TEST DRIVE MEME

[faderifting]

TEST DRIVE MEME

Maybe you’ve been around for a while, or maybe you’re new to the Inquisition. Maybe you’re new to Thedas, having recently fallen from a tear in reality and been collected by uniformed rescuers. Whoever you are, you’ve been sent to Kirkwall, to an outpost where many of the Inquisition’s members and allies work on some of the biggest mysteries and problems the organization must solve if it’d like to keep the world from ending, where “ending” means “falling under the power of an ancient powerful corrupted being who wants everyone to bow to him as a god.”

And just to be clear, it would like that. It would like that a lot.

I. THE GALLOWS: The Gallows is an island fortress in Kirkwall’s harbor. It’s been home to, in order: Tevinter slaves, a Circle of Magi, a lot of creepy red lyrium, and now the Inquisition, which has occupied the fortress with the provisional Viscount’s blessing. There are walls that still need rebuilding and corners that still need dusting, but for the most part the Inquisition has gotten down to business. There’s space in the stone-floored courtyards to train or spar; or, if your skills don’t lie in the realm of hitting things, there’s a large library and several offices supporting the Inquisition’s areas of research and diplomatic efforts. If you don’t know what to do with yourself, then by all means, ask; someone will definitely be able to put you to work.

II. KIRKWALL: A quick row across the harbor will take you to Kirkwall proper. The city is built into the cliffs, from exclusive and wealthy Hightown at the top to impoverished Darktown in the abandoned mining tunnels below. In the middle is Lowtown, home to taverns, merchants, and plenty of trouble to keep anyone looking for it happy. You’re welcome to spend your free time and your money here—but try not to annoy the locals too much, please, in case their welcome runs out. It’d be a shame to have to pack again so soon after arriving.

III. QUESTING: Barely had time to make yourself at home, did you, before you were sent away from Kirkwall again—but this time on a mission. There’s a rift outside of Markham, pouring demons into the fields, and the Inquisition has been asked to lend a hand. Maybe literally. If you have an anchor embedded in your palm, you’re needed to close the damn thing. If not, maybe you’re here to fight demons or guard against bandits on the road, or to gather samples and take notes on the rift’s location once its closed, or to speak to Markham’s nobility afterwards to make sure that they fully appreciate the Inquisition’s efforts. Regardless, it’s a long trip, so we hope you like campfire cooking and sharing a tent.

IV. SENDING CRYSTAL: Joining the Inquisition gets you access to the very latest in barely-understood magical communication devices—namely, a crystal, small enough to wear around your neck, that will allow you to communicate verbally with anyone else who has one. Or everyone else who has one. Say hello.

V. WILDCARD: The whole of Thedas is yours to explore, from coast to uncharted wilderness filled with bears. Choose your own adventure!

Comments

Iorveth | The Witcher

[aenseidhe]

I. THE GALLOWS;

[ Iorveth has always been a far cry from a socialite. Even within his own ranks, though he'd trusted every man and woman at his back in a fight, he kept his circle of true and close friends rather small. in this new, strange world he'd fallen into, the commander follows the same pattern, not even trusting the rooms provided from board in the gallows, instead choosing to sleep outside in the trees. during the day, he explores the island, and the city further. tries to learn it like he would his forests - each winding road like a path through the trees, each alley like a cave system. and the people within it - the main focus in this. not just where he is, but who is he with now?

their history is paramount to uncover for him, and inside the gallows, iorveth digs through the library. he ignores the feasts serving up boar meat and deer for a fruit plucked out of the herb garden, and settles himself with legs cross under him, seated on a table top near the archery range, as he pages through an old tome, chronicling ancient wars. around him, other inquisition fighters practice their skills with the sounds of bow strings twanging and bolts thudding into targets. the one standing closest to him, while possibly being a very decent shot, is not an Aen Seidhe archer. meaning, hasn't perfected the art with a century worth of practice. thus, he speaks up, almost distractedly. ]

Your shoulder is tensing before release. [ The elf announces, voice sounding flat and droll - idle remarks, as if telling someone their shoe is untied. ] Pulls your shot to the left.

[ whether his commentary is appreciated, or even heard, doesn't seem to concern him much, the elf not so much as bothering to glance up from his book, or offer anything further. call it old habit of an officer who's taught many young freedom fighters how to work a long bow like a true Aen Seidhe. Just had to say something. ]

II. KIRKWALL (ALIENAGE);

[ The problem with books is that they're always written by the victors, and it's easy enough to see, just walking through Hightown, what faction that is, if the rest of Thedas' racial population is about the same. These people aren't what he's interested in, so after taking a tour through each district, Iorveth settles on spending his time in the Elven alienage.

It's perhaps a good thing that no one from his homeworld is here to see this, but he's welcomed in by the roughly dressed, dirt smudged elven children, who ask him how he got so tall, and why his ears look different, and does he know how to use his bow, and what's that shiny thing on his palm. He does find time to go around the small district and speak with the adults and elders, questioning after their world's history and their place here. Tells his own stories, some that seem to frighten the adults too fearful of rebellion, but not enough to ask him to leave. He helps, bringing them herbs and gifts brought from other places in Kirkwall, and the Gallows. He pauses to separate out several bundles, handing them off to children before telling them to take them to their parents, speaking up to a stranger that steps up beside him, either intentional or otherwise. ]

Sad, isn't it? They'll grow old thinking this is all they deserve. [ he had, once upon a time. before he just got angry. maybe they will too. ] A stinking piss pot kicked to the curb.

III. QUESTING;

[ arrows whip out from Iorveth's bow, one after the next, yet for each demon he sends a bolt through the eye of, it seems three more replace it. And impossible legion brought through the rift yawning open in midair. ]

This is bloody Witcher's work! [ You hear that, Geralt, wherever you are? Do your freaking job, because he hates this. Spotting an advantage point, he pulls his swords free and weaves an elegant blade dance through the pack, craving across demonic forms before he can put a foot against one's back and launch himself up the side of a rocky outcropping. Clambering to the top, it gives Iorveth a bird's eye view of the battlefield, and he shouts down to whatever rifter or forces otherwise are standing closest to the portal. ]

I'll give cover, just close the damned thing before it sucks us all through. [ True to his word, Iorveth will be sniping at each demon that comes close to whoever task closing the rift to task, leaving them undisturbed to finish the deed. ]

IV. SENDING CRYSTAL;

You can learn much of a city's history simply from walking it's streets. Watching it's people. [ The elf muses, as he paces through the streets, voice rising from the crystal tied at his neck. he's seen the gossiping and pleasantries of hightown, the bargaining and advantage seeking in the markets, the crime and shadows of lowtown. even scornful looks cast his direction, despite being new to this town, to this world. despite walking armed to the teeth. despite the fact he's skinned men alive for less. only in that his ears aren't covered by his bandanna. ]

Tell me, sons and daughters of Thedas. How many years has it been since the last massacre of Elven homelands? Two centuries? Two years? [ A beat, and he scoffs, chuckling. ] Two weeks?

[ depending on what you would call 'homelands' now, considering their homes are ghettos. little dirt piles in the worst end of the city. utterly pathetic. ]

I'd thought, for a dull moment, that this realm might offer some whisper of credit to the optimists in mine. [ and he'd known so many. wished they could've been right. that he could hang up his bow and swords and all they'd have to do was talk. but it just never is, is it? his voice is amused, but with a tint of disdain in it. ] Only more of the same. Painfully unsurprising.

V. WILDCARD;

[ eeeeyyyooo hit me ]

i / gallows

[duskmeadow]

[ Even entertaining the idea of archery had been meant to ease the ache of Vex's absence. Where Vex had taken to the bow, Vax had taken to the sword. His proficiency is rudimentary at best. Keeping his distance from a target had never been his strength, after all. But he's at loose ends without his twin, and there's only so much pleasure in besting drunkards at knife-throwing in Lowtown. The frustration of always being just off the mark was meant to be a more productive way to crowd out the gnawing awareness of being alone for the first time in his life, but it's turned out to be just irritating. At least in Lowtown, there was ale.

And less unwelcome critique. Vax turns to frown, bow held loosely in one hand. ]

Is that right?

[ It likely is right. But it's hard not to bristle upon hearing it from any other source than Vex's teasing tone. ]

[aenseidhe]

[ Oh. Okay. he's really starting to miss being in places where people know better than to A, question his mood or B, question his archery. Loss of rep is such a sad thing.

Iorveth's head doesn't raise up just yet, instead he takes a moment or so longer of quiet to finish the page he was reading, maybe seeming like he's completely ignoring the comment. But as he flips the page, a finger holds his place in the book, and he looks the practicing archer over, single eye squinting at him. Not human, and not truly elven by either his race or those native to this land. Could be elven from another realm, but definitely not human, which is nice. Still, that doesn't really change the fact Iorveth is a rude bitch. ]

It is. But don't let me stop your lack of improvement.

[ you seemed like you were having fun anyway?? ]

i. the gallows

[itzalbadnews]

Itzal du Bans, as it happens, is a very good shot.

So when the Templar marksman's shot does, in fact, veer hard to the left, he lowers his bow to stare at it in narrow-eyed disbelief, before turning his head sharply in search of his would-be critic. Identifying him, he goes rigid for only a moment, then relaxes. No vallaslin on his face; a reassuring sight.

"Perhaps my shot would have been true, had I not been interrupted," he replies, letting his voice carry. His accent, while markedly Orlesian, is... a weird one. He clearly didn't grow up roaming the streets of Val Royeaux or Montsimmard, that's for sure.

whoops just realized i forgot to put (RIFTER) up there

[aenseidhe]

Iorveth can hardly tell the difference with accents in this realm, thus far. His world had no Orlais, and while Nilfgaard does seem to have a lot in common with Tevinter, as far as creepy empires go, it's a far cry. But he knows, at the least, that this man isn't native to Kirkwall, yet not foreign enough that Templar seals can't be found on him. The elf looks up from his book, single eye squinting for a moment, before turning his head to look at the sadly off target arrow, with a sigh. Bro, pls.

"How would I have interrupted your shot by critiquing something that only happens after an arrow's been loosed? Unless I could tell the future." All said in the same distracted drawl, a brow raised and lips pressed to a line.

"Do I look like a Mage to you?" Between his scarred features, the chainmail on his clothes, and the ornately carved long bow and blades set to his side, Iorveth does not, at all, look like a Mage.

[itzalbadnews]

Regardless of his claims, Itzal eyes the elf dubiously while withdrawing another arrow from his quiver and nocking it into place on his bowstring. He snorts and drops his gaze to his work. "You think I have not met an apostate mage masquerading as an archer before?"

He turns back to his target and takes careful aim--and, to his credit, incorporates Iorveth's suggestion into his stance. He pulls the string taut, considers the target, and then lets the arrow fly.

It sinks into its mark with a hard, dense-sounding thunk. Hard enough to bring a real opponent to his knees.

[aenseidhe]

"Better." Iorveth admits, after watching the arrow fly, a mild concession. The man is a very decent shot, but doesn't seem like he needs to be told that, or even should be. Besides, Iorveth doesn't make a habit of handing out compliments so frivolously.

"What, they don't all carry big sticks and wear silly hats here?" Which is Iorveth being facetious. Triss didn't carry a staff, and he's pretty sure she wouldn't be caught dead in a silly hat. She would also have been enraged at this world's policies, but Iorveth isn't a mage, and while it does seem pretty much a disaster in the making, it's not something he's greatly concerned with.

"Besides, were I a sorcerer, I wouldn't be wasting the talent on trying to tell when people will screw up their practice shots."

ii. alienage | mostly eyeless elves ahoy

[faithlikeaseed]

I'd not call making the best of a bad lot thinking we deserve it, serah. [Iorveth's interlocutor is one of the native elves, a little shorter and broader through the shoulder than they tend to run, clad in the robes of a mage and bearing a staff. And, notably, blindfolded.

His tone is mild and kind despite the rebuke that might lurk in the words.] Though it's true there's some who don't dare dream beyond the walls of the alienage--and others who think it hopeless to try.

eyyoooo gotta stick together, homie. except iorveth is rude, i'm sorry.

[aenseidhe]

[ Iorveth's head tilts to cast a glance to the side at the elf that speaks up. It still surprises him how their races seemed to go towards opposite ends in terms of average height while so much is the same otherwise. A brief pause has him thinking over the comments, eventually shrugging. ] 'Accept' may be the better term, but the end result remains the same.

[ Elves and nonhumans shuffled off into ghettos, looked down on, discriminated against, treated hardly better than slaves. The archer turns, looking away from the children and back to the taller spires of Hightown in the distances. ]

A 'bad lot' is being born crippled. A place like this is only enforced by the whims of other people. Fate isn't your enemy here - they are. [ Iorveth's eyes cast back down to the mage. Look, he's not saying rise up and murder all humans buuuuuuut... rise up and murder all humans. ]

ii.

[thunderproof]

Even more sad when I know what they could be, ❰ adalia agrees. she hasn't spent much time in the alienage — lowtown is no place for a person like her, someone so clearly without guile, who looks like an easy mark. that she isn't one doesn't really matter — she has no desire to deal with people who'd try to swindle her as soon as look at her, and even less desire to see a group of people she has more than a passing resemblance to in such a state as the elves are her.

still, not wanting to see it doesn't mean she shouldn't. and maybe she can bring the children some sense of joy, in letting them play with charis, as she is now. while her dragon is off flying over the heads of the children, she's been doing what she can to help the rifter distributing bundles of herbs and other gifts to the elders. ❱

Where I'm from, elves are respected. They live for centuries, and none would let a human enslave them. They're a proud race. These people deserve the same.

[aenseidhe]

[ it's something of a gift for iorveth to see a dragon playing with elven children - thoughts of Saskia and her dream for Vergen in his mind. Whether they'll come about is still up in the air, but the thought is pleasant enough. Something he's been lacking for a long time - hope. ]

I'd like to say it's different in my homeland, but yours sounds like a fairy tale to me as well. Something from our past, perhaps. [ having passed out most of the goods he'd brought to share with the people of the alienage, Iorveth sets about folding the burlap sacks he'd brought them in, conversing as he does with no small amount of bitterness in his words. ]

Humanity conquered the land like a blight, multiplying like vermin. Where they'd kill one, five more would take their place. They pillaged the cities, or broke their bones until they resembled something more suited to man's rule. [ It was sheer numbers that toppled the elegant Aen Seidhe kingdoms that had stood so proud for so long. A long lived race, true, but much slower to reproduce as well. ] Those of my people still living inside them look much like this. Hardly resembling Aen Seidhe anymore.

[ Hardly considered Aen Seidhe by those who forsook the cities to fight for freedom, like him. He's been much kinder to the people here than he was to those in their place in his homeworld. Something that just seemed so unforgivable to him - to cower and turn away simply because it was easier. ]

[thunderproof]

❰ this is just... depressing. what is it with elves in these other planes, that they're all so downtrodden and dejected? granted adalia only knows of the elves in toril in stories and from what the elven avowed in candlekeep tell her, but she'd know if there was anywhere where they were like this. they keep to themselves, they're kind of haughty, they look at humans with either a paternalistic sense of amusement at the actions of a fumbling child or they outright disdain them for their impulsivity. no elf anywhere lives in an alienage, on toril. no elf would allow a human to dictate their place to them. what has happened in these planes, that their elves are so meek and cowed that they would?

well, she knows what happened in thedas, at least. humans happened, and the quickening, and tevinter.

adalia listens to the rifter's explanation, nodding along as she folds her own burlap sack, although she's not nearly as determined in doing so, and she gets distracted by the history as she does. ❱

Aen Seidhe — that's what elves are called, where you're from? ❰ she files that away for whatever further conversations they may one day have. ❱ Where I'm from, elves and humans live... separately, and there are many of each race who disdain the members of the other, but there was never any kind of real conflict. Not one that would decimate elves like the ones here have been, or your Aen Sidhe. I'd say I can scarcely imagine it, but.

❰ she's living it now, sadly. even as a half-elf, she's non-human enough to count for the average person here. can't enter hightown, no one trusts that the fancy things she owns, she earned herself, she's been mistaken for a servant or a slave... honestly, she might just stop claiming her human side altogether. ❱

[aenseidhe]

[ Iorveth nods - yes, Aen Seidhe is the proper name of his people. 'Elves' was something humans made up to better suit their clumsy tongues. Easier to pronounce, shorter, lazier. He listens to her talk of her lands and it pains something in his chest. That's what it must have been like, long before. The dream they'd all like to return to. Where Aen Seidhe cities are still beautiful, peaceful, undisturbed things, and the humans that coveted it weren't permitted to walk there. Until they learned what disadvantage they had to war. ]

I'm sure your lands will bear witness to their savagery eventually.

[ The Aen Seidhe had many powerful warriors and sorcerers, grand armies and resources, proud kingdoms and knowledge. But their numbers weren't so easy to replenish. You kill a human in battle, and his son takes his place in a hand full of years. You kill an Aen Seidhe, and it could be centuries before another can be born. Long lived, but procreation was limited to a short time in their youth. They couldn't multiple fast enough to stave off the barbarian horde. ]

Man craves nothing more than conquest. To seek power and profit, fill their gluttonous greed to the brim and over again, and pay no mind to the mountain of corpses their thrones sit atop of. [ Iorveth spits bitterly, eyes cast to a pair of human guards passing through the area, as if he's ready to pull free his bow and drop them both merely for existing. ] Don't let them into your lands, or spare them any of your secrets. Once they learn a means to take from you, their nature won't allow them to resist it.

ii. alienage

[supersonic]

They are not blind.

[ The young elf who answers is similar in stature and bearing to those around them, but his accent isn't Ferelden. This isn't his alienage. Nor, he suspects with an upward glance, is it this new tall elf's. (Are any of the alienages his, anymore?) Pietro reaches for a bucket near the stranger; he's here for the well, not the conversation, but he doesn't seem as uncomfortable with this subject as many of his kin. You might even say he's intrigued. ]

Complacent, some of them — afraid of the cost of change, but no one grows up in this, with an easier life right in front of their faces, and believes their own suffering is justified.

[aenseidhe]

Accepting, then. Which is hardly any better.

[ The same in Iorveth's book. If you aren't opposing it, you're agreeing to it, and that's as bad as enforcing it. He's ever been unforgiving and immovable in that sense. The children can't help where their parents put them and what they teach them, but they aren't all that's here. ]

Even with the Dalish just beyond the forests, they'd rather live in squalor here. Some things I will never understand.

[supersonic]

Yes, because taking thousands of elves who have never lived off the land out into the wilds to starve sounds immeasurably better.

[ Not that he disagrees with the impulse, but. Practically speaking, it's complicated. ]

If you'd like them to improve their lot, they'll need the means to do so. Right now, they barely have the means to survive here.

questing wildcard.

[kecharitomene]

( By and large, the rifters do not greatly interest Galatea. They were strange when she'd only heard of their like, and stranger now that she's seen a few in the flesh, and for the most part she thinks little about them beyond their practical applications (—the rifts, you see) because there is a great deal else to think of, each and every day. But now she has fought alongside one or two, and while the other large elves are stranger still—

this big one feels more...correct. And therefore, more pressingly interesting, especially when she admires the similarity in his fighting style.

The running up the back of demons. She liked when he ran up the back of a demon, it was cool, it looked way easier than doing it her way, and she's never really been in these situations before, ordinarily someone beneath her knives is also beneath leather bindings, in a basement somewhere, long story, she's not nearly so Dalish as those tattoos suggest to an untrained eye.

So she seeks him out, after, when they're encamped; apparently unbothered by whatever it is (it's his personality) that seems to have given him such otherwise unfettered personal space this evening. Sits down, a tiny little thing in rogue leathers with a flower swiped from the side of their impromptu battlefield tucked behind her ear and a sunny smile that has been known to be considered mildly unsettling— )

You are very good at this.

( The murdering. What a pro! This is, apparently, an opening gambit of some description. )

[aenseidhe]

[ Ever the isolationist, Iorveth's sequestered his own space at the edge of camp, leaned up against a large tree he'll likely climb up into the branches of later, when he feels it safe enough to get some shut eye.

A low burning torch stuck into the ground flickers amber light nearby and highlights the native Elven woman as she makes her way over - a surprise that has him tilting his one good eye up, watching her warily, until nothing but a compliment falls from her smile, one with the kind of edge that matches the less wholesome ones he tends to make as well. Baw, what a good lil Elf child. Iorveth smirks, a sharpness in the way his lips curve, and chuckles a beat before answering. ]

I have been doing this for a very long time. [ Over a century, that is. Not only are his people taller than those here, it seems they're much longer lived as well. Perhaps the shorter spans, like humans, have been what's kept Elven numbers here from dwindling as dramatically. But not out of the bottom rung of society, it seems. ] Less so with demons, but they fall roughly the same as men.

[ With these demons, at least. The monsters and things back home always needed a trained Witcher to be sure they fell and stayed down. But these are much simpler things, thank the gods. The commander pauses, studying the girl with a quiet gaze for a passing few seconds, before inquiring. ]

You've a talent for it as well. Hobby or profession? [ Is killing stuff just fun, or is this a lifestyle choice? No judgment either way, he's just curious. ]

[kecharitomene]

Yes,

( she decides, tilting her head to the side, contemplating for a moment both the question and her place in this moment in time. 'Yes' feels correct, or close enough, in the same way that 'no' might have felt close enough too. Both of those things, neither of those things. Talented at knifing her way into the kind of trouble that she can only knife her way out of again, anyway.

(Galatea, plunging twin knives into the back of a pride demon, dragging herself up it's body and punching it repeatedly in the back of the head with spiked knuckledusters: there has to be a part of her that enjoys what she does. Does it matter? Was it a choice, when the alternative was a noose?) )

I've done it only a little, though, compared to you! ( Compared to most people, if you ignore the torture. ) Mostly I'm not so used to—

( A gesture. )

Combat.

( Killing, sure, and she's certainly demonstrated an aptitude to working in a team, but. She knows the implications of what she's saying. )

I would like to be better. Do you teach?

( Forthright, ain't she. )

iii ( but belated )

[niespodzianka]

[ Geralt should have been sent out here sooner, he knows that much before he's can even see the carnage - he can smell it, blood and magic and ozone, a long struggle handled by people who probably aren't the best at this. Someone nicer would think, well, they did what they could, but this witcher thinks: Morons.

He swings down from the borrowed horse when she starts to get skittish (no good, he'll trade in for another when he's back), makes the rest of the way into the dregs of fighting on foot.

Stops only for a half-second, when he sees a set of shoulders.

Well, now. ]

Huh. [ He's quiet when he moves, even for a witcher, but he has no expectation of sneaking up on him. ] I'd wondered about who was bitching about my services being needed out this way.

screeches

[aenseidhe]

[ By the time Geralt saunters his fashionably late ass in, the rift's just been closed and Iorveth looses a last arrow through a straggling demon, it's gross body falling with a heavy thud while the familiar gruff tone pipes up behind him.

Whipping around, his eye's already rolling irritably, albeit not without a slight smirk to his lips. Hi, friend. ]

And arrived just in time to do none of the work. [ Okay but look, he arrowwed some demons all on his own without you, be proud of him. Granted, these monsters don't seem to be nearly as particular in how they need to die as the ones back in their homeland. ] At the very least, you can help clean up, Gwynbleidde.

[ Which, translated from Iorveth's typical I hate you all rhetoric means 'please stay around, I'm happy to see you'. Moving to a nearby corpse, the elf commando tugs one of his arrows free from a gooey gross eye socket, lips in a distasteful curl while he wipes demon brains off on a pant leg. ]

What portal did you come tumbling through lately?

https://i.imgur.com/meftV0q.gif

[niespodzianka]

[ He makes a disgusted noise, but it's clearly about portals, and not demon brains. It'd be a moderate miracle for Geralt to even find demon brains unusual. ]

I walked. [ Deadpan. Just imagine him being collected by these squares and ushered to Kirkwall, we all missed a good time. ]

This is nice. [ Geralt bends, yanks an arrow out of something bloody. ] The fact that neither of us got arrested first thing, I mean.

[ It's been a while, he doesn't say. Maybe he always thought they'd meet again at home; every time he almost sent a message, when he was hunting for Ciri, he'd wondered. But in the end it wasn't relevant. ]

ii

[arlathvhen]

[ The alienage is not often on Beleth's list of places to visit, particularly these days, when it feels like every time she sneezes, there's a new crisis that only she can avert. But there are occasions when there are no plagues, botched assassinations, or untimely deaths that need her attention, and she finds herself here.

The alienage elves are getting accustomed to the Dalish, and she doesn't feel like she sticks out quite as much as the first time she came here, clinging to Sina and wondering if they were going to get mugged. But there is a visitor who does stand out, far more than she ever could. Like any good Scoutmaster, she watches from afar first, studying the way he moves through the alienage elves. He doesn't look like any of the other Rifter elves she knows, though she's not stupid enough to believe that truly means anything. After all, how much does she look like her city counterparts?

But watching can only do so much, and when she spots a lull in his visiting, she takes the opportunity to step forward. His words cause her pause, and she doesn't answer right away. A few quick glances around to see if there are any others lurking within hearing distance, to contemplate just how much she wants to share with a total stranger, and to wonder why every damn elf outside of Thedas is so tall. ]

They don't know any better. Their history has been stolen from them, just as the shemlen have stolen everything else. How can they know what they deserve, when they don't remember where they came from?

[ A pause, and then she adds on, almost reluctantly: ]

Admittedly, the Dalish have not been very forthcoming with what we know. Some of us are working to change that, though.

[aenseidhe]

[ Iorveth hadn't met many of the Dalish in Kirkwall, but he's heard of them, seen the occasional few in the Inquisition compounds and training grounds, on missions. He knows more from the books he'd dug through and the things he hears on the streets - they're the closest to Scoia'tael he can relate to in this world. Minus the actively stalking humans outside of villages and aggressive guerrilla warfare. But things are very different here, in many ways.

he knows they're keepers of knowledge and the old ways, and part of their distance feels like the elders in Dol Blathanna to Iorveth as well. Protected and safe, with a bubble around them to keep the ugliness that the rest suffer through outside. It's difficult to judge, knowing so little of these people here, so he's only speculated. Turning to look over the woman that responds, he finds a good opportunity to learn more. But first: bitching. ]

The concept of self-respect and freedom doesn't require a history lesson to understand. Just someone brave or mad enough to fight for it.

[ he's heard so, so many excuses for why the downtrodden elves here still wallow in their mud puddles and hovels - they don't know how to feed themselves outside the cities, rebelling with get others in trouble, there's no work and how can you live without work, it isn't safe, etc etc. handfuls of words that translate to: i'm just fucking spineless. at least so far as iorveth sees it. ]

Neither of which seem present here. [ a beat, and he considers her sentiments, turning to face her more fully. ] A promise of safe haven and training for those willing enough to leave the city walls behind would do more benefit to them first.

[arlathvhen]

[ Beleth would argue that they are not immune to the ugliness of the world, that they see it plenty themselves. It's left its marks on them--across Beleth's eye, covered by twisting green vines, across her twin's mouth.

But bitching is always a good priority, and Beleth nods along with his words, expression contemplative. ]

That's the problem with humans. You can fight them, and kill them, but winning... [ She purses her lips for a moment, wondering if she's being an idiot for being so candid with this man. But he's an elf. Surely he understands. ] You kill one, two replace him--and now they have a grudge. They don't just kill whoever fights, either. They set entire alienages ablaze, hunt down entire clans...or any clan they can find, for that matter.

Even so, you're quite correct. They should be able to leave this slum. They should have a place--or a People--that welcomes them.

Someday the Creators--the Elvhen gods--will return to us. [ At this, she smiles, hopeful as only someone who needs to hope for something can be. ] We'll rebuild Arlathan, and all will be as it should.

But until then-- [ She glances around the alienage, frowning. ] --Many of us are trying to create what change we can. It is a...work in progress. The Dalish are, if nothing else, a willful, stubborn people. [ But despite her words, there's undeniable pride in her tone. They've survived because of that will. And Beleth will do what she can to see to it that they continue to, even if she has to drag them kicking and screaming into the new age. ]