faderift | Skyhold

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

What's your name?

I'm Taashath. [He smiles.] You?

Pel.

Heh. That's cute.

[Not a word she hears often used to describe her. It makes her smile.]

That's probably what my parents were thinking. It doesn't mean anything in elven. My brother's name is like that, too. Kim.

[It was an easy name to read on her lips. Pell. Simple and sweet.

It was a bit odd that it didn't actually mean, anything, however. For qunari, the meaning was the whole point of the name they were called.]

Huh. Short and easy.

Serviceable and practical that way. I rather like it. Does Taashath mean anything?

True.

[He pauses a bit and rubs the back of his neck.]

It means 'calm'.

Is that a description, or an aspiration?

[It's a pretty nonserious question.]

An aspiration, and a reminder.

[Not a beast.]

Lot of us Tal-Vashoth go mad when we leave the Qun. I try to remember not not be that kind.

[Again.]

[Those words mean nothing to Pel.]

Tal-Vashoth? [She sits on the edge of the well and looks up at him, two feet above her.]

[Right. Forest child.]

A qunari who left the Qun. Like a Dalish who decided they didn't believe in Dalish gods and left their clan.

More like a dwarf coming to the surface. [She has encountered a few surface dwarves. Traders.] Our gods left us a long time ago. But I think I see. What makes a qunari leave the qun?

That's a better analogy.

[He shrugs a bit, however.]

It's different for different people. Sometimes the philosophy just doesn't agree with you.

Edited 2015-10-19 18:55 (UTC)

[She nods, recognizing the boundary and steering away from it.]

Why've you come to the Inquisition? I mean--what will you do here?

Edited 2015-10-19 19:16 (UTC)

I technically didn't join. I came here as a bodyguard for a noble, but he left with an Inquisition escort and stranded me here.

[He shrugs, large shoulders rolling and making the painted vitaar stretch and crack. It was getting old and flaky.]

So I'm just hanging out until I can get a new contract.

[Something gets a little colder in her. She breaks eye contact and looks at her hands, picking at the chapped parts. Should have known better than to start getting attached.]

I imagine they'd contract you here, [she says idly, without getting her hopes up.]

Careful. You're gonna get those hands infected. Put some ram fat on them.

[Since she's looking down he can't read her lips, so the last part is not replied to.]

[She looks up at him, faintly irritated and stern even as she is surprised by his concern.]

Did you hear me? [A matter of wondering if he was willfully ignoring her, or if she mumbled without hearing herself do it, rather than suspecting he is actually deaf.]

Edited 2015-10-20 00:13 (UTC)

No. [He admits, a wry smile on his lips.] I can't hear at all.

[Blink. Blink. A dubious look.]

Of course you can't. I imagined our entire conversation.

Edited 2015-10-20 00:24 (UTC)

[Spicy little thing.]

I'm reading your lips. If you look down like that, I can't.

[She stares for a bit, then glances away, not wanting to be completely savage in her manners. After a moment, she has...a problem with one corner of her mouth.]

Can you do that from across a room? Read someone's lips from far enough away that they wouldn't be suspicious?

[He catches most of that and chuckles.]

I can, as long as I can see their lips.

[A wicked grin.]

Elgar'nan. If you told that to the Inquisition, they'd pay you better than a lord.

Edited 2015-10-20 00:35 (UTC)

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