Sundermount Shenanigans?

[avisionofhawke]

Things were going just fine right up until the revenant showed up.

Hawke had just been minding her own business, looking for reagents with Anders, Fenris and Sebastian (and wondering what had possessed her to bring that particular trio on this trip). It had been going quite well, she thought. They had found lots of elfroot, at least.

And then the revenant happened, and Hawke had pulled a rookie move. She had leapt without surreptitiously testing the ground she was going to land on first. The last she'd seen of her companions was their horrified expressions as she fell through that thrice-blighted hole.

Needless to say, she wasn't pleased with where she'd ended up.

Ten minutes out of that cavern and she already had no clue where she actually was, other than that she was still on Sundermount. She couldn't even find the cavern entrance again.

Damn it.

Damn it to the Void.

Comments

long suffering cat lover who lived in ferelden sigh

[cattymage]

Trotting along after as Aisling set a quick (though certainly appreciable) pace was rapidly becoming a habit, Anders noted. She seemed the type who was used to having people orbit along after her.

What a cipher she was. He could obviously see where a base attraction would come from, between the two of them - but that emotional heat, that he had only felt the reaching licks of, like a child swiping their hand quickly through a candle's flame?

He couldn't comprehend having that, let alone contributing to it, kindling it. He'd been the object of obsession before, sure - it was a risk, playing the game.

_{(Perhaps once, he'd given in, a smouldering little ember - but he'd ruined Karl for it, gotten him sent here. Never again, curse his selfish heart. But, apparently, again had - would - happen?)}

Maker, he was going to get a headache from this. Too much brooding for his comfort, and the silence between them was starting to drag on his nerves. Time to open his big, charming mouth, and let it lead him as usual, instead of staggering around at the behest of a scrunched, contemplative brow.

"Soooo," he began. "You know Kirkwall well. I've never been, only heard the stories. What's it like?"

Poor baes don't know what to do

[avisionofhawke]

It took Aisling a second to realize she was being spoken to again. "Hmm? Oh, Kirkwall? All daisy chains and puppy dogs," she answered.

Even when caught off guard she was sarcastic.

"To be honest, it depends on who you ask. If you ask Varric, it's not so bad - anyone else who isn't nobility will tell you that it's an aboveground sewer, probably."

winging it seems to work for hawke sometimes, at least!!!

[cattymage]

"Hold on. Varric, Varric, that's another familiar name..."

He does that little cluck thing he'd done earlier when recalling Isabela again; a habit, apparently, but one that he'd left off on by the time they'd met.

"..Dwarf? Blond hair - darker than mine, no beard, full chest, exquisitely memorable voice?"

For real, though

[avisionofhawke]

"Lies like a rug just for fun? That's him." She fell silent again, winding her way down the trail as easily as a mountain goat.

[cattymage]

"Beginning to wonder how many of your friends I haven't slept with," he mused. "This is starting to sound like a dream all over again."

[avisionofhawke]

She hummed in agreement and shrugged as she went over a mental list.

"That's it, to my knowledge, but then again..."

[cattymage]

"Try listing them off?"

[avisionofhawke]

"Aside from Varric and Isabela, there's Fenris, Aveline, Merrill, Sebastian, and my mabari. And of course you, though we're more than friends. There was also my sister, before the damned Templars took her."

She was glad she had her back turned right now, because she wasn't entirely certain she was comfortable enough with this Anders to let him see the look of grief she wore. It was enough that she'd kept her voice mostly even, right?

Why, Bethy...? Who had turned you in?

Could I have stopped it if I'd been there?

[cattymage]

After the way she'd tapered off the list, his tongue actually stilled; he'd been about to say something about Sebastian being a relatively common name, so he'd need a little more to tell with that one - but...

Circle rule, number one, learned by every apprentice once they'd stopped crying themselves to sleep, once the realization well and truly set in they were stuck here and there was nothing they could do about it. That anyone else would do about it. You don't talk about family, you don't talk about before. It was cruel, digging in at scabs that everyone knew each other had.

"...I'm sorry."

The compulsory sorries didn't do anything, he'd always felt, they were just - peace offerings. 'Sorry for poking your sore spot, please don't hit mine in revenge,' more than 'sorry this horrible thing happened.' He didn't mean to be numb to it, so much as it was a consequence he'd seen in most other mages who made it for long enough, and so readily accepted it in himself. His energies were, in his opinion, far better spent getting out, getting away from all the stagnant horror and misery, rather than taking it all in and digesting it.

[avisionofhawke]

"If I'd been there, they never would have gotten her," Hawke said quietly. Her voice hardened with conviction as she continued, "I'll never let that happen to you. I'm not losing anyone else to the Templars."

She fell silent again, and it would be easy to pretend she'd never spoken.

[cattymage]

"Or, they'd have beaten you to a paste, maybe had the local guard put you in the pen for a bit, and have took her anyway. If they came knocking just the moment you weren't around, they're like to have been waiting to do it for a long time beforehand. Especially if they think it would be a difficult extraction. It's what they do."

His voice is mild, speaking fact - Aisling had never heard him speak about Templars with such a resignation in his voice before. Always, there was that boil just under the surface - that which made the blue light that sent up cracks in his skin, to smuggle mage after mage through cramped, dark tunnels over and again, to write into the night until his hands cramped and shook - that implicit knowledge that he would fight, that Templars bled and died like any other man or woman.

He's making sense, and her Anders had comforted her before, on Bethany being taken from her - all of them, really, because damned if her friends hadn't treasured Bethy in their own way - but it was the how made their differences ever starker.

Oh look, red Hawke comes out

[avisionofhawke]

"I would've killed them if they tried," she replied darkly, vaulting over a boulder. "It's not like I haven't taken out squads of Templars before."

And she would've taken her sister and made a run for it. She didn't normally bully her way through things, but when it came to her sister...

"She's all I have, and she deserves better than to rot in the Gallows because she was born with a gift."

She missed the fire that burned in her Anders, the inner blaze that fueled everything from his passion to his folly. That was what was different, she realized. This Anders hadn't yet encountered whatever it was - the Wardens, maybe, or (she grudgingly admitted) even Justice - that had kindled that spark inside him.

i decided to use 'albträume' for Important Writer Symbolism Reasons *jazz hands*

[cattymage]

The Gallows, infamous Circle of the City of Chains, one of the waking albträume of a mage never meant to be soothed: the Aeonar, the Gallows, the Rite of Tranquility.

At least he didn't have the Harrowing on that list anymore, personally. That would be almost too many ominious The's for one man to take.

So, Aisling's sister was still in Kirkwall, technically. Honestly - Anders had expected that this sister would have been shipped off, far and away; it was a common practice, to cut up the roots a mage might still have, setting about nearest their Circle. He wondered why they hadn't done that; there had to be a reason, because Aisling was a root remaining, a risk. A hope. The Templars liked to be economical about crushing those.

Anders picked delicately about the boulder where Hawke had launched, lagging behind. The ferocity, the conviction - terrifying. This woman is terrifying, like a foggy eye staring out at you after you lick off a chocolate shell.

Oh. Great. Now he's put himself off food before even having breakfast with that thought.

"Preaching to the choir, Aisling," he called over, as she powered ahead. "Uh, the choir you're leaving in the dust...! Aisling, wait up - damned - robes--"

There was nothing for it. There she went, powered by righteous fury. He wadded the skirts of his robes up in his free hand, enough that he could at least move his knees worth a cuss, because there was no way he was catching up without falling on his face at this rate.

[avisionofhawke]

It took a good minute for her to slow down. She had finally realized that mage robes were not meant for running about the slopes of a mountain.

"Sorry," she called back, "I keep forgetting you aren't wearing pants."

[cattymage]

"You sure weren't complaining about my lack of pants earlier," he shot back, and picked up his pace more now that Aisling seemed actually reachable.

He finally was able to reach an acceptable walking-near-behind distance, and dropped his robes back down, smoothing them out. He gave a small huff, catching his breath.

Damn.

He thought he was over this 'easily tired due to sitting on his ass a bloody year' business, but no, apparently not.

"You set a mean pace, M'lady Hawke.

[avisionofhawke]

"Robes really are nice for that purpose, I'll admit," she said coyly, trying to finish calming the fuck down. "Though they're really not practical for leaping over things."

The rogue looked back over her shoulder to see if he was alright.

"I suppose I do sometimes. Let me know if it bothers you, Ser Anders~"

[cattymage]

"That's the real reason we wear them," he purrs. "Just ask anyone."

The emphasis on the word Ser, meant by Hawke as a joking affectation sets his head turning to meerkat-scan all around him, with not a single thought from Anders himself - hear the word 'Ser,' make sure you know what all's going around you, right away - and he tries to play it off, very poorly.

"--oh, you mean me? Thought there'd been some other dashing Anderfels man gone galloping by. Wanted to get an eyeful."

Extending a metaphorical hand to help him off his ass

[avisionofhawke]

"You're the most dazzling one for miles. You should be proud of yourself," Hawke replied, catching what had just happened and mentally cursing. This Anders was way more jumpy than hers...

Then again, he'd been out for a much shorter period of time.

She would just help him smooth it over like he seemed to want to do.

and he is THANKFUL AS HECKA for that

[cattymage]

"It's the earring, isn't it?" he said, grabbing gladly onto the chance to direct away from his slip with buffed-up vanity. He toyed with said earring pointedly, making the gold gleam a bit as it moved. "I've thought about getting more piercings, you know, but such glory might set the whole world blind."

[avisionofhawke]

"Oh, but what a delight it would be in those moments before the world went black," Hawke shot back with a smirk. She turned and began walking backward, hands on her hips. "I, for one, would relish the sight while I had it."

[cattymage]

Well, this is amusing, face to face while walking and he doesn't even have to crane his head around. Anders Approves.

"Between you and Isabela, I swear, I'll be looking like a walking jeweler's shop display."

If that's not an invitation to asking for storytime... well, Anders is used to incorrigible tower and tavern gossip. Maybe Aisling's not so much into that.

[avisionofhawke]

"Oh, this is a story I have to hear. It's not fair to keep me completely in the dark," she said with an incorrigible grin.

And skillfully stepped over a rock on the path that she'd taken note of a minute ago. When you were a rogue, you needed a good sense of your own body and where it was in the environment since there was a lot of whirling and leaping involved.

so i came outside and there was a dude blazin it & i asked him for a cig b4 i saw it was a blunt

[cattymage]

"My, and I'd think you and - well, I'd think you'd have done enough exploring to have an idea, at least." He runs his hand down the chest of his robe rather suggestively, coming to curl his fingers a little in the material above his... sweet Maker, I don't have a better word for this. Bosom. Pillowy man-bosom, as Krem would say.

"So, Isabela would go on about expecting a little more rugged Anderfels barbarian out of me, and I, of course, being an entrepreneuring enough individual to make any dwarf proud, ask her for suggestions..."

[avisionofhawke]

"There's a difference between knowing something's there and knowing how it got there," she said teasingly without giving away too much. Really, the more she said about Anders as she knew him, the less this one seemed to want to know.

"Oh, we aren't even three sentences in and it's already getting good."

[cattymage]

The interjection is taken gracefully, with a particularly wicked grin and a pointed arching of his eyebrows as acknowledgement.

"...so she brings out this lovely book, you really should ask her if she still has it around somewhere, called, damn, what was it, exactly... On the Regional Gourmands Around the Southern Merdaine. I'll give you a minute."