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

[harthad_uluithiad]

"And what makes this Herald so special?" Sam shoots back, then shakes his head. "Anyhow I'm not the only one, not by a long shot. There's plenty of us that have fallen out of rifts as you say, and none of us demons."

He relaxes a bit at the mention of Korrin's name, and Sam's good word, but he still gives the new qunari a somewhat suspicious look. "They haven't said anything of you."

[issala]

"She was from here in the first place!" Kas retorts, but then shakes his head. "I'm just... trying to understand it."

That suspicious look is immediately met with anger, though, and he's quick to scowl again and try to look big and intimidating. While he's... well, big compared to Sam, he's still far too scrawny to even be slightly scary.

Yet, just as quickly, those words make the huff and puff go out of him and he bites his lip instead. They hadn't mentioned him? Well... of course they hadn't. They didn't go around telling everyone about people they knew.

"Well... you could ask."

[harthad_uluithiad]

Sam continues to glare suspiciously for a moment, but then relents with a sigh. "I suppose I could," he says, "but I don't think there's a need. You're not a demon any more than I am." He shoots the qunari a look, as if daring him to contradict him, before going on. "I don't know where the demons come from, but it's surely not the same place as the rest of us who have fallen through, so to speak. My own world's a lot like this, though the people tend to be a lot shorter, overall." This last is said with another sneaking glance up at Kas.

[issala]

There's a lot of different glaring back and forth between them, but he's oddly pleased with the revelation that he was seen as 'tall'. He was tiny for a qunari and a little short for a human, so it went right into his little ego.

"...um, how did you meet Sam? Demons aside."

[harthad_uluithiad]

He may be a young giant (as Sam still tends to think of the qunari), but he's recognizable enough as a giant all the same, and tall enough to a hobbit. Sam relaxes a little, settling into storytelling mode.

"Well, there were demons, since you mention them, but none as got too close, thankfully enough," he begins. "It was in that bog they call the Fallow Mire. I fell straight out of a rift and into the water, and Sam was there to help after Mr. Krem fished me out."

[issala]

Oh, Sam. Just wait until you see the actual giants.

Kas just takes a seat near Sam, curious to hear the story now that they had gotten all the demon issues aside. Straight out of a rift and into the water sounded like a real shock, and Kas makes a face in sympathy.

"Krem fished you out? I've never been to the Mire, but I heard it was disgusting. Did you have to fight a bogfisher?"

[harthad_uluithiad]

"A bogfisher?" Sam scrunches up his nose and shakes his head. "It sounds horrible! But no, I didn't fight anything at all, save Sam a bit, when he tried to take me off to the healers and I wanted to look for Mr. Frodo first instead. There were plenty of demons for Mr. Krem to fight, though, and we were all of us fighting the wet and the mud."

[issala]

"It's a big animal that remembers your face if you mess with it! It's awesome," Kas says, beaming. All the teen love for weird gross things. Then again, hobbit-Sam would probably have been eaten.

Then the small man told Kas about Krem fighting demons and the young rogue looks starstruck. That would be so amazing to see! No matter what he felt about the man in regards to the Ben-Hassrath, he was still a super awesome warrior.

...wait, did Sam say anything else? "Who's Mr. Frodo?"

[harthad_uluithiad]

Sam gives him an odd look. Awesome is a word he doesn't know, but it's easy enough to figure out that it must mean the same as awful, more or less. Only the starry-eyed expression on the giant's face doesn't quite seem to match. Perhaps qunari simply look different when they're terrified?

They must, because Kas' expression doesn't change as Sam describes the fighting. He shakes his head a bit, mystified, but his confusion is forgotten at Kas' question.

"He..." Sam hesitates. He's my master hadn't gone over particularly well the last time he'd tried to explain it, but employer doesn't nearly begin to do justice to his relationship with Frodo, and friend is far too forward. He bows his head, poking at the dirt. "He's, well, he's just someone I was traveling with," he mumbles at last, still looking at the ground. "Back...back home."

[issala]

Okay, 'master' might have gone over really badly, but now Kas is convinced Frodo is his lover, because damn that was a shifty explanation when 'he's my friend' could have sufficed well enough. If Sam wasn't okay voicing it, though, Kas wasn't going to comment.

He was still dealing with imagining girls together like Korrin and Araceli, after all.

"So what are you gonna do now? Are you gonna stay here and fight Corypheus with the rest of us?" Because damn man you're tiny and that's coming from the smallest qunari this side of Par Vollen.

[harthad_uluithiad]

He would have been quick to correct him if the qunari had shared his assumption, but as it is, Sam's happy enough to let the whole matter go. He frowns, troubled, and shakes his head, though more in uncertainty than denial.

"I...I don't know about fighting," he says doubtfully, well aware of his own lack of usefulness in battle. "But I'm here now, for better or worse; and here I'll stay, I guess, til someone kicks me out." Or until he finds a way home - though he doesn't dare voice that thought, and speak his hope too plainly.

[issala]

"I heard rifters can close the rifts, though, so you're probably gonna have to help with that anyway," Kas says with a little frown. Normally he'd probably feel annoyed with someone that didn't want to help fight, but Sam was really small and didn't look like he'd swung a weapon in his life.

(Aside from frying pans.)

"I don't think anyone's gonna kick you out, though. We all need help around here to stop the shit that's happening and kick that evil darkspawn magister thing's ass." There's a small smile from the teen that was probably trying to be comforting. "Even if that doesn't include fighting stuff."

[harthad_uluithiad]

Sam looks doubtfully at his hand. He'd heard the same, but not yet tried it. "I suppose I can try," he says, with obvious reluctance. "I hope it don't hurt too much."

He smiles back shyly, though it's still a little uncertain. How could someone like him possibly help? "Well...I have been working in the garden a bit," he says slowly. "But I suppose that's not much of a help, is it? Flowers and herbs won't do much to stop anybody."

[issala]

"I don't think it does... and people will protect you, I'm sure of it!" See? Everything will be fine, Sam. (Until you're eaten by a varghest.)

The mention of garden work makes the boy brighten up a bit and he smiles again. "Working with that is great, my best fr... this guy Gorse did garden things and herbs and it helped a lot." He brushes back his white hair a bit. "Herbs and stuff are really important to make potions and things with to keep people alive and strong. You could help a lot if you took care of the gardens!"

[harthad_uluithiad]

Sam brightens immediately at the encouragement. "Do you really think so?" he says hopefully. "Well...it's not fighting Orcs, or...or whatever there is to fight here. But I suppose herbs helped Mr. Frodo, back when the Witch-king stabbed him. He wouldn't've made it to Rivendell, without those herbs." He looks troubled momentarily at the thought of Frodo, but when he looks back at Kas his smile is a little more confident. "But what about you? Are you a wizard, like Sam and Korrin?"

[issala]

"What are orcs? And a witch-king?" Really, Sam, what did you expect. Look how curious and excited he is now, it's like a baby Merry eating up every Gandalf story ever. The hobbit-thing kept mentioning such awesome things, and Kas' need for hero stories won over his need to be manly and stoic.

The mention of wizardry makes him laugh, though, and he shakes his head. "Nah, I don't know any magic. I'm one of the scouts! We use bows and daggers and sneak around, mostly. Like rogues."

[harthad_uluithiad]

"What are orcs!" Sam repeats, wide-eyed. "Oh, they're horrible things. They say they used to be Elves, but a less Elflike creature I've never seen. The ones we fought lived in Moria, in the dwarven ruins far beneath the mountains. They'll try to kill you soon as look at you; and they hate the sun. As for the Witch-king, well, perhaps I'd better not talk about him," he says, glancing around nervously. Talking about the Witch-king meant talking about the Nazgûl, and the Ring, and even if those weren't all terrible subjects he'd rather avoid, he has a feeling that he shouldn't talk about them, even here.

"Rogues?" he repeats, eager to get some answers of his own. "What's that mean? It don't mean you're - you're some sort of a scoundrel, does it?" he adds, with a suspicious squint. It doesn't mean to, or why would he sound so proud about it? But he's not sure what it could mean, other than that.

[issala]

The teen's face turn amazed as Sam talks about the orcs, trying to imagine these elf-monsters. "They sound gross," he says, even if he sounds a bit excited. Orcs? Witch-kings? It sounded like the beginning of an amazing tale... but then Sam doesn't want to talk about it and Kas looks a bit disappointed.

...and even more so when Sam starts being suspicious. "Um. I guess I am? Kinda? But like a good one, fighting for what's right. I used to be a thief, though, back when I was on the streets."

[harthad_uluithiad]

A good scoundrel? Sam frowns, not quite believing there could be such a thing, before he thinks of Strider. There are some who would call him a scoundrel, or a rogue, maybe; but despite his frightening and foul appearance, he'd proved himself good and worthy indeed.

Still Strider had never been a thief, that Sam is sure of, and he looks at Kas askance, shifting away from him a bit.

"A thief!" he repeats, with a hard look. "Now how can you call yourself a good person if you were ever a thief?"

oh sam

[issala]

Kas' face falls at that and he looks down at his hands, making little frustrated fists. "Because I was only fourteen when I started, and starving! Nobody wanted to help a qunari, hire someone like me or even throw me a fucking bone, so I did what I had to do!" Glaring at Sam again, he crosses his arms.

"I came here to get away from that! To be someone that mattered. You don't get to judge that." He grits his teeth a bit, ignoring the angry tears stinging behind his eyes. "I'm a scout now, and I help people. I protect this place. I'm a good person, and you're wrong."

[harthad_uluithiad]

Sam doesn't much like being called wrong, nor told that he doesn't get to judge anything. But the things the qunari is saying are completely outside his experience. Starving, truly starving and not just mourning a missed meal, is something he's never heard tell of. And so...

"Feeling a bit peckish is no excuse," he lectures with a scowl. "Fourteen! Of course no one would hire you. You ought not even to have asked. You ought to have been helping your mum and da, and not leaving them on their lonesome that way. No wonder you were hungry, abandoning your folks like that. Fourteen is too young for anyone to be trying to work." He peers suspiciously at Kas. "How old are you now, anyhow?"

[issala]

"Peckish?! PECKISH?!" Oh shit son Kas is so pissed that isn't sure if he should be screaming more, walk away or just shank the hobbit right now. "Staving isn't peckish, you fat asshole! Starving is a week with nothing but a piece of moldy bread and a rat, it you're fucking lucky! Starving is watching people die because they haven't had enough food, and there's never enough of it no matter how hard you try to help!!"

Gritting his teeth, he glares at Sam like he wants to toss him off Skyhold, but his yelling is already drawing enough attention. "Abandoned... abandoned my folks?! I don't have a mom or dad because my mom's dead and nobody knew who my dad was! What kind of world are you from that doesn't know struggling at all?" Where is this place and can he subscribe to the newsletter, please. What's the rent like in the Shire?

"I'm seventeen," he hisses, wiping tears from his face, because wow he's so angry.

[harthad_uluithiad]

Sam jumps back, alarmed and confused. He's not used to being shouted at so, and the things the qunari says are so awful, he can't even accept them at first, nor does he want to.

"You're - you're lying," he says, voice shaking in uncertainty. "Why would you say such things? They aren't true, they couldn't be true! That's not how the world works!" Tears spring to his eyes, unbidden, and he hastily wipes them away. "There's always food somewhere. There's always enough to go around, even if everyone has to tighten their belts a bit to make sure. You - you just weren't looking hard enough!"

[gatheringstorm]

Korrin is nearby getting another drink, and as mellow as she can possibly be...at least until she hears yelling from nearby. That one of those voices is Kas' gets her immediate attention and concern, wondering what has him so riled up. This was supposed to be a celebration, not a brawl.

Setting down her drink to be claimed by someone else, Korrin's mouth forms a thin line as she stalks over. Whatever this is about is going to be settled, now, before it gets worse. She arrives just in time to hear that last sentence, briefly confused upon seeing Samwise of all people involved in this. But Kas' tears put her into protective mode, and she stands by the young Vashoth, placing an arm around his shoulder.

"Andraste's ass, what the hell is all this about? Looking hard enough for what?"

[issala]

Oh hello there sane person.

"For food!" He yells. "Because starving doesn't exist and I was just peckish and that's not enough to warrant stealing so I'm a bad person and I wronged my parents by leaving them!" The teen's voice breaks and he's throwing his hands up because right this is all his fault? Sorry Korrin, he's so upset right now.

"I was trying to be nice! Sam told me about him and I wanted to know more! I even said he could work in the gardens since he wasn't sure what he was gonna do!" He points a finger at Samwise. "I explained I'm a scout and that's kind of a rogue and he's judging me, calling me a bad person... t-that struggling isn't real..."

He bites his lip at that, looking down at the ground. "I d-didn't abandon my mom..."