faderift | stop being so defensive i am just trying to hit you with weapons

Entry tags:

stop being so defensive i am just trying to hit you with weapons

WHO: Cassandra Pentaghast + whoever
WHAT: Anything
WHEN: The third week of Harvestmere (October)
WHERE: Around Skyhold
NOTES: Open to all! Feel free to pull from the top post or start something totally different. I may be slow to respond sometimes as mod work cuts in, and may have to prioritize plot-related threads at some points to make sure I don't hold others up, but hopefully not too much.

Cassandra isn't a difficult woman to find.

Most of her hours are spent training the Inquisition's recruits, often with Cullen or several of the other more senior soldiers, many of whom are greener than the Dales. She demonstrates sword forms, corrects stances, and insists on the importance of shields even though half of them are still using wooden planks with straps on the back because a merchant cancelled a shipment when they heard about Haven and despite the quartermaster's frantic scrounging there aren't nearly enough to go around.

Time to herself is spent in what is already her usual spot, beating the padding off of the dummies near the quartermaster's tower or sparring in the ring, sword flashing in Skyhold's unusually-present sun. She's methodical here, too, each strike fast and strong but also well-placed. She's not a very graceful fighter, motions too jerky and abrupt, but what she lacks in fluidity or creativity she makes up for in power and precision, and it's considered a great feat among the soldiers to have ever come close to getting past the constant guard of her shield, thankfully not one of those lost in their hasty flight into the mountains.

She takes most of her meals in the hall with the rest, even if she usually spends them sitting at a far corner of the table, methodically putting away her food with neither a recruit's grateful hurry nor a noble's dainty manners but a perfunctory low-level annoyance at the necessity of it. Occasionally she'll speak to those around her, particularly if they're other members of the Herald's inner circle, but nothing about her manner invites conversation from strangers.

It's partly intentional-- she's not very good at small talk-- and partly an artifact of her upbringing that has left her bearing both imperious and dangerous even when all she's doing is sticking a fork into a bite of potato. The effect is multiplied when she has what looks to be a letter in hand, brows lowered into a skeptical frown as her eyes scan the page. When they reach the bottom she snorts, and begins folding it back up, uncaring when she accidentally flicks a spot of gravy onto a corner.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Varric liked to think of himself as a companionable dwarf; he was friendly, warm, and always good in a pinch. He loved his fans, meeting them was usually the highlight of his day, but he was starting to get a little concerned. He had no idea that, shit, most of the Inquisition read his books. Being famous he could handle, he loved the spotlight, but when it got to where people were whispering his name excitedly and dropping silent as he passed by, that was enough to make a dwarf nervous.

Varric Tethras was not a nervous person.

Perhaps it was because he'd been holed up so long in the Great Hall; if he sat around long enough, of course everyone was going to come to him. They were all very nice, excellent people, but Maker's balls there were a lot of them. So he decided to take a nice mid-afternoon stroll. He absolutely wasn't running away, that was absurd, just out to get some sunshine, some fresh air--okay, fine, so he was running away. Just for an afternoon. Until he could get used to the idea of being, well, surrounded.

It was a good thing he knew where to find the one person in Skyhold who emphatically did not care for his books nor his fame. The world would come crashing down around his ears before Cassandra Pentaghast twittered excitedly and dropped into nervous silence in his presence. Now, if only he could walk that delicate balance between casual conversation and her trying to stab him, he'd be in the clear.

"Woah, Seeker, if the dummies owe you money there are easier ways to get it than beating the literal stuffing out of them," Varric cajoled, loudly, from outside of the range of her sword.

Cassandra certainly has no intention of ever twittering, in Varric's presence or otherwise. The suggestion would generally be enough to send her out to beat some dummies just like this as a way to avoid the urge to beat people. It isn't necessary today; she has already been driven here by a number of less-personal irritants and less-public concerns.

"Varric," she says the dwarf's name like a curse, but she says a lot of things like that. He probably shouldn't take it too seriously. "If they owed us money I would send them to Josephine. Perhaps then we could afford more of them." She takes a half-step lunge forward and strikes the dummy along its "ribs", blade turned in her hand at the last second so that it's the flat that meets burlap and straw and thumps it against the wooden frame beneath instead of slicing through like usual.

She pauses, and wipes the back of her wrist across her forehead, though she has not been out long enough to work up a sweat, not with the crisp breeze that whistles through the gap in the wall across the courtyard. "What do you want, Varric?"

Ah, yes, that was exactly the welcome he'd been hoping for. Of course, he wouldn't admit that, not for every piece of gold leaf in Orlais, especially not to the Seeker.

"Just thought I'd stop by," Varric answered smoothly and, in an arc that kept him outside of arm's length, he strolled past and leaned on the wall by the storage room they'd stuffed the new quartermaster into. "See how you were settling in, find out if there were any recruits you hadn't put the fear of the Maker into yet, that sort of thing."

His smile was charming, he knew it was, he'd spent quite a long time perfecting a charming smile for situations where he was likely to get stabbed. Situations pretty much exactly like this one.

"Between you and Curly, it'll take, what, a month before they're all ready to fight high dragons?"

"Do not mock our efforts," Cassandra replies, missing the joke and assuming the worst, as usual. "Commander Cullen and I do our best, but there are scores of them and many have never held a sword before. And some do not hold swords now, either, since we lost the armory at Haven."

She punctuates this rebuke and complaint with another solid thumping of the dummy, this time three quick hits in succession, with a spin between the last two. Even at full extension he is out of range, he will not doubt be happy to learn.

"In a month they may be fit to defend themselves without stabbing each other in the process. If we are very lucky they may even stab their enemies. That is the best that can be hoped for in present conditions. If Corypheus sends another dragon and this place is not protected as Solas claims, we are sitting ducks."

She pauses, and this time levels the point of her blade at Varric's face. It's not a real threat; she doesn't seem to realize she's gesturing with it as menacingly as she is. "Do not tell anyone that I said that. We cannot stand a loss of morale, either."

To say Cassandra Pentaghast was agitated would have been a truly staggering achievement in the art of understatement. Varric had seen her whole Fall Collection of irritated expressions, he was pretty sure he'd inspired a few of the more vehement ones all by himself, and this one was a prize. This particular shade of aggravated gesturing was on the farther end of the Cassandra Pentaghast spectrum of anger and, frankly, a little too close to murderous for his liking.

This made, what, twice now that she'd actually shouted at him while leveling a blade in his direction?

Maker, he certainly hoped he wasn't forgetting an instance. The day he could forget being threatened, by her, at swordpoint was the day his life had officially become far too interesting for his own good.

"Hey now," Varric replied calmly and slowly, as one does when addressing an irate woman with a particularly large knife. Fortunately even Varric couldn't actually patronize the Seeker, no matter how hard he tried. He held up his hands in a gesture that was torn between 'gently placating' and 'about to be frisked by the city guard'. "Would I do a thing like that? I'm practically made out of team spirit."

For a given value of 'team' and 'spirit'.

"I'm Mr. Morale," Varric added and paused. It was a terrible idea to egg her on, absolutely dreadful, but the words were out of his mouth before he could stop himself. No one had ever accused him of making solid life choices. "But you know, and this is a crazy idea, if you're going for positive morale it might be a good idea to really emphasize the not stabbing other members of the Inquisition part."

His charming smile was still charming.

"Shit, you could even set up a reward system. Gold stars for everyone who didn't stab somebody today? It could really catch on."

Bruce isn't really one to go up and talk to the obviously important members of the Inquisition. He's never one to mix well with people of authority, since half the time Bruce is certain that they'll be able to discern something from him if he stays too close to them, or something that was probably just as far-fetched but equally terrifying anyway. And it wasn't really their fault, it was... well. It didn't really matter here.

Regardless, it is a fact that Bruce doesn't really go out of his way to talk to the very pointedly important people. But this time it couldn't be avoided, and Bruce steeled himself well as he approached one Cassandra Pentaghast in her usual spot with the (very battered) training dummies.

"...Seeker Pentaghast?" he started, once he was close enough to hear. Hopefully she wasn't going to turn around and hit her sword at him instead. That would not end well.

Despite the impression she creates, Cassandra isn't actually a violent person. Her practice is an exercise in control, every strike planned and calibrated, carefully aimed and delivered. She's not about to hit anybody that isn't made of straw, accidentally or on purpose. She completes a combination of strikes, low and high, a thrust just beneath the arm that seems aimed there, not a miss, followed by a push with her shield that would topple the dummy if she didn't pull it up just short.

She drops the tip of her sword into the dirt when she's finished, none of her weight leaned into it, posture perfectly upright as she turns to look at Bruce. Maybe she's seen him around, but she's seen a lot of people around, and if she's ever known his name she can't call it to mind.

"Yes? Can I help you?"

Bruce hardly minds the fact that she can't remember his name - in fact he'd rather that she didn't, because at least that meant he wasn't particularly noticed which in turn meant that he wasn't under scrutiny. Which was what he had wanted, anyway.

"I'm here to deliver a message," he says, then takes a moment to bring out the message that a particularly terrified runner had passed to him before scurrying off. "The runner would have done it but he, uh, tripped." Pause. "Had a really bad fall."

...which was really not what happened. The runner had just been terrified of her incredibly imposing stature.

War room has a very intimidating ring to it, but the thing itself, it turns out, is just a room. And not even a very big one. The Inquisition guard who accompanied him in and is currently watching him is not very big, either; she is doing her best impression of a hawk, but she'd have to be a sparrowhawk at most. A wet one. If Alistair wanted to get up off his bench and go look at the tokens and markers spread across the map on the able, memorize the Inquisition's position and plans, and make a break for it, he doesn't see how she could stop him. Someone would stop him, but not her.

So he has no particular excuse for the fact that he feels like he did as a much younger man, waiting outside a closed door while adults discussed What Was To Be Done About Alistair And His Idiot Mouth.

But he's jiggling his leg, anyhow. It's the only noise in the room.

"So..." he says. It's the sort of so that comes before what's a nice girl like you doing in a paramilitary religious organization like this.

Sparrowhawk glares. He reevaluates her chances of taking him down. Fifty-fifty, maybe, if his reluctance to hit a small young woman is factored in. Maybe that's what she counts on. Maybe--

The door opens, noisily, and he snaps his attention to it, standing up quickly. But not too quickly, because he isn't a much younger man waiting on adults any longer, and, also, he's had a very long day. If he stood up too quickly he might fall over. If the sight of the dark-haired, full-sized-hawk-looking woman makes his face fall, it isn't too obvious in the context of his general exhaustion, or too personal. He'd been hoping for Leliana, that's all.

"Hello," he says, and nods his head toward his guard. "She's done a great job. Didn't let me touch a thing."

Edited 2015-10-24 06:32 (UTC)

The expression on Cassandra's face is one Alistair has probably seen many times before: confusion at what he's just said, and annoyance at being confused. Her nose wrinkles, and brows are already angled in a near-frown that looks like it's probably her default.

"Warden," is what she says, civil enough despite her face, "Come in."

She steps back to allow him into the office. It's tiny, a broom closet with just enough space for the table and two stools that have been crammed into it. Everything that must have been covering the surface has been piled up and turned over, just out of sight beneath her elbow when she sits.

"I am sorry, the message did not tell me your name," she says, and though her accent only adds to the hawkishness, giving every word a sort of clipped, guttural edge, it's clear that she is striving for politeness. "I am Cassandra Pentaghast. What brings your company to Skyhold?"

Yes, he knows that look. He's almost fond of that look. He isn't smiling--he's too tired, everything is too unsettled--but there's still good humor in the corners of his eyes, and if anything it increases.

He comes in; he doesn't sit. He has manners. At least two of them.

"It's nice to meet you, Seeker," he says. "I'm Alistair. I'm--" The pause here is ill-timed, sleepy ineloquence rather than deliberate dramatic effect. "--afraid I'm here to add to your problems."

But charmingly and handsomely. Please don't throw him out.

"I should warn you first that we don't have permission to be here. We've been declared traitors." Again. Not any easier the second time--harder, even, when he's much more loyal to the Wardens than he ever was to Ferelden. "They won't send an army after us or anything--they've got other things to do--but we were being followed. There could be trouble if they trace us here."

Cassandra's eyes narrow at the name and then, against all odds, narrow still further as Alistair goes on. Rarely do so few words prompt so many questions, particularly in a woman not generally given to overthinking matters.

She does not ask him to sit. She rather wishes she had not sat herself. This is a moment for steely, searching looks and they are better delivered from her feet, both for looking him straight in the eye and for general intimidation. And the ability to defend more quickly, should this devolve. He doesn't come off like a man who might attack if asked to leave, but one never knows with Wardens. But returning to her feet now would seem odd and so she remains, regarding Alistair from beneath heavy brows, never more hawklike than in this moment.

So many questions, but one is the obvious place to begin. "Why have you been declared traitors?"

"Oh, you know," Alistair says.

There's another pause. This one is both sleepy ineloquence and hesitation; halfway through it he stops meeting her hawkish gaze with his own open and blandly exhausted one. He's never been fantastic at keeping secrets--those he does keep are protected primarily by the fact that his natural resting expression is good-natured and clueless and people rarely press--but he knows when he should.

And when he shouldn't.

"Complaining about blood sacrifices," he says, still looking off at the middle distance beyond one of her walls. It's all a private hurt as well as a public threat. "Grey Wardens don't die natural deaths, and we can tell when our time is coming. Right now it seems to be coming for all of us. The Warden-Commander in Orlais wants to march on the Deep Roads while we still can, which." Isn't so unreasonable if they're all about to die, his little shrug says, and he looks back at her. "There's always been some blood magic here and there, but nothing like this. It shouldn't have been her first plan. This shouldn't be--"

It shouldn't be happening at all. That it's happening in conjunction with everything else is suspicious. He trusts her to connect the dots; meanwhile, his two manners are all used up.

"Can I sit down?"

Edited 2015-12-03 07:05 (UTC)

To say that Dorian is completely welcome amongst the rebel mages would be an overstatement. To say that Dorian is welcome amongst the rebel mages when compared to how it would be should he struck up casual fraternisations with the Templars is about accurate, and so, here he is.

Usually found up in the library, or hovering about Felix, Dorian is instead seeking variety in the crisp morning air when Cassandra comes searching for him. This corner of the castle is going to be a garden, or so goes the latest frankly optimistic rumour, last he knew. Right now, it's mud and weeds and ancient broken cobblestone, and a scattering of mages gather in twos and threes in conversation, or practice their staff-work -- no magic is being flung around, mind, only dead wood striking together, cutting the air. Dorian is on his own, seated on crumbled stone with a leg kicked over a knee, and his own staff balanced against his thigh as he sees to its reparation.

This is mainly in the form of binding split wood with leather strips in careful, neat loops. Normally, he'd probably throw it on a fireplace and purchase a new one, but supplies are lean and his fortunes are abstract, to say the least, and there was this whole disaster and mass displacement into the mountains, you see.

So he binds his staff with wolf hide so that it'll see him through until circumstance improves.

Out here, in the shadow of the castle, you can almost pretend the weather is nice. What grows is green, and the sky is clear. Look up, and you can see the white shapes of the Frostback Mountain range, reminding you of where you are.

"Another casualty of the funeral brawl?"

Cassandra approaches from the direction of the chapel, a tiny shrine that was one of the first non-essential spaces in the castle to be renovated. It is still barely larger than a glorified closet, but it sees constant use, packed with candles and worshipers. Cassandra has avoided it, particularly since the Herald's death, packed as it has been with the most conspicuous displays of mourning. Mother Giselle and the several sisters present give small services throughout the day, but she exits some ten or fifteen minutes after the last group departed.

Stepping out of the cloister and into the sunlight she squints, a hand lifted to block the sun from her eyes. It's like perpetual fall here in Skyhold, but she has never been the type of person to have strong feelings about weather and this is no exception. She continues squinting until her eyes adjust, taking up a stance beside Dorian, arms crossing against her chest as she looks down at his staff, and then at those being clacked together across the way.

"I hope such exercises expend their energy for fighting instead of encouraging them to begin more. We cannot allow this conflict to tear the Inquisition apart from within."

Dorian focuses on a fiddly knot evading his fingertips rather than look up right away. He turns the staff over in his hand, inspecting it, running a fingertip over the hair-line seam splitting the wood. It gleams gently blue, almost undetectable in the bright sunlight. "This was already on its way out by the time Haven crashed about our ears. The only weapons I brought to that embarrassment were a few choice words and one righthook."

Now, arms folding lax over his knee, he tilts a look up at Cassandra, squinting slightly in the sun. Thoughtfully; "When dealing in excess magical energy in a battle, there's a chance it will lash out and hurt your colleagues. Rather than simply expecting it to go away, you redirect it elsewhere, preferably at someone deserving.

"They'll either fight well or they'll fight badly," he observes, glancing back towards the rebels practicing their motions. "And fight they will, regardless of either. By the time they have a real enemy they can fling a fireball at, you'll want it to be the first one, yes?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

stop being so defensive i am just trying to hit you with weapons

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

"something totally different"

hahaha i am the worst

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject