{ OPEN }

[serannas]

WHO: Ellana Ashara + OPEN (with closed starters for Sabriel, Sina, and Merrick)
WHAT: Ellana returns to Skyhold from Emprise to catch up with people and settle back into life here.
WHEN: Guardian 20th through the end of the month.
WHERE: Skyhold

{ open }
After Ellana fulfills her duties in Emprise du Lion, she's allowed the opportunity to return to Skyhold or stay and wait for more assignments. But after everything that's happened while she's been away -- especially to her friends -- she wants to see Skyhold in person again. The journey back is thankfully uneventful, and as she gets through the front gate, she already has a list of people to see. But over the coming days, she settles back into a routine around the place, namely: visiting the mounts in the stables and petting those who seem agreeable to it, taking supplies down to the refugees encamped down in the valley below, reading out in the sunshine, or practicing with her new lute, which is a birthday present to herself.

[ ooc: feel free to have your character know it's Ellana's birthday from a scout if they want to give her a present. it's on Guardian 22nd! ]


{ sabriel }
Ellana is looking forward to getting back to Skyhold and flopping back into the bed she shares with Sabriel. It's not that sleeping in a bed roll is tough, seeing how she's done it her whole life, but her bed is something new and wonderful, and she's actually missed it. Coming into Skyhold, she sees not much has changed after the event with the rift. She heads to her room, drops her bag, and flops back onto the bed, sinking her head into the pillow and sighing happily. She'll unpack later. For now, she'll rest until Sabriel turns up and the two can catch up.

{ sina }
Hearing about what happened to Sina made Ellana want to return home, but she couldn't abandon her duties to the Inquisition, and she was assured Sina was recovering. Still, after resting from her journey back, she goes to find Sina to see how she's doing. There's a quick stop to the gardens first, where she picks some flowers. Her eye catches the Dalish memorial in the corner and she kneels beside it for a moment, relieved that Sina's name doesn't have to be added to her clan's stone. Then she returns to her goal of finding Sina.

{ merrick }
First Sina, then Merrick. Sam had told her what had happened to him via crystal and she had burst into tears. But Merrick was strong and Ellana had known he could beat the poison in his system. She also knows that what Merrick likes doing with Ellana more than anything else is to sit and sing, so she travels down to the merchant stalls with coins jiggling together in her purse, hoping the lutes she once saw there haven't all been bought up yet. She's been saving up to buy herself a lute for her birthday, and now the time has come. Thankfully, there are several available in her price range, and she selects one, testing it out. It will suit her, and she pays, taking the lute and adjusting the strings until it sounds as near enough to Zevran's as she can get. She still doesn't know many songs, but it's a start. And she can play for Merrick. Since the lute has no strap (she'll have to find someone to make one) she carries it in hand as she searches for her friend.

Comments

[arcaneadvisor]

All her life has been the Wilds, the place she returned to, and despite the dangers faced on the journey to Skyhold she enjoyed the time back in the wilderness. The peace, the solitude, making a game of it with Kieran to tell her what bird had called from what tree, what tracks they had stumbled across. There were few true ruins in their path but she had stopped at some to take him inside, to let him see with his own eyes. That's how history becomes real. Seeing it. Breathing life into it. She will give him the joy she finds in such places as best he can that he might understand why she does what she does.

"There are tales of the ruins there, from the time between Arlathan and the fall of the Dales but still, things that have been lost to time. But with the civil war in Orlais, as well as the Red Templars then travel to such a place might be beyond what the Inquisition can manage at present." A temptation, to go searching, and she alone could fly there if she so pleased, perhaps might if the Inquisition tarries too long in places such as the Fallow Mire, the Western Approach, Emprise du Lion. "Paintings too, I have ventured before the wilds became perilous with men, not beasts or lurking spirits." She has been all across Orlais though, always retrieving something to catch Celene's eye.

Blood magic would have been a far easier way to keep on her good side without the arguments but Orlesians will always tell tall tales.

[serannas]

If only Ellana had wings to fly, she could go searching for ruins and return without wasting much travel time. Then she wouldn't be neglecting her duties to the Inquisition. Alas, her curiosity must wait until the Inquisition deems elven ruins prudent to explore, or after Corypheus is defeated and she can travel a new path.

"I know. With everything that's been happening, we need to focus on bringing peace first. Still, it's nice to dream, and think of the future. Maybe someday, right?"

[arcaneadvisor]

A rare thing, a greatly freeing thing and something Morrigan has enjoyed so many times in the last few years. She’s given that up for the Inquisition though only Leliana would really understand what that sacrifice is like, and even then she still can, though there’s little sense in looking when they have little idea of where to start and so few resources.

“Eventually one party will win the war and life will return to normal. If Celene wins, at the very least, Gaspard has no patience of the Game and would see it quite like Ferelden but more civilised one would imagine. To bring peace though we need resources, influence, soldiers. We might need to venture to more fertile grounds than the Fallow Mire, the Hinterlands or the Emprise.”

[serannas]

"All things not easy to come by. I think influence might be the hardest to gain right now." But she believes the Inquisition can do it. Especially with people like Josephine and Leliana able to influence people to their cause.

"The Hinterlands were fertile. Just... full of bears and wolves."

[arcaneadvisor]

"Influence is a tricky thing, and the Inquisition an unwieldy beast that shall be forced to dance and parade itself for their whims." The Inquisition, for all that it has those who can play the game and those like herself who can ignore it, will be examined from each and every angle, and no matter how well it does, it shall be found wanting.

At least she laughs though, unexpected perhaps but they all made the pilgrimmage through the Hinterlands. "On my way to Skyhold I encountered many an angry bear even in the snows, tis how I met Merrill and her refugees from Kirkwall. Still, be thankful they are none of them Blighted beasts."

[serannas]

Parading herself in front of people isn't Ellana's idea of a good time. She knows that nobles with money and power judge everyone as beneath them, so it's not like she's the only one, but she's also a Dalish elf, and that has set her in the lowest possible place for their good opinion. And frankly, she doesn't really care. The only issue is being part of the mage council and having to present herself as worthy of the title of Councillor. The soiree will be the ultimate test.

"That is something to be thankful for. At least wild animals have a sense of preservation. Blighted animals attack until there's nothing left." Thank the Creators the wolves that once attacked her were just normal wolves.

[arcaneadvisor]

Never allow another to hold your leash Ellana. Morrigan has slipped free of Flemeth's shackles and never again will she allow herself to be as others desire, unless she is to lead them on a merry chase. Tis up to others to prove their worth, not the other way round.

"And yet there are so often men even worse." Is she joking or not, it's difficult to tell by the way her mouth twists, and so she sighs, remembering just how the world was at the time of the Fifth Blight. "I hope the wolves with those green eyes are not a warning of what is to come however."

[serannas]

It is a lesson that Ellana should learn, and who better to teach it than one who has gained her independence completely?

"They could be," she admits, "But I hope not too."