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!

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"That they so easily take stains? Yes, I suppose so. Yet here I am."

He did not want to think what kind of broken thing he would be without them.

As she stepped closer, he shifted his gaze to hers, his green eyes quiet. "It is ... definitely something. I believe we all needed to be survivors, to get this far."

"Well then. We are surely that."

Another very faint smile threatened at the edge of her lips. "And what do you think of those you would ally with, thus far? It all must be so very different from the Circles you were used to serving in."

And truth be told, the Circles could be as much a prison for the templars as the mages.

"We are assuredly ... all that."

He gave her a grin of his own, before he pressed his lips together thoughtfully, "Smart. And wary. I am not saying they should be wary -- but it is good to see them exercising appropriate caution. It means they are less likely to make another grave mistake."

He paused, "And frankly ... it is freeing."

"For all involved, I'm sure. Of course it only means more eyes will be upon us, to see what comes of it." She took a quiet breath, shaking her head. "We'll be an example, like it or not, and there will be many who will seek to disparage the efforts made here, if only to ensure things remain as they are."

And the way things were clearly wasn't working. The mage rebellion could not have happened, otherwise.

"But you seem to bear it well. That is all anyone could ask," she adds, in gentler tones.

"Well, as I used to say to my trainer - watch closely." He had no doubts of how far they could go. They should only fear later if they would not be allowed to come down on their own.

That was what they needed, honestly. The chance to see this, all the way through, without people getting in the way. The mages needed that. The templars. All of them.

"I try to keep my life simple - I base it on my actions."

"There's honesty in that. More so than in any number of nobly-meant words."

The corner of Mia's lip curved.

"You won't find scorn for simplicity here, Ser. Were that everything were allowed to be so simple."

"Well, I prefer honesty -- although I am afraid I have it ingrained in me to be polite." A pause, and a sardonic twist of his own lips. "Most of the time."

He nods his head, as he looks around, "This place is quite complicated, I must say. Steps to a dance that no one knows how to do."

"Everything here appears to be a learning process. Though they've achieved much, the Inquisition is still young." Winging it was all any of them could really do, but few dances could have such disasterous results if they failed.

Still. Things weren't going so terribly, she thought. Not yet. A contented sort of sigh escapes her. "I don't doubt you and your templars will have a say in how things shape themselves, going forward."

"Well, we were all children at some point. We are still all children in the eyes of the Maker. Now we are dealing with our own growing pains." Which honestly, seemed to be turning out ... relatively well.

He snorted softly, "Will we? I don't argue we should have a voice, but even I am unsure how loud we should pitch ourselves."

"Not I, Ser. I was born with the heart of an old maid. I recall childhood as a time when I had help raising my siblings," Mia replied with a small chuckle. "But I concede your point."

A thoughtful moment passed, her teeth raking briefly over her lower lip. "Mm. Why not say what you mean? You could be diplomatic and tell them what is reassuring, what they want to hear, or be plain in intent and motive. There will be more disagreements to start, but surely compromise could be found more easily when both sides are open about what they want."

"Fair enough. I suppose I was lucky - I had enough of a childhood to remember regret losing it. I suppose you were lucky." He smirked faintly, before he looked out the crowd again.

He looked out intently, "... I believe you may be right, my Lady Rutherford. It cannot hurt us to be honest about what we want."

OPEN: this will be a better year

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