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

[mythalenaste]

Welp. If Zevran is hinting rather than asking straight out, Pel can't do anything about it. So she goes quiet again, thinking.

"I'm sorry," she says at last, and nothing else. It's her time to listen, not lecture.

[byblow]

Alistair shakes his head in lieu of telling her that it's all right; very little is all right, anymore. But she doesn't need to apologize. He reaches his free hand over to pat the arm she has threaded through his in case the head shake wasn't clear enough. He's quiet for a moment, too, but not for long. He doesn't handle quiet well anymore.

"He's been looking after me since--" he says, and then discards the thought without completing it: he doesn't want to talk about Zevran, really, with the nerve already exposed and twinging, and Pel is missing background information that she's more than earned but that he doesn't particularly want to drop on her out of nowhere. "How's your research coming?"

[mythalenaste]

"Not as well this last while, since Merrick was poisoned." She touches her cheek briefly to his arm, just taking a little comfort as it all comes back, then moving forward. "But Leliana agreed to fund an excursion to an ancient elven temple in Orlais. That's...enormous. The Inquisition leaders have decided my work is important. I mean--my work and Morrigan's, and Merrill's."

Sometimes she's got too much of an ego to remember she's only one of three major researchers of her field within the Inquisition.

[byblow]

The sound Alistair makes isn't a laugh. He's not in the mood. But he does make a sound that isn't entirely mirthless in its pitying skepticism. "You're working with Morrigan? I'm sorry." At least Merrill is cute. "That's great, though--the other parts."

[mythalenaste]

"I like Morrigan. She sets my teeth on edge sometimes, since...no human should talk like they know more about elves than other elves do. But she shares her information willingly, as far as I can tell."

Or maybe, Pel thinks, she is totally misled about Morrigan. Maybe she only shares a fraction of what she knows, and Pel assumes she shares everything just because she shares, period.

[byblow]

"You like--?" Alistair repeats. Never mind the rest of it. He'll grab hold of this; old habits, old patterns, requiring very little effort but enough thought that he doesn't think about other things. "Pel, I thought you were sensible. I trusted you. I feel so betrayed."

[mythalenaste]

"What? I can't like you and Morrigan both?"

[byblow]

"No," Alistair says. "Absolutely not. Ask her; she'll agree."

[mythalenaste]

"A pity. What's wrong with Morrigan?"

[byblow]

"What isn't?"

Her mother is a dragon she asked them to kill. She turns into spiders and does blood magic sex rituals. She spent the entire year of the Blight comparing him unfavorably to dogs and toadstools.

She's done well by Kieran.

"She's not so bad," he says, relenting, with a sideways glance, "if you like coldhearted imperious know-it-alls who may kill you in your sleep. I guess it's down to taste."

[mythalenaste]

"She's incredibly arrogant," Pel allows, "but I've been able to work with her. Emphasis on work, by the way. We have a similar field. But don't worry, I'll protect you from her."