crystal

[arcaneadvisor]

FORM: Sending crystal
SENDER: Morrigan
RECIPIENT: Everyone
WHAT: Give her your spooky stories, also Flemeth/Asha'bellanar since people are off to Kirkwall
WHEN: Whenever you hear it what is time
WHERE: Skyhold (Morrigan's there, maybe you're elsewhere, welcome to the spoop podcast)
NOTES: Gonna just say oblig horror warnings for the content, if your thread contains anything you feel the need to warn for please stick it in the subject line and I'll update here.

The long nights and short days have passed us, Inquisition, yet I believe a certain appetite remains for some tales no matter the season. Those tales a mother or father told you, an older sibling, some elder grown grey and wise, while you were tucked up in your bed at night with the fire crackling in the hearth so very very far away, your light but that of the candle reflected in their eyes. [Well, there was no such thing in the Korcari Wilds for her but just believe in it. Imagine if you will, dear listener, and let her dark crooning voice lull you off into oblivion if you dare.]

Such tales as to chill and curdle the very blood in your veins. How many tales in Ferelden are told of my mother to have a wayward child behaving or to have those older still falling in line. We turn to Kirkwall now, perhaps that is why I think of where last she was sighted - the one the Dalish know by Asha'bellanar - and all those stories of stealing babes from their beds for her cooking pot that the Chasind will believe to this very day. Indulge me, if you will Inquisition, what tales frightened you as a child? Are there those that quicken your breath still? That send you hurrying along the darkened halls when a stray draft has the candle guttering out? Are those impossible fingers at your window or are they the branches of the overgrown tree? Is it the dreadful howling of a wolf or do the werewolves lope out of the forests once again?

[Morrigan has a talent for this sort of drama, leaning very close to her sending crystal to deliver it in her best 'oh how she dances under the moon' voice, all hushed and breathy when she must, drawing out each and every pause. The last pause before she ends the message is one of consideration. Has she not left out a rather sizeable group?]

Those who come from beyond the rifts, are there such tales you learned as children? Are there those you have learned of this world? Do they compare? I shall tell you a tale of mine own if trade is required.

Comments

[serannas]

What a coincidence. People like to say the Dalish steal babies to eat them too. What is it with thinking every being wrapped in mystery has a taste for babies? Blech.

[ But she digresses. ]

In my former clan, we had tales that I assume are universal. Don't stray too far from the path in the woods or a dark shadow will descend upon you and devour you. Things like that.

[arcaneadvisor]

I have encountered one place where there might have been a taste for babes. The altar was small enough, the blood was not that of an animal. Perhaps it speaks to their own dark desires.

[Hi Alan.]

Was it always a shadow? The Chasind have some tales of things in the wilds that might swallow a child but there are more bogs than paths there, they do not wander same as the Dalish.

[serannas]

I would say so, but if that's what they were doing, they're the exception, not the rule.

Mmm, mostly? But sometimes it would be changed to wolves or bears too, which is more of a practical warning since we were in the woods and all that.

[ And she was attacked by wolves once, so, y'know... accurate. ]

Other than stories meant to warn us about our surroundings, we really just have rhymes and songs meant to help us with living off the land. Rhymes about gathering herbs, a song about how to drive an aravel; things like that.

[limier]

Once upon a time, a wolf ran into the village and stole a child up into its jaws.

The parents cried and wailed, and set to searching the woods, axe in hand. At last they came upon it, and they asked: Wolf, wolf, why did you do such a thing? Our home is empty. Our hearts, they ache.

The wolf replied: Because I was hungry, and the Maker told me to eat.

[ A beat. ]

Not so grisly, perhaps; yet I have always found it cutting.

[arcaneadvisor]

[Morrigan listens intently, disappointed again that the sending crystal is so limited to only allow for speech for the tale has her sitting closer to it, a smile curling slow across her face.]

Is there a time when the Chantry does not glut itself? [Yet the wolf again, where did it come from at the start? Fereldans and the Dalish both with them lurking in the margins.]

More would do well to be reminded of such a tale, that their Maker has teeth to go with his great indifference. When and where did you come upon this tale? It could be Fen'harel by any other name.

[limier]

[ Is there a time?

She’ll skim past that particular comment. There's no politic response, and no point in attempting to change this particular mind. ]

Near thirty years ago, of a lay sister. I could not tell you more; the memory is thin, and she did not last long.

[ Too many such stories, too unhappy about her habits. The details have faded with the years. ]

I am certain she'd not had it of Val Royeaux — but if the story is Dalish, it is far older than the girl.

[alankazam]

Your mother?

[ He has, somehow, missed this not-so-terribly-difficult connection. Never mind the rest. ]

[arcaneadvisor]

Flemeth, Witch of the Wilds. Were no terrible tales told of her when you were but a lad?

[Honestly she wishes she could miss the connection.]

[alankazam]

[ Mother of Vengeance. And apparently, of Morrigan. Well that —

— That explains a lot, actually, but please forgive the moment of dumbfounded silence. ]

A few, [ He admits. There'd have been fewer still, he's certain, without Elene's influence. His own mother never held with such things; there were tales enough through the Chant. ] The Chasind still speak of you, too.

[ Of daughters with the eyes of wolves. ]

[arlathvhen]

I suppose the Dread Wolf would be a good--wait.

Your mother is Asha'bellanar? The Woman of Many Years? That's your mother?

[ What. ]

[arcaneadvisor]

That is the name that the Dalish gave to her, yes. There are many legends after all about who and what my mother is, same as there are for any Witch of the Wilds. [If indeed there was ever more than Flemeth and the daughter she moved on to, as Morrigan suspects, an unbroken line until her.]

[arlathvhen]

Very few Witches of the Wilds are mentioned as often as Asha'bellanar, particularly in the Dalish legends. I can't recall any others off the top of my head that received an elven title.

...Needless to say, her legends are not involved in the task of frightening children into proper behavior. That duty largely fell to the Dread Wolf.

And shemlen.

[ Except shemlen are more likely to actually show up and try to kill you, as Beleth's face can attest to. ]

[meds4sale]

Where I came from, there has always been a deep affection for such tales.

I have heard... many. [And may even have been a part of one or two]

Though I am not sure how they would compare to stories of this world.

[arcaneadvisor]

There should always be such a depth of feeling. [Perhaps not the expectation coming with them but hers is a different matter.]

A tale differs in the telling, perhaps there might be an understanding we might come to if you share. What you have told me so far has been nothing short of fascinating.

[meds4sale]

There are so many stories, it is difficult to know where to begin.

Though... there is a game a gathering of friends might play. Hyakumonogatri Kaidankai.

In one room, a hundred candles are lit and a mirror placed upon a table. In another, the storytellers gather to exchange tales. After each turn, the teller must enter the other room, blow out a candle and look into the mirror.

As the room dims, and more tales are told, it is said that beings not of the mortal plane may turn up as they have been made to feel welcome.

...It is... a rather enjoyable game.

[justice_is_blond]

Does Tranquility count as a nightmare story? If not, I have distant memories of one I think my mother told me.

[arcaneadvisor]

Tranquility does not count for this. That is another sort of story entirely, this is for tales with a different sort of truth.

[justice_is_blond]

Then let's try the other.

The dark is always watching, with eyes seen and unseen. Sometimes it takes the shape of predator, sharp teeth and claws ready to haul you away, but sometimes it's as simple as a scorpion lurking underneath a rock. If you don't watch your step, if you don't come in when called, it knows and waits.

And one day, it will strike. So heed your mother's call when night falls and don't linger too long staring into the dark. You never know what may be staring back.

[A beat.]

Really, it should come as no surprise that my accidental first casting was fire when I dropped the lantern and it went out. I'm not afraid of the dark anymore, but the barn had far too many dark corners.

[lyriumcarved]

Reality is more frightening than any tale could ever manage to be.

[It's his way of saying that for childhood tales? Nope, he's got nothing. Not that he doesn't know any tales at all, he's hung out with Varric of all people.]

[arcaneadvisor]

T'would depend on what one has seen and what reality one wishes.

[lyriumcarved]

Magic makes for the most terrifying tales, if you consider it.

[in_death_sacrifice]

My favorite tales involve the dragons... which I'm sure comes as no surprise. There are plenty of unsettling tales surrounding them, though, as I'm sure you're aware. Tales of dark rituals and unwilling human sacrifice... of innocents snatched away, and of warriors who ventured into shadowed, bone-filled caves never to return...

Actually, those scared me the most as a boy. Caves. Anything at all with a cave in it. It's not just dragons, but the tales about things lurking, and the enclosed confinement of it all... My father always told the best horrifying stories about such things.

[Being a Warden is his way of conquering that fear. It's somehow all too fitting that he's fated to most likely die underground.]

[arcaneadvisor]

You have a great deal of company throughout history, bloodsoaked as you say and some more recent than many would find comfort in.

[The primal fears, dark and entrapped, lost and alone. Such unknowns lurking in wait.]

What things like in wait, hungering, watching. What were your tales? You are from Orlais are you not? A world apart from my childhood home.

[motherfucking_ghost]

As a kid? You know, the usual stuff. Monsters under the bed or in the closet. Various folklore-y creatures that would come snatch bad kids away if they kept being little shits.

I dunno, sometimes I think the things that kids come up with themselves are scarier than the stories parents say.

What about just, like, regular creepy stories? Or are we just going with stories to make kids behave and not run off into the woods or the Slenderman will get them or the chupacabra will drink their blood if they aren't good, or whatever?

[arcaneadvisor]

You come from beyond a rift, how am I to know what folklore you have that might compare to our own? So many of us share dragons that I wonder how much else there is that might stretch between so many worlds.

[Details, Church, these details matter. Speaking of stretching…]

Tell me that which you desire to tell. There are no… [this pause isn't a Morrigan dramatic pause, this is a 'did I hear that correctly and am I going to say those words' pause] Slendermen? Or chupacabras in Thedas that I know of. I was told tales by my mother who told a certain style of tale, that does not require you to limit what you wish to share.