I did not hear it myself, but a mage that I am well acquainted with was having a close conversation with her, and she admitted it to him. He wanted me to protect him, so he is in his room with his fellow mage, and a Templar guard on the door. Would you like to speak with him personally?
Where would you like me to bring the mage? Also, the name of the Rifter was Jang. I thought it Jane, earlier, but was corrected. I have never met her, but I do know that she rooms with another Rifter named Dolores.
Yes. Be quiet, Kieran is abed, I wouldn't have him woken.
[Upon arrival Thranduil will find her with tea in the pot, the candles burning low and fire guttering in the hearth as papers lie spread over the table including the he damnable codex that has eaten some terrible hole in her. A dark book lies alongside, leatherbound, something of the symbol familiar.
Morrigan has been at this some time by the way her shoulders hunch inward, hair falling out of the updo, the circles beneath the eyes.]
I believe I see it all now, come, sit, I...I cannot tell another. And this cannot go even to your cousin. This must stay here in this room for now or you must leave.
[Does she sounds afraid or is it the exhaustion painting itself into the spaces where realisation, unwelcome, unwanted, hasn't already bled?]
[ he comes to her home in the night like-- like a man coming to a witch's home in the night, ducking into her doorway and following her directions absolutely. his eyes do not linger overlong on anything beyond the candles, the table, the teapot. ]
I have kept things from her before, it will not be difficult to do so again.
[ easy, even, for she has him curious. she looks tired. ]
[Where does she even start? Part of her wants to laugh at it, at how farcical this has become with all that she holds in her hands now, how blind even from girlhood buy she does not.
She pours tea. If she drank wine she'd almost certainly never get through it. Indicates for him to sit because once she starts it won't stop, it will spill out, it will be the flood and--
A breath. Her hands curl, uncurl, curl, uncurl.]
You were there with me in the Korcari Wilds meeting the shaman who told me that silence was not what it was, that it was her. Long have there been tales of my mother and the Chasind, and last I left her, someone took me from me this book. Her grimoire. 'tis where I learnt how she extends her life so.
[The old book he's seen before, but it's the stitching, how old yet intricate the detailing of a leafless tree.]
Did you know that Silentir resembles a dragon in flight? My mother who is a dragon as it suits her? Some believe too that before it was named so for Dumat that it was a set of scales of Mythal? There is an altar here where my mother took flight from, the Hawke brother confirmed it, that Merrill had an amulet and prayed, then from it she came to take flight.
[Out shudders her breath, she can't look at him, she almost can't say the last but he needs all the pieces to sit in silence himself with them.]
The timing though...when she was doing that, Cousland had not yet killed her. I have Geldauran's claim and I find myself wondering at who she is, what she is.
pre-tevinter/post-negotiation announcement (bronach devours the concept of time for breakfast)
[Hunting allows her to come by it all, and the Inquisition has ever been glad of the meat, unquestioning of what she'll do with the rest.
Thranduil is tall. Altmer tall and it burns, it burns through every inch of Brónach and the silence she kept, a rage that throttled the screams down into her throat until her mouth was full of blood upon shutting herself in the smithy by the tanning rack, bent forward over it furious, sweating.
Thranduil is tall, near as gold as they are, and how many of the elves here reach for him as the Thalmor do the bygone days of Aldmeris?
With Nocturnal's blessing her hushed feet bring her to the Provost's office with her gift in her arms, with a prayer to fucking Sithis coiled within her, but no, just a gift left on his desk. He might know it from descriptions she's given, might guess, the whole of it is seared in her mind from childhood. A tall hooded coat of black and gold in the style of the Justiciar that stalks her nightmares of Skyrim and Valenwood both.
A single sheet of vellum (how Brónach comes by most things is a question best not asked) with a dark handprint upon it in the style of the Dark Brotherhood he doesn't know, and a neater hand than would be credited to a Bosmer who lives half her life in the wilds.]
By my hand and my seal.
[If they are to be as them, then someone should know the words.]
Bronach, [ because who else could tan leather this fine, even without her stories, he has a faint idea of what he has been gifted. ] I would hope you have not singled me out in giving me such a fine gift; this seems just the sort of thing that Obi-Wan would love to wear.
Though the choice of gifting-tag is ominous; have you scrubbed the ink from your hand, yet?
He is Man, not Mer. Men do not wear those robes. [Men are, in some way, the reason for the existence, the prevalence.
She isn't overlooking that Men played their part in this either. Lorkhan Trickster walks here and spits in her eye, curls his lip and clings to the world shuddering in skins not his own (a terrible thing, isn't it, but she knows the lesson too.)]
What makes you think it was ink? Do I seem the type for your baths?
[There are rivers for that, or streams. And well, better to keep him guessing on what exactly she was doing prior to the writing.]
Well, I cannot loom about the Gallows in them, though you have a fair hand for tailoring.
[ begrudging admiration. ]
Blood, then, for it cannot be shit and you have a flair for the dramatic. How long did it take you to make these, your faith in me has clearly been dwindling for some time.
[ he restrains himself, reorganizes. calms his tone, and does not bite the inside of his cheek. ]
Five representatives, Bronach, all of us with an equal vote, all of us with our own goals. Do you think I could order it all as I wished? I have no hold over half of them, neither hate nor love.
a heap, also hit me if he wouldn't have Geldauran's claim.
[ he sits, and when her hands curl, he makes to take the teapot and serve them both. this, he knows.
she speaks, he listens, and behind the courtier's mask, he smiles, laughs, oh-- if only he could tell solas. technically, he might well, for morrigan forbade him galadriel's confidence, but not solas'.
their pride will consume them indeed. he weighs what he can and cannot say as he guides the teacup into her hand and takes his own. ]
Is it not obvious? When I too sit before you, when the Dalish looked at me first and knew me before all the others? What is more likely, [ he says, ] that she is unique among all things or that one of those precious pieces of the past persevered, either by taking on the trappings of older things still, or simply surviving?
[ the dread wolf walks among them, takes wine with him some evenings, and the pantheon were the strongest of them. however solas locked them away cannot last forever. if one has already escaped-- ]
Speak your fears, so that they cannot grow fiercer in the shadows.
[A lifetime crushed between four words, simple as that.]
They wanted phylacteries of us once, I don't give my blood so easily, and you have a nose at the end of your face. Where do I work, Thranduil? What am I proud of? [Dirt from the forge, her hand soaked in sweat that she pressed down (if people looked, well it was not for her to care) and it amuses her at least, him trying to work it out.] I'm not as old as you or even some of the humans but I've seen what they haven't, and I have little need to sleep when I am reminded of uncomfortable truths. We spoke on it before. There are already papers.
Do you know-- They have dossiers. They are ants in black and gold, and I have seen the surveys, there is no part of any of is that ends well. We live longer than them but the Thalmor slide into religion to say and this is the way you will worship. I said before. When you asked about food, and hunting, how it could be done, there was a time it could be stopped.
The hands of the clock cannot be jammed now, I don't think. Do you wonder which side we are on in the whole of it: those who hasten the end, may delay it, those who work to delay it, may bring it closer. [Paarthurnax, all their talks about time, and her balancing the forces wishing to bring the end of the world faster, ever faster.] What do they know of time, any of those children? They are children? What do they know of anything, Provost?
How did I not see it? Ten years and more I have had this, it has stared me in the face, left behind in the Wilds and delivered into my hands.
My mother...in all the tales there was a thing she spoke with that made her the thing of legend. If it was no demon, if it was no spirit, if this Geldauran speaks any fragment that might be trusted...then it was her. Mythal somehow. Impossible as that seems.
[And there are parts that make sense more than just the tales. Even how her mother spoke. Held herself. Knowledge gleaned that couldn't simply be credited to unnaturally long life but it chokes her.
Shapeshifting, after, has more in common with elven magic than that of a Circle mage.]
I have no proof enough to give to satisfy but I know this in my heart enough to sicken me.
I considered, [ he exhales, glad now that adalia is not here, the annoyance of finding his own space to speak openly unnecessary. ] taking us all into the forest. Making do, teaching those who have never lived like that. But the cost of diverting the attention of the Inquisition was too high. Corypheus must fall.
Here is what I know: Corypheus, if you go to him, will not offer you better terms. The Chantry and the Templars are Men; they will eb and flow and forget and die. I am sorry I could not block everything they proposed. I am glad I fought to keep invasive examination and the ilk off the table. If you compare me to the butchers of your world because I could not block everything and win us concessions too, I would point out that I am not the sort of creature who can make something from nothing.
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