[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

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?"

[justice_is_blond]

He blinks, slowly, trying to put the new question together with the old one. Anders opens his mouth, stops, raises a finger, and looks off to the side before shaking his head.

"I..." There's a pause after he trails off before he shakes his head again. "It's nice to meet you, Nari. I'm trying to avoid many people in this city, because I was... involved."

He pauses again as his drink is delivered and waits for the man to clear off. "Meredith was literally moments away from getting approval to murder every mage in the city, and they deserved a chance to fight back rather than being slaughtered in the little cells they called rooms."

The Gallows speak for themselves, massive amounts of beds shoved into rooms, tiny private rooms that locked on the outside, bars on the windows. It was a massive jail, and the mages had stood no chance.

"People are bothered that the scar is gone because they want to pretend they were the victims of Kirkwall. It stood as a monument to what happens when instead of a couple thousand mages being murdered, the deaths are maybe a little more than a hundred total, and only some of them are mages. The bombing was wrong. But their clinging to it, as if..." He breaks off and shakes his head, keeping his voice low. "More lives were saved than were lost that night, but since it was mage lives that were saved, everyone is angry. How dare mages fight back and not let their own throats be slit?"

[nadasharillen]

Nahariel has spent enough time being purposefully still in her life that when Anders mentions his involvement, she manages to respond only with raised eyebrows--and listens.

He speaks about mages the same way she speaks of the Dalish; of elves. His shoulders tight and slightly raised, like he expects retaliation for defending his desire to defend himself and others like him. She knows those shoulders. She knows the weight of feeling like her life and the lives of those like her have all the worth of a clipped coin, and she knows what it is to snap under that weight.

When he finishes, she takes a slow breath.

"If I--" she began, green eyes solemn, "--If I could have killed the raiding party that came to Dahlasanor before they lit everything I knew on fire, I would have." Her fingers tighten hard around her mug so that even the dark skin of her hands lightens enough at the knuckles to be noticed. "I would have, even if it meant my Keeper--who loved and respected all life so much--would think I was a monster. Because he'd be alive to think that.

"And even though it was in our own defense, it would have just made the shem'len more frightened of us. They wouldn't know the future, know what I'd averted. They'd just see more violent... savages," the word drops from her lips like it burned her. "Just more reasons to hate and fear.

"If it wasn't this crater, it would have been another. If it wasn't you, it would have been Meredith. Stacking up the piles of bones against each other..." Nahariel sighs, pinches the bridge of her nose, squeezes her eyes shut against the feeling of futility. "Who can judge the weight of them, truly," she murmurs quietly, opening her eyes to stare into her drink. "Loss is loss. The only thing we can do is respect the dead there are."

[justice_is_blond]

It's his turn to listen once he's done, and there's tension in his body. Anders spends a majority of his time on the defensive. Attacks always come. But then she surprises him yet again.

She understands.

The weight of loss is on her shoulders too, and she'd not had the opportunity of a choice like he had. Not that he's certain it was truly an opportunity, but at least one inevitable slaughter hadn't been.

"And try to make it so that there's never a need for a choice like that again," he says quietly. Anders holds out his hand near her tight-knuckled one, an offering. "They already hate and fear us. Mages and the Dalish. We cannot let our lives be ruled by that, because we have no control over how we're seen. All we can control is our actions."

He takes his first sip of his drink, anyone around them forgotten. Moments ago he'd said it was nice to meet her but it had simply been that, a nicety. Now it truly is nice, because he can't remember the last time someone who wasn't Nate had actually listened.

"I'm sorry for your loss. And I personally think the trees an improvement: life from death." Maybe one day people can be better. They can see each other as people, rather than Other. It's what he dreams of. "Until people decide to stop dwelling on perceived hurts and focus on fixing true wrongs, though, many will be upset about the crater. It's easier to resent than to move forward and change the world so things like this never happen again. It's easier to sit to the side and say that shouldn't have happened, while offering no other solutions, no other ways to save lives or cut down on the loss."

He is judged, and he will judge in return. Those who judged had done nothing, or made the situation worse; at least the Rite of Annulment had been cut off.

[nadasharillen]

The offered hand is considered, and then gingerly accepted with a slow not--although she has to peel her hand from the mug to do it.

"I'm... looking to help with what might be a more fitting monument. Something that acknowledges more loss than just the grief and anger of those who lost the Chantry. For mages who lost trust, or whatever feeling of safety they had, or themselves, believing giving themselves over to the Beyond was a better prospect than Tranquility. Templars who lost faith, or who made choices they can't abide. Regular folk who lost friends and loved ones to a conflict they didn't see themselves as part of."

Eventually the tumble of thoughts comes to a halt, and she looks up, a sad half smile on her face. "I bet hardly anyone ever asks what you mourn from that day. But everyone deserves a place to grieve... and moreover, to have everyone see that there was more than one loss that day."

[justice_is_blond]

"They don't ask." And the answers of what he mourned wouldn't likely be satisfying. A mage who died several years before Anders destroyed the Chantry. His second found family. A young mage he saw cornered that night who gave in to demons rather than the Templars that surrounded him. His conscience. The deaths of those who were innocent. His peace of mind.

He wishes he could say he wouldn't do it if he was given the choice again, but he doesn't know. It had been wrong to do, but the rite of annulment would have happened otherwise and no one would have defended the mages. Worse, no one else would have cared.

"It's probably for the best. My answer would be a little more complicated than I think anyone would have time for, considering I destroyed it."

Nahariel's hand gets a squeeze before he shakes his head sadly. "I don't know what would be a fitting monument. Maybe a fountain in the center of the garden, but I'm also one of the people who doesn't think the garden was a poor choice. Life from death, rather than holding on to old wounds so that one can continually feel hurt and vindication all over again, seems an upgrade."