faderift | (no subject)

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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?

"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.'"

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.

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.

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?"

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?"

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Hiccup, master of redirection.