faderift | There's a story in my veins, with scars on every page

WHO: Ellie & OPEN
WHAT: Rifting in less-than-gracefully, a rogue explosion or two, & initial trouble accomplished
WHEN: Arrival and during the first week after.
WHERE: The Hinterlands, The Gallows
NOTES: So much swearing holy shit.

[Arrival.]

The worst part about lucid dreaming is when shit gets a little too real. Especially when it's not the usual kind of horrible. So when Ellie goes from another nightmare about things hunting her in an endless horrible sewer to being sucked into the water, hurtling down through the rain-soaked Seattle depths, she tries to tell herself that she can breathe underwater. She opens her mouth and tries, and the foul water fills her throat-

And she launches out, along with a gush of Seattle sewer water, hits a hillside and goes tumbling.

... and it's steep enough that she keeps going.

Ellie coughs, chokes, tries to scream, and unleashes a garbled stream of hacking, choking profanity.

Maybe you're the unlucky person on the trail she happens to literally bowl into (and possibly take out).

Or maybe you're the one who finds her screaming back into the face of a despair demon, soaked in foul-smelling sewer water, having just hurled a piece of rock shaped suspiciously like a revolver into its face.

She absolutely just called the demon a motherfucker.

[Gallows; Quarantine Times]

A bath, a few square meals and a bit of explanation later, Ellie seems far less... feral. She's dressed in local clothing, a tunic, pants and boots, and has stopped acting like a cat, roaming the stairways in the towers and popping up unexpectedly in places people didn't see her enter.

She shows up near the top of one of the towers, tucked into a window, looking down at the courtyard below.

"... so I heard there were actual griffons roosting up here. Is it true?"

[ooc; HMU if you want a custom starter!]

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Ellie wrinkles her nose even before he finishes, which probably makes her feelings on the matter clear. She looks over the titles of the books, pushing her brain to start sounding some of them out. Most are jumbled but she can make out the markings here and there, pick out a simple word or two.

"Is that why people here don't trust mages? Or part of it? I got the rundown on the not doing magic in public thing, if you don't want to get the stinkeye."

"Mages can, at any moment, become possessed by demons and wreak havoc on the surrounding area and its populace."

He says it simply, as though he has no opinion on the subject. Turning from the bookshelf, he begins walking toward another section of the library, motioning for Ellie to follow.

"Before the war, mages were mostly kept in towers like this one, to avoid... that danger. The matter is severely political, especially in Kirkwall."

Ellie pulls even more of a face.

"Yeah. That doesn't sound like a great time."

She follows easily, keeping up despite turning her head to look at the stacks, following the various titles, the tomes that look like they'd taken more than one person to lift properly.

"For the mage, or the people. Did they figure out a way to keep it from happening?"

Since it sounds like things changed.

"No," Mhavos says, "but Corypheus is a larger concern."

Mhavos turns the corner into a room with a cabinet, out of which he pulls a small book, made for a child's hands. It has various illustrations, and letters underneath, meant to help teach a child to read. He hands it to Ellie.

"Gotcha."

Rules bent in war-time. She presses her lips together, taking the book, running her thumbs over the front of the primer, the soft drawings in fine parchment, thoughtful.

"Do you think they'll lock them back up after?" she asks softly.

Mhavos considers it. "It will depend greatly on the Chantry and the Templar Order's role in the war's end, I suspect. As I said, it is very political. I would not be surprised if the rules were not so strictly regulated, for lack of reach in greater powers, rather than a wellspring of sudden tolerance."

There's a lot written between those lines, and Ellie chews her lower lip, thinking about it. The mages would fight being locked up again, especially after fighting to preserve a world they wouldn't have free access to.

Despite the danger, it seems... unfair. Deeply unfair.

"Is Riftwatch like that? Afraid of people who can do magic?"

"Riftwatch is an organization that relies on the support of rich and influential patrons. It has no official policies," Mhavos says, his placidity careful in its application, as though to make a point. "Riftwatch is also an polity comprised of people here of their own will, many of which are mages, unaccustomed to a world that does not provide free housing, food and education."

Mhavos is so carefully neutral about so many things. It sets Ellie off-balance, but she also supposes that with his background it was probably safer to stick to facts, rather than stating his opinions.

... or maybe that's just how he is. She'll just have to see.

She presses her teeth around her lip again, giving a hum of assent under her breath, then sighing deeply.

"I'm not a mage," she says. Just to be clear. "Not exactly. But I've got enough weird shit about me-" and she holds up her palm, indicating the glowy green anchor, "-that people are gonna assume. So it helps to know what I'm walking into. Thanks."

Tone dry as desert dust, "I haven't the faintest idea what you're implying."

Yet, he likes this girl. A hint of humor hangs in his bearing. "If I had any taste for political commentary, I would perhaps point out that you needn't worry about picking a side. Say nothing, and everyone will assume you are on theirs."

Ellie snorts aloud before she can stop herself, showing her teeth with a smile. It brightens her eyes.

"Smart."

And also advice that Ellie is physically incapable of taking, because keeping her opinion to herself is a really new and fragile skill for her.

He dips his head an inch. "I'm sure someone here is."

Please let it be you.

"Is there anything else I can help you with, serah?"

Debatable. But she's starting to catch on, and she's not a completely lost cause.

"Uh, no, but-" Ellie pauses. "Serah?"

Mhavos has explained this before to a Rifter, so he feels, perhaps childishly, pleased in his preparedness. "Ser is the term for social superiors and knights. Serah is for social equals."

A slight tip of his head, respectful.

Not gendered, either. Makes it easier to remember. Ellie eyes him, then copies the tilt of his head, uncannily exact.

"Serah," she says, in the same respectful tone. Testing.

There's a story in my veins, with scars on every page

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