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

[ombranera]

"Less that you seem old or young but I forget how much time has passed between now and then. Ten years is quite a while but so much has happened- I lose track." Which is dangerous in the long run but not so much that he feels it warrants correcting.

[el_tybs]

"Strange how long it took to get to this moment, but now it seems like it barely had happened." Despite how long ago it had been since his family had left Ferelden, or when he was sent into the Circle, he could remember it as if it were yesterday. There were even days here in Skyhold that he woke up still thinking he was in Ostwick after a particular dream.

"Was there anything you enjoyed doing back then or during these last ten years?"

[ombranera]

"Horseback riding, betting on the nug races in Orizmarr, naked cliff diving, unraveling the mysterious riddles of a talking tree, climbing the Frostbacks, slaying dragons, infiltrating fort Drakon- ah. The stories I could tell. Have told, actually, in the Tavern just about every night. People have yet to tire of hearing them." It makes for good coin, that.

[el_tybs]

Sam laughs lightly at that. "I'll have to admit I've sat in on a few of those when I've been in the tavern when you're telling stories. But really, naked cliff diving?" Zevran had a way with stories and words - he would guess the accent helped a bit with that - which had a way to draw your attention.

"Back then you only had your small group and accomplished so much. How does all this compare to that?"