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

[rathercommon]

A. The Herald's Rest
[ There is one little ray of sunshine in this place, and it's the little dwarf girl behind the bar.

Kitty can't say, honestly, that she's delighted to see the state of this place. She'd sold her few meager possessions to buy a pony and a merchant's cart and a meager stock of trade goods, to provide cover as to why she was coming to Skyhold; she'd made a lot of exclamations, upon arrival, about how much safer it seems here, how she's so much more comfortable staying put behind these big thick walls. But the Inquisition is far from the proud, world-changing force she'd anticipated. They're dysfunctional and squabbling. She'd come here to investigate whether this was the avenue for changing the world that she'd hoped for, and she's finding...

Well. It's early days, yet. She needs to find out more. Listen more. And so for all outward appearances, Kitty the Barmaid, simple topsider who doesn't even have a last name, is nothing but cheerful to be here. She is a listening ear and a quick hand pouring drinks and ladling up stew. She is quick jokes and quick laughter. She calls out to the newest entrants - ]

Hey! You there, get over here. You need a drink, don't you.



B. In amongst the books
[ She's a different sort of creature when she's off work. At work in the tavern, she's cheerful, outgoing, energetic, engaging. Out on the grounds, she's quieter. Not unfriendly. She doesn't skulk about, exactly. She just moves quietly, doesn't engage with anyone. She walks with purpose, nods only cordially and then moves on.

Her destination is one that would make this whole expedition worthwhile even if the Inquisition comes to naught. They have books. Kitty hasn't been able to find out where they're from - if they were here when Skyhold was uncovered, or if they were brought by the scholars and the mages. But oh, there are so many, and they're just free for anyone's perusal. They're not for the high-caste, they're not for the wealthy, they're not for the laetan and the altus, they're just for everyone.

And so, when she gets to the library, she pulls a book down off the shelf. And for a moment, she just stands, touching its cover, face twisted in far too much emotion for someone staring down at On the Care and Breeding of Messenger Birds. ]

B!

[fullmoon]

[ Just around the corner of the nook next to her, Remus is also getting emotional over books. They're not his books; they're the Circle's, four of them carried out under his arm during the rebellion, and in the long run he doesn't have any right to them. But he's been looking after them for a very long time now--by a nineteen-year-old's standards--and the archivist barely glanced at the titles before waving him toward the shelves. It was terribly anticlimactic.

He slides the one on top onto the shelves, then stalls over the next one. Rubs a finger over the etched lettering on the cover. Adjusts his hold on the lot of them. Leans back the couple of inches required to let him peek around the corner, over--and very down, nearly two feet down--at his overcome neighbor, then further down at the title in her hands. ]

That one should come in handy.

[ The ravens above them are very noisy. ]

[rathercommon]

[ She jumps, a little squeak of surprise loosing itself from her throat. The book nearly tumbles from her hands; she scrambles to gather it up again before it falls, and ends up hugging it to her chest. Her heart's hammering. She'd had a mindset that she was doing something forbidden and illicit; that was the problem. And so she was primed to be afraid, and then when he'd moved so very silently -

Was he actually moving silently, Kitty? Or were you just that absorbed? Honestly, to think that it's your wits that have kept you alive this long...

Her face is pink, shading towards red, as she looks up at the boy. Mage. He's obviously a mage. And, by the faint hand-me-down shabbiness of his robes (to say nothing of his accent), not a mage of the sort she's used to. Fereldan, probably. Not someone to be scared of. Someone to feel compassion towards. ]

Um.

[ She lowers it from her chest to look at the title again. The book is large, and makes her just look smaller. ]

Yeah, I guess - [ She gestures vaguely upwards. Then, recovering a little, she cracks a tentative smile. ] I was just wondering if there wasn't something in here to make them less loud.

[fullmoon]

There might be.

[ He doesn't move closer. The jumping and squeaking probably have little to nothing to do with his Circle robes or the staff peeking over his shoulder, but it's still jumping and squeaking--and blushing--so he stays where he is, towering over her from a slightly-more-than-conversational distance with both hands safely on his books.

But he looks a little entertained, anyway. ]

They're quiet at night. If we blocked the windows during the day we might be able to confuse them. [ The Spymaster would never allow it. ] Or they might go mad.

[rathercommon]

Oh, no. No way.

[ The boy is sort of quiet, and sort of unassuming. His manner is thoughtful. He seems clever. That last part brings Kitty's guard up just a bit, because clever boys are dangerous boys. But the first few things kindle just the slightest curl of fondness, which works to counteract that caution. Enough that she smiles a little more genuinely. ]

First, I am not going to take part in anything that would drive poor innocent creatures crazy. Or anything that would be cruel towards them at all. And second, I'm definitely not doing anything that would make the Spymaster hunt me down and hurl me over the battlements in vengeance.

[fullmoon]

[ He cannot hold both hands up because they are busy with his books, but his wincing smile is one that would accompany the gesture well, if he could make it. ]

You would have my permission to pin it on me, if we did something like that. Which we won't. Because cruelty toward animals.

[ And other reasons. All very valid. Still, he looks up when the birds start squawking particularly loudly--some sort of bird-scuffle from the sound of it--and there's still something considering in the corners of his eyes when he looks back down at her.

His friends might still be up for it.

I'm Remus.

[rathercommon]

Kitty.

[ She shifts the book in her hands, wondering what sorts of things you're supposed to do when meeting a mage. Or a Ferelden. Or just a boy. Where she's from, there were always such clear rules for what you were supposed to do, all of them hinging on your caste versus their caste - a servant knew how she was supposed to greet a noble versus how she was supposed to greet a merchant. It was horrible, but at least it was clear. She's been on the surface three years now and she has yet to really figure out how you're supposed to get acquainted. ]

I have to say, you look like you're still plotting something, Mr. Which-We-Won't.

A

[gatheringstorm]

[Both the promise of something new to drink and charming company lure Korrin over to the Herald's Rest after a time. She'd wanted to go right after hearing that earlier announcement, but someone else needed debris moved and another a wall restored and it kept going from there. Suffice it to say that the qunari woman is a bit on the worn-out side when she finally enters.

That voice getting her attention easily enough, Korrin flashes a smile as she heads toward...Kitty, right. That was the name.]

More than you'll ever know, yes. But I warn you now, if I'm settling down, I might have to be pried off that stool later.

[offortune]

I do, thank you. You are very perceptive.

[ Especially for a person who can barely see over the bar, Rafael would like to say. But unfortunately he learned long ago how to hold comments like that in. Not that he isn't plenty reckless and doesn't have a mouth as big as Scipio's, but he has been nursing this one and only cup of wine he can afford for the better part of half an hour waiting for an opportunity to charm his way into another, and he's not about to mess it up for a weak crack about dwarves. So instead he says nothing, and smiles. Winningly, he thinks. ]

There must have been fierce competition, to be barmaid to the Inquisition. Did you have to win some sort of contest?

[rathercommon]

[ Kitty smiles back at him. This guy...He's not unhandsome, definitely. And there's something to be said for the fact that he starts in with making jokes about being a barmaid, rather than something along the lines of who let you topside? But goodness. That smile is so smug. ]

Oh, yeah. It was pretty terrible. We had to endure someone shouting, Oh, Maker, we're being overrun, someone come quick and help - And then we had to prove our mettle avoiding being trampled in the Inquisition's need to get very drunk very quickly.

[ She laughs cheerfully as she polishes a mug. ]

You soldiers are thirsty.