Ithilian would have preferred to spend his morning in company other than Emerion's, but right now he didn't have the luxury. He'd put off approaching him about Sparrow's request for too long now, and perhaps more dangerously, Emerion seemed to be growing restless. Not that he'd ever been a patient man, as Ithilian remembered it. He saw problems, or goals, or just things that he wanted to take care of, and found a way through or around them. There was little waiting as far as Emerion was concerned, unless it was absolutely necessary. In the clan, this attitude was passable, not overly problematic, but here, in the heart of Kirkwall, surrounded by an army of the most strict templars in Thedas? Caution was needed here. Ithilian had not been given much reason to care about the affairs of mages and templars up to this point, and if he could have his way it he never would. Emerion posed a threat to that, and it needed to be seen to.
But they weren't in Kirkwall at the moment, rather in a wooded grove not far from the coast. Ithilian had only needed to ask Emerion to accompany him on a hunt to get him out of the city. The First was certainly not rejecting Ithilian's company, and indeed it seemed to be that which he sought above all else. He'd done a little to help out around the Alienage, occasionally taking away the need for elves to travel up to Nostariel's clinic. He was an excellent healer. To that end, he was spending his time sitting crosslegged at the base of a tree, grinding up alchemical materials in a bowl in his lap while he waited for Ithilian to return.
Ithilian did so empty handed. He hadn't really expected to find much in the way of game here, and wasn't surprised when he turned out to be right. Emerion picked up on this quickly, the corner of his lips curling up slightly while he kept his eyes peering down at the herbs. "You obviously didn't come out here to hunt, lethallin. Out with it, then. What did you want to speak to me about?"
He did wish Emerion wouldn't call him that. They hadn't been clansmen for quite some time. If they were even friends anymore was a matter for debate. So much had happened to Ithilian, and as far as he could tell, nothing had changed with Emerion. He'd felt none of the Blight, probably wandering with a clan in the southern reaches of Orlais, and he knew nothing of what Ithilian had faced since arriving in Kirkwall. He kept his faith in the gods he believed in, and it would be impossible to ever fully extinguish his pride, but Ithilian did not know if he could even be called truly Dalish anymore.
"I have a favor to ask," he said, hoping to get straight to the point. He leaned up against the nearest tree to him, crossing his arms. "I'm looking for some information for a friend."
"And which friend might this be?" There were two that he would probably have helped, and they were Lia and Nostariel. Letting him know it was for Sparrow surely wouldn't help matters any. He didn't know if the two had crossed paths yet, but she was a walking example of an idea that Emerion had always despised, as had Ithilian until only several years ago.
"You haven't met, I don't think. She's looking for information on the location of a particular clan, and came to me for help. I thought you might have heard something, if your Keeper mentioned something to you after the last arlathvhen." They only happened once in a number of years, but if Ithilian recalled correctly, the last one should not have been too long before Emerion arrived. Perhaps that was how he had learned of Ithilian in Kirkwall. It wasn't impossible for word of him to spread, especially now that Marethari's clan had moved on.
"That information belongs to the Keepers, Ithilian," he reminded him. "Keeper Astarea shared a great deal of it with me upon her return, but I don't remember her giving me consent to pass it along to anyone who asks. I wouldn't share it with many in my clan, let alone anyone outside of it." Seeing as there were only two Dalish in Kirkwall at the moment, it was obvious that Ithilian's friend was not of the People. There was no hiding from that.
"The information might not be about the Dalish, necessarily," Ithilian tried, figuring this approach might lead him somewhere. "The clan she's looking for is... a bit odd. Willing to accept humans, one of which may or may not be married to the Keeper." At this, Emerion looked up and laughed derisively.
"You're talking about Beragail's group, then. They are no clan, and she is no Keeper. They're mostly flat-ears right out of the cities, apart from the few Dalish who followed her when her clan pushed her out of leadership. She understood that her presence was not required at the arlathvhen."
"But you know of them, then?"
"She caused quite the scandal, so yes, I know of them. They should still be in Nevarra, if they haven't picked up their pace. Heading this way, actually. Give them... a couple months, I'd say, if this friend of yours wants to see them." Sparrow would be delighted to hear that, Ithilian did not doubt. It was extremely fortunate, and also unsurprising that this Beragail's clan had been ostracized from the rest of the Dalish.
"Thank you. She will be pleased when I tell her."
A couple moments of silence followed, an uncomfortable air settling between them, one that Ithilian was unsure what to do with. He took his bow into his hands again, thinking to set off for a time again, and see if anything had wandered nearer yet.
"Ithilian..." Emerion said this just as Ithilian turned to leave. He stopped, turning back around to meet Emerion's eyes. "What are you doing, lethallin?"
Ithilian stared at him silently, waiting for him to elaborate on the question, since he assumed he wasn't looking for an answer about hunting. Emerion set the alchemy ingredients aside, coming slowly to stand on his feet.
"I don't think I was ready for how much the years changed you," he admitted, narrowing his eyes at Ithilian as if he were trying to recognize a stranger, one who seemed familiar, but most assuredly was not. "You've been through a lot, I know. The Blight destroyed so much. It took your wife, your daughter. It took my father, too. Our mentor. Our leader."
"You need not remind me."
"Maybe I do," he said, taking a step forward. He was about an inch shorter than Ithilian, something that had bothered him to no end right up until he'd been sent off to join another clan. He missed the times when their greatest issues involved standing back to back and asking the Keeper to be the judge, or shoving each other at girls, to test their bravery more than any dangerous hunt could. "Because from what I have seen, you've forgotten. Consorted with shemlen for years. Wallowed in an Alienage under shemlen boots. Now you're letting a shem accompany us on a vallaslin ritual hunt, helping someone find this poor excuse for a clan."
He looked like he wanted to spit in digust, but held back from doing so. "The flat-ears often are ignorant of our customs, but these elves openly mock them. What could you possibly want with them?"
Ithilian, for his part, was remaining calm, but he was confused. He'd been confused by Emerion ever since he arrived in Kirkwall, and it was one of the reasons he'd brought him out here in the first place. He just hadn't imagined the conversation going anything like this. "I want nothing from them," he answered coolly. "My friend wishes to see them, and doesn't know how to find them. That is all. And if wallowing in an Alienage is too much for you to bear, why are you here?"
"For you!" Emerion replied, his voice rising. "I came to see you. Because you were a brother to me, and I thought you were dead with my father and the rest of the clan. Had Marethari not mentioned you, had Astarea not told me about it, I would still think you were dead. I thought there had to be some explanation why Ithilian, the finest hunter I knew, had been living in a festering shithole like Kirkwall for years, among the elvhen'alas. I came to help you, to let you know that my clan will be a place like the one we had, the one the darkspawn took from you. I thought you might join me... but I'm not even sure who you are anymore."
Ithilian weathered this, trying to behave how he believed Amalia might, letting it wash over him, water on rock. "I understand that the Blight took much from you, too, Emerion, but you were not there. Nor have you been here. I did not intend to live here when I arrived. I intended to be a weapon of vengeance, like I was taught. Instead, I learned the error of those ways, how I was destroying myself. Dirt elves and shemlen though they may be, they've given me peace. A better purpose than shedding blood for its own sake."
"You've become as much a flat-ear as this Beragail did, I think," Emerion spat back. "You think everything Father taught me, taught us, was drivel? You think being the proudest, strongest clan was worth nothing, then? Why? Because some scarred shem told you something at your lowest, when you'd lost everything? I wanted to be there, you know that I did. I would've helped you through it, I would've been there for you. I don't want to see you throw our culture away. Adahlen wouldn't want that."
There was only so much water that the rock could take, and this amount was approaching the limit. He took his own step forward, coming to stand directly before Emerion. "Do not presume to tell me what Adahlen would want. I learned the destructiveness of your father's ways firsthand. Pride and vengeance in excess will do nothing but destroy us. You might've learned this if you'd crawled out of your aravel and looked at the world as it is in the last decade."
That set him off, and a fist came flying into Ithilian's jaw. He took the blow in full, though he grabbed onto Emerion by the shoulders, and the two of them went to the ground. The blows were evenly exchanged, reminiscent of times in the Brecilian forest years and years ago when they used to wrestle each other like brothers, though there wasn't any laughter now. Eventually, Ithilian forced himself above Emerion, about to land a heavy blow to the First's unbroken face. Suddenly, a wave of energy burst out from Emerion, the mind blast throwing Ithilian back and away from him, landing flat on his back several feet away. Emerion was on his feet first, hands up and out, ready to cast another spell.
"I wanted to help you, Ithilian."
"So help, then!" he shouted back, getting to his feet, though he made no motion to approach Emerion, who was still aiming a spell defensively at him. "Don't be so naive as to think the one way you've been taught has to be the only true way. How can you know if you don't even try? You've isolated yourself so far from the world all you know of it are horrid stories you use to keep yourself afraid!"
"You honestly believe a place like Kirkwall is even remotely the equal of a true clan? That it doesn't prove everything said about the shemlen?"
"It is a place, like any other. There are good people there, some of the best I have ever known. And I am tied to them now, for better or for worse. If you're as interested in being my brother as you say you are, then try this with me. Try to open your mind to the possibilities. If you don't find them to your liking, then reject them and leave. But do not enter my home and tell me that people you have judged before even speaking with them have somehow corrupted my mind." His breathing was quickened from the adrenaline of their brief fight, but he now tried to calm himself, his posture relaxing, tiring.
"I was like you when I arrived here. Angry, violent. It can carry you, so long as you have a target. But it nearly destroyed me. If not for the people I met, none of them Dalish, I would have died. All that I ask is that if you want to stay, give them a chance. They don't believe in our gods, but they believe in goodness, and those people are worth fighting for, no matter how they were born."
Emerion was silent for a while, before he too loosened and relaxed his stance, lowering his hands and forcing the magic away from his fingertips. Ithilian had landed mostly body blows on him, his face largely untouched, while he had not been so lucky himself. A nasty bruise would undoubtedly form along his jaw, perhaps over his eye as well.
"Perhaps it's happening already, then. The destruction. If it means that much to you... I will try. I make no promises, but I will... open my mind, as you say. I'm sorry, Ithilian. I didn't mean for it to come to this."
"We rarely do. Lethallin." Emerion's eyes had fallen, but they lifted back up at the Dalish word. "I trust you can make your own way back to the city? I'm going to stay... hunt a while longer."
"Even when you know there's probably nothing out there?"
Ithilian shrugged, turning to leave. "I've been surprised many times before."
But they weren't in Kirkwall at the moment, rather in a wooded grove not far from the coast. Ithilian had only needed to ask Emerion to accompany him on a hunt to get him out of the city. The First was certainly not rejecting Ithilian's company, and indeed it seemed to be that which he sought above all else. He'd done a little to help out around the Alienage, occasionally taking away the need for elves to travel up to Nostariel's clinic. He was an excellent healer. To that end, he was spending his time sitting crosslegged at the base of a tree, grinding up alchemical materials in a bowl in his lap while he waited for Ithilian to return.
Ithilian did so empty handed. He hadn't really expected to find much in the way of game here, and wasn't surprised when he turned out to be right. Emerion picked up on this quickly, the corner of his lips curling up slightly while he kept his eyes peering down at the herbs. "You obviously didn't come out here to hunt, lethallin. Out with it, then. What did you want to speak to me about?"
He did wish Emerion wouldn't call him that. They hadn't been clansmen for quite some time. If they were even friends anymore was a matter for debate. So much had happened to Ithilian, and as far as he could tell, nothing had changed with Emerion. He'd felt none of the Blight, probably wandering with a clan in the southern reaches of Orlais, and he knew nothing of what Ithilian had faced since arriving in Kirkwall. He kept his faith in the gods he believed in, and it would be impossible to ever fully extinguish his pride, but Ithilian did not know if he could even be called truly Dalish anymore.
"I have a favor to ask," he said, hoping to get straight to the point. He leaned up against the nearest tree to him, crossing his arms. "I'm looking for some information for a friend."
"And which friend might this be?" There were two that he would probably have helped, and they were Lia and Nostariel. Letting him know it was for Sparrow surely wouldn't help matters any. He didn't know if the two had crossed paths yet, but she was a walking example of an idea that Emerion had always despised, as had Ithilian until only several years ago.
"You haven't met, I don't think. She's looking for information on the location of a particular clan, and came to me for help. I thought you might have heard something, if your Keeper mentioned something to you after the last arlathvhen." They only happened once in a number of years, but if Ithilian recalled correctly, the last one should not have been too long before Emerion arrived. Perhaps that was how he had learned of Ithilian in Kirkwall. It wasn't impossible for word of him to spread, especially now that Marethari's clan had moved on.
"That information belongs to the Keepers, Ithilian," he reminded him. "Keeper Astarea shared a great deal of it with me upon her return, but I don't remember her giving me consent to pass it along to anyone who asks. I wouldn't share it with many in my clan, let alone anyone outside of it." Seeing as there were only two Dalish in Kirkwall at the moment, it was obvious that Ithilian's friend was not of the People. There was no hiding from that.
"The information might not be about the Dalish, necessarily," Ithilian tried, figuring this approach might lead him somewhere. "The clan she's looking for is... a bit odd. Willing to accept humans, one of which may or may not be married to the Keeper." At this, Emerion looked up and laughed derisively.
"You're talking about Beragail's group, then. They are no clan, and she is no Keeper. They're mostly flat-ears right out of the cities, apart from the few Dalish who followed her when her clan pushed her out of leadership. She understood that her presence was not required at the arlathvhen."
"But you know of them, then?"
"She caused quite the scandal, so yes, I know of them. They should still be in Nevarra, if they haven't picked up their pace. Heading this way, actually. Give them... a couple months, I'd say, if this friend of yours wants to see them." Sparrow would be delighted to hear that, Ithilian did not doubt. It was extremely fortunate, and also unsurprising that this Beragail's clan had been ostracized from the rest of the Dalish.
"Thank you. She will be pleased when I tell her."
A couple moments of silence followed, an uncomfortable air settling between them, one that Ithilian was unsure what to do with. He took his bow into his hands again, thinking to set off for a time again, and see if anything had wandered nearer yet.
"Ithilian..." Emerion said this just as Ithilian turned to leave. He stopped, turning back around to meet Emerion's eyes. "What are you doing, lethallin?"
Ithilian stared at him silently, waiting for him to elaborate on the question, since he assumed he wasn't looking for an answer about hunting. Emerion set the alchemy ingredients aside, coming slowly to stand on his feet.
"I don't think I was ready for how much the years changed you," he admitted, narrowing his eyes at Ithilian as if he were trying to recognize a stranger, one who seemed familiar, but most assuredly was not. "You've been through a lot, I know. The Blight destroyed so much. It took your wife, your daughter. It took my father, too. Our mentor. Our leader."
"You need not remind me."
"Maybe I do," he said, taking a step forward. He was about an inch shorter than Ithilian, something that had bothered him to no end right up until he'd been sent off to join another clan. He missed the times when their greatest issues involved standing back to back and asking the Keeper to be the judge, or shoving each other at girls, to test their bravery more than any dangerous hunt could. "Because from what I have seen, you've forgotten. Consorted with shemlen for years. Wallowed in an Alienage under shemlen boots. Now you're letting a shem accompany us on a vallaslin ritual hunt, helping someone find this poor excuse for a clan."
He looked like he wanted to spit in digust, but held back from doing so. "The flat-ears often are ignorant of our customs, but these elves openly mock them. What could you possibly want with them?"
Ithilian, for his part, was remaining calm, but he was confused. He'd been confused by Emerion ever since he arrived in Kirkwall, and it was one of the reasons he'd brought him out here in the first place. He just hadn't imagined the conversation going anything like this. "I want nothing from them," he answered coolly. "My friend wishes to see them, and doesn't know how to find them. That is all. And if wallowing in an Alienage is too much for you to bear, why are you here?"
"For you!" Emerion replied, his voice rising. "I came to see you. Because you were a brother to me, and I thought you were dead with my father and the rest of the clan. Had Marethari not mentioned you, had Astarea not told me about it, I would still think you were dead. I thought there had to be some explanation why Ithilian, the finest hunter I knew, had been living in a festering shithole like Kirkwall for years, among the elvhen'alas. I came to help you, to let you know that my clan will be a place like the one we had, the one the darkspawn took from you. I thought you might join me... but I'm not even sure who you are anymore."
Ithilian weathered this, trying to behave how he believed Amalia might, letting it wash over him, water on rock. "I understand that the Blight took much from you, too, Emerion, but you were not there. Nor have you been here. I did not intend to live here when I arrived. I intended to be a weapon of vengeance, like I was taught. Instead, I learned the error of those ways, how I was destroying myself. Dirt elves and shemlen though they may be, they've given me peace. A better purpose than shedding blood for its own sake."
"You've become as much a flat-ear as this Beragail did, I think," Emerion spat back. "You think everything Father taught me, taught us, was drivel? You think being the proudest, strongest clan was worth nothing, then? Why? Because some scarred shem told you something at your lowest, when you'd lost everything? I wanted to be there, you know that I did. I would've helped you through it, I would've been there for you. I don't want to see you throw our culture away. Adahlen wouldn't want that."
There was only so much water that the rock could take, and this amount was approaching the limit. He took his own step forward, coming to stand directly before Emerion. "Do not presume to tell me what Adahlen would want. I learned the destructiveness of your father's ways firsthand. Pride and vengeance in excess will do nothing but destroy us. You might've learned this if you'd crawled out of your aravel and looked at the world as it is in the last decade."
That set him off, and a fist came flying into Ithilian's jaw. He took the blow in full, though he grabbed onto Emerion by the shoulders, and the two of them went to the ground. The blows were evenly exchanged, reminiscent of times in the Brecilian forest years and years ago when they used to wrestle each other like brothers, though there wasn't any laughter now. Eventually, Ithilian forced himself above Emerion, about to land a heavy blow to the First's unbroken face. Suddenly, a wave of energy burst out from Emerion, the mind blast throwing Ithilian back and away from him, landing flat on his back several feet away. Emerion was on his feet first, hands up and out, ready to cast another spell.
"I wanted to help you, Ithilian."
"So help, then!" he shouted back, getting to his feet, though he made no motion to approach Emerion, who was still aiming a spell defensively at him. "Don't be so naive as to think the one way you've been taught has to be the only true way. How can you know if you don't even try? You've isolated yourself so far from the world all you know of it are horrid stories you use to keep yourself afraid!"
"You honestly believe a place like Kirkwall is even remotely the equal of a true clan? That it doesn't prove everything said about the shemlen?"
"It is a place, like any other. There are good people there, some of the best I have ever known. And I am tied to them now, for better or for worse. If you're as interested in being my brother as you say you are, then try this with me. Try to open your mind to the possibilities. If you don't find them to your liking, then reject them and leave. But do not enter my home and tell me that people you have judged before even speaking with them have somehow corrupted my mind." His breathing was quickened from the adrenaline of their brief fight, but he now tried to calm himself, his posture relaxing, tiring.
"I was like you when I arrived here. Angry, violent. It can carry you, so long as you have a target. But it nearly destroyed me. If not for the people I met, none of them Dalish, I would have died. All that I ask is that if you want to stay, give them a chance. They don't believe in our gods, but they believe in goodness, and those people are worth fighting for, no matter how they were born."
Emerion was silent for a while, before he too loosened and relaxed his stance, lowering his hands and forcing the magic away from his fingertips. Ithilian had landed mostly body blows on him, his face largely untouched, while he had not been so lucky himself. A nasty bruise would undoubtedly form along his jaw, perhaps over his eye as well.
"Perhaps it's happening already, then. The destruction. If it means that much to you... I will try. I make no promises, but I will... open my mind, as you say. I'm sorry, Ithilian. I didn't mean for it to come to this."
"We rarely do. Lethallin." Emerion's eyes had fallen, but they lifted back up at the Dalish word. "I trust you can make your own way back to the city? I'm going to stay... hunt a while longer."
"Even when you know there's probably nothing out there?"
Ithilian shrugged, turning to leave. "I've been surprised many times before."