crystal.

[indocile]

FORM: Sending crystal!
SENDER: Margaux
RECIPIENT: Everyone
WHAT: An observation
WHEN: Current
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: Warnings TBA if necessary.

( the voice that comes through the crystals is young, light, high lilting orlesian; educated, but after the fact, someone whose speech is influenced by time spent around the upper-classes rather than someone who is identifiably one of them. the tone is thoughtful; )

There are an awful lot of Dalish, aren't there?

( like, any. )

Are they all one clan?

( gosh, they can probably hear this. )

Comments

[indocile]

I forged a nobleman's signature and borrowed - ( "without asking, because he'd say no, which is stealing" ) - his seal to persuade a merchant ship from Antiva to take a family as passengers.

( not much fun, really, but she's not sorry. only that it will make directly operating there's hard. )

Shems don't look close. Mostly they cannot tell one from another. If the shipping manifest hadn't turned up, for instance--

( she spreads her hands, invites conspiracy. elves gotta do. )

[mythalenaste]

That's amazing. [Like something out of one of Varric's better novels.] Did the family make it?

[indocile]

They've a contact - they will disappear there.

( she's very proud of herself. )

A little messy only, so I think a good time to be in the mountains, no?

[mythalenaste]

That deserves at least an extra cup of tea. And anything you'd ask of me, ever, except for the baby. I've a feeling if you call in a favor, it'll be worth it.

[indocile]

I know a lot of people, from traveling. It's good-- you always know the right someone, somewhere.

Then you can do lots of things. Like this!

[mythalenaste]

That's it exactly. So you know what it is I do for the Inquisition, I'm an arcane researcher. I also do a lot of practical work--spinning, knitting, camping. Magic and wool, basically. And writing, I guess. And a bit of sword work. Be with the Inquisition long enough and you'll have picked up a great many things.

[indocile]

I hope so. I'd like this, to know more things - I am a dancer, I know a little to fight. To pick pockets. I went to university a very little.

( her nose wrinkles - a complicated memory. )

Siuona said there's many mages to your - former - clan?

[mythalenaste]

[Pel would love to go to a university. She doubts she would be welcome.]

Former clan, yes. [Yep, she's a former Asharan. She is a very stoic person, but her brow smooths out almost preternaturally when she speaks of it.] I was very little when my magic manifested. Dalish can't have too many mages in one clan, so my parents gave me to Clan Ashara. My mother's cousin was there, so I had someone, at least. I was older when Beleth's brother and Ellana came into their magic. The Keeper decided to keep us all, I'm not sure why, but she got one with me and wound up with just the one in the end, so I suppose it doesn't matter much.

[indocile]

( margaux certainly wasn't. it was a brief and unpleasant experience marred by all that pel might imagine, and probably a few other things she hasn't thought of - )


Mages in the alienage always go to the Circles.

( a little frown; )

Always went to the Circles.

[mythalenaste]

One reason we keep our number in each clan pretty small. Mages lead clans--Keepers and their apprentices. We didn't want Templars coming in and taking them all. But. Turns out we've grown up as free mages in a world where suddenly all mages find themselves free and not all of them know what to do with it. It's been busy.

[indocile]

It worries me a little, that they - it is a very big world, outside of a tower. They haven't learned anything to live in it.

( whatever, the shem mages can fend for themselves, they've got plenty of people on their side, but her own people - she worries. are they warm enough? do they have food? who will beat up people who are rude to them. )

[mythalenaste]

[That flash of a smile again. She knows, mostly, what Margaux means by that.]

That's what they have us for. Not even as mages, but as regular folk living regular lives.

[indocile]

I hope it holds.

( maybe mages that know how to live in the world will better learn not to set it on fire? margaux thinks that seems reasonable. elf mages don't frighten her quite so much - or she wouldn't be sipping her tea so easy by pel - but magic is unsettling, still, and the idea of all of those piss ignorant circle mages flapping about the world is

a bit troubling, even besides her very real concern for the elves among them. )

All of it, you know. The end of the war now in Orlais is good, but maybe it's another thing, starting.

[mythalenaste]

[A little nod. She sips her tea.]

You had questions about the Dalish. I was Keeper's First, before I left the clan. There's hardly any question I can't answer.

[indocile]

No.

( it's not said in hostility - almost kindly. )

I did, but they are answered now.

( pel is ok, and she'll take sabine's word that merrill is too, but at this point she's inclined to think the rest of them can either make themselves useful or fuck off back to the woods, and there's no question she has left about the dalish that isn't 'are they going to make themselves useful'.

oh, they have to believe they're special, that one had said, because no one else does.

it is very difficult for her not to curl her lip, remembering, but she folds her hands around her teacup and makes herself smile, instead. she isn't angry with pel. )

[mythalenaste]

[Pel should be offended. Instead, she's sort of elated, realizing Margaux likes her for her company, not for the novelty of her savagery. She smiles.]

Good. It's all very simple anyway. Simple lives, lots of pretentiousness. I went to the alienage in Val Royeaux, I don't think it's fundamentally different. Except for the pretentiousness.

[indocile]

Mmmm.

I think -

( how to put it. )

I don't think you understand, ( finally, ) what it is, the Dalish, to us in the city.

( it's what she's noticed most; even pel, the dalish all speak to her like she's a shem. like she has a shem's notions. it's not an observation she'd make to any of the others, but she thinks perhaps this elf is -

she saw margaux listen to her, so maybe she will listen to margaux, too. )

But it is good to understand it isn't true.

[mythalenaste]

[Pel peers; yes, to her, all city-dwellers are city-dwellers, although alienages are very different from the rest of a city. Civilization versus wilderness. Her brow furrows.]

What's not true?

[indocile]

You aren't different.

( it's so soft. )

Not "the last true elves", not special. Not coming to save us.

( not coming to save us.

how many have died waiting? )

My mama used to say, one day all of us, we will all be Dalish. They will come and take us away to better lives. We will be free, like the Dalish.

( her laugh is unsteady - she had been so bright-eyed and so bold only moments ago, telling of her exploits, and now she is just a little girl holding a teacup too large for her hands. )

Your hero tells you he is tired and he doesn't like your tone. It's all right -

It is all right. We will save ourselves. I believe that.

( but for just a few moments, watching tattooed faces walk through skyhold -

for just a few moments, she'd thought they might not be alone when they do it. )

[mythalenaste]

[Pel is swept back in time to the moment Cyril's mother died. The closest thing she'd had to a real parent, breath rattling, eyes barely open, lips chapped and flaking. The breaths getting further and further apart until they simply stopped coming. Nine-year-old Pel had watched closely, somehow both in the moment and outside of it. If I watch, will I understand death, so I can stop being afraid?

She had been one of many they would bury that year, and Pel found her work load increasing as they had fewer hands to help. Margaux might have been born that year. Could Pel's nine-year-old self have imagined saving that little baby girl, when there was so much death around her already?

Softly:]

I'm sorry. We've failed you.

[indocile]

( margaux's shrug is elegant, eloquent; who's surprised? who hasn't failed city elves, that's a short fucking list. )

No.

( it feels like they did, but - this isn't the first time margaux has grappled with this subject, just the first time she's been confronted with how much it had mattered to her. )

We told ourselves stories to feel hope, but you are not stories. You are only strangers. When all of you talked to me, today...

( her lips press together for a moment; she shakes her head, takes the time to try and explain - to hope that pel is as willing to hear it as she seems. )

You don't talk to me like elf speaking to elf. You talk to me like I am a thing made by shems, like I've had that boot on my neck so long I only know what they say to me to know. It isn't what an elf is, to me.

[mythalenaste]

No.

[Pel remembers Sabine showing her the vhenadahl. She remembers the alienage in Val Royeaux, so many people packed into such a small space, and yet remembering who they are is such an important part of their culture.]

We...Dalish say that we are the last elvhen. But you are also the last elvhen. I...recently, I published a book. Through connections I had. And I went to Val Royeaux to sell it, and I was laughed out of the store. I went into another store to buy something, and they didn't want me in there at all because they didn't want to be seen selling to elves. As much as we Dalish say we're persecuted into the woods, it was really the first I'd ever come face-to-face with real racism. Then Sabine took me into the alienage in Val Royeaux. I'll never forget what it was like. It made me realize I knew nothing about what it is to be elven, as much of my life was spent trying to be the perfect elf. That's why I'm not crying over whether or not I'm in a clan. I love the Dalish life and culture--I love living in the wilderness, the hard work every day. But I'll never see it as defining what an elf is again.

[indocile]

I believe you.

( she does. it seems an important thing to establish before she continues; )

It can't be easy, thought, to believe new things. After a long times. I don't mean to say you don't mean what you say, only --

The things we take for granted. Like the elf who says to me the Dalish are not a project, he thinks here is a shem creature who wants to study this novelty.

( no one is perfect; no one overhauls every thought they have in a moment. pel seems like someone who'd value being told when her old thoughts seem to linger. but margaux steps with care and will not push again, only remember. )

[mythalenaste]

[That is an interesting point to make. She considers carefully before answering.]

That is probably what he thinks. It's the attitude we've been given from shems in the Inquisition. Some elves from the city have wanted to learn the old ways. Others have things well in hand without expectations from more privileged elves, thank you very much. And that's really what the Dalish are--more privileged elves, who are taught every day that we are the last hope for elvenkind, and if we are from especially liberal clans, we are taught that elves of the city will one day join us and learn how to be proper elves. But...probably a majority of clans would not accept my child, and by extension me, because my child's father is not Dalish. But elves like some I've met, like Sabine, are just as proud to be who they are as any Dalish. I guess I've stopped thinking the Dalish are potential saviors of the city elves, and thought that city elves are just as legitimate and precious a culture as the Dalish. It isn't a lack of pride, or being cowed by a more powerful force, that makes you submit. You don't really submit at all. You remember who you are. Maybe it's the Dalish who have forgotten."

[indocile]

Maybe.

( it's a great deal to process, is what it is - margaux mulls it over as she drinks her tea, thoughtful. trying to listen past the instinct of a hurt child to reject everything about the thing that has hurt her. )

It's only a gift as long as it's what you want, isn't it?

When I wanted different, I went to take it, the ways open to me. But my mama, my papa - I can go home. If I want the different thing, I don't have to be giving up what I knew before.

It isn't easy to be an elf anywhere. We take our joy, no?