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

"Ahah - yeah! I guess that'd make you a mage then, huh?"

His laugh turns even more embarrassed, and his eyes stay locked on his food. Crap, crap, figure out something to say, don't tell your new friend you were almost one of said templars, don't you do that.

"Was it okay?" he asks, suddenly, earnestly. "I mean. Being a mage where you were?"

Don't be like that! He gets on pretty well with some Templars! Really well with particular ones. One...

He won't hold it against you.

"It was okay. A comfortable prison." But he's smiling. "Mages in Nevarra have more leverage than other places, you know? I wasn't happy there, but I can say nothing too terrible ever happened to me."

"That's good! Not that... you weren't happy, but nothing bad happened, I mean."

You tried, Sideswipe. You really did.

"I heard a lot of bad happens -- like... templars having to kill mages. So..." So he ran away and tried to be a mercenary. "Good that didn't happen to you!"

"Yes, well... That does tend to happen. The Harrowings were an unpleasant surprise." Finding himself seconds from being cut down because he had taken too long had been something of an eye-opener, not that his faith in the Circles hadn't already been shaky. "Death is best avoided by everyone, I think. And look at us now! We've won a measure a freedom, yeah?"

"They sounded like it, yeah..."

But hey, a subject change! And he'll leap on it, grinning again. "Oh man, it's so awesome. They have a hot bath thing here! Did you know that?"

Yes! A subject change! Let's do that. "I did know that. I have not had the opportunity to visit. I really should." It would probably do a far better job than a cold basin. "Have you taken advantage?"

"Nah, not yet."

He's back to casually smiling, leaning back on his elbows. This is an infinitely better subject. "I probably should have when I got here, though..."

Sal waits a second, taking a bite of his food in the process, but when Sideswipe trails off without continuing, he prompts, "Were you very dirty?"

He actually chokes a bit there, and his face turns nearly as red as his hair.

"I uh." He pauses long enough to scrub his hands over his face, as if that's going to help. "No. Just. Really cold?"

Salvatore snorts and tries to cover his smile with a hand, but it's no use, because then he just laughs. But he apologizes as well. "Sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't mean..." Chuckling. He calms down. "Yes. Being cold is awful. I understand completely. It's been adjustment coming here."

"N-no! No it's cool. Um. It's okay."

Wow, this got accidentally awkward. Way to be cool, Sideswipe. Except he isn't. At all. His face has gone from pink to red in the space of a few words.

"Yeah, it was. And some guy totally lied to me too -- he said he had this 'magic cloak' that'd keep me warm. But no... it was just regular kind."

It's amazing when someone's face turns the same color as their hair. But Sal doesn't want his new friend to feel embarrassed, so he eat some of his food instead and doesn't comment on the blush.

"I don't understand why people do things like that." He is the very picture of sympathy. "I was robbed of my very last slice of bread. Kid ate it right in front of me."

OPEN: this will be a better year

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