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

[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. ]