faderift | And we are far, far from home

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And we are far, far from home

WHO: Araceli Bonaventura; open
WHAT: Parkour lessons part 2; writing letters home in the library; gals being pals with Korrin and Sina
WHEN: early Wintermarch;
WHERE: Skyhold; various locations
NOTES: Tavern thread is closed to Korrin and Sina but feel free to see and/or hear them

parkour;
It's been too long since she last organised real parkour lessons and so for a few days there have been notices tacked up on the bulletin board regularly to announce the start of a new batch of lessons. The ropes are gone now that she's more sure of her teaching skills and her place within Skyhold, and there are a few more places with bales of hay beneath different chunks of the battlements now, not just that first crumbling section of the wall down by the stables.

The warm up is still mandatory though, and for a newbie, she'll still insist on watching you fall though this time it's only from the fence and into the hay, and no, she doesn't care if you feel stupid, you'll feel more stupid if you fell badly and broke a few bones for your trouble.

library;
When the rift pulled her through from Castileos, it was still summer, seemingly endless days spent longing for a breeze to blow in off the seas, the markets packed, a riot of noise and colour. Even the smell of the fish market carried on the salt air is something she longs for as finds a seat somewhere quiet in the library, a neat stack of letters to one side of her as she stretches out her right arm with a muttered curse, trying to ease the cramp in it. A smear of ink stretches up from her cheek, across and over her nose. If someone were to read over her shoulder, they'd find letters addressed mainly to her mother, her father, or to a woman named Leandra more than to anyone else, all of them recounting bits and pieces of what she's seen here, what she's learned.

No one can say that a letter shoved through a rift won't go back home.

tavern;
Now it's not a crime if a person doesn't drink but sometimes a drink is good to help your forget, and well, Korrin likes drinking, Araceli likes drinking but Sina, well Sina might have told Araceli once that she's hasn't had a drink. Not of anything that Araceli or Korrin are used to, that's for certain. So what is a good friend to do? Well if they're Araceli Bonaventura then they call in Korrin Ataash who just so happens to be the person who introduced her to the strongest alcohol she'd ever tasted in her life.

Not that it's on offer for Sina. Babysteps. Babysteps and watering it down to an almost criminal degree but such is life.

wildcard;
[Feel free to have spotted her elsewhere, for whatever reasons you'd like!]

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Christine has no interest in learning to fall, but she takes great interest in those who are participating. Though she sits not far away in a little wooden chair to observe, she sits with a book in her lap, so she isn't merely staring at the participants. But she wants to see them do this, because even as Araceli explains that this technique is so they learn how not to hurt themselves from a fall, Christine predicts some will get it wrong and require medical aid. Which she is here to provide.

So she sits and waits, eyes scanning a few lines in her book before she hears someone impact the hay, which makes her look up to check if the person's hurt themselves. Once she's satisfied they're fine, she reads a few lines and listens for the sound again. On and on it goes until the lesson is over for the day and Araceli is alone.

"How do you think they are coming along?"

An audience is always expected when she gives lessons, more now that the word has had time to spread of a rifter teaching someone who knows someone how to climb up the walls and fall off them. But someone sitting and reading during the whole time? That catches her attention but her focus is on her students until she dusts the last one off.

Cleaning up is always her job, she worked that one out with the horsemaster.

"Better." Arching up on her toes to stretch the last of the aches from her muscles, better is as good an assessment as she can give. "The biggest hurdle to overcome is unfortunately the hardest one, and that's because it's instinct to brace for any sort of hurt. We spend a lifetime learning that and the older we are? The harder it is to unlearn. Still, the broken bone count is at zero and that? I shall take that a win."

"That is good to hear. It means they are listening well to your instructions." She closes her book, resting her hands lightly on top. Her spirit healer studies are coming along well. It shouldn't be long before she can reach out to a spirit. That is, of course, the most dangerous part of the whole endeavor.

"But this is not the end goal, is it? You are teaching them to climb buildings later on, yes?"

“See up there?” She turns, pointing up to the very top of Skyhold that almost disappears from this angle. “That’s the goal. Tackle that on familiar ground and you’ll be less afraid when it comes to other places, though if I can find somewhere with smoother stone and wood to practice on that would be good, not everywhere will have brickwork with room for fingers and toes at regular intervals. It’s perfectly doable.” Because she’s done it, round the back where it’s more difficult to see someone clambering up unless you’re actively looking for them and it had been something to behold, almost as tall as the mountains, peering down at little specks with the wind rushing in her ears.

And with no ropes, that only gets in the way because you won’t always have rope with you and as good as teaching people to fall is, climbing down has to be part of it as well and that’s more tricky than most like to think it is.

Christine's head tilts back, and from the look on her face, it's clear that she thinks climbing up there (where she can't even see!) is a terrible idea. Her lips part, before her brow wrinkles in worry.

"Surely not!" She looks back at Araceli with no small amount of surprise. "No one could survive a fall from such a height. You have climbed buildings such as this at home?"

“I’ve climbed higher,” she replies with glee, because while she hasn’t measured it exactly, she knows from long experience that there are even taller in Castileos. “Rigging on a ship isn’t so high but it’s just a series of ropes and a little wood, sometimes during storms when you’re frozen and clinging for dear life with numb fingers but we have so many spires on buildings, some of smooth stone and brickwork where you find grips to jump between. Others with glass and you have to hope it’s going to hold or you won’t slide back down.

The buildings are too far apart here but on the streets of my home? I don’t usually touch the ground or take boats and skiffs through the waterways. I leap, rooftop to rooftop, up and down.”

After all, it’s part of the reason she’s teaching: instilling her own joy and valuable skills whilst trying to stave off boredom at the same time.

It's not a skill Christine has ever even thought about before. She's read no books where people jump from rooftop to rooftop, and she can't imagine that doing such a thing would be good for the knees or shins. Her face is probably comical in its disbelief. A person's body is capable of great things, but it's hard to picture climbing buildings like that.

And yet she produces magic that flows from her body, so some impossible sounding things must be true, must they not? Her expression smooths out and she looks up at the top of Skyhold again, letting out a resigned sigh.

"I will have to be near at hand when they practice climbing up to there, to heal those who do not make it." Her eyes return to Araceli. "Well, I see you are making your mark on this world, as we haven't yet found the way to return you to your own."

If Araceli can help it, any damage to the body should be minimal though Skyhold's construction doesn't lend itself as well to rolling to take out the impact though the brickwork helps for scrambling up with less effort. From the pictures she's seen of Orlais though, it's far better and she could happily spend hours without her feet ever touching the ground, even if it draws the stares of a crowd.

"I've had my share of injuries in the past, both wrists though fortunately one at a time, one so bad the bone broke through." That hadn't been a good night, she'd had to still make it home, bleeding everywhere, barely able to see or think straight from a combination of pain and tears, small wonder her mother had nearly killed when she'd come clattering through the door at sunrise. "I said to the doctor Bruce I would try to minimise anyone swelling the ranks of those by the tents."

But then home is mentioned and she sighs, practice keeping the smile on her face. "One does what one can, no? This world has shared everything with me including some form of magic in my hand, I thought it was best to share something of my own when and where I could."

Christine winces in sympathy. Such an injury sounds incredibly painful. And Christine is the type to rarely become injured herself. She heals the pains, but can't empathize with exactly how they must feel.

"I am sure he appreciated hearing that, as do I. I'm sure you understand that we will keep watch anyway. We healers are born worriers. It cannot be tempered." Someone has to worry about those who will not do it for themselves.

"With everything going on at present, I think we could do with tales from other worlds."

Best not to tell of being shot properly; arrows and crossbow bolts are likely to be very painful but a musket ball moves faster, punches right through and out again, burning as it goes.

"His patients seem to enjoy it, I was worried it might upset them so I do try to only climb back down there, instead of jumping." Even if they've all watched her long enough to know that it'd take something like being attacked or surprised to have her lose her grip, better safe than sorry when it comes to people still being treated for wounds or illness. And Bruce is kind, one of the kindest she's met even at home, she'd feel guilty if she managed to make him worry about her antics.

"No offense to anyone native but your stories seem to be very grim, I prefer my own where I at least earn a reason to be killed byond being what I am should someone come to challenge me."

"Oh, Maker, no. Please no jumping," Christine answers with a mild laugh. The thought of leaping from such a height is enough to set her on edge, and she tries to think of other things.

"Our world is very grim, and has always been such. There has always been war, Exalted Marches, massacres, and the like. I yearn for peace, but sometimes wonder if the world will know what to even do with it. Peace has been a rare thing here."

"But the jumping is fun. Usually there's water, we don't really have streets as such so any time I like, I can just let go but the snow is less forgiving and I have no desire to freeze my arse off." Korrin would be upset for starters, and so would Araceli.

Sighing, she rakes a hand through her hair, plucking more hay from it. "Our last war can still be felt in the country that instigated it in their bitterness but there are none living who remember it, it was an old thing when they were children. I cannot imagine what it must be like to have to live knowing that at any moment a conflict might erupt. We took measures to avoid it, careful treaties and truces, it has served us for so long and hopefully as long as it must."

"Jumping into water makes more sense than jumping down to the ground." Still, she shakes her head, because she doesn't think jumping would be fun. Her stomach would flip, her heart would race, and that's not including what would happen to her body upon impact.

"That is the way it is between Ferelden and Orlais," Christine says. "My country invaded and occupied Ferelden for many years, and it was only forty years ago that Ferelden pushed Orlais out. Many are still bitter to this day."

"You don't jump from too high, some of it is more a controlled fall then you roll and take out the impact so you don't break your legs." She's seen that, poor boy could walk and even run for a short distance but he was never able to climb with the rest of them again. It's something she bears in mind when she gets her blood up and racing though not so often as others might like, too swept up in it all.

"Invading, invading, it makes no sense to me at all. The people making such decisions have everything, how can they possibly want more? I don't even want more and I don't have much, I just want adventure and excitement, to see a better lot for those like me. No invasion required."

"I know the farther a country extends its reach, the less control it has. But beyond that, I cannot tell you why. I do not enjoy speaking of politics. It is all lies and backstabbing." Which Christine detests. She was born a simple merchant's daughter and had she not been a mage, she never would have been required to play the Game, because of her middle class station.

"You and I are the same in that we wish for better for our people. But I wish for perhaps a bit less excitement than you."

"Politics has sometimes been very much my business, I confess that I do like the excitement, though either way, it would still be my job and a job is better if enjoyed." All the guards are good at spying, they have to be, but a thief knows the value of things whether or not they happen to be material good and getting to see what happens when you pull the rug out from someone? Priceless, especially if they happen to be so very smug in their own status as a noble.

"What's wrong with excitement?" An innocent sounding question, if not for the way she grins, like she's about to reveal her hand at the table and sweep all the winnings into her lap.

"The type you speak of apparently involves running along rooftops. I see no fun in that sort of thing." Just falling and breaking her bones. It doesn't matter to her that there's a proper way to fall. She doesn't want to fall in the first place, and so she will stay away from situations where she would be in a precarious position high off the ground.

"No just rooftops. Our streets are very narrow and they're usually just enough room for people to get in and out of a house for we have waterways, our markets float but for the ones at the docks proper. So we have many bridges, some of stone or heavy wood that never move but others are planks and rope. It's quicker to learn to jump between them and the mooring poles than to wiggle your way through the streets or over the bridges." If asked what she missed most? It would be that, because even if she's much lower to the ground, there's only something solid beneath her foot for half a heartbeat before she's moving yet again, light as a feather, curls streaming behind her like a banner as she laughs the whole time.

Christine has seen docks before, but what Araceli is describing sounds far more cramped than what Christine finds familiar.

"In the village where I grew up, we were on a lake. It was a popular merchant village, though small for its size, but we had a great many docks. Boats would head out across the lake rather than take the land route around. We didn't have the bridges you described, and our streets were not so narrow, and so I can't imagine jumping on rooftops there. Your home sounds like you had little chance of falling through to the ground."

"Not the street but there are balconies I've clipped once or twice, or building decorations, and the odd sign. At least I have met another soul who knows what it is to live alongside the docks though, so many here know the land best and nothing else. Where was it exactly that you grew up? So I know should I get to go travel just for the joy of it."

Being here with no water is starting to make her feel antsy, so even a lake would do, or a deep wide river, just something where she could roll up the legs of her trousers and go wading at the very least.

"Velun. It is rather small for a merchant village, but it gets by. It is on the west side of Lake Celestine, in Orlais. But I have not lived there since I was a little girl. I do not know how it might have changed." It could be quite prosperous by now, or things could have gone the other way. There is really no way of knowing, until she gathers the nerve to write to her family, if they even still dwell there.

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And we are far, far from home

parkour

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