001 drop of lyrium || [video] + action

[arlathansgrace]

Oh! Andaran atish’an! This is such an interesting way to talk to people, don't you think? I can see your face and you can see mine! It's like a mirror, but it reflects other people back at you.

[Merrill waves, smiling broadly, her large eyes sparkling with delight.]

My name is Merrill, and I'm looking for my friends. I appear to be a little lost. [She swings the tablet around too fast to really see anything useful. Just a lot of stone.] Did you see that? I'm lost. But I have friends who can help me become, ah, not lost.

Sometimes, when I was lost in Kirkwall, Isabela - she's one of my friends - would swoop down from the top of a building and tell me where to go. She's very pretty, with dark hair and a lovely blue bandana. Oh, and a necklace. It's quite hard to miss her necklace and what's below it. And there's Aveline, but sometimes I worry she doesn't like me. She has red hair, like the sun, and quite a lot of freckles. I like her freckles. I wish I had freckles... [Merrill trails off, tapping her fingers against her cheeks as if counting freckles. She comes back to herself suddenly.] I'm sorry, I tend to get lost in my thoughts. I think that's how I ended up here. Do you ever do that? You start thinking and then you just don't come out. What was I saying before?

Oh, yes, my friends! I have quite a few of them. Isabela and Aveline and Varric! Varric is a dwarf, and he's very funny, but his stories aren't always true. He tells me stories about pirates, but Isabela says they're mostly made up. And Fenris, he's elvhen, like me, but--that's not going to be trouble, is it? In Kirkwall, they make us live in alienages, and they're very dirty. I had a nice house, but it was very small. No one in Thedas seems to like the elvhen very much, and living in the alienage is very uncomfortable...

[She stares past the tablet screen for a moment, thoughtful.] I hope there aren't any alienages here...

If you know my friends, would you tell them I'm looking for them? Ma serannas for your troubles. Or, if you recognize this place-- [She ducks out of the frame, an alleyway filling the screen for a few seconds before she fumbles the tablet and then drops it. Merrill's face pops into the frame again, a worried expression on it.] Oh, dear, I hope I haven't broken you...

[ooc: Feel free to engage the very lost Merrill in actiony posts. As a Dalish elf, she tends to speak in the elvhen language frequently. You can hover over the text with your mouse to get a translation!]

Comments

[arlathansgrace]

[Merrill stares.

She does a lot of staring. And then breaks into a wide smile.]

Anet ara, lethallan! Others have mentioned there are more of the People here. Are you from an alienage? Oh, perhaps you're a Grey Warden! I hear they treat the elvhen much better than most humans do, even elvhen mages. I'm so glad to see there are other elvhenan here.

Did they put you in an alienage?

I'm also a fan of the hover-over

[inafadingcrown]

[Oh, that is so sweet, but she barely has any idea of what you are talking about.]

Mae govannen, mellon. We hail from different lands and so, alas, I do not speak your tongue. I know little of Grey Wardens and I may say in all honesty I have never set foot in an alienage. If you wish to know, I make my home in Caras Galadhon in Lothloríen, though I imagine that will mean little to you.

it is the best

[arlathansgrace]

No, I've never been there. Is it a very far walk from here? I'm used to walking long distances. It sounds lovely. Lothloríen. Very glen-like and misty in the mornings and green during the day. Loooothloríen.

[inafadingcrown]

[She gives a soft chuckle at that.] You are not far wrong; it is a forest- my Golden Woods. But I may walk home no more than you, else I would not be here still.

[arlathansgrace]

Golden Woods? Are the trees covered in gold? Or are the leaves gold? That would make a very strange forest. Are you a Keeper? You seem like you would be a Keeper. You're very--

[She doesn't know the right word for it, and "you seem old" doesn't seem polite.]

Wise?

[inafadingcrown]

It is so named for the Mallorn trees which grow there; their leaves do not fall in autumn, but turn a golden hue. And in the spring, the Elanor flowers and covers the ground in a golden blanket.

Is a Keeper your term for a ruler? I do indeed hold dominion over Loríen, alongside my husband. Ah- [Sudden realization.] Forgive me, I have not yet given my name. I am the Lady Galadriel.

[And she probably would have been flattered to hear that she seemed old. That's a complement in her society. (Also it's accurate.)]

[arlathansgrace]

That sounds lovely, truly.

Oh, and I'm Merrill. Just Merrill, sometimes we use clan names, but I don't really have a clan anymore, so just Merrill. You're married? [So much envy.] That must be wonderful.

Keepers are... they're the ones who remember who we are. A Keeper has to remember everything. The good things, and the bad.

[inafadingcrown]

I suppose I am something akin to a Keeper, then, if only because few remain who remember the world as it once was.

And yes, I have been wed for many centuries; [Switching the flow of this part because she misses him already.] you may yet meet my granddaughter here.

[arlathansgrace]

Granddaughter? [She perks up.] So there are more elvhenan here!

[inafadingcrown]

There are a great many elves: four from my home alone, including myself.

[arlathansgrace]

I hope I can meet them! I've only ever met alienage and Dalish elves, but I suppose that's obvious. Do you like to frolic in glens?

[inafadingcrown]

["Frolic in glens?" Really, Merril?] I would not have used that phrasing, but we take great pleasure in the land, yes.

Tell me, what do you mean by "Dalish?"

[arlathansgrace]

[Ye. This is what elves do. ARE YOU NOT AN ELF GALADRIEL?]

Dalish is the name the humans gave us. They chased the elvhenan, the People, from our lands and took us as slaves. But after Andraste freed us, we were given the Dales. The elvhenan who refuse to live in the alienages are called the Dalish, but we call ourselves the People.

[inafadingcrown]

[SHE IS THE ELF-EST OF ELVES, EXCUSE YOU. Except that right now, she's looking a little uncharacteristically horrified.]

Forgive me, I did not know.

[arlathansgrace]

[THEN THERE WILL BE FROLICKING, GALADRIEL.

Merrill is oblivious to the horror.]

It's alright, I guess. Well, it's not, but we don't mind. We're used to it. It's been this way for ages. [A pause.] Um. You were never called Andraste, were you?

[inafadingcrown]

[Just give her a moment to regain her compose here...]

I have been called many things, but never that. Do I bear her a resemblance?

[arlathansgrace]

I don't know, really. They say Andraste was very beautiful. You're very beautiful, but lots of women are beautiful. Did they burn you alive? They did that to Andraste, but some people think she'll come back. She tried to save the Dalish, you know, even though we don't worship her.

[inafadingcrown]

[There's a pause. A long pause while fits all of those pieces together. And then she sounds simultaneously flattered and rather shocked.]

Child, do you compare me to a goddess?

[arlathansgrace]

Is that what Andraste is? She was a noble woman, and the Chantry does teach she went to sit with the Maker. I think. Sebastian said a lot about her, but the Dalish don't believe she was a goddess. We have our own pantheon. But you're like her. Or maybe Mythal. You're soft and silver like the moon.

[inafadingcrown]

[Lord, Merrill. It's a good thing she's used to be flattered.]

We have scarcely met and already you do me such great honor.

[arlathansgrace]

You seem very honorable. It's not something you find a lot of, you know. Thieving, lying, general mayhem and terrible... ness... you find a lot of that. It's why we like Hawke so much. Even when he's blunt and straightforward, he's honorable.

[inafadingcrown]

That which is rare is valued all the more highly when it is found. [BRB, adding "Hawke" to her mental list of people to talk to.]

But we have strayed far from the most pressing topic. Are you still lost, my young friend?

[arlathansgrace]

[She holds up a ball of twine.]

Not anymore! Varric found me. We're going back to the-- um. Apartments?

[inafadingcrown]

[Okay, she doesn't get the relevance of the ball of twine, but she's relieved.]

I am glad. It is fortunate you have friends here already.

[arlathansgrace]

And a few more. There's another elf here who looks like you. Is he your friend, too?