faderift | [ OPEN ] I'm Floating in a Most Peculiar Way

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[ OPEN ] I'm Floating in a Most Peculiar Way

WHO: Jim Kirk & Anyone
WHAT: Catch-all for the month
WHEN: June/Justinian (after the Justice Ritual #4)
WHERE: Around Skyhold
NOTES: Possible language, probably kittens, wounds, probably demon-talk, shenanigans, maybe some other heavy subjects, possibly some amorous action, everything goes here

[ Class Is In Session - Math + Self-Defense ]
Hearing of a school going up, Kirk naturally offered himself up as a teacher - not least because it gave him something to do here other than be a pretty helper to Sam's forge and a jack-of-all trades laborer.

He taught all levels of math, and any new students who came to the class would be asked to complete an exam that had problems ranging from simple addition and subtraction all the way up to the higher maths such as Calculus to gauge their skill. From that, he did his best to improve upon their skills and further their understanding. A little hard with a range of people, but he did his best, and he was more than willing to answer questions both related to math and to other subjects as well.

When he was not teaching maths, he taught Self-Defense with hand-to-hand combat - or at least he started to once he was physically well enough given that the Ritual had done a number on him. He took to the training area for this class though, and new students were told to fight him as their practical exam. It's not meant to be a hard fight, more like just a quick assessment of their current skill. He welcomed everyone from children to adults, but as a fair notice - expect to walk away with some bruises.

[ Stables ]
If the Western Approach and going after Servis had taught him anything, it was that he really needed to learn to ride something. Being able to hike and run was all well and good, but travel would be much, much easier if he could ride astride something with a longer stride and a touch faster than himself. Motorcycles were a long way off in this world.

So Kirk was being taught to ride, mostly by Sam and on a horse used with permission, though if someone else offered correction to his form as he practiced he would accept it. At this point, everyone was more the expert than himself. At least, so far, he'd avoided falling - for which his ribs were grateful.

Sometimes, though, he could be found around there just enjoying some time with the animals, petting and murmuring to them (and maybe sneaking a carrot to a tiny pony named Bill).

[ The Tavern ]
Most nights Kirk can be found here - work is done, and where else is there to hang out at night in Skyhold (that doesn't make you look incredibly suspicious)? But he liked the crowds and the warmth and the music and the laughter. He could usually be found with a pint of beer in front of him, slowly acclimating to the stuff, and sometimes he would hang out at a table with a chess set in front of him, waiting for a challenger. Other times he had a deck of cards, willing to play Wicked Grace or teach the good folk of Thedas some poker.

And maybe, just maybe, if he'd had enough to drink and laughed enough - he could be convinced to sing a song from a far away land or tell a tale of the same.

[ The Gardens - Specifically at Night/Very Early Morning ]
Even having found a steady place to sleep and steady companion, Kirk's nights were not always quiet and dreamless. He tried his best not to bother Sam on those nights, when sleep would not come, or more accurately he did not wish to close his eyes and see what his mind might twist together when he was not paying attention.

So on those particular nights he would slip out of bed and head to the gardens, sometimes late and sometimes in the early gray before dawn. He walked the paths, breathing in the scent of flowers and the earth. Sometimes he would find a space to sit and fold his legs and rest the back of his hands atop his knees, attempt to meditate in the ways Spock had initially taught him - though more often than not he simply created a numbing tingle in his legs and frustration.

Company, no matter the hour, was always welcome.

[ Around Skyhold - Usually Morning + The Hot Springs ]
Part of Kirk's daily routine was to run and run a lot. He could easily be seen jogging around the perimeter of Skyhold, sometimes with a shirt and sometimes without. Afterwards he usually went to the hot springs to rinse himself off, and in the early days after the Fourth Ritual to clean his wounds as well.

[ The Library ]
Kirk could be found here on and off, mostly coming to return books he had taken for comfortable reading back in the loft with Sam, but now and then he could be seen sitting at a table, taking notes on papers or in a journal he had secured. He was taking more or less everything he read in historical accounts with a grain of salt, but it was still important, he thought, to read such accounts even as he asked others about them.

[ Wild card me! ]
Because there's probably tons of stuff I didn't cover.

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"Depends," he shrugged, taking the cards and shuffling them idly. "The suits are a touch different, but I think they correlate well enough for a game of poker, if that's to your liking. Or you can teach me one you know." He cast her a lopsided grin. "I always like learning new games, especially from lovely ladies."

"I think they match mine," it takes a moment to fish her own out of a pocket; she has merfolk and sea creatures on hers but diamonds and spades, hearts and clubs are there instead of the ridiculous number of things they have for Wicked Grace. "Do you have any idea how long it's been since I've played poker without having to sit down and stop to explain the rules along the way? Not that I am always averse, and it's good fun when I'm playing something like...let's say Strip Jack Naked, and it's loud, and you have to shout to be heard, some folk here get so red!"

He knew the suits even if he didn't really get the pictures aside from the myths of his own world, but he wasn't sure she called them the same thing. Not that it mattered right now anyways - she had cards with suits he recognized.

"No, but I think I have an idea," he stowed his own cards and clapped his hands against the table with an eager grin. "Deal me, Araceli. Texas Hold 'Em or Seven-Card Stud?" he suggested, though he had to come around to something she had suggested. "What's Strip Jack Naked? Is it like Strip Poker - you bet clothing instead of cash?" If it was, he liked her name for it better. He might have to steal that one.

"I don't know Texas but I know a Hold 'Em and the other one," she agrees as she starts to shuffle the deck, pausing to take a sip of her drink before she laughs because Mia had maybe had something similar in mind when Araceli had introduced the game to her, though she'd called it a children's game then. "The other name for it is Taxes, so unless you became truly destitute? No. It's where the deck is split into pay cards and ordinary cards, so you turn them over, and different pay cards mean paying a different amount of ordinary cards. Then pay cards against pay cards. Liar's dice you could do that with maybe, but you're meant to strip Jack naked of his cards, not his clothes."

She could probably doctor the rules to do it, if she had enough people to fiddle around with it but it'd make the game take longer and she's used to that one being a very fast game where people keep going until someone at last admits defeat.

"Hmm, never heard of Strip Jack Naked then. Strip Poker is just what it sounds like though. Whenever you lose a hand, you have to take off a piece of clothing. Last to lose all their clothes or drop out of the game last wins," he chuckled. "It's fun when you want to spice up a gathering, especially if the on lookers are calling out which pieces of clothing to lose."

"Maybe some other night you can teach me about Jack," he took a swig of his beer. "For tonight, let's stick with rules we both know. Hold 'Em it is," he made a 'come here' motion with his hands to call for his cards.

"I have a group of friends I like to play that with at home, but it always ends the same way: the six of us in the same bed. Fortunately it is a very big bed." But she grew up in a brothel; there's a power in taking off your clothes and you don't do it just for the sake of a card game, and when it's with the guard, it's usually them blowing off steam when things have been tense but no one really wants to make the suggestion.

Dealing him and herself two cards each, she glanes up then nods to the table.

"How do you want to do the blinds? I switch between coin, goods, even favours here, makes it easier when I play the soldiers and scouts." Or information, when it's the scouts more often than not.

"Oh, how unfortunate," he clucked his tongue around a smile and shook his head in mock sadness as he took up his cards.

"Favors work. I don't have much coin, and I'm not much in the way of goods either," he chuckled. "At least, not anything I think anyone would be interested in accepting for a bet. My skills are the more valuable." He thumbed at his cards.

"Well, I can offer climbing lessons for getting around the buildings since I never use the stairs here and I do that anyway, how to duel with two blades which is a skill from home, or what I've picked up from my studies. My native tongue is very close to Antivan but I'm studying politics, history, geography, heraldry; the Nightingale has a very extensive reading list. Or any of my more roguish skills, since that's what they would call me here." After all, she might not call herself a rifter but having connections could never hurt a bard, not precisely, and she had plenty to share all things considered. "What are your skills then? That they are so very valuable?"

He considered the offers, a few sounding appealing. While he had been putting off the idea of learning anything with a bladed weapon, though he could use a knife, the past month had begun to show him that putting it off might not be the best of ideas. While he did not wish to use such a skill against people, fighting against demons had proven very difficult with just his staff. It had been broken, in fact. But the idea of the other skills such as history and language were equally appealing. Perhaps he could win more than one.

"I'm good with survival techniques," he offered. "I've been trained to survive numerous types of environments. I'm also trained in hand-to-hand combat and defense. I can teach math - advanced math - if you have any trouble with that, and sciences. I don't think they have a name for what I am here," he chuckled. "The value of them, I fear, depends on you."

With a nod, Araceli sets about making her bet, satisfied with the offer she'd heard; it sounded more than fair after all when she'd been happy enough just to settle for someone new to play cards against when she'd come to the Herald's Rest at first.

"Advanced math? How advanced does math have to be?" She'd been a fence for as long as she'd been a thief, and her father was a pirate captain but those were things she did in her head, costs and balances. The sciences went by a different name where she came from but one country had called it something close enough that she nodded. "Knowledge is power, who knows what might be very valuable one day when we are fighting a war against a thing that calls itself the most terrible sort of god."

"Well, it's math advanced enough to get my people into space," he chuckled, placing his own bet and considering his cards. "There's things like geometry, trigonometry, calculus, and the like." A slight shrug, because he didn't know that she would have any use for them in her life, except maybe geometry though she might already know that, but it was what he had to offer.

"Hmm, it just might. You never know, right?" He exchanged his cards, making ready to show.

"Up into the stars? A mermaid did that once, she created the moon and the stars were the jellyfish from the depths caught in her wake that the sea set in the sky so she would not be alone." Araceli said the words casually but with a touch of conviction; she believed them, lived them and breathed them, she had absolutely no reason to ever doubt the way her world had been made after all.

Time to at least deal the cards to the table though, but it had set up the seeds of an idea. "This would be good for a group actually. Teach a lot of people the rules but to bet lessons and trades instead of coin, especially next time when we're all out on an assignment. It would've made time go faster in the Fallow Mire, believe me."

Kirk sensed the conviction of one who believed in the story of a god or a fairy tale. He himself did not believe it obviously - he had no faith to speak of, and did not desire one. Yet he wasn't about to go and dissuade people from their own beliefs, though he might argue them in consideration of his own.

"That's right. We have a whole of Fleet of ships that can traverse the stars, travel between those points of light, seek out new and amazing worlds. That's actually what I did for a living back home," he smiled at her, his smile a touch sad as he recalled his crew and his particular ship.

He took up his cards, chuckling. "Yeah, it might not be so bad. Probably cause less fights too."

"So you sail then? I have been to sea with my father on his ship and there are nights when the sea is smooth as glass and reflects the sky like a mirror." And well, she did just say how the moon and the stars were made where she comes from so it didn't seem too far a stretch, to think of it as sailing again. "Here in Thedas the people don't seem to have even been so far beyond what you see on the map and surely there has to be so much more out there that they haven't explored. What were you, do you even have the same positions as ships at sea?"

Maybe if they stopped fighting wars with each other or locking people up for five minutes they'd figure out how to get on that but well keep digging yourselves deeper Thedas.

"In a sense. My ships don't sail through water, but through space, like I said, so the way we do it is... quite different," he hedged, because he wasn't sure how to explain things like dilithium crystal and nuclear power sources and warp drives. "And yes, we do have many of the same ranks as you would in a navy. I'm the captain of my ship, and I have a Lieutenant Commander, navigations officer, a communications offer, a CMO, and so on down the list."

Eventually they would hit a bottom and have to try and come back up, right?

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[ OPEN ] I'm Floating in a Most Peculiar Way

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