Guess who had the tent next to Asher, go on guess. Certainly a lot of talk about sausage and people rolling around in bear pelts at all hours when he was trying to discuss with his brother the finer points of fleecing Kestrels, which is a tricky business he'll have you know.
"Don't know what it was he did to me. Bodyblows. Just raining bodyblows. Still hacking up hair and it's been months now, don't know if I'll ever recover. I'm sending him my healer's bills." As if Yngvi would go to a healer when Gunnar has sent him various concoctions because they didn't grow up around healer's, they don't need anything fancy unless it gets to the 'so you're dying and want to go out as slow as possible' stage. Which okay, some people just want to be dramatic or something he guesses.
A wink for her though, because it's a good day if he gets a reaction out of a pretty face. Anyway, back to the matter at hand as he props himself up. "Y'know there's a place where they drink more than probably Val Royeaux? Or is it more than anywhere else except Val Royeaux? And we don't have one person with a fat arse lording it over us. Or ladying it? Empressing it? You're Orlesian, what's the correct term for what she does?" Don't say ruling, that's boring.
Oh, Christine is very tempted to say the term is called "ruining things," which is something she never would have thought a year ago. She supported Celene because Gaspard was nothing but a warmonger who wanted to invade Ferelden again and Celene could keep things peaceful. At least that was what she'd thought. Having her father recruited into the civil war to fight (and die) for his Empress has left Christine a mix of emotions concerning Orlais. She's proud to be Orlesian, but she also knows she's hardly tolerated among them for being a mage. On those days when she thinks of all those missed moments with her father, her opinion of Orlais is "burn it to the ground," but other days she remembers the little town she grew up in and the simple, maskless people there. They shouldn't suffer just because the people at the top are assholes.
"Who knows anymore?" she finally settles for. "Holding the Empire together with twine and a prayer?" She lifts a shoulder in a shrug. "I wonder what place drinks more than anywhere but Val Royeaux. I think it is supposed to flow out of fountains there."
Say it. Say it and he's yours because burn it. Burn it all and piss on the fucking ashes, that's what you do with that whole thing, and if there's one thing he would probably get behind it's doing that to Orzammar but well, dwarves are generally fucking stupid when they're down below because the Carta is best when it's topside. (He is the prime example of that of course, well him and Gunnar because he loves his brother, yeah?)
"There's a saying about pissing into the wind that probably works. And I think it's Wycome. You can get shirts there with embroidered things on them like 'tits out for Wycome' if you know the right folk, of course I do, I'm related to them by marriage, three divorces, a murder, catering for a funeral and so on and so forth. Has more parties than Val Royeaux too. But if you're a fishing town you probably want to be drunk to deal with the smell." Name him foreign affairs correspondent Inquisition, do it.
"Wycome," she repeats, and she can't tell if he's being serious or just spinning a tale for the attention. Yngvi seems like the type to only be happy when he has all eyes on him yet is playing a game with everyone.
"I do not doubt that you know at least one person everywhere, in every town and village."
"Delivered men in casks to Wycome. Delicacy for a white glove society. You keep that under your hat. Or wherever Orlesian ladies keep things." Two truths and a lie: Wycome likes their tipples, he has delivered men in casks to Wycome. That was a weird sort of job but casks can hide a multitude of sins as it so happens, and their employer wanted proof of a job done. How else do you preserve unsavoury sorts he asks?
(Does not ask, does not repeat outside of being drunk himself.)
"Benefits and curses of large families, Asher Hardie getting about, Coterie ties from Liadan, and our-second-turned-boss happening to hail from Halamshiral, in no particular order."
"Orlesian ladies keep that a mystery," she retorts, now absolutely sure that he must be making up a story for fun. Or perhaps because it's what spills naturally from his lips.
At the mention of the Boneflayers, Christine gives a slight smile, a genuine warmth to her eyes. "How are they all doing? It seems I only ever see you about up here."
"You know, I was in m'lady's bou-- however you lot say bedroom because balls of my swindling casteless ancestors you can't just say bedroom like the rest of us filthy beggars - and I couldn't figure that out. Even when I was trying on her dresses." By the way that bit did happen, he looks great in mauve, brings out the sheer panic in his face when an irate father is going to murder the shit out of him.
Still, from one fond subject to another it is. "Melisende's got to establish herself since it's not so easy even with our reputation and when she was running so much of it anyway because she's an elf, and she's an elf from Halamshiral at a time like this when we get loads of jobs out of Orlais. People are dicks. Liadan's her second now but they ran all the money stuff anyway because Asher was always shite with that. It's same as it was, just without a big lad and a dog, takes more work to say we can still do the same things but different to how we did them before. S'why I'm here to get any jobs I hear about up here and to honour that bit, and to keep an eye on folks I said I would." Because Yngvi is a shit but he's a dwarf of his word about most things when it comes to people. "Amalia still sets things on fire, Nasir won't set foot in Rivain because he's a baby, my brother is sending me potions and other fun things. Aura might join us for a bit one day but she's not mental."
She knows, Yngvi. All of Skyhold heard that crystal conversation.
But his answer now regarding the Boneflayers is straightforward enough for once, and there's a brief cloud across her eyes before it passes and she quietly responds, "He asked you to check on his friends, because he no longer could." Some many months on, that ridiculous man shouldn't be making her throat feel tight, but it does despite her wishes on the matter. She clears her throat and nods, trying to push away the ache in her chest.
He was drunk. And Gwen's dad has a hell of a pair of fists on him. Rattled his bells that did.
The best and worst thing about Asher: he gave a shit. Because he gave a shit about Yngvi so Yngvi thinks more than a Carta boy ever should and doesn't really know what to do with all the things he was told not to do with. So he'll just shove those away just now but at least he's not the only one still hurting and stumbling along maybe. "He had an inflated sense of who needed looking after when he was the one that had hobbies including 'I'm going to go fight this bear, watch my pint'." But the joke dies in his throat, the smile too tight.
Tears don't happen though, he's been taught far too well from before he can remember so it'd take far more than that to get them to pop up for anything other than an act.
"Thriving. Away from harridan Hardie at last, swinging axes at trees because that's how you do, chasing her nephew around. I'll be seeing her when I go up there for the winter since she invited us all and she did write to m'lady after some dream she had? She's proper into spiritis. Not as a mage thing since-- not a mage? Some other thing. Said Gjurd could explain but I'll probably be buggered if I can figure it out."
Christine's smile settles into something more fond, though she wishes she had talked more with Aura while she was visiting the hold. More than just a passing nod and a how are you? Something tells her that she'd like Aura very much, even if she's not half as wild as Asher was.
"Dreaming of spirits usually is a mage thing," she begins, sounding intrigued. "But living in the hold with the spirits so close by and watching might make some difference. If Gjurd is helping her, everything will be all right." Just in case Yngvi is worried.
Babysitting a tiny Asher, even if it's only half Asher is tiring. It shares the same aversion to clothing as the father only at the moment it's from the waist down rather than the waist up so apparently it's something of a sight to behold.
Yngvi gets some great letters from the hold.
"Do warriors do stuff though? I know about reavers obviously, and Templars," he makes the univesal symbol for wanking when he says that with a roll of the eyes, "and champions," again with the wanking, "but can they? I mean Knight-Enchanters fart out a spirit through a sword or some shit, Korrin tried, I got bored and that sounds more interesting in battle."
"I suppose so," she says, trying to think what specialization would have a warrior dream of spirits. But alas, she is a sheltered Circle mage and doesn't know what this could be. "Anything is possible. But as I said, Gjurd will help her. And Knight-Enchanters are mages, so that is a bit different."
She doesn't want to rush to show him her blade, since she doubts he'll find it more interesting than Korrin's attempt, but she does want to get back to practicing and so she takes her hilt from her belt.
"I am only practicing now, and it must not look like much. But in battle it will save my life."
"Aura's written to m'lady, I can get her to write to someone that's a friend of Asher's that came up for him and knows spirit stuff, or the most eligible shaman in the holds." He's simply stating a fact. He does indeed have eyes. Do you know he's been lifted and thrown by those arms and that chest? Jealous? (Don't be, he got tossed into goat pens but some people are into that, he wouldn't judge, he'd just ask to be paid to enable it.)
Squinting at it with the eye someone uses to appraise things, he nods approvingly. Because here's the thing: he can say shit to and about Korrin since he's know Korrin for-fucking-ever, and Korrin's known him just the same. He was one of Asher's mad dwarves, and they know mercenary life, the lack of niceties. Christine is a Nice Girl. So Asher said.
"Pretty thing. Did you make it? Only you don't have a crafter's hands since you're not missing chunks of them." He holds his out for inspection, with the bloody bit from the trap, the broken nails, the old cuts and scrapes, the odd scars to them. Dirty rough working hands, square enough to only belong to a dwarf. "And that...the blade just--" A 'pchoo' sound comes out because look he hasn't seen the spirit blade do the thing, what does he know?
Just what are you implying, Ygnvi? Christine glances away for a second -- a rather telling move -- and then looks back. She'll simply choose not to say anything at all on that subject.
"Sam made the hilt," she says, eyebrows furrowing as she looks at the state of his hands. It's not an uncommon sight around here to see craftsmen with such scrapes and scars. "Do you need me to look at that?" she asks, nodding towards the currently injured one. She'll get to the blade of the weapon in a minute, after she's sure he doesn't have an infection.
That you want his Avvar babies because he didn't congeal in the gutter yesterday Christine. "I'll be sure to pass him your best then," he says very diplomatically, which in no way implies that he's going to be tossed in with the goats when he does just that.
(Spoiler: he got tossed in with the goats when he did just that Christine.)
"Sometimes I can't believe he does stuff like that when he's such an odd thing. Bit doglord, bit dog, bit fish, bit smith. What a mysterious creature. Course, many of my old gaffers had a term for such folk, don't know if you've got it round these parts but it's meant with fondness." It's not. But Yngvi would mean it that way because it's Yngvi and he's a shit like that because he also happens to be that same sort of person. "Need you to look at what?"
Let him buffer--
Buffering--
Connecting---
"What? That? Nah, spat on it, rubbed some dirt on it, I'll be grand."
Yngvi's "best" probably involves a lot of winking and salacious smirks, doesn't it?
She does want to ask what that fond term is for someone like Sam, though she will probably roll her eyes and laugh at it, whatever it is. But her eyes widen at Yngvi's brush off.
"Yngvi! You don't want it filling with pus or rotting away, do you? You could lose your hand. It is nearly impossible to stop the spread of infection once it starts." Like with Asher, though she knows not to say it aloud.
It's all in the hips. Pelvic thrusting his way over the Frostbacks right to Gjurd.
Rolling his eyes, he still gives her a pat with the good hand, or makes to because y'know he's filthy and she's proper. Well, she wasn't a proper Orlesian because Asher liked her but he's not Asher either but she doesn't have to suffer him if she'd rather not. Still. It's appreciated. "I've had so much worse, see this one here-" offering out the hand he points to a scar taking up a chunk of the middle finger of the other hand. "Nearly had that bitten clean off once by a lass - merchant's guild daughters, more trouble than they're worth you best believe - so Gunnar stitched up with thread we nicked off her."
Suffer is a good word for it, but Christine -- for some strange reason -- never walks away. Perhaps it's because something about him entertains her, and laughter is something she needs more of in her life.
"A woman nearly bit it off? Did she file her teeth?" Because how else could blunt teeth cut through bone? Did she have an iron jaw? Actually, Christine isn't sure she wants to know.
Releasing a soft breath of frustration through her nose, Christine finally relents and says, "Please, just watch it for any abnormalities. If you have lasting pain, there may be something wrong inside and I will want to take a look." She can't let anything happen to one of Asher's own after she failed Asher himself. She just can't.
Now she looks down at the hilt of her spirit blade. "I should return to my training."
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no subject
"Don't know what it was he did to me. Bodyblows. Just raining bodyblows. Still hacking up hair and it's been months now, don't know if I'll ever recover. I'm sending him my healer's bills." As if Yngvi would go to a healer when Gunnar has sent him various concoctions because they didn't grow up around healer's, they don't need anything fancy unless it gets to the 'so you're dying and want to go out as slow as possible' stage. Which okay, some people just want to be dramatic or something he guesses.
A wink for her though, because it's a good day if he gets a reaction out of a pretty face. Anyway, back to the matter at hand as he props himself up. "Y'know there's a place where they drink more than probably Val Royeaux? Or is it more than anywhere else except Val Royeaux? And we don't have one person with a fat arse lording it over us. Or ladying it? Empressing it? You're Orlesian, what's the correct term for what she does?" Don't say ruling, that's boring.
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"Who knows anymore?" she finally settles for. "Holding the Empire together with twine and a prayer?" She lifts a shoulder in a shrug. "I wonder what place drinks more than anywhere but Val Royeaux. I think it is supposed to flow out of fountains there."
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"There's a saying about pissing into the wind that probably works. And I think it's Wycome. You can get shirts there with embroidered things on them like 'tits out for Wycome' if you know the right folk, of course I do, I'm related to them by marriage, three divorces, a murder, catering for a funeral and so on and so forth. Has more parties than Val Royeaux too. But if you're a fishing town you probably want to be drunk to deal with the smell." Name him foreign affairs correspondent Inquisition, do it.
no subject
"I do not doubt that you know at least one person everywhere, in every town and village."
no subject
(Does not ask, does not repeat outside of being drunk himself.)
"Benefits and curses of large families, Asher Hardie getting about, Coterie ties from Liadan, and our-second-turned-boss happening to hail from Halamshiral, in no particular order."
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At the mention of the Boneflayers, Christine gives a slight smile, a genuine warmth to her eyes. "How are they all doing? It seems I only ever see you about up here."
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Still, from one fond subject to another it is. "Melisende's got to establish herself since it's not so easy even with our reputation and when she was running so much of it anyway because she's an elf, and she's an elf from Halamshiral at a time like this when we get loads of jobs out of Orlais. People are dicks. Liadan's her second now but they ran all the money stuff anyway because Asher was always shite with that. It's same as it was, just without a big lad and a dog, takes more work to say we can still do the same things but different to how we did them before. S'why I'm here to get any jobs I hear about up here and to honour that bit, and to keep an eye on folks I said I would." Because Yngvi is a shit but he's a dwarf of his word about most things when it comes to people. "Amalia still sets things on fire, Nasir won't set foot in Rivain because he's a baby, my brother is sending me potions and other fun things. Aura might join us for a bit one day but she's not mental."
no subject
But his answer now regarding the Boneflayers is straightforward enough for once, and there's a brief cloud across her eyes before it passes and she quietly responds, "He asked you to check on his friends, because he no longer could." Some many months on, that ridiculous man shouldn't be making her throat feel tight, but it does despite her wishes on the matter. She clears her throat and nods, trying to push away the ache in her chest.
"And Aura is enjoying life in the hold?"
no subject
The best and worst thing about Asher: he gave a shit. Because he gave a shit about Yngvi so Yngvi thinks more than a Carta boy ever should and doesn't really know what to do with all the things he was told not to do with. So he'll just shove those away just now but at least he's not the only one still hurting and stumbling along maybe. "He had an inflated sense of who needed looking after when he was the one that had hobbies including 'I'm going to go fight this bear, watch my pint'." But the joke dies in his throat, the smile too tight.
Tears don't happen though, he's been taught far too well from before he can remember so it'd take far more than that to get them to pop up for anything other than an act.
"Thriving. Away from harridan Hardie at last, swinging axes at trees because that's how you do, chasing her nephew around. I'll be seeing her when I go up there for the winter since she invited us all and she did write to m'lady after some dream she had? She's proper into spiritis. Not as a mage thing since-- not a mage? Some other thing. Said Gjurd could explain but I'll probably be buggered if I can figure it out."
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"Dreaming of spirits usually is a mage thing," she begins, sounding intrigued. "But living in the hold with the spirits so close by and watching might make some difference. If Gjurd is helping her, everything will be all right." Just in case Yngvi is worried.
no subject
Yngvi gets some great letters from the hold.
"Do warriors do stuff though? I know about reavers obviously, and Templars," he makes the univesal symbol for wanking when he says that with a roll of the eyes, "and champions," again with the wanking, "but can they? I mean Knight-Enchanters fart out a spirit through a sword or some shit, Korrin tried, I got bored and that sounds more interesting in battle."
no subject
She doesn't want to rush to show him her blade, since she doubts he'll find it more interesting than Korrin's attempt, but she does want to get back to practicing and so she takes her hilt from her belt.
"I am only practicing now, and it must not look like much. But in battle it will save my life."
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Squinting at it with the eye someone uses to appraise things, he nods approvingly. Because here's the thing: he can say shit to and about Korrin since he's know Korrin for-fucking-ever, and Korrin's known him just the same. He was one of Asher's mad dwarves, and they know mercenary life, the lack of niceties. Christine is a Nice Girl. So Asher said.
"Pretty thing. Did you make it? Only you don't have a crafter's hands since you're not missing chunks of them." He holds his out for inspection, with the bloody bit from the trap, the broken nails, the old cuts and scrapes, the odd scars to them. Dirty rough working hands, square enough to only belong to a dwarf. "And that...the blade just--" A 'pchoo' sound comes out because look he hasn't seen the spirit blade do the thing, what does he know?
no subject
"Sam made the hilt," she says, eyebrows furrowing as she looks at the state of his hands. It's not an uncommon sight around here to see craftsmen with such scrapes and scars. "Do you need me to look at that?" she asks, nodding towards the currently injured one. She'll get to the blade of the weapon in a minute, after she's sure he doesn't have an infection.
no subject
(Spoiler: he got tossed in with the goats when he did just that Christine.)
"Sometimes I can't believe he does stuff like that when he's such an odd thing. Bit doglord, bit dog, bit fish, bit smith. What a mysterious creature. Course, many of my old gaffers had a term for such folk, don't know if you've got it round these parts but it's meant with fondness." It's not. But Yngvi would mean it that way because it's Yngvi and he's a shit like that because he also happens to be that same sort of person. "Need you to look at what?"
Let him buffer--
Buffering--
Connecting---
"What? That? Nah, spat on it, rubbed some dirt on it, I'll be grand."
no subject
She does want to ask what that fond term is for someone like Sam, though she will probably roll her eyes and laugh at it, whatever it is. But her eyes widen at Yngvi's brush off.
"Yngvi! You don't want it filling with pus or rotting away, do you? You could lose your hand. It is nearly impossible to stop the spread of infection once it starts." Like with Asher, though she knows not to say it aloud.
no subject
Rolling his eyes, he still gives her a pat with the good hand, or makes to because y'know he's filthy and she's proper. Well, she wasn't a proper Orlesian because Asher liked her but he's not Asher either but she doesn't have to suffer him if she'd rather not. Still. It's appreciated. "I've had so much worse, see this one here-" offering out the hand he points to a scar taking up a chunk of the middle finger of the other hand. "Nearly had that bitten clean off once by a lass - merchant's guild daughters, more trouble than they're worth you best believe - so Gunnar stitched up with thread we nicked off her."
no subject
"A woman nearly bit it off? Did she file her teeth?" Because how else could blunt teeth cut through bone? Did she have an iron jaw? Actually, Christine isn't sure she wants to know.
Releasing a soft breath of frustration through her nose, Christine finally relents and says, "Please, just watch it for any abnormalities. If you have lasting pain, there may be something wrong inside and I will want to take a look." She can't let anything happen to one of Asher's own after she failed Asher himself. She just can't.
Now she looks down at the hilt of her spirit blade. "I should return to my training."