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WHO: Warden!Felix and OPEN. (Starters for Kaiden, Bruce, Dorian, Ellana, and Adele. If you want your own starter just ask!)
WHAT: Felix returns after his Joining and looks much better. Also he's hungry. (The Kaidan thread is during training, set before they return to Skyhold.)
WHEN: About a week or two after Felix's Joining.
WHERE: His training took place at the remains of Haven, the rest is at Skyhold.
NOTES: None yet!

Less than a month ago, Felix had been a dead man. Now, he's at least upright. Things aren't prefect. He still has the taint and he has the ever present fact of the False Calling to contend with, but he's not wasting away anymore.

People who had seen him before will know that he's doing better. His cheeks are fuller and he isn't stumbling. He's able to move without aid. Despite the less than perfect circumstances, he thinks it's wonderful. If it weren't for the fact that he was trying to put on a good face as the newest Warden, he might have tried to dance around like an idiot.

He's still acting a bit like an idiot, but rather than dancing he's trying to get food from the kitchens. The servants might be a little annoyed that he keeps pestering them, but at least he knows how to apologize and thank them. He pesters politely which is likely a nice change.

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Ellana stands by to help however he instructs her. She wants to be as much a part of the construction as he will be.

"It's what Keepers teach their apprentices. It helps during the thin times when there isn't a lot of food around. Keepers speed up plant growth so we have enough to eat." She picks up a blanket and shakes it open. "I wasn't taught it." Giving an awkward laugh, she continues. "How the Dalish handle their mages is supposed to be so much simpler than what mages in Circles go through, and yet I'm a complicated case, I suppose."

And he does pull her into the construction while they talk. They unfold the blanket together and get it braced up the way she suggested. He only stops every once and a while to make sure it's not going to fall.

"Complicated?" Felix asks, frowning just a bit at the implication there. He has questions about the Keeper magic, but he's honestly more interested in her life.

"I should have been sent to another clan," she replies as they work. "A clan should only have a Keeper and an apprentice as its mages. Perhaps a third as a backup. My clan had four. I was the last to come into my magic and I should have been given to another." She pauses to readjust a drooping section of blanket before speaking again.

"My parents had died the year before I showed signs of having magic. I should have been trained and given away at the next meeting of the clans. But Keeper Deheune decided to keep me. She didn't think I should be given to strangers after losing my parents." And now she has a lot of complicated feelings about that in the wake of Pel admitting she really is no longer First. On the one hand, Ellana is disappointed she wasn't trained to be a Keeper. But on the other, she might not be here now, experiencing so many new things, like pillow forts.

"But with two mages to train, she said I'd never be a Keeper myself, so I didn't need to know what they knew. I just know the basics."

Felix frowned a bit at that thought. "Were you happy to stay with your Clan?" he asked. "Or would you have rather been trained to be a Keeper?" He can kind of understand not being able to be trained the way that you wish you could, though his had to do with lack of talent more than anything.

The question makes sense to ask, because the conversation is naturally leading in that direction, and she's been thinking on it a lot lately too. Her gaze goes unfocused for a moment as she gathers her thoughts, but then she draws in a breath and looks over at him.

"I'm not sure. There are times when I felt... jealous of the others, for being trusted with more knowledge." Her voice goes softer now. "I've only told that to one other person, so please keep it secret?" She felt she could tell Sina, because Sina is a First, but not the First of Clan Ashara. It was safe to tell her, rather than her clanmates.

"But if I was in another clan, destined to be a Keeper, I'm not sure if I'd have the same feelings on things I do now. I might be a completely different person, were I raised with all that responsibility. I certainly wouldn't be here. I think I'd be a bit harsher, at least to any humans. If I ever saw them, that is. But I am who I am, and I like getting to see the world and all the people in it."

Felix can understand that. He has thought a lot of who he might have been if he had had talent with magic. He wouldn't have gone to University, wouldn't have gotten sick on the way home, wouldn't be in Skyhold. He'd be just another Magister's son. Even Dorian would be completely different without Felix's father there to take him in. Would Gereon had even been able to do that if he had been training his own son?

"I for one, am happy you have seen the world, and that you're more open to talking to humans." A pause, as he admits the thought that brought to him. "Otherwise, I might have been able to meet you."

"I'm glad I left the clan," she admits, a smile coming to her lips. "Meeting everyone -- meeting you -- I wouldn't trade that for anything." The confession makes her face heat up a bit, and she turns to grab one of the pillows, squeezing it to her chest. It gives her the chance to calm her nerves after that confession.

"Where do we put the pillows?"

Felix is very distracted by those words. "I'm happy to have met you too," he says. Honestly, seeing her blush like that almost makes everything worth it.

He can't focus too much on that, though. So he clears his throat and answers, "We can use them to build up the walls, or to have something comfortable to sit on. The idea is that you're making a safe, secure place to hide in."

It's difficult to concentrate on the fort when all she wants to do is stand here talking to him until her throat becomes hoarse. Before he was cured she thought they had little time and they should talk as much as they could before his time was up, but there were so many topics she didn't want to touch on: the Dalish and Tevinter, the future, anything that wouldn't make for pleasant conversation at the time. Now he's well again, but he's a Warden and that will take up plenty of his time. She doesn't want to waste this opportunity to talk with him about whatever comes to mind.

"I think the blankets will work as walls, as long as we don't lean against them. We could sit on the pillows." Ellana sets one down in the middle of the fort and takes up another to place right beside it. "Did you build these forts with your friends when you were little?"

Felix moves to set the pillows out to make a place comfortable for them. As he moves he considers her question. "I didn't have very many friends when I was young," he explains. "I was different than many of my peers and it was difficult for them to take me seriously. My first real friend was my father's apprentice." He doesn't seem sad about this. It seems more like just a matter of fact. He never felt unloved as a child because his parents had been so careful to protect him and nourish his mind.

"I built the forts to have a quiet place to read and play with figures. I'd bring a lamp in with me and fill parchment after parchment with numbers."

It sounds a little sad, though not because Felix presents it that way. Ellana has friends in the clan, though she was a little more isolated once the Keeper began teaching her magic. That didn't mean she didn't run and play with the other children, because she did.

Taking a seat on a pillow, she draws her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around her legs.

"Because numbers are reliable and never change," she replies, recalling their first conversation in the library. It feels so long ago now, because Felix is a new man. He isn't deteriorating and waiting for death to come. She pats the pillow beside her so he'll sit.

"This is wonderful, Felix. It feels so cozy." When they started, she wondered if this wouldn't just feel like a tent, but the makeshift nature really does make it feel like an impromptu little hideaway.

"If only we had little figures," she jokes. "I have a wooden halla back in my room. I should have brought it."

"Next time," Felix suggests. He likes implying that there will be a next time. It means everything to him that he'll have more time with her.

He settles next to her under the pillow fort and grins a her. He still can't believe that he managed to convince her to do this. "For now, I brought snacks. I'll even be a gentleman and refrain from devouring them all."

It warms her heart to hear him say that, because she recognizes how important it is that he has a next time. He doesn't know when his time will come, but before he became a Warden, he could certainly feel it coming.

"You've thought of everything!" She lowers her legs and giggles, waiting to see what he's brought. "I appreciate your restraint. What did you bring?"

His face lights up a bit more, because food is just going to be a topic that does that for him for a while, and he grabs at the basket he brought.

After that, their conversation turns to more pleasant things as he shares what he brought with her. Despite what he says, he probably does eat more than his share, but it helps that she seems so willing to take care of him.

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