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

[hugeinorlais]

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.

[amygdalae]

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.

"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."

[liberalum]

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.