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open: mabari crawl.
WHO: Open (with a closed starter)
WHAT: A team takes dog sleds into Ferelden's snowy southern reaches to procure an antidote to poison. So: a Balto knock-off and a game-canon body heat meme.
WHEN: Haring 9:46 (pre-dream plot, so no need to take it into account)
WHERE: Southern Ferelden
NOTES: OOC post. There's a closed starter for people who signed up to talk to the herbalist, but otherwise this is open to anyone, make-your-own-adventure style.
WHAT: A team takes dog sleds into Ferelden's snowy southern reaches to procure an antidote to poison. So: a Balto knock-off and a game-canon body heat meme.
WHEN: Haring 9:46 (pre-dream plot, so no need to take it into account)
WHERE: Southern Ferelden
NOTES: OOC post. There's a closed starter for people who signed up to talk to the herbalist, but otherwise this is open to anyone, make-your-own-adventure style.
The team's journey takes them from Winter's Breath, in the southern foothills of the Frostback Mountains, to the even-more-southern foothills, just north of where the map they've been given fades into ambiguity and a few depictions of enormous, cold-hardy beasts that may or may not truly exist. There's a smaller village there—Talon Point, named for a jagged rock formation in the surrounding mountains, under the protection of the Bann of Winter's Breath—that serves as a waypoint for traders and travelers to and from Orlais during the few months a year the mountains are traversable and the rest of the year as a conduit for trade with the Avvar and Chasind.
Other than the map, their guides are the dogs themselves. The lead dog for each sled team comes from a locally-bred line of particularly fluffy mabari. They're clever and communicative—albeit a bit less affectionate and more stubborn with these strangers than with their currently-absent masters—and used to making this journey. They know the way to Talon Point; it's a cold, snowy journey that requires making camp in the woods at least once, but otherwise, it's a straightforward trip.
The local accommodations are not much to speak of. With the inn shut up for the winter, the only place anyone can offer them to sleep is a barn. But it does provide a place to come back to, between bouts of splitting up to seek out the herbalist, who lives to the west and further up the mountains, or fanning out to the east to gather eshimeric. It's a reddish lichen that can be found growing in small quantities in the cracks and crevices of rocks, if they aren't covered in snow or if the snow is knocked away. Scraping together enough to allow for one dose and one do-over will take several days of dedicated searching.
The landscape they're searching is inhospitable, to put it lightly: deep canyons with narrow paths carved into their walls just asking for someone to nearly fall off the edge, pockets of dense woods that are difficult to traverse and easy to get lost in, expanses of barren land with no shelter from the wind at all, and frozen rivers and lakes which, of course, may not fully support the weight of someone trying to cross them. The sparse wildlife is mostly typical of the region, but now and then there's something—maybe a wolf, maybe a rabbit—that's unusually aggressive and still showing lingering signs of the blight.
no subject
"I was thinking you were clever." Cool would be a good substitute for clever, the way that she says it. "Do you know? Someone is always dying. We do not go running around the mountains and the snow scraping tasty food from rocks to give away for those someones. Why this one?"
no subject
About how someone is always dying; whether or not he also means about his apparent lack of cleverness remains unclear. His tone is patient, though, and not deliberately patronizing.
"But, as far as I can tell, this one has gone out of her way to help us. If we save her life, we show her that we've been a good investment, and that we're a good ally to keep." Also it's, like, the decent thing to do. "If she dies, there's no guarantee the next Bann is going to be so fond of us."
no subject
"No Banns are fond of me. I," and she slaps her chest, "am the little sharp rock in the boot of all Banns." And proud of that, judging by her tone. "Doing this will not be changing that. Riftwatch maybe, but me? No. There is more to me than Riftwatch. When it is gone, I will still be here. And I would be glad to have eaten this lichen then. You are maybe nobler than me. Is that what people say of you?"
no subject
At least — rifters, by and large, seem to be tolerated at best. If they're demons or spirits or magic, it's regardless reason enough for many people to keep their distance.
"And, last I checked, Riftwatch was our best bet to figure out how to get rid of anchors. Helping them helps us."
He's not interested, apparently, in saying whether or not he's ever been called noble.
no subject
"Oof. You are noble," and she is smug. "Do you know how I can tell? Because you did not say that you were. Blah blah blah, helping them helps us, blah blah, yes."
Doki rocks back on her heels, which makes the snow squeak. A flap of her hands, a roll of her eyes. "I know this. I also know that we are tools. No one is going to love you because you peel lichen off a rock and give it to a crone. You are just being a tool. Who loves tools?"
no subject
He answers her second question first, as far as a sardonic response can be called an answer. What he might really point out is that they don't need to be loved; or at least, it's not like he's doing any of this to be loved.
Instead, he shifts his weight so as to be more comfortably seated — the container still safely in his hands, thank you — and raises an eyebrow at her.
"I can't tell if you think it's a good thing or a bad thing."
In response to the first comment. He'd err towards bad, but a part of him really is curious what she thinks about so-called nobility.
no subject
Carpenters. Appreciative of the smart answer, Doki breaks into a grin. There's a little fleck of mold on her teeth. She wraps her arms around her legs, puts her chin on her knees. A little crouching goblin, like the kind that they put on the corners of roofs.
"At least you are funny. I will tell you that I do not think anything of nobility. I do not think anything of being noble. I do things because I want to do them. Maybe because I will get something for doing them. This? It is what everyone does. But I am not pretending. I will tell you to your face that I am selfish and I only do things that will be good for me."
no subject
He can respect the honesty, at least. And it's not like he doesn't have any exposure to people who society forgets, oppresses, hates, who want to look out for themselves. The Belters on Ilus, for example, so hell-bent on keeping their claim on their new home, even at the risk of their lives. We are all in this together, he'd said once, or we're all lost. He still believes it, but he understands a little better now that it isn't so simple.
"Okay," he says. "I also do things because I want to do them. Actually, I don't give a shit what anyone thinks about them. And that's the truth. No pretending."
Then, in the interest of similar transparency,
"I want to help her. I don't like letting anyone die if there's something I can do about it."
no subject
"I like you," she says, eventually. The snow creaks under her boots as she rocks forward, leaning in closer to confide this fact. "You are good for a lowlander. Oh, but you are not. You are a Rifter. I am liking Rifter men very much. Maybe it is the shards that are making me feel this, hm?"
She uncurls one hand and shows it to him like he'll need a demonstration or reminder of the big inconvenience that they share. Doki's mitten muffles the worst of the glow. This could be the new shard-bearer greeting. "You must also be liking me, or you would have kept more secrets. Now I know this about you, that you want to help, I could use it against you. But, I will not. Because I like you. I hope I will keep liking you."
no subject
But instead his smile is a slow-unfurling thing, genuine warmth in contrast to the cold wind biting at the both of them.
"I hope so too," is what he says, freeing a hand so he can pat somewhere around her shoulder — or at least the fabric of her coat, scratchy against his palm — briefly. "Because you're right, I do like you."
no subject
She reaches to pat on top of his hand, with a smile. That fleck of lichen is still on her tooth. The layers of coats and sweaters and armor are like a kind of blubber; she can't feel the patting anyways, so it is not that bad.
"Come on, now! We will look for more of this stuff to give away. If we sit here too long, we will freeze our asses to the ground, and then we will be stuck here until the better sun comes."
1/2
"I'll remember that."
no subject
she has a point, so at her burst of energy, he moves to stand. Christ, but it's cold.
"Which is the better sun?"
no subject
Duh. Doki claps her mittens together to clean off the little ice crystals her licking left behind. Then she goes crunching off, following the cliff wall. The overhang tried to protect the ground here, but the wind has made the drifts deep, so walking is like wading.
"We should have the snowshoes," she remarks, with a sigh. "Is it cold where you are coming from?"
no subject
"You're right, I wouldn't want to be stuck here that long."
The expanse of snow, all sparkling and unbroken, is something he hasn't seen in such a long time. The kind of sight he'd never really expected to see again, save maybe on some alien planet or other where the Roci's needed.
"Yeah, it is. We used to get snow kind of like this." Not this extensive, nor this cold, with how global warming has ravaged his Earth. He looks to her as they make their way. "You?"
no subject
Doki shoots him a grin over her shoulder. One of them is so clearly enjoying life and her name starts with a Y. She points to the cliff, to the sharp peaks of the mountains off there in the distance.
"These are Frostbacks. This is where the Mountain-Father hid His heart. Everything here is His. He carved the tunnels in the deep places. He gives the animals for the hunting, and the summer fields for the goats. The Avvar know how to please Him so we are allowed to walk here, better than any lowlanders. This place, it is playground to me. I jumped from cliffs into snowdrifts and swam in hot pools and ate lichen when I was only a little bitty baby. You are again lucky to be friends with me now, Rifter. If you have not seen snow like this in the recent times, you could be lost so soon."