faderift | semi-open. your childhood home is just powder white bone, and you'll never find your way back.

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semi-open. your childhood home is just powder white bone, and you'll never find your way back.

WHO:n Martel + Adelaide / OPEN.
WHAT: In preparation for offering combat lessons to mages, Martel is teaching Adelaide LeBlanc to duel.
WHEN: DUSK.
WHERE: The garden, Skyhold.
NOTES: Contains violence in the context of training, and possibly Adelaide's potty mouth. There's a starter for Adelaide, but if you'd like to hit up Martel afterwards, he'll have stayed in the garden after she leaves to write some notes on what they were doing. If you wanted 'Martel is sweaty, muscular' CR, now's your chance. (You also have a shot at catching a sweaty, angry Adelaide as she stalks off.)

Before Adelaide can say again for the eighth time, Martel steps to one side and puts up his training sword, the blunted, capped tip of the rapier bouncing against his shoulder as he half-turns to avoid her with ease. She's tiring - she's tired. Overextending herself, dropping her guard, breathing hard; he can see the unsteadiness in her limbs, the precursors to training injuries that will teach her nothing she can't learn by remembering she already damn well knows it. Nothing more will be productive this evening, no matter how determined she is to master the parry - they have worked hard enough that he is beginning to feel it, his lightweight shirt tacky with sweat against his skin.

"Enough, now," he says, with a finality he entirely expects her to ignore the first few times he's obliged to say it. "We'll take it up again tomorrow."

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Every evening for weeks, now, at dusk she comes here, she takes the sword he's given her- and learns the motions. The posture, the strikes, the steps, pushing herself in every swing. For the most part early in each lesson she need only be corrected on something once before she knows that she has managed or that she has not. Learning the way something felt, memorizing that is the bulk of the lesson. The rest? Has been a trial in patience.

And tonight she is not doing terribly well when it came to being patient.

Skirts and kirtles and gowns have no place here, nor her usual sleeves; Adelaide is dressed simply- trousers, shirt, gloves boots, the jacket a concession to the weather that's long since been unbuttoned for how effort has left her perspiring. Hair damp and stuck to her nape and temples in dark curls she snarls, more to herself than him, and insists. "Again. I almost have it."

Even Adelaide, before now, would have been unlikely to call Martel a patient man - but the way he has handled her lessons speaks for itself. Half of her education is simply repetitive motion, teaching her muscles to remember always what her mind has been taught to know; it is tiring and boring and frustrating and hard, and Martel has been immovable throughout.

Such as now, glancing at her, setting the rapier down.

"No," he says, bland - he knows where this mood leads. "You do not. We will continue tomorrow."

Arguing for 'again' at this point has never fully come through with him recanting and showing her once more. Not once. Truly she ought to have learned better by now and while it is repetitive, while it is tedious, while it might be boring- she should be getting this faster. She should be doing better. Everything instilled in her by the Spire, by her mother before that says she should be further along. Nevermind that this is two steps from violence. Nevermind that she is no warrior, she is a mage.

She should know this by now. "I can do this- once more."

Just once more.

"My lady LeBlanc," in an arch tone that betrays some affection mixed in with his steadfast exasperation, "you cannot. Were I to permit you, there would be no tomorrow, either - I am not here for you to injure yourself upon."

He takes the water jug from where he had set it down earlier; pours a cup, conscious of how infuriating his casual air must be in the face of her dogged determination to keep pushing herself past what he knows to be her limit. He isn't unimpressed by what she's already achieved - he doubts saying so will have much impact.

It feels condescending and proprietary, that. Any other time she might shrug it off, say something arch, move on. But here and now she is frustrated, not with him nor his imposing of limitations, but with herself.

She should know more. She should be doing better.

"I am not going to hurt myself." She snaps. Though she's made a point to not use rejuvenation to give herself a little more time, a few more hours- she's tempted. It's right there, tingling at the tips of her fingers, Compassion warm and real at her back. "I am going to get this damn parry right."

"Yes," he agrees, his tone pitched deliberately mild; she wants a fight so she can win it, and Martel wouldn't be the right teacher if he were willing to let her do either of those things.

(He doesn't miss his world. The things that he misses - he threw them away years before the rift spat him out into unforgiving Thedas. Maybe, though, sometimes, when he thinks to himself that perhaps he isn't so terrible a teacher - maybe what he misses is a might-have-been. His knighthood, as represented by the medallion ever-present against his chest.)

"I don't doubt it. You progress at a steady rate." Faster than he'd have predicted, actually, given leave to do so. "You do not, however, possess some astonishing and heretofore unknown prodigious gift that renders you immune to the rigors of the work. Your body is screaming at you, Adelaide, I strongly suggest that you listen to it. And if not to yourself, then to me, as I am telling you that we will continue tomorrow."

He doesn't ask what she has to prove, or to who - he can guess.

Steady isn't accelerated. Steady isn't exceptional. Steady is average, is on this side of imperfect, steady is unacceptable. She hasn't been this frustrated with picking up any particular discipline since she first spoke to Compassion and understood. She thought she could learn everything, do everything as soon as she wished and when the Spirit, not her, willed them finished?

The spirit left her.

The longest had been for a little over a week after she'd burned them both out in the middle of a plague. So close to a cure and she'd pushed too hard, too far, took in too much of Compassion and they, in their disquiet for being so close to this side of the veil, fled.

One would think she's learned from that. To an extent she has- but not here. Not like this. And Compassion's instinctual desire to mend her when she aches has flared to a single glowing beacon. And then? He says that. Of course she does. Of course she can. Of course she will. Nevermind she shouldn't- but pride is on the line.

"I said I am not going to hurt myself." Her shoulders straighten, her eyes glow, that blue light pooling at her fingertips ripples over her and it's gone. The aches, the exhaustion- as if she hasn't spent the better part of an hour going through the motions, wearying herself to the point of pain. "One more. I'm fine."

Edited 2016-01-06 09:31 (UTC)

Only a moment, to realise what she's done -

The change in him is palpable before he moves. He had been tolerant, if exasperated; he is not that, now, his jaw working as he prevents himself from saying the many things that first come to mind. Prevents in himself from acting without thinking through the consequences of doing so - prevents himself from being petty and childish in his immediate, incandescent fury at being defied and in this way, in a way that he well remembers he would have been punished for if he'd ever tried it as a novice. He could have. If he liked standing at attention in Vanion's study, wishing the man would stop talking and just whip him instead.

When he does move, it has none of the easy grace with which he's taught her - it is sharply controlled, deliberate, staccato. He jerks the practise blade from her hands and tosses it down with the other, catching her gaze and not breaking it. He has not spoken to her this way before, voice low, eyes hard--

"I do you the credit of presuming that you would not tolerate this behaviour from your own students. You know better."

He is silent a moment; deciding.

"We will continue a week from now," he says, finally, leaning back. "You will apologise to me when you return, and we will not speak of this again, nor will you repeat it. These are the conditions on which I continue teaching you. Am I clear?"

When she is furious the sudden cold that surrounds her is a literal, tangible thing. With Martel there is no actual shifting in the temperature but all at once the garden seems frigid. As defiant as she had been in the moment before, in all her aches and all her frustration, the bottom drops out of her stomach the moment he starts to move. She knows him well to be a dangerous man, a capable man- and while he may laugh and tease and tolerate her; it is impossible to put how they met from her mind.

To forget the skill with which he teaches her and what it must mean beyond mere sport.

For a moment, and only a moment, she is genuinely terrified for her safety- locked tight and ready to sprint; the practice blade coming from her hand easily enough. She doesn't have the conviction to hold it, to argue further in the face of this. Even when he had her by the throat his eyes had not been so cold, his voice so tight. The rebuke stings more than a blow might- for he is correct.

Shortcuts aren't permitted, they're unacceptable, she knows better. She is supposed to be better- and more than that? She is more than a role model for her own students now. Such a slip would have been damning enough before; but now? As a member of the Council?

She cannot afford such weakness. Such public and visible flaws.

Despite the spell banishing her exhaustion and her pain, Adelaide feels mired in a leaden weight, jaw tight, eyes wide. "...Yes."

It is a stark contrast to the frankly impersonal way he'd once attacked her, and dismissed her as quickly; the anger that he leashes now is precise and precisely directed, his eyes like coals. He had spoken to her then as if she could have been anyone, but now -

It is his disappointment that lingers. A lesson from Vanion, well-learned. His anger had never had a patch on his silence.

"Never again," he repeats, no gentler for how quietly he speaks. "You learn this lesson once and you learn it well, because I will not repeat myself. I should not need to tell you that you can't master in a matter of weeks what I have had thirty years and a half dozen wars to hone. I am pleased with what you've accomplished, but it ends here if you can't allow yourself to be new to something."

And with a sharp shake of his head, he withdraws - he has, on occasion, let her take the practise blade away, to rehearse the forms without an opponent. It's immediately evident that that will not be the case this evening, as he collects both of them to pack up with his own belongings, the tension in his shoulders not receding as he moves away from her.

It will be some time before he retires.

That is the heart of the matter laid bare- she hasn't been new to anything in years. Techniques she's picked up or developed, research she has done; but nothing wholly new. Nothing she did not already have a fundamental understanding for that sped along her ability to absorb and create variations after a week or so of obsessive study. Pride wouldn't permit her to take such things gracefully and it has bitten her back in an instant.

Adelaide had forgotten the bitterly childish sensation of being chided; the intense shame of stepping out of line in an academic sense. For all that this was an entirely different sort of education all those old instincts to apologize now, to make good immediately were difficult to squash.

She honestly doesn't have words for him; left cold with the tang of his disappointment in the air and the realization that she likely has come to take his tolerance and regard for granted.

And all the same there is still that burbling twist of needing to know now. Of needing to be better, now. She has the means to continue and that isn't permitted? Nevermind that it defeats the purpose of working this without magic; she could sort it out today if she had the time and the means and the instructor.

Now she has time- but no means. And no teacher.

Teeth grit she whirls on her heel and stalks off in the opposite direction, fingertips frosting in mortified fury.

As always, Sina is in the garden, doing one of the many small, menial tasks appropriate for the end of the day. And then this just happened. She has been sitting there, mouth agape, for the duration, and for the first time since her arrival she hopes Adelaide does not notice her.

Notice her Adelaide does- though her reaction may not be quite what Sina expects. All at once that frosted fury leaves her, color high on her cheeks and shame darkening her eyes- this is someone she is to mind, someone she is to work to the benefit of; and what does she do when she is frustrated? Seek shortcuts.

It is unacceptable.

"...You saw the entirety of the argument, I take it?"

Sina hesitates, then nods timidly, her wide eyes lifting to meet Adelaide's.

"..." Adelaide takes a deep, steadying breath. Holds it for a moment. Releases it. "I do not suppose I might ask that you not make mention of my foolishness?"

Sina's expression changes from worried to surprised, then relieved. Oh. Is that all? "...of course," she responds, the corner of her mouth twitching into a small, reassuring smile. She's never one to run her mouth, least of all about the personal problems of those she considers friends.

"Thank you." Adelaide stares back to the practice field, curses herself for a fool again, and makes to sit next to Sina. Her mind is still snarled in knots and Sina has ever been a soothing presence, even when the said nothing. After a moment, a long moment, she mutters. "I am unaccustomed to- it is arrogant to think let alone say- I am unaccustomed to being average."

Sina scoots over to give her some room in the brush, and folds her hands around her drawn-up knees. At Adelaide's words, she smiles sympathetically.
"It's hard to feel helpless," she says, the corner of her mouth quirking up slightly, "especially when you haven't always. But... sometimes average is better than nothing." She rests her head on her knees, angling her face towards Adelaide.

"I hold impossible standards, and as high as I hold them for my students and my peers- I hold them higher still for myself. I should be further along." Though whether that is her own mind or her mother's voice- she cannot say. "Average was...unacceptable, in my household growing up. My mentors in the spire likewise wished us to be exceptional. They could charge more for our services that way."

Sina's smile dwindles as she listens, and is once more convinced that the circles are a cruelty, though she keeps it to herself. Not that her own upbringing as the only other mage in the clan didn't have its woes, but it seems a betrayal to both clan and Keeper to wonder if she was ill-treated; life is hard in the wilderness, and the Keeper is the lynchpin that holds a clan together. She must be strong.
Realizing her mind has wandered, Sina blinks rapidly and puts on an apologetic smile. "But we're here now," she says, not certain if she's talking to Adelaide or herself.

"...and I wonder if it is to the credit of the Inquisition should I continue to hold those standards quite so high." To expect everyone to perform to the best of their ability, to push themselves to be better than the day before. "How is it you were taught, Sina? I know that the Keeper is the one that teaches the mages of a Dalish Clan, but little else."

Sina snorts lightly in surprise and mild amusement as she's caught by the very thing she was thinking about. Her smile broadens, but remains hesitant.
"Keeper Thalia taught me one-on-one," she says, "it was nothing like the way it's done here. ...I'd never met another mage until coming to Skyhold." She self-consciously tucks a strand of hair behind one pointed ear. "I was very young when my magic manifested, and was taken almost completely into the Keeper's care. My parents still live, but I don't know them well." She shrugs. "I understand that to be fairly similar to how the Circles function, though I'm glad I at least get to see them. I'm not certain other clans do it the same way, but ours has few resources."

"It must have been overwhelming." Coming here. Being at the meeting. As tentative and terrified as Sina has been- considering that she hasn't been around other mages until now? She's surprised she handled it half so well. "Most never see their families again. Some are privileged enough to receive letters- at least in the Spire. Not every Circle was the same."

"It was," Sina replies softly, "...it is." She purses her lips, knitting her brow sympathetically to Adelaide's explanation, perhaps with a bit of empathy mixed in. "At least they can see them now," she notes.

"I don't imagine what happened to Lauren made it easier." The poor boy who became an Abomination. "Some have been getting letters. Some have been sending them- with the state of things I do not know if it will gain the Inquisition support or loathing but. I hope for the former."

Sina's blood runs cold at the mention of the Abomination, or at least, of the boy it had been formerly. Her heart gives a pang of fear, which echoes strangely in a small spurt of energy from the shard. She claps her hand over it quickly, pausing to take in a deep breath as the thing calms again.

"I watched him change," she says suddenly. "...he looked at me."

"Sina?" That- any reaction or behavior of the shard is cause for concern on it's own, but the fear? That anxiety, she hadn't intended to cause it. She knows the feeling too well to wish it on anyone. Adelaide extends a hand, brow furrowed. "...That...had to be horrific."

Sina takes a second deep breath, hand still over her chest, her eyes fluttering closed for a moment. "I've never seen anything like it," she says in a quiet, breathy tone, "...such a thing is nearly unheard of among the Dalish, with the exception of..." She hesitates. "...well, I've heard things. About the Sabrae. But there were sh--" She stops herself, glancing at Adelaide and blushing. "...humans involved."

"Sabrae?" In the interest of finding a truth- the beginning of that word is ignored entirely. Sina is Dalish and has been among the Dalish and their contempt for humans all her life. Holding it against her isn't going to help either of them; though in another context Adelaide might frown, she's far too concerned about what Sina knows to be vexed.

It's a word Sina has had to catch herself on several times over, after spending nineteen years with a clan that used it openly. She understands now that calling a human a shem isn't too unlike a human calling her a knife-ears or a rabbit; although the dynamics are different, it's generally not a thing one does in polite company, with people one respects. Old habits die hard, but she's smart and she tries.

"Clan Sabrae was beset by an abomination when their Keeper took in a demon," she explains, her voice low, "to protect her First from the consequences of blood magic. Merrill." She glances around furtively. "Merrill still lives, and is here. I have seen her, I know her from the arlathvens, from when I was small. How she shows her face among the People again I can't imagine." The gall. The terror Sina feels in knowing just how badly a First can betray her clan. "She was in league with the Champion of Kirkwall when Clan Sabrae fell. It is a tale of warning to other clans of the Free Marches." She purses her lips, then concludes, "some answers are not worth the risk."

This is-

Too much of it comes from a place she does not know well enough to comment on, doesn't at all understand. The world and lives of the Dalish are too foreign for her to have any frame of reference for anything other than the blood magic and the demon. That, sadly, is universal. Demons are demons. Blood magic is blood magic. Loss is loss.

"I- I cannot imagine how horrific that must have been."

Sina pauses to look at her, a small, apologetic smile covering her previous condemnation. "I only know if it through hearsay," she says, "I wasn't there, and was only a child when it happened. But Keeper Thalia made sure I knew, and understood where such a path inevitably leads."

"The ends do not always justify the means. More often than not the means are what is remembered best for better or worse, no matter the intention or the result." It is a lesson they are all given in the tower, knotted up in not listening to demons for easy answers.

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semi-open. your childhood home is just powder white bone, and you'll never find your way back.

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