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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Hermione tensed up when she gasped, immediately asking, "Did you hurt yourself?" She didn't look hurt, and she shouldn't be hurt, but with all of her spells acting in so many bizarre ways recently, she couldn't take anything for granted.

"Healing charms still seem to work the same, if you need them."

"Oh! No!" she cried, turning to look at Hermione. "I'm fine. Just surprised." Her expression turned horribly abashed. "I'm sorry if I frightened you. I didn't mean to."

She curled her fingers up and pulled them far from the flame, lowering her eyes.

"I've never seen cold fire before. I could never have imagined..."

Relaxing, Hermione managed a small smile as she tells her, "It's all right. I just wouldn't have wanted you getting hurt. Enough people here seem wary of what magic can do, after all, so I didn't need to have all this go horribly awry and set people talking."

Nodding, she placed a hand just over the flame, explaining, "It still gives off its own heat, so it's very useful when you're out camping." She'd learned that from experience. Lots and lots of experience.

Ariadne glanced up from beneath her eyelashes, expression somewhat quizzical. "What do you mean, exactly?" she asked. "Camping? Is that like being part of a caravan?"

Which sounded all kinds of exciting. But she was careful to guard her enthusiasm until she understood.

"Oh... you don't have camping where you're from?" She supposed that made sense; if she'd come from a world that didn't really have certain modern comforts, them what she knew of as camping was just living.

"It's when you pack up a few bare essentials and live out in the wilderness for a while. People do it as sport, usually, unless of course they don't have a proper house and they just... live outside."

That sounded very much like the whole of Ariadne's childhood. "Everyone in the kingdom I was born in lived outside," she said. "All except for the highest-ranking nobles and their servants, I suppose. I didn't even know that people slept in beds until I was ten and moved to another land."

It had been quite the experience, half hysterical, half depressing.

All an adventure, at the very least.

"It's a curious sounding sport. Do you do it often?"

Hermione could only stare for a moment. One of the things she'd missed most while out camping with Harry and Ron had been having a proper bed to rest her head in, and an actual roof to keep the rain and snow from making life absolutely miserable. And she'd had a rather comfortable tent, too, so she could only imagine what it might be like to live at the mercy of the elements for an extended period of time.

"Not if I don't have to, no. But in all fairness, I have some negative associations with it now. I wasn't much for it before, but I'd at least been willing to do it without complaint."

Now, though? Good luck getting her into a tent, Inquisition. She'd rather stay back at Skyhold until she could find a way back home.

Her pulse was strange. Not lying, exactly. But there was something off. And a wisp of...adrenaline? Magical Humans always had confusing scents.

Ariadne tilted her head, birdlike and curious. "What do you mean by 'negative associations?'" she asked.

She tried to ask it gently.

Ah. Tactfully skirting an issue was a hit or miss with many people here. It seemed to be a miss, in this instance.

"I spent most of last year camping in the woods because I couldn't go home," she stated steadily. "War was tearing the magical community apart, and for a variety of reasons, it was especially dangerous for me and my two best friends. So we took off and hid as best as we could while we tried to figure out how to put a stop to the madness around us."

Shrugging, she offered a mirthless smile as she concluded, "No one can come away from a year of that without having some biases against tents and campfires."

Ariadne's expression dissolved into nothing but pure, unadulterated sympathy. If anyone could understand hiding in the trees to escape certain doom, it was a former ten-year-old child, who'd listened to her family burn from the canopy of Deleo's forest.

She reached out to put a hand on Hermione's elbow, giving her a gentle, encouraging squeeze. "I'm so, so sorry," she said. "That sounds unimaginably horrible."

Well, not unimaginably. Not exactly...

"I'm sorry you had to go through that."

Wan smile still on her face, Hermione once again attempts to simply shrug it off, careful not to dislodge that hand at her elbow.

"It's all right. I mean, no, it's not all right, but it's in the past, and everything turned out... not as terribly as it could have. So long as I continue to have the option of never doing that again, it's not so horrible a memory to have. At least it keeps me grateful for the shelter I do have... such as it is in Skyhold."

"Such as it is," Ariadne repeated with a slight nod. It was very much the same was the refugee camps back home. Just as exhausted and dirty and haphazard. But she thought there was more hope here. And that was important too.

Without hope, what did they have?

"Have you found a place to stay?" she asked. "If not, I'm sure my new sister would take you in. Just as long as you don't mind cats."

"I've been staying at the-...."

Hermione trails off before she can mention that she's been staying at the library or that she enjoys cats, frowning just slightly. "I'm sorry, 'new sister'? What do you mean?"

Her lips curled slightly into an impish grin. "I meant Katniss Everdeen," she replied. "She's a native here and a member of the Inquisition and she's wonderful. She adopted me into her family. It's a small family. But it feels nice to have a place to fit in. And Katniss is fantastic."

She bounced a little, as if to drive the point home.

"There's an old house not far from here where she lives with her cat, Buttercup. It was built around a tree, so it's a whole lot more stable than it looks."

"Oh." She should have known it couldn't be anything literal, and she doubted that any place in Thedas had a legitimate in-depth adoption process that include stipulations for adopting a rifter, but sometimes Hermione could be a little to literal for her own good.

"Is that where you live? You certainly seem to be comfortable around trees."

She shook her head. "No, not really. I have more of a tendency to wander. Katniss hates it. And Buttercup--that's her cat--hates it even more."

But that was simply her way. Her nomadic roots were strong and even when she tried to ignore them, tried to adapt and assimilate...

...it never took. Not entirely.

"Anyway," she added, "homes are for people with possessions. I don't really have any, except what's in my bag."

While it's a... poetic thought, Hermione didn't really understand why anyone would willingly choose to disavow the comforts of home. But then, it was all a matter of cultural differences, and she could respect that easily enough, even if she couldn't understand it.

"I suppose you don't really need anything else. Though in all fairness, my bag had been enchanted to carry everything one can find in a house, so I suppose that doesn't say much for me."

Now that was interesting.

"How do you make an enchantment like that? It sounds useful. And it would certainly do some of the travelers of the Inquisition good." She raised an eyebrow. "You should offer to enchant their bags. It would make you very popular."

"Oh... I don't think it works here. Coming through the rift sort of made the bag... explode." It had been nice to see so many familiar, useful items in Thedas, but at the same time, it had been less-nice to see rare books soaked with snow and clothes stuck in the mud.

"Maybe I can get it to work here some day, but I'd have to practice with it quite a bit."

"Well," Ariadne said, shrugging one shoulder up to her ear, "we seem to have nothing but time on our hands." She sat up straight, eagerly. "I could help you if you wanted. I mean, I don't know anything about magic, but I could find you books or ingredients or whatever you need for a spell. I'm very, very good at finding things."

She nodded enthusiastically.

If she were a puppy, her tail would be wagging.

Smiling a little at that enthusiasm, Hermione gently shook her head. "Thank you, but I really don't know what you'd be able to find here that would help me with my specific kind of magic. I have some books from home here, and I don't know that there are many ingredients for potions that could be found around here."

Shrugging a shoulder, she added, "But if you happen to come across any books that might relate to using magic without utilizing the Fade, I suppose that would be incredibly helpful. So long as it doesn't involve going out of your way."

"I'll look," Ariadne chirped, straightening her spine.

She knew next to nothing about magic. Only what she'd seen the Elf students studying in the mission school while she was relegated to a corner to read or do lines or solve arithmetic problems.

It all looked so interesting.

And more than that, Ariadne felt the need to be needed. She hated being useless in Thedas. It wasn't a color she understood.

"Thank you," Hermione replied, smiling a little. "Now that I mention it, though, maybe I should go do a bit more reading rather than attempt anymore practical magic. That's what happens when you end up in a world in which you've never read any of the books."

Moving to stand up, Hermione carefully scooped the little blue fire up in her hands, only to pause as she looked down at the other girl. "Are you cold? I don't know how long the flames will last, but if you're going to spend much time out here, you're welcome to them. They shouldn't spread, and they'll be warm when you hold them but shouldn't grow unbearably hot. If they do, I'd suggest dropping them and covering them up with dirt, since they're waterproof."

She smiled, but shook her head. It was a little cold, but she didn't want to risk taking the fire up into the trees with her. "I'll be fine, but thank you very much."

Ariadne rose to stand in one graceful movement, offering Hermione another bouncy, little curtsy.

"I'm glad to know you now, Hermione," she said. "I hope we can talk again soon."

Nodding in response, Hermione decided to keep the small fire with her, at least until she got back into Skyhold proper. She wouldn't want to cause a fire in the library, after all.

"Well, if you'd ever like to come look for me, I'm more often than not in the library. You're welcome to get in touch with me whenever you'd like."

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Our aspirations are wrapped up in books

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