On The Road - Emprise du Lion and Western Approach

[the_effect_she_has]

WHO: Christine Delacroix, Merrick Ashara, Samouel Gareth, Korrin Ataash, Kain Highwind, Katniss Everdeen, Cremisius Aclassi, Rachette Dakal, Salvatore, Dismas, Clint Barton, and Fenris
WHAT: Movin' right along, to our separate missions ...
WHEN: First week of Haring
WHERE: The Frostbacks - riding, camping, general hijinks
NOTES: Warnings for sarcasm and probable showing off.

The journey through the Frostbacks is, of course, a grueling one, but only if you are traveling alone. The Inquisition scouting forces are, without a doubt, not alone. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

So clearly, new stories and new friendships or hatreds are just waiting to be written...

Comments

Katniss Everdeen - On the Road - In Camp

[the_effect_she_has]

On the Road

Katniss is riding slightly ahead of the others, to keep an eye out for any trouble. Venatori, red templars, bandits, and of course ... druffalo. She's riding an ill-tempered yellow beast by the name of Haymitch. If you get too close to him, he bites, but he seems to like Katniss just fine.

If you're riding next to her, or riding to catch up, you'll see her giving him an affection pat and call him, "You fat old bastard."

Camp

When at camp, Katniss will help the others set up their tents, gather firewood, food and water from around them, and of course, be hunting when she's not on watch. Typically on watch she'll be up in a tree, her bow across her lap as she scans the forest and path around them.

She is quiet, for the most part, but she will sing to herself when she is taking care of the skins and meat of the animals she has hunted.

[sistertohermen]

"What is that?"

She could be asking about the remains of the hunted animal, but Rachette isn't looking at that, she's looking at Katniss now that her armful of firewood is deposited. Her eyes are squinted in concentration, like listening to a sound in the distance. "That song. Was that you singing?"

[the_effect_she_has]

Katniss looked up, seeing the dwarven woman looking at her curiously. Her expression lost a little of it's apathy, before she answered, "It's a song we like to dance to, down in the Hinterlands, during the festivals. It's about being free to follow your own way."

[sistertohermen]

Well now that gets a grin out of her. "Sounds like my kind of song. I'm not much of a singer," not that she's really tried much, "but I can definitely appreciate the meaning."

[the_effect_she_has]

"Well, I never thought much of my voice myself -- but then I heard people singing in the tavern ... and I felt much better." Katniss smirked faintly, before she started to sing again for the young woman.

Songs were, after all, meant to be shared.

"When the cold winds are a-calling
And the sky is clear and bright,
Misty mountains sing and beckon,
Lead me out into the light...
I will ride, I will fly,
Chase the wind and touch the sky,
I will fly,
Chase the wind and touch the sky...
Na na na naaa na na na naaa..."

[sistertohermen]

Chette's definitely taking a seat, elbows propped on crossed legs and chin in her hand, dreamy. It's different from the bawdy drunken songs some of her fellow Carta would sing, and from the work songs in the tunnels, and the occasional out of tune tune around the streets of Dust Town.

"Should get you an instrument and regale us with songs for the evening," she suggests. "I'm not sure we've got a bard among us."

[the_effect_she_has]

"You would be sadly disappointed. I can't play an instrument to save my life." She patted the bow on her back, "This is the only thing with a string I have been able to make sing. Besides ... not fancy enough to be a bard."

Her lips twist, "And not sneaky enough, either."

[sistertohermen]

"You don't have to be sneaky to be a bard, and you don't have to be a bard to be sneaky." Though she did admire he bow for a moment. "I'm rubbish with those things anyway. I prefer the up close and personal approach."

[the_effect_she_has]

"True ... but you do need to at least have one or the other. All I have is the voice." And yes, she can creep around just fine - but her tact is ... not tact. "Daggers, or sword?"

Clearly neither one of them are mages.

[sistertohermen]

"Both." She pulled a sword up from her back, and a dagger up from her hip, enough to glint the metal in the firelight, before dropping them back in their sheaths. "I can also use an axe in a pinch, but I'm not very partial to them. I guess you could say I like to keep my options open, though."

[the_effect_she_has]

"Well, when you are going to stab people with sharpy pointy objects ... I would say keeping it fluid would be a good idea." Katniss stated, her lips twitching just once. "So what brought you to the Inquisition?"

[sistertohermen]

"Keep moving. That's the way I like it." Keep moving and you're less likely to die. If she were a little more introspective, she might consider that a hearty definition of her life.

"Me?" Someone's really asking about her? "Inquisition got hold of my Carta branch. I didn't want to be jailed. Nothing fancy. You?"

[the_effect_she_has]

"Hm ... not something I can argue with, but at least if you stand still you can aim." Of course, stand still too long, and you could die as well. It was a slippery slope.

She nodded her head slowly, before she shrugged, "I lost the last of my family in the Hinterlands. I thought ... " I thought this would be a good place to die didn't strike as true anymore, so she simply said, "I thought I owed the Herald, for avenging my sister."

Camp

[dalishious]

Merrick slides back into his Dalish lifestyle as easily as breathing. He hunts and gathers, builds shelters and fires, at home in the wilderness. It's like muscle memory. He doesn't seem interested in imparting that knowledge on anyone else, though.

Late at night he walks out of the tent to sit outside for his watch. He crouches near the fire to light his pipe, and smokes it calmly as he starts tending to his knives. While Katniss skins and cleans her game, he hears her singing, and he chooses to listen quietly.

Once she's done, he'll start in on his own song. It's a Dalish tune, often sung near the fires when the work was done, low in his throat. It's like the two of them are trading something, loners at home in the wild.

Re: Camp

[the_effect_she_has]

Katniss, as true her word to pretty much half of the Clan Ashara, has been keeping an eye out for Merrick. He hasn't been broody, just distant, and that she cannot fault him on. So she keeps her peace and she does teach the others how to avoid stepping on branches.

Because she does not want to die.

She hears the Dalish tune, and a sad smile touches her lips, before she answers his song with the next verse. It is a tune she knows well, from her mother, as the sun went down and she moved about Katniss's father's cabin.

[dalishious]

It's a surprise to Merrick that Katniss knows the song, but he keeps it going, joining in with her at the chorus and carrying it through. He's still focused on his knives when it finishes, as if he doesn't even acknowledge she's there or that they just sang together.

Then he speaks. "I knew you had Elven blood, but Dalish is a surprise. Most of our kind won't even get close enough to a human to spit on them, much less sleep with one."

[the_effect_she_has]

Katniss paused, something in her jaw tightening there, before she stuck her knife in the snow. A touch harder than necessary. She then packed the meat with a little bit of snow, and carefully packed it in clean cloth. It was the last one, and she had a nice stack of them for sale and for trade.

Only when she was cleaning her hands of blood, did she speak. "My mother was her clan's healer -- so she had gone off to gather herbs for healing potions. She wandered too far, and was set upon by a bear. My father was hunting there -- and saved her. Then he took her back to his home to heal her wounds. He fell in love with her - wanted to marry her - but when she chose her clan over him ... he let her go with a sad smile. He always said you could never cage a wild bird - they just wouldn't sing to you the same way."

She looked over at Merrick, her grey eyes steady, "So as you can see - my father wasn't a man who should be spit upon. By the Dalish -- or anyone else."

[dalishious]

Merrick just rolls his eyes at that last part. Clearly, Katniss is a bit sensitive. He holds his pipe between his teeth as he cleans each knife carefully. It takes time--he has a lot of them. The two main daggers he uses are laid out before him, and now he's working through his throwing knives.

Every now and then, he takes a hearty drink from the flask he keeps near his boot. Campfire hooch. Never leave home without it.

He doesn't seem interested in commenting on her story, nor does he give any indication that he wants to talk to her any further.

[the_effect_she_has]

She glowered at him, as she took her own knife out of the snow, and proceeded to sit in front of her own tent to sharpen it. She remarked, as she brought the whetstone to the metal. "You have an amazing voice."

A beat, and then she added, "For a prick, anyways."

[dalishious]

"And you hunt well for an uptight bitch," he replies without a beat. Honestly, he doesn't think he said anything particularly insulting--or insulting at all, really--but if that's how she wants to play it, he has no problem rolling with it.

[the_effect_she_has]

She stops for a moment, and stares at him, before one corner of her mouth twisted up. "Well ... I can't deny either one of those statements."

A more considering look, and finally she sighed. Time to eat some crow, but not for her own sake. For Pel, and Ellana, for Salem and for even Gavin. She cared for them and they cared about Merrick. She had promised, swore she would keep an eye out on Merrick -- and antagonizing him over something that he probably did not even realized raised her ire?

Well, made her no better than those who would judge without knowing her.

"I apologize. I have had a ... bad taste in my mouth for a long time, about how people treat my shared heritage. I shouldn't have taken that out on you."

[dalishious]

Merrick doesn't seem ruffled in the slightest. Finished with his knife work for the time being, he stokes the fire a bit then goes back to his spot to continue the smoking and drinking process.

"I just don't get why," he says after a bit, slouched close to the fire's warmth. "Seems like you should just be happy you look like a human. The way you act, it's like being handed a sack of gold for doing nothing and then whining about it."

[the_effect_she_has]

From what the others were telling her, the fact that he didn't heft a knife at her face was probably the best sign she was going to get that he accepted her apology, so she went back to finishing sharpening her knife, and then put it into place.

She sat in front of the fire, taking out a bit of bone to carefully carve, sitting in peaceful silence until Merrick's words drew her out. She was silent a few moments longer, her expression becoming pensive.

"Maybe it would have been different, if my father had been the kind of shemalan who never wanted children who were half-blooded. Or that my mother had simply dumped my sister and I with our father and never looked back. I am sure others have been through that - their first rejection is their own parents, so why would they want to say they had half-blood? Why wouldn't they want to hide, if only to be accepted."

She brings her tiny carving up a little, to blow the shavings free. "But Prim and I weren't raised that way. My father loved us, because we were part of our mother, and part of him. And my mother ... well, she still left, again and again. She made it clear that her clan would never accept us - but she also made it clear that we were still part of the Blood. That we should know both sides of our people, and take pride that despite thousands of years of oppression -- elves were still here. I think she felt guilty, honestly, or maybe ashamed of herself of what she could not do - leave her clan or admit to them what she had done -- and she thought teaching us the Old Ways would make up for her multitude of sins."

She looked up them, her grey eyes serious, "Not saying that it did, either. But I've never been ashamed of who I am, where I came from. If there is nothing else I have learned -- I'll never be looked on with respect, if I do not respect myself. All of myself."

[dalishious]

"I didn't ask for your life story," Merrick says pointedly once she's done, but he does take it all in. He still doesn't quite understand it, but it's of no relevance to him either way. He watches her carve as he smokes; her technique is different than his, and inferior in his opinion, but she's not bad at it.

"I don't put much stock in the Old Ways," he remarks, adjusting his feet so they're as close to the fire as they can get without burning. "It just felt right, being in the woods. Made sense."

[the_effect_she_has]

She arches an eyebrow at him, because he may not have asked but he listened anyways. She is starting to see why the others talk about Merrick that way - he does not want to show he cares. She's ... been there more times than she cares to.

She blows the shavings away, still working on her chess piece. "I do." Not said defensively, just said as is. She looked over at him sharply at that, before she smiled a little at her carving. "The woods are the only place that make sense."