faderift | (closedish openish) keep you like an oath

Many things are wrong with the world right now. It probably doesn't say anything good about Alistair's character or priorities that Morrigan and her son's presence in Skyhold ranks anywhere on his list of ills, even if it is near the bottom. Yet here we are. He's brooding about several things all at once, to be fair; some of them are not ridiculous. But he's doing it on the walkway above the gardens, leant against the stone barrier to watch a red-headed boy wander below.

It's guilt, not suspicion, that makes his attention snap away when someone else comes up the stairs. He turns around to lean back against the stone rather than over it. He isn't dressed like a guard--he isn't dressed like anything at all--and his watchfulness is immediately friendly and sheepish, not wary or entitled to staring, with a proffered half-smile once he's sure he doesn't know her. He considers looking back the other way, but.

She has a terrible lot of terribly red hair.

Edited 2015-12-25 06:03 (UTC)

It's a good vantage point for eyes. Not so good for ears, although occasionally, snippets of conversation does tend to travel upwards, words carried by the wind. But it's possible that Alistair is getting more in the way of sneaky spywork than Sabine, up here.

In contrast to his more moderate appraisal, Sabine's assessment is more frank, as if she'd caught the tail end of his turn out of his own lean. Terribly red hair aside, she is dressed innocuously; the woollen skirt of simple weave and cut marks her as someone fit for serving, and indeed, there's a dusting of flour discolouring foresty green. The pouch she carries in her hands, however, is more personalised, with fringe and beads and buckles.

Only after a second of uncertainty and studying the particular configurations of his expression, she continues down the walkway, her steps clipping neat beneath the swing of her skirt. Past him. Hello goodbye.

But then she pauses, looking past her shoulder and down the garden proper.

"It's better here, than on the ground," she says, voice markedly Orlesian. She twists further, just enough to look back at him. "They won't look up for the sun."

Edited 2015-12-29 13:45 (UTC)

"What?" Alistair is good at looking clueless. It's his face's natural resting position, no acting required. What's a sun? Who's they? He doesn't even know what a ground is, never seen one in his life—"I'm not—"

He's less good at lying—this kind of lying, the needs-to-be-convincing kind, rather than the cheerful extravagant stories kind. Two words into the attempt and his convincingness is already cracking, headed inevitably toward a shatter. He glances back over his own shoulder without turning his head, which means he mostly looks at his own shoulder rather than anything beyond it.

"I was just," he adds, rather than quitting while he's not completely tragically behind.

Fortunately ("fortunately"), from higher on the battlements, someone screams.

Sabine's eyebrows raise, waiting. Just say it, Alistair. You were looking at someone's rack. It's fine, it happens to the best of us.

Really, she is unsuspicious -- there's nothing wrong with people watching, but as he stumbles and stammers about, she finds herself waiting to see where it this goes, still poised as if to continue down the walkway. Her attention peels off him, then, to re-evaluate the garden below, to see if anything obvious jumps out at her.

Nothing does, or at least, nothing does before a scream stirs the peace. Sabine turns sharp, dismissing the Other Ginger in favour of finding the source, immediately alert.

Edited (i wanted a different icon anyway) 2016-01-14 23:26 (UTC)

Alistair is a little slower on the uptake, busy as he is feeling awkward and trapped for, he's slowly realizing now that it's too late to take it back, no good reason at all. It's not anyone's business if he wants to spy on his own—sort of—son and, additionally, spying on him is a public service, because he could sprout dragon fangs or a second head at any moment.

So she turns; he takes a moment to exhale, relieved, before it settles in that whatever is being screamed over may be somewhat worse than his personal problems.

For example, it might be Corypheus and his dragon.

Alistair lifts from his lean on the wall and walks two steps past the elf, looking in the same direction, then down at the garden to see if anyone else is concerned. A few people are looking up. But the scream becomes a very loud, very Orlesian, "That was a gift from my grandmother, you Fereldan brute," and they lose interest.

Sabine's mouth pinches when that accent and the words it carries rings out; it'd be easy to be dismissive of a noblewoman's problems, delivered in that octave, but Sabine has come to know some things about Orlesian nobles and their problems.

The first, is that they're typically easily solved. The second, is that they pay well.

Alistair freed completely of her attention -- you can leave now, other ginger -- Sabine takes the flight of stairs up towards the next level, the bustle of her skirts dancing around her ankles, flashing boots of better make than your average kitchenhand or chambermaid is equipped with. (They let her scale rooftops, climb rocks, make quick exits.)

The Orlesian lady does seem genuinely distraught, as far as Orlesian ladies can be genuinely anything. Gloved hands flap her displeasure, even as her mask makes her countenance fixedly neutral. The Fereldan brute is over it, leaving the woman alone with her dramatics.

"My lady?" Sabine queries, all at once gentle and unassuming in affect.

Other Ginger (O.G. for short, conveniently also interpretable as Original Ginger, thank you) does not leave. He follows her at a respectable distance, attention mostly directed ahead toward the distressed Orlesian but, also, a little bit at the elven woman ahead of him, in a way that would probably get him teased if anyone who knew or cared were here to witness it. There's just so much hair.

Her Lady is sufficiently distracting at close range, however, with tears dripping off her chin beneath her mask and a hand clasped to her chest like she might faint. Through the eye holes she blinks wetly at Sabine, sniffles once, and then launches into an explanation in rapid Orlesian.

Alistair has trouble keeping up—ten years in Orlais, sure, but Wardens speak Common among themselves, and rarely speak at all to anyone else without cause—but he can follow the basics. Grandmother, scarf, hand-embroidered, Val Royeaux, delicate, Empress Herself Once Complimented, etc., caught in the wind because a Fereldan thought himself funny and carried over the wall.

From his safe distance, Alistair leans through a crenel to look down.

"It's only just there," he interrupts, without subjecting anyone to his passable but poorly accented attempts at Orlesian.

Sabine peers through a few crenels over, hands set like paws on the grey rock as she catches sight of the flagging piece of fabric, snagged as it is on rocks, an overhang that leads to a steep drop through which winds excess river. Each gust of wind threatens to tumble it into the icy water. "Not for long," she adds to his assessment, at what she thinks is a mutter, but it only triggers a cascading torrent of fretting from the noblewoman. Whoops.

She hurriedly reassures, in rapid-fire Orlesian, that she will gladly retrieve her lady's token if she would only wait here, and she gives a curtsey that a cow could execute with more grace.

But she's all business when she turns and heads off, strides brisk.

Alistair can curtsy better than that. He briefly considers proving it, and also briefly stays where he is, twisted sideways in his over-crenel lean to watch her go, and looks at the noblewoman with his mouth open, like maybe he's about to try to have a conversation with her about her lost scarf or artlessly charming elven women.

She sniffles, loudly and indelicately, and primly turns away from him to look over the wall herself.

All right, then.

It takes some half-jogging and some particularly long strides for him to catch up with her, but he manages it at the bottom of the steps down to the courtyard. "I'll help you," he says, in case she thinks he's following her for reasons other than noble and charitable concern about wealthy Orlesians and their keepsakes.

Sabine doesn't quite stumble when she whips a look around behind her at the human following her, not exactly prey-animal nervous, but the kind of consideration a predator might give another, bigger predator. It's only a second, before the moment re-contextualises, and she arches an eyebrow. Then, back to it, her skirts at an authoritative swish.

"Why, when I am claiming the reward alone?" she queries, a little like she's expecting that enough to end the conversation, or provoke challenge enough and with it, intent. A breath's hesitation passes, before; "I mean," she adds, a moment later, "it is fine, monsieur."

"Reward, eh?" He follows her across the muddy grass, around the wall to the gate. "You can keep the reward. I could use the walk."

And to see that she doesn't die. The drop is steep. The river may not be literally freezing, thanks to the springs, but a walk back to the fortress after falling into it may very well be. He stretches his legs for three steps to come alongside rather than behind her, and gives her a hopeful sideways look that's almost a request for approval. Only almost. He's coming either way.

"Very well."

Polite and permissive, even if it comes with some sort of hidden tone, Sabine almost leaves it at that. Like maybe he'll get bored, or show his hand properly. She folds her arms around herself against where the cold will somehow become more bracing once beyond Skyhold's walls, before she opts to test the waters, explaining;

"They throw away their coins this way. To show they have any, perhaps, or to demonstrate the seriousness of their problems."

(closedish openish) keep you like an oath

Sabine!

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face :Dc

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