Whispering wind is blowing [Open]

[nadasharillen]

WHO: Nari and you! (And special for Cade and Simon)
WHAT: October catchall for Nari
WHEN: Early Harvestmere
WHERE: Various Kirkwall
NOTES: Anything that comes with Cade. Super-sina-sadness! Cami don't read this in Panera :P

[Chantry Forest - open; come in at any point]

It had taken Nahariel a good amount of time to go into the forest. She'd been before, of course, but not for this. This was different. Beginning this work meant acknowledging an ending.

Early light of morning finds her wandering, looking at the wood with the frank and evaluating eye of a carver. Just before midday, she's found what she wants. A branch - good, straight, sturdy, just fallen. Tall enough.

Midday finds her sitting on a large tree's roots, somewhere near the center, thumb rubbing the haft of Dahlasanor's arulin'holm. The Dalish ceremonial tool for the beginning and ending of a work had been well taken care of in her absence, but even so she oils, polishes, and sharpens it with slow deft strokes. She raises it, turns it to catch a beam of sun that had managed to pierce the canopy, and makes the first cut.

Her afternoon, and several afternoons after it, are spent carving with singular focus. Curling vines and herbs and flowers and grasses and trees grow slowly from the wood, twining around it. Thoughtful halla begin to graze and keep watch, curved around the sides. Constellations of Ghilan'nain's guiding stars rise over the fields.

The details are refined with patience that could only be born of love, the wood sanded and polished to a silken sheen. It's only after she raises and lowers the arulin'holm to make the final cut she'd been saving for it - the only rough place on the smooth surface - that she weeps. It's a deep sound, broken and raw, rising and falling like waves as she rocks side to side, her arms wrapped around Sina's funeral staff.

[Docks]

When she's not working, Nari is down in the harbor. Sometimes it's helping to load or unload cargo, sometimes learning to fish, sometimes carving small animals or puzzles for the local children out of scrap wood, sometimes telling them stories, and on the warm days, sunning with a farmer's flopping straw hat down over her face. No matter the activity, she's always glad to see you.

[Elsewhere!]

Catch her leaving or returning from the forest (Chantry or Planacene)! At the markets! Drinking in the Hanged Man! Something else!

[Chantry Forest - closed]

She'll meet the two of them at where the entrance to the Chantry would have been, a pack full of sketches and measuring tools and some simple lunch slung over her shoulder, a roll of carving tools fastened beneath it. Upon seeing them, Nari raises a hand in greeting. "Thank you again," she says. "Feel free to disagree, but I thought perhaps the right place for her would be about where she was before?"

Comments

Chantry forest, time-warping to Korrin's return

[gatheringstorm]

Korrin doesn't visit the forest daily, but does check in every so often just to gauge the locals' reaction to it and ensure all is well. Also, to visit her Dalish buddies who are likely to be in the area. She wanders as far in as need be, not with the careful eye of a gardener but still remaining alert to the general feel of the area.

The weeping soon gets her attention, though, and her concern deepens when she spots Nahariel ahead. Not pausing in her stride, she heads over and promptly embraces her smaller friend. She won't demand answers right now, just lend Nari her unwavering support.

[nadasharillen]

The elf doesn't even flinch when Korrin's arms close around her; she knows them by now. Nari leans into the embrace, sobbing even harder to be with someone who loves Sina too.

[gatheringstorm]

As gently as she can, Korrin holds the slight elf close and rubs her back. "Let it all out, Nari. I'm not going anywhere, promise." As long as she's needed, Korrin will be around to help hold her up, trying to project a soothing calm even as her own throat closes up. It doesn't take a great imagination to guess what this might be about.

[nadasharillen]

She does, her arms reaching to return the hug with a ferocity that belies their then elven shape. Eventually it subsides into sniffles, Nari sitting up a bit to survey the damage she's done to whatever Korrin's wearing with puffy red eyes.

"Creators," she says, with a tiny chuckle, "I've about sent you back to sea."

[gatheringstorm]

Korrin shakes her head, an understanding smile forming as she replies. "This top has seen worse than some tears on it, believe me. I don't honestly care, as long as it was what you needed."

That's the important part; clothes are replaceable, and it's not as though tears would ruin it anyway. She looks her friend over in concern, wondering how bad it is now. "I know I haven't been around for a few weeks, but I'm back now. Whatever you need from me, I'm here. Even if it's getting more of my clothes wet."

US

[onlyhymns]

Freshly back from their high-seas adventure, Cade still looks like the void, but he's hungry for distractions and Nari, despite being something of a stranger and Dalish to boot, is a calming presence.
He looks over her plans, slightly confused at first, but it quickly dawns on him. And he's shocked, initially offended, then... actually touched. He nods absently, looking over her tools, and murmurs, "you're going to carve her out of wood?"

[nadasharillen]

Nari looks suddenly unsure. "Is... that okay? That's what I'm best at, and I thought it'd be better than stone carved poorly."

[onlyhymns]

Her uncertainty catches him off-guard, and all at once Cade just wants to reassure her. "Yes, um," he stammers, "that makes sense." Looking toward the spot in question, he still can't quite wrap his mind around the fact of a Dalish wanting to carve Andraste. "Do you need..." He feels stupid already. "...a reference?"

[nadasharillen]

Well, they can both feel stupid together, because needing a reference hadn't even crossed her mind. Physical representations of the Creators - save Fen'Harel as wolf - were few and far between, and those that she'd seen had all been in ruins, the stone of their countenances worn by time and wind and rain. But Andraste...

"I... thought I might just ask you about her," she replies, the end of the phrase raising in a half-question as she drags a hand through the dark crop of her hair.

[onlyhymns]

Cade blinks at her, pressing a hand to the back of his neck. Ask him? Since when is he a reliable source of anything?
"...ask what?" He sounds cautious, like he isn't sure he can trust himself to not be an idiot.

docks!

[wheretheferngrows]

It's on one of these days, not long after her return from Llomerryn, that Fern happens by the docks in the midst of Nari's storytelling.

It's the facial tattoos that she notices first; Sina's description of her clan sister had been rather specific, and while it was of course impossible for Fern to remember everything she heard, she remembered that much, at least. And the penchant for story-telling.

So she pauses a bit nervously just outside the circle of children gathered around to listen to Nari speak, listening with keen, inquisitive interest to what she's saying.

[nadasharillen]

When Fern joins them, the Dalish artisan is in the middle of a tale, opening her arms wide like jaws and "snapping" at the children to some shrieking.

"And then," she says, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, "the great beast came--" she leans in and speaks more quietly so that the children will lean in as well, their faces rapt; she suddenly leaps to a crouch and opens her "jaws" again, "--for the children!" There are more shrieks of glee and horror. "But as the great beast opened his maw to swallow them whole, howling his triumph to the sky--" someone, excited, who'd heard this one before, whispers "the arrow!" loudly and is roundly hushed, "--the arrow that Fen'Harel had shot high into the sky at dawn fell like a star and struck the beast dead!" There is excitement and delighted giggling as Nahariel "dies" with a howl convincing enough that one of the dockworkers looks over in alarm and then breaks into a grin. The elf returns to her previous perch on a small crate.

"The children wept then," she said, taking a more somber tone, "for their parents and their elders had not been so lucky; all lay still on the cold ground of their camp just as the great beast now lay. But even still, they made thanks and offering to Fen'Harel, for he had done just as he had promised--no more, no less. He had answered their prayers and killed the beast with his cunning, and with the fel'assan," she pronounces the elvhen word slow and clear, smiling to hear a few of the children--especially the elves--whisper it to themselves like a spell. "The slow arrow."

"And that is how the Dread Wolf Fen'Harel slew the Great Beast. So I was told, so you are told, so you will tell." She ends the story with a nod and a small smile, then after a short pause makes a shooing motion and a 'whoosh' noise as the little gathering giggles and scampers away to some chore or another. The storyteller, for her part, stretches with a pleased sigh, and looks up to the young woman who's still there.

"Afternoon!"

[wheretheferngrows]

The children aren't the only ones mouthing those elvhen words to themselves; Fern does it, too, though she's quiet about it and shoots a dirty look at anyone who happens to catch her doing it. What? Something on her face? No? Buzz off.

As the children scurry off and Nari offers out her greeting, Fern at first assumes that she must be speaking to someone else. She blinks her large blue eyes owlishly back at her, shoots a look quickly over her shoulder, then back again. "...are you talking to me?" she asks, sounding dubious, but there's a tiny smile settling in at the corners of her mouth.

[nadasharillen]

Nahariel's smile widens, the right side quirking up far more than the left, and she nods. "I'd've made it more obvious, but I didn't want to greet you by the wrong name," she says. Her brow furrows, wrinkling the lines of her vallaslin, and then she brightens. "Oh! Are you Fern? Sina said you might be by."

[wheretheferngrows]

"She did?" Fern asks, her little smile warming and growing a touch bashful. (Sina was talking about her, to her friends?) Then, realizing she hadn't actually answered Nari's question, she quickly nods and dips into a little curtsy, hoping that's the polite thing to do with the Dalish. "Ah--yes, I'm Fern. Are you one of Sina's--um--" What was the word she'd used? "...clan sisters?"

Chantry Forest

[justice_is_blond]

Most of the time he steers clear of the forest. It's more for others than for himself, not being seen for their sake, but sometimes it's nice to have a place where he can sit and remember Karl. The Dalish, Nari, gets a glance as he comes upon her... and then a second look when he realizes she's crying.

There's an awkward pause before Anders kneels. He may not know her well, but he's not going to ignore her.

"Hey," he says gently, because 'it'll be all right' may not be true.

[nadasharillen]

She looks over sharply and tries to stifle her sobbing. The result is rather like a loud hiccup, and is accompanied by a suddenly running nose as her mouth pressing shut requires pressure to be released elsewhere. She quickly scrubs the back of her hand across it - which mostly manages to smear rather than remove - her expression quite resembling a waterlogged cat in the rain. Nahariel Dahlasanor is not a pretty crier.

[justice_is_blond]

"It's all right," he says hastily, apparently saying the words anyway. "You don't have to clean up, or look contained, or anything. I'm not judging. I'm wondering if there's something I can do to help."

It may be there's nothing to do. He has a guess as to why she might be out here crying, after all. But it's worth asking.

[nadasharillen]

Nari sniffs - loudly enough to cause her some brief consternation - and then shakes her head. "You're a healer, aren't you? I saw you at the tents sometimes in Skyhold. I know... I know if you could've done anything it'd already be done."

[justice_is_blond]

His guess is right, and Anders looks down.

"I am. I wish there was more I could do for Sina," he says quietly. "But you're right. I'm Anders, and I've been doing everything I can." Some things don't have a cure, or they don't yet. "You're Nari? I believe that's what I've heard."

chantry forest; post-island

[foxsays]

Since the forest is the only time Araceli and Sina have ever really argued over in all the time they've known one another, she's avoided it since. None of her work gives her much reason to come to the gardens usually but after so long away from Lux, she lets the fox lead her today and he's chosen the garden.

After the days on the island spent hacking through the thick press of jungle, she isn't entirely convinced that overgrown scaled cats won't appear from somewhere but the sound isn't something about to pounce and growl. Someone's crying. And while she might leave them to it when it's Kirkwall and the garden is where it is, Lux is ahead so she has to go after him.

"Get back he-- Nari?" She doesn't know Sina's clan sister just as well but she knows her, she's crying, and her heart's in her mouth. Lux is nudged out of the way so he can't get in the way of what she's doing as Araceli crouches by her, hand outstretched as her stomach lurches. "Nari, what's happened?"

[nadasharillen]

The elf looks up quickly, and rubs the heel of her hand across her cheek in an attempt to dash some of the tears - although they're quickly replaced. Nahariel doesn't know Araceli as well as she does Korrin, but she's seen her care for Sina, and that's more than enough to make her register as a friend.

"N-nothing. Nothing yet," she says, her sob turning to a hiccup as she speaks.

[foxsays]

Yet Nari says and she's plunged into cold, cold water, laced into a gown too tightly. A quiet 'oh' comes out of her at first because Sina hasn't looked well in so long but she'd been there on her birthday (months ago now, her mind supplies) and she's moving to gather Nari closer. As much for herself as for the elven woman, blinking back her own shocked tears.

"Do you know how long? Is she ill? I know she hasn't been keeping well and the last time we spoke she-- I though there would be more time..." But she trails off. Soon Araceli will have been here two years. It was weeks after her arrival that she first met Sina and having a shard lodged in her chest, who would have wagered her even making it six months after everything else she's been through on top of it?

[nadasharillen]

I thought there would be more time Araceli says, and it stings enough to bring a fresh set of tears. Nahariel had thought so too. That she'd see Siuona grow into their Keeper, that she'd lead the clan with kindness and grace that would honor Keeper Dhavihal's memory, that the clan would swell again with the welcomed lost and alone, that she'd guide them like Ghilan'nain back to the plains someday, that she'd find love, that she'd teach another First, that she'd grow old and wise and respected and rest knowing that she'd lived well and been loved by all.

It had been a stretch of a dream even when Sina was well. It is the lucky Dalish who grows old. You'd have to be even luckier once the sky split open.

All of this flickers across Nari's forlorn face. "I don't know how long. It's so slow, but she's just so pale. So thin. She gets cold so easily, out of breath sooner, the coughing fits last longer. She's eating a little less, sleeping a little more. And she knows it." Her voice breaks on the last words.

[foxsays]

Finding that her knees have turned to jelly - bard lessons are all well and good, a year in the queensguard before that too until you're faced with this news - Araceli sits, Lux hopping up into her lap with his face under her chin. What a terrible thing, thinking of your mortality when you're young. It's only after the death-defying things that you do that. When you're laughing. When you're breathless. When you're so giddy with how close you came to it that you want to kiss someone.

(How many kisses did Sina ever have? What did you tell her at that wedding about her love, her happiness, was she ever well enough to do it?)

"She took so long to rcover after coming to Kirkwall," Araceli's voice drops to a low murmur, roughened from holding back the tears caught in her throat, the cursing that won't help anyone. She wants to throw something. Wants to scream until her voice is gone. It isn't fair, it isn't fair, it isn't fair. "I thought after that some of it was the wedding, being nervous about having doing the right thing, her duty-- you know that I told her, before she said her vows," she hiccups and has to stop, hand to her mouth for longer than she'd like before she can keep going, mouth twisted up in what would be a bitter smile but it's lopsided, watery, all wrong.

"I told her she should do what she wanted. Take what she wanted. Whatever made her happy. She always gave so much. Always. I was on the rooftops all the time in Skyhold and I'd see her with teas and herbs, or working in the garden. Was she always like that?"