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[faderifting]

New Year...

...Same Old Hinterlands

Maybe the Inquisition sent you, maybe you came seeking the Inquisition. Maybe you fell out of a rift into this world last week and are still just trying to find your feet. However it happened, the first days of the new year find you in the Hinterlands. Tucked between Ferelden's massive Lake Calenhad and the icy Frostback Mountains, the Hinterlands are a hilly region covered in patchy forests and small farms trying to eke out a living between the boulders. Though somewhat remote, the area is rich with game and minerals and home to Redcliffe, a bustling town on a busy trade route.

Lately the Hinterlands have also been full of mages and templars and rifts, all threatening to turn once-peaceful countryside into a dangerous warzone. The Inquisition has set up several camps and sent personnel to try to restore order to the region, unwilling to let it slip into chaos. There's a lot to be done, some of it straightforward killing bad things, some of it weird and nebulous morale-building.

STILL WITH ADDED SNOW.

1. SHOULD OLD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT

You have turned the wrong corner in the snow, forded the wrong stream in the snow, crested the wrong hill in the snow, entered the wrong cave in the snow. Maybe you are far from camp, in the snow. Maybe you are in camp, which is also snowy. Whatever has happened, wherever you are: you are being chased through the snow by bears. Did you throw a snowball at the bears? Are they huge and snow-dusted? Babies burrowing through the snow drifts and coming for your ankles? Fade-touched in addition to snow-touched? Controlled by cold mages who are hiding in the snow? Popping up out of the snow like a game of whack-a-mole? What are they chasing you away from in all of this snow? What are they chasing you into, other than more snow? What warm things do you plan to make out of their hide if you kill them in the snow? What do you think they'll craft out of your hide if they kill you in the snow? P.S. It's still snowy.

2. WE TWO HAVE RUN ABOUT THE SLOPES

Farmers have been forced to abandon their homes after a series of vicious attacks by wolves. Packs of them are roaming the foothills and stalking paddocks and even roads seemingly without the usual wariness of humans. Inquisition agents and local volunteers guard travelers through the affected region, hunt the wolves through snowy woods, and track them back to their cavernous lair in the edge of a canyon. Only eliminating the demons that lurk there will free the wolves from their influence and allow the area to return to normal.

3. AND PICKED THE DAISIES FINE

Winter snows freeze and bury the ground, but the need for healing herbs is as great as ever. Stockpiles are thin after the chaos of the last year, and Corporal Vale is desperate enough to send people out to search caves and hollows and cliffsides and beneath overhangs for any plants still clinging to life. The weather is brutal, the search tedious, the footing often treacherous, but that last patch of Crystal Grace could be a key find. Getting it requires clambering up a slippery hillside and stretching up to a ledge and hoping whatever creature lives in that foxhole beside the plant isn't at home, but it's worth it, right?

4. WE TWO HAVE PADDLED IN THE STREAM

With many roads through the hills and ravines blocked by deep snow, some crazy, desperate few have begun traveling by river. The ice is thick and jagged along the shores but in the center the water rushes, just deep enough for a shallow draft boat lightly laden. Supplies are carried down from the passes toward Redcliffe this way, a white-knuckle process that you, for some reason, have become involved in. Maybe you were hired to help fend off the bandits that haunt the calm shallows and try to demand tolls for passage, maybe you're paying your way downstream by helping port both boat and cargo around the steep falls, the mist so thick and cold it coats whatever it touches in a thin sheen of ice. Maybe riding a glorified canoe through rocky rapids and narrow gorges just sounded like a good time. Don't rock the boat!

5. WE'LL TAKE A CUP OF KINDNESS YET

It is still snowing, and the tavern in Redcliffe is still the closest and warmest place to duck into to wait it out, and not only is it packed to the gills but it seems that the First Day celebrations have continued within long past the dawn of the second day. The Gull & Lantern is so packed with thawing visitors that it's hard to walk from one side to the other, the owner has given up on telling these Fereldans they can't bring their dogs inside, every few minutes the group in the corner breaks into a traditional First Day song that will be stuck in your head for weeks, and that lady in the corner is almost definitely someone you've tried to kill before, or vice versa. But there's a fire going, and the bartender seems to think that giving everyone half-price drinks might prevent a brawl instead of causing one, and there aren't any demons indoors, so it could be a lot worse.

6. WILDCARD

Hunt game in the snow, kill demons in the snow, dig under the snow for herbs, track bandits through the snow, deal with someone charging extortionist coat prices now that it's snowing, fall off a deceptively tall rock into the snow, get lost circling the same hill ten times trying to find a way up to the weird glowing skull on a stick you can see is up there in the snow, climb trees or abandoned towers covered in snow, rummage around in empty homes to get out of the snow, run from a dragon in the snow, cry over how cute that fennec fox you just shot in the snow was, set up camp and chat around the fire because it's snowy and cold, knock yourself out (figuratively, or even literally if that's more your speed)-- the Hinterlands are your Frostback Mountain oyster, topped with snow.

Comments

[middle_of_calibrating]

The kid was lucky that he decided to climb when he did as Garris watched the bear leap again and take out the rest of the ledge in another attempt. "Jeez what did you do to piss it off like that?" he grunts, focusing on holding onto the rope rather then trying to haul the kid up. He was surprisingly light, but there was still snow and ice he was trying to get a good foothold.

Once Garris sees his head poke up over the edge, he firmly wraps the rope around one hand and reaches down to grab the kid back the back of his vest. Yanking him up the rest of the way over the edge, Garris gives a huff, flexing out his fingers afterwards.

[dragondowner]

Hiccup had never been so glad to be hauled up by the neck of a garment before. The lowlander pulled him onto stable ground, ground that was a considerably safer distance from the bear, and Hiccup all but collapsed, boneless and pale onto the grass. Below them, the bear made its frustration known, roaring and clawing at the cliff. When the rock refused to suddenly yield the skinny Avvar, though, it growled lowly and stalked off.

"I have no idea--I would swear not to do it again, but I don't even--" Hiccup admitted as he rolled onto his back, gulping air and heart still pounding. He was simultaneously exhausted and elated, a state that looked shockingly close to panic, but for the smiling, and let out a tired, partially unhinged laugh. When he sucked in breath again, he sat upright like a shot. "You didn't leave!"

When one is coming down off an adrenaline/terror high, most emotions can sound pretty similar. At the moment, it was hard to tell if Hiccup's shout was accusatory or praising. There was no good word for a tone like that and the closest comparison, well... He sounded like he was a last minute stand in at the Orlesian Opera, that he had to sing some normal, mundane line of conversation but didn't know the bars, hadn't practiced, and couldn't really sing, so it came out just a little disjointed from the rest of the production...except the production in question here was reality.

"You didn't leave and you had rope!" Hiccup shouted in that same clunky, not quite tone, as he scrambled to his feet. The moment he was vaguely standing, he lunged for Garris and wrapped the lowlander in a crushing Avvar embrace. It was how men showed their appreciation for one another (and also how someone who was just rescued clung to their savior as they enjoyed not being eaten), so Hiccup thought nothing of it as his noodle-arms did a reasonable job of crushing the air out of the archer.

[middle_of_calibrating]

Despite the bear being a safe distance away, Garris still made a point of watching the beast's movements, half expecting it to somehow manage climbing the sheer drop up to them even though it was impossible - he didn't trust bears. Only when it started to stalk off did he turn his back to it and started to collect his rope.

He muttered a 'ah huh' and 'mm hms' now and then as he half listened to the youth, paying more attention to undoing the knot in the rope since most of the words being said were nothing but rambling with no concrete answer. Which made it all the more surprising when the boy shouted, quickly making Garris tense and shift his feet into a grounding stance, suddenly on alert; normally someone didn't shout like that around him unless something was coming.

When he shouted again, Garris gave a sigh, relaxing just a bit at realizing that he was just being loud. Quite the squawky little thing wasn't he? "Ooof." Squawky and apparently decently strong little thing, because the unexpected hug certainly left him a little short of air. "Okay... okay. Easy on the grip there."

[dragondowner]

The archer was, not so subtly, trying to get him to leave off, but Hiccup was high on relief and, well, living. True, he was run down and nearly eaten on a semi-regular basis, but he'd never had a moment of absolute terror like that, before. That one, sinking, horrible second where he'd thought he'd been left alone? That was new and terrifying.

And, honestly, he was twelve.

It was no small wonder that he wasn't actually crying.

After a moment or two, though, he managed to pull himself together and (finally) let go of Garris. He looked elated but, without the rush of adrenaline, he was on the verge of fainting. His smile was a little loopy as he beamed up at the human.

"Gods smile on you, Lowlander," Hiccup announced brightly and even that seemed to take all the wind right out of him. "I'm Hiccup Stoicson of Black-Ram Hold, and you?"

[middle_of_calibrating]

Lowlander. Well for sure he was an Avvar. Not that he saw much of them since he's only been this far south recently. He's heard stories though. Still the kid looked a bit young to be out here on his own, regardless of who he was.

Especially against a bear.

"Garris Vakrie. Free Marches," he offers easily, finishing up with putting away his rope - and this was why you never left home without it. "You don't seem quite that prepared to be out here, Hiccup. Even more armored men don't try to take on a bear."

[dragondowner]

The high of survival was fading with speed, as it usually did, and Hiccup's sarcasm was eager to surge back into place. True, by dint of saving his life, Hiccup was already more fond of Garris than most other Lowlanders (not that he, you know, actually knew any), but that didn't mean he was going to be unfailingly polite. He was an Avvar but, more than that, he was a twelve year old boy.

"Yeah, well, I thought I might give wrestling it a go," Hiccup replied and made a half-hearted motion with his long, lanky arms. "Unfortunately it was the better wrestler."

As for whether he was prepared or not, Hiccup didn't comment. This was mainly due to the fact that he had brought a pack, and a rather formidable ax and shield, but he'd dropped the lot of them when that bear had started chasing him. They were probably in a gully somewhere.

[middle_of_calibrating]

"Well looks like you beat it in the climbing contest," he says, leaning sideways for a moment to over the cliff, "for the most part at least..." For the most part he's ignoring the sudden use of sarcasm and the look the kid was giving him. After all, he is a kid out on his own. Though he is a bit impressed by it as well since Hiccup used it well.

"You out here on your own, or with anyone else, Hiccup?" There was no way he could just leave the kid out here on his own. Depending on the answer would depend on how far he'd have to go though.