Dragon Age: Smoke and Shadows

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You know, there's an advantage to have gotten rid of most of the animals in the miniature petting zoo. It means Taril can leave the healthy bear cub with his sister while he climbs into the vhenadahl with Ena in her bear-pouch slung across his chest and over oneshoulder. It's not an easy deal. That cub is small but she's heavy and he's an elf. Still, he's determined to sit around and wait for Kitty.

t's not exactly a long wait. The great cat lounges on her typical branch in her usual impossible sprawl; she watches the elf's ascent with deceptively mild gaze, only pressing enough against the Veil to be seen once he's finished his trek - but before there's really been enough time to catch his breath. "Finally deigned to come home, have you?" she sniffs, every inch the aloof and scorned feline.

Taril looks absolutely confused at first, but then it dawns on him and he's every bit the child chastised for being out too long. "I'd have been sooner but I killed an animal dealer and had to take care of the animals. Most of them are gone now and I'm raising this little one and her brother." He lifts Ena so that her head can be seen, though the cub seems to be so asleep she barely reacts. "And my sister showed up."

"Hmph," Kitty huffs, nose in the air. "Not even a proper introduction." But it's not the bear's fault her elf has the social graces of a twelve year old boy, so she gets a gentle nosing and a perfunctory sniff… which ends in the great cat rearing back and sneezing almost violently. "Taril," she begins, eyeing the bundle like it's some kind of serpent or scorpion. "Taril, there is something wrong with that bear."

"Her name is Enansal," Taril informs. "The man who had her and her brother starved them. Her brother managed but she nearly starved to death. The healer in Darktown helped her, but… he did say she'd never be able to live on her own. Her brain won't work like it should." And he's angry at that dealer, even if he IS rotting in the sewer now. "So her brother will be able to live as he should and I'll take care of her."

"Helped. Hah." The great cat shakes herself and settles back to lie on her perch with her usual affectations to grandeur. "Sometimes, little one, it is better to die as you are than to live as you are not." Helpful, Kitty. Good job. "Is she to share our tree, then? You'll have to teach her to climb like you do."

Taril hugs his bear to him. "She deserved a chance. I couldn't stand to watch her die. Not everything I get close to has to." Look, he has a thing for babies (for an incredibly tough elf). "My sister or Ena? Dhani knows how to climb and Ena can learn. If we don't take up one of the caves, which you could visit if you wanted. I also wanted to ask you about something. An amulet that you sent a mage to me to get."

Heaving a heavy sigh, Kitty lifts her head enough to bump it against Taril's cheek, finally relenting. "Alright, little one. Alright." She's gone soft in her old age, she has. "An amulet?" She pauses then, considering that statement. "Huh. I hadn't realized you had it. What about it?"

Taril can't help the grin that curves his mouth at the headbump. Ok, he might be a little more fond of the spirit than he'd let on. "You didn't send her to me to find it? Maura and I found it in this underground… place." And of course he relates the story of the fall into the strange underground structure, the amulet and how it reminded him of the story of DaernThal he'd overheard and the Keeper's charm, as well as Ghilan and the halla antler key. "I've meant to go back. I was going to take the amulet back and then Katerena told me how much she needed it and…" Sigh. Big brother complex.

"I could feel it in Lowtown but everything on your side is hazy." She sounds grumpy about this, too, like someone frustrated by trying to read a map through a thick sheet. The story she listens to with an ever-increasing sense of a building thundercloud and there is an extended stretch of silence afterward. "That is a name I have not heard in a very long time." And she doesn't exactly sound happy about hearing it now. "How long ago did you open the temple?"

"Almost three months ago. And there was something else. Ghilan mentioned a priest of beauty, and then there was an incident in darktown with exploding dwarves- and other things, but it's a list- that mentioned a lady of broken chains and an architect of the works of beauty. Which sounded nearly related but … well, it's worth mentioning." Look, he has been BUSY. "I've meant to go back. There were things there I'd like to see again, I'd like to speak to Ghilan again. …I didn't even realize I still had the amulet or I would have left it. It felt kind of wrong to take anything from there."

"You know him? Wait. Why am I surprised that you know him." It's not a question that Taril's asking anyone. It's a statement because WHY should anything surprise him anymore? "I should ask you how you know him and what this amulet actually is. Because if I go back, I'm probably going to ask Maura or… you know, maybe try to get this Katerena to go with me. I may have to break her out." This does not daunt him. AT. ALL. Caging mages is stupid.

The great cat huffs out a breath that could be a bitter laugh if she'd put more effort into it. "If you walked out with anything, I promise it was with Ghilan's full knowledge and permission." There's something dry and wry about her tone. "Persnickety old bastard." But Taril's wish to go back, to explore further, that raises some concern to her otherworldly 'voice'. "Be careful going back. Don't go alone. If the door has been open that long, there is no telling what will have been drawn in like moths."

"You won't find many denizens of the Fade who have not at least heard of sweet, loyal Ghilan." But she leaves the explanation at that. "If the Dreamer wishes to come, I will help her. For folly's sake." That's… that's an awful strange turn of phrase there, Kitty. "Be careful in their prison. Nothing in this place is what it seems."

"Folly? Who's Folly?" Because he's literal like that and it's an odd turn of phrase. If it had been safety or something, Taril would have processed. "Then I'll see if she wants to. I can leave Ena with someone long enough for that." He shrugs. "I'm starting to get used to that as my new normal. Nothing here is exactly what it seems. But the amulet is some sort of… Way to store power? A key?"

"Folly is foolishness. It is a nonsense word." Both of which are invariably true. The cat does not seem even remotely surprised that the boy intends to run headlong into danger, but there is something of sadness that lurks in the undertones of the answer offered in borrowed words. "It is a mark. That is all I know."

"Oh, you mean like that. Well, something being foolish hasn't stopped me yet, even when I wished it would have. Taril shrugs. "That mark let us into the temple. If anything else had gotten in, I suppose it's my responsibility to see that it doesn't harm the place."

That draws a huffing laugh from Kitty, the sensation of rolling eyes brushed against the base of his skull. "Be careful, little one," she murmurs, shifting to rest her head in his lap properly. "If I have to come looking for you, I will be very cross."

Taril laughs and rests his hand on Kitty's head. "Creators forbid," he replies. "I'll be careful. I have to break into the Circle first. I bet it's a lot different than someone's window. I told my sister that I'd be gone until morning. So can I stay here tonight? I miss it. The clinic is too far underground."

Kitty does not dignify that request with an answer. She simply hauls herself up and pads over to wrap herself around the elf in a way that is warm and comfortable yet most likely defies several laws of physics. She settles so that her head is back in his lap and her tail is draped over his feet, for all the world like the largest housecat to ever roam among these branches.

Taril chuckles and settles in for not moving for the rest of the night. "I missed you." Because no ones going to hear that. Now he'll sleep. Tomorrow? He's plotting to spring a Mage. His life has never been so weird, and that's saying quite a lot.

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