faderift | IV. OPEN.

Entry tags:

IV. OPEN.

WHO: Sabine and other people who don't care enough about things Sabine cares about probably. >8(
WHAT: A catch all post with prompts!
WHEN: After losing her mind on the crystals through to the end of Cloudreach.
WHERE: The valley; the main hall, the archery range, the kitchens.
NOTES: Happy to construct some specific starters, too, if you'd like to do something different than the below!

THE VALLEY;

[ A break in the Shitty Weather™ sees a little life in amongst the tent city established in the valley. Incessant ice and sleet is quick to melt into mud, and some apply their hands to the fruitless battle of clearing the established roads and other sundry chores. Small fires are maintained, supplies are moved, and structures that had suffered the driving showers of mountain spring-snow are repaired.

Sabine has been helping with some of these things, but is taking a break.

As are three small elven children, who seem familiar enough with her and vice versa to make a game of the unusually muddy land. The game is without order, largely made up of chasing in circles, with a side of tickling, and a modest amount of mud-throwing when they seem like they can get away with it. Feet sink deep and lift high out of icy mud-slick, and laughter is sharp, loud, stark against the pervading sense of misery that bad weather brings. Sabine has an easy, toothy grin, catching the littlest girl with tickling hands, generating a happy shriek.

Which is where it ends. A second elven woman, hair as blonde and fine as her littlest siblings, swoops in as swiftly as a hawk to take the little girl's hand. Her flatly guarded look down at Sabine communicates everything it needs to to have Sabine remain where she is in her semi-crouch, a flash of injury crossing her face as the children are shepherded away, the sounds of complaint dimming into the background.

This isn't the first time, and won't be the last.

But at least the elder of the small family waits until they are out of earshot before she warns the littler ones about staying away from the Rifters and the shardbearers, for all that Sabine can imagine it, and has heard it before. She stands, again, shaking her skirt off of dirt, expression schooled back into something severe and neutral. ]

THE MAIN HALL, THE ARCHERY RANGE, THE KITCHEN;

[ The driving rain thunders against the stone walls and glass windows, forcing people indoors, where it occasionally feels too full if not for the pervasive illness that knocks people back into bed.

Sabine is not sick, nor in bed, seated on an unoccupied stretch of table, legs crossed, while she applies knife to wood to create small carvings she has to squint to see in the flickery light of the nearby hearth fire. Her mood has dragged in some of the outside cloud, her brow pinched and her mouth hard, and when she looks up enough to catch the eye of an Orlesian, disapproval simmering behind a mask, she bares her teeth until they turn away again. Slivers of pale wood gather on the table in front of her, a draft occasionally scattering them onto the ground.

The sky opens, for a brief amount of time. She tests arrows that she has made against targets, and doesn't mind being openly capable where others can see, her skirts still floury from pre-dawn baking efforts.

No matter what the sky is doing, habit brings her here again, the kitchens that are always warm and rarely empty. There is at least one cook who says rabbit like an endearment, and a sort of top-down kitchen hierarchy from the pâtissier through to the boy that washes potatoes, standing on a stool, but otherwise a pervading equality that depends only on your ability to work hard and be discreet when you steal the occasional pear, or mouthful of cooking wine, or wedge of cheese. Learned lessons mean that no one actually gets Sabine to cook anything, but she sweeps, plucks feathers off chickens, breaks down vegetables and lamb bones for stock with a knife she wields unflinchingly.

Later, she takes her hair out of its braid, and nurses an ale, listening to the clamour of the kitchen nearby with what could be fondness if she wasn't driven to distraction. ]

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[ Her hands are empty of sending crystal, palms smarting where she'd rained slaps on whatever parts of Martel were in unfortunate proximity. Just as swiftly, she squirms out of range, pink around her scattering of freckles and hazel eyes ablaze and accusatory.

Rain is coming down in inconsistent patters, threatening to break open again in deluge.

She turns, and kicks the mass of gathered, neatly trimmed oak sticks she'd been working on, which had been gathered into an ordered bundle that had practically begged to come undone. They scatter across cobble stone and where packed earth is puddling into mud. Even her hair seems angry, fly away curls of red wild and hackling, while furious splotches mottle the skin high on her chest. But she doesn't seem in danger of weeping, frustration and anger running hot rather than watery. ]

Edited 2016-04-20 23:13 (UTC)

( he takes a breath to speak -

reconsiders, a moment later, and follows the scattered oak, bending to collect each stick methodically until he's recovered the lot. there is probably not going to be any more work on these today; he loosens the leather strip that holds his hair to the nape of his neck and leans just out of the direct rainfall, beneath a stone overhang, bundling the sticks together and knotting the leather around them. )

I don't mean to disagree with you,

( he says, as if she'd spoken. )

But that wasn't productive.

Edited 2016-04-24 01:59 (UTC)

[ With the subject of her ire vanished into Martel's pocket, Sabine is left to shiver in silence as she pointedly doesn't watch him clean up after her. She folds her arms, more a defensive closing off than Attitude, and watches where rainfall streams in through a leak in the stony overhang, staining green and brown.

She snorts at his words, gaze steering further down, the toe of sensible boots scuffing cobble. ]

Would saying nothing be more productive?

Nothing is, and I struggle to forgive myself this grammar, never productive. Neither, of course, is losing your temper and allowing someone else to use that to martyr themselves and ensure the particular narrative of things is read as they'd prefer and not as it ought to be.

( he tucks the bundle under his arm rather than set it down, considering her. )

You could hear it happening. Poor Sabine who doesn't understand the harshness of the world.

( there is a hint of contempt in that. )

[ That gets a wide-eyed look of disbelief, but that Martel is not saying this himself and is making, instead, an example, stops her from arguing it. She has not taken full leave of her senses.

Her gaze falls on the bundled sticks, mouth pinching, before she relaxes enough to unfold her arms and go to take them from him. ]

It is they that do not understand it. Or see it, or believe it, or think they can do anything about it.

[ But these words are grumbled rather than wielded as argument. There is still a certain stormy shadow in her eyes, but that's the thing about losing one's temper: something does get lost, leaving you more tired than you began, energy run its course. ]

A terrible thing was done. So who cares? Now we can only do terrible things, and it is never worth doing anything good, or marking anything unacceptable.

( there is a shade of bitterness in his voice that he doesn't catch until it's already in the air; he has already lived the worst excess of that perspective. he has already seen under his own hands how dangerous it is. what it can lead to. what becomes acceptable when you cease to judge atrocities because you 'can't'.

of course, a man of his ego-- even in the worst of it, he had held himself separate. he had looked down on adus and krager even as he used them as tools to do jobs he wouldn't dirty his own hands with. he had known his own limits and he had held in contempt the men he paid to go beyond them, but in the end...he had hated none of them as much as himself. his own sins. and he'd lain in the bed he made and told himself it was right; that he had done wrong, and that it didn't matter any more.

living with the lessons of that is much, much harder than it had been to die mired in it, and it is hard to look at something that reminds him of it without anger. a man hates most in others what he despises in himself. )

I know.

[ She gives a shiver. A combination of cold from the rainy outdoors as well as something like a vibration out of sheer annoyance. Calming, however, under the shadow of someone who seems to understand her ire as well as the trigger of this particular flash of anger, the specific ways in which she is mad at Zevran instead of just mad at the state of Thedosian elven disenfranchisement.

Clutching the bundle of oak sticks, she leans against a pillar. Not yet asking for her crystal back. ]

An elven man of Halamshiral was slaughtered for throwing a rock at human guardsmen, so they claim. It is a thing that happens every day, but this time it led to a rebellion. Empress Celene, with that man of Zevran's, marched on us all and burned our homes.

[ She is nearly monotone and quiet, but not dispassionate, a tremble in her voice indicative of latent pressure. ]

It is as though it never happened, for many. And even when you force people to look, they close their eyes.

( that man in particular is not hard to deduce. not just what he represents, then, but what he has done himself with his own hands - it's not hard to grasp. the only people sufficiently jaded to their own suffering who can look at someone they'd thought a friend sharing a bed with someone directly responsible for it without ire are those who've given up, and that is not - he hopes, never will be - sabine.

and fair, he thinks. this isn't impersonal fistshaking at distant pain absorbed because aren't we all truly one elf race blah blah blah no one told much of the dalish that as far as he can tell (as fond as he is of those he's acquainted with); our homes. the distinction matters. )

A common flaw of people who wish to live in a smaller world than they do.

[ There's nothing healthy about a Grey Warden's appetite, but if Alistair is still visiting the kitchens first and last thing each time he treks to the fortress, rather than making a dazed beeline to assassinate Cassandra Pentaghast or sabotage the armory, his mind is probably still his own. Small comforts. He's still eating (vegetables, even, with no discernible cravings for the decaying flesh of the dead) and laughing and almost forgetting sometimes, and people aren't looking at him like he's mad with any greater frequency than they always have.

But his favorite cook does tell him he looks ill, when he tries to earn more of her discerningly distributed affection by hauling cauldrons, and her shooing leaves him unmoored in the center of the bustle. He isn't sick—not yet—but he is drawn and smudge-eyed, and he drifts to Sabine's worktop without quite recognizing her until he's already watching her hands and knife make short work of a carrot, catching himself staring, and looking up to see if she's noticed and is owed an apology. Then recognition. It sharpens his focus. He smiles faintly. ]

There's really no telling him anything, [ he says in lieu of hello, then clarifies, ] Zevran.

[ Considering their first real introduction transpired after she was thrown out of a tavern wherein she then shared with him her stolen liquor, that Sabine's expression seems caught to be found doing humble work in the kitchens is probably telling as to her priorities. But it's only a split second, captured between recognition honing in like a spyglass and then Alistair goes and says that.

Her mouth pinches. She takes another carrot, and slices it in half with unnecessary force, knife thudding against wooden cutting board. ]

Because he puts his hands over his ears, and goes la la la.

[ She tosses the now quartered carrot into the stock pot at her elbow. ] If only all monsters looked like the Darkspawn, mm? They would be kissed far less.

That's how you become a Warden, actually, [ he says, in a tone that allows no room for taking him seriously. ] Prove your mettle by slipping a hurlock some tongue. It's why there are so few of us.

[ This probably isn't appropriate. This is serious—to her, clearly, and to him as well—but he can't always help it. A nervous tic. The words come out, no stopping them, and then he twists his mouth to one side in a sort of huh expression, aimed inward, and he drags himself back on topic without requiring any prompting. ]

He's kind to Zevran. [ Offhand, a little rote: he's reporting something he's been told, without any personal conviction behind it. He comes close enough to lean a hip against the worktop and gesture to the vegetables. ] Can I help?

[ The look Sabine gives him at this first part-- well, it's improved from the embering beginnings of renewed anger and hurt, so, there's that. Flat and unconvinced, purse lipped, before she murders another root vegetable with force enough to slice permanent etches into the cutting board. There's no words for kindness, either, eyebrows raising.

But she's not deaf to his own impersonal account of this fact, which is why she doesn't deliver the curt non at his offer forming on her tongue.

She points with her knife, a little too loose wristed to be of any comfort to those standing near her and in range of pointy ends, towards where a small clutch of onions are waiting. An adjustment of the sleeves at her wrists shows, at a subtle glimmer, the mark of green magic evident under the fold of cotton. ] Those, into quarters. The skins can stay on.

[ The next vegetable she starts on, it's less. Choppy. A considered slice lops off the head of something leafy, as she says, as if to confirm a fact; ]

You are his good friend.

Edited 2016-05-03 14:30 (UTC)

So he tells me, [ Alistair says coolly, because he's very cool, very removed, very deliberately ruining the affectation by going on, ] when I go wake him up in the middle of the night to beg for reassurance.

[ He drags the onions across the table, recovers a knife, and—hesitates. Not for lack of knowing what to do with an onion. All pantomime helplessness aside, he can cook. Or he can chop, anyway, and then he can put things in a pot and cook them until they're mushy and uniformly gray and suited to the average happy-to-be-eating-at-all Fereldan palate.

But these are onions. He's going to cry. He gives Sabine a suspicious sideways glance, but no explanation. No complaint. Chop chop. ]

[ They're onions! Onions in need of chopping. Alistair receives nothing from any suspicious sideways glances, anyway, as Sabine gathers up the vegetable bits she's so far cleaved into pieces and dumps them into the pot, on top of chicken carcass and bundles of herbs from the gardens. ]

A good friend to an assassin, [ she appends, once confirmation -- somewhere between cool affect and jest -- is ferried out. Spending thirty seconds in the same room (or crystal transmission) with Sabine is probably enough to know she tends to mean the things she says, and say them quickly.

In this instance, there is a prodding curiousity about this identifier, but no heat. ]

A what? [ His fake innocent surprise is not very convincing and certainly not very innocent. ] No. Unless— [ He taps his chin with the flat of the knife's blade. This is neither safe nor sanitary. But everything's going in a pot. It will be fine. ] That would explain that time he tried to kill me.

[ Not her point, probably. Alistair wraps up the performance with an unprompted slump, as if running out of energy to maintain his own personality, and returns to slicing through onions. It isn't the neatest work, but they do wind up approximately in fourths. ]

It's not my favorite thing about him, [ he admits, rawer honesty than normal in apology for the clowning, ] but he's a good man, so yes. Good friend to an assassin. Why?

[ The glance up that Sabine gives Alistair, in this first instance, is a little guarded -- like perhaps he is making fun of her rather than himself. But his shoulders fall out of their horizon and his tone shifts, and she wrinkles her nose too late, a suppression of amusement in spite of herself.

She cleans her knife against a cloth. ]

He says that the things he has done are worse than that of de Chevin. [ She shrugs, a jerky, irritated movement, watching Alistair's knife. ] He seems to have more friends than de Chevin. Either he does not understand, or he thinks too much of the things he has done--

--or perhaps he is merely biding his time with you. [ Sabine reaches out, scooping up onion quarters to deposit into pot. ] And we are such fools.

Well, [ Alistair says, smile flaring briefly back to life, but he has yet to replenish the aforementioned energy, so that's it—a hint that if he were less tired or the topic less serious, Sabine might have had to endure some riffing on their foolishness or Zevran's commitment to the long game before Alistair brought himself back around to the point.

She's welcome. ]

He may have done worse things. [ Bystanders. Children. And Alistair has cut down men who were only hungry and desperate or who didn't know anything except that their job was not to let anyone pass, walked away from burning cities on orders—

It is purely (genuinely) coincidence that this is the moment he has to wipe his eyes with his wrist, nose burning from the onions. ]

But not because he thought anyone was beneath him.

[ It might make it less complicated if Alistair had gone and said something like because he had no choice, the usual reason behind why elves might do bad things.

But at least it sounds honest.

Sabine is quiet and discontent, turning her back to heft a pot of water left simmering, to transfer it from one vessel to the other with a sudden rush of steam that she turns her face away. A little careless and haphazard. Her kitchen duties are kept proportionately limited. Once done, she sets it back down, a hand up to pick where loose hair sticks damply to her cheeks and forehead. ]

Then say Michel de Chevin is the worst thing he has done, [ she decides, a slight dismissal of the topic. The less she thinks about Michel de Chevin's face, the better. But on that note, in muttered aside-- ] He is not even so handsome, as shems go.

If he's not handsome, I'm in a lot of trouble.

[ At the moment--sick, pale, circles under his eyes, leaking onion tears--it isn't the most ridiculous thing he's ever said, but it's still ridiculous, intentionally, with a follow-up sideways smirk meant to relieve her of any social burden to take him seriously and say something reassuring. Not that she would anyway.

Onions chopped, he slides them toward her with the blade of the knife. ]

Are you from Val Royeaux?

[ Follow-up sideways smirk is met with pertly arched eyebrow and a rolling look up and down before keeping assessment to herself, deliberately. She gathers chopped vegetables into cupped hands, throws them into the pot. The steam issuing from it sticks fine curls of red to her cheeks.

Which are pink, by virtue of the kitchen warmth, and not the question. It sounds like an attempt to nudge the conversation away from the awkwardness that Michel de Chevin's presence creates, and yet, here we are again.

Oh well! ]

I am from Halamshiral, [ she says, with a thin, anaemic smile as she closes the pot, and lifts it to place over fire. In several hours, its contents will become food. She wipes her hands on her apron, lifts her eyebrows. A jab; ] We must all sound the same to you.

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IV. OPEN.

the courtyards. martel.

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kitchens. i'm late.

if we're all late, we're all on time.

profound

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