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

"Ah, you've joined from your alienage? Good for you, it is no small thing to leave, let alone to travel so far." Especially with what he recalls of the alienage elves in Fereldan. Good people, hard working people but- wary. Anxious. Begrudgingly content with their lot in life. To strive for something more wasn't exactly encouraged and the thought of leaving? "You are incredibly brave to come- and yes! I am Zevran Arainai or Antiva City."

No Dalish he. Nor alienage elf but- his circumstances were different.

"Sort of. I was already in the area -- that is, my employer and I came to sell potions to the Conclave." Among other things. She tries to shrug off being thought of as brave, but she's secretly proud of it even if she feels she's done nothing to deserve it. "It was a choice between joining up or trying to get back to Gwaren alone, and I fear I'd never make it back alive."

"Antiva!" It was a place she'd only heard of a handful of times, and she looks at him with a new curiosity. "I didn't think you'd be Dalish - you don't have those odd marks on your face like they do." Still, as amazing as it was to find an elf from so far away, she couldn't help feeling a little disappointed that she was still the only elf who'd lived in an alienage that she'd come across yet, wanting desperately for some common experience with someone.

"I also know the joy that is a proper pair of boots and would rather ride a horse than a halla." Horses he understood. Halla are...strange. Soothing and calm, yes, but strange. "Then you've skill with making potions and poultices? Ah, good. The Inquisition will likely need your talented hands a great deal in the time to come."

And what lovely, talented hands they are, fair and fine and delicate. Fitting for someone sequestered in the garden.

"I certainly hope so," Eirlys agrees. "It feels nice to be doing something worthwhile." She rises, brushing the soil from her skirts. "How about you? What brings an elf all the way from Antiva? Surely the holes in the sky haven't spread that far."

"The holes, no, but word of them? Certainly. I like Antiva as it is, without the holes in the sky, the demons, and the war, and in the interest of making certain it does not spread so far? I came here. Besides. I have been on a ride such as this before. It feels only just that I offer my experiences." Such as they are.

"Precious few have the experience to offer," she agrees, frowning a little in sympathy that he'd had to endure something so huge before, even if he seems like someone who thrives on the chaos and adventure of it. "The Inquisition must be very grateful for your help."

"At the moment I feel as though they are more grateful to the healers. With all the wounded that continue to pour in, the ill? You've far more work ahead of you than the rest of us." And what lovely hands would be tending to them too.

Eirlys shrugs modestly, hoping to conceal somewhat the apprehension she feels at the prospect of the continuing flood of wounded. She wondered how many it would take to overwhelm them. She'd helped manage epidemics in the alienage in the past, but it was always a matter of time before the disease had burned itself out. A crisis like this, however, could continue indefinitely.

"I'll do what little I can to stem the tide. You though, you could help put a stop to it altogether."

"And afterward it is to your tender mercies I shall be left." No warrior is worth anything without a healer to put them back together afterward. Those that do their work without magic have his admiration all the more. "So I suppose we shall be sing much of one another."

"I can't say I'm entirely disappointed with the idea." She offers a shy but pleased smile up at him.

"I'll be certain to ask for you by name at the healing tents. 'Who is this handsome elf covered in blood?' 'ah, it is Zevran, send for Eirlys!'" So shy and so sweet. It'd be rude not to encourage her smile.

"Just as long as you'll promise to come and see me when you're not covered in blood, too." She desperately wanted to connect with the other elves here, and the Dalish kind of intimidated her.

"For you, Bella? I will come as often as you will have me." The innuendo, so ripe, so saucy. So emphasized by a waggle of his brow and curl of his smile.

Skyhold

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