sending crystal

[arcaneadvisor]

FORM: Crystal
SENDER: Morrigan
RECIPIENT: All
WHAT: Hey s'up we found Mythal
WHEN: This month at some point (I don't want to leave out the kidnapped folks)
WHERE: Kirkwall; Morrigan is out by Sundermount if you feel like pestering her in person
NOTES: Report linking all important previous parts

As some of you are aware, I have spent some considerable time and effort in search of my mother, her whereabouts, what she might be doing. There are those of you who have joined me in this.

My mother has been found. And I have discovered the truth of the legends at long last: no demon, no spirit, but Mythal.

[Not easily said, the most uncomfortable Morrigan had ever sounded over the sending crystal and the pause is as much for her to collect herself as it is for the news to sink in.]

All evidence on my search - the report sits with Elven Artifacts have you a wish to read it - pointed to something old. And she has confirmed it. Myself and those with me when we found her at the Altar of Mythal had no reason to doubt her.

Have you questions, I will answer them. Mind your tongues. She took my son to bring me to her.

Comments

private ∞

[rowancrowned]

The Dalish deserve the truth. The Chantry will be glad for this. They would get further if they were not so disorganized.

[arcaneadvisor]

The Dalish might not listen; how many of Clan Ashara's young folk have come here never to go back? That alone would be cautionary tale enough, to have it told from the daughter of Asha'bellanar that she and Mythal are but one and the same?

[What game are you playing here old man?]

[rowancrowned]

[ what game has he played since the moment he arrived here? ]

There comes a point where you must decide if you are wishing for the past because you wish for the comforts of that past, or because you wish that you too were a ghost, dancing in the ruins.

[arcaneadvisor]

[Fortunately for both of them, she hasn't the time. Her mother saw fit for that when she decided to announce a parentage both parties agreed years ago never to speak of in the light of day. Certainly not to the most involved party.]

There were no comforts there, I am old enough to know that now. I swore that I would not become her, and any time I have ever become wistful for the Wilds, I have questioned why: I cannot trust it, for there is deceit that lives in the heart, that grows fat and gluttonous as the maggot feasting upon the corpse before it erupts as the fly.

[And there were always those. Corpses.

They've spoken of her bedtime stories. And of Flemeth's tale. Now Mythal's woven in and about it.]

What isn't a ruin now?

[What hasn't she sullied by touching it?]

[rowancrowned]

The living.

[ what do elves value, above all else and without fault? what has thranduil told solas the elven are, time after time? they are speaking at cross purposes, thranduil knows that, and so thranduil catches himself and stops. ]

How is Kieran?

[arcaneadvisor]

Not all of us shall live forever, and I raised Kieran knowing he had a destiny, but knowing nothing. So I ask again: what isn't a ruin?

[That is the heart of it, beating and terrible, and she is mired in it as much as any of the Templars who chased her into the Wilds to tangle and drown in the muck.

Her sigh though-- her sigh is heavier than her bones.]

Upset. He's not so clever at hiding it as he thinks. Hurt and full of questions at turns, sullen silences I remember all too well. Still talking to me. But...he sleeps easily. No nightmares. Nothing is amiss with him.

[rowancrowned]

How omnious for him, knowing of the weight on his shoulders and yet not knowing the shape of it.

[ curious, though: ] I suppose he has been relieved of it?

[ getting whatever that glowing blue thing sucked out of him was looked as though he had been thoroughly de-destined, mythal taking whatever extraordinary future keiran might have had for herself. the boy had only been a vessel, a means of transportation, and now he is only morrigan's son.

but morrigan's son is not only something. ]

Is he being punished, or might my wife and I visit?

[arcaneadvisor]

[Alistair watched him from afar before he spoke even to me of him. As if he might have tentacles. Too many eyes. Some monstrous thing instead of a boy. Morrigan says none of that because she and Alistair were young, they hated one another, and it was--

Well no one but them (and Kieran, when he's old enough to appreciate it and now the weight of that secret) needs to know.]

How much do any of us know that do not live so many years as you to see shapes and patterns unfold time and again? [Sharp again, the hackles up. This is her son.

Carefully, she does not answer the question, or perhaps she does in that, it's up to him to decide as she weighs what she's comfortable trusting.]

Why would he be being punished?

[rowancrowned]

You see. You understand, [ why he was drawn to her, why he keeps trying to leave her crumbs so that she can draw the conclusions he has promised not to share with anyone else.

she is clever. she is bright. she is flemeth-or-mythal's daughter, and she has a birthright beyond being kieran's mother.

(gwenaelle loves her. this, too, helps.) ]

What would you have done, if he had told you a month ago that his grandmother was speaking to him in his dreams?

[arcaneadvisor]

I have worked at this, I have tried. When one studies what I have, a hunger comes. For more. For so much more. The skin was pulled back already with some of it, I was not content to let it lie and see all wonder gone. [Why tell the same story even when it all falls down about your ears? Will it fill your belly? Will it save you?

Better the painful truth that might bring some use with it same as lancing the wound before it festers.

(But she is being guarded. There is Wren. Singular trustworthy Templar who would put a blade in Gwenaëlle's hand, teach her to wield it.)]

I would have locked my doors and moved him to the Gallows where she'd have had less chance of getting to him; 'tis a longer walk, someone would have caught sight of him. [The speaking she can't dispute, there are things outwith her control but that's finished with, her mother got what she wanted after all. He doesn't need that confirmed.]

[rowancrowned]

Yet you manage not to be mired in what-once-was, Morrigan. [ an important distinction, even from solas. ]

[ he comes to her. if he were different, if he were a man, he would take her hand, touch her. but he is neither of those things. instead, he says: ]

What she took from him, what will it allow her to do?

[ mythal had vallaslin; fen'harel had none. here is the cornerstone on which thranduil lays his trust. ]

[arcaneadvisor]

Nostalgia is a dangerous thing, and when the heart looks back with any intent you must distrust it. I have left pieces of myself behind. I know that there is only forward. Only to not forget or destroy what was but to do something greater with it. Preserve. There is a treachery that runs deep as some seam of ore in the heart.

[If she curled herself into the past she might be as a beast that never woke itself after winter.

Wanting the past back, miring yourself in it is the height of fuckwittery.]

I haven't the faintest idea.

[Mmm she could speculate. She won't. Not now. Entirely inscrutable in her tone.]