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faderift2017-09-21 10:38 pm
wheretheferngrows) wrote in faderift2017-09-21 10:38 pm
Entry tags:
[OPEN] And so become yourself
WHO: Fern + OPEN
WHAT: A catch-all kind of post for mid-September.
WHEN: A couple weeks before the island adventure, about a week after her last open post.
WHERE: Around Kirkwall and the Gallows, specifically the stables, the herb garden, training grounds.
NOTES: None currently, will update as needed. Also, if you'd like a specific starter, please ping me on plurk or discord and we can set something up!
WHAT: A catch-all kind of post for mid-September.
WHEN: A couple weeks before the island adventure, about a week after her last open post.
WHERE: Around Kirkwall and the Gallows, specifically the stables, the herb garden, training grounds.
NOTES: None currently, will update as needed. Also, if you'd like a specific starter, please ping me on plurk or discord and we can set something up!
I. THE STABLES
Fern likes the stables. It's the smell, she thinks--not that she's particularly taken in by the stink of horse manure or anything, but horses and dogs and animal smells in Kirkwall aren't so very different from those same smells back in Ansburg (and, more distantly, Ferelden). That's probably why, although the Inquisition has given her a place to sleep in the mages' tower in the Gallows, Fern prefers to bunk in the hay loft above Rooster's stall. It's a bit drafty at night, sure, but still so much easier for her to sleep here, with the animal sounds and the soft, ambient glow of the outdoor lanterns spilling warmly through the windows.
This is where she's sleeping one night when the sound of the stable doors opening wakes her up. Blinking sleep out of her eyes (and plucking some hay out of her hair), she sits up underneath her blanket and steals a tiny peek over the edge of the loft, trying to see who it is who's come to snoop about the animals so late at night. In his stall below her, Rooster swivels his large ears forward and drowsily sticks his head out of his paddock, curious.
II. THE HERB GARDEN
She tells herself that she isn't just spending her free time loitering about the Gallows herb garden because she's hoping to casually run into Sina here, but that's probably a large part of it.
Nevertheless, now that she's spent enough time here to develop a sense of familiarity with the plants, it's not that much of a hardship to go about the process of watering the plants that need it, harvesting from those at risk of going to seed, and placing a few warming glyphs near the summer plants that are at risk of dying when the temperatures dip at night.
At present she's up to her elbows in dirt trying to salvage a few wilting elfroot plants.
III. THE GALLOWS TRAINING GROUNDS
It feels profoundly unfair to Fern that even after being told no by that Senior Grey Warden, after crying in front of a bunch of complete strangers, after trying so hard to find other ways to keep herself occupied and make herself useful, she still ends up hovering on the outskirts of the training grounds when she doesn't have anything else to do.
It's afternoon on an unseasonably warm day; no one particular group has reserved the grounds for a session, so it's a mish-mash of soldiers, scouts, Templars, and other sorts (including, yes, probably some Grey Wardens) who are making use of the facilities now. Fern sits off to the side in a patch of shade with a sewing needle and some of her own worn socks that are in need of mending; with some longing, she watches the Wardens at their work--then stabs the needle through her sock grudgingly. (take that, alistair.)
IV. WILDCARD
(OOC: Surprise me!)
stables;
Which is why The Walrus being here instead of Skyhold always looks so odd as Araceli slips into the stables after she's come down from the rooftops in the night. Different routes whenever she needs to settle herself and Korrin's away so she's not going to be waking anyone when she gets back late and she likes to check in on things anyway. Make sure there isn't anything untoward going on. The stables were always part of the routine in Skyhold but in Kirkwall not so much and the nuggalope makes a quiet happy sound to see her..
"Tell no one," she whispers to him so she doesn't disturb the rest of the beasts, pulling something out of her pocket that he eats delicately. Then she spots the horse watching her. Probably why she feels like she's being watched. "Ah, lo siento my friend, I have to make sure he doesn't miss me and love the stable hands too much. I don't know if I can feed someone else's horse, Rajani had so many lectures on horses." Her right hand is offered out though for him to sniff since this was also part of Rajani's many lectures on horses that Araceli once dutifully sat through as good friends do when you have a horse friend.
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She didn't sneak in like some thief come to steal in the night, and the massive nuggalope seems to recognize her; that and her kindly treatment of Rooster is enough to put Fern at ease. She sits up a bit in her bed of straw and scratchy wool blankets, rubbing a bit of sleep from her eyes. "He likes apples," she volunteers to Araceli sleepily, and reaches for her boots to tug them on, so that she can clamber down the ladder. She's awake now; might as well be sociable.
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Glancing up, Araceli favours the young woman with an apologetic smile. "I didn't mean to wake anyone, I didn't know anyone would be sleeping here." Perhaps she should have, she did in Skyhold at first but that had been the very early days when life was much more up in the air with more hostility and fewer facilities. "Araceli Bonaventura y Castell, I came to check in on The Walrus since I can't take him on late night rides like I used to," she continues since it's pretty obvious that galloping out in the night for kicks doesn't go well when it's on the back of a lumbering nug. Still, she has permission now so Rooster does indeed get a nice slice of apple plucked from her pockets.
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"I'd wondered who he belonged to," Fern says, offering Araceli a quick smile, then clambers down the ladder the rest of the way. She comes to stand next to Rooster's stall and strokes the side of his neck, even as the mule stolidly ignores her in favour of eyeing Araceli, hoping for another treat.
"I'm Fern," she adds, extending her hand. Slowly, she's learning to warm up to humans.
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"I went to an Avvar hold and fetched him from the wilds, he's a patient soul." Alas, there aren't more treats, her pockets aren't designed for so many apples and when he isn't getting as much exercise, the nuggalope can't be allowed to get fat. "You might see a Vashoth mage here with one too, hers is called Asher, she lead us to get them." It's only fair for both of them to say even if Korrin keeps far more sensible hours than Araceli does.
Since she's the rude party waking some poor elven girl from her bed, disturbing her mount too, Araceli takes her hand and dips into her traditional bow. "At your service. I'm sorry I woke you, I didn't think someone would be sleeping here when the Gallows have so many rooms," she says, a little note of concern in her voice since the girl looks young and she should be sleeping inside with a bed, shouldn't she?
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At that last inquiry, she doesn't miss the note of concern in Araceli's voice, and frowns, quickly shaking her head. She sends a look of undisguised dislike back towards the mages' tower. "No," she insists, voice pitched quiet but nevertheless quite serious for a girl of her years, "no, I don't like sleeping there. The other mages--" She pauses and bites her lower lip, folding her arms defensively over her chest. This is quite a lot to divulge so quickly to a complete stranger, but looking back at Araceli, it's difficult not to trust her implicitly; maybe it's something in her eyes. They're kind.
She sighs. "...I didn't grow up in a Circle. I don't--read very well." Or write well. Self-consciously, she picks at the edges of her sleeves. "They act like they're better than me."
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"People always like to try proving themselves," she says almost sadly, nudging the nuggalope out of the way so she can lean back against him and the stall, "and the easiest way when they're unsure or upset or out of place is to make sure they're at least sure about being better than someone else. It's the hardest thing not to let it under your skin. Because it gets there. It's a pebble in your boot and then come the end of the day your foot is red raw." Easier to speak of it now that she's older (is she wiser? She'd like to think so) but of course, when they're all meant to be pulling together it has to be like this.
Fern is so young and she reaches out without thinking to set a hand on her arm, her smile sympathetic. "But it's not fair. Because they aren't. It's what we do that makes us who we are. Behaving like that? It makes them among my least favourite sort of people. Where did you live though, if you didn't grow up in a Circle and you're a mage…" She doesn't want to say apostate at this hour, it's such a loaded word.
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"On a sheep farm, just outside Ansburg," she says, lifting up a hand to absently rub at her eyes. She's not tearing up, it's just hay fever, okay? "My Aunt Lorna got my folks and my brothers and me a place there, after the Blight in Ferelden. My aunt showed me how to steer clear of the Templars." She drops her eyes to Araceli's hand, frowning some, then looks up to her eyes. "I have one of those, too," she adds, and tugs back her glove to show her the anchor mark in her palm.
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"That's quite the journey for you, on both occasions." How young would she have been in the Blight? Younger than Araceli was when she was spending her carefree childhood racing through the waterways and docks of Castileos, scaling rooftops and masts, learning to pick locks and pockets. "She sounds like a good woman, I'm glad that you had her but...it isn't easy. Watching over your shoulder for someone who wants to catch you. Hard enough for a thief sometimes when it's usually just a few nights in a cell and irons no matter the reasons," she replies because there were reasons. There were good reasons. But guards on noble estates would likely not have been moved or if they had? Their nobles would not have. (She knows a lot of those nobles personally now and she knows it for certain.)
With a look to both their hands, Araceli holds hers out flexing it a little. "How long? Enough that it's stopped stinging I hope?"
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"How long? Enough that it's stopped stinging I hope?"
Here, Araceli means a different kind of ache. "It's better, now that I'm here in Kirkwall," she admits, her brows knitting into a puzzled little furrow. "I still don't really understand what happened... Can we get rid of them?"
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"For people like me that came through a rift - and I have no idea how that happened, I was asleep and then I was in Haven dumped into the snow with things screaming at me - we have them. I know that some people from Thedas who find themselves with them were too close to a rift and that it-- it strikes them? Was that how..." It's been so long ago now since she ever asked about it that she can't remember, mouth pursing with the thought. "Forgive me, it's been a long time since someone from here told me how she came by hers and her health is very poor, I don't like to remind her of it. As with many things, the getting rid of them is not so easy as the getting of them, but you are't alone. And it isn't so terrible. People don't go closing rifts alone and some of us have to earn our keep more than others."
Meaning people like her who come from somewhere else from the way her smile twists in self-deprecation, people who could be accused of so much if they don't make the attempts to volunteer, to do something, to help. Curiosity at best, but easily so much worse.
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"I caught it while I was coming here," she admits. "To join the Grey Wardens. It was such a stupid idea," she adds, kicking herself while she's down as only the young and newly heartbroken possibly can. "I can't even fight, or cast spells other than rubbish to keep the frost off the soil or keep the horses calm."
She looks up to Araceli with curiosity suddenly, and asks her, "What do you do?" Then, as if to clarify, she adds, "To, um... earn your keep, I suppose." Without her dream to sustain her, she feels rudderless and adrift.
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"Where I come from, we go where the sea guides us, even if we don't understand it at the time." More than ever it's been a comfort to her so far from everyone and everything she loves with no idea when she'll see them again. "Not every person has to fight, I think Thedas needs more people that don't if the fighting is ever going to stop long enough for any wounds to heal."
(Horses she can't offer anything on, she doesn't trust horses very much, how do you keep any animal so flighty calm in the first place?)
Wondering where the best place to start is, Araceli decides to just start at the beginning since it all likely follows from that. "I'm a bard, I began training over a year ago under Sister Nightingale and now I lead the naval presence project as well as recently being asked to be Madame de Cedoux's right hand when it comes to diplomacy. I play cards and dice against people on the docks and in the tavern to help make ends meet; I've got a fox to feed too and I live with my girlfriend Korrin, there's rent to pay and food to buy."
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What a silly question for her to ask, out of all the other questions she could be asking about what Araceli has done. Being a bard sounds beyond exciting, and if she heads up the naval presence project does that make her like a sea captain, or more like a pirate--but no, that word is the one she latches onto with more interest than she can rightfully explain.
She looks back at Araceli with wide-eyed interest, like some part of her knows that whatever the human woman has to say to her regarding this subject is somehow very important, even though the specifics of why haven't quite clicked into place for her yet.
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Sometimes it catches up with her that it's really been two years, that she's going to hit that mark of two whole years somewhere that isn't her home. That she's made a life for herself with these people and in this place, worked just as hard as any of them (harder, she'd argue, some in the world have to work at least twice as hard to prove themselves twice as much) without making a spectacle of it. Keeps her nose down, does all that she can.
"Korrin has the other half of this, it's a tradition for some of her people to split a dragon's tooth so that no matter how far apart you are, you always have a piece of the other with you, I had a mermaid ring made for her, that's a thing you give to a woman where I come from." And then she seems to realise she's gushing a little bit to a girl who just asked her to confirm if she did indeed say girlfriend and she stops, seeming to realise that, not embarrassed exactly but a little self-conscious at rambling. "Sorry, she's away just now seeing her parents in Wycome and I'm used to seeing her all the time, you didn't ask for all of that she's just...incredible? She's a force of nature in the best way."
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She drops her eyes and turns her attention to Rooster for a moment, stroking his nose and letting him whuffle at her fingers. "...I didn't even know that was possible," she admits, shy and self-conscious, and sends one more little glance Araceli's way. "Between girls, I mean. My parents want me to get married to some stupid boy on the farm next to ours, but he's such a brat, and I never liked him." A pause, and she chews her lower lip, blushing. "...um, his sister was always very nice to me, though."
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Her face falls, the dragon's tooth worried between her fingers. "I'm not surprised. No disrespect to your parents but Thedas seems to put a lot of emphasis on what a parent wants, not what their child's heart wants. A lot about marriage and babies - that's for the nobles, the wealthy with things to sort out," she says softly and as kindly as she can without sounding patronising because she remembers being younger, how someone talking down to you is the worst thing in the world. "Almost everything you can do with a boy you can do with a girl except making the baby, and honestly?"
She leans in closer even if there's nothing but mounts to hear them, smile turning into a knowing smirk. "Girls do it better than boys."
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That remark earns Araceli a shocked, almost scandalized stare--but Fern is already fighting down a brilliant blush as she looks hastily over her shoulder to make sure that they're alone save for the horses and other animals. And they are. Then she giggles and covers her mouth with both hands, still blushing furiously, and seems completely at a loss for what to say.
"I've never--" she manages a moment later, her words half muffled by her fingers, "heard anyone talk like-that--before."
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Because you should be able to.
"When it comes to an awful lot of things, Thedas has a stick lodged somewhere very uncomfortable that needs to come out and it's as true as what I told you. People should be able to talk about the things and people they like or they won't get to figure it out properly; the world's a very big place."
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Rather than say no to those expectations, however, Fern had simply... left. Acknowledging that brings with it a needling stab of guilt that suddenly has her looking downcast at her hands, her eyebrows knitting together into a frown. "I didn't even tell my parents I left. To join the Grey Wardens, I mean. I never told them anything, before I left."
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"Well, you're a woman so you get to make your own choices, get to live for yourself and whatever you choose to stand for and believe in, not for your parents or anyone else. But it might not be a terrible idea to let them know that you're safe, no?" Gently, oh how gently she says it when it's so late, when this young woman is an elf, and a mage, who ran from the Blight then dodged Templars for so long. "These are dangerous times for everyone and parents worry. Sometimes the longer we leave a thing, the worse it can seem when it comes time to see it through."
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The words have Fern looking up into Araceli's eyes again, albeit reluctantly, as though afraid that despite that gentle tone, despite this woman's incredible kindness, there might be a trace of judgment, of disappointment in her gaze. Somehow, finding none there hurts worse. She sighs out and looks away again, eyes a little misty, and reaches up to rub at them with her sleeve.
"I will," she decides, putting on a quick smile afterwards, and gives her head a nod; inwardly, she's less resolved to it than she'd like to admit. Remembering the time, she glances back at the ladder leading back to the hay loft, then looks to Araceli again. "I should get back to bed," she says, hesitates, then asks with a small, hopeful smile, "Could I see your fox, sometime? I've never seen a tame one up close before."
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"Come to dinner some night, meet Korrin too. We're down in the docks - she didn't want to live in the Gallows, I wanted to live down by the water and the ships - if you don't know the way," which sounds better to Araceli's ears than implying that Fern might not want to go wandering around looking for random rooms in a different part of the city on her own, "send a message or come find me in the Gallows and we can walk there together."
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