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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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."

There are, surely, better times and places for Solas to meet and speak with people, and as he wanders into the storage cellar he realises that he may have made something of a mistake; this is not the best way to meet others, especially those that have the mark of being a little too Dalish for his comfort. He also realises that he's somehow stepped into something that has his age-old frustrations are rearing up against, and he has to take a step back, to pause and listen as they begin to talk and discuss around him.

It doesn't take too long, at least, for him to figure out what it was that has caused this meeting to occur, what it is that has upset and frustrated all the gathered elves - but when he hears speak of the People something inside of him aches, leaving him with a tightly clamped jaw and an uncertainty about him. Stepping forward would draw attention to himself, but he cannot ignore the pull of a discussion that, perhaps, he may be able to weigh in on.

"While I am not sure of my welcome," he begins it kindly enough. "If there is any advice I can offer then I am here to give it." All he had wanted was a drink of something before he slipped away to read and join the Fade and dreams. He steps from one foot to another, uncertain and uncomfortable, but he walks forward. Whatever his opinions of the Dalish, at least, he is managing to keep them to himself for now.

There is something transpiring in this increasingly heated discussion that Fern doesn't quite follow, a tension in the air that reminds her of old warnings her mother had given to her about the Dalish ages ago. She hadn't fully understood them then, but the tension does throw something into sharp relief: they're all elves here, but the divisions between them might yawn as deep as those that separate elves from humans.

She's quiet, frowning privately to herself as the verbal sparring continues amongst the others, until the strange elf she'd glimpsed only the the one time while wandering the Gallows at night makes his appearance. (She'd thought to call him hahren, at the time.)

Now she glances to Beleth, to get her read on things, but is otherwise quiet.

Sorrel, who turned with no lack of sympathy to Saoirse when she spoke-- and then to Myr, mirroring Beleth, finds that rising annoyance cut off at the knees.

"You're Solas, aren't you?" Not quite famous, but known. An early volunteer, Sina had told him. She'd told him one thing more that made Sorrel put his eyebrows together, made him wary, "What advice do you have to offer?"

"Let us not play a game of assumptions, Scoutmaster. We are here as cousins but I do truly hope that we might be the ties to bind our families together but my words are an unfortunate truth and the hahren will be much harsher than I."

She sighs quietly, more tiredly than out of any displeased emotion. "Many gifts, even those in the best of interests and from the kindest of hearts, can be always be seen as something more from the city as a whole. And any could be seen as the needed excuse to tear down the vhenadahl or worse: burn another alienage to the ground, to run them from this city and their home. That is why we need these candid truths even concerning the smallest of gifts."

She swallows hard, bowing her head and only peeking again as Solas arrives on the scene. He is not someone that she has seen before and cannot help looking to him curiously.

Edited 2018-03-09 20:23 (UTC)

There are, he thinks, a thousand and one things he could say that might be clearly offered advice; it's not as though he has done anything to hide or disengage with his opinions about the Dalish and their intentions in Thedas. He has memories and information that he would gladly tell them all - but experience has taught him that few are willing to listen, and those that hold fast to myth and legend that have shaped their lives. The experience is not their fault, of course, but the choice not to try and question those myths and learn more about their true history has him on edge.

"I have yet to hear all the suggestions and ideas," it's easy enough to admit: it's not as though he's been standing by the door listening to their every word. "Caution would be most beneficial, whatever it is that you choose to do. Your people stand in the midst of a world that frowns upon them and leaves them distrusted and shunned, no matter what aid they have been to the Inquisition proper. It would help the cause to have some of you punished for something that is misinterpreted or misjudged."

That, at least, he has experience in: an older apostate elf with no vallaslin and no ties? He's had his fair share.

It isn't until Beleth replies that Myr realizes how his warning must have sounded--how his own frustration and grief and guilt colored his words in a way he'd not intended. "Not willingly," quietly, quietly. "I'd never doubt you mean only well for them, but all magic's got risks. And I'd not see another gift turn bitter from the haste it's given in."

As Saoirse says--and as Solas says, now that he's joined the conversation. Myr turns his face in the elder apostate's direction--old habit, not yet dead--and falls silent, swallowing back the resurgence of unease in his heart.

Nari has taken up her perch on a short stack of crates near Fern again, content to watch and listen intently. The topic has taken a long journey from where it'd begun, and far more of her people than she'd anticipated had come, but it was good. Fits and starts of conflict notwithstanding, the Inquisition's elves had never really met together like this before. It was... good.

Saoirse's words do little to soothe Beleth's agitated nerves. "Yes, I would prefer not to play a game of assumptions," Is all she says to Saoirse. Cousins don't, generally, accuse each other of being manipulative liars, she doesn't add on, and you generally assume someone with the best of intentions wouldn't do something like that. It's not the kind of thing you accidentally commit.

Unfortunate truth, indeed.

Luckily for the sake of the topic, Myr manages to respond in terms that are easier to swallow, and soothes her irritation far more. Her shoulders relax slightly, and she turns to the newcomer. Another city elf--not surprising, the only Dalish still in the Gallows that aren't present are far more concerned in bedding humans than aiding elves. Solas is, however, experienced in both magic and elven lore in ways that Beleth has rarely encountered. The perks of being a somniari, she supposes.

"You're welcome here, you are just as affected by the prejudices against elves as the rest of us." She thinks for a moment, then continues. "The discussion was focusing on the idea of restoring a little of what Sina had attempted to do. I believe we'd settled on the idea of using Keeper magic to graft fruit to the vhenadahl, so that it might provide for the alienage." A pause, and pointedly: "If we have the hahren's permission, and don't attempt to cause whatever horrible mischief we can to it and the residents."

Moving on. "...Have you had any experience with that kind of magic? It sounds possible in theory, but in application?" A shrug.

"There's not much to assume, honestly." Adasse piped up, from where he had let himself fade into the background, to listen to the others. Now his voice was pitched just right to carry across the room, as he leaned against the wall. He glanced over at Solas curiously -- he'd heard of the man after all -- and then over to Saoirse. Then back over to Beleth.

"The hahren's going to give a version of 'oh, that will be lovely, we don't really need it because we aren't starving or downtrodden, but fresh fruit during the winter will be a treat.'" A shrug of his broad shoulders, "I think it's going to be less about lying, and more about letting her know it's not charity. Just a sign of good will, all that. Nothing to see here."

A quick mutter, under his breath, "After all we're the Kirkwall alienage and we don't need any help, blah blah blah ..."

There are many here, Solas thinks to himself, that believe he is a part of their people. He is clearly not Dalish, with no vallaslin to colour the paleness of his face, but he does not yet fit in with the elves from the cities, either. He's a step away from them all but welcomed all the same, and it seems foolish to take advantage of the chance to learn as much as he can, to try and see if there is anyone with the wisdom to be a worthwhile ally to make.

He's heard the insults; he has been called knife ear and flat ear both, pushed away for not being Dalish enough and yet being too elven to fit in. Solas has a place here and he's loathe to risk it or do something that might encourage him to lose it.

"Magic is magic. Dalish magic is far more practical, yes, and more subtle." Using a Keeper's magic to try and restore something that was lost is not a terrible idea; the magic that the Dalish use is a memory of what the elves of Arlathan had used in their time, when they walked as the most powerful figures across Thedas. "I am no expert on the magic used in the Clans, but it is capable of being done with subtlety. I would suggest honesty as the best course: you seek to honour a friend. To say that, rather than focus on the gift of food for an alienage, will be more likely to inspire good will from your people."

Practically, the magic of the Dales is not something Solas has much knowledge about. The best he can offer is the gentle urging for caution, for consideration of the use of words, and at least some suggestion that the Dalish have something to credit themselves with.

"Why can't we want both, to honor the dead and look after the living?" Sorrel's voice is low, but it carries; he's sitting again. Solas' compliment for Dalish magic has bought him a handful of goodwill, "That's what we ought to tell the Hahren."

He cocks his head, gently sour, a definite shrug. For the moment, it's as if he doesn't care, as if having thought of the idea, and put it forth, and supported it, he cannot be seen to want it, for fear of... Something. He looks from Solas to the rest of them, settling last on Saoirse, for whom the anxieties of the Alienage seem loudest and most urgent.

"Well, if we're being honest, after all."

From her perch, Nahariel is unable to see the most recent arrival, but his even tone and delivery marks him the elf she'd met briefly in the library with the table in front of her covered in the few books and Elven Artifact research notes they had that mentioned any layouts or small scraps of information on the construction on the ruins that the Inquisition had visited. She'd filed away his interest in the subject and had meant to find him again to speak on it but hadn't done so.

His suggestion to approach it as an honor to Sina was what she wanted to do more than the rest, although it felt selfish to say so when the living had such needs.

"Ask, I think, rather than tell," Nari says just loudly enough to be heard, "It may benefit the alienage greatly in the long run, but the Vhenadahl is theirs, and that land--such that it is--is theirs as well. Respecting that little sovereignty is a gift in itself. Having a chance to give to us rather than just accept..." she trails off then, certain that the distinction was important, but not at all certain where she'd intended to go with that train of thought.

Edited 2018-03-11 19:44 (UTC)

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

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