faderift | [Open] Time for some enjoyment

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[Open] Time for some enjoyment

WHO: Iskandar and OPEN
WHAT: Iskandar is here to have a good time. Join him?
WHEN: Throughout Drakonis
WHERE: Skyhold and other fun places
NOTES: Probably lots of cute times. Maybe some sad times depending on the threads. But mostly a lot of cute and loud affection. Because Iskandar.

A. It's a new dog!

He'd been wanting one since first seeing the mabari. Now he had one of his own. A fine pup who tended to spend much of his time tripping over his own feet but was ever eager to be with and please the large man. Really he'd been told that an older dog would be recommended but they'd laid eyes on each other and that had been that. After all, once that bond was formed there simply was no going back.

And so one could find him with a puppy in one of the more open areas. They were training and it seemed that the puppy was at least rather intelligent at picking up on things! So long as Iskandar used his native tongue for the commands, something he'd decided to do just to solidify their bond further.

"Heh. What a clever boy you are, my Achilles Alexander!" The pup gave a bark and then happily ate up the piece of meat that he was given. And yes, Iskandar sure had named this dog after himself.

B. Training is important

The best way to perfect how one used their adjusted powers was to, well, use them. So he was around the training grounds to work with the couple of them that he felt could safely be done here. Name the teleportation and invisibility ones. So it was easy enough to spot him standing in one location only to reappear in another. At times he frowned and rubbed his beard as he considered what he'd been doing before trying again.

One could feel free to interrupt him though. He wasn't needing the concentration to do this really.

C. Memories rise to the surface

There were times when even Iskandar needed a moment to reflect, to think on the sadder days. Though he never regretted any of them that hardly meant they didn't weight on his heart. Many had been lost under his command or had given up much to follow him. Then there were times when he remembered Hephaestion and how perhaps he would never see him again. Or that his son would be someone he'd never lay eyes on.

So he was in the gardens with a kitten and a mabari pup curled up together on his lap. Both were sound asleep as if they'd been playing hard until that moment. He smiled down at them fondly, stroked their soft ears as he admired their pure innocence.

"It has been long since I had your purity, little ones."

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Yngvi stares. For a long enough time that it's either rude of worrying. Just right through Iskandar and into the Void itself possibly because where to begin. Where ever. He'd need to go ask Korrin as someone with trusted opinions on how weird rifters generally tended to be.

"Right so that's a good place to start because there are castes in Orzammar because everyone lives for that, can't get enough of sorting where everyone goes and where everyone pretty much stays. It matters down there but up here? Nah. I mean you get nobles but for dwarves then unless they have a brand on their face you wouldn't know anything." People probably think some of those are just tattoos as well because humans (and some elves, looking at you Dalish) don't see anything beyond their own concerns, just 'oh look, that dwarf has a thing on their face, aren't dwarves odd'. "I mean it's all shit, you have to stay in the caste the goes with your parent of the same gender so it turns into flaming bronto shit but that's what they all roll in there but you don't talk about that. Apparently."

They don't actually do that but Yngvi says it with just enough sullen conviction that he's sold it in the past to several merchants and a few younger Avvar when Asher took him to some different holds. And Orlesians but Orlesians are, on the whole, idiots. They don't count.

"Surface dwarves are a caste to some or we aren't, I mean really it's incredible we all haven't fallen up into the sky, it's why when you're a young scamp they keep you down in the dark even up top for ten years. You need to be a certain sort of solid and rooted in things before they say 'yes, this one is ready, let him up into the world'. And that's Kirkwall, bits of Lowtown have only ever heard the most fleeting rumour of the sun whispered to them by the blood mages and the rats." Kirkwall being a living breathing thing on account of literally everything that's happened to Kirkwall.

But he has to add some sage dwarf wisdom that's going to make him sound like so many old dwarves. "Trade happens. And no trade is actually fair, you realise. That's false advertising and lies," he explains as the businessman dwarf that knows it all with an airy shrug, able to distinguish between both of those similar but different things. (Usually the difference between how much the guards manhandle you in Kirkwall.)

Yngvi was a fascinating sort of truths mixed with half truths and lies. Well he assumed some were lies. Honestly he was still picking through all the words to figure out what was the most accurate along the way. Eventually he even moved to sit down on the ground there like he was a student being taught lessons again. The pup was plopped onto his lap and, though he clearly had interest in the nugs, he stayed there with his head resting on the King's knee.

"I see. So the culture of surface dwarves is vastly different from the dwarves of Orzammar. That is very interesting actually. Especially since it would seem many would try to generalize your people and it would be inaccurate to do so." He nodded in a way that said he was going to be keeping that in mind to keep from making the same error.

"Though I would have to disagree with you on the fact that no trade is fair. It can be if done correctly. Though honestly I would say you are getting the better end of the deal in this matter for I will be open and not bend any truths I tell you in the slightest."

Iskandar gave a laugh then a wave of his hand.

"Go on. Ask any questions at all that you wish no matter how serious or otherwise. I will answer them fully and shamelessly."

It's all a delicate balance. Meaning how much can he blatantly get away with because the more you lie loudly to a person's face with confidence, without ever batting an eye, the more likely they are to stop and wonder. Then you take that second to rob them blind. Lessons you learn young in the Carta. Watching the dog behaving around the nugs because they got named after food for a reason, he manages a compliment.

"Good lad." Look at that, his voice didn't even crack or anything, first time saying it since saying bye to Asher's boy for the last time.

"They'd say we don't have a culture, unless it's stabbing which is a culture really because it's got meanings but that's not for the likes of you lot who aren't a part of it." Unless the knife ends up in you. Around you. Waved near you. Even then it depends on intention so again, up to the dwarf honestly if you're actually involved at that point. "Humans are humans, they care about elf stuff because elves are up here with them all the time and there's lots of history with them being shits to the elves, and the Dalish being shits to the city elves. And then there's mages. It's a whole thing." Yngvi shrugs as he rattles it off, listing the things on fingers that look like he's been attacked by a wild animal but it's the cost of doing business when you're an artificer trying out new trap components.

Staring again through his dirty hair that last saw a comb that got 'lost' in it (the comb is silver, he's saving it for a rainy day so he tells the lord that comes looking for it every so often) he makes a face. Who is this man. Is it a man? Who knows what a rifter actually is after all, there are rumours, there are people that refute the rumours, there are then rumours that refute the refuters and on and on it goes.

"You're an odd duck, as one of my six fathers would say." All dwarves have six fathers at the very least, basic dwarfing he is a dwarf, he absolutely vouches for this it's a complex system. "What do you do. Because you can't be a businessman spouting that or you'd be bloody destitute rattling a cup in your hand."

The trouble with Iskandar was that he really had nothing worth stealing on him currently. Save for dog treats. Those likely wouldn't be useful. Ah well, that was for another time and another theft. Possibly. Maybe. Time would tell how this one went.

The pup barked once at being told he was good but stayed where he was. Eager though he was he was going to be a good boy! The dwarf was a stranger but he still had stuff to prove.

"Yes, I've been learning about the mage and templar conflict. It seemed the sort of thing I should get to know about honestly." What with him being a Spirit and all that. Not to mention how he had powers that were something like magic in this world. All things that required he pay attention to what was happening around him at the very least. Good thing he had a great love for learning.

"I'm neither businessman nor destitute. I am a King actually. The King of Conquerors. Though I suppose you could call me the Spirit of Conquest instead." He was still so thoroughly pleased with the title that Cole had bestowed upon him that he just kept using it now. But in the end, yes, that was a King sitting on the dirty ground enjoying conversation with him.

"It's bullshit is what it is. I mean the Templars are all in it for the lyrium in the end, doesn't matter what they say because lyrium is lyrium and you could sell them piss in a bottle with something in it to make it blue and call it lyrium, they'd still buy it and pay you twice the going rate for it if the Chantry cuts them off from it. And mages, boohoo so you were in a tower with regular meals all the time and now you have to deal with the world. Like everyone else has been doing. Forever. It's not like it's asking a lot of them to climb out of their own arseholes." And people still haven't made Yngvi the foreign affairs correspondent with the stunning sensitivity, sense of gravitas, and flair for the spoken word that he's demonstrating right now. No respect, no respect at all for the common dwarf.

Like this. Because he needs to lean over and poke with one particularly grubby hand with chewed nails and bloodied fingers.

"Spirit of getting your leg over?" Look. If you're from Kirkwall, and you're a Carta dwarf, and you're a mercenary, and you lived under the captain Yngvi lived under, that's the only context you heard the word 'conquest' used in okay.

Lyrium. He'd seen mention of that in books but had typically only seen it when associated with mages. Perhaps he'd have to look more into how it was associated with templars as well if this was how they apparently treated it. Like a drug. An addiction. Was it something they actually needed? Or was it something they'd been led to believe they needed? It would be hard to tell until he looked into it further.

Well at least he knew that Yngvi was giving him very good food for thought. He would have to thank him for that later.

But for now he was bursting out laughing. "Ha! Some could easily say as much given the number of beds I have visited and how many women I am married to. However I can tell you that when I say conquest I mean the claiming of lands as my own."

"Why would you want to be married?" Seeing as Yngvi doesn't know how old he is, this is one of the times he probably sounds the young age he actually is. "Are you allowed to do that? Don't they come after you because I'd be worried about my tackle, I've met some women in my life - and men, there are some mad husbands out there too, honestly husbands are actually worse than wives, we've worked for more husbands than wives - that'd come for you. Or is it like the Avvar thing. Not permanent. Married for a bit, seal whatever deal, maybe do the horrible baby bit because you lot do babies a weird disgusting way compared to us and then you're on your way."

Your way being the sweet air of freedom. Then again Asher stayed married. But also in total secret. And there's the Carta. Yngvi does not have a lot of examples of what marriage is.

"So you came through a rift to conquest then?" He is on to you sir.

"As I said, I am a King. Marriage helps to bring heirs but also ensure your rule of a land. Besides that, I am fond of the women I married." He wasn't sure what the Avvar way of marriage was but he was going to have to research that people. They sounded rather fascinating in all honesty.

"Ah but no I did not come to conquer. I actually was in the middle of a battle with a powerful foe when I was carried here. In all honesty, the desire to conquer burns strong in me but it would bring me no pleasure as I am now. There is nothing so satisfying about being this powerful and simply taking. It only breeds humiliation and destruction and that is not what I believe in. I would rather be fully human again like when I was ruling. Then I would fight with all the limitations that comes with."

Most wanted power to win but not him. He would rather be the one without it and fighting against the giants using his own intelligence.

"Maybe how you do marriage makes heirs. Or airs. Does it make those too? Some folk go to the winds when they go and they're still around when you hear a wayward curse carried on them. 'sides only got your word for it don't I? I could sort that but it ain't like me and my titles.". Yngvi finally stops for a breath and to favour this alleged king with one of his knife-edge smiles. What comes of learning manners from strays and Orlesians ladies who by rights ought not to have survived the Game.

Some of that sounds like a reaver. Some of that sounds like a berserker. All of it conjures old stories and memories of times around campfires with drink and meat aplenty. The pain of it is so fierce, so sudden it steals his breath. The mask slides sideways and Yngvi can't quite look at Iskandar for a moment.

Good old Kirkwall senses to the rescue.

"Fully human. Explain. In detail. I'm interested in that because how even.". Is he a demon? Is he dead? Should he poke him like he did that weird tree in Orlais? Fuck it, he's leaning over to poke with a short grubby finger.

Well he could have answered the part about making babies but someone was now poking at him with one of his fingers. He didn't pull back from it and instead just allowed the poking. He seemed fully human. Perfectly solid, definitely there. Of course he was very big for a human but that wasn't the point.

"Well. I'm a spirit summoned by a mage. This is my physical form but it is the soul of the man I was when I was alive. I died centuries ago and am now spirit instead. Does that make sense?"

It was the simplest explanation honestly...

"You and the augur would literally never shut up if you met, you aren't going to Honey Badger Hold." At least not while Yngvi's around. Because how will Gjurd police Yngvi getting up to no good? "Also never be near Aura if she shows up, she's all about spirits and swinging swords too, don't want you near her or I'll set twenty nugs on you and we'll see what they make of a thing like you. They come from the Deep Roads that're full of Darkspawn, look at them. They know things no one was meant to know."

Behold those beady black eyes, fathomless pits of unknowable horrors. Fear the nugs. Fear them.

"Pretty sure you're a thing the Chantry would set on fire. Have the Templars do a Templar thing around in the big Templar skirts. The mages wouldn't be allowed to clap eyes on you unless it was to see how you worked then they'd end up with sunbursts on their heads. You sound like a shady demon thing though, spirits don't do the whole up inside a person the way you're doing it. Spirits are-- a thing. Demons now. Well demons like to have teeth." Look. Yngvi's not wrong from a certain point of view about that bit.

"Well I'm not actually inside a person. This is my own body and not one I have possessed. I suppose some aspects could be considered demonish though." He gave a shrug, obviously not that bothered by the fact. Demons were a pretty normal thing where he was from. Usually summoned by the Caster class though. They were as close to being mages themselves without actually being so. Not that this was helping Iskandar's case but he wasn't one to actually hide anything about himself. This was what he was and people could do with it what they would.

"I'm rather sure they'd have some terrible times setting me on fire though. And I'm actually friends with one of the Templar here. I think he finds me rather odd but most do so that's not all that surprising I suppose."

He laughed then gave him a great big grin. "I'm also not so sure why I should fear these nugs. They are small and I have heard many a mention of them being weak and edible."

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[Open] Time for some enjoyment

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