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]

She is busy. Everyone is, hence the need for people to do their jobs, or get out of the way if they don't care to bother.

"Do you expect Corypheus to spare the elves in his path?" The question is directed at his exiting back, voice not raised in the slightest despite the challenge inherent in the question. "We'll all suffer under his rule but they will be enslaved and slaughtered for blood magic rituals like in the Tevinter of old he seeks to restore. You do them no favors by ignoring this war."

[aenseidhe]

"No."

Which is all that's kept him in the Inquisition, and it's the same thing he'd told Nikos when reasoning against assassinating members of the Chantry and putting a split into the organization. He's had some days to think on it, and he's paused at the door as he mulls it over again. Letting out a sigh, he waits until the last of the workers shuffles out with furniture and closes the door behind them, pacing back over to speak in a lower voice.

"But I would have them prepared to defend their world as much as any other race is allowed, rather than wait and pray humans take care of it."

This woman would go report to the city that he intends to make Alienage elves combat ready, but if she's Scoutmaster, surely she could figure that out on her own well enough.

[hassaran]

Yseult waits, patiently until the door is shut and Iorveth has answered, hands folded over her top knee, somewhere between prim and casual. When he has, she steps down from her perch, crossing the room toward one of the remaining bookshelves, still half-full. There is a bottle there and a few cups, being used as a book-stop, but she tilts the books the other way and pours two fingers of dark liquor into a glass, lifting the other in offer.

"You were at Ghislain," she says as she does it, "You've seen our enemy first-hand. Experienced soldiers, hardened warriors, elite mages, all backed by darkspawn and demons. A few months of training isn't going to save anyone. You protect them better by doing everything you can to make sure Corypheus never makes it to Kirkwall."

[aenseidhe]

"I was." And it was a miserable bloodbath, even before their forces were lead into that trap. Iorveth watches the offered glass for a handful of seconds, before accepting it. Another pause is held as he swirls the dark liquid in the glass, watching the color shift, pensive.

"What happens after? It'll be 'we have to rebuild, we don't have time to grant basic rights to those who deserve it'. Every opportunity that arises, a new reason comes up, and they wait centuries." And hope dies. Hope has died, and the rest of the world is fine with it. That an entire race lives in misery, even if some find it sad, no one does anything, least of all those that could actually make a difference, like the Inquisition. "Focusing on the Inquisition's errands won't keep a father from seeing his daughter beaten and murder by drunk soldiers looking for something to take frustrations out on. Or his son from the noose when he tries to find justice. I can show up to a battle without being tied to this institution."

He half wants to go at it that way, for the sake of freedom from it alone. Compliance with a people that accept the Chantry and the Templars and every other form of oppression in Thedas. Pacing the room, he moves to lean against a window, looking out at the Gallows outside.

"There's so many empty rooms in the towers. Living in a home without a dirt floor, with access to clean baths and food, protected from the abuse of the city, given expert training and authority to arm themselves... it would already be tenfold what filth and degradation they huddle in now. The Inquisition could promise them Skyhold, once Corypheus is defeated and the organization is no longer needed, as a sovereign, independent home - a defensible fortress, and after the war, they'd be trained soldiers able to hold it." He snorts, shaking his head, and takes a long sip of the drink before finishing that thought. "Even if they would work, contribute, train for infantry, I imagine the Inquisition would refuse simply on the basis that it may upset the nobles, or the Chantry. Regardless of how little it costs them."

[hassaran]

"The Inquisition has taken in hundreds or thousands of refugees of all races, and accepts anyone who wishes to join and fight on our side," Yseult points out, still mild. "Bring as many in as you like, if they will sign up and do the work." The liquor is rum, the good stuff not cheap sailor rotgut, deep and dark, glistening red when it catches the light. She takes her cup to the single armchair sat before the hearth, and settles on its arm.

"You know that I don't have the power to give you what you really want. You know the Inquisition doesn't either. This organization exists on the slenderest tightrope. It is already weighed down and stretched to breaking trying to do all that it does without making any more enemies. It cannot do more and keep any hope of winning. After Corypheus is defeated, you and everyone else with a cause--which is nearly everyone in this place--will have a chance to try to direct its energies and resources toward your ends. Maybe it will be harder then, maybe it will be easier. I don't know. All I know is that if we don't win nothing we do now will matter."

[aenseidhe]

She isn't wrong, and he knows she isn't wrong. He's said similar things, before he split from Thranduil and Gwen and devoted himself to this path. The Inquisition is a precarious thing, and they've been struggling, tooth and nail, just to keep their heads above water. He knows they can't fix this, he knows the Chantry and the rest of this world would demand too much to allow a change like this.

"Noble, true and honorable men have laid down their lives for me, because they had faith I'd never stand idly by while something like the alienage persisted. I swore to them I'd never bargain it, accept excuses for it or say 'not now but maybe someday'." Iorveth doesn't really consider his life his anymore. He is what he needs to be, what he promised he would be, for all the sacrifices that have been made. Going against them feels like spitting in the face of everything that's ever mattered to him. Moving, he takes another sip of the drink (makes a mental note to ask where you get drink like this), and paces back towards the hearth.

"Survival alone is not always enough." Maybe a chat on ideology isn't the best to do with this woman, but it's everything Iorveth is, so. That's where we are. He sits back carefully into another armchair, barely making a creak despite how big he is. "A world in which the majority forces this manner of hell on another race, in which the rest stand by in apathy. Perhaps they deserve to be swallowed by a creature borne of the greed for power and possession harbored in them."

Which, of course, means Iorveth and all the others in the alienage would die horribly too. He's not unaware of that. No one ever accused him of sanity, okay? And yet, Iorveth's never known how to die quietly.

[hassaran]

Forget being chosen to help lead part of the Inquisition, or breaking captives out of the Archon's own palace: the fact that she manages to summon the effort to keep a straight face through that speech is perhaps the greatest accomplishment of Yseult's long career. She does it, watching him carefully throughout and for a long silent moment afterwards, letting this suggestion of his hang in the air between them.

The fireplace on the wall is empty. One window is cracked open, and the draft it lets in is cooling as the sun sets. Yseult finishes her drink.

"I suspect if you polled those you think this would be helping, they would disagree," she says dryly. "Survival may not always be enough, but most people find it an essential starting point."

[aenseidhe]

While having his own difference that meant survival for him and his Scoia'tael unit, there's many things Iorveth still shares with the other freedom fighter commanders. One of them is talking like a dramatic psycho. But truly, would he mind seeing a world full of this many shitty people burn? Absolutely not. Is he going to? By right of his own restlessness, probably not. Even if Iorveth did decide to fuck off into the forest and ignore the world for the rest of his time here, a single elf, even skilled as he is, won't make the difference in this fight, and he's well aware of that.

The likelihood of seeing any kind of real and lasting change for either his people or those so much like his here is dwindling further and further. It's been his entire purpose for existing for the last century. Letting go of it is a bitch, and at this point, he's just fucking angry.

The silence stretches on, and Iorveth doesn't miss the stillness and tension of it. He knows what he sounds like, and it isn't difficult to image this woman must think he's batshit (she wouldn't be the first). This is somewhat par for the course, and he sits comfortably in it, finishing off his drink and staring at the empty fireplace. The empty glass is set down carefully on the nearest flat surface, and he turns to look at her, meeting the eyes watching him carefully.

"You have a gift for composure." Woman hasn't cracked even a sliver since he's been in here talking like his fanatic self. After another moment or so of watching her eyes, he adds. "I'll resume archery training for any of ours that need it tomorrow morning. Norrington's been given the design for an upgraded bow. They'll need training to use it correctly."

So, he'll get his ass back to work. He might be a nutcase, but he's very good at murder.

[hassaran]

Yseult's mouth curves ever so faintly, the suggestion of a smile in the minute narrowing of her eyes, the spiderweb-fine lines that appear at the corners. "I should hope so." Given her profession. Given her experience. Given her position here, the circumstances, the distinct lack of it in so many assigned to the Gallows. She could mean any or all of it.

As for his plans, she tips her chin in a nod. Good. "Report back here after you've finished with that tomorrow, I will have other work for you."

[aenseidhe]

If nothing else, Iorveth has faith in the woman's suitability for the position, though he still can't say whether that's good for them all or bad. A spy is a spy is a spy. They'll just have to wait and see.

Rising up, Iorveth straightens out his back, and nods at the instructions she gives.

"As you wish, Scoutmaster." There's a slight, tilted dip of his head, and it's hard to tell if its genuine casual courtesy that's a little lazy, or a bitch being facetious. Honestly, Iorveth's facetious without even trying to be half the time, so the world may never know the actual intention there. "My thanks for the drink, and your time."