faderift | stuck the landing

Ah yes, one of the natural habitats of the dwarf. At least this one has a taste for proper beer and not the swill they serve in Orzammar because anyone who thinks brewed mildew and fungus constitutes alcohol needs their head surgically extracted from their arse. Yngvi is holding court. The perch precarious.

Look he is a very small dwarf, it's a very high stool, a very big tankard plus he's put a few away already so you do the math here.

(You'd think Emeric's best brandy would've stretched a lot further than it did when he's so small but no. No it did not. And if you touch the Avvar mead he might have brought he'll hit you.)

Edited 2016-09-17 17:29 (UTC)

Cade doesn't spend a lot of time in the tavern, but what time he does spend there is occupied by watching other people have fun and trying not to be targeted by them. He never drinks alcohol and never makes a scene.
He hasn't met a lot of dwarves, and this is one of the... dwarfiest he's ever seen, not that Varric really counts. He can't help but watch Yngvi struggle with his seat, and for once feels a small relief at not being the most embarrassing person in the room.

Embarrassment? What's embarrassment other than something for lesser men and everyone else when there's an open bar and at least one Lady De Launcet swanning about the place.

"So I--" he hiccups, swinging himself back into his seat which possibly almost involves spilling beer on Cade, sorry champ, "so I say to him, that no. No I will not provide him with greased nugs for anything less than twelve sovereigns. But that's what happens when they come up from Orzammar. Need their comforts. Even if it's greased nugs. So slippery I was sliding all over."

Perhaps Cade is a lesser man; it wouldn't surprise anyone.
He jolts when a few harmless droplets hit his leg, shooting a defensive scowl at the dwarf as he shifts his chair over to avoid a repeat incident. He's not one for clever jabs or verbal complaints, but he's still pretty good at glaring. Which he does.

"Mate," which when Yngvi shouts it just tends to sound exactly like oi m8 he can't help it, he's Darktown, do you recognise the accent Cade? "Mate c'mon. Relax. Sit yourself down, your face is gonna stick that way and what'll you do then?"

A hand slams down on the bar, then again. "Up you come, up you come."

He is entirely undeterred by glares, he's Carta and a Boneflayer, try harder.

Cade SIGHS. It's not just a sigh, it's a loud and aggravated one, because people are rude. He's taken aback by the man's assertion, and opens his mouth as if to retort, but instead just closes it again. He opens it again, closes it, and looks away, increasingly grumpy that he, the victim, is being mocked in this way.

"Come on, sit with me. I'm new." New-ish. He didn't have to sign on the dotted line last time, he just tagged along and mooched about, got into trouble with Asher to bail him out. He's his own man this time. "I'm Yngvi Congealedinagutterson."

Pure Kirkwall, gutterborn, Darktown-dwelling Kirkwall as he squints and gets a better look over the rim of his pint. "Feel like I know your face from somewhere, where d'you come from surly?"

Now there's a name. Cade looks at him, reluctantly at first, still unsure of whether he's being made fun of. Then the dwarf says Kirkwall, and... oh. Oh no. He would be familiar, wouldn't he. Cade hopes he never wronged him in the days of Meredith's reign.

"..um..." he murmurs, still not getting up to sit with him, but at least he's decided to be honest. "...Kirkwall." He winces.

"Knew you had a Kirkwall look about," Yngvi continues without skipping a beat because he is seldom wrong about these things and if he is wrong then it's not his fault, it's never his fault, how could it possibly be his fault. "I'm from there m'self, Darktown, course, but I wandered. Did jobs here and there. Lots of jobs. Legitimate businessman like myself."

Honestly Yngvi is probably more likely to have been the party in trouble. Selling lyrium to people. Templars. Mages. Apostates. Anyone that fancied a bit of lyrium to spice up their life. If they had the coin, he had the lyrium okay, he didn't judge. (Okay he judged but he was selling, not buying, he was allowed to judge the humans. The elf mages never bought lyrium.)

"What did you do in Kirkwall? And d'you have a name? Like having names to put to a face."

Of course he's a criminal from Darktown. Of course that's the person Cade is facing now, in one day among many in what has been arguably the lowest point in his life.
"Um. Cade," he says, awkwardly leaving off the 'ser'. "Ah... a Templar, actually." He technically still is one. Technically.

"Here's the thing." There is always a thing, just get used to that now and save yourself some trouble. "Mages don't stop being mages unless you sunburst them, but there's still a lot of talk even - what, a year or near as? - in Val Royeaux about Templars. I mean are Templars even Templars? S'pose you've got the face, but then half the Templars in Kirkwall had faces like that. Knew lots of them when they came to see me and mine."

Two guesses as to why they came to see him and his Cade, he has faith in you.

Well this isn't the greatest way to get Cade on one's good side, and this becomes abundantly clear as Yngvi continues speaking. Cade will always be a Templar, he's certain, regardless of how things go. He took a vow. It's a way of life. You don't just stop being a Templar because the chantry can't get itself in order.
Or... perhaps you do, but he won't accept it.
"Yes," he answers flatly, then knits his brow when the dwarf continues. Him and his? Unfortunately, Cade was a schmuck even then-- he had no close associates within the Order, and therefore didn't know of any shady things going on. ...if he had, he likely would have told on them. Whatever Yngvi is referring to, it's news to him.

Even if you have to dress in dawnstone because red and pink is just a terrible combination, and Yngvi has seen some shit. Do you remember that Starkhaven guy Cade? Andraste's face on his crotch and blindingly white armour dazzling everyone? But red and pink, no one looks good in that.

That could be the future. Imagine.

Dropping his voice, he leans in close. There's a lot of eyebrow action as he gives the room a quick onceover. "We being watched?" He asks it in a tone that's almost inaudible, still with that same cocky grin but for a moment he sounds serious. Few would credit him with being able to do this, and that's to their misfortune because usually he's pulled a fast one on them but something just feels odd about this, like he's about to get jumped, dumped out back and beaten senseless or something.

Cade leans away when Yngvi leans forward, and quickly casts his eyes around with a confused shake of his head. "I... don't think so?" he replies -- not that he's not usually being watched in some capacity, but he doesn't know why they would be in tandem.

"You're acting like we are." Yngvi leans foward again although it means the bar is sort of digging into him pretty awkwardly, and someone has to rescue the mixed nuts so he doesn't send them flying with an elbow. "I mean we could be, who knows who might be here, always thought that the Chantry was full of shady folk. But that could just be the Kirkwall in me."

When Yngvi leans forward, Cade leans even further backward. He's going to fall off his chair soon if this persists.
"I'm--" he stammers, "I'm not, we're-- not." Being watched, that is. Plenty of people in the Chantry are shady, not that he'd ever admit that, least of all acknowledge that he might be one of them.
"--what happened in Kirkwall was the combined efforts of Qunari and apostates," he points out, forcing himself to get his head back, "...and the Champion agitating both."

"Mate," and look he's going to try to just reel you back in here because someone tipping arse over tit because that'd be a shame for some tavern girl, having to clear up brains off the floor along with everything else, that's not much of a way to end her night.

"Fair point, fair point, no fan of the Champion. Killed a lot of people I knew. Some of them good, some of them bad, most of them just folk making their way." Downtown, walking fast, faces pass, oh shit that's a hulking Qunari walk faster, that sort of thing y'know and oh look blood magic. Just Kirkwall things.

With a hesitant nod, Cade straightens again-- did they just agree? They at least appear to, which is novel. "The city has always been..." he considers, trailing off, then concludes with "...like that, but the Champion pushed it over the edge." He saw her once, in the Gallows, only in passing. She'd looked like trouble, and his instincts had been correct.

"A riot." How best to explain Kirkwall because it's just this strange organised sort of chaos that kind of churned on and on and on, then everything changed when ~~the fire nation attacked~~ some upjumped doglord showed up. "The company I'm with was based there for a bit but we left right as the Arishok got testy, shame it didn't end a different way. Might've had a lost less funerals to go to after."

Edited 2016-10-13 21:05 (UTC)

Yes, testy. That's how the Arishok was when the Qunari beheaded the viscount, murdered people in the streets, and nearly razed Kirkwall to the ground. Just a bit testy.
"...yes," Cade says in a strained way, looking at Yngvi as though he wants to simultaneously vomit and punch him. Probably wouldn't go too well. "...that's good."

Look, Yngvi was packing during that. Packing is worse than that, he'd rather be beheaded than be shouted at whilst packing when he's being shouted at in Orlesian and an burly Avvar is galloping around with his dog throwing things, then Gunnar (hilarious), then Yngvi (less hilarious when his arse landed in a trap) onto a boat. They got to watch it all. Definitely his aesthetic.

He does not know what that word means.

"D'you...d'you stay for that whole show? Heard it was bad. Most of the family survived it seeing as Darktown is Darktown. How come you're here though? Don't they still need Templars in Kirkwall? I mean, if there was a blood mage capital somewhere that isn't Tevinter, then it's Kirkwall."

As they tend to when Kirkwall is mentioned, its final days of the Knight-Commander in particular, Cade's eyes go a bit vacant. He breathes deeply and tries to stay present, reminding himself that they're not being attacked, they're not in danger of being attacked, and it was just a question. Just a question.
"I..." he begins, and trails off, immediately realizing what a coward he is. He left. Perhaps there's still need for him in Kirkwall, but he's here instead, wasting everyone's time.
"...I went to the Hinterlands," he lamely concludes. "They needed us. For the rebellion." He flinches as though poked by an invisible needle, and his hands clasp and unclasp anxiously.

"Long journey." How many times did Yngvi make that journey because like it or not Eleanor, they always stopped off at the Holdings, always stretched their legs and Yngvi got into every sort of mischief to make Aura laugh because she was always such a bright-eyed girl. "Last I went to Kirkwall…saw one of the ash wraith things three times the size of me, just sort of swaying in the street. Did you know there are folk what worship them statues that came to life?"

That's a lie. But Yngvi makes it sound so very real the way he says it, a feverish whisper with his big dark eyes. Gives himself goosebumps and all so he does.

It's nothing that Cade wouldn't believe, after all he saw there. He looks at Yngvi with a slightly nauseated expression, and shakes his head. Those statues will never leave his dreams.
"...I didn't know," he concedes, hoping the subject is dropped at that.

stuck the landing

ii; tavern

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