#my_codex

I had two sisters.

Portia Amelia Hyacinth and Payton Bette Augusta. Each named for some handful of distant relatives—a living grab for attention.

Bette was my older sister. She was sent to the Circle at age nine. Portia and I were seven. We both watched as my father promised her she’d be kept safe, as he walked to the Chantry with her hand in his. I didn’t know to cry, then, when I saw my sister wave goodbye, led away by this stranger in armor. I just waved back.

She was no danger. All she could do was throw a barrier when frightened. When she was due for her Harrowing, they made my sister Tranquil instead.

Portia volunteered for the templar order when she was of age, for reasons I’ll never understand. Her designs on the order may have been honorable. But armies need enemies. Wardens fight the darkspawn. Minrathous fights Par Vollen. The templar order presents civilians as enemy combatants. They have to, to believe their work is justified.

When the templars rebelled, so did Portia. My sister believed the order had been treated unfairly by the Chantry, by the Divine Herself. They had been disgraced. The details of the original Inquisition’s treaty violated. They wanted respect.

My other sister, Bette, left unprotected by those who had left her so vulnerable, was slaughtered along all the rest.

Mages are not our enemies. They are our blood, living and dead. The only shame in that is in how we have treated them. In how we have buried them.

Let the rebel mages rebel. I will bury the Order for what they did to Payton Bette Augusta Trevelyan.

Of Adaar’s family, little is known. Barring several truly miraculous steps forward in our relationship with the Qunari, it is probable our knowledge of his genealogy will remain stunted. What we do have, however, are records of his parents, Lady and Saar Adaar, who broke from the Qun as young adults and settled in the Free Marches. In an interview conducted in 9:42 Dragon transcribed below, Chandler Tennyson, former leader of the mercenary band the Ruby Drakes, described the recruitment of the Adaars.

“It wasn’t exactly amicable. Hired to kill ‘em, actually. They were holed up outside some little nowheresville out of Starkhaven and freaking out the little people. Don’t think they actually did anything, mind, aside from Big Mama there charging anybody who got near her girl. But gold’s gold, so we take it.

“We get in there waving our swords around, somebody pops Big Mama off the horn, and it’s like the ground’s been beat like a drum, you know? We all go flying back and in the middle’s the Lady, those big red eyes just staring at us. I won’t do ‘em the disservice of naming names, but half the mercs hit the ground running. Look, you wanna mess with a Qunari, fine. Bring the biggest damn shield you can find, but fine. But any company who’s worth their shit knows you don’t fuck with the magic ones.

“Anyway, most our band’s off like inbred mabari and it’s just me, that Orlesian bastard, and some knife-eared thief who only lasted a month, all just kinda holding defensive and begging Andraste we don’t die. And there’s some solid minutes of waiting for one of us to start trying to kill the other again before that shit-for-brains Orlesian starts honest-to-Andraste speaking Qunlat. Shitty, come to find out, but enough. They’re fresh-faced out of Par Vollen and they’ve got nowhere to be. So why not come with us?

“Maker’s honest truth we never scored that good again. Told the contract they were nice and dead. Kept the gold, Big Mama, her big axe, and the Lady. Every thorn in our side decided not to be after that.”

Letters and other documents from the company indicate the Adaars’ involvement for at least another decade, long into the early years of the Inquisitor’s life, before their retirement in 9:26 Dragon. The Orlesian, Évariste Toussaint, a self-described “bard school drop-out” and avid study of language, taught the Adaars Orlesian Sign Language, which would prove instrumental to the band and couple both. Although the exact circumstances are unknown, correspondence from Toussaint indicates the excision of Lady’s tongue as one of several inciting events in their flight from the Qun. Toussaint remained a close family friend until his death in 9:39 Dragon.

Although not physically present for much of their son’s time as Inquisitor, their history with the Inquisition is chronicled through the many letters exchanged between them throughout the years of his leadership.

Weird news on those spies Lavellan’s sending. The girl they’ve got, the one with the axe? Not Dalish. Well, not Dalish-Dalish, anyway.

Hearing one Anaïs Lavellan is actually a city type. Clan Lavellan found her dropped in the wood somewhere as a wee thing. Not sure whether Mum left her hoping for wolves or Dalish. Either way, she got Dalish, and Lavellan got a new mouth to feed.

I’m told she hasn’t picked up common, but that clan’s got more languages on their plate than Orlais’s got cheeses, so probably doesn’t much matter. Wonder what Elvish sounds like with those Orlesian R’s?

Anyway, my Dalish pals say she’s a quiet thing. Contemplative-type. Terror when you toss her a maul though.

Nightingale–

Little to report. Small footprint for a large man.

He is a mage. His parents are Tal-Vashoth: Lady and Saar. In and out of several mercenary bands in the Free Marches. Stays nowhere for too long. Family of two mages: perhaps why.

The loss of Mahariel has been a hardship on all of us.

She was always a bright girl. Spirited. Rebellious, in her way. She resisted what was expected of her as one of the People, squirming out of talks about bonding and making light of the hahrens’ stories, but we knew that she would come back to us in time.

We did not know we’d have to lose her first.

When that mirror took her--you could see the change. Her recruitment was a fight that burst its way through the entire campground. She proclaimed--loudly, repeatedly--that she wanted to die with her family. Watching her being taken away, knowing she had only stopped fighting because she could no longer, was a moment I’ll not forget. We mourned two of our young that night.

I’ve heard the stories. Warden Mahariel, Hero of the Fifth Blight… the light in the darkest of times. The strength and duty we knew would come have found her. I pray that comfort has as well.

Philomena Marielle Mabel Trevelyan--or Pippa, as she has rather distastefully taken to calling herself--is nothing but a rotten troublemaker.

(Don’t worry about retribution from the Trevelyans for my saying so--they’ve all but disowned the girl.)

She speaks her mind loudly and often, flails her anger about like a weapon, and has no care for polite expectation, behavior, or responsibility. In fact, I have it on good authority that she was the one responsible for the fiasco at Chateau Haine a few galas previous.

(How she found one nug, let alone two dozen, should be damning enough evidence of her dedication to misdeeds.)

I am sympathetic, of course, to her loss. But the mage Trevelyan has been dead in all but name for years, and if we thought Philomena difficult to tame before, I cannot begin to imagine the extent of her wildness now.

If the Trevelyans insist on sending her to the Conclave, it is only so they themselves can be rid of her. Maker help us all.

Shit. I’m made.

And by the Void, it’s worse than I thought.

Their Keeper’s set me up in my own tent. My own tent. An elf brought me breakfast this morning. Bright, chipper, cheerful. Smiling. As if they hadn’t clocked me with a hammer to the head last night.

(Something about a child of the Stone always being welcome with the Dalish. Don’t ask. Hell if I know. Have I mentioned they hit me with a hammer!?)

Stone’s honest truth, their Keeper brought me to meet with her, to “talk this over”. All smiles and generosity. Caridin's stony buttcrack it's intolerable.

Good news is I’m hearing loads. They talk plenty about this robe they’re sending. Ariahris. Their “First”, whatever that means. The Dalish wet dream. Born magic. Intelligent, cunning, perceptive, but diplomatic. Skilled. Valued. They’ve won over just about everybody in this damn camp--including their competition. Either they’ve got a knife pressed to their backs I don’t see or they’re good. Real good.

Warren Cousland is excellent at being what he is–a younger son.

Would I give him any lands to govern? No. Any responsibilities to uphold? No. Would I send him to fancy parties, enroll him in the Tourney, and show him off to any noble girl of marrying age? In a heartbeat.

He’s a charming boy in his way. I’m not certain if he flirts because he’s nervous or is nervous because he flirts--I’m not certain if he’s certain--but he’s certainly successful at it. He runs at the mouth but knows when to stop. And I’m not sure what those Grey Wardens have done to him, but he’s definitely come back a more thoughtful creature than they took him in as, if no less skittish.