faderift | Blood Magic

Entry tags:

Blood Magic - 101

WHO: James Norrington, and YOU.
WHAT: Norrington gets ambushed, for information.
WHEN: Currently
WHERE: Norrington's 'office' (aka the table he's secured outside his tent to write reports)
NOTES: Warnings for blood magic, irritated Templar and probable Mage and Templar politics abounding, as well as people asking silly questions

Honestly, he really should have seen this coming. He was a known Templar Knight Commander - he had been hunting blood mages for nearly fifteen years now. His name were on several papers on Maelficarium, and he had trained Knights all over the Free Marches and even as far away as Orlais and Fereldan on how to properly hunt and kill blood mages.

Certainly, people were going to know of him. Certainly people were going to ask him about his past experiences. It was inevitable.

What he did not expect that was after coming in at the tail-end of an abomination attack to be bombarded by questions about blood magic - from soldiers down to the common folk. They crowded around him now, and you could just hear his voice over the fray of questions, stern and sometimes even caustic.

" -- NO I am not here to execute all the apprentice mages! One of them slipped - one. That does not mean the rest of them are suddenly going to start slicing open their wrists! They are children, they are learning. Is there a danger? Yes, but I sincerely doubt any of the mages here is blatantly teaching them ancient mind control rituals... "

There was a fast murmur of questions and then Norrington's voice could be heard again. "... No. You cannot do blood magic simply by cutting your finger and cursing. If that was the case every cook in the history of Thedas would be a blood mage. There are practices that someone must follow to use blood magic. If not, that is how we get abominations and demons from those failed spells."

Another fast and loud rat-a-tat of questions, and Norrington could be seen rubbing his face, "... No, not every blood mage is a Tevinter. Nor are they all Dalish. No, the Dalish do not practice sacrificing babies with Tevinter magisters -- do you know what the majority of the slave trade is? Yes, then it stands to reason that the Dalish and the Tevinter Magisters are Not In Cahoots. And NO the Dalish are not aiding Corpheyus with their tattoos -- their tattoos are not blood magic!"

Clearly, this is going well. So if you wish to help Norrington -- or just add more fuel to the fire -- please, feel free to stop by.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I didn't...lose them, I never had them. Except two days every ten years, at the Arlathvhen. I was communally raised. And pretty independent, as children go. As First, I had to grow up pretty quickly."

He looked at her curiously, at that statement, before he looked around the open area of the courtyard. Then he tipped his chin, "Come, let us walk. There are enough people here that you can trust me not to do something ... well, brash."

He crooked a smile at her, before he asked, "So as the First, were you expected to take on many more responsibilities at a younger age? It doesn't sound like you had much of a childhood. Not that I am one to talk.."

None of this is secretive information to her. As far as she can tell, everyone had a shitty childhood. Her woes are small potatoes compared to Merrick or Ellana.

"Who does?" She gives a faint shrug. "A plague came through when I was nine. Left a lot of orphans, and a lot of work to be done with too few people feeling well enough to do it. I was between supervising chores and nursing the sick. What else was I going to do?"

Shitty childhoods seem to be what makes up most of the Inquistion, outside of a few lucky ones. He would not wish to put his childhood against any of the Dalish, or any mage child taken from their parents.

He looks at her for that, both a mix of sympathy, and admiration, "I am sorry for your losses, my Lady. You are ... stronger than many I know, to handle so much, so young."

"You would've handled it." Pel looks faintly uncomfortable with the praise. "Anyone would've handled it in my position. You do what you have to do. Help carry bodies to the pits, pretending they're dolls. No."

Deep breath. Not talking about that.

"I didn't come through it because I was strong. Coming through it was inevitable. You understand."

He nods his head, because of course he did. You survived, because that is what you had to do in that situation. You did not think about the blood splattered across your face, you did not think of all those you could not save.

You thought about the ones that you could, and you did.

"So tell me, once you were past surviving ... what did you do for family?"

"Well, there was Cyril still. And Merrick was little back then. I suppose I became the mother to some of them. Especially Merrick, when his father died a few years later. What about you?"

"... I was nine when my parents were murdered, and was sent to live with the Chantry after that. You spent a great deal of time, looking out for one another there." He looked towards the walls, and above, his gaze quiet.

"Those I grew up with - some were like brothers and sisters to me in truth. I protected them, stood up for them, helped them when they missed their families, or lack thereof. When you are orphans to everyone but the Maker, you learn that blood is not the only thing that makes siblings."

"It's true."

They find a place to stop. She settles down on the root of a tree.

"My...my brother by blood is here. He joined the Inquisition. He didn't know I'd be here. It's...strange, how different it is with him than it is with my other brothers. There's more of some things and less of other things."

He leans against the tree, a more casual pose then most would attribute to him. He looked at her, gaze thoughtful.

"You did not grow up with him ... but he is still your brother. Yes, I can see why that would be something that would need some adjustment. You sound like you want to be closer to him, though."

"We are close, but we're not. We don't know each other as well as I know, say, Merrick, but we mean a lot to each other. We have other things in common. We both love history, and...I suppose there's just something common between us. The biggest difference I've found I can't get past is that he grew up with our parents and just thought of me as an absentee sister. I grew up without any of them, so it wasn't just...a family with one really long arm stretched out to another clan. I was the extension. I met them once every ten years and I had to give them up every time, all three of them. He says it's not ideal for a family, but for me, there was no family."

"Do you resent him? For having that family? Can you forgive him for not being as you are, not being sent away to another clan?" Norrington asked quietly. "I do not think that is a matter of blood, Pel. I think that is a matter of knowing loss, and having that feeling brought home to you in a very ... real way."

"I don't resent him. I loved him the first minute I saw him. He's part of what I longed for. But I thought...I thought he'd understand what it was like when no one else did. I knew a lot of orphans, but nobody else who'd never had parents to begin with. I don't know why I expected him to understand. I thought too much of myself, maybe."

"Aaaah... " He nods in quiet understanding, before he put one hand to his chest, "I have not known that -- but I have known Templars who were brought in as babies. Burns is one. He has always explained as ... feeling disconnected, in a way. He chose the Templars, because he had no connection to anything else. It was all he had ever known." He muses on that for a moment, "I often wonder if Burns would have joined the Order, if he had anywhere else to go... if you had had a choice, would you have become First?"

"I don't know. Probably. I've never known anything else, and I've always been somewhat ambitious. It's been my purpose, always. Keeper Deheune saw the opportunity to raise me as her successor practically from infancy and she did it."

"Mmm. Yes, I can see that about you." He gave her a curious look, tipping his head, "So ... why are you here, if you are the First in your Clan? I would think the Keeper would be reluctant to have you away so long."

He certainly didn't want her to go away.

"She...set me free." A faint shrug. "Her words. Sorrel was Second, he'll be a good First."

"...Free. What a delightful word. To be able to choose your own destiny. I envy you, My Lady." He quirks up a faint smirk, "In a non-demonic way, of course."

"For the Dalish, freedom isn't a luxury. It's our highest value. A right and a virtue. It means we have to live on the road, but it's worth it, till we find our own land. Or one of Andraste's followers remembers she gave us the Dales and says, 'Oh, perhaps using the Chantry in a bid to seize land we want was the wrong thing to do and we ought to give it back to those poor people,' but that's less likely to happen."

He muses on that for a long moment, before arching an eyebrow at her, "Well ... you are helping save the world. Perhaps that will be your reward. My current status with the Chantry is worth ... little to nothing, or I would recommend it myself."

"Dalish helped save the world from the Blight and nothing changed. It's not making strides in the current state of things that's going to make things better for us."

Now she has his full attention, because clearly Templars are in the same boat in many ways. He would never say they had suffered as the Dalish had, but if they could move forward and claim something after all this time ... perhaps there was hope.

"You have an idea, though. On how to make things better for your people."

"Something both Tevinter and Orlais did in order to make us seem like animals instead of people was to get rid of all our culture and history. Or as much as possible. They rewrote history into something where we never took part. If we can reclaim our history, we'll have at least a foothold."

Now that ... that was intriguing. He tilted his head at her, his gaze thoughtful. "And what sort of history would you be looking for? Written, or otherwise?"

"Otherwise, mostly. Written archives were destroyed long ago. But if we study ancient ruins, we can put some things together. And there is some writing that endures, just not on paper. The ancient elves and the elves of Halamshiral left Veilfire runes everywhere. The difficulty is translation."

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