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WHO: Fern Doirnáin, Alistair, any other Wardens who want to be around to witness this sad scene + OPEN
WHAT: One elf tries in vain to convince a Grey Warden to let her join their ranks.
WHEN: Directly after this thread with Anders.
WHERE: The Grey Wardens' office; directly after, the ferry pier.
NOTES: The scene with Alistair is open to other Wardens only; the second scene is open to anyone!

I. BADGERING ALISTAIR

There are so many twists and turns and corridors that lead to no where in particular in the Gallows that it takes Fern--already keyed up and anxious and fighting back frustratingly childish tears--longer than she'd have liked to find the office used by the Grey Wardens in Kirkwall. If nothing else, the time spent walking herself in circles does give her a bit of time to dry her eyes and regain her composure, which means when she finally stops in front of the closed door and raps on it, she only looks like she's fighting off a cold, rather than recovering from crying like a baby ten minutes ago.

Waiting for the door to open, she waits outside and picks at her nails, bouncing on the balls of her feet to release some nervous tension.

II. THE GALLOWS DOCKS

She's dealt with disappointment before in her short life, but somehow, it's never quite hit her like this.

Regardless of how her conversation with the Grey Warden went, by the time she's left the Gallows and made her way outside again, her disappointment has transformed itself into an all-consuming, despairing ache in her heart, and the tears she'd thought she'd finished crying before are threatening her again in earnest. Humiliated and furious at herself--what a stupid thing to think she could do in the first place--she finds an isolated part of the pier and sits down on it, face pressed into her hands.

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Usually, if he's alone in the office, Alistair leaves the door half open. It's more inviting, or whatever, and more importantly it makes him feel less trapped by the desk and the mounds of papers and books. He likes reading—don't tell anyone—but his current project is suffocatingly dull.

Today, though, and every other day for the last few weeks, he's angry at nearly everyone, in a generalized sense, angry at the world, and shutting the door suits his mood better. That's also the reason why he doesn't just shout for whoever is knocking to come in. Once they've come in, it's harder to get them back out.

So from outside the door there would be the sound of a chair creaking as it's moved, and the heavy steps of a large human in thick boots, and then the door opens only so wide as he can fill with his body—which is pretty wide, he's broad—while he looks down at—

—someone he has no reason to be mad at. And he has a soft spot, one labeled they get enough shit as it is, for elves. The mildly annoyed expression that's his default lately slips into gentler curiosity, all in the eyebrows.

"Don't sneeze on me," he says instead of hello.

Holy buckets, what are they feeding all the humans around here? Fern instinctively shrinks back a tiny step as Alistair's bulk fills the space between door and door frame, a hunted look flitting across her face though she struggles quickly to master it. All that eyebrow action just makes her nervous, like maybe he will step on her, but he'll feel bad about it later, or something.

"Don't sneeze on me."

She cuts her eyes to the side in confusion, then back again. "...are you a Grey Warden?" she asks, sounding rather skeptical.

"—yyyes," he says, mildly skeptical right back, like, what. Does he not look like one?

He keeps his hand on the doorknob, still blocking her from coming through it, but takes half a step back and settles his weight on his back foot so he isn't quite so looming. He's made enough people nervous—not often because of anything he's done, just because of the Warden thing—to know what it looks like.

"If you're here to complain about the noise," he says, which is a joke but also not, they're a loud bunch, even without adding the griffons to their ranks, though it does help that they aren't all in the same little camp anymore—anyway, if she's here to complain about the noise, "you need to come back in a few hours and ask for Nathaniel Howe. He handles the complaints. I'm Alistair. I handle the compliments."

That's a joke, full stop. He doesn't manage to keep a straight face.

"--it's just taken as a given that the primal school is diametrically opposed to spirit, but haven't you ever thought that was a little reductive? I just think the school system as a whole could do with some more--"

Were they on the city side of the docks, it might not be the wisest course of action in the world for two small elven mages to be walking along and animatedly discussing their craft without a thought for those who might dangerously object. But on the Gallows side, they're less vulnerable, and only the sight of the small defeated figure on the pier makes Vandelin take notice of his surroundings at all.

Even were her pointed ears not visible to mark her as a sister, her tears would stir up a teacher's protective instinct toward an apprentice-aged girl. Van catches Myr's attention with a light touch to his forearm and angles in the girl's direction.

"Are you all right?" he asks.

Inessa has just returned to the Gallows, after an hour or two spent outside it just to take a break from surroundings. She's about to suggest spoiling Garahel with some treats from the kitchen, when her mabari makes a turn, heading down the pier. Brow burrowing, she follows him, uncertain what this is about until the mabari sits down by the young elven woman she'd spoken to before, huffing and pressing his face against her leg.

Her own tread is quieter, lighter, and she remains standing a couple of paces away. Uncertain if their presence is welcome, Inessa tries to give her personal space that Garahel obviously doesn't think is necessary.

"...Fern?"

"I'm Alistair. I handle the compliments."

"The what?" This shem can't be Alistair; Anders described him as a Senior Warden, not--whatever this is. She stands up on her tip-toes to try to look past him, around him, into the office, to see if there's someone responsible and respectable and not weird lurking back there who she can speak to. But nope, aside from the guy in front of her, the place looks empty.

Dubiously, she eyes him again and folds her skinny arms over her chest. She squares her shoulders, juts out her jaw, and tries to draw herself up to her full height (which is only a few inches over five feet, but she's trying, ok).

"I want to join the Grey Wardens," she says as solemnly and seriously as she can manage, which truthfully just makes her sound a little stuck up. But despite appearances, her eyes look rather worried and vulnerable as they dart away from Alistair, and then back again. "..Please."

Edited 2017-09-15 01:16 (UTC)

"Are you all right?"

Startled, Fern jerks her hands away from her face and whips her head around to figure out just who it is who is addressing her. Seeing a pair of elves--Circle mages, she guesses, no one else dresses that fancy--she relaxes only marginally; her face is flushed and splotchy from a bout of truly ugly crying, the whites of her very blue eyes are still red, and she's got a completely sodden handkerchief clutched between her fingers like it's her lifeline. She can't very well say, 'yes, I'm fine,' without that being a very obvious lie, now can she?

Instead, she blurts out, "What's it look like?" then feels immediately guilty, squeezes her eyes shut, and tearfully adds, "I'm sorry--" and presses the kerchief against her eyes again.

The large, warm snout that presses against her leg is possibly the most welcome visitor Fern's had all day. Wordlessly, she wraps her arms around Garahel's broad neck and shoulders and tucks her face against his neck, more grateful than words can possibly express for his solid, faithful presence.

"...Fern?"

Of course if Garahel is nearby, that means Inessa has to be, too. Sniffing, she looks up at her new friend wordlessly, chewing on her lower lip, and can't seem to find the words to offer her a response.

Oh. That's what his face says: oh, eyebrows raising, head tipping forward as if he isn't entirely sure he heard her correctly. And then he looks over his shoulder into the room, because he, too, would like to discover someone responsible and respectable and not weird she can speak to. His luck isn't any better than hers, though. Room's still empty. Damn.

"Well, I guess that counts as a compliment," he says as he looks back to her. "Come on in."

When he steps back into the room he leaves the door open, wide. He knows things, and among those things is that full-grown human men don't bring nervous young elf women into private rooms and shut the door behind them, unless they're the sort of full-grown human men Alistair likes to put the fear of the Maker into when he sees them. There's nothing in the room that Inquisition eyes can't see, anyway. There's a map on a wall, stuck with pins tied with different colored ribbon, books and notes and a few locked storage chests. No vials of Darkspawn blood anywhere.

He leans on the desk instead of sitting down behind it, but there are other chairs if she wants one.

"How old are you?"

Garahel nuzzles her, content to give comfort as best he can, though knowing him he'll probably try to sneak Fern a treat sometime later. Hopefully she likes balls of yarn or pantaloons.

Realizing it's a bit awkward to stand while the rest of her company is sitting, Inessa consents to do likewise, though she still makes certain not to crowd the girl. Besides, Garahel's a good cuddler, she can let him take that role. "I...don't know what's wrong, but if you cannot bring yourself to talk about it, we can simply be here." No pressure.

This is breaking every single one of her Aunt Lorna's rules, walking into a room, alone, with a shemlen man--but he seems fairly harmless. Kind of annoying, like her brothers. That's not a bad thing--and he can't help being human.

She shuffles across the office threshold after him, nosily eyeing the map on the wall with wide, appreciative eyes. But Alistair recalls her to the present: "How old are you?"

Fern fidgets. "...Twenty-four," she lies. (She's a terrible liar.)

"No need to apologize."

That would be from Myr, as he steps up beside his cousin and turns a look of genuine concern in Fern's direction. "You sound like someone's broken your heart for you." It's an observation made gently, the worry in his voice as much as on his face. "Is there anything we can do?"

We, because as often as they're at odds, these days, he knows his cousin well enough to know just how tender Van is about the young and vulnerable. No sense in not volunteering the both of them.

Alistair gives her a long look, sort of squinty. He's not stupid. Or trusting. But he also doesn't argue with her. It's not as if he can demand she produce birth records. She can be twenty-four if she wants to be. The suspicious look melts into a friendlier smile without comment.

"Can you fight?" he asks. The no is coming, he's getting there, but for now that's a genuine question. "—and do you have any plans to rule your own country? Because we've had quite enough of that lately, I can promise you. We're going to start screening for it."

He must be joking about the whole 'ruling your own country' thing, she decides, because he's got eyes, he has to have seen the ears sticking out of her messy hair. She'll be lucky to run a sheep farm in a few years, let alone boss a bunch of dumb shems around.

"I can fight," she blurts out, seizing on that opportunity, because it's the only thing he's said so far that doesn't sound like complete gibberish. "I can swing a sword, and I'm a mage, too, my aunt taught me now to make a fireball." The words run out of her in a hasty string, and she bites down on her lip to quiet herself before she sounds even more desperate.

"I can't be a Grey Warden."

The words are small and tiny, like her voice as she says them. Fern rests her cheek against Garahel's warm shoulder and idly scratches him behind his ears while staring out across the water. Even saying the words makes her chest grow tight, her throat aching from the effort it takes not to cry again.

"...I came all this way--I didn't even tell my parents I was going, I just left, then I caught this stupid thing in my hand--" She clenches her hand into a small fist around the anchor mark in her left palm. "...I'm so stupid."

"You sound like someone's broken your heart for you."

He's not wrong--Alistair did break her heart, though not in the way hearts are normally broken. Better to say he broke a dream in half--not cruelly, but he broke it all the same. Fern sucks in a shady, shuddering breath and fights to master the surge of feeling inside her; it's embarrassing to cry in front of anyone, but especially a pair of strangers.

"No," she tells them both, words a little thick from her tears and hopelessly stopped up nose. She rubs at her eyes with the backs of her wrists. "No--I just want to go home, but I can't even do that now because of this--" Off she yanks the glove concealing her anchor mark, staring at it resentfully.

"Oh, a mage," he says, with a hint of wistfulness. "We do love mages."

Damn useful, and usually happy to be there—or they were when their other option was the Circle. Maybe not so much now that there's a chance of freedom that they don't have to bargain their lives away to earn, which is in its own way not freedom at all...

Not relevant. Not currently.

Alistair looks at her for a long moment, genuinely considering it. He wanted to be a Warden, too, when he was the age he currently doesn't know she actually is. He wanted it so badly, he both prayed and meant it. He'd like to be able to say yes, the way Duncan said yes.

"Are you in some sort of trouble?" he asks. Partially it's a stalling tactic. He doesn't want to say no. But there are so many miserable Wardens here already, who swapped their problems elsewhere for a life they now hate, it's probably good to check.

"Are you in some sort of trouble?"

Yes. In a manner of speaking, anyway--she'll be in for the tongue lashing of a lifetime once her parents eventually find out where she's gotten off to, and what's happened to her in the process. Nervously, she tugs at the worn old gardening glove that she wears over her left hand to conceal the anchor mark in her palm there. "No," she insists in a small voice. "Not--you know, with the law, or anything."

She looks up at Alistair, her eyes at last becoming pleading. "I came--I came here to join up, it's the only reason I left Ansburg in the first place, to come join the Wardens. I'm Fereldan really, you know, I was born right outside Denerim." Like that should count for something, right?

"Right," Alistair says. Ferelden. Denerim. Together with the look on her face, that's enough for him to get a decent read on the situation. And it's a pity. If she'd been running from the law and didn't really want to join, maybe he could have helped. If she had the corruption or something inescapable he could have said yes, because being a Warden is still better than being dead no matter how troubled they are—not that he's going to point that out and give her any ideas. Instead he has to be an asshole.

He stalls a little longer, rubbing his mouth with his hand, and then makes a helpless sort of open-handed gesture next to his face, like he doesn't like the words that are about to come out of it either but can't stop them.

"This isn't a good time." His reluctance makes the words quiet, but they're still firm. "This is our mess, you know. Corypheus. But we can't fix it. That's why we're here, and not out stabbing him and throwing fireballs. We're not the right tool for this problem. We're part of the problem, actually. You can do more to help if you aren't one of us."

"This isn't a good time."

Her ears hear the rest of what he says, but it doesn't sink in. Somehow, even after what Anders told her in the herb garden, she'd convinced herself that if she just had the chance to put herself in front of the Senior Wardens, if they just had a chance to see her and see how badly she wants to serve, that would make everything else fall into place. Even now, a loud voice in the back of her mind insists that this is wrong, this isn't how it's supposed to go--

Her eyes are wet again without her permission. She takes the tiniest of steps towards him; her chin trembles. "Please," she repeats, but whatever words she had prepared for him, she can't make herself say them without losing her composure. Still, she begs, her hands clasped together in front of her chest. "--please--"

"Miss your boat?"
A tall woman passes by, pins in her mouth and a lump of canvas in her arms. She normally wouldn't give a toss about some stranger having a bad day, but young women in distress generally at least merit an asking after in case there's a man nearby who needs his balls cut off.

"No," Fern replies, though it sounds more like 'doe,' considering how very stopped up her nose is after so much crying. She hastily wipes her eyes again with her kerchief and whips her head around to look at whomever it is who has stopped near her. The sight of Teren--a Warden--just makes the recent rejection sting all the more cruelly, and she turns away from her immediately. She doesn't even care that the woman is a shem.

"I'm fine." A pause, and another sniff. "..just allergies."

"I see that," Teren sardonically replies, at least gathering that the girl hasn't been physically harmed. "Allergic to your own face, by the looks of it. Where's home? Haven't seen you here before."

So, he thinks as he looks at her big sad eyes and wobbly chin, his own voice very clear in his head, this is the definitely worst.

He doesn't say it. He doesn't say a number of other things, either. He could try to be more helpful, more hopeful; he could say that they aren't what the world needs right now, and being a Warden is about sacrificing yourself to the needs of the world, so she can consider this good experience for later, and she can come back when Corypheus is gone and try again, he'll say yes then, he'll sign something saying so for her right now if she'd like—

It doesn't seem like the right moment. It seems like she would only cry, or else take it as an opening to plead her case further, and in either case prolong this whole thing, which is, as previously stated, the worst. Maybe he'll find her later and try to make her feel better, but for the moment he only shakes his head and says, "I'm sorry. I really am."

Fern doesn't sneer at her exactly, but she does pull a slight face before once again staring glumly into the water. She swings her legs slowly just above the surface, the toe tip of one shoe skimming it.

"Ansburg," she mumbles, ignoring the rest. Then, "Ferelden, before that." Slowly, she looks back at Teren again, her expression not exactly friendly, but not hostile, either.

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