therookery | crystal

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crystal

FORM: Crystallll
SENDER: Kitty Jones
RECIPIENT: Everyone
WHAT: DOGS DOGS DOGS DOGS EVERYBODYYYY DOGS DOGS DOGS DOGS DOGS
WHEN: Nowish
WHERE: Everywhere
NOTES: Everyone seems sad so: dogs

[ Kitty sounds faintly aggrieved. The reason: ]

So, there's this dog that started following me about. I guess it's mine now or - something. Anyway. Has anyone got ideas for a name?

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Because he was a chevalier and chevaliers go ridin' through alienages to kill elves for a jolly.

[Yeah he...he can't really try to make that a joke, there's no politics about being a chevalier in the finest armour with the finest sword killing terrified folk who can't defend themselves, that's just are you a decent person or are you a scumbag.]

[ Jesus. What the fuck. That takes the wind out of her sails. So, rather more weakly - ]

Sure. Right. I'm just saying, women, they get judged for things men don't get judged for. That's all.

D'you think I don't know that? Like I just fell off the turnip cart? S'why I was saying don't name your dog Anora. I'm not even gettin' into Orzammar with you.

[Noble hunters and Silent Sisters and Castes that'd be a bad idea he's not doing that today.]

What's Orzammar?

Where dwarves come from, absolute shithole, caste system and everything. Like, every dwarf somewhere along the way did come from there once in their life even if it was a few generations back. Don't go, it's horrible.

What - there's theatre, or something?

[ Caste system, cast system. Sounds the same to someone who's never heard the term before. ]

What the-- no! Maybe? No probably not they have Provings for the upper crust and hit each other how did you-- I don't--

[He will stop speaking in fragments when he gets through this what's going on here???]

I mean Orzammar, generally, if you go there looks like the theatre but literally everywhere does if it's weird shit nobles do because nobles are weird. This is the places in dwarf society where you live and your sex is involved for inheriting and all that. So you got the nobles riding brontos beating the riffraff [no, you don't but Kitty'll get the picture in a minute] then warriors, smiths, artisans, miners and merchants. Lower caste is servant caste, that's most of Orzammar. Below that again is Casteless, brands on the face, got no rights and they live in Dusttown it's just...it's bad. Really bad. They're not even people, just beggars and street sweepers and fodder for the Carta. Can't do the work the Castes do or they couldn't, some of it's getting better with the new king but like, still shit. Just underground. No one sees it.

So -

[ That's a lot of terms getting thrown at her; she struggles to keep up. ]

It's...You're stuck being part of some - class?

So you're a lass, right. Say you were a dwarf lass, and you were born in Orzammar. And your dad was a smith but your mum, she were a miner, you'd be the mining caste because your mum's a miner. But if you had a brother, he'd a smith like your dad. You can't change it. Not ever. It is how it is. Only way it does change is if, somehow, you're a lass and you get off with a noble and you pop out a boy. Whole family get raised up as nobles.

[That...is exactly as seedy as it sounds. He doesn't really want to be talking about it but y'know for the sake of explanation.]

[ Ew. ]

What if you're not good at mining?

The way the mining caste go on about it I think they put the tools in your hand when you're swaddled, there's not really a choice.

[Maybe you drag the carts or feed the brontos he...doesn't really know mining he's a surface boy.]

That's stupid.

[ Kitty frowns. ]

I mean, people should be doing what they're good at. And what they want to do. Otherwise, everyone's going to be rotten at it.

You learn when you're little. If it's all you've ever known then that's it. It's all you've ever known. You get good.

[An expansive sort of shrug. Uncomfortable.]

Ain't like you got all sorts of options down there I mean you're there. Still you've got a caste, better than being casteless. Elves in the city probably get it the same and the poor humans on a farm, they might be shit at farming but if it's what their parents did and their parents 'fore them and all the way back did. S'how you get generations of 'em who just stay put. Live and die on the same bit until something finishes everyone off so a new lot'll take their place.

Or run to a city. To get off the farm.

[ It's what her family did, back in the day. If he's not in this Orzimmar, she thinks, it must have been what his family did, too. ]

Need to know what you're running to is better or that it's not a noose.

[Even if he was desperate would he be brave enough to risk the Deep Roads or a lifetime of debt? It's easier to be born into it. Hard to get out of but you don't make that first choice.]

Do you? Honestly, if I hated something, I don't think I'd wait to find out whether or not something was better. I'd just go.

There's Darkspawn on the way out of Orzammar. And the Carta. You got no idea what the Carta is unless you're in it, I can't explain it to you.

Try me.

[There are a hundred things he could say. A thousand. Instead, Yngvi laughs. Laughter that rattles through all the hollow places in him. All the places dark as the Deep Roads.]

Thedas'll grind that out of you if you let it, try to hold onto that yeah?

[ A slight hesitation. ]

It'll grind...what out of me? Self-confidence?

Everything. It happens. Life happens. D'you think a mountain is always tall or that-- that glass stays sharp forever if it drops in the sea? How d'you turn grain to flour? Take a great bloody stone and wear all the stuff protecting the soft bit away.

[Sometimes he can do the smart people talking thing when he actually stops thinking and let's the words come out.]

[ Kitty scoffs. Not nastily - the noise is rather soft - but she scoffs. ]

And, what, you fancy the place I came from wrapped me up in velvet? It's sweet of you to fuss, but also I've already had a great bloody stone on my back all my life. If they couldn't crush me there, Thedas can't, either.

[ But, it's worth emphasizing again - ]

But you are sweet.

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crystal

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