faderift | We come from the land of the ice and snow

We come from the land of the ice and snow

WHO: Open to all
WHAT: Thedas' strange new guests are delivered to Skyhold
WHEN: 25 Harvestmere (October)
WHERE: Skyhold main gate & courtyard
NOTES: This is Part I of a two-part intro event, Part II will be posted tomorrow.

A long uphill tromp through the snowy mountains ends at Skyhold, the distant fortress finally before them in all its tumble-down glory. There is time to admire the drop into the river gorge far below as they cross the only bridge into the castle; it is briefly backed up with traffic, several carts bearing supplies and visitors stalled as the portcullis is raised. Those coming to help catalog and unload the shipment and greet the guests, or otherwise present near the front courtyard, will find themselves witness to a far more interesting arrival.

Guards at the gate carry the word quickly, and more gather, though they make no move to imprison the strange people who fell out of a rift. They just line the perimeter and keep a close watch. Perhaps this adds a level of tension to this first encounter, but it also reassures the many who are unsettled by the uncertain turn of events and keeps in check those who might attack first and ask questions later. Others will no doubt soften the Inquisition's first impression, offering food, information, and other assistance.

Medical attention is available in the tented-encircled corner of the courtyard where the wounded from Haven are still treated. The quartermaster's assistant is called upon to provide spare odds and ends of clothing to those in need, and to issue blankets for all, though they are left to fend for themselves to find places to sleep.

Any mage willing to help is called in to do so and a cluster forms in one side of the courtyard to examine the rifters. They are objects of curiosity in general, but the marks on their hands are of particular interest, resembling smaller slivers of the Herald's famous mark. Despite their best efforts, no mage will be able to provide any real insight after this initial assessment. What the rifters and their marks are is a question they cannot answer today.

But one question is answered: in the midst of all the commotion, another Inquisition agent arrives from Haven, rushing in red-faced to announce that the Herald's body has finally been found.

OOC

It will be decided (partly for OOC reasons, admittedly) that the rifters will not be imprisoned at this point, but they will be watched carefully, and the guards are on alert for any strange behavior by people with glowing hands or strange attire. And of course, their freedom can be revoked at any time if they're deemed a danger. Though there are some OOC considerations at play here, you're welcome to ICly lobby for more or less freedom for the rifters, and things may change based on IC action/consensus.

Also: Part II, aka the log for the funeral/wake/etc. event, will go up tomorrow!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Astonishingly," he says, returning the bulk of his attention to the work he's doing - there is an ease to the way he settles into academia, here, that might not have been guessed at, "I did not. I imagine even were I so inclined, the thought of the yapping thing at my heels feeling some justification for his terribly precious power trip would stay my hand."

So he's been making friends, then.

"Ah." With a description like that there is only one person that he could possibly be referring to. "You've met the Knight-Commander that is ever so earnest and equally condescending?"

She's made no move onward just yet, nor has she attempted to approach. Wariness abounds.

"Knight-Commander, dear me," very mildly - he had not precisely been introduced to the man, after all. In contrast to her caution, Martel is as near to relaxed as he has been since being spat out of the rift; being clean, fed, and having the run of a library (even one he's still forcibly learning the words of) has gone a ways to evening out some of the foul temper he'd arrived in.

He is by no means content with his situation, but it allows for a measure of civility that had been absent, earlier.

(Later, still, it will hit him much harder - but there won't be an audience, for that.)

The thought of Vanion taking their mutual friend in hand prompts an involuntary smile, small and terrible. There's something quite charming about imagining someone else being on the receiving end of one of Vanion's blistering dressing-downs, all these years later - the silence had been worse than any of the reprimands, in the end. He sets aside that memory willfully, in favour of the fantasy.

But for himself, he dismisses Alayre out of hand, easily-- "He is a man with a boy's desire to test the boundaries and if he behaves so, I'll treat him so."

"Something he might remark upon at length if given cause." Perhaps the next table over? Or the chair in the corner, that will do. Close enough for conversation if either of them see fit, not so close as to imply any manner of friendliness. Civility, certainly. But after what happened earlier? Keeping herself out of arm's reach is something of a priority. Adelaide picks her way to the table, giving his wide berth before she settles. Lamp on a shelf, books stacked next to her, wine- well. That takes a bit of pulling to get the cork out and she has no glasses-

But it's a straight from the bottle type of evening.

"This is, I suppose, where I might say 'he means well' and other such nonsense but intent matters for very little on this side of the fade." Also his language seems antiquated at times. 'Stay your hand', bah. The horse and help offered had been kind and she's thanked him for it in her own way, she'll not think on it any longer. "...did he make that face of his- the one where it seems like you've done something particularly offensive like used the wrong fork at dinner or pissed in his wine?"

The initial roll of his eyes at her first remark is purely involuntary. Of course. It was probably Vanion himself the last time anyone was in a position to lecture Martel with any expectation of his not simply walking away - but, then, no one is currently in a position to expect him to linger, either. The experience has doubtless not become any more appealing in the interim.

"It was the one they all make when you force them to acknowledge the weight they're throwing around has nothing behind it," he says, drolly. "Entertaining the first dozen times."

It actually startles a snort that might be a laugh if given enough room to do so out of her. Brief and unladylike but honestly? She is tired to death of needing to be a Lady, a leader, a mentor. Her charges safely ensconced in their room she needs a moment to be nothing more than herself- or rather a moment to research. Understanding what in the Maker's name this all means is somewhat vital. "It'll be all the more amusing the second time you cross paths, should you cross paths."

"Heaven forbid."

Although many pious words are being spoken about how they aren't prisoners, Martel is under few illusions that were he to try to leave Skyhold, he'd be as immediately and amusingly successful as he had been t leaving the courtyard; it's more likely than it's not that sooner or later he will be obliged to remember the other man exists. But it is a small concern in a sea of much larger ones - something to sharpen his claws against in conversation with a woman who has sound basis for not being inclined to discuss much of anything with him. If this is what common ground there is -

there's been worse. Probably. It will be easily set aside, all the same, for it's simple enough to forget a name you never learned in the first place.

"If only I were new to the type, he might be more diverting."

"At least you are not a mage. He'd be all the more earnest and intent with you It's insufferable." We mean you no harm, you can trust me, it's such a shame what the Chantry's done we can do better, we will do better. So many empty words that he seems to actually believe. But one idealist does not a movement for an improved system make. One MAN does not a system make.

He's a fool, albeit a well meaning fool. One she's best ignoring.

A swig of wine helps matters. Not much as it isn't Orlesian but it isn't Fereldan and that shall have to count for something.

Martel pauses - perceptibly - and then pushes back from the table slightly, turning in his seat. It's not the word he'd use, certainly, but not a new word to him, either, and he's gathered as much as he might from the place around him. It is, he suspects, quite precisely the word that these people would apply to him, given the opportunity.

And he could let it be.

She hasn't realised what he'd been doing; she has assumed that he is not.

...but if keeping his secrets means passing up an opportunity to use a bit of information to get bit more - perhaps demonstrate something in himself that she can empathise with, mold her into an ally before she thinks to use his mistake as a weapon against him - then it's hard to think it's a worthy trade. He looks pensive, for a moment, his inkstained hands loosely clasped between his knees, and then he says, thoughtfully,

"What makes you say?"

and lets her draw her own conclusions as to what struck him about her remarks.

"...That it is insufferable? It is." She knows this from experience. Alayre's desire to protect and guide and all these noble instincts that are utterly incongruous with what she knows of Templars. They weren't bad men in her mind before what happened in the spire but neither were they such caricatures of gallantry. He's like a terrible romance novel come to life with none of the romance and all of the eyerolling tropes that came with the genre.

Give her facts over fiction any day- especially in templars. The pretty dreams the Knight-Commander hopes to preach are just that. Dreams.

Outside of the fade nothing can come of them.

Her attention on the book she didn't notice his change in posture till he spoke and- well. That is a considerable amount of focus on her. Considering how things went the last time he looked at her quite so intently, her hand slips from the book and back to her staff. Just in case. "What makes you ask?"

His lip quirks, in spite of himself, when he observes her hand upon her staff.

"What makes you say I'm not a mage," he clarifies, patient.

While she'd seen him when she'd treated him to be certain, she hadn't truly looked at the whole of him- too focused on the sucking chest wound. Now, though, her eyes narrow. Unless the usual indicators are present- robes, staff, lightening from the fingers- a non mage can't always easily tell a mage from anyone else. A mage? Might. If they knew how to look. Adelaide looks now with lips pressed thin and a vague consideration for how to answer.

"Most mages light people on fire instead of attempting to strangle them. I suppose I should be greatful you did not."

"It was an action of instinct rather than intelligence," he says, evenly, in the space where someone else with a gentler disposition and less pride might have apologised; his hand finds the edge of the medallion he's still wearing, an unconscious gesture, reassuring himself it's still there. Little about him suggests anything besides aristocrat or warrior - academic, perhaps, in this setting - but the medallion itself would call him what he is to an educated eye.

Or, at least, what he was.

"Most sorcerers are taught not to resort first to sorcery if their problem can be solved another way."

"So you say." The explanation rather than an apology. Years since she's last spent any time around nobles but Adelaide can remember that particular trick well enough. Her siblings certainly used it on her plenty in her youth and the few times she's been unfortunate enough to deal with them now hasn't endeared the tactic to her in the slightest.

"So hand to the throat first, fire later. How efficient."

"Frankly," he says, after a moment, "I don't recall ever being expected to use magic in combat, or, indeed, for anything that might be done another way."

Has he ever used it for simple tasks, or in combat? Of course - but rarely, in the latter, and usually to show off that he could, in the former. Magic is for things that cannot be done with a sword or a bit of flint. Magic is something esoteric and separate and about which he is very passionate, but - he can't imagine it being used so widely or openly in Elenia as it is here.

His brief encounters so far haven't left him with any illusions that that somehow means these people are more enlightened about its practise and those who practise it, but the point remains.

"Are we discussing the nuances of magical theory and where they diverge in your world as adverse to mine? Is that what we are doing?" She'll need more wine- oh wait. She sips from her bottle and flips the book in her lap shut. Clearly this is how she is going to spend her evening. It could be worse.

She could be stuck with Alayre again.

"We were trained, here, for combat in case they had need of us while surrounded by those with the ability to neutralize our magic entirely for our own protection. The Templars." The word isn't quite spat out so much as it's spoken with a blacked distaste reserved for mortal enemies. "What cannot be done with a sword will be done by magic at the behest of whomever calls upon us to serve. As Chantry Law dictates-"

Another twist of loathing around the word 'chantry' "Magic is meant to serve man, not rule over him."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

We come from the land of the ice and snow

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