faderift | I couldn't hide from the thunder in a sky full of song.

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{ inessa serra }

I couldn't hide from the thunder in a sky full of song.

WHO: Ilse Althaus + You
WHAT: Ilse arriving in Kirkwall and settling herself in, as much as she ever settles.
WHEN: The last week of Justinian
WHERE: Around the Gallows, mostly.
NOTES: Mentions/references to starvation, nudity due to the baths, hating the rich, etc. If I've forgotten any, please let me know!

I. The Gallows - Training Grounds

After making her way to Kirkwall and pledging herself to the Inquisition’s cause, Ilse’s first stop is to hunt for the armory and the training grounds. She spends several minutes inspecting the available weapons, plucking several arrows for practice for herself along the way.

Then she makes her way to the open areas obviously set aside for training. Covered in dirt, hungry, and not yet changed from her long journey here, before anything else, Ilse takes care to sate her hunger for keeping her instincts and mind sharp.

She lets the arrows fly, picturing each target as the Darkspawn that have taken so much from her. That, or the useless nobility with all of their pretty lies and posturing while people die around them. Her expression is one of concentration, but if one looks closely, one might just catch a glimpse of the vulnerability Ilse tries so hard to keep concealed.

II. The Gallows – Communal Baths

Ilse loses herself to her archery practice. Hours pass her by before she notices; by the time she pulls herself out of the trance she’s fallen into, the sun has begun to set; the air has tempered with incoming evening.

Her stomach grumbles, but she ignores it for now. She’s gotten rather good at ignoring its demands over the years, after all.

She makes her way to the baths, shedding her clothes, sticky and hot with sweat, dust, and muck, as she makes her way to the water. She might be a devout Andrastian, but the excessive modesty preached by the Chantry has never been a luxury she could indulge, not in her life, and the events she’s lived through, at any rate.

The water is cold, which makes her smile, a rare sight to behold when she isn’t around cats or indulging in her habit of less than reputable novels. She much prefers the cold water; too much of her life is defined by hot.

She hears the telltale sounds of someone else joining her. Before she settles completely into one of the few luxuries she does allow herself, Ilse arches an eyebrow and twists to catch a glance at who might be joining her.

III. The Gallows – One of the smaller chapels

Ilse finally washes up and grabs herself a quick but hearty meal, the best she’s eaten since…well, she can’t remember when. But the point is, it was delicious and sustaining.

Truthfully, she should have made her way to the chapel first, to offer prayers of thanks for making it to Kirkwall safely. Given the overall world state of Thedas, and all of the dangers she’s encountered on her journey to this Inquisition outpost, she knows she owes a good deal of gratitude to Andraste for guiding her here.

The chapel is simply decorated, which also helps to put Ilse at ease. She prefers these simple affairs as opposed to the grander chapels with all their ornate decorations; so much indulgence that could have, instead, gone to help the poor, as the Chantry is supposed to do.

But that is a thought better put aside for the moment.

Ilse falls to her knees and begins to pray, murmuring quietly her favorite of the prayers her father taught her. Out of the corners of her eyes, even cast as they are humbly at the floor, she can catch the silver sparkle of the stars in the night sky. The stars she likes to think her father sent to guide her.

IV. Wildcard. Have a specific prompt you'd like for Ilse and your character? Let me know through plurk or PM and I'll be happy to write a specific starter!

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Myira has been a devotee of the baths since she arrived in the Gallows. While she prefers to soak in a hot bath, she's happy enough with cold water. One can't be choosy, can they? She bounces up to the edge of the bath without a hint of modesty and sits down to dip her feet in as she lays a washcloth and towel out in easy reach, though she seems to lack soap. As Ilse turns to look at her, the dusky skinned, dark-haired girl waggles her fingers and grins.

"Don't mind me none!" With that she pushes herself off the edge and splashes down into the bath to cover her head and then bounces back up, breaking the surface with a loud gasp and a whoop. She reaches up and pushes her hair back out of her eyes.

"Gah! The cold wakes ya up, don't it?" She squints after a moment. "Yer a new face." Well, practically everyone is a new face to Myira.

"I'm Myira! I fell out of a hole in th' sky." She lifts her hand again to show off the strange gem-like mark she's been given, shrugs.

Ilse had been hoping for a quiet bath, but then, she can't really be picky or surprised, given that she's in a communal bath house. As it is, she remains where she is, eyebrow still arched, as she takes in the sight of the new company beside her.

"I just arrived today, yes," Ilse concedes. "Myira, is it?"

And then she mentions falling from a hole in the sky. And shows off the green mark on her hand.

Ilse wrinkles her nose, distrust evident in her expression. "So you're a rifter then?"

Right, well. Suppose she shouldn't be surprised about that either.

Myira is boisterous and energetic in a youthful, unrestrained way. She's almost wild, even. She grins at Ilse and bobs her head in a little nod. Either she hasn't picked up on the suspicion or she's just ignoring it.

"Ayuh. That's what they tell me. I figure I'm just a raven, but they like tellin' you what to do around here." She sinks back into the water a little and sighs.

"...I do dearly love these baths, though." She tilts her head to one side and shakes it to clear some water out of her ear.

"Are you from here? I mean, not from a hole in the sky?"

There's something...childlike about this rifter, Myira, as she seems to be called, Ilse notes. She's boisterous and enthusiastic; bright. Something in Ilse's heart aches at the realization. This girl, and she seems like such a girl to Ilse, will likely lose some of that childlike enthusiasm at some point, she assumes. Everything innocent eventually decays, this she knows from experience. Or falls to Darkspawn.

She doesn't let any of that show on her face, however.

"You're...a bird," she repeats, both curious and even more distrustful of her new companion. Magic. Of course it would be magic, on top of everything else.

"I'm from the Anderfels," she says with a wry smile. "There are holes everywhere, and not just in the sky." The ground. Peoples bellies. To name a few.

There's definitely an innocence to her. An energetic desire to see the world and learn about it that might not be there if she were older and wiser.

"Yep. S'hard to keep my feathers on here, though. If I try for too long I have to put my human skin back on and I dunno why. Magic here ain't the same as I'm used to." Myira tilts her head back a little, resting against the side of the tub.

"Where's the Anderfels?" Myira's grasp of geography in this new place is tenuous at best.

"I've not had much of a chance to do much but fly 'round the Gallows and over the city."

Ilse stares, because how else is she supposed to respond? Not only is she currently sharing the bath with a stranger, she's sharing it with a rifter mage who seems to be a shapeshifter, on top of that.

"Perhaps it's nature's way of trying to send you a message," she says bluntly. She's never been one for dressing up her words with false sentiments.

"To the north," she explains. "Northwest, to be precise. Although, from what I understand, a good amount of our forces are currently occupying Orlais."

Normally, the thought of her humble homeland invading Orlais would make her smile. But given how tense and uneasy the Anderfels have become lately, the move doesn't bring her the happiness she thought it would.

"A message? Maybe. Might be saying I need to learn more. About what though, I couldn't tell ya." Myira seems to take the idea in stride easily enough and doesn't seem to take offense at the bluntness.

"Why would they want t'occupy Orlaze?" Myira garbles the pronunciation of the word the first time she tries it.

Once, before she'd learned to hold her tongue, Ilse would have immediately snapped back with 'to stay human of course.' In fact, it takes nearly all of her remaining energy to do so now.

As it is, she has learned some restraint from her time with the Green Men. After all, it often turned out to be a matter of life and death, in the various situations she got herself into.

She manages a smirk at the mispronunciation of 'Orlais.' She also doesn't bother to correct.

"Damn me if I know," she replies with a shrug. "I'm not invited to those meetings."

"Oh. Well I guess that's true, ain't it. Not like people tell everyone their plans or anything." Myira accepts the answer at face value without so much as a blink and slumps a little lower in the water to let it rise up to her chin. Ahhh. So much better.

"I'm still figurin' this place out. There's a lot to know. Kinda overwhelming..."

The evening prayers are Myr's favorite: A final opportunity for communion with the Maker and His Bride before sleep; a chance to recollect the day, touched with gratitude instead of morning's beseeching. Of course, given his sometimes-erratic sleep schedule they're not always evening prayers--but he's been trying very hard lately to be awake with the rest of the Gallows.

Thus he's come to the chapel not long after sundown and Ilse's arrival, pausing on the door's threshold at the sound of an unfamiliar voice entreating Andraste. He's nothing against praying in company, though--even the company of strangers; after all, they're all one body in the Maker--and so continues into the nave after a moment's pause, staff ticking on the stone floor. A year's familiarity lets him navigate the space nearly as well as if he were sighted; he knows how many can kneel before the altar, and exactly how much room to give Ilse as he takes a place beside her.

No mistaking him for anything but a mage: He's still in his work robes, to say nothing of the staff he lays down beside him before clasping his hands before him and adding his voice to hers.

Ilse has her eyes closed and her head bowed as she prays, habits borne from her years of devotion. She tries not to think too hard on Dietrich and the lack of correspondence with him ever since she informed him she was making her way to sign up with the Inquisition. Still, she includes him in her prayers, all the same. He's really the only family she knows she still has, now; she doesn't know whether her mother and her husband are still alive, after all. She prays for them too.

She isn't the sort to throw herself into a meditative state when praying; indeed, given her experiences, she can't afford to be. She recognizes the sound of what it is either a walking stick or staff approaching where she kneels.

She tenses automatically, ready for a fight, if need be. It wouldn't be the first time she'd spilled blood on holy ground.

She waits and she watches as the man joins her, taking note immediately of the staff he places down and his robes. Ugh, a mage. Great.

It's as she's glancing up that she notices his ears. She can't help but stare, then. An...Andrastian elf mage? They exist?

She only just then realizes that her own prayers have tapered off into silence as she continues to stare. Ilse clears her throat.

"I apologize if I'm intruding on your usual prayer time," she manages, still staring. She's trying desperately to wrap her mind around what she's seeing.

Not only do they exist, but Myr's only the most recent one to join the Inquisition--

But that's, perhaps, a story for another time.

He's not unaccustomed to people leaving off their activities (and, presumably, staring) when he enters a room; it's happened often enough by now that he's at some kind of peace with it. (It's easier in the chapel, in the Lady's presence. Easier to balance earthly trials against what really matters.) So when Ilse goes silent, he does at well, as if in anticipation of the comment to come--because that's what often follows the staring, especially from newcomers to the Inquisition.

"Not intruding at all; besides, it's Our Lady's space, not mine," he replies to her, with a smile. "I'd be churlish to object to someone at her prayers. I hope I've not disturbed you, by turns."

Ilse can't stop staring, and not just for the obvious reasons. Lately, she's encountered more people questioning their faith than not (and, in fairness to them, how can they not, when the world seems to be going to shit around them), and so she's a bit taken aback, too, by the man's gentle tones and outright admission of faith.

"I suppose you are right, serah," she says with a nod and a brief bow of her head. "And you have not, I assure you."

She should probably stop staring. "I admit," she says, bluntly as ever, "I do not often come across elf mages who believe in the Maker."

She doesn't come across elves in general outside of alienages and servants' quarters, but she has enough tact to keep that to herself, at least.

Certainly, in the light of everything that's happened in the past four years--Corypheus, the wars, the Divine's death not least of all--it was easier to give up on faith than cling to it. The Maker had already turned His back on the world, so the Chant said; what use was it appealing to Him any longer as things got steadily worse?

But there are some that hold on, still, and it's a little bit of balm to Myr's soul to know that another of them has joined the Inquisition.

Blunt though the question might be, it gets even more of a smile out of him--albeit a rueful one. "Some would say that's because we've double the reason not to." Take, for instance, his cousin, beloved and frustratingly agnostic to the core--though even if Vandelin weren't a mage or an elf, Myr's no doubt that growing up under someone like Uncle Vardren would've been sufficient to drive the native faith out of anyone.

"And I don't begrudge them that; there's been real harm done to both groups in the Maker's name. But He Made us too--and no matter what evil His other children might invent, they can't take that fact away from us."

Most evenings Yngvi works on traps until his hands refuse to budge.

Dinner heavy and settled in his belly, knuckles popping and cracking when he flexes his fingers, he makes his way down to the baths with a lighter tread than most would credit to a dwarf, a towel wrapped about him that might make some sort of fancy shift dress on a lass on account of his height. (Really it should go about his waist but if you go grabbing towels fit for men this is what you get, and sometimes you need to wrap yourself in one by the fire to let you have a good stare for an hour or so before you get back to doing whatever it is you're meant to be doing.)

His clothes already set down with enough sharp things in them to catch out anyone stupid enough to go poking at them, he dips his toes in and--

"Bugger me sideways, it's as bad as gettin' tossed in rivers in the winter." Not that he's shouting, more alarmed but he was here, he's not running off to go take a hot bath when work kept him this side of things so here he is, slipping of the towel - Darktown and mercenary life don't leave you much by the way of modesty - as he slides in. Teeth chattering. Not much on this dwarf despite the meal in him. "Evening."

S'up, interloper here, but he didn't bring any nugs or a goose to splash about so it's not as bad as it could be.

Ilse might be a devout Andrastian but she's never been known for her pristine mouth and refined use of language. Drifting in and out of her thoughts as she is, she really only hears Yngvi when he swears as he gets into the tub. She arches an eyebrow in his direction, curious.

"Depends on which river, really," she says. It takes her a moment to realize she's speaking with a dwarf. Huh. Less than a day in Kirkwall, and she's already been exposed to people from just about every population in Thedas. Will wonders never cease?

"Evening yourself," she replies. "I take it you were looking for the other baths?"

"Frostbacks rivers. Or anywhere in winter that's not Antiva, anywhere that actually knows what cold is and not 'oh bit of a chill, might have to wear some layers' that sort of cold." Because what Antivans know about being cold in Antiva could could fit in the thimble holding all Yngvi's tears for them with room to spare. Life on the road never meant going to an inn for a bath, least of all because most of the inns a mercenary band stopped at never had baths.

He kicks his legs under the water, not hard enough to splash but enough to get the blood flowing, keep the feeling in them as his body gets used to it again. Remembers being river water clean. Kirkwall making him soft this time in ways it never did before.

"Had to swing by the smithy, y'know what a smithy ends up like, the filth," he says with a shrug that almost has him slipping too deep. "You don't sound like the usual sort that come for the cold baths, don't know if I've been where you're from much."

Ilse laughs outright at that. She appreciates the dwarf's blunt manner of speaking; it reminds her so much of her fellow Green Men, and of home. "It amazes me that Antivans can even survive a single snow storm," she says. "Let alone an entire winter." She's seen what true cold is; what it does to people. It's rather amazing her eyes haven't rolled straight out of her head from overhearing so many petty complaints from nobles about the cold.

"Not a good smithy if it isn't filthy," she points out.

She shrugs. "I like the cold water, myself. It's refreshing. And something of a rarity, depending on where in my country one happens to be." Which, currently, is a smoldering hellscape, mostly, covered in red lyrium, demons, and rumors running rampant of Corypheus.

"Have you been here long yourself?" She asks. What she means is: Are you from Orzammar?

"Be interesting to see how that real fancy one with all the birds does it, you heard about her?" Yngvi drops his voice, low as if she might show up but those are mages, don't know what they get up to. "Load of pink birds, my money's on taking all their feathers for some hideous robe."

Rich people generally got no taste. History will prove him right on that count.

"You seen one in Orlais? 'Ooh mon-syoor do not touch that, it must be pristine or the iron, it will be compromised.' It's iron, that's already dirty and they were his tongs. Mad." Give him an honest foundry as he dips beneath the surface on a long inhale to come back up, hair soaked and plastered to his head. He continues after a moment to consider, weighs it up. "Not dog lord country then. Not Nevarra. Anders?"

Only a few trips there but how they'd all cooked in their leather or plate, blisters on blisters, delirious with it. Still did it more than once.

With a low whistle through his teeth, Yngvi counts back. Doesn't need to but makes a show of it. "Over a year since the Inquisition had me come back here, I'd been gone over ten by that point, still as ugly as I left her."

Inessa is not training today, or at least she didn't have that intention, but it's sometimes easier to let Garahel lead her than resist. She humors his need to sniff everything and greet everyone, at least while there's a little time to spare. The repeated thud of arrows striking their targets is head as they get closer, and her mabari pauses to sniff the air, perking up.

"Garahel? What is it--" And he's off, streaking toward the archer training. Always at Inessa's side in the Anderfels -for good reason- the mabari's sharp mind picks up the familiar scent of, one of the few who did not give them reason to fear. His mistress's gaze follows the happily barking mabari, and she follows behind him only to stop short a moment later.

"...Ilse?" That was her name, right?

Ilse hears the approach of the mabari, the loud barking rather giving the creature away. She doesn't turn until she hears her name being called, however. She shifts as she turns, taking in the sight of the stranger and her pet. She tries not to smile at the sight of the dog, but, well. Even she has her weaknesses.

"Who's asking?" She asks out of instinct, arching an eyebrow as she moves to store her weapon, for the moment.

She only just then notices the woman's pointed ears.

"Inessa Serra, of the Grey Wardens. It's alright if you don't quite remember, I know it's been some time." On the other hand, her mabari whines a little, looking up at Isle hopefully. She shakes her head at him, her tone a little firm. "Garahel, gives her a little space. Sorry, he's always eager to reunite with a friendly face."

It’s late.

That’s a given; she doesn’t come by day. Not if it can be helped, not without a reason to show her face. A bizarre thing, this past year, to find herself at once without those eyes. The Gallows’ isolation, the broad indifference of its residents —

No one asks for an excuse.

Relief, loneliness, call it some name between and you'll strike close to the center: For thirty years, forty; the Chantry’s always been there. For thirty years, forty; may it still. But it’s late, and she didn’t expect to find the chapel occupied.

Wren drags a hand over her jaw, makes for a quiet exit past the newly-sanded pew (now absent of bawdy verse) and the little statue of Andraste. Around the corner, and past the heavy iron candelabra, and then into the heavy iron candelabra, and if the ringing clang of metal off stone didn’t rouse Ilse, the subsequent Orlesian cursing just might.

Molten wax sloughs down onto the floor as Wren juggles the lamp in one hand, batting at the small flames licking her sleeve with the other, and generally making a stellar first impression.

"For fuck's sake —"

Edited 2018-07-06 06:17 (UTC)

Ilse arches an eyebrow at the clanging of metal. Perhaps a clumsy servant, she assumes, worn out from a day of tending to masters who could care less about their physical well-being. It wouldn't be the first time she'd come across a human or elf half-collapsed against a wall or statue, after all.

The string of Orlesian cursing dispels that train of thought as quickly as it arrives. She snorts, rolling her eyes. No, likely just some drunk noble, then, she assumes.

She sighs, picks herself up from her position, and makes her way over to where a woman seems to struggle with a lamp and setting herself on fire.

"Hold on," she calls out, turning to find the nearest source of water she can. It takes a moment before she does, tossing the water onto the woman's sleeves with little ceremony.

"Let me help with that," she insists, moving to help hold the lamp, after.

"Merci," She breathes out — coughs, really, to shake the ash from her singed sleeves. There’s a decent shirt ruined, and this one not even for blood. "Always seemed a hazard, leaving these about,"

Eternal flames are well and good, until your local Chantry’s roofed in thatch. The look as she straightens shoots briefly, terribly, awkward: the particular embarrassment of someone trying to recompose their dignity in real-time.

"I did not intend to disrupt your devotions," She gestures, curtailed for the sudden recollection of another fucking candlestick, right there, "I confess, I did not expect to find the chapel occupied."

Closer, it’s easier to spot the black bags beneath her eyes, the small tensions of absent sleep.

"A late shift?"

Edited 2018-07-16 13:22 (UTC)

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I couldn't hide from the thunder in a sky full of song.

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