Isilae Surana

What if the Hero of Ferelden never was? What if she could have been, but Duncan never made it? Indie RP blog for Dragon Age PC-but-not-Hero. Elf Mage Origin. More details in About and Verses.

[dorianpavus]

I’ve been in the circle since I was six. Six! For twenty years I was locked up. I never had a real drink, or cooked something for myself, never stood in the rain or… kissed a girl….

[estramor-deactivated20231029]

✗ world of thedas snippets [7]: magic

[theansweris-42]

DA:O Codex #10 - History of the Circle

It is a truth universally acknowledged that nothing is more successful at inspiring a person to mischief as being told not to do something. Unfortunately, the Chantry of the Divine Age had some trouble with obvious truths. Although it did not outlaw magic—quite the contrary, as the Chantry relied upon magic to kindle the eternal flame which burns in every brazier in every chantry—it relegated mages to lighting candles and lamps. Perhaps occasional dusting of rafters and eaves. 

I will give my readers a moment to contemplate how well such a role satisfied the mages of the time. It surprised absolutely no one when the mages of Val Royeaux, in protest, snuffed the sacred flames of the cathedral and barricaded themselves inside the choir loft. No one, that is, but Divine Ambrosia II, who was outraged and attempted to order an Exalted March upon her own cathedral. Even her most devout Templars discouraged that idea. For 21 days, the fires remained unlit while negotiations were conducted, legend tells us, by shouting back and forth from the loft. The mages went cheerily into exile in a remote fortress outside of the capital, where they would be kept under the watchful eye of the Templars and a council of their own elder magi. Outside of normal society, and outside of the Chantry, the mages would form their own closed society, the Circle, separated for the first time in human history. — From Of Fires, Circles, and Templars: A History of Magic in the Chantry, by Sister Petrine, Chantry scholar.

[wolchefant]

Origin Story: Circle Mage

Parts: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

[aintnotaintinme]

One of the risks in leaning over the balcony to peer at the person on the floor below was that, if you were also holding a book in your hand, and the book was held over the edge, and a scout bumped into you as they passed by to go up the next flight of stairs--

Isilae cringed as the tome fell with a thunk and a crinkle of parchment onto the floor below. "Sorry," she called, both down to the Elf beneath them and also to the others on the second level.

"Sorry, I'll get it," she repeated as she turned and flitted down the stairs to peek into the room below. Despite the fact that many passed through there to get to the next floor, it still seemed invasive. She offered a quick and anxious smile to the inhabitant from around the corner of the doorway -- he was friends with the Herald, she knew, and that made him Someone Important. "Hello. I didn't mean to drop in like that," she grinned, cracking a joke to ease her own anxiety.

[aintnotaintinme]

Well. Apparently mages in other parts of Thedas had much fancier robes. Isilae's were torn and worn from the journey to Haven, and she needed new ones, but even before everything that had happened she certainly hadn't been so shiny. Or owned such a pointy hat.

Isilae hovered, watching the Herald of Andraste speak to the mage, then slipped closer as they parted ways. "Not all the mages here think that the circles should be destroyed and that chaos should reign," she hedged, having heard part of their conversation. "We want peace just as much as anyone else."

[aintnotaintinme]

Isilae's eyes widened as she lifted her chin to look up the apparent wall of muscle and flesh to see the man's head. Horned head. They didn't have anyone like that in the circles.

She remembered the books, though. The stories from templars. But those did not do reality any justice.

"Do you ever use your horns?" she wondered aloud, brow arched and back pressed against the wall.

[standvigilant-deactivated201605]

--

♕ - "You know. I’m surprised the body exploded like that as well. You’d think it would’ve just… Crumbled," Alistair murmured, rubbing a hand thoughtfully over his chin as he nudged the pile of bandit with a grimace. "Fire, I could understand blowing a person up. Even lightning! But ice? Mmm. Shows how much we know, doesn’t it?" he added jokingly, shrugging with a grin.

"Though I suppose a thank you is in order, my friend. I don’t think I could’ve walked out of that scuffle unscathed if it weren’t for you," the king grinned at her, bowing his head to her. "You have my sincerest gratitude, my lady."

[aintnotaintinme]

   "Oh, fire tends to be a much more extravagant end -- much less messy, though, ironically. Enough heat and it's just crispy bits littering the ground, while the moisture is sealed inside. Or-- so I've read."

   Isilae scrubbed at her face, though it did little in terms of cleaning and mostly smeared the blood around. Her eyes were squinted shut as he said his thanks, and a few awkwardly silent beats passed before she gave up her quest for cleanliness and blinked owlishly.

   "Oh! Me?" she realized, flushing all over, blotchy like a cow's spots. "Sorry! I mean-- you're welcome. It was my pleasure. Er, to help, not to-- right." She jerked into a curtsy, lifting her robes and leaving fingerprints behind.

[standvigilant-deactivated201605]

♕ - "You’ve got bit of blood on you," Alistair commented offhandedly, reaching up and gesturing to the entirety of his face.

             ”Like— All over your face, in fact. I didn’t take you for a messy fighter.”

[aintnotaintinme]

   "Oh?" Isilae lifted her arm, fist curled inside her sleeve with the intent to use her robe to clean herself until he continued. Her expression dropped into one of sheepish horror.

   "Oh, I-- sorry. I didn't know a frozen body would explode like that. All these books, all those lessons, and not once did the possibility of explosions pop up."

[aintnotaintinme]

Even Gilded Cages Rust || Open

[spiritmarked]

--

Demons befouling the hallways, abominations warping the faces of those who’d once been friends and colleagues, sharp screams of terror and the bright clash of swords — !

The place which had been the closest thing to home she’d ever truly known was now made a nightmare, the enclosing circle of its safety broken and shattered.

A single slip is all it takes.

One single mage, given in to pride or desire or anger, and this horror and death was the result.

Wynne’s own anger boiled within her as she ran through the corridors of the lower halls, staff held before her and a shield-spell maintained, glowing around her body. She forced the anger back; it would serve nothing but to make her more vulnerable to the demons she would encounter here. In its place she built resolve, built faith, built duty.

There were children here, and innocents. She feared the upper floors were all but lost, closer as they were to the center of the Veil’s instability, the rent torn by Uldred’s arrogance. But she had not spent decades of her life teaching and protecting the young minds here to leave them alone to death and horror now.

She entered the first chamber of the apprentice quarters and staggered back as an abrupt blizzard tore into the air around her. Staff raised, she countered with a little spell of her own devising, a heat-shield which pushed the ice away and kept her from freezing solid.

"Peace, child!" she called into the whirling winds. "I am here to help!"

[aintnotaintinme]

"Oh--!" Isilae gasped and dropped her hand, chest heaving with adrenaline that spilled over and made her teeth chatter at her own storm. "Wynne?"

It sounded like Wynne, and it looked like Wynne, but in the chaos of the tower how could anyone be trusted? How could anyone not? This was like the Harrowing all over again but worse, because this was not a dreamscape but it was real, and it was not a demon-that-was-a-mouse-that-was-a-shem but it was her friends. What can you believe when the Fade spills into reality?

So take it one step at a time, then, the same way the Harrowing was. Believe and trust until that tickle in your mind, that whisper in your heart, tells you to wait. "Wynne, thank the Maker, you're alive! S-sorry, I thought you were-- well, I didn't know. What are you doing here? Where is everyone else? I thought you'd be with the First Enchanter."

[aintnotaintinme]

And When the Circle Breaks, the Mages Will Fall || Open

If being in the tower meant constantly feeling the eyes of templars on you, then being out of the tower apparently meant feeling the eyes of civilians, squirrels, dogs, fish, chantry sisters and unseen watchers that made the little hairs at the back of your neck stand on end.

Isilae gathered her once-pristine silk robes about her ankles, the tattered ends muddy and bloody from the road, as she sat on some mossy rocks off the main road in Redcliffe. Not far away a woman stood, some sort of bard it seemed, telling stories about the village and some spirit in a lake. 

The feeling of eyes on her was still uncomfortable even after all these years. The Elf set her jaw and turned her head to stare challenging back at the passerby, her lips pressed white into a thin, taut smile. "Have you never seen a mage before? I would have thought by now we were a common sight."

[aintnotaintinme]

Even Gilded Cages Rust || Open

The trouble with blood magic was that blood happened. Which was why, Cullen once wryly explained, shoes were probably a good idea in a round tower that had a surprising number of sharp corners made of stone. But shoes made her feet too warm and sweaty and what was life without risk of a stubbed toe and someone shrieking maleficar once in a while, right?

Except when suddenly maleficarum were a real thing in the Tower and there were demons around the corners and screams down the corridors and templars running about with blades up and eyeing every single mage like the enemy. 

Tucked behind an open door, squeezed against the wall, Isilae curled her bloody toes down tight, pressing them against the cold, rough floor as she held her breath. There were footsteps nearby, getting closer. It was fight or die, apparently, and she had no plans to die. Not like this, not because of a stubbed toe and a bunch of arrogant pricks trying to reform the world in a sea of blood.

The feet came closer and her fingers went numb with the ice spell that gathered in her palm. She would not let hysteria turn her into a murderous monster. There was a shuffle as the intruder (intruders?) entered the room.

Isilae thrust her knee up to bang the door closed behind them and let out a shout that was more terrified than threatening as she let loose an ice storm that howled with frigid air and swirled snow across the floor and beds.

[aintnotaintinme]

     So much in this world is luck -- or fate, maybe? The will of the Maker? The luck of the Maker's current wills? However you view it, however you define it, it's uncontrollable. Maybe you're born with magic, and maybe you're not. Maybe you're in the exact right spot at the exact right moment when the exact right person comes recruiting to find the hero of the world --

      Or maybe you're not. Maybe he never comes. Maybe he finds someone somewhere else, and he was intending to come next to your Circle, to be in the exact right spot at the exact right time to meet you, but then he's betrayed in battle and he dies.

     Maybe you could have been the Hero of Ferelden, the Warden. But instead, you're a mage sitting in a tower, just keeping your head down and trying to avoid negative attention.