(closedish openish) keep you like an oath

[byblow]

WHO: Alistair & Others
WHAT: Some sulking, some snark.
WHEN: Third week of Haring + bonus first week of Wintermarch.
WHERE: Skyhold.
NOTES: No open starters, but if you want something PM me or hit me up on Plurk! Or drop a starter of your own on me and I'll roll with it.

Comments

[glandival]

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.

[byblow]

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.

[glandival]

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.

[byblow]

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.

[glandival]

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."

[byblow]

"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.

[glandival]

"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."