❝ eѕнajōrι

         ❛ Warden Commander Clarel has exceptionally bad taste in allies, that’s what. ❜  Any and all previous attempts to reach out to the Grey Wardens had been rebuffed, though with war and demons bearing down on all of them, many among the Order were finally understanding the scope of their mistakes and laying down their arms.  The thought of another doing the same or, even better, lending aid to the Inquisition’s forces, was more than enough incentive to pause for a moment to - hastily - clarify the source of her frustrations.

         ❛ The Wardens have been deceived ; they all started to hear the Calling at the same time and, in their panic, they turned to a dangerous Tevinter magister for aid.  He suggested an army of demons to invade and clear the deep roads but, what Clarel doesn’t know is that there is a dark hand behind all of this —— one that will take that demon army from her and use it to conquer half of Thedas. ❜

          SHEPARD HAD ALSO FELT THE BEGINNINGS of the Calling when she crossed the Orlesian border from the Anderfels but paid little attention to it as she had bigger fish to fry, so to speak. ❛ I don’t gather anyone is too keen on the Tevinter magister she’s taken as an adviser. I will say, however, that he has put on a good show for those BLINDLY following Clarel’s orders. ❜ Raleigh had never really been one for following the herd, one of the many reasons she’d been singled out of the Orleasian army to be recruited into the Wardens, but it also was alarmingly telling about the state of the Orlesian wardens as a whole, and as Clarel’s second, it didn’t sit right with her that she’d do this to their people. 

❛ ——– i’m dead serious, dude ! i’m telling you, he looks just like an earth raccoon. if earth raccoons, um… talked and smelled like a month old garbage compactor full of rotten fruit. ❜ his choice of words had been fallible in his explanation. he orders another drink after her brief interjection. ❛ don’t get me wrong, he’s a great friend and all, but honestly ? he’s just plain rude… and violent. i actually forgot where i was going with this story, so we’ll just go with the bottom line here being, he ain’t exactly the kind you wanna befriend. his name’s rocket raccoon, by the way. ❜

             PEOPLE ARE forward, here, in Goodneighbor— for the most part. A veritable realm of hedonists; if people feel so inclined to slit throats, they’re hardly coy about it. He supposes he’s found himself an exception to the consensus. There’s a lie in his geniality, an undercurrent of ulterior motives. Not quite sinister, but hardly innocent. The word holds very little weight, these days. 

     She’s guarded. Owen understands, finds no fault in necessary paranoia. He had known she would be. The sheer physicality of his stature isn’t common in this little corner of the wasteland; Boston’s radiation renders metabolism and growth hormones defective. Owen’s been compared to a Yao Guai in people’s clothes. It’s a hindrance as much as it is a boon. His size discourages confrontation, makes people nervous. Consequently, the likelihood of appearing harmless, blending in, just isn’t possible. 

     Owen relies on his own arguable charisma. Crooked grin, sly hands, deep, personable voice. He is friendly, now, and it’s easier when it’s honest. Violence isn’t on his agenda this evening. The Mister Handy arrives with a long bottle of crystal-clear liquor, drops it heavily onto the countertop between them, and leaves them to pour the drink into the tumblers themselves. He doesn’t seem to notice Whitechapel Charile, keeps his eyes curiously on Raleigh. Reaches for the bottle, and pours moonshine into their glasses. 

     “You’re new around here.” It isn’t a question, but it is conversational. He means to learn more about the woman he’s been hired to kill. Owen takes his glass, and holds it up to him, turns it in his palm to watch the moonshine swirl and shine. “Got a name?”

          RALEIGH’S TIME IN GOODNEIGHBOR was often spent divided between the Memory Den and the Third Rail Bar. But she was anything but social, but most of the crooks and criminals in Goodneighbor didn’t mind that she kept to herself. They didn’t bother her and she didn’t bother them. As of right now it was fairly MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL. Every once in a while she got a drunk guy begging to get his teeth knocked in, but it wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle on her own. 

          The man buying her a drink was a different story. The last time she’d seen a smile that inviting was before the bombs dropped, and the only different between then and now was that it could be DEADLY. There was malevolence every time she turned around in the Commonwealth be it in the form of scammers trying to convince her that caps were being phased out ( even though she hadn’t really gotten used to the idea of BOTTLECAPS for currency as opposed to cold hard cash ), a gun pointed in her face, or a deathclaw charging across the hills towards her. It was really all she had just to s u r v i v e to put her head down on a pillow each night. She deserved a drink at the Third Rail at the end of the day, even with all the shit Whitechapel Charlie spewed out while he was pouring it. 

A SOFTER MILKY WAY     ↳ accepting

me too!!!!