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

[quietblade]

The warrior gives her a somewhat skeptical look for a moment as she answers him, but there was no sarcasm or lie to her words. Sheltered, then. Circle mage, most likely.

He takes a sip from his mug and nods in agreement to that last comment with a more content sigh. "It is. This place has been too stressed and sad lately, so it's good to see that people are still able to have a good time." It was the same under the Qun, really. As much as they seemed it, they weren't soulless golems, and there was a need for feasts and music.

Even the soldiers needed downtime. Especially the soldiers, really.

"Where are you from?" He then asks, clueless of that obvious accent.

[aceso]

"Montsimmard's Circle of Magi," she answers, assuming he's looking for something more specific than Orlais. "When we voted for freedom, we mages fled to Andoral's Reach, then traveled from there to Redcliffe, where we were given refuge. And from there to Haven, and of course on to Skyhold."

[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.

[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]

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]

"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."

[quietblade]

The movement makes him only pick up 'say they are fine that I have a problem with', but thanks to her earlier sentence, he can piece it together well enough to give her a decent answer.

"There's no point in lying about shit like that if I'm already in the healer's tent." On the battlefield, however? Yeah. Definitely. "So you'll catch no flack from me. I'd rather be good so I don't collapse when people depend on me."

[aceso]

"Then you are far wiser than most who show up and then change their minds." It isn't like she comes out of the tent covered in blood and holding some dangerous looking medical instrument. All her healing is magical, unless her patient requests otherwise.

"I can see how people would depend on you." Because, well, he's huge. Yet she doesn't really feel intimidated. This is just something different that what she is used to. "I am hardly skilled in combat, but I can get by."

[quietblade]

"It's how battles work. Someone always depend on you, no matter their abilities." He chuckles, a little amused by her apparent experience in overly proud patients. "I'm just a good guy to hide behind."

Taas is the very poster boy of a meat shield, after all.

"Any of the qunari here been visiting you? We're a bit stranger than the average elf, dwarf and human." Anatomically and as patients, honestly.

[aceso]

Christine shakes her head no. "No, not yet. Though I suppose it is a good thing. It means they are not getting hurt. But I will admit, your anatomy isn't what I am used to treating." But really, how different could it be? They all have two arms, two legs, etc. Unless every organ in their body is different, she's sure she can handle any injuries that come her way.

[quietblade]

Not so different, really. But add the horns to the mix and things got a bit weird. Not so easy to read bodily signs on grey skin, either. Taas shrugs a bit again and then smiles once more.

"Glad to hear nobody's been needing care, though. Do you do anything other than healing?" Mages and their... strange mage ways. "Missions and the like?"

[aceso]

"I just returned from a scouting mission to Emprise du Lion, but part of that was to be a healer, and the other part was I could easily blend in. You know." She gestures to herself, meaning because she's Orlesian, still not realizing he can't hear her.

"It was good to be of use and gather information."