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it takes strength to live this way
WHO: Iron Bull and OPEN
WHAT: General summary of events during the end of the month. Drinking, fighting, more drinking, maybe a little flirting.
WHEN: Mid-to-late Wintermarch
WHERE: All over the damn place. Mostly the tavern and sparring ring, though.
NOTES: n/a
WHAT: General summary of events during the end of the month. Drinking, fighting, more drinking, maybe a little flirting.
WHEN: Mid-to-late Wintermarch
WHERE: All over the damn place. Mostly the tavern and sparring ring, though.
NOTES: n/a
He was starting to feel a little restless. By now, the boss would have taken them all out on some exploit or another, and even if he was glad to be at Skyhold again? Sitting idle could grate on the nerves a bit.
The best way to counter that seemed to be throwing down in the training ring just outside the tavern, taking on all comers as well as training those that seemed of a mind to ask. Cullen had most of his people following their own regime, but if they wanted a swing at something else? He wouldn’t refuse them. Not everyone fought like a templar.
The rest of the time, Bull made himself easy to find. Easy to avoid, too, if that was the preference of some. And he knew it was, from the glimpsed he’d gotten of the Vashoth inside the keep. But it was no hardship holding court inside the comfort of the tavern, indulging heavily in drinks and working his way down the menu of available meals and snacks.
It was business as usual, for the most part. Even if he did feel a little more restless than usual. Had to find a way to get out, hit something that really had it coming.
Or find someone to pass the evening with. That might help.
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Tucked off to one side far from where the visiting nobility might keep their rooms. It honestly isn't meant for how many live there but as they are rarely all in attendance save for sleeping? It works out. Adelaide unlocks it and snorts a faint laugh as she holds the door open for Bull. "Apparently they saw fit to clean after lessons. I'll have to thank them."
The usual sprawl of books, scrolls, shoes, cloaks, and other personal effects have been stacked and tucked neatly along the wall- the crate Bull had helped open set up as a storage/seating area with roughly stitched cushions on top and braced along the wall. To the far end? An actual bed- modest but comfortable enough, and a desk overflowing with papers and books. Henri's mouse was even in it's little wooden cage, fast asleep.
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Everything else seems to match what he'd have expected. Piles of paperwork, books and scrolls, a little chunk of the tower resettled in another stone enclosure. You could take the mage out of the Circle...
Consequentially, he doesn't do a lot of poking around, even if there's the odd curious look at one thing or another. He's here for a reason, after all. "Don't suppose you have any oil? Might make it easier," he queries after a moment, lifting one hand and wiggling calloused fingers in her direction.
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Oil, though- she frowns for a moment before moving to a shelf, fingers trailing along vials and bottles and jars she uses most often for poultices or salves. Someone's been putting things up in the wrong place, she mutters under her breath in Orlesian before she tracks down the bottle in question. "Here, will this suffice?"
Right. Oil for the skin. She considers her options for a moment before setting aside her concerns and unlacing her kirtle. Any hesitance is more on trying to find somewhere to fold it for the moment than any real trepidation.
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He stays at arm's length while she peels herself out of her layers, gaze sweeping over the multitude of things just lying out and about. Magical crap, most of it. Not much use to anyone save a mage, though he's less wary of magic now than he had once been. At least in theory.
But he's not offering this to a mage. He's offering a little comfort to a hard-working woman sorely in need of it. His gaze drops to the bottle, turning it over in his hands before uncorking it.
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Not the only cause.
She stretches out on her stomach on the bed, head tucked to one side to watch him curiously. Potions, poultices, magical crap, the odd arcane tome, and a myriad of essays on the nature of magic.
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But warm? Yeah. That first press of warm palms to the middle of her back ought to ease some of that tension, before he starts working his way up. A lot of tension knots back here around her shoulders and just below. Seems a good place to start.
"Orlesian Circles come with massage therapy? I might have guessed you'd had this done before," he rumbles, faintly amused.
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Too many nights hunched over a desk.
"Anything that involved mages in various states of undress around one another was either strictly chaperoned by the templars- or not permitted. You can imagine how relaxing this might be with a templar hovering in the far corner, glaring, one hand on their sword all the while." Not terribly relaxing at all. Far from the moment now- there's a slight hiss as he digs into something giving under that first press before she sighs into her arms.
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"Wouldn't be off-putting for some. But you don't really strike me as an exhibitionist." Even if she is clearly comfortable in her own skin, or just comfortable with him. Some degree of one and the other combined, likely.
The heel of his palm turned to rub along either side of her spine, rolling along the curve of her back, as Adelaide starts to unwind a fraction at a time.
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That hasn't been relevant for the better part of two years. Everyone too stressed, too afraid, too tense. Adelaide hisses softly under the press of Bull's hands, knots slowly winding down into nothing.
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"People need contact. Affection. Doesn't have to be sex, necessarily, but it's not something people live without. Not without going a little screwy. You ever meet a sane hermit before?"
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"Affection was permitted- if not something of a requirement with how close our quarters were as apprentices. We would use the excuse of 'it's cold' to huddle in the same bed when it was never a question of temperature."
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One joint in her neck after another, he works his way up and down again. The movement is always measured, careful, considering the strength in those hands.
"It's a hard life. Anyone who manages to live it well has my respect."
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Little by little, she melts, voice drifting deeper, warmer. Losing the clipped edges. "You are one of the few that see it thus. Most prefer we remain there."
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He knows what comes when mages are free to do as they like. It's all well and good until someone decides blood magic or demon-binding is the way to go, and then it's chaos for everyone. He's seen mages rule, knows what comes of it.
But she deserves her dreams. Here, this is a chance for her to unwind. Unburden. And he's yet to turn down an opportunity to know someone's opinions, as he ekes out those most stubborn of knots still holding fast.
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This is Bull...even if it would be a very different tack than what most demons take with her.
"The impossible, honestly. People to stop killing one another over differences of opinion. Failing that? Somewhere we might learn safely without fear of death or possession or tranquility being forced upon us for failure. A means to prevent possession, a way to, perhaps, even remove someone's magic without removing their soul if they so wished." To be brought into this as a child and have to face such a thing- were there an option when she was young to not, to give it away and live normally? She would have taken it. "While I am wishing for the impossible a few hours more in the day so I might complete my work would be wonderful."
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Bull grunts, before patting her arm gently, gesturing quietly for her to stretch it outward before he continued. The strain would travel downward, affect the flow of blood her hands. Not the thing you need cramping up when you worked with herbs or staves.
"Someone works that hard, they're usually trying to keep their focus sharp. Avoid letting their mind drift. You been sleeping alright?"
hover for translation
She moves her arm as bid, blinking a bit at the pressure- and the question. "As well as I ever do. You are aware of the difficulty most mages have with demons, yes? For one with my specialty it is doubly difficult."
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He doesn't understand much of magic, no more than he needs to. But the prospect of demons gives him the willies, there's no doubt about that. Something that can't be overpowered once it gets inside your head...and to think, there are mages that willingly partner with them.
Nope. Bad idea all around. Going to keep kneading away, working out the joints of her fingers, one by one.
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"Imagine a house with no windows with one thickly bolted door. For the average person that is not a mage- thus is their presence in the fade as they dream. Demons are aware but cannot enter easily." A familiar enough lecture, and her voice does slip into a cadence implying it is a lecture. An educator at work using allegory to explain something thoroughly abstract.
It is not the neatest metaphor nor the most precise, but it works well enough for breaking it down to layman's terms. "Mages have windows- some mages have smaller ones, some mages have larger ones- and is it not all the more tempting to break into a house and take what is inside if you can see what it is you will be taking? The door is still bolted- perhaps even all the more so than someone else- but they can see inside, they can plan how they will attempt to charm their way in. Or they can break a window."
She blinks, fingers curling against his. "Spirit healers live in glass houses with glass doors. We call Spirits to work with us, invite them to the porch but not inside. The glass is thicker, stronger than the average mage for our training but...demons see. They wander, wonder. They come up for a chat much like a neighbor. One can add windows or walls of glass if they so choose this path of study, but you cannot ever go back to a wooden house with the one window ever again."