justice_is_blond | Inbox for Fade Rift

So, Anders.

[How does one converse with someone who isn't present? There is a definite sense of awkward adjustment in Barty's tone. But he soldiers on, as he always does.]

Gots many Dwarf Wardens, in your experiences? Nots so many in Antiva, of course, being that there ain't a city nowise near the place for a proper Dwarf to call home, undergrounds-like, but I always wondereds if I was still odd man outs, in places closers to home.

I've known a few, two of them friends. Sigrun and Oghren. They're good. Solid.

[It might be were. It's been a very long time since he's had word of either. But he's going to use present tense until he has to change it.]

I figured Wardens were mostly human because Dwarves tended to be used to the Deep Roads and avoiding the taint, and the Dalish are often too far away from a Warden fortress to be recruited if they've been exposed. Why? What brings this to mind?

Just makin' conversation. I don't minds Teren for conversation, but its a rest period here, and my watch. And if I've gots to hear more out of that Orlesian feller what followed us down here, Darkspawns'll be the least of his worries.

[Val is so, so offensive, Anders.]

Figureds you'd be up for it, at least. Don't minds shoving off if it's the middle of the nights up there, I knows you're a busy man who likely needs his sleep. Alistair break into that ambrosia pudding yet?

What's sleep again? I'm busy, certainly, but I've always been busy and sleep's a foreign concept.

[Nate's back, though, so he does get some again.]

And I don't think you could pay Alistair to touch the pudding. What did you do to him?

Not sure. Tell you the truth, Anders, it might be he just don't much likes Dwarves.

[Barty seems pretty unbothered by this attitude, or at the very least so used to it that he can speak frankly and without malice about the concept of it.]

I tries my best to treats folk just about the same wherevers I go, but you can't please everybody. Can't do nothing abouts it either, just offers 'em a good meal and have patience, same as a tetchy nug. He'll comes around, or he won't.

Don't expects it'll much matter, except personal-wise. He didn't ah, he didn't say nothing to you abouts it, dids he?

He didn't.

[It's said slowly. Anders doesn't distrust Barty, he's been decent thus far, but he fully trusts Alistair and the question makes him wonder if there really is Something Else going on between Alistair and Barty.]

I can't say he's ever seemed against any one group of people save our enemies, either. He started as a Templar, but he's gotten better. I don't think I particularly like you suggesting he's racist against Dwarves.

Fair enough, I'll takes it back. [He says, utterly genial. No offense, brother.] You knows Alistair a good deal better'n I do, afters all. I expects he'll just haves to comes out with it on his own, one ways or anothers, solves the mystery the easy way.

[Barty has no idea why Alistair doesn't like him. Even racism was him grasping at straws.]

Anywho, enough abouts that; dids you dig inta the pudding yet?

[He's not completely sure that's enough about that. Maybe. He'll ask Alistair later what's going on between them. All Anders really knows is that Barty's felt free to suggest Alistair might be racist, so he might do the same to Anders.]

Um. Yes. I have. It was excellent. I'm not sure that I've had anything like that before, actually. It was very sweet. Is that a Dwarf dish?

Yeap! [And with no small pride in his voice, either] Been in the family for generations. 'Course, my old ma would haves my ears fer stew if she ever saw it mades with surface fruits, but I do what I cans with what I got.

Ambrosia pudding's a celebration dessert. You makes it for birthdays, and name-days and whenever there's anything's worth being happy for among friends. Gots to be sweet, to celebrate the sweetness of life.

It probably wasn't my birthday or nameday, and you lot were heading back into the Deep Roads.

[Now he sounds a little confused.]

What was the event? I can't think of one.

Well, I thoughts the first real missions between new friends was worth celebrating. That and, I gots a good price on the berries.

[Waste not want not!]

So I expect that be ah, be fulfilling that last requirement there. Something worth bein' happy for, if you don't disagree. Or, even if you do; there's ambrosia to makes up for it. [Unless you are Alistair and don't want any under any circumstance. In which case you are both unhappy and unfed; which makes Barty sad.] Don't have to be a formal party or nothin. Used to makes it almost once a week, when times were good, back on the farm. Not so often in lately years, but you know how it is. Busy times.

What did you farm?

[There's a wistfulness in his voice. He's never going to go back to farming, there's no part of him that wants to, but sometimes he misses how simple it had been. There won't be a peaceful retirement for him, no return to the farm. The new Divine has made that certain. His life will always be a fight.]

Oh! [He's surprised. And then genuinely pleased, under his comfortable, calm-and-pleasant affect. Oh. Well.

[A throat-clearing sound. Ah, here's a piece of nostalgia.]

All sorts. My ma was farm-caste, and she hadn't any siblings, so by the times I was born, it were just us on our plot. We hads a nice thick mat of lichen and a mushroom fields, and my old man would cultivates these enormous glow-caps, it mades the neighbors so sodding jealous, I thought they'd scream. When my sister was old enough she gots the idea to squeeze 'em into wine. Mushrooms wine! You'd a thoughts it was a crazy idea, but it was crazy enough to work. We never wents thirsty.

'Course, we'd just farms dirt every fourth year, to keeps the stone from souring it, but we always hads nugs. Ma and I would breeds 'em fancy for showings at the fairs, but we mades our livings on meats and dairy. Practical stuff, you knows?

Meat and dairy was...

[It's a long silence, this one.]

Practical. I was, I started my life on a cow farm. I would have been that. If not for magic. My mother would, would sometimes sing to me and the calves both, as we took care of chores. As she and I did. The cows obviously didn't do anything aside from eat, sleep, fuck, and birth.

You know Anders, I think I feels a bits of a kindred spirit, here.

[His own silence is more of a quiet, the companionable evening with a sunset shared, or the underground equivalent thereof.]

I ought ta get backs into it, sometimes. Just a dabble, mind, I'm nots abouts to buy up livestocks. But I likes a nice, green cheese, don't you?

[Maker. He wants peace. He wants to believe in having a chance to dabble and just be Anders Howe, husband and farmer and cat owner. It hurts how much he wants it, and how much he knows that it's impossible.]

I'm not sure about green, but I did appreciate our cheeses. I don't miss hauling buckets of milk to the river, though.

I'll do the haulin, if you do the milkin.

[C'mon, Anders, be a good sport. But he's not really serious, all things considered. There's more to cheesemaking than buying a jug of milk and hoping for the best; Barty gives a deep, heavy sigh.]

...Ah, just listen to us. Ain't we dreamin.

We are.

[It's hushed.]

That's far too simple and peaceful for me to have again. But if I improve the cure, it could always be an option for you.

Ah, Anders, that's mighty kind of you, but I doubts it much worth it. I beens a Warden for near-on thirty years, now; I'm almost more taint than Dwarf.

[There is a long silence, and the clink of something metal as Barty takes a long pull from his flask.]

...Anywho, there's no farm for me downs here. And I wouldn't know whats to do with a surfacer's farm, even if I hads the moneys for it. Got nothin' to live for outsides the Wardens, anyways. Nah, leave it be: I'm old enoughs to knows better.

There's always something to fight for. Unfortunately. Our world is a world of inequality and oppression.

[He's jealous of so many Rifters' worlds.]

But the Warden fight is your personal fight, and I respect your determination to see that one out.

[Meanwhile he's got his people to free.]

Ha! You don'ts haves to tells me that.

[another swig.]

I'm from Orzimmar.

[He snorts, though when he speaks his voice is quiet.]

To battles that may never be won, then.

[There's the sound of a liquid being poured before he takes a drink as well.]

As my old man used to say, You might knows you can't win, Bart, but you're dumb enough to try..

[You must imagine the jaunty little tip of the flask at that. And drink.]

Good talk, Anders.

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[meanwhile, the Deep Roads]

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