i was left to my own devices

[chainlightning]

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.

Comments

[laurenande]

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.

[coiledscales]

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?"

[untiltheyarent]

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.

[the_cleric]

"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!"

[arlathvhen]

It's a bit of a time-honored tradition at this point that if anything was happening within the Gallows that involved Dalish, Beleth would find out about it soon enough. That it was a Dalish that people actually knew only sped up the news.

However fast Beleth got the news, it takes a few days for her to actually make it to Merrill. There is a great deal of things all happening at once, and nearly all of them require input from the Scoutmaster--of course, in all likelihood, even if she wasn't strictly needed, she'd be there and trying to help, anyway. It added up to a lot of late nights, and not as much sleep as she'd like.

But Merrill was Merrill, so Beleth does manage to put everything aside at some point, and make the trip to her aravel. The sight of it, and the decorations Merrill has taken pains to spruce it up with, puts a smile on the other woman's face before she even gets to Merrill.

"Aneth ara, lethallan. Look at you! You're looking wonderful."

[aenseidhe]

While Iorveth keeps a home in the Alienage now, he's still in the Gallows more often than anywhere else, given it's where he works, and where his lovers favorite people live, sometimes spending the night in the Provost's chambers rather than making the trek home (or, you know, the Provost's roof). He notices the aravel the first time it arrives, though it's sometime when Merrill is out running errands for repair. The second time as well.

The third time, he's stopped near it to examine it closer, looking over the designs and decorations, the structure of it, incredibly curious about the elves of this world and their culture. Much of the Aen Seidhe and the Dalish of Thedas is similar, but things like this they have nothing to compare. As much as he's heard others claim the Dalish are stuck in their lost past, the advent of something like this - a mobile caravan - proves otherwise. Amazing, the things a people comes up with when the survival of their kind depends on that adaptation. Seeing the small, Dalish woman approaching with fabric and wood, Iorveth can only guess she's the owner, as the aravel seems to have more and more repaired on it each time he passes. Lifting a hand, it's both a greeting and an apology. It's probably a little creepy for some random dude to be checking out what is basically your house.

"Ceádmil. Forgive me, I couldn't endure the curiosity." Iorveth says somewhat sheepishly, in what's probably the most polite tone he's spoken to absolutely anyone outside a LotR elf. "This is the first I've seen one of these within a human city's gates."