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

[amygdalae]

Don't worry about it. Once there's a proper garden growing, I'm sure the stocks will be better than now.

[There'll still be people, of course - there will always be people - but hopefully by the time said garden is up and running things will have better stabilized too. A bit of a far fetched hope perhaps, but Bruce likes to think it will happen.]

[ancarrow]

[Eirlys hopes he's right, but she's not quite convinced. She's never been in the middle of such a large scale desperate situation, and she's not sure how the supply and demand will match up.]

Were you there? ...At Haven, I mean.

[amygdalae]

I was.

[He joined when the Inquisition first came to the Crossroads; he had heard of them and what they were trying to do, and it just felt--right, to join. To try and do his part to help. And maybe somehow, that could take off some of the guilt on his shoulders.

(Nothing ever would, not really.)

But this wasn't the time for things like that. He looks at Eirlys and gives a small smile, asking gently:] Were you there too?

[ancarrow]

[She shakes her head, part of her wishing she had been and that she doesn't really have the same right to be here having not witnessed it first hand, even though she knows she wouldn't have handled it well.]

I was making my way there, but I didn't quite make it in time.

[amygdalae]

It was probably for the best that you didn't.

[She escaped a good deal of danger, considering everything. Haven was never the best place to hold so many people, but there hadn't been much of a choice then.]

[ancarrow]

Probably. [She agrees rather grimly, thinking of the multitude of dead there, including the Herald herself, the symbol they were supposedly rallying around. She knows she wouldn't have been able to make any difference, that she'd likely end up just another casualty.] Though I do think it gives me a poorer insight overall.

[amygdalae]

It doesn't matter. Right now we're all doing out best to aim for the same thing.

[That thing being making Thedas normal again however they can help in that. It's the most important thing for them.]

[ancarrow]

You're right. [She's been trying to tell herself that, but it means more to hear it from someone else.] We need to think about what's best going forward. And I'm sure that will include a lot more wounded, before things are done.

[amygdalae]

[Bruce nods. There will always be injured people, and more so of them here as more people continue to come here. They'll never be out of a job, honestly.]

So let's just do our best doing what we've come here to do. I'm sure the rest will fall into place, in time.