OPEN | they've given you a number

[hassaran]

WHO: Open to all, plus a couple specific closed starters
WHAT: Moving into the DH quarters, general routines, and kicking off some particular intel-gathering ops
WHEN: Now-ish
WHERE: Around the Gallows, but if you'd prefer somewhere else hit me up on plurk and we can work something out.
NOTES: n/a, will be updated if that changes

Yseult's move into the Scouting office and Division Head quarters isn't immediate. There are Beleth's things to be packed up and new chosen to replace them, options scavenged from unused quarters or dusted off after years in storage. Gallows staff come and go, bearing away rolled-up wall-hangings and grumbling about how to get the old desk back out through the doorway (they got it in here so there must be a way without sawing it in half), and Yseult can be found "overseeing" the minor commotion. This appears to mostly involve her ignoring it, except to shift from perching on this windowsill to that end-table or crate corner as needed, rotating around the emptying rooms as she reads through a stack of files, occasionally making notes with a stub of pencil otherwise tucked behind an ear or rolled absent-mindedly between knuckles.

When she runs out of reading material she might instead be found even further up the central tower in the aerie, visiting with the griffons. One of the adolescents, a white female with grey-tan markings on face and wings, seems to delight in prowling on tip-toes behind her, attempting to discreetly sidle up and steal things out of her pockets as Yseult pretends not to notice, only to coincidentally shift out of reach just at the key moment. When this game grows old there are others: a version of Find-the-Lady played with three wooden cups and a hidden treat, or catch played with bits of food or a leather ball and other random objects tossed around the aerie, griffons darting between rafters and racing to beat their siblings to catch it.

The training grounds are another common haunt, though she prefers odd hours--at dusk or dawn, or during mealtimes--when they are at their emptiest. She trains most often empty-handed or with knives, obviously a favored weapon whether thrown or wielded against one of the straw-filled bags hung from the ceiling. But sometimes it's a long staff, or two short ones, a whip-fast rapier, occasionally even a regular longsword or mace if she really wants to sweat through a challenge. Most sessions begin and end with her scaling the walls of the training hall building up to the roof, light on her feet across the ridgeline to a far corner within leaping distance of the isle's outer wall and from there across parapets and rooftops and forgotten banner-line ropes back to the main towers. She usually chooses her moment carefully to make this climb without being spotted, but can occasionally be caught dangling from a gutter on her way up or down. With the Scouting suite in flux, she can still be found in the common baths in the Templar tower afterwards.

After a couple days, the dust settles on the eighth floor, and from then she can be often found in the re-fitted Scouting office, its door always cracked open to eavesdrop on the hallway invite a knock unless she is in conference with someone. The space has been rearranged, but some of the spirit of Beleth's office remains in the pair of armchairs and tea-table now set in front of the fire and in the bookcases that still line the walls. The desk, large but simply carved on its solid front, is already accumulating files and missives neatly collected in stacks around the central blotter and pewter inkwells. The walls are bare, but that seems likely to be temporary, a few rolled tapestries in a corner and paintings in frames propped against the wall. When not bent over a report, pen in hand, she might be found flipping through them, or contemplating the merits of a seaside landscape in various positions on the wall, frowning thoughtfully over a cup of tea late into the evening.

Comments

[hassaran]

[ A few steps deeper into the room invite Petrana to follow, even before she sweeps a hand at the wingback chairs arranged in front of the hearth. The fire is low in deference to the warming season, and a kettle hangs on a hook to one side. ]

I have time now. Can I offer you tea?

[ipseite]

That would be lovely, thank you.

( petrana arranges herself neatly in one of the gestured-to chairs, at home in her surroundings in both the specific and in their context, more; more at ease with the forms of politeness than the general camaraderie (whatever else lies beneath its surface) of the outpost that always seems more rough and tumble to her than she's entirely comfortable with.

this is more her natural habitat. these rules are easier for her to divine. )

I assume that you have a vision, yourself, for the direction of your division.

[hassaran]

[ Yseult sets down her cup on the tea table as Petrana takes a seat in one of the chairs alongside it. She moves about collecting another cup--a match to her own, pale clay painted with delicate, red-flowering vines--and the box of tea from the mantle, swinging the kettle back onto the heat. ]

I have plans. [ 'A vision' would be a stretch, and not one she's inclined to make. The Inquisition appears to have a surfeit of visions already. ] There is a great deal of work to do. How long will you need to fully assess the state of our codework, both offensive and defensive? A report on the current status and any known issues would seem the place to begin.

[ipseite]

( as someone who in another life would probably make vision boards and earnestly post about them in her instagram stories, petrana leaves aside the distinction and considers instead the question, a thoughtful hum as punctuation. considers the cups, as well.

herself, beleth, herian, yseult. petrana briefly envisions coupe offering tea by the fireside and her lips quirk with the effort of not smiling inappropriately. )

I should ideally like the better part of several weeks, ( though she is by her tone perfectly aware that what she might ideally like and what she must realistically deliver may diverge. it's war; it has its own schedule. ) I expect to rework much of it, in due course.

[hassaran]

[ Yseult at least does not visibly react to that estimate except to tilt her head slightly and pause for a thoughtful-seeming moment before giving a little shake. ]

The files suggest we are overdue for attention to this area, but we can't afford to pause operations for more than a week. A less-comprehensive survey will have to do for now. Any issues serious enough to require immediate attention, a proposed triage list. Then we can discuss long-term goals. You have something in mind?

definitely did that out of purposeful consideration and not bc im slack af this week

[ipseite]

( petrana inclines her head, assent; it's a not unanticipated limitation, and if she didn't think that she can make that work when she has to, she'd have no business in her newly-gained position. if it might be argued she doesn't, regardless—

everything is an opportunity, if you try hard and believe in yourself and have a capacity for ruthlessness that a pretty face and soft hair don't hide.

but beyond her agreement to those instructions, )

I do. We have a unique resource in the...foreign population of this outpost. I don't need to teach an entire language to exploit its alien-to-Thedas properties for the purposes of code. Even to disguise it in the midst of familiar things, to—layer and misinform, potentially.

It was a method used in the early days of—my first campaign. With otherwise extinct symbols. We have a wider array before us, and living speakers. My methodology for acquiring such written skills means that I can put them to use at speed, rather than delayed by lessonmaking.

good

[hassaran]

[ There are a few things worth discussion in there, chief among them of course this proposal for incorporating rifter (she assumes) languages into their codes. There will be time to follow up on it, even before the reports they've now planned.

Instead, Yseult lowers her teacup back into her palm--perhaps the lack of saucers can be blamed on the move-in-progress--and tips her chin curiously. ]

Your first campaign?

[ipseite]

( nothing she chooses to casually discuss; nothing she thinks to rely on here, where it is hearsay only. her credibility in her position comes from the work she's done in thedas, not what she might have lived somewhere else that she can retell however it pleases her to—but it is not irrelevant. there is no sense being (too) cagey.

the complicated nature of her place there doesn't change how it molded her, and what followed. )

Mm. We also dealt with such limitations in manpower, in influence, in coin. It obliges one to become resourceful with what is at one's disposal.

[hassaran]

I'm sure. [ The mere fact that Petrana does not want to discuss it makes the subject more interesting, but Yseult has been doing this too long to bother with the straightforward pressure of another question. ]

Useful skills. You mentioned a method of learning written languages more quickly. Is this something you could teach others, or [ she flutters her fingers in a vague gesture that's meant to signify weird rifter shit ] not?

[ipseite]

In Sulleciel it would be a matter of a student's aptitude, but regrettably I don't believe the same can be said of Thedas—it's an enchantment that's intended to hasten the process of learning. Given a halfway cooperative prisoner, a potential means of forgery, but I daresay that it being both feasible and the best course of action would be an extraordinary circumstance indeed.

( not entirely without potential, but probably more as an intellectual exercise to consider the varied applications of various enchantments.

resourceful, as she says. )