faderift | OPEN: this will be a better year

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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Sam looks surprised, like he's about to protest, but even he can't argue that the storage room needs the blankets more than he does. He burrows in a bit further, instead, giving Garris a smile.

"Well then I'm doubly obliged," he says. "I'll be glad of them, of a cold evening! Isn't there anything I can do for you in return?"

Garris honestly expects Sam to protest by the look he's giving him, and Garris can only grin a bit, waiting to hear what the small man has to say. When nothing comes and instead Sam burrows further into the blankets, he gives a small chuckle. Couldn't argue much when you're trying to stay warm.

Garris hums thoughtfully at the question, raising his arms a bit as he looked around himself. He had a drink, blankets to keep warm, and there was the fire. "Nothing in particular comes to mind. I'm used to getting myself well supplied before going out to do anything, as you can see, so I'm pretty set for the time being."

Making sure to keep the blanket around himself, Garris takes a drink, making a noise as he thinks of something. "So where are you from, Sam? Orzammar?"

Edited (Hopefully that's better) 2016-01-19 00:37 (UTC)

Sam nods vigorously in understanding, though the enthusiastic movement may have been spurred by a desire to stay warm as much as anything else. Though this is the hobbit who'd dragged a full set of cookware halfway across Middle-earth, so then again, maybe not. "Oh yes," he agrees at once. "Never leave home unprepared: that's what I say. You never know what you might be wanting, and it's better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. I only wish I'd known I'd be wanting blankets!"

He shakes his head at the question, curling his toes up under the blankets. "Not at all - though with how many people have asked, it's starting to feel like a second home almost. But I'm no dwarf, nor from any underground city: I'm a hobbit, and I'm from the Shire."

He's never heard of the Shire, but then again he hasn't heard of a lot of places, so that isn't all that surprising to him. The bit about not being a dwarf though is. "What's... a..." Garris stops at that since asking seems a bit redundant. Sam was 'what's a hobbit' obviously.

"Aaaahuuum... Exactly where is this... Shire?" It has to be someplace north right? A place that he's never seen or heard about, with these new hobbit things?

Sam smiles a bit in sympathy at the Man's polite, but obvious confusion. It's another question he's heard many times, though he doesn't mind answering it, or at least trying.

"Far away now; so far I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever get back," he says, suddenly feeling (and sounding) a bit forlorn. He opens up his hand, showing Garris the green glow in his palm. "I fell on through. I'm not the first, nor even the first from Middle- from - from my home. But it seems I'm the only hobbit, and the only one who's seen the Shire."

Ok, that was new. Then suddenly it seems to finally click in Garris' head on what's going on here. "You're a Rifter?" He hasn't exactly been around very long, but he's been hearing things, though this is the first that he's actually seeing what those things are about.

Garris seems a bit uncomfortable by the sudden information and the green glowiness of the guy's hand, but doesn't move to get up or move away. Probably helps that Sam is small and looks as sad as he sounds. "So... very much not from around here."

Sam nods in response to the first question, and then shakes his head at the second, sighing softly. "I'm afraid not. But everyone's been very kind and very welcoming - well most people anyhow." He glances up at the Man, frowning slightly at the expression on his face. Feeling a wash of uneasiness himself, the hobbit closes his hand, hiding the rift mark away. "Is something the matter?"

Well that answered a few things right there. Course that didn't make things any less weird, though with how things were going in the world? He was starting to believe anything about now.

The look that Sam is giving him, has Garris sighing and taking a long drink from his mug, shaking his head a moment after when he's done. "Honestly, if I hadn't already heard some about Rifters I might be concerned. It's just... weird. Though considering everything else that's been going on? Who I've been meeting? Just going to add it to the list. So long as you don't start spewing demons or anything out of your hand... think we'll be fine. You... don't do that right?"

"Spewing demons?" Sam looks horrified, looking askance at his hand. "Of course not! Why? Has - has anyone else had demons coming out of their hand?" The thought is an awful one, one that hadn't occurred to him among all the other awful things he'd had to confront since arriving here. But suddenly it seems more than likely, and he stretches his arm out as far as he can, staring at his palm as if something terrible is about to spring out.

He had been hoping for a bit more confident response to that, but judging by Sam's previous reactions, Garris probably should have seen this coming. Guess that meant not asking if holding his hand up to his ear meant he could hears the whispers of the Fade.

"Hey! Easy there... no one mentioned demons coming out of your hands- Probably just... bad choice of words to use on something that... delicate. Apologies." Note to self, don't use that kind of humor with the small guy.

"You did," Sam points out, truthfully enough, with a bit of a suspicious glare. But he drops his arm after a moment with a sigh. "I didn't choose to come through the rift, you know," he says, sounding tired. "All I want is to go back home, back where I belong; but I can't. I'm here instead, and here I've got to stay. Whether anyone wants me to or not."

"That was referring to - Maker's breath - no one else has mentioned demons coming out of the little green scars on your hands." Make a mental note not to make any comments or jokes referring to demons coming out of hands.

"Hey I'm not blaming you for coming through, and I'm sure dealing with our shit ain't all that fun. It's just... still wrapping my head around all this rift stuff."

Sam shakes his head, still not understanding. "It's simple enough," he grouses. "That is, I'm not clear on why it happens, or how; but it does happen, and the lot of us are just as helpless to stop it as you!" He shoots Garris a dark look, tinged with longing. "At least you get to go home, sometime. At least you know where home is."

Hands are quickly thrown up in a surrender manner at the outburst, not quite sure what else to do. It's not like he's being attacked - maybe verbally - but it's clear that the small guy is dealing with a lot of things and needing to get it off his chest.

"Yeah, you're right. I can go home and I know where it is. But with the rifts and this dark army forming that might not be true too soon," he says evenly, not trying to rile Sam up any more, just pointing out that things were as simple and complicated as his own situation is. "Going home ain't that easy here either."

Sam sighs deeply. The Man is right, he supposes; it can't be any easier for him to leave all this than it would have been for Sam to turn around in Lorien and walk back to the Shire. There's work to do everywhere, it seems; and he has no idea how far from his own home the Man really is.

Still, he thinks wistfully, at least it's possible.

"I guess it's no use pining," he says heavily. "That won't bring me home! But it's no good trying to fight a dark army on no sleep neither. I think I'll take these blankets and try to catch a wink or two, if you'll excuse me - and with my thanks for the blankets of course."

It's easy to see that, that wasn't quite the answer Sam was hoping for, but at least it seemed that the small fellow understood it well enough. He can't imagine what it's like being tossed into a completely different world, but at the time he doesn't exactly have the luxury to overthink that; there was plenty to do here that he didn't need to come up with strange scenarios on top of it.

"I suppose I will be seeing you around, Samwise. And you're more than welcome to the blankets - I'm sure you'll put them to good use." Lifting his mug, Garris gives Sam a nod in farewell.

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OPEN: this will be a better year

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