swordproof: (Default)
SIX. ([personal profile] swordproof) wrote in [community profile] faderift2018-10-23 01:46 pm

open | keep holding on

WHO: Six and anyone else!
WHAT: Training, praying, studying, horsing
WHEN: Throughout the month
WHERE: Kirkwall (Gallows, training grounds, library)
NOTES: N/A


» TRAINING » GALLOWS
Training is a regular use of time for Six, unchanged since her dream, waking with some of the burdens removed from her shoulders. She still has Adrian's sword and she knows that, eventually, she'll have to get around to dealing with the weight of it. She knows that she'll have to bury it again here, that she'll have to find a suitable resting place, but it isn't something that is pressing on her currently. There are more important things to consider, more important things to do, especially with a sister to take care of and a dog to consider.

Two, the ever dutiful Mabari, settles near Six, head tilted to one side and tongue out as he dozes, content to let his mistress do as she will until it's his turn.

For the most part, Six spends her time with the familiar greatsword, swinging her weapon with ease, content to lift it and tear apart the training dummies as she has done almost every day since she had first woke here. Her strength is more than it had been before and it shows with the ease that she lifts her blade; it seems as though she's not carrying a two handed blade at all. It comes with a decade of practice and she's aware that it's something she has worked for - her pride is obvious as she takes a break to rest. Other times, she can be found with a longsword in her hand and a shield in another, practicing carrying the both - it's not her favoured weapon, but it's clear she has a decent amount of skill with it all the same.

Eventually, she abandons her own weapons training and takes her mabari to one side, summoning Two over. She can be found walking with him, moving with him, adjusting them both to the feeling of walking side by side, until she stops and breaks into a laugh, leaning down to scratch at his ears gently, whispering gentle words.
» STUDYING » LIBRARIES
The library isn't somewhere that Six has spent a great deal of time, but she knows her way around enough to know to avoid the seats of common regulars. She's not here to read too much that might get in the way of others, at least, and when she moves around the room she does it with proper respect to anyone who might be sitting and reading themselves, stepping around them quietly. She doesn't stand out as much as she usually might; her armour has been left in her room, the amulet of Sarenrae around her neck instead.

The books she chooses are those relating to Andraste, the Chantry and religion of the world, and she sits quietly with those for the better part of a few hours, an intense expression on her face as she does what she can to learn, taking notes on a piece of parchment at her side. Sometimes she will read about Tevinter, she will study what happened there, frowning at the paper.

When she's not reading, she's still making notes, but this is all in a very foreign looking language. Sometimes she whispers the words aloud to herself and they don't sound very natural, even coming from her mouth, her head tilting as she tests them. She's clearly fluent, but practice doesn't hurt and she wants to make sure she doesn't lose her third language, no matter what the risks. Elven is easy enough to remember, but Draconic? That's something else entirely.
» PRAYING » KIRKWALL GARDENS
When she's not training, Six has found a place in the garden that suits her for the praying she does every single day. She's well aware that there's no way for Sarenrae to respond to her here - she doesn't exist, she's not a real God here, there's only the Creators or Andraste or the Qun, all of which she knows too little to consider following - but she cannot give up her prayers. She kneels, usually facing a wall, her hands clasped around her holy symbol and her lips moving silently as she says words in a very quiet whispers.

Sometimes, she's there for hours, kneeling, Two at her side as a gentle guard dog, her hair tied up in the familiar bun. She doesn't move when people walk through the garden, focussed entirely on the familiar words, her fingers brushing over and over the metal around her neck. When she stops to pause she lifts herself up and walks around the garden, stretching her legs with Two trotting along beside her. Sometimes she tests his commands, asking him to sit, or lie, or heel, and always given him gentle warmth and encouragement when he does.

Eventually, she will always go back to her prayers, offering thanks and dutiful words to her Goddess, no matter what anyone else - whatever religion they might be - would think of her for it.
» WILDCARD
( Feel free to find Six around / in her room / etc or ping me on plurk for something personal! )
esquive: (Default)

[personal profile] esquive 2018-10-23 01:46 pm (UTC)(link)
Kirkwall isn't Ansburg - which would have had all manner of sturdy well bred farm horses and heavy set druffalo to be had -, but there are still horses to be found in it. Trade is trade is trade and all things, even horse flesh, come by way of the sea or eventually find their way to it as a river does. The prices will be sharper for it, but they don't have to ride all the way over the Marches or pay for food and lodging, so it all evens itself out in the end.

As Marcoulf is wont to do, he materializes out of the shadow of some building and cuts his way across the bustling courtyard to her. He looks much the same as he ever does - sword at his hip, laces neat, short cloak worn at some rakish angle -, though when he nears there's just the faintest whiff of something sour about him.

Six gets a nod and a slight bow, his hand touching his shoulder as some habitual emphasis to the gesture. Marcoulf tips his head after, leading with it. "This way."

And off they go, diving into Kirkwall's thronged markets.
esquive: ([ 012 ])

[personal profile] esquive 2018-10-23 02:31 pm (UTC)(link)
She can bow if she cares to; she's permitted eccentrics.

"Good temper and bones. The rest can be managed, but there's no changing either of those," he says, leading by just the barest half step through the winding markets.

The size will be the problem of course, but not impossible. It just means bypassing strings of dish faced, delicate Antivan bred mares clearly meant for Hightown squares alongside silk and perfume and instead making their way to the temporary livestock pens higher along the wharfs where every manner of cow and pig and wooly sheep has come to be slaughtered and sheared, their trimmings packed into bales or brine barrels and delivered straight onto waiting cargo ships.

One of the large livestock pens is stuffed with horses, each with a slash of colored paint on their hips to mark which trader owns which. Some are Ferelden, sporting green or black marks. But there are cobby Marcher horses here too in red and and blue and yellow. They're all filthy either from the road or from a ship's hold and most of them have some scratch or missing patch of hair or rubbed out section of mane. But that's to be expected. Horses in bulk always look less appealing.
chainlightning: (❧ teeth)

[personal profile] chainlightning 2018-10-23 02:49 pm (UTC)(link)
Somehow, Merrill always ends up back at Sundermount.

The ghosts of her people will never let her rest - the ghosts of what she's done, the blood on her hands. She had tried to tell them what had happened to Marethari, and they had not listened, and now they were dead - killed by her, because they would not listen. She will not avoid the mountain, though; there is too much there for her to be able to, and she grieves for her clan. She will never stop grieving, she thinks.

Six, though - perhaps Six will be able to. It had been easy for Merrill to agree to show her, especially once she knew why she wanted to go to the mountain. "It's already a graveyard, in some places," Merrill explains, voice just as soft. "Elven elders came to sleep here, long ago. When Arlathan fell, a great battle was fought here."

And then there was her own clan, the bodies that she had long ago taken care of lest their remains be disturbed by spirits.

"Few people come to this place. He won't be disturbed."
esquive: (Default)

[personal profile] esquive 2018-10-23 03:09 pm (UTC)(link)
Hard to say from here and so grouped together, is the answer. Marcoulf addresses the first point by climbing directly up onto the fence and perching on its highest railing. To the second point--

There's a sullen faced girl leaning against the fence some paces away. Marcoulf whistles at her, snapping his fingers like calling a dog. She slouches over.

"Cut them out for us, would you?"

"Are you paying?"

It's a demand. Marcoulf glares back at her, but passes a coin down from where he's perched, saying, "Nothing under sixteen and a half."

The girl promptly slides under the fence and wades into the herd.

"That bay has a good head and shoulder." He points out a stocky animal toward the far side of the pen. Then tips his head to glance at Six. "What do you need a horse for?"
chainlightning: (❧ jawline)

[personal profile] chainlightning 2018-10-23 03:27 pm (UTC)(link)
She knows the terrain, knows the paths. She picks over rocks and roots like a deer, pausing with one bare foot lifted when she hears a strange noise and continuing on when she determines it's nothing. Six seems like a great bear next to her, but Merrill isn't afraid, safer for the presence of the warrior and her armor.

Then again, Merrill is rarely afraid on Sundermount.

"Yes. The capitol. If you study our history - that of the elves, that is - I'd encourage you to ask the Dalish, not read the books that humans have written. We've lost much of our history, but they tend to... assume and exaggerate. I've never eaten a human child, for instance, despite all the stories about the Dalish doing that."

Her eyes roll, but there's a good humor there despite it. She's more than willing to play the distraction.

"There are some elves here who also wouldn't share with an elfblooded child - they consider them too close to human, since that's what they say. I think it's all rather silly; no one will be more willing to understand us if we don't talk."
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[personal profile] esquive 2018-10-23 03:31 pm (UTC)(link)
Something strong with an even temper then.

"Good. Battlefields are no place for most horses anyway." Waste of a perfectly good animal; he never fights on his if he can help it. The only men and women riding into the fray were ones who didn't need to concern thenselves about the cost of their horse's replacement.

Marcoulf threads his fingers about his knee, comfortably surveying the herd as the girl among them does the work of dredging the larger animals from it.

"Better to go with something more compact then. Strong, to be sure, and something that will fit the length of your leg, but the larger he is the more he will eat."
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[personal profile] esquive 2018-10-23 06:49 pm (UTC)(link)
"A good partner is one that makes sense for the task," he says, because the look on her face and the shine in her eye suggests she loves every one of those animals before them equally. Someone must be sensible about these things.

But fair enough. Any horse can be trusted to forage along the road.

Eventually the girl in the pen manages to cut out a handful of the larger horses from the rest, tying then there at the rail where they might be examined more closely. "No, not that one," he tells her before she's secured the last. "Turn it out."

The four remaining horses are tall enough, an assortment of square chested and burly to long legged and sturdy backed. At least one is considerably more delicate beside the others, though the height is right and the face is handsome even if the animal wouldn't be suited to the heavy work of a farm.
foxsays: (pic#11910457)

library;

[personal profile] foxsays 2018-10-23 09:43 pm (UTC)(link)
Last time Araceli was in the library was probably the small hours of the morning, tiptoeing around when she didn't end up going home because something had to be done or finished, that or bringing back books that got lost somewhere in the office because you take out a book then life happens and it's become a feature of your office for three months longer than intended. Today she's got a reason to be there though, her own notes tucked under her arm as she stretches up on her toes to grab for-- something about the Qunari. Not that there's the greatest selection but better than nothing.

It's been a while, back and forth, and usually she'd retreat back to her office but there's still paperwork and the deafening silence in there so instead she finds a table. Fairly close to Six who she perhaps nods at out of politeness the way you do when two people are knuckling down to separate but solid study, that kind of camraderie.

Until some time later when the need for a break kicks in about the time that the whispering can't be ignored--

"Is everything all right?" Quietly concerned as she leans over, flicks a glance at the books; not the brightest of subject matter from her own early days here doing the background reading on Welcome to Thedas: It's All Suffering and It Only Gets Worse.
esquive: ([ 005 ])

[personal profile] esquive 2018-10-24 01:06 am (UTC)(link)
He makes a small sound in response, shifting his sword so he might slide down from the fence unobstructed. The nearest horse - the dark bay with the pretty face - accepts a pat on the cheek. He takes some time walking about them, studying each animal from a variety of angles - running his hand down their legs and encouraging a hoof or two to be raised so he might poke and prod at the underside. Soft velveteen noses are scratched. Ears are touched. Bellies are pat. After a few critical minutes, he rejoins her at the fence.

"Not the bay or that one on the end, but you should try the other three. I'll see if someone can be found to tack them."
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[personal profile] esquive 2018-10-24 09:56 pm (UTC)(link)
Marcoulf shrugs. It makes no difference to him. Instead he tells her to keep in their company and goes to track down the lot's master who is almost certainly the man keeping numbers under the canvas shade slung up between this pen and the one beside it.

It doesn't take him long to return with a set of well worn tack. It takes him even less time to outfit her pick for which she'd like to try first, tightening straps and letting out buckles until the borrowed headstall can be made to fit the animal's big square face. The horse is slow to take the bit. He sticks his thumb in the corner of the horse's mouth until its teeth part.

Clearly Marcoulf's made some habit of this work. When he's done, he gestures with his head that she climb into the pen. "There's little room for riding, but see what paces you can manage and see if he obeys you. I'll watch to make sure he moves as he ought to." Every horse in a herd like this one is going to be sour and disobedient as a child being made to work, but at least they might see that it's legs work in all the right directions.
foxsays: (pic#11910703)

[personal profile] foxsays 2018-10-24 11:03 pm (UTC)(link)
There's something nostalgic about it; Araceli's own desk has a similar set of notes buried away that she's never quite been able to make herself part with despite no longer needing them the way she once did, unsure sometimes how that makes her feel to have the answers there on the tip of her tongue, to know things same as having lived and breathed a place all her life. Not everything but enough.

More than enough in some places.

"There's never a good place to start, not really. The Chantry, maybe, but then it's where it gets sidetracked - the elves, Tevinter, mages and Templars, all the countries that start creeping in with their conflicts and histories." The Grey Wardens and their particular brand of nonsense that gets dragged in too somewhere along the lines with all of it, all said in a sympathetic tone as she tucks her own (dull, so very dull, also not very helpful Genitivi you are useless) tome on Qun-related musings to the side. "Do you have a place that you've started with? I did this once, usually whenever I spoke to someone and had no idea what they were talking about but it was overwhelming, how much of it was new. Looking up one thing then you have to look up three more to understand that one thing in the first place?"

Maybe it's getting to that point which isn't helpful when you're starting out with anything. When you'd rather sleep on the book in the vain hope you'll absorb the information somehow.
foxsays: (pic#11910664)

[personal profile] foxsays 2018-10-25 11:05 pm (UTC)(link)
"You think the belief is a choice? Interesting." There's no sarcasm, Araceli's voice quiet as she weighs that against her own ideas. Weighing it. Her own ways don't overlap so easily here, somewhere between the Dalish or the Rivaini, a belief running deep through the core of her and deeper again that it wasn't a choice, it couldn't ever be yes or no on that count. It is. It is or it's forgotten, washed away, tide wearing down edges to smoothness, to sand, slipping through fingertips.

"Grey Wardens are always going to be secretive, that's their way but I did meet one a long time ago I think she must have left here by now maybe for another assignment but Alistair Theirin? He's certainly personable, I find him the most agreeable of the Wardens we have." Not that they've spoken much but if he hews close to Gwenaelle then he must be doing something right, her opinions regarding Wardens are plain enough. "I can share what I know of them if you'd like but Templars I know better, one works in Naval Presence, I've questioned him plenty in the early days - Ser Norrington - and there's Ser Coupe, I report to her. Seeker Darton was good once for some of the more...arcane Chantry traditions. The brazier. How that came about was an odd thing to learn."

Honestly any part of the Chantry history by all rights is odd to her, nose wrinkling.

"But most important thing about Grey Wardens that I learnt from that Grey Warden: only they can kill Archdemons and that's involved in Blights and ending them. Kill the Archdemon, the Darkspawn go back to the Deep Roads. Which is why there are still Grey Wardens even now."

(Rifters probably weren't meant to know all that about six months in, thanks Kaisa for being a bro.)

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