crystal;

[arcaneadvisor]

FORM: Sending crystal
SENDER: Morrigan
RECIPIENT: Open
WHAT: Spook podcast 3: Autumn edition
WHEN: Vaguely nowish
WHERE: Sundermount (Morrigan)
NOTES: Threadjack, share spooky stories etc just have fun 'tis the season (for us)

There was a tale mother told when I was a girl.

[Perhaps not unsurprising that her mother isn't so far from her mind. Not so easy to banish her just yet alas yet Morrigan sounds untroubled, a fire crackling behind her; Sundermount is eerily silent come evening at least where her humble abode has been for this long.]

A young woman of the court - she never said what court, let us say Highever for the sake of it - heard it so that there were none who might go into the wilds bordering the lands else they would not emerge with their reputation intact, a command laid down by a mysterious Tamlane. This young woman was not deterred by such a thing and so did she set out to the wilds where she did pick a wild rose; Tamlane revealed himself to her--

The young woman's father noticed, upon her return, that she was very much with child. You can imagine this was far from ideal for her and when she told him it was not even a man from his court… [Well times haven't moved on so far, or so Morrigan's quietly amused tone implies.] Away she went again to the wilds, to Tamlane.

When they met again, Tamlane told the young woman he had been taken by a witch, and no longer was he as he had been, instead possessed by a spirit though fearing he was to be offered up to the demon the witch had made her terrible pact with as she had to do every seven years. But she could save him! If she waited for the stroke of midnight on Satinalia when the witch would ride through alongside Tamlane, though she would have to pull him clean off his horse.

The witch, of course, would not give Tamlane lightly: she had magic far beyond that which the young woman had encountered, and in her grasp Tamlane's form was not his own. He twisted about her as a great terrible serpent to crush the breath from her lungs though as she thought she might gasp her last and then he was Tamlane again for a moment only to leap out of his skin as a wolf as monstrous as all those the huntsman told tale of in her father's hall, snarling with his jaws about her throat. An eagle shrieking, talons to blind her eyes. Stinging wasps and biting gnats. On and on it went as her arms struggled to hold him--

[Her voice is close to the crystal, so close, as if the world has melted away entirely and she's back once more in a simple hut with Flemeth who told this tale to a girl too small to hear it.]

Hold him she did. Marry him she did. The witch was not best pleased but knew she had been bested that day. I always thought this Tamlane such a trouble for but one man, I suspect mother saw herself somewhere else in the tale.

Comments

[chainlightning]

I suppose he must have been quite something, to go through all of that. Or maybe she didn't want to raise the child alone.

[arcaneadvisor]

Her father was a man of court with knights, it would have been no small thing to invent something convenient. How very often does that happen? Would you believe one night in the wilds worth all of that?

[chainlightning]

That would depend on the night.

[arcaneadvisor]

Come, you must have such tales for on your travels: who else ventures so deep and so far as the Dalish?

[Morrigan don't know about your Asher Hardie original dildo what you do in your free time is up to you girl.]

[coquettish_trees]

[ sigh~ ]

How terribly romantic.

[ lexie no ]

[arcaneadvisor]

Which part? The attempted suffocation? The biting? The stinging? His possession? All that for the sake of a man?

[This is why her favourite Orlesian is her favourite Orlesian and no one else...]

[coquettish_trees]

[ The mustering of the willpower necessary to endure anything and everything for the sake of what you have decided is important, no matter why or how or for whom or what that decision was come by, or how others might laud or denigrate you.

Said instead: ]

Just so!

[arcaneadvisor]

[Having torn back her own flesh, her taste for it is less than it might have been, aware of all the places she left some strip of herself behind years ago.]

You have a fondness for tales such as this? Are there others like it in Orlais? I hadn't the time to go collecting them when I was there.

[Too much to do with Celene, too much to do elsewhere, too much that seemed bloodless or alternatively bloodthirsty in entirely the wrong way--

Halamshiral, after all, she'd been there for that.]

[rathercommon]

Well, maybe it wasn't about finding some man or finding someone to marry. Maybe she fought to hold on 'cause it's the right thing to do, to free anyone in captivity.

[arcaneadvisor]

Yet there is naught mentioned of if Tamlane told the truth. 'tis convenient to blame the witch when one does not get what one desires out of the bargain. To suffer all that. Perhaps her own death might have come and then what? To have lost herself to the witch, him too? Would you say that horror is worth it?

[rathercommon]

I think it's always worthwhile to try to do what's right. And if he was lying - I mean, sure, he might have been lying. Yeah. And she might have died. But you've still got to try.

[arcaneadvisor]

And what might your trying get you? [Carefully not picturing the following: her mother's hand, not outstretched to haul Morrigan back after ten years and more, but greater than she was, voice ringing out in leather and raven's feathers, a hand curled about Kieran's shoulder instead.] The tale ends with your death, there is no more. The world moves on. You must have stories such as that too. Are you so very desperate to throw yourself upon the blade or rend yourself asunder? There are terrible tales a-plenty she had of such figures.

[ipseite]

How young we remain, hearing the stories we were told. I remember one of diamonds and toads that my nurse would tell to me, but I heard it in many forms over the years. Always it began an old widow had two daughters. The elder, whom she favoured, was much like her; bitter and shrewish, a most disagreeable creature, and unwarranted prideful. The younger was sweet of temper and beautiful, a gentle thing and humble besides—she bore marked resemblance to her departed papa, and so she was out of favour, and treated unkindly.

In the first telling, the young daughter went to the well, and there she saw a beautiful woman who filled her ears with rebellious talk, who coaxed her that she might find her vengeance in witchcraft and wickedness. And she, with her good heart, was steadfast and returned to her home with no more than the water she had gone for. For her virtues, she was rewarded by God, and from her lips that spoke only kindness and prayer fell diamonds, and pearls, and beautiful necklaces of gold. When she explained to her mother what had happened, the old widow insisted that her elder daughter go, too, that she might be as virtuous as her sister and thus double their rewards.

Alas, the elder daughter had not so good a heart, and when the beautiful woman spoke of all the fine things that wickedness might bring her—that she might leave her mother's wretched home, that she might bewitch herself a fine husband and be waited upon as she knew in her heart she must deserve to be—she had not her sister's resolve, either. But the witch's bargain was a test, and she had failed it; beauty gave way to ugliness, and she was not rewarded as her sister had been, but punished for her sin as awful, slimy creatures of the earth fell from her lips, and she fled home, a pitiful thing.

In the widow's rage, she put her younger daughter out and she wandered the woods, where she met a kindly lord traveling who brought her to his home and made her his wife. In time, the elder daughter was abandoned, too, but she fared less well; with only the toads that croaked from her throat for company, she died alone in the woods she had sought to escape.

[arcaneadvisor]

[And for a long moment silence to put faces to the characters, allowing it to play out without this accented voice. There's a point where she can find where the tale would have veered sharply off had it been told to her in her childhood but her childhood wasn't the same childhood others shared.

(Morrigan has shared her most tame bedtime tales, nightmares are not for everyone.)]

A tale where the witch is the wicked one, I imagine even the Chantry would approve of such a story where a girl is tested in such a manner by the corrupting nature of magic yet resists. Though there would be no reward such as that for her but that she might keep living. [Someone might argue there's magic in that, it makes for poor storytelling but for the best of them at telling it. An unremarkable thing but to live until you come so close to having not.] I take it we are to imagine she did not live long, this daughter abandoned in the woods with her toads?

[One has to know all the details to make a proper judgement of these things.]

[ipseite]

Just desserts, as any church might say. I heard another version, years later, on the road—that I told my own daughters.

( it has been hard, coming to a place where she can speak of them only wistfully; where she can speak of them at all. )

In another story, the witch appeared first to the younger daughter frail and filthy, much aged, far too weak to draw water from the well under her own power. The girl was kind, and gave her water, and rewarded for her kindness. When her sister was sent to be rewarded thus, the witch did not appear the same way; she was beautiful and stately, and the elder daughter scorned her when she asked for aid, and she was punished.

A witch might know your true heart; you may not judge for yourself another's true worth.

[arcaneadvisor]

Does your church have the taste for making up as many stories as the Chantry does?

[Another mother though? How rare, there aren't so many of them here though an abundance of mages, of templars, of fools, none of them should be near children.

(Many of them have.)]

My mother oftens appears as an old woman - she is after all, she is a woman of many years - but that particular sort. A touch mad. A nutty old bat. The one who might be caked in filth eating the mud about her without another to care for her, who leads you down the path to the answers you seek. Yet she was beautiful once. Beautiful enough for a man to kill another over and chase after her.

Your version is wiser though a witch knowing your true heart is a dangerous thing is it not? There is no telling what that witch might do with it one day.

[How young we remain, Petrana, how Morrigan will still recall a campfire, alone in the dark, the book in her lap with her mother's writing upon the page with her fate laid bare before her. There is always one witch that you see in the stories after all, you can never change her face once you've seen her.]

[utulien_aure]

What do you think your mother saw in the tale, if it would not be too rude to ask?

[arcaneadvisor]

My mother was the witch, certainly. My mother is the witch in all the stories and has been since there has been a Witch of the Wilds, a Mother of Vengeance, a woman of many years. She taught shapeshifting to me. She gives nothing for free for those who ask her aid.

[utulien_aure]

Then I am all the more curious as to the lesson she intended to impart. The maiden's perspective I can imagine well enough.

[Deciding you want an easily kidnapped dumbass as a mate is the sort of life decision he can relate to, more's the pity.]

But what about the tale holds interest for the witch?

[arcaneadvisor]

My mother valued two things above all others when raising me for those are what she made certain to be emphasised: that survival and power have meaning. They are there in that tale to find. Shapeshifting is what she taught to me and spirits are things wrapped up in the tales of old Flemeth.

[Odd, the things outsiders might see when looking through. When examining.]

There is a place that a witch has in the world.

[shri]

We have one, about a Fort. My father told me of it.

[ She's writing, by the scratching sound of the quill behind her voice, that after a moment, stops. ]

A young prince went to build what is now called Bhangarh Fort. But the land he wished to use belonged to a priest. Being a fearing and faithful son, he petitioned the priest to be allowed to build his Fort, and the priest agreed, on the grounds that no building ever grow so tall as to cast a shadow on his house. The Prince agreed. The Fortress was built, tall and powerful around the house, but never did the house fall within the shadow of any building. So they had an accord, but it was not to last.

[ A little pause for the purpose of storytelling. Then she carries on. ]

As things go, the Prince met a Princess, and she was beautiful. Her skin like honey, her hair like earth. Truly, Goddess Lakshmi was within her face. He brought her back for them to be married, and in her honour, built her a tall part of the palace all her own. I suppose you can guess who that angered. Little did the Prince know what wickedness the Priest had in his heart. He brewed a potion, a love potion, to give to the Princess as she walked along the building site of her new quarters. To steal away the Princesses love and punish the Prince.

When he gave her the phial, he attempted to deceive her to its purpose but she did not trust him. Enraged and disgusted, she threw the phial away, smashing it on a rock. Unfortunately, she threw it with such force, the rock moved, sending more tumbling. The landslide crushed the Priest. With his dying breathe, he cursed them all. Saying that no building would ever cast a shadow over his house, and they, and she especially, would pay for their vanity.

[ She lets the ominous words hang, carrying with weight even if it is - a might ridiculous. But all stories of this nature usually were. ]

Not a week later, a great invader came. The Fortress was surrounded, only half completed as it was, it stood no chance. They seized the land, and the people within it, and they spared no prisoners. The city, including the Princess in all her beauty, was slaughtered. No one survived.

From that night onwards, it is said that the Priest and the Princess are trapped by its walls, his laughter and her screaming can he heard, trapped and wailing within it. Others claim they see her wandering the walls, asking passers-by when her beautiful rooms will be finished. The legend tells it, only when the Princess is born again and returns to the Fortress, will the curse be lifted. Until then, no one will go there.

[arcaneadvisor]

[A second one with a tale wrapped up with faith in some way, certain lessons stitched in, bound to them. That the faith is to be obeyed. Not to be trifled with or slighted in some way.]

There is oft a woman who might find herself caught between two men, especially if she is a great beauty. [Flemeth had once been a woman beautiful enough to have two men who loved her deeply, death and dishonour and broken promises between them.

Vengeance. Reckoning.

Morrigan is glad to be alone out by Sundermount where only Kieran might chance past on his way for something to eat or drink to ask why the hairs on her arms are stood on end.]

You do not believe in fate and chance where you are from? Of what might be called out to that might shake the very heavens to achieve that which one wishes even from the beyond?

[shri]

[ She laughs, and oh - ]

We do and we don't. It is a sight more complicated than that. But we believe that certain actions are enough to shake heaven from the sky for but a single moment that can extend a lifetime. That even man may transcend his limitations to change the world. They just tend not to be sad tales, but tales of triumph.

[ And isn't that a dangerous thing in the time of Corypheus. ]

[limier]

Is Tamlane not a witch himself of the story?

[ must be harvestmere again. ]

[arcaneadvisor]

They way mother told it? Certainly not. A man is not a witch. [A witch was specific. Specifically a woman, a woman who sounded much like Flemeth herself.] She never told me of Tamlane and the spirit, how surprising she found that part unimportant. You have heard it another way?