I. OPEN.

[liberalum]

WHO: Dorian Pavus and other less dashing people.
WHAT: Training in a courtyard; other pre-planned threads.
WHEN: Firstfall in general.
WHERE: Skyhold, an open courtyard.
NOTES: Below are some open prompts for those who wish for a run in during Mage Fight Club aka How To Train Your Wizard aka How We Do In Tevinter. Catch him during, before, after. Note that there isn't magic being flung around (yet), it's fairly ordinary. This will also be a general dumping ground for individual pre-planned threads that need a home.

[ There is a courtyard within Skyhold, as dilapidated as the rest, that is one day going to be a garden. For now, it's a good enough retreat for the rebel mages that lies aside from the training grounds often dominated by the less magical. The ground is mud and weeds, and the sky is open above them, and a tree with orange leaves frames the shapes of mountains beyond.

Sometimes, Dorian trains on his own. There is a dance-like grace to the movements of staff and the man wielding it, feet light on the ground and tracking circles in the mud, following the heavy swing of seven feet of solid oak. He follows practiced motions, sans the presence of actual magic. A twirl of his staff over head, the thick sounding thud of the blunt end slamming into the dense earth, and sharper, quicker movements for what would likely be sharper, quicker spellwork. Sometimes he is observed. Sometimes he is not. Regardless as to status of audience, he definitely likes to show off.

Sparring, equally. The clak-clak-thud of wooden staves meeting, locking, scraping together as he and another willing mage practice their more ordinary skills. Sometimes he loses, and often he wins, graceful in victory and defeat.

Unless he is knocked off his feet, or earns himself a bruise, then he might curse their mother.

And there are other times, later times, when he shifts into a role of teacher. Not all mages are trained in combat, after all, and some may like to learn -- even from a Tevinter. (Maybe especially from a Tevinter, but who would admit that out loud?) He demonstrates, slowly, staff work, guides those willing to listen and imitate with a certain educated patience, the occasional funny remark about turning their feet out. Sometimes, these sessions are simply standing about, and he explains with big words and big hand gestures the way one might finesse certain spells in combat situations.

He takes breaks, in between and after, perched atop crumbled stone with one leg across the other -- watching and thinking. ]

Comments

[liberalum]

In the background of inchoate conversation, the students put themselves through their paces, carrying out the motions on repeat and without pause as instructed. Dorian's casual stance and wolfish attention fixed on the rifter in front of him give no indication he's about to say when any time immediately.

"It's dreadful, isn't it," he commiserates. "Not bad as far as any library crafted from the ground up, built upon the cast-offs of whatever noble wants to be seen to be donating to a good cause, but that does equate to a fair amount of rubbish. Politically biased at best, utterly mindnumbing at usual."

He pauses, using the end of his staff to gently tap someone's ankle, correcting their stance.

"And at worst, well, there's Hard in Hightown."

[apostasia]

"The political bias is not without use, for someone as unfamiliar with the local brands of idiocy," there's just something about Dorian that suggests Martel needn't mince too many of his words (as if he might have - but, then, he censors himself rather more than those who've met him here would credit), "but at a certain point that sort all begins to sound rather like the same old song."

He did have to wade through quite a bit first, though. The old arguments here are all new to him, without context, and this isn't a place that pauses for the new arrivals to catch up. He has been methodical, and will continue to be.

"There is a strong likelihood, besides, that some of those noble libraries had nothing better to offer. Depressing."

It's almost like being home again, sometimes. Complaining about the state of the books and scowling at the novices. He doesn't frown at the thought because the further he gets from Azash, the better he is at concealing himself - but he hasn't thought about home quite this way in a long time.

He wants to turn on his heel and walk from the courtyard without looking back; he laughs, abruptly, and moves forward to correct someone else.

"Don't overreach," not unkindly. "You expose yourself and you lose your steadiness in one motion." To Dorian, "The weapons are different, but the lessons, ah."

Are learned as harshly.

[liberalum]

Having not completely declared himself Queen of Ferelden king of the training courtyard, Dorian once again watches in his particular brand of both overt and yet understated amusement as the rifter again engages with the would-be battlemages. This one slips a glance at the Tevinter, as if seeking legitimacy for Martel's advice, before carrying on having taken it onboard.

He tips his head. Yes. "You know where you are, well enough, when things are trying to kill you. But all other times-- I honestly can't imagine."

Other worlds. It's not uncharted territory if you can conceptualise the Fade as thus, but the Fade is a different matter entirely, something Dorian can interact with every day, every moment. Even now, under the studied swings of unenchanted staves swung by magical hands, the air feels agitated in such a way that is familiar to him. The untapped potential.

He lightly strikes the ground with the butt of his staff, a signal familiar enough that the mages finish out their movements and relax at ease for a break.

"What weapons differ? Magic, or the tools we use to poke at it?"

[apostasia]

"Yes," Martel says, wryly, after a moment’s pause. "The magic is nothing at all as I'm familiar with it, and the fundamental approaches and philosophies - I've probably got more in common with your armored friends, as distasteful as we might all find that."

True, though, as he does more research. It begins to fit, an echo - there are, he supposes, only so many ways for people to fall into place, however many different places that they might be. It makes sense to him that there should be similarities, that certain things should be not quite right.

"I'd have a sword, personally."