faderift | OPEN LOG: Establishing a Base in Kirkwall

OPEN LOG: Establishing a Base in Kirkwall

WHO: Many People
WHAT: Cleaning up Kirkwall
WHEN: Cloudreach 1-21
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: This log post is for characters who go early to Kirkwall to assist in preparing it for the rest of those assigned there. We strongly encourage IC discussion of things left to character discretion—someone should definitely do a crystal post to discuss what to do with the personal belongings left behind in the Gallows or what new form the statues should take!

Kirkwall once lived on the edge of the Tevinter Imperium and was home to nearly a million slaves. Stolen from elven lands or shipped from across the sea, all slaves fed the Imperium's unquenchable thirst for expansion. They worked in massive quarries and sweltering foundries that produced stone and steel for the Empire.

The city's complicated past is not easy to forget, history having earmarked many corners of the stone city. A ship approaching the harbor spots the city's namesake: an imposing black wall. It is visible for miles, and carved into the cliff side are a pantheon of vile guardians representing the Old Gods. Over the years, the Chantry has effaced many of these profane sentinels, but it will take many more years to erase them all.

Also carved into the cliff is a channel that permits ships into the city's interior. Flanking the channel are two massive bronze statues—the Twins of Kirkwall. The statues have a practical use. Kirkwall sits next to the narrowest point of the Waking Sea, and a massive chain net can be erected between the statues and the lighthouse, closing off the only narrow navigable lane. This stranglehold on sea traffic is jealously guarded by the ever-changing rulers of the city as the net trolls taxes, tolls, and extortions in from the sea.

—From In Pursuit of Knowledge: The Travels of a Chantry Scholar, by Brother Genitivi

Establishing a presence in Kirkwall is a delicate matter. First, there's Provisional Viscount Bran Cavin—a man so used to batting back friendly offers of entirely harmless occupation of the battered city-state that his first three responses to the Inquisition's leadership appeared to be slightly personalized form letters. Proving that the Inquisition is here to work and not to conquer will be a process. The first step in that process is the second reason the move is delicate: the only building the Provisional Viscount is willing to part with is the Gallows, left quarantined and unoccupied since Knight-Commander Meredith Stannard's famous crystallization into red lyrium in the courtyard. The Gallows have since overgrown with red lyrium. If anyone is going to live and work there, there's a lot of work to do.

↠ Cloudreach 1-3: The Journey There
↠ Cloudreach 3-4: Arrival
↠ Cloudreach 4-14: Haunted
↠ Cloudreach 14-21: Spring Cleaning

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Arriving so early in Kirkwall wasn't originally Araceli's intention but given Sina had been sailing early, it had made sense. So here she is, in Kirkwall, attempting to do whatever she can wherever she's needed in a place that's testing the whole idea of a bard's mask to the limit. Yes, they're by the sea. Yes, they're away from the snow. Yes, the whole of it makes more sense but…

The Nightingale had her study this place so she knows. And that's the other reason she's here. (The third being Korrin.)

In the docks because Araceli knows sailors and can thus be relied upon to get things done, she winces when she hears what she hears, turning sharply and heading in Alan's direction. A small figure, smiling politely, trailed by her fox but Alan do not believe that smile for a moment when her eyes flash.

"And what is it you are doing here today, señor?" She asks, swinging up onto her toes after a very careful breath through her nose and a command for Lux to sit exactly where she points. They don't have a bath yet, she can't scrub paint out of him.

Alan startles. The brush streaks wide, slashing a wide line across the throat of a rose. He's difficult to surprise, under most circumstances. Kirkwall, in all its ugly glory, does not qualify as most.

(Neither are most people quite that quiet about it.)

"Painting," He offers, the words flat and faintly puzzled. "They want to talk."

A vague gesture with the brush. On the other side of the gates, a hatchet-faced young elf yells behind her: Look, they got another one now, no dunno, some Antivan bint —

Edited 2017-04-06 11:07 (UTC)

Bards have breathing exercises that Araceli had to learn and she practices them probably not so often as she should. She can swim and run across rooftops, why does she need to spend a chunk of her time doing breathing lessons? Kirkwall is a reintroduction to all of that; do the breathing drill, don't close your eyes and count back from ten.

"I can see the painting, the whole city could do with a fresh coat though, not just--" And she turns to the elf with the sweetest of smiles she can muster at the moment because if they're going to talk about her, they'll talk about her supposed origins right. "Antivan by way of Rivain, if you please." Left hand tucked carefully away because right now Araceli doesn't feel like possibly having to deal with that nonsense.

Back to what concerns her though and how to phrase it when she's stretched thin. Tired. Probably beyond tired, she's had some very odd dreams recently. "There is a reason we're here, things that we are all doing. You have tried telling them that, no?"

"Ah," He says, which can more or less be understood to mean: No, not really. Down in the crowd, someone's now shouting about foreigners as a general concept — "Um."

He sounds it out, sets down the brush to count it on his fingers, reciting each bit with a slightly different inflection; as though it's been overheard:

"We're cleaning, because the Viscount is desperate but he's got chains so we can't invade, so we can have this place no one wants in a city no one wants, which we need because Corypheus uses things people like to ignore," He's definitely not counting on those fingers in sequence. Thumb, pinky, middle, "And no one wants that either."

Alan blinks, glances up.

"But they don't care about Corypheus. And even if they don't want it, it's theirs. Telling them will only make them angry."

Alan doesn't really lie, but all of this seems important: For that, he's willing to skate over some aspects of the truth.

"Nerissa would have a fit if she were here." If Nerissa were here Araceli's work would be easier because someone else who thinks like here would be doing it with her and the smile hurts. Eighteen months then Kirkwall dredges up the familiar aches she thought she'd put to bed.

A strangled noise escapes her, stifled not quick enough because when she hasn't had nearly enough sleep and even her dreams are plagued with all the things she'd been doing, will be doing, is yet to do, it's not as if she's sleeping well. "Hopefully the entire city hasn't heard that repeated by everyone going about their business, it will do so much to endear us to our new neighbours given some of the members of the Inquisition already present and yet to arrive." Everyone with horns for a start. Then the not inconsiderable matter of Anders that might reignite a matter if not put to bed then at least placated many months ago. Then the general mage population and the Templars too.

Rifters, well, that's not her concern now but what one does reflects on them all and her stomach lurches sometimes just thinking about it--

So it's not Alan's fault.

"There are ways to tell them without making them so angry. And them getting angry can be useful, in its own way." There's an air of resignation in the last part, mouth twisting in a tired attempt at a smile. (She should have put money down on how many times she'd be shouted at in a day, at least she'd get something real and useful in the here and now out of it.)

His head tips aside, curious, and curiously avian for it. Anger as anything productive, anything useful is still something of a new concept; that advice coming from Anders as it did, he finds it difficult to find the use here and now.

(He likes Anders. He knows, too, that Kirkwall has no reason to.)

"How would you say it?"

The odds are high that whatever she does may be parroted in turn.

"We are rebuilding and repairing." Araceli steps closer, away from the onlookers but turned enough to keep an eye on them; it reminds of casing a place and wanting to know the guard rotation without the guards seeing too much of her.

"People have every right to be angry given the recent history of Kirkwall and sudden arrivals in Kirkwall but what everyone is doing is working together to build something that isn't only for us. In Skyhold we were isolated, here we are in the beating heart of the Free Marches." She can smile - still a careful bard's smile but it's more than what's on a lot of faces when they talk about the work ahead of them - when she says this because she believes it. Believes that it can be done. What she doesn't disguise is the passion in her voice, nor the fire in her eyes. "No one is saying they can't be suspicious or reserve judgement but they're going to be able to see all that we do. There are people who can close rifts, people who know how to clear the red lyrium. "

She gestures to the painting, to the two of them. The people will see the Inquisition as the Inquisition. They're going to be more easily held to account for so much more than before; Skyhold had distance and tales that spread from it with anyone going to and fro but here? No one can stifle gossip now.

"The Inquisition stands for a great many, they need only look at it to see that if they wish." Alongside anger, doubt and spite are powerful motivators to see work done.

Maybe he regrets asking someone who can give an honest but still somewhat political answer. Or someone who'll just talk so damn much when given the chance.

It's a largely human crowd — most Kirkwall dwarves having seen either the profit in the Inquisition's presence, or in getting the fuck out of its way. The elven girl isn't wholly alone, but her fellows seem to avoid her as she makes her back to tug at the elbow of a conspicuously large man. It's a moment too long before the others close in to fill the gap they've left behind.

Also: An argument has broken out over who has the better view of the strangers.

Alan ignores all of this, gaze still fixed on Araceli. It's a moment before he remembers to blink, to nod along to all that she's saying (and there really is a lot of it, isn't there?).

"Something that isn't only for us," He repeats, eyes shutting briefly to scrawl it upon some internal ledger. If he isn't quite certain how the painting works into it, well, he's not about to chance being told to go do something else. This is the closest he's come to calmness since they set foot on land. "Are they going to be joining, then?"

If the Inquisition stands for many, it stands to reason that it ought to stand for here too. He isn't sure how gates and bars help with that.

And as a rifter it is entirely possible that they will judge you, or they will deem you all the more exotic, some trinket to adorn their rooms. Among the very first words the Nightingale had ever said to Araceli and as her skin prickles enough that she can't fight the urge to rub her arms as if chilled, it's always going to be among the most true, the most unavoidable.

"I don't think we've ever been in a position to turn away help, least of all now. I certainly can't recall there being quite so many dwarves in Skyhold as there are working alongside us in the Gallows at present." There were a lot of merchants. And Cabot who never seemed to mind that Araceli was there every single night but never came in through the front. "I hope they will but if they don't? They can still benefit from this. There will be safer places to work and live, more trade in and out."

Smiling, she gestures to Alan's work because-- because it was rude. She's exhausted and run off her feet wanting to make sure that this actually does work but it was rude. "There will be beautiful things that will last."

"Is that better?" An honest question. "To have safety they didn't ask for?"

A hand brushes back, smears unconscious through a line of drying paint. The petals blur, streaked by the press of skin: Wherever fingers rest, they leave prints in their place.

A beat; he seems to realize what he's done, offers the stained hand out.

"They can't see it from the other side," His head tips aside, almost conspiratorial. "If it's beauty, right now, it's only for us."

"Would you like to be a part of it?"

do u wanna fingerpaint y/n

"Trying to get people to agree on better is a little like herding cats away from a hot stove in your underwear with a hangover; the intention is there, the idea is there but everything hurts and everyone is a little embarrassed by proceedings and revealing too much of themselves as they try not to." Things about pistols won't work. She'll have to explain too much about that and right now she just-- she doesn't want to. Doesn't want to miss her pistols again. "If you're asking me? I'd rather have better than worse because I've seen worse. I've seen living in a place where it was choosing the roof over your head or the food on the table because I lived in it and I was the one that at least meant the food didn't need to be worried about."

So. No one asked for that safety but they got it. Got it through a teenage girl who knew thieving like no one's business, who might have been shot and might have tangled herself into duels but never got caught.

"The Inquisition is a mirror, mirrors are glass the same as windows and doors. You open them and let people in." It's clumsier than she'd like but this is what you get running on fumes and whatever, it's close enough to what she wants.

"I can't paint. I lived with all of them but you won't get anything worth being on a wall if you let me near a brush."

Alan's seen poverty. He's never really lived it — at least, not in the way that Araceli speaks of. Cold years, hungry years, bad ones. But it's different, isn't it? Without others to provide for. Without thousands of other faces, all scrapping for the same thing.

(There were more people in Denerim than he'd known were in all the world.)

It's worth asking them, he thinks. He thinks he'd trade a lot of safety to have a say in it. But to ask so many —

"Everyone can paint." Time to Bob Ross up in this. He presses his hand to the wall, gestures to the faint print it leaves.

Thedas forgets a lot of people sometimes. Elves are forgotten but they're talked about. Mages are very loud when so many would like them to be forgotten but there's a vast swathe of people that she aches for but they're not a problem until they are. (Even then not a problem, how are they a problem when they're just living their lives or trying to?) But you don't bring too much of your world into someone else's when you decided you were casting your lot with the Inquisition.

You have to be efficient. And remember that when you fall, you just accept it. Anticipating the hurt means it hurts twice and bracing for the blow always means you'll hurt worse.

"I can sketch a map and a few things of importance," weapons, outlines of necessary items, things she wants made, tattoos she wants someone to draw better. She does however take off her coat and fold it, one lockpick removed from the necklace to pin up her hair because no she's not going to get paint in it when they don't have the same baths as Skyhold. "You'd have folk I know from home agreeing with you but it would be embarrassing. Stole a lot of painting and didn't learn a thing from any of them."

"Maybe they were the wrong paintings," He muses, wipes his hand carelessly onto a sleeve. "Or maybe it's not something you get by taking."

Though there doesn't seem to be any particular judgment in his voice.

"Some things, they only grow when you give."

"A girl has to eat and pay her rent. Lux had to live in the luxury to which he had become accustomed." Somewhere the fox yawns, shameless as only a fox can truly be; happy to eat dead things and roll in them, equally happy to be spoiled rotten too. And of course the whole attempting to be the grown-up too young because people are poor so stealing a few paintings?

She can live with that when she made stews and soups and paella and curry enough for a queue of people at her little door.

"Then we shall see what comes of giving myself to the Inquisition and hope that this," a nod to her hand, not so casual by half as she would truly like, "isn't what grows."

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OPEN LOG: Establishing a Base in Kirkwall

spring cleaning, docks;

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