faderift | She robbed them of wealth

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She robbed them of wealth

WHO: Araceli Bonaventura and you!
WHAT: Catch-all for post-Mire; gambling in the tavern, Skyhold parkour 2: electric boogaloo, chilling in the gardens and wildcard available. Also dinner with Korrin Ataash
WHEN: Between returning from the Fallow Mire and folks departing to the darkspawn desert and red templar winter adventureland
WHERE: Skyhold; the Herald’s Rest, battlements, gardens or wherever if you wildcard it
NOTES: Feel free to have seen a wild Araceli roaming past (and possibly up and over) your windows or to have had a run-in with her fox. I’ll match your style/tense.

tavern; teaching cards and dice
If she’s going to have to learn new games of cards, the least she can do is make sure people can play a few hands of the games she grew up with or introduce them to liar’s dice. Liar’s dice is always so much more than just making coin or whatever you’re wagering after all; liar’s dice teaches you how to figure out a tell and how to cover your own with enough practice and how to tell the most bold-faced lies without a single person noticing if you’re good.

She’s more than happy to buy a drink for anyone who wants to play a hand or two. If you’re new she’ll go easy on you if you offer to explain how Wicked Grace works.

parkour;
The best thing about being back in Skyhold is actually having something to climb that won’t have her landing stagnant water that’s full of corpses ready to attack her. There’s always a little note tacked on a corner of the board in her elegant hand offering lessons and her name but it’s easier in small groups or one on one. Often you’ll need to track her down as she does her regular circuits of Skyhold, climbing up and down the walls either side of the fortress

gardens;
The gardens of Skyhold are larger than most gardens in Castileos, lacking the sea air but they’re more sheltered than most other places in Skyhold so she can some of the weak watery sun. After the Mire she needs it so she’s relocated from the library that was beginning to feel overcrowded with actual researchers, something she is absolutely not. Instead she’s working on something of a report, scowling at it most of the time and there are doodles in the margins, annoyed scribbles and half a paw print along the edge of one of the pages but it’s fine, it’s a draft, it’s perfectly fine.

Besides, it’s not even a report exactly, more of a guide, advice about how to actually get around and fight safely in conditions like the Mire.

Feel free to interrupt before she starts getting distracted with her little reference sketches.

wildcard;
Where else have you bumped into her? Or have you met a rather striking fox with streaks of red beneath his black fur and wondered who the hell keeps shouting ‘Lux’ as you stare down at said fox.

dinner with Korrin Ataash;
It took a lot of convincing to get the kitchen staff to allow her to cook. It helps that she had the coin to pay for it thanks to several profitable games of dice because it’s easy to spot a liar and far too many of the soldiers have honest faces here, the kind of men and women that’d be eaten alive in Castileos. She promised Korrin a meal she’d cooked herself and they absolutely deserve it after that hell.

She can’t make her favourite exactly. They don’t have quite as many fish but that’s obviously the problem with being stuck up a bloody mountain although there’s at least plenty of snow and ice to help keep it fresh. One of the helpers stays to explain the herbs she doesn’t recognise but all in all there’s plenty of fish stew served in bread bowls with rich tomato sauce with a healthy glug of good red wine through it.

When Korrin arrives according to the note Araceli left with her, there’s even a candle or two lit. Look, you gotta have ambience for this after she spent a whole day engaged in high stakes kitchen negotiations.

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Bruce paused a little when she asked him about where he came from, mostly because Bruce tended to be extremely private about anything that was about him. It was something that was born from years of paranoia and the need to be cautious.

Still, seeing the mark on her hand, Bruce supposed any sort of answer would work for her. It was a little unfair, yes, but Bruce also had his reasons at the same time.

"I hail from Ferelden," he answers her after a moment. "Though I had been travelling around Thedas for the last several years, so there's really not much of it left in me."

Waiting patiently, she made a little note in her head because she was always getting Ferelden and the Free Marches confused, unless it was Starkhaven because that was an accent.

"Doctors often travel with the ships and on the sailing routes with us to study in each land, indeed, if our ships have a doctor, you know it's a good ship." Unfortunately, many ships couldn't afford to keep a doctor unless he was a passenger and it was normally the cook placed in charge of dealing with any and all maladies. "Do you miss it? Being here in Skyhold? If I could get to and from places without so much walking I'd be exploring more."

Bruce had been on several ships himself before, and so he did understand the general state of how people were out at sea and what she was saying. Out there in the waters resources and such were limited, and with so many people together in one space illnesses could all too easily spread. Having somebody onboard who could deal with these things would be of great help.

"It has been a change of pace, but I can't say I mind it." Bruce turned his gaze over to the rows of tents and such from the refugees that had come all the way here. "I just go where people need help and do what I can to give it."

"There's a change of pace and then there's this; is it just to an outsider that it feels as if when I stop running that I'll just slide backwards? Like shouting at the tide to make it stop even as it creeps higher and higher, up over my shoulders and towards my head?" She asked it honestly, sighing and rubbing the back of her neck because there was just so much here, maybe not only for someone coming through the rift but for everyone. Tears in the sky, a still - or barely, depending how she looked at it - healing wound between mages and templars and trouble everywhere. Up high on the battlements you could watch the traffic coming and going out of Skyhold and when she missed home so dearly, it was more difficult to stay optimistic about it.

Then again, maybe that was how things were at war, she wouldn't know, it had been so long since anything more than petty squabbles had ever troubled a single soul back home.

"Forgive me, I don't wish to sound discouraging when your work is harder than most, being away from home for so long for the first time, it makes me see things differently."

Or she lost her rose-tinted glasses falling through that rift.

Rather than feeling bothered to hear any of that Bruce only shakes his head and gives her a hopefully reassuring smile. "It's quite alright. It must be hard, being thrown into something like this without warning at all. If anything, we should be the ones apologizing for causing you so much distress." Sure, the whole coming out of a Rift thing really wasn't something anybody could have planned, but--everything after that was another case entirely.

His expression turned apologetic then. "Things here have just been hard in the last few years, and the Breach made it even harder. All of us are simply trying out best, in our own way. Wherever we come from, we are all the same in that regard." It was just a matter of what, mostly.

"Only one or two have given me any cause to seek a true apology and that's because they've decided to call me a demon just for an accident outwith my control. And I take exception to being called after things that tried to murder me." More than that though, she took exception to being judged for what she appeared to be but that was an old wound by now, easily forgotten until touched when it flared back and had her clenching her fists and trying to remain calm. A hot temper would do her few favours here around the wrong company even if things had been better since the Mire and there were so many of them, likely all lumped together by circumstance and she had no wish to disadvantage them with an ill-thought word or deed.

"There was the Blight, I heard about that from a few people, and this war between the mages and the templars, yes? I don't know if I'm missing anything else, I can't even imagine what a normal war must be like."

--yes, well, that was exactly the kind of thing Bruce had expected. Times were trying for all and as much as he couldn't blame the people in the wrong, they still were, well, in the wrong. There needed to be an understanding between both parties before anything could really move on.

And speaking of that--Bruce nodded at her words, pausing for a second before he did his best to fill in the gaps for her. "That's the gist of it. The relations between the mages and Templars have been very fragile in the last few years, and there was an incident at Kirkwall that sparked off the rest of it." After that had been nothing else but constant unrest and skirmishes everywhere, and the Breach had not helped in that regard either.

Alas, if people living in the world all the time couldn't reach common ground, how much hope was there for the rifters achieving real acceptance, especially any of them with magic beyond what the rifts had given them.

"I think I heard bits about Kirkwall but everything was about the conclave, was there more that happened? Before the death of your Divine and Herald that is." Haven, being little more than rubble, had been very much a crash course in the facts that really mattered but context? Context was always welcome if only so she didn't say something completely idiotic to the wrong person.

"There was probably more, but I'm not very well informed of the the last few years myself either," Bruce admits, since he'd rather he honest about that than try to make up something and end up giving them misinformation - if they needed to know then they should know what was real and what wasn't. "My travels around mean that news usually don't reach me often - only the really big ones are the things I tend to hear most."

Still, if she did want details and such on some things, Bruce would be willing to help however he could manage.

"Often a stranger has to pay a captain or his crew for the news and even then there's always a little less honesty. Or a lot less. Some sailors are unscrupulous bastards and suspicious of landlubbers, other people just like to sell the news. Even dockworkers and port authorities are just as bad for it. And I know that news travels far slower by wind than mouth." After all, she knew about the other side of travel because it was only the Castilean sailors that chatted freely or for the offer of a drink or a meal. "Some things are like a game of whispers when everyone is drunk and there's a band in the tavern. But this explosion - did someone important die? It sounds terrible but there are explosions and death every day, I can see the Conclave one being bad but to lead to a war..."

Wars were invasions at home. Resources that were yours but produced by others that they then had to buy back from you. Blockades and armadas. A war over the mages and templars seemed a much more complicated and tricky affair.

All those things that she said, Bruce knew it well - it was why he was never one to go actively seeking for news, among other reasons. Whatever he heard, it was mostly through gossip and rumors and what patients would tell him as he treated them. Some of them were of course pure speculation and falsities, but more often than not there was still some grain of truth to them.

"As in the explosion in Kirkwall, or the Conclave?" Bruce inquired as to the one she meant - both were equally terrible in their own right, but they both had rather different effects given the circumstances and time in where they happened.

"Kirkwall first I think. Religion or spirituality isn't centred around specific figures or entities as such where I come from so it's hard to understand how one dying, sad and violent though it surely was, and unquestionably despicable, would provoke that response. Only the death of a ruler would be able to start a war, maybe loved ones if they sought vengeance." She paused, considering the notion, weighing the response that would come from the people of Castileos alone were anything to happen to Leandra that could be traced back to a foreign power. "The Conclave does make sense. As much as any of that makes sense."

A little self-consciously she raised her left hand, wiggling the fingers because the explanation of that hadn't quite satisfied her as much as she might like.

Kirkwall... to be entirely fair, there was also much of it that Bruce was not aware of besides the basics, and even that perhaps wasn't much, since he wasn't exactly keeping in touch with the world.

"From what I understand, a mage used his powers to blow up the Chantry in Kirkwall." Here Bruce paused for a moment, to let it sink in - for her as well as for himself, because even now it was hard to take it in. "I cannot say that I know why the perpetrator did it, but beyond just the Templars, there were also innocent people caught in that entire incident." Overall the whole thing was more sad than anything else - maybe the mage who did it wanted vengeance against the Templars, but there was no reason to bring in the innocents as well. "Because it was a mage that did it, the Templars' response came back just as harsh, and things simply escalated from there."

A sad truth, but one that was real in this world they were in. Bruce couldn't say he would blame either side, for both had their own faults that led to the mess they were in now.

There were always innocent people caught up in such things and if she was the type to bet on such an ugly thing she would guess that many among that number must have been commoners, such as herself, the last people to be defended even when the important and the rich could afford their own guards.

"I can understand wanting freedom," she started slowly, voice quiet, "but to do such a thing is abhorrent. So one person decided that because their wants meant more than anything else that they could just shoot everyone else in the foot too?" Dragging a hand through her hair she shook her head sadly, looking away until she could compose herself and trust her voice to be steady, Bruce had only told her what she'd asked for, her temper could wait until later. "At least things make more sense, how a war even started like that, why the Templars look at the mages as if they're going to do something terrible. But still, that was one person..."

Maybe magic is the factor here, when normally the criminal and co-conspirators are the ones who'd be punished, not seemingly everyone.

It was indeed a terrible thing, and one Bruce can never quite forgive even though he can understand. But perhaps it was because that he could understand that he couldn't forgive - how was one's own desire better than anybody else's? That was a selfish way of thinking, and one Bruce wasn't able to simply take standing.

"Magic by nature can be a dangerous element," Bruce said, voice quiet - but holding no malice at all. No matter how terrifying magic is, it itself was not the threat. "But many things are as well. It simply depends on the person who is using it." And that person was what determined how magic was seen to other people - on a healer it was help, and on the hands of a killer--well, it wasn't surprising then why people loathed magic. As neutral as it was it was also far too easily abused and misused.

Trying to organise her thoughts on magic was always difficult, a little like herding cats or trying to get home from a tavern along with all your drunk friends when you didn't know quite where your legs were or what they were still capable of.

"Then I don't see how it's any different to someone picking up a weapon then. One type of weapon where I come from can do just as much, if not more, damage than magic could, and I know just how much it hurts to be wounded by it. Many nobles where I come from have armed guards they will set on thieves, grown men attacking even young children. Even if you set a person on fire, badly burned people still survive but there are those who can cut your throat before you can even draw a breath to scream, and that is if you see them coming." As ever, her accent had managed to thicken by the end, voice rising until she managed to lower it so as not to draw too many eyes but every choice in her life had always been her choice to making, a life that had seen the defining part involve duels and pistols, stealing valuables, daring leaps with only the light of the moon and stars. Magic had saved her life when she'd first arrived here, the mages had been more friend than most and so it was hard, but perhaps understandable, that her sympathies lay with them already.

Bruce was surprised for a moment at her response, but at least she was quick to calm down and not draw in too much attention. He glanced around apologetically just to soothe the rest of the people nearby before looking back at her, giving a wry smile.

"Have you been told on how, exactly, do mages get their powers here?" he asks gently. There's no mockery in his voice, nothing bad like that at all - it was an honest and genuine question that he wanted an answer for.

Okay so she hadn’t actually asked such a thing in specifics but she tipped her head to one side in thought, looking up and away as she tried to get back through the jumble of mage related things that had been patiently explained to her.

“Something about...it...happens, no what was the word - manifests? - when they’re young but not very small. There was something about the Fade but thinking about that part just makes my head hurt because that bit makes absolutely no sense, it’s a place but not a place? Full of things. Spirits. Demons too maybe?” It was obvious by the end that she was starting to get embarrassed, picking out things that had stuck in her head that had since become garbled, one boot scuffing at the ground. Usually she was better at this. She kept information straight and clear in her head, reported it all back perfectly and no, she wasn’t really on a mission or assignment but the constant state of confusion never really helped when her own hand was part of it.

It was nothing to be ashamed about - at least she did have some of the facts right, and Bruce gave her a small smile, wanting to reassure her. There was nothing wrong with her reaction, or what she said.

"People who can use magic here can only use it because they have a conscious connection to the Fade - its a realm where spirits and demons both dwell - but more often than not demons." Here he paused for a bit, just so she could parse that all in before he continued. "But because they have this connection to the Fade, the demons who dwell there can potentially possess a mage, stripping the mage of their identity and changing their bodies into something beyond saving." And at that point there was no choice but to kill the mage entirely - something Bruce always hated to see whenever it happened. To him it was entirely unfair, even though he understood why... but it didn't make things easier or better.

"First, thank you, for explaining all of that so it makes sense." Or more sense. Much more than it had and a few extra pieces had slotted into place, things about spirits watching, the corpses in the Mire, the mark on her hand. It took longer for her to work through what she wanted to say though when it meant looking at the mages she'd met in a different light, some almost constant struggle or battle against things so wrongly shaped and vicious.

"I don't know what's worse - hearing the truth of that or when I was told about the Tranquil. Is it a matter of the will then? Say, some people like me for instance can drink and gamble without it ruining us but then there are some that cannot resist temptation and find themselves penniless and begging only to be caught in the same spiral." Something about it broke her heart to think of, a strange damned if you do, damned if you don't with the looming spectre of some hulking armoured figure watching over you, waiting. "And this is why there are Circles, why so many fear or mistrust them? Because of the potential for something so devasting?"

"It's the least I can do." And honestly, it wasn't as if Bruce couldn't understand where the mages came from; after all he had his fair share of corrupt Templars in his life too, but at the same time he had more than enough experience in seeing exactly why mages were so feared as well. Things weren't that all black and white as other people made it at times.

To her question, he gives a nod, and then elaborates further for her. "The intention of the Circles was to give every mage a chance to train and be educated in a safe environment, and the Templars were supposed to be their protectors." Everything had a good intention, but as with so many other things it was always the good intentions that get twisted around the most. "Ultimately only the will of the mage is what prevents demons from being able to take over and control them to their own whims. As long as somebody can wield magic, they always run the risk of this being their fate."

At least now she could probably go compare a few notes with Korrin, if only to get an apostate sort of view on things because balance was a good idea. And some of the Dalish, they'd been friendly enough with her. She'd need to approach a Templar too but that seemed too daunting a prospect when they reminded her of the sternest guards that bellowed after her in the night, especially if she didn't hold her temper in check.

"But that obviously went wrong; I've not heard as much as a person native to these lands, I don't know what it's like but the mages have spoken of how it was to be in a Circle, and the mages that were never part of them. Everything sounds more like a prison than any sort of school, and being watched, knowing you're being watched, well a thief knows exactly how that makes you feel." Only her consequences were less severe than Tranquility because she would rather be dead than have her ability to feel taken from her. "So they're always afraid? Or are they taught to be afraid? Risk goes one of two ways - you embrace it, chase it, laugh at the prospect or you shrink in the face of it, look away as if it won't still stare you down even if you don't look it in the eye." Her life was no risk, no reward. Here, a 'reward' could easily be a sword rammed through you.

There were, perhaps, several things that Bruce could say in response to all of that, but firstly that would give himself away when he was trying to stay incognito, and secondly he personally believed that he was in hardly any position to truly judge what was right or not within the Circles. He had left it for years already, at this point, and his own experiences wasn't exactly normal.

"Regardless of how things are now, the original intentions of the Circle are what I've stated," he says, instead, because as much as Bruce has his own opinions, those were the things he had to remind himself too. "And I can't really say how it is like within a Circle, since I've never had the same potential as mages do... but like with everything that is dangerous, I think being wary and open-minded about it is the best way to go." It was reckless to just ignore the danger, but fearing it every single moment wasn't going to help either.

An open mind she could live with, even wariness but it was such a difficult line to walk. Here she saw too many maps that were only a fraction of what surely had to be there; was it that the history she'd learned about in bits and pieces, Tevinter and Blights, elves and mages, had all of that kept them here, or had people left for somewhere better and never bothered coming back because well, if she had been presented with the choice of sailing into the unknown and dealing with this, she'd already be on the ship and offering her services. Well, no, she wouldn't, not right now with her hand involved but it'd be a close call really.

"I wonder if they'll go back to that whenever this ends." If this ended, because she didn't really want to ask for exact times but she had a life to get back to and each day gone risked more trouble at home than she cared to think about. "It's harder to pull someone back once they've had freedom and seen something they want, it's why we thieves never stop, we just get better at what we do."

To the question, Bruce could only really offer a shrug in response. "Who knows?" he returned with a wry smile. "Anything can happen these days, it seems. Maybe something will change with the mages in the near future."

Though whether said change was a good or bag thing however, that was something yet to be seen. Mages, Templars, the current state of Thedas and its several nations... Bruce had a feeling that one way or another, things weren't going to be as they had been before. Then again, perhaps things always had been in motion ever since the Blight in Ferelden ten years ago--and it was maybe only now that they actually were seeing what these changes were leading to.

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She robbed them of wealth

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