I've been hoping for a sign...

[hallaifyouherd]

Who| Marjara Lavellan, and YOU?
What| The new kid in town is finding her way around.
Where| Around the ship in general.
When| First arrival.
Warnings/Notes| If you're squicked by mentions of amputation...well. Here's your warning.


As Inquisitor, she's traveled through the Veil to the Fade, the realm of abstracts and dreams. She's traveled through time. She's delved into the literal hearts of beings too massive and ancient to fathom. But this place is something else entirely. Sleek and metal, with no ground or dirt to be seen, outside of the lush forest that's been afforded her as her biome. And Elgar'nan, she'd never seen so many stars in her life.

Yes, she could certainly be found on the Observation Deck, putting it to its purpose with wide, dark eyes. One sleeve hangs empty, but her other arm extends to grip the rail, allowing her to lean forward as far as she dares. It's all a bit dizzying.

People might blink to see her poke her head into the training room, given her size and slender form, but she does so with great interest. With the loss of her arm, she'll have to relearn fighting with a staff, regaining proper balance with the weapon. She'll need to learn sooner, rather than later. Particularly if she's agreed to fight with the Legion.

Another fight to save all of creation. At least it doesn't fall entirely on her shoulders, this time.

She traverses the halls as well, taking in all the sights and sounds with perked ears and all the curiosity of a kitten. There are a great many humans here but none have mistaken her for a servant yet. So that's a pleasant change of pace. There have been whispers of a farm or garden, something of that nature. Perhaps a place she might be able to continue her study of herbs and potion-making? She may as well cultivate any advantage she can get.

Comments

[isthisapidge]

Pidge slapped her hand over her mouth, totally mortified of the sound she just made.

She'd just been walking down the hall, focused intently on...literally everything else that was going on right now. She was going to the observation deck to just be surrounded by space and technology, in the hopes that that would help her think better.

And then she looked up and saw an honest-to-goodness real, genuine, gold-plated elf. Just like out of Killbot Phantasm I.

And she squee'd. Literally. An embarrassingly high-pitched noise just jumped out of her mouth before she could even think about it. And she's staring right at her too. Intergalactic galactic relations are apparently not her A-game.

[hallaifyouherd]

The noise is a startling one and Marjara pauses mid-step, eyes widening ever so slightly. Yes, that came from the young person in front of her, and yes, it was a result of her being there. If the staring was any kind of indication.

"Ah...yes?"

And she glances behind her, just to make sure. Nope. Nothing else there. Definitely staring at her, and she blinks puzzledly for a moment.

[isthisapidge]

Pidge just knows she isn't going to be able to explain this in a way that won't make her sound like a complete and utter racist. Even if it does turn out that she has a similar enough cultural background to understand why seeing someone out of a fantasy would evoke that response, it's probably different when you're on the other side of it? Pidge would assume, anyway.

"Well, in my world elves aren't real soooo when I saw you that, um, just kind of...happened."

This is why Pidge spends most of her time with machines.

"I'm sorry."

[hallaifyouherd]

Not quite the response she was expecting, but she's heard worse. And more racist. She's been to the Winter Palace, after all.

"Elves aren't real. But you know of them?" She still looks a little confused, but not necessarily upset by the admission. The young person -- she still can't quite place a gender, better not to assume -- does look very regretful for the slip. And she doesn't want anyone feeling they have to walk on eggshells around her.

Got enough of that back home where she had an actual reputation proceeding her.

[isthisapidge]

"It's...complicated. The myth of elves evolved from a combination of a lot of different folklore and fable about fairies and forest people that was passed down through generations and then codified by a very famous fantasy novel that more or less solidified into one single image of small pointy-eared people that kind of filtered through world culture and well..."

That doesn't seem adequate. "There's this theory that if you gave a million monkeys a million typewriters, or pens and paper if your world isn't at that tech level yet -which doesn't mean I think you're primitive!- I just mean that if you give them an infinite amount of time, they'll eventually reproduce the entire works of a given author, and I think it's something like that. There are apparently infinite universes with an infinite possibilities so I think something similar happened, where our myth happens to resemble a people evolving in a completely different universe, and I mean, probably superficially. I don't know that your people are immortal magic forest-dwellers but-"

She doesn't seem to realize she's rambling.

[hallaifyouherd]

Luckily for her, Marjara deals with a lot of expositional conversations. So the air of patient curiosity continues as Pidge explains herself, though the last portion of that earns a faint wince.

"Well. We used to be immortal, as it turned out. And not all of us can use magic."

So there, Pidge. You get some of it right. That's got to be worth something, doesn't it? Although it's strange that a land where her people don't exist still somehow know of them.

"It might even be possible that we did exist once, and simply..." She bites her lip before shrugging mildly. "Died out. Became nothing more than myths and stories."

A morbid thought, but not one so farfetched.

[isthisapidge]

"So, what, two-and-a-half out of three? That's almost impossibly good for random chance." Pidge looks thoughtful at that. You can see the wheels turning in her head until she finally shrugs.

"I'd say there wasn't really any evidence for it, but there wasn't really any evidence for a super-weapon hidden on Earth by aliens and that turned out to be very, very real. So it could-"

Wait, this was kind of the same thing the Alteans had gone through, right? Sort of. The dying off part. Still, suddenly everything makes more sense.

"Oh! If the Alteans had to come to the planet to hide the lion then that would make so much sense!" She feels like she's solved a mystery!

...One that might need some explaining. "The Alteans look really elven. Except they can shape-shift and are...actually pretty tall." She clears her throat. Implying that she was short was a good way to make things awkward again, especially when it came from Pidge. A good time to do a normal human socialization thing.

"My name is Pidge, by the way."

[hallaifyouherd]

It's alright, Pidge. She knows she's tiny. Her fumblings are more amusing than they are insulting, and she's actually doing her best not to smile too openly. "Well, again, not many of us can use magic, but there are a few who mastered the shapeshifting arts. Perhaps where you come from, the story is told a little differently."

She can buy into that, sure. Not sure what the mention of a lion is about, but she can always inquire later.

"It's very nice to meet you, Pidge." She inclines her head politely, as she's done so many times before. It seems a fairly neutral yet polite human custom, surely it will extend here as well. Hopefully.

"My name is Marjara, of clan Lavellan."

[isthisapidge]

"Sorry about the awkwardness. Welcome to The Legion, at least?"

Pidge returns the gesture. Her embarrassment is subsiding, so maybe it's a good time to ask her...

"What about you? Can you use magic?"

[hallaifyouherd]

"I can. Not to the extent I could at home, but I think magic works differently here. There's no Fade to draw on..."

She frowns, lifting her hand to sift through the air as if feeling for something tangible. But a second later, flames flicker into existence around her fingertips. Just a small thing, licking upwards in the air, enough to demonstrate before vanishing once more as she lowers her hand.

"But I understand talents like those aren't uncommon here."

[isthisapidge]

Pidge examines the fire closely, but aside from the fact that it doesn't hurt her hand at all...it does seem to be perfectly ordinary fire.

"What's the Fade? Never heard of it." She pulls back because it's fire and it's hot. "But you're right, I couldn't turn invisible until I came here. Though I was working on it!"

[hallaifyouherd]

Well. It's a lot different than she originally thought it was. Though now she can explain properly, she supposes. Taking in Pidge's curious look with a wry smile of her own, Marjara gives a faint sigh nonetheless.

"The Fade...used to be part of our world. Long ago a powerful barrier was brought into existance in our world, and all things magical, abstract, and subconscious were forced onto one side of that barrier. That world is the Fade, and it is the source of dreams and magic."

Oh, how Solas would hate so pithy an explanation. But she doesn't want to overwhelm her new friend.

[isthisapidge]

"Magic, OK. Magic, I get, that has to have a source, but...dreams?"

Pidge leans in a little closer, brain going a mile a minute behind her wide eyes. "In my world, dreams are just the subconscious mind sorting through random information during certain stages of sleep. Are you telling me your brain is connected to another plane of existence when you sleep?"

Her smile goes impossibly wider. She's not a psychologist or an expert on sleep or anything, but it an idea she'll be playing with for a long time. "Cool!"

[hallaifyouherd]

"As I said, it used to be part of our world. And some parts of it can still slip through, be it magic, spirits, or even demons. And sometimes physically tears in the Veil that stood between those worlds could occur."

Her lips tip wryly upwards.

"I dealt with them quite a bit, back home."

[isthisapidge]

"Like wormholes..." OK, maybe not quite like wormholes, but it's a passage that things can come through and opening it up to the wrong kind of Things could spell disaster.

"So if magic can come out of the Veil, can people enter it?"

[hallaifyouherd]

"Most people only ever visit in dreams. Mages have a little more control over their surroundings, but even they never go there physically."

And lest Pidge get too curious about the idea, perhaps she ought to heed Dorian's advice. There's a reason people don't try to visit the Fade, and she's been too many times for her liking, as it is.

"Long ago, a group of mages purposefully tried to pass through into the Fade, to harness its power or meet their gods...the reason didn't matter. They were cast back out as monsters, infecting everything they touched." Her lips twist wryly. "So trying to do so isn't advisable."

[isthisapidge]

"So...there's some kind of magic dream disease in the Fade? Or was it something someone did to them? So is a physical entering or is your consciousness projected somehow or...?"

Oddly, Pidge seems even more curious than before about the Veil and the Fade and the way dreaming works. She doesn't really want to go in, at least without proper protective gear, but knowing how that all works would be cool.

It's all hypothetical anyway.