Moving Day

[pinprick]

WHO: All the Wardens and whatever onlookers/helpers they may find.
WHAT: Moving Day
WHEN: Current-ish
WHERE: Skyhold and just outside Skyhold
NOTES: The Wardens are grounded. They have been told to camp outside Skyhold. So it's moving day.

It is a relatively flat and pretty utterly frozen piece of land outside Skyhold that the Wardens have found. Since there are only a couple dozen of them, they don't need a large space, at least. There's going to be a premium on slightly more elevated spots, so it's first come first serve. Some Wardens arrive with the sun and lay claim with canvas, stakes, ropes, and poles stacked up while they go back for heavier things. Digging into the frozen ground with the stakes is rough, especially for those who brought wooden stakes instead of iron. Some will be forced to wait until the sun softens things a bit. Some are chasing away the feeling of eviction by making themselves at home, starting fires in pits, or making light of their work through periodic bouts of horseplay. For example, one large longbowman with a wounded right arm, fed up with teasing for his inability to do heavy lifting, carries with his left arm a blond mage who hits him repeatedly with a pillow. Unperturbed, he continues on.

But when the tents are pitched and the sun is down, the cozy camp is a little less strange. People will gather around fires for warmth and companionship, knowing that after one sleep, this will start to feel like home.

Comments

[pinprick]

"Anything is better than a cot in Darktown. Probably fleas the size of cockroaches in the one you had." Noble upbringing shows in him at times like this.

[justice_is_blond]

"Named, too. I even knit collars for them with bells so I knew when to kick out so I didn't get my blood sucked." It hadn't been nice, exactly, in Darktown. It had been pretty miserable. But it hadn't been the Circle, and that's something that most people don't quite grasp. "Then again, they always were gentler with the abuse than the Templars."

Now he casts again, fire gone, starting to shift the earth so there's a ditch and a small wall that will serve as backup.

[pinprick]

When Anders speaks casually about Templar abuse, it makes Nathaniel want to find one and sock them in the jaw. He clears his throat, ashamed of his own thoughtlessness.

"Well. I suppose not everything is better than a cot in Darktown."

[justice_is_blond]

It's his own way of coping, and this is one of the few places he's safe enough to actually address any of it - in company with someone he trusts. So much of his past could be sharpened into weapons to use against him. Nate wouldn't do that.

"One day the worst will be that cot." Anders looks up from his work and over at Nate. "One day poverty will be the worst that can happen, and even that can be worked on. We will all be people in everyone's sight, not lesser, not things. ...And on that day, the fleas will be very sad, but forget the fleas."