faderift | OPEN: this will be a better year

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!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's easy to follow Adelaide's work ethic when she's such an inspiration to Christine, and that's in addition to the fact that she's always worked hard, wanting to be the best healer she could be. Setting aside her worries over the Red Templars for even one night will be difficult, but in this merry atmosphere, it's likely to happen.

"I can be persuaded to do so, I think." As if on cue, a man passes by offering mulled wine, and Christine accepts the tin cup. Once taking a sip, she adds, "It was never like this at the Tower. Everyone's so... excitable." And the light in her eyes says that she likes it.

"It is the end of a hard year and the beginning of a new." Adelaide murmurs, smoothing Christine's hair out of her eyes as she turns to watch those dancing so freely. "We had smaller, quieter celebrations in the Spire; but only once have I seen one such as this- when I was outside on loan to help with a plague. Even with half the village ill they gathered together to share warmth and life and joy."

"We had an extra sweet at dinner," Christine says, turning to watch the dancers. There was really no need to celebrate another year at the Tower when it would be the same as the last, and the tradition of checking on your neighbors didn't apply.

"This year will change everything. I can see why so many would gather to commemorate it."

"We need it more than most." Everything that had happened- all the fears of what was to come? They needed one night to rail against the dark. To look at a sky unbroken by the Breach and know the Herald did her best; and so must they all come the dawn.

Christine watches the revelers, amused by their antics but still feeling a bit distant from them. It's been a transition between leaving the Tower and settling in here. Now she's around people who are neither mage nor Templar, and their reactions to her have been varied.

"Adelaide," she begins, unsure just how to start. "Do you think-- think that maybe mages can live among people like this once there is a new Divine? That maybe she won't reinstate the Circles?"

"There are many possibilities for Mages. Not many of them are terribly hopeful or terribly kind but...what we do here in the Inquisition will be looked to for a point of argument on either side." She's managed to put it from her mind for the most part; but it is more than those that would change or reinforce how Mages lived in the past. It is all that comes afterward, the weight of the words bid them slip from her lips. "History has it's eyes on us. May we strive to be worthy of it and choose well."

To answer the question as asked rather than the fears surrounding it. "I want a world where this is happens every winter. Where mages may learn and live beyond a circle without the fears and condemnations levied upon us by the Chantry. We can do so much more for Thedas if we are allowed beyond towers and walls and not only loaned out like useful tools."

Edited 2016-01-01 22:39 (UTC)

It's true, and Christine knows they have quite a mountain to climb after the events of the last few years since the destruction of Kirkwall's Chantry. It's easy to look to a group and think all are bad due to the actions of a few, and so the Inquisition's mages have to show everyone that they are valuable allies and trusted friends. And Christine knows she must allow the same to be true of Templars, though such a thing is easier said than done.

"We can. I just want to help people, but I never could before, locked up as I was." She'd been told she wasn't needed, and wasn't wanted either. A mage healer can save lives, but only if those lives trust a mage to begin with.

She shakes herself from these thoughts and tries to focus on the celebration all around them. "Has anyone asked you to dance yet?"

"You were never sent out by your First Enchanter to offer your services?" It happened often enough in the Spire; they enjoyed the revenue it brought and the experience it gave her, which gave them cause to charge more in return. A delightful little cycle that made for a tidy profit and a healer well versed in plague and wounds. Everyone wins.

Well, save for the ill that wait for their village to find the coin.

"Not just yet, no. And you? I am certain you have your share of eagerly awaiting admirers hoping for your hand."

Christine makes a face and shakes her head no. "At Montsimmard, those mages who played the grand game were rewarded. They did party tricks for nobles and from there, strove for power outside the Circle. I refused to play." She had no desire to navigate those waters as Madame Le Fer did. All the lies and backstabbing, the false niceties while plotting someone's ruin; it was all so spiteful and cruel.

"I have had no offers. It does not surprise me. I haven't been making many friends here."

"It was little different in the Spire- I suppose I was given leave more often simply due to the rarity of my skills." Spirit Healers were scrutinized terribly, but they were also valued for what they could do. Pride would be easy to fall into if she didn't know better.

"Then be bold enough to be the first to ask. This is home, Titine. These are our compatriots, our peers."

"You think I should?" Christine turns curious eyes towards her mentor. "I have no wish to assume that whomever I ask will want to dance with a mage." It's not a mindset easily shaken. She has been leaving it to others to show familiarity with her because then she knows they're truly comfortable.

"Tonight you aren't a mage." She reaches up to smooth some of the hair out of Christine's face, the touch light and brief, but meant to sooth. "You are a young woman in dire need of a dance, and there are many fine men and women around the fire that would have your hand for a song if only you asked. Tomorrow you will be a mage again. Enjoy the moment while it lasts."

And sooth it does. Christine has been so long without a mother figure that she's fallen into thinking of Adelaide as such a person very easily. Her words shake the wariness aside, and Christine's shoulders relax.

"I suppose I will gain nothing by not trying."

"Go. Dance. Smile. Live a little, Christine- tonight we've no worries and we've no work. Leave that for the dawn- for there will be plenty of both come sunrise." She drops her arm from Christine's shoulders and gives her a nudge in Roul's direction. Best to start with someone that she knows will accept.

Christine appears to be warming to the idea, but when nudged, she turns back with a smile and presses a kiss to each of Adelaide's cheeks.

"Don't wait up." And off she goes to dance with Roul.

OPEN: this will be a better year

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