heaven, a gateway, a hope

[byblow]

WHO: Grey Wardens & You
WHAT: A daring and not at all ragtag group of Grey Wardens has walked all the way across Orlais to inform the Inquisition--just in case it hadn't already realized on its own--that everything is terrible.
WHEN: Harvestmere 22
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: This post has: (1) A single group "we just got here, we're freezing, who is in charge, what do you mean you haven't decided yet" starter that we'd like to keep to one chronological thread. (2) Open starters for individual Wardens set later in the day/week.

OOC Note: Regarding the first starter--threadjack away! Anyone is welcome to wander onto the scene to see what's going on and wander back out at their leisure, to fall silent for a while, etc. No tagging order. But let slower taggers get a word in edgewise!

Comments

[rathercommon]

"Doesn't matter." Her answer is brisk. She turns and, with phenomenal efficiency, points at the precise angle and trajectory to indicate Drea, who is not making things easy by trying her hardest to look uninterested and inconspicuous. "Her name is Drea. You flipped over her tray earlier. She thinks your eyes are nice. You ought to - "

"Kitty!" comes a wail from behind the bar. Drea, in spite of her studious attempts to look like she wasn't listening, was listening. Intently. Big surprise.

So Kitty raises her voice just a little. "She ought to be brave enough to talk to you herself, but she's not, so I'm here. So please go and kiss her and be terrible at it so this ordeal can end."

[bunko]

He follows where she indicates, and gives Drea a smile, as indulgent as it is charming. This is a routine that he's familiar with, even if his demeanor suggests nothing but pleasant flattered surprise.

"I didn't mean to flip her tray," he tells Kitty, genuinely. He does not lean back off of the bartop just yet. "It truly was an accident. But I'm afraid I won't be able to kiss her terribly."

[rathercommon]

Kitty gives a firm, distinctly pronounced, "Ugh" in response.

"Let me guess," she says. "You're just too good at it. You have a natural talent that can't be suppressed. Of course you can be terrible. Terrible kissing is easy. Suck on a clove of garlic while you do it. Or spend the whole time humming a jig. Or use your hands but have them be really weird and limp." She holds up her hands in demonstration, making weird little pawing motions at roughly face level. (Ribcage-level for him.) "Very simple."

[bunko]

Ugh?

But Scipio laughs, despite himself. He doesn't mind a challenge, a little verbal spar--and thanks to the Maker, for unfreezing his wits enough to allow him the chance.

"Diamine! Who have you been kissing?" His laugh is a nice laugh, by the way, one that carries even over the din of the tavern. He shoots Drea another glance for good measure, lest she grow to feel displaced or otherwise jealous. She blushes, prettily, and starts scrubbing at a spot on the bar. "You were far too ready with those examples. It's worrying."

[rathercommon]

"No one," Kitty replies very firmly. "I don't care for kissing." Which is not precisely true: she doesn't have any strong feelings either way about kissing, in the same way that she doesn't have strong feelings about wine or leaning over the Skyhold parapets. She doesn't think they're inherently wrong, not by any stretch of the imagination, but they take courage that she doesn't have to spare (given that all her courage is focused on other tasks) and they addle wits that she'd sooner keep unaddled. Plus she's rather doubtful that she'd enjoy any of the above. Not certain that she wouldn't. But it seems unlikely.

"I'm just a creative thinker. That's all."

[bunko]

"Oh," he says, generously, "that's all right, it isn't for everyone. There's nothing wrong with different tastes. I've known many girls who dislike being kissed."

That sorted, he can now compliment her: "And you are very creative. I suppose it must be discouraging when you come out and say it that way. Clever. I've always found it easier just to agree--a kiss costs nothing--but I admire forthrightness."

In someone else's mouth, this would all sound very disingenuous. Scipio--his cheeks flushed a little from the wine and the warmth in the room, his smile nothing but open and earnest and a little in-the-know--does not seem disingenuous.

All the same, he tips his head toward Drea. "Should I go to her, or let her come to me?"

[rathercommon]

And it does sound like it ought to be disingenuous, and Kitty narrows her eyes at him slightly, searching hard for irony. And she comes up short. And so, slightly mollified - because creative, clever, those are all things that she wants to be called, very much, very deeply - she dusts her hands off on her apron and gives a quick toss of her head.

"You see how I'm standing here in front of you when she has two functional legs and a voice of her own, right?" Kitty responds, shaking her head. And then she pronounces firmly, "Go to her. Because for some reason she's decided to be shy, or she's decided to look shy. So please. Go. Make her happy. Be the handsomest and most romantic Warden that anyone's ever met. And then I'll be able to finish my job, rather than hearing about the beauty of your tousled curls."

[bunko]

"Did she say 'beauty'?" A more insecure man might bluster and insist on more manly adjectives, but Scipio is nothing if not secure, as secure as he is not picky about accepting compliments. He likes to be flattered. There is a brightness even to his vaguest smile, and corners of his mouth turn up as he glances back down the bar once more. Sorry, Kitty.

Second thought, which pulls his attention back to the Dwarva barmaid, still wearing her irritable expression. Irritation can be worn as armor just as well as a prickly response. "Even after I do all of that, I don't think you'll be able to finish your job. You'll still be hearing about it. That's as much a part of the game as playing shy."

[rathercommon]

"The game." She lifts her eyebrow just a touch, surveying him skeptically. She's...not...going to address that bit about beauty, because someone who looks like that probably has ego enough without hearing about how much Drea had been going on about the Warden's grace and handsomeness and so on and so on to the point where Kitty (who considers herself too practical-minded to get tied up in this nonsense) had had to step in to make it stop.

"I didn't know it was a game. Much less that there were established parts of it. And much less that all these parts were so tiresome."

[bunko]

"Of course it's a game. Everything is." This would sound more jaded in anyone else's mouth, but Scipio only sounds delighted. The little smirk that tugs at the corner of his mouth, that's even more amused than bitter.

He leans a little closer to confide in Kitty. Eyes still on Drea, down along the bar, who keeps her eyes on the glass that she's polishing and repolishing with her dish towel. "La Vita es un juego. Every place in the world has a saying like that. You can't tell me you find life to be tiresome."

[rathercommon]

"I find life to be quite serious, actually." The self-conscious, rather put-on irritation fades, replaced by a quiet sort of firmness. It's clear she's bothered by the sentiment: as soon as the Warden had said that bit about everything is, her expression had tightened, her frown smoothing out into something tense and wary.

"A game has the board wiped clean at the end, doesn't it. Life spirals out and touches others, and nothing can ever be undone. People just talk themselves into thinking it's a game because they either don't want to think about the consequences of their actions or because they're unable to deal with them and don't want to think about it. So. That's quite different from being tiresome."

She follows that up with a short, sharp shrug.

[bunko]

She's so intent, this barmaid, with a young round face picked out sharp. Scipio's gaze flickers from Drea to study Kitty, quickly, at just a glance. There are things that turn people hard. There are people whose games have gone roughly. Something in her expression speaks to that, like a crouch, like the string of a lute strung too tautly.

He doesn't need to charm her. Whatever story she lives in, it's different than his. But he can't resist. He likes the conversation. He likes Kitty, the barmaid, with her face set firmly. "You can play seriously, this game. You can think of the rules, and the board, and all the big and little consequences. Your spiral of life. None of that makes it any less of a game. Nothing can be undone in a game either, isn't that so? Once you move your piece, it stays moved. Turning back only happens when the die says to turn. You keep going forward, and luck, or skill, or chance, that is what turns it all for you."

And when Scipio looks away, his smile softens his face again, a smile he trains on the lovely Drea, a beam cut clear across the bar. Her ears go a little pink again. He can see that even from this distance. "There's games in games, and games in those games, too. If you find this one tiresome, you don't need to stay. But--"

He flicks another glance at her, with a smile for her. "But you do make a good conversational partner."

[rathercommon]

After a moment, she admits, "You're all right, too. Even if you get yourself way too twisted up in metaphors. I mean, really, that all sounds awfully poetic, doesn't it, but in the end we're saying the exact same thing. I'm just saying it less prettily but also in about a quarter of the time. And without the horrible overtones of frivolity."

And then she considers, drying her hands off on her apron. He's not an idiot, is he? And, more to the point, he's not...arrogant. Or stupid. Or wicked. You have to be careful of Wardens. Sometimes they're good people, forced into service, and sometimes they're the worst ones possible, monstrous folk who have been shuffled off to die fighting monsters. Like her Legion of the Dead. But this pretty, loquacious man - he's all right.

And so Kitty says, her manner a little quieter still, "If you are going to - flirt with her, or whatever - be kind. She's had a bad go of it. Since the war started. She doesn't say much about it, but she says enough."

[bunko]

Her clipped response makes him laugh. "No--but you said it's not a game, and I said it is. How are those the same?" And, more to the point--he taps his index finger against the bartop, a quiet noise to catch the attention-- "Words are important. Pretty words most of all. For instance--"

And, finally, Scipio leans back away from Kitty, hooking his fingers around the handle of his mug to pull it with him. He's back to eyeing Drea, who is polishing the same glass, so intently she might have worn a hole into its side by now.

"It's pretty words I'll use for Drea. I know how to be kind, and distracting. And frivolous," and he repeats her with amusement, curls the word around his tongue, "but frivolous, that's what people need. Even you. Even if you will tell me it isn't so. So--" He touches his chest with his fingertips, tips his gaze toward Kitty again. "Until later, I think."