CRYSTAL | maybe you should wait.

[poleaxed]

FORM: Crystal
SENDER: Jone
RECIPIENT: Y'all
NOTES: Comments may be spicy.

Is anybody dreaming of getting back topside? Know I am. Blimey, a sweaty fucking pit, is Orzammar.

We've a tennis court. That's jeu de paume for the rest of you. [Her Orlesian is surprisingly not terrible.] It ought to be finished by the time we're back. I know, I know, you don't like to train in the yard, it hurts your knees or your bloody feelings. That's what the court's for. Let's play a game and get your stamina up, aye?

Noticed we've had some new folk lately, and I wanna say again: I'm Jone, the six-foot-bitch in the training yard with the red hair. I'll train you, and I'll do it right. You ain't for swords, we'll find what you're for. Free fucking service, you only have to make an effort.

Think of it this way: if you work hard enough, get strong enough, one day you'll get to break me nose.

Comments

[elegiaque]

You're encouraged not to get caught. The distinction is very fine. Outside of Ferelden.

[novokribirsk]

And what's so special about Ferelden?

[ since we're all dunking on it, apparently. it's not that zoya hasn't been paying attention to learning about thedas, it's just that she hasn't been here long enough to pick up much more than basics. ]

[elegiaque]

You'll pick it up.

( that is one of two options, and it counts as friendliness that gwenaëlle doesn't specify the alternative or it's also about you. )

[novokribirsk]

Hm.

[ but she doesn't sound annoyed, actually. she'd say about the same. ]

[poleaxed]

We're a backwater pit of mud-swilling dogfuckers.

Also, we've fought off Orlesian invasions twice, so some fuckers are jealous of our top quality dogshite and succession crises. Crisises. Fuck.

[novokribirsk]

[ fuck is right, really; sounds all too familiar, doesn't it. ]

Who wouldn't want to control a country that comes so highly recommended?

[poleaxed]

We have three important sea ports, our capital's where Holy Andraste were born, and Orzammar's doors are in our territory. Add all that bloody farmland, and it's good enough to stomp boots over.

But there's too much forest, and our royals hide in it and play the game on their terms whenever Orlais comes knocking. They don't know the land.

[novokribirsk]

[ she thinks of fjerda at one border, and shu han at the other. she thinks of endless border skirmishes, towns demolished, orphanages like alina's, like nina's, filling. nikolai's nolniki and his race to develop better technology to arm their smaller, more weary forces. ]

The more fools them, to start wars without understanding the territory they tried to march into. Small wonder they failed twice.

[poleaxed]

Heh. You're a sharp one.

So that's the contexte culturel you're missing.

[Again, her Orlesian is surprisingly good. It's almost as if she spent almost two decades there?]

[novokribirsk]

I'm a general, and I'd make a poor one if I couldn't grasp a little strategy.

[ her tone implies that she is very much not a poor one.

also she's not unappreciative of the explanation, but she doesn't, like, say as much. ]