A FOOL'S ERRAND | Closed.

[limier]

WHO: Wren Coupe + Malcolm Reed, Ioane, Inessa Serra, Simon Ashlock, Cade Harriman, Anders + NPCs
WHAT: The Inquisition has word that a handful of Red Templars may have broken from Corypheus' control. A team has been sent to investigate, and decide upon a course of action.
WHEN: Forward-dated to the end of the month.
WHERE: The Free Marches
NOTES: OOC Post; Violence, body horror, language. Will edit if stuff comes up.

Pieces will be edited in as we go!

Contents;

• Arrival
• Confronting Ser Hayes
•  

Previous Conversations;

• Taashaath
• Malcolm - 1, 2, 3
• Norrington - 1, 2
• Samson
• Anders

 

Comments

SIMON & CADE - Team "Issues Like Vogue"

[limier]

Assignment: Someone's passed red letters through this village. Look like Templars, and see if you can flush anyone out.

Notable information:

Cade will meet with more wariness than Simon, by simple virtue of talking less. The more they speak, the easier people are with them.

The barman-slash-unofficial Chantry host is sympathetic, and oddly-knowledgeable. He asks detailed questions about their service.

Distracting him to look around will reveal the shrine is based around a small statue of Andraste; identical to those issued in philter boxes.

He is also apparently illiterate — but he boasts that his daughter can read.

The Song is faint, but present; it's strongest on the outskirts of the village, closer to the trees.

OOC Notes: Feel free to handwave as much or as little of this as you'd like, and generally use the thread for whatever talky purposes you want! If you want/need me to NPC, just ping me on plurk and I'll drop in.

[paladingus]

Well, if there's one thing these two can manage without issue, it's looking like templars. Even out of armor, the vibe clings to Simon like the scent of Chantry incense. It's no trouble to polish up the old skirt and breastplate and adopt his most pious air of peacekeeping and just-championing.

One would think he could give it a rest for the moment, at least, when they're still a good twenty minutes' walk from the town limits, but there's nobody Simon feels more compelled to be templary around than fellow templars, and Cade is...an unknown quantity. Simon remembers him as well as he remembers anything about his Gallows service, but he'd never gone out of his way to know him more than passingly. Mostly, he recalls the incident with those other knights and that charming young lady from the Blooming Rose--and he had felt bad for Cade, truly, but he'd also privately had to admit to himself that he wasn't sure why all the fuss was necessary. It hadn't exactly read as the sort of nose-in-the-air moralizing that the other chaste templars back in the Starkhaven barracks had been prone to, but Cade's presence still prompts a low level of wary self-consciousness. It is nice to see a familiar face again, after this long, but the silence between them feels heavy with the potential for judgment. Simon breaks it as quickly as he can.

"Been a while, hasn't it?" he says. "I hope life hasn't been treating you too badly in the meantime."

[onlyhymns]

Unfortunately for Simon, Cade remembers him even less specifically: he's one of the many Other Templars from their days in the Order, and although Cade can't recall any specific unpleasant encounters with Simon, that doesn't mean there weren't any. It just means he doesn't remember.

For this reason he's been aloof since they first reunited, beyond his usual shyness and general social incompetence. But now that they're on a mission together, it seems inevitable that they'll have to talk.
"It's been fine," he says evasively, glancing Simon over as he adjusts his gauntlets. Though he doesn't say it, something in his expression seems to add 'no thanks to you'. Kirkwall went to hell and Simon wasn't there. No wonder he's as upbeat as he is. That's fine.

[paladingus]

There's nothing less forgivable than when someone prods at a thing one hates about oneself for a good reason. It's second-nature for Simon to append a mental no thanks to me to any discussion of Kirkwall's redemption after its troubles, but there's always still an irrational hope that other people won't feel that way.

Fine, he thinks hotly, if it's going to be like that, never mind how stupid a question that had been or how well he knows it. He looks away and measures the length of the trail ahead of them.

"Good." Don't look shamefaced; that's how they get you. That's what they want. Own it, matter-of-factly, and it strips the satisfaction out of the judgment--doesn't it?

"I won't pretend I know what it must have been like in Kirkwall. There wasn't much to see in Ansburg."

sorry he's impossible to talk to aaa

[onlyhymns]

"Mm," Cade intones, acknowledging that Simon spoke but not bothering to reassure him or commiserate. He's not angry with him, necessarily, but this is the first time Cade has donned full Templar armor since he was disciplined for The Beleth Situation, and he's all too aware that it doesn't fit him quite the same anymore. He's a different person than he was even a year ago. Nobody could be the same person they were, not after what happened in Kirkwall and the resulting chaos.

As they wander into the town, his gaze is constantly moving, checking, fixing briefly on quick motion and then darting away to the next thing. There's much to see, and he's gripped by a familiar fear as the townspeople take notice of them as well. He hates to be stared at. If Cade could wish for one thing only, it would be to never catch anyone's notice again.
He glances furtively at Simon out of the corner of his eye, gauging his reaction as well.

no he's great shh

[paladingus]

Simon is every bit as sensitive to being stared at as one might expect from a man who leaps to the defensive over an entire narrative he's crafted from a sidewise glance. Under these particular circumstances, though, he's a great deal better at hiding it. He walks into town with his spine straight and head held high, trying to look like the devout protector of the innocent he's theoretically supposed to be.

It's mostly the fact that unlike Cade's judgment, he doesn't feel he deserves these peoples' censure. He understands it, certainly--outsiders mean change, and change is always a tossup for small-town folk, especially in recent years--but he's a lot more optimistic about being able to mitigate it. He imagines what his parents would want to hear from a couple of strange templars who'd come barging into town. It's not necessarily an ideal way to go about things; his family is still more well-to-do than anyone he lays eyes on here, but it's a start.

"It's best if you let me do the talking," he murmurs, eyes still forward. "They'll hear 'noble' the second you open your mouth, and then we'll never get a word out of anyone. No offense." 'You sound rich' is not a compliment, from Simon, but neither does he mean it as an insult at the moment.

no YOU ARE

[onlyhymns]

Cade pretty much always deserves people's judgment, as far as he's concerned, even if he hasn't done anything. When they stare at him knowingly it's because he either did something stupid without realizing it or is about to do something stupid, and either way the outcome is the same, so it's just nice to know before he can make a bigger fool of himself.
But then Simon talks again, and somehow, it's a lot less acceptable coming from him.
Cade looks at the man with an expression that could only be described as affront. "I haven't been a noble for over twenty years," he murmurs incredulously, "but go on then, talk away." He'll technically always be a noble by blood, but being given to the Chantry has its symbolism. He'll never inherit.

:D

[paladingus]

"It's not something you can get rid of," he says, unflinching in the face of Cade's offense. Devout as Simon is, he's still never been able to bring himself to place much stock in symbols, even the ones that run more toward the practical. "As if it's just about wealth or land or what have you. People know when they're talking to someone who's never had to worry a day in his life about where a meal was coming from."

He's making a slight hypocrite of himself again, when he can't truthfully say that his own family had ever been in danger of starving or anything. The roof over their heads had only once really been imperiled by financial straits, and they'd survived. But lean times for a craftsman's family are nonetheless, in general, a hell of a lot leaner than they are for anyone born with a title.

"I'm not accusing you of putting on airs on purpose. You never seemed like the sort. But I doubt you know what these people want to hear."

[onlyhymns]

Oh Maker.
Cade has a particular look that he can affix on people, one of outrage so profound that it manifests almost as a blank stare, like he's beyond even comprehending how anyone could be so offensive. It's a classic 'you don't know me, you don't know my life' situation, but being as bad at confrontation as he is, Cade just looks away again, processing this. He just shakes his head mildly, letting Simon talk. Sure. Whatever.

[paladingus]

Simon takes it in stride as best he can. He doesn't know Cade's life, only his somewhat infamous name, from which he chooses to draw conclusions whether they're likely to be true or not. He has nowhere near enough ingrained loyalty to the Vaels to blame Cade for anything his relatives may have done to them, but nonetheless, he stubbornly refuses to believe anyone with a surname as grand as Harimann is going to be relatable to the population of a backwater like this.

"All right," he murmurs, "there's the pub." Such as it is. "Good a place as any to start. I'll buy us a round--" If you're going to be that shirty about it when anyone assumes you've got money.

He pushes open the door, trying (and not entirely succeeding) to look like he's not studying the room and its inhabitants when he does. The barman is polishing the tiny counter with a rag, and it only takes Simon half a stride before he's smack up against it.

[limier]

It’s one of the better homes in the village, but it’s still clearly a house converted — and the tiny shrine behind the counter speaks to more than one purpose for everything.

The barman lifts one shaggy eyebrow, smiles that broad, bright way people get when they smell money. It eases into something more natural as he takes the rest of them in.

"Sers," Surprise, but no displeasure to it. "Just get into town, did you?"

He yanks a thumb at the door.

"'Course you did, everyone's been talking about it. What can I do you for?”

[onlyhymns]

"I don't drink," Cade mutters under his breath, one of the many other ways Simon is stupid and wrong, but he doesn't do anything to dissuade him from whatever wrong stupid thing he's going to do on entering the pub.
He glances at the barman when they're greeted, but doesn't answer in favor of glancing furtively over the room. One never knows.

[paladingus]

Simon has already breezed his way out of earshot by the time Cade mumbles that, and this is probably for the best. He'll be buying two drinks no matter what, because he thinks they'll have a difficult enough time ingratiating themselves to this crowd as it is without taking up two spaces at the bar for the price of one, but what Cade chooses to do with his share of the booze is his own business.

It's a novelty for him, being the socially adept one in any given group, but Simon's just glad the barkeep is making a pretense of friendliness. It makes it a lot easier to feign warmth in turn.

"Already?" he says, putting his coin down on the counter with a smile and slipping into as broad a country accent as he can manage and still sound natural. He hasn't set foot on the docks of his tiny fishing village for years, but it's a little like remembering how to ride a horse. "Suppose I can't blame them. We are awful handsome. Two pints of your finest, if you would."

[onlyhymns]

Cade comes to stand behind Simon, looking dour and anxious. He is a bad person to have along on a reconnaissance mission, because he sees threats everywhere and can't even blend into his own Order, let alone groups of strangers.

[limier]

His eyes linger on Cade, like sizing up a mule to see if it'll kick.

Apparently satisfied, he takes to pouring ('finest' is here a synonym for whatever's there —) and chatters on:

"My lass'll be sorry to miss it. Not every day we get excitement around here."

The trouble of finding threats in everything is that it's difficult to pick out a signal from noise. Still, if Cade's awareness allows him any focus, he'll notice there are books. Books, and glass. Common enough things in a Circle or a wealthy home; out of place here. Not so different from watching the shoes of refugees.

"That Starkhaven I hear? What brings you out all this way?"