he disagreed with every word she had said.

"Keeper's magic is made to protect The People, passed down all the way since before even the founding of the Dales. Both of you have a right to learn it, if you're willing, and if," He gives both Fern and Myr a sharp, serious stare, "If, you can protect that knowledge the way a Dalish Keeper would. It's not for all the world to know, and it's not for the humans-- the truth, is what gets written down and remembered, not what actually is. Both of you ought to know by now what happens to truths about magic, when they're in human hands."

He lets that sit for a while, then gently pats Beleth's shoulder to get her to let him up, and stands. That's that, the gesture seems to say, a confidence in unquestionable reality.

"So of course I'll teach you what I know. But I want to write Pel and see what she thinks. Bel, if you and Adasse would talk to Saoirse and work together to bring the Alienage's hahren around to the idea, and it might help to hear it from their own first, but if you want me, I'll help. This is settled for now; can we all agree?"

"There will not be any need to send others to speak with me," says one heavily Starkhaven accented voice. Speaking of appearing from the shadows, Saoirse was not the sort that appeared to have been nurtured on the path of a bard but she has never denied the usefulness of shadows nor her own skills. "I have heard your words."

Whether she agrees with what has been said is unreadable on her features as the mage looks over the gathered group of elves.

"I will come with you and speak with the hahren if this is what you request of me but one thing must be made clear." Her tone, although soft, carries a stern nature that is a noted rarity to those that know her. "You will be truthful in your words and your actions to her... all of them. If you seek to help those in the alienage and protect its future there will no secrets, no maneuvering behind their backs. These are people who have been through so very much, trapped in an existence where the smallest of wrongs are pinned on them and lived such a bleak existence that some believed the Qun to be a better life. The vhenadahl, in turn, is a source of hope for those that remain that there is still good to be had."

Quietly, she fiddles with the locket hanging around her neck. "I cannot say she will agree so willing at first as it is something so important as the vhenadahl but she is understanding and willing to listen. After all even in the chaos that was Kirkwall when the Circle fell, they hid me and helped me to escape from the massacre in the streets. Perhaps a demonstration? It might also be good for her to meet and speak with those you plan to teach this magic and their teacher as well."

Edited 2018-03-09 03:34 (UTC)

Myr's tempted sore to argue--to lay out the heartsick reasoning of months that had led him to defend the Kirkwallers' right to make of Sina's forest what they had--but he knows better than to start. It's not the time or place; mourning the loss of the forest is mourning Sina's death anew. (He wants desperately to hope the anger, the threats might be put to the foolishness of grief, but there's no refuge for him in that kind of naïveté any longer. The world is large and cruel; an elf must perforce grow fangs and claws or be crushed beneath it.)

Besides, if he's going to be contrary, better to be contrary defending a concrete goal--like the sovereignty of the alienage-- Though here is Saoirse saying all he'd say on the matter, and more besides. Myr wisely keeps his mouth shut until she's made an end of speaking. "It's a wise idea," he says quietly, once she has. "I'll be glad, for my part, to meet with her."

A beat of a pause--then, to Sorrel: "And 'no secrets' means you tell her if there's any risk to the vhenadahl from this." Magic that could encourage a graft to take he can believe--can even start to think of how such a spell might work--but magic has it limits.

Saoirse appearing at the mention of her name, like Fen'Harel out of the stories, spooks Beleth enough to jolt--then quickly think back on anything she'd just said about the other woman, and make sure none of it had been rude. But no, she had been clear that she would ask, not demand. But then Saoirse begins speaking, and Beleth frowns. A frown that only deepens when Myr continues after her. Before even acknowledging Saoirse, Beleth takes a moment to glance at Sorrel, whom she knows well enough to feel secure that he is having similar thoughts, and then to Nari's face, angry and hurting.

Still turned to Nari and Sorrel, Beleth mutters a few words of Elvish, "They assume much," and ponders if this hadn't, perhaps, been a matter that should have been dealt with within the People--and Fern--before reaching out to the others. At the least, she would not have had to sit through people reminding her not to be a lying, manipulative asshole.

"Do you truly fear that any of us are at risk of these abhorrent behaviors?" She turns to Saoirse first, for whom she could give a little slack, for it's not like she exactly knows Beleth, or any of the Dalish gathered. And she wouldn't be the first to assume the worst of them. Then to Myr, whose words aren't as biting, but hurt worse, somehow. "That we would lie to the hahren, or willingly risk the vhenadahl?"

And, because it apparently needs to be said, Beleth straightens, expression distantly polite. "I can assure both you, as I will assure the hahren and any others who require it, that we are doing this to honor the memory of our fallen sister, and to help those who would benefit from it. We have no ulterior motives, no desire to do anything that would hurt the alienage, and we will be as open in the process as we can." Then a pause, and she presses her lips into a thin line. "As long as our requests are met, as well."

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