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

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

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.

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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?"

"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."

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,

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."

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."

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.

Edited 2017-07-28 00:53 (UTC)

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."

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?"

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.

"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."

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.

One might say Teren cares selectively, the level to which depends entirely on the issue. This, as far as she knows, is about a bunch of rich people being inconvenienced and frightened. And that's hilarious.

"You imagine right," she says, checking toward the door, though her guard has loosened some. One might get the impression she's always a little on-edge, at least in public, crowded places. "Truth be told, it could have happened at any point while I was down there, and I was none the wiser. I found out, oh... a week or so after, I suppose." Her shrewd eyes flicker over Nari, in a way less judgmental than simply appraising.
"You don't strike me as a devout Andrastian." Translation: what are you getting at.

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."

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."

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'm not," Nari replied with a shrug and a small quirk of a smile. "I just care about places, and the meanings they have for people."

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,"

"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?"

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?"

"Why do you assume it is empty? Simply because there is nothing there?"

It is asked with curiosity, her head tilted slightly and brows raised.

"That crater meant many things to many different people including mages. Someone assumed everyone would be happy to see it gone but someone also thought creating that crater would help mages by making us a public enemy and putting us further at odds with the Templars." It is said, softly and verging on tired even.

"Many assume, a lot assume even but the few shouldn't make decisions for the whole just because they thought it would be better."

Edited 2017-07-28 03:30 (UTC)

"Fair enough." Teren can relate, not that she'd ever admit it. She falls silent for a time, nursing her drink and thinking. Then, "have you heard much worth your while?"

The refill is met with a flicker of a smile and a sip as she listens to her friend. There's a pause as she considers that, tapping her fingers on the counter. "Some of both, I guess? But it's not my opinion that matters, as much as those who actually lived through it. I've spoken to people who saw the destruction first hand, the debris from the Chantry raining down on Kirkwall. Wounds like that don't just disappear, even if the crater itself does.

It's like...back when we went to Halamshiral, to help fix up the parts that were roasted by Empress Bitchface's troops. No one stopped us from rebuilding, but not everyone seemed to happy about it, either. I got the feeling that they thought Orlais was using us to pretend it didn't happen. Remembering doesn't bring happiness, but having others forget -or seem to- can also hurt." She rests a hand atop Nari's, giving it a light squeeze.

"It's a tough balance, but from my outsider view, people have lived with that blasted crater long enough. They need something that doesn't remind them of the time an abomination took a massive dump on everything. But they also need people to know what was lost. We can always add something like the memorial we have for the Gallows, right? That shouldn't be too hard."

The elf inclines her head in acknowledgement of invisible, ineffable things that can nevertheless be felt as if solid by those they mean things to.

"The world is full of the few making decisions for the whole," Nari murmurs, "Queens, Keepers, Inquisitors, Knight-Commanders, First Enchanters." the corner of her mouth quirks in a sad smile, "People like you and I don't have that kind of power, so it's easy for us to say we'd do things differently." Her eyes are curious--no judgement, simply seeking answers. "If you had it, though, wouldn't you use it according to what you thought was right?"

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."

Edited 2017-07-28 16:00 (UTC)

She nods slowly, and squeezes back with a light smile to match.

"That's actually what I'm thinking of doing. Rather than just rebuilding, or just having it be a forest, I want to turn it into... I don't know," she frowns slightly, "Something of both. A memorial and a place to think and a place to pray. A memorial for everyone. Mages, Templars, Chantry brothers and sisters, those who were just trying to live and got caught. A big thing happened here and we shouldn't forget it, but that scar didn't feel like a thing that could move forward."

Nahariel pauses for a decent amount of time, her brow furrowed in thought, then continues slowly, "There was something inside me that didn't heal until I went back to our old camp not to look and remember, but to plant something new.

"I know I don't have the right to decide how others should heal, but... the forest is here now. I'm just trying to figure out how best to turn it into something good."

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

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