OPEN

[mythalenaste]

WHO: Pel Ashara and YOU
WHAT: Beboppin' around Skyhold
WHEN: The middle of Wintermarch through the middle of Guardian.
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: Catch-All. Will update.

OOC: Pel can be found in any of her usual places: the library, the garden, and the tavern. Or make up your own place to find her. PM me for a starter if you want one.

Comments

[foxsays]

It takes a lot to keep the sigh in but she manages, only closing her eyes briefly as if in thought. Walking a slow circle about the room, she turns back to Pel, tapping a staccato rhythm on the hilts of her rapiers. This isn't her world, and Pel is Dalish, she knows more about their gods and what was from chatting than their real views on anything.

"If you want to be blunt about then yes, it's lying." There's a shrug as she closes the distance between them again, watching her carefully. "Sometimes the intention behind the lie is what matters more than the lie itself. Say that there is someone in danger, and we are faced with a choice: to tell the truth and seal their fate, or tell a lie to save them? What is the better choice? Here in this Inquisition, look at how little there is to be had, deserving rarely comes into anything when we happen to be part of something that's larger than our own selves.

Yet if we look at a certain way, it isn't lying. You are playing a game, playing a role when you do things like this. You can appear as the person you want them to see. It can be something exaggerated, something you put on entirely like a mask. Why would anything else come into it?"

[mythalenaste]

The longer Araceli talks about it, the more intrigued Pel grows. When she's done, she suddenly bursts out:

"I've been doing that my whole life." She actually sounds happy about this. "You have to do it, if you're a leader. Pretend you're all right when you're not, pretend you're happy when you're really concerned, all for the good of those you serve. I...never thought of it like that, before. Like a game. Orlesians call it that, but I suppose everybody has some form of it."

[foxsays]

"Castilean politics are much like the game except we do not have a mask to hide behind beyond our own faces, so the test of skill is greater." There's a little satisfied smile at that, because wearing a mask makes it so easy, you only have to worry about your eyes and your mouth, and even then they're hidden, altered. "Captains do it, whores and merchants do it, even thieves do it - we each have our own reasons for it but the rules are just like cards and dice. Never reveal your hand at the table, and if the hand is a bad one then you bluff as if your life depends on it."

In her experience at least, sometimes it has depended on it, uncomfortable and unwelcome though that may be.

"Is this sort of thing less common among the Dalish? Or is it different playing it around humans?"

[mythalenaste]

Pel shakes her head. "Not exactly. Keepers do it, but nobody else really has to. So long as you do the work you need to do, showing what you feel isn't wrong."

[foxsays]

“Where I come from we are loud, passionate - very much like Antivans. Except sometimes you must be coy, or you realise that there’s a value in being what someone expects because they underestimate you. Guards will overlook me and think because I’m small and slight, I can’t possibly be a challenge and I don’t flaunt what I do until I have to, that way I can disappear quicker than they would think and have time to lie low. But if I’m with a noble, I can let them think I’m a stupid girl who doesn’t know how to count higher than her fingers and toes, that way when I get to prove that I know more than they do, it’s more fun for me. Only there are a lot of times now where I have to be one part of many, where if I show how I feel then I could give away more than just me, you understand?”

One guard falling out of line and a whole performance can fall to pieces, even here it’s been easier to play the confused rifter girl just wanting to know what’s going on instead of actively seeking out information. Let people volunteer what they will, she’ll take what she gets, go find out more, and only then pass it on to others.

[mythalenaste]

Pel is increasingly intrigued by this theory, and she finally understands a little of why Orlesians take such pride and joy in being good at the Game.

"You're outwitting a system stacked against you." That has huge appeal to a Dalish elf out of her depth. "Evening the odds. I've always thought I have to intimidate everyone around me to keep myself safe. Walk like I'm about to kick someone's arse. Sort of difficult when you're my height, and not very reliable. Sometimes it just makes people want to put me in my place."

[foxsays]

"The right place and right time, I can intimidate. At home moreso than here where I have a reputation - people who have seen me on the rooftops for a moment, heard the whispers, watched me in duels." There's a reputation at home, not one she cultivated as carefully as others but she won't deny that she plays into it now, when the nobles only have stories to go on compared to others. "I don't doubt that magic makes it more impressive but still, you are a woman of the same build as me. You are an elf too and I know enough to know that they will look down on you."

There isn't the same length of history or religion involved, but being the daughter of a pirate and a prostitute gets insults thrown her way that she can't even flinch at, much as she would like to lash out.

Which is exactly what Pel is talking about.

"Satisfaction comes later, and not always for ourselves but for those who come after us."

[mythalenaste]

"The second kind of satisfaction is more important anyway. Knowing it's going to happen would be my satisfaction."

[foxsays]

"Still, there can be the temptation to rush." If it were Korrin or Zevran, she'd make a joke but with Pel she has no idea if it would make sense and it'd be the sort of joke that's no fun when you actually explain it. "It's why so many gamble where I come from, you can transfer the skills from one to the other, pick up all the tells people have. Nearly everyone has at least one tell."