{ 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

[eolasemah]

Sina has been convalescing in a tent in the garden, laid out just for her and Nari, to be away from the hubbub of the healing tents and to keep Sina near her favorite part of Skyhold.

She is awake when Ellana arrives, but still weak. She's sitting up and reading on her cot, pillows supporting her back, covered in blankets with a hot cup of tea sitting on a small table beside her. Her hair is unbound and frames her pale face, which lights up in surprise when she sees who has come to visit her.

"Ellana," she rasps, her voice audible but lacking considerably in power.

[gatheringstorm]

Korrin doesn't make it back from Emprise du Lion until the tail-end of the month, thanks to dragons. However, when she returns it isn't unprepared. A passing scout alerted her to Ellana's birthday days so, and after drilling said scout about her preferences/plans, came up with something. After she's sent her armor to get repaired, the Vashoth mage will seek out her fellow council member for some gift-giving. The lute music gets her attention, of course, and she approaches with a small smile on her face. Normally, she wouldn't interrupt, but there's a reason to speak up.

"That lute must be heavy. Hopefully this will be enough to fix that..." Hence, the strap that she's holding out now.

[foodsofmypeople]

Kaidan hadn't been out to the Emprise - had mostly kept himself to Skyhold, working on the research he'd set himself. He was starting to feel restless though. He hadn't done nothing for the best part of almost twenty years, when he was last in the Circle, and it meant that he had far too much time on his hands.

Right now he was in the stables, whiling away the time there as he took stock of the animals there, and wondered if he could borrow one to go to Redcliffe, to do anything useful. It was a somewhat pensive Kaidan who rounded the corner, almost running into Ellana. "Oh, I'm so sorry!"

[paperwing]

Sabriel knew Ellana would be back soon, but not exactly when, so her entrance is unannounced - and somewhat precarious, books from the library in the nook of her elbow, one open along her forearm, and a faintly steaming cup of tea in the other, more cold than hot. She shuffles in backwards, still reading, expertly placing the cup of tea on the dresser without look and then, finally, she notices her roommate with a marked note of surprise.

It was fortunate she had not been here a half hour earlier, or else her birthday present would have been unwrapped and in view, and not stashed discreetly at the back of the wardrobe behind her armour. If Ellana was back, that meant the rest of her Warden kin had also returned - or those who had ventured to Emprise du Lion and Valeska's Watch, at least. Which meant Scipio was also back, but, she halts that train of thought. She will see him at the tavern later, surely, as they promised - Ellana was here now, with news, and company. Not that was against asking after Scipio - later.

Sabriel recovers from her earlier surprise to rearrange her face into an easy smile. "Missed sleeping in a bed already, I see."

[arcaneadvisor]

An unexpected benefit to an argument in the rookery with the spymaster is this: the unfeathered variety of her little birds fall quickly into two camps depending on whether they talk to Morrigan or not. It comes up how most things come up, someone rambling, wanting to get away but it sticks with her. Ellana is not the First but she sits on the mage council and they’ve spoken of more important things than simply research as Morrigan has several times with Pel by now. Tis easy enough to track the young woman down to where she’s settled with a lute, and she allows herself to listen for a time before making her approach.

“Forgive the intrusion, I shall not tarry long lest you wish to return to practicing but I have something for you. A token of sorts.”

[foxsays]

Scouts talk easily to a girl that buys them drinks even if it’s with the coin she’s just won from them and Ellana’s birthday comes up as Araceli is dealing out a new hand. She files it away the way she does with everything here but that doesn’t mean she forgets and so when she spies Ellana from her perch above the stables she quickly makes her way down, whistling for Lux before her feet touch the ground. There’s a brief moment of a very serious looking one-sided conversation that has the fox trotting off but Araceli is already bounding over to Ellana’s side.

It’s good to see a friendly face after the last month or so.

“Ellana! You made it back from that frozen wasteland too!” Look, Emprise du Lion sucked, she would not visit again. “I feel like it’s been forever since I last saw you, I hope time has treated you somewhere between kind and unkind.”

That might be about the best anyone can hope for here.

[blightedson]

It's one of the days that she's out reading by the sunshine that he comes up behind her. "Ellana?" he asks. "Mind if I sit?"

He has a single, bright flower in his hand and he nervously twirls it a bit as he waits for her answer.