The Horned Heroes Return

[quietblade]

WHO: Kas, Taashath + Open
WHAT: Kas and Taas return from their mission in Orlais after two months.
WHEN: Today and forward
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: Kas and Taas will be under different top comments to avoid playercesting.

Seeing the bridge to Skyhold was such a huge relief that neither qunari had expected, and the accompanying group of scouts seemed just as eager to get back. Mounts were spurred a bit more, hurrying over the last stretch before they all stopped in the courtyard.

Taas slid off his horse and brushed back his brown hair from his face. It was a bit messy and not put up in the usual array of braids - and he had a need of a razor, of the beginning of a scruffy beard was anything to go by. He's wearing his usual leather and armor, although his chest is covered by a shirt for once.

He doesn't look worse for wear, aside from his nose being extra crooked. (He might need to get that fixed later.)

Giving the mount a pat on the neck, he leaves it with a stablehand and takes a look at the state of Skyhold. At least it was in once piece... and hopefully the tavern was as well.

---

Kas isn't as graceful in his dismounting, but the teen does seem a little less horrible at riding than he used to be. Rubbing his butt a bit, he sighs and scratches his head slightly before looking around. The scout uniform is a little ripped in places and the bow he got from Metaari is missing, but he's unharmed and even seems to have gained a bit of weight. It makes him appear a little bit less like a scrawny child and rather the young man he really is, so it's a good look for him.

Maker bless Orlaisian tiny cakes and hard work.

There's even a little smile on his lips as he looks around, eager to see Korrin, friends and maybe even meet new people.

Comments

we can set this after kas + korrin's thread

[foxsays]

Grudgingly having to admit defeat means that Araceli is hobbling around using a crutch tucked awkwardly under her left arm. Awkward because it's the right leg that's hurt but the left wrist and thumb that also got damaged so progress?

Slow. At least a crutch can take more weight in general than a cane for the moment even if she resents everything, finds all of it monstrously unfair, and the temptation to hurl everything into the fire by the healer's tents tends to grow every night.

(Each and every healer no doubt prays that Araceli Bonaventura never darkens their tents ever again, the feeling is most certainly mutual.)

But anyway, she's on one of her slow walks, eyeing the walls with utmost longing because soon when she spies-- "Kas? Kas, hola!" Forgive her if her smiles are still wobbly around the edges.

o7

[issala]

"Araceli!" He grins and waves at her, even if the joy is a little dulled when he sees how she looks. Damn. Kas was glad the people that caused that were dead.

Walking over, Kas looks over to the wall she was glancing at and shakes his head a with a small smile. "Yeah, no. Korrin told me, no climbing. You look like shit."

[foxsays]

At least it's not as bad as she was. Bless Pel for always volunteering to wash her hair too because otherwise she'd feel worse than she looks (hard to imagine, that, but sometimes you need your vanity. Martel isn't wrong on that account, for all that she tried to tease him about it.)

"I have had better days." When Sister Nightingale caught her - not just her boss but her teacher - she's not about to push her luck. "I have had worse days. Where have you been? It's been so long, off on adventures?"

[issala]

"I wish it was adventures. It was politics and murders." He sighs and shakes his head a bit. That definitely wasn't Kas' version of adventures. The teen would rather rather go fight templars or venatori or dragons than trying to clear his and the Inquisition's name among misunderstandings.

"We went to Orlais, and then we were stuck in fucking Orlais."

[foxsays]

A shame she can't tell him about going to Tevinter and swindling old men with their own money. And how that had somehow involved bees. That at least had been fun before riding off to seal rifts.

"Politics can be an adventure," says the bard student and the queensguard because Korrin has probably complained behind Araceli's back about her enjoying it all a little bit too much. "And it leads to murder all too often, especially in Thedas."

But Orlais gets a knowing little sigh, now that she's been there herself. "Dealing with the nobles? Or the charming people of Orlais who are on the whole as rude to anyone not like them or with as much coin as them as I was warned."

[issala]

"Nobles, mostly. Great idea to send scouts and two qunari to racist assholes." He sighs, exasperated. "We were there to get this guy to support the Inquisition by guarding something... and instead we find him dead and end up getting blamed for it." There's another eyeroll.

"Half of our guys went to jail so me and some other scouts had to go gather evidence to clear our names - and the Inquisition's. Shit was complicated and took forever. Nobody wanted to listen to us and we had to shove evidence into the uncle-or-something's face to get a trial."

Siiiiiigh.

[foxsays]

"It can be a sound strategy, sometimes. People make mistakes when dealing with people or things that make them uncomfortable in some manner, they let things slip, they behave out of the ordinary." That much she does remember, it's part of why Leandra sends Araceli to deal with some of the worst nobles and apologises to her later when they're so rude she can barely stop shaking from the anger. "Though whoever killed him...that probably helped make it all the easier to wipe his hands of it."

But at least Kas looks unhurt, she'd probably be hearing more if he were although teenage boys can be so strange about things if she remembers some of the ones she knew correctly.

"You must have been successful though, since you're back, and that must be in no small part down to you. It means you absolutely should come to the kitchens with me so Burly can feed you since you're more than deserving." Or Raas or Kalla but Burly came along when everyone was hurting so she loves him a tiny bit more yet again.

[issala]

"Yeah, we managed to get it all fixed in the end and we got the real murderer. Apparently it was an uncle or something that wanted his land." He shrugs. It had been really weird, to be honest. Why murder your own family for some extra room?

Anyway, he's told about food and Kas laughs a little bit. "I'd be all over that but I just came back from the kitchen. Korrin and I bothered them enough for a day, I think." He affectionately shoved her little bit. "Could go for a drink, though."

[foxsays]

"There's always something with that sort of price on it, and yet I like to believe that one day people will learn that ink and sweat wash away sooner than blood." Contracts are contracts, and of course there are murders in Castileos for such things but on the whole, people are far more open to negotiating around a table with rum or brandy. Maybe even doing it over cards.

"I'll buy." She will...nurse a drink because too much and her memory really seems to wander off. Kas absolutely doesn't need to deal with her probably completely forgetting how to speak a shared language with him which is the most likely scenario if she drinks too much. And she adjusts her crutch with a huff. "Kick anyone that laughs or stares at me, I couldn't convince the healers to do things like that."

[issala]

"If people laugh or stare at you I'll shiv them in the balls," Kas says with a slightly louder voice than necessary as they enter the tavern, just to make a point to the other patrons. Finding a good table was a little bit difficult, as he wanted to accommodate Araceli's leg - so he ends up gently pushing a drunk guy onto the floor.

"Here," he continues, as if that wasn't weird at all. The drunk man just keeps half-snoozing where he is, so no big deal.

"How... uh... how are you and Korrin doing?" He wasn't sure what to talk about, as part of him wanted to know what the people had done to her, and the other part knew that it wasn't a good topic.

[foxsays]

"This is what I missed stuck in the healer's tents - so serious, you'd think they're too serious to piss." Maybe less with the Rivaini mages that help out there too but on the whole, everyone kept peering at her with such grave faces all the time it didn't exactly inspire much in the way of confidence. Probably because she was a mess. And making it worse by pushing herself but a little fire in the belly might have been nice as she watches and laughs.

How many times has she done much the same back home?

"Gracias. Ah, sirena and I? I...I wish she hadn't seen me that way." Much of what happened to her on the way back to Skyhold is a blur, the relief at rescue and the reality of the capture and everything that went along with it catching up with her so she hasn't asked what happened then. "No one ever told me that lyrium makes you forgetful. About places. People. You saw she got bitten too, sí?"

[issala]

Kas laughs at that, scooting a bit more so she had all the space she needed. He had been lucky enough to not need serious healer care so far, and he's glad he hasn't. Sitting around and waiting would make his skin crawl.

The teen flags down a barmaid and orders drinks, so he didn't have to get up again and risk tripping over the drunk guy. Then he looks at Araceli with a slightly concerned frown.

"I... I understand what you mean." It must have been terrible, to not be recognized, for Korrin. To not recognize, for Araceli. It makes his skin crawl.

When the bite is mentioned, he nods. "Yeah, It looks awesome, but it must have hurt."

[foxsays]

Try having the threat of an impending throttling with your own hair hanging over your head. A certain Rivaini Seer will make good on it, Araceli is sure, just as soon as Araceli is deemed entirely well. Likely to be quite public too for all the trouble she caused as the worst patient to land in their laps.

"We had to fight the Venatori along with their leader, the wolf who was one of us hurt so much by what had been done that she could no longer become herself and recognise friend from foe, some...I think a flesh golem? And vines. So many vines. Most of it is a blur in my head but I fought the wolf, she got me by the leg and threw me as if I weighed nothing." Which, in fairness, to a wolf the size Ruby had been then Araceli probably had weighed nothing.

[issala]

"There's a wolf on our side?" Hold on Araceli, let him digest this. "...and a flesh golem? Vines?" Kas is so confused and really intrigued at the same time, but he knows she was addled at the time and probably couldn't tell him details. "That sounds like a mess."

There's a small glance down at Araceli's leg, and he frowns for a moment. Thrown by a wolf? Ouch. "Is it gonna make a badass scar, at least?"

[foxsays]

"The flesh golem was Venatori magic to hurt us, the vines...I don't know what the vines were but they attacked us. And the wolf isn't always a wolf. She's a friend. She was hurting." There's a pause as Araceli remembers the dungeons, talking to Ruby like dragging a hook out of somewhere buried deeper than flesh. "Is still hurting."

Managing a smile, Araceli nods though she hasn't really seen it too much yet. "When it's caused so much trouble it must. Being shot with pistols leaves scars and they're much smaller than teeth, and they went deep. I would show you but the only time I don't have a poultice on it is when I'm bathing or they're changing an old one for a fresh one. The smell of the herbs would put you off your drink too." Her nose wrinkles at that because honestly, healing herbs smell utterly foul.