[ open ] fly high across the sky from here to kingdom come

[shieldwalls]

WHO: Aveline + open
WHAT: arrival + exploring
WHEN: around the time when the Rifters arrived + first few days afterwards
WHERE: all over.
NOTES:  none... that I can think of!

Courtyard.

Skyhold is a marvel, Aveline will give it that. Grand turrets and towers she can see. The first look at the famed Inquisition is the activity going on in the Courtyard, where vendors sell their items, soldiers spar and train. She allows the guard beyond the gate to take her horse and she hefts her pack, so that the battered Templar shield at her back is visible. The air is crisp and cold and there's mud on her boots, caked and dried.

Hadn't missed that much.

She hadn't thought that she'd be setting foot on Ferelden soil once again in her lifetime, but here she is. Aveline only pauses briefly to look around, before stepping in proper, almost immeadiatly turning towards the first individual she sees.

"Excuse me. Can you direct me to Commander Cullen's office?"

The Rookery.

It's difficult to locate, with all it's many staircases and different rooms all over, but the first place she visits is the Rookery, a letter sent off to Donnic and Kirkwall to let him know that she had made it. It's short and non-descriptive, but Donnic would understand the need to keep things vague, with Sebastian and Starkhaven currently backing down against them. Oh sure, they'd likely hear from him again.

She watches the bird with her letter attached grow smaller into the distance until it's but a speck, then gone. Strange to think that she had allowed herself to come this far, travel so long to be somewhere else entirely -- her life back across that sea (and Maker, does she not look forward to the ship ride back). But if her friends needed her, than she would be here.

Training grounds.

Even after the long journey, Aveline doesn't take long to rest, she freshens up and changes from her armor to more casual training attire -- the sword and shield are both still at her back as she makes her way down towards the training grounds. The dummies near the tavern are well worn, and used. There's and edge of nerves to her, a knot of worry that she can't quite push down or shake but it doesn't show on her.

Her strikes are well placed, each swing of her arm is strong and every hit with the flat side of the blade is followed by a second one directly after. After a while, she swaps the sword for her shield, blocking imaginary blows and hitting the dummy with solid hits.

Her hair is falling out of it's tie, by the time she is finished and the sun is beginning to set and finally she feels worn enough to go rest.

Exploration. - everywhere else

From the gardens, to the tavern, to the library -- Skyhold is vast and it takes a matter of hours to walk around it entirely. Aveline prides herself in knowing the long winding streets of Kirkwall -- and even ten years in the city, there are passages and areas that she still discovers, but otherwise, she knows her city.

But she hadn't always, just as she doesn't yet know the layout of the change in scenery. But that is what she's doing. Certain areas are off limits and those are the ones that she doesn't scope out, but she works to familiarize herself with the layout, landmarks -- what is where, and perhaps... she is looking for certain familiar faces in each one of these areas.

Wildcard!

[ If you don't see anything that tickles your fancy here, feel free to come up with your own. Aveline will be all over, exploring. And if you'd like to plot with me personally, you can send me a pm or hit me on plurk
at rabbithearted

Comments

[shieldwalls]

That would be the point, Cassandra. Kill him, he can never write another word about her in his story. "It didn't sell well at all, he told me. I didn't think he had any plans of continuing it any further." While for one thing, Aveline is glad it didn't sell well -- less people to possibly know her by as anything but the Guard Captain of Kirkwall or one of Hawke's friends.

Wait.

"Has he written more of it since the last published chapter?" Donnic had copies of the published ones, which they read together before realizing what and who it was about. Maker, that had been a mistake.

[stabsbooks]

Cassandra shakes her head, sad and regretful. "Nothing for months," she says mournfully. "Wait - did you say - but he cannot stop writing now!" Her hand flies to her mouth in shock and dismay. "The last one ended on a cliffhanger - the Knight-Captain accused - he cannot end it there! I must know what happens next!" Her expression is somewhere between crushed and incensed. It would be just like Varric to stop writing now, to do what would frustrate her most and not even know it.

[shieldwalls]

"He said it wasn't worth continuing given reviews and sales." Looking at her expression, Aveline almost feels bad for being relived for Varric's stopping of his story. It had been embarrassing from the start, and the last few chapters of it she hadn't even read.

She raises a brow. "Accused? Of what? I can give you the story." But she doesn't have the way with words that Varric does.

[stabsbooks]

"No!"

Spoilers, Aveline. Cassandra shakes her head firmly, almost panicked. "It would not be the same. It is not the same to hear it as to read it. Besides, if you are not really a Knight-Captain, other things might have been changed. Perhaps you do not know what happens next."

She peers at Aveline, an idea forming in her mind. "But you know him? He - you must be his friend, if he based it on you." She can't imagine Varric possibly getting away with writing such a thing if the hero of his smuttiest work didn't like him to begin with. "And if you are his friend, then you can talk to him. You can ask him to finish it, tell him to! You are the protagonist - he will have to listen!" She's growing more and more excited and animated as she speaks. Cassandra would never dream of asking Varric for such a thing herself; he would never let her live it down. But even he couldn't turn down the hero of his own story asking him to continue it.

[shieldwalls]

The force to which her offer is rejected takes Aveline by slight surprise. The woman is more interested in her fictional self's venture. Questions about Hawke are usually more commonplace, to her. It's not often that people ask her or recognize her from the serials, the guards had and they certainly had their fun before the book had to be banned in the barracks due to the distraction it caused. "You have a point."

She watches, Cassandra becomes more excited as she goes. "You want me to... ask him? He's going to think I'm mad, after all the times I told him to stop." Aveline looks at the ground. She wanted to think that be the end of it, but all she felt was the nagging guilt that she'd be disappointed -- let down by the real person that her favorite fictional heroine was based off of.

For some reason, she didn't like the idea of that.

"If I do this, nobody else sees the chapter." A pause. "Although I want to see it, I'm curious as to what he changes. Don't tell him I said that."

[stabsbooks]

She is...agreeing? Actually agreeing to speak to Varric on her behalf? For a moment, all Cassandra can do is stare in shock.

"Of course," she agrees hurriedly. After all, if the Knight-Captain, or her real-world counterpart, is right and the series truly is unpopular, no one else will care to read it in any case. Even Dorian hadn't been impressed with the previous chapters she had insisted he read, much to Cassandra's disappointment.

Something else occurs to her then, something terrible. "You must not tell him who it is for. He must not know. Only that is for a - a fan - an anonymous one." The thought of Varric's face if he ever found out her secret, the knowledge of the merciless teasing that would inevitably follow, is terrible - too much to bear. "I will tell no one, and of course you may read it too - it is your story, after all. But you must promise!"