[I: OTA, II: Semi-Closed] Finding Forever

[nadasharillen]

WHO: Part I: Anyboooody!
Part II: Nahariel, Cade, and whoever's with Cade when he found
WHAT: I: Come get a free drink and tell Nari where you were when the Chantry blew up.
II: She has a cunning plan.
WHEN: A couple of days after the forest springs up
WHERE: I: Hanged Man
II: That good good new forest
NOTES: probable discussion of PTSD

Part I:

Nahariel spends a good day just... looking. Watching the general consternation of the populace that comes and goes, some of whom she'd seen come to leave items or worship at the crater before. They look unsure now. Something had happened here, something big and terrible. So she spends that night at the Hanged Man buying drinks--she hadn't much use for fine things, and her carvings had sold relatively well here--and asking for stories.

Word passes through the tavern pretty quickly that there's an elf at one of the corner tables doing this, and she greets anyone who sits down with a crooked smile, a drink of their choice, and a question:

"Where were you when the Chantry bombing happened?"


Part II:

The last person she spoke to that night was an off-duty Templar. The center of their faith, gone in an instant, their Knight-Commander in the grip of Red Lyrium fueled insanity, Abominations everywhere. The Templar looked harrowed, like they hadn't slept since--or not well, at least.

And Nari had seen that look before.

And she remembered what just a bit of her whistling a Chantry song had done.

And she got an idea.

The next day not too long after sunrise she put on her working leathers, divested herself of anything that could be considered a weapon--aside from her tools, of course--and set off to find Cade Harimann.

Comments

I

[gatheringstorm]

Korrin's about to shake her head and tell Nari she needn't offer to buy anything, since she often gets free ale just working as a bouncer. But that question gives her pause and she raises an eyebrow. At least it's a slow night and nothing needs her attention.

"...okay, what brought this on? Morbid curiosity or something more?"

Re: I

[nadasharillen]

"Well..." Nari toys with her own drink, sliding the mug back and forth between her hands. It's not quite a slide, since the surface of the table is a bit rough, but it goes back and forth all the same.

"I never saw it. The Chantry, I mean. So that space has just been a big nothing to me. And then the forest grew, and I was happy that it was something, but it seems like a lot of the people here were attached to that nothing. If that makes any sense."

She stares contemplatively into the ale bubbles.

"I guess I just want to know what it meant to the city. To the common folk. And what it means that even the emptiness is gone now."

I

[gatheringstorm]

Listening to Nari, Korrin sighs heavily afterward. She's not annoyed with her elf friend, of course, but the subject is a loaded one. "I wasn't in Kirkwall at the time, and hadn't been for years. The Qunari takeover effectively cut off any places for my company to operate in the area for a long while. We were in Orlais, in the Dales. Nowhere near here, but news spread damn fast."

She takes a swig, needing it if she's to dredge all that up. "People were always wary of mages anyway, especially apostates, but the night we returned from a job, it got downright nasty. As soon as the locals heard about my being a mage, we were run out. I still have scars in places.

That wasn't the worst of it, though. I'd been trying to win over some of the new Tal-Vashoth that joined us, the ones who were fresh from the Qun and still skittish about magic. One was especially warming up to me, but after that...I might as well have carried the plague. I guess hearing about the explosion made them realize I was just a 'saarebas' after all. My company at large stood up for me, especially after Shokrakar made it clear she wouldn't put up with any crap. But that still hurt, for a long time. Being here...doesn't help."

Maybe that will be sufficient explanation for Korrin being more withdrawn, less social. (Though that has been more notable recently than upon arriving.) "I'm not a native, so I can't give you that viewpoint. But outside Kirkwall? There was a lot of fear, and a lot of hatred stemming from it. So I damn well know what it's like to have been a mage on the outside, and have that life become a shitload more difficult because of a colossal asshole." Yeah, draining that drink now.

Re: I

[nadasharillen]

Nari's lips thin, remembering her own night-time flight from the carnage at their camp. Scars on the outside, scars on the inside--they pucker up and ache just the same. Saying 'I'm sorry' seemed stupid and hollow, so instead she just nodded sedately and refilled Korrin's tankard with the pitcher on the table.

"That day and that crater meant a lot of things to a lot of people, and now it's gone. I thought that'd be a good thing, a healing thing, but..." the elf trails off, her eyes searching out the knots and patterns in the wooden tabletop before returning to look soberly at Korrin. "You lost something then. If... there was a place to go to think and remember... do you think that would help or hurt?"

I

[doneisdone]

Teren is a few in already, which means she's pliable enough to potentially accept a free drink, but still not completely off her guard. She's also among the first flagged down, and therefore hasn't heard beforehand of the elf's intentions. For her part, it seems an arbitrary question, and she pauses with the cup halfway to her mouth.
"Why?" she says quickly, setting it down again, "who wants to know?"
All right, she'll hurry back to the Warden camp, wake up Anders, throw him on the druffalo and make for Wycome before the sun's even all the way down, shave his head and face when they're far enough away, come up with quick new personae for both of them,

Re: I

[nadasharillen]

Nari blinks, slightly taken aback by the abruptness of the response, and replies carefully, "Me? Maybe where is the wrong word... I just... I don't know anything about what happened, or how people responded to it. How important it was. What it means that even the crater is gone now." She shrugs, her eyes sliding to the side, "I guess I expected people to be happy that the corrupted destruction is gone, but that's not what's happening."

[doneisdone]

start a new life as farmers, wait-- Teren, what happened to you, when did you go soft? If she leaves now they'll still be dealing with him by the time she's halfway to Wycome, an--

"Oh. This is about that bloody forest." No pun intended. She blinks, narrows her eyes, and decides to chance the drink. "It means there's a forest in Hightown, an aesthetic improvement if you ask me." A sip.

"...I was in the Deep Roads." Probably. It was around then.

[nadasharillen]

She'll nod slowly, considering how abrupt and unconcerned the Warden was. Which either meant she cared a lot, or the opposite.

"I don't imagine news got there very quickly." A sip of her own.

i

[sulena]

It unusual to find Saoirse among the Hanged Man patrons singing as she did before in Skyhold. There is more to the people here and some even come from Starkhaven too, so in a way, there is more understanding to her songs. She has always been the sort to listen out and that has been especially true in these past few days as the city once again reels with stories and passing gossip.

The gossip of the tavern itself is easy enough to pick up on and she finds herself seeking out the rumored elf during her break. She does not sit, and there is nothing on her features to give away her feelings at the question presented to her.

"That Gallows," she murmurs the response. "It was still Kirkwall's Circle at the time."

Re: i

[nadasharillen]

Saoirse is the first person that Nari had spoken to this evening who was actually in Kirkwall at the time--and the tone of her voice made the elf immediately regret having been so blasé in asking. She's a bit quieter herself in replying. "It must have been... startling probably barely covers it."

[sulena]

"Startling is certainly one of many words I would use, I agree."

There was a lot of words thrown around in the days following the explosion. She mostly remembers the screaming most of all, blood too. Saoirse doubts she'll ever forget the blood or how it felt on her hands.

"Life in the Gallows had already been hard enough but I would sooner relive those days in a cell before reliving the events on the streets that came after the explosion."

[nadasharillen]

Nari is finding she has little to say to such painful memories, so she just nods sedately.

"If you don't mind... Was it hard? To have that space so empty? I thought the people here would be happy that the crater is gone, that it's full of life now, but that's... not what's happening,"

1.

[justice_is_blond]

It's been a long enough day that he stops by the Hanged Man for a drink. Sometimes he needs that before heading back to the Gallows, before facing that building and its memories and baggage. At the offer of a free drink for a story, Anders decides it'll be a pleasant way to spend his drink and comes over.

At the question, he's suddenly reconsidering that decision.

"...Why?"

Re: 1.

[nadasharillen]

She's getting a lot of guarded looks and 'why do you ask's this evening. It makes sense. Something like that was bound to be personal for a great many people, especially here.

"It seems like it was something that deeply affected a lot of people. So much so that the loss of the artifacts of its memory to even something that heals the land and provides for the city is... not appreciated, to say the least," Nari explains, thoughtfully sliding her mug back and forth across the tabletop.

"I'm not Andrastian, and our temples crumbled long ago. I don't really understand what the Chantry meant to the people here. In any positive way, at least. There was no love lost between the Chantry and the Dalish any more than it seems there was between the Chantry and the Circle here; but that crater meant something to this city, and I'm just trying to figure out what that something was."

[justice_is_blond]

Anders presses his lips together, watching the mug she's moving around. He could still walk away. He hasn't ordered his drink yet, after all, and she's not paid for it yet. On the other hand, how many people in Kirkwall now were actually in the middle of things as they went on? Just four, he's fairly certain. Maybe this would help and not cost too much.

With a sigh, Anders settles into the chair and waves one of the servers over. "I'll have that drink."

Once he's gone, he looks back at the elf. She's familiar enough by sight, though he couldn't put a name to her face.

"I'm Anders," he says quietly. "Ask what you'd like, just don't yell out about who I am."

[nadasharillen]

"Nari," she replied.

The way he spoke his name quietly, like sharing it should mean something important to her, made the elf furrow her brow quizzically, the curves of her vallaslin crinkling slightly. To call Nari reclusive wasn't altogether strong enough; Dahlasanor had gone into the Planasene long before the Chantry explosion, and she'd hadn't cared enough about the conflict between the Mages and Templars--save what affected her and Sina on the road--to know any more than trace details about what had happened.

"Is there... someone in here you're trying to avoid?"

1

[ragweed]

Never one to turn down a drink, Kit makes himself comfortable across from Nari and is about to gulp down his first mouthful of beer when that question hits him. Granted, it doesn't make the same impact as it might against someone more closely connected to the Mage/Templar War, but he still pauses to look across the edge of his mug at the Dalish elf asking the question.

"Underground killing darkspawn, probably," he replies, smiling. "Why? Where were you?"

Re: 1

[nadasharillen]

"In the forest killing shem'len, probably," she grins back, and then quickly looks stricken, "Uh, I, that's a joke. The killing shem'len part, anyway."

Mostly.

The elf runs a hand through her hair, a gesture of her embarassment, and grins again--albeit apologetically. "Gets laughs in Arlathan.

"As to why? I'm trying to gauge how people who were here or who were directly affected are taking to the forest."

Re: 1

[ragweed]

He figured she was joking--and even if she wasn't, he's met several topsiders in his day that could certainly do with a beating, though he'd stop short of actually putting them in the ground.

"I'm trying to gauge how people who were here or who were directly affected are taking to the forest."

Wryly, he says, "Come to think of it, I thought something looked different about that square," and hides the rest of his grin in his beer as he takes a proper gulp from it now. Setting the mug down, he sits back in his seat and braces a free hand against his crutch. "So what's the verdict so far? People like it, they don't like it?"

I

[aforethought]

"Shit," A low whistling breath, out through her teeth. "How long's that been now? Five years?"

Something like that. Melys turns to the voice, drags a hand along her neck with the slackness of a few drinks — until, much sharper now, she catches sight of Nahariel's vallasin. Her eyes flint hard, track slowly to the proffered ale, back again.

Brief moral calculus occurs. With a grudging nod, she reaches out to take it.

"Reckon we were in Wycome by then," Piss if she knows for sure. They'd avoided this place, praise Triza's good sense. She sets the mug on the tabletop, performs a quick pass over it with her fingers (sign against evil, but Dalish here doesn't need to know that). "But if it's stories you want, you're bending ears in the wrong place."

Re: I

[nadasharillen]

Nahariel recognizes the sudden flash of distrust in the woman's eyes. Before they'd come to Kirkwall, it had been a good long while since she'd gotten that look, long enough that the first time it'd happened here Nari was actually surprised and even a little hurt. The common purpose of the Inquisiton had made her soft.

"Not so wrong that I haven't gotten a few," the elf replies non-comittally, projecting a leisurely calm that hardens to alertness beneath her skin.

[aforethought]

"Figure offering free drinks'll do that." Even if she doubts how many of those stories ended up half-factual. (That says something too, doesn't it? The ways that stories change?) "But ain't what I meant."

She's running her mouth off here more than's any kind of sensible, ought to just take the tankard and leave. But that's what drink does, you know, loosens her lips easy as a common cause does other poor dumb sots. The Inquisition and its promise of a higher purpose, of the gentle hazy unity it's supposed to lay over their wounds. Like it's not just licking out the blood for its own.

At least drinking kills you slow.

"Look around." Got a few dwarves in here, an ox or two; place is crawling diverse — but that's not how real folks live. It's been a long time now since she felt any kind of real, but Melys remembers. Knows enough to know that this, this ain't it. "Who hauls ass across town just to drown in this shitheap?"

"You ain't buying every round. Gotta have coin to be here," She yanks a thumb. "Gotta be breathing. Don't matter what no one in here says, we all came out alright. You want stories,"

It's not quite a scoff, not the way it catches on something in her breath, something just a touch too much like honest feeling.

"Oughta go find those what didn't."

II

[onlyhymns]

Cade is easily found, because he's at the docks with Simon, fresh from the Gallows and ready to start the rest of his horrible life. He's holding his soldier's bag, and even it seems sadly deflated, carrying only a few objects to show for his thirty-three years of existence.

They're stepping in the direction of greater Lowtown when Nari appears, and Cade's first instinct is to flinch, waiting for a blow or an insult. But then he recognizes her, and pauses, realizing he hasn't seen the elf since long ago in Skyhold and wondering why she's now stopped in front of him looking so pleasant.

[paladingus]

Simon is pretending, for Cade's sake, to have more of a plan here than he actually does. There are a few solid places to look for vacancies, or they can always set Cade up in an inn that isn't the Hanged Man for a little while, and if absolutely nothing else there's still the common areas, but it all just seems so...uncertain. It just doesn't feel quite right, leaving Cade to such an unpredictable future, with so little to show for his past. But he's here for moral support, mostly, so support he will.

Unlike Cade, he doesn't recognize Nari at all, and looks over at Cade with plain confusion. He seems to be registering her as familiar, which is something, but hell if Simon knows what it means.

"Can we help you?" he asks her, uncertainly.

[nadasharillen]

She opens her mouth, then closes it again with a furtive look at Simon. Being rather unsure about how this would all shake out, Nahariel had rather hoped that she'd run into the Templar alone so as to have as few witnesses as possible to any failure. Perhaps it wouldn't mean as much to him as she thought it might. Or he'd find it silly. Or think it wasn't her place.

Well. Not every shot lands. Spend time crying over a lost buck, and lose another; companion or not, Cade was here now, so she started again.

"It's Cade, right?" She asked, careful to pitch her voice in the least demanding tones she could without sounding like she was purposefully modulating. Creators bless storyteller training.

"I'm Nari. You were in the hall at Skyhold while I was carving the steps. I've got a somewhat related project that I could use your help with... if you've the time and the desire, of course," she finishes, eyeing the bag over his shoulder.