[ ACTIVE/CLOSED ] The mabari is still better than Anders at diamondback

[roguehawke]

Date & Time: Beginning of March, post new transports arrival
Location: UNIT 205
Characters: Nathaniel Howe, Anders, Garrett Hawke, Talon the Mabari, Padric
Summary: Anders finds a stray Garrett and his mabari, brings it home to find out if he can keep it
Warnings: Hawke's lack of social grace

Hawke hates adjusting to new places.

He doesn't mind the new places themselves, doesn't mind moving, it's the adjustment phase he dislikes. The period of not knowing all the dark corners, not knowing where to go for things you need, not knowing where to avoid or who to talk to for information or who to not talk to. Of not knowing the heartbeat of the city, not knowing whose name to invoke or how to get leverage. Of not knowing his place within it, and who he has to get rid of to get a better one.

At least this time he's not walking in with a debt to inherit, he thinks.

He hopes.

Garrett keeps an easy pace beside Anders once they start walking, Talon trotting along at his side -- weaving away every so often to investigate something then catching back up. His attention is split evenly between Anders, talking -- filling him in a little and explaining as best he can -- and the places around them. Trying to memorise the route, trying to get a feel for how the people behave and if he's standing out too much. If he's drawing a bad kind of attention, if anyone they walk past is drawing attention that might indicate something. Some of the bristle has relaxed out of him, a little calmed by the familiarity of walking at Anders side --

(despite everything, sticking to his side. That was a choice, though, and he's made it, and now he's going to live with it and everything that comes of it. If that even matters here)

-- and the familiarity of awful weather. He's going to need to learn the alleyways here. They're going to need to learn him, too.

Talon comes speeding back up to Hawke's side and he holds out a hand instinctively, winces as the stick crashes into it and the hound digs his heels in -- growling mock-threateningly as Garrett half-heartedly plays tug of war before dragging it free and throwing it again.

"How far to this place?"

He glances sideways at Anders, raises an eyebrow as the mabari goes tearing away through some unfortunate people in search of his stick.

Comments

[roguehawke]

"A mage," he repeats flatly -- looking between the two of them entirely skeptically. "A mage with a mabari named dog?" His eyebrows shoot up incredulously. "You're pulling my leg. Even if I was a mage, why would it effect my ability to think of a proper name for a mabari?"

Talon tugs on his grip slightly at the repeated references to his species and Hawke finally relents, lets his fingers slip from the hound's collar and watches it jump up to circle Padric. Talon is a lot bigger, a war dog rather than a pet, but also surprisingly gentle when he wants to be. He also has a peculiar fixation with small dogs, something Hawke has never been able to fully understand. Maybe they all seem like puppies? Maker knows, whatever it is at least it means they should be safe together.

[birdhousesoul]

Absently, Anders keeps an eye on the dogs. He's expecting them to get along, based on his past experience with mabari (they've all been quite cognizant of the difference between threat and non, and friendly to everything in the latter category), but he's perfectly prepared to break up a dog tussle if it seems to go wrong. A quick Cone of Cold would arrest both dogs mid-leap. Thus far, they're sniffing one another amicably. Indecorously, but amicably.

"Garrett. Please try to recall that we are your friends. We're not having you on. For the record, Dog is a perfectly good name for a little girl to give a mabari, and would you ever have told your sister no, that's a stupid name? I used to call her Princess Dog. The mabari, not your sister."

[noble_nate]

Nathaniel rolls his eyes. Leave it to Anders to go off on a tangent regarding pet names. "Anders and I have been here for over a year now, and we've seen many people come and go. We've also seen people leave and then come back. They don't always have memory of having been here before. Sometimes they aren't even quite the same person as they once were."

He shrugs; he knows he's not good at explaining these sorts of things. "Someone once told me it was called 'alternate realities'."

[roguehawke]

Garrett is about to interrupt (to say well I hope you meant the mabari, rather wryly, and that even if they are his friends that doesn't stop them from pulling his leg. To question who told them this in case someone is rather playing with Anders credulity) --

but then Nathaniel speaks.

He can feel his head start to hurt from all this.

"You're saying," he begins -- with the tone of someone still deeply incredulous about the whole thing. "That you've been here for a year, and this woman and her Initiative have been dragging people in and out the entire time? Sometimes mysteriously having lost memories?"

If ever anyone was going to invest in conspiracy theories he would have thought it would be Anders, but he seems remarkably calm about the whole thing.

Then again, he supposes being alive makes it a rather better fate. Garret frowns over at Talon, as if asking for input, and Talon looks up from investigating his new friend. He has no input, apparently, as new friends are far more interesting than stories about other possible mabari names.

"I think I need a drink."

Since there is no clear other way to deal with this quickly, this seems the best option.

[birdhousesoul]

Anders shoots Nathaniel a reproachful look. "Yes, we are saying that," he concedes. "We are saying it very bluntly and with no regard for the time it may take to adjust to such a bizarre turn of events. We're tactful that way."

As if Anders displayed any more tact, or any more aplomb in handling disoriented Hawkes.

"On the other hand, to our credit, we do keep some reasonably potable liquor around. It's not going to change anything, mind. It's certainly not going to make this Initiative business any more sensible. Puddingface, no one wants that," this because Puddingface has gone and fetched a slobbery ball from under the couch to show his new friend. Talon promptly makes a liar out of Anders. Of course someone wants it! Someone is a dog!

"I'll fix us some drinks and the two of you can just be blunt at one another while I do that, yes?"

[noble_nate]

Nathaniel a little chagrined at Anders' reproach. Just a little. It isn't as if he's known for being decorous, and why shouldn't he just lay the facts out for Hawke? Better to hear it from friends than strangers.

He says as much. "The Hawke I remember wasn't one to be pampered; better that he hear everything now rather than get misinformation from others." Still, the stiff drink sounds like a good idea. While Anders sees to that, Nathaniel gestures to the couch and chairs, offering Hawke a seat.

[roguehawke]

"Agreed."

That he isn't one to be pampered, that it's better to hear all the information now, and that Anders can fix drinks while they're blunt at each other. He flops into a chair, snapping his fingers to get Talon's attention and rubbing at the mabari's ears when it comes over -- frowning in thought as it rests its chin on his knee and frowns right back.

Talon doesn't understand this any better than he does

"A year is a long time," he comments idly. His mind is whirring, trying to make sense of the information. To fit the pieces of the puzzle, even if some of the pieces are from a different set altogether. "Is this how wardens live now? Gone up in the world. I thought you spent your time hanging about the deep roads."

[noble_nate]

Nathaniel takes a seat on the couch opposite Hawke. He smiles wryly. "There aren't any Deep Roads here, so we can't exactly hang about in them anymore. Although we did spend some time in the sewers a few months ago."

After Nathaniel ate some food and water poisoned by a rogue member of the Initiative which caused him to hallucinate--but he won't tell Hawke that.

[roguehawke]

"Sewers?" He jerks an eyebrow at that, letting memories swim into focus. "I spent some time in sewers myself, once, wouldn't have recommended it." Not for the experience, nor for the fallout from why he was there. He glances sideways at Anders, flicks his eyes back to Nathaniel and flickers a slight frown of thought at him. Trying to decide how to go about this. Nathaniel was never one to soften the edge of a thing, and Hawke isn't about to start on his account. One hand still idly plays with the ears of his Mabari, but his focus is on the warden now. "Do you agree with this 'Initiative'? Do you think they're telling the truth."

Straight to the point. Garrett likes it better that way.

[noble_nate]

“Yes.” The answer comes quickly and easily, without Nathaniel needing to think about it. He’d already thought about it many times over the last several months, and though he’d come to his decision rather slowly, he was confident in it now.

“They’re not always competent, though they are getting better in that. They’re like any other organized group: they have a few bumbling incompetents, and one or two bad apples. But their intentions are good, regardless. And their cause is important, their actions necessary.”

Nathaniel used to be a man of few words, but his time here has changed him in a variety of ways.

“There is a war going on here, that’s undeniable. “I’ve seen what the enemy can do, and I know they have to be stopped. There are many here who would say it’s not their fight... but I’ve been here a year; this fight is just as much mine as any I’ve been in back in Ferelden.”

[birdhousesoul]

Anders returns with a tray; each man gets a shot glass of whiskey and a larger one of water, and Anders has brought the bottle along as well. He assumes that Talon can drink from Padric's water dish if liquid refreshment is needed for the canine contingent.

He's caught the tail end of Nathaniel's answer, and doesn't think he needs to ask for a repetition of whatever question occasioned it. Being Anders, he chimes right on in. "The fight's ours for one reason. We're told that the enemy has the ability to ransack our own home worlds, if they get that far. I suppose they'd get there the same way we got here, assuming they have any better sense of how to use the blighted equipment than this Initiative has got. We've got no proof of anything, of course. I can say that I've seen fighters from the 'United Earth' firsthand, and I couldn't stand against them. Nor," he adds after a considered pause, "could Justice, when he was still with me."

[roguehawke]

"Fine," Hawke answers -- because that is all the answer he needed, really. He'd have been fine without even Anders input, but Anders generalised agreement seals his determination further. "If it's a war they want, then it's a war they'll get." He takes the shot glass easily, but then something Anders has said makes him hesitates. Makes his frown deepen to something questioning. "'Was'?"

Past tense. It doesn't escape Garrett, nothing much does.