CLOSED: Halamshiral - The Alienage

[visus]

WHO: Ciri, Eirlys, Herian, Jamie, Martel, Sabine
WHAT: Aiding The Locals
WHEN: Solace 31
WHERE: Halamshiral
NOTES: No tag order! Will update with warnings as needed.

Halamshiral blooms outward from the Winter Palace and High Quarter without much logic or order to its streets. It’s not Kirkwall’s famous snarl of intentional inescapable twists, perhaps—particularly with a local guide—but there are no unimpeded thoroughfares from one end to the other. Moving supplies from the outskirts of the city to the burned-out streets nearer its center requires turning this way and that where streets run abruptly into the back walls of taverns or swerve around a cluster of shabby apartment homes, shifting from dirt and sickly grass to cobblestones and back again.

The horses drawing the three carts escaped being drafted into the civil war due to aging bones or skittish temperaments, but they’re obedient. The three local elves driving the carts could manage without an armed escort. In theory. In practice they’re carrying axes—and rope, and lumber, and stone, but especially axes, supplied by the Inquisition and covered by canvas—so it’s become a party of nine, with six Inquisition members (or near enough) there to ward off trouble.

And there is trouble, lurking: elves who stop to watch the carts roll past with interest that goes beyond curiosity, a few young hopefuls who follow along the rooftops for several minutes until they notice that they’ve been noticed and vanish. But it stays quiet, save for the clatter of hooves and wood wheels on stone and the murmur of conversation, until the carts are midway through the city, passing through an alley so narrow it borders on perilous, and the forward cart comes to a halt, and the other two follow suit quick enough to avoid a collision.

“It won’t make it through,” the driver announces. His name is Brishan; his cargo is mostly stone. He’s gray-haired and wrinkled, but there’s spryness in the way he leaps off his cart and passes around the horses to examine the way ahead. “Too narrow. We should have turned right at the Torn Petticoat.”

From the middle cart, Charani says, “You might have suggested it then.” Not sharply. She’s a quiet one, and she stays seated and still, perhaps due to a placid nature, perhaps due to the pain of climbing around too much with such significant burn scarring.

Whatever excuse Brishan may have had to offer is cut short by a crack and crash from the rear, where the youngest has already climbed out of her cart, and said cart has experienced spontaneous destruction of one wheel. “Oh,” says Lela. By now everyone would have learned that she’s chatty, friendly, and takes every opportunity to smile, especially at the shemlen. At the moment everyone may also be learning that she is not very good at faking surprise. “How unlucky.”

Comments

[dashing]

Herian for her part, has travelled mostly in silence. There are some here she has met before, others she has not, and she is a little familiar with Halamshiral's streets. It is not a map in her mind the way that Starkhaven was, she cannot claim to know it near so intimately, and though she has made efforts to help here she has spent much time travelling Orlais, as well. She doesn't scowl, though the impulse is there; her brow flickers, her jaw flexes very slightly, and she looks to the cart drivers. "Can you turn the carts?"

She knows many things, but she cannot claim a great familiarity with driving carts, or the room required to effectively manoeuvre them when burdened with such a load. "Or we might break down the loads here, if we are 'most upon our destination."

Her words are slow and calm and controlled, as her gaze raises and scans to be mindful of any lurking about. Habits.

[glandival]

Carrying weapons through the streets of her city feels surreal. She has lived a life of tucking small, palm-sized knives up her sleeves or hidden in her boots, with arrows smuggled in burlap rather than feathered and proud in the quiver at her back, her bow hooked alongside. She feels more target than something capable of targetting, but it is a feeling played off.

Herian and Martel make reliable shadows. The others seem okay.

When they stop, her jaw sets in impatience, and at the sound of the cracking of wood beneath weight, she turns sharply backwards, her stare frank and assessing. "The back cart's run a wheel," she tells Herian, even though she is looking, mainly, at Lela. Sabine is not acquainted with everyone in her city, and did not know the names of these three.

She wishes she did. "The shem will have to drag it aside on his back," she adds, now with a glance to Martel, dry in delivery. He is not the sole shem of the group, just the one she expects to respond to the epithet as if it were a name. He also probably can't actually drag the cart himself, but he's very big.

[wontforgetyou]

Halamshiral may be a new place to Jamie, but the feeling of eyes on his back as he makes his way through somewhere unfamiliar isn't new at all and even before the wheel seemingly spontaneously self-destructs he's finding himself just that tiniest bit on edge and having to push it to the back of his mind. The smiles from Lela have helped there, granted - he's always had a bit of a weakness for a smile that comes from a pretty lass, and she's no exception. Between that and her friendliness he's found himself warming to her a fair bit, and it's just enough that when the wheel breaks his only reaction is to groan and let his mouth tug off to one side, giving into a grumble rather than thinking too much about that not-so-great attempt at surprise.

"Och, that's just great. We'll never make it there at this rate." Sabine's dry comment may seem to be being directed at Martel more than anyone else, but it doesn't stop him from moving towards the back of the group and the last cart, just in case they have to drag the cart out of the way. Maybe there's some hope for it yet, though, and he looks between her and the wheel as he tries to see if it's as bad as it sounds. "Right. Let's see what we can do here, then."

[apostasia]

The shem in question is already moving as well, rolling up his sleeves at Sabine...but even his sheer brawn is unlikely to move a cart full of axes on its own, and what he actually intends is a rather more elegantly sorcerous solution. Presuming, as he does not, that this isn't sabotage and they are not going to have to deal with that before they deal with any of the carts -

"Let's see what happened," he suggests to Jamie, instead, smiling back at Lela as he says it.

[dashing]

Herian still isn't sure what to make of the Rifter with his Starkhaven voice. She has no dislike of Rifters, even it was Adelaide that told her the Rifters could be trusted, and in the same moment she knew that Adelaide interacted with the Dalish as if they had done no wrongs. It cut deeply, that, but it is but one wound amidst many others, and so long as she still stands and breathes she has no right to speak harshly to Councillor LeBlanc.

It is a strange thing to be in the presence of one Rifter that makes the pangs of homesickness strike so viciously, and another who has been adopted by a person that she suspects may be amongst her oldest friends still living, if they can be considered friends rather than colleagues. She watches both of them as calmly as if they were people long known to her, though her gaze is sharp enough to suggest they are rather more dangerous for all her controlled body language.

If it is to be shemlens put to work, well. She has no objection to it, and starts to move as well, though she glances at Sabine. For her, at least, there is a rare edge of humour. "As you wish, good lady."

And a nod to Martel and Jamie. "Though I must confess I've precious little mastery of wagons. You may yet lament the aid."

[ichaer]

In their journey through Halamshiral, Ciri's eyes have settled upwards to the rooftops that stand tall around them. Curiosity was one thing but the young Grey Warden was mess of paranoia and every little sound gets a subtle glance to find the source. It has been a few years since she has been on these streets, remembering a time when the elven members of their group would make stops to spread their stolen wealth and food as they could.

That was now a lifetime ago. Now her attention is downwards, taken out of her inner thoughts by the sound of wood imploding on itself without warning. It does little for her mood, her body tensing as she makes her way over to examine the damage and frown. Slowly, she looks over her shoulder and toward the other end of the narrow alley.

Approaching the group, she leans over and glances over the undercarriage.

"Yes, how unlucky." She repeats, her voice lacking in any real surprise. Luckily, aside from the wheel everything seems to be in place.

"Thankfully, it does not look as though there was damage to the axle or the bolster."

[wontforgetyou]

Martel gets a brief nod, but it's Ciri who has his attention once she reaches the group that's now gathered at the last of the carts. As she looks over the undercarriage his eyes wind up following hers, a faint, thoughtful sort of noise coming from the back of his throat as he takes in the extent of of the damage. Not too bad, all things considered, and he nods, taking a step back so Martel can step in if he wants to.

"Looks to me like it'll be easy enough to replace the wheel once we're someplace that'll allow for that, but we'll still have to get yon cart out of here first so the others can turn around." His eyes flick back up and over to the others, moving back and forth before finally resting on his fellow rifters. "So what's the plan?"

[ancarrow]

Eirlys can feel eyes on her from all sides as they make their way through the sprawl of streets, some merely curious and others clearly sizing up the party as they make their way through the city, wagons jolting sharply over every loose cobblestone. She's very aware of the wariness and suspicion from many of the elves they pass, and while she understands it completely, it still stings quite deep knowing that they see her as a member of the Inquisition foremost, one of the establishment, rather than an alienage elf who understands the hardships they face all too well.

As the carts halt in their tracks, she can't help but have a bad feeling. She remembers incidents in Gwaren, which only served to compound its bad name and make the guards treat her people even worse, where elves had offered to guide humans through the alienage only to turn them down a blind alley and rob them. She twitches nervously but keeps her cool, mostly due to the fact that everyone else is remaining so calm, jumping down from the cart next to the others to try to assess the situation as best as she can.

"For a start, we should untether the horses. Perhaps we could lead them around to help pull the broken cart out."

[dashing]

Perhaps they can requisition a cheese wheel to replace the wooden one? For a world in chaos, Herian has encountered an abundance of cheese wheels, even these past months. Herian opts to resist her rare and rather poor spark of humour/

"If you've need of more hands," she informs the others, "I am at your disposal." She stands back from the other humans dealing with the wheel, suspecting that in the present moment she'll get in the way more than she'll help. Instead, she turns a watchful gaze about, her eye never resting on one place, carefully assessing.

Her gaze does not move to Eirlys for more than a moment. "It would be unfortunate if the horses startled when they were unharnessed," she observes, very quietly.

[wontforgetyou]

It may be a quiet comment, but it's also one that doesn't go unnoticed, at least by Jamie, and there's a moment when his eyes flick towards her and his expression grows rather more thoughtful. Maybe it's nothing, and maybe there isn't any chance the horses were going to spook any time soon. Still, if that did happen...it could a be a problem, and even he can see that.

For now, though, it seems best to keep going the way they were before, just with an eye out for trouble, and even though there's the tiniest of nods from him at the comment, his words are deliberately directed at Eirlys, to make it seem like the nod is in response to that rather than anything else.

"Aye, we'll have to unharness them from the cart at any rate. We'll not be able to move it with them still attached. I can give you a hand with that first, if you like."

[glandival]

"Quickly."

This from Sabine, who has climbed up onto the second wagon for a better vantage point. She glances to Charani, more out of acknowledgement than anything else, then joins in with the scoping out the perimeter. Her bow is in her hand, but her arrows remain in their quiver. Not quite prepared to be visibly ready.

Still. The next toss of her hair is a restless twitch, thumb itching along the edge of her bow as she watches them talk and strategise. "Whatever's to be done, it should be done quickly."

[visus]

Quickly won't be quick enough. But first:

"Mine will not startle," Charani says serenely from her perch. "They have seen worse than an alley. It is Brishan's you should worry about."

"They are the best horses in Halamshiral," Brishan protests, out of loyalty, "other than--" Those in the war. Anyway, his loyalty loses to honesty. "Yes. It is mine you should worry about." He's still near the front, as if sizing up the passageway long enough might make it wider, and one of his two horses twitches and shifts and snorts beside him.

From the rear, where she's standing aside her broken cart without further investigation, happily leaving that to Ciri, and smiling broadly at the largest shemlen, Lela says, "It is not far to a cartwright. Two turns. I can tell you the way." She leans to one side and tilts her head to look around him--at Eirlys first, a searching attempt for eye contact, and then at the friendlier boy. "He is not as good as our Lemet was, but he is a bit less murdered. I could tell you the way."

[ancarrow]

Eirlys hesitates a moment, then begins to unharness the nearest horse, which seems quiet and quiescent at least for the moment. She wonders if she'd be able to jump on its back if trouble started, pull another up behind her and ride out for help. Judging by how narrow the passageway is, the obstacles of the other carts, and the familiarity their guides have with these horses, she very much doubts it.

"That's a kind offer," she says stiffly, a little nervously, "But I think that perhaps the Inquisition carpenters ought fix it up."

Even if it's further back to their encampment, at least something here would be on their terms.

[wontforgetyou]

Jamie moves to Eirlys's side, opting to steady the other horse just in case something happens to spook one or both of them. Worst case scenario, if something does happen, maybe he'll be able to prevent the situation from turning into something worse.

For now, he keeps quiet about going to fetch the local cartwright, mostly to give a chance for the others to interject with anything they might have to say on the matter. It's entirely possible that Martel still has something up his sleeve (so to speak), and overall it seems best to at least make sure the horses are unharnessed and get the cart out of the alley so the others aren't sitting there waiting any longer than they needed to - but he finds he can't quite keep quite about Lemet's fate, even if he does keep his movements to a minimum so as not to startle the horses.

"Murdered?" The way he says it, it sounds very like he's added in a good three or four extra 'r's', stretching out the word and making it much longer than it has any right being. "What happened?"