faderift | [OPEN] Align my heart, my body, my mind

WHO: Corvo and you!
WHAT: Corvo is starting to settle into Skyhold, and goes to a job interview.
WHEN: Early Harvestmire
WHERE: Around Skyhold
NOTES: Probably gonna be talk about death, killing, etc.

Library

Corvo would not necessarily consider himself a bookish man, but he acknowledges the well of information that can be found within them, and he detests ignorance--in himself, most of all. Slowly, he has begun accepting that whatever drew him to this world does not intend for him to leave any time soon, and thus it would befit him to try to understand more of this Thedas. It's been slow going, at first, because Thedas is so utterly alien to him, completely different from anything he's known before. But he perseveres.

He can be found sitting in the library, hunched over in a corner of the room, a book on his lap, and a piece of parchment next to him. As he reads, he occasionally pauses to jot down a quick note on the paper--questions, phrases, things that he doesn't understand yet, that he will have to find out more about later on.

Feel free to approach him, or if you're close enough and don't look too unwelcoming, he might ask you about one of the things that he doesn't understand.

Training yard

He doesn't just spend his time reading, however. He spends plenty of time in the training area, practicing with his sword and crossbow. While this place is unusual, there's one perk about it--he has a chance to practice his magic without worrying about anyone seeing. Having had several people confirm that no one will be tossing him on a pyre for using his mark, he feels comfortable enough to do it in the open.

While practicing on a dummy with his sword, he holds his hand out, and then there's a sudden blur, and he's behind the dummy, and promptly sticks his sword right in its cloth neck. Practicing with his crossbow, he takes a potato out of a stack of them he had acquired, and throws it in the air. Then he raises his hand up, and a great gust of wind blows up past him, hurtling the potato far into the air. Once the target is an appropriate distance away, he raises his crossbow and sends a bolt into the unfortunate potato.

He doesn't quite smile, but he does look rather satisfied.

Kestrel House

And now, he feels rather nervous. He's never exactly had a good relationship with other assassins, people who killed as a job more than because some people simply had to be killed.

But at the end of the day, killing people was one of his greater skills. The ability to do it quietly, slipping in and out without being seen. The job that he had spent most of his life doing, guarding another's life with steadfast dedication--no. There was a little girl he had already promised to serve. He would not take that job here, not in this strange land with strange people. So assassin, it was. Everyone needs to have a job, after all.

And so it was that he lurked outside of the Kestrel house, hands stiffly held behind his back, as he waited for the man in charge of the guild.

Threaded | Flat

Cassandra, too, spends plenty of time in the training yard, which means she has plenty of time to observe the others there. For the most part, she merely quietly evaluates their skills, making a note of those who might prove especially helpful in the upcoming battle against Corypheus, or those who might benefit from individual instruction.

And then there's this guy.

She doesn't even bother to hide the fact that she's watching him, standing with her arms crossed over her chest and a thoughtful frown on her face. He is a rifter; she might have guessed that even without the telltale green glow of his palm. Only once he lowers his crossbow does she approach him, making sure to let him see her coming well in advance. This is not a man to catch unawares.

"Very impressive," she congratulates him. "Is such magic common in your world?"

Inessa's typically present in the library late in the morning or early in the afternoon, after a typically thorough workout for Garahel. With enough games of fetch and a sizable lunch, the mabari is often content to nap while the Grey Warden mage indulges herself with tomes of all kinds. This day is no different, though she glances over from placing back various books in order to acquire new ones, the slight elven woman notices a new face.

There's a moment where she hesitates, but it can't to make herself available to newer folk. "You seem confused." Her tone invites questions, as her mabari snores lightly in the background.

It was basically impossible to miss him as he approached given his size but he didn't even bother to try. Instead, he just walked right on up to where the man was with a smile on his face, watching that final move with the potato. Letting out a laugh, he went to fetch their poor fallen vegetable companion so he could pull the bolt free from it and give it back to the man who'd performed the feat.

"Impressive! You have the makings of a talented Assassin if you are not one already, my friend." He'd seen plenty of them in his time and knew how the class operated. Be fast. Get behind the target when possible. Quick and clean kills to avoid less attention.

"You are a rifter as well, yes?" Iskandar asked, noting the glow on his hand.

Close enough? Too close. Unwelcoming? Not at all! Depending entirely on perspective, of course. Mac has always had issues with first impressions, boundaries, manners - socializing in general. Seeing a new face (to his memory, not necessarily anyone else's) gets him excited as usual and he lurks through the shelves, watching the man between aisles, stalking from every angle even as he pulls scrolls and novels for his own perusal. Eventually he decides Corvo is unlikely to stab, burn or otherwise maim him during introductions, so he creeps over until he's close enough to pop his head down mere inches from the other man.

"Yo! Whatcha got there?" he asks cheerily, voice notably low in tone and volume. Sudden and direct, but at least not terribly impolite, particularly to others using the space. His bright green eyes flick down to the notes, then back up, focusing perhaps too solidly on unbroken contact, lips curled into an open-mouthed smile. He's certainly trying to be warm and inviting, but it usually comes off as awkward and a little unstable at first. Invasion of personal space 101, don't get close enough to handshake with your nose.

"Anything good?" he follows up one question with the next, standing up and putting a little more space between them as he hovers, gloved fingers drumming on the cover of a large tome clutched to his chest. He cocks his head, purple hair flopping smoothly against the curves of his gold-plated horns. He's clearly a Kossith, though a bit short, but whether Qunari or some manner of Vashoth is Corvo's guess. Either way, the upbeat invader simply stands there, looking to be in a perpetually good mood and brimming with transparent curiosity.

"Oi!"

(Can you hear the 'mate' that just sort of gets tacked on at the end, like punctuation, bit like a glottal stop, just sort of happens really.)

What the stranger is doing is fancy, no doubt about it but look what he's using. Shocking. This will not stand. Do you know what you could do with those potatoes? They were begging to be chips and Yngvi Congealedinagutterson has something to say about this from where he's sitting, explaining to four nugs (his regular entourage now the other sixteen have buggered off to better and less exciting lives, only Rump Roast, Nug Wellington, Stroganugg and Truffles remain, and the latter is a gift he's just training up a bit to be worthy of their future station) the finer points of traps as he watches a potato get assassinated.

"That is an outrageous waste of a good potato!"

training yard

Library

training yard

Library

training yard;