faderift | [ Open ] You are a Giant Redwood, Falling on a Family of Deer

WHO: Avery and OPEN
WHAT: Another post-shardbearer-plot (this one) post! This one a slightly wider spread catch-all
WHEN: Late September/early October
WHERE: Around Skyhold
NOTES: Warning for grouchy, injured baker! Also, potential references to violence and torture and gore from said shardbearer plot

Kitchens

Anyone coming in for a visit or just down here passing by over these few weeks is probably going to be hearing a lot more banging and clattering and cursing than usual before they even reach the doors. Sounds which further investigation will reveal to be the sweet music of a very frustrated Avery trying to navigate the narrow spaces between counters in here sporting a sling on one arm and a crutch under the other. What with her junked-up shoulder and still heavily bandaged leg, y'know?

If they're lucky, they might even get the pleasure of seeing her fumble at doing simple tasks one-handed or knock over a tray of breadrolls with her crutch and transcend anger into a quantum state of silent fuming. The kitchen has never betrayed her like this before.

Healing Tents

Hopefully it won't be like that for too much longer though. And it's this hope that has Avery diligently visiting the healing tents at the appropriate intervals to have the progress of her wounds checked on. The shoulder, thankfully, is not so bad, as long as she makes sure to keep from moving it around too much for a while, but the leg... Well, it turns out giant, magical wolf bites don't really give a damn about magical healing. They're stubborn like that and refuse to go away on anyone's schedule but their own!

Stables

During those moments when Avery doesn't have reason to visit the healing tents but has been shooed out of the kitchen to do this thing called... relaxing? (She thinks she might have heard of it once, but she really has no idea what such a strange and foreign concept could truly be. It sounds like a trap.) She usually wanders down to the stables to check in with some of her favorite horses and maybe have a go at brushing out their manes and tails while she's at it. Hopefully without being disturbed by anyone, but everyone knows how likely that is to work out for her.

Training Grounds

Though lately she's been spending a little time watching the soldiers train as well. She's not a terrible fighter herself, but most of what she knows is about how to make your average bully or mugger eat their own teeth. If she'd had real battle training like these people, would things have gone differently on that last mission? She can't help but wonder about it as she silently observes.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Oh!"

Avery jumps a little, having thought she was alone down here until just this second, but thankfully does not lose her balance. She eyes Sam with confusion for a long moment--tiny even by dwarf standards, this one--before tentatively reaching out and taking the bowl with a nod of thanks. "If it's a bowl that finally does me in, I think I'll have earned it."

Sam scoffs, shaking his head as he comes back around the counter. "Well now, that's as may be, but there's no need for it, not when there's others around who can help just as well. A bowl's hardly worth it anyhow!" He stops in front of her, looking up at her curiously for a second before bowing at the waist. "Samwise Gamgee, miss, at your service."

"Avery," she returns, still mildly puzzled by this whole exchange. "Thanks. I guess."

Sam, blissfully unaware of any confusion on Avery's part, merely smiles cheerfully. "A pleasure to meet you, Miss Avery." He cocks his head, looking up at her thoughtfully. "Only begging your pardon, but I've never seen you here before - and I know every inch of these kitchens! Have you been in Skyhold long?"

Well, that certainly makes her raise an eyebrow. "A few months now actually."

She tries to think back, to see if she remembers seeing Sam around or at least hearing someone else mention the name, but... really, Avery just keeps to herself too much. She doesn't talk to many people if she doesn't have to, doesn't pay much attention to those she passes in the halls, and doesn't listen in on the chatter of the other cooks most of the time either (It's probably telling that her favorite person to work with is Burly, who literally lacks the ability to speak). Maybe it's not that surprising that someone could slip under her radar for so long. Especially someone so easily overlooked already.

"Guess we must've just missed each other."

"I suppose we must have," Sam agrees easily. "Funny, that! Only perhaps it isn't so strange. I've never seen so many different people all in one spot, except maybe in Bree, and never of so many different sorts anywhere." He looks curiously down at her hand, not at all trying to hide it. "Are you from here then? From Thedas? Are there more places like this, with Men and elves and dwarves all together?"

"I'm from here," Avery answers slowly, the question making it clear that he isn't. "From a city called Denerim, which has all three of those, yeah. Though they don't quite live the same as here."

"Denerim? Why I've never heard of such a place; and I've heard of quite a few places in Thedas by now, and even visited more than one," he says with a touch of pride. "Oh, but begging your pardon, you were trying to cook, and here I am with my mouth running off again! Stop your fool talk, Samwise Gamgee, it's never done you a lick of good and not like to start now!" He shakes his head, abashed. "But isn't there anything else I can do to help? Something else you can't reach?"

"I can manage." ...maybe.

No need to focus on her stubbornness though! Moving on! "You didn't come down here for no reason either, I'd wager."

Sam frowns, clearly disbelieving, but he doesn't push. "Me? Oh I'd just come down here hoping for a bite; it's about the time to claim the last of this morning's sausages before they're thrown out, you know." Obviously she would know; who wouldn't keep track of just how long the chefs hold onto the last meal's scraps, just so they have a chance to rescue them from being thrown to the dogs? "But you must be meaning to do something with that bowl, and it's not standing there looking at it!"

Well, he's not wrong, but it still takes her a little while to decide not to just dismiss him out of hand.

"I was thinking about trying something new," she finally admits. "I don't really know how it's going to turn out yet, but if you want to help, I need a pan and one of the ovens ready to go here soon."

"Something new?" The promise of a new recipe is always one to catch Sam's interest. He straightens immediately, already looking around to take stock of the kitchen. A pan is easy to find and easier to retrieve, and then he hurries over to one of the ovens, calling over his shoulder as he goes. "You'll want to use this one - anytime you can get it! It's the most even heating by far. Unless you like your meals half burnt and half cold!"

Eyeing the ovens with a raised eyebrow, she answers, "Not usually, no."

Then she makes her way over to retrieve a large head of cauliflower she'd set out earlier. "But yeah. I've actually been a bit off meat recently, after some... things that happened on a mission, so I've been trying to think of different ways to spice up vegetables."

Sam trails after her, frowning thoughtfully. "Off...meat?" he repeats, and then looks shocked as he realizes what she means. "But you can't make a whole meal just out of vegetables! Why that wouldn't be a meal at all! It's a snack at best!" And that's being generous.

"Keep your breeches untwisted," she advises wryly. "It's not as if I'll be denying you any. Just taking a little break from it myself."

Things got a bit... gory out there. In ways she prefers to think about as little as possible, and she's hoping this might help with that.

Sam makes a short, aborted noise, as if he's not sure how to respond to that - talking about his breeches, indeed! In the end, he hurries past it, merely favoring Avery with a suspicious look. How could anyone be trusted, trying to live just off vegetables!

"Well, it's your own choice, I suppose," he says in a doubtful voice. "But you must have something else. A bit of cheese, perhaps, and some seasoning of course."

"Well, yeah, of course," she answers with a slightly affronted look. She's a professional baker! How could he imagine she wouldn't be eating bread and cheese as well? "I'm just trying to learn some new ways to spice and prepare the vegetables with them."

[ Open ] You are a Giant Redwood, Falling on a Family of Deer

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