Supply run

[hlif]

FORM: Notices in various locations
SENDER: Asher Hardie
RECIPIENT: Everyone
WHAT: Arranging delivery of pelts and taking orders for a supply run
WHEN: Current, departing prior to the soiree
WHERE: Bulletin board, a copy in the Herald's Rest, a few postings in the refugee camp.
NOTES: Content warnings, OOC notes, links to other relevant posts, etc.

To everyone who wanted the following: 

• bear and/or wolf blankets with sleeves
• bear and/or wolf pelts
• assorted teeth, claws, skulls or other parts

You can come collect them by the Herald's Rest if you want them this week.

I'm heading out to the Hinterlands to check in with my family, if you'd like anything to be added to the supply run leave a note for me, or come find me at the refugee camp, my tent is the one painted with kaddis and with a small chicken coop out front.  I'll be collecting various meats, cheeses, vegetables, wool, leather, homebrew and various other sundries from Hardie Holdings.  If you would like me to collect anything else on the journey, let me know and we can arrange payment/trade and delivery.

- Asher Hardie

Comments

action?

[serannas]

[ Ellana stops in the Herald's Rest looking for someone surrounded by pelts. When she finds him, she gives him a cautious smile. ]

Hello. I'm Ellana. I don't know if Korrin mentioned it to you, but she said she would be getting myself and my roommate Sabriel a bear pelt from you. I wasn't sure if she was going to pick it up, or if I was supposed to collect it.

[hlif]

[Even for Asher, he's been surly of late and that's a good part of the reason as to why he's trying his very best to get the hell out of Skyhold to cool off. Still, the woman hasn't done anything to upset him and he turns. He's tripped over more Dalish in the past few months than the past few years it'd seem.]

Asher Hardie, or 'that Avvar lump' or 'that Avvar bear', not sure what Korrin introduces me as to her friends. [What a bro she is.] I've got it here, she hadn't been down to the camp yet so you get to pick yourself from what I've got.

[serannas]

I can't remember, but I want to say the second sounds familiar...

[ She smiles and comes forward, liking the look of the pelts. The bears in Emprise were huge! She lightly runs her hand across one, going with the fur, and then lifts the edge to check the one under. She doesn't mind huddling up with Sabriel under the covers, but she bets Sabriel doesn't appreciate an elf that feels more like an icicle up against her back. They need something that can cover most of their bed. Overall, the pelts all look pretty much the same, so she returns to the top one. ]

Could I take this one?

[hlif]

Terrible, the way she talks about me to strangers, don't you agree?

[The best way to talk about a friend, because Asher can feel his smile splitting his face and it's been days since the Anders announcement but he's been, well, moping. Fighting with someone you banged and liked will do that to a man. Dammit Kaisa.]

Absolutely. Have to say that I thought you would've had one of your own, Dalish hunters are skilled, almost as good as the Avvar. [Like anyone is better than bear wrestlers.] Wasn't as if Haven was much warmer to most people than Skyhold is.

[serannas]

Oh, I don't know. I'll bet you have the type of friendship where it really amuses you, don't you? That smile seems to suggest so.

[ Ellana tries to fold the blanket up in a way that makes it easier for her to carry out and back to her room. ]

We traveled light, so I didn't already have one. And we arrived at Skyhold, not Haven. Well, except for one, but he joined the Inquisition before the rest of us came.

[hlif]

Just hurts when she doesn't remember that our hold beast is a badger, not a bear.

[Asher watches for a moment before he gets to his feet, whistling for his hound before he gives a few instructions.]

Give that here, I'll be delivery boy, wouldn't want someone to say my bear pelt meant you fell and smashed your pretty head open, Korrin would light my arse on fire before the rest of me and she'd freeze my cock off. Forward scout?

[serannas]

Hold beast? Is that a sacred animal?

[ It definitely sounds like it holds a special significance. ]

Oh, thank you. Yes, I'll lead.

[ She hands the pelt back over with a grateful smile. ]

[hlif]

They're a member of the clan, halla are revered to the Dalish, aren't they? Well, this one beast ties us to the gods, it represents us. It's not a like pet, it can live how it chooses to live and even if we feed it, it's never fed enough to stop it from hunting. When it's well? The clan is happy and joyous. If it sickens and dies, that's an ill omen.

[Neighbours to his grandfather's hold lost theirs in the early days of the Fifth Blight, now that hold is gone, vanished without a trace to know if all of them died together.

Swinging the pelt up on his shoulder, he ignores whatever looks he might get; he's never cared, but some of them look as horrified as Orlesians do when he walks past them.]

How many of your clan are around here? The Inquisition settled itself in the Frostbacks and my folk, my grandfather's folk, haven't really made any appearance.

[Well except one woman in Sahrnia but he's not going to blab on a hunch if she was behaving so oddly.]

[serannas]

[ She nods seriously. It made sense to her. Animals were sometimes more than beasts of burden. ]

Five others. Though being here, we aren't very close. Not like we were when we saw each other every day, or nearly every day since the hunters sometimes stayed out. Is it like the Avvar to stay isolated? We saw them in the Fallow Mire when they kidnapped some Inquisition scouts, but I'm not sure that's a good example.

[hlif]

You don't prefer sticking around one another instead of dealing with so many shems? The Avvar don't really have much to care about when it comes to lowlanders. We trade more with the dwarves, actually, works out best for both parties and unless it's raid, there's no real reason to get involved. My grandparents only met when she was forced high up into the hills to go hunting, kidnapping isn't really how it's meant to go. Besides, what is there in the Fallow Mire? Nothing to hunt, nothing for rams to graze on, they're more likely to drown and sicken than anything else there.

[serannas]

I don't mind some of the shems. [ It's said with a hint of a smile and a quick look his way. ] Those of you who don't hate me at first sight rise up in my estimation.

[ She listens to his explanation and it makes sense to her. That doesn't excuse what the Avvar of the Mire did, but it was a miserable place for everyone. ]

But the Avvar don't move often, do they? I mean, if there is a lack of food, I imagine so, but the Dalish have to constantly move because we're not welcome anywhere. Humans claim all the land and don't want us on it. I do wish we could settle down and build houses, but it's something that can't happen overnight.

[hlif]

I'm a very good shem. [There's a grin on his face before he leans down so he can pretend to whisper. It's an act, he's not gone this long without knowing how to do it but still.] Most shems don't even like me, the great unwashed, a reminder that once even the Orlesians lived up in the mountains tending goats.

[Look Movran has shitbag sons. Asher had the decency to get thrown out of his home so he could go make trouble elsewhere.]

A hold is a hold. It means something to you. You learn to survive there and most holds have been there a long, long time, some from back when we were all still Alamarri and no one gave a flying fuck about Andraste. If elves came stumbling into a hold they'd defend it, it's how it goes, and a hold can't take what a village can; things are done carefully, so you know you'll last through the winter. There's land some places though, I've been most everywhere that isn't Par Vollen or Seheron or Tevinter, places where it was me, the crew, and whatever we were being paid to deal with. You'll always find a place.

[Maybe only people like Asher can offer that sort of sentiment without it actually sounding sentimental, just with a shrug of broad shoulders and a grin. The world has never wanted Asher, in a different way to how it doesn't want elves and he's not going to pretend he knows what that's like but he does know thumbing your nose and doing what you want, and making sure you're the one still standing.]

[serannas]

Winters are harsh for the clan. We don't have houses to bundle ourselves up in. I was Heathkeeper, so I know that even the best constructed fires can't hold off the chill once it settles into your bones. It stays there until spring.

[ Ellana wants to find her place someday; a place that's safe and stationary. But until that time, she wants to travel and see the world, while wanting safety for her clan and all clans. ]

Do you have a favorite place? I ask everyone when I hear they've been all over.

[ It's something she files away for future reference. Alistair's favorite place is Redcliffe; Kaidan's is Antiva. There are so many sights to see and she wants to fill up whole journals with her explorations. ]

[hlif]

Holds up in the mountains are built into them, and we were the first ones living up there a long, long time ago. It's a good time for a lot of people to pray to Rilla and make babies, not like there's much else to do unless you're forced to go out hunting but that's how my grandparents met, back when the Orlesians still occupied Ferelden. They both got lost, spent winter in a cave together, come spring she went off to find her family to tell them they'd have a grandchild and she went back and forth from then on.

[After Asher's mother got the farm though, she settled into hold life like she was born to it. Sometimes Asher wishes things had worked out differently, that the generations had swapped so he'd been born like that but maybe he was meant to be just what he is. He always hears that in his mother's voice, and it always rings in his ears.]

I'm meant to say the hold, or the farm, but honestly? Nevarra. I've only been there a few times but it's incredible. It's history, dragon hunting in the glory days, and the Mortalitasi respect the dead, they're not like the rest of the Andrastians going around burning folk. If you ever get to go to Nevarra, then go, just don't get into drinking contests with shady sorts in the pub, you wouldn't wake up three days later like I did.

[serannas]

Oh! [ That's one way to get together with someone. ] That sounds like something out of a romantic tale. They had the whole winter together to get to know each other.

[ Though she wonders if it was love or lust. It doesn't feel right to ask. Too much like prying. ]

I'm certainly not one to get into drinking contests, so I think I'll be safe. But Nevarra is on my list. My roommate Sabriel comes from there, and I'd love to see her homeland.

[hlif]

[Snorting loudly enough that he almost chokes, he shakes his head so his braids swing.] Pretty sure even an adventurous girl like gran was in her day thought he'd cave her head in at first. Don't know how either of them made something as sour as my mother, I'm more like the child they should've had.

[World please explain why this happened.]

Is she a Mortalitasi? [Try to sound less eager Asher.]

[serannas]

[ Ellana looks over at him, slightly bemused. Not a romantic tale, then? Well, then she'll just pretend. ]

No, she isn't. She's a Grey Warden.