faderift | 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!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Honestly I don't even know if some of the natives would understand, not everyone even has the education to try to get through some of it, and I see no true beginner's guides. Even say, 'an introduction to Antivan politics' isn't an actual introduction, it keeps saying 'as you know' or things like that." Why did she try with Antivan politics well she can kind of get what it's going on about but only because she knows politics.

"Earth is your world, yes?" Countries are what she deals in more easily, she's only referred to where she grew up in most instances rather than the world itself. "The maps have disappointed me - I don't understand how a people can have done so little exploring."

You have ships, she knows that, go out to sea and at least send your maps home with some birds or something.

"Earth's...kind of where humans came from, anyway, yeah." He's not technically from there, and if there's any world that's his, it's the dumbass planet where Blood Gulch was. He scrunches his face. "So you're not from Earth?" He'd sort of figured out that she wasn't from his own era (sigh), but he thought at least she was from Earth.

"Okay, yeah, see, the maps thing, that's what I was wondering, too. Depending on how long civilization's been around, you'd think there'd be something more. Even just speculation, right? I mean, they're still probably a couple hundred years from sailing around the planet, maybe, but even just this whole landmass, it just stops over here on the west. I'm not about to volunteer myself for exploring, but still, man. What, is it 'here be dragons'?"

"No, no I'm not," and she refrains from tacking on the apology because it would be nice to know another form the same place, she can empathise with that one. "I come from a world called Terradeos, though unsurprisingly, I am the only one here to ever have heard of it. Some things I have in common with Thedas, others I most certainly do not."

Real power and a lack of pistols are the most glaring differences, and the ones she misses the most though she's now used to the weight of her firearms at her hips.

"Honestly, it might be dragons, they can even be found much closer to populated areas though, from what I was told at least though maybe if more people looked out at the world, they'd stop fighting each other as much as they do. If you build ships, you do more than just take supplies from one port to another, and there are enough armies that I think they could clear out dragons." Not that she's seen a dragon but really, if you've got magic then dragons should be no problem.

See, shit like that sounds Spanish. But people don't know Spain! He narrows his eyes at her, trying to figure out if she's pulling his leg. "Are they just saying there are dragons, or is that something we have to legit worry about?" He hasn't necessarily read anything about them yet. There's no tour guide saying 'come to beautiful Rivain and visit our Deadly Dragon Depths!' or anything.

"I mean like...you're not wrong. They have all these wacky socio-political things going on where now everyone's attacking each other? But if they could sort their shit out, fuck up some dragons, and go marching around exploring, maaaaybe they'd have a better idea what's going on." He sits back with a sigh. "Be better if we had some planes though. A fighter jet. Something to fly."

"There are definitely dragons. They only recently thought they were extinct but now? Dragons. I was told there was one in the Hinterlands and that's not so very far from here, I would like to see one if only to say I have seen such a creature." Standing close to someone much bigger than her. In shiny armour. Possibly a loud person too so that the dragon will spy them and realise they make a far better meal than a small morsel such as herself that would be more likely to get stuck in their teeth.

Especially if any are found near the sea, that'd make her day.

"And a fighter jet is..." Actually what is a jet, period but y'know, she'll probably get that explanation at the same time because flying is for birds, insects, sometimes the odd fish and things in myths but people generally don't fly things themselves.

Well, Church doesn't have his armor on him, but he's bigger AND he's loud, but he ALSO does not want to be dragon food. He takes this information in like he does most crazy-sounding stuff: with a look that suggests maybe who he's talking to isn't all there.

But sure. Dragons. Why the fuck not. We got zombies and demons and demon-zombies. "Uh, yeah, actually," he says, consulting the map, "the Hinterlands is basically right over here. I mean. It's probably not gonna come up all these god damn mountains, but pretty close, relatively. If I'm reading this right."

Oh, god, right, technology levels. Differing. "Um, a fighter jet--okay, look, do you have airplanes? Any kind of mechanical device that flies? I dunno, blimps? Weird alternate universes always have blimps for some reason. Mechanical device that flies and also shoots guns and drops explosives that moves at crazy high speeds."

Honestly Araceli is used to being on the receiving end of that look in general, or at least since the first time she offered parkour lessons to Skyhold at large and had to confirm each and every time that yes, she is very used to climbing walls and running or jumping across and between rooftops, thank you very much.

As for dragons, well she trusts Korrin and she trusts the books with all their beautiful but quite honestly terrifying illustrations. "We can only hope that it prefers whatever giant wild animals are around to people. And that everywhere in the Hinterlands seems relatively intact apart from what the war itself damaged."

If she had to bet money on it, she'd bet that any dragon attack would get people lining up to fight it. Enough people here seem mad enough to want to get in on it.

"We do not have airplanes or a blimp. We have ships, many many ships but those are of course in the water where they belong with cannons, or throwing what grenades and bombs we can make but to fly, is that not terrifying?"

"I mean, some people are terrified of flying, but it's way faster than boats." Which is true, but also, what the fuck would he know about ships and boats, having never been on one? They don't even need those anymore, do they? Huh. "I mean if you live with it and you have decent pilots, then you get used to it."

Terrible pilots do not ease the fear of falling right out and dying a flaming horrible death, but.

"A boat is still faster than swimming and from my country, that is the only option to get elsewhere. You can get from island to island with a brief swim or even bridges but anywhere else and well, even those who love the sea would flounder." And probably be eaten by a shark on the way, but that wouldn't actually be so terrible for them. "Further to fall if the pilot is not decent, and everyone that might be beneath them too, yes? Do you fly on them frequently?"

And we are far, far from home

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