arcaneadvisor: (Default)
arcaneadvisor ([personal profile] arcaneadvisor) wrote in [community profile] therookery2017-04-10 06:07 pm

crystal

FORM: Sending crystal
SENDER: Morrigan
RECIPIENT: Everyone
WHAT: Give her your spooky stories, also Flemeth/Asha'bellanar since people are off to Kirkwall
WHEN: Whenever you hear it what is time
WHERE: Skyhold (Morrigan's there, maybe you're elsewhere, welcome to the spoop podcast)
NOTES: Gonna just say oblig horror warnings for the content, if your thread contains anything you feel the need to warn for please stick it in the subject line and I'll update here.


The long nights and short days have passed us, Inquisition, yet I believe a certain appetite remains for some tales no matter the season. Those tales a mother or father told you, an older sibling, some elder grown grey and wise, while you were tucked up in your bed at night with the fire crackling in the hearth so very very far away, your light but that of the candle reflected in their eyes. [Well, there was no such thing in the Korcari Wilds for her but just believe in it. Imagine if you will, dear listener, and let her dark crooning voice lull you off into oblivion if you dare.]

Such tales as to chill and curdle the very blood in your veins. How many tales in Ferelden are told of my mother to have a wayward child behaving or to have those older still falling in line. We turn to Kirkwall now, perhaps that is why I think of where last she was sighted - the one the Dalish know by Asha'bellanar - and all those stories of stealing babes from their beds for her cooking pot that the Chasind will believe to this very day. Indulge me, if you will Inquisition, what tales frightened you as a child? Are there those that quicken your breath still? That send you hurrying along the darkened halls when a stray draft has the candle guttering out? Are those impossible fingers at your window or are they the branches of the overgrown tree? Is it the dreadful howling of a wolf or do the werewolves lope out of the forests once again?

[Morrigan has a talent for this sort of drama, leaning very close to her sending crystal to deliver it in her best 'oh how she dances under the moon' voice, all hushed and breathy when she must, drawing out each and every pause. The last pause before she ends the message is one of consideration. Has she not left out a rather sizeable group?]

Those who come from beyond the rifts, are there such tales you learned as children? Are there those you have learned of this world? Do they compare? I shall tell you a tale of mine own if trade is required.
limier: ([ dark: reply ])

[personal profile] limier 2017-04-13 07:18 am (UTC)(link)
[ Were they speaking alone, perhaps she'd speak more freely. As it stands, theirs are not the only ears listening. ]

Often. To take vows is to forsake some portion of one's own nature. A path made difficult, when one knows their own so clearly.

[ Wolf or woman. The Chantry asks a certain degree of conformity, of order in its ranks. It makes the wheels turn smoothly — but it's a sacrifice, all the same. ]

Likely she was shuffled to some abbey distant. Many are happier of it. I believe that you mentioned a trade?
limier: ([ yellow: comment ])

[personal profile] limier 2017-04-15 10:06 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Probably the mutual Orlesian writer will need to stop crying first. ]

No life is wholly our own. We belong to the world — to family, trade, the necessity of survival. It is upon us to choose which we serve.

[ It chafes. Her neck is worn raw with the lead. But to live a life only for oneself, how lonely must that be? ]

A poor omen, I suppose, if none returned. [ This isn't a tale she'd have been like to hear otherwise; her voice betrays clear interest. ] How common candles are to these rituals. One sees them everywhere, even when sight is no object.

[ Absolutely unstated: In the Chant, too. ]

For our benefit, do you think, or for something beyond?
limier: ([ dressy: reluctant ])

[personal profile] limier 2017-04-22 07:58 pm (UTC)(link)
[ A puff of air, not quite amused, not quite — not. ]

And they are not the only ones with teeth.

[ Wren considers, ]

Fire as the guide; neither solid nor Fade. It rings with a certain truth, both have a way of burning the unwary.

Were there a people with no stories, I suppose we should never know them. They might vanish as cleanly as your Wilders.
limier: ([ white - reflect ])

[personal profile] limier 2017-05-02 07:44 am (UTC)(link)
Caution, or you shall ruin both our reputations.

Might we consider such a thing an honest memory? Spirits are such singular creatures; do they not lose the nuance and depth of a moment?

[ It's a genuine question. Her experience of them has been rather singular itself. ]
limier: ([ yellow: wary ])

six million years later

[personal profile] limier 2017-05-24 03:15 am (UTC)(link)
An absent reputation is a rare gift. One might make anything of it. Were we to further that understanding,

[ of spirits. because cole's still hanging around, and holy fuck she hates cole and would like dearly to own every shred of advantage in avoiding the thing, ]

What would you have more widely-known?
limier: ([ bright purple: you're shitting me ])

[personal profile] limier 2017-05-25 08:40 am (UTC)(link)
Do not we all? Tears in the Veil have become an accepted travel hazard.

[ like a road prone to flooding, or an opportunist's bridge toll. like it or not (go on and guess which camp she's in) they need to understand what they're up against.

... and it's easier than explaining that she lost her shit at a ghost.
]

Should no knowledge be limited?
limier: ([ blueblack: regard ])

[personal profile] limier 2017-05-29 08:59 am (UTC)(link)
Peculiar, is it not? That only people have, thus far.

[ perhaps. perhaps not. a connection to the fade seems it need be involved. still, there's the dwarf, isn't there? how in fuck does that work? and all these strange and useless items —

why no fade bunnies? where are the fade bunnies. step it the fuck up, thedas.
]

Conflict is as much a piece of our nature as magic. I'd not see the world rid of either.

[ there's always something worth striving against, some betterment worth fighting for. or perhaps she only needs to believe there is. who would she be if there weren't? (what would she do, to find that unhappiness still there?) ]

But neither would I hand my secrets to all comers. Judgment, discretion — these must accompany understanding, no? Else we are as children with fire.
limier: ([ white - reflect ])

[personal profile] limier 2017-06-01 09:19 am (UTC)(link)
[ mess, maker. that's one way to put it. would more understanding have helped a thing, there? seeing it differently, would that have done a damn bit of good?

(if someone had acted sooner. if other measures had been taken. if everyone stopped slaughtering each other as categories, and began again as people,)

morrigan is fascinating. morrigan makes sense. morrigan cannot be trusted. the woman played the imperial court, and she isn't without a stake in all this — no matter how she'd hold herself above it all. that awareness doesn't change that she knows exactly which buttons to push. they've never exactly been a mystery, but neither is wren used to anyone bothering.

the silence lingers a touch longer than she'd care to allow. when she begins again:
]

That may be a lost cause.

[ right now she knows exactly one author, and the prospects aren't sunny. ]

I cannot guess how much research has been lost with the rebellion, to say nothing of that which never made it to the page. If there is any hope I have of it, of your ruins — it is that some chances come again. Some tales do.
limier: ([ frazzled - reply ])

[personal profile] limier 2017-06-07 10:03 am (UTC)(link)
Kinloch Hold, [ that fucking backwater. no offense inessa, you're great, ] Was not the White Spire.

[ a slight puff of air. not patriotism, not quite — but she still takes a measure of pride in the people she'd served. ]

I thank you for the conversation, Madame. It has intrigued.
Edited 2017-06-07 10:03 (UTC)