( open ) and it's harder than you think

[sulena]

WHO: Saoirse Ceallach + open
WHAT: a catch-all for Justinian
WHEN: throughout the month
WHERE: Kirkwall, various
NOTES: none to mention, will update as needed

a — gallows' gardens

Saoirse has never thought herself as much of a green thumb. In Starkhaven there was no need to care for the wildflowers that grew in the valley that nestled the city nor what few managed to find root in the muddy alienage roads. They were there with or without help, and as it turned out, there was little need for botany lessons here in Kirkwall when these walls still housed a Circle. Yet as the weather has grown warmer, she has struck out, spreading her own roots as it were and attempting to learn some skills that might further helps those in the alienage. It always allows her, a mage mostly skilled in magic that attacked the life force of living things, to attempt new spells she hopes might be beneficial— not simply destructive.

Wearing a distinctive straw hat decorated in various, colorful wildflowers, Saoirse sits with a scrunched nose and concentrated expression. In her lap is a small potted but notably withered flower, hands cupped gently around it and a familiar buzz of magic in the air as she calls upon what little Creation magic she houses inside her. Mending wounds is much different than healing the earth and breathing life into withered leaves, yet she presses on with furrowed brows.

b — harrowing chamber

Although late the more traditional cleaning done in the spring, Saoirse has taken the lateness in stride and advantage of the warmer weather that summer brought. Perhaps the only true oddity is the location of her venture. The former Harrowing chamber is as she remembers it from her last visit in the later half of last year, a dusty and forgotten space. A part of her thinks that, perhaps, it is for the best that this place remain forgotten like there is a piece of her that might laugh if this place were to ever fall into the ocean.

Yet in her own attempt at healing from the venture in the Anderfels (not only physically but mentally and emotionally) that she takes another route. That is why, whomever might find themselves wandering near the forgotten chamber, might find the small elf in the midst of cleaning the room. Tearing down tattered pieces of cloth that were used to cover the windows, moving aside random assortments of junks or balanced atop a ladder and busily washing the dirtied windows.

c — alienage

It is a somber day in Kirkwall's alienage. Despite the clear day, splashes of black cloth can be seen either worn or on display on the small homes. One of the oldest residents, a woman who had survived long enough to see her great-grandchildren, has passed and thus the people mourn in their own way. Although they are all elves, traditions differ between alienages and Saoirse can only offer support as she can but mostly stands back as they prepare the body for burial. She keeps close to the Vhenadahl and gazes over the offerings on that have been placed throughout the day and the small candles burning in the dusk light around the tree roots.

In her hands is her own offering: a wind chime made of colored glass pulled from the nearby harbor. She remains at a distance for now, clutching the wind chime with eyes closed as she speaks out a soft prayer.

d — chantry relations' office

Although strange to be working in her with Herian's presence there was still work to be done despite her friend's deserved promotion. Currently Saoirse is working through the stack of letters that have come in either answering perviously sent letters, requesting assistance or letting them know of their thoughts toward the Inquisition. Most of lukewarm at best, some warmer but there a few that are quite chilly in making their thoughts or cases known about Inquisition presence in their midst. It is tiring in a way, after her last mission she had hoped more might be welcoming of aid to tend to the Chantry sites that might have fallen into disrepair since this fighting had begun.

"Perhaps there is a better way to go about this," she says in a half-sigh as the letter is laid to rest atop her small side table.

e — wildcard

For anything not mentioned above! Feel free to hit me up through plurk at kaldwin or through PM if you'd like to set up something specific.

Comments

c; alienage

[earthbones]

This part of Kirkwall is the part Brónach slinks through, softer than shadows falling for these are city elves but the despair of it is not unlike the Gray Quarter to shut them away only all of them, not just Azura's ash-skinned cursed children. But sometimes needs must, and today she's found herself where they decorate a tree.

She thinks of Whiterun, the Gildergreen, Danica with the curve of a blade pressed into her palms after the chimes of the temple.

This is no temple, and she doesn't know the traditions as she steps closer with muffled footsteps, the hood down among folk looking so like her. One is close enough, apart, away, a face glimpsed about halls the way that Brónach makes note of comings and goings, even if not to necessarily ever speak, old animal parts long since fixed (and not so long, some were not meant for the restlessness of beast blood) compelled to watch with wary eyes.

She recognises prayer enough to not interrupt, a tug that's - when do people come together anymore? - and clears her throat.

"What happened here?" More ragged than she'd want but this is the first time her voice has seen use, the rust hasn't been worked out of it.

[sulena]

The warm wind that works it way through the alienage, whistling through broken homes and across patched together roofs, her wind chime adding to the gentle noise that so reminds her of home-- of Starkhaven. The prayer has finished by the time the unfamiliar voice reaches her and she looks up with weary eyes, not brimming with tears but rather tired instead.

She does not recognize the woman that has spoken to her. For a moment, she clutches her gift before glancing over her shoulder a careful look to the lingering figures in the dirt streets.

"A passing," she says gently. "The alienage is mourning though also celebrating the life one of it's oldest and brightest members who passed in the night."

[earthbones]

"How old is oldest for an alienage?" It's-- it's never not work for her to keep her voice level, but this place isn't what she would call healthy.

City elves might have more closeness to her than the Dalish who've lost their forests and instead travel, lost, abandoned, clinging to nothing but scraps and bones as a child might, but it's hard to stop her eyes from darting about the place, at faces seeming old before their time.

Younger than her. A good number will be younger than her and will pass before she's even hit her stride unless something strikes her down first, and it makes her swallow hard. "They don't do-- Chantry rites? Or is that elsewhere?" Not that she cares overmuch but she doesn't know, and should maybe piece together more of her understanding of the Chantry beyond Galatea and select others.

[sulena]

"To see her great-grandchildren come of age," she explains with a tilt of her head.

Saoirse cannot help but follow the unfamiliar woman's glance about. A part of curious what she might be thinking but denies herself actually asking and instead stands still, the river glass chiming as the wind blew softly around her.

The question is a curious one and she blinks before she shifts, glancing downwards one of the roads with a quiet hum. "That depends on the alienage. We all have our own customs and traditions... our own special rites to perform for the dead. I am sure that a Chantry sister might perhaps visit if they find time to bring themselves into Lowtown."

[earthbones]

"I've seen girls and boys barely more than children to my eyes with children of their own." Now she finds her footing in pitching her voice soft as when a guard might come round the corner to find her, picks still in the lock. "I'm near forty," she adds (Iorveth jokingly called her child), "I expect that would make me wise, old enough to have seen some lot grown."

A peculiar grief to be witnessed behind glass at the elves here. Mortality fixed in them too but unknowing of how it came same as her, not railing at the trickery of men. A good age still in her youth. Down here where the homes remind her of Riften where the workers lived in the worst of it too, that can't help either. Not a mage to go about healing them.

It's a reminder again that the elves are split. Different. Not the groups of mer same as Tamriel. "They don't come, the priestes- the Mothers? Don't they have a duty?" Even if that god isn't there to listen, the woman dead there's still something real to be done here as she stares, mouth curling into half a snarl before she forces it flat. "What do they do here then? I hear more about the Dalish, books care more about them but I don't."

[sulena]

She listens with a soft smile, understanding and a bit on the side of surprised. Carefully, she adjusts her stance and sighs out gently through her nose. Her brows furrowed in thought.

"Sometimes the Revered Mothers might make their ways to the streets of the alienage to dispense advice or give alms," she explains. "Though without Templar protection they might keep their distance out of fear or some other excuse. It is not rare for the alienage to take care of alienage matters."

The question is met with a slight twist of her lips as she looks to the glass wind chime in her hands. "I am still learning the customs here, especially now in these times that I have not experienced in my time here. Although I lack the knowledge for the rites of Kirkwall, I can tell you of Starkhaven's customs if you wish."

[earthbones]

"If there aren't mages, I don't see the need for a fool in a polished helm. They must be a fearful lot not realising it courts more trouble to approach with an open blade." There's never been much call for her to keep her opinions out of her voice, so she feels no need to hide her disdain at the idea of these women going about guarded in a place where she's seen so little evidence of the people carrying any arms of their own either.

The Gray Quarter too, that took care of itself even with the drunk Nords wandering through stinking of mead to howl abuse in the frigid Windhelm nights. A pity the Butcher had gone for women, not the menfolk.

"Alienages change so much? Some give up their ways when they leave and move on, pick up the practices of wherever they end up but most people end up holding to their ways." Realising she has to clarify since elves are elves, city or Dalish, she gestures at herself, the whole of herself, as unhelpful as it is. "I have my ways, Bosmer ways, I keep them. Dunmer, Altmer, they have different worship, different ways to live that they'll keep no matter where they go, especially now for the Dunmer. I'd hear about Starkhaven, I want to know more about the people here, these elves."

(And maybe because with her accent some people hearing her speak have half a moment of wondering if she's stumbled out of there and it gets confusing.)

[sulena]

"But there are mages, walking free and without chains. If they would call upon the Templars while the Circles still held strong then it would not surprise me if they would ask for extra hands and swords now." Her words are spoken lightly, almost wistfully and with a shake of her head. "After all, they do not know when a mage might strike out back against the folk they saw as their captors."

She hums in thought, lifting atop her tiptoes and reaching for a strong branch to tie her wind chime upon. Already the river glass begins to catch the high noon light and makes light, musical sounds as the wind once more blows around them.

"I can only speak of the Free Marches but much like the cities themselves, the Alienages in each city is of their own and reflects such. Though there are some things that ties us together as elves."

Carefully, she slips away and gazes upward with a fond smile. "Starkhaven is hugged by a valley, sitting along a river and all around there these lovely wildflowers. We weave them together, whispering prayers and well wishes, when one of our own passes-- gifts to take with them on their journey to the Maker. We also make trinkets from the river glass we take from the waters, many say it reminds them on the stained glass that decorate the Chantry buildings. They are all buried with them along with other personal items."

[earthbones]

"Plenty humans. Very loud about all of it." Which-- there are always the Thalmor in the shadow of her voice, waiting, no matter what she has done, how far she has come. "If they haven't done it now, they won't. Maybe we don't live through the same things but I watched the people come to my home. Tell us the ways to be. Make us just so. Fold us into their ways. Had enough of us believing. If we were going to strike, it would've happened and they would be gone, no closer to achieving their goal." Bitterness is the hand on the back of her as if to push her down into the dirt of the alienage, resentment, regret.

Knowing that all you did was nothing, that it rallied no one, and that here she watches it unfolding again? Difficult to stomach. Her eyes close. She is in Skyrim. Danica. The temple of Kynareth. There is the Gildergreen.

Opens them to this world and living in the wrong skin. Another skin.

"Bosmer, Dunmer, Altmer, we all have our ways too.". Understanding, agreement when her voice won't be screaming. She follows soundlessly, the better for Saoirse not to see the look on her face at the use of flowers ( violation, the living wood, the Green). "You believe they go there to this one who turns his back and doesn't listen? Why the gifts? They can't take those with them. The Nords would embalm their dead with jars of things even jewels but they had mounds. And their afterlife is-"

A place she has been. Walked. Whalebone bridge swaying beneath her feet. How does a person ever explain?