faderift | [semi-open] Solas Returns

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[semi-open] Solas Returns

WHO: Solas, open to: the Advisors, the Inner Circle, and peeps who want CR that have checked with me first. Hit me up here if you aren't sure
WHAT: Solace returns to Skyhold
WHEN: Drakonis 25 and onward
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: general warning for eggheads

Advisors

He brought the Rifters to the castle, but spent little time getting them acquainted, other than introducing them to a few of the scouts, who then were told to show them around the castle and find out who they were supposed to report to.

Solas had his own reports to make. And his own questions.

So when he burst into the War Room, mid-meeting, he was already starting on them before anyone had the chance to question him.

"Exactly how many shard bearers does the Inquisition have? I have just brought four with me, and I have heard rumours of the others, but--"

Inner Circle/Previous CR

He also made careful note to visit the others of the Inner Circle, whether or not he was personally fond of him. He needed to be brought fully up to date with the workings of the Inquisition, and the Herald's original Inner Circle were the best way to ascertain that.

So he sought each out, wherever they could be found, and offered a greeting. Some more formal than others.

[ooc: just go ahead and set up where they are and I'll have Solas approach them individually. Cass: you can have a post-advisor thread for one-on-one if you like!]

For Everyone Else

[Contact me OOC and I can set you up an individual starter.]

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He didn't quite live up to his nickname - merely looking bemused, rather than chuckling - but he waited until Varric had finished before addressing any of it.

"The Dalish? I find that... surprising. But no, I'm not intending to 'wander off' again. I think, now, I can argue fairly effectively for the necessity of keeping myself alive and relatively unchained." There was almost a teasing tilt to his voice, but he was being honest. There were a good many reasons not to stick around, once the Herald had perished.

"But if you are finding it hard to keep from being 'jaded and fatalistic', then I worry that perhaps it is worse than I feared."

"Yeah, apparently they trade copies of my stuff at that big meet'n'greet they throw every few years. Who knew?"

Varric made an idle, dismissive motion with one hand. If the hand had been free, it would have been a wave, as it was, he just sort of ended up swirling a ladle about in the air casually...as casually as one could wave kitchen utensils around, that is.

"And don't take my griping too seriously, if you hadn't already heard, a few old friends of mine showed up recently. Great people, very friendly, only mostly wanted by the authorities or the Chantry--"

Varric paused and regarded Solas with an abrupt and moderately pained expression. There were a wide range of warnings he should give to Solas: Anders and Vengeance/Justice, Isabella, the myriad of Dalish friends he had kicking around now, but the dwarf decided that Fenris got priority here. After all, artsy nerds who spend large amounts of time sleeping and chatting with spirits? Not likely to fare well against angry, broody anti-mage warrior elves.

He hesitated a moment before gesturing at the elf with the ladle.

"Speaking of: if you see a broody elf with striking tattoos laced with lyrium, I would...avoid him. Possibly forever."

"Lyrium-laced tattoos?" Solas asked, an eyebrow arching. If Varric had been meaning to keep Solas from being interested, he had failed. Miserably.

"I'm afraid, Master Varric, that avoiding other members of the Inquisition will undoubtedly be difficult, now that I am here." It came out a little wryly. "Is there a reason in particular that I should be avoiding him?"

"Because he'll probably strike you, hopefully without the help of the tattoos." Varric had added that last half as a murmur, but it was still more voiced than not. "Broody, he..."

Figuring out how to summarize why a very polite elf mage with lots of feelings about the personhood of spirits should avoid Fenris was...challenging. Even for Varric. He made a noncommittal noise of mild concern in the back of his throat and settled the ladle against his own shoulder.

"Broody isn't fond of mages...and, more often than not, he's a...gruesome violence first, questions never sort of fellow."

He looks Solas over and doesn't bother to be discreet about it. Chuckles, buddy, you're wearing a grandpa sweater and pajama pants. He's looking out for you.

"You're not a blood mage, so that's a point in your favor, but the whole...communing with spirits thing? Well...he's markedly not fond of abominations either...and I know you're not an abomination, you know you're not an abomination, but I'd really rather not watch one of my friends get his face reaaranged by another one because he's not sure if you're an abomination."

But this was a gruesome topic and Varric had been on enough missions with Fenris to know exactly how literal he was being right now.

"You know who you should meet--Daisy! You will love Daisy, she's right up your 'weird magical practices that humans disapprove of are just misunderstood' alley. Also she probably won't break your..."

He paused and gestured to...well...all of him.

"At least...not intentionally."

Shit, had he warned Sparkler about Broody yet? Dorian wasn't dead...as far as Varric knew...so they probably hadn't met--this was exhausting.

Solas looked mostly bemused, but he listened to Varric's entire explanation without interruption.

He didn't quite laugh, but the humor was in his eyes.

"I will take your advice to heart, Master Tethras, but I am sure I will manage, somehow, not to have my - anything, broken."

"That," Varric said, absolutely serious in both countenance and tone, even as he gestured with the ladle toward Solas, "is the most optimistic thing I have heard in months."

Still, as thin as reassurances went, Chuckles wasn't a slouch. With a solid warning in place, he might even avoid being scuffed whenever he finally ran into Fenris.

"So, you want to walk and talk?" Varric asked and gestured to the remainder of the downstairs. That complete he finally acknowledged the strange objects in hand; he held both the pot and the ladle up and wiggled them in an explanatory fashion.

"Testing acoustics and I have yet to find a good room."

"Ah, that explains your toolset," Solas said, gesturing to Varric's ladle and pot while he fell into step beside him.

"Is there a reason that you are taking stock of Skyhold's acoustic possibilities? Or has more happened since I was away than I originally was led to believe?"

"Oh, I had an idea last time I was stranded out in the ass end of Thedas, bored and exhausted," Varric explained and paused briefly to lean through a nearby doorway, clang the pan and listen to the resulting noise. After a moment he clucked his tongue and leaned back out to continue down the way.

"Don't know if you've been handed one yet, but we've got a set of fancy magic crystals for 'coordination purposes'," Varric continued. "Official announcements are mostly Nightingale's and Ruffles' domain, though, and they tend to prefer...the personal touch. So, mostly the things end up being used for person to person communication. Sometimes group talks."

He shrugged. "Faster than letters, if nothing else.

"It got me thinking, you know what might be nice? When we're done trudging waist-high water, mud, and corpses, or snow and red lyrium, or whatever awful situation comes next? Something distracting; something fun, unimportant, and absolutely not about the end of the world."

Varric paused, again, and leaned into another room. He considered it, briefly, but ultimately didn't bother clanging the pan before shaking his head and moving back out.

"Why not use the crystals for something...recreational? For the people stuck in tents or snow or the rain?"

"Sending crystals?" Solas asked, an eyebrow raising. He'd heard rumours that the Inquisition had somehow obtained a method of communication faster and more efficient than the ravens, but he'd yet to see it. Sending crystals made complete sense, though he was surprised that they had managed to obtain so many. A question for later, perhaps.

"And you need a room with acoustics in order to do something recreational upon them?" It was far from the question he wanted to ask, but he was gathering enough info as it was, without asking outright. "What exactly would you describe as 'recreational'?"

That question was inevitable, really, but Varric still hesitated a bit as Solas asked it. He was fairly confident in the idea, it seemed solid, but it was sort of strange and, frankly, more than a little bit self-aggrandizing. (If he was being honest about it.)

He put off answering, if only briefly, as he shuffled the ladle and pan into one hand. He reached into his shirt and, without preamble, pulled out his crystal--he had it looped onto a leather strand, wrapped around his neck but long enough that his shirt hid it. He passed it to Solas before he spoke again.

"Those. I think they're probably shards of something, but arcane artifacts aren't really my area of expertise," Varric said. "As for what I need decent acoustics for...?"

Varric shrugged, his expression carefully nonchalant as he took up the ladle in one hand again.

"I was thinking of doing...readings. Of stories. Mine, largely." He was trying to be polite about it but, Maker, it actually sounded more self-absorbed when he phrased it like that. "Like plays, not just me reading my own books out loud.

"Figured I could get a few people to do voices, read for characters, put on something dramatic and...pulpy. It's not literature but, hey, it could be fun? Right?"

Solas took the crystal carefully, regarding it impassively as he rolled it between his fingers, as if he were not nearly as curious about it as he really was. Finally he held it back out for Varric, and lowered it carefully back onto Varric's chest.

"Readings." He repeated it as if he was thinking it over, at first, tumbling the word carefully on his tongue as he did in his mind. He turned his eyes up to meet the dwarf's.

"It sounds like you want to put on a play, only over these crystals." He smiled. "I think it could be quite entertaining."

Varric wasn't an especially sensitive sort of guy, he could take criticism and negative reviews with the best of them, but he was more than a little relieved that the first person he explained this to seemed to think it was promising. His expression was still carefully nonchalant, but he still shot the elf a wry smile.

"Glad to hear you say that Chuckles," Varric replied smoothly. "You wouldn't happen to be interested in reading for it. The narration, perhaps?"

He wasn't sure why, but Varric was dead certain that Solas had a voice basically built for narration. He didn't wait to hear the elf's answer, though, and instead paused to lean into a room and test it. The echo was audible from the hallway.

"I mean, you could read for the dashing knight if you want, but his lines are a little...Orlesian." It was amazing how, when pronounced with just the right flare, that word sounded almost indistinguishable from the word 'insipid'.

"Perhaps," Solas said, almost teasingly. It was the only answer Varric was getting out of him, for the time being.

"If you think I could help, I may attempt it. But I am sure there are many others that would be happy to assist you in your endeavours, Varric. What kind of stories are you planning to tell?"

Solas's redirect worked just about as well as it could have; Varric was too early along to really insist on anyone reading anything and, honestly, the whole thing might fall apart long before he got to that stage. No, right now he was all about a location.

"Well, I'm not sure if I should use something published and risk boring my audience, or make up something new and risk flopping. The format is already kind of a long shot..."

He shrugged a bit and checked another room. This one was more promising than the last and, with a speculative hum he motioned for Solas to join him. It was just a store-room...or a broom closet...or maybe a room to store considerable numbers of brooms? It was full of brooms.

He clanged the pot speculatively.

"I drafted up an adventure story--combat, romance, jousting, the whole deal--but I've got a crime serial that I can polish up for the purpose." He glanced back at the elf. "You think it'd be better received if I did contained short stories, or an ongoing...serial...drama? I can't decide and it's not like I can test it first. You only get one grand reveal, after all."

"Could you not do both?" Solas asked, arching an eyebrow. "Tell stories about characters that continue to appear, each linking into the next in ways that one cannot possibly understand until they have seen the entire breadth of it? Stories that seem, on their surface, like mere episodes - happenstance - but turn out to have a far larger impact on the story as a whole than could possibly have been obvious from the beginning?"

He tilted his head thoughtfully. "Why limit yourself to stories of jousting, when you could craft the very story of the Inquisition itself, before others do it for us?"

"Episodic storytelling?" Varric asked and both his brows rose in surprise. "Now there's an idea."

A contemplative expression darted across Varric's face, then, and he folded his arms (as much as someone could while holding kitchen utensils) as he thought. Solas had a point, about the appeal of a long, episodic story full of seemingly self-contained portions--having it both ways would also let him change it all as it went, if need be, and it really embraced short acts. Finding people to help would end up being a lot easier if he didn't have to talk them into, well, talking for several hours just to finish a story.

"That's a good idea--but The Story Of The Inquisition is a pretty high bar to start at...and the point of this is to be...less stressful than working for the Inquisition tends to be." He drummed his fingers against the pot handle. "But you've got a point about crafting the story first.

"I'd have to check on this before I do it, so that Ruffles and Nightingale don't skin me alive, but maybe we could roll...news and...dramatic accounts into the whole production? Put them at the beginning or end of something fictional so we get to dictate the facts and still escape from reality for a while?"

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[semi-open] Solas Returns

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