#forcemagi

     So Morrigan does not seek happiness in someone or something. What brings her joy is knowledge, living with a purpose, and the power to do what no other has done before. To become legendary. 

     “I saw it as my home. Sounds obvious, I know, but it is true. It was my home, and I thought myself lucky to be living in such a wonderland. To be able to trace back my blood ages into the past, to wander the streets and see a tower older than the blights next to a library younger than I.     I never needed to stick my nose into a book to find adventure when it was all around me.”

Trust is terrifying.It was something cultivates in small quarters, a familiar touch of warning between working behind those masks and in such grand rooms. Trust was relying on someone to keep you from stepping a line--it was less friendship, and more kinship. An understanding that they were the only eyes on each others backs, the only hands they could trust not to inflict punishment or pain. It was scarce, trust was, and ripped away the moment it became too comfortable, leaving an aching cavity where once there might've been something. Trust endangered familiarity, it brought a mark upon the back of someone's skull and a target right over their h e a r t.Trust was better left for dreams, something you could slip into once exhaustion wearied bones and left all numb. Trust was a fancy, something you perhaps believed in, but not something you practiced. Trust is guarded behind every wall imaginable to try and keep it safe, from preventing any more wounds or aches to bruise and scar it. Trust had been stories of gods who listened and helped with guiding hands and visions of love, of faith and warmth and kindness, and that has been dashed. Trust was a lie, the most painful sort of truth that shatters mind and heart when it lands--not with a bang, but with a sigh.Trust had no right to be a star littered in the sky, something beautiful and unobtainable, something that shone with such ferocity but felt so cold and distant.                              Trust is foolish--                                             --an empty promise                                             --long lost faces                                             --names scarred in his heart                                             --a dreadful traitorAnd now? Trust is gentle. A fledgling on stilt-legs learning how to walk, how to survive within an area that isn't constantly attacking it from every angle. It has a chance to find it's footing, to find balance, and to find other things to lean on. Trust has been wounded, had been torn asunder and wrecked, and in the aftermath stitched together with the thread of Hope and cast out to see what it may net.Trust is a resilient thing, a hard-won thing, and while it should be protected perhaps what it needs is someone to fight for it rather than shelter it.

                               emerald - how they tell someone they love them without wordsThe most constant sign of it, one that Dhruastun is wholly unaware of, is the tendency to tuck their hair behind their ears. If he's grown to love someone--in any of the myriad ways that love is, be it familial, romantic, platonic, what have you--it's when he brushed a bit of their hair back behind their ear. It may happen often, or it may only happen once, but it's very much a tell. It's not so much a concern for how they look--because if anyone is to start caring about looks it's most certainly not Dhruastun. It's more because it combs the hair away from their face, and that is what he cares for, to not miss anything there. He wants to witness every inflection, good and bad, and he wants to always know the way the planes of that face is put together. Casual settings are by far the most common, brushing back the hair to land a peck where neck meets jaw, or simply as an action of being near someone. It requires a level of trust where proximity or physicality. Really, it can be hidden in something much more formal too, an excuse to align some wayward strand to help someone look more professional is not done out of being conscious of their looks, it is because he cares. He cares often, he cares plenty, and it's shown in that gentle loop of his fingers to tuck away a displaced lock, in the way he tends to follow the edge of the ear, how he skirts around the curve of the shell with careful precision. He is not a finicky person, not someone who is bothered with ensuring that details are fixed to a certain point. Dhruastun cares, and he is blind to the fact it's pretty obvious in intimate--perhaps un-intendedly intimate--moments like this.                               malachite - what they as a child thought they would be when they grew upDead. Dead. D e a d.A young child, back when he was dalish, when he had a clan, when he believed in so much, he thought his options were limitless. He wanted to be a savior, a hero to help his people, a great hunter to keep others well fed, a wondrous Keeper to ensure tradition. His wants changed with the wind, and he never questioned any of it. He wanted to help, to be someone who did something important, who did something that mattered, even if it was only to those in his clan and didn't manage to reach out any further. He thought he was going to be someone who kept the ideals of the elvhen alive and safe.Still a child, a slightly older child, with no clan, no home, and no option rather than to serve, he did not think he would grow up. He did not think he would live that long. Furthermore, he thought he had no choice in what he could be. He was given a task, given a role, given a name, and he was expected to take them all and not question a thing. He had no notion of being something more because there was no room to dream, no room to hope, and no room at all to chance thinking of what was ahead. Each time that happened it only hurt, so he didn't think about it. He did not allow himself the luxury of thinking what he could be when he grew up--and, really, with that he quit being much of a child at all.                               quartz - how they think other people see themAs a smudge. He thinks others see him as an unintended fluke, perhaps even a mistake, however that word is far too strong for his liking. Dhruastun has yet to really shake the idea that he can be seen by others, that he's no longer a servant, straight backed and head bowed, wearing his mask of loyalty and subdued. He tends to assume that people don't see him, that he's easily overlooked and passed over. Servitude drilled this into him, but also living as a wandering apostate--a hermit, whether that was intended or not--has left him very unaware of how people can see him, that he's not invisible or some unseen shadow.When he is more aware of it, Dhruastun tends to believe he's likely a smudge, something that could have been done properly, however ruined because it wasn't allowed to set and dry properly. He is quick to assume that others see him as a nuisance or a potential problem. Being an elf does not grant him favors, and he is accustomed to the idea that he will be looked down on and assumed to be lower than those who aren't--he believes thats how most see it. Furthermore, being an apostate means that he's likely tagged as a troublesome low-life, perhaps even a dangerous one, however with no true merit because of his bloodlines. He is a smudge, something that could have been something, and instead turned out to be such a disappointment--that is what he most often assumed others think of him as.

When he heard that, the apostate had to lift his downcast eyes to fix them on the other. He was right, of course, but that didn't make it any easier to digest and feel the sting of the words. For a moment he caught his teeth on the meat of his cheek as he thought best how to respond, his attention still on the other mage, coursing over the planes of that face and that hair. War had a habit of sapping the attention to detail, in sparing faces in favor of titles and ranks, so Dhruastun made a point to try to fight that.               "You're right. It changes us permanently, war does. It tests us and finds us wanting, and we're left to scrape together what we can and rally our efforts to fight back and give our all."However, it also had moments of heart. There was a bond formed during war, be it intentional or not, and those you fought with ended up being those who souls you see, even if it's just a sliver--or so Dhruastun believed. Despite the weight of the topic the elf grinned, one corner of his mouth hooking up high as he drawled on.               "Although, which war do you mean? The one that tears apart the lands, or the ones we wage between the chambers of our hearts?"

Dhruastun is an incredibly light sleeper. He can't remember a time where he has ever been able to block everything out and sleep like a stone--really he would guess that likely wasn't possible for him ever. He's managed to, more or less, train himself to recognize even breathing patterns in those he may share a bed with so that any change of that rhythm would have him waking up to check on them. Noises and the like will also rouse him, even if it's for a moment so he's able to groggily determine if it's an issue worth dealing with before dropping straight back into slumber. It takes him a while but he can become familiar with various noises, and once that familiarity is set in place it's less likely he'll wake up to them over others. He is very envious of others who can block out the world and sleep like the dead, and probably spitefully does his best to make as much noise around them to try and see where their limits are.

❝ Would you like a taste? ❞

She does not feel worth the jewelry she owns, and feels that when she does wear it, her very presence cheapens and tarnishes it. Her skin reacts poorly to the metals, even those in her beloved ring, leaving green marks like a spreading corruption.