These scars of mine [open]

[provenforce]

WHO: Rey, Padawan, and open
WHAT: going through the paces in Kirkwall
WHEN: Throughout Justinian
WHERE: The Gallows, Lowtown,
NOTES: if you would like a custom starter, hmu on plurk or discord!


1.

Just because Obi-Wan is gone, doesn't mean that Rey's training ends. She's spent some time speaking with mages, having learned about "Force Magic" she is studying what she can of it, to see if that helps with her learning at all. The execution seems somewhat different, but she studies it all the same, with a few books spread out in front of her in the Gallows library, her crumpled translation cheat sheet next to her even though she's gotten better at reading the words by sight, some still trip her up from time-to time.

Padawan is asleep behind her chair, a solid presence which has become comforting, much like the lightsabers weighing on her belt and the staff leaning up against the table next to her.

2.

Something that is new for Rey is the second lightsaber she now has to practice with. Obi-Wan had left his behind, and it seemed like that was for a reason. However, she'd only just been learning how to fight with one lightsaber, so two-handed was a bit of a challenge. Often she can be seen out in the courtyard training area, both lightsabers ignited as she tries to adapt what Obi-Wan had taught her into two-handed combat.

The result is she falls a lot, and drops the lightsaber in her left hand more often than not. To her credit every time she falls she gets back up, and every time she drops her weapon she retrieves it, and tries again, shifting her stance or holding the blade differently.

Padawan sits on the sidelines, watching with interest, but keeping her distance. She knows those blades are nothing to get up close and personal with, and anyone who approaches will get a white mabari in their face, making sure they aren't a threat to her charge.

3.

Walking through the Lowtown markets is almost like the Niima outpost, except more warm and welcoming. Not everyone seems happy to be there, but for the most part there isn't the amount of suffering she used to see on Jakku. People have enough food and water, they have mostly adequate shelter. They are able to sell things for money rather than trade them for food. Maybe they're saving up for better lives, or they could very well spend it all on food. Either way, they have those choices.

Rey is on a mission today, looking for clothing. Her few outfits are getting worn, and she has enough coin to buy something new, so she is looking through what the Tailor has on offer, not really looking for a custom-made item. She's been hemming her own clothes most of her life, she doesn't mind taking in something that might not fit perfectly.

Comments

[provenforce]

Just because Yngvi is a good thief doesn't mean everyone in Kirkwall is. Rey avoids keeping her purse in plain sight, but there's probably a thief somewhere who would still try to go for it.

She shakes her head a little at Yngvi's phrase turning, her smile not fading.

"No, mostly just shopping. I meet plenty of people within the Inquisition and making new friends isn't part of my job description anyway." She's not a diplomat.

[inagutterson]

It's true, standards have slipped to a truly appalling degree, folk somewhere must be feeding the failures. Missing your dinner is what inspires you to do better, it goes against years of hard work and shoddy dubious parenting to raise them any other way thinking that there's still going to be a meal even if they make an arse of it.

Diplomats are of course all well and good if they actually put their money where their mouths are though abstract promises seem to be more their speed, this whole idea of tomorrow where tomorrow isn't actually tomorrow but a nebulous thing glimpsed through a thick fog. "Handy to know folk in Kirkwall though, need to know what deepstalker'll bite and what one'll just make a lot of noise and spit at you for looking too long. Can't beat mates rates either, even me, the long lost boy gets those from a few faces here and there. What are you doing though? Not just the scouting bit, did you get swayed by any of their other shiny baubles?"

[provenforce]

Rey just sort of nods along as Yngvi talks, of course there are merits for getting to know locals, and she may very well in time. But she's still getting over her natural wariness, talking to strangers when she doesn't have to isn't always one of her strengths.

She shakes her head at his question, absently adjusting the strap of her staff on her shoulder.

"I'm just looking for clothes. I only have a few different outfits and they're all starting to fall apart."

[inagutterson]

Kirkwall at least is a place where wariness can't be faulted, seeing as it keeps you alive though the more obvious it is, the less advantage it provides. You just swallow it down and there it festers away under your skin until you either cut it out or it devours you. Yngvi's watched it happen. Not paranoia eat a person, he was too young for that but he saw what happened when a thing eats you from the inside out, that sort of death by inches and he wouldn't say he recommends it even as he does it all again because coming back…

Coming back is hard. What do they call wounds you don't know you ever had when they were all inside you?

"Yeah reckon you'd be a sight naked, humans usually are? You all...I screamed y'know? First time I saw one of your kind naked, I mean not a rifter but sometimes when we're sharing everything it happens so reckon folk'd say by now if you were hiding something like tails or pincers or hooves or summat but wasn't expecting what humans look like. Legs and arms going on forever." He shakes the thought away as if it disturbs him even now, who can say, maybe it does, does anyone know what the esteemed Mr Congealedinagutterson looks for in a person? "Can you sew?"

The mind boggles, he didn't peg her for the seamstressing kind.

[provenforce]

Rey makes a bit of a face as he says humans are "legs and arms going on forever" glancing down like she's trying to figure out how that would throw him off so much.

"Dwarves can't be that much different. Just shorter. There are short humans, too." Kids, for example. Rey isn't a great example, as she's on the high end of "average" but really. She knows there are humans and dwarves who are married to each other in Thedas, so the anatomy had to at least be similar.

She nods at his question, rocking back on her heels.

"I had to learn. I can't do anything fancy, but I grew up in an outpost. Nothing ever fit right unless you altered it, and ill-fitting clothes would kill you if they got caught in something while scavenging."

[inagutterson]

"You," Yngvi leans in as much as he actually can considering Rey has a good foot on him after all, "haven't seen me in the buff now have you? You don't know what I have going on underneath all this. You hear about elf-blooded folk but well, there aren't dwarf-blooded ones, we're different."

No. No they're not but that's the mystery. That and how Yngvi isn't growing potatoes behind his ears and mushrooms under his armpits, that's probably the most surprising thing when he starts stripping off.

"What were you scavenging on that they'd get caught? You hear about people doing it in the Deep Roads but that's more the Darkspawn that'd get them or a roaming pack of deepstalkers, maybe eating deep mushrooms if they start eating them." Scavenging is a thing, yeah, but still it doesn't exactly fit into his whole view of the world but his world was 'Carta' then 'Boneflayers' so it's pretty specific pools of reference after all.