faderift | Our aspirations are wrapped up in books

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Our aspirations are wrapped up in books

WHO: Hermione Granger and Open!
WHAT: There's a new ~~witch~~ mage wandering around Skyhold. Come say hello?
WHEN: Backdated to her arrival near the end of Guardian and onward throughout Drakonis.
WHERE: ~~The library.~~ All over Skyhold. ~~But mostly its library.~~
NOTES: Feel free to run into her pretty much anywhere, or have her run into you. And be prepared for all the questions about your character and Thedas/their homeworld and everything in between.

If not for the fact that Hermione had spent so many of her formative years in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Skyhold might have been overwhelming

As it was, the sprawling fortress was a little hard to get used to, since the academic environment that had given Hogwarts some sense of structure amidst the chaos wasn't present here. There was a library, thankfully, and she spent much of her time there, though it was so small that she was certain she'd end up reading every book in there in two weeks' time if she didn't actually go out and explore the rest of her surroundings.

And so every so often, she pried herself away from the cold little corner she'd set aside for herself and wander the rest of the area, though granted, she more often than not was carrying at least one book with her. Usually it was one of the books that had survived the trip through the Fade; anyone who might spot her in the garden or tavern or a safe distance away from the sparring going on in the training grounds might notice her engrossed in such unfamiliar titles as Hogwarts, A History or occasionally digging through Spellman's Syllabary in the vain hope of finding recognizable runes on various inscriptions throughout Skyhold.

After all, just because she was endlessly fascinated by all the new people and cultures and history and magic, it didn't mean she didn't occasionally need a bittersweet reminder of home. Especially when her other major reminder was her wand, which - despite the fact that she'd taken to finding the most solitary places she could find and practicing with it harder than she ever had the night before an exam - still wasn't behaving properly at all. Apologies to those of you who end up slipping on some wayward ice or getting sprayed with pebbles from a spell gone wrong.

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"Well, I would hope not," she said, looking up at the tree. A quizzical expression passed over her face, gray eyes narrowing slightly. "Wouldn't that be something? A living tree? Where I come from, there are some bushes that are alive. But they mostly just spit. Not the trees, though. They're just green and pretty. Like this one."

She brushed her palm against the trunk, like she was petting it.

The thought was dismissed as quickly as it came.

Ariadne turned back to smile at the other girl. "I haven't seen you around here before. You must be new to Skyhold."

"Spitting bushes?" Hermione asked, perplexed. She didn't sound incredulous, though, since she remarked, "We have one tree that has a mind of its own, but we've learned to stay far away from it. It doesn't really let people get too close, anyway."

As though that comment about the Whomping Willow didn't answer her question, Hermione smiled and offered the girl her hand to shake. "I only just got here. I'm Hermione Granger. Are you native to this world, or...?" At that, she looked down towards the girl's left hand, obviously looking for a shard that matched her own.

Ariadne reached out to clasp Hermione's wrist, giving her entire arm a vigorous shake. "Well met, Lady Hermione," she said. And to satisfy her curiosity, Ariadne held up her left hand, showing off the shard embedded there.

It was a curious thing, that shard. Whereas before, Ariadne's skin had been green from head to toe, now it was only still grin around the shard. The thing that labeled her as different.

She still couldn't quite get used to it.

"You must tell me more of this tree of yours," she said. "It sounds very, very curious."

Oh. If she started talking about nargles, then this girl would definitely have been cut from the same cloth as Luna. A few years ago, Hermione might have considered that a bad thing, but at least now she was a little more used to... eccentric behavior, and so she only continued to give her a small, indulgent smile.

"The Whomping Willow? That's really all there is to it. It's a magical plant that lashes out with its branches; someone once told me that the one on our school grounds got to be old enough to be cranky, and that's why it swats children away. I don't think that's true, though; it just wants to be left alone, which is respectable enough."

"So it's not really alive?" she asked uncertainly. "It only reacts to its environment, the way that a fly trap catches flies on instinct?"

She sounded no less fascinated, although perhaps a tad disappointed.

Ariadne loved plants. In another life, she thought, she would have been happy to serve as Princess Amanda's royal gardener. But, alas, that life was not to be. She was a soldier and a spy and that was what was necessary.

Flowers were a luxury.

"Technically, all plants are living things," Hermione responded with a shrug. "This one is just part of a magical species that happens to be a bit antisocial. Whether or not it's sentient, I don't know that anyone can really say. That's the trouble with living things that both can't speak and that are rooted to the spot, I suppose."

At least with animals, they could usually verbalize their pleasure or displeasure, and their body language often made it quite clear how they felt about a particular person or situation.

Ariadne realized her mistake and immediately felt guilty. Precision of language occasionally eluded her, in spite of--or perhaps because of--how many languages she spoke.

"Yes," she said, "of course."

Awkwardly, she turned to look at her tree. "But I don't think this one minds me much."

"Well, it isn't batting you away, so I'd say you're probably safe for at least a little bit."

Because really, being swatted by a tree that didn't want you near it was not fun, and she could say as much from personal experience. She'll gladly take the immobile ones over the ones who could act in what they likely felt was self-defense.

"Still, I would think it would be more comfortable on the ground. At the very least, you wouldn't exactly have to worry about falling if you shifted a bit to one side or the other."

"Oh, but I never fall."

She didn't say it to boast. It was just a simple matter of fact. The only time she'd ever fallen out of a tree was when she fell through the rift into Thedas. And really, that didn't count. The rift had swallowed her up and dropped her into the snow. She'd fallen from the rift, not the tree.

Ariadne smiled shyly. "I've been climbing trees since I was very small. I grew up in a forest."

Hermione looked a bit skeptical about the idea that she never fell, but she was tactful enough not to say anything. It could be true - some people were simply much more agile than she was, after all - so why say anything untoward about something that wasn't overly important?

"Oh? I'm assuming not a forest near here. What was it like?"

"No," Ariadne said gently, "not a forest near here."

Briefly, she flashed her shard at Hermione, before tucking her hands behind her back self-consciously.

"And it was beautiful," she continued, leaning back against the trunk of the tree like some kind of dreamy wood nymph. "Not like city forests, with patches of sky between the trees. The canopy was so thick that everything was always green." Including her skin, although that had nothing to do with the light. "And it was much warmer than here. So warm we never had to wear boots." Ariadne did not like boots.

She made a vague gesture with her chin, up to the branches above her. "The trees were sturdier there. Less brittle. They bent. They accepted change."

Hermione wouldn't have assumed she hadn't grown up around here if she hadn't noticed the shard earlier. For her own part, she was learning to walk around with her left hand in her pocket more often than not.

"It sounds nice," she mentioned with a little smile. "I spent a lot of time in forests last year - not like what you described, but probably closer to what you'd call city forests. If the circumstances had been better, I might have enjoyed it a bit more." Probably not, but at least she didn't say that she'd be happy to never see another forest for as long as she lived.

"How long have you been in Skyhold?"

Ariadne smiled dreamily. Just, it had been nice. Fleeting, of course. But that was the way of beautiful things, sometimes.

"A few months," she said, when the smile too faded. "I was part of the first wave of Rifters to arrive in Thedas."

A pause. "That's what we've started calling ourselves now. Rifters. I rather like the sound of it, don't you?"

Frowning just a little, Hermione asked, "This has been going on for a few months? And they haven't figured out how to stop it?" She could understand it taking some time to figure out how to send them back, but she would have thought that, with all of the supposed experts on the Fade out there, they would have at least learned how to close up the rifts by now.

"I've heard us called a great many things. Rifters, shardbearers, foreigners. I'm apparently a mage and garner peculiar looks if I try to insist I'm a witch. It doesn't much matter what we're called, though; I'd just like it if we can figure out how to prevent many more of us from coming in, since my arrival hadn't exactly been a pleasant experience."

She nodded eagerly. "Many of the Rifters feel the same way. Marcel Gerard's been trying to organize our efforts a little bit. Both to figure out what's happened and how to stop it and to keep ourselves from being swept up in the politics of what's going on in Thedas."

Ariadne admired Marcel. He was charismatic and determined to get things done. And he was also a mystery. While he looked Human enough, there was a peculiar scent to him. She couldn't quite figure it out.

And there was something delightful about that.

"I'd say he's the closest thing we have to a leader," she added.

Hermione shifted a little on her feet. It was a bit late for her to not be swept up in the politics of Thedas. "Politics don't have to be so bad, if they can influence positive change." At least, that was what she kept telling herself, or else her inadvertent fumbling through so many different policies would all seem pointless.

That last bit made her look at her a bit oddly. "Leader? Doesn't citing a leader among us sort of turn us into an organized group? That doesn't really help to keep us out of politics, considering how chaotic everything is right now."

"It's not official or anything like that," Ariadne replied, shrugging up one shoulder. "He's just been trying to organize meetings. So we can share our experiences and information. Some of the natives aren't very forthcoming. And it's complicated, trying to keep track of everything."

She had no doubt, however, that Marcel would be all-too-happy to accept an 'official' title of sorts. As much as she liked him, she knew he was the type of person eager for power.

Which wasn't bad either. Like politics, he could be an influence for positive change.

She had hope.

"All of the natives I've met have been fairly open," Hermione replied. But then, she'd mostly met mages, who always seemed willing to open up to another mage, especially about the various injustices she'd been facing. Perhaps she should make an effort to branch out, even if she obviously couldn't tell someone was a mage just by looking at them.

"Perhaps, more than a leader, rifters could make do with a scribe. It would undoubtedly be helpful to have core information about this world and the people in it gathered in one central place in an unbiased manner, especially if more rifters keep coming in."

"Oh, I think that's a very good idea," Ariadne said, nodding enthusiastically. "And we need to keep track of how we get here. It'll make it easier to try to keep it from happening to others."

It was the sort of work she liked, really. Because while there was sadness to many arrivals, every last one of the Rifters had a story of some kind. She loved learning about their new worlds and their different ways of doing things.

And she had picked up one thing. "There's at least one pattern," she said. "Everyone I've talked to was drifting off to sleep when they fell through the rift."

Hermione was about to ask if it happened in different ways, coming in through the rift. But then there was mention of drifting off to sleep, and she was able to breathe a bit easier. "I was about to say, I thought it always happened while we sleep, since the Fade is connected to dreams. We eventually tumble out through a rift, which usually means there are demons around. Otherwise, I'd just gotten unlucky, at least insofar as the whole demon bit."

She tried not to bristle too much at the use of the word 'demons.' It was tossed around with a certain air of disdain. Ariadne had to remind herself that it meant something different here from what it meant back home.

Oh, there was no more or less disgust than usual. But semantics were important.

Precision of language.

Shaking it off, she approached Hermione with a big smile. "Well, enough of that for now. I want to hear about your world." She looped her arm through Hermione's. "Tell me everything!"

Hermione noticed the bristling and thought that, like any sane person, this girl just didn't like demons. It made sense, after all.

What didn't make sense was the sudden breach of her personal space, and while Hermione was too polite to brush her off, she was still visibly surprised by the proximity as her arm is taken. "Er-... I don't know what there is to say, really. I'm a witch, as I've mentioned. I don't know if you have those in your world, or what they're like, but all that means is that I can use magic. It's not common, where I'm from; most people don't even believe in magic, in fact."

Ariadne found it difficult to imagine a world where people didn't believe in magic. But then again, it was a fundamental part of the fabric of her society, especially as refugee in Valeria. She'd only just heard of the concept a little while ago, from Marcel of course.

"It must look very different from here," she said. "Here, all you have to do is open your eyes to see magic all around you."

"Well, yes, but that's mostly because Muggles - that is, non-magical people - have developed their society with the use of technology and ingenuity, rather than rely on magic. But when I'm spending time in the magical world, it actually doesn't look too different from this."

Glancing around and looking up at Skyhold, she cracked a small smile and mentioned, "This place reminds me a little of Hogwarts, my school for magic. There are differences, of course, but... well, I could have wound up somewhere worse." Such as Tevinter, for instance.

Drinking in every word, Ariadne led Hermione over to the tree. "We have plenty of species that don't use magic where I come from," she said. "And they develop through science and technology. But certainly, no one can deny the existence of magic. No more than they can deny the existence of science."

Although there were some Elves...

She plopped down unceremoniously on the grass beneath the branches. "But you must tell me about this school of yours. As a Human, I wasn't allowed to go to magical schools, but I've heard that they're wondrous places."

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