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

[motherfucking_ghost]

"So, when it warms up some, we should have a vacation to the nearest, warmest beach. Get you in a bikini, get you surfing the waves. For fun, not for impressing people. That's just a bonus on the side."

[motherfucking_ghost]

"He hasn't figured that part out yet and is mostly just winging it. Kind of how he lives. On the edge. Ready to do anything." Liiiike wrap his arm around her entire waist and lift her just enough to spin before plunking her back down to her feet. "See? Winging it."

[motherfucking_ghost]

"Bruce. Sure, haven't bumped into him yet, but I'll make a point to keep Doctor Bruce on my radar." Still would probably go to Adelaide first, just for the fact that he knows her. Or butter up Christine. But so long as the magical docs here are better than Doc, which isn't asking for much...

But who cares about that when: "Whoa whoa hey whoa back up naked women? Are you playing strip poker or something here and I didn't know about it? I need in on this."

[aceso]

Christine's eyes light up. No one has ever lifted her up and spun her around before. (Though, truthfully, her father did when she was little; she just can't remember it anymore.) Maybe it's the drink plus the atmosphere and the company, but she's feeling rather giddy.

"Winging it can be a dangerous thing. I must prepare myself. You should too." And then, impulsively, she gives him a quick peck on the cheek. "See? Were you prepared for that?"

[motherfucking_ghost]

Ooookay really starting to get outside his frame of reference here. "There's a big difference between saying magic should serve man and mages should serve man. You guys, or those guys, need to sort out their translation issues." He's not one to make any comments on religion, but that always seems to be a thing. Translation errors taken way out of proportion.

Exalted March from a church (or a Church) sounds a lot like a Crusade, which, huh, maybe that's what Templars are all about...this is getting weird... "So elves are either indentured servants or less than that, or they're roaming around trying to find another place. Wow. That's fucking racist as hell. Sounds like the Chantry needs to bring it down a bit and stop being such aggressive dickbags before they make elves to fucking extinct."

[sistertohermen]

She does drink, she just makes a particular point of not drinking much. Or too much. She isn't about to turn up her nose at those getting a little too merry, of course, and won't begrudge anyone their fun. "Thank you, ser."

Besides, it's impolite to decline free drink. At least the mugs aren't of a ridiculous size.

[sistertohermen]

"Anyone on the road who is a danger to me will find themselves in greater danger," she retorts promptly. "The same would be true were I a surfacer, or a human, or an elf."

[sistertohermen]

"Who decided what our place even is, or their place? Why stick to the traditions set forth? Why should we just do our best with what we have instead of getting what we want and reaching higher?" She angrily shoves a handful of meat into her mouth, chewing as aggressively as she can, before she can say anything else that might require biting her tongue off.

[flamen_turbulentum]

"I am, indeed, an Imperial citizen," Vergil confesses, "and yes- men make up all the upper echelons of the Northern Chantry. Our Divine is as reliably male as the South's is female. It's one expression of the schism, though it's not precisely what the schism itself is about.

"The schism is- well, it's really about what this whole civil war is about. The Southern Chantry has a harsh attitude towards magic and its practitioners. The Northern Chantry has a much more liberal interpretation of the words of Andraste regarding mages and their place in the world. The idea of a mage being in the Southern Chantry is unthinkable. In the North, it's common practice. There are other sticking points, many of them too minor to mention, but the core- well. There is a reason I've come when I have. I feel this is the ideal opportunity to demonstrate what the North has to offer, seeing how badly the South has fouled things up."

Once again, Vergil refrains from assailing her faith when she brings it up. He feels the true believer's twinge, the displeasure at knowing someone otherwise admirable has wandered from the path of truth. But in this circumstance, can that even apply, could it even be expected of her? Has the Chant of Light simply not become manifest in her homeland, or is her world made differently on a more fundamental level? Could there be more than one Maker, if there is more than one world?

Quickly his thoughts are swerving towards heresy, and while the existence of rifters might well demand serious cosmological considerations, now is neither the time nor to place. One doesn't tend to charm free-spirited young women by way of impromptu conversion attempts, let alone dry theosophical inquiries.

So Vergil just smiles. "Who else is accompanying you, if I might ask? I do tend to agree that there is safety in numbers." He taps his chin, that pantomime of rumination. "Though I suspect if we wore masks they would make us seem more foreign than not. We might wear masks, but I don't doubt we'd wear the wrong ones for the wrong occasion, or otherwise give away our misunderstanding of that great Game they're always going on about.

"Anyways, it would be a crime to hide your face."

[foxsays]

Surprisingly, the mention of Korrin has her looking away, cheeks heating as she has to fight the urge to scuff her toes because she's good at this, it's perhaps one of the things she's best at but now? Falling through a rift into another world, learning that magic is real, fighting corpses, having a hand full of said magic you fell through - you don't usually factor feelings into that equation. And if you do, it's homesickness, fear, anxiety, frustration, all the bad and the things you can't change.

Falling for Korrin hadn't been part of the plan but when are there ever plans for feelings like that.

"I've known many a beautiful woman in my life but Korrin is...you have eyes, even if she is not to your tastes exactly she's so striking, with that smile, that jawline, the determination in her eyes. And you're friends with her too, no? You know there is the best sort of humour mixed with compassion and a will of steel. I am helpless to resist."

[kallian_endris]

"Something like that." She shrugged. "The day I find a place where I actually feel welcome, I'll have a home."

[foxsays]

Leaning over, she sets a hand on his arm and squeezes, her smile still sad, how could it not be given the discussion, but it's warm and determined.

"You have a good heart. But let us set this aside if we will, at least until the day comes to plan the return mission. I have not asked where you come from and how you came to be a part of the Inquisition."

[kallian_endris]

She promptly blushes and looks down.

"Ah, yes, of course, Jamie. The healing tents should not be hard to find if you need me."

[foxsays]

Laughing, she fishes a card from her pocket to hold up for inspection because strip poker is something she's up for but her company at the time? She very much doubts it. "Strip Jack Naked could involve nudity and if we can clear any prudes out of the tavern then I'm not passing up the opportunity but it was just a game, it's called taxes, or beggar my neighbour. But if you want to really get to know someone, we could always use that as the getting to know you game when all we rifters meet."

Because what the hell, let the rumour mill go wild.

[fleurdesel]

"...a what?" Bikini? What?

[motherfucking_ghost]

"A what what? Which part is a what? A bikini? It's swimwear for women that's like in two pieces instead of one covering up piece. It's uh....it's... I dunno I guess it's like decorative underwear? Except with material specifically made to get wet and not get ruined."

[motherfucking_ghost]

"Sure, might be interesting. Unless we got some prude rifters, too. That'd suck. Oh man, though, there's this elfy singer dude, total Spanish tattooed fuck, who's way down with the stripping down. He might be good to play strip something with. And this dancing lady. Uh. Didn't get her name..."

[middle_of_calibrating]

Oh Maker, using that for a dare? "Oh that just sounds splendid. Let's get drunk and go poke at the dead horse with a... sword in it's head? I'd probably give up my clothes rather then follow through with that. There are indeed certain things that one shouldn't try at least once." If you're going to be making bets like that, Garris is not going to be joining you on any game nights. Unless he cheats. Then again there seemed like a lot that already knew how to cheat at the game.

[motherfucking_ghost]

"Nnnnnnnnnnnnnno. No, I was not prepared." It's adorable. And nice. And...good. And doing anything else might be seen as improper. Oh jesus fuck what would Tucker do in this situ--no wait what is the opposite of what Tucker would do...

"You know, uh, if you're, um, still all...cold and wet and, well, you don't want to catch anything, being cold and wet and shit, you could always, um, go inside and uh y'know just y'know take a hot...bath. Rearrange your hair and...stuff. And you could take a plate of food and a hot drink to go with! And nobody else would get in your hair and you could warm up and feel all, y'know, good."

Obviously he is a master of words. And a master at failing to invite himself along to pretty girls bathing god damn it.

[fleurdesel]

"...smallclothes designed to be worn while swimming." That is- well it isn't terrible. "Most simply swim in the nude."

[motherfucking_ghost]

"Well I mean I wouldn't be opposed to that..."

[fleurdesel]

"You certainly would not." She snorts a soft laugh.

[judgemewhole]

Norrington's eyes widened a little, before he tilted his head at Sam. "Do you truly think they could help?" A pause, "I ... would not want to use up valuable resources on this. Not when we are at war."

[fleurdesel]

"A village that sent for a healer during a time of plague around first day years ago. They could pay the fee but I was able to find the source and cure the illness quicker than anticipated- and we had been snowed in. The road back to the Spire was covered and impossible to work through. We were kept for first Night and shared in their celebration; the women were more than happy to teach me when I expressed interest." It'd been an exhilarating time. For a little while? She hadn't been a healer or a mage- just a girl learning to dance while the templars had ale to keep themselves warm and minded that she didn't leave the bonfire.

"It took...I forget how many tries, but I learned. There was nothing else to do- well. Nothing else that was proper."

[aceso]

Christine listens, her face becoming more confused as he goes on. There's a touch of amusement on her lips too, because the rambling is quite adorable, but what is he even saying? Is he trying to tell her to leave? Really, it was just one little kiss, and not even on the lips! He can't be that desperate for her to leave, can he?

"You wish for me to go and take a bath?" Her brow furrows, because she can't tell if this is some odd sense of chivalry he's showing, or he really wants her to go.