faderift | [open] angry dooting

WHO: Beleth and YOU
WHAT: Beleth trying to help out around Skyhold and not trying to help out around the Warden Camp
WHEN: Late Justinian, around the time Leliana is sick.
WHERE: The rookery in Skyhold and the Warden Camp
NOTES: Verbal abuse aimed at ravens, cat bribery, and bacon theft.

1) The Rookery

With Leliana out of commission, there's a lot of information, notes, and reports that are piling up. Nothing important, of course, Beleth hasn't seen anything above her paygrade. She supposes that all of the serious information gets funneled somewhere else--Maria, or the other advisors, or maybe a chain of messenger nugs. In any event, she has a pile of fairly mundane information that Leliana will still need to sort through at some point, and unable to aid her mentor in other capacities, Beleth has taken it upon herself to try to organize the information for her. Everything is numbered and sorted into folders, and most of her time is spent writing a series of summaries with the sources noted, so if Leliana wants to read the original report, she knows where to look.

It's tedious, but fascinating, in a way. It feels good to help out Leliana in any way she can, keeping her from getting mobbed by the day to day information that would pile up otherwise. And it's good practice, if Beleth ever wants to be a real bard some day. And it certainly doesn't hurt to get a chance to be one of the first people to learn interesting pieces of gossip.

She can be found at Leliana's desk, with a pile of meticulously piled paperwork, scribbling away at a piece of parchment. She can also be found having an argument with a raven, trying to wrestle a cannister from him while the bird squawks and flaps and carries on like Beleth is personally attempting to murder him. And later on, after a failed attempt at bribing the raven in question, she can be found sitting again at Leliana's desk, this time with other ravens covering the desk and her, with a particularly fat one laying on her head. She's apparently given up on writing for now, muttering to one of the ravens in question.

"You can call me...Agent Belladonna. Hmm. Bard Belladonna. Hello, my name is.........Belladonna."

2) Camp Shady Fuckers

Having accumulated more raven feathers than anyone would ever need, ever, it is quite simply a crime to just let them lay around and gather dust. Luckily, there are ways to creatively use them for good causes. It is with this good cause in mind that elf slips over to one of the cooking fires in the camp, one that has bacon cooking over it, completely unattended. The bacon is liberated into a pouch, with one piece stuffed into her mouth. Then from another pouch, a bunch of raven feathers are taken out, and thrown around on the ground.

It's the perfect crime, probably. Until Beleth hears a meow.

She turns around to discover a familiar-looking cat, staring at her, in what is undoubtedly accusation. She looks left, right, then bends down, pulling a piece of the bacon from her pouch, and holding it out for the cat.

"You didn't see anything."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He's rarely far behind Purrelden. It's just because she's small, it's because she's his and she could be harmed for that. So when Purrelden meows, Anders circles the tent near the campfire and comes across Beleth... feeding her.

"Is she begging? She should know better than to do tha--why are there feathers everywhere?"

Beleth slowly looks up at Anders as he questions her, then glances to the side, where the feathers are scattered around. Then down at the cat nibbling the bacon she'd bribed him with. She doesn't say anything for a few moments, trying to decide just what kind of explanation she can give. Then, after some thought:

"I would suspect the feathers came from birds. Probably. They usually do. Unless there's another animal with feathers. Very mysterious, if you ask me."

He narrows his eyes.

"Yes, but this many? And very mysterious? What's going on here, Beleth? A bird didn't explode. Five birds didn't explode. What did you do?"

Beleth contemplates her options for a moment--She can convincingly lie, and Anders probably trusts her enough to fall for it. But a convincing lie would be difficult, and could risk that trust going up in flames in the future. No, the best route would be to tell him a white lie and frame it with adorable awkwardness that would allow him to draw his own conclusions.

"Me? What makes you think I did anything? I didn't make any birds explode. And those birds would probably deserve to explode anyway, because I'm pretty sure that they were the ones that stole all that ba--" She pauses for a moment, and quickly shoves the rest of the bacon she'd been about to feed to Purreldan into her mouth.

"--And anyway, there are no witnesses, are there?" At this, she glanced down at the cat. Don't be a snitch.

He bends down, picking up a feather and turning it over in his hands. It's ordinary, there's nothing really special about it. Except visually it could match the ones he wears and that's what's making him wonder why she used them in particular.

"You're eating the bacon and acting shifty, that's why I think you did something." Purrelden mews, and he's pretty sure she's begging more. "I also think you're undoing some very difficult work trying to get her to not beg, but I'm never going to succeed there. Just..." Anders shakes his head and looks back at the feathers. "Pick them up, and then I'll say I never saw you. Otherwise, if they come after me because of the feathers, I'm putting the blame right where it belongs, Beleth."

He scoops Purrelden up, waggling the retrieved feather in front of her and getting her to bat it. "...And if you bring them all, bundled up, to my tent later, I'll even give you an alibi if they start considering you as a suspect."

As he talks, Beleth glances to the side, guilt starting to strike her. It'd just supposed to be a silly joke, but she supposed--well, she could see how it could be taken wrong. Her shoulders hunch, unconsciously trying to look smaller and nonthreatening.

"If you got blamed, I'd tell them you didn't do it." She mumbles, rubbing her arm self-consciously. Look how small and adorable she is, she's definitely innocent of any wrong doing. How could you be mad at that. Please don't hate her.

The willingness to provide an alibi in exchange for feathers gives her hope that he does not probably hate her and everything is not probably terrible, and she quickly nods. "I'm mostly worried about Teren. She's, um." Terrifying. "Very, ah." Unnerving. "She's. A lot." And nods again, because that's a sentence that makes perfect sense.

Her shoulders make him feel bad, and Anders rubs his forehead with the back of his hand. He hadn't meant to make her feel bad, but it's clear he had. Anders exhales.

"Teren is. But if you were truly worried about her, you'd not have taken the bacon. There's a flaw in your logic." And there's a little amusement in his voice. "Grey Wardens can get very hungry, Beleth. Perhaps consider that as well as Teren next time you go looking for food?"

It's a good thing there's plenty around Skyhold. If someone had taken food down in Darktown... Maker. Especially if it had been meat. Any meat that wasn't rat or pigeon or unnamed things from the tunnels was a rarity, and he would have been heartbroken if someone took it from him.

She relaxes a little bit, when it looks like Anders isn't going to start yelling at her. Or get really upset and tell her that she's a disappointment. Or whatever else. She's still a little tense, but not so much that she can't smile a little, arms crossed.

"I was very hungry, too. And it smelled good. If anyone gets really upset about it, I'll go hunt." She won't get into the whole thing about how weird it is that food belongs to everyone here, when in the clan, everything was shared. Of course, you still couldn't just go take all the bacon, but she would've just gotten an exasperated cuff. But that's not how things worked here, and she knew that.

"...You can have some, if you want."

He gives her a small smile.

"I'm good. I've eaten recently." While he should be eating more than he is, it's a process to get there. For so long he's been eating way less than he should, skipping meals, not taking extra, prioritizing other things for Justice's sake. Switching to the diet he should be on right away could make him ill.

"Good luck with Teren. And with hunting, if you wind up doing so." For now, he'll be playing with Purrelden with the feather and continuing his walk. "Have a good night, Beleth."

[open] angry dooting

2

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject