[Sina has only just left the infirmary, and as such is a little hoarse when she answers.] Yes, lethallan, what is it? [She doesn't sound suspicious. The wave of collective confusion hasn't reached her yet.]
Sina, I need to ask you something and I need you to tell me the truth because we're friends and I love you. [Araceli Bonaventura y Castell is not above using this sort of tactic to get her own way when she must and her regret lately is how often she's had to do it. But this is how life is, life is far from ideal.] You love wild places. You grew up in them. You have those as I have the sea; the gardens of Skyhold that was where I always knew where to find you. And I know you've spent time in Kirkwall's garden.
Which is why I'm asking you: were you involved in whatever has turned it from what it was to what it is now?
[There isn't anger or suspicion, not yet, Araceli's good enough to hide those things because she's been taught the right sort of lessons as a girl but it's better that it's over a sending crystal, at least for now. Worry births an ugly sort of anger after all, and Araceli has worry enough to lend a cup of it to everyone at present.]
[If Araceli could see Sina's face, it would match her tone perfectly: bewildered, concerned, and surprised she has to confirm that she'll tell the truth.] Of course, [she says, furrowing her brow, and lets her friend ask.]
Oh. Yes, I did that. [Confessed easily and without hesitation.]
[Well. That's that then, Araceli knows and she has to decide what she's going to do with that information as she swallows the curse that wants to spring out of her throat, the way her free hand curls itself into a fist so tight her nails dig into her palm.
Sina can't see her, that's good, she can do whatever else she wants on the other end and still sound level. Calm and collected.]
[Sina can hear the tension in Araceli's voice. But they so recently talked about tradition, about what made them, and she's confident her friend will understand.]
'How' I can't reveal, lethallan, because it's a secret of the People. I've been trained in these magics since mine manifested, and their purpose is to help and protect the clan. Which... is the 'why'. The garden was sick. It yielded almost nothing, and what grew died so quickly. I purged it of its illness and made it so that things will always grow there now, perhaps even in the winter. What's picked will come back more rapidly than normal. The Inquisition will never want for important herbs or food.
[A pause, in which a small smile can be heard, if not seen:] I... may have overdone it a little. I'm not a Keeper, after all, just a First.
[Sometimes it frustrates her. Being a friend and sharing as openly as she does of her own culture but still being locked out.]
Sina-- That isn't an answer to the why. Right now, the position of the Inquisition in Kirkwall is a precarious one where we are being watched all the time and judged just as often. It might not feel like it but we are. This puts us in a very awkward position. Did you consult with anyone in a leadership position about it? Did you speak with the people of Kirkwall?
[Hi Sina did you want to become intimately aware of just how worried Araceli actually is on a daily basis and the level of worry she tries to channel into being productive and getting some of results? Because you are now? Let her take a breath. Let her attempt to explain why she's worried.
And it's laughable to use 'if' because it's Kirkwall after all and the Inquisition is hilarious at rumour management and information leaks so she's going to use 'when' instead, sorry about that.]
What do you think will happen when people find out that a Dalish elf mage was involved in something involving this level of magic when an apostate destroyed the Kirkwall Chantry setting into motion the Mage-Templar war? [That's a cold way to put it for as careful as she is with her tone, how gentle she is with it because she's worried. Sina isn't stupid or an innocent naive little girl but there are things that the two of them are familiar with that the other one isn't. Damage control, reputations, how rumours spread like flux on a ship? Araceli's uncomfortably familiar with that side of life.] What if you had been hurt, Sina? The Veil is thin here, we've had to close rifts here - what if something had happened?
[What if you'd died? What if another incident like the one in Skyhold happened again? What if that happened and you died?]
This is a position I know well, Araceli. [Sina doesn't elaborate, but her tone is beginning to grow slightly harder. Being Dalish in a human civilization is nothing but distrust.]
I am in charge of the herb gardens. This one wasn't growing, so I made it grow. It was sick. I healed it. It will always provide for the people of Kirkwall. It is a gift.
[She's beginning to sound tired, her voice shaking now with the twin effort to not lose her temper.]
What will people think? Those who see it as an act of aggression rather than the goodwill it was are fools and looking for reasons to continue hating us, killing us. I have to live among them, I've given them the best I could, is there nothing I can do that will prove I am only here to get better and not to --eat any babies? It's what I would have done for my own people. I have done it for my own people, alongside my Keeper.
[She pauses to take a breath, and pointedly doesn't address Araceli's last question. She thought about it, of course. She never stops thinking about it.]
When there are only humans, Sina, we are just as capable of doing what humans do to others here to ourselves. [It's an old hurt and Araceli sounds as young as she is when she says it because her beliefs are more like the Dalish here, but parts of her life are closer to those of the city elves; people looking at her because she doesn't belong, why are you here in this place, know your place girl and stay in it. Once it gets under your skin, it doesn't go away.
People believe a lot of things about elven women too that stings in a way that aches. Everyone thinks a Castilean women is promiscuous if she chooses to live her life how she chooses.]
People who are angry, or resentful, or frightened don't think. Or if they do, they don't think well. They have a lot of that to go about here after everything that has happened and no matter what the intention was behind it that we might have enough to share, this is a new thing that they don't understand. A thing some will say has been thrust upon them like the Inquisition after what happened here that must be a fresh wound to them. I am not asking you to take on the burden of representing all elves or even all Dalish but how many of them will see Sina Dahlasanor that I have called friend who loves nature and offers a gift? [Is this a last ditch attempt? Is she going to come off as just a shem talking dows? She tries, softens her voice, sounding incredibly tired and not like the person in the water a few days ago, smiling and at peace.] When they look at me, I know they see rifter first when I am not that, the same as there were always people at home who saw nothing more than a pirate's get, a whore's get.
I am saying this because I love you and I-- and I want all this to work so people can see past their petty terrible prejudices.
[But sprouting a magical forest overnight in a city isn't the way to go about it.]
[The answer seems obvious, and Sina has no problem reaching that conclusion.]
My clan was massacred because the shem'len nearby thought we would hurt them. My clansister Sedi came to us from one that had been destroyed almost entirely, by a willfully poisoned river. They are so willing to chase us out, kill us, build over lands we claim and then blame us for reacting with anger and caution--
[She's getting carried away, and she stops herself with a sigh.]
I will sit on the steps and explain it myself, Araceli. I'm not afraid to be killed. But I won't relent to humans who are upset by remembering we exist, and if there's one thing I can do while I'm still bound to this place, it's help them understand that the site is just as holy as it ever was.
Understanding cannot be forced. You can sit the same people down to teach them the same lessons but what they take from it is always going to be different because no two people have lived the same life. How many mages agree on things? [Araceli could say 'how many of clan Ashara actually call themselves clan Ashara' right now but that would be a low blow. Sina does know that Araceli cast her lot there in wanting better and more for mages, that she wants them as free as she is so she can safely toss that one out to see where it lands before she decides to let it be personal. For her.]
I can't know the hurts you and your people have suffered. But I can know what mine have. When people say make a choice: go hungry or go without a roof over your head where there aren't streets. When they shouldn't have an education. When they shouldn't be allowed to go to certain places because they're too low to belong in them. [Sometimes? Sometimes there really are things about elves in the alienage that kick her in the teeth. It's too like the building she lived in, the part of her home she lived in.] Maybe it was still holy to some people. But sometimes a thing is done to you and it's wrong. You're hurt and it's hard to see anything but the fact that it wasn't what it was before, that you aren't what you were before, that things can't go back to how they were. And you realise-- [her heart is racing and she feels a little sick, a little dizzy, swallows it down and rubs over the thumb she broke in a failed attempt but it was a lesson] that in itself, that can be okay. Maybe you can still live with that. You can come to terms with that.
[Kirkwall isn't what she's talking about, not entirely. It's what happened to her in Craintellier that she doesn't talk about because why would she hurt her loved ones with that? It's the fear of not being who she was before she came through the rift that Martel helped her make her peace with.]
It took me a long time to be at peace with my hand with someone who took me by it and helped but he knew me and I him. After I was hurt-- there are things I can't let people do to me. No matter the intention. Because I can't. Because I remember what happened to me and I could do nothing. I can't stop you from whatever you want to do, that isn't my place but just...be careful.
[Araceli personally can't stop her, that doesn't mean she won't go figure out who she can speak to if she's worried.]
I know it can't. [Sina is starting to sound desperate.] Do you think I don't know that? It went too far, and I know this, but I refuse to let it be seen as aggression if there's anything I can do to stop that.
[She sighs.]
All I can do is try. If it will prevent further violence against my People, it's worth doing, even if it doesn't work. I'm-- [something gives her pause, chokes her up,] -- if I'm... to be Keeper, then that's my duty.
And for those others who might suffer some consequence simply because a person sees an elf and decides that any elf will do? [There's knowing there, more than Araceli would usually like to share but Sina's her friend and enough has happened that she doesn't want anyone to be hurt by this. (Thedas has plenty of history of that, recent history.)] You have clan, my people think like a crew pulling together.
While we're here, I think that we give up parts of what we were before. If only for a time. We have to be Inquisition first or how are we any better than what came before in Thedas? All our judgements, our prejudices, all the things that can lead to poor choices when we can least afford them. Too many people rely on us for that, whether or not they see that yet. Whether or not they want to see that.
Any elf is my People, [Sina answers vehemently. As if she only cares about the Dalish? As if her concern only extends to those she personally knows?]
With all due respect, lethallan, neither of us is here by choice. You have chosen to be Inquisition, I have chosen to help it in exchange for it helping me. But it--
[She takes a hitching, shaky breath again. She won't get into this, not over sending crystal, not when she knows Araceli's anxieties.]
...hasn't. I'm doing my best. I will try to make it right. I understand where you're coming from. But I cannot give my heart to this organization as you have, I cannot live for it, devote my everything to its success. [Soon she'll live for nothing.]
[Just what? What is she going to say? Too long as Sina's friend to admit the truth of who she is to her and as much as she cares for Sina, Araceli isn't foolish enough to trust those who don't need to know with the knowledge. So here they are.]
Don't put yourself in a position to be hurt.
[It's out of her hands anyway, she won't be the only person to know but she's done, she's tired, she's just surgically excising her second friendship in about a week by the looks of things.]
[Araceli might be surprised by the results of honesty-- Sina has tried to address her concerns, and would no doubt be displeased to find that it hasn't been good enough, that Araceli has severed their friendship anyway. Whatever the case, by the tone of her voice, the feeling isn't reciprocated; she's disagreed with friends before, and will likely to do it again.]
I'll try. [The words are sincere.] I don't want anyone to be hurt. I'll do what I can to prevent it.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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[She doesn't sound suspicious. The wave of collective confusion hasn't reached her yet.]
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Which is why I'm asking you: were you involved in whatever has turned it from what it was to what it is now?
[There isn't anger or suspicion, not yet, Araceli's good enough to hide those things because she's been taught the right sort of lessons as a girl but it's better that it's over a sending crystal, at least for now. Worry births an ugly sort of anger after all, and Araceli has worry enough to lend a cup of it to everyone at present.]
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Oh. Yes, I did that. [Confessed easily and without hesitation.]
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Sina can't see her, that's good, she can do whatever else she wants on the other end and still sound level. Calm and collected.]
How did you do that? Why did you do that?
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'How' I can't reveal, lethallan, because it's a secret of the People. I've been trained in these magics since mine manifested, and their purpose is to help and protect the clan. Which... is the 'why'.
The garden was sick. It yielded almost nothing, and what grew died so quickly. I purged it of its illness and made it so that things will always grow there now, perhaps even in the winter. What's picked will come back more rapidly than normal. The Inquisition will never want for important herbs or food.
[A pause, in which a small smile can be heard, if not seen:] I... may have overdone it a little. I'm not a Keeper, after all, just a First.
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Sina-- That isn't an answer to the why. Right now, the position of the Inquisition in Kirkwall is a precarious one where we are being watched all the time and judged just as often. It might not feel like it but we are. This puts us in a very awkward position. Did you consult with anyone in a leadership position about it? Did you speak with the people of Kirkwall?
[Hi Sina did you want to become intimately aware of just how worried Araceli actually is on a daily basis and the level of worry she tries to channel into being productive and getting some of results? Because you are now? Let her take a breath. Let her attempt to explain why she's worried.
And it's laughable to use 'if' because it's Kirkwall after all and the Inquisition is hilarious at rumour management and information leaks so she's going to use 'when' instead, sorry about that.]
What do you think will happen when people find out that a Dalish elf mage was involved in something involving this level of magic when an apostate destroyed the Kirkwall Chantry setting into motion the Mage-Templar war? [That's a cold way to put it for as careful as she is with her tone, how gentle she is with it because she's worried. Sina isn't stupid or an innocent naive little girl but there are things that the two of them are familiar with that the other one isn't. Damage control, reputations, how rumours spread like flux on a ship? Araceli's uncomfortably familiar with that side of life.] What if you had been hurt, Sina? The Veil is thin here, we've had to close rifts here - what if something had happened?
[What if you'd died? What if another incident like the one in Skyhold happened again? What if that happened and you died?]
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I am in charge of the herb gardens. This one wasn't growing, so I made it grow. It was sick. I healed it. It will always provide for the people of Kirkwall. It is a gift.
[She's beginning to sound tired, her voice shaking now with the twin effort to not lose her temper.]
What will people think? Those who see it as an act of aggression rather than the goodwill it was are fools and looking for reasons to continue hating us, killing us. I have to live among them, I've given them the best I could, is there nothing I can do that will prove I am only here to get better and not to --eat any babies? It's what I would have done for my own people. I have done it for my own people, alongside my Keeper.
[She pauses to take a breath, and pointedly doesn't address Araceli's last question. She thought about it, of course. She never stops thinking about it.]
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People believe a lot of things about elven women too that stings in a way that aches. Everyone thinks a Castilean women is promiscuous if she chooses to live her life how she chooses.]
People who are angry, or resentful, or frightened don't think. Or if they do, they don't think well. They have a lot of that to go about here after everything that has happened and no matter what the intention was behind it that we might have enough to share, this is a new thing that they don't understand. A thing some will say has been thrust upon them like the Inquisition after what happened here that must be a fresh wound to them. I am not asking you to take on the burden of representing all elves or even all Dalish but how many of them will see Sina Dahlasanor that I have called friend who loves nature and offers a gift? [Is this a last ditch attempt? Is she going to come off as just a shem talking dows? She tries, softens her voice, sounding incredibly tired and not like the person in the water a few days ago, smiling and at peace.] When they look at me, I know they see rifter first when I am not that, the same as there were always people at home who saw nothing more than a pirate's get, a whore's get.
I am saying this because I love you and I-- and I want all this to work so people can see past their petty terrible prejudices.
[But sprouting a magical forest overnight in a city isn't the way to go about it.]
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[The answer seems obvious, and Sina has no problem reaching that conclusion.]
My clan was massacred because the shem'len nearby thought we would hurt them. My clansister Sedi came to us from one that had been destroyed almost entirely, by a willfully poisoned river. They are so willing to chase us out, kill us, build over lands we claim and then blame us for reacting with anger and caution--
[She's getting carried away, and she stops herself with a sigh.]
I will sit on the steps and explain it myself, Araceli. I'm not afraid to be killed. But I won't relent to humans who are upset by remembering we exist, and if there's one thing I can do while I'm still bound to this place, it's help them understand that the site is just as holy as it ever was.
i just had a lot of emotions i'm sorry
I can't know the hurts you and your people have suffered. But I can know what mine have. When people say make a choice: go hungry or go without a roof over your head where there aren't streets. When they shouldn't have an education. When they shouldn't be allowed to go to certain places because they're too low to belong in them. [Sometimes? Sometimes there really are things about elves in the alienage that kick her in the teeth. It's too like the building she lived in, the part of her home she lived in.] Maybe it was still holy to some people. But sometimes a thing is done to you and it's wrong. You're hurt and it's hard to see anything but the fact that it wasn't what it was before, that you aren't what you were before, that things can't go back to how they were. And you realise-- [her heart is racing and she feels a little sick, a little dizzy, swallows it down and rubs over the thumb she broke in a failed attempt but it was a lesson] that in itself, that can be okay. Maybe you can still live with that. You can come to terms with that.
[Kirkwall isn't what she's talking about, not entirely. It's what happened to her in Craintellier that she doesn't talk about because why would she hurt her loved ones with that? It's the fear of not being who she was before she came through the rift that Martel helped her make her peace with.]
It took me a long time to be at peace with my hand with someone who took me by it and helped but he knew me and I him. After I was hurt-- there are things I can't let people do to me. No matter the intention. Because I can't. Because I remember what happened to me and I could do nothing. I can't stop you from whatever you want to do, that isn't my place but just...be careful.
[Araceli personally can't stop her, that doesn't mean she won't go figure out who she can speak to if she's worried.]
Re: i just had a lot of emotions i'm sorry
[She sighs.]
All I can do is try. If it will prevent further violence against my People, it's worth doing, even if it doesn't work. I'm-- [something gives her pause, chokes her up,] -- if I'm... to be Keeper, then that's my duty.
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While we're here, I think that we give up parts of what we were before. If only for a time. We have to be Inquisition first or how are we any better than what came before in Thedas? All our judgements, our prejudices, all the things that can lead to poor choices when we can least afford them. Too many people rely on us for that, whether or not they see that yet. Whether or not they want to see that.
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With all due respect, lethallan, neither of us is here by choice. You have chosen to be Inquisition, I have chosen to help it in exchange for it helping me. But it--
[She takes a hitching, shaky breath again. She won't get into this, not over sending crystal, not when she knows Araceli's anxieties.]
...hasn't. I'm doing my best. I will try to make it right. I understand where you're coming from. But I cannot give my heart to this organization as you have, I cannot live for it, devote my everything to its success. [Soon she'll live for nothing.]
I'm sorry.
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[Just what? What is she going to say? Too long as Sina's friend to admit the truth of who she is to her and as much as she cares for Sina, Araceli isn't foolish enough to trust those who don't need to know with the knowledge. So here they are.]
Don't put yourself in a position to be hurt.
[It's out of her hands anyway, she won't be the only person to know but she's done, she's tired, she's just surgically excising her second friendship in about a week by the looks of things.]
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I'll try. [The words are sincere.] I don't want anyone to be hurt. I'll do what I can to prevent it.