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Sina and Pel had had multiple research sessions in the wee hours, after the garden work was done and when sensible people were in bed. Tonight was one such night, and once again they were both folded over a table piled with scrolls and books and candles, but tonight was different, because something had changed. Pel was different, and Sina not only felt it, but had seen it in action.

She was unusually standoffish as they worked tonight, even for her. She could be a veritable chatterbox when it came to studying their history, but tonight she was taciturn, casting the occasional pensive glance the other First's way without saying what was on her mind.

With Garris off doing his own thing like they normally often do, Emmie's been left to her own devices. She hasn't been causing any problems, per say, but she has been relieving some of the soldiers of some of their coin. It's not her fault that they're bad at cards.

Once she's taken her fill of sordid card games, Emmeline takes her drink and goes to find another table. Most of the tables are taken, mainly by groups two and greater, but she spies one off to the side with only one person at it. Hopefully the girl won't mind.

"Is the seat taken?" The accent is Orlesian, but the tone is upbeat.

Well, Pel knows when someone's moody. After a trip to the kitchen, she brings up two cups of tea and sits down across from Sina.

"Is something wrong?" she asks gently. Sina's not acting like her shard hurts her.

Sina's shard was usually hurting her, and perhaps it made her testy at times, but she was unusually so at the moment. She accepted a teacup, blew on it, and thought for a moment before answering.

"That Templar who was looking for you, at the party," she mused, "...he's courting you, isn't he." She lifted her eyes to meet Pel's, curious but wary, giving her the benefit of the doubt.

Pel shakes her head. She scoots over on the bench.

"Plenty of room."

Oh.

Pel holds Sina's gaze steady. "Yes. He is. He's being very official about it. Does that worry you?"

Sina hesitated, watching Pel uneasily. Then she nodded. "...does it not... worry you?"

"It terrifies me." Pel reaches to take Sina's hand. Not to comfort, but to show a faint tremor and palor. "But most things terrify me. I've just decided the potential for happiness is greater than the risk to my safety. James has never trod on my autonomy, and he respects my beliefs. If he's faking it, he'll find me watching him."

Sina blinked in mild surprise when Pel took her hand, but didn't pull away. She watched the other First's face, her own fraught with uncertainty.

"...how did he approach you?" Her eyes narrowed slightly. "How did this come to be in the first place?"

"A conversation in the garden. He saw me cast a Keeper spell and was curious. Then we took a walk and talked. And...we had a lot in common, surprisingly. He was respectful and so very kind."

Kindness, a thing she feels so often starved for. Like a drop would make her swell three times her size like a sponge.

Sina only seemed to grow more suspicious. She slowly withdrew her hand in order to pick up her teacup and sip from it, still watching Pel. She said nothing, but her disapproval was palpable.

Is Pel stupid? Has she fallen for a trick everyone else sees through? Why? Because she can't see further than her own desire for love? Love, not just being needed.

"We've had a chaperone since he asked to court me. At his request. I once fell asleep on his shoulder and he saw me back to my room and left me be. He insists that everything must be safe for me, because he knows how this looks."

None of this felt relevant to Sina-- it wasn't addressing the actual issue, or the actual... question. Which, she realized, she hadn't asked. But she knew very little about courting, especially courting outside of Dalish clans.

"...but you're a First," she said carefully, over her teacup. "And he's outclan." More than outclan. Not even of the People, a human. Not even a human, a Templar. If he were to get her pregnant, the child would emerge, for all intents and purposes, human. She couldn't even begin to understand Pel's line of thinking, and it was this above all things that troubled her.

"I tried that. With someone I loved very much." Tears are starting to appear in her eyes. "Someone from my clan. I loved him with everything I had and he left. The day before we were to be bonded. Other elves don't want me, Sina. I can't be anything but First to them. It...Keeper Deheune had me from when I was a baby and she raised me to be the perfect First and Keeper and I never had a chance to be anything else. But when I try to hold to the old ways and be a dutiful First...how can I know if anyone loves me, or if they just need me? James doesn't need me. He's the first where I've thought...he might really like me. Me, not the First."

Her breathing is ragged. She wipes her eyes.

"Am I not allowed that?" It's a real question. Sina is First. Maybe she knows.

In the face of Pel's tirade, Sina looked a bit like a deer in headlights (if headlights existed of course). "I'm-- ir abelas, Pel, I didn't know." She hesitated, then shook her head. She couldn't conceive of wanting to be anything else; she hadn't wanted to come here in the first place. Someday she would be Keeper of Clan Dahlasanor, and there was nothing she wanted more. More time, a way to make that happen. Love, she felt, was implicit in her clan's regard for her, in their insistence that she be here instead of with them.
"Your clan loves you," she said after a moment, looking to Pel, a bit uncomfortably. "And when you're Keeper, theirs will be the love that matters. Won't it?" She hated to think otherwise. "...a Templar, Pel. I can't begin to understand the pain you underwent with your bonding, but please, is this the answer?" She sounded more frightened than angry, possibly even frightened about speaking so boldly to someone she considered an elder.

Pel knocks a few tears away with her fingertips and takes a deep breath. She really, really wants James right now. Is that weird?

"He loves history. He values faith, any faith, and believes my gods speak to me as much as his to him. His desire to uphold Andraste's will includes her will for elves. He believes in the Council of Magi and thinks it's needed. Why is being a Templar such a terrible thing, Sina?

"And I'm not going back to my clan. I'm going to be a scholar, not a Keeper. That's where my duty is taking me."

Edited 2016-01-20 13:18 (UTC)

Kallian was gathering herbs for compresses and poultices when she noticed the pale figure she recognized as Pel. She approached, a bundle of plants in her arms.

"Good morning," she said, still a little shyly despite their lessons together. "The gardens are nice today, aren't they?"

"Andraste?"

There is ice in the name, and in Sina's expression. "Pel, are you so quick to forget what has been done to our people in the name of Andraste?" She sets her cup down, her thin fingers now gripping the edge of the table as she watches Pel. "How convenient that her will has changed to include you in his life, this Templar." She shakes her head, incredulous. "Why is being a Templar a terrible thing? Maybe because Templars exist to control and silence mages. Mages like you, when he's unhappy with you. And the council!" She looks away, gesticulating harshly. "Are you sympathetic to the Templar way now? I've trusted you! I've trusted you to hold my best interests at heart, and Ellana's, to remain firm on why the Dalish need no interference from the Circles or Andraste," (every time she says the name, it drips with more venom), "and now you're sitting here telling me Templars aren't so terrible? My clan would beg to differ! And all of our ancestors before them who fell to the sword in the name of Andraste!"
She stops suddenly, realizing she's raised her voice, her face going blank. She leans back into her chair and bites her lip, furrowing her brow at the ground.

"Sina."

Pel is calm. But she's not. She's seething very tranquilly.

"Don't use this as an excuse to forget everything you know about me. If your Keeper didn't teach you Andraste and her children gave us the Dales, she did you a wrong. I hate the Chantry. The Chantry used her to drive us out of the lands she gave us. James understands that. And he's the only good templar I've ever met. He believes Dalish mages know what we're doing. And if he disagrees suddenly, for political purposes? He won't have a louder rival than I. So don't you dare impugn my honor over who I've chosen to spend my time with."

Sina's calm returns, but the chill does not leave her expression as she watches Pel. "My Keeper taught me that the People are free, and needed no one to give us anything," she says quietly. "She did me no wrongs. At least nothing so wrong as turning her back on her own for the sake of a shem." Tears have sprung to her eyes, and she stands abruptly, snatching her scroll of notes off the table as she turns to hastily stalk away.

Pel's eyes widen. Sina gets a few steps before she speaks.

"You little brat."

And that's as many words as she gets out before she chokes, sits down hard, and starts sobbing. Hard but quiet, the gasps for air louder than her sobs, tearing through the air like sheets being ripped.

When Pel shows up in the room later on, Krem is in the process of bringing in one of the seams of the dress that he'd given to Christine, making it fit a little more snuggly above the flowing ripples of blue fabric. He nearly drops his needle when the door opens, and he glanced back at Sam, who'd been sitting and making smalltalk with him while he worked. He stands, glancing behind Pel to see if she was maybe followed by whoever had reduced her to tears, then very gingerly laying his hands on her arms, ducking his head to try and look her in the face.

"Maker's breath, Pel what the hell happened?" he asked, keeping his voice down to keep from attracting attention.

So not to be in the way Sam had taken to sitting on the bed, flipping through a book that sat in his lap as he talked to Krem, enjoying just being in the room while the man worked. Though he knows and is used to Krem sharing the room with Pel and Salem, the door opening suddenly, but slowly, has him looking up quickly. There's a small smile on his face when he sees that it is Pel, but it quickly disappears when he notices that something ain't quite right.

Sam is quick to close the book and get up from his spot, but stands back a bit so that he isn't crowding, though he does move close enough to peer out the door. "Did someone hurt you?"

Pel shakes her head, unable to speak as she curls into Krem's chest to muffle her sobs. Her gasps are the loudest, even as the sobs begin to subside after several minutes.

For a woman who spends a great deal of her time sitting in state on the balcony overlooking the Great Hall, Vivienne hears much of everything going on in Skyhold. Not everything, though she certainly tries to. People do forget that sound carries and gossip happens. Such is the case today and it involves Pel. Pel, who she's coming to care about, almost like a niece, perhaps not a daughter, but concerned enough for her welfare to feel a justified right to meddle.

She's sent along a message to Pel inviting her to tea, an invitation which came with an exceptionally cryptic, 'We must talk.'

When Pel does arrive, she'll see an exquisite spread of tea nibbles set out. More than that, there is a dainty pair of deep green sandals set to one side and the fabric intended for the Council uniforms.

OPEN

The Library

Tavern

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Gardens

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Balcony