sending crystal;

[inagutterson]

FORM: Sending crystal
SENDER: Yngvi
RECIPIENT: Everyone
WHAT: Dwarf stuff
WHEN: Nowish
WHERE: Kirkwall; lurking about some dark corner
NOTES: possible tw for questionable child-rearing and discussions of violence

Right, gotta ask since it's been nigglin' me like a loose tooth for a bit now Inquisition, what d'you all know about dwarves? Rifters you don't get a free pass unless you fell out the skies yesterday, s'not like we're a rare sight but, y'know, 'specially since we've been here a while now and-- [there's a little edge to his voice, he coughs to clear that, can't sound like he gives a shit, just the damp and the smoke lingering yeah?] you've been with lots of dwarves. Lot of my family even!

Might get invited to Sunday dinner if you play your cards right but word to the wise, maybe don't? Politely decline. But not too polite yeah? [Don't know what you'll be served on a Darktown dinner table do you now?]

Comments

[el_tybs]

Wait. You're a dwarf?

[As hard as he tried to sound seriously surprised, Sam just cannot quite manage it, his voice getting a bit light towards the end like someone trying not to laugh.]

[inagutterson]

Sam. [Mate. Mate. He is not a dwarf to be trifled with right now.] I can tell whatever audience there is about how surprised I was to find out you're a person.

[el_tybs]

How you figured out I was a real boy?

[Wait... that probably didn't sound quite right. Sam clears his throat; best try and push past that.]

So why the sudden question about how much we know?

[meds4sale]

Stature aside, dwarves do not seem particularly different from humans or elves.

[inagutterson]

What makes you say that? Because, like, humans yeah? Matters if they're noble or not and you can tell that, and matters if they're a doglord or a Marcher, or Orlesian or a Vint or what have you, and elves it's if they're a Dalish or a city elf and that's really a whole other thing that city elves are most qualified to go into. [Let him finally breathe, even Yngvi apparently has to at times.] Dwarves are dwarves and dwarves are funny is what opinion is.

[He's phrasing this so badly it's so hard to make it sound like he doesn't give a shit when he does so badly it's choking him.]

[meds4sale]

What makes me say it is that people are not as different from each other as they think.

A dwarf is not more amusing than human.

Unless, of course...



...that is what he is trying to be.

[aforethought]

Don't pay to know nothing on dwarves.

[ that's just a bad idea, what are you sniffing around for, short drunk and scruffy ]

[inagutterson]

'Cept I know for a fact that it does for some folk. Remember that time there was a Champion and all their mates just deciding to go painting chunks of Kirkwall red with 'em, paid pretty well then.

Pays Templars well to know 'em as much as it pays not to.

[See all the battles Melys? He's picking all of them he has learnt nothing.]

[aforethought]

[ a snort, derisive, ]

Yeah, and you see the Champion around none no more? Got a statue, got her face on some press, gotta be dead as all the rest now.

[ reiterated: ]

Don't pay to know nothing.

[ 'did the remains of the carta whack marian hawke', and other conspiracy theories here at 11 ]

[doneisdone]

Very little, I'm afraid. The few I've met have been on the surface or dying in the Deep Roads.

[or oghren, but he barely constitutes a person.]

[inagutterson]

Everyone's dying in Orzammar, dying by inches ain't they? Still, think it'd be better taking your chances in the Deep Roads than trying to get in the Diamond Quarter. S'how some get out y'know? Same as Darkspawn?

[Oghren was Orzammar, all his opinions are invalid.]

[rowancrowned]

Small. [ thranduil notes. ] Fond of dark underground places.

[ a pause; he's rolling over his words like marbles in a palm. ]

Irredeemably invested in jewels and gold and the ilk.

[inagutterson]

Nobles then. [Trying to be nice. For his lady. Their lady.] Orzammar dwarves but easier bein' fond when you've got decent digs yeah?

Only the good castes know anything shinier than coin or bits, usually only the merchants up here that might pine for what they lost or some relative lost that sent them all packing.

[Strangely it's easier to be a little more honest with Thranduil but Thranduil, he thinks, is never going to care about Yngvi so whatever he can just let some of the bile out.]

[theexile]

Have people spoken false tales of dwarves lately?

[She's curious to know what brought this about.]

[inagutterson]

Depends on what you call false and what you call tales and what sort of dwarves.

[Hi Kattrin please meet the sphinx he's reached this point of meltdown by now sorry.]

[circleprodigy]

I'm mostly aware of dwarven lore as it pertains to the Grey Wardens; hence, the Legion of the Dead. They accept those from any caste and hold their own funerals before dedicating the rest of their lives toward fighting darkspawn.

[inagutterson]

Yeah. Yeah let's accept the Casteless because what a good way to just slide the problem under a mat. Get rid of the Darkspawn and get rid of some Casteless at the same time.

[Do people ever sort of stop and think, maybe substitute some words about how if maybe it was a thing accepting elves to go off and fight monsters and tell the whole world they were dead first? Tastes like hot coppery acid when he thinks that, right down in the marrow of him.]

[elegiaque]

What I know is without dwarves, I'd be poorer for the lack of something extremely valuable to me.

( that might be an attempt to pretty up the fact that the answer is 'fuck all, besides you, a yngvi'. but he, a yngvi, is very important. )

[inagutterson]

[That terrible precipice Yngvi's been teetering on for a good chunk of however long this has been opens up, baring long sharp teeth. Maybe he can just about manage. Hold it together for a bit longer then slide off the face of existence until he's fit company again.

Why is she saying any of this, out loud, where people can hear her saying it?]

Always too kind, m'lady. [Trying by the skin of his teeth to sound remotely like an Yngvi she knows.] You're meaning without other bits, don't know if dwarves would prob'ly hold much claim about me and you and value and all that.

[fireandsmoke]

What if I did happen to fall out of the skies yesterday? [Snark, snark, snark.] I'll take the free pass and spare you the stories from my realm, lest you want to drown in ancient lore about axe-swinging, cavern-dwelling, bearded pygmies.

[The voice pauses, the snark losing its edge, coldness and flippancy taking its place.]

I don't accept dinner invitations.

[Sure, while everyone else is discussing their supreme knowledge of dwarves, he just points out the obvious while he's testing out his Sending Crystal for the first time -- particularly since Thedas's newest rifter is quite a bit of a hermit, thus far. People are most apt to run into him as a library-lurker, making himself at home in the most luxurious chair he can find with a massive book spread across his lap.]

[inagutterson]

Y'know, I've always wanted to ask you lot what you land on when the sky vaginas spit you out. [There's a Lady of the Skies, Yngvi is absolutely using the correct term for a rift thanks.] See. You sound like you've got an Orzammar. If the women are bearded as the men. I've seen Orzammar women, it's about deterring the menfolk as much as they can by having bigger, longer, more luxurious beards than them, putting 'em to shame and all.

Human then? [He's met precisely one rift elf and that's Thranduil even if Thranduil feels like some exception that proves a huge cosmic rule or some shite.]

This is more the style of the dinner invitation not exactly accepting you but you find yourself at the dinner table and you knew what you were doing, going there, but all the same you don't want to be there but it's probably better that you're there. You know where all the knives are then. And the forks. Oh and the spoons, never forget that time on First Day when Selmers lost half his nose to a spoon.

[Selmers is dead now, Yngvi doesn't know how but a complete stranger doesn't know Yngvi's life, doesn't know how Yngvi tells a tale, doesn't know that his voice hitches up because wow there are a lot of dead friends and that's too close to wanting to cry than the strange choked laugh that comes out.]

[ragweed]

[How do these things even work? Kit fumbles with the crystal awkwardly.]

I know enough to know that no one can ever guilt me into dying for Orzammar again. [Metaphorically, anyway.]

Good men in the Legion, though. And some shit ones, same as anywhere else--but dying for a dying thaig is a pretty good equalizer.

[inagutterson]

[Ideally they work by your first time being a liveblog of an escape from an angry Orlesian you've just robbed of his silverware and best brandy after he's knocked seven bells out of you, whilst drunk and concussed, when you made an arse of attempt to contact his daughter with the Inquisition and got the entire Inquisition.

How to make a true first impression: the Yngvi Congealedinagutterson guide.]

Orzammar's already dying, don't need to live there to know that one, who even gets guilted into doin' that? [Doesn't say toss in the insult that he might because he might feel bad in a few minutes.] Really think they thought of you as equal cause you made the same shite decision? Don't know if dead men can be good men but still walking around, got a lot of words for that up here and none of them are anything good.

[Unless you're Nevarran. Nevarran with suitably deep pockets mind.]

[gatheringstorm]

I know you guys don't dream, which I still can't wrap my head around. [She's a mage; a connection to the Fade is as essential as breathing. Not having it? Too weird.]

And that mosswine tastes like someone's dirty sock -it was a dare, okay- and please tell me surfacers make better shit than that.

[inagutterson]

Doesn't sound like my idea of fun, all the shite goin' on there or if you have to relive a thing that happened, sounds better to just put your head down and wake up. [Yngvi does enough in the day with his mind, if it did it when he was sleeping he'd be madder than a box of frogs.

Actual frogs, not Yngvi's metaphorical frogs when a thing is close to the bone.

He pauses for a long moment, long enough to be shouldered past by a few others with the sound of bodies bumping into him and quiet conversation about margins and expense, standard stuff really. They met a long time ago but still he pulls a face she can't see.] It tastes like armpit and deepstalker arsehole, finest vintage we have.

[Korrin would expect a joke from him, he pulls out what he's got, lays it out flat in his to piece together like a trap and tosses it out into the world to see where and how it lands. Workmanship feels shoddy with this one.]