When Astraia had asked Cyrus to start training her, she hadn't imagined it would be quite this cold.
Stupid of her to forget where they were going back to, she supposed. Arlathan had been so warm, so comfortable, Minrathous as well. Now they returned to Skyhold and not a day went by before the snow was starting to fall. It already had the peaks covered, and before she could even set out with Cyrus there were several inches on the ground. Harellan joined them, something that Astraia didn't offer much of a comment on, attempting to hide her mixture of nervousness and excitement. Certainly she wasn't going to stop him from watching, if he wanted to. Stel clearly got along well with him, and as far as she could tell he'd been an effective teacher to her.
She'd learned a few basic things on the boat as they came back south, beginner forms to practice, stances and that sort of thing. She picked it up quickly, diligent learner that she was when she actually had a teacher willing to offer knowledge. Conditioning and strength training would take much longer, and it remained to be seen what sort of results she was capable. For the moment her reward was a soreness that had to be battled through every day. It would lessen over time, she was told.
She left Skyhold with the workings of her clan covering her. Neras's warm, fur-lined boots crunched against the soft snow. Ashwen's forest green scarf was wrapped around her throat and the lower part of her face. She wore Marelya's bracelet on her right wrist, a prayer carved into the polished wood. The craftswoman's necklace she tucked underneath her shirt, symbols of the gods carved from scraps of ironbark and threaded onto a string. She wasn't sure what to think about that anymore, but took as just a sign of home, a sign that their thoughts were with her, even if the gods were not.
Her mother's blanket couldn't come, though. There was too much work to be done for that. After the first day of conditioning Astraia had quickly concluded that a change was in order, and had since removed all but a few feathers from her hair, so she could better bind it in a braid and keep it from being a nuisance. She'd have to ask Stel about it sometime. The Lady Inquisitor never seemed bothered by her hair.
"Where are we going today?" she asked Cyrus, unable to keep her impatience in check. She prodded her staff into the snow with every step as they crossed the bridge out of Skyhold. She'd been asked to bring it along this time.
Cyrus glanced back over his shoulder at her for a moment, his eyes and a narrow strip of skin around them currently all that was exposed to the open air. He didn't seem to like the cold any more than she did, and had bundled himself in dark fabric from crown to heels. “Just a little further. A small clearing—the wind should be less bad. And no eyes but ours." His voice came muffled by the deep grey scarf wrapped about the lower half his face, but clear enough. He gestured vaguely with the staff he carried to indicate the three of them. It wasn't so different from hers, but longer, to accommodate his height.
Planting it back into the snow, he led the three of them up a hill, the passage slightly tricky and forcing them single-file. Harellan slid easily to the rear position, leaving Astraia to occupy the middle. The wind was biting, worse than the temperature itself or the snow, really. When it really picked up, it howled between the peaks, imbuing their trek with a strange sense of desolation, even though Skyhold was still close at their backs.
The slope of the ground changed beneath them, flattening out considerably, and it took only another short interval before Cyrus was slipping into what looked like a crevice in a cliffside. For a few hundred feet, the passage they stepped into was narrow, but then it widened considerably, and they emerged into what did, indeed, appear to be a clearing. It was open to the sky above them, and snow had fallen here, too, but the formation of the mountains had made almost a stone bowl of the area, bounded by high walls on all sides that insulated rather comfortably against the wind.
Cyrus pulled down his hood with the hand that held his staff, hooking a finger through his scarf and tugging it away from his face, so that it fell back to his neck. “Good. This should do. Go ahead and get yourself warmed up, if you like; we'll start with whatever you want to work on after." He exchanged a glance with Harellan, who nodded, extending a hand towards her with a mild half-smile.
"If you don't mind, I'll blunt your staff with a spell so the blade doesn't cut while you're practicing. It should only take a minute."
"Oh. Right." She handed over her weapon, extending it out horizontally so as not to point the blade at anyone. She noted that Harellan had simply mentioned blunting the blade so it wouldn't cut, omitting who the likely target of those cuts would be. She figured it was probably more for her own protection than anyone else's.
She pulled off her scarf and cloak, setting them down on a rock close to the wall and large enough to keep them off the snow. She still had a couple layers on underneath, but since they were protected from the wind now it really wasn't so bad. She sat down to stretch for a few minutes, her hide leggings thick enough to avoiding soaking through immediately in the snow. When she forced herself to ignore how limber she was (or wasn't), she ended up thinking about the privacy of all this. It wasn't that she didn't appreciate it, quite the opposite. She'd grown comfortable practicing her magic in front of others since arriving at Skyhold, but physical training was another matter. She wasn't especially clumsy, but comparing herself to the people she was making friends with reminded her of comparing her magical aptitude to Zeth's as a teenager.
It was just hard to figure how this kind of private attention from these two people was worth spending on her. Cyrus always had important work to be doing, it seemed like, and Harellan already seemed to be tutoring one of their Inquisitors, someone who saw incredible danger much more regularly than Astraia did. She just wanted to be able to defend herself a little more. Feel a little more capable.
And stop comparing herself to the others.
She stood back up, working through a few other stretches. "I've been practicing defensive stances, so maybe we should work on blocking first." As they'd discussed a little on the boat, self defense was the goal of learning to use the staff. Her magic would almost always be her most reliable weapon, but to be able to use it in the first place, she had to keep an opponent away, create separation. The first step in doing that was knowing what to do when she was attacked up close.
Cyrus accepted his own staff back from Harellan first, giving it an experimental spin and passing it from one hand to the other behind his back, motions deft and sure. He'd warmed up while she had, discarding his outermost layers next to where his uncle was now sitting crosslegged. If he planned to participate, he certainly didn't seem to be doing so immediately. Retrieving her staff as well, Cyrus closed the gap between them and handed it back to her, retreating a few feet and planting the end of his in the ground.
“Blocking it is. We'll start with the timing, and once you get comfortable with that, we'll add a few ripostes you can use to force an attacker to back away once you've staved them off." He paused, then cleared his throat. “Ah... pun not intended." Astraia snorted softly, but soon straightened her expression again.
Lifting his staff, he took a wide grip on it, so that about two-thirds of the length was between his hands. He'd taught her that already: to think of the staff in thirds, and to take the broadest grip for defensive purposes. He smiled a little crookedly, something clearly amusing him. “Hit me."
She supposed he was going to demonstrate something for her. Her brother had been fond of doing that too with his magic, typically in ways that she couldn't hope to replicate without proper instruction. She wasn't sure how much of that had been the influence of the demon working in him, making him desire superiority and power and using her to feel like he had both. But she trusted was different. It was why she'd asked him. Even if he didn't acknowledge it, he was a good teacher, the best one she'd come across. She'd known that not long after meeting him in Crestwood.
She hadn't practiced attacking much, but at least knew the proper form to imitate in the attempt. She shifted her hands closer to the bottom of her staff, the lower one about a foot from the end, the upper one a little over halfway through it. More leverage to give swings of the blade on the end more force. Lifting the staff over her head, she held the stance for a second, and then went for an attack, stepping forward and letting her top hand slide down as she made the overhead strike.
Smoothly, Cyrus lifted his stave slightly over his head and about six inches in front of his body, catching her staff just below where the blade on the end began. It landed square in the middle of his with the resounding crack of wood on wood, stopping her blow cold. He didn't do anything immediately, rather remaining still, elbows slightly bent, balance obviously solid. “This is your overhead block. Nine times out of ten, if someone's swinging vertically for you, it will work. And I don't have to be strong to do it, because I caught you before you were really able to gather the most momentum."
He flicked his eyes to where the staves met. “And the angle's bad for the attacker, too. Not so high the blade might cut my staff in two, not so low that someone strong would just be able to push down past it. From here I could do a lot of things to destabilize your balance, but we'll worry about that later." Cyrus disengaged carefully, stepping back. “Make sense? I'll attack you next if you want to give it a shot."
Astraia withdrew her staff, returning to a more neutral grip on it. It seemed like a lot of precision was required for that to go right. The drawbacks to the angle being different than what Cyrus had caught her at were pretty severe. And she'd have to read it quickly in a real situation if she wanted to react in time and not rely on strength to stop the blow.
"Alright," she said, glancing for a half-second at Harellan before she settled her stance, preparing to widen her grip as soon as Cyrus moved at her.
When he did, it was with intentional slowness, still fast enough to be smooth, but certainly not so quickly that he was in any danger of actually hitting her if she couldn't get the angle right. The bladed end of his staff arced around from being near his left foot, passing behind him and up, and then his hands slid along the pole similar to the way hers had, angling it down towards her shoulder.
She got her staff up quickly, helped by the fact that she knew what attack was coming. Her feet weren't as steady as his had been, fidgeting around slightly, and she found herself shifting a bit to get her staff directly under the attack, so it would hit equidistant between her spread hands. The end result was that her block wasn't straight, and Cyrus's staff hit hers at an angle, causing it to immediately slide down the shaft after contact towards her left hand.
It didn't make it that far before he'd halted the momentum, stopping his weapon from hitting any of her fingers, and a quiet, uncertain noise escaped Astraia. There were a lot of different things to focus on at once, and she wasn't sure which one had been the most critical mistake. "That was, uh... ugly, wasn't it?"
Cyrus arched an eyebrow at her, disengaging again and taking the requisite step away. “It needs work." He shrugged. “But that's to be expected."
"Certainly a lot of new skills to learn at once." Harellan spoke from where he as still seated, his expression betraying some interest. "I think a little conditioning would help, don't you, Cyrus?"
“Yes, but I'm not going to make her do forms for months before she touches anything with practical applications. It's meant to be helpful as soon as possible." Cyrus returned his eyes to Astraia, nodding at her staff. “It does take precision. And balance. Neither of those things is innate; with practice, they will come. Try to... think of yourself as rooted. Press down into the ground with your feet, and keep your knees slightly bent. We'll practice a bit more with this, and then Harellan can do the same thing with a sword, and give you a feel for the difference."
She did learn quickly, even if they were almost moving in slow motion for the moment. Thinking of herself as rooted, as Cyrus had put it, did help some, and with a bit of repetition she started to block a little more naturally. They worked in other blocks after that, and these came a little quicker, blocking left and right, and before long they were drilling without Astraia knowing where the attack would come from. Still slow motion, but requiring reaction rather than just repetition of the same movements. Her feet were what betrayed her more often than not, the rest of her form crumbling for a few seconds before she would reestablish herself, and focus again.
The sword came next, Harellan switching in to practice with her next. She quickly noticed after going through a few individual blocks that the smaller weapon was more difficult to predict in its approach. His magic blade was also somewhat alarming to look at, but she was assured it would do her no harm in the event she failed to block it. She did so, again and again, eventually working in what to do against lunges coming straight for her. Seeing as those required both reaction and properly timed deflection on her part, Astraia ended up with a number of imaginary wounds to the chest and stomach. The point was to keep them imaginary, of course, so she paid them no mind.
It proved to be more than enough for a day's worth of practice, as all of them would have other duties to attend to once they got back to Skyhold. "Thank you for doing this," she said as she made her way to the bowl's rim, so to speak. "I know it's a lot to take on, if we're doing this regularly. Sorry I picked the start of winter to ask." She smiled a little at the last bit, bending to scoop up her scarf and cloak, and donning both. It was only going to get colder, and the snow was only going to get heavier.
Cyrus snorted; both men were bundling themselves back up to face the chill as well. “It isn't a problem. I've less to do than it might seem." From the way he pursed his lips, that probably wasn't exactly what he wanted to say, but it was difficult to tell for sure. Pulling his scarf back up over his nose and mouth, he shrugged back into his cloak and tugged the cowl over his head.
He led the way back into the passage; Harellan lingered, gesturing for Astraia to precede him. "What he means, I think, is that he's happy to help." They filed after Cyrus into the crevice, emerging to a somewhat-darkened sky. It wasn't in danger of reaching nightfall before they got back to Skyhold or anything, but the overhead light was beginning to mellow and deepen, the way it did at the very cusp of sunset.
When they were again able to walk abreast rather than in single-file, Harellan tilted his head, eyes falling briefly to where her necklace had come to rest on the outside of her shirt. "One of the gifts from your clan?" The question was benign, but he seemed to be asking something else, too. A little less straightforwardly.
She glanced down at it, only just now realizing he could see it. "Oh. Yes." She thought for a moment to tuck it back under, but maybe it was a little late for that. It was starting to make her question why she'd bothered hiding it in the first place. It felt... strange, to wear any symbols representing gods around someone who had always known they were less than that. If less was really the right word.
"Our craftswoman, Marelya, carved it for me. She's... a believer, I guess you could say." Astraia had never been much of one before, and now... she wasn't sure how she felt now, actually. She would've thought learning the truth about their gods would make her even less interested in them, but it was actually having the opposite effect.
She made sure to watch where she was going as they neared the descent, and then looked Harellan's way. "Do your people believe in anything?" She wasn't sure if the question was acceptable to ask, but she doubted she'd offend him if it wasn't. Dalish didn't know any better. "Everyone seems to have their own gods, but to the elves in Arlathan the gods are more like ancestors, right? So do they believe something else about how the world was created, that sort of thing?" The Dalish often called the gods the Creators, but if they were just elves, Astraia didn't see how that could be true.
"It's a matter of some philosophical debate." Harellan smiled easily, lifting a shoulder. "And it was even in the time before the Fall. I don't think we as a group have a particular consensus on the matter. Some think that the world could not possibly have sprung into being on its own, and everything has a beginning, even our immortal ancestors. Others are inclined to say that whatever brought this world about could not itself have been sentient, since that creates a rather difficult regress problem."
He glanced at Cyrus, a thoughtful expression crossing his face. "There are those, now as then, who believe that any such causes or creators became irrelevant long ago, sentient or otherwise. We are capable enough of both great glory and great terror on our own, and must make do with what is before us." Harellan's eyes fell back to hers, feet sure on the gentle slope beneath them without the need to check the terrain. "Unsatisfying as it may be for some, I admit I'm attracted to the last view, personally. People are very willing to leave their fates in the care of gods, where such are believed to exist. Much more productive to take it into one's own hands."
It was a very similar thought to the one she'd had, even back in Arlathan. She'd needed time to think it over, but the more she did, the more... excited wasn't quite the right word for it. The more she anticipated the potential of tomorrow. The potential in herself, if she could only figure out how to seize it. She smiled at him, feeling even a little relieved. "I feel the same way. It's... I never saw the point before. Gods who could be sealed away can't be much of gods at all, and if that leaves us alone here with someone we're supposed to fear, where's the hope in that? But this way, knowing that these gods were just people, powerful people..." She shook her head, wondering what the Dalish might be like if they'd believed differently all these years. "It makes me feel like we have a real chance of changing something, someday. Maybe not in my lifetime, but at least something that I could help start."
She figured her clan would barely recognize her, if they saw her right now. Training her mind and body and talking about hope for changing the fate of the elven people, restoring some piece of what they had in the past. Dozing off in soft fields under the clouds, avoiding her clan, seemed so far away...
"Sorry, that was a bit much," she said. "Just felt like seeing Arlathan and learning about this opened my eyes to a few things. I'm really glad I was able to go." Her brother would be incredibly jealous, she knew. The thought gave her an undeniably guilty pleasure.
Harellan's smile broadened; even Cyrus had a little curl to the corner of his mouth, though he'd angled his face away, as though taking in the mountainsides to their left. "It's an admirable thing to want." The elf folded his hands behind his back as they walked, tipping his head up a little to take in the sky. "Of course, knowing how best to do that, even in which direction to aim, is a difficult matter. Like it or not, thousands of years have passed since our height. My people strive to preserve it. Some wish to restore it. But that would be a very involved process, and likely impossible in its fullest form."
“Of course it would be." Cyrus seemed to find that obvious. “Restoration couldn't work, because there are entire empires in play that didn't exist last time that world did. As the fool who invented time travel—" he rolled his eyes there—“I don't recommend it as a solution to anyone's problems."
"We can start small then," she said, feeling that the subject was probably a bit over her head at this point. She was quite short. "Teaching me to use this properly should be challenging enough for the moment." She shook her staff softly at them, before putting it back to work as a walking stick, its primary function since it had come into her possession.
“Not getting killed first, highly-theoretical discussions about the hypothetical destinies of all the nations on Thedas later?" Cyrus arched an eyebrow, false imperiousness rolling off him in waves. “Ugh. You would be sensible, wouldn't you?" He waved a hand.
“I suppose I can accommodate your request. We'll get to the fate of the world later though; mark my words."
Stupid of her to forget where they were going back to, she supposed. Arlathan had been so warm, so comfortable, Minrathous as well. Now they returned to Skyhold and not a day went by before the snow was starting to fall. It already had the peaks covered, and before she could even set out with Cyrus there were several inches on the ground. Harellan joined them, something that Astraia didn't offer much of a comment on, attempting to hide her mixture of nervousness and excitement. Certainly she wasn't going to stop him from watching, if he wanted to. Stel clearly got along well with him, and as far as she could tell he'd been an effective teacher to her.
She'd learned a few basic things on the boat as they came back south, beginner forms to practice, stances and that sort of thing. She picked it up quickly, diligent learner that she was when she actually had a teacher willing to offer knowledge. Conditioning and strength training would take much longer, and it remained to be seen what sort of results she was capable. For the moment her reward was a soreness that had to be battled through every day. It would lessen over time, she was told.
She left Skyhold with the workings of her clan covering her. Neras's warm, fur-lined boots crunched against the soft snow. Ashwen's forest green scarf was wrapped around her throat and the lower part of her face. She wore Marelya's bracelet on her right wrist, a prayer carved into the polished wood. The craftswoman's necklace she tucked underneath her shirt, symbols of the gods carved from scraps of ironbark and threaded onto a string. She wasn't sure what to think about that anymore, but took as just a sign of home, a sign that their thoughts were with her, even if the gods were not.
Her mother's blanket couldn't come, though. There was too much work to be done for that. After the first day of conditioning Astraia had quickly concluded that a change was in order, and had since removed all but a few feathers from her hair, so she could better bind it in a braid and keep it from being a nuisance. She'd have to ask Stel about it sometime. The Lady Inquisitor never seemed bothered by her hair.
"Where are we going today?" she asked Cyrus, unable to keep her impatience in check. She prodded her staff into the snow with every step as they crossed the bridge out of Skyhold. She'd been asked to bring it along this time.
Cyrus glanced back over his shoulder at her for a moment, his eyes and a narrow strip of skin around them currently all that was exposed to the open air. He didn't seem to like the cold any more than she did, and had bundled himself in dark fabric from crown to heels. “Just a little further. A small clearing—the wind should be less bad. And no eyes but ours." His voice came muffled by the deep grey scarf wrapped about the lower half his face, but clear enough. He gestured vaguely with the staff he carried to indicate the three of them. It wasn't so different from hers, but longer, to accommodate his height.
Planting it back into the snow, he led the three of them up a hill, the passage slightly tricky and forcing them single-file. Harellan slid easily to the rear position, leaving Astraia to occupy the middle. The wind was biting, worse than the temperature itself or the snow, really. When it really picked up, it howled between the peaks, imbuing their trek with a strange sense of desolation, even though Skyhold was still close at their backs.
The slope of the ground changed beneath them, flattening out considerably, and it took only another short interval before Cyrus was slipping into what looked like a crevice in a cliffside. For a few hundred feet, the passage they stepped into was narrow, but then it widened considerably, and they emerged into what did, indeed, appear to be a clearing. It was open to the sky above them, and snow had fallen here, too, but the formation of the mountains had made almost a stone bowl of the area, bounded by high walls on all sides that insulated rather comfortably against the wind.
Cyrus pulled down his hood with the hand that held his staff, hooking a finger through his scarf and tugging it away from his face, so that it fell back to his neck. “Good. This should do. Go ahead and get yourself warmed up, if you like; we'll start with whatever you want to work on after." He exchanged a glance with Harellan, who nodded, extending a hand towards her with a mild half-smile.
"If you don't mind, I'll blunt your staff with a spell so the blade doesn't cut while you're practicing. It should only take a minute."
"Oh. Right." She handed over her weapon, extending it out horizontally so as not to point the blade at anyone. She noted that Harellan had simply mentioned blunting the blade so it wouldn't cut, omitting who the likely target of those cuts would be. She figured it was probably more for her own protection than anyone else's.
She pulled off her scarf and cloak, setting them down on a rock close to the wall and large enough to keep them off the snow. She still had a couple layers on underneath, but since they were protected from the wind now it really wasn't so bad. She sat down to stretch for a few minutes, her hide leggings thick enough to avoiding soaking through immediately in the snow. When she forced herself to ignore how limber she was (or wasn't), she ended up thinking about the privacy of all this. It wasn't that she didn't appreciate it, quite the opposite. She'd grown comfortable practicing her magic in front of others since arriving at Skyhold, but physical training was another matter. She wasn't especially clumsy, but comparing herself to the people she was making friends with reminded her of comparing her magical aptitude to Zeth's as a teenager.
It was just hard to figure how this kind of private attention from these two people was worth spending on her. Cyrus always had important work to be doing, it seemed like, and Harellan already seemed to be tutoring one of their Inquisitors, someone who saw incredible danger much more regularly than Astraia did. She just wanted to be able to defend herself a little more. Feel a little more capable.
And stop comparing herself to the others.
She stood back up, working through a few other stretches. "I've been practicing defensive stances, so maybe we should work on blocking first." As they'd discussed a little on the boat, self defense was the goal of learning to use the staff. Her magic would almost always be her most reliable weapon, but to be able to use it in the first place, she had to keep an opponent away, create separation. The first step in doing that was knowing what to do when she was attacked up close.
Cyrus accepted his own staff back from Harellan first, giving it an experimental spin and passing it from one hand to the other behind his back, motions deft and sure. He'd warmed up while she had, discarding his outermost layers next to where his uncle was now sitting crosslegged. If he planned to participate, he certainly didn't seem to be doing so immediately. Retrieving her staff as well, Cyrus closed the gap between them and handed it back to her, retreating a few feet and planting the end of his in the ground.
“Blocking it is. We'll start with the timing, and once you get comfortable with that, we'll add a few ripostes you can use to force an attacker to back away once you've staved them off." He paused, then cleared his throat. “Ah... pun not intended." Astraia snorted softly, but soon straightened her expression again.
Lifting his staff, he took a wide grip on it, so that about two-thirds of the length was between his hands. He'd taught her that already: to think of the staff in thirds, and to take the broadest grip for defensive purposes. He smiled a little crookedly, something clearly amusing him. “Hit me."
She supposed he was going to demonstrate something for her. Her brother had been fond of doing that too with his magic, typically in ways that she couldn't hope to replicate without proper instruction. She wasn't sure how much of that had been the influence of the demon working in him, making him desire superiority and power and using her to feel like he had both. But she trusted was different. It was why she'd asked him. Even if he didn't acknowledge it, he was a good teacher, the best one she'd come across. She'd known that not long after meeting him in Crestwood.
She hadn't practiced attacking much, but at least knew the proper form to imitate in the attempt. She shifted her hands closer to the bottom of her staff, the lower one about a foot from the end, the upper one a little over halfway through it. More leverage to give swings of the blade on the end more force. Lifting the staff over her head, she held the stance for a second, and then went for an attack, stepping forward and letting her top hand slide down as she made the overhead strike.
Smoothly, Cyrus lifted his stave slightly over his head and about six inches in front of his body, catching her staff just below where the blade on the end began. It landed square in the middle of his with the resounding crack of wood on wood, stopping her blow cold. He didn't do anything immediately, rather remaining still, elbows slightly bent, balance obviously solid. “This is your overhead block. Nine times out of ten, if someone's swinging vertically for you, it will work. And I don't have to be strong to do it, because I caught you before you were really able to gather the most momentum."
He flicked his eyes to where the staves met. “And the angle's bad for the attacker, too. Not so high the blade might cut my staff in two, not so low that someone strong would just be able to push down past it. From here I could do a lot of things to destabilize your balance, but we'll worry about that later." Cyrus disengaged carefully, stepping back. “Make sense? I'll attack you next if you want to give it a shot."
Astraia withdrew her staff, returning to a more neutral grip on it. It seemed like a lot of precision was required for that to go right. The drawbacks to the angle being different than what Cyrus had caught her at were pretty severe. And she'd have to read it quickly in a real situation if she wanted to react in time and not rely on strength to stop the blow.
"Alright," she said, glancing for a half-second at Harellan before she settled her stance, preparing to widen her grip as soon as Cyrus moved at her.
When he did, it was with intentional slowness, still fast enough to be smooth, but certainly not so quickly that he was in any danger of actually hitting her if she couldn't get the angle right. The bladed end of his staff arced around from being near his left foot, passing behind him and up, and then his hands slid along the pole similar to the way hers had, angling it down towards her shoulder.
She got her staff up quickly, helped by the fact that she knew what attack was coming. Her feet weren't as steady as his had been, fidgeting around slightly, and she found herself shifting a bit to get her staff directly under the attack, so it would hit equidistant between her spread hands. The end result was that her block wasn't straight, and Cyrus's staff hit hers at an angle, causing it to immediately slide down the shaft after contact towards her left hand.
It didn't make it that far before he'd halted the momentum, stopping his weapon from hitting any of her fingers, and a quiet, uncertain noise escaped Astraia. There were a lot of different things to focus on at once, and she wasn't sure which one had been the most critical mistake. "That was, uh... ugly, wasn't it?"
Cyrus arched an eyebrow at her, disengaging again and taking the requisite step away. “It needs work." He shrugged. “But that's to be expected."
"Certainly a lot of new skills to learn at once." Harellan spoke from where he as still seated, his expression betraying some interest. "I think a little conditioning would help, don't you, Cyrus?"
“Yes, but I'm not going to make her do forms for months before she touches anything with practical applications. It's meant to be helpful as soon as possible." Cyrus returned his eyes to Astraia, nodding at her staff. “It does take precision. And balance. Neither of those things is innate; with practice, they will come. Try to... think of yourself as rooted. Press down into the ground with your feet, and keep your knees slightly bent. We'll practice a bit more with this, and then Harellan can do the same thing with a sword, and give you a feel for the difference."
She did learn quickly, even if they were almost moving in slow motion for the moment. Thinking of herself as rooted, as Cyrus had put it, did help some, and with a bit of repetition she started to block a little more naturally. They worked in other blocks after that, and these came a little quicker, blocking left and right, and before long they were drilling without Astraia knowing where the attack would come from. Still slow motion, but requiring reaction rather than just repetition of the same movements. Her feet were what betrayed her more often than not, the rest of her form crumbling for a few seconds before she would reestablish herself, and focus again.
The sword came next, Harellan switching in to practice with her next. She quickly noticed after going through a few individual blocks that the smaller weapon was more difficult to predict in its approach. His magic blade was also somewhat alarming to look at, but she was assured it would do her no harm in the event she failed to block it. She did so, again and again, eventually working in what to do against lunges coming straight for her. Seeing as those required both reaction and properly timed deflection on her part, Astraia ended up with a number of imaginary wounds to the chest and stomach. The point was to keep them imaginary, of course, so she paid them no mind.
It proved to be more than enough for a day's worth of practice, as all of them would have other duties to attend to once they got back to Skyhold. "Thank you for doing this," she said as she made her way to the bowl's rim, so to speak. "I know it's a lot to take on, if we're doing this regularly. Sorry I picked the start of winter to ask." She smiled a little at the last bit, bending to scoop up her scarf and cloak, and donning both. It was only going to get colder, and the snow was only going to get heavier.
Cyrus snorted; both men were bundling themselves back up to face the chill as well. “It isn't a problem. I've less to do than it might seem." From the way he pursed his lips, that probably wasn't exactly what he wanted to say, but it was difficult to tell for sure. Pulling his scarf back up over his nose and mouth, he shrugged back into his cloak and tugged the cowl over his head.
He led the way back into the passage; Harellan lingered, gesturing for Astraia to precede him. "What he means, I think, is that he's happy to help." They filed after Cyrus into the crevice, emerging to a somewhat-darkened sky. It wasn't in danger of reaching nightfall before they got back to Skyhold or anything, but the overhead light was beginning to mellow and deepen, the way it did at the very cusp of sunset.
When they were again able to walk abreast rather than in single-file, Harellan tilted his head, eyes falling briefly to where her necklace had come to rest on the outside of her shirt. "One of the gifts from your clan?" The question was benign, but he seemed to be asking something else, too. A little less straightforwardly.
She glanced down at it, only just now realizing he could see it. "Oh. Yes." She thought for a moment to tuck it back under, but maybe it was a little late for that. It was starting to make her question why she'd bothered hiding it in the first place. It felt... strange, to wear any symbols representing gods around someone who had always known they were less than that. If less was really the right word.
"Our craftswoman, Marelya, carved it for me. She's... a believer, I guess you could say." Astraia had never been much of one before, and now... she wasn't sure how she felt now, actually. She would've thought learning the truth about their gods would make her even less interested in them, but it was actually having the opposite effect.
She made sure to watch where she was going as they neared the descent, and then looked Harellan's way. "Do your people believe in anything?" She wasn't sure if the question was acceptable to ask, but she doubted she'd offend him if it wasn't. Dalish didn't know any better. "Everyone seems to have their own gods, but to the elves in Arlathan the gods are more like ancestors, right? So do they believe something else about how the world was created, that sort of thing?" The Dalish often called the gods the Creators, but if they were just elves, Astraia didn't see how that could be true.
"It's a matter of some philosophical debate." Harellan smiled easily, lifting a shoulder. "And it was even in the time before the Fall. I don't think we as a group have a particular consensus on the matter. Some think that the world could not possibly have sprung into being on its own, and everything has a beginning, even our immortal ancestors. Others are inclined to say that whatever brought this world about could not itself have been sentient, since that creates a rather difficult regress problem."
He glanced at Cyrus, a thoughtful expression crossing his face. "There are those, now as then, who believe that any such causes or creators became irrelevant long ago, sentient or otherwise. We are capable enough of both great glory and great terror on our own, and must make do with what is before us." Harellan's eyes fell back to hers, feet sure on the gentle slope beneath them without the need to check the terrain. "Unsatisfying as it may be for some, I admit I'm attracted to the last view, personally. People are very willing to leave their fates in the care of gods, where such are believed to exist. Much more productive to take it into one's own hands."
It was a very similar thought to the one she'd had, even back in Arlathan. She'd needed time to think it over, but the more she did, the more... excited wasn't quite the right word for it. The more she anticipated the potential of tomorrow. The potential in herself, if she could only figure out how to seize it. She smiled at him, feeling even a little relieved. "I feel the same way. It's... I never saw the point before. Gods who could be sealed away can't be much of gods at all, and if that leaves us alone here with someone we're supposed to fear, where's the hope in that? But this way, knowing that these gods were just people, powerful people..." She shook her head, wondering what the Dalish might be like if they'd believed differently all these years. "It makes me feel like we have a real chance of changing something, someday. Maybe not in my lifetime, but at least something that I could help start."
She figured her clan would barely recognize her, if they saw her right now. Training her mind and body and talking about hope for changing the fate of the elven people, restoring some piece of what they had in the past. Dozing off in soft fields under the clouds, avoiding her clan, seemed so far away...
"Sorry, that was a bit much," she said. "Just felt like seeing Arlathan and learning about this opened my eyes to a few things. I'm really glad I was able to go." Her brother would be incredibly jealous, she knew. The thought gave her an undeniably guilty pleasure.
Harellan's smile broadened; even Cyrus had a little curl to the corner of his mouth, though he'd angled his face away, as though taking in the mountainsides to their left. "It's an admirable thing to want." The elf folded his hands behind his back as they walked, tipping his head up a little to take in the sky. "Of course, knowing how best to do that, even in which direction to aim, is a difficult matter. Like it or not, thousands of years have passed since our height. My people strive to preserve it. Some wish to restore it. But that would be a very involved process, and likely impossible in its fullest form."
“Of course it would be." Cyrus seemed to find that obvious. “Restoration couldn't work, because there are entire empires in play that didn't exist last time that world did. As the fool who invented time travel—" he rolled his eyes there—“I don't recommend it as a solution to anyone's problems."
"We can start small then," she said, feeling that the subject was probably a bit over her head at this point. She was quite short. "Teaching me to use this properly should be challenging enough for the moment." She shook her staff softly at them, before putting it back to work as a walking stick, its primary function since it had come into her possession.
“Not getting killed first, highly-theoretical discussions about the hypothetical destinies of all the nations on Thedas later?" Cyrus arched an eyebrow, false imperiousness rolling off him in waves. “Ugh. You would be sensible, wouldn't you?" He waved a hand.
“I suppose I can accommodate your request. We'll get to the fate of the world later though; mark my words."