velehari - 29-34 and 40-45! ♥
29: Reaction to sudden extrapersonal disaster:
Velahari is the first to act when something bad happens; if it’s in regards to her clan, or at least something she has reasonable influence over, she’ll do her best to remedy the situation - direct relief efforts, offer aid in the form of healing or surplus items she has, etc. If she can help others, she will.
30: Reaction to sudden intrapersonal disaster:
Velahari tends to retreat inward when something happens that directly affects her personally. She’ll become even more quiet, though more somber than contemplative. It becomes more difficult to engage her, and she may even appear absent-minded. She expresses her sorrow only when alone, or with someone she wholly, unerringly trusts.
31: Most prized possession?
Velahari favors what few mementos of her clan she still has - a silly trinket that belonged to her father, her mother’s bow, and a pressed blossom from the tree her parents planted when they first become joined. She’s incredibly sentimental.
32: Thoughts on material possessions in general?
Eh, Velahari isn’t really the type to value material possessions for their sole value; in regards to utility, she’ll use what best gets the job done (her staff, her armor, etc), but she’s too generous and considerate a soul to hoard money or valuable items simply for the sake of doing so - not when she could donate it to refugees put out by the mage-templar conflict or the Breach.
33: Concept of home and family?
Honestly, it’s a bit stilted. She never questioned her place in the Dalish as her rightful home when she grew up there, but family was a harder idea to wrap her head around. Fena’dea and Sehris treated her as part of their own family, as did many others in the clan, but it was never what she imagined she might have had if her parents had lived.
Now that she’s Inquisitor, she’s come to see the Inquisition and its people as her family, her home - it’s surprising to her, especially when she first realizes it, but it doesn’t have to mean she’s forgotten her heritage either, even with knowing the Dalish are wrong about many things of elvhen lore.
Velahari certainly doesn’t go around Skyhold parading about her personal affairs. That said, she isn’t exactly secretive. If someone asks after something personal, she’ll usually answer - unless the circumstances require her attention elsewhere, or the person asking is someone to whom she doesn’t care to reveal answers.
So, she’s more private certainly, but she doesn’t hold back all her private matters from her friends if they’re interested.
40: How misanthropic are they?
Honestly, Velahari isn’t very misanthropic at all. She values every life - elven, human, dwarf, or qunari - and even when people make foolish choices, she’s more likely to despair than become angry about it, unless it direly affects several others. Her compassion is part of what drives her forward, and disliking people seems only to be a step backward.
Perhaps it will remind you of Merrill, but Velahari’s main hobby is recovering elven history. Coming into contact with Mythal was quite an experience, but it hardly left her time enough to ask about the elves - though it’s unlikely Velahari would have gotten any sort of answer. For all Solas’s help, there are some answers he will not give, and so Velahari has to find a more round-a-bout way to find them - if she can. Questions of how and why the elves’ empire fell plague her, since she knows it wasn’t the fault of the Tevinter Imperium.
42: How far did they get in formal education? What are their views on formal education vs self-education?
Being a Dalish elf and a mage, Velahari never had what one might consider a ‘formal education’. There were no tutors to school her on history or culture, no grand libraries or universities where she might peddle her theories.
There was only Keeper Deshanna, the scant lore and history of the elven people, and what little magic known to the Keepers remained among them. For the most part Velahari was a quick study: she learned everything the Keeper had to teach her, and then came the self-study: new spells to be tweaked and tempered into something useful, honing of specific charms to help ward off animals around the camp, and so forth.
There is a small part of Velahari that envies how easily a noble human child might go to university and learn whatever they will - even if it is colored by the perceptions of the ever-biased Chantry. Still, learning from one’s own experience and power is something she would not trade even so: it has helped her develop as a mage.
This one’s kind of touchy since Inquisition’s eye-opening of the Dalish. Velahari was never utterly devoted to the gods, but she acknowledged their existence and importance. Now, without her vallaslin, she’s less accepting. She doesn’t believe in the Maker, and after meeting Mythal, isn’t sure she thinks the Creators are strictly-speaking gods anymore. So, I suppose at this point, Velahari doesn’t have much of a religion - though it’s not much of a loss.
44: Superstitions or views on the occult?
Velahari isn’t overly superstitious, though there are a few Dalish folk-tales she falls back on occasionally; and being a mage has made her rather sensitive to the occult nature of things. Almost nothing is off-limits for her to ponder, and she’s had several conversations with not only Solas, but also Dorian, Vivienne, and Cole about such things.
45: Do they express their thoughts through words or deeds?
Honestly, it depends on what is being expressed. If she’s in a meeting at the War Table she tries to be as diplomatic as Josephine, and politely inserts her own ideas and wishes among the group. I suppose it boils down to this: if what she’s expressing is not related to emotion (politics, banter, etc), she has no problem saying so verbally.
If it’s more personal, more emotional, then she does oftentimes rely on doing something. If someone’s upset, she may not know what to say to make it better, but she’ll offer a hug or a shoulder to lean on. If she’s in a more romantic or intimate setting, well, it’ll be quiet glances and fleeting touches - her confidence tends to lag in such places.
