therookery | mail delivery.

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mail delivery.

FORM: Crystal.
SENDER: Seoraj Allaway.
RECIPIENT: You lot.
WHAT: Couple things.
WHEN: Current.
WHERE: Kirkwall.
NOTES: If your character has anyone who'd write them from Val Royeaux, feel free to put their hand up as one of the names he reads out.

This a funny little thing, isn't it. Ho, the Inquisition;

( and this is a very distinctly starkhaven accent, too, and the warm, somewhat gravelly voice it belongs to might be recognisable to some of those listening to it, )

your new blacksmith. Got a few letters come out of Val Royeax for - ( he goes through the names, mostly not mangling the pronunciation though there are a few that give him trouble and he sounds them out with care ) - if you want to come down to the forge for 'em. Don't mind coming to you, if needs be, and I'd mind less if you were inclined to be grateful.

( give him a beer it was a long trip. )

Other'n that, if you see a little fellow looks like he last bathed before he were born and answers to name of Yngvi, tell him Seoraj is looking for him and how high I toss him in the air depends how long it takes me to find him.

( Disclaimer probably won't toss him in the air. He sounds affectionate, not like he's owed money. )

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( The accent and the name separately might not be significant, but the two together give her pause. Her voice is a little hesitant. His phrasing seems quite clear, but triple checking:)

Seoraj. Is that your name, or some other party?

Edited 2017-09-18 04:48 (UTC)

I only speak for myself, love. Don't owe you money, do I?

( Seoraj has never lost track of his accounts in his life, he's just being friendly about how do we know each other. )

Not so far as I recall.

( She wishes she could summon up a playful tone. Instead: more hesitation. It's--

Alarming and comforting and terrifying and a relief, all at once, to encounter those from her home, the home she has not returned to, that she loves, that she has neglected. "Duty" seems like dust in her mouth. )

Herian Amsel, ser.

--no.

( You're shitting him. He sounds delighted. )

Can't be, that girl comes up to my knee, they're never giving her a crystal.

( Seoraj has absolutely no problem summoning up a playful tone, ever. )

( Maker's mercy. She exhales, amused disgust, and resists the kickback that isn't quite instinctive, but feels familiar with Seoraj. She's not seen him since she was very young. She can't remember if he used the tongue of the alienage, or only common - it varied so, and she does not trust such nuances to old memories. )

That girl is a Knight Enchanter of the Spire, Seoraj, and probably as tall as you.

( dream big Herian dream big )

Oooh, I don't know.

( Big buff elf. )

All right, fancy girl, where've you put yourself?

( how dare he but also bless him )

The market. ( which she will probably regret... saying... eAe ) I can make my way to you, unless you've need of rest.

No trouble, I'll come find you.

You've not seen me since I was small.

( should she be concerned
how will he recognise her?
how will she recognise him??? )

Can't imagine how I'm going to find a Knight-Enchanter from an Orlesian circle in a Kirkwall market.

( - kindly. )

( literally not even reunited yet and already gently and lovingly trolling her life )

I hardly carry a banner advertising the fact. So far as I know, no minstrels are following me to declare my presence in song.

If I can't find you, we'll call that one yours.

( Little kids love hide and seek, right. )

I'm gracious enough that I'll not throw an apple at your head, if you find me now.

( At least there's that small comfort.

And though she doesn't quite know how to respond to the present situation, she looks for a landmark. And there it is: a stall with books, unusual and expensive enough to stand out amongst all the rest. )

Valentino's Vade Mecum. A clue for you.

( Her choice of landmark is, in itself, support to his argument about fancy girls in Kirkwall markets - what the fuck is 'vade mecum' when it's at home and how often, exactly, does she imagine he's had to read it that it's a useful clue - but he is an intelligent sort, and there were a bunch of Vs in it, and it's definitely going to be books.

Mages, in his limited experience, are nerds. So. Books. It follows.

He is right, too; the staff is one thing, when mages are increasingly visible these days, but it's the way that she holds herself, the sort of girl who greets a man who used to mind her as a toddler with a line like that girl is a Knight Enchanter of the Spire, Seoraj, hasn't she come over all prim. And murderous, likely, the world being what the world now is. He will always remember the sad, small thing that had come back from the woods without her da, as long as he lives -

So she might talk like a nob now, but when he picks her out in the crowd (reminds him of her mother, a little, bar the eyes) and when he's pretty sure he's got the right prissy shouty mage: hup. No real warning, just right up onto his shoulder, bum-first so he can perch her there casual as you like, folding his arm around her thighs to keep her steady- )

Oi, oi.

( Her reunion with Saoirse was, simply put, rather more dignified. Herian doesn't have time for so much as a "ah, you found the place with the pretentious name" (not that she'd say it, but she'd think it) before she's being hoisted up into the air.

It'd be a lie to say she remains totally silent. Hello childhood friend, goodbye dignity. )

Breò-chual de nathair-sgiathach! ( Slightly colourful Starkhaven outbursts; something along the lines of dragon’s pyre )

Put me down, Seoraj!

'S e do bheatha, ( is his amiable response, and Seoraj, she did not thank you. You know full fucking well she did not thank you.

He doesn't put her down. He gives her a little bounce, making sure she's nice and secure. )

Fuck, you got heavy. You finished here?

( Her mood, summarised: the very severest "no".

It's derailed a bit when she looks down at him. )

You have a beard.

( Despite herself, she sounds really quite impressed. He's very tall and definitely burly (for an elf, if not quite so burly by human standards) and he has a beard. She vaguely remembers slingshotting mud at his face, once, when she was very young. Oh, nostalgia. )

Yes. ( wait. ) Will you set me down? We're making a spectacle of ourselves.

Aye.

( The crucial mistake that Herian has made is not inquiring as to when, precisely, he intends to put her down. It isn't 'while giving that answer', since he's turning to leave the market - politely excusing himself past some gawking onlookers - there's a moderately tense moment because it does look like a large elf is abducting a pretty human girl - but it's fine, everyone's fine here, we're just some weirdos out for a walk.

And she looks sulky, not in fear of his biceps. )

Doesn't grow like a shem's would, mind you, scraggly sad piece of business if I let it alone, but Ashlock - blacksmith what was - taught me to be handy with a razor once upon a time.

( Shem, a word she had not quite forgotten before the Spire fell, but that was more a distant, strange memory, almost faded away and brought hurtling back into familiarity. She wasn't fond of it; it sits uncomfortably on her skin, a dirt she can't scrub off, but she says nothing. The elves are the wronged, she is human, she must live with the title the humans have won themselves, with all their victories. )

Humans enjoy far too much in excess. Perhaps as much can be said for their beards.

( And belonging, familiarity, twisted together with a strange, desperate need to be accepted by people she is not sure she is worthy of; their language, their myths. She cannot quite make herself say shem, not reliably, but she can mock humans in the general sense, at certain times, their excesses an innocent target. All the same, it sticks guiltily in her throat, though, like indulging this childish side might go against some of the morals, ideals, the rules she holds so dear, even as she knows that in the general sense, humans are not victims when set against the elves.

Maker, sometimes she despises the shape of her bones and the way her skin stretches over them more than she can rightly say, when absurd feelings tug at her. It was easier to say nothing, to speak only on the most crucial points, and that was not easy when engaging socially rather than simply as a knight ever on the move and never long in one place.

Discomfort feels all the more stark when behind held up on someone's shoulder, instead of being free to move. Helpfully, she turns Seoraj's head the way they should go. ) There's a tavern, this way.

( He tilts his head and all of his hair away from her hand - not far, since she is literally on his shoulder, but his voice floating up to her is amused: )

I'm not taking you to a tavern.

( She's not actually a child, but still. Much as Seoraj enjoys a drink - and he does - it isn't his preferred method of socializing. It's a particular kind of socializing, and when it's not a familiar local where he can put his feet up and complain about the things they all know and listen to the way the wind is blowing...then it's a kind he has to be in the mood for.

No. Got a better idea. He pats her thigh absently with his free hand-- )

Little lady with a tea room this way, said she'd set aside something interesting if I came back. You buy it, mostly, but you want to sit and drink it she'll give you something to eat while you do it.

( Seoraj collects tea. What of it. )

( She's surprised; Herian is not a great drinker, and truthfully her default means of socialising is tavern more because that is where other people tend to be, than out of great personal interest. A slight amendment: some of them have decent enough food that she deems them good enough to attend with Cosima. )

Tea?

( Herian exhales a breath of almost-not-quite-barely laughter, which is really more like a slightly amused huff than actual laughter. )

Better suited to both of us, then. ( Yes, a tearoom sounds good. But: ) I can walk there myself, though.

( Affably: ) I know.

( It's not far from the market, though, so -

he doesn't actually put her down. Tolerates any further complaints about her dignity or height in much the same way, and sets her gently on her feet when they reach the tea room, at which point it is apparent that no, she has not grown as tall as him.

(So there.)

But he's been in Kirkwall what, five minutes? And this elderly woman greets him like her own boy, letting him take her hands and kiss her cheek and giving him a slap on the arm (what an arm) when he calls her ma'am, polite like, ushering Herian in- )

Here to collect, yeah. I thought we'd have a pot, though, if you wouldn't mind - we'll take whatever you've got going.

( An easy grin, easy demeanor; he'll always have whatever you'd like to give him, always curious about what it might be. The shop is mostly a shop, tins of tea - mostly so varied she like as not sells 'em one of a kind and might be able to get a hold again of something you liked, but maybe not - and little boxes of incense and pressed flowers in frames and someone's cat, winding around everyone's feet. There's two tables, low with soft chairs, and curios and art that is and is not for sale.

It's warm, smells of spice, feels like someone's ill-advised passion project, and is exactly the sort of place Seoraj has always unerringly gravitated to. She can expect his return business. )

( Herian observes, listens, watches. It is strange and uncomfortable and wonderful to see someone she has not known in so long. Childhood memories that were fogged a little by trauma, the passage of time, and no one to relive them with once she and Saoirse were separated with Starkhaven's alienage burning. It reminds her of things, seeing Seoraj already greeted like family. Her own mother was very fond of him, as she remembered, and a little smile tugs the corner of her mouth. She can ask for news of her family, perhaps, depending on whether Seoraj's being in Orlais was a reflection of permanent change, or just a trip.

She thanks the shopkeeper, and moves towards a table, running her fingers over the worn surface. So much of this feels nostalgic, somehow, reminds her of salves and hanging herbs and experimental teas made to see if they could prevent ailments and fortify, or if they were better suited for soothing and healing once they had set it. It all feels very fragile, somehow, and Herian's certain it wouldn't feel so strange if Seoraj were not here. )

Hard pressed to make friends as ever you were, I see.

( He spreads his hands in an easy what can I say. Even as a boy - and he'd been a boy, still, when he last bounced her on his shoulders and called her by pet names - he'd been one to listen, one to think. One to smile, slow, and remember.

He's thirty-five, now; he remembers a great many things. )

Pretty women like a mirror.

( And find one for the best parts of themselves in his smiling face. Men aren't different, particularly, by the way some of the younger men he's worked with puff out their chests when he's nodding along to stories of training and subsequent valor; everyone wants to be the person it looks like Seoraj is seeing.

And he's glad to see it, unless or until he sees something that can't be ignored. )

You've been with the Inquisition long?

Not so very long. A little over a year; I first arrived with them when their forces were stationed near Halamshiral, towards the end of Solace, I think. ( She smiles very slightly. ) I was helping some refugees make it to the Inquisition, and the shelter of Skyhold. There were friends of mine here that thought I might deem it a worthy cause, but I was away on a mission for some... six months. I'd wager you are better familiar with half the Inquisition than I am in some... twelve days, Seoraj, if that.

( There is a slight smile, though her voice is soft and even and careful. She had been quieter when last he saw her as well, had been disinclined to say or do much after her father died - perhaps that's better than if he had known that she'd been brighter again, louder and more mischievous, before the Spire fell. )

Before that I moved through Orlais, helping where I could. Were you based there? You mentioned Val Royeaux I— it would be a strange thing, if we had managed to cross paths before without realising.

( A tilt of the hand - tattooed, now, where it hadn't been before - before he uses it to sort out the tea that they've been given, going about the business of pouring and distributing with the ease of one familiar with both tea as a process and a social ritual. He doesn't quite fit in his surroundings, but he wears them well enough all the same, eases into the space like it will grow accustomed to him. )

Would've been, if I'd stuck around.

( In a mass grave to be burned, yeah. His tone is wry, and his shrug - what it is. ) Civil war's good for no one, but there's coin in it. I finished up shepherding nervous nobs back to their houses now ( exaggerated airquotes are even better when he's holding a delicate bone teacup in one hand ) "everything's sorted right out" and blew out with the next wind to the Inquisition.

I wouldn't rush back.

( Being an elf and a foreigner, besides. Orlais will bite the hand that feeds and tell it to be grateful. )

( Part of her has a mind to catalogue the differences they have accumulated. She has tattoos as well, though they end at her wrists, covered up in the dark cloth of her robes, but stretching along the back of her arms, shoulders, down either side of her spine in abstract floral patterns. One corner of her mouth has a little scar, and one of her ears has been disfigured, though that for now is covered by her hair falling over it. All the better not to dwell on that, now. )

For me, it would depend to where I was rushing.

( She pauses for a long moment, sipping the tea, trying to think what to say; how much context she'll need to add, what he'll know, if she can skip all this at all and just beg for knowledge of Starkhaven, but that seems selfish, somehow. It seems wrong. Talking about herself and offering up information might be self-indulgent in another way. )

I lived near Val Royeaux for some years. After the Circle at Starkhaven was lost to fire, I was sent to the White Spire. That's where I reached the rank of Enchanter.

( Again, will that mean anything? Will it be an achievement? She truly has no idea, anymore.

Ask about Starkhaven, she thinks again — she does not ask about Starkhaven, though. ) I'm sure those you helped were grateful, in their own fashion.

( Admittedly doubtful. )

Doubt that very much.

( It's not unkindly said, nor amused enough by the sentiment to move it into the territory of condescension; it is a plain fact that the likelihood they thought of him at all beyond a figure on a logbook recording how much of their money was now his money afterwards is, at best, negligible. He will do them the kindness of thinking that they might have had more pressing concerns than being irritated that they did still have to pay him -

but that's as generous as he's prepared to be. He sips his tea, says philosophically; ) But then, seeing as how if they hadn't paid me I wouldn't have done it, I won't hold it too much against the pricks.

( He's certainly crossed paths with the odd individual of wealth and influence that he might deign piss on were they burning, but as a species there's fuck all to recommend them. )

It's not a good place to be an elf at the minute, is all. I'd be in Starkhaven, if I didn't reckon I might be a bit more useful here.

Your doubt might be justified.

( A little wry, before she sips the tea. She could not say the same of his... motivations in offering aid. Monetary reward to do something that was right and necessary? That was not an easy concept, but she did not know the circumstances, could not imagine that Seoraj might have saved human nobility for their gold over poor elves unable to pay for the same rescue.

It has been a long time since they were well acquainted; perhaps she is too naive in her nostalgia and her fondness, but the thought does not occur to her now. )

I spoke more with elves than humans, after the Spire. There were a good many refugees I travelled with, but— in times such as these, it is not always easy to deduce what destination will make them safer than the places they would flee from. I would be tempted to damn Orlais to its nobility and its Dalish, but there are so many of its elves that love it fiercely.

( Worth saving for them, perhaps, if no one else. )

Have you been home recently, then? ( Her effort to be casual—

— she doesn't really make an effort to be casual, honestly. )

( Survival is a series of large and small compromises. It is small victories and bigger losses, and it is negotiating what you can learn to live with and what you know you couldn't. It's hoping that you're not losing too much of yourself in the negotiation; it is ugly and dirty and you do what you can within it to be someone you can still look in the mirror.

Sometimes it means working for people who wouldn't break stride to step over your corpse if you died in the doing, so you can send their money to people who deserve the world and will never get it. )

I've not, ( he admits, clearly regretting the answer; knowing that it isn't the one she wants to hear, and hardly the one he wants to be able to give. ) Merc work had been up and down Orlais for a time, now, and I came direct. Might never have got out of the house if I'd gone home, things being what they are.

( His mother being what she is - his family having lost enough sons. )

I got letters, though, if you want news.

( She might remember his mother wasn't exactly prone to limiting her interest to her immediate family, as far as alienage life went. )

I'm sorry.

( She would say that she knows how hard it is not to be able to go home, but that seems stupidly obvious. She'd also say she knows how hard the very act of going home can be. It's not as though she has ventured back to Starkhaven since the Spire fell, and it's hard to pinpoint why, at times. Fear, perhaps. Duty could not be dismissed either, she had been determined over and over to help elves find safety away from the humans and Dalish that tormented them. She has dedicated hours, days, month upon month to helping people, and though all of that had been done with sincerity and the best of intentions there had still been a duty neglected in the midst of it. Fear had claimed a piece of her as it should never be able to a knight, invading her heart and making itself all too comfortable.

But, for the first time, there is the potential of news. )

I would be very glad of whatever news you might have to tell me. Though—

( Her smile is very slight, and more self-conscious than she generally allows herself to be. ) If I might selfishly ask for any news of my mother first, I'd be most grateful for your indulgence.

[ As Yngvi's boss, she should probably be concerned about this. ]

Try the tavern.

[ o well. ]

A'right, thanks.

( Madam are you tryna say something about his boy. )

[Do you know how long it's been since he heard this voice it's been far too long is the only answer because he doesn't keep track really and he'll need to just make something up that sounds good.]

Seoraj? [Just to confirm. To be very sure that this is who it is he's hearing here but who else would slander and describe him so accurately in the same breath?] Where you throwin' me, why am I gettin' tossed you'll make over three quarters of the Inquisition jealous with that talk.

[Let him bask in this glow, let the 80s music play goddamn what is this.]

( sedately; )

Aye, and here with more: got you a present. Fetch your arse down to the forge before I give it to someone else.

( likelihood of that happening: zero. )

[What a good day.]

Dowagers would come for you. Six of them Nevarran. Nevarran dowagers. An alarming creature because the Orlesian ones are just bored but the Nevarran ones'll do something about it.

[Also:]

I have children now. [They're nugs but let's see what the rumour mill says about him.]

Do you. ( A trace of amusement. ) Bring 'em down and give us a look, then, before I have to decide whether or not I'm afraid of dowagers-

They might like me, you never know.

Lot of risk you're exposing yourself to there, what if they take a shine to you? [Imagine if you will the horror that awaits.]

Eat you alive they-- [he's walking and talking as he likes to do, there's a collision] don't tell me to mind where I'm walking, you mind where you're walking this is my home. Some people. Looking at my children funny 'cause they're short.

[Yngvi of course just walked right into them because he's a dwarf and you will get the hell out of his way when he's going to see long lost friends fuck you. Actually--]

Where am I going?

( Seoraj obliges with directions - )

Mind where you're walking, Yngvi, ( tolerantly. )

This is my city, is it my fault that humans don't look both ways and some of them wear six layers of skirts and that's just a certain breed of Templar?

[Wait--

Is that--

Oh yes it is! Let him just kind of weave through some folk to appear as casual as possible with some tiny pink faces poking out of pockets because what did you expect of his children.] I'm here, I'm keeping all my bits intact cheers. No tossing.

( she has a good idea of who she is speaking with. of course, Saoirse could be wrong and that would be utterly embarrassing but somehow she doubts that when she begins to speak— )

If you are who I believe you to be. My... the last time I saw you, I was braiding flowers in your hair. You didn't have the heart to tell me they were common garden weeds.

Anything's a flower if you love it enough, mo laochain.

( Yeah, that's the dude. )

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