faderift | [ closed ]

Clans. And I don't know about thrive, but we get by. The books are mostly nonsense, but I like Genitivi, for a laugh.

[Genitivi's stories, of being nearly killed, and told tales by the Dalish of who The People were. Lies told by elves, and believed, are inevitably better than the ones humans tell themselves. Sorrel shrugs as he finishes the offer with a pair of cups-- not glass, but fired clay, hand-worked and simply glazed. Alienage work, a gift from a friend.]

Anywhere. I don't know a thing about your world, or your people, aside from you and your name. Do you follow gods?

I'd figured as much. The libraries here are mostly authored by humans, so one can only take it with a grain of salt when it comes to any culture not their own.

[ Humans like to go into other places for a week or so and assume they know everything about them from then on. doesn't make for great records when trying to learn about the dimension you just popped right into via demon portal. ]

For the most part. Some venerate more than others, but the main focus of worship is Dana Méadbh, Queen of the Fields. Mother of the Earth. [ Your typical earth protector goddess, really. The others tend to revolve around her. ] My people are divided up by human conflict, much like yours. We'd once covered the entire Continent, but the arrival of men and the wars they brought sent some to the Blue Mountains, never to return. Many deserted the cities men took to live in the forests. The rest stayed where they were, looking much like the Alienages here, now.

Were those in the cities ever your people?

[It's a hard thought, that in other worlds as in this one, elves saw such hardship. He had begun to hope, in some small, private way, that other worlds were good bright places, like Thranduil's Arda, where the People still lived forever, and could be kings.]

In the Dales, they were. [And here's the wine, because it bears out that one must need wine to cope with talk of the nation for which the modern Dalish were named.] In those days, we were all one People together, and any elf who walked across our borders could find a home there. Later when the Orlesians marched on the Dales, not everyone could escape. Those they didn't kill, they made an offer; death, or submission. The story goes, the first alienages were made to house those who chose to submit rather than die, and their children, their families.

The Dalish, the ones who lived and got away... [He toasts Iorveth with his own cup now, to indicate himself in this number, and then drinks.] ...We vowed never again to submit. If those Andrastian child-killers wanted to take our cities and our gods, they'd damn well have to peel them right off our faces to do it. So. They got the cities, at least.

Edited 2018-04-09 01:40 (UTC)

[ Iorveth wants to be wrong most days - to have the optimists win, for there to be a way for the races to exist peacefully among each other, for one not to be trampled underfoot, for it not to be his people every time. And yet, he's seen it so many times, it's all over this world as well. ]

The Dales you were awarded and then had stole back? [ He snorts, knowing that part at least from his talks with Herian and Galatea. After their short toast, Iorveth knocks back half the glass he was given, not in the mood for relaxed little sips today, or this week. ] I was born to a place like these alienages, you know, before deciding I'd rather die than continue living like that. If you could call that living. It was over a century ago, but still...

[ The Scoia'tael aren't exactly like the Dalish - they weren't born to the woods, no one is, save for the Free Elves in the mountains that abandoned their lands and lives long ago. They're the angry children, the widows and widowers, the beaten and raped and destitute that just decided they'd had enough. Huddles of angry souls lurking in the shadows of the trees, hungry for revenge. Those that were pissed enough to seek it, unlike the meek still in the cities. ] Stupid, fearful, cowering cattle, all of them. Backs and spirits broken, they'd watch their own children slaughtered and say nothing to keep for avoiding a whip, or, gods forbid, leaving the city.

[ The alienage here feels much the same, even those in the Inquisition shuddering at his suggestion that something be done, or someone punch a human when they're called slurs in an open market. ] No fucking dignity left.

No, you're wrong. The Alienage can be different-- they're still of the People, even if they don't remember.

[Here, have some more wine. Sorrel certainly needs it, after that revelation: a century? Mythal preserve us.]

That's the only difference, you know. I've seen it, when you finally remind them, they get... [He gestures vaguely, thinking of that black anger, moving in Adasse's eyes. The way he grinned whenever he had done something illegal, something to strike back, however petty the gesture might have been] ...They wake up. Most of us won't see fifty summers to begin with, and we have have enough enemies in the world without hating the flat-ears just for wanting not to die. Leave that to the humans.

Flat-ears? [ Iorveth's... raising a brow, amused, though you can't see it under the bandana, but the motion of the fabric might suggest it. Knife-ear, flat-ear, what do these things even mean? ]

The Aen Seidhe, my people, may have many more years that yours, but your race will live longer, I can likely promise you that. [ Baring an all out genocidal march from the united front of humanity, which is another piece of what put his people so far in the ditch towards extinction. ]

Long lived as we are, we're only fertile in our youth. Part of what caused us to lose so much to the humans - for each of theirs we'd put down, another would take their place. Aen Seidhe aren't nearly so quick to reproduce. [ He pauses to take another long swig of his drink, swallowing back the sweet alcohol with an expression that says he hadn't had much like that in quality for a while. ] Now, there's too few of us to matter, and all our youth are warriors exiled from the single safe haven, like your Dales once were, populated now by the old and the sterile, watched over by another human power.

[ the Pontar Valley was to be a new place, for those in the cities, used to peace, to making families, to protecting them in a different way than the Scoia'tael saw protection. But with Nilfgaard marching on the North again, it's hard to say how long it will last. ]

Edited 2018-04-09 03:35 (UTC)

[He waved a hand as if to dismiss the question.] It's just a thing they say. When they're trying to be rude-- city elves get it from everyone, I've been told.

[Gods Beyond, has he been told. So many times. Don't talk about it.]

I don't know how fast the Alienages have children, but Dalish Clans tend not to die from too little population, I'll tell you. But there is this; in your world, say an elf and a human went together, for some reason. [Some probably not very pleasant reason.] What would the child be?

[ an interesting thought, and he's curious, answering the question as best he can. ]

Half-elf. Mostly human, perhaps a little taller. Usually better looking. [ because elves, yo. not sure about elves here, but the ones back home were known to be naturally pretty. just happens. ] Ears with a point, but not as much as a full-blooded elf would have.

[ a whisper of elven, but still with the blood there. He doesn't take any personal offense to half-elves and the like, the didn't ask to be born that way, and they're strange enough in the eyes of humans to land them in the same category - nonhuman. ]

In truth, I've heard some say most humans these days have some trace of Aen Seidhe blood in them, from the ages of intermingling. Most just never know, and it doesn't present near as clearly, or at all, as if one's parent or grandparent was fully Aen Seidhe. Kind of funny, really, but I'm sure they'll forget the fact of it once we're gone.

That's the thing, isn't it? Adalia is one of those. [He points to the other desk in the room, a shared office, where Adalia sits. Or, would be sitting, were she not elsewhere.] But here.

Here, it's different-- you can say one thing for sure, every elf you meet is the child of two elves. You can't hide the blood: elf-blooded humans are just humans, and look it.

I've met a few of them like Adalia here, yes. [ Six, Aro, all Rifters, now that he considers it, which goes to prove Sorrel's point. Ah, that's interesting, and he leans back in his chair, sipping at his glass. ]

I'd been wondering what that meant - elf-blooded. [ He'd heard it a few times, from people who looked completely human, and didn't really understand it. ] They could go their whole lives and none would think any the lesser of them, so long as they didn't know.

[ It's sort of disgusting, and Iorveth snorts. ] Genocide through breeding. How sad.

It's all sad. Everything. And that's not even to say what the Andrastians like to do with mages! If I weren't born Dalish, I'd be better off dead.

[And he says it so flippantly, though with a strange, malicious edge.]

And so, we drink, hide in the woods, and hope Fen'Harel puts his teeth in the enemy instead of in us, not that it does much good. But we're not dead yet, yeah? So there's that.

I’ve heard, and seen the evidence, of their treatment of mages. It’s carved into the halls of this place. [ like ghosts, haunting a place of torment. He’s far from a witcher or a ghost hunter, but he wouldn’t be surprised. Between the mages and the slaves that came through this place. ]

I couldn’t just sit still and hide. Even after they burned my eye from my skull. Too angry, I guess. Or too stupid. [ too much out of other means to cope with being so helpless. Too many years of war, he doesn’t know how else to live. Still true now. All of the above, he supposes. ]

Besides, the Scoia’tael - we elite of the Aen Seidhe - have been denounced war criminals since assisting in the last dh’oine war. Staying still is a bit difficult when hunted. [ A bit of bitterness there, a small sneer at the corner of his lips, finishing off his glass and holding it forward for more. ] We’ll likely all be killed off eventually, but may as well take a few kings and villages with us.

Different priorities, I think; we've got children and old ones and more to look after. Ashara isn't a human-hunting clan, but Dahlasanor was. But since they've been merging into us, I'm pretty sure I've heard the phrase "skin a human for baby shoes."

[He's not sure whether he approves, or if he ought to hope for that kind of thing to be curbed, for the sake of peace. Either way, though it's not Sorrel's problem, as such, he has a strange urge to want to impress this elf. More than a hundred years old, and... It was Thranduil all over again, and like a child in the dark all Sorrel wanted was for someone to tell him that his life, his people, were worthwhile. That they were not shadows, suffering briefly, and then swept under the rug of history as so many tried to do.

He took a long draft of his wine. Steady on, Sorrelean.]

I wish your Socai'tael luck, for what good that does. Sounds like you run alongside the Dread Wolf, and that's a hard road. We have a lot in common, I think.

Aye, we've none of those. The elderly all reside in Dol Blathanna, the "free" elven state, that must answer to Nilfgaard's Emperor in absolute. The children are born to those still in human cities. [ which is a tragic, cruel way to bring children into the world. he'd been one of them once. and yet, the only real, viable solution to their dying race would be for the Scoia'tael to put down roots, and start making some fucking babies, but it can't be done with the humans how they are. Saskia had been their singular hope for that. ]

The rest of our youth are too busy fighting. They were Scoia'tael when we were named outlaws, thus exiled from Dol Blathanna. We won it for them in the wars, and they opened fire on their kin when they tried to retreat there. Because Nilfgaard commanded it so. [ Iorveth snorts, reaching for the bottle to pour himself another glass. ]

It's difficult to forget cruelty and loss, but your clansmen may calm in time. Peace, security and prosperity do wonders for the soul. [ a beat, and his head times. ] What do you mean when you say we run alongside the Dread Wolf?

Edited 2018-04-09 22:46 (UTC)

Not likely. [He can't....quite.... suppress his expression. So he hides it in his cup instead.] Nari was stupid enough to bring her pet templar a little too close to the hunting range, and nearly got him gutted for her lack of attention.

[Sorrel has no love for Cade, and the whole situation had cost the clan two capable hunters. And who to blame for it? Too many. Iorveth pulls him abruptly away from thoughts of the clan with his question and Sorrel blinks.]

Fen'Harel, the Dread Wolf, He Who Hunts Alone, Lord of Tricksters. He's one of our gods, the last one left. My mother used to say, if you run alongside Fen'Harel, you're courting death, including your own. He's not a kind god.

Edited 2018-04-10 00:53 (UTC)

Pet templar? [ said with a look over the rim of his glass. nari, what the eff do you think you're doing, girlfriend? ] I can't imagine what a Dalish elf and a Templar would have in common to discuss.

[ not religion, not principles of living, not earrings that really bring out that elf point. are their even any elven templars? he doubts it. Iorveth's attention snaps back to him, at the explanation for the bit about Dread Wolf. Oddly made him think of Geralt, then he got a little sad. :( Anywho. ]

It isn't inaccurate. Does it count as courting death if one's already been condemned to death? Just haven't had the ax catch up yet?

I think most of courting is supposed to be not letting the one you're courting catch all the way up to you, just yet. [He says this as someone who is very, very bad at courting.] Or, that's what they say.

[You look like the kind of person who has no trouble finding bed-companions, Iorveth, you tell me.]

Anyways, listen, I don't care if Cade gets gutted, except somehow every Dalish woman I know is dead set on protecting him now, which is a mystery to me. First thing I ever heard of him was Beleth telling me how he'd almost broken her nose, unprovoked. [And then, in a tone not far from "dog shit":] Templars.

[ bed-companions and courting are two very different things, son. the latter of which he's probably forgotten how to do by now. maybe he's like one of those cats that just leave dead mice on your doorstep. except it's dead humans. mystery to us all. Either way, he's tilting his head to the side, peering up at the ceiling while he's trying to decide if that makes sense or not. Hm... ] I believe I may need another glass or two before I can claim any knowledge of courting.

[ or what you just said. but he gets the point, thanks broski. The mini-rant about Cade has him raising a brow. Got some pent up frustration there, huh, booboo? ]

I could trip him down some stairs if it makes you feel any better. The Gallows have plenty of them. [ a beat, and he adds. ] Both templars and stairs, I mean.

Edited 2018-04-10 01:21 (UTC)

Beleth would be pretty mad.

[Which isn't a "no," but then neither is it a "yes." Sorrel is loyal first to his twin, before all else, and that means somehow letting Cade off with a hitch-- because she asked him to. Which is bullshit. But there you have it.]

...It would make me feel a lot better. But it's probably best to leave it. You're kind to offer.

[Why can't everyone be as nice, and as friendly, as Iorveth?]

Suit yourself. I suppose pissing off my superior within the first few weeks would be a bad play on my part anyway.

[ given Beleth is his division head. which is weird for him - to have superiors again. there was always Isengrim, sure, but they'd known each other so long it was more like smarter older brother than a real step up the command ladder. ]

Tell me more about your clan. What was life like there? How are children raised and trained there?

[ either in combat or with magic, he's seen some of each come from the Dalish in the Inquisition. ]

That's fair.

[He nurses his most recent half-glass of wine, as he thinks how to begin.]

When you're little. You know who your parents are, or at least your mamae. And they love you, or don't, as they will-- most adults try to have children, but not everyone is suited to actually raising da'len, so we're meant to grow up children of the clan as a whole, not of any particular family. Of course the Keeper has records. [To guard against inbreeding.] When you're big enough to help, you help. Even a child can tend a fire,after all. Eventually, ne of the crafters will take you on, or else you get handed a weapon and taught to shoot and fight, and take care of yourself. Everyone must be able to hunt, unless they're a mage, but magic comes to you when it wants, on no-one's schedule, so you'll train as a hunter and a scout, or a border-guard, until things either change or don't. Mages go to the Keeper, to be trained in magic. When you feel ready, you get your vallaslin.

[Here he gestures to his face, the markings there.]

It can happen whenever you're ready, and can argue it successfully to the Keeper. It's a ceremony with witnesses; the Keeper tattoos the marks in one long session, and if you grimace, or shift, or make a sound, they'll all know, and the whole thing is called off. The designs of the Vallaslin go back thousands of years, to Old Elvenan and ancient Arlathan; they honor our gods.

[ The wine glass idly swirls in Iorveth's hand as he gives Sorrel his intent focus, not only because he's a whore for intel, but there's a genuine, deep desire in him to learn more of these people and their world. So much of it, as he'd told Beleth, is so similar to his own, he'd almost think them broken off tribes from the same clan, if the thought weren't so ridiculous. The stories of Aen Undod, as he'd told Sorrel's twin.

It's a charming kind of life Sorrelean describes, and there's a small, barely there, half-smile on Iorveth's lips before he realizes it. It's the kind of dream he'd used to have - a remote people, with family and culture, community in the real sense of it. The Scoia'tael were always too militant to allow for children and domestic matters, outside basic survival. Warm in the way close-knit friends and comrades are, but always with a lingering readiness for battle. Nothing that truly felt like home. Like peace. ]

It sounds like an incredible world to be a child growing up in. And the first I've heard of a community raising children, rather than individual families. If my people ever had that manner of society, it's been lost to the ages.

[ leaning forward, Iorveth rests his elbows on Sorrel's desk, his glass (nearly empty for the second time now) set aside as he squints to see the tattoos on Sorrelean's face a little better. ] Which god does your design honor?

I'm making it sound simple. But it's got its own hardships. We're a scattered people, Iorveth, and every year we lose more of ourselves. But we remember, and we survive, always; we're the last of the Elvenan.

[Sorrel says it with such finality, and sorrow, that he has to stop a moment and swallow. He remembers to breathe, and holds very still so that Iorveth can study the little bird-bone markings closer.]

Dirth'amen, Lord of Secrets, the god of knowledge and silence.

[The answer comes easy, practiced cadence, worn smooth and easy as a dirt path through grass. Just the way Sorrel says the name has the echo of prayer in it, somehow.]

Perhaps the Dalish should join each clan together, if being scattered is what's whittling at your numbers. [ they have something the scoia'tael will never have - a relatively safe place to raise children, and the ability to have them. just the fact sorrel and beleth exist proves that, and he mutters this distractedly while inspecting the ink on his skin. ] Loathe as I am to say it, if you wish to save your people from fading out, you'll likely have to give up your fighting. Run, find safety, salvage what remains, and defend.

[ That had been the idea of the Pontar Valley, in some form. Perhaps not the 'running', as it took a battle to secure it for them, but a truly safe haven, with an agreement between all races for a ceasefire. A century of war has taught him that vengeance is satisfying, but only making fucking babies saves a species from extinction. While he and the other Scoia'tael may forever be too angry and too scarred to be able to settle into a peaceful life, there are still plenty of harassed elves in cities that would leap for a safe place for their families.

He's also maybe starting to get on the tipsy side, pouring another glass while he leans back, out of Sorrel's face once he's had a good look at the elegant tattoos. ] Why this god in particular? Not that they don't seem worth the reverence, just curious of the personal connection.

You wouldn't be the first to think that. But the Dalish aren't a nation-- we don't have a homeland anymore, and wherever we gather in any numbers, they send armies to get rid of us. [Well, first they send militias and then mercenaries, but it's hardly prudent to say. A clan's worth of skilled hunters can handily dispatch the fighting population of a typical town in rural orlais, but soldiers have no children to protect, and all they'd really have to do to win, would be to get rid of the halla.] We might have an army's numbers, but half of those aren't people who can fight. It'd be the end of The People.

[Sorrel shrugs. It's an old daydream, well-worn by any angry young Dalish elf with a yen for familiar paths and a house with stone walls. Who wouldn't want to know their home as intimately as only a permanent resident can? Who wouldn't want to have a home to know? He drinks and answers the second question with a question of his own.]

You know I have a twin?

If you had the elves of each alienage, and the dwarves. If they were taught how to fight... How would the army compare? [ the number of elves here, at least so far as what Iorveth's seen, isn't so diminished as his world's. It's possible they could still have a chance, if they were able to organize outside of what humans could learn. But getting so many people to work together would take a miracle, or a damn charismatic martyr. more so, it's just idle pondering for him.

leave it to iorveth to make a fun night of drinking into a strategy session. the question, though, piques his interest, and his gaze turns from the red in his glass to Sorrel once more. ]

Do you? Are they in the Inquisition?

[Sorrel makes a quiet, scoffing sound.]

Well, maybe if Fen'Harel himself decided to rain the void down on everyone, but not before.

[Or to put it another way; when nugs fly. But he laughs again.]

I'd say so! You have to have met her; Beleth Ashara, the Scoutmaster.

Not for that attitude, he won't.

[ Iorveth scoffs back, though clearly joking. But, after taking another swig from the wine, he adds on - ] Hypothetically, though. If a miracle occurred, what would the numbers for nonhumans be? Add in Qunari, for the hell of it.

[ Impossible, yeah, but he wants to know the actual numbers here. How much of a majority are humans over nonhumans? Iorveth is utterly incapable of refraining from seeking out information when the thought of it occurs. Beleth, however, rings familiar. ]

Ah - yes, we've met. She was with the unit that came to the Sunless Lands to make sure the rifters weren't frozen to death yet.

Her Vallaslin is for Sylaise, the hearthmother. But you know, she rarely keeps to home.

[Her position in the Inquisition is proof enough of that.]

We keep each other's secrets. We are each other's home. So. [He downs the last of his most recent glass. He doesn't want to talk about this, it's too raw and private and real.]

I'd sooner take the humans than the Qunari. Things are bad enough, but at least some people are free, this way. What they do to their mages... Nah. Nah.

[ Iorveth never had siblings, and the fondness Sorrel speaks of his twin with is something touching but foreign to him. A small, warm smile touches his lips, thinking it seems accurate that Beleth would carry beloved family with her. While 'hearthmother' may not be entirely accurate, she seems like the kind to want to keep her loved ones close and protected. ]

It's fortunate you have someone so dear and trusted. Family is a precious thing. [ we are each other's home. then kirkwall, skyhold or their dalish clan, home could never be far for them. part of him envies that, but he's glad they're able to have something so valuable kept safe while the world around is in such ruin. ]

Admittedly, I haven't read much on the Qunari. There doesn't seem to be many of them here. [ Humans, elves and even dwarves are relatively frequent, but Qunari seem to be few and far between. He's yet to figure out why that is. ]

What's done with their mages?

I'm not talking about the big horned people, most of those with the Inquisition are just... they look the same, but they're not the same. The Qun, that's where most Qunari come from.

[He waves a hand toward the window, privately reveling in that fact-- an elf with an office! with a window!]

There was a great crowd of them here in Kirkwall, for years and years, until they suddenly started killing people and burning the city down. Those are proper Qunari. I've never seen it, but what I've always heard is, they do with their mages is they sew their mouths shut and keep them in chains so heavy they can barely walk. They don't like magic, and they don't want it. I also heard that of course anyone can join them, if they like, but you have to live their way, and give up everything you were before.

[ Iorveth's lips curl in disgust as it's described, teeth bared like a hissing animal, because that's the way most of his mannerisms come off these days. less the elegant elven boy, more the territorial forest creature. ]

Fucking sickening. [ it isn't often Iorveth curses in Common, but 'fuck' is really one of those words that should just be universal for how well they fit a mood. like cultists mutilating innocent people for traits they were born into. ] They don't want magic, and yet, they make pets out of their mages.

[ clearly they want it enough to keep it around, rather than just shipping them off to the Dalish or drowning them at sea. what a load of bullshit. ]

Right. Best they stay in their insane corner of the world. At least humans have the decency to simply kill what they don't like, rather than make it suffer for a lifetime.

Who knows why they do it?

[Sorrel can't help but smile at Iorveth's snarl. It's comforting, somehow, that even a Rifter can seem so... so normal. So completely able to understand. Elegance is all well and good, but it doesn't get work done, most places.]

Most of the people called qunari in the Inquisition call themselves other things, if you ask them, and they don't seem to do too different than the Dalish, in their own way. They seem alright, or at least Korrin's nice.

[He tops off Iorveth's cup and then his own, by way of a reccomendation.]

You know, I'm glad we met.

I can understand the want to separate themselves from the proper Qunari. I'd not want to be associated with it either.

[ and maybe that's a bit of hypocrisy, given how severely he judges city elves for wanting to be separate from the elves like the Scoia'tael, but they aren't sewing mouths shut and chaining people up. Just murder. Reasons, okay!!

He'll happily take a newly filled cup, despite how the drink is starting to go to his senses, making him more chatty than he'd normally be. ]

As am I, my friend. It's one thing being in a ruthless land with 100 commandos at your back, and quite another being in a new one by yourself. [ not that he wouldn't still brave it and continue as he has, refusing to change himself to fit this place, but it makes it much more comfortable with company. ]

[A hundred commandos. Sorrel sits quiet and thinks about that-- an entire clan of just fighters. And not just hunters turned to hunting humans instead of meat, but real fighters. The kind of people who might call themselves soldiers, people with decades of experience, with tight bonds and long histories and more skill at the work of war than all but the best of the Dalish. A hundred elites.]

Each clan. [He's answering a question Iorveth asked earlier, drawing down a clean page and drawing on it with drink-dampened fingers. The illustration will evaporate and fade, but the description will live on in Iorveth's memory.] As around, maybe a hundred elves. Smaller clans, closer to fifty, or less. The biggest I've ever heard of was a hundred-eighty, but that's not all fighters. That's mostly children and young hunters and crafters and things. Real fighters, the kind who give us all these savage reputations, aren't so many to a clan-- maybe a dozen. Hunters can kill or threaten, mages are always dangerous, but if I've learned one thing here with the Inquisition... it's not the same.

[His fingertips have been moving over the paper as he's spoken, trailing damp lines, dots to represent the people, enclosed by a circle of defenders-- many could by guarded by few. A den of wolves was still wolves, and you'd be a fool to challenge them, but there was no use confusing the facts: the people were not an army, though one might exist within their ranks. But without those fighters where they already were, that for which they fought would be lost. And then, what purpose the war?]

The People need a homeland, somewhere to retreat to, somewhere to defend. We've been living on the run for so long, we don't remember how else to live. The Dwarves have Orzammar, the Qunari have their Qun, sometimes it seems like the Humans have fucking everything... [He's not bitter, he said, bitterly.] ...But that's my opinion: if someone could give the Dalish a home, one they could believe wasn't a trap, that would be the price for them to walk under a banner together. The city elves too, if I were going to gamble.

[ tight bonds and long histories, yes, which made it all the more painful when one was lost, but such was the way of their war. they went into the forests and fields to fight and attempt to win back freedom for their people so those with families and elders wouldn't have to. and iorveth's unit was only one of many. survived well under his command, but still only a fraction of what they'd once been, before the northern wars and their betrayals. ]

A people is not a people with only warriors to speak of. It's well you have all then rest - children, hunters, crafters. They're needed. Homes are not homes if occupied only by warriors. They're barracks. [ he has no delusion about that, and never has. what iorveth fights for - a free, safe land for his people - he does not intend to be a part of. it's for them, and he's here to be the wall that surrounds them, keeps their vulnerable but pure lives from harm.

After Sorrel's explanation, Iorveth watching his illustrate, he nods for a moment, taking a thoughtful drink, before answering. ] You'll need the city elves. Regardless of differences in cultures, you suffer the same persecutions, and neither of you have enough resources or skilled fighters to make a peaceful home. Strengthen in - add in the dwarves, circle mages willing to agree to a law of no discrimination, the Qunari not of the Qun. Go to the mountains, find a defensible position, build your fortress and organize in ways no human in this realm expects you to.

That is how you win a home. The Dalish alone will never have the means to do so by themselves.

"That's not the first time you've mentioned the dwarves," Sorrel points out, confused, "Why would they help us? They've got money, guilds, laws, plenty of status. The lyrium trade alone..."

He doesn't mean to laugh at Iorveth-- but he does spread his hands with a helpless, breathy sort of a sound, halfway between a laugh and a scoff.

"...Why would they even care?"

Those above ground, I mean. [ Yngvi has told him enough about the ones still in Orzammar that he doubts they'll care much about the status of social affairs outside their city. It's the top-siders he's referencing when he says dwarves. ]

For now, they're regarded as useful, but should they wish to ask for anything more than they have now, I doubt they'll be treated much better than elves and Qunari.

Once your people are finished, they'll come for them as well. Humanity cannot suffer peace for long. [ and are never satisfied with just what they have. ]

They don't usually ask. Carta's dangerous and they have plenty of gold.

[Because, as much as everyone likes to pretend Orzammar's leadership controls the whole of the lyrium trade, from the surface perspective much of that comes through the Carta and other smugglers, not merely the merchant's guild. Everyone takes their cut. Everybody gets rich and vicious and full of secrets.]

I don't think we're likely to be finished with anytime soon. They've only been trying for two-thousand years, after all.

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