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OPEN | coldest comfort, safety glass
WHO: Wren, Anders, Gwen, and OTA.
WHAT: Arrivals at Skyhold & Junk.
WHEN: Post-Winter Palace. Catchall.
WHERE: Skyhold.
NOTES: I'll edit if anything comes up!
WHAT: Arrivals at Skyhold & Junk.
WHEN: Post-Winter Palace. Catchall.
WHERE: Skyhold.
NOTES: I'll edit if anything comes up!
Starters in comments. If you'd like a specific starter, or to make plans for later in the month, just let me know on plurk or Discord (oeste #8807). :)
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The nug doesn't care about Yngvi's ramblings (is used to them, and threats regarding the cooking pot too) so it just nuzzles into the hand after a good sniff. If you're a dwarf of Yngvi's stature beating a hasty retreat from Orlais with a black eye, concussion, and a hail of crossbow fire, a team of them lashed to a keg are a great team of almost-mounts.
"Everything where I come from went on fire. Twice." Right so he missed the second time but oh what a jolly time it was to be fleeing the City of Chains when the Arishok let the lads off the leash. "I keep them with my associate who right now is either up in another chunk of the Frostbacks with the Avvar part of the family that gave me my name, or she's headed Amaranthine way maybe, good time of year to be in Amaranthine. Doesn't smell just as much like dogshit and fish as it usually does though that always depends on the tide. What does it smell like where you come from?"
(There are a hundred easier ways to ask. There it literally one easier way to ask this question Yngvi but that would be dull.)
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A slight jab: She’s clearly not the only one who can drop names. She lifts the snuffling nug to inspect more closely.
Stare into its eyes. Observe the void in the hearts of all mortal creatures. And all that stuff.
Wren sighs. It seems as close to an answer as she’s going to get, and she’ll take it. Not many maneuver themselves into lasting ties across such distances, or with such fearsome associates. But she wasn't sent to dig at the Inquisition's less savoury ties, not so long as they're being clever enough to steer clear of tainted lyrium. She's under no illusions as to how her own supply lines are maintained.
"It smelled like pigshit, before the Blight. I had to go to Val Royeaux to find the fish."
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Most things roll off Yngvi, consequence of a Darktown childhood where you were told, in no uncertain terms, your worth at any given moment. By everyone. Even when you were making bone marrow soup with whatever you found.
By the way he can get the goats, just say the word.
"Well then!" And he brightens because you know what, you might be a Templar but congratulations, you didn't come and ruin his fair city so that's a mark in your favour. (Welcome to hell, welcome to hell!) "My sympathies because it's only fun there if you're getting paid well, and the hospitality gets worse by the year. Did you actually pick Val Royeaux? I'd only tell my boss, and she's from Halamshiral, the bit what got burned so s'not like she fuckin' loved it either."
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"From the sound of things, those bits have expanded substantially." Though certainly not far enough to weigh out the elven losses — to say little of those servants who suffered through both affairs. "It all seemed very grand at the time. The eyes of youth."
Rump Roast gets a pat on the butt as she sets him back down.
"Did you actually pick Ferelden? It's bloody freezing here."
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Not that he's prying for any of the reasons he might be asking.
"When we left Kirkwall," breezy, as if it wasn't a mad dash with as much as they could carry when everything was on fire, and everyone was screaming, "we moved about. But our battlemaster's family is--" And he catches himself suddenly because nearly half a year and sometimes he does genuinely forget that Asher is gone the way the truth of it just steals the breath from him, "was from there. We'd stay 'tween work. I complained, bitterly. Every doglord poured into my home and he was more Avvar than farmer, ran away from all that to make a company that took me further than most everyone here."
Good thing about Asher: all the truest bits about Asher sound like a lie even if there are plenty of far more honest witnesses than him.
"Nevarra is always fun, corpse perfume tastes better than some of the wines they'll charge you sovereigns for. Or lyrium I reckon." He can prod too.
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"Afraid I wouldn't know Nevarra. Barely made it through Cumberland. Armed Orlesians show up, people get touchy." Particularly barbarian templars raised without proper regard for the dead. "But if you ever hanker to compare the three, try swallowing a lit match."
She expects he could test the taste of lyrium, if he cared to — dwarves owning more connections and resistance than most. From their conversation so far, he's more apt to take the match. Perhaps there's some wisdom in that.
Regardless, she's careful not to shift her expression at his slip, allows no hint of pity or sympathy to colour her tone when he speaks of Asher. Such assurances are fine things between friends, but how quickly they grate from a stranger's tongue. She didn't know the man, can't imagine what his absence might mean. It would be callous to assume more of the moment.
Better — or only easier, perhaps — to joke.
"Not a doglord, then," She offers. "But a prince among goats."
It's prompting, something of an oblique little invitation to continue, if he wishes.
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"These days an Orlesian farts and people get touchy. You should go. Poke the corpses, I dare you." Probably a good way to get your head separated from your shoulders but he'd do it, find some right old respected one then run up and give it a good smack on the arse before running off. "Think I'll stick with my perfume, seen some of the things what come out of Orzammar. Look like deepstalkers they do."
So, you know, his sympathies and all that but a dwarf has go to eat or he'll end up with some apostate freezing him so someone else can carve out his kidneys probably.
Snorting, and because he isn't afraid of anything- "Look, it got him some action. Lobbed a goat at a Warden and a Nevarran death mage? Ended up spending the night in their tent. Saying that it's a valid strategy for other things, easier than all the fancy courting."
Is that not the most princely thing? (If there are proper princely things don't speak to him of them, don't shatter his illusions.)
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"For all you know, I've got a trunkful of dye right now. " The smiles widens, loose and crooked, and oddly genuine. This whole exchange, it's like being back in the barracks. Before everything got complicated. Before the Spire's shit began to reek. "But a warden and a necromancer? I may avoid goats for the rest of my days."
Not that she has anything against wardens, really. But the deepstalker might be preferable to a mortalitasi.
"Is that what the nugs are for? Goats look a bit heavy, I admit, but I could get one of these a decent range."
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He has a lot of surly older dwarves he has to report back to. Still, he'd take them and the death mage over wardens since you can't trust folk Orzammar goes about respecting and making deals with.
"Nah, it's how I got from Orlais to Skyhold. Team of twenty. Rump Roast, Nug Wellington, Stroganugg and Truffles are the heavy-hitters and the leaders of the pack. The other sixteen make up the numbers. Understudies if you like." People did indeed witness him sticking the landing when he arrived. Hint: he did not stick the landing.
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"Do you know, I had to beg off dispensation from those?" Great unwieldly things that they are. She wants a word or six with whoever designed the uniforms. Makes you look priestly, sure, as though anyone ever wanted to hear a Templar chant. "Tripped on one, during a chase. Nearly broke my fucking nose."
An admission hopefully distracting enough to keep the conversation flowing.
"Always wondered they didn't nip up the hemlines. Solve the whole problem. How in the void do you get twenty nugs going in the same direction?"
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Some mages are into that, don't judge them. Smuggling letters for them in Kirkwall was boring as hell okay, you had to amuse yourself somehow and reading the letters was a) part of the job because you never know what you'll find and b) a way to stave off the boredom of 'alas and woe, I am bereft in my tower with a real bed and regular meals provided to me for no charge'. Mages. Also Templars but Templars at least bought things more often than not.
You're alright Wren. You're alright. You will never be rid of him. Speaking of which...
He swings himself up somewhat proudly, scoops a nug right up to his face to admire the frankly hideous visage that no longer seems so terrified of him as it was before he answers. "How do you get anything going? Threats. Said I'd start eating them if they didn't get themselves moving. People race them anyway - get one going in a direction, rest of them all go because they're smart enough to realise 'shit, time to go' but not smart enough to scatter." That's good dwarven instinct there. Scattering. Invented by them. He'll fight anyone that says otherwise.
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Because they've had so many of those lately.
"Suffice to say, Val Royeaux has many shrines." And all of them have floors that need mopping. Ah, to be young again.
"They sound easy enough to move, then. Perhaps more difficult to stop." The nugs, that is, not the shrines. Though she supposes that someone more inclined could make a pithy comment about that. "I have heard rumours of some giant, horned breed. Fabulously rare."
She's also heard that Qun's really not so bad, and that if you say 'Meredith Stannard' into a dark mirror three times, she'll appear to tell you off. So she's a little dubious.
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There's too much nonsense going on, everyone just needs to get back to basics. Old school. Just really go for it and see what actually gets done when you rely on instinct instead of fretting about the silverware.
"There's a trick. We only know it up on the surface, surface born only because Orzammar just pollutes you something rotten and that's nothing against the casteless because that's not their fault they got a raw deal but the rest of them? Toss 'em all on the midden I say." Orzammar if you've got your people listening he's putting you on blast, run back and tell Bhelen that the surfacers still hate you thanks. "Oh those things? They got some a while back, in the stables but they aren't what they're cracked up to be. One farted and killed the stable boy then the dracolisks tore out his liver. Tragic."
How handy that Yngvi is spreading the belief of Gallows statues-that-walked-that-one night worship amongst the Kirkwall masses then, what is it with these Kirkwall fringe beliefs eh?
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"So they're already combat-trained," Set a match to the right nuggalope ass, and you could rival Qunari powder. If only half her job weren't making nice to ponces. "And the Dracolisks know to fetch their own rations."
"An Inquisition of many wonders."