InsaneJournal

There had been a guide and even a talk about the various amenities the Enterprise had available, but Marian wasn't sure she'd even been paying attention. It was a lot to take in all at once, and there'd been more pressing concerns at the time. Like the fact that no, this wasn't the Fade or the Afterlife, and how to deal with things like her magic slate or the disembodied voice they called a 'computer'.

But finally, after a few weeks of going absolutely stir crazy, she'd smacked the computer screen and asked her where to go when you wanted to 'see anything bloody green at all'. And so, with some guidance, Marian found herself in the arboretum. She took a deep breath in, and exhaled.

"I'd ask where this place has been my entire life but that seems rather silly since I could have been here weeks ago," She muttered, mostly to herself.

Lomea had been sitting near a tree, a PADD in her lap as she reclined elegantly, as though the chair were a throne and she an empress. She’d gotten used to the comings and goings of crew members, but the voice that spoke was a new one. She lifted her eyes, and tilted her head. “It’s the only place with fresh air.”

"Is that what that smell is?" Marian asked, while looking around for the source of the voice. She was quite glad when she discovered it was attached to a person and not just some new form of computer. Of course, the voice seemed to belong to some form of noblewoman, and Marian arched a brow at her. It was nearly impossible to look regal while sitting on someone's greenery, but this woman managed it.

"I'd nearly forgotten, myself. It smells quite a bit better than what passes for 'fresh' air in many of the places I've been, too." She added.

Lomea was reminded of Nal Hutta, and the wretched stench of the Hutts. She wrinkled her nose. “I can name three places that I can still smell, despite the time and lightyears between them. I would only wish a visit to Nal Hutta on my very worst enemies. Of which I had quite a few.”

"Oh?" Marian asked, arching her brows. She didn't think it was wise to just plunk down on the grass next to this woman, so she found a nearby bench to sit on, instead. "Tell me of this Nal Hutta, and why it is you have so many enemies that you still wouldn't wish this place upon them. For me, it's the lower districts of Kirkwall. They were, in places, quite literally a cesspool."

She wrinkled her nose again. “Putrid, acidic stench, the air and water polluted by the near constant dumping of toxic chemicals. And then there are the hutts themselves, slovenly bags of flesh and skin, like gigantic slugs.”

She might be a Sith Lord, but she had standards.

It certainly sounded like this woman had strong feelings about slovenly bags of slug flesh, and Marian couldn't disagree. She'd never met anything like that, but they sounded absolutely disgusting. It reminded her of the blight, in a way. She wrinkled her nose at that, and then shook her head. "Well, that brings back unpleasant memories. The Deep Roads had a smell to them that you couldn't even wash out of your clothes. It's the blight, I think. Taints everything, you know. I'm actually surprised that Darkspawn take anyone by surprise given their general stench."

“Perhaps that is actually why. If the whole area stinks, you cannot smell a thing.” This was the worst conversation Lomea had ever had and she’d had a few doozies. “But let us discuss something more pleasant. What do you think of the others on this ship?”

"I like you, you're very to the point," Marian decided. Then she tilted her head to the side as she thought about the various people on board. Most of them she knew on sight thanks to her constant lurking on the magic glass and people watching in the lounge. "Our bartender is crazy, but her hair is cute. I doubt she's actually a danger to anyone here. You interact with her a lot, so you must be friends? Roommates?"

"That Tony man is all talk... Lucifer is gorgeous and moody and extremely intense. I like that Lady Mary, she puts people in her place. There's a few aboard that use magic or have powers, that Liz person can't control hers and that's dangerous. We need a place aboard to practice or we're all in trouble. My own magic has a chance to go quite sketchy if I lose practice. I like the staff - the crew, I guess they call themselves? Or at least, so far. Beckett’s got an interestingly tortured backstory and I’m glad her man arrived. There’s others I’ve seen and spoken with that I haven’t really chatted with as much in person as I’d like. Like that Leia Organa. She's got a presence to her. And I think she's lonely."

“Yes, we’re roommates. Her grasp on sanity is weak, but I have had crew members and friends who were not exactly sane either. I honestly thought I’d hate her, but I don’t.” Lomea nodded, agreeing generally. “I am considering reaching out to Liz, as I did Elsa.”

Lomea was overly fond of Elsa, and not just because she had potential. But Lomea tended to keep that sort of thing close to her chest because it had gotten her burned, before. “Leia has power. It is deep within and likely to remain unhoned, but she has power. Power in her words, too. A natural leader.”

"Yes..." Marian agreed, with a nod. She squinted her eyes at Lomea, then. "It's not just some sort of air about you then, is it? Not just a way you conduct yourself. You've got some sort of power, too. What could you do for someone like Liz? I'm not sure I knew that Elsa had any abilities."

She started making a mental list, then. If she could become a worker at the traveler office she could create some sort of... people with powers group. "We should be working together, all of us. Though why do I feel like that might be somewhat beneath you?"

Lomea lifted her hand, and a tree bent towards her. She pulled two fruit from it. She floated one to Marian and took a bite from the other. “I can manipulate something called the Force. I can push or pull objects, generate lightning, trick minds…”

Before the apple could reach Marian, she created a barrier around her that pushed it away. "I've got something called Force, too, but this is very interesting. That's the power Leia was talking about too, and then there's her brother, Luke? And possibly more aboard for all I know. I've been particularly interested in this. How does it work? It's not the same as spells but I feel like it's all more similar than we think."

“Perhaps it is. Leia has this power, and her brother as well. It is intrinsic in all things, only not all can learn to harness it, and fewer still become experts.” Lomea took another bite of her apple. “It’s something you can feel. Warm, or cold. A pressure, always, a feeling inside.”

"Our earliest legends tell of a time when magic was as easy as breathing. Another race, the ancient elves, built an entire civilization with it. We're still finding their ruins and trying to piece all the information back together." Marian mused. She got up from where she was sitting and went to retrieve the apple she'd flung aside. It was a better idea than putting down a gravity well to pull it back to her. She still remembered how that had nearly wrecked the gym.

"But it IS always there, assuming you’re born with the ability, the connection, to use it. A feeling you can't get rid of, the constant knowledge that you're connected to magic, that the spells will come when they're called, a thrum of background power. It rises and falls, like a tide, and you can tell when you're going to be too spent to cast anything big by paying attention to the cues."

“We have similar ruins and ancient stories going back tens of thousands of years. Some say the Sith and the Jedi were once one. There is some evidence of that. A split, a rift in how one approaches the use and study of the Force.” Lomea nodded, lifting her hand as energy crackled around it. “With training, one does not have to tire so easily. The force is limited only by what you think you can do. But like all things, channel too much…”

Marian bit into her apple and chewed thoughtfully, then nodded her head. "There's a difference, there. Some mages have access to more power than others and there are things that one can do that require more than one mage working together. But there's always a limited amount, you're working using a resource, which we've called Mana. There are potions to refresh it, but the desperate turn to bleeding themselves or others instead."

“It is possible to drain the life from another with the Force,” Lomea mused. “Perhaps you are right. Your magic and the Force are not entirely different.”

"I've mainly been wondering because as far as I'm aware, there is no Fade here. Magic in Thedas depends on it, it's the connection to that realm that fuels it. Yet I can still cast here - not as effectively, or maybe I should say it's more exhausting. But I still can. And technically, I shouldn't be able to at all. Unless there's something LIKE the Fade here, or it's actually more like your 'Force', where the main thing we're connected to is all around us." Marian took another bite from her apple, wondering if she could learn how to float it around the way Lomea did. She already knew a few versions of spells that would push things away, how different could it be?

"I wonder if there's more I could learn to do," She said, aloud.

“Where there are living things, there is the Force. It is in all of us, around all of us,” Lomea explained. “It matters not where I am. As for your Fade, perhaps there is something like that here. A veil of some sort.”

She shrugged, next. “Is there harm in trying?”

"Where I came from, there would be." Marian replied, sounding a bit sad. "I wish I knew more about how my magic is still working, and why. But as a rule, Mages don't go learning new and untested schools of magic without someone watching over them to kill them if they screw it all up."

Lomea actually laughed. “That’s actually quite clever. Where I was trained, you either survived, or you did not. And many students actively tried to kill each other. I suppose it is not much different, the result is the same. The strong survive, even if those with potential might be wasted.”

"The strong have no choice but to survive. Circle mages are tossed into the Fade, unprepared and untested, during a ceremony they call the Harrowing. I've never experienced it myself because Father raised me outside the Circle and we did things differently. But there's always a Templar waiting in the physical realm to chop your head off if you so much as sneeze the wrong way. And I hear that some never get the chance, and are simply made Tranquil instead." Marian replied, frowning.

"Tranquility is a fate worse than death for most. Your realm sounds quite harsh, though. Students trying to kill each other? It's quite competitive, isn't it?"

“Very harsh. Something I tried to change.” What use was an Empire that used and abused it’s people? How could one maintain control that way. Rebellions fostered in that sort of environment. But make the people love you and they would gladly lay down for you.

"Did it work?" Marian asked, arching a brow. She remembered she had an apple in her hand, and took another bite out of it while she waited for a response. Hawke missed all the times Varric would tell a story. Maybe she could get Lomea to tell her one.

“Things were heading in the right direction. Whether or not they will get there now, is anyone’s guess. I’m not saying my hands are bloodless, or my methods entirely moral. But what is the point of power, or knowledge, if the ones below you are always trying to kill you?” Lomea shook her head. “The Empire will fall if we continue as we were. Slavery. Infighting. Promotion through execution. All these things must end. Even if I may have benefited from the latter two.” But slavery, there was no excuse for. Not for a former slave.

"All of those things seem like the building blocks upon which Kirkwall stands." Marian screwed her face up a bit. "My own time as an indentured servant went well enough. She took care of me and mine, I was provided with gear, and never mistreated. But Fenris, he came from the north. And his former master never stopped hounding him, not until we killed him." It had caused all manner of drama and angst. Hawke wasn't sure she'd ever be over it all, and she wasn't even him.

"If I hadn't been a Mage they'd have considered making me Viscount of the entire city. Like I'd have ever taken that on. I know better."

“Kirkwall and the Sith Empire sound much alike,” Lomea decided. That probably wasn’t the absolute best comparison. No one wanted to be compared to Kirkwall.

“Save that one with your power would go very, very far in the Empire. Worshiped, even.” She brushed her nails over her chest. “I had my own cult.”

"I had... a group of... lost, pathetic, and misguided souls?" Marian offered, squinting a bit. "And then of course Varric, who wouldn't count himself amongst any of those. Even if he always seemed a bit lost to me. And they did seem to follow my commands, even if they didn't agree. But I can't say that they worshiped me. Even the ones who professed to love me never managed to put me above their own agendas."

“Lost, pathetic and misguided?” Lomea laughed, the sound ringing out through the bay. “Sounds like a cult to me.”

"Usually we apply the term 'cult' to things like... groups of idiotic blood mages that get together and do ridiculously stupid things that are only going to draw attention to themselves. I really don't understand that. It's like they WANT to get caught. They should just wear robes with 'I'm a blood mage, ask me how!' written on them."

Lomea's laugh, though, that was a gorgeous sound. And also, somehow, a chilling one. Marian wasn't sure that this new friend she was making was entirely safe to be around, but she also wasn't sure she cared.

Maybe she was just a glutton for punishment that way.