faderift | [closed-ish] revelations come at last

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[closed-ish] revelations come at last

WHO: Sina and anyone who wants a starter
WHAT: The diplomacy mission did not agree well with her.
WHEN: Some backdated to Harvestmere 4th/5th, some current.
WHERE: The healing tents or Sina's tent in the garden.
NOTES: Warning for some icky injuries and pretty severe downers!

"Adelaide," comes a cry from the gates, and the newly-conscious Sina removes herself from Herian's horse to stumble towards the healing tents, the darkness staved off by her glimmering shard, which is definitely brighter than the last time anyone here saw it.
"Adelaide," she wheezes again, her voice thin and desperate, an injured fawn bleating for its mother; but with this part of the courtyard filled with only unfamiliar faces, she finds she's not strong enough to keep looking. Sina drops to her knees and hugs herself, keeping the palms of her hands away from her arms in strange clawlike poses. "Ghi'lan," she sobs, her voice growing quieter.

This is only the beginning of a long month in which few hear from or see her, as Sina is spending it curled up in a ball on her bedroll. She resists eating, won't talk to anyone without persistence on their part, and ultimately seems at a total loss of spirit.

[If you'd like a starter, hit me up!]

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Rather than give a solid answer to Araceli's questions, Sina just shakes her head, her tiny body shivering in their embrace. It takes her some time before she's able to get it all out, and when she does, she seems utterly spent and limp in Korrin's arms.
Sniffing wetly, she rubs the back of her hand across her eyes and shifts position, looking apologetically, but wearily, between the two.
"I don't..." she whimpers, her voice still quavering, "...know how to go forward."

It's too complicated to fully explain, and the memory of it is too frightening to confront. Sina takes a deep breath, but looks like she might start crying at any moment. "It's different," she whimpers quietly, "...it's... I've been stupid." And naive, and incompetent, and look where it's gotten her.

Korrin shakes her head, a silent 'you don't need to apologize for anything' gesture as she strokes Sina's hair. "It's alright to admit that, Sina. Sometimes everything hurts too much to figure that out and the best you can do is to take it moment by moment. Even if it's just baby steps, it's still something."

She won't touch on the horrific event itself until Sina herself does, leaving it open for that but not wanting to cause more pain by pressuring there. Though some part of her wonders if that's even possible at this point. The urge to punch something surfaces, but she quickly squashes that down until it can be unleashed later on.

"It is good to see you." Not like this, but she could be dead. Thranduil reaches out; tucks two fingers under her chin and lifts her head ever so slightly, looking into her eyes for a moment, two-- and then releases her with no explanation or comment.

Instead, he turns to the food beside the bed and pulls the tray onto his lap, brushing his fingers against the bowl. "Ah," he murmurs. "Still warm from the kitchens. When did they deliver this?"

She'd been sitting perched on the end of her cot, waiting, for hours. Days? Ever since she heard word that Sina was in the healing tents, and ever since she'd been turned away by a kind but no-nonsense apprentice who'd said that the First of Dahlasanor would see no-one. All she'd been able to gather was that the mission that Sina had been so blase about when she left Ashara had failed, and badly.

The waiting left her a lot of time to think, to pick at her calluses endlessly until one started to bleed, to scold herself, to bandage, to think again. What to do, when Sina's pale face finally appeared through the tent flaps? The over protective fussing had passed its time, she'd tried self-recrimination and found it did more harm than good, the old fall-back of retreating into their shared culture and the comfort of Elvhen was...

She clenched her fist, watched sullenly as the pressure made red spread slow and small on the bandage, let hate for the betrayal make her vision fuzz.

Harellanen. Traitors all. And Sina--Sina loved the People. Sina believed. Or she had, anyway.

A small noise at the tent flap derailed her thoughts, and then it was too late for more thoughts. Her clansister had returned, wan and weary. Their eyes met briefly before the younger elf turned away to curl small on her bedroll. Nahariel wanted to embrace her. Curl up behind her as she had sometimes when they were young. She waited for a while in the silence. Then she moved to the other side of the tent just to sit, her back to Sina's, not touching, but close enough that she could feel the tingle on her back that meant someone was there behind her. And then she waited again.

Ellana wastes no time in winding an arm around Sina's shoulders and drawing her close.

"Don't say that," she murmurs. Though she does know what it's like to think yourself to be stupid and it's not something that kind words can shake. You feel it down to your bones and carry the weight of it, no matter how small a thing you feel you've been stupid about. "You've been through so much. The world must seem so different now, but you don't have to give up what you love doing because of it."

"Sometimes you have to step back because there's no way around or to see things clearly. Sometimes you have to step off whatever paths people put out in front of you and find your own, because you can always find your way back to theirs if you choose to. Or you can stay still until you're ready." It's a careful choice not to say until you think you're ready because the head and the heart (and sometimes the gut) all like to argue amongst one another, sometimes to the point where you could split yourself into pieces and still it wouldn't feel like enough.

Finding Sina's hand, she gives Lux a nudge so he won't lie there as dead weight forever and it has him moving to nose at Sina's feet and that's...well he's less in the way at least as she tucks her friend close, glancing at Korrin. A part of her wonders if this is what it was like, looking at her when she came back but she's not ever going to ask that though maybe she might share more with Sina now than she did before in the tent.

Memories of the event are still enough to freeze Sina in place, rendering her immobile and stuck in her own mind as she relives the terror of it, but she is fortunate to be in a position where that isn't being asked of her. She won't or can't talk about it, because it still makes her sick to do so.
She squeezes Araceli's hand back and buries her face in Korrin's shoulder, no longer crying but clearly not interested in opening up any further. Lux goes unattended for now, as she can't bring herself to project even an ounce of this awfulness onto an innocent being.

Sina lets herself be drawn into the hug, and even rests her head on Ellana's shoulder, but there's a peculiar holding back and inability to relax that she's never shown before. "The world is different," she whispers, "and what I love is..." Her voice hitches, and she bites her lower lip as she squeezes her eyes cloesd. "..wrong. It's wrong."

Her eyes brim with tears as they meet Thranduil's, and she grimaces and pulls her head away as a wave of anguish takes her. She hides her face in one of the blankets, remaining there until she feels she can speak again.
"I don't know," she admits, looking gingerly at the food, with the weariness of someone who has been wracked with grief for too long, "...I can't. Hahren. I'll be ill."

Korrin had been harboring a small hope that if anyone could get Sina to open up, it would be Araceli. Between the two of them, she's always better at that sort of thing, Korrin's own well-meant efforts feeling clumsy by comparison. But seeing Sina freeze up has her realizing that's not meant to happen, at least for now. Giving Sina a gentle squeeze, she gives Araceli a 'well, you tried' curve of the lips that isn't quite a smile. With time, she's sure her love can manage it, though at the moment her only real focus is keeping Sina calm and comfortable.

"Just breathe, okay? There's no rush, no pressure. We just want to be here for you, whether you talk or not."

Something awful tightens in Araceli's throat, catches and pulls when she sees Korrin's smile, something that has her looking at Sina again, biting down on the inside of her lip until it stings.

"It gets better." How many people have said that to her? Too many no doubt, and isn't that what they're saying to her just now? And she...she can't quite meet Korrin's eyes when she takes an unsteady breath to say the next part, instead keeping herself close to Sina as if it's just them, the way it was in the tent when she was unwilling to share. "I still-- Some things scare me now Sina that didn't before? I didn't want to hurt you then by telling you but...no one had hurt me like that, the same way I don't think anyone has ever hurt you like this. What happened to me and to everyone else was awful but the worst part when it was over wasn't the thing that the physically did, it was the-- it was the knowing. Knowing they made that choice. Knowing that they wanted to do that. The only way I moved forward was because when I could think, and that took a long time, longer than I wanted to admit, was because I didn't want them to have power over me. I didn't want them to win. I didn't want them to take me away from the people I love and that love me, or the things that I love.

"And I know, querida, I know it is so hard to remember that right now when you could just lie down and let the world wash over you until the world ends but your heart is still beating. And there are so many people here that love you, and will fight for you, and will fight with you. None of them are going anywhere. When you are ready...that's still there." And if there's more Araceli wants to say then she can't, not right now because her voice is a raw whisper at the end as she has to fight not to squeeze Sina's hand too tight, able to taste the salt in the back of her throat though the tears she manages to hold in check for the moment.

She's torn between asking more questions to try and understand what Sina means, and not pressing the issue which might upset her more. Her hand rubs up and down her friend's arm in a comforting gesture and after a moment she starts humming a Dalish tune. It's slow and soft, reminding Ellana of a simpler time when the world seemed very small to her. She wouldn't trade her life now for anything, but it's far more dangerous for them all being out here in the world, isn't it?

"Do you want to tell me what you mean?"

Although many have tried to open her up, only Araceli has hit the nail on the head so thoroughly.
Sina is still crying, but she stops and looks at the woman, giving a small, desolate nod. She leans further into Korrin, acknowledging her presence and comforted by her warmth, all the while watching Araceli with mutual understanding.
"I'm sorry," she says to her-- for the human's own pain, for the things she couldn't talk about. "I..." She hesitates, on the verge of saying more about her own situation, but has to lean her head on Korrin's shoulder for strength.
"...I had no... idea. That." Tears begin to spill anew, but she powers through them. "...that we could be this way." We, the Dalish. Those who suffer the most from lack of unity and from being hunted by other races, but can still, somehow, afford to attack and torture one another.

The tune, so familiar, is a vice on Sina's heart. She lowers her head further, pressing her face into her hands, though she still allows Ellana to hold her.
"This life," she whimpers, "being... being Dalish. It's all I've ever wanted." She sniffs wetly, keeping her face covered. "I've failed, I failed all of us."

"No." It's stated firmly and Ellana's hand stops moving on her friend's arm. "The clans are scattered. They're all different and they've endured different things. It changes them; makes them hardly anything like us. That clan is not what being Dalish is." Though ask Ellana what being Dalish is, and her honest answer might not be what other Dalish would want to hear. Isolated, stubborn, clinging to old wounds so they never have to grow or change. That is what she's witnessed of the People. As for herself? She's Dalish now only because she claims the word. She believes in the Creators and is proud her people have endured, but she's pulled away from the clan and has no intention of going back. If she ever feels the draw towards clan life again, she'd choose the Dalish clan she visited in Rivain. They are people whose hearts feel the most like her own.

"One person could never fail the whole of the People. Laying the blame on yourself won't make it true."

For a selfish moment, Korrin almost wishes that she was alone with Araceli to properly respond to her kadan's monologue. Hearing of that pain tears at her own heart, as proud as she is at Araceli finding her own strength. The fact that she had to go through such horror to find it in the first place has Korrin blinking back tears even as a sad, proud smile forms as her love had found a way to get through to Sina. At a rare loss for words, she nonetheless tries to push back the lump in her throat while holding them close. This isn't about her, or even Araceli, not right now. Sina's pain needs to be front and center. Those tears prompt a light squeeze, as she brushes her lips against Sina's head.

She sighs softly; there may be a lot about the Dalish that she doesn't know or understand, but she knows what it is to be an outsider in Thedas and never be allowed to forget it. "Everyone has the potential for that kind of darkness. Some people lose sight of everything else but their own pain and lash out...even at those they never should. That's what happens when they dwell on their own for too long and forget to look, really look, at those around them. They forget or stop caring that others have their own pain as well. When that happens, everyone loses."

Some things are easier to deny, to hold back because admitting them means that they're real. Once they have breath then that gives them a life of their own to sit at your table, to walk in your shadow, to wake up with you, and worst of all to taunt you when you should be sleeping. Not that they don't do that anyway but once they're out there, it's not just you seeing them. And you wonder what other people might see.

Or maybe that's just being too aware of herself now. A year as a rifter and it was the rifter part or at least the shard in her hand that had marked her out as something they wanted, something to be poked and prodded and pushed so close to breaking.

Agreeing with Korrin is easy, perhaps hard for Sina to hear but probably necessary too. Araceli understands people living together and in a group, thinking for the common good but her home is far larger than all the Dalish clans put together and more like human towns and cities where there are problems they can easily admit to as she finds herself nodding along. "People are people. There's no shame in loving your people or where you coming from, holding it dear to your heart - you know that I do that Sina - but the world is a world. It's so much bigger than whatever boundaries we make for ourselves or others make for us."

He dips a spoon into the soup and takes the broth for himself. It's nearly flavorless, beyond a hint of salt. It will do, and he makes a note to thank the cooks for the food.

"You will be far worse off if you do not eat. I know you are hurting, but you are needed alive and well. Your clan needs you. I need you. Just half the bowl. It is all I ask, Sina."

If only they had a real healer, a proper Quendi healer. But they do not. They have Thranduil's words and a bowl of soup.

She wants to spit back in anger-- what does Ellana know about failing the People? She turned her back on them, she's courting a shem, she's never even approached being a Keeper. And as quickly as these thoughts race through Sina's mind, they're gone again, and she sinks a little lower, all the more confounded by her mixed loyalties. Her acceptance of Ellana's choices is exactly the mentality that made her a target for the other clan.

Pensive and still very much torn up, she angles her head to look into Ellana's eyes, as though she might find the answers there. Casting off the Dalish who have broken from the fold doesn't feel right; it feels cruel, counter-productive, a risk of further division and heartache. But if she known the way certain members of Ashara were behaving when she'd first arrived, before she'd gotten to know them or understand them, would her opinion have been so different?
She knows it wouldn't, and wonders if her tolerance is weakness, a need to be loved.
Turning her gaze away again, Sina drops her face onto her hands with a weary sigh. She nods, indicating that she heard and understands Ellana's response, but she's far from giving a sensible answer. "Ir abelas," she murmurs, seeming a little embarrassed.

Comforted by Korrin's warmth and the soothing lilt of Araceli's accent, Sina, while perhaps not fully convinced, is at least beginning to come down from her place of total despair.
She's quiet for a time after they've finished speaking, gazing thoughtfully into the middle distance, her eyes still brimming and red and tired. "...I wish my Keeper was here," she confesses quietly, "she would know what to do." Apart from Merrick, Sina is the youngest Dalish present by years, but is also the one who holds the most power and responsibility within their clan structures. A relative child can't be her own mentor any more than she can be her own mother.

It's the opposite of appetizing, but at the very least, Thranduil still holds a position of relative authority in Sina's mind-- never mind that he's not strictly one of her People, at least as far as she knows. All manner of things have come from the Fade, and there's no telling whether they're truly their own beings or if they are, in some way, connected to the Ancient Elvhen.

Either way, she feebly reaches for the spoon, looking at the soup like it's a chore she has to psych herself up for. But she takes a spoonful, and then, slowly, another. She's weak from grief and hunger, and her hand trembles as she does so.

Nodding in full agreement with Araceli's words, certain there's room holding guilty parties to account and not having that contradict one's love for their people, Korrin glances down at Sina when she finally speaks up again. "We can attempt to contact her, can't we? Where would the clan be around this time, do you know? If there's a way to send word, we'll find it. You deserve to have your clan's support, too."

Knowing just how badly she'd wanted her own mother when she'd been recovering, Araceli nods and sighs. "If it comes to it, I know a few people that owe me some favours. Scouts would do better than soldiers when they're out, getting word back more quickly..." It's only an idea but it's doing something. Or taking the steps in the direction of it so that she feels less useless than she might.

"This will be a time for you to decide too though. How much this changes you. How much you let it change you." People might not have blamed Araceli if she wanted nothing to do with Ruby. If she'd said that Ruby was a danger to them. But she didn't and eventually when Sina is able to see things clearly again then she can bring that back up if she has to, but it's just thinking aloud because hearing voices that aren't talking about you is a strange sort of comfort instead of the snarl of noise in your own head.

Pel holds her tight, her right hand rubbing Sina's left arm soothingly. She has never sung for anyone besides Merrick, but she sings now, voice soft and bright.

The dark is warm; it folds around you
Safe to sleep in velvet arms
And all the stars are watching o'er you
Their light to keep you safe from harm
So go to sleep, my bonny baby
With beckets closed and blankets tight
There lies a world beyond the valley
Forever dark, forever light

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[closed-ish] revelations come at last

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