Backdated - Harvestmere 4

[mythalenaste]

FORM: Sending Crystal
SENDER: Pel, Sina, and Herian
RECIPIENT: Everyone
WHAT: Quick "we're not dead" announcement
WHEN: Harvestmere 3
WHERE: Near Halamshiral
NOTES: Talk of violence, arson.

We're all right. Herian, Sina and I. I don't know who--what the Inquisition knows about what happened, but we were having negotiations with Clan Grymusseth and they took us. It was a trap all along.

We're back at the Inquisition camp being tended to. Their camp is on fire.

[OOC: Put the name(s) of the people you want your character to address (Sina, Herian, or Pel) in the subject line. Their disappearance lasted for hours after a negotiation began, so the local Inquisition camp began rescue efforts before they reappeared. If you want your character to have heard about this, feel free.]

Comments

[unsullies]

[ Pel, your roommate is proud that you left the camp on fire. ]

Do you know what their intentions were? [ beat ] I'm glad that you've all returned safely.

p much anyone who wants to answer

[rowancrowned]

What other damage was wrought, beyond burning all their worldly goods and food?

[dashing]

( There is a derisive exhalation of breath. )

Their intentions? Treachery and murder was more than apparent. Their base motivation were ideas of justice and vengeance rooted in their own delusions.

( —— so remember how she was pretty chill, last time they spoke... )

oh god negative chill

[dashing]

'Twas they that sparked the blaze and took up arms first. They made attack on Sina of Dahlsanor and Pel of Ashara for no reason other than their alliance with the Inquisition. Any damage wrought upon them was rightful damnation.

not here

[mythalenaste]

[She thinks about telling Herian she's no longer of Clan Ashara and hasn't been for a while, but nope. Now isn't the time either.]

also not here

[dashing]

( HER HAIR IS BECOMING BIGGER WITH HER RAGE )

[sunshinethroughgrey]

Oh Maker ... can you tell me what happened?

[circleprodigy]

I'm glad all are safe once more. Herian, I hope you're well.

What can possibly have justified such actions on their part?

[mythalenaste]

We made sure to kill some of them. [Pel sounds tired and hoarse.] One of them threatened my unborn child. There's something else, but the Inquisition's leaders should hear of it first. After.

[mythalenaste]

They wanted to make a show of--rebellion, I suppose. Against the Inquisition. And they wanted to question us.

hover for translations.

[dashing]

Briseadh agus brú ar an chnámha!

( Ah, Starkhaven alienage dialect. Such a beautiful sounding thing, except when it is spoke with the rage of ten or twelve hundred suns. The usual calmness that Herian keeps a hold on, even in the wake of such events as Fromage? Gone. )

Nothing, Warden. Theirs were the actions of base animals gone rabid.

[mythalenaste]

She's right. Some people don't need justification. Some people just have that much hate.

[dashing]

( silence, but in the name of posterity:

what the fuck )

[mythalenaste]

It's a long story and I'm in a lot of pain.

Basically...Dalish clan was acting out. Killed some people. Inquisition offered to negotiate for custody of the perpetrators. We were sent in, they captured us instead and we've escaped now.

[dashing]

( The Dalish abandon honour even at the cost of their own lives! is what she wants to say. It is a risk at the tip of her tongue, and she resists it, even in this fit of rage. Even now, honour comes before an entire loss of sense and reason, as Herian wrestles with memories, some fresh and others rendered so, old wounds reopened. )

Details must be issued to the Advisors before all others. Know that the tide turned ill, and be satisfied.


( — okay well she's still being a dick, which isn't really in line with the code either, but she really a glass of wine and a bubble bath or something )

[sunshinethroughgrey]

I'm not satisfied with innocent people getting hurt, especially one of them is my friend. I'm just worried, is all.

[sunshinethroughgrey]

Are you ... okay?

[She sighed, softly, not wanting her worry to be too obvious about the baby.]

[mythalenaste]

The baby's fine. Everything else will heal.

[rowancrowned]

Of course. I would say I look forward to the state of this world and the people therein after that sort of thinking was in play for a few hundred years, but it appears I need not wait.

[rowancrowned]

As you threatened their children. Well, winter will finish what you started.

[mythalenaste]

Leave her alone. She spilled her blood for the chance to make peace with this clan and they tortured her. Us. Leave her alone.

private ;

[rowancrowned]

A lesson in diplomacy, child. When you have a delicate situation your negotiators should not include one who thinks those she's supposed to be making peace with are animals. It tends to lead to violence.

[dashing]

( Her venom was readied to—

something. To fling back a sharp remark that would have been regrettable, but instead she is silent for a moment and her jaw clenches and unclenches in a loop until she's some grasp of her senses and her calm. When she speaks it is slow and even, and trying to ignore the mention of what was done to her while holding onto her calm all the more carefully out of some—respect for Pel. Care, perhaps, if one wished to speak so whimsically. Maker preserve her, that she might sustain another blow to the head and be able to cast this from her mind. )

This world is not your own, and yet you assume that you bear such gifts of wisdom and insight that we need clamber for them. You believe that your voice should be one heard when it comes to matters of elves and humans, is if you are entitled to teach us of matters that we have lived with, and you have witnessed for mere months, or read of in books.

You accused me of thinking myself a saviour to the elves, a human deigning to offer aid, but you are no better. I know myself for a half-breed, and I do not shy from that or its meaning. But you, you preach and condescend and act as if your world has any significance to us here, and as if any manner of noble is not rendered such by elevating themselves on the broken backs and labours of others. If you are an elven lord, you have profited from the casting down of others to gain your titles and place yourself above them.

( Her voice is still soft, and still even. ) You've no right to cast judgment upon me.

[mythalenaste]

[A sigh. She's angry and probably giving the wrong impression.] The fire was a distraction so we could escape. We only killed the ones who tried to kill us while we ran.

cw: reference to torture, threats, violence | action, sort of not here.

[dashing]

( given that Herian is sitting only a little further along a log from Pel, she hears that, and cants her head very slightly to the side, the faintest of smiles at her lips and nothing even slightly happy about it. She speaks very softly, barely audibly: )

I do not believe all the Dalish to be animals. Aye, in heat I labelled that Clan animals, for what they did—

( To make threats against Pel's child, to sabotage diplomacy, to—
Her hand almost strays to the ruin of her left ear, flesh carved from it, but she stops short with her fingertips resting against the inflamed skin of her jaw, still sticky with blood. No, instead she rests her hand against the wood of the log, slightly warmed from proximity to the fire. )

Animals though, are neither so calculating nor so cruel. You are... most gracious and generous with the defence you offered, Pel, especially towards a half-breed, and one so... volatile and damaging as I.

( Galling words to offer to any, let alone one of the Dalish, but Pel and Sina have won themselves some... slightly separate understanding. ) Better have you spare yourself the burden of both the shield, and the impending condescension.