(no subject)

[slipshot]

WHO: Gavin and OPEN
WHAT: After returning to the Mire, Gavin goes around delivering any mail that had arrived at Skyhold for people.
WHEN: Now
WHERE: Fallow Mire
NOTES: There's probably going to be some shippy shit with him and Maxwell sorry not sorry

Open.

Gavin has two satchels slung over his shoulder, full of mail, humming as he walked through the camp. For the letters whose recipients he knew by name, he simply went directly to them with a smile and a wave, to hand them their post. It wasn't until they'd all gotten their letters that Gavin started looking through the ones with unfamiliar names.

He frowned - because reading was hard - and had to spend several minutes mouthing out each name, or asking someone else to read it for him, before calling out for the person in question and just sort of hoping they, or someone that knew them, would hear him.

For Maxwell.

"Maxwell! Got something for you," Gavin called as he jogged up to the man, grinning from ear to ear as he pulled out the scroll. The seal had already been broken - by Leliana's spies, of course - but they'd done a pretty good job of putting it back together.

"Letter came for you, at Skyhold."

For Varric.

Of the two satchels, one, in its entirety, was for Varric. So he left the dwarf for last, and went to find him once the rest of the deliveries were finished, before holding the entire bag out to him.

"Here, you ah - you got a lot of mail. They asked me to bring it back for you, from Skyhold."

Comments

[gatheringstorm]

Mail call? That definitely gets Korrin's attention. She knows full well that there will be something for her; with parents, a grandmother and various members of her company all wanting updates, it's inevitable. So she waves Gavin over with a smile that's become rather rare in the mire.

"It's about time. I need something to focus on other than how much I hate this place."

[slipshot]

Gavin spotted Korrin when she waved, and smiled as he clambered up the boulder towards her. "Should try hopping on the next supply run," He suggested, tongue slipping between his lips as he concentrated on fishing through his bag to find her letter.

"Ah, here we go. Ko-r-r-rin," He read, squinting at it, before handing it to her. "At least, I think that's right. Better check."

[gatheringstorm]

Doublechecking the name on the envelope, Korrin nods. "Unless there's another Korrin Ataash running around in the Inquisition, I think it's safe to say that's mine. And hm, maybe I'll do that. Variety is better than constant exposure to this mess. What about you, did you get anything?"

[slipshot]

He shook his head as he put the rest of the letters back into place, leaning over curiously, as if half expecting for her to open and read the letter to him where he stood.

"No, but I never do. And if I did, it's not like I would be able to read them very well anyway." He did write to Peter, sometimes, but those letters were more elaborate drawings, than anything else.

[gatheringstorm]

Korrin isn't bothered by his curiosity, moving aside to let him sit if he wants to take a break. "I thought Peter was teaching you? I can try to help when we're not on assignment, if you want."

She won't push it, though, then opens the seal to scan the message. "Ah, good, my company's in Ferelden again. Not anywhere close, but still. At least for a while, they're not that far away if we need them."

[dreadinquisitor]

Maxwell looked up, brows furrowing slightly as he looked up from the pile of wood he was cutting. "A letter?" He ducked his head, rubbing his forehead against his sleeve - an ineffectual movement as both were equally damp - and propped the ax against stump.

"From who?"

Who would write him.

[slipshot]

He looked down at the scroll, trying to place the crest on the wax seal, but in truth he knew basically nothing about human heraldry, so gave up with an apologetic look and a shrug, before handing it to Maxwell.

"No idea, they just gave it to me to give to you. I take it you don't get mail often?"

[dreadinquisitor]

"I didn't exactly leave anyone who would bother..." Maxwell mused, reaching for it. He turned it over, looked down, and stopped. Dead. "Or I would have thought."

The Trevean crest.

There were only three people it could have reasonably come from.

[slipshot]

Gavin's ears pricked with curiousity, walking around so that he could lean over Maxwell's should to get a look at whatever he was looking at, but it was just the same wax seal that he hadn't recognized before. (And what was personal space, or privacy, anyway?)

"Well? Do you know who it is?"

[aceso]

Christine is milling around camp, and only gives Gavin a brief glance when he comes through with the mail. No one would be writing a letter to her, so she never waits excitedly for the mail. In fact, she's a little confused when he approaches her, but when he asks what the name written is, it all becomes clear.

"Let's see... Melisande Beauchamp." It's easy for Christine because it's an Orlesian name. "Do you know her?"

[slipshot]

Gavin looked back down at the letter, his ears drooping a bit. "No, no idea. Thank you, though. I'll make sure to find her, somehow." He looks back up at the woman, who he has just realised he was incredibly rude to, and blushes faintly.

"Ah-- I'm Gavin, by the way. Thanks for ah... the help. And the not yelling at me for being rude."

[aceso]

"Christine," she replies, and gestures to herself where she has just been sitting winding bandages. "You have not interrupted me doing anything vital. It was not rude." Maybe an Orlesian noble would think an elf daring to address them was rude, but Christine grew up in the Circle with elves, and in a small village before that. She knows of alienages and the sort, but not much else. Her family certainly never had elven servants.

"Are there any more I can read for you?"

[slipshot]

"Well, I appreciate it anyway," He said, offering her a lopsided smile, before blinking at the question. It took him a half second of thought, before he said: "Ah! Actually, yes. One moment--"

He opened up one of the satchels and snatched out a bunch of the letters, fishing through them. A couple of them he put aside, back in the satchel, and then he held out the rest. "Ah - these, if you don't mind. I'd really appreciate it."

[wickedchase]

No mail is good mail, in his opinion. It means he's doing something right, and he certainly didn't expect to hear his pseudonym to be called.

But it earns his attention and he glances up from his book, frowning.

The letter in Gavin's hand contains a wax seal on it, the imprint of a krakken on it. Naturally, Leliana's people probably did have a look at it first, but there's no helping that.

Twisted Fate tucks his book under his arm and holds out his hand. "For yours truly? How interesting," he says, emulating his air of arrogance, but he's not feeling particularly confident in the moment.

[slipshot]

The krakken was different, and drew his attention, but Gavin still handed it over easily, taking a good look at the recipient.

"Twisted Fate?" He repeated with curiosity to the other elf. "What kind of name is that meant to be?" He didn't point out that it wasn't Dalish - that was obvious - but he was still curious.

[wickedchase]

The same question, as always. He lets out a small laugh, tipping his hat back as he takes the letter from Gavin.

"The kind I gave myself," Fate says, looking over the letter cautiously. "We have someone who calls himself the Iron Bull, you know. Though I guess mine's a bit more dramatic, isn't it?"

[slipshot]

That earned him a lopsided grin.

"Fair point," He allowed. "Iron Bull lives up to his name pretty fully, though. Twisted Fate doesn't sound like a name I would want to live up to. I'm Gavin, by the way. Clan Ashara."

For Zevran

[slipshot]

He'd spent the evening attempting to cheer up Maxwell, but by the time they'd said goodnight his mind had wandered back to the problem at hand. He wasn't going to be able to sleep - that much was obvious. This wasn't a problem that was going to go away on its own, and discussing it with Maxwell... well. He couldn't keep bringing it up with him. Not with the way his face fell. So. He had to make use of other resources.

Which meant going to his friends.

Friends was, all in all, perhaps a strange word for him, considering that the Inquisition was far more permanent than any other place he'd been in for years. It was a new word. His clan was his clan, his family. And sure, he had friends - many of them, dozens, people he met and cared about and then probably never saw again. But here?

Here, those people kept... being around.

And some of them he thought of, now, when he needed help, without even realising it.

"Zevran," He said, his ears pulled back, a stern look on his face as he approached the elf once he found him. "I need your help. What do you know about human nobles?"

[ombranera]

Zevran was perched near a fire, grinding new poisons for his personal use. They did not do much for the undead, but whatever scouts he might find that would kill theirs? Apparently they were concern enough for him to take extra precautions. Gavin wasn't terribly silent on his approach and thus Zevran continued to grind when he sat, not looking up. "That depends. What country, what family, and why is it that you are asking?"

[slipshot]

"Free Marches, Trevean, and because I am completely baffled by the concept of arranged marriages," Gavin replied immediately, walking right over to him and flopping down next to him. Normally he would be very curious about whatever Zevran was doing, but right now he was just glaring sullenly into the fire.

"More particularly - how to stop them from being arranged at all."

[ombranera]

"You see, Gavin, when two noble families love the idea of more money, power, or land very, very much..." He spoke slowly, as one would to a very young child. "They arrange such things to mutual or singular benefit. More often than not one ends up with the short end of the stick."

A beat.

"...Max's family is arranging him to be wed?" That- well. That did not take much to put together.

SO very late, so very table flippy.

[hugeinorlais]

People were not fond of soggy things. Damp was okay, moist was a little awkward, but soggy was straight out. Naturally, it followed, that people were extremely opposed to being soggy and Varric?

Varric was a very soggy dwarf.

He had been drenched earlier so, all things being equal, this was an improvement, but the bonfire, no matter how roaring and impressively it had been stoked (He may have cheated a bit and sacrificed an Antivian Fire grenade to the cause; none of the moderately dry inquisition agents around the camp would comment if asked.), he couldn't seem to dry out.

He was in a nightmarish hellscape of perpetually squishy boots and wet-warm-chilled-sticky clothing.

So, when Gavin arrived (looking considerably less muddy and drunk than the last time Varric had seen him), Varric was scowling. The bag he was dragging behind him (or carrying, if one felt like being generous. It was a canvas affair big enough to hold Gavin inside it, so--six of one, half a dozen of the other, really.) was lumpy, harried, and moist. When Gavin deposited it in front of Varric, the dwarf scowled a little harder at the bag, just on principle.

"Of course they did," he said dryly and, with a gusty sigh, shot Gavin the closest thing to an apologetic look that he could manage. "Thanks, sorry, and what do I owe ya, Lucky?"

Without waiting for the answer to the last, and while still looking at Gavin, Varric unknotted the top of the sack and reached in. He retrieved a literal fistful of letters and absently started tapping them into a vaguely arranged stack between his hands.

Re: SO very late, so very table flippy.

[slipshot]

"I'll take five minutes by your fire and your patience while I tell you two jokes to try to get that scowl off your face," Gavin offered, looking a little bemused at just how out of sorts Varric was. "Otherwise, you owe me nothing at all. Technically I'm pretty sure I already get paid for it."

He said technically because he was really bad about following up with his pay.

Before Varric could actually reply, he dropped himself down on the nearest log next to Varric and held his feet out to the flames.

"You alright?"

[hugeinorlais]

Varric's expression took on a wry edge as Gavin dropped down by the fire, but he didn't comment about the pay conundrum. He, better than most people, knew how terrible Dalish were with money (and especially this one), but he wasn't the scolding sort. He'd just quietly make sure Gavin actually got paid and, if the elf didn't pick it up, he'd drop it into a merchant guild account for him like he did with Pel's pay.

The dwarf let out a noncommittal grunting sound as he turned his attention to the letters in hand. His expression did not improve as he eyed the slightly blurry, damp names on the fronts. He eyed the first one in deadpan, considered it for a moment, and then tossed it into the fire. The second and third followed in much the same fashion.

"I'm wet, I've been wet for weeks, I'm starting to think I'm growing algae," Varric told him and, with a flick of his wrist another letter met its end. "I've been better."

Letter five went into the fire with a quiet fwp. Six, he considered for a moment longer and flipped over. He rolled his eyes at the seal on the back and, with gusto, crumpled it up and then threw it away.

"So you heard a new joke or two?"

you can just assume he finishes the joke because i didn't think this through....

[slipshot]

"Well if you need someone to warm you up, just let me know," He teased with a grin, pulling off his own boots so that he could warm his own feet better. "Also, if you need someone to hold up a blanket around you while you dry out next to the fire, I can also help with that."

He dug into his pockets, but while he usually had something to nibble on, he came out with only lint and sighed a little.

"Alright, I'm warning you they are pretty awful, though. So, an archer, a templar and a mage walk into a bar--"