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

[cicatrices]

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.

Comments

"something totally different"

[byblow]

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."

hahaha i am the worst

[cicatrices]

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?"

[byblow]

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."

[cicatrices]

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?"

[byblow]

"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?"