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✍ iselan 👀

@katabasiiis / send me a ✍ + a muse to see how i would play them. accepting.

“Hold this.” Iselan holds out her hand behind her, leaning in close to inspect the lyrium embedded in the frame of the eluvian, waiting until the weight of her hammer is absent from her hand before cupping her hands around it. Safely! Never touching, no, but close enough to prod at the way the Veil warps and folds, testing the resonant frequency of magic with careful fingers.

This eluvian — old as it is — has no twin that they’ve found. It should be dormant, but the glass ripples and shines like water on a lake, glittering as if under the light of the noonday sun. She thinks, perhaps, it’s possible its pair is elsewhere. Buried with the ancient city of Arlathan, in some magister’s mansion in Tevinter, or a noble’s estate in neighboring Orlais. The thought makes her lips purse and brow furrow, the lines of June’s vallaslin creasing on her forehead. The lyrium fragment crackles when her anger flares, indignant, at the very idea. If the eluvian took them to some damned shemlen infested —

“Careful, Ise,” comes a voice from behind. Patient. Grounding.

She takes in a breath and nods, “Right,” curling her hands into fists, then extending her fingers again. Her eyes close to better focus on the strands of magic, flowing like the finest silk across her skin. And then… There! A hitch in the magical resonance, cresting at irregular intervals and creating a cacophonous harmony with the lyrium. Iselan catches it, using her own magic to smooth it out, soothing the melody until it stabilizes and sings with the correct notes.

When she opens her eyes, the mirror glass still shimmers, but now beyond it she can see the reflection of a place with rippling colors and floating islands. Standing slowly, she reaches out, hesitating a hair’s breadth away from it. “Where do you think this leads?” she asks, turning to her companion.

Felassan grins and steps forward, taking her hand. “Only one way to find out.” And before she can stop him, he’s pulled her along through the eluvian. The magic washes over her like water and she isn’t sure if the gasp that pulls from her lungs is from surprise or the sudden assault of vibrancy all around her.

If it is not the bright, beautiful array of colors — some of which she’s never even seen and couldn’t find the words to describe if she tried — then it is the free flow of magic that passes through her, calling at something ancient and familiar in her blood. She can hardly decide where to look, green eyes darting back and forth from the floating islands in the distance to the ancient architecture just waiting to be studied and explored. It’s all too much to take in and she expects to find the same shock and awe on Felassan’s features. But when she looks to him, his gaze is locked on a fixed point somewhere in the distance, almost wistful, and she pauses.

“Felassan?” she asks, voice almost uncertain as she places gentle hand on his arm. “Are you… Are you all right?”

When he looks to her, it’s with an easy smile, the longing she glimpsed tucked neatly away like he so often does. It makes her heart ache. “Of course, Ise,” he says in that lighthearted way, the way that tells her this is the only answer she’ll get.

Iselan opens her mouth to pry anyway, tired of letting him pass off her concern like it’s nothing, when his expression shifts and he mutters a curse under his breath. The glass of the Fade eluvian has started to ripple, the image of her workshop on the other side flickering and warping and once again he has taken her hand to pull her through it. Just as well, too, because as soon as they are back it goes dark, with only the faintest shimmer of silver and blue to indicate it’s not entirely dormant.

“Damn it!” She immediately begins rifling around on her work bench for her quill — where is her quill!? And her hammer — and she’ll need the device for recording frequencies, and —

Her quill is in her hands, suddenly, along with her journal, opened to a blank page. She flashes Felassan a grateful smile and sits on her stool to clear a space to write her notes, already sketching out a diagram. Behind her, she doesn’t see the way Felassan’s face drops, or the way his eyes linger on the eluvian, too caught up in this latest development and her eagerness to remember every detail to ask him any further questions about what she saw.

#katabasiiis #°˖➴ loosed into the sky. ┊ answered.#iselan tag.#//not how I thought I’d be introducing ise lmaoooo #anyway!! felassan’s lover from the kingdom

🚶!!

@blckmask / npc. currently not accepting.

there was a woman felassan knew in the kingdom of the dales. her name was iselan, and she was a servant of june’s.

their paths first crossed when felassan sought out the help of june’s people in awakening the eluvians. iselan had put a great deal of work into studying the eluvians the elves of the kingdom had managed to reclaim for themselves, and so it was only natural that felassan would grow close to her. while felassan was not incapable of activating a single eluvian on his own, there was no guarantee it would remain open, and he would exhaust himself before ever making it back to the crossroads. so his intent, from the very beginning, was to take advantage of her knowledge and her efforts to rekindle the eluvian network that he and solas had used to run their rebellion.

iselan was very passionate. she was animated and spoke with great excitement unless she was in the midst of her work. when focused, she was quiet and intent, and it was almost as if one could see the gears turning in her head and she worked out a problem or weaved a spell. while no dreamer, she had a remarkable affinity for the veil and the fade beyond it. perhaps this was why her studies of the eluvians were so successful, for the magic of june’s mirrors originated in the beyond that called to something ancient and familiar in her veins.

felassan spent a great deal of time with iselan in her workshop, and naturally a friendship blossomed. at first, all he did was offer guidance. a nudge here, a word there, something to point her in the right direction when she found herself stuck. eventually, their friendship extended beyond her workshop. she was charmed by his easy smiles and his bad jokes and his proclivity for sarcasm in all the time they spent together, and he found joy in her presence and was endeared by her curiosity for the world around her.

he hadn’t meant to grow so fond of her, and to his credit he did rebuff her when she expressed an interest in something other than friendship. she deserved better than him, he had told her, but she didn’t miss the sorrowed way he said it and she would never understand why.

when tensions between the dales and orlais began to rise, their relationship – which would be short-lived – began in earnest.

iselan had crafted felassan a woven charm, the knots and braids infused with spells meant to protect him and a small piece of deep purple stone attached to the end. to match his eyes. this gift was accompanied with a confession, one she was quick to assure him did not need to be returned, and felassan was moved by the gesture. selfishly – and truthfully – he admitted that he felt the same, but felassan had meant it when he said she deserved better.

she professed not to care, and he wanted to be the man she saw. at least for the time they had left. he would eventually leave her, and when he did, she would think him dead and that her charm had failed to protect him.

he doesn’t know what happened to her after he left. he hopes that she survived the fall of the dales, but by the time of the exalted march felassan was long gone from orlais and they would not meet again.

felassan still wears the charm she gifted him on his belt. the magic held, even into the dragon age, and it was only after his final meeting with solas that it truly failed.

#blckmask #°˖➴ loosed into the sky. ┊ answered.#°˖➴ roots dug deep into the earth. ┊ headcanon.#iselan tag.#//in case anyone wonders she does survive the fall of the dales #she does not accept orlesian rule or the chantry and is an ancestor of the modern dalish elves #she also moves on from felassan. their relationship was s h o r t #also fun facts! that charm is why felassan lives long enough post stabbening to either be saved (dai au)#or make it to the crossroads where lanalath eventually finds him (vg au)

felassan rejected iselan because he was using her and knew he'd leave eventually. whatever he felt for her didn't matter and he refused her as gently as he could.

iselan only confessed the second time with the charm because she knew that war with orlais was inevitable. whatever else happened, she wanted him to know how she felt. felassan accepted for those same reasons and it was the most honest he'd ever been with her.

lanalath never takes on ise's image because he would find no comfort in it.

#°˖➴ roots dug deep into the earth. ┊ headcanon.#iselan tag.#//there is a brief period actually where felassan considers telling her the whole truth #but ise never would have accepted it and he decides not to #and frankly she would have had him run out of the dales for ties with fen'harel