faderift | Skyhold

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.

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He feels it, soft, warm, comforting, but it is a light and fleeting thing. He doesn't comment on it. He's already asking her for too much already; he cannot ask for more. "Thank you."

Pulling his hands away he looks at Lady LeBlanc tiredly. "It feels good to know I will have direction again."

"I am glad there is someone here I may teach. None of the others I've brought with me hear them and we've lost so many- it's a rare talent. I'd given up hope of finding someone else that could learn." Hope is so small and fragile a thing- yet here it is. Small and glimmering, but something.

"...If you are tired there is an extra bedroll inside." Sleep might come easier with the warmth and breath of other mages curled close.

There is genuine shock at the offer, his head turning just a bit to look at the door once more. He's been meeting a lot of people lately, but there is still a certainly loneliness that plagues him regardless how many surround him. The offer makes his chest feel a little tight and he blinks when he feels a slight sting to his eyes.

He pressed it back. For now.

Turning to look at the woman next to him he shakes his head kindly. "I can't ask more from you tonight. It also might startle the others." He gives a short laugh. "I have a place to sleep. I'll return to it soon. Or perhaps once you trade shifts."

"It is no burden, Sam, and it is a standing offer." Growing up in circles made social creatures of Mages. There wasn't always room for them to sleep privately- having one for her charges to share, one for her to curl in come the predawn knowing that everyone is accounted for, safe, and rested? It's done wonders for what little sleep she's managed to hold for herself.

Sam may not have come from their circle, may not have lived what they lived- but he was a mage. And that made him one of hers by default. "It will be an hour or so yet. If you wish to sit up we could work on a focus drill? Something to get you started."

Sam is prepared to decline again if she presses, but she doesn't - it's a standing offer. She does press him for something else though, and this one is harder to even consider declining. A drill, huh?

He tilts his head like he often does when curious, drawing up his legs so that he can rotate on his spot. Crossing his legs and leaning forward, he smiles. "That sounds well enough. Hopefully I'm not that out of practice."

"It speaks nothing ill of you if that is the case. We are all of us a little out of practice." A lack of somewhere safe to teach, to learn- that would make such lessons and drills difficult. Combine that with the rifts and the war and the demons...

She sets it aside and turns to face him properly, snapping her fingers. Ice is what she knows best and uses the most, but any mage might summon a small flame. It hovers over her fingertips as though from the edge of a candle. "Create a barrier around the flame to snuff it out."

Sam watches with interest to see what kind of lesson this is going to be. At seeing the flame he's half expecting that the other mage is going to ask him to copy her. She doesn't.

Put a barrier around the flame? Well that he's been practicing on.

For a moment he shifts around to get more comfortable, suddenly feeling nervous. He's done this hundreds of times, but with knowing he's being tested? He doesn't feel like Lady LeBlanc will be harsh on him nor judgmental, but it's been a while since he's felt the need to impress a mentor.

Raising a hand, his fingers spread wide, he concentrates on the flame. He sighs. The flame flickers for a moment as the air shifts around it, a faint blue sphere forming. The flame dances as it uses up the rest of the air in the sphere before disappearing into smoke.

Her expression betrays nothing, no impatience, no indication as to how she expects it to be done, merely that it should be done and Sam may do it in his own time. That it's done swiftly and neatly brings a slight smile to her face, though they are not finished just yet.

"Hold the smoke. When you release it, attempt to relight the flame." Ash and cinder should catch as easily as they would from relighting a wick, the thin filament she'd held would serve well. Ice has ever been her stongest element, fire needs...a little help. Thus is how she and her mentor began, passing and catching and killing the flame, bringing it back.

Edited 2015-10-21 07:55 (UTC)

Sam nods, keeping his eyes on the barrier as LeBlanc gives him instructions. Hold the smoke. Alright. Release it - okay - and relight the flame. O-wait. What?

Sam falters at that and closes up the barrier again. Looking now he raises his brows at the other mage. Alright that was new. "So this is a practice of... using two elements at once... or switching them in the blink of an eye?"

"Multitasking. Handling two elements at once and being able to swap as needed requires focus and precision. So too shall healing while you channel a spirit's power as your own, for what you can do with your own energy and what should be done with the spirit's may vary. Use too much of yourself and it's been inefficient. Use too much of the spirit's and you can do less for having exhausted them. Knowing when and how to switch is vital- the best approximation is playing with elements. Precision. Timing." At least that is how she was taught. "Would you like to try again?"

That made... sense. It was a different way of learning, but he supposed that without his own spirit companion to test it with, this was the closest her would get. "I'd like to try again," he says with determination.

He still has the smoke trapped in the barrier, and for a moment he simply watches it swirl around. Sam looks to his other hand, flexes it, then holds it up next to his other hand. Slowly he can feel the barrier thin.

He is more used to putting up passive barriers rather than controlling them once they are put up. It opens up possibilities. It takes a bit more concentration to peel a hole into the barrier, but eventually smoke soon starts to leave through the top.

But as soon as he lights the wick the barrier disappears. Sam gives a huff at that, with a thoughtful frown. "Much harder than I thought."

"Good. Go ahead." It is a subtle thing to manage- one that comes with practice. But the skill is there, she can see. Different techniques than she herself had been taught but that came from being raised in a different circle. Perhaps there are some tricks he knew that might help her students as well.

Thinning the barrier as much as he had, as quickly? Has her smiling in genuine pleasure- in pride. A difficult task that he grasps the nuances of early. His teachers in his Circle would be proud.

"It is, to quote Roul, a bit of a bitch." But in time with repetition, feeling out his own magics for the barrier? He would get it. She's confident. "A way to make it easier at the start is to have a larger barrier around the flame."

"Ha-!" Sam slaps a hand over his mouth before his laughter could fill the hall, but his shoulders shake all the same. He had not been expecting the refined woman to suddenly swear.

It takes a little time before he feels comfortable to pull his hand away, his bottom lip hiding in his mouth as he tried to contain himself. Probably best to just move on. "L-larger - heh - barrier... hm... alright."

Giving his knuckles a crack, Sam holds his hands up again to repeat the exercise. As suggested he makes a larger barrier and waits for the flame to go out.

Adelaide raises her brows in turn, the cut of her smile almost playful in the dim light. A mentor is a marvel, she remembers- but a mentor must also be human. Swearing is but one way of humanizing herself to her students. And- it's fun. A little rebellion against the strict code of the Circle and of her family before.

"It will take longer for the flame to go out, but you will have more time when it comes to change from Spirit to Flame and back again." Getting the timing down took practice and focus- both an excellent way to avoid not being able to sleep.

Sam nodded, watching as once more the flame burnt out and smoke filled the sphere. Taking a deep breath he slowly opened the barrier, and breathed out slowly in time with the smoke escaping. Before the last curls of smoke left the flame came back to life.

There was a smile on his face at seeing the flame reaching out through the barrier, and he looked up at Lady LeBlanc curiously. "Was that correct?"

"That is exactly it." Softly as to not bother any she applauds- it is no simple thing. Of course the next part is- well. "Attempt to hold your focus on the flame and the barrier as you pass it to me. I shall do as you did, extinguish the flame, catch the smoke, light it once more and pass it to you. Back and forth, yes?"

More advanced versions of this drill include melding magics on the barrier and removing one at one moment and doubling up the bubble of smoke and fire. But, baby steps.

"I'm not going to say 'piece of cake', but it sounds simple... enough." Simple in theory but harder to do. It takes a bit more concentration to pass the flame while maintaining the barrier semi-around it. He manages though with slow movements and stiff wrists.

"Have you tried adding a third element to this exercise?" Not that he wants to try it now, but he is curious.

Accustomed to this drill, Adele's motions and recovery of the flame and barrier is fluid. Seamless. The dull glow of her barrier is a paler blue than Sam's and once it's sealed, she nods for him to release his grip on the flame. "During one particularly enterprising evening, my roommate and I got up to five. The migraines we had the morning after were not worth the bragging rights, not in the slightest."

"Five?" he squeaks as he lets go of the flame. He did not want to try this drill with that many elements... but to know that many? Well that would be something. He tilts his head as he glances down between their hands. "Am I... supposed to cancel out my barrier when you put up yours or am I supposed to keep it there?"

"Cancel it out for now. Letting it remain is a few steps ahead." Layering it like an onion and working in tandem with the other mage as you would with your spirit, another valuable lesson but not one that needs teaching so soon. Walk before one can run, and crawl before one tries to walk. "I cannot remember what it was that compelled us to do so- perhaps someone had said three was as much as we could? It was some time ago."

"You sound like a very competitive woman." His barrier goes down and a sigh accompanies it. Without having to concentrate on the magic Sam cannot help but blink a few times as a wave of tiredness washes over him.

The yawn that follows is quick and Sam is quick to put a fist in front of it. "Pardon me."

"As a child, before the Circle, I had to be. Six older sisters- to get any manner of attention I needed to be good at something." Sadly it wasn't anything her mother found terribly useful. "I suppose the habit stuck."

Ah, and there it was. Adelaide may or may not have planned on this. She extinguishes the flame and dissolves the barrier by closing her palm over them.

"Go to bed, Sam. And no walking back to wherever it is you bunk, not tonight. You'll walk right off a cliff like this."

"I haven't walked off a cliff." Tripped down and up stairs. Fallen into bushes. Almost went over a wall... "Yet." He says that last part a bit quieter.

He looks at the door then back, his jaw clenched a bit as he thinks about declining again. "I take up a lot of room."

Again she reaches out- less hesitant this time, to rest her hands on top of his. A simple thing, touch, but it can be grounding. "We have space."

For him in the room, in their lessons, in their lives. They were a small group, yes, and afraid of what may happen- but never would they turn another mage away. Never would Adelaide leave someone that had a need she might fill.

Her hands are smaller than his, but the warmth they give off is immense. It is something he doesn't get to feel often. That's what seems to finally break him down and he exhales slowly because of it. "... Alright."

He's a bit reluctant to pull his hands away, but he does in order to help himself to his feet. There's a groan then at feeling how long they had been sitting on the floor.

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fleurdesel - 2015-10-21 10:16 (UTC) - Expand

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el_tybs - 2015-10-21 10:22 (UTC) - Expand

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