Some day when there's not much going on, Athessa finds her way to Barty's office, rather surprised that he even has an office. She doesn't knock or wait for an invitation, she just walks in and pulls up a seat across from him.
She looks like someone with a business proposition.
Barty looks at her in mild consternation, then sits back in his seat with exaggerated care, and squints up at the ceiling, as if pondering deeply upon the answer to this question.
"Good evenings, Warden Bjurnsen, how are you now?" He asks towards the ceiling, with a distinctly plaintive note, "Not so bad, Ma'am, thank you. And you?"
Manners, Athessa. We're trying to live in a civilization, here.
Athessa puts her palms forward in a placating gesture. Ok, fine, that one's on her.
"You're right, let me start over." She stands back up and returns to the entry of the office and, with exaggerated motion like a stage performer, taps out a rhythmic knock on the wall and shows herself back into the office.
"Warden Bjurnsen, how's the new year treating you? Ya know, I had no idea you had a legitimate office," With appropriate admiration, she gives their surroundings a once-over, nodding. "I'm impressed."
Barty watches her sarcastic performance of the perfunctory social forms with the air of a man who is winning an argument. He might be winning it in a very petty and ultimately meaningless way, but in the end all things are meaningless and we die. This dwarf will take what he can get, with gratitude.
Her shrug conveys that hey, an unimpressive office is better than no office, and reseats herself where she was when she entered the first time.
"Yes I do, if you have time to advise me," She leans forward in the chair and interlaces her fingers on the surface of the desk. "I'd like your opinion on how to make a regular-sized bed into a larger bed by somehow combining two regular beds."
"Well, I am nots exactly an experts on beds nor combinings them, but I expect the answer comes to concern firstly with how you'd likes to combine them," He answers, confused but game, and willing as ever to expound upon subjects he knows only vaguely about.
Bullshitting is an excellent skill to cultivate, particularly in Antiva, and Barty was a skilled hand at all forms of cultivation.
"For example, if you were wanting to snuggles up with your sweetie, I'd say you might simply wants to push 'em together and gets a bigger mattress. But then, of course, if you were just wantings to put more sleepers in a smaller area, that'd be a job for your old-fashioneds bunk, the kinds what's stacked one atops the other. Now, for that, you'll wants a bed with good strong posts; coulds be tricky to find, this time of year, if you don'ts already haves a pair.
"The issue isn't so much the width, but the length. So the...sweetie example, but I wanna make it so a very-very tall sweetie would be comfortable, ya get me? Tack an extra...thirty centimeters onto the foot of the bed."
Athessa gestures as she explains, very much a person who talks with her hands to make sure she's understood. "My thinking was, if we have an extra bed frame, we can just cut off a bit, tack it on to the too-short bed, and either get a bigger mattress or fill the gap with pillows or somethin'."
"Well, now seems to me someone's is sweet on one of those Qunari fellows," Barty opines sagely. He bends to reach into a drawer and comes up with a slate and chalk, upon which he sketches out the root of the problem; namely, bedpost supports, "Seems to me that'll introduce what you might call a structurals instability and collapse the minute you puts your weights on it. Might work if you was buildings with stone, but outsa wood?"
Please, Athessa. See sense. Don't cut the supporting half of a bed off and then try to staple it to another, it won't work.
"Tells you what, go through this tower and scrapes together three beds and that'll do you wells enough all pushed up sides-by sides. Or, if you were to be a lot fasters and more efficient, I'd say just sews you up an extra-big mattress, gets you some fancy pillows and whatnot, and builds you a nice bed right on the floor. Slept many nights on a floor, it's hardly no difference betweens that and an extra two feets off in the airs."
There's a dumbfounded moment that creeps by where Athessa looks as if the concept of sleeping on the floor is positively novel. Of course it's that simple, just make a bigger mattress. She should've thought of that.
"That's... much smarter than my plan," she concedes. "The cold from the floor won't seep up through the mattress?"
"Well, you gots a good thick mattress, well-stuffed with straws and feathers and fluff, plenty of nice blankets and furs, you'll be warmer than a fart," Barty opines, placidly, nodding as if at his own wisdom, "Dwarfs in Orzammar be sleeping on stone all the time, don't do nobody no harm whatsoever."
She makes a face at warmer than a fart but overall this is good to learn.
"Okay, that seems doable," she nods, an echo of his own nodding. A plan is forming. She smiles at him and moves to stand. "Thanks! I was gonna make it way more complicated than it needed to be."
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action!
She looks like someone with a business proposition.
"Do you know anything about carpentry?"
no subject
"Good evenings, Warden Bjurnsen, how are you now?" He asks towards the ceiling, with a distinctly plaintive note, "Not so bad, Ma'am, thank you. And you?"
Manners, Athessa. We're trying to live in a civilization, here.
no subject
"You're right, let me start over." She stands back up and returns to the entry of the office and, with exaggerated motion like a stage performer, taps out a rhythmic knock on the wall and shows herself back into the office.
"Warden Bjurnsen, how's the new year treating you? Ya know, I had no idea you had a legitimate office," With appropriate admiration, she gives their surroundings a once-over, nodding. "I'm impressed."
no subject
"I finds that to be a charming expression of naiveté, and I do appreciates your flattery, but as former Warden-Constable of all Antiva, I haves had an office for more than fifteen years now and I am very sorries to informs you that it is nots in anys way impressive," Barty replies, gesturing broadly at the room an its decor. Behold, the gifted woven rugs in their lovely colors, hanging from the walls to keep out the draft. Witness the shining still on the table against the wall, quietly ticking little alcoholic murmurs to itself. See the dwarf, ever-patient, dressed in warden-blue, "Now, I hears you've gots a question for me abouts Carpentry?"
no subject
"Yes I do, if you have time to advise me," She leans forward in the chair and interlaces her fingers on the surface of the desk. "I'd like your opinion on how to make a regular-sized bed into a larger bed by somehow combining two regular beds."
no subject
Bullshitting is an excellent skill to cultivate, particularly in Antiva, and Barty was a skilled hand at all forms of cultivation.
"For example, if you were wanting to snuggles up with your sweetie, I'd say you might simply wants to push 'em together and gets a bigger mattress. But then, of course, if you were just wantings to put more sleepers in a smaller area, that'd be a job for your old-fashioneds bunk, the kinds what's stacked one atops the other. Now, for that, you'll wants a bed with good strong posts; coulds be tricky to find, this time of year, if you don'ts already haves a pair.
no subject
Athessa gestures as she explains, very much a person who talks with her hands to make sure she's understood. "My thinking was, if we have an extra bed frame, we can just cut off a bit, tack it on to the too-short bed, and either get a bigger mattress or fill the gap with pillows or somethin'."
no subject
Please, Athessa. See sense. Don't cut the supporting half of a bed off and then try to staple it to another, it won't work.
"Tells you what, go through this tower and scrapes together three beds and that'll do you wells enough all pushed up sides-by sides. Or, if you were to be a lot fasters and more efficient, I'd say just sews you up an extra-big mattress, gets you some fancy pillows and whatnot, and builds you a nice bed right on the floor. Slept many nights on a floor, it's hardly no difference betweens that and an extra two feets off in the airs."
no subject
"That's... much smarter than my plan," she concedes. "The cold from the floor won't seep up through the mattress?"
no subject
no subject
"Okay, that seems doable," she nods, an echo of his own nodding. A plan is forming. She smiles at him and moves to stand. "Thanks! I was gonna make it way more complicated than it needed to be."