faderift | She robbed them of wealth

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She robbed them of wealth

WHO: Araceli Bonaventura and you!
WHAT: Catch-all for post-Mire; gambling in the tavern, Skyhold parkour 2: electric boogaloo, chilling in the gardens and wildcard available. Also dinner with Korrin Ataash
WHEN: Between returning from the Fallow Mire and folks departing to the darkspawn desert and red templar winter adventureland
WHERE: Skyhold; the Herald’s Rest, battlements, gardens or wherever if you wildcard it
NOTES: Feel free to have seen a wild Araceli roaming past (and possibly up and over) your windows or to have had a run-in with her fox. I’ll match your style/tense.

tavern; teaching cards and dice
If she’s going to have to learn new games of cards, the least she can do is make sure people can play a few hands of the games she grew up with or introduce them to liar’s dice. Liar’s dice is always so much more than just making coin or whatever you’re wagering after all; liar’s dice teaches you how to figure out a tell and how to cover your own with enough practice and how to tell the most bold-faced lies without a single person noticing if you’re good.

She’s more than happy to buy a drink for anyone who wants to play a hand or two. If you’re new she’ll go easy on you if you offer to explain how Wicked Grace works.

parkour;
The best thing about being back in Skyhold is actually having something to climb that won’t have her landing stagnant water that’s full of corpses ready to attack her. There’s always a little note tacked on a corner of the board in her elegant hand offering lessons and her name but it’s easier in small groups or one on one. Often you’ll need to track her down as she does her regular circuits of Skyhold, climbing up and down the walls either side of the fortress

gardens;
The gardens of Skyhold are larger than most gardens in Castileos, lacking the sea air but they’re more sheltered than most other places in Skyhold so she can some of the weak watery sun. After the Mire she needs it so she’s relocated from the library that was beginning to feel overcrowded with actual researchers, something she is absolutely not. Instead she’s working on something of a report, scowling at it most of the time and there are doodles in the margins, annoyed scribbles and half a paw print along the edge of one of the pages but it’s fine, it’s a draft, it’s perfectly fine.

Besides, it’s not even a report exactly, more of a guide, advice about how to actually get around and fight safely in conditions like the Mire.

Feel free to interrupt before she starts getting distracted with her little reference sketches.

wildcard;
Where else have you bumped into her? Or have you met a rather striking fox with streaks of red beneath his black fur and wondered who the hell keeps shouting ‘Lux’ as you stare down at said fox.

dinner with Korrin Ataash;
It took a lot of convincing to get the kitchen staff to allow her to cook. It helps that she had the coin to pay for it thanks to several profitable games of dice because it’s easy to spot a liar and far too many of the soldiers have honest faces here, the kind of men and women that’d be eaten alive in Castileos. She promised Korrin a meal she’d cooked herself and they absolutely deserve it after that hell.

She can’t make her favourite exactly. They don’t have quite as many fish but that’s obviously the problem with being stuck up a bloody mountain although there’s at least plenty of snow and ice to help keep it fresh. One of the helpers stays to explain the herbs she doesn’t recognise but all in all there’s plenty of fish stew served in bread bowls with rich tomato sauce with a healthy glug of good red wine through it.

When Korrin arrives according to the note Araceli left with her, there’s even a candle or two lit. Look, you gotta have ambience for this after she spent a whole day engaged in high stakes kitchen negotiations.

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"The Grey Wardens fight the Blight, yes."

An odd way to look at it, but she wasn't wrong.

The next card pulled out of the deck was a Jack, and Mia hummed in approval. "So. This means that you pay out and the cards here are mine? Not as large a pot as one might hope," she observed. "But there are certainly more face cards hiding in there somewhere."

There was a pause before she nodded. "And yes, it was. It still is, by all accounts. I don't intend to spend the rest of my life in Skyhold, after all."

Conversations as you picked your way down a mountain into the unknown didn't always stick so well but she was pleased enough she hadn't muddled the important details.

"It must have been terrible, I'm sorry you had to live through such a thing," she confessed quietly because it seemed to her, from what she'd learned thus far that most people in this world had been dealt bad hand after bad hand. Wars and crisis that walked in the footsteps the other had left with this the biggest conflict she'd ever managed to find herself in.

"That's how taxes work - the tax collector always wants more but it means I lose cards and thus the advantage begins to stack up." No really, this is actually how she learned about taxes and tariffs and fees as a little girl, and she set down her next card, an eight, to serve as payment.

"And who could blame you, a woman such as you should be in a place more fitting than somewhere crumbling and covered in snow, a fine house where it's warm without almost stepping into the fire I should think."

"A woman such as I."

That appeared to amused her as the cards were carefully gathered up and tucked back into her pile, turning a fresh card out onto the table to begin again. Two, this time. "And what sort of woman is that, I wonder?"

If it was time to play a game of observation, as well as cards, they both might find themselves surprised by what their opponent had in store. Not doubt the girl had her own share of tales to tell.

"A woman with a spine and will of steel if not something stronger to hold such a position, if you are anything like quartermasters. A sense of fairness and humour to go along with the charm and the looks. Compassionate, I would guess if only for taking on what I'm sure is a trying job when the numbers grow and grow here." She places a ten, glancing up from the cards to lift her glass and take a drink, considering carefully. Not quite like the palace staff in such a position because they were very noble and liked to make it known, scowling whenever Araceli had ever gone with a list of things she personally needed.

"A good head for numbers, perhaps knowing that sometimes there are times we all must be practical and tighten our belts, but one would hope that those who can tighten more are asked to do such and others still allowed some slack, often those who can ill afford it tighten until they are nearly cut in two."

"Impressive. And a bit flattering, I'll admit."

Curiosity piqued, Mia leaned closer to the table, flipping over another card, threes, and lying it onto the pile. The girl had a keen mind. But then, so many extraordinary people had made their way to Skyhold, of which she'd only still met a handful.

"Though it's not a surprise that a person who plays cards for one learns to be observant. I could see the Inquisition putting a skill like that to good use," she continued with a considering look.

"It's rude not to flatter a lady, though it's rare when the truth and flattery get to be the same thing."

That is terrible Araceli and maybe she should feel ashamed but that's also a pretty foreign concept for her and isn't this whole world more than enough foreign for one girl to handle? She lowers her eyes almost demurely as she places a ten, but her smile is pleased before she meets Mia's gaze again.

"I have...experience in knowing how to read people. Almost from birth. My mother taught me what she knew from her profession, my father from his. Time as a thief, well that teaches you many lessons very quickly else you get clapped in irons or have a hand cut off." When she wants to help so badly, it's very much on the tip of her tongue to include the last year but she stands out so much already, and even though thief is quite the title, it's more normal and easier to be around than royal guard, especially if you're a stranger.

"A thief? Bold of you to admit."

Though not surprising. She has a way about her that lends it well to the skills necessary for such a trade, which of course means that flattery will be taken for exactly what it is. And it is worth little but pretty speech.

Still, it's pleasant enough, and she won't sour the occasion for that alone. Another card turns over, an eight this time. "It seems the face cards are suddenly shy. Perhaps you should work your silver tongue on them." Mia's eyebrows lifted, a faint curl of amusement at her lips.

"An honest thief is better than a lot of things, and besides, plenty of nobility are thieves as well, it's just that they get excused."

What nobles of Thedas are like remains to be seen but if the people, well majority of humans, are as described, she doubts they'd be much different to the ones she knew back home. Maybe more inclined to send a stronger force after her if she was caught sneaking out a bedroom window with a daughter or a wife waving her goodbye.

"Oh these cards are all very old," she teases even as she touches them lovingly, "I am sure that they've seen all of my tricks but let us try: what I seek is a beauty from beneath the waves, her own loveliness surpassing the crown she wears."

And as if by magic (or cheating), she lays down a queen with a wicked grin.

Quite the lucky draw. Mia gives her an incredulous look at that before clucking her tongue.

"Honest thief, is it?" she murmurs, paying out her due of cards and waving a hand dismissively. Fine. Take the pile. There were plenty more face cards in the deck, and ample opportunity to gain them back. "I'm afraid I have no such skill for poetic words or flattery. I'll have to rely on other methods, it seems."

She reclines slightly in her seat, one eyebrow rising higher. "And I never claimed the nobility were any more honest. You have the right of it, and I have about as much patience for them as I would anyone else. That patience extends as far as their conduct allows for. No more, no less."

Now is the perfect time to take a sip of her drink because there's no way she could keep a straight face.

"Well I'm honest about what I am, the guards at home had names for me, thief-in-the-night and sea fox. Azarola, it means like a fox where I come from, plenty of people would call me that." Only here it'd be more of a mouthful and she could likely comfortably count on one hand how many would be able to say it all without tripping over the words. But she takes the pile, slipping them neatly into place with her own.

"But is it the same here as home I wonder; coin or better yet, influence, can sway so many things. One must put up with rude and terrible people, so it goes, because they hold sway over certain markets for instance whereas a common man with a similar grievance can be ignored much more easily. Not to cast aspersions but those I've met so far are more my own level, none holding so lofty a position as you." After all, she's taken some care not to draw the eye of senior Inquisition figures if she can help it, not until she's fully sussed them out.

"Lofty."

A new card was turned over, a two, laid flat and sharp as you pleased. Something in the woman's words had raised her hackles ever so slightly, though it was difficult to tell save from the clipped tone of her words.

"Do you imagine I took up the job because of the coin or influence, dear? I make my way the same as anyone else."

After a moment to pause, she turns her own card over, raising up the empty hand once she's done.

"Calma, calma. Boatswain is loftier than crew, the mates are loftier than the boatswain and the captain is higher again. It is what it is, I apologise I offend." A different way of speaking is needed here when you bring up such matters clearly because she can be as brazen as she likes because it's almost rude to be coy about finances unless you're haggling. "I mean it in a good way; you are the closest to whatever leadership there is - everyone else? Soldiers. Rifters like myself. Volunteers in the form of scouts, surgeons, people simply seeking refuge. I was merely stating that I'm glad you aren't like most nobles, a sniff of power and coin and it goes to their heads and they forget that the rest of us exist. I've heard too many complain of not having a delicacy when some of us can barely afford a meal or a roof over our heads, that it is not the same in Skyhold at the very least is comforting."

"Nor will it ever be, if I have any say in the matter."

Mia shakes her head adamantly. "Too much separates us all, and too long have we allowed it to do so. Noble, commoner, mage, templar, human, elf, dwarf...is it not enough that we are all in the same danger?" She snorts softly, turning over her own card before taking a deep breath.

"I apologize. With so much at stake, I...should perhaps be more focused on enjoying the game."

"You remind me of a very dear friend when you say that, someone I miss a great deal the longer I am here."

Honestly, if Leandra were around, Araceli would be playing cards against herself as they talked, probably staring in awe if and when she got bored of a solo round. "Oh but we aren't in the same danger, are we?" Clearing her throat, she sets down a card and gives herself a shake, putting on what she'd call her noble voice. "Some of us have ancestors we can trace back for generations, we are the very fabric of a place, we shall be mourned. Send some poor boy or girl to do the dying, how many will even know that they are gone within a month?"

And she does know people like that, it makes her thankful that the war is in a world that isn't hers.

"You only focus if you want to win - you enjoy what you enjoy, your days are probably full of stress enough."

A chuckle escapes the woman as she leans back, smiling wistfully. "Perhaps. But I honestly don't know what to do with myself when I'm not working," she admits with a helpless shrug. "I do enjoy games like this, but the time for them is few and far between. Perhaps I should set aside more time for myself..."

It's a consideration to take. She might not do so unprompted, and it might take some nudging to think of herself rather than those around her, but she might just need it.

A King makes an appearance in her next turn, and her expression brightens. "Ah. Luck's found me again, it seems."

This could be Leandra, if they exchanged the tavern for a private drawing room, if they were more familiar and she laughs quietly. "Ah how well I know such folk; the woman I speak of, Leandra, I have had to drag her almost completely asleep from her study with big splotches of ink on her face from where she fell asleep writing letters. It's why she has a person such as I, to help her take time just for her even if it's lounging in bed with hot tea and a book, not letters or great ponderous tomes on philosophies."

Granted, Araceli can be just as guilty of working to the bone but it feels less like work when you're out and about doing things, running here there and everywhere. Sitting still for too long unless she's memorising a guard rotation drives her mad all too quickly.

"Oh what a traitorous card, all because I flattered the queen, but here, collect your taxes," and oh those are so many cards to give away, but then that thing with the queen was pretty blatant even for her.

"You should know the ego of men in power," Mia countered dryly, sweeping the cards together and patting them into a neat little pile. "Of which I still feel there are far too many. The Chantry's a right mess at the moment, but they didn't get everything wrong."

Listening to Araceli describe her friend earns a faint pang of homesickness. It's every bit what she might have been doing at home, with Rosalie or Branson at her elbow, urging her up to some activity or another. A faintly wistful smile creeps across her lips.

"She's very lucky to have a friend like you," she observes after a moment.

"Lucky for me, Castileos has had queens during my life so we have only had to contend with prince consorts and not kings. I thought the Chantry was all women though? I've only seen them around in the odd hats."

There's a nagging about Tevinter but everything about that place sounded so bizarre that she'd rather just keep her thoughts to herself.

"Sometimes it's the other way round; she showed me things I wouldn't have seen on my own, at least not from her side of it. She might have taught me to be a little less reckless, I know, I know, how could anyone think such a thing of someone like me. But I hate to worry her so I agree to at least try to think a plan through a little longer than I used to."

"The most powerful positions belong to women, but men join as well. The Chant teaches us that they are too prone to making rash, emotional decisions to have any true authority, but..."

And she gives a mild shrug at that. It's likely all political, as most things with the Chantry are these days. It should be enough to have faith, and yet.

As she continues to speak of her friend, Mia finds herself smiling a little wider. She does indeed sound like a woman after her own heart. "You must miss her," she remarks, turning over another card onto the table after a moment's pause.

"It still is something to adjust to for me. All of us embody the sea in our own ways, it is mother and father and neither at once though when women can only be the moon, in some ways men can only be the sea. We don't have authority exactly, only our love and reverence."

But then they are allowed to have their fury because the sea is never calm at all times, whipping high into storms capped in white peaks, drowning those it chooses to drown.

Her throat tightens painfully, enough that she can't swallow and she nods, practice the only thing that keeps the smile on her face as she sets her card down. "I worry about her. I worry about her worrying about me - there are lots of things that could have happened because I was returning to her when I came through the rift, I don't know if anyone even saw me and would let her know what happened so she would at least know. That's always the worst part, you turn things over and over and torture yourself."

"I know the feeling well."

Seeing that familiar pain flicker across the woman's face, Mia felt a faint tug in her chest. The next card pressed down against the deck, a seven this time. "My brother had a habit of disappearing on us after one catastrophe or another. Sometimes I wouldn't know where he'd gone, or if he was even alive. He didn't have the excuse of disappearing through a hole in the Fade, either," she continues, a little more crisply.

But that tone gentles as her eyes lift once more. "But every time I found him, no matter how angry I felt, or how helpless, or frustrated, none of those things could compare to the relief I felt knowing he was safe. As I'm certain will be the case when you return."

"Your brother?" Forgive her if she sounds shocked but it's almost enough to have her spitting out her drink all over the cards. "But family of any description isn't supposed to do that, even when my father was away at sea we would still know enough to know he was fine and well. To not know such a thing...I am so sorry, I can't imagine the worries you must have had."

She'd slap someone's face clean off their face for such a thing and whenever she gets home and her loved ones line up to do that? She'll take it.

Setting down a Jack buys her a little time but she has to be honest now when she looks up, trying to shrug it off even though she can't. "I've seen the rift I fell through and another one, I...I think it's more a matter of if rather than when. The demons die and it closes in on itself but the rest of us, we remain."

The due amount of cards are dealt out, though it appears they both have something a little heavier weighing on their minds than the outcome of the game. "Cullen is...a very private individual. He always has been. Stubborn, too. I wouldn't doubt he saw it as protecting us from whatever he was going through. It certainly wasn't done out of malice."

It had still stung. It still did. But it was foolish to expect anything to come of it now.

One hand gestured to the pile, inviting her to take her winnings. But then she sees that crestfallen expression, and she reaches across to place a hand on the young woman's. "They will find a way. I'm sure of it."

"You aren't private with family though. You're frank, honest to the point you're rude but because they're family you're forgiven." Or that could just be her, she's bad at lying to anyone she cares from and in such instances, lies by omission still get counted as lies. One of the first warning flags for her has always been a reluctance to tell someone something because often, it's turned out to be the most important thing she should actually tell.

A grateful smile is given because well, people don't need to comfort strangers, not here with so much going on. "I hope so. I wish to help however I can but there is a life waiting for me, I wouldn't want my mother to worry more than she does anyway for a wild daughter."

She doesn't disagree with Araceli's view of it, not even a little. But things could change. Things had changed. It did no good to mourn what had been. There was only the now, and what they could do to make things better. But those were struggles she need not burden herself with. Mia could handle those on her own.

"Take it from a professional worrier. It'll all be worth it when she sees you again. There may be shouting, and there may be tears, but it is a far better thing than the alternatives." Her lips curve faintly. "And it will be a thing you may be glad to endure, before it's over."

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She robbed them of wealth

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