faderift | [OPEN] And so become yourself

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[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!

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!)

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The Stables

You'd think that the Inquisition would have had more guards around, especially at night. But actually, if the guards on watch are semi-familiar with your face, they leave you alone. Which is pretty damn useful if you have some stuff you want to shift.

Haelan has poked around over the last few days, and got used to the layout of the Gallows inside and out. There are several useful places a person might hide, or might store stuff out of the way of prying eyes. The Stables are one of those places, with a lovely big hayloft above the stalls, and as the animals aren't being fed hay yet, no one goes up there. Perfect!

Apart from the door squeaks when it's opened, which sets his teeth on edge. He should have oiled the hinges first. Duh. Too late now though, and there's enough of a gap for him to sneak in, and then stop, letting his eyes get adjusted to the gloom. It's not that dark, not with the lights outside, but it's certainly darker than the courtyard outside. There's a donkey looking at him, but the rest of the animals are too drowsy to be interested.

Within a moment he's moving again, towards the ladder that leads to the hayloft, shifting something under his ragged cloak so he climb with one hand. He'll stow the stuff somewhere out of the way, under some of the hay and straw, and in a few weeks come and shift it again. It's pretty much fool-proof.

Funnily enough, it's the for the same reason that Adasse is down in the stables. He grew up there, after all. His father was a stablemaster while he was living, and Adasse always puts the smell of animals to his father. It's a good memory, because his father was a good man.

Unlike his best friend though, he creeps in after oiling the hinges, knowing that some of the folk here are grooms who work all day and want a solid night's sleep. He creeps in, quiet as you please, smiling at the donkey who looks at him sleepily and goes into his sack to offer the donkey an apple.

"Hello there, chummy. Restless sleepers get snacks." He state simply. And where did he get these nice fresh apples? Eeeeeh best not ask. Safe to say the cook's gonna throw something at his head later.

People who are up to no good have a specific way of moving that makes it pretty clear that they are, indeed, up to no good. Squeezing through an open door to prevent it from making more noise when it opens is one indicator; sneaking into the stables late at night without showing any interest in any of the animals or tack is another. This intruder clearly isn't supposed to be here.

And he's heading right for her ladder. There are lots of reasons this could spell horrifically bad news for her.

Fern fumbles quietly under her blanket for the leather grip of her staff and, finding it, shuffles to the top of the ladder. There she proceeds to panic a bit more; the only offensive spell she knows would burn the bloody barn down. She settles instead for hissing down at him, "You come up here and I'll clobber you right in the skull!" and holding up her staff meaningfully.

He'd minding his own business. It might not be honest business, it might not be legal business but the fact of the matter is that it's his and not hers.

But Haelan is clearly not expecting voices from on-high. As soon as she stsrts he looks up with sudden fright and losses his one-handed grip on the ladder.

"Oh shite-"

And then he's on his back on the floor, the jar of copper coins he'd been carrying spilling it's contents amongst the dirt and straw.

He groans, blinking up into the dusty ceiling and the spots the girl looking at him from the hay loft. He doesn't see the staff, not in the dim light. Otherwise he would have high-tailed it out of there as soon as he had the chance.

"Why in the Maker's name did you do that? Could have killed me!" He says, slowly sitting up and running the back of his head.

And is that donkey grinning at him?

Animals in a city that can't be kept easily in your room are a strange thing. Ships have dogs (here they talk about cats to deal with the vermin but at home, dogs, almost always a dog) and she of course has Lux and there are birds some people like to stick in a cage which says an awful lot about their character but big things need more land than home has.

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.

Rooster is most definitely grinning at him. The mule lets out a low baying noise, ears swept back, and stomps one hoof irritably against the ground. Around them, the rest of the stable animals are rousing, too, including a few flustered chickens who cluck anxiously in their bedding.

Unaffected by Haelan's outrage, Fern fires right back at him, "What d'you mean why'd I do that--what are you doing here?" She scoots quickly to block the top of the ladder, 'lest he get any more ideas about coming up to the place where a young girl is sleeping, alone, in the middle of the bloody night. Maker, why does he think she threatened him?

"If you were up to anything good, you wouldn't have come sneaking around here in the middle of the night! I ought to shout for the guards is what I ought to do--or--or hex you!" She holds up her staff menacingly--or, well, she attempts to be menacing, but truthfully she looks more like she's partly hiding behind it. A bit like a very small cat backed into a corner, who is nevertheless going to hiss and spit and scratch the shit out of whomever tries anything first.

Rooster's ears are a bit long to belong to a horse, his muzzle a bit narrow and the bones of his cheeks a bit wide--he's a mule, but quite a smart one, easily flattered by the attentions of people who might be bribed by his charmingly comedic appearance to give him food. When Araceli extends her hand out to him, he noses it curiously, clearly searching for fruit. Discovering none, his ears sweep backward. Hmph.

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.

Haelan does notice the staff now, and the glowing green light in her hand, although it's about as bright as one of those firebugs. If he had any sense at all, he would leave, quickly, before the crazy girl turns into a demon then and there, but the fall and the spilling of his coin horde and her shouting has really got his back up, and shouting back at her seems like a great idea.

"I certainly wasn't coming to see you!" He snaps back. "You need your head examining, jumping out at people on ladders! How was I meant to bloody well know you were up here, huh?"

He shakes his head, and while that clears some of the blurred vision, it doesn't clear the bits of straw from his curly mess of hair. So he picks that out, half expecting to see blood, but he's not that badly hurt. Not that he wants to stand up just yet. He feels a little bit unsteady, and the last thing he wants to do is fall on his ass in front of this girl. She looks about his age, and girls spend a lot of time laughing at him. He doesn't want to be laughed at.

Fern still has her hackles up, but the longer he stays put there on the ground, the more certain she becomes that he isn't that much of a threat--though she's sure she's right that he's up to some kind of mischief she wants no part of. Glaring at him, she darts a quick glance at Rooster, and is relieved to see that her mule doesn't appear too distressed. (Annoyed--the weird human didn't even give him an apple before falling on his rear--but not distressed.)

That's when she finally notices the spilled coins all around him; her anxiety creeps in again. That's an awful lot of coin for some scrawny shem boy to be carting around on him in the middle of the night. She's heard stories of highwaymen who kill witnesses to their crimes to cover their tracks. Sizing Haelan up, he doesn't exactly look like he's capable of killing anyone... but one can never be too careful.

"You--you stay down there," she warns him, though there's a slightly nervous tremble to her voice now, her eyes growing just a trifle afraid. "Go away!"

She's a mage. A mage with a great big heavy bit of wood that could be used as a club, and she's scared of him?

He makes no move to get up, or even try and collect the spilt coins. Not yet, not for a few more minutes. He wants to be certain he isn't going to just topple over again. And he wants to make sure he can find all his pennies too. He isn't leaving them here for her to steal.

"You want me to stay down here... and go away?" He asks, not shouting this time, but slightly amused, "You're going to have to pick one, serah."

He spooked her, okay, cut her some slack.

"Yes," she blurts out, frowns, then amends hastily, "No--you know what I mean!" Clearly he doesn't, or he'd have done it already. "Just don't--don't come up here." She looks again at all of those spilt pennies and asks suspiciously, "What're you doing with all of that coin anyway?" Who just carries that much money around with them in Kirkwall?

He laughs, not at her, exactly, just because she's flustered. He guesses she was sleeping up here, and didn't expect any company.

Not that he was trying to be company!

"What coin?" He asks, although he knows he's denying the obvious. Even he can see the light glinting off the coppers. There's not actually much money gathered in that pot, but it's all loose change he's scrapped together.

Well, some of it. He's not dumb enough to keep it all in one place.

He shifts, reaching out to pull the pot closer. Thank Andraste that it's not broken. It's just the contents that are everywhere. Still, he thinks he can see most of them.

"These coins? Oh, these. Well... I... was putting them... somewhere safe."

Which is true. It just sounds stupid.

He better not get any ideas about trying to be 'company' in the future, that's for sure.

As for the rest, Fern squints down at him with a thoroughly unconvinced scowl settling in and making itself at home on her face. She looks from Haelan's face to the pot he's tugging towards himself, to the bits and pennies scattered around the floor.

She eyes him again. "...Are they yours?"

He really is not even considering it. He couldn't be less interested in keeping company with her if he tried.

He shifts again and starts picking up the coins from the straw and dirt. Better to have dirty money than no money. He can spend it even if it's got straw stuck to it, but he doesn't want to spend it. He's got to save something, for a rainy day.

"Cheeky! Of course they're mine. Is that big stick yours? Sure you didn't steal it?"

"It's a staff," Fern snaps back testily, adding, "and I'm a mage--all mages carry staves around, that's perfectly normal." If, you know, you consider being a mage to be normal. Which she does. There's a bit of defiance in her expression when she looks at him now; go on, just dare to call her abnormal for being a mage. "Anyway what sort of person just creeps around the stables at night lugging a big jar of money around with them?" That's weird.

Edited 2017-09-22 22:40 (UTC)

"Yeah yeah," He sniffs. He knows what a staff is, thank you. He might not be a mage, but he does understand things like that. Mages have staffs, Templars have lyrium and things like that.

"Someone who doesn't want nosy mages stealing from them, that's who!" He bites back, feeling better now and gathering as many of the coins as he can.

"You never had to hide anything from anyone? Must be nice to live in your world."

That barb strikes home in a way his others hadn't, and for a moment she's startled into silence. No, she's never had to hide anything the way he's probably thinking--but she is an elf, a refugee, an apostate mage. The only thing she's ever had to hide is herself.

It's difficult to wrangle all of those thoughts into one succinct barb to fling back at him, however. Instead, her startled look gives way to another black glare, and she bristles. "Are you leaving yet?" she snaps at him.

Fern had been adamant, when requesting Simon's presence in the stables tonight, that she didn't need the protection for herself. Certainly not. The fact that it has proven itself a haven for criminal activity and people who oughtn't be there keep sneaking into it at night is of no consequence to her, clearly. It's just the horses who need a fully-armed templar guard. As they do.

Simon, upon recovering from the minor heart attack at her explanation of where exactly she's been sleeping, has agreed to make himself available--for the horses' protection, of course. The 'get yourself assigned an actual room and then go to it, young lady' discussion will wait until the stable miscreant has been apprehended.

He waits in the shadow of the door, silent and stoic as any Chantry knight ought to be when employed to watch over a mage, even as he makes a face at Rooster's eagerness to betray his mistress for an apple. Come on, Rooster. Be a bro.

"Strange time of night to be feeding the mules out of the goodness of your heart, isn't it?" he says, folding his arms across his well-armored chest.

Fern likes sleeping in the hayloft, Simon, you're not her dad, you can't tell her what to do.

She pokes her head over the edge of the loft to glare at the back of the intruder's head--then frowns. Even in the dark, he's too tall to be the brat from the other night, and his voice sounds off. "It's not him," she says, sounding... annoyed? Disappointed? Something like that.

His reaction was pure instinct to hear a man's voice behind him that he had not invited to be there. He spun, putting himself in front of the animals to, well, protect them, hand going to the blade at his back.

Which was ... about the time ... he heard the female voice on top of him, in the hay loft?

His gaze shifted to the well armored, well fit man in front of him, and then up to the loft again. "... all right, I don't know what kind of weird robbery bait and switch you two have going on - in a barn - in the middle of the night - but I'm armed and? I have apples."

Stepping into the stables first is a young woman, ashen haired and dressed in the shiny armor of a Grey Warden. Not far behind her is a black mare, snorting lowly as they enter the stables and Ciri lets out a long yawn. It isn't unfamiliar for her to be out and about at this hour, dreams kept her from sleeping until she finally gave up on it altogether and went out riding.

And the armor helped to keep anyone from bothering her, most gave the Wardens a wide berth and she was happier for it.

"Yes, yes. I hear you." She murmurs, rolling her shoulders as Kelpie dips her head and nudges it with another snort of hot air. Reaching into her side saddles, she produces two apples taking one for herself and passing the other off to the mare. "One bedtime snack for the both of us."

Cyril hasn't been spending much time in the garden lately. His life has taken more and more indoors. There is still a feeling of peace being around plants, though, so when someone he knows needs a bit of elfroot, he's happy to run the errand for them.

When he sees the young girl he offers her a smile. "Hello," he says in a friendly way. "I was just looking for elfroot, but those look like they need a bit more love and care."

"What does that matter? Obviously he's still up to no good." Fern may have been expecting one particular thief, but Simon doesn't much care who's invading the stables at illicit hours. It only makes it all the more unnerving if there's more than one sketchy character prowling around.

And Adasse isn't doing himself any favors. Simon cocks an eyebrow at him, ever suspicious. "What kind of a 'bait and switch' do you think this is? The robber becomes the robbed?"

He ignores her as he continues to collect the pennies, putting them carefully back in the pot. It's not a big pot, not by any stretch of the imagination but you can at least get a decent amount into one.

And slightly less now than before as he's bound to have missed some of the coins. But what can he do? He can hardly borrow a candle or sit here till dawn.

He sighs to himself, and gives in, finally getting to his feet.

"I'm not planning to spend another minute with you, don't you worry about that. You're a terrible host."

And with that he's gone, disappearing out the barn door and putting it shut as hard as he can behind him.

While they banter back and forth, Fern yanks on her boots and tugs her messy hair up into a tail, then grabs for her staff and edges over to the top of the ladder. She doesn't try to climb down it; she can see the sword on Adasse's back, and figures she has a better chance of not getting hit by it if she stays up here.

"Should we call for the guards?" she ventures to Simon worriedly. The other one from the night before hadn't been armed--or at least, she hadn't seen a weapon on him.

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[OPEN] And so become yourself

She doesn't mind the smell of the animals, but do the animals mind the smell of her?

Two - two - two thieves poking at her in the hayloft for the price of one.

the world may never know

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stables;

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stables

the herb garden

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