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

[theonly]

[ Normally, he would give a curt nod before leaving.

It is the question that brings him enough pause that he rolls his eyes up to the ceiling. He cannot say that he is too busy and cannot continue a conversation due to the fact that he came to see her. There is a sigh before he grabs a chair to sit down in because the question is worth an answer. ]

Surprising. The people do not appear as I thought that they would, but you said as much. I had thought it was from rose-tinted glasses that you saw them, but they do not appear as downtrodden as I would have expected. Still, there are parts that I find wanting.

[ungovernable]

( well, he could, but it would be terribly rude. positively uncalled for behaviour on his part. benevenuta would be less surprised at that than at being sought out purely to thank her for her assistance, in all likelihood; briskly achieving his aim and then taking his leave would seem quite in the vein of what so far she knows of him.

she has no objection to good manners nailing his feet to the floor a while, however. nor does she take offense when he speaks so candidly of how he'd assessed her outlook - lets it pass with only a twitch of her lips that isn't quite a smile. )

I confess myself not surprised, ( with a gentle hint of drollery. ) What would you change?

[theonly]

The Templars because there were those that were once under my command. It's good they are teaching those who are willing how to fight, but it is not enough. There are those that see the conflict our doing as much as the mages.

[ He rests his elbow on the table as he leans forward to hold his head in his hands. Annoyed. Just annoyed. ] So they would sit in their little camps teaching people how to swing a sword like that is all that we know how to do. We should do more than just the training. More assisting and remembering what our duties are rather than constantly repeating to ourselves that we are right.

[ If he had the authority, he would beat their heads in first before anything else. ] They are the problem that needs to be handled first, then the situation with the mages can be addressed. But I have no authority to do so and would not wish for people to think I am trying to build the old Order here. [ Oh, but he has ideas. So he leans back in his chair as he makes a gesture toward the woman before him. ] And you have some ideas of how to change things, too?

[ungovernable]

( benevenuta holds her peace on where she stands with regard to the blame game; she can draw her own conclusions from the way he phrases what he says, if there'd been any doubt left. for all her interest in drawing information out of others with her amiable curiosity and intelligent lines of questioning, she is much less forthcoming; she volunteers enough, but not as much. )

So long as we are Templars and mages and everyone else, ( thoughtfully, tapping her fingers lightly against the page under her hands, ) we shall struggle to achieve our ends. That is what I see, but I see a great deal of potential for us to be as we say we are.

( they will achieve a great deal more if they are the inquisition, but it's as herding cats and maker knows that benevenuta is hardly innocent of factionism for all that she offers up her high-minded ideals to be examined and speaks so earnestly of what she dreams for their futures. she is nevarran, mortalitasi, and her mother's daughter; it is the last that brought her to the inquisition. she believes (most) of what she says, but she is ayse thevenet's creature before all else. )

I worry that that potential is not to be realised so long as we sit in our corners and spite one another. But I don't draw conclusions quickly - things are done one way in Nevarra. I would better learn the ways of the people here before I presume my hand a guiding one.

( modest; calculating. she is watching them all very closely. )

[theonly]

No, it will not be. The Templar need to remember that they are not of flesh and bone. They are not men or women. What our own wants, our own wishes ... they are nothing in the scheme of what the realm requires of us. [ Why is it that so many forget? They are given a small taste of power and forget themselves to all that they have learned through their days, through their training. Weakness needs to be torn out of them and bring them back to as they should be. ]

They are not separate from the people, but the mages may have to be. There are those that are fearful of them. That is the way of things in Ferelden. There have been many a time when Templars had to stop a mob from killing an innocent child mage. We are packed in here and I would rather not see what destruction would come if the people were to become so dull and stupid. [ Because killing a violent mob would not be looked fondly on regardless of the reason. ]

The separation is born of fear and stupidity. I can do what I can to gather mine own to behave and remember themselves, but the rest is something that will be difficult. But it needs to be looked upon as much as the reconstruction of Skyhold. And it seems as though we are agreed on that much, Lady Benevenuta. With eyes from another country, you'll be able to see the decay easier. [ Stannis leans back in the chair, folding his hands. ]

The singing of the Chant of Light and the survival of the people but not the Herald after Haven ... it is not yet enough to bring everyone together. Something has to be done soon or the tension may very well turn this place to a battlefield. [ He always has a cheerful and positive view on how things will play out. He has no real basis, but feels it in his bones, because he cannot trust that the people -- mage, Templar, and common -- to hold together. ]

[ungovernable]

It is my fear, ( she admits, of his last remark. she's reluctant to either agree that the solution is sequestering mages - she's hardly going to argue for the curtailing of her own freedoms, freedoms that in nevarra city she has been long accustomed to and taken for granted - or engage him in a spirited debate on the subject when he could so easily brush aside her points as different in nevarra.

it is. obviously.

she sees no reason it must be this way here, if it can be different there. but if she is to argue a point, she is to do so with an educated voice, and that, too, is what she speaks of when she demurs and claims herself an observer for now. there is a great deal to observe, and she will learn it. )

Whispers become shouts with only a little encouragement.

[theonly]

So, they do.

[ Is that not what happened with the rebellion? With all the Circles falling to chaos?

There are not light conversations with him. There are rarely ever any social, kind visits. Even those that come to him with a friendly smile usually leave with a tired expression. And yet he feels little shame in it, because the world does not need soft Knight-Commanders. ]

And so we are agreed on the state of things as they are now. Something must be done about them as the longer that they remain ... the louder those whispers could come to be. [ A beat. ] And when that happens, all the trouble you have gone to note down all these books will be for nothing.

[ungovernable]

If that happens, the work I will have done here will have still been done in good faith, ( she says-- it is a rare day that she considers something wasted simply because it doesn't go to plan.

it's already proven quite useful, giving her somewhere central to establish herself and from there observe those who come and go, who wish to speak with her and who don't. to coax more words out of stannis by agreeing with just enough of what he says to keep him forthcoming.

she thinks she will have few regrets about her own conduct, if this experiment of inquisition proves a harsh lesson. )

I hear separation in your speech, my lord, but we speak frankly here together, though I am sure you cannot consider me of your own. I call that a beginning. An example, for others to follow.

[theonly]

I already stated as much. You are of your own country and any rule that I place on you is not within my duties. I warned you of those that would feel different, but it seems as though the advisers of this Inquisition will back you should you feel cornered.

[ He gives her an almost annoyed look. ] Another said the same about me. There is a separation in what I say. I wonder what that separation is. [ Stannis does speak frank and always will. It is what most people find reason to dislike him. ] And others can only follow so long as they remember it is the realm before all else.

[ungovernable]

( benevenuta responds to that annoyance with patience; a hint of a smile, more wry than anything else: ) Yes, my lord, you have said so, and that you have said so and yet we can sit here and speak with one another without difficulty is a promising thing in a place where it is not something to be taken for granted.

I do not take it for granted. On the contrary; I think it something worth cultivating, to show that it can be done, and that that separation is the way things are but perhaps not the way things need to be.

You are a difficult man to dismiss as soft-hearted. ( there's a bit of a gentle tease in that, a bit of lightness as she makes her broader point-- ) So the example you set carries weight someone else's may not, for that. You are not being kind to me because your nature is a kind one; you meet with me respectfully as I meet you the same way.

I have no doubt you'd make your feelings quite plain if you felt I did not deserve it.

[theonly]

You're right. I would let you know if you earned my displeasure or disappointment.

[ But after he speaks, Stannis goes quiet for a time. His Orlesian acquaintance, Sauvterre, has been of the few who compliments him without adding needless fluff to his character. Fluff that does not exist. He looks away at the books that surround them. ]

You have a lot of work ahead of you with all of these volumes. I think that there is an example there to see the good will in it if it turns to be for naught. At the very least, you do it not alone and the people remember the importance of our history even if our present is in turmoil. [ A deep breath in and a not-quite-sigh. ]