faderift | [open] gentle impulsion

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[open] gentle impulsion

WHO Sina and friends
WHAT: She's back from getting murried and trying to get the garden to stop sucking!
WHEN: Justinian
WHERE: Generally either The Gallows or the old Qunari compound
NOTES: She's looking unusually robust lately.

I. Hangin' Around

Sina really hates to be inside, but she's learned to accept it while living in the compound, in the small shared room that now only she and Nari occupy. If there were a decent place to set up their tent that's certainly what they'd do, but there's barely any unpaved ground to be found and... frankly, it's a bit depressing.
As a result, she sits outside most evenings, on a low wall or stack of crates, watching workers make their way home and sipping a cup of tea. She's hardly gotten more metropolitan, but at least in contrast to when she first arrived, Sina seems much more comfortable in human-made territory.

II. Gardening

Having taken it upon herself to ensure the memorial garden in the Gallows is up to speed, Sina spends most of each day overseeing the care of its young plants. It's more than a little discouraging that, between the magical destruction and the red lyrium and the overall badness that have dominated the Gallows in the last few years, nothing seems to be growing easily, and that which does is sickly.

When left alone at the end of the day, Sina will often try to spot-heal various patches, siphoning life from the lost vegetation and pushing it into the dying. It always works temporarily, then the next day, it's like it never happened.
She's at her wits' end.

III. Infirmary

Though not there as often as she used to be, Sina still makes deliveries of what herbs she can coax out of the ground and offers medicinal assistance when it's needed. Every so often she can be talked into sticking around for a quick checkup, and whether it's the warmer environment or being closer to home or just time, the shard's effects on Sina seem less painful lately.

IV. Alienage

Sina is trying to befriend the elves of the city, admittedly at a disadvantage both due to her visible facial markings and the fact that there is a glowing green hole in her sternum. Whenever she has the time, she brings gifts from the garden and offers assistance with minor health concerns.
She can sometimes be found by the vhenandahl, talking to the children who have come to associate her visits with interesting stories, and periodically to adults whose trust she's beginning to win.

V. Wherever!

Probably not at a hot dog stand in Hightown, but one never knows!

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A slim hand turns up in the corner of Sina's eye, rests over hers, casts with her. Pel is on her knees by her, baby snoozing in a sling. Given that she's one of only two other people in the Inquisition with this skill, it's worth it to try to give Sina a boost with it. The ground here has so little life now.

Sina gives a little start when Pel's hand rests over hers, but her surprise doesn't last and she settles into a smile. Closing her eyes, she lowers her head and sighs out gently, focusing.
There have been times she's used a staff, but being rather thin of frame and inclined to smack others and herself in the face with a long and ungainly weapon, Sina tends to prefer her hands as a focus for her magic.

Sina gets a smile and wave from Korrin as she approaches one evening. Between work, personal issues and moving, she's been less social recently. With at least one of those resolved, that can change and so she'll take the first steps to remedying that.

"Just the person I was hoping to find. How are you, Sina?"

"Oh?" Sina chirps, intrigued. Why would Korrin be looking for her? "I'm all right. It's so much warmer here, it just... feels right."

Selecting her own spot on the crates, Korrin sits down and makes herself comfortable, nodding in agreement. "Same, honestly. I was so nervous about moving to Kirkwall that I forgot about the benefits of not living in the frigid mountains. It's still not as warm as I'd like, but I'll take it."

She tilts her head, curious. "Araceli hasn't mentioned it yet? Huh, I thought she'd have beaten me to it. We're moving out of the damned barracks at long last. The paperwork went through, and we found a nice apartment at the docks. The landlord doesn't even seem to care that they'd be dealing with a 'qunari', as long as they get the rent on time." Blame Araceli for that, she probably laid the charm on thick.

Sina is visibly surprised by the news, but not necessarily unhappy. "An apartment?" she echoes, trying to remember what that constitutes. "How is that different from where we've been staying?" Multi-dwelling buildings are confusing. Multiple people can share a house, but that's different from a barracks, and it has nothing to do with size. Apartments are apparently more than just rooms in a larger building? What is a townhouse if not a house in a town?
If everyone lived in tents and aravels they wouldn't have this problem.

Having visited multiple Dalish clans at this point, at least Korrin has some context for Sina's confusion. "It's a lot more private, for one. The barracks accommodates so many people, and the walls are...well, not great walls. You still hear everything." Which is kind of a problem when one wants alone-time with her kadan. "Now, we have more than just a tiny-ass space that barely qualifies as a room. It's more self-contained than the barracks; it may still be only a part of the building, but it's ours to do with as we please. There's a general gathering and kitchen area, our own real bedroom again, and a nice view of the harbor. We still have some empty space, if you and Nari want to join us. There's even room on the roof, for a small garden if we want it."

"Oh." Yes, the sound would be an issue, she supposes, at least where Korrin and Araceli are concerned.
Sina smiles and hunches her shoulders slightly. "Maybe," she considers, "I'll bring it up with her. We may want to stay a bit closer to the alienage. Or even within it. It seems like the place to be."

Korrin nods, suspecting that might be the case but she had to make the offer nonetheless. "It's not that far away from it, but I understand if you want to be in the thick of things. And it's not like we wouldn't visit, of course. I can see it now, Lux charming all the alienage ladies."

This merits a giggle. "Perhaps," Sina admits, "if they want him there. Perhaps he could help with the rats." That is an issue there, she's found.

She raises a thoughtful eyebrow, not at all surprised to hear that vermin are an issue in the poorer areas of Kirkwall but wondering if Lux would take to it. "Well, there's only one way to find out. Give him bribes and attention and I bet he'll take to playing the hero for everyone. That's just more people to pay attention to him later. I'll mention it to Araceli."

"Won't the snacks be enough?" Sina wonders, folding her legs up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. "I would think a fox would love to find a nest of fat lazy rats who've gone unchallenged. So long as he leaves the cats alone, what few there are." She smiles.

"Snacks, and petting and being told how soft his fur is and how he's the most majestic fox ever. You know his ego." Korrin grins, then looks thoughtful. "I haven't seen him go after cats, so they probably don't have anything to worry about. I'll double-check with Araceli, though, just to be sure."

To say that Velanna dislikes being in the Gallows is probably an understatement. Were anyone to ask her directly she'd likely say that the structure should be torn apart, burned to the ground, and closed off forever.

There's probably a reason no one asks her opinion on it.

Still, she knows someone has been making attempts to save the garden. It's one of the few places she can tolerate walking through without a headache. She knows there's only a few others with the skill to revive plants within the Inquisition, so she can guess roughly who has been there, but when she sees Sina working, that confirms her suspicions.

"Some of the plants are looking a little better today than they were yesterday," she comments, making an attempt at optimism. They technically look better, but she knows temporary measures when she sees them.

The voice startles Sina, and though she looks up with an expression that reflects this, it transitions into a nervous smile. She knows Velanna to be one of the other Firsts, and has spoken with her once or twice, but has never felt especially worthy of her attention.

She breathes in to thank her, but then sighs it back out as she looks back down at her attempted handiwork. Sina's efforts are noble, but thus far, both figuratively and literally fruitless.
"...no they aren't," she sighs, the words more commiseration than correction. "This isn't working."

Velanna understands that feeling of defeat she sees on Sina's face, and she tilts her head, somewhat awkwardly. She isn't great at comforting people.

"The ground here has been soaked in blood and other things. However, things still grow in the Blackmarsh, so they likely can grow here." Even with some of the other places Velanna has visited, the Blackmarsh was still one of the most desolate. The Veil had been too thin, there.

"Have you tried bringing in new plants? Ones that are already growing and have a chance of fighting to survive here?" She could help with the attempts to bring back what is here, but Velanna knows a losing battle when she sees it.

Sina nods, and nods again. She looks thoughtful as Velanna speaks, beginning to dig one thin finger into the soil as if testing it, her lips pursed in a frown. "It's been untenable," she says quietly, and sighs. "I wish Merrill were here. I'd..." She stops herself, biting her lower lip. Then she lifts her gaze, watching Velanna's face.
"I've had a thought," she says in a low voice, "but it might not work."

The soil needs life put back into it, and where it's been so neglected that may not be possible in the short-term.

Sina's mention of Merrill catches Velanna's attention, as much as the careful way she was considering whatever thought she had.

"Speak it, then. Merrill is a friend, where you would seek her council, feel free to seek mine."

It's a little more sensitive than that, but Velanna is Dalish. If Sina can trust anyone to keep their business their own, it's her.
"Back in Halamshiral," she begins, and lowers her voice, "when we did something, with the ancient ones. We made the vhenandahl grow quickly and strong."

Edited 2017-06-29 01:37 (UTC)

Velanna straightens a little at the mention of what they'd done in Halamshiral.

"I remember." Whether or not it could be done again, she isn't entirely sure. Galadriel was no longer with them, after all. Velanna can work such magic herself, she grew a small grove of trees in Skyhold after all, but that had been in soil that hadn't been so thoroughly corrupted as here. "You think it can be done again?"

Sina bites her lower lip and looks back down at the soil, running her fingertips through it. "I'm beginning to think it's our only hope." She crumbles some dry dirt between her fingers. "The Inquisition can't go without a garden. ...I can't go without a garden." This is spoken somewhat abashedly. In a city of stone, having no trees or other flora around is beginning to wear on her.

"I understand the need," she replies slowly, crouching to touch her fingers to the soil, wincing almost the second her fingertips touched the earth. "The soil here is worse off than what was in Halamsiral, though. Perhaps if we could take soil from the mountain, mix it in here, there might be a chance?" That would be quite the undertaking, however.

"There are less of us here that know how to grow things, as well."

Sina is silent for a moment, contemplating. Then, when it seems like the silence has stretched on too long, she says in a low voice, "I have an idea."
Looking down at the soil, she scrunches it with her fingers, then rests back on her heels to look carefully at Velanna. "Will you meet me here day after tomorrow, before dawn?"

Velanna tilts her head a little at that, not sure what Sina is thinking, before slowly nodding. The young First seemed to have a good head on her shoulders, and if Merrill trusted her, that spoke well of her.

"I will be here."

One of the workers coming home is Nahariel. She's been fairly scarce recently, coming home after dark, leaving with the first rays of dawn, sometimes even waking her clansister with the dim light from a hooded lantern and the soft whistling that always accompanies her hawk-like concentration on her work; in this case, drafting plan after plan for reconstruction.

Unofficially. The working men and women of Kirkwall hadn't thought too much of a Dalish elf's opinions on their architecture, and so Nahariel had performed the age-old subterfuge of the apprentice... aided in no small part by her skill as a scout. Peeking over shoulders, overhearing conversations, speaking little, doing much. It had been that way for near a month.

But today...

"I think they're starting to trust me a little!" she says once she's in speaking range, her lopsided grin flashing white against her skin.

Nari's been a little scarce, and it's been strange. Sina has had her own share of busywork to attend to, but she's been starting to miss her clansister, and she lights up when she sees her approaching.
"Hooray!" Sina exclaims, a colloquialism of the local children, hopping off the crate she's been sitting on to go embrace Nari. "But do you trust them?"

Sina's childlike glee makes Nari's grin widen even farther, and she wraps her arms around the slight woman in a tight but comfortable hug.

"Good question," she replies. She extricates herself from the embrace with an apologetic look, moving to sit on the ground by the crates and leaning back into them with a sigh of relief. "To a degree. To respect my contributions? Getting there. To catch me if I fall off scaffolding?" The elf quirks a slender black brow and huffs a laugh, "Not yet. But I can't blame them. If something like what happened here happened to my people, I'd be insular and distrusting too," she says, her words accompanied by a sly wink.

Edited 2017-06-28 13:59 (UTC)

Sina drops down to sit beside her, idly kicking her heels against the surface of the crate, and leaning back on her palms. "...but something did--" she begins, irritably, and catches herself with a sheepish smile. "Oh. ...I suppose you're right." She looks down at the cobbles. "But we weren't responsible for that."

"Since when did a silly little thing like responsibility matter to shem'len feelings?" Nari cracked--perhaps she hadn't become entirely egalitarian. She did pause though, leaning her head back on the crate to relax her neck.

"...We aren't much better though. How many of the patrols, merchants, hunters, or poachers that strayed too close to our camp and got an arrow in their chest for their trouble d'you think actually had anything to do with what happened on the plains?" The hunter laced her fingers together, clasped one knee to her chest, and rolled her head to the side so she could look at her clansister contemplatively.

Sina smirks in response, but can't help but think about what Nari says. She bites her lower lip, drawing one knee up to wrap her arms around it, pensive.
"Perhaps none," she says, and pauses. That may be the end of the thought, but she can't help but feel there's more. "...but how can we be sure?" All it takes is one cruel shem to take out a clan, as Sedi's history has demonstrated.

Nari sighs, rolling her head back again to look up at the sky. With the lamps of a full city burning everywhere, the stars weren't nearly as clear and bright as they had been in the Frostbacks. Nor as those above the Planasene. "We can't." she said.

"And history has shown over and over that as a whole... even shem by shem... they don't care for the People. I figure they have every right to believe we wouldn't piss on them if they were burning." Nari snorts briefly with laughter to hear the phrase come out of her mouth--it's every bit as Kirkwall as Sina's "hooray" had been, albeit picked up from less innocent souls than children.

"So I figure it's natural they wouldn't trust us to build their houses--the shells they rely on to keep them safe. They know we see what their people have done." And what they keep doing, as Sina had seen in the Alienage. "It'd make more sense to them if I joined wood in such a way that it'd collapse at the first gale than to join it to last a century."

She looks back at her clansister with a cheeky grin. "Plus how should I know how to build a house. We live naked in trees, covered only with vallaslin and the blood of shem'len children, didn't you know?"

Sina nods, heaving a small sigh through her nose as she lies back with Nari, frowning subtly at the noticeably dimmer sky.
"That's not fair," she murmurs, "but nothing is." Her mouth quirks into a smile of amusement at Nari's commentary. "It gets cold, but we make do," she says, pleasantly.

'That's not fair, but so it goes,' seemed to sum it up pretty well, or at least Nari couldn't think of anything else to add that would improve on it.

"Speaking of trees," she said, "how is the garden work going?"

SIna's sigh says everything, and even involves a strand of her hair puffing above her face with the breath. "Badly," she admits, "but I have a thought. I've asked Velanna and I plan to ask Pel to help me."

"Oho? What's this thought?" The hunter asked. With Velanna and Pel, it was probably something magical in nature. Nari had some doubts that layering magic upon magic was going to help with the corruption of the ground, but it was a subject so wholly out of her expertise that the only comment she gave was a slight quirk of her brow.

SIna actually doesn't answer right away, chewing her lower lip and thinking. When she finally speaks, her voice is low, almost conspiratorial. "Do you remember... that burned out part of the forest, where we spent a few weeks in hiding?" She and Thalia had pressed their hands to the ground, spurring the mostly-dead plants to new life, albeit not obviously enough to draw attention.

"I do…, " Nari said cautiously, remembering how she and the other hunters had returned to find the space greener than before.

There had been some worry amongst them that they were staying in such a barren place, although it was undoubtedly safe from the prying eyes of outsiders. Thalia had been insistent that it would not be a difficulty, and no one was going to criticize her choice. They had some greens that night along with the meat, which all had been grateful for, although she had never known how. Despite the curiosity, the Keeper had offered no explanation, and no one had pressed.

"You know how to do that, then?" A pause, "is it safe?"

After all unlike the forest there were certainly prying eyes here in Kirkwall.

"I do," Sina echoes, in response to Nari's question, offering a small and pensive nod to the sky. "And... I don't know." She breathes in, a bit shakily as always, and sighs it out. "But it must be done."

Nari was silent for a few breaths--when she spoke again, it was slow, "We could move the garden outside, start a new one where the ground is still good."

But that would still leave the corrupted ground within the city, and who knows what kind of effect that would have over time on the people who lived there. The hunter sighed heavily, and nodded. "No, you're right, it must be done. Just--" Nari reached out in the deepening twilight to take Sina's hand and squeeze it gently once, "--tell me when you're going to do it, so I can be there to stand watch. We don't need anyone wandering in and misconstruing what you're doing. Especially so soon after our arrival, and especially here."

Sina considers. She looks at Nari for a moment, then away again, her eyes narrowed in thought. Then, she shakes her head.
"I don't think I should," she says, "not... because I don't want you there. But it's." She fiddles with one of her fingernails, absently biting off a tear. "You know. Keeper business." Freaky druid shit, which isn't freaky or druidic unless it's a secret.

Nari shook her head as well, raising her hands as if to stop Sina's train of thought herself. "I didn't mean in the garden proper, I meant by the entrance. Or at least somewhere I can see the entrance." The hunter dropped one hand, running the other through her hair with a sigh. She'd spent enough time skulking around herself to know how fully they weren't in Skyhold anymore.

"It's not as if the toughs roaming the streets here at night are going to respect that it's Keeper business."

Nari makes a good point, and Sina has to admit she's relieved by it. In general she wants Nari at her side, even if she's technically on her own. Though she considers to make sure she isn't being hasty, Sina then nods, a small smile twitching onto her lips again. "You're right," she says quietly, "by the entrance." It's a deal.

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[open] gentle impulsion

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