faderift | 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!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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."

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

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