Varric neither expected nor asked to be drawn into artsy shit. But storytelling is artsy shit, I hear you say. Well, yes, but not the kind where people fart around acting it all out. Varric gets enough drama, fiction and falsehoods in his personal life, he doesn't need to add theatre to it.
Not that he can blame anybody here for needing to escape for a while.
He was asked to paint a nice banner for some play, which he absolutely is going to do, but if you pass by him, you'll notice by the he's been practising his calligraphy for this on various scraps of wood, plastic, whatever he can find. Beautiful curving letters, swirling around one another in elegant lines, imposing block capitals, a slightly more classic script of the kind of you might see in old medieval manuscripts.
It's all swear words.
Quite creative ones, too.
missing persons
Several days after arrival, Varric just about knows his way around - knows who to butter up at the mess to get a little less slop, a little more protein; has thought long and hard about whether a joint is worth janitorial work (the answer is no, but the head janitor has puppy dog eyes and reminds him of Merrill, damn her); has been by the engineering area and taken some notes on concepts he knows nothing about to read up on and come up with questions later. All that stuff.
But now he's getting to the important things: he's seen the new ragtag bunch of misfits in camp wandering around with their old stuff, when from what he saw, everyone came in with just the clothes on their backs. Varric may keep his expectations low, but his hopes are always high.
Therefore, you can see him one day in an area with a lot of foot traffic, nailing a bit of fabric to a flimsy wall that may not take that kind of violence being done to it. The fabric has painted on it in clear, elegant writing:
MISSING: repeating crossbow Return to Varric Tethras if found Reward?
A question mark can do a lot of heavy lifting in a sentence. Or just after a word.
sweet dreams are made of this
Varric's not even aware to begin with that he is dreaming. Dwarves don't dream. Dreams come from the Fade, and although Varric has been pushed into the Fade physically, he doesn't feel it, much less when he sleeps.
But, even fully convinced he's awake, underground in what looks like some kind of old underground lake you might find outside the ancestral home of the dwarves, he can't bring himself to mind. This place is peaceful. It's as warm and comfortable as if a cozy hearth is crackling next to him. And he can't even bring himself to be afraid when the creature emerges. He bloody should be. But he welcomes it like an old friend.
a. together in the deep
He takes far too long to notice anybody's here with him. But he does. Eventually. He turns to look at them, a faint smile on his face.
"Have you ever seen anything like it?"
b. the morning after
The next morning is just as peaceful as the night - just a bit colder and damper. And as Varric heads out on a walk through camp on his new usual routine of talking to the locals and finding out what's going on, his usual half-open shirt shows not only his lucious chest hair, but also a faint lilac mark.
"My eyes are up here," he says, mock-offended, to the first person he sees staring at it.
Varric
Varric neither expected nor asked to be drawn into artsy shit. But storytelling is artsy shit, I hear you say. Well, yes, but not the kind where people fart around acting it all out. Varric gets enough drama, fiction and falsehoods in his personal life, he doesn't need to add theatre to it.
Not that he can blame anybody here for needing to escape for a while.
He was asked to paint a nice banner for some play, which he absolutely is going to do, but if you pass by him, you'll notice by the he's been practising his calligraphy for this on various scraps of wood, plastic, whatever he can find. Beautiful curving letters, swirling around one another in elegant lines, imposing block capitals, a slightly more classic script of the kind of you might see in old medieval manuscripts.
It's all swear words.
Quite creative ones, too.
missing persons
Several days after arrival, Varric just about knows his way around - knows who to butter up at the mess to get a little less slop, a little more protein; has thought long and hard about whether a joint is worth janitorial work (the answer is no, but the head janitor has puppy dog eyes and reminds him of Merrill, damn her); has been by the engineering area and taken some notes on concepts he knows nothing about to read up on and come up with questions later. All that stuff.
But now he's getting to the important things: he's seen the new ragtag bunch of misfits in camp wandering around with their old stuff, when from what he saw, everyone came in with just the clothes on their backs. Varric may keep his expectations low, but his hopes are always high.
Therefore, you can see him one day in an area with a lot of foot traffic, nailing a bit of fabric to a flimsy wall that may not take that kind of violence being done to it. The fabric has painted on it in clear, elegant writing:
MISSING: repeating crossbow
Return to Varric Tethras if found
Reward?
A question mark can do a lot of heavy lifting in a sentence. Or just after a word.
sweet dreams are made of this
Varric's not even aware to begin with that he is dreaming. Dwarves don't dream. Dreams come from the Fade, and although Varric has been pushed into the Fade physically, he doesn't feel it, much less when he sleeps.
But, even fully convinced he's awake, underground in what looks like some kind of old underground lake you might find outside the ancestral home of the dwarves, he can't bring himself to mind. This place is peaceful. It's as warm and comfortable as if a cozy hearth is crackling next to him. And he can't even bring himself to be afraid when the creature emerges. He bloody should be. But he welcomes it like an old friend.
a. together in the deep
He takes far too long to notice anybody's here with him. But he does. Eventually. He turns to look at them, a faint smile on his face.
"Have you ever seen anything like it?"
b. the morning after
The next morning is just as peaceful as the night - just a bit colder and damper. And as Varric heads out on a walk through camp on his new usual routine of talking to the locals and finding out what's going on, his usual half-open shirt shows not only his lucious chest hair, but also a faint lilac mark.
"My eyes are up here," he says, mock-offended, to the first person he sees staring at it.