( open ) | i'm fired up

[indissection]

WHO: Sidony & you!
WHAT: Catch-all/open for the month
WHEN: All the month
WHERE: Various - library, garden, infirmary!
NOTES: N/A currently

I. LIBRARY

All the books that Sidony had brought with her from Nevarra would never be enough to sate her curious nature, not when there was so much more for her to learn.

She doesn't spend much time with anything that spends a great deal of pages discussing magic or the nature of how magic might aid health - she avoids them completely, skimming them with a turned up nose, frustrated, trying to find something else. She longs for the libraries of the Mortalitasi, what she was able to see, what Ilias had been able to share with her once, the knowledge she had been so close to obtaining before she was casually dismissed.

It's hard not to be frustrated by that, though she does try. Most of the time.

When she has a handful of books in her hand, she makes herself comfortable with practically an entire table, spreading them out and turning here and there to look at specific pages. It's only then that she stops and unravels her own parchment, frowning as she looks at diagrams of the human body - different to what she's experienced personally, but that's to be expected. Not many people, even in modern day Thedas, might have the access to the dead that she does. Another thing she ought not to mention to anyone.

It's there that she can be found for many hours of the day, her candles constantly burning low as she turns pages, often ending up squinting in the half-dark with people milling around her.

II. INFIRMARY

This is where she spends most of her time, even if it might not be entirely obvious.

Sidony is always careful to clean up after herself. The little area she had been given when she had first arrived is enough for her, a small section of notebooks placed at one side, a series of vials and jars of poultices and herbs settled on the other end. It's always incredibly neat; as if she fears inspection at any time, as if she imagines that someone might come and demand something of her, demand that she do or appear better than she is, as if she is not good enough. Sometimes, things from childhood are difficult to shake.

More often than not she is making notes in a little planner, settled comfortably, leaning on her desk. Even here she is dressed very well - handsome, almost as if designed to make her beautiful amidst all the hassle and dirt the infirmary might itself bring. If someone comes in she's quick to put her quill down and glance over at them, to peer, a small, thin-lipped smile on her face for a stranger and something a touch softer for someone she knows.

A squeak as her chair is pushed back: you have her attention.

III. WILDCARD

( Find Sidony in the Gallows (her rooms!) or the garden, or somewhere else! Feel free to message me for a personal starter )

Comments

[heirring]

"It must be very fine indeed to have found something you care about so deeply so early in life. My, you have so many years ahead of you in which to hone your craft."

It is nice and it's a true enough thing to say, but Wysteria says it and finds herself-- well, she has only herself to blame. She finds the topic of Byerly Rutyer always puts her in something of a sour mood, and she should know better than to poke at her own bruises if it's going to result in her being sullen over every little thing. It's very cynical to feel any bitterness or jealousy whatsoever toward a young lady she hardly knows simply because she enjoys her career.

Ah well. Don't be a bore now, Wysteria.

"If you didn't study in a Circle, how did you come to your work? I've heard quite a lot of interesting things about Nevarran mages, but very little about their practice of science."

[indissection]

"Something that I think about almost every day."

Which is not a lie. Sidony spends hours reading and making notes, comparing what she leans with what is written in her books, developing her understanding of the world and not pausing to hesitate. What she learns in private - the bodies that are brought to her, that she can quite literally sink her fingers into - are for her eyes only, at least for now. Perhaps one day she will be able to write it all, but with the Chantry as it is...

She wrinkles her nose, biting back her sigh.

"I was tutored, quite extensively, while I was in Nevarra. Most eligible men do not want a dullard for a wife, my mother once said."

[heirring]

"Oh boo," she waves her hand dismissively, all good cheer. "That's not what I meant at all. Who isn't abused with such tutoring as a child."

(Uh Wysteria, try poor people for starters.)

"My mother said the same and I can't say that I would have had any education in surgery at all even if I had shown an interest. Is the practice of medicine so very robust in Nevarra that even young girls are taught it?"

[indissection]

"I did not think of it as abuse. I rather enjoyed the education that I was given." It has been most profitable for her - for the girl who has been taught to use her wiles against those she can, to flirt and tease and show her intelligence as much as she does her form, to take advantage of both.

But that is hardly the point, and she focusses on her twined herbs.

"Not at all. I'm afraid I had to beg and bully my tutors to get me the books I wanted, as well as engage in some subterfuge to get what was necessary."

[heirring]

"Then I suppose the question stands, does it not? How on earth did you decide to be so passionate about this from such an early age? My, as a girl I don't think I thought about doing any work whatsoever."

No, she'd been riding around the countryside and sneaking out of lessons and being awful at playing the flute on purpose. A profession? Spirits, no. It would have never occurred to her. The fact that it eventually had must even now be considered a horrible failure in raising her according to her mother.

[indissection]

"That does not surprise me in the least." It's not necessarily meant cruelly, but it might come across that way, and Sidony does nothing to try and soothe that particular sharpness. "Most young women are not raised with the idea that they might be permitted to do anything save have children."

It's not that Sidony had not been raised to imagine that was her future - she had discussed it enough publicly that she knew one day that particular chain would come for her - but she had never allowed it to stop her in the moment. The future is for her to live in a handful of years; this is her now.

[heirring]

"Well." A pause, some low flicker of irritation that she can't quite name. "--No. I'm not sure that's exactly quite what my education was like. I imagine it would have been very similar if I were a boy, give or take a few things. I learned maths, you know. And history and so on."

It wasn't all music lessons and embroidery, thank you very much.

[indissection]

"Perhaps mine might have been different if I was a boy." If she had been her brother and been gifted with the ability to have magic, to choose her path and become a Mortalitasi. She can feel some of that irritation curl around her now and she forces herself to calm down, to lift her head and face forward for just a moment. "But I was raised to be well bred, to be intelligent, to be a suitable wife. There is no denying that."

It's not as if she can lie about it. Her mother will find her, and then. Well.