faderift | I. CLOSED.

WHO: Caliban and Others
WHAT: A new arrival Skyhold.
WHEN: Mid-Firstfall.
WHERE: Skyhold.
NOTES: Initial arrival is closed, later Firstfall threads that are open pending (or will tag into other things).

The scruffy pony probably did most of the work in what had felt, to a natural born city dweller, like an arduous and treacherous journey through the icy slopes of the Frostback Mountains. These peaks had been simply a backdrop on a clear day. Travelling into the heart of them felt as feasible as entering an oil painting.

Yet here he is. Caliban gets past the guards with a token of permission: the dim green glow nested in the palm of his hand.

Not much else in the way of instruction, though, but he didn't exactly make conversation. He leads his mount into the muddy courtyard, a stranger, if people are getting used to familiar faces by now. The clothing he is bundled in is peasant-made and unimpressive, and he has a bow and quiver at his back, and a hefty bundle with the feathered ends of arrows peaking, tied to the saddle. A cowl disguises pointed ears, but sometimes you can just tell in these parts, with the narrowness of his face and the brightness of his eyes, without any tribal markings to otherwise distinguish him.

It's warmer, up here. He'd noticed that before, but his journey seems to have set a chill in his bones that is stubborn to shake. Stiffly, he forces himself to let go of the reins, and awkwardly kick a foot out of the stirrup. His dismounting swiftly becomes an awkward slip and collapse.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Go to the mire, he thought, it would be FUN he thought, a mission for the ages- he is wet, weary, cold, and shrugging out of his own pack in the courtyard when the muddied figure wanders their way in. Another elf, not quite dalish, with that strange glow all the rifters carried.

Odd.

Zevran is curious enough to watch but not so much as to approach- at least until the elf started to collapse. Decency (when did THAT become a thing) spurs him to dart forward and sling an arm around the elf's waist, helping him meet the ground in a more gentle fashion. "Easy- you are frozen to the bone, are you not? Let us get you to a fire to thaw."

Alistair hadn't been intentionally looking for the elf he knows anymore than the elf he doesn't, but there he was in the courtyard, and here they both are beside a that may not be overworked but is certainly worked, so here is Alistair as well, coming up behind them.

He touches the pony first. The side of her neck, one mildly-heaving side. She's all right.

"I can get his feet," Alistair offers in lieu of hello. Really, he could sling him over one shoulder and carry him, but that's less fun--and this is already not very fun. He manages a twitchy half-smile to greet Zevran, but looking back at the fallen elf, he's all concern. He wraps the pony's reins around his hand; she can come to the fire, too.

Caliban doesn't exactly collapse his weight into Zevran's waiting arms, but there's an off-balance that needs steadying, and is, successfully. No faceplanting into the courtyard muck, with his hand going to to grip the other elf by the sleeve before he has a sense of what he's doing. And so, summarily shoves-- himself, away, rather than managing the strength to use any kind of outward force.

He bumps back into his horse, who sort of just shuffles into Alistair in annoyance, but puts up no such resistance to her reins being taken.

There's an offended look tossed to Alistair at the notion of his feet getting got, then back to Zevran, kneejerk reaction over with. His hood if fallen back, and scarlet hair seems muddier and dark with wet from perspiration and the dampness of his snowy hike settled into his garments.

"I'm just here to--"

Spoilers, Caliban doesn't exactly know, but he does spread his palm indicatively. His hand is empty, until the light glances off it a certain way, and the queasy sliver of green glow flares. But even if there was an immediate solution present, he probably ought to sit at that fire anyway, his other hand flung out to rest his balance against his horse, who seems over it too.

"...Right. Fire. Food. Healer. Tell me, do we have a mage that can examine this strange green mark on his hand or are they still of the 'shit if I know' school of thought?" Zevran steps back in, arm looping easily around the elf's waist. Frozen, muddy, and exhausted. This is a feeling he knew well. All the more reason to give the elf a nudge to the nearest fire where there might be warmth and food and, perhaps, an explanation as to what in the Maker's name gave someone from their world that mark.

"He can walk. We can walk. You grab something savory and hot for him to eat- and not the lamb stew. We do not wish to kill our new friend, yes?"

"Lamb stew never killed anyone," Alistair says, except perhaps out of boredom and distaste--but that's his only argument. He takes a moment to look around the pony at the elf's hand, his own held flat underneath without touching him to encourage him to keep it visible. It's difficult to creep Alistair out anymore, but these shards are making a good try at it. "They don't know yet. I'll..."

Go. Do that.

"You'll be all right," he assures be elf before he goes. He takes the pony with him, long enough to hand her off to one of the servants with instructions to warm her up, and scrounges food--stale bread and stew, but not his stew--from some of the other refugees loitering around other fires.

Zevran's persistence wins out of Caliban's own reflexive stubbornness. Fire. Food. Healer. Mages that don't know anything, but that part seems like a distant and abstract concept, to be contemplated in the future when the worst of the icy mountain trek is behind him. Now that his hand has been seen, he huddles it against his chest, knotted into a fist.

Allowing the other elf to support him as they walk, he glances back at the human with his horse, the one that still has his stuff attached to it, distrustful as a matter of habit, before resignedly letting it be. There's not much he can do about it now.

"They said it's like what the Herald had," he says, and his tone doesn't seem to imply that this in any way thrills him. Or that he even believes it in the way people mean it. It serves as explanation as to why he's here, if anything.

"It will all be where you left it. Alistair is a Grey Warden. They may conscript goods but they rarely steal them." Especially Alistair. He's a poor thief on any day, let alone one when he's worried about some stranger and busy being decent. It must be exhausting for him to be so decent all the time. A burden Zevran never has to worry about overmuch.

For the moment he focuses on guiding the elf, whoever he is, to the kitchens. It'll be warmest there and there will be food he can bribe or beg of the cooks. Most likely bribe.

"It is at that. There are others here with similar marks- the mages have been doing what research they can." Other than knowing that it hurts those that carry it? No one knows anything more.

Alistair doesn't steal his stuff. It would be nice to report that he also makes any arrangements for it, but he's been spoiled by a decade of everyone being too afraid or too respectful to rob him. The pony and its saddlebags vanishes into the stables. Maybe the fact that it was Alistair doing the handing-off will mean that Caliban's things will be waiting in a neat and complete pile for him inside the stall when he goes looking for it. Maybe he'll never see his things again. Either way, there will be food first, so. He's welcome.

Alistair catches up to them before they reach the steps to the kitchen door and takes them two at a time so he can open it ahead of them. (Manners.)

"They'll make progress any year now," he offers. More helpful, perhaps: "No one's died of it yet. Except the Herald."

Perhaps not.

"We could tell them it hurts the people that carry it."

Which, that's probably how that went down, Caliban, but he can't help but sigh out this observation anyway as Zevran leads him into the kitchens. The people they pass are a mix of human and elf, and the friendlier implications of this community doesn't seem to relax him. But upon stepping inside, a little tension eases away, the fire-warmed air easing cold swifter from his bones.

Topics of 'food' and 'the Herald died of it' war with Caliban's attention. He divides it neatly, bright hazel eyes settling on where firelight leaks out of the edges of iron doors and with it, the scent of roasting meat, even as he says, "I want to get rid of it. Nothing fancy. I don't mind just getting rid of it."

It's fine. Andraste can touch other people, he'll be on his way.

"They may or may not know that already." Zev deposits this particular elf by the fire and passes coin to the nearest serving girl. A bowl of stew, a hunk of bread, a pint of ale. A simple meal indeed but after so long in the freezing weather of the mountains? more than enough to warm the bones. Zevran offers all this to their wayward associate.

"Unless you want to lose your hand? It is not so simple as removing that which glows." Not for lack of trying, or so he has heard.

I. CLOSED.

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