faderift | [OPEN] now that you're living on the hill

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[OPEN] now that you're living on the hill

WHO: Simon and OPEN.
WHAT: Getting reacquainted with Kirkwall.
WHEN: Justinian, just like whenever.
WHERE: All over the city.
NOTES: I'm always happy to write up another starter if you'd like!

I. Hanged Man

Simon's never been a big drinker. He doesn't mind letting people size him up and assume he could drink them under the table, but on the whole, he thinks he has enough vices to atone for without being a lush on top of it all.

But some boredom needs the big guns busted out to take care of it. The Hanged Man has mostly lost the aura of forbidden mystery and excitement it had held when he was a teenage recruit in the Gallows, but the aura of shame and insufficient sanitation that's since replaced it isn't enough to keep him away when it's the only place in town he can afford. He's at the bar, on his third pint, cheering on the brawl that's begun on the other side of the room.

II. Living Quarters

There's plenty about the city that seems unfamiliar now that he's returning to it in his thirties, after nearly a decade and an intervening war, and on the whole, the strangeness isn't a bad thing. He hadn't liked the place to begin with. But all the same, there's something to be said for a little bit of familiarity here and there, and sharing the old templar rooms with Cade again isn't the bad kind of deja vu. It's certainly an improvement on the group quarters. He's on his way to move what few possessions he has into the room, whistling as he carries the box.

III. Markets

The marks from being electrically charbroiled by a furious lightning mage are beginning to fade, but the excruciating stiffness of having all his muscles involuntarily locked up and the bruises from the resulting deadweight collapse aren't quite so quick to dissipate.

Or perhaps they would be, if he were a little more patient with them, but Simon is not a man who takes well to any kind of imposition on his physical fitness. An injury that thinks it's going to keep him off the training grounds is an injury that needs to be taught a lesson and slapped right back into its place, damn it. To that end, he's wandering the market in his civvies, in search of some kind of potion or poultice that can teach his ornery muscle strain who's boss.

IV. Wildcard

Go nuts!

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"Oh, I wouldn't say that," he says, but it's admittedly hard to finish the sentence when he remembers the dire warnings he'd received just for asking where he might find her. "...well, all right, maybe a little." He hasn't been in much of a smiling mood today, but he can't help returning hers.

It fades into something ever so slightly shamefaced when she asks. Simon has gravely exasperated every healer who's ever had the misfortune of trying to treat him, and he is not unaware of the reason why.

"Nothing really," he admits. "I thought maybe I just needed to loosen it up and it'd work like it ought to after some exercise, so I've just been training as normal...I mean, I'm sure I still could, if I just numb the pain." The last thing he wants is to look like a wuss in front of her.

Edited 2017-06-02 08:26 (UTC)

She lifted a brow at that. "You are certain you have no Avvar in your blood?"

It was foolish though in this case and she lowered his arm again. Removing her own coat, she settled for just wearing her tunic since it would mean better movement for her arms. Then she was reaching into her bag to start fishing for things.

"This seems recent. How long ago were you touched by lightning?"

"People did spread a couple rumors when I was a lad, but sadly, no." That's about the best compliment anyone could give him, though, even if it would make a revered mother smack his knuckles with a ruler and lecture him about the duty of a proper Andrastian to the heathens.

"About a week ago. The mad mage wouldn't let up, but even so, it wasn't that bad until I slept on it."

"Are you open to magical treatment?" If he wasn't she would find other ways. He wasn't horribly injured but the fact that his had happened a week ago was hardly a good thing. It would have been better to have had this treated sooner but people would do as they wished in an attempt to be bold or brave or both.

"I am willing to help you even if you are not. I only wish to help," she assured him, obviously very used to the fact that not everyone was eager to have an Avvar mage do anything involved with magic around them. If nothing else she was respectful of boundaries.

This is where Simon's admiration of her culture begins to waver, though not precisely from fear or lack of trust. There's just only so far a dutiful templar can go in his blithe acceptance of foreign magic, even when he's otherwise perfectly content to let her do as she will with the healing.

"What sort of magical treatment?" he asks. "I'm not...giving an absolute no, but I want to know how you'd be doing it."

"I will pray to the spirits to aid me in speeding your recovery. I will not remove injury but encourage your body to progress to a state where herbal mixtures will help. You do not seem to be one to rest so this seems the better method. If you are uncomfortable then you can tell me to stop and I will do so."

So this was a man uncomfortable with her status as a hedge mage. That was something she would keep in mind when they spoke even if she had no intention of covering up what she was. She had been born a mage and trained to be one. His feelings one the matter were not about to change that.

"I will give you my name so you may know who to blame should I do anything that would cause harm." Obviously that wasn't her intention but she felt that if she gave him that power over her then he would know that she truly would do nothing more than heal.

Simon's mind generally translates 'spirits' to 'demons' whenever the word comes up in conversation, unless the topic is alcohol. He is not reassured. Planning to stop mid-summoning is all well and good, but he can't help but think that if it gets to the point where the spirits want to do him harm and are sufficiently present to do so, there won't be much stopping them from there.

He has, however, long since learned his lesson about openly calling the gods of other faiths demons. Nobody ever won hearts or minds for Andraste by being a culturally insensitive asshole.

"If it's all the same," he says apologetically, "I think I'd prefer the herbs. You can charge more for them, if you like. I wouldn't say no to learning your name, of course, but...not so that I can blame you for anything."

Edited 2017-06-02 09:19 (UTC)

"I do not charge to heal. If you wish to repay me then you are welcome to find another way but it is not so right in my eyes to ask payment for helping another. You will simply need to see me more so I can be sure you are healing well for I will not stop you from continuing to train."

Taking her staff off her back, she set it nearby but otherwise made no further attempt towards magic. Instead she motioned that he sit in front of her with his side facing her to make it easier to work. This would take longer since he had asked for no magical aid but she clearly didn't appear to mind that at all.

As she organized her things, she spoke again. "Kattrin. That is my name."

"Well--thank you, then." Whether that's standard practice among the Inquisition healers, he doesn't know, but he's grateful anyway. "I'll find some way to pay you back, one way or another. It's only right."

He sits where she directs him, a little tense with nervousness in spite of himself, but if she's said the spirits will be left out of the proceedings, he believes her.

"Kattrin. It's a nice name." He looks over at her, and then quickly thinks better of it when his shoulder protests. "What about the fennec? Does he have a name?"

"Breathe. Relax." Not easily done but it would help. They had to start somewhere so they might as well start there. Kattrin opened a little pot she had and the sweet smell of the herbs filled the air. They had to have been ground recently and she dipped her fingers inside to coat them before gently working it right onto the marks left on his skin. Sure to sting at first before an almost numbing sensation would happen.

"Mm. If you speak fennec you should ask him," she gently teased then lifted her brow again. "Though you have not offered your name yet, lowlander."

The breathing comes easier as the herbs release their scent, and he gradually relaxes enough to work with, and then enough to laugh a little at that.

"I'll have to work on that," he says. "And I was getting to it, honest. I'm Simon." The surname doesn't feel important at the moment, nor the 'Ser.'

"So--if you don't mind my asking, what made you want to join the Inquisition, anyway? I mean, not to point out the obvious, but we haven't got a lot of other Avvar around."

"Simon," she said as a way to memorize his name. It was nice sounding in how simplistic it was. She rather liked it for that honestly.

She didn't answer his questions right away, tracking the lines of the marks then taking his arm to start moving it slowly now that the area was numbed a little. Easier to work with muscles if they were relaxed rather than tensed with pain.

"I am in exile from the Avvar and would be considered dead to them now that this many months have passed. I have nowhere to go and watched them close one of those rifts. The Inquisition is doing holy work and I wish to do what I can to aid them."

"...Oh." He thinks it's probably best not to ask all sorts of questions about what it was like in her clan, then, no matter how badly he wants to. "That's a terrible shame. I'm sorry. But the Inquisition is a righteous cause. It's good to have you with us." Not that he's really been a part of it for very much longer than she has.

His arm feels like it has a better range of motion already, and he works it carefully back and forth along with her.

"I can't say I know what it's like to have nowhere to go. I could always head back to Starkhaven and help my da in the forge if I had to. But there's not much else left for a templar who wants to stay a templar, with the Order in the shape it's in. I'd rather be doing holy work than anything else."

Her hands hesitated and she looked up from her work to study his features. Simon hadn't made any signs of trying to do anything about the fact that she was a mage. It was true that the Circle was in a unique state in the lowlands now but he still hadn't tried anything. Still, her instincts were at war now, wanting to run and wanting to heal and also finding she liked him too.

She'd always assumed she would hate every Templar she met since that was the impression the Avvar had given her. Kattrin wasn't sure what to do with the fact that there was one she was enjoying being around.

Looking back at her work, she kept moving his arm so she could keep encouraging the range of motion. "You are Templar?"

Simon has only on rare occasions given thought to the way mages whose cultures reject the Circle system must think of his order.

He remembers when he'd been a new recruit to the Gallows, recalls the bitter ongoing debate in the barracks about whether Dalish mages should be more forcibly rounded up or whether they ought to be allowed to stay apostate as long as they kept away from civilized folk. The 'leave them alone' contingent had argued that there was no sense provoking reclusive elves into getting themselves killed, when nobody could remember a Dalish abomination wreaking havoc in recent memory anyway. The 'lock them up' faction had protested that it was the principle of the thing.

Nobody had ever mentioned the Avvar, whether out of simple oversight or because nobody wanted to propose fighting them for their mages, but Simon still feels a ripple of shame to remember what side of the debate he'd been on as a teenage fundamentalist, and it washes over him all the stronger at the clear trepidation on her face.

"Well, yes," he says. "For what it's worth these days. The job description's changed a bit. Look, it's no secret you're a mage. There's plenty more of you about and I'm not saying anything."

Edited 2017-06-03 02:38 (UTC)

She lowered his arm and gave pause before she looked right at his face. Kattrin could have kept her thoughts to herself but he'd been open with her and that deserved such in return. Honesty was something she highly valued. From anyone really.

"The Templar have been forbidden in the mountains since long before I was born. Even now with the many changes to priority for your order there is still caution taught to all Avvar children. Particularly those that are mages. I know I am not Avvar any longer but I still find it difficult to relax around those I have been taught to mistrust." She looked down, a little off to the side.

"I wish to learn more of you for you have shown me no ill will for being Avvar or mage. Perhaps we could learn from each other. You teach me about the Templar and I teach you of the Avvar." Looking up again, she tilted her head some and offered a hesitant little smile.

"Is this fair trade for you?"

Were she anyone else, Simon would still be pleased at the opportunity to minister about the Chant--or even just to talk about it, whether or not he was talking to someone who wanted to see truth in it. He's been taught all his life that it's his sacred duty to talk about his faith, but he loves doing it purely on its own merits. Like her healing, he'd never ask anything in trade for explaining what the templar path entails and why.

But he's particularly delighted by the offered exchange, when he'd wanted it even more than healing when he sought her out. If she won't be offended by his interest, or else distressed by talk of what she's lost, he'll be an endless fountain of questions.

"Oh, more than fair," he says, all earnestness. "I've always thought your people were fascinating. I've read some of the sagas, or at least the ones translated into trade, but you must know more of them--and I was never sure about how legend-marks work, but they sound so heroic. I don't know how exciting templars in particular are, in comparison, but I'll answer whatever you like. We get everything interesting about us from the Chantry."

She smiled gently at him. His eagerness really was putting her at ease. There was something rather...disarming about him. Kattrin took to helping his arm again while she relaxed, letting him chatter a little before speaking herself.

"I know not of what is written of the Avvar people for I never learned the written word. I can tell you a legend-mark is a great honor to bestow upon a person. A great deed is accomplished by a person and they are given a new name that replaces the family name they once had. That is their name from then on."

Did that make sense? She supposed he would ask if it didn't.

It makes enough sense to answer his unasked questions about it, and he nods, ever the intent audience. Even for someone who's always admired the Avvar more than feared them, she's not at all what he'd anticipated. He'd expected her to be standoffish at best, cold and forbidding at worst--but he ought to have given the benefit of the doubt to someone who joined the Inquisition of her own volition for the purpose of helping and healing. She's not at all like the unfriendly woman of his imagination.

"I'd wondered how many people had them, but if they're legends, then it stands to reason that they'd be rare," he muses. That's not the bit of information that had left him the most curious, though.

"Do you...not have a system of writing, then? I'd assume that if anyone would be using it, it'd be the mages..."

"The Avvar pass tales through spoken word. Or through pictures. I suppose you might call them runes. The words written in the lowlands are not known to me. The Avvar make trade with the Orlesians and obtain books from them. It is actually considered strange to learn to read the words within the pages."

Kattrin herself had always found it strange too. These days she found herself wondering if perhaps she should start to learn. It seemed that people here needed that information.

"Mages have no need for books for we are usually trained as messengers to the gods."

"The runes are something. I've seen them before, but I never had any way of knowing what they meant. Some scholars here in the lowlands study them, but it's all a bit beyond me." Maybe the Avvar feel similarly about the Orlesian texts they trade for, a sort of aesthetic appreciation if nothing else. He finds it interesting that they'd want them.

He's also not completely sure how the second part of her statement follows from the first. "I don't know what you mean by that. What does being a messenger to the gods entail?"

She lowered his arm now, not wanting to overwork the muscle even if the stretch had been good for it. Now she went to get out another salve that would just help to ease any possible tears in the muscle and at the very least relieve the pain and stiffness. It would be a slow road back to health but this was a beginning.

"Not every mage becomes one but they are very attuned to the gods. The lowlands sees them only as spirits. The shaman are lorekeepers and they know the rites and rituals of the people. One stands above them and is the augur. They are considered a spiritual leader of the hold." She gave pause in what she was doing before she added. "It is what I was being trained to become before my exile."

There was no pain or sadness in her tone though. Just a calmness that came from one stating fact.

"It just sounds...dangerous, to me," he says, though he does her the courtesy of listening with every bit as much attention as he had earlier before rendering this judgment. Of course, if the Avvar worship spirits as gods, the lowlanders' view of them--the Andrastians' view in particular--would seem reductive and narrow-minded. It's not lost on Simon, but still--in his view, spirits are spirits, whatever else people might choose to call them.

Exile though she may be, it's clear that she still takes her would-have-been role with deep, pious seriousness, and he wonders at the fact that she doesn't seem upset to have left it behind. But if the discussion isn't so emotionally fraught, he'll let himself ask the questions on his mind.

"What do the gods ask in return for your worship?" Spirits always want something, don't they?

"What does your Maker wish for in return for yours?" It was what it came down to really. Those that worshiped something or someone were giving their devotions to these powerful beings. The Avvar had theirs. The Dwarves had theirs. The Andrastians had theirs. This was what she'd been learning during her time down here.

"Various things can be asked for. A ritual to ask for better harvest. An offering for safe travels. I know that you mistrust the spirits and I would not ask you to change your mind so quickly. But, is it so strange to offer prayer and offering to that which one believes in so one may have a better life?"

Lifting her hand, she tucked some of her hair behind her ear then decided to venture a question of her own. About his believes and his life. "You are Templar. Were you always this? Was it your choice?"

Spirits don't care about those things, he wants to say, and they couldn't grant them anyway, but he doesn't. He'd never say such a thing aloud, not anymore. He knows better. And it isn't so strange, after all, that people would worship the spirits, pray to them, sacrifice to them. They're a hell of a lot more tangible than the Maker. Unlike Him, they're actually present, able to be contacted, and willing to talk. Simon would be lying through his teeth if he said he didn't see the appeal.

"It's not so strange, no," he concedes, rotating his shoulder carefully to see if he can. It's not quite ready for that level of motion. He considers her question, and thinks perhaps he might have to make a couple more concessions into the bargain.

"I did choose it. I always wanted to be a templar. I can't remember a time when I didn't. But we're not all in it of our own accord. Some of the lads I trained with were promised to the Chantry as soon as they were born. Some of them came later because they didn't have any other prospects--too many siblings to inherit anything, too highborn to learn a trade. But we were all sworn to it just the same. I feel sorry now for the ones who didn't want it, but at the time, I just felt like they were spitting in the Maker's face."

[OPEN] now that you're living on the hill

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