faderift | the dull sound of sharp math when you were alive

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the dull sound of sharp math when you were alive

WHO: Malcolm Reed OR Rachette Dakal OR Leonard Church AND you
WHAT: Belated August catch-all
WHEN: Alllllll through August
WHERE: Places! Mostly in and around Skyhold, none of them went to do fun Orlais things this month like losers
NOTES: Putting up some general locales and info in the post but it's pretty much a 'do you think you can find them in [insert location]? go hit them'

Malcolm is always a busy body who does his best to lend a hand. He's in noticeably better spirits than last month and, to those that know him, seems to have had his enthusiasm dial nudged up just a hair. Through the days, he can usually be found hanging around Cassandra's office since he is her 'Left Hand'--heading people off before they can get to her, doing some paperwork, in deep discussion with her, etc; sparring and training out with dummies, with people, or with bow targets, showing off his variety of skills with and without weapons, and also training/hanging out with his poodle Milady; nosing around the kitchens where he actually lends a hand with the actual cooking when the mood strikes him; lending a hand on various construction projects through Skyhold and in the valley below; and thumbing through a few less than strictly academic texts in the library. But he's always around somewhere.

Rachette is a little more unpredictable. Sure, she's part of the Inquisition, but she mostly does her own thing, so long as it helps herself out or seems like it's doing something for the group. She can be found honing her skills with some dummies or on various walls and surfaces for flipping around like a true rogue, or helping Zevran's rogue school with their trapping and lockpicking skills, or out in the valley and Hinterlands doing some resource gathering. During the later half of the month, she, too, is noticeably more chipper, making herself stop being a sad and angry lump about Herc, or at least pretending. Has anything gotten lost or stolen lately? She might have it...or know where to look for it.

Church is the same old asshole he always is. Are you a Rifter? He's interested in talking to you. The kitchens are a haunt of his because holy shit food is so great, he'll taste test anything they whip up, and likes trying to snag extra rolls before his knuckles get rapped with a wooden spoon. He's been working on training with his sword and actually making progress. He's hardly a front line soldier, but he's better than completely useless. Any attempts to keep training on the crossbow are...discouraged, since he keeps making no improvements at all. He likes being a nerd in the library, always doing some kind of research or another to try and understand Thedas better. Y'all are fucking wackos, man. Or maybe you've caught him sleeping somewhere. Anywhere. Maybe the stables? He's made friends with plenty of the more horse-like mounts just for napping in hay a lot.

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Ariadne had made a point of avoiding the kitchens since her strange conversation with Avery. She was still nipping food, but only off of people's plates now. What they left behind or didn't want. It was just as good, she supposed. And would be less likely to be missed.

She still felt guilty though. So one afternoon, she picked a bundle of flowers from just outside of Skyhold. Tying them up with a pretty, silk ribbon that she'd scavenged, she left them where she hoped Avery would find them.

As she turned to leave the kitchen though, she caught Malcolm's familiar scent and looked for him, finding him at work doing...

...well, something. Ariadne didn't understand cooking at all.

"My lord," she said, offering him a curtsy.

Look, meat needs tenderized, and it needs seasoned, and those are things he can do. Malcolm can, in fact, do a lot in a kitchen that he's never explicitly told anyone he can do. It's hardly a skill he advertises.

Still, he wasn't going to shy away from anyone poking about, and he didn't always shoo people away like some of the cooks. "My lady," he replied with a bow of his head. "Come to sniff out supper, or nip something off for yourself?" Those were usually the reasons people who weren't there to drop off supplies or actually cook did.

Ariadne's eyes got wide, like two silver coins. "Oh, no," she said emphatically, shaking her head. "I wouldn't take anything! Avery wouldn't like that."

Well, in actuality, she would take something. Except that she didn't have to. And now that she knew how horribly it upset the cooks, she was fine working on the other end of the process.

Fed by curiosity and the desire to quickly change the topic, she trotted over to where Malcolm was working. "What are you doing?" she asked.

Mmhm, definitely wouldn't do anything of the sort. Sure, he totally believes that. "Preparing a fine slab of druffalo. This sort of cut can get tough, so you have to do a touch of tenderising. I prefer to start seasoning it as I go to get the flavours to seal inside once you start to cook it."

He smiled a little sheepishly. "I occasionally drop by to give the cooks a hand. There's more to helping and doing your duty around Skyhold than banging in a few nails and swinging swords."

"Tenderize," she repeated, staring down at the meat. The language of the kitchen, it seemed, was the only one Ariadne couldn't perfect. "Tenderize means...beating it up?"

It stood to reason, she supposed. After a good fight, she always felt somewhat...tender.

Oh! Maybe that was where it came from.

She smiled sheepishly. "I'm sorry, my lord," she said. "I'm afraid I'm not all that familiar with the art of cooking. When I was a little girl, I lived in a forest and everything we ate, we ate raw. Adjusting to city life has been...a process."

"Yes, more or less. The action makes the meat more tender, hence the verb." She was already starting to get it. He sprinkled on a little more seasoning, various salts and powders, and gave it a few more whacks.

"I picked up much from my mother as a boy. And after I left them for my training, I continued to learn a little more and a little more on the side, where I could. I suppose I like the...science of it. It's creative yet precise. Certain flavours go together in certain ways in certain amounts, but you have room to be artful. Unfortunately, with so many mouths to feed, there isn't much room to be artful. But if we want to feed our people, then let it at least have a little taste to it, hm?"

She listened to him in rapt and completely sincere fascination. He spoke with all of the passion of an artist. About dead meat. Humans could be such fascinating creatures. So lovely and strange.

Ariadne honestly couldn't get enough of them.

Just when she thought she had one figured out...WHAM. She'd get surprised.

And pleasantly so, in this particular instance. "It sounds like you have a secret calling, my lord," she teased him.

Well, he's not about to speak passionately about live meat unless it's the art of killing it. "I would never claim to be that good. And the cooks we have, they're the ones in charge of churning out a large amount of food every day, with the ingredients they sometimes don't have, with as much taste but as quickly as they can. But I do like to do my part in the Inquisition beyond my typical duties. There are many jobs that could use a helping hand. And they let me know when there are too many hands and have no qualms about shooing me off if I'm in the way. Which is a little refreshing, I think."

"I'm the same," she admitted, folding her hands behind her back. "Lending a hand where I can, I mean."

Of course, she didn't exactly have typical duties. So that more or less was her typical duty.

She would never have dreamed of volunteering in the kitchen, though. She was a complete disaster. And, anyway, after their recent conversation, she wasn't sure that Avery would want her around.

"That's what we need here. Just people willing to help. If you don't have anything specific, then someone will point you in the right direction of something to do. And there is always something to do. Even once Skyhold is completely restored to what must be similar to its former glory--and we're making good progress on that, I think--there will still be more to do, even if it's just sweeping up the floors and washing windows."

Ariadne didn't want to seem proud. But she did feel like her skills were being wasted if all she did was sweep up floors and wash windows. It might very well be her future. She hadn't looked at the probabilities, but the context make the possibility clear enough.

And it bothered her. So much more than she would ever be willing to let on.

"Every little bit," she agreed softly. "Little bits and pieces adding up to a great, big whole."

"To make one feel like they are part of something bigger, something greater than themselves for the better." There's a hint of reverence in his voice. He's talking about the Inquisition, yes, but he's talking too about the Seekers, talking too about the Chantry, talking about each person's place, their slot in this world, whether they have found it or not.

He takes the meat over to the nearby skillet and smiles, just a little, at the immediate sizzling sound it makes in the heat.

"It's not always thankful, but we don't do these things for the thanks."

She stayed away from the skillet. Ariadne didn't have a paralyzing fear of fire per se, but she had a tendency to linger back, when she could. It was just an old habit, really.

The feeling of heat on her face, the smell of burning flesh. It took her back to when she was ten years old.

"Of course not," she agreed. "We do these things to help make the world a better place." And she paused. "Although, I have to admit, I could make better contributions than sweeping and cleaning..."

"Sweeping and cleaning are only two options of many. If you've an area of expertise, I would just go ahead and work on that, or let someone more in charge of it know so you know where to start. What would you care to be doing to contribute?"

Because while he's hardly going to berate anyone for taking a little time for themselves, as is necessary, he might make her help out in some of the cooking if she's going to hang around, Avery be damned.

Ariadne hopping up on an empty countertop, crossing her legs neatly at the ankle, her toes pointed down like a dancer.

Ordinarily she wold have brushed off the question, but as of late, she'd gotten a little more reckless when it came to hiding--or not hiding, as the case might be--her abilities. She was the only Alastrian here. There was no point to it. Not stigma.

No fear of being scalped. Or, at least, she hoped not.

So what would she be willing to contribute? She took a deep breath, absorbing as much of Malcolm's scent as she could. There was, of course, the inherent Human-ness of him. Sweat and blood and hair and fabric. And more. "What would you give me," she said, "if I could name every single thing you ate to break your fast this morning?"

"I'd give Sister Nightingale a message to keep her bards from spying on members of the Inquisition, because there's nothing inherently dangerous about breakfast." Leliana has, apparently, taken in some Rifters under her wing, so it wouldn't necessarily surprise him if Ariadne was one of them.

"I'm no bard," Ariadne replied. "And I haven't been spying on you." Which wasn't to say she wasn't a spy. She was. But all of the information she was gathering was long after the fact. Which wasn't the same thing.

Or, at least, that was what she'd decided.

Just like how lies of omission weren't really the same as lies.

"It was oatmeal," she continued, reading his scent like letters on a page. "Plain, without any sort of fruit or dressing. And tea. A Fereldan brew."

"Then you know my habits, or you know people like me with ingrained habits. It is not so unusual a start to the day, though perhaps the tea might offend those of more Orlesian sensibilities who prefer theirs with far more fruits and flavourings."

He frowns down a little at the searing meat, flipping it over to the other side. If the point she is trying to prove is something less innocuous than that, it is dangerous to suggest.

"You seem determined to explain me," Ariadne said, a bit intrigued by it. It wasn't the sort of reaction she was used to getting. But then again, she was treading into unfamiliar territory. Perhaps there was nothing expectable for now.

Which made it a bit exciting, truth be known.

"Your heart is beating a little faster," she added, listening. "And since you last spoke, it's beat twenty eight times."

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the dull sound of sharp math when you were alive

Malcolm - Kitchens

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