It wouldn't be a Coulsand-Theirin Birthday Bash Without Cheese Wheels~

[nugqueen]

Who: Riona, Leliana and friends of the birthday girl /o/ (also new friends are welcome too)
Broadcast: N/a
Action: The Space Bar
When: Evening, September 3rd (now basically)



[The location might be a little more over the top than what Riona would expect, and yet this is Leliana we are talking about, alright. Not only that but she tried her best along with Marian and Beverly to make this a party the Ferelden Queen can remember. It truly was a party for the ages, as much as could be done at least.

Guests are greeted at the entrance with tables lined with simple table cloth, balloons and streamers and candles as a centerpiece. Finding a seat should not be terribly hard, though Leliana fully expects the errant party crasher which is why there is enough food for everyone. And booze, of course. It would not be a Thedas crew party without copious amounts of alcohol.]

Comments

[bryces_pup]

Birthdays were a bit of a different affair for me when I was growing up.

[Sure, the presents were nice and the special treatment, too, but they also meant parties. Riona had few friends growing up, so those usually meant family members and her parents' friends. As she got older, they grew uncomfortable, because inevitably she was always asked about "finding a good husband" and "Oh, are you still playing with swords? Haven't you outgrown that yet?"]

Thank you. [As she takes the box from him, she shoots him a mildly annoyed look about women being impossible to shop for. But it fades when she opens it.]

Oh! Is that - it looks just like a mabari!

[wolfehawke]

I can imagine. I wasn't as much a fan of the ones in Kirkwall after I was named Champion. A bunch of nobles who suddenly remember that they were the best of friends with your parents or grandparents or some other relative and that you should honor that relationship?

[This he understands, nonplussed over the whole thing. He may have enjoyed the trappings of nobility - the fine clothes, the fine decor, the fine food - but he never enjoyed the entrapments that came with them. Being brought up with it he though it might be easier but apparently not.

He does smile at her reaction to the pin, pleased that he got something right at least.]

I thought, well... all I know is you love dogs like any right-minded Ferelden and you're a Warden and they didn't have darkspawn shaped ones.

[It's a stupid joke, please ignore him.]

[bryces_pup]

Quite the nerve of them to do so on your birthday. But then, that doesn't surprise me. I more or less dealt with relatives and their inane prodding.

[Not that all her birthdays were so terrible. If a production was playing during her birthday, her family always took her.]

But I shouldn't complain overly much. From one birthday, I got Kiter.

[Best. Birthday. Ever.]

...if you found a darkspawn one, I'd be worried. And I'd probably also prick you incessantly with it.

[Nope, too late, he's getting A Look.]

[wolfehawke]

[He chuckles at her threatening to poke him with the imaginary darkspawn pin, but also at finding he has more in common with Riona that he first realized. He'd thought nobles loved that sort of thing, fancy parties and fawning all over the younger of them, trying to pair them up to elevate themselves. He'd thought he only hated it because he was new to it, but finding out that Riona - born into it as a daughter of Highever's Tyrn - hated it too is as illuminating as it is validating.]

Excellent birthday gift! I mostly used to get socks.

[Ser Drools he had gotten not for a birthday but some months after his magic had manifested. He'd been some kind of apology or balm his parents had tried to offer him, a friend who wouldn't judge to ease the sting of his life suddenly becoming so much harder.]

[bryces_pup]

The best birthday I ever had. My mother was livid, but it's perhaps one of the few times I ever saw my father really put his foot down with her. They argued but he refused to relent. Not that it really would have mattered by then; Kiter had bonded to me and there was no changing that.

[She smiles fondly at the memory. Her mother huffed for days about it until she finally caved in, though it came with strict instructions about maintaining his hygiene and training him.]

[wolfehawke]

Really? That's hard to imagine. I always thought Ferelden nobility in favor of dogs for every occasion. She really argued against you having a pup of your own?

[For his family, they couldn't really feed more than the one, not unless they wanted to live out in the middle of the Frostbacks and hunt with a pack to survive, but Leandra never would have gone for that. She was city born and raised and sometimes even the villages they'd settle in for a time would be too small for her, even if she tried not to let on.

Either way, it makes sense that perhaps a young noble lady having a war dog wasn't proper, even in Ferelden. He wonders if he'd lived too long in Kirkwall and started to believe the drunken fun people would poke at his homeland. It is true they love dogs and cheese though - he's testament enough to that - so it's not as if the rumors aren't based on some modicum of truth.]

[bryces_pup]

She respected the mabari like any Fereldan, but I think she partly feared that it would encourage my "rougher" side, the part of me that wanted to be a warrior and not some fine noble man's wife. [Given how things turned out, she wonders if her mother would have laughed or just been boggled.] And then she also didn't entirely trust me to take care of him and train him as I should.

[Which isn't an entirely unreasonable fear where a 17-year-old was concerned.]

But my father wanted me to have a loyal companion, someone who would watch out for my unconditionally. He knew I would leave home one day, and he... I think he felt better about it, knowing I would have a mabari with me and wouldn't be alone, wherever I went.

[wolfehawke]

Wasn't Queen Rowan a warrior?

[And the Rebel Queen Moira before her. You've got a legacy you're living up to in more than one way, Your Majesty.]

Though I get the last part, given that you were a child. My mother had the very same worry with Drools and I. Fathers do know best in some cases, though. Especially about dogs.

[bryces_pup]

She was. And something my mother would argue was out of necessity, given the little rebellion that was going on at the time. [Stupid Orlesians.] To be fair, she hardly minded that I knew how to fight. That was more or less expected. I just took more pleasure in that than in the "finer arts", as she called them.

So it would seem. Not that you could ever tell any mother such without getting a sound scolding.

[wolfehawke]

To be fair to your mother, knowing how to darn socks is a damn useful skill. Anders is quite good at it actually, did you know? He can sew and cook and all those 'finer arts'.

[He chuckles.]

Well, except play the lute. He's terrible at that.

[bryces_pup]

I do recall him being a rather decent cook, which surprised me. Not that I complained. It beat having Nathaniel cook his stew all the time.

[It got them by but hoo boy did it get old after awhile.]

[wolfehawke]

He's better than I am, at any rate. And you mean Nathaniel Howe, right? I met him once. He was in the Deep Roads in Kirkwall for some fool reason. I don't pretend to know what you Wardens get up to.

[He also helped them in that final fight with Meredith and so Wolfe owes him a debt of gratitude. Stroud hadn't even while Kirkwall burned, but Nathaniel at least could see that what happened there made waves throughout Thedas.]

He's a good man, though.

[bryces_pup]

A bit of a ways for a Fereldan Warden to go.

[Anders had mentioned Nathaniel leaving on a mission to the north, cutting him off from one of his few pillars of support in Vigil's Keep. Riona had a few guesses as to what he was doing up there, but well... better Adalwolfe doesn't know about some of them, to be quite honest.]

He is. One of the finest I know. [And she damn near refused to see that, once upon a time.]

[wolfehawke]

I'm not sure they care where a Warden is from if they need to send them somewhere. Not that I'd know. I was supposed to head to Weisshaupt before I was dragged here instead, though, so I might have found out.

[He shifts his feet, knowing he's nearing yet another brush with their disparate timelines that he should probably avoid. Quickly, he changes the subject.]

But, anyway, I'm glad you like the brooch. I swear Anders almost popped me one, I was fretting over it so much.

[And now he's repeating himself. Awesome.]

[bryces_pup]

[Yep, she's just gonna ignore it too. It's safer that way.]

Thank you very much. I suspect Kiter will like it a great deal, too.

[wolfehawke]

Hopefully not as much as Drools liked the bits and bobs I sometimes got in Kirkwall.

[He snorts. Bohdan had to sort through the damn dog's droppings for days. For being incredibly intelligent animals, sometimes Mabari can be so dumb.

Granted you can say that about people, too.]