action:

[virtanadhal]

[Her armor and her sword are safely hidden away. Her longbow -- a gift from the camp of the Dalish she met after leaving her own clan -- is all the protection she has. (Well, and a layer of leather stitched against her chest, under her loose, long shirt and sewn to the inside of the pants she wears.)

She makes almost no sound as she ventures through the forest from dawn to early afternoon.

Having hunted enough for supper, she comes to the village about midday, collecting cooking supplies and browsing the item shop to see if any more of her things have come.

She'll take a couple of hours to herself, getting more acquainted with this part of this strange place. For the last seven days, she's kept herself to a portion of the forest that reminded her most of her clan. Not that she hasn't been giving the Journal a look-over every so often, speaking to a few who seem interesting or whom she has met during the short times she's come out of the woods before. (Or those who have met her in the woods.)]


Player Name: Lynn
Are you new?: N
Character Name: Lyna Mahariel
Character Fandom: Dragon Age: Origins

Comments

[virtanadhal]

Before I joined the Gray Wardens, the forest around our camp became inhabited by darkspawn. You could feel the taint in the ground, trees, and air.

[She frowns, remembering it. Perhaps she doesn't need to tell Zevran, but it all feeds into her perspective, in a way.]

It wasn't the same in the Brecilian Forest, but the evil was... everywhere. So much hate.

We chose our way of life to be free. We want a homeland, not to subjigate others. That is not the purpose of the Dalish.

What Zathrian did... offended every lesson I'd learned from the hahren and keeper of my clan. In the immediate aftermath... I would have supported him. If it had been those things who had taken his family, I would have killed them all and enjoyed it.

[She can't regret thinking it. Too many Dalish lives are still lost to humans for her to pity them as a whole.]

But those men were long dead.

And it was time for a new Keeper, for the good of the clan. He lifted the curse and joined his family.

[antivanleather]

...then you chose much as Elissa did, though for more personal reasons.

[And yet they were reasons he could respect easily enough. He couldn't imagine what it must have been like as a Dalish to make that choice, to witness what he had seen as an elf and an outsider and know the people, know the suffering. And have to choose. Her honesty pulls a wry smile from him- this indeed is a woman he could come to respect, to extend the very beginnings of some manner of trust. He could see that easily enough.]

I do not know how the journey ends, I fear. The forest, the tower, the ashes, those have come and gone. When I was pulled to this world we were in the middle of exploring the deep roads. There are few things that give me pause- but that place? I do not relish what it is we will find.

[virtanadhal]

The Deep Roads.

[There's bile in her throat even saying it. And to think all Gray Wardens were supposed to walk those paths at the end of their days...

No.

She'd made Alistair swear to her when she had come through that trial, when they were back in the open air and she could feel the sun trying to warm the chill she could no longer bear, that he would see her put to the sword before the taint possessed her so much as to follow that custom. The sword, the bow, the flame. Anything but to return to the Deep Roads.

For Gray Warden or not, she doubted any woman could see what lay there, the horrors of the darkspawn, and not prefer a certain death to the ideals of the order. Let the men uphold those, she would not run that risk.]

After that, your warden will need a friend. More than anything, she will need a friend.