faderift | I'm one card short of a full deck, I'm not quite the shilling [open]

WHO: Jefferson and YOU.
WHAT: The hatter's settling in at Skyhold. Well. As settled as he can be. The guy's kind of twitchy.
WHEN: Latter part of Solace
WHERE: Skyhold and all associated locales.
NOTES: Will add warnings as needed.

They've been shepherded to this keep in the middle of the mountain range with the promise that they aren't the only ones. That they're working on a way to send them all back home again. It's more than he expected, the courtesy and hospitality, even if some of the people in the keep give them wary looks. There have been incidents. The extent of which he's not sure, but it's not a surprise. Traveling between worlds is tricky at the best of times.

And it's never left him with a souvenir like this one. The mark feels like an invasion, like corruption, and it makes his skin crawl. Occasionally he's taken to rubbing at the green mark on his hand, sometimes without noticing that he's doing it. It's done nothing to improve his already rather nervous temperament.

Still, best thing to do for the moment is try to adapt. Don't draw too much attention, observe the goings on in the castle. He keeps his distance from the soldiers and the training ring, though he does on occasion stop to watch. He flits into the tavern and out again, able to overhear some decent bits of gossip.

There's also a library, as it turns out. It's doubtful there'd be anything of use as far as getting them home, or surely they would have found it by now, but it can't hurt to have a look on the sly. He's not quite sure if 'Rifters' are allowed to go poking through their things, so he does so when there are relatively few people around.

This isn't quite the prison he expected it to be. But that doesn't change the fact that once again, he's been torn away from his daughter. That's a bitter pill to swallow, no matter how scenic the vistas or friendly the people.

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She picked up on the sigh before her detected his scent, surrounded as she was by dozens of others. But that sigh? That sound was impossible to miss. There seemed to be a lot to it. And when the fight afforded her the opportunity to die with gross exaggeration, the twig tucked under her left arm, she turned to look over at the onlooker.

He was a handsome gentleman. And new to the landscape. Ariadne spent enough time observing to memorize the faces.

A Rifter? She couldn't see his hand, but it was possible.

While her 'killer' raced off to honor and glory among the other children, Ariadne sat up, picking some dead leaves out of her long hair. "Friend or foe?" she called out to him, still playful. Several of the children paused to hear his response.

Maybe it was just that he was so used to being unseen. On his own. Unless he was of use, of course. It took him by surprise that she'd paused to take notice of him, much less spoken to him, and for a moment he just stared back at her.

The acute amount of attention briefly had him wanting to disappear back into the keep. But he stood his ground regardless, and tugged what was hopefully a friendly smile into place. "Helpless bystander," he replied, lifting his hands and holding open palms out in surrender.

"Epic battles like this aren't really my speed."

Gracefully, Ariadne swung herself to her feet, pulling the twig out from under her arm and snapping it to one side. "An inspector, then?" she said, putting on a courtly sort of voice. "Welcome aboard the good ship..." She faltered for a second, trying to come up with a good name for a ship. "...the good ship Phoenix. I am Captain Everdeen. And this here is the finest crew on the seas!"

She gave him a deep, grand bow, before turning like a soldier to the children. "Come, you scurvy knaves, the good sir is here to see a demonstration of your skills. Get going. Make a good show of it."

It wasn't, perhaps, her finest performance. But the children certainly didn't know that. Excitedly, they started dueling one another, each pairing eager to show off for the 'inspection.'

Ariadne tucked the twig under her arm, now like a crop, and strolled over to him.

The smile remained in place, even if it felt a bit obligatory, and he remained still as he could while the young woman approached. The scarf at his throat thankfully masked the deep swallowed before he straightened, eyebrows lifting.

"Seems like you've got them all eating out of the palm of your hand," he remarked idly, nodding back towards the children now scrambling to do battle with one another, and prove the most impressive of the bunch.

Ariadne frowned, glancing down at her hands. Aside from the shard, there was nothing in them. "I don't have any food," she said, looking up at him in complete and utter bewilderment.

It occurred to her only a second too late that it was probably a figure of speech.

She'd never been very good with them.

Hoping to cover as quickly as possible, she leaned back against the wall beside him and tilted her head in his direction. "I have to secretly confess," she whispered, "I'm not a real captain."

Oh. Well. Not the first time he'd encountered that particular quirk. Some people could be remarkably literal, and while it was a pain in the ass to keep track of, he could try to remember. His face scrunched lightly.

"Not exactly what I meant. Don't worry about it."

Why she'd chosen to settle in alongside him, he couldn't have said. But the company wasn't unwelcome. Just...odd. Yet it still took surprisingly little effort to keep a straight face as he turned to look back at her, expression comedic in its solemnity.

"Well, your secret's safe with me."

She smiled at him, bobbing her head in gratitude.

This was a man, she decided, who needed some cheering. And she didn't just get that from the sigh now. As she examined him, his defensive posture and sunken-in body language reeked of loneliness. And Ariadne couldn't help it. When she saw someone unhappy, it was always her first instinct to try to remedy that.

"I've never seen you before," she said, turning to watch the children play. "Are you new to Skyhold, my lord?"

"No lord at all," he quickly corrected, waving a hand dismissively before tucking it back into the crook of his arm. During that little display, she might have noticed the flash of green of his palm, or might just as easily have not.

"Helpless bystander seems the whole of it, for the moment," he added, that smile tipping towards wry as his brow falls, pinching slightly.

Oh, she caught the flash of green. How could she not? Ariadne's life was surrounded by the color. She was drawn to it.

And to Rifters. She felt a unique kinship to them. Even if they were as different as night and day. They had at least one thing in common:

They weren't supposed to be there.

"I understand," she replied, holding her hand out, palm-up for him to see. She left it there a moment, before tucking both hands behind her back, to cushion the stone surface of the wall.

Ah. So she was in the same boat as he was. As they all were.

There was a faint crease to his brow that might have been sympathy, or something close to it. "How long have you been here, then?" Might as well get the lay of the land from someone who appeared far more settled in here than he was.

That didn't bode well, either. Unless she'd simply opted to stay. And who would, with everything going on around them? He knew enough to catch scent of a war in progress.

"Nine months," Ariadne replied. Almost ten, at this point. Which would soon become a year, she was sure. "They tell me I was part of the first wave of Rifters--that's what they call us--to arrive in Thedas."

She liked the name. Although it tied her to the Rift, it was better than being called a 'foreigner' or an 'outsider,' each which came with its own unique attachments and connotations. Rifter meant that she was a part of something bigger. That she had a sort of race.

A new experience, in a way.

It certainly was an easy way of identifying the people who had the most to gain from getting those Rifts to send them back home again. Always useful to know. And this woman seemed the open, friendly, helpful sort. Also useful.

He nodded once, teeth raking over his lip. "It must have been difficult, being away from your home for so long." His eyes flit back towards the children playing in the courtyard. "Did you leave family behind?"

"Not really," Ariadne replied gently.

There was Aunt Lysia, of course. And Uncle Tahafra. But their time as family was a bit like wet sand, slipping through fingers. There was never any knowing where any of them would be at any given moment. Every day, at least one of them was risking their life. And they'd all made peace with the notion that every last goodbye might well be a last goodbye.

It was lonely, but it gave Ariadne a sense of peace, too. She knew, at least, that they weren't going crazy trying to find her.

Her eyes slid under the lashes to her new companion. "You did," she said. And it wasn't a question.

I'm one card short of a full deck, I'm not quite the shilling [open]

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