[open] where I go

[onlyhymns]

WHO: Knight-Lieutenant Cade Harimann and you
WHAT: A jumpy templar is out of the dungeon and getting his bearings on Skyhold. What horrors will he face? (by horrors I mean other people)
WHEN: Early Haring
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES:If your character met him during speed dating, feel free to assume that conversation happened IC (except Nerva) and that they're already acquainted.

Finally unleashed upon his new home, and wearing his traveling leathers with the unmistakeable flaming Templar sword emblazoned on the chest, Cade made his way around Skyhold with the intention of finding a purpose for himself.

1. The battlements. Cade was unnerved by crowds and limited sightlines, so he had taken to spending a good chunk of time up in the battlements. It gave him an opportunity to watch, listen, and grow accustomed to life below, which was so very different than how he'd come to understand the world.

2. The training grounds. Although he had first been seen in his heavy Templar plate, wielding a sword, left to his own devices Cade was more likely to use the archery range. He was an exceptionally good shot, and spent hours shooting targets with the single-minded concentration of one who was trying not to think about anything at all.

3. The chapel. He could often be found alone in the small chamber just off the cloistered garden, on his knees and with his head bowed to the altar of Andraste.

4. Anywhere! Give me a place and I'll find a reason that he'd be there.

Comments

[onlyhymns]

Cade actually gave a small laugh at that, perhaps his first since his arrival at Skyhold. Possibly even since before Kirkwall. Alistair had a way of doing that. "Sometimes the fire was green," he offered, but with too much truth in his voice for the attempted joke to be anything but dismal. That was the day the Revered Mother had died and ... well everyone else important had died too. His eyes went vacant for a moment, as they tended to when he was reminded of the more upsetting things he'd witnessed, but he quickly remembered that he was trying to have a conversation with what one might construe as an old friend. If he had friends. He wasn't sure.

"Um... battlements," he said, and shook his head irritably, realizing that wasn't a sentence. "Do you want to--??" He gestured vaguely at the battlements, realized he still hadn't conveyed his question, and sighed, pushing his hair back out of his face in a gesture of resignation. "...I'm going for a walk." Please come with me, was implied, if he could figure out how to form sentences again.

[byblow]

"I'll come with you," Alistair volunteers, since he can't say yes to a question that hasn't properly been asked. He takes another bite of the chicken he's been neglecting. He isn't a very good actor, but he's pretty good at faking oblivious nonchalance, because it's his natural expression—so maybe he doesn't look a little bemused.

Cade being odd isn't that strange, though, in the scheme of things.

"Sorry," he adds, just in case. "You must have lost friends during the rebellion. I shouldn't have joked about it."

[onlyhymns]

"No, it's..." Cade began, and trailed off absently. It was strange, being in this situation with a person he had known when he was small, and yet not feeling at all like the person he'd been then. He had no context for this. Perhaps being up on the battlements would clear his head.

"It's fine. That's what you do. You joke about things." That, at least, seemed as though it had always been the case.

[byblow]

"Not everything," Alistair says, pauses, and adds, "anymore. Usually."

He follows; at some point it might turn into leading, because that's--well. That's not what he does, usually. But it's what he did relative to Cade, anyway, back when they were sort of friends, arguably, in a way. (They were friends. But it's been minimized and recategorized, now.)

"But you probably don't want to talk about it."

There's the barest questioning lilt; it's more of an offer not to talk about it than an invitation to do so.

[onlyhymns]

As it turns out, they end up walking side by side, neither one either leading or following. Cade is the endless patrolling type, and while his path isn't aimless, it's not especially pointed either.

He seems to ignore Alistair's observation, or offer, keeping his gaze angled away as they ascend and then continue forward to look out over the sprawling vista of endless mountains. For a while, the only sounds are the soft tread of their boots, the muffled activity of the keep below, and the twittering of the birds who were brave enough to make their homes here.
After an almost unbearably long silence, Cade, whose mind has been roiling with questions, shutdowns for the questions, and wards against things to say about himself, finally comes up with something to talk about.

"Did you ever see the Arl again?" He glances sidelong at Alistair, hoping the question isn't too invasive. He remembers there being quite a bit of drama surrounding that situation, and also remembers hoping they'd patch things up.

[byblow]

"During the Blight."

And directly after it, long enough for Eamon to be the one to deliver the news that Alistair wasn't being thrown out of the country, no, of course not, but it might be better if he left for a while. But Alistair doesn't sound sad or bitter; he mostly sounds relieved. He hates long silences, unless he's using them to sulk, and doubly so now that long silences are in fact long uninterrupted stretches of the Calling.

"Eamon isn't an Arl now," Alistair says, for the sake of making conversation about something less touchy than informal exile. "He's in Denerim, advising the Queen. It keeps him busy. But his brother, Teagan, has the arling now. We write sometimes." He pauses to peer over the edge of the wall, not at anything in particular. Heights never stop being a little impressive to stare down no matter how familiar the landscape is. "Do you talk to your family at all?"

[onlyhymns]

"Oh," Cade says, mildly surprised-- he lost track of Fereldan politics when he went to Kirkwall, but is glad to hear that everyone is still presumably alive and well. "That's good."

He pauses when Alistair does, following his gaze and then anxiously diverting his own. It would be too easy to just... fall. He tempts fate by being up here all the time.
Alistair's question merits an awkward laugh, followed by, "no." Cade is smiling a little, but in a frenzied trying-not-to-talk-about-it way rather than from actual happiness. "I believe they're doing just fine."

[byblow]

"That's good," Alistair says offhand, still looking down the wall and the steep slope of the mountain beneath it, but when he lifts his head he gives Cade a more thorough look. Not piercing--he's no good at piercing--but searching, at least. "I'd apologize for not keeping in touch, but--you know."

They weren't really friends at the end, and there was the Blight thing, then Orlais, and Cade off in Kirkwall. Of all places.

[onlyhymns]

Cade shakes his head, dismissing the non-apology. "I know," he agrees, and glances at Alistair with a look that's almost regretful. "You had things to do, and I..." He pauses, pursing his lips as he searches for the right words. "... I suppose I wasn't much fun anyway." At least not by the time they parted ways-- he was avoiding Alistair as well as everyone else, and had completely retreated into his studies.

[byblow]

"Well," Alistair says, "you were never much fun."

He's joking. No literal elbow in the ribs to try to make Cade cheer up, but the verbal equivalent, with a smirk that's meant to include him in the joke instead of make him the butt of it. Effective? Maybe not. But he's trying.

[onlyhymns]

Cade at least understands the purpose of the joke, and he smirks back, but without the energy that would be required for it to be a proper joke between friends.
"I suppose you're here with the other wardens," he asks, finding, to his dismay, that he has no idea what to say to someone with whom he was fairly close at a pivotal time in his life.

[byblow]

There's nothing quite like a joke that falls flat, no matter how many times it happens to Alistair, which is a lot. A lot of times. There's some awkward shuffling on his end, readjusting his feet in his boots, smile fading, and he has his chicken leg back to his mouth to give it something better to do than talk when Cade mentions the Wardens.

Mouth full, he only nods at first, then rears back and throws the bone and remaining gristle over the wall and down the mountain.

"We're fugitives, actually," he says, sounding nearly cheerful about it, "because everyone else has gone mad. We'll probably be here for a while." On the plus side, that gives him more time to try to crack Cade's sad-eyed shell. "How are you at drinking?"

[onlyhymns]

Well that's intriguing and definitely not what he expected to hear. Cade blinks in surprise at Alistair, then knits his brow in concern-- the wardens have gone mad? He's about to ask further when Alistair beats him to it, and he closes his mouth and shakes his head. "I.. don't, really," he confesses. Drinking leads to mindlessness, which leads to all kinds of things that he doesn't want to approach.

[byblow]

"Not at all?"

Alistair, obliviously, squints at Cade like something must be wrong with him.

"I'm pretty sure that's bad for your health."

[onlyhymns]

Cade leans back slightly, eyes darting around as Alistair squints at him. Is there something on his face?

"...I suppose I... could," he says weakly, if only to make Alistair stop staring at him.

[byblow]

"Good man," Alistair says, and steps forward with one foot to give Cade a bracing, friendly clap on his shoulder. "That's all I do now--" No, it isn't, but he feels like he's trapped and useless and it's easier to make fun of himself for it than to let anyone else do it first. "--so you should come by the tavern in the evenings. I'll introduce you to my friends. I have those now."

[onlyhymns]

Cade nearly jumps out of his skin when Alistair claps him on the shoulder, and stares at him like he's a crazy person for a moment or two before he remembers he's being weird. He clears his throat. "Ah... of course," he says with a faint smile, having absolutely zero intention of doing so. The fewer people who know him, the fewer who will know... well. Him.

[byblow]

Alistair's smile dries out and then fades. Being looked at like he's a crazy person is plenty familiar; so is a lack of enthusiasm. "You don't have to," he says. It's less sullen than the fine I don't care anyway tones of his childhood, but still in roughly the same categories. "So many arrows, so little time, I get it."

[onlyhymns]

Cade smiles and then frowns and shakes his head in rapid succession. "No, I--," he begins, and stops himself, turning away to think, and ultimately walking in a small, anxious circle before he faces Alistair again. "I'm not... good in crowds."

[byblow]

Alistair's eyes narrow while Cade circles. Not in a mean way, necessarily; more in a what is happening way. But it makes what he says next that much more believable.

"I don't have that many friends," he says. It's only a token protest. Not personal, all right. Cade has just become weirder. "How about you practice your archery, and I'll come drink and heckle you." You know. "In a nice way."

[onlyhymns]

"Oh, I just thought..." Because, y'know, Alistair traveled with the Hero of Ferelden! He's a big deal, right? He must have loads of friends! Cade trails off and, given the offer, just nods. "All right," he finally agrees, with the ghost of a smile. He still generally knows when Alistair is joking, if only because their childhood gave him some context for that.