OPEN: this will be a better year

[faderifting]

WHO: Everyone
WHAT: First Day
WHEN: Wintermarch 1 (forward-dated)
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: Scouts from both the Western Approach and Emprise du Lion are welcome (but not required) to have returned to Skyhold in time for this event.

There have been better First Day feasts, and less crowded ones, and cheerier ones. It isn't a good year for many to look back on, and this one isn't starting any better. Reports from both Eastern and Western Orlais are grim. Many in the Inquisition can't afford to take more than a few hours away from their work, if that.

But for those who can, the ambassador does her best. At lunchtime some tables, hot food, and finery are reserved for visiting nobility and wealthy pilgrims--cause for grumbling in some quarters, perhaps, but they're the people filling the Inquisition's coffers, and allowances must be made--but there's plenty of stew, bread, and ale for everyone, even with the soldiers and refugees who stay outside the fortress invited inside for the holiday. The recently repaired garden and its carefully tended plants aren't off limits, but anyone noisy and holding a drink will be stopped at the door; the battlements, with their potential for deadly falls, are blocked by Inquisition guards. But the courtyards brim with people, most of them happy despite the possibility that the world might end before another First Day arrives.

If the courtyards are too full of tipsy visitors for comfort, there's also the valley beyond the fortress, expansive, barren, and covered in snow. By the river the soldiers help the refugees make a bonfire larger than would ever be allowed inside Skyhold's walls, and some lend their shields to use as sleds down the embankments. A group of scouts start the most intense game of hide and seek Thedas has ever seen, with snowballs to the face for whoever is found first. In the camp, a refugee girl with her hand wrapped in a green scarf chases other children around the tents, shouting raaar, I'm from the rifts!

Comments

[issala]

Kas laughs at that, placing his part of the shield down and then sitting down, making sure to leave space for Korrin in the back. She was bigger, so they'd get a smoother ride that way. Running leather-clad fingers over the silverite, he looks both amused and a little bit... well, longing. Hearing her talk about the mercenaries made him think of hi own kith.

"Your company sounds like fun. It isn't fun until someone need stitches, after all!" He psyches himself up with that, and then grins at her. "Let's ride!"

[foxsays]

"You know what a gun is!" Surprise and delight take her mind off the snow at last as her whole face lights up because having to explain the weapons to people was one of the more bizarre exercises she'd gone through. "And yes, I fell through a rift in Haven, a few months ago now but I've only met one or two who went through the same thing, but at least that was just snow and rubble and the demons."

It's a bad day when you can say 'just' with those three things following but such is the world they've both found themselves in.

"I'm Araceli Bonaventura." Introductions should absolutely be done with other rifters in her book.

[fleurdesel]

"The fault does not lie with you, Salvatore." He is young, still sorting out the intricacies of such relationships in general, and for someone that appears so appealing, so important to show interest? The fantasy makes for a lovely indulgence. "It lies with the Knight-Commander."

As the older party, as the empowered party, as the privileged party, he should have known better.

[kallian_endris]

"...how? How is it that free mages can live in sanctuary? I know there are templars here, I've seen them. As long as they are watching..." She shook her head. "It's not freedom. It's not sanctuary."

[issala]

"Lyrium is... weird, even when it isn't red. The red part just makes it creepier." He had missed Korrin's crytal post about it, and that was probably a good thing. All he knew came from rumors.

Rumors alone already made him feel sick.

Then he notices how she looks and blushes when he mentions Korrin and he flushes a bit as well. Oh. Kas might be a stubborn brat, but he wasn't stupid. He's not sure if to he happy for Korrin or wigged out that she liked a Rifter in that way... but then it all crashes and burns with Araceli's next words.

"W-what does my age got to do with anything?!" He snarls, glaring at her. "I'm not a kid!"

[foxsays]

"Gratitude a thousand times señor...forgive me, I failed to get your name." Even if it's just to keep him safe whenever she has to return to her own side although two little shapes are soon scurrying over to find safety with her once more, peering up curiously before they hunker back down again.

"I thought people might be afraid of the scary rifters but it's more fun to get one to join in with their games apparently." As she speaks, one of the little ones makes a good attempt at throwing a snowball at whoever hit him and she pauses to cheer them on because hey, you need to encourage the little ones. "Are you newly returned from one of the assignments?"

[quietblade]

"Damn right I am! Demons, ancient magister darkspawn, a possible old god? I'm all for that." In truth, it did wig him out a little - but hey, he left the Qun so he could continue fighting. What better way to keep sticking it to them but fighting something like that?

It would be glorious.

"How are you getting along with the new templars that arrived recently?" The warrior then adds, eyeing the other man.

[quietblade]

Taas technically wants to know just how much of a loose cannon this guy is, but he's no Ben-Hassrath. He was a former soldier, however, and that was helpful at times. Joking, drinking, just shaking people loose.

If he'd known the fact that Cade was for Kirkwall, he would have kept on walking.

"Alright. What do you like to do for relaxing?"

[fleurdesel]

"They do not have authority over mages here. We self govern- it is a new system but it is...we are working it out as we go. The templars answer to the templars and the Inquisition Advisors. The mages answer to the mages and the Inquisition advisors. We are not commanded by them." Baby steps, but steps none the less.

[quietblade]

"Heh. Sounds like me after the first year away from the Qun." He might not know much about dwarven culture, but hey. A bit of common ground. Always a good thing for making new connections.

"How are you liking the Inquisition? The tempting locked doors aside, of course."

[motherfucking_ghost]

Her delight is his delight. God damn, bonding over guns. Yes. Best way to start a possible friendship. He holds out a free hand to shake. "Church! I'm Church. And I know what guns are. And I miss them so much. I also miss decent armor and, uh, basically everything. I think one of us is going to try setting up meetings for people like us? Which would be pretty cool. Make sure we all know each other and share information. Maybe we can bring the damn industrial era to this place."

[kallian_endris]

She shakes her head.
"No, just... me. I haven't seen anyone else wearing feathers. But if you want stories about nobles and masks, my mother told me many. She was born and raised in Orlais."

She blushed at the compliment and blinked in surprise when he smiled and offered her his hand. What was his game? But, no sense in being rude and inviting trouble. She clasped his hand with a gentle grip, but let go quickly.
"Kallian. I... I only arrived a short time ago."

[motherfucking_ghost]

"Wh-" He can't finish the exclamation before he bounces up, not high enough to throw him but enough to jostle him on his short flight and impact. He spins, unintentional, and for a moment ends up going backwards before trying to spin himself back around and letting physics do its thing. "Party foul! Unfair!"

[quietblade]

Gosh darn long-ass names. Circle of Magic was impossible to miss, though. He smiles a little bit as Christine goes over her journey here, and he tries to imagine what that would be like for someone that had been locked up for most of their life.

Was it similar to breaking from the Qun? A new world you had only ever experiences in books and reports?

"So how are you liking it so far? There's been some trouble for the mages here, but I think there was something about of council." Politics. Eurgh.

[motherfucking_ghost]

"I guess someone's gotta be the type. God knows the medic I had around wasn't exactly the most worry-wart sort." Just very pacifistic and annoying as hell. "Might've been better if he had been. I'm more the shoot people and try not to worry how they are type, but that's only if you're my enemy."

[aggregiopavali]

"Well, it makes a change from Kirkwall. And hopefully things will be more controlled here." He could hope, anyway. He might be pleasantly surprised, but he doubted it.

Fenris froze at his question, then reacted in an entirely Fenris-like fashion. "Why would you want to know about that?" he spat out, staring at Sherlock. "No good ever comes out of experimenting with lyrium."

The fact that he calmed down a little almost immediately showed that he actually liked Sherlock - as much as he was capable of, anyway. He'd matured a little in the years since he'd first escaped from Danarius. "As you might have guessed, yes, I do."

[quietblade]

"Your kith are good people, Korrin," Taas says with a bark of laughter, losing his place a bit in the dance but bravely getting back into it again. At least he hasn't stepped on her feet, so far.

The bonfire is warm each time he moves past it, olny to send him into the cold at he next step. It was so... surreal, this strange dance of senses. Hot and cold, the touch of her hand, the vibrations and the brightness of fire and snow... he could easily lose himself to this for a while.

"Thank you for this."

[aceso]

"I like it very much. Here, I can be of help. I'm one of the healers." There would always be people who didn't want a mage tending to them, but so far, she hasn't had many outright refusals for aid.

"The council is a good idea. Mages can take care of each other here, and make sure we're safe." Christine herself isn't on the council. It's something that interests her, but right now she wants to focus solely on her spirit healing lessons.

...And perhaps learning how to cook.

"And yourself? What role do you find yourself in here?"

[quietblade]

Taas smirks, knowing exactly what he had done to the elf (and himself) with those teasing movements. Now they just had to slink off and follow up.

It was a bit surprising to hear that Zevran suggested his own room, but the qunari was not going to question it. Instead he's already heading for the hold with the elf draped in his arms, laughing at some of the looks - and cheers, if he didn't mistake it - as he passed by.

"Kicking out your roommate for this? I'm flattered."

[quietblade]

He bypasses his opinion of the mages and keeping themselves 'safe' for the better and more interesting subject. "Healer, is it? then we'll probably see a lot of each other."

Taas chuckles a bit and then gives a slight shrug at her question. "Me? I'm the muscle. I'll be protecting people on missions, crack some skulls, lift heavy things and let the soldiers spar with someone bigger than themselves." He takes another sip from his mug, looking pretty pleased with his role.

[aceso]

"Then let us hope there's never reason for you to think of me as the enemy, even if we are on opposite sides of a snowball fight." Maker, that was fun. And wholly unexpected when she came down to the bonfire this evening.

Christine sets her cup on the ground and holds both hands out towards the fire to warm them. It's not the same when she conjures a flame in her own hand. There is a protective barrier between her skin and the flame so she doesn't burn her hand to a crisp.

"You were a soldier in your world, then? A career soldier, or simply called to it?"

[aceso]

"Oh? As long as you sit and allow me to treat you, we should have no problem." Briefly, she looks to the fire and tucks a piece of hair behind her ear, unknowingly blocking her mouth from him for the first few words of her next sentence.

"It's the ones who fuss and say they are fine that I have a problem with."

[el_tybs]

"What? That you're able to find happiness despite the terrors and difficulties we face? It's not so strange." He smiles just a warmly back at Maxwell, happy for him for enjoying himself and starting the year off right. Maybe just a bit jealous by it as well, but Maxwell definitely deserved it all.

[seesobserves]

Suspicions confirmed. Inside, Sherlock was doing a little victory lap — he'd been somewhat starved of opportunities to show off lately — but his expression remained impassive.

"Of course you do. Magisters rarely do anything that doesn't involve the stuff." As if he'd already known for certain. "And I only wish to know enough to confirm a theory. Red lyrium, and the standard blue variety: what sort of effect would they have if mixed together?"

[foxsays]

"The sea is in our blood, it's where we came from, what provides for us, and in the end we go back to it. We aren't burnt like people here - the sea feeds us, we feed the sea." Without really paying attention to what she's doing, she traces the rim of her glass as she explains, thinking about the tattoo under her shirt and above her heart, the circle of the moon, the cresting waves within.

"Truly, the best ones are when several ships meet by chance at sea, usually to trade goods and gossip, I've been to a few. All the crews swinging from deck to deck on ropes, breaking out the reserves that the captain keeps for emergencies," her smile grows wistful even as it makes her think about her father and if word has reached him about her disappearance from home. She shouldn't think about it, not when she can't change anything and she takes a drink, hiding her smile at how he speaks, so veyr like Arsenio.

"I hope to see the sea here again, if only to feel a touch closer to home, oh and somewhere warm that preferably won't be full of murderous things. I never saw snow in person until here and it's done very little to impress me so far. The skies here have been clear enough to gaze at your stars though, the constellations are so different, it's hard to find the right one you could use as a guide no matter where you find yourself.

"I was fifteen when I left home though, but if you want to work on a ship you can start much younger. It depends on the district, what your parents do or if you have them, if you're noble or common. But from about twelve when I wasn't at lessons I was left to my own devices to go where I pleased, usually around the docks or down to the ship graveyards."