genessia | One | Video + Action

Entry tags:

One | Video + Action

Video | Early Morning

Oh, how interesting! [Someone has been poking around with her new phone. And accidentally pressed too many buttons, turning on the video function without realizing. Have a very-too-close close-up of her face! Also, like someone read any of the pamphlets or anything. She doesn't even realize one has money in it.]

I guess this is how this works. You know, for all I've spent trying to fix the Eluvian I have back home, I never really gave much thought about how it would work. And there isn't anyone around I can ask either, not like here. Not that there could be, just it would be nice. Still, the surface is so pretty! How does it manage to reflect anything...

[She will finally lean away from the communicator, laughing awkwardly.]

Hah, oops. I'm rambling. I always ramble when I'm nervous. I don't mean to, it just happens. I'll just...stop talking now. Yes.

[She fumbles with the communicator, eventually dropping it and the fall turning it off.]

Action | Throughout the Day

[Why anyone thought it would be a good idea to let Merrill wander around any of the cities unaccompanied or without some string to find her way is anyone's guess. She did pick up a map and she can be found throughout Genessia and other cities staring at it; sometimes it's upside down, sometimes she's not even looking at the map side of it. Yeah.]

How odd. No matter where I go, it always says that I'm "right here". But I know I haven't seen that street a second time. Unless I have and the bushes are moving on me. Can they do that here?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Well, the streets have names, see. We're on Cherry Street. Right there," a gesture, this time with the bar that made up her left forearm, "is Main Street. So you look on the map and you find where those two intersect, and that's where you are. The names are on the map, and they're on the little signs at the intersections, see them? So when you're done wandering around gaping at everything, you can find where you are then. I'd mark where you live on the map, to make finding that easier, so you can find your way back at the end of the day."

Alleyana paused, and frowned slightly as something occurred to her, "You do have somewhere to live, right? You can't just pitch a tent in a city." Not that she seemed to be carrying one.

She stared at the bar for longer than was probably polite, and even opened her mouth to apologize for that. But she had also been scolded before for apologizing too much. Instead she dragged her sight to where Alleyana was pointing, finally noticing the street signs.

"Oh... So that's what those are for. Kirkwall would have been much easier to navigate with those," she said. At least there had been Varric and the ball of twine he gave her when she first arrived there. This place seemed bigger than Kirkwall though, and she didn't think a single ball of twine would be enough for her to find her way.

"And," she paused and scratched her head. "I think so? I woke up with a key, but I don't know where it goes."

Alleyana rubbed her forehead with her existing hand, muttering a quiet curse in something suspiciously like ancient elvhen under her breath in exasperation.

"--Fine," she added at a normal volume, dropping her hand, "you can stay with me, then. I have more than one room anyway, and I can't let one of the People sleep in the gutters. What's your name and what'd you do in your Clan? Maybe I can help you find a job." If she was a crafter, for example, surely there were opportunities for that sort of work.

"That's rather kind of you," she said. Really, she had been so graced to always find someone willing to take her in whenever she needed it. Lucky, some might say. "Oh, and I'm Merrill!"

But, for the first time, Merrill seemed to quiet. Thinking on her clan often did that. She was proud of her previous position, but if only everything hadn't gone so bad...

"And I am... Or should I say, was? Hmmm." She shrugged after a moment of thinking on that. "I was the First to Keeper Marethari."

After another moment of silence, she dared to ask, "So I take it you're not a city elf. Or weren't always one, I'd guess."

"That's what I do... take in strays," Alleyana sighed, thinking of the inner circle of the Inquisition. While Clan Lavellan was still alive and well, helping to run Wycome, the people she'd dealt with most during the fight against Corypheus had become something of a second Clan for her.

"So, a mage then," the scarred warrior considered a moment, "depending on the type of mage... I mean, if you're a Healer, I'm sure there's work. Otherwise, I'm doing mercenary work myself and I'm sure I could use some ranged firepower for some jobs."

Alleyana eyed Merrill for a moment at the guess. "You're right, I'm part of Clan Lavellan, of the northern Free Marches. Well, of Wycome now, but that came after my mission took me down South. I go by Alley." Then, it was time for her own question. The Inquisition had gone everywhere... "The symbols on my armor don't mean anything to you, do they?"

Not only did Merrill not seem to know she was the Inquisitor, which so many strangers did on sight, but she hadn't once mentioned the Inquisition at all. And while it was officially disbanded now...

Merrill blinked. "No?" she said, well, asking more than saying. "I don't think I've come across it at all. But I'm not originally from the Free Marches. We were only settled there a year before I left."

For good measure, she looked at the symbol again. But no. No, it was foreign to her.

"And I'm no healer. Not really. I prefer attacking things before they can cause damage."

After being thrown forward a year with Dorian that one time, the concept of time travel -- of being from different times -- wasn't a far-fetched one. "...When are you from?" Alley asked next, frowning slightly. "Had the mage-templar war started yet? Conclave been called? You're clearly not from much after that, or you'd know what this is."

She shook her head. "No, I'm pretty sure I've never heard about a Conclave. Whatever that is."

But she quieted again upon hearing about the war. That was such terrible business... And she still wasn't all too sure how she felt about having known the person who started it all. "And yes. The war had started, but only just."

He'd made it more volatile, but the war had been coming soon enough with the votes for the Circles rebelling...

"You're from years before me, then," Alley didn't find it as weird as she should have, thanks to having been stranded in time before. "In my time, the war has been over for two years now. It didn't last long. The mages allied with the Inquisition, which granted them freedom in exchange for assisting with... well, demons raining out of the sky. There was a lot happening. The Veil was ripped wide open for a while."

Alley had honestly been more inclined to go for the templars for help, originally, but seeing all the Redcliffe mages enslave themselves to a Magister... she couldn't let that stand!

"Oh." That was all she could offer up at the moment. Realistically, she knew the war couldn't go on forever. Not with the nature of the two groups involved. She just figured it might end with one side completely killing the other. That seemed to happen quite often with humans.

"It's good to know that everything ends peacefully. Mostly. That whole demons raining for the sky thing doesn't sound peaceful at all.

"I take that to mean you're with this... Inquisition business then. Or know of them. Or... Well, something with them."

"Nothing about it was peaceful," Alleyana sighed, "the templars... we couldn't get to them in time after saving the mages from Alexius. Their superiors force-fed them red lyrium. They became a force that had to be wiped out. Not every templar fell to that fate, of course, but the bulk of the order..."

She still regretted not being able to save both sides from their respective fates.

"Everyone knew of the Inquisition by the time it had saved the world a few times. But you're right, I was involved. By the time everything was over, the Inquisition was a force that could have invaded Ferelden and Orlais -- a lot of people were involved."

But, may as well come out and say it now...

"I'm the Inquisitor."

Having had befriended and followed around with the Champion of Kirkwall for years, her awe at Alleyana being the Inquisitor was muted compared to what it would have been had she not.

And the knowledge of red lyrium still being around in the world and willing used by certain people took most of her surprise. "Red lyrium! After what happened in Kirkwall, I thought that would never come up again. Since it was just the one idol. Unless someone broke apart the knight commander... That didn't happen, did it?"

Because the knight commander, despite all she did under the influence of red lyrium, didn't deserve to have that happen to her. For the most part.

"Corypheus didn't stay dead when Hawke killed him. It turns out he can jump into any near-by Wardens. He... so far as we know, he's who raised the red lyrium up out of the ground. He got hold of Fen'Harel's original, ancient foci and used it as a power source. He's also who ripped open the veil. The red templars became part of his army..."

Alley rubbed her forehead with her remaining hand. "Orlais was in a three-way civil war, the Divine was dead, a crazy cult of Tevinters rose up under Corypheus' banner... high dragons were everywhere, and one of the Titans woke up below the Deep Roads... there was a lot for us to handle. But we did."

"Corypheus? Corypheus..." Merrill repeated, trying to jog her memory. They defeated so many demons and other weird creatures, it was hard to keep track of at times. Plus with everything that went down in their last few days in Kirkwall..

"Oh! That Corypheus! He was strange." And she would know strange. "And I never knew demons could do that. That sounds more like an arch-demon, with the host jumping." She paused after that, almost jealous that Alleyana seemed to have met Fen'Harel. Even if he wasn't exactly a favored god or anything.

"Fen'Harel? The Fen'Harel?"

"Yes, the Fen'Harel," Alleyana was immediately on guard, wondering where this was going. Especially with a relative stranger among the Dalish... especially a First.

"If you try to scold me about him, I'm walking away and I'm not stopping."

"Oh, no. No, no," Merrill said as she waved her hands in front of her face. "Well, maybe. Not now, but maybe. It's just... Does that mean the rest of the Evanuris are alive as well?"

This was an interesting concept for her. She had learned and read that they all turned away from the Elvhen, so for even one such as Fen'Harel to be around and alive... She didn't entirely know how to feel about that.

"Not now, and not ever, I won't stand for it," Alleyana's warning was stern, and completely honest. "I'm at least twice your age, I know all the stories and probably more concerning 'the great betrayer', and I've dealt with the man himself. You're not my First, and I wouldn't tolerate it even if you were."

As for the other question, Alley paused. "Mythal is around, last I saw. The other Evanuris murdered her, and she fled into a human host. We know her as Asha'bellanar, Flemeth. Fen'Harel avenged her by sealing the rest away, among other reasons. He created the Veil. That's why his power, his orb, was so perfectly-tuned to rip into it when Corypheus got his claws on it."

Merrill took a step back from Alleyana at that reaction. Only city elves really disliked it when she said anything about the Dalish or the Evanuris. But she was almost certain that she wasn't wrong on Alleyana being a Dalish, at least at some point.

"Did you not have a good experience with your clan? Because I understand that, but the Ways themselves aren't bad," she said, quietly, tentatively. And you seem to know that, considering that does sound like something Fen'Harel would do."

"No, my clan and I get along fine," Alleyana shook her head, "but I barely know you, and I know the traditional views on Fen'Harel. I won't blame you for having those views... but I won't debate them. I traveled with him, fought beside him, to stop Corypheus and undo the damage wrought by his orb. Though he'd been weakened by a millennia of sleep, so much so that it was much like fighting along-side any other mage. He hid his identity until much later, for fear I'd turn him away out of Dalish superstition... though to his credit, he 'hid' behind the name he'd gone by before anyone called him Fen'Harel.

"I won't pretend there isn't some truth to the legends, but he's not a malicious beast hunting our kind. He intends to do something very stupid now, but I'm going to stop him. I'm going to save his arrogant ass from himself, even if I have to do it with a knife."

Merill stood and listened to Alleyana with a calmness most wouldn't expect of her. It was something she learned the hard way after many years and from being the reason her clan was dead. Alleyana was right; they didn't know each other. Unlike with Hawke, she didn't have a guarantee that she wouldn't be left to fend for herself, nor was a first meeting really for debating the finer points of the Evanuris or Elvhenan or anything about their culture.

Instead she let it slide this time; she could wait until they knew each other better to have a...more friendly discussion about all that they knew about their ancient, forgotten culture.

"I wasn't aware any of the Evanuris had other names. You'd think that's something that would have survived, well, survived after everything that happened. Perhaps one day we can discuss everything you learned from him?" she asked. Despite everything, she had been a First at one point and the desire to learn more was there.

"Perhaps," Alley agreed grudgingly. "...You have to understand why I'm wary. You're a First, and I let the Dread Wolf close enough to call a friend."

Of course, she had no way of knowing Merrill wasn't the most proper, traditional First.

"Did I say I am a First?" Merrill laughed almost nervously. "Because I meant I was a First. Can't be much of one from Kirkwall, you see."

While Alleyana had run around with Solas, Merrill actually made a pact with a demon and used blood magic. Somehow, she thought she was the worse of the two of them.

"You're clanless?" Now there was an irony, since of the two of them Merrill was the one still wearing vallaslin.

"Sort of?" she said, a little hesitant. "Technically. For almost ten years or so. But after the whole business with the Chantry, I've been helping other Dalish avoid the humans."

"A worthy goal, with all the wars going on," Alley conceded, though a First 'technically' being clanless was still suspect.

One | Video + Action

Action

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)