open!

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WHO: Eirlys and OPEN
WHAT: A day in the life of a city elf who is way out of her depth
WHEN: A couple of days before leaving for the Mire
WHERE: Around Skyhold
NOTES: Discrimination in prompt b). Prose or brackets are both fine. If you'd like a different starter, hit me up at viridianwings and I'll write something up for your character!

a) Courtyard
Technically weapons were forbidden in the alienage, but Eirlys had slept with a knife hidden under her pillow for as long as she could remember. She'd been unarmed on the road though, knowing that Wellow would surely have found it travelling in such close quarters -- though she knew that it wouldn't have made any difference when faced with the demons, that she would have panicked in exactly the same way.

She'd been a little surprised that she'd been allowed weapons here, still feeling very much an elvish outsider in a human run organisation, but the only odd looks she'd got when she'd taken them from the stores were the sheer amount and variety that she carried. Now she's got them laid out on the ground in front of her - a couple of swords and axes of various sizes and weights, a bow and arrows, a dagger only slightly bigger than the one she'd got back home, a spiked mace that scares her a little looking at it - picking them up in turn and swinging them around, trying to get used to the feel of them and see which one worked best for her. If she was going to help the Inquisition, after all, first she'd better know how to defend herself.


b) Medical tents
Things were relatively quiet, the influx of wounded having slowed to a steady trickle. Eirlys spends most of the afternoon as more of a first aider than healer, inspecting days old wounds for signs of infection, changing bandages and poultices, giving advice to far less severe cases - a man with a bad rash; a couple of cases of food poisoning; checking up on a pregnant woman. It's the sort of work she likes, providing a definite solution and feeling like she's making a difference, but without the same weight of the world that she'd felt with the pressure of the seriously wounded from Haven or the epidemics she'd helped treat in the alienage.

She's about to leave and find some dinner when a group of young men, barely more than teenagers, saunter up to the tents. One of them is limping badly, his arms around the shoulders of the other two, who are holding him up. A sparring injury, most likely. Eirlys stands as they approach, offering a smile that's far more confident than any she's given here so far-- then jumps back, startled, as one of the men spits at the ground in front of her, barely missing her feet. "Forget it," the wounded man says. "Don't want any knife-ear looking at it. Take me inside and get me an ale, I'll wait for one of the human healers."

The newfound spring in her step has disappeared as she makes her way back to the kitchens, and she walks with her shoulders hunched over, gaze fixed on the floor, her confidence having fled entirely.


c) Kitchen
She'd taken her supplies back with her, intending to distract herself by grinding up the necessary herbs for poultices, hoping that the mind-numbing work would help her forget and make the bitterness brewing in her disappear. Placing the vials of ingredients in the corner she's claimed, she turns her back for just a moment to see if there's any food left over when a cat comes bounding through, a huge chicken leg in its mouth, being chased by one of the cooks. As it evades the broom she's wielding it comes clattering through Eirlys' corner, the vials spilling over and the herbs scattering over the floor.

With a resigned sigh, she bends down and begins to clean up, sweeping up the elfroot leaves into one vial, embrium petals into another, and so on. However a keen eyed observer would notice that the neatly written labels on the vials don't match the ingredients she's pouring into them whatsoever. The spindleweed is tidied into a bottle reading blood lotus, the blood lotus in the elfroot jar, and so on.

She can't read. She's managed to conceal it so far -- although only to her detriment, as so much of the goings on at Skyhold have been communicated through the bulletin board, which she's entirely unable to make head nor tail of. But anyone walking through would be able to get the picture fast enough, even though Eirlys is oblivious that she's doing anything wrong.

Comments

Courtyard

[equanimiti]

After spending hours upon the battlements gazing out into the bleak wilderness, Alayre finds him slowly marching back to his quarters. Everything that could've gone wrong has and the Knight-Commander is at a loss what to do. As much as he wants to pretend he can shoulder all of his burdens alone, Alayre knows he cannot. The disappearance of his brother-in-arms has left him vexed. It's truly difficult to walk this path of redemption without the other and Alayre isn't too certain if he can. His heart is heavy with worries and doubts. Skyhold is still a mess and everything else is just as worse off. Abandoned in his fate and utterly alone within it, Alayre almost didn't noticed the little elven woman if it hadn't been for her wide array of weaponry spread out before her.

A look of surprise linger in his grey eyes once he spots the mace. That's a particularly nasty looking weapon that looks as if has seen it's fair share of battle. He peers at the weapon curiously as he takes a few steps forward. Still dressed very much like a Templar but with the finery of a Knight-Commander and a long red cloak, Alayre must've looked a tad imposing to the elf maid.

"If I may ask--" His tone is gentle despite his frightening armor. The Templar have a terrible history amongst their Order, a history that cannot be ignored. "Where did you...find that one?" The man's Orlesian, so he might sound a tad odd to her. The accent gives away his foreign origins easily.

[ancarrow]

His tone may be gentle, but the combination of the armor and the Orlesian accent makes her shrink back - as well as sounding a little odd to her, most of what she knows of Orlais is how conditions in the alienages are even worse than in Ferelden. She abruptly drops the sword she'd been testing out, the blade narrowly missing her feet as it sinks into the grass.

"I borrowed it from the storage where the practise weapons are kept, the same as the rest of them. I didn't steal it, ser, I swear."

[equanimiti]

The elf's abruptness caught Alayre by surprise. "Wait! Be careful--" Thank the Maker that the sharp edge of that sword missed her foot.

The Knight-Commander let's out a mild sigh as he reaches down for the hilt. "Of course you didn't steal it. I'm not accusing you of that." Alayre replies once he picks up the sword. He eyes it curiously for a moment before offering the hilt of it to the startled elf.

"Alas, I forget myself at times. I didn't mean to frighten you." He says with a slight smile. "Here. This belongs to you."

[ancarrow]

She resists laughing at the irony of someone like him offering weapons to an alienage elf. She reaches for the sword tentatively, part of her assuming that he's going to snatch it away from her, and grasps the hilt awkwardly, shifting herself to regain her balance with the heavy weapon weighing down one side.

"Thank you. I'm not sure it suits me too well, though."

[equanimiti]

The irony of it all isn't lost on him, especially since in Orlais most elves are nothing more than humble servants and rarely anything else. The elves across Thedas have been justly persecuted by the humans and thus forced indentured servitude. Alayre never quite liked this aspect about society and never reaped the benefits of it. The servants at Pharos were usual humans except one or two elves that used to work there.

"You own a sword yet you cannot wield it?" He scoffs a little. "What good are these weapons if you cannot master them? Surely you could practice or seek apprenticeship." The Knight-Commander definitely disapproves with this predicament.

"Mayhaps I could show you."

[ancarrow]

"I-- I don't own it. I was allowed to borrow it from the stores with the others." She bristles a little as he scoffs at her, but shies away from responding in kind, having seen what happens to those who speak out against human authorities all too often. "We've never been allowed weapons in the alienage. I still have a little trouble believing I'm allowed one here."

She softens a little at his offer. "If you truly wouldn't mind. And if it wouldn't detract from your duties. I don't want to be any trouble."