Skyhold

[faderifting]

WHO: Anyone & everyone
WHAT: Open post for business as usual around Skyhold
WHEN: The first couple weeks of Harvestmere, 9:41 (aka October)
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: Please mark any necessary content warnings in thread subject lines. Also, make sure to check out the other log posts already made!

Far from the glamorous adventurous world-saving people signed up for, most of the hustle and bustle in Skyhold at present is cleaning. The Great Hall is a disaster, and crews are assigned to haul out the cracked and rotting planks fallen from the wide-open roof, and tear down the vines covering the walls. Ivy encrusts the main staircase outside and many of the fortress walls and is cleared in section while other groups assess or begin shoring up the stonework as it's revealed. There are scaffolding to build, materials to sort, crates to unload, tents to stitch together or set-up, and on and on and on, endless mundane chores vital to the survival of the organization.

When not hard at work, people cluster around fires across the courtyards. Many mingle freely, going about their business, running errands and messages, planning scouting missions, tallying up supplies, distributing or playing with the sending crystals that were found in a basement vault and which a group of mages have just today finished preparing for use. Once a good number have been passed around and the first Inquisition-wide transmission made messages start being broadcast; maybe you can help someone out.

The rebel mages and renegade templars mainly keep to themselves at opposite sides of the complex given the choice. Mages assist with healing and research and bicker amongst themselves about their options and their fate. Templars help train recruits in swordforms and basic combat techniques or spar with the more advanced and bicker amongst themselves about their options and their fate. Despite having all pledged themselves to the Inquisition, they still feel like separate factions and tension between them is palpable wherever they cross paths.

Like at meals, or the communal message board in the courtyard, or at the Herald's Rest. The mess hall/tavern is so new it still smells of sawdust, and its stock has been limited to one type of strong ale until today, when a shipment of West Hill brandy has finally arrived. The mood in the place is convivial in celebration of that, but there's still plenty of muttering, especially as the night drags on and the discontented get further into their cups.

Comments

[ancarrow]

"Oh no, no!" she protests quickly, not realising that was the impression she'd given. "I'd love to know anything you want to share with me. So few of the elves from the cities ever get a chance to learn anything about our past. I just feel as though I'm a little underwhelming in comparison."

[serannas]

"But we're of the same people and yet you've lived a completely different life to me. I want to know about you." Ellana's been so isolated, that it's only been stories and the occasional book that has given her any outside perspective until now. She's hungry for more knowledge.

"What would you like to know?"

[ancarrow]

"Anything at all!" She hardly knows where to begin. "We've lost everything -- or, well, it was taken from us." 'Lost' suggests that it was their fault rather than that of their oppressors, forced to adapt to their culture but always relegated to the peripheries. "I'd love to know how you live and what you've been able to keep from our past."

[serannas]

"Well," Ellana begins, hoping she doesn't give away just yet how she really doesn't like the way her people choose to live. "We keep our belonging in aravels -- wagons with sails -- and ask the halla to pull them for us. That is how you treat a halla. They're our friends, not work animals. We try to stay close to a water source, and the forest if we can. Whenever our hunters say the humans are starting to gather, we have to pack up and move on." There's a tiny bit of bitterness to her tone.

"We keep shrines to the gods, and a statue of Fen'harel also faces out from our camp to appease him."