Project Haven: Kirkwall Outreach [open]

[venenifer]

WHO: Brother Gideon, everyone who signed up, anyone who wants to join without signing up
WHAT: A mobile Chantry service in Lowtown. (FREE FOOD)
WHEN: end of Cloudreach
WHERE: the Lowtown market square
NOTES:

I. READINGS

A small podium has been set up for speakers, who have been given passages from the Canticle of Andraste (keeping it simple) to read aloud to the slowly gathering crowd. They rotate through, starting with Brother Gideon on the first verse, then Wysteria, then Warden Adrasteia, then Seeker Tiffany, followed by any other volunteers who happened to show up at the last minute.

There are a fair number of listeners, but it's also safe to say many are simply here for the food.

II. PANCAKES

When not reading, Tiffany is in charge of making and doling out pancakes, with Maud (and anyone else) assisting her. They have brought down a single brazier that she can use for cooking more, as long as the dough holds out. This is far and away the most popular section of the gathering, and no doubt struggle to keep up with the clamoring hands.

Security are asked to keep a particular eye on them, and to help maintain order.

III. DONATIONS

Lazar will, perhaps, disappointed to find that most donations come in the form of used clothing, toys, and equipment; it's Lowtown, after all, and there isn't a lot of coin to spare.
At least one street urchin, perhaps misunderstanding the purpose of the collection, tries to make off with an item that is, at least in theory, completely available to them. Whether someone decides to do anything about it is their choices.

IV. OTHER

Brother Gideon himself is looking rather on the overwhelmed side, but is keeping it together well enough. Anyone approaching him to ask for direction or delegation is at risk of being snapped at, but this is likely only because he's quite invested in the event running smoothly.

V. AFTER

After the crowd has dispersed and the cleanup is done, Brother Gideon exhaustedly beckons everyone toward one of many hole in the wall dining establishments with the promise of reward in the form of free dinner.
Free for them, at least.

He still doesn't look that enthusiastic, but it's safe to say he never does.

Comments

[okayimin]

iii

She'll let the smaller kids run off with things, but there is a limit. Large hands sliding out from the bustle of the crowd get a whack. The whack gets progressively meaner if she notices familiar hands.

"You can come with me to gather alms in Hightown, if you're so eager," she says primly to whoever last got a bit too handsy with the donations, "Or at least be more clever about it, if you're pinching from the donations." She's pretty sure some of the smaller children are part of the local gangs, but that's just business.

iv

People show up, sick, hurt and pregnant. Occasionally all three at once, which is harrowing, but Sawbones at least is in her element. She's been doing rounds in Kikrwall for the better part of a year now, these people know her. And she is intimately familiar with the practice of making very little stretch to aid too many.

She's also an insufferable busybody. Voulenteers that seem to be flagging or too wound up will find a cup of hot tea shoved into their hands and shoved towards a chair by a tiny menace of a nun. "You need to sit."

[kantikoy]

Adrasteia hovers during Sawbones' inspection of one pregnant woman with suspicious bruising around her throat and face, manages to hold her tongue and keep her hands to herself, though she's itching to be useful, somehow.

Problem is she doesn't know how best to do that. Some of Lowtown recognizes her from when she'd come through helping rebuild houses in the wake of the last winter's snowing with the Chantry sister from Nevarra, but that doesn't exactly make hers a trusted face, just a vaguely familiar one.

When the woman goes on about her business Adrasteia steps forward.

"Do you ever need help, going about your rounds?"

[okayimin]

Sawbones tolerates hovering. To a point. It's for the best that Adrasteia asks a question when she does, even if it receives a snort that's nearly a laugh.

"Usually. And I'm not shy about running my help into the ground." It's a friendly threat more than anything. Sawbones doesn't have time for half measures when it comes to patients. "You got any experience?"

[kantikoy]

Well at least Adrasteia wouldn't be bored, that's for certain.

"With healing?" Adrasteia nods. "Yes, and with people in a family way in poor conditions, though the first is more recent than the latter, for sure."

[okayimin]

"Good." And Sawbones doesn't stop frowning, because she never quite stops, but there's a softening in her expression. "Kirkwall's got a fair few midwives and Sister healers like me, but there's never enough when it comes to places like Lowtown. And to be square with you, the Alienage always needs an extra hand or twelve. You ever been to Darktown?"

[kantikoy]

"Twice, only in the daytime so far." She hadn't wanted to tempt fate, wandering around Lowtown at night; she knows that those who know what they're looking at might read 'battlemage' in the way she moves, but the desperate probably wouldn't care much. "But I'm not opposed to making that trip more often than I have."

[okayimin]

"You're sensible then. No one should go to Darktown less they got business." A brief interlude to treat a young man with an innocent face and what one might be inclined to call thief's hands if one were familiar with the sort. In between the threat of leeches, Sawbones says, "Colin runs a clinic down there. I take a few shifts for him here and there, but mostly I do patch work. Lowtown's where my normal rounds are most days."

[kantikoy]

Adrasteia manages to keep a straight face through the various threats Sawbones utilizes in order to get her patients to see sense and reason; pretty proud of herself, for that, actually. "I don't see any reason to put myself in harm's way over curiosity alone, at least not in a city. It's good they've a clinic." She'll have to reach out to Colin to see if he needs any supplies, mental note taken. "When do you go?"

[okayimin]

Sawbones shoos away her patient and turns back to Adrasteia, "Not as often as I should, but often as is called for. It ain't exactly the most welcoming place, even for someone like me."

She gestures to herself, as though that explains it, "But still. Some folks I know run through there and if they pick up someone on their way to see me, I'll stitch 'em either way."

[kantikoy]

Well, it kind of does. Most people aren't used to dwarves on any level, so to have one as a healer must be kind of surprising. For some, anyway.

"Sounds fair. I'm definitely interested in helping out, though, so let me know."

iii

[fairforce]

"They really aren't very clever. Blatant, if anything."

Tiffany is there for extra muscle, clad in light armor and towering over the children crowding the donations. A smudge of flour on her cheek diminishes some of her mien of intimidation, but that's quite all right, as the Sister seems perfectly capable of managing on her own.

She picks up a little doll with a wooden head and a green kirtle. "Then again, if they're able to get any money for these, I'd say they'd have earned it."

[okayimin]

"I've stitched a few of 'em before, they think that means they've got leeway," she says, making eye contact with a similarly branded dwarf who slides away once they get a lay of the tables contents.

"And I don't reckon it's money some of 'em are after anyhow," she says, settling back, "And if they are, they're clever enough not to get caught." Have there been any tiny pickpockets slipping among the rabble? Who knows.

[fairforce]

"What else would they be after?"

Tiffany watches the kids melt into the crowd, fitting themselves in seamlessly between people. They could be pickpockets. She left anything worth picking behind, realistic about where she'd be spending her day. Her sense of charity is no less for it. You don't blame a child for becoming a thief when their circumstances have pushed them to it.

[okayimin]

She knows it's an innocent question, but still. She tips her head back to give the Seeker a look.

"Why would someone who's accustomed to nothing steal something that might keep them warm."

A grubby hand slips a pair of shoes off the table as another surge of bodies pushes past. Sawbones does not move, but her gaze is hard on Tiffany.

[fairforce]

Tiffany glances over, and very nearly flinches. She can handle a lot. That sort of look isn't something easily handled.

"Oh," she says, a beat later, as she realizes her mistake, "but I didn't mean-- No. You're right. Of course that's very true. I apologize, I wasn't thinking."

[okayimin]

Sawbones nods with a hum. It's dangerously close to approving.

"So long as you remember to think. Especially here. The Chantry's recent efforts in Kirkwall have been nothing short of miserable and I'm not having any of it from our end."

iii.

[heirring]

One particularly powerful crack to the knuckles elicits a sympathetic 'Ooh' from Wysteria. From where she is posted near the other end of the donation pile, she shoots Sawbones an appreciative sidelong look. Evidently temporarily relieved from her orating duties--Wysteria is, perhaps unsurprisingly given the nature of various announcements she's had cause to make over Riftwatch's crystal network, perfectly competent when it comes to reading passages aloud before a scattered assembly--, she has been directed to assist in collections but has yet to quite perfect the art of chasing off scoundrel children.

"I should not have wanted you as my governess with a hand so fast as that. You would have made a formidable antagonist for a child."

[okayimin]

That gets a snort of laughter from Sawbones, genuine amusement flaring up.

"Only if you weren't being clever." Which considering who it is, she imagines the child Wysteria was exclusively and nightmarishly clever. "Not being clever gets you killed and as a midwife, I can't abide someone mucking up all that work put in dragging them into this world."

[heirring]

"Well then no. I would have been quite safe," is the world's most faux-prim humble brag. It's punctuated with a sidelong look, the flash of a pleased grin. See, that was clever too as far as senses of humor go.

"But you are right. I suppose there are worse things in the world than to be struck across the knuckles."

iv

[venenifer]

Gideon always looks cross, but he looks especially so when he's strongarmed into having a seat, his mouth flattening into an angry little line as he scowls down at the tea in his hands. But then he sips from it, enduring the irritation because he knows better than to argue with Sawbones.

"You're a natural at this," he observes, surreptitiously wiping his brow. He's been working largely in the background, but the fact she noticed how busy he's been is telling.

[okayimin]

"Been doing it for most of my life, be a blasted waste if I weren't," Sawbones says, with a grim kind of satisfaction. They've done something today. It's not enough, and it never quite will be for places like Kirkwall, but it's something. "This your first time?"

[venenifer]

"As an organizer, yes."

The admission is wry, the ghost of a smile on his face as he glances over at Sawbones, taking a sip of his tea.

"And Redcliffe town is no Kirkwall."

[okayimin]

"Near as I can tell no where is like Kirkwall. Maybe Orzammar, but you can't really compare the surface to the underground."

You could, but Sawbones' won't. "Lowtown's got good people, though."

Which is perhaps a generous statement from someone whose spent the better part of the day warding off thieves and tending broken noses.