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

[arlathvhen]

"Has that happened before?" Beleth lifted her eyebrows, looking concerned. "That's awful. I love the garden. Well, I'll help, alright? If anyone drunk comes through here, I'll tell them to get lost." The fact that this was rendered entirely useless by Sina already having the situation well under control didn't seem to occur to her. She's helping, okay.

And she sat there for a few more moments, but no one else came, so she turned back to the other elf. "You know, I haven't seen many dwarves here, have you? A few merchants, and Varric, but not many that I've met. I would think, they have so many qunari here, and I'd never seen qunari before I left the clan, that they would have more dwarves, as well. Not that I saw many dwarves, but they were more pleasant to trade with than humans, so whenever we saw one passing through, we'd visit."

[eolasemah]

Sina sat and listened, finding a pleasantness to Beleth's tipsy chatter. She smiled and sipped at her tea, paying rapt attention despite never knowing where she was going with it. "Serannas," she said amiably, when Beleth offered to help, and continued to not open the barrier.

"I've seen a few dwarves here," she replied, "though I haven't met many, in total."

[arlathvhen]

"I've only spoken to a few while here. Have you met Varric? He's really funny. And he tells the most fascinating stories." Beleth usually wasn't interested in tales that didn't correlate to elves somehow, but Varric managed to make any story engaging enough for her to be interested in listening to it. "You couldn't even tell he's someone really famous. The first time I spoke to him, I didn't even realize who he was, until he introduced himself. I felt so silly, honestly."