WHO: Adrasteia, Erik, others WHAT: a catch-all with starters in the comments; will match format WHEN: early Bloomingtide WHERE: The Gallows, Kirkwall NOTES: Erik comes with a built-in language warning
There's another smile at the realization that Adrasteia won't have to train Ellie on the basics; like the brush, she already has them well in hand. "The first horse I ever met was named Tarron. He was a workhorse but proud." She hums at the memory, using her own hands to start culling Artichoke's loose feathers. A particularly pristine one she presents to Ellie like a gift. "I think he'd been a warhorse before the Blight."
The beast shakes out his head and makes a contented sound in Ellie's ear. "Personally I'm terrible at working the land, so I can't say I blame your choices." One of the other griffons opens its wings in one of the tower windows before flapping and soaring out into the sky. "Griffons were extinct, or believed to be, until just a few years ago. It's quite the blessing to get to work so closely with them."
Ellie pauses her brushing to give Artichoke's cheek a rub, sleeking back his feathers and finding the itchy places -- then pausing to accept the lovely feather. The smile that breaks over her face makes her look even younger than she is, a glimpse of something she might have been years past.
She murmurs a thank you, and holds it up for Artichoke to inspect, turning it slowly so he can admire it too, before she slips it into a shirt pocket. She'll find a place for it later, when she's not busy listening to the sound of Andrasteia's voice, the contented little trills near her ear, the rustling of feathers all around them.
Who knew she'd ever find the company of griffons restful?
"I heard," she says, thinking back to the Blights, the Wardens, the things she still feels she barely understands. She's in this war effort now, for better or for worse. But she still feels upended, knowing so little.
"How'd you guys ever figure out how to ride them again? Or were there people who still knew?"
A soft chuckle from the elven woman at Ellie's question. It's a good one, though; her expression is one of pride at the query before it turns thoughtful.
"I think, perhaps, too much time had passed for direct, hands-on learning to be passed down through generations, but I don't know for certain." She hadn't thought to ask. "Wardens keep... well, I'm not sure I'd call them very good records, as so many of them are closed to those who aren't Wardens," and isn't that the opposite of a useful record? "But detailed ones, at the very least. I think the methods were preserved in that way, and these were raised from eggs to hatchlings, which makes it easier.
There are wild ones in the nearby mountain range now, too. For the most part, if a griffon likes you, they have no intention of dropping you." If you're kind to a creature it tends to be kind back. People, on the other hand, are much more complicated beings.
"I'm certain it's been difficult adjusting to coming to a new world, at war, with such a strange and varied history. But if you have any questions, about the war, about Thedas... I can do my best to answer them."
Nodding, Ellie works from fur to feathers, pressing her fingers in deep to find and pluck out the loose down, combing it slowly free. She's used to fur, but feathers are another matter, though they're softer. Probably a good thing she's not allergic. There seems to be infinite depth to them, and she imagines the itchy neck feathers would be harder to get to.
"I'll make sure to stay on their good side, then," Ellie says with a little smile, giving Artichoke a little scratch. She's finding some really good itchy places up in here.
The offer is generous, and Ellie grows quiet, trying to turn things over in her mind. There's so much of the culture she knows so little about, and history, and magic, and all the races and the tensions between them. Everything she knows is the barest of basics, and though she's been given primers and is studying hard, she hasn't re-learned how to read as fluidly as she'd like.
"What is a Warden?" she asks. "And Darkspawn? I can't get a clear answer."
"A Warden is someone who has gone through a ritual called the Joining. It changes you, but not in a way you can see. Grey Wardens are the only ones who can kill an Archdemon, which is what lead the Blights when they're above ground." And underground as well, presumably, but that gets complicated. "It costs, being a Grey Warden. The one who kills the Archdemon dies as a result. Plus we have shorter lifespans in general, and can't have children.
Darkspawn are... corrupted beings. The story from the Chantry is this: magisters who worshipped the Old Gods used blood magic to enter the Golden City, which could be seen in the Fade, in dreams... but they entered it as walking men. For this, the Golden City turned black, and they were corrupted, and cast out."
The terms she uses are things that Ellie has only a loose understanding of; though she knows by the hushed tones people use when they speak about them that they're nothing lighthearted. The world has survived several Blights, and the last one wasn't so long ago that anyone's forgotten what it was like.
Ellie guesses there could've been shittier times to have been dropped into Thedas for sure.
"But all the Darkspawn can't be corrupted magisters," she says with a frown, tugging out a little more fluff, brushing off her fingers. "They'd have all been killed by now, right? As many Blights as there have been?"
"No, just the strong-and-very-hard-to-kill sorts are probably corrupted magisters, honestly."
Adrasteia, for one, is glad that they're not dealing with a Blight on top of the war now. She remembers what the sky was like, during the Blight, and has no particular wish to return to that life.
More feathers are worked out with her slim, ring-covered fingers. "There have been five Blights. The first one was almost two hundred years long." It's a bit a miracle, in her mind, that anyone survived that First Blight. "Darkspawn don't have children. They make these creatures called Broodmothers, which are, frankly, terrifying and disgusting all at once. That's how they make more of themselves."
"Well." Adrasteia makes a face. "I wouldn't let them bite you, honestly. You can still catch the Blight, and then your only option is to become a Grey Warden or... wait. Until it kills you."
Already pulling a face, Ellie pulls a more severe one, then shakes her head, resigned to the idea.
"We had something kinda like that, back where I'm from. So I've had some practice."
She presses her lips together. "No Grey Wardens, though. If you're bit, you're done. It doesn't sound like being a Warden's a walk in the park, but at least it's an option."
It speaks volumes, actually, that people come from worlds with common troubles. Upsetting volumes, but volumes nonetheless.
"I probably wasn't too much removed from your age when I Joined," she considers aloud. "While not everyone survives the Joining, everyone who makes the attempt is a Warden nonetheless. Hopefully it won't be necessary either way."
Ellie gives a shrug, a little awkward -- accepting sympathy for the state of her world has never been something she's good at. It's just reality, like the fact that she's never had parents. If you don't have something in the first place there's nothing to feel like you're missing out on. It's just what it is.
"Hopefully," she agrees, then pauses.
"... uh, if this is too personal, you can tell me to fuck off," she says awkwardly. "But is that why you joined? Because you got bit?"
"It's not," Adrasteia says by way of promise but them it's difficult to get the rest of the words out. Her fingers work free tufts of down and loose feathers across the griffon's wings. "Too personal, I mean. I don't tend to mind personal questions, in general.
I joined because my husband was dead, and I hoped I could do some good in Thedas if I didn't immediately follow him. Dying slowly of the Blight was not something I was prepared to do."
Ellie's face does something she doesn't realize it does when Adrasteia relays her husband's loss. She loses animation, and it brings a familiar, quiet bottomlessness to her eyes that doesn't leave her entirely present. Empathetic, yes. Grief, yes. But more than anything it's a recognition of pain.
Loss is universal, cavernous.
"How long's it been?" Ellie asks, skipping over the usual condolences, the sympathetic noises that people make, the ones she never quite knows how to take. She rubs her thumb next to Artichoke's beak, letting him nip softly at her fingers. He's gentle, like he knows.
She's seen that expression before when some memory causes a person to leave their body and live in the past instead, as Adrasteia understands it within herself; she's never seen it in a mirror, mind, but she knows the look in the eyes all the same.
Wardens see a lot of suffering especially if they do the work.
"It'll be eleven years, in Kingsway." Long enough to miss him, and for that missing to hurt a little less. Long enough to live another life, and wonder what it means to move on when so little is promised in the first place. "I think I've done alright, all things considered."
"... looks like it," Ellie says softly, and means it. Every story of loss is different, and every person reacts to it differently. Some, better than others. Ellie digs her fingers into the deep, soft feathering of Artichoke's neck and rubs, raking up more down and making him trill happily.
"This seems like a good place for it," she says, without thinking.
"Doing all right, I mean."
Or getting to that point.
It hasn't escaped her notice that the souls here are almost universally wounded ones, seeking direction. Maybe this is the right place for her to be.
"I hope so," comes the soft answer, and another smile, fleeting but no less true, crosses her face. "I've only been here since the new year, or thereabouts, but I think Riftwatch has... a lot of potential, to do good for the people here. And elsewhere, in Thedas."
Since Ellie has the 'scratching the griffon until he's content' part of this exercise well in hand, Adrasteia fetches a broom and dustpan to keep the floor clean and her hands busy. "I hope you'll find it to be the same."
It's nice to have it be understood, even if it's not said out loud.
Why d'you think we're here? she'd asked, once upon a time, in a place far beyond the Fade. The answer's never left her.
To do good.
So the wording hits her deeply, because there's no way she knows, but sometimes the universe just shakes out that way. Ellie reaches up to scratch again at Artichoke's withers and shoulder joints, where his wings meet his body, and gives him some good rubs and scratches, almost massaging out the loose down and molting feathers.
"Handsome boy," she murmurs under her breath, because her chest feels too tight to answer Adrasteia right away.
"Guess I'll just have to see, right?" she asks, lifting her face. "Might've fallen ass-first into Thedas but I don't have to stay sitting on it."
"That's the spirit." Adrasteia meets Ellie's gaze evenly, clearly pleased. "And in the meantime, you get to learn how to fly. Not a bad exchange, I think." There's nothing forcing Rifters to remain with Riftwatch, though she's aware there's something about the Anchor Shards that responds poorly to them being too far away from one another over an extended period of time.
Not that any of that bears mentioning in this exact moment.
"Do you know what sort of weapon you lean towards?"
Ellie can't help a smile, a glimpse of her teeth as she digs another treat out of her pocket, holding it flat in her palm like she's feeding a horse, and doesn't wince as Artichoke takes it. He's surprisingly gentle. She strokes his beak.
"Bow and arrows," she answers, right away. "And knives. I'm good at some other stuff too, but Thedas hasn't really gotten around to making some of the stuff I usually work with."
"The only other archer I know of for certain within Riftwatch is named Edgard." Adrasteia gives a little shrug. "But archers are always helpful, and necessary." Like mages they are often in the rear, protecting others but still putting their own lives on the line.
Ellie can't help but smile in response, noting the name -- she hasn't met him yet, but she figures they'll probably be assigned together at some point.
She doesn't figure everyone will be as cool as Adrasteia, but so far, she's gotten lucky.
"So, do you put... saddles on these guys?" she asks, gesturing to Artichoke. "Bridles?" How would a bit even work? Would it be more like a harness? Shit.
I'm making this shit up as I go, also sorry for losing the notif!
"Saddles, yes, but not bridles exactly." Beaks and all that, you see. It's a lot more difficult to force a griffon to turn its head than a horse, for one thing.
Ellie is correct in presuming that there is, at least, a harness; Adrasteia goes and collects all the needed supplies for mounting and riding the griffons, including saddles and harnesses. "The rest is fairly similar to a horse's tack."
"Figures. Do they just... know where we want them to go, or what?"
Ellie's excitement is obvious, but she pays careful attention to how the tack goes on, makes sure the saddle's properly tightened. She handles that, at least, with familiarity.
"... I guess that'll get answered once we're in the air."
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no subject
The beast shakes out his head and makes a contented sound in Ellie's ear. "Personally I'm terrible at working the land, so I can't say I blame your choices." One of the other griffons opens its wings in one of the tower windows before flapping and soaring out into the sky. "Griffons were extinct, or believed to be, until just a few years ago. It's quite the blessing to get to work so closely with them."
no subject
She murmurs a thank you, and holds it up for Artichoke to inspect, turning it slowly so he can admire it too, before she slips it into a shirt pocket. She'll find a place for it later, when she's not busy listening to the sound of Andrasteia's voice, the contented little trills near her ear, the rustling of feathers all around them.
Who knew she'd ever find the company of griffons restful?
"I heard," she says, thinking back to the Blights, the Wardens, the things she still feels she barely understands. She's in this war effort now, for better or for worse. But she still feels upended, knowing so little.
"How'd you guys ever figure out how to ride them again? Or were there people who still knew?"
no subject
"I think, perhaps, too much time had passed for direct, hands-on learning to be passed down through generations, but I don't know for certain." She hadn't thought to ask. "Wardens keep... well, I'm not sure I'd call them very good records, as so many of them are closed to those who aren't Wardens," and isn't that the opposite of a useful record? "But detailed ones, at the very least. I think the methods were preserved in that way, and these were raised from eggs to hatchlings, which makes it easier.
There are wild ones in the nearby mountain range now, too. For the most part, if a griffon likes you, they have no intention of dropping you." If you're kind to a creature it tends to be kind back. People, on the other hand, are much more complicated beings.
"I'm certain it's been difficult adjusting to coming to a new world, at war, with such a strange and varied history. But if you have any questions, about the war, about Thedas... I can do my best to answer them."
no subject
"I'll make sure to stay on their good side, then," Ellie says with a little smile, giving Artichoke a little scratch. She's finding some really good itchy places up in here.
The offer is generous, and Ellie grows quiet, trying to turn things over in her mind. There's so much of the culture she knows so little about, and history, and magic, and all the races and the tensions between them. Everything she knows is the barest of basics, and though she's been given primers and is studying hard, she hasn't re-learned how to read as fluidly as she'd like.
"What is a Warden?" she asks. "And Darkspawn? I can't get a clear answer."
no subject
Darkspawn are... corrupted beings. The story from the Chantry is this: magisters who worshipped the Old Gods used blood magic to enter the Golden City, which could be seen in the Fade, in dreams... but they entered it as walking men. For this, the Golden City turned black, and they were corrupted, and cast out."
no subject
Ellie guesses there could've been shittier times to have been dropped into Thedas for sure.
"But all the Darkspawn can't be corrupted magisters," she says with a frown, tugging out a little more fluff, brushing off her fingers. "They'd have all been killed by now, right? As many Blights as there have been?"
no subject
Adrasteia, for one, is glad that they're not dealing with a Blight on top of the war now. She remembers what the sky was like, during the Blight, and has no particular wish to return to that life.
More feathers are worked out with her slim, ring-covered fingers. "There have been five Blights. The first one was almost two hundred years long." It's a bit a miracle, in her mind, that anyone survived that First Blight. "Darkspawn don't have children. They make these creatures called Broodmothers, which are, frankly, terrifying and disgusting all at once. That's how they make more of themselves."
no subject
"Ugh, nasty. At least they can't bite you and turn you into one of them."
So far as she's read, anyway. But if they're that numerous even without turning the living to their side, it doesn't matter much.
no subject
Since it's incurable, and all.
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"We had something kinda like that, back where I'm from. So I've had some practice."
She presses her lips together. "No Grey Wardens, though. If you're bit, you're done. It doesn't sound like being a Warden's a walk in the park, but at least it's an option."
no subject
It speaks volumes, actually, that people come from worlds with common troubles. Upsetting volumes, but volumes nonetheless.
"I probably wasn't too much removed from your age when I Joined," she considers aloud. "While not everyone survives the Joining, everyone who makes the attempt is a Warden nonetheless. Hopefully it won't be necessary either way."
no subject
"Hopefully," she agrees, then pauses.
"... uh, if this is too personal, you can tell me to fuck off," she says awkwardly. "But is that why you joined? Because you got bit?"
no subject
I joined because my husband was dead, and I hoped I could do some good in Thedas if I didn't immediately follow him. Dying slowly of the Blight was not something I was prepared to do."
no subject
Loss is universal, cavernous.
"How long's it been?" Ellie asks, skipping over the usual condolences, the sympathetic noises that people make, the ones she never quite knows how to take. She rubs her thumb next to Artichoke's beak, letting him nip softly at her fingers. He's gentle, like he knows.
no subject
Wardens see a lot of suffering especially if they do the work.
"It'll be eleven years, in Kingsway." Long enough to miss him, and for that missing to hurt a little less. Long enough to live another life, and wonder what it means to move on when so little is promised in the first place. "I think I've done alright, all things considered."
no subject
"This seems like a good place for it," she says, without thinking.
"Doing all right, I mean."
Or getting to that point.
It hasn't escaped her notice that the souls here are almost universally wounded ones, seeking direction. Maybe this is the right place for her to be.
no subject
Since Ellie has the 'scratching the griffon until he's content' part of this exercise well in hand, Adrasteia fetches a broom and dustpan to keep the floor clean and her hands busy. "I hope you'll find it to be the same."
no subject
Why d'you think we're here? she'd asked, once upon a time, in a place far beyond the Fade. The answer's never left her.
To do good.
So the wording hits her deeply, because there's no way she knows, but sometimes the universe just shakes out that way. Ellie reaches up to scratch again at Artichoke's withers and shoulder joints, where his wings meet his body, and gives him some good rubs and scratches, almost massaging out the loose down and molting feathers.
"Handsome boy," she murmurs under her breath, because her chest feels too tight to answer Adrasteia right away.
"Guess I'll just have to see, right?" she asks, lifting her face. "Might've fallen ass-first into Thedas but I don't have to stay sitting on it."
no subject
Not that any of that bears mentioning in this exact moment.
"Do you know what sort of weapon you lean towards?"
no subject
Ellie can't help a smile, a glimpse of her teeth as she digs another treat out of her pocket, holding it flat in her palm like she's feeding a horse, and doesn't wince as Artichoke takes it. He's surprisingly gentle. She strokes his beak.
"Bow and arrows," she answers, right away. "And knives. I'm good at some other stuff too, but Thedas hasn't really gotten around to making some of the stuff I usually work with."
no subject
"Besides, knives are always a good idea." A wink.
no subject
She doesn't figure everyone will be as cool as Adrasteia, but so far, she's gotten lucky.
"So, do you put... saddles on these guys?" she asks, gesturing to Artichoke. "Bridles?" How would a bit even work? Would it be more like a harness? Shit.
I'm making this shit up as I go, also sorry for losing the notif!
Ellie is correct in presuming that there is, at least, a harness; Adrasteia goes and collects all the needed supplies for mounting and riding the griffons, including saddles and harnesses. "The rest is fairly similar to a horse's tack."
it's the dw life rn
Ellie's excitement is obvious, but she pays careful attention to how the tack goes on, makes sure the saddle's properly tightened. She handles that, at least, with familiarity.
"... I guess that'll get answered once we're in the air."