faderift | OPEN ↠ HARING EVENT

WHO: All
WHAT: WINTER IS HERE
WHEN: Haring 15-Wintermarch 1
WHERE: The Gallows, Kirkwall
NOTES: You can use this post as an event-style mingle log, or just use it as background information for your RP elsewhere!

It's been a chilly month already, but in mid-Haring the temperature suddenly plummets. One day it's merely cold, and the next morning the Inquisition wakes to frost on the inside of the window panes and an icy draft whistling through every crack in the tower's masonry. Downstairs, the pipes that feed the bathing chambers and the kitchens creak in the walls, loud enough to be heard even out in the courtyard, where they run beneath the stones, and around midday, when the sun has failed to raise the temperature above freezing, a blocked pipe finally gives, cracking open to spill water across the central court and send it running down side passages. The whole area floods several inches deep and almost immediately begins to freeze, presenting at first a gigantic, treacherous slush puddle and, after a few hours, a sheet of sheer ice.

Melting a safe path from door to door and laying down sand or wood to keep it from becoming slick again is a simple enough undertaking, but before the entire courtyard can be thawed, someone appears with ice skates—and that’s a better idea, surely, for at least a few days. Anyone who complains about the frivolity can be assured it’s good exercise, not to mention good training for a force that may have to travel or fight on ice in the future.

Temperatures remain cold enough that even some parts of the harbor begin to freeze, first just at the calmest edges of the shoreline, and then the more protected nooks and crannies of the bay, inlets and the spaces between piers and beneath docks. It snows most days--not real storms, just a couple inches here and there--little enough for the window to blow most of it off the icy plain of the courtyard and other wide open, paved spaces, accumulating on branches and in alleyways, and creating growing drifts in corners and against walls.

After a week or so actual chunks of floating ice begin to fill the narrow channels of the harbor, threatening smaller and less-sturdy vessels, and the situation in the poorer parts of the city begins to grow dire. With the Viscount's blessing, Inquisition teams (particularly mages) are called in to help. Some are assigned to the docks, to clear ice that makes landing and unloading treacherous, others to help escort ships into harbor by melting a path ahead. Others are sent into Lowtown to clear ice and snow and to provide warmth and medical attention where needed. At least one mage is sent with each team, and while many neighborhoods are pleasantly surprised and grateful for the quick work fire glyphs make of cold hearths and frozen streets, a few are unable to overcome their distrust, and refuse the teams entry, determined to take care of their own without the help of dangerous outsiders.

In the last week of the year, a true blizzard strikes, snow falling steadily for more than a day, blanketing the city at least three feet deep. Digging out the Gallows will be a group effort, and most non-essential trips outside the base will be cancelled for a few days until travel is less difficult, while those who reside in the city or elsewhere may be encouraged to stay a night or two in the fortress so they might continue to work without traveling through the storm. But on the first day of Wintermarch the First Day feast goes on as planned, with modest but plentiful food and ale served in the Gallows' dining hall for anyone who wishes to celebrate the new year.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The first time Vandelin tries to set foot onto the snowy ground outside, the seeping cold through his boots sends blindsiding pain through the once-frostbitten soles of his feet, and his mind is filled unbidden once again with images of gangrene that no spirit healer could slow.

He doesn't leave the building again.

It does not save him from the odd little plants that come bouncing out of an unattended storage closet, crawling their way up his robes with tiny little spines and inexplicable teeth, one biting onto his earlobe to hang there like a particularly festive earring and the rest burrowing into his hair. Yanking at them does no good, and even Vandelin has just enough self-preservation not to set his own hair on fire. He's going to need help.

Edited 2017-12-14 07:41 (UTC)

When they departed Skyhold, Araceli had hoped that snow would become an option. Oh how sad she has so many other things to do she can't go back to Emprise du Lion ever again, her heart is bereft. Then this happens, she curses, and finds rooftops to get around.

Finding a window with some give, she shoves a complaining fox through it but he's all fluff and fat this time of year, he bounces, then secures it on the way to find something to actually dry the ice off him when he scampers off, Araceli racing to catch up until--

"Enchanted Elris?" That looks like him, from what she can see with a knife freed from her sleeve immediately. "Hold still, let me- are they land urchins?"

Araceli could be forgiven for mistaking him, never having seen him before with the world's most aggressive flower crown dancing around his head and obscuring his eyes. At another time, he might be ever so slightly wary of the knife; now, even if he could see it at the moment, it would be very much welcome.

"Senora Bonaventura?" he hazards, by the voice. "Your guess is as good as mine. I don't know what a land urchin looks like." He barely even knows what these things look like, they'd descended so quickly upon him. "It's--ow--some kind of flora, to be certain, but that's not my field of--fuck--expertise."

He'll hold still, for once actually willing to let someone else attempt to help before he resumes yanking futilely at the little bastards.

"Oh good, they might die when I touch them. Every other plant does." That's a joke, but it's not far from the truth because don't ever ask her to look after anything more than a simple herb she'll be throwing in the pot or it will die rather than suffer Araceli's tender mercies.

Anyway, knife in hand she approaches, going for one in his hair before the earlobe since hair grows back and earlobes don't but-- no, they don't have the little rows of teeth gnawing away that urchins do or she can't see them as she slides the knife away again. (Urchins are vicious, there might be time to save that beautiful hair yet Vandelin!)

"You little shit, come here--" Careful, light-fingered the way thieves are with old locks that would just as soon snap the lockpicks as open for them she sets about to untangle one of the things, hurling it away before it has designs for her own hair. "How did these come to be in your hair? Why does anyone even have anything like this - Red Templars have no hair."

It's a joke that actually makes him laugh, in spite of the circumstances--a joke perhaps even funnier to an entropy mage, who never can escape the teasing (at best, and condescension at worst) from creation mages accusing them of just the same flaw.

Then again, perhaps they have the right of it to be so self-satisfied; he'll need one of them or another in the event that he does need to grow back a bit of earlobe. But he has not been given any reason to doubt Araceli's well-sung skills with a blade, even if it proves less effective in the end than her fingers, and he manages to keep the little yelp of pain to himself when the thing finally comes free and takes several strands with it. "Venatori do," he points out, "and if we can unleash enough of these things on them, we'll have all Tevinter at our feet in a fortnight. I wouldn't be surprised if that's what they were in the storeroom for."

It's as neat a removal job as he could possibly ask for, and he's about to thank her profusely for it when he spies the little flung-away menace rolling back toward them, going for Araceli's leg. Quickly, trying to aim well even with two of them still fluttering spiny little leaves in his eyes, he makes to stomp on it before it can get there.

Edited 2017-12-21 09:22 (UTC)

Oh Vandelin, do you know how long it's been since hearing someone laugh so easily over something so little, so simple happened in her life? Too long. Too long. She'd pause if the things weren't in danger of coming for her fingers, instead she smiles, soft, a touch of fondness to it with a murmur of apology about his hair.

(Her own is of course one of if not her chief vanity. She would have screamed the place down if it had been the other way about.)

"If I'd have known only weeks ago--" Well, there were Venatori in the Gallows after all. "Perhaps I'd have thrown these rather than knives, it might have been less messy in the aftermath. Still, they should be in a box. In a box. With locks." Is she being dramatic? Maybe. But consider that Kirkwall and the Gallows decided to freeze worse than Skyhold ever had then be full of extra little hazards; holes in the roof to try not to fall through, strange little sea urchins on land that want to eat whatever they come into contact with.

Rude.

Araceli jumps when Vandelin moves and-- "Not these boots you little shit!" Yes that hair pin is also a knife, she is half-sea, half-knives, tossing one even to scare it (can you scare such things willing to eat everything in their path from the hair onwards?) as she redoubles her efforts in the Let Vandelin See initiative.

“That is a very interesting new fashion trend.”

Gareth appears from around a corner, looking at Vandelin’s new toothy accessories with a raised eyebrow. “Make sure to walk by some of the Orlesians we have hanging around here, so they can admire it. Maybe they’ll start copying you.” He flashes Van a grin at that, making his way on over to inspect the strange plant creatures. Huh. The fact that he’s never met Van before doesn’t seem to stop him from showing interest in whatever is going on here, or shoving his face in it.

“I’ve never heard of such a thing before. Where’d you find them?”

"If it earns me royalties from the great fashion houses, I'll call it a worthwhile discovery," he says. The fact that a stranger is nosing into his business, a berry has just torn out a hank of hair with its teeth, and the one on his ear is now drawing blood does not appear to faze Vandelin but for the faintly strained note of pain in his voice.

"They came from the cupboard there. I mean to go find someone from Research and give them back their subjects. Or take credit for finding them first, whichever it is."

Edited 2017-12-16 22:19 (UTC)

Gareth spares a glance for the cupboard in question, but decides against investigating himself. He doesn't need to have his own little plant monster accessories, thanks. Even if they become extremely fashionable in Orlais. Maybe especially then.

"Well, I never heard of them being in the Gallows or being developed before the whole place went up in flames, so I'd guess it's something brand new. Either made by the people here, or--Well, you'd think someone would notice them on the ferry. Do you think they can swim?" He leans closer, squinting at the one on Van's ear. It doesn't look particularly aquatic, but what does he know?

"I can probably get them off with fire, but, uh--even just going after the one on your ear would be risky. Hair is pretty flammable. And smells awful." He would know, he's done it to enough people.

OPEN ↠ HARING EVENT

The Gallows -- Open

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