[open] braved and beat them on my own

[doneisdone]

WHO: Teren and you
WHAT: guess who's back. back again
WHEN: post-attack on the Gallows
WHERE: Kirkwall/The Gallows
NOTES: possible discussion of death/grieving, it's a bad time out here

I. The Ferry

In order to return to the Gallows, one must first cross the water to get there. A tall, gloomy woman stands stock still by the ferry's railing, in one hand holding the lead rope of a wiry, docile black gelding, with a rucksack slung over the opposite shoulder. She doesn't go out of her way to make conversation, but doesn't completely reject it either, especially if the source is a familiar face.

II. The Gallows

a. With little to be done in the way of settling in-- it's not like there's a chamber to claim-- Teren has pitched a tent in the vicinity of several others, out of the way of most of the recovery work but near enough that she can do some assisting. Riddle, the gelding, is tied off nearby, munching at a feed bag or simply watching the area, content to remain nearby until it's time he's brought to the stables.
People will find themselves assisted whether they asked for it or not: moving debris, extricating pieces of things (and people) from the rubble, building pyres. Making coffee. Stitching torn clothing on the living. It's done without comment by the hard-faced woman, who seems to have arrived just in time to be as helpful as she is unremarkable.

b. At some idle point in the day, someone may spot her visiting Blanche, offering a dead fish and proceeding to, quite uncharacteristically, put her thin arms around the griffon's neck in what looks suspiciously like an embrace. She stays like that for a while, moving only when Blanche begins to fidget.

III. Wildcard

[happy to make bespoke starters, just hit me upppp]

Comments

ii - b

[dissolving]

He's hauling a bucket of fish guts (couldn't lay hands to a steak, not with the city way it is) when he sights Teren. Stands back a minute - known enough men and horses not to interrupt -

When Blanche starts to fuss, and it's plain she's smelled him. Cedric shifts the pail to his other hand, makes like he's been walking up this whole time.

"Reckon she missed you,"

She's a new face, but there's plenty of new old faces, as that list out of Skyhold reminds. The griffons are fussy. If Blanche hasn't tried to bite her, it's good odds.

[doneisdone]

"Seems so."

With a final pat, Teren steps back to allow Cedric space for delivering the fish guts, and stands there with arms crossed as she silently looks him over.

"What happened here?" She hasn't had the chance to ask anyone who saw it.

[dissolving]

Has to figure she’s heard for Kirkwall. City’s abuzz: Dragons in the sky, no, dracolisks; fire. Ice. Acid and stone and buildings collapsed,

"Bombs on the towers," Not so different in the Gallows. More personal, maybe. "Got one - one and a half - set off."

Brave fucking work that it wasn’t all three. Brave work, and blind luck. Cedric holds the bucket up, arm bracing as Blanche shoves her face in, beak clacking messily against the sides. Offal slops. Be easier to pour it out, but close like this, she’s distracted enough to scratch a tufty ear. Silent gratitude: Thank you, thank you, thank you,

A glance over his shoulder.

"Eyrie’s collapsed, 's why they’re all out here."

[doneisdone]

It was a hell of a time for her to arrive, that's enough said. A flicker of Teren's eyelid passes for a wince as Cedric describes what happened, and she gives a businesslike nod, the corners of her mouth tugging into a pensive frown.

It relaxes slightly at the sight of Blanche being spoiled: indeed, she deserves it. That griffon's been through a lot.

"You're Nevarran," Teren observes after a beat, her own accent giving away exactly how she knows this.

[dissolving]

"Yeah," He swaps readily enough. A little strange to speak it now; even around Gela, Vanya, he's got in the habit of Trade. Maybe that's because - "From the Capital."

- For all that Chantry training, the slant of his vowels suggests: Not a nice part.

"Been years, though," Would have to be. The city's overrun. "Where're you in from?"

[doneisdone]

A glimmer that might pass for sympathy crosses her more-open eye, and an idle shrug follows.

“Here and there,” spoken in Nevarran, “starting from a shithole just east of Perendale. It’s gone now.”
As in, no longer on the map.

[dissolving]

"Been too much of that," His head cants in some measure of solidarity: A shithole's still your shithole. Blanche shakes the pail back and forth, hunting after scraps. "Last I heard, army's diverting to the city."

Small comfort. Perendale isn't East of Perendale, and cracking the war back open won't do the survivors any favours. Some things, time just can't erase.

"What brought you back?"

His hand gleams faint green against the morning fog. Cedric's own reasons are plain.

you stii-iiill haa-aaave

[doneisdone]

A nod back to Cedric, and the ghost of a smirk flickers over Teren's mouth at the sight of Blanche's perseverance. Good girl.

It takes her a moment to answer at all, to the point where it may even seem as though she didn't hear the question: her eyes fix on some nondescript part of the ground as she falls completely still, like her entire body is working to process the thought.

"Unfinished business," she finally says, quietly, without looking back at Cedric. She doesn't know this man; he has no right to her truths, to her pain.

[dissolving]

It's been a bad season. Quiet's worn its holes - Jayce startling for a hand, Ellie for the girl. Gela in the hall. Every third face in Kirkwall.

(Does not think how he must have sounded, awake in the dark and confessing, I went back to that street,)

Cedric nods, and wipes his palms on sleeve. Settles for simple:

"Here’s to seeing it through."

[doneisdone]

A flicker of her eyes to meet his, and a nod.

"Here's to that."

i

[allthatgleamsisgold]

Vlast keeps shooting the horse puzzled looks and isn't being very sneaky about it.

When he accidentally makes eye contact with the person leading the creature about, he can't keep his questions to himself.

"What," he asks with all the delicacy of a sledgehammer, "is wrong with that centaur...?"

[doneisdone]

He receives a level, uncomprehending stare in return.

"What," Teren asks, not gently.

[allthatgleamsisgold]

"The centaur," he repeats, inclining his head to the horse. "Is it ill? Deformed...? Why does it look like that?"

https://imgb.ifunny.co/images/8cfa0f17321cd22c905c2248fa158ad83922669f5feaaf5cf6620857db732f43_1.jpg

[doneisdone]

This has to be a prank, and she's not here for it.

"What the fuck are you on about," Teren snaps, "he's fine."

look this is the first time he's seen the mythical *horse*

[allthatgleamsisgold]

"Fine? It's missing it's arms," he insists. "And it's head is wrong."

I'm so sorry

[doneisdone]

Whatever is going on here, Teren's had enough of it. A blade flips out from her sleeve, held warningly with its point to the strange kossith's throat.

"Whatever affliction troubles your mind," she hisses, "is not my concern. Take it elsewhere." In other words, stop insulting her good horsey.

[allthatgleamsisgold]

Vlast eyes the dagger, unimpressed, upper lip curled into a sneer. He's been stabbed before by bigger and nastier blades.

"I have no affliction other than what this bizarre world has wrought of me. If you've no answer for my question, then simply say."

[doneisdone]

"Fuck off," Teren clarifies, helpful as ever; it wasn't her who started this insane exchange, but she doesn't mind finishing it.

2b also

[succise]

"Why are you hugging my griffon?"

Vega is carrying a harness in both hands, extra length looped around one arm. Maybe this woman is simply tending to them in the aftermath of the attacks but it is inconvenient to those who wish to fit them for gear.

[doneisdone]

It takes Teren a moment to realize that the voice is addressing her. She turns, with the slow, measured tension of a hawk at rest, eyeing the speaker.

"Your griffon," she repeats.

[succise]

Did she not hear? Vega raises her voice.

"Yes."

She seems completely unfazed by the look on this woman's face, her cold sternness; all she sees is a strange blockade to a task she's trying to complete.

[doneisdone]

Turning slightly, Teren leaves a hand resting on Blanche's neck, and the griffon nibbles affectionately at her upper arm.

"Hadn't thought the griffons were owned by any one person," she says flatly, head slightly tipped, calculating.

[succise]

"They tend to have two riders each," Vega informs her, frowning. God, new people. "Are you going to share her with me?"

That's irritating. She'd been thrilled to find Blanche riderless at the time.

[doneisdone]

"Yes."

The word isn't spoken harshly, but it does have a firmness to it that suggests this is not up for debate or discussion.

"I rode her previously," she adds, turning back to the griffon and giving her a scratch behind the ear, to which the creature ducks her head, closing her eyes in apparent enjoyment.

"You've treated her well?"

[succise]

"When?" It doesn't seem to occur to Vega to put two and two together. She watches Blanche receive a lovely scratch behind the ear and abruptly feels guilty for having not done something similar to her during the one battle she rode her for.

There was a lot going on at the time.

"I've — we have only flown once."

[doneisdone]

"...before." Teren casts her an odd look-- people come and go all the time, does she have to show her a bloody calendar?

"New arrival yourself, are you?" It's a guess, based on the girl not seeming to know how anything works.

[succise]

Listen, to Vega this place did not exist before she came here.

"Not entirely. I have been here for a few months now."

[doneisdone]

"Hm." And still green as anything, by the looks of it, but that's neither here nor there.

"How have you found it."

[succise]

Vega exhales hard, gesturing with an arm. "It isn't very... glamourous."

[doneisdone]

The corner of Teren's mouth twitches up in a smirk of wolfish amusement.

"You were expecting glamour, were you?"

[succise]

"Of course I was. Should I have expected to come and live in some horrible, wet tower?"

Bad optics, surely??

[doneisdone]

Not answering that,

"and what sort of organization did you think this to be, exactly?"

Asked sardonically, the amusement persisting. Cute.

[succise]

"A well-kept one," Vega insists, showing her bare palm. "I didn't know you existed until this thing appeared in my hand."

[doneisdone]

"Indeed." There's a vote of confidence, Teren thinks, and pauses a moment to give Blanche a stroke from beak to ears.

"Aren't you a nasty little thing," she says fondly, and she might be speaking to Blanche (who is not little) or Vega, who, against all sensibility, is rapidly growing on her.

"What is it you do, then? Protect the griffons?"

[succise]

Why would Teren be speaking to her? She said 'nasty little thing', that couldn't be about Vega.

"No; I ride them. I was wanting to fit Blanche for more gear, we — I broke a saddle, in the battle against the Venatori that topped the tower." So: here she is. "Somebody came off their griffon and Blanche helped me catch them before they fell."

But the gear wasn't used to bear the weight of two. Old, worn straps snapped.

[doneisdone]

"Well done." Directed to Vega, even as Teren gives Blanche's beak another pat.

"But you're not the griffon keeper. Have you another occupation?"

[succise]

"I am in Scouting," she supplies, "But I do not have a title in particular. Yet."

Obviously she will have one, but as she is still new they are still thinking of it. Now, Vega looks put out. "What is yours?"

[doneisdone]

"Senior Warden," Teren grunts back, "also in Scouting. All the better, if we're to be sharing."

Which they are.

[succise]

"Hmm."

Vega appraises Teren one last time, eyeing her intently before she relents. Her arms unfold from where they were, moments before, drawn tight across her chest in a judgemental line. "... Fine.

"You — know Blanche better than I, then. Does she have a favourite treat?"

[doneisdone]

"Venatori thigh," Teren says without thinking for too long, looking admiringly at the creature, "--but in the absence of that, a fish will do."