WHO: Araceli Bonaventura; open WHAT: Kirkwall adventures WHEN: Kingsway WHERE: Kirkwall + Wounded Coast NOTES: Hit me up on plurk/discord for a closed starter or put something up and I'll roll with it, starters in the comments
Since the curfew for rifters had been lifted, Kirkwall has been free to be explored in the later hours that bleed into the small, something Araceli does with abandon. She knows how to keep herself tucked into the shadows, and people aren't accustomed to looking up here even if the buildings in Hightown would be better for it.
Right now, with things still tipped closer to precarious, she's not going to push it.
But it feels good, better than good, and right, to be there in the dark of night or the very small hours scrambling up a wall or on the rooftops where she can be caught to speak or to demonstrate if you've arranged the lessons. (Hopefully you bothered to sleep first, took the advice offered that yes, this is the hour we're doing this outside of the Gallows.)
Or you weren't up for braving all the rest of Kirkwall where the architecture isn't as stable. So it's evening. The Gallows. And that is a leg going up past your window, or fingers curled for the edge of a moment. Maybe you're up there too Araceli doubts she's far from the only one who enjoys her time on walls or rooftops, it's a good time to switch the brain off beyond the few steps ahead.
If the recent frantic scramble to Minrathous cast a light on anything it was this: swimming lessons.
Kirkwall is bounded by water all along one side of it, sailing off to places no longer an optional experience but mandatory if where they're going to is easier to get to by ship, so the idea of people not knowing is senseless. The flyers take a little time after getting back, might not be the first, but she'd rather get started now. Build on what Charles began then see if the rest of Naval Presence can be gathered together.
(Who knows, perhaps the Inquisition will field a swim team by the time all is said and done.)
Beginners lessons are by the docks with strict instructions on not to wear that essentially boil down to being sensible: no robes for the mages, nothing heavy so not your armour, and nothing you're scared you'll lose. (She's watched a very rich girl visiting home sobbing hysterically over a lost earring once, of all the things.)
"We'll go between piers first," she says to whoever shows up, simple trousers that cut off below the knee, antaam-saar top since what's the point in wearing much. "If you've swum before, let me know, I'll get in and you can show me how you swim." Frantic doggy paddle throwing up great arcs of white water or anything more co-ordinated, if they even know how. She can start with just about anything.
For the more confident, it's out by the Wounded Coast where there current tugs stronger, where kelps grow in long strands to brush the feet or fish dart past. All the worst fears for the unwary who might know a river, but not waters that open up and out to greater things, where everything is a horror ready to bite the foot off at the ankle. "See the skerry? It's only to the skerry. It's not far. Then we haul ourselves up and stop and decide where we want to go next."
In either case, she's got her cloak. In case someone starts struggling. Hopefully it won't be needed.
Church is only more confident (and maybe he should not be) after swimming lessons done up for a bit of a 'mission', which also ended up in an argument with the leader of the forces about basic life-saving medical procedures. He still has no idea how Coupe got the idea of blood magic being involved in CPR, but whatever.
He raises a hand. "Question: what's a skerry?"
Listen...he does not sea talk. Someone tells him to get on a boat, he gets on a boat. That's mostly it.
Treading water with her the hood of her cape pushed back, Araceli hesitates. There's always that moment when a word is there on the tip of her tongue, looking between Church and it and back again when she doesn't know another name for it at first, if the translation is right. It always was what it was. That out there my girl? Oh that's the skerry, same as that one, and that one, and if you squint you can see another collection curving past until they go out of sight.
But she tries. Mouth pursing around it. "See that very small island there? The tiny one? Almost a reef?" Her hand raises up out of the water, a sheet of water sluicing down the arm of the cape where she points; glossy black cormorants have settled on it, their wings held out at their sides to dry, shining blue-green in the light. "That's a skerry, I think...maybe you call it sea stacks other places? It was always the skerry. Too little to live on for us, good to just rest on. No seals hauled out today."
If there had been seals, she'd have revised plans, maybe taken out a lifeboat to moor it there or picked a different spot, she's not in the habit of disturbing seals but the birds won't bother them if they don't bother the birds.
Listen. It's a fair question. "Oh! Right. You know, I...did not know those things had names? I always thought of...just...rocks. That rock out there. Rocks out in the ocean. Reef works. I think reef is a--I mean I always think of reefs being under the water--"
And that's about the point where he decides he should really pay more attention to his body in the water than talking words, because it's rougher, here, and sea water in the mouth is gross, and also maybe don't! get pulled away! by the water! Thank you! He splashes a little, rights himself, back on track.
"Everything has a name, the sea is older than all things." She kicks her legs to get herself onto her back to take a few lazier strokes, buoyant and comfortable, better able to see. "Some of them are as old as the ones that bubble up with lava from undersea volcanoes and vents, I just don't know if Thedas has those or if it's a thing people have time to care about between all their wars."
That's the benefit of having only the one: time for so much more, all that effort poured into everything else you might possibly imagine as she rolls back into her front, dipping beneath the surface and back up.
"Do you need a hand?" Christine wouldn't be happy to have a half-sized Church returned at the end of the day.
"I'm fine, I'm good, just...got distracted, that's all." His movements are nowhere near as smooth as hers, as someone whose life has revolved around the sea since birth. He's had a couple of lessons and a couple of dips to go with them. There was never much reason to learn in Skyhold. Has anyone taken the idea of lifejackets under further consideration? Because they really should.
"You ever consider writing? Like, poetry. That's gotta have a big market in Thedas, sea poetry."
"At least you didn't come in armour, I thought some people might." You know how some people are Church, practically stitched into it (it's a disturbing little road to go down in her thoughts but on the surface, funny) although it does beg the question: "I mean I thought someone might try then just sink to the bottom, and it's not as if they have diving helmets at all here, they wouldn't even be any use down there. They'd be nipples on a breastplate."
Now if they did have diving helmets (and the suits) then they could just go strolling along the bottom of the seabed how do you do fellow armoured life how is the coral today? Any red lyrium to report? It almost has her gulping down water herself.
"Poetry? Oh no I'd--" She laughs, shaking her head, water flying everywhere, caught offguard by it. "I don't have the-- no, we should leave that to the professionals shouldn't we? Gwenaëlle for instance would be far more accomplished in that regard."
"...Did you know you're a genius? Okay. Two things. First, you know sea shanties and talk poetically about the ocean, I think you can manage writing some of it down and making a few silver for the efforts." Speaking of efforts, the water here does drag more than in Kirkwall's harbor proper. He has to stop himself speaking just to concentrate on keeping on past the pull. It helps, he thinks, to be as fit as he is from working out and carrying shit and marching around and swinging swords and generally narrowly avoiding death. The medieval workout. Not dying.
"Right, and, and second, diving helmets. You could make diving helmets. You could be the one to, like, help start these people on exploring the sea! Under the sea! Think of all the shipwrecks and lost treasure!"
Fortunately, having to keep swimming as something small and silver and faster than her blades carefully hidden back on the shore with Lux and the Walrus to guard them darts beneath her legs means Araceli can't turn back to stare at Church. She might if they'd been on land, but they wouldn't be having this conversation then.
"Singing the songs I've known since I was in the cradle older than my grandparents or even their grandparents is a whole other world from writing it. Poetry is-- I lived in a building before. And it was full of artists. Painters, writers, musicians, sculptors, poets, usually none of them with patrons or none who had steady or very wealthy patrons, but it was their passion, it was their life, there was something in them that was poetry. The sea is my blood same as theirs, it comes out a different way. It's easy to talk of a thing you love, another thing to show it that way." Another thing entirely to do it properly other than to live as she lives, as the sea wills it, which isn't a thing Araceli will ever be putting into words outside the select few souls it might be entrusted to as she kicks her legs harder, a prickling of sensation as the blood rushes through her against the cold of the water warming her.
That's life, she could say, but that might brand her a poet again and well she's a bard. A pirate. (Queensguard to those few who know it.)
The skerry is close, if she lengthened her strokes she could reach it but she turns back, a lazy kicking and minimal arms to keep an eye on Church since the water flow is interrupted about it. "I know duels. I know the lute. I know gambling, sailing, swimming, climbing and falling. I know my way around lockpicks. But my instruction in smithing - actually that might go beyond smithing I think, there was fabric involved but not a seamstress - is lacking past sharpening blades. Or knowing 'oh that's a pretty knife, I like that knife'. Besides I can hold my breath a long time and I came to possess this cape."
The cape is very much not just for show though it could be, it's a statement of a cape being as it is some strange leather and cut in the shape of a manta ray even with the lobes where the ray's mouth would be.
Vane had made the promise to some that he'd teach them to swim on the first post he made on the crystals, and he's a man of his word, so here he is, playing swim coach. If Jack or Anne saw him, they'd likely laugh their asses off, though he could care less what Flint or Silver think of it. Today, he works with Araceli to train the beginners. It's a larger group than they'd had before the mission (apparently they aren't the only ones who realized the need), so it's good to have the two of them.
As Araceli leads them, Vane paces along the pier (in his typical pants sans the shirt and belt and all that would drag), watching them from above, as it might be hard for Araceli to keep an eye out. When one starts to fall behind, he lingers, making sure they catch back up, or don't burn themselves out or panic. For the first few exercises, they seem fine enough. It's when things get a little more complicated that some start to struggle.
One of the elven girls, who'd been bright eyed and eager, starts to fatigue, then starts to get anxious the more she's having to catch up. Vane watches closely, not wanting to interfere until it's clear they need it, but when the girl's head goes under longer than it should, he dives off the pier, streamlining over to her. The elven girl doesn't weigh much, and though her arms flail some, once he has a hold over her and brings them both back up to the surface, she calms. Making his way back to the side of the pier, he lets out a sharp whistle to grab Araceli's attention.
"A few may need a rest." He calls out to her, while helping the girl get up onto the dock. "I'll fetch water."
Eventually the mages are going to show up. Or the mages in Research if Thranduil makes good on what was said on the way to the rescue mission, so a larger group is good practice for what could well be some sort of nightmare. Mages, Araceli imagines, aren't ever going to be inclined towards the water beyond poetic longings so it balances out really though this large a group is probably going to still go down a far sight more graceful than mages.
Having someone up top makes it easier because the problem with someone drowning or someone who thinks they might be drowning is always that moment of panic where they're as much of a danger to anyone around them including the person trying to help them as they are to themselves.
(We swim before we ever walk beats in her heart alongside a mermaid sundered herself from the sea to make the moon to make the waves to make the tides; even now she is her mother's daughter, her father's daughter. The sea guides us to where we're meant to go is still the truest sentiment so close to three years here despite knowing the truth of all that she is here.
She isn't a flesh and blood thing that the sea made and yet-- And yet--)
With a glance up to Vane, Araceli nods, whistling sharp enough to get the attention of the swimmers around her. "You've done well! The water's cold, you're not used to it. Take time to get out, have something to drink, get the blood flowing again." She's the last one out after, just in case there's a slip, anyone floundering, hauling herself up and out as the water sluices down the cloak she sheds easy as a second skin, wringing her hair out as she goes to sit by the girl until he's back.
"It's progress," or Araceli sounding perhaps the happiest and most like herself he'd have heard her, no tight edges tucked into her smiles. "Do you have to train many swimmers before you train up sailors?"
The sea is what saved him, so far as Charles is concerned. He got himself onto the merchant ship, yes, and Blackbeard got him off there and onto a pirate ship, but the ocean breathed life and purpose into him when there was nothing but the husk of a slave boy not sure what to do with freedom once he had it. The endlessness of it, the soul of it, the violence of it. So much of it can't be known or charted even now with ships riding waves all over the globe, and Vane likes it that way. Keeps her as free as she keeps them.
Bare feet slapping wet against the dock, once he's directed the trainees towards the fresh water, Vane makes his way back over to Araceli, plopping down heavy at the edge of the pier, raising up his hands to push stray strands of long, wet hair from his face that'd whipped around in the effort to bring the girl to safety.
"We've a small handful that were ready to learn, but not enough." It's a new thing to be at a loss for capable men willing to sail, and Vane never stops missing Nascere while he's here. Still, some things make it worth the stay. Araceli, for one, is always good company. He thinks on it a second longer, glancing down the port at the other ships.
"Could make a skeleton crew for the Venatori ship, though."
"Kirkwall's a port city yet somehow it's full of people who haven't any idea of how to go near more than a bath without drowning." Araceli can smile as she says that, bewildered at the notion of how many of them are here, have never attempted it, have never seemed to contemplate it for all that they've had to sail on a mission. What did they think would happen if we foundered or sank? Or do they never think about it? Maybe someone do get through life entirely unconcerned with thinking ahead beyond dinner.
It has her missing home in a way she hasn't in such a long time, the palpable ache in places that aren't only her heart, as if she could close her eyes, take a breath, and open then to find herself in a place where there aren't streets but narrow walkways spilling over to bridges by waterways instead. Apprenticeships sought after, crowed over. Always bodies on decks, spilling on and off ships, in the way when you were trying to get somewhere.
They want a navy. They want a navy and they've so few who understand the necessity; Araceli could preach it 'til she turns blue as the Amaranthine but if they don't want to listen, they won't, and they'll stopper their ears so as not to hear her.
"There's three - including you and I - as it stands that'd have the experience for captaincy." It's what she says instead of any of that, twisting her hair up and off the back of her neck with one part of a complicated necklace removed (a small lockpick, a series of them held in place if Charles looks quick enough) to pin it up. "It won't need as large a crew as the Walrus, fortunately for whoever takes it, and I doubt Captain Flint would be parted from the Walurs."
Meaning it's you and her Charles as far as her roster says, and Araceli is wary of what it would look like for her to say: I'm taking a ship. Warier than handing it over to a pirate. A pirate she can argue better than a rifter. Inquisition, capable, experienced, something she can fucking bullshit if it comes down to it when she'll throw her lot in with her own before playing politics over a hand she'd like as not cut off some days.
Charles snorts, amused at the idea of these Inquisition soldiers flailing in tub water. He'll never understand how a person makes it through their lives without even a passing desire to explore the sea. Even just around a bay. Slide under the current and watch life below, like another realm entirely. They miss half the world never having the balls to risk it.
Rolling a shoulder, Vane relaxes back, bracing his hands behind him as he squints up to the sun. Araceli's always talking project logistics, and he admires that in her. She has such a dedication to it, such a love for it. She'd fit well in Nascere, and perhaps if the Rifters are never able to return from whence they came, he'd invite her back with them. That, however, is along way off. A battle to save their world off. They've much to do before it. Such as, figure out what to do with that ship they'd won.
"Captain Flint would string himself up from the mizzen before parting with the Walrus." That ship will be taken from that man's cold, dead hands. Not like the Man of War was - it wasn't the Walrus, his forever ship. Honestly, Vane is still fucking pissed about the Ranger, but the Revenge has twice the guns and it's terrifying, so he's good with it.
So, about the Venatori one. He hears what she's saying, and the options aren't great. Flint would probably be pleased to have someone he knows captaining the other ship on missions as well. They tend to work well when it comes to tactics and strategy, even if they occasionally want to throttle one another.
"You have too much work on a given day to care about keeping decks scrubbed and rigging tied off. I'll watch the ship." Vane tells her, though it's no mystery to anyone who's been around in the last several months that he'd been itching to have a ship and crew of his own. There's only so long he can play Flint's second without wanting to shove the man over the railings just for the comedy of it.
"My father was born on his mother's ship. He had to earn his right to captain it but until the day comes to pass it over to a successor, it's not going to be pried easily from him, he might give it back to the sea first if he thought that day was coming." Felix Bonaventura is the sea's son, she could picture it, and the crew wouldn't object either. That they had that devotion here that she could shape, turn about, set loose, but the sea is not her sea, it's a different beast entirely and there had been a moment when she'd found it again after months atop the mountain wondering if she'd skim across it as a stone instead of sliding beneath it.
(Things she's never thought to ask and won't because there either won't be an answer or there will be one she'll chase about her head to gnaw holes in the sleepless hours: do spirits dream, do they really dream, why are they capable of having the nightmares that they have here?)
How much is Charles shaped by Nascere, she has to wonder, or is he one of those in Thedas who finally have the itch in them for the sea. To be that hungry for something larger than themselves that doesn't fit the way it does on land. The sea grinds away the edges and gets to the truth of it in the end and you'll come good of it or you won't.
Giving it to Vane solves several problems at once: he has more to do than what little work there tends to be, he's more experience at it than her, it's not potentially the idea of her overstepping her station and having a foot in, a foot out. Still. "I might give the others a chance to toss their hats in the ring, so to speak, if only to avoid accusations. They might come, they might not but enough know what I am aside from my hand, I'd do it without them crying foul, I believe there was enough said about lessons previous."
"Do you a want to captain?" Araceli certainly has the skill for it, and Charles is easily certain she could handle it, but not everyone wants to be in that position. For the longest time, Jack was perfectly content to be Quarter Master, up until the shit happened with the Ranger crew, and Vane abandoned him and Anne. Not his favorite choice, in retrospect, but it was a dark time, and he'd seen it as a betrayal of his trust at a time when his trust was a very shaky and tenuous thing.
All in all, though, the two of them excelled once they were out from under his wing. So, despite the regret, perhaps not so unfortunate a thing after all. Sour as he is that he'll never have another quarter master as equal in skill. Or friendship. Or enjoyable company. Fuck, he misses them.
Huffing out a sigh, Charles leans back, grabbing for a nearby satchel, fishing out some matches and a rolled cigarette, before lighting it up and sucking a heavy breath of smoke into his lungs.
"Do what you have to. I'll make sure the ship's taken care of no matter who ends up caretaker." Rules and chain of command have never really meant a whole lot to Charles, so if Araceli says something needs to be done, he'll see it done. His respect for her comes much more from her disposition and personality than her title. It just happens to be convenient she owns both. "Probably should christen that thing, though. Something besides 'Venatori ship'."
It doesn't make a whole lot of people eager to be on it with that name.
Where Araceli comes from, ships are returned to be taken apart for what might be salvaged. Their figureheads housed in great halls with their carved eyes staring out to sea no more at last until skeletons remain in the graveyard for the sea to reclaim same as all lives in the end. Thedas hasn't those traditions, and the wrecks dotted along the Wounded Coast have always interested her even if she imagines them picked clean by now.
This is where raiders and pirates have stalked, bandits too, but she still wraps herself tight in her cloak as she slips out to them, silent as a seal when she dives beneath the surface.
Last time anyone patrolled out here there were bandits to be dealt with, today Araceli's hoping for nothing like that as she navigates her way through a great tear in the hull where the ship foundered on the rocks earlier along this passage where she would've taken on water. She rises up, bobbing in the water as she takes a breath blinking and orienting herself in the ruin of one of the decks.
"Right, let's see if you've any secrets left then."
While she may not be looking to pick a fight, Korrin knows that one can find them anyway whatever the circumstances. Perhaps there's nothing in the shipwrecks to salvage but trade goods and interesting trinkets. It would be nice if a day turned more or less the way they'd planned for once, right? But she also knows that it never hurts to be prepared and that there are safety in numbers.
Plus, it may still count as work, but that doesn't mean time with her kadan won't be savored. Why can't business and pleasure mix?
Thanks to her ring, the Vashoth woman is able to follow with ease. Araceli is faster, more graceful but Korrin's stamina is more than enough to allow her to keep pace. She tries to keep track of the time upon surfacing, but by her measure the ring's magic will be enough to for their plans. Pulling herself up, she extends a hand for Araceli if she needs it. "Let me know if you need more light, kadan. Between my staff and a glow stone, we should have enough."
After Minrathous, this is all that Araceli wants: space away from Kirkwall and anyone who might want her (it takes time even with mounts to get back), in calm waters, with someone she loves. Taking Korrin's offered hand, she pushes up with the other, almost relishing the scrape beneath her palm that's not enough to break the skin but enough to surprise her as she starts to orient herself. Somewhere in the lower decks, they'd come in above ballast, if she had to make the guess, it's probably partly why it sank.
The wood beneath her feet once she's up is hopelessly warped, thick crusts of barnacles and clusters of limpets, a shock of green dead man's fingers beyond marking where the tide must reach.
"I think I'm good for now, my eyes'll adjust but we'll need it when we get further in, see up there--" she points upward with a wet slap from the cloak, leathery fabric clinging tight, "one of the masts came down somewhere, splintered through but it's given us some light, I wonder if there's a sail...Hoping we'll find anything exciting?"
Is there this sort of thing here? There probably isn't much left, Araceli's just out for a fun day for herself swimming and sliding through a broken ship as she goes with her sailor's gait, a glance back at Korrin as she goes, water slopping over her boots.
"Always." Korrin flashes a grin after peering where Araceli gestures, eager to see what they can discover about the wreck and what went down with it. She takes careful note of their surroundings, both out of curiosity and for safety reasons. Any point in their path that doesn't look safe to step causes her to pause and energize debris, creating a more walkable route.
"You never know, we might find something that was overlooked. Hidden treasures are always the most interesting." Even if they don't, satisfying their curiosity is never a bad way to spend the day. But Korrin has a good feeling about this one; they won't depart empty-handed.
"I haven't seen you do that much since we came to Kirkwall," Araceli says with a little nod to what might have been part of the mizzenmast come crashing down and through all the decks once it's safely out of their way. More than a year now, all the manual labour to make spaces liveable put to bed at least when it came to the Inquisition. She touches a small lantern hanging on the wall but the glass is shattered, the metal warped and rusted.
The floor beneath them angles down sharply as she turns her head upwards, the hood tipped back to stop it from limiting her sight. "We don't have wrecks at all, a ship like this we'd tow back home to take apart. But...I think if we go down here we'll be in the hold, or we can try going up, it should be fine. Anyone with sense would go to the hold first for the goods but sailors stash all sorts in their cabins, even from their own crew. Especially from their own crew."
Which is what makes up her mind as she turns on her heel (sharp because she can, in the water, on a deck, she's at her most confident, her body knows it too well to let her fall) and pulls herself up to where the wreckage of the ladder lived. It holds. Just about. "Put your weight on your hands and pull yourself up, feet are going to go straight through here."
"Eh, Kirkwall hasn't need it nearly as much as Skyhold." There might be a slight note of fondness at mention of Skyhold; certainly not for all the snow and cold, but Korrin would be lying if she said she never thought about their old room. They put a lot of work into making it suit them, and now? Well, someone else has probably changed it. That's the way of things.
There's a small smile on her lips as she notes Araceli's confident stride, happy to see her love in her element. It's brief, though, knowing she has to focus. Strapping her staff to her back again for now, the Vashoth woman nods. "Will do. Good thing I have strong arms as well as legs, then, isn't it? Not to worry, kadan. I'm no parkour champion, but I think I can manage this."
It's too bad the ambient light isn't great as Korrin loves nothing as much as showing off her physique for Araceli's benefit. But actively showing off will have to wait, as her attention is kept on doing as Araceli says. Tempering that eagerness with just a little caution, she relies on that firm to see her through more than her feet...which is good, since she nearly slips up and places weight on her feet instead. Fortunately, she stops herself just in time and with a grunt finishes hauling herself up.
Someone has changed it. The door is blue now and that's about it. Araceli did have a little time to go looking when negotiations wound down because people did have to sleep only she couldn't so what else was there to do. These days Araceli enjoys what they have because it's theirs, because it's their life that they've had to build that wasn't given to them because there was nowhere else. Everything in it is something chosen to be part of that life down to the part of the building itself, which isn't the easiest thing she could put into words so she doesn't try. "We might, one day, if we have another winter like last year."
May they never have another winter like last year, Araceli isn't built for that sort of cold, and now they have a kraken to keep from freezing in his bowl.
"You know there's not a curfew now, if learning where Skyhold was crumbling apart about us," said on the edge of a long-suffering sigh, Araceli could still probably pick out every spot where Skyhold has holes in the roof, walls in need of doing up, "or about the Gallows with that much of an audience there's the whole of Kirkwall that isn't Hightown. We'd be able to dive into the water if it's the fall that has you more squeamish."
(Easy, to share this part of her life too. The part she taught the others. Korrin's bigger, taller, but it could be done if she wanted it but she hasn't pushed before, isn't pushing now. The offer just. There.)
One arm shoots out instinctually to try to do what she can if she needs to-- "All right there?" And then she gives a doorway up ahead a speculative look. The lock is intact if rusted but the door itself is bloated enough to be warped in the frame. "I'll need your expertise."
Korrin just wrinkles her nose at mention of last winter; she had tried not to complain too much to anyone else, not wanting to shed her tough-as-nails mercenary image, but her kin weren't meant for the harsh cold of the south and neither was she. If they didn't have a purpose, a life built around that, she would have insisted on retreating to the warm sands and waters of the north.
"I'm fine, promise--" Loathe to accept that hand for fear of yanking Araceli down with her, she hauls herself up and tries not to think about how that could have ended just a moment ago.
Banishing that thought for now, she considers the offer seriously for the first time in a while. The curfew made parkour a subject she was loathe to mention, not wanting to poke any sore spots, but its being lifted has opened her back up to those possibilities. As she unhooks her staff once more, Korrin's eyes take on an eager glint as she looks over to her love. "As though I would ever miss an opportunity to dive into water with you? Share with me what you will, kadan. Well, once we're done here."
Turning her attention to the door, she studies it for a moment. "Picking that won't help if the door itself is too big to budge. I can blast a whole in it and energize the rest away."
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parkour;
Right now, with things still tipped closer to precarious, she's not going to push it.
But it feels good, better than good, and right, to be there in the dark of night or the very small hours scrambling up a wall or on the rooftops where she can be caught to speak or to demonstrate if you've arranged the lessons. (Hopefully you bothered to sleep first, took the advice offered that yes, this is the hour we're doing this outside of the Gallows.)
Or you weren't up for braving all the rest of Kirkwall where the architecture isn't as stable. So it's evening. The Gallows. And that is a leg going up past your window, or fingers curled for the edge of a moment. Maybe you're up there too Araceli doubts she's far from the only one who enjoys her time on walls or rooftops, it's a good time to switch the brain off beyond the few steps ahead.
swimming;
Kirkwall is bounded by water all along one side of it, sailing off to places no longer an optional experience but mandatory if where they're going to is easier to get to by ship, so the idea of people not knowing is senseless. The flyers take a little time after getting back, might not be the first, but she'd rather get started now. Build on what Charles began then see if the rest of Naval Presence can be gathered together.
(Who knows, perhaps the Inquisition will field a swim team by the time all is said and done.)
Beginners lessons are by the docks with strict instructions on not to wear that essentially boil down to being sensible: no robes for the mages, nothing heavy so not your armour, and nothing you're scared you'll lose. (She's watched a very rich girl visiting home sobbing hysterically over a lost earring once, of all the things.)
"We'll go between piers first," she says to whoever shows up, simple trousers that cut off below the knee, antaam-saar top since what's the point in wearing much. "If you've swum before, let me know, I'll get in and you can show me how you swim." Frantic doggy paddle throwing up great arcs of white water or anything more co-ordinated, if they even know how. She can start with just about anything.
For the more confident, it's out by the Wounded Coast where there current tugs stronger, where kelps grow in long strands to brush the feet or fish dart past. All the worst fears for the unwary who might know a river, but not waters that open up and out to greater things, where everything is a horror ready to bite the foot off at the ankle. "See the skerry? It's only to the skerry. It's not far. Then we haul ourselves up and stop and decide where we want to go next."
In either case, she's got her cloak. In case someone starts struggling. Hopefully it won't be needed.
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He raises a hand. "Question: what's a skerry?"
Listen...he does not sea talk. Someone tells him to get on a boat, he gets on a boat. That's mostly it.
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But she tries. Mouth pursing around it. "See that very small island there? The tiny one? Almost a reef?" Her hand raises up out of the water, a sheet of water sluicing down the arm of the cape where she points; glossy black cormorants have settled on it, their wings held out at their sides to dry, shining blue-green in the light. "That's a skerry, I think...maybe you call it sea stacks other places? It was always the skerry. Too little to live on for us, good to just rest on. No seals hauled out today."
If there had been seals, she'd have revised plans, maybe taken out a lifeboat to moor it there or picked a different spot, she's not in the habit of disturbing seals but the birds won't bother them if they don't bother the birds.
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And that's about the point where he decides he should really pay more attention to his body in the water than talking words, because it's rougher, here, and sea water in the mouth is gross, and also maybe don't! get pulled away! by the water! Thank you! He splashes a little, rights himself, back on track.
"Okay! I'm okay."
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That's the benefit of having only the one: time for so much more, all that effort poured into everything else you might possibly imagine as she rolls back into her front, dipping beneath the surface and back up.
"Do you need a hand?" Christine wouldn't be happy to have a half-sized Church returned at the end of the day.
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"You ever consider writing? Like, poetry. That's gotta have a big market in Thedas, sea poetry."
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Now if they did have diving helmets (and the suits) then they could just go strolling along the bottom of the seabed how do you do fellow armoured life how is the coral today? Any red lyrium to report? It almost has her gulping down water herself.
"Poetry? Oh no I'd--" She laughs, shaking her head, water flying everywhere, caught offguard by it. "I don't have the-- no, we should leave that to the professionals shouldn't we? Gwenaëlle for instance would be far more accomplished in that regard."
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"Right, and, and second, diving helmets. You could make diving helmets. You could be the one to, like, help start these people on exploring the sea! Under the sea! Think of all the shipwrecks and lost treasure!"
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"Singing the songs I've known since I was in the cradle older than my grandparents or even their grandparents is a whole other world from writing it. Poetry is-- I lived in a building before. And it was full of artists. Painters, writers, musicians, sculptors, poets, usually none of them with patrons or none who had steady or very wealthy patrons, but it was their passion, it was their life, there was something in them that was poetry. The sea is my blood same as theirs, it comes out a different way. It's easy to talk of a thing you love, another thing to show it that way." Another thing entirely to do it properly other than to live as she lives, as the sea wills it, which isn't a thing Araceli will ever be putting into words outside the select few souls it might be entrusted to as she kicks her legs harder, a prickling of sensation as the blood rushes through her against the cold of the water warming her.
That's life, she could say, but that might brand her a poet again and well she's a bard. A pirate. (Queensguard to those few who know it.)
The skerry is close, if she lengthened her strokes she could reach it but she turns back, a lazy kicking and minimal arms to keep an eye on Church since the water flow is interrupted about it. "I know duels. I know the lute. I know gambling, sailing, swimming, climbing and falling. I know my way around lockpicks. But my instruction in smithing - actually that might go beyond smithing I think, there was fabric involved but not a seamstress - is lacking past sharpening blades. Or knowing 'oh that's a pretty knife, I like that knife'. Besides I can hold my breath a long time and I came to possess this cape."
The cape is very much not just for show though it could be, it's a statement of a cape being as it is some strange leather and cut in the shape of a manta ray even with the lobes where the ray's mouth would be.
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As Araceli leads them, Vane paces along the pier (in his typical pants sans the shirt and belt and all that would drag), watching them from above, as it might be hard for Araceli to keep an eye out. When one starts to fall behind, he lingers, making sure they catch back up, or don't burn themselves out or panic. For the first few exercises, they seem fine enough. It's when things get a little more complicated that some start to struggle.
One of the elven girls, who'd been bright eyed and eager, starts to fatigue, then starts to get anxious the more she's having to catch up. Vane watches closely, not wanting to interfere until it's clear they need it, but when the girl's head goes under longer than it should, he dives off the pier, streamlining over to her. The elven girl doesn't weigh much, and though her arms flail some, once he has a hold over her and brings them both back up to the surface, she calms. Making his way back to the side of the pier, he lets out a sharp whistle to grab Araceli's attention.
"A few may need a rest." He calls out to her, while helping the girl get up onto the dock. "I'll fetch water."
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Having someone up top makes it easier because the problem with someone drowning or someone who thinks they might be drowning is always that moment of panic where they're as much of a danger to anyone around them including the person trying to help them as they are to themselves.
(We swim before we ever walk beats in her heart alongside a mermaid sundered herself from the sea to make the moon to make the waves to make the tides; even now she is her mother's daughter, her father's daughter. The sea guides us to where we're meant to go is still the truest sentiment so close to three years here despite knowing the truth of all that she is here.
She isn't a flesh and blood thing that the sea made and yet-- And yet--)
With a glance up to Vane, Araceli nods, whistling sharp enough to get the attention of the swimmers around her. "You've done well! The water's cold, you're not used to it. Take time to get out, have something to drink, get the blood flowing again." She's the last one out after, just in case there's a slip, anyone floundering, hauling herself up and out as the water sluices down the cloak she sheds easy as a second skin, wringing her hair out as she goes to sit by the girl until he's back.
"It's progress," or Araceli sounding perhaps the happiest and most like herself he'd have heard her, no tight edges tucked into her smiles. "Do you have to train many swimmers before you train up sailors?"
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Bare feet slapping wet against the dock, once he's directed the trainees towards the fresh water, Vane makes his way back over to Araceli, plopping down heavy at the edge of the pier, raising up his hands to push stray strands of long, wet hair from his face that'd whipped around in the effort to bring the girl to safety.
"We've a small handful that were ready to learn, but not enough." It's a new thing to be at a loss for capable men willing to sail, and Vane never stops missing Nascere while he's here. Still, some things make it worth the stay. Araceli, for one, is always good company. He thinks on it a second longer, glancing down the port at the other ships.
"Could make a skeleton crew for the Venatori ship, though."
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It has her missing home in a way she hasn't in such a long time, the palpable ache in places that aren't only her heart, as if she could close her eyes, take a breath, and open then to find herself in a place where there aren't streets but narrow walkways spilling over to bridges by waterways instead. Apprenticeships sought after, crowed over. Always bodies on decks, spilling on and off ships, in the way when you were trying to get somewhere.
They want a navy. They want a navy and they've so few who understand the necessity; Araceli could preach it 'til she turns blue as the Amaranthine but if they don't want to listen, they won't, and they'll stopper their ears so as not to hear her.
"There's three - including you and I - as it stands that'd have the experience for captaincy." It's what she says instead of any of that, twisting her hair up and off the back of her neck with one part of a complicated necklace removed (a small lockpick, a series of them held in place if Charles looks quick enough) to pin it up. "It won't need as large a crew as the Walrus, fortunately for whoever takes it, and I doubt Captain Flint would be parted from the Walurs."
Meaning it's you and her Charles as far as her roster says, and Araceli is wary of what it would look like for her to say: I'm taking a ship. Warier than handing it over to a pirate. A pirate she can argue better than a rifter. Inquisition, capable, experienced, something she can fucking bullshit if it comes down to it when she'll throw her lot in with her own before playing politics over a hand she'd like as not cut off some days.
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Rolling a shoulder, Vane relaxes back, bracing his hands behind him as he squints up to the sun. Araceli's always talking project logistics, and he admires that in her. She has such a dedication to it, such a love for it. She'd fit well in Nascere, and perhaps if the Rifters are never able to return from whence they came, he'd invite her back with them. That, however, is along way off. A battle to save their world off. They've much to do before it. Such as, figure out what to do with that ship they'd won.
"Captain Flint would string himself up from the mizzen before parting with the Walrus." That ship will be taken from that man's cold, dead hands. Not like the Man of War was - it wasn't the Walrus, his forever ship. Honestly, Vane is still fucking pissed about the Ranger, but the Revenge has twice the guns and it's terrifying, so he's good with it.
So, about the Venatori one. He hears what she's saying, and the options aren't great. Flint would probably be pleased to have someone he knows captaining the other ship on missions as well. They tend to work well when it comes to tactics and strategy, even if they occasionally want to throttle one another.
"You have too much work on a given day to care about keeping decks scrubbed and rigging tied off. I'll watch the ship." Vane tells her, though it's no mystery to anyone who's been around in the last several months that he'd been itching to have a ship and crew of his own. There's only so long he can play Flint's second without wanting to shove the man over the railings just for the comedy of it.
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(Things she's never thought to ask and won't because there either won't be an answer or there will be one she'll chase about her head to gnaw holes in the sleepless hours: do spirits dream, do they really dream, why are they capable of having the nightmares that they have here?)
How much is Charles shaped by Nascere, she has to wonder, or is he one of those in Thedas who finally have the itch in them for the sea. To be that hungry for something larger than themselves that doesn't fit the way it does on land. The sea grinds away the edges and gets to the truth of it in the end and you'll come good of it or you won't.
Giving it to Vane solves several problems at once: he has more to do than what little work there tends to be, he's more experience at it than her, it's not potentially the idea of her overstepping her station and having a foot in, a foot out. Still. "I might give the others a chance to toss their hats in the ring, so to speak, if only to avoid accusations. They might come, they might not but enough know what I am aside from my hand, I'd do it without them crying foul, I believe there was enough said about lessons previous."
(Again, fucking chevaliers.)
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All in all, though, the two of them excelled once they were out from under his wing. So, despite the regret, perhaps not so unfortunate a thing after all. Sour as he is that he'll never have another quarter master as equal in skill. Or friendship. Or enjoyable company. Fuck, he misses them.
Huffing out a sigh, Charles leans back, grabbing for a nearby satchel, fishing out some matches and a rolled cigarette, before lighting it up and sucking a heavy breath of smoke into his lungs.
"Do what you have to. I'll make sure the ship's taken care of no matter who ends up caretaker." Rules and chain of command have never really meant a whole lot to Charles, so if Araceli says something needs to be done, he'll see it done. His respect for her comes much more from her disposition and personality than her title. It just happens to be convenient she owns both. "Probably should christen that thing, though. Something besides 'Venatori ship'."
It doesn't make a whole lot of people eager to be on it with that name.
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shipwrecks;
This is where raiders and pirates have stalked, bandits too, but she still wraps herself tight in her cloak as she slips out to them, silent as a seal when she dives beneath the surface.
Last time anyone patrolled out here there were bandits to be dealt with, today Araceli's hoping for nothing like that as she navigates her way through a great tear in the hull where the ship foundered on the rocks earlier along this passage where she would've taken on water. She rises up, bobbing in the water as she takes a breath blinking and orienting herself in the ruin of one of the decks.
"Right, let's see if you've any secrets left then."
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Plus, it may still count as work, but that doesn't mean time with her kadan won't be savored. Why can't business and pleasure mix?
Thanks to her ring, the Vashoth woman is able to follow with ease. Araceli is faster, more graceful but Korrin's stamina is more than enough to allow her to keep pace. She tries to keep track of the time upon surfacing, but by her measure the ring's magic will be enough to for their plans. Pulling herself up, she extends a hand for Araceli if she needs it. "Let me know if you need more light, kadan. Between my staff and a glow stone, we should have enough."
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The wood beneath her feet once she's up is hopelessly warped, thick crusts of barnacles and clusters of limpets, a shock of green dead man's fingers beyond marking where the tide must reach.
"I think I'm good for now, my eyes'll adjust but we'll need it when we get further in, see up there--" she points upward with a wet slap from the cloak, leathery fabric clinging tight, "one of the masts came down somewhere, splintered through but it's given us some light, I wonder if there's a sail...Hoping we'll find anything exciting?"
Is there this sort of thing here? There probably isn't much left, Araceli's just out for a fun day for herself swimming and sliding through a broken ship as she goes with her sailor's gait, a glance back at Korrin as she goes, water slopping over her boots.
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"You never know, we might find something that was overlooked. Hidden treasures are always the most interesting." Even if they don't, satisfying their curiosity is never a bad way to spend the day. But Korrin has a good feeling about this one; they won't depart empty-handed.
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The floor beneath them angles down sharply as she turns her head upwards, the hood tipped back to stop it from limiting her sight. "We don't have wrecks at all, a ship like this we'd tow back home to take apart. But...I think if we go down here we'll be in the hold, or we can try going up, it should be fine. Anyone with sense would go to the hold first for the goods but sailors stash all sorts in their cabins, even from their own crew. Especially from their own crew."
Which is what makes up her mind as she turns on her heel (sharp because she can, in the water, on a deck, she's at her most confident, her body knows it too well to let her fall) and pulls herself up to where the wreckage of the ladder lived. It holds. Just about. "Put your weight on your hands and pull yourself up, feet are going to go straight through here."
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There's a small smile on her lips as she notes Araceli's confident stride, happy to see her love in her element. It's brief, though, knowing she has to focus. Strapping her staff to her back again for now, the Vashoth woman nods. "Will do. Good thing I have strong arms as well as legs, then, isn't it? Not to worry, kadan. I'm no parkour champion, but I think I can manage this."
It's too bad the ambient light isn't great as Korrin loves nothing as much as showing off her physique for Araceli's benefit. But actively showing off will have to wait, as her attention is kept on doing as Araceli says. Tempering that eagerness with just a little caution, she relies on that firm to see her through more than her feet...which is good, since she nearly slips up and places weight on her feet instead. Fortunately, she stops herself just in time and with a grunt finishes hauling herself up.
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May they never have another winter like last year, Araceli isn't built for that sort of cold, and now they have a kraken to keep from freezing in his bowl.
"You know there's not a curfew now, if learning where Skyhold was crumbling apart about us," said on the edge of a long-suffering sigh, Araceli could still probably pick out every spot where Skyhold has holes in the roof, walls in need of doing up, "or about the Gallows with that much of an audience there's the whole of Kirkwall that isn't Hightown. We'd be able to dive into the water if it's the fall that has you more squeamish."
(Easy, to share this part of her life too. The part she taught the others. Korrin's bigger, taller, but it could be done if she wanted it but she hasn't pushed before, isn't pushing now. The offer just. There.)
One arm shoots out instinctually to try to do what she can if she needs to-- "All right there?" And then she gives a doorway up ahead a speculative look. The lock is intact if rusted but the door itself is bloated enough to be warped in the frame. "I'll need your expertise."
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"I'm fine, promise--" Loathe to accept that hand for fear of yanking Araceli down with her, she hauls herself up and tries not to think about how that could have ended just a moment ago.
Banishing that thought for now, she considers the offer seriously for the first time in a while. The curfew made parkour a subject she was loathe to mention, not wanting to poke any sore spots, but its being lifted has opened her back up to those possibilities. As she unhooks her staff once more, Korrin's eyes take on an eager glint as she looks over to her love. "As though I would ever miss an opportunity to dive into water with you? Share with me what you will, kadan. Well, once we're done here."
Turning her attention to the door, she studies it for a moment. "Picking that won't help if the door itself is too big to budge. I can blast a whole in it and energize the rest away."
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