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WHO: Krem and YOU
WHAT: Getting used to Kirkwall
WHEN: Present
WHERE: Dive bar, Gallows
NOTES: Other starters available on request, PM/PP (

relatable)!

i. Some Tavern Somewhere

Krem didn't start the brawl, he swears—when a full mug of ale goes flying past his head, though, he joins in.

There isn't an overwhelming number of people keen on throwing hands with the guy in a full set of armor, but he still trades a few punches here and there. When he gets the attention of someone exactly drunk enough to lack the sense to lay down after getting hit more than once, he casts about and promptly zeroes in on one of the few barstools untouched by the chaos. He starts reaching for it even while asking whoever is standing closest: "Can I borrow this?"

Without waiting for an answer, he swings it like a bat right into the chest of the man charging towards them, sending him toppling over a table and into a messy pile of limbs on the floor. Krem has the gall to look surprised that the poor, innocent barstool survived its brief stint as a weapon, but he recovers enough to flash his most charming smile as he hands it back. "Thanks. Buy you a drink?"

ii. Indistinctly, the Gallows

On one of the rare occasions that Krem can be spotted outside of his armor, he is perched in one of the Gallows' common areas, stitching a patchwork of spare fabric pieces up into a stuffed nug. He's got on a pair of well worn trousers and a loose tunic with no sleeves on it so he can show off his guns for once. Look, he works hard, let him have this.

At anyone wandering close enough who doesn't look impossibly busy, he brandishes two scraps of cloth: one green, one brown. "This one or this one? For the wings."

Very important, please assist.

iii. On a Good Day for a Morning

Krem spends a considerable amount of time in the training yard, doing what looks like soldier's drills. He tends to be there right at the crack of dawn, because he is one of those crazy people who is actually productive in the morning, with a practice sword and shield and a slightly winded grin for anyone who looks ready to join.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There aren't, broadly speaking, many benefits to being a dwarf in the Inquisition since it's mostly made up of people all taller than you, shoutier than you, and far more able with the magic thing than you. Which boils down to unless you shout too (and get up on a box - a succession of boxes) people mostly ignore you. Pat you on the head maybe. Isn't the dwarf funny.

So Yngvi doesn't immediately realise he's being addressed until there's no one else around, something alarming close to the face area that he has to blink at as a nug in the pocket peers out. Black eyes blink. Unknowingly. Too knowingly. Never can tell with nugs can you?

"Depends on the wings, don't it?" This is not his area, where is his lady who has had to tell him his colours before? Relax, you've got this, humans are always strange. "Brown well that's all traditional ain't it but you get fancy flying things places looking like some Orlesian party riot, might be fun."

Krem blinks when he spots the little nug poking out of the dwarf's pocket, and then breaks out into an even broader grin than he'd been wearing in the first place. They're such cute little blighters, with the beady eyes and the snuffly nose and the creepy little finger-toes. He loves them.

Still what are the odds? A guy carrying a nug to consult on his soon-to-be-winged nug: a coincidence? Fate? It doesn't matter, clearly Yngvi can be trusted with the important decisions here, since having one makes him the expert in this situation. How not?

Krem holds up his own nug to show what he'd been asking for: it is slightly flat because he hasn't put the stuffing in it yet, and being made from otherwise useless fabric scraps rather than a nice light pink it is already a Orlesian party riot color-wise. And like... okay sure maybe nugs don't traditionally have wings, but, "Heard a bunch of the rich ladies down there keep them as pets, maybe green wings are fashionable." He sounds like he's leaning in that direction now instead of the brown.

The nug (Yngvi can't remember which one, he's thinking Stroganugg for the boldness) peers further, a dwarven hand to keep it from tipping itself out and onto the ground. Might not be the longest drop but who'd fancy it?

"I keep a bunch of nugs." Yngvi be cool. Be cool about this. You are a lad after all, you've been doing this all your life. (Time to ruin it.) Because he the says, softly, at first, "I'm a rich lady, you go off for a few months and they upgrade you, amazing. Rifters are probably going to be the in thing, there's enough of them about with their hands, it'll be all the rage."

Orlesians with hands painted up Fade green, trying to find something that doesn't smudge and also doesn't stain, he can see it all now.

But back to the nug at hand, peering at it with an interested air because what people get up to in their spare time is always worth it - some folk knit that he'd never haved credited after all, he owns the lumpy jumper to prove it - and looks up. Steps back just enough to not have to crane his neck in that awkward way dwarves do when humans are involved, nothing personal you're all just tall that way. "Bet Grey Wardens'd be for it too, you could say it's some extinct battle nuggiffon. Who can say what they get up to."

The mental image alone startles a laugh out of Krem, who has spent the majority of his mercenary career taking jobs from ridiculous Orlesian nobles (and ridiculous Nevarran nobles, to be fair, but that's something else entirely.) It seems completely probable, now that Yngvi says it. "Don't give them ideas," he insists. "Or yourself, of course." Since he's been upgraded as punishment for his absence, and all.

Krem holds out the nug to present it when Yngvi starts eyeing it specifically, since he has stepped farther away so as not to crane his neck so badly. Having worked alongside the Chargers' own dwarven explosives expert for so many years now, he gets it. (Also, as someone employed by what he honestly hopes is the world's tallest Qunari because if not how big can those bastards get, he gets it.)

"Can you imagine the sounds they'd make, trampling darkspawn?" Let alone the idea of one of them being large enough for your average Grey Warden to ride... terrifying. "Does that one have a name?" He gestures towards Yngvi's little in-coat passenger.

Well it's going to make for an interesting letter once he knows the crew is in Orlais: hot Orlesian trends, need the inside scoop for a betting pool I'm not starting, I'll cut you in. "Best thing about being the one here to represent everyone? I'm not there to see whatever thing they're coming up with. Not the spines and quills where you had to stop yourself from launching an axe at some quillback coming for you oh wait it's the dowager's husband or the whole chartreuse taffeta and and mauve lace thing they did."

Credit to the doglords where credit is due: they saw their muddy country, they saw their dogs, they took that whole theme and just ran with it. They're not the biggest eyesore in the room at any given moment, just the drab one you mistake for a couch and trip over.

"If I could have nightmares I think I'd have one." He can only stare because that hadn't entered his head until now: of course they'd make noise, maybe something like a seagull? (Kirkwall has too many, the first and worst bird to be known but respected for the boldness of their thievery.) Yngvi examines the nug though and he might as well trade as he hoists out his own living, breathing one that doesn't protest, happy to be handled, at peace with the proceedings. "Pretty sure this one is Stroganugg, they're fondest of hitching a ride places, seeing all there is to see y'know? Rump Roast might've made an attempt at an ear nibble on a likeness."

Krem winces openly. "I remember that. Did a lot of jobs in those parts." Listen: work in Orlais was plentiful, and the pay was always good, and the tavern drink was on average much better than around here... but Orlesians, man. Orlesians.

If any one population can make Tevinter seem almost reserved by comparison, something has gone terribly wrong.

And oh, Maker, those names. Apparently if Iron Bull ever makes it down to Kirkwall to join them, Krem will need to keep his boss and this guy far away from each other at all costs. There would be too many puns in one place, undoubtedly, and he'd just have to die.

He reaches out to the nug held aloft, with admittedly a bit of a dopey smile. Look at it!!! Just look at it. The tiny, blank, nothing eyes. The giant, cavernous ears. The total non-reaction to being shown off like it doesn't even give a hoot: he's perfect. Krem doesn't coo at it or anything, because he is a man of dignity and poise (don't laugh), but it's a close thing.

"How many have you got?" He said a bunch... "You ever race them?"

"Once all this," he waves a hand to encompass oh you know the hole in the sky, the war off somewhere unseen, the great and terrible everything usually above mercenary paygrades when it comes to the thick of it, "is tidied up that'll be all that's on the board. Nothing but Orlais and all the pastries, tiny cakes and onion soup you can sup on."

Unless Antiva finally show up late given someone murdered the bulk of the Crows, might be a change of pace.

Yngvi grins happily since Stroganugg is content and being regarded as a nug of such standing should: with respect or awe or both because he's never been quite sure of the difference being from Kirkwall as he is. Handfeet wriggle but that's nugs. Tamed nugs. Only with the sense to get away from the four-legged hugry things people insist on toting about the Gallows most days.

"Twenty." Casual. Oh yeah everyone has twenty nugs living in their Inquisition quarters with them. "They're more lugs of leisure, roaming where they will, playing Diamondback. Did pull me and a chariot from Orlais and up the Frostbacks though."

(Keg. It's a keg.)

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