faderift | OPEN LOG: Establishing a Base in Kirkwall

OPEN LOG: Establishing a Base in Kirkwall

WHO: Many People
WHAT: Cleaning up Kirkwall
WHEN: Cloudreach 1-21
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: This log post is for characters who go early to Kirkwall to assist in preparing it for the rest of those assigned there. We strongly encourage IC discussion of things left to character discretion—someone should definitely do a crystal post to discuss what to do with the personal belongings left behind in the Gallows or what new form the statues should take!

Kirkwall once lived on the edge of the Tevinter Imperium and was home to nearly a million slaves. Stolen from elven lands or shipped from across the sea, all slaves fed the Imperium's unquenchable thirst for expansion. They worked in massive quarries and sweltering foundries that produced stone and steel for the Empire.

The city's complicated past is not easy to forget, history having earmarked many corners of the stone city. A ship approaching the harbor spots the city's namesake: an imposing black wall. It is visible for miles, and carved into the cliff side are a pantheon of vile guardians representing the Old Gods. Over the years, the Chantry has effaced many of these profane sentinels, but it will take many more years to erase them all.

Also carved into the cliff is a channel that permits ships into the city's interior. Flanking the channel are two massive bronze statues—the Twins of Kirkwall. The statues have a practical use. Kirkwall sits next to the narrowest point of the Waking Sea, and a massive chain net can be erected between the statues and the lighthouse, closing off the only narrow navigable lane. This stranglehold on sea traffic is jealously guarded by the ever-changing rulers of the city as the net trolls taxes, tolls, and extortions in from the sea.

—From In Pursuit of Knowledge: The Travels of a Chantry Scholar, by Brother Genitivi

Establishing a presence in Kirkwall is a delicate matter. First, there's Provisional Viscount Bran Cavin—a man so used to batting back friendly offers of entirely harmless occupation of the battered city-state that his first three responses to the Inquisition's leadership appeared to be slightly personalized form letters. Proving that the Inquisition is here to work and not to conquer will be a process. The first step in that process is the second reason the move is delicate: the only building the Provisional Viscount is willing to part with is the Gallows, left quarantined and unoccupied since Knight-Commander Meredith Stannard's famous crystallization into red lyrium in the courtyard. The Gallows have since overgrown with red lyrium. If anyone is going to live and work there, there's a lot of work to do.

↠ Cloudreach 1-3: The Journey There
↠ Cloudreach 3-4: Arrival
↠ Cloudreach 4-14: Haunted
↠ Cloudreach 14-21: Spring Cleaning

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"I'm flattered, but we hardly know one another," Freddie replies, some confusing place between blithe and just dismissive that makes it difficult to tell whether she's joking. "And it was a mediocre meeting. Thoroughly average, which is of course no good at all, is it? One must be excellent, or nothing at all!" She flourishes a fist and again, it's hard to say if this is in earnest or parody of inspirational mottos.

Either way, she keeps moving, setting a brisk pace toward the higher sections of Hightown. (They are, at present, onlyin one of the low middle sections of Hightown.)

"Meetings are so tedious, and a dreadful waste of time anyway. Going and asking is so gauche. Instead, we shall make them come to us."

As they round a corner toward the high street shopping district, she finally turns enough to spot Bellamy's face. "Oh, hello. Sir Spindleweed."

The briskness of each of these replies leaves Bellamy a little bemused. He doesn't get the wordplay, at first--then he does get it, but too belated a comprehension to respond with any cleverness--because she has by then moved right along.

And they have moved right along too, her stride outpacing him easily. By the time she's looked around at him and realized who (more or less) he is, Bellamy has sort of given up on responding to her, let alone responding with any kind of cleverness.

At least he gets half a chance now.

"Bellamy," he repeats for her, with bonus explanation: "Which is a name. Not me being familiar. Hi." The last part is sort of an afterthought. "So, what. You're here to buy bribes? Catch more flies with honey, that whole tactic?"

Because, you know. They're in the shopping district.

Freddie scoffs. It is perhaps the most Orlesian sound a person could possibly make.

"Bribe is such an ugly word. I am here to...demonstrate incentives, shall we say." She stops short of actually entering the main drag of the shopping distract, side-stepping into a small and quiet plaza with a central fountain where she can turn to look at Bellamy more fully, making an appraising scan even as she continues speaking.

"Shops will see me, a woman of wealth and taste, interested in the Inquisition. They will see that I have a great deal of coin to spend and hear that I may choose where to spend it, and more still from Inquisition coffers. That I am discerning in which retailers I choose to patronize. They will think 'oh! the Inquisition must not be the rogue refugee rabble we have heard! they have coin and taste and customers we wish to impress will be swayed to hear that we supply them!' and they shall come knocking at our doors." She flips one hand in a loose-wristed gesture of dismissal, "Or something like this. But first we must get you new armor, Sir Bellamy Spindleweed."

Edited 2017-04-30 15:16 (UTC)

What all of that comes down to is influence by wealth, which is something Bellamy has observed, if not been swayed by. Or had any means to exercise that kind of influence, for that matter.

What the lady's long explanation comes down to is very brisk and delivered in the same tone as the rest of it, so much so that he nearly misses it. What?

"We?" he repeats. Returns her look, though his is much less appraising, more like defiant prey in the face of a predator. "I'm here to escort you. That's all."

And, also: "What's wrong with my armor?"

"It is plain, and has plainly seen hard use, and is not the slightest bit impressive," Freddie replies briskly, "It will not do for our purposes at all. Come!"

She's already turning, heading back out of the plaza, assuming he will follow. "Our first stop will be to ensure you look the part. I should hate for people to think I am so stingy with my escorts as this."

"It's armor, not a costume. If it looks like it's seen use, that's 'cause it has." The base of what he's wearing he's worn pretty much since Kaiten, and any upgrades he's collected in bits and pieces since, cobbling together better pieces here and there off corpses and abandoned storage. "Means I've done stuff. Not just stood around in a courtyard somewhere."

He's been given a task, so he has to follow her. But he's not happy about it--or, more, he's not sure about it, but he's playing it off like unhappiness.

"I'm part of the Inquisition," sort of, "not your personal escort. You know I don't have coin for a shopping spree, right?"

"And I heartily applaud you for having done stuff, I assure you, but at present the stuff we must do requires a bit of costuming," Freddie tells him, faintly exasperated, but only faintly. "And of course you need not pay a cent out of your own pocket. You shall simply have to swallow your pride for the greater good, but I am sure any loyal soldier of the Inquisition can manage a task as small as that, yes?"

She gestures at the shop before them, its windows full of glittering pieces of very fine armor. This time she's actually awaiting his answer before going onward, clearly wanting assurance he will play along nicely before they go inside.

Any loyal soldier of the Inquisition, sure, but any normal loyal soldier of the Inquisition probably has a likewise normal amount of pride. Whereas Bellamy has a lot of pride, which is why he balks now, looking from the nice shiny armor to her face.

"I don't need you to buy me anything. You want someone better dressed, fine. I'll finish this assignment and go back and tell the Inquisition to send you someone else next time."

Even if that armor looks nice. Too nice, maybe. Bellamy jerks his head toward the window.

"Who's to say that stuff is even any good in a fight?"

Freddie rolls her eyes, and plants her hands on her hips.

"A question for the armorer awaiting such queries in the shop, don't you think?" She squints at him. "Are you always this eager to talk yourself out of assignments any other soldier would give his left foot for?"

"This isn't part of the assignment." And in Bellamy's experience, gifts aren't given without some kind of condition or expectation of reciprocation, which he'll never be able to meet. Not enough for her standards, anyways. "And I don't do charity. Especially not when my armor's fine."

But she also looks like she's not giving up on this. Bellamy is more than familiar with the stance she's adopted, that hands-on-the-hips, digging in for the long haul kind of look. Clarke gives it to him often enough, though usually more bulldoggish.

Bellamy sighs.

"If I go in there, it's only because I don't want to argue with you."

Freddie's got a retort to that all ready to go. Bellamy will be able to tell, or at least guess, as familiar as he is with domineering women digging in their heels. All the hallmarks are there, even if she wears them differently than Clarke does.

She also responds differently to victory: he capitulates, and Freddie grins, big and bright and delighted. It can't quite be called triumphant, but only because one gets the sense she was never in any doubt about getting the end result.

"Excellent! Come along, then. I think you will be pleasantly surprised, Sir Spindleweed, if you will only let yourself."

She pushes through the front door, a bell dinging once, a softly carrying tone that brings a man trotting up to assist them. Everything about him screams blacksmith, except for the delicate lavender doublet he's somehow crammed onto his massive frame. Freddie does a doubletake, but recovers quickly to smile.

"Good afternoon, sir. I'm afraid my man here--his baggage was lost overboard in a storm and as you can see he's nothing left at all suitable for wear. Normally of course I would require Haut-Brion livery, but we are more on Inquisition business than barony at present, so perhaps something more subtle?"

Bellamy's face communicates his inner thought: that he very much doubts he will be pleasantly surprised, no matter what happens beyond the door of the shop. He follows the lady inside anyways, his grim air more suitable to a man marching to some great trial.

This means that he's already looking unimpressed when he takes in the sight of a blacksmith in a lavender doublet, and continues to look unimpressed as the lady dismisses his current attire as unsuitable. Already said what he's going to say to that point, no point in saying it again. Haut-Brion. He makes a mental note of the family name that she drops so casually, and otherwise keeps his arms folded over his chest, impassive and unimpressed.

The blacksmith is already nodding, swept along by the promise of custom. Not quite what Bellamy is used to. He's going to be on her side, that much is clear; Bellamy shoots the lavender doublet another look. Great.

"No plate armor," he says, gruffly. Protesting will mar the image of 'dutiful servant', but that's fine. He's not on her payroll. "And no feathers."

"No plate?" Freddie's nose wrinkles. "You want something less than the best?" She flicks a hand and shrugs, already turning away, "Suit yourself." As for no feathers, she makes no promises. What she does make is the armorer step aside so she can whisper with him, in that way where lots of hissy noises travel to make very clear that they are whispering. She gestures at Bellamy several times.

When she's finished the smith bows politely and takes a step into the back of the shop, and a minute or two later he and assistants begin streaming back out, bearing bolts of cloth and scraps of metal and measuring tapes and pads and pencils. They herd Bellamy up onto a small circular platform before several mirrors, and proceed to begin measuring and checking coloring and maker knows what. One bolt of cloth is a bright, sickly green nearly the color of the anchor in a rifter's hand. Another is a soft pink, subtly embroidered with tulips. One swatch of chain mail is striped, black and silver. Even the helm they use for sizing has multiple holes in which one might secure a feather.

It is, in short, his nightmare. Which Freddie is no doubt enjoying, as she perches not-quite sitting on the edge of a windowsill, alternating between idly watching passers-by on the street and observing the flurry of activity and Bellamy's expressions as it surrounds him.

"You can't do anything in plate," Bellamy informs her, perhaps in vain. He doesn't trust the whispering or the gesturing, but he is powerless to really do anything about it--besides leave, of course, which he could do. And might.

Until he can't, because he's surrounding by fabrics and samples and measuring tapes and a lot of technical conversation with regards to style and his own measurements, cavalierly bantered about. None of this is directed at him.

This is well beyond any kind of treatment he's ever had, and it's overwhelming at first. Then it is nightmarish. One look at that sick green and he scowls, only to be met with the embroidered pink, and then a yellow that looks like bile, and on and on and on, and even when he says no, no one pays him mind.

Except the lady, who catches his eye when he's trying to step away from an invasive tape measure.

"Can you make them stop?"

One of the assistants loops a strand of lace around his wrist. Bellamy shakes free, with a scowl.

"Look, I appreciate the gesture. All of this isn't necessary."

She caaaaan... And does, after a moment of trollish hesitation. All it takes is a nod to the armorer and he claps his gigantic hands with surprising delicacy, and the whole troop scurries back from whence they came.

"As we discussed," Freddie says to the man, deliberately cryptic.

He nods. "It will all be ready in an hour, my lady."

"Excellent. Come, Sir Bellamy, we shall pass the time at our next errand."

As before, she doesn't wait to make sure he's following, just assumes and sweeps out the door the wigged servant holds for them both. He will want to follow this time though, as she leads the way just a few blocks over to a shop marked by a window full of displayed books.

"No, wait. What's going to be ready in an hour?" Bellamy demands, before he follows after her. The armorer answers him with a smile; the assistants are in a deep bow, so they miss the threat of Bellamy's glare. And Freddie is already gone, disappeared out that door, and if he's not going to get his answer here he'll have to get it from her, a point to which he concedes with an irritated sigh.

Outside, it's as sunny and lovely a day as it was when they entered the shop. Freddie's boots click on the cobblestones and pavement. Bellamy's tread is heavier, a rush to catch up with her.

"Hey," he says, when she's in earshot, "what's going to be ready in an hour? I don't like surprises."

But he does like bookshops. As they draw up closer to the bookshop, as it becomes apparent that this is their intended destination, Bellamy loses some of his intensity. Warily, he eyes the window before he shoots his gaze back to Freddie. Like maybe this is a trap.

Freddie heaves a great sigh and turns on her heel to face Bellamy, hands on hips, her lips pressed into an unimpressed line, her eyebrows tilting to match.

"Obviously the answer is the armor and livery we agreed that you needed for these errands and just spent half an hour ordering. Honestly, Sir Spindleweed, if you're this dull I think perhaps you'd best wait outside for this one. I shouldn't like to introduce you to Messere Larsen if you might taint his views of me, I've been quite enjoying his recommendations. The man has a positively encyclopedic knowledge of the pre-Blight dwarven kingdoms, and I've high hopes he might be able to find me commentaries on Gundren's Observations, and I should hate to jeopardize my chances."

Edited (somehow deleted half a sentence hi) 2017-05-21 02:11 (UTC)

She turns just suddenly enough that Bellamy has to pull up short, lest he crash into her--which means he starts this conversation already wrong-footed but, really, what else is new.

Oh. "Well-- yeah," he says, his tone somewhere between gruffly irritated and defensive, "I know that. I meant whatever you were whispering about to that shopkeep. And I'm not waiting outside."

Not because of some insulting order, but especially not because-- well. Despite himself, Bellamy glances over at the window again, taking in the slight of the books. It's a risk, giving her the opportunity to start in on him again, but the sight of all of the books is enough to distract him.

"That's what you're into? Dwarf stuff?" He looks back at her, eyebrows raised. "Thought you Orlesians were all about good taste."

Freddie has no intention of giving him any hints as to what sort of costume may be awaiting him on their return to the armorer, and besides, talking about books is far more interesting. Even if he's going to be insulting right back at her. (Perhaps especially if he is.)

"And what, pray tell, is your objection to 'dwarf stuff'? Are you one of those men so intimidated by their beard growing abilities that you disdain anything to do with dwarves at all?" Her eyes narrow at him in suspicion. "I am into many things, but I am also one of the world's foremost scholars of dwarva architecture, so yes, it is."

Edited 2017-05-23 18:26 (UTC)

"The world's foremost, huh." I could grow a beard, Bellamy does not say. Instead he looks back at the window, opting instead to study the books rather than face down the force of Freddie's gaze. He could take it, he's stared down and been stared down by worse. But why would he when he could stare at stacks of books instead? "I didn't say I had an objection. Just didn't think a lady from Orlais would care about dwarves that much, beyond their crafts and stuff."

Because, Orlais. Well-known fact that ladies of Orlais care mostly for stuff.

"They've got books on dwarva architecture in there?"

"The world's foremost." Freddie's not modest, don't worry. She hits that foremost hard, gimlet eyed gaze and all. Test her at your peril, Bellamy.

But if he doesn't have an objection, then okay. "Their crafts are fine, of course, but their architecture is the true marvel. Entire kingdoms hollowed out of the earth! And the rare above-ground installations, like the Storm Coast. There's a great deal to be learned from their engineering, but dwarves are more often given credit for their engineering than for their artistry. I think the beauty of their work goes too often unappreciated. For instance, if you--" She pauses, catches herself, smiles crooked.

That's all the acknowledgment her running-on gets, as she pivots quickly. "They have a small but well-curated selection of such books. Why, Sir Bellamy, what sort of books are to your taste?"

His sole objection would be: what about scholars who are also dwarves, who probably have a leg up on some University-trained lady from Orlais. She moves on quickly enough that he doesn't have time to mention it. Any free space in the conversation is apparently going to be filled by her, even when she cuts off mid-sentence in that mini lecture as she turns away.

Okay. Just answer that last question, Bellamy tells himself. Make this easy.

"History." He steps around her to get the door. That's also what he's here for, right? If he's a little brusque in his movements, so what. "I like history. Got a well-curated selection of those too?"

"History," Freddie says, and it's both approval and tease all in one, some murky morass of a tone. "A valuable subject, no doubt, but so very vague. Surely you can be more specific than that, Sir Bellamy?"

She'd like him to be, that much is obvious. It makes answering his question more difficult, but also makes it far more interesting, and Freddie has always been one to value interest over ease. She remembers now that little hint of interest when they first met and she mentioned the University, recalls the sharpening of his gaze, the glint in it. She hadn't really noticed at the time, but there it is filed away in her brain. She looks at him more closely now, assessing.

"We can find history of all sorts within, but I can hardly say more specifically until you do."

Edited (that entire middle paragraph was a meaningless word-maze) 2017-06-19 02:51 (UTC)

Bellamy's mouth draws into a thin line, unimpressed with whatever it is he's meant to make of her tone.

"I'm not a sir." Important correction. He folds his arms over his chest. As eager as he is to get to the books, he's also determined to dig in, stubbornness momentarily outweighing his curiosity. "And yeah. I can be more specific. I'm interested in historical battles. Warfare. That kind of thing. Big campaigns, wars... the way troops were trained by people that don't exist anymore. And people who do. Specific enough for you?"

If he's gruff about it, it'll go a long way to cover childish eagerness.

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OPEN LOG: Establishing a Base in Kirkwall

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oh hi