miss 20 something [past]

Hawke had irreverently asked Merrill if she could make healing potions with Bethany while Hawke took Varric and some others out on some adventure or another.

Merrill doesn't mind, and it's nice to be wanted, but if she were Bethany she'd be spitting mad, she thinks. 

Still, she knocks on the tenement apartment door where the Hawke family lives in the slums, barely above the alienage where the elves teem like the rats that Hightown sees them as. She's been told that Leandra and Gamlen will likely be at work, but what does she know.

Bethany? she calls. I brought elfroot. Are you in?

Bethany was doing her best not to be sour about being left behind, again.  Yes, they needed more potions, and yes she was better at it than anyone else in her family, but Maker's Breath couldn't she have a choice in how she spent her day?  At least the rest of the family was out so she wasn't bumping into them all the time too.  She loved her family, but quarters these days were a little... close.

"Come on in!" she replied upon hearing Merrill.  She didn't quite know what to make of the elf yet.  Bethany was inclined to like her - she was helpful, kind, if a little bumbling in a rather charming fashion.  Yet, there was the whole blood magic thing.  She couldn't ignore that, not entirely, but it also didn't seem to fit with what she knew of the other woman.

Not that it mattered right now, they were on potion duty.  "Thanks for bringing the elfroot.  I've got everything else set up over here, " she said, gesturing to a table with the rest of what they needed laid out.  "Did you want any tea or anything?  I think I've got some stashed away I could bring out."

Ho there, Bethany, Merrill says, dusting off the bottom of her feet before crossing the threshold. She doesn't want to make more sweeping for Leandra, who she understands is a bit sensitive at the moment. Or in general. Merrill hasn't met her yet, but the Hawke siblings tend to talk. Some tea would be lovely. Have you got nettle? I'm partial to nettle. Although I've got a mint plant in my apartment that's just about taken over the room, so if you ever want mint leaves let me know. She looks around the flat curiously, taking in the potions set-up in particular. It's not very different to the way they did things with the Dalish; she doesn't know why she expected shemlen to do it differently.

Nettle?  They ought to have that.  She rummaged around for a moment before pulling out a small wooden box with some satchels.  She took one out, ready to pop it in the kettle as soon as it was ready.  "I hope you don't mind, the nettle I have has a touch of lemon in it.  And actually, I wouldn't mind some mint next time you're by.  This place could use a little something green." And that smelled nice.  All five of them in one hovel was a little much at times.

Once she had the tea going, she returned to the supplies she'd laid out.  "I've been making potions the way my father taught me since I was a kid.  We probably needed them more than the average family," she said with a bit of an eyeroll thinking of Carver and Aoife's shenanigans.  "But I was wondering, can you show me how you do it?"  She would not be at all surprised to learn that the Dalish had a more effective way of doing things than a family of apostates.

Nettle with lemon? Big spender. Of course, it's hot enough in Kirkwall for citrus to be widely available, and Merrill has been known to sneak into Hightown gardens to steal lemons and oranges when the guards are busy chasing after gangs. There are so many gangs in Kirkwall, you can't go two feet without tripping over a gang. I'll bring you some mint clippings -- I put it in a windowbox and it's spilling straight over. I think it's trying to get into the downstairs neighbor's rosemary.

Was your father always an apostate, or did he come from a Circle? Merrill isn't exactly sure of the details. She knows that the Hawke family moved around often because of Templars, that their father is dead and was a mage, and that Bethany and Aoife have never seen the inside of a Circle. Poor Carver, she thinks sometimes -- to be the odd one out among so many wizards. And it's hardly like they're Dalish, and are used to having them around. I can show you, but I'm not sure how different it will be. Have you got a bowl to strip the elfroot, or should I just use my hands?

"Oh, yes, here's a bowl," she said, quickly grabbing one and handing it over.  Bethany was used to just using her hands.  It hadn't occurred to her to use a bowl.  This was exactly why she wanted to learn from Merrill - there might not be large differences in how they went about it but even small ones she could learn from.

She then returned to Merrill's earlier question.  "He was from a Circle - the one here, actually.  My understanding is that it was a lot less strict then.  It wasn't too uncommon for mages to attend functions and whatnot, especially in Hightown, once they passed their Harrowing.  That's how he met my mother, actually."  It was a terribly romantic story.  True love at its finest - the kind she hoped to find one day.

Merrill turns the bowl over in her hands. This won't do, she says kindly. You need a stripping bowl -- it's got holes in it, and then you pull the herbs through the holes and the leaves catch in the bowl. It may be an elvhen thing, I'll see if I can rustle up a spare for you. It's fine, we'll just pick the leaves off with our fingers.

She's not sure if it is an Elvhen thing, or maybe if it's that Leandra never quite caught on to peasant life -- she doesn't know the woman well enough, or at all, to say, but sometimes the Hawkes say things like this, and it doesn't quite help the portrait in Merrill's head.

Point in fact: the story that Bethany is telling is clearly romantic to her, but it puts a sour taste in her mouth. Mages being paraded about at noble parties... What, like a clown? She keeps her voice bright, if doubtful, happy to let this moment of rudeness be passed off as the stupid dalish elf who doesn't know how human society works.

The question confused Bethany for a moment, before she turned thoughtful.  "Well, I suppose a bit," she conceded.  "Father always witty, and he did have a knack for being entertaining.  Probably helped him be seen as less of a threat and more likely to be let out of the Circle."  Merrill's question, innocent as it may have been, did put a bit of a spin on what she'd always thought of as a rather adorable meet-cute.

"Do you mind if I ask what it's like being a mage among the Dalish?  It seems you're very well respected."  The Dalish had a very different approach to things, and Bethany simply didn't know a lot about it.  She was curious though - it was hard to imagine magic not being considered a curse, something to be watched and feared.  Oh sure, she knew it was the opposite in Tevinter, but nothing about Tevinter ever sounded good.

The lass admits herself that it's clown behaviour, and that passes for romance. Merrill despairs. 

Oh, mages are valued members of our communities, she says. They are our Keepers, our firsts, our seconds and thirds -- they guide and lead us, and protect us from tricksters, and pass on the lore of the ancients.

Which puts a sour taste in her mouth, doesn't it, because when Merrill tries to preserve the lore of the ancients, she's told to stop it or leave, and then blamed for chosing to leave. She hates an ultimatum almost as much as she hates a false dichotomy. Of course, Templars hunt down mages in the forests same as the cities, so our numbers are a bit, um, lacking of late. It depends on the clan, to be sure, but some clans are just proper mageless. My clan -- Clan Sabrae -- hadn't had any in years, and poor Keeper Marethari was getting on in hers. When I came into my magic as a child, it was decided that I'd leave my parents and clan to go join Sabrae, and become their First. I was about, oh, four or so.

She has no real memories of Alerion, besides the teeny stuffed halla that she clutched in her hand when she left. She had other things, of course, baby blankets and her clothes and such, but those all got passed on when Hahren Paivel had grandchildren.

Does that answer your question? Sorry, I know I tend to ramble.

Mages trusted to lead, to carry knowledge and wisdom and history, to protect their clans.  It was just so very different and Bethany had a hard time imagining it.  It sounded lovely, impossibly so.  To not have hide, to play a critical and respected role in your community - it just flipped everything she had ever known about being a mage on its head.  She'd known nothing but worry ever since she'd come into her magic, nothing but trying to stay under the radar in hopes that her family wouldn't be torn apart.

But for as respected as the Keepers, Firsts, Seconds, and so on were it seemed just as likely for them to be pulled away from their families just like the Templars would do to her if caught.  There was something cruel about that no matter how necessary their societies framed it.

"Yes, yes it does.  It seems having magic determines our fate no matter how its viewed," she mused.  "It defines us in ways that it doesn't others.  Others have a choice, and we don't.  And we risk losing our families because of it."  A somber musing, to be sure, but it was hard not to think of it through that lens.

She shook it off.  "Sorry, I didn't mean to... thank you for sharing that with me.  It's nice to know there are places where we aren't hated."

Well, I'm rather hated, but that's mostly because of my personality, Merrill says thoughtfully. Also, Junar still blames me for him and Mahariel breaking up when we were tweens, but it's frankly getting immature at this point. Perhaps we should keep our voices down, though -- I'm told the walls have ears, here.

Merrill had thought Varric was being literal when he told her that, and had started apologizing to the walls in her alienage apartment for swearing when she stubbed her toes. 

It took one of her flatmates explaining that it meant the neighbours are nosy, which Merrill thinks isn't fair -- just say that then. It's not her fault she grew up in a forest where the trees more often than not did have ears, or spirits possessing them, or wolves and other predators hanging around them.

I don't mind talking about the Dalish, though. You can ask questions whenever. Now, I like to roll my stripped leaves into a stack like this, it makes for finer mincing, see? she demonstrates.

Bethany didn't understand how anyone could hate Merrill, especially for her personality.  She was just so kind and thoughtful, and really quite knowledgeable about so many things.  She just wasn't familiar with the ways of humans, and why should she be when she was Dalish?  Bethany gave a little huff in response to Merrill's musings on that point.  "Well, then those people are missing out.  And really, who still carries a grudge about breakups from that long ago anyway?  Sounds like someone else has some growing up to do."

She did nod about the reminder of ears listening in.  Despite them being alone in what passed for a residence to the Hawkes walls were thin and she couldn't count on neighbors not being home.  Gossip could spread fast, and the company her family kept was surely something that was noticed.

"Oh!  So just like herbs in cooking.  That makes sense - I bet that helps them dissolve better, I feel like it always took ages when I go about it haphazardly. Do you do the same with the embrium?"