faderift | Player Plot: The Arlathvhen

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Player Plot: The Arlathvhen

WHO: A big pack of elfs
WHAT: The Arlathvhen
WHEN: Vaguely Solace
WHERE: A Secret Elven Location
NOTES: OOC Plotting post here, and a special thanks to Ema for the header image

In the ordinary course of life, Dalish clans rarely encounter each other. This isolation is a protection; their diaspora is as much of a blessing as is a curse. Only once every decade or so do the Dalish clans all meet together, and their Keepers, the elders and leaders of the People, who are responsible in keeping elven lore and magic alive, will meet together and exchange knowledge in a meeting called the Arlathvhen. During such a time, the clans will recall and record any lore they have relearned since the past meeting, they will exchange goods, people, knowledge, news, and culture, along with reiterating what lore they know already to keep their traditions as accurate and alive as possible.

Today is the day.

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"Forgive me, you are very grown up. I should have known better. Nine and a half is very grand indeed."

Solas, despite his nature, has never taken issue with children. Often, they are better and more open minded than their peers, with a curiosity that makes the softer side of him warm and gentle the way he approaches them.

"I am very old, and I am not offended to be told so. Do you have a name, so I do not have to call you da'len again?"

"I'm Lamael," She tells him, squinting suspiciously at his apology, "I'm from Clan Tillahnnen, but Mamae says we need a change of clan, so I had to come to the Arlathvhen with her. We walked for ever."

Eternity is a week's walk, to a child. A longer eternity is a ten-minute pause, imposed as a penalty for bad behavior. The longest eternity of all is when you need to talk to your mother, but she's busy speaking with someone else and asks you to wait. Such is the nature of infinity.

"I hope we go with someone nice. The old clan had too many stupid boys," This seemingly added for no better reason than a verbal jab at someone not present. Lamael seems to decide, at last, that Solas is not going to pose any danger, and comes to stand by the fire, "What's your name? If you don't tell me, I get to call you Old Egg."

With the not so subtle implication that she would not mind doing so. It's not often you get permission to call adults things like that, after all.

It is the nature of children to be a touch more suspicious, he thinks, especially if they are Dalish children; they are taught to fear and distrust the outside world. It's natural, when so many of their people have been harmed or enslaved time and time again. Human children are far more curious without the fear, but the Dalish...

The less Solas says about his feelings on the Dalish the better, he thinks. He's in muddy water here already, wanting to encourage them to see the truth of their history while biting back his distaste and the frustration that nips at his heels. He wants to help them, but he is beginning to lose the desire, slowly over time.

"I am sure you will find a place that suits you quite well." Whatever her mother is searching for. The intricate personal trade and travel of the Dalish is one of the things Solas has not pushed himself into; it's to do with magic, and he knows enough to know he'd rather not know in any more than he does.

Shaking his head, he tries not to frown.

"I am Solas. It is a delight to meet you, Lamael."

What Lamael knows of Dalish distrust of outsiders is limited to her own experience, and what her mother has taught her. Every clan has a story, ever family knows someone, who was killed by humans, or other outsiders. Or worse: simply taken, and never seen again.

"That's really your name?" Lamael asks him, edging yet closer, and finally sitting down, though just far enough to be out of arm's reach, "It sounds like a Dalish name. Well, maybe a Halla's, anyways."

She considers this mental image: a bald halla, hornless and bareskinned, and giggles.

Nari looks up with a half-smile as Sorrel sits. "A favor is a fine gift. I like to travel light in any case," she says, bending slightly to pick up a thin stick from the ground to breaking it slowly into smaller pieces to toss one by one into the fire. It hardly needs feeding, so it's mostly just something to do with her hands.

"How has your day been?"

Solas has experiences that are vastly different, and he sympathises with the Dalish as much as he frowns upon what they have done to survive. Every time he sees some facial tattoos it's like a punch to the gut and there's no way to explain that to people without having their rage and anger thrust into his face. It's exhausting.

"It is truly my name," he nods his head. "It is an elven name, so it should sound right." It's also the name he keeps for himself, one beyond the title the others had given him when he built revolution around his heels. It's as good a name as any, despite the meaning attached to it.

"I assure you, I am not halla."

This does little to quell the giggles. Indeed, it only intensifies them, so that Lamael has to throw her head back and laugh. Were her hair cut longer, it might have had greater effect, as it is, it is very short, and prone to curl.

"You're funny!" Or, at the very least, in possession of a good audience, "Why are you stuck out here? Did your Keeper banish you? You can tell me, I won't tell anyone, because I'm good at keeping quiet. That's why I'll be a hunter, one day."

Edited 2018-08-22 04:13 (UTC)

The laughter doesn't phase Solas, who simply sits and waits for her giggles to be done with. He's been laughed at before, but at least this is a kindly, childish laughter, something that does nothing to pinch at his ego nor his pride to make him feel as though he has to be as vicious in return.

"I am not a member of any clan, so I cannot be banished." He shakes his head, smiling gently. "I am from the Inquisition, not the Dalish. There is no secret to it - this is simply the quietest place I could find."

Galadriel considers him, some of her fine mood replaced with a calculating air. He is flippant about this, about his assessment and the way he had phrased it, but there is no malice in him. Sorrel Ashara's heart is not calm, he is anxious and eager, even now, but he is not distrustful of her.

It takes a moment of study before Galadriel's expression evens once more and she continues walking alongside him.

"I would never harm another elf, to do so is to curse your own heart," Galadriel explains quietly. "But you have...assessed me more accurately than I like, Sorrel. I have spent too long in the wake of the shadow to be certain it has not had some sway over me...but I try to be kind, to be good, in all things.

"Your friends," she says, a bit more softly, "shall be shielded from unfriendly eyes, should they don that fabric. It is not so strong an enchantment as rests on my cloaks...but it will serve."

"...Lady..."

For a moment, Sorrel is struck dumb by the value of the gift. The bald, beautiful idea of it, Halla-white, and yet somehow enough to keep one safe. He will certainly be writing that letter, if he doesn't simply run back and tell Ionni in person. If the game of saving face is paramount, then Galadriel has, perhaps unintentionally, given not just a winning play, but a devastating victory. He wonders how often it is she does that, and if he ought to be more, or less, surprised.

He wants, very suddenly, to give something to her, not out of a desire for reciprocation, but real gratitude. That she's seen them, that she's understood, in a way he despaired of being understood, after his disastrous attempt with Solas the other night.

"The whole world is in shadow. It has been for a long, long time. In the histories, it says that when we walked out of Tevinter, we used to think we'd put all that away, and begun to live again. But that wasn't true," The Dalish did not look backwards out of joy, not truly, but out of a grim desire to remember their right to the pride they felt. The past was their road to the future, "That you try at all can be light enough, if you don't give up. Doing good is enough good for me. And probably the Dalish too."

He thinks about that, for a moment, then adds:

"...If you can get past our pride."

[Or maybe Iorveth ought to keep his shirt off! As it so happens, the discussion of Vallaslin had been proceeding in a dismissive tone that was practically polite by comparison to most Dalish conversations up until then. The Dalish, unlike so many, rarely tattooed merely for ornamentation, and were unimpressed by traditions that said otherwise. Still, it's hard not to be curious, even if only mockingly and then—

Well, let us say that there is a universal truth among women, which is that a man dressed in nothing but ink from the waist up will catch attention, regardles of who he is. And for Dalish women, who might consider the fruits of any such dalliance wholly theirs by right, if it were an elf on the other end of it, and therefore no source for comment. Well!

Well well well, indeed.

And so Iorveth does have a bit of an audience when Sorrel comes upon him, only partly comprised of derision, and in a greater proportion of a more personal interest. And a few oldsters who'd like all this noise off their doorsteps, thankyou.]

Oh I might have known you'd be trouble.

[Sorrel says this at a volume clearly meant to carry over the tittering.]

Sorrelean Ashara, what nonsense have you brought to our midst? I should have guessed you'd be the root of this. [This judgement brought by a man with thick vines covering nearly every inch of his face, and a long ginger queue danging down his back. He's taller than Sorrel and seems about as impressed with him as with Iorveth, which isn't saying much.] If you can't stay away, at least stop bringing it back with you.

[One of the women slaps at the man's head, costing him both his dignity and his hat, which lands in the mud.]

Oh quiet, you! Sorrel. Don't you listen to this old nug. You just keep bringing whoever you like.

[Sorrel makes a face, which only seems to encourage her] Avi, please.

I mean it! It's no trouble. Why, it's practically inspirational.

Avi please stop. I don't need to know about your plans. Iorveth, please help me out, here.

[Suffice it to say: his audience would prefer he did not help Sorrel out, here.]

Sorrel took a deep breath, puffing his cheeks out, both to express his opinion of the day, and to stall for time.

"...Terrible, honestly. I missed this so much, all the people, the smells, the way everyone's accent is right. The Fade is so much cleaner here. Everything's cleaner," He lets that sit a moment, so that they can have at least a few second to revel in the goodness, before smearing it with the ugliness of reality, "But then... You know."

Politics. Expectations. The subtle malice that grows on a bed of love in the same way that fungus grows in bread: quietly, without being noticed until it's laced throughout, and become poison.

"I got in a fight with someone because he said some shit about Adasse. But don't tell Adasse that, because he'll have to try and do something about it, and I'm not sure I'm up for explaining to Tillanehn's Keeper that it's not my fault his First is a prat."

At this, Galadriel laughs. It is a quiet sound, amused but kind enough, and she only just refrains from setting a hand on his shoulder as she does.

"Similar warnings have been given regarding me," she explains, more than a hint of mirth in her. "But I shall endeavor, on both counts, if it means your friendship."

They walk a time, warm beneath the afternoon sun and surrounded by the voices of the Dalish. They are indistinct and clear, dropping in and out, as the sounds of crowds are wont to, and Galadriel savors them a time.

"You know much of your history," she states after a time. "It is strange for me, I have not often had to learn of events I did not survive, but I have tried to learn of this world. The Dalish, however, rarely feature in book or scroll.

"Would you tell me a few tales, Sorrel of Ashara?"

"Why does it not surprise me that your friends might feel the need to give a warning for you?" Sorrel retorts as they walk on, lapsing into a deep and comfortable silence as they go.

And then she just has to mention books.

"Oh don't read any of the books about Dalish in the library," Sorrel cautions her, leaping immediately to her metaphorical defense from such tomes, "Genitivi has the best information, but most of his sources were either lying or just messing with him for a laugh. So that's not saying much. What kind of story would you like?"

Edited 2018-08-23 05:57 (UTC)

"I know precious little about the Dales," Galadriel admits. "I bore witness to Halamshiral and what the Orlesians have made of it, but it cannot always have been so dreadful and gaudy.

"I was told it belonged to the People once, but I know not how it came to be nor how it passed from their hold."

She knows, and grimaces sympathetically about the need to get into a fight in defense of ones beloved. As strong as the Dalish were in themselves, sometimes that strength meant stubborn and unyielding.

"I'm sorry." Nari says, then smirks and rests her elbow on her knee, her chin on a curled hand. "I hope you bloodied his nose for it." It's taken as read that she'll keep the secret. She's mostly a closed box in any case, but she also knows Adasse making trouble over Sorrel would go over far worse than Sorrel making trouble over Adasse.

She puffs her cheeks and blows out a long sigh thinking about the row she'd stir up if news about her choices came out.

"Ah. That's the truth. I haven't seen it myself, but Beleth told me all about it."

There was a style, among the Orlesians, for gluing bits onto everything, until the facade of every part of them was more buttons than substance. It was decadent, that much couldn't be denied, but in the way of a braggart more than anyone with sense. The louder your money spoke, and the more often, the less it had to say.

Maybe that was the point. Either way, it was ugly.

"Well. Most everyone knows about Arlathan these days, but it used to something everyone considered a quaint Dalish myth. We call the humans shem because their memories are so short and quick; they forget Elvhenan, and don't see why anyone else would want to do otherwise. But when Arlathan fell, Tevinter ate her, and enslaved every elf that survived, down to the last soul, as my Mother told it," His wry, sad little smile, and the helpless shrug tell their own tales. Was it really every elf, when so many elven ruins are found, in every country, and elves in every corner of the world? Likely not. But whether or not the truth is literal, the truth of it is real; it was the heart of the Elves that was enslaved, in Sorrel's faith, if not the whole of them, "We spent centuries, whole generations in chains. We became mortal, and even then short-lived, given the conditions. I don't know if it was losing the Creators that did it; many think just being around humans is enough to shorten the natural life-span, but everything except the memory and blood of Arlathan died in Tevinter. Then, one of the slave uprisings caught fire."

Ha, fire. Literally.

"Andraste would have failed without the elves. But we rose up with her, us and Shartan, who was her friend. We remember him, even when the shemlen choose to forget that an elf can be good without being theirs. Andraste promised the People the one thing we want more than anything; a homeland, a place to call our own. When she was burned and gone, and the war won, Andraste's left-behind followers tried to forget her promise to the elves, and then tried to forget that we had ever any claim to part of the victory. But..." And here Sorrel grinned, waggling a hand demonstrably about the ods of this venture. And then spread them to indicate the camp around them; small, for a gathering, but only a representative fraction of the Dalish as a whole, "...Even Andraste's army couldn't actually say no to that many angry, hungry people, when they're living right at the doorstep."

There is a truth universally recognized by all who wish to take power and hold it: any movement, regardless of its short-term power, can be killed in its cradle by the starving desperation of a peasant uprising.

"So they gave us the farthest, most unappealing part of the map they could imagine, and neither boat nor cart nor any other way to get there except walking. So, we walked. There are so many stories of people dying, and being left beside the road, starving, or being killed by bandits as they went. A lot of people never made it to the Dales, but when the rest finally reached the northernmost border, they founded a city there, and named it Halamshiral. The Journey's End."

Sorrel took a deep breath and held it, then was quiet for a few seconds, struggling, and then sighed and took another. He tried again.

"The palace there. It was supposedly the only thing left when they burned the city, and threw down the Dales. The Keeper would always say, it used to be a temple, a holy place that now only worships gold. The Chantry forgot that we had marched with Andraste, that she had called Shartan brother. So now they have the Dales, and we have... memory. And blood," He smiled again and shrugged. It was enough, really, and what would he do with hallowed halls and a city all their own? A question better left unanswered, truly, and not for lack of answers to be had, "And the vallaslin. So, it's not all hopeless, and as the last of Elvhenan, we do not forget, and we do not submit. Everything else is just politics."

"I did not know that was what it meant, Halamshiral," Galadriel replies. She had been unaware of both--the word and its translation and the meaning of the place. It is enlightening to learn this, it matters little if it is accurate or a complete tale.

"And the vallaslin, I know of, though I expect my understanding of them pales in comparison to yours. Their purpose is...to honor the gods?"

"Oh sure. Vallaslin have always been about honoring the gods. Some of the designs go all the way back to Arlathan, protected all that time, or rediscovered. But it's more than just... The gods are shut away, you know that?"

He can't help the sad, wistful tone of it. Galadriel is hard to read, her emotions, her reactions, and looking up at the grace and dignity of her, he feels very like a child. Sorrel closes his lips and looks away.

"In the Dales, most people had bare faces. But not everyone. If you were a priest, or part of a temple... If you were a Keeper. Then you would be marked. It was tradition, to show your dedication to the Creators. To honor our gods, with that dedication, the promise to keep our history, our people's way of life. When we left to wander, that's when we started marking every child's face as they grew up, to prove that if the shemlen, and their Andrastian Exalted March, that if they wanted to take our gods, they'd have to skin us to do it," His voice, at first so quiet, has risen almost to a snarl by the end, and Sorrel realizes it only too late, in the clench of his teeth, and coughs. Well. That's embarrassing, "...Sorry. That's the history of the Dalish, though. They tried to kill us and failed, so let's be as obnoxiously ourselves as we can. Repeat forever. It's the same concept, though; we're all keepers now, in our own small ways. Every one of us."

Edited 2018-08-24 19:05 (UTC)

"Nah. Cut his lip up, though. His sister dragged us apart before we could get too far into it. Sometimes I think she has more sense than everyone else in that line put together."

It's old talk, shop talk, words from another world. This world, come to think of it, the one they were currently sitting in, with the crack of the fire and the musky Halla-smell. Somewhere, not so far off, someone called after their child, and the words were low and round-edged with none of the harshness of Kirkwall in it. Sorrel heaved a sigh.

"Well, at least we've got each other, yeah?"

No Sina, no family, and their clan couldn't be counted on, as it was. Ashara and Dahlasanor were as split by internal strife as by competing needs. Too many Keepers, too many cooks, too much done and too little to do. But Sorrel could still bend his elbow and touch Nari's arm with his own.

"Oh I see, that's why you're all naked!" She says it with great enthusiasm, and only then seems to remember herself, and shrinks back with an ashamed little oh, "I'm sorry, that was mean. I only meant, your face."

Which was, of course, like Lamael's own, quite bare of ink.

"What's it like, in the cities?"

She listens, patiently, as he speaks of the gods and their absence. She finds she is jealous of that, but she does not interrupt. His tale of the vallaslin is fascinating, as is the escalation in his tone, and she nods along as he concludes his mild tirade.

"These sentiments I understand," Galadriel assures him. They have walked some distance from Ionni, enough that they can slow and linger in the dappled shade of the trees. She does so and turns to face the aravels and the elves between them. Their conversations sound distant and just out of focus; Galadriel is grateful for the noise of them, especially as she considers how best to explain to Sorrel.

"In Arda, no elf would mark themselves so...and the reasons vary," Galadriel starts. "There are those who revere the gods, the Valar, and who would not slight them by marring the creation of Illuvatar. I cannot say I agree with them...but I would not acquire such markings either.

"You see, Sorrel, the elves of Arda have been waning--for ten thousand years we suffer under the geas of the Valar. We diminish and with it, so too diminishes the world. I would not mark myself because then...then it would be a challenge to forget. I would always be faced with a time before the marking and afterward and that time would always, no matter the joy of it, be tied into the Doom of Mandos and the decline of all I hold dear.

"I would not honor the gods because I hate them," Galadriel says, as calmly as one might announce the weather. "I hate them more than I have ever hated the darkness, than I could ever hate another being...but the Dalish. I love the Dalish, with all their pride and their obnoxious self. You are glorious and you give me such hope.

"For all I fear will come to pass, for all that we have lost, that we will lose, I can only dream that we will become as you are. If our fate is to become as the Dalish, then I have no reason to fear the coming doom."

Sorrel stared at her with eyes greener than the leaves, except at their newest, in the brief, bright youth at springtime. There was so much in that, and for a handful of breaths it was all he could do to circle the tide of ten thousand years, enough so that he couldn't even remember that first small bitterness because of course the elves of her Arda would never mark themselves. They would all be like her, pale and tall and strong and beautiful. And if the world waned over ten thousand years, they would be there to see it.

"...I won't live to see eighty," Was all he could say, at the last, and his voice came out weak, trembling and wet, like a new-born halla, though still standing— barely, "But. Why? I don't understand."

Sorrel knew why he loved the Dalish, and he understood why so many didn't. They were enemies, as seemingly inimicable as nugs and spiders, and in both cases it was the cause of nature that it should be so. Neither side could be elsewise, though one be wrong and the other right for it.

He didn't know what to think, or what to say. But how could his Creators and her Valar be the same, then? And how could she hate them? If they were not always good, they were at least on our side. If they sometimes warred, well then without them, everything had gone to the void, in chains and blood and thousands dead.

And she called this glorious?

"Why?"

His expression breaks her heart, just so, and she does not resist the urge to extend a hand at let it light on his shoulder. The movement is slight and not unkind--though she hopes he does not find it patronizing. Her smile is small, a sad thing in comparison to the bright laughter and delight from before.

"It is difficult to explain and, I fear, I may speak poorly if I try," Galadriel warns him and thinks, then, of Merrill and Siuona. Sorrel would not be the first she had told such things to, and she would welcome him no less should they meet again in the undying lands.

"But I shall try, for what glory is there in abstaining?"

She urges him to come with her, to sit beneath the trees and enjoy this world. Thedas is not so different from Arda, not in moments like this, and she is tired of wandering.

"I ask now, do you know how old I am, Sorrel? Has that knowledge been passed to you?"

"You just said ten thousand years, as if that's even a real number of years," Sorrel said, in outrage, because he was upset enough that hid good sense had had to go have a lie-down, leaving his mouth unattended and free to do as it pleased, "That's like a fairy-story, that's fake, you'd tell that to a child who wouldn't let you get away with saying never."

He's gesticulating now, and only when she touches him does he remember that he's not alone, and is drawing attention. Sorrel colors, pink at the tips of his ears, and clamps down on the impulse. He used to be so good at repressing, he spent years being quiet and dutiful and good. What happened to him? Why could he never do anything but be a disgrace? Eighty years, what was he even talking about, he'd be grateful to see the ground open up and spare him the next eighty seconds, if it'd save him the humilation. Not that it ever would. He grit his teeth at the ground and pressed it all down again. Repress, damn you!

"I'm sorry. I. I'm sorry. Sorry."

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Page 6 of 7

Player Plot: The Arlathvhen

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