faderift | [Open] Training Montage!

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[Open] Training Montage!

WHO: Adasse Agassi and YOU
WHAT: Adasse making himself useful, or not.
WHEN: Most of Firstfall
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: Warnings for cursing, possible mentions of darker things (will update), and crime.

1. Training Montage - Part One

It starts with Adasse taking Beleth's words to heart - to helping someone else because she helped him. He saw some of the scouts trying to work on trying to sneak, and after swallowing a lot of laughter, he walked them through the basics of keeping out of sight.

From there, he graduated to expanding Ellana's lessons to others - how to pickpocket from an important mark without getting caught. Light fingers in pockets, off belts, how to snip off a purse with a dagger without being noticed. It was all about moving your fingers in the right way, and like Ellana, he had them do finger strengthening exercises.

The final step, lock-picking. He was sitting on the ground, with a half a dozen Scouts around him, showing them what he was doing, step by step. "See - you don't want to tweak it too hard - if you do you snap off the pick and the lock's jammed. Permanent. Locking mechanisms are delicate things."

There's plenty of room for someone to sneak and observe, or at least snark from the background.

Training Montage - Part Deux!

There's something - someone - moving very rapidly over the roofs the gallows. Along the high stone walls, high above the courtyard, over the top of the slopes that lead down to the kitchens, along the edges of the towers and then down to the cobblestones of the Gallows. Adasse, without a shirt, running up the side of staircases, dark eyes intent and sweat beading over his body as he moves as rapidly as he can. Up, down, sideways, leaping off and rolling. A few times - he goes to climb up to a second story window -- but instead of climbing, he holds himself there. Muscles straining, and for the first time, something that had just looked like a colorful blur comes into focus.

A vhenadal tree, done in a rainbow of colors, down his entire back. If one looks closely enough ...

Either way, he's not paying attention to anyone below him. He's focusing on gripping the windowsill, and pulling himself up slowly, then lowering himself down again.

And ...Rest.

Above the Gallows courtyard, if you're just one of those people who happens to look up, you might see a young elf sitting atop one of the walls. He's dressed lightly, and a sack of apples is sitting next to him. A small brown nug is sleeping in his lap, whom he is petting with one hand. The other is holding open a book that he is, by all accounts, reading with complete absorption.

He'll probably hear you if you call out. A few times, at best.

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"I'm the Keeper's First, now. I was the Second, before that, when Pel was First," He bites down on the rest, because as much as Pel embitters him, that's not a conversation to be having with anyone outside the clan. Family is family, after all, "Once I came into my magic, it needed training. I could have been a hunter, even so, but my mother's the Keeper, and of course the Clan is large enough we needed three mages."

Not to mention Ellana, but then... perhaps better not to mention Ellana. Little but drama to be had there.

"So now that's what I do. Not that I put my name on any papers here, or anything."

Edited 2017-11-17 04:10 (UTC)

"Pel - I have heard this name before. Not sure where." He let himself drop down, and then pull himself up again as he looked thoughtful. "I wish we could keep mages in the alienage. Think of how safe we could be, without the Templars taking them off."

He huffed, dropped himself down, and pulled himself up again. "So ... what, now you only have one mage? You?"

And now, he huffed and pulled himself up into the window sill itself, perching there to give himself a rest, sweat on his forehead and upper body, a grin on his lips.

"We have four, technically," Sorrel replies, not noticing Adasse's change in stature, too focused on the lines under his hands-- it's slowly becoming Adasse, seen from above, recognizable by the curve of a tattoo over his shoulders, "Keeper Deheune, Keeper Thalia, and myself of course, but Sina is Keeper Thalia's First. Our clans have formally been joined ever since our bonding ceremony, the ah... Wedding?"

He stops to think a moment. Wedding was the right term, yes. It is now that he notices Adasse sitting in the windowsill and for one unguarded moment only smiles... and then he realizes that Adasse can see what he's working on and puts a hand over it, embarrassed.

"...I can't... Imagine living like that, with no magic. Each clan likes to keep the numbers small, to avoid pulling attention from the Templar mage-hunters. But with no circles now, things might change for the better."

"Four ... riches in mages." Adasse's smile widened, as he leaned forward on his knees. His gaze only shifted down to what Sorrel was doing when Sorrel's hand slapped down on it, but since the man didn't want him to look at it? He didn't. He got the feeling Sorrel was very ... sensitive about his work.

"I rather liked growing up with it, myself. Missed it, after Evelina died." Something came over his face then, something quiet and mournful. "I miss her, truth be told."

He looks back at Sorrel, quirking a corner of his mouth, "I would think so. Mages not really looking to go back."

"You'd be surprised. There's at least a few who seem to think we're all idiots for wanting to live free, and who very much want to go back to how it was," Sorrel tilts his head in an uncertain shrug. He doesn't get it either, Adasse, "Then again, it's not hard to find people who think the Dalish are crazy savages who steal babies and drink blood in the woods or something. So, there's no pleasing some people."

Sorrel's bias isn't nearly so subtle as the nose on his face, after all.

"Evelina?"

Edited 2017-11-18 08:19 (UTC)

"Well, I don't think you're idiots. I do think we need to move forward instead of moving back." He mused for a moment, "I don't want a city made of trees - but I do want a city just for the elves." He blinked for a moment, before he snorted out a laugh, "Yeah, and all city elves are thieves and brigands and rapists and other horrible things. I'm only ever going to cop to the first one."

Yeah well ... Adasse's not too crazy about most humans either. They have to prove themselves worthy of his time.

Like Evelina. "She was a Circle mage, who raised a bunch of us orphan kids from Fereldan. She saved us, clothed us, educated us ... and they stuck her in that horrible Circle." His face pressed into a scowl. "Bastards."

"Well, if you want to hear stories of the Dales, I've certainly had to memorize my share of them. That's what Keepers keep, after all; history and legends, all the tales you can't write down."

You can burn people too, but books, scrolls, and artifacts are easier to capture, and the stories they hold more permanently lost than the ones in Sorrel's head. Memory, repetition, those were the safe archives.

"Templars terrify me," Sorrel tells Adasse, after he's told his story, after a few breaths of quiet have punctuated it. Then he hesitates, as if embarrassed to have blurted it out so plainly, "The ones with the Inquisition are supposedly all to the good, but it's like living with a bear nearby. No matter how peaceable it all seems, they're still so much stronger than you, and no way to stop it. One of them attacked my sister, when they were all still in Skyhold, you know."

He blinked for a moment, before his brown eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "I'd much rather you tell me ... and the children. History's important to learn, s we don't repeat it."

For how else would they teach the children about themselves, when so few actually remembered it?

"They terrify me too." He could say honestly, a shudder running along his bared top half in remembrance. His mouth twisted, and then his gaze narrowed. "Yeah? You know a name, Handsome? I'll keep an eye on him - make sure he doesn't get any other funny ideas."

Sorrel looks up at that, sharp-like, surprised. He'd been living with the impression that the city elves had all turned themselves to point towards the Chantry, Andrastian after a fashion, if not in the same way humans were. In his mind they, and Adasse by extension, would have accepted that version of History for truth. It never occurred to him that he would find them, as Deheune might have put it, hungry for faith. And certainly Sorrel never thought he'd be... invited.

He's far too busy with the slowly blooming smile and the warm fuzzy emotion that goes with it to recall the conversation at hand-- and catch the quiet threat in Adasse's tone; Sorrel can't help it, he laughs.

"Oh. Oh no, no. You've met her, right? She got him in so much trouble, I think he might cry if given a harsh word," Sorrel chuckles again, shaking his head, "If you want it, Ser Cade is his name. But he's not much to worry about, in himself."

Oh, Adasse would admit that most had, with a lack of anything else to turn their faith towards. However, a number of them just paid lip service and Adasse? Knew it because Evelina taught him the basics -- but honestly any religion that locked her up had no respect from him.

So if he could bring Sorrel to his people, give them something else to look towards? Who better than Sorrel, who gave so freely of himself?

He pauses at the laugh, before he smirks wryly and shrugs, "Hey, she's got my loyalty, your sister. Gave me a chance when she just as easy could have killed me. So Ser Cade best watch his p's and q's."

"You're a good man," He tells him, meaning it with perhaps too much sincerity. He folds his arms around his middle, still beaming, "Maybe some shemlen can't see it, but Beleth doesn't miss details. That's why she's in charge."

Much to the consternation of many, no doubt. Sorrel had one foot in the camp of sympathy for Beleth's difficulties with those conflicts that arose from the combination of her position of power and pointed ears. But the rest of him couldn't help the dark joy every time she complained to him that yet another petty power trip had given her a minor inconvenience which she had duly crushed. Perhaps she didn't deserve to be bothered, but to his mind, they deserved to embody the Dalish curse: may you learn.

"Sina needs me most of the day, right now. I'm nothing like as talented at the Warden healer who's volunteered time with her, but he has other jobs, and I don't," He shrugs, one-shouldered, "So, if you want me to tell stories, when would be the best time? We could gather in Sina's forest, if that's easiest. It's private enough there, and quiet."

"I - " He stops for a moment, then clears his throat, looking away with a flush to his face, "No. I mean. I'm Okay. But I'd never say I was ...good." A lopsided smile, "Thieves can't ever be all the way on the good and light side of things. But, yeah, I can believe that about her."

Beleth was what every elf wanted to be - an elf with enough position to change things. That she went about and changed it for others? Just put her up a notch in Adasse's estimation.

A slow, serious nod, before he looked at Sorrel with a quietness in his gaze, "You are so strong, Sorrel. I don't know how I could ... anyways. Sometime in the afternoon? After I finish my training sessions."

It's a matter of opinion, Sorrel is sure, about whether thieves can be of good and light. After all, doesn't it depend on what one is stealing, and from whom? Even Andraste put men to the sword, after all, and no one in this Age can know whether they really truly deserved it.

He winces at the compliment, and turns partly away, but tries if he can to pass it off as merely a thinking pose. Distracted, he's forgotten about the drawing, and it stands open to scrutiny, clearly Adasse, and just as clearly with an emphasis on the line of bare shoulders, and the shapes of musculature in action as he works.

"Afternoon it is. Let's have stories in the forest, three days from now. I'll use the crystal to let you know, if I have to change it. You know how it can be, life."

Adasse now has the chance to glance down, and he sees ... himself. Working, muscles flexed, all rather intimate in a way that was different than the sort of intimacies he's used to. He's never had someone pay that much attention to his body before.

He looks up at Sorrel, dark eyes blazing for a moment, before he clears his throat and rubs his head, "Sounds good, yeah. Let me know if there's anything we can put together for Sina to take back with you."

He stands in the window, and he miiiiight be showing off a little as he flexes his arms back and forth, loosening them up again.

For just that short breath of time Adasse pins him back, impaled on the moment like something sharp and inedible has physically struck through him and pierced the wall behind, trapping him there. The effect fades, but the sensation leaves an echo that blazes up in Sorrel, pink at the tips of his ears and hot under his vallaslin.

The silhouette of Adasse, stark reminder of his state of undress, would have been enough on its own. Sorrel has to look away.

Oh. Oh, right, he'd said something. What? Oh yes. Of course--

"I'll let you know," Sorrel repeats, slowly, and remembers to breathe, "I, ah. I should be going, then. It was a nice surprise, to see you today."

Babbling, wonderful. How will he humiliate himself next?

Adasse's eyes flicker dark flame once more, but instead of doing anything ... absolutely premature and idiotic, he just nods. Smiles nice and slow, before he moves to climb back out.

"Sounds good then. Be seeing you, Handsome." A wink, another brilliant smile, before he hopped down to grip onto the window sill, and then climbed down the rest of the way. Humming quietly as he did so.

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[Open] Training Montage!

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