faderift | i was waiting in the getaway car

A lot of things passed through the camps below Skyhold before making it up to the fortress proper. Most of the refugees were out here, true enough, but so were the soldiers, the forces, the scouts - and many a merchant stopped to ask for directions, or permission, to do trade inside the walls. If not, they settled for the snow-dusted outcrop.

This was not the latter occasion. The merchant in question had simply arrived with so many crates that the horses simply could not carry them to Skyhold's gates, and had been forced to unload some of them out by the tent she had been sleeping in, which was how she had noticed. What she'd heard from his grumblings to the forces that were unloading them was that the contents were not traditionally fragile, in that they wouldn't break, but they were priceless, because they were books. Books for the library, in fact. Books chock full of notes and research and history.

Well, that was certainly enough of a calling card.

Evie was patient enough to wait, though her interest was caught. One crate, two, three. Eventually the merchant moved off with his remaining cargo, and Evie was free to investigate. Who would leave a guard to watch over a stack of books? She slides the lid free, and rummages around inside, flicking each volume with her fingers. "Lots of Wardens in here," she muses aloud, under her breath. The observation only holds true as she keeps on browsing, though it's mainly seems to be stories of each Blight, a few records of conscripted parties, and...

She stops, pulling one out from the stack, no name on the spine. Flicks through a couple of pages. Hmm. On Archdemons and their origins, Blight and cures...

Interesting.

Surely the merchant won't mind if she borrows this and returns it to the library at a later date, right?

And with that in mind, she slides the lid back into place and walks away.

Ellie had been curious in the books too. She hadn't been reading as much as she would have liked since she came to Skyhold and the thought that there were books just lying around outside made her skin itch. She had been thinking about checking them out herself when she sees Evie walk away from the crates.

She hadn't catch Evie taking anything, Evie was a little too good for that, but she got the feeling that something had gone down. After a moment, she headed to cross Evie's path, planning to bump into her in fake carelessness to test her theory.

Evie knows collisions, and that one feels deliberate, given that she regularly does such things herself. Evie's brow raises, and she glowers - but only for a moment, before her features rearrange into a more charming, innocent smile.

"Careful," she says, easygoing but with a hint of warning. One hand goes to Ellie's shoulder, to straighten her, and the other slides into the rim of her coat. Less than a second later, and it's empty, book hidden away. "Don't want that to happen again, do we?"

Ellie looked up at the woman and for a moment felt herself get distracted. "No I guess not," she said after a moment, trying to hide that reaction with feigned confusion. "Sorry I was trying to get to the shipment over there. I heard there were books." She then pointed to the boxes that Evie had been investigating just a moment ago.

"Some of them have been taken up to Skyhold already," Evie says, easily. If she's bothered by the discussion of a shipment that she has moments ago pilfered from, it doesn't show. "But there are quite a few left behind. Looking for something in particular?"

Evie often watched the healers come and go, checking on the refugees. It was good to know that someone cared enough to see to them, but equally as much, she wondered if they were just orders, words passed down from the higher-ups and that the healer in question did it for that reason alone. She doubted that, because it contradicted the nature of a healer, but rarely, it did happen. No, in this instance, she lingered and listened in order to find out if they were happy with what the Inqusition was doing, and had done so far.

She could just pursue the Seekers as adamantly as she had intended, but Evie was hard pressed to ignore those that were in need. And if the Inquisition helped their own, and closest to, then, maybe they're a cause to involve herself in. The Jennies do good, she knows, but she wants to do more. Maybe this is it.

Thoughts for later. For now, Evie's eyes were stuck to several potion vials, carelessly left in her line of sight on a makeshift table just outside the tent flap. And the healer that put them there isn't around.

She shouldn't, but she had run out some days before after some business in... that didn't matter, there was blood, she was fine, but she needed to stock up. And maker's breath, like an idiot she hadn't thought to bring what little money she and Jacob did have for potions.

Evie doesn't remember making her way over, but she picks up a bottle to look at it. It's good grade.

But she shouldn't.

Shouldn't.

(It's a good thing that reverie will be interrupted soon enough.)

Christine is relieved that the refugees outside Skyhold seem to be in good health. After Haven, many were injured too badly to recover after the journey through the mountain pass, but those that remain are strong, for the most part. There are some winter sniffles, of course, and other miscellaneous ailments, but it could be far worse. At the moment she sits beside a woman with her hand in hers as she uses a rejuvenation spell. The woman breathes deep and opens her eyes.

"How do you feel?" Christine asks, and the patient tells her she feels much better now. Christine leaves instructions to take it easy the next few days and departs the tent, just in time to spot Evie holding a potion.

"Excuse me?" she asks, both startled and wary that this woman might make off with the healers' goods. "May I help you?"

Evie's eyes twitch to look at Christine, and her mouth drops ever so slightly, which is the only indication that she in turn was startled.

The potion is back on the table and her hand snatched away back to her side in no time at all, and Evie blinks, wetting her lips as she tries to come up with a decent excuse. She knows what this looks like, and this is what happens when you're not usually caught in the act, and if she were not intending on sticking around the Inquisition, she would likely scarper and never look back. But as is, there's still the matter of her excuse.

"No," she says. She already knows that doesn't sound convincing. "I mean, I don't need them. I can find- buy- more elsewhere." Emphasis on the buy. Absolutely going to buy some.

"But you want to have a potion. Is this a preventative measure, or are you feeling unwell?" Because Christine doesn't want to let a potential patient get away without being looked at. So many here try to act tough and like they can walk off whatever is wrong with them, but often that makes things worse.

"Neither," Evie says flatly. This is not a conversation she wants to have, and she is not going to have it, and- maker, she's just digging herself a bigger hole here. There'll be more questions, likely insistent, and she'll never get out of here.

Evie sighs, short and hard. Rearranges her features to a platitude of a smile. "Preventative," she says, not quite looking Christine in the eye. "A necessary caution in my line of work."

Christine can't work out how it could be neither unless the potion isn't for herself, but then Evie amends her story and she can't help but be a little suspicious.

"Your line of work?" she asks, taking the offered bit of information and rolling with it.

"Aren't all lines of work around here similar? There's always danger. Sometimes you have need of a potion." When danger leads to violence, if you catch her drift. Granted, she doubts the healer before her fights, but she's likely seen wounds or the aftermath of scuffles. Evie just tends to herself rather than involving anyone else.

"Yes, but perhaps you should wait until you are about to leave the fortress to go into danger, instead of taking a potion now from someone here who might have need of it." Miss Sticky Fingers. Christine isn't denying that it's dangerous out there, but this is a thing Evie should take when she's on her way out of Skyhold, and they can properly account for it. They're making all their potions here, and need numbers on how many they use on average here on the ill and mildly injured, and how many they send out with scouts and the like. That way, they can always have enough made.

Christine really doesn't like when people mess up her numbers.

"Most check in at the Undercroft, taking the potions there and marking it off on a list. That way, we know how much of each type of potion is gone, and can make more to keep up with demand." She waves a hand vaguely. "There is also something about grenades, but I have no part in those." They aren't exactly medical, except for the healing mists.

If all dangers were simply outside of Skyhold, then that would be sound advice. And she likely would have already fled, or, not even been here in the first place, given that Skyhold was where she'd lost her last two. She fidgets with her hands, as much as Evie ever fidgets. And not out of being caught, or embarrassment, just - that not being the reason and her want to say so. The want wins out. "If it were for out of Skyhold, then yes," she says with a sigh. "I had... considered. To that effect. I know there are those that need it more than I. And they don't go out and find themselves in trouble."

There's a half-smile to that, and this one manages to look a little guilty, because it seems, mostly, genuine.

The mention of grenades catches her attention - she's used them, but her skill lies in knives. And they don't heal, mostly. "Wouldn't taking from the Undercroft only be permissed for members of the Inquisition?"

"Yes, of course. Are you saying you are not an official member of the Inquisition, then?" So mysterious! Christine isn't sure what to make of this woman. She fidgets and deflects, and apparently goes looking for trouble. That's not something Christine approves of, really. She likes it better when everyone stays safe and healthy.

Christine would likely not like a lot of what Evie does, but being gifted with a reasonably safe question, she runs with it. "Not as of yet. I came to Skyhold for other reasons. It's a worthy cause, certainly, but I have to be certain, first."

"I see. In that case, I am sure one of the merchant stalls here will sell you the potions you need." Because she's not letting potions go willy-nilly to people who aren't yet hurt and aren't in the Inquisition either.

Ah, yes. That familiar snag of a setback. Evie's face doesn't change, her having had long enough to get over the surprise of Christine's arrival and settle on a story, but perhaps that is telling on its own. No point on beating a dead horse, and she's wasted enough of the healer's time when she could be out there trying to make money to buy potions. Only being a Jenny kind of calls for potions to begin with.

She'll survive.

Evie merely blinks once, nods pleasantly, and sighs. "Absolutely right, of course. I'm sorry to have troubled you, mistress-?"

"Christine," she answers, since her last name is of little consequence. "Come see me if you find yourself in need of a healer, miss--?" And now she waits for a name in return.

Evie was not, at this moment, at the highest point in Skyhold.

She was, instead, lurking just outside the rookery, looking up at the highest point of Skyhold, which was the tower at its edges. To some it might seem that she was much too far away to get up there with any haste, but having it done it at least half a dozen times already, she knew the fastest routes. No, today, she was waiting to see if the person she had invited would follow through on her invitation to catch her. The climb itself was enough. If all went as it should, Evie would be there shortly after her correspondent got there.

It just meant quite a bit of watching. Like now.

This is a bad choice. This is a really really bad decision on your part, Kitty. You have made a huge mistake.

The thing was: when Kitty said she was a good climber, she really meant - well. Not this. She meant climbing into windows. Onto rooftops. Down chimneys. The standard work of a thief. But then that challenge had been issued, and instead of saying, Oh, ha ha, no, you misunderstood, Khalena "idiot" Jonos had assured this mysterious whoever that yes of course she could do this. No problem. She absolutely was equal to scrambling up a tower like a fool as the wind buffeted her and her fingers ached and froze and her eyes teared up from the cold and she thought all the while of how huge the sky was and how it looked like it was about to swallow her up in some great gulp. But she was already halfway up. She could hardly see down, and she felt as though to retreat at that point would be going blind. So: no. She continued on, if for no other purpose than to get to the top and survey a good path down.

And she told herself that it was no different from climbing to the third story of a house to slip in through the window. It was just...colder. And potentially deadlier. But just like that, you had to keep your concentration - don't think about the job ahead, just think about your next handhold. Don't think about the deadly fall below, or the terror of the sky above; just think of each step in sequence.

It took her a long time to climb. A very, very long time. But eventually, step by step, she found herself at the top, slithering over the edge to lay face-down on something solid.

When she does reach the top, she's not alone.

Evie's there, crouched down near the edge, her hands pressed against either side of her chin as she watches that last tiny bit of progress. She could assist with that final crawl, but she wouldn't want all that hard work to go to waste by her being surprised that the mysterious Jenny figure was grabbing her arm all of a sudden. Instead, she just smiles. Grins, really. Ever so slightly charmed. No expert, but had gone on ahead and done it anyway.

Okay so that's also somewhat idiotic because what if she had fallen, what kind of plan is that, but she'll let that one go for today.

"I wondered for a moment if you would indeed make it," she voices aloud, once she's quite certain that Kitty's made the spot beside her her new resting place. "But here you are. I'm impressed."

Genuinely. She'd spotted her easily enough and knew it was likely her challenged, as dwarves were not known for their wall scaling abilities nor want to do so. The young dwarva in question knew what she was supposed to do, certainly, but the climb was slow. Not agonising; Evie had seen worse. True, she'd made it here a good ten minutes before Kitty finished her ascent, circling her way round her and up her more favoured path, but still - it was good timing, all considered.

Evie untucks her hand from around her chin to retrieve a pouch from her waist. She sloshes it for effect as she places it down. Water.

Kitty is intermittently prideful. When she's facing down enemies, she stays upright and defiant to the last, staring them down and refusing to crumble. Right now, though, facing someone giving her the kindness water, and with her arms and legs shaking from mingled exhaustion and nerves, both fading away - she pushes herself up enough to slip around to be sitting on her rear rather than laying prone on the high tower, but doesn't stand. Hell, it's not like standing gives her that much of a height advantage anyways - so who cares?

She looks upwards as she tips the water into her mouth. The Jenny, it seems, is a girl not so much older than Kitty herself, by the looks of it. Human. Quite pretty, really, though not in a soft way. Kitty expects that she'd have liked her even if she'd met her face-to-face on the ground, without the foreknowledge that she's a political radical and rebel.

"I do hope you're the person I'm meeting," Kitty replies, scooting back to put her back against the edge of the tower. "Because I have been wondering all this time if this was just a very cruel practical joke." Another slosh of water. She swallows and wipes her mouth. "Of course, if it was, and you're not the person I'm meeting, then I hope you're at least a good conversationalist."

After her talk with Kitty, there's the climb down.

Climbing down is the exhilirating part. Moments of freefall before grabbing a ledge, pushing back off adjacent walls across to hand and footholds across the way, bent knees before a jump and the occasional spin to even out the momentum. Evie is a master of parkour, and it shows. Only when she nears the bottom does she slow, one boot scraping over the stone surface before she drops down onto the ground below. She's stuck to the shadows and avoided the patrols, keeping out of sight, but even as she moves away from the wall, dusting her gloves and brushing masonry from her coat, Evie is very aware that she has had an audience for some time.

She doesn't address them. No, she continues straightening her attire. "You can come out, now." Friendly words, if friendly is a half-smirk and laced with potential threat and the underlying question of what their interest in her is. She has weapons. She just prefers to use them on a visible target, thank you.

There aren't many places where one can covertly observe the highest point in Skyhold. But Sherlock hadn't needed to watch the entire time: they would have been too far away to spot the details (though he'd recognized the barmaid by her silhouette — curious). He'd only wanted confirmation that someone was up there, and enough cover to watch them while they descended.

He's received far less kind greetings in his time, whatever the tone. And he sees no reason to keep himself hidden now. He'd wanted to know how skilled this person using the name of Red Jenny was — so far, he's not disappointed.

He steps out from the shadows, from behind the corner where he was concealed. He has weapons, too, visible ones: a dagger and a couple of grenades strapped to the belt underneath his coat.

All he offers, to begin with, is: "Evening."

Evie's fingers flex as she waits, finding more interest in the ground at her feet until he reveals himself. Even then, she doesn't turn until he speaks. It would be quite easy to mistake her for someone who was unguarded or defenseless - it would have been a shame if he did.

She stays guarded, though she doesn't move - but she already knows her exits if this turns sour. It was not, she felt, a threatening presence. Even now, she didn't feel threatened by him, even though that happened rarely, and she had been wrong before. But there is something fiercely... determined in him, she supposes. Perhaps curious. Maybe friendly. That last one was up in the air. He was a mystery to her but she was not entirely to him; that troubled her, but only slightly.

"Evening," she replies, but only to be polite. Her tone is clipped. "We haven't been introduced, Ser...?"

"Goods and Services." In reference to the note he'd left pinned to the bottom of hers — since the context of who he is will be of more use to her, in this moment, than his name. "One hears the name 'Red Jenny' murmured around Amaranthine. Never so publicly."

Sabine, perhaps, got ever so slightly overambitious. She also has enough of a reputation that some of the soldiers idling around don't immediately jump up to help her, although it's likely that any one of them might, given time, it's just this log starter isn't for them. So they don't. Whatever they're doing instead, Sabine is ignoring them anyway, concentrating instead on her dragging of the heavy, awkward branch of good, thick wood that will make for pERfect material for arrows and sundry other elven crafts. Pine needles and other debris catch and drag in the snow, through which she drags out a path of disrupted white and dirt.

She probably isn't the unlikeliest sight around the camps beyond Skyhold's walls. The cultural melting pot spills its contents out into the snow fields and the tents dotting the canvasing white, and really what has her stand is her lack of uniform and her signature flag of bright red hair allowed to gather loose passed her shoulders.

She is here, often. Carving arrows, speaking quietly to refugees, and listening. Always that.

Right now, none of those things are happening. Sabine continues to drag her branch with the fixed determination of a she-wolf who manages to fell an elk and is now trying to get it back to her den. This thing is nearly a tree in its own right, her gloved hands wrapped around its thick, sheared base, going ass-first towards where she can settle it and ~~begin trimming and carving~~ fucking off to drink some tea next to a fire. She huffs, steam coming thick from between her teeth.

[ ooc ; if evie wouldn't approach i can have sabine notice her nbd!! assuming hinterlands adventure occurred too. ]

Help comes in the form of one Evie Frye, if helping means observing, which means standing to the side with her arms crossed trying to stifle a laugh, which is the opposite of helping. She can't help it, though - Sabine looks ridiculous. Ferocious, yes, impressive, yes, adamant, also yes, but she's shoving an entire tree up a hill and seriously, seriously, come on, who wouldn't laugh at such a spectacle. Most people, as it happens. Refugees gather, but not too close, in fear of what this tree monster will do if they cross her path and what will become of them should they offer assistant for such a large tree branch. Evie is by far the closest. That nominates her to help, doesn't it.

Or, that she's the one to walk up here from the amount of noise presently happening and the dirt track Sabine's left in her wake.

Evie lets the laugh go; gone, but it's still ringing in her words. "This is what you chose to bring back with you, Sabine?" Evie half smirks, half smiles, as she decides the best way to interrupt and offer her assistance is to climb up onto the branch itself to get Sabine's attention. "Need a hand?"

Under Evie's weight, the branch stops its incremental drag through the snow, and Sabine's feet sliiide out from under her, levering her into an abrupt sit in the cold with a squeak, one she will deny later. It's not a far way to fall, doubled nearly over as she is, but it is a lot colder down here than it is on your feet.

"Need a pinecone in your arse?" she snaps, though it lacks the bite she might have given it if it was a complete stranger coming to impede her progress.

She gets up to stand, anyway, kicking snow aside and shaking it off her skirt, the flare of rough wool showing leggings beneath, and good, sturdy boots. She glances over towards where firewood and other such materials are gathered and sheltered. She glances back at the branch. It's not exactly a thistle, but the human hadn't proven to be totally useless in the trek through the Hinterlands.

She rubs the back of her hand against her nose, going pink in the cold, and points. "Grab here," she directs, gesturing towards where a thick, forking branch breaks off at the base.

And there she goes down onto the ground. That's one way to interrupt. Evie just smiles, innocently, fingers curled against her chin as the threat washes over her as if it were merely water. She's heard and said worse, as a practiced arguer; she waits for instruction, or else she may stop being a hindrance and go on her way. That's up to Sabine.

Instruction. Very nice. Evie steps out into open air and hops down, the heel of her boot sinking into as yet undisturbed snow, but she kicks it free. It's not like she's shoved effective trees up a hill before. Nor can she magically do so - she isn't built to endure long fights, and nor does she have that kind of strength, but she's taken down men twice her size before, so that has to stand in her favour against a tree. Besides, sometimes you have to put a bit of effort in for the pay-off. Better that than Sabine clawing the tree to shreds before it ever arrives back at her den.

Evie places one hand atop the branch as indicated, texture coarse even through her permenant gloves. Perhaps she should remove them. Nah. She can grip fine even with them on, re-positioning herself and her hands, twisting her fingers over the branch for purchase.

"Ready when you are," she calls over.

Sabine finds another point of sturdiness, bending down to hook an arm around it so as best to get some of the branch up out of the snow. She nods, with a huffing exhale of steam. "Un, deux, trois," she counts down, before hauling her weight forward in a lurching step. With twice the manpower, it's much easier going, and this way, she can see what she's doing rather than leading with her rear.

The snow doesn't help, but she's gotten accustomed to stamping her way through, and they can manage a more passable walking speed rather than the incremental drag she was achieving before. She indicates the landing site, instructs Evie in helping push it out of the way.

"Thanks," she huffs, straightening, and pushing her hair out of her face before gloved hands return to her hips as she sizes up her pineneedly prey. Then, she considers Evie. "Do you shoot?" she asks, hands coming up to briefly mime a bow and arrow.

i was waiting in the getaway car

Ellie and book "borrowing".

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Christine and potions in the refugee tents.

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Kitty and the highest point in Skyhold.

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Sherlock (watching Evie) (watching Kitty) (stop that)

(make me)

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Sabine and helping.

this is beautiful i love it thank you

:'D

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