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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Galadriel was not given to leaving her work, not before she had completed it, so it was not entirely uncommon for her to go unseen for days at a time. The world tended to change little in these spans and she rarely expected to see anything of marked difference when she stepped out of her door, but occasionally she was surprised. Today, in fact, she was almost stunned by the sight before her.

She had only just returned from visiting the Arlathven, to see another aravel was unexpected...but, more than that, this aravel was familiar. She wandered closer, looking for the owner of it, and combing her memory, but it was no use. The sight of the aravel alone conjured no memories, it could tell her nothing.

Fortunately there was Barkley. Barkley who, so very excitedly, decided to sneak up and pounce on her shining hair. He was much larger, now, but no less adorable.

The excited barking of her dog had interrupted Merrill on more than one occasion. Sometimes it was nothing more than a dracolisk that had gotten too close, other times someone coming up with supplies that Merrill had been unable to carry herself. This barking wasn't like either of those, though; this barking was excited, not one of alert.

Really, she shouldn't have been that surprised when she came around the aravel to find Barkley attempting to tangle himself in Galadriel's hair, just as he had as a puppy.

"Galadriel! Aneth ara!" Just as exuberant as her dog, Merrill all but launched herself toward the elven woman to grab her in an embrace. Bold by the standards of the elves of Arda, maybe, but not as much by Merrill standards - not when she had known her, missed her, loved her. "How are you?! I've only just gotten back recently - and Kirkwall is very large - I'd have come to seen you as soon as I could, if I'd known you were here!"

Alacruun is more than a little stressed these days. He's been hearing disturbing rumors from Tevinter and while he normally wouldn't be that worried, one of the few people he actually likes has not been heard from in some time and he doesn't like that. Especially not after she left him a strange and cryptic and altogether alarming message via sending crystal before going silent. So he's taken to trying to walk off his stress, in between penning missives and doing his best to keep himself occupied.

Idle hands will do him no good now. He needs to be moving. To find something to give himself purpose. Inactivity and helplessness just makes him remember his prison. So he walks when he has nothing better to do.

The brightly adorned... vehicle caught his eye, along with the elf working on it. He pauses in his measured tread and then detours to take a look, brow furrowed as he gives her handiwork a once-over.

"...does any of that have any particular meaning? Or is it merely meant to look flashy?"

Keeping busy didn't make her worry less about those in Tevinter, but it at least didn't give her room to worry any more. She couldn't, not when she needed to focus on the precise strokes of her knife as she gently scratched at a piece of wood, carving in shallow lines to put details in the owl she was now working on. The approaching footsteps were enough of a warning that Merrill didn't jump, instead pausing to blow a few chips of wood away from her handiwork.

"A bit of both, really! Well, I wouldn't say that this is all necessarily flashy, but- meaning and decoration both, yes."

She straightened then, turning to look at her questioner. It may have been some time since she'd seen a qunari, but that didn't bother Merrill, and she offered him a slight smile.

"Animals favored by the Creators," and she gestures with her knife toward the unfinished owl, the bear, the ravens, the halla, "and all sorts of things that I like, too!"

Working with one's hands was not something that Alacruun had ever paid too much attention too. When he took humanoid shape, he was usually working as a scholar; as such, the ability of others to craft was oddly fascinating to watch - or at least a little distracting. Humans and other related creatures were always busy with them - while he had more important things to worry about.

He does have an eye for skill, though. He appreciates it. He leans down, looking past her for a moment to examine her carving. She's not bad - well, at least not as as he judges it. Of course, he's more used to hoarding metalwork or intricately bound books than wood-working.

"It's well-done," he comments off-hand and then straightens. His smile is a bit terse and short, but it's there. Sort of. He doesn't seem like the sort of man who smiles that often and when he does, it's probably not a nice smile. However, today he's just tense.

"I've been focused on the human countries mostly, so I'm afraid I don't know all of the elven meanings yet. May I ask what the owl represents? Or the ravens? I'm trying to learn everything I can about this place..."

The shard in his hand probably explains why.

Galadriel was stunned--both in that there was a dog suddenly biting at her hair and then that her arms were abruptly filled with another elf. There is a pause, then, however brief, before she recovers and remembers herself--when she does, Galadriel's expression blooms into something truly joyous and she wraps her arms tightly around Merrill, folding her into an embrace nearly as enthusiastic as Merrill's own.

"Merrill! Mae govannen'!" Galadriel all but shouts, her surprise spelled out in every facet of her voice. "I have not dreamed to see you here! Have you been here long? Did you travel far?"

Galadriel shifts and draws back just far enough to stare at Merrill's face. Her hand, without pause, sweeps the younger elf's hair back and rests on her cheek.

"Tell me you have not been caught up in the human conflicts that litter these lands."

It's not often that Fifi makes her way to the Gallows these days, unless it's to check in with Beleth over something or another, but she's here today with her basket when she sees something she doesn't expect.
She's heard of aravels, the things that Dalish use to travel, but never seen one up close: there were some in the distance in Orlais' war-ravaged countryside, but none that she'd dared approach.

So she finds herself staring, not only at the industrious elf who looks so very Dalish (as opposed to Beleth in her scoutmaster gear, and the others who at least often have the sense to wear boots), but at the strange contraption subject to so much attention. It's quite rude, and if Fifi caught herself, she'd be mortified. But it's fascinating.

It is so good to see her again. Not just to see her, but to touch her, be touched; Galadriel is her friend and the closest thing to a mother that Merrill has had since Marethari. It's easy to tilt her tattooed cheek into Galadriel's hand, to rest it there and assure them both with the touch that they are both here, alive and completely real. For her part, Merrill links her wrists behind the much taller elf's neck, letting her fingers idly stroke at her hair - while Barkley 'helps' from below.

"Not long at all- a few days, maybe? I left Kirkwall a little after the Inquisition arrived, after I made sure that everything was in order with my house in the alienage, and then- well, I couldn't just pretend all the other alienages weren't out there."

Most of the Dalish may want nothing to do with her, but a tatooed elven mage who knows Hawke can be a boon to some of the city elves, when problems arise. Merrill is not naive enough to ignore that being one of Hawke's Companions gives her a certain amount of status, and as the official inquiry into her blood magic had turned up nothing- well. Many humans are still terrible about her ears, but less so than they are to others, and that gives her an edge.

"I've avoided all of the- um, wars and things. At least when I could, when there was no way for me to help any of the elves getting caught up in things. And I got terrifically lost for a bit, which helped."

Especially considering where she had been lost.

"What about you? How have you been? How long has it been?"

She is no master craftsmen, but Merrill has learned - and it helps that she likes to do it. There won't be any new, striking ways of carving an owl into wood here, but that's okay; sometimes, traditional is just fine, even if those traditions have become lost and muddled along the way.

"Thank you!" The terseness of his smile doesn't seem to bother her. "And yes, of course- would you like a seat?"

Merrill doesn't wait for an answer. Springing up as lightly as a halla, she grabs a blanket from inside the aravel. It's opened and spread out quickly, folded to give a bit more cushion against the ground.

"To start with: these are Dalish symbols more than general elf symbols. Has anyone gone over the difference with you yet?"

Ever-vigilant, save for all the times he isn't, it's Barkley that notices Fifi first. The short-legged dog comes snuffling over, ridiculously fluffy tail wagging as he sniffs at Fifi's feet and up her legs. Hello, new friend! He barks once, as if saying as much, and that's when Merrill glances over.

"Oh, Barkley- I'm sorry, he's really very nice! Barkley, don't bother her!"

Elves and dogs, she knows, have not always historically gotten along. At least Barkley isn't a mabari.

"Oh, yes - please."

Alacruun is taken a touch off-guard by the offer, but he does appreciate politeness and hospitality, so he can't really decline. Instead, he settles his large frame onto the blanket that she spreads out for him. He might be trying to catch up a little. Questions help focus the mind, however.

"I know there's a difference between elves that live in alienages and among humans and those that live on their own terms and that they are called 'dalish'. That's about all, though."

Alacruun is, for once, happy enough to admit his ignorance.

"That's a start!"

Her knife was carefully sheathed and returned to her belt. More bits of wood were carefully blown away and then Merrill sat as well, cross-legged and bare-footed. Her dog came wiggling over after a moment, putting his head in her lap.

"The Dalish are nomads; we seek to try and preserve what knowledge we have of the old ways, of the People when they had kingdoms and weren't- well, second-class citizens, if that. A lot of the knowledge has been lost or changed in the telling, but it's our heritage; we try to remember, even if we don't like what we remember."

One hand settled in the fur of her dog. The other reached up, slender fingers tapping at the tattooed lines on her face.

"We remember the Creators, the gods who gave us the gifts of the world. When we come of age, we receive the vallaslin. It's for the gods, and sets us apart from other elves. And each god has symbols." Moving her hands, the wood carvings are tapped.

"The owl is for Falon'Din, Friend of the Dead, the Guide; it is his messenger, and sometimes Falon'Din himself. The ravens are for Dirthamen, his brother, Keeper of Secrets. When Falon'Din walked where Dirthamen could not follow, the ravens named Fear and Deceit came to him, but he became their master."

Alacruun listens with a quiet sort of fascination. He's much more used to books and lost knowledge, but hearing from a first-hand source isn't something he's going to turn down. In this case, it also keeps his mind occupied. Even if his thoughts would much rather be a few hundred miles away. Inactivity gnaws at him.

So he listens instead.

Honestly, he wishes he'd brought a notebook for this.

"Friend of the Dead" earns a thin smile, for some reason. Maybe he feels an affinity for that sort of thing. He leans forward slightly, brow furrowing as he tries to commit the names to memory.

"That sounds like the gods I know; they have realms that they rule over and they often have familiars or are affiliated with certain animals. There's a Raven Queen where I come from, but it isn't really the same..." He rolls his shoulders in a shrug, "Do they say how he became their master? Trickery? Force? Or is it enough that he simply... is?"

He waits for half a moment and then seems to realize something, "Ah, where are my manners? I am Alacruun. I'm far too distracted to day - I forgot to introduce myself."

Edited 2018-08-24 18:33 (UTC)

"Oh, goodness- no, I'm sorry, so did I!" There was a quick wave of her hands, as if trying to erase the accidental rudeness, the impropriety of forgetting - again - to introduce herself. "My name is Merrill."

Once upon a time, there would be more to the introduction. Now there is only a smile, and Merrill settles back against her own blanket, fingers stroking over her dog's head in an apology for earlier frantic waving.

"It's only really agreed that he subdued them. So much of our culture has been lost, the details with them, so... it is enough that he is, because that is all we have." For an elf who seemed so otherwise bright, the sudden dip in her tone, the way the energy seems to sap out of her, might be surprising. But it's true; they have only scraps of culture to cling to, only a few relics and a few words out of what was once a kingdom.

Alacruun also knows a little something about 'lost gods'. Although from a very unique perspective. He offers her a little wave of his hand, as if to say 'I don't mind' and then he settles in again to get comfortable. An impromptu lesson, with a very strange woman as his "professor". Certainly not like the elven academies where he was from.

"Time has a tendency to erase things, unfortunately," he replies after a moment of consideration, "Even knowledge we would rather keep. I've seen it happen before - people forget, no matter how they try. Even writing it down in books only gets a part of the story."

It's not exactly reassuring. It's more... matter-of-fact.

"Oh, my goooooosh--"

Jester, on her way to posting a new poster she just finished, stops dead when she sees the weird-looking but still so so so so pretty cart that is sitting outside of the stables. It is so pretty. Like, rustic pretty. It is almost exactly how she would decorate a cart, if she was out on the road and did not have access to pretty paper and craft shops and glitter and fancy paints and stuff. She loves it, immediately, and she runs over so she can get a better look at it.

To the casual observer, this is a little more intimidating than she means for it to be. Seven feet tall, horned, light-grey, muscled like crazy--with green ribbons looped around her horns (to match her green dress and cute green-and-white pinafore), and little white and yellow flowers tucked in her hair--and a pink haversack slung over her back, looking just a little too small for her large size--Jester cuts quite the figure, and she basically forgets that, every time. She can't help it, this time and all other times. She is excited.

"Oh my gosh," she exclaims, loudly, as she leans around to look into the driver's seat, so she can talk to the owner and decorator, "this cart is bea-u-tiful!"

Edited (tiny typo oops) 2018-08-24 21:56 (UTC)

Some elves, perhaps, but this one is familiar enough with dogs to recognize when one is being friendly and curious. She stoops to offer her hand for Barkley to sniff, and is briefly captivated by the budding friendship before the other elf calls to her.

"Oh-- I'm not bothered," Fifi says sheepishly, straightening and brushing out her skirts, though her hands still wander toward Barkley's head to pet his face and scratch his ears if in range.

He certainly isn't wrong. Merrill nods, but there's a slight frown with it.

"It's not just time. Humans deliberately did not want us to have our culture, to worship who we wished, to speak our language. They destroyed what they could, banned what they could. Time would have changed things regardless, but- it had help."

Pointed, directed destruction of her people and their ways. It was hard to swallow sometimes, when she looked at one of her human friends, when humans claimed to be experts on the elvhen.

"Humans... are foolish creatures, even at the best of times," Alacruun replies after a moment of thought. He doesn't particularly care one way or the other about the elves themselves, but the thought of knowledge lost forever because someone had to try and destroy it in a fit of pique is rather depressing (and a little enraging). What's the point of knowledge if you don't learn it? What's the point of destroying it?

"I suppose it was out of some misguided and wrong-headed desire for... what? Control? Or just because they don't like the Dalish?"

He's being a bit of a hypocrite, considering what he was planning back home, but he's always had a critical lack of self-perspective.

Well. That's the most excited qunari that Merrill has ever seen.

It's not, perhaps, as startling as it should be - she had been in Kirkwall while the Qunari were there, after all, and she had met the Iron Bull and talked with him about pretty pink rocks. Still, Merrill definitely has a moment where she just stares. Barkley barks, but it's not any sort of warning; it's a delighted, "is this a new friend hi hi hi" sort of barking. That snaps her out of it, and she laughs, ducking her head as a flush rises up her cheeks.

"Thank you! It's the first aravel of my own that I've ever had- I built it back when we were all in Skyhold."

Friends! Barkley wiggles happily - both his tail and his entire body - and happily butts his head up into Fifi's hand. Whether he's actually in range or not doesn't matter; he will make himself be in range.

Merrill can't help but giggle. "Well that's good, because he likes you!" Not that Barkley doesn't like most people, but he hasn't gotten to see many people for a while. It's good to watch him make new friends.

"The stories say that we were once immortal and worked magic as easily as breathing. Then the shemlen - the humans - came south, and we lost the ability to do both. The Tevinter Imperium attacked and enslaved us and we lost our calendar, our language, our culture. When Andraste rose, elves supported her under the leadership of an elf called Shartan. She gave our people the Dales - and years later, Orlais attacked because we refused to follow their Maker and we lost our second home, the place where we had tried to revive our culture."

It was a history lesson - a history lesson that not everyone even knew, or cared to know. The Dalish remembered, though, and Merrill had been trained to become a Keeper. It was her job, her duty, to remember. It didn't mean that it didn't hurt, though.

"Those who resisted, who refused to live under the humans, who refused to forget, became the Dalish. Those who did not are treated as second-class citizens or worse in shem cities. The alienage can be locked away from the rest of the city here in Kirkwall. In some places, humans kidnap us to sell to Tevinter as slaves. Elves cannot hold many jobs, can barely defend themselves."

One hand brushes through her hair. "And worse yet, the Dalish and the elves of the city often don't get along. Members of each group look down on the other - one is chasing dreams, the other has given up. Flat-ears and savages. It's all nonsense."

Alacruun listens respectfully to Merrill's tale, making a few sympathetic noises at the appropriate places. He's a decent listener, when he wants to be. And for the moment, he's trying to get interesting tidbits of information from her. It's honestly interesting to hear all of this first-hand and he leans forward slightly, eyes sparking.

"You seem to have more in common than not, at least from an outsider's perspective. Working together would probably serve you better than being at one another's throat, but... easier said than done, of course."

He cocks his head to one side, making a clicking noise with his tongue.

"I wonder - did your ancestors lose their power because of the humans? Or was it just an unhappy coincidence? I've heard of knowledge being lost or forgotten, but... maybe it was a calamity and the stories are there to make sense of it. Human records probably wouldn't be helpful in the least..."

He listens, at least; doesn't interject, doesn't try to tell her the history of her own people from the side of the humans. It's a refreshing change, and Merrill appreciates it.

"We do, and it would," she agrees, sighing again. "It wouldn't surprise me if there had been some propaganda spread to split us apart on purpose. But after I left my clan, I lived in the alienage here in Kirkwall; my clan, even after I left, was willing to take in a half-elf - dangerous enough, since they don't come out very 'elf' at all - that needed mentoring. Not all are so biased... but too many are."

And... well. Her clan was biased in other ways, and look where that got them.

"The stories say it's because of the humans; that we quickened, as they do, aging and dying. Perhaps it's because Arlathan fell. Perhaps it's something else entirely. We used to sleep, not die. Not really. But... I think the only who would know for sure are the spirits, and they aren't very straightforward with things."

"Interesting," Alacruun says (and means it), "Where I am from, elves are very long-lived - longer lived than humans, certainly - but they still die, even if they do not truly age. Eventually time claims them, as with all mortals. But they were never as short-lived as humans. To find that here has been... interesting. To say the least."

The differences fascinate him, but he imagines it's merely because one universe is rather different from another. There are so many questions and very few straight answers. But isn't that typical?

"It might be interesting to try and ask them, though. Even if it takes time to get an answer. Knowledge is always worth pursuing..."

A potential project. After everything else.

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