therookery | everyone gets a terrible lullaby

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everyone gets a terrible lullaby

FORM: Crystal
SENDER: Iorveth
RECIPIENT: All errybody
WHAT: Iorveth has some nostalgia, then """sings""" everyone a song.
WHEN: Mid-Cloudreach
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: cw: mentions of torture/death camps??? Will mark in thread headers if anything more crops up.

This place reminds me of Drakenborg. [ Iorveth’s voice comes from the sending crystals, almost up-beat, and if you’ve spoken to Iorveth for all of five seconds before, you should know that’s Not Quite Right. But he seems casual and chilled out enough, so all well. ] It was a castle once, under a different name and a different people, then a fortress, likely named by nobles that wouldn't know a dragon if it bit them on the ass, then it endured as a shelter through two gruesome wars. Then, finally, a death camp.

[ yeah, so maybe not a cheerful talk, but his tone is even and relaxed enough. Still, you might start to guess that he isn’t complimenting the Gallows here. He goes on like it’s idle chit-chat, just swapping cute stories. ] ‘Subversive elements’, they’d say, but it was mostly Scoia’tael, and any other elves or nonhumans that breathed the wrong way at the wrong time.

[ The crunch of something that’s probably an apple sounds, and it’s followed by a stuttered laugh, muffled slightly because he’s definitely talking with his mouth full. ] Kind of a funny place, really. At night, you’d hear the prisoners in the death cell singing ‘The Hymn of the Joyful’, and they'd pick it up, all through the rest of the dungeon. You could almost bloody dance to it, if you weren’t chained to the walls, starved, half your bones broken and half your blood missing. We sung it in our own tongue, of course, but translated, it's... [ A pause, Iorveth’s voice trailing off pensively while he’s thinking of the best way to translate it to Common. He doesn’t sing it, because no one wants to hear his singing voice, it belongs in a freaking dungeon. Rather, he recites it like a poem: ]

"The hanged people dance on the ropes, rhythmically writhing in spasms. Sing your song with melancholic emotion, to amuse the joyful. Each of the dead remember, when their feet left the stool, and their eyes popped out of their sockets. Dance on the hanging ropes, happily writhe in spasms. And the wind carries their songs, the ringing chorus all around." [ It really doesn’t sound that joyful when it's not being sung. Or when one actually know what the words mean. ]

Good song, better with the tune to it. Too bad the man who wrote it was set aflame and quartered. Would’ve made a great bard. [ A short, sigh, lamenting opportunities lost. That’s rough, buddy. Humming, he takes a short pause, before adding on like an afterthought - ] Makes me wonder if your alienages here have any ditties like it.

[ Is he suggesting the alienages are glorified death camps? Maaaybe. Let’s talk morbid songs, friends. Or whatever, he's not picky, just shooting the shit, but Iorveth is allergic to small talk, so you end up with crap like this. If you happen to be looking for him, he’ll be sat or crouched up on top of a building somewhere, probably, or on a wall, munching at some fruit and peering over the courtyard, looking like an overgrown monkey-child. ]

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[Yngvi listens because he's been doing a lot of that lately, thawing out after the whole ice adventure and his lady's upheaval. Checking in on things when he's working on traps.]

Alienages have traditions and stuff, y'can ask but they might be a bit wary of strangers for good reasons. [Strange names being, unfamiliar songs, doesn't take a leap for him to guess that this is a rifter and that given the everything of everything that folk have a right to just want to be left in some peace.] Everywhere has shit like that, not that Orzammar would spare rope for folk when they can just toss you into the Deep Roads because it's right there and less wasteful. They'd need to pay for rope.

[Need to pay surfacers for rope and 'trade happens' because that's how dwarves work, no he's not bitter.]

[ ding ding, you win, it's a rifter. the side-eyeing he's been getting hasn't been something iorveth feels particularly perturbed about, the only section of people he's really concerned about making wary being those in the elven ghettos they're talking about. ]

Any group of people have traditions and stuff, it comes hand-in-hand with community. There is a reason I'm asking the Inquisition, rather than standing on a box shouting it out to the slums. [ Because he doesn't fucking look like a trustworthy person, and he has terrible people skills. Speaking of, there's a brief pause, pensive, before he adds - ] I can't really tell if you're calling tradition 'shit like that' or mass murder.

[ Could be both, he's not assuming. Another pause, because he's digging through what he remembers of the history books he's been pouring through for the words the voice brings up. Deep Roads - blight, darkspwan, undead things. As for the other. ]

Orzammar... Dwarves, right? [ His thoughts touch on Mahakam, but it's a different place, different world, different tragedies. ] Must not be very personal an offense, if they're only tossed out to die with no one watching.

[Well who doesn't get side-eyed if they're not the right sort anyway?]

Second bit but alienage has traditions about marriage, the tree they keep, their elder. How in Orlais the chevaliers go in and test their blades on them or I think in Ferelden they've just let their hounds go charging in. [So yeah, shit like that just goes hand-in-hand. But surprise, surprise (or maybe not) the dwarf boy knows a decent bit about alienage elves, it comes with the territory of knowing when you're the smaller ones in a place where eyes can skim over you until they don't.

Dwarves get to be funny though.

Yngvi's snort is sharp, it hurts coming out of his nose.] The dwarves that know what proper dwarves are. [So they like to say.] Have a baby of the wrong caste and you might get to go back to that caste if you leave it to die in the Deep Roads. Maybe it'll be lucky. Exposure first but there's deepstalkers that come in packs. If the darkspawn don't get it. Because they're down there. Darkspawn that'll make you sick and twisted and terrible if they don't kill you first. I think it's-- well they don't need to look then. Orzammar is good at pretending things don't happen in different ways to humans. Humans like different sorts of spectacles.

If every place gets mass murder like every place gets marriage traditions, when's the day I get to test blades on the chevaliers without consequence? My wedding?

[ Probably the only wedding he would willing be a part of, tbh, if the reception was knifing every human you see, mostly the racists. Can it be his dowry? There's a few vague hums that come up during the explanation of the babies being tossed to the Deep Roads, and while he'd known about Darkspawn and the creepy blight crap from books already, the Dwarven caste nonsense hadn't yet come up. ]

Hm. Far different from dwarves I'm used to. For one, they don't have pet ghouls around to toss their unwanted children or drunks to. [ albeit, 'drunk', to dwarves, is a relative thing. ] Humans like to either watch a show that strokes their ego, or invent excuses and rationalizations for things that happen. "Our God wants us to" is a popular one. Elves like to pretend things aren't happening, or that they're taking a high road by ignoring it. The dwarves I've known are typically the ones willing to point out the obvious that no one else is looking at. Perhaps I've never met proper dwarves.

[ he thinks of yarpen likening him to a shit-coated stick, in that it could still be a weapon. nah, he likes his dwarves. ]

The day you're good with plenty of other elves, the Inquisition, and a lot of rifters getting blades put to them. Inquisition might be able to keep some of it at bay but it doesn't matter, they'll just find any elf and do that to them. [All elves look alike Iorveth, that's how it goes, doesn't matter if someone hates a Dalish and takes it out on a city elf or vice versa.]

They're not pets. Most of the old splendour got taken over so Orzammar's what they're left with now until they do some push to reclaim lost Thaigs because that's what everyone wants, round up the crew, we'll fight Darkspawn, probably lose people to death, injuries, but we'll get back some relics covered in Darkspawn shit. [Do Darkspawn shit? He would assume? He's going to actually have to ask a Warden if Darkspawn shit now, or just, generally about the bodily functions of Darkspawn so he knows just how stupid Orzammar Thaig Reclaimers are.] So. It's just living there. Near the Deep Roads. Full of Darkspawn. Then sending folk off to push them back and having the Legion of the Dead down there in the really shit bits to fight them. Because they're true dwarves.

Orlais had some executions sometimes but everything's a show there so if you get to go to Orlais, you'll understand what I mean, you have to wear masks, you're meant to be up on all the latest fashion. And like I said, chevaliers. City elves don't really get much choice in things because life deals them a shit hand; when they did do something, Empress of Orlais burnt the alienage down. Dalish come off that way. 'Specially the ones that say Dalish instead of elf. Bit dodgy. [Bit of Orzammar about it. Uncomfortable. 'So-called surface caste' vs 'flat-ears'. Doesn't sound too different to him when he's got most of Thedas under his belt.]

You ever met a dwarf that tries to swindle you blind then be your best friend smiling like he'd stab you then sell your grandmother? That's a proper dwarf.

And that is how you hold an entire civilization hostage. Humans do the same to my people, in my world. I was born to a city just like this, grew up in its gutters, underfoot. When you threaten each individual with the fate of the whole, all are too shamed to act out and rebel. The enslaved do all the work of it. Turns any that do stand up for themselves into the enemy of their loved ones. [ Where no one dared to speak out, rebel, demand justice for a crime against their own, say no when a human with a weapon on them requested something. The neighbor, friend, mother standing next to them would slap them and say are you mad? In a hundred years, the tactic hasn't changed and hasn't needed to. He knows well that that's how it goes. He's just stopped caring. ]

I left my village with five human heads skewered on pikes in the central market, and the guard barracks lit to a bonfire. [ And he'd made it plenty clear that any of his friends and neighbors were invited to come with him. They didn't, for fear of being run down by guards even outside the city limits, outside the country's borders, no length of terrain enough to satisfy their terror. Too uncertain of leaving behind the meager possessions they had. Even knowing the Scoia'tael, and all their warriors, were out there, pledged to take them in if they abandoned the ghettos. That Enid an Gleanna was constructing a safe haven.

In the end, it was only him, with his bow strapped to his back, walking out the gates and into the woods. Whatever they suffered after that was their own making, so far as he was concerned. He wouldn't keep watching his loved ones take abuse and die just because some cowards would suffer for it. If they weren't willing to stand up for his father, his mother, for him, then let them take the punishments too. ]

None that's lived. [ Said after a snort, on the topic of swindling dwarves. He's known a great many of them, called several friend. Most that tried swindling Scoia'tael leaders were human, but there'd been the occasion dwarven trader to attempt it. Usually when they didn't know who he was first. Iorveth wants to say 'sorry they've declined into such pathetic things', but that's him just comparing his memory to his present. some things here are the same as home, some are much, much different. ] Have they always called that 'proper' in your race?

There's a word in the alienage, I'm not so good at elven but it's an alienage word about when people get pushed too far. Reminding humans. Something to do with a short blade being respected. [Fact: Yngvi absolutely does know the word, but if he won't admit basic Orlesian to friends of over a year, he won't admit elven to a stranger. Fact the second: having an Orlesian elf teach him it has probably not helped his pronunciation but then again, elfblooded Kirkwaller wouldn't have done him any favours either.] But after Halamshiral and Celene I reckon they'd be a bit more cautious 'bout doing things. Burnt the tree down and everything and the new one there was...weird.

[At least they had a tree again so that was that, even if it wasn't the sort of tree they'd had before. They wouldn't have the same people. The same homes. Everything would have to be rebuilt again and when he looks around at Kirkwall now it's built itself up again from one disaster and another, nothing is ever the same. So maybe it's okay. Or you just get used to telling yourself that enough times over the years.]

What the fuck are you? Don't think even the wildest Dalish'd do that and no city elves would have the equipment for it - d'you have to steal stuff? Or are elves where you come from allowed whatever weapons they want? [Well he's...impressed? Maybe? A little too shocked to say for sure because who comes out and just says 'by the way beheaded five people, before or after death, dead eyes just watching me walk away before the crows came' because that's one of the wilder things he's heard in a while.

They'd done things in the Boneflayers that had left a trail of carnage but it had always been people no one would care about or people they were paid to deal with so the mess wouldn't be a problem. Harder to get used to for him. The Carta had instilled messages with it. Don't be sloppy. Leave only what you need to for the right person. Don't have the guards come looking. Or worse, don't have the merchants have reason to come sniffing about.]

My entire family. [Said without hesitation but not the easy swaggering confidence he might've had a few months back. Brittle but without being able to see his face, Iorveth probably won't be able to tell what's going on there.] Merchants definitely, can trust that lot of crooks and a lot of them are Orzammar stock that ended up here for one reason or another. And Orzammar? Maybe it's the only thing that stuck in us. Maybe that's the one thing bred in the bone that we can't get rid of.

Mine have a saying as well. "Push humans back into the sea". We aren't kind enough to give reminders for things that should never have been forgotten. [ Maybe he shouldn't be surprised by the city elves dispositions here. It's very similar to those in his world, thinking they're doing some huge work of rebellion by not letting a human pass through a door first, or price gouging them on items, cornering a single drunk in a dark alley, oh ho ho, take that, humans. He'd heard of the revolt in Halamshiral, read of it in the library, and while it's a sad thing, the worse part of it, in his opinion, is that they stopped there.

who gives a fuck about some houses and a tree? humans are more dependent on their eyesore cities than elves have ever needed to be, the Dalish of this world prove that enough. Iorveth would've had them burn their mansions, docks and courtyards to ash. lock celene in her palace and listen to her scream as the flames ate away her skin. trap them in the towers they love so much. But, Iorveth is a fucking crazy person, even if it does get shit done. ]

I was a pissed off orphan. Now, I'm a Scoia'tael commander. [ picking on herbalists and weavers in the ghettos is one thing. when a scoia'tael unit moves into a nearby forest, humans learn to keep inside their walls. ] Nonhumans are allowed weapons, mostly as we're the only ones that craft them worth a damn, but using them against a human means death. Between my father, the local dwarven smith, and others my age, I learned enough to take revenge on some drunk bandits. The rest I learned from the Scoia'tael that took me in outside the city.

[ drunk bandits that kill the first of the people on that list. setting the barracks alight was retribution for the guards that did nothing about the bandits to begin with. ]

I'm sorry to hear that, of your people. You, though, seem capable of more. Perhaps you can do your race better justice. [ at least for the sake of realizing what bullshit there is in that mentality. intelligence is a far better step than knowing how to swing a sword. one of those comes with simple training and the other does not. ] What would you call your profession?

They tried that here y'know? When the doglords all showed up during the Blight but it was humans doing it to humans, because they came here and there wasn't room, still they stuck around and the place went to shit after. [Is that fair of him? No, probably not, but when you're a very small dwarf even by dwarf standards stuck in the dark and damp of Darktown suddenly packed full of resentful, hungry, angry humans where even the children are far bigger and stronger than you, life becomes a much harder place. Sharper. Food taken out of your mouth.

Because that's sort of the thing: humans push around everyone including each other, and Yngvi is used to watching it, to navigating through it, to playing his part where his mouthful is bitter to swallow.]

I've got...eight fathers, six mothers at last count, comes and goes a bit. Uncles, aunts, the old ones, siblings what I didn't eat. [And faintly, after that is Yngvi's thick Kirkwall mangling of Scoia'tel, attempting to ask the question of: the fuck is that mate but mostly tripping over the word, half sounding like squawk each time.] When Liadan - she's the second for the company I'm in - wanted to take revenge on people in the Coterie who did her dirty she had to hire out, and she looks human, she's elf on one side. Still couldn't do it all herself or she'd have been strung up.

[It makes him angry, saying that. Thinking about Liadan. People like her. Friends and near-family, his lady-- (No, don't think about that now, she'll be okay, she'll say if she wants them to come.)]

Me? I'm a mercenary, Boneflayers company; I'm the one here while the rest are off elsewhere, we signed a contract a couple of years back to do with the Inquistion. Born Carta though, cheating, thieving, swindling, taking out kneecaps because dwarves are the right height for all your knees. [The cheerfulness at that isn't faked or forced because there's nothing quite like the look on someone's face when they come to realise that no, that dwarf really is going to roll right into them before the axes come out.] Traps though, that's what I'm best with.

By 'push into the sea' I meant drown. The dead don't tend to take up space above the ground for long. [ or take food out of your mouth. it isn't a territory war thing, it's a please die thing, because you've taken over half the lives of the peaceful elder races that welcomed you onto this continent, and you've well over-stayed your hospitality. even the dwarves have been cut down to just the Mahakaman Foothills, despite how much better they mesh with human society than the elves.

however, proud as the war cry is, it's too little too late. the best they can do is rain unholy terror to be sure their people go out with a roar rather than a whimper. that part, at least, iorveth is exceedingly good at. ]

...I hadn't realized birthing a single child could be such a group project. [ eight fathers, six mothers, dude, what even? the mispronunciation he isn't bothered by, and frankly even surprised the dwarf attempted it at all. but the woman he mentions strikes something more familiar in him, and Iorveth listens quietly, before swapping this to private. ] Smart of her to acquire allies outside herself. Have the mercenaries you've joined with ever considered unifying beyond that? For more than lucrative pay?

[ for a home and some margin of safe-living and self-respect? there's so many nonhuman groups to Thedas with still so many numbers to them, not dwindled like the Continent. they could easily carve out their own place were they all willing to join together for it. ]

Though, being the right height for kneecaps - that you bloody are, tiny little bastards. [ Said with a laugh, clearly joking and not meaning real insult. He's known plenty enough dwarves in his time, and Zoltan Chivay in particular loved to point out the disadvantage in being a tall ass elf. ]

Bit more of a Raider thing here, better not to go stepping on their turf when we're next to the Wounded Coast. [There's the Carta, the Coterie, the Raiders, various mercenary companies, whatever else there might be that Yngvi's forgetting at the moment that all overlap with everyone. All the old loyalties, the old guard.

Even if bodies got tossed in the water because well it's convenient, and no one cares too much. Same as how the Kirkwall guard that Yngvi remembers from being younger didn't care to look too hard into whatever or whoever got washed back up with the tides.]

Who said anything about birthing? You humans and elves, don't know enough about Qunari but I reckon some sort of weird bee grub baby thing, you're the vulgar ones doing all that. Dwarves got other ways of making babies that don't get all messy. Disgusting how you lot do it. [Iorveth's not going to know and whatever, Yngvi's a bloody pedigreed dwarf so anyone who wants to come dispute these stone cold dwarf facts can come meet him in the pit.] Well we usually do jobs for nobles, they pay well. Bigger jobs a few companies all join up but signing on with the Inquisition's the biggest thing we've ever done, it's more that when it's just us being a crew of us we get to decide our lives on our terms. It works. Took a bit to get the roster right but everyone likes it now and we can travel at a good speed, swap the watches, take on the high pay jobs comfortably.

[Plus they can still go to parties with the nobles who have to be nice to the people enabling them to live their lives which is fun, really, when it's two dwarves, an elf, an elfblood, an apostate, and a Rivaini all hanging out. More fun when there was a great dirty part-Avvar and his dog there too. But Yngvi misses that life, is aching to get back to it now.]

Y'know we're not tiny, you're all lanky streaks of piss. S'alarming. Seeing some of you nude. First time I saw a naked elf I screamed, that much arm? That much leg? Someone put things together wrong when they were making the people up.

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everyone gets a terrible lullaby

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sshiiiittttt i thought i tagged this back, i am the worst

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