faderift | (no subject)

❰ adalia has been, possibly, more excited about this than about anything else that's ever happened to her in thedas. she hasn't been able to stop babbling at charis about the half-elf from toril who just rifted in and the baby dragon he brought with him, and charis seems as excited to meet iessa as adalia is to introduce them. it's been difficult to restrain herself, honestly, though she wants to give the two of them time to settle down without having to worry about being bombarded by adalia and her excitable charge.

it's been a few days, though, certainly a more than respectful amount of time, and adalia can't wait any longer. she has to introduce charis to iessa. the only problem is... she doesn't actually know which tower they're staying in — if any, come to think of it, iorveth sleeps in trees.

which is why aro gets a call on his crystal bright and early one day. ❱

Hey, Aro! It's Adalia. I was wondering if today would be a good day to come say hi! I wanted to check on how you're settling in, and Charis has been so excited to meet Iessa.

Edited 2018-05-01 12:28 (UTC)

❰ like the introduction to aro and iessa, this is a conversation adalia's been looking forward to having. newt had seemed so genuinely interested in getting to meet charis, and adalia is so interested in hearing everything newt has to say about the animals he's studied — she's practically bouncing on the balls of her feet as she calls him over crystal. ❱

Newt, I do believe it's time for that tea we'd talked about in the Sunless Lands, does today work for you? I've told Charis all about you.

Edited 2018-05-01 12:33 (UTC)

❰ up until recently, adalia hadn't spent much time in the central tower of the gallows, being as she rarely ever had cause to seek out a division head or a project leader. now that she's sorrel's assistant, she spends much more time there, though rarely does she find cause to visit the provost's office — save for the evening gwenaëlle took her there to dress her wounds after the barfight. she's meant to return, multiple times, even, but something else was always more pressing.

not today. today adalia is going to find out what the deal is with that mask. she's set aside an hour where she has no other demands on her time, not even charis (who she has instructed to spend the time flying around the gallows as he sees fit, aware of the provost's plane of origin and remembering how poorly elros and galadriel each took to the sight of him), and nothing is going to get in her way today. nothing. ...though she does sort of half-expect some runner to come up to her with some urgent something or other as she makes her way to the elf's office. everyone who passes her gets a narrow-eyed look of suspicion before they're gone, and by the time she's made it to the diplomacy offices she's sort of staggered that she's actually managed to make it there.

the walk up the two flights of stairs to the division head offices gives adalia time to prepare a friendly smile for when she finally peeks in the provost's door, giving a little wave. ❱

Hello, Provost Thranduil, do you have a moment?

Edited 2018-05-01 12:56 (UTC)

❰ solas said that he didn't mind if anyone knew that adalia was showing him the orb from the black marsh, but she's not exactly advertised that fact all the same. she doesn't really have to — as the new assistant to the leader of the elven artifacts project, she has a perfectly legitimate reason to look at the orb herself. asking for solas' help is also perfectly legitimate — he knows more about elven everything than anyone else in all of kirkwall, so enlisting his expertise would hardly be suspicious. if asked, adalia wouldn't bother to hide what they're doing.

she hasn't been asked, though, and she's not going to volunteer the information until she is. once she got the orb in the elven artifacts offices, she waited for a moment when sorrel was away and would be for some time before she crystaled solas and told him to come to the offices. ❱

I have a present for you, ❰ she sing-songed, audibly grinning, before she cut off the feed and wouldn't say anything else. now she's waiting, sat behind her desk with the orb restig on top of it, watching the door for solas to appear. ❱

Edited 2018-05-01 14:50 (UTC)

[Newt smiles as he listens to Adalia's voice over the crystal, very much eager for the prospect of taking her up on the offer they discussed earlier. Tea and dragons are exactly what he needs right now. He is very much enthusiastic in his reply; she can likely hear his smile through the crystal.]

Today works perfectly for me! I'm very much at your service, whenever is most convenient for you and Charis. I'm looking forward to this tea very much!

[ The offer to let him see the orb was not one that Solas had expected, nor was it one that he had imagined would bear fruit any time soon. His studies were more important and while he had made some progress in developing friendships with those involved - as much as he could, given who he was and his awkward place in the Inquisition - other things had taken priority. The sickness. The strike. Wisdom. Thinking about the orb had fallen low on his list of investigations.

It's what makes him a little shocked when he hears a voice over the crustal for him, recognising it before it cuts off. There's a brief moment where something like a fond smile settles across his features, and then he is lifting the crystal and placing it back around his neck, gathering his things as he makes his way out of the library and towards Adalia. ]

Isn't it customary to bring the present to the recipient? [ But he's teasing - while his friendship with Adalia is new and strange and odd in many ways, Solas cannot help himself. There's a gentleness that she inspires that he cannot quite manage to smother. ]

[ Aro doesn't take long to respond. He keeps the crystal on him all the time, and it's a bit hard to ignore an actually glowing crystal with sound coming out of it.

He happens to be out, enjoying the morning air. Iessa is not currently with him, given that she's still resting in her stable. He wishes she could sleep with him, since he's sure she'd sleep better if she did. He doesn't think it's right, though. He likes the idea of giving her time with the dracolisks, who all things considered, are closer to her species than Aro. She needs company like that.

Which is why Adalia's message is particularly welcome, and he grins as soon as he gets it. ]

Adalia! Yes, of course, today would be perfect! Iessa's still sleeping, but she's been at that long enough. I'll go and get her. Where should we meet you and Charis?

❰ adalia hasn't had much cause to go to the docks since she's been in kirkwall. any time she takes the ferry from the gallows into the mainland, she only spends long enough in the docks to get out of them again, paying no attention to the world around her in order to get to lowtown or wherever else she needs to go. today, though, she is wandering the area, searching for the old qunari compound and the apartments the inquisition holds there. why, exactly, d'artagnan refused to stay in the gallows is beyond her, but she's not going to let her distaste for kirkwall's mainland keep her from visiting him.

though she is somewhat lost, now, and every time she approaches someone they take one look at the anchor shard in her hand and move quickly in the opposite direction. adalia is about as adverse to covering up her shard as she is to anything, but she's starting to get frustrated enough to give it a shot if it'll mean she can get some gods-damned directions. after ten minutes of wandering aimlessly, adalia stops in the middle of the road, hands on her hips, lips pursed, eyes scanning the crowd and the buildings around her for any indication of where she should be going. ❱

I really hate this place, ❰ she mutters to herself. ❱

❰ when adalia was young, she didn't have any friends. candlekeep was a library-cum-temple, not a school, and there were no other children to keep her company. the monks — some of them — were kind and indulgent, but they had duties to tend to, and adalia has always been more extroverted than the library could keep up with. sometimes it felt like her truest friends were the storms she would play in during the summers, when it was hot and wet even without the rain. she hasn't played with a storm the way she had when she was a child in years, when she'd thought there were real elementals in the clouds trading lightning and thunder back and forth with her, but something has her feeling nostalgic today. she's felt... claustrophobic, almost, confined in the gallows and kirkwall and thedas in general, full of restless energy. maybe she's not as in tune with the storms in thedas as she is those in toril (and maybe that was just correlation, not causation), but when the skies open up and rain starts pouring down, it makes complete sense to her.

rather than hiding herself away indoors, safe from the rain, adalia has left the safety of her room and flown on her broomstick up to land on top of one of the walls surrounding the courtyard. charis sits next to her, kept dry in a small circle where the rain doesn't fall, though adalia herself is drenched, and happily so. for a moment she stands next to her dragon, breathing in the smell of petrichor and feeling the plop-plop-plop of rain on her skin. in the next moment, she claps her hands, and the sound is magnified like a thunderclap, ringing loudly all through the gallows. another moment passes, and then a flash of lightning and a clap of thunder appear in the distance, and adalia grins. this isn't faerûn, not nearly, but even across the planes, storms all play the same. she draws her cupped hands apart, lightning flashing between them, stretching the energy like taffy, before raising her hands and casting a lightning bolt into the sky in answer.

it's a rather ostentatious display, obviously not natural, but adalia doesn't care — it's been ages since she's been in the middle of a thundertorm, and she's going to have fun, damnit. ❱

[ And of course, d'Artagnan appears behind her, like any good quarry should. In his defence, he's spent most of the morning in the stables. The evidence of this is the stallion beneath him, all glossy-coated and generally far more healthy than he had been when they were trapped in the snow together. D'Artagnan is riding him, holding the reins, which is possibly why Adalia hadn't seen him in the first place. He leans forward, smiling at her. ]

I don't know, it could be worse.

[ He kicks the horse forward a little, and rounds it to get a better look at Adalia. Then he slides off, landing comfortably on the ground. ]

I've not seen you here before. What brings you to this part of town, Mademoiselle?

[ It's a good thing Daniel is used running around outdoors, and this is hardly the first time he's gotten caught in the rain. Still, he's not even remotely dressed for it this time. He's entirely soaked through by now - even his boots, which do a decent job of keeping stuff out. His black t-shirt is clinging to him, and he's had to take off his glasses because it became impossible to see with all the droplets on them. The only good thing is that it's been getting milder lately.

He wants nothing better than to go back to his room, but as usual, he's thwarted by his curiosity when a loud sound rings out just nearby. He looks up and sees a woman standing there, lit up by something he can't quite see. And then suddenly, a bolt of lightening hits her, making Daniel jump back in surprise.

It takes him a moment to realise that no, the lightning went from her, not the other way around. Her being unharmed definitely doesn't point to being hit by lightning, anyhow. Well, Daniel doesn't usually see something like that and not poke his nose in, so he makes his way up to her, though he doesn't approach too closely, just in case she plans to do it again. ]

Should you be doing that? [ He has to speak fairly loudly to be heard over the rain. And... there's a dragon? Alright... ]

[ he is sitting behind his desk, reading over some report or another, but his attention transfers easily enough from his papers to her face as she peeks her head in. ]

I do, [ he says. ] Come in.

[ the sky is threatening the rapid-onset summer rain that he's beginning to expect of kirkwall, but his window is open because having it closed all winter meant it got stale in here. whoever designed this room allowed for the outrageous expense of glass windows, he may as well use them. ]

Is there something you wished to discuss?

❰ adalia quickly enters the room, leaving the door open behind her and standing in front thranduil's desk with her hands clasped behind her back. ❱

Yes, there is — I was curious about the mask on your wall, it looks elven. Or elvhen, more specifically.

❰ because the very slight difference in pronunciation means something. adalia gestures at the mask on the wall, her curiosity clear. ❱

Do you know anything about it? I've been wondering about it ever since I saw it and this is the first time I've had a moment to come ask since I was last here.

❰ that time when gwenaëlle patched her up after she got into a bar fight and the provost wasn't even here. which is curious enough in its own right, but not what adalia is here to inquire about. ...for the moment. ❱

❰ adalia's grin is audible in her voice when she responds — ❱

How about the ferry? We can get to the mainland and wander Sundermount, give the two of them time to stretch their wings and us the ability to talk while they do.

❰ adalia needs to collect some alchemy ingredients anyway, and sundermount is a good place to escape the oppressive grossness of all of kirkwall's... everything. it still feels... strange, with how thin the veil is, even there, but it's better than looking around the gallows and knowing that a thousand years ago there were slaves there, and it was only recently the statues of elven slaves were disposed of. ❱

I'll meet you there, if that works for you!

❰ said as adalia is already making her way out of her room with charis. ❱

❰ newt is so cute. adalia grins brightly, leaning forward as if newt were in the room with her and she was trying to talk to him conspiratorially. ❱

How does right now work for you? We can swing by the Templar tower for some food and tea and have a picnic in the courtyard.

Well, this isn't the sort of present that I could just wander around with, ❰ adalia says, all faux nonchalance, gesturing at the orb on the desk. it's inert, as far as anyone has been able to tell, but if anyone could glean some new information from it, it would be solas. ❱

Sorrel will be gone for a little while, and I don't have any appointments to keep. We should be left alone for a fair while, and no one knows that I wanted you to take a look at the orb.

❰ which is to say: if all goes to plan, no one should know at all that solas has ever even so much as been in the same room as it, let alone looked at it closely. he'd said that he didn't mind if anyone knew he was interested in it, and maybe that's true and adalia is acting like some kind of secret agent for no reason at all. maybe he'll take anything he learns straight to the inquisition anyway, and the secrecy will have been utterly pointless.

maybe it won't, though. ❱

It is elven, [ thranduil says, having not the slightest inclination to further the dalish/city elf divide. he walks from behind his desk and past her to close his own door, though he does not lock it. this conversation isn't that critical, but he won't ramble on about the dalish or sina where his voice might carry into the hallway. ]

It was a gift. Several members of Clan Ashara and Clan Dahlasanor performed a play for us last winter. I was asked to play the part of Fen'harel and allowed to keep the mask after.

[ and he's clearly very fond of it, given the fact that he's placed it upon his wall, where everyone can see it. coming back to his desk, he returns to his seat. ]

❰ as far as adalia is concerned, an elf is an elf is an elf, elfblooded or dalish or city or rifter, so thranduil's lack of clarification on the point of the mask's origins means nothing to her. what does mean something to her, however, is fen'harel. she visibly perks up at the name, a slow, cunning smile spreading over her lips as she sidles closer to the wall on which the mask is mounted, leaning up to look at it more closely. ❱

Why am I not surprised, ❰ she murmurs, more to herself than to thranduil. the dread wolf seems to be dogging her steps. when she looks back down at thranduil, she clasps her hands behind her back and rocks up on the balls of her feet. she is clearly excited about something, but not willing to share the source of her excitement just yet. ❱

I know a little of the Dread Wolf. There aren't many written accounts of the Creators, and Fen'Harel is liked so little he makes it into few of them. Did the clans tell you much of him, when they asked you to play his part?

❰ the direction of d'artagnan's voice has adalia turning around in order to look at him, and... coming face-to-face with his horse. she starts, taking a quick step backward, before she looks up at d'artagnan himself with a sort of dumbfounded expression. somehow she was not expecting him to just appear that easily, and especially not on a horse. it takes her a moment to order her thoughts to respond. ❱

I think you'd feel differently about that if you could feel the Veil, ❰ she says first, but that's not why she's here — ❱

I came looking for you! I wanted to check up on you, I haven't seen you since we came out of the Sunless Lands. This is the horse who came through the rift with you, yes? Has he recovered?

[ Truly, Solas hadn't expected her to hold true to her promise of allowing him to see the orb, but the reminder of the gift she had assured him would come shocks him ever so slightly. She cannot see him and, perhaps, that is for the best - his eyes widen and he's a touched shocked, hesitating for a moment before he manages to find his words. ]

You are correct. I should come to you, but only in this instance. [ He's already gathering his things and making sure that everything is in the correct place before he starts to make his move to where he knows Adalia is waiting for him.

To be able to see an orb, to touch it, after he had lost so much... It is a gift that he cannot ignore, even if he wants to disguise some of his eagerness. It is akin to the one Corypheus has, he knows that, and he knows that one as well as he knows the palm of his hand and the pathways of the Fade throughout Thedas; there's a desperation that colours him, and he feels on edge and intent, focussed as he strides through and around people. ]

I shall be there, shortly.

[ he does not like that smile. his own face remains pleasantly content in turn as he watches her get a closer look, hands behind her back so she is not tempted to touch; someone taught her well as a child. not well enough to instill perfect stillness in her, but well enough.

she says things he already knows, but she clearly coaxed them out of one of the dalish, so good on her for getting that far with one of them. beleth, he supposes. if they've bonded over the foul creatures it will be all that more difficult to separate his almost-daughter from the one she thinks she's tamed. ]

They did, [ he says. he'd enjoyed himself a great deal, slinking around and mock-frightening sina. ]

[ The veil? One of his eyebrows lifts while he smiles, and wonders if he'll ever get used to how casually people speak of magic here. Or magic, itself. He keeps thinking that if he acts as though it's normal, he might eventually believe that it is.

Concentrating on the horse is an easy distraction. He pats the creature's neck. ]

He's much better. Alex helped a great deal, and now that we're here, he has a stable again, normal food, water. I expect he feels almost at home.

[ Unlike d'Artagnan himself. He straightens up again. ]

You were looking for me. Should we go somewhere? The streets are not the best place for a reunion.

[ She has no idea how perfect that sounds. Getting out of the city is exactly what Aro wants to do. He's been going crazy inside these walls. ]

Yes, absolutely! We'll not be long, I'll see you there.

[ And he's as good as his word. He goes directly to the stable where Iessa has been staying. The little dragon is delighted to see him, and positively hyperactive as she runs around his legs. When he finally gets her to calm down enough to walk, the two of them head off to meet Adalia.

Of course as soon as they're close enough to smell the water, Iessa gets excited all over again. She rushes on ahead, bursting through to the docks with Aro hot on her tail. This isn't really the ideal way to travel with a dragon in these parts, but at least he doesn't let her get very far ahead. When they reach the pier with the ferry, he finally catches up, and puts his arm around Iessa to slow her down. ]

There we are. We'll be seeing them soon, I expect.

❰ adalia and charis aren't far behind aro and iessa, though charis flies more than he runs at adalia's feet — he's getting bigger, and it's easier for him to navigate the winding corridors out of the gallows if he glides through them. his aerial manoeuverability is much higher than his ability to move around on the ground. some day, maybe soon, he'll have outgrown the gallows, and adalia will need to find a cabin somewhere outside kirkwall to keep him... but for now, he's still small enough to fit.

the dragon immediately speeds up into the sky as soon as they've made it to the pier, and adalia tracks his flight with her eyes, grinning, before looking around to find aro and iessa — not difficult, with iessa's brilliant scales leading the eye right to her. adalia rushes over quickly, fingers pressed to her mouth to whistle sharply for charis' attention, and just as she reaches the other two charis lands, balanced with his wings spread on a docking post near them. he stretches his neck out as far as possible in iessa's direction, sniffing and chuffing at her in excitement and interest. ❱

Well, then. Charis, meet Iessa. Iessa, meet Charis. ❰ adalia looks up from the two dragons to beam at aro, so happy she's positively glowing from it. ❱ Hello, Aro.

What do you think of their stories? Myth, truth, something in between?

❰ thranduil must be smart to have made his way to division head, and more than that he's sure to be cunning, being a rifter elf who's made it this high within the outpost's hierarchy. but has solas spoken to him of the creators, or is it just the dalish? and if it has just been the dalish perspective, has he heard it from someone like ellana, who is rational and permissive, or someone more superstitious?

it occurs to adalia, after a moment, that the question must sound somewhat strange, and she laughs. ❱

Sorry, I don't mean to... pry, I suppose that's a word for it. I'm just fascinated by the Creators, since they're so much more like the gods I know from my plane. I'm trying to figure out whether they were real, if they were really gods, et cetera.

❰ which is not the entire truth... but neither is it untrue. ❱

(no subject)

aro — early cloudreach

newt — early cloudreach

thranduil — late cloudreach

solas — shortly post-assistantification

no subject

no subject

no subject

d'artagnan — early cloudreach

open — early bloomingtide

no subject

if you like pina coladas....

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject