She robbed them of wealth

[foxsays]

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.

Comments

[gatheringstorm]

"A Vashoth with influence? Maker, the very thought. You'd know the world is coming to an end, then." Korrin snorts, then drains more of her wine. "Influence also means playing by their rules and politics seems so chaffing. It's all I can do to attend those Council meetings, and that's with the promise of drinks afterward."

Okay, so maybe she has some influence somewhere, but still. With influence come obligations and doing anything other than what she pleases is anathema to Korrin. It's bad enough that she promised to help Adelaide and Pel. But she reins in her issues with that in light of her very charming company.

"If anyone could make that happen, though, it'd be you. I'm probably sealing my own fate with this, but I have this feeling that you could get me to do just about anything. It's very difficult to resist you and your abundant charms. I'm left defenseless before them."

[foxsays]

"What next, a commoner guarding a queen?" She takes a sip of her wine quickly, but not quite so fast as to completely hide her smirk, pleased as she is with her silly joke. "Politics can be just as dangerous as any fight; say the wrong thing in the wrong company and you find yourself without finances and almost begging for the knife that slips between your ribs. There's a strange satisfaction, so I am told, in utterly destroying a person and well, not everyone attends in person. There are delegates you can send, or other eyes and ears to come back and whisper to you in the dark."

Here Araceli is cut off from a world she'd learned to navigate quickly and with surprising ease, but still she listens and researches, flirts shamelessly and gathers information over games of chance. She's been at audiences with the highest nobility from her own country and others, but equally she's been the shadow whispering in her queen's ear after a long night, still smelling of smoke and cheap rum. It makes for a very pretty picture.

"They say that children like me, the daughter of a Bride and a Son are born lucky," she practically purrs, leaning forward so her curls spill from behind her ears, knowing that it always makes her look like she just appeared from beneath the waves. "I would protest my innocence but I am a thief and a scoundrel, one that takes great delight in disarming her foes however she can and I must confess that the thought of you defenseless before me is a very enticing one, the kind that keeps a girl warm all these cold and lonely nights."

[gatheringstorm]

Araceli's joke is met with a thoughtful shrug, never having heard of such a thing, but it still seems more plausible than her own scenario. "Stranger things could happen. Don't tell Orlais, though. I bet they'd faint if their royalty was guarded by anything but the bluest of blue bloods. Chevaliers are one and all noble...in rank if not virtue."

She doesn't have the personal experience to say that with the venom that an Orlesian elf doubtless would, though she's heard some stories. In her eyes, anything else would likely be an improvement. The poor elves and peasants deserve a break, if nothing else.

Araceli leaning forward means that Korrin can no longer resist, and she reaches over to run her fingers through those luxuriant curls. They're far more eye-catching than her own white strands that she eyes up or braids in order to keep out of the way. "It needn't be only a thought that keeps you warm. I happen to adore scoundrels, you know...."

[foxsays]

It’s funnier when the joke is about you, honest. “Most nobles are like that in my experience, unfortunately it seems to start very young then there’s a time where mixing with the commoner and having her sneak in through the window is exciting then it’s back to us being dirty secrets. The few that aren’t like that are few and far-between. Even the ones only very recently raised to nobility get like that very fast, as if they can erase everything that came before, as though it’s shameful.”

Araceli would never be anything but what she is, no matter how much they paid her and here is strangely proof that she must come across as what she is because if they all think she’s a typical Antivan at first, then a year mixing in such company hasn’t changed who she is.

Holding herself still because she’s had her hair snagged before, she’s pleased but not surprised that Korrin is gentle with her curls. Maybe it’s the same sort of principle with the horns and it makes her wonder how Korrin looks with her own hair down, how soft it would feel between her fingers, if it would be fine and smooth as silk. “I could still be offended, to be called a scoundrel when I’ve behaved very nobly since my arrival here; my thefts are small and things easily missed, my gambling wins not as substantial as they could be out of respect for the Inquisition, if not the poker faces of its soldiers,” she teases, composing her face into the appropriate look of pearl-clutching outrage until it cracks when she laughs. “But if you truly adore a scoundrel such as I, I think actions speak far louder than words.”

[gatheringstorm]

"I guess it's the same everywhere, when it comes to those who make their wealth off the backs of others. The Valo-Kas has worked for our fair share of paying nobles and those who treated us as people rather than props were definitely the exception rather than the rule. Especially in Orlais or close to Tevinter. You have to take what you can get, of course, but it does get tiring."

Those glorious curls deserve to be treated only with the utmost care; she would never think to tug or yank on something so treasured. As for her own, the Vashoth woman gives it barely any thought other than to keep it back, but for Araceli it would be easy to talk her out of that. At least while they're alone, and Korrin has no intention of leaving her side any time soon.

She slowly moves her hand away from Araceli's curls, not wanting to mess up such perfection. When that outraged expression crackes, Korrin laughs along with her. "Very nobly, indeed. You're too generous to us all, especially me. And you have an excellent point. I should remedy that." Leaning in -and down, accommodating the much smaller human- Korrin teases no longer, at least verbally, her lips -still tasting of wine- brushing against Araceli's own.

[foxsays]

"Even more reason to horrify all of them in this Val Royeaux, because I can imagine the talk there would be if they couldn't hire you back in Castileos and oh they would want to hire you, if only to lord it over someone else that would then want to hire you in return. That's why being a thief is good - you strike out on your own, loose friendships and taking almost anything you want from rich rude people." Only never sentimental things, something you get good at knowing, things that might be worth a lot in coin but she has her own little lockbox after all. Things dear to her heart that she just holds sometimes, like the dice from her father that she keeps in a special pouch sewn inside her coat pocket.

It's easy to press her face into Korrin's hand, a hand probably as large as her whole skull, about to speak but then Korrin is close and she's leaning in too, eyes falling shut. Her fingertips are rough from a life spent climbing and maintaing weapons, fiddling with locks and working around ships but they're gentle when she reaches out to stroke Korrin's cheek before cupping her face. The table is in the way given the height difference but she doesn't care that it's digging into her side, mouth opening under Korrin's easily because she's missed this, she hasn't kissed anyone in so long since she's been here and Korrin gives her that same rush in her veins as the ones she loves so dearly back home.

They would want her to be happy, and right now, she most certainly is.

[gatheringstorm]

Korrin can't complain about rough fingertips, not when her own are callused from days of either training for combat or the event itself. If anything, Araceli's touch sets her nerves alight, responding to that passion with plenty of her own. But yes, that table is definitely in the way, something she should have thought about before her desire got the better of her. Oh, well. It's something that can easily be remedied.

The thought of moving away from those lips is unappealing, but Korrin forces herself to break that kiss just long enough to move around the annoying obstacle between them both. She can't take the small, slender form of Araceli into her arms fast enough, eager to pick up where they left off without anything in the way.

[foxsays]

As loathe as she is to break the kiss, nowhere in Skyhold stays private and empty for long unless you take certain measures. Others will come for shelter and quiet, to tidy up and she pulls back but cups Korrin's face in both hands, thumbs just about tracing over her cheekbones. Flushed, and more than a little breathless, she steals another kiss instead of speaking because she wants to, because she can but she remembers what Korrin said to her before.

"We should go make sure whomever you bunk with must sleep on the floor," she murmurs, kissing the corner of Korrin's mouth. "Leave the dishes for someone else, dessert isn't for public consumption." That's a terrible line and she'd feel bad but Korrin can take it as a testament to her skill, to have Araceli fumbling and falling back on things she last said as a teenager.

[gatheringstorm]

It may be a terrible line, but it still gets Korrin to laugh rather than groan. At the moment, absolutely everything is wonderful. How can it not be, when Araceli is so warm and close and those lips are so very enticing? But she does have a point and it would be a shame to lose themselves now only to be interrupted. She draws in a shaky breath at that kiss, in a pleasant daze but snapping out of it a moment later.

"All the more reason to leave hastily, then." And Korrin isn't one to waste any time, taking hold of Araceli's hand after lifting it to press a kiss to the fingertips. The closer they are to that door, the more she won't be able to resist scooping Araceli up into her arms. (With the utmost care, of course. Araceli is precious and will always be treated as such.)