faderift | [SEMI-OPEN]

That reaction is a little unexpected. She tips her head up to look at him.

"Tends to be a risk when you hit someone in the face." Her tone is a little scolding. Either way: "Break like that won't hurt him much long term. I'll fix it before we hand him off."

"Never fought a," uhhhhhhhhhhh, "little person."

She snorts, a twist of humor curling her mouth up, "He's not that little. Especially for a surface dwarf. Probably why he gets it into his head to act up so often. Hangs around too many Carta boys and starts thinking he's a tough guy cus he's bigger than most Dusters."

Sawbones shakes her head despairingly. At least if he'd grown up in Ozammar, he'd be better at acting up. Or dead. Either way.

"Six of him could fit in a me suit, lady," Amos says, but he keeps carrying the guy. It's not really guilt, more of a mental note: fight more dwarves, get better at nonlethal punches. What if he'd cracked the guy's skull?

Holden would've been pissed.

"Dunno what any of that other stuff meant." No embarrassment, just a plain expression of fact.

Well, those two whole sentences are good enough to confirm the faint suspicion she'd had.

"It's Sister," she says, "And I'll tell you if you tell me what an me suit is." Which is when the guard finally tromps into sight. "But do it later, okay?" No reason to test the magnanimity of the Kirkwall guard, particularly when they're greeted with a Maker's sake, Sister, what's it this time.

"Okay, Sis."

Amos knows how to be shaken down by mooks. That doesn't happen here. Instead, Sis has some authority, apparently, and that's impressive for a leprechaun. She's some kinda staple around here, local wisdom, whatever. People know her. Amos follows behind like her own personal goon squad, because it's whatever people are probably expecting of somebody like him.

Things are better off that way.

Sis. Stone and shale...

And he's not entierly wrong. The Kirkwall guard isn't clean by any means, but there's some basic things any group respects. Even if the Chantry robes didn't give her some credibility, she was still a blasted good midwife. They have an uneasy truce that occasionally devolves into arguments in the streets.

"-and you tell his father, just because we don't have a proper Chantry right now doesn't mean I don't know plenty of Sisters who would be more than happy to put a trouble maker to work doing some good around here." is what she's finishing with, turning to Amos and gesturing for him to set Ermington down. "Here, lemme fix his nose real fast."

Amos sets the dwarf down with a mechanical reliability. He knows what his role is right now. Do what the loud lady says. Anything else would cause more trouble than its worth.

And this is good to see. Amos is already beginning to suss out the balance of power in this place, who owes what and why somebody would listen, would pause, would give it a second thought. People trade in influence just as much as money and sex and power.

The Chantry's important, here. That much he knew, but how powerful, that it creeps down into these people's daily lives, is something new. Something to keep note of.

He waits until the Sister's done, until this whole thing's over, before he asks. "What was that."

It's a relief when the guards are gone. It always is, even though she hasn't been Casteless where it matters in years. She rolls her shoulders and looks up at him with a confused little frown.

"What was what?"

Amos shrugs, expression blank. "Everything."

She considers that for a moment, then says, "Everything's a bit big to start on. Ask me somethin' smaller first."

That was how she'd learned, when she finally made it to the surface and everything was alien and strange.

Hey, whatever works. "Why'd they listen to you? Because the Chantry?"

"Mostly," she says, nodding, "I'm a medic by trade, since I'm with the Chantry that means they don't gotta pay for my services. If they don't have any reverence for the Chantry, they at least know not to piss on a healer."

"So you got 'em by two hooks," Amos says, nodding. "What's Carta? Sounds like a gang."

Except they pronounce it wrong for Belter, but he's really gotta stop thinking about Belters, no matter how spindly the limbs on elves are. Adapt, don't get stuck in the past.

“It is.” Though it feels like a small word for what the Carta is. “They run the lyrium smuggling rings mostly, but they’ve got their fingers in everything down in Ozammar.”

Which is bound to bring up its own questions and she has no idea how much this Rifter knows. “How long have you been here?”

Amos nods, getting it slowly. "Lyrium's the magic uranium," Amos says blithely, "Orzammar's...?"

Sounds familiar, but in the way any word might in a situation where you know fuck nothing.

She doesn't even have a chance to feel relieved that she doesn't have to explain lyrium. The same ridiculous jolt she felt when she saw the Casteless brand drawn out on the introductory pamphlet still hits her. "Underground dwarven city," she says, trying and failing not to sound short, "It's where I'm from."

"Oh," Amos says, heedless of her discomfort (he can sense something's up, but it isn't him, he's pretty sure), brightens with new understanding. "Smuggling gangs, yeah, I can get that. Are they rough on kids?"

"How do you mean?" The question feels like such a non sequitur, it knocks her straight out of the weird mood.

"What do they do to kids who join up?" That's the first major metric of any gang, Amos figures. Next is brothels, then gambling. Every gang that's worth anything has to have its hand in some of that shit, and you can learn a lot about them by how those factors interact. It's like math, but the equation's all bodies.

That doesn't clear up anything, but Sawbones is starting to suspect this is more of a surfacer/Orzammar divide than just a Rifter thing.

"Kids don't join up," she says, almost automatically, "Suppose they must have surface kids running for them, but Orzammar got the Caste system. If you're Casteless, you join the Carta."

"Casteless?"

That sure wasn't in any of the introductions he got about this place.

Fuck.

"Dwarves who're rejected by the castes. Forbidden from doing any work that a Caste dwarf could do. So it's join the Carta or pick trash." She tips her head back a little, defiant even though it doesn't mean anything up here, it won't mean anything to him.

"Oh, yeah. Got a different word for that, where I'm from."

But it all makes sense. This planet is unerringly unfamiliar, except people, even if they're four feet tall and built like Martians, seem to always follow the same patterns. Power, fear, hunger, gangs, it's always there.

More importantly, though, he notices her look. The way she's daring him to say something. "So you're casteless, huh."

She does not flinch, because that means nothing on the surface. But she turns her head a little so he can see the brand on her cheek fully. She couldn't hide even if she wanted to.

"I am. Branded and all."

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