faderift | Skyhold

WHO: Anyone & everyone
WHAT: Open post for business as usual around Skyhold
WHEN: The first couple weeks of Harvestmere, 9:41 (aka October)
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: Please mark any necessary content warnings in thread subject lines. Also, make sure to check out the other log posts already made!

Far from the glamorous adventurous world-saving people signed up for, most of the hustle and bustle in Skyhold at present is cleaning. The Great Hall is a disaster, and crews are assigned to haul out the cracked and rotting planks fallen from the wide-open roof, and tear down the vines covering the walls. Ivy encrusts the main staircase outside and many of the fortress walls and is cleared in section while other groups assess or begin shoring up the stonework as it's revealed. There are scaffolding to build, materials to sort, crates to unload, tents to stitch together or set-up, and on and on and on, endless mundane chores vital to the survival of the organization.

When not hard at work, people cluster around fires across the courtyards. Many mingle freely, going about their business, running errands and messages, planning scouting missions, tallying up supplies, distributing or playing with the sending crystals that were found in a basement vault and which a group of mages have just today finished preparing for use. Once a good number have been passed around and the first Inquisition-wide transmission made messages start being broadcast; maybe you can help someone out.

The rebel mages and renegade templars mainly keep to themselves at opposite sides of the complex given the choice. Mages assist with healing and research and bicker amongst themselves about their options and their fate. Templars help train recruits in swordforms and basic combat techniques or spar with the more advanced and bicker amongst themselves about their options and their fate. Despite having all pledged themselves to the Inquisition, they still feel like separate factions and tension between them is palpable wherever they cross paths.

Like at meals, or the communal message board in the courtyard, or at the Herald's Rest. The mess hall/tavern is so new it still smells of sawdust, and its stock has been limited to one type of strong ale until today, when a shipment of West Hill brandy has finally arrived. The mood in the place is convivial in celebration of that, but there's still plenty of muttering, especially as the night drags on and the discontented get further into their cups.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Dorian follows, obliged, although he manages to make this into a wander as he steps light-footed down the stairs after her, as if only following direction incidentally. ]

I'd wager that most recruits fit to wash floors and erect tents don't know altogether very much about elven lore and runes. I'd wager again that elven lore and runes will come in better use to the higher functions of the Inquisition than cosmetics to our stronghold, necessary or not.

But I'll see to the books, naturally. I'm good at books, enough to consider them a part of my proper job.

In time. I was Keeper's First with my clan, and that involved trimming old Anan's toenails as often as it involved spells or leadership. Whatever job needs doing.

Were you a...? [She stops, realizing she doesn't know the term for it.] A...historian, perhaps?

[ Even if Pel had not slipped in a question after that, the first part might have, for once, rendered Dorian with no immediate quip or rebuttal. He doesn't know the first thing about the Dalish enough to keep up.

He rounds on the books she reported, hands on hips in cursory downwards study before any heavy lifting commences. ]

A great number of things, [ he says. ] I was an Enchanter of the Minrathous Circle of Magi for a time, and after that-- I suppose I was a research assistant. My speciality was and remains complex theoretical magic, but when it comes to magic, history always looms over the present.

So, almost, yes. You'll have to forgive my own woeful ignorance as to what being a Keeper's First entails, beyond pedicures. There aren't any-- Dalish, northwards.

[ He says 'Dalish' like he's only 98% sure it's the right word to use. As well as delicately picking around the circumstances of his ignorance to begin with. ]

[A smile creeps over her face. She suddenly became more interested in this person.]

Complex magic theory? The nature of the Beyond, the Fade, things like that?

One cannot engage in complex magical theory without engaging with the Fade, [ he points out, but seems to warm at her fixation, and her swanning past the veritable minefield that could instead be a Tevinter nobleman speaking to a Dalish mage. ] But special emphasis goes to the word 'theory', at least for the last few years. Studying magical effects thought impossible -- time magic, for example.

[ He ducks down, perusing the books at first to see if where's any rubbish they can leave down here rather than hauling it all upstairs. They all seem fine (unfortunately). ]

Prior to that, I taught the practical application of higher tier spellwork in combat magics. In other words, teaching novices to fight better than simply flinging about fire and exhausting themselves.

Otherwise, I dabble.

We might be working together. [Her geek's heart skips a beat as he speaks. The words start coming on their own.] The trouble with the Dalish is we've only really kept our own history since the days of Halamshiral. Before that, our history is tangled up with Tevinter. I would hope there...could be some manner of cross-pollination, when Elvhenan was conquered. Snatches of magic lore appropriated by Tevinter, the way the words of a language sometimes are.

[And now she's talked a lot and probably sounds completely crazy.]

But...either way, whatever is found, I want to learn more about the ancient magics, Tevinter or elvhen. To bring back to the Dalish. We've lost so much.

[ Perhaps not crazy, but passionate, and Dorian would like to imagine he is someone who can empathise with the difference. He listens, anyway. He's run around in the Hinterlands with Solas long enough to be familiar with a little of her perspective, her words concerning the entanglement of human and elven history.

Save for, of course, her specifically Dalish motivation. ]

The darkspawn leader of our opposing forces of corruption and evil hails from an ancient Tevinter, if he's to be believed, and so directs my research.

[ The books he balances in his arms aren't promising, but still, he pushes himself up to stand with them cradled to his chest. ]

Doubtlessly, it could use an elven set of eyes.

[ And Solas doesn't like him. >8| ]

[She looks surprised.]

What makes you say that?

What makes me say which bit?

[ His tone is easy, rather than confused. A little distracted as he starts back up the stairs with his haul. ]

Tevinter? Elven eyes? My doing work?

The elven eyes bit. [The books she chooses are rather larger than she can comfortably carry, but she doesn't seem to notice.]

Merely what you said about cross-pollination. You might catch some entanglements that I do not. Human eyes are like that.

[Oh, hey. Neat. A smile touches her lips.]

I'd like to try.

Skyhold

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