faderift | Moving Day

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Moving Day

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.

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He keeps a little to himself, stays a little out of the way, but carries anything that it seems people need help with, lifts what they'd like, and generally keeps from making direct eye contact until later in the day. They're not leaving Skyhold just because of him, but he'll be an idiot if he even considers denying he isn't a part of it. While he's glad to be alive, there's no ignoring the fact that their lives would be easier if he had died the other day and actively he's aware of this.

1 - get help with anything!

As the day goes on, though, he starts to relax. The helping is accompanied by little jokes, as well as snow down the back of Nate's shirt. His cat is allowed to wander and sniff everyone and everything, and there are faint smiles offered along with offers to thaw the ground in spots with fire.

2 - join in and tell a story!

Evening falls and there's food and company. There's one thing missing, something he's missed for some time: storytime.

"So Nate and Velanna know this one, but it should be new to the rest of you. And perhaps it serves as a cautionary tale as to why you shouldn't listen to the suggestions of very, very drunk dwarves. You may just have to spend an hour after the fight attempting to pry them out from under a pile of ogres."

There's a little smile playing on his face as he launches into the tale, when Oghren had the 'brilliant' idea to lure a few ogres to one place and have the party attack them as usual while launching himself off the tallest thing in the room - an ancient dwarven statue that chose to crumble when he jumped, throwing debris that needed to be dodged as well as the ogre attacks.

It begins with a request for Anders to help Teren carry a barrel of rations, but the situation quickly becomes something else.
"So you're the one who caused all that ruckus," she observes, her thin mouth quirking into a small smirk of either amusement or derision. "I hope you've found the end result satisfactory." She doesn't seem too bothered by the wardens' exile from the keep, and for all anyone knows, the statement might be in earnest. With her, it's difficult to tell.

He glances at her at the observation. Is she angry? Joking? There is literally no way for him to know, and a quick glance around shows no one else listening whose reactions can give him a clue. Anders takes a breath. He could apologize, certainly. It's not undeserved. Or he can start trying to set the tone of being back with the Wardens in a way that's a little more in line with what he hopes the long-term will be - not constantly trying to apologize, but the give-and-take of teasing he'd had once before.

"What, still breathing? I can't complain about that. Carrying heavy barrels, now that I could complain about." There's the faintest trace of a smile on his lips. Hopefully she takes that not as complaining, but a light joke. "Then again, at least I'm not trudging through the snow while-- oh."

Teren takes the statement as intended, even chuckling lightly. "You're in good company," she remarks, and looks over her shoulder to see how close they are to the other barrels. Not too far now. "Not like many other Wardens can say they're in for entirely altruistic purposes. Though I doubt any of them are so impressive as blowing up a chantry." Although her tone is once again difficult to read, nothing about her inflection indicates anger or judgment. It's just a statement.

The chuckle is a good sign. The last statement, not as much, and he's still confused as to where she's coming from.

"You could say my initial Joining was less altruistic than the second one. I joined then to remain free. I rejoined expecting to be executed. Mind, I appreciate the results. I also appreciate that some people will talk with me. It was going to be a long several years until this song gets worse, otherwise."

He sets the barrel down with the others with a sigh of relief before he looks back the way she'd come from. "Are there more?"

Teren straightens and cracks her back once the barrel is down, looking grimly back in the direction they came. "There are always more," she replies, with a roll of her eyes.
"No sense condemning one another," she says, on the stroll back to the barrels in need of unloading, "what's done is done, and here we are. All we can do now is hope to make some good out of our time left."

Of course there are. He hikes back up with her, nodding at her words.

"So can I ask after your perhaps-not-so-altruistic reasons? My life is now an open book to many, but other than seeing you around and knowing your name is Teren, I've nothing. Oh, and clothing. Your reputation is that you make clothing well?"

Next barrel, heave. Enough of these and he might almost not look scrawny.

Teren was expecting a question of this nature, and is prepared for it. "Framed for murder."
She heaves the barrel up with Anders, unlikely to be any less scrawny at the end of the day herself, but miracles do happen. "I made the foolish mistake of being poor and insignificant. The personal seamstress to a wealthy lady, who became involved with foul play. It was far more simpler for her to foist the blame on a member of her staff than to accept the consequences herself."
Huffing in a most undignified manner as they plant the barrel in its destination, she straightens again and wipes her brow. "To think, I thought I'd be a favored servant the rest of my life, to live and die within the warm confines of a manor. The biggest problems I expected to face were pin shortages and burst seams." Despite what sounds like complaining, she smirks mildly-- perhaps she doesn't mind where she is now as much as she's suggesting.

"Burst seams, truly a worry of deeper significance than it may seem on the surface." He offers her a small smirk back. "I've done a fair share of sewing. But I'd prefer being harassed by shrieks and ogres to being stuck in a small building, working away and not expecting any sort of change in my future. As might be obvious."

Considering he's known for his manifestos and stance on mage freedom, it seems likely she's aware of his attitudes.

"Dragons, though. Those I don't enjoy. I'd take stabbing myself with several pins and needles over dragons." A beat. "...Then again, I suppose most Grey Wardens don't see any, forget as many as I have."

"Bully for you then," Teren quips, feigning incredulity at his opinion on sitting in small buildings and sewing. "If I could get away with just sewing for a while, not dealing with any darkspawn or archdemons or false callings or what have you, I think I'd be just fine."

At Anders' complaint, she arches a curious brow at him. "And how many have you seen, then? I've never caught one up close, though I've spotted them off in the distant sky once or twice."

"I've never wanted a boring life," he returns. It's not completely true. There have been plenty of times when he's been hiding from Templars or Darkspawn or both, waiting for the opportunity to do something other than dying, when he's missed being a farmboy. ...But not that many.

Dragons are decent inspiration for wanting to be elsewhere, though.

"Seen at a distance? A few. Fought? Three. Two alive, one bones. Do you know how you fight bones that are trying to kill you? It's a pain in the ass." He shakes his head and gives her a wry smile. "Jonas and Marian took me to the best places."

"Three!" Teren exclaimed, and proceeded to be mystified by the idea of fighting something made of only bones. "...I don't, actually," she replies, "how did you manage it?"

"Barely." He shakes his head. "We had Justice with us, in a corpse, and he helped by enchanting our weaponry. I don't know how he did it, I couldn't reproduce it. But once he did that, we were able to actually take down the bones. And we have to hope they don't decide to ever move again."

Because yes, they killed it... but it had been killed before. That was why it was bones.

"Or perhaps I can simply hope I never have to go back to Blackmarsh to deal with whatever might still be around."

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Felix is understandably curious about Anders, but he's given the man distance to allow him to deal with everything he has to deal with. While Felix is very happy to set up camp and get things ready, at times it's pretty clear he has no idea what he's doing with certain things. He's a Tevinter altus, he's never even considered camping until his Joining.

He finds it a good excuse to talk to Anders and addresses him, "Can you help me with the canopy? I don't think I've gotten the knot right."

It's one of the Tevinter mages. Anders has been trying to keep from being too eager to speak with any of them, in part for their own safety outside of Tevinter, and in part because he doesn't want to look like an absolute idiot. But there is no denying that he's a fan of the freedom Tevinter offers mages and has been for some time, so when Felix comes over, Anders can't help but give him a slightly hopeful smile.

"Of course." The response might be a little hasty. He might be a little too happy that this man is talking with him. He tries to cover it with a shrug. "No one wants the canopy to be loose, especially in winter."

He leans in, taking a look at the knots and trying very hard not to glance over at Felix as he does so. "So you're Felix, then. How are you finding the southern lands?" A moment later he's reaching up and undoing the first knot - it's indeed off.

"I am," he responds. He wonders for a moment what Anders has heard of him and what he thinks of his situation. "And your the mage they call Anders." Since he doubted that was the man's real name, but could respect not wanting to share those details.

"So far I've been enjoying it. It's colder than I'm used to, but honestly I'm delighted to be able to feel cold. I wouldn't have that chance without the Wardens."

The 'call' gets a little upward quirk of his lips, though Anders simply nods. Clearly someone's stopped and thought, and the fanboying increases ever so slightly.

"Better to be freezing your ass off than dead. I've been in much the same boat. ...Twice, now." The Templars would have killed him if Cousland hadn't conscripted him, after all. "Personally, I miss the warmth of the north."

He nods at the knot, indicating that Felix should watch if he wants to learn, before starting to retie it. Camping. It's not the most fun he's ever had, but he's at least done it enough for this to be familiar and serve as little distraction from talking. And from holding back a thousand questions on mages self-governing, and if Felix thought there was a way to do it without blood mages gaining power, and so on and so forth.

"Did you seek me out specifically to help you? Was there something you wanted to say?" Because otherwise he might give into temptation.

Felix pays very close attention to Anders's hands and those long fingers as he moves. He then goes to the other side of the canopy to copy the knot. He manages well enough, though he does need a bit of more direction towards the end.

"I admit, I was curious," he says. "I was wondering which version of you you'd be closer to."

Edited 2016-03-18 04:53 (UTC)

He exhales in something of a laugh. "I'm fairly certain I'm exactly like the one version of me there is."

He steps over to help with the finishing of the second knot before shaking his head. "Or two. Seeing as the other is out and known as well." If he'd had a choice, the whole 'abomination' part would have stayed quiet. But it is perhaps better this way, that everything's known and nothing else is hidden.

"It's not really glamorous or mysterious, I'm sorry. I'm a mage who saw too much death in Kirkwall and saw only one way to give other mages a fighting chance. If it had just been mages that died, as the Grand Cleric and Knight-Commander intended, then no one would care. But it wasn't. Innocent non-mages died instead of simply innocent mages, and while it should have been the case that none died, there was no way to make that happen. If there had been, someone would have suggested it by now."

But no one has mentioned an alternative. That's telling, to him.

Felix's jaw tightened a bit as he heard all of that. "I don't blame you for what you did," he points out after a moment. "It'd be real rich a Tevinter judging a Southern mage for his actions. At least you had noble reasons. It's better than those who might sacrifice innocent lives for their own political or personal gain."

A pause, as he finished tightening the ropes. "You have to deal with how you feel about the lives you took. I'm not sure it's my place to comment on it." Then, after a moment, "I meant only that some here seem to think you a hero, and some seem to think you a monster. It has to be exhausting." That last part is said with a certain level of sympathy.

He looks over, a little surprised. "You've a poor opinion of your own country, then? It has its flaws, certainly, but it gave you freedom. Unless you're saying that the price of freedom was that sacrifice."

Which would imply continuous sacrifice to maintain that freedom, which is beyond unacceptable. Both Justice and Anders can agree on that point. But accurate info on Tevinter that isn't filtered through a Chantry lens is hard to come by.

Anders steps over to the third rope and begins work on that before speaking again. "And the other... It is. I've..." He shakes his head and exhales. "I've worked so hard to be seen as a person, for mages to be seen as people, and I'm not. I am the murderer or the liberator, the ender of Circles or the warmonger. But if that's the worst that happens, can I truly complain?" He's alive. Tired, but alive.

"I've an excellent opinion of my country, it's my countrymen that are the issue. Tevinter can and should be a beacon of culture and grace, and instead we squabble and let the worst of us dominate the political landscape," he says all of this with an underlining care and passion but tries not to let that point of view completely derail the conversation.

He considers Anders for a moment. "For now, I'll strive to see you as a person, then. And perhaps a fellow Warden, since we're both here in this camp."

"It can be done better. If the Circles stay gone, we can move forward and show how it can be. We can do it right. Make a future, demonstrate that with freedom can be a better life for all rather than those that benefit from... Mm." He's getting worked up, he realizes, and looks a little sheepish. "Sorry. It's a topic dear to me. I could easily talk someone's ear off."

And has. Often. He's starting to get used to rolled eyes, even if he doesn't appreciate them. What he does appreciate? Felix's words. The man gets a nod of thanks.

"I appreciate that. And welcome to the Wardens, too. I hear you've only joined recently, and you did it without the standing around in smallclothes bit waiting," he darts a glance around to make sure no one's within hearing range, "to see if you're going to die like another recruit did or if you make it. I might be a little jealous. That was cold."

"The only one who was dying was me," he said thoughtfully. "I suppose that was a little more accepting. Otherwise, you'd just always have to be the one to go first."

He really doesn't want to dwell on that so much though so instead he focuses on the first part. "There is nothing wrong with talking." In fact, Felix never rolled his eyes, and instead watched carefully. "I wish I was more knowledgeable on the plight of Southern mages. I went to the University of Orlais and there the topic was strongly avoided."

"I wasn't the one who died. I... Mm." He paused, looking back toward the camp, as his voice turned regretful. "I don't remember her name. I survived, as did Oghren, and the other recruit passed away. I don't know that he'd remember her name either." If he was still alive. That's the issue with Wardens.

Anders exhaled. "The better topic is what happens to the mages in the south. I'd be glad to give you answers to any questions you have. They don't like to talk about us much; they'd much rather we died quietly."