[Closed] We gonna rock this house until we knock it down

[the_effect_she_has]

WHO: Katniss Everdeen, Pel Ashara, Cullen Rutherford, Jim the Messenger (NPC), The Harding Scouts (NPC)
WHAT: Dueling. Fereldan style.
WHEN: 14th of Wintersmarch
WHERE: Skyhold.
NOTES: Violence. Racial slurs against elves.

For all the training, there was still a lot of building to work. Even though were plenty of willing volunteers out of the refugees, sometimes even they needed help. So that was how Katniss dragged the other scouts into helping out some of the refugees to work on what the surgeons wanted to make the formal infirmary. Jim the Scout showed up with a message, and yes, that's pretty much how he got dragged in as well.

Hours later, sweaty and with their hair mussed, hungry as bears (Katniss was never going to get away from bears, sigh), Katniss took the lot of them to the Tavern for dinner on her. She knew Lace would appreciate it if she fed the 'kids' before sending them off for the night, and the Creators only knew when Jim ate. He only seemed to take meals when Cullen did, after all.

So our scene, a table in the tavern with the Scouts - Atisha, Feran, John and Celise , Jim, and Katniss. The Scouts and Jim were of course, chattering away happily to one another and poking questions at Katniss, which she batted away with a roll of her eyes, as she dug into her stew.

" -- No, I am not going to tell you if I've ever seen Harding leaving Bruce's tent and NO, I am not going to tell you who is seen leaving my hut. Maker, what are all of you, twelve?" She snorted, before she held up a finger. "No wait, I can confirm one person - Buttercup. Buttercup leaves the hut as often as he wants."

Jim shuddered slightly, "I... can confirm that. He once sat on me for an hour and wouldn't let me leave until I fed him something. Scout Everdeen, your cat is terrifying."

"I keep telling Harding we should use him as a secret weapon -- but she says we can't take cats into battle." A heavy dramatic sigh, before she pointed a finger at one of the Scouts as she opened her mouth, "No."

"You don't even know what I was going to ask!" Celise protested.

"I know it has to be a different variation on whether or not Lace and Bruce are bedding one another, and I have told you -- " She frowned, as a shadow fell over the table and they all looked up to see a tall blonde woman with fancily braided hair stood over them, looking all too intently at Katniss. Her armor was fancy gilt, the kind where her breasts were clearly defined with the appropriate, ah, holders. Katniss lifted an eyebrow, " - can I help you, serah?"

The woman smiled, and it was not a nice smile. She spoke with , "You are Scout Katniss Everdeen."

"Yes, I am." Katniss said slowly, one eyebrow staying up, "And you are?"

"I'm Sergeant Alyshia Rettly, of the Fifth Platoon." The woman tilted her head, "Heard about you."

Katniss looked from the other scouts, to Jim, who looked as baffled as she felt, "Ah, well, that's ... nice?"

"Yeah, my boys and me - " and she nodded to a group of soldiers who looked like they had been dragged through the Fallow Mire, face first, "We just wanted to know - how does it feel to get a cushy job like Scout?

The two tables by them went silent. A fork dropped, as everyone turned to watch this unfold.

Then Jim tittered, and the Scouts burst into laughter. Katniss clicked her tongue against the top of her mouth, looking down at her bowl so she wouldn't laugh either, before she rose to her feet slowly, "Look, Alyshia - "

"Sergeant Alyshia." The woman huffed, flushing red at the peals of laughter that were still rolling from her pronouncement.

"Right. Sergeant Alyshia." Katniss resisted the urge to roll her eyes, "You're ... probably new around here? So you probably don't know that Commander Rutherford really doesn't give out cushy assignments. Certainly not to scouts."

"Especially not to scouts." John piped in, popping a grape into his mouth, with a smirk. Celise, Atisha and Feran just shook their heads. Anyone who thought being a scout was something 'grand' clearly hadn't slept in a tent by themselves while they were trying to figure out the positions of bigger, badder things not much more than a farmer's field away in the darkness.

"Yeah, right. Everyone knows the scouts always get the easiest jobs, while us foot soldiers are left trudging through the muck." Alyshia sniffed again, looking down her nose at Katniss. "But I guess Lace Harding's soft on her little chicklets -- and the Commander's soft on rabbit whores."

Katniss arched an eyebrow again, before she looked over at Jim, speaking tartly, "Jim, you're Commander Rutherford's personal messenger. Just how small and fluffy mammal prostitutes has the Commander had in his office lately that he needs to be freed from?"

The others snickered again, while Jim pretended to think about it "Ah ... going to go with a goose-egg there, Scout Everdeen." He held his finger and his thumb in a circle. "Zero. In fact only person in there is you and since you are a Scout, and his girlfriend? That sort of means you can't be a rabbit. Or a whore, for that matter."

Katniss turned back to the other woman, and lifted her hands up, "So as you can see, you are barking up the wrong tree in more ways than one. I will be happy to tell Commander Rutherford that you feel like you've gotten a raw deal by being a racist bully. I'm sure he'll be sympathetic to your horrendous plight."

Ohhhh, she could bet what his thoughts on the matter would be. Make even gold on it too -

That thought was cut off, when Alysha's armed gauntlet slammed into her face, making her see stars, then black, then red as she opened her gaze. It was hard enough to knock her backwards, but not off her feet. She stared at the blood gushing out of ... where? Her nose, and her mouth, as Lady Alyshia hissed at her, "The gall of a blunt-eared whore like you to speak to me this way! The Commander may have shamed himself with you, you half-blooded bitch, but as soon as he's tired of playing around with animals, he'll be looking for a real woman and - "

Sergeant Alysha looked around, because it had gone silent again, and all eyes were turned, but not on her. They were all locked on Katniss, a mixture of dread and anticipation. One Scout wet her lips, "Katniss -- Katniss remember, you can't kill her."

"I'm ... not going to kill her." Katniss rasped, as she looked up, her hand coated in her own blood, her nose unbroken but still bleeding, her cut lip, and her too-cold grey eyes. Sergeant Alysha's own brown eyes widened. "I'm going to show her just how soft a half-blooded bitch Scout is."

"...Oh." Was Jim's quiet, strangled reply. "That's, ah, that's better?"

Sergeant Alysha was so transfixed by the words sliding out of Katniss's blood-covered mouth, that she did not see the blood-coated fist swinging back to slam her right into her jaw, sending her tripping backwards over one of the smaller tables -- and unfortunately putting her right against the window. She let out a choked scream as Katniss came running up to her, grabbed the wooden rafter and swung forward. Kicked out with both booted feet, right into the middle of that nice open space between her armored breasts, to send her flying through the window.

The scouts and Jim watched, silently, as Katniss turned to look at Alyshia's soldiers. They all looked someplace else, abruptly. Katniss glared for a second longer, before she followed Alyshia out the window. They all then heard Alyshia yelping, "No - wait - not my -!" And the solid clang of someone getting kicked again, right in the breastplate.

Jim clicked his tongue against the top of his mouth, before he slid his chair back. "... So - I'm going to go get the Commander." And with that? He headed out in a flat run towards the door.

Atisha looked at the window, and then at her fellow scouts. "I'm gonna go get Lead Scout Harding." And with that, she was off like a shot.

"I ... think I'll go find Lady Rutherford." John scooted out in Atisha's wake.

Feran and Celise looked at one another, and said at the same time, "Mistress Pel" before they too, left in a great hurry.

Leaving behind a very quiet tavern, outside of the bartender who was looking out his window and sighing, yelling out to Katniss from where she was hunting Alyshia down across the courtyard, "You owe me a window, Everdeen!"