Post by Aatami Tarathiel on Jul 1, 2016 0:26:49 GMT -5
An elf at the market
Open for one or more
Val Royeaux was one of the few cities Aatami paid attention to. It wasn’t because of the size, the fame, the styles, the market, or even the large University. The Andrastan Chantry had its headquarters in Val Royeaux, which put the city on the list of Places to Avoid, right up there with the Western Approach (fuck sand), the Deep Roads, and the entire Tevinter Imperium. While the current Divine had made plenty of changes over the last decade, Aatami was an elf apostate, the fact that he didn’t fit with the Chantry ideals was as plain as the vallaslin on his face. He felt the stares as keenly as when he first got the tattoos.
Val Royeaux was in Orlais, so Aatami could have picked up one of the ornate masks and hats the natives preferred to cover his most telling features, but he was not one to hide. Despite the glares and mutterings that followed him, setting the hair at the nape of his neck on end, just expecting violence, Aatami refused to hide. Call it racial pride.
Racial pride also had Aatami venturing to the alienage to hire some of the elves there to help load the merchant caravan that held his squad’s latest contract, instead of giving the work to the human workers that loitered about the warehouse district. The caravan leader might not like it, but he’d hired the Blighters and with the blighters came Aatami, Crow, himself, among other elf members. Aatami wasn’t comfortable around the elves of the alienage, they were always full of questions and stares, expecting him to be a proper Dalish, so while the elves worked on the caravan, Aatami claimed an excuse of needing to replace his whetstone, and escaped into the city’s impressive markets.
Traveling alone as an elf in the cities of Thedas was a risk Aatami was used to, walking the weapons markets just meant there were weapons at hand if someone took offense to his existence. Val Royeaux was a well patrolled city that preferred peace more than they disliked elves, and Aatami did not plan to start trouble, so he hoped to avoid excitement. The large staff strapped to his back, made of a dark wood with small carvings littering it, the black obsidian blade slash magical focus on the end covered with cloth, told observers he was ready to protect himself, closer observers may guess at his magic.
It took several minutes of scouting the lesser stalls for one who didn’t reach for the cudgel hidden under the shop counter, and a few more minutes perusing the wares for what he wanted and lingering over a few nice knives to replace the well-used blades he’d sharpened to thinness, and Aatami was ready to pay. He steeled his face into sternness when he wanted to scowl, already predicting the incoming argument over being overcharged.
OOC: was thinking someone could see Aatami get ripped off and cause a scene? Or something. Conversations!
