#about.ashala

[oedonretired]

37,38

37: Which mount did they choose to accompany them on rides in the wilderness?

Kasaanda and Ashala ride a dusky Tirashan Swiftwind called Sounder. He’s technically Ashala’s, but he bonds very well with the quiet and intuitive qunari too, so they share him.

Elias prefers not to ride, finding the entire process uncomfortable and hard on his muscles.

(Zimir rides an Asaarash because they’re appropriately intimidating as well as resilient. He would ride a hart, since they make such a regal impression, but for some reason harts can’t stand him. It pisses him off.)

38: How do they feel about Dragons ruling over certain areas? Is there a Dragon, that fascinated your Inquisitor especially?

Kasaanda loves dragons, awed by their majesty and the differences between subspecies. Elias avoids them like the plague, knowing full well he can’t fight one (but he’ll sit pretty at home and appropriately admire and ego-boost his blood-stained battle-lusty companions when they return!). Ashala avoids them for similar reasons, but she also finds them fascinating in a mythological context. She becomes even more fascinated in them after meeting Zaarilek.

Elias loved the story of the showy Greater Mistral, Kasaanda found eir communion with (and regrettable defeat of) the Kaltenzahn to be most riveting, and Ashala was over the moon when she heard about the high dragon that served as a vessel for Hakkon Wintersbreath.

(Fighting and defeating dragons was a high point of Zimir’s life, definitely-- to know he had that kind of power was exhilarating, and every defeat of a dragon made him feel like a god -- never mind the fact that defeating a dragon was a team effort and not his work alone. He relishes the story of the defeat of the Vinsomer, especially since that one happened during a hellacious lightning storm, appropriately.)

[oedonretired]

Under the Qun as Ashala-aqun knows it (and oh, there are sects and sects of sects-- although a Qunari will always tell bas otherwise), one’s tool is never to be parted from one. It doesn’t matter where one is going, or what one is doing -- one’s tool is to be consistently bound to one’s person, and if one is bathing or doing anything else that may harm the tool then one must keep it well within sight and reach.

Ashala-aqun is an archer. I mean, she’s much and more, but when it comes down to brass tacks, her bow is her asala. But while living in the forests of Seheron made carrying a longbow a pretty standard practice, being the Lady Inquisitor demands different protocol.

But Ashala is inventive. She chose Far Song, the bow her father, Dion Mahariel, had given her before she left home. She dismantled it physically, separating string from wood. She unravelled its song, drawing out the magic embedded deep within it with her transformative arcane chirurgeon’s hands. And she rewove it as she reshaped the wood, softening its curve, deepening its grain.

She made Far Song into a walking stick, one that put Solas in mind of the living trees of Elvhenan, one that put younger elves in mind of the Emerald Graves. By itself it was an unassuming thing, Ashala’s new Song, but in her hands it was a talisman, a diviner’s rod; it was as wild as its owner was beautiful, and as beautiful as its owner was wild.