faderift | heaven, a gateway, a hope

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heaven, a gateway, a hope

WHO: Grey Wardens & You
WHAT: A daring and not at all ragtag group of Grey Wardens has walked all the way across Orlais to inform the Inquisition--just in case it hadn't already realized on its own--that everything is terrible.
WHEN: Harvestmere 22
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: This post has: (1) A single group "we just got here, we're freezing, who is in charge, what do you mean you haven't decided yet" starter that we'd like to keep to one chronological thread. (2) Open starters for individual Wardens set later in the day/week.

OOC Note: Regarding the first starter--threadjack away! Anyone is welcome to wander onto the scene to see what's going on and wander back out at their leisure, to fall silent for a while, etc. No tagging order. But let slower taggers get a word in edgewise!

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Alistair, don't give her a heart attack like that. Even if he isn't serious, just saying that puts her on edge for a second, as she worries she's really been insensitive. The only indication of this is the slight tinge of pink that comes to her pale cheeks before she catches on. Really, she's used to jokesters, but he's human and she doesn't want to offend him. It's a bit of a different situation from normal.

But now that she does know for sure, she relaxes, huffing out a laugh.

"I've been to Redcliffe! It's where my clan and I stopped before continuing on to here. The lake seems endless, doesn't it? Like I was looking at the sea instead."

"From North to South it's further across than the Waking Sea."

He says it with some measure of pride. Nostalgia and bias, again, but Ferelden really is wonderful. Not because of its glorious past--fatherland of Andraste herself, the barbarians standing against the Imperium, the scrappy scourge of Orlesian oppressors, he doesn't care about any of that--but because of the people, and the mud and the dogs, and the fact that there's an enormous lake shaped a bit like a rabbit in the middle.

He doesn't wax rhapsodic, though. It's his turn:

"Your clan? Is that why there are so many Dalish here?" So many. Six or seven or eight, as Beleth will soon point out. He's aware-- "Not that you've overrun the place. It's just there are a lot of stone walls here. And humans. I thought maybe you all hadn't noticed yet."

"I didn't think there were that many," she says, puzzled. "I haven't met the ones outside of my clan yet." But it's only a matter of time. She would like to meet other Dalish. She was never allowed to attend Arlathvhen, so she's been isolated from other Dalish outside the Ashara as much as from the other races.

His observation has her lips pursing, understanding that it's a joke and deciding to play along herself.

"Stone walls..." she says slowly, before looking around them and giving a fake gasp. "And humans?" Ellana brings her eyes to his and sets a hand over her heart, gasping again.

"Don't tell me you are human? I hadn't noticed."

Alistair grins at the act, a little wider the longer she carries on, and cups his hands behind each of his ears to bend them out for display. A second later he drops them, flat-palmed on either side of his own shoulders, like he's taking their measure. "Usually the width gives me away first." Width. Brawn. Etc. Alistair is insecure about a lot of things, but that's not one of them.

Anyway, Zevran could still pin him in a wrestling match.

"You're the fourth one I've seen since I got here this morning," Alistair says, "which is three more than I've ever seen outside a forest at one time. Except among the Wardens. But we're special."

Her eyes flicker down his body and she smiles to herself. Hopefully the look isn't lecherous, but it is meaningful. Male elves aren't brawny at all. They're more wiry. Which has always been good enough for her, but she finds she likes his human size too.

"I should have caught on sooner." She sets her chin in her hand. "Maybe I should save face and say I was lost in your eyes or something equally complimentary." Though it's hardly saving face if she admits to it up front. Ellana's just too honest for her own good, even when kidding around.

"You mean you have Dalish Wardens? Really?" She looks utterly intrigued. "Are you friends with them? Did they tell you why they joined?"

Alistair leans forward--"That wouldn't save you face at all," he says, "because your eyes are much lovelier than mine, and I still managed to notice your ears."--and then sits back again. Was that smooth? He can never tell what's smooth and what's cheesy.

And if it was smooth, his subsequent see what I did there eyebrow raise might possibly ruin it. Someone should probably save him from himself. Or change the subject. That's good, too.

"I'm afraid not," he says. "There were four or five in Montsimmard when I left--but that's out of all the Grey Wardens in the South. It's rare. I know there was one in Ferelden--" He doesn't speak to Cousland anymore, but he hears things. "--who joined because darkspawn killed her sister, or something like that. I'm sure the other stories aren't much more cheerful."

Her response to that is to smile brightly. Receiving compliments on her appearance has been rare within the clan, but not because her people are cold. It's just that everyone knows her past trouble with love and thinks she gives away her heart too easily. And yes, she did, when she was seventeen. She likes to think she's grown since then.

And whether he's kidding or not, she is a woman who can't help but enjoy people complimenting her. Maybe she's been starved for it. So she smiles. There's no harm in it.

"Now I'm just proving myself utterly unobservant, aren't I?" Despite the fact that this is all her kidding around.

"Oh, that's a shame, about losing her sister. We had a great loss in the clan when I was young, so I can sympathize there. Hopefully those Dalish are happy to serve as they do. I wonder if they miss their clans."

"I'm sure some of them do," Alistair says, "and some of them don't. I've heard that sometimes human Wardens will miss their families, as well, but that's only a rumor."

A great loss, like her magic, seems like something that deserves a follow-up question, but also something that could turn the conversation dour or sour or tense. That doesn't mean he won't ask, maybe, possibly. But first:

"My turn--do you want a drink?"

"It would depend on their personality, of course," she says, smiling faintly at the joke, but choosing to answer seriously. "The clan can feel like a family, but sometimes not. I lost my parents when I was young, so the clan raised me, and you would think it's like a family, but-- It's a bit hard to describe, really. And I have nothing else to compare it to." Having lived outside it for the first time here, she really isn't sure if the relationship would be akin to extended family, or neighbors, or something else to other people.

Lowering her hand from her chin, she nods at his question.

"I would, yes. Thank you, Alistair."

Alistair doesn't stop smiling while she talks, but the expression does get tighter, grimmer--empathetic. Maybe he understands a little bit, maybe not. But in either case, he stalls any heart-spilling with alcohol offers.

"Don't thank me. Thank Weisshaupt," he says on his way up out of his chair, even though he is, in fact, paying for everything with what little money they managed to scrounge up while on the run.

He's only gone a minute, and never out of sight. It's late. The crowd is thinning. He comes back with two tankards and starts talking as soon as he's placing one in front of her.

"I was going to try to sympathize with you by telling you I was given to the Chantry by my foster..." Father is a loaded word. He sits back down. "... sort-of uncle. But first I would need you to promise not to get weird and nervous if I said the word Templar, and that seems like a lot ask of a Dalish mage."

Ellana amuses herself with tapping out a tune Zevran taught her on his lute while she waits. An Antivan love song, it only had three chords and was therefore easy to learn during her first lesson.

But she draws back her hand when she sees him turn back from the bar with their drinks. She sits up straighter and gives him a thankful smile when her tankard is placed before her. Even if she is supposed to thank Weisshaupt, whoever that is.

"It is a lot. And until recently, I would have been nervous." Her head tips to one side. "There was only a bit of fear that I'd be dragged off to a Circle. We figured they'd drag me away to kill me in the wild instead." She lets that hang in the air for a moment, giving it the necessary weight. Despite the jokes they've shared, she can't joke about that. It was a constant fear. It was what had kept her shackled to the clan for her entire left while Gavin had gotten to run off whenever he wanted.

"But," she begins after a few seconds, "The world is changing, and there are bigger problems than where I learned my magic. I find I'm not so afraid of them anymore, even if they can dispel my magic. Besides, why would I be afraid of you? I see a Grey Warden before me; one who hasn't looked at me with harsh eyes, not a Templar plotting my death."

That you know of, Alistair almost says, going so far as to open his mouth and get his tongue to his front teeth for the T, before his tender heart catches up to his instinctive cheek and reminds him it probably isn't funny to her, what with the whole life-spent-in-fear-of-being-killed-in-the-wild thing.

"I'm not really a Templar," he says, just in case she's lying about her lack of concern. "I was rescued before the vow part, if they even would have let me take them. We didn't get along very well."

Sufficiently reassuring? He hopes so, because he tips his drink toward her in lieu of pointing an accusatory and offended finger.

"But I am scary. How dare you."

"Oh, is that so?" She looks so very concerned. Really. Look at that smirk she is quick to hide behind her tankard. Utterly terrified, this one. She takes a sip of her drink before setting it back down.

"If you want people to be scared of you, perhaps you shouldn't offer to buy them drinks. Just a tip." He seems pretty nice so far. Then again, anyone who isn't calling her knife-ears and throwing something at her would end up in the "nice" category. It's a broad range.

"Maybe you should tell me more about yourself so I can come to an informed decision on whether or not you're really scary."

"I kill ogres with my bare hands," Alistair says without hesitation. "Sometimes twice a day. Often before I've had breakfast. And breakfast--" He shakes his head, as if impressed with himself. "Raw corrupted spiders, in the Warden tradition."

"Oo, terrifying," she says, scrunching up her shoulders in a faux shudder. "And if I wanted to know the more mundane parts of your day?" In other words, the parts that aren't him just teasing and are an actual answer.

"Well," Alistair says. He can't stop hearing the Calling--ever--but he is having an easier time ignoring it than in quite a while. "They're mundane."

His squinty smile would not be mismatched with a wink, but he doesn't. He takes a long drink instead.

"I spent the last two weeks traveling with three new recruits and a dwarf obsessed with death. One of them stole all of my socks. We had to make snow caves in the mountains and I might have looked the other way during some petty thievery. And here we are. Nice and warm and not dead yet. I even took a nap."

"All your socks? I would be so annoyed! I love socks." It's only after saying so that she realizes how ridiculous that must sound to a human. "I mean--" she exhales a laugh. "The Dalish don't wear socks or shoes. But I've adopted them since coming here, and I would be hard pressed to give them up again."

Ellana sets her chin in her hand once more.

"Where did you find to nap around here that was quiet enough during the day?"

That is ridiculous. Alistair's eyebrows raise, but she explains before he can ask, and he grins. "I have wondered--aren't your feet disgusting?" Wait. "Not yours. Generally. Dalish feet." Better? Maybe? "We make Wardens wear shoes," he adds. If he talks enough he will surely reach a point where he is not being insulting. "For safety. It's no good if genlocks can bite your toes off. And the only other elf I know very well loves boots."

There. Not insulting. Probably. Moving on--

"Oh, I don't need quiet," he says. "I hate quiet. I went to the stables. I was a stable boy when I was small, so all that stomping and snorting is sort of nice now."

Wow, Alistair. Wow. Ellana blinks in surprise, as if she hopes she's just hearing things and he didn't just ask if her feet and the feet of all Dalish elves were disgusting. And he keeps talking. Amazingly, it doesn't get worse the longer on he goes, and the only indication that she is insulted is the slight lines around her mouth.

"The soles of our feet are tough, but it still hurts to step on rocks and tree roots. We do wash our feet, as well as the rest of us." In case he was going there next.

"I know little of horses, but I often helped the halla keeper. I hear they are much different from horses. You just hitch a horse to your wagon and make it pull. You can't do that with a halla."

"That's less exciting than being licked clean by moonlight while flowers bloom under your feet," Alistair says, "but more believable. I guess."

He doesn't have a lot of room to speculate about other people's feet, with how many days in a row he's been wearing these socks, but what Ellana doesn't know can't gross her out.

"Well," he says, "you have to train them. Raise them right. All of that. But after that you can just point them and go, yes." He sits back in his chair. "The Dalish clan I visited before—they told us something about halla. There was a sick one that my—" The pause is barely there, but it is there. "—friend convinced the keeper to kill so it wouldn't suffer, or something. But that was a long time ago."

"I sincerely hope you aren't speaking for all humans and what they think of us when you say that." She pauses, eyes lowering in thought. "Do I even want to know who is doing the licking in this scenario of yours?" Probably not.

Her head tilts at the way Alistair practically stumbles over the word 'friend.' That's what a person says when they either don't want to admit they're friends with an unsavory sort, or they aren't really friends, but have no other word for them.

"Such a sad thing. It's too bad nothing could be done for it except that." Ellana loves the halla. They're such sweet creatures, but in the old tales they carried elven warriors into battle. There is more to them than meets the eye.

"What did the clan make of you being there? I doubt they were terribly friendly."

"The moonlight itself. Magically," he says, tone flat, like it should be obvious.

He isn't speaking for all humans--he's not even genuinely speaking for himself--but there's probably someone who believes it, or much worse. But between the two of them, Alistair is pretty sure he's the only one who's ever drunk blood.

"Oh, they weren't so bad," he says. "Not worse than I'd expect from anyone else. They were already having problems of their own, and Grey Wardens never bring good news." Just darkspawn, conscription, secrets, and demands. Alistair takes a drink, but when he lowers it he's smiling again. "Have the people here been kind to you? Or has it all been inappropriate questions about your feet?"

"Maybe not good news, but they keep the world from being overrun with the Blight," she points out as he's drinking. Ellana vaguely remembers the plague that went through the clan when she was young, and how it took so many from them. Now she tries to picture if that was the Blight instead. It's likely none of them would have survived that. And there would have been no one left to wish for the Wardens to come and save them.

"How would you feel knowing you're the only one to question the state of my feet?" She raises an eyebrow in question, but then in a more serious voice adds, "No one has been unkind to me yet. I'm sure it will happen at some point, but I'm thankful to have been spared it so far."

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