[Open] Ready to Start the Conquest of Spaces

[hallabackdir]

WHO: Haldir 
WHAT: Haldir is having a hard time going from the Utopia that was Lorien, to the S*ithole that is Kirkwall
WHEN: This month and the next 
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: None at the moment!

 

 

I.                 The Only Tree Kirkwall

Haldir wandered Kirkwall for several days, trying very hard to make sense of it all.  In Lorien, everyone had a purpose, a place. In Kirkwall however, it seemed like no one did. There were a handful men grasping at threads of power, climbing and pushing over one another for a chance to climb the next rung of the social ladder, while majority of the population lived in squalor, fighting over table scraps dressed up and sold to them as a full meal. 

Besides the political and social climates, the overall structure of city was dreary to say the least. The walls looked to be little more than mud, mortar, and iron spikes slapped upon walls haphazardly. There was no thought to the lines of houses, to their architecture. It was just box, after box, after box. The walls seemed to close in on him, so he mostly spent times on the rooftops. It was easier to for him to move from place to place, especially at night. It seemed like every night, one gang or another converged on anyone who ventured out. Dealing with these ruffians was becoming far too inconvenient as it added at least 10 minutes onto every journey he made. Rooftops were much faster by far. 

There also was very little in the way of greenery. In Darktown, Lowtown, and a place lovingly referred to as the Gallows, there wasn’t a speck of anything green anywhere. Hightown had some shrubs, and a few “trees” hardly taller than he was. In his wanderings on the first day, he came upon a large tree. Well, large in terms of what could be compared to in Kirkwall. In Lorien it wouldn’t be considered much more than a seedling. But, it had been far to long since he had stood under the calming shadow of a tree, or heard leaves whisper on a breeze. The residents here, who also were called elves for a reason Haldir couldn’t explain given their differences, had painted the bottom of the tree red, with curling white filigree. It obviously held a great amount of significance to these people, so out of politeness, he did not climb it even though he wanted nothing more than to feel the cradle of it’s limbs under him. So, he came every day, just to stand under it. As he was doing right now. 

II.                The Wounded Coast

Haldir thought he’d never be able to hear the ocean again. He needed to get away from Kirkwall for a while, and so he just walked. He followed his feet, letting them take him where they would. He came upon a bluff, and his nose was hit with the smell of salt and seaweed. He took a deeper breath, and followed the bluff down to the coast. 

He toed off his boots, letting feet shift into the sand as the waves lapped at them. He hissed at the cold, but couldn’t pull himself out of it. He let his eyes drink in the sweeping seascape, and he felt like he could finally breathe for the first time since coming to this forsaken place. With no purpose, and no home, he felt more wraith than elf.  He swathed himself in the cover of his cloak, just wandering, watching, existing. A ship without a rudder or sail. He turned left to look at the towering rock pillars that had slowly been eroded by the churning sea. He scooped up his boots, and then climbed the rock, very carefully due to the slippery surface. Once up on the rock, he sat and watched, finally feeling like Haldir again.

III.               Speak Friend and Enter!

Got a random scenario? Wanna go climb some shit? Get a drink? Let’s talk. Haldir needs some friends.

 

 

Comments

[hallabackdir]

He listened, eyebrow still cocked and still unsure as the dwarf told him of the perils this area offered. The final creature, these Tal-Vashoth, gave him a moments pause. His description sounded eerily similar to that of the Uruk-hai. His encounter with them had been brief, but he could still feel the sting of the blunt blade slicing down his back.

"If these... Tal-Vashoth...if they still linger they should be dealt with. I could help, if needed."

He swallowed, trying to regain himself. He let his attention shift to the Nugs again, and he looked at them a little more closely. After a moment, his eyebrows flew up.

"People eat them?! But they have hands!"

[inagutterson]

"Luckily for everyone, I think it's just bandits, and that'd be humans. Maybe a few elves. Or elflboods, can't assume because someone looks human that they're human." Or Yngvi doesn't because he grew up poor in Darktown, and it's a rude sort of assumption to make, to just go scrubbing out parts of a person that way. "You might see some in Kirkwall proper, they make their living as mercenaries now. Got tired of the Qun thing. Brave though, stickin' around after their old boss went on a rampage."

The casual tone, the little shrug that sends him deeper under the water than he'd like isn't the way most people would phrase 'the time the Arishok stormed Kirkwall and murdered the Viscount' but in fairness that's a mouthful even for Yngvi.

Yngvi grins then, his eyes very wide. "Right?" Someone else gets it. So maybe Yngvi successfully shamed more than a few people into either not eating or even adopting some nugs that one time some months ago but look at them. Look at them. How can you not love their little industrious hand-feet? "People'd buy and sell their own families here, I hate to break that to you."

If his mouth pulls unhappily, it's because his family do that after a fashion all the time. People are investments, not people.

[hallabackdir]

He had a very hard time really understanding all of what this dwarf was saying, but he thought he picked up most of it. If the Tal-Vashoth were being hired as mercenaries, they couldn't be anything like the Uruks. Perhaps he would run into one at a later date.

These nugs were a curiosity. They seemed timid creatures, and they were rather horrid to look at first. But, as he watched them roll and bounce along the beach, he found them strangely endearing. Much like this not dwarf. Although he was crass, and made him very uncomfortable with his stares, he had a friendly manner, an ease even that he hadn't seen of anyone before. Definitely not in a dwarf. Most puzzling. He didn't miss the sadness in his face at his last sentence, and he didn't quite understand.

"I'm afraid I don't understand. Buying and selling families? What does that mean?"

[inagutterson]

Imagine another sixteen. In the same room. Or pulling a chariot fit only for a dwarf made out of an empty keg because dwarves absolutely travel in style no matter the occasion. (Or the names, if Yngvi believed in the Maker there might be a prayer because what names he's given his wriggly pink children.)

Thedas has such an ugly side. If people come from good places or at the very least better places-- Thranduil has the same sort of look in an overall sort of way that Yngvi has to guess at there being something alike in them, the strange start the two of them had until it became what it is now. Any time places come up where it's not the norm to have family be a cold, hard thing scrabbling for what you can get is something that fills him with a longing he wishes could be bitter instead of hungry. Bitter might be easier to swallow, it's harder to swallow past hungry.

"Well, there was slavery back in the old days of Tevinter, mostly elves but some humans too, still slavery there but this is more...if a person thinks they'd get more for selling you out to someone else, say a rival gang, then they'd do it. Or if you cost too much to house and feed instead of what you can bring in against that then either you'll be sent off somewhere or you'll be cold and starving. That's how it goes. Someone wants to get higher up on the rungs of life then they'd sell off your secrets or something like that to a rival or someone who'll expose you, but that's more a rich Orlesian sort of hobby."

Haldir has a concern about a dwarf. It's kinda freaking him out...

[hallabackdir]

He loosely knew about slavery, but it was seen as a reprehensible act that Morgoth inflicted among his people. It disturbed him to think such a thing was practiced here, but it wasn't nearly as disturbing as how he described the dynamics of family life. He had to breathe in deeply a few times too keep from loosing his temper at the thought of family members selling or using another in such a way. Which, is most startling because he finds himself concerned about this dwarf. He wanted to go to his home and ring their necks.

"Relationships in my family were strained, but I would have disemboweled anyone who dared harm them in any way. It makes angry to think yours would not do the same. You do not still live with such people surely?"

[inagutterson]

Ah the luxury of choice. Of not being a small thing, watching someone just like you shivering with their teeth chattering because they weren't good enough to be worth it. Loyalty is curiously bred into Yngvi; loyal to the Carta, the elders, but dizzying terms and conditions to keep up with. He floats on his back, dragging a hand over his face to taste the water, slightly salty from where river meets sea.

"Me and my brother left 'bout ten years ago, Inquisition brought me back and sometimes I see them. People getting on in years. Boys that didn't write." Except he did, and the Carta is everywhere anyway so they had him, they just have a bigger piece now, have him in easier grasp. "Orzammar? Pretty much the same but with castes so if you check that in the library you let me know, that might be that sort of in the bone stuff with us." Or a sadly comforting lie preferred over how terrible people were and are on purpose because they could be, because they want to be, because they don't want to try changing things.