faderift | i was left to my own devices

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i was left to my own devices

WHO: Merrill, open
WHAT: Keeping oneself busy with an aravel.
WHEN: During all this Tevinter nonsense.
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: Decorating.

How Merrill had convinced the ferrymen to allow her aravel onto the boat and across to the Gallows was uncertain; if asked, Merrill would insist that she had just asked, while the ferryman would turn a bit red and mumble something about eyelashes. Either way, it was certainly there - drawn by a horse instead of halla and with a mutt of a dog inside of it instead of other elves, but an aravel nonetheless. Merrill had directed both her horse - a massive thing, clearly some sort of war horse that a tiny Dalish mage had no business riding but did anyway - and the aravel itself to the stables, parking it outside.

Travel had taken its toll on the aravel. Obvious repairs had been made, but they were travel repairs; patched sails and different pieces of wood. Now that she had a relatively safe place to settle and access to all sorts of supplies, Merrill could repair it a bit more properly. The elf could be seen at all hours of the day working on new knots, fetching bits of wood, or looking over cloth for new sails. She had things to trade, too; herbs and stone found in her travels, skins of deer and rabbits, and trinkets that had most likely been taken out of the pockets of bandits unlucky enough to target her. The back and forth was near constant, but Merrill treated each trip and trade with a smile. She even hummed as she did her work.

No aravel, in Merrill's mind, was complete without decoration. Pieces of wood were delicately cradled as she carved images of the wilds, of bears and halla and flowers. She was not as skilled with the sails, but that didn't stop her from trying to thread bits of color into them, green chief among them. Perhaps the most striking, however, were the feathers. Feathers of songbirds, bright red and yellow and blue; feathers of eagles, patterned and large; and feathers of the griffon, white and striking and Merrill's favorite. They were braided into the ropes, tied to the wood. Merrill would trade the feathers she didn't want or need, would go and groom the griffon that allowed her to ride him and bring back what fell.

She was busy, and it was good, and it didn't at all make her worry any less about those in Tevinter.

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Jester drops to a crouch with a laugh, and opens her arms to the newly-grounded Barkley. "That's okay," she says, reassuringly, a comment directed at both the dog and its owner, "I am also excited, and I have been around so many people-- Hi, Barkley! Hi, hi, hi--"

Dog fur is nothing she cares about. For now, anyways. Maybe if she was wearing fancier clothes, then she would care.

"'Landship' sounds pretty good, too, but I think aravel is much, much better. What is the language, anyways? I don't recognize it... but I don't know a lot of languages. Just Common, and Infernal."

"I don't know many languages either," Merrill chirps, leaning over to watch as Barkley tries to lick Jester's face. He's getting more and more excited by how excited the other two are, which at least means he'll be plenty worn out tonight when it's time to sleep around other living beings for the first time in quite a while.

"It's Elven, though! There's not a lot of words in the language left that anyone knows, but we keep the words that we have. What's Infernal?"

It sounds a bit spooky, but this new person is the opposite of spooky, so- perhaps not.

"Oooh, Elven," Jester says, with proper reverence. "I don't think I know anyone that speaks Elven! We-ell, maybe my friend Caleb. He is pretty smart. And he is not here, so you can't tell him, but if he ever falls through a Rift with like, a shard in his butt, you cannot tell him I said he is pretty smart. Unless I say you can tell him that I said he is pretty smart." Solemnly, she gazes at Merrill. "That's what friends do for each other. They compliment each other behind each other's backs. And they keep each other's secrets. Which mean that you and I gotta be friends now, okay!"

She stops petting Barkley so she can hold her hand out to Merrill for a handshake, or some other way to seal this deal. Right at that moment, Barkley gets a big lick up the side of her face. Jester giggles, disgusted and delighted by equal parts.

"Aaaawww--Barkley, that's gross--you good good good boy-- How do you say 'good boy' in Elven? How do you say 'friends'? I don't think there is a word for 'friends' in Infernal--it is like, the language of the Seven Hells or something? But now lots of people speak it. Lots of tieflings especially. Which is what I am!"

Friends. Merrill loves friends, and Jester is so light. She wants to be friends with her, intensely; wants to meet that light with her own. "I won't tell," Merrill promises, solemn in return, taking Jester's hand in her own to grip it - and immediately giggling as Barkley licks her. "Well, friends apparently also lick each other, if one friend is a dog! He'll keep secrets, too."

Mostly because no one knows how to speak Dog.

"I've never met a tiefling before! But 'friend' is 'falon', and I would call you 'lethallan' because we're friends now! 'Da'len' is 'child' or 'little one', which I think would be pretty close for Barkley..." Trying to piece together bits of a language that doesn't entirely exist is difficult, but it's not the first time she's done it. Barkley is given an absent-minded ruffle behind the ears as she thinks.

"It's... we lost a lot of our culture, a lot of the language. But I think 'lethallin' for Barkley would work, too!"

With an enchanted gasp, Jester clasps her hands under her chin. This means that she has to stop petting Barkley for a minute but it is totally important. "Lethallin. Ahh, I love it. It is beautiful. All of the words are beautiful!"

It sucks that so many of the words have been lost. In case Merrill is feeling bad about this, Jester leans forward, somewhat conspiratorially.

"Okay, okay, okay... do you want to hear some Infernal?"

Barkley seems to understand the importance of the gesture, at least. He wags his tail, flopping on their feet to take a well-deserved rest from getting so much love.

Merrill leans forward to meet Jester, only to gasp in delight at her words.

"I do! I've never heard any before, that I know of."

"Yeah? Okay okay okay okay--"

Jester leans forward a little more, amping up the secretive air that she is cultivating. Her smile is proud and mischievous, as is the glint in her eye. She takes a deep breath, and then--

It sounds like garbled hissing, like a hateful snake, like clashing metal. And it is entirely at odds with Jester's expression, which is one of pure joy. Only a single sentence, and then she claps her hands over her mouth and leans back in a fit of giggles.

"There! Oh my gosh, do you know what I said? You totally, totally don't--I said you are really really cute and I like your tattoos a lot!"

As it turns out, Merrill has definitely never heard Infernal before.

It's- grating. It's different, but Merrill's expression doesn't change. Strange as it sounds to her, it's new, and she matches Jester's giggles with her own as she leans back.

"Oh- really?" There's a pleased flush, and Merrill reaches up to touch her cheeks. "They're called vallaslin. Blood writing."

"Whooooa." Jester's gasp is full of admiration. She touches one of her cheeks, too, imagining what it would be like to have a tattoo. "That is a bad ass name, man! Blood writing. Valla-slin. So cool... Are they blood, like, blood-blood? Or does that mean something different? Li-ike, they look like they hurt a lot... so that's why they call them blood writing..."

"They're not blood- but they do hurt. It's a rite of passage for the Dalish; if we can get through the tattooing process without making a sound, we're considered adults." For Merrill, who tends to be overly talkative when she's nervous, the trial had been a bit more of an exercise in emotional control than physical. Still, she's aware that it's something that sounds physically impressive to a lot of people - and it had hurt.

She reaches over, tapping one of Jester's cheekbones. "Right along the bone was the worst, I thought - so of course, that's where most of the lines are."

"Ooooh..."

Jester's little noise of pain is made in sympathy. She puts her fingertips against her own cheeks after Merrill taps her face, pressing down like that will help her imagine what it must have been like.

"Oh man oh man oh man," she says, awed and horrified, "that is seriously bad ass, man! My friend Molly, he has so-o many tattoos. And he has one of a peacock, and it goes like, up along his neck and under his eye," and she shifts one hand so she can show Merrill how, and where, "and it is really pretty and very cool but I bet no one told him he couldn't cry while they were tattooing on his face.. Wow, the Dalish are crazy."

"Oh, a peacock! How gorgeous!" But yes, most likely no one told Molly that he couldn't make sound while getting his face stabbed with needles. That was apparently only the sort of thing the Dalish did.

She laughs, can't quite help herself. "We've been called worse. I always thought it would be so embarrassing, being the one to make noise; you'd have half-done vallaslin until they let you try again!"

"So did you? Make a noise? Ahhh, I bet I would have..."

Jester presses her fingertips back to her cheeks again, and pulls a little--enough that she tugs at the bottoms of her eyes, pulling at them in a way that distorts her face slightly. She has to. The thought of trying to be very quiet while having needles put in her face--! It's crazy, man.

"Or were you really really strong, and really really quiet?"

"I was quiet," Merrill laughs, more at Jester's expression than the idea of her making noise- it's certainly an understandable assumption. "I had my hands clenched so tightly that I thought my nails would leave scars, but I didn't make any sound."

As gentle as Merrill appears to be, the Dalish are made of sturdy stuff. She didn't become a First only because of her magic. She went through the training, the trials. She will always be Dalish, no matter what some of the Dalish think.

"Wow." Jester, round-eyed, reaches out for Merrill's hands. "Let me see. Did they make scars, for real? Wow, man, that shit is to-tally crazy! I didn't know elves were like this. Like, I knew they were pre-tty cool, but man."

Or maybe it's just the Dalish. No, it is probably all elves, Jester decides, and the Dalish are just like, the extreme of the extreme.

"Man!" she repeats, to the world at large. "How cool is it that my new best friend is a secret face tattoo badass who like, could probably withstand torture and stuff!"

She turns her hands over, palms up. There are scars; it's hard to tell if any of them are from Merrill's nails, but there are straight slashes from blades and jagged scratches from claws. Most of them aren't on her palms themselves, but further up her arms. There are smaller scars, too; pricks of thorns, the tip of a finger accidentally (accidentally?) pressing against a knife.

Maybe Merrill should be concerned about the scars, but she's busy flushing at Jester's words.

"Well, I've never tried being tortured - but I suppose it is rather extreme, compared to what other people do." She's not even sure other cultures have coming of age rituals, now that she thinks about it. Did humans just hand their children a tool and tell them to go work? "What do tieflings do?"

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i was left to my own devices

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these two were destined to be friends

it is known

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just over here being late sorry ;;

omg don't be worth waiting for

<3!!

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