O2 ♚ I'M A LONG TIME TRAVELER HERE

[slaveking]

WHO: Character(s)
WHAT: Several Rifters and native drop-ins congregate at the Tavern as advertised via messenger crystal.
WHEN: Late January (forward-dated for recentmost app approvals!)
WHERE: The Tavern, private room
NOTES: OOC plotting here! Feel free to treat this like a general mingle log, but I will be making empty starters below for specific topics for group threads/conversation. An infodump/glossary link may also be pending from Araceli/Church.

It's past dinner time. This provides a reasonable excuse to drink only out of the ale pitchers set up for the expected guest, although there's a little bread and salt pork set up on the one bench along the wall. Dozens of chairs and a few less tables are loosely organized into groups. There's no dais or marked center for the room, the bar room version of the principles of the Arthurian round table, all being equal in the private room. Which, granted, is only as private as the public announcement and common courtesy might enforce. In other words, that can't be a real expectation.

However, the other Tavern workers are watching the door and main floor discreetly, multi-tasking with running the usual evening business. It's not so different from any other night, not even for the involuntary immigrants gathering on the second level. Drink, talk, and get to know.

Comments

Re: RIFTER PUBLIC IMAGE (HINT: IT'S BAD)

[lennethvalkyrie]

I did what I could, soon after arriving, to prove I was not the demon they thought. [Lenneth offered, lacing her fingers together around the outside of her tankard.] Two Knight-Commanders of the Templar Order performed their rites on me. Voluntarily. The pain was... exquisite. [Her lips thinned slightly, remembering.] Yet, I seemed to pass their tests to their satisfaction. At that time they made it known to me that no other Rifter would be made to undergo such tests. I still have the trust and acquaintance of Knight-Commander Sauveterre, and believe that he would speak to--at the very least--our not being demonic in nature.

[gatheringstorm]

"What." Korrin's eyes immediately narrow, as it's the first time she's heard about any of this. That the Templars would do such a thing, even wit permission from Lenneth, is far overstepping their bounds. "You said two. Who else?" It seems like the sort of thing Nerva would do as well, but if she remembers right, that particular Templar wasn't around yet.

[motherfucking_ghost]

Whoa whoa whoa. 'Performed their rites' is the sort of thing you should only hear at like...a church service or an exorcism. [He considers that for a second.] Which...I guess kinda the same thing, depending. I mean. Who else is gonna do an exorcism?

I mean my point is, like, what the fuck did they do to you? Okay, we fell out of a hole in the sky, that's bad, but I think I've had all of like...one or two people ever think I was a demon. [And...not for the fact of being a Rifter but shh.] Sure I get a couple dirty looks from people sometimes but, hey, that's not actually...strange. To me.

[foxsays]

I might have had a...disagreement, of sorts, with Knight-Commander Stannis when he was still with the Inquisition. [If they're discussing Templars, she might as well start there herself because while she wasn't expecting them to roll out the welcome wagon, the rather baseless accusation definitely stung. A glance is sent Korrin's way - of course she brought her native girlfriend along as requested - as she adds to the notes she already has with her.

Someone has to write this down and seeing as she's already been doing that, she might as well continue, writing quickly in shorthand for later.]

My own experience was more an accusation by a young man, I believe it is water under the bridge now but given how the statement was made publicly and all I've heard about the treatment of mages, with the marks we bear being magical, there are still likely to be those with less trust than we should like. The recent attack by the Abomination means we should still be paying attention to whatever they expect of the native mages.

[Or: you expect the worst and make absolutely certain you've prepared back-up plans and exit strategies. Or that's how a thief and a guard does it.]

[lennethvalkyrie]

Knight-Commander Baratheon was the second of the two. [Lenneth interjected; an answer for Korrin, and a brief nod in Araceli's direction as she mentions the name. The corner of her mouth twitches in a slight wry smile.] I believe that disagreement you had was around the same time I volunteered to be tested--he had sent a message by the crystal?

As to what they did... [Ice blue eyes narrowed slightly, as she searched her memory.] There was a spell cast to remove any stray magic from the area, and then a... It is difficult to describe. A great burning light. I know not what it looked like from the outside. The presence of the Maker, they said. Had I been a demon, I imagine I would have been slain--or mortally wounded, at the least.

[Seemingly unconcerned by this, Lenneth lifts her shoulders in a slight shrug.] I was not.

[foxsays]

[Not a name she misses, not after the accusation that had been entirely unnecessary in her opinion, never a fan of the guilty until proven otherwise way of looking at the world.] Yes, I think it was the first message I saw after arriving in Skyhold, probably about the time there was the tavern brawl between mages and Templars after the Herald's funeral.

[She'd missed that but a rifter presence might only have made things worse.

As Lenneth speaks, she frowns, jiggling a leg to have at least some outlet before she downs half her drink. Her mark had hurt when she'd come to Skyhold, stinging and pulsing, something she'd barely been able to ignore until it had started to ache less. Added to her confusion and fear, having something like that done to her?

She doesn't slam the glass down but it's a near thing, her smile not reaching her eyes though by no means does it look forced.]

And they thought that this was acceptable, based on nothing more than their own suspicions and knowing absolutely nothing about us at all, and about as much about the rifts? Bastardos.

[lennethvalkyrie]

In fairness, it was my idea. [Of course, she hadn't known anything about the power the Templar held when she did so, nor that she was disrupting a precedent between the Templar and Mages. Or that encouraging a powerful body to abuse that power in a mostly neutral stronghold might have been a bad idea. Truthfully, she hadn't thought about any of the possible repercussions at all. How could she have? She had known nothing of the world, had only heard a ringing condemnation she had the ability to negate.] He counseled against it at first, but I insisted. It was less difficult on me, I think. I am no stranger to travelling between worlds, nor a stranger to duty or pain. I thought perhaps I could bear it if necessary, and it might help us all. [Although it chafed her that the act had apparently done little to help the reputation of the others who had come through the rifts.]

You make a good point that it would not have been necessary had we not all been deemed untrustworthy or demonic simply by issuing from the same rift as demons.

i could've sworn i replied to this sorry

[foxsays]

He said something to me about proving my worth, in addition to what he said about feeling the weight of a chain about our necks. [And that had rankled immediately, like any instance where someone is assumed guilty until proven innocent because that is always harder to prove, especially when you don't know any of the rules you're playing by.] Other worlds didn't exist until I came to Thedas, and magic? Magic was a trick done in the street, swallowing swords, making coins disappear and reappear, and I know how those work.

[Every thief learns sleight of hand, they have to, but Thedas? Thedas is real magic, the kind that was only in stories at home.]

I do understand some of possession, and how it works though it is my understanding that typically they would be recognised as not entirely human. Or whatever else they happen to be.

[That still takes getting used to, a lifetime of simply humans and clarifying feels so strange yet necessary, she has no wish to insult anyone.]