(no subject)

[arachnophobe]

WHO: Alejandro Borges
WHAT: Alejandro is in the Undercroft making shit, you can come bother him.
WHEN: Catch-all for Bloomingtide
WHERE: Skyhold Undercroft
NOTES: Alejandro.

OPEN

It's been an eventful time in the Inquisition, and even though he's not been in any field missions -- nor does he really intend to be anytime soon -- there's enough that goes on in Skyhold for anyone to be preoccupied. Whether it's damned mage terrorists hanging around being smug dicks, or a random bizarre illness sweeping over the residents because of weird-as-fuck armor, nothing stays quiet for long.

One day, shit will stop being weird and he'll go back to Antiva or something.

That'll be the day.

But today, specifically, Alejandro is working away, focused on a crafting what seems to be a little soldier figurine of sorts. The figurine is clamped in his prosthetic arm while his real hand is working on the finer details.



ZEVRAN

A simple note had been left for his old friend.

Zev,

Your shit's finished. Come say hello and I'll show you the details.

- Alejandro

Which is true enough. After working on Zevran's request and several bumps in the road, he's developed some things he feels fairly proud of to share. That, and a little something for Zevran himself, if he wants it.

Comments

[dragondowner]

Okay, so the crack of dawn was, admittedly, a sort of questionable time to go wandering around in a dark room full of large, heavy, and occasionally sharp things. Unfortunately for Hiccup, he had to get in here before the Inquisition Blacksmiths got up because those guys--those guys--he shook his head and jumped up to drape his whole weight against the top handle of the bellows.

"No children allowed," Hiccup mocked in a snide, nasally voice that, in all fairness, was a reasonable approximation of the most vocally anti-Hiccup smith. Beneath his whole weight the large bellows sank and there was a deep, rumbling sort of exhale as air was piped up through the cooled ash and coke.

"Too dangerous! Too much fire! Too many tools!" Hiccup continued to complain (quietly) as he released the bellows and then repeated the motion. By the third compression, the pilot flame he'd set finally caught the rest of the fuel. On the fourth compression, a low, orange fire glimmered in the pre-dawn darkness of the Undercroft.

"Lowlanders," Hiccup muttered as he moved around to stir the fuel and shovel coals onto the edge of the fire. Soon enough the fire was live and golden and the bricks in the center of the firepit were rapidly regaining their glow. The air was warming up (thank Korth) and, after a considerable amount of effort and a few close calls regarding his feet, Hiccup managed to get a large crucible over the hearth coals.

If there was one thing he was used to, it was how long forges took to warm up in the highlands. It would be about two hours before the coke was hot enough to temper steel and, in the meanwhile, he could melt, form, and fashion the base pieces he would need.

There were some scrap weapons, pieces of junk that had been slated for either last minute, desperate welding (or more likely being recycled into ingots) just sitting against the walls. He snatched up a few of them and, with his trusty Avvar hammer, managed to heat and shatter them into pieces that he could reform. All in all, that part took a bit longer than Hiccup estimated. It took Hiccup somewhere on the order of four hours to break apart all the scrap he needed and, by the time he had finished loading it into the crucible and heating up an appropriate mold, the sun was already well into the sky.

[arachnophobe]

When Alejandro finally got around to waking up and getting to work, he knew the familiar smell of the fire going, metal being worked, and the heat coiling away from it all. To him, he'd immediately assumed that it was Harritt working, and said nothing as he proceeded to go to pick up where he last left off on one of the armor pieces he'd been commissioned for.

But out of the corner of his eye, he noticed how considerable not Harritt the person was who was working. Too short and wiry, that's for damned sure.

"Hey, whoa whoa whoa!" Alejandro sets down the breastplate and marches over to address all of this. "What in the fuck are you doing messing around here?"

Then he stops, and Alejandro gives a considerable look at both the kid and whatever he's up to. If he looks suspicious, well, that's because he is a little bit.

But mostly, he's thoughtful, frowning as he peers down at the boy.

[dragondowner]

Hiccup didn't exactly freeze when someone else entered the forge--breaking apart battle axes wasn't really quiet business, unless you're operating on a sliding scale of quietness relative to forge work--but he did freeze, tongs in hand, as he caught sight of him out of the corner of his eye. Then, in a rush of motion, there was shouting, and lowlanders charging toward him, and Hiccup was caught, and he hadn't even managed to fill the mold yet.

Hiccup looked back at the guy, paused, and then cast an almost pained look at the crucible he had his tongs around.

"Oh, come on," Hiccup half-complained, half-pleaded as he glanced at the white hot liquid metal. "I just wanted to make one decent war hammer--they keep giving me swords.

"Of course I can't use a sword, of course they won't let me join the soldiers, I mean, does this look like a sword arm to you?" Hiccup asked, immediately distracted, and released the heavy steel tongs to lift his markedly noodle-like limb up for inspection. The tongs hissed against the coals but were otherwise unharmed, the heavy crucible remained cheerfully in place.

"And since lowlanders don't use war hammers, for some Korth forsaken reason, I've got to make one, but Gods no, can't let the smith near the smithy, what if he burns himself? There are scary, scary tools in there."

Hiccup's case regarding his own competency would have been better made if he hadn't decided to flap his gloved hands in indignation, there, but such was...Hiccup.

[arachnophobe]

Now, Alejandro is far from being an expert of other cultures. He's mostly just familiar with Kirkwall bullshit and Antivan bullshit, but being part of a stupid fucking expedition to the Deep Roads once (and never again, if he lives long enough to ever say no) and joining the Inquisition certainly throws one face-first into a heaping pool of raging cultural differences.

But he's pretty damned sure that his kid is Avvar. (The lowlanders remark might have given it away.)

"All right, settle the sob story." There is a curious look as he glances over what the kid is working on. He seems pretty obviously familiar with how to work the tools; that's not too bad.

On one hand, letting him work might very well burn down Skyhold if Alejandro is wrong. Which is incredibly likely considering how eccentric he is, but that could just be an Avvar thing. Maybe. Who knows.

On the other hand, he wants to see if he's right. The kid clearly knows how to start on his shit. Maybe he can finish.

"Tell you what." Alejandro drags over a stool and sits himself down. "You work on your mighty fuckin' war hammer, and I'll supervise."

Because he likes to think he has an eye for talent.

[dragondowner]

The sigh Hiccup let out, while relieved, was the very distillation of teenage melodrama. He looked the guy over and, after a moment of silent scowling, adjusted his gloves and got back to work.

Watching Hiccup work was more than a bit nerve-wracking.

His arms, for all they lacked in overt musculature, were actually fairly strong...but that didn't make it less alarming to watch him heft a very large, extremely hot crucible full of molten metal. He managed it, with only minimal risky shuffling, and carefully tipped the steel into the heated ceramic molds on the other side of the forge.

Hiccup could get distracted by a strong breeze, if he was bored enough, but when he worked he was all focus. Once he'd poured the steel, he was entirely devoted to the task at hand. All too quickly, he forgot that Alejandro was even there.

He started working on the handle first and, apparently, Avvar war hammers (at least the ones from Hiccup's Hold) were more pole-arm with a hammer head than a slab of stone on a stick. He wasn't terribly artful about forming the haft, but Hiccup couldn't resist making it look...at least sort of nice--it might've been a weapon made from scrap, but he was going to have to heft it. When he finished and began on the head of the hammer, it was already nearing noon, but he hardly seemed to notice.

Skyhold did not, sadly, have a great wealth of hammer forms lying around so, Hiccup, in true Hiccup fashion, cast a sheet of steel and set about shaping it into a hollow hammer-head. He'd been a bit utilitarian with the haft, but this piece? This he got really into.

Why he decided to shape it like a dragon claw, that was a mystery, but it was a passable likeness, all things considered.

[arachnophobe]

Once given the freedom, it was perfectly clear that this kid had a certain comfort around this kind of work, and a clear idea. The closer it crawled to noon, Alejandro opted to step out of the Undercroft in order to get something to eat for both of them.

When he returns, he's carefully balancing a couple of plates for them; he'd bickered with the cooks, annoyed that apparently today is some kind of depressingly gray Ferelden soup. Part of him really wishes he went to Antiva with Zevran because fuck nobody knows decent cooking around here, apparently.

He stops, looking down at the kid's work, raising a brow.

"Hey, that's not half bad." Alejandro crouches down by him, wordlessly shoving the stew at him. "I like the look you got goin' for it. You do this kind of work back in your, uh, tribe?" The Avvar had tribes right?

[dragondowner]

"Yeah, well, you know how it is," Hiccup replied, half-sensically, as he hammered his claw...hammer. After a careful discerning stare at it he put it back in the furnace and went around to pull the bellows with, well, all of himself again. As he hopped up and grabbed the top handle, he eyed Alejandro and his lunch...er, their lunches.

"I mean, uh," Hiccup corrected as the bellows very gradually sank under his meager weight. He debated being evasive, as you do when you are not possessed of overmuch guile, but the guy had brought him lunch. That sort of thing was a bond.

"Technically, no," he said and made a humming sound. After a beat his expression flattened out and he added: "But really? Yes."

"I'm not supposed to actually make things anymore, not after that whole siege net thing--which, by the way, was just a single, teensy little misfire, I don't know why everyone got so angry about it. I mean I wasn't the one who destroyed that building, it was the--"

Once his feet hit the ground he seemed to realize that he was rambling. He hopped off the bellows and let them gradually inflate before jumping and leaning his weight on them again. In the furnace his hammer's head gradually turned from a dull red-orange to yellow.

"Yeah, yup, I sure do. I apprentice for the blacksmith, I have ever since I was little."

His feet hit the ground several moments later and Hiccup was glad that both of them had refrained from saying 'littler'. (But only just.) Once he could let go of the bellows, he went back around and took up the tongs and his hammer again.

"Mostly I just sharpen things and sweep up and stay inside." He scoffed and rolled his eyes. "As if that ever saved anybody, right? Well that's parents for you. All 'Let's go fight all the things' but 'Hiccup, stay inside this time. Sharpen the swords; you can't burn things down with a sharpening stone.'"

[arachnophobe]

This is definitely the epitome of teenage angst and the determination to prove oneself. It's a struggle to not roll his eyes, but Alejandro refrains and instead just listens. The kid is obviously smart with smithing, but no real foresight.

In a terrible way, he reminds Alejandro of Noah in terms of smarts. He tries not to think about it.

"Look, I'm not gonna lecture you. But you'd be surprised what staying inside and making shit does to save people." Alejandro shrugs his good shoulder. "If you want to make a difference, you make the best of the skills you know you already have."

He stands up and raises a brow.

"Is your name really Hiccup?" Holy fuck that's adorable.

[dragondowner]

Alejandro might have some restraint but Hiccup? Not so much. As soon as the word 'lecture' is spoken aloud it is as if some natural force demands that Hiccup roll his eyes, and he does so, with teenage gusto. His coordination is good enough that his hammer work doesn't even slip as the whole of him embraces the eye-roll sympathetically. His entire lanky frame, for just a moment, is one grand reflection of that reflection--it would be a talent if it wasn't deeply annoying.

He ignores the guy's advice, outwardly at least, but it sinks into him like water into a sponge. Oddly enough, nobody had ever accused Hiccup of having skills before. They'd told him quite a lot about what skills and attributes he lacked, he knew all those by heart, but very few people had ever praised him in a more specific way than a slightly worried glance and calling him 'clever.'

Nobody had ever implied that Hiccup could make a difference or save people before, so that was new.

In appreciation, Hiccup sort of scoffs and unconsciously mimics Alejandro's half shrug.

"Yeah," he confirms with a sort of long-suffering sigh that is less based in his age and more based in a decade and a half of explaining this. "I've heard a couple of stories about why my name is Hiccup but the most popular one is: scary names frighten away trolls and malicious spirits."

For a second there is just the sound of his hammering.

He doesn't, at any point, assert that Hiccup is a frightening name.

[arachnophobe]

As he watches, he almost shakes his head; definitely some teenage shit going on here. But he remembers how bad he himself had been, and how Noah had been before he died. Those feelings are very real, and he doesn't know what Hiccup's life is like. He'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

And hey, he's clearly a smart kid.

Alejandro snorts as he sees Hiccup's shrug. Cute.

At the explanation of his name, Alejandro lets that sink in. Most Avvar, from what he remembers, are big, muscled, and definitely not someone you want to immediately demand an arm wrestle match with. This kid is skinny, wiry, and far from the mental image of an Avvar.

Ah.

Well.

"Alejandro. For the record." He watches him hammer for a moment. "I'd say you're doin' just fine on the trolls and spirits front, for the record.

"Your tribe know you're here?"

Hiccup, master of redirection.

[dragondowner]

For as steady as his hands were as he rolled his eyes or scoffed at things, that question is all it takes to unsettle him. His blow slips right as Alejandro finishes that question and the hammer, one he'd clearly brought with him to Skyhold, scrapes loudly against his work and then clangs against the anvil.

They're in a forge so, honestly, the sound gets swallowed up pretty fast...but the fact that he'd frozen up and missed his blow, after several hours of delicate meticulous hammering, well, that was an answer in and of itself, wasn't it?

After a long, silent moment, Hiccup glances back at him and nods in quick greeting.

"Alejandro?" He asks in a tone that's nervous bordering on sarcastic. "You've literally got hand in your name and you think Hiccup is weird?"