Sending crystal announcement

[mythalenaste]

FORM: Sending Crystal
SENDER: Pel Ashara
RECIPIENT: Everyone
WHAT: Announcing the publication of her first book
WHEN: After Weisshaupt/Western Approach things calm down a bit
WHERE: Skyhold

[A somewhat monotone voice is heard over the crystals.]

It's Pel. Of Clan Ashara. I've written a book and it's published now. It's about Dalish culture. I will be selling it at my yarn shop until the new Divine is elected, at which point it will be banned because it's a book about elves written by an elf. So buy it while you can.

[What? She's not a hawker. She's not a beggar, either.

She'll hang around on the crystal in case anyone has questions.]

Comments

[mythalenaste]

It's...it's not a biography. There are definitely shit parts in it, and some of them are reasons I left, but it's not about me or my feelings. If you'd like the bits I left over, it's better to save your money and just ask me.

[arsebiscuit]

So more edited history.

[mythalenaste]

Not edited, it's just...it's not a book about me. It's not a book about...about Merrill, or any other number of individual elves. There's only so much that can go in a book.

[arsebiscuit]

So when's that book?

[mythalenaste]

When it doesn't hurt as much as it does now.

[arsebiscuit]

Right. Send a note when it's honest.

[mythalenaste]

[There's the sound of a book opening, pages being flipped.]

"To be a Keeper or apprentice is a painful sacrifice of self. It means the wellbeing of the self is secondary to that of someone else, anyone else, whatever the need. I have been Keeper's First from a very young age. When I was nine years old, a plague came to our clan. It was my task at that time to tend to the sick and dying, and aid in the burial of the dead. Duty among the Dalish does not know age, size, or strength. It is expected that a Keeper or apprentice will find the strength needed at the time they need it, with nothing given back."

That's why I left. If that's not a sensational enough exposée for you, go get your excitement from someone else. You don't have any business poking around for my personal story when you haven't even given me your name.

[arsebiscuit]

Sera. Of the Jennys. Life's hard all around, yeah? But most of us just try and make it less of a bitch, 'stead of writing books about the people that don't give a shit about us.

Ask your old clan if they want a book on them out there before you start shitting on the Divine, yeah? That name means something to most of us. And bet the Dalish burn it first.

[mythalenaste]

Look. If the Dalish hurt you, I'm sorry. But if all you're going to do is stand around and make up more reasons to hate me, fuck off. Nobody's making you buy the book.

[arsebiscuit]

You started it with the same old song and dance about the Divine. So you had to help people as a kid. Don't count as honest.

[mythalenaste]

That's what happens to books that make elves look like people, Sera. The Chantry bans them. It's not because of the Divine, it's just politics. I can imagine the Divine's hands are tied on the matter.

What counts as honest?

[arsebiscuit]

So that's the Chantry, not Divine. Say what you mean or don't say it.

And honest's that shows the good and bad. That's real people. Wrong kinda elves spit on. The whole lot. I could say it all 'bout city elves and their stupid trees.

Sorry for all the edits?

[mythalenaste]

Mythal'enaste. I see what you mean now. [She'd thought Sera was asking sarcastically before. Something about asking Pel if she'd written insults about city elves into her book. She flips through the book again and reads another passage, one that begins with the same sort of explanation she gave Sera about the duty of the Dalish as keepers of the lost lore, but continues after.]

"We keep the lost lore for the service of those elves who want to become part of the elven nation in exile. It is our most sacred calling. Elves who choose not to be part of the nation in exile fall outside our calling, and as such, have been doubly marginalized--by human society and elven both. The term flat-ear is considered only a mild insult by the Dalish, as if simply having a term for elves who are "not like us" is necessary and this is as good a term as any. Having that term, however, has worsened a grave rift between Dalish and non-Dalish elves. Despite all being equally pureblooded, the prevailing Dalish attitude is that non-Dalish elves are race traitors, having rejected that which is most sacred to the Dalish. They are seen as weak-willed, servile, and ignorant.

My conversations with elves who live in alienages, however, have shown there is little difference in day-to-day life between Dalish and non-Dalish elves. Both groups work hard, sacrifice much, and have little. The major difference, on a day-to-day level, seems to be permanence of residence, and even that can be considered questionable.

There is also the ignorant accusation that the blood of non-Dalish elves is less pure, despite the fact that all crossed-race children of elves are human. In terms of inherited traits, non-Dalish elves have no impurity that the Dalish lack. They are given no disadvantage by blood, only by circumstance."

Want me to go on?