She robbed them of wealth

[foxsays]

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.

Comments

[foxsays]

"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.

[amygdalae]

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.

[foxsays]

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.

[amygdalae]

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.

[foxsays]

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.

[amygdalae]

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.

[foxsays]

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.

[amygdalae]

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.

[foxsays]

"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?"

[amygdalae]

"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."

[foxsays]

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.

[amygdalae]

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.

[foxsays]

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."

[amygdalae]

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.