Christmas Eve Happy Hour

[nita_callahan]

The holidays are a time for family -- nuclear, extended, and otherwise -- and Nita's been doing more than her fair share of holiday travel as a result. Thank the Powers for her subsidized gating privileges at the Crossings. This year, Milliways is her penultimate stop; she'll head back to Earth to spend the 25th with her dad and the Rodriguezes.

When she leans on the counter, she asks Bar wryly, "So, what dark powers are threatening us this year, huh?"

A napkin appears. "... Kidnapped Santa?" Another napkin. "Pox? ... Monsters, too, huh. ... Wow. But is that it? Really? ... No, I didn't mean it like that, it sounds bad. It's just, you know. Comparatively speaking. ... Well, I'm glad everyone's okay. ... Sure, yeah, if you need the break, but I don't know anything about alcohol. ... If you say so." She laughs softly and pats the counter. "Have a good nap."

Happy Hour Specials
Anything I don't have to look up the recipe for

First drink free if you helped save Christmas
First drink half off if you don't celebrate Christmas

"So, uh, what can I get you?"

Comments

[freedom_is_grey]

"That would be lovely."

Liranan leaps up to put his paws on Ysalwen's thighs, so he can better see Nita.

Water! Water, and a deer bone!

"Water for Liranan, I think. And maybe a haunch of deer meat? He's been patient with my library explorations."

[nita_callahan]

"Um, I'll have to go talk to the kitchen about food, but I bet they can arrange something. Those rats are amazing. But juice and water I can totally do."

She sets about locating a glass and a bowl, and pours Ysalwen her juice.

"Did you find anything cool in the library?"

[freedom_is_grey]

"Thank you. I can always ask in the kitchen, if you'd prefer. I showed someone how to make up healing poultices in there once, I'm sure I can find it again."

Well. Somewhat sure.

"As for the library -- I found several books that I would only be able to find by combing old ruins back home. Doubtless pages would be moldering or missing, or everything would be half-charred."

[nita_callahan]

"Nah, it's no trouble, it'll just take a minute."

She gives Ysalwen a curious look as she finds a bowl and fills it with water. "What is it you do in Thedas? Are you a healer?"

[freedom_is_grey]

Ysalwen laughs, loud and bright.

"Maker's breath, no. I'm the worst healer the Circle of Magi has ever seen. I can make a basic poultice, but I have no talent for healing magic, none. I am an excellent battlemage, however. I'm also a Grey Warden, though that doesn't seem to be a term that's as universally recognizable."

It is to weep.

"What is it you do, when you're not bartending at the end of the universe?"

[nita_callahan]

Nita grins along with her, but shakes her head. "No, that's not one I've heard. Battlemage I can get, though. Usually I'm a wizard -- I'm just covering the bartending because Bar needed a break."

[freedom_is_grey]

"Is a wizard anything like a mage? By which I mean, does your magic come from connection to the Fade?"

[nita_callahan]

"You'd have to define the Fade for me, first."

[freedom_is_grey]

"It's a realm of spirits, where we go when we dream. Being able to touch this realm while awake is what gives us the ability to govern magic."

At the simplest levels, at least.

There's a lot more. Naturally.

[nita_callahan]

"--if we start talking shop," she says, laughing, "I'll never get you that bone. So short answer, no, but hold that thought."

She disappears into the kitchen, and returns a minute later lugging a launch of meat wrapped in paper. She deposits this on the counter and gives Liranan a grin.

"Here we go. Dig in. Sounds like you earned it."

[freedom_is_grey]

"Consider it held," Ysalwen says.

Liranan jumps up to snag the wrapped haunch, pulling it down to himself on the floor.

Meat and a bone! New favorite! Second favorite. Third favorite? Bone!

"You're his new favorite," Ysalwen confides to Nita. "Take pride in this achievement."

[nita_callahan]

"Awww, that's sweet."

She leans on the counter. "So you said your power comes from kind of another plane of existence?"

[freedom_is_grey]

"It -- really it depends on how you look at it. Is the Veil that separates the real world from the Fade really a physical phenomenon, or is it a difference in a point of view?"

Her mouth twists in a wry smile.

"I haven't figured out where I stand on that yet. If I need to stand anywhere at all."

[nita_callahan]

Nita smiles a little.

"That sounds like some of the stuff I came across when I was reading up on precognition and oraculars. A lot of rhetorical questions. And metaphors."

So, so many metaphors.

[freedom_is_grey]

"What does one call a literal metaphor? Because Fade spirits pick up a single part of the emotional spectrum -- pride, rage, faith, justice -- and it becomes all they are. They watch the world the rest of us live in, but it's both so changing and so constant that they cannot comprehend it."

Ysalwen shakes her head a little, as if to clear away cobwebs.

"Do you have a great deal of prophecy where you come from?"

[nita_callahan]

"Not in day-to-day life, mostly, but -- yeah, I mean, I've dealt with my share." Her own dreams, the Hesper, the Reconfiguration . . .

"My mentors had oracular goldfish," she offers. "And a prophetic parrot. Although she was cheating."

[freedom_is_grey]

"How does one cheat at prophecy?"

Especially if prophecy itself is cheating?

Ysalwen does not mention the darkspawn nightmares, and visions of the archdemon.

This is no time for such tales.

[nita_callahan]

"She was one of the Powers That Be, taking a physical form as a scarlet macaw. I feel like that gives her an unfair advantage."

She gives the rafters a wary look, watching for flashes of scarlet. Juuuust in case.

"That's where wizards get their power, where I'm from -- it's granted by the Powers to people who take the Wizard's Oath."

[freedom_is_grey]

"Are the Powers That Be gods of some sort, or are they more like chief wizards of the order?"

Ysalwen has no real idea how this works.

"Can I ask what your Oath entails? Is it a particularly harsh series of guidelines?"

If the Chantry could make that an effective way to bind mages, they would use it in a heartbeat.

[nita_callahan]

"Roughly equivalent to gods. They've been known as gods."

To the second question: "Here." She murmurs a word in the Speech, reaches into thin air, and pulls out a thick, buckram-bound book titled So You Want to Be a Wizard. She flips to a block of text near the front and passes it over.

"It's open to a lot of interpretation, for better or for worse."

[freedom_is_grey]

Ysalwen reads it quietly, dropping her hand down so that Liranan can lick it.

Call it comfort.

When she looks up --

"Magic is made to serve man, never to rule over him. That's our only law, and it's externally enforced. I like this Oath better. Though the Grey Warden oath, which is a separate thing entirely, also has its own charm."

[nita_callahan]

Nita frowns slightly at the phrase externally enforced, but lets it pass for the moment.

"How's the Grey Warden oath go?"

[freedom_is_grey]

"Well, the motto is In war, victory. In peace, vigilance. In death, sacrifice."

It doesn't sound like rote recitation when she says it.

"And the Joining ritual is accompanied by these words. Join us brothers and sisters. Join us in the shadows where we stand vigilant. Join us as we carry out the duty that cannot be forsworn. And should you perish, know that your sacrifice will not be forgotten. And that one day, we shall join you. Most Grey Wardens are not mages, of course. But some of us are."

[nita_callahan]

She's quiet as Ysalwen recites, listening intently.

"I like that," she says, after a moment of silence. "The sense of family to it."

[freedom_is_grey]

"I've been told that's what it was like. And I like to think it will be again, when our numbers stand at more than two."

Her smile is wry.

"Alistair swears I can do it. I don't like to think he's wrong."