we're not lost! we're on an adventure!

[chainlightning]

WHO: Merrill and open
WHAT: Merrill has freshly arrived and is already lost.
WHEN: Mid-Haring
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: c:

[ If anyone has made a map of Skyhold, no one's shown Merrill -- of course, she is rather freshly arrived, having come in during the night with a group of alienage elves. Most were from Kirkwall, but a few had joined up as they traveled from other locations, and all are glad to be off the road and out of the snow. She's spent most of her time getting them settled, trying to prove to whoever asks that yes, they do really all want to join and can be useful. She's mentioned Hawke and Varric more than is perhaps strictly necessary. But if it works, if it helps her people (elves, even though they're not Dalish; her new clan, her found clan), then Merrill is willing to do it.

That's why she had gone looking for the library in the first place. She doesn't appear to have found it, though; she may be in the kitchen, the pub, someone's bedroom, an office, yet another airing cupboard... basically anywhere but the library. And she is completely, utterly lost. ]

Oh, I do wish I hadn't lost that ball of twine...

[ Her sincerest apologies if she's interrupting something, really. ]

Comments

[chainlightning]

From my Keeper, yes. And yes, that's true; all spirits are considered dangerous, whether humans consider them demons or otherwise. But the same could be said of magic, or of arrows, or of a sword.

But that may just be my opinion. The opinions of other Dalish, of other clans- you'd have to ask them. Still. It's a Keeper's job to remember, even the dangerous things -- even the things we'd forgotten.

[ Merrill shrugs, then focuses back on Kirkwall. ]

Both, actually. And the dragon in the Bone Pit. And a great deal of other things.

[arcaneadvisor]

I prefer to keep an open mind though the magic I employ requires them little enough, though I am not a maleficar, despite certain rumours that may reach ears in the Inquisition.

[Almost certainly she was raised by such a thing, though she cannot say what Flemeth truly is so it's best simply not to think of her.]

Well there are enough here to allow me to see how much of that is true universally, perhaps you might have lead your clan a different way if you had remained or had a chance to truly use the eluvian.

[What wonders she has seen for herself within the Crossroads, though she dares not mention it, not yet, not when there are those who would demand their right to it without having gone to the lengths such as she has.]

Where once they were thought lost, now more and more are sighted in places where they my night be expected. Such tales that came from Kirkwall, including the Tale of the Champion, I prefer that to the nonsense most bards like to recite at a moment's notice.

[chainlightning]

Meaning you don't use blood magic, or you don't use blood magic by sacrificing other people?

[ Maleficar is such an ugly word, one that is tied to hate and fear and danger. Merrill and her blood magic are dangerous to herself, but she has never once used someone else's blood. She has never once used blood magic to control a mind. Doesn't that mean something? ]

Oh, I would have been a terrible Keeper. I'm not very good with people, and when you're the First, you're mostly isolated as you learn. It was all very strained even before I started my work.

[ But Merrill just sort of waves a hand, as if she's not too bothered by it. ]

Have you met Varric? He's here, you know; he could tell you even more stories. Though he does like to, er, get creative with them.

[arcaneadvisor]

Blood magic is one way to describe what I can do but sacrificing others is not to my tastes.

[So yes, but perhaps not what Merrill might be thinking though much of the terminology is reductive, used by Templars who barely understand magic in the first place beyond wanting to choose what is and isn't dangerous. And that's before bringing up phylacteries because what makes the Chantry so great? Why the grand tradition of utter hypocrisy.]

A leader is a figure, nothing more, nothing less, the person beneath it can matter little. Look at Andraste in the statutes and the paintings - the woman herself was Avvar, a barbarian.

[Much in the way Morrigan has always allowed people to think what they will about her and just get on with the job.]

I have not, I prefer my tales to have more than a mere kernel of the truth in them.

[chainlightning]

Oh, good. I imagine Fenris would be rather cross about sacrificing in Skyhold and he's awful when that happens.

[ Which... seems to be most of the time. But otherwise yeah, blood magic, no1curr in this conversation. ]

Was she? I honestly don't know much about Andraste or Andrastians -- just that the Light of the Maker is supposed to protect people? And also that sometimes the priests burst into flame.

[ This is what happens when Sebastian and Varric are your sources. ]

His usually have "no shit, there I was" somewhere in them.

[arcaneadvisor]

[Fenris is honestly one of the last people Morrigan would ever volunteer herself to meet when there are Dalish around, he's safe from her dubious at best descriptions of whatever some of her magic happens to be.]

Andraste's mother was an Alamarri, those who preceeded the Avvar, her father was a chieftain of a large tribe. The Chantry will say what it will, that one day if we all sing the Chant that the Maker will return and one day care for us all, nonsense. Priests bursting into flame is less an accepted part of Chantry practice.

[Though she wouldn't be against it, she needs some explanation.]

Unless he was there at the fall of Arlathan, his tales are of little and less use to me.

[chainlightning]

Apparently it only happens when they pray for certain people? Or so I was told.

[ Or, she imagines, if a mage set them on fire. ]

Admittedly, I don't listen very much when they start talking about the Chantry. Usually it's them telling me how wrong I am about something or another.