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

wild card. statlerian + benevedorf.

[liberalum]

It's past high noon, but sharp, almost warming sunlight is still pouring unfiltered into the courtyard and will continue to do so for another solid hour. For reasons as yet unknown to those watching from home, there is a man down below, one with ginger chesthair and a freckly back, missing his shirt.

It's probably not due to poverty, or affliction, or a case of stolen belongings.

They didn't see fit to ask, anyway, and the most Alistair will hear before their presence is made in some way known is a very quiet, one, two, three, before the bright sun is blotted out as a thick woollen blanket flutters down from on high and lands squarely on his head.

Dorian doesn't laugh, but his smile does cut thin and neat and symmetrical in satisfaction at a throw well aimed. He leans his elbows atop the parapet, one hand gripping a glass of wine in a lax tilt.

"It isn't personal," he says, by way of introduction, only just before the as yet unnamed Grey Warden below can fully get his bearings. His voice lifts just loud enough to carry clearly from on high. "I shouldn't like you to think we don't appreciate the spectacle."

[ungovernable]

His companion and partner in charitable acts of thoughtful assistance leans beside him, her weight on her forearms, her glass in her hand and an associated pinkness in her cheeks. She is nothing if not visibly delighted by their accomplishment - how well aimed! - and she lends her voice to the explanation, terribly earnest in the way of troublemakers the world over,

"Only we find ourselves very concerned for the sensibilities of our gentler compatriots, you understand, who are not so - accustomed to men of your..."

If he weren't covered in a (dusty, cold, and slightly damp in places) blanket, this would be the moment for a traveling, eloquent gaze. Benevenuta settles for a pause during which she regards first her wine-glass and then her companion, and finally,

"Stature. Will someone not think of the elves?"

[byblow]

The arrival of the blanket is well-timed. Beneath them, Alistair--shirtless for no reason other than that he could be, that he could leave his sopping snow-soaked shirt to dry by the fire after a week of tromping through drifts and ice storms while his store of socks and blankets was slowly depleted by a pair of thieves and his own charitable heart--had been silent and still for too long, too exhausted to seek out a distraction when one was not presented to him directly, and left following the curling reach of melody deeper into his head.

The sudden darkness and heavy fall of wool snaps him right out of it. Perhaps the blanket hides the way his flinches in surprise; more likely it does not. He's quick to pull it off his head, but not off entirely. It is a bit nippy. He keeps it shawled around his sizable shoulders while he gapes up at his--attackers? Saviors?

(Northerners.)

The gape turns into squinty understanding quickly enough. A glare, nearly, but one cocked eyebrow betrays him as amused and impressed as well as mildly affronted.

"Elves are hardier than they look," he says. "And meaner. I've known a few to bite."

[liberalum]

"Have you," is what Dorian says, instead of 'do they', laden with innuendo as to Alistair's familiarity with elves that bite, or maybe that's just what his voice does, particularly when he's into his cups during daylight hours. (Benevenuta is supporting his choices.) "Perhaps that's true of the ones immune by exposure to the wiles of strapping humans. But you see, we've a fresh gaggle of Dalish tromping about the fortress."

Drinking doesn't seem to do anything to take away from crisp, aristocratic pronunciation, clipping clean and precise between white teeth.

"Imagine the chaos wrought if not for our quick thinking. Fainting elves everywhere. Absolute anarchy."

[ungovernable]

Benevenuta's arched eyebrows speak volumes in support of the various innuendos Dorian mercifully leaves unvoiced if not unimplied. Observe the magnificent restraint of Alistair's saviors, and be touched by their thoughtfulness. And their blankets.

"You had best bring us back our modesty blanket," she said, thoughtfully. "Who knows when we may again need to act swiftly for the sake of the Dalish."

[byblow]

Unlike the modesty blanket, the innuendo nearly flies over Alistair's wet, blanket-mussed head--but with the aid of the woman's eyebrows it does manage to clip him after all. There's a second of widening eyes and opening mouth before his years of rigorous training in not painting targets onto his own chest kick in and snap his expression back into its proper skeptical form.

"Here in the South," he says to the Nevarran, "if you throw something onto someone's head, he gets to keep it. It's a stupid old tradition, but one we cherish."

He wiggles his shoulders to set loose some of the blanket so it hangs around him like a cape. There are probably Thedosian folk heroes with capes and masks. He's probably very aware of this. And on the topic of awareness:

"You're right about the strapping thing." If he knows how ridiculous it is to be having this conversation up the side of a parapet, let alone at all, he doesn't show it. "Thank you."

[liberalum]

"You're very welcome," Dorian responds, brightly. "But it might only be polite, if you're to rob us of our modesty blanket," that one on Alistair's shoulders they clearly found just now and have no intention of touching again, "via mysterious cultural edict, to stay and educate us further on the ways of the south, so we might avoid such missteps. Up in the North, it's cherished tradition that one good turn deserves another."

He hasn't risen from his slouch, but lists sideways just enough to free an arm in broad gesture. It seems likely the Warden of unknown quality will let the mmmildly intoxicated northern mages be and make off with his prize blanket, but in case he does not, the stone stairs are over there.

"Dorian of House Pavus, and this is Lady Benevenuta Thevenet."

[ungovernable]

The only appropriate contribution here, obviously, is to lift the hand that hasn't got a wine-glass dangling from it and wiggle her fingers in a girlish hello. Someone, at some point, is going to find out how old these particular Northern mages actually are and spit wine across a room, it'll be magnificent.

(Although, it is at least usually just the sweetness of her features that leads guesses astray, less often draping herself on parapets and speculating wildly about the probable sexual awkwardness of the Dalish.)

"And we would be so grateful to you. Is it not rather the purview of strapping young men to lend their aid?"

And their biceps. What if he lets them touch his biceps while he tells them about southern customs?

[byblow]

Alistair may look an awful lot like a country boy, but he's not. He was raised in a castle (where he didn't always sleep in the stables; for example, not in midwinter, usually) and educated in a monastery (where every now and then he accidentally paid attention for a moment) and now he's a Warden, which means going places. Lots of places. Northern places. You could almost throw a rock from Weisshaupt and have it land in Tevinter.

Point: he's never heard of Pavus, but he knows enough to raise his eyebrows at House Anythingus, and he does so.

"I'm not that young." That could mean no. It almost does mean no. But he glances back toward his armor and drying shirt to make sure it hasn't walked off yet, then takes the indicated stairs, sometimes two at a time, to join them on the wall.

He looks between them. A little squinty, but not unfriendly.

"There are at least two people who will miss me," he says, "if you turn me into a lizard."

[liberalum]

They're all a lot older than they are acting or collectively assuming.

Welcome to the Inquisition.

As Alistair makes his way up, Dorian turns to lean against parapet in half-sit, tipping a wink Benevenuta's way that isn't designed to imply much more than shared amusement. But his attention steals back to the ginger they've ensnared, at least for now.

Flatly joking;

"Then you'd want to be on your best behaviour."

[ungovernable]

"Oh," Benevenuta says, spinning - the wine sloshes out of the glass, a little, she's not quite as used to drinking in the middle of the day as those who will remain nameless - to face Alistair as he joins them. Obediently. What a delight.

"In fact, I count myself among one of them," with an admiring glance at his shoulders.

[byblow]

Best behavior earns a slight grimace, because his best behavior is not very good, but then he's distracted by Lady Benevenuta Thevenet's--admiration. That's a good word.

He cants his head to the side and scratches the side of the base of his neck, which does not actually disguise his quick glance toward his own shoulder. He isn't trying to disguise it. Smiling at her, he manages to look knowing--yes, muscles and passably charming face, it's a burden to bear--and turn faintly pink across his nose at the same time.

He adjusts the blanket for better coverage. It's cheeky, not shy. Or at least it's some of both.

"You know we're all barbarians down here," he says. "The most you can ask is middling behavior. Or else we're all doomed." Pause for effect. "Or is that the plan?"

[liberalum]

"You can't expect me to believe a Grey Warden isn't somewhat well traveled. There are, most assuredly, barbarians everywhere."

Dorian considers that, and allows; "Excepting Nevarra."

He makes no grand show of admiring Alistair's shoulders, personally, but his smile grows sharper at the evidence of blushing. How dear! "You've neglected to tell us your name, you know."

[ungovernable]

Benevenuta's slow turn during barbarians everywhere is aborted neatly by excepting Nevarra, at which point she spins merrily back to face Alistair as if nothing ever happened, landing with a little wobble on feet that are not entirely steady enough for that sort of carrying on.

"And we might have need of it," she said, reproachfully. "What if we look for you, later, and are overwhelmed by muscular gentlemen responding to our call?"

That sounds great.

[byblow]

"What if?" Alistair repeats, tone musing.

The musing originates not from visions of the two of them buried in muscular gentlemen, but from the idea that these two Northerners--who have just thrown a blanket on his head and who cannot hear the Old God singing in his head and who are so incongruous to the month he's been having that they don't quite seem real--might look for him later.

"It's Alistair." Ser Alistair of House Mabarus. He's not quite exhausted enough to believe that would be clever, but it's tempting. They're rescued only by the combination of his sense of chivalry and Benevenuta's unsteady footwork. "Perhaps you ought to sit down, Lady Thevenet."

[liberalum]

Alistair, then. All the better to enact concerning blood magic on him, obviously. Dorian's own sense of chivalry is spent in a sort of curious glance at his friend as if to see if she really will tip over, but not enough to compel him off his rampart perch to see to her safety. She's probably fine.

"Are you under the impression we can't hold our wine?" He says wine like there's a very soft 'h' in front of it. It could almost count as an accent, if being inebriated were a nationality. "Because we most assuredly can."

[ungovernable]

If being inebriated is a nationality, then Dorian and Benevenuta are both from the northernmost reaches of Winetopia, and it is with all the appropriate dignity as a representative of that great nation that she says, "I am up quite right," and while it isn't exactly the sentence she had planned on, it does contain all the same words.

She frowns at nothing for a moment, mentally replaying it.

"I am quite upright," she repeats, more satisfied the second time, patting Dorian absently on the knee in approval for his split-second of chivalry.