I thought that I've been hurt before.

[quietblade]

WHO: Taas + Open
WHAT: Catch-all for February
WHEN: After his return from the Crow event and the rest of the month.
WHERE: Mostly Skyhold, Herald's Rest
NOTES: CR for new and old characters alike!

Tavern

It was usually early in the evening when Taashath lumbered towards the tavern. He usually had an ale or two, maybe something to eat and chatting with friends and newcomers alike. After the rescue of Zevran in Antiva, however, he was drinking more, eating less and rarely talking to people.

He had lost control, forgotten his name, tried to kill a member of the Inquisition, no matter how loaded the issue of a Ben-Hassrath was. He wasn't safe when his rage took over like that... and the possibility of hurting someone he cared about was eating him up inside.

Was he squandering everything Yshae taught him by trying to be a hero?

It was easier to just drink and forget.

Courtyard

Taas was a common sight in the courtyard, talking with people, maintaining his weapons somewhere in the rare sunlight or even chopping a training dummy to pieces now and then. He had stopped offering to spar with people, however, just smiling and shaking his head each time someone asked for a hand or when he saw someone struggling with their guard.

Instead he spent a lot of time going over breathing techniques and different means of relaxing, loosening himself from all the madness etched into his bones. He was Taashath.

It became like a mantra to him. He could push through this.

Wildcard

Hit me!

Comments

[foxsays]

“It’s more boring for us. No mages unless you count someone who can do sleight of hand so fast you’d swear it was magic. And not warriors. Not like you for instance. Everyone in Castileos? Rogue.” Maybe Zimevur would have warriors but that was so long ago she doesn’t really think it would count now. The last war was won on the ocean, not the land, a lesson everyone remembers well and so lightly armoured and free to move quickly from ship to ship is the motto of the day.

“I am aware of those things, we have some in my country, and no shortage of children fleeing one land in particular, stowing away on ships. Not the slavery, but the hunger and the illness that comes when there isn’t enough food.” Live in a building of artists without patrons and you realise how quickly sickness spreads if they’re not eating, if she could get at least one good meal in them a day it was a victory. “Stealing was a game for me, I’m very good at it, but what I got for my thefts fed far more than just myself.

“But you said you liked protecting the other children, or is that simply standing between them and the world so they won’t have to know the fear first?”

[quietblade]

"A place with nothing but rogues sounds both interesting and dangerous," Taas admits with a smile. Kind of like Zevran, he supposed. He has a feeling they would get along.

Worlds were different, thought, even in small things, and worlds became even more different if you saw them from perspectives you've never lived. The Qun was foreign to her as her Rifter world was to him.

"Nah, I was mostly a big burly kid who broke up the fights and even let other kids hit me when they were angry. Or hide them if they had been bad and Tama was looking to punish them for it."

[foxsays]

"Isn't everywhere worth going like that? Duels in the street drawing a crowd, thieves that take pride in opening every sort of lock, whores that can read a person with one look and a touch; life is never dull, each day is a lesson." Not that all duels get to the fighting, there's a long practice of posturing, of walking up and down to assess yourself and put on a show. A duel can easily be settled with words and simply affirming reputation but it all sounds more dangerous and romantic if she paints it this way. Zevran would know just how many get settled rather more privately too.

"I don't know why but I didn't think you would fight. I thought 'if there is one place where there are well-behaved little boys and girls, it will be this place, in this world'. So Tamas are like mothers in that, they must have loved having someone big to hide behind then, I would have given much for that." She had a fox and he was better at looking very sweet and sad with his big black shiny eyes and tail tucked between his legs compared to her.

[quietblade]

"Sounds like it could be a good life in a place like that," Taas says with a thoughtful look. He was surrounding himself and his bed with rogues already, so why not a city full of them? Going after Zevran had left a bad taste in his mouth about Antiva, though.

One flesh beast was too many.

"...they sure did like having me to hide behind. Tama always chewed me out about it, but she smiled a lot, too. Maybe she was proud of me." Not as much now, he imagined.

[foxsays]

"Beautiful women, handsome men, a place that never really sleeps and surrounded by the bluest waters you'll ever see. Like Antiva but we have no Crows, there isn't death around every corner unless you fancy having a duel in them and I wouldn't recommend, we have some promenades and bridges for that, or the docks and the sands." It's not quite the accurate picture, not when the love of the sea goes so deep in them but it's accurate enough, what she paints, and she loves her home, she misses it dearly.

Skyhold doesn't even have a brothel, which, when you look at it, is a very friendly and very fun sort of flesh beast.

"Well it means you're loyal, that you're brave. It's a mistake too but I used to know plenty of children who would tell the guard on you, fellow thieves just like me, some of them younger despite all of us having our own little crews. She must still be proud of you when you're here and doing good and selfless work - no one asked any of us to go to Antiva or to see even a half of what we've seen with the Inquisition, yet here we all are."

[quietblade]

Her description is so vivid that he wishes her could hear waves. He had always enjoyed that soothing sound on Seheron before he lost his hearing, and she brought back the memories of those waters. So blue, with white sand underneath. Peaceful, even if they were far too often filled with blood and bodies.

"Loyal and brave," he repeats with a small smile on his lips. "Maybe I was as a child - but since I left the Qun, 'loyal' isn't what I'd see myself as any more. My Tama cannot be proud of me, now. She probably resents the fact that I was even made."

She might be in trouble because of him, and that hurts his heart sometimes.

[foxsays]

"You can be loyal to more than one thing and different parts of you try to pull it one place or the other; the head shouts one thing, the heart whispers another. You are here, the Qun is not. You were there when we saved Zevran from the Crows and gave the younger ones a chance of having a life that's more than just death and being treated like a piece on a board." She sits up, brushing her hair back from her face as she tries to fight the sad twist of her lips, all the times her parents and teachers were there with a hand ready to catch her if she fell. "No one should resent that a person was born. We are what we are, no matter what other people want us to be, we answer back. People aren't like sculptures or stories. No one has to breathe life into us like that."

[quietblade]

He reads her lips in silence, and something hurts deep inside his chest. Half what Araceli says is soothing and the other half just hurts more, digs a deep sore inside him that Taas doesn't quite understand.

Their world views might be different, but the more time he's spending in this place, the more he's preferring hers. It used to be so ease to distance himself from this when he was nothing but a bodyguard.

Now he had friends and people that were lovers and strange combinations of both.

Taas had been forced to reevaluate his stance on the Qun a lot in the last few months. Mostly because of Korrin.

"You're a good person, Araceli." The pronunciation is horrible (but he tries). "...thank you."