therookery | crystal || OPEN.

FORM: sending crystal
SENDER: Val de Foncé
RECIPIENT: E V E R Y O N E
WHAT: researchers, meet your new boss. everyone else, give Val a high five. applications for Research Secretary now being collected.
WHEN: right now
WHERE: your ears

Research, Inquisition. [Hail and well met my dudes Val is still Orlesian. Note the accent.] If this word does not thrill you as it does me, we have very little to speak of. In fact we may not have spoken at all. In Val Royeaux, at the University, I and my friends are well known for all of the research that we have contributed to the vast stores of knowledge that are contained within our much beloved and greatly venerated University.

And I am pleased now to inform you, Inquisition, that I have been made Head of Research for this very organization that we all name as our own. A very wise choice. There are so very few that possess my credentials, experience, and charm. It is my belief that we, as a division, shall far surpass the work of all other divisions. For our purpose is not only superior: it is clearer, too.

[In a more serious tone, now:] To those lucky enough to be working on research projects for the Inquisition, I am requesting that all work you have amassed on each topic be put into the fires and burned. [And a pause before, more cheerfully:] No! Do not do that. What I mean is, we start anew, together. But you must submit your work to me for a metaphorical burning. I shall burn it with my critique. I require at the very least a written proposal for the work you are conducting. If a project has begun, let us visit it together.

I shall also require a secretary. Chief duties for this position will be, of course, reading project proposals. Please, make an introduction and submit your credentials to me in my office forthwith. You need not be a member of our research efforts, but you must have a keen interest in reading terrible handwriting.

[And generally doing all the work but that part remains unsaid.]

And! To those that might contest my selection, I shall quote the translation of a rustic proverb found engraved upon the wall of Orzammar, taught to me by my very dear Baroness Frédérique: may a demon eat your arse.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ah, yes. Anders. I count him as a friend of mine as well. I am sure he would not mind sharing the details of projects with me, if I were to ask.

[It's easy to be confident when all your life has been people saying YES to you. This is the confidence in which Val makes this broad assumption.]

I am glad to hear that Commander Rutherford has found a suitable assistant. I was considering putting forward a few names as recommendations. [Read: as jokes.] I hope your arrangement is a prosperous one. What sort of work will you be doing in this position?

That would be up to him.

[Anders isn't exactly making a secret of his work, but it's still his business and Hermione's not one to talk about someone else's business unless she sees good reason to.

As for what she'll be doing with Cullen, she's essentially making sure he eats and sleeps and doesn't kill himself with work. But that's probably not the most pragmatic way of putting it.]

I'm mostly ensuring that he manages to be organized and properly able to prioritize his work. I'm not exactly expecting prosperity, at least not in the financial sense, since I'm taking this on as more of a friend than as a proper job. That doesn't mean I hold this obligation any less important, though; if anything, that just makes it more so.

But there is, of course, more than one sort of prosperity, yes? The sort I meant is the prosperity of two minds working together. The briskness by which tasks can be accomplished. We do not do this work for a love of money, or surely we would have chosen other pursuits. Or so I presume, anyways, though I will not speak for you, and the country that you come from.

In any case. I am pleased that you will hold this work of ours as one of sacred import. For of course it is.

For what it's worth, I don't really think there are many opportunities for a rifter to be financially prosperous in Thedas, so anyone who comes here with a love of money may well find themselves sorely disappointed. Unless, of course, they opt to stray away from honest work.

But yes, whenever the Commander doesn't need me and I don't have other obligations, I'll be spending most of my time researching. It's what I've always done, both at Skyhold and before arriving there. I'm mostly still trying to catch up with a foreign world's entire history so I can better understand its present state, but otherwise my focus will be on the rifts, despite there not exactly being many books published on them as of yet.

I don't make a habit of asking rifters after the contents of their purses, or considering the ease of ventures they might undertake to make coin for themselves. I suppose you must be correct-- [and he actually doesn't care, money problems are for boring people] --but, then, can only conclude that it is certainly fortunate that the Inquisition exists. Or else where would you go?

[A sad thought.]

History will be very easy to catch up on, as you have a singular benefit: I am very knowledgeable of history, and have a great many books on this subject. You may, of course, borrow of them, if you promise to be extremely careful. This is not a promise that you should undertake lightly as my punishment will be severe.

But how clever you are to note that we are bereft of texts on these rifts. Little ink has been spilled over them in Orlais. The need to know of them is not there, but a need could be created. Perhaps as you research, we might collect your work into a paper!

[Hermione doesn't answer for some time, that first bit striking a chord with her. Where would the rifters go if not for the Inquisition? She knows that she likely would have been killed by demons and Red Templars just moments after tumbling out of a rift, but surely at least a few rifters would have been luckier than her, or better suited towards survival. How would they have ensured their safety? Most of Thedas outside the Inquisition seems just as likely to kill a rifter under the supposition that they must be demons or dangerous apostates as Muggles had been to burn witches at the stake centuries ago just because of some poorly presented religious dogma. It's... not a pretty thought.]

History, perhaps, but people have interpreted history differently since the beginning of time, depending upon what side of it they fall upon. From what I gather, you're a fairly well-to-do, educated Orlesian, which probably means you're a human as well - apologies if any of that is a false generalization. Your view of history, including the books you may have amassed, are likely to have a very different viewpoint than that of an elf who'd grown up in an alienage in a poorer town, with little to know proper schooling. It doesn't mean your view is entirely, unequivocally correct; simply that it has been buffered by your privilege.

Rifts can open up anywhere, including Orlais. It is necessary to know about them, even there. It's been suggested that I use my research to write a book of my own, but I don't know that anyone would actually read something written by a rifter - especially one who can also do magic - and take it seriously, instead of regarding it as some sort of sensationalism.

Well-- [hang on now] --yes, of course you are correct. The upper echelons of Orlais are invariably human, save for those of more scandalous and thrilling birth and background, of which there are more than you might think. But this means that I have the viewpoint of education. It is not my fault if some elf of an alienage never learned to read. I would see him taught to read in an instant, if he had the mind and the wits for such a skill. But he might not. Why would you ask history of a man who can neither read nor write?

[Let's think about this, please, is in Val's tone.]

He knows only what he has been told. This is subject to opinion--and, yes, so might a text or a history. But it is in a single place, in ink, and we can question its influences and opinions. We can research to oppose it. What can we use to oppose some penniless elf in an alianage but our own opinion? It does not do.

Which is why we must see your research published. You must put what you learn and what you know to parchment so that we can make sure it is read and discussed and learned in kind. With the right backing and the correct reviews, and of course a stunning forward, we can get it sold to all the correct people.

You misunderstand. I never meant that you would want the average city elf to be uneducated; only that they are, by the nature of the society that's formed around them. Or, at the very least, they're widely considered to be less educated. Even if they can barely read and write your language, many elves still retain at least a fragmented knowledge of the original Elven language, which is widely thought to be fairly difficult - particularly the Dalish, whom many consider to be uncivilized simply because their civilization differs greatly from that of humans'.

And speaking of the Dalish, they're widely considered to be the experts of Elven history, are they not? And yet that history is largely passed down in the oral tradition, which may be somewhat faultier than written text, but is still knowledge. A different cultural upbringing has little bearing on how much a person may know, only on what he or she might know.

But I'm no elf, and I'm certainly not going to speak for the elves when they have their own voices, so I apologize for going off on a tangent. I was only using them as an example.

[She doesn't much like the idea of there being "correct people" to sell her work to, but she knows what he's trying to say and doesn't want to get pedantic over it.]

If I come to any conclusions or even theories worth having with my research, I'll gladly write it down and then you can do as you will with it. I don't require any formal acknowledgement from it; I'd only ask that it's known that a rifter conducted said research.

crystal || OPEN.

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