[open] december will be magic again

[kingsroads]

Who: everyone!
When: the evening of D15
Where: A small meeting hall on the moon, close to the portal to the carnival
What: a whole bunch of show-offs meet up to show off their magic, people interested in magic come to learn about said magic, and other people show up to see if something inevitably gets set on fire. (aka mage club)
Warnings: none so far, will edit if needed.

The meeting hall is a large open space, with hardwood floors and a rustic decor. A few chairs and tables are scattered around, though there aren't enough for the amount of people who'll hopefully show up. Some food has been set out: mostly finger foods (tiny sandwiches, fruit, veggies & dip) though there are some savory options and plenty of home-baked cookies, courtesy of Rin. Drink wise, there's water, hot chocolate, hot tea, and a few bottles of wine because tipsy magic sounds like an awesome idea and this is what happens when the alcoholic makes the dinner menu. Aside from the food table and the few tables, there's not much of anything in the room: plenty of open space for showing off or getting out of the way of someone who wants to show off.

One of the doors of the meeting hall leads to the outside. There's a wider, 'backyard' sort of area with plenty of room for people to cast magic as large and impressive as they want. A fire pit stands outside also for warming your hands and other fire-based magic. Please don't set the building on fire.

This is all very informal. If pressed for details, Strange would have told anyone to just come whenever, stay as long as you like, and so on and so forth. The emphasis is on learning about each other's magic, displaying one's skills and talents, and helping anyone who wished to learn magic decide on a path for them to take.

Showing off is just a given.

( ooc: This is an open mingle log! Feel free to make your own top-levels & tag around! )

Comments

[dirthena]

Something about that catches Lavellan's interest, but it might not be the thing that Rita expects of her. Leaning forward, and with one brow raised, she continues. "It's rare to find a shemlen so aware of the shortcomings of one's own race." Said casually, as if it didn't matter so much to her. But most of the humans Lavellan has encountered seemed so willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

[anti_nonsense]

"Shemlen?" Rita repeats, uncertain. "What's that?"

From the context, it would seem she's talking about humans, but Rita can't help but wonder if the foreign word has connotations unknown to her.

[dirthena]

“It’s the elven word for humans where I’m from,” she says, gesturing at her ears. The vallaslin would have made that even more obvious, but she knows that no one who wasn’t from her world would understand them. “It means quick children, because they aged and died while the elves of that time did not.”

[anti_nonsense]

"Elven? Wait... you're an elf? I thought they were just a myth."

In truth, this is about the fourth elf Rita's met, but seeing as elves just aren't a thing in her world and she's encountered other races that happen to have pointed ears, it genuinely never occurred to her.

[dirthena]

Lavellan laughs at that, shaking her head in amusement. "No, we are not a myth. Not in Thedas, at any rate. Our glory of the height of our empire might be, but elves live and breathe as you do." She's silent for a moment, and then grins. "As you've met Solas, you can now say you know two."

He is, by all estimations, the more mythological one. But if he has not seen to divulge that, she can keep it as secret as she can under their terms.

[anti_nonsense]

“Right... well, I guess elves aren’t the weirdest thing to turn out to be real,” Rita says with a sigh, seemingly willing to accept this new information despite the potentially wide-reaching implications.

There is one extraordinary thing Lavellan mentioned about elves that can't be brushed off, however. “You said the elves of 'that time' didn't age or die. Does that mean they somehow went from being immortal, to not? How is that possible?”

[dirthena]

A smaller chuckle, for Lavellan will give her that. But it's her other question that takes her by surprise, and for a moment she wavers on how best to discuss this. It's new to her, too, and the person who'd know more is unlikely to be as forthcoming as Lavellan is.

"It does, yes. What do you know of the Veil, from Solas and Cole?" Beyond that it exists, and one must pull magic through it to use magic at all.

[anti_nonsense]

The Veil... It's come up briefly compared to certain other topics, but she can recall some things that were said about it. Put simply...

"Only that it's what keeps the Fade separated from the physical world," Rita answers.

[dirthena]

It's enough, and Lavellan nods before continuing. "It was created, an artificial barrier made for a purpose. But it came with unintended consequences -- the Elven empire which existed at the time relied on the free access to magic, as did the immortality of the elves. Without it, Arlathan crumpled and the elves fell to sickness and old age."

A myth, once. One she knows is true now -- but it wasn't the humans that brought about their destruction. Just one of their own, desperate and driven by grief and rage.

[anti_nonsense]

"Someone made it!?" Rita's eyes widen. Even having never seen Lavellan's world for herself, she knows that can't be an easy feat. "And no one's been able to undo it?" Surely someone would have tried, if it could mean regaining immortality. It sounds like it's been in place for a long time, too...

[dirthena]

"Someone made it," she repeats, humor in her tone if not her expression -- she thought much the same thing when she found out. Disbelief, for no one had ever considered it hadn't always existed. "No one thought they could, for anyone who remembered it was long dead. But its creator has recently given it his best effort and failed, although he will try again."

Unless she can stop him from being such a damned idiot.

[anti_nonsense]

"Wait... that doesn't make sense."

The person trying to undo it is the same person who made it in the first place? That one fact carries a lot of implications, but most glaring among them is...

"This happened a long time ago, right? If the creation of the Veil ended immortality for elves, but that guy's still alive... what is he?" Up until now, Rita was imagining another elf, or some human-like being. Now she's not so sure.

[dirthena]

"At least two thousand years ago, yes." As for what he is-- Lavellan frowns, thinking it over.

Solas should be the ones answering this, Creators damn it, not her. But then again, Solas would never get close to admitting his own role in it all, and therefore it falls to her. "Just an elf like myself, I assure you." As he would no doubt impress, although he would make the distinction between her and him as well. That argument doesn't have a place here. "But the ancient elves could enter something called uthenera. A long sleep, that would keep them alive -- he fell into one, and only awoke four years ago."

[anti_nonsense]

"So that's how he managed it..." Rita muses, processing that information.

"If he succeeded in dispelling the Veil, would elves be immortal again?" There's surely no guarantee that they'd have another golden age, but there must be something to be gained from it.

[dirthena]

"Yes," she says, with a shrug of her shoulder. "Elves would be immortal, and all would have access to the magic that is our birthright." And before Rita can go off and imagine it as a better place, Lavellan is quick to continue. "But Thedas as we know it would be destroyed, humans and qunari, and elves too. For him, saving the elven people means saving his elven people, and he will burn it all to see that happen."

There's no mistaking the bitterness in her tone this time, as well as the sadness. It seems so strange to tell it to another person, even if she's removing the emotional component. Or the details of it, with regards to how much of her identity he managed to snatch away.

[anti_nonsense]

For a few seconds, Rita's expression is fixed in a mixture of surprise and confusion. The pre-Veil world was starting to sound like a utopia, so she definitely didn't expect a return to it to involve... well, genocide.

"That's..." She's at a loss for words, struggling to come up with the right emotional response. In the end, she seems to settle on indignation. "So, what, he just woke up one day, saw that everything's different, and decided it all had to go?" One day, four years, whatever. It still sounds like something a complete asshole would do.

[dirthena]

Lavellan can't help but laugh at that, for she understands the indignation. "In brief, yes. I--" her amusement fades, then, and she doesn't withdraw into herself so much as she seems to sober, thinking upon Solas and all that she knows about him, all that she's learned. "He believes it is the only way, and his grief and ego propel him forward. He's always been so convinced that he knows better, better than anyone."

The level of familiarity Lavellan is clearly displaying about this Fen'harel might be suspect, and she knows she should reign it in, but the wound is still fresh, and so when she speaks again it's weighted down with sadness, with betrayal, and with hopeless defiance. "I hope to save him from himself, if I can." And if she can't, she will have to kill him; Thedas might be terrible, and the world he wants back might be perfect and beautiful, but he has no right to doom them all for it.

"But enough about that -- what else do you wish to know?"

[anti_nonsense]

"So you are involved." There's no surprise in her voice. Rita already suspected as much, and Lavellan merely confirmed it. She doesn't press further, however. If Lavellan's framing of this situation is accurate, then it seems she at least has some intention to stop the worst case scenario from happening. Rita feels no need to argue with her, at least.

"That's enough for now, I think," Rita decides, rising from her seat and glancing over her shoulder at a clock. They ended up talking for a while. "...I wouldn't mind continuing this some other time, though," she adds, though her gaze drifts away, not meeting Lavellan's eyes. She appreciates the woman taking the time to discuss spirits and magic to such an extent, though she hesitates to express it and tries to maintain some sense of aloofness.

[dirthena]

A sad, small smile as she nods. Yes, and she cannot help but be involved, and perhaps more than Rita thinks. But she nods her thanks anyway, and lets the other go freely.

"Of course. I'll be easy to find, no doubt." And she stands as well, giving her a slight nod of her head before making her own way through the crowd. There are a lot of other mages to question, after all.